The Justin Watts Show
- Episodes
- 6
- Released
- several times a week
- Latest episode
- Oct 23, 2026
About the podcast
Where veterans, entrepreneurs, investors, and ambitious individuals come to challenge conventional thinking, discover the knowledge nobody taught them, and build lives defined by wealth, freedom, ownership, and purpose.
Episodes 6
I Almost Died Twice Before Building Veterans Last Mission | The Story Behind My Pivot
Before I founded Veterans Last Mission, I was building a future in the trucking industry. Then, within 362 days, I survived two accidents that could have ended my life.The first involved an 82,000-pound dump …
Show notes
Before I founded Veterans Last Mission, I was building a future in the trucking industry. Then, within 362 days, I survived two accidents that could have ended my life.
The first involved an 82,000-pound dump truck rollover. The second ended with me being ejected from an F-450 and run over by the trailer I was pulling.
Those experiences forced me to confront some difficult questions about the risks I was taking, the future I wanted, and what success actually meant to me.
In August 2022, just six months after the second accident, I founded Veterans Last Mission.
This is the story behind that pivot. How I walked away from trucking, redirected my entrepreneurial ambition, and began building a business around the knowledge and experiences I'd gained as a combat veteran navigating the VA disability system.
Sometimes the biggest change in your life isn't what happens to you. It's what you decide to do afterward.
TODAY'S QUIET LEVERAGE
Surviving something doesn't automatically give your life purpose. What you choose to do with the life you still have—that's where purpose can begin.
You don't always get to choose what happens to you. But you can take responsibility for the decisions you make afterward.
Ask yourself three questions:
- What am I continuing to do simply because I've already invested so much into it?
- What is that decision costing me—financially, physically, emotionally, or in my relationships?
- If I could make a different decision today, what would I actually choose?
Sometimes the most important decision you'll ever make isn't deciding what to pursue.
It's recognizing when it's time to walk away and build something different.
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GETTING MONEY WON'T MAKE YOU WEALTHY
What if making more money isn't the solution to your financial problems?We've all said it: "If I could just make more money, everything would be different."But what happens when the money finally …
Show notes
What if making more money isn't the solution to your financial problems?
We've all said it: "If I could just make more money, everything would be different."
But what happens when the money finally comes—and nothing really changes?
In Episode 5 of The Justin Watts Show, combat veteran, entrepreneur, and investor Justin Watts challenges one of the biggest misconceptions about financial success: making more money and building wealth are two completely different skills.
Drawing from his own financial mistakes, business experiences, and years of working with veterans receiving life-changing VA disability benefits, Justin explores why increased income doesn't automatically create financial freedom.
From veterans receiving tens of thousands of dollars in VA back pay to entrepreneurs generating six-figure incomes, the lesson remains the same: without financial education, discipline, and intentional planning, more money can simply create more expensive problems.
In this episode:
- Why high income doesn't necessarily mean financial security
- How lifestyle inflation consumes raises and VA disability increases
- Why money amplifies existing habits and beliefs
- What to do before spending a large financial windfall
- The difference between looking rich and building wealth
- Why ownership matters more than appearances
- How childhood experiences shape your financial identity
- The philosophy behind Claim It. Keep It. Grow It.
Justin also shares how his definition of wealth has evolved—from purchasing things to building ownership, creating opportunities, protecting his family, and leaving something meaningful behind for future generations.
TODAY'S QUIET LEVERAGE:
Making more money and becoming wealthy are not the same skill. Learn how to earn. Learn how to keep. Learn how to own. Learn how to grow.
Because if you don't give your money a purpose, somebody else will gladly give it one.
The Justin Watts Show
Learn what nobody taught you. Use what you know. Build what they can't take from you.
For educational purposes only. This episode does not constitute personalized financial or investment advice.
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You've Been Programmed Your Entire Life… And Don't Even Know It
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 …
Show notes
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.
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0% to 100%: The Journey That Built Veterans Last Mission
Before Veterans Last Mission existed, Justin Watts was a 17-year-old soldier with no idea where his military career would eventually take him. In this episode, Justin sits down with Omar to revisit the …
Show notes
Before Veterans Last Mission existed, Justin Watts was a 17-year-old soldier with no idea where his military career would eventually take him. In this episode, Justin sits down with Omar to revisit the journey—from becoming a young father and deploying to Afghanistan to experiencing combat, coming home changed, and discovering how little he understood about the VA disability system.
After educating himself, Justin went from a 0% VA disability rating to 100% Permanent & Total. But reaching 100% created an even bigger realization: many of the veterans he served beside had made similar sacrifices without understanding the system designed to evaluate their disabilities and benefits.
Justin and Omar unpack how that realization, combined with entrepreneurship, trucking, life-changing accidents, and a search for purpose, ultimately led to the creation of Veterans Last Mission.
Quiet Leverage:
“Every system has rules. But the people who win aren't always the smartest. They're the ones who take the time to figure out how the system actually works.”Central takeaway:
This episode isn't really about reaching 100%. It's about what happened after you learned something that could change other veterans' lives.The 100% rating was the personal victory.
Realizing you could use what you learned to serve other veterans was the beginning of the mission.
Best social-media angles:
Your strongest clips are the “I joined the Army at 17” origin story, the Afghanistan/combat story, “Fear keeps you alive,” your 0%→100% journey, the realization about the roughly 500 soldiers you deployed with, leaving trucking after the accidents, and “We're not just a business” explaining VLM's mission.Follow me:
What the VA Doesn't Teach You About VA Disability
Most veterans know they can file for VA disability. Far fewer understand how the system actually determines their rating.In Episode 3 of The Justin Watts Show, Justin Watts breaks down some of the most …
Show notes
Most veterans know they can file for VA disability. Far fewer understand how the system actually determines their rating.
In Episode 3 of The Justin Watts Show, Justin Watts breaks down some of the most important concepts every veteran should understand about VA disability—from service connection and evidence to C&P exams, secondary conditions, combined ratings, and why two 50% ratings don't simply equal 100%.
Drawing from his own journey from 0% to 100% Permanent & Total and his experience building Veterans Last Mission, Justin explains the rules veterans are often forced to learn only after entering the claims process.
This isn't about chasing 100%. It's about understanding the system well enough to pursue the rating your service-connected disabilities and evidence actually support.
Because you can't effectively navigate rules nobody ever taught you.
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I Had to Find Myself Before I Could Change My Life
Justin Watts didn’t start out understanding the VA disability system. Like thousands of veterans, he left military service without fully understanding what he qualified for, how VA ratings worked, or how much …
Show notes
Justin Watts didn’t start out understanding the VA disability system. Like thousands of veterans, he left military service without fully understanding what he qualified for, how VA ratings worked, or how much the evidence behind a claim mattered.
In Episode 1 of The Justin Watts Show, Justin shares how he went from a 0% VA disability rating to 100% Permanent & Total after deciding to educate himself on the system. He breaks down what that journey taught him about VA claims, the knowledge gap facing veterans, and why understanding the rules can completely change the outcome.
That experience eventually became part of the foundation for Veterans Last Mission and a much bigger philosophy: the information capable of changing your life is often the information nobody ever taught you.
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