July 1, 2025 • 76 mins
Lilo reconnects with longtime friend Justin Leone—musician, award-winning sommelier, author, and entrepreneur—to explore the painful cost of tying self-worth to performance. From a childhood shaped by control and conditional love to a career defined by reinvention, Justin shares how early trauma impacted his adult relationships, his ego, and his ability to trust. With honesty and humor, he opens up about breaking generational cycles and learning to love without losing himself.
In this episode:
For more resources: liesmyego.com
In this episode:
- Ego and Identity
- Generational Trauma and Its Effects on Mental Health
- Navigating Adult Relationships
- Navigating Personal Relationships and Family Dynamics
- Career Ambitions and Personal Growth
- The Evolution of Love and Relationships
- Breaking the Cycle of Manipulation
- Rebuilding Self-Worth and Identity
- Lessons Learned and Moving Forward
For more resources: liesmyego.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC]
(00:02):
My name is Lilo Armandie and my ego is a liar.
And guess what?
Yours is too.
I'm a combat veteran, mother, and recovering high performer.
[MUSIC]
This is a show about the lives we tell ourselves, how they shape us, how they break us,
and what it takes to finally let them go.
Let's uncover our lives to seek the truth underneath.
(00:23):
Because before there's clarity, there's chaos.
Let's navigate it together.
So, don your oxygen mask and take a deep breath.
Welcome to Lies My Ego Told Me.
[MUSIC]
Today, we have someone who is 180 out in comparison to the guests we started the season with.
Justin Leoni is one of my oldest and dearest friends, someone I've known since we were teenagers.
(00:43):
Justin knows a thing or two about reinvention and the painful work it takes to get there.
Back when we were kids, he was already making noise in the world performing classical base
with a level of precision even professional musicians would envy.
Since then, Justin's career has been a masterclass in reinvention.
From classical musician to sommelier, Michelin star giants like Alinea and Tantras,
he moved to Germany without speaking the language and that eventually became a judge on the German version of the TV show MasterChef.
(01:09):
He's also an author and is now the proud owner of the award winning sticks and stones wine bar in Munich.
He's still on stage with rock bands today, but he's made it his mission in life to bring an appreciation of wine to the masses.
But this episode isn't about wine or music.
It's about trust and what happens when your thought that love is conditional.
When survival becomes performance and when healing means learning how to be seen for who you are, not what you produce.
(01:34):
Guten Tag, Justin, welcome to the podcast.
As we say, "Servos Catherine."
Hi.
Hi, buddy.
It's a beautiful day in Munich.
How was it in Hotlana?
Hotlana is great.
It's summer and it's gorgeous.
It's always a pleasure, Catherine.
Unfortunately, I'm a little far away from you, so we don't have to see each other so often, but I'm happy this podcast is bringing us back together.
(01:59):
All right. We've known each other for over 25 years.
We've had a lot of wine-fueled conversations about the full gamut of philosophical topics, obviously.
But recently, given some rather life-changing events for you, our talks have been primarily about family and relationships.
You said it when you were growing up that it felt like you were more of a project than a person.
(02:21):
You were the kind of child that was a musical prodigy, you could say, and you were almost a vessel for someone else's ambition.
Let's get started.
What was the lie your ego led you to believe for so long?
How do you think that shaped your understanding of your own value?
The lie my ego would constantly tell me.
(02:42):
And I can honestly say that it's taken me almost 43 years to understand that is probably they have my best interests at heart.
It's a very jagged pill to swallow when since the time you're able to walk, you're kind of forced to, you know, place your trust implicitly in these people
(03:11):
called your parents and other family members.
And there's really not a lot of other option.
And if your parents don't happen to foster any sort of independence or freedom in you or,
let's just say self-confidence, at least healthy self-confidence, and not toxic self-confidence, it can be a very rough road for the future.
(03:41):
The relationship with our egos is so fascinating to me, obviously, I started a podcast about it because it can be an armor and it can be a prison.
It's something that's supposed to protect us, but the manipulation of it can really be so controlling.
So when did you finally begin to question that?
When love and harm started to look way too similar?
(04:01):
Well, it's as with anything psychological, it's obviously very convoluted. And what I can essentially boil it down to as far as origin stories would be, you know, my mother was, was what you would call today, you know, a helicopter mother.
I was never allowed to go on school field trips.
(04:23):
I was never allowed to do anything that was even slightly like outside the box. I was very much forced into playing this role of, you know, mama's boy, which, of course, you just accept it when you're little.
You don't know any differently, especially if you're that sheltered.
And as, of course, now I look back at it with a very different maturity and evolution.
(04:48):
You know, this is one of the typical sort of symptoms of any number of mental issues that my mother had, but one of them, of course, is isolationism.
If you want to separate someone or your child from the herd to even exert more influence on them to manipulate them, to shape them, to force them into things, or to kind of mold them the way that you want them to with a blatant disregard for what they want.
(05:18):
Of course, that's one of the first things. And so it's a, it's a very acute and unconscious conditioning from a very young age that that's just how things go. That's how it should be.
So I can recall certainly as a child, the first question marks, which would pop into my head when I dared to even question, because as we know in these, sadly, authoritarian times that we're living in in the world,
(05:48):
the first offense is questioning, how dare you? Because then the hammer drops. And you're punished. And you have the fear of God in you, which, of course, discourages any sort of further questioning.
And the lack of questioning is the quickest path to absolute power. But when I noticed how my friends, families seem to run a little differently, the freedoms that they had.
(06:18):
The ability to do things without being watched and controlled in every little minute aspect of their life. I started thinking, okay, well, that's weird, because that's not like my life.
Of course, sitting around in a school classroom with like a substitute teacher, like doing homework while the other kids are like on, you know, like you went right on the pilgrim or something like that.
(06:46):
Like on those, like the ship at Dana point, you would like spend like two nights when we were reading that one book like two days before the mast, you know, all the kids would go to this like, you know, pirate ship in the harbor and like try to, you know, live what they read about.
And I mean, come on, it's like totally innocent. It's just a bunch of kids with some teachers on a ship for two nights, like having to eat ronians if you do something bad.
(07:09):
And like you're going to pick up fucking peltz that they fake peltz they throw off from a cliff, you like roll out and get on me. Come on, what's going to go wrong?
You know, but, you know, there I am sitting in the classroom, doodling on a pad instead of, you know, being a part of the kids or a part of the group.
And when that happens enough times, I wasn't even allowed to attend sex ed because my mom said that that was not appropriate.
(07:36):
For a child, not appropriate to learn about. She's so, and you know, all these things end up sort of, you know,
amounting to a brutal ostracizing of children in this in this microcosmic social community at a very crucially developmental time period.
(08:01):
And so, you know, as I progressed and got older, I guess this sort of the, the bubblings of rebellion to started to well up as I got a little older, got a little more confident, started to figure out who I was.
And realized that I do have something to offer to the hive, you know, maybe I should be a part of it. And, and, and a little bit of obviously resentment starting to build as well, or at least the foreshadowing of resentment.
(08:31):
So, yeah, those were the early factors in that which only progressed and got worsened, obviously, as I got older and more independent and had more of my own thoughts.
I want to touch on it briefly because I think it really foreshadows a lot of your story. But it's interesting that your mother was so controlling.
(08:52):
She was also nurturing your talent to how did she discover that talent that you had for music, figure out how to nurture it and then kind of weaponize it against you.
Yeah, nurture is a, it's a funny word for me to hear and to process because it's, there's a lot of mixed emotions when I try to repeat that word.
(09:16):
And because, you know, my, my mother for whatever, well, there is no one reason. I mean, she's a product of her past and she was, she was a, she was a young girl growing up in a family of brothers in England.
Born in a castle, but basically forced out, father became a fish monger.
(09:38):
As always in sort of mid, mid evil, ask, you know, a British culture. It was survival, the fittest and of course, you know, the females had nothing to offer. They weren't the breadwinners.
She's the kind of, had the kind of father where you'd get slapped off of your chair if you spoke out of turn.
And she was worth nothing. So she didn't get the things that her brother got in terms of opportunity in terms of material things, nothing.
(10:04):
So she felt very deprived. And then later on when she married my father, she felt like she gave him everything to help him through his college career so that he could, you know, support the family and they could build something together.
He ended up being chronically unfaithful, not, not a terrible guy, just a little bit too amorous for his own good. And of course, ultimately for our good, certainly not.
(10:28):
So the whole family paradigm crumbles. She feels like the world has always been against her has taken everything from her. And so now I'm born, which she later basically told me I was, because I was asking her about the time difference to my brother and I was 10 years.
She made up some silly story about what a, what a mystic told her, the fortune teller. But later on it came out that she told me and again, I don't know if this was like mental illness speaking or if this was truth.
(10:58):
She basically said that she was ready to leave my father because she found out about the unfaithfulness and then he forced himself upon her and then I came along. So basically I figure out this bomb has dropped on me that I'm a product of rape.
Yeah, talk about questioning your own identity. I mean, and but thinking back to it, it, it plays out to be an interesting element of the script because I understand now why my mother and I had this sort of love hate relationship where I was a living symbol of her imprisonment.
(11:32):
And at the same time, I was the center of her universe. Sometimes the way that she would talk to me or even as a kid, like, you know, just scream at me. I was thinking like, how does that happen? How does a parent do that?
Where's the love, you know, and I know that a lot of people grew up with tough love families. I understand that, but this was a little bit felt a little bit different.
(11:54):
And so, yes, when we had to learn something in school, violin or choir, whatever it was, I picked up the violin and I kind of took to it, you know, like a fish to water, I guess.
And my mother apparently always wanted to do something like that, but wasn't allowed to. So I became the sort of sort of vicarious fulfillment, I guess, of her sort of, you know, life's goals or fantasies.
(12:21):
And so it also became my prison because I was used to things like I never got any mail that wasn't opened. There were no closed doors in the house. I could never close the door to my room. My mother would clean my room, but what that meant was she would rifle through every single possession to see if I was hiding anything or up to no good or anything like that whatsoever.
(12:47):
So I was basically accustomed to living in some sort of bizarre house arrest, you know, wasn't allowed to go out at night.
Family dinner was always on Friday, so that was also out school nights out of the question weekends, maybe, but then this vehicle of music, then this element came in where it wasn't nurture.
(13:11):
But of course she paid the money for the expensive private teachers and the nice instruments, but she would sit me down in front of her while the other kids were outside playing on a school afternoon and forced me to play for her over and over and over again.
And it was not constructive practice, which when it's good practice, it's not nice to listen to. It's terrible. You're working on like two bars for like two hours to get it right. And that's not, you know, amusing, but it's how it's how you get great.
(13:49):
But I would just have to play the goddamn branded bird concerto number three over and over and over again, like a, like a record player for her while she's sat two meters from me and it would scream at me stop again.
Stop again for something that she didn't like. And of course, at some point, I'm like tears streaming down like, you know, trying to like play and not screw up and it's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse.
(14:16):
And she's getting more and more angry. And then that would even be like the cause of getting grounded or something and then she'd say you're intentionally screwing up. How you why are you doing this to me?
And it would become this whole bizarre, just like psychological warfare issue of like you said, literally weaponizing first I'm in prison by it.
(14:40):
And then it's being used against me because now it's even flowing over into my freedoms and my my my intentions as a as a human being and my maliciousness or whatever.
And yeah, it was.
It was pretty horrendous and and and so my my passion became became something that I was also starting to resent.
(15:07):
Because I knew what it costs to get to be where I was and of course, there's the sacrifices of then spending the entire Saturday driving me from Pasadena or L.A. for a lesson to Pasadena for an orchestra to Fullerton for another orchestra and then home and doing marching band things and doing jazz band things.
(15:31):
I mean, I know there's a lot there, but that is something that I would always use as an excuse to say, oh, well, yeah, this is horrible.
I'm being treated like an animal, but surely it's for the best.
Certainly she has my best interests at heart because she's my mom. Yeah, your relationship with love is so complicated.
(16:02):
Obviously from such a young age.
And it's just heartbreaking to hear about that generational trauma.
Was there ever a time when you confused her control with care or performance with love?
Oh, I learned at a very young age as I alluded to earlier to lie basically or to lie to myself to say face.
(16:31):
You know, every time the kids would come back from a trip or the kids would do something and I wasn't there or I wasn't included, you know, I would say, oh, well, you know, my mom says is very dangerous and you're all stupid.
They love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my mom says that being cool is totally overrated. So you guys are the losers.
(16:58):
You know, so and of course, I mean, she I am careful to try to be like an armchair psychologist because God knows I have no degrees in that.
However, however, there are certain now that I'm old enough and now that I'm not blinded. I mean, how do we expect a child to not be blinded anyway? I mean, this is, I mean, come on.
(17:21):
You don't know any better. And I was a smart kid, but that didn't mean that I, you know, especially if you're not.
I felt like a house cat, you know, I was just sitting at the window all day looking at cars driving by and not even knowing that they could run me over.
Because I was never allowed to even go near them, you know, and so and so I was just, you know, always, always compensating for her and I would try to convince myself that that was an act of love because if I didn't do that, then what did I even have?
(17:54):
So it's almost a way of just keeping yourself sane. The problem with that is, and I'm sure we'll get to this with your line of questions, but where I'm standing now, it's easy to see that those are the moments that established patterns, which would remain with me well, well into my adult life and foster some other very powerful.
(18:23):
And then there's a lot of other very poor decision making, which would lead to other quite challenging and possibly disastrous, you know, events.
I mean, there's a part of me though. And I know what you've been through, obviously, we're very close.
And as an adult, you know, it's not excusable. However, there is a certain amount of empathy that I do have for your mother, even though.
(18:51):
Maybe she wasn't a great mother at all, but just listening about her life and knowing about her youth and then her marriage too, like, I don't think she ever really knew what love was either.
Well, I, you know, I'm also, I guess, forgiving to a fault in a way.
(19:12):
Maybe I still haven't quite figured out, probably need a little bit more therapy to get to that point, but I don't think, I don't know.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm fine. We all need it. I mean, whether we admit that to ourselves or not.
No, but I think there's, there is a line between forgiveness and convincing yourself things are okay when they're not.
(19:39):
You know, and I think that I'm still trying to figure out the blur in that line. Yeah, I'm, it's not as fuzzy as it used to be, but I know back then there was, there was no line.
And I do fundamentally believe in it. And this is coming from me, not being a parent. So I have to say you have a lot more experience with that.
(20:00):
But I do fundamentally believe that most people and especially parents are trying their best. I don't think, I don't think that there's as much maliciousness in the world as it sometimes appears.
But yeah, due to backgrounds, you know, such as my mother's, I also understand where that comes from. However, is that an excuse and is that acceptable?
(20:27):
This is also a big question. And that's a question that I grappled with up until her death, to be honest.
And her death was kind of the catalyst to me, finally, sort of doing enough concerted reflection to come to peace with that.
But on the other hand, perhaps part of the answer and part of my reflection is also, I consider myself a loving person.
(20:57):
I'm not maybe gushingly so with everybody, but I've at least learned what it means.
I've also learned to be more open to using that word because at home, it was not used ever.
(21:21):
It was very taboo.
And I've come to grips with using it and also in a more casual way and not just reserved for the person that I'm in a relationship with or intimate relationship with.
But in a broader sense. And also, you know, just being able to show appreciation for people and for interactions.
(21:44):
And I think that if I'm proof that someone can come up in this sort of environment and still find a way to that point.
Well, then it kind of, you know, lessons my acceptance of my mom's basis has an excuse.
(22:08):
So let's talk about how your lie and your relationship with your mother, your parents love in general, blood into your adult relationships.
Because when you were younger, you were obviously in the orbit of your mother constantly. But once you sever ties and you were truly on your own and far away, you're finally in a position to be able to build real connections with people without those shackles that your mom had on you.
(22:37):
So what was it like for you trying to build trusting relationships as an adult, especially while navigating dating and romantic relationships.
Not even having an example of a good example of that at home.
You know, that's you you hit it on the head. I mean, I, you know, obviously did not have the best image of marriage in the back of my mind growing up.
(23:05):
I, I, I fancied myself a sort of permanent single. I did not ever romanticize having children or a family of my own. I allowed for the possibility of having a, a life partner.
(23:26):
I actually know I actively sort of rejected the social construct of marriage. I actually always wanted to just, you know, be the cool one is like, we don't need we're going to go get ring tattoos.
No, that's horrible. I know it's horrible. I was, I was young. Come on. No, no, no. Anyway, so, so no, there was a possibility of that. But I mean, yeah, just, I was sort of catapulted.
(23:55):
Very abruptly and brutally into independence. Because my mother finally just went too far. And this was sort of the point to where a boy started his journey to become a man.
And it was, of course, I was forbidden to date in high school. I was forbidden to, to even think about having a girlfriend, because it would distract from my studies. It was worthless. It would get me nowhere and it's silly.
(24:28):
Forget the whole social, emotional, developmental aspect of that kind of healthy thing. No, no, no, no, that didn't matter to my mom. It was all about the numbers and the figures and the outcomes.
So I did, however, I met a fellow bassist from, from another high school and we, we, we got involved at first, of course, very covertly, but at some point it kind of came out and was not received well.
(24:59):
But my mom thought, Oh, it's just going to fizzle. And if I ground him enough times or take his car away enough times, then it's basically just going to drive a wedge in a relationship and it'll kind of sus itself out.
That all did happen except for the end result of us not being together. So despite her best efforts. Well, fast forward, I went to university. My mom was still somehow obsessed with ending this relationship.
(25:29):
Despite the fact we were two thousand miles apart. I was in university. She was a senior first year in university. She was her in your senior year in high school. Anyway, to make a long story short, all I wanted was to come back for her senior prom.
My mom refused to get me plane tickets. Her mother did.
My mother found out because she saw there was a suit missing from my closet. And like I said, she was very good at rifling through everything of my of my life to get to the brass tax of any situation.
(26:04):
And by the time I landed in my dorm room back in Indiana, there were about 30 and I'm not kidding 36 voice messages. I mean, we're talking manic manic times a thousand. I mean, you have to be that should crazy to leave someone 36 messages inside of like three hours and each one increasingly more angry and shrieking and spitting and vain popping and all of that.
(26:29):
And there was a very loud conversation at that point when I called and the result was I'm can sing your tuition check. Even though I was on a large scholarship. There was a part that I was not of course there wasn't covered.
And because my lack of freedom, I was never allowed to have a job. I was never allowed to make my own money because money equals freedom and freedom equals she's not as important anymore.
(26:56):
I had no choice. I had to, you know, I had to give in and it meant her mother had to cancel the this was back when we had paper plane tickets, you know, no, no, no Apple wallets.
She literally had to cancel the paper plane tickets. My girlfriend had to bring them over to my mom. I had to FedEx my suit home overnight.
(27:20):
Then I had to stay in my dorm room the entire day of the prom so there's a good call me every hour and check in. And if I didn't answer the phone one time, my tuition would be canceled.
She also said you have to write a letter taking back all the nasty things you said to us on the phone. I said, I'll do the other things but I'm not doing that.
(27:44):
And so I started the process of emancipation after that because I said I can't live like this anymore.
And there's something not right about it. And also I'll keep this part of it short long story short. I went to the.
The department heads office of financial aid told my story she said that's horrible. I'm so sorry. I can't do anything for you.
(28:08):
Yeah, and I might I saw my life crumbling before my eyes and I thought well, did you not hear what I said? And she said no, no, no, there's even worse stories.
But I need restraining orders police records abuse. I need some hard evidence of all of this. You know, it's hard to show police records for mental abuse.
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, just full blown narcissistic abuse, right? Like that's so much control. It's insane.
(28:35):
No, I mean, also, I mean, what I didn't mention is growing up with, you know, nothing was ever good. I mean, I know you know this too.
But, you know, a healthy bit of nothing is ever good enough is also, you know, it happens. It's okay. It's not the best situation for your kids.
But honestly, I think it's a little bit better than getting a fucking participation trophy just for showing up to the match. You know, I, I mean, this generation, God save us all.
(28:58):
But so I'm also not saying we all have to be like, you know, caulking the wagon and floating across the fucking, you know, river on the Oregon trail and watching Timmy, I have typos.
You know, I'm not saying that's the better alternative, but something in between is pleasant. And I believe in encouraging and pushing your children to be the best that they can be.
(29:21):
But, you know, growing up with nothing is ever good enough having your middle name over time become stupid.
Or useless or whatever, you know, you know, this is where it gets very detrimental and very abusive and then all the other control stuff and stripping you of your identity, your humanity, your self worth, your, your self sustainability.
(29:50):
And so anyway, I happened to live across the hall from a kid who was a total recluse and I always saw him come out once in a while in a cloud of weed smoke.
And I was he was he was nice. So I was always nice to him. And I was kind of like the van wilder of my dorm room, right? Like I didn't really care that much about the academic part of it.
(30:11):
I was just there to play music and have some fun and make some cocktails. It was a dry campus. But you know, rebel. That's me.
So my door was always open. So I saw him. And I was just I would just have little, you know, small talk, little banter with him every once in a while, I invited him over for something, but no one knew who he was.
So I got up and shook her hand, totally crestfallen and worried about the rest of my life watching a crumble before me either slinking back to my mother, which I have no idea what would have become of me if that would have been necessary.
(30:43):
But I saw my I saw myself never amounting to anything. That was it. And I looked behind her desk and there was a picture of that kid across the hall for me. And I said, oh, you know, so and so. And she looked at me her face kind of went pale. And she said, wait, well, how do you know?
(31:04):
Oh, he lives across from me. He's a nice guy. And then she said, sit down. And she explained that was her son. He has gone through several nervous slash mental breakdowns because he has social anxiety disorder. And that he only takes couple of classes because that's all they can handle. And he works at Chili's.
(31:28):
And he told her that there's this one guy across the hall from him, which is kind of his anchor, which keeps him kind of feeling included and sane. And she said, you live across the hall for me. And I said, yeah, she said, OK.
Well, we're going to take another look at your file. And because of that, I was granted independent status. I was emancipated and I was able to stay in school and get pelgrants and things like that.
(32:01):
That's incredible.
Yeah, it's it's a testament to so many things in my life. And it's been such.
I mean, that was one of the most pivotal moments, I think in my entire life, especially when I look back on it, just to just to think about how to.
How to treat other people, what situations can mean, what kind of impact things can have on everybody around you and just just this heightened sensitivity.
(32:28):
And also never judging anybody and never knowing who's across the table from you. I mean, who knows. And and and also being being empathetic to other people's issues.
And, you know, strangely enough, up until my mother's death.
(32:49):
Apparently that act of becoming financially independent from my mother, because of that horrible control that she tried to exude on me and those horrendous threats that she was levying upon me, which I'm reinforced my hand.
She carried that literally to her grave.
(33:10):
And that's stemming back to being emancipated in college. Do you think she was heartbroken or resentful?
Both both.
It's it's just, you know, when I went through all of the things in the house and I started finding these artifacts, like literally like artifacts, she kept every single stupid art project I ever made every little bit of everything.
(33:39):
And I found these stupid construction paper like macaroni things, you know, from what was probably four or three, I mean unbelievable.
And I find, because they never could use computers or anything, they were ultra old school.
I found like a printout of like my like Facebook page or something that she had to like kind of see what I was up to.
(34:04):
Never once picked up the phone to call me she, which of course I became resentful of because you're my mom, you should want to know where your child is, you should, because I, after enough, after enough times of calling being screamed at and then hung up on it kind of lessons you desire to call next time, you know, yeah, it's weird how that works.
(34:25):
And she, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's like, go figure, but I mean, man, it's just this super ultra, I'm sorry if a lack of a better term, mind fuck of being treated one way and then uncovering this archaeological site, which points to something else.
(34:49):
And to sort of find some sort of resolution in those two worlds, I don't know, it's bizarre, but at the point to where I was emancipated and I officially had to figure out my own way.
And I was able to have my own thoughts, my own philosophies, my own beliefs, conduct any relationship, the way that I see fit with whom I see fit.
(35:21):
Then yeah, I was forced really quickly to sort of adapt to the real world, but again, I was still that house cat, but now I was running, I was running through traffic.
Because you're free for the first time to explore relationships, you know, whether it be friendship or, you know, romantic relationships, you're in, you know, you're in your 20s at that point.
(35:43):
And to separate, to separate yourself from this horrible example, I mean, I'm not trying to make her out into a complete monster, but I do have to be honest about these things.
So I really like, I really had to learn everything over again, starting at the age of roughly 20.
(36:07):
Yeah. And looking back on it, having had recent contact with some of my, you know, band members from after university, I just had to say, man, I'm so sorry.
Because you didn't know how to adult properly?
I was a dumpster fire. I was, I was a absolute social hot mess.
(36:31):
I could, could not behave.
I didn't know the difference. I, I showed up to band practice. I don't know how many times, like 20, 45, an hour and 15 late, like time never existed to me.
I just respect that that actually, you know, shows to the other person never even occurred to me.
(36:57):
I was basically living my life through some bizarre narcissistic, sociopathic bipolar lens, which wasn't actually mine.
But those are the patterns of behavior that I was sort of following.
And I just thought that it was all okay. Well, I'm just going to scream at someone right now because that's what happens.
(37:19):
I really felt like a rescue animal that was, that was really just treated very, very poorly.
And I, and I could snarl or bite or whimper or run away at any given time for any reason.
And I really had to sort of begin learning things for the first time.
Well, with that level of control, you never really had responsibility because your mom never gave you any.
(37:47):
And therefore you had never had accountability. I'm curious though, you don't seem to harbor the same level of negativity towards your father, but he was habitually unfaithful.
And also your parents were married and he was still there. What was your dad doing? And why don't you view him with the same lens of negativity the way you do your mom?
(38:11):
I view my father with an enormous amount of pity and sorrow if I'm being honest with myself.
You know, the first time I ever saw Boogie Knights, the great PTA, Paul Thomas Anderson, that's what we call them in Hollywood.
(38:37):
Okay.
When I saw this movie for the first time, it was the most jarring moment of watching a movie ever because it did more than hit close to home.
It was literally like me watching a security camera footage of the moment that I first ran away from home.
(39:05):
The cast, I mean, Mark Walberg's mother looked almost exactly like my mother.
So the young ladies used to say about one young, strapping Justin Leoni, who bore a strange resemblance to Marky Mark.
(39:29):
So basically, I'm what's happening is I was watching myself, you know. And in the scene, he comes home late and his mother is sitting there waiting up for him and starts going at him about where he was.
And oh, he was probably out with that whore again.
And chasing him through the house as he's trying to just get away and diffuse a situation and screaming at him. And then of course it develops into crying and screaming and he's trying to pack a suitcase.
(40:02):
And she says, were you going? You have nowhere to go. What are you taking with you? None of this belongs to you. It's all mine.
And all the while the father is standing there in the next room, listening to this happen and just kind of like staring at his feet.
And then, you know, my Walberg bails and then that's sort of the his the beginning of his path. That's exactly how I went down with me.
(40:33):
And my father would say nothing. He was pretty much emasculated completely because he was, you know, under this shame blanket of his misgivings, his poor behavior.
And it was this very parasitic relationship of my mother and father remaining together despite this in just ocean of bad blood and resentment and the way that they would treat each other.
(41:05):
My father was basically just an absolute victim. God forbid he would be audacious enough to speak up against my mom because everything would always be thrown back in his face.
And he was and but he was sort of victimized enough so that he remained in this situation and obligated to sort of support the family or whatever family can't call it that.
(41:27):
At the time my my brothers way of dealing with everything was unfortunately to leave home and then, you know, start up using drugs and very hard ones and very nasty ones.
And he was out of my life for over 10 years of my youth estranged, you know, horrible interactions of my parents once and all trying to like drag him home and clean him up and punching holes through walls to kill them going through some sort of withdrawal finding, you know, some, how do you say drug using utensils in his jackets or whatever.
(42:02):
You know, as a young boy as like eight or nine year old, you know, that being said, great ending to that story. My brothers an amazing person with an amazing family with a great job and he's he couldn't be a better person and he's learned so much from his path.
And and even even teachers and mentors, trouble youth in his spare time to help them avoid what he's been through.
(42:28):
And so I mean that couldn't be better, but you know, but at the time it was an absolute mess and my father just had no.
He had no gumption, no confidence, no position to either tell her, hey, lay off the kid or hey, that's not how they should be raised or even just taped shut up.
(42:54):
You know, so it was just yes, there was a lot of resentment for my father for selfishly.
I wouldn't want to say destroying the family, but at least playing a role in my mother's sort of, I guess psychosis or mental baldness or whatever the case might have been.
(43:18):
But when I, again, when I went back to the family house to to clean it out, my companion at the time there called over to me from the other room and said, hey, I think you're going to want to see this.
(43:39):
And I said, yeah, what is it? I said, well, I think I just found your father. His ashes were in a cardboard box in a copper pot in the family room.
And when I held that box, I just broke down.
Because there was still little contact with any of us in the last years.
(44:00):
And my, I know my brother said that the way that they treated each other, so my mom treated my father was absolutely disgusting.
And it was just not a situation that I could have been around. And I was actually thinking of whether my mom prevented me from flying home, which is horrible to attend, you know, or to see my father away or to scatter the ashes or help with anything.
(44:23):
My brother just said, listen, take the pass. Do not come back here. You don't want to see this.
Yeah. And so anyway, I, I, that, that, that was the moment when I went back and then had both of their ashes.
And, and I, you know, went out to the lake to spread them where I felt like, you know, they wanted to be.
And it was finally closure for me. And it finally clicked in my adult brain, all the things that I had finally been forced to analyze.
(44:57):
And analyze.
Process and reflect upon.
Finally all kind of clicked to me. And it all made a little more sense. And it was a little bit easier to.
Be in a position of forgiveness at that point.
(45:18):
Yeah. It's pretty recently that they passed away. Right. It's still only been a couple of years, I think.
Yeah. It was a 22 when I believe it was 2022 when my mom passed and it was about a year before my father passed, yeah.
And how long had it been since you talked to them and each of them and how long had it been since you'd seen either of them.
(45:45):
I hadn't seen them in probably 18 years. And I hadn't spoken with my father in probably just as long.
Wow.
And my mother saved one or two very uncomfortable quick conversations.
Mm-hmm.
And I was pretending to well, let's put it this way. It's kind of part for the course. So at the moment that my father died, it was during the lockdown.
(46:15):
And I was at home about to cook some dinner with some friends. And then I got the SMS from my brother says, hey, dad just died.
So then I called and my brother's phone, my mom, as she always did, yanked the photo plate from him.
Classic.
Just screaming into it.
(46:37):
Just dad.
Yeah. She was hard of hearing too. So did you know your father died?
Yeah, mom, that's why I'm calling.
Do you even care?
Yeah, nice to talk to you, mom. Been a while.
Wow, glad you called Justin. How you doing these days? Nope.
(47:01):
You know, that was the first shots fired right off the bat.
Yeah.
And the conversation didn't go well. Of course.
So this was, I mean, this was just the part for the course, you know, accusations before discussions and shots before love.
(47:24):
And it's, yeah.
So anyway, that that was the extent of it really.
And I knew at some point I had to accept the fact and I tried many times.
I tried to make the pilgrimage from university back home, driving.
I drove from Indiana, blue incident Indiana to Orange County in two days, which is about 36 hours drive.
(47:49):
Because I only had one credit card with a hundred dollar max on it and I had to fill up my tank enough times before it overdrafted so that I could actually get there.
And I would sleep in the back of my truck.
And I got a gallon of water, a jar of peanut butter and a bag of bagels. That's all I could afford with my, you know, want to be rock star budget.
(48:10):
And, and, you know, thinking, oh, well, you know, this would be some hallmark heartfelt like reunion and she'll be like, oh, that's so nice of you.
What are you doing? You're crazy. And like, mom, let's have an understanding.
You know, I always saw it on TV happening this way. So I guess that's how it goes.
Nope. Actually, I think I made it in record time. I got kicked out of the house within two hours of arrival.
(48:35):
It sounds like you, you know, had this fairy tale idea of like what your relationship with your mother could be and the hope was still there.
The way that you romanticize the relationship that you could have with your mother, did that bleed into how you had relationships with partners?
(48:56):
Well, I guess, you know, it's shocking to think that I could have told myself for that long.
Like, it's okay. She has my best interest somewhere at heart, you know, somewhere.
And it's, it's funny because as many times as I get bitten, I just keep thinking it.
I just never learned.
(49:19):
But I think at first my view on love was very reactionary. It was keep everybody at arms length and don't really let them in and just have fun with them and live your life.
But don't let it get, don't let it in. Yeah.
Don't let it in. I made myself inaccessible. I built up my wall and I had, you know, I dumped everything on my career and my success.
(49:48):
And as long as I had that, that would be fulfilling enough for me and everything else was just kind of a cherry on top.
So weirdly enough, psychologically, I was playing into exactly that which I was rebelling against, you know, which my mother tried to instill in me.
But then as we progress, I start realizing myself, especially like the beginning of my sort of, you know, culinary life.
(50:14):
This was after the band, the band, I was probably a raging A-hole, but again, I had no self reflection and I had no perspective.
I had, I had no awareness of it. And then later on, you know, when I'm more forced to work in team environments, like you'll see in restaurants, especially high, high level restaurants, then I start realizing like back in the school days, like how the other kids are behaving and how they're doing things.
(50:38):
And I started finally learning what discipline was about and what discipline different from sitting in a practice room and just, you know, wood shedding a piece by myself for hours before a masterclass.
Like that's one thing, but this is a whole different, right? I don't need, I need to tell you, you have had probably the craziest level of that.
(51:01):
So finally, I started seeing myself like, oh my god, I can be a monster. Like how am I talking to these poor people who work with me or under me or whatever it's like, man, get a hold of yourself.
You know, you are not your mother, you're better than you're better than that. You know better than that. And so I really had to tame myself down.
(51:24):
And with that also again, coming back to this thing in university when I was thinking about empathy and compassion, I started sort of calming down and not letting my overreaching ambition take the reins.
And you know, it's like, I'm the horse. My ambition is the buggy. And it's just whipping me faster, faster, faster.
(51:45):
And almost bleeding me to a pulp, you know, and I'm reacting very agitatedly and edgy and almost insanely, you know, to the people around me because of that. It's just out of control at work or with your with your girlfriends at work at work.
The girlfriends were always like the, were like the pressure valve for me, you know, and I think because of my poor example of my parents, I was extra aware of never treating someone who I'm intimate with as my mom would treat my father because that always horrified me whether or not he was guilty or not of whatever he did or did not do.
(52:30):
Still people have fundamental human rights and they have emotions and again, he had his own prison. My prison was again my ambition and I am prison myself into it.
That was my substitute for true emotion.
As you said earlier, it became my armor and I was very proud of my positions, my status, my accomplishments, but it was also certainly my prison. And although I might have had this shiny armor on the outside, I was certainly rotting on the inside.
(53:02):
Yeah. Were you going into those relationships with a very like vulnerable open heart? Are we still guarded and cautious?
I was very guarded. I also didn't use the L word until much later, like much, much later because it seemed like such a sacred and rarefied element to me.
(53:27):
I couldn't let myself just throw it around, you know, which is such a stupid mentality. I mean, there is not nearly enough love in this world, you know, so why should someone hold it back if they have it to give?
Yeah. And that took me a long time to sort of understand.
So we'll fast forward a little bit, but there was a relationship that you described as your final wake up call hindsight being 2020 it mirrored a lot of the same patterns from your past and it was emotionally abusive.
(54:01):
It was manipulative and destructive and I can only describe it as having similarities to the movie Tinder Swingler, which I don't think you've seen, but you were a gaslit to the point of your own delusion and your ego and self worth.
It's almost impressive, but your ego and self worth were so surgically exploited and manipulated.
(54:26):
Can we talk about that relationship? Because it also kind of coincided about the time of COVID and the loss of your parents.
It did. Yeah, no, I mean, all I can say is I'm glad to have gotten out of it alive.
This person, as I learned later, the reason why she had a restaurant is that she basically forced that poor guy, her boyfriend/partner, into a complete nervous breakdown.
(55:02):
He gave up on everything and then just sold his part of it for pennies on the dollar. So she basically just absorbed it.
The next guy who had a family but was maybe separated-ish or something, not quite sure, was much more wealthy than me, much older.
(55:23):
He ended up hanging himself.
Wow.
And he made a documentation of the reasons in a video which he left to his family actually, so it's not up for debate.
Oh, my God. And she was a great part of that. And unfortunately, I understand why now.
She found me on Instagram. She very much hunted me down, let's say.
(55:55):
We met up, you know, the problem with these kinds of people. And I will say without any sort of reservation, 100%
narcissistic sociopath with every possible symptom and behavior involved.
You know, just the problem with these kinds of people is that first of all, they're the greatest actors.
(56:22):
I mean, on the planet, they can adapt to any situation. They can make anyone basically fall in love with them or be completely charmed by them.
They know exactly what your, where your pressure points are and they know how to push them.
And they feel no pain. They feel absolutely no pain and no remorse.
(56:45):
And this is for someone as, as, as human as me and, and, and actually, you know, especially in my now older age, sensitive as I've become.
It's just unfathomable. It's just I'm still somehow this naive little boy in some ways.
Trusting to a point of absolute detriment.
(57:11):
And she absolutely got me.
And later on, I realized that every single thing that she said about her past, about her present, about her intentions, about her daily activities, it was all, it was all a lie.
It's impossible to comprehend. House, a one can look you in the eye, destroying you and decimating you, not with a quick decapitation, but with a million little stabs.
(57:46):
Just watching you slowly bleed out and be reduced to nothing and actually convincing me that I was mentally unwell or unable to even run my business.
So I should just check into a hospital, sign it over to her and just basically f off. Right. And just go disappear.
(58:12):
It's, it's, it's absolutely nuts. And that was the moment when I had a choice. I could either pull up my bootstraps, get control of my life.
Deal with my depression, which I was horribly suffering from, from my first failed business attempt, which anyway, just for background, right.
(58:39):
My first restaurant attempt, my project manager, swindled me stole a quarter of a million euros from me and bailed.
And the lawsuit went on six and a half years. I fell from such a pedestal. I was on King of the World at the time. I was in the best restaurant with the best position with the best selling book on sky, master chef.
(59:03):
I mean, everything firing on all cylinders. And this was just an absolutely crushing blow. And I was driven into horrible, horrible depression.
And that made me all the more vulnerable to become prey to this alpha predator.
Who said all the right things made all the right moves convinced me of all the proper things and, and, and almost took everything from me. And in the, and in the meantime, reduced me to the point where I had no idea who I was.
(59:34):
She said she said your name means nothing. I'll rip it off the front door. This place. No one even cares.
No, you're not wearing any of your crazy suits. You're wearing a uniform like everyone else. No, you should only spend two days a week here because nobody wants to see you or you're not in a state to be here.
Yeah, even though she put, she put me in that state.
(59:55):
But it's, you know, despite all of this, I just couldn't get it through my head until I saw the blatant signs of the infidelity of the cheating with my assistant for God's sake.
Who she, she have manipulated to plot with against me to take everything from me until I finally saw all of those signs.
(01:00:21):
I was probably on a crash course to actually become mentally unstable and maybe to give everything over and just give up.
But since I faced these kinds of adversities before in my life, I wasn't quite as easy of a target as perhaps I would have seemed like.
(01:00:45):
And it was it is, it was the largest turning point in my life to decide that I need to take control back of my life.
But I am not in a position to trust anybody and that if there's any success and if there's any survival, it's coming from me at this point and nowhere else.
(01:01:08):
Yeah.
Because I'm assuming at the beginning of that relationship because I mean, I also agree that she's a predator.
That it was the classic like love bombing like inflating your ego telling you all the right things just showering you with love and attention.
But it all, but ultimately became you know loving someone who is hurting you and justifying it because it almost felt familiar.
(01:01:34):
It was almost like your mom back in the day where breaking you down and in that dire moment when you're at your rock bottom, we seek the familiar.
Not always the comfortable right.
So how did you break the cycle because it sounds like she was taking away like everything from you and ultimately was your heart right that got broken with the infidelity when you finally walked away.
(01:02:01):
Yeah, I mean I, I was literally, I mean so much of this happened in and surrounding the opening of my bar.
So you know when I heard those things in the seller and I thundered down the stairs, obviously they heard me coming so I couldn't catch anything in the act.
(01:02:23):
But I mean, I knew.
And then all the other things started happening.
You know, I it was at the point where I couldn't.
I almost questioned myself am I unstable because I couldn't even walk into the but my own bar without feeling absolutely sick to my stomach.
I couldn't go into the seller to get a bottle without shaking like a leaf.
(01:02:45):
And understanding the difference between mental unwellness and PTSD is a very important distinction.
And I, I, I threw through interactions with close friends, people who know me well, finally getting some great advice.
(01:03:13):
And of course, finally from going to therapy to talk through this and rationalize this and and to see it from a impartial perspective.
Yeah, I was able to finally wrap my head around the whole situation and realize that no, it wasn't my fault and giving relevance to these texts saying, yeah, he'll probably get like, you know, his business license revoked if this doesn't go through because I didn't put in for it or something like that, you know.
(01:03:44):
And finally it put all of that into perspective and I, and I think for the first time in my life, I realized the difference between ignorant or blind trust and placing faith in those around you who have
(01:04:13):
earned it and deserve it.
And, and that honestly, you are the master of your own destiny.
If the moment you lose control and I know that you have control issues too, huh?
What?
Probably a little bit.
A little bit.
(01:04:39):
I guess what I ultimately learned was I have to be the master of my own destiny and nobody else.
And I don't, I don't ever want to be untrusting because I value trust and I value what that means to have people around you who can carry that weight and who you can rely on.
(01:05:00):
However, for the first time, I started questioning absolutely the whole convention of trust.
And what does it mean? And who who's earned it? Who deserves it? And when should I even need it or use it?
And how much of this should I really have to do myself?
So, I mean, it was the most brutal, nerve-racking, sickening, and difficult process that I've ever gone through.
(01:05:34):
But, but to, to stop being so damn naive and to really look at things.
I'm also knowing when to reach out for help, but to the right people, professionals.
I should have gone straight to a therapist and dealt with the depression when I had it on the onset, not later when it's already sort of developed into other off-shoot issues of lacking self-worth, of inability to reach decisions to confront problems, you know.
(01:06:14):
I should have nipped that in a bud and I did not. And this is the perfect storm for having someone come by who's going to exploit that or manipulate that.
I think knowing when and how to reach out for help is a massive life lesson.
Yeah, it's hard to see though, especially if it's your first time really confronting it to recognize the signs of it.
(01:06:38):
I've gone through therapy myself and done a lot of work. It's much easier for me to look at this physical signs of it, whether it's loss of sleep or, you know, I feel anxious or whatever.
But before, I think you're probably the same way you just kind of make excuses for it or you become accustomed to it and that just becomes your new level of normal.
(01:06:59):
But you've done a lot of work on yourself and gone to therapy and I'm so proud of you for being able to do that and now coming out on the other side.
And you've been able to confront your trauma, you're rewriting your narrative yet again, but, you know, healing is not a straight line.
So how do you rebuild your sense of self-worth and what is your day to day look like and making sure that you're not retreating to that place?
(01:07:24):
And I was specifically trying to focus on myself and this was sometime after it was, you know, after I had gone through quite a bit of therapy and I was really in my stride again.
But I was still saying, I should focus on myself. I should be introspective.
I don't want to introduce any other X factors into this right now because being betrayed basically three times in the last, you know, handful of years by two X's and a contractor was obviously devastating.
(01:07:53):
And I didn't want to be that guy once again.
But one fateful night, a good friend of mine came in with this girl who used to be his global marketing manager.
And I saw her and said, OK, there goes the plan.
(01:08:17):
And I almost screwed it up with her at the beginning because I was kind of re figuring it out again.
And I was still kind of somewhat licking my wounds and, you know, I was still, I still had some triggers, obviously.
And there was a situation that almost triggered me in a way because she mentioned that she had had not many, you know, big relationships, but one with a guy who was separated.
(01:08:45):
And this stupid thing, which is completely honest and wonderful to talk about.
And I'm, and I'm, you know, I wanted everything all the cards on the table.
But this stupid little detail was like, triggering me like, Bing, you know, ripping me back to home and last relationship and infidelity and this and that and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm here I am like literally freaking out inside, like starting to like shake or sweat and then telling her like, well, that's not, that's not cool.
(01:09:14):
And she's like, what are you talking about?
I was like calm down and I almost screwed that one up.
I almost screwed it up. I almost let my demons, you know, take the reins on that one.
And thankfully, thankfully, I was able to barely save it.
And then she gave me another chance.
And now she's my rock. She's amazing.
(01:09:35):
She's probably the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.
And she's supportive in every possible way while still being ferociously independent and driven.
And it's, let's just say I'm thankful that I didn't end up finally being that rescue dog who gets sent back because he bit your kid in the face.
(01:10:00):
You know, it's, it actually ended up ending well so far.
Good. I'm glad. So what is the truth that you believe now?
I would say I would augment that truth and say there are people who have my best interests at heart.
(01:10:26):
I just have to be very diligent in figuring out who those people are.
It's a really kind of uplifting to hear about, you know, your childhood and the fact that I really think that you're the eternal optimist that you continue to not harbor resentment and hate and negativity and you kept searching for something out there.
(01:10:55):
I think you knew that love and trust and healthy relationships were out there. And so I think it's beautiful that you know it didn't turn into I can't trust anybody.
So if you could talk to young Justin 10th grade Vans, Cordora pants.
(01:11:18):
Would you say to him what's something that you'd whisper in his ear to give him the light at the end of the tunnel?
With how I would talk to myself, I'd probably say pull your head out of your ass.
Okay, if I was, if I was being a little more politically correct with the young Justin, I would say man be careful.
(01:11:47):
Never let your guard 100% down.
Okay.
And I would be encouraging him and anyone else who's younger to not expect the worst and do not be a pessimist.
(01:12:09):
But keep your eyes wide open. Read the fine print. Do the vetting and just watch out for yourself.
Do you trust yourself now to recognize love, to recognize the good and people? Do you trust your judgment enough to walk away?
(01:12:35):
No.
I can't say that I trust myself 100% now because I think I'm still learning and I'm still recovering.
And I'm still I think reflecting so.
I don't know if I'll ever be 100% to be perfectly honest.
I think that might be a pompous goal.
(01:12:59):
I do think that I'm a little more thorough now and I'm a little bit more hesitant.
So I'm not quite as willing to run into the fire.
Just when the starter gun goes off, you know.
So I think that's a lifetime process and I'm not saying that you grow up without any scabs on your knees, but I think that I could have played things a little differently.
(01:13:28):
And I could have been more careful. But yeah, this optimism is a double-edged sword, I guess.
And in its purist form to circle back to your relationships with love.
It's unconditional and non-transactional. Do you believe that you deserve love and are capable of giving it and what does that look like for you now?
(01:13:55):
That I can say 100% that I can receive and I can give.
And I do very, very readily and very openly.
I think that there's several forms of it.
I think that I was always someone who was able to receive love and give love.
(01:14:17):
I just I wasn't taught how to interpret it and I wasn't taught how to deal with it.
So I had to learn that on my own and it just took a while.
But I am as I think loving as I am optimistic.
I believe that we are continual works in progress.
But I have to say I'm really happy for you and really proud of you.
(01:14:41):
Not because of all the things that you've accomplished and all of your accolades.
It's great, but it's not what matters, right?
I'm mostly proud of you because you just never gave up on yourself or that sweet kid that I knew back in the day.
You're doing really good things for him.
Thank you, Catherine. It's nice to hear from someone who's known me.
(01:15:02):
I think maybe the longest of anyone I'm still in contact with.
28 years.
Wow.
Wow. Where does the time go?
Man.
That was a lot of time for me to screw things up.
Well, no, we are all works in progress and we should all accept that and understand that.
(01:15:24):
And just always strive to be a little bit better tomorrow than we were the day before.
As cheesy as it is, following my dreams is what got me to where I am now.
Of course, there's going to be some turbulence along the way, but it shouldn't shake the optimism.
It should just sharpen the upper bit.
(01:15:46):
Well, I love you, buddy.
I love you to your Catherine. You are the best.
All the best for your podcast. I can't wait to hear all of the insane personalities you have on here.
And I'm seriously looking forward to it, so I'll be tuning in.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
(00:02):
My name is Lilo Armandie and my ego is a liar.
And guess what?
Yours is too.
I'm a combat veteran, mother, and recovering high performer.
[MUSIC]
This is a show about the lives we tell ourselves, how they shape us, how they break us,
and what it takes to finally let them go.
Let's uncover our lives to seek the truth underneath.
(00:23):
Because before there's clarity, there's chaos.
Let's navigate it together.
So, don your oxygen mask and take a deep breath.
Welcome to Lies My Ego Told Me.
[MUSIC]
Today, we have someone who is 180 out in comparison to the guests we started the season with.
Justin Leoni is one of my oldest and dearest friends, someone I've known since we were teenagers.
(00:43):
Justin knows a thing or two about reinvention and the painful work it takes to get there.
Back when we were kids, he was already making noise in the world performing classical base
with a level of precision even professional musicians would envy.
Since then, Justin's career has been a masterclass in reinvention.
From classical musician to sommelier, Michelin star giants like Alinea and Tantras,
he moved to Germany without speaking the language and that eventually became a judge on the German version of the TV show MasterChef.
(01:09):
He's also an author and is now the proud owner of the award winning sticks and stones wine bar in Munich.
He's still on stage with rock bands today, but he's made it his mission in life to bring an appreciation of wine to the masses.
But this episode isn't about wine or music.
It's about trust and what happens when your thought that love is conditional.
When survival becomes performance and when healing means learning how to be seen for who you are, not what you produce.
(01:34):
Guten Tag, Justin, welcome to the podcast.
As we say, "Servos Catherine."
Hi.
Hi, buddy.
It's a beautiful day in Munich.
How was it in Hotlana?
Hotlana is great.
It's summer and it's gorgeous.
It's always a pleasure, Catherine.
Unfortunately, I'm a little far away from you, so we don't have to see each other so often, but I'm happy this podcast is bringing us back together.
(01:59):
All right. We've known each other for over 25 years.
We've had a lot of wine-fueled conversations about the full gamut of philosophical topics, obviously.
But recently, given some rather life-changing events for you, our talks have been primarily about family and relationships.
You said it when you were growing up that it felt like you were more of a project than a person.
(02:21):
You were the kind of child that was a musical prodigy, you could say, and you were almost a vessel for someone else's ambition.
Let's get started.
What was the lie your ego led you to believe for so long?
How do you think that shaped your understanding of your own value?
The lie my ego would constantly tell me.
(02:42):
And I can honestly say that it's taken me almost 43 years to understand that is probably they have my best interests at heart.
It's a very jagged pill to swallow when since the time you're able to walk, you're kind of forced to, you know, place your trust implicitly in these people
(03:11):
called your parents and other family members.
And there's really not a lot of other option.
And if your parents don't happen to foster any sort of independence or freedom in you or,
let's just say self-confidence, at least healthy self-confidence, and not toxic self-confidence, it can be a very rough road for the future.
(03:41):
The relationship with our egos is so fascinating to me, obviously, I started a podcast about it because it can be an armor and it can be a prison.
It's something that's supposed to protect us, but the manipulation of it can really be so controlling.
So when did you finally begin to question that?
When love and harm started to look way too similar?
(04:01):
Well, it's as with anything psychological, it's obviously very convoluted. And what I can essentially boil it down to as far as origin stories would be, you know, my mother was, was what you would call today, you know, a helicopter mother.
I was never allowed to go on school field trips.
(04:23):
I was never allowed to do anything that was even slightly like outside the box. I was very much forced into playing this role of, you know, mama's boy, which, of course, you just accept it when you're little.
You don't know any differently, especially if you're that sheltered.
And as, of course, now I look back at it with a very different maturity and evolution.
(04:48):
You know, this is one of the typical sort of symptoms of any number of mental issues that my mother had, but one of them, of course, is isolationism.
If you want to separate someone or your child from the herd to even exert more influence on them to manipulate them, to shape them, to force them into things, or to kind of mold them the way that you want them to with a blatant disregard for what they want.
(05:18):
Of course, that's one of the first things. And so it's a, it's a very acute and unconscious conditioning from a very young age that that's just how things go. That's how it should be.
So I can recall certainly as a child, the first question marks, which would pop into my head when I dared to even question, because as we know in these, sadly, authoritarian times that we're living in in the world,
(05:48):
the first offense is questioning, how dare you? Because then the hammer drops. And you're punished. And you have the fear of God in you, which, of course, discourages any sort of further questioning.
And the lack of questioning is the quickest path to absolute power. But when I noticed how my friends, families seem to run a little differently, the freedoms that they had.
(06:18):
The ability to do things without being watched and controlled in every little minute aspect of their life. I started thinking, okay, well, that's weird, because that's not like my life.
Of course, sitting around in a school classroom with like a substitute teacher, like doing homework while the other kids are like on, you know, like you went right on the pilgrim or something like that.
(06:46):
Like on those, like the ship at Dana point, you would like spend like two nights when we were reading that one book like two days before the mast, you know, all the kids would go to this like, you know, pirate ship in the harbor and like try to, you know, live what they read about.
And I mean, come on, it's like totally innocent. It's just a bunch of kids with some teachers on a ship for two nights, like having to eat ronians if you do something bad.
(07:09):
And like you're going to pick up fucking peltz that they fake peltz they throw off from a cliff, you like roll out and get on me. Come on, what's going to go wrong?
You know, but, you know, there I am sitting in the classroom, doodling on a pad instead of, you know, being a part of the kids or a part of the group.
And when that happens enough times, I wasn't even allowed to attend sex ed because my mom said that that was not appropriate.
(07:36):
For a child, not appropriate to learn about. She's so, and you know, all these things end up sort of, you know,
amounting to a brutal ostracizing of children in this in this microcosmic social community at a very crucially developmental time period.
(08:01):
And so, you know, as I progressed and got older, I guess this sort of the, the bubblings of rebellion to started to well up as I got a little older, got a little more confident, started to figure out who I was.
And realized that I do have something to offer to the hive, you know, maybe I should be a part of it. And, and, and a little bit of obviously resentment starting to build as well, or at least the foreshadowing of resentment.
(08:31):
So, yeah, those were the early factors in that which only progressed and got worsened, obviously, as I got older and more independent and had more of my own thoughts.
I want to touch on it briefly because I think it really foreshadows a lot of your story. But it's interesting that your mother was so controlling.
(08:52):
She was also nurturing your talent to how did she discover that talent that you had for music, figure out how to nurture it and then kind of weaponize it against you.
Yeah, nurture is a, it's a funny word for me to hear and to process because it's, there's a lot of mixed emotions when I try to repeat that word.
(09:16):
And because, you know, my, my mother for whatever, well, there is no one reason. I mean, she's a product of her past and she was, she was a, she was a young girl growing up in a family of brothers in England.
Born in a castle, but basically forced out, father became a fish monger.
(09:38):
As always in sort of mid, mid evil, ask, you know, a British culture. It was survival, the fittest and of course, you know, the females had nothing to offer. They weren't the breadwinners.
She's the kind of, had the kind of father where you'd get slapped off of your chair if you spoke out of turn.
And she was worth nothing. So she didn't get the things that her brother got in terms of opportunity in terms of material things, nothing.
(10:04):
So she felt very deprived. And then later on when she married my father, she felt like she gave him everything to help him through his college career so that he could, you know, support the family and they could build something together.
He ended up being chronically unfaithful, not, not a terrible guy, just a little bit too amorous for his own good. And of course, ultimately for our good, certainly not.
(10:28):
So the whole family paradigm crumbles. She feels like the world has always been against her has taken everything from her. And so now I'm born, which she later basically told me I was, because I was asking her about the time difference to my brother and I was 10 years.
She made up some silly story about what a, what a mystic told her, the fortune teller. But later on it came out that she told me and again, I don't know if this was like mental illness speaking or if this was truth.
(10:58):
She basically said that she was ready to leave my father because she found out about the unfaithfulness and then he forced himself upon her and then I came along. So basically I figure out this bomb has dropped on me that I'm a product of rape.
Yeah, talk about questioning your own identity. I mean, and but thinking back to it, it, it plays out to be an interesting element of the script because I understand now why my mother and I had this sort of love hate relationship where I was a living symbol of her imprisonment.
(11:32):
And at the same time, I was the center of her universe. Sometimes the way that she would talk to me or even as a kid, like, you know, just scream at me. I was thinking like, how does that happen? How does a parent do that?
Where's the love, you know, and I know that a lot of people grew up with tough love families. I understand that, but this was a little bit felt a little bit different.
(11:54):
And so, yes, when we had to learn something in school, violin or choir, whatever it was, I picked up the violin and I kind of took to it, you know, like a fish to water, I guess.
And my mother apparently always wanted to do something like that, but wasn't allowed to. So I became the sort of sort of vicarious fulfillment, I guess, of her sort of, you know, life's goals or fantasies.
(12:21):
And so it also became my prison because I was used to things like I never got any mail that wasn't opened. There were no closed doors in the house. I could never close the door to my room. My mother would clean my room, but what that meant was she would rifle through every single possession to see if I was hiding anything or up to no good or anything like that whatsoever.
(12:47):
So I was basically accustomed to living in some sort of bizarre house arrest, you know, wasn't allowed to go out at night.
Family dinner was always on Friday, so that was also out school nights out of the question weekends, maybe, but then this vehicle of music, then this element came in where it wasn't nurture.
(13:11):
But of course she paid the money for the expensive private teachers and the nice instruments, but she would sit me down in front of her while the other kids were outside playing on a school afternoon and forced me to play for her over and over and over again.
And it was not constructive practice, which when it's good practice, it's not nice to listen to. It's terrible. You're working on like two bars for like two hours to get it right. And that's not, you know, amusing, but it's how it's how you get great.
(13:49):
But I would just have to play the goddamn branded bird concerto number three over and over and over again, like a, like a record player for her while she's sat two meters from me and it would scream at me stop again.
Stop again for something that she didn't like. And of course, at some point, I'm like tears streaming down like, you know, trying to like play and not screw up and it's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse.
(14:16):
And she's getting more and more angry. And then that would even be like the cause of getting grounded or something and then she'd say you're intentionally screwing up. How you why are you doing this to me?
And it would become this whole bizarre, just like psychological warfare issue of like you said, literally weaponizing first I'm in prison by it.
(14:40):
And then it's being used against me because now it's even flowing over into my freedoms and my my my intentions as a as a human being and my maliciousness or whatever.
And yeah, it was.
It was pretty horrendous and and and so my my passion became became something that I was also starting to resent.
(15:07):
Because I knew what it costs to get to be where I was and of course, there's the sacrifices of then spending the entire Saturday driving me from Pasadena or L.A. for a lesson to Pasadena for an orchestra to Fullerton for another orchestra and then home and doing marching band things and doing jazz band things.
(15:31):
I mean, I know there's a lot there, but that is something that I would always use as an excuse to say, oh, well, yeah, this is horrible.
I'm being treated like an animal, but surely it's for the best.
Certainly she has my best interests at heart because she's my mom. Yeah, your relationship with love is so complicated.
(16:02):
Obviously from such a young age.
And it's just heartbreaking to hear about that generational trauma.
Was there ever a time when you confused her control with care or performance with love?
Oh, I learned at a very young age as I alluded to earlier to lie basically or to lie to myself to say face.
(16:31):
You know, every time the kids would come back from a trip or the kids would do something and I wasn't there or I wasn't included, you know, I would say, oh, well, you know, my mom says is very dangerous and you're all stupid.
They love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my mom says that being cool is totally overrated. So you guys are the losers.
(16:58):
You know, so and of course, I mean, she I am careful to try to be like an armchair psychologist because God knows I have no degrees in that.
However, however, there are certain now that I'm old enough and now that I'm not blinded. I mean, how do we expect a child to not be blinded anyway? I mean, this is, I mean, come on.
(17:21):
You don't know any better. And I was a smart kid, but that didn't mean that I, you know, especially if you're not.
I felt like a house cat, you know, I was just sitting at the window all day looking at cars driving by and not even knowing that they could run me over.
Because I was never allowed to even go near them, you know, and so and so I was just, you know, always, always compensating for her and I would try to convince myself that that was an act of love because if I didn't do that, then what did I even have?
(17:54):
So it's almost a way of just keeping yourself sane. The problem with that is, and I'm sure we'll get to this with your line of questions, but where I'm standing now, it's easy to see that those are the moments that established patterns, which would remain with me well, well into my adult life and foster some other very powerful.
(18:23):
And then there's a lot of other very poor decision making, which would lead to other quite challenging and possibly disastrous, you know, events.
I mean, there's a part of me though. And I know what you've been through, obviously, we're very close.
And as an adult, you know, it's not excusable. However, there is a certain amount of empathy that I do have for your mother, even though.
(18:51):
Maybe she wasn't a great mother at all, but just listening about her life and knowing about her youth and then her marriage too, like, I don't think she ever really knew what love was either.
Well, I, you know, I'm also, I guess, forgiving to a fault in a way.
(19:12):
Maybe I still haven't quite figured out, probably need a little bit more therapy to get to that point, but I don't think, I don't know.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm fine. We all need it. I mean, whether we admit that to ourselves or not.
No, but I think there's, there is a line between forgiveness and convincing yourself things are okay when they're not.
(19:39):
You know, and I think that I'm still trying to figure out the blur in that line. Yeah, I'm, it's not as fuzzy as it used to be, but I know back then there was, there was no line.
And I do fundamentally believe in it. And this is coming from me, not being a parent. So I have to say you have a lot more experience with that.
(20:00):
But I do fundamentally believe that most people and especially parents are trying their best. I don't think, I don't think that there's as much maliciousness in the world as it sometimes appears.
But yeah, due to backgrounds, you know, such as my mother's, I also understand where that comes from. However, is that an excuse and is that acceptable?
(20:27):
This is also a big question. And that's a question that I grappled with up until her death, to be honest.
And her death was kind of the catalyst to me, finally, sort of doing enough concerted reflection to come to peace with that.
But on the other hand, perhaps part of the answer and part of my reflection is also, I consider myself a loving person.
(20:57):
I'm not maybe gushingly so with everybody, but I've at least learned what it means.
I've also learned to be more open to using that word because at home, it was not used ever.
(21:21):
It was very taboo.
And I've come to grips with using it and also in a more casual way and not just reserved for the person that I'm in a relationship with or intimate relationship with.
But in a broader sense. And also, you know, just being able to show appreciation for people and for interactions.
(21:44):
And I think that if I'm proof that someone can come up in this sort of environment and still find a way to that point.
Well, then it kind of, you know, lessons my acceptance of my mom's basis has an excuse.
(22:08):
So let's talk about how your lie and your relationship with your mother, your parents love in general, blood into your adult relationships.
Because when you were younger, you were obviously in the orbit of your mother constantly. But once you sever ties and you were truly on your own and far away, you're finally in a position to be able to build real connections with people without those shackles that your mom had on you.
(22:37):
So what was it like for you trying to build trusting relationships as an adult, especially while navigating dating and romantic relationships.
Not even having an example of a good example of that at home.
You know, that's you you hit it on the head. I mean, I, you know, obviously did not have the best image of marriage in the back of my mind growing up.
(23:05):
I, I, I fancied myself a sort of permanent single. I did not ever romanticize having children or a family of my own. I allowed for the possibility of having a, a life partner.
(23:26):
I actually know I actively sort of rejected the social construct of marriage. I actually always wanted to just, you know, be the cool one is like, we don't need we're going to go get ring tattoos.
No, that's horrible. I know it's horrible. I was, I was young. Come on. No, no, no. Anyway, so, so no, there was a possibility of that. But I mean, yeah, just, I was sort of catapulted.
(23:55):
Very abruptly and brutally into independence. Because my mother finally just went too far. And this was sort of the point to where a boy started his journey to become a man.
And it was, of course, I was forbidden to date in high school. I was forbidden to, to even think about having a girlfriend, because it would distract from my studies. It was worthless. It would get me nowhere and it's silly.
(24:28):
Forget the whole social, emotional, developmental aspect of that kind of healthy thing. No, no, no, no, that didn't matter to my mom. It was all about the numbers and the figures and the outcomes.
So I did, however, I met a fellow bassist from, from another high school and we, we, we got involved at first, of course, very covertly, but at some point it kind of came out and was not received well.
(24:59):
But my mom thought, Oh, it's just going to fizzle. And if I ground him enough times or take his car away enough times, then it's basically just going to drive a wedge in a relationship and it'll kind of sus itself out.
That all did happen except for the end result of us not being together. So despite her best efforts. Well, fast forward, I went to university. My mom was still somehow obsessed with ending this relationship.
(25:29):
Despite the fact we were two thousand miles apart. I was in university. She was a senior first year in university. She was her in your senior year in high school. Anyway, to make a long story short, all I wanted was to come back for her senior prom.
My mom refused to get me plane tickets. Her mother did.
My mother found out because she saw there was a suit missing from my closet. And like I said, she was very good at rifling through everything of my of my life to get to the brass tax of any situation.
(26:04):
And by the time I landed in my dorm room back in Indiana, there were about 30 and I'm not kidding 36 voice messages. I mean, we're talking manic manic times a thousand. I mean, you have to be that should crazy to leave someone 36 messages inside of like three hours and each one increasingly more angry and shrieking and spitting and vain popping and all of that.
(26:29):
And there was a very loud conversation at that point when I called and the result was I'm can sing your tuition check. Even though I was on a large scholarship. There was a part that I was not of course there wasn't covered.
And because my lack of freedom, I was never allowed to have a job. I was never allowed to make my own money because money equals freedom and freedom equals she's not as important anymore.
(26:56):
I had no choice. I had to, you know, I had to give in and it meant her mother had to cancel the this was back when we had paper plane tickets, you know, no, no, no Apple wallets.
She literally had to cancel the paper plane tickets. My girlfriend had to bring them over to my mom. I had to FedEx my suit home overnight.
(27:20):
Then I had to stay in my dorm room the entire day of the prom so there's a good call me every hour and check in. And if I didn't answer the phone one time, my tuition would be canceled.
She also said you have to write a letter taking back all the nasty things you said to us on the phone. I said, I'll do the other things but I'm not doing that.
(27:44):
And so I started the process of emancipation after that because I said I can't live like this anymore.
And there's something not right about it. And also I'll keep this part of it short long story short. I went to the.
The department heads office of financial aid told my story she said that's horrible. I'm so sorry. I can't do anything for you.
(28:08):
Yeah, and I might I saw my life crumbling before my eyes and I thought well, did you not hear what I said? And she said no, no, no, there's even worse stories.
But I need restraining orders police records abuse. I need some hard evidence of all of this. You know, it's hard to show police records for mental abuse.
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, just full blown narcissistic abuse, right? Like that's so much control. It's insane.
(28:35):
No, I mean, also, I mean, what I didn't mention is growing up with, you know, nothing was ever good. I mean, I know you know this too.
But, you know, a healthy bit of nothing is ever good enough is also, you know, it happens. It's okay. It's not the best situation for your kids.
But honestly, I think it's a little bit better than getting a fucking participation trophy just for showing up to the match. You know, I, I mean, this generation, God save us all.
(28:58):
But so I'm also not saying we all have to be like, you know, caulking the wagon and floating across the fucking, you know, river on the Oregon trail and watching Timmy, I have typos.
You know, I'm not saying that's the better alternative, but something in between is pleasant. And I believe in encouraging and pushing your children to be the best that they can be.
(29:21):
But, you know, growing up with nothing is ever good enough having your middle name over time become stupid.
Or useless or whatever, you know, you know, this is where it gets very detrimental and very abusive and then all the other control stuff and stripping you of your identity, your humanity, your self worth, your, your self sustainability.
(29:50):
And so anyway, I happened to live across the hall from a kid who was a total recluse and I always saw him come out once in a while in a cloud of weed smoke.
And I was he was he was nice. So I was always nice to him. And I was kind of like the van wilder of my dorm room, right? Like I didn't really care that much about the academic part of it.
(30:11):
I was just there to play music and have some fun and make some cocktails. It was a dry campus. But you know, rebel. That's me.
So my door was always open. So I saw him. And I was just I would just have little, you know, small talk, little banter with him every once in a while, I invited him over for something, but no one knew who he was.
So I got up and shook her hand, totally crestfallen and worried about the rest of my life watching a crumble before me either slinking back to my mother, which I have no idea what would have become of me if that would have been necessary.
(30:43):
But I saw my I saw myself never amounting to anything. That was it. And I looked behind her desk and there was a picture of that kid across the hall for me. And I said, oh, you know, so and so. And she looked at me her face kind of went pale. And she said, wait, well, how do you know?
(31:04):
Oh, he lives across from me. He's a nice guy. And then she said, sit down. And she explained that was her son. He has gone through several nervous slash mental breakdowns because he has social anxiety disorder. And that he only takes couple of classes because that's all they can handle. And he works at Chili's.
(31:28):
And he told her that there's this one guy across the hall from him, which is kind of his anchor, which keeps him kind of feeling included and sane. And she said, you live across the hall for me. And I said, yeah, she said, OK.
Well, we're going to take another look at your file. And because of that, I was granted independent status. I was emancipated and I was able to stay in school and get pelgrants and things like that.
(32:01):
That's incredible.
Yeah, it's it's a testament to so many things in my life. And it's been such.
I mean, that was one of the most pivotal moments, I think in my entire life, especially when I look back on it, just to just to think about how to.
How to treat other people, what situations can mean, what kind of impact things can have on everybody around you and just just this heightened sensitivity.
(32:28):
And also never judging anybody and never knowing who's across the table from you. I mean, who knows. And and and also being being empathetic to other people's issues.
And, you know, strangely enough, up until my mother's death.
(32:49):
Apparently that act of becoming financially independent from my mother, because of that horrible control that she tried to exude on me and those horrendous threats that she was levying upon me, which I'm reinforced my hand.
She carried that literally to her grave.
(33:10):
And that's stemming back to being emancipated in college. Do you think she was heartbroken or resentful?
Both both.
It's it's just, you know, when I went through all of the things in the house and I started finding these artifacts, like literally like artifacts, she kept every single stupid art project I ever made every little bit of everything.
(33:39):
And I found these stupid construction paper like macaroni things, you know, from what was probably four or three, I mean unbelievable.
And I find, because they never could use computers or anything, they were ultra old school.
I found like a printout of like my like Facebook page or something that she had to like kind of see what I was up to.
(34:04):
Never once picked up the phone to call me she, which of course I became resentful of because you're my mom, you should want to know where your child is, you should, because I, after enough, after enough times of calling being screamed at and then hung up on it kind of lessons you desire to call next time, you know, yeah, it's weird how that works.
(34:25):
And she, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's like, go figure, but I mean, man, it's just this super ultra, I'm sorry if a lack of a better term, mind fuck of being treated one way and then uncovering this archaeological site, which points to something else.
(34:49):
And to sort of find some sort of resolution in those two worlds, I don't know, it's bizarre, but at the point to where I was emancipated and I officially had to figure out my own way.
And I was able to have my own thoughts, my own philosophies, my own beliefs, conduct any relationship, the way that I see fit with whom I see fit.
(35:21):
Then yeah, I was forced really quickly to sort of adapt to the real world, but again, I was still that house cat, but now I was running, I was running through traffic.
Because you're free for the first time to explore relationships, you know, whether it be friendship or, you know, romantic relationships, you're in, you know, you're in your 20s at that point.
(35:43):
And to separate, to separate yourself from this horrible example, I mean, I'm not trying to make her out into a complete monster, but I do have to be honest about these things.
So I really like, I really had to learn everything over again, starting at the age of roughly 20.
(36:07):
Yeah. And looking back on it, having had recent contact with some of my, you know, band members from after university, I just had to say, man, I'm so sorry.
Because you didn't know how to adult properly?
I was a dumpster fire. I was, I was a absolute social hot mess.
(36:31):
I could, could not behave.
I didn't know the difference. I, I showed up to band practice. I don't know how many times, like 20, 45, an hour and 15 late, like time never existed to me.
I just respect that that actually, you know, shows to the other person never even occurred to me.
(36:57):
I was basically living my life through some bizarre narcissistic, sociopathic bipolar lens, which wasn't actually mine.
But those are the patterns of behavior that I was sort of following.
And I just thought that it was all okay. Well, I'm just going to scream at someone right now because that's what happens.
(37:19):
I really felt like a rescue animal that was, that was really just treated very, very poorly.
And I, and I could snarl or bite or whimper or run away at any given time for any reason.
And I really had to sort of begin learning things for the first time.
Well, with that level of control, you never really had responsibility because your mom never gave you any.
(37:47):
And therefore you had never had accountability. I'm curious though, you don't seem to harbor the same level of negativity towards your father, but he was habitually unfaithful.
And also your parents were married and he was still there. What was your dad doing? And why don't you view him with the same lens of negativity the way you do your mom?
(38:11):
I view my father with an enormous amount of pity and sorrow if I'm being honest with myself.
You know, the first time I ever saw Boogie Knights, the great PTA, Paul Thomas Anderson, that's what we call them in Hollywood.
(38:37):
Okay.
When I saw this movie for the first time, it was the most jarring moment of watching a movie ever because it did more than hit close to home.
It was literally like me watching a security camera footage of the moment that I first ran away from home.
(39:05):
The cast, I mean, Mark Walberg's mother looked almost exactly like my mother.
So the young ladies used to say about one young, strapping Justin Leoni, who bore a strange resemblance to Marky Mark.
(39:29):
So basically, I'm what's happening is I was watching myself, you know. And in the scene, he comes home late and his mother is sitting there waiting up for him and starts going at him about where he was.
And oh, he was probably out with that whore again.
And chasing him through the house as he's trying to just get away and diffuse a situation and screaming at him. And then of course it develops into crying and screaming and he's trying to pack a suitcase.
(40:02):
And she says, were you going? You have nowhere to go. What are you taking with you? None of this belongs to you. It's all mine.
And all the while the father is standing there in the next room, listening to this happen and just kind of like staring at his feet.
And then, you know, my Walberg bails and then that's sort of the his the beginning of his path. That's exactly how I went down with me.
(40:33):
And my father would say nothing. He was pretty much emasculated completely because he was, you know, under this shame blanket of his misgivings, his poor behavior.
And it was this very parasitic relationship of my mother and father remaining together despite this in just ocean of bad blood and resentment and the way that they would treat each other.
(41:05):
My father was basically just an absolute victim. God forbid he would be audacious enough to speak up against my mom because everything would always be thrown back in his face.
And he was and but he was sort of victimized enough so that he remained in this situation and obligated to sort of support the family or whatever family can't call it that.
(41:27):
At the time my my brothers way of dealing with everything was unfortunately to leave home and then, you know, start up using drugs and very hard ones and very nasty ones.
And he was out of my life for over 10 years of my youth estranged, you know, horrible interactions of my parents once and all trying to like drag him home and clean him up and punching holes through walls to kill them going through some sort of withdrawal finding, you know, some, how do you say drug using utensils in his jackets or whatever.
(42:02):
You know, as a young boy as like eight or nine year old, you know, that being said, great ending to that story. My brothers an amazing person with an amazing family with a great job and he's he couldn't be a better person and he's learned so much from his path.
And and even even teachers and mentors, trouble youth in his spare time to help them avoid what he's been through.
(42:28):
And so I mean that couldn't be better, but you know, but at the time it was an absolute mess and my father just had no.
He had no gumption, no confidence, no position to either tell her, hey, lay off the kid or hey, that's not how they should be raised or even just taped shut up.
(42:54):
You know, so it was just yes, there was a lot of resentment for my father for selfishly.
I wouldn't want to say destroying the family, but at least playing a role in my mother's sort of, I guess psychosis or mental baldness or whatever the case might have been.
(43:18):
But when I, again, when I went back to the family house to to clean it out, my companion at the time there called over to me from the other room and said, hey, I think you're going to want to see this.
(43:39):
And I said, yeah, what is it? I said, well, I think I just found your father. His ashes were in a cardboard box in a copper pot in the family room.
And when I held that box, I just broke down.
Because there was still little contact with any of us in the last years.
(44:00):
And my, I know my brother said that the way that they treated each other, so my mom treated my father was absolutely disgusting.
And it was just not a situation that I could have been around. And I was actually thinking of whether my mom prevented me from flying home, which is horrible to attend, you know, or to see my father away or to scatter the ashes or help with anything.
(44:23):
My brother just said, listen, take the pass. Do not come back here. You don't want to see this.
Yeah. And so anyway, I, I, that, that, that was the moment when I went back and then had both of their ashes.
And, and I, you know, went out to the lake to spread them where I felt like, you know, they wanted to be.
And it was finally closure for me. And it finally clicked in my adult brain, all the things that I had finally been forced to analyze.
(44:57):
And analyze.
Process and reflect upon.
Finally all kind of clicked to me. And it all made a little more sense. And it was a little bit easier to.
Be in a position of forgiveness at that point.
(45:18):
Yeah. It's pretty recently that they passed away. Right. It's still only been a couple of years, I think.
Yeah. It was a 22 when I believe it was 2022 when my mom passed and it was about a year before my father passed, yeah.
And how long had it been since you talked to them and each of them and how long had it been since you'd seen either of them.
(45:45):
I hadn't seen them in probably 18 years. And I hadn't spoken with my father in probably just as long.
Wow.
And my mother saved one or two very uncomfortable quick conversations.
Mm-hmm.
And I was pretending to well, let's put it this way. It's kind of part for the course. So at the moment that my father died, it was during the lockdown.
(46:15):
And I was at home about to cook some dinner with some friends. And then I got the SMS from my brother says, hey, dad just died.
So then I called and my brother's phone, my mom, as she always did, yanked the photo plate from him.
Classic.
Just screaming into it.
(46:37):
Just dad.
Yeah. She was hard of hearing too. So did you know your father died?
Yeah, mom, that's why I'm calling.
Do you even care?
Yeah, nice to talk to you, mom. Been a while.
Wow, glad you called Justin. How you doing these days? Nope.
(47:01):
You know, that was the first shots fired right off the bat.
Yeah.
And the conversation didn't go well. Of course.
So this was, I mean, this was just the part for the course, you know, accusations before discussions and shots before love.
(47:24):
And it's, yeah.
So anyway, that that was the extent of it really.
And I knew at some point I had to accept the fact and I tried many times.
I tried to make the pilgrimage from university back home, driving.
I drove from Indiana, blue incident Indiana to Orange County in two days, which is about 36 hours drive.
(47:49):
Because I only had one credit card with a hundred dollar max on it and I had to fill up my tank enough times before it overdrafted so that I could actually get there.
And I would sleep in the back of my truck.
And I got a gallon of water, a jar of peanut butter and a bag of bagels. That's all I could afford with my, you know, want to be rock star budget.
(48:10):
And, and, you know, thinking, oh, well, you know, this would be some hallmark heartfelt like reunion and she'll be like, oh, that's so nice of you.
What are you doing? You're crazy. And like, mom, let's have an understanding.
You know, I always saw it on TV happening this way. So I guess that's how it goes.
Nope. Actually, I think I made it in record time. I got kicked out of the house within two hours of arrival.
(48:35):
It sounds like you, you know, had this fairy tale idea of like what your relationship with your mother could be and the hope was still there.
The way that you romanticize the relationship that you could have with your mother, did that bleed into how you had relationships with partners?
(48:56):
Well, I guess, you know, it's shocking to think that I could have told myself for that long.
Like, it's okay. She has my best interest somewhere at heart, you know, somewhere.
And it's, it's funny because as many times as I get bitten, I just keep thinking it.
I just never learned.
(49:19):
But I think at first my view on love was very reactionary. It was keep everybody at arms length and don't really let them in and just have fun with them and live your life.
But don't let it get, don't let it in. Yeah.
Don't let it in. I made myself inaccessible. I built up my wall and I had, you know, I dumped everything on my career and my success.
(49:48):
And as long as I had that, that would be fulfilling enough for me and everything else was just kind of a cherry on top.
So weirdly enough, psychologically, I was playing into exactly that which I was rebelling against, you know, which my mother tried to instill in me.
But then as we progress, I start realizing myself, especially like the beginning of my sort of, you know, culinary life.
(50:14):
This was after the band, the band, I was probably a raging A-hole, but again, I had no self reflection and I had no perspective.
I had, I had no awareness of it. And then later on, you know, when I'm more forced to work in team environments, like you'll see in restaurants, especially high, high level restaurants, then I start realizing like back in the school days, like how the other kids are behaving and how they're doing things.
(50:38):
And I started finally learning what discipline was about and what discipline different from sitting in a practice room and just, you know, wood shedding a piece by myself for hours before a masterclass.
Like that's one thing, but this is a whole different, right? I don't need, I need to tell you, you have had probably the craziest level of that.
(51:01):
So finally, I started seeing myself like, oh my god, I can be a monster. Like how am I talking to these poor people who work with me or under me or whatever it's like, man, get a hold of yourself.
You know, you are not your mother, you're better than you're better than that. You know better than that. And so I really had to tame myself down.
(51:24):
And with that also again, coming back to this thing in university when I was thinking about empathy and compassion, I started sort of calming down and not letting my overreaching ambition take the reins.
And you know, it's like, I'm the horse. My ambition is the buggy. And it's just whipping me faster, faster, faster.
(51:45):
And almost bleeding me to a pulp, you know, and I'm reacting very agitatedly and edgy and almost insanely, you know, to the people around me because of that. It's just out of control at work or with your with your girlfriends at work at work.
The girlfriends were always like the, were like the pressure valve for me, you know, and I think because of my poor example of my parents, I was extra aware of never treating someone who I'm intimate with as my mom would treat my father because that always horrified me whether or not he was guilty or not of whatever he did or did not do.
(52:30):
Still people have fundamental human rights and they have emotions and again, he had his own prison. My prison was again my ambition and I am prison myself into it.
That was my substitute for true emotion.
As you said earlier, it became my armor and I was very proud of my positions, my status, my accomplishments, but it was also certainly my prison. And although I might have had this shiny armor on the outside, I was certainly rotting on the inside.
(53:02):
Yeah. Were you going into those relationships with a very like vulnerable open heart? Are we still guarded and cautious?
I was very guarded. I also didn't use the L word until much later, like much, much later because it seemed like such a sacred and rarefied element to me.
(53:27):
I couldn't let myself just throw it around, you know, which is such a stupid mentality. I mean, there is not nearly enough love in this world, you know, so why should someone hold it back if they have it to give?
Yeah. And that took me a long time to sort of understand.
So we'll fast forward a little bit, but there was a relationship that you described as your final wake up call hindsight being 2020 it mirrored a lot of the same patterns from your past and it was emotionally abusive.
(54:01):
It was manipulative and destructive and I can only describe it as having similarities to the movie Tinder Swingler, which I don't think you've seen, but you were a gaslit to the point of your own delusion and your ego and self worth.
It's almost impressive, but your ego and self worth were so surgically exploited and manipulated.
(54:26):
Can we talk about that relationship? Because it also kind of coincided about the time of COVID and the loss of your parents.
It did. Yeah, no, I mean, all I can say is I'm glad to have gotten out of it alive.
This person, as I learned later, the reason why she had a restaurant is that she basically forced that poor guy, her boyfriend/partner, into a complete nervous breakdown.
(55:02):
He gave up on everything and then just sold his part of it for pennies on the dollar. So she basically just absorbed it.
The next guy who had a family but was maybe separated-ish or something, not quite sure, was much more wealthy than me, much older.
(55:23):
He ended up hanging himself.
Wow.
And he made a documentation of the reasons in a video which he left to his family actually, so it's not up for debate.
Oh, my God. And she was a great part of that. And unfortunately, I understand why now.
She found me on Instagram. She very much hunted me down, let's say.
(55:55):
We met up, you know, the problem with these kinds of people. And I will say without any sort of reservation, 100%
narcissistic sociopath with every possible symptom and behavior involved.
You know, just the problem with these kinds of people is that first of all, they're the greatest actors.
(56:22):
I mean, on the planet, they can adapt to any situation. They can make anyone basically fall in love with them or be completely charmed by them.
They know exactly what your, where your pressure points are and they know how to push them.
And they feel no pain. They feel absolutely no pain and no remorse.
(56:45):
And this is for someone as, as, as human as me and, and, and actually, you know, especially in my now older age, sensitive as I've become.
It's just unfathomable. It's just I'm still somehow this naive little boy in some ways.
Trusting to a point of absolute detriment.
(57:11):
And she absolutely got me.
And later on, I realized that every single thing that she said about her past, about her present, about her intentions, about her daily activities, it was all, it was all a lie.
It's impossible to comprehend. House, a one can look you in the eye, destroying you and decimating you, not with a quick decapitation, but with a million little stabs.
(57:46):
Just watching you slowly bleed out and be reduced to nothing and actually convincing me that I was mentally unwell or unable to even run my business.
So I should just check into a hospital, sign it over to her and just basically f off. Right. And just go disappear.
(58:12):
It's, it's, it's absolutely nuts. And that was the moment when I had a choice. I could either pull up my bootstraps, get control of my life.
Deal with my depression, which I was horribly suffering from, from my first failed business attempt, which anyway, just for background, right.
(58:39):
My first restaurant attempt, my project manager, swindled me stole a quarter of a million euros from me and bailed.
And the lawsuit went on six and a half years. I fell from such a pedestal. I was on King of the World at the time. I was in the best restaurant with the best position with the best selling book on sky, master chef.
(59:03):
I mean, everything firing on all cylinders. And this was just an absolutely crushing blow. And I was driven into horrible, horrible depression.
And that made me all the more vulnerable to become prey to this alpha predator.
Who said all the right things made all the right moves convinced me of all the proper things and, and, and almost took everything from me. And in the, and in the meantime, reduced me to the point where I had no idea who I was.
(59:34):
She said she said your name means nothing. I'll rip it off the front door. This place. No one even cares.
No, you're not wearing any of your crazy suits. You're wearing a uniform like everyone else. No, you should only spend two days a week here because nobody wants to see you or you're not in a state to be here.
Yeah, even though she put, she put me in that state.
(59:55):
But it's, you know, despite all of this, I just couldn't get it through my head until I saw the blatant signs of the infidelity of the cheating with my assistant for God's sake.
Who she, she have manipulated to plot with against me to take everything from me until I finally saw all of those signs.
(01:00:21):
I was probably on a crash course to actually become mentally unstable and maybe to give everything over and just give up.
But since I faced these kinds of adversities before in my life, I wasn't quite as easy of a target as perhaps I would have seemed like.
(01:00:45):
And it was it is, it was the largest turning point in my life to decide that I need to take control back of my life.
But I am not in a position to trust anybody and that if there's any success and if there's any survival, it's coming from me at this point and nowhere else.
(01:01:08):
Yeah.
Because I'm assuming at the beginning of that relationship because I mean, I also agree that she's a predator.
That it was the classic like love bombing like inflating your ego telling you all the right things just showering you with love and attention.
But it all, but ultimately became you know loving someone who is hurting you and justifying it because it almost felt familiar.
(01:01:34):
It was almost like your mom back in the day where breaking you down and in that dire moment when you're at your rock bottom, we seek the familiar.
Not always the comfortable right.
So how did you break the cycle because it sounds like she was taking away like everything from you and ultimately was your heart right that got broken with the infidelity when you finally walked away.
(01:02:01):
Yeah, I mean I, I was literally, I mean so much of this happened in and surrounding the opening of my bar.
So you know when I heard those things in the seller and I thundered down the stairs, obviously they heard me coming so I couldn't catch anything in the act.
(01:02:23):
But I mean, I knew.
And then all the other things started happening.
You know, I it was at the point where I couldn't.
I almost questioned myself am I unstable because I couldn't even walk into the but my own bar without feeling absolutely sick to my stomach.
I couldn't go into the seller to get a bottle without shaking like a leaf.
(01:02:45):
And understanding the difference between mental unwellness and PTSD is a very important distinction.
And I, I, I threw through interactions with close friends, people who know me well, finally getting some great advice.
(01:03:13):
And of course, finally from going to therapy to talk through this and rationalize this and and to see it from a impartial perspective.
Yeah, I was able to finally wrap my head around the whole situation and realize that no, it wasn't my fault and giving relevance to these texts saying, yeah, he'll probably get like, you know, his business license revoked if this doesn't go through because I didn't put in for it or something like that, you know.
(01:03:44):
And finally it put all of that into perspective and I, and I think for the first time in my life, I realized the difference between ignorant or blind trust and placing faith in those around you who have
(01:04:13):
earned it and deserve it.
And, and that honestly, you are the master of your own destiny.
If the moment you lose control and I know that you have control issues too, huh?
What?
Probably a little bit.
A little bit.
(01:04:39):
I guess what I ultimately learned was I have to be the master of my own destiny and nobody else.
And I don't, I don't ever want to be untrusting because I value trust and I value what that means to have people around you who can carry that weight and who you can rely on.
(01:05:00):
However, for the first time, I started questioning absolutely the whole convention of trust.
And what does it mean? And who who's earned it? Who deserves it? And when should I even need it or use it?
And how much of this should I really have to do myself?
So, I mean, it was the most brutal, nerve-racking, sickening, and difficult process that I've ever gone through.
(01:05:34):
But, but to, to stop being so damn naive and to really look at things.
I'm also knowing when to reach out for help, but to the right people, professionals.
I should have gone straight to a therapist and dealt with the depression when I had it on the onset, not later when it's already sort of developed into other off-shoot issues of lacking self-worth, of inability to reach decisions to confront problems, you know.
(01:06:14):
I should have nipped that in a bud and I did not. And this is the perfect storm for having someone come by who's going to exploit that or manipulate that.
I think knowing when and how to reach out for help is a massive life lesson.
Yeah, it's hard to see though, especially if it's your first time really confronting it to recognize the signs of it.
(01:06:38):
I've gone through therapy myself and done a lot of work. It's much easier for me to look at this physical signs of it, whether it's loss of sleep or, you know, I feel anxious or whatever.
But before, I think you're probably the same way you just kind of make excuses for it or you become accustomed to it and that just becomes your new level of normal.
(01:06:59):
But you've done a lot of work on yourself and gone to therapy and I'm so proud of you for being able to do that and now coming out on the other side.
And you've been able to confront your trauma, you're rewriting your narrative yet again, but, you know, healing is not a straight line.
So how do you rebuild your sense of self-worth and what is your day to day look like and making sure that you're not retreating to that place?
(01:07:24):
And I was specifically trying to focus on myself and this was sometime after it was, you know, after I had gone through quite a bit of therapy and I was really in my stride again.
But I was still saying, I should focus on myself. I should be introspective.
I don't want to introduce any other X factors into this right now because being betrayed basically three times in the last, you know, handful of years by two X's and a contractor was obviously devastating.
(01:07:53):
And I didn't want to be that guy once again.
But one fateful night, a good friend of mine came in with this girl who used to be his global marketing manager.
And I saw her and said, OK, there goes the plan.
(01:08:17):
And I almost screwed it up with her at the beginning because I was kind of re figuring it out again.
And I was still kind of somewhat licking my wounds and, you know, I was still, I still had some triggers, obviously.
And there was a situation that almost triggered me in a way because she mentioned that she had had not many, you know, big relationships, but one with a guy who was separated.
(01:08:45):
And this stupid thing, which is completely honest and wonderful to talk about.
And I'm, and I'm, you know, I wanted everything all the cards on the table.
But this stupid little detail was like, triggering me like, Bing, you know, ripping me back to home and last relationship and infidelity and this and that and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm here I am like literally freaking out inside, like starting to like shake or sweat and then telling her like, well, that's not, that's not cool.
(01:09:14):
And she's like, what are you talking about?
I was like calm down and I almost screwed that one up.
I almost screwed it up. I almost let my demons, you know, take the reins on that one.
And thankfully, thankfully, I was able to barely save it.
And then she gave me another chance.
And now she's my rock. She's amazing.
(01:09:35):
She's probably the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.
And she's supportive in every possible way while still being ferociously independent and driven.
And it's, let's just say I'm thankful that I didn't end up finally being that rescue dog who gets sent back because he bit your kid in the face.
(01:10:00):
You know, it's, it actually ended up ending well so far.
Good. I'm glad. So what is the truth that you believe now?
I would say I would augment that truth and say there are people who have my best interests at heart.
(01:10:26):
I just have to be very diligent in figuring out who those people are.
It's a really kind of uplifting to hear about, you know, your childhood and the fact that I really think that you're the eternal optimist that you continue to not harbor resentment and hate and negativity and you kept searching for something out there.
(01:10:55):
I think you knew that love and trust and healthy relationships were out there. And so I think it's beautiful that you know it didn't turn into I can't trust anybody.
So if you could talk to young Justin 10th grade Vans, Cordora pants.
(01:11:18):
Would you say to him what's something that you'd whisper in his ear to give him the light at the end of the tunnel?
With how I would talk to myself, I'd probably say pull your head out of your ass.
Okay, if I was, if I was being a little more politically correct with the young Justin, I would say man be careful.
(01:11:47):
Never let your guard 100% down.
Okay.
And I would be encouraging him and anyone else who's younger to not expect the worst and do not be a pessimist.
(01:12:09):
But keep your eyes wide open. Read the fine print. Do the vetting and just watch out for yourself.
Do you trust yourself now to recognize love, to recognize the good and people? Do you trust your judgment enough to walk away?
(01:12:35):
No.
I can't say that I trust myself 100% now because I think I'm still learning and I'm still recovering.
And I'm still I think reflecting so.
I don't know if I'll ever be 100% to be perfectly honest.
I think that might be a pompous goal.
(01:12:59):
I do think that I'm a little more thorough now and I'm a little bit more hesitant.
So I'm not quite as willing to run into the fire.
Just when the starter gun goes off, you know.
So I think that's a lifetime process and I'm not saying that you grow up without any scabs on your knees, but I think that I could have played things a little differently.
(01:13:28):
And I could have been more careful. But yeah, this optimism is a double-edged sword, I guess.
And in its purist form to circle back to your relationships with love.
It's unconditional and non-transactional. Do you believe that you deserve love and are capable of giving it and what does that look like for you now?
(01:13:55):
That I can say 100% that I can receive and I can give.
And I do very, very readily and very openly.
I think that there's several forms of it.
I think that I was always someone who was able to receive love and give love.
(01:14:17):
I just I wasn't taught how to interpret it and I wasn't taught how to deal with it.
So I had to learn that on my own and it just took a while.
But I am as I think loving as I am optimistic.
I believe that we are continual works in progress.
But I have to say I'm really happy for you and really proud of you.
(01:14:41):
Not because of all the things that you've accomplished and all of your accolades.
It's great, but it's not what matters, right?
I'm mostly proud of you because you just never gave up on yourself or that sweet kid that I knew back in the day.
You're doing really good things for him.
Thank you, Catherine. It's nice to hear from someone who's known me.
(01:15:02):
I think maybe the longest of anyone I'm still in contact with.
28 years.
Wow.
Wow. Where does the time go?
Man.
That was a lot of time for me to screw things up.
Well, no, we are all works in progress and we should all accept that and understand that.
(01:15:24):
And just always strive to be a little bit better tomorrow than we were the day before.
As cheesy as it is, following my dreams is what got me to where I am now.
Of course, there's going to be some turbulence along the way, but it shouldn't shake the optimism.
It should just sharpen the upper bit.
(01:15:46):
Well, I love you, buddy.
I love you to your Catherine. You are the best.
All the best for your podcast. I can't wait to hear all of the insane personalities you have on here.
And I'm seriously looking forward to it, so I'll be tuning in.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!