Work In Progress: George + Liz Reflect on Boundaries, Self-Care, + Mindsets (Episode 37)

Episode Transcript

Liz Moorehead (00:02.863)
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your host, Liz Moorehead, and as always, I'm joined by the one and only George B. Thomas. How the heck are you this morning, buddy? Which, of course, I ask you right when you're taking a sip of coffee. Of course.

George B. Thomas (00:09.686)
But it's all good. It's all good. Is it fair to say that I'm scared crapless? I mean, today is a check -in day and check -in days are always interesting because you've either done the things that you wanted to do.

Liz Moorehead (00:22.095)
Go on.

Mm -hmm.

George B. Thomas (00:32.278)
or you haven't done the things that you wanna do. And you have two choices. You can be a human who gets on a mic and lies and says, I have done all the things and my life is absolutely amazing. Or you can be the honest human and learn from your mistakes and hopefully people learn from your mistakes as well. But that takes vulnerability, which by the way is probably a completely different episode. Anyway.

Liz Moorehead (00:57.038)
We need to have a conversation about vulnerability. You know what? All right, coming soon to a podcast near you. But I love what you said there, George, because if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you've likely heard both George and myself reinforce this idea that we're not having any of these conversations that we have with you from a place of feeling or acting as if we've seen it all and we've learned it all.

George B. Thomas (01:00.438)
Yes, at some point.

Liz Moorehead (01:26.798)
And we've conquered it all. And it couldn't be more opposite. Are we your guides? Yes. We're here to help you along your way as you make your way through your own beyond your default journey. But we're also guides who are we're on this path with you because we're making the same journey for ourselves. So we have the same faults, the same failures, the same lessons learned. And by the way, if this is your first episode with us now, now, you know, congratulations. Hello. Welcome.

George B. Thomas (01:38.39)
And I'm sorry, because you... If it is your first episode, I'm sorry, because you're probably diving right into about the 15 -foot side of the...

Liz Moorehead (01:56.749)
Hahaha!

George B. Thomas (02:06.838)
beyond your default swimming pool. So if it gets scary and you need a life vest or floaties at any point in time, just back up to a different episode and then work your way to this.

Liz Moorehead (02:17.837)
Well, yeah, because this episode is different from our usual runs, right? Periodically, you and I set aside an episode to check in with each other. We ask each other questions about specific topics we've covered over this podcast with you all. And we speak honestly about our wins and our struggles and the surprises we've encountered along the way. Now, here's what's crazy. I didn't realize it was so long ago, but the last time we checked in with each other was right.

before Thanksgiving, which was almost six freaking months ago. Can you believe that?

George B. Thomas (02:50.582)
I can't believe it and actually my coffee mug Liz thinks that that's just crazy. Now, no listeners, you can't, you can't see what I just did, but I literally lifted up my mock, my coffee mug, which today I just kind of grabbed it real quick. Didn't realize what it said, but it literally says the word crazy on it. So now you know why Liz was laughing like I'm an idiot.

Liz Moorehead (02:57.645)
Oh my god.

Liz Moorehead (03:17.518)
You're not an idiot. It's just something I could see the dad joke purveyor in you saying, I'm going to pick this mug and I'm going to wait for that moment. That moment. All right. So I want to take us back in time before we start our conversation today. I want to share a couple of highlights from our check -in six months ago. So George, back then, your big focus, according to you, was continuing to cultivate the close and

George B. Thomas (03:22.39)
Yes, it was coming out. That moment.

Liz Moorehead (03:45.581)
purposeful circle of friends, family members, and others as a means to stay grounded. You also talked about that while you were excited about the future and what it could hold, you were also looking at it with a little dose of fear. And I quote, I want to be careful not to lose myself in this process. And so I'm always kind of like, am I doing too much? Am I doing too little?

And again, that anxiety and the need for deep breaths and meditation shows up. And I'm like, all right, dude, man, just quit freaking overthinking it and just like, let it be organic, but is it organic enough? And then the cycle starts all over again. Now I'm not singling you out. I'm now gonna share where I was because your girl Liz was in a state. Personally, I was talking about how I was struggling to be more open and trusting with people, but I was.

getting better at it. I don't know. I read through that whole conversation. I was like, Liz, are you sure you get maybe maybe self awareness is like possession and that it's nine tenths of the law. I have no idea. But it's

George B. Thomas (04:47.414)
Who is that human?

George B. Thomas (04:55.638)
It's interesting though, Liz, but you say self -awareness, but I'm sure that we're going to circle around into where you put me and what you said. I got a smack in the face yesterday when I was hanging out with people. I got a smack in the face late last week when I was on a call with somebody and both rhymed to the, to the, to the tune of

Liz Moorehead (05:05.357)
Mm -hmm.

Liz Moorehead (05:20.301)
OOOO

George B. Thomas (05:23.254)
We don't think you know who you are. Anyway, continue on with where you are at.

Liz Moorehead (05:31.147)
Oh, that's gonna be interesting. So my particular niche six months ago was centered around that aspect of being opening and trusting, but also really struggling and working through self -forgiveness and how that was my primary focus after what was a very challenging year where I made a lot of changes in my life. I made a lot of mistakes and I was also learning to.

quite frankly get to know a very new version of me who wanted more and who wanted better and I would say in the right ways. So here's a little quote of where I was. I think one of the things that has been the most illuminating is realizing that sometimes I was holding myself accountable for things that I did not need to hold myself accountable for. That I was making myself responsible for the feelings of other people and not understanding that I am not responsible for everything. Because that's how I was trained to think growing up and I've learned that

George B. Thomas (06:24.15)
Just a tiny bit.

Liz Moorehead (06:26.666)
Self -forgiveness is hard, but you also have to make sure that you are looking at your life clearly. So since that conversation, we've grown quite a bit. We've also talked about a lot of new topics since then. Just a scotch, just a smidge, right? Just, just a scotch. We've talked about imposter syndrome. We've talked about being present. We've talked about finding happiness when all feels lost. We've talked about seasons of life.

our relationship with failure, setting healthy boundaries, toxic morning routine myths, making the choice to embody a victor mentality, anger, growth, mindsets, so much more. So in this episode, our second installment of Work in Progress, we're gonna grill each other a little bit. I'm gonna ask George some questions about his Beyond Your Default journey, and you get to do the same for me. But first, George's.

George B. Thomas (07:09.974)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

George B. Thomas (07:23.254)
I'm excited about that part. The part where I get to ask the questions, not the other.

Liz Moorehead (07:25.257)
I'm a little curious. Yeah. Yeah, which is why exactly we're gonna start with you, George. I'm a little curious. As you heard me share about where you were six months ago, what do you wish you could go back and tell yourself during that first check -in?

George B. Thomas (07:47.126)
So.

I think I would go back and tell myself maybe a couple things.

The first thing I would probably tell myself is make sure you're focused on the right things. And what I mean by that is not what you think are the right things, but taking the time to actually figure out what the right things are to be focused on. Because I think sometimes I worry and focus on things that the external world

have default states of, well, of course you wouldn't do that. And of course you would be this way. And of course this is the action that would be taken. And of course you're killing it. Meanwhile, I'm over here focusing on, well.

not the right things. So that's the that's the first thing that I would probably tell myself is like, if you could free yourself from these micro things that you allow yourself to get lost in, this will give you the time to focus on the unlock secrets of your life and other people's lives around you. The other thing that I would probably tell myself at that first check in.

George B. Thomas (09:11.414)
is just because you're doing good doesn't mean you'll continue to do good. So how about you focus on how to consistently do and be good.

Liz Moorehead (09:23.819)
Can you be specific when you say do good, what does that mean?

George B. Thomas (09:25.302)
Mm.

So when we hit that other check -in, I was doing my morning meditation, my morning Bible reading, had like this daily regimented, woke up, took a shower, got dressed, sat down, had these moments and I felt really good. And I had also started back on this, and I've done this now about four times, this

Okay, it's time to get back on the healthy George kick. It's time to get back on the let's start doing walks kick. And I was right in the mode in that check in of kind of both of these items like happening and going. And then it was shortly after that, I think I went on vacation and it was like, it all just came crumbling down because of the lack of consistency.

And so I feel like since the last check -in in this check -in right here, which by the way, I can't believe we're recording episode 37. It's freaking mind blowing to me. Considering this is a weekly podcast and I think maybe we've missed one or two, maybe one week, but anyway, not why we're here. And so.

Liz Moorehead (10:37.033)
Oh no!

George B. Thomas (10:51.606)
I just...

George B. Thomas (10:56.79)
I am fundamentally sick and tired of my own excuses. There is no easy way to put it other than that right there of like, dude, just quit being a dick and do the things that you know you're supposed to do in the morning. And so I'm excited because we're sitting here on this check -in and yesterday, it's funny because one of the things you talked about is cultivating a group of close friends and people to go on the journey with. And yesterday we literally had a half day where,

We were at the pool. We were hanging out with friends over at their house. Multiple sets of families were together. And one of my buddies was like, Hey, what do you guys think about waking up at seven o 'clock? And then he paused. He goes, George, when do you wake up? And I said, well, I wake up at five 15. He goes, nevermind. Let me go with my original thought. He goes, what do you guys think about waking up and meeting at seven o 'clock to go for morning walks?

And this is like a group of men. I immediately said, yes, like, yes, let's do this because it's the accountability that I may have been seeking to have the consistency that I need so that I can mentally check off in my brain. I did this thing. I feel good about myself. I am moving in a right and good direction. So that's what I mean by good and continuing to stay in that vein. Like when we set the

patterns, when we set the routines, when we say this is what we want to do and we fall off of that, it isn't just the ramifications of what we've fallen off of. It's the mental battle that can then be allowed to happen in our brain because we fell off the thing. Like, will I gain weight because I'm not walking? Yes, but I'll also I'll beat the crap out of myself and my brain.

Will I not have the same immediate knee -jerk reaction to empathy, love, listening more, talking less, not getting angry is easy because I'm not doing my devotions and meditation? Yes, but there'll also be a war that will ensue inside my brain. That's about as specific as I can get, Liz.

Liz Moorehead (13:09.095)
Wow, that's an incredible pivot from where you were.

Liz Moorehead (13:18.662)
How does that feel to see how far you've come?

George B. Thomas (13:30.262)
That's really weird where my brain just went, but I don't know if I have the proper measuring stick to actually understand how far I've come, even though you're sitting here going, wow, that's amazing from that to this. I'll say it feels good to know that I am willing to say and believe that my own excuses can be the roadblock to who I need to become in the future. And...

And I'll probably talk more about that as we go through this. But I also feel good just being able to have the strength internally, emotionally, to get to the point, to be able to.

Yeah, that's no, actually I'll continue on. Like one of the conversations I had yesterday was literally about how most humans don't think or do or act. This was not me saying this by the way. In the way that most people look at me and feel like my default way to think and be and act is.

And because it's my default, not in the negative sense, but it's because it's my default and I just think it's normal. I have the lack of understanding how for many people they look at it and think that it's the spectacular thing, not in like a grandiose, like let's think, Oh, almighty, not like that, but like there's just a sliver of life that I think I need to pay attention to more.

pertaining to who I actually am and how I'm showing up. And to have that insight makes me happy.

George B. Thomas (15:27.478)
Liz, I'm tired of talking for a hot minute. So, so, um, what would you share with yourself? Uh, if you could go back to that moment, to that first check in and say, Hey girlfriend, guess what?

Liz Moorehead (15:27.91)
That's amazing.

Liz Moorehead (15:45.893)
Yeah, I need you to take several seats. You know, if I was talking to myself six months ago, I was a bit, you know, I'm the one who wrote this question and now having it turned back on me, I'm a bit conflicted about it because I have conflicting things. I'm so I'm sure you're so happy. So pleased, so pleased. They're conflicting things I want to say to myself, you know, one is that you're you're on the right track.

George B. Thomas (16:01.718)
Boom.

Liz Moorehead (16:15.045)
You know, you're doing the work. You're in the messy middle. You are okay. You are more okay than you realize you are.

Liz Moorehead (16:28.804)
I think I was starting to realize it, which was part of that excerpt I read from that conversation where I said I had to look at my life clearly and not be as responsible or hold myself as responsible for certain things.

George B. Thomas (16:38.55)
You

Liz Moorehead (16:45.828)
On the flip side of that, I think I had really demonized myself for the things I knew I had done.

I mean, I was treating myself at some points like a war criminal. You know, I was just holding myself to these completely unrealistic standards and actually not even getting close to forgiving myself for anything. I think the other thing I would realize is that, or I would tell myself is that you have more people in your corner than you realize.

George B. Thomas (17:08.758)
Yes.

Liz Moorehead (17:19.749)
You don't have a bunch of people waiting for you to fail. You have a bunch of people waiting for you to win. And it took me a really long time to see that. And the reason why that switch for me was important is the story I've been telling myself ever since I was a kid is you're not enough. You literally have people in your life telling you that you're not, that you are the disappointment, that you are not.

George B. Thomas (17:38.966)
You

Liz Moorehead (17:52.836)
that it doesn't matter what you do. You were born the failure and disappointment. You will remain the failure and the disappointment. And that type of programming just got really stuck in my head. And it impacts, it impacted every little decision I was making. Well, of course this is hard, you can't do it. Well, of course you're behind, you're the failure. Why even bother?

George B. Thomas (18:08.246)
Hmm. Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (18:22.02)
Why even try? And it was this insidious death by paper cut story that really has lived at the heart of so many things. The decisions I've made, the belief structures I have about the role I play in other people's lives, what people actually think. I wanna go back and tell myself you're so close to breaking through your own Truman Show -like barrier to the real world.

George B. Thomas (18:48.886)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (18:50.148)
You're not living in reality. You are not thinking in reality. Now, do I still catch myself dealing with this? Yeah, it's just because I intellectually understand something doesn't mean I'm already perfectly at every moment of the day living in accordance with now what I understand to be true. But that's the big thing that was waiting for me on the other side of this.

You are not as alone as you think you are, and since you have done the work of cultivating like you, George, I got really clear on who I wanted in my life over the past year, and it hurt like hell. But now that I have the right people around me, they're not waiting for me to lose.

George B. Thomas (19:17.494)
you

Yeah.

George B. Thomas (19:34.07)
Yeah, and that's the type of people you want around you. Liz, it's crazy when you were talking about paper cut, you're like, give us like a death by a thousand paper cuts. I'm like, I don't know about you, but I can deal with a paper cut. Like, eh, okay, it hurts. But like, to me, when you were explaining that, the visual in my brain was like emotional, psychological, mental grenades. Like that's...

Liz Moorehead (20:00.579)
Uh huh.

George B. Thomas (20:01.334)
to me, or landmines might even be a better thing. Because as you're going through this journey, it's like, you hit this landmine and it just kind of explodes in your brain. And here's the thing, what I want to do before we move on to some of these more poignant questions, I would ask the listeners, if you've been with us since the last check -in, how would you answer this question? Or even if you just want to think about the last 30 days or 60 days in your life, and you could go back to that moment in time if you weren't listening.

What would you say to yourself that you're now having these realizations around?

Because I think when you put your brain in a direction of vocalizing something to your earlier self, it unlocks something in yourself in the now. And that's really important. So listeners, what would you tell yourself 30 days, 60 days, or since the last check -in if you are a longtime listener? Again, you don't have to tell us. If you want to hit reply to our newsletter, if you want to email us, we're here. But at least do it for yourself.

Liz Moorehead (21:07.876)
Yeah, absolutely. Reach out to us at any time. Liz at beyondyourdefault .com or dot com and George at beyondyourdefault .com. George, you're back in the hot seat. Are you ready?

George B. Thomas (21:14.806)
Yep, yep.

George B. Thomas (21:19.126)
I'll say yes in the most no I'm not way possible, but yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That kind of thing without a doubt.

Liz Moorehead (21:23.876)
Physically, yes, I'm ready because I made the choice to show up to this recording. Emotionally, this is a cry for help. OK, got it. Fair, fair. You've talked a lot in previous episodes, not just the check -in episode, but we have to talk about this. You've talked about wanting to learn how to exercise more patience and letting go of unfair or what you consider to be unrealistic expectations of yourself or others.

How's it going, buddy?

George B. Thomas (21:58.39)
Um.

Liz Moorehead (22:00.292)
And don't worry, I look forward to paying for this question later on in the episode. Continue.

George B. Thomas (22:02.454)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like...

Sometimes it goes great and then sometimes it goes horribly wrong. Like, I don't know, it's one of those. So one of the things that I've been really focused on lately is understanding that there's gonna be hills and valleys in life. And the only battle that I'm really trying to make sure I'm paying attention to is that it's not peaks and canyons.

I can deal with hills and valleys, peaks and canyons get scary to me. Sharp, abrupt lows, sharp, abrupt highs. And I feel like I'm doing great on some of the expectations that I have of myself. Like I have allowed myself to have a little bit more downtime lately than I historically was. I am starting to open up a room where I actually, you know,

Friday and Saturday walked for 45 minutes while I was watching this dope AI course that I purchased because I wanted to learn more about artificial intelligence. So therefore I can translate it into how to actually use it in a human way and in an optimized and streamlined way. But I was learning something new, something I have had a really hard time with since I started the business.

Liz Moorehead (23:17.923)
Of course.

George B. Thomas (23:34.102)
and I was moving my body, something that I was really having a hard time doing since I started the business. But it was me giving me the freaking freedom to make that a priority. Liz, in other words, it was me allowing myself to be a little bit selfish in the most positive way that I could be. And that's what these walks, by the way, going forward with the guys is me, I'm going to be selfish. And you know what? Seven o 'clock.

8 o 'clock in the morning, which by the way means we might have to talk about when we actually record these on Mondays. But anyway, 7 to 8 in the morning, like I need to make that I'm going to be selfish. That's going to be my time to spend with them and move my body so I can check off a mental box and disarm the landmine or grenade that would be in my mind if I don't do said thing. Right now. With that said, on Friday,

Liz Moorehead (24:10.083)
That's fine.

George B. Thomas (24:34.07)
I had an individual reach out to me and try to have a conversation about where they're at and how they felt.

George B. Thomas (24:45.238)
And boy did I screw that up.

I wanted to talk more than I wanted to listen. I wanted to get frustrated because the way that I felt versus actually empathetic to the way they felt. I was already tired, already burnt out and can just blatantly say that I didn't show up at my best because I broke my own rule of what I expected, what I thought should happen.

how I thought they were and thank God that I'm sorry because it was just a shitty experience. But I also will say on that I knew that I needed to give myself the space to mentally go, dude.

Because here's immediately after it happened, by the way, my brain was screaming from the mountaintops, you're an asshole. But I needed time to unpack in my own brain that I actually wasn't being that kind of human, but I just hadn't equipped myself to show up in the best way that I could. So.

The answer to your question, Liz, is there are some things where I think I'm doing really good at this, but there are other moments and times and other things that I know that like, woo, okay, bro, you still have work to do. Like you have not reached the end of your journey. You cannot lay down and take a nap. You must get up and actually walk a couple more miles down the road of this thing right here. So that's how I'll answer that.

Liz Moorehead (26:39.299)
Two things I want to point out here. Number one, the walking thing. That is not selfish. Do you know what that is, George? Thank you. Thank you. The episode you didn't want to talk about, the episode where you literally slacked me and said, so how do you feel about this outline? You know, the one that you wrote.

George B. Thomas (26:49.11)
Self -care I knew you were gonna go with that. I'm like, uh, but but see if I know

George B. Thomas (27:03.51)
Which I was like... Yeah, and I was like, oh, me too. Wee! So you said two things. Was there something else you wanted to throw in there?

Liz Moorehead (27:06.722)
And I said, I feel great, George. Talk to you on Monday.

Liz Moorehead (27:14.755)
You

Liz Moorehead (27:19.682)
Yeah, there is one more. What did you say to the other person when you realized what had happened on that conversation?

George B. Thomas (27:27.926)
We have a meeting later today. Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. I want it to go well. We have a meeting later today. I needed the weekend. I needed the weekend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm actually happy that this is gonna sound weird. I'm not happy that it happened, but I'm...

Liz Moorehead (27:31.362)
I hope that goes well.

Liz Moorehead (27:42.305)
We've all been there. We've all been there.

George B. Thomas (27:57.782)
I'm happy about the lessons that I can learn from it happening so that hopefully it doesn't happen in the future because I'm sure there will be other humans that will come to me with the way that they feel and I need to be at my best for that.

Liz Moorehead (28:17.059)
been there. And I think we've I think we've all been on the giving and receiving end of that conversation. If we've been on this little blue marble in space for any length of time. You know, I've had experiences where I've been on the receiving end of that. And then somebody came to me after and said, so I didn't handle that well. And I've also been in the the other seat. I've been where you are, where I've had to say, you know, it is. It was my responsibility that that conversation didn't go well. I should have said I wasn't in the space to have that conversation.

George B. Thomas (28:26.006)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (28:32.982)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (28:46.306)
So I think it's really powerful, George, that you recognize that. Because there's also the third category, where I have been vulnerable enough to share my feelings with someone. It goes horribly, but they don't see anything wrong with what happened. And that's an even, huh, huh. Okay.

George B. Thomas (28:59.318)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's worst case scenario. Okay, Liz, so I'm jumping straight to freak out this hot seat for a hot minute. When we did the episode on seasons of life, yeah, episode 33, by the way, accepting, navigating, and celebrating the seasons of life. You love that topic, but...

Liz Moorehead (29:17.891)
Yes. Loved that topic.

George B. Thomas (29:28.63)
You could fundamentally tell that there were things churning in your brain as we were actually having that episode, as we were kind of having that conversation. And so I'm super curious, how has the conversation about seasons of life changed your perspective in a daily, weekly, or monthly observance or decision making direction in your life?

Liz Moorehead (29:56.321)
You gotta go right for the jugular on this. You knew, I love how you painted the picture of how much I loved this topic. This was my self -care mountain. This was my, I understand that seasons of life sounds beautiful and poetic and to the ding dong who created that label, thank you. Because.

George B. Thomas (29:58.582)
Hey, that's what I'm here for.

George B. Thomas (30:05.558)
Yes.

Liz Moorehead (30:19.2)
The passage of time and quote unquote accepting and celebrating seasons of life when we notice them, I talked about this. It's jarring. It's scary. It reminds us that things come to an end. It reminds us in some cases that we're aging and we're getting older. And I'm starting to trip that wire into I may have more yesterdays than I do tomorrows as my dad used to say. Now to your question.

How has that impacted me since that? I can always tell when you're like, I want to know what's going on in Liz's brain, because I could see it happening during that conversation. And I. Ladies and gentlemen at home, I have a tendency, as George knows, to do some deep processing and then the actual gold doesn't pop out until later. I don't know if what I'm about to share is gold by any stretch of the imagination, but I will tell you at least.

George B. Thomas (30:48.95)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (31:17.631)
how that conversation has impacted me because there has been a long tail on it. If I want to be super duper honest, so I write our newsletter, Beyond Your Default, for our readers. If you want to check it out, beyondyourdefault .com forward slash newsletter. And there was a week I was supposed to write about seasons of life and I couldn't do it, so instead I wrote about a grilled cheese sandwich. Ended up being a really powerful piece of content.

George B. Thomas (31:19.19)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (31:45.374)
It was a great piece where I talked about, you know, I didn't realize how far I had come. I had spent a lot of time in darkness last summer, and then I turned around and started appreciating the small things, and that was how I ended up realizing through the culmination, the accumulation of small things that my life had gotten really great.

The way seasons of life stands out to me right now is the thing I have been a hard ass on myself about recently is, is that a decision of today, Liz, or is that a decision that yesterday Liz would make? Are you surrounding yourself with people who belong in your past? Are you surrounding yourself with people about where you wanna go? Are you walking into the rooms where you belong?

George B. Thomas (32:20.63)
You

Liz Moorehead (32:33.854)
Or are you walking yourself into the rooms where you used to trap yourself? Seasons of Life is a very interesting conversation that I've been having with myself over the past month or so since we had this conversation, because it was only a few episodes ago when we had it. It was about a month.

Liz Moorehead (32:50.846)
gotten better at saying, yeah, this is an old chapter that is closed and a new chapter that is opened. And it was it was fascinating to me that this conversation happened. We had planned to this conversation precisely for the month that I had moved, started a huge new chapter in my life, came back to Annapolis after swearing I was never going to come back. And this new chapter on paper has been vibrant.

and illuminating and supportive. And it's been the best example of leaning into a seasons of life mentality that I could have possibly asked for. Like I'm not living that part where it's a lot of mourning, it's a lot of sadness, it's a lot of metaphorical death that I have to kind of move through. So I challenged myself to think more deeply on it because if I am living out the experience of seasons of life that is probably in the most holistic and positive way, then why did I avoid writing about it?

Why did it make me so uncomfortable? What was it that I was avoiding?

Liz Moorehead (33:57.276)
The thing I was avoiding was realizing that seasons of life isn't a third party retrospective detached observance of your own life like you're a filmmaker. It's waking up and saying, okay, if I'm in a new space and I'm in a new season, am I acting accordingly? Am I making decisions accordingly? Let's go back to the start of this conversation, right? I was talking about how I had that recent realization that people aren't waiting for me to fail.

George B. Thomas (34:20.534)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (34:26.971)
Okay, Liz, then why are you sometimes still acting like it?

So that's how it's impacting my decision making right now. I don't have it down to a perfect science, but I'm one of those people where it's like, once I see something, I can't unsee it. And sometimes that's positive and sometimes that is just, it's still positive, but it hurts like hell. And this is a positive, but hurts like hell moment because maybe I need to lighten up a little bit, maybe not be so hard on myself, because I always find new spicy ways to be super hard on myself.

George B. Thomas (34:50.934)
Mm.

Liz Moorehead (35:01.467)
But one of the things I'm really challenging myself right now is who's making this decision?

George B. Thomas (35:01.558)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (35:07.574)
Yeah, Liz, I want to jump in here for a second for you, but also for the listeners. And I love that you just said, if I see something, I can't unsee it. So let me mentally show you something. You said, is that the Liz of now or is that the Liz of the past?

And I think there's great power in saying it's the Liz of the now making the decisions versus the Liz of the past making the decisions. But where my mind skyrocketed to is the most fascinating day is when the Liz of the future is making the decision in the now.

Liz Moorehead (35:50.268)
Oh man, man!

George B. Thomas (35:51.67)
And I just want the listeners to think about, yes, you can make the decision in the you of the now, or you can make the decision of you in the past. But when you unlock your brain and it's the future you making the decisions to set you up for the success that you can reach. Like that excites me. That's, and again, I'm not there. I mean, I try to be there. Sometimes I get a glimpse of it.

But that's where when we talk about this journey beyond your default, it's being able to transport yourself and tune into that human and bring it back to where you're at.

Liz Moorehead (36:31.645)
Why you gotta be so stinkin' smart, man?

George B. Thomas (36:33.718)
No, no, not smart. Just... Wow, that's a whole different...

Liz Moorehead (36:37.246)
Well, do you wanna go another level up? Let's go back to a conversation you and I had last week. Then you get to that moment where you realize the past version, the present version of you, and the future version of you, all the same. Because one does not exist without the other. Yep. But that's a level of therapy Liz is not ready for today, George.

George B. Thomas (36:40.822)
Sure.

Yeah.

George B. Thomas (36:50.39)
Same person. Yep. Yep. Without a doubt.

Liz Moorehead (37:02.43)
This is a happy one. I tried to be nice. I tried not to come at you with a ballot for every single question. So in the last, yep, we do that for ourselves and each other. So in the last episode, we talked about the importance of recognizing your own wins. So I'd love to hear you brag for a moment. What's a win you've accomplished on your own Beyond Your Default journey since we last checked in?

George B. Thomas (37:08.822)
That's alright, I pick up my own mallet. Yeah, I do that.

George B. Thomas (37:23.446)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (37:28.918)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (37:28.989)
And I don't care if it's something that seems small to others, but it's big to you, however you want to define it. Tell me about a win.

George B. Thomas (37:34.198)
Yeah. Yeah. So my immediate knee jerk response was like, hey, I've launched an agency since... And then I was like, dude, shut the f... up. Like, that's just stupid. Like...

Liz Moorehead (37:47.517)
Well, it's not dumb, but you had already launched an agency you just weren't calling it that.

George B. Thomas (37:51.126)
I wasn't calling it that. Right. Sidekickstrategies .com did not exist at the last check -in. Me showing up as a, you know, whole ass human agency owner really wasn't like, I was a solopreneur with like part of a team, part of a theme, some contractors, but that's not where I want to go actually, especially on this podcast. One of the biggest wins that I've had since our last check -in is

I had the opportunity to celebrate my 23rd wedding anniversary with my wife. And here's why it's a win. A couple months before our anniversary, my wife said to me, sometimes I think life is getting boring. And my wife said to me in so many words, like, you don't surprise me with things like,

And I said, okay. And like, I could get irritated. I didn't actually. I like openly embraced the words that she was saying.

And then I went to work.

and I got a hotel for the weekend about three hours away. And I made reservations for dinner and I told them it was our anniversary. And so there were rose petals and like little plastic thingies on the table of like, I love you and hearts on there. And I bought tickets to a comedy show, which by the way, this hotel also has a casino. My wife likes to...

George B. Thomas (39:31.702)
play the games a little bit. So do I. So do I. I like me a good table game and maybe a slot machine every now and then. And the win for me is that I surprised my wife. The win for me more than that is that I listened to my wife and I took action. The win for me is just tying back to

I want there to be a stronger relationship. I wanna make sure I'm showing up the best that I can. I wanna make sure that I'm listening and taking action. And historically, my wife has done really, really good at letting me live my dream.

and become who I felt like I needed to become. And she has been a great supporter.

and she deserves to be surprised.

George B. Thomas (40:40.118)
She deserves to have the best life ever

Liz Moorehead (40:40.537)
That's amazing.

Liz Moorehead (40:47.065)
Is there a past version of you who might have reacted differently?

George B. Thomas (40:50.87)
Oh yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, there's a guy who would have got really pissed and his ears would have been shut, but his mouth would have been opened. And I'm just not trying to be that guy anymore. Like I would rather my ears be open and my mouth be shut more than the other way around. But so that's the win I want to talk about is like, it's a relationship that matters.

Liz Moorehead (40:52.729)
Really?

George B. Thomas (41:18.038)
It really wasn't that difficult once I started putting the plans in place, but the difference that it made in the impact and the weekend that we were able to have, it was just...

It just felt comfortable. It just felt right. So that's the win that I'll share.

Liz Moorehead (41:38.394)
What I love about that too is that you not only surprised her, you not only did all of that for her, when we respond negatively to those situations, we rob ourselves of those opportunities for ourselves because she didn't just have the rose petals and the I love yous and the over, you had that, you got to enjoy that.

George B. Thomas (42:01.398)
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, oh I got to enjoy I got to enjoy her enjoying it that was what brought me great joy

Liz Moorehead (42:12.026)
You're also allowed to enjoy the rose petals in the restaurants.

George B. Thomas (42:14.006)
I did, I did, I did. Trust me, I was like, this is kind of fancy. Right. Yeah. Oh, it's everything on this episode going to be about self care. My goodness.

Liz Moorehead (42:17.978)
That's not selfish, that's self care.

Liz Moorehead (42:24.378)
You made me talk about a whole feeling in the last question. You made me talk about a whole feeling. You watched me give birth to a nine pound, nine ounce, whole ass feeling. So yes, you got that. I know you're not. I know, go ahead. Do it.

George B. Thomas (42:27.958)
Oh.

Yeah.

George B. Thomas (42:34.614)
Yeah, and I'm not done yet, by the way. Yeah, so.

George B. Thomas (42:46.006)
You did the greatest of like.

morning routine bits in our morning route, the monologue of the morning, like the toxic morning routines.

Liz Moorehead (42:54.521)
Oh, the great monologue.

George B. Thomas (43:02.07)
But I'm super curious because you were like an episode or so after that, you're like, yeah, I've realized maybe it's not a morning routine. It's like a daily thing maybe. And to me, my brain went to like, I'm not going to say anything right now, but man, that sounds wishy washy. And so I'm super curious, like have you landed on or not landed on your morning routines? Have you?

Liz Moorehead (43:21.657)
I know.

George B. Thomas (43:32.534)
change it from daily to morning, and if so, have you been able to be consistent in said whatever it is that you've now decided that you wanna do first thing when you wake up and greet the world for a new day?

Liz Moorehead (43:45.625)
Okay, so you may recall at the beginning of this episode, you talked about how one of the things you liked about this episode is how honest we are about some of the mistakes that we're making. So I would also like to say present, accounted for, I have arrived at class. Okay, jokes aside, this is a place where I am not doing well and two things are true.

George B. Thomas (43:56.342)
Yes, ma 'am.

George B. Thomas (44:00.79)
Hahaha!

Liz Moorehead (44:16.057)
I could understand why you heard what I was talking about in terms of daily routines as opposed to morning routines as wishy washy, but I'm gonna stand by that. So let's go back in time a little bit because when we had that conversation, one of the conversations, one of the things I talked about was that I noticed my morning routine was shifting drastically over the course of the past 18 months. And if you're new to this journey, let me just do a quick recap.

George B. Thomas (44:37.942)
You

Liz Moorehead (44:44.344)
Last year, after turning 40, I said, you know what, 2023 is the year I'm gonna keep it cool, not make a lot of big life decisions. I just started a business, got remarried, all these different things. So of course, I got a divorce, I moved, I blew up my entire life, did it intentionally because I knew that was the only. Go back and listen to the thousands of episodes in which I have talked about this. I don't feel the need to relitigate that part of my personal life right now. But these were the right choices I made for me, right? So.

George B. Thomas (45:08.118)
You

Liz Moorehead (45:14.135)
lots of elements in my life began to change. When I started last year, I had a morning routine that was sacred. I woke up at 5 .45 in the morning, I had journaling prompts, I had things that I needed to do, I was very, very regimented. As I started going through what was happening last year, it's not necessarily that things went off the rails, but I even got more cagey about that morning time, got more regimented about it.

George B. Thomas (45:38.326)
You

Liz Moorehead (45:43.832)
And then sometime last summer, everything kind of broke, which was around the time, actually no, we had this conversation in late fall. But it was around the time I wanted to start having this conversation because everything was kind of going off the rails. But morning routine was just one of the symptoms of that, right? I wasn't taking care of myself in a lot of ways and that all came to a head around my birthday. I got to 41.

George B. Thomas (46:07.606)
You

Liz Moorehead (46:09.304)
and I was sitting there going, okay, I get it. The 41st year was not what you expected, but it was the year you need to have. Get up off the ground. And that's when I implemented a health routine, which by the way, I have stuck with since then. I've stuck with working out or walking at least five or six times a week. I look wildly different. My clothes are fitting differently. I'm healthier than I've ever been. My cardio fitness is better than it's ever been. The morning routine,

George B. Thomas (46:35.862)
Congratulations. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (46:37.944)
Thank you, but the morning routine is still an unmitigated train wreck disaster. And one of the things I said during that episode though was that.

George B. Thomas (46:41.846)
Hehehehe

Liz Moorehead (46:48.665)
I came to the realization with the help of a therapist that part of the reason I was so good at the morning routine was because it was the only place I felt safe. I would get up so early in the morning and have all of these regimented things because it was the only part of my life or time of day where I had control. Because the situation I was in was not great. It wasn't great for either of us, but it was really bad. So I became...

George B. Thomas (46:58.326)
Mmm.

George B. Thomas (47:16.854)
you

Liz Moorehead (47:18.872)
hyper regimented in that one area of my life. So I gave myself permission last year, I think I told you this, to just kind of rest. That was really the morning routine I needed. But I will tell you sitting here today, and the reason I share all of that and why I say this is me not doing well, is that I'm out of that period now. This is where new and or future Liz is sitting here going like, old Liz has had enough naps.

George B. Thomas (47:19.798)
Good.

George B. Thomas (47:43.19)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (47:48.248)
what do you want your new morning to look like? And this is the question that I'm still challenging myself with because rest is super important to me, but I'm not sleeping as well as I used to. Even though I'm feeling more calm and less stressed, it's almost like I was living in a house where once a day something would fall off the wall and smash and break. And it did that for, let's say, 175 days in a row. And then one day,

George B. Thomas (47:51.67)
Yes.

Liz Moorehead (48:18.583)
Stuff stopped falling off the wall, and it hasn't fallen off the wall since. Now logically, I never wanted things to fall off the wall to begin with, but now the silence is more terrifying than the falling because now I'm waiting for something to fall again. So it's this weird kind of like stress vacuum where it's like I've gotten what I wanted, and now my body is regulating itself back to a place of safety. So when I think about my morning routine, the answer, George, no, I have not landed on anything.

George B. Thomas (48:31.958)
You

Liz Moorehead (48:48.759)
What I have landed on is that I want to do something as simple as I need to have a stable wake up time. I need to have a stable wake up time. Because I'm doing crazy things like, well, what about 5 a .m.? Liz, do you actually need to get up at five o 'clock in the morning? Do you actually need to, like, what do you actually need to accomplish in the morning? What do you actually want to do in the morning? What is important to you about that? I will say I miss having that me time.

you know, as I've integrated myself back into work and back into my life, from a healthy perspective now, I want that sacred me time again. But the answer is no, this is an area that is very, let's just call it under construction. You know, we're marketers, let's brand it that way. It's under construction. So there's your answer.

George B. Thomas (49:32.118)
There. Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting to hear you because my brain is screaming right now. When chaos becomes comfortable, comfort becomes chaotic. And it's, yeah, it's just, it's crazy. And Liz, just so you know, the next check -in that we have, I'm going to ask this same exact question again.

Liz Moorehead (49:45.685)
Uh huh, and I need to be uncomfortable with that.

Liz Moorehead (49:59.093)
I know. Here's what I will say to you though, in light of what you just said.

I do not want to be comfortable with chaos. Like that is how I ended up exactly where I was. Thank you for that thinly veiled threat, because that will definitely get me off my ass to work on this. And it's not that I haven't been trying, but I'll stand by what I said. The reason why I said I don't think the daily routine thing is necessarily wishy washy is because I was trying to cram too much in.

George B. Thomas (50:21.174)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (50:32.436)
I was basically living, I would encourage everybody to go back and listen to that episode of morning routines because I basically give this monologue where I pulled together legitimate actual advice about what people say should be in these perfect morning routines. And it ranged from forest bathing, ice bath plunges, eating breakfast but not eating, your fasting.

working on work, not working on work, meditating, prayer, morning prayers, it's all these different things. We are set up for failure depending on if you're listening to everyone or no one, it does not matter. And I was noticing, yeah, yeah.

George B. Thomas (50:59.318)
Heheheheh

George B. Thomas (51:07.446)
Yeah, go listen to, oops, sorry, go listen to episode 24. That's the one on toxic morning routines. It's amazing.

Liz Moorehead (51:16.212)
Yeah, so one of the reasons why I've been sticking with my health routine so well is because I stopped forcing it to be in the mornings. I allowed myself to look at my weeks and say, on Mondays and Wednesdays, it makes the most sense to have it early in the day. But based on my meetings and the way they work on the other days, it makes it more sense to have it in the evenings. So as I've done that, I have stuck with, I have a duolingo streak that's 108 days, right? Your girl's learning German. Why? I'm not going to Germany. I picked German because, okay, so,

George B. Thomas (51:40.022)
Nice.

Liz Moorehead (51:45.172)
I'm Italian, but I can't roll my Rs. I've accepted about myself, I have moved on. I'm reading every day and I am meditating every day, but it works better for me during the middle of the workday when I tend to feel my most anxiety arise. So that's what I mean when I said, am I putting the right routines in the morning? So by shifting those into the afternoon or other parts of the day, now I can think about things like, you know what I used to love doing in the morning that really helped? Journaling.

George B. Thomas (51:54.774)
Nice.

George B. Thomas (51:59.414)
Mmm. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (52:13.781)
You know, not everything has to be in the morning. All right, George, you caught me. Now your turn. Because this is the one I've been waiting for. I'm sure you saw it in the outline. It's the biggest one. The listeners at home, he already has his head on his mic and he's shaking his head. I've never been more proud. All right, George. Yeah, well, mm -hmm. In the past couple of months, George.

George B. Thomas (52:13.974)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

George B. Thomas (52:36.694)
I don't want to do this anymore.

Liz Moorehead (52:45.267)
Actually, note before I ask this question, this isn't a trap. This is an honest question. Because I've watched you for the past couple of months. You've been racing around with deadlines and big projects and family vacations, unexpected happenings, both personal and professional in your life, more so than usual. And I know you've been working hard to set better boundaries for yourself, time where you're taking meaningful rest. And I want to know how...

setting those boundaries for yourself is going and what has been a wild spring for you. What's going well? What needs to improve?

George B. Thomas (53:26.518)
We don't need those stinking boundaries. Nah, I'm like, this is gonna be the shortest answer ever. Like I have sucked the big kahuna on setting boundaries. Like don't get me wrong. I have made a change. Like for instance, Saturday, I made sure to carve some time out to just sit on my back porch.

Liz Moorehead (53:26.707)
Oh Jesus.

George B. Thomas (53:55.542)
play with the dog, talk to the wife, Sunday, you know, hung out with friends. But that's this weekend. Before that, oh my God, like, it was just horrible. Loving every minute of what I was doing, by the way, so don't get me wrong there. But there was, you know, other than the occasional I'm gonna escape for a episode of Star Trek,

because I'm trying to go through it in chronological order because I was never a Trekkie. I was always more of like a Star Wars, Marvel, but I've decided to give it its due. Other than escaping for like a little bit of that. Like, listen, earlier on the podcast, I literally said, hey, Friday and Saturday, I did a 45 minute walk and actually taught myself something for which, by the way, I've been learning things along the way through all of this. So don't get that wrong either. But, but Liz, boundaries?

Liz Moorehead (54:48.563)
Hehehehe

George B. Thomas (54:51.958)
We don't need no stinking, I need to get better at it.

Liz Moorehead (54:56.435)
Do you wanna know something funny, George? Do you know how sometimes I make no secret of the fact that I ask you trick questions? So what's funny is this is a trick question, but in a good way, I'm giving you a present. So I knew you were gonna be actively hard on yourself in the answer to this question. So I am here to tell you you are doing better than you think you are.

George B. Thomas (54:58.006)
What?

George B. Thomas (55:03.03)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (55:07.318)
Yeah. Hmm.

George B. Thomas (55:17.494)
Uh, here we go. This is like the third time people are gonna go against what my brain says. Okay, Liz. That's, that's fine. Okay, go ahead. No, it's funny because this... Look, listen, I look for patterns in life. And I already alluded to that there was like twice in the past like four to five days where I'm like, hm. Hm. Go, but go ahead. Go ahead, be nice, because I kind of like when people are nice to me.

Liz Moorehead (55:22.259)
I'm so sorry I'm about to tell you something nice. Oh my God, I'm the worst. Okay, thank you.

Liz Moorehead (55:32.211)
So do I.

Liz Moorehead (55:45.299)
So George, I would say it's pretty fair to say that we rank in each other's like maybe top five people of who we talk to on a daily basis, like seven days, yeah. Do you know what I've noticed? You have gotten a lot better about when you are off. And I found it fascinating that it was even more apparent over this past month and a half or so when we were working on this website project.

George B. Thomas (55:51.766)
Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, without a doubt.

Liz Moorehead (56:10.995)
You and I would say things to each other like we are purposely going to be online on Saturday. We are purposely going to be here, whatever. And do you know what you didn't do? Sure, you were showing up six days a week instead of seven, but we were in the middle of a massive website launch. You had family unexpectedly out. And that's important because you operate with a theme, which is your family team with the company, right? We had lots of stuff going on, but you know what I've noticed? I am having less and less.

George B. Thomas (56:34.486)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (56:41.942)
Hmm. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (56:42.389)
nighttime outreach or outreach when you are off. So you're getting better at drawing the lines. You not only are not available when you are, you vanish off the face of the earth. Not in a bad way, like I knew if I needed something, like if I really needed you, I could reach out to you. But what, no, but I will tell you there is a distinct difference. Now I know some of that has to do with like,

George B. Thomas (56:47.638)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (56:57.622)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (57:02.038)
Yeah, there's a Batphone.

Liz Moorehead (57:10.805)
We've gotten better at communicating. There's a lot of other stuff going on. But I want to be clear, I am seeing more of a delineation. Also, when was that 23rd anniversary?

George B. Thomas (57:23.542)
Oh, March, March, yeah.

Liz Moorehead (57:25.621)
Cause it wasn't a -

Yeah, so right in the middle of the big website. Launch. So you took time away.

George B. Thomas (57:31.03)
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. My wife even asked me, my wife even asked me, she said, oh, I forgot about this part. She goes, do we need to cancel our trip so that you can get the website launched? And I said, no, you are more important than any website I will ever build.

Liz Moorehead (57:39.413)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (57:48.533)
And we still got that website launched on time.

George B. Thomas (57:50.006)
And we still got the website launched. Yes. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (57:52.821)
George, so I'm gonna ask you this question again. How's it going?

George B. Thomas (57:55.766)
Oh God.

George B. Thomas (57:59.798)
It's going great, Liz. Like I'm getting really good at like when I'm off, I'm off and I don't know. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to take away my answer. Like, yes, I I am doing better. I am doing better. And I will say that you are leaning into or at least vocalizing when I won't vocalize it, that there is this thing that I am attempting to do. And I mean it in the nicest way possible. My job.

Liz Moorehead (58:08.501)
You're doing better. You're doing better.

George B. Thomas (58:29.174)
deals with being online. My job deals with digital marketing, sales, operations, business coaching. I'm on Zoom calls, I'm building websites, I'm doing automated workflows, we're creating podcasts.

George B. Thomas (58:54.998)
When I'm off...

I wanna be like the most farmer, hermit, no technology, human possible. Like.

Liz Moorehead (59:02.293)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (59:10.325)
George, I relate to that deeply. When I'm offline, I'm a professional writer and I want to be functionally illiterate. And I tell people that. I look forward to doing nothing for you. I've said that to clients. What are you doing this weekend? Well, number one, looking forward to doing nothing for you tomorrow. Like absolutely nothing, zero, nothing.

George B. Thomas (59:10.646)
I just... I just...

I just... Yeah.

George B. Thomas (59:22.678)
Yes, yeah, yeah. And so I am almost like ghosting the internet, ghosting like Slack, ghosting email as much as humanly possible. I am actively trying to get better at that.

I think it's just a lot healthier, to be honest with you.

Liz Moorehead (59:46.612)
I love that. That makes me happy.

George B. Thomas (59:48.054)
Oh, okay. Thank God it's not my turn anymore. All right.

Liz Moorehead (59:51.701)
Oh good, yay.

George B. Thomas (59:53.654)
So, um...

Hmm. I really was a butt head when I put these questions together, but I didn't think I was actually being a butt head when I put these questions together. So Liz, we had an episode on episode 22. It was on victim versus victor mentality, knowing and living the difference.

Liz Moorehead (01:00:12.82)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:00:16.916)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (01:00:22.87)
So how do you think if you if you were me right now, you would, by the way, be leaning your forehead on your microphone, like saying, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, yeah, listeners, you can't see this, but I'm like, she does not want to be in the room right now. But.

Liz Moorehead (01:00:31.667)
I'm currently organizing post -it notes on my desk in a way that nobody needs to organize them.

Liz Moorehead (01:00:41.94)
why you're asking this question. This is hurtful.

George B. Thomas (01:00:44.118)
So Liz, here's the thing. How do you think the victim versus victor conversation has shaped the new Liz that you're starting to talk about? How has it impacted her showing up on a daily basis?

Liz Moorehead (01:01:01.652)
She's doing great. She's thriving. Can't you tell? Can't you tell she's doing great? No, no, this is no, no, no, no. All jokes aside. This makes me uncomfortable, similar to the seasons of life conversation in that it is uncomfortable because it is the thing that I'm putting a lot of focus on.

George B. Thomas (01:01:06.806)
Love it if that's your answer.

Liz Moorehead (01:01:27.06)
It's probably an area where I am feeling the most growth, but that's because it's an uncomfortable area of growth for me. So I've already talked a bit on this episode about what that this past year has looked like and what the years preceding it looks like and da da da da da. And you know how I struggled to feel like someone who was a meaningful contributor to the lives of others, a person of value. So.

George B. Thomas (01:01:52.63)
You

Liz Moorehead (01:01:56.852)
When we had that conversation of victim versus victor mentality, the not superficial way, but the top level, surface level way that manifests is usually either someone saying, I am the architect of my own destiny. I accept and own with accountability and responsibility all the things that happen in my life, right? With the clear exceptions of somebody is an actual a -hole to you, like you hold them accountable and responsible.

George B. Thomas (01:02:22.806)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:02:25.876)
Whereas a victim is in the posture of my life is happening to me. Things are happening to me. Everything is evidence of the fact that something is happening within me, right?

Liz Moorehead (01:02:46.227)
My Victor version of this was a little, my victim versus Victor is a little bit different. It took me a while to realize that I had a different version. It took me a little while, sorry, I wanna take that one more time. I had a notification that came on in my headphone, Seth.

George B. Thomas (01:02:54.07)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:03:06.772)
It took me a while to realize that I had a victim mentality, but in a different kind of way.

And in many ways, I was both the victim and the victor at the same time. But it was I was a victor in a very distorted and self -destructive way because I was taking too much accountability and responsibility for things I shouldn't have owned. And I was a victim in that it's not that I was sitting here saying everything is happening to me. I was acting as if.

George B. Thomas (01:03:21.206)
Oh, go on.

Liz Moorehead (01:03:41.299)
well, I'm just a bringer of doom and gloom and failure and everything I touch turns to crap. So it was this weird thing where I'm like, there is a different way to look at victim and victor. So that has helped me actually quite a bit in that.

When you're taking responsibility for everything and the wrong things, it means when you're actually fucking up or not doing something correctly, you're not actually being accountable and responsible for it because it just goes into the symphony of crap that is your life. It makes it really hard for you to actually be present and show up in the accountable and responsible way that you need to.

George B. Thomas (01:04:14.038)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:04:24.659)
And I also just had to get over the fact that like, I think for a while I felt like the victim.

perpetrating my own crimes because I deserved to be the victim and I didn't. So that, that's how that's shaped the way I'm viewing the world right now, right? You know, it's...

George B. Thomas (01:04:36.214)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:04:49.939)
it wasn't a healthy way for me to live. I'm still working through a lot of it. It's because the micro moments is where this is gonna matter the most, right? Like you can have these big profound realizations and I'm walking this fine line right now where I don't wanna end up back in the scenario where I was hyper regimented, you know, taking myself to court as judge, jury and executioner over every micro decision I'm making, but it's making sure that like,

George B. Thomas (01:04:52.438)
Mm.

George B. Thomas (01:04:56.118)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (01:05:16.118)
Mm. Mm.

Liz Moorehead (01:05:18.803)
to the best of my ability, I'm trying to manifest this in the small decisions I'm making in my life. It's not perfect, but it's getting better. It's like there's this cloud and I've been walking through this fog of just like not seeing myself clearly, not seeing how I'm showing up clearly. You know, when we had that conversation, victim versus victor, it was such a strange conversation because I could feel in my inner cupcake, my intuition, I'm like, I'm not nailing this.

But part of it just wasn't resonating for me, because I wasn't walking around acting like the world did this to me. But I also knew I wasn't showing up accountability -wise and responsibility -wise the way I needed to. And so it really forced me to sit with the understanding of victim and victor can come in different shades. I was a victim because I was just walking around like a Cassandra in the Greek tragedy, who is just the harbinger of all things terrible.

because I allowed to believe those stories about myself. And so I acted accordingly.

So there you go, there's your honest answer. That's why I was organizing the Post -it notes on my desks.

George B. Thomas (01:06:25.59)
It's so good stuff though. It's... It's good stuff.

Liz Moorehead (01:06:28.468)
Good stuff.

George B. Thomas (01:06:32.63)
I just, I feel like there's a hundred thousand million people that will hear that and resonate with their own lives and the journey that they're on. Yeah, that's good stuff.

Liz Moorehead (01:06:46.003)
I love that. So, okay. I've already brought it up a couple times, but yeah. Guess who's back, back again. Self -care is back. Tell a friend, because I still cannot get over how initially resistant you were to this topic, how you were initially resistant to having the conversation, because I knew that you were like a little bit weird about it when you sent me that Slack saying, so how do you feel about the outline? I'm like, I feel great, George. Talk to you Monday.

George B. Thomas (01:06:49.814)
Ah, yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:07:14.578)
But it wasn't until we actually had the conversation that you told me, you know, I don't get why we're talking about it, how meaningful it will actually be. But what I will give you credit for is you really threw yourself into the journey. You didn't push back when I said, hey, I think this is great talk to you Monday. Like you really threw yourself into it. And you actually talked about how that topic ended up having a much greater impact on you than expected. So I'm curious. It's been.

George B. Thomas (01:07:27.606)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:07:43.218)
It's been a couple months since we had that conversation. How has your relationship with self -care shifted since then, if at all? Are you making different choices? Is it still something you're struggling to wrap your head around? Where are you at with it?

George B. Thomas (01:07:55.606)
Yeah, I mean, I'm bathing and brushing my teeth. So, you know, we're winning. We're winning. Now, so here's the thing. But let's back up for a second, because I want people to understand my hesitation in the topic was that when doing initial research, it was the wrong effing conversation that almost everybody on the internet was having. Like, it was so...

Liz Moorehead (01:07:58.737)
Oh, okay, that's called survival. That's good. I mean, your dentist is happy.

George B. Thomas (01:08:24.63)
fake and surface level and hype you up for just a line of BS of products that you want to buy or sell. And I was like, why in God's name are we talking about this? Is this is not a root fundamental thing? And then it hit me.

Liz Moorehead (01:08:26.289)
Mm -hmm.

George B. Thomas (01:08:49.334)
That's why we need to talk about it in the way that we'll talk about it. That's why we need to unpack it from our brain in the way that we think about it or will think about it or are choosing to at least start the journey to think about it. And Liz, the biggest thing is that I have started to use a word that I historically had demonized of this word is not allowed in my life.

But I have allowed that word to be used in a positive way ever since that episode. Because you asked me in that episode, or said something in that episode about self -care and selfishness. And again, the word selfishness for me has always been like, nope, it's about servanthood, it's about helping others, it's about showing up with love and empathy.

But wow.

Are you being selfish enough in a positive way to do that for yourself? Are you showing up for yourself? Are you giving yourself love? Are you being empathetic to who you are as a human? Are you being selfish enough to block out the time in the day to learn something new? Are you selfish enough to take the time to actually do your meditation and your Bible reading? Are you being selfish enough because the world will take all of your time?

The family will take all of your time. Friends will take all of your time. And therefore, you don't have any ability to say, I need these things in my life so that my cranium is not a path of mental landmines that when I'm trying to walk through it are going to explode. And so I...

George B. Thomas (01:10:51.606)
I have literally been on this journey of what are the places in my life that I need to insert selfishness as a positive term to the things that I need to make sure happen on a daily, weekly or monthly basis so that I wake up in the morning and go, you're freaking killing it, bro. You are a good human. Like you are doing good things and you treat yourself well too. And you've done this and you've done that. And like,

So for me, it's just been this really unique new journey with self -awareness and being selfish to give myself the things that I so freely give to others along this journey I'm on.

Liz Moorehead (01:11:42.77)
me so happy.

George B. Thomas (01:11:44.47)
It's a difficult journey. I mean, I'm happy too, don't get me wrong, but it is a very unique journey. And if you're listening to this and you struggle with this idea of self -care, because you don't even believe or agree with what you've seen on the internet, then you need to go into your own brain.

or go into the episode that we did and really unpack what it, what that term means for you and how you can implement it because it really is a mental game changer to this word right here. The priority in which you give the things that come down the stream of your life.

Liz Moorehead (01:12:38.738)
I love that.

George B. Thomas (01:12:44.214)
you love that? Okay, you know what I love?

Liz Moorehead (01:12:47.858)
What? Asking me questions that make me uncomfortable? Okay. Okay.

George B. Thomas (01:12:49.91)
I do. I love asking questions that make you uncomfortable. This one was because I know historically I have had my own journey where I broke my brain based on the topic that I'm going to ask you the question around. Where I much like earlier when you're like, I had to just back off of like daily, you know, morning rituals because it was so like I growth minded myself to like where I broke my cranium. So I was like, I need to see how Liz is doing on this journey that she's been on.

So how are you fostering a growth mindset? And here's the important part, in a healthy way, are there tools that you've put into place, mindsets, best practices, methodologies, like how is Liz and the fostering a growth mindset journey going?

Liz Moorehead (01:13:42.834)
You know, the funny thing is when I first saw that question, it was a patented, good job, this is a Liz grenade. Because at first I'm like, what? What is this question? Okay, we only have a few questions we get to ask each other, and this is one you're choosing, okay, all right, fine, whatever, whatever. And then I sat with it.

George B. Thomas (01:14:02.582)
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

George B. Thomas (01:14:09.558)
Oh, I love that sound right there. Oh, that means we're going somewhere, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to go somewhere, so buckle up.

Liz Moorehead (01:14:09.618)
And I realized, I realized.

Liz Moorehead (01:14:17.778)
Well, because originally I was like, George, it's not like I'm someone who's ever been needed to be convinced that I needed a growth mindset. You know, one of the things that bonded us together is that I wouldn't call a self -improvement junkies by any stretch of the imagination, but like we've always been growth minded. You know, we are always in pursuit of newer ideas, you know, ways to improve ourselves. You know, the whole reason.

last year even happened was because the pain were the direct symptoms of me choosing the right things. It was doing what was right, even if it was hard, and especially if it was hard.

to your point.

A growth mindset can easily become a toxic wasteland if you are not careful. And I've already alluded to this somewhat throughout my answers to the other questions. How am I fostering a growth mindset in a healthy way? By realizing it actually needs to be healthy. Because I was leaning into growth oriented topics for so long because I absolutely despised myself when I was trying to erase who I was and become someone wholly new.

And that is not healthy. I am not someone who needs to be loathed. And the sad part, at least for me, and I say it's sad because I look back at how mean to myself I've been over the years, is that I was growing as a means to erase the failure.

Liz Moorehead (01:16:01.138)
to become, I thought I had to become someone wholly different in order to grow and to be of value. So.

How have I fostered a growth mindset in a healthy way? By making it healthy, by focusing on the conversations we've had today around my version of victim versus Victor, by thinking about what my morning routines actually were. And not being so damn hard on myself, I did not realize how much I disliked myself. I had trained myself to think.

I spent most of last year really thinking like, is there anything worth saving here? Like it went to some pretty dark places. And then I got to the point where I'm like, well, if there's nothing worth saving, then I just have to start over from scratch and become someone different. Like this is not, I can't go back to where I was. I can't be the person who was so afraid of hurting myself that I hurt myself and I hurt other people.

George B. Thomas (01:16:47.894)
Mm.

Liz Moorehead (01:17:11.538)
Like I was in a tremendous place of a lot of pain. I was very afraid.

So how am I fostering it? By actually making the healthy part a priority by taking time to honor the parts of myself that I do like by focusing on the wins that I have and not looking at every mistake as some sort of indictment of my character, which is something I used to do a lot. Like I couldn't.

George B. Thomas (01:17:29.846)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:17:42.355)
I would have this weird kind of like checks and balances system where I would say, man, I did really well at this one thing. But then immediately my brain went, well, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't do this and you didn't do that. So really, did you actually win and at what cost?

What's gonna happen when people find out? It's not like I was hiding anything significant. It's just like, that was where my growth mindset was. I didn't have a growth mindset. I had a Liz Erasure mindset, and that is not healthy. That is not healthy. And if you're sitting here listening to this right now, and any part of that is resonating with you, you gotta get good with yourself first. You can't grow scorched, parched earth with no water.

George B. Thomas (01:17:59.798)
Mmm.

George B. Thomas (01:18:09.142)
OOOO

George B. Thomas (01:18:25.27)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:18:25.586)
Like there's nothing to grow.

Pouring water on cement will get you nowhere. You'll just become a bigger rock.

George B. Thomas (01:18:34.582)
Oh, man. I'm first of all, I'm proud of you. Second of all, my brain goes to episode 15, the power of forgiveness and episode 14, the power of forgiveness. What's the difference, George? Why were there two episodes?

Liz Moorehead (01:18:39.314)
Thanks.

George B. Thomas (01:18:52.918)
The first one is what it means to forgive others. Maybe the most important one though is like forgiving ourselves. Anyway, I'm proud of you.

Liz Moorehead (01:19:04.113)
Thank you. Thanks for that question, monster. All right, last question.

George B. Thomas (01:19:07.318)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yes.

Liz Moorehead (01:19:11.219)
I'm gonna go first on this one. Whatever. If we could each, because I can, because you know, I write the outlines. If we could each only pick one thing to focus on until our next check -in that is the most important thing or has the potential to have the greatest impact in our lives, were we to make that change, no matter how small, what would we choose?

George B. Thomas (01:19:12.918)
Oh, okay. Because you can.

Mm -hmm. Yep, you do.

Liz Moorehead (01:19:35.699)
I'm not picking this one because you said you're gonna ask me this question exactly the same again when we do this check -in again in six months. But because I genuinely believe it has the potential for the greatest impact, and that's my morning routine. And it's not because the morning routine is necessarily so important, it's what it represents. I'm a firm believer that when you start your day off the right way, things tend to just kinda, I mean, it's not always gonna be perfect.

But when you feel more in control of your mornings and how you begin your days, you don't spend your life in a day where you feel like you're constantly chasing it. So I want to set the tone for my own days again, which sets the tone for my own life again. I think that's really important. And as we had the conversations around self -care and taking care of myself and honoring myself and doing my best not to water cement and to water actual fertile earth, right?

George B. Thomas (01:20:12.726)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:20:38.932)
What are the ways that I can honor and cultivate myself in the morning? What are the ways in which I can feel more enriched in the mornings? Because I think sometimes when we talk about the morning routine, it can feel like homework, right? And I know it's six, I don't want to look back six months from now and say that was the easy throwaway answer I could have given based on what the conversation was, but it's really important to me because when I think about,

my Beyond Your Default journey.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:12.915)
I spend so much time worrying how I'm letting down other people.

George B. Thomas (01:21:18.998)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:19.092)
all the time. Shit. I'm crying.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:25.171)
and it's time I stopped letting myself down.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:31.444)
And I'm not saying that in the victim way that I was talking about earlier. I am someone worthy of having space.

George B. Thomas (01:21:38.966)
Yes. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:40.979)
and time to honor myself. So that's where I am. Well, we'll see how it goes in six months.

George B. Thomas (01:21:43.702)
Yeah, I love that. I can't wait to ask that question again. Get it together. You know it's coming. Yeah. It's interesting. Like.

Liz Moorehead (01:21:51.571)
Yay. The fact that you said that by the way, like three times, I'm like, bitch, get it together. You have homework. Uh -huh.

George B. Thomas (01:22:10.838)
So Liz, you know how usually you ask me like, what's the one thing you want to share with? And I'm like, here are the five things that I want to. I don't have that problem this time. I don't have that problem this time. I, I. Yeah. Yeah. My, my one thing that I need to focus on more than anything else.

Liz Moorehead (01:22:19.026)
Mm -hmm.

Liz Moorehead (01:22:22.609)
What?

Yay, it only took me almost a year or more to get you to say one thing.

George B. Thomas (01:22:36.374)
until our next check -in and beyond that by the way, but I'll use our next check -in to be the catalyst for me to be like, ooh, I know this question is coming. I need to focus on my health. I've been on a real interesting journey where a couple of years ago I weighed 320 pounds and

I got diagnosed with RA and I started walking and I started eating right and I went down to 254 pounds, which for me was like amazing. 79 pounds in like nine months.

George B. Thomas (01:23:23.382)
I need to focus on my health. This is the... The reason why is I know that it affects my mental health. I know it affects the way that I am interacting with the world. I know it is the demon that I historically have not been able to slay, but know I have been able to slay it because of the journey that I had with the 79 pounds that I lost.

I know I need to be selfish and go for the walks. I need to be selfish with the time and prep the food. I need to be selfish and slap myself across the face when I go to grab a bowl of chips. Or ice cream. Oh god, I love ice cream. I'm sorry, ice cream. Ice cream, we're gonna have to break up. I'm sorry. But in all seriousness, I need to focus on my health. I...

Liz Moorehead (01:24:10.448)
Ice cream's the jam. Ice cream is so good.

George B. Thomas (01:24:22.422)
now weigh 311 pounds so I have not reached my top weight that I was. I don't want to reach my top weight.

I don't want to show up at inbound in five months and be the guy that I am right now.

hell, I don't want to get five years down the road and physically be the guy that I am right now or a guy that's worse than I am right now. And so I have to put a stake in the ground. And again, I know this rhymes with what I talked about earlier. And now you'll understand why I was so freaking excited when a friend said, what do you guys think about meeting at seven o 'clock in the morning and going on walks? Because for me, this was a physical hand up.

And my friend didn't even know that it was a hand up that he was giving me in that moment.

And so between now and our next check -in, my journey, my beyond the default will be around my health and around the amount of weight that I can lose in a healthy way. By the way, I'm not going to go get a medication or starve myself or do a, you know, seven point plan to summer body fat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

Liz Moorehead (01:25:40.431)
Uh -uh.

George B. Thomas (01:25:51.382)
health.

Liz Moorehead (01:25:54.191)
I love that.

George B. Thomas (01:25:54.326)
That's my journey beyond the default.

can help you appreciate your own value and achievements chipping away at those imposter feelings and giving your self -esteem a nice little boost as you navigate through this life beyond your default.Liz Moorehead (00:02.863)

Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your host, Liz Moorhead, and as always, I'm joined by the one and only George B. Thomas. How the heck are you this morning, buddy? Which, of course, I ask you right when you're taking a sip of coffee. Of course.

 

George B. Thomas (00:09.686)

But it's all good. It's all good. Is it fair to say that I'm scared crapless? I mean, today is a check -in day and check -in days are always interesting because you've either done the things that you wanted to do.

 

Liz Moorehead (00:22.095)

Go on.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

George B. Thomas (00:32.278)

or you haven't done the things that you wanna do. And you have two choices. You can be a human who gets on a mic and lies and says, I have done all the things and my life is absolutely amazing. Or you can be the honest human and learn from your mistakes and hopefully people learn from your mistakes as well. But that takes vulnerability, which by the way is probably a completely different episode. Anyway.

 

Liz Moorehead (00:57.038)

We need to have a conversation about vulnerability. You know what? All right, coming soon to a podcast near you. But I love what you said there, George, because if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you've likely heard both George and myself reinforce this idea that we're not having any of these conversations that we have with you from a place of feeling or acting as if we've seen it all and we've learned it all.

 

George B. Thomas (01:00.438)

Yes, at some point.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:26.798)

And we've conquered it all. And it couldn't be more opposite. Are we your guides? Yes. We're here to help you along your way as you make your way through your own beyond your default journey. But we're also guides who are we're on this path with you because we're making the same journey for ourselves. So we have the same faults, the same failures, the same lessons learned. And by the way, if this is your first episode with us now, now, you know, congratulations. Hello. Welcome.

 

George B. Thomas (01:38.39)

And I'm sorry, because you... If it is your first episode, I'm sorry, because you're probably diving right into about the 15 -foot side of the...

 

Liz Moorehead (01:56.749)

Hahaha!

 

George B. Thomas (02:06.838)

beyond your default swimming pool. So if it gets scary and you need a life vest or floaties at any point in time, just back up to a different episode and then work your way to this.

 

Liz Moorehead (02:17.837)

Well, yeah, because this episode is different from our usual runs, right? Periodically, you and I set aside an episode to check in with each other. We ask each other questions about specific topics we've covered over this podcast with you all. And we speak honestly about our wins and our struggles and the surprises we've encountered along the way. Now, here's what's crazy. I didn't realize it was so long ago, but the last time we checked in with each other was right.

 

before Thanksgiving, which was almost six freaking months ago. Can you believe that?

 

George B. Thomas (02:50.582)

I can't believe it and actually my coffee mug Liz thinks that that's just crazy. Now, no listeners, you can't, you can't see what I just did, but I literally lifted up my mock, my coffee mug, which today I just kind of grabbed it real quick. Didn't realize what it said, but it literally says the word crazy on it. So now you know why Liz was laughing like I'm an idiot.

 

Liz Moorehead (02:57.645)

Oh my god.

 

Liz Moorehead (03:17.518)

You're not an idiot. It's just something I could see the dad joke purveyor in you saying, I'm going to pick this mug and I'm going to wait for that moment. That moment. All right. So I want to take us back in time before we start our conversation today. I want to share a couple of highlights from our check -in six months ago. So George, back then, your big focus, according to you, was continuing to cultivate the close and

 

George B. Thomas (03:22.39)

Yes, it was coming out. That moment.

 

Liz Moorehead (03:45.581)

purposeful circle of friends, family members, and others as a means to stay grounded. You also talked about that while you were excited about the future and what it could hold, you were also looking at it with a little dose of fear. And I quote, I want to be careful not to lose myself in this process. And so I'm always kind of like, am I doing too much? Am I doing too little?

 

And again, that anxiety and the need for deep breaths and meditation shows up. And I'm like, all right, dude, man, just quit freaking overthinking it and just like, let it be organic, but is it organic enough? And then the cycle starts all over again. Now I'm not singling you out. I'm now gonna share where I was because your girl Liz was in a state. Personally, I was talking about how I was struggling to be more open and trusting with people, but I was.

 

getting better at it. I don't know. I read through that whole conversation. I was like, Liz, are you sure you get maybe maybe self awareness is like possession and that it's nine tenths of the law. I have no idea. But it's

 

George B. Thomas (04:47.414)

Who is that human?

 

George B. Thomas (04:55.638)

It's interesting though, Liz, but you say self -awareness, but I'm sure that we're going to circle around into where you put me and what you said. I got a smack in the face yesterday when I was hanging out with people. I got a smack in the face late last week when I was on a call with somebody and both rhymed to the, to the, to the tune of

 

Liz Moorehead (05:05.357)

Mm -hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (05:20.301)

OOOO

 

George B. Thomas (05:23.254)

We don't think you know who you are. Anyway, continue on with where you are at.

 

Liz Moorehead (05:31.147)

Oh, that's gonna be interesting. So my particular niche six months ago was centered around that aspect of being opening and trusting, but also really struggling and working through self -forgiveness and how that was my primary focus after what was a very challenging year where I made a lot of changes in my life. I made a lot of mistakes and I was also learning to.

 

quite frankly get to know a very new version of me who wanted more and who wanted better and I would say in the right ways. So here's a little quote of where I was. I think one of the things that has been the most illuminating is realizing that sometimes I was holding myself accountable for things that I did not need to hold myself accountable for. That I was making myself responsible for the feelings of other people and not understanding that I am not responsible for everything. Because that's how I was trained to think growing up and I've learned that

 

George B. Thomas (06:24.15)

Just a tiny bit.

 

Liz Moorehead (06:26.666)

Self -forgiveness is hard, but you also have to make sure that you are looking at your life clearly. So since that conversation, we've grown quite a bit. We've also talked about a lot of new topics since then. Just a scotch, just a smidge, right? Just, just a scotch. We've talked about imposter syndrome. We've talked about being present. We've talked about finding happiness when all feels lost. We've talked about seasons of life.

 

our relationship with failure, setting healthy boundaries, toxic morning routine myths, making the choice to embody a victor mentality, anger, growth, mindsets, so much more. So in this episode, our second installment of Work in Progress, we're gonna grill each other a little bit. I'm gonna ask George some questions about his Beyond Your Default journey, and you get to do the same for me. But first, George's.

 

George B. Thomas (07:09.974)

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

 

George B. Thomas (07:23.254)

I'm excited about that part. The part where I get to ask the questions, not the other.

 

Liz Moorehead (07:25.257)

I'm a little curious. Yeah. Yeah, which is why exactly we're gonna start with you, George. I'm a little curious. As you heard me share about where you were six months ago, what do you wish you could go back and tell yourself during that first check -in?

 

George B. Thomas (07:47.126)

So.

 

I think I would go back and tell myself maybe a couple things.

 

The first thing I would probably tell myself is make sure you're focused on the right things. And what I mean by that is not what you think are the right things, but taking the time to actually figure out what the right things are to be focused on. Because I think sometimes I worry and focus on things that the external world

 

have default states of, well, of course you wouldn't do that. And of course you would be this way. And of course this is the action that would be taken. And of course you're killing it. Meanwhile, I'm over here focusing on, well.

 

not the right things. So that's the that's the first thing that I would probably tell myself is like, if you could free yourself from these micro things that you allow yourself to get lost in, this will give you the time to focus on the unlock secrets of your life and other people's lives around you. The other thing that I would probably tell myself at that first check in.

 

George B. Thomas (09:11.414)

is just because you're doing good doesn't mean you'll continue to do good. So how about you focus on how to consistently do and be good.

 

Liz Moorehead (09:23.819)

Can you be specific when you say do good, what does that mean?

 

George B. Thomas (09:25.302)

Mm.

 

So when we hit that other check -in, I was doing my morning meditation, my morning Bible reading, had like this daily regimented, woke up, took a shower, got dressed, sat down, had these moments and I felt really good. And I had also started back on this, and I've done this now about four times, this

 

Okay, it's time to get back on the healthy George kick. It's time to get back on the let's start doing walks kick. And I was right in the mode in that check in of kind of both of these items like happening and going. And then it was shortly after that, I think I went on vacation and it was like, it all just came crumbling down because of the lack of consistency.

 

And so I feel like since the last check -in in this check -in right here, which by the way, I can't believe we're recording episode 37. It's freaking mind blowing to me. Considering this is a weekly podcast and I think maybe we've missed one or two, maybe one week, but anyway, not why we're here. And so.

 

Liz Moorehead (10:37.033)

Oh no!

 

George B. Thomas (10:51.606)

I just...

 

George B. Thomas (10:56.79)

I am fundamentally sick and tired of my own excuses. There is no easy way to put it other than that right there of like, dude, just quit being a dick and do the things that you know you're supposed to do in the morning. And so I'm excited because we're sitting here on this check -in and yesterday, it's funny because one of the things you talked about is cultivating a group of close friends and people to go on the journey with. And yesterday we literally had a half day where,

 

We were at the pool. We were hanging out with friends over at their house. Multiple sets of families were together. And one of my buddies was like, Hey, what do you guys think about waking up at seven o 'clock? And then he paused. He goes, George, when do you wake up? And I said, well, I wake up at five 15. He goes, nevermind. Let me go with my original thought. He goes, what do you guys think about waking up and meeting at seven o 'clock to go for morning walks?

 

And this is like a group of men. I immediately said, yes, like, yes, let's do this because it's the accountability that I may have been seeking to have the consistency that I need so that I can mentally check off in my brain. I did this thing. I feel good about myself. I am moving in a right and good direction. So that's what I mean by good and continuing to stay in that vein. Like when we set the

 

patterns, when we set the routines, when we say this is what we want to do and we fall off of that, it isn't just the ramifications of what we've fallen off of. It's the mental battle that can then be allowed to happen in our brain because we fell off the thing. Like, will I gain weight because I'm not walking? Yes, but I'll also I'll beat the crap out of myself and my brain.

 

Will I not have the same immediate knee -jerk reaction to empathy, love, listening more, talking less, not getting angry is easy because I'm not doing my devotions and meditation? Yes, but there'll also be a war that will ensue inside my brain. That's about as specific as I can get, Liz.

 

Liz Moorehead (13:09.095)

Wow, that's an incredible pivot from where you were.

 

Liz Moorehead (13:18.662)

How does that feel to see how far you've come?

 

George B. Thomas (13:30.262)

That's really weird where my brain just went, but I don't know if I have the proper measuring stick to actually understand how far I've come, even though you're sitting here going, wow, that's amazing from that to this. I'll say it feels good to know that I am willing to say and believe that my own excuses can be the roadblock to who I need to become in the future. And...

 

And I'll probably talk more about that as we go through this. But I also feel good just being able to have the strength internally, emotionally, to get to the point, to be able to.

 

Yeah, that's no, actually I'll continue on. Like one of the conversations I had yesterday was literally about how most humans don't think or do or act. This was not me saying this by the way. In the way that most people look at me and feel like my default way to think and be and act is.

 

And because it's my default, not in the negative sense, but it's because it's my default and I just think it's normal. I have the lack of understanding how for many people they look at it and think that it's the spectacular thing, not in like a grandiose, like let's think, Oh, almighty, not like that, but like there's just a sliver of life that I think I need to pay attention to more.

 

pertaining to who I actually am and how I'm showing up. And to have that insight makes me happy.

 

George B. Thomas (15:27.478)

Liz, I'm tired of talking for a hot minute. So, so, um, what would you share with yourself? Uh, if you could go back to that moment, to that first check in and say, Hey girlfriend, guess what?

 

Liz Moorehead (15:27.91)

That's amazing.

 

Liz Moorehead (15:45.893)

Yeah, I need you to take several seats. You know, if I was talking to myself six months ago, I was a bit, you know, I'm the one who wrote this question and now having it turned back on me, I'm a bit conflicted about it because I have conflicting things. I'm so I'm sure you're so happy. So pleased, so pleased. They're conflicting things I want to say to myself, you know, one is that you're you're on the right track.

 

George B. Thomas (16:01.718)

Boom.

 

Liz Moorehead (16:15.045)

You know, you're doing the work. You're in the messy middle. You are okay. You are more okay than you realize you are.

 

Liz Moorehead (16:28.804)

I think I was starting to realize it, which was part of that excerpt I read from that conversation where I said I had to look at my life clearly and not be as responsible or hold myself as responsible for certain things.

 

George B. Thomas (16:38.55)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (16:45.828)

On the flip side of that, I think I had really demonized myself for the things I knew I had done.

 

I mean, I was treating myself at some points like a war criminal. You know, I was just holding myself to these completely unrealistic standards and actually not even getting close to forgiving myself for anything. I think the other thing I would realize is that, or I would tell myself is that you have more people in your corner than you realize.

 

George B. Thomas (17:08.758)

Yes.

 

Liz Moorehead (17:19.749)

You don't have a bunch of people waiting for you to fail. You have a bunch of people waiting for you to win. And it took me a really long time to see that. And the reason why that switch for me was important is the story I've been telling myself ever since I was a kid is you're not enough. You literally have people in your life telling you that you're not, that you are the disappointment, that you are not.

 

George B. Thomas (17:38.966)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (17:52.836)

that it doesn't matter what you do. You were born the failure and disappointment. You will remain the failure and the disappointment. And that type of programming just got really stuck in my head. And it impacts, it impacted every little decision I was making. Well, of course this is hard, you can't do it. Well, of course you're behind, you're the failure. Why even bother?

 

George B. Thomas (18:08.246)

Hmm. Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (18:22.02)

Why even try? And it was this insidious death by paper cut story that really has lived at the heart of so many things. The decisions I've made, the belief structures I have about the role I play in other people's lives, what people actually think. I wanna go back and tell myself you're so close to breaking through your own Truman Show -like barrier to the real world.

 

George B. Thomas (18:48.886)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (18:50.148)

You're not living in reality. You are not thinking in reality. Now, do I still catch myself dealing with this? Yeah, it's just because I intellectually understand something doesn't mean I'm already perfectly at every moment of the day living in accordance with now what I understand to be true. But that's the big thing that was waiting for me on the other side of this.

 

You are not as alone as you think you are, and since you have done the work of cultivating like you, George, I got really clear on who I wanted in my life over the past year, and it hurt like hell. But now that I have the right people around me, they're not waiting for me to lose.

 

George B. Thomas (19:17.494)

you

 

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (19:34.07)

Yeah, and that's the type of people you want around you. Liz, it's crazy when you were talking about paper cut, you're like, give us like a death by a thousand paper cuts. I'm like, I don't know about you, but I can deal with a paper cut. Like, eh, okay, it hurts. But like, to me, when you were explaining that, the visual in my brain was like emotional, psychological, mental grenades. Like that's...

 

Liz Moorehead (20:00.579)

Uh huh.

 

George B. Thomas (20:01.334)

to me, or landmines might even be a better thing. Because as you're going through this journey, it's like, you hit this landmine and it just kind of explodes in your brain. And here's the thing, what I want to do before we move on to some of these more poignant questions, I would ask the listeners, if you've been with us since the last check -in, how would you answer this question? Or even if you just want to think about the last 30 days or 60 days in your life, and you could go back to that moment in time if you weren't listening.

 

What would you say to yourself that you're now having these realizations around?

 

Because I think when you put your brain in a direction of vocalizing something to your earlier self, it unlocks something in yourself in the now. And that's really important. So listeners, what would you tell yourself 30 days, 60 days, or since the last check -in if you are a longtime listener? Again, you don't have to tell us. If you want to hit reply to our newsletter, if you want to email us, we're here. But at least do it for yourself.

 

Liz Moorehead (21:07.876)

Yeah, absolutely. Reach out to us at any time. Liz at beyondyourdefault .com or dot com and George at beyondyourdefault .com. George, you're back in the hot seat. Are you ready?

 

George B. Thomas (21:14.806)

Yep, yep.

 

George B. Thomas (21:19.126)

I'll say yes in the most no I'm not way possible, but yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That kind of thing without a doubt.

 

Liz Moorehead (21:23.876)

Physically, yes, I'm ready because I made the choice to show up to this recording. Emotionally, this is a cry for help. OK, got it. Fair, fair. You've talked a lot in previous episodes, not just the check -in episode, but we have to talk about this. You've talked about wanting to learn how to exercise more patience and letting go of unfair or what you consider to be unrealistic expectations of yourself or others.

 

How's it going, buddy?

 

George B. Thomas (21:58.39)

Um.

 

Liz Moorehead (22:00.292)

And don't worry, I look forward to paying for this question later on in the episode. Continue.

 

George B. Thomas (22:02.454)

Yeah, yeah, I feel like...

 

Sometimes it goes great and then sometimes it goes horribly wrong. Like, I don't know, it's one of those. So one of the things that I've been really focused on lately is understanding that there's gonna be hills and valleys in life. And the only battle that I'm really trying to make sure I'm paying attention to is that it's not peaks and canyons.

 

I can deal with hills and valleys, peaks and canyons get scary to me. Sharp, abrupt lows, sharp, abrupt highs. And I feel like I'm doing great on some of the expectations that I have of myself. Like I have allowed myself to have a little bit more downtime lately than I historically was. I am starting to open up a room where I actually, you know,

 

Friday and Saturday walked for 45 minutes while I was watching this dope AI course that I purchased because I wanted to learn more about artificial intelligence. So therefore I can translate it into how to actually use it in a human way and in an optimized and streamlined way. But I was learning something new, something I have had a really hard time with since I started the business.

 

Liz Moorehead (23:17.923)

Of course.

 

George B. Thomas (23:34.102)

and I was moving my body, something that I was really having a hard time doing since I started the business. But it was me giving me the freaking freedom to make that a priority. Liz, in other words, it was me allowing myself to be a little bit selfish in the most positive way that I could be. And that's what these walks, by the way, going forward with the guys is me, I'm going to be selfish. And you know what? Seven o 'clock.

 

8 o 'clock in the morning, which by the way means we might have to talk about when we actually record these on Mondays. But anyway, 7 to 8 in the morning, like I need to make that I'm going to be selfish. That's going to be my time to spend with them and move my body so I can check off a mental box and disarm the landmine or grenade that would be in my mind if I don't do said thing. Right now. With that said, on Friday,

 

Liz Moorehead (24:10.083)

That's fine.

 

George B. Thomas (24:34.07)

I had an individual reach out to me and try to have a conversation about where they're at and how they felt.

 

George B. Thomas (24:45.238)

And boy did I screw that up.

 

I wanted to talk more than I wanted to listen. I wanted to get frustrated because the way that I felt versus actually empathetic to the way they felt. I was already tired, already burnt out and can just blatantly say that I didn't show up at my best because I broke my own rule of what I expected, what I thought should happen.

 

how I thought they were and thank God that I'm sorry because it was just a shitty experience. But I also will say on that I knew that I needed to give myself the space to mentally go, dude.

 

Because here's immediately after it happened, by the way, my brain was screaming from the mountaintops, you're an asshole. But I needed time to unpack in my own brain that I actually wasn't being that kind of human, but I just hadn't equipped myself to show up in the best way that I could. So.

 

The answer to your question, Liz, is there are some things where I think I'm doing really good at this, but there are other moments and times and other things that I know that like, woo, okay, bro, you still have work to do. Like you have not reached the end of your journey. You cannot lay down and take a nap. You must get up and actually walk a couple more miles down the road of this thing right here. So that's how I'll answer that.

 

Liz Moorehead (26:39.299)

Two things I want to point out here. Number one, the walking thing. That is not selfish. Do you know what that is, George? Thank you. Thank you. The episode you didn't want to talk about, the episode where you literally slacked me and said, so how do you feel about this outline? You know, the one that you wrote.

 

George B. Thomas (26:49.11)

Self -care I knew you were gonna go with that. I'm like, uh, but but see if I know

 

George B. Thomas (27:03.51)

Which I was like... Yeah, and I was like, oh, me too. Wee! So you said two things. Was there something else you wanted to throw in there?

 

Liz Moorehead (27:06.722)

And I said, I feel great, George. Talk to you on Monday.

 

Liz Moorehead (27:14.755)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (27:19.682)

Yeah, there is one more. What did you say to the other person when you realized what had happened on that conversation?

 

George B. Thomas (27:27.926)

We have a meeting later today. Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. I want it to go well. We have a meeting later today. I needed the weekend. I needed the weekend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm actually happy that this is gonna sound weird. I'm not happy that it happened, but I'm...

 

Liz Moorehead (27:31.362)

I hope that goes well.

 

Liz Moorehead (27:42.305)

We've all been there. We've all been there.

 

George B. Thomas (27:57.782)

I'm happy about the lessons that I can learn from it happening so that hopefully it doesn't happen in the future because I'm sure there will be other humans that will come to me with the way that they feel and I need to be at my best for that.

 

Liz Moorehead (28:17.059)

been there. And I think we've I think we've all been on the giving and receiving end of that conversation. If we've been on this little blue marble in space for any length of time. You know, I've had experiences where I've been on the receiving end of that. And then somebody came to me after and said, so I didn't handle that well. And I've also been in the the other seat. I've been where you are, where I've had to say, you know, it is. It was my responsibility that that conversation didn't go well. I should have said I wasn't in the space to have that conversation.

 

George B. Thomas (28:26.006)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (28:32.982)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (28:46.306)

So I think it's really powerful, George, that you recognize that. Because there's also the third category, where I have been vulnerable enough to share my feelings with someone. It goes horribly, but they don't see anything wrong with what happened. And that's an even, huh, huh. Okay.

 

George B. Thomas (28:59.318)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Oh yeah, that's worst case scenario. Okay, Liz, so I'm jumping straight to freak out this hot seat for a hot minute. When we did the episode on seasons of life, yeah, episode 33, by the way, accepting, navigating, and celebrating the seasons of life. You love that topic, but...

 

Liz Moorehead (29:17.891)

Yes. Loved that topic.

 

George B. Thomas (29:28.63)

You could fundamentally tell that there were things churning in your brain as we were actually having that episode, as we were kind of having that conversation. And so I'm super curious, how has the conversation about seasons of life changed your perspective in a daily, weekly, or monthly observance or decision making direction in your life?

 

Liz Moorehead (29:56.321)

You gotta go right for the jugular on this. You knew, I love how you painted the picture of how much I loved this topic. This was my self -care mountain. This was my, I understand that seasons of life sounds beautiful and poetic and to the ding dong who created that label, thank you. Because.

 

George B. Thomas (29:58.582)

Hey, that's what I'm here for.

 

George B. Thomas (30:05.558)

Yes.

 

Liz Moorehead (30:19.2)

The passage of time and quote unquote accepting and celebrating seasons of life when we notice them, I talked about this. It's jarring. It's scary. It reminds us that things come to an end. It reminds us in some cases that we're aging and we're getting older. And I'm starting to trip that wire into I may have more yesterdays than I do tomorrows as my dad used to say. Now to your question.

 

How has that impacted me since that? I can always tell when you're like, I want to know what's going on in Liz's brain, because I could see it happening during that conversation. And I. Ladies and gentlemen at home, I have a tendency, as George knows, to do some deep processing and then the actual gold doesn't pop out until later. I don't know if what I'm about to share is gold by any stretch of the imagination, but I will tell you at least.

 

George B. Thomas (30:48.95)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (31:17.631)

how that conversation has impacted me because there has been a long tail on it. If I want to be super duper honest, so I write our newsletter, Beyond Your Default, for our readers. If you want to check it out, beyondyourdefault .com forward slash newsletter. And there was a week I was supposed to write about seasons of life and I couldn't do it, so instead I wrote about a grilled cheese sandwich. Ended up being a really powerful piece of content.

 

George B. Thomas (31:19.19)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (31:45.374)

It was a great piece where I talked about, you know, I didn't realize how far I had come. I had spent a lot of time in darkness last summer, and then I turned around and started appreciating the small things, and that was how I ended up realizing through the culmination, the accumulation of small things that my life had gotten really great.

 

The way seasons of life stands out to me right now is the thing I have been a hard ass on myself about recently is, is that a decision of today, Liz, or is that a decision that yesterday Liz would make? Are you surrounding yourself with people who belong in your past? Are you surrounding yourself with people about where you wanna go? Are you walking into the rooms where you belong?

 

George B. Thomas (32:20.63)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (32:33.854)

Or are you walking yourself into the rooms where you used to trap yourself? Seasons of Life is a very interesting conversation that I've been having with myself over the past month or so since we had this conversation, because it was only a few episodes ago when we had it. It was about a month.

 

Liz Moorehead (32:50.846)

gotten better at saying, yeah, this is an old chapter that is closed and a new chapter that is opened. And it was it was fascinating to me that this conversation happened. We had planned to this conversation precisely for the month that I had moved, started a huge new chapter in my life, came back to Annapolis after swearing I was never going to come back. And this new chapter on paper has been vibrant.

 

and illuminating and supportive. And it's been the best example of leaning into a seasons of life mentality that I could have possibly asked for. Like I'm not living that part where it's a lot of mourning, it's a lot of sadness, it's a lot of metaphorical death that I have to kind of move through. So I challenged myself to think more deeply on it because if I am living out the experience of seasons of life that is probably in the most holistic and positive way, then why did I avoid writing about it?

 

Why did it make me so uncomfortable? What was it that I was avoiding?

 

Liz Moorehead (33:57.276)

The thing I was avoiding was realizing that seasons of life isn't a third party retrospective detached observance of your own life like you're a filmmaker. It's waking up and saying, okay, if I'm in a new space and I'm in a new season, am I acting accordingly? Am I making decisions accordingly? Let's go back to the start of this conversation, right? I was talking about how I had that recent realization that people aren't waiting for me to fail.

 

George B. Thomas (34:20.534)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (34:26.971)

Okay, Liz, then why are you sometimes still acting like it?

 

So that's how it's impacting my decision making right now. I don't have it down to a perfect science, but I'm one of those people where it's like, once I see something, I can't unsee it. And sometimes that's positive and sometimes that is just, it's still positive, but it hurts like hell. And this is a positive, but hurts like hell moment because maybe I need to lighten up a little bit, maybe not be so hard on myself, because I always find new spicy ways to be super hard on myself.

 

George B. Thomas (34:50.934)

Mm.

 

Liz Moorehead (35:01.467)

But one of the things I'm really challenging myself right now is who's making this decision?

 

George B. Thomas (35:01.558)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (35:07.574)

Yeah, Liz, I want to jump in here for a second for you, but also for the listeners. And I love that you just said, if I see something, I can't unsee it. So let me mentally show you something. You said, is that the Liz of now or is that the Liz of the past?

 

And I think there's great power in saying it's the Liz of the now making the decisions versus the Liz of the past making the decisions. But where my mind skyrocketed to is the most fascinating day is when the Liz of the future is making the decision in the now.

 

Liz Moorehead (35:50.268)

Oh man, man!

 

George B. Thomas (35:51.67)

And I just want the listeners to think about, yes, you can make the decision in the you of the now, or you can make the decision of you in the past. But when you unlock your brain and it's the future you making the decisions to set you up for the success that you can reach. Like that excites me. That's, and again, I'm not there. I mean, I try to be there. Sometimes I get a glimpse of it.

 

But that's where when we talk about this journey beyond your default, it's being able to transport yourself and tune into that human and bring it back to where you're at.

 

Liz Moorehead (36:31.645)

Why you gotta be so stinkin' smart, man?

 

George B. Thomas (36:33.718)

No, no, not smart. Just... Wow, that's a whole different...

 

Liz Moorehead (36:37.246)

Well, do you wanna go another level up? Let's go back to a conversation you and I had last week. Then you get to that moment where you realize the past version, the present version of you, and the future version of you, all the same. Because one does not exist without the other. Yep. But that's a level of therapy Liz is not ready for today, George.

 

George B. Thomas (36:40.822)

Sure.

 

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (36:50.39)

Same person. Yep. Yep. Without a doubt.

 

Liz Moorehead (37:02.43)

This is a happy one. I tried to be nice. I tried not to come at you with a ballot for every single question. So in the last, yep, we do that for ourselves and each other. So in the last episode, we talked about the importance of recognizing your own wins. So I'd love to hear you brag for a moment. What's a win you've accomplished on your own Beyond Your Default journey since we last checked in?

 

George B. Thomas (37:08.822)

That's alright, I pick up my own mallet. Yeah, I do that.

 

George B. Thomas (37:23.446)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (37:28.918)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (37:28.989)

And I don't care if it's something that seems small to others, but it's big to you, however you want to define it. Tell me about a win.

 

George B. Thomas (37:34.198)

Yeah. Yeah. So my immediate knee jerk response was like, hey, I've launched an agency since... And then I was like, dude, shut the f... up. Like, that's just stupid. Like...

 

Liz Moorehead (37:47.517)

Well, it's not dumb, but you had already launched an agency you just weren't calling it that.

 

George B. Thomas (37:51.126)

I wasn't calling it that. Right. Sidekickstrategies .com did not exist at the last check -in. Me showing up as a, you know, whole ass human agency owner really wasn't like, I was a solopreneur with like part of a team, part of a theme, some contractors, but that's not where I want to go actually, especially on this podcast. One of the biggest wins that I've had since our last check -in is

 

I had the opportunity to celebrate my 23rd wedding anniversary with my wife. And here's why it's a win. A couple months before our anniversary, my wife said to me, sometimes I think life is getting boring. And my wife said to me in so many words, like, you don't surprise me with things like,

 

And I said, okay. And like, I could get irritated. I didn't actually. I like openly embraced the words that she was saying.

 

And then I went to work.

 

and I got a hotel for the weekend about three hours away. And I made reservations for dinner and I told them it was our anniversary. And so there were rose petals and like little plastic thingies on the table of like, I love you and hearts on there. And I bought tickets to a comedy show, which by the way, this hotel also has a casino. My wife likes to...

 

George B. Thomas (39:31.702)

play the games a little bit. So do I. So do I. I like me a good table game and maybe a slot machine every now and then. And the win for me is that I surprised my wife. The win for me more than that is that I listened to my wife and I took action. The win for me is just tying back to

 

I want there to be a stronger relationship. I wanna make sure I'm showing up the best that I can. I wanna make sure that I'm listening and taking action. And historically, my wife has done really, really good at letting me live my dream.

 

and become who I felt like I needed to become. And she has been a great supporter.

 

and she deserves to be surprised.

 

George B. Thomas (40:40.118)

She deserves to have the best life ever

 

Liz Moorehead (40:40.537)

That's amazing.

 

Liz Moorehead (40:47.065)

Is there a past version of you who might have reacted differently?

 

George B. Thomas (40:50.87)

Oh yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, there's a guy who would have got really pissed and his ears would have been shut, but his mouth would have been opened. And I'm just not trying to be that guy anymore. Like I would rather my ears be open and my mouth be shut more than the other way around. But so that's the win I want to talk about is like, it's a relationship that matters.

 

Liz Moorehead (40:52.729)

Really?

 

George B. Thomas (41:18.038)

It really wasn't that difficult once I started putting the plans in place, but the difference that it made in the impact and the weekend that we were able to have, it was just...

 

It just felt comfortable. It just felt right. So that's the win that I'll share.

 

Liz Moorehead (41:38.394)

What I love about that too is that you not only surprised her, you not only did all of that for her, when we respond negatively to those situations, we rob ourselves of those opportunities for ourselves because she didn't just have the rose petals and the I love yous and the over, you had that, you got to enjoy that.

 

George B. Thomas (42:01.398)

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, oh I got to enjoy I got to enjoy her enjoying it that was what brought me great joy

 

Liz Moorehead (42:12.026)

You're also allowed to enjoy the rose petals in the restaurants.

 

George B. Thomas (42:14.006)

I did, I did, I did. Trust me, I was like, this is kind of fancy. Right. Yeah. Oh, it's everything on this episode going to be about self care. My goodness.

 

Liz Moorehead (42:17.978)

That's not selfish, that's self care.

 

Liz Moorehead (42:24.378)

You made me talk about a whole feeling in the last question. You made me talk about a whole feeling. You watched me give birth to a nine pound, nine ounce, whole ass feeling. So yes, you got that. I know you're not. I know, go ahead. Do it.

 

George B. Thomas (42:27.958)

Oh.

 

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (42:34.614)

Yeah, and I'm not done yet, by the way. Yeah, so.

 

George B. Thomas (42:46.006)

You did the greatest of like.

 

morning routine bits in our morning route, the monologue of the morning, like the toxic morning routines.

 

Liz Moorehead (42:54.521)

Oh, the great monologue.

 

George B. Thomas (43:02.07)

But I'm super curious because you were like an episode or so after that, you're like, yeah, I've realized maybe it's not a morning routine. It's like a daily thing maybe. And to me, my brain went to like, I'm not going to say anything right now, but man, that sounds wishy washy. And so I'm super curious, like have you landed on or not landed on your morning routines? Have you?

 

Liz Moorehead (43:21.657)

I know.

 

George B. Thomas (43:32.534)

change it from daily to morning, and if so, have you been able to be consistent in said whatever it is that you've now decided that you wanna do first thing when you wake up and greet the world for a new day?

 

Liz Moorehead (43:45.625)

Okay, so you may recall at the beginning of this episode, you talked about how one of the things you liked about this episode is how honest we are about some of the mistakes that we're making. So I would also like to say present, accounted for, I have arrived at class. Okay, jokes aside, this is a place where I am not doing well and two things are true.

 

George B. Thomas (43:56.342)

Yes, ma 'am.

 

George B. Thomas (44:00.79)

Hahaha!

 

Liz Moorehead (44:16.057)

I could understand why you heard what I was talking about in terms of daily routines as opposed to morning routines as wishy washy, but I'm gonna stand by that. So let's go back in time a little bit because when we had that conversation, one of the conversations, one of the things I talked about was that I noticed my morning routine was shifting drastically over the course of the past 18 months. And if you're new to this journey, let me just do a quick recap.

 

George B. Thomas (44:37.942)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (44:44.344)

Last year, after turning 40, I said, you know what, 2023 is the year I'm gonna keep it cool, not make a lot of big life decisions. I just started a business, got remarried, all these different things. So of course, I got a divorce, I moved, I blew up my entire life, did it intentionally because I knew that was the only. Go back and listen to the thousands of episodes in which I have talked about this. I don't feel the need to relitigate that part of my personal life right now. But these were the right choices I made for me, right? So.

 

George B. Thomas (45:08.118)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (45:14.135)

lots of elements in my life began to change. When I started last year, I had a morning routine that was sacred. I woke up at 5 .45 in the morning, I had journaling prompts, I had things that I needed to do, I was very, very regimented. As I started going through what was happening last year, it's not necessarily that things went off the rails, but I even got more cagey about that morning time, got more regimented about it.

 

George B. Thomas (45:38.326)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (45:43.832)

And then sometime last summer, everything kind of broke, which was around the time, actually no, we had this conversation in late fall. But it was around the time I wanted to start having this conversation because everything was kind of going off the rails. But morning routine was just one of the symptoms of that, right? I wasn't taking care of myself in a lot of ways and that all came to a head around my birthday. I got to 41.

 

George B. Thomas (46:07.606)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (46:09.304)

and I was sitting there going, okay, I get it. The 41st year was not what you expected, but it was the year you need to have. Get up off the ground. And that's when I implemented a health routine, which by the way, I have stuck with since then. I've stuck with working out or walking at least five or six times a week. I look wildly different. My clothes are fitting differently. I'm healthier than I've ever been. My cardio fitness is better than it's ever been. The morning routine,

 

George B. Thomas (46:35.862)

Congratulations. Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (46:37.944)

Thank you, but the morning routine is still an unmitigated train wreck disaster. And one of the things I said during that episode though was that.

 

George B. Thomas (46:41.846)

Hehehehe

 

Liz Moorehead (46:48.665)

I came to the realization with the help of a therapist that part of the reason I was so good at the morning routine was because it was the only place I felt safe. I would get up so early in the morning and have all of these regimented things because it was the only part of my life or time of day where I had control. Because the situation I was in was not great. It wasn't great for either of us, but it was really bad. So I became...

 

George B. Thomas (46:58.326)

Mmm.

 

George B. Thomas (47:16.854)

you

 

Liz Moorehead (47:18.872)

hyper regimented in that one area of my life. So I gave myself permission last year, I think I told you this, to just kind of rest. That was really the morning routine I needed. But I will tell you sitting here today, and the reason I share all of that and why I say this is me not doing well, is that I'm out of that period now. This is where new and or future Liz is sitting here going like, old Liz has had enough naps.

 

George B. Thomas (47:19.798)

Good.

 

George B. Thomas (47:43.19)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (47:48.248)

what do you want your new morning to look like? And this is the question that I'm still challenging myself with because rest is super important to me, but I'm not sleeping as well as I used to. Even though I'm feeling more calm and less stressed, it's almost like I was living in a house where once a day something would fall off the wall and smash and break. And it did that for, let's say, 175 days in a row. And then one day,

 

George B. Thomas (47:51.67)

Yes.

 

Liz Moorehead (48:18.583)

Stuff stopped falling off the wall, and it hasn't fallen off the wall since. Now logically, I never wanted things to fall off the wall to begin with, but now the silence is more terrifying than the falling because now I'm waiting for something to fall again. So it's this weird kind of like stress vacuum where it's like I've gotten what I wanted, and now my body is regulating itself back to a place of safety. So when I think about my morning routine, the answer, George, no, I have not landed on anything.

 

George B. Thomas (48:31.958)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (48:48.759)

What I have landed on is that I want to do something as simple as I need to have a stable wake up time. I need to have a stable wake up time. Because I'm doing crazy things like, well, what about 5 a .m.? Liz, do you actually need to get up at five o 'clock in the morning? Do you actually need to, like, what do you actually need to accomplish in the morning? What do you actually want to do in the morning? What is important to you about that? I will say I miss having that me time.

 

you know, as I've integrated myself back into work and back into my life, from a healthy perspective now, I want that sacred me time again. But the answer is no, this is an area that is very, let's just call it under construction. You know, we're marketers, let's brand it that way. It's under construction. So there's your answer.

 

George B. Thomas (49:32.118)

There. Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting to hear you because my brain is screaming right now. When chaos becomes comfortable, comfort becomes chaotic. And it's, yeah, it's just, it's crazy. And Liz, just so you know, the next check -in that we have, I'm going to ask this same exact question again.

 

Liz Moorehead (49:45.685)

Uh huh, and I need to be uncomfortable with that.

 

Liz Moorehead (49:59.093)

I know. Here's what I will say to you though, in light of what you just said.

 

I do not want to be comfortable with chaos. Like that is how I ended up exactly where I was. Thank you for that thinly veiled threat, because that will definitely get me off my ass to work on this. And it's not that I haven't been trying, but I'll stand by what I said. The reason why I said I don't think the daily routine thing is necessarily wishy washy is because I was trying to cram too much in.

 

George B. Thomas (50:21.174)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (50:32.436)

I was basically living, I would encourage everybody to go back and listen to that episode of morning routines because I basically give this monologue where I pulled together legitimate actual advice about what people say should be in these perfect morning routines. And it ranged from forest bathing, ice bath plunges, eating breakfast but not eating, your fasting.

 

working on work, not working on work, meditating, prayer, morning prayers, it's all these different things. We are set up for failure depending on if you're listening to everyone or no one, it does not matter. And I was noticing, yeah, yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (50:59.318)

Heheheheh

 

George B. Thomas (51:07.446)

Yeah, go listen to, oops, sorry, go listen to episode 24. That's the one on toxic morning routines. It's amazing.

 

Liz Moorehead (51:16.212)

Yeah, so one of the reasons why I've been sticking with my health routine so well is because I stopped forcing it to be in the mornings. I allowed myself to look at my weeks and say, on Mondays and Wednesdays, it makes the most sense to have it early in the day. But based on my meetings and the way they work on the other days, it makes it more sense to have it in the evenings. So as I've done that, I have stuck with, I have a duolingo streak that's 108 days, right? Your girl's learning German. Why? I'm not going to Germany. I picked German because, okay, so,

 

George B. Thomas (51:40.022)

Nice.

 

Liz Moorehead (51:45.172)

I'm Italian, but I can't roll my Rs. I've accepted about myself, I have moved on. I'm reading every day and I am meditating every day, but it works better for me during the middle of the workday when I tend to feel my most anxiety arise. So that's what I mean when I said, am I putting the right routines in the morning? So by shifting those into the afternoon or other parts of the day, now I can think about things like, you know what I used to love doing in the morning that really helped? Journaling.

 

George B. Thomas (51:54.774)

Nice.

 

George B. Thomas (51:59.414)

Mmm. Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (52:13.781)

You know, not everything has to be in the morning. All right, George, you caught me. Now your turn. Because this is the one I've been waiting for. I'm sure you saw it in the outline. It's the biggest one. The listeners at home, he already has his head on his mic and he's shaking his head. I've never been more proud. All right, George. Yeah, well, mm -hmm. In the past couple of months, George.

 

George B. Thomas (52:13.974)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (52:36.694)

I don't want to do this anymore.

 

Liz Moorehead (52:45.267)

Actually, note before I ask this question, this isn't a trap. This is an honest question. Because I've watched you for the past couple of months. You've been racing around with deadlines and big projects and family vacations, unexpected happenings, both personal and professional in your life, more so than usual. And I know you've been working hard to set better boundaries for yourself, time where you're taking meaningful rest. And I want to know how...

 

setting those boundaries for yourself is going and what has been a wild spring for you. What's going well? What needs to improve?

 

George B. Thomas (53:26.518)

We don't need those stinking boundaries. Nah, I'm like, this is gonna be the shortest answer ever. Like I have sucked the big kahuna on setting boundaries. Like don't get me wrong. I have made a change. Like for instance, Saturday, I made sure to carve some time out to just sit on my back porch.

 

Liz Moorehead (53:26.707)

Oh Jesus.

 

George B. Thomas (53:55.542)

play with the dog, talk to the wife, Sunday, you know, hung out with friends. But that's this weekend. Before that, oh my God, like, it was just horrible. Loving every minute of what I was doing, by the way, so don't get me wrong there. But there was, you know, other than the occasional I'm gonna escape for a episode of Star Trek,

 

because I'm trying to go through it in chronological order because I was never a Trekkie. I was always more of like a Star Wars, Marvel, but I've decided to give it its due. Other than escaping for like a little bit of that. Like, listen, earlier on the podcast, I literally said, hey, Friday and Saturday, I did a 45 minute walk and actually taught myself something for which, by the way, I've been learning things along the way through all of this. So don't get that wrong either. But, but Liz, boundaries?

 

Liz Moorehead (54:48.563)

Hehehehe

 

George B. Thomas (54:51.958)

We don't need no stinking, I need to get better at it.

 

Liz Moorehead (54:56.435)

Do you wanna know something funny, George? Do you know how sometimes I make no secret of the fact that I ask you trick questions? So what's funny is this is a trick question, but in a good way, I'm giving you a present. So I knew you were gonna be actively hard on yourself in the answer to this question. So I am here to tell you you are doing better than you think you are.

 

George B. Thomas (54:58.006)

What?

 

George B. Thomas (55:03.03)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (55:07.318)

Yeah. Hmm.

 

George B. Thomas (55:17.494)

Uh, here we go. This is like the third time people are gonna go against what my brain says. Okay, Liz. That's, that's fine. Okay, go ahead. No, it's funny because this... Look, listen, I look for patterns in life. And I already alluded to that there was like twice in the past like four to five days where I'm like, hm. Hm. Go, but go ahead. Go ahead, be nice, because I kind of like when people are nice to me.

 

Liz Moorehead (55:22.259)

I'm so sorry I'm about to tell you something nice. Oh my God, I'm the worst. Okay, thank you.

 

Liz Moorehead (55:32.211)

So do I.

 

Liz Moorehead (55:45.299)

So George, I would say it's pretty fair to say that we rank in each other's like maybe top five people of who we talk to on a daily basis, like seven days, yeah. Do you know what I've noticed? You have gotten a lot better about when you are off. And I found it fascinating that it was even more apparent over this past month and a half or so when we were working on this website project.

 

George B. Thomas (55:51.766)

Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, without a doubt.

 

Liz Moorehead (56:10.995)

You and I would say things to each other like we are purposely going to be online on Saturday. We are purposely going to be here, whatever. And do you know what you didn't do? Sure, you were showing up six days a week instead of seven, but we were in the middle of a massive website launch. You had family unexpectedly out. And that's important because you operate with a theme, which is your family team with the company, right? We had lots of stuff going on, but you know what I've noticed? I am having less and less.

 

George B. Thomas (56:34.486)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (56:41.942)

Hmm. Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (56:42.389)

nighttime outreach or outreach when you are off. So you're getting better at drawing the lines. You not only are not available when you are, you vanish off the face of the earth. Not in a bad way, like I knew if I needed something, like if I really needed you, I could reach out to you. But what, no, but I will tell you there is a distinct difference. Now I know some of that has to do with like,

 

George B. Thomas (56:47.638)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (56:57.622)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (57:02.038)

Yeah, there's a Batphone.

 

Liz Moorehead (57:10.805)

We've gotten better at communicating. There's a lot of other stuff going on. But I want to be clear, I am seeing more of a delineation. Also, when was that 23rd anniversary?

 

George B. Thomas (57:23.542)

Oh, March, March, yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (57:25.621)

Cause it wasn't a -

 

Yeah, so right in the middle of the big website. Launch. So you took time away.

 

George B. Thomas (57:31.03)

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. My wife even asked me, my wife even asked me, she said, oh, I forgot about this part. She goes, do we need to cancel our trip so that you can get the website launched? And I said, no, you are more important than any website I will ever build.

 

Liz Moorehead (57:39.413)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (57:48.533)

And we still got that website launched on time.

 

George B. Thomas (57:50.006)

And we still got the website launched. Yes. Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (57:52.821)

George, so I'm gonna ask you this question again. How's it going?

 

George B. Thomas (57:55.766)

Oh God.

 

George B. Thomas (57:59.798)

It's going great, Liz. Like I'm getting really good at like when I'm off, I'm off and I don't know. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to take away my answer. Like, yes, I I am doing better. I am doing better. And I will say that you are leaning into or at least vocalizing when I won't vocalize it, that there is this thing that I am attempting to do. And I mean it in the nicest way possible. My job.

 

Liz Moorehead (58:08.501)

You're doing better. You're doing better.

 

George B. Thomas (58:29.174)

deals with being online. My job deals with digital marketing, sales, operations, business coaching. I'm on Zoom calls, I'm building websites, I'm doing automated workflows, we're creating podcasts.

 

George B. Thomas (58:54.998)

When I'm off...

 

I wanna be like the most farmer, hermit, no technology, human possible. Like.

 

Liz Moorehead (59:02.293)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (59:10.325)

George, I relate to that deeply. When I'm offline, I'm a professional writer and I want to be functionally illiterate. And I tell people that. I look forward to doing nothing for you. I've said that to clients. What are you doing this weekend? Well, number one, looking forward to doing nothing for you tomorrow. Like absolutely nothing, zero, nothing.

 

George B. Thomas (59:10.646)

I just... I just...

 

I just... Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (59:22.678)

Yes, yeah, yeah. And so I am almost like ghosting the internet, ghosting like Slack, ghosting email as much as humanly possible. I am actively trying to get better at that.

 

I think it's just a lot healthier, to be honest with you.

 

Liz Moorehead (59:46.612)

I love that. That makes me happy.

 

George B. Thomas (59:48.054)

Oh, okay. Thank God it's not my turn anymore. All right.

 

Liz Moorehead (59:51.701)

Oh good, yay.

 

George B. Thomas (59:53.654)

So, um...

 

Hmm. I really was a butt head when I put these questions together, but I didn't think I was actually being a butt head when I put these questions together. So Liz, we had an episode on episode 22. It was on victim versus victor mentality, knowing and living the difference.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:00:12.82)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:00:16.916)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (01:00:22.87)

So how do you think if you if you were me right now, you would, by the way, be leaning your forehead on your microphone, like saying, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, yeah, listeners, you can't see this, but I'm like, she does not want to be in the room right now. But.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:00:31.667)

I'm currently organizing post -it notes on my desk in a way that nobody needs to organize them.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:00:41.94)

why you're asking this question. This is hurtful.

 

George B. Thomas (01:00:44.118)

So Liz, here's the thing. How do you think the victim versus victor conversation has shaped the new Liz that you're starting to talk about? How has it impacted her showing up on a daily basis?

 

Liz Moorehead (01:01:01.652)

She's doing great. She's thriving. Can't you tell? Can't you tell she's doing great? No, no, this is no, no, no, no. All jokes aside. This makes me uncomfortable, similar to the seasons of life conversation in that it is uncomfortable because it is the thing that I'm putting a lot of focus on.

 

George B. Thomas (01:01:06.806)

Love it if that's your answer.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:01:27.06)

It's probably an area where I am feeling the most growth, but that's because it's an uncomfortable area of growth for me. So I've already talked a bit on this episode about what that this past year has looked like and what the years preceding it looks like and da da da da da. And you know how I struggled to feel like someone who was a meaningful contributor to the lives of others, a person of value. So.

 

George B. Thomas (01:01:52.63)

You

 

Liz Moorehead (01:01:56.852)

When we had that conversation of victim versus victor mentality, the not superficial way, but the top level, surface level way that manifests is usually either someone saying, I am the architect of my own destiny. I accept and own with accountability and responsibility all the things that happen in my life, right? With the clear exceptions of somebody is an actual a -hole to you, like you hold them accountable and responsible.

 

George B. Thomas (01:02:22.806)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:02:25.876)

Whereas a victim is in the posture of my life is happening to me. Things are happening to me. Everything is evidence of the fact that something is happening within me, right?

 

Liz Moorehead (01:02:46.227)

My Victor version of this was a little, my victim versus Victor is a little bit different. It took me a while to realize that I had a different version. It took me a little while, sorry, I wanna take that one more time. I had a notification that came on in my headphone, Seth.

 

George B. Thomas (01:02:54.07)

Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:03:06.772)

It took me a while to realize that I had a victim mentality, but in a different kind of way.

 

And in many ways, I was both the victim and the victor at the same time. But it was I was a victor in a very distorted and self -destructive way because I was taking too much accountability and responsibility for things I shouldn't have owned. And I was a victim in that it's not that I was sitting here saying everything is happening to me. I was acting as if.

 

George B. Thomas (01:03:21.206)

Oh, go on.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:03:41.299)

well, I'm just a bringer of doom and gloom and failure and everything I touch turns to crap. So it was this weird thing where I'm like, there is a different way to look at victim and victor. So that has helped me actually quite a bit in that.

 

When you're taking responsibility for everything and the wrong things, it means when you're actually fucking up or not doing something correctly, you're not actually being accountable and responsible for it because it just goes into the symphony of crap that is your life. It makes it really hard for you to actually be present and show up in the accountable and responsible way that you need to.

 

George B. Thomas (01:04:14.038)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:04:24.659)

And I also just had to get over the fact that like, I think for a while I felt like the victim.

 

perpetrating my own crimes because I deserved to be the victim and I didn't. So that, that's how that's shaped the way I'm viewing the world right now, right? You know, it's...

 

George B. Thomas (01:04:36.214)

Mmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:04:49.939)

it wasn't a healthy way for me to live. I'm still working through a lot of it. It's because the micro moments is where this is gonna matter the most, right? Like you can have these big profound realizations and I'm walking this fine line right now where I don't wanna end up back in the scenario where I was hyper regimented, you know, taking myself to court as judge, jury and executioner over every micro decision I'm making, but it's making sure that like,

 

George B. Thomas (01:04:52.438)

Mm.

 

George B. Thomas (01:04:56.118)

Yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (01:05:16.118)

Mm. Mm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:05:18.803)

to the best of my ability, I'm trying to manifest this in the small decisions I'm making in my life. It's not perfect, but it's getting better. It's like there's this cloud and I've been walking through this fog of just like not seeing myself clearly, not seeing how I'm showing up clearly. You know, when we had that conversation, victim versus victor, it was such a strange conversation because I could feel in my inner cupcake, my intuition, I'm like, I'm not nailing this.

 

But part of it just wasn't resonating for me, because I wasn't walking around acting like the world did this to me. But I also knew I wasn't showing up accountability -wise and responsibility -wise the way I needed to. And so it really forced me to sit with the understanding of victim and victor can come in different shades. I was a victim because I was just walking around like a Cassandra in the Greek tragedy, who is just the harbinger of all things terrible.

 

because I allowed to believe those stories about myself. And so I acted accordingly.

 

So there you go, there's your honest answer. That's why I was organizing the Post -it notes on my desks.

 

George B. Thomas (01:06:25.59)

It's so good stuff though. It's... It's good stuff.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:06:28.468)

Good stuff.

 

George B. Thomas (01:06:32.63)

I just, I feel like there's a hundred thousand million people that will hear that and resonate with their own lives and the journey that they're on. Yeah, that's good stuff.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:06:46.003)

I love that. So, okay. I've already brought it up a couple times, but yeah. Guess who's back, back again. Self -care is back. Tell a friend, because I still cannot get over how initially resistant you were to this topic, how you were initially resistant to having the conversation, because I knew that you were like a little bit weird about it when you sent me that Slack saying, so how do you feel about the outline? I'm like, I feel great, George. Talk to you Monday.

 

George B. Thomas (01:06:49.814)

Ah, yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:07:14.578)

But it wasn't until we actually had the conversation that you told me, you know, I don't get why we're talking about it, how meaningful it will actually be. But what I will give you credit for is you really threw yourself into the journey. You didn't push back when I said, hey, I think this is great talk to you Monday. Like you really threw yourself into it. And you actually talked about how that topic ended up having a much greater impact on you than expected. So I'm curious. It's been.

 

George B. Thomas (01:07:27.606)

Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:07:43.218)

It's been a couple months since we had that conversation. How has your relationship with self -care shifted since then, if at all? Are you making different choices? Is it still something you're struggling to wrap your head around? Where are you at with it?

 

George B. Thomas (01:07:55.606)

Yeah, I mean, I'm bathing and brushing my teeth. So, you know, we're winning. We're winning. Now, so here's the thing. But let's back up for a second, because I want people to understand my hesitation in the topic was that when doing initial research, it was the wrong effing conversation that almost everybody on the internet was having. Like, it was so...

 

Liz Moorehead (01:07:58.737)

Oh, okay, that's called survival. That's good. I mean, your dentist is happy.

 

George B. Thomas (01:08:24.63)

fake and surface level and hype you up for just a line of BS of products that you want to buy or sell. And I was like, why in God's name are we talking about this? Is this is not a root fundamental thing? And then it hit me.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:08:26.289)

Mm -hmm.

 

George B. Thomas (01:08:49.334)

That's why we need to talk about it in the way that we'll talk about it. That's why we need to unpack it from our brain in the way that we think about it or will think about it or are choosing to at least start the journey to think about it. And Liz, the biggest thing is that I have started to use a word that I historically had demonized of this word is not allowed in my life.

 

But I have allowed that word to be used in a positive way ever since that episode. Because you asked me in that episode, or said something in that episode about self -care and selfishness. And again, the word selfishness for me has always been like, nope, it's about servanthood, it's about helping others, it's about showing up with love and empathy.

 

But wow.

 

Are you being selfish enough in a positive way to do that for yourself? Are you showing up for yourself? Are you giving yourself love? Are you being empathetic to who you are as a human? Are you being selfish enough to block out the time in the day to learn something new? Are you selfish enough to take the time to actually do your meditation and your Bible reading? Are you being selfish enough because the world will take all of your time?

 

The family will take all of your time. Friends will take all of your time. And therefore, you don't have any ability to say, I need these things in my life so that my cranium is not a path of mental landmines that when I'm trying to walk through it are going to explode. And so I...

 

George B. Thomas (01:10:51.606)

I have literally been on this journey of what are the places in my life that I need to insert selfishness as a positive term to the things that I need to make sure happen on a daily, weekly or monthly basis so that I wake up in the morning and go, you're freaking killing it, bro. You are a good human. Like you are doing good things and you treat yourself well too. And you've done this and you've done that. And like,

 

So for me, it's just been this really unique new journey with self -awareness and being selfish to give myself the things that I so freely give to others along this journey I'm on.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:11:42.77)

me so happy.

 

George B. Thomas (01:11:44.47)

It's a difficult journey. I mean, I'm happy too, don't get me wrong, but it is a very unique journey. And if you're listening to this and you struggle with this idea of self -care, because you don't even believe or agree with what you've seen on the internet, then you need to go into your own brain.

 

or go into the episode that we did and really unpack what it, what that term means for you and how you can implement it because it really is a mental game changer to this word right here. The priority in which you give the things that come down the stream of your life.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:12:38.738)

I love that.

 

George B. Thomas (01:12:44.214)

you love that? Okay, you know what I love?

 

Liz Moorehead (01:12:47.858)

What? Asking me questions that make me uncomfortable? Okay. Okay.

 

George B. Thomas (01:12:49.91)

I do. I love asking questions that make you uncomfortable. This one was because I know historically I have had my own journey where I broke my brain based on the topic that I'm going to ask you the question around. Where I much like earlier when you're like, I had to just back off of like daily, you know, morning rituals because it was so like I growth minded myself to like where I broke my cranium. So I was like, I need to see how Liz is doing on this journey that she's been on.

 

So how are you fostering a growth mindset? And here's the important part, in a healthy way, are there tools that you've put into place, mindsets, best practices, methodologies, like how is Liz and the fostering a growth mindset journey going?

 

Liz Moorehead (01:13:42.834)

You know, the funny thing is when I first saw that question, it was a patented, good job, this is a Liz grenade. Because at first I'm like, what? What is this question? Okay, we only have a few questions we get to ask each other, and this is one you're choosing, okay, all right, fine, whatever, whatever. And then I sat with it.

 

George B. Thomas (01:14:02.582)

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

 

George B. Thomas (01:14:09.558)

Oh, I love that sound right there. Oh, that means we're going somewhere, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to go somewhere, so buckle up.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:14:09.618)

And I realized, I realized.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:14:17.778)

Well, because originally I was like, George, it's not like I'm someone who's ever been needed to be convinced that I needed a growth mindset. You know, one of the things that bonded us together is that I wouldn't call a self -improvement junkies by any stretch of the imagination, but like we've always been growth minded. You know, we are always in pursuit of newer ideas, you know, ways to improve ourselves. You know, the whole reason.

 

last year even happened was because the pain were the direct symptoms of me choosing the right things. It was doing what was right, even if it was hard, and especially if it was hard.

 

to your point.

 

A growth mindset can easily become a toxic wasteland if you are not careful. And I've already alluded to this somewhat throughout my answers to the other questions. How am I fostering a growth mindset in a healthy way? By realizing it actually needs to be healthy. Because I was leaning into growth oriented topics for so long because I absolutely despised myself when I was trying to erase who I was and become someone wholly new.

 

And that is not healthy. I am not someone who needs to be loathed. And the sad part, at least for me, and I say it's sad because I look back at how mean to myself I've been over the years, is that I was growing as a means to erase the failure.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:16:01.138)

to become, I thought I had to become someone wholly different in order to grow and to be of value. So.

 

How have I fostered a growth mindset in a healthy way? By making it healthy, by focusing on the conversations we've had today around my version of victim versus Victor, by thinking about what my morning routines actually were. And not being so damn hard on myself, I did not realize how much I disliked myself. I had trained myself to think.

 

I spent most of last year really thinking like, is there anything worth saving here? Like it went to some pretty dark places. And then I got to the point where I'm like, well, if there's nothing worth saving, then I just have to start over from scratch and become someone different. Like this is not, I can't go back to where I was. I can't be the person who was so afraid of hurting myself that I hurt myself and I hurt other people.

 

George B. Thomas (01:16:47.894)

Mm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:17:11.538)

Like I was in a tremendous place of a lot of pain. I was very afraid.

 

So how am I fostering it? By actually making the healthy part a priority by taking time to honor the parts of myself that I do like by focusing on the wins that I have and not looking at every mistake as some sort of indictment of my character, which is something I used to do a lot. Like I couldn't.

 

George B. Thomas (01:17:29.846)

Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:17:42.355)

I would have this weird kind of like checks and balances system where I would say, man, I did really well at this one thing. But then immediately my brain went, well, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't do this and you didn't do that. So really, did you actually win and at what cost?

 

What's gonna happen when people find out? It's not like I was hiding anything significant. It's just like, that was where my growth mindset was. I didn't have a growth mindset. I had a Liz Erasure mindset, and that is not healthy. That is not healthy. And if you're sitting here listening to this right now, and any part of that is resonating with you, you gotta get good with yourself first. You can't grow scorched, parched earth with no water.

 

George B. Thomas (01:17:59.798)

Mmm.

 

George B. Thomas (01:18:09.142)

OOOO

 

George B. Thomas (01:18:25.27)

Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:18:25.586)

Like there's nothing to grow.

 

Pouring water on cement will get you nowhere. You'll just become a bigger rock.

 

George B. Thomas (01:18:34.582)

Oh, man. I'm first of all, I'm proud of you. Second of all, my brain goes to episode 15, the power of forgiveness and episode 14, the power of forgiveness. What's the difference, George? Why were there two episodes?

 

Liz Moorehead (01:18:39.314)

Thanks.

 

George B. Thomas (01:18:52.918)

The first one is what it means to forgive others. Maybe the most important one though is like forgiving ourselves. Anyway, I'm proud of you.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:19:04.113)

Thank you. Thanks for that question, monster. All right, last question.

 

George B. Thomas (01:19:07.318)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yes.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:19:11.219)

I'm gonna go first on this one. Whatever. If we could each, because I can, because you know, I write the outlines. If we could each only pick one thing to focus on until our next check -in that is the most important thing or has the potential to have the greatest impact in our lives, were we to make that change, no matter how small, what would we choose?

 

George B. Thomas (01:19:12.918)

Oh, okay. Because you can.

 

Mm -hmm. Yep, you do.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:19:35.699)

I'm not picking this one because you said you're gonna ask me this question exactly the same again when we do this check -in again in six months. But because I genuinely believe it has the potential for the greatest impact, and that's my morning routine. And it's not because the morning routine is necessarily so important, it's what it represents. I'm a firm believer that when you start your day off the right way, things tend to just kinda, I mean, it's not always gonna be perfect.

 

But when you feel more in control of your mornings and how you begin your days, you don't spend your life in a day where you feel like you're constantly chasing it. So I want to set the tone for my own days again, which sets the tone for my own life again. I think that's really important. And as we had the conversations around self -care and taking care of myself and honoring myself and doing my best not to water cement and to water actual fertile earth, right?

 

George B. Thomas (01:20:12.726)

Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:20:38.932)

What are the ways that I can honor and cultivate myself in the morning? What are the ways in which I can feel more enriched in the mornings? Because I think sometimes when we talk about the morning routine, it can feel like homework, right? And I know it's six, I don't want to look back six months from now and say that was the easy throwaway answer I could have given based on what the conversation was, but it's really important to me because when I think about,

 

my Beyond Your Default journey.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:12.915)

I spend so much time worrying how I'm letting down other people.

 

George B. Thomas (01:21:18.998)

Hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:19.092)

all the time. Shit. I'm crying.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:25.171)

and it's time I stopped letting myself down.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:31.444)

And I'm not saying that in the victim way that I was talking about earlier. I am someone worthy of having space.

 

George B. Thomas (01:21:38.966)

Yes. Yeah.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:40.979)

and time to honor myself. So that's where I am. Well, we'll see how it goes in six months.

 

George B. Thomas (01:21:43.702)

Yeah, I love that. I can't wait to ask that question again. Get it together. You know it's coming. Yeah. It's interesting. Like.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:21:51.571)

Yay. The fact that you said that by the way, like three times, I'm like, bitch, get it together. You have homework. Uh -huh.

 

George B. Thomas (01:22:10.838)

So Liz, you know how usually you ask me like, what's the one thing you want to share with? And I'm like, here are the five things that I want to. I don't have that problem this time. I don't have that problem this time. I, I. Yeah. Yeah. My, my one thing that I need to focus on more than anything else.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:22:19.026)

Mm -hmm.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:22:22.609)

What?

 

Yay, it only took me almost a year or more to get you to say one thing.

 

George B. Thomas (01:22:36.374)

until our next check -in and beyond that by the way, but I'll use our next check -in to be the catalyst for me to be like, ooh, I know this question is coming. I need to focus on my health. I've been on a real interesting journey where a couple of years ago I weighed 320 pounds and

 

I got diagnosed with RA and I started walking and I started eating right and I went down to 254 pounds, which for me was like amazing. 79 pounds in like nine months.

 

George B. Thomas (01:23:23.382)

I need to focus on my health. This is the... The reason why is I know that it affects my mental health. I know it affects the way that I am interacting with the world. I know it is the demon that I historically have not been able to slay, but know I have been able to slay it because of the journey that I had with the 79 pounds that I lost.

 

I know I need to be selfish and go for the walks. I need to be selfish with the time and prep the food. I need to be selfish and slap myself across the face when I go to grab a bowl of chips. Or ice cream. Oh god, I love ice cream. I'm sorry, ice cream. Ice cream, we're gonna have to break up. I'm sorry. But in all seriousness, I need to focus on my health. I...

 

Liz Moorehead (01:24:10.448)

Ice cream's the jam. Ice cream is so good.

 

George B. Thomas (01:24:22.422)

now weigh 311 pounds so I have not reached my top weight that I was. I don't want to reach my top weight.

 

I don't want to show up at inbound in five months and be the guy that I am right now.

 

hell, I don't want to get five years down the road and physically be the guy that I am right now or a guy that's worse than I am right now. And so I have to put a stake in the ground. And again, I know this rhymes with what I talked about earlier. And now you'll understand why I was so freaking excited when a friend said, what do you guys think about meeting at seven o 'clock in the morning and going on walks? Because for me, this was a physical hand up.

 

And my friend didn't even know that it was a hand up that he was giving me in that moment.

 

And so between now and our next check -in, my journey, my beyond the default will be around my health and around the amount of weight that I can lose in a healthy way. By the way, I'm not going to go get a medication or starve myself or do a, you know, seven point plan to summer body fat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

 

Liz Moorehead (01:25:40.431)

Uh -uh.

 

George B. Thomas (01:25:51.382)

health.

 

Liz Moorehead (01:25:54.191)

I love that.

 

George B. Thomas (01:25:54.326)

That's my journey beyond the default.