How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Justin Baldoni - ‘I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD. It makes sense of who I am.’

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

TW: sexual assault I love Justins. I haven’t met a bad one yet. I’m even married to one. Justin Baldoni continues the trend of Great Justins. He’s intelligent, empathetic and unbelievably eloquent (honestly - it was such an easy interview because I hardly had to ask a single question; I just sat back and listened). An actor and director, Baldoni played Raphael in the rom-com Jane the Virgin for five years, before directing and starring in It Ends With Us - the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s hit novel. And don’t worry - we talk ALLLL about it. He’s also a speaker, producer and entrepreneur. His book and eponymous podcast ‘Man Enough’ both seek to reframe modern masculinity, and were inspired by his hugely successful TED talk on the necessity of deconstructing traditional stereotypes about masculinity. In doing so, he seeks to fight the oppression of all genders. Well, I think we can all say hurrah to that. NEW HOW TO FAIL WITH ELIZABETH DAY PRESENTED BY HAYU LIVE TOUR DATE Friday 28th March 2025 – The London Barbican Go to: www.fane.co.uk/how-to-fail Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Tickell Senior Producer: Selina Ream Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Before we get to the main event, just a reminder about our subscriber podcast, Failing with Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's a bit of Justin to whet your appetite. Because anxiety is just us talking crap to ourselves about something that hasn't happened. Anxiety is just like this voice in you that's like, it's just being mean to you about something that doesn't exist yet. If you'd like advice on a failure from one of my amazing guests, follow the link in the podcast notes or look out for my call-outs once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions.

Thank you so, so much. Justin Baldoni is an actor and director. He portrayed Raphael in the romantic comedy drama Jane the Virgin for five years and in 2024 came to even greater prominence by directing and starring in It Ends with Us, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's hit novel. The movie, which tackles themes of domestic violence and coercive control, grossed over $350 million worldwide. But Baldoni's talents go deeper than his Hollywood good looks and easy charm. He's also a producer, speaker, entrepreneur and author. His book, Man Enough, was a chronicle of his journey to, as he puts it, undefine his masculinity, and came off the back of his hugely popular

2017 TED Talk, which has been watched over 8.5 million times. Much of Baldoni's work, including the podcast he co-hosts, also called Man Enough, seeks to deconstruct traditional stereotypes about masculinity. In doing so, he seeks to fight the oppression of all genders. He has never been intimidated by big aspirations. When Baldoni co- founded Wayfarer Entertainment, he did so with the explicit intention to produce work with a social conscience. The studio also has a philanthropic arm which benefits homeless residents in Los Angeles. So often in our industry, we're told we're not curing cancer, we're not saving lives,

just making art, just making movies, he said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. To that I say, well, I wonder if we're making the right movies then. Justin Baldoni, welcome to How to Fail. Oh, Elizabeth, so good to see you. It's so great to be with you through the medium of a computer screen. I know, I wish it was in person. We'll rectify that as soon as humanly possible. This idea of work with a social conscience, when did it first come to you? When did you first realize that that's what you wanted to do, that that was part of your

purpose? I was 16 years old and I was a DJ at the local radio station in Oregon, where I grew up. And I was working the overnight shift. I would work from, I think, seven or eight to six in the morning. I was on the radio when we got the information that Aaliyah, the singer Aaliyah, had died in a plane crash. And I was a huge fan of Aaliyah.

I was 16, so I had a crush on her. I remember being heartbroken and I'm live on the radio and I don't even think it was email back then. It was like a fax or something came through that Aaliyah had died. And I remember, man, if I'm feeling this way, I wonder if others who are listening are feeling this way because we were playing her music all the time.

So I stopped the music. You know, I was probably one in the morning. I said a prayer for her on the radio To you know, I don't know maybe the 800 people that were listening or who knows it was a small small town it could have been a couple thousand and Then I played her music but there was something about that moment that kind of lit a spark in me. And I wanted to be unabashedly talking about things that maybe people don't always talk about. I've been very struck doing my research, but also what I already knew from having consumed a lot of your work, that there is this thread that goes through it, that idea of holding space for other people's vulnerabilities,

but also for the contradictions in life. And I wanted to ask you about It Ends With Us, which I went to see in the cinema with my husband, who we've established is also called Justin and has the same initials. With your JB. With my JB. With your Justin. And just briefly for those who haven't seen It Ends With Us, it's an emotional depiction of a dysfunctional romantic relationship.

And I thought one of the brilliant decisions that was made on that film, and I presume you made it as the director, was not to show the abuse as it was happening, but rather in retrospect through a series of remembered, fragmented memories. Can you talk me through why you made that choice? Domestic violence is not talked about nearly enough. One in three women globally, I mean

that is an astounding number. If there was anything happening to one in three men, the problem would have been solved a long time ago. So I just felt like we had to talk about it, because it's kind of kept in the shadows. So in terms of the adaptation, thinking about how to bring this novel to life was very tricky because I did not want people to judge Lily. I think we have enough of that. We have enough women judging women,

we have enough men judging women for staying in these relationships, and these relationships are very complex. They are not black and white. They are filled with nuance and manipulation. Also real love, which isn't talked about very often when you think about abusive relationships. And my feeling was that if I showed Ryle abusing Lily in the first 30 minutes of the movie, that it would make it very hard for an audience to not form a negative opinion about her. And also it would make it very hard for the movie

to work because you have to have a bit of a, will she take him back? Will she go and leave him for Atlas? And the narrative magic trick of the film is to get you to understand what it's like to be in a relationship, to get you to love this character the way that she loves this character and then to pull the rug out from under you and Have the experience that so many women in real life have so that was my intention going in to make the film But that came from the interviewing and the speaking to so many women and survivors who have been Victims of intimate partner violence and domestic violence and working with NoMore.org, who is the nonprofit that I brought on to help me in developing this film.

So it was a lot of research. It was a personal experience that I have with trauma and the way that I experienced the memories and the recollection of what happened and the confusion and the gaslighting and also the reality that for so many women It's not black and white and oftentimes they don't even realize that it is abuse until they can no longer run from it And I really wanted an audience to feel What it was like to be gaslit in that way to feel what it was like

to question if everything they saw was a lie and if everything they felt was untrue, because that is the reality for so many women. And so that was the goal and the adaptation. And I'm so happy that that resonated with you and with so many people. It did resonate. And we're going to come back to your experiences, perhaps of trauma, because it pertains to one of your failures. But I just wanted to say on a really profound and serious note that part of the reason it resonated with me so deeply is because I also had an experience of a coercibly controlling relationship that edged into physical abuse on one occasion.

And I thought you did a tremendous job of conveying what that feels like. And I remember in the midst of that, not wanting to tell anyone, partly because I felt shame, but also because I didn't want the person I told to tell me to leave, because I wasn't ready to do so. And so I really, I just want to salute you for that. And I suppose I want to- I'm so sorry that happened to you. Thank you. That's so kind.

I'm in a much better place now. Yeah, but quickly on that note, knowing the numbers. The other thing was I just didn't want to re-traumatize the majority of my audience, which is why, you know, I was advocating for a trigger warning at the front and things like that. But those are certain battles that you can't always win. I just wanted to ask you finally on this, whether the character of Ryle took longer

to process after you finished filming, not only because he's a complicated character, but because you were directing the film as well. How did you decompress after that? Directing is a very lonely job. I'll just be very candid because you are kind of at the top of this totem pole in your moments of quiet. Everybody has a thousand questions for you and also nobody wants to disturb you. And you don't really have many people to talk to and you can't necessarily share your anxiety or your nervousness about something because you're also the leader. So it's a very strange place to be, let alone directing while trying to play a character

who does the things that Ryle does in the movie. So there were moments in the filming of this where I had to just, I would just have to leave. I'd have to remove myself and go and shake it out. I mean, I've done a lot of somatic therapy. So there were times when I was actually just shaking. There's a moment in the movie where Ryle finds Lily's phone and he finds a phone number

and he's very jealous and he's heartbroken and he's angry and he doesn't harm her, but you can see in his eyes how dangerous he is. After that scene, I had a near breakdown, and I had to leave and just cry and shake because there was so much pain. What's hard about a character like that isn't necessarily what he does. What he does is a result of what he has kept in. So what's hard about having that in your body is having the trauma live in your body of what he's experienced or creating that trauma in your body and creating that insecurity

and the pain and the feeling that you shouldn't actually be alive. Your brother should be. It's all your fault. Nobody really loves you. That was very hard. And honestly, that took a few months. I had dreams as him for a while and it lived in my body, but I think for the most part, he's out. Good. I'm glad to hear it. Let's get onto your first self-diagnosed failure, which speaks to that sensitive young boy that you were, and it is that you struggled with ADHD. So tell us about this. So I haven't spoken about this publicly. I was diagnosed officially at 40, which means 40, which means this year I turned 40 early in January. This is after probably four years of my therapist telling

me it might be a good idea to go and get an actual diagnosis, pushing me in that direction. Because a common theme in my therapy sessions was this feeling of just not being enough. I wrote a book about not being enough. And yet, no matter how much work I did and how deeply I dug into it, what kept coming back was that there was something wrong with me. What I realized is that I've lived the majority of my life feeling like I had a deficit, that I was behind, that I wasn't like everybody else.

And that does a lot of damage over the course of one's life and into youth and then adulthood. That pain then causes one to inflict more pain on themselves and others. So when I was young, all of my earliest memories as it relates to school had to do with being told that I was out of control, that I didn't pay attention, that I was disruptive, having parent teacher conferences being suspended. I don't really have any positive memories of school. Reading was always very tough.

I remember at a very young age, having to reread and reread and reread pages over again, because I would read and then I would forget what I read. And that continued over the course of my life. There were some that I excelled in because I was very interested in them. But if there was something that I wasn't interested in, there wasn't any amount of willpower

that could get me to learn it. So I just felt stupid. But there was nobody to talk to about it because I have a belief that my parents also have it, undiagnosed. We've had long, long conversations about it since, and they're both in agreement that that was probably the case. Lovingly, they didn't want me to ever feel like I had a disability, so they didn't get me tested. And they didn't want to medicate me at a young age, which I

appreciate and I support. And at the same time, I think had somebody intervened and said, well, have you thought that maybe he has a different way of learning? That maybe my life could have looked a little bit different in the sense that I wouldn't approach so many conversations and spaces from a place of lack, from a place of not feeling like I'm enough or that I even have a right to be there.

And it wasn't their fault. They did the best that they could. I've gone through my anger and my frustration and my grieving about what could have been. I end with compassion and empathy for those two trying to raise a son that looked very similar to them and how triggering that must have been. Not wanting me to be doped up on something.

And ADHD back then wasn't really understood. It was a deficit. You were broken. And I think they didn't want to raise me feeling broken. And ironically, because nobody was there to talk to me about it, and nobody held space for me, I felt broken. That makes perfect sense.

And it makes me also wonder, you said that your therapist for a number of years has been suggesting that you go and get officially diagnosed. What was the resistance there? Do you think that was conditioning? I've been able to compensate in so many ways and find success and I think I was afraid that if I was actually diagnosed with ADHD and I was labeled as neurodivergent, that there was the little boy in me that would feel truly broken versus suspecting that I was broken.

The irony of it is that being diagnosed ADHD and neurodivergent and getting a chance to learn about how my brain works gave me so much compassion for myself. And I am able to hold that little boy who had nobody who felt like he was the odd one out that he couldn't learn the way everyone else could, that he couldn't function, that he couldn't regulate his emotions, that he couldn't sit still. I'm able to hold him and let him know that it wasn't his fault.

And I get to remind him that all that the way that your brain works, all of those things that you hate about yourself are going to be the things that allow you to be successful one day. That allow you to flourish and succeed. This is why I love your show so much. I think that all of these things, all of these things that your guests come and talk about, that you come and talk about, they're not failures. There is no such thing as a failure. And it's such a gift. These things are gifts.

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I was a bit of an ugly duckling, as I like to say. Shut up. I don't believe that for a second. I assure you, I will send you a text message of some photos of me as a young person. Things grew at different times. Okay. Let's just put it that way.

I had terrible acne, I had braces when I was a junior in high school. I was deeply insecure also about the way that I looked. So not only was I insecure about having ADHD, which one thing we didn't touch on was the social anxiety that comes with that, you know, and also feeling like I was always just one beat off. That's something that's one of the ways it manifested in my life was never quite feeling

like I fit in or I was just, you know, I would make a joke, but it went a little too far or it didn't land appropriately. And so I struggled socially also, in addition to privately with learning. And in addition to that, I really wasn't the most attractive. I didn't bloom until I was probably 20 or so. And so I was always the friend. Every girl that I had a crush on was never reciprocated. Didn't really have dates to the dances.

Actually, I was so insecure. I taught myself how to dance because I didn't know how to dance freshman year. And I locked myself in a room and I like watched in sync and Backstreet Boys videos and Michael Jackson videos so that I could myself in a room and I like watched in sync and Backstreet Boys videos and Michael Jackson videos so that I could go to these events and dance and not have anxiety. And I just wanted to, I wanted to look like the other guys.

I wanted to, I wanted to be blonde and blue eyed and not have these big bushy eyebrows and this, you know, big Roman nose. So I was awkward, which is normal. But as I got older, and I started coming into myself, and I started to get attention every once in a while from women, I didn't know what to do with it. And the first relationship that I found myself in was honestly the first young woman I met when I moved from Oregon to Long Beach State where I went to college. I was on the track team. And I had met her at an Abercrombie and Fitch.

And back then, you know, all the girls had the Abercrombie and Fitch models posters in their rooms. And it was just like, it's like that was what that was what we were told beauty was. And all the people that worked there were just so good looking. And, and I remember meeting this beautiful young woman. And the fact that she was interested in me blew my mind. And I got into this relationship in college and I proceeded to pretty much not care at all about college and just go right into this relationship

because I was trying to fill a hole and a void where I just didn't feel like I was enough. And it was a very bad relationship. And I kind of contorted myself and my personality to be what she wanted. I had strong values and opinions and beliefs going in and those were very easily manipulated and reshaped to the point where a few months in I completely lost any sense of self that I had left

and it got very emotionally abusive. I experienced sexual trauma in that relationship, then wrestled with that trauma for the rest of my life because in my head, a man can't experience sexual trauma at the hands of a woman. And it's also the way that society has kind of made me feel that, you know, it's only the other way around,

when in reality, yeah, it can happen, you know, there are lines that can be crossed and take advantage of somebody and to be manipulated and, but I told myself for 15 years after that that wasn't actually what happened and, you know, that I did want it and all of the things that women have been feeling and experiencing for a long time. I was hoping to save myself for marriage and that's as detailed as I'll get into the story. I'm so sorry you went through that. Thank you. I'm really grateful for it now.

But again, similar to the ADHD thing, if I acknowledge that that happened, then I'm broken. And I didn't wanna do that because so much of being a man is not being broken to what we're told. So much of being a man is performing and making sure that everybody knows that we're safe and that they can trust us and that we can carry the world on our shoulders. And acknowledging that a woman can take advantage of me

is too much to hold for many, many years. And then one day my therapist asked me a very simple question and she said, Justin, you do a lot of work in this space. If a woman told you that story, what would you call it? If a woman told you that story, what would you call it? And that was when I broke. As we know, the crack is where the light gets in, Leonard Cohen. The wound is where the light enters you, as Rumi says.

And that's when healing could really begin for me. So that relationship ended with cheating and infidelity. And it was a terrible, terrible relationship. I left college. I moved to LA. And it was actually thanks to that relationship ending that I ended up becoming an actor. A couple of years later, in the Baha'i faith,

we have this belief where Abdul Baha, who's one of my favorite spiritual teachers, says, I'm summarizing, I'm not going to give you the whole quote, but God essentially tests man to see where his spiritual fitness is. And the same test will come again and again in greater degrees until the former weakness is rooted out and it becomes a strength. Funny enough, I met this beautiful woman a couple years later at an Abercrombie and Fitch. The difference was she was recruiting me to work there because that's evidently what they did. They looked for people that they felt were good looking and they recruited them. And there was this part of me that always

wanted to have that happen because it means, oh, it must mean I'm good looking like I'm enough. True story, I actually worked at the Abercrombie and Fitch. I was in the back, I wasn't able to be seen, I wasn't good looking enough. The irony isn't lost on me that, oh, okay, here's this beautiful woman. And instead of two years, I was in this relationship for four years. And again, wasn't the best relationship, but it also ended the same way with being left and cheated on and feeling like I wasn't enough. I was a man that was trying to put on a different mask of masculinity to present as something that this beautiful woman would want versus owning who I am.

In both situations, I was just picturing my wedding day and I knew it was not either one of them. My intuition was screaming at me. It's the thing that I have relied on the most in my entire life is my intuition. And yet I ignored it over and over and over again. When that relationship ended, I made a choice. And that choice was to never abandon myself again.

A year later, when I did meet who is now my wife, I decided to be unabashedly my authentic self. And that was very hard because I had never been that person. It was like learning how to walk at 26. And it was at times deeply uncomfortable and it was triggering for her because she had never been with somebody who was so vulnerable and so open. One of the things I've learned over the last couple years is that there's a time and a place for vulnerability. One of my favorite quotes is from Bahá'u'lláh, it says, that everything that a man thinketh

can be disclosed. That everything that a man disclosed can be considered timely. And that every timely utterance can be suited to the capacity of the one who hears it. So it's basically like a three step process to being vulnerable and to speaking the quiet parts out loud as we talked about.

And she was coming in, Her father was an alcoholic. She struggled with abandonment issues with men. Here I was so present and so wide open and I knew she was my person. And there was a moment in that relationship and I was presented with the choice to go down the path that I was in in the first two relationships and to abandon myself to become the man she wanted me to be so she would stay with me or for the first time in my life to stand tall

arm-in-arm with that younger part of me and to not abandon myself and I made that choice and There was a moment where I ended the relationship with that younger part of me and to not abandon myself. And I made that choice. And there was a moment where I ended the relationship. It was the most painful thing I've ever done. And over the course of a few days and a few weeks, we were able to refine our balance and set boundaries for what I needed in a relationship versus just simply molding myself

to be what the other person needed. And that is now why, you know, 13 years later, I have a marriage that I could have only dreamed of and two gorgeous children. And I'm so grateful. Thank you, Justin. One of my favorite bits of your book, Man Enough, is when you deconstruct the idea of a relationship having a honeymoon period. Because you write so honestly about the first date you went on with your wife where you went hiking and then you wanted to kiss her, but you weren't sure should you ask permission, should you ask consent, should you just do it. And I thought it was- I did ask consent by the way. I thought it was so brave of you actually, because I've never heard anyone really deconstruct it in that way, let alone a man. And actually,

I really related to it because the best relationship I've ever been in, which is my current one, with my Justin, had a similar start too in that we brought our own emotional pathologies, we were sort of bruised in tender places from past relationships and we needed to be able to communicate that clearly. And there were a few moments there where I wasn't sure it was going to work and I wasn't sure how he really felt about me because he was being cautious and expressing it. And actually now, like you, I'm so grateful for that. Because of the work we put in then, it was a slow building and burning bonfire rather than a flash in the pan firework that just fizzles out so quickly.

Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's no stranger to the spotlight. And it turns out he might even love the limelight. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's anything to love about the insufferable holiday season. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Edith Bowman. And on my show Soundtracking, I sit down with some of the most interesting people from the world of movies to talk music, how it inspires them, how they use it in their films, and why music is so important to the creative process of filmmaking.

From directors to fascinating actors, here insights you won't get anywhere else. Just search for Soundtracking with Edith Bowman wherever you listen and remember to hit follow so you never miss an episode. I'm so glad that you're with wonderful Emily now and you have your two beautiful children and that links us onto your final failure actually which is to do with your children because you said that you became a father at a time when your career was finally taking off and your failure was that you weren't present enough for your wife or family. Tell me about that. Is it true that you found out you were pregnant for the first time on the same day that you also found out you were going on entertainment tonight for the first time?

Yeah. So we got married at 29 and I had been in the business for nine years at the time. At 30 was cast in Jane the Virgin. So I was a 10-year overnight success. I had a lot of ups and downs in my career up to that point. I had actually stopped acting for two years before Jane the Virgin. I wasn't happy just auditioning and I started directing and telling stories. And I created the show My Last Days where I spent time with people who were dying and living amazing lives in an effort to help people

realize they don't have to find out they're dying to start living. I felt like I had found my purpose. And then I got this audition and I got cast in this show and the show blew up and became a global phenomenon. And I was newly married and I hadn't even thought about acting again, but here I was now acting

and acting was taking up so much of my time. And yet my heart was drawn to these other areas. And throw in the mix of that, we find out we're pregnant. We weren't trying and it was the greatest surprise. And yet it came at a time when I was very confused about what I was supposed to be doing. I had all of the programming in me for my entire life as a man to provide. I wanted to have success.

And I also had all of the things we've talked about earlier, this feeling like I have something to prove to so many people. Over those 10 years, I had been rejected so many times in this industry. I couldn't get an agent or manager. I had success and then I would finally find somebody who believed in me and then that person would drop me. In fact, in the second relationship I was in, I'll never forget getting a phone call. I had introduced that young woman to my manager, my acting manager.

That acting manager helped this woman have some success. She started to have a career but when my girlfriend at the time left her for a bigger manager the manager called me and Dropped me. I was collateral damage. That's how much I I meant I'd been through all of these things and here I was Like finally having some success. I was probably gonna get three to five years of a big TV show. I was making a little bit of money. It wasn't much, but enough to provide.

And I wanted to take this opportunity to tell the stories and to build something meaningful, something that could replicate the feeling that I had when I was 16 on the radio. And I realized I had to take this moment to build it myself. And I was doing that when we found out we were pregnant. So remember, I was invited to be on entertainment tonight. It was a big moment.

That day I got home from work and Emily told me she was pregnant. And it was not like a celebration. It was a, oh, shit. We felt like we were kids. I don't think we're ever really ready to take on And it was a, oh shit, we felt like we were kids. I don't think we're ever really ready to take on the bounty of teaching another human being how to be a human being. It's a big one.

I'm working 12 to 14 hours a day. I wasn't aware of just how much I was building my career from a place of lack. And that's a dangerous place to be. Yes. I found a lot of success. The things that I was doing were working. I just wasn't aware of how much

I also just wanted to be loved. I was creating a web of opportunity so that in the event that one or two or three of them collapsed, I would still have a few others because I genuinely did not feel I deserved any of it. And it was happening at a time when I was like, well, if it's happening now, this is my chance. And there's not much else that I can do because I'm not smart and I don't belong in these rooms. And it was an amalgamation of all of my fails, all of my insecurities, all of my traumas

coming together at this moment in my life. I missed some of the most important things that if I could go back in time, I would give anything to re-experience. I took on the role of the provider and we found ourselves in very stereotypical gender roles without having ever talked about it because I was having success in providing and also doing good in the world. She was doing the invisible work of motherhood. I miss so much and in therapy, it's the one thing I have the hardest time forgiving myself

for is the amount of time that I missed because it's time I can never get back. After this last film, which really took me away for almost a year and a half to two years, it was devastatingly difficult for many reasons, but one of which was the time I was away from my family. The failure has become the teacher and that my children are now, as of today, seven and nine. And they're not out of the house. I'm not an empty nester. and that my children are now as of today seven and nine.

And they're not out of the house. I'm not an empty nester. I still have time to show them through my actions that I am the father that I want to be. I have time to be present. Was I there for the little moments that he needed me, that she needed me, the moments that we all take for granted, that it's so much easier to just be on our phones. And then finally, as it relates to my wife, one of the things that makes me the most sad was how lonely she felt during this time. I think that our world, our culture, society could do a better job of two things.

Holding space for how lonely it is to be a mother. It's no longer a village raising a child that's a single mother. And I also believe we have to hold space for how lonely it can be to be a man Who's trying to provide for that? Mother or for the family instead of ranking or competing Uh, who's more tired? Who's more this who's more that? Being able to see Wow, you felt really alone when I was off

Building my career and i'm so sorry when I was off building my career, and I'm so sorry. And for her to say, you felt so alone, you miss so much. And then being able to come together and realize that we still have time to heal. But those are the things that I'm doing now to make sure that I don't repeat the failures tomorrow. Justin, this has been such a joyful interview for me because I barely had to ask a question.

I'm so sorry, by the way, as I've been talking, I'm like, oh my God, I'm talking too much. In the best possible way. And I am so grateful that you have come on How To Fail today. And you said that failure is our teacher, which is just such a wonderful quote. But today, you've been our teacher and I can't thank you enough for coming on How To Fail and for sharing your lived experience and your wisdom with us. And you're going to do more of it for our listeners on Failing with Friends, but for now I just want to say Justin Baldoni thank you so much.

Thank you for creating this space for me to share. I really appreciate it. We heartily recommend you follow us to get new episodes as they land on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.