Are you wondering why, despite the countless hours of effort and completing all the “shoulds” in your day, things still feel off? Discover the power and answers that are already in you. Join me and George Bryant as we discuss:

• How our relationships (especially with ourselves) impact our success.

• George’s experiences that led him to find balance and realign his priorities.

• Who we are versus who we thought we were, and how that distinction is a game changer.

• Our personal routines to listen to ourselves and maintain alignment.

• How our physical environment can help us create the container for dreaming and creativity.

Watch on YouTube:

About George Bryant

George Bryant is a New York Times Best Selling Author, Podcast Host & one of the most highly sought after digital marketing consultants in the world to teach his Relationships Beat Algorithms™ approach to business.

He has helped hundreds of the largest companies in the world and thousands of entrepreneurs ethically scale their businesses by deepening their relationships with their customers… and creating transformational breakthroughs that help them accomplish their goals. 

He believes a company’s financial success is directly dependent on the amount of value they share before AND after a purchase. Business is about relationships & touch points. The companies who put relationships before transactions will win. That is the Relationships Beat Algorithms approach.

LINKS:

George’s website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Download a FREE Copy of My Book, The Intuition-Led Business: http://IntuitionLedBusiness.com/free

If you’re inspired by this episode, I’d love to hear your biggest Aha! moments. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your social media and tag me, @christieturley!

Transcript:

Christie:
Today’s podcast we’re discussing how to align your relationship with yourself for personal fulfillment and business growth.

Christie:
My guest and I will talk about how our relationships, especially those with ourselves can really impact success. We’ll also talk about my guest’s experiences that led him to find balance and to realign priorities. We’ll also talk about the difference between who we actually are and who we think we are and how that distinction can be a huge game changer. We’ll also talk about our personal routines to listen to ourselves daily and maintain alignment. And finally, we’ll talk about how physical environments can help us create the container for creativity and dreaming.

Christie:
So my guest, George Bryant is a serial entrepreneur and a New York Times best selling author. He’s also the podcast host of The Mind of George and a, an extremely highly sought after digital marketing consultant, and he teaches his philosophy of how relationships beat algorithms. He’s helped hundreds of the largest companies in the world and thousands of entrepreneurs to ethically scale their business by deepening their relationships with their customers and creating transformational breakthroughs that help them accomplish their goals.

Christie:
Now, George is an amazing guy. I can personally attest to the fact that he is a rock star. He’s been one of my friends for the past four years. We actually met through a mutual client, and so we’ve kept in touch ever since. So it is my pleasure and joy to go ahead and introduce George and dive into today’s episode. So today we’re gonna talk about Marketing and how you don’t have a marketing problem. You actually have a relationship problem, and I love, I love this topic. You and I think a lot alike on this topic.

Christie:
So I’m excited to dive in.

George:
Me too. Me too. I think, I think it’s congruently aligned and it’s something we’ve both been talking about for a long time, and I don’t think it’s talked about enough.

Christie:
No, it’s not. Yeah. I mean, let’s just go. I don’t have like set list of questions or anything. So, you know, I’ve noticed a lot of people and same with you, a lot of people come to us entrepreneurs and they’ll say, “Give me a magic bullet. No, give me that silver bullet, that magic pill. Fix my marketing for me.” And a lot of times it’s not that. It’s not the marketing that needs to change.

George:
No, I- you know, it’s funny, you’re saying this, right? I have like 8 million tracks going my head right now. But like the one that comes to me the most is I was like, you can’t out-think a feeling. You cannot out-think a feeling, and logic does not change your state of being; and it’s hilarious to me, like, and I had this problem, right? I was like, I had millions of followers. I did all this, right? And I got into problems when I started positioning myself a certain way to try to look a certain way or be a certain person. Then all of a sudden, I go from making seven figures to losing 50 grand a month, right? Like, and it’s like that, but it’s incongruent; and this is something that comes up for me a lot of times is in this world of business and entrepreneurship and the people that find us, I tend to feel like there’s this gap or this divide, or this line of demarcation between them and a relationship with the people on the other side.

George:
And we’re trying to use logic to get somebody on the other side to make an emotional decision. And they can’t. And as we grow and we grow and we grow and we grow, we grow revenue, we grow our team, we grow our culture. It requires us to internally grow, to maintain congruency, to be able to attract at like a higher level. And yeah, I mean, you know, I think the term authenticity is thrown around all too often, right? It’s like this thing that you can practice, you can do it. And I was like, but I always tell people, it’s like, who are those people that you see that literally within three seconds of their video, their ad, their podcasts, you don’t know who they are. You don’t hear a word that they say, but you immediately feel safe. Like that’s authenticity. That’s an authentic relationship.

George:
And so I famously said this in the keynote, somebody told me, I’ll tell you this story. I’ve actually never told this story on a podcast. And I get interviewed a lot, but I was giving a keynote. It was like 800 entrepreneurs in this room. And they’re primarily like transactional entrepreneurs, Amazon dropshippers, you know, things like that. But they all wanted to build a brand off of Amazon. And so I’m giving this keynote and I was like, “So let me just summarize this for all of you. None of you have a marketing problem. Every single one of you has a relationship problem with yourself, your team and your customers informed in that order.” And I like people were silent. I dramatic pause, right? and it came out in that moment for the first time. Like that was the first time it ever came out.

George:
I’ll never forget the event. And then it was like 10 seconds of silence. And then I hear one dude in the back be like, “Bull crap!” And I was like, “Okay, fine. You don’t know I was in the Marine Corps for 12 years. I have no problem doing that.” So I was like, “Sir, stand up.” And he stood up. I was like, “Tell me,” he’s like, “That’s not true,” blah, blah, blah, blah. And I saw a ring on his finger and I was like, “How’s your marriage?” He’s like, “Well, we’re separated.” I said, “Sit down and just fix your marketing problem.” And the whole room like went nuts and the guy was like really offended. And I was like, kind of really out there. And I came up to him after I said, “No, seriously.” I was like, “What’s going on? Like, what’s getting in the way?” He like ramp and ramp and rant and rant and rant and rant and rant. And I was like, he was experiencing so much pain and so much hurt.

George:
And then he was going into the office. Nobody knew he was getting separated. Nobody knew everything was on the rocks. He’s trying to lead this team with like this, “Do this, we have to do this,” this scarcity thing. And then they could feel it and they couldn’t get aligned to it. And then they turn around and go write email copy and ad copy. And they’re like, “It’s not converting anymore.” And I was like, “Sales, Marketing, is just a transference of energy.” And so when I think about this at like the core, deepest level, it’s not about being Unicorny and rainbowy every day. It’s about being authentic in expression. And like, when you and I got on a call, you’re like, “How are you?” I’m like, “Holy moly! What a year it’s been Christie!” Whoo! Right? and using that to our advantage and, and letting our come from in what we do come from our body and not our brain.

George:
And like, that’s when I say that, like at the core of it. And I think that’s something that I’ve witnessed you do forever. Right? Like when, when I, I mean, I called you years ago when I was struggling. Right? And what you did is you helped create a container around me that allowed me to get back into my body and out of my head, out of the scarcity, out of the fear and into my body. And at that time, getting back into my body realized that who I was at my core was in congruent with who I was trying to be to the world. And so then I had to walk away and start again, which was a beautiful, beautiful gift. But yeah, so it’s a topic I think is, is really, really important. And it’s gonna sound esoteric and it’s gonna sound like, you know, up in the clouds, but I tell people it’s like, “You can’t run a race that you don’t know you’re running.

George:
You can’t play in a field, like play a game on the field that you don’t know.” And you know, none of us put on these massive, like I’m not an entrepreneur 24/7. I’m not like a husband 24/7. I’m not like this guru. I’m not this- I’m a human. And there’s times that I emote and modulate and I have to be able to authentically express that. And I’ve found in 12 years of doing this and the companies that I’ve helped, you can spot incongruency and inconsistency from a mile away. And the moment you get alignment, it’s unstoppable. And most of the time completely unpredictable at how fast it scales. And so I’m gonna shut up now because that was like a lot.

Christie:
It was good. And like you, I had a dozen tracks going at the same time.

George:
I know!

Christie:
Like I try to just stay in the moment because you and I are the same. We like, we like to, to have ideas and “Ooo-ooh!” Like,

George:
Yeah. Oh yeah!

Christie:
I’m gonna stay here. But yeah. I mean, it’s so true. And I was reading some research and actually I’ve seen this a few times in videos and things. We actually have more neuro receptors in our heart than we do in our brain. And what you’re saying about energy is so true because we broadcast who we are and what we’re thinking and what we’re feeling. Even though we don’t think we are.

George:
A thousand percent.

Christie:
Nikola Tesla said, “If you want to understand the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration, we are all energy.” That’s it, we’re all energy. And if you want to get spiritual about it, we’re Spirits, you know, in a body. We’re Spiritual beings, having a physical experience. And I would argue that we’re also physical beings having a spiritual experience. It’s both, it’s not one or the other.

George:
Thousand percent. I call it my existential Meat suit.

Christie:
Yes! A meat suit. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And when we buy a course, when we join a mastermind, because we’re hoping that it’s going to fill some kind of void or fix some kind of problem, that is the wrong approach. It’s like, I’m like, I remember when I, when my husband and I bought our first BMW and it was because we started hanging around this couple—very, very successful couple, had a couple of multi-million dollar companies. We started hanging out with them on the weekend.

Christie:
They had a BMW. We’re like, “This is awesome! Like, you know, what did we have before?” A blazer, like an Accord or something. We’re like, “This goes so much faster. It’s such a nice ride. It’s so luxurious and we can afford it. Why haven’t we bought this before?” Yeah. You know, and it’s such a, it was such a simple decision and I’m not judging the decision at all, but it’s like, “Why were we doing this? Why did we justify it?” Okay. So at the time, you know, I was thinking to myself, “Well, you know, when I pull up to a client’s office in this car, they’re gonna know that I’m successful and that I mean business,” you know? So I started justifying the purchase in this way.

Christie:
Right? Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong with buying a fast car. You know? That is super nice. It’s just, “Why are you doing it?” Right. And there’s a difference between who you are and who you think you’re supposed to be. And I was starting to go down this road of trying to be like, what other people thought I was supposed to be? You know, if I’m helping other people make millions, then I need to have a certain kind of image. Right? I need to have a certain kind of car when I drive up to their office. And so that was just the beginning of much, much more, many more decisions like that.

Christie:
And it’s the same thing when you buy a course or you join a mastermind or whatever kind of solution. If you’re, so here’s how I explain it. Okay. It goes to how rainbows are formed. Rainbows are formed at exactly 42 degrees. It’s a perfect alignment. So when you’re looking at a rainbow or you have a prism, like I have here in my hand here, that light does not split out into the seven prismatic colors, unless you have a perfect alignment of the light and the prism at 42 degrees. And the prism in the rainbow case is like the moisture in the clouds.

Christie:
Right? The thing about rainbows too, is that no two people can observe the same rainbow, because you can’t occupy the same space. You literally can not have your eyeballs in the same place as the other person’s eyeballs. So you’re always gonna see a totally different rainbow. And this is a metaphor that works actually and applies to this. It’s all about alignment. Sun, you could talk about like, God, you can think of that as God. You could also think of that as your higher self or like your true soul, like your identity being aligned to that. And when you’re aligned to that, then that rainbow, which is you can be more bold and impactful and it can be crystal clear as opposed to being like almost there like 51 degrees or 39 degrees.

Christie:
It’s like almost there, but not quite as bright as it could be. And the thing about a lot of marketing programs out there that are sold, whether they, they sell it with Lambos and laptop, beachfront houses, whatever. Whether or not that’s the case, it might not work for you because it worked for them because it’s their 42 degrees, but it might not work for you because it’s not your 42 degrees. And that’s why I hate; sorry to use that word. But like these 1, 2, 3 formulas and the fill in the blank templates

George:
Yup.

Christie:
and the copy paste campaigns,

George:
Yup.

Christie:
Because they’re aligned to someone else. Someone else created those. And they worked for them and sure, they probably made millions, but can you do the same exact thing yourself? No! It’s not gonna be aligned to you.

George:
Nope.

Christie:
And it drives me crazy when I hear these entrepreneurs who invested all this money in programs and they come and they talk to me and they say, “It just doesn’t feel right.” Like, and then I hear that the coaches are telling them, “Well, you just, you haven’t stuck with it long enough.”

George:
Oh yeah. They blame them, oh!

Christie:
“You didn’t do it the right way.” And then they make it their fault, you know? And it’s like, “No! It’s not your fault. And if it makes you feel like taking a shower, there’s something wrong. Listen to yourself, listen to your intuition.”

George:
Thousand Percent. Yeah. It’s something that, I just actually had somebody come to me, it was 85K into a coach and had nothing but depression, not sleeping, maxed out credit cards. And I was like, “I got you. I got you.” And I was like, “Not one thing.” And I mean, not one thing that this person had, I didn’t want to go to the sex of this person. This person had was even close. Like, not even, it was like, this is who they are. And this is what this person thinks you should be to be a replica of them. And they harped on an insecurity and use the right narcissistic, sociopathic phrases to pull you in to sell you something that’s no longer working for them. So they’re gonna generate revenue by trying to make it work for you.

George:
Well, they don’t do it anymore. And that was like, basically the summary of what happened. And you know, this is, and just to give context, like when I got into this game of internet marketing, it was like 2009, 2010 when I started, and I didn’t have any coaches, I didn’t any mentors. I was getting out of the military, I was just showing up and I was massively successful. And then I fell into the world of conferences and things. And people like, “Do this, and affiliate this, and upsell this.” And I was basically trained to be like one of the nastiest marketers ever. Like I was doing all the things I stand against, like, and I gained a hundred pounds and I was unhappy and I was depressed. And I struggled with addiction because everything I was practicing was incongruent.

George:
Like my soul felt like I needed a shower. And so then it took like a near-death experience. Oh, eight-month pregnant wife, three weeks away from bankruptcy, losing it all to like wake up again and realize that like, there’s nothing at the end of the day, but us, like the one thing I say as entrepreneurs, like we have to be careful. We tend- speak for myself. I will not project. I tended to spend all my time being in relationships and avoiding the one that I was guaranteed to spend the rest of my life with, which was myself. Right? And so it’s like, who does the world want me to be? What does the world want me to say? What does that look like? And I mean, every single time, whether over a week, a month, a year or a couple years, it just slowly deteriorates and goes away.

George:
And it really is a new version of living a lie. It’s not sustainable. It’s not maintainable. And you know, we live in this world where it’s like, you gotta be omnipresent and show up here and show up here and show up here. I’m like, “Says who? Says who?” Right? Like you have to trust yourself. You have to know yourself. And like, you know, I- You were speaking a minute ago. And like, this thing popped into my head. And a lot of what I see—these courses, these masterminds, these, everything. I love masterminds. I love courses. I sell them.

Christie:
Yeah.

George:
And you are already, if you’re listening to this, you are already an Olympic athlete. They can’t make you an Olympian. Well, you have to remember is coaches don’t make Olympians. Coaches help Olympians run their best race. But a lot of these things harp on your broken. This is missing. You need to do it differently. You haven’t done it long enough. I’m like, “Well, I didn’t sign up to run a marathon. I’m a sprinter. Why do you have me running a marathon?” And you have to understand this, but this is where that level of self-awareness comes from. And I fell into this trap. I mean, you remember, I used to have so many fans and followers and influence, like I couldn’t even have a life. I couldn’t go to Disneyland with my family. Like, and it was horrendous, but it was like, I didn’t know that I signed up to be running somebody else’s race.

George:
And I was basically a slave to it. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t take a break. I couldn’t, I couldn’t do whatever. And it all boiled down to me, avoiding being in a relationship with myself. And it was agendized, “Do it this way for this reason. Have this effect to close this, to this deal, to this product, to this whatever.” And so a minute ago I wrote this, I said, “Influence with an agenda is manipulation.”

Christie:
Yes.

George:
“Influence with authenticity is marketing.” And I think that that’s one of the big things because like what I think I missed for so long, is I would look at these people and I would idolize these people, but I never really knew what was on the backside of it. Right? Until I got behind these businesses.

Christie:
Yes! Exactly.

George:
And it’s like, “Wow, this doesn’t really exist. Like these people with you can fill in the blank with your own dissonance right now and who I’m talking about. These people don’t really live this way. Like this is all smoke and mirrors. Like there’s not that many books you can read in a day or that many cars in your garage when you do this.” And you know, things like that! But then I realized on the other side, there were these people that didn’t look like they put no effort into anything. And the world was like stuck to them. Magnetized to them. Like, can’t get off of it. You’re like, these numbers are unrealistic. How is this happening? And most of the time, they only got on social media to post their truth and then never went back on until they came and posted their next truth. And it was just authenticity expressed.

George:
It was like their full-express self. And it’s the thing that took me the longest to learn. Like I spent probably close to three to four hours a day in silence now, alone. Like part of my routine is solitude and no phone, no computer, no book. Like I sit and stare at the wall. I sit and stare at my hand, my foot, my something. Like to be in a relationship, you know, with myself, because the biggest lesson I’ve learned and you know, I’ve learned this a few times, but I really learned this this time is that, you know, Andy, I gotta give Andy for seller credit, “Busy work is just a side of mental weakness and a lack of clarity.” And he’s like, “Why do we brag about hustling and doing more?

George:
That generates nothing. Why don’t you brag about doing something that moves the needle and having impact?” And you know, it’s funny you say this, I have the fastest BMW in the world sitting in my driveway, and I’m selling it. And I’m selling it right now.

Christie:
Tell ’em why.

George:
And I can afford, I can afford it. But it’s not prioritized to where I want to go and who I want to be. It’s not important. You know, like I went from it- dude, it’s so funny you said this. I went from driving a Honda accord. I paid cash with, to having like my first six figure month. And then my first like seven figure six months, and like, it’s coming in, I can afford it. And then I don’t find a medium ground, I could get a BMW, M5 competition that goes zero to 60 in 2.1 seconds. And the first thing I wanted to do was tell the world, I had it. Not tell myself I had it. And it took me 26,000 miles to learn this lesson just to be real it’s two years.

George:
And it took me a whole lot of seeing my wife stressed and looking at my children and realizing that I’m investing $3,000 a month into a liability. That’s misaligned to my greater self and it’s inauthentic to who I want to be. And I asked myself, I asked myself this question the other day. And I said, “Okay, if you can answer this question ‘Yes’, you can keep the car. Now would you be okay keeping it and never letting anybody see you driving or know you have it for the rest of your life?” And I was like, “No, I wouldn’t.” And I was like, “I gotta get rid of it.”

Christie:
That is the true test right there!

George:
That’s it, and it was that simple. And it was literally that simple. And I was like, “Yeah.” And I was like, I think about it. Like I’m moving to Montana. I want- and first off the car is not going to do me that well in Montana, in the first place. Right? But it’s like, “What do I want? I want less.” And I wrote this in my reflection this morning in my solitude. I was like release material things to create space for relationships. It was the first thing that flowed out of me this morning. And one of them being myself. Like as an entrepreneur, I’ve been through all of this from the successes and the highs and the lows behind the scenes of billion dollar companies, million dollar—all of them. And every single person that’s happy and successful has one thing that nobody else has.

George:
And that is the deepest interpersonal relationship with themselves. And I spent 10 years of my career trying to avoid that relationship with the BMW, with the “go to the conference, go to the thing, stay the whole time, stay after my keynote.” Instead of being like, “I’m here to do my job, I’m here to change the world. And then I’m going back to be aligned to my priorities, to be in that relationship with myself.”

Christie:
So I want to do an exercise. This something I do in my-

George:
Ooh, let’s do it!

Christie:
-in my book and I wanna make this episode really practical for people too,

George:
Please!

Christie:
So that they can understand who they’re not. And to start decoupling these things that are not really them. And then replace that with who they actually are, and do exploration. So we’ll model this, like you and I will model this. And then hopefully that gives people ideas out there about what they might be hanging their identity on. And it is so important to be careful about what you hang your identity on. So,

George:
Thousand percent!

Christie:
So what are we not? We’re not our accomplishments. What else? Let’s just start rattling them off.

George:
It’s funny-

Christie:
We’re not a title.

George:
Yeah, I do this exercise the other way, but I love this. We’re not our title. I’m not my position. I’m not my bank account.

Christie:
Income

George:
I’m not the car I drive.

Christie:
Yup.

George:
I’m not the clothes I wear. I’m not the man I was two seconds ago.

Christie:
The people that you hang out.

George:
Yeah.

Christie:
Cool kids club,

George:
Thousand percent

Christie:
The businesses you’ve had, the businesses that you have now or had in the past.

George:
I’m not my close percentage. My raw ass account.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
Right? Like these things.

Christie:
You’re not your failures either. Mistakes you made.

George:
And I’m not my successes.

Christie:
And you’re- That’s right. Yes.

George:
Yeah.

Christie:
I thought we mentioned that, but yes, exactly.

George:
Maybe I’ll say it again. I had to learn that one.

Christie:
I think that, yeah. It’s so true, because I mean, how many times, like when you meet someone new, they’re like, “Oh, what do you do?” That’s like the first question. Our whole world is so conditioned to all of these things that we just said.

George:
Yeah.

Christie:
Like, it is a complete lie, you know? It’s like, we’re conditioned to believe this lie that we are all these things. That’s not our true identity.

George:
Nope.

Christie:
And when you’re talking about being in a real relationship with yourself, I think that’s so true. And I also, you know, I also would include your higher power in that.

George:
Thousand percent.

Christie:
Because your higher power can, and I know you agree, I just think it needs to be said, it’s like your higher power can show you so many more things about yourself that you would have never, ever imagined. Like we’re trained. We are conditioned to put labels on things and the labels keep us stuck. They keep us in a box.

George:
They give us a false sense of security is what it is.

Christie:
Yeah!

George:
Right.

Christie:
So let’s flip it now. Let’s flip it. And let’s say, “What- Who are we? Who are we,” without putting any, like of the other things that we just said that we’re not.

George:
So I love this. I have to say this before we answer this question. When you watch this movie, I recommend it, called “Chasing the Present.” Everybody listening, go to apple TV, find this movie called “Chasing the Present.” There’s the leading professor on non-duality in the world. And this entrepreneur was a vegan restauranteur and was doing a couple million a year, was super happy, then expand in like massive restaurant group, like, I mean, massively successful. And the more success he had, the more depressed and anxious he became. And so he took a year off and traveled the world to every modality of medicine you can find. Eastern medicine, Western medicine, Shamanism, Buddhism, plant medicine, duality, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, and he interviews and talks to all of these people.

George:
And you’re about to ask a question that I have a very different perspective on now because I’ve been studying non-duality. And so I’m gonna give that context before we do this, and then I’ll share afterwards.

Christie:
Okay. We’ll see. You go first now, with all that preface.

George:
So authentically, this is a hard question for me to answer with that preface, but I’ll say what I used to say, and I’ll tell you where I got to now. So I used to say I was a husband and I was a father. I used to say I was a shareholder. Cause I didn’t like the entrepreneurial label. I used to say, I was a New York times bestselling author. I was a Marine. I was a world record holder. You know, I was all of those things.

Christie:
Yeah. Those are all titles. Right?

George:
Yeah. And then I got challenged

Christie:
Yeah.

George:
And then I was like, okay. Well, I’m caring,

Christie:
Yes.

George:
I’m compassionate. I’m loving, I’m authentic. I’m giving, I’m altruistic. And I like, lived and hung my hat on that one. And I gotta spoil it now. And then the professor says, “Well, were you born altruistic?” And I was like, “Were you born an entrepreneur? Are you born a father?” He’s like, “We’re you born blank?” and when you- and like, he just kept going and kept going and kept going. And then he paused for like 20 seconds. I went from, “I don’t have an answer to this question” to hysteric tears in a matter of like five seconds.

George:
And I was bawling and it was one of the most cathartic, healing, self-love, self-accepting questions that I’ve ever been asked. And then myself, including the guy at the end of the table was like, “Whoa, who am I?” And he looks at him and he just snaps his fingers. And he goes, this snaps fingers, this snaps fingers, this snaps fingers, this snaps fingers. And he’s like, “In every moment, you’re who you choose to be.” And Christie, I paused this movie. I stared at my ceiling and I was home alone. My family was out of town. I put my hands on my heart and I stared at my ceiling for almost two hours without moving.

George:
And I literally like, loved my inner child. I felt my heart. And I was like, every moment, I’m like, “I’m love. I’m happiness. I’m feeling. I’m-” and it was for whatever reason in the work I’ve done culminated in that moment. And it was like this gate into, I’m not my story. I’m not my past. I’m not my labels. And I’m definitely not something that hasn’t happened yet. I’m this right now. And then I remember like my tech-not-hunt teachings and you know, non-duality and Vedanta and all these. And I was like, “They all just came together because somebody asked me a question I couldn’t answer.” And that was,

Christie:
I love that.

George:
That was the question that got me.

Christie:
Yeah! I love that. And that, that is the perfect segue because I completely agree. It’s like, you can choose who you are in the moment. And all of us have gifts that we were born with, right?

George:
Thousand percent.

Christie:
And we were Spirits before we came here. That’s what I believe you can choose to believe what you believe. Right? We have a consciousness and we have gifts and yeah. So I’ll give you a couple of examples and then you give me a couple of examples.

George:
I love it. I love it.

Christie:
I’ll leave it at that. And then I actually have a list in my book that I can make into a download of, of some of these examples of words, if people are interested. They can go to my website.

George:
I love it.

Christie:
Okay. So I have a couple I’ll just say, and then we’ll kind of dive deeper into these two. So like, one would be, “I am innovative.”

George:
Hmm.

Christie:
Another one would be, “I am teaching.” Okay, so that doesn’t really sound like a noun to you, but. So, to just peel back the layers a little bit on this. So if I’m innovative, what kind of things does someone who is innovative, what do they have? What do they look like? What do they do? You know?

George:
Mm-hmm.

Christie:
Who are they, you know? And I know you share this one too. You’re super innovative. You’re one of the most-

George:
Oh yeah.

Christie:
-innovative people I’ve ever met. So, you know, you have lots of ideas. You have solutions. You connect dots. You- you know, and I’ll put this on me too. Like, I find the puzzle pieces that fit, you know?

George:
Yeah.

Christie:
I see connections that no one else can see sometimes, you know? Things that seem totally obvious to me and people look in awe and wonder, and like, “How did you come up with that?” Like, and it’s so obvious, but that, that’s just how my brain is wired and how I was born. I’ve always been this way.

George:
Yep.

Christie:
The, “I am teaching piece,” you know? That, I love to teach. I love to share. I love to, you know, teach things that- yes, I’ve learned, but also just explore. Like teach through exploring almost like, “Wow! I didn’t even know I knew that until it came out of my mouth,

George:
That’s me.

Christie:
But it’s true!

George:
Yup!

Christie:
Like, you’re like, you’re just channeling from God or some other, some other place, you know?

George:
Whatever you call it. Source, I call it intuition,

Christie:
Yeah!

George:
Wisdom,

Christie:
Your intuition! Yes!

George:
Wisdom is another one.

Christie:
Yeah, you can- And that’s one of the reasons I wrote my book, The Intuition-Led Business,

George:
Yes!

Christie:
Because tapping into your intuition, strengthening this relationship with yourself is one of the best things. If not, THE best thing that you can do for your business,

George:
Yeah!

Christie:
To grow it and grow your impact, and all of that, and all the riches and the fame and all that, if that is your focus, you’re not gonna get there.

George:
No, it just- trust me. It doesn’t. It does not- In marksmanship.

Christie:
It works in reverse.

George:
It does. I’ll give you a logical example. I was a Marine for 12 years and I was an expert marksman. And one of the first things that you learn about marksmanship and long range marksmanship, is if you stare at the target, you miss.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
And a lot of people don’t understand that, but you have to look at the optics that are right in front of you. And when you look at the optics, the target is blurry. And the moment you stare at the target, you miss. And cause it’s not about hitting the target. It’s about putting the fundamental pieces and practice into play, where the by-product of the combination hits the target. And like what I love about your book and what I love about what you do and who you are and what you stand for, is that what I’ve learned is my biggest fear of trusting my intuition, was an avoidance of one of the labels we just talked about. Because if I trust my intuition and it doesn’t work, then I’m a failure.

George:
I can’t provide. Or it’s like, “Oh, I got a flat tire, change it. Don’t slash the other three.” Right? Or, you know, “My shoe came untied, reach down and tie it again.” And it’s that pursuit. And I think that when the world that we live in, one of the things, when I talked about that silent time, when you talked about source or your higher self, my daily practice includes before anybody else in the house wakes up. I either get sunlight, but it’s too dark right now. So I go to my red light and I stand there in silence for 10 minutes. And that is, I call that my light on time, because I’m a lighthouse guy, right? So I call that my light on time. And so every morning starts with, I can’t have, look at a phone.

George:
I can’t be interrupted. I can’t- any of it. It has to be me connected to my most authentic version. I just woke up as connected to source as possible. And so I go stand with it and I just watch the thoughts, the feelings, the everything I call that, turning my light on, like, that’s me turning on my wisdom, my intuition. And that’s how I start my day. And I actually end my day the same exact way and really to be congruent to what you’re talking about. It’s allowing me to actually experience and feel the space required to get to my intuition, to feel my body, to get to what would this look like? Where would this go? But also for me to make a declaration that day, that today’s my day, not the world’s day, not social media’s day, not my email’s day, not the text day.

George:
Like, it’s my day. And that’s one of the most profound things that I’ve ever done when it comes to my happiness and my results is allowing myself that time. It’s so powerful. It’s so powerful.

Christie:
You know, the military has another saying, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

George:
Fast, yup!

Christie:
And it goes back to that marksmanship.

George:
It does! Yup.

Christie:
And I have a similar, I have a similar process actually. So I call mine my take eight.

George:
Take eight. I love it!

Christie:
So, and if you flip eight on its side, it’s a little eternity symbol. So that’s why I chose that, if you’re wondering. So I take eight minutes every day, at least. Just like what you’re saying, you know, to tap in to God, myself and just recharge. Just be. Like with no other agenda, not thinking about anything, you’re not planning my to-do list. I don’t even work from a to-do list anymore.

George:
Me neither.

Christie:
Like, that’s another subject.

George:
Me neither. That’s like a couple podcasts.

Christie:
Yeah! And then I have take eight days! Or no, take eight hours, sorry. So one day a week, I just, I just am. I just be.

George:
Yes, so cool.

Christie:
And I work on whatever I want to do. Whatever I want to do. And companies that have done this actually that have allowed their employees to just explore and do whatever, they’ve seen new innovations, new services, new products, happier employees, better morale, better productivity. So there’s definitely some science behind it.

George:
Thousand percent.

Christie:
And then the take eight days is like, take eight days a week, like just, or a month. Sorry. That’s not, there’s not even 8 days in a week. Oh my gosh, take eight days to a year to just, to just be as well.

George:
Yeah!

Christie:
And that’s, that’s the rule of eight. It’s like that space is like, it’s like the inhale to the exhale. You’re not gonna survive if you’re just constantly doing and hustling and grinding and breathing out the whole time. You’re not designed to just breathe out. You’ve got,

George:
We need recovery. We need reflection. We need space. Right? Like Jeff Spencer, you know, Jeff calls it, you know, temperance, right? Gold medalists aren’t gold medalists because they run their fastest race every day. They train to 70% and they recover. They train to 70% and then recover. And then when it’s time they go and then they recover. You know, I’m not a sports fan, but I use metaphors and analogies in the story and what you’re talking about with this take eight and everything you just said it. There’s a reason that professional sports teams have a team of people in a box above them to see the field that they’re on because they can’t see it. And these are the highest paid athletes in the world. But you can’t see the field when you’re in the middle of the play. So you have to get off the field. You have to practice, you have to study your playbook.

George:
You have to get in tune with yourself, in tune with your body. Then you have to have people around you that hold you to your greatest self and help you navigate the blind spots. So you can win that gold medal. And that really, really is the biggest, biggest secret here. And, you know, alignment, in my opinion, in my opinion, I’d say, if I look at, and I’ve had the craziest results with clients, like, you know, some of them. Like they are insane, but really at the end of the day, what did I do? I listened. I synthesize what they were telling me. And I regurgitated it in a way that got them into alignment and gave them back what they already had, but moved incongruencies and inconsistencies out of the way. And all of a sudden, like, “My business doubled in a week!”

George:
“I closed my biggest deal ever.” We went from a million a month to 2 million a day in 12 months. Like, and I’m like, “Ooohh!” Right? Because it all stems from us. Like we are it. We’re the vision. We’re the energy. Literally we infuse it and everybody around us. And the part of that, that I think is so important, Christie, that I don’t hear a lot of people talk about, that nobody said that that’s rainbows and unicorns all the time. It’s authentic. It’s modulation as a human. It’s expressive. And when you get to be aware of yourself, you get to be the watcher. Like this morning, you know, I got home from a flight last night at 2:00 AM.

George:
My four-year-old waking me up at six. I know it’s coming. Right? And I was like, I don’t want to work out. I know I got my time. I got my time before him and I was sitting there, like, I’m tired. I was literally, was feeling like a failure. Like I’m letting this down. This is so stressful. Why is this stressful? And I just watched it and I watched it and I watched it and it was like, I was watching the movie of my life in my brain. And I got to the end of it. My 10 minutes ended. And I had all that. And it was like me processing. And I was like, “Okay, cool. Well, if I’m writing the manuscript for my future movie, what am I gonna do?” I’m like, “Go work out!” I just went for 10 minutes and worked out. And then literally the rest of my day was set. It was like crushing, clear. You know, I was just like, “This is where we’re going. This is what we’re doing.”

George:
But we have to love all parts of it. Like you got to give the shadows a cup of coffee too.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
They need space. They’re a part of us. They’re what creates the polarity. It’s what creates the dynamic. And the more that we can, in my opinion, the men’s work that I do, the more that we can fall in love with that shadow, that we can embody it and realize that it’s just the other side of ourselves that allow us to experience joy. But it’s not who we are. It’s just something we feel. It’s not permanent. Like, I can’t tell you the amount of times when I was struggling with PTS and having flashbacks and spatial disawareness, and I was an addict and I was in the hospital. That in those moments, I literally was like, “My life is over.” Like, “I’m going to somehow die in this moment from my emotions,” what it felt like. And the truth was, and I, I feel like a walking metaphor, like this bothered, like a walking tweetable, but you know, it happens.

Christie:
We all are! That’s the truth

George:
I know, I know!

Christie:
Like, our stories are totally our gift and our message to the world, you know?

George:
And so- but like one of my business partners, Stefano Stefando. So he calls himself “The Relational Alchemist” he’s been doing men’s work and consciousness work for like 25 years. And like, he goes and fasted a solo quest in the desert for 10 days with just a shirt on his back. Like, getting into deep explorational stuff. And every time I have something coming, people like sit with it longer. And he always says the same thing. He’s like, “If you want to deepen your service, you have to deepen your practice.” And like, this is what I love about the Buffalo. They are the only, only mammal that when a storm is coming, understands that the fastest way is through. And they walk into the storm and they don’t hesitate. They’re like, it’s coming. Cows lay down. And they’re in it five times longer than the Buffalo.

George:
The Buffalo like, “Let’s go! That’s the fastest path through.” And I’ve just learned to embrace what’s there. And those are the days that temperance is required. Take eight is required. It might take eight of self-love take eight of self care, take eight of documentation, take eight of reflection. But at the end of the day, like, I’ll tell everybody, you don’t have a business, you don’t have a hobby, you don’t have a product, you don’t have a team, if you don’t have yourself.

Christie:
Yep.

George:
And you know, it’s magical to me. Magical to me! Especially if you’re one of these people that, you influence people. You’re around people. You’re on social, you’re on video. You’re on podcasts. You’re on interviews. How much influence you can have if you spent just a little bit more time in a relationship with yourself and at the completion of that, as Wes Watson would say, “You then give that person your building away to the world and not build the person you think you should be based on the inputs of the world.”

Christie:
Yup.

George:
And it’s true. I love the fact that you put intuition in business because it’s something most people pay us to come in and help clear the debris out of the way to get them back into alignment. And then all of a sudden they’re like, “You’re a lifesaver! Like, I didn’t give you anything.”

Christie:
Well, that’s just the thing. People give away their power,

George:
All day.

Christie:
All day long to gurus and people like us even!

George:
Yeah!

Christie:
Like, and it’s like, “No, I want to teach you how to do this yourself. And while I have certain, you know, strengths and skills that you may not have, like in branding or marketing or messaging, come to me for that. But you know, let’s set you up! So that you understand what’s going on.” It’s just like the magic pill people. It’s like, I always like to teach them, “Okay, here’s the strategy let’s- Let me help you walk through what we’re actually doing so that you understand how your business is working on the marketing end of things. Instead of just relying on other people. And then it turns into this big disaster, as soon as you have to hire someone else to do it, because you didn’t understand really what was going on or the strategy behind anything.

Christie:
So it’s like so important not to give your power away. And you are powerful. You are magical. You know, you are a unicorn! You are the rainbow!” When I was talking about the prism before, you heard those things! They’re not outside of you, they’re inside. And you have access to them.

George:
I was going to say, the beautiful thing about all of it is nobody ever was like, “There’s too many rainbows in the world.” Like, that’s where abundance comes in.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
Right? Like it’s a space for everybody by allowing people and seeing their rainbow is when your rainbow comes out.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
Right? Like you recognize the magic in others. And it recognizes the magic in yourself. And like that’s, like, there are parts of me, and you know this, that parts of me want to just- cause you remember I deleted social media for three years. There are parts of me that want to just go disappear and retire.

Christie:
Oh, for sure. I have that hermit tendency as well.

George:
And then there’s a part of me because I’ve spent my life like in service and in the military, and I learned that this was a path for me that’s like, I gotta play a different game and I have to be the example. And I’m glad that, you know, we exist and you exist, and a lot of us exist. But the truth is, is that, the path forward for all of us, like the success of all of us comes from us, actually caring about other people and using that as the way to help see the magic in ourselves. And like it’s relationships, it’s relationships, it’s relationships. And you know, the thing is, is the one, the one thing besides my practice, that’s been the most impactful, and you alluded to this earlier, you know, one of the things that I really focus on now, when I get that time in the morning, I basically am like, this is my wisdom for the day.

George:
Like if something’s supposed to be done, it happened in this time. And if it’s not, then I have to go. But nothing comes from me consuming anything. Like I don’t watch YouTube videos. I don’t listen to podcasts. If I read a book, it’s because I’m looking for something. And then the rest of the time, I’m either in reflection or I’m in creation. And I really believe, and I, and I’m going to say this, I really believe 99% of the entrepreneurs that come across my desk or that come into my world already know the answer. And they’re looking for a permission slip to trust themselves.

Christie:
Or a confirmation, a second one.

George:
Or confirmation.

Christie:
Yeah.

George:
But really to be like, “Wait, I felt that! That’s my intuition.” I’m like, “I’m going to tell you to lean into it.” Right? Like, and what I tell everybody about us being unicorns and us being rainbows is that we all have a path in front of us that nobody has paved before.

Christie:
Yes.

George:
There is no validation. There is no confirmation. There is no security in the result that will come. There’s confirmation that you have the ability to create whatever you want, but there’s no yellow brick road. And if you walk down somebody else’s road, like you alluded to earlier, just so I can close that Zygarnic Effect loop. It’s not going to get you to your destination. It’s gonna create incongruency, misalignment and exhaustion, because that’s somebody else’s road. And so what we have to understand is when we take this path, like Alex Charfen says, this is like, “We’re entrepreneurs. We’re bold people. We go out into the future and we declare something to be true. And then we come back to the present and we work on building it every single day.”

George:
And in that, self-awareness and self-acceptance is the biggest gift. You will never have certainty and security. You will be surrendered to the curiosity that comes with ambiguity. And when you and I do this, what I love is we have this childlike curiosity, which is why our brains connect these dots. Because you know, Disney breaks this down for tangible people. I want to share this because this is probably one of the most profound thinking mechanisms you can ever have. Can you imagine what Walt Disney was met with, when he’s like, “Hey, I want to build a magical kingdom on a swamp,” back when that happened. Like, can you imagine? “Like I want to build this world,”

Christie:
Oh, he’ll be called crazy,

George:
“with tunnels and underground and drain the swamp and build this. And oh, by the way, I don’t have any money to do it.” Right? So Disney makes billions teaching this, but in the actual Disney office, they built three separate offices. And so one office was called the Dreamer. One office was called the Realist and one office was called the Critic. But there were simple rules for each one. When you were in the Dreamer office, you were only allowed to dream and you could never ask yourself, “How am I gonna do this?” And you can never poke holes in it. And when you were done, you had to leave the office in state change. You had to take a break, change environments, go somewhere else, take a day. And then you were allowed to go into the Realist office.

George:
And the Realist office was, “How am I going to do this?” And it wasn’t, you couldn’t add to the dream and you couldn’t poke holes in it. It wasn’t, “I don’t have the money.” It was like, “Oh, we’d have to drain the swamps. Oh, that equipment doesn’t exist. Oh, we’re gonna have to make robot animals that have never been made before.” Right? And so then you leave that office and then you go into the Critic office. And the Critic office is you can’t add to the dream. You can’t ask yourself how, but you have to ask why. Right? And so it’s What in the Dreamer, How in the Realist and Why in the Critic. Well, why would we want to do this? Is this possible? Do we have the funds to do this? And what you’re left with is the wrong ingredients. And then the goal is to solve the why’s and then you’re left with your dream and the ability to go execute this plan.

George:
But you need space. Like you said, you need patience. You need time for these things to marinate. So you can do this full evolution. And it’s a really beautiful thing because all of us live in one of these states. You and I tend to live in the Dream state, but you’re really good getting in the How state. Right? I’ve learned how to be minimally effective in the How, but I live like literally live in the Dream state. And so when you think about communication and by the way, this is one of the best relationship tools you can ever have in your marriage and your friendships on your team, you need to either ask them what state they’re in, or be able to recognize what state they’re in. So you make sure you are state matching because the amount of times my wife has been in the Dreamer state and I’m insecure in that moment.

George:
And I go to the Critic state, I create disconnection because I can’t dream. Or the amount of times I get excited. And I go to my team with an idea and I don’t tell them to dream with me. And then I get offended because they’re in the, “How are we going to do that?” And I’m like, “I don’t want to talk about the how.” And it’s just this simple awareness of like where we are and what we’re doing. It’s probably been the single-handest, most profound ideation process I’ve ever used. And you know, 12 years of doing this as an entrepreneur is being able to separate them into those offices. And it’s a gift. And I think it’s something that everybody should play with. But yeah, intuition.

Christie:
For sure! Like, you know, and I had never heard of that before, but I’ve actually done this without even knowing it.

George:
Yeah!

Christie:
Like I have my office,

George:
Yup.

Christie:
It’s like three places, right? But my office and that’s like the How, and then I have another room that I call my Lab and that’s the Dreamer. That’s the dreamer office and whiteboard, crayons, pencils, pens, paper, all sorts of tools just to let it out of my subconscious, my creative mind, you know? And so, yeah, that is a fantastic and it is so true. It is so true that you can create that disconnection when you don’t realize what other state or even what the other person’s personality or what their cognitive processes are.

Christie:
Like, how they process information.

George:
Well that, the amount of times I had to cut you off my last thought, because you’re gonna shut me off when you end soon. And so the one thing that I will realize is the first thing for that to be effective, is understand when you do it to yourself, because think about those moments when you’re in your day and you get that pocket of intuition, right? You’re like, just be sitting there and you’re like, “Where’d that come from?” You get excited for a moment, right? And you’re like, unlock your childhood. You get excited, like, “Oh my God, I could do this.” And then within a matter of moments, you’re like, “Yeah, but how are you gonna do that? You can’t do that. You don’t have the money. You don’t have the time.” You know? And we, we will try to modulate between all three subconsciously to keep ourselves stuck. And then we get frustrated, but we’ve never given it the space. And so when I say the self-awareness, you have to be like, “Ah!”

George:
Recognize it as a dream and give yourself a permission to dream.

Christie:
Yup.

George:
Or maybe you’ve had a dream and the brain pops up and like, “Wow, there’s a way to do this,” and don’t worry about if you have the capacity or if you have the results or if you have the money or the team. Just ask yourself, like, “What would it look like?”

Christie:
Yeah.

George:
And then same side, if you’re gonna poke holes in it, poke productive holes on it. Don’t go to, “We can’t do it.” Be like, “Well, why can’t we do it?” Right? And the, one of the most beautiful things about Design Thinking, there’s a distinction with a word that they use. And so most people go like, “How do I do it?” Right? “How do I do it? How do I do it?” And when you ask, “How do I do it?” You limit yourself to your current level of thinking and understanding.

Christie:
Totally! Einstein said, “You can’t solve problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

George:
Yeah, oh! And so Design Thinking changes one word, and it just says, “What might it look like?”

Christie:
Yes, exactly.

George:
“What might.”

Christie:
The “HOWs”- even sometimes the “WHYs” they can get our brain going in a loop and you’re just like, yeah. But change it to a “What exactly.”

George:
And so like, I mean, I think about it now and I’m like, let’s just look at like, can you imagine, can you imagine what it was like when Steve Jobs is like, “I want a digital player with a screen that plays music,” and everybody’s using flip phones and no screens. Right? And then now we’re on like iPhone 12 and we couldn’t live without it. But can you imagine going back into that office or when Elon Musk is like, “I’m gonna make this electric car that then is gonna make another electric car, which is then going to be powered by a battery in your house, which is going to be powered by solar panels on your roof. While we simultaneously build a rocket to go to Mars.” And everyone’s like, “You’re nuts, you’re nuts, you’re nuts. You’re nuts.” So, well look at how many Teslas you see on the road.

George:
Like, and I like the thing is, is like, if you give it the space and you have the patience and you trust yourself, you’re not the labels. You’re the builder. You’re the teacher, you’re the “doing this,” you’re the “being this,” you’re that moment to moment in the exploration and creation of it, you know? And I’m a lighthouse guy, right? That’s my analogy in business. The oldest lighthouse still in action is from 1272. The light is only gone out twice when they transitioned from whale blubber to kerosene and kerosene to electricity. But do you think they planned that lighthouse in one day?

George:
They were like, “I’m gonna build a lighthouse today.” No! And the oldest lighthouse of record was in Alexandria. It was in 5,000 years ago. It was a 181 meters high with an open flame on the top. 5,000 years ago! And I’m like, it probably took 15 years to build that, 10-year, I don’t care if you think it was aliens, plant medicine, I don’t know, whatever you think. Right? But like, just looking at that, like we are these gifts. We are these athletes. We are these gold medalists. Like we are the people that change the world. And if you want to change the world, you have to give yourself the space to play the long game.

George:
You have to know yourself. So you know your strengths, you can train your weaknesses, you can accept all of your performances and make adjustments while loving yourself in this entire process to then go out and carve this path in the world.

Christie:
I love it. We could really talk for hours you and I.

George:
We’ll do it on my podcast.

Christie:
Well, I love that. Let’s do that. I’d love for you to end us off with how can people learn more about you and leave us with your final nugget of wisdom.

George:
Yeah. I love it. Thank you for asking that question. So I tell everybody it’s really easy to remember my name because it’s The Mind of George Show. It belongs in a straight jacket. And if you think that, then I’m probably not your flavor, but if you are my level of crazy, my podcast is called The Mind of George Show and everything is really simple. It’s at www.mindofgeorge.com and that’s G E O R G E not Jorge. George. MindOfGeorge.com. MindOfGeorge.com. And I gave a summary a second ago that I think would be the perfect closing statement, but to really wrap it based on my intuition, what I want everybody to remember is that your headstone will never have your bank account, your row ads, your company size or anything.

George:
And in every moment we are either building our impact or we’re advocating our responsibility to build our impact. And so in this moment, and in the next moment, spend some time to get really connected to what’s really important to you and give yourself permission to go pursue it with the same energy that you pursue everything else that excites you. Love the process, build it, bask in its glory, and then go give it away to the world.