Engineering Emotions and Energy with Justin Wenck, Ph.D.
Are you ready to live a life with enough time, money, and energy? Have relationships and connections that delight you? Are you ready for the extraordinary life you know you’ve been missing? If so, then this is the place for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant, and speaker who’s worked in technology for over two decades. I’m a leader in transforming people and organizations from operating in fear, obligation and guilt to running off joy, ease, and love. It’s time for Engineering Emotions and Energy!
Engineering Emotions and Energy with Justin Wenck, Ph.D.
The Power of Self-Discovery: Overcoming Judgment and Embracing Change
Life is an extraordinary journey of learning and growth, sometimes marred by judgments we've been carrying since childhood.
Join me as I revisit my own past and discover the impact those early judgments have had on my life. As we journey through boxes of childhood memorabilia, we'll uncover trials of the past and learn how to embrace change, navigate judgments, and move towards a more fulfilling future.
Diving into my personal history, we examine my third-grade Student Individual Education Plan a relic from my past that revealed both strengths and areas of improvement. Drawing from this experience, we reflect on how to turn perceived weaknesses into opportunities for growth and the incredible transformations one can achieve with the right mindset. Plus, we'll walk through how community service in the vibrant city of San Francisco taught me to see the world differently and gave me a renewed sense of purpose.
Finally, prepare to unshackle from the limiting confines of judgment and embrace the joy of self-discovery. Let's explore together how giving yourself the gift of happiness can lead to profound personal transformation. If you've been considering one-on-one coaching or group programs, reach out via social media to learn more about what awaits. Embark on this journey of self-discovery, growth, and letting go of judgment—it will be a trip you won't forget!
Tune in to the Audiobook version of my book "Enginereed to Love" now available on all Audiobook Platforms! Go to enginereeredtolove.com for more info!
Overcome the daily grind with transformative techniques from Justin's book, 'Engineered to Love.'
These practices aren't just about finding peace—they're about reconnecting with yourself and the world around you in meaningful ways.
Access your free materials today at engineeredtolove.com/sample and start living a life filled with joy, ease, and love.
Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!
Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!
Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.
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Welcome to the show. Today, I'm talking about getting over judgment, judgment about yourself, fear of others judging you and worrying about is it good enough? Is it too good? Can people handle it? Do people want it? Are you good enough? What are people's thoughts about you? Because I'm here to tell you you've been judged your entire life and it's not going to stop. It's never going to stop. If you're waiting for the day that no one's going to judge you, that everyone out there is going to accept you, that day will never come. You are going to be waiting until you're in the grave. So I'm going to go over. Actually, it was yesterday. I went through a couple boxes of stuff that was sent to me from my dad. I found some gold in these boxes of things from when I was a child. I chose how, even at a very young age, I was being judged. So I'm going to dive into that. Talk about that, so that you can get over your fear of being judged and you can get onto doing what the fuck you really want to be doing, what really lights you up, what matters, what you're destined to be doing on this planet with your time here. So before that, though, I'm happy to be back in the US.
Speaker 1:The previous four podcasts, I think it's well, maybe it's even five. I did five remote podcasts while I was traveling around Central America. So I believe I did two in Costa Rica, one in Guatemala and then I believe I did two more in Tulum, mexico. So I'm back on the Pacific coast here in California, near San Francisco. It's so good to be back near the ocean. It's cool, even though most parts of the country of the US it's the hottest part of the summer. Where I live, today it's sunny and warm, but yesterday it was nice, cloudy, just refreshing.
Speaker 1:And yesterday I also had an opportunity to go do a little community service. A friend of mine had done this. He's really into going helping out the community. I'm so grateful to have a friend like him. But he was like hey, going to be doing this street cleanup and it's a lot of fun. You're cleaning up the streets of San Francisco, making it a little bit a better place, and then you get to meet people and then they give you coupons and things so you can have fun to go try some places maybe you wouldn't try out before and a lot of people watch the news and that's all they know about San Francisco that, oh, it's doom, it's going to be the next Detroit, that it's going to be awful, and yeah, there's some people living in some conditions that I wouldn't choose. I wouldn't want anyone I care about to live in these conditions. Yet it's not everywhere. All over San Francisco there's neighborhoods that are fantastic to be with. It reminds me very much of my experience in Tulum, where I'm in a nice, luxurious, basically condo where I'm staying and just right next to dirt roads, with garbage on it, and people live in places that they put up quickly with found materials and just different people living different lives.
Speaker 1:And the question is, what kind of life do you want to lead? Do you want to be leading a life where you're living how you want and you're being a part of enabling others to live a life that they want? Or are you focusing on what's wrong? Because if you're focusing on what's wrong, you're probably just going to get more of the same, because really you get in your life what you place your attention. So if you're worried about things going wrong, things being bad, I would be surprised if things are going really great for you. So it was a great experience. I mean, again, it's not easy, because they instruct you that there are three things you're not supposed to be picking up Avoid glass, avoid needles and avoid poop. So that's and definitely encountered some of all three. Yet it's great to be working with others and to see how clean the streets are afterwards and going like you know what made a little bit of a difference. The streets now feel a little bit better and maybe that impacts other people and they feel better and they're going to do a little bit better. Right, and at the very least, I'm feeling better and here talking about how I could feel better. So you could feel better. So it was like a really good experience and that's some great people and some of them might even be helping out with the book which I'm recording this.
Speaker 1:We're launching the audiobook today, so you know it will have been available. So still, it's still available, even when you listen to. This doesn't matter if you're listening to this years later. Engineer2lovedcom will have all the links, but it's on Audible, apple Books, google Play Books and Audiobookscom. So just look up Engineer2Love by Justin Wink, phd, and you can get the audiobooks. Now you can listen to the great stories, the great.
Speaker 1:What's great about my book? I have great exercises. I have great relaxation techniques. All these are narrated by me. So if you're just like I can't read how to do a breathing exercise, I want someone to tell me how to do it. It's in the book. I tell you here's how you do it, and you just got to follow along. It's fantastic. It really is. It really turned out well and there's even bonus stuff in there that isn't in the book, because it's like as I'm going through reading, I'm like add a little extra flavor, a little extra little something, something for you to enjoy. So do encourage you to go get that, because, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1:People have been loving it. I still get people saying like, oh my gosh, I just was. You know somebody who's an early listener that I met on my trip. She was just telling me I just listened to the I Love Myself meditation in your audiobook. It was fantastic. Thank you so much. So I want you to be able to enjoy that and, you know, forward it along to a friend. Let somebody else know.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're a coworker, maybe you have a team and you would like them to have more clarity on what makes them feel alive, what makes them feel like they're doing what matters, because if they're doing what matters on your team, that's a way more effective, more enjoyable team to work with and they're going to be doing great things for you. So that let's get into the main thing about judgment being judged of like you know what, what are you good at, what you know and what do you need to work on? Like what could you be improved? And as I was going through the things that were sent, so there's, there's like a pillow that had my birth certificate on it, you know, signed by the doctor. There was pictures all the way up through college. In there there was, you know, knickknacks from when I graduated from my undergrad Cal Poly Salad with a BISPO and my PhD program at UC Davis.
Speaker 1:But some of the things that were more interesting were some of these things from my elementary school days, and one of the things I found was a report about about myself when I was in the third grade, from my third grade teacher, mr Edmonds, who I remember that he he had a mustache and he would play guitar, so he'd have little breaks playing I don't know, kind of folk song type stuff, like I think he'd sing like. So you know, john, if I had a hammer I'd swing it in the daytime, I'd swing it in the evening, songs like that he would. He would sing, it was like the treat for learning or something like that. But it's, you know, I'm I'm videotaping this, so maybe at some point I'll get the videos of these on YouTube. But yeah, he wrote this.
Speaker 1:I think it was probably written using a word processor, and so many of you know that you write on a computer nowadays and that in the olden times people wrote using typewriters. There is an in between period where there are these things called word processors. That were not quite computers, but they were more advanced than typewriters. Because what what this has is each the three pages and the pages do have like like headers, like it has headers that are the same on each page, and I'm thinking that it probably wasn't a typewriter. But this is dated November 8th 1989. Well before a school teacher would have a computer computer. They would have been thousands of dollars then, which, since inflation adjusted, it would have been like six grand. Nobody had a computer back then. I think I had a friend that had a computer, but his dad was an engineer and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:This is titled Student Individual Education Plan, the reason I'm going to be going through this is because it's got judgments about me. We're going to see what resonates true and what maybe is not so true or what have I allowed to be true. I want you to be thinking of judgments you have about yourself, about your capabilities, about who you are, about what you like, what you don't like, what you're not good at, and start going back. How do you know that that's true? How do you know that you maybe aren't so good at math? How do you know that? Maybe you're not the most organized person? Was that put upon you? Have you just allowed that to be true? Maybe there's just some things that you just don't like. Maybe you could be good but you just don't like. We're going to go through.
Speaker 1:Remember, I am eight years old. This is judgments on an eight-year-old. This is me at eight. I'm showing a little picture in the video. If you go to JustinWinkcom, we'll make sure you get this picture up on the blog post going with us. I'll probably make sure it's included in the social media postings for this. This little chubby, derpy eight-year-old missing a couple front teeth this is adults having judgment. Relative strengths. We're starting off with. What are the strengths of this eight-year-old With regard to the areas which appear to be most outstanding at this time. Justin, I like how it's qualified that it's at this particular time that this could all turn to shit in the future, or maybe it wasn't true At this time. These were Justin's strengths. I am will be. Justin Demonstrates advanced math skills.
Speaker 1:I did go on to get a PhD in electrical engineering, which does require a lot of math skills calculus, differential equations, geometry, all sorts of that stuff. Boy, did I run with that? Enjoy learning to an unusual degree. So it's like a judgment on a judgment of a. So I don't know what it is and I still do. I like to learn, I like to grow. I've taken that on. I still find that useful, willingly approaches challenging and complex material. Boy, I've been working on actually maybe letting this go on, that things don't have to be so challenging or so complicated. But one of my things has been that a lot of things are simple. They just might be challenge that require effort to have happen as we go forward. So maybe that's a little unfortunate that I took that on, that I like challenge, that I like complex things, cause I still I'm still doing it. Even just this coaching career is challenging. It's challenging but it's so worth it. It's so worth it Cause I got to. Since, being back, I did get to do a session with one of my clients and he's just doing phenomenal. Just, he's just loving his life. He's the relationship with his wife is great. He's just having such an easier time when challenges come up at work. So I'm just very, very happy and that's that's the type of results of why I do what I do.
Speaker 1:Demonstrates unusual insight during discussions. So even as an eight year old, apparently, I was phenomenal at noticing patterns, having perspective, insights, things like that, which is this this is what makes me a phenomenal coach, phenomenal author, phenomenal podcaster. That's why it's probably why you like to listen, probably why you like to hear me, and I would encourage you. If you want to get even more of that work with me, reach out, let's see what else is, what else was good about eight year old. Eight year old Justin Demonstrates rapid insight into cause, effect, relationships, determines underlying principles, and this I've learned lately. It can be a little bit of a double edged sort of that.
Speaker 1:Since I was always able so to easily figure out what was going on, why things were working, this has become a little bit of a crutch or a challenge of like needing to know what's going on, why things are the way they are and sometimes things just are or it's a waste of time to figure out why it's going on, it's an illusion of control to know, like, well, this person has this history, this person has that history, this is how they got to this and this is why things are. Sometimes things just are and it's do I want to? Does that help or not? If not, maybe I don't need to know the details and then move on with my life. So again, these judgments that people have put onto us, that we have about ourselves, that they may or may not be helpful. It really is like what do I want to do and is it helpful to take these on? And I'm seeing how some of these have been helpful than other of these it's like ooh, that hasn't been helping me out too much.
Speaker 1:To continue this quote unquote strength of mine Demonstrates creativity, is highly imaginative. So I mean it's. It makes me fun for this show, for my books. I'm great at conversation. I come up with fun things. Demonstrates a good fund of knowledge for his or her age. So we're getting a hint here that this might have been a little copy-paste going on, because this again, this is 1989. We were not we were not pronoun aware back then. I was a his and it was yeah, it was okay to assume I was a his and it's gonna remain a his back then. So I think there was a little bit of copy-paste going on here. Well, let's get onto my weaknesses. So this eight-year-old, this eight-year-old child, has some work to do. This guy, this little fucker, has some things to work on.
Speaker 1:All right, with regard to the areas which appear to provide the greatest difficulty, justin needs to expand the range of literature reading. So apparently, at the age of eight, my repertoire of fine literature was not up to par. So there was no Harry Potter at this time, there was no Twilight Saga I don't even know what the fuck the books were at this time, but apparently I was not. And you know what? I still don't read a wide breadth of literature.
Speaker 1:I mostly like things that are beneficial in my life, and so sometimes if there is like a story that is gonna have some beneficial meaning to me, I like to like the alchemist, I think is a good example of a narrative story that has beneficial learnings, things like that I enjoy. But just fantasy for pure fantasy steak Sometimes I would get into it, but I think I found it a little escapist. So, yeah, it's a little getting to know me and so, yeah, I don't care that I'm not super into. I once felt that I needed to read all of the great books, or at least I should know about all the great books. And then I kind of realized, like most of the great books, the old books, I don't like reading them. They're written in funky ways, it's a lot of work and I'd rather get those stories, those human connections, through other stories that have been modernized.
Speaker 1:Let's see more of the weaknesses needs further opportunities to practice oral reading, to develop fluency. So, apparently, back then I maybe I didn't read so good out loud, but I feel like I'm a really good reader now. You should again check out the audio book. I'm reading my own audio book again. I wrote it. So maybe that's cheating, but I think that one that one I'm no longer we can't needs further development of proof reading skills. So, boy, what a waste of fucking time that is. And I think this is something that, yeah, I often had a hard time Cause I think you know I'm pretty good at proof reading my own thing, if given a certain amount of time. But when I read I'm just like I wanna know what's good info for me and I'm not there to just critique the writing style, so again, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Shows a need to be better organized of school materials, needs to develop persistence in organization to finish long-term tasks, and it's interesting cause in some ways I'd still find these to be challenging. Yet there's ways to work around this. Like I can have other people help me out, I found ways to get me where it's when I'm. When something's important to somebody else, I make sure I get it done. Let's see. It's another one. Evidences behaviors which deter good use of time. The way I don't even know what that means. That evidence is behaviors which deter good use of time. That's very judgy that I was doing. Things are not a good use of time. Let's see. Lastly, it shows a need to continue development of critical thinking skills, as applies to independent reading.
Speaker 1:I analyze, compare, contrast, evaluate, et cetera, and I think this is just like I just want to take stuff in and figure out is it going to be good for my life or not? I'm not going to critically evaluate something. Yeah, it's like either I want to read it or I don't want to read it, and that's I think, whereas the school is all about. Oh well, you're supposed to discern, analyze, just the thing of itself, and I think I prefer a bigger picture than that. So we see that there's all these judgments that were coming at me back when I was this eight year old, and the judgments continued report cards and assessments and all these things, and it's almost the things that I was considered good at.
Speaker 1:I just kept getting good and better and I was also reading some letters of that like I wrote of my values and things like that, that like I value being good at things. If I can't do my best at it, then I'm just not going to do it. And I read that and I'm just like, oh, he's that poor kid, like not being allowed to be shitty at something just because he enjoys it or wants to do it or likes it, which is something I've gotten a lot better at doing, something that I just want to do because I want to do it, because I want to enjoy it, for the fun of it, for the love of it, and maybe I'm a little shitty at it because one of the things that I started doing a couple months ago was learning the Glockenspiel. And the Glockenspiel is it's the metal version of a xylophone, which is a, a struck instrument that you bang on and makes beautiful sounds and tones and be fun to play songs, but then also just fun to bang around with for fun.
Speaker 1:And you know it's that I was doing the lessons and it's like, yeah, I started out sucking and I'm still not great at it, but I've gotten better and it's fun. It's fun and it doesn't matter if I'm not the best by whatever my, my brain standards are. It's how does it feel, and I think that's what a lot of this is with regards to judgment is to. Judgment has no place in your life. The information like, yes, objectively, I do not play as quickly or as well as someone who is probably, you know, in a, in an orchestra, but if I feel joy when I'm doing it, I should keep doing it. If I, if my goal is to play in an orchestra, then it's good feedback that to notice that I am not able to play the types of things in the way that most other orchestras, xylophone, glockenspiel players play, then that's information for me to go OK, perhaps I got to practice more, right? So judgment really just has has no place in deciding what you want to do.
Speaker 1:There's the information, but what do you? What do you want it to mean? That's really what matters. So like, yeah, I'm, I'm not. I'm maybe not as organized as other people, maybe that's still true, but does that mean I can't do certain activities? Does that mean I can't run a business? Or does that mean I'm just going to run a business differently? I'm going to require somebody else to help keep me organized, which I've I've begun to do. I have had this great executive assistant that's been working with me for the last couple of months, and maybe it's three months now. It's been flying by, she's, she's phenomenal, she's so organized and on top of things and really helps me stay organized, which I've been mentioning. But also now I feel like, ok, I got someone who's keep me on track and I got to make sure I finish things. It's helpful.
Speaker 1:So, a lot of this information, it's like, ok, that's not good, bad, what, just what it is. And when that judgment comes in, like the fact that we got these, you know what are the weaknesses and what are the strengths? Fuck that, fuck that. These are just, these are just observations of Justin. And then Justin gets to decide what he wants to do with that Go, oh, interesting, ok, so I'm going to go to the possibilities. And what do I enjoy doing? What do I want to do? So maybe, how, based off what I want to do, how am I going to either grow or augment that with the support of others? That's what all this information is about.
Speaker 1:And when you're getting the judgment and worried about because you're not worried about what other people think, you're worried about what you think, about what other people think, because if you don't care about what other people thought, you wouldn't care about what other people thought, but the fact that you care, that you give them the power, that's what gives them the power. You, you ultimately have the power over the judgment. You have the power and since you have the power, you can take that power back and go. I'm not going to let what other people say about me impact me. I'm going to do what I want to do. And now you might be thinking like well, that's selfish, that's selfish to do what I want to do. If you're listening to this, if you're. You are not a selfish person. Not not at all. I know that.
Speaker 1:I know that the people that follow me, that listen to me you're some of the most kind-hearted, beautiful people, and that's probably what keeps you back is you're so scared that you're going to hurt people. Yet you're hurting people, because one of the people that you're hurting the most is yourself. When you're not doing what lights you up, when you're not doing what matters to you, you're killing yourself. You're killing yourself. You're probably doing things that are harmful and you're disappointing yourself, and then that is what you're putting out into your relationships. That hurt, that pain, that disappointment, and people feel it. People feel it.
Speaker 1:I know I could feel it with my parents that they weren't doing exactly what they wanted to do. I just remember thinking like I just wish that my mom or dad or both ideally would just do what makes them happy. I just love them so much, I just want to be happy. So think of that, how you probably have had that for other people, and what you do for yourself is what you can do for other people. You can give yourself the gift of happiness by being that example, being that model that allows you to give that to other people, that they can then go, be happy, that they can have joy, that they can have impact in ways that light them up, allow them to give their gifts, to grow in the way they want to grow. And so that is why it's so important to drop these judgments about yourself and also drop it about other people, because when you're judging others, that's really just judgment about yourself as well.
Speaker 1:So anytime you see somebody doing something you're like, well, that's dumb, that's silly, that's not good, there's probably a little bit of like you might want to do that. And how are you going to do it? If that's dumb or that's silly or that's wrong, yeah, so you can just go like that's just not something that interests me at this point, that's just not something for me right now, because you could change. There are lots of things where it's like, yeah, that's not for me right now, but in the future it might be just the right thing at the right time. So with that I'm going to wrap this show up. I'm so glad to be back for doing these shows.
Speaker 1:Again, encourage you to get the audiobook engineer2lovecom for all the links of places where you can get it and, of course, the print and the ebook are also still available. Highly recommend that. And find me on the social medias JustinWinkPhD on TikTok, instagram, linkedin, facebook yeah, find me there. And, of course, podcast at JustinWinkcom. And if you want to contact me about ideas for the show or if you want to work with me, I definitely have some things in the works, coming up for group programs, but also I do have a couple of slots for doing one-on-one coaching. So do reach out to find out about if that could work for you.
Speaker 1:Because, again, I'm not for everybody and I like it that way. I like I don't need to be a coach for everybody. I am not Tony Robbins. My head is much smaller. My voice is different, yeah, so I'm very happy to be me and to not be Tony Robbins. So I am not the coach for everybody, but if I am a good match, like fuck you're gonna just your life's gonna be so much better, much quickly, like I don't waste time. So with that, I thank you and good day.