Welcome to an enlightening episode of the Justin Ryan Bizarro Show featuring Justin Merod, a dynamic entrepreneur who embarked on a unique journey. This episode provides valuable insights for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, startups, and business growth. Justin Marat guides us through his exciting entrepreneurial journey, starting from an ordinary corporate life to establishing his own venture, Merod Graphic Arts. Listen to how creativity and relationships contribute to his success.
In his transformation journey, Justin took a leap of faith in self-development that led him to value personal excellence. Embracing his artistic talent, he launched a venture of his own, using his gift to help clients. He emphasizes the importance of fostering the right relationships for growth and progressive learning. This episode is not merely a journey of an entrepreneur but offers insights to anyone contemplating a leap into entrepreneurship.
Our guest explores his creative process and experiences with design software like Photoshop and Illustrator. He talks about passion, its evolution and how the decision to leave corporate life led him to a life of creativity and freedom.
While highlighting the global obstacles and challenges faced, the conversation steers toward how these hurdles can stimulate growth and transform us into better versions. Justin also talks about his journey towards the business world, learning to navigate marketing, building online portfolios, and reaching out to clients.
Discussing personal growth and self-discovery, Justin shares about his spirituality and experiences with martial arts, fostering peace and discipline that helps him tackle hardships with newfound resilience and appreciation.
Wrapping up with self-reflection on intuition, the episode emphasizes nurturing passions for personal growth and as a means to give back. Engage in this insightful conversation about personal improvement, entrepreneurial journeys, and the transformative powers of discipline and resilience. Draw inspiration and invaluable advice from Justin’s entrepreneurial journey, and learn how the adoption of the 75 Hard Program can foster mental and spiritual toughness.
Join us as we delve into the rewards and challenges of entrepreneurship, personal growth, and embracing spirituality. Use this episode as a motivator, an inspirer, or a guide on your unique journey to self-improvement or entrepreneurship.
IG: @jmerod58
Graphic Design Entrepreneur [GDE]: Justin Merod
Hosted By: Justin Ryan Bizzarro (IG: @justinbizzarro)
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 so I c
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:18):
Welcome, everyone, to the Justin Ryan Bizarro Show. I'm Justin Bizarro.
I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there who wants to find this show or just the food entrepreneurs
or the Centurion Leadership Battalion, you can find us on Spotify or wherever
else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can also find me personally on Instagram at Justin Bizarro.
(00:38):
Again, that's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Also, for anyone who's out there who's looking, we have launched Gorilla Brave
over the last six months. You can find us at GorillaBrave.love.
That's for all the food and beverage entrepreneurs out there.
Take a look at the site. Again, GorillaBrave.love. That's pretty awesome.
We have a lot of people taking interest in it and starting to sign up.
(01:01):
So everyone take a look out for that.
So this is a food entrepreneur podcast. I mean, sorry, this is an entrepreneur
podcast. Food entrepreneur is a different one.
Already tripping over myself today. But I want to introduce a friend,
someone I've met over the last three weeks at an event called Evolve put on by Angela Goodman.
(01:21):
She's also been on Justin the Food Entrepreneur's podcast.
What an incredible event, by the way, for anyone who's an entrepreneur out there
in the world or looking to be an entrepreneur.
I would say it's a pretty phenomenal thing that's going on there and what we went through.
But I had the privilege of sitting next to another Justin, Justin Marad,
(01:44):
just Marad Graphic Arts and of Justin Thought podcast almost every night for dinner.
Oddly, we ended up sitting next to each other somehow or across from each other.
I don't remember exactly or diagonal of one another, I guess,
for for one of the nights when we're eating some amazing catfish.
But just i just i you know it's someone i see such potential in you i can see the entrepreneurial.
(02:11):
Spirit blossoming in you so i'm going to give you the mic i'm going to let you tell your story,
i'm going to ask some questions afterward but take as long as
you want let's i want to sort of hear your story how you end up where you are
how you've launched this podcast and how you've launched Murad Graphic Arts
and what exactly are you doing through those two platforms man first off I have
(02:35):
to thank you for recognizing that in me.
Because it always takes at least one person from the outside to recognize that for ourselves.
Because if we try to do it for ourselves, it doesn't go over very well, in my experience.
So I appreciate you seeing that in me whenever we had shared that week together in Evolve.
(02:55):
And I agree, that was a pivotal moment for me in my life, not even just in my
entrepreneurial journey, just my life in general.
Just being in the room with people like yourself and, you know,
the 20 or 30 other people that were in there and everybody was there to,
to grow and to learn and to share.
(03:17):
And the guards were down and there's a lot of, a lot of vulnerability within
everybody. And it was a beautiful thing.
And you're right. Like it was kind of funny how we just, the universe kind of
put us together as we were eating dinners and things like that.
So that was pretty funny.
And so I agree. It was however that happened. It happened for a reason.
(03:39):
And it gave us this time that we're in right now.
So, you know, my story is.
It's like anybody's story. It's kind of long, of course. Right.
I've been living for almost 43 years now.
So there's quite a bit of undertones, of course.
But really, I'll start more recently when I got into my entrepreneur journey.
(04:03):
Journey I don't come from a family that
has that blood in them I can
probably I can't even think of a single person in my
life in my family that has done
this for themselves you know like someone someone like you your dad is I mean
you were in the entrepreneurship space since you were like seven or eight you
(04:27):
know if I remember correctly so that didn't happen for me and so this is all all brand new,
all this stuff is exciting and shiny and scary all at the same time.
And, you know, and just, again, going back to the Evolve event,
being in the space with everybody and, and just seeing the, you know,
the real life examples of what it can bring you was very inspiring.
(04:50):
So I came away with a lot of, a lot more clarity in my vision and things.
And so and i really got started because the i've been working in the corporate world.
Since pretty much i turned 16 you know
which goes you know the only job you really get is working at
(05:11):
a white castle or something like that right which is where i started i
was at a white castle and kind of
just go through the ranks and eventually get a corporate job and
I've been in that corporate job for 16 years
now and back in 2019 between
2017 or 2018 2019 I had a just an event happen within my company where I just
(05:35):
felt extremely betrayed by how they handled a situation that I was in and you
know and and I have no problem saying this is that I'm really at what I do in my nine to five job.
I excel at it to the point now where it's almost easy, right?
There's no more challenge anymore.
And so for this thing to happen really, really upset me. And it made me rethink where I wanted to be.
(06:02):
You know, the whole cliche saying of, you know, you're climbing the corporate
ladder, but the ladder is on the wrong wall.
That's exactly how I felt in that moment.
And I knew I didn't want to be on that ladder anymore. more.
So I made the decision to pretty much stunt my growth within the corporate world and stay at this level,
(06:24):
not get myself promoted and not go into the next ranks and become a director
and partner of all that kind of crap.
I didn't want to do that any longer.
And there's a lot of a lot of struggle, a lot of cursing and lots of confusion
(06:47):
as to what I was going to do to get myself out of that situation.
And, and again, not having anything to anyone to really talk to at that point
in my life, I was like, I'm going to pick something and that's what I'm going to do.
So I picked something and it just happened to be real estate,
which is a vehicle that a lot of people use to get out of the rat race.
And the, I just didn't like it very much, you know? So And that kind of put
(07:10):
a sour taste in my mouth a little bit.
I'm not going to say it slowed me down. It just kind of made me rethink how
I wanted to get out of the corporate world.
And that led me to really my first option, which is what you already said, the Mirai Graphic Arts.
You know, my artistic ability, which is a God-given talent that has been in
(07:34):
front of my face the whole time I've been living.
And I finally have embraced that gift and embraced it enough to be comfortable
helping others in their entrepreneur journey by giving them my gift and being
the who for somebody else.
If anybody's ever read the book, Who, Not How, that's kind of how I've described
(07:57):
myself is, you know, if somebody is in the need for brand identity for their
business, then I am the who for them.
That's kind of how I've described it in the recent months.
And that's kind of where I stand now. I mean, there's a bunch of other stuff
in the background, of course, you know, how I was raised as a child and the
trouble I got into and all those things, which are very relevant, of course.
(08:22):
And they they have their time in the in the light to chat about when it's when that time comes but.
We're kind of specifically talking about entrepreneurship. So that's kind of
where I stand at the moment.
So I hope that's filled your request to kind of talk about me.
It's always weird to share a story when there's so much to share.
You kind of have to pick and choose what you want to share in the moment, you know?
(08:47):
Well, let's specifically talk about where did you don't have a background in
it. Your family was an entrepreneur.
Where did this seed start?
When? How did you know? When did this thing, because I think your background
even before this was somewhat entrepreneurial in a lot of ways,
and we don't need to get into it,
(09:08):
but I think there's always been an entrepreneurial aspect to the way you've gone about your life.
Is that correct to say?
Yeah, I think if we were to uncover certain things in my past that have happened,
we could definitely find some Easter eggs.
No pun intended, because Easter is just a couple days ago. But we can definitely
(09:29):
find some eggs that would lead me to believe that this is where I was going to end up anyway. way.
And some of that does come from having a little bit of resistance just because,
you know, not knowing what I don't know and being scared to know it, to be honest.
And that's one thing that I have very much made myself aware of is who I am
(09:53):
and how I got here and all the things that made Justin who he is today.
So I'm very, very comfortable saying that what I like and what I I don't like
who I am, who I am not, all those kinds of things.
So there was a lot of resistance up front when I came to make the decision to
be an entrepreneur because I had to learn all these new skills that you don't get taught in school.
(10:16):
You don't get taught in the corporate world.
Right. So there's a lot of scary stuff going on at the time.
So what sparked it?
If I already mentioned the whole work thing, right? So that was kind of the spark.
Well, really what sparked it was the going down the path of self-development.
(10:38):
Right. And I moved, I live in St. Louis now.
Back in 2015, I moved to San Antonio, Texas for work because we were opening a new office.
And my buddy was going to be the director of that office. And he called me and
said, Hey man, I want you to come help me, you know, drum up business and start the office here.
And, in this new city. And I said, cool, man.
(11:00):
So I did that. So that was kind of a little bit of a, an entrepreneurial spirit,
but at the same time as also trying to, at that time, I actually enjoyed my job, what I was doing.
And so I was very focused on continuing to do that and continuing the personal
excellence within the corporate world.
And so I started seeking out knowledge about.
(11:21):
What personal excellence meant to me personally, so I could show up better for,
you know, my company at the time, my colleagues and teammates and contractors
that I had to deal with and all these kinds of things.
So it was very much digging into who I was and started reading books about it.
And the first book actually that got me, you know, my whole mindset kind of
(11:45):
shifted was Good to Great by Jim Collins, which I think was mentioned during the Evolve event.
So I was like, all right, cool. You know, one more little thing that makes me,
lets me know I'm on the right track.
So so that was kind of
like my first you know spark for the
entrepreneurship bug we'll say
was was just moving states and
(12:07):
being uncomfortable you know and then starting to learn more about myself so
i like this a lot so i mean you've you've started this venture right i think
for i don't know which came first the podcast or the graphic arts company but
when you started to take the leap, what was that decision like for you?
(12:27):
It was very much a people-type decision.
I didn't know who, again, I didn't know what I didn't know, which also meant
I didn't know who I didn't know yet at the time.
So there was a lot of experimentation as I learned certain things about myself.
(12:47):
I had to also try to understand who were going to be the people in my life that
were we're going to resonate with these things that I'm now learning about myself.
And as I apply them in my life, you know, how does that make other people feel or be aligned?
Does it push them away? Because, you know, they say as you started going down
this path, right, friends and family could possibly just drop away.
(13:12):
And you almost end up finding a whole new family, you know, much like yourself, right?
Like we only met a month or so ago and, you know, We have so much more in common
than I would if somebody that I knew back in high school, if we're still friends today.
So there's a lot of that, like I didn't know who to trust, who I should get
my information from other than books and things like that.
(13:33):
So it was very much finding the correct relationships to foster the environment
to grow and excel and, you know, and find the right answers.
And I knew I was going to make mistakes, of course.
And I know I continue, I will continue to make mistakes.
But, you know, that's how we that's how we grow and learn. and the failures feed the successes.
(13:56):
So I'm less scared of that nowadays than I am just finding the right people.
So, and I'm glad, again, going back to the Evolve event, it was like,
those are the kind of right people, you know?
So that was, it was mainly about the people.
And it always is. It always is about the people, to be honest,
you know, about the relationships that you can make.
(14:17):
And if I can help more people with their business, then that's going to help
my business and circle of life.
Know there's obviously an artistic talent here
a creative talent if you're creating logos and graphic
arts and things like that so where have you always been
someone who's been creative or drawn
(14:37):
or things like that yep explain to me that where did the when did it start how
long has it been around when did you discover you were good at this i mean i
was five six years old you know I mean, this is literally a God given talent.
My dad was an artist. My uncle was an artist and.
(14:58):
My uncle didn't pursue it as long as my dad did. And then I pursued it longer than my father did.
So my dad did a lot of freelance work.
You know, back in the day, it was all pencils and markers and things.
And there was very little computer work, of course, which is what I do.
I do more graphic design on the computer nowadays.
But, you know, I grew up pen and pencil, colored pencils.
(15:20):
And then you know you graduate to acrylics and
oil paint and and pastels and
charcoal pencil and you go to I went
to college and I took a bunch of art classes to try to hone the skills and you
know I had certain I had certain dreams that I wanted to to fulfill back then
but again going back to not having people in the family that have done those
(15:43):
things you know those those didn't get it fulfilled in the way that I would
have liked them to back then.
Obviously, today is a different day, of course. So I don't have those same desires
as I did then, but life would have looked a lot different if I had the right
people in the right time.
I guess one could argue that it all happened for a reason, of course.
But yeah, it's always been in my blood.
(16:06):
Now it just looks and feels different just because of the technology that's available.
So I use a lot of Photoshop, a lot of illustrator and I still draw I still sketch
all my I still hand sketch everything when I work with clients and then that
just gets turned into the electronic medium so people can use it for websites
and you know Instagram posts and things like that so so yeah it's always been,
(16:29):
it's always been in me and there was a point in my life where.
I wouldn't say I, I rejected it. And it's just, it was more of a neglected or
put it on the back burner.
You know, I didn't fully embrace it until fairly recently, you know,
when I finally made the decision to be like, you know what, I got this gift,
I'm going to turn it into something. I'm going to help people.
And at the same time, I'm going to be able to design the life that I want for
(16:53):
myself instead of putting that life in somebody else's hand,
like the corporate world, you know?
So that's how I've been there. God planted a seed and then he put an obstacle
in your way or a problem at work in your way. And then that seed started to grow again.
Right? Yep. Yes. And so it's just one of those things that over time,
(17:15):
the thing that God gives us grows at such rapid rates. Sometimes it stops growing.
Sometimes it goes into hibernation. And sometimes we keep it in that hibernation
unless we're entrepreneurial or whatever. Sometimes we get into relationships that hold it back.
I mean, I think of so many talented people, God's given them great gifts and
(17:37):
they let their relationships destroy it.
And so it's things like that that I think that we're talking about here.
Like you went an easier path.
You got into corporate America and it dulled this superpower.
You kryptonited yourself in some ways. And so talk to me a little bit about the way,
(18:03):
you know, the way you have sort of reinvented yourself or are reinventing yourself
through this. How are you getting clients?
How are you starting to build your reputation as a graphic artist,
specifically your business?
Let's talk a little bit about that. What is your mindset here and how are you going about this?
(18:26):
All good questions. And I don't have all the answers for that yet. I'll be honest.
I'm definitely at the starting line compared to some people,
at least in regards to marketing and things like that.
Right. Like I'm spending a lot of time understanding marketing.
Back in, you know, years ago when I was just doing logos for random people,
(18:49):
you know, on the side and just doing it for fun instead of using it to create a life.
You know, I was just, it was all word of mouth. You know, a cousin would call
me and then they would refer a friend and, you know, I'd do like one or two
every three, four months or something.
Right. So the, everything was pretty, pretty, pretty spanned out between jobs
(19:10):
and, you know, it was fun. I enjoyed it and I did some some really cool stuff.
But now I'm very much focused on putting together a strong online portfolio.
I'm starting to reach out to people on social media. I'm starting to be more active on LinkedIn.
Like you mentioned, I have the podcast now. So that gives me a little bit of credibility.
And the podcast isn't even related to entrepreneurship. It's more about personal
(19:33):
growth and self-discovery and self-mastery and things.
But for the business, I'm getting my my toes wet in the marketing,
you know, I'm helping somebody or having somebody help me,
with a little bit of marketing upfront, working on, you know,
integrating webpages and CRMs and all the fun stuff that we kind of,
again, talked about in Evolve, you know, so, and there's a lot to it.
(19:56):
And some of it is, is makes me feel a little overwhelmed and I don't mind saying that.
And I've, I understand that I'm the kind of person where if there's too many
things, things, whichever one feels right to do in that moment,
that's what I pick and that's what I work on.
And fully understanding that those other things have to come into play at some point.
(20:18):
And then also fully understanding that I have to trust myself enough to intuitively
know when it's time to get those other aspects involved in the business.
So I can't, I shouldn't say I can't, it's a word I'm working on removing from my vocabulary.
I'm not thinking about you know using every
(20:38):
single thing right away because then
that's only going to slow me down if that makes sense you know
it's like trying to bench press 300 pounds when I you know you can't
just throw it on the bar you got to work up to it you know so can't use all
the weights right away so that's kind of how where I'm at right now with my
business and so it's very much still working with some friends and I you know
(21:00):
reaching back out to old colleagues or old clients, asking for referrals,
seeing if they need anything new, things like that, just to continue to build a portfolio,
continue to have conversations and work on my backend type stuff,
work on my forms and my intake forms and the process, behind the scenes process and things.
(21:22):
So that's kind of how that's been looking and it feels good.
And I very much have allowed myself to trust my own intuition these days instead
of thinking about oh am I doing this correctly or comparing myself to somebody
else and to their progress and so now I'm I'm very much just.
(21:43):
Pick something, go with it. Does it feel good? Yeah. Okay. We'll continue with this.
And then if I feel like I've got some good momentum there and I feel like I
can take on another, another aspect, then I'll do it, you know?
So that's kind of where I'm at with that.
Let's talk about your spirituality. You're, you mentioned some people would
say this, that, you know, there was a plan here or that, you know,
(22:07):
this is the path that you're on.
Talk to me a little bit about your spirituality as a human.
The maturity of it, because part of Evolve was this spirituality that we all
possess, which is just crazy because I am in Denver Seminary and I have been
an entrepreneur for 26 years.
(22:27):
Well, more than that, since I was seven, like we mentioned, but really in the
space, like in the food space for 24 years.
Now I'm in the media space. Now I'm in the coaching space. Now I'm,
you know, in the hospitality space also amongst other things.
But really the spiritual journey
that you have been on that's gotten you know because
(22:49):
you you have a very peaceful sense about you which is the holy spirit in my
opinion working in you and growing the seeds inside you and it can only grow
in peace in a good environment okay that doesn't mean that that that hardship
doesn't lead to growth that's not what i'm saying But when we face hardship,
when we face uncomfortable situations,
(23:11):
there has to be a peaceful way of still growing within those.
I've not always been successful at that, just so the audience knows.
Okay, so, you know, I handled things very wrong in the last two years of my
career at Food Service Partners, for sure, under a lot of stress and a lot of
personal relationship issues and all of that.
(23:31):
But talk to me about your spiritual journey.
Yeah well I think I think you might agree that.
The spiritual journey is, it's a very deep well of understanding and it's deep and expansive.
And so there's a lot that goes into it. And some of this, I shouldn't say some
(23:53):
of the stuff, a lot of it is unconscious, you know, that goes on in our mind
and we don't even know about.
And that has been part of
my spiritual journey for myself is understanding
how those unconscious behaviors get formed how those habits get formed how our
thoughts get formed how our you know actions get formed which brings awareness
(24:19):
and then once something is in your awareness and And once something you're aware of,
you either choose to ignore it or you choose to alter it and change it for the better.
So now that I've had a handful of years now kind of digging into who Justin
is and understood the things that have created who I am up to this point.
(24:47):
How do I want to say this? There's just so much. There's a lot of stuff going
on in my head right now, and I'm trying to organize it for you so it can be a talking point.
I'll say this.
My exposure to religion, which I understand is, for me anyway,
(25:09):
is separate from spirituality.
But it also, you know, it can go hand in hand at some times.
So I grew up in a very Christian household. cold.
You know, I went to church three to four times a week. I was in the youth group.
I was in all these things. I sang with the kids and blah, blah, blah. And.
Had some things happen to me in the church that drew me away from it.
(25:33):
So then once I got to a certain age, my mom was like, you know,
you're free to do what you'd like to do. And then I stopped going.
And then I put myself into martial arts, which has also been an art form for
me in a form of self-expression for me, for my life.
I've been doing martial arts for over 23 years of my my life, half my life.
(25:54):
So once I was able to do that freely, that became my spiritual path,
which is largely the reason why I am, you picked up a lot of peacefulness from
me, because it comes from the discipline that I've learned in martial arts.
And then I was able to take a lot of those disciplines, if not all of them,
(26:16):
and apply them to my life.
One of them being safety.
So I've trained a lot in these techniques to keep myself safe.
And I've also created my environment that I live in, my house,
my neighborhood, my relationships.
It's all a nice, safe container for me.
And that has been able to allow me to foster the courage to understand even
(26:43):
more in depth who I am and who I want to be.
And through spirituality, through God, the people I shrine myself with.
And you're right, it's an ongoing journey. There's plenty of struggles.
And I've learned to look at those struggles in the light of these are discoveries
(27:06):
that are going to teach me something, something that I didn't know,
something that I can use at some point in my life.
And those takeaways are all going to be beneficial. even if they hurt,
they're going to be good for you, you know?
And that's kind of how I've walked that over the past at least five years.
That peacefulness definitely comes from the martial arts and being able to have
(27:32):
the power to create the space to the safe container to grow in.
And going back to the entrepreneurship, that is a chaos that I'm inviting in.
And that is really the only way that we're going to be able to grow is we create
something, we push its boundaries, and we test it, and we grow from there,
(27:55):
and we get bigger and bigger.
And so, you know, it's all happening for a reason, of course.
And like you said, like God puts these challenges in front of us to,
to grow our spirit and our talents and our ability to give back to the earth and the world.
And that's what we're, that's what I'm doing, you know, and having conversations
like this with you is, is amazing.
I'm super blessed to be able to at least give it my best shot to articulate all these things.
(28:20):
And you mentioned five years ago and sort of over the last five years,
if you could you go back and tell yourself something five years ago,
what would it be or what things more than one, if there's more than one?
Um, I probably, I don't know how exactly how it would sound,
but I would just, I would probably be just encouraging.
(28:41):
I'd probably just say, Hey, it probably might not feel like it,
but you're on the right path, man.
Use your intuition, you know, get more comfortable with your intuition.
Give yourself permission to use it.
I mean, there's probably lots more that I would say, but at this point,
it would definitely be just more of an encouragement and probably tell myself
(29:03):
that if you don't know something, it's okay that you don't know it.
And if it's if you're if you're thinking about that you should know something,
that's a calling pull on the string know what
it is that you think you should know and then be prepared for
for the struggle of knowing because it
(29:23):
is if you want the knowledge if you want the power of
knowing something you're gonna have to go through the struggle to figure
it out so give yourself some grace know
know that you're on the right path and you know head
on forward that's probably something i would
say there's there's tons and tons more of course but super
super nitty-gritty i mean yeah
(29:47):
and i and i like this because you do recognize your
growth over the last five years i've assumed yeah yeah
and i know about five years
ago 2019 is when you joined erite syndicate as well is that that true yeah it
was like 2018 2019 yeah when i first jumped into rta up yeah and i mean there's
(30:10):
a lot of growth there right andy forsella and ed mylet like and the messages that they deliver.
And then i also know you do 75 hard
is that correct yeah i've done it a handful of
times i kind of i kind of just do that anyway every
single day you know i just still my yeah you
you know i don't drink i don't eat a
(30:32):
bunch of junk food i walk and i work out every day i
pretty much the only thing i don't do is i don't take a picture of myself every day
you know i don't do the picture but i read still exercise water tons of water
so i'm kind of doing it almost anyway i know i i can't remember that incentive
so far do we do the power list i can't remember we do the 10 the extensions
(30:53):
the 30-day extensions there's those three extra steps but Yeah.
But I agree with you. It, this is like, I mean, it's been around for six years
now and I don't even, you know, definitely completed five years of it. It was hard for sure.
Oh yeah. And I'm, you know, but here's the thing about it is over the last two,
(31:16):
three years, the harder my life got, the more it blew up, the more I've stuck to it.
And even with really bad health issues, I went through some terrible health issues for a while.
Relationships breaking up, businesses going away.
The thing about it is 75 Hard gave me the discipline and the purpose to keep
(31:39):
moving forward. and I and for whatever reason now it's just part of my everyday lifestyle I agree,
And the scary part about it for me, it's become,
and I think Andy writes about it in this book, is that at this point,
my understanding of human potential has changed so much, it's hard for me to
(32:02):
relate to people that aren't seeking the mental toughness to continue to unlock their potential,
or even the spiritual toughness to unlock their potential.
And it's just one of those things where it's almost
crazy because the better you get at it 75 hard the more discipline you have
(32:24):
the more almost people try to cut you down who don't live that type of lifestyle
they try to find what i would call kinks in the armor or whatever the term would
be chinks in the armor i don't remember what the term is you can never get any
of those those terms, right?
Bear poops in the woods, Pope wears a funny hat or whatever.
But it's one of those things where I think over time, that discipline changes who we are.
(32:52):
And if you want a simple life, then you're going to get a simple life.
It's not going to be very meaningful, even with money.
But if you pursue something like this, even the martial arts that you're talking
about, life doesn't become simple anymore.
It's simplified, but it's not simple.
(33:13):
And so that's one of the things that I think you and I really connected on is
we've both been through a rough journey in life, relationship-wise,
life-wise, business-wise, leadership-wise, people that we've looked up to leaders
that have let us down or what I would say is their actions don't match their
(33:34):
words and hypocrisy is a big problem for me and.
Getting through that has taken a lot of growth. For whatever reason,
God puts us in these situations where we're forged by fire. Yep.
And I can see it in you. So, I mean, let's talk a little bit about where do you go from here?
(34:00):
Like, where are you thinking? I know you're still doing, you still have a career.
You're trying to get a podcast and a business off the ground.
So, I mean, have you thought about when or what time you're going to think about,
you know, when you transition?
When do you go all in and burn the ships behind you into this business?
(34:21):
Have you started strategically thinking about that?
I have. And before I say that, I want to go back to what you said about,
you know, simplicity, because you're right. It's not simple,
but there's the simplicity.
And, you know, one of my episodes of my podcast talks about,
you know, how you get to the simplicity.
City because that when people from the outside looking in, they look at my life
(34:46):
and I, and I know this because people tell me this all the time,
like, oh yeah, we're not married. You don't have kids.
You got a motorcycle and you get to work from home. And I'm like,
oh man, it's just, you got, you just got it. You got the, you got it made, you know?
And to your point, yeah, I got it made because I made it that way.
You know, I went through all of these things and experimented and passed and
(35:08):
failed and and went through all the hardships and all the all the uh discoveries.
And i went through all of the complications in
order to get to the simple stuff the simplicities and
that's people i think people realize that that's
how that goes they just don't ever say it for themselves out loud
(35:31):
maybe because it's scary to admit that
kind of stuff but that's why i have it like
this and that's almost as
well not almost it is the same thing that bruce lee
says when he says when we first learned martial arts you know a punch was just
a punch kick was just a kick and then the midst of learning martial arts a punch
(35:52):
was no longer a punch a punch no longer was a kick and then once he's got to
a point of mastery a punch was just a punch punch A kick was just a kick,
you know, so you go through these stages where you have to learn everything
and try everything, pass,
fail, before you can, a punch can just be a punch again, you know,
(36:13):
and it just happens, you know.
So that's kind of where I'm at with my nice, comfortable life that I've built.
And again, going back to what I said earlier, I'm about to introduce a lot more
chaos into it, as one of my coaches says.
So to your question about burning the bridges or burning the boats,
that strategy has never really resonated with me.
(36:40):
Again, going back to what I said about intuition, there might and there might
be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of danger around this thought process.
I assume I can understand anyway that if I don't give myself a certain time
frame, if I say, oh, I can do it in the next five years, then I will take five years.
(37:00):
You know, I think there's some law or something. think, right?
It says, if you do it this way, then yeah, that if you give yourself this amount
of time and that's what you'll take to do it.
So I am aware of that, but the whole burn the boats thing doesn't really resonate with me.
So I've just been working as much as I can behind the scenes since I work from home.
(37:22):
I spend time doing my job and then I spend time doing my entrepreneur journey.
So I don't necessarily have an answer about when I'm going to do that.
My goal would be by the end of the year, to be honest,
that would be my goal based on what I need financially to continue to live this
(37:45):
type of life that I live now and beyond, you know, so I still have to plan for the future, of course.
So I got to have enough clients in the pipeline and build the back end of the
business. And you know how it goes.
I mean, I got to have all those things kind of prepared that I don't have right
now. So, and I am blessed to be able to work from home, use my money that I'm
(38:09):
making from my nine to five to get me further along.
My own business so i am blessed for that for sure and i i mean there are definitely
times where i take that for granted
you know i'll admit that and also too there's i've lived this life of,
(38:29):
safety for so long and being in
the corporate world and you know not having examples in my life with my family
about from about entrepreneurship so i've lived this life safety safety and
my once i made my this decision for myself there was a lot of resistance for my ego,
(38:50):
and it would tell me things like like why would you want to leave this it's
like so easy like you got it so easy man just stay here you know like you don't
do this thing like you could you could fail you could die you know like the
lizard brain is like you could die you could die you know.
So there was a lot of that going on in the beginning so and
essentially this is all brand brand new to me and exciting you
(39:11):
know and it's also exciting to be able to know what
it's like on the other side when i talk to guys like you and you know
angela and matt and you know people from evolve and things
so i've made a lot more progress just in
the past six months you know
had i not put myself in the room with you guys had i not gone to a couple other
(39:31):
different things over the past six to eight months i i wouldn't be even close
to where i'm at right now so So super grateful for all the opportunities that
people have given me and the opportunities that have been presented to me that I took for myself.
And again, going back to the intuition, you know, and thinking things like,
oh, is this right for me? Should I do this?
(39:52):
Oh, this might be a little too much money. And like nowadays,
I've kind of trained myself to if I have any sort of good, warm and fuzzy about
something, I just go, yep, I'm going to do it.
Boom you know so you know again at the end of the year would be great for me you know,
but i don't know you know things could happen things should happen a lot a lot faster too,
(40:16):
as you know so if you had to tell the audience anything or could give any wisdom
from your experience anyone who's trying to become an entrepreneur or anyone
who's struggling on their their journey, what would you say to them?
Well, considering I'm pretty, pretty new in the journey.
Allowing yourself the permission to find the people that are setting the example
(40:43):
for the things that you want to do you know so for me as an example for me i'm
in the graphic design space.
And everybody's like oh ai is going to take your job okay well i don't want
to listen to those people because those are the naysayers so i found two or
three people that i got some training from them that are doing this successfully
and doing it on a large scale.
(41:05):
And so I'm looking for the possibilities of it instead of listening to the people
that have never done these things before, you know, and allowing that to penetrate
my psyche and my spirit, you know, and look for the good nuggets,
you know, and hold on to those and keep focusing on those.
So that's probably what I would say, because that's helped me, of course.
(41:25):
So I love it, Justin. Where can everyone find you?
I am on Instagram a lot. So I'm at miradgraphicarts on Instagram is my portfolio.
And then my personal one is jmarad58, J the letter J, jmarad58.
And then pretty much if you just Google miradgraphicarts, I should show up,
(41:48):
LinkedIn, Facebook, that kind of stuff.
So I am always around for any sorts of questions.
And that you know going back to what you said about my podcast justin thought
is out on apple amazon spotify
things like that so which i'll
have you on mine very very soon yeah absolutely i'd love to be on yours yeah
(42:11):
it's gonna be awesome man it'd be awesome what's your favorite part about your
life right now the freedom that i've been able to create for myself to design my life.
There's not, I don't think there's a lot of people that have allowed themselves
the freedom to find the kind of life that they want.
(42:32):
Even if they think it's, oh, well, it's just my little slice of pie of heaven.
And that's fine. You know, focus on that.
You know, like, like, I don't know, I'm not married. I don't have kids.
And I ride my motorcycle a lot. You know, that's perfect for me right now.
You know, and I have the option to work on my business here at my house.
So I can do a lot more cool stuff in the future continue to build and change
(42:54):
lives so that's probably my favorite thing freedoms a big for me freedoms big
for me well Justin I'm definitely gonna have you back on the show I'm definitely going to.
Talk more with you about everything that's going on in your life,
continue to be a friend, help you out with your business for sure.
(43:16):
Maybe even give you some opportunities here as Gorilla Brave continues to grow
and we need some graphic arts done and things like that.
Also leaders to owners, if anyone's out there, that's for those out there in
the food world who want to become owners of their own business,
who actually want to become entrepreneurs.
So So Gorilla Brave is for the food and beverage entrepreneurs out there who
(43:38):
are already in the space, but Leaders to Owners will actually turn you into
an owner, provide classes, provide the structure for you guys to become your own owners.
So what Justin was just talking about is that how do you make that step from
corporate to your own entrepreneur, your own world?
Well, in the food and beverage space, we are providing that.
(43:59):
And I have two business partners that are very great humans and have built a
lot of successful companies.
And so particularly in the food space. And so that's where that comes from.
And so Justin, thanks for joining us on the show.
Thank you everyone for listening in again. I appreciate all of you guys.
(44:19):
I appreciate all the love that everyone gave me when I took six months off and
took a leave of absence from this to figure out who I am, figure out who I'm not,
and repurpose my life and grow and take a pause.
And we'll see what happens. But I definitely have found peace. Yeah.
(44:41):
Wish I didn't have to go this path to find it and lose the humans that I love
the most and cherish the most in the process.
And I know they've moved on, but I will always want the best for them.
I have forgiveness for them, and I will always give them many chances in my
life because that's who I am.
That's what I believe spiritually, and that's what I believe Jesus Christ did
(45:02):
for us and God does for us.
So I will always do that since people have asked.
But mostly, I appreciate everyone that That supported me over the last two years
from the bottoms I've been through, from the broken pieces,
from the brokenness, all the new people have come into my life,
the new humans, just like Justin I'm talking to, even though we were in Aratea
together, we just finally met each other.
(45:25):
And it's been life changing for sure.
And it's brought me closer to God for sure.
And it's helped me find purpose in seminary. It's helped me find purpose as an entrepreneur.
So thank you everyone for listening in. I love you guys. Again,
you can find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can also find me on Justin the Food Entrepreneurs, as well as the Centurion Leadership Battalion.
(45:49):
Find me on Instagram at Justin Bizarro.
And I will say this, from people I've met at Evolve, they've helped me grow
my social media presence significantly and get people interacting with my content,
help me get good stuff going.
And all that is because Because I finally met someone that understood who I am.
(46:11):
And I understand who I am and who I'm not.
And now the message I get out there applies to people that are going through what I've been through.
Or finding their spiritual life. Or becoming entrepreneurs again.
Or have hit a rock bottom in their relationships or lost relationships that they love and cherish.
So it's a powerful weapon. Our test that we go through that leads to our testimony.
(46:35):
Ceremony and the mess of our lives that leads to our message.
So, Justin, thank you again for coming on the show, and we're out.
Cool, man. I'll talk soon, buddy.
Music.
Music.
(00:18):
Welcome, everyone, to the Justin Ryan Bizarro Show. I'm Justin Bizarro.
I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there who wants to find this show or just the food entrepreneurs
or the Centurion Leadership Battalion, you can find us on Spotify or wherever
else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can also find me personally on Instagram at Justin Bizarro.
(00:38):
Again, that's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Also, for anyone who's out there who's looking, we have launched Gorilla Brave
over the last six months. You can find us at GorillaBrave.love.
That's for all the food and beverage entrepreneurs out there.
Take a look at the site. Again, GorillaBrave.love. That's pretty awesome.
We have a lot of people taking interest in it and starting to sign up.
(01:01):
So everyone take a look out for that.
So this is a food entrepreneur podcast. I mean, sorry, this is an entrepreneur
podcast. Food entrepreneur is a different one.
Already tripping over myself today. But I want to introduce a friend,
someone I've met over the last three weeks at an event called Evolve put on by Angela Goodman.
(01:21):
She's also been on Justin the Food Entrepreneur's podcast.
What an incredible event, by the way, for anyone who's an entrepreneur out there
in the world or looking to be an entrepreneur.
I would say it's a pretty phenomenal thing that's going on there and what we went through.
But I had the privilege of sitting next to another Justin, Justin Marad,
(01:44):
just Marad Graphic Arts and of Justin Thought podcast almost every night for dinner.
Oddly, we ended up sitting next to each other somehow or across from each other.
I don't remember exactly or diagonal of one another, I guess,
for for one of the nights when we're eating some amazing catfish.
But just i just i you know it's someone i see such potential in you i can see the entrepreneurial.
(02:11):
Spirit blossoming in you so i'm going to give you the mic i'm going to let you tell your story,
i'm going to ask some questions afterward but take as long as
you want let's i want to sort of hear your story how you end up where you are
how you've launched this podcast and how you've launched Murad Graphic Arts
and what exactly are you doing through those two platforms man first off I have
(02:35):
to thank you for recognizing that in me.
Because it always takes at least one person from the outside to recognize that for ourselves.
Because if we try to do it for ourselves, it doesn't go over very well, in my experience.
So I appreciate you seeing that in me whenever we had shared that week together in Evolve.
(02:55):
And I agree, that was a pivotal moment for me in my life, not even just in my
entrepreneurial journey, just my life in general.
Just being in the room with people like yourself and, you know,
the 20 or 30 other people that were in there and everybody was there to,
to grow and to learn and to share.
(03:17):
And the guards were down and there's a lot of, a lot of vulnerability within
everybody. And it was a beautiful thing.
And you're right. Like it was kind of funny how we just, the universe kind of
put us together as we were eating dinners and things like that.
So that was pretty funny.
And so I agree. It was however that happened. It happened for a reason.
(03:39):
And it gave us this time that we're in right now.
So, you know, my story is.
It's like anybody's story. It's kind of long, of course. Right.
I've been living for almost 43 years now.
So there's quite a bit of undertones, of course.
But really, I'll start more recently when I got into my entrepreneur journey.
(04:03):
Journey I don't come from a family that
has that blood in them I can
probably I can't even think of a single person in my
life in my family that has done
this for themselves you know like someone someone like you your dad is I mean
you were in the entrepreneurship space since you were like seven or eight you
(04:27):
know if I remember correctly so that didn't happen for me and so this is all all brand new,
all this stuff is exciting and shiny and scary all at the same time.
And, you know, and just, again, going back to the Evolve event,
being in the space with everybody and, and just seeing the, you know,
the real life examples of what it can bring you was very inspiring.
(04:50):
So I came away with a lot of, a lot more clarity in my vision and things.
And so and i really got started because the i've been working in the corporate world.
Since pretty much i turned 16 you know
which goes you know the only job you really get is working at
(05:11):
a white castle or something like that right which is where i started i
was at a white castle and kind of
just go through the ranks and eventually get a corporate job and
I've been in that corporate job for 16 years
now and back in 2019 between
2017 or 2018 2019 I had a just an event happen within my company where I just
(05:35):
felt extremely betrayed by how they handled a situation that I was in and you
know and and I have no problem saying this is that I'm really at what I do in my nine to five job.
I excel at it to the point now where it's almost easy, right?
There's no more challenge anymore.
And so for this thing to happen really, really upset me. And it made me rethink where I wanted to be.
(06:02):
You know, the whole cliche saying of, you know, you're climbing the corporate
ladder, but the ladder is on the wrong wall.
That's exactly how I felt in that moment.
And I knew I didn't want to be on that ladder anymore. more.
So I made the decision to pretty much stunt my growth within the corporate world and stay at this level,
(06:24):
not get myself promoted and not go into the next ranks and become a director
and partner of all that kind of crap.
I didn't want to do that any longer.
And there's a lot of a lot of struggle, a lot of cursing and lots of confusion
(06:47):
as to what I was going to do to get myself out of that situation.
And, and again, not having anything to anyone to really talk to at that point
in my life, I was like, I'm going to pick something and that's what I'm going to do.
So I picked something and it just happened to be real estate,
which is a vehicle that a lot of people use to get out of the rat race.
And the, I just didn't like it very much, you know? So And that kind of put
(07:10):
a sour taste in my mouth a little bit.
I'm not going to say it slowed me down. It just kind of made me rethink how
I wanted to get out of the corporate world.
And that led me to really my first option, which is what you already said, the Mirai Graphic Arts.
You know, my artistic ability, which is a God-given talent that has been in
(07:34):
front of my face the whole time I've been living.
And I finally have embraced that gift and embraced it enough to be comfortable
helping others in their entrepreneur journey by giving them my gift and being
the who for somebody else.
If anybody's ever read the book, Who, Not How, that's kind of how I've described
(07:57):
myself is, you know, if somebody is in the need for brand identity for their
business, then I am the who for them.
That's kind of how I've described it in the recent months.
And that's kind of where I stand now. I mean, there's a bunch of other stuff
in the background, of course, you know, how I was raised as a child and the
trouble I got into and all those things, which are very relevant, of course.
(08:22):
And they they have their time in the in the light to chat about when it's when that time comes but.
We're kind of specifically talking about entrepreneurship. So that's kind of
where I stand at the moment.
So I hope that's filled your request to kind of talk about me.
It's always weird to share a story when there's so much to share.
You kind of have to pick and choose what you want to share in the moment, you know?
(08:47):
Well, let's specifically talk about where did you don't have a background in
it. Your family was an entrepreneur.
Where did this seed start?
When? How did you know? When did this thing, because I think your background
even before this was somewhat entrepreneurial in a lot of ways,
and we don't need to get into it,
(09:08):
but I think there's always been an entrepreneurial aspect to the way you've gone about your life.
Is that correct to say?
Yeah, I think if we were to uncover certain things in my past that have happened,
we could definitely find some Easter eggs.
No pun intended, because Easter is just a couple days ago. But we can definitely
(09:29):
find some eggs that would lead me to believe that this is where I was going to end up anyway. way.
And some of that does come from having a little bit of resistance just because,
you know, not knowing what I don't know and being scared to know it, to be honest.
And that's one thing that I have very much made myself aware of is who I am
(09:53):
and how I got here and all the things that made Justin who he is today.
So I'm very, very comfortable saying that what I like and what I I don't like
who I am, who I am not, all those kinds of things.
So there was a lot of resistance up front when I came to make the decision to
be an entrepreneur because I had to learn all these new skills that you don't get taught in school.
(10:16):
You don't get taught in the corporate world.
Right. So there's a lot of scary stuff going on at the time.
So what sparked it?
If I already mentioned the whole work thing, right? So that was kind of the spark.
Well, really what sparked it was the going down the path of self-development.
(10:38):
Right. And I moved, I live in St. Louis now.
Back in 2015, I moved to San Antonio, Texas for work because we were opening a new office.
And my buddy was going to be the director of that office. And he called me and
said, Hey man, I want you to come help me, you know, drum up business and start the office here.
And, in this new city. And I said, cool, man.
(11:00):
So I did that. So that was kind of a little bit of a, an entrepreneurial spirit,
but at the same time as also trying to, at that time, I actually enjoyed my job, what I was doing.
And so I was very focused on continuing to do that and continuing the personal
excellence within the corporate world.
And so I started seeking out knowledge about.
(11:21):
What personal excellence meant to me personally, so I could show up better for,
you know, my company at the time, my colleagues and teammates and contractors
that I had to deal with and all these kinds of things.
So it was very much digging into who I was and started reading books about it.
And the first book actually that got me, you know, my whole mindset kind of
(11:45):
shifted was Good to Great by Jim Collins, which I think was mentioned during the Evolve event.
So I was like, all right, cool. You know, one more little thing that makes me,
lets me know I'm on the right track.
So so that was kind of
like my first you know spark for the
entrepreneurship bug we'll say
was was just moving states and
(12:07):
being uncomfortable you know and then starting to learn more about myself so
i like this a lot so i mean you've you've started this venture right i think
for i don't know which came first the podcast or the graphic arts company but
when you started to take the leap, what was that decision like for you?
(12:27):
It was very much a people-type decision.
I didn't know who, again, I didn't know what I didn't know, which also meant
I didn't know who I didn't know yet at the time.
So there was a lot of experimentation as I learned certain things about myself.
(12:47):
I had to also try to understand who were going to be the people in my life that
were we're going to resonate with these things that I'm now learning about myself.
And as I apply them in my life, you know, how does that make other people feel or be aligned?
Does it push them away? Because, you know, they say as you started going down
this path, right, friends and family could possibly just drop away.
(13:12):
And you almost end up finding a whole new family, you know, much like yourself, right?
Like we only met a month or so ago and, you know, We have so much more in common
than I would if somebody that I knew back in high school, if we're still friends today.
So there's a lot of that, like I didn't know who to trust, who I should get
my information from other than books and things like that.
(13:33):
So it was very much finding the correct relationships to foster the environment
to grow and excel and, you know, and find the right answers.
And I knew I was going to make mistakes, of course.
And I know I continue, I will continue to make mistakes.
But, you know, that's how we that's how we grow and learn. and the failures feed the successes.
(13:56):
So I'm less scared of that nowadays than I am just finding the right people.
So, and I'm glad, again, going back to the Evolve event, it was like,
those are the kind of right people, you know?
So that was, it was mainly about the people.
And it always is. It always is about the people, to be honest,
you know, about the relationships that you can make.
(14:17):
And if I can help more people with their business, then that's going to help
my business and circle of life.
Know there's obviously an artistic talent here
a creative talent if you're creating logos and graphic
arts and things like that so where have you always been
someone who's been creative or drawn
(14:37):
or things like that yep explain to me that where did the when did it start how
long has it been around when did you discover you were good at this i mean i
was five six years old you know I mean, this is literally a God given talent.
My dad was an artist. My uncle was an artist and.
(14:58):
My uncle didn't pursue it as long as my dad did. And then I pursued it longer than my father did.
So my dad did a lot of freelance work.
You know, back in the day, it was all pencils and markers and things.
And there was very little computer work, of course, which is what I do.
I do more graphic design on the computer nowadays.
But, you know, I grew up pen and pencil, colored pencils.
(15:20):
And then you know you graduate to acrylics and
oil paint and and pastels and
charcoal pencil and you go to I went
to college and I took a bunch of art classes to try to hone the skills and you
know I had certain I had certain dreams that I wanted to to fulfill back then
but again going back to not having people in the family that have done those
(15:43):
things you know those those didn't get it fulfilled in the way that I would
have liked them to back then.
Obviously, today is a different day, of course. So I don't have those same desires
as I did then, but life would have looked a lot different if I had the right
people in the right time.
I guess one could argue that it all happened for a reason, of course.
But yeah, it's always been in my blood.
(16:06):
Now it just looks and feels different just because of the technology that's available.
So I use a lot of Photoshop, a lot of illustrator and I still draw I still sketch
all my I still hand sketch everything when I work with clients and then that
just gets turned into the electronic medium so people can use it for websites
and you know Instagram posts and things like that so so yeah it's always been,
(16:29):
it's always been in me and there was a point in my life where.
I wouldn't say I, I rejected it. And it's just, it was more of a neglected or
put it on the back burner.
You know, I didn't fully embrace it until fairly recently, you know,
when I finally made the decision to be like, you know what, I got this gift,
I'm going to turn it into something. I'm going to help people.
And at the same time, I'm going to be able to design the life that I want for
(16:53):
myself instead of putting that life in somebody else's hand,
like the corporate world, you know?
So that's how I've been there. God planted a seed and then he put an obstacle
in your way or a problem at work in your way. And then that seed started to grow again.
Right? Yep. Yes. And so it's just one of those things that over time,
(17:15):
the thing that God gives us grows at such rapid rates. Sometimes it stops growing.
Sometimes it goes into hibernation. And sometimes we keep it in that hibernation
unless we're entrepreneurial or whatever. Sometimes we get into relationships that hold it back.
I mean, I think of so many talented people, God's given them great gifts and
(17:37):
they let their relationships destroy it.
And so it's things like that that I think that we're talking about here.
Like you went an easier path.
You got into corporate America and it dulled this superpower.
You kryptonited yourself in some ways. And so talk to me a little bit about the way,
(18:03):
you know, the way you have sort of reinvented yourself or are reinventing yourself
through this. How are you getting clients?
How are you starting to build your reputation as a graphic artist,
specifically your business?
Let's talk a little bit about that. What is your mindset here and how are you going about this?
(18:26):
All good questions. And I don't have all the answers for that yet. I'll be honest.
I'm definitely at the starting line compared to some people,
at least in regards to marketing and things like that.
Right. Like I'm spending a lot of time understanding marketing.
Back in, you know, years ago when I was just doing logos for random people,
(18:49):
you know, on the side and just doing it for fun instead of using it to create a life.
You know, I was just, it was all word of mouth. You know, a cousin would call
me and then they would refer a friend and, you know, I'd do like one or two
every three, four months or something.
Right. So the, everything was pretty, pretty, pretty spanned out between jobs
(19:10):
and, you know, it was fun. I enjoyed it and I did some some really cool stuff.
But now I'm very much focused on putting together a strong online portfolio.
I'm starting to reach out to people on social media. I'm starting to be more active on LinkedIn.
Like you mentioned, I have the podcast now. So that gives me a little bit of credibility.
And the podcast isn't even related to entrepreneurship. It's more about personal
(19:33):
growth and self-discovery and self-mastery and things.
But for the business, I'm getting my my toes wet in the marketing,
you know, I'm helping somebody or having somebody help me,
with a little bit of marketing upfront, working on, you know,
integrating webpages and CRMs and all the fun stuff that we kind of,
again, talked about in Evolve, you know, so, and there's a lot to it.
(19:56):
And some of it is, is makes me feel a little overwhelmed and I don't mind saying that.
And I've, I understand that I'm the kind of person where if there's too many
things, things, whichever one feels right to do in that moment,
that's what I pick and that's what I work on.
And fully understanding that those other things have to come into play at some point.
(20:18):
And then also fully understanding that I have to trust myself enough to intuitively
know when it's time to get those other aspects involved in the business.
So I can't, I shouldn't say I can't, it's a word I'm working on removing from my vocabulary.
I'm not thinking about you know using every
(20:38):
single thing right away because then
that's only going to slow me down if that makes sense you know
it's like trying to bench press 300 pounds when I you know you can't
just throw it on the bar you got to work up to it you know so can't use all
the weights right away so that's kind of how where I'm at right now with my
business and so it's very much still working with some friends and I you know
(21:00):
reaching back out to old colleagues or old clients, asking for referrals,
seeing if they need anything new, things like that, just to continue to build a portfolio,
continue to have conversations and work on my backend type stuff,
work on my forms and my intake forms and the process, behind the scenes process and things.
(21:22):
So that's kind of how that's been looking and it feels good.
And I very much have allowed myself to trust my own intuition these days instead
of thinking about oh am I doing this correctly or comparing myself to somebody
else and to their progress and so now I'm I'm very much just.
(21:43):
Pick something, go with it. Does it feel good? Yeah. Okay. We'll continue with this.
And then if I feel like I've got some good momentum there and I feel like I
can take on another, another aspect, then I'll do it, you know?
So that's kind of where I'm at with that.
Let's talk about your spirituality. You're, you mentioned some people would
say this, that, you know, there was a plan here or that, you know,
(22:07):
this is the path that you're on.
Talk to me a little bit about your spirituality as a human.
The maturity of it, because part of Evolve was this spirituality that we all
possess, which is just crazy because I am in Denver Seminary and I have been
an entrepreneur for 26 years.
(22:27):
Well, more than that, since I was seven, like we mentioned, but really in the
space, like in the food space for 24 years.
Now I'm in the media space. Now I'm in the coaching space. Now I'm,
you know, in the hospitality space also amongst other things.
But really the spiritual journey
that you have been on that's gotten you know because
(22:49):
you you have a very peaceful sense about you which is the holy spirit in my
opinion working in you and growing the seeds inside you and it can only grow
in peace in a good environment okay that doesn't mean that that that hardship
doesn't lead to growth that's not what i'm saying But when we face hardship,
when we face uncomfortable situations,
(23:11):
there has to be a peaceful way of still growing within those.
I've not always been successful at that, just so the audience knows.
Okay, so, you know, I handled things very wrong in the last two years of my
career at Food Service Partners, for sure, under a lot of stress and a lot of
personal relationship issues and all of that.
(23:31):
But talk to me about your spiritual journey.
Yeah well I think I think you might agree that.
The spiritual journey is, it's a very deep well of understanding and it's deep and expansive.
And so there's a lot that goes into it. And some of this, I shouldn't say some
(23:53):
of the stuff, a lot of it is unconscious, you know, that goes on in our mind
and we don't even know about.
And that has been part of
my spiritual journey for myself is understanding
how those unconscious behaviors get formed how those habits get formed how our
thoughts get formed how our you know actions get formed which brings awareness
(24:19):
and then once something is in your awareness and And once something you're aware of,
you either choose to ignore it or you choose to alter it and change it for the better.
So now that I've had a handful of years now kind of digging into who Justin
is and understood the things that have created who I am up to this point.
(24:47):
How do I want to say this? There's just so much. There's a lot of stuff going
on in my head right now, and I'm trying to organize it for you so it can be a talking point.
I'll say this.
My exposure to religion, which I understand is, for me anyway,
(25:09):
is separate from spirituality.
But it also, you know, it can go hand in hand at some times.
So I grew up in a very Christian household. cold.
You know, I went to church three to four times a week. I was in the youth group.
I was in all these things. I sang with the kids and blah, blah, blah. And.
Had some things happen to me in the church that drew me away from it.
(25:33):
So then once I got to a certain age, my mom was like, you know,
you're free to do what you'd like to do. And then I stopped going.
And then I put myself into martial arts, which has also been an art form for
me in a form of self-expression for me, for my life.
I've been doing martial arts for over 23 years of my my life, half my life.
(25:54):
So once I was able to do that freely, that became my spiritual path,
which is largely the reason why I am, you picked up a lot of peacefulness from
me, because it comes from the discipline that I've learned in martial arts.
And then I was able to take a lot of those disciplines, if not all of them,
(26:16):
and apply them to my life.
One of them being safety.
So I've trained a lot in these techniques to keep myself safe.
And I've also created my environment that I live in, my house,
my neighborhood, my relationships.
It's all a nice, safe container for me.
And that has been able to allow me to foster the courage to understand even
(26:43):
more in depth who I am and who I want to be.
And through spirituality, through God, the people I shrine myself with.
And you're right, it's an ongoing journey. There's plenty of struggles.
And I've learned to look at those struggles in the light of these are discoveries
(27:06):
that are going to teach me something, something that I didn't know,
something that I can use at some point in my life.
And those takeaways are all going to be beneficial. even if they hurt,
they're going to be good for you, you know?
And that's kind of how I've walked that over the past at least five years.
That peacefulness definitely comes from the martial arts and being able to have
(27:32):
the power to create the space to the safe container to grow in.
And going back to the entrepreneurship, that is a chaos that I'm inviting in.
And that is really the only way that we're going to be able to grow is we create
something, we push its boundaries, and we test it, and we grow from there,
(27:55):
and we get bigger and bigger.
And so, you know, it's all happening for a reason, of course.
And like you said, like God puts these challenges in front of us to,
to grow our spirit and our talents and our ability to give back to the earth and the world.
And that's what we're, that's what I'm doing, you know, and having conversations
like this with you is, is amazing.
I'm super blessed to be able to at least give it my best shot to articulate all these things.
(28:20):
And you mentioned five years ago and sort of over the last five years,
if you could you go back and tell yourself something five years ago,
what would it be or what things more than one, if there's more than one?
Um, I probably, I don't know how exactly how it would sound,
but I would just, I would probably be just encouraging.
(28:41):
I'd probably just say, Hey, it probably might not feel like it,
but you're on the right path, man.
Use your intuition, you know, get more comfortable with your intuition.
Give yourself permission to use it.
I mean, there's probably lots more that I would say, but at this point,
it would definitely be just more of an encouragement and probably tell myself
(29:03):
that if you don't know something, it's okay that you don't know it.
And if it's if you're if you're thinking about that you should know something,
that's a calling pull on the string know what
it is that you think you should know and then be prepared for
for the struggle of knowing because it
(29:23):
is if you want the knowledge if you want the power of
knowing something you're gonna have to go through the struggle to figure
it out so give yourself some grace know
know that you're on the right path and you know head
on forward that's probably something i would
say there's there's tons and tons more of course but super
super nitty-gritty i mean yeah
(29:47):
and i and i like this because you do recognize your
growth over the last five years i've assumed yeah yeah
and i know about five years
ago 2019 is when you joined erite syndicate as well is that that true yeah it
was like 2018 2019 yeah when i first jumped into rta up yeah and i mean there's
(30:10):
a lot of growth there right andy forsella and ed mylet like and the messages that they deliver.
And then i also know you do 75 hard
is that correct yeah i've done it a handful of
times i kind of i kind of just do that anyway every
single day you know i just still my yeah you
you know i don't drink i don't eat a
(30:32):
bunch of junk food i walk and i work out every day i
pretty much the only thing i don't do is i don't take a picture of myself every day
you know i don't do the picture but i read still exercise water tons of water
so i'm kind of doing it almost anyway i know i i can't remember that incentive
so far do we do the power list i can't remember we do the 10 the extensions
(30:53):
the 30-day extensions there's those three extra steps but Yeah.
But I agree with you. It, this is like, I mean, it's been around for six years
now and I don't even, you know, definitely completed five years of it. It was hard for sure.
Oh yeah. And I'm, you know, but here's the thing about it is over the last two,
(31:16):
three years, the harder my life got, the more it blew up, the more I've stuck to it.
And even with really bad health issues, I went through some terrible health issues for a while.
Relationships breaking up, businesses going away.
The thing about it is 75 Hard gave me the discipline and the purpose to keep
(31:39):
moving forward. and I and for whatever reason now it's just part of my everyday lifestyle I agree,
And the scary part about it for me, it's become,
and I think Andy writes about it in this book, is that at this point,
my understanding of human potential has changed so much, it's hard for me to
(32:02):
relate to people that aren't seeking the mental toughness to continue to unlock their potential,
or even the spiritual toughness to unlock their potential.
And it's just one of those things where it's almost
crazy because the better you get at it 75 hard the more discipline you have
(32:24):
the more almost people try to cut you down who don't live that type of lifestyle
they try to find what i would call kinks in the armor or whatever the term would
be chinks in the armor i don't remember what the term is you can never get any
of those those terms, right?
Bear poops in the woods, Pope wears a funny hat or whatever.
But it's one of those things where I think over time, that discipline changes who we are.
(32:52):
And if you want a simple life, then you're going to get a simple life.
It's not going to be very meaningful, even with money.
But if you pursue something like this, even the martial arts that you're talking
about, life doesn't become simple anymore.
It's simplified, but it's not simple.
(33:13):
And so that's one of the things that I think you and I really connected on is
we've both been through a rough journey in life, relationship-wise,
life-wise, business-wise, leadership-wise, people that we've looked up to leaders
that have let us down or what I would say is their actions don't match their
(33:34):
words and hypocrisy is a big problem for me and.
Getting through that has taken a lot of growth. For whatever reason,
God puts us in these situations where we're forged by fire. Yep.
And I can see it in you. So, I mean, let's talk a little bit about where do you go from here?
(34:00):
Like, where are you thinking? I know you're still doing, you still have a career.
You're trying to get a podcast and a business off the ground.
So, I mean, have you thought about when or what time you're going to think about,
you know, when you transition?
When do you go all in and burn the ships behind you into this business?
(34:21):
Have you started strategically thinking about that?
I have. And before I say that, I want to go back to what you said about,
you know, simplicity, because you're right. It's not simple,
but there's the simplicity.
And, you know, one of my episodes of my podcast talks about,
you know, how you get to the simplicity.
City because that when people from the outside looking in, they look at my life
(34:46):
and I, and I know this because people tell me this all the time,
like, oh yeah, we're not married. You don't have kids.
You got a motorcycle and you get to work from home. And I'm like,
oh man, it's just, you got, you just got it. You got the, you got it made, you know?
And to your point, yeah, I got it made because I made it that way.
You know, I went through all of these things and experimented and passed and
(35:08):
failed and and went through all the hardships and all the all the uh discoveries.
And i went through all of the complications in
order to get to the simple stuff the simplicities and
that's people i think people realize that that's
how that goes they just don't ever say it for themselves out loud
(35:31):
maybe because it's scary to admit that
kind of stuff but that's why i have it like
this and that's almost as
well not almost it is the same thing that bruce lee
says when he says when we first learned martial arts you know a punch was just
a punch kick was just a kick and then the midst of learning martial arts a punch
(35:52):
was no longer a punch a punch no longer was a kick and then once he's got to
a point of mastery a punch was just a punch punch A kick was just a kick,
you know, so you go through these stages where you have to learn everything
and try everything, pass,
fail, before you can, a punch can just be a punch again, you know,
(36:13):
and it just happens, you know.
So that's kind of where I'm at with my nice, comfortable life that I've built.
And again, going back to what I said earlier, I'm about to introduce a lot more
chaos into it, as one of my coaches says.
So to your question about burning the bridges or burning the boats,
that strategy has never really resonated with me.
(36:40):
Again, going back to what I said about intuition, there might and there might
be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of danger around this thought process.
I assume I can understand anyway that if I don't give myself a certain time
frame, if I say, oh, I can do it in the next five years, then I will take five years.
(37:00):
You know, I think there's some law or something. think, right?
It says, if you do it this way, then yeah, that if you give yourself this amount
of time and that's what you'll take to do it.
So I am aware of that, but the whole burn the boats thing doesn't really resonate with me.
So I've just been working as much as I can behind the scenes since I work from home.
(37:22):
I spend time doing my job and then I spend time doing my entrepreneur journey.
So I don't necessarily have an answer about when I'm going to do that.
My goal would be by the end of the year, to be honest,
that would be my goal based on what I need financially to continue to live this
(37:45):
type of life that I live now and beyond, you know, so I still have to plan for the future, of course.
So I got to have enough clients in the pipeline and build the back end of the
business. And you know how it goes.
I mean, I got to have all those things kind of prepared that I don't have right
now. So, and I am blessed to be able to work from home, use my money that I'm
(38:09):
making from my nine to five to get me further along.
My own business so i am blessed for that for sure and i i mean there are definitely
times where i take that for granted
you know i'll admit that and also too there's i've lived this life of,
(38:29):
safety for so long and being in
the corporate world and you know not having examples in my life with my family
about from about entrepreneurship so i've lived this life safety safety and
my once i made my this decision for myself there was a lot of resistance for my ego,
(38:50):
and it would tell me things like like why would you want to leave this it's
like so easy like you got it so easy man just stay here you know like you don't
do this thing like you could you could fail you could die you know like the
lizard brain is like you could die you could die you know.
So there was a lot of that going on in the beginning so and
essentially this is all brand brand new to me and exciting you
(39:11):
know and it's also exciting to be able to know what
it's like on the other side when i talk to guys like you and you know
angela and matt and you know people from evolve and things
so i've made a lot more progress just in
the past six months you know
had i not put myself in the room with you guys had i not gone to a couple other
(39:31):
different things over the past six to eight months i i wouldn't be even close
to where i'm at right now so So super grateful for all the opportunities that
people have given me and the opportunities that have been presented to me that I took for myself.
And again, going back to the intuition, you know, and thinking things like,
oh, is this right for me? Should I do this?
(39:52):
Oh, this might be a little too much money. And like nowadays,
I've kind of trained myself to if I have any sort of good, warm and fuzzy about
something, I just go, yep, I'm going to do it.
Boom you know so you know again at the end of the year would be great for me you know,
but i don't know you know things could happen things should happen a lot a lot faster too,
(40:16):
as you know so if you had to tell the audience anything or could give any wisdom
from your experience anyone who's trying to become an entrepreneur or anyone
who's struggling on their their journey, what would you say to them?
Well, considering I'm pretty, pretty new in the journey.
Allowing yourself the permission to find the people that are setting the example
(40:43):
for the things that you want to do you know so for me as an example for me i'm
in the graphic design space.
And everybody's like oh ai is going to take your job okay well i don't want
to listen to those people because those are the naysayers so i found two or
three people that i got some training from them that are doing this successfully
and doing it on a large scale.
(41:05):
And so I'm looking for the possibilities of it instead of listening to the people
that have never done these things before, you know, and allowing that to penetrate
my psyche and my spirit, you know, and look for the good nuggets,
you know, and hold on to those and keep focusing on those.
So that's probably what I would say, because that's helped me, of course.
(41:25):
So I love it, Justin. Where can everyone find you?
I am on Instagram a lot. So I'm at miradgraphicarts on Instagram is my portfolio.
And then my personal one is jmarad58, J the letter J, jmarad58.
And then pretty much if you just Google miradgraphicarts, I should show up,
(41:48):
LinkedIn, Facebook, that kind of stuff.
So I am always around for any sorts of questions.
And that you know going back to what you said about my podcast justin thought
is out on apple amazon spotify
things like that so which i'll
have you on mine very very soon yeah absolutely i'd love to be on yours yeah
(42:11):
it's gonna be awesome man it'd be awesome what's your favorite part about your
life right now the freedom that i've been able to create for myself to design my life.
There's not, I don't think there's a lot of people that have allowed themselves
the freedom to find the kind of life that they want.
(42:32):
Even if they think it's, oh, well, it's just my little slice of pie of heaven.
And that's fine. You know, focus on that.
You know, like, like, I don't know, I'm not married. I don't have kids.
And I ride my motorcycle a lot. You know, that's perfect for me right now.
You know, and I have the option to work on my business here at my house.
So I can do a lot more cool stuff in the future continue to build and change
(42:54):
lives so that's probably my favorite thing freedoms a big for me freedoms big
for me well Justin I'm definitely gonna have you back on the show I'm definitely going to.
Talk more with you about everything that's going on in your life,
continue to be a friend, help you out with your business for sure.
(43:16):
Maybe even give you some opportunities here as Gorilla Brave continues to grow
and we need some graphic arts done and things like that.
Also leaders to owners, if anyone's out there, that's for those out there in
the food world who want to become owners of their own business,
who actually want to become entrepreneurs.
So So Gorilla Brave is for the food and beverage entrepreneurs out there who
(43:38):
are already in the space, but Leaders to Owners will actually turn you into
an owner, provide classes, provide the structure for you guys to become your own owners.
So what Justin was just talking about is that how do you make that step from
corporate to your own entrepreneur, your own world?
Well, in the food and beverage space, we are providing that.
(43:59):
And I have two business partners that are very great humans and have built a
lot of successful companies.
And so particularly in the food space. And so that's where that comes from.
And so Justin, thanks for joining us on the show.
Thank you everyone for listening in again. I appreciate all of you guys.
(44:19):
I appreciate all the love that everyone gave me when I took six months off and
took a leave of absence from this to figure out who I am, figure out who I'm not,
and repurpose my life and grow and take a pause.
And we'll see what happens. But I definitely have found peace. Yeah.
(44:41):
Wish I didn't have to go this path to find it and lose the humans that I love
the most and cherish the most in the process.
And I know they've moved on, but I will always want the best for them.
I have forgiveness for them, and I will always give them many chances in my
life because that's who I am.
That's what I believe spiritually, and that's what I believe Jesus Christ did
(45:02):
for us and God does for us.
So I will always do that since people have asked.
But mostly, I appreciate everyone that That supported me over the last two years
from the bottoms I've been through, from the broken pieces,
from the brokenness, all the new people have come into my life,
the new humans, just like Justin I'm talking to, even though we were in Aratea
together, we just finally met each other.
(45:25):
And it's been life changing for sure.
And it's brought me closer to God for sure.
And it's helped me find purpose in seminary. It's helped me find purpose as an entrepreneur.
So thank you everyone for listening in. I love you guys. Again,
you can find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
You can also find me on Justin the Food Entrepreneurs, as well as the Centurion Leadership Battalion.
(45:49):
Find me on Instagram at Justin Bizarro.
And I will say this, from people I've met at Evolve, they've helped me grow
my social media presence significantly and get people interacting with my content,
help me get good stuff going.
And all that is because Because I finally met someone that understood who I am.
(46:11):
And I understand who I am and who I'm not.
And now the message I get out there applies to people that are going through what I've been through.
Or finding their spiritual life. Or becoming entrepreneurs again.
Or have hit a rock bottom in their relationships or lost relationships that they love and cherish.
So it's a powerful weapon. Our test that we go through that leads to our testimony.
(46:35):
Ceremony and the mess of our lives that leads to our message.
So, Justin, thank you again for coming on the show, and we're out.
Cool, man. I'll talk soon, buddy.
Music.
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Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com