Change, discomfort, and growth; an unexpected fireside chat (HubHeroes, Ep. 14)

However, after a twist of fate, a Thanksgiving-themed episode is exactly what we created. 

In this week's atypical episode, it's just Liz Murphy, me, and our mics. (The rest of our crew will be back next week, don't worry!) Looking ahead to Thanksgiving and everything we're currently grateful for, we talked honestly about painful lessons learned, how uncomfortable moments shaped us as humans, the people who have brought us to where we are today, and how important it is to be open to pivots in life. 

I've gotta tell you, much of what I talk about in this episode I would have never dreamed of sharing before now. But as I tell anyone who is considering working with me, the humans always come before HubSpot in any client relationship. So, it was only a matter of time before I was willing to share my goals and my fears, as well as the experiences that created the man many of you know now. 

Next week, we'll return with our usual HubSpot-fueled shenanigans. For now, however, I'd ask each and every one of you to listen to this episode whenever you find it in your feed – as you're traveling to see family, as you're prepping your turkey, or maybe when you're trying to find a moment to center yourself and refocus as we look ahead to a new year. 

This isn’t a fluffy episode. This episode is my way of opening up to you in a way I never have before, and it’s also a challenge – every single one of you has a unique human experience that informs how you show up in your personal and professional lives. And guess what? So do your customers. Now, ask yourself how much do you allow the “human” element to influence the way you show up, what you do, and how you reach your goals? 

For those of you who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving. 🦃

RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE

• If you missed it, here's Liz's first episode on the HubHeroes Podcast, which is all about the right way to measure content marketing ROI
• Dr. Abraham Twerski on lobsters, change, and how humans respond to stress
• Liz's favorite corn pudding recipe (stupidly easy and always a crowd-pleaser); and if you want to make it a little more savory, add in a 1/2 cheddar cheese.

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by silo departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace, Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge. Never fear hub heroes.

Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub heroes, it's time to unite and activate your your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that both Devin and Max are currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin and Max during the show are that of their own and in no way represent those of their employer.

Liz Moorhead: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, pelicans, pineapples, guinea pigs, whomever you may be. Welcome back to a very special and very different episode of Hub Heroes. George, it's just you and me today. And for those of you listening, I'm Liz Murphy, content strategist, professional nerd wrangler. And, George, it is, the countdown is on less than a week until Thanksgiving.

And when I was thinking about us arriving on the mic this week, we're in a season of harvesting, but also a season of change, especially for you specifically. So I thought it might be nice as people are preparing to travel with friends and family, if you're me frantically figuring out how the second oven in my double oven actually works. Right now, it is a it is a holder for pans, so that's gonna gonna be a fun adventure. But I thought it might be nice to just take a moment to stop and reflect. Because last week, we made a big change to this show, but you've had a lot of changes that have happened this year.

You went out on your own. You started your own business. You started this brand new podcast. You have been bringing all of these people together to really do something remarkable and magical. So, George, what are you thankful for this year?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. I think it's it's interesting. There's, Liz, first of all, so much that I'm thankful for. And as I'm listening to you in this kind of intro and to position this, some big topics that came to my mind of, like, mindsets and being a transition specialist and even knowing what the heck HubSpot is are some of the things where my brain, of course, you know what I'm gonna say, went in these different directions. Right?

That's gonna be a t shirt someday, which I'm thankful that it'll probably be a t shirt someday. But if I start at kind of the beginning of the story, you know, one of the things that I think as you're driving to visit the in laws or you're going over to friendsgiving because you're away from family or it's just you sitting at the table with, you know, wife, kids, or by yourself, and you're listening to to this or getting ready to be in any of those situations. I think one of the things that you mentioned right there at the beginning was that I wanna hit upon is many times, we don't actually stop to reflect. We don't stop where we're at. For instance, if we're climbing the mountain of success or we're climbing the mountain of significance, We're always trying to reach that next goal.

We're setting a goal almost before we even reach the next one, and we don't stop and we don't look back and go, wow. I've come a long way. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because it's a core fundamental piece that sits back on my white board behind me. And the sentence literally says, you've come a long way since 2013. And to be thankful for somebody who, at one point in my life, knew nothing about HubSpot, was an inbound 0, didn't believe that they ever belonged in in a position of owning a company, that they played a great number 2 to a number 1, a Robin to a Batman.

I'm thankful that over the last 10 years that, a, I learned about HubSpot, that I'm I'm thankful that I learned about inbound. I'm thankful that I had this journey through multiple agencies. But to kinda even circle back around to another thing you said in that intro is, I'm super thankful that I have this ability to be a transition specialist. And at 1.5 months ago, I said, maybe it's time to be a business owner.

Liz Moorhead: You said something there. Wait. Hold on. Let me be my best George. Here's where my brain went.

2 different directions. Number 1, it reminded me of that episode of The Office when Andy said, man, I wish somebody told you you were in the good old days when you were still in the good old days. And then the second thing that you mentioned is that really stuck with me is that you really don't often know where change is going to take you. And we're at an interesting point in the year when a lot of you who who are listening right now, you're probably evaluating budgets, your tool stack. What the heck are we gonna be doing next year?

Are we in a recession? Are we not in a recession? Are we in a mini there's this is the time when we're all sitting and reflecting and thinking about where we've come from, where we are, and where we're going. And when I think about this year, George, and I wonder if you had the same thing, what I'm thankful for the most are those moments where I was pushed into change. And it was like all of these little things lined up.

And to take everybody back to a moment, let's go back to what was it, March, you and I or was it no. It was May. You and I happened to get to the airport in Charlotte early at the same time.

George B. Thomas: Which I'm thankful for, by the way.

Liz Moorhead: And that's the exactly the point. And I'm so incredibly thankful for that moment because you and I both ended up having conversations we would never have had. We ended up connecting in ways that we would have never connected that led me here harassing you on this very microphone. So I think about these moments where we take a lot for granted and we don't capitalize enough on the moments when we're called to change, when we're called to notice that the status quo no longer works anymore. And I see you nodding your head.

What are your feelings around that?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. I mean, it comes down to a couple of things for me fundamentally and maybe for the listeners as well. One, humans, we inherently don't like change usually. We like to know where our things are, know what we're supposed to do. We have our little comfort zones.

I mean, there was literally a book written who moved my cheese because to fight against the fact of not wanting to change and almost needing in your words being forced into change instead of embracing change. And I'm thankful that for my whole life, from when I was a kid and my parents were in the military and we moved a lot, and I I just got really comfortable with things always changing. And by the way, that's the only thing that stays consistent is change. It's not gonna be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday. One of the things that I think can be a superpower for the listeners is that we actually embrace change instead of fighting change, and that we're always looking for when it is or does make sense to what I like to call pivot.

Let me explain why I keep talking about pivot and transition specialist. For years, I was a designer developer, then I learned about HubSpot. I made a transition into learning about HubSpot. When I started to learn about HubSpot, I was working at a small agency, but then I got offered a job with the sales line in Marcus Sheridan, and I made a transition. It felt right.

I'm gonna go back to why these things can feel right fundamentally. But then Marcus said, let's start a podcast. Transitioned into becoming a podcast specialist that I just happened to be talking about HubSpot. Then it was like, let's do video. Became a video specialist.

Just so happened that we're making videos about HubSpot. But there was always these changes that were happening and and diving in. And I was on an interview once. I was actually interviewing the other person, Dean Delisle. I'll never forget this interview till the probably the day I die.

And he goes, dude, you are just a transition specialist. And I go, what do you mean by that? He's like, man, you are not afraid to pivot on a dime. You are not afraid to go in a different direction, and I had to stop and think about that. And I'm thankful for that conversation with Dean because it made me actually stop, think, reflect, and he kept using the words you're not afraid to, which led me to this fundamental mindset that I'm very thankful that I embraced years ago, and I hope that the listeners will actually be able to take with them after listening this as they move forward.

And that is their relationship with fear. Many times and you talk about recession, not a recession, mini recession. Many times, we base our strategy. We base our actions on the beliefs and fears that we have. And so one of the things that fundamentally I, again, am very thankful for is my relationship with fear, and that is I don't really necessarily believe in fear.

I believe that fear is false evidence appearing real. We never truly fear the past or we never talk about fearing the past. We only fear those things that we haven't seen or haven't been through. And so if you have a mindset of it's false evidence appearing real, that enables you to actually transition, pivot, and strategize in a completely different manner than you once would. The second piece of this is your belief structure.

We'll probably dive into that a little bit more because I know we're gonna talk about, like, starting a business and belief in oneself and stuff like that. But my takeaway for this right now is diagnose what you believe or don't believe about fear, what you believe or don't believe because of that about mistakes versus learning lessons. And if you can sit and unpack that for a little bit, fundamentally, it's gonna change your life.

Liz Moorhead: I love that you brought that up because it reminds me of a video I think I've actually sent you. And everybody can Google this, but I will put it in the show notes. I saw this video oh my gosh, I was gonna say a few years ago, but I think it was about 7 or 8 years ago at this point, by rabbi doctor Abraham Torske. And he talks about lobsters. Now lobsters look like nightmare fuel from a Tim Burton movie, but on the inside underneath that shell, they're just fleshy little creatures who want to be loved and probably not eaten.

Eaten. But like all creatures, lobsters grow. But unlike us humans where our whole body grows at the same time, their shell actually does not grow along with them. So at some point, their growth is going to become inhibited and they're actually going to start feeling physical pain because the home that once served them well is now harming them. It is preventing them from growing into the next stage of life that they are meant to grow into.

So what they do is they go under a little rock, they hook themselves out of their shell, they grow into a new one, and then at some point down the line, it happens again. And what's fascinating about what Rabbi Torsky talks about is that imagine if a lobster were a human. And what would happen is instead of going through the process, the necessary pain, because you made a great point. Even when change is positive, we're afraid of it. We don't wanna do it.

I wanna stay in my sweatpants, and if anybody touches my cheese, I will fight them. But if the lobster were a human and they were to go to a hospital, the doctor wouldn't tell them, hey, this is necessary. You need to grow through this. You need to go through the process. They'd be throwing painkillers at them faster than you can possibly imagine.

So the key here to always remember, and I'm gonna quote him on this because he said it so beautifully, is to remember that the stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is that it is uncomfortable. So I wanna ask you, George, on that note. What uncomfortable moments are you thankful for?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. There's so many. And and what's funny is, Liz, over my lifetime, I used to have a very unhealthy relationship with being comfortable. I wanted to be in my space, be in my zone, you know, to the detriment of who I was actually bringing myself to be in the world. And now what's funny and I'll and I'll talk to you about some uncomfortable times that I'm thankful for.

But what's funny is I wanna fast forward for a second, and and I wanna hit upon kind of your lobster story a little bit. And by the way, it enables me to be who I am as a marketer. It enables me to be who I am as a trainer. It has enabled me to be the person that brings HubSpot community value in the manner in which that I actually bring the value. And that is I have this crazy little feeling now that when life gets rough, I actually get excited.

Now I said that to somebody at one point, and they're like, dude, you're not right in the head. But I do. I get excited when life gets difficult because I have come to this belief, and I call it God. You can call it the universe. You can call it whatever you want, but we don't actually become who we're supposed to become with tissue and toilet paper.

We become who we're supposed to become in life with chisels and saws and hammers, and it's an aggressive painful time that launch us into who we're supposed to be. So a couple that I'm thankful for is 1, at age 18a half 19, I went through a real painful process of breaking out in hives. I was in the military, the United States Navy. These hives were actually happening around my heart and my lungs. It was hard to breathe.

There was an a rapid heartbeat. We're actually underway. This is right before Desert Storm, by the way. We're underway doing test ops, and it got to the point where they had me on massive doses of Benadryl and steroids to the point where they couldn't wake me up. And what's interesting is my master chief, when I finally did get woke up, he's like, this is no good.

Little Filipino guy, cool as hell. This is no good. Go to the doctor. If we can't wake you up to do work, then this is no good. The doctor, he looks at me.

He goes, George, we can't figure it out. And by the way, not that this would ever happen, but if there was a fire that happened onboard ship, we couldn't get you out. We couldn't wake you up. So we're gonna have helicopter come. We're gonna send you a transient personnel unit, and we're gonna get you fixed up, get you back on.

Literally, packed my seabags, helicopter came, flew me to shore. 13 hours later, Liz, I woke up, and there was a TV announcer, and it was talking about how the USS Cunningham missile guided destroyer, DDG 17, the number one boiler exploded, 18 people injured, 1 person died. By the way, the birthing space where I would have been sleeping was located right above where the number one boiler was located. And so I can look back and go, I was 13 hours away from being alive or being dead. And so that was a very aggressive, painful transition because I thought I was gonna be in the military for the rest of my life.

I ended up getting a medical honorable discharge. And for the next 3 years, I went and worked at a camp in Jewett, Ohio, teaching kids about Jesus and how to ride horses, making a $100 a month. But the level of growth that happened through those 3 years from fundamental principles of how I show up for the HubSpot community were birthed in that time frame.

Liz Moorhead: So let's flash forward here a moment. A lot has changed with you internally and externally since that time. I want you to look back at yourself previously, because you and I have had offline conversations about when we look at our past selves and all of the lessons we've learned. Sometimes when we look at our past selves, we don't necessarily do so with a a kind lens or a kind look. So if you could go back and talk to yourself at any point in your life and just put a hand on your shoulder and say, bud, I am thankful for who you are right now because this is where we're gonna go.

George B. Thomas: Man. Yeah. This one's aggressive, but I would go to I would go to the George b Thomas that's a high school dropout. Right after my math teacher told me that I would never amount to anything because I was in a dark place. I was in an angry place, and I'm thankful that there became a time in my life where my perspective on the story dramatically changed.

Let me explain. So when you drop out from school, when you feel like you're never gonna be somebody like my math teacher said, it puts you in a dark place, very angry. You make life decisions out of that place. And I did it for a lot of years, but I would say to myself at that point, don't worry. This this right here is what is going to turn you into an aggressive learner.

This right here is going to be the fuel that makes you wanna be the most incredible educator that you can be for the community that you're going to serve in the future. This is what you need. And here's the thing. For a lot of years, I would wanna go back and see that math teacher, and I would've wanna punch that math teacher in the face. And I remember about maybe 8 years ago, 9 years ago, somebody asked me a question.

And it was in a podcast. I had they got asked me to be on a podcast with them, and they said, hey. If you could go back and talk to that math teacher, what would you say? And I knew that my perspective had changed because the answer that came out of my mouth, a, I couldn't really believe, but I'm thankful for, was I said I would thank them. I would thank them because at that moment in time, even though they weren't doing it out of, the being the best teacher that they could be, it was the thing that I needed to unlock a future that I was going to have.

And so I I didn't, at that point, hold any anger. I really would want them to this is gonna sound weird. It would be more important for me to understand if they had been holding on to the words that they had used against somebody else and me to be able to say, oh, don't worry about it. I forgive you because it's it made me this.

Liz Moorhead: I know in the last episode, we joked a little bit about your love of the word humans. Humans. But it's something you've brought into your business. This idea not you know, for example, you have servant based HubSpot demos where it you're not with HubSpot, you're not there to make a buck, not all the all of those different things. But the thing that strikes me, because I was just looking at your website here for a moment, and you go deeply into your story on your website, but you actually start by talking about the fact that you believe the human stories, these micro moments and these macro moments in our lives.

You go out of your way to learn those things about the people that you work with as clients because it yields better outcomes, because it all starts with the humans. And so while Max and Devon aren't here, I'd love to just hear you talk a little bit about why these human element of everything we do is so important. Why stories like yours and the story of every person you work with or anybody who ever touches HubSpot, why it matters.

George B. Thomas: Man, this is this is gonna be a deep episode. We have to understand this about the humans around us. Maybe more importantly, we have to understand this about ourselves. We have been wonderfully crafted. We have been made to be this person that we are supposed to be.

We're also very much connected from an energy perspective, from, an aspirations or goal or living a good life. Many of us want many of the same things. Some of us actually, and many of us I'll say, in our own little way, love to help people. We can help people faster, better, the more we know them, the more we understand them. The more and my dad used to say it this way.

Never judge a man till you walk a mile in his moccasins. By the way, the underlying lesson there is empathy. How am I gonna give you, whether it's about life, your kids, your wife, your husband, your partner, your business, your sales pipeline, the way that you do HubSpot forms, if I don't truly understand you, your goals, your historical hurdles that have stopped you from being successful, and the aspirational direction that you're trying to go. If I don't know those things about you, then it's very hard. I can teach you a thing, but I can't teach you a best way to use that thing for you.

And there's a dramatic difference in that type of education when you can apply that level. So I I if I wrap this portion of it up a little bit, what I will say is that we have to understand how special we truly are. We have to understand how connected we are, and we have to understand the power of the words that come out of our mouth to direct people in a different direction. And with that, for me, there is a level of responsibility to do my due diligence, to understand them where I don't sit back and go, like my math teacher potentially. Oh, crap.

Did I just send them in a wrong direction?

Liz Moorhead: It reminds me a lot of of also how you teach HubSpot. You know, people and you wrote about this last week. I'll link it in the show notes about how so many people get so obsessed with all the bells and the whistles and the features and the tools of of whatever hub you open up. You open up the box, and you're like, I can blog now. I can do templates.

I can do sequences. I can do this. And you're like, And I think you bring up a really great point here because it's not just how we connect from a business to business relationship level. I this is something I teach a lot when I'm working with, businesses when they're trying to make their content more effective, when they're trying to, as you put it, show more empathy. I think sometimes a lot of people know how to spell empathy, and that is where that conversation ends.

I think a lot of people forget that every single data point in your HubSpot database is a human being with a story. A human being who is waking up in the middle of the night of, man, if I don't show value to my boss, this isn't just about getting results. This is about whether or not I'm keeping my job and and keeping dinner on the table for my family. I thought our strategy was really going great. Now all of a sudden, they wanna know a strategy.

I mean, wait, why are they asking for all of these things? I think people forget that at the end of the day, you're moving data and looking for insights and looking at graphs. And every single inflection point, every single number that contributes to any of the charts you ever see inside of HubSpot is a person with a story, a goal, a fear, a challenge, somebody who told them they could not do something or can never do something, or maybe they're proactive and excited and trying to see something new, I think people really forget that. They lose the human element of the entire story.

George B. Thomas: It's it's funny. You started to rattle off things, and and my brain was already going into a level of they forget that every data point, everything that they do, that it's a human that evoked an emotion, that took action to go to the next step of where they're gonna be at or who they're gonna be. And when you start to think in these micros because, by the way, for me, it's never been about HubSpot. It's never been about HubSpot. You know what turned me on about HubSpot and made me go in the direction that I went in in 2012 is their actual marketing was don't call me a customer.

Don't call me a customer. And they were leaning heavily in 2012 on that it's about serving humans. As a historical bouncer of a bar and a pastor at a church, that's something that I can get behind. I love serving humans. And so this was like, how do I educate myself?

Oh my god. There's HubSpot Academy, and I can learn how to do this thing, and I can serve people along the way. Wait a minute. You mean I can turn myself into an inbound 0, into an inbound hero? I can become an expert.

All my life, I've been waiting for a hand up, not a hand out. And here it is. A SaaS software giving me a hand up to the aspirational place that I wanna become. It's never been about HubSpot. It's been about the human journey that they evoked an emotion.

I took an action and continue to have, by the way, a mentality that I am thankful about become 1% better each and every day along this last 10 year journey.

Liz Moorhead: Let's focus on this past year of this past 10 year journey. I know. I mean, you didn't really do much this year. You know, started a business, did all these different things, whatever. Are there any people who come to mind where you just wanna take a moment and shout them out?

George B. Thomas: God, this will be here forever. I mean, people that I'm thankful for, I I gotta start with the fact that I'm thankful for my wife. My wife has been absolutely amazing in allowing me to chase this dream that I've been chasing for, I would say, the last 15 or 20 years where it's just this thing, the next thing, this pivot, this transition, and thankful that she's always been there to be like, if you believe this is best for us, then let's do this. And and especially when it was like, hey, babe. I wanna quit my job, and I don't know what we're gonna do about insurance, and I don't know what we're gonna do about this, but I really think that I should start a company.

If you think this is the best for us, then let's double down. Like, to have a partner in crime that is that amazing, I'm super thankful for. The other thing is I'm thankful for serendipity in relationships, meaning meeting, you know, Mark Killens of the HubSpot Academy. Being able to actually talk to, the HubSpot Academy employees in 2013 or 2014 and thanked them person to person for doing all the things that they do and don't get thanked for because they are enabling me to become the person that I'm becoming. Like, that was an impactful moment.

I'm thankful for all of the people who have ever worked at HubSpot Academy. Out of that, by the way, that's probably how Marcus Sheridan heard about me is there was some scuttlebutt about this guy who's, like, going crazy ham on HubSpot education and becoming that's kinda special. And so I'm thankful for Marcus Sheridan and the 5 years of working with him because that was the bedrock of actually becoming a great communicator, starting to podcast, doing video. All the things that I love and would call my zone of genius today come from the hitting the stage and speaking, doing MCing. Like, it's all rooted in that.

But then I also have to be thankful for Bob Ruffalos, the Liz Murphy's, the people that I met at Impact. Heck, Zach Bazner knew him way before that. By the way, super thankful for that dude because he's just a good guy, and I love him to death. And to be honest with you, for many years in our life, I treated him like he was a son, and now he's I treat him like he's a brother because he is. Here's the thing.

I have to be thankful for people like Remington Begg and Rachel Begg too because when I got to a point where I wasn't ready to make a change, they gave me a place to call home. And not only call home, but to call home and have the freedom to just be who I am. Right? Not many businesses would be like, hey. Welcome in, and, oh, you wanna create Sprocket Talk, the community?

Oh, you wanna make videos? Oh, you wanna do podcasting? And by the way, what's the return on investment on this? No. We can't do no.

No. No. No. No. They gave me a home, a place to land, a place to be myself, and dare I say, a place to heal from the road bumps, the speed bumps, the bruises that I had kind of gotten along this interesting journey that is HubSpot and inbound and agency life.

There's I could keep going. I mean, I could mention my parents. I could I could mention my grandparents who are, like, prayer warriors and, like, probably have a century worth of blessing over me because of them. Sean Farrell from QDS. I mean, there's just so Ian Altman, Joey Coleman, Anne Hanley, Mitch Joel.

I mean, like, that's the thing. Like, I'm I'm thankful that I'm super blessed to call some of the most amazing humans on the planet friends, and have had chances to collaborate with them. And, again, I go back to Liz. We're gonna I know we're gonna talk about the business here in a hot minute probably, room log cabin with no running water in Lincoln, Montana where we would bathe with the stream of runoff of the mountain. At 9 years old, I would ride my pony to a one room schoolhouse.

By 17a half, I was a high school dropout. Yet, I sit here thankful for the people that I know and the relationships that I have and the future that I have no idea where we're headed. Now let me go ahead and say this piece to wrap up people that I'm thankful for. When I started my business, I knew that there were 2 things that had to hold true for me to actually enjoy what I'm doing. I knew that I wanted to start a YouTube channel because I love to create videos, and I knew that I wanted to start a podcast because I love to add value to the HubSpot community out of this tool that is podcasting.

I sat down and I dreamt. How could I create the most amazing podcast? How could I beat something that I had historically done with Marcus, the hub cast? How could I evolve myself, challenge myself, put myself in a pressure cooker? Who out there is smart enough to call me on my ish, to actually say you might not be right or have you thought about it this way?

And so 2 people that I am absolutely uber thankful. By the way, I have another one that I'm gonna mention here in a hot minute, but 2 people that I'm uber thankful for is Max Cohen and Devin Bellamy because they're both rock stars. They are absolute HubSpot wizard ninja guru. But aside of that, they're just great humans. They're super smart.

They're super open. They both want to impact change. Devin, black and inbound, impact change. Max, teaching people for years how to use HubSpot in a right way, impacting the right change, and then showing up. By the way, unpaid on a weekly, almost weekly basis.

Sometimes we miss one here and there. You know? Whatever. That's not why we're here. But on a weekly basis, unpaid to do a podcast for some weird dude that decided to start a business and wanted to add value to the HubSpot community.

So they are on the tippy top of people that I'm thankful for. One other one, but you gotta promise me not to get emotion, is Liz Murphy. I had the opportunity when I started the business to go through a coaching kind of voice tone. How do you wanna show up? I kinda thought I was a baller, but I always try to stay super humble.

Right? Happy, helpful, humble, human. Like, that's just my mantra, has been for many, many, many years. But I'm thankful that, Liz, we know each other. I'm thankful that we actually went through that process.

And I'm very thankful. By the way, tying this all together to that change is hard and the lobster breaks through their shell. And if we we as humans can kind of find ways to do that as we move forward, it's it's gonna be a good thing. During the process of going through the voice and tone and coaching portion and and getting new copy on the website and showing up how I wanted to show up, you asked me what seemed like it should be easy words to hear, but they were uber difficult. And so I am thankful for the words when you said, George, what does it look like to show up as a whole ass human?

Because one of the things that I had not done is I had not fully forgiven myself for the human that I was pre HubSpot, pre trying to be a good dude. I had not forgiven myself of the angry guy, of the dropout guy, of the he might be a little shady guy. And when you ask me those words, I kid you not, it was the key that had to turn to unlock who I needed to be to 10 x, 20 x, the belief structure that I have to actually get to the place and make the decisions that I've had to make in the last 5 months of owning my own business.

Liz Moorhead: Well, thank you. And one thing I will say about all of that, I'm not gonna deflect. I wanna dig a little deeper and and then I've got couple more questions I wanna ask before we start thinking more about turkey. I think one of the big flaws in that logic, because I run into a lot of people who think that way, is that you're chasing this idea of when am I gonna forgive myself for who I used to be. And instead, honestly, you just need to be thankful for them because they're the reason you're here standing in this spot.

You have always been this person. You were just going through your different shell moments, going under the rock, building a new shell, creating a new shell, coming out again. When you think about the past 5 months of this business because you know I'm so good at talking about my one feeling, we have to deflect at some point. The last 5 months, what are you the most thankful for?

George B. Thomas: The last 5 months, I'm actually thankful for the last 10 years. And and what I mean by that is you'll hear things on the Internet, and you're like, oh, that's cute. That's nice. And one of the things from the 2012 and and kinda going through is, you know, there's a guy, Gary v. He's kinda famous, but he would he would talk about reciprocity.

There's a guy, Marcus Sheridan. He's kinda famous. He would talk about the word trust. And so the I was kind of in this breeding ground of reciprocity, trust, value, content creation, and just this, like, cycle of how much value can I add to a community? How when I add this value to the community will they trust me.

But I never really paid attention to the reciprocity point other than I knew that the agencies that I worked for were getting calls because they wanted to work with that agency. And sometimes it was because I was there, and sometimes maybe it wasn't because I was there. But I knew that there was somewhat of impact that was being made. When I started the business, there was a flood, and I'm not kidding. There was a flood of reciprocity that I almost drowned it in the business because of how much people were ready to work with the human that is George b Thomas that for years years years video video podcast video podcast podcast video video, video.

And they had no real direct line to give back because it had impacted their life and their journey so much that when they saw the opportunity, boom, there it was. And so when you hear stories of, like, trust and reciprocity and adding value to the world or AKA reaping what you sow, and you think, oh, that's cute. No. No. No.

No. No. That's some real ish right there. And I think that's too why I tie back to the importance of HubSpot and the tools that HubSpot gives you is because it literally is the thing that you can use to add value, add value, add value to the humans that you serve, which then they can trust you. They can like you.

They can know you. But more than that, they can give back to the things that you've given. And, man, that's a wonderful place to be as far as when you're a business owner or you wanna be part of a business that is flourishing.

Liz Moorhead: Let's bring it home. Just because it's just you and me doesn't mean you get away without a secret quest.

George B. Thomas: Here we go.

Liz Moorhead: It's actually a 2fer. What is your favorite moment that you look forward to every Thanksgiving? And then what's your favorite thing to eat?

George B. Thomas: Oh, wow. It's almost the same thing, but I'll I'll make it 2. So so what's funny is the my favorite thing that I look forward to at Thanksgiving is actually the day after Thanksgiving. I know that sounds weird. I know that sounds weird.

However, there is a sandwich that if anybody knows what Friendly's restaurant is, there was a sandwich that they used to make. They don't make it anymore. It's sourdough bread. It's stuffing. It's turkey.

It's cranberry sauce, cheddar cheese, and a light spreading of mayo grilled, and it is freaking fan tabulous. It is heaven on earth. It the gods came down to whoever owned Friendly's and said, you should make this sandwich. The fact that they don't make it anymore is beyond me. But for years, the day after Thanksgiving, I make that sandwich, and I relive my love of that sandwich.

So my favorite thing about Thanksgiving is actually the day after because all the preparation, all the food gives me the tools and utensils that I then make that sandwich. Now with that said, I need to at least throw something out there that people can, like, listen and go, dude, you're stupid, or dude, you're amazing. And that is I have found over time what I'm about to say is one of the most polarizing Thanksgiving things on the planet, and that is, I love me some green bean casserole.

Liz Moorhead: Ew.

George B. Thomas: See? That's so and there you either love it or you hate it, but I will go back for seconds, thirds. Give me sore some more of those crunchy onion things on the top. Like, let's go I am all in on the green bean casserole. I just gotta throw that out there.

Liz Moorhead: Between that and your sandwich takes, I'm having a hard time here. But, I mean, on the one hand, the only child in me is going, well, we'll never have to fight over the same things at the Thanksgiving table. And then the other part of me is, like, my dude, those are sad bland beans.

George B. Thomas: No. God, you the way that my wife makes green or my mother. The mothers and wives in my life, maybe I'm just blessed. I know I am, but maybe I'm blessed. The green bean casserole, it's it's euphoric.

Liz Moorhead: So spoiler alert, green beans feature neither of my answers, unless it's me just going goodbye. Like like in toy story, when Annie's like, I don't wanna play with you anymore, and just a slow mo dropping into the trash can? My answers would be this. I have 2, obviously. My favorite moment is on Thanksgiving morning.

So I always make some sort of, like, breakfast one dish casserole, and we watch the Thanksgiving Day parade. But then my favorite thing afterward is there's the dog show. My favorite thing is we have 3 little lunatic dogs, Briscoe, Ham, and Nugget. And I love sitting there with my husband Patrick watching the dogs watch the dog show right before I then have to panic and make turkey and do all these different things.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's the calm before the storm for you.

Liz Moorhead: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And my favorite thing to put in my face is corn pudding. It is a recipe I actually got from my stepmom who was not a big fan of vegetables. So when she was an adult and was tasked with bringing the vegetable for Thanksgiving Day, she brought corn pudding.

So it became a staple at all of my family Thanksgivings growing up, And it's jiffy and sour cream and creamed corn and regular corn and a butt and melted butter. And you put a little bit of cheddar on top, and you mix, mix, mix, throw

George B. Thomas: it in

Liz Moorhead: the oven for an hour.

George B. Thomas: You're breaking my bread. No. You're breaking my bread. Jiffy like the peanut butter?

Liz Moorhead: No. Jiffy like corn.

George B. Thomas: Oh, like corn bread. Like Jiffy

Liz Moorhead: corn bread?

George B. Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's corn bread, and it's creamed corn. And butter? Butter sour cream.

Liz Moorhead: Sour cream. Sometimes a little cheddar depending on the recipe. Creamed corn, regular corn. What's crazy about this is that I go to friends giving dinners. I go to holiday potlucks.

I bring this every time. It's always a favorite and it takes me, like, no time to put together.

George B. Thomas: So I need to know if you charge for this recipe or you give it for free because I I would wanna make, yeah, I would wanna make this, like, yesterday.

Liz Moorhead: It's so freaking good. You pop it in the oven 55 minutes at 375, and you're done.

George B. Thomas: Man, I'm thankful for this episode because I got a new recipe.

Liz Moorhead: I know. Right? And on that note, we have a lot of really great topics for you guys coming up in future weeks. Just because it's the holidays doesn't mean we take time off. We're gonna have a special guest coming in and joining us soon to talk about HubSpot Marketing Hub.

We're gonna be talking about HubSpot. Is it enterprise? Is it not enterprise? We have lots of really good stuff coming up soon. But for today, George, I'm thankful for you too, buddy.

And listeners, we're thankful for you. And if you're thankful for us, subscribe, leave us a review. But for now, go be with friends, go be with family, eat some really good food, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast.

George B. Thomas: Okay, Hub Heroes. We've reached the end of another episode. Will lord lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the hub heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hub heroes dot com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes.

FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox, and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag hashtag hub euros podcast on any of the socials, and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.