Some Unbalanced episodes feel like a conversation you listen to while you fold laundry or drive to Target. And then some episodes stop you in your tracks.

This one did that.

Sam and Candy sat down with Joseph De Gregorio, the founder of JN Advisor, and within the first few minutes, you realize you’re not just hearing a “career story.” You’re hearing a real-life unraveling. The kind that doesn’t happen overnight. The kind that happens slowly, quietly, and then all at once.

Joseph spent 24 years on Wall Street managing more than $50 million in client assets as a licensed trader. From the outside, it looked like success. On the inside, he says, 2016 was the start of the collapse: deep alcoholism, “functioning” on the surface, falling apart underneath. Between 2016 and 2019, he committed federal crimes. By 2020, his liver had failed completely.

And then came the part that feels unreal even as you hear it: Joseph received a full liver transplant at New York Presbyterian Columbia in Manhattan… during peak COVID, in the epicenter of the pandemic. Four months in the hospital. ICU. Ventilator. Sepsis. A priest giving him last rites. He survived. He got sober. He faced the legal consequences. And now his work focuses on helping other defendants understand what happened before they crossed the line.

Underneath Joseph’s story is a question a lot of firm owners (and honestly, a lot of high performers) wrestle with:

How do good people drift into decisions they never thought they’d make?

The “psychological cascade” that happens before everything breaks

One of the most interesting parts of this episode is when Joseph explains something he wishes more fraud examiners, leaders, and business owners understood.

Joseph describes a “predictable psychological cascade” that happens months or even years before fraud shows up in the numbers. And he shares a framework that helped him finally see his own story clearly: Dr. Sridhar Pataratsu’s “telescope model of rationalization.”

Here’s the simple version: your thinking gets filtered through distorted lenses, like looking through a telescope with warped glass. Those lenses are made up of:

  • Core beliefs (the stories you believe about who you are)
  • Emotions (fear, shame, anxiety, overwhelm)
  • Thinking errors (minimizing, rationalizing, blaming others)

Each lens bends reality a little more. And eventually, you can’t see straight anymore.

Joseph says that when he learned this model, it felt like looking into a mirror. Because his core belief was basically: my worth as a person is tied to my success.

That hits, even if you’re not a Wall Street trader.

Firm owners know that feeling. The identity fusion. The “if this business fails, I fail” mindset. The fear that you can’t slow down because everything will fall apart.

Joseph explains that this belief made his situation especially dangerous because he had another belief layered on top: I can manage my drinking. I’m fine. I’m functioning.

And that’s where the telescope turns into a funhouse mirror.

The layer people miss: addiction

Joseph makes a point that Candy, as a fraud examiner, immediately understands: by the time an investigator sees the irregularities, the distortion has been running for a long time.

But Joseph adds something many frameworks don’t talk about enough: substance abuse.

He says addiction adds its own thinking errors automatically:

  • “This is temporary.”
  • “I’ll fix it before anyone gets hurt.”
  • “My drinking isn’t that bad.”
  • “I’m still showing up.”
  • “I’m holding things together.”

And maybe the most dangerous one: “I’m actually protecting people.”

It’s wild how convincing that can feel in the moment, especially if you’re a high performer who’s used to being the one who saves the day.

Joseph talks about being in constant emotional dysregulation: fear, shame, anxiety as the baseline. Alcohol became the way to numb it. But then the cycle tightened: questionable decisions → shame → drinking → worse judgment → worse decisions.

If you’ve ever watched someone you love go through addiction, you know how familiar that loop sounds.

Sam says something in the episode that really captures the helplessness: she has a close friend going through the exact same thing, and it’s brutal to watch because you can’t stop it until they decide it’s time.

“They knew I was lying” and why that matters

Candy asks Joseph something a lot of people wonder in situations like this: did your family know? Did your coworkers know? Was there anything they could have seen?

Joseph doesn’t sugarcoat it.

He says he was lying to people who loved him, saying it was under control. And he says: they knew he was lying.

There’s a point where you can’t hide it anymore. He became visibly yellow. His body swelled. His health deteriorated.

Candy shares her own experience calling out employees who were struggling and how important it is not to “pretend it’s not happening.” Not because you’re trying to shame them. But because ignoring it doesn’t help. It escalates.

This part of the episode isn’t just about fraud. It’s about how people around someone in crisis often end up participating in the silence, whether they mean to or not. Sometimes because they’re scared, they don’t know what to say, or they don’t want it to be true.

The line that stuck with me: “It’s easier to tell the truth”

Joseph says something simple that feels like a gut punch:

Lying is very hard. The truth is the easiest thing.

Candy even jokes about how exhausting it is to keep lies straight. But the point lands: once you’re living a lie, the effort to maintain it becomes its own prison. And the longer it goes on, the more it costs.

Joseph also talks about the second layer of pain: relationships. Some didn’t survive. He doesn’t speak to his two older sisters. He missed his niece’s wedding in Italy. He talks about how quickly a reputation can be destroyed and how long it takes to rebuild.

But he also puts victims first. He’s clear that accountability matters. He’s not asking anyone to excuse fraud. He’s explaining how it happens, so maybe more people can prevent it before they go off the cliff.

The part that’s unexpectedly useful for firm owners

Even if you never think you’ll face anything close to Joseph’s story, there’s still something firm owners can take from this episode.

Because the “telescope lenses” aren’t just a fraud thing. They’re a human thing.

Firm owners are especially vulnerable to identity fusion:

  • “If the business isn’t doing well, I’m not doing well.”
  • “If I slow down, everything collapses.”
  • “I can’t fail.”
  • “I have to keep it together.”
  • “People are counting on me.”

Those beliefs can quietly distort reality over time. And when you’re under pressure, tired, isolated, and trying to hold everything together, you can justify a lot. Not always fraud, but other things that still hurt: ignoring health, staying stuck in toxic situations, tolerating bad clients, overworking, numbing out, and making decisions from fear instead of clarity.

Joseph’s story is extreme, but the pattern is recognizable.

And that’s why this episode hits so hard. It’s not just a dramatic story. It’s a reminder that small distortions can add up. And that the earlier you catch them, the easier it is to course correct.

If you haven’t listened yet, this is one of those Unbalanced conversations that stays with you. It’s intense, but it’s worth it. Listen to the episode on Spotify.

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