Saying Goodbye to 2023 with Gratitude and Hello to 2024 Aspirations and Actions! #hubheroes

All right, so 2023 is over, and we are ushering in 2024. And I just have to take a minute and say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of you who have watched a video, who have listened to a podcast, who have been clients this year of George B. Thomas, llc. It has been an amazing journey. And listen, I'm just grateful that this was 2023, was the first year in business. Yes, we started the what was going to be a solopreneurship. It's just going to be me journey. June of 2022 did six months, but this is the full year of George B. Thomas, LLC and what it will become in the future. Anyway, I'll talk about that probably at some point in this video. But listen, we have grown this year. We have a bunch of new faces. So I have to say thank you to Jorge Fuentes for all the hard work, helping build what we're building, helping with all the clients. I have to thank Liz Morehead for being a content strategist and being on the Hub Heroes podcast and being on beyond your Default, but really super blessed to have been able to invent and hire what we're calling the theme, which is the family team. And that's right, fresh faces, new paces, all sorts of dynamic things happening here at gbt. And the fun piece is we have hired Noah, who is my youngest son, and he does podcast editing and also is helping with website pages and creation and that kind of stuff. And to watch him grow into these different places has been amazing. And of course, it's family, so it's all a little bit of a journey with everybody. Everybody's learning, everybody's trying to figure out how to be family, how to be team, how to learn new things, but he does podcasting, video editing, and website pages. Then I've got Kaylee, who is my youngest daughter, and she's done everything from project management this year to now doing a lot of the writing behind the scenes. For some of the stuff we're doing internally with Sidekick strategy shows, with the Marketing smarts podcast that we're on with the Marketing Profs team to the blog articles that we create each and every week, she has her hand deeply into the writing of what we're doing here for gbt. We then have Seth, who is my oldest son, lives in Oregon, but yes, is part of the theme, and he is doing podcast editing, video editing, and also helping with client work along the way. And then my oldest daughter, Maddie, who is doing social media, not only for us and the couple brands that we have beyond your default gbt, hub heroes, all of those things. But also doing social media for our clients and doing a dang good job. And then of course, rounding out the curve is the wife, the master of the plan, if you will. And she is doing billing for us, which is amazing. And also doing project management, making sure that I get to the things that, that I need to get to and do the things that need to be done to have the theme, to have contractors, to have just this thing that we've built that is way past just me. Listen, super humbled, super grateful. I'm curious, what are you grateful for in 2023? Because hopefully you're doing magical things. Hopefully you're building the relationships that need to be built. Hopefully you're stepping out of your comfort zone and doing the things that need to be done because that's where we're trying to push ourselves to. And I believe the community that has surrounded themselves with us, those folks who want to be happy, helpful, humble humans, are doing the same thing. And speaking of dreaming, one of the dreams we've been able to launch this year is the podcast, the newsletter, the future community of beyond your default. And it has been a passion project of mine, wanting to help humans live a better life, wanting to help humans be able to be better humans. Look, for the last 10, 11 plus years, I've been helping humans with HubSpot and now I get to go back to my roots, back to mentor, back to teacher and pastor and all of the things that life has brought to me along the way and pour out my heart, pour out my passion, pour out the things that there's just the lessons that I've learned along the way. And listen, for most of my young life, I was looking for a hand up. I didn't want a hand out. But I know there's a lot of folks out there that maybe are frustrated or stressed or believe that they can achieve something in life, but they just don't know how to get there and beyond. Your default for me is literally my hand up for the folks who listen into the podcast, read the newsletter and become part of the community. The other thing that happened this year that was amazing was inbound for the first time. It was an owner's adventure. In other words, I flipped the bill. I paid for the rooms, paid for the food, but being able to take my whole family there as a theme and being able to see folks like Devin Bellamy and Max Cohen who are amazing on the Hub Heroes podcast and spend time with them and just my Family get to. Or excuse me, my fiend, get the opportunity to just hang out with all the people that I've poured love into over the past 10, 11 years in the HubSpot ecosystem. It was so amazing. Getting people to try the peanut butter pickle sandwich for the first time was amazing. But being able to be that owner and being able to just see people go to different tracks, see them grow. And again, you gotta think, if you're an owner, watching this and you think about your team, imagine if your team is your family and your family is your team, and you see them growing at Inbound, following in their father's footsteps maybe is a little bit of what was going through my brain. And it was funny. One of the standout moments for me at Inbound was something so small, but something so powerful. And it was Courtney from HubSpot Academy said, you're the inbound family. And another person said that we're the farmers of inbound. And I love this grassroots, this kind of old school mentality of growing a family, growing a team, and us being able to work together. Speaking of working together. Holy mackerel. The Hub Heroes podcast extravaganza. It's amazing how many episodes, 45. 45 memorable Hub Heroes podcast episodes that we've created this year alone. And I'll tell you, we've had some extremely great guests. But I have to give props again to Liz, to Max, to Devin. Just showing up on a weekly basis, almost weekly, because 45 and 52, there's a little bit of a gap. Some of that's my fault. Hey, you gotta take vacations. But showing up for 45 memorable hub heroes podcast episodes and just laying it down and giving value for free to the HubSpot community. Super blessed. And people ask me, hey, do you have a favorite episode or a favorite guest? What one, really? Do you like to go back and listen to? And yes, by the way, I do go back and listen to them because there's so many nuggets flying around so quickly. I will say there's a couple that come to mind. Kyle Jepsen's episode was absolutely amazing. Christina Garnett's episode was absolutely amazing. The ones where we talked about what is really great content. Amazing. Although I will say there's one that I was like, this is not what I expected it to be. And that is the one where it was Max and I, by ourselves, talking about inbound physics. Man, I'm just gonna tell you I could keep going. Troy Sandage was amazing on the podcast. Just so many 45 great episodes. Then I got to keep going because past hub heroes and pouring love into the HubSpot community, we've released HubSpot tutorials. Now, I've been a little bit quiet, but I've launched a few tutorials but Jorge Fuentes has been the tutorial machine and we've done 29 tutorials how to do what might be complex in HubSpot and make it a breeze for all of you that as potential inbounders or HubSpot users. Now, when I think about tutorials and ones that people need help on, there's always two big categories, but I think there's a third one arising. Two big categories are reporting. Hey, if you're watching this and you're like, yeah man, I have a hard time with HubSpot reporting. Welcome to the club. 90 of the people that I talk to have a problem with or have seem to be have difficulty with HubSpot reporting. The other one is HubSpot workflows, which again is one of those things that people love to make complex. But I believe that the prospecting tool and the LEADS object is going to be the next thing that people will need tutorials on. So if check out some of our reporting tutorials, our workflow tutorials, and know that in 2024 we're going to be coming out with some around the prospecting tool, the LEADS object, and what that means not only just to push the buttons in HubSpot, but also to literally understand the psychology and strategy behind this pre sales process that leads into the sales process in your deal pipelines and deal stages. It's the one place that you should probably stop and think about what you're going to do in 2024 compared to what you've done. Because Lead status, the property that was the pre sales property. Ooh, it might have some problems. Still usable, but it might have some problems coming up at gbt. The other thing we've been doing laying down value is blogging bonanza, baby. I just want to celebrate the fact that we've done 55 plus captivating blogs that have helped inform, hopefully entertain you and help you reach or beat this HubSpot digital landscape. And I'll tell you a couple personal favorite blogs of mine I've been able to dip into and dare I say it, AI. Yes, I said the word. I've been able to dip into artificial and intelligence. And I've written a couple blog articles along the way. Less about HubSpot and the use of AI, more of thought leadership and what we're doing and how we're playing with it just to show examples of what can be done. So I love those. But of course, I definitely love some of the ones that we've done with guests that we've interviewed and done podcasts with and then turn those into articles. How to actually do a recruiting process in HubSpot, how to be a great sales coach and use HubSpot to do that. Chris Dupree is coming to mind. There's just so many great pieces that we've done. One of the ones too that I will say that I'll be going back to and probably doing more articles about is, well, agency life and being a HubSpot agency and what that means and the perception of it and how employees feel inside them and maybe how that just needs to change and how it could change and why it should change. Anyway, that's 2024. I'm giving you a glimpse into the future because that agency article, if you haven't read it and you're part of an agency owner or employee, maybe go check out the starting of the conversation that we're going to have more of in 2024. Listen, we've even got a YouTube channel now. Honestly, this is something we're going to double down in 2024, but we are celebrating some remarkable growth. Listen, we're up to 300 new subscribers just on HubSpot tutorials. It's not like we're trying to create groundbreaking, entertaining masterpieces. We're doing a YouTube channel with HubSpot tutorials and some HubSpot updates. But 300 subscribers. And on our way to more subscribers as we go into 2024, I'm going to tell you, to be honest with you, the video content that strikes a chord with most viewers is when we lean into the strategy around what you can do. Yes, we always talk about here's the buttons you push, here's how you do that thing. But anytime we lean into the strategy of why or the outcome of the what, then all of a sudden people start to love those videos. By the way, if you haven't started a YouTube channel on something that you love, whether it's HubSpot or anything else. By the way, I don't care if you start a HubSpot channel. If we have a HubSpot channel, there's plenty of HubSpot channels out there. But if you love something and you haven't started a YouTube channel yet, you might want to sit at a base of a tree and think about maybe I should do that thing for me and through doing it for you, serving other people in the world. By the way, that's probably the number one tip I would give you from business. Anytime you come with the mentality to the mindset of serving others, it's always gonna win. Speaking of which, I have to take time in this video for client appreciation. Holy mackerel. I have to say I believe that we have some of the most amazing clients and have had some of the most amazing. By the way, when I say had some, only a couple have had to go on pause or have done one off projects with us. Many of our clients are just monthly retainer clients who are absolutely amazing and being able to help people launch new businesses, being able to help people launch new courses, being able to help people use HubSpot to drive revenue. There's just been a ton of memorable projects that we've gone through. One of the ones that I love is we've been able to actually completely launch a brand new website, some campaign offers and a sales process for a company that is absolutely amazing. And they are out there helping people think about the future, invest in the future and just to be part of that team. And by the way, they great humans, I can't even say that great. All of our clients that we serve, great humans, they have collaborative spirits, they're coming to the table ready to listen, to learn, to engage, to also help implement. And so just 2023 has been an amazing year and as I look ahead into 2024, boy, there's some exciting plans, some new projects and some aspirations for the upcoming year. Listen, beyond your default, we're going to be doubling down on that and really trying to just provide a community of people who want to have a growth mindset, who want to have ownership mindset, who want to take themselves to a life beyond their default and just skyrocket to places that they truly want to be in life. I'm here for that. I want to see that, I want to be an advocate for that. I want to. It doesn't change. I've been doing this with people who are trying to do that with HubSpot. Now it's just let me do it with people who want to be great people. But I'm also looking forward to something that's going to launch probably February or March of this coming next year. I've talked about in this video, GBT LLC. It's just going to be me solopreneurship. But in 2024 we are going to be launching ourselves as an agency. We have grown to an agency, we might as well act like an agency. We plan on scaling in the future in smart ways, much like many other agencies have, because there are so many humans who are coming to us that want our help, that want us to be part of their journey. We've got to scale for that. We've got to scale for that. So listen, thank you to all of you community members. Thank you to all of you followers. Thank you to all of your family and friends who have believed in us, readers, listeners, viewers, employees, podcast hosts, podcast guests. Thank you. Thank you. People say. How are you doing? Oh, I'm living the dream, ladies and gentlemen, because of HubSpot Academy, because of clients, because of hard work and creating content and adding value in the world, I'm living my dream. I'm living my dream with my theme. So. But as we wrap up 2023, let me give you this message. Let me give you this challenge. By the way, it's the same challenge that I gave the beyond, your default newsletter at the beginning of January, and that is, I want you to think about your life mentally. I want you to think about your life physically. I want you to think about your life spiritually, and I want you to dream big. Heck, even throw in financially in there. I want you to dream big. Dream big. Dream to what you think is the impossible, and then simply ask yourself this question, is it possible? And I think you'll find that the answer to that is with the right strategy, with the right timing, yeah, it is. So dream big and ask yourself, is it possible? And then go for it, because I'll be here cheering you on in 2024 and beyond.