Unlocking Meaning: Holiness in the Superhuman Framework | #SuperhumanFramework

Happy Thursday, September 12, another episode with Mr. George B. Thomas talking about superhumans. How you doing, man?

Oh, Chris, I'm doing great again. It's early Thursday morning. We're several days away from the inbound event, which, you know, I'm excited and getting prepped for, and I'm excited about the topic that we're gonna cover today.

I am, too. I am, too. The fifth pillar that we're talking about in the superhumans framework, holiness, we've talked about. Now, he's like, to test myself here without the review. We've talked about holistic. We've talked about happy. We've talked about helpful. We've talked about humility.

Yeah, there you go. There you go.

Right? And bias aside, those four things lead to, you know, holiness pretty well. And when we were talking about our schedule, I felt some hesitation. Understood it, but felt it for sure when we were talking about the order of the pillars we were going to do. And you had holiness as. Even as you said it was going to be number nine, you're like, I'm not sure if we should. Like, is LinkedIn the place for this? And knowing who you are, I could feel like kind of the dissonance where you're like, you don't want to talk about it last. So we had a good chat, and now we're. We're. We're here, and I think it's going to be very valuable, but I'd love for you to kind of dig in. And where is that hesitation coming from?

Yeah, I love the question. And so I'll be vulnerable and I'll be authentic. And yes, until we had the conversation, holiness is listed out as the 10th H element of the superhuman framework. That has been changed. It's now the fifth. Because during our conversation, we're like, well, isn't that the center of it all? And so if it's the fifth element, doesn't it make sense? And I was like, I absolutely love that. And so it has been adjusted. Holistic being first, holiness being fifth. And let me get into the reason for my. I don't want to say worry, because it's not really worry, but I don't want to be judged or perceived on a word that I say before somebody gets the chance to meet me and understand who I am and what I truly mean when I say that word. Because when you say the word holiness, it's about as squishy of the squishy words that there could be. Because you could be talking about religion, you could be talking about spirituality, or you could be talking about things outside or connected to both of those. Which by the way, yes, there is a difference between religion and spirituality. Right. And so I know that what we're going to talk about is important. I know the part that it has played in my life. But what I don't want people to think about is like, this is my megaphone and billboard. You're going to hell, H. Like that is, that is not what we're talking about here today. I always get a little bit like, oh, like I don't want to lose them, I don't want them to tune out. But dang gummet, like this is like a linchpin piece of like everything that we're kind of talking about.

Yeah, I appreciate you kind of taking that, that risk. And this is where it's fun to think about it from marketing and kind of building perspective. Like if you didn't have to align with Hs, you might use spirituality instead. But you know, like you say this is, it's coming from a similar place. It doesn't have to be attached to religion or really any kind of man made construct. It just happens to be because that's been a learned behavior over time. But it means so much more than that. And just like the personal journey a little bit before you dive in, you know, I've never been a religious person. Back in 2020, you know, started meditating a lot. And the intention, one of the intention examples you get during the body scan is like the universe, you know, wants you to win basically. And it's not that hard to start tying that kind of unknown, unforeseen, like can't prove that force is, is working. But a lot of things have, have gone well since then and then you know, starting to tie it to, you know, the people that I'm receiving the most value from. You being the latest on this list of people who I know are very, you know, spiritual, especially in the Christian sense. They don't hide it, they're never preaching about it. But when you start to get the feel like, you know, people like Logan Lyles come to mind from Sweet Fish and James Carberry in that group. And then you know, Donald Miller, like there are these people that, that they're bringing the most value. They all happen to have this thing in common as well. Maybe I should try to understand that and take notice of that.

Yeah. And I'm even humbled to be like in the list of humans willing to step out and present or say something. Here's the thing that I want everybody to Understand, we're about to have this conversation, ladies and gentlemen. I have been a bouncer at a bar and a pastor at a church. There is not a lot of difference. The altar is the same, the problem's the same. The humans are the same. It just is a pastor versus a bartender. I'm just going to explain to you that this. I have watched humans on both sides of this. And so what we're digging into is more of, like, real world human psychology, the universe, call it whatever you want. So, Chris, let's go ahead and dig into this. And I want to ask you a question. And by the way, I'm asking you the question, but I'm also probably asking the viewers this question as well, that they would. They would think about this. Have you ever felt like there's a gap between what you do every day and what truly matters to you deep down? We can give it a pause. And if you want to answer, you can. And by the way, you might be less able to answer this question now with where you're at in life and what you're doing versus a place that you once was. But I'm going to ask this again for the viewers. Have you ever felt like there's a gap between what you do every day and what truly matters to you deep down inside your core?

I don't want to let you down here.

No, no, here's the thing. I don't really need an answer, but what you are doing, just know that all the viewers are doing, because it's difficult. Like you're trying to search inside. You immediately have an answer, but you don't want to give that answer because then all of a sudden, it just fragments the construct that you have in your cranium around where you're at, what you're doing, who you are. Like, listen, you might be hustling, you're grinding away, you're checking off the to do list, but something feels inside just a little off. It's like, go ahead, go ahead.

Here's what I mean. Like, my initial feeling is no, But I also have a tendency to view the world very differently. And this was an unlock for me when I took mythology for the first time in the college course. Right. You start seeing all these behavior patterns across civilization as it's grown up. And the most common reason for people creating a story or creating something bigger is they want to be able to answer the question of why. Right? Why does. Why do the crops grow? Let's create a sun God. Because obviously something is compelling these crops to grow. We don't know how it works. So there's gotta be something making it work right. And like at that point I just don't need to know like why. I don't need to, I don't need the answer to that question. But meanwhile, there's a big piece of me that's like always working towards some kind of ridiculous like gonna solve digital transformation goal. So as long as I feel like my daily stuff is, is working towards that, there's less of a gap for me. And I'm very big believer in serendipity and, you know, things are going to work out, you know, if you do the right thing. So that's why initially there's less of a gap, at least when you put it like that, there's less of a gap between, you know, the big picture and the daily picture for me.

So it's interesting because when I hear you mention this, it's, you're talking about this gap and you're talking about the big picture versus the daily picture. And part of me wants to lean into like, well, changing, you know, digital transformation or the path that you're on, does it truly tie back to one thing or even understanding like why the crops grow and the sun God experiences? Like it's, it's humans innate sense to have a deeper connection and connection to whatever. But what you might be doing, what you might be feeling, why some of the viewers might have that gap is because they're missing that deeper connection. And again, when we're missing, when we have that gap, when we want deeper connection, but we're missing deeper connection, sometimes we don't know where to find it. It might be at the bar or the pew or the wherever you end up placing the thing. But that's what I'm saying. We're going to call today this place Holiness. It might be the place that you've been looking at. And by the way, this is not just personal. Again, everything that we're looking at on the Superhuman framework and these conversations that we're doing with Chris is it's about humans, it's about teams and it's organizations. And so again, I kind of joked earlier about the billboard and megaphone. I don't want people to get this wrong. I don't want people to click off the video. I'm asking that people give us a hot minute, a couple seconds to talk about what we mean around holiness. Because what I'm not talking about off the gate is like from a religious sense, I'm talking about a commitment to principles A commitment to principles that guide us towards truth, purpose, and authenticity. Now, if you have a problem with truth, purpose, or authenticity, you can go ahead and click off the video, but. But I don't think anybody who is a human who has sat through happy, helpful, humble, you know, holistic, these are things they want. Truth, purpose, and authenticity. Holiness, as I see it, Chris, is about aligning our lives with our deepest values, and to that, a higher purpose, realizing that what we're doing is for something bigger than ourselves. Chris, you mentioned digital transformation. That's way bigger than Chris is. I've mentioned helping, like, hubspotters, and, you know, that's bigger than me. Like, what is your higher purpose? What are your deepest values? How is this tying to truth, purpose, and authenticity when we as humans can anchor our lives in this way? Here's the thing is, and I use the term anchor, maybe it's a ship reference, but we get a sense of direction when you start to anchor this kind of stuff in your life. A sense of fulfillment, Chris. Less of that gap. Big gap or daily gap and meaning. And here's the crux for me, that goes way past, beyond chasing material gains or ticking off those dang boxes that you've been ticking off. So listen, am I personally religious? Maybe. Am I personally spiritual? Hey, you can bet your grandma's chocolate chip cookies I am. Am I focused on holiness as an even wider topic than that? Yes. Yes, I am. So, Chris, before we dive into holiness for personal growth, because that's where I want to go. Like, growth teams, company culture. Like, where's your brain at right now with, like, what I've shared so far.

Well, I think the key and why this needs to be at the center. Like, the thing in common between being the bouncer and being the pastor or this, you know, this place that you go is that there's other humans in this place that you want to go. The reason, like, any of these third places actually had, you know, me and Salim used to talk about this a little bit, like, to struggle with, you know, the current state of. Of things with the remote work, is that since we're working from home, it's very hard to separate, you know, personal and professional. Like, even if you're doing that, you're staying at home while you're doing it. So the. The idea of the third place, I forget the concept. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but we don't have this third place to go to anymore. And even if we can go to it online, it's much different than going to it in person. And it's a big part of humans, you know, evolution as we've grown and like, you know, we need that connection, like not only with the spiritual but with connecting with other people. Happen to, you know, be very aligned with that higher connection as well.

Yes, they have similar values, they have a close to same purpose, which puts us on the same path and direction. We crave that connection.

However, go ahead and just like the feeling that I got at Inbound last year when I went for the first.

Time, that's the church of inbound, baby. Yeah, that's the real, that's a real feeling right there.

It was very hard to describe what I felt. The only way to describe it was I'm in the right place.

Yeah, I, I give it up. My people, as soon as I walk in the room, it's like my people. So we know that we need that and we know that it's lacking in a lot of organizations. We know that it's really hard to find in a lot of teams individually. Sometimes it's even like, I just don't know, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know the direction of my life. So let's break down holiness a bit on the context of what we're talking about it around humans, teams and again these kind of organizational cultures. So you have to kind of think or start with those values. Right. Connecting with our inner values. The way I think about it, it's about checking in with ourselves and asking, am I living in a way that reflects who I truly am and what I believe? By the way, that is not an easy question to ask yourself. And it shouldn't be an easy question to ask yourself. Am I living in a way that reflects who I truly am and what I believe? By the way, this also isn't a one time thing. It can be different for everybody, but it's a daily practice. Am I showing up? Am I being who I need to be? Am I being, as our friend Liz says, a whole ass human based on what I believe. I like to think of this like if you're a musician, you tune a guitar, you've got to check it often to make sure that it's in harmony with the other instruments. Are you in harmony with the universe? Are you in harmony with your path? Are you in harmony with yourself, your teams, your organization? Like there's a true thing that I almost want you to like. I know I'm talking musical term, but visually I, I want you to Think about harmony as this sense of alignment. There's also in this mindfulness and like this presence. We can show up in different ways, but there's a presence that is there. And I can't stress enough how important it is when we think about mindfulness and we think about holiness and we think about presence, to slow down and just be present. Look, I know it's tough like with everything going on, but when we make space to breathe. Chris, you mentioned meditation, right? Like when we take time to breathe and meditate or even just take a mindful walk to get away from all the beeps, bops, bloops and like red dots and numbers and you've got mail and like, and just reconnect with the core. And if you're listening this and you're not watching it now, I'm literally pointing at my heart, the cage of the spirit, like the core of who you are as a human. Like, if you're not taking time to reconnect with that, that's why you might be dealing with a lot of ish personally. The chasm between who you are and who you want to show up and what you believe and taking time to understand if that you're aligned with that core in the quiet moments, in that stillness that you can invoke and put into your life. By the way, you can put this in for your teams too. This is where we find clarity. And Chris, with clarity, we have a superpower. Because if you can get clarity and focus and you're already tied to your purpose and path in your values, it's like rocket fuel. And again, this ties in like clarity and purpose. When you're connecting to something larger than yourself, whether it's a mission, a cause, a methodology, a movement, a SaaS software or whatever, or even just being the best version of yourself. It's that sense of purpose that fuels us along for the path. It's like we've got this inner fire that keeps us going no matter what comes our way. I want you to realize when I'm talking about holiness, your brain might have just segmented over to like, oh, it's what gives me the hunger or the hustle. We'll talk about that at a later date. By the way, it also might be the piece that I'm missing that keeps me from being the burnout that I many times find myself in. Because we're missing that part of the inner fire keep us going. And Chris, I don't want to forget about like the emotional and spiritual well being of the individual human and by the way, if you have a collective of humans called a team, and you're focused in on this, on each and every one of them, you end up in a very interesting place. Because in this case that we're talking today, holiness is about more than just thinking good thoughts. Anyway, I could totally go down, like, the religious side of this. I'm not going to. It's about feeling aligned deep in your soul. It's about gratitude, empathy, and finding this balance between our head and our heart.

Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to ask you how disconnected your heart and head is today when you can live in this place that we're talking about, where your heart and your head is aligned. You're living in a space where, like, we build resilience. Chris. If the viewers have tuned into any of the other episodes where we've talked about the framework and the other H elements, they've heard this word before, resilience. And they've heard it before because it's important. Chris. I want to go into teams, but before I do, you're shaking your head. You've got that Chris smile that I love, by the way, when, like, I can tell the synapses are firing in there. Like, where does your mind go with maybe your life or the lives of those that you're interacting with pertaining to, like, what we just talked about from the human side of this?

Yeah, you're unlocking quite a bit, you know, related to what I was saying before third place. Like when, when Covid happened. I happened to get a job that September that allowed me to go to an office because of where my office was in the building. I didn't have to have a lot of human contact, but I could still go to this place. And I've always liked being in the office personally, because I have the human interaction and the idea of being present, which can be very, very hard for somebody with adhd. I feel like I've created this third place this year with this content creation that I'm doing, trying to understand why it's so easy. I don't know if that's the right word, but it's not a problem for me to be on calls all day. And what I think I'm learning is that it forces me to be present because that's the only way you can have a decent one to one conversation with a human being. So, like, using that as a mechanism to, if I'm showing up, if I tell myself I want to show up every day and my head is always in the, like, fixing this huge Problem of CRM adoption and digital transformation. Why haven't we figured this out yet? But like, involving other humans kind of forces the heart aspect of it in that I can show up and be present in the best way possible. And since my goals are, are, are what they are, as long as I can put food on the table at the same time, I'm going to keep doing that and do that as much as humanly possible.

Yeah. What I love about this is digital transformation. Your bigger purpose, third place, is creating media because it is the passion, it's the purpose, it's the values, it's the direction, it's the vehicle for you to do this thing. What I love that. And I think you know that you've been doing this, but I don't know if you know that you've been doing this. By doing this show. What you've actually done is you've created your own little team. Now do you hire these humans? No, but they help you. They collaborate with you to make consistent content that is helping to serve the bigger purpose of digital transformation and educating humans and, and making the world a better place. You see how this is dripping in just natively into like this thing. And so I want to dive into holiness and teams real quick. And listen, I've worked with a lot of teams over the years. A lot of teams. I mean, when you train people on HubSpot and do onboardings for HubSpot themselves, like I've met a lot of teams and the ones that aren't just focused on the goals but are united by a shared sense of purpose, these are the teams. I watch where it works and I watch where it does it. And what I mean is, like when we're training people on HubSpot and it sticks, you get the buy in that you need and like everything's chucking along like it should. It's because, yes, they have goals and KPIs and smart, smart goal, like, yes. But there is this kind of sense of a shared purpose for them to get to the thing that is the goal or KPI. It's like rowing in the same direction, to use an overused analogy. Right. They're not just clocking in and out, they're showing up because they believe in something bigger. HubSpot and inbound was a movement. The originators believed in something bigger. They believed that something was broken. When you have people that are thinking in this way, rowing in this way, doing this thing, it starts to build this key part of like trust and psychological safety inside of the humans that are working together. And you want teams that are not afraid to speak up, not afraid to share ideas and maybe even challenge the status quo. When you have a foundation of trust, teams become these incredible spaces where innovation and creativity can thrive. And it all starts with creating an environment where people feel safe, valued and heard. Listen, I had a moment in a side of my organization last week where I threw out an example of a new web page design that I thought that I. Oh, this is way better than what we're doing right now. I can't wait to show the team they lost their ish.

They hated it.

And I even brought up this conversation around, hey, what if I was to go into like a suit jacket instead of hat and hoodies? They lost their ever lasting mind. But here's the thing. Every single human gave me feedback and I sat there and quietly listened and I was so quiet, they even started to apologize and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, you guys are reading the room wrong. I don't need you to apologize. I need you to continue. Because I am listening and I am accepting. I'm absorbing what you're saying because it is going to be the fuel and the data that I will use to make future decisions. Because I know I want to make some changes, but I know I want to stick authentically to who we are showing up as a brand. I don't know how many leaders would not have been like, felt like they were getting like the wet noodle whippings or been being attacked. But Chris, I sit here and tell you I was excited that they felt that they could openly share the feedback. Now, now let's be honest. Conflict is going to happen. Like I'm painting a very. It was a beautiful picture. Like I looked at it as a beautiful. Conflict's going to happen. But when teams are grounded in these shared values that we're talking about, when they're going towards a higher purpose, conflict resolution becomes more about understanding. I need to understand why you guys feel like me in a suit jacket is like some straight up bullshit. Like, I need to understand why you don't like this version of the graphics and the page layout versus why. But. But it was more about understanding versus meaning to win. I didn't need that page to win. I didn't need a suit jacket to beat out hat and hoodies. It's not about proving who's right or wrong, but coming together to find this solution that aligns with the team's goals and values. And when teams do this consistently, here comes the word again. They build A collective resilience. They, as the teams become stronger, more adaptable, more united in facing whatever comes their way as that team. Now, Chris, have you seen a team that looks like this, or do you feel that this is more a dream team somewhere in the future?

For most organizations, it definitely reminds me of reading books or listening to books where all of the best case studies and this felt so far away from wherever I was. So to answer the question, it's definitely a future state, that the whole purpose of this is to try to help you get to that future state. I mean, even you as the leader in that scenario, you also need the safe space to be able to share those ideas. And. And while we want to understand that people are going to respond in some kind of way, we don't want it to become a worried state where I can't share this because I'm worried about how people are going to react. And, you know my experience with this. When I listened to the book no Rules, Rules about the Netflix culture, I latched on to the idea of farming for dissent immediately, to the point where I took less caution in speaking to larger groups at the organization, even though we did not have the culture of the safe space. And while that helped some people speak up faster, it caused a bunch of background conversations as well, because that was the culture. The culture was micromanagement. So there's lots of layers to that. But that's where that only works for you if your team is willing to dissent. And they're only willing to dissent if there's a safe space to do it.

Yeah. All right, so I know we're like running out of time or out of time, but I gotta dig into this last. Do we have time to go, like into organizations real quick?

Yes.

Okay, so I feel like it's time to take it up an another notch. Right. And talk about holiness for organizations and for culture. And I'm. I'm just simply a big believer that if you want to create a thriving organization, you've got to build a values driven culture. This isn't just about having a set of values written on a wall or your website. By the way, the amount of meetings that I've been in and been like, what should our five core values be? And like, just people start slapping stuff.

Out that'll get it done.

Like, live them, live them, breathe them, let them guide every decision, every action, every conversation. Like, if you throw those bullshit five words on your website and you're not living them, breathing them, letting them guide every decision, every action, every conversation, take Them down, just take them down. If your team, your employees, can't do the same, take them down, Rebuild, start over. You, though, as a leader is where it starts. You have to be an authentic leader. Leaders who embody holiness, who lead with empathy, humility and purpose, they create a ripple effect throughout the organization. They inspire trust, loyalty, dedication. When you inspire trust, loyalty and dedication, that's when the magic happens. People want to follow a leader who's real. They want to follow a leader who's authentic. They want to follow a leader who is in it not just for the bottom line, but for some ish that truly matters. I don't know about you, but I found that meaningful work environments is another crucial piece of the conversation when you're talking about humans. So aspirationally, I want you to imagine a workplace where every person feels, feels their work has purpose. Where it's not just a transaction, minutes and hours for a paycheck, but a meaningful pursuit. I'll give a little pause so you can soak that in, ladies and gentlemen. What if what you do on a daily basis wasn't a transaction but a meaningful pursuit? You see, that's what happens when you've embodied holiness into the culture of your organization. And when organizations do this, they not only achieve sustainable success, they create and make positive impact on the world around them. Chris, you've mentioned a couple times, I want to change the world. Digital transformation. I want to change the world. Media company. I want to change the world. I'm creating my own little team here. We're chugging away, we're collaborating on content. These organizations become the places that prioritize ethical practices, long term growth, and frankly, just making a fricking difference. Putting a dent in the universe is how I put it. Chris, we've talked about a lot and I'd love for you to unpack your thoughts. I don't even know today if we can get into the actionable steps of what this looks like because, well, it is what it is. But where's your brain right now? Is it broke? Is it bent? Is it like, where, where are we at?

It's not broke. I certainly love thinking about that future where there is a meaningful pursuit alongside other people that have the same or similar meaningful pursuits. Hopefully the takeaway is like, this is another avenue. You have 10 avenues here in this program to try and impact people in the organization on a personal scale. And this is why it always comes back to culture and values. Whatever avenue you're choosing, you get in there. If you're going down, it like, you got to get there. And as you talked about, like, this is where like all of the tried and true practices frameworks for creating values. You know, if you're a new organization, it's very easy to interview or feel like just what are the values that we have? And let's just get real and those are going to be our values. But when you're trying to transform, you can't just ask everybody what their values are because they've built those values inside of your organization, which is now dysfunctional. You've got to find a way to build some aspirational values at the same time so that we can actually move together towards that healthier culture. So hopefully that's the takeaway from today is like this is just another avenue. You know, we use words to try to describe this stuff, but at the end of the day it's, it's the principles, it's the values. And you know, based on the one person that you're dealing with, holiness might have more of an impact than, you know, humility or happy or you know, any of the other pillars. And that's hopefully, you know, what you can kind of see this as.

That's the thing I hope people realize these are like spices on a shelf that you can take and create whatever the, the 10H elements, whatever great, you know, dinner, lunch, breakfast, whatever year's favorite that, that you want to create. But to put a bow on this, Chris, to kind of end this bad boy. What I want people to think about is from an organizational level because by the way, the reason that I'm challenged with going down this road with the superhuman framework is that we've been doing research on the amount that dysfunctional cultures are costing organizations. And I'm not joking, it's in the billions of dollars. So how do you change the world, make it so that organizations aren't losing billions of dollars? Like I'm already working as a marketer to help them make millions. As a human, can I help them not lose billions? Right. I want people to think about like, how do you cultivate a culture of purpose by in this case today, making holiness this kind of living experience inside of your organization? We should want to make holiness a living experience. This means having purpose led communication strategies where everything from emails to meetings reflect the organization's values and purposes that we've talked about today. Like the importance of those where it celebrates purposeful milestones that align with the organization's larger mission that it's on. By the way, HubSpot to help marketers not suck. If you boil it down in 2012, that's what they are trying to do, but also encourages employee led purpose initiatives that bring those values to life in real tangible ways. So the bottom line, Chris, what I'm talking about here today with you is by embracing holiness, not as a religious idea, but as a way of aligning with higher principles, we can transform not only our personal lives, but also our teams and organizations along the way. And I want everybody to imagine a world where the workplace that you drive to, the workplace that you wake up and walk a flat slightest steps down to, the workplace that you're involved with is filled with meaning, where teams are united by shared purpose and where individuals are guided by their inner values. That's the potential that we unlock when we bring the superhuman framework and the holiness element to our everyday lives. So I'll, I'll leave you with this. And it's a question. We started with a question. You said, George, why were you hesitant? I asked you a question. Now I'm asking everybody a question. How can you bring more holiness into your life and into your work today? Chris, this has been a pleasure, my friend.

It has. And as everybody thinks about that question, I'm not going to ask you to find opportunities. You will find opportunities when you find them. Think about them and let's grow. Have a great day, everybody.