The Jim Fortin Podcast

In the fourth installment of his Exit the Lie series, Jim Fortin takes on one of the most common beliefs people live by: their feelings. Emotions can influence our decisions, but that doesn’t mean they are always true. Jim explains that sometimes your feelings are more like circumstantial evidence instead of facts. He admits that they are valid, but somewhere along the way, validity became equated with accuracy. That one mix-up lets old feelings make decisions, shape self-worth, and quietly build an identity around stories that were never true.

Jim walks through how feelings are made, starting with a trigger from your past. Something as simple as a partner’s look, a silent dinner, or an envelope from the IRS can start the process. He explains that the mind reaches into the past to legitimize the feeling. He shares stories about childhood dread of the principal’s office, constantly thinking that he was in trouble, and his years of dealing with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. Each experience influenced how he approached new experiences later in life. Throughout the episode, Jim references a metaphor about a storm and the sky. He explains that the sky doesn’t take orders from the storm, just as your soul shouldn’t abide by your feelings.

Listeners will learn how to feel an emotion fully without obeying it and how to start making choices from awareness instead.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

(04:50) Valid is not accurate: Jim explains why feelings deserve to be acknowledged but rarely deserve to be believed without question.

(09:21) Jim shows how a tone, a silence, or a glance triggers old history, and how a call to the principal’s office taught him to assume he’d done something wrong.

(13:56) Jim reveals how the mind collects evidence to justify a feeling until it hardens into an identity like “I’m not good enough.”

(18:15) The sky and the storm: Jim asks who or what is noticing your feelings, and explains why that observer is your soul.

(22:54) Jim describes when feelings can protect you, and how he digs beneath them before acting.

(27:00) Two simple practices: Jim offers a phrase to say out loud and one question to ask in the body that help step outside the story.

Listen, apply, and enjoy!

Transformational Takeaway

A feeling can be completely real and still be wrong about you. The tightness in your chest when the bill arrives, the sting of a partner’s silence, the old voice that says you’re not enough: each one is a storm passing through, often stirred up by something that happened decades ago. You don’t have to fight it or fix it. You only have to stop taking orders from it. The next time a strong feeling shows up, ask yourself whether it’s accurate, then notice who is asking. That noticer is the sky, and the sky has never been harmed by a storm.

Let’s Connect:

Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

LIKED THE EPISODE?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. If you have found value, they will too. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts so we can reach more people.

Listening on Spotify? Please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

With gratitude, Jim

This is an episode that I’m truly passionate about. The fact that the mainstream world is indoctrinated into mediocre and powerless thinking has long bothered me. The mainstream world keeps people unhappy, broke, overweight, lonely, and sick. Many people find this statement shocking, and they are most likely blind to what’s really happening in the world and to what is being done to them.

Want a much better life? Learn to see outside all you have been mentally “fed” in your life.

Transformational Takeaway
Be in this world, but not of this world.

Mentioned Resources
EPISODE 8: Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind For Health, Wealth And Happiness

Let’s Connect:

⁠Instagram⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠Facebook⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠

LIKED THE EPISODE?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. If you have found value, they will too. Please leave a review on⁠ ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ so we can reach more people.

Listening on⁠ ⁠⁠Spotify⁠? Please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

With gratitude,

Jim

Your personality is unique, but what if I told you it wasn’t unintentional? The third installment of Jim Fortin’s series on exiting the human lie answers that exact question. In this episode, Jim takes on one of the most widely accepted beliefs about personality to prove that much of who we become isn’t up to us. He explains that everything around us, including family, culture, and society, molds and shapes our personalities.

As Jim puts it, the person you call “me” was built by strangers. Even more compelling, he argues that a great deal of who you are today is simply what you have learned to be. He uses regional accents as an example, explaining that how we speak is directly linked to where we are in the world, just like the way we behave.

There’s also the idea of the "old recording,” which Jim says comes from decades of inner training and how it comes into play when we judge ourselves. He shares the first-grade moment a teacher told him he was “just not good at math,” a label he carried until a sophomore geometry class proved otherwise. In this example, he shows why the inner critic is usually someone else’s voice and why decades of conditioning can’t fix present-day problems.

Jim invites listeners to question their identity on a deeper level. He leaves them with a simple prompt asking them to get curious about who they are beneath the surface, beyond the conditioning, and under the layers of brainwashing, to meet who they really are.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

(02:49) Jim explains how the personality people call “me” was put together by others, many of whom are no longer alive.

(09:10) The generational chain: Jim shows how beliefs about money, guilt, and scarcity get passed from great-grandmother to child, long after the original circumstances are gone.

(15:30) Jim recalls the first-grade comment that shaped his identity for a decade, and what finally broke it.

(23:13) Jim explains why people have only ever met their programming, and how mystics, shamans, and the Toltecs each named this false self.

(27:12) Why the conditioning that created a problem can’t be used to escape it, and why the instructions are always on the outside of the box.

(31:18) This week’s homework: Jim offers a simple practice. Every time the thought “I’m the kind of person who…” shows up, stop and ask, “Who taught me this?”

Listen, apply, and enjoy!

Transformational Takeaway

Every “that’s just how I am” was handed over by someone else. The anxiety about money, the voice that says you’re not enough, the belief that life is hard: none of it started with you. You picked it up as a child the same way you picked up your accent, without knowing it was happening. That means it can be put down. The next time a limitation sounds like a fact about you, pause and ask who taught it to you. The one asking that question, the one who can see the programming, is the self you have never met.

Let’s Connect:

Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

LIKED THE EPISODE?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. If you have found value, they will too. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts so we can reach more people.

Listening on Spotify? Please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

With gratitude,

Jim

Are You A Turkey, Otter, Badger, Skunk, or Something Else? In all my time doing the podcast I’m surprised that I’ve never talked in depth about “Animal Medicine.” So, here you go. I was introduced to “Animal Medicine” two decades ago and I have consistently used it over the years for healing and guidance. Many of the students in my transformational program initially had not heard of it and when they start using it they become surprised at the true guidance it can help us within life.

In this episode, I talk about how to use Animal Medicine and I share the various engagements I have had over the years and what that has done for me. Almost all of us humans have heard, “We’re all connected” and for most of us, it’s hard to get our mind around that. Let’s go further and it’s not just us people that are connected, all consciousness on the planet is - and that includes the animals.

Animals can be incredible guides as they each have different abilities than humans and they are amazing at providing life wisdom/guidance if you just observe and learn from them. I mean, heck, your dog alone, if you have a dog. What could you learn from your dog? Specifically, most of us look at the fact that our dogs are absolutely happy all the time, even when they don’t feel well they most often wag their tails.

There is so much to learn from life and in particular the animals and I dig into it in this episode. I talk about the meanings of certain animals that cross your paths and I talk about your lifetime animal totem and that’s what I mean in the headline, “What kind of animal are you?”

Transformational Takeaway
Let the animals in your life be your guide to higher wisdom, knowledge, and guidance.

Mentioned Resources
Medicine Cards

Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you make a purchase.

Let’s Connect:

⁠Instagram⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠Facebook⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠ |⁠ ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠

LIKED THE EPISODE?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. If you have found value, they will too. Please leave a review on⁠ ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ so we can reach more people.

Listening on⁠ ⁠⁠Spotify⁠? Please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

With gratitude,

Jim

Most people believe they are the sole architects of their decisions. But in truth, many factors influence our choices. Whether it’s career-related or a new relationship, outside elements have a tendency to sway our thinking. In this episode, Jim breaks down a belief he calls the brainwashed script. He explains that most people follow pre-programmed prompts without even realizing it. Even when a decision feels spontaneous, he says it can be traced to early childhood moments. Using an early ‘90s children’s Tylenol commercial as an example, he explains that we are often persuaded to do something based on an idea planted in the subconscious mind. In these situations, analytical thinking goes out the window, and a decision is made solely based upon the seed planted.

Jim also draws on his work as a former professional hypnotist. He notes that this tactic isn't just common in marketing. The Tylenol commercial is a prime example that shows how people react on autopilot, allowing the brain to invent a story afterward to justify their choice. He compares it to an invisible boundary that keeps the mind gated and limits what a person believes is possible. He also gets into the primary drivers of our decisions, sharing that most people rely on three main elements when choices arise, before explaining why restricting yourself and your thoughts may be the biggest lie of all.

If you’ve wanted more in life but keep repeating the same patterns, this episode shows you where the invisible fence came from and how to start stepping past it.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

(4:15) The liver and onions test: Jim uses a simple lunch scenario to show how people respond in a nanosecond with no conscious thought behind the choice.

(7:15) Jim explains how parents, culture, and society record a psychological track that most people replay for decades without knowing it.

(11:49) Jim shares research from the Max Planck Institute showing that the brain chose up to seven seconds before participants believed they were consciously choosing.

(17:10) The invisible electric collar: Using his own dogs and property line, Jim describes how learned limitations act as invisible boundaries that keep people from going further in life.

(20:22) Jim breaks down a short Tylenol commercial to show how marketers plant suggestions that bypass the critical, analytical mind.

(23:57) The three drivers behind 99% of choices: Jim explains how fear, comfort, and repeated neural pathways make most decisions for us, and why the ego fights to keep that hidden.

Listen, apply, and enjoy!

Transformational Takeaway

Every limitation you think you have was learned, and what was learned can be unlearned. The fence feels real only because no one ever told you it was invisible. Start noticing the moments when you react before you think, and ask who installed that choice. That simple question is where reclaiming your power begins.

Let’s Connect:

Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

LIKED THE EPISODE?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. If you have found value, they will too. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts so we can reach more people.

Listening on Spotify? Please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

With gratitude,

Jim