Jordan
Hello, and welcome to Episode Four of the relentless pursuit. And in this episode, we’re excited to present you with our very first interview.

Rosanna
It was a fun one, that’s for sure. So part of the reason why we started relentless pursuit was to just learn and grow as a couple, while hustling hard after our passions. And so we thought a great way to be able to do that, besides just having conversations that are pretty intentional with each other is to kind of bring other people in, to learn from them. And, you know, even to almost find mentors along the way of who we could be more like in certain ways and what we can glean from them. So that’s kind of the point of the interview. So we interviewed a couple that we know a little bit we didn’t really know them very well. But we spent some time together the other night and we’re able to share a meal and a glass of wine together and dig deep and then do an interview after and it was really great.

Jordan
Yeah. So the couple is Leo and Melissa Spirrizzi. And Leo Spizzirri is a pizzaiolo – I think I said that right?

Rosanna
I think so that is pretty good.

Jordan
And he’s a master pizza maker. And there’s very few people who have been trained at his level of pizza mastery. Right now he teaches over at the North American pizza and Culinary Institute in Lisle, Illinois. And there are only two of these kinds of institutes in the United States and only a handful more in the world. He trained under master’s in Italy, and is the guy when it comes to pizza. He’s prolific on YouTube. And you can learn a ton from him directly about pizza and about a lot of other really fascinating things that you might be interested in trying out.

Rosanna
And then he’s married. to Melissa, who is by far the most warm and infectious personality that I’ve met in a long time. And while Leo may be a master, pizza maker, and artisan, she is a master in her own industry. She is a master in the salon industry, she has been working at the same salon for 24 years. And not only is she a master stylist, but she is an educator. And one thing I found really great about both of them is how much they’re into not only having their own passion and pursuing it, but sharing their love in their industry with other people.

Jordan
And that’s one of the things that fascinated us during this conversation. And you’ll hear more about what their what they see as valuable in both being able to teach others but also what they’ve learned from others and the mentors that they’ve had along the way. Some of the things to listen for are how they tend to reflect on their own performances and use reflection to grow. They also talk about their ways of connecting with other people. You’ll listen to some fascinating takes on how they support one another and facilitate family and facilitate marriage and love alongside supporting one another’s independent careers. And you’re going to learn a lot about pizza as well.

Rosanna
A lot about pizza.

Jordan
So we present you with Leo and Melissa Siri. Hope you enjoy, enjoy.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves both and who you are, as a couple, a little bit of your background and just kind of you know what you do with yourselves nowadays?

Leo
Let me go first. Sure.

Melisa
You want to go first.

Leo
My name is Leo Spizzirri. I’m I’m currently the co founder and Master Instructor of the North American pizza and Culinary Academy here in Chicago. I’ve been making pizzas all my life. I’ve I’ve really taken an interest in baking and decided to pursue it as a career. It’s given me a lot of opportunities along the way. To meet a lot of really interesting people give me a lot of really interesting experiences. And through the experiences that I’ve gained throughout the years, it’s given me the ability to open up a school, which is the first of its kind in the United States as far as the first accredited pizza school in the US. And to have students come from all over the world to learn and understand the methods that I’m teaching. It’s a it’s a really humbling experience.

Melisa
My name is Melissa Spizzirri, and we’re married, obviously. I’m a hairdresser and I work in at a salon. I’ve worked there for 20, almost 25 years and we have a family together, obviously So I feel like I have many jobs. But I like both of our main job is our family first and then our careers, and we both have really big careers and my career kind of expands all through my life – family, friends. It’s just really doing hair but being involved in all different areas.

Jordan
I think that’s one thing that interested me in but just learning a little bit more about you before sitting down tonight is I think a lot of people can say, Alright, I do hair, but I don’t think you frame it that way. You see it as more than just that.

Melisa
I think most people view have a kind of mixed up view of a hairdresser. They think like oh, it’s just doing hair. But hairdressers are like a rare breed that just I don’t know exude into all parts of life in all different areas all the time. You know.

Leo
I think she’s being really humble because from what she does, you know, obviously, she does hair for a living, but she’s…

Jordan
…usually doesn’t make people humble.

Leo
You know, she’s an educator. So she’s teaching she’s got, they’ve got a mentor program. So she’s teaching new hairdressers that come into the game, how to be better hairdressers, the people that I hear stories about, you know, at night, we sit down after dinner, have a glass of wine and just talk about our days. You know, to say that, you know, a hairdresser is like a psychiatrist, psychiatrists listen to everybody’s problems all day long. Like, for me, I would never be able to do it. I have enough of my own problems and let alone to listen to everybody else.

Melisa
I feel a little bit bad for Leo in the time of not not for anything else. But in the time of the pandemic here in this time that we’re in. I’m used to going to work Call day talking all day doing nothing all day. And I have like 20 to 25 people to talk to all day now it’s like him…

Leo
opening a bottle of champagne and all like, everything comes out.

Melisa
Yeah, so you know he’s been a good can quarantine partner.

Leo
Glad to hear that.

Rosanna
Well, it’s funny that you say that about being and I’ve heard that about like hairstyles or like therapists or like your friend or mentors or like they’re, they usually clients stay with you for a long time. So you know, like their history and their background. And just even with my work, same thing, I’ve had clients for the last six years and the things that they like, tell me, confided me like they have a question like, unrelated to an event like they’ll call me and be like, Hey, this is what I’m doing my kids like what would what would you do in this situation? It’s interesting like the relationship that you build with people over a long time that it’s not just what you’re doing for them. It’s like who they see you as and, and who you come to know them as and like how they rely on you like, over the years.

Jordan
But I don’t think that’s true with everybody. Like I think like a lot of people who will do hair will say like, Well, yeah, that’s what I do. I’m a hairdresser. And that’s kind of what it is like, but I think you, you see the opportunity that’s there to connect with people. Maybe it strikes me as a little bit more than what maybe you’re a typical kind of hairdresser/stylist might might see.

Melisa
Yeah, here hairdressing I first of all, I work for a company that is in the top 2% of all hair salons in probably the world. Multiple locations and I’ve worked there so long that it’s I’ve been married. I’ve worked there longer than I’ve been married to Leo, longer than my first marriage. So it’s like kind of being married to something you know. But the level in which I work is much higher than say your average hairdresser. But you’re totally right. I would say probably – this is probably surprising – but like 25% here in 75% connecting with people well

Jordan
So what are your secrets for connecting with people? Like so someone sits down what what are your your kind of steps during that conversation to get to that 75%?

Melisa
You know in my in my company right now who I work for, they’re trying to get me to break this down into a breakdown so other people could understand it because I’m just gonna say I think it’s a god given gift. It’s like more of an art than a science to be able to connect with people. Leo has it, I have it. I don’t think I haven’t any of you do seem to have it.

Leo
Oh, it takes something very special gig. She can sit down in front of anybody and within I body exaggerate within 10 minutes, you’ll have Were hands in their hair and be like, Oh, so what kind of product do you use? or What is this and like, you make a connection so quickly that people just start to open up.

Melisa
Their cool hair is the tool for me to connect with people many times, you know, I don’t I don’t have to use hair, but it’s mostly what I do. But it’s a hard thing to break what you just said. How do you get to that point? It’s, I think it’s sort of just in you. And if people could take away a little bit of it, that’s good. But it’s, it’s something that takes a long time to sort of grow into, but you just kind of have to have it in inside you at the very beginning.

Jordan
That desire to connect.

Leo
Yeah, and at the end of the day, I think they, it’s like, you’ve done a service for them. And it’s not like you’ve got your claws in them, right. But at some point, it’s like, you’ve pulled them enough that they’re, they’re yours, you know that you’ve gained that loyalty. Within an hour service, and you’ve gained loyalty for how many customers that you’ve got for over 20 years, and I think that that’s not an easy thing to do. And I think that’s again, I think that’s one of the things that comes out. She’s always the kind of person that is constantly putting everybody before herself. And when people hear you talk like that, you don’t want to we’re talking genuine to somebody else that really resonates deep, strong, you know. And I think that that’s why I mean, if she could literally be on the phone all day long, if it’s a text or a phone call, or social media, and it’s always got something to do with either talking about their hair, someone just had a baby, right, whatever it might be. But again, I think it’s just that you got that personality that people are just charmed, and they feel comfortable and they always want to be around you.

Jordan
Have you ever had someone be like, “Wow, I can’t believe I just told you that”?

Melisa
Oh, God. Every day, I think people are like, Listen, you don’t know anyone I know. Right? Because, yeah, that happens. I mean, it’s like definitely like a bartender or Something people can find in you a lot.

Leo
That’s a good, that’s a good thing to say that, you know, a hairstylist and a bartender are probably very close or similar.

Melisa
I would say, bartender at Gibson’s. So, you know,

Rosanna
I’m upscale But yeah.

Jordan
I feel like occupation. Yeah.

Melisa
Listen, I could relate Moe’s or Gibson’s – that’s kind of why we both kind of do what we do we we’re not judgmental. We’re not, we could sit anywhere, any place we’ve ever been in have people people get attracted. I think that’s sort of the law of attraction. People get attracted to our personalities, even though he says that he doesn’t have that he does. And they just they people constantly want to know about both of us and what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and how, how do you do that? So I just think it’s kind of human nature.

Rosanna
When I read on your bio, like, it says in there, like I want to connect with as many people as possible in and outside of my industry and I hope to learn and grow as much as I can. And I like I loved that because I think that’s something that, that genuinely interests us that we love to, like, just learn about people, like people who are completely different than us, just like a different perspective and just kind of like, just like, listen and understand and like, see what we can take from that. See, like, you know, how we’re similar to people. I think a lot of times people are always so focused on how they’re different. And we’re always looking for like, gosh, you know, they’re just like us, they might be completely different, but to the core, like, they’re good people who want to do good things or big things. And, you know, that like, inspires us and motivates us to kind of, you know, continue to do what we want. So, I love that that you had written that like, I know that was so cool.

Leo
That’s not an easy thing either, though, that’s, I think that’s one of the things that we we see it a lot people might you know, whatever people come and go, I think that’s the best thing to say. People come and go and the one thing that like the people who stay around are like your true friends. We talk about that and we don’t have a lot of friends. Just because of what we do. We don’t have a lot of time to have all these people. We’ll do a lot withour family. But I think that there’s a lot of people that easily get jealous, you know, and I think that in our careers, you know, where you’re doing things at a certain level. You know, it’s, it’s great to say, yeah, you outperform somebody, but I think that also is an easy way to throw a lot of daggers as well. You know, it’s like, yeah, you picking out faults, or you’re picking out things because there’s nothing else to pick out. And we see that a lot too. And sometimes it never gets to that point where we hear it, you know, but then sometimes that you get that you feel it, you know, and it’s funny, even we have a bio…I didn’t even know you had a bio.

Jordan
It’s cool. So one thing I noticed with both of you is that there’s there’s a big like educator role in what you do. So you’re not just like, you know, kind of creating something or providing a service but you’re really like training others to take on the skills and experiences that you’ve acquired over the years too.

Melisa
When when you work at a level that we do being in the top of our game. You don’t get there by you, you know, you’ve learned I’ve learned from others, he’s learned from others. And we we both keep, you know, we have like a mental log of who our mentors and who we’ve worked under and who we’ve watched all of the years that we’ve been working, and you don’t get to the level that we’re at if you have a passion for what you’re doing and really love what you do, you want to share it in the whole all along the way, your mistakes, you know what you know, you don’t know. And I think that’s how we both become better by not only learning from others, but then teaching everything we know. A lot of people like to hold that in, you know, they think it’s like, “Oh, I can’t share that because someone else will get better than me.” Where you just keep getting better and better and better, because you share it with anyone who will listen.

Leo
I see that too, even though like I said, we’re talking about two different industries, you know, cutting hair, and, you know, the restaurant world or the food service world. Even for me, I’ve heard that a lot over the years. And I remember when I first really started teaching, before I even had a school, I was doing a lot of consulting work. And I hit a lot of criticism by a lot of guys that were, I considered mentors. Like, I can’t believe you’re giving away all these secrets. And it’s like,

Melisa
Like “Why would you tell them that?”

Leo
Yeah, exactly. And it was like, but I don’t understand secrets. And I used to say, it’s pretty stupid looking back at it now, but I think maybe it’s just, you know, he’s talking about being older and wiser. And not that I’m an old man by any means. But sometimes, like, I remember as I was younger, and I had, you know, kids, and you know, whatever your kids are little, and I remember saying things like well, I never had a boy I got three little girls at home, and I never had a boy so I don’t really don’t have have anybody to pass this down to? You know, so for me, it’s like, all right, the whole world is going to be my little boy and I want to see grow. But then thinking about it, you know, I’ve got a little girl seven years old, you know, Giada, I’ll tell you what is 10 times more than a boy than I’ve ever seen. To see her, you know, get side by side or her to challenge me or question me, I think that that’s when it first became really obvious to me that, look, I’ve got all this knowledge and at some point, I’m going to be in a box, and all that it’s going to go with me. So unless I share it, it’s going to be gone. So what did I go through this whole journey for? And I think that’s again, what pushes me as much as I do. And that’s a that’s a pretty big thing, because still to this day, I mean, you were 2020. Right? So this is that that’s something that we’re talking about, as we’re reinventing the wheel. I’m talking about baking. Maybe and I didn’t even know this because I remember the first time my first I bet a lot of national sponsors, right? I’m on a pizza team. And I’m, you know, very visible in our industry. And I had a my very first national sponsor was an oven company, and I’ll never forget it. And they’re like, you know, you do a really cool thing. When you talk about pizza, you have a way of talking about it, that no matter who’s in front of you, they understand what you do. And maybe it’s almost like you’re telling a story, and you’re telling it at such a granular level that they pick it up. Would you ever consider writing a blog for us? And this is, I mean, we’re going back 10 years, and I’m like, What is a blog? Exactly. They’re like, what do you ever, like, sit down and write? And I’m like, No, I’m like, I know how to write. All I can ever do get a persona, like, I know how to write and they’re like, well write exactly the way it would come out of your mouth. And that was the first time that really like, you know, I’m sitting there and I tried writing the first one and it sucked. It was horrible. And I I remember looking at this afterwards, and I went back and gave it to the guy who told me he’s the CEO of a company. And he’s like, I’m reading this. This is not you that I could get this from anywhere, you know, but this is not you. I want you to literally as you’re explaining something to type it. And I made another version of it. And he’s like, exactly what that really I think was that turning point. When it’s like, yeah, maybe I never went to college. And I don’t have a degree in literature or anything like that, right. But I know how to fake and know how to be myself, right. And people understand sometimes when I talk that they can grasp it pretty easily. So that was really like the first point that for me, it was like I can I can probably do this. And then people started showing up. And that was the first time when like, you know, I’ve never forget, it wasn’t like one of the biggest pizza show of the year is in Las Vegas. And I went there and his company that the oven companies like we want to put you on a stage and we want you to talk for an hour. All right. I got to fill an hour. Yeah. The first time I’m up there, these guys aren’t even stopping me. And I’m like, it’s got to be an hour now and I’m going and going, it was up there for almost two hours. But the thing that everybody was like so

I hear that a lot. Actually, we got tripods now.

But I think that was the first. Like, people started saying, like, Look, you’ve got 200-300 people in front of you, and nobody moved. Like that’s something like there’s something there. You got to figure out what you just did, and keep going with it. And that’s really like I said, when all of a sudden we saw like, the wall went down. I just started spewing everything I knew. And people just again it just more and more people started following.

Jordan
To me that’d be reassuring like give you confidence be like alright, like what I was just being mean and talking about something that I love and people listened so I can keep doing it.

Rosanna
Well, anybody can make pizza. Well, I make pizza and it’s pretty good. But there’s something special about you and the way that you do it and the way that you can communicate. So trying to find that niche of like, something that you love, but being able to share it is more special than you making pizza and not sharing it with anybody.

Leo
Right. But then there’s the other side of it, like, I’m my own worst enemy. And like anybody, like people who know me, like there might be like, the inner circle, like especially Melisa will say, like, the more you go, and you tell me that you’re going to suck, and there’s no way you’re going to do this, and you’re going to be horrible today. And that’s usually like the best that you could be. And like, again, it takes – not that I need to be reassured – but sometimes and again, maybe this is just something in my personality, maybe in my head, I have to completely tear everything apart. Because then when I’m in front of people again, I think it just, it’s like fuel to the fire, you know, and again, it’s just a weird thing that I go through my head and nobody’s see’s it, nobody knows it. But, you know, there’s even some preparation, you know, before you’re about to go in front of people.

Melisa
Every year before before the pizza show, which is like his, where he does the most or kind of where he started doing live videos. He’s like, I don’t want to go, I’m gonna do horrible. And I’m always like, Yeah, whatever. Okay, oh, I’ll see you there because it never, it never fails that he’s always able to just pull it off really well.

Jordan
So does that help you, like, maybe weed out some of the, like, the weaker ways of communicating or some of the flaws that you know?

Leo
Yeah, like at first. Like when you do stuff in front of people, like the most common criticism that you could hear is like you said, “um,” you know. And like, that was that was the first thing like I remember like, literally like, I think I still do this all the time. Like I remember like watching a video of something I just shot. And before I’ll even send it out for editing, I’ll sit there and I’ll watch that video two or three times.

Melisa
And like I hear it; I hear it constantly.

Leo
But again, it’s kind of like that process that I go through. And it’s not that I’m critiquing what I did. It’s the, alright, I know that the next time I’m in this situation, this is the way I’m going to go because I didn’t like the way it went this way, you know. And I just think that every single time that I do it, it gets a little bit better. And again, to me, I’m still amazed that people show up, because I’m just again, at the end of the day, I know I’ve got all these accolades, right. But at the end of the day, I’m just a poor pizza guy from Chicago. And, you know, I till about maybe, you know, 12-15 years ago, like who even knew about different styles of pizza outside of Chicago, and that there was all these styles, let alone in Italy. And then to say that I went to the oldest pizza school in Italy, which I remember like telling my family that hey, I’m going to pizza school in Italy and they’re like, what You’re gonna go to school in Italy for pizza. And like, Yeah, not only do I want to be there, I’m gonna be there for like months and months at a time. And all these things that I was doing, like, I just remember, I never forget my dad was a really he was pretty tough, you know, throughout my childhood and growing up, as far as like, you know, my dad had that very strict Italian work ethic, you know, and, you know, no matter what we were doing, at the end of the day, you know, the criticism from him would be like, Oh, you know, don’t worry, you know, you always can go find a pick or a shovel. You know, they’re always looking for laborers. You know, you always have a job there if this doesn’t work out at school, because I hated school. And you know, when I told them that I never forget, I was just getting ready to get out of high school and I look at my parents and I was like, I want to go to culinary school, and like literally to watch both of them.

You didn’t go to school and be good in school and it was like free now you want to spend 20 grand a year to go to school. My mom was like, she was probably the best thing she could have ever done is like you know what you want to go to school, go to school, we’re not going to tell you stop going to school, you still live here, whatever, we’ll do your shit and whatever you got to do, but you’re gonna figure out how to pay for you know, and that was the first time I was like well I don’t have this kind of money and I’m not going to be able to get student loans and all this other stuff so I went to work and it was that on the job and learning and all these these great people that I learned from you know, old school guys, you know, my style is very old school. Like while I learned from a lot of new people, the evolution of what we see happening in our in our industry is really from what we took from back in the day. And I think that everything that we’re seeing is going back. I mean look at right now with COVID right COVID right now everybody’s afraid of manufacturers. You see them you know, meat companies are shutting down because their friend is spreading and this and that. And all of a sudden I think it’s the great thing has come about is is everybody’s gone back to being artisans. People are at home baking again.

Rosanna
You cannot find yeast and you got to buy it in bulk now. You can’t just find your little packet.

Leo
You come to North America Pizza Academy and we’ll sell yeast. I’ll even sell you my sourdough starter.

Melisa
That’s the closest we’ll ever come to having a son.

Leo
My starter standard size. But but you know those are those were some like the big hurdles that over the years that I’ve had to overcome and like I never forget when I met you know, Melisa, I gotten divorced. I was divorced for a few years and it was, that was one of the turning points in my life. It’s like you know what, I’ve hit Ground Zero. I’m living back home with my parents. Which you know, again, you know, to have an Italian mother that you know are never forget at work all night on a Saturday night. And you know, you get home it’s like two o’clock in the morning, you know, from working not from partying, and you go to bed and you know, it’s like never fails like on a Sunday morning 7:30 there’s like, you know, that plastic grocery restore bag that’s in your room. And it’s like for 10 minutes. Jesus Christ, what the hell you bring us thing? Right I’m just getting some of your clothes, I was gonna do your laundry, oh my god.

No, but it was those kinds of things. I think that was like my motivation and even like when I met Melisa, that was some of the stuff too, that, you know, I think that, you know, she had, you know, she was married previously as well. And she had heard, you know, things that happen in her, you know, her past life. And I think that when when we met, it was just so clean. You know, it was just you had a bad experience. I had a bad experience. I got divorced. And I the thing that fueled my fire is that I jumped on a plane and I went to Italy, and I was going to study and that’s what I did was I buried myself in pizza. And all of a sudden, you know, here I am coming back to the States. And now I’m teaching guys that are like, twice my age. things that I’ve learned and these guys are laughing at me like that’s never gonna work No way. And now 15 years later, to see the stuff and to have people call me out as like, you know, hey, you know, you understand, like you pioneered things, you kind of paved the road for these a lot of these guys. And it’s like, I still have so much to do, I still think I suck. You know, I still wake up every single morning and I’m looking through everything that I can get my hands on for new ideas and challenging myself. And even like with Melisa, I think that’s another thing too, that, you know, she’s constantly like, she’s…

Melisa
I don’t think I suck though.

Leo
She’s really good. But those are, like I said, those are like the things I think that sometimes when we look at each other, like you need somebody to kind of grab you and kind of shake you and say, What the hell are you talking about, you know, you’re good at what you do. Figure out what you’re trying to go to and just go to it, you know, put the blinders on and just get that tunnel vision and just go and again, I never had that before my life. You know, maybe it was you know, an Italian upbringing that for us. It was like on a we can’t talk about that, or should we never talk about this outside the house, you know, that whole mentality of how the you know, those old school Italian’s were right, and then all of a sudden to see another side of the world, like, everything opened up. Maybe it was just the freedom of you know, me saying, alright, I’m on my own. If I screw this up, there’s no one. There’s no safety net. Right? And maybe we just said that but again, Melisa was a really big role then, probably even bigger now that I can’t see myself doing anything that I’m doing because we still juggle a family. I say “we” and I mean her. Because, you know, you can’t be on the road all the time and you can’t be in front of people and expect that you’re going to have a family and then you walk in the door. And then all of a sudden it’s like you know that Leave it to Beaver moment that you know, you got a wife and an apron. It’s waiting with a cigar and you know, and a cocktail. You know, you walk in the door….

Melisa
We can arrange a cocktail…

Leo
But I think that’s another cool thing that we do is that we figured out, you know, how we need to decompress. And for us to sit down at, you know, at the end of the night, you know, yeah, there’s nights when our kids you know, it could be a school week and our kids like 9:30. And it’s like, Listen, we’re ready to go to bed. You guys want to go to bed? Fine, whatever, sit on a couch. We’re going to be. But people sometimes here to answer but how could you tell your kids like, what, how else are they going to learn? If they want to stay up all night? They’re going to figure out the next morning, they still got to get up in the morning. Right? So how did we learn our lessons? And sometimes it’s it’s not the best way and…

Melisa
Our kids don’t stay up all night, but…

Leo
Not all night, but it’s 10:30. You know…

Melisa
Our kids are, you know, imagine me meeting Leo. I was married to a restaurant owner previously who is in the pizza realm also, but not not anywhere. Not like Leo.

Leo
Still from a historic family example historic Chicago pizza. Right? Right. So say my wife was into pizza guys that’s it…

Melisa
So you have you have that and I’m meeting him and you know I’m telling my clients I have this you know boyfriend who is in the pizza world…

Leo
No, say it right – He’s into flour but like a florist.

Melisa
Flower sales!

I didn’t want to say like a pizza guy cuz I like…I already had a pizza guy so now I have another pizza guy.

But you know that that transition was funny but my point is that our kids at least our middle daughter, Isabella, she’s, you know used to the restaurant life. Giada is used to our life our kids don’t aren’t used to in everyday family that their parents work nine to five. They go to bed at a certain time a dinner at a certain time. It just not how our life is.

Leo
They never grew up that way. This is the only life we know.

Melisa
Angelina, our oldest, her situations a little different chairs and experienced this as much. But definitely Isabella, and Giada have lived this life of parents who are entrepreneurs. We work a lot. As much as we work though, we have really good family time. It’s just a little different than the average family.

Leo
Our family time again, I think even what people will consider our family time, I think normal families would be like, you guys are freaking nuts. You know, because again, when we because we don’t have during the week, as much time with each other. It’s literally like we get up really early. Like for me by 6:3-7:00 o’clock, I’m already out the door, you know, so I don’t see them a lot in the morning. Melisa’s sees them in the morning and then she’s off to work. And then we’re working those you know, the 12 hour days, whatever. So by the time we come home again, It’s literally like Alright, let’s sit out Let’s eat something let’s chill out a little bit and then everybody’s going to bed but on the weekends or whenever we are together that’s when we really get into that that mode that like Alright, what are we doing today? Right and it’s usually that they don’t want to go yeah maybe they want to go to park or stuff like that, but it’s like, let’s go out to dinner let’s get dressed up and let’s go here you know and for us again, it’s like an event and the kids it’s almost like that we have we have a lot of family parties. We always have our family over and we’re always doing stuff all together. And it reminds me a lot like at least for me, of how we grew up when we were little kids you know, like I remember Saturday night, you know, Friday night, all of our family and we’d be all the cousins all together and we’d be at my grandma’s house or an aunt or uncle’s house and you know, everybody would be all together. And again maybe for our for our life. That was a lot of fun because we were all together for our kids…

Jordan
Full of stories of all that crazy stuff you end up doing with your cousins as you’re playing around together and the game is even better. And those kinds of things.

Leo
And now it’s like for them, it’s like, oh, well, we went out to RPM on Saturday night. I’m introducing a new chef. For them, it’s just part of the world.

Melisa
In our middle daughter is, you know, her dad, also they’re going out to dinner. He lives a similar schedule is what I’ll say. So they’re, they’re doing things like that also. So we go somewhere, and she’s like, oh, what are we going to? Where are we going to eat? Because it’s important to her to know that what we do is quality, you know?

Leo
Yeah. And they’re not our kids. Again, I mean, talk about like, creating a palette. You know, Isabella, you’ve take her to a restaurant and she’s looking at the menu. Like, I think I’m gonna have the lobster tail. You know, like, I think I have a fillet for dinner. She’s not looking at the kids, menu. I don’t think I’ve ever remembered is about laying off the kids mind you. Always like a grown up…

Melisa
We were in the middle of Lake Geneva at like a you know, a place that was like a casual like bar and grill and she’s like, telling Leo, like, what do you think if I get the fillet here, he’s like, this is a burger place, you should get a burger.

Leo
But again, I think that that is one of the cool things about, you know, at some point, like, when we’re all you know, when I’m ninety years old if I ever make it there and, you know, to hear my, my kids talking about those experiences, I think that’s, that’s part of, you know, what I’m looking forward to seeing is, you know, the stories that they end up recollecting what they’ve actually absorbed out of all the things that we’re doing. And you know, again, we’re gonna hear stories about Oh, I’ll never forget I – I wanted to order a lobster and now I’m waiting for that kind of so so Lisa, I’d be like, I know it, you know.

Jordan
we think about that too. And just between our kids like our you know, certain things that happen like are they going to look back at this big Oh, remember that time that you know, dad lost his cool and he yelled at us and we were you know, or we had this situation as a family. And what like, what are those stories they’re gonna tell each other and fondly look back.

Melisa
Like are we gonna put him in therapy?

Rosanna
Remember that time my mom and dad flipped the house? Remember that time they started a podcast? Like are theyweird or what like my friend’s parents aren’t doing this but it’s like that right? We’re giving them something else a different experience a different way to like perceive the world a different lens to look through. That’s maybe not like everybody else. But that’s, that’s okay. Like it’s okay to be a little different.

Jordan
I think it’d be a good just analogy going off of what you were saying to like you’re you’re creating a palette for your children through your experiences and the things that you guys are passionate about and the way you facilitate family. And I think that’s true for any family there, whatever their experiences are, or the way that they are facilitating that time that’s creating that palette of normalcy and range for kids that they’ll grow up in.

Leo
Or even just showing them look, you know what this is what else is outside the world and maybe everybody else isn’t doing this. These are the experiences though for us that we’re eagerly seeking. And we want to include you in you know, so I think again, these goes back to, for me at least the things that as a kid, you know, like, you know, who doesn’t like their, their their mom or their moms or grandma’s meatballs or whatever it might be. We always talk about all my mom’s cooking my grandma’s cooking. Believe me, I’ve got plenty of friends that say, Oh my gosh, my mom was terrible cook, you know? No wonder you’re so skinny!

Jordan
Like, you don’t know how good you got it!

Leo
I don’t think I’ve ever said that to my kids. But I think that one day when they do stuff, right, there’s got to be a point when they go to school, to say, yeah, we realize that this isn’t like everybody else, you know. So I’m not saying that we’re better than anybody by any means. I’m just saying that we’ve kind of steered the ship a little bit differently, and that we’re deciding to go out on the road. And you know, our kids are going to be here until at least they’re 18. Right? If they decided they’re…

Rosanna
If they’re Italian, maybe longer…

Leo
Well they’re girls, so hopefully that’s a little different. My brother’s over 40 and still at my mom’s house.

Melisa
I don’t know about you but me more than Leo, I like I feel a lot of guilt with kids like you you know we work very hard we’re always being pulled in 100 directions or we’re being pulled by different people all the time. And then you have your kids and you feel a little guilty about leaving and working and how much time you spend at work. But our kids have grown accustomed to in this time they’re like, do you have to work today because like don’t you gotta go to work? Exactly. I think they just get accustomed to the way we are and then when it’s not like that, they’re like, wait, what, you know, a little worried or like, this is normally what you do, how come you’re not doing it? And they they’re okay with it. You know, they’re not their life is is still good, even though we’ve both pursued large careers.

Leo
Yeah, I remember when I first like quit my day job, you know. And I was home like the first Saturday. Like, normally would work all the time, you know. And Saturday I was home and then forget it. Like we woke up. We had breakfast, went to Costco, I still never forget. And, and like, I never forget the kids looking at me like you doing here? Yeah, what’s going on? And how much longer you’re going to be here. And it’s a no, I’m gonna be here for a whole weekend. You know, like, I’m off this weekend. And that was a that was a big shock. Because again, it was again, there’s something so different than they were used to seeing, you know, where I would like, you know, work until you know, midnight or whatever it might be. And the first time when I was home for the weekend, it was a to me that was at least one I think one of the things that I remember as far as my career goals was their first time being home on a Saturday, and the guilt. You know, all like in the restaurant world, you know, like chefs have that thing where it’s like that brotherhood and we’re all these tough guys and all that stuff. And you know, you do have a lot of pissing matches in the kitchen and you know, people don’t know about the underbelly most of the time. But you know, I never forget that, you know, like, sitting at home on a Saturday night, thinking like, Man, I’m sitting on the couch watching TV, like, I’m supposed to be doing something as that other side of it too. So, there was always another thing too, that i think that you know, even when I got to that point, all of a sudden, you know, we built the two car garage in our backyard. I built a little pizzeria in my backyard.

Melisa
I told them how that happened that I knew about the pizza oven before I knew about its surrounding.

Rosanna
The whole thing that had to take form over it. Yeah.

Melisa
I forgive you for it.

Leo
But it was again, it was it was really just to build a, you know, a workshop. You know, some guys have a workshop and they build, you know, things out of wood, you know, or they tinker, you know, my dad’s got a shed wood, you know 20, lawnmowers, and all that other stuff. But I built something that I could make pizzas in and we had people before we open the school I had people traveling to Chicago to come and sit with me you know, they arrive on Friday night, and they leave on Sunday night, and go back to wherever they came from. And I was consulting restaurants in the backyard and we develop menus, and we were training and doing all this stuff. And that was like, really like the proving ground for the school. And it was like, you know, well, obviously, there’s people showing up here. Can you imagine if all the ideas are in my head that I’m thinking about? Can you imagine what we would do then? And, you know, as that was kind of, again, I couldn’t have done that even, like, you know, even close to doing that if I didn’t have that support system at home, where it was always just, like, just go to you, you know, like, I’ve “Leo Pizza” since I was a kid, you know, and, you know, just go be Leo Pizza. And there’s days when I wake up in the morning, and I look at her, I’m looking at, you know, one of the kids and I’m like Man I don’t want to be fucking Leo Pizza today, you know, and like, I just want to stay home. I just want to chill out you guys or whatever. And it’s the reality of now it’s gotten to the point where it’s like, No, no, it’s, you know, you’re you’re surrounded by the public and the public is possibly pulling you and it’s like, well, now I know I’m there for them, you know, and it’s like, I’ve got this other family. And that’s kind of what we do every single day, at least in my world. I don’t know. But you got, you’ve got that family too that’s been with you for 20 years and they come see every day, you don’t take days off; you don’t call in sick. You know, so I think that’s, that’s another piece of it. We’re kind of you know, married to that as well.

Rosanna
How do you balance that? Because even when you introduce yourself, you said like, I’m a hairdresser, but I have all of these other roles. Obviously, you’re a mom, your wife, your hairdresser. It sounds like you’re a lot of things to a lot of different people. So how do you that’s one thing that I’ve struggled with like there are some dreams and aspirations I have. How do I continue to like move forward in that but know that like my kids are loved and they’re taken care of and so are some of these other things like how do you continue to like push yourself to be more in that in that realm?

Melisa
Well, I I started with because I’ve been doing this for so long in a certain way. It I’ve never taken a break. This is the longest this pandemic is the longest I’ve ever been off work in 25 years. I this is longer than my maternity leaves. So I think that becomes just a habit of working and just how I’ve worked. And then once I had Isabella who’s now 12 I worked in a way that I could do everything and it sounds like I think when you want something bad enough and you want to you know, you know you’re invested in this and that’s what you’re going to do. You make just absolutely do things to get around it and being with Leo, when when you’re with married to somebody that doesn’t support that I know there’s a lot of guys I work every Sunday, I’ve worked every Sunday until this pandemic, you know, I’ve had a couple of off here and there but Leo said not that long ago like I haven’t ever no new networking a Sunday, doing care and many people in my industry like you work Sunday, while I produce, we do more clients on a Sunday than most people do all week. So that kind of being flexible with my schedule, working around different things, doing things that maybe people wouldn’t do sometimes I start at 7am. So I could be at someone’s dance recital or a softball game, or whatever it is, that’s kind of the flexibility with doing hair. But it is like kind of doing a dance all the time to try to be everywhere and you know, and still maintain a very strong career. It’s a it’s not an easy thing, but it’s something that I’ve been committed to. And so if you have that desire, like you work it out, and like I said, If Leo is very understanding, he’s able, we’re able to kind of counteract our schedules. There are a lot of men that are like, you’re not gonna be home now. Why, you know, that’s not acceptable and it just has been between us. You know,

Leo
it’s always been like an underlying rules like Melissa says she’s gonna be at home at 530 you know, it’s gonna be 645 before she gets home, but it’s you know that Yeah. And even like her again, never forget, like when we first started dating, like her mother was even, like, Come home for dinner on a Sunday, you know, when she worked on a Sunday? And he’d be like, Yeah, come over here about six, you know, and get there and she’s at home and you’re like, Oh, you really should be home now. So never been better. That’s all I’ve ever known, but she’s like, you know, literally got people you know, 7am is not a joke. 7am she’s got people waiting. And you know, before the pandemic, it was like, Alright, here’s four people, you got to assistance. one’s getting their hair washed one sitting in the chair here doing something other ones there, and just bouncing back and forth all day long. Like that’s it. We talked about the chaos of the kitchen, but I think that’s got to be the chaos of the universe. Have her business as well. And how do you manage that? And for me, it’s always been that you kind of I feel like I’m in that that Zen moment like the matrix, right? The more chaos that gets thrown at me, people can’t handle that kind of pressure when it’s going, you know, 100 miles an hour. You know, it takes a special type of person. And again, people in the restaurant business deal with that every single day. But there’s other people that come into our world that will step behind a line, and all of a sudden look at this and you could see that they start tensing, tensing up or they’re starting to back into a corner you see him backing away, because it it’s very intimidating. But then the other side of it, like that’s all I know, is how to go fast. But then the other side is when you get home, and then things go cloud, right? You don’t know how to shut it off. Right? And I think that’s another thing over all the years that I’ve had to really, really struggle and fight for, like to figure that out. I don’t sleep and it’s partly because of it. I sleep in on but Again, it’s one of those that you don’t want it what it is I’m up home asleep for a few hours, I’ll be back up, I’m on the computer and mostly on the couch and there’s always something going on but it’s not like you slept for eight hours.

Melisa
It’s always probably our biggest challenge is we could chill out together, you know, go have dinner, glass of wine, whatever, but like chilling out in general is not in our nature. So again, the pandemic has been very trying for me to in a lot of people just to, to kind of absorb the moment in you know, be cool with what’s happening. Because we’re so high energy so fast paced, always working and it’s an effort to come home and not treat everybody around you like they work for you. Because that’s what you do all day. You have people helping you all day, have people doing things for you all day, you’re busy. And you know, then you come home and you have these people that you Need you that are like, Can you do this? Yeah.

Rosanna
Mine’s at the shop.

Melisa
Yeah. I said I feel like I’ve been bossed around for like 10 weeks like Ma’am, can you do this? Could you do that?

Jordan
Take me to so you say like you both have pretty like busy schedules on a weekly basis. How does How do you arrange that with one another? Like, how does that look? Is it is it kind of a fixed routine where you already know no or sit down and do a side by side kiss?

Rosanna
We do. That’s why we like sit down on like Mondays. We’re like, okay, the week. Where are you need to be where do I need to be like, how do we, what are we trading off? Like?

Melisa
Sometimes we find it hard to sit down and do that schedule. But when we don’t.

Jordan
Then you pay for it later on.

Leo
Oh, yeah. You know, I think I do. I have Melissa My agree with this or but I have a lot of guilt A lot of times when like, she’s looking at the school calendar online to see what my schedule is going to be like. So she can start saying, well, he’s got a class on this night, so I’m not gonna, I know, I can’t count on him that night. But there is the other side of it too, that I know that it does bring a lot of stress into our relationship, that sometimes my schedule isn’t printed out a week in advance or a month in advance. Sometimes I’ll get a call from a client and it’s like, Alright, two days from now, I gotta be in Texas, you know, and it’s like, this just popped up. And that’s one of the really hard parts for us because she’s got, you know, a lot going on and then she’s trying to coordinate at home. And then if we’re not home then say, all right, what do you have to do? Well, either we’re going to pass the kids on to, you know, my grandmother, their grandparents, you know, which is usually ends up being like, you know, Melissa’s mom because her schedules a little bit different than my parents, or, you know, there’s babysitters and all that other thing. So that’s that’s a really hard trade off and I think that all Lot of the friction that comes in our marriage that there’s a lot of friction. But I think that the conflicts that we see, a lot of it has to do with exactly that, because we’re both getting pulled from so many directions. And then getting it back to center is so difficult. Maybe, Melissa, well, I get it back to center all the time. How come you can’t? And you try to tell like I at least try to make the call it out that look, me getting back to center. I’ve got like all these other things that I’m trying to do. Well, you’re not busier to me. And we start getting into that sometimes. But again, it is it is one thing. I don’t think that if we respected what each other did. I think this would have been done a long time ago. And that’s what I think we see that, you know, a lot of couples out there. Like we’d like each other can you imagine being like, quarantined in a house together and you don’t like each other. You know, people talk about like, oh, there’s gonna be another baby boom in nine months. You know? But it’s like, he’s there.

I personally got a handful of people I know, that are like, you know, they can’t wait to get away from each other. Like, I’ll take the risk going to the grocery store. Okay,

Jordan
I gotta get out.

Leo
Again, that’s not us. But I think that that’s always been something that for us has really resonate. I think that listen, being that you know, good natured person having the patience that she does, I think that she does call me a lot of slack. And I think that’s probably one of the biggest things, any advice that I would give is like, you know, yeah, don’t look at everything I’m doing in this success. Because there’s this whole other box of stuff, right, that goes along with it. And you got to deal with it. You can’t just say you’re gonna push it underneath the you know, the the rug, and it’s gonna go away which sometimes you know, I some, I have no choice A lot of times I have to do that. I hate to do it and it happens. Right and sometimes, you know, was you know, Tom you know, how well you know, you just like to turbine or anything, it’s going to go away. But it didn’t go away. I just handled. No. But that’s it’s not a good thing. But again, it’s the reality of things. And you know, I think that’s again, what why I think our relationship has been so special 30 years.

Jordan
Yeah. And I think I’ve seen that with ourselves and with other couples to where it could easily go one way or another. Like it could easily go to one way where like, Oh, you like you think you got it bad? Like, I’m the one who’s doing this and this and this, and then the other person can find your back wall. Yeah, you’re doing that. But I’m doing this and this and this. We’ve had those conversations, right. But I think it reverses where it’s like, I know you’re busy, and I’m busy. But I, I want to support you and I want to encourage you like you keep going, and I’ll pick up what I can and then then we’ll switch and then when it’s my turn like I’ll pick up what I can and and you know you you got to do what you got to do.

Rosanna
But I think we’ve also acknowledged when you’re successful, it’s because I’m in the background kind of holding it together so that you can be in the forefront kind of pushing where you want to be in the same thing when I’m busy and I’m working like useful. And you’re your dad and you kind of take the reins and and then I can be successful and it doesn’t happen without the other person.

Leo
Yeah, hundred percent it’s got to happen both ways. And I think that you know, with with us at least, you know, we’re both married before and, you know, we had that I hate to say it like that, that dream Italian wedding you know where you’ve got hundreds of people there and you know the ice sculptures and all that nonsense that goes along and you’re looking back at Oh my God, I wish I had like three quarters of that money back, you know, and, you know, all the money that we wasted on stuff like that, and looking back and saying, alright, we did all that and it’s still it’s still gonna work. You know, so what was the piece that was missing? And it was really the core. So you can have all the beautiful stuff on the outside. But unless you got the you know, the the nuts and bolts of it holding together. It’s just that and I think that’s again, no going back to the pandemic. I think that this is the first time couples especially have Been spending so much time together? And it’s like this is probably maybe more time than they’ve ever spent together, right? People getting forced to work from home you know, and things that

Jordan
Yeah, we want more family time.

Leo
Yeah. And like, what’s your What

Melisa
are you giving? The kids are like, what are you getting?

Leo
And then a whole learning thing like I think we scarred our kids for life. There’s no reason why I should be teaching my kids to do it the educational law from school and all again, it doesn’t work. I’m trying to teach you like and this is how you add and subtract, you know, this is regular math.

Jordan
Yeah, like no, that’s not how you do it.

I don’t let’s just look at the answer. It didn’t

Leo
take you two hours. But you know,

Rosanna
what’s the one thing that you admire about Melissa that you think that like had you never met her that you’d be like missing like the one thing that I think that you’ve like, taken from her

Leo
noise? It’s It’s actually really simple i think it’s it’s the her ability to be around people. And no matter where, where she’s at, or what the situation is that I think people are not that they’re drawn to her, but I think she’s drawn to people. And she could just walk into a situation and just read a room. And then all of a sudden, just talking and having fun and and doing her thing. And I think that’s to me, that’s a big thing. Because to see the flip side of it, you know, and to be in, you know, over the years, you know, relationships and all that stuff. I think, to me, that was always one of those things, man, you could have this, you know, this miserable person, that you’re literally just dragging along with you. And that’s no good. Right. But I think that’s that’s probably the one the one trait or characteristic that no matter what situation did I put her into? she knocks on the park like a champ. You know, it doesn’t matter if it’s, you know, celebrity type people are huge industry people, co presidents of companies, you know what might be, it doesn’t matter she, she’ll Introduce yourself. She’s charming, they like to hang out, she makes herself part of the group. And And again, it’s just really natural. And I think that that to me was always the number one thing that really resonated. I’m all the other stuff is probably the more

Melisa
What about the Oh for you What’s like one thing about him that just like, seals the deal. We’re like, I love him because or like he’s taught me this. So all of all the things because there are a lot of things but the best thing about Lille for me is that he’s predictable in any circumstance. So if he says he’s gonna be home at a certain time he’s home with a certain time if he says he’s gonna do something he does it. It’s not and I’m not talking about like, you know, I’m being handy around the house.

important to me, I’m just saying that for me But Leo is understanding and predictable. It’s no matter what we have going on where he is, if he’s in town out of town or working, not working, I could depend on him for anything. Games like what he says it’s, it’s never there. There’s always sure of what’s going to happen, you know, in everything really. And I think that’s like the most, that’s the most important thing for me. He’s it’s never like, he doesn’t disappoint me very often. And that’s a big a big deal. You know?

Jordan
I think so. Because I mean, I think when you’re going to when you’re striving for a stable and fulfilling relationship that goes a long way, because you don’t want to be on the phone with somebody or talking to someone and just be throwing these curveballs all the time. Right. It’s not a great way

Melisa
to go on a roller coaster situation is never been good for me. Not a game player. We’re both pretty black and white. Although I feel like we have a very good bullshit game between the two of us, we can probably get ourselves in and out of any situation. But when it comes to our relationship, it’s pretty, like black and white, you know, in accountability. and dependability is really good.

Leo
But it’s like, you know, also like, you know, when there was a Sex in the City where, like, we like to call it with all the colors in the box, right? I think that’s again, you know, you push it to the, you push it to the limit as much as you can. And I think that again, that that’s what makes things interesting. That’s where the spark still is. You know, we’ve been together seven years married, and but it’s like 10 years old together. And, you know, I, I told her I was going to marry her on our first date. And you know, it scared the shit out of her and, you know, she went running, everyone’s like, well give it a shot because maybe this this guy is really for real. One. Yeah, it was it was one that she had to that she left. She left for a little bit.

But then she was back.

Jordan
I think I told her Santa. I love you maybe the second day that we were even dating.

Rosanna
Yes. And we were also

Jordan
at that point, yeah,

Leo
it happens. That’s right. Yeah.

Jordan
But it came true. Yeah. Randy. So I’m curious about that the pizza Academy because that wasn’t always the thing but but it is now. So like, how long was that dream or kind of a vision that you had before it became what it is and and what needs to fall into place for it to get to that point.

Leo
So prior to 2018 we opened this school that it’s like really important to understand that they there was this like, giant body of work that had to get accomplished. And it started out with saying, All right, I was going to order pizza school for the first time which was in California. And it turned out that the guy who went to his first class turns out to be like the one of the biggest pizza guys in the world. And who wasn’t at that time, it was kind of just like, we were doing something all together. And I was a Chicago guy. And he was a California guy. And he had a couple more experiences. And he was a little bit farther ahead than me. And, you know, he saw something was like, you know, hey, you know, your school guy from Chicago, but you got to come and see me in New York pizza before you ever see what we’re doing here. Like, I had never remember being out in America. That was the first time I was ever in California. And, you know, come spend a couple days with me out here, and I was out there for about a week. And I was in this pizza class, you know, and all of a sudden, it was like, you know, man, there’s so much more I thought I was shit. I knew everything, you know, but all I knew about what was in Chicago. And that was the first time it’s like, Man, I’m on a stage now all of a sudden, where I thought I was, you know, at the highest they could be and all of a sudden, I’m like, I’m the lowest that I can be and I can’t even stretch dough ball by hand. You know, think about that. I mean, it is This is something you know, a life skill. And I’d been making pizzas All my life I couldn’t even like I said, do it by from scratch. And that was a big thing. And you know, that was really my inspiration at that time to say I’m into this and I really want to learn more about Pizza Pizza was it for me at that point was about toppings, right? And I really want to learn about the dough and I want to learn about what makes a dough great. And I’m gonna start focusing on being a baker, you know, again, a life skill. And at that time, there was a in that first class is actually his first class where he had gone come out of the same school that I ended up going to, and the headmaster of the school formerly was, was in California, and he was helping him out with his first class guy named Graziano and I might go to town for the first time and I flown in Italian and I’m speaking to him, and at that time, it was more Italian dialect. CALABRESI dialect, you know, Southern Italian dialogue, where these guys are all from the north or from Venice. So that Proper uses to talk about that people from the north are more white collar. And the people down from the south are more blue collar or like that farm or type, you know, worker. And that was the first thing I think he thought it was cute. You know, like, No, I’m legit because when I was out there when I was in California and I’d spent five days with this guy at the end, he looks at me and there was a the owner of a flour mill was also here as well from Italy. And he says, We’re not done seeing each other. And if you can find a way to get to Italy, I want to train you, just like that. And at the end of the week when it gives me my certificate, which my certificate somewhere on here, but he gives me my certificate and he looks at me so I’m gonna make your promise. I used to get choked. I still get choked up sometimes. He says he’s like, that’s like, this is my certificate. He says, If you ever achieve the Master Instructor role, just like the guy was in the class with right I promise you That I’m going to come here to the United States and I’m going to do your first class, just like I’m here in California doing his first class. And we never talked about it again. Next thing I know the guy from the flour mill is like, Hey, I’m your grade up. Obviously, you speak Italian. Yeah, you don’t speak Italian like us, but you can understand what we’re saying. Um, you’re, you know, you’re a good guy. We could see you’re a good guy. You have no agenda. And if you want we’ll bring it up

Melisa
by agenda. What most people don’t know is that they’re like pizza politics. There’s a pizza world.

Leo
It’s a it’s a it’s a crazy there’s a lot.

Melisa
Yeah, it’s it’s very odd. You know, you don’t know it till you’re in it.

Leo
Yeah, it’s crazy. I found that

Rosanna
to be true of like, all different domains where like, it’s like, it’s your world. Yeah. And it’s like, yeah, within it. It’s like unless you’re in it, you don’t understand like how things are move and whatever, but when you’re in it, it’s like,

Melisa
Whoa, I don’t like to say a cult but yeah. It’s definitely a strong group.

Leo
It’s definitely like you’re signing up for a family that you you’re outside family. And a lot of those people in that family don’t like each other. And they are on different sides, different teams and things that divide the team are not how you make a pizza. It’s by the kind of tomatoes that you use, or the kind of flour that you use, or what mill you support and that sort of thing. Ya know, I was getting into that. And the guy from the flour mill owns a mill is like, Hey, I’m gonna bring it early. And while you’re here, you’re going to sleep in the dorm at my mill, you know, which now turned out to be like their r&d center. And I’m going to bring you here and in that same time, you’re going to be able to go to school and learn from Greg Chow. And sure enough, like within months, I was on a plane again. The guy that was in California sponsored me to go to the school. The school accepted me and and I want to Pizza school for the first time. And this is the first time talking about realizing the kind of like the whole taboo of being an American in the pizza world. And now being on their home turf, and being called an American, like it’s derogatory, right? That was something that still it took a long time, maybe not as much anymore. But it took a long time to get rid of that knife had to eat a lot of shit over the years. And listen to that until I could finally prove that I’m no different than you and I’m probably better than you. Right? And I just happen to live in the United States, which you guys Wish you know.

But that was the reality of it. And I remember being in school and really, you know, getting that beat down. And I think that was one of the things also that when I when I got that, I think you need that piece of it. Because if I was gonna ask that, do you think that made you stronger? Yeah, because all of a sudden that whole cocky Chicago guy right was not back down and beat down so much that it forced me to say, this is the way it’s supposed to be done. This is where it all started. And if you understand the way pizza is in Italy, you totally understand the immigration to the United States. And when it hit New York, and then spread West, and all the styles that we see here in the States, we can physically line up to one of the styles in Italy. And to me, that was one of the things that blew my mind. And when I came back to the States at a time when people were like, what do you mean you’re doing this or that? nobody’s doing that? Like, what are you wasting your time for? You’re gonna tell me you better make up. You’re teaching me how to make pizza. This is where the guy’s name is Tony out in California. This is one of those those lessons that Tony taught me firsthand, and was really adamant about like, this is what you’re getting involved in, and this is what you’re going to hear. And when you come back, you got to remember that at some point, those guys are going to want to hear what you have to say. It took a long time to get there and through the years he was another mentor to me and really was one of those guys that there wasn’t many people you can call back and say, Hey, you know what I was just here. And these guys are telling me about mozzarella? Are these guys talking about tomatoes? And there’s a difference between a tomato tomato from Southern Italy, a tomato from Parma and a tomato from California, you know, just learning and understanding ingredients Where were you going to go and get that kind of information 12 years ago, 15 years ago, where we were just getting the internet, you know, and that was like one of those big times that my point then going back to Italy after all these years, and saying, I got a master certification in one style, right? And then to go back and say I’ve got a master certification in all five styles, which is that’s when the world gets really small. And that was the first time then I got you know, called to do the, you know, to become a master instructor. And that’s really the point is still things going is that you get the call and say look, we’re inviting you, but once you become I’m an instructor you have an obligation open a school. So now that you’re on the pedestal, and it’s basically like we want you as an ambassador for what we’re doing, we want you we want it we want you to teach and improve the world of pizza throughout the world. And then you know, let alone everything else then they say, then you go back to Naples, right where we talk about the mothership. Right, right. Which Neapolitans don’t even call themselves Italian. They’re Neapolitans. Right. And to go through like, it was a pretty special thing. The last time we were there, because I went there with Melissa and we were on our own and to be able to go through Naples like a tourist. Right, and actually see, you know, fascism and see that there swastikas still on municipal buildings in central historic buildings in Naples and to see that the bullet holes in the shrapnel are still there. And not that they couldn’t afford to build though they couldn’t repair them. They love They’re in memory of this is how bad things were here and we want that as a reminder to go into like the subterranean they call it which is where during World War Two all the Neapolitans went underground

Melisa
I could not go in that area.

Leo
She got closer for stairs and she said we got to go up so good I get it you…

Melisa
Know I didn’t tell him to come with me I set the goal.

Leo
Literally they dog and dog and dog underground because there was so much bombardment above that that was the only place

Melisa
They had like a city a world downstairs in this town. I can’t even call it downstairs like down below down below there’s a water and there’s lakes and there’s because again,

Leo
The although natural water and they’ve built caves and that sort of thing. But you know, you talk about like, you know, we’re talking about now stories that go back hundreds of years. And to see that there’s tunnels that actually were dug and excavated all the way from Rome, so that if Caesar got in trouble, they would bring him all the way down. Through Naples, because that was a port community where people can get on a boat, and Cesar would be safe and he would go, right. So to be able to see that where you’re in the story, right? I think that that was one of the things that you know, you start connecting all these pieces pieces, and you say a pizza. Pizza is is way bigger than me. Right? And to me, it became more of a responsibility to saying this is something Yeah, I love pizza, right? We love to eat pizza. But the what happens then, when I’m gone? And who’s going to take the torch, right? And who’s going to continue after me. So these are the kinds of things like Graziano saw me Graziano saw in Tony. And when I got the call, the first thing I did was called Tony. And Tony said, Yeah, I heard about it already. You know, they called me also, it’s kind of you getting made, you know, like you see. Yeah, and that’s really how it was. And you know, Tony’s like, Look, I’m going to tell you, it’s not easy. He had gone he said yo I brought translator out, because it’s so technical, like you walk in in the morning, and they’re telling you, this is what we’re doing today. And at the end of the day, there’s a test. And if you don’t pass the test today, they basically say, all right, you know, enjoy the rest of your trip till you’re out. You know, but by the end of the week, when they have the final master exam, I never forget, I was done with my exam, I’m texting back to the US, her my partner, Anthony, and waiting for my message, know what the hell’s going on. And like three hours later, they’re literally grading the exam, one by one in front of you. And basically, all right, go back into the other room. And then when they’re done, that was the presentation certificates out of 10. We were eight that finished. So the whole thing about opening a school was kind of just like an idea like, well, let’s even see if I pass first. But then when I pass there was like the whole emotional part. I’ll never forget, like I was sitting in my rental car, and a young panda. Smallest car you’ve ever seen. And I’m sitting in the dark because like by this time now it’s Eight o’clock at night, you know, whatever. And I’m in the middle of Venice, not on the beautiful canal part, I’m like mainland, and I’m calling back to the US and I’m, like, all emotional, like choked up on the phone. I’m like, I can’t believe I did it, you know, I’m, it’s done, and then coming back to the US and it’s like, Alright, let’s open a school, and who’s gonna show up, we don’t even know if people are going to show up, right? Because there’s never been a pizza school in Chicago. And then to have that on your back like, now that whole responsibility. And it was really like, you know, from that point on, it became, you know, Leo as a pizza guy, all of a sudden, and Leo is a master, you know, and that’s even still to this day. It’s one of those I really dislike that title. Because I feel like we still have so much to learn, you know, and people, the more people that I teach, the more challenges and that’s the thing is the greatest thing that you see, like one of your kids succeed. You know, when you teach like one of these one of these guys or girls, there’s, there’s probably just as many women or we’re seeing just as many Women get into our industry, and to see them go out and be successful and open their restaurants, and they’re making money and they’re happy and they’re doing all this other thing. That’s where, like, again, for us, that’s the pride. And it’s like, yeah, I didn’t give away my secrets I was, I was able to do it in a way that I motivated somebody enough to let them Excel. And then they open this great restaurant. And at the end of the day, it’s kind of like the bragging rights is one of my best and all like, and that’s that’s kind of the camaraderie of it, you know, and yeah, there’s a lot of jealousy. guys know pizza guys, right? Which is a horrible man. We talked about, like, you know, the, you know, the, the, you know, women sitting in these little groups, you know, talking shit about other women. Pizza guys, are even worse than that. And I think that’s weird

Melisa
Compared to hairdressing. You’re way worse. But there is a that. A while back, I have a friend that I worked with who actually passed away who was a blue like rock star hairdresser, and he made the point of how did chefs get TV shows and like, they’re rock stars and like hairdressers, were supposed to be that rock star.

But the chef, just they, they’re just like a little more something.

Leo
People could do it. It resonates with people, you know,

Melisa
And everybody could do it. You know, like, there’s not you cannot promote cutting hair from home.

Leo
How many times have I said like, no joke. I’ve looked at Moses so many times and said, You know what? I’m going to look at Find me a pair of scissors and give me a comb. And we’ll start doing hair cuts at the house.

I’ve got plenty of friends. cut my hair. Yeah, whatever. Come on down.

Rosanna
I cut all three of our boys here twice now. I know.

Melisa
It’s bad. It’s fine.

Rosanna
But I understand. But having done it, I now understand why it is a craft. And why it is something that not everybody can do. And it is like, okay, yeah, I cleaned it up and I look but I’m like, we need to tip more is what I told him. He’s not either that’s

Leo
She tips ungodly amounts of money. I’m like, This person sucked! I’m pissed we’re even offering this much money! Gimme that book I’m taking 20 bucks.

Melisa
No, no, no, no I I am a very generous tipper very generous, for sure. But I’ve had the luxury of having people be very generous to me so I could never be not not a good tipper.

Jordan
Well, I listen to both of you like what I mean one of the things that seems evident is that like, right you could say like, okay, they’re like with hair or we work with pizza. And at a base level I think like your average consumer understands that it’s like you would expect your consumer to like we’ve got our pizza place around the corner. We want a pizza we go pick it up. It tastes okay. No complaints. Everybody likes pizza. But I think would your you’re telling us is that there’s there’s a whole history The whole story and style and an art to it. And there’s a reason why, even like, why we eat the pizza that we do, or it is the way that it is at the place around the corner, where we live in this Chicago suburb. And there’s a whole world of experience beyond our little, you know, chair of that, that we can, I think, get more out of him. And that’s certainly what you guys have found and what you’re now giving to others

Melisa
through your Leo will be the first person to go to any pizza place. I would say the only pizza place we haven’t gone together is like Domino’s or little seasonal change, although he has an appreciation for the r&d that has gone behind Domino’s, or Little Caesars, clients of mine. Exactly.

Leo
Yeah. You know, like we’ve worked with them. And to see like, again, it’s a whole nother piece of the business that there’s a lot of science behind that and the geeky dough guy in me that resonates too But you know, again, is it a pizza that I’m born out to. But what makes me the guy to say, going out and eating a $5 Pizza is a bad thing. Because I also think that it brings necessity. Not everybody’s got it, you know enough money to say they’re gonna go spend $20 on a pizza, right? Especially when it’s 12 inches and comes out of a wood fired oven. I don’t care what kind of tomatoes and cheese they use. There’s other people saying, look, I can only afford to put this on the table. My kids want a pizza, and I’m going to give them a pizza. And maybe we don’t eat pizza every night. But this is the pizza that we’re going to eat. So I understand there’s the necessity of it, right? Because where we grew up, right, we do the pound of pasta. So tomatoes, you can eat for a long time, you get a 10 pound bag of tomatoes, potatoes, and you could eat for a long time, right figured out how to stretch things. So to some people that $5 pizza, who am I to say that? Yeah, that’s a crappy pizza. Don’t feed your kids as poison. Maybe it is. But again at the end of the day, when you don’t have A lot of other stuff to give them to say that Yeah, on a Friday night, whatever, this is something fun, and we’re all going to get together around the table. Well, you know what, that $5 Pizza is what brought everybody together? You know, so I understand that side of it too. And again, maybe it took me to this point to get there, because it’s something they definitely would never said 10 years ago. And, you know, again, the whole evolution of what we’re doing and, you know, to see that, you know, the restaurant tour still wants to open a restaurant, but people now are getting away from the skill side of it. Like, will there ever be robotic hairdressers? Probably not. But there’s robotic pizza makers right now. And you can go to a vending machine and get a pizza. And that’s kind of this thing that to us that it’s like, well, maybe we need to push harder, because, you know, I do like, you know, kids, kids classes all the time. I’m like, I go into like high schools and do home ed classes. And to me, it’s always been like, well, I’m all tattooed up. I talk funny, you know, and if maybe that’s what A kid needs to get that little spark and say, Hey, you know what this resonates? Like I was a misfit in school, I was horrible in school, I didn’t want to be there. But this was always something that, you know, again at home, my mom was cooking, my grandma’s cooking. And for me, it was always something that, hey, this was easy to do, and I can’t believe people are gonna pay me to do it. Right. And maybe you don’t have to think is hard, like back then like I do now. But maybe it’s it’s really easy for me to do. So again, those are those are some of the biggest things for me that I see. And, you know, my wife is another one. And when she came to me and said, Look, we’re gonna I get asked to be part of an education program. So I’m going to start mentoring and you know, once a, you know, once a week or once every other week, we’re meeting at this salon and I’m going to be showing a cut or I’m going to show a color or I’m going to do whatever. I get that too because she’s really in that same spot. Maybe there’s not vending machines that you can go and get a, you know, your hair Colorado, or maybe a robot’s not sitting actually cutting your hair, but again, at some point, it’s still a trade And we still need to work with our hands. Yeah,

Rosanna
I love like how much you guys are into, like educating yourselves and like being the best or even partnering with other people to like, get to that next level where like, some people are like, Oh, I want to be the best. So that means I’m gonna, like, keep my secrets and I’m gonna like, keep to myself, but like, you guys find that you get better and more experience and a broader understanding and a broader context when you are connecting with other people when you’re partnering with them, even when you’re cut down by other people to show you that maybe you’re not what you thought you were, and then that continues to teach you like sometimes Yeah, you think you have to do it yourself. But even with each other, like you find together that you’re better because you guys can offer each other something and

Leo
I think that’s like you you’re in the you’re in the wedding business, right? So you’re coordinate weddings, like growing up. All right, yeah, we were all pizza makers. I can I can give you the name of probably 20 Pizza guys, local guys in Chicago, that I was a hoodlum with on the street, because but we all worked in different pizza joints, right? We did all this other stuff. And then after we were Donald’s work, we all kind of went to the same places and, you know, did our thing. But for years for you, like I remember, like, even for myself, like, we make extra side money, we were all like DJing. So we were in that wedding business. And that’s like a whole nother world. So for you to even to say, like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a wedding. Right and somebody come to me a bride or a bride Zilla has come and she’s just dragging me, right. And then what’s the first thing you do? You could either say, well, screw this bride. She’s a bride Zilla. I’m not gonna deal with it, whatever. She’s a terrible client. Or you’re going to say, I’m going to

Rosanna
work that much harder. I’m gonna

Leo
make sure that every single thing on this wish list is done. It’s done to the best that it can be done. And then in that quick few hours, that that wedding goes on, and at the end of the night, it’s all done. And that whole year two years of planning is gone. And you sit there at the end of night, and that bride comes up to you. Maybe they Don’t come up to you. But at the call to get that look right, or you see the pictures a video when it’s done. It’s like, holy shit, look what I did, right? So you have a decision, there’s two roles, you can either choose in your life to be miserable. And everything that you do is negative, which there’s plenty of those people in the world. Or you can say, all right, suck it up, Buttercup, right? And just figure it out, and go balls out and do it the best that you can do it. And if you can’t do it to that extent, learn what went wrong, and then go ahead and do it the next time, right. So it’s no different for you or you like anybody, and this is one of the things that we try to tell people when, like, I’ve been consulting for many, many years. And when people open a restaurant, you got people to sit in front of you that are in like other industries, you know, doctors, lawyers, people making tons of money, and all of a sudden Anthony Bourdain said it best like in one of his books, and he’s like, you know, just because you can host a really good dinner party at your house. That Doesn’t mean that you can have an awesome restaurant, right? And I’ve had plenty of those people saying, look, I got a million dollars, and I’m going to invest and I’m going to build a restaurant. And you start talking to somebody, people and they look at you and you’re like, I’ll tell you what, give me the million. All right, I’m going to give you 500,000 back and go back to wherever you came from. And you’re going to be 500,000. What sometimes it’s the reality of it. But then there’s the other side of it that now it’s like, well, this person’s got passion. There’s obviously something in this person to say they’re going to make an investment into opening a place and you try to sit down. You got him like, do you understand this isn’t a nine to five job. Do you understand? This isn’t a 4050 hour work week? Do you understand this? Do you understand it? It’s a hot, sweaty, crazy night and most of the people that work with you aren’t going to speak English. And you know this and you’re going to be dealing with that. And sometimes it’s given them all of that stuff and piling on and shoulders that you can Tell if they’re about to collapse in front of you. And then to look professional and say, Look, you don’t have it to me, I would tell you, it’s not in you, or go partner up with somebody who’s really good, you’ll be the investor and let your money grow for you and sit to the side. So again, it’s To me, that’s, that’s really where you become a professional, right? It’s not about so much saying, alright, I can I can plan a wedding or somebody came to me and I told them where to go for a dress, or where to go for a banquet hall or, you know, flowers or whatever. It’s really about, alright, I get the idea of what you’re going with. And I think that this is what I’m seeing in my vision. Let me tell you my experience based on experiences, right. And I think at the end of the day, that’s really what it is. I mean, she’s huge with that. Like she does wedding parties and she deals with brides villas, right. And some of these crazy like, up dues, right. It’s like what what are you doing? We’re even thinking about putting their hair like this. And then when all of a sudden you see the pictures of them as is pretty freakin awesome you know, she I never forget she came on with a picture lady one time, this girl had hair that looked like she literally stuck her finger electrical socket, it was so curly and was exploding out whatever. And then she’s like, look at this, this is the girl right here and it’s like, dude, I can’t even say my hair. But you know, you hear her do a consultation or I’m listening to her over the phone, like in the background talking to some of these people. And it’s again, I think that it all goes back to that no matter what industry no matter what business you’re in, no matter what your lifestyle is at home. It’s about saying all right now for a second I’m taking all that other stuff and pushing this side and I understand what you’re looking for and what you need done. And this is the way you do it. Again, that tunnel vision and this is what you get to go after and how you’re going to do it. And at the end of the day, you know people pay you for a service. And you know that’s that’s just what we do at the end of the day where you don’t want with the exception of you Jordan, you know, you’re under different, different scale, you know, administrator, you know,

with the you know, kids and stuff you’re doing other types but, you know,

a regular paycheck you know

401k two i think

Jordan
i think that Teacher Retirement, they go

Melisa
back to what you said though that we both kind of are always growing always learning always kind of if we can’t do it, we’re gonna find somebody to learn from that can. We both have really strong mentors in our fields. And we both been criticized for either following everything they do or giving them kind of props and different times in our life Leo, Leo, always shows some respect to the guy who was talking about previously Tony and I, the person who owns my company His name is Sam. I we’ve been called, like ask kissers or brown nosers or you just you’re just you just say that you’re like trying to be on their good side, but really we both recognized people that were better than us and higher than us and why? Who do you want to be like someone who’s better than you? Or someone, I don’t want to be even someone that’s equal to me. You want to follow someone better than you. And I think we’re both incredibly grateful to those people because they showed us the way and to this day either of us could call those people and you know, hold them very close and ask them anything. And because of how we’ve treated our careers, they would do anything for For us, and we would do anything for them. It’s like a whole nother set of support that we both have. That allows us to educate in to keep learning and keep growing. A lot of hairdressers work on their own, you know, just by themself in a either a rented booth or a small salon and they’re like, I have respect for everybody in my industry as Leo does, you know, for a person that works at Domino’s, or a person that, you know, works at rpm, it’s equal to us, we get it, you know, but I work where I work because I wouldn’t be able to grow as much as I have without having a support system with people that have done what I’m doing and beyond. So that that’s to your point of kind of continuing to educate and continuing to teach others as we’re still learning, you know,

Leo
yeah, there’s another cool thing too. Like a, again, I can speak it from my experience is that like, there’s that that moment to when all of a sudden people who you consider mentors, maybe they don’t know you’re a mentor or they’re a mentor to you, but someone you consider a mentor all of a sudden noticing you. And that’s probably man, I can tell you about a dozen people. And like the first time like you couldn’t farm that person for a one on one conversation, like, I couldn’t man, I can tell you, like I said, a dozen people were the first conversation I probably sounded like a school girl with, you know, boys and like, you know, fidgety and nervous and all that. And like looking back at some of those times now, even with those same people, and it’s like, you know, the just people like us, and again, I can I can name so many people and just in that same respect, and say, these are all people too. They’re just regular people just like anybody else. Yeah, they’ve been very successful. They made a lot of money or they’ve got, you know, 10 cookbooks or whatever it might be, but they were wants you to exactly and I think that on the other side of it, I think that that’s one of the things that at least people tell me like, you know, I’ve got, you know, probably one of the biggest bakers in the engine, a guy named Peter Reinhardt, who’s always been a big, I consider a mentor and I followed him and I’ve studied his books and you know, things like that. And then all of a sudden to be able to say, like, I remember my first conversation on the phone with Peter Reinhart, which was an introduction by another company saying, Hey, we want to put you guys on the stage together. And it’s a way to gather and then to hear him say, No, no, you’re gonna do what you got to do. And I’m going to be the one giving color commentary. So not only watch me through everything, but that’s a that was like the first one but then all of a sudden, it’s like it happens again and again and again. Like another great story like sitting in his basement right now. Very famous chef in Chicago named Rick tomato. And Rick tomatoes are very famous restaurant called Drew in Chicago, was married to a Food Network starting was gal gal. And she was known in the pastry world. And here, here’s somebody like, you know, I took a date to senior prom in his restaurant and asked for my dad for a small loan to go to his place. And they, you know, say that all of a sudden, I get a Facebook message one night sitting in his basement, and it’s Rick tomato, saying, brother, I watched all your stuff. And I think you’re great. And I want to learn from you and say, No,

Unknown Speaker
no, like,

Rosanna
we’re 37 you’re a little bit older than us, you and you’re

Leo
4040s or mid or young 40s we always ask ourselves, what would we tell ourselves 10 years ago, like if we could go back 10 years knowing what we know now like, what what should we be doing that we’re not or what Shouldn’t we worry about or like, what what would you give like advice to people who are married, that are younger than us trying to figure it out or trying to like achieve their dreams or trying to decide if they’re They’re in his right for them. Like what? Like, what advice would you have for, you know, people 1015 years younger, I think mine going back 10 years, I would say to myself, like, run your own race, like, do what you got to do. Don’t worry about what other people think. because nobody’s ever gonna think or know what you’ve got in your head. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses Don’t do all that because at the end of the day, even if you did keep up with them, you’re still going to be miserable. Because it’s a it’s a never ending cycle that you can never achieve, right? You’re setting yourself up for failure. So to me that hundred percent and I think that it would have relaxed me a lot more. I probably have 10 years left on my life because of all those things over the past 10 years. But I think that again, going back and looking at I think that if I was more chilled out and patient, I think it would have cleared the road for me to do even more. You know, that’s probably the easiest one for me. What about you?

Melisa
I don’t know. I just I feel like Use your time wisely. Because, you know, life can be short. And don’t we both have large careers. We do what we want to do, we’re happy, but we don’t sacrifice the things that are important to us to do that so don’t sacrifice your family don’t sacrifice the things that make you happy. Use your time well.

Leo
was a good one. Yep. Always time.

Jordan
Where can people find you or learn more about what you’re doing?

Leo
Ryan I’m all over

my my handles ask Leo pizza. So Instagram Facebook search asked Leo pizza, you’ll find me the school is pizza Culinary Academy. We shortened it up. So Facebook, Instagram, so pizza Culinary Academy, YouTube, there’s tons of free content. If you want to learn how to bake and make pizzas, all different kinds. You can search YouTube and find pizza Culinary Academy there. The school you can find out more at Pizza Culinary Academy comm all of our classes curbside menus Everything is there. Will you even ship you know small wares whatever you might want and again we’ve become a really nice resource and we’re continuing to grow it. Thanks

Melisa
me. Um I my Instagram is just my name and Melissa Missouri I have to I have a salon one at Melissa says what know what how does it go at Melissa Higgins does ooh Hinsdale. It’s like this at Melissa Zoo underscore Hinsdale. And then you could always find all of my stuff at Zoo salons, which is really easy to find. We do a lot of stuff online.

Rosanna
And when do some of that educational content come out? You guys are working on you said a podcast

Melisa
channel. We’re working on a podcast channel. That’s called Do talk. But I think everything could be access to our Instagram page or our website answer. Zoom salon calm.

Jordan
Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation. I know we certainly learned a lot and my sheet is full of notes. And I’m looking forward to a future part two, because we got through only handful of things that we wanted to get into with you guys. Yes!

Leo
We’ll do some pizza. Oh, thank you so much for coming. It’s just a lot of fun. I’m glad you had us on.

Melisa
Yeah, you guys are sorry. We’re so long winded.

Leo
You guys.

Rosanna
You guys are obviously very well respected in your industries. And you guys are amazing as a couple and so for us to be able to like sit down and just hear about how you make it work. And even though it’s not predictable, and it’s not traditional, like that’s amazing because I think it takes it takes balls to like do it a little bit different.

Leo
A lot of hair and a lot of balls.

Melisa
I’m the balls! Thank you.

Jordan
Thank you. Well, that was a fantastic interview. I know that I learned a boatload from talking to both of them and sort of enjoy the privilege of just getting a glimpse into how they’re pursuing their careers, but also pursuing one another and facilitating all the incredible things that they’re doing with one another.

Rosanna
I loved that we had a list of questions. And just their personalities didn’t allow us just to like check the questions off the box. We were like so involved in their stories, and just kind of like their insights, that it was just totally unscripted. And it felt very natural. And it felt really good.

Jordan
Yeah. So I hope to talk to them again soon. But there’s several takeaways that we had from this conversation. And we’re going to talk through and list a couple for you. But there’s a lot that I feel like I learned and I even want to relisten into this conversation a few times.

Rosanna
Yeah, I can’t wait to do that. I think the first thing that I took away from both Leo and Melissa was the idea of running your own race. I think sometimes we get so caught up in trying To be like someone else in our industry, or, you know, we follow certain people and we we see things that we want to be like. And so we we try and kind of do those same things. But the race for all of us is different. The terrain is different. Our bodies are different the strides that we take, you know how fast we can go. And I think sometimes we let running somebody else’s race hold us back from doing what feels natural for us.

Jordan
Yeah, I agree. One thing that I connected with was they both talked about, where they’re at their careers, how the community of professionals that they’re surrounded with is essential. I think they even phrase it like that to community is essential. And they’re, they’re not alone. They’re not like the lone man or the lone woman just doing their giftedness but they are surrounded by other people who are passionate and talented. And it’s this constant sharing and teaching and giving that really continues to help them get better and to thrive.

Rosanna
Yeah, I was I was really blown away by that because I think I always think that I have to do it on my own and that I don’t need others input. But they seem to get so much more out of their industry in their careers and even their goals when they’re sharing what they’re doing with other people.

Jordan
Yeah, it can be tempting to just be the lone wolf and to just try to do what you do independently and reach a certain level. But there’s a there’s a ceiling to that. And if you really want to get to any sort of mastery level, then it’s, it’s you have to be codependent on the other people who are striving after that with you.

Rosanna
Just like a marriage, just like a marriage, just like a marriage. I think the other thing that really stood out to me was they said that their relationship with each other with their family and in their careers, isn’t without obstacles. And so they said if you want something bad enough and you’re passionate about it and you want to pursue it, then you do the things to get around the obstacles. So instead of seeing The obstacle and backing down or taking it as a no or as a door being closed, they’re constantly finding ways to open new doors to divert around the obstacle, and they’re not going to let those things set them back.

Jordan
And then the opposite is true, too. If you have something that you kind of want, but you just all you see as obstacles, you can’t get around to them, then that probably means you don’t really want it as much as maybe you mentioned you do.

Rosanna
It’s a good thought.

Jordan
One of the thing that struck me from early on in the conversation was the role of both teaching and mentoring that they saw and they could both point to specific people who have mentored them over the years or specific teachers that they’ve they’ve studied under and they look at what they do is more than just a job and more than just, you know, something at a basic level, but they are genuinely pursuing mastery of what they really see as an art. And I think that they are able to have that perspective. And reach the level that they have, because they’ve, they see education as just this ongoing concept where they’re continually pursuing mentorships from others, but also very eager to teach what they do to other people. And one of the things they almost made it seem like it was obvious, but they’re like, Well, of course, like when you teach it that’s, that helps you grow. And you don’t always think about it like that, when you teach it you think of as the student growing, but when you’re able to articulate and break down what you do in a certain way for someone else to try to understand it forces you to refine those skills. Exactly.

Rosanna
Yeah. And even just the role of like you when you say education, in my mind, I always just think of formal education, but now we live in a time where it’s like self education. So whether it’s through books, or through podcasts, or through interviews, all of those experiences educate us in some way. And so they look for all of those small opportunities to kind of help you know, breed more invention in in their craft, which is really cool.

Jordan
So we’d love for you guys to reach out to us on our website, therelentlesspursuitpodcast.com or share comment if you’re watching this on YouTube and let us know what your takeaways are from our conversation with the Spizzirri’s and we hope that you are continuing to pursue the finer things in life.

Rosanna
Thanks for joining us.

Jordan
Hello, and welcome to Episode Three of the relentless pursuit podcast. How are you doing today?

Rosanna
Doing great. The sun is out.

Jordan
It’s beautiful day. So today’s format for the show will be a little bit different. Normally, previous episodes and upcoming episodes will focus on an unscripted conversation that Rosanna and I share, but today we have just some straight up tips that we’re going to share with you. The title of today’s episode is “Six important questions that we asked ourselves.” And we’re going to share with you six important questions that we ask ourselves. And in the show notes you can find more questions that we actually go back and forth with one another about as well. But today what we want to share with you is based on the notion that we have a certain quality of life that we can attain based on the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves because these questions will compel us to think and reflect on the kind of choices that we make that go into our day to day routines. So we’re pretty excited to share these with you.

Rosanna
Yeah, I think I just remember kind of growing up, and always being afraid to ask questions, and I’m not really sure, like, where that came from. But I kind of see that sometimes with our kids to where they just like, have a question about something, but they’re not sure if they can ask it or how to ask it or if it’s like appropriate to ask.

Jordan
I used to be the same way.

Rosanna
Like that you’re afraid like if you ask it, you’re admitting that you don’t know. And now as an adult, more and more, I just think about like when I don’t know I asked more questions because like, I want to find out because I want to get better, or I’m looking to achieve or acquire or attain something. And so even we’ve started doing this with our kids is just having an open, open conversation about questions. “Hey, you know, you were asking me a question about this, what do you want to know?” And we tell them to always try and find the answer. So when they do bring up a question, like we’re even saying, like, Hey, why don’t you grab your Chromebook from school? And like, let’s take a look at that. Let’s figure out, you know what that’s about. And let’s learn more so that we have, you know, the knowledge and the tools to like, get us closer to where we want to be.

Jordan
Yeah, the thing about a question is that it forces you to start thinking of an answer. And when we ask one another questions, it forces us as a couple. We’re gonna steer our ships in hopefully a stronger direction.

Rosanna
Yeah, you know, when we introduced our podcasts, we talked about taking life off autopilot, and living a life together intentionally. And I think that intentionally part is always stopping. Like, you know, taking off the gas, pedal your foot off the pedal on the gas, and asking yourself these questions to figure out where we want to go instead of just going. So if we want to dive right in? All right.

Jordan
So here are six questions coming at you. What’s number one?

Rosanna
Number one is “what’s working and what’s not?” This, these questions, I think I’ve often looked at what’s working like we can easily identify like what’s working in our lives and our routines. But I’ve never really stopped to ask myself what’s not working. And I just recently did this this past January, a friend had referred this goal planner to me, it’s called the cultivate what matters goal planner. And it’s literally like 30 pages of a series of like questions and areas of your life and it just asks you about them. And two of the pages are, it asks like, let’s talk about the good and talk about the bad and it asks what’s working and what’s not. And for the first time in my life, I sat down and thought what isn’t working like what’s not working for me like what causes like tension, what causes uneasiness, and it made me like make a list like the good things and like they were little things even, and some were big and then the bad things like what’s not working, what’s what’s keeping you from achieving that next goal?

The sources of tension or stress that are unnecessary.

And then it causes you in order to make goals moving forward, then, you know, it asks you to basically address like, what’s not working, what the problem is, and then finding a way out of that to get you where you want to be.

Jordan
I think it’s good to reflect on what’s working as well. So you can recognize and acknowledge that to maybe find reasons why whatever that particular aspect of life is working and to apply it to other areas too.

Rosanna
Agreed. Great. So that’s number one, “What’s working and what’s not?” So it’s a great question to even ask yourself.

Jordan
I really like question number two. Question two is, “What would our future selves tell us right now?” For me, this question, really kind of rose to prominence because there was a moment probably at least seven or eight years ago now when we were a few years into parenting. And we reflected back on the years when we were married, but prior to becoming parents, and we were kicking ourselves saying oh, we could have taken advantage of so much we could have gone out on a Tuesday night and seen a movie if we wanted to. And just it kind of hit us that we were older and wiser and now had a different perspective on previous years. And so I’ve used this question multiple times. And we’ve discussed this ourselves, too. If we could sort of play this game, and fast forward 10 years, what would us 10 years from now tell us about today? And I think we like us today would certainly have input on ourselves 10 years ago, but we can’t go back and relive that. So this kind of changes our perspective and helps us maybe have a little bit more insight about what is really important or what we can take advantage of, but from the vantage point of being older and looking back on us now.

Rosanna
And I think sometimes it’s hard maybe to imagine yourself 10 years from now. So you know, we take the kids ages and you add 10 years, you know, our youngest would be 12 our oldest would be 20 so to think about that is like scary. So sometimes I use that question when we would be –

Jordan
We would be pretty old too.

Rosanna
I use that question with people who are older than us. You know, I’m thankful for the relationship I have with my mom because she’s like a good set of, you know, eyes and ears where like, we’re kind of sometimes stuck in the now and so she’s like, you know what, you know what you’re going to remember about this time, you’re gonna remember this, or, you know what’s not gonna matter? It’s going to be, you know, maybe it’s this or, you know, kind of showing me what to embrace now, what to maybe refocus on and I think that’s been helpful too, is like, asking people who are 10 years ahead of you 20 years ahead of you, you know, when you were this age, you know, what, what did you struggle with, but what are the things you wish you would have remembered? Or or kind of, you know, dive into a little bit better.

Jordan
Yeah. Yeah, like that. What’s number three?

Rosanna
All right. Number three is something I asked you almost every day and maybe this has been because of this shift in you working from Home me working from home, the kids schooling from home this past three or four months, and that is “What do you need? And what’s your vision for the day?” Every time I asked him, he looks at me because like, I want to know the plan. Like, I want to know, do I need to get up and shower because we’re doing something? Or can I get a workout in? So –

Jordan
I think it’s more to it than that too. Because I think it’s it’s been fair to one another. And if we both have, both anticipating certain goals being met in that day, no matter if they’re bigger little, I think it’s important to share what those actually are, before we get into the day, and you get too far into the day to actually accomplish them.

Rosanna
If you let me finish it, that’s exactly what I kind of had in my notes is you have a set of expectations for the day and things you want to achieve and things you want to work on and goals. And so do I so I like to check in with you to see like, Where is he at today? Like sometimes you’re like, you know what I want to do today I just want to have fun with the kids and I want to relax and then I think to myself, great. That’s gonna allow me to accomplish, you know, X, Y and Z. And then you’re always great about Okay, well, what do you need today? And so we share those things. And then you say, Well, if I do this now, then maybe you can do that later. And then we can come together. But I think I think that’s really important is to like set that time. And whether it’s the night before, when you’re in bed together, right over a glass of wine, and during happy hour or in the morning over breakfast like that, we kind of touch base with each other, see where we are and what we need. And then from there, kind of like, set the intention for the day, so that every day isn’t just nothing.

Jordan
Yeah, or unmet expectations.

Rosanna
Right. Because if I have something that I want to do, and I don’t communicate that to you, and it doesn’t get done, then there’s kind of like that brooding resentment of I wish I could have gotten this done. But unless you communicate that need to somebody, there’s no way that they can fulfill that need or help you get there. Yeah, so I think that’s important.

Jordan
So question, are we ready for question four? Sure. Question four. This is one of our questions that we ask ourselves when we’re considering doing something new or different. The question is, “What’s the worst that can happen?” And there’s a lot that goes into this question. Sometimes the worst that can happen is pretty bad. And we have to acknowledge that we should probably back off from whatever we were thinking, but realistically, most things that we’re considering, and for some reason, decide not to do. The fears that hold us back from doing it are often in our head. And we know that our imagination can be a lot more powerful than reality. So we do have some serious questions, or some serious conversation about this question, what really is the worst that can happen and is the worst that can happen that bad? One silly example was our first road trip when we wanted to drive down to Texas. And we were a little nervous about it because we had two kids and the third one baby at the time. And we were nervous about because it’s about a 16 hour drive at least I think it ended up being more like 18. But we were nervous about getting in the car and spending that much time in that enclosed space. And what if and we imagine all the what ifs, we get a flat tire or the engine just explodes or we get lost, or the kids scream their heads off for 18 hours. And once we played through that, we realized that it’s unlikely that any of those would happen, much less all of them. And once we were probably 10 minutes into the actual trip we were like, Oh, this, there’s really not a lot to it. There was a lot in our head that felt like baggage that we were trying to drag into it. But now we feel totally comfortable doing that because we asked ourselves that question, played through it to then actually took action and did it.

Rosanna
Yeah, and for us. What’s funny is I think in every relationship there’s like there’s usually an optimist and and then maybe a pessimist. And so Jordan is an ultimate optimists like, he sees the potential of the great opportunity, like what’s, what’s the worst that can happen? And then I will list out at least 15 like worst case scenarios that can happen. And then his question is always, but would that really be that bad? Like, so what? What would like what would that look like? What would that be? And a lot of times it’s it’s the fear of like shame, right? Or someone like finding like shame of like, we tried for something and it didn’t work out. And then people know about it. And it’s, you know, this, you know, this something that you kind of carry with you that your makes you afraid to move forward.

Jordan
Yeah. I think we’ll talk more about this in one of our future podcasts Well, when we talk about the man in the arena, but this is an important one to ask ourselves. And there’s been some really big things in our lives that we’ve applied this question towards too. And sometimes the worst that can happen is bad and we veer off from it, but a lot of times it helps us sort through our fears and our imagined fears versus the realistic and probable outcomes, and in the end often gives us confidence to act towards something that is new and a little bit scary and different.

Rosanna
I mean, cuz what’s the worst that can happen? Could the kids really scream all 16 hours on the way to Texas? Could there be a diaper blowout or some vomit in the car? Just more fun for the family? Right?

Jordan
That’s what makes happy memories.

Rosanna
All right, you ready for number five? All right, so number five. This one stems from something that we have really instituted this past year. And that is the question how can I love you this week? And that’s something that I talked about in a blog post when we talked about loving the time of Corona and like, how do you love your spouse? How do you love your kids looking at each week and what’s ahead and asking your spouse, what is it that they need? How can I love you? And it really begs the question is what does love look like? You know, if you’re a Gary Chapman fan, right fan, there’s the five love languages that everybody’s heard about. So you’ve got words of affirmation gifts, acts of service, quality time and physical touch. And so you know, usually people fall into one or two of those categories. And so knowing what your partner needs or how they’d like to be showed love, you know, is important. And I think the other thing to talk about too is that changes over time. Right? Like, I don’t need words of affirmation, usually that’s not, I’m just, I can’t say I, I can’t I cannot take a compliment to save my life. I cannot. So I usually don’t need that, but and I’m not really a gift person. I’m usually blown away and floored when I get like something that’s like, kind of on my wish list because I just it’s not like an expectation that I have. But you know, if he wants to spend quality time with me, it like, makes my heart soar. If he like, does something in around the house for me that I’ve been asking for, like, also excited. You know, so it’s just different. I have four kids hanging on me most of the day. So a lot of times it’s it’s not physical touch, like I don’t want you to touch me, but, but you know, some days later cuddle and hold hands and be sweet. So

Jordan
We are big huggers.

Rosanna
We are big huggers. So I think just asking how can I love you this week? And you know that a lot of times that’s around our career too. If I’ve got something, an event coming up, and I have longer hours, you know, how can I keep saying, “How can I love you?” is how can I show my support for you this week? How are we going to make that work? How can I take some of the burden off so that you can work on something that you need to work on? And so I’ve seen it in that way.

Jordan
Yeah, I think it’s that mutual support, but I really like this question. I see it as different from the other questions about like, what are we working on? Or what are ways we can support each other? Or like, What do you need? Because it’s really a question centered around like maintaining that love like, what is something I can do that will show you love and instead of just doing it and making the assumption that you are receiving that love message. It’s nice to ask and to say it well here since I’ve been asked like, here’s at least one thing that would be very loving and very when we share that, then we’re you know, it’s out there in the open we, I think, just assume that the other person is going to act on it as long as it’s reasonable. And then by the end of the week, we feel that much more loved and affirmed.

Rosanna
Yeah, meeting those expectations. Another book I read in the last, maybe it was over a year ago was called Love Does. And it talks about love is taking action, like Love is not a passive thing. So to love someone to be in love to show them love. That’s it takes action. And so it’s not about sitting back. Even asking those questions about expectations and what we need from one another – that takes effort. And so I think that’s something that’s really important is that love takes effort, and even asking someone like directly what they need, and then giving that to them. It’s not that romantic like chocolates and candy and romantic dinner that this is like, um, maintaining kind of love that’s going to build something that lasts a long time.

Jordan
Yeah, I don’t think it’s like I think of going on vacation with you, where you just you and I and like, no one else has a chance to intervene with like, just quality time or whatever, you know, activities we’re doing wherever the vacation may be. But that is big, but it’s also rare. And even if well, when we get back to home, we get back to the day to day, I think that’s where we’re spending the majority of the time. And it’ll make sense that we find ways to love one another in those moments as well. And it might be flowers and dates. But it also might be some some much smaller gestures. It’s just what are ways that we commit to interacting regularly.

Rosanna
Yeah, and communicating that. I mean, it’s communication is like 90% of it. The action is like the small part of it. It’s having the guts to like, ask and receive those things. Very good.

Jordan
All right. Are we at question six already?

Rosanna
We are at question six.

Jordan
All right. So I really like this question as well, because this is a very reflective question. The question is this, are we getting closer or further away? And the reason that we ask one another This question is because, in my opinion, this is what it all comes down to. And it’s it’s not just about getting closer or further from one another, but also getting closer or further from, who we perceive ourselves as and the story that we intend on writing for ourselves. So I think all of us can admit we get incredibly busy with the things that life consists of. And this is one of the things that our podcast is committed to, you know, helping ourselves and others with is just being more intentional and getting out of the routine, getting off autopilot. So when we do establish any sorts of routines or habits, healthy and invigorating though they may be, I think it’s good to come back to this question and say, “Is this creating more of the substance of life that we always said we wanted to create, or just making ourselves busy, and we’re going to look back and be like why did we spend so much time making ourselves busy with that stuff when it was really removing us further from our intended destination?”

Rosanna
Yeah it’s that’s very sounds teacher language but it’s kind of like this self assessment right? Like when we set goals as educators during the year like you set them at the beginning of the year and then you’re always asked to like reflect upon them or even reflect you do this at your job right? Like you set goals or you’re trying to meet benchmarks and then you have to self assess and even your employers will assessed you on those benchmarks. So it’s like that time to kind of like pause and look back and then ask like, yeah, you know, we did all of these things this year, but they’re not moving us any closer to our goals. So that either means two things, you’ve got to change your goal or you’ve got to change how you’re approaching it if you want to, if you want to make it.

Jordan
There’s a scene from there’s a scene from the movie The Godfather to and I’d love to dissect this further and maybe a future podcast, but go and watch this. And I know Godfather 2 to not everyone’s favorite, but there is a moment that I think encapsulates the whole trilogy really well. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Rosanna
No. And I mean, I love Godfather.

Jordan
Maybe I brought this up before. So there’s a short little scene, and it is easily overlooked. But it’s when Michael Corleone goes, and he talks to his mother, and it’s like, at nighttime, I think there’s a fireplace there. And they have this conversation in Italian where he asks his mother, if it’s possible to lose your family, based on the kinds of activities that in business that his family is doing. And his mother looks at him with utter confusion. And she’s like, the whole point is family. So if you’re doing something that could lose the family, then that is just didn’t compute with her. Go and watch it. And you’ll you’ll see that it’s just kind of this remarkable moment where there’s these conflicting interests and values that’s the character Michael Corleone had. But I think that lives out in a lot of ways. We do as well: “Is it possible to lose the very things that we value because of the kind of work or business that we’re engaging in?” And this brings us back to question six, are we getting closer or further away? We have to ask ourselves that questions, because sometimes the answer is we’re getting further away. And that gives us an opportunity to reflect, recalibrate, and move forward better from there.

Rosanna
And I think that’s okay. Because I think we’ve taken opportunities and risks and chances that we think are going are going to get us closer, and maybe that they don’t, they really don’t. But it’s, it’s the point isn’t that you tried it and didn’t work? It’s now figuring out where do you go from here?

Jordan
So those are our six most important questions that we ask ourselves. To be honest, these questions change from time to time. And there might be other questions that we’ve had on this list in previous portions of our lives. And certainly, as we move ahead, we’ll probably have different questions that we ask ourselves as well. But one of the takeaways that we want you to have is that regularly in engaging one another with interesting questions that help you to assess and reassess the quality of life that you’re living will help you really improve your relationship and improve the way you work together to strive towards those elements of life that you really want. We have additional questions as well that we tend to ask ourselves, we’ll include those in the show notes. I’ll include a link to that Godfather scene if I can find it in the show notes as well. And we’ll provide you with some additional resources that we think can help you kickstart some great conversations.

Rosanna
Yeah. So I mean, I think the the biggest takeaway here is it’s not even what the questions are. It’s just that engagement with one another and it doesn’t even have to be a spouse. Let’s say you’re single or you’re not married, right? It could be with friends, it could be with family, people who you trust people who you seek counsel from helping them or them helping you answer these questions and talk through them is really important too.

Jordan
The quality of life is often based on the quality of questions we ask ourselves about it. We hope you enjoyed our conversation. We hope you apply a few of these questions on your own. And leave us a comment if there are any additional questions that you ask yourselves that maybe Roseanne and I can learn from. If you haven’t visited our website yet, it is therelentlesspursuitpodcast.com. You can read some of our latest blog posts and leave a comment there. And if you haven’t yet, please subscribe and give us a five star rating on this podcast. Thank you very much.

Rosanna
Thanks for tuning in, guys.