The Power of Timing and Your Life's Journey

Episode Transcript

Liz Moorehead (00:31.318)
Welcome back to Beyond the Default. I am your host, Liz Moorhead, and as always, I am joined by George B. Thomas. How are you this week?

George B. Thomas (00:40.015)
I'm doing good. It's a...

You know, I got to go to a Jason Mraz concert over the weekend. I got all the feels as I was listening to the slow melodies and got, got to relax a little bit, which we, which we all need to do because, you know, we have to take time for ourselves. We have to take time for our families. We have to just take time to unplug and relax. And so for me, this weekend was that. And so I'm excited to get back at it this week.

Liz Moorehead (01:12.642)
I love that you basically said the theme of our episode, what, three or four times there. I love that how you how you warmed us all up on that. Because that is what we're talking about this week, right? We're talking about time. And we're going to talk about time and in all aspects today. I think sometimes when we're thinking about goal setting and achieving our goals and getting after it and going out there, I think our default is to think about, oh,

George B. Thomas (01:17.9)
Ha ha ha.

There we go.

Liz Moorehead (01:41.95)
Time management. We have to think about time management. We may touch upon elements of that today, but there's a greater conversation that I know you believe needs to exist here about time, correct, when we think about what it means to live beyond our default.

George B. Thomas (01:59.815)
Yeah, I definitely want to touch upon different elements of this, but I think the big one for me was a lesson that I learned at a very young age and that is time is precious. We only have so many hours, days, weeks, seconds, however you want to measure it. And what we choose to do with that time is completely up to us, by the way. We have the ability to make decisions that allow

or not allow us to go in directions that we feel we should or feel we shouldn't. And so some of that time we might feel as wasted, some of that time we might feel as lessons, but at the end of the day it does come back to we have just precious, precious moments. And what's really weird too before I, you know, we dig too deep

George B. Thomas (02:59.829)
understanding around time is that time is a really weird thing because it can go so dang slow but it also can feel like it goes so dang fast I'll never forget when I was a young whippersnapper and my grandparents would be like the older you get the faster it goes and I'd be like yeah that's something that old people say but I'm not even old I'm only 51 and I'm like whoo where is it going like it is flying by

Liz Moorehead (03:24.502)
I know, think about it, as we're recording this, as we're recording this, it is August. It is, where has this year gone?

George B. Thomas (03:29.985)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I we are we are literally weeks away from me turning Well, let's say maybe two months from for me turning 52 and I'm like How did I get here?

Liz Moorehead (03:45.91)
Well, let's talk about it. How did you get here? No, we're not going to go that esoteric that big that broad on this early on in the episode. I'll get you with that later. I do want to drill into what you've alluded to is that from a very early age, you were you learned the lesson of time being in many ways the most precious resource that we all have. So tell us that story. What happened?

George B. Thomas (03:49.99)
Hehehehe

George B. Thomas (04:11.551)
Yeah. Yeah, and it's funny because I think this lesson, it's twofold. It's time is the most precious resource we have and timing is everything.

Liz Moorehead (04:24.1)
Mmm.

George B. Thomas (04:24.231)
So when I was 17 and a half, and if you've listened to the starting lines episode, you know when I was 17 and a half, I ended up becoming a high school dropout. And I talked to my parents. My dad had been in the military. My grandpa had been in the military. And so I had my parents sign me into the United States Navy. And I went through boot camp. By the way, there's probably a great story that we could tell about boot camp, about never give up because

came to my company and 29 of us graduated we might have to circle back around on that Yeah in another episode But let's fast forward. I made it through boot camp. I made it through a school. I was on the USS Cunningham It's a missile guided destroyer and this is right before Desert Storm and we were out doing test stops and I started breaking out in hives and I mean just really bad hives They were putting me on Benadryl and massive doses

Liz Moorehead (04:59.146)
Whoa. Yeah.

George B. Thomas (05:24.005)
of steroids and this wasn't just hives like on your arms or your back like these were hives internal too so like I would have a rapid heartbeat it was hard to breathe and they had me on so many steroids and doses of Benadryl that one morning they tried to wake me up which by the way I was a cook in the Navy so I was everybody's friend especially when I was the night baker and we were actually in port and people would come back from the

Liz Moorehead (05:49.378)
Hehehehe

George B. Thomas (05:53.945)
It's at about 1.30 to close. Anyway, everybody's friend. And one morning they tried to wake me up. And they couldn't. They couldn't wake me up. And so when I finally did wake up, they sent me to my chief petty officer, a little Filipino guy. Hilarious as all get out. Nice guy. And he was like, George, we can't have this. You've got to be able to get to work.

Liz Moorehead (05:57.422)
Hehehe

George B. Thomas (06:20.947)
So he sent me to the ship doctor and the ship doctor on there for getting used checking me out. He's like, Georgia can't figure this out, which, by the way, it wasn't George. It was, you know, Seaman apprentice Thomas, because literally it's last name. If you're military, you know what I'm talking about right here. And so he goes, not that this would ever happen.

But if there was a fire on board ship, we wouldn't be able to wake you up. We wouldn't be able to get you out. And so this isn't safe. So we're going to send you to a transient personnel unit. And so helicopter comes. I packed my sea bag. They take me to shore. And and the last words, the doctor was like, hey, we're going to get you figured out. We'll get you back on. You're going to be good to go.

So I get to the shore. And of course, I do what every good naval person does when I get back to shore. I go out to the bar that night, have a few drinks, you know, I'm back on shore. Woohoo, let's go. And I come back a fall sleep. I wake up the next morning. This is literally about 13 hours later, Liz. And everybody's like huddled in the main area on the couches and the TV, and everybody's kind of leaning in. And I walk in just in time to hear the.

Liz Moorehead (07:16.27)
Hehehe

George B. Thomas (07:33.809)
news announcer, say, USS Cunningham, missile guided destroyer, GDG 17. Number one boiler explodes, 18 injured, one person died. And I just stood there. It was almost an out of body experience, because here's the deal. 13 hours earlier, I had been on that ship.

13 hours earlier, they weren't able to wake me up in the morning to go do my job. Where I would have been sleeping was located right above the number one boiler that exploded. And so at that point in time, I realized, man, holy crap, timing is everything. And I'm 13 hours away from not being on this planet. Time is precious.

Liz Moorehead (08:14.19)
Oh my god.

George B. Thomas (08:28.243)
And so I was literally like 19 and a half when I learned this lesson. I'm like, you really need to pay attention to what you're doing with your time. And the funny thing is I threw a roundabout kind of circumstances, ended up getting a medical honorable discharge. I ended up trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. And it was right after this realization of time is precious.

And you need to do something with your life and you're on this planet for a reason That I actually went and worked at a christian camp for three years teaching kids how to ride horses and about jesus Because I was like I need to pay somebody back

Liz Moorehead (09:10.807)
Well, I want to dig into this a little bit. You know, you're talking here about timing is everything and knowing how and when to make the moves. But I know that we all encounter times in our lives where it can be difficult to distinguish between am I in a moment right now where waiting is key or am I in a moment where movement is key? How do you tell the difference?

George B. Thomas (09:38.627)
That's a really interesting question. I'm really bad at one of those and really good at another, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I'm really bad at waiting around. Now, what I want people to realize is. There's a difference between like waiting around and being patient. Like, I feel like I'm pretty good at being patient.

Liz Moorehead (09:48.52)
Care to elaborate on which one?

George B. Thomas (10:08.625)
I know that things take time.

But just waiting around or pausing for something, it's really difficult for me to do. I'm usually a guy in motion, right? I'm usually the guy who's like, I'm going to at least do something to advance one step, one percent into at least the direction that I feel like I'm going to. Now, but I'll tell you where my brain goes when you ask that question.

Is that one thing that we do need to do? Is we need to take time to pause and reflect and think and contemplate. And I think this is hitting my brain when you ask that question, because it's historically something that I've battled with. It is historically something that I've done. But I think the travesty is that it's a it's a. There's so many people.

that are out there that...

Can't turn off the radio. Can't turn off the TV. Can't turn off the social media. Can't turn on like when's the last time you went out into an open field, sat against a tree with a blank notebook and just started jotting down the things that you want to think about or the places that you want to go. And I don't mean like you want to go to Greece or Italy. I mean, where do you want to go in your life? And what's interesting, too, I'm

George B. Thomas (11:41.193)
that Liz before I started the business I took half a day. I happened to be on a cruise ship so it was really easy. But I took half a day with a notebook and a pen and a beverage and I sat and I jotted out all of the goods, the bads, the dreams of like, hey, I'm about to embark.

Uh on this journey i'm about to make movement in a direction of no longer being an employee But maybe potentially one that will employ other humans for sure employ myself And I took a half a day and just sat And now that's what I would call about as much waiting As this guy can do

Because again, I am a big advocate of at least be moving a little bit in the direction that you believe to be heading because you can always pivot when you're when you're moving a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Right. If you if you sit too long, I worry I personally worry about getting complacent if I if I stop too long.

Liz Moorehead (13:03.334)
Interesting. You know, I want to dig into this a little bit more here because on the one hand, I do see your point, right, like making those small incremental movements forward every day. But when I think about myself personally, and I'm sure there are listeners out there who may feel the same way.

Sometimes we can make movements prematurely. I'll use a metaphor that a friend of mine uses quite a bit that I've taken quite an affinity to. And that is being a cake in the oven. Now, sometimes what can happen is like, this is the joke, right? Don't tell the cake it's the cake in the oven. Like, don't let the cake know. Because what will happen is that the cake will go, oh, I'm a cake, let me out. It's like, well, no, you're not.

George B. Thomas (13:35.98)
Mmm.

Liz Moorehead (13:49.79)
You're not done baking yet. You think you know all there is to know. You think you've seen all there is to see, but you still are in this moment of baking, so to speak, before you're actually ready to move forward.

So how do you keep yourself from walking that fine line? Or how do you keep yourself walking that fine line, right? Where you're taking the right, maybe, small movements forward, you know, preventing that outright stagnation and not prematurely moving yourself through phases. Because I'm sure you've also had moments in your life where you're like, man, I was rushing to move forward, I was rushing to move forward, I was rushing to move forward. And then a certain experience or a nugget of information came to light and you went,

is why I was waiting.

George B. Thomas (14:38.123)
Well, yes, there was a moment in time where I was like, well, that didn't work out. Um, no, it's funny because ever since I was like.

Liz Moorehead (14:48.593)
Hahaha!

George B. Thomas (14:54.343)
16 17 years old I would always tell my parents like I want to be married. I want to be married I need I need to be married. I need to have kids like I want to be married in that Caught up to me in life, right? So I've been with my current wife for 20 almost 23 years if you're counting like maybe longer if you're counting dating but my first wife I Really ran into the situation

I didn't pause. I didn't reflect. The cake was not even baked. As a matter of fact, it wasn't a damn cake. It yeah, it might have looked like a cake. Might have smelled like a cake, but it wasn't a cake. It was a pile of and I'm just going to tell you like. But I ran into it, right, because my desire, my wanting, my believing that was something that I needed to make me whole.

Liz Moorehead (15:30.238)
It was still wet and dry ingredients on a counter.

Liz Moorehead (15:39.486)
I'm sorry.

George B. Thomas (15:51.983)
Dang gone. Anyway, I wanted to fulfill that piece and because I rushed into it, it did end up into three years of my life that ended up in a divorce and somebody that I couldn't trust and just a corrosive part of my life that I've honestly had to forgive her for and forgive myself for so that I could move forward in a healthy way with my current wife, Kelly.

George B. Thomas (16:21.335)
I will say that was a life lesson of like, hey, there are times in life that you should probably slow down. And, you know, when I started dating Kelly, it was pretty slow. We knew each other as friends first. We started dating. We dated for a good while. And then we finally got married. And so I do believe, Liz, you know, there are different types of people.

I believe that some people out there listening to this, the lesson is you should probably pause more and think more and you should be more strategic in life to when it is time to zig or zag. I believe on the flip side, you might be listening this.

And you're like, man, I wish I could hashtag GSD. I wish I could do more. I wish I was in movement more. And I think the lesson for you is then start moving more. Like make it just part of your daily ritual, your habits, you know, your goals. Like I have these goals, so I need these habits, which mean I need to at least move this much each day. Which by the way, if you program out, I need to move this much each day. You should be able to program.

sit still this long and think about these things that I'm about to move on. Like, you know, there's probably a whole morning ritual that you could put together that is a little bit of a pause and go pause and go pause and go. So you're covering both bases that we're talking about.

Liz Moorehead (18:01.666)
Well, let me ask you this just to put you on the spot. One of my favorite, one of my personal favorite, if you were to challenge yourself right now, to look at your life in its current state and think about an area where you're doing a lot of movement, where maybe you could afford to slow down a little bit, no matter how macro or micro, where would it be?

George B. Thomas (18:05.115)
Oh gee, I love when you put me on the spot.

George B. Thomas (18:26.327)
Interesting question. Um, first of all, let me just preface. My life is pretty darn okay right now. Um, I like where I'm at. However, if I was to slow something down...

it would probably be my business a little bit or the amount that I'm putting into the business. Now, not the amount that I'm putting into the clients of the business because the clients deserve to have my best. But there are times when I know I'm working on stuff that is next phase. We'll get there, but do we have to get there as fast as I want to?

You know, I'll give you a great example. One of the podcasts I do is for marketing profs. It's B2B, you know, marketing podcast. Liz, we have almost every episode shot for the rest of the year and edited. We've got like maybe four slots left.

Right? And it's not even the end of Q3, and we're almost done for the year. Now, I didn't have to go at that pace.

We're sitting here and we've got a business and we've got a community that we're putting together community hub heroes.com Last week I did 12 videos for a forms course Six videos for an email course and four videos for a sales enablement course. That is a body in movement However

Liz Moorehead (20:05.263)
You've got a few, you've got a few, you've got a few things in the fire there, don't you? There we go, thank you, metaphor escape.

George B. Thomas (20:09.107)
few irons in the fire as they say. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm a metaphor, metaphorical ninja. Yeah, if you will. Like I've just I don't know that's part of my love language is like analogies and metaphors like they're just I don't know that's the way that my brain is programmed. But but here's the deal at the same time that some people might hear that and go this dude is on fire.

I beat myself up because I'm like, yeah, but I haven't been keeping up with my HubSpot certifications. Yeah, but I could be reading my Bible more. Yeah, but I could be spending more time with my family. Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but. And see what we have there in my own brain when I start to hear a lot of yeah, buts out of myself.

Is that I'm not paying attention to what I know I want to pay attention in the future because historically I've said one percent better each and every day I want to come up with a rubrics a matrix if you will and if you're listening this hopefully you come up with a rubrics a matrix Or if you have one, I swear to god share it with me because it'd be helpful. But I think moving using time To move forward one percent in

professional, in spiritual, in financial, in whatever the buckets need to be. I want to get a really good way of visually and I feel like the listeners to the podcast should think about how can I get a very dope visual way of the buckets that I want to pay attention to the amount of time that I'm spending to move myself 1% better in each of those and even maybe

Where is my time for strategy? Where is my time for sitting down and thinking? Where is my time for pause in each one of those areas? And by the way, time of pause for each one of those areas is going to look dramatically different. Right? On finances, time of pause might be just giving you time to research the type of investments that you might make. Spiritually, time of pause might literally be that field in that tree with your flipping Bible and no other sounds or people around you.

George B. Thomas (22:26.731)
Right? Time of pause for family. It's whatever your family likes. They might want to go to a movie. They might want to play a board game, whatever it is. But like, how can you come up with that matrix or rubrics for pause and time in each of those areas of your life? This is what I am to the point where I'm like, I need to work on this moving forward, because just be one percent better each and every day got me here.

but I don't think it's gonna get me to the next level.

Liz Moorehead (22:58.454)
what you started with isn't necessarily what you're gonna grow with.

George B. Thomas (23:01.279)
No, I don't think so. I think we reach a point where. And hopefully we can we can all feel this, but we reach a time in our life where we feel like, man, I'm doing all the stuff, but I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the terrain got a little bit more treacherous. The mountain got a little more steep, so it might be time to change tires and add a little bit of an engine that you might not have had before to get the rest of the way.

Liz Moorehead (23:30.766)
Well, let's dig into that a little bit. What you're talking about is a moment of self-reflection, the ability to self-diagnose where you're at, what's working, what's not working, and how are you gonna get to where you wanna go, or at least your ability to see as far as you can.

George B. Thomas (23:44.728)
Yeah.

Liz Moorehead (23:50.098)
Whenever I think of moments like that, I realize those are moments where I need to ask myself some really laser focused self reflection questions. So I'd love to ask you what are some of the questions folks who are listening should be asking themselves as they are trying to develop this rubric or matrix or at least just understand for themselves, you know, maybe they're in a similar position. What got them to this point today? Listening to this episode, listening about time.

That same mental model is not going to get them where they want to go. So what should they be asking themselves?

George B. Thomas (24:26.803)
Yeah, one, let me just say self awareness, by the way, is so key. And that's probably just the idea or concept of being self aware or how to be more self aware is probably a whole nother episode. But to get to your question of like what questions or how do you reflect? I think it comes down to a couple of things.

One, you have to fundamentally decide what is going to be important in life. Once you get that first draft, I'll call it, of this is what's going to be important or what needs to be important in life, my second question would be some type of challenging question. Meaning, are you sure?

Is there anything missing? Um, if you allow yourself to dream and time or money was of no, you know, issue, would there be something that you would add to the list? Um, is there something historically that you thought you didn't need and you still are in the belief that you don't need it, but you need to second guess that. And maybe it is. And again, this could be something on the spiritual realm for some folks

they had historically been turned off, but now it's time to turn it on. It could be, you know, something of friends or family or like for you, it's, it's going to be different things. But I would say you have to figure out what's important in life. Uh, what directions you want to go. You're going to challenge yourself before you head in those directions. Um, but then fundamentally I'm always asking myself.

Is this really important? Am I doing what I feel like I'm put on this planet to do? And by the way, there are many days where I'm like, well, I shouldn't have done that because that's not why I'm on the planet. But I pick myself up, dust myself off, and I continue to move on and do the best I can because trust me, I'm not I'm not a perfect human. There are no perfect humans.

George B. Thomas (26:39.087)
But I think when you can literally have at least a roadmap, because I feel like, by the way, no judgment in this, but I do look around and I wonder if some people have forgotten to download their GPS app.

because they just seem to be going in circles and circles and circles and or sometimes you'll hear this. Yeah, Bobby, he never grew up. Bobby never grew up. And it's like, well, did he install his GPS? Did he or she know where they were going? Had they diagnosed the different routes? Did they understand the places that they needed to stop along the way?

Because listen, if we go back to this original thing, when I learned that time was precious, I also learned that this is a, I almost swore there, this is a journey. This is a journey that we're on. And you can either circle around your block 500,000 times, or you can make it around the world. It depends.

So I don't know if that's helpful is, but I, I do know that I'm always asking myself, does it matter? Here's the other thing too, that I feel like I want to share here is my GPS, my journey, the time that I spend doing things dramatically changed probably about six years ago as well. Because when I was a younger lad.

My destination was success.

George B. Thomas (28:19.039)
The older I get the destination that I'm trying to arrive at, which by the way, I think is a major catalyst for this podcast. Um, my, my final destination is significance. And there's a major difference in the choices you make, the questions you ask yourself and the journey that you take when you're chasing significance over success.

Liz Moorehead (28:48.534)
Let me ask you this though, and I say this not only as someone who knows you in the capacity of hosting this, I say this also as someone who has the pleasure of knowing you as a friend. When you say significance, what do you mean by that? Because I think it might be easy for someone listening to say, oh, so he's looking for glory for George. He's looking for himself. What do you mean when you say significance?

George B. Thomas (29:12.718)
I am

George B. Thomas (29:16.755)
No, like to me when I say significance, it's that. And I'll break it down to its simplest form, and then I'll go from there. When I meet somebody. My ultimate goal is, how can I leave them better than I found them? How can I if they were sad, how can I leave them with a smile? Right. And.

I think when I say significance, it's tied to less of what's in it for me and what's in it for them. And when I think of significance, it's like, how can we, how can we put just massive amounts of value? Terrible marketing term. Great word though. How can we put massive amounts of value into the world?

Not noise, but value. Things that people can use. Things that will help unlock, whether it's professional, personal. And the other thing that I have to throw out here, now, this is just me. This is me. But when I think of significance, it's not my glory at all, but it's his glory. Right? I mean, this isn't a religious podcast.

But I firmly believe in God. I believe in the principles in the Bible, and I believe that being a servant to those around you, I believe that finding the Sumerian on the path of life and being the person who, like, picks him up, dusts him off, and gets him, you know, gives him that hand up, I believe in being a blessing bomber.

Right when you're walking around and you've got the ability either with your time or your money or whatever it is To make somebody's day better And by the way, if you haven't read the fish philosophy

George B. Thomas (31:22.831)
Uh, it's great. Make their day as a point in there. And so when I think about significance, it's like, how do you live a life where that's what you're focused on, you know, making people's day better, um, making people themselves better, making the businesses that those people work in. Better. Um, I think that just, it's less about you.

and I've got XYZ in the bank and I've got XYZ cars and I've got... Not that toys are a bad thing. Because I think, by the way, when you become very significant, like the other stuff just comes. But too many times, we, me included, we were chasing success first.

Success comes with significance, by the way. That's the way I believe that this all works. And so for me, it's about his glory. It's not really about me, but it is about all the humans that I get the ability to meet and talk to and just kind of give a little touch, if you will.

Liz Moorehead (32:37.01)
As we have this conversation right now, you are a little over a year into your journey as an agency owner. I would be very curious to hear from you how your relationship with time has changed in that year, whether that's perspectives or difficult lessons learned or anything else that comes to mind.

George B. Thomas (32:44.705)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (33:02.847)
Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's a very good question. First of all, it feels like a week. I'm gonna let that set in for a minute. It's been over a year, but it feels like a week. Time has been flying by.

Liz Moorehead (33:17.91)
Mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas (33:23.311)
And we've been super blessed, but another lesson around time that I have learned is it's real hard to go back. Can't go back in time! And if we're talking specifically about the business here, when you say, Hey, I'm gonna do XYZ, especially for other humans around you in the organization, Can't go back! It's real hard to go back.

So make sure you pick the right things. Take that time, by the way, maybe to contemplate before you tell people that you wanna do something or you're going to give them something or you want them to be in charge of something because you can't go back.

Time is always moving forward at least for the foreseeable future until they develop a time machine in which then this all will make sense of Why there are cell phones in 1920? I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna go there not that type of podcast but those are the big things is first of all it has been hyper accelerated and To the lesson of you can't go back

You have, like if you have made a decision, you have made your bed, now you need to figure it out from there. Um... I'm a big fan of rebooting in life. You can reboot if it only involves you. It's real hard to reboot when it involves other humans.

Liz Moorehead (34:56.314)
Interesting. Let's dig into this a little bit. So what are the things that you find yourself thinking about where it's like, oof, can't go back in time here?

George B. Thomas (35:09.907)
Yeah, I just think you have to you have to be cognizant of a couple things, the people that you might be bringing into your organization, the amount in which you start them at as far as finances at your organization, and the amount of ownership.

not from like a percentage of owned business, but the things that they own, how much they can take on versus how much historically you might have been able to do. You can you the person who have been hustling, grinding and finally started a business, you cannot be the litmus to what other people can achieve.

And since this is about time, you can definitely not be the litmus to what they can achieve in the amount of time that you could have achieved it. Like there's a reason you have become a master at your craft and you have to realize it's going to take time for them to become. Well, probably 17 steps before even being a master. And. So let's talk about that patience piece right.

I just have to be real patient, knowing that my job, part of my job as a business owner, is to grow those people. And I can't wave a magic wand and believe that poof, they're just going to be great at what they do. I can't wave a magic wand and be like, poof, they're just going to be like super dedicated. But what I can do is I can water.

the business every day. I can try to put as much sunshine on the business every day, which by the way, my inner badass nickname is Sergeant shine. Just gonna throw that out there. You can. We'll play with that later in a different podcast. But if I can water and I can and now I can put some sun and I can have a metric but ton of patience. I know that I can grow those humans.

George B. Thomas (37:31.003)
into who they need to become, their best versions of themselves. And so, you know, like words that are popping up into my brain right now are like expectations of time. The way that they use time versus I use time. So I just think that again, part of this is...

It's a masterclass in self awareness. It's a masterclass in being aware of other people and how they feel about themselves or their job. It's a masterclass in trying to do the right thing, even though you know, you're probably going to screw it up along the way. But but

One of the things that I try to have around all of this conversation that we've kind of micro dipped into is a level of some compassion.

Because I know that there have been people that were very compassionate towards me. I mean, when I got my first start in agency life, I showed up in an office in a blue windbreaker with no book to show anything and was this dude who was self taught. But they were compassionate and they gave me an opportunity and that I think those kind of go hand in hand for me. I'm trying to be super compassionate and give people opportunities.

And during that time, I have to be able to keep my almost human judgment at bay. Like, you know, how do you how do you roll for and how long do you roll? Like now we're starting to get into questions and ask myself, how long do you roll? Or allow yourself to roll with zero expectations because you know, you're in growth mode.

Liz Moorehead (39:14.21)
Mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas (39:30.559)
Versus this person by this time should have grown into a ninja and should be killing it Which by the way, here's the other thing is like some people just apprised the issue out of you Because there's some people where you're like this might take a hot minute and then you're like where did this ninja come from? Yeah, like what happened? Yeah

Liz Moorehead (39:46.599)
Oh, yeah.

Liz Moorehead (39:53.102)
So when we think about time, I want us to come back to our core conversation here. Although thank you for taking us on that little tangent there. I was just so curious. When we think about what we want our listeners to walk away with in terms of their thoughts about time, if they were to only walk away challenging themselves with one question about time, what should it be and why?

George B. Thomas (40:00.884)
Yeah.

George B. Thomas (40:20.831)
Yeah, I like breaking things down to like, pretty simple. I'm a pretty simple dude, right? And one of the things that, the narratives that I play in my brain over and over and over again, and I've said to people hundreds of times, is hey, and I know there's different beliefs out there, by the way, let me just preface that. But for me,

You got one go around.

You got one chance at this.

and the amount of years that I just made flip decisions.

and selfish decisions.

George B. Thomas (41:12.019)
feeling like this life will last forever and not realizing With the mindset of you get one go at this Why would you not make it the best if? Somebody told you let's pretend for a second that your NFL

player or NBA player or tennis player, I don't care what it is, professional sports. And somebody looked at you and said, this is gonna be the last time you're gonna be on this field. You know what kind of game you would play?

You would play the hardest game you've ever played in your life because you would want to know that you left it all out on the field. You would want to walk away joyful to the journey that you just took because you knew it was your last time. Here's the thing. We wake up every day and we don't realize it could be our last time on the field.

George B. Thomas (42:20.535)
And when you wake up in the morning, going back to being 13 hours away from death, when you wake up in the morning and you realize it fundamentally could be the last day that you get to step on the field, you play a little different. And so I would just hope that the listeners would kind of juked their brain a little bit in a good way of like, every morning, wake up and realize time is precious.

Time is limited. This may be the last day I get to step foot on the field. Put me in coach. I'm gonna give it my all.