Work in Progress: George + Liz Reflect on Self-Forgiveness, Fear, + Challenges (Episode 18)

Episode Transcript

Liz Moorehead (00:02.922)
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm Liz Moorehead, your host, and as always, I'm joined by George B. Thomas. How you doing today, George?

George B. Thomas (00:10.751)
I am doing absolutely wonderful, Liz. I am doubly excited for today's episode.

Liz Moorehead (00:16.062)
Yeah, today's gonna be a little bit different than from what our listeners are used to hearing. So, okay, I'm just gonna dig right into it. We talk a lot about the fact that we're not only here sharing our lessons learned throughout our lives, our thoughts, our opinions, our feelings about things like forgiveness, fear, the relationships in our lives and so on.

we reference the fact that we're works in progress ourselves. You know, that you and I, George, are also walking this path trying to live beyond both of our default states. And so periodically you and I will make jokes saying, you know, oh, you know, let me go grab my pen and my notebook, I need to go take some notes on this. I'm sorry, can you speak directly into the mic to talk about how you manage parental relationships one more time, just asking for a friend, right? So today we actually have

George B. Thomas (00:56.917)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (01:12.411)
Yeah, yeah.

Liz Moorehead (01:15.218)
a very, very special guest. And you know what? I'm gonna share a little bit about our friend, Don Stanley. How you doing today, Don?

George B. Thomas (01:18.484)
Yes.

Don (01:26.525)
I am doing fantastic and beyond excited to be here.

Liz Moorehead (01:29.71)
Woo. We are so glad you're here. Let me give a little bit of background because I know George has some has some human stories he wants to share about how Don has ended up here. But Don for our listeners at home is an internationally recognized digital marketing and sales coach, speaker and university educator. As the co-founder of Wisconsin based three Rhino media, he has personally guided a wide array of clients ranging from fortune 500 companies, professional athletes, startups, nonprofits and solopreneurs.

through the ever-changing digital marketing and sales landscape. He also, in addition to working at Three Rhino Media, is an award-winning faculty member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches courses on social media and digital marketing. And it's just such a pleasure to have you here. George, talk a little bit about how Don has actually already been part of the Beyond Your Default family behind the scenes for a while.

George B. Thomas (02:17.323)
Hmm

George B. Thomas (02:26.587)
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. So first of all, I met Don in the comment section of a company that I worked for called the sales lion, and have had the pleasure of actually meeting him in person multiple times hanging out, chit chatting online multiple times. We even did a little bit of a show back in the day before. I think it's on blab. I think the platform was called blab.

Don (02:49.745)
Yeah, that's exactly what it was.

George B. Thomas (02:51.743)
And, you know, so Don and I had been hanging out, but there's a couple things besides knowing Don for since 2013, right, 2014, Don's just a great guy, but Don's also a great guy who has been through it, I'll say, meaning we've talked about our historical, you know,

stories as kids and adults and different things that we have gone through. And so Don has been a guy who, like me, Liz, like you, has been on his own kind of come up. Own, you know, let me be better. Let me create better. Let me think better. And I've always admired that. And and here's the thing.

Don's that guy that I know that whenever we're having a powwow or chit chatting, he'll be able to be like, Oh, have you read this book? Oh, did you watch that video? Oh, I've got this quote by this guy or this gal. And I'm just like, and I, you know, me, I absorb that stuff. I'm like, bring it on. Like, let me add to my audible that I already spend way too much money on. Give me another one. Like, let me find something to walk to or to fall asleep to. But more importantly, Liz,

Don has an educator's mindset. And one of the things that we talked about for the Beyond Your Default journey is that, and for us and for others, we were like, it'd be nice to have worksheets. And in the future, it'd be nice to have a workbook. And so I was like, Don is the resource king. He's an educator with an educator's mindset. He understands how to educate and then activate.

And that's one of the big things that I want for the Beyond Your Default community is like activation off of the conversations that are hopefully educating the listeners into some insights in their own life, their own beliefs, their own mindset. So that is why Dawn has been behind the scenes, listening to episodes, working on worksheets that we'll release in the near future and is just part of this

George B. Thomas (05:06.047)
I don't know what to call it, but this thing, this movement, community, podcast, to live a better life, to be a better self, Don has been part of it and is gonna be a part of it as we kind of move forward.

Don (05:10.409)
COVID.

Liz Moorehead (05:21.546)
Yeah, I'm so excited about it. Although as our listeners are about to hear, when we turned Dawn loose on our archive of episodes, Dawn had a delightful idea, which in about 45 minutes or so, we're either going to love it or we're going to be like, okay, so what, what have we, what have we done? What did we do?

George B. Thomas (05:43.763)
What did we do? I saw the questions. I saw the questions, Liz, and I was like excited with a tad of uh-oh.

Don (05:44.381)
Hahaha

Liz Moorehead (05:52.158)
Yeah, because that's the thing listeners. He's not here to discuss worksheets today. No, no, no. He, a few weeks ago, Don, you came to us and said, I have some questions for you two. Would you be open to periodically turning over the reins of the show to let me ask you, circling back to the very beginning of this conversation, what your journey is like with Beyond Your Default and how it's going?

George B. Thomas (06:05.611)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (06:21.278)
And George and I both said, sounds great, Don, let's do it. Did you just switch from a nice mug to a naughty mug? Do you have two mugs, George? I'm sorry to break the fourth wall here. I got very confused.

George B. Thomas (06:31.235)
So here's the thing, I have an existential crisis. I do have a mug that has the word nice on one side and naughty on the next because my wife has started to do the whole Christmas thing around the house. So if you're listening to this on the podcast.

and you want to see what in God's name is happening, obviously you could run over to the community because we put the video versions of this in there. But yes, Liz, it's, I'm trying to figure out today if I want to be it nice, George, or, well, nevermind. Let's just get back to the episode.

Liz Moorehead (07:06.71)
Let's get back to the episode. Dawn, I'm gonna turn it over to you. I can't put, okay. All right. This is me officially Dawn. Take us on this journey. All right, I'm not a control freak you are, shut up. Hi Dawn.

George B. Thomas (07:16.535)
turning over the reins.

Don (07:22.749)
Well, I'm so glad you agreed to this because what I'm trying to do is to kind of represent the community as I'm listening to the shows. One of the things that I've thought about is like, what might other listeners be interested in? And as somebody who listens to a lot of podcasts, gathers a lot of resources as George brought up. So thank you both for the very kind introduction. And I'm thrilled to be here as well. But I wanted to ask questions about like, you're digging in, but I want to know more because this is...

moving beyond your default is kind of a messy process, right? And so it's this experience of where we have to give ourselves permission as we're growing to push through and not have everything perfect. So I'm here to represent the community, the audience and ask you some questions. The first question is for both of you. And what I really wanna learn, a number of episodes you talk about the old Liz or the old George versus the George today and the Liz today. So.

I'm curious in terms of more recent past, when you started this and since you hit record, what have you learned about yourselves since you hit record for the first episode up to today by doing this beyond your default?

Liz Moorehead (08:42.606)
It's yours.

George B. Thomas (08:43.783)
Oh, I was gonna be a gentleman and let ladies go first, but I'll go first.

Don (08:44.08)
Hahaha!

Liz Moorehead (08:47.643)
No, I think you should go first on this one.

George B. Thomas (08:50.915)
Yeah, so there's a couple things that I've learned about myself, but there's even some a couple things that I've learned along the way. And so, you know, what, what has surprised me, let's say along this journey, is that the reaction that other people have had to us doing this.

And what I mean is I've gotten everything from, hey, this is going to dwarf what you've done historically, to I've had somebody basically send me a mini movie based on an episode that we recorded that I just watched the video. Now, this does something to somebody when this happens.

And when I say it does something to somebody, what I mean is you go into, hey, we're going to do beyond your default. We rah rah. Yeah. We're going to be vulnerable. We're going to be ourselves. We're going to go through the process. You. Yep. We're kind of scared. Like we're, we're sharing some real stuff with like a lot of people. Um, this could go one of two ways. People could be like, why did you share that?

Or people could be like, that's inspiring. And what I've learned is it's leaning on the level of inspiring for people. And it's leaning on this, oh, I deal with that too. And it's leaning in on, wait, you mean I'm not alone? And these are core things that I love to hear because it's my fuel.

it literally it like understanding that these things are being in unlocked in other humans, like because I've had to unlock them in myself. Um, but, but if I get to the key thing, Don, that I think and why I'm telling this story in the very close, like timeframe that we've been doing this.

George B. Thomas (11:08.907)
I have realized two things that are very, very important for a human to understand. I've realized how far I've come and how much work I've actually done in a positive way to become who I am. And because of that work, I also realize how far I still have to go.

Don (11:37.317)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Moorehead (11:38.734)
I mean, for me, it's kind of strange. There are a couple of things that have surprised me. One, I thought I was probably gonna be a bit more of a passive conversationalist in this thing, in this discourse, that my role was really just gonna be exclusively interviewer. George and I had a very interesting conversation a few weeks ago.

where you said, I have one thing I'm gonna say to you, and then I'm immediately gonna hang up the phone, so you can't respond. You did, I was very upset at you, and it's been haunting me ever since. I jokingly call myself a catalyst for catalysts, and then he said, Liz, when are you gonna realize you're also a catalyst? And then he just hung up the phone. And I'm like, well, okay then. When we first started recording,

George B. Thomas (12:12.763)
And I did. I did. I hung right up.

Don (12:14.109)
But...

Don (12:18.874)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (12:32.535)
You can get goosebumps, by the way, with her telling that story.

Liz Moorehead (12:34.634)
When we first started recording these episodes, I was, I didn't have an office to work in. I was in a very small Airbnb. It was at the height of some of the stuff that I've mentioned passively through other episodes that it has been a very challenging and difficult time. Mornings when I would wake up and I would look in the mirror and not, I knew who was looking back at me, but there is that feeling of

It's going to get better. It's going to get better, right? It can't stay like this forever. So it was interesting to have to get up every Monday morning at 7.45 and sit down and quite frankly act like I have my ish together when on many of those days I didn't. What was also fascinating to me is that how perfectly timed.

Don (13:06.627)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Moorehead (13:27.582)
all of these episodes have been. Sometimes, in a lot of cases, whether we're talking about marketing or sales or just in personal development like we're doing right now, you're often building the content you need. You're building the resources and tools and conversations that you need because they're missing and they're absent. And so it has really been...

George B. Thomas (13:30.215)
Yes.

Don (13:40.169)
Hmm.

Liz Moorehead (13:48.318)
genuinely a guiding light for me in addition to Liz, I don't care how many times you cried over the weekend, you got to be up at 745 in front of a camera with a mic and sounding like a human. So that's been that was probably the greatest surprise. But also one of the greatest challenges is that like, I had an appointment with our community. And so I find it almost perfectly timed in a way, you know, for our listeners.

Don (14:09.086)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Moorehead (14:16.266)
Actually, I think they are gonna be hearing this. This comes in the feed this week. We're recording this the week of Thanksgiving. And I love the timing of that in a way, because I'm immensely grateful for this opportunity. George with open arms has brought me into something that has been very close to his heart for years. And that kind of scared me. You know what I mean? You wanna make sure you're doing right.

George B. Thomas (14:20.519)
Yeah.

Don (14:39.454)
Thanks for watching!

Liz Moorehead (14:43.862)
by the guy who's always been a hand up, not a handout to you, particularly through very difficult times in your life. But also at the same time, you know, he's like, this is his baby. This is his child. This is one of the many members of his family and it's been very close to his heart. So it's been an incredible growth experience that I did not expect because I've been doing podcasting and content for almost a decade. You know, like this was like, all right.

I'm going to show up, but like I'm invested and I like this guy and he's my friend and he's been there for me. So like, we're going to go do some cool stuff, but it has become way more monumental than I expected. And we're only on it, but we're only, this is episode 18. What? How did that happen?

George B. Thomas (15:27.323)
Yeah.

Don (15:27.497)
Thank you.

Don (15:31.363)
Mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas (15:35.271)
Man, there's so much goodness to that. And it is interesting, Liz, I hadn't really thought about this being right around Thanksgiving. But the fact of the matter is I'm actually grateful for you and being so much help in us actually bringing this to the world. I'm thankful for Don and the elements that

bringing. And honestly, I'm thankful for the crazy, dicey, corrosive, exciting, celebratory life that God has given me, that I am not short of stories. I am not short of near-death experiences. I am not short of amazing friends that...

you know, we can tap into and have conversations within the future. And I'm excited that we have gotten the response that we have gotten just out of the, I'll call it a handful, right? Handful of episodes that we've done. So, yeah, it's I'm feeling very blessed and very thankful right now.

Liz Moorehead (16:50.818)
But are you ready to get into the big spooky scary questions? That's the thing.

Don (16:54.365)
Hahaha

George B. Thomas (16:54.579)
Well, that's the thing, like, I know Don's gonna, like, ask us, like, challenges, and that's where it gets scary, because I gotta talk about some real stuff. Anyway, Don, back to you, brother.

Don (17:04.989)
Well, that, yeah, those answers are just amazing. And again, you know, speaking just from a community perspective, because I do a lot of work with people who are in points of struggle. And I just want to say just a quick thank you, Thanksgiving, that you all are doing this type of show because it's so needed. We're, you know, sharing your vulnerabilities, your path, saying, you know, you've come a long way, you've got a long way to go.

Liz Moorehead (17:05.302)
to you.

Don (17:31.909)
Liz, you know knowing what you've been going through. I mean, it's just it's a beautiful thing to be able to have Humans who are sharing their experience it but also can lead so On that note, you know what have been? George some of those greatest challenges

George B. Thomas (17:49.083)
Yeah, one of the biggest ones is honestly believing that anybody would care, right? And it's funny because I'm...

some of the responses I said earlier, like this is going to dwarf anything you've done historically, which I've just tried to be a happy, helpful, humble human. I've tried to chase significance instead of success. But believing that anybody cares about the stories and I actually I was out at dinner the other night with my daughters and my wife and I started to talk about my excitement of Beyond Your Default. And my wife was like, wait, you mean that you're talking about your life?

And I was like, oh, that stings, right? But but it's not but it's not a lie. Like it is truth. It is. But.

there's got to be a belief in that there are lessons that can be learned in that story, lessons that can be learned in that life. But the belief that anybody actually cares to listen, I mean, I'm just a 52 year old normal guy who happens to have a little bit of a spark with a professional career and a heart for humans, right? Like that's, that's like who I am, but I had to believe

And this is the other challenging thing or one of the challenging things. I had to believe that I was created to bring this to the world. I was given this path for a reason because it was a destination that would be the starting line or the, you know, enabling point for potentially hundreds if not thousands of other humans because they can get the fast track on what my hard head had to like beat against a wall to actually figure out.

George B. Thomas (19:35.967)
And the other thing that's challenging, and I'm facing this more and more, and it's kind of like my wife's statement, my own internal statements, and I think just the way that the universe works, to be honest with you.

And I'm equipping myself with this, right? Mentally and physically, and that is, for me, one of the hardest or greatest challenges is the just the understanding that the closer you get to where you're supposed to be, the harder parts of your life become. Because the universe is fighting back.

for you not to do the thing that you're doing and the good that you're bringing and the, you know, like the unlocks to so many other humans. And so I'm willing to go through those challenges. I'm willing to fight those battles because I know that it can only last so long and I'll break through the other side. But this like, who cares? I'm supposed to be the guy and oh, buckle up. This might get tough.

Don (20:39.009)
Thank you.

Don (20:44.408)
Mm-hmm

George B. Thomas (20:44.867)
There are many times in my life where I would have just tapped out. Yep, thank you. 18 episodes is enough. Let's go home and just be normal now. There are a lot of people out there that might be listening to those three things and be like, I'm good. I don't need that in my life. Meanwhile, we're sitting here and we're like, let's push forward for the greater good.

Don (21:08.081)
Whoo, that is amazing. Oh, Liz, what about you?

Liz Moorehead (21:16.478)
Um, okay. So we're going to cut this part out. I've already addressed the challenges in my previous answer. Cause I did the same thing. I said, like what surprised me and my were my same as my challenges. So go ahead to the episode nine question. Because we're already, we're already pretty far into the episode and we still have a bunch of questions to go.

Don (21:21.166)
Oh, gotcha. Yes.

George B. Thomas (21:29.911)
Cut that out Seth.

Don (21:35.065)
Yeah, all right. All right, so the idea of thinking about one of the episodes in episode nine, George, you talk about people that you surround yourself with. And I know that you have moved a lot in your time, if you listen to the episode on home. I had no idea, by the way, that is just, I can't imagine. I've had to move nine times in the last, over a two year period of time and.

I can't imagine at that age, but you've been so mobile and you've had so much transformation in your life. Are there certain people, teachers, mentors, friends, family, whether or not you know them personally that have helped keep you grounded through this process, through the whole process of being so mobile and the transformation.

George B. Thomas (22:26.247)
Yeah. And it's funny because I think

One of the things that eventually I want to talk about is the reason for the season. And I don't mean in a Christmas sense, even though I am again drinking out of my naughty mug and my nice mug here today. But a reason for the season, meaning the people that are in your life. And there's some that are constant, right? There's what we'll call forever people, forever friends, family, whatever. And then there's some that you just learn lessons from and then, hey, that's what it is.

And so I have to just start out, Don, with, listen, the person that keeps me rooted the most would be God, Jesus, right? Like that's just, it's there. I know him, but don't know him, know him, right? We could have a whole conversation on that. But second to that, I have to list out my wife.

And then my kids, my wife and kids do a real great job at keeping my ego deflated, my head small, just being a normal human being. But then friends like Brian, Eric, Don, I would have to list you in there and others like because I keep a core set of friends, digital and in person that are there for reasons. I would be remiss if I didn't go back to like.

even before agency life when I decided that I wanted to be a pastor and became a youth pastor and a lot of that had to do with a gentleman his name is Dave Wright, Pastor Dave Wright of Trinity Baptist in North Canton, Ohio. He's not there anymore. He's like Lebanon, Indiana or I think it's Indiana. Anyway.

George B. Thomas (24:08.471)
It doesn't matter. I'd have to mention Bill Wiley when I worked at Faith Ranch. He was the camp director. He no longer with us, but very instrumental in my life. I have to mention my parents. I would even mention my math teacher, even though he kept me grounded in a very interesting way, but also he's been the fuel to get me to strive for many years to go in the direction. Liz keeps me grounded. We have some human time conversations.

above and beyond this podcast, but even this podcast in itself, with the time that we're talking keeps me grounded. I'd have to mention Angus Nelson and Tim, the evolve men that Don, you're part of, I'm part of and meeting every Tuesday with them. And then us using Marco Polo to come to like in my life, right? Those are the people where I'm like, these are the set of humans that keep me grounded by the way.

I'm very thankful that I can list out that many people that are physically in my life. Now, professional life, I have to mention Marcus Sheridan. He was a freaking massive spark into who I became professionally. I have to mention Remington Begg. They're both historical bosses that I had, right? But there were always deep conversations. There were always challenges. There were always words of wisdom that were kind of like,

helping me go in a certain direction. People like Anne Hanley, just the salt of the earth, loving human, Ian Altman, Joey Coleman, right? And again, blessed to even say that these people like Jay Baer and I could go on, like these people know me. Like if I reach out, they say hi. If we see each other in the halls, we shake hands. And so to watch their success and then also understand their normal human beings.

and to erode this wall for most humans of like, well, that's them and this is me to realize, no, that could be me because they could be me as well. There's differences, but we can get past those. And then there's the people that I don't know that I just like watch and pay attention to. So Don, people like Tom Billy-U.

George B. Thomas (26:27.443)
Right. Impact Theory. Oh my God. That show. That show is like summertime sweet tea and a cigar for me. It's like, oh my God, I just want to sit down and watch this show. People like Brene Brown.

Don (26:30.237)
Thank you.

George B. Thomas (26:39.999)
Right. I saw her at inbound and her ability to talk about vulnerability and me wanting to embrace that same. Let me just be vulnerable. Let me be the man that can be vulnerable in the world and in conversation. Books, Gay Hendrix, The Big Leap, Jay Shetty, Think Like a Monk, Oprah Winfrey. People are like, why do you love Oprah so much? It's not because you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. If you haven't listened to our podcast, Supersoul,

Go listen to our podcast, Super Soul, then come back to me and you'll be like, oh, I know why you love Oprah so much. I'm on YouTube or TV like pastors, Pastor Lance, Pastor Steven, I love T.D. Jakes, right? So these are all people that I'm paying attention to. And again, super blessed that I've kind of created this relational box, physical, virtual, whatever you wanna call it, where I have these just.

great set of humans. And if you pay attention in different segments of my brain and body and spirit and to just kind of make this holistic human map of like pieces and parts that I wanna pull and who I wanna become when I grow up.

Don (27:57.797)
That's outstanding. That actually gives me, you know, thinking about that and in your response, it's like a great exercise for us all to do is to think about in the different parts of our lives, the people who we have to be thankful for, including, I'm a big fan of Oprah and Tom Bilyeu as well. You know, people that we might not ever met or may never meet, but they're helping us on our path to move beyond our default. And, you know, yeah.

I've got so many thoughts in my mind, but I wanna move on to the next question. The next question is for Liz. And I think so far my favorite episode, I hate to pick favorites, but I'm going to, I think episode 15 had self-forgiveness because it's something I am working hard through right now in my struggles in life. And Liz, your story, you know, been very inspiring to me as you work through your process. And you've talked a lot about your divorce, your parents' abusive upbringing.

What are some of the themes of self forgiveness that you're still working on?

Liz Moorehead (29:03.31)
Ugh, you know, when I saw this question and you and I had talked about it, I knew that this was the question that needed to be asked based on how my body physically reacted to it, which was to run immediately several states away, which means it's the conversation that we need to have. You know, self-forgiveness is a theme.

throughout these things. You were talking earlier about how you are amazed that George moved so many times when he was a kid. I'm looking back over what my life has been from 2019 until now. I've been divorced twice from the same guy, cause why do something soul crushing once when you can do it twice for twice the price? You know, it's always super fun. I don't regret it.

And also, you know, my upbringing, there was alcoholism in the house, there was a lot of physical and verbal abuse, and it made for a really unstable upbringing. When I think about self-forgiveness and how it has come through in this,

I now understand actually why George wanted us to talk about forgiving others first before self-forgiveness because he and I, when we were planning those two episodes, because it was a pair of episodes that we did, right? Before we spoke about self-forgiveness, we talked about the importance of forgiving others. And I was never quite clear on it. I'm like, wait, but shouldn't we be talking about self-forgiveness first? Shouldn't it go the other way around? And George was like, no, it needs to be that way. And he's absolutely right. Because it started with my ability.

to forgive others in my life. And then you kind of land on the self forgiveness aspect, right? You know, I had to think about

Liz Moorehead (31:08.214)
When you grow up as a kid of abuse, one of the things that they do not talk about is that even if you don't become an abuser yourself, you still mimic behavior you saw when you were a kid.

So I grew up in dysfunction, so I mimicked dysfunction because I didn't understand how to function in a quote unquote normal way. And in fact, the things that felt the most psychologically safe to me were the exact, precise, unstable environments that I was trying to get away from. So I spent years kind of in this very weird cycle of replicating the very things I was trying to get away from.

The funny thing about self-forgiveness that I've realized is that it is very hard to forgive yourself for things. Like there have been days where I've woken up where I'm like, oh my God. So Liz from two years ago, two months ago, two weeks ago, total moron, we're just gonna have to move on. You know, like that's hard. And you know, I think it's funny to say it that way and we can laugh at it that way.

But I think there have been moments, and I've talked to George about this, where I'll wake up and I'm like, I don't know how I'm supposed to move forward because now that I'm looking at my past behavior through new lenses as I've grown up, how do I forgive myself for that? There are people who have every right to be very, very mad at me, but at some point, you're not punishing yourself for any good purpose. At some point, you have to decide

Are you someone who is allowed to have made mistakes and just live your freaking life? And I don't always feel great about that, but I do have to remind myself, you know, like, Liz, you're not a serial killer. Like, you're not like an ed, like you're not. You screwed up. You screwed up multiple times. You were a hot stove toucher multiple times. Like you sometimes have to learn lessons the hard way, but you eventually get there. But I'd say the other big theme too.

Don (33:04.649)
Thank you.

Liz Moorehead (33:18.185)
Particularly...

is realizing that I don't need to forgive myself for anything. There are certain moments where I'm sitting here just feeling absolute dog crap about myself. And the relationship I have with myself is still one I'm healing and working on a lot. And it takes a lot of work because, for me, the biggest challenge is that I am an only child of two only children.

So I have no aunts, uncles, or cousins. I have no brothers or sisters. I am my own safety net. I am my own support network, especially since now that I'm divorced. So like all of this, like all of this has to come from within. But 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.

George B. Thomas (34:11.332)
Yes.

Liz Moorehead (34:14.786)
the feelings of other people and not understanding that I am not responsible for everything. Cause that was how I was painted growing up. The mistake, the thing that ruined things, all of these different things. And it's a very corrosive narrative. So the biggest theme of self-forgiveness is, self-forgiveness is hard, but you also have to make sure that you are looking at your life clearly. Because when you, when,

George B. Thomas (34:22.023)
Yes.

Liz Moorehead (34:44.382)
You get into these cycles, it is hard to always see that sometimes you're just being a human being and you're actually fine. And you didn't do anything wrong.

George B. Thomas (34:55.787)
So good So good, I love so much of What you said Liz just because I think there's I think there's things that people when they hear that Will be like these moments for them and you mentioned it. I think it's a I think it's a deeper episode It's a future episode deeper topic

Don (34:57.533)
All right.

George B. Thomas (35:21.019)
is this idea of understanding what I'm responsible for, what I'm not responsible for, what I can change, what I can't change, where I need to give myself grace, where I need to push myself to get better. Like there's a whole rubrics around like what you were talking about that I can't wait to dig into in future episodes.

Liz Moorehead (35:45.798)
Oh, yeah, because when I, you know, to give a perfect example, I'm not going to speak to specifics about it. But I started noticing a pattern with a specific person in my life where if I would say something and it triggered them, they would literally say something to the effect of, well, you said this thing to me and I don't like how it made me feel. And my initial reaction was to try to make them feel better and to try to like fix things and

and to feel bad and to apologize for making them feel bad. I didn't say anything that inflammatory. They were literally walking around saying, I don't know how to sit with my own discomfort. Now it's your problem.

George B. Thomas (36:28.044)
Mm.

Liz Moorehead (36:28.842)
You know, and that's a different conversation to have if I'm sitting here saying, well, your sister is a duck and your hat looks stupid. Like, you know, like then yes, I am an equitable player in that conversation and they have a right to feel discomfort. But when it's just, yeah, like one of those things where sometimes you can end up being a triggering force in somebody else's life and to be clear, you know, there are still plenty of other places where I'm like, no, Liz, you're the ding-dong.

George B. Thomas (36:44.467)
Yeah, but if you said hi, good morning.

Don (36:47.273)
Thank you.

Liz Moorehead (36:57.994)
You did that, you're gonna have to sit with that. But I think it's easy to fall prey to that idea of you are responsible for everybody's emotions and how they experience the world. And that comes from trauma and stuff that I'm working through, you know, because when you're a kid growing up in that kind of environment, it's you're hypervigilant.

the feelings of everybody around you are of the utmost importance because that's where your safety comes from. So it's a bit of a tightrope walk, but yeah, so self-forgiveness, work in progress, working on it. But we're getting there.

Don (37:36.797)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Don (37:42.841)
And again, for somebody like me representing the, trying to represent the audience in this case, that's so helpful to hear because, you know, it hits to me into the ownership episode of what do we own about what happens with other people's reactions and experiences. It hits to the idea of surrounding ourselves with people who push us to be better, but also love us for who we are, that balance. And then...

You know also to the idea of you know, this is what it takes to move beyond your default and it is not easy but it is worth it and I know I'm gonna be listening to that clip multiple times as that is one of my biggest challenges is I think sometimes we've shared parts of our lives of like how do you move forward and reach that thing and George you've said this a couple of times and I think this is a huge part of moving beyond your default, which is

You can't really truly love others until you love yourself. And loving yourself is hard because you have to love the messy parts, the things that nobody else knows about you that are sitting in your head. And yeah, wow. So, I wanna transition to the next question about, and I think this relates in many, many ways, is what are the fears, George, that you're currently working on and moving through in this season of your life?

George B. Thomas (38:37.449)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (38:46.368)
Yeah.

Don (39:04.92)
as you continue to explore your own ways of living beyond your default.

George B. Thomas (39:09.575)
Yeah, this is my question that I have to take a deep breath before I get started. I was like, I was like, oh no, where did this come from? Um, it's funny. Um, because I, listen, we've done episode on fear, right? And I'm like, false evidence appearing real. And, and I have really worked a lot on not being that like fear guy.

Don (39:19.922)
You didn't get out of it!

George B. Thomas (39:37.107)
and trying to step out and do things. And again, this is going to tie right back to like, I've come a long way, but I realize how far I have yet to go. And so there's really three things that I boiled this down to that I still would say that I have a level of fear around.

George B. Thomas (40:01.727)
The first one is fear of success. I have come a long way since 2013, meaning in my professional life, from an inbound zero, a HubSpot zero, to an inbound and HubSpot hero.

Right. And really helping a lot of people and getting, you know, emails that I'm super humbled by, like, here's the goat. And like, what? No, I'm just the guy helping people. HubSpot, it's slow down, homie. Chill out a little bit over there. And that's been fun. But to look at where I'm at now and understand the complete mind explosion.

Don (40:36.43)
Thank you.

George B. Thomas (40:49.959)
of what has happened in my life over the last year and roughly six or seven months around some key concepts of being able to achieve what you wanna achieve, a new mindset on money and what it really is in our life, the true power of network and connection.

Um, the ability to just let go and things be successful. Um, the idea of first player energy versus second player energy. I look at all this and I, I hear these people, again, I referenced at the beginning of this, this is going to dwarf anything that you've ever done. Uh, excuse me? Um, kind of cool where I'm at.

And I don't know what above this even looks like. And that starts to get scary for me. Right. And just so this idea of like, what is the next level? What are the next stages? What is I just do? I can start to like I have to meditate when I start to think about this. Yeah, I start doing deep breaths. I start like.

Don (42:02.108)
Thank you.

Liz Moorehead (42:05.02)
You know that you hit a nerve with George when he stopped speaking in acronyms and start speaking in, huh.

George B. Thomas (42:10.467)
Yeah, yeah. So, future success and what the next two, five, ten years looks like, and again, fear mixed with excitement. And we'll get to why, like, because I love that we're going to talk about, like, the future and stuff like that. But the other one too is, and this is going to sound weird for me because I totally have a growth mindset.

but I fear growth. And by the way, yes, success and growth are two different things. What I'm talking about here is growth as an organization, as a company that I started. What I'm talking about here is growth as a human because I think sometimes you can grow too far or grow too fast and then issues show up. And so I wanna be very careful of not to lose myself.

through expedited growth, whether it be personal or professional. 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 organic enough? And then you go back into the cycle. The third thing.

And I saved the best for last, by the way. It's the thing that I think I think about most. And the thing that scares me the most.

is not screwing it up. Not screwing it up.

George B. Thomas (43:49.299)
Like you've put in so much work, you've put in so much time, you've become who you need to become, you're creating the things that you feel led to create, you're trying to impact the world in a certain way, and I've seen so many people get up into the like upper echelon mountain peak of their life that they wanted to get to and calling back to the closer you get to where you're supposed to be, the harder parts of your life are gonna become.

I am always looking at how am I going to f this up? Like, what am I going to get blindsided by? What am I not paying attention to? And man, that scares the ish out of me. Don't screw it up, dude. Just do your thing. I don't know. But those are the three things, right? Fear of success, fear of growth.

and fear of just screwing this whole thing up, this journey that we're on.

Don (44:53.453)
Yeah, that's pretty powerful to be thinking about what the success element, you know, we often think about growing and growing into where we want to go and that sometimes that, like, why are we being held back? And sometimes it's that fear, like, well, what if I get there? Speaking, yeah, exactly. So Liz got another question for you.

George B. Thomas (45:12.711)
Yeah. Then what?

Liz Moorehead (45:21.427)
Oh boy.

Don (45:23.161)
You know, as you've talked about your challenges, how do you stay, and I think of this in particular with the holidays coming up, and I know this isn't a holiday episode, that holidays can be challenging, but how do you stay grounded and manage yourself as you're dealing with these massive changes?

Liz Moorehead (45:42.298)
Um, I think becoming very comfortable with the idea that what we want grounded to look like and what it actually, you know, staying grounded looks like in practice are two wildly different things. I think we think of, you know, staying grounded, staying managed, you know, moving through things through, through big upheavals in our lives.

We have a very kind of Instagram aesthetic viewpoint on it, right? That it's calm, that it's filled with meditation, that it's you are this beacon in a storm that allows things to move through. No, shit is hard. Okay. Divorce is not called happy, fun explosion time. It's called divorce and it's not fun. I know, right? Like it's, it's not fun. No, this is.

George B. Thomas (46:32.212)
I like that name better though.

Don (46:34.153)
Hahaha

Liz Moorehead (46:39.202)
these are times that are going to be hard and there are going to, I think sometimes what happens is that we believe in order to stay grounded or to be able to say that we're checking the grounding box, that we can't break down. I have cried a lot. I have allowed myself to feel.

lots of feelings a lot. And when I say allow, it's not like I went, Oh, Liz, you can go ahead and feel this. I didn't have a choice. Like the tears were coming, the rage was coming, the yelling at the sky, the, is this what surrender looks like was actually something I yelled in my car once while crying with my head pressed against the steering wheel. And that was in, I think June, no, it was in July. It was in July. You know, so how do I stay grounded?

Liz Moorehead (47:31.822)
by getting up and just doing the damn thing every single day and knowing it's not gonna be perfect every single day, that success isn't being some impenetrable feelings beacon. It's that I'm a human being. As I've kind of come out of some of the aftershocks of some of the stuff that's happened over this year and over the past couple of years, quite frankly.

Because the timeline of events here is that I originally got divorced in 2019, moved to Connecticut in the middle of February, and two weeks later the entire country shut down. And so I got to do an extreme version of dating yourself, which was really fun. It was basically a cliche. I was a divorced cat lady living by myself, and I was living in New England, which had some of the strictest rules right away.

You know, like you couldn't see people. I didn't see people for months who I knew in person. It was a really intense experience. And then going through the divorce again this time, it was excruciatingly painful because I made the right choice of this isn't right. And we've talked about this on previous episodes, so I don't feel the need to go back there. But I made the purposeful choice this time to...

to blow things up because I learned what I needed to know and I knew it was time to go.

And grounding now for me looks like understanding you're just going to have to get up and live by a set of principles and sometimes those principles are going to shift, they're going to become more clear, they're going to become more refined. And it does actually also involve some meditation. I mean I would say that if we want to get a little bit more tactical here, I would say the thing that has stood me in the most stead, a good stead as I've gone through this grounding process is getting really clear.

Liz Moorehead (49:34.846)
about whether I'm looking at things through a lens of reality or through a lens of fear and really becoming a master of my mind. And that has required me to look at myself and say, so what are my escapist tendencies? Because it's not always just fear. There are lots of other ways that kind of stuff shows up. And in some ways, you know, especially going into the holiday season,

And I'll speak to that in just a moment. You know, it has been very challenging doing this on my own because there is no other person there. There's no mom, there's no dad to call, there's no sister, there's no aunt, who I just happen to have a really good relationship with growing up, because they've all passed away. Like they're not, most of my family is no longer here.

Liz Moorehead (50:25.29)
It's scary. It is a terrifying thing because you finally have to look at yourself in the mirror and go, so what are my own trap doors that I built myself? And where do they exist? The other thing too though is.

Liz Moorehead (50:43.202)
Learning to be open with people is not something I'm very good at. So I'm very lucky this year that I'm actually spending Thanksgiving with a friend. But the only reason I'm spending Thanksgiving with this friend is that he and I had a conversation where I was trying to explain to him, you know, hey, I have some trust issues and I know that they've kind of hurt our friendship in the past and I wanted to talk a little bit about where they came from.

And I explained to him, you know, you've always been this really just like the important person in my life because you do small things that are small to you and they're very big to me. And I explained to him and I said, you know, Christmas during the pandemic, you were the only person who got me a Christmas gift. He didn't know that. And I said, you didn't have to do that.

You randomly called me and said, Hey, are you at your place? And I said, yes. And he came over and it was, it was, it was like a huge, it was a, it was a game called throw burrito. Like it's, it's a game. Like it wasn't, it's amazing too. Um, and I said, you know, that is an example of you doing a small thing that has an outsized impact for other people. So never underestimate that. Um, and I explained, you know, I had spent Christmas on my own. He's like, well, why did you spend Christmas by yourself? And I said, well, who?

what, because I had nowhere to go. And then randomly he blurted out, what are you doing for Thanksgiving this year? You should come over. You know? And so it's this long winded explanation of saying, you know, grounding is messy. Grounding must be done with purpose. You have to find ways to master your mind. And at some point, to use the metaphor that George talked about in the episode about relationships, at some point,

you are a cold piece of coal because you are deciding to keep yourself segmented from other people. So I'm learning how to be vulnerable with other people and ask for help because that's not something historically I've done very well.

George B. Thomas (52:52.291)
Woo! Okay, so, um, I have listed down that we need to do an episode on what in the world is grounded anyway. Because I think that's like a word that can go a thousand different ways for a thousand different people. Yeah, yeah.

Liz Moorehead (53:02.442)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (53:07.286)
There's meditation, there's also screaming, okay? Like that's just how it is.

Don (53:11.442)
Hahaha!

George B. Thomas (53:11.967)
But Liz, it's funny, and this is gonna be very short so we can get into the last little bit that we wanna hit on this episode, because Don, I do value your time and I value the questions that you're asking and where this is making us go from a mental standpoint and where listeners are being taken on these additional journeys that they wouldn't have had. But I wrote down, as you were talking, Liz, grounded in a question mark. Does it...

actually equal for many of the listeners unrealistic expectations. Meaning, are they changing the bar based on the day versus they wake up in a shit storm and they're still trying to do a normal life high jump in that they would do during everything is okay, amazing day, right? And like being able to move the expectations of

Liz Moorehead (53:43.96)
Yep.

George B. Thomas (54:06.195)