Work in Progress: George + Liz Reflect on Self-Forgiveness, Fear, + Challenges

This could go one of two ways. People could be like, why did you share that? Or people could be like, that's inspiring. And what I've learned is it's leaning on the level of inspiring for people, and it's leaning on this. Oh, I deal with that, too. And it's leaning in on. Wait, you mean I'm not alone? These are core things that I love to hear because it's my fuel, understanding that these things are being unlocked in other humans because I've had to unlock them in myself. But if I get to the key thing, Don, that I think and why I'm telling this story in the very close, like, time frame that we've been doing this, I have realized two things that are very, very important for a human to understand. I've realized how far I've come and how much work I've actually done in a positive way to become who I am. And because of that work, I also realize how far I still have to go.

Welcome back to Beyond. You'd default. I'm Liz Morehead, your host, and as always, I'm joined by George B. Thomas. How you doing today, George?

I am doing absolutely wonderful, Liz. I am doubly excited for today's episode.

Yeah, today is gonna be a little bit different than from what our listeners are used to hearing, so I'm just gonna dig right into it. We talk a lot about the fact that we're not only here sharing our lessons learned throughout our lives. Our thoughts, our opinions, our feelings about things like forgiveness, fear, the relationships in our lives, and so on. We reference the fact that we're works in progress ourselves, that you and I, George, are also walking this path, trying to live beyond both of our default states. Periodically, you and I will make jokes saying, you know, oh, you know, let me go grab my pen and my notebook. I need to go take some notes on this. I'm sorry. Can you speak directly into the mic to talk about how you manage parental relationships one more time? Just asking for a friend, Right? So today we actually have a very, very special guest.

Yes.

And you know what? I'm going to share a little bit about our friend, Don Stanley. How you doing today, Don?

I am doing fantastic and beyond excited to be here.

We are so glad you're here. Let me give a little bit of background because I know George has some human stories he wants to share about how Don has ended up here. But Don, for our listeners at home, is an internationally recognized digital marketing and sales coach, speaker, and university educator. As the co founder of Wisconsin Based three Rhino Media. He has personally guided a wide array of clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, professional athletes, startups, nonprofits, and solopreneurs through the ever changing digital marketing and sales landscape. He also, in addition to working at 3Rhino Media, is an award winning faculty member of the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he teaches courses on social media and digital marketing. And it's just such a pleasure to have you here, George. Talk a little bit about how Don has actually already been part of the beyond your default family behind the scenes for a while.

Yeah, without a doubt. So first of all, I met Don in the comment section of a company that I worked for called the Sales lion and have had the pleasure of actually meeting him in person multiple times, hanging out, chit chatting, online multiple times. We even did a little bit of a show back in the day before I think it was on Blab, I think the platform was called and you know, so Don and I been hanging out. But there's a couple things besides knowing don for since 2013, right. 2014. Don's just a great guy, but Don's also a great guy who has been through it, I'll say. Meaning we've talked about our historical stories as kids and adults and different things that we have gone through. And so Don has been a guy who, like me, Liz, like you, has been on his own, kind of come up, you know, let me be better, let me create better, let me think better. And I've always admired that. And here's the thing, Don's that guy that I know that whenever we're having a powwow or chit chatting, he'll be able to be like, ooh, have you read this book? Oh, did you watch that video? Oh, I've got this quote by this guy or this gal and I'm just like, and I, you know me, I absorb that stuff. I'm like, bring it on. Like, let me add to my audible that I already spend way too much money on. Give me another one. Like, let me find something to walk to or to fall asleep to. But more importantly, Liz, Don has an educator's mindset. And one of the things that we talked about for the beyond your default journey is that and for us and for others, we're like, it'd be nice to have worksheets and in the future it'd be nice to have a workbook. And so I was like, Don is the resource king. He's an educator with an educator's mindset. He understands how to educate and then activate. And that's One of the big things that I want for the beyond your default community is like, activation off of the conversations that are hopefully educating the listeners into some insights in their own life, their own beliefs, their own mindsets. That is why Don has been behind the scenes listening to episodes, working on worksheets that will release in the near future, and is just part of this. I don't know what to call it, but this thing, this movement community podcast to live a better life, to be a better self. Don has been part of it and is going to be a part of it as we kind of move forward.

I am so excited about it. Although, as our listeners are about to hear, when we turned Don loose on our archive of episodes, Don had a delightful idea, which in about 45 minutes or so, we're either going to love it or we're going to be like, okay, so what have we done?

What did we do? I saw the questions. I saw the questions, Liz, and I was, like, excited with a tad of.

Oh, yeah, because that's the thing, listeners. He's not here to discuss worksheets today. No, no, no, no, no, no. A few weeks ago, Don, you came to us and said, I have some questions for you, too. Would you be open to periodically turning over the reins of the show? To let me ask you, circling back to the very beginning of this conversation, what your journey is like with beyond your default and how it's going to. And George and I both said, sounds great, Don. Let's do it. Did you just switch a nice mug to a naughty mug? Do you have two mugs, George? I'm sorry to break the fourth wall here. I got very confused.

So here's the thing. I have an existential crisis. I do have a mug that has the word nice on one side and naughty on the next, because my wife has started to do the whole Christmas thing around the house. So if you're listening to this on the podcast and you want to see what in God's name is, obviously you could run over to the community, because we put the video versions of this in there. But yes, Liz, it's. I'm trying to figure out today if I want to be nice George or. Well, never mind. Let's just get back to the episode.

Don, I'm going to turn it over to you. Take us on this journey. All right? I'm not a control freak. You are. Shut up.

I'm so glad you agreed to this, because what I'm trying to do is to kind of represent the community as I'm listening to the shows. One of the things that I've thought about is, like, what might other listeners be interested in? And as somebody who listens to a lot of podcasts, gathers a lot of resources, as you know, George brought up. So thank you both for the very kind introduction, and I'm thrilled to be here as well. But I wanted to ask questions about, like, you're digging in, but I want to know more because moving beyond your default is kind of a messy process. Right. And so it's this experience of where we have to give ourselves permission as we're growing to push through and not have everything perfect. So I'm here to represent the community, the audience, and ask you some questions. The first question is for both of you, what I really want to learn. Do you talk about the old Liz or the old George versus the George today and the Liz today? So I'm curious, in terms of more recent past, when you started this and since you hit record, what have you learned about yourselves since you hit record for the first episode up to today by doing this beyond your default George?

I was going to be a gentleman and let ladies go first, but I'll go first. So there's a couple things that I've learned about myself, but there's a couple things that I've learned along the way. And so you know what has surprised me, let's say, along this journey, is that the reaction that other people have had to us doing this, and what I mean is I've gotten everything from, hey, this is going to dwarf what you've done historically, to I've had somebody basically send me a mini movie based on an episode that we recorded that I just watched the video. Now, this does something to somebody. When this happens and when I say it does something to somebody, what I mean is you go into, hey, we're going to do beyond your default. We, rah, rah. Yeah, yeah. We're going to be vulnerable. We're going to be ourselves. We're going to go through the process.

You.

Yep. We're kind of scared. Like, we're sharing some real stuff with, like, a lot of people. This could go one of two ways. People could be like, why did you share that? Or people could be like, that's inspiring. And what I've learned is it's leaning on the level of inspiring for people, and it's leaning on this. Oh, I deal with that, too. And it's leaning in on. Wait, you mean I'm not alone? These are core things that I love to hear because it's My fuel, understanding that these things are being unlocked in other humans because I've had to unlock them in myself. But if I get to the key thing, Don, that I think and why I'm telling this story in the very close, like, time frame that we've been doing this, I have realized two things that are very, very important for a human to understand. I've realized how far I've come and how much work I've actually done in a positive way to become who I am. And because of that work, I also realize how far I still have to go.

That's freaking beautiful. I mean, for me, it's kind of strange. There are a couple of things that have surprised me. One, I thought, you know, I was probably going to be a bit more of a passive conversationalist in this discourse, you know, that my role was really just going to be exclusively interviewer. George and I had a very interesting conversation a few weeks ago where you said, I have one thing I'm going to say to you and then I'm immediately going to hang up the phone so you can't respond.

And I did. I did. I hung right up.

You did. I was very upset at you, and it's been haunting me ever since. I jokingly call myself a catalyst for catalysts. And then he said, liz, when are you going to realize you're also a catalyst? And then he just hung up the phone. And I'm like, well, okay, then I'm.

Getting goosebumps, by the way, with her telling that story.

When we first started recording these episodes, I didn't have an office to work in. I was in a very small Airbnb. It was at the height of some of the stuff that I've mentioned passively through other episodes, that it has been a very challenging and difficult time. Mornings when I would wake up and I would look in the mirror, I knew who was looking back at me. But there is that feeling of, it's going to get better, it's going to get better, it's going to get better, right? It can't stay like this forever. So it was interesting to have to get up every Monday morning at 7:45 and sit down and quite frankly act like I have my ish together when on many of those days I didn't. What was also fascinating to me is that how perfectly timed all of these episodes have been. In a lot of cases, whether we're talking about marketing or sales or just in personal development, like we're doing right now, you're often building the content you need you're building the resources and tools and conversations that you need because they're missing and they're absent. So it has really been genuinely a guiding light for me. In addition to Liz, I don't care how many times you cried over the weekend. You gotta be up at 7:45 in front of a camera with a mic and sounding like a human. So that was probably the greatest surprise, but also one of the greatest challenges is that I had an appointment with our community, so I find it almost perfectly timed in a way, you know, for our listeners. We're recording this the week of Thanksgiving, and I love the timing of that in a way, because I'm immensely grateful for this opportunity. George, with open arms, has brought me into something that has been very close to his heart for years, and that kind of scared me. You know what I mean? You want to make sure you're doing right by the guy who's always been a hand up, not a handout to you, particularly through very difficult times in your life. But also at the same time, you know, it's like, this is his baby, this is his child. Like, this is one of the many members of his family, and it's been very close to his heart. So it's been an incredible growth experience that I did not expect because I've been doing podcasting and content for almost a decade. This was like, all right, I'm gonna show up. But, like, I'm invested and I like this guy and he's my friend and he's been there for me. So, like, we're gonna go do some cool stuff. But it has become way more monumental than I expected. And we're only on episode 18.

Yeah.

What? How did that happen?

Yeah, man, there's. There's so much goodness to that, and it is interesting. Liz, I hadn't really thought about this being right around Thanksgiving, but the fact of the matter is, I'm actually grateful for you and being so much help in us actually bringing this to the world. I'm thankful for Don and the elements that he's bringing. And honestly, I'm thankful for the crazy, dicey, corrosive, exciting, celebratory life that God has given me that I am not short of stories. I am not short of near death experiences. You know, I am not short of amazing friends that, you know, we can tap into and have conversations with in the future. And I'm excited that we have gotten the response that we have gotten just out of the. I'll call it a handful. Handful of episodes that we've Done. So I'm feeling very blessed and very thankful right now.

But are you ready to get into the big, spooky, scary questions?

That's. Well, that's the thing. Like, I know Don's going to like, ask us, like, challenges, and that's where it gets scary because I got to talk about some real stuff anyway. Don, back to you, brother.

Those answers are just amazing. And again, you know, speaking just from a community perspective, because I do a lot of work with people who are in points of struggle. And I just want to say, just a quick thank you Thanksgiving, that you all are doing this type of show because it's so needed where, you know, sharing your vulnerabilities, your path, saying, you know, you've come a long way, you've got a long way to go. Liz, you know, knowing what you've been going through, I mean, it's just, it's a beautiful thing to be able to have humans who are sharing their experiences, but also can lead. So on that note, what have been. George, Some of those greatest challenges, one.

Of the biggest ones is honestly believing that anybody would care. And it's funny because some of the responses I said earlier, like, this is going to dwarf anything you've done historically, which I've just tried to be a happy, helpful, humble human. I've tried to chase significance instead of success, but believing that anybody cares about the stories. And I actually, I was out at dinner the other night with my daughters and my wife and I started to talk about my excitement of beyond your default. And my wife was like, wait, you mean that you're talking about your life? And I was like, ooh, that stings. Right? But it's not a lie. It is true. But there's got to be a belief in that. There are lessons that can be learned in that story. Story lessons that can be learned in that life, but the belief that anybody actually cares to listen, I mean, I'm just a 52 year old normal guy who happens to have a little bit of a spark with a professional career and a heart for humans, right? Like, that's like who I am. But I had to believe, and this is the other challenging thing or one of the challenging things. I had to believe that I was created to bring this to the world. I was given this path for a reason because it was a destination that would be the starting line or the, you know, enabling point for potentially hundreds, if not thousands of other humans because they can get the fast track on what my hard head had to like beat against a wall to actually figure out. And the other thing that's challenging, and I'm facing this more and more. It's kind of like my wife's statement, my own internal statements. And I think just the way that the universe works, to be honest with you. And I'm equipping myself with this right. Mentally and physically. And that is, for me, one of the hardest or greatest challenges is just the understanding that the closer you get to where you're supposed to be, the harder parts of your life become because the universe is fighting back for you not to do the thing that you're doing and the good that you're bringing and the, you know, like the unlocks to so many other humans. And so I'm willing to go through those challenges, I'm willing to fight those battles because I know that it can only last so long and I'll break through the other side. But this, like, who cares? I'm supposed to be the guy and ooh, buckle up. This might get tough. There are many times in my life where I would have just tapped out. Yep. Thank you. 18 episodes is enough. Let's go home and just be normal. Now. There are a lot of people out there that might be listening to those three things and be like, I'm good. I don't need that in my life. Meanwhile, we're sitting here and we're like, let's push forward for the greater good.

That is amazing. All right, so the idea of thinking about one of the episodes in episode nine, George, you talk about people that you surround yourself with, and I know that you have moved a lot in your time. If you listen to the episode on Home, I had no idea, by the way. That is just. I can't imagine. I've had to move nine times over a two year period of time. And I can't imagine at that age. But you've been so mobile and you've had so much transformation in your life. Are there certain people, teachers, mentors, friends, family, whether or not you know them personally, that have helped keep you grounded through this process, being so mobile and the transformation?

Yeah. And it's funny because I think one of the things that eventually I want to talk about is the reason for the season. And I don't mean in a Christmas sense, even though I am again drinking out of my naughty mug and my nice mug here today. But a reason for the season, meaning the people that are in your life, and there's some that are constant. There's what we'll call forever people, forever friends, you know, family, whatever. And then there's some that you just learn lessons from, and then, hey, that's what it is. And so I have to just start out, Don, with, listen, the person that keeps me rooted the most would be God. Jesus. Right? Like, that's just. I know him, don't know him, know him. Right. We could have a whole conversation on that. But second to that, I have to list out my wife and then my kids. My wife and kids do a real great job at keeping my ego deflated, my head small, just being a normal human being. But then friends like Brian, Eric, Don, I would have to list you in there. And others, like, because I keep a core set of friends, digital and in person that are there for reasons. I would be remiss if I didn't go back to even before agency life, when I decided that I wanted to be a pastor and became a youth pastor. And a lot of that had to do with a gentleman. His name's Dave Wright. Pastor Dave Wright of Trinity Baptist in North Canton, Ohio. He's not there anymore. He's like Lebanon, Indiana, or I think it's Indiana. Anyway. I'd have to mention Bill Wiley. When I worked at Faith Ranch, he was the camp director. He no longer with us, but very instrumental in my life. I have to mention my parents. I would even mention my math teacher. Even though, like, he kept me grounded in a very interesting way. But also he's been the fuel to, like, get me to strive for many years to go in the direction Liz keeps me grounded. We have some human time conversations above and beyond this podcast, but even this podcast in itself, with the time that we're talking, keeps me grounded. I'd have to mention Angus Nelson and Tim, the evolved men that Don, you're part of. I'm part of. And meeting every Tuesday with them. And then us using Marco Polo to conference, like, in my life. Right? Those are the people where I'm like, these are the set of humans that keep me grounded. By the way, I'm very thankful that I can list out that many people that are physically in my life now, professional life. I have to mention Marcus Sheridan. He was a freaking massive spark into who I became professionally. I have to mention Remington Beg. They're both historical bosses that I had. Right? But there were always deep conversations. There were always challenges. There were always words of wisdom that were kind of like, like helping me go in a certain direction. People like Anne Hanley, just the salt of the earth, loving human Ian Altman, Joey Coleman. And again, blessed to even say that. These people like Jay Baer And I could go on. Like, these people know me. Like, if I reach out, they say, hi. If we see each other in the halls, we shake hands. And so to watch their success and then also understand their normal human beings and to erode this wall for most humans of, like, well, that's them and this me. To realize, no, that could be me, because they could be me as well. There's differences, but we can get past those. And then there's the people that I don't know that I just, like, watch and pay attention to. So Don. People like Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory. Oh, my God, that show. It. That show is like summertime sweet tea and a cigar for me. It's like, oh, my God, I just want to sit down and watch this show. People like Brene Brown. I saw her at Inbound, and her ability to talk about vulnerability and me wanting to embrace that same, let me just be vulnerable. Let me be the man that can be vulnerable in the world. And in conversation. Books, Gay Hendrix, the Big Leap. Jay Shetty, Think like a Monk, Oprah Winfrey. People are like, why do you love Oprah so much? It's not because you get a car. You get a car, you get a car. If you haven't listened to her podcast Super Soul, go listen to her podcast Super Soul, then come back to me and you'll be like, oh, I know why you love Oprah so much on YouTube or TV. Like pastors, Pastor Lance, Pastor Stephen. I love T.D. jakes. So these are all people that I'm paying attention to. And again, super blessed that I've kind of created this relational box, physical, virtual, whatever you want to call it, where I have these just great set of humans, and if you pay attention in different segments of my brain and body and spirit and to just kind of make this holistic human map of pieces and parts that I want to pull and who I want to become when I grow up.

That's outstanding. That actually gives me, you know, thinking about that and your response. It's like, great exercise for us all to do is to think about in the different parts of our lives, the people who we have to be thankful for, including. I'm a big fan of Oprah and Tom Bilyeu as well. You know, people that we might not ever met or may never meet, but they're helping us on our path to move beyond our default. I've got so many thoughts in my mind, but I want to move on to the next question. The next question is for Liz, and I think so far, My favorite episode, I hate to pick favorites, but I'm going to is, I think episode 15 on self forgiveness because it's something I am working hard through right now in my struggles in life. And Liz, your story been very inspiring to me as you work through your process. And you've talked a lot about your divorce, your parents, abusive upbringing. What are some of the themes of self forgiveness that you're still working on?

Ugh. You know, when I saw this question and you and I had talked about it, I knew that this was the question that needed to be asked based on how my body physically reacted to it, which was to run immediately several states away, which means it's the conversation that we need to have. You know, self forgiveness is a theme throughout these things. You know, you were talking earlier about how you are amazed that George moved so many times when he was a kid. I'm looking back over what my life has been from 2019 until now. I've been divorced twice from the same guy, you know, Cause why do something soul crushing once when you can do it twice for twice the price? You know, it's always super fun. I don't regret it. And my upbringing, there was alcoholism in the house, there was a lot of physical and verbal abuse, and it made for a really unstable upbringing. When I think about self forgiveness and how it has come through in this, I now understand actually why George wanted us to talk about forgiving others first before self forgiveness. Because he and I, when we were planning those two episodes. Cause it was a pair of episodes that we did right before we spoke about self forgiveness. We talked about the importance of forgiving others. And I was never quite clear on. I'm like, wait, but shouldn't we be talking about self forgiveness first? Shouldn't it go the other way around? And George was like, no, no, it needs to be that way. And he's absolutely right because it started with my ability to forgive others in my life. And then you kind of land on the self forgiveness aspect. You know, I had to think about when you grow up as a kid, of abuse. One of the things that they do not talk about is that even if you don't become an abuser yourself, you still mimic behavior you saw when you were a kid. So I grew up in dysfunction, so I mimicked dysfunction because I didn't understand how to function in a quote unquote normal way. In fact, the things that felt the most psychologically safe to me were the exact precise instable or unstable environments that I was trying to get away from. So I spent years kind of in this very weird cycle of replicating the very things I was trying to get away from. The funny thing about self forgiveness that I've realized is that it is very hard to forgive yourself for things. Like, there have been days where I've woken up where I'm like, oh, my gosh. So Liz from two years ago, two months ago, two weeks ago, total moron. We're just gonna have to move on, you know, like, that's hard and you know it. I think it's funny to say it that way and we can laugh at it that way, but I think there have been moments, and I've talked to George about this where, like, I'll wake up and I'm like, I don't know how I'm supposed to move forward. Because now that I'm looking at my past behavior through new lenses as I've grown up, how do I forgive myself for that? There are people who have every right to be very, very mad at me. But it' some point you're not punishing yourself for any good purpose. At some point you have to decide, are you someone who is allowed to have made mistakes and just live your freaking life? I don't always feel great about that, but I do have to remind myself, you know, like, Liz, you're not a serial killer. Like, you're not looking at. Like, you're not. You screwed up. You screwed up multiple times. You were a hot stove toucher multiple times. Like, you sometimes have to learn lessons the hard way, but you eventually get there. Say, the other big theme too, particularly, is realizing that I don't need to forgive myself for anything. Like, there are certain moments where I'm sitting here just feeling like absolute dog crap about myself. The relationship I have with myself is still one I'm healing and working on a lot. And it takes a lot of work. Because for me, the biggest challenge is that, like, I am an only child of two only children. So I have no aunts, uncles, or cousins. I have no brothers or sisters. I am my own safety net. I am my own support network. Especially since now that I'm divorced. So, like, all of this, like, all of this has to come from within. But I think one of the things that has been the most illuminating is realizing that sometimes I was holding myself accountable for things that I did not need to hold myself accountable for.

Yes.

That I was making myself responsible for the feelings of other people and not understanding that I am not responsible for everything.

Yes.

You know, because that was how I was painted growing up, you know, the mistake, the thing that ruined things, all of these different things. And it's very corrosive narrative. So the biggest theme of self forgiveness is self forgiveness is hard. But you also have to make sure that you are looking at your life clearly. Because when you get into these cycles, it is hard to always see that sometimes you're just being a human being and you're actually fine, fine. You didn't do anything wrong.

So good. I love so much of what you said, Liz, just because I think there's things that people, when they hear that will be like these moments for them. I think it's a deeper episode, it's a future episode, deeper topic is this idea of understanding what I'm responsible for, what I'm not responsible for, what I can change, what I can't change, where I need to give myself grace, where I need to push myself to get better. There's a whole rubrics around, like what you were talking about that I can't wait to dig into in future episodes.

To give a perfect example. I'm not going to speak to specifics about it, but I started noticing a pattern with a specific person in my life where if I would say something and it triggered them, they would literally say something to the effect of. Of. Well, you said this thing to me and I don't like how it made me feel. And my initial reaction was to try to make them feel better and to try to, like, fix things and to feel bad and to apologize for making them feel bad. And I didn't say anything that inflammatory. They were literally walking around saying, I don't know how to sit with my own discomfort. Now it's your problem. And that's a different conversation to have. If I'm sitting here saying, well, your sister is a duck and your hat looks stupid, you know, like, then, yes, I am an equitable player in that conversation. They have a right to feel discomfort.

Yeah. But if you said, hi, good morning.

Yeah, it's one of those things where sometimes you can end up being a triggering force in somebody else's life. And to be clear, you know, there are still plenty of other places where I'm like, no, Liz, you're the ding dong. You did that. You're gonna have to sit with that. But I think it's easy to fall prey to that idea of you are responsible for everybody's emotions and how they experience the world. And that comes from trauma and stuff that I'm working through, you know, because when you're a kid growing up in that kind of environment, you're hyper vigilant. The feelings of everybody around you are of the utmost importance because that's where your safety comes from. It's a bit of a tightrope walk, but yeah. So self forgiveness, work in progress? Working on it, but we're getting there.

And again, for somebody like me trying to represent the audience in this case, that's so helpful to hear because, you know, it hits to me into the ownership episode of what do we own about what happens with other people's reactions and experiences. It hits to the idea of surrounding ourselves with people who push us to be better but also love us for who we are, that balance. And then also to the idea of, you know, this is what it takes to move beyond your default. And it is not easy, but it is worth it. And I know I'm going to be listening to that clip multiple times as that is one of my biggest challenges is I think sometimes we've shared parts of our lives of like, how do you move forward and reach that thing? And George, you've said this a couple of times. And I think this is a huge part of moving beyond your default, which is, you know, you can't really truly love others until you love yourself. And loving yourself is hard because you have to love the messy parts, the things that nobody else knows about you that are sitting in your head. And. Yeah, wow. I want to transition to the next question about, you know, and I think this relates in many, many ways is what are the fe, George, that you're currently working on and moving through in this season of your life, you know, as you continue to explore your own ways of living beyond your default?

This is my question that I have to take a deep breath before I get started. I was like, no, where did this come from?

You didn't get out of this.

It's funny because I listen, we've done episode on fear, right? And I'm like, false evidence appearing real. And I have really worked a lot on not being that, like, fear guy and trying to step out and do things. And again, this is going to tie right back to, like, I've come a long way, but I realize how far I have yet to go. There's really three things that I boil this down to that I still would say that I have a level of fear around. The first one is fear of success. I have come a long way since 2013, meaning in my professional life, from an inbound zero, a HubSpot zero to an inbound and HubSpot hero. And really helping A lot of people and getting emails that I'm super humbled by, like, he's the goat. And like, what? No, I'm just the guy helping people. The HubSpot, It's a chip. Slow down, homie. Chill out a little bit over the there. And that's been fun. But to look at where I'm at now and understand the complete mind explosion of what has happened in my life over the last year and roughly six or seven months around some key concepts of being able to achieve what you want to achieve. A new mindset on money and what it really is in our life. The true power of network and connection, the ability to just let go and things be successful. The idea of first player energy versus second player energy. I look at all this and I hear these people again, I referenced at the beginning of this. This is going to dwarf anything that you've ever done. Excuse me. Kind of cool where I'm at. And I don't know what above this even looks like. And that starts to get scary for me. Right? So this idea of like, what is the next level? What are the next stages? What is. I just like, I have to meditate. When I start to think about this. Yeah. I start doing deep breaths.

You know that you hit a nerve with George when he stopped speaking in acronyms and start speaking in.

Yeah, yeah. So future success in what the next two, five, ten years looks like. And again, fear mixed with excitement. And we'll get to why. Like, because I love that we're going to talk about, like the future and stuff like that. But the other one too is. And this is going to sound weird for me because I totally have a growth mindset, but I fear growth. And by the way, yes, success and growth are two different things. What I'm talking about here is growth as an organization, as a company that I started. What I'm talking about here is growth as a human. Because I think sometimes you can grow too far or grow too fast and then issues show up. So I want to be very careful of not to lose myself through expedited growth, whether it be personal or professional. And so I'm always kind of like, am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? And again, that anxiety and the need for deep breaths and meditation shows up and I'm like, all right, dude, man, are you. Just quit freaking overthinking it and just like, let it be organic. But is organic enough? And then you go back into the cycle, the third thing. And I saved the best for last, by the way. It's the thing that I think I think about most, the thing that scares me the most is not screwing it up. Not screwing it up. You've put in so much work, you've put in so much time. You've become who you need to become. You're creating the things that you feel led to create. You're trying to impact the world in a certain way. And I've seen so many people get up into the, like, upper echelon, mountain peak of their life that they wanted to get to. And calling back to, the closer you get to where you're supposed to be, the harder parts of your life are going to become. I am always looking at, how am I going to F this up? Like, what am I going to get blindsided by? What am I not paying attention to? Man, that scares the ish out of me. Don't screw it up, dude. Just do your thing. But those are the three things, right? Fears of success, fear of growth, and fear of just screwing this whole thing up. This journey that we're on, that's pretty.

Pretty powerful to be thinking about what the success element, you know, we often think about growing and growing into where we want to go, and. And that sometimes that, like, why are we being held back? And sometimes it's that fear of, like, well, what if I get there?

Yeah, then what?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, Liz, got another question for you. And as you've talked about your challenges, how do you stay? And I think of this in particular with the holidays coming up, and I know this isn't a holiday episode that, you know, holidays can be challenging, but how do you stay grounded and manage yourself as you're dealing with, with these massive changes?

I think becoming very comfortable with the idea that what we want grounded to look like and what it actually, you know, staying grounded looks like in practice are two wildly different things. I think we think of, you know, staying grounded, staying managed, you know, moving through big upheavals in our lives. We have a very kind of Instagram aesthetic viewpoint on it, right? That it's calm, that it's filled with meditation. You are this beacon in a storm that allows things to move through you. No shit is hard. Okay? Divorce is not called happy, fun, explosion time. It's called divorce. And it's not.

I like that name better, though.

I know, right? Like, it's not fun. These are times that are going to be hard. I think sometimes what happens is that we believe in order to stay grounded or to be able to say that we're checking the grounding box that we can't break down. I have cried a lot. I have allowed myself to feel lots of feelings a lot. And when I say allow, it's not like I went, oh, Liz, you can go ahead and feel this. I didn't have choice. Like, the tears were coming. The rage was coming. The yelling at the sky, the is this what surrender looks like? Was actually something I yelled in my car once while crying with my head pressed against the steering wheel. And that was it, I think. June. No, it was in July. It was in July. So how do I stay grounded? By getting up and just doing the damn thing every single day and knowing it's not gonna be perfect every single day. That success isn't being some impenetrable feelings beacon. I'm a human being, as I've kind of come out of some of the aftershocks of some of the stuff that's happened over this year and over the past couple of years. Quite frankly, the timeline of events here is that I originally got divorced in 2019, moved to Connecticut in the middle of February, and two weeks later, the entire country shut down. And so I got to do an extreme version of Dating yourself, which was really fun. It was basically a cliche. A divorced cat lady living by myself. And I was living in New England, which had some of the strictest rules right away. You know, like, you couldn't see people. I couldn't. I didn't see people for months who I knew in person. Like, it was a really intense experience. And then going through the divorce again, this time, it was excruciatingly painful because I made the right choice of this isn't right. And we've talked about this on previous episodes, so I don't feel the need to go back there. I made the purposeful choice this time to blow things up because I learned what I needed to know, and I knew it was time to go. Grounding now, for me, looks like understanding. You're just gonna have to get up and live by a set of principles. And sometimes those principles are gonna. They're gonna become more clear. They're gonna become more refined. And it does actually also involve some meditation. I mean, I would say, if we wanna get a little bit more tactical here, I would say the thing that has stood me in the. In the most stead, a good stead, as I've gone through this grounding process, is getting really clear about whether I'm looking at things through a lens of reality or through a lens of fear and really becoming a master of my mind. That has required Me to look at myself and say, so what are my escapist tendencies? Because it's not always just fear. There are lots of other ways that kind of stuff shows up. And in some ways, you know, especially going into the holiday season. And I'll speak to that in just a moment. You know, it has been very challenging doing this on my own because there is no other person there. There's no mom, there's no dad to call. There's no sister, there's no aunt who I just happened to have a really good relationship with growing up, because they've all passed away. Most of my family is no longer here. It's scary. It is a terrifying thing because you finally have to look at yourself in the mirror and go, so what are my own trap doors that I built myself, and where do they exist? The other thing, too, though, is learning to be open with people is not something I'm very good at. So I'm very lucky this year that I'm actually spending Thanksgiving with a friend. But the only reason I'm spending Thanksgiving with this friend is that he and I had a conversation where I was trying to explain to him, you know, hey, I have some trust issues, and I know that they've kind of hurt our friendship in the past, and I wanted to talk a little bit about where they came from. I explained to him, you know, you've always been this really important person in my life because you do small things that are small to you, and they're very big to me. I explained to him, and I said, you know, Christmas during the pandemic, you were the only person who got me a Christmas gift. He didn't know that. And I said, yeah, you didn't have to do that. You randomly called me and said, hey, are you at your place? And I said, yes. And he came over, and it was a game called Throw Throw burrito. Like it's. It's a game. Like it wasn't. It's amazing, too. And I said, you know, that is an example of you doing a small thing that has an outsized impact for other people. So never underestimate that. And I explained, you know, I had spent Christmas on my own. He's like, well, why did you spend Christmas by yourself? And I said, well, hoot. What? Because I had nowhere to go. And then randomly he blurted out, well, what are you doing for Thanksgiving this year? You should come over. So it's this long winded explanation of saying, you know, grounding is messy. Grounding must be done with purpose. You have to Find ways to master your mind. And at some point, to use the metaphor that George talked about in the episode about relationships, at some point, you are a cold piece of coal because you are deciding to keep yourself segmented from other people.

People.

So I'm learning how to be vulnerable with other people and ask for help because that's not something historically I've done very well.

Okay. So I have listed down that we need to do an episode on what in the world is grounded anyway? Yeah, because I think that's like a word that can go a thousand different ways.

There's meditation, there's also screaming. Okay, like, that's just how it is.

Yeah, but Liz, it's funny. This is going to be very short so we can get into the last little bit that we want to hit on this episode. Because, Don, I do value your time and I value the questions that you're asking and where this is making us go from a mental standpoint and where listeners are being taken on these additional journeys that they wouldn't have had. But I wrote down as you were talking, Liz, grounded and a question mark. Does it actually equal for many of the listeners, unrealistic expectations? Meaning are they changing the bar based on the day versus they wake up in a shitstorm and they're still trying to do a normal life high jump that they would do during everything is okay, amazing day. And like being able to move the expectations of who you are and how you should or can show up. There can be different levels of grounded. Anyway, again, future episode, Don, take us back into what we're supposed to be talking about.

About this is what I love so much about following this journey and then also being able to be here is just. My head is exploding with so many amazing thoughts from you all. I mean, the whole idea of you just said, Liz, about, you know, grounded means sometimes just screaming into the steering wheel and pounding, and that's okay. You know, we need to do that. We need to release, and that's a part of getting ourselves to grounded. And with that, you know, just, again, very, very powerful answers and episodes. And I just am so grateful, speaking for the community, for what you two are, what you are offering here. Which leads me to my final question, because I am very excited to see about where this show goes. And like, as we learn to ma, you know, I definitely love the master your mind. And I think that's a big part of what I want to do as I follow this in 2024 and beyond. So for both of you, leading into 2024, what are you most excited for when it comes to beyond the default? Thinking about not only the podcast, but the community for yourself and for others.

Others, Liz, I'll let you go first on this and then I'll close this bad boy out.

And he had the nice part of the mug showing as he did that, by the way.

I did. I did. Because he's not allowing me to hide anymore behind him, which is okay. I see the naughty mug. I see the naughty mug. Choices are being made here. What am I most excited for? You know what, George, you said something earlier that really resonated with me, is that you have a fear of success. And the reality is, so do I. And you and I had a really great candid conversation about it a few weeks ago. And because beyond your default has been unexpectedly triggering for me, I'll be honest, like, not just like beyond the conversations that we've been having. It's just I have always been so afraid of being a disappointment and letting people down and that, you know, that's just my lot in life to be the disappointment. And so when I think about what I'm actually very excited about is that maybe in some ways that makes me the right person to do this. That, you know, when I think about what I'm most excited about, this is the first time in my life I'm looking back at my entire path. The good, the bad, the very, very ugly, and thinking, well, I was the only woman who was equipped to walk this path. And what if there was a way to show other people, people through it? George's book is called beyond your default. Mine is called Confused Screams of a cake in the oven, which probably gives you a very good idea of our different personalities.

That's it. That's it. So, Don, I love this question for so many reasons. So let me just hit some high level stuff and then we'll get everybody back to being able to think about a couple things. What they're grateful for, what they're thankful for, what changes they can make in their life, how they can start to live a life beyond their definition, fault. But when I think about the podcast, the community, for myself, for others, I break it down like this for the podcast. I'm super excited for, like, the exciting topics. And what I mean is we've been doing this episode and I already have listed out and we'll comment and attach Liz to it. Giving ourselves permission to grow. What are we really responsible for? What in the world is grounded anyway? And navigating the trap doors of our life like that's four episodes in the future that I'm like, yep, we need to talk about those at a deeper level level. And so this idea of just exciting topics that real humans have real hurdles with and they need to be able to close the mental gap on them to get to the aspirational point that they're trying to get to with the community. This is not the first time I've built community. I actually just feel like I've been built for community from the ground up and who I am. But the idea of being able to serve others inside of a community at a deeper level, to really be there to love on them and help them. And in my mind it's the digital hand up for others like Don, like Liz, like myself, who are just like, man, I always imagined that I'm supposed to be here, but dang it, why am I stuck? I've got a fork in the road and I don't know to turn left or turn right. Man, I just. Why does life suck? Well, it doesn't. And so like if you're struggling with that, I just, I'm excited to serve others in those moments. Moments myself. I started saying this in my professional life a couple years back and I'm like, oh my God, this is what I was leaning to. And this is where I'm going for myself. I'm super excited about this idea of significance. I'll talk about that in a hot minute. I'm gonna get somewhere real quick in a minute. For others again, I want others through this process to love themselves. I want others through this process to trust themselves. I want others through this process to know themselves and to come to the realization that they are enough and to come to the realization that they can do extraordinary things as they move forward for others, that's what I would wave a magic wand. Pray, hope, whatever I gotta do for that peace. And so really if I boil this down, it comes down to like helping others. This idea of a hand up for the entire world, world, whoever this finds by serendipity or by design, giving them a hand up. Learning more about myself along the way. Right at the very beginning I said, man, I've done a lot of work, I've come a long way, but woo, do we have a journey to travel yet? And being able to tweak my life along the way based on the exciting topics, based on the research we do, based on the conversations that people are sending us in mini movies and like emails and different things that now all of a sudden since like Star Trek, sorry, it's like this Borg mentality or mindset, right? I know I'm a nerd. I'm a nerd. But then really leaning into this being a catalyst for growth. Okay? And here's the thing. I was born in 1971, and I don't know when I'm gonna check out. I have no clue. It could be tomorrow, it could be 20 years from now. It could be 30 years from now. But I know that the most important piece, and I'm stealing this from somebody else. I didn't make this junk up. But the most important piece is that dash in the middle on my gravestone. Born 1971, died this date. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I am working on the dash in the middle. And for me, one of the things the dash in the middle is that I want to be able to create this community. I want to be able to build this podcast. I want to be able to launch the book and know that somewhere in the dash in the middle, middle that I went from a high school dropout, somebody who didn't believe in themselves, to a published author with who knows how many people in a community that I have created micro ripples in the ocean of life. And that when I do finally check out, that I can just simply ask this question. Can you please show me the ripples.

Sam?