I got charged with 42 felonies while working for the Department of Corrections. Not my proudest moment, but as I told you during the interview, man, it ended up being one of the most powerful blessings of my life. Justine Watts is a disciplined, service-driven leader, entrepreneur, and the founder of Veteran's last mission, LLC. Drawing from his commitment to honoring those who served, he provides dignified end-of-life services for veterans, ensuring their legacy is respected with honor and care. My daughter at the time, she was seven when all that happened. And so her and my ex-wife, they were really my motivation. Just because I had personal shit going on, it didn't stop the fact that they had to eat, because they had to be paid. So I kind of had to figure that. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. This is the special Ops edition. Joining me today is Justin Watts. He just finished filming his episode with myself for Operation CEO, which is our new pride and joy here at Insight Success. Justin, how do you feel? I feel great. We had a great film session. The energy was perfect. The vibe was great. It was just a good experience overall. I don't know where to start, man. There's so many avenues. I was just kind of like, man, what a story. There was tears. There was joy. There was some crazy stats. Where do we start, brother? I kind of want to start with 42. Yeah, man. I had a rough patch going on there. I got charged with 42 felonies while working for the Department of Corrections. Not my proudest moment, but as I told you during the interview, it ended up being one of the most powerful blessings of my life. How do you climb out of that? That's literally the hero's journey, the ascension, the climbing out before the ascension, actually. Well, to be honest with you, man, I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like I saw the ending the entire time because I shit my pants a couple times, pretty sure. But no one ever makes the first jump. Definitely. My kids were my motivation. Well, my daughter at the time, she was seven when all that happened. Her and my ex-wife, they were really my motivation. Just because I had personal shit going on, it didn't stop the fact that they had to be paid. You know, I kind of had to figure that. Let's talk about the most important thing, your daughter's daughters. You are a daughter. What is the saying you said on the show? So I'm definitely a girl there. A girl there? There we go. I love it. Yeah, I have a 14-year-old daughter, Aliyah. She's amazing, man. She's been doing cheer her entire life since she was like five. Now she competes and she's junior varsity leader. My baby girl, she's two years old. So I have full custody of her. It's just her and I. Now my ex-wife, she helps me out a lot with that dynamic. But she doesn't really have a mother in her life. So it's a little different situation, man, but it's beautiful. They're blessing. What's it like for a father? Your oldest is 14, your youngest is two. That's quite the generation gap there. How are the days like? So honestly, again, my 14-year-old, she's great. She helps me out a lot. I do pay her a nice allowance because I feel like kids should be compensated. That's where you first learn how to take care of your responsibilities for monetary compensation. And so saying that to say my two-year-old, she is in daycare, but let's take the summertime, for example. My oldest, she helps clean the house. She'll babysit when I need to. She's just amazing. So she helps out along with my ex-wife. But man, parenting, a lot of people make it seem like it's just the hardest thing in the world. But I love it, man. I went trade for the world. God bless you for that. One of my oldest friends from high school, he just became a father again. And I was stuck in Miami traffic as people are in Miami most of the time. And of course, I faced time to check in. He was quite as ecstatic. He's like, it must be raining because this is the second time you've called in six months. And there he is with his new pride and joy, his baby boy, Luca. And big eyes. And just a couple of weeks old, I'm like, that is a super genius for a baby to be that quiet. And just like, the entire time, that boy is a genius already. I'm like, that boy's advanced. You got lucky with that one. I call him Gecko. His name is Robert. But you remind me a lot of him. That tribal energy. He's Cuban, darker Cuban. If you catch my meaning. And like, he reminds me, you guys remind me, it's quite the energy. Talk about like being a single dad, but also being an entrepreneur and also being a person that's served this country. So it's a lot, man. Yeah, it is, dude. Honestly, it's crazy. But I didn't, I don't even in the moment of it or in the pickup, but I don't even realize how much it is at times. My friend Claire, she says it all the time, just like, slow down, like take a break, but the reality is I've gotten in so much of a groove. These, these duties, that's exactly what they are. They're duties. And so I don't, there's not an option on whether or not they need to get done. It's just they need to be done. So figure that shit out. I've gotten into a great, a great dynamic, great schedule. I guess you would, you would so to speak. But I mean, there are always ranches thrown in the schedule. I may miss a meeting sometimes. But it's just about staying in the flow of things, man. The wheel to want to do it is really where you find the power to get it done. So where does that power strive from? Is it anger? Is it pain? Is it wanting to become better? Something I didn't mention in our, in our interview is the fact that I grew up without my real father. My stepdad, as I mentioned, is a great guy and blood couldn't make us any closer, but my real dad's been in prison since I was three. First time he went in on arm robbery, second time, I think it was a dope case. And then this time he doesn't get out until he's 70. And so as I mentioned, growing up, how I grew up and not having, I grew up in an all-white family because of how my father was. And so growing up without my real father, I made a vow to myself as a, as a jit that I would never do that to a child that I created. And for sure, it's, it's a coincidence that this subject actually came up, or it's ironic because, excuse me, I mentioned several times how close my ex-wife and I are. But I actually, I actually, I'm not going to say I had to give up that marriage in order to be the father that I am to my two year old, but it was, it was a sensitive situation, you know? And so again, I shouts out to her, man, I commend her. I could, I could never be the person that she is. She's an amazing person. But I've sacrificed, without going too deep, I've sacrificed so much just to play that role in their lives. And it's not because it's not any way, it wasn't anyone else's fault. It was my fault for the situation. Sure, sure. But I'm just pointing out, sometimes we create situations that we don't want to face, but the reality is, if we don't face it, it doesn't affect us as much as it does to people that were created, you know? Absolutely. A big topic that comes up a lot in the podcast is generational trauma. Like the trauma is, is essentially in our genes. Like you mentioned your father, like I want to talk about my stepfather personally, but this is shows about you. Do you think a lot of the, that generational trauma is apparent in your day to day? And how do you think you're preventing that to be that your legacy? So it's tricky. It's tricky. I'm not going to say that I think about it daily, but definitely, so having so much going on, dealing with a toddler and a teenager, my daughter's, my older daughter's great, but she is a teenager. So you know how that goes sometimes. It's more so in the moment of things versus a day to day. Like I may have, I may have just finished shooting and now I got a meeting with my investor and I got five other things going on plus dropping Lee off at practice and, and something may piss me off with one of the kids. It happens all the time. Instead of reacting, and I'm not perfect. Sometimes I do react, but instead of reacting, I'll take it, just take it down, not slow down and just think about the fact, okay, well, for one, you're dealing with girls, you know, and for two, the same, they are a piece of you. So whatever happened just then that pissed you off, that's a part of you. Yeah. And so it's just, it's just identifying those things, man. And, and, and, and I guess the biggest factor that plays or the biggest factor from that situation that plays into my day to day period would be why I'm so present. That's why I'm so present in their lives. Man, I, I, it's, it kills me not being able to see them for a day or two, you know, like physically. But, but yeah, it's, it's, I would say it's a beautiful trauma, but not having my father traumatize me to the point to where I cannot, I'll run through fire with gasoline draws before I did that to them, you know. Well, good for you, man. Let's talk about your service. You know, this is the part where I want you to like, homily brag about, you know, your rank and what you did. And yeah, man, let's, let's, let's hear this montage, dude. So man, so as I mentioned, I joined this, I joined the army at 17. Came in as a E1, which is, which is bottom of the barrel. When I, before I deployed, I actually was a gap, not promoted in the sense of monetary, but I was, I was a team leader. And so with that, with that look like overseas was basically a running point on decisions made inside the truck. So, so our, our mission was a combat, combat security and personal security. So what we did was transport high ranking officials from one base to the other, no, just, just make sure they didn't, and, and we would also transport, we would do gun runs. And so what that looks like essentially is in Afghanistan, we weren't fighting Afghanistan, we weren't fighting the, the army or the national police. We were fighting terrorism. And so they would, they would need our assistance that they might get a shipment of guns or a shipment of weapons and they would need our, our assistance to transport it from one base to another, just to keep from getting jacked from teleman. And so saying that to say, I mean, we, we had, I'm without getting too graphic. I mean, we had several situations to where we, you know, we, we, we took contact. Sure. Sure. Now, like touching, touching on some of, on some of those situations, like, like, like, like for instance, we were on ISAF headquarters one day, right? Or ISAF headquarters. So ISAF is basically joint forces for like United States, Great Britain, so on and so forth. And so that's where the head command was. And we were taking, I think we were taking the general there to drop off for a meeting and then we were bringing her back to the airport. Well, we get there and we pull into a motor pool, which is basically just a big gravel parking lot. And there are two Afghan national security guards at the, at the entry point. And so as we're getting ready to upload and leave out, we hear two simultaneous explosions. And so it's, it's, we're, we're snatching up the, the general that we brought over to the base. We throw her in the truck and we're trying to get off the base because they're gonna, if they lock it down with us on there, we're stuck for like a week. The, the explosions were actually two suicide vests and they were detonated on the base. And so we, yeah, we, we didn't in combination with trying to get off the base. We didn't know what was coming next. And so it, our mission was getting her back safe where she needed to be. When you hear those explosions and you're trained for this, what, how does your body react to the what is the first reaction? That's, that's, that's the best way to describe it, a reaction, because remember I mentioned earlier in our interview how anytime the army wants you to do something or know something, they train you extensively on it. So that training allows your body to go into reaction mode. You don't think about it. You don't, whatever needs to happen, if you've been trained properly, you're going to react. If you have it, you're probably going to die. Yeah. And then when you're trained, for some reason, time starts to slow down. You're like, you're just like, how the fuck did I just do that? And then I'm not compressed. Yes. Yes. It's amazing, man. Adrenaline is, is a crazy thing. As I was telling the story about, about the record that I had in St. Louis, man, I had, there was so much of my blood all over the scene. I don't know how I stood up and walked to go check on him. But the reality of the city and before I moved further, after I realized that he was okay, it's like every ounce of energy left my body. And so it's amazing how adrenaline plays, plays on the body, man. You don't feel anything. You don't, you essentially don't hear anything. It's just, you're in reaction mode. It's crazy how athletes train and train and train just for that flow state to perform for 15 seconds to do that thing. And it's just like biblical how like, I'm just talking about it gives me chills. How biblical is like when you figure out that flow state and you realize you can just go, and that compression of time is three hours. Like, how did I just do that? I'm like, yeah, you're, you're walking in the divine energy, my friend. That's exactly how to describe it because that's exactly what it is. So how do you take that secret power, especially something that has been militarized and weaponized in your heart and in your reaction and turn it into Operation CEO? Well, it's, I don't want to, I want to take the credit for it. But I have to, I have to give most of the credit to my life experiences. When it comes to dealing with certain situations, I've learned that, or dealing with any situation, I've learned that before life gives me a problem, it has already given me a solution. I just have to look back, backtrack and figure out what situation applies to this scenario. That's one of the, I guess that's one of the positive attributes of going through so much here. You really got to understand the philosophy. Some folks think that life is a while, but think it's Z and other folks think there's a fifth dimension communicating to the third. That's why we podcast. How do you feel like you are working on your legacy and your thriving? We mentioned your thought, your daughters. What is your next big leap? So, um, in what sense? What's the key meaning? As in just like you, the moment you walk out that door, what do you think is going to be the first thing that you want to do, especially being in the experience and being in front of cameras, you know, revealing your vulnerabilities, having many moments. You know, even the cameras, I've never moved the cameras. I want to go even closer. I'm like, I want to, you know, we have, walk you through the experience of having the right equipment to capture the right moment from the right storyteller to help you ascend. Now that you know how we stir our pot here, pot. How do you feel? What happens next for you? Honestly, Ray, and I was hesitant to say this as you were talking, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Now that I've experienced this, I really want to take it to the next level. Like I want my vision is to grow a hundred million dollar business and then turn around and make an autobiography about it. And this kind of gave me, it's beautiful, because this kind of gave me an insight on, I was kind of searching for the next step when I came in this morning, if that makes sense. Because when it comes to, when it comes to monetary wealth, real estate is going to secure and solidify that for me. And so it's, but it's not the end of my mission. It makes sense. I really feel like my story is powerful enough to change lives. Absolutely. And so I want to get it out on the biggest platform that I can. You definitely did. You definitely did that today here at the Insight Success. Today is 10, 10, 25. How can folks find you and continue reaching out to you or writing out your story? Definitely, definitely. So, so as I mentioned earlier, everyone can find me on all my socials, Justin Watts underscore official Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. You can also find me on YouTube, the same tag, Justin Watts underscore official. Right on brother. Jofin, such a pleasure. You're gonna run off now and take a couple photos with our, with our dude, Jason. It was such an amazing time to hear your story. Most definitely. I had a great time. Thank you for sharing the camera with me and it's such an honor. And yeah, for operation CEO and for Insight Success, this is Justin and I'm Ray. Most definitely. Y'all make sure you take it out. You all have a good night.
