Work In Progress: Reflect on Boundaries, Self-Care, + Mindsets

George put it bluntly at the start of this episode: "You have 2 choices. You can be a human who gets on a mic and lies and says, I have done all the things, and my life is absolutely amazing. Or you can be the honest human and learn from your mistakes."

This is the second installment of their "Work in Progress" series, where George and Liz stop teaching and start confessing. They ask each other hard questions about specific topics they've covered on the podcast. They speak honestly about wins. They speak even more honestly about struggles.

Six months had passed since their last check-in. A lot had changed. Some things hadn't changed enough.

What George Would Tell His Earlier Self

If George could go back to that first check-in, he'd deliver two messages.

First: focus on the right things. Not what you think are the right things, but what actually are the right things.

"Sometimes I worry and focus on things that the external world have default states of, well, of course, you wouldn't do that. Meanwhile, I'm over here focusing on, well, not the right things."

Second: just because you're doing good doesn't mean you'll continue to do good.

At the last check-in, George was in a groove. Morning meditation. Bible reading. Daily regimented routine. Then came vacation. Everything crumbled.

"I am fundamentally sick and tired of my own excuses. There is no easy way to put it other than that. Dude, just quit being a dick and do the things that you know you're supposed to do in the morning."

What Liz Would Tell Her Earlier Self

Liz had different messages for her past self.

"You're on the right track. You're doing the work. You're in the messy middle. You are okay. You are more okay than you realize you are."

She'd also tell herself something she'd been slow to learn: you have more people in your corner than you realize.

"You don't have a bunch of people waiting for you to fail. You have a bunch of people waiting for you to win."

The story she'd been telling herself since childhood said otherwise. You're not enough. You're the disappointment. It doesn't matter what you do. That programming got stuck and impacted every decision.

"It was this insidious death by paper cut story that really has lived at the heart of so many things. The decisions I've made, the belief structures I have about the role I play in other people's lives."

She described it as finally breaking through her own Truman Show barrier to the real world.

The Accountability That Showed Up at the Pool

George was hanging out with friends over the weekend when one of his buddies asked a question.

"What do you guys think about waking up at 7 o'clock and meeting to go for morning walks?"

George said yes immediately.

"That's gonna be my time to spend with them and move my body so I can check off a mental box and disarm the landmine or grenade that would be in my mind if I don't do said thing."

This is what he'd been seeking. Not just the walks themselves, but the accountability to make them happen consistently.

"When we set the patterns, when we set the routines, when we say this is what we wanna do and we fall off of that, it isn't just the ramifications of what we've fallen off of. It's the mental battle that can be allowed to happen in our brain because we fell off the thing."

The Conversation That Went Wrong

George was honest about a moment that didn't go well.

Someone reached out to him on Friday to share how they felt. He screwed it up.

"I wanted to talk more than I wanted to listen. I wanted to get frustrated because the way that I felt versus actually empathetic to the way they felt. I was already tired, already burnt out, and can just blatantly say that I didn't show up at my best."

He broke his own rule. He imposed his expectations on how he thought they were and how he thought the conversation should go.

"Thank God that I'm sorry. Because it was just a shitty experience."

But he also knew he needed space to process it. His brain was screaming that he was an asshole, but he had to unpack that he wasn't being that kind of human. He just hadn't equipped himself to show up in the best way.

When Chaos Becomes Comfortable

Liz struggled with the seasons of life conversation when they recorded it. Something was churning in her brain.

"Seasons of life isn't a third party retrospective detached observance of your own life like you're a filmmaker. It's waking up and saying, okay. If I'm in a new space and I'm in a new season, am I acting accordingly? Am I making decisions accordingly?"

She'd made big changes. Moved back to Annapolis. Started a new chapter that had been vibrant and supportive. But something felt off.

She'd spent so long in chaos that when peace arrived, it felt more terrifying than the chaos itself.

"It's almost like I was living in a house where once a day something would fall off the wall and smash and break. And it did that for 175 days in a row. And then one day, stuff stopped falling off the wall. Now the silence is more terrifying than the falling because now I'm waiting for something to fall again."

George named it perfectly: "When chaos becomes comfortable, comfort becomes chaotic."

The Morning Routine Under Construction

Liz was honest about where she was failing.

Her morning routine was an unmitigated train wreck disaster.

But there was context. At the peak of her regimented morning routine, she was waking up at 5:45, journaling, checking boxes. She realized with a therapist's help that she was so good at the morning routine because it was the only place she felt safe.

"I would get up so early in the morning and have all these regimented things because it was the only part of my life or time of day where I had control. Because the situation I was in was not great."

She gave herself permission to rest. That was the morning routine she needed.

But now she's out of that period. Old Liz has had enough naps. What does new Liz want her mornings to look like?

The answer is still under construction. But she's stopped forcing everything to happen in the mornings. Her health routine works because she does it at different times based on her schedule. Her Duolingo streak is at 108 days. She's reading and meditating daily, just in the afternoon when anxiety tends to peak.

The 23rd Anniversary Surprise

George shared a win that had nothing to do with business.

A couple months before their anniversary, his wife told him something hard to hear. Life was getting boring. He wasn't surprising her with things.

"I could get irritated. I didn't, actually. I, like, openly embraced the words that she was saying. And then I went to work."

He booked a hotel three hours away. Made dinner reservations and told them it was their anniversary. Rose petals. Little plastic hearts. I love you decorations. Comedy show tickets. Casino.

"The win for me is that I surprised my wife. The win for me more than that is that I listened to my wife, and I took action."

There was an earlier version of George who would have reacted differently.

"There's a guy who woulda got really pissed, and his ears would have been shut, but his mouth would have been opened. I'm just not trying to be that guy anymore."

Positive Selfishness

George initially resisted the self-care episode. The internet's version of self-care felt fake and surface level. Just hype for products.

But the conversation unlocked something. He started using a word he'd historically demonized: selfishness.

"The word selfishness for me has always been like, nope. It's about servanthood. It's about helping others. It's about showing up with love and empathy."

But then came the flip.

"Are you being selfish enough in a positive way to do that for yourself? Are you showing up for yourself? Are you giving yourself love? Are you being empathetic to who you are as a human?"

He started asking himself different questions.

"Are you selfish enough to block out the time in the day to learn something new? Are you selfish enough to take the time to actually do your meditation and your Bible reading?"

Because the world will take all of your time. Family will take all of your time. Friends will take all of your time.

"Therefore, you don't have any ability to say, I need these things in my life so that my cranium is not a path of mental landmines that when I'm trying to walk through it are going to explode."

The Liz Erasure Mindset

Liz had always been growth-minded. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was why.

"I was leaning into growth oriented topics for so long because I absolutely despised myself and I was trying to erase who I was and become someone wholly new. And that is not healthy."

She was growing as a means to erase the failure. She thought she had to become someone wholly different to be of value.

"I didn't have a growth mindset. I had a Liz Erasure mindset."

The shift came from making the healthy part a priority. Taking time to honor the parts of herself she actually liked. Focusing on wins instead of treating every mistake as an indictment of character.

"You can't grow scorched, parched earth with no water. Pouring water on cement will get you nowhere. You'll just become a bigger rock."

Victim and Victor at the Same Time

The victim versus victor conversation hit Liz differently than expected.

She wasn't walking around saying the world did this to her. But she also knew she wasn't showing up with real accountability and responsibility.

"I was a victor in a very distorted and self-destructive way, because I was taking too much accountability and responsibility for things I shouldn't have owned. And I was a victim in that I was acting as if, well, I'm just a bringer of doom and gloom and failure, and everything I touch turns to crap."

When you're taking responsibility for everything and the wrong things, you're not actually being accountable for the things you're actually messing up. It all goes into the symphony of crap that is your life.

"I was a victim because I was just walking around like a Cassandra in the Greek tragedy who was just the harbinger of all things terrible, because I allowed those stories about myself, and so I acted accordingly."

The Boundary George Is Getting Right

Liz pointed out something George was doing better than he realized.

He's getting better at being off when he's off.

"Do you know what I've noticed? I am having less and less nighttime outreach or outreach when you are off. You not only are not available when you are, you vanish off the face of the earth."

Even during a massive website launch, even with family unexpectedly in town, he protected his 23rd anniversary weekend.

His wife asked if they needed to cancel the trip so he could finish the website. His answer: "No. You are more important than any website I will ever build."

They still got the website launched.

George named what he's aiming for: "When I'm off, I wanna be, like, the most farmer, hermit, no technology, human possible."

The One Thing to Focus On

George asked both of them to pick one thing to focus on until the next check-in. The most important thing. The one with the greatest potential impact.

Liz chose her morning routine. Not because it's the easy answer, but because of what it represents.

"When you start your day off the right way, you don't spend your life in a day where you feel like you're constantly chasing it. I want to set the tone for my own days again, which sets the tone for my own life again."

She added something that landed hard.

"I spend so much time worrying how I'm letting down other people. All the time. And it's time I stopped letting myself down. I am someone worthy of having space and time to honor myself."

George chose health. He's been on this journey before. Lost 79 pounds in 9 months. But he's regained a lot of it.

"I know that it affects my mental health. I know it affects the way that I am interacting with the world. I know it is the demon that I historically have not been able to slay, but know I have been able to slay it."

When his friend offered those 7 AM walks, George saw it as a hand up his friend didn't even know he was giving.

"Between now and our next check-in, my journey, my beyond the default will be around my health and around the amount of weight that I can lose in a healthy way."

Quotable Moments

"I am fundamentally sick and tired of my own excuses. Dude, just quit being a dick and do the things that you know you're supposed to do."

"When chaos becomes comfortable, comfort becomes chaotic."

"Are you being selfish enough to block out the time in the day to learn something new? The world will take all of your time. The family will take all of your time. Friends will take all of your time."

"I didn't have a growth mindset. I had a Liz Erasure mindset, and that is not healthy."

"You can't grow scorched, parched earth with no water. Pouring water on cement will get you nowhere."

"I need these things in my life so that my cranium is not a path of mental landmines that when I'm trying to walk through it are going to explode."

Questions to Sit With

1. If you could go back 30, 60, or 90 days and tell yourself something you now realize, what would it be?
2. Are you being selfish enough in a positive way to show up for yourself the way you show up for others?
3. Is the past version, present version, or future version of you making the decisions in your life right now?

Press play above to hear the full conversation. George and Liz hold nothing back in this honest check-in about consistency struggles, relationship wins, the danger of comfortable chaos, and what they're each committing to focus on until next time.