My name is George B. Thomas

If you were to meet me today, this is how you'd know me: the AI and HubSpot consultant and keynote speaker who turned his passion into a business; the dedicated father and husband who smiles so damn big every day because of his family; the man of faith who sees purpose beyond himself and the good in everyone he meets.

I'm proud to say all of those things are true. But like you, who I am today is not how I started this journey. Not even close. Where I am now is a direct result of every triumph, every failure, every bruise, every loss and every heartbreak I've experienced and learned from.

I stood in Pastor Dave's office, frustrated and tired, as I said that. I was a youth pastor in Ohio, working at a Pizza Hut while I studied to become ordained. I had made so many changes in my life to do good and be better, and I wanted to see the blessings everyone had promised.

Two weeks later, we were on a mission trip to an Indian reservation in Montana. On Sunday morning we gathered in a field, under a big white tent surrounded by mountains, for a service. The guest speaker was Prophetess Juanita, and no amount of money could make me remember anything she said to the congregation.

But at the end of the service, as she walked down the aisle, she paused beside me. I hadn't said a word to her. She put her hand gently on my shoulder and said:

I was a website designer and developer at a five-person agency in Massillon, Ohio. Day in and day out, we hustled. Then our social media guy told us “some company called HubSpot” was putting on the “world's largest webinar,” and we knew we had to tune in. That may not sound like much today, but in 2012 it was a big deal.

During the webinar, HubSpot said it would give free INBOUND tickets to the attendees who tweeted the most. Our social media guy tweeted up a storm, and we won two tickets. I had no idea how my life was about to change.

That's what I told my wife after I got off the phone with Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask, You Answer. He owned his own agency at the time, The Sales Lion, and he had offered me a job. I will always be grateful for how Marcus challenged me.

“Hey, I think we should start a podcast,” he said. “You must be out of your mind. I hate my voice. Absolutely not,” I replied. Marcus persisted, and we went on to record 272 episodes of The Hubcast.

Over dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, before my first-ever keynote, he told me: “You should start with the fact that you're a high school dropout.” There was absolutely no way I was going to do that. Then he said, “Until you embrace being vulnerable, you're going to miss out on the magic in life.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. So I did it. I opened that keynote with the dropout story and what my math teacher said. Afterward, a woman came up and said my story resonated. I thought she was being polite, until she said: “I don't think you understand. For me, you were talking about my mother.” We sat for half an hour talking about life and forgiveness, and that's when I knew what I was meant to do: tell my story to help heal the humans who connect with who I am and why I do what I do.

In June 2022 I launched George B. Thomas, LLC as a lifestyle brand. The plan was simple: find a couple of clients and teach them HubSpot. I swore I would never build an agency. When I looked in the mirror, I always saw a great number two guy, not a leader. Never the visionary.

For about a year and a half, I did business as George B. Thomas. The humans kept showing up, and by then three contractors were working with me every week. My friend Mick Hunt told me I needed an agency name, so we launched as Sidekick Strategies, named after HubSpot's original Sidekick sales tool and the sidekick mentality I've always had. It became a family business in the truest sense: Kelly runs the operations, and our kids Seth, Noah, Maddy and Kayle run podcast, video, social and content. We call it the FEAM, family plus team, and the family comes before the team.

Somebody told me, “Good luck. You won't be able to take a vacation.” Within three months, we took a week with the family. And as Kelly likes to remind me, “You don't have clients, you have friends!”

The SuperHuman Framework sat in a Google Doc for two years before I finally shared it: four cornerstones (love, purpose, passion and persistence) and ten H pillars for how we show up. Liz Moorehead and I started talking it through on the Beyond Your Default podcast.

Around the same time, I started opening my Bible every morning with one question: what do I need to know to lead well today? Those private notes became hundreds of articles, and in 2025 they became The Spiritual Side of Leadership, a home for business leaders who follow Jesus and want to lead with purpose and flourish with faith.

I love speaking. I've done it for years, and the feedback keeps telling me it's what I'm meant to do. So georgebthomas.com is now the home for my keynotes and workshops, my AI coaching and consulting, and the books I'm finishing.

The tools keep changing. The mission doesn't: tell my story, help heal the humans who connect with it, and help every one of them put technology to work without losing what makes them human.