What if the life you’re chasing was never actually yours?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Zac Palmer breaks down how most people get trapped in someone else’s script, then spend years wondering why success still feels empty, heavy, or off. This conversation goes way deeper than business. It gets into identity, fear, pressure, parenting, money, and the hard truth that if you do not define your own life, the world will do it for you.

Zac Palmer is a sales and persuasion strategist with more than $150 million in personal sales, a former top coach and speaker inside the Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi world, and someone who built his life the hard way. At 19, he took over a family business doing around $300,000 a year while carrying roughly $800,000 in debt. He had no formal business training, no real roadmap, and no option to fail.

What broke the old belief system was not just business pressure, it was the realization that grit alone is not enough. He had to confront scarcity, ego, inherited patterns, and the identity of a man who wore burnout like a badge of honor. Over time, he stopped chasing the version of success he had been handed and started building one that actually felt aligned.

A few turning points in this conversation:

Taking a terrifying $10,000 bet on himself to attend Business Mastery
Realizing he was obsessed with the “how” before getting clear on what he actually wanted
Walking away from working with his heroes to build life on his own terms
Reframing success around family, freedom, presence, and intention, not just achievement

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

Why living unconsciously usually means living inside someone else’s narrative
How Zac rebuilt his mindset after years of stress, debt, and survival mode
The real reason people stay stuck in patterns they say they want to escape
Why “the tyranny of how” keeps ambitious people frozen
How to get clear on what you actually want in business, relationships, health, and life
What changes when you stop chasing success and start defining it for yourself

Guest: Zac Palmer

👉 Connect with Zac here:
🔗 Facebook: Zac Palmer
🔗 Instagram → @thezacpalmer
🔗 Website → thezacpalmer.com

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

#BrainwashedToBeBroke #ZacPalmer #Entrepreneurship #YouTubeGrowth #Freedom #Mindset #podcast #podcastinterview

What if the life you’re living isn’t even yours?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Erik Sorenson breaks down how childhood beliefs, school, religion, and social conditioning quietly shape the way we think about money, success, freedom, and who we’re allowed to become.

Erik is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, pilot, and founder whose companies have generated nearly $100 million in revenue. But behind that success was a very different story, chasing significance, building fast, staying trapped in old beliefs, and nearly losing everything in the process.

This conversation gets into the real conflict, not just business vs job, but identity vs conditioning. Erik shares how he grew up believing adults always told the truth, money was suspicious, and success meant staying inside the script. Then life forced him to confront what those beliefs were actually costing him.

A few turning points changed everything:
he realized the beliefs driving his life were installed by other people,
he built millions in revenue but kept repeating the same money ceiling,
he hit a dark season after hustle damaged his family and identity,
and one quote pushed him to finally rewrite the story.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

how beliefs formed in childhood silently shape your money decisions as an adult
why some entrepreneurs make more but never feel free
the hidden cost of chasing significance instead of alignment
how to tell if a belief is empowering you or keeping you small
why comfort can become the prison that steals your real life

Guest: Erik Sorenson

🔗 Facebook: Erik Sorenson
📘 Book: Commit First

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

What if the thing you were taught would keep you safe is the exact thing keeping you trapped?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Preston Anderson shares the parts most people hide, the money anxiety, the false promise of security, going broke more than once, and the moment he realized the job was costing him far more than a paycheck.

Preston is a CPA, tax strategist, and founder of Anderson Tax. But this conversation goes way deeper than taxes. He opens up about being raised between two completely opposite money worldviews, chasing the “safe” path for years, then walking away from a toxic job with a mortgage, a young family, and no clear backup plan. Weirdly, the moment he quit, the anxiety disappeared.

Then life got harder. His son was born with congenital heart defects, everything got put into perspective, and Preston was forced to rethink success, money, service, and what actually matters. What came out of that pain was a different way of living, building, and helping people.

A few moments that really hit:

He quit with no income, but felt more peace than when he had a paycheck
He realized “partner” was never coming, it was just a carrot
He went broke multiple times, but kept investing in himself anyway
His darkest season became the reason he now lives to be a light for others

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

Why a “secure” job can quietly destroy your peace
How childhood money programming shapes your adult decisions
Why compound growth applies to business, investing, and personal healing
The difference between selling to people and serving the right people
How pain can become purpose, if you let it grow you instead of break you

Guest: Preston Anderson

👉 Connect with Preston here:
🔗 Facebook: Preston Anderson

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

What if the “starving artist” story was never true, just repeated so often it started to feel like fact?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, I sit down with Alyssa Aviles, designer, funnel strategist, Canva and ClickFunnels ambassador, to unpack the beliefs that shaped her early life and the moments that forced her to rewrite them. She grew up loving art, got told that creativity would leave her broke, rejected, and overworked, then watched that script start playing out in real life.

She was denied from the graphic design program she wanted. Took a full-time design job for $35K with no benefits. Got piled with multiple roles, burned out hard, and hit the point where staying “safe” was costing too much.

Then things shifted.

What started as photography for fun turned into paid work. A failed freelancing season taught her what talent alone can’t fix. A mentor changed her trajectory. And the same creative path she was warned against eventually led her to working with major entrepreneurs, building funnels, leading creative strategy, and redefining what freedom actually looks like.

This conversation is really about more than design.

It is about the programming that tells creative people they have to choose between meaning and money. It is about identity, burnout, self-worth, trust, reinvention, and the courage to test what’s true for yourself instead of living by someone else’s fear.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

how the “starving artist” belief quietly shapes money decisions
why being overworked can feel normal when you were trained to settle
what changed when Alyssa left a safe job with no clear path forward
why messaging matters more than pretty design when funnels stop converting
how creatives can stay human and valuable in an AI-driven world

Guest: Alyssa Aviles

👉 Connect with Lyss here:
🔗 Facebook: Alyssa Aviles 
🔗 Instagram: @thelovelylyss
🔗 Website: thelovelylyss.com

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

He didn’t grow up with shortcuts, connections, or a map. He grew up with the same script most people are handed, work hard, stay safe, follow the path, and hope it pays off.

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Taylor O’Hare breaks down the belief that kept him stuck for years, “I’m not enough.” We talk about growing up on a council estate in the UK, chasing success through sales, unlearning hustle-based money beliefs, and realizing the biggest battle was never just financial, it was mental, emotional, and spiritual.

This conversation goes deeper than business. It gets into identity, self-worth, faith, relationships, and the hidden programming that teaches people to confuse hard work with freedom. Taylor shares what shifted when he stopped blaming his upbringing, stopped treating money like something outside of him, and started taking real responsibility for the way he thought.

A few turning points that stood out:

• Realizing the 9 to 5 path wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t his path
• Unlearning the belief that the hardest worker always wins
• Seeing how much of entrepreneurship can be driven by insecurity
• Finding peace and direction through faith, truth, and a supportive marriage

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

• Why “I’m not enough” can quietly sabotage your income and decisions
• The difference between chasing money and becoming someone who can receive it
• Why the right environment matters more than raw motivation
• How sales, self-worth, and identity are deeply connected
• What Taylor believes matters more than business success
  

Guest: Taylor O’Hare

👉 Connect with Taylor here:
🔗 Facebook: Taylor O’Hare
🔗 YouTube: Taylor O’Hare

🔔 For everyone who is listening:
If this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember:
You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

Most people are taught the same script: get a “secure” job, play it safe, and trade freedom for stability.

Kevin Weis grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, surrounded by tradition and expectation. From near-death horse accidents as a kid to feeling like the black sheep in his own family, Kevin always sensed he was meant for something different.

But his path wasn’t smooth. From financial coaching that never felt aligned, to building a fitness studio that got crushed by COVID, to finally discovering his calling, Kevin’s story is a raw look at what it really takes to step out of the script and build life on your own terms.

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, we go deep on:

• Why “job security” is often the biggest risk of all
• The mindset shift that helped Kevin break free from limitation
• The painful lessons he learned running a fitness business during COVID
• How faith, family, and failure shaped the business he runs today
• The Contrarian Way: building with peace, not pressure

If you’ve ever felt like the outsider in your family, or questioned the path everyone else is following, Kevin’s story will remind you that you’re not alone, and that there’s always another way.

👉 Find Kevin here:
🔗 Facebook: Kevin Weis
🔗 Website: www.thecontrarianstrategy.com

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

Most people were never taught how money actually works. They were trained to chase it, fear it, worship it, or lose themselves trying to prove something.

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Joe Moffett breaks down how growing up around scarcity, instability, and survival programming shaped the way he saw money, success, and identity, and what it took to break that pattern for good.

Joe is a performance coach, real estate investor, CEO of Master Life by Design, and former Tony Robbins coach with over 40,000 coaching calls under his belt. But this conversation is bigger than business. It’s about what happens when a man stops measuring success by ego, status, or income, and starts rebuilding his life from the inside out.

We get into the real conflict a lot of entrepreneurs face, trying to create wealth while quietly destroying their health, relationships, peace, or purpose. Joe shares how his beliefs about money were formed, how he rewired them, and why financial freedom is not the finish line, it’s the starting point.

We also go into the moments that changed everything, from growing up in survival mode, to joining the Marines, to discovering personal development, to coaching at the highest level, to realizing money without alignment still leaves you empty.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

How scarcity gets programmed into you long before you ever earn your first dollar
Why being good at managing money is not the same as being able to create or multiply it
The hidden reason entrepreneurs can win financially and still lose where it matters most
How to shift your environment, identity, and beliefs when you were raised around lack
Why true financial freedom starts when money stops being the center of your life

Guest: Joe Moffett

👉 Connect with Joe here:
🔗 Facebook → Joe Moffette
🔗 Instagram → @thejoemoffett

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

#BrainwashedToBeBroke #Entrepreneurship #YouTubeGrowth #Freedom #Mindset #JoeMoffett #MindsetShift #FinancialFreedom #FaithAndSuccess #AbundanceMindset

Most people don’t realize their whole life is being run by old beliefs they never chose.

In this powerful interview, Melanie Shiell shares how she went from law enforcement and the courtroom system… to helping people break through subconscious programming, generational cycles, and self-sabotaging beliefs.

Her story is raw, real, and deeply human. She opens up about:

• The belief that kept her stuck in a struggle for years
• Why corporate life crushed her creativity and purpose
• How she discovered the power of personal development (by accident)
• The patterns she saw in the justice system that broke her heart
• How shifting beliefs can change your identity, your future, and even your kids’ lives

If you’ve ever felt trapped by “the script” you were handed, this conversation will remind you that you can rewrite it.

👉 Connect with Melanie here:

🔗 Facebook group: “Beyond Brave” (for women facing self-doubt + imposter syndrome)
🔗 Facebook profile: Melanie Shiell
🔗 Instagram: melanieshiell

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

What if everything you were taught about “success” was a setup to keep you small?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, I sit down with Brianna Thaxton, a powerhouse entrepreneur, business strategist, and single mom of five who turned pain into purpose.

From surviving a toxic marriage and selling her house to investing over $150,000 into mentorship and growth, Brianna shows what it really takes to rewrite your story.

She went from barely surviving to closing $30K deals and co-authoring a book with Les Brown, all while building a business that changes lives.
Her story is raw, faith-driven, and brutally honest.

You’ll learn:

• The beliefs about money that keep most people broke
  
• How to rebuild your self-worth after being broken down
  
• Why school and culture condition you to stay small
  
• The mindset shift that turns fear into fuel
  
• The real reason investing in yourself changes everything
  
• If you’ve ever felt trapped by circumstance, stuck in the system, or afraid to take the leap—this episode will light you up.
  

👉 Connect with Brianna here:
🔗 Facebook → Brianna Thaxton Official
🔗 Website → briannathaxton.com

🔔 For everyone who is listening, if this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

#BrainwashedToBeBroke #Entrepreneurship #YouTubeGrowth #Freedom #Mindset

What if the life you were taught to chase was never designed to make you free?

In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, Damon Burton breaks down how he went from a chaotic childhood, financial instability, and survival mode into building a multi-million dollar SEO company that serves major entrepreneurs, brands, and even Tony Robbins, all without relying on ads.

Damon didn’t grow up with money, mentors, or an entrepreneurial blueprint. He grew up trying to avoid repeating the patterns he saw at home. That turned into an obsession with stability, ownership, and building a different future. What changed everything was realizing that most people are following scripts they never chose, about money, school, work, risk, and what success is supposed to look like.

This conversation digs into the real conflict behind entrepreneurship, not tactics first, but identity. The pull between safety and freedom. The gap between what the system trains you to believe and what reality actually rewards.

A few turning points that moved this story:

His full-time job got raided and shut down, forcing a real decision
He bet on himself, lost 60% of his income, and earned it back in months
He taught himself SEO by taking risks other people avoided
He realized confidence has limits until someone shows you a level you didn’t know existed

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

Why school teaches compliance better than financial freedom
How Damon turned survival instincts into business leverage
The exact mindset behind taking calculated risk when the “safe path” collapses
Why reputation and trust beat funnels and paid ads for high-level clients
How SEO, authority, and AI actually fit together moving forward

Guest: Damon Burton

Get his free book: https://damonburton.com

🔔 For everyone who is listening If this stirred something in you, don’t ignore it. Share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and remember: You weren’t born to follow the script. You were born to be free!

#BrainwashedToBeBroke #DamonBurton #entrepreneurship #youtubegrowth #freedom #mindsets