What Is Beyond Your Default? Why Now, and Where Are We Going? (Episode 1)

George B. Thomas (00:02):
I was only partially believing in myself. I was only believing in the good part of myself, the good part of my life, the part that I decided to start giving back. But I didn't believe in like the historical George, the not so good guy. You know, the rough around the edges, the, the guy who likes Tupac and the Fast and the Furious and smoking a cigar and drinking a whiskey.

And to be able to pack that guy into the guy who loves Jesus and loves to go to church and loves his family and wants to add value into the world. What's really interesting is when you put that guy completely together, he has way more impact than just good. George. Hi, I'm George B. Thomas, and this is beyond the default. So first, let me welcome you to the teaser episode of Beyond the Default. I recently sat down with Liz Morehead.

(01:02)
You'll learn more about her and get to hear from her in the future. But we got some sound bites that I wanted to put together for this teaser episode of how do you know if this podcast is right for you?

How do you know if this community's right for you?

How do you know what you're going to learn?

How do you know what you don't know?

Uh, you also learn like where my mind is at, uh, hashtag mentor mode hashtag it's time to give back even more. And you'll also get to hear why now, why beyond the default. Hopefully you enjoy these clips. I can't wait for future podcast episodes. And so without further ado, let's get into the teaser episode of Beyond the Default. You know, it's interesting because we had a conversation a couple days ago and you asked me a question, are you ready?

(01:51)
And I said, yeah, it's time. I, I said that, but mentally I was like, is it time? But I've had time to like actually brew on that, and I've talked to like a friend of mine. What's funny is when I said, so I said, it's time. They were, they like were nodding their head in agreement of, yeah, it's time. Almost like they had wanted or expected me to do this months ago or years ago. And so I was like, okay, I am ready.

You know, I find myself like, think about things now as I'm walking around or putting my mind in a different place, uh, like thought processes, even when I'm watching different things. Like this week I was listening to the message at church, I could feel that I was listening and dissecting it differently than I historically had. And so it's just, it's interesting.

Why is it called Beyond Your Default?

(02:47)
It's a, it's the beginning of a new journey. I'm excited to see where it goes. Liz then asked me, why is it called Beyond the Default? What is the concept, the idea of this life, of beyond the default?

When I think about beyond the default through this life, family members, friends, coworkers, I've just watched people accept life for what it is, and they get into this like rhythm of go to work and come home and make dinner and watch Netflix and go to bed and wake up and go to work and come home and eat dinner and watch Netflix. And I'm like, man, can is is that truly all life is about? Like, is this repeat Groundhog Day for me? I've always had this, I won't say always about half of my life I've had this. I need to reach something. I need to buck the system.

(03:51)
I need to say, screw Netflix, Hulu. I need to start to live a life that education trumps entertainment. I need to start programming my brain. I believe that I am worth more than what this default life is giving me.

And I believe everybody out there should aggressively attack a life that is beyond what they now call the default. Because that is when you are gonna reach the magic moments, the special feelings, the impacting or punching or you know, designing your side of the universe is when you can remove yourself from like this just general default state that everybody accepts.

Like if I get funny for a second, it's like, listen, ladies and gentlemen, unplug yourself from the matrix and realize there's actually a real life that you could be living and you think the life that you have now is, is your real life and it may not be next.

Why do people accept the default life?

(04:52)
Liz wanted to dive a layer deeper. And so she asked me, why do I think people are okay with living that default life, that groundhog day? Well, that's the thing. It's safe, it's comfortable. We don't like to live in places that actually push us to the next level or feel uncomfortable or if life gets a little aggressive, we're gonna kind of maybe potentially back down, at least again if we talk about the default mannerisms of what you know, us mere mortal humans do.

And so I think there's a couple things that over the course of this podcast we'll talk about, probably many things, but a couple that come immediately rushing to the front of my brain, Liz, is we have a very, maybe dare I say, unhealthy relationship with the inner us. We let that voice inside our head drive the car instead of actually just coming along for the ride.

(05:52)
And I wish more people would drive the car with their heart and not that voice that like keeps you pinned down. Some people will call this imposter syndrome. Who are you? Why do you belong there? How do you think you could do anything special? Why would people wanna listen to you? The other thing that comes to mind is this just radical disbelief of there is a thing on the planet called fear.

And this for me was one of the most unlocking moments is when I started to transform my brain around this thought of fear and it not really being fear. I heard it in some talks, some inspirational motivational YouTube video or something, and I ran with it. Uh, but I heard this speaker talk about false evidence appearing real. And I started to train my brain about how I've never actually feared anything in my past.

What are we really afraid of?

(06:44)
I've only feared things in the future, the things that are unseen. And then I heard this other like really smart human talk about fear. And it was the same endorphins energy, like it's just energy, fear, and excitement actually map out to be almost exactly the same things.

And so then I started to teach myself when I would step on stage, I'm not afraid, I'm just to excited and man, talk about a radical difference when you start to like lean in what you historically have called fear. When you can start to lean in and call that excitement, it just puts your brain, your body in like the next 5, 10, 20 minutes, hour, week, whatever it is, into a totally different perspective.

So I think taming that inner voice, and I think understanding truly how to battle against this thing that we've called fear are two things that we'll talk more about in the future.

What was the hardest part of breaking free of a default life?

(07:40)
And then Liz asked me this question, which holy mackerel, she asked me what has been the hardest part for me to deal with along this journey of breaking free of a life that was default and going past that beyond the default.

It's funny because with this direction, I go in to the belief, self-belief, self-belief has always been hard for me. Uh, you know, I started real small, real small, and sometimes we think that our starting lines actually dictate where our finish lines will be. And that's one of the things I think I'm most excited about this podcast series is for people to realize, hey, if you're sitting here and you had a small beginning, you'll probably have an incredible finish line. And well, again, we'll get into that later.

But for me, the hardest thing was self-belief. Believing that I can turn myself into this kind of, you know, human that I envisioned for the future self-belief and that I actually can stand and talk about things and people are gonna want to hear them and learn from them and leverage them.

(08:53)
The self-belief that I could be the mentor self-belief that I could be something past just the tutorial HubSpot guy, the the belief that God has put me on this planet to do something special and I can either believe that this is truth or I can sit back and waste the minutes, hours, days, months, and years to potentially help hundreds if not thousands of people get past many of these hurdles, potholes, whatever, like stoppers from becoming the best versions of themselves.

So again, yeah, self-belief for me has been the hardest thing. I'd be remissed Liz, if I didn't talk about how in a meeting where you and I were talking about business and we were talking about voice and tone and you said the words, what would it look like if you'd show up as a whole ass human? And what's interesting is that made me stop on my tracks.

I realized I only partly believed in myself

(09:56)
It made me think, but I was only partially believing in myself. I was only believing in the good part of myself, the good part of my life, the part that I decided to start giving back. But I didn't believe in the historical George, the not so good guy, you know, the rough around the edges, the the guy who likes Tupac and the fast and the furious and smoking a cigar and drinking a whiskey and to be able to pack that guy into the guy who loves Jesus and loves to go to church and loves his family and wants to add value into the world.

What's really interesting is when you put that guy completely together, he has way more impact than just good George or good Sally or good Billy, right? Like loving ourselves and believing in ourselves as whole ass humans is a really key point to focus in on Next, Liz asked me, what do I believe that stops most people from reaching the ability to live a life beyond the default?

As humans, we're hardwired to seek out belonging

(11:08)
Because we trust, no, not trust, trust isn't the right word. I'm gonna stick on belief because we believe the opinions of other humans around us actually matter, and they don't, they really don't. It's funny, your brother, your mother, your friend, your coworker, they might be holding you back from being the amazing ultimate human you can be, simply because you believe what they believe about you to be true instead of believing what you believe about yourself to be true.

And running with that next Liz piggybacked on my response to that and dove into, but what do you say about the fact that we humans are community driven, tribal type people and then we're paying attention to these opinions that to us truly matter because we wanna belong, we are tribal, um, we do wanna belong.

The unfortunate thing is many times we just pick the wrong circle to belong to, which is really interesting that I say that because you know, uh, actually I'm a little frustrated right now when I say that because when I say that where my brain goes is dangone it, I should have created beyond the default like years ago because it gives the group, it gives the circle, it gives the tribe that people might not have in their life right now to where I believe that everybody listening to this or watching this can be 5, 10, 50 5,000 steps better than they are today.

(12:52)
I believe that they have been put on this planet for a purpose. I believe that the narrative that they've been running in their brain can be changed. I believe that they can reprogram themselves, teach themselves, engineer themselves to become what they only dream of at this point. And, and I believe that their dreams can become a reality. And I can say all of this and believe all this because I've seen it in my own journey.

I mean, as you listen to future episodes and you realize some of just the beginning starting lines radically, uh, corrosive decisions, battles that I've had mentally, you'll start to learn like, man, if this dude can do it, I absolutely know that I can do it. And I'm, I'm really excited, Liz, to help people unlock the ability to have a tribe that believes in them maybe even more than they believe in themselves as they start this journey as every great host or co-host should Liz wanted to know, how can you the listener know that this tribe, this podcast, this content of beyond the default is right for you?

Is Beyond Your Default right for you?

(14:10)
And it's a very valid question, which deserves an answer. Yeah, I think there's a couple things here, but the first thing I'm gonna lean out with is fundamentally you'll just know if you stop listening to this after this episode, just take this one thing away from me. Start listening to your gut. Like your gut is a real thing. Start listening to your gut. It'll put you in the right places on the fact that you are just fundamentally trying to be a good human. Your gut will be a good indicator.

So like, if you're listening this and immediately you're like, this dude is full of shit, well then what I would say is your gut's telling you that I'm not the right fit, beyond the default is not the right fit. But if you're sitting here and you're pinned down by the fact that, um, you feel small, that your beginning was small, if you're pinned down by the fact that the voices in your head tell you that you're not worth it.

(15:04)
If you're pinned down because you are afraid of making decisions of pivoting or transitioning, if you're, you know, pinned down because you've been lying to yourself about one or two decisions that you historically made and what that allows you to be or not be, then this tribe, this podcast, the content that will be creating will be right for you.

On the flip side, if you're somebody that you've always felt destined for greatness, but you're just not sure of the roadmap on how to get there, if you have these aspirational goals that just feel unachievable, if you want somebody that can be like a ride or die that you could email or call at, you know, ten twelve, two o'clock in the morning ...

Okay, probably not two o'clock in the morning, I'm probably sleeping. But you can call almost any time or reach out and be like, Hey, I got this big thing happening or this medium thing or this small thing happening and I've got questions.

Why is it called Beyond Your Default?

(16:01)
Well, then this tribe's gonna be right for you because again, the, the fun part about this whole new journey that we're on, Liz, is this is me putting my heart out there. This is me tying into, you know, the historical youth pastor, associate pastor, this is me doubling down on adding value to the world past just business chops of marketing sales, HubSpot.

This is me saying, Hey, I'm ready to leave a legacy. I'm ready to double down on what I've been preaching teaching inside of the professional life of, it's all about the humans. And, uh, we're about to get real human as we move forward through this.

So Liz next wanted to dive into what can you expect, what will happen in future episodes? What kind of journey, what kind of topics? How am I as the person who is delivering the information going to show up?

What can you expect in this journey?

(17:09)
And what am I gonna talk about? I'm a little nervous about that because for me, what I'm pushing myself into is, is to be as raw, like raw than I've ever been. And, and what I mean by that is just open, wide open. Listen, I've had some dark times in my life. I've had some bright times in my life. I've learned lessons along the way. It's, it's amazing if you pay attention and especially if you look back, you know, you can learn lessons on the hills and you can learn lessons in the valley.

And what's funny is some of the hills lessons will actually help you get through future valleys. And some of the valley lessons will actually teach you how not to be an a-hole when you make it to the hill. If you want just very open conversation, if you want to be able to, you know, suggest a topic that we talk about, Hey, I wonder how George dealt with this, or, I wonder how George would deal with this, or, I wonder if other humans have this problem that I seem to always have, or I wonder if these goals are even goals.

(18:24)
Like, you just might be curious, you might be confused. We're gonna try to help simplify the complex. We're gonna try to help tease out some frameworks. We're gonna talk about, you know, life best practices potentially for you. We're gonna just try to hopefully help you along the way, build a roadmap.

Because if you don't have a gps, if you don't have the pinpoints to your life, if you don't know where you're going, then my fear is again, you're in life driving around the same block over and over and over again and you feel busy as all get out, but you're not going nowhere. And so I hope with this, you know, podcast, this community, we help, uh, straighten out the lines, turn the gravel roads into freeways, you know, speed up and streamline people's ability to get to where they are. Like, oh my God, I knew I wanted to get here, but I didn't think I could get here.

Why is now the time for Beyond Your Default?

(19:24)
And, and now I'm here. And by the way, the other part I'd love to be able to apply to this podcast as community is, and now what? Like, you made it Now what? Cuz there's a whole lot after you make it. And finally, on our destination of this teaser podcast episode, Liz wanted to know George beyond the default.

Why now? Yeah, I'm comfortable with myself in the most interesting way that I think I've ever been in my life. I wake up in the morning excited, I wake up in the morning believing that we can do the things that we've set forth as goals.

I wake up in the morning and understand that I have been granted, uh, a story, lessons along the way and a passion to help and educate, but also tying back into that whole ass human comment earlier, I am probably more of a whole ass human than I have ever been in my life.

(20:28)
And so if not now, then when And why keep making excuses when it could help 1, 5, 1000, a thousand people. And that's the other part of this, like Liz, finally in life, I'm to the point where beyond the default doesn't have to be successful. It doesn't have to generate revenue.

I'm not trying to market anything. I'm not trying to sell anything. It's literally I've reached a point where I am comfortable with myself, comfortable with my finances, not comfortable with the additional time that this will take, but understand the depth that it could change even myself and others along the way as we kind of journey through this. But I, again, I just, I know it's the right time. I, I've talked about wanting to write a book for years. I've talked about, you know, wanting to do something like this for years.

I've even tried to do like two or three episodes of this before, but it just didn't feel right. And again, my gut, my brain, my soul, if you will, the stars even, I feel like they've aligned. And now is the time to start building this tribe, to start creating this content, to start digging in and being just aggressively transparent, authentic human so that people can learn life lessons and unlock their full potential. And I can truly be Liz, the catalyst that I want to be in the lives of those who choose to be around me.