Brainwashed To Be Broke

Adam Rother
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship

Most people aren't stuck by accident. They're stuck by design. From the moment you're born, you're handed a script. What to believe, what to want, what's possible and what isn't. Most people never question it. Brainwash to Be Broke exists to change that. Hosted by Adam Rother, this show pulls back the curtain on the social programming, beliefs, and conditioning quietly running your life. The stories about money, religion, relationships, health, and identity you believe so deeply you don't even know you believe them. This isn't just about being broke financially. It's about being mentally broke. Stuck in thinking handed to you by people just as conditioned as you are. Raw, unfiltered conversations with founders, thinkers, and people who woke up, questioned everything, and rebuilt life on their own terms. If you've ever felt like something is off but couldn't name it, you're in the right place. It's time to break the script. ๐Ÿ”” Subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode.

  1. 1d ago

    How To Leave An Emotionally Abusive Marriage At Any Age w/ Victoria Moore-McDowell

    She was bedridden for 18 years, married three times, and convinced God was furious with her. Then one belief broke and everything changed. Victoria Moore-McDowell grew up with the same script most of us were handed: work hard, suffer hard, maybe you'll earn a decent life. By her 40s, she was almost completely bedridden, stuck in an emotionally abusive marriage, financially controlled, and carrying decades of religious shame. This conversation isn't a hustle story. It's an identity story. The real friction wasn't just her marriage or her body. It was the inherited programming that you have to grind for money, that God is disappointed in you, that wealth is somehow ungodly, that the systems around you are designed to help you. She had to unlearn all of it before anything could shift. A few turning points she walks through: - The day her hands started hurting on the highway and her old life ended - Discovering grace through Pastor Joseph Prince after 15 years in bed - Leaving the abusive marriage seven years ago at age 51 - Falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole that exposed how banking, identity, and trusts actually work In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why "work hard for money" is one of the most expensive lies you've been sold - How religious guilt and condemnation quietly sabotage your finances - What identity actually has to do with healing โ€” physically and financially - How "sovereign citizens" vs. "living humans" are treated differently under banking law - Why staying silent about what you know is selfish, not humble - The hidden financial infrastructure school refuses to teach Guest: Victoria Moore-McDowell Connect Victoria๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Website: faithfreedomandfinances.com ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Ian Norton ๐Ÿ”— Sheโ€™s moving everything toward: You & Victoria (YouTube) ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    1h 4m

  2. 3d ago

    How to Stop Feeling Like You're Not Good Enough w/ Ian Norton

    Most people think they need more confidence. Ian Norton thinks they need something simpler โ€” and most of us were quietly trained out of it. Ian is a confidence coach who has worked with royalty, celebrities, and business leaders. But before any of that, he grew up gay in a strict military family at a time when it was still illegal in the UK โ€” taught from age nine that something was "wrong" with him and needed fixing. Chasing a sense of belonging, he fell in with a glamorous London crowd, ran a few "dodgy" packages without realizing what they were, and ended up serving four months in one of the country's most hardcore prisons. That's where the script flipped. Everyone else wanted out. Ian asked to stay โ€” so his friends could visit. And somewhere in that cell he found the one thing he now builds everything on: the trust that he'd be okay no matter what happened. A few turning points from the conversation: - The moment in prison he realized nothing else in life could really scare him again - Walking into Kensington Palace to coach Princess Diana โ€” who wanted to hear about prison - Why he says "I am enough" is one of the most damaging things you can tell yourself - The reframe he gives clients who blame themselves for everything: "Who do you think you are?" In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why your nervous system reacts to a product launch the same way it would to a predator attacking - The "GOOP" trap (the good opinion of other people) that's secretly running your decisions - How people quietly rig their lives to make winning impossible and failing easy - Why "what if it goes wrong" and "what if it goes right" are equally true โ€” so pick one - How to tell the difference between real danger and just doing something new This one goes deep on the programming we mistake for personality โ€” and how to start writing your own lines instead. Guest: Ian Norton ๐Ÿ‘‡Connect with Ian ๐Ÿ”— Website: iannortoncoaching.com ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Ian Norton ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share it with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment, and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    49 min

  3. 5d ago

    How to Stop Chasing Money and Actually Get Rich w/ Richard Lloyd Roberts

    What if the version of you that ended up broke was never really your fault โ€” just a script you were handed and never questioned? Richard Lloyd Roberts grew up outside London with a hard childhood and a father who wasn't kind. He failed every subject in school, escaped into the merchant navy as a galley boy, and spent years convinced that "get a job and grind" was all life had for him. Then he chased money the wrong way โ€” selling watches out of a car window across Europe โ€” and when he finally made it to America, the whole thing collapsed. He ended up broke, homeless, and drinking, all at the same time. He says he could have died. That was how close it got. The thing that turned it wasn't a windfall. It was a book about the conscious and subconscious mind, and the realization that the limiting voices in his head were running the show. This is a conversation about the programming underneath money โ€” the difference between saying "I want success" and living from "I am," why he hated himself most when he was richest, and how he kept rebuilding from zero more than once without giving up. A few moments that stuck with me: the night he walked into a room of 80 "successful" people and discovered every single one was just as scared as he was. The lighting contract that made him real money and left him empty. And the coffee-shop moment, dead broke again, that became a million-dollar company. In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why "I want money" is the exact phrasing that keeps people stuck โ€” and what to say instead - How chasing money directly made him miserable, and what he changed the year he flipped the script - The simple way he kills anxiety and self-doubt before going on camera or into a room full of "bigger" people - Why becoming the person comes before doing the work (the be-do-have order most people get backwards) - How he turned imposter syndrome into his biggest advantage at a Tony Robbins mastermind Guest: Richard Lloyd Roberts Connect with Robert๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Website: The Soulpreneur Agency, thesoulpreneur.agency ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Richard Lloyd Roberts ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    59 min

  4. May 28

    Job vs Starting a Business: Which Is Actually Safer? w/ Eric Thayne

    What if the "safe path" everyone pushed on you is actually the riskiest move you could make? Eric Thayne grew up in an extremely traditional family โ€” college, get a job, work the job. Everyone around him followed it. He didn't. He started his first real business at 13, designing graphics for bands on MySpace and collecting $20 payments through a brand-new thing called PayPal. By the time he "learned" graphic design in college, he already had 11 years of paid experience and realized the classroom couldn't teach him what real reps already had. Eric has since helped scale multiple seven-figure brands with organic content that's pulled over 500 million views. But this conversation isn't a flex reel. It's about the programming most of us never question: that a job equals safety, that failure is real, and that grinding yourself into the ground is the price of success. The friction runs deep. Eric pushes back on the idea of "risk" entirely โ€” arguing that every decision carries a possible future you don't want, so the imagined downside is just a story you're making up. If you're going to make one up, why not a good one? And the real way to shrink risk isn't to play small โ€” it's to stack skills until the deck tips in your favor. A few moments that turn the conversation: โ€” Why a full-time job can leave you with less control, not more โ€” The reframe that quietly erased "failure" from his vocabulary โ€” Why he refuses to schedule mornings and works with his body's rhythm instead of fighting it โ€” The final-message gut-punch: realizing the "need" to be successful was never real In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why "stable" jobs can carry more hidden risk than starting a business - How to reframe failure as data instead of an ending - The skill-stacking approach that makes risk shrink as you grow - Why peak mornings + free-flowing blocks beat the 8-hour grind - How hustle culture is engineered to scare you into buying and burning out - What it actually means to teach kids (and yourself) how value is created Guest: Eric Thayne Connect with Eric๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Website: ericdain.com ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Eric Thayne ๐Ÿ”— Ericโ€™s book: createdontcapture.com ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    49 min

  5. May 26

    How to Start a Business When You're Autistic or ADHD w/ Elissa Renee

    We're taught from day one that depending on other people is a weakness. What if that belief is the exact thing keeping you stuck? In this episode I sit down with Elissa Renee โ€” a speech language pathologist, CEO, and late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD entrepreneur behind Speech Works. For most of her life she was handed the standard script: be independent, get a stable job, stop relying on anyone. She tried to live it. The 9-to-5 wore her down, her health suffered, and she racked up more absences than anyone she knew. The real conflict wasn't her ability โ€” it was a system that never taught her how to actually function in it. She couldn't read or write for years and quietly paid people to do it for her. Just walking to the mailbox and opening it could trigger a burnout that left her in bed for days. Nobody in school ever taught her how money, mail, or basic adult systems worked. They taught her the history of America instead. The turning point came when she stopped fighting how her brain works and started building around it. She went self-employed and became her own boss. She discovered "body doubling" โ€” and realized the help she was shamed for needing was a legitimate accommodation, not a flaw. She learned to ask for help by going straight to the top. And she got in front of a camera for the first time to put her work into the world. In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why so many autistic and neurodivergent adults thrive self-employed instead of in a 9-to-5 - How "you have to be independent" became a trap โ€” and what changed when she let it go - The school-taught skills that were missing, and the real-life ones nobody teaches - Why asking for help (the right way) became her biggest competitive advantage - How she rebuilt her finances and routine around her actual wiring, not someone else's Guest: Elissa Renee Connect with Elissa ๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Elissa Renee ๐Ÿ”— Website: speechworksbyelissa.com ๐Ÿ”— New project: yourchildcantalk.com ๐Ÿ”— Socials: search โ€œSpeechWorks by Elissaโ€ on your favorite platform ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    47 min

  6. May 24

    What to Do When God Goes Silent and Nothing Works w/ Devin Schubert

    He had three months left to live. Then he turned down the treatment that could've saved him. Devin Schubert spent years building churches and ministries before his whole life collapsed at once. He came home from a ministry trip to find his wife with her boss. He lost his marriage, his job, his platform, and half his time with his kids. An elder told him he'd never be allowed back in ministry because he was divorced. Then it got worse. His son came to live with him full-time with severe trauma and aggression, and Devin spent five years and over $100,000 trying to find help the system kept refusing to give. The pressure broke his body, not just his spirit. Doctors told him his nervous system was shutting down from stored trauma. They gave him three months. This is the conversation about what happened next, and what he learned about identity, story, and the programming most of us never question. The turning points are wild. The night he prayed to die and says Jesus walked into his room and told him "it's not time yet." The moment he chose a four-month healing process over the instant miracle he wanted. The realization that hiding his accomplishments wasn't humility, it was getting in the way. And the line that reset everything: your identity doesn't come from the creation, it comes from the creator. In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why the story you tell from a place of pain plants pain in everyone who hears it - How "never share a story you haven't healed from" can protect you and your audience - Why he believes the child welfare system is designed around money, not kids - How he hit 100 stages in 9 months starting from total burnout and debt - Why relationship, not money, is the real currency that builds anything - The branding lesson hidden behind why he wears orange every single day Guest: Devin Schubert Connect with Devin Schubert ๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Free ebook: createbetterstories.com ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Devin Schubert (the man in orange) ๐Ÿ”— Instagram: Devin Schubert (the man in orange) ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share it with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    42 min

  7. May 22

    How To Heal From Rock Bottom And Start Again w/ Alicia Ann Wade

    What happens when you do everything โ€œrightโ€ and still feel completely empty? In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, I sit down with Alicia Anne Wade, also known as Dr. Gratitude, to talk about the hidden programming behind success, self-worth, relationships, money, leadership, and what it really takes to rebuild yourself from the inside out. Alicia ticked all the boxes most people are told to chase: the job, the car, the house, the marriage, the family, the image of success. But underneath it all, she was not fulfilled. After being bullied as a child, struggling with dyslexia, falling into destructive patterns, experiencing a domestic violence relationship, losing everything more than once, and hitting a deep emotional breaking point in 2015, Alicia started asking a different question: What am I actually telling myself every day? That question led her into gratitude, not as a nice quote or surface-level habit, but as a full identity reset. She committed to daily gratitude, created her own gratitude journal, helped people who were at the edge of giving up, and built a movement around using gratitude to shift your mind, your relationships, your leadership, and your life. This conversation goes deep into the stories we inherit, the boxes we chase, the inner dialogue we normalize, and the moment you realize success without fulfillment is not freedom. Some of the biggest turning points in this episode: Alicia realizing that the โ€œperfect lifeโ€ still left her unhappy. Her first gratitude journal helping people find hope again. The painful connection between her inner dialogue and the relationships she accepted. Learning to respond instead of react, and lead from calm instead of control. Her decision to turn gratitude into a worldwide mission. In this conversation, youโ€™ll learn: Why chasing the traditional success script can still leave you empty How your inner dialogue shapes the relationships and results you tolerate Why gratitude is not toxic positivity, and how to practice it properly How to respond instead of react when life gets heavy Why self-forgiveness is one of the hardest but most freeing resets How to stop living on autopilot and start rewriting your own script Connect with Alicia Ann Wade (Dr Gratitude) ๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Website: aliciawade.com.au ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Alicia Anne Wade ๐Ÿ”— Instagram: Alicia Wade ๐Ÿ”— TikTok: Dr Gratitude ๐Ÿ”— YouTube: Alicia Wade Gratitude ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    58 min

  8. May 20

    How to Sell Without Feeling Pushy or Fake w/Jennifer Lamprey

    What if the thing keeping you broke is not your skill, your offer, or your work ethic? What if it is the version of yourself you were taught to believe in? In this episode of Brainwashed To Be Broke, I sit down with Jennifer Lamprey, sales powerhouse, creator of the 12 Quickest Close Map, and founder of The Quickening. Jennifer grew up around entrepreneurship, but her path was anything but clean or easy. After losing her sister at a young age, surviving abuse, doing crystal meth at 12, and carrying years of trauma, she had a moment at 15 that changed the direction of her life. She says she saw herself the way God saw her, and that moment helped her break a pattern that could have destroyed her. But the story does not stop there. Jennifer went through divorce, foreclosure, single motherhood, financial pressure, and the painful realization that confidence, love, systems, and sales are all connected. This conversation gets into the real stuff most people avoid: why talented people stay broke, why sales is deeply tied to self-worth, why trauma can distort confidence, why โ€œjust stay positiveโ€ is not always enough, and why love may be the most underrated force in business. Some of the biggest turning points in this episode: Jennifer walking away from drugs at 15 after a life-changing spiritual moment. Losing everything after divorce and realizing she had to sell her way into freedom. Investing heavily into the best sales and marketing training she could find. Teaching her daughter to sell high-ticket coaching as a teenager instead of following the normal $10/hour path. In this conversation, youโ€™ll learn: Why confidence is not fake energy, but remembered evidence How trauma can quietly shape your money and sales beliefs Why high-ticket sales forced Jennifer to rebuild her identity The difference between pressure-based selling and love-based selling Why entrepreneurship without systems can keep you stuck How Jennifer teaches her kids to think outside the traditional script Guest: Jennifer Lamprey Connect with Jennifer ๐Ÿ‘‡ ๐Ÿ”— Facebook: Jennifer Lamprey ๐Ÿ”— Instagram: @conversionqueens ๐Ÿ”” If this episode stirred something in you, don't ignore it. Share It with someone who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a comment and remember, you weren't born to follow the script, you were born to be free.

    53 min
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About

Most people aren't stuck by accident. They're stuck by design. From the moment you're born, you're handed a script. What to believe, what to want, what's possible and what isn't. Most people never question it. Brainwash to Be Broke exists to change that. Hosted by Adam Rother, this show pulls back the curtain on the social programming, beliefs, and conditioning quietly running your life. The stories about money, religion, relationships, health, and identity you believe so deeply you don't even know you believe them. This isn't just about being broke financially. It's about being mentally broke. Stuck in thinking handed to you by people just as conditioned as you are. Raw, unfiltered conversations with founders, thinkers, and people who woke up, questioned everything, and rebuilt life on their own terms. If you've ever felt like something is off but couldn't name it, you're in the right place. It's time to break the script. ๐Ÿ”” Subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode.

Information

  • Creator
    Adam Rother
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    ยฉ 2026 Adam Rother
  • Show Website
    Brainwashed To Be Broke