A Very Special Thanksgiving HubHeroes Episode [HUBHEROES, EP60]

Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt knowledge. Never fear, Hub Heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the Hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the League of Extraordinary Inbound Heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute Hub Heroes. It's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode. Recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin during the show are that of his own and in no way represent those of his employer.

Welcome back to yet another episode of.

The Hub Heroes podcast. I am your Hub Heroes wrangler, Liz.

Morehead, and today I'm only joined by George B. Thomas.

Hey, George, how you doing?

Hey, Liz. How are you doing this morning?

I'm doing delightfully well, I'll be honest.

But I have to tell you something kind of funny.

Okay.

You and I went out of our.

Way to do a Thanksgiving episode this year, like we said, with purpose. Oh, we've got to schedule this. We've got to get on the mics. We've got to record a gratitude and thankfulness episode this year.

Yeah.

In preparation for this episode and hopping on the mic today, I actually decided to take a trip in the Wayback Machine to see what we did last year for our Thanksgiving episode. And do you know what I mean?

Oh, boy.

Yeah. Okay. So we actually did do a Thanksgiving episode last year. I will link it in the show notes, but I had completely, completely forgotten the fact that it was entirely under duress.

Yeah.

That it was a complete accident that we had recorded it because we had something else planned for that day. It didn't work out, and we were like, we don't want to leave our Hub Heroes community hanging.

Yeah.

Okay, we'll have the conversation. But we only.

We only did it because we had to.

In fact, if you go back and listen to it, we spend a lot of time talking about how most Thanksgiving.

Content from brands is kind of hackneyed and, like, it's not. Like, it's hollow. It's lacking. Lacking some of that, you know.

Yeah.

Stuff that's actually about thankfulness and gratitude, which is. Which is so Funny, because you and I are very, like, in our off.

Hours, we talk about thankfulness, we talk about gratitude, we talk about all of.

These different things, but we were just way too cool for school last year.

Well, we'll get into that because I had the opportunity. I. I purposely, like, you're like, hey, go back and listen. I listened to. And the first thing I'll say is, Hub Heroes community, you should be thankful that we love you enough to even put ourselves through what we did on episode 15. Meaning we wanted to create the content because we loved you and we. We still love you, and we don't want to leave you hanging right at that point, because, gosh darn it, like, we want to be consistent. Consistency is a power play when you're providing value to a community and when you're creating content. And so we're like, yeah, let's do Thanksgiving episode. So. So that's the first thing. But then, Liz, we're going to get into, like, why I think that episode turned out the way it did, and just some very vulnerable and authentic answers are coming your way to the rest of this episode. So, by the way, listeners, if you haven't gone back and listened to episode 15, it might be a bit of comic relief to do that either after listening to this, to be like, what are they talking about? And then. Oh, oh.

Let's just say that you and I, the only thing we really have in common, with the exception of a love for humans and HubSpot, is the sound of our voices. Because the way you and I have changed since we recorded last year's episode is. Is hilarious considering how much we talked. The talk of embracing change and discomfort. I'm like, girl, you have no idea.

What it's about to happen.

No idea. Yeah, you have no idea.

No lobster metaphor will save you. But let's dig in. So let's start with.

Is it surprising to you that we.

Were so against doing a Thanksgiving episode last year?

Because I don't know if you had forgotten it the way I did, but I certainly didn't. I was like, wait, what?

Oh, I had. I had forgotten about episode 15. I mean, listen, 12 months ago is a. A long time. It's a lifetime ago in what's been happening. And to answer your question, no. Like, like, no. And. And here's the thing. Like, when I think back to that time frame, Liz, and I, I'm. I literally tried to transport myself into, like, episode 15 last November. George B. Th. Holding on, holding on. I would even say a little bit scared now. I don't. I'm not a big proponent of fear, but there was a little bit of, like, hey, I'm kind of scared, like, where I'm at right now. And. And I felt like last November, I was strapped on top of a rocket ship called business, and I was wondering, how is this going to end? Like, are we going to, like, explode? Are we going to crash? Or, like, like, what. What is gonna happen? And so there was, like, this coming to the table to talk about Thanksgiving, to talk about gratitude, positive intent, like, the way that, you know, life journey that we can be on. And meanwhile, there was this underlying, oh, oh, ish. Like, where am I at? What choice did I make? What's going on, like, in the back of the cranium the entire time?

Oh, gosh.

Yeah, I completely. I completely relate to that because when I was going back and listening to it. What. It's not that I necessarily disagree with some of the stuff that we talked about in theory and in principle, but what was fascinating about it, and this is where I know we're breaking that cardinal Ghostbusters rule of never crossing streams, but we have another podcast that we do together called beyond your default, where we talk about big life themes, and we've talked about some of these themes for before in the past. But I can't help but feel like when I'm listening to that, without poking fun at myself, I remember being in a. In a parallel boat as you. I didn't quite know what was wrong.

At the time, but I just could.

Never shake the feeling of everything is right on paper, so why does everything feel not right?

But I was doing that thing where I was like, I'm.

I'm checking the boxes. Like, I started my own business. It's doing well. I was very blessed and privileged in.

The fact that when I went into.

Business, the day I opened my doors, I was completely booked with work.

Yep.

You know, I was. And like, I had just celebrated my.

40Th birthday at a big Italian restaurant.

With friends and family and my husband at the time.

Yeah.

Like, there were lots of different things.

That were happening, but there is this.

Strange thing of why does it feel like the floor and the ceiling have switched?

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just an interesting thing to think about. So when you think about your approach toward the. Let's just be fun, let's rhyme your attitude toward gratitude this year. How has it shifted since this time last year?

Well, here's the thing. On that episode, we didn't start thanking humans until, like, the frickin Back end of it, like, it was almost like a hindsight.

It was too cool for us. We're gonna get on the mic and be like, thank you and thank you and thank you. We want it to be helpful.

Yeah, it's. Yeah. And it was so crazy to me because it's like, especially for, you know, a brand that is all about the humans to, like, wait and have the end piece be about the humans. And so, like, when I. When I was thinking about the episode we were gonna do today, I was like, oh, I immediately want to just let everybody know, holy crap. I am grateful. I am so grateful with where I am and where I'm sitting right now.

And.

And I'm thankful for the clients that we serve. You know, I'm watching this morning, Jorge, we're doing this thing, we're going to put out a video, and it's little clips of, like, what people are thankful for in the GBT organization and ecosystem. And he starts to talk about how awesome the clients are. And I know where he's coming from because we've all had those clients historically, where we had to work with them. But I kid you not that we're in an ecosystem where we have clients, where we get to work with them. And. And I'm so thankful for that. So there's just a. There's a dramatic difference in being able to be in that place. I'm thankful for the theme. Right. And the creation of the theme. And. And yeah, yeah, I am. I am. If you're like, what the frick is a theme? Well, first of all. And I'm going to talk about my gratitude for Inbound later in the episode. Okay. But at Inbound, the theme was born because I. I have. And I'm grateful for this, by the way, that I've been able to hire every one of my children and my wife to be an employee in the organization. And yes, yes, I know the question you're asking. They actually do work. They have jobs. They're in charge of things. Social media, writing, you know, billing, like, all sorts of things that they're doing. Website design, podcast editing, video editing. But I've been blessed, and I'm grateful that we've been able to hire the family. So at Inbound, I was introducing them as my family. This is my wife, this is my daughters. And they were like, hey, we're your team. And I'm like, but you're my family. And so then my daughter was like, okay, well, how about the theme? Because family always comes first. So I'm super Grateful that the theme was born. Right? And it's. And when I say the theme, I mean family, employees, contractors, like everybody that over the last, you know, 12 months, we'll say. But during the whole journey of like starting the business, I've been able to kind of wrap myself around these like amazing humans. And I've got to point out that I'm, I'm thankful for Jorge. Like, Jorge is just absolutely amazing. Like the, the amount of growth that he's had over the last almost 12 months, by the way. Liz, I literally went and did research on how long Jorge has been with me. February 27th will be his one year anniversary. And in the amount of HubSpot certifications that he's gotten since starting last February to now, November is astronomical. Like, he's done it faster than I did it. And the way that he's paid attention and the, the articles that we've been able to put out, if you haven't checked out the what has Jorge Learned Set of articles, I'm grateful for those because it's just a, it's a, it's a poke into what is happening in the ecosystem for everybody that is employees. This growth mindset, I'm, I'm grateful for growth mindsets, right? I'm thankful for the Hub Heroes podcast and community. I'm thankful for the ability and list. I'm glad that you brought it up to be able to even create beyond your default. We'll talk about that more because I don't want to let that go because we are talking about things and why in Journeys and Transitions. Liz. I'm even going to put it out there that I'm thankful for a second book idea, right? Like, these are some of the big things that have happened over the last 12 months since November where I'm just like, there is so much greatness, so much to be thankful. And it can be. When you're listening to this, I want you to just start to list out all the things that you're thankful for professionally, personally and, and think micro and think macro. Like, what are the small. Like, I'm just thankful for that I could walk down a flight of stairs and sit in my office and sit my coffee and do what I love every day. You know, how many people can't do that anyway? And this was the last thing we talked about, like on the other episode. What about you? Like, you, you have to have some things where you're like super dope.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, this year has been positively wild. I was joking with a friend of.

Mine yesterday on the phone, that if.

You had told me I would be.

Spending Thanksgiving in Connecticut with friends this time last year, I would have thought.

You were completely unhinged.

Where's my husband?

But I live in Maryland. I'm not going back to Connecticut.

What are you actually talking about?

You know, like, the way my life.

Looks today versus where it was one.

Year ago cannot be overstated.

And how. This is not.

This is.

Life was supposed to zig, and this is a very hard zag.

But what I will say that I'm.

Tremendously grateful for this year. I mean, I'll be honest. When I and you and I talked about this yesterday, I had to pull myself out of it a little bit. But I am so grateful for my work and my work. I know we're not supposed to say work family, but. I'm sorry, you're my work family. George. I would have never gotten through this year without you. Like the work, the mentorship, the friendship, you know, the deep human conversations where we kept saying, we should start recording this. And then we finally did, which is kind of fun.

Yes.

But, you know, and also the clients that we get to work with are just. It genuinely is a privilege, you know, particularly like my near and dear, our.

Friends at Sound FSG in Jackson, Mississippi.

They're just such incredible, wonderful people.

I love. What I love about the people that we get to work with is I.

Feel like we get to learn from them a lot. And, you know, you and I met with some folks at HubSpot earlier this week. I believe it was earlier this week. And we were talking about what are some of the themes of the people that we get to work with.

Yes.

And what was really beautiful about it is that, you know, we're. It's somewhat industry agnostic. But one of the themes that was abundantly clear of when we look at the people who are the best fit, they view what they do as a genuine service, not like a product or service.

They.

They.

They show every day to serve the human.

Yes. Yes.

Was like just this really kind of big, profound breakthrough. You know, it's interesting that it's something where it organically happened. These were the people that just started being attracted. They just started showing up.

Listen, let's. It's funny because, Liz, I actually had a chance to think about this after that meeting, and I love that you're like. It was this profound thing, and I don't disagree because, like, when you're so in the weeds and you're, like, doing your thing and you're helping humans. And all sudden you actually get a chance to sit back, like open your eyes and like, pay attention. It's actually a freaking life principle that we've all kind of jokingly said, birds of a feather flock together. Listen, I've been a happy, helpful, humble human based in a level of servanthood, trying to serve humanity through this thing called HubSpot. Why would it be mind blowing for us, even though it is, that all of a sudden we have these servanthood based clients showing up at our doorstep? So here's what I'll say to the people who are listening to this. If you're like, I'm thankful for the clients. I have you listening, then be thankful for the freaking human that you are. If you're sitting here going, man, why do I end up with crappy clients? I'm leaving a dramatic pause in there for a reason. Like, we have to show up in the way that we want others to show up as well at our doorstep. I'm just going to throw that out there. And we do have amazing clients.

Oh, yeah, we really do.

In terms of other people I'm thankful for, I just.

This has been a year of the family you choose. And you know, that has been. I have been a little emotional.

I.

Hey, but do that. Here's the thing. Oh, can I. Oh, I can't wait to get into this piece. I'm going to shut up because it's your turn. But we're going to talk about emotion. We're going to talk about emotion in this. In this episode.

I think what is so beautiful about this year is that when you go through massive life changes, you know, there's kind of a natural attrition. Not because people are bad people. It's just when you go through a massive. This is the end of a big life chapter. I am blowing a lot of things up. I'm making massive changes. Not everybody can come with you. And that was hard. I learned a lot of hard lessons about that this year. And I'm not saying hard lessons and that I was betrayed. I learned a lot of lessons about myself. I learned a lot of lessons about the mistakes I was making and how the reason why I'd ended up in certain situations was of my own making. But on the flip side of that, there was this beautiful kind of like recurring surprise of, oh my gosh, you're here. Oh my gosh, you're here. Like, what was interesting is seeing the people who show up.

Yeah.

Like, because nature abhors a vacuum. Right. You start ripping a lot of things out of your life. It's going to start filling in at some point. When you're ready.

Yes.

So now that I've started, you know, carefully, like cracking the door open in my life because I went through a lot of. I spent a lot of time just like being on my own this year, just being completely in hermit mode, doing this great little short term rental in New Haven. It's been such a healing experience.

But that idea of people will surprise you can be such a beautiful thing. And so there are certain people where it's like, I am so glad you're here. I never would have bet it would be you here. Not because of anything against you. It's just circumstance and just. This is not what I expected, you know, that it's great. It just, it's really heartwarming.

Yeah, it's, it's, that's the thing. Like there's so many people that come into our lives and, and I don't sometimes think they realize the power that they have in our lives in those moments, you know, Like, I, I thank God every day for Max Cohen. I thank God every day for Devin Bellamy. I thank God every day for Mick Hunt. I thank God every day for Joe Rando. Right. Like, there's just people who have become part of our, our ethos, if you will, that they say things or they push us in a certain way or they provide opportunities. And I know they're doing what I do. Oh, I'm just a guy. Like I'm just being me. And so many times I don't think that we as humans realize how freaking special we are. And, and that's the thing. I'll wrap this kind of piece up, Liz, with. I'm just thankful. I am grateful from the bottom of, you know, the tips of my toes to the tip of my head that humans are amazing. They're special. Any of them that have been around me over the last 12 months. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

You know, it's interesting, much of what.

We talked about on last year's Thanksgiving episode was so far reaching in scope.

Right.

We were talking about lessons that we learned cumulatively through life.

Yeah.

And we spent a lot of time talking to our younger selves.

Yeah.

What would I go back and tell Liz at 15, who is obsessed with Val Kilmer? Like, what, what would I do?

Yeah.

But we've already talked about the fact that this has been a roller coaster year with a lot of paradigm shifting experiences. Our mindsets have shifted.

A lot of things have changed in a 12 month period.

So what would you go back and tell yourself this time last year, if.

Anything, based on what you learned and.

What you know now?

Oh, there's a metric button. I would tell myself, first of all, I would be. I would. Because remember last time I was like, I'd sit down and I'd be like, it's gonna be okay, buddy. Right? Like you're gonna. I would tell myself, last November, brah, you have no idea what's about to happen, so get prepared. Right? But. But I would also say to myself, don't lose sight on just a few things. Just a few things that I need you to kind of push a little forward towards your cranium because you're in this crazy place of starting a business. Holy crap. It's not what I thought it was going to be. Scaling a business almost immediately. Holy crap. It's still going. Rescaling, rethinking, remodifying. And so you're going to lose sight of some things, but just push them towards your cranium a little bit more. And by the way, these are things that in 2024, I will be focusing on, right? So these might be things that the listeners would want to focus on if they've lost sight of. So professionally, let's just start there. Dude, whenever you get a chance, can you build a process? Could you just please build a process around the things that you're gonna do? Make sure that if it's repeatable, that anybody can actually repeat it. Process, process, process. That is the thing that I would put into my brain because one thing I've proven is over the long haul, I'm good at in the moment, spur of the moment, like, let's just do a thing like rock and roll. But, man, it's just crazy to think about this idea of process and having something in place for you and for others. Educating myself. And what do I mean by educating myself? Listen, I have gotten a masterclass in starting and scaling a business, but I have several times been smacked in the face when people have shown me new HubSpot academy education lessons or certifications. And I'm like, I remember the day when it used to be me getting those first, watching those first. And that is not just happening. And the other thing I would say is content creation, right? When I say that, what do I mean? I mean, if you look at the pre. Starting a business, guy, I'm everywhere. I'm creating a tutorial update, a webinar, an event, whatever. Now have I still created some content? Yes. I mean, listen, you're listening to the Hub Heroes podcast. Listen, we've got another podcast that we'll talk about while we're here today too. But have we done events? Yes, but the, the YouTube community tutorials, updates, like, listen, I know I only have so much time, but still it's something that I get frustrated because again, it's those two by fours in life where I'm like, well yeah, you should do it this way. And somebody be like, would you got a video I can watch on that? And I'm like, like, I'm gonna meet like son of. If I would have created it, I would had it. It would have been a tool that I could have used. The other thing I would tell myself back then is, yo, just, you know what, right now it's going to be a lot easier if you just give your business to God. I didn't really have that realization. Like, don't get me wrong, I've always had this like spiritual element, scripture on the footer of the website, different things like that. But it wasn't until recently where I was like, and I'm not a very anxious person. But this stress and a little bit of what I'll call anxiety was starting to show up and I'm like, I have the wrong mindset right now. I need to quit thinking of this as mine. I need to think of it as his. And I just need to be the best employee or steward, if you will, of the thing that I've been blessed with. Okay? So that's professionally, personally, I would tell myself, dude, you're gonna be face down, like doing your thing. But you need to remember to focus on family. You need to make sure that you take time. Now don't get me wrong, we've taken a couple vacations, but the level in which I've let myself get tired, the level in which I've let myself work on some Saturdays, the level in which I've gone against my own rule of healthy hustle. And not to the terrible extent, but to the point where I'm like, dude, you could do better, right? Personal, I would say focus on health, right? The lack of walks that I've done since last November is a travesty, to be honest with you. The amount that I have changed where I'm just grabbing quick bites when I can of not healthy food instead of like laying out and having a plan, I would so focus on health and then focusing on how. How do we get more of Zen George back in the pilot seat of what's Happening? Because it was only a couple months ago That I actually redownloaded the Headspace app and started making blatant time for meditation throughout the day. Right. So. So am I coming full circle and understanding what happened over the last 12 months? Yes. Do I have a plan attack for the next 12 months to be real grateful for the fact of impacting the things I just mentioned? Yes. But to answer you, while a lot of things have been going amazing, these are the micro pieces that I would want to go in and tweak and focus on if I could go back and tell myself that, and that I will do as we kind of move forward. So, Liz, your thoughts?

If I were to talk to myself.

This time last year, I probably wouldn't tell myself much of what was to.

Come because I would probably have a heart attack.

Facts.

Yeah.

What I would say though is that you have to remember one of the things about yourself that you've always loved, even when you've had times where it's very hard to look in the mirror and love yourself.

And I had a few of those times this year as well, is that like, I have a tenacity that borders on mental illness in that like, if you hit me, I'll always get back up, even if that wound is self inflicted. Like if it. I always get back up.

I. At some point I get back up and I keep going.

I have this funny rule in my life called the explosion rule, which is like, well, are you going to explode between now and six months from now?

No.

Okay, well, barring an explosion between now and six months from now, most of this will have been resolved. You might have spicy new problems because sometimes that's just how life is. But like, you're gonna get through this. So when I think about what I would go back and tell myself this.

Time last year, I would share very little of the plot, but I would say, you're going to have a moment. And it was a moment. I knew I was going to have some time this year where I was going to have a small moment where I said, I did it. I got here and it happened yesterday. It happened yesterday on the treadmill. I was going really hard on the treadmill. I was listening to some good music. I had shared it with you and I was just feeling very good about things. And all of a sudden I took a moment and looked around and realized, like, hey, my life isn't exactly where I want it to be yet. I'm still pulling some pieces of my life back together.

But I did it.

And I here, like, I have my office, I have a Place to stay. I have a health practice that I've been really committing to over the past month. Things are really starting to come back together. There is this, this energy of renewal that I wasn't for a while there, particularly over the spring and summer. You know, it's, you know that there's an end to the tunnel, but you can't quite see it.

Yeah.

So I would go back and say, you know, there are going to be times where it's very dark, just keep.

Getting up, keep putting one foot in.

Front of the other. Do the thing that you've always done, which is never give up, even when it's hard.

This is going to be the most.

Painful and rewarding year you will ever have. You've wanted freedom, now you have it so good.

It's interesting. The, the most painful and rewarding year that you've ever had so far. Right. Because who knows what the future will bring. That's, that's the thing of this. So it's funny because I too, in the last day or two days have been in conversation where the words came out of my mouth that I said because I'm not a quitter. Which is exactly what you said. Right. I'm not a quitter. Like I'm. There's fight in this old dog. I'll continue to get up and go after this thing. So I love that mindset and for the listeners, like, you know, do you have that mentality? If not, what can you do to build that mentality? Like, how can you, how can you be the Rocky Balboa of the inbound and HubSpot space and of your own life where you're like, no, I'm getting up, I got another few punches left in me.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, I think we all go through those stages in our life where, oh look, it's the consequences of my own actions. Not that we're nefarious actors who are doing poorly out in the world and trying to intentionally hurt other people, but sometimes when you're living a life that is driven by fear based decisions that that debt collector is going to come calling and it's going to come falling hard and you look around and go, oh my God, what have I done? Yeah, of course everything hurts. Of course people are getting hurt. Look what I've done.

Of course my HubSpot portal is a piece of ish anyway. Had to tie it back to HubSpot for a second.

But absolutely no, it's, it's just this fascinating idea of like, you know, you.

Are going to have moments where it's.

You're gonna have to look in the mirror and you are going to have to look at yourself and say, and we're gonna keep going.

And we're going to keep going.

There is no. There is no going backward. There is no stopping.

You have to keep going. Yeah, well, let's, let's shift gears for a minute. What are the moments that are the most. That you are the most grateful for this year? Memories, moments, specific times.

Yeah, yeah, there's. There's two that I'm gonna mention. I. I have to just mention Inbound. This was the first year that I went to Inbound and I took my family slash team and, and what I mean by is, first time they actually went and did sessions, first time they, you know, shook hands, kissed babies, like, the first time that they were really part of the brand that is the George B. Thomas brand and, and got to see what that meant. Everything from the good of it to the weight that you actually have to bear because you're part of what has been created along the way. So Inbound was a magical moment. Watching things just sink in and, and be planted and start amongst all the theme members was great. Sitting down with, you know, the Hub Heroes podcast posse and people like Doug Davidoff and his team and just having conversations with hubspotters like, it just was. It was just a magical time. And, and it's funny because I'm grateful, Liz, that I have a business that we could afford to do that. Right? If we're talking about being thankful, I'm thankful that we're already looking towards next year and how do we take more people? How do, how do we enable this? Because of me understanding how life changing Inbound was for me and HubSpot has been for me. And the education and hard work that everybody that works for HubSpot, what they're doing for the event and the SaaS software and the ecosystem, like plugging as many humans that are in the organization or attached to the organization, to those moments is very important to me. And I'm just thankful that we can live in that world right now. We're small enough, right? Organization where we can, hey, it's gonna hurt financially a little bit, but it's worth it. Now, the other thing I'll say is one of my biggest fears and one of the things I knew I wanted to battle against when I started the business was, was this idea of becoming a workaholic and not being able to shut it off. And so the fact that I can sit here and say we've had multiple vacations where I've left and just like, have I checked email a little bit? Yes. Have I maybe like paid attention to Slack so if anything was burning down? Yes. But did I really do any client work? No. And the thing that I'm really grateful is that most of the clients are like, we're not gonna bug you, we don't want to talk to you. Like, go do your thing. We understand that by you taking a break and fueling up, we're going to get a better version of you when you get back. And so this idea of multiple vacations and knowing that that's at least one thing that I didn't fall prey to. And I'm grateful that we have a vacation coming up. Like January 15th. We're going on what I would call a big booty of a vacation and I'm even having a big booty. It's like so it's like we're, we're gone for a hot minute, meaning we're doing a 10 day cruise in January. And I'm, I'm blessed, I'm, I'm happy, I'm grateful. But one of the really cool things is I'm also bringing some parents along for that trip. So it's just gonna be, it's just going to be fun and I'm excited. And again, it's just one of those things where I'm glad that I have created an organization where we can take time to be who we need to be. You know, I'm even grateful for the fact right now that Jorge is off right now. Right. Like, here's the thing. I, I love being able to be like, and here's how it goes. By the way, here's a little bit behind the scenes for you as a, as a Hub Heroes listener. By the way, I'm Jorge for a second. Hey George. I'd like to take off Friday, Monday and Tuesday in about 30 days. Okay, buddy, sounds good. Sit, sit. That's the pro, by the way. That is the process for that. I go and I notated in my calendar that Jorge is going to be off those days and I let him go do his thing and be who he needs to be and, and support his wife and go on vacations and like, and just live life because I know when he gets back like then he'll be ready to do business. Right. And so just this mindset and culture of, you know, family, first, life first, do hard work, play hard. Like I'm just very grateful that, that's where we've ended up being able to be. Because I know some businesses, some business owners, they get caught up and that's not where they land.

I love that. I'm also this is me officially lobbying.

I come to you again on this.

Day of your daughter's wedding, lobbying for.

A second year in a row this.

Summer, a Fast and Furious style familia barbecue in North Carolina.

I will drive down there. It must happen.

We need to make that happen. Somehow, some way, we need to make it happen.

In terms of moments that I'm the most, most grateful for this year, sadly, I was not able to go to Inbound this year. But no, I will be there next year.

I will be there.

I am so excited.

But when I think about the moments that I'm really the most excited about this year, so many of them blend together. I would say every time we get on the mic to do Hub Heroes with Max and Devin is so much fun. I would say recently one of my favorite moments was when we had Chris Stillwell on last episode to do, yes.

The sales therapy that we needed to have. We had a lot of feelings that a lot of us didn't realize we had. Highly recommend people go back and check that out.

But all of the guests that we've had on this year, Jory coming on.

To talk about reporting, Jack talking about.

Commerce Hub, we had an incredible ABM and Inbound discussion. Like, I think one of my favorite things about what we do which culminates in all of these little moments, is how much learning we do. Like, we don't come on these podcasts with the answers. We come on as students of Inbound ourselves.

Yes.

And we encourage these dialogues and we encourage these moments, which is, I think.

What I would love to see more.

In the ecosystem in general. You know, I, I haven't been to Inbound in a few years, but I remember I used to get really frustrated whenever I would go into a session and somebody was acting as if, well, I am on top of the mountain and I am the exit expert. And I've always learned more from folks who are like, hey, I'm just an investigator. I'm walking this path right alongside you. I've just committed myself to being the one who tenaciously chases after the answers to these specific questions. And it's just been so fun. All of the different learning that we've done this year. Like when we had Mark Killens on and he talked to us about the history of Inbound methodology and how it came together, it's Just there's such beauty in this particular space, which is why. What makes the HubSpot ecosystem so special? Like, I don't.

You.

I can't tell you, but, you know, I can.

I can tell you. It's the humans. That's what makes it special. That's what makes it special.

The other moment, which I know is something that you want to talk about, is you and I finally getting beyond your default started, which was a passion project that you've had a book that has been living in your heart for years. But when you and I initially started talking about it, what, about a year ago?

More like a year more. More.

Was something where it's just like we both give it. It's not time. It's not time. We're not that. There's something. You're still baking. There's something going on here. And then you and I started having human time.

Yeah.

You and I work together so much, but we're also friends, so we would periodically just, hey, let's have human time on the calendar. And we started having these conversations. And then periodically one of us would joke and say, why aren't. Why are we not recording this?

Yeah.

And then there was that moment of us both going, it's time, and it's different than what you thought it would be.

Yeah. What's funny is I think that it's episode 15 that actually started to unlock where we eventually got. Because we were having real talks from where we were at last November. And then all of a sudden we got done with that episode. It was like, ah, man, that felt good. We should just have, like, times where we talk like humans and. And what's fun is beyond your default actually has been an idea in my brain for years of a book idea. I even tried to start the podcast. I think it's four years ago. If you Google, like, beyond your default, there's some historical clutter on the Internet of what it was before versus what it is now. And so that's another great thing that I'm grateful for is just like this idea of being able to get to the point where I'm secure in myself enough and where I'm at and who I've become to actually start to share my story and lessons and have you come along for the ride and share your story and your lessons and for both of us to get to a point in life. And listeners, I hope that you're at this point, and if you're not, I hope you get to this point. But this point of just understanding we're enough to do this thing that we're trying to do. And sometimes that's hard to understand, you know, having this blessing of I can now create content that I once believed nobody would care about. Let me explain. This is probably like, four, five, five or six years ago. I was on a webinar, and I said in the chat pane, this is why I stick to HubSpot tutorials. People care about what I can teach. They don't care about what I think. And all of a sudden, and all sudden, in the chat pane, people started, hey, I would care what you think. I would listen if you would impart some advice. And I was like, nice talk, bro. No, like, mentally, I just shut it down. And. But it was. But it's a. But it's a spark, right? It was a flicker of, like, maybe people do care about the pieces that are happening that is getting me to the place that I'm going. And. And so to finally reach this level of, like, yeah, Liz, it's time. Like, let's do this. And to have it out in the world and to have BeyondYourDefault.com and doing the podcast and, you know, launching the newsletter and just all the cool things around that as a very deep passion project. Because, listen, for the last 10 to almost 12 years now, depending on when you start the clock, I've been helping humans with HubSpot. And now I get this great privilege to just try to help humans. And that is a refreshing and exciting and. And joy. It brings joy to my heart. Grateful, right? Grateful that we're on this other parallel journey to just leave an impact in what sometimes can be a corrosive, confusing, challenging life. And. And we can just be a little shine of light in somebody's day. A little tip that might be. Be able to get him in the right direction. Anyway, like, another thing that I'm super grateful for. And I listen. I know this is like, man, isn't this a podcast about HubSpot? We're gonna talk about. Yeah, we're gonna talk about HubSpot. But listen, if you go and listen to last, you know, Thanksgiving episode 15, and you listen to the conversations that we're having there, and you listen to the conversations that we're having here, and you're like, well, shoot, I still want to get my HubSpot stuff from Hub Heroes podcast, like, I know they'll get back to normal, but there's, like, a little bit of yearning that we're like, oh, man, I could use a little bit more of that in My life. Not a sales pitch at all. But just go check out the beyond, your default podcast and if you love it, become a listener. If you don't, don't ever listen to it again. But if there's something that happens during one of those episodes that impacts your life by all that is holy, please email me or Liz and let us know. Like, oh my God, this thing that you said in. Because that's the currency, that's the fuel. Like understanding the catalyst moments that are happening or the emotional impact that is being created. Like, if you do that, let us know. Okay.

Anyway, yep, check it out. Beyondyourdefault.com it's pretty sweet. Wow. I just had this flash in my head of, oh, George and Liz, a year from now going, so those ding dongs, anything.

I'm very excited to see how we could.

I feel like that's what it's gonna be. I. I see it coming, to be honest.

It's gonna happen. Okay, so let's pivot here for a moment. We talked about the humans, we've talked about the moments.

Now let's talk about big Orange Sprocket to our friends at HubSpot. What are you most grateful for this year?

Oh my God. I don't know if anybody's done this, but I literally, when going through, like, there's certain things that I know that I'm thankful for. I actually went into my HubSpot portal and I started to go through this year's updates and scroll through and let me just tell you that it takes a long time. And Liz, what's funny is I even thought about what kind of crazy piece of content would it be if you just started at January 1st. I just started naming every update that HubSpot made between January 1st and and December 31st of the year. Like, it would get boring probably because you'd literally be just listing the tools, but I swear to God, it would probably be like 30 minutes worth of a video of you just saying all the updates. Anyway, if you haven't gone into your update panel and looked at that place, you definitely should. But I broke it down to just a couple things where I was like, these are very interesting moments and they're going to be big impacts for a lot of people. So one of them that I'll say is inline editing in views. The ability to not have to go into an actual record to update the phone number or the email address. And being able to do that almost in like a bulk sense on a view of multiple records was like a game changing moment when it came to the flexibility or ease of use with HubSpot. Another one that had historically always been a royal pain in the keister was anybody who has web Flow and wanted to use HubSpot and especially wanted to use HubSpot forms, because embedding those forms, it was like, I don't know, like the second coming of Jesus would be easier than putting a HubSpot form on a web web page. But now HubSpot has the new Web Flow app for HubSpot, right? And so that it's super easy. I gave the process to Jorge and one of our clients and they're like, oh my God, this is wow. Okay, once was difficult, now is easy. The new CTA's tool, I've been very bullish on that lately. The idea of being able to create something that is just automagically responsive based on mobile, tablet, desktop, the fact that you have design flexibility where once we're like, oh, you can tell that's a.

HubSpot pop up because they all look.

The same now you can design it in any way that you want. Same object association. OMG. Thank you, thank you. HubSpot for same object association. Student, teacher, husband, wife, parent, child, whatever you want to do there. Like, the reason this is big for me is because I'm always preaching wrapping HubSpot around your business. I always talk about custom properties, the way you can customize records, and now you can just customize the way that things associate with each other, no matter what kind of business you have. And then the last one I'll say, which for me was kind of like a. I've had people reach out and say, holy crap, dude. Because I was in a meeting and we were Talking about the HubSpot social media tool and this person said, is there any way to comment with your team during the process of trying to get draft to approved social post? And I said, no, right now that has to live in Slack email wherever. It's depressing, but that's the way it goes. And I said, you know what? I'm going to reach out to HubSpot. And so I reached out to a particular person who I admire, love and enjoy having conversations with. And I said, this would be a great idea by the way, and here's why. Liz. Within a month and a half, the feature was in HubSpot. The person who I was in the meeting with saw the update and was like, holy crap, dude. And I'm like, I know, right? Like, I'm grateful for those kind of moments. I'm Grateful just in the fact of what story I'm telling There is that HubSpot listens. HubSpot listens and they pivot and they transition and they build and they give us a way to create this amazing machine, whatever it needs to be to run our entire organization in a very holistic way, a happy way, a human way. Thank you, HubSpot, for just doing that one simple thing that many organizations don't do, and that's listen and take action.

My gratitude for HubSpot this year is, is much more simple and it's because I'm a content nerd. I'm so, so grateful for the drag and drop module features inside blog vertical pages.

Yes, yes.

So. And what that means is like it used to be when you had a blog article, you just had a rich text field and you could bloop a cta. But now we can add featured snippet boxes, we can add specific types of educational interstitials, we can add transcript areas, we can do all of these different things. And what I love about it is that like, it is, that tool is like the bedrock, the foundation for those of us OG folks who have been in the HubSpot marketing hub for like almost 10 years. I love how what they do are these small but incredibly impactful updates to the product and specifically for the blog tool.

So if you haven't messed around with that, I would definitely encourage you to check it out. It's the same drag and drop module feature that you're used to on landing pages and website pages, but you can now do it for blog pages, which is really helpful when, oh, you're doing a big long article. It would probably benefit from a featured snippet. You want to code it a little bit differently, you might want to drop it in this way. You have a podcast page for show notes, for example.

Ha ha.

And you don't want to have show notes, resources and then like 20,000 minutes of a transcript. No, you want to put something nice in there. You want to make a better user experience. Those are things you can now do. I'm also genuinely grateful to the people at HubSpot with for their generosity of time. We already alluded to them. So I'm not going to go ahead and relist everybody. And I'm sure I'm missing a ton of people like Adridi. She came on to talk about service hub Justin and Justin Champion, who came on to talk about link building, the link building intervention. None of us knew that we needed Kyle Jepsen. Kyle Jepsen is always the. The folks of HubSpot who have donated their time generously to teach the Hub Heroes community.

A lot of organizations won't do that.

Yeah.

You know, and they go out of their way to just show up and.

Answer questions and talk about things.

And we're literally recording another one with.

Jack Coopersmith today about Commerce Hub.

I'm so excited.

A big shout out to the people at HubSpot. We really appreciate your time. We appreciate that you come back to teach our audience because we have amassed an incredible community who are also happy, helpful, hum, humble HubSpot helpers who are.

Just trying to be the best dang Hub heroes their organizations need. And you're really helping them do that.

Okay, hang on, hang on. Wait, wait. Are you, Are you transitioning? Are you still. Are you still happy about HubSpot?

I was going to transition to our. Because.

Okay, transition in one second. Transition, Transition to one second. I'm gonna look right at the camera when I say this because it's the Thanksgiving episode. It's the Thanksgiving episode and we've thanked a lot of people. But here's the thing. This year I'm not gonna forget this one because it's so important. All right, you all ready? I want to thank Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shaw and whoever else was in that small room at what I believe was CIC co working space for actually coming up with the idea of creating this thing that we now call HubSpot. For creating the HubSpot ecosystem, for focusing on culture, for focusing on being human. Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shaw and the initial team, people like Mike Volpe, all sorts of folks that we could start to mention. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very grateful. I know my life and others in the ecosystem's life wouldn't be what it is if that spark hadn't been started. I had to do that on purpose. Right to the camera list. Right to the camera.

I loved it. Yeah. Do you have any parting words of gratitude as we trip Face first into the holiday season?

I do.

Because we're about to go take to take down some turkeys next week.

Yeah, I do. So, by the way, thank you for making me listen to last year's episode. And you said earlier in this episode, oh, I'm going to get emotional. And I said, do it, do it. And I said, we'll talk about emotion later. Last year's episode close out of my mouth. I said, I'm thankful for you. And then you said that you were gonna start to get emotional and I said, I said before that you have to promise not to get emotional. But Liz, I'm thankful for you.

I'm already crying, so we're.

And here's the thing. I'm grateful that I'm allowing myself to fix my. What might be the dumbest damn thing I've ever done in my life. And that is for years and years and years, I've buried my emotions. I've subscribed to the Walk It Off. I've subscribed to that. You're not allowed to feel that. I've subscribed to the Man Up, Be a Man. And I was having a conversation with my wife and my daughters the other day at dinner and I said, do you want to know a dirty little secret about your dad and your husband? And I said, I wish I could get my emotions back. I spent so many years pushing them down that it's just very hard sometimes for me to feel. It's sometimes very hard for me to cry. It's. It's very hard for me to even engage and therefore dumb comes out of my mouth. Like, you have to promise not to be emotional. And so as we fall face forward into the holidays, my challenge to myself is to be more emotional. My challenge to the listeners is to enable your emotions more, listen to your emotions, let them guide and direct you in the way that maybe you're supposed to go over the next year. But don't subscribe to what we've been told we should do or who we think we should be. Just be ourselves. Emotional as emotion it can get. And so, first of all, I'm going to apologize to my wife and my daughters and my family and you, Liz, and anybody out there that I've ever come across as. That dude's a little bit of a hard ass because it's not like I was trying to be that guy, but I just had a life that kind of built that into me. But I refused to accept it. And therefore, in 2024, I'm going to change it. And I can't wait to get to next year and bawl my eyes out. No, I'm just kidding. And be able to say, hey, I'm grateful for the last 12 months because here are the things that I've been able to. To feel my gosh.

Well, you got me to cry there, so that was nice. Thanks a lot for that. I'm having my emotions. I'm having my Fifi's. George, I, of course, I, you know how grateful I am for you. But you know what? In the Spirit of leading by example, what you said, I am so grateful for you, George. You have been the hand up, not the handout I desperately needed this year. I have been. There were a lot of times I felt really lost this year. And you have your mentorship, your friendship, the ability to do the work that we do, the ability to sit here on this mic every week. It is such a privilege and an honor. I am forever grateful for that weird layover I had in Charlotte on the.

Way to Frankenmuth, Michigan, to see our.

Friends at retrofoam, where we just. We hadn't seen each other in years. And it was just all of a sudden, we knew that was the moment we were so supposed to reconnect. In terms of my parting words, what I will tell everybody is that there.

Is only one thing you are 100% a failure at almost pretty much 100% of the time, and that is predicting the future. That is understanding the outcomes. That is understanding.

Like, I think sometimes we know that fortune cookie wisdom around, like, well, when one door closes, another opens.

No, it feels like shit when it happens.

All right?

It feels like absolute dog.

We have hate it.

We don't like it. We don't like rejection.

We hate it. We hate it.

We hate it. I have never been happier for the life I have. Stuff I'm still figuring out and all than the one I have right now. And there's a reason why I said earlier in this episode I wouldn't go back and tell myself what was about to happen. It's a, you have to walk this path. You have to walk this path. You will come out the other side. You will be so grateful you got there, but you have to walk this with blinders on. You're not going to know. And so what I would encourage everybody to think about is that even in your darkest moments, there is a reason.

Why you are where you are.

And I don't say that punitively. Just remember that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. You are right on time. And it's a good thing that we fail at predicting the future, because it's always bigger and brighter than we could have possibly imagined. A rejection that was devastating for me seven years ago for a job. Thank goodness I didn't get it, because I never would have gone through the agency world. I would have never ended up at Impact, which means I would have never gone out on my own, which means I wouldn't be sitting here and none of this would be happening. I wouldn't be here. But I chased that thing for months, and I was devastated by it. My marriage fell apart and I was devastated by it. But you know what? It's exactly what needed to happen. We just posted the house for sale, and I am definitely not living in anything resembling the house that just went on the market, but it's exactly what.

Was supposed to happen.

So you never quite understand whether or not you're in the middle of a chapter or the end of a part or at the end of a book. Just live your life and stop being so dang hard on yourself. You're not always supposed to know anyway.

Preach. Preach. Yeah, know, it's. It's funny. Liz, as we close up, what I'll say is when I hear you say that it's, it's things. And by the way, I'm saying this in life, but also in HubSpot because so many times I've watched users, like, shy away from the hard parts of HubSpot. And so just a fundamental, you know, mindset principle, philosophy, quote, whatever you want to throw in your mind that will let you grab this and use it moving forward is if you do what's hard in life, life will be easy. If you do what's easy, life will be hard. And I would challenge you over the 12 months when you get to those forks in the road where it's like, well, that's the easy way. Let's go trucking. If you find the more difficult route, you might want to choose that because it is probably the road less traveled anyway. With that said, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. I'd love to get flooded with emails of what you're grateful for, what you're thankful for, whether it be HubSpot, whether it be your life, whether it be. You can reach out to me. Georgebthomas.com Again, everything we do is for you, the HubSpot helpers, the HubSpot humans. So Happy Thanksgiving and we will see you in the next episode where we go back to talking about HubSpot and especially talking about HubSpot, the E Commerce Hub.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. To those who celebrate. And if you don't, doesn't mean we're not thankful for you. Still, we love you and talk to.

You next week and just go eat some food because that's what we can do. Okay, Hub Heroes, we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to thehubheroes.com to get the the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend, leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag Hub Heroes Podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.