# You've Been Programmed Your Entire Life… And Don't Even Know It

An episode of [The Justin Watts Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6819482046), 13 Oct 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2628218/episodes/19956583-you-ve-been-programmed-your-entire-life-and-don-t-even-know-it.mp3

How much of who you are today did you actually choose? Your beliefs about money, religion, relationships, success, and even your identity may have been shaped long before you were old enough to question them. In this powerful episode of The Justin Watts Show, Justin challenges the expectations, beliefs, and societal conditioning that shape who we become—often without our permission or awareness. Drawing from his personal experience working inside a maximum-security prison and the darkest chapters of his life, Justin reveals the moment he looked in the mirror and no longer recognized—or even liked—the man staring back at him. Through shadow work, self-examination, and his four-question Identity Audit, Justin explores what it means to question inherited beliefs, confront uncomfortable truths, rediscover your authentic self, and build a life that actually aligns with who you are. This isn't about rejecting everything you've been taught. It's about consciously deciding what deserves to remain. Because sometimes finding yourself isn't about becoming somebody new. Sometimes you have to UNBECOME everything you were never meant to be. Today's Quiet Leverage: Not everything you believe belongs to you. Question it. Examine it. Keep what's real. Let go of what isn't. The Justin Watts Show — Learn what nobody taught you. Use what you know. Build what they can't take from you. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Follow me: Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: I want you all to sit and think about something right quick.
[0:03] SPEAKER_00: How much of the person that you are today did you actually choose?
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: Your religion?
[0:09] SPEAKER_00: Your definition of success?
[0:11] SPEAKER_00: What you believe about money?
[0:13] SPEAKER_00: What do you believe a man is supposed to be?
[0:15] SPEAKER_00: What you believe a woman is supposed to be.
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: What do you believe marriage is supposed to look like?
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: What you believe a good parent looks like?
[0:22] SPEAKER_00: What kind of career you're supposed to have?
[0:25] SPEAKER_00: What you're supposed to even believe?
[0:30] SPEAKER_00: What you're supposed to fear.
[0:32] SPEAKER_00: Even what you're supposed to want out of this life.
[0:36] SPEAKER_00: Now, really think about that.
[0:39] SPEAKER_00: How much of it came from you?
[0:42] SPEAKER_00: And how much of it was handed to you before you were old enough to even understand it.
[0:52] SPEAKER_00: Here's the truth, family.
[0:53] SPEAKER_00: Something I've had to confront even in my own life is you can spend your entire life becoming who everybody told you to be, but never actually get the chance to meet yourself.
[1:09] SPEAKER_00: I believe that's one of the reasons many people can look successful on the outside, but be completely unfulfilled on the inside.
[1:21] SPEAKER_00: Maybe the life they're living isn't actually theirs.
[1:25] SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're living an identity that was constructed for them long before they were even old enough to decide who they wanted to become.
[1:35] SPEAKER_00: That's why today we're going somewhere different.
[1:39] SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about identity.
[1:42] SPEAKER_00: We're talking about alignment, and we're talking about purpose.
[1:46] SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, we're talking about finding your way back to the person underneath all the bullshit the world told you you were supposed to be.
[1:57] SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it, fam.
[2:41] SPEAKER_00: So, from the moment you were born, you were learning.
[2:44] SPEAKER_00: And obviously, learning isn't a bad thing.
[2:47] SPEAKER_00: We need teachers, we need structure, we need culture, we need people to teach us how to function in the world.
[2:52] SPEAKER_00: But think about the vulnerability of a child's mind.
[2:56] SPEAKER_00: You don't come into this world with a fully developed philosophy on money, you don't come into this world with a position on religion, you don't know what success means, you don't know what marriage is supposed to look like.
[3:10] SPEAKER_00: You don't even know what a man is supposed to be, and you damn sure don't know what a woman is supposed to be.
[3:17] SPEAKER_00: You don't know what careers are even respectable or even what success is.
[3:28] SPEAKER_00: You don't know what's supposedly possible or even impossible within your own life.
[3:39] SPEAKER_00: And before you're old enough to critically examine any of it, you absorb it.
[3:44] SPEAKER_00: Mom's beliefs, oh dad believes this.
[3:48] SPEAKER_00: Grandma says, that's wrong.
[3:50] SPEAKER_00: Grandpa says, a man does it this way.
[3:54] SPEAKER_00: Church tells you how God expects you to be.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: School tells you what success looks like.
[4:02] SPEAKER_00: Your neighborhood teaches you what's realistic, and your friends teach you what's cool.
[4:08] SPEAKER_00: Television shows you what a perfect picture of success or happiness looks like.
[4:13] SPEAKER_00: And don't get me started on social media.
[4:17] SPEAKER_00: Apparently, your life is supposed to look a certain way by 25, 30, 30, and even, I mean, 35 and even 40.
[4:24] SPEAKER_00: And slowly, something begins to happen.
[4:27] SPEAKER_00: That information becomes your beliefs.
[4:29] SPEAKER_00: Those beliefs become your behavior, and your behavior becomes your fucking identity.
[4:34] SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the things you were taught stop feeling like the things you learned and start feeling like who you are.
[4:47] SPEAKER_00: But what if some of that shit was never even you to begin with?
[4:55] SPEAKER_00: Before we get even further, let me make something clear.
[4:58] SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying society is inherently evil.
[5:04] SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying the rules are bad.
[5:06] SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you should reject everything you've been taught and just go live in the woods somewhere.
[5:15] SPEAKER_00: Listen, human beings need structure, we need laws, we need shared expectations, we need education, we need some degree of social order.
[5:26] SPEAKER_00: But there's another side to that conversation as well.
[5:31] SPEAKER_00: Society also has boxes.
[5:34] SPEAKER_00: Go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good job, find somebody, get married, buy a house, have kids, work for 30 or 40 years, retire, and then hopefully enjoy whatever time you have left on this earth.
[5:56] SPEAKER_00: Now listen to me carefully.
[5:58] SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely nothing wrong with that life.
[6:03] SPEAKER_00: If that's the life you consciously choose.
[6:06] SPEAKER_00: The problem is living the entire damn blueprint because everybody told you that's what success looks like.
[6:16] SPEAKER_00: And then waking up one day only to realize you've successfully built a life you never fucking wanted.
[6:26] SPEAKER_00: That's different.
[6:28] SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with living a traditional life if that life is traditionally yours.
[6:35] SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with a nine-to-five.
[6:38] SPEAKER_00: If that work fulfills you, there's nothing wrong with college or a college education if the education serves the life you're trying to build yourself.
[6:50] SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with marriage, family, religion, entrepreneurship, wealth, or any of that shit.
[6:57] SPEAKER_00: I'm asking a different question.
[7:00] SPEAKER_00: Did you choose it?
[7:02] SPEAKER_00: Or did you simply inherit the expectation?
[7:14] SPEAKER_00: Now, before somebody takes this conversation and turns it into, well, Justin said, blame your parents.
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: That's not even close to what I'm trying to say.
[7:26] SPEAKER_00: Most of our parents were doing the best they could with what they fucking had.
[7:36] SPEAKER_00: And here's the part that most don't even think about.
[7:40] SPEAKER_00: They were programmed also.
[7:43] SPEAKER_00: Their parents taught them.
[7:45] SPEAKER_00: Their community shaped them.
[7:47] SPEAKER_00: Their religion influenced them.
[7:49] SPEAKER_00: Their trauma affected them.
[7:51] SPEAKER_00: Their financial circumstances shaped how they viewed money.
[7:56] SPEAKER_00: Their relationships shaped what they believed.
[7:59] SPEAKER_00: Love even looked like.
[8:48] SPEAKER_00: Some of it gave us values that we should carry for the rest of our lives.
[8:54] SPEAKER_00: But some of it may belong somewhere other than in your life.
[9:01] SPEAKER_00: And here's where adulthood comes with responsibility.
[9:06] SPEAKER_00: You can honor your people and the people who raised you without being obligated to carry every belief that they gave you.
[9:15] SPEAKER_00: Separation is the difference.
[9:20] SPEAKER_00: Think about the things people hear growing up.
[9:24] SPEAKER_00: Money changes people.
[9:26] SPEAKER_00: Rich people are greedy.
[9:27] SPEAKER_00: A real man doesn't cry.
[9:30] SPEAKER_00: You need a good job with benefits.
[9:34] SPEAKER_00: Don't question God.
[9:37] SPEAKER_00: What happens in this house stays in this house.
[9:40] SPEAKER_00: People like us don't do that.
[9:43] SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not telling you every one of those statements are automatically wrong.
[9:49] SPEAKER_00: That's not the point I'm making, family.
[9:52] SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you to question why you even fucking believe what you believe.
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: Maybe a real man doesn't cry, helped somebody survive an environment where vulnerability just wasn't safe.
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: But now that same man is 40 years old, loves the fuck out of his family, but doesn't know how to emotionally communicate with people that are closest to him.
[10:21] SPEAKER_00: Maybe that get a good job with benefits came from parents who lived through absolute financial instability.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: That advice may have been completely rational for them.
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: But maybe their child spent 20 years miserable in a career because they were taught that security mattered more than fulfillment.
[10:48] SPEAKER_00: And just maybe somebody was taught never to question their spiritual beliefs because questioning was treated like disobedience.
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: So now they're afraid to ask what they believe or if what they believe is something that they actually chose.
[11:12] SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you what conclusion to come to, family.
[11:16] SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you that you owe yourself the investigation.
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: Because if something is true, questioning it shouldn't scare you.
[11:28] SPEAKER_00: And if a belief completely falls apart the moment you honestly examine it, maybe it wasn't worth having in the first place.
[11:39] SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't actually yours.
[11:47] SPEAKER_00: So here's something practical I want you to do.
[11:53] SPEAKER_00: Call it an identity audit, if you will.
[11:58] SPEAKER_00: Take an area of your life money, religion, relationships, career, parenting, success, masculinity, femininity, whatever it is, and ask yourself these four questions.
[12:12] SPEAKER_00: Number one, what do I believe?
[12:16] SPEAKER_00: Number two, why do I believe this?
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: Number three, where did this belief come from?
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: And number four, if nobody ever taught me this, would I have consciously chose to believe it today?
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: That's where this shit starts, family.
[12:41] SPEAKER_00: That's where it gets real.
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: Strengthen them, live by them, and keep them.
[12:48] SPEAKER_00: But then you may find that some beliefs you were carrying aren't genuinely yours, but their habits, their fears, their expectations, there's somebody else's voice that you heard for so long, you eventually started making it your own.
[13:06] SPEAKER_00: And once you can identify that, now you have a choice.
[13:12] SPEAKER_00: Keep it because you chose it, or let it go because it no longer serves the person you're becoming.
[13:24] SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you a story about myself, but before I can tell you about finding my authentic self, I have to tell you about the moment I realized just how far away from him I really had gotten.
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: So check this out, family.
[13:41] SPEAKER_00: When I worked at a maximum security prison here in Alabama, St.
[13:45] SPEAKER_00: Clair Correctional Facility, I became somebody I didn't even really recognize.
[13:50] SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that to blame the prison, not at all.
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you what happened to me while I was in that environment.
[13:59] SPEAKER_00: The environment was hard, it was cold, it was aggressive.
[14:03] SPEAKER_00: And when you spend enough time in an environment like that, you learn how to survive in it.
[14:08] SPEAKER_00: So I became harder, colder, more aggressive, more guarded, and little by little those things stopped becoming behaviors I used at work and started becoming parts of the man I was outside of work.
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: And the fucked up part about it is I didn't even realize what was happening.
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can spend so much time adapting to an environment that you don't even realize you've allowed the environment to redefine you.
[14:42] SPEAKER_00: Then 2018 happened.
[14:45] SPEAKER_00: My situation happened, and eventually I was forced to resign from the prison.
[14:52] SPEAKER_00: I was facing one of the darkest periods of my life.
[14:55] SPEAKER_00: Everything was changing.
[14:57] SPEAKER_00: Everything that I thought I knew about myself was being challenged.
[15:03] SPEAKER_00: And eventually, I had noh left to run for myself.
[15:13] SPEAKER_00: I remember looking in the mirror one day and realizing I don't recognize the man that's staring back at me.
[15:25] SPEAKER_00: But here's what really fucked me up.
[15:28] SPEAKER_00: Worse than that, I couldn't stand him.
[15:35] SPEAKER_00: And that was the moment that I realized something had to change.
[15:40] SPEAKER_00: Because for the first time, instead of blaming my circumstances, blaming other people, blaming other people for what happened, what happened to me, blaming the environment for who I was, I had to really start examining Justin.
[15:57] SPEAKER_00: And when I started peeling back the layers, I really realized the hypocrisy.
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: And I realized that it went much deeper than I could have ever imagined.
[16:13] SPEAKER_00: The prison didn't create everything I was seeing.
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: Some of those layers had already been building for years on years.
[16:23] SPEAKER_00: So I started going further back.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: All the way into my childhood, and I started recognizing how certain traumatic experiences that I had gone through shaped the way I viewed the world.
[16:39] SPEAKER_00: They influenced how I responded when I felt threatened, how I handled conflict, how I processed emotions, how I treated people, even how I parented.
[16:55] SPEAKER_00: And that's when this journey became much bigger than just changing a few bad habits for me.
[17:02] SPEAKER_00: I had to figure out which parts of Justin were actually Justin, and which parts were armor, which parts were created for survival, which parts were from pain.
[17:15] SPEAKER_00: Which parts came from other people's expectations?
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: Which parts came from environments I had to adapt to.
[17:26] SPEAKER_00: And which parts came from beliefs I had inherited but never really chosen for myself.
[17:33] SPEAKER_00: That's when I began doing now what I understand as shadow work.
[17:40] SPEAKER_00: And that shit wasn't pretty at all, family.
[17:44] SPEAKER_00: Because shadow work isn't standing in the mirror and telling yourself how great you are.
[17:48] SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's looking directly at the parts of yourself you'd rather pretend ain't even fucking there.
[17:54] SPEAKER_00: And it's asking, why you react the way you react?
[18:02] SPEAKER_00: Why certain things trigger you?
[18:05] SPEAKER_00: Why do you keep repeating certain patterns?
[18:08] SPEAKER_00: Why do you hurt the people that you fucking love?
[18:13] SPEAKER_00: Why do you believe the things you actually believe?
[18:17] SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, where the hell did all of it come from?
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: And family, the deeper I went, the more I realized something that changed my entire understanding of the word identity.
[18:39] SPEAKER_00: Throughout my life, I had allowed people, places, pain, environments, expectations, traditions, and circumstances to have a vote in deciding who Justin Watts was supposed to be.
[18:53] SPEAKER_00: Everybody and everything had gotten a vote.
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: Except the one that mattered.
[19:00] SPEAKER_00: Except Justin.
[19:03] SPEAKER_00: So I started tearing myself back layer by layer.
[19:10] SPEAKER_00: Not because everything about the old me was bad.
[19:14] SPEAKER_00: Because it wasn't.
[19:16] SPEAKER_00: There were pieces that were more than worth keeping.
[19:20] SPEAKER_00: But I needed to know why I was keeping them.
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: And everything else.
[19:32] SPEAKER_00: The anger, the unnecessary aggression, the mask, the beliefs that weren't mine, the shit I was carrying simply because I had carried it for so fucking long.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: I had to let it all go.
[19:49] SPEAKER_00: And once I had deconstructed enough of that false identity, something absolutely beautiful happened.
[19:58] SPEAKER_00: I was presented the opportunity to rebuild.
[20:03] SPEAKER_00: But this time, I wasn't rebuilding justin based on who somebody else told me I needed to be.
[21:24] SPEAKER_00: But there's a major difference now.
[21:28] SPEAKER_00: Because I'm no longer allowing the world to make that decision for me.
[21:34] SPEAKER_00: And that role, family, from looking into the mirror and not even liking the man staring back at me, to consistently rebuilding a man that I could finally recognize.
[21:53] SPEAKER_00: That role led me right here to the man you're looking at today.
[21:59] SPEAKER_00: And that's Why I tell you that finding yourself isn't always about becoming somebody new.
[22:06] SPEAKER_00: And I mean that shit.
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to tear away everything you were never supposed to be before you can finally meet the person who was underneath all that bullshit the entire time.
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: And here's an important distinction.
[22:32] SPEAKER_00: When I talk about questioning what you've been taught, I'm not telling you to burn your entire identity to the ground.
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: Remember, family, deconstruction is not destruction.
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: Think about it like taking everything off a shelf.
[22:48] SPEAKER_00: Every belief, every tradition, every expectation, every definition somebody ever handed you.
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: Take all that shit down.
[22:55] SPEAKER_00: Look at it.
[22:56] SPEAKER_00: Examine it.
[22:57] SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself where it even came from.
[22:59] SPEAKER_00: Ask whether it's true for you.
[23:01] SPEAKER_00: Ask whether it still serves the person you're becoming.
[23:06] SPEAKER_00: And then consciously decide what deserves to go back on the shelf.
[23:12] SPEAKER_00: Some of it will go back.
[23:14] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you examine your faith and it becomes stronger because you believe it consciously now instead of simply believing it because you inherited it.
[23:22] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you examine the values your parents gave you and realize they were right about things and you didn't appreciate them when you were younger.
[23:34] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you examine marriage, family, career, or tradition and decide, yes, this genuinely is what I want.
[23:45] SPEAKER_00: And that's beautiful.
[23:48] SPEAKER_00: Because now it's yours.
[23:51] SPEAKER_00: And maybe some other things don't go back up there.
[23:56] SPEAKER_00: That's okay too.
[23:58] SPEAKER_00: Finding yourself doesn't require rejecting everything you were taught.
[24:02] SPEAKER_00: It requires consciously choosing what deserves to remain.
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: It's that simple, family.
[24:09] SPEAKER_00: It's not easy, but it is simple.
[24:12] SPEAKER_00: All right, family, we all know everything worth having comes with a price.
[24:19] SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go ahead and warn you.
[24:23] SPEAKER_00: Everybody talks about being authentic until authenticity starts disappointing people.
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: Because when you start changing, people notice.
[24:34] SPEAKER_00: You may stop wanting things that your friends want.
[24:38] SPEAKER_00: You may start questioning traditions your family considers sacred.
[24:43] SPEAKER_00: Your definition of success may change.
[24:45] SPEAKER_00: Your spiritual beliefs may evolve.
[24:48] SPEAKER_00: You may outgrow environments you once felt comfortable in.
[24:53] SPEAKER_00: And you may decide money isn't the only measurement of success for you.
[24:57] SPEAKER_00: Or you may decide you do want wealth after spending years feeling guilty about wanting it.
[25:04] SPEAKER_00: You may change how you even parent, you may change how you love, you may change how many things or what things you're willing to tolerate.
[25:14] SPEAKER_00: And somebody is eventually going to say, you've changed.
[25:22] SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
[25:23] SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're fucking right.
[25:25] SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes growth feels like betrayal to people who were comfortable with the version of you that never changed anything or never challenged anything.
[25:39] SPEAKER_00: But let me balance that too.
[25:41] SPEAKER_00: Everybody who disagrees with your evolution isn't toxic.
[25:45] SPEAKER_00: Everybody who questions your choices isn't your enemy.
[25:49] SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people genuinely love you and simply don't understand where you're going.
[25:55] SPEAKER_00: Authenticity doesn't mean becoming arrogant.
[26:01] SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean believing every new thought you have is enlightened and everybody else is just asleep.
[26:09] SPEAKER_00: It means accepting responsibility for consciously choosing the life you're going to live and being proud of it.
[26:22] SPEAKER_00: Hi, family.
[26:23] SPEAKER_00: Here's another aspect of this entire audit that a lot of you may be uncomfortable with.
[26:33] SPEAKER_00: Even when we decide we want to figure out who we really are, most of us never get quiet enough to hear ourselves.
[26:44] SPEAKER_00: We're constantly consuming social media, podcast, YouTube, news, music, friends, family, opinions, notifications.
[26:53] SPEAKER_00: Everybody is telling you what to think, what to buy, what to believe, who to vote for, what success looks like, what your body should look like, where you should travel, what you should drive, how much money you should have.
[27:07] SPEAKER_00: It's all fucking noise.
[27:10] SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the reason you can't hear your own voice is because everybody else's voice has been playing in your head your entire fucking life.
[27:24] SPEAKER_00: That's why solitude can be uncomfortable.
[27:28] SPEAKER_00: That's why sitting with yourself can feel strange.
[27:32] SPEAKER_00: Because once everything else gets quiet, family, eventually you start hearing the questions you've been avoiding.
[27:43] SPEAKER_00: Do I actually like the life I'm living?
[27:48] SPEAKER_00: Do I believe what I say I believe?
[27:53] SPEAKER_00: Am I happy?
[27:56] SPEAKER_00: Or am I just simply functioning?
[28:01] SPEAKER_00: If nobody was watching, would you still want this?
[28:06] SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
[28:08] SPEAKER_00: Who am I trying to impress?
[28:10] SPEAKER_00: What am I afraid will happen if I become who I actually want to become?
[28:18] SPEAKER_00: Those are the questions that change your life, family.
[28:23] SPEAKER_00: Because purpose comes after alignment.
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to know what their purpose is.
[28:31] SPEAKER_00: Justin, how do I find my purpose?
[28:36] SPEAKER_00: But I've started looking at this question differently, family.
[28:40] SPEAKER_00: How the hell are you supposed to discover what you were put here to do when you haven't yet figured out which parts of your identity actually belongs to you?
[28:54] SPEAKER_00: Maybe finding purpose doesn't begin with asking, what should I do?
[29:01] SPEAKER_00: Maybe it begins with asking, who am I when I remove everything I'm pretending to be?
[29:11] SPEAKER_00: That's exactly why I believe there's a process.
[29:13] SPEAKER_00: First, you deconstruct, you examine what you've inherited.
[29:18] SPEAKER_00: Then you discover.
[29:20] SPEAKER_00: You start learning what actually resonates with you.
[29:24] SPEAKER_00: Then, family, you align.
[29:27] SPEAKER_00: The decisions, your decisions, start matching the person you've discovered.
[29:34] SPEAKER_00: And then you build.
[29:37] SPEAKER_00: Deconstruct, discover, align, build.
[29:42] SPEAKER_00: Because purpose without alignment eventually becomes performance.
[29:52] SPEAKER_00: You can build the business, make the money, get the title, buy the house, get the followers, and still feel empty because none of it's connected to who you are or authentic.
[30:08] SPEAKER_00: Purpose isn't just what you do, it's what you build, who you are, and how you live, finally moving all in the same direction.
[30:26] SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe that's the biggest thing I've learned throughout my own journey.
[30:35] SPEAKER_00: When we spend so much time talking about becoming the best version of ourselves or a better version of ourselves, becoming successful, becoming wealthy, becoming healed, becoming spiritual, becoming disciplined, becoming somebody.
[30:51] SPEAKER_00: But what if part of the journey isn't about adding more?
[30:57] SPEAKER_00: But instead is about removing.
[31:03] SPEAKER_00: Removing expectations that aren't really yours.
[31:08] SPEAKER_00: Removing shame you were never meant to carry, but taught to.
[31:14] SPEAKER_00: Removing definitions of success you never chose.
[31:20] SPEAKER_00: Removing identities you built simply just to survive.
[31:25] SPEAKER_00: Until eventually there's less bullshit between you and you, family.
[31:33] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't need to invent your authentic self.
[31:38] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just need to uncover.
[31:44] SPEAKER_00: Here's today's quiet leverage.
[31:46] SPEAKER_00: Not everything you believe belongs to you.
[31:49] SPEAKER_00: Some beliefs were inherited, some were taught, some protected you, some limited you.
[31:58] SPEAKER_00: Some are absolutely worth keeping.
[32:01] SPEAKER_00: And some need to be left in the fucking past.
[32:07] SPEAKER_00: Your responsibility as an adult is to figure out which is which.
[32:11] SPEAKER_00: Because your purpose can't fully belong to you if the person pursuing it still is built entirely from everybody else's expectations.
[32:24] SPEAKER_00: So question, examine, unlearn, relearn, keep what's real, let go of what ain't.
[32:31] SPEAKER_00: Your job isn't necessarily to become somebody new, family.
[32:36] SPEAKER_00: Your job may be to remove enough of the bullshit that wasn't you.
[32:45] SPEAKER_00: So you could finally recognize who was underneath the entire time.
[32:53] SPEAKER_00: So here's what I wanted to do after my episode, family.
[32:59] SPEAKER_00: Pick one belief.
[33:01] SPEAKER_00: Please don't try to deconstruct your entire damn life tonight.
[33:05] SPEAKER_00: Just pick one.
[33:06] SPEAKER_00: Maybe money, success, maybe it's relationships, maybe it's faith, maybe it's parenting.
[33:14] SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's what you believe about yourself.
[33:17] SPEAKER_00: And I want you to run the identity audit.
[33:21] SPEAKER_00: What do I believe?
[33:22] SPEAKER_00: Why do I believe it?
[33:25] SPEAKER_00: Where did this come from?
[33:28] SPEAKER_00: And if nobody had ever taught me this, would I have chosen it today on my own?
[33:35] SPEAKER_00: Don't force an answer, family.
[33:38] SPEAKER_00: Just be willing to ask the question.
[33:42] SPEAKER_00: Because the moment you become willing to question who you were told to be, maybe the moment you start finally discovering who you actually are.
[33:55] SPEAKER_00: Now, if this episode was uncomfortable for you, good.
[34:01] SPEAKER_00: Not because I need you to agree with me, but because I need you to think for yourself.
[34:09] SPEAKER_00: That's the whole fucking point, right?
[34:13] SPEAKER_00: Alright, family.
[34:15] SPEAKER_00: If you got something out of this episode, don't let it stop you.
[34:21] SPEAKER_00: Share it with somebody who needs to hear it, please.
[34:25] SPEAKER_00: Because knowledge doesn't become leveraged until you know what to do with it.
[34:32] SPEAKER_00: Take what you learned today, apply it, use it to build something greater for yourself, for your family, and for the people coming behind you.
[34:43] SPEAKER_00: I'm Justin Watts Family.
[34:45] SPEAKER_00: And remember, what you've been through may be a part of your story, but it doesn't have to decide how your story ends.
[34:54] SPEAKER_00: This is the Justin Watts show.
[34:57] SPEAKER_00: Learn what nobody taught you, use what you know, and build what they can't take from you.
[35:03] SPEAKER_00: We'll catch you on the next one.

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