Glenn: I don’t know who I am yet

June 20, 2014

The Glenn Beck Program

On radio this morning, Glenn decided it was time to have a conversation with his listeners. Some of you have been with Glenn for a long time and have seen first hand the personal transformation he has undergone. Others who are newer to the program might not have been as familiar with where Glenn has been. Regardless, Glenn explained why it is time to take off the masks and allow others to see us for who we really are. At that point, the world will begin to change for the better.

Below is an edited transcript of the monologue:

I want to have a conversation, just the two of us here for a second – especially if you are a long-time listener. Everybody has pivot points, and a point where their life changes, for better or worse – a car accident or a chance encounter, temptation that you follow or one that you conquer. I have had several of these pivot points in my life. When I was 13, my mom committed suicide. I'm an alcoholic and then in recovery. I had a pivot point each time one of my children was born. A pivot point of my divorce, and then finding Tania and in a chance encounter and marrying her.

Five years ago, I had another huge pivot point, and it is still changing me. I am coming up on the five-year anniversary of that next summer. It takes five years to really change a man. When I asked people to gather in Washington, and it happened to be on the anniversary of the day Martin Luther King gave his so important speech of judge a man by the content of his character and not the color of his skin.

That day, 500,000 people came to the mall. And I remember I was across the street. We had no idea if anyone was going to show up. I was doing another fundraising breakfast, so we could pay for it. And Joe came up behind me on the stage and he said, ‘We have to leave now. The crowd is already across the street.’

Something like that doesn't happen and leave you unmarked. For good or bad, you're marked. And there's a couple of ways that people would go. You would either become an egomaniac, which, quite honestly, I was afraid would happen to me. You would see all these people, and they came for me. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Some would become an egomaniac. The opposite happened to me. If I had the gift of prophecy, if I understood all God's secret plans, if I had all the knowledge of God and had such faith that I could actually move mountains, but I didn't love people, I would be nothing.

Five years ago, as I have left that stage, I really thought that would be the last thing I would do in my career. I went on vacation, and I went to the Grand Teton Mountains. I heard in my head, ‘You are standing in the wrong place.’ I didn't even understand that. I was happy. I was at the top of my field. But I don't understand what the plans are for me. I didn't know that something very different was in store for me.

People think they know who I am. We have this relationship. But this happens with people who I don't have a relationship with, someone who hasn't listened to me for along time – they still think they know who I am. Some love me, some really hate me, but the funny thing is, I don't even know who I am yet. I know who I want to be. I know who I have allowed myself to become in my worst times. But who am I right now? I don't know.

I'm a guy in transition. I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I'm an American – for whatever that means in today's world. I don't even know what that means. Do you? I'm an American. I'm a guy who is just struggling to try to make sense of the world that we live in, and I don't think we're all that different. Truth is, I think no matter what your background, no matter what your pivot points, no matter who you voted for. That's who we all are: People just trying to figure it out. Different name, different places, but we generally have the same fears. We are all afraid of being alone. We are afraid of failing. Failing at work. Failing at home. Failing with our kids. Failing with our spouse. Not being able to provide. Not being happy, being alone.

When it comes down to it, we are all afraid that we are not as good as we should be. We are not as good as somebody else is. I don't know how people make it. I don't know how people do it all. I lay down in bed so many times a week and think, ‘How do people do this?’ I can't keep up with everything. I don't know how to raise my kids. I don't know how to teach principles in a society the principles are going the other direction. I don't know how to do this.

In your worst moments, most of us feel like a fraud.Most of us feel at some point or another, I don't know what I'm doing, and we are afraid of our own thoughts at times. How many people go through life thinking, ‘If they just knew what I really think; if they knew what I have done; they don't know how close I am to collapse. Help, I don't know what I'm doing.’ But we don't ever say those things out loud. Instead, we quietly turn to experts. We listen to some talking head, like me. ‘Well, I trust that guy. He's done a lot of thinking. I agree with him generally.’ Or ‘I like him.’ Or we listen to some shrink that says they have all the answers. For $20, you could go out and buy their book and their book has all the answers and nothing changes.

It's the same problem that people have always had. Who am I? Why am I here? I don't feel like I'm even making a difference. If I am making a difference, maybe I am making a difference in the negative way. I don't know. You know what I'm doing with my kids. I will probably cost my kids a fortune in the end with psychiatric therapy bills. We just want to love and to be loved. I don't care if you are a Palestinian or Israeli. When it comes down to it, you just want to be loved and love your family. You just want to be happy and at peace, surrounded by your family. You just want to stop the nonsense and stop pretending.

What's amazing is we are all so much alike. Yet, we all have a different story. I used to walk to work when I lived in New York City. 18 million people. am still overwhelmed by this, every time I walk the streets of New York. 18 million people. 18 million stories being written right then. Stories of heartache and triumph, time wasted, lives redeemed. Everything that has ever happened is happening again right now. And everything that is happening right now is taking us exactly to where we need to be. Everything is happening for a reason. It's brought all of us to this point in time, to exactly where you are, where I am, where you are. We just have to stop and notice it.

I remember a few years ago, when I first moved to New York. It was cold November afternoon, and I went to Rockefeller Center. My office used to be above the stage at Radio City Music Hall. I scheduled lunch with my daughter at this restaurant by the ice rink. And this restaurant was right at the ice rink level downstairs, and I waited for her. She was running a little late. I watched this woman. When I saw her first, she was frumpy, plain, and she had cheap clothing. She looked so tired. I remember when I first looked at her, I thought she was around 40. Then I looked at her again and I continued to watch her. She looked maybe 50 or older. She just looked so tired.

She sat down to change into her skate, and she pulled out of this bag a pair of ice skates. They weren't the rentals. They looked expensive. And they didn't match her. They didn't match what she was wearing. She was a frumpy, old tired woman, and she had these beautiful expensive skates. And I began to wonder who is she.

As I watched her through the glass, that idea went from a fleeting thought to a profound question. Because when she stepped on the ice, she transformed. All of a sudden, this woman, who I had just imagined was a faceless accountant was an artist. She was as graceful as a ballet dancer. She floated over the ice. Just a split second before, she looked heavy and frumpy and now she was floating and graceful and she was perfect. It was a pivot point for me because I began to wonder about her childhood. I began to wonder how would was she when she began to skate. Was she a former Olympian? Was she a professional? Had she hurt herself and she wasn't able to pursue her dreams? Did she not make the cut? Maybe, worse yet, she had never tried?

I began to wonder about her entire life because I saw a change. This is who she was. The look of the accountant was the mask. And I began to want to actually follow her back to work and just be invisible and watch people interact with her. I mean how many people in her office knew this about her? How many people pass her in the hallway every single day, people who claim to know her, and miss the beauty and the talent and the profound artist in this simple, humble, invisible woman. Does anybody really even see her?

And then I had a worse thought. Has she ever asked that of herself? Does anybody ever really see me? See, I'm supposed to notice. I think we all are. But I'm supposed to notice. I'm supposed to point out. I'm supposed to lift up. I'm supposed to affirm.

We are all in trouble. All of us are in trouble. Our kids are turning to sex and drugs. Our kids are turning to stuff. Nothing has meaning. They're killing. They are being killed, and I have begun to believe here, in the last year, that maybe it's not the stuff that we're doing. Maybe it's not all of that. It's the stuff that we are not doing. We are not seeing each other. We no longer listen to each other. We are in this unbelievable world of communication now, and we are becoming more alone and more isolated. We are doing it because we believe that stuff makes us happy and others will fulfill us. That beauty or fitness is the secret or money is our god. We have more PhDs, more education, more years studying than anyone in the history of the world, and yet we can't seem to find a simple answer to some of our simplest problems, and our families are falling apart.

I want you to know that I'm on a journey. I want you to know that I am profoundly changing, and I don't know what all of that means. But I wanted to have this chat with you this morning because I don't want to ever leave you with the impression that I have any answers – because I don't.

I have theories. I know what I believe, and I have faith. But anybody who says that they have all the answers, that they can fix you or they can fix a problem bigger than themselves, they are a liar. They're ignorant, delusional, or they're Jesus. And I can tell you right now, I haven't hired Jesus, so anybody on this show that says that, they are a liar. What we are supposed to do is notice. We are supposed to look beyond what the world says about you or about me or about them, whoever they are, because we are in this together.

Actually, that makes me feel better because I know that people are good. They just need the excuse to be better than they are. I don't know where I end up a year from now. I think I do. And the path is becoming much more clear to me, but we have to take off the mask. We have to start seeing each other. We have to start being real. We have to be authentic. We have to love each other, even though we don't like each other. We have to say the hard thing because if you really, truly love someone else, you will tell them the tough truth. But if you are trying to get them to love you, then you will tell them what they want to hear. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. In fact, I fear I'm going to tell you a lot of things that you really don't want to hear.

But hear this: We are going to make it, as long as we stick together. We are going to make it, and we'll make it together. The secret really is quite simple: People are meant to be loved and things are designed to be used. The problem today is things are being loved and people are being used.

Let's change that. Not in some grand way of let's change the world. Let's just change that in us. Come with me on a journey and explore and just change you. I will change me. You change you. We may even change to not really like each other in the end. We may fall out of friendship. I don't know. But you work on you, and I'll work on me. Let's just see things differently. Let's choose to be happy. Let's choose to be better than we were yesterday or everyone favor minutes ago. Let's be different than everybody else that is just walking around in a fog.

Prove to yourself that people really are good, that there is much more that unites us than divides us. Let's see people for who they really are, beyond what the media has made them into, beyond what the parties have made them into. Let's see people for who they really are – beyond the frumpy coat and the look of being tired. And if we can do that, then maybe, no promises, but just maybe people will begin to see us for who we really are.

'Rage against the dying of the light': Charlie Kirk lived that mandate

PHILL MAGAKOE / Contributor | Getty Images

Kirk’s tragic death challenges us to rise above fear and anger, to rebuild bridges where others build walls, and to fight for the America he believed in.

I’ve only felt this weight once before. It was 2001, just as my radio show was about to begin. The World Trade Center fell, and I was called to speak immediately. I spent the day and night by my bedside, praying for words that could meet the moment.

Yesterday, I found myself in the same position. September 11, 2025. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. A friend. A warrior for truth.

Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins.

Moments like this make words feel inadequate. Yet sometimes, words from another time speak directly to our own. In 1947, Dylan Thomas, watching his father slip toward death, penned lines that now resonate far beyond his own grief:

Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas was pleading for his father to resist the impending darkness of death. But those words have become a mandate for all of us: Do not surrender. Do not bow to shadows. Even when the battle feels unwinnable.

Charlie Kirk lived that mandate. He knew the cost of speaking unpopular truths. He knew the fury of those who sought to silence him. And yet he pressed on. In his life, he embodied a defiance rooted not in anger, but in principle.

Picking up his torch

Washington, Jefferson, Adams — our history was started by men who raged against an empire, knowing the gallows might await. Lincoln raged against slavery. Martin Luther King Jr. raged against segregation. Every generation faces a call to resist surrender.

It is our turn. Charlie’s violent death feels like a knockout punch. Yet if his life meant anything, it means this: Silence in the face of darkness is not an option.

He did not go gently. He spoke. He challenged. He stood. And now, the mantle falls to us. To me. To you. To every American.

We cannot drift into the shadows. We cannot sit quietly while freedom fades. This is our moment to rage — not with hatred, not with vengeance, but with courage. Rage against lies, against apathy, against the despair that tells us to do nothing. Because there is always something you can do.

Even small acts — defiance, faith, kindness — are light in the darkness. Reaching out to those who mourn. Speaking truth in a world drowning in deceit. These are the flames that hold back the night. Charlie carried that torch. He laid it down yesterday. It is ours to pick up.

The light may dim, but it always does before dawn. Commit today: I will not sleep as freedom fades. I will not retreat as darkness encroaches. I will not be silent as evil forces claim dominion. I have no king but Christ. And I know whom I serve, as did Charlie.

Two turning points, decades apart

On Wednesday, the world changed again. Two tragedies, separated by decades, bound by the same question: Who are we? Is this worth saving? What kind of people will we choose to be?

Imagine a world where more of us choose to be peacemakers. Not passive, not silent, but builders of bridges where others erect walls. Respect and listening transform even the bitterest of foes. Charlie Kirk embodied this principle.

He did not strike the weak; he challenged the powerful. He reached across divides of politics, culture, and faith. He changed hearts. He sparked healing. And healing is what our nation needs.

At the center of all this is one truth: Every person is a child of God, deserving of dignity. Change will not happen in Washington or on social media. It begins at home, where loneliness and isolation threaten our souls. Family is the antidote. Imperfect, yes — but still the strongest source of stability and meaning.

Mark Wilson / Staff | Getty Images

Forgiveness, fidelity, faithfulness, and honor are not dusty words. They are the foundation of civilization. Strong families produce strong citizens. And today, Charlie’s family mourns. They must become our family too. We must stand as guardians of his legacy, shining examples of the courage he lived by.

A time for courage

I knew Charlie. I know how he would want us to respond: Multiply his courage. Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins. Out of darkness, great and glorious things will sprout — but we must be worthy of them.

Charlie Kirk lived defiantly. He stood in truth. He changed the world. And now, his torch is in our hands. Rage, not in violence, but in unwavering pursuit of truth and goodness. Rage against the dying of the light.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck resurrects the 9-12 Project to support Charlie Kirk's family

Glenn Beck is once again calling on his loyal listeners and viewers to come together and channel the same unity and purpose that defined the historic 9-12 Project. That movement, born in the wake of national challenges, brought millions together to revive core values of faith, hope, and charity.

Glenn created the original 9-12 Project in early 2009 to bring Americans back to where they were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those moments, we weren't Democrats and Republicans, conservative or liberal, Red States or Blue States, we were united as one, as America. The original 9-12 Project aimed to root America back in the founding principles of this country that united us during those darkest of days.

This new initiative draws directly from that legacy, focusing on supporting the family of Charlie Kirk in these dark days following his tragic murder.

The revival of the 9-12 Project aims to secure the long-term well-being of Charlie Kirk's wife and children. All donations will go straight to meeting their immediate and future needs. If the family deems the funds surplus to their requirements, Charlie's wife has the option to redirect them toward the vital work of Turning Point USA.

This campaign is more than just financial support—it's a profound gesture of appreciation for Kirk's tireless dedication to the cause of liberty. It embodies the unbreakable bond of our community, proving that when we stand united, we can make a real difference.
Glenn Beck invites you to join this effort. Show your solidarity by donating today and honoring Charlie Kirk and his family in this meaningful way.

You can learn more about the 9-12 Project and donate HERE

The dangerous lie: Rights as government privileges, not God-given

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

When politicians claim that rights flow from the state, they pave the way for tyranny.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) recently delivered a lecture that should alarm every American. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he argued that believing rights come from a Creator rather than government is the same belief held by Iran’s theocratic regime.

Kaine claimed that the principles underpinning Iran’s dictatorship — the same regime that persecutes Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and other minorities — are also the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

In America, rights belong to the individual. In Iran, rights serve the state.

That claim exposes either a profound misunderstanding or a reckless indifference to America’s founding. Rights do not come from government. They never did. They come from the Creator, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims without qualification. Jefferson didn’t hedge. Rights are unalienable — built into every human being.

This foundation stands worlds apart from Iran. Its leaders invoke God but grant rights only through clerical interpretation. Freedom of speech, property, religion, and even life itself depend on obedience to the ruling clerics. Step outside their dictates, and those so-called rights vanish.

This is not a trivial difference. It is the essence of liberty versus tyranny. In America, rights belong to the individual. The government’s role is to secure them, not define them. In Iran, rights serve the state. They empower rulers, not the people.

From Muhammad to Marx

The same confusion applies to Marxist regimes. The Soviet Union’s constitutions promised citizens rights — work, health care, education, freedom of speech — but always with fine print. If you spoke out against the party, those rights evaporated. If you practiced religion openly, you were charged with treason. Property and voting were allowed as long as they were filtered and controlled by the state — and could be revoked at any moment. Rights were conditional, granted through obedience.

Kaine seems to be advocating a similar approach — whether consciously or not. By claiming that natural rights are somehow comparable to sharia law, he ignores the critical distinction between inherent rights and conditional privileges. He dismisses the very principle that made America a beacon of freedom.

Jefferson and the founders understood this clearly. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they wrote. No government, no cleric, no king can revoke them. They exist by virtue of humanity itself. The government exists to protect them, not ration them.

This is not a theological quibble. It is the entire basis of our government. Confuse the source of rights, and tyranny hides behind piety or ideology. The people are disempowered. Clerics, bureaucrats, or politicians become arbiters of what rights citizens may enjoy.

John Greim / Contributor | Getty Images

Gifts from God, not the state

Kaine’s statement reflects either a profound ignorance of this principle or an ideological bias that favors state power over individual liberty. Either way, Americans must recognize the danger. Understanding the origin of rights is not academic — it is the difference between freedom and submission, between the American experiment and theocratic or totalitarian rule.

Rights are not gifts from the state. They are gifts from God, secured by reason, protected by law, and defended by the people. Every American must understand this. Because when rights come from government instead of the Creator, freedom disappears.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

POLL: Is America’s next generation trading freedom for equity?

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A recent poll conducted by Justin Haskins, a long-time friend of the show, has uncovered alarming trends among young Americans aged 18-39, revealing a generation grappling with deep frustrations over economic hardships, housing affordability, and a perceived rigged system that favors the wealthy, corporations, and older generations. While nearly half of these likely voters approve of President Trump, seeing him as an anti-establishment figure, over 70% support nationalizing major industries, such as healthcare, energy, and big tech, to promote "equity." Shockingly, 53% want a democratic socialist to win the 2028 presidential election, including a third of Trump voters and conservatives in this age group. Many cite skyrocketing housing costs, unfair taxation on the middle class, and a sense of being "stuck" or in crisis as driving forces, with 62% believing the economy is tilted against them and 55% backing laws to confiscate "excess wealth" like second homes or luxury items to help first-time buyers.

This blend of Trump support and socialist leanings suggests a volatile mix: admiration for disruptors who challenge the status quo, coupled with a desire for radical redistribution to address personal struggles. Yet, it raises profound questions about the roots of this discontent—Is it a failure of education on history's lessons about socialism's failures? Media indoctrination? Or genuine systemic barriers? And what does it portend for the nation’s trajectory—greater division, a shift toward authoritarian policies, or an opportunity for renewal through timeless values like hard work and individual responsibility?

Glenn wants to know what YOU think: Where do Gen Z's socialist sympathies come from? What does it mean for the future of America? Make your voice heard in the poll below:

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism comes from perceived economic frustrations like unaffordable housing and a rigged system favoring the wealthy and corporations?

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism, including many Trump supporters, is due to a lack of education about the historical failures of socialist systems?

Do you think that these poll results indicate a growing generational divide that could lead to more political instability and authoritarian tendencies in America's future?

Do you think that this poll implies that America's long-term stability relies on older generations teaching Gen Z and younger to prioritize self-reliance, free-market ideals, and personal accountability?

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