Work in Progress: George + Liz on Vulnerability, Self-Worth, + Surprises

Episode Transcript
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George B. Thomas (00:03):
You can be on a football field and you know
the boundaries. In and out ofbounds. The playing field. Off
limits. Walls.
If I lock the doors, you can'teven get into the stadium. You
can't get into the stadium toeven play the game. Liz, I
wasn't letting people into thestadium to play the game that is
life next or with me as a humanbeing. And so, I'm trying to

(00:27):
remove walls out of the way tobe more vulnerable, to invoke or
enable these way betterrelationships and outcomes, or
at least get the discomfort tobe able to grow through it, and
then on the other side of ithave a better relationship. And
again, I'm if I can't do thisfor my circle, family, friends,

(00:51):
how am I gonna even think thatI'm gonna be able to do this for
the masses, listeners from thestage.
So again, not a 3 step process,but a definite mental visual
project that I'm trying to takedown a brick of the remaining
walls away like each and everyday.

Liz Moorehead (01:14):
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. As always,
I am your host, Liz Morehead,and I am joined by the one, the
only, the man, the myth, thelegend, George b Thomas.

How are

you this morning, bud?

I'm Liz, I'm I'm on fire. I'm ready to answer
some deep rooted, possiblyslightly chaotic, hopefully
lovable responses to somequestions because we're on our,
check-in episode. I don't knowif I get excited about these or
I fear these, but I'll let youknow once we get to the end of
this.

Well, okay. So first of all, I'm loving all of
the words that we chose. Chaos

Yes.

And love. I feel like that that's pretty much the
theme of these episodes. Now forthose

It might be my life, honestly. It it

honestly might. It honestly might. You know,
these episodes, what we do isonce every, what, 15 to 20
episodes, you and I like tocheck-in with each other and see
how we're doing in our ownbeyond your default journey. And
we love doing this for ourlisteners even though it does
require us to get a little bithonest about how well things are
or aren't going. We love doingthese episodes for our audience

(02:19):
because we want to be pullingback the curtain on what these
this journey actually lookslike.
What does it mean to take stepsforward in your own life that
may run counter to your defaultprogramming? And what are the
second and third order effectsthat could come out of that? But
why don't we ease ourselves intothis topic, George? What's your
highlight and low light for theweekend? What's up?

Yeah. So highlight, I think, was actually
I woke up on Sunday, and I'vebeen watching this Matthew
McConaughey, green lights, redlights, yellow lights, like,
professional growth kind ofvideo thing on mastermind. And
so I woke up Sunday morning, Iwatched that. And during

(03:05):
watching couple sessions ofthat, I walked 3 and a half
miles. And then, I decided thatit was time to do church.
So I decided to walk duringchurch, and so I watched church
online. And I did another Idon't know. I ended up with like
5 miles, between the two thingsthat I walked. And then also

(03:25):
went out and did like TraderJoe's and grocery shopping. So
like, I think I hit maybe 30,030plus 1,000 steps on Sunday.
So that was like, alright. Like,I felt good about it. I was like
rock and roll, like healthhealth of the h elements check.
We're rocking and rolling, butalso holistic because I was
spending time with my daughtersand my wife while we're doing

(03:46):
grocery shopping. And what wasreally maybe the highlight of
the highlight was that we hadreally great conversations while
we're driving down the road inthe car.
And my daughter even referenced,like, we usually don't talk like
this. And I'm like, well, I likethat we're talking like this. So
it was just kind of a Sunday wasthe highlight. It was a it was a

(04:06):
good day. As far as low light, Imean, I was struggling this
weekend a little bit internally,mentally, and honestly, around
this show and how much I havebeen prepping or maybe over
prepping.
We we had a conversation lastweek, Liz, about kind of, like,

(04:28):
how do we make the podcastbetter and how do we add more
value to the humans and how dowe extract more raw information
out of the brain that is, well,me. And so I was struggling with
this, like, innate desire to beprepared and this passionate
undertow of but you need to beflexible. And it's funny that I

(04:51):
used the word chaos earlierbecause there was this thing of,
like, you have to be willing toswim in the chaos of your mind
to enable the elements thatpeople need to hear. And so that
was a really weird place to livein of this, like, how do I do
this delicate balancing act ofdiving deep into my brain and my
life and being vulnerable orhaving basically a entire show

(05:15):
prepped and ready to roll. So,again, people can't see the
inside of my brain, but thatbecame a slightly ugly place as
I was trying to navigate throughit.
So what about you, yourhighlights and lowlights?

So I have a distinct lowlight for this
weekend. And this is not one ofthose where, oh, I'm making a
lowlight out of no. I legit havea lowlight. So I am house
sitting for some very dearfriends of mine who are
traveling this weekend. And oneof my favorite things about it
is I've it's almost like a bigreset weekend for me.
Right? I cancel any plans that Ithought I would have socially. I

(05:51):
will not make any new plans withother people. I will basically
just devote my time to writing,working on our personal
projects, and going to the gymand working out, and like just
clean eating, clean food. Theyhave this big beautiful kitchen
that I get to cook in.

Nice.

And the 1st night I was here, I accidentally fell
asleep on the couch which is notsomething I can do over 40
because I woke up the nextmorning and I could barely move
my back.

Oh, yeah.

And I think I mentioned this to you because
you and I had a podcastrecording on Friday, and you and
Max for our Hub Heroes podcastfor HubSpot and inbound
marketing. And at the end of ourpodcast recording, you jokers
were still chatting. And I said,I gotta go. I can't sit up
straight anymore. And it wasabout 24 hours of just
excruciating pain and icy hotpatches.

Mhmm.

And

That's a low life.

It was a really big struggle for me because I
don't think anybody would lookat Liz. You should be more
positive about that. It was achance to slow down. No. Like,
my back freaking hurt, and itreally sucked.

Yeah.

But I had that moment of just man, I had to
take better care of my body. Ican't just lay about on the
couch like I used to. I have tobe more mindful about my body. I
have to take better care of it.But then I started hyper
focusing all this week on theweekend about, like, every creak
I was feeling in my body.
Until a friend of mine wasfinally, like, you do realize

(07:16):
you're only 41.

Yeah.

Like, I understand that you are learning
new limitations of your body,but you are not indeed an
ancient fossil.

Yeah. Now trust me. You haven't arrived at
my status yet.

No. Yeah. And then when I let's see. I would
say my highlight for thisweekend is I've gotten my reset
time. I've gotten my relaxationtime, and I will say the one
benefit of being forced to slowdown Thursday Friday was me
really digging into like, Liz,when was the last time you

(07:49):
actually just didn't dosomething productive?
Because I and you and I havetalked about this on this
podcast before. I criminalizelack of productivity.

Yeah.

I'll criminalize what it is that I'm watching on
television. Well, this is justbrain rot, Liz. Why can't you
just, you know, go do somethingproductive? Is it Sometimes you
need that though. So I allowedmyself to brain rot this
weekend.
That was my highlight. I brainrot it. I watched an aggressive
amount of Emily in Paris, whichis an absolute trash show and I

(08:21):
let you don't want to. Yourdaughters know.

That oh.

Your daughters know. And this is gonna be like
one of those things where Iremember your daughter saying,
hey, dad. You should watchbridgerton with us. The answer
is no, George. Don't do that.
That is a bad idea.

I got through about half an episode. I walked
away.

Why on earth would it

I attempted it. But I was like, no.

Even I would like, I would want my dad to be
in a different continent whenI'm watching bridgerton.

Like Well, there was nothing funky
happening, but I still was like,yeah. This is not my cup of tea.

That you have with your children, and I mean
that in a very positive way.

But

still so yeah. I got to do a little brain rotting
this weekend. Good. I got to doa little brain rotting this
weekend. It was nice, and myback is finally feeling a lot
better.

That's good. Yeah. Because pain sucks. Like,
if you're not if you don't haveto live a life, like, where
you're in pain every single day,then god bless you. Because when
you do have those moments, it'sfunny though.
I've come to the realizationthat for me, Liz, it's my small
reminder that I am human, that Ido need to pay attention to the
vehicle, the one vehicle my bodythat I have for the rest of

(09:24):
this, like, journey. And andalso that, like, when I would,
in my younger days, get theSuperman complex and feel like I
was invincible, I don't getthose very much anymore because
I'm like, oh, my knee. Oh, myyeah. It's just like

And then you think back to all those times of
remember when you thought youwere invincible and maybe you
should've taken it easy

a little bit. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's not time to take it easy on each other. It
is time for us to begin our 3rdcheck-in. And I can't believe
this. We've been doing this.Gentlemen.
I know. We've been doing thisfor over a year. Yeah. This is
only our 3rd check-in.

Yeah.

I'm just I'm very excited about this.

So that's because we're, like, hesitant of
having

I love these episodes personally. I think
they're great. I always get veryexcited about these episodes.

Well, that's good.

But, George, here how about this? Since you're the
one feeling so much chaos andlove and definitely not a little
bit of anxiety at all Yeah.Would you like to ask a question
first or should I?

I can ask a question first, which I'll let
the listeners know. When when Icrafted these questions, I was
doing it in a state of, like,going straight for the jugular.
I want Liz to have to bevulnerable and unpack in, like,
what I feel is for fundamentallyimportant pieces of who we are

(10:36):
as a human. And so with thatsaid, look, Liz, looking back
over the past year, which againis crazy of doing this Beyond
Your Default podcast, I'm supercurious. How has your
relationship with self worthevolved?
Like, where do you see it todaycompared to when you started of,

(10:57):
like, this is Liz. This is whatI'm worth. This is what I'm
bringing to the planet. Like,talk us through the journey of
self worth for you over the lastyear.

I say this with deep love, affection, and
admiration, and definitely onthe record, it should not be
edited out. You're an assholefor this question. Just gonna
throw that out there. Let's justlet's just go ahead and start
with that. Because when I sawthis question, I knew
immediately where I had to go,which is I started this journey
with you kinda at the bottom ofthe barrel.
Like, I had hit rock bottom inmy life, and then for some

(11:29):
reason, because I'm a tenaciouslittle butthead, had kept
digging. I kinda kept going.Yeah. You know, I had been
through a divorce. I had myentire life in a storage unit in
one town in Maryland whileliving in a short term rental in
New Haven, Connecticut.
Things in my business were notgoing to plan. There were very
few things that had been goingto plan. And what was mind

(11:53):
boggling to me was that just afew months prior to when we had
started, I had celebrated my40th birthday, and I thought
everything was perfect.

Mhmm.

We had this big expensive Italian dinner. At the
time, I was still married. Wehad friends in from out of town
there to celebrate. I was eatingthe most decadent meal.
Everything on paper was perfect,perfect, perfect.
And flash forward, what, 6months later and my whole life
was on fire.

Mhmm.

And I, in many ways, had been the architect of
my own misery. And I wasincredibly hard on myself about
it. I was incredibly hard onmyself about it. So at the time
when we started this journey, Iwas not in an okay place. I knew
I had value, but I really feltat that point my value was in
propping others up.

(12:41):
I had lost belief in my voice. Iknew I had talent to extract out
from other people for you fromyou for example, the greatness
that I saw within you. It wasthe reason why even though I was
at the bottom of the barrel, Iwas like, we should start doing
this. We should start doing thisnow. This is the thing we should
be doing.
Yeah. But it was not because ofany belief in my own voice. It

(13:04):
wasn't in belief of my ownworth. Now what has been
interesting is that as I've gonethrough this journey that
obviously has shifted. You know,time has a way of, you know,
things that feel like absolutetrash cans in the moment.
You have the ability to movethrough those. You know, time
shows you that what you think isthe end of your life or the end
of the world very rarely if everis. Yeah. But what has been

(13:29):
interesting through this journeyis that I remember when we first
started having theseconversations, even if I had an
opinion, I kept it to myself.These weren't dialogues.
These weren't conversations. Ididn't have anything to add to
the proceed. Yes. Listen to thegirl whose life is on fire. Let
her give you life advice.
Let her talk to you about thosedifferent things. Right?

Yeah.

And so when I think about where I am today
compared to where I started, youknow, I'm not I'm still hobbling
along. You know? I but I seemyself as someone who actually
has worth. Because part of thereason why I ended up where I
did was because I wasn't seekingyou know, this is something you

(14:11):
and I talked about last episode.Right?
I wasn't looking to belong. Iwas looking to fit in. I
believed that I had to besomeone molded and shaped and
made palatable as opposed tosomeone who can shine and be as
weird as you know I am, George.

I'm a

weird girl. I'm very weird. I'm very tall. I'm
very loud. Like, this is I wasnever born to be someone who
could ever fit in.
God made me physically andtemperamentally. Like, I have
been too tall for everythingsince I was like 4.

Right.

Right. I've always been a little bit too
tall. I've always been a littlebit too loud. I've always been a
little bit too strange. Like, Ihad been built to be different
my whole life and now I seeworth in that.
That. Whereas I think at thebeginning of this journey, like,
I didn't see worth in anything.

Yeah. I I love your answer because there's a
couple things you you mentioned.Like, I was to this, I was to
that, I was to that, which bythe way means it was just right.
Like, it was literally the waythat God made you. And when we
can embrace it, it's the waythat God made me, then all of a
sudden, you know, we can startto build on that little piece
and grow it.

(15:17):
And it's funny because I askedthis question, Liz, because I
have seen a dramatic differencejust in, like, the newsletters
that you write and the way thatyou show up for the newsletters.
Like, there there was a definitedifference. None of them, by the
way, listeners, I'm saying arebad. But there's a definite

(15:37):
difference from, like, the firstset of newsletters that you're
crafting and, like, theemotional and mental smackdowns
that you are creating out ofyour self worth

that

are happening in the news letter now. And so
you can definitely see thatthere's been this amazing
journey over the last year of,like, who you believe yourself
to be and how you now will showup to the world because of that.

You know, it's funny. I remember the day
because I remember the issuewhere everything changed. And I
remember you I remember you andI had a conversation where you
said, I almost didn't sayanything. I I didn't wanna tell
you anything because I didn'tknow what had changed. But
whenever you get too quiet whenI start experimenting, I'm like,
this is either really good orhe's just gonna let me walk the
plank for a little bit to see ifthis Campbell plays off, you

(16:23):
know.
And I was actually here doing ahard reset weekend, And I just
said, you know, what wouldhappen if you stopped
pretending? If you stoppedplaying dress up and just
started speaking. You know? Soit's been genuinely I hate how
much this word is overused, butit genuinely has been quite a
journey. Because I think whenyou spend so much time either

(16:44):
being programmed or quitefrankly programming yourself, I
mean, these are stories that wearchitect for ourselves.
You spend enough time tellingyourself that you aren't worthy.
That's what you're going tobelieve. What's interesting is I
can't pinpoint a moment where Isuddenly started telling myself
a different story. I think Ijust stopped focusing on trying
to tell a story at all. Yeah.
I just focused on Yeah. Living.So alright. Your turn. That.

Yeah.

Your turn, George. You ready? I

think so.

Yeah. Yeah. Because in a previous episode,
you mentioned the importance ofincorporating quote, unquote
selfishness in a positive way toprioritize your own needs. How
have you been balancing thiswith the demands of your daily
life? And what challenges haveyou encountered?

Yeah. It's interesting because I still
think I call it selfishness butin a positive way. For instance,
you know, there's probablyplenty of other things that I
could have done Sunday morning,but I was like, no. I need some
me time, and I'm gonna go aheadand walk on the treadmill, and

(17:49):
I'm gonna do this professionalgrowth, and I'm gonna do church.
And then when I'm done, I'llcome out for the rest of the
world.
On Sunday, that means my family,but I needed that time. I will
say that I've been trying to dothat even during the weeks where
I'll get up and I'll be like,you know what? The first 45

(18:09):
minutes, first hour, it's justgonna be what I need, and it's
gonna be walking on thetreadmill. It's gonna be, you
know, listen to something orwatching something that adds
value to my life. And before Iwas so hyper focused on, I've
gotta hop right in email.
I've gotta help the otherhumans. I'm here to be of

(18:30):
service. And the thing that I'mworking through and realizing is
if I cannot be of service tomyself, I will not be able to be
of service to others, at leastto the level in which I'm trying
to do this. And so I have gooddays, Liz, and I have bad days,
but I'm trying to have more gooddays than bad days on this idea

(18:54):
of, in a positive way, beingselfish to fill my cup, selfish
to make sure that I'm beinghealthy, selfish in a way that
I'm focusing on the actualframework that I'm bringing to
the world. Because how dare Inot be selfish enough to be

(19:14):
focused on the 10 h's and leavetime and space for the 10 h's of
the superhuman framework if I'mgonna be talking to individuals,
teams, and organizations abouthow the superhuman framework,
like, impacts my life and camefrom my like, so, again, it's I
wanna say a daily challenge, butI don't know.

(19:35):
Maybe it's more of, like, aweekly challenge at this point
than daily because, again, I'veput in patterns and habits.
Like, when you're just used todoing something, like, if the
first thing you do for 7, 14,21, 30 days is come into your
office, step on the treadmill,and turn the TV on in a certain
direction, that just becomes thenorm. And what's interesting

(19:59):
when I think about that is ifyou're setting up all your norms
to be in a positive directionaround the things that are
important to your life, youmight feel like, well, that's
just the norm, but you have tolook back and go, it didn't used
to be and enjoy the success inwhat you're getting. So
hopefully, that answers yourquestion, but I I feel like I'm

(20:22):
being selfish, but I'm notjudging myself in a negative way
for being selfish to fill mylife and myself.

You know, the way I always like to think about it
is, do you ever say somethingwise and then people go, oh,
that's wise. And you're like,was I possessed for a second?
Did that Oh. What just whatbecause that didn't come from
smart me, but apparently it did.But one time I told somebody
something that may be helpfulhere, which is when you pour
love into yourself, it becomeseasier to pour love into your

(20:52):
world.
Yep. And I think we have acomplicated relationship with
the word selfish. Right? Yeah.Because the immediate
connotation is is one that is isquite distinctly negative.

Yeah.

But these are radical acts of self care, of
self love. You know, you pointedthis out earlier when we talking
when we were talking about my myphysical ailments. Right? We
have one vessel, one body Yeah.But we also have one brain.
We have one heart. And I thinksometimes we forget that to
prioritize the self in a healthyway is to prioritize what we are

(21:25):
capable of doing for others.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I mean, it's funny
because listen. You can saythis, the word self care now,
and I don't start twitching.

It's amazing. You've grown so much. It took
us, what, 25 episodes, but wegot there, kid.

I'm just saying.

I I still that is still one of the things that
makes me the most happy, And notfrom the place of I was right
and you were wrong.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's the I

mean, I was

recognition oh, I mean, there's always that, but I
wasn't gonna go there. No. Butit's the recognition that you're
worth caring about. Yeah. Youknow, that you deserve the same
type of reverence that you giveto other people.

Yeah. It's a magical day when you realize you
love yourself enough to careabout yourself and then do
things for yourself. Speaking ofwhich, I think it's my turn to
ask a question. Isn't it? Goahead.
Yeah. Yeah. So I know I've dealtwith this, and, therefore, I
wanted to ask you a questionaround this. Actually, this even

(22:24):
comes out of the it was aconversation at the Thomas
family where my wife asked meabout this concept of digging up
the skeletons and what it wasdoing to my brain. So listen,
each week we come here and weconfront, expose to our audience
the unearthing of historicalskeletons.

(22:47):
And so I'm super curious how hasdigging through your history
affected your ability andmindset on self forgiveness.

You know, I love these lightweight questions you
throw my way. This is Yeah.

They're just like feathers. Like feathers.

Well, it has been interesting in that in order to
have certain conversations, Ihad to start sharing pieces of
my history.

Yep.

Right? And for the first while there, I really
struggled to do that because Ihad this fear that people would
think I was trying to garnersympathy, or they would look at
me differently even though we'renot sitting in front of actual
people when we're having theseconversations.

Yeah.

You know, these are these were imagined concerns
that I had in my head.Unearthing old skeletons didn't
actually start as something thatbegan to help me with self
forgiveness. It really startedme more on a path of self
acceptance and owning my ownstory. You know, we were talking

(23:54):
in the previous question abouthow, like, I've I've I've I was
built to be different. You know.
And and in a way, we all are.Yeah. You know, conformity is
something that we kind of forceon ourselves. It's how we are
biologically programmed tosurvive, you know. Like, we were
cavemen who didn't wanna geteaten by dinosaurs, And sitting
in keeps the tribe together, andthose are all the amazing things

(24:15):
that make us communities andcommunal.
But where that goes wrong iswhere we think we have to sound
and be like everybody else, andwe prioritize that over seeking
true belonging.

Yeah.

So what's been interesting though about this
entire process is as I'vestarted to tell my own stories,
it has forced me to not tellstories in a way that makes me
feel the worst way possible.

Yeah.

Which is usually how I tell those stories to
myself. Remember when you didthat terrible thing? Remember
when you made that awfulmistake? You know, when you tell
stories here in these contexts,you have to do so without that
type of narrative. Right?
Because it's bad for radio. Noone wants to sit here and listen
to you be sad about anything.But it's also not an accurate

(25:04):
reflection of what the beats ofthe story really are. You're
editorializing. You're nottalking about what actually
happened.
And so because of that, it didenable me to start seeing things
more with more factual clarity.There have also been times where
I have because I've had tomention a certain circumstance
or something that has happenedmultiple times. Right? Like, if

(25:25):
I have to call back tosomething, if I have to mention
or re mention a specific story,it's actually helped me
contextualize andrecontextualize what actually
happened. It's less aboutforgiveness.
Although, I would say that hasbeen part of it. I would say
it's more of enabling anownership over my own story. It

(25:46):
has enabled me to really justsay, this is who I am. Like, I'm
only equipped to be having theconversations that we're having
right now because of everysingle step I took to get here.
Right?
Now have I made lots ofmistakes? Yes. Get in line. We
all have. Right?
In a way, what's fascinating isit's allowed me to embrace my

(26:08):
own unique story but alsorealize we are hilariously not
unique in our ability to screwthings up, make mistakes, but
that's because we're all capableof growth. It's about what we
choose to do with the lessons.Like, you could literally go 10,
20, 30 years screwing everythingup to a certain degree. Right?

(26:30):
Like, we're not talking aboutmurder or things like that.
But, you know, it's you have thecapacity one day to wake up and
say this is different now.

Yeah.

Yeah. You are allowed to evolve into that
newer version of yourself. And Ithink for a long time, I didn't
think I was allowed.

Yeah. I listen. I screwed up probably
the first 25 to 30 years of mylife. So I'm I'm living proof
that you can wake up and decideto change and be different. And
and, Liz, there's a couplethings out of that answer that I
love.
I love that you, used the wordowner, like the owner's mindset.
I love the fact that it's, like,tell my story. Well, it's

(27:06):
interesting because as you weretalking about, like, having to
bring certain topics up againand again, my brain went to,
like, yeah, they're not as scarywhen you've talked about them 5
to 7 times versus running fromthem for 25 years or 10 years or
however long it's been. It'slike it's like the the darkness
or mystique or whatever kind ofgoes away when you've shined a

(27:28):
light on it 7 differentdirections. And it's interesting
to be part of this this journeywith you, and and that's kind of
the thing that you're pullingout of that.
So

Oh, well, think about horror movies. Right? They
always become less scary themoment you see the monster.
Yeah. They always become lessit's like, you're they're still
like, oh, they've got a knifeand they're gonna

Unless you keep running. Still scared. But

Chucky, I just hard pass. Hard pass. Yeah. I'm
good. No thanks.
No that who thought that was agood idea? Hard pass. Don't like
it. The other thing I will saythat has been interesting about
this whole storytelling angle aswell is that it has made me much
more protective of other peoplewho were involved in the story.
Because these are my storiesfrom my perspective, but there

(28:09):
were other people other peopleinvolved in many of them.
And it made me think about insome cases, do I forgive this
person? Do I want to drag thisperson into things? And what was
fascinating is that because youhave to tell these stories from
a factual perspective, not anemotional perspective. Yes.
Because let me tell you ladiesand gentlemen, you can't tell a

(28:30):
story while you're still livingthe story.
You can't you can't speak totrauma while still feeling and
being traumatized. Right?

Yeah.

But what was fascinating is that as I told
and retold these stories, ithelped facilitate ways of me
saying, you know, 2 things canbe true. What happened wasn't
right, and everybody deserves achance to walk away from this
and try again. So that that'sbeen a fascinating little
journey with that as well.Alright. Enough about me.

So Well, until I guess the next question.

That is Well, that's not right now, is it? No.

Not right now.

It's me. It's me. We're gonna talk about time.
Because one of my favoriteepisodes that we did in this
last batch was our conversationon smashing the reset button on
our relationship with time. AndI know time is slippery for you,
my friend.
Yeah. And I would be curious ifyou've implemented any new
strategies to manage your timemore effectively because I know

(29:25):
you have been trying to hit abalancing act. Right?

Yeah.

Right balance between productivity but also
managing your stress levels,which I know is something you've
been focusing on. So talk to meabout that.

Yeah. I'm actually happy for this
question. I hired an assistant.So, listen. I finally pulled the
trigger, and one of my daughtershas been doing, like, video
script help and different thingslike that.
And so I literally had aconversation with her, and she

(29:56):
was like, hey. I really wanna domore. And I'm like, are you
sure? And she's like, yeah. AndI was like, this is my need.
This is my need, and this iswhat it means. And here's the
here's the 12 things that thisjob would actually be in charge
of and what they would do andwhat they're supposed to protect
me and this, that, and the otherthing. And so today, by the way,

(30:16):
is her first day. She has toshow up at a certain time.

That's amazing.

She has to be in the office. We literally have
been working on a new multiinbox system for email. We've
created a thing in ClickUp for akind of streamline. This is what
George needs to do today,tomorrow, by the time this week
is over. And, again, all of thisinvestment in her, investment in

(30:43):
the position, investment insystems and processes is to buy
back time in my life.
And, again, I think it's to buyback time in my life. So in some
areas, I can be a little bitmore selfish with the things
that I need to learn, do, andbe, but also be a little bit
more of a blessing because nowI'm not as stressed. Now I am

(31:06):
able to kind of downshift alittle bit and sometimes even be
in neutral when it comes to,like, family things and
different things that for thelast, I'll say, 9 months have
maybe been a little bit moredifficult. I haven't really been
excited or wanted to go on avacation, but I'm like, I
probably need to go on avacation, which I was adamant,

(31:28):
by the way, like, previous tothat, 9 months of, like, go on a
vacation, like, every 6 monthsor every so often.

You are you you are consistently making me feel
bad about the fact that Ihaven't been on a vacation yet
in 2 years.

Yeah. And and so I wanna get back to that. And
and so for me, it really iscoming down to and it and by the
way, this is just so thelisteners know, this is a
reprogramming of my brain.Things that I am talking about
do not happen by default. I'mmore of the give me the crayons,

(32:02):
let me go into a corner, let medraw something, let me be
creative, let me be the acreator.
And my mind is totally onsystems and processes and
templates and repeatableprocesses and humans, and how do
I actually, you know, sell whatthe world can do versus listen.
Here's another thing, Liz, andI'm not gonna say too much about

(32:24):
this, but also in conjunctionwith getting an assistant. I'm
having conversations withenabling a sales arm in the
organization, which, again, whatis that doing? It's taking
things that are sales relatedquotes, invoices, conversations
with humans, like, beginningones, because I always wanna be

(32:44):
on, like, discovery calls and,like, answer any questions that
people have. But there'sliterally a second piece that
over the last 30 days, I'm like,well, if I implement this and
implement this, that gets methis back in my life.
And so it's funny because Ithink time is something that I
am actively wrestling, like, youknow, the steer wrestling in the

(33:06):
rodeo. Like, I feel like I'mwrestling with time. Like, I'm
like, you will submit to mywill. And I do not mean in a
that I'm gonna live forever. Imean, in, like, just my day in
day out as a human, as a leader,as the owner of, you know,
potentially 3 different lanes ofrevenue.

Every time you go somewhere, you start a company.

Start a company.

Every time. I know.

So I feel like I'm I'm doing good on this. But
again, to unpack, it took areprogramming of my brain, and
it took me, taking us a leap offaith to invest potentially into
other humans to come along forthe ride and help in this time
steer wrangling event that I'mcurrently in.

Well, I think from a stress levels that I I
can only imagine there's upsidethere because there's the mental
load. Right? There's the I haveto manage all of the tasks part
that are part of the salesprocess.

Yeah.

But then the psychological load is I am
responsible for the entireecosystem of success for this
business. I am not activelypursuing revenue. There is no
revenue coming in.

Right.

If I am not actively delivering, there is no
delivery going up. You know? Andthat is something that probably
worked at the very start of yourbusiness, but you've stepped up.

First of all, the thing is at at the start of
your business, not businesses.

Yeah.

And also, it we like, client, not clients,
right, at a multiple level. So,like, it has become bigger than
I ever dreamed it would become,but I'm not saying that in any
sort of negative light. Like,I'm excited as crap that this is
where it has ended up and wherewe're headed. So

And now you're acting accordingly.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it took me longer
than it should have to actaccordingly, but at least I love
myself enough to say, hey. Goodjob.
You're acting accordingly towhere you actually are now in
life. But here's the thing too.My brain goes to, like,
fundamentally, I had tounderstand where I was

Oh, yeah.

Before I could make decisions on how then I
needed to be. Like, sometimes weactually arrive somewhere before
we mentally and physically catchup to the fact that we've
actually arrived there. Alright.Alright. I get to put you back
in the hot seat.

Fantastic.

I know you you I know you like that. It's like
listen. I have very much thesame feeling of, like, crap. I
don't really have much more toanswer to this. That means that
she's gonna be able to askanother question.
But looking forward. Right? I'vekinda talked about looking back
in the last two questions whenwe talked about self worth, self
forgiveness. You talked aboutownership in the in that one.

(35:51):
But looking forward, I feel likewe can either be nervous about
the path ahead or excited by thepossibilities that it may bring.
So that mindset often hinges onone thing, Liz, and that's
belief. So how has the beyondyour default journey shaped your

(36:13):
self belief in what's possiblefor your future?

Self worth, self forgiveness, and self belief
that thanks.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thanks. Yep.

You came to party. But that's what these
episodes are for. And I want topoint out that while our
listeners may be laughing at howsquirrelly we get, this is part
of the reason why we do thisepisode.

Yep.

It's because it is uncomfortable and it's okay
to be uncomfortable. Discomfortis a part of the process. It is
both a feature and a bug. Andnow that I've danced around
answering this question enough,I was wondering if you're
getting too. Into it.
Yep. Self belief. I've looked atthis question for, what, like, 2
days. And for those who can'tsee me, I'm literally just

(36:57):
pressing my eyeballs back intomy my head because this is the
one that is the question thatprobably kept me up the most.

You just gotta jump off the ledge. Once you
start saying it, then it justit'll just go.

I didn't believe I could have anything. I didn't
believe I was allowed to haveanything. There was a over the
past few months, it's gotten alot better. But for a while
there, my whole life slowly cameto a stop as if I was wrapping
my entire existence around amoment. A moment that in my mind

(37:34):
for a really long timeexemplified and illustrated
everything that was wrong withme and every mistake I had ever
made.
This is where we're going to goto a very deep place for a
moment. Because I'm gonna talkabout a belief I had that has
informed in many ways the way Ihave acted my entire life. So I

(37:57):
am an only child of 2 onlychildren. K. That means I have
no aunts, uncles, brothers,sisters.
I was very close with mymother's side of the family.
Because even though she was anonly child, my grandfather had 4
sisters and 1 or 2 brothers. Ididn't know the brothers very
well, but I knew the 4 sisters.They were some of the most

(38:17):
mythical, incredible, loud,Italian women I had ever met.
They were 2 of them were 2 ofthe first women to ever take the
foreign service exam, worked forthe state department, traveled
the world.
They were just these incredibleamazing women, and they were. I
was very, very close with them.And whenever I was surrounded by
that part of the family, mygrandfather and his sisters, I

(38:38):
always felt like I belonged andI was wanted. Unfortunately, so
my parents had me when they wereolder, which was fine. I was an
unexpected miracle.
My mother had had 4 miscarriagesbefore she had me, and then
suddenly I appeared. And then Iwas born late with full head of
hair. So, you know, just kinda,you know, I made an entrance.

Go figure.

Yeah. And then my parents divorced before I even
remember them being together. Ithink it was before I was 2
years old. And I watched mymother completely unravel. She
had some mental health issuesthat, you know, I think in
today's society probably wouldhave been handled with greater
care.
But she also had some seriousaddiction demons that would have

(39:21):
probably undermined any

Mhmm.

Any movement forward. So for a long time, I
just felt like an artifact of abroken marriage, constantly
reminded that I made life a lotharder for other people than it
needed to be. And so the beliefI've always had is that I am an
artifact of a broken marriageand a disappointment. And this
is kind of the belief I'vecarried forward for decades,

(39:46):
which is a it's kinda hard tounwrap yourself with it because
I've grown up kind of a littlebit more solitary. Right?
So because my mother was analcoholic, I never really had
friends over. Right? I was putinto a position of needing to
parent her and be the parentwhen I was very young. And then
when I tried to move in with mydad, I tried to be the daughter
that he wanted, but, like, I wasalready pretty messed up. Like,

(40:07):
I was a messed up abused kid.
Like, I was not in a good placementally. Then I moved out on my
own, and then I felt even moredifferent because all of my
friends are going off to collegewhile I was worrying about rent
and, like, trying to build acareer. And then I felt so much
shame around the fact that,like, I failed again. Like,
again, the artifact, the the theremainder of a division problem

(40:29):
that wasn't supposed to have aremainder. You know?
Yeah. And a lot of my family,because my parents were older,
died when I was very young. So Iended up not having, like, the
actual family ecosystem. I'vealways had to be very, like,
tightly compartmentalized. Yeah.
So how does this lead to today?You know, one thing I will give
myself credit for is that Icontinue to get up every single

(40:50):
day. There's something weird inhow I'm programmed where I never
quite give up. There's alwaysbeen something within me that's
like you are destined to dosomething bigger. I didn't know
what bigger was.
I still to this day do not quiteknow what that means, but I've
always still pushed myself tocontinue to show up. And this
process, especially over thepast year, has forced me to stop

(41:13):
thinking of myself as differentor unique and to realize I am
allowed to believe in myself inthe way that anybody else has
the ability to. Right? It's thatidea of, it it sounds
contradictory, but it's not.Right?
Like, we are all uniquely builtin our unique ways and but
sometimes that unique snowflakeinternal narrative works against

(41:36):
us. Because we start to think,well, I'm just so different that
I'm just so special in thenegative ways. That these
positive ideas around selfbelief and what we're capable of
and worth, like, those don'tapply to me. Because if somebody
knew me really, they would sayI'm not I'm the exception to
that. And that's just simply nottrue.

(41:56):
So it's this culmination of it'stied into the self worth and the
self forgiveness. Right? At somepoint, you just have to stop
telling your story and startlike, stop telling the worst
version of the story of toyourself and just start living.
You know? Just start Yeah.
Believing that you can get upthe next day and try again.

Yeah. You know what I I say? And when I say,
what I mean is what I hear isI'm excited for what happens in
the next 2 years, the next 5years, the next 10 years.
Because when I hear your story,what I hear is against all odds,
God brought a human to the earthto create an incredible story

(42:40):
and impact people. But but Godknew that for you to be who he
needed you to be, that you hadto, you know, diamonds, How
diamonds are made.

Under pressure.

Under pressure. And so you had the
school of pressure for thebeginning of your life. You had
the lessons of how to see,understand, and connect. You
have the ability to connect withpeople who have gone through
journeys much like yourself, butthe ability to actually navigate

(43:18):
and story tell, and now withbeyond your default, even under
your belt, like, literally thetools to help these humans get
to a place that they might notget to. And so so I hear your
story, and while, yes, it wouldbe very easy to run the negative
narrative, I go, holy shit.

(43:39):
This chick is built to do, like,something. And again, you don't
know what that something is. Idon't know what that something
is. God knows what thatsomething is, and you are fully
on the path of heading in thatdirection. So I'm Thanks.
Your your story excites me.

I mean, it it it's taken some distance, you
know, because I will say whenyou're in the middle of it,
you're not going, this excitesme. This pain

excites me.

Oh, god. No. Good. Yeah. No.
But but that's the thing that'salways so tricky about these
types of things. Right? And thisis where our belief structure
can get kind of not corroded,but sometimes you just have to
understand, like, you're in themiddle of plot right now. Yeah.
And you just kinda have to letthings play out.
And that's something I've gottena little better at as I've

(44:24):
gotten older.

Yeah.

But yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm very curious
to see where this wild ridegoes, but I stopped

Without a doubt.

Stopped trying to figure it out.

There is a transition moment because, like,
I go back to and this is many,many, many, many episodes ago. I
talked about the math teachertelling me I'd never amount to
anything and how for, you know,20 years of my life, if somebody
said, well, what would you do ifyou met him? I would have been
like, I'll punch him right inthe face. That's what I'll do.
But then getting to a point inmy life where now I would go and

(44:54):
thank him.
And that's the thing. Like, eventhough it can be like a negative
narrative, it doesn't alwayshave to stay the negative
narrative because you can startto see it through a different
perspective. If that pressuredidn't happen to me at 17a half,
I would not be the human that Iam today. Even though it wasn't
from a good place, it equaled agood thing. And when we can

(45:17):
start to think in that wayagainst the negative narratives
in our life, now all of asudden, we can start to unlock
doors of possibility that wedidn't even know we had.

I'd love that. It's your turn again. You ready?

Yep.

Because we're talking about vulnerability.

Is this the last one yet, or do I have 2
more?

You got 2 more, and I only have one more. Yeah.
Yeah.

Well, they were they were hard questions,
though, so I didn't wanna youknow? I know. To be somewhat
nice.

You gave me the same number of questions that I
gave you. You just happened tostart 1st. So let's not let's
not paint a picture here of,well, I've just been so nice

because I've been so blessed. No?

No. No. No. No. No.
No.

My bad.

But we're talking about vulnerability right now
because you you talk you talkedabout vulnerability during that
conversation as a transformativesuperpower. And I would be
really curious to hear from youhow your relationship with
vulnerability has shifted inrecent months. And have there
been any moments in recentmonths where those moments have

(46:18):
significantly impacted yourgrowth. Because I've watched you
become more vulnerable, and I'mcurious if that's by design.
Like, I'm watching it happen inreal time.

Yeah. It's funny because it's I don't know
if it's something that I amdoing on purpose. Meaning, I
don't necessarily have a 3 stepplan to becoming more vulnerable
in life. But ever since we didthe episode on that, it was a
retriggering of something thathappened back at an inbound

(46:51):
event. So let let me explain.
There was an inbound event whereBrene Brown came and spoke to
the audience, and I had thismassively visceral response to
the conversation ofvulnerability and being
vulnerable and connected verydeeply with what she talked
about. And so I at that point, Iwas like, you know what? I wanna

(47:16):
be able to be a man who isvulnerable. I wanna be able to
be a man who talks aboutvulnerability. It it I almost
relate it to, like, how twice inmy life I had a calling to the
ministry.
Like, I wanna do this thing. Itit almost felt like a calling.
Like, I was supposed to focus inon that because here was a great

(47:37):
woman talking aboutvulnerability, but look around,
and where where do you see a manthat is doing that? Where do we
see other men that arepresenting that? Like, you know,
in a in a when I grew up, it waslike a suck it up buttercup,
walk it off, like, put dirt onit, whatever.

(47:58):
Like, so for me, Liz, I've beenrefocusing on it. And honestly,
the way I feel as I've beenrefocusing on it is there are a
lot of years in my life where Ihad walls up, and I would let
you in, but not let you in allthe way. I would keep a safe

(48:19):
distance. So maybe there waslike 7 walls to George, we'll
say. And maybe I would let you,you know, through the first five
or so layers, but I would alwaysleave enough space that I could
run away before I got hurtbecause hurt equals discomfort.
And there's this interestingthing that runs around in my

(48:40):
brain now of, like, if I knowthat discomfort equals growth,
then instead of running fromdiscomfort, how can I actually
run towards it and embrace it togo through the process that it's
gonna provide? Well, if that'sthe case, then how do I look at
vulnerability and actuallybreaking down the last wall or 2

(49:02):
that I used to hold people atbay 2? Well, if I'm actively
seeking discomfort because itequals growth, then being more
vulnerable or removing the wallsand letting humans in, lets the
room breathe towards thepotential for discomfort, but
also, it gives it room to be theexact opposite of the discomfort

(49:25):
that I might be fearing and beabsolutely amazing. And so one
of the things that I focus onis, especially lately, is how
can I be a better husband? Howcan I be a better father?
How can I be a better friend? Ikeep coming back to that it's
living a life with no walls. Andliving a life with no walls

(49:49):
means I have to aggressivelyembrace. Now I don't mean
boundaries. I mean walls.

There's no could read my mind because I
immediately wanna ask you. Sowhat's the difference between
living a life with no walls?Yeah.

And Boundaries boundaries. Boundaries are so
here's the thing. You can be ona football field, and you know
the boundaries. In and out ofbounds, the playing field, off
limits. Walls.
If I lock the doors, you can'teven get into the stadium. You
can't get into the stadium toeven play the game. Liz, I

(50:22):
wasn't letting people into thestadium to play the game that is
life next or with me as a humanbeing. And so I'm trying to
remove walls out of the way tobe more vulnerable, to invoke or
enable these way betterrelationships and outcomes or at
least get the discomfort to beable to grow through it, and

(50:45):
then on the other side of it,have a better relationship. And,
again, I'm if I can't do thisfor my circle, family, friends,
how am I gonna even think thatI'm gonna be able to do this for
the masses, listeners, from thestage?
So, again, not a 3 step process,but a definite mental visual

(51:07):
project that I'm trying to takedown a brick of the remaining
walls away, like, each and everyday.

Is it easier or harder than you thought it would
be?

My brain goes to the snowball effect. Like,
when I first started this, superdifficult. The further I get on
this journey, the I think theeasier it has become. Like, I
honestly think about it less. Igo back to what I said earlier.
When you do things as a habitand it becomes the norm, you

(51:38):
don't necessarily need to thinkabout it as hard or as much
because it now has become thenorm. And so because this habit
of removing something that is inthe way is a constant thought,
it becomes easier. My biggestfear though in this is that I
hit a point where somethinghappens. You know how people say

(51:58):
it's like easier to gain weightthan lose weight? Biggest
travesty in my brain is that Iget to a point that something
happens that I don't foresee,don't think would happen, and
all of a sudden, I throw thewall or 2 back up and have to
rework this process.
That's my biggest fear. Theprocess of where I'm going, I
think, becomes easier. Andagain, the more I talk about it,

(52:21):
the more I read about it, themore I think about it, the
easier it becomes.

I love that. Alright. Are we ready for the
final question?

Yes. Consistency. Consistency is
vital to growth. I love thatface, by the way. You're
listening that you can't seeLiz's face, but the face

So excited for this.

Yeah. She's she's just ramped up and ready
to go for this. Yep. Consistencyis vital to growth, but it also
can be exhausting at times. Soover the course of this journey,
how has staying committed orbeing consistent to beyond your
default impacted your resilienceand ability to persevere through

(53:03):
the challenges that you havebeen facing through your life.

I mean, the reality is is that the first
episodes, if you ever go backand listen to the first episodes
of this podcast, you might notbe able to hear the difference.
But I was showing up as a as ashell of a human being, which
I've already referred to it inanswers to other questions in
this episode. But I didn'treally have a choice. I was the

(53:27):
one who suggested we do this.And then once I did that, we
used to record at a much earliertime in the morning.
And then only in the past coupleof months have we shifted it to
later in the morning just toaccommodate some new things in
your schedule. Right? But it, Iforced myself at the start of
every week during the darkestpart of my life to get up and

(53:48):
have a conversation at 7:45 inthe morning.

Yeah.

About personal growth.

Yeah.

And it was I couldn't break it. I had to keep
show like, I didn't really havea choice. And so what's been
fascinating about it is I didn'tlook at it each time of and this
is going to be your lesson inconsistency. It's just no. It's
the it's the thing I have to do.
It's the thing I have to dobecause I said I was gonna do
it. And I knew deep in my soul,it was the right thing to be

(54:13):
doing. Like, that was really it.Because, you know, when you're
in those dark moments in yourlife, you're not thinking about
some 4 dimensional chess versionof, like, and this is how I'm
going to achieve you bitch, youare just trying to get up.
Right?
You were just trying to get upand remind yourself that you
have to breathe, and you are notspecial, and you need to put one
foot in front of the other andkeep going. My relationship with

(54:35):
consistency has been fascinatingas we've gone through this
journey though, because it mademe realize that I had too many
yeses in my life.

Oh.

So this has always been a nonnegotiable yes
for me. And a lot of the work,obviously, that we do together,
these are nonnegotiable yeses.And as I started kind of coming
back to life, right, it stoppedbeing the one pinpoint each week
where I was consistent. Right?Other parts of my life started
kind of coming like, it's likecoming back online.

(55:08):
Right? Like, my system startedcoming back online. I became
less traumatized, less freakedout. It was also just like, Liz,
at some point, you can't juststay in the hole. You gotta
start trying to call your wayout.
Right? And I started to noticeas I was bringing myself back
online, so to speak, I had toomany yeses. I had overextended

(55:30):
myself personally and in someways professionally. And I was
looking around going, there isno way for me to be consistent.
It's actually not physicallypossible.
I wish I had come to thatconclusion sooner than I did. It
took a little while. Because atfirst, when you're showing up
and you're being consistent,you're like, yes. I'm doing it.
I'm finally living up to thepromises, and then it takes a

(55:53):
little too long for you tofigure out why am I always
tired.
Oh. Why am I making these weirdlittle mistakes. Oh. I'm
slipping around the edges. And Iand then I started to kinda
point the finger back at myself.
I said, see? This is justanother sign that you're just a
big old screw up. I said, no.No. That's not that's not how
any of this works.
Right? And so what wasinteresting is that it started

(56:15):
back with this little morningappointment that we've been
keeping for over a year. And Isat down myself, well, so what
are the non negotiables? Andthis was at the top of the list
because I went through and I wasjust like, let's just do it
chronologically throughout theweek. Right?
And this was always the startingpoint. So I literally made a
list and I got to the end of thelist went, oh no. I haven't even
written down any of the personalstuff yet. We have a big old

(56:38):
problem. And it made me realizeone of the keys to being
consistent is being very choosy.
Because you can't be consistentif you're trying to give
yourself over to everything andeveryone. And I had a very
interesting conversation with afriend of mine about a month ago
where he's one of my favoritepeople because he he's we have a

(56:59):
similar mindset, we have asimilar set of core values and
beliefs, but he's looking atthings from the opposite angle.
Right? So he always gives medifferent ways of looking at the
same problem in a way that isstill in alignment with what I
believe and what I think. But wehad an interesting conversation
where I actually showed him myperspective.
And we were talking about thefact that like, I had learned

(57:22):
how to step back from certainrelationships in my life.
Whether that be romantic orplatonic or whatever. And he
said, you can't just make adecision about somebody so
quickly. I'm like, no you can.If you get very clear about who
you are, what you want, what youdon't want, that becomes very
that is a very fast answer.
What usually is the problem iswe don't have the cones to be

(57:43):
honest with ourselves about it.And also sometimes it does take
a little time to learn what youdo and don't want. Like, that
that I can buy. However, lateron, he and I were having a
conversation where we wereworking through a pretty dense
personal problem in ourfriendship that we were both
committed to working out. And Ihad taken a week to kinda figure
out what I thought was going onbecause I wanted to show up to

(58:04):
this conversationconstructively.
And when we were in the middleof this conversation, I turned
to him and said, see, this isthe other side of what you were
what I was talking about. Youcouldn't understand why I will
sometimes walk away fromsomething. It's because it
allows me to devote my energylike this to the relationships
that matter. If I'm givingmyself away to everyone all the

(58:24):
time, I cannot devote the timeand energy to fixing things or
showing up in the way I want tofor the people who matter. And
you are one of the people whomatter.
So when I think aboutconsistency and the lessons that
I've really learned over thispast year, what has been
fascinating to me is thatconsistency is deeply tied to
choosiness. People could callthat an act of selfishness. They
can call it an act of self care.But the less I focus on, the

(58:49):
more consistent I am able to be.

Love it.

So that's really where I've kind of landed in
this journey. Because it's it'slittle things. Right? It can be
you spend so many hours in theday working or stressing about
working or stressing about allthese different things you have
to take care of. You don't sleepwell.
So you oversleep. So you missthe next thing the next day. And
then it spirals, and then itsnowballs. And it's just I had

(59:14):
said yes to too many things. Andso I've gotten better at saying
no and mindfully taking a stepback from certain things.
And then getting really clear onwhat are my benchmarks for
something to become a yes.

So good. It's funny you you're you're throwing
my brain for loop, which I knowI'm gonna dive deep into, like,
later, probably this week ornext weekend of this cosmic
relationship between focus andconsistency. And, you know, the
idea of, like, focus being thedirection of your energy, but

(59:47):
then consistency being the kindof sustainable progress that you
wanna have. And where my brainreally starts to explode or
implode is like, well, you canjourney 12 paths at once. Like,
that's like an impossibility.
And so it's yeah. I I know Iwanna dig deeper into that as as

(01:00:09):
we move forward. But that's me,also stalling before you ask me
my last question.

Liz Moorehead (01:00:14):
Because this is your final question, and it's
the final question of theepisode. Yeah. So we've already
said this a few times. It's beenover a year since we started
this journey together. I'd becurious what are the greatest
and most surprising lessonsyou've learned?
And is there anything you'd goback and tell yourself at the
start of this journey?

George B. Thomas (01:00:33):
Wow. So surprising or most challenging?
And is there anything that Iwould tell myself at the
beginning?

I like how you heard most challenging because I
think this is a challengingquestion for you. But all it is
is what are the greatest andmost surprising lessons you
learned?

Oh, okay. I tried to start this podcast 2,
3, 3 years ago. I think I did,like, 3 episodes by myself. I
knew this was something that Ifelt like I was supposed to
birth to the world. So,surprisingly, to me, I think is

(01:01:13):
just the fact that we've beenable to do it for a year, and
we've had topics every week fora year that have been
challenging.
Listen, no topic that we'vepicked is, like, let's just pick
one so we can kinda pussyfootaround it and, like, make a feel
good piece of content. Like,every every episode I feel like
that we've done has been in thetrenches. Here's what people are

(01:01:36):
dealing with. Here's what we'vedealt with. Here's a story from
our lives.
And so to consistently gothrough that every week for a
year and come out the other sidebetter instead of curled up in
the fetal position.

Sometimes that happens, though. Yeah.

Like, so so surprising just how consistent
we've been and how going into anall out mental, emotional war
these have felt like to enablethe people on the other side of
the mic to free themselves,unlock themselves, become and

(01:02:15):
believe in themselves in a waythat they can so this this
podcast truly has been, Liz, acatalyst. The newsletter has
been a catalyst because we'veseen it. We've had people write
in, talk to us, and so that howeasy it has been to trudge
through what is a difficult setof conversations was surprising.

(01:02:38):
I also think another surprisingpiece that has come out of it is
the superhuman framework and therealization that that too was
something that my mind birthedaround 2014, at least the
beginning portions of it when Iwould end my videos with don't
forget to be a happy, helpful,humble human. And then I also

(01:03:00):
wrote down a longer version in adocument that stayed hidden for
I think it was over 2, maybe twoand a half years before I shared
it with you that then was ableto

Wasn't it from the pandemic? Yeah. That's 4
years ago, bud.

Oh, 4 years ago. Yeah. So shared a document,
and then out of that, werebirthed the superhuman
framework and started to enableand use that in different ways.
And now to see where that'sgoing from not only personal
growth, but professional growthand organizational culture,
like, that's shocking to me. Youknow, surprising.

(01:03:36):
Like, I didn't see that comingout of this. If I had to go back
and tell myself something, boy,I would probably go back, and I
don't know if it's tellingmyself or reminding myself of
something. And what I mean is Iwould want to temper my

(01:03:58):
expectations. So many times whenwe create content, create
podcasts, we can fall into thistrap of like build it and they
will come. And sometimes whenyou're building content, you
also think that, like, well, ofcourse, my family's gonna
listen.
Maybe not. Of course, my friendswill listen. Maybe not. And so

(01:04:21):
this idea of we're gonna createit and, you know, the masses
will show up and watch the gameand be excited. I would wanna
temper that a little bit morebecause what's interesting is I
think about the past year is wehaven't really been playing a
game that we should invite anentire stadium to.

(01:04:45):
We've actually been playing agame that is more along the
lines of like, ping pong ortennis. It's about the right
person being across the table oracross the net from us. And us
being able to mentally andemotionally serve up the ball
that then they have the optionto either hit back and continue

(01:05:07):
to listen to other episodes orcontinue to work on themselves.
And so what's funny is, I guess,Liz, what I'm saying is I would
remind myself of my ownmethodology around the
mathematics of 1. It doesn'tmatter if 1 person listens to 1
episode, or if 1 person listensto a 100 episodes, or if 10

(01:05:30):
people listen to a 1000episodes, what you need to focus
on is the mathematics of 1.
Because what will that oneperson listening to 1 podcast
episode do to their life? Whatwill that one person listening
to 10 episodes do to their life?Who will they impact? Right?
Because my mathematics of 1 isall about the eventual like

(01:05:53):
ripples at the end of myjourney, and I have to believe
that even though some of myimmediate expectations may have
not been met from a businessowner mathematical measurement
side of things, I'm a firmbeliever that we've definitely

(01:06:13):
over the last year created someripples.
I'm fine with that, but I wouldprobably go back and remind
myself to be fine with thatalong the way.

That's beautiful. I also think you know, it's
interesting to hear you talkabout that. Like, your friends
might listen. Your friends mightnot listen. What I have noticed,
though, over the past year isthat then I'm surprised by who
he is.

Yes.

Like, I get random text messages from him.
Like, wait. You listen? Yeah.I've been listening to every
episode since the beginning.
Yeah. What? Or my god. I lovedyour newsletter. Or where is
your newsletter?
What is fascinating to me isthat we are having very intimate
conversations

Yep.

About personal growth. Conversations that I
think you and I are verycomfortable having, but we
forget that, you know, in a lotof ways, we aren't comfortable
having these conversations. Anda lot of other people are not
comfortable having theseconversations, which means they
aren't necessarily going to bethe loudest when they are the
most tuned in. I am veryinterested to see what happens
when we do, inevitably anothercheck-in episode around our 2

(01:07:12):
year mark.

Oh, there's another one? Okay.

Yeah. Yes. Every 15 to 20 episodes, I'm gonna
yell at you.

I'll prep.

But I will say, George, this is this is an
honor. Yeah. This is anincredible moment. So I would
love to hear from you. What doyou want the listeners to take
away from this episode today?
We've covered a lot of ground.Yeah. We've talked about a lot
of different things. What iswhat is their takeaway from our
lessons?

Yeah. So the thing that I would say, because
Liz and I have gotten to thepoint where we weren't being
nice to each other. We were wewere asking tough questions. But
what I would want the listenersto do is actually go back to the
questions and write down, like,the core principle or mindset
that we were actually askingeach other. And I would use that

(01:07:59):
as a little bit of check-inbalance for yourself.
So for instance, how are youdealing with self worth? How are
you dealing with self belief?How are you dealing with
consistency and focus in yourlife? Like, these are just a
couple examples of, like, thelight feather light, you know,
questions that I was asking Lizduring this episode. So go back

(01:08:21):
through those those questionsand say, how am I doing on these
things?
The good thing is there areepisodes that tie back to
everything that we have kind ofanswered or talked about that
you can then dive in based on,oh, I'm killing it at this, but,
woo, I need some help with that.Then go listen to an episode

(01:08:42):
around that or email us and askus questions around it. Like,
literally, I that's the other ppiece that surprises me is I
don't know if the listenersunderstand how fully ready I am
we are to, like, respond viaemail or text or phone if you
have my text or phone, by theway. But, like, I literally am

(01:09:03):
open to any and all of thatbecause what I want the
listeners to take away from thisepisode is we are actively in a
battle to become 1% better eachand every day, and we are here
to help you with that. As youjourney through life trying to
achieve this elusive thing thatwe love to call a life beyond

(01:09:25):
your default.

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