Sometimes, clarity doesn’t come from working harder. It comes from stepping away.
In this episode of The Verdict, Clarke sits down with college senior and entrepreneur Ryan Cazella to talk about a life-changing trip to Europe that reshaped his perspective on identity, purpose, and what truly matters.
After traveling to Hungary and Italy, where his family roots trace back generations, Ryan experienced something deeper than just a trip. From meeting extended family members for the first time to walking through the towns his ancestors lived in, the experience gave him a new understanding of who he is and where his drive comes from.
Join us as we explore the power of heritage, the importance of preserving family history, and how stepping outside your normal environment can unlock clarity, direction, and motivation.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
🌍 Stepping outside your environment can create powerful clarity
👨👩👧 Family history and heritage shape identity and values
📸 Preserving stories and memories is more important than ever
📱 Creating content can be a way to document and share experiences
💡 New environments can spark new ideas and direction
🙏 Faith, family, fitness, and community drive fulfillment
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Transcript (Click To Read)
Hi, I’m Clark Speaks. Welcome to The Verdict. I’m here with Ryan Kazella. Ryan, welcome. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me on. I’m excited. So Ryan is a college senior, a finance major, an entrepreneur, and one of the reasons that I was excited to have you on is because we’ve known each other for a while, but you recently have done some things. And you took a trip and you came back and you had this whole new perspective and this whole excitement of what you were doing. And it seems to me from the outside looking in that you have that a vision of what you want to do in the foreseeable future sort of crystallized for you. Is that fair? Yeah, that’s a great first assessment. So yeah, I’m a senior at UNC Wilmington. I’m 21 years old, studying finance. and recently, this winter break, I took a trip to Europe with my family. So we went December 18th to 29th. And this was my first time. We visited a few countries, but we really wanted to see Hungary. That’s where my family’s from. And that’s where my grandfather was born. My dad’s first language was Hungarian. So we went over there to take this trip. And I mean, it was just so eye-opening and life-changing. I’m meeting my great uncle who I’ve never met before. And he’s built the same way as me. He’s got the same mannerisms as me, even though he’s never been to the United States. I’m meeting second cousins. I’m meeting fourth cousins. I’m meeting all these people. I’m seeing gravestones. My last name is Kazella. But we went to this small town, C-A-S-E-L-L-A, Casella Italy, a little town an hour from Genoa where my family was first from. And they migrated in the 1800s to Esterglum in Hungary to help build the basilica, one of the biggest basilicas in all of Eastern Europe. So I’m seeing this gorgeous basilica and this piece of architectural masterpiece. And I’m like, my family helped build this. I’m seeing these gravestones of the Kuzella name from the 1800s in this little town in this mountainside in Hungary. And I’m just like, wow, I’m seeing family trees. I’m seeing all these artifacts. So it was an insane trip. I met so many great people. And my family decided to leave December 28. And I talked to my dad and my mom. And I was like, can I stay by myself? And they said yes, so they let me stay an extra 10 days. So I stayed until I think January 8 by myself. And I was staying with just extended family. I stayed with my one Pishtibachi. And I mean, he didn’t speak a Lake of English. And I didn’t speak, I don’t barely speak Hungarian. So I stayed with him for three days. But I was just learning so much. And I was taking it all in. And while I was over there, I was just kind of documenting everything. I was taking pictures of all the stuff I was seeing because I was like, this is so cool. When I go back to the States, I need to organize this and stuff so that it’s never forgotten because I just didn’t want there to be like a fire. A lot of these people don’t speak great English, the older people. The younger ones do. A lot of them don’t speak great English, the older ones. My grandmother is almost like the family historian. She speaks amazing English and Hungarian. And she knows a lot of the history and the stories. But she’s getting older and stuff. And I was just like, it’s important that I digitalize this. And I’m young. I kind of know what I’m doing, so that there isn’t something that happens- Someone dies or something. and all this stuff gets lost forever because it’s so interesting and it’s so important. So I started doing that and then while I was over there, I kind of started this travel account to just consolidate all the information because I found myself sending information to hometown buddies, college buddies, my buddies’ dads, all this stuff. And a lot of the things they needed context, like, oh, it’s a funny video of my dad, but this is why it’s funny. And I felt myself spending a lot of time doing that. And I was like, I just need one spot to put this all. So I started that account over there and just started kind of documenting what I was doing just so that it’s like, hey, if you wanted to fall along, just do it there. And then from there, it’s kind of just grown and kind of taken its own path. But that’s kind of the gist of it. And going over there just gave me this different sense of clarity and kind of taught me what was really important in life, which is faith, family, fitness, and community and all these values that they have over there. And you see over there, these people live until they’re like 90 years old. And they’ve got such a good sense of community. And I was in Italy, Germany, Hungary, and they all have these big family dinners and stuff. And I love this stuff. And it’s so fulfilling. And so I don’t know. That’s just kind of a tangent there. But that’s just the gist of what I did and what I went over there and the mentality that I kind of brought back into the U.S. If you had to pinpoint, what was the, was it the history, was it the architecture, was it the fact that you were in a different place? Had you been to Europe before? Was it the being around these older people in your family that were giving you a different perspective? or was it something in you? What was it that was sort of the thing that created all this motivation for you? So I think the biggest thing was just identity and kind of learning like why I am the way I am. You know, I’ve always been a pretty outgoing, hardworking person. I’ve been very similar to my dad. But I go over there and I’m meeting all these other, because hell is my family. And I’m like, this is why I am the way I am, kind of like through genetics and just through different things. And I was like, this is so cool. I mean, my father’s a business owner. His father was a business owner. His father was a business owner. My little sister runs a baking business. She’s 16 in high school. And I’ve always had these qualities, but now I’m like, I understand why. Where they came from. Where they came from. And I’ve never been to Europe before. I’ve never met these people before, but just the way I was able to connect with them, it was just truly like life changing.
