“I couldn’t walk in there and pretend. Or I could, but I would hate myself and loathe them even more.”

That’s what a friend said to me earlier this week. He was talking about a celebration for a close friend, someone who had just sold his insurance company for millions. Everyone was flying in. It was a big deal. And he didn’t go.

He texted some excuse about a scheduling conflict. But when we spoke, he admitted what really kept him away: “Everyone would be doing well. Crushing it. Married, kids, moving forward. I’d just be standing there faking it. I couldn’t take it.”

He was ashamed to admit it, but I knew exactly what he meant.

When I was under investigation, I turned down similar invitations. Sometimes I gave a reason. Sometimes I ignored the message altogether, or, as my mom liked to say, I’d “go dark.” But the result was the same. I avoided people who reminded me of what I used to have and so easily took for granted, maybe because it came so easily.

I didn’t want to sit across from someone who still had the title I lost. Or the income. Or the reputation. I didn’t want to celebrate someone else’s wins while silently calculating how far I had fallen. And worse than that, I didn’t want them to have it either.

That’s envy. Most people don’t like admitting it. But I will.

What Envy Actually Looks Like

It isn’t loud. It doesn’t throw a tantrum or announce itself. It builds in silence. It speaks through avoidance. A missed RSVP. A skipped phone call. A conversation cut short because you’re tired of pretending it’s all good.

It showed up for me when I ran into friends at the annual USC Alumni baseball game or when I would check (sometimes stalk) their LinkedIn profiles. They all appeared to be crushing it, joining new firms, buying second homes, and joining the country clubs. I wasn’t happy for them. I wasn’t indifferent. I was angry. Not because I thought they were unqualified. But because I thought that should’ve been me.

Aristotle once said envy is the pain we feel when someone like us has something good. That phrase “someone like us” is what gets you. I didn’t envy celebrities or billionaires. I envied people I started with. My teammates at USC. People I entered the brokerage business with. People who used to ask me for advice. When they kept moving forward and I was unraveling, it didn’t feel unfair. It felt unbearable.

La Rochefoucauld said it best: Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

That was true for me. Even if someone’s success was fleeting, the reminder lingered.

And it lingered in my head for years.

The Descent: From 2005 to 2008

The FBI came in April 2005. I didn’t surrender until April 2008. That’s three full years of watching my identity collapse in slow motion.

And I wasn’t preparing. I was ruminating.

I’d sit alone, trying to retrace every step. Every meeting. Every decision. I’d convince myself I was “thinking it through,” when really I was just drowning in guilt and replay. That was my pattern. Looping. Thinking was all I really did.

My mom would say, “You need to stop ruminating. You keep going in circles.”

She was right. But I didn’t know what else to do other than withdraw and obsess. I disappeared into my own thoughts. And I foolishly convinced myself that because I was suffering, that meant I was doing something productive.

That’s the trap with introspection: it feels virtuous and good to say, “oh, I am so introspective, evaluating all the motivations behind my choies, blah, blah, blah.” The truth is, if you are not careful, it becomes a holding pattern.

Schopenhauer put it plainly: As iron is eaten by rust, so are the envious consumed by envy. And that corrosion doesn’t just apply to envy of others, it applies to envy of your former self. Of who you used to be. Of who you thought you were becoming. My ruminating sessions filled with Red Man Chewing tobacco and In-N-Out Burger included hours of thinking about what I used to have and clearly didn’t appreciate.

My Friend, the Lawyer, and the Same Loop

I don’t judge my friend for skipping the party. He’s read our blogs. Shows up to our webinars. Watched nearly every video we’ve ever produced. He retained a former AUSA turned defense lawyer.

But when we spoke, he admitted something most people won’t say out loud:

“I’ve done nothing with it.”

And when I asked why, he didn’t dodge the question.

“Because this isn’t the life I pictured. Because I had it. I know what it’s like to be at the top. And now I have to start over at 47? I can’t believe I’m here.”

Then he said, “That’s why I haven’t done anything. Got it?”

Yes. I got it.

I admire the honesty. But the truth is, the longer you stay in that place, the harder it is to climb out. And part of my job, part of the reason I write these newsletters, is to help people understand what inaction costs. Not just professionally, but emotionally. Personally. It’s not just a longer sentence at risk. It is the impact on his family, wife, kids, and mental health. My friend even said, “My dog looks depressed.”

Meeting Michael and Finally Finding the Why in Federal Prison

I surrendered in April 2008. I met Michael Santos shortly after arriving in federal prison. He was someone I trusted and admired because he was authentic. He would never ask me to do something he did not do and document it. He had authority and a track record–he was a master.

Through his tutelage, I started to see my own cycles and destructive behavior more clearly. I began to understand that I couldn’t change the sentence or undo what I had done. But I could start controlling my response, my routine, my habits. And as we wrote in last week’s newsletter on The 33 Strategies of War, that process began with segmentation. Focusing only on the next decision I could control.

That decision, at first, was to read, including books I could not comprehend or fully understand, which required me to read them several times, and some pages, more than 20 times.

Start With Why

In 2009, after my release, I was working hard to follow through on commitments I had made in prison. It was one thing to say you will do it in prison and another when the pressures of bills, restitution, and real life return. But I had some inner peace or a sense of confidence because I knew I wasn’t starting from scratch. I had already begun building something in prison.

Michael and I continued to communicate after my release, though we were not allowed to visit. He would send a lot of long, handwritten letters. One of those letters suggested I read Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

He wrote something like, “I think this will help you understand what you’ve already started doing.”

He was right.

Sinek’s point is that most people focus on what they do or how they do it. But the people who lead with consistency, the ones who inspire trust, make decisions that last, start with why. That’s the center of what he calls the Golden Circle.

Reading it helped me better understand something I had already started to live.

I wasn’t trying to rebrand just to earn an income or get some status in my community back. I wanted to see if I could build something meaningful from the worst chapter of my life. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to prove to myself that I could take responsibility and work every day toward something better, even if some days I felt lost and lonely.

I also wanted my parents to be proud. I remember sitting with them in visitation, trying to explain what I was doing, but more importantly, why I was doing it.

And part of my why came from what I had lost emotionally. I had been competitive my whole life. I liked the structure, process, and I used to have a desire to improve. I was always willing to try and fail. I had let that go, and I wanted it back. That part of me hadn’t disappeared; it had been buried under envy, arrogance, and taking shortcuts.

Back to envy for a second. I knew I didn’t want to live in envy anymore. I didn’t want to keep comparing myself to people I used to work with and secretly hope they stumbled. I wanted to learn from them. I wanted to appreciate their success. I wanted to grow up and stop resenting people just because they hadn’t fallen like I had.

Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

That line made sense to me. My “how” changed constantly. Some days, I was writing a blog. Some days, I was preparing for a corporate speech. Some days I was cold calling law firms. But the why didn’t change.

It still hasn’t.

Envy Now Comes From the Other Direction

Sixteen years in, envy still finds its way in. Only now, it comes from people who resent the outcome.

Some don’t like that I served just 388 days. Or that I didn’t endure transit. Or that our work has helped thousands of people.

They don’t say it directly. They imply it.

This morning, someone left a comment under a video: “You speak too professionally, to smooth, effortless. That’s clearly a segway into crime.”

I’ve heard that before.

And to be honest, I think it comes from the same place I used to operate from. Envy without understanding the process. That comment doesn’t acknowledge the sixteen years I’ve spent reading, writing, recording, revising, and adjusting. Nearly every single day. Without exception.

Of course, my ability to communicate has improved. A surgeon improves after 16 years. A teacher. A golfer. A chef. That’s what happens when you invest time and repetition into something.

Seneca once said, “It is the mind that makes us rich, and no man is poor who has enough.”

I’ve learned to value consistency over validation, a thought I shared in our newsletter on The Stranger. But not everyone sees the effort. They see the outcome and assume it came easily.

And I get it. Because I used to do that too.

Why I Write These Newsletters

Yes, writing helps our business. But that’s not why I write them.

I have found a lot of meaning in this journey, and I think it would be selfish of me not to share these lessons.

I also write them for my mom. She spent Mother’s Day in 2006 sitting at home, wondering why I wasn’t there and thinking, “What happened to my son?” 

If I had been writing back then, if she could’ve read something like this, I think it would’ve helped.

To my mom, I am off to LA with the family to see her.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Thank you for being in my life.

Justin Paperny