You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast, soon to be renamed Brainwashed: Exit the Human Lie with Jim Fortin. This episode is titled The Illusion of Choice: Exit the Lie. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the lie that you are the author of your own choices. Now, you may think that you literally are the author and you make all of your own choices, but neuroresearch shows that you don’t. And in this episode, I’m going to show you how you live from your pre-programmed brainwashed scripts that you learned many years ago, but you don’t even know it. When we live like this from the brainwashing from the past scripts, we literally are nothing more than robots. Well, maybe a little more than robots, but we live like robots. And we are trapped in our circumstances and we have no power. So to start reclaiming your spiritual power and your spiritual sovereignty, keep listening.
Hi, I’m Jim Fortin, and you’re about to start transforming your life from the inside out with this podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation and I’ve coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here you’re going to find no rah rah motivation and no hype because this podcast is a combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you because you’re going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want then becomes possible for you. I’m glad you’re here.
You think that you make all of your own choices and you may think that you have free will. Now, of course, you do have free will. I’ll talk about that in a little bit. However, research has demonstrated, which I will also talk about in just a bit, you don’t make your own choices even if you think that you do. What we do is we literally, we don’t make in the moment, in the now conscious choices. Most of us, when I say most of us, I mean, 99.99999% of people, what we simply do is we execute pre-programmed scripts based upon our early life conditioning. And this is partly what I call brainwashing. Then what we do, what your brain does is it invents a story afterward to make you feel good about the choice that you make.
Now, as I said earlier, I’m not just sitting here just jabbering at you. There is very clear, very credible research that demonstrates what I’m telling you. But the good thing is for you, the bad thing for most people is they don’t know this. But the good thing for you is that once you know this, you can start to create and you can start gaining clarity in your life. And again, start reclaiming your power. We think that we choose our career, our partners, and even what we had for breakfast this morning. But the truth is, you really didn’t. A lot of that was chosen for you when you were a small child.
When I used to teach subconscious influence, persuasion and influence, there’s a story that I would tell to my audiences. I’ve told it here, but I’ll tell it again. Because again, I have like 500 episodes here. You may have missed that episode. You may have heard the story in a different context. But when I explain it now, it’ll make perfect sense to you as to how you do not make your everyday conscious choices, even though you can sit here right now, you can be in the car driving, you can be at the gym, and right now you think, Jim, no, I make my choices. I’m going to share with you right now how you don’t.
Let’s say that it is lunchtime, wherever you are in the world right now, and you’re coming over to my house for lunch. And by the way, I wouldn’t serve this for lunch, but I’m giving you an example. Let’s say you’re coming over to my house for lunch and you don’t know what we’re going to have. And what I do is I put down a juicy plate of liver and onions in front of you right now. Now, notice this. Notice you’ve already had a nanosecond response to what I just said. When I said I’m going to put a juicy plate for lunch of liver and onions right in front of you, you already had, boom, a nanosecond response. And that response was probably one of three. And those responses would be, okay, that sounds really good. I like liver and onions. Another response would be, I don’t really know about that. I haven’t had it before. It doesn’t sound very good or does sound good to me. And probably the predominant response would be, which would be my response, hell no, I am not eating liver and onions for lunch.
Now, notice this. You didn’t sit there and say, hmm, okay, now whatever day it is when you’re listening to this, let’s say that it’s Thursday. You didn’t say, you know, it is Thursday. The month is October. I decided, you know, this morning when I woke up, I’m going to try new things. I’ve never really had liver and onions. And yeah, I think I might have liver and onions today. We don’t do that. Let’s go back here to how I explained it. Notice what you do. The second I tell you we’re going to have liver and onions for lunch, you nanosecond automatically decide, I do not like, I like, or I’m not sure. There was no thought behind that, meaning there was no postulation, no thought, no speculation, no searching your memory for the most part. You simply nanosecond auto-respond.
Well, we do that with everything in life. Listen to me, please. We do that with everything in life and it’s completely subconscious, but yet it’s brainwashing that we had as children. What I tell people is, that most of us, I did for decades, most of us, what we simply do metaphorically is we just pushed the play button on an auditory or life memory track that someone else created for us decades ago. This is why, for the most part, if your parents were Republicans in the U.S., then there’s a good chance you are a Republican, statistically speaking, or if your parents were Democrats or Independents or Christians or Jewish or poor or whatever, you have a huge propensity to be that as well. Why? Because you were indoctrinated slash brainwashed to be that.
Now, right now in your life today, why does this matter? This is not an analytical exercise we’re talking about today. Look at your life right now today. The fact that you’re here means that you want more in life. The truth is, you have a bazillion podcasts to listen to, what, millions of them out there. Now, the reason you’re listening to this one for the most part is because you may resonate with me in some way, but you want something in your life. And the fact that you do not yet have it means that you do not yet know how to create it where other people have created it. Maybe it’s money. This was my predicament for many years is I wanted money, but I didn’t know how to create it. Even though I analytically knew, yes, work, job, value, this or that, I still had a challenge and I kept sabotaging myself.
So you listening right now, you want something more in life or you would not be listening. But the truth is, you do not know how to create whatever it is that you want as more. Why? Because of the brainwashing, which is invisible, which stands in your way and blocks you like an invisible ceiling right now. Plain and short, your life is basically a psychological track that someone else or a society created for you decades ago. And your track, your individual track, imagine it’s playing a song. I don’t know what that song would be. Is that song about money or not having money? Is it about hate or is it about love? Is it about poverty? Is it about abundance and wealth? Is it about health or is it about sickness? Is it about rules and authority? Is it about what life is, what it’s not, what religion is, what regulation is, what it’s not? You run a track in your head and your brain. It’s both psychological and brain-based. You run a track in your head. It was early life, social, cultural brainwashing. And you learned this track, as I said many years ago. And you still live this very same track today. You became your life today, wherever you are in the world. Your life today, you could think, okay, I’m living in the now. My life is, I’m present today. But your present today, whatever that presence is, was created back in your childhood.
So ponder everything that I just said. You were brainwashed as a child. And you were brainwashed into the current identity, into the current fears, current limitations, and completely the current thoughts that you have right now. You were brainwashed into this, again, many decades ago. And to create the life that you want, the health, wealth, love, abundance, whatever it is, there’s no other way to attract all this to create it and to bring it into your life is to exit the lie. And the ultimate lie that we’re taught, and it’s completely invisible, it doesn’t have a frame to it. And the lie that we are taught is, and I was as a kid, and I know we all are, look out in the world, I see it everywhere. I know that I was brainwashed as a kid, and then you were brainwashed as a kid. And then we talk because we are brainwashed by society. So what happens is I confirm your brainwashing, and then you confirm my brainwashing, and then we believe the collective brainwashing. And the biggest lie that we were ever taught is that you are only human. It’s not true. You’re well beyond, you’re far beyond being only human.
Okay, about the, I told you I would demonstrate this to you. Back in 2007, there was some research done at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. The Max Planck Institute is one of the foremost research institutes in the world. Back then, they had 43 Nobel Prize winners contributing research to the institute. What they did was called the Libet Experiment, and it was a neuroscience experiment. And what they did is they put people in an FMRI machine, a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. And what they were doing is watching the blood flow in the brain. And they said, we’re going to ask you, literally, to make a choice that’s going to be either A or B. And what they did, as they gave a person a scenario where the person was required to make a choice, whether it be A or B, what they did is they watched the blood flow in the brain. And what they recognized very quickly, is that the brain had already made the choice a full seven seconds, even while they analytically and psychologically thought they were consciously making the choice, the choice had already been made for them by their brain.
Now, research also showed that you can change your choice about three seconds prior to actually executing your choice, which means you still have free will, but for the most part, you run on autopilot. It’s hard for a lot of people to accept. We’ll talk about that in a moment. You run on autopilot and everything that you have in your life right now, even if you had to air quote, build it and create it, you built it on the autopilot programming that may be air quote, a builder.
The bigger question that I have for you, listen very carefully. I’m going to slow down. The person in the FMRI machine, now they’re all wired up and they’re thinking, okay, I’m going to choose either A or B because that’s what they told me to do. They told me to pick either A or B. But here’s the bigger question. Who installed the choices? The researchers. The researchers are the one that gave them the frame. They gave them the paradigm to choose A or B. So in your life, you’re choosing metaphorically A or B all day long, thinking that you are a conscious, sentient being making the choice, but someone else, society, culture, family, indoctrination, that was installed way before you were even born.
You know, right now in the US, I don’t know when you’ll be listening to this. Right now, we are in the middle of, in my opinion, very gross, very nasty, very disgusting political season here in the U.S. It brings out the worst in most human egos. It brings out the most fundamental and basic of humanity when we look at what people are getting into in terms of how they’re managing the political process. But people identify generally one of three ways or four ways, not political, independent, democratic, or republican here in the U.S. And look at the amount of people. All you’ve got to do is go to Twitter and look at the conditioning, the brainwashing, left versus right. And the middle is kind of like, hey, what are you guys doing? Let’s work together. You’ve got one side saying I hate the other side. You’ve got the other side saying I hate your side. But who installed all this? Think at a deeper, more profound level. Who installed all of these paradigms? Realize this. Culture, survival instincts, trauma life experiences, these are all the things that drew and created the boundaries of what you even consider to be possible for you today.
Let that settle in. I live in Colorado and I have six acres where I live. And when I let my dogs out, I have a fence in the backyard. I had one built. Actually, I probably even mentioned it in recent episodes where they’re out knocking around the landscapers. They’re still here seven weeks later, but I do have my backyard finished, meaning the immediate backyard next to the house with a dog fence, meaning I can let my dogs out. And I don’t have to worry about coyotes. I don’t have to worry about bears. And I don’t have to worry about mountain lions abducting my dogs. Okay. But beyond this fence that I have attached to the house, I have probably 200 yards, 300 yards, probably 200 yards that my yard extends beyond the fence. And it’s my property. Now, my point is, if I let my dogs out of the gate in the backyard, they could literally, no, they wouldn’t do it because they know where they’re fed and they know where they get their bed and they know where it’s comfortable and they know where they get their treats and any dog owner understands that. But if I let them out back outside the gate, they could run what I call, it’s like a meadow. They could run the entire meadow. However, what I’m going to do is I’m also going, when I let them out of the fence at the backyard, I’m going to put electric vibrating collars on them so they know that when they get to the parameters of the property, they cannot leave the property. Listen to what I said. They’re collars, and the collars will vibrate. And when they get to the edge of the property, the collars will vibrate and tell the dog, you know what? The dog will be trained for this. You cannot leave this. Here’s the key. You cannot leave this invisible parameter.
Now, you listening right now, whatever you’re struggling with in life, whatever challenges you have, is because you have invisible parameters. And these invisible parameters, you have learned and the brain has adopted. And you literally live by these invisible parameters today. But because they are air quote invisible, you don’t even know that you were living by invisible parameters. Recognize this. Every single limitation you think you have—notice the operative words, you think—every single limitation you think you have is a lie. And it’s the product of your early life cultural brainwashing.
Now, you might think, you know, Jim, I’m not brainwashed. Well, let me show you how you are. And we can also call it cultural hypnosis. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care where you live. This pertains to you. For many years, and I’ve not done it many years, but for many years, I taught subconscious persuasion and influence to selling professionals. I remember a TV commercial. You could probably find it on YouTube today. It was a Tylenol commercial. And I’ve talked about this in other episodes before, but it was a Tylenol commercial. And this little boy is sitting on a bed. And I’m going to actually take you through this commercial to show you how powerful the brainwashing is, how it is used on you and against you in all areas of your life, and yet you don’t even know it. So you think that when you’re going through your life, you’re making choices based upon your own free will. You are not. You’ve been programmed.
Okay, back to the commercial. Now, this was in the early 90s. Cute little boy, probably four or five years old. He’s sitting on a bed. And behind the bed, you can see a window and you can see rain pattering down on the window. This soft, booming voice comes on. And this voice says, and this little boy on the bed is sniffling and sneezing and you can tell that he’s in pain. And this voice says, moms, cold and flu season is here. When your little one gets sick, you can depend on children’s Tylenol. That’s it. That’s the whole commercial. Moms, cold and flu season is here. When your little one gets sick, you can depend upon children’s Tylenol. Now, they’re calling to their target market, mothers. But notice, notice the next line. Cold and flu season is here.
Now, I don’t know where you are in the world right now. I’m recording this in October of 2026, and I don’t know when you’ll be listening to this. But if you would, please, as soon as we’re done, go to your day planner, go to your Google calendar, whatever you use. And if you would, please look up and tell me when the first day of cold and flu season is. I mean, we have a first day of summer. We have a first day of spring. We have, you know, different holidays and seasons. But if you would, please tell me when the first day of cold and flu season is. I’ll wait for you. Go do it now. And I’m kidding. I’m not waiting for you. I’m going to keep on going. But notice this. Moms, cold and flu season is here. Now, notice what you do not do, mothers. You do not say, well, is it really here? Who said it’s here? Is it a national proclamation? Is it here in the U.S., but not in Great Britain? Oh, okay, I guess it could be here in the U.S., but it’s not in Australia because they’re in a different hemisphere. No, we don’t do any of that. We listen, and this is what we do. Moms, cold and flu season is here. We say, okay, yeah, it’s November. Yes, it is here.
Now, here’s where Tylenol actually takes advantage of you. When your little one gets sick, notice what’s not said. They don’t say if your little one gets sick. It’s already presupposed your little one will get sick. Mom, cold and flu season is here. When your little one gets sick, now, who can you depend upon? Well, you can depend upon children’s Tylenol. Think about that. Now, notice this. When you’re listening to that commercial, you’re just listening, giving it, air quote, no analytical thought. None, none, none. You’re just listening, going, okay, okay, make a mental note, cold and flu season, yep, little one gets sick, children’s Tylenol, check, okay, I’m done.
Now, think about this. A suggestion has been planted in your subconscious mind that you did not analyze. And as a professional, former professional hypnotist, I can tell you by definition that is hypnosis because the definition of hypnosis is bypassing the critical factor of the mind and establishing selective thinking. Well, that’s what the Tylenol commercial did. It bypassed the analytical critical factor of the mind that would have said, is cold and flu season here? Is it not here? Now, marketers do this to you all day long, and yet you don’t even know it. And it’s brainwashing, literally what it is, but it’s what I call consumer brainwashing.
So recognize this, 99% of your choices, and you are in your life right now where you are because of your choices, 99% of your choices are automatically driven by three primitive drivers. Number one, fear. We tend to automatically choose what we think is going to keep us safe, and especially socially safe, from rejection, failure, scrutiny, or uncertainty. One of our primary drivers, the second one, is also comfort. We will choose things that require the least amount of effort or nervous system disruption. You don’t believe me? Go to some tall office building where they have automatic doors versus doors you have to open yourself. Watch people, the majority of people, 99% of people, and I know because I’ve watched and watched and studied this for years, the majority of people will go through the automatic doors. Why the least amount of friction? So we will choose number one to avoid fear. Number two, we’ll choose, I’m laughing at us human beings, we’re a crazy species. We will choose literally comfort. And then finally, every time we choose and we keep choosing and keep choosing and keep choosing something, we create neural pathways in the brain. We fire these neural pathways with our thinking over and over and over. Now we’ve got neural pathways and the brain chooses for us automatically.
So what I’m telling you right now, is based upon your early life learning, based upon your early life brainwashing, you do not make your own choices. Your brain, through your past programming and past brainwashing, does it for you. Now, why is this so hard for people to accept? Well, the reason why is the ego. The human ego has to fight to protect the illusion. Because if you acknowledge that you’re running a script, if you acknowledge that you’ve actually been brainwashed, if you acknowledge that actually people have been thinking for you for many years, in that moment, we feel like we’re losing our identity, which is all an ego identity anyway. And when we feel like we’re losing our identity, we feel like we are actually losing control. And when we feel like we’re losing control, we feel like we literally just, what do I do in life? I have no control. What do I do next? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We feel like we’re losing our power when in truth, all that power belongs to the human ego and the human identity.
And we have to reclaim, we have to exit the human brainwashing and reclaim our spiritual sovereignty. We have to reclaim the power, what I’ve called before our spiritual seniority. And the only way to reclaim that is to exit the lie. So recognize this. Your brain lies to you today because you may say, I want to go do XYZ. I want to make a million dollars. I want to do this. I want to do that. And your brain will lie to you out of your past history saying the invisible fence that I talked about. Nope, you cannot do that. Why? Because you learned 10, 20, 30, 40, maybe even 50 years ago, you cannot do that. So we live the present moment right now, consciously from the past.
You’ve heard me talk about North Korea before. If you walk in North Korea, you could walk up to a citizen if you even could, which you cannot. You can walk up to somebody and say, hey, can you think for yourself? They would say, absolutely, I can think for myself. The truth is, they’re not thinking for themselves. They have been brainwashed by the state. And I talked about this on a prior episode. They’ve been completely brainwashed by the state. And even though they have the ability to think, they can only think, again, within the air quote, electric collar, electric fence. But you know what? Do not get into your arrogance. You are no different. And if you think you’re different, remember the Tylenol commercial that I just talked about a couple of minutes ago.
Okay, so as I’ve said before, if you want to see how brainwashed you have become, then take the brainwashed audit. Go over to jimfortin.com/brainwashed. Take the audit and it will become obvious to you, boom, nanosecond, how brainwashed you have become. Now, again, let me go back to what I said. You’re here because you want more in life. Have you noticed how many years you wanted more, but you keep repeating your same old patterns? It’s because you cannot get outside the electric collar. You cannot get outside the brainwashing. But now you’re recognizing, if you’re listening, that it is brainwashing. And I’m going to say this, what you’ve been brainwashed into, you can be brainwashed out of. But take the audit and just recognize how conditioned, how indoctrinated you have become by your parents, by society, by marketers, by money, by the economy, by politics, by one of the biggies, religion. Start recognizing how brainwashed you have become. And even though I mentioned religion, I’m not knocking on religion. We need to go beyond that to spirituality, non-dogmatic spirituality, when we connect directly with source. Because the truth is, beyond the lie, you are a part of source.
So again, jimfortin.com/brainwashed And remember this, the biggest brainwashed lie is you’re only human. You are so much more. You are beyond just a human being. Because the second you live from being air quote, only human, in that moment, you accept and you own every single limitation of being only human. And that is poverty, and that is loneliness for many, and that is sickness, and that is disease, and that is discomfort, as long as we fully accept the identity that a person is only human.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and family. Hopefully they’ll find value in this episode as well. And if you would, please go over to iTunes and leave me a five-star review. Anything less than that’s not going to help me, but hopefully a review will help me help more people. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you over on another episode. Bye-bye.
