In the latest episode of "The JUSTIN RYAN BIZZARRO Show, guest AJ Krist gives an intimate account of his journey into leadership of the family-owned Krist Insurance, providing valuable insights for business owners considering a merger or acquisition. The episode covers AJ's unexpected wave into leadership at a young age, the strategic process of their successful merger with North Risk Partners, and the significant growth opportunities that have come their way ever since.
The conversation extends beyond business narratives and delves into the important lesson learned and crucial knowledge acquired throughout AJ’s lifelong journey. The significance of discipline, business ethics, personal values, and continuous effort in sustaining business growth and achieving lasting success are underscored. We also discuss the integral role of celebrating collective victories and teamwork in an organization.
An exploration of the pyramid model of core values, the ripple effect of personal growth, and the role of the insurance industry in building trust and support are also interesting highlights of this episode. AJ Krist shares his thoughtful perspectives on the intersection of business values, personal growth, and familial obligations, drawing enlightening reflections from his personal life.
Finally, in an incredibly raw and honest segment, AJ recounts his transformative process from the brink of suicide to his rejuvenated life purpose found in serving others. The host, Justin Bizzarro, shares his experiences relating to vulnerability in leadership, identity issues, and the indispensable role of the entrepreneur community, Evolve. Delve with us into a profound conversation surrounding resilience, personal growth, and spirituality for a future filled with potential.
IG: @aj_krist
Insurance & Financial Entrepreneur [IFE]: AJ Krist
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 could conquer this, and being my Co-Host for the first two years.
Find Us On SPOTIFY or wherever else you grow yourself through Podcasts . . .
Dominate Your Leadership Growth @
I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
If you want to find me, you can find me on Instagram at Justin Bizarro.
Thank you, everyone, for all the support. I know we're getting these podcasts
launched again. I appreciate all the support during the leave of absence.
Everyone who's given to me emotionally, spiritually, mentally,
(00:42):
even helping me physically with keeping me motivated by working out and stuff. I love you guys.
I appreciate that. So that's a big thing for me.
I don't know how I'll ever repay everyone over the last year for all the support
and love you guys have given me and all the fans. So thank you guys very much.
Also, if you want to find us, find this podcast, Justin Ryan Bizarro Show or
(01:05):
Justin the Food Entrepreneurs or the Centurion Leadership Battalion,
you can find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
Also, So I've gotten some questions about it. Yes, Gorilla Brave has launched.
We have 100 open spots. We've already filled about 70 of them.
71, I think, as of today. So there's only 29 left of those. That is for food
(01:26):
and beverage entrepreneurs.
It is leadership group, business group, networking group for food and beverage entrepreneurs.
It is online and it is around the world, but we're only taking 100 members this
first year. So if you haven't signed up and you want to, that's getting pretty tight. Sorry, guys.
I didn't really think we'd fill 100 people so quickly.
So there's that. And then lastly, questions about leaders to owners for anyone
(01:51):
who's leaders in the food industry
but wants to end up owning their own companies or owning franchises.
Franchises that is launched, and that is a partnership with Sam Fonseca,
who has built In-N-Out Burger,
Raising Cane's, Dave's Hot Chicken, as well as Roll Em Up Taquitos.
(02:12):
So he's a specialist in taking leaders and creating owners and businesses,
and he's done a lot of consulting out there as well.
So thank you guys for listening in. I did want to answer those questions for
you guys, since everyone saw my Instagram last night and it's been asking questions
about leaders to owners.
So that is a partnership there and that is going pretty well as well.
(02:34):
That is classes specifically for leaders who want to end up owning their own
businesses in the food and beverage space. So.
That being said, I have AJ with us out of Des Moines, Iowa from North Risk Partners.
How are you doing today, AJ?
Hey, good, Justin. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely.
(02:55):
So I'm going to dive right into it. Well, I'm going to tell the history a little
bit here. I think this is a little bit interesting.
About a year and a half ago at the Arate Syndicate in Nashville,
I think we ran into each other like twice, I think at a networking event,
as well as at, I want to say Kid Rock's Honky Tonk a couple of times,
(03:18):
and then, you know, exchanged information there.
And then my telephone number changed. My life sort of fell apart.
And then we ran into each other just recently again at the Evolve thing that
Angela Goodman does, which is a phenomenal event.
I was blown away by it. That event in Virginia really blew me away in many ways,
(03:39):
spiritually especially, especially for entrepreneurs.
So I want to give everyone a little background. AJ and I are meant to be friends
in some way because the universe keeps putting us in the same rooms together
all over the place in different parts of the world.
So AJ, the microphone's yours. This is about you. This is about your story.
(04:00):
So let's talk a little bit about your upbringing, how you came to be where you
are, and tell us about the business you run and sort of your family and things like that.
And I mean, you've inherited a giant, right?
So now you got to figure it out.
Yeah. So that's a very broad and open-ended question for a guy with my capability
(04:23):
to speak for a long time to give him a long leash like that.
But just to give you a little bit of history, So born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa.
My parents were entrepreneurs and hard workers from the jump.
My mom worked to support a lot of our family's needs as dad started a business
(04:44):
from scratch in 1993 in the insurance agency space, an independent agency.
So we represent multiple carriers across different spectrums and states and all those other things.
And you know just a normal kind of childhood upbringing and as the business grew some of our,
you know access to things and lifestyle and other things grew as well you know
(05:08):
I was fortunate enough to play athletics as a as a kid both baseball and hockey
were our sports of choice and fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to play
baseball at small NAIA school and in Des Moines called Grandview University.
Kicked around the baseball dream for a little while after college.
And, you know, as you would attest, God has a funny way of, you know,
(05:34):
making things happen for a
reason and putting, you know, things in your path to ultimately play out.
Fortuitous fashion. And the reason I say that is that dream of playing baseball
beyond college and everything else kind of fizzled and died.
And I came back and joined the family business, working in the commercial insurance space.
(05:57):
So property and casualty, working with entrepreneurs and helping them solve
their challenges from a risk management perspective, cash flow perspective,
growing that, you know, my own book of business under the tutelage of my dad
and some of the other folks that we had engaged in the agency.
And then my father unexpectedly passes away in 2015 from a rare dual form of
(06:22):
cancer with really little runway
to learn and plan and kind of get this stuff in place and in motion.
It was 30 days diagnosis to death. And then it's kind of an interesting position
being a 24-year-old kid thrust into leadership of people double your age and amongst trying to,
(06:46):
you know, make clients comfortable in the fact that this,
you know, snot-nosed kid is going to be able to handle their life's work and
be able to, you know, continue to risk manage and develop their programs to
a point where they feel that they're still,
you know, covered appropriately and have the right advisor and executive on their team.
(07:08):
And so we grew the agency from 2015 to 2022, roughly 7% to 10% per year,
just a steady organic growth.
And then in May of 2022, we merged with another firm called North Risk Partners.
And I'm fortunate enough to lead the property
(07:28):
and casualty division for North Risk across our
south division so nebraska and
iowa parts of illinois so that's
a little bit about how we've gotten here and and my my upbringing if you will
so let's talk a little bit about that 30 days because i mean that's not a lot
(07:49):
of time to realize that you're now you're going to be responsible for your family
and your family's business?
Yeah, it's a situation that's both good and bad for multiple reasons.
But why I say it's good is that we don't have to see the people that we love
(08:10):
suffer in that type of situation.
It's not like it was a lingering issue that you watch somebody wither away for
a long period of time and know that they're in anguish and pain for a long period of time.
But the downside, of course, is that you just don't have time to plan and learn
all the institutional knowledge that's developed over 22 years of operating a business and.
(08:35):
You know, it's, you try and jam as much as you can into a small amount of time.
The last, you know, week to 10 days was really, you know, wasn't lucid, wasn't coherent.
So it really was a condensed timeframe, even more than 30 days,
just to try and learn and perpetuate and ultimately get his kind of vision for
(09:00):
what he wanted the agency to play out to.
The other thing I haven't shared, I guess, is that I've got two younger brothers.
One's nine years younger and the other's 11 years younger than myself.
So I say younger brothers. I'm more like their weird older uncle than anything.
Thing but you know kind of getting his perspective on what his vision for those
(09:21):
two boys coming into the the agency at some point looked like or you know even
just long-term vision casting so we could live out kind of his will and expectation
of of how we saw that playing out long term,
ultimately did it stick to every point of the vision probably not but i i like
to think that we We kept that,
(09:41):
you know, will and intent alive as long as we could and kind of live it out
to see how he would have wanted to see it played out.
Yeah, that's a lot of weight on your shoulders, right?
Because you have to almost sometimes put aside your own ideas,
own ideals, own vision, own dreams for the business to fulfill his, your father's.
(10:05):
Absolutely. Yeah. And so, I mean, that's gotta be a tough place to be in.
So talk to me a little bit about a merger, how you went about it.
What was the decision making to do that?
Because now you're part of a greater organization. How did all of that happen?
Obviously you were leading that, or you were part of that.
So how did all, and talk to me about your fears.
(10:28):
You can have as much time to talk about it as you want, because I think there's
a lot of questions within in merging a family business into a larger organization?
Sure. So, you know, first and foremost, it was a lot of planning on the front
end with our family and a lot of kind of soul searching in terms of what is
(10:49):
the end goal going to be of the,
the, the Christ insurance organization that it was prior to our merger.
And we ultimately saw kind of this fork coming in the road, right?
For those that don't, know the insurance industry has
been rather injected with
capital over the last two decades so a
(11:11):
lot of private equity money a lot of you know cheap financing from a acquisition
cost perspective so we've seen a lot of agencies being acquired across our you
know kind of not just only local footprint but also national footprint as we
do compete on a national level and.
(11:31):
The fork in the road that we saw was with all these acquisitions,
you were either going to grow and
inject enough capital in your business to offer the value-added services and
resources that your clients need to operate and maintain relevancy and protect
risk and help from an HR or employment law or whatever necessary value-add that
(11:55):
you've got at your capacity.
Or you were going to be forced in the other direction down to what I like to think of as mom and pop,
smaller agency focused on predominantly personal lines or small retail main
street type business and agricultural type exposures.
(12:15):
And our staff had been with us
and still has been with us on average you
know 15 plus years and there's a lot of technical ability
and institutional knowledge and other things that we
just feel like would have been put to waste had we
taken the left fork in the road and so
we looked at each other and said well do we want to inject the capital ourselves
(12:39):
and continue to build it up from scratch or do we search out for a partner that
will be able to provide a platform and the resources that we're looking for
to continue to let our clients thrive and in the insurance environment.
And so when we made that decision, we started looking for an organization that
(12:59):
paired up and mirrored well with our core values,
those that treated their staff and their clients the same way that we did,
because in this acquisition model that our industry has gone through,
it's a lot of buy and then gut, right?
And that's not the outcome that we wanted for our close-knit family-run organization.
(13:24):
And so we took probably three and a half years to find the right organization that...
Mirrored our core values that was a cultural fit and then as well had a need
for all of our personnel in all of our different silos.
So both from the employee benefits, the property and casualty,
(13:46):
and then our operational folks to kind of expand out and grow the footprint
for North Risk in the Des Moines area.
So a long-winded answer of saying we just made sure that our values and our
cultural alignment were mutually aligned.
(14:07):
And the leadership team at North Risk,
you know, very much so a family-oriented company in terms of it's not a historically
vertical management style it's
very flat so everybody has access to
upper level management and can vent their concerns and frustrations and feel
(14:28):
like they're being heard across what the organization's trying to do and that's
very important to us and so that's ultimately how we made that decision to select
north risk and then you know the financial aspect of things.
It's, you know, a very, very much a, a dance and trying to figure out what's
a good balance from both sides of the transaction.
(14:52):
And that, that part went fairly quickly. The, you know, the math is the math.
We kind of understood how that was going to play and.
And then once the deal was kind of inked, it was a very fast transition to onboarding.
And so that was probably 90 days of getting all the back end data and making
sure that it transitioned over well and then letting our staff know and prepping
(15:14):
for the ultimate transition.
So that took place on May 2nd of 2022.
And we're coming up on two years of that move. And it's been everything that
we've asked for and more. You know, when you asked the question,
it was about what was our fears around making a transition like that.
And I think the only answer is the fear of the unknown.
(15:37):
You know, you just don't know what it's going to be like under the tutelage
of somebody else. And they could tell you one thing and end up doing another.
And that has not at all been our experience.
It's everything that we've discussed and was promised and, you know,
it's come to fruition. And that's ultimately why it's been such a harmonious transition.
(15:59):
And we're very, very thankful for that. And our team is continuing to grow and
thrive and finding opportunity that would have taken them longer to get to if
we would have maintained a smaller organization.
And it's opened up growth opportunities for our producers as well to go out
and prospect and bring on new accounts that they probably wouldn't have had
(16:21):
the capabilities or the bandwidth to do before.
And so it's been a wonderful decision.
Let's go to lessons. Like you've been in business for a while.
You've been in this for a while. You've been doing this for a while,
like, and then transition.
So lessons as an entrepreneur, things that you wish you may be known 14,
(16:43):
15 years ago, what are those?
Like, what do you know now that you wish you knew a while ago? Yeah.
The biggest one that I, so I'm pretty engaged in our young agents,
you know, community within the independent insurance agents of Iowa and America for that matter.
But the one thing I tell them is it's always going to take longer than you think,
(17:05):
but it's worth it. Right.
You know, it takes a long time to build a book of business. It takes a long
time as a 20 something to,
you know, build the technical ability and the trust with your community for
them to tell, you know, to give their life's work to you.
So while it sucks because we all have this instant gratification mindset these
(17:30):
days about, you know, we want it, we want it now.
The juice is worth the squeeze at the end of the day.
So that's number one. Number two, and I think you and I talked about this at
length on the deck of the hotel there, but discipline is the root of all success in my mind.
If there's one skill set that is harnessed and developed and can wither,
(17:55):
it's the discipline to take daily action to understand what's going to propel
your business forward for that day, that week, that month, that year.
And being able to fulfill those promises that you make to yourself every single
day to know that you're making progress.
Without those two understandings, I think everything else is potentially a flash
(18:21):
in the pan because you don't have the foundation built to understand that it
takes time and it takes consistency to build anything worth value.
Yeah, which I think one of the things we talk about in seminary,
since I go to Denver Seminary, audience might not know, but master divinity
and leadership, we talk about as disciple actually means discipline.
(18:43):
You know, from a spiritual standpoint, the more disciplined we are in all parts
of our life, the better off we do, you know, the closer we are to God. And so that's a big deal.
Just so everyone knows that I think that's a good point to anchor since you
brought up, and we did talk about discipline and we did talk about nothing happens in life without it.
(19:05):
There are times, I agree, there are times I should have been more financially disciplined.
There are times I should have been more physically and mentally disciplined
in what was in front of me.
And those are things that go on that are setbacks.
So if you get disciplined very early on as a young entrepreneur or a young leader,
(19:26):
it's leaps and bounds difference by the time you get into your 40s, for sure.
One of the things I've been doing, thank goodness, from a very young age,
probably about 20 years old, is reading personal development books and growing
myself that way and always educating myself.
I've always been very disciplined in that and my exercise.
(19:47):
I can fluctuate here and there a little bit or take my foot off the gas,
but I always have the discipline to get back on the horse, for lack of a better term.
And then for me, the discipline of, you know, the way I eat,
the way, you know, drinking alcohol, haven't had alcohol in like over five years
now, 75 hard changed my world in that way for sure.
(20:09):
And and even throughout my 30s
it was very limited because i just i
i've been in the health food business i've been
in the health care business and i've seen what it does from an aging standpoint
plus a deterioration of the mind standpoint so i'm not telling anyone what to
do but i will tell you that i seeing hospitals and seeing people that have longevity
(20:32):
in their lives it's not 100 true true every time,
but the fountain of the youth is definitely around how you discipline the way
you eat and drink for sure.
The interesting thing that I've noticed in what you just said there,
Justin, is that the base of all of that is the fact that you are disciplined
in your mind to know when you're off track, right?
(20:54):
You said, I can take my foot off the gas pedal.
I can, and, you know, prioritize other things over my fitness or my health or
my nutrition, whatever it is.
But you have the self-awareness and the capacity to understand, okay, I'm off track.
Now I need to reset and do these things to reestablish those tendencies and
(21:16):
that consistency to, you know, get it back to where I want it to be or get it
back on track or to reestablish that that discipline,
because that is a muscle just like anything else.
And the more we ignore the warning signs that we're kind of veering off of that
path, the weaker that muscle gets and the harder it is to then,
(21:37):
you know, reestablish those routines and those disciplines.
So I just wanted to point that out. I thought it was something interesting in
the undertone of everything you said was this, the ability to reconnect back
to, you know, I'm aware that I'm off track and we need to kind of tweak some things.
Yeah, and I will say from...
(21:57):
How do I say this? Being single on and off the last 16 months,
you know, as the audience knows, Debra, but as we've gone through our situation
and then through reconciliation and then off, my routines got really messed up.
And as I've started to open my mind to dating or starting my life over again
(22:20):
or having to sort of give up my past, which I don't want to do at all, extremely stubborn.
And it's weird as an entrepreneur to think that I reminisce so much and think
about all my mistakes so much in my personal relationships.
But one of the things that has become front and center is, is this human going
to mess up my routines and my discipline?
(22:42):
And it's surprising how many people I meet that are not in relationships that
are trying to be in one that have no discipline in their lives whatsoever.
And other than going to work every day and then want to be in a relationship
with someone or have success in a relationship when relationships also take
(23:03):
discipline and commitment and all of those things.
And I think, you know, something that I'm learning, I was 44 years old,
I just figured this out, is that love is great and attraction is great. It's important.
But if there's no discipline there or commitment there or ability to do what
(23:29):
you say you're going to do and have the discipline to do it,
those relationships suffer greatly.
And it's a very interesting thing because as I've opened my mind or gone on
some dates here and there,
the hardest part for me is not whether I'm attracted to them or I could even
see myself loving them, okay? It's hard because...
(23:53):
Historically, it's been love at first sight and there's chemistry and clicking
and we're best friends and it goes from there.
But now I very much filter everything through this discipline mindset because
I don't want to lose what I built in myself over the last 16 months.
I don't want to lose my focus on God being number one in my life.
(24:15):
And that's a really weird thing to say coming out of my mouth,
considering that as an entrepreneur for 24 years or 26 years or my whole life,
however you want to look at it, since I started a mowing company when I was
seven years old, however you want to gauge that.
One of the things that has changed a lot is not so much based on how I feel, but how I live.
(24:42):
And if I'm going to love someone for the rest of my life, which I hope I do find that person.
I was hoping it was someone I was already with, that that person was my soulmate.
I was really hoping God would reconcile and restore that relationship in some way, but he has not.
But I do know from learning from that is that if I'm going to love someone forever,
(25:03):
they're going to have to have a very high level of discipline in their lives,
spiritually, physically, mentally, and ups and downs happen in life.
Life, emotionally disciplined, but it's those ups and downs,
whether or not we survive or not.
And here's the other thing. I know plenty of people that are successful entrepreneurs
(25:24):
that have lots of money and everything looks good on the outside and they wear
that badge on them, but emotionally,
physically, mentally, they have no discipline and their life is a train wreck
hidden behind this castle.
And money's great, but I would choose, having been in both situations now,
(25:45):
living really well, having success, also being humbled, that if you don't have
a balance among all those things,
your relationship discipline,
your physical discipline, mental, spiritual, emotional,
you are in trouble.
I watch people the way they live, and everyone thinks they're living a great
(26:06):
life because they have all these things, but inside there's panic attacks.
There's not having purpose.
There's the need of outside affirmation.
There's the need to commit sin, for lack of a better term, since I'm in seminary
and I'll use these terms. They're infiltrating my brain.
But we use these things to make up for the discipline that we lack,
(26:30):
And we take a shortcut to temporarily feel better drugs, alcohol, you name it.
So, well, and I'm sure that you've seen this as much as, you know,
as I have, which is those are the individuals that are like a supernova,
right? Right. Like they burn in.
They have all the things that anybody would want, live the lifestyle.
(26:53):
Have success and then burn out because they haven't built that underlying discipline
to keep that success and momentum and stability for a long period of time.
And I can't remember who said it, but it was basically to the tune of I've known
(27:13):
more people in my life that used to be rich or used to be, you know,
successful than are currently successful.
Just because of that simple fact that most people can get to a position in life
without having to establish those routines and disciplines.
But without them, they fizzle and burn out like the supernova.
(27:33):
It's it's very true and i'm they're
the ones who generally when things get hard they quit or
they force other people to quit they drag them down
with them i see it in relationships all the time successful people and then
they're the the spouse or the other person sort of drag them down and they they're
(27:54):
pulled down because there's all these relationship expectations or other relationships
struggle and the businesses suffer or go under,
depending how you look at it and or depending what happens.
So, I mean, there's a lot there. The thing is, is it's true.
You want a good life, like quote unquote good life and stay in the comfort zone.
(28:18):
You don't have to challenge anything.
It's not going to be hot. It's not going to be great. You're not going to have
all these great achievements.
You're probably not going to have this lifelong romantic romantic,
exciting, sexually awesome relationship with your spouse, but it's comfortable. It's safe.
Right. But so, I mean, at the same time, great.
(28:40):
You have the, your discipline is staying comfortable and being average,
you know, or mediocre, I should say, because average, at least you're trying. Right.
But, you know, if you just give up or you just want someone to take care of
you or you just want all your needs met, one, it's not attractive.
(29:00):
I'll just say that. Number two, it's ultimately going to lead you to a point
in your life where I've seen being in all the long-term care homes and talking to a lot of old-timers,
especially now as I'm getting a lot of mentoring in my life and coaching,
is you start getting to the end of your life and you feel like you've done nothing
(29:20):
with it because you made everything about the materials or being comfortable.
It's so in that discomfort that we find the growth to be awesome or who we are.
And it does cost us things.
Seeking discomfort and growing who we are costs us relationships.
Sometimes it costs us businesses or partnerships, family members.
(29:41):
But at the end of the day, it's what are we living for?
Are we living for our impact or influence? Are we living for our children?
What do we want our children to accomplish? push. I don't know anyone who doesn't
want their children to be successful, but maybe, you know, I hear more and more
how people just want their children to be happy, you know, and I get it,
(30:02):
but what does that mean ultimately?
So you talked a little bit about values and values in your business and values and core values.
Let's talk a little bit about that, AJ, your values, the values of your business, like things like that.
Talk to me about core values and sort of some of the ones that are essential to you.
(30:26):
Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost, you know, faith, family,
relationships, business are probably in that order, right?
In terms of ranking importance, you know, core values to me on an individual
level are, it's very difficult to articulate because it's just how I live,
but at the foundation of it all, right?
(30:48):
It's, it's discipline, it's love, it's commitment, you know,
being able to follow up and do the things that I say that I'm going to do.
And then ultimately celebrate the ability and the.
The things that we win together as a family, as a company, as a community, all those things.
(31:12):
So that's the foundation of personal core values.
And then lastly, the cherry on top for me is just the even relenting will to win.
I don't say that as a, I will do anything to win or at all costs.
That's not what I mean by that. But, you know, all of us as entrepreneurs have
(31:32):
to have a certain edge and a want and a desire and a will to win.
And I think that gene in me or that tendency in me has led to a lot of good
things in our life and our business. And so I make that kind of a focal point
of, you know, my own personal core values.
But as a company, and this is why we aligned pretty well.
(31:55):
So we kind of have this model that looks like a pyramid.
And we do it like that because, you know, each of these core values,
as they stack on top of each other, you know, they get more and more important.
But they rely also on the values that are underneath of them.
And the first one is creating trust, right?
(32:16):
Because in any business relationship, any personal relationship,
it comes from establishing that trust factor, being able to follow up and do
the things that they say they're going to do.
And this is what we instill in all of our folks is that, you know,
nothing in our business transpires unless they trust us.
(32:36):
Because how would they, you know, put their life's work in trust?
Feel comfortable in the piece of paper that we're selling them,
if you will, that's basically a promise and a dream that if they pay premium
and something bad happens, that the insurance company is going to be there to back it up, right?
So that's the foundation. Then we've got value challenge, speaking to your kind
(33:01):
of discomfort comment about how are we growing or how are we progressing in
life if we're always comfortable.
And so we think that, you know, having challenging conversations,
having challenging expectations and goals and valuing those challenges to continue
to level up and grow the organization as an important building block on our core values.
(33:25):
And then, you know, encouraging that commitment to each other internally,
to our clients, clients and then ultimately to our communities.
I think a lot of times the insurance industry doesn't quite understand the impact
that it has in that order, right?
Both to our clients and the communities. We'd like to stress the importance
(33:47):
and tell our folks, you're not just answering a phone to make an auto change.
Impact to that is X, Y, and Z at the end of the day for that client to continue
to operate and drive revenue and create jobs and create lives for other people.
So just kind of having them understand the impact and encouraging that commitment
(34:10):
to each other, the clients and the communities.
And then on top of that, we promote accountability.
That's one of our core values. So making sure that as we say what we're going
to do and do what we're going to say, that we're providing that stewardship
to our clients and making them aware.
And they get to hold us accountable to what we say and how we say we're going to deliver.
(34:35):
And ultimately, that can revert us back down to creating trust if that trust
is lost and broken through that accountability process.
But it's a never-ending cycle for us. And then lastly, we like to celebrate results.
I talked about my unrelenting will to win Then in our case on the business side,
(34:55):
celebrating results both from our team, our wins with our clients,
and wins with our carrier partners and other things as well.
So that's kind of the background and the overview, but it's just a nice indication
of showing how personal values and ultimately our corporate values kind of align at the end of the day.
So, AJ, like you're obviously on a personal growth journey, the Arate,
(35:18):
the Evolve, all of the stuff that you're doing, listen to podcasts,
agreeing to come on this podcast.
So talk to me a little bit about where you are and why you're doing it.
It's a great question. I don't know that I have context to where I am today
because I don't think the journey is close to being over.
(35:39):
Why I continue down this path is because I feel like there's so much more to
be given from life than the norm.
And when we get stuck in these routines and these expectations of what your Your life should be,
(36:01):
you're not fulfilling, you know, God's investment in you to a certain extent.
And so I go down this personal growth journey because I feel like I want to
give God a return on that investment.
And the only way to do that is to continue to grow and expand and,
(36:24):
you know, challenge the expectation and continue to level up.
Not just for the material things
but because the impact to our
communities and ultimately what the next
generation may look like through my children or
their children's children or whatever the case is starts with you know one person
(36:47):
deciding that the situation that they're in isn't enough and the only way to
expand is through that personal growth journey and you know i think back to
our conversation too on that same you know deck overlooking the
sunset there about being the one for your
family as ed mylet would put it about you know the one that shows up and changes
(37:09):
the dynamics financially spiritually emotionally whatever it is and we had a
nice discussion about you know there could be a one and there could be multiple the ones.
And, you know, I tend to think that my father was the one for our family to establish a.
(37:33):
You know, career path to the lack of a better analogy,
but I want to be the next one to continue to expand that vision,
that legacy, that understanding for, for my two kids and, you know,
whatever stems from that beyond is up to them.
But I want to have heavy influence in that and continue to pour that into them
(37:55):
over the time that they grow up.
I love it. So family's important to you.
Obviously you grew up in a family business. business you just
talked about your kids and family and legacy and stuff
like that could you expand upon it do you
think about your generational impact if so
how do you go about it how do you raise boys being someone who also was raised
(38:16):
in a family business and by two parents that were entrepreneurial because i
think that's important as well right yeah so i've got two kids a boy and a girl, seven and four.
And I think about generational impact a lot.
You know, I feel as if I've sacrificed a lot of things in my short amount of
(38:44):
time on this planet to set up whatever that future might look like for the next
generations. And I've done that very intentionally.
Or that's through financial planning, other vehicles, estate planning,
and other things like that, that ultimately will pay dividends to our heirs
for many generations to come.
(39:06):
And I've always felt like that was my obligation.
Being in a situation where my dad passed,
we have to step into a role where you become essentially the pillar of the family
that's driving the revenue of the business,
supporting two of your younger siblings that are still in high school and needing to go to college.
(39:32):
And, you know, my mother that was worked in the business as our CFO,
but, you know, would have not been able to transition the business had we not
been there to, and I say we, cause my wife plays a really, really big role in all of this.
She's a, you know, stay at home parent with our two kids and,
you know, without her sacrifice of, you know, doing that and say sacrifice,
(39:57):
but it's her calling is her advocation for sure.
But it gives us the freedom to, you know, take appointments and do things more
flexibly than we would otherwise.
And so that's why I say we, but had we not been able to step in and kind of
handle that, who knows what the next generation would have looked like.
(40:18):
And so that's why it's very, very important. I mean, I feel like that's my, my burden to carry.
And so we've made a lot of intentional decisions to do that.
And raising a boy and a girl, they're very, very different, very,
very challenging because the style is so different.
(40:38):
And I found myself challenged with raising a boy just because I feel like I've
sometimes imprinted my expectations of myself onto him.
And it's not fair as a seven-year-old to have to carry that.
And so a lot of personal growth and development around
just the parenting aspect of you know how
(41:00):
to appropriately you know
raise him up without putting unexpected burden expectation on him it's certainly
challenging and my little girl just got me wrapped around her finger it's it's
hard not to you know she's definitely got my attitude and so we're gonna have
to deal with that at some point but.
(41:22):
Yeah, I think I've kind of gotten off track with the questions,
but very, very important is family and the legacy that hopefully will leave for them.
Yeah, I want to talk about two things or two books, actually.
Any men and women out there who are raising sons or any men that are sort of
going through a life crisis or identity crisis or trying to help their sons
(41:44):
so they don't go through the same sort of male crisis as we go through as men.
There's two books out there I recommend. men. One is called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge.
Phenomenal book for men. Also phenomenal for helping you lead,
grow, and facilitate their own growth and facilitate God in their life is that
(42:06):
Wild at Heart book. It blew me away.
I just read it for a second time. I read it about nine years ago and I just read it again.
It is a phenomenal book. The other one is called Future Men by Douglas Wilson.
Again, that's Future Men, M-E-N, by Douglas Wilson.
That is just, I want to talk about a biblical grounding in men and the difference
(42:29):
between men and women and raising men versus raising women in a lot of ways. And I don't know.
I was a male. I went to all-boys Catholic school. But both of those books seriously blew me away.
And then there's another one, you
know it's called man of god and it
(42:51):
is another book that i recently read that
also helps with all that so anyone who's out there who's listening in i'll have
to get the name of the author i can't remember off the top of my head but it's
a phenomenal book also so there there's those three books there that actually
i'll tell you guys right now because i bet i have it on my phone.
(43:14):
In my library. The other one is called The Measure of a Man. Sorry, not Man of God.
It's called The Measure of a Man by Gene Getz, G-E-T-Z.
That book's also pretty phenomenal for raising young men and becoming men ourselves.
So those are three books out there, guys.
The Measure of a Man, Future Men, and Wild at Heart.
(43:36):
All three of those books seriously have changed to who I am.
They've lit the spirit inside of me that I had before as I've gone through a life transitions.
I should say many transitions.
My life looks nothing like it did two years ago.
And I think since you just talked about it, AJ, that it was important to bring that up.
(43:56):
But it is hard to raise children. It's hard to raise men.
It's hard to grow humans even in our businesses, let alone our families.
So I think that that's a big deal there as well.
Well aj takeaways from
evolve since i i want to give a plug here
for angela and sort of the event we did together what were your biggest takeaways
(44:18):
my biggest takeaways from evolve is emotional processing is something that i've
never been good at you know one of the things that because of the
rapidness of my father's decline and passing and all those things,
I don't think I ever really truly emotionally processed that loss.
(44:43):
Not only as a business leader, my mentor, but also just my dad, right?
And all the time that we spent together on hockey trips and baseball trips and
family vacations and just in the living room,
you know farting around watching whatever it was
on tv but so learning to take a
(45:05):
step back and emotionally process you know things that happen because you know
we were talking a little bit about this before we got started but just the the
you know the tendency of entrepreneurs to instead of emotionally process something
continue to pile you know new things on ourselves to keep
us busy to avoid having to emotionally process something.
(45:28):
But it's not necessarily a healthy, I shouldn't say necessarily,
it's not a healthy habit.
At the end of the day, that emotion is still there. It's going to bubble up.
It's going to create anxiety or undue stress or worry or guilt.
And so one of my biggest takeaways was just being able to force myself through
(45:49):
discipline to step back and say,
okay, I need to actually think about this, emotionally process it,
understand what the impact is, feel whatever it is that I'm meant to felt,
and then finally can kind of move on from that.
And then, you know, just a leadership and development perspective,
(46:10):
you know, some of the lessons from our breakout on leadership.
And Justin, you were a big, you know, proponent in that kind of discussion.
But some of those little nuggets are always big takeaways.
And as I feel like that's as I continue
to grow and develop is one thing that I can continue to get better at is just
(46:33):
how do we expand and give people hope and vision and show them that they're
worthy of more than maybe what their vision for themselves and expectations are.
Yeah, it's hard. I agree with you. One of the things is learning to unlock other people's potential.
(46:53):
It's a big thing. I'm much better at unlocking other people's potential than
my own, just so everyone's aware of that one. It's why I need coaches and mentors.
I am forgiving, loving, and kind to others, but I have this inability to understand
that I can too be loved unconditionally, like I love others and be forgiving of myself,
(47:16):
or people can be forgiving of me as I forgive of others.
And so it costs me to push people away, honestly, or put up walls, I should say.
And I I never thought about that I was like that, but I would say over the situation
I've put myself through over the last 18 to 24 months, I've learned a lot about myself in that way.
(47:37):
And I think that from a human standpoint, the way we learn that is by growing others.
The other way we do it is self-reflection for the purpose of growth.
Not just looking at what I've done or how I've done it, but making,
working really hard so we don't do it again, you know, and in my life,
I've been sorry a lot, but I've repeated the same mistake, which becomes a decision.
(48:01):
If I'm knowingly repeating the same mistake, it's a decision.
And so for me, I've had to learn to say sorry and mean it.
I've had to learn to make amends to damage I've done for the last 20 to 24 four
years, maybe longer, I've had to repent.
(48:22):
And it's crazy because I am a different human now.
And I would say that my light that's shining out of me is so much brighter than it's ever been.
I mean, I'm still broken in a lot of ways and I'm still growing in a lot of ways.
But at the same time, I think from a human standpoint, leading others,
if we can help facilitate their growth, facilitate their healing,
(48:46):
facilitate their potential being grown, and I'll say it this way,
leading them towards the reason God created them, the purpose God created them
for, and helping assist in that way,
you know, the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest inside of them.
And that's a pretty phenomenal thing to watch. Once you start figuring out how to do it.
(49:08):
And it took me a long time to come to terms with God and that's a gift he had
given me, or as they say, a seed that is planted inside of me,
also known as the fruit of the spirit.
We've got to grow it so it does bear fruit.
And it's a pretty incredible thing that goes on there when you do figure it
(49:30):
out inside yourself and you figure out that you can grow the potential of others.
So AJ as we sort of wrap
up here well hold on before we do I need to hear your takeaways I want to know
what your evolved takeaways are as we continue to plug Angela here oh yeah good
call I found amongst the so I'll describe it this way.
(49:55):
I broke about 16 months ago when I I, you know, I almost jumped off a bridge
in Nashville. God saved me for sure.
Working through someone else, my life just bottomed out.
I then did some stupid things and probably cost myself a relationship that would
later fall apart. And we'd go through a reconciliation.
(50:15):
When we went through the reconciliation and that fell apart last September,
I broke into a million pieces.
That's why I didn't do the podcast. cast and I didn't, I totally became totally lost.
I lost who I was and I didn't know who I was.
(50:38):
Like I had to learn who I really was and who I really wasn't. I say that a lot.
And I really leaned into personal growth first and sort of put the growing of
others on the the back burner.
I could, I didn't have any businesses like really other than the podcast at
that time and some consulting work I was working on and working on a TV show called Foodtopia.
(51:04):
And by the time I would get to evolve about, I mean, it's almost six months
later, by the time I light the reconciliation stopped, I end up in Denver alone.
Rebuilding my life brick by brick, piece by piece.
Evolve helped me identify what bricks I needed and what bricks I didn't need anymore.
(51:28):
And then also introduced new bricks into my life to build who I am.
So one of the things that I think really helped me is Evolve's a high level
of entrepreneurs that were there, high thinkers, spiritually performing.
And I'm not talking about what's in the bank account. I'm talking about from
(51:49):
the standpoint of where their potential is going.
So for me, it was just seeing and being in that environment again to see everyone's
confidence in me that I didn't have in myself.
That's my first takeaway. My second
takeaway is how much I relied on what other people thought about me or the affirmations
(52:17):
from the outside world versus who I am.
Even amongst all the success and all the failures or whatever,
it always came down to I valued myself based on the way the world saw me,
not the way that God saw me and not the way that I saw myself.
(52:38):
I let relationships and business partners determine who I was and sometimes
and it became like a mask that I wore and act accordingly.
So that's number two. Number three is, well.
I mean, I'll jump around here a little bit.
(53:00):
Three for me was meeting with Alex and marketing and having marketing really explained in a way that,
and I've been in marketing media and even was an owner of a marketing media
company called Centerfold out of Charlotte, North Carolina for a long time.
But the way he explained online marketing and social media marketing and all
(53:23):
that has changed my life and changed the way I do the podcast and go through that.
And it's changed the way I do my personal social media marketing.
And it's grown because of both Alex's, both Alex, the photographer and Alex,
who owns the marketing advertising company.
And that really was significant to me.
(53:46):
I don't know what it was, but the missing piece was, who am I?
Who actually is Justin and what's the message that I'm trying to get across?
Not Justin, the entrepreneur.
Not Justin, the seminarian. Not Justin, the step-parent that I once was.
Was not just in, you know, significant other ones of Deborah.
(54:09):
I identified myself as all of those things, not just in the son of Angelo.
And when I really figured out who I actually was and the light turned back on
inside of me, it changed everything.
And then being able to capture that and display it to the outside world,
you know, that's incredible. Incredible. Whatever Angela is doing and the group
(54:34):
of leaders that ran that, significant.
I mean, Josh Kosnick also, like him going through the situation he went through
and having so many similarities to him, to me, and finding God in the way that we did.
Not that neither one of us ever didn't believe in God, but finding God in a
different way and a whole new intense relationship. That would be number four.
(54:57):
And number five would be you can meet anyone at any time in your life.
And there's going to be times where you meet humans, whether it's intimately
or not. For me, Deborah was this romantically.
It's like I knew her my whole life. She was my best friend.
(55:20):
It's like she knew me better than I knew myself.
But in a business relationship or in a peer-to-peer relationship,
I never allowed myself to be vulnerable and authentic enough in relationships
that I was able to do and evolve.
I was able to let a group into my life more than I've ever let in because it
(55:45):
was an environment where faith, trust, spirituality,
business, relationships all kind of collided into one safe space, one great space.
And I built a lot of relationships there that'll probably be some of the best
friends I have for life, including you, AJ, which is saying a lot for me because
(56:08):
I don't generally trust humans.
And out of all the humans, Deborah was the one I trusted the most,
and that didn't go very well.
So that would be the thing that really evolved did for me.
It taught me to trust humans again for their soul, not for their words, not for their soul,
(56:31):
which has a lot to do with their actions and kindness and caring and gentleness.
And so that would be it for me. I know I went on a long rampage there,
but those would be the things that really matter to me, honestly.
No, I think that's super valuable.
You and I are a lot alike, I think, in that last bullet point where,
(56:54):
you know, I wouldn't say I'm a chameleon, but I'm certainly the one that's generally
more reserved and quiet in a room like that because of the simple fact that
it's hard to show the vulnerabilities, right? Right.
And it's hard to open yourself up and let others judge you, whether they are
or not, for what you perceive as your shortcomings.
(57:16):
And so having and that's a similar struggle of mine and why Evolve has also
been powerful for me is that was a space where I felt like finally I could tell,
you know, who I was and what I, you know, struggle with.
And, you know, who can help me opposed to feeling like you have to keep the
(57:37):
weight of it on your shoulders by yourself and, you know, be that reserved one
that never lets anybody see what you look like without the mask on.
And so I think that's a super powerful message to take away for sure.
Yeah, and I would say this.
Evolve changed me for some reason. All the work I had done over the six months,
(57:59):
maybe even over the last 16 months, it weirdly tied it all together.
And it was hard. It was like after Evolve, the growing pains that followed the
last two weeks afterwards was extremely hard and painful emotionally, for sure.
(58:20):
And I don't know if anyone would recognize me anymore.
You know, I fear a little bit that in all of this humbling that's going on and
all this change that am I still the same entrepreneur that I was?
Can I still be as successful as I was?
Back then, I don't know. Can I still learn from my failures in the way that I did before?
(58:41):
I don't know. But I do know that in seeking to try to be a whole human and trying
to fit God into my life, it weirdly all aligned after that event. I don't know why.
I don't know why God did it that way. I don't know why.
Because I said this at the thing, I was fighting tooth and nail not to go of
(59:02):
that thing. I mean, my Uber driver got lost on a mountain.
I haven't said this on a podcast, but we were driving down a dirt pathway that was a logging thing.
And the poor Uber driver, we had to drive an hour and a half,
maybe even longer, two hours from Charlotte airport to the event in the middle
(59:22):
of the night because my flight was delayed and missed a connection. action.
And at the end of the day, like it took me forever to get there.
We were supposed to take an hour and a half or hour, 45 minutes,
took three and a half hours because we got so lost on the mountain.
But I didn't want to go. It was like I was fighting tooth and nail to avoid it.
(59:43):
Didn't want to go to another event. I didn't want to even be there.
I was avoiding it. I was, you know, and deep down inside,
I was hoping my flight would get canceled because I just,
for some reason, I wasn't ready to get out of my shell yet and isolate myself
and crawl out of the hole that I was in and the feeling like,
(01:00:04):
you know, not necessarily wanting to kill myself,
but not necessarily wanting to live either because I was just so broken.
Even in seminary school, I'm like, what am I doing here?
How did I, how did God lead me here? Why this?
And then all of a sudden it all fell into place. It's like God pushed me and
then I met all of you guys and my network changed. My life changed.
(01:00:28):
I met some, geez, the light. And just the same with you, AJ.
I mean, the light that comes out of all of you, the spirit is something I've
never seen before in a group.
Have you, I've seen it like in individuals at an Arate syndicate function or
at an entrepreneur function where there's hundreds of people.
Yeah, there's individuals here and there, but never as a group like there was
(01:00:52):
with this and the way it was structured subgroups and vulnerability and talking
and even the training and marketing and finance and all the different breakout groups.
Groups relationships was one of them which just ouch that
one hurt quite a bit when i got reality you know
so yeah i think it's just the coolest thing i've experienced in a long time
(01:01:16):
that's awesome well if i could just offer you one thing because i feel like
yeah god's telling me to to say this to your comment a minute ago you don't
know if people will recognize you or that you'll be who you once were.
I think that's not what's meant to happen anyways.
I think you're supposed to, you know, have people that don't recognize you or
(01:01:36):
to, you know, that may not be with you any longer because of the change that
you're going through and they just aren't, you know, meant to be there any longer.
And I don't know that you're meant to live up to your past, you know,
entrepreneurial success or stature or whatnot, because you are what you are today, day, right?
You're not who you were then. And all that growth and development and putting
(01:02:00):
the pieces back together has made you who you are now.
And I'm excited for you to see, you know, what that next path and journey looks
like and whether you're the same or not, it's going to be a success in my mind.
I appreciate that big time. I mean, it's a lot coming from you for sure.
And seeing what you've been through and what you've accomplished.
(01:02:21):
AJ, as we sort of close up here, is there anything you want to share or tell
the audience or anything that we sort of skipped over that you maybe want to elaborate on?
No, man, it was a very, very in-depth and enlightening conversation.
I feel blessed to be a part of it and to be on your show.
And I'm very grateful and thankful for the invitation and the fact that God
(01:02:44):
keeps bringing us together in these rooms.
It just reinforces the fact that we're meant to do something together.
So we'll figure out what that is someday.
And I just appreciate the time and the conversation and the openness that was
our dialogue today. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Law of attraction, I would say, is a big deal, even in God's world.
(01:03:07):
When our spirits shine, we tend to collect together.
You know, and if you are hurting, you know, you're out there or you feel like
your spirit's not shining or your light's not shining on the world and you're in a very dark place,
you know, find someone to help guide you whose light is shining for sure.
Because I know that's what I had to do.
(01:03:29):
So thank you everyone for listening in. Thank you, AJ, for coming on the show.
Where can they find you online?
How can they reach out to you? How can they find your business?
Yeah, Facebook and Instagram,
AJ underscore Chris, K-R-I-S-T on Insta or at NorthRiskPartners.com is our website.
(01:03:51):
And I'm happy to connect with anyone in your audience here and talk life or insurance or baseball.
That's my other passion. So whatever you want, I'm an open book. Yeah, I love it.
Do you guys want to find us? You can find us on Spotify or wherever else you
grow yourself through podcasts.
(01:04:12):
You can also find Justin the Food Entrepreneur is on there as well as Centurion Leadership Battalion.
And if you go on Instagram, you can find Gorilla Brave as well as Leaders to
Owners and follow the links and you will find those pages as well as you can
go on my personal Instagram at Justin Bizzaro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O,
and find the links to Gorilla Brave and Leaders to Owners as well.
(01:04:36):
So thank you guys for listening in. I love you guys, and we're out.
Music.