In the 139th episode of the Centurion Leadership Battalion podcast, Justin Bizzarro, our host, courageously shares his deeply personal struggle with identity loss. Bizzarro takes listeners on a riveting journey, revealing the crisis he faced as a leader, business owner, and family man and the pressures that led to his inner turmoil and contemplating the unthinkable.
Exploring his painful past marked by family breakup and sexual abuse, Justin touches deep layers of mental health, revealing shattered self-images and the pain of lost love; challenges many can relate to. Having hit his life's rock-bottom, Bizzarro discusses how he found solace and recovery through his faith in God, thereby discovering an unbroken spirit within him to rebuild his life.
Around powerful themes of self-discovery, understanding, kindness, and faith, Justin shares a compelling story of resilience. He urges listeners not only to value their own worth but also to understand the power of self-awareness, unconditional love, and the importance of forgiveness.
Delving further into the concept of conditional versus unconditional love, Justin explores personal mistakes and lessons learned. Through sharing about his relationship with God, he conveys a profound understanding of love, forgiveness, and the value of divine intervention. He leaves listeners with a hopeful image of a future built on authenticity, forgiving relationships, and restorative love.
The episode concludes with Justin recalling his commitment to cherishing and loving unconditionally, emphasizing self-identity through our belief in GOD. In his attempt to enlighten listeners about faith, personal transformation, and unconditional love, Justin focuses on the human condition, identity struggles, and spiritual warfare. He motivates listeners to embrace their divine path, cultivate resilience and emerge as authentic leaders with core values.
Hosted By: Justin Ryan Bizzarro (IG: @justinbizzarro)
Episode Research Readings: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/panic-attacks/symptoms-causes/syc-20376021
Centurion Motto: To use our DETERMINATION to CRUSH our everyday leadership tasks so that we DOMINATE in our pursuit for excellence (and happiness) and achieve VICTORY in continuing human growth, building family legacies, gaining financial freedom, and creating positive environments for those around us to prosper.
Who is Justin Ryan Bizzarro? – Justin Bizzarro is a serial food, restaurant, technology, media and marketing entrepreneur, who helped build a 24-year-old group of food and restaurant related businesses, he created with his father and business partners out of his family’s basement, in 1998. He is a highly desired business management, personal and athlete growth, free market, food diversity, and entrepreneurial leadership speaker. Justin’s expertise are in human growth, motivation, leadership and management development, health foods and beverages, global lean manufacturing facilities, vertically integrating businesses, food marketing and advertising, supply chain creation and management, direct to consumer fulfillment, transportation and distribution, personal brand building, restaurant development and construction, and entrepreneur acceleration. Justin received his BA in International Business and Management from Dickinson College, in 2002, and his MBA from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity in Leadership from Denver Seminary. His leadership and entrepreneur podcasts have positively impacted millions of people across the globe.
Thank you Deborah Michas [ IG: @deborahmichas ] for pushing me to do this Podcast, believing in me that I could conquer this and being my Co-Host for the first two years.
Find Us On SPOTIFY or wherever else you grow yourself through Podcasts . . .
CHECK OUT: NY State of Mind [Clothing] Co. - www.nystateofmindco.com [ IG: @nystateofmindco ] . . .
Where Do I Crush My Fitness? - Step Up Training [ IG: @stepuptraining_ ] . . .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:25):
Welcome back, everyone. It's been a long time since I've recorded one of these episodes.
We have a stockpile of episodes for the Centurion Leadership Italian podcast
that I recorded last spring and summer.
I have not released them yet because I've been hung up on this episode.
This will be the 33rd time I've recorded it, and I promised myself and everyone
(00:49):
around me that I wouldn't go beyond 33 tries or takes on this.
I don't even know how to explain it or all the transitions that have gone on
over the last year and a half,
what has happened to me in life, the ups, the downs, the wins,
the gains, the losses, but this is a hard topic.
(01:13):
And so first off, if you want to find the Centurion Leadership Battalion or
Justin the Food Entrepreneurs or the Justin Ryan Bizzaro Show,
you can find it on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can find me personally at Justin Bizzaro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
(01:35):
I am the host of multiple shows, plus Better With Bacon Fat Studios produces
a bunch of different shows.
But it's taken me a while. I've taken a six-month leave of absence from doing this.
I put everything on hold as I really decided to slow down in life.
(01:55):
I lost a relationship with someone I love more than any other human in this planet.
Relationships with two young women who I considered my stepdaughters,
who I treated like my daughters and will always love as if they were my daughters.
A future son-in-law, potentially, that I love more than anything in this world
(02:18):
as well. but I lost a human that I love more than anything and I will always
forgive her. I will always be kind to her.
I will always be generous to her and I always be generous to all humans.
And the topic of this episode is what happens when we lose our identity.
(02:39):
Okay. Because I did lose mine. I let businesses define me.
I let co-workers or co-partners or employees or vendors or customers,
clients define who Justin Bizarro was.
I let my family, I let the woman I love more than anything, probably never going to love anyone more.
(03:05):
Maybe, maybe someone will come along. It's going to take a pretty special someone
to love more than I love that human.
All of you know who it is, I'm sure.
But I let everyone tell me who they thought I was, and I believed that.
(03:26):
I believe that what people said about me, good, bad, or indifferent, was the truth.
And I put all my identity in what other people thought about me,
what other humans saw me as.
And when my life, when there were no more businesses or food service partners
and all the subsidiaries, when my family fell apart because I lost my identity
(03:52):
without the businesses, is.
I also then lost my identity, who I saw myself as.
I also put too much value in who the love of my life saw me as.
I loved her more than anything.
I wanted her love more than anything.
I unconditionally still love her today. I don't care who she's with or whatever.
(04:14):
I want her to be happy and have as much love as she deserves in this world.
But I will tell you, You got to be careful what people say because people will protect themselves.
They will say things like, give me the benefit of the doubt.
They will twist things. They will manipulate things, your business partners,
(04:35):
your significant others, your community leaders, to self-protect themselves,
to protect their egos, to protect their pride, and they may not even know they're doing it.
They may suffer from narcissism. They may suffer from a whole slew of different
things, abandonment issues.
But I put so much effort and energy into worrying about what everyone else thought
(05:02):
about me, particularly because I was sexually abused as a kid from three to five years old,
until I took matters into my own hands and put an end to it.
It ended both silently and violently. And it's not something I take pride in.
Who wants to carry that around with them?
(05:22):
But what it did to me was I have the ability, I believe, from God and the Holy
Spirit to love God's creatures and God's humans unconditionally.
Particularly the woman that I never stop thinking about every day of my life.
It sucks, honestly. honestly, but I haven't dated anyone.
(05:45):
I haven't gotten into a relationship with anyone.
I haven't gone past anything of a date or two with anyone because I needed to
figure out who I am and who I'm not.
And I don't want to use another human as a crutch or to define me or who am
I because I'm with someone else.
(06:06):
I'm not a perfect human. I haven't always been an honest human.
I have my lies that I tell to myself, that I protect myself,
that I tell others, and I believe.
But I have tied my identity in the past into all my achievements,
to my successes, to what my family thought about me, to what my family unit
(06:27):
was, to the house I lived in, to the car I drove.
And none of it mattered. None of it made me successful. And in fact,
in the end, it's what what broke me into pieces.
And now I'm rebuilding my life piece by piece while attending the Denver Seminary,
pursuing a Master of Divinity in Leadership,
(06:48):
to stack on to my bachelor's degree in international business and management,
to stack on to my MBA from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, go Tar Heels.
But I've had to rebuild everything because I lost my identity.
Because I didn't put my identity in myself and in God and in Jesus Christ.
(07:11):
Now, I've always been a believer. Always.
Since the day I was born, I knew that God was in my life.
I couldn't figure out why I was sexually abused as a kid. I can't figure out
to this day why the woman I love more than anything is no longer a part of my life.
(07:33):
And two beautiful stepdaughters or humans that I treated as daughters are no
longer a part of my life either.
But I hurt them. I probably hurt their mother. Not probably, I did.
I reacted poorly to a situation and I was lost.
Lost, and I didn't know how to handle it, and I didn't know who I was anymore,
(07:56):
and I needed kindness and understanding and rebuilding, and I just could not find it.
And when I lost my identity, I didn't want to live anymore,
and I didn't want to hurt the humans I cared about the most when I did it,
when I jumped off a bridge in Nashville, or when I took my own life.
(08:21):
I never did it. It was a cowardly thing to think about. But when you lose your
identity, you lose your whole purpose.
The businesses you've built or been a part of building since you've been 18
years old to when you're 42 to a family that you're a part of, a family unit.
And a household that you live in and the person tells you you're not part of
(08:45):
the family and they get to choose whether you're part of the family or not.
And the home that you've been in for five plus years that you helped build and
help be a part of that you know it's not your home, that you don't belong there,
you don't know what to do.
And when you get back into a corner, you react. And when you're accused of things
(09:07):
that you've never done in your life, like cheating on that person you love more
than anyone, your identity goes to shreds.
Why are they believing that? you mix in
there with you know not
being in the right place you mix in
there using other things to try to make yourself feel better you mix in there
(09:31):
not doing therapy the way that you should or being honest with yourself you
mix in there lies being told to you or manipulations with you and you don't
know who you are. You're extremely vulnerable.
You're very susceptible to brainwashing. You're very susceptible to wanting
to please people, especially if you've been abused as a kid.
(09:53):
And you take it all on and you see everything that's going on as your failure,
even though you shouldn't.
So what does it mean to be a leader amongst all this? What does it mean to go
through what I would call a mental health crisis.
I don't know, but I do know that you have to turn to God.
(10:14):
I do know that amongst it, I went from not wanting to live to wanting to fight
for my family and the woman of my dreams.
I had to fight for my life because I went through a pretty health scare,
pretty big health scare.
And you don't know what you're losing or what you're missing out on until you've lost it all.
(10:39):
And when you've lost it all and there's nothing left but a truck,
two suitcases, a suitcase full of shoes and your dog and you have no home anymore
because you did something stupid because you lost who you were and you're having
a total mental breakdown because everything you worked on in your life is gone,
you start to find out who you really are and you will believe in God at the
(11:04):
end of all of it your identity will be attached to Jesus Christ afterwards,
how do I know?
Because I've never been so broken
so rock bottom so like without purpose without love without kindness,
filled with so much anger, shame, guilt and embarrassment in my entire life,
(11:28):
and over the last 16 months I realized I made a lot of mistakes and the humans
I love more than anything will probably never forgive me or give me another chance.
On the other hand, God has restored relationships or friendships or people in
my life that I haven't talked to in 10 to 12 years that have forgiven me,
(11:53):
that love me unconditionally,
that have shown up in my life when I needed them the most.
And I hope I'm showing up in their lives when they need me the most or need
love the most or need God the most in their life so God can work through me.
But it's an interesting path that we take when we take risks or we become entrepreneurs
(12:13):
or we start businesses or we get in relationships and we don't know who we are.
We think we do but when others start thinking of us differently than we see
ourselves or that we know God sees us we start to go through an identity crisis.
Our lives split into half then break into pieces places, and then the humans
(12:37):
we want there more than anything are too afraid of us, and we even push them away.
We even hurt them. We even do things. We even have anger that we're taking out on other people.
That's not right, because we don't know who we are, and we're trying to figure
it out, and we keep hearing how we're this bad person, but all we want is a
(12:58):
chance to prove who we actually are,
and we don't even know who we're trying to prove we are, but we know that we're a good human.
We know that we care about people. We know that we're generous.
I did, but I couldn't get anyone else to see my true soul and my true heart during those times.
(13:18):
Because no matter what I did, it was filled with stress, belittling,
misunderstanding, arguing, and hate.
Feeding. One of the greatest things I've learned during all this is some people
build bridges in relationship.
Some people build cases against the person who's trying to build the bridge.
(13:41):
Not everyone loves unconditionally, no matter what, I can forgive you.
No matter what, I will work on a relationship with you.
No matter what we go through, I will do my best, even if we break to try to
make amends and make it better.
No matter what, I love you enough that I will try to work on things with you no matter what.
(14:03):
That's how much I love. I don't know what God has in store for me.
I don't know what the future holds for me.
I know that I'm supposed to give and grow humans through Gorilla Brave,
a food and beverage entrepreneur group that we've started, which I would have
loved to have in my life when I needed it, so we started it.
(14:23):
Leaders to owners who takes leaders and companies and teaches them how to be
owners in the food and beverage space.
I've had to do crazy jobs. I've made donuts. I've made pizza dough. I've sliced deli meat.
I've worked in bars.
I worked in hotels. I've done all these things to rebuild myself and And rebuild
(14:47):
my confidence as an entrepreneur.
And there is no ego left. All I've gone through when I lost my identity is a
humbling that I can't even imagine.
Having nowhere to live. Having to sleep on couches. Having to find my way around.
Sometimes Airbnbs. Sometimes hotels.
To now having a roof over my head the last three, four months.
(15:10):
That I did it on my own.
Because at the end of the day, when everything fell apart.
There was very little humans who actually showed up for me.
And the person and the human that I wanted and I reached out to and I believed
we were reconciling that I needed one day just turned me away.
(15:31):
That's okay. That's not something I would do to anyone.
If I have, I've apologized and made amends, but I will never turn my back on
anyone ever again in my life.
Because when I have, I've ruined the things that I love and care about the most.
Why? Because I have a fear of rejection and abandonment.
(15:53):
Because I will abandon you before I fear that you are going to abandon me.
And I will reject you before you reject me.
That's who I used to be. I don't want to be used. I don't want to be abused
again in my life. I don't want to be belittled or made fun of.
It's always going to happen, especially if you're an entrepreneur.
(16:13):
I don't want it, especially as someone that when you've been abused as a kid,
you grew up to be a people pleaser.
And when you can't please everyone, you feel like you've lost your purpose or
no one's happy with you or they're all angry with you or mad at you and they don't love you.
Because while you can believe you can love unconditionally, you believe that
(16:34):
you can only be loved conditionally.
Now I'm going to repeat that.
If you've ever been through abuse as a kid, you believe that you can only be
be loved conditionally. You have to do all of these things.
You have to get all this approval, all this affirmation in order to actually be loved.
Where you know what it's like possibly to love others unconditionally and forgive them no matter what,
(17:00):
you're going to choose humans whose love comes with strings and comes with conditions
that are not capable of loving living unconditionally.
Their love can be hurtful. It can be painful. It can be not understood.
One human I've had that's loved me unconditionally, the one I love more than
(17:22):
anything in this world, I ruined that relationship because I assumed there was
conditions to her love for me.
Maybe there were. Maybe I'd have a certain amount of money.
Maybe I didn't. I don't know, but it's the closest thing I've ever felt to unconditional love.
I always thought I was letting her down. I wasn't making enough.
(17:45):
I wasn't supporting her enough. I wasn't providing enough. I wasn't protecting enough.
But was it true? I don't know.
That's up to her to determine, to tell, to live, to give clarity to, to tell truth to.
But in the meantime, I will grow through church, through school,
(18:07):
through being an entrepreneur, through fellowship,
through men's groups at a church men's ministry, through programs like Regeneration.
Through Watermark Church, 12-step program for brokenness and finding Christ
through that, to be the best version of myself that I can.
(18:27):
And if God wants those relationships restored, I know he will restore them.
He just restored an amazing relationship to me.
Someone I consider my best friend that I basically grew up with and went through a lot of struggles.
I wish I would have handled that relationship differently too.
But God restored it for me. And slowly God's redeeming my life,
(18:50):
rehabilitating my reputation,
recreating all the businesses that I've lost, bringing love into my life in unconditional ways.
I have more people that love me unconditionally than I've ever had in my life.
I don't have a romantic relationship right now, nor am I seeking one, nor do I need one.
(19:13):
And right now there's only one person, one human, one woman that I would ever
give that chance to right now.
So God's going to have to drop an amazing woman into my lap that he wants me
to date, that he wants me to spend my life with if that's what he wants for me.
But in the meantime, I'm giving my life to God to do with what he wants,
(19:38):
to have him identify who I am and live by that example and grow the humans around
me and coach them and grow them and build them and make them better and help
them not make the same mistakes that I've made in my life.
That is what this has taught me. I love so many humans I even love my enemies
(20:04):
at this point I was filled with anger for so long.
Many years still have some anger towards God. Still have some anger here and there.
But the reality is, is I've let it go.
I'm turning it over to God. Let go and let God intervene. Let him take over.
(20:26):
Stop putting your identity in your material things or the human you're dating
or the image that you're trying to portray.
Because it's not going to make you a better leader. later the cards will fall.
How do I know I'm one of them?
I put all my identity in businesses I had, in my family, in who my dad said
(20:47):
I was, who my mom said I was, who my significant other said I was.
And I believed them.
Instead of believing and knowing who I am, I've been baptized over the the last six months. Again.
I've changed my relationship with God. I've been by myself, not had a single person.
(21:10):
I haven't slept with anyone. I haven't been with anyone.
I've had some really good friendships that I thought might blossom into something.
But at the end of the day, I'm not willing to give me up ever again.
I'm not willing to give God up and who God says I am ever again.
And right now, like I said, there's only one human on this planet that I would
(21:33):
ever give a chance to because I haven't met someone better than that human.
I haven't met someone more loving and unconditionally loving and forgiving than that human.
There's someone out there for me. I know we'll meet and I know we'll talk and
I'm sorry, but it's going to take a lot and I probably will take a lot for me
(21:54):
to prove myself to you, who God is through me, who God wants me to be,
who God is purposing me to be, who God created me to be.
I appreciate everyone's patience and love and kindness during this time and
everyone who's reached out to me to check up on me or ask about what's going on with the podcast.
(22:14):
I appreciate all all the support on social media. I appreciate all the new friends
that have come into my life.
I appreciate who I am now because I don't look anything like the previous version
of myself, the person I was 18 months ago, 20 months ago, two years ago.
I'm not even close to that person anymore.
(22:35):
I love deeper. I care more.
I'm more generous, more patient, more loving, more kind than I've ever been
before in my life, and I owe that to God. I have more peace.
Doesn't mean I want to be alone for the rest of my life. I do want to be married in my life again.
(22:55):
I do want to have relationships in my life. I do want to have the woman of my dreams in my life.
I do want children in my life if I can never have my stepdaughters in my life again.
I don't need to to have children on my own. I miss my family unit. I miss my businesses.
But God is restoring my life in many ways.
(23:17):
And I have faith and trust and hope in him to do that.
I love you guys. Thanks for listening in. Not sure where this is going to go
or how it's going to be received.
I don't want to speak in anger and I don't want to speak badly about anyone.
And every lesson I had has been a growth for me.
(23:42):
And I appreciate everything you guys have done, all the support,
all the love, and I appreciate all my enemies who have forced me to grow.
And I do appreciate all the lies, the cheating, the stealing,
the deception, the manipulation, and all those things too, because it helped
me figure out who I am and what I'm going to put up with in my life.
And where God fits in and where God doesn't fit in and where the demons of the
(24:08):
devil's army comes to do spiritual warfare.
And spiritual warfare came into my life, came into my relationships,
came into my most valued relationships, came into my businesses.
When you're about to achieve great things or God's about to do great things
in your life, you are going to be attacked.
(24:29):
The relationships you value and love the most will be attacked.
And you're going to lose humans in the process.
If you're going to pursue great things, you are going to lose those you care
about the most sometimes.
I know I have. You can read about it in my posts on social media.
You can hear it in my voice. I pretended it didn't bother me.
(24:51):
I pretended I was going to move on. I pretended I was going to find someone
else. But the reality is this.
I don't know if I'll ever love as much one human as I love the human I lost.
But I can't do anything about it. It's not in my control.
We have free will. And if God wants something to happen in our lives or our
(25:12):
relationships to be restored, he will do it. I've watched him do it in my friendships.
I've watched him do it in my previous relationships.
And I've watched him bring someone back into my life who I love and care about very, very, very much.
I wish he would restore some of my other relationships. But maybe it's not in
his plan and his will for me.
(25:32):
Because right now what I do is I align my plan and my will with God's plan and will for me.
Because nothing else matters. Nothing else feels good.
Nothing else is fulfilling. fulfilling I can fulfill
it with big houses and cars and tractors and
four-wheelers and wave runners and lake houses
but still at the end of the day nothing fulfilled me like God and nothing fulfilled
(25:58):
me like having God between me and the relationship that I love and valued the
most in this world and when I removed God from that scenario I lost that relationship relationship.
When I stopped believing and started losing my faith in God, I lost everything.
Believed in him my whole life, had faith in him my whole life,
(26:19):
but I led a circumstance, an identity crisis, a not wanting to live,
to take it for granted how God was working in my life.
And I took for granted the relationships that I had and the humans that I had
in those relationships.
So if you want to be a great leader, it's going to come up with ups and downs.
It's going to come with transformation.
(26:40):
It's going to come with brokenness and it's going to come with reinventing yourself
and it's going to come with being resilient and learning what resilience actually
is every time and getting back up when life knocks you down on your knees, on your hands,
on your stomach, on your back.
(27:01):
You've got to get back up and you've got to do those things that matter.
Keep living. You got to keep fighting. And life isn't always fair.
And it doesn't give you what you want, no matter how much you pray for it.
There's a lot of unanswered prayers I have right now.
I pray more than anything for the restoration of my family unit and those I
(27:23):
love the most and care about the most on this planet. But that's a selfish thing.
If God doesn't want it, and it's not in God's plan, then it's not part of what I get.
No matter how much I love them, no matter matter how unconditionally I love them.
But I will tell you this, I will always pray for them. I will always be rooting for them.
(27:44):
I will always be grateful for them in my life.
I will always be there for them in a split second if they need me to be.
No questions asked ever, because that's one of the things that made me who I am. You know who I am?
One of the things that that God has taught me is Justin Bizarro is someone who
shows up for everyone anytime that they need him.
(28:07):
He picks up the phone. He shows up in person.
He supports anyone that's out there.
And I will support all of you always.
And I will always support those I love and care about the most.
No questions, always in forgiveness, always unconditional love.
And I will always want them to be loved and cherished and supported as much
(28:33):
as I love and cherish them or more.
I love you guys. Thank you for listening in. This is the Centurion Leadership Battalion podcast.
And get ready for more because this is just the beginning.
Wait until I start dropping what I'm learning in the Master of Divinity at Denver
Seminary in leadership on you guys because this This is a leadership podcast.
(28:58):
Here to change lives, to change legacies, to have a ripple effect through generations.
And that means vulnerability, authenticity, and telling you what is going on in the world right now.
And if you don't think we need leaders right now who are strapped and equipped
(29:19):
to handle spiritual warfare,
to handle moral and ethical dilemmas, to handle and be strapped with,
to handle bad things and be strapped with core values, you're wrong.
Because you can see it all around us right now.
And when God starts working through you, it's going to be the toughest path you've ever seen.
(29:41):
Look how much suffering Jesus went through to preach what he did over three
years. Look what happened to him.
It's not an easy path, but there is glory, there is the building of God's kingdom,
and there is becoming a better man, woman, and human of God.
(30:01):
Find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can find me on Instagram at JustinBizarro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
This is a Better With Bacon Fat Studios production. Thank you for all the support.
Get ready for all the podcasts we're about to release out this year. I'm back.
(30:24):
I'm a different human. I've been transformed. But I am back to start spreading
good, to start positively pollinating the world like I promised everyone I would.
And I'm here to try to make this place a better place for all humans. And how am I doing that?
Letting God do the work through me. It's not Justin Bizarro doing this work.
(30:46):
God gave me this ability. God grew this seed inside of me.
God is doing all the things that he has always done in my life to prepare me for this moment,
so get ready the Holy Spirit is speaking through me God is speaking through
me but God and the Holy Spirit all exists inside of you too just believe listen
(31:10):
do the right thing treat other other humans great.
And there's only two commandments, guys, that really matter.
Love God and love the humans and God's creatures around you.
Okay? Love your neighbors. That includes all animals and humans.
Share the episode. Let's get started.
(31:32):
Anyone who's been through an identity crisis, I know where you've been.
Find God. Find your identity in Jesus Christ.
Find your identity in who you're supposed to be not who everyone says you are love you guys i'm out.
Music.
Music.
(00:25):
Welcome back, everyone. It's been a long time since I've recorded one of these episodes.
We have a stockpile of episodes for the Centurion Leadership Italian podcast
that I recorded last spring and summer.
I have not released them yet because I've been hung up on this episode.
This will be the 33rd time I've recorded it, and I promised myself and everyone
(00:49):
around me that I wouldn't go beyond 33 tries or takes on this.
I don't even know how to explain it or all the transitions that have gone on
over the last year and a half,
what has happened to me in life, the ups, the downs, the wins,
the gains, the losses, but this is a hard topic.
(01:13):
And so first off, if you want to find the Centurion Leadership Battalion or
Justin the Food Entrepreneurs or the Justin Ryan Bizzaro Show,
you can find it on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can find me personally at Justin Bizzaro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
(01:35):
I am the host of multiple shows, plus Better With Bacon Fat Studios produces
a bunch of different shows.
But it's taken me a while. I've taken a six-month leave of absence from doing this.
I put everything on hold as I really decided to slow down in life.
(01:55):
I lost a relationship with someone I love more than any other human in this planet.
Relationships with two young women who I considered my stepdaughters,
who I treated like my daughters and will always love as if they were my daughters.
A future son-in-law, potentially, that I love more than anything in this world
(02:18):
as well. but I lost a human that I love more than anything and I will always
forgive her. I will always be kind to her.
I will always be generous to her and I always be generous to all humans.
And the topic of this episode is what happens when we lose our identity.
(02:39):
Okay. Because I did lose mine. I let businesses define me.
I let co-workers or co-partners or employees or vendors or customers,
clients define who Justin Bizarro was.
I let my family, I let the woman I love more than anything, probably never going to love anyone more.
(03:05):
Maybe, maybe someone will come along. It's going to take a pretty special someone
to love more than I love that human.
All of you know who it is, I'm sure.
But I let everyone tell me who they thought I was, and I believed that.
(03:26):
I believe that what people said about me, good, bad, or indifferent, was the truth.
And I put all my identity in what other people thought about me,
what other humans saw me as.
And when my life, when there were no more businesses or food service partners
and all the subsidiaries, when my family fell apart because I lost my identity
(03:52):
without the businesses, is.
I also then lost my identity, who I saw myself as.
I also put too much value in who the love of my life saw me as.
I loved her more than anything.
I wanted her love more than anything.
I unconditionally still love her today. I don't care who she's with or whatever.
(04:14):
I want her to be happy and have as much love as she deserves in this world.
But I will tell you, You got to be careful what people say because people will protect themselves.
They will say things like, give me the benefit of the doubt.
They will twist things. They will manipulate things, your business partners,
(04:35):
your significant others, your community leaders, to self-protect themselves,
to protect their egos, to protect their pride, and they may not even know they're doing it.
They may suffer from narcissism. They may suffer from a whole slew of different
things, abandonment issues.
But I put so much effort and energy into worrying about what everyone else thought
(05:02):
about me, particularly because I was sexually abused as a kid from three to five years old,
until I took matters into my own hands and put an end to it.
It ended both silently and violently. And it's not something I take pride in.
Who wants to carry that around with them?
(05:22):
But what it did to me was I have the ability, I believe, from God and the Holy
Spirit to love God's creatures and God's humans unconditionally.
Particularly the woman that I never stop thinking about every day of my life.
It sucks, honestly. honestly, but I haven't dated anyone.
(05:45):
I haven't gotten into a relationship with anyone.
I haven't gone past anything of a date or two with anyone because I needed to
figure out who I am and who I'm not.
And I don't want to use another human as a crutch or to define me or who am
I because I'm with someone else.
(06:06):
I'm not a perfect human. I haven't always been an honest human.
I have my lies that I tell to myself, that I protect myself,
that I tell others, and I believe.
But I have tied my identity in the past into all my achievements,
to my successes, to what my family thought about me, to what my family unit
(06:27):
was, to the house I lived in, to the car I drove.
And none of it mattered. None of it made me successful. And in fact,
in the end, it's what what broke me into pieces.
And now I'm rebuilding my life piece by piece while attending the Denver Seminary,
pursuing a Master of Divinity in Leadership,
(06:48):
to stack on to my bachelor's degree in international business and management,
to stack on to my MBA from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, go Tar Heels.
But I've had to rebuild everything because I lost my identity.
Because I didn't put my identity in myself and in God and in Jesus Christ.
(07:11):
Now, I've always been a believer. Always.
Since the day I was born, I knew that God was in my life.
I couldn't figure out why I was sexually abused as a kid. I can't figure out
to this day why the woman I love more than anything is no longer a part of my life.
(07:33):
And two beautiful stepdaughters or humans that I treated as daughters are no
longer a part of my life either.
But I hurt them. I probably hurt their mother. Not probably, I did.
I reacted poorly to a situation and I was lost.
Lost, and I didn't know how to handle it, and I didn't know who I was anymore,
(07:56):
and I needed kindness and understanding and rebuilding, and I just could not find it.
And when I lost my identity, I didn't want to live anymore,
and I didn't want to hurt the humans I cared about the most when I did it,
when I jumped off a bridge in Nashville, or when I took my own life.
(08:21):
I never did it. It was a cowardly thing to think about. But when you lose your
identity, you lose your whole purpose.
The businesses you've built or been a part of building since you've been 18
years old to when you're 42 to a family that you're a part of, a family unit.
And a household that you live in and the person tells you you're not part of
(08:45):
the family and they get to choose whether you're part of the family or not.
And the home that you've been in for five plus years that you helped build and
help be a part of that you know it's not your home, that you don't belong there,
you don't know what to do.
And when you get back into a corner, you react. And when you're accused of things
(09:07):
that you've never done in your life, like cheating on that person you love more
than anyone, your identity goes to shreds.
Why are they believing that? you mix in
there with you know not
being in the right place you mix in
there using other things to try to make yourself feel better you mix in there
(09:31):
not doing therapy the way that you should or being honest with yourself you
mix in there lies being told to you or manipulations with you and you don't
know who you are. You're extremely vulnerable.
You're very susceptible to brainwashing. You're very susceptible to wanting
to please people, especially if you've been abused as a kid.
(09:53):
And you take it all on and you see everything that's going on as your failure,
even though you shouldn't.
So what does it mean to be a leader amongst all this? What does it mean to go
through what I would call a mental health crisis.
I don't know, but I do know that you have to turn to God.
(10:14):
I do know that amongst it, I went from not wanting to live to wanting to fight
for my family and the woman of my dreams.
I had to fight for my life because I went through a pretty health scare,
pretty big health scare.
And you don't know what you're losing or what you're missing out on until you've lost it all.
(10:39):
And when you've lost it all and there's nothing left but a truck,
two suitcases, a suitcase full of shoes and your dog and you have no home anymore
because you did something stupid because you lost who you were and you're having
a total mental breakdown because everything you worked on in your life is gone,
you start to find out who you really are and you will believe in God at the
(11:04):
end of all of it your identity will be attached to Jesus Christ afterwards,
how do I know?
Because I've never been so broken
so rock bottom so like without purpose without love without kindness,
filled with so much anger, shame, guilt and embarrassment in my entire life,
(11:28):
and over the last 16 months I realized I made a lot of mistakes and the humans
I love more than anything will probably never forgive me or give me another chance.
On the other hand, God has restored relationships or friendships or people in
my life that I haven't talked to in 10 to 12 years that have forgiven me,
(11:53):
that love me unconditionally,
that have shown up in my life when I needed them the most.
And I hope I'm showing up in their lives when they need me the most or need
love the most or need God the most in their life so God can work through me.
But it's an interesting path that we take when we take risks or we become entrepreneurs
(12:13):
or we start businesses or we get in relationships and we don't know who we are.
We think we do but when others start thinking of us differently than we see
ourselves or that we know God sees us we start to go through an identity crisis.
Our lives split into half then break into pieces places, and then the humans
(12:37):
we want there more than anything are too afraid of us, and we even push them away.
We even hurt them. We even do things. We even have anger that we're taking out on other people.
That's not right, because we don't know who we are, and we're trying to figure
it out, and we keep hearing how we're this bad person, but all we want is a
(12:58):
chance to prove who we actually are,
and we don't even know who we're trying to prove we are, but we know that we're a good human.
We know that we care about people. We know that we're generous.
I did, but I couldn't get anyone else to see my true soul and my true heart during those times.
(13:18):
Because no matter what I did, it was filled with stress, belittling,
misunderstanding, arguing, and hate.
Feeding. One of the greatest things I've learned during all this is some people
build bridges in relationship.
Some people build cases against the person who's trying to build the bridge.
(13:41):
Not everyone loves unconditionally, no matter what, I can forgive you.
No matter what, I will work on a relationship with you.
No matter what we go through, I will do my best, even if we break to try to
make amends and make it better.
No matter what, I love you enough that I will try to work on things with you no matter what.
(14:03):
That's how much I love. I don't know what God has in store for me.
I don't know what the future holds for me.
I know that I'm supposed to give and grow humans through Gorilla Brave,
a food and beverage entrepreneur group that we've started, which I would have
loved to have in my life when I needed it, so we started it.
(14:23):
Leaders to owners who takes leaders and companies and teaches them how to be
owners in the food and beverage space.
I've had to do crazy jobs. I've made donuts. I've made pizza dough. I've sliced deli meat.
I've worked in bars.
I worked in hotels. I've done all these things to rebuild myself and And rebuild
(14:47):
my confidence as an entrepreneur.
And there is no ego left. All I've gone through when I lost my identity is a
humbling that I can't even imagine.
Having nowhere to live. Having to sleep on couches. Having to find my way around.
Sometimes Airbnbs. Sometimes hotels.
To now having a roof over my head the last three, four months.
(15:10):
That I did it on my own.
Because at the end of the day, when everything fell apart.
There was very little humans who actually showed up for me.
And the person and the human that I wanted and I reached out to and I believed
we were reconciling that I needed one day just turned me away.
(15:31):
That's okay. That's not something I would do to anyone.
If I have, I've apologized and made amends, but I will never turn my back on
anyone ever again in my life.
Because when I have, I've ruined the things that I love and care about the most.
Why? Because I have a fear of rejection and abandonment.
(15:53):
Because I will abandon you before I fear that you are going to abandon me.
And I will reject you before you reject me.
That's who I used to be. I don't want to be used. I don't want to be abused
again in my life. I don't want to be belittled or made fun of.
It's always going to happen, especially if you're an entrepreneur.
(16:13):
I don't want it, especially as someone that when you've been abused as a kid,
you grew up to be a people pleaser.
And when you can't please everyone, you feel like you've lost your purpose or
no one's happy with you or they're all angry with you or mad at you and they don't love you.
Because while you can believe you can love unconditionally, you believe that
(16:34):
you can only be loved conditionally.
Now I'm going to repeat that.
If you've ever been through abuse as a kid, you believe that you can only be
be loved conditionally. You have to do all of these things.
You have to get all this approval, all this affirmation in order to actually be loved.
Where you know what it's like possibly to love others unconditionally and forgive them no matter what,
(17:00):
you're going to choose humans whose love comes with strings and comes with conditions
that are not capable of loving living unconditionally.
Their love can be hurtful. It can be painful. It can be not understood.
One human I've had that's loved me unconditionally, the one I love more than
(17:22):
anything in this world, I ruined that relationship because I assumed there was
conditions to her love for me.
Maybe there were. Maybe I'd have a certain amount of money.
Maybe I didn't. I don't know, but it's the closest thing I've ever felt to unconditional love.
I always thought I was letting her down. I wasn't making enough.
(17:45):
I wasn't supporting her enough. I wasn't providing enough. I wasn't protecting enough.
But was it true? I don't know.
That's up to her to determine, to tell, to live, to give clarity to, to tell truth to.
But in the meantime, I will grow through church, through school,
(18:07):
through being an entrepreneur, through fellowship,
through men's groups at a church men's ministry, through programs like Regeneration.
Through Watermark Church, 12-step program for brokenness and finding Christ
through that, to be the best version of myself that I can.
(18:27):
And if God wants those relationships restored, I know he will restore them.
He just restored an amazing relationship to me.
Someone I consider my best friend that I basically grew up with and went through a lot of struggles.
I wish I would have handled that relationship differently too.
But God restored it for me. And slowly God's redeeming my life,
(18:50):
rehabilitating my reputation,
recreating all the businesses that I've lost, bringing love into my life in unconditional ways.
I have more people that love me unconditionally than I've ever had in my life.
I don't have a romantic relationship right now, nor am I seeking one, nor do I need one.
(19:13):
And right now there's only one person, one human, one woman that I would ever
give that chance to right now.
So God's going to have to drop an amazing woman into my lap that he wants me
to date, that he wants me to spend my life with if that's what he wants for me.
But in the meantime, I'm giving my life to God to do with what he wants,
(19:38):
to have him identify who I am and live by that example and grow the humans around
me and coach them and grow them and build them and make them better and help
them not make the same mistakes that I've made in my life.
That is what this has taught me. I love so many humans I even love my enemies
(20:04):
at this point I was filled with anger for so long.
Many years still have some anger towards God. Still have some anger here and there.
But the reality is, is I've let it go.
I'm turning it over to God. Let go and let God intervene. Let him take over.
(20:26):
Stop putting your identity in your material things or the human you're dating
or the image that you're trying to portray.
Because it's not going to make you a better leader. later the cards will fall.
How do I know I'm one of them?
I put all my identity in businesses I had, in my family, in who my dad said
(20:47):
I was, who my mom said I was, who my significant other said I was.
And I believed them.
Instead of believing and knowing who I am, I've been baptized over the the last six months. Again.
I've changed my relationship with God. I've been by myself, not had a single person.
(21:10):
I haven't slept with anyone. I haven't been with anyone.
I've had some really good friendships that I thought might blossom into something.
But at the end of the day, I'm not willing to give me up ever again.
I'm not willing to give God up and who God says I am ever again.
And right now, like I said, there's only one human on this planet that I would
(21:33):
ever give a chance to because I haven't met someone better than that human.
I haven't met someone more loving and unconditionally loving and forgiving than that human.
There's someone out there for me. I know we'll meet and I know we'll talk and
I'm sorry, but it's going to take a lot and I probably will take a lot for me
(21:54):
to prove myself to you, who God is through me, who God wants me to be,
who God is purposing me to be, who God created me to be.
I appreciate everyone's patience and love and kindness during this time and
everyone who's reached out to me to check up on me or ask about what's going on with the podcast.
(22:14):
I appreciate all all the support on social media. I appreciate all the new friends
that have come into my life.
I appreciate who I am now because I don't look anything like the previous version
of myself, the person I was 18 months ago, 20 months ago, two years ago.
I'm not even close to that person anymore.
(22:35):
I love deeper. I care more.
I'm more generous, more patient, more loving, more kind than I've ever been
before in my life, and I owe that to God. I have more peace.
Doesn't mean I want to be alone for the rest of my life. I do want to be married in my life again.
(22:55):
I do want to have relationships in my life. I do want to have the woman of my dreams in my life.
I do want children in my life if I can never have my stepdaughters in my life again.
I don't need to to have children on my own. I miss my family unit. I miss my businesses.
But God is restoring my life in many ways.
(23:17):
And I have faith and trust and hope in him to do that.
I love you guys. Thanks for listening in. Not sure where this is going to go
or how it's going to be received.
I don't want to speak in anger and I don't want to speak badly about anyone.
And every lesson I had has been a growth for me.
(23:42):
And I appreciate everything you guys have done, all the support,
all the love, and I appreciate all my enemies who have forced me to grow.
And I do appreciate all the lies, the cheating, the stealing,
the deception, the manipulation, and all those things too, because it helped
me figure out who I am and what I'm going to put up with in my life.
And where God fits in and where God doesn't fit in and where the demons of the
(24:08):
devil's army comes to do spiritual warfare.
And spiritual warfare came into my life, came into my relationships,
came into my most valued relationships, came into my businesses.
When you're about to achieve great things or God's about to do great things
in your life, you are going to be attacked.
(24:29):
The relationships you value and love the most will be attacked.
And you're going to lose humans in the process.
If you're going to pursue great things, you are going to lose those you care
about the most sometimes.
I know I have. You can read about it in my posts on social media.
You can hear it in my voice. I pretended it didn't bother me.
(24:51):
I pretended I was going to move on. I pretended I was going to find someone
else. But the reality is this.
I don't know if I'll ever love as much one human as I love the human I lost.
But I can't do anything about it. It's not in my control.
We have free will. And if God wants something to happen in our lives or our
(25:12):
relationships to be restored, he will do it. I've watched him do it in my friendships.
I've watched him do it in my previous relationships.
And I've watched him bring someone back into my life who I love and care about very, very, very much.
I wish he would restore some of my other relationships. But maybe it's not in
his plan and his will for me.
(25:32):
Because right now what I do is I align my plan and my will with God's plan and will for me.
Because nothing else matters. Nothing else feels good.
Nothing else is fulfilling. fulfilling I can fulfill
it with big houses and cars and tractors and
four-wheelers and wave runners and lake houses
but still at the end of the day nothing fulfilled me like God and nothing fulfilled
(25:58):
me like having God between me and the relationship that I love and valued the
most in this world and when I removed God from that scenario I lost that relationship relationship.
When I stopped believing and started losing my faith in God, I lost everything.
Believed in him my whole life, had faith in him my whole life,
(26:19):
but I led a circumstance, an identity crisis, a not wanting to live,
to take it for granted how God was working in my life.
And I took for granted the relationships that I had and the humans that I had
in those relationships.
So if you want to be a great leader, it's going to come up with ups and downs.
It's going to come with transformation.
(26:40):
It's going to come with brokenness and it's going to come with reinventing yourself
and it's going to come with being resilient and learning what resilience actually
is every time and getting back up when life knocks you down on your knees, on your hands,
on your stomach, on your back.
(27:01):
You've got to get back up and you've got to do those things that matter.
Keep living. You got to keep fighting. And life isn't always fair.
And it doesn't give you what you want, no matter how much you pray for it.
There's a lot of unanswered prayers I have right now.
I pray more than anything for the restoration of my family unit and those I
(27:23):
love the most and care about the most on this planet. But that's a selfish thing.
If God doesn't want it, and it's not in God's plan, then it's not part of what I get.
No matter how much I love them, no matter matter how unconditionally I love them.
But I will tell you this, I will always pray for them. I will always be rooting for them.
(27:44):
I will always be grateful for them in my life.
I will always be there for them in a split second if they need me to be.
No questions asked ever, because that's one of the things that made me who I am. You know who I am?
One of the things that that God has taught me is Justin Bizarro is someone who
shows up for everyone anytime that they need him.
(28:07):
He picks up the phone. He shows up in person.
He supports anyone that's out there.
And I will support all of you always.
And I will always support those I love and care about the most.
No questions, always in forgiveness, always unconditional love.
And I will always want them to be loved and cherished and supported as much
(28:33):
as I love and cherish them or more.
I love you guys. Thank you for listening in. This is the Centurion Leadership Battalion podcast.
And get ready for more because this is just the beginning.
Wait until I start dropping what I'm learning in the Master of Divinity at Denver
Seminary in leadership on you guys because this This is a leadership podcast.
(28:58):
Here to change lives, to change legacies, to have a ripple effect through generations.
And that means vulnerability, authenticity, and telling you what is going on in the world right now.
And if you don't think we need leaders right now who are strapped and equipped
(29:19):
to handle spiritual warfare,
to handle moral and ethical dilemmas, to handle and be strapped with,
to handle bad things and be strapped with core values, you're wrong.
Because you can see it all around us right now.
And when God starts working through you, it's going to be the toughest path you've ever seen.
(29:41):
Look how much suffering Jesus went through to preach what he did over three
years. Look what happened to him.
It's not an easy path, but there is glory, there is the building of God's kingdom,
and there is becoming a better man, woman, and human of God.
(30:01):
Find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can find me on Instagram at JustinBizarro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
This is a Better With Bacon Fat Studios production. Thank you for all the support.
Get ready for all the podcasts we're about to release out this year. I'm back.
(30:24):
I'm a different human. I've been transformed. But I am back to start spreading
good, to start positively pollinating the world like I promised everyone I would.
And I'm here to try to make this place a better place for all humans. And how am I doing that?
Letting God do the work through me. It's not Justin Bizarro doing this work.
(30:46):
God gave me this ability. God grew this seed inside of me.
God is doing all the things that he has always done in my life to prepare me for this moment,
so get ready the Holy Spirit is speaking through me God is speaking through
me but God and the Holy Spirit all exists inside of you too just believe listen
(31:10):
do the right thing treat other other humans great.
And there's only two commandments, guys, that really matter.
Love God and love the humans and God's creatures around you.
Okay? Love your neighbors. That includes all animals and humans.
Share the episode. Let's get started.
(31:32):
Anyone who's been through an identity crisis, I know where you've been.
Find God. Find your identity in Jesus Christ.
Find your identity in who you're supposed to be not who everyone says you are love you guys i'm out.
Music.
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