A few weeks ago I reconnected with an old friend I hadn't spoken to in years. During our late teens we were inseparable. We trained together. Went out together. Spent our weekends chasing girls, talking about life, dreaming about the future. His name is Riccardo. He is a
Self discovery is not a single afternoon of clarity, no matter how the phrase gets sold to us. It is a body that has been quietly sending you the truth for years, long before your mind is willing to listen to it. I did not understand how literal that was
Reinventing yourself threatens people who never did. Here’s why some doors close not because you failed — but because you dared to cross.
An identity crisis does not always arrive as a breakdown. Sometimes it arrives at a networking event, in the three seconds between someone asking "what do you do?" and you opening your mouth. The Question That Shouldn't Be This Hard I have been to many networking
There is a restaurant called Moby Dick's in Whale Beach, Palm Beach, New South Wales, Australia. I washed dishes there for months. Eight to ten hours a day, hands in hot water, grease on every surface, the same soundtrack playing on a loop, the same orders coming through
Self-discovery rarely happens where you are. It tends to happen at a distance, once the place and the people who always defined you are no longer close enough to keep doing that work for you. Only then do you find out what was actually yours, and what you simply
An identity crisis is not always about who you are. Sometimes it is about who you were told to be — before you were old enough to question it. My Grandfather My grandfather was a Cavaliere del Lavoro. He worked for the Ferrovie dello Stato for thirty years. Then he opened
Death does not resemble what we imagine before we have met it. It is not an ending to be feared from a distance — it is a teacher, exact and merciless, revealing at once what we had truly loved and what we had only pretended to love. I did not learn
When survival depends entirely on what you do next, you discover capacities you did not know you had.
"Self discovery is rarely chosen. More often it is forced — by a railroad track, a question nobody else can answer, and the terrifying realization that your life has been invisible." In August 2005, Desmond Meade stood in front of railroad tracks in Miami waiting for a train to
During COVID, I became obsessed with a podcast by one of my favorite storytellers at the time, Chazz Palminteri. If you’ve never seen A Bronx Tale, I highly recommend you go watch it. Watch Here Not only did Chazz write it, but it’s a beautiful coming-of-age
"Inner work doesn't happen in the ceremony. It happens on Monday morning."
identity
"Kurtz is not the madman in this film. He is the only one who told the truth." I have watched Apocalypse Now maybe ten, maybe twenty times. This time I watched the Redux version — the one with forty extra minutes that most people never saw. And something cracked
Newsletter
He had 100 post-it notes all over his apartment. Same words on every one. His goal. His identity. The version of himself he was building back toward after his ACL blew out and the suicidal thoughts came and everything he thought he was fell apart. Every morning. Every evening.
Newsletter
Last week I went to a Yin Yoga class in Wynwood, here in Miami. I’ve recently started going every Tuesday evening with my friend Gian Carlo, who had been inviting me for months. Since I have a little more free time these days, I finally said yes. Yin Yoga
Newsletter
What Watts understood about community, resilience, and building something real when the system has already left the building
Newsletter
Family Constellation work doesn’t heal you by showing you the truth. It heals you when you decide to do something about it.
Newsletter
On mystery, creation, and why artists should never explain their work.
Newsletter
What Alexander the Great asked for in his final hours — and what it cost me to understand it
Newsletter
On being a nurse at the frontlines — and what happens when the system you gave your life to stops making sense.
Newsletter
Five years of Family Constellations and what I found in my ancestral tree
Newsletter
An observation from a European in the most Latin American city outside Latin America — and what happened when I said it out loud
Newsletter
What a cheerleader-turned-top-attorney taught me about hiding your light — and why I’ve been doing it my whole life.
Newsletter
What a documentary about grief, a broken mandolin, and an album taught me about pain, art, and the Hero's Journey