Your brain is a supercomputer, but we don’t know how to program it. It comes out of the box pre-programmed for fear, and unless we rewire it, it keeps repeating that pattern. Jim Keyes

In this inspiring episode of 15 with Fosca, I welcome James W. Keyes, global business leader, former CEO of 7-Eleven and Blockbuster, philanthropist, educator, artist, and self-described modern Renaissance man, to explore the extraordinary journey behind his book Education is Freedom.

Jim shares the powerful story of his early life, growing up without running water and learning to rely on education as a pathway to possibility. His father’s message, “someone can take your money, but they can’t take away what you know”, became a lifelong compass, shaping Jim’s belief in agency, resilience, and the inner freedom that comes from knowledge.

Together, Jim and I unpack themes of adversity as opportunity, the mindset shifts that unlock personal transformation, and why Jim believes failure is never final but rather an invitation to learn, echoing a favorite Nelson Mandela quote: “I never lose. I win or I learn.”

We also dive into Jim’s contagious optimism, discussing neuroplasticity, fear, and the brain’s capacity to be rewired toward confidence and possibility. He recounts conversations with neuroscientists and spiritual leaders, including the Dalai Lama, to illustrate how genuine positivity is cultivated, not inherited.

Jim speaks about the Education Is Freedom Foundation, which has helped more than half a million students pursue higher education, and why expanding educational access remains core to his mission today.

Finally, we tackle the “elephant in the room”: AI. Jim offers a hopeful lens on the future of technology, arguing that if embraced wisely, AI can transform global literacy, accelerate human learning, and become one of humanity’s greatest tools for progress rather than something to fear.

This conversation is a masterclass in resilience, curiosity, and the transformative power of learning, an episode for anyone seeking inspiration, clarity, and renewed belief in what’s possible.

Biography

Jim is a global business leader, philanthropist, educator, artist, musician, commercial pilot, and modern renaissance man. He is the former CEO of two internally recognized Fortune 500 companies, 7-Eleven, Inc, and Blockbuster, Inc. His other business interests cover a broad range of industries including retail, consumer products, technology, new space, energy, and advanced nuclear. He sits on several public company boards and serves as a board adviser to a venture capital firm and a number of start-up companies. Keyes’ philanthropic initiatives, have an equally broad focus, including serving on the Board of Governors for the American Red Cross, the former Chairman of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and serving on the board of directors for institutions such as UT Southwestern Medical School, The Cooper Institute, Dallas Performing Arts Center, SMU Cox School of Business, Columbia Business School, and his alma mater, College of the Holy Cross.

He has had a lifelong commitment to education, serving as a founding director of the Dallas Education Foundation and is the founder of the Education is Freedom Foundation. A personification of the American Dream, Keyes came from his humble beginnings and was inducted in 2005 as a member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. In 2024 he received the Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award, presented by Methodist Health System Foundation to recognize demonstrated community leadership.

Links

https://www.jameswkeyes.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jkeyesauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/Jkeyesauthor

Get your copy of Education is Freedom: https://www.jameswkeyes.com/book-foreword

Share, like, comment, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim

Recorded via Zoom, Post-production Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency

My guest this week is Melissa Deep, CEO & Founder of Virtique Srl, a Tuscany-based company that creates virtual experiences that transform sales, marketing, and advertising through Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, E-Commerce, and Geolocated

Mapping. Virtique creates superior digital content that replicates and enhances the intimacy of the brick & mortar store experience.

Through Virtique, Melissa shows her commitment to creating a better world and a more sustainable retail eco-system, and helps communities by promoting local businesses, supporting, reducing the carbon footprint, and providing crucial visual aid to those with limited mobility issues and content for those with food intolerances.

Be sure to join us to learn more about Melissa’s exciting life and work, and her fascinating, international professional and personal journey from New York to a magical beach town on the coast of Tuscany.

Biography

With over 30 years of international management, sales and strategy for tech startups, including one unicorn, Melissa has lived and worked in New York City, USA, Moscow, RU, London, UK, Zurich, CH, and Forte dei Marmi, IT. 

She graduated Valedictorian of her high school class and attended University of Rochester, Cum Laude, Class of 1992.  Her career in technology started in the early ’90s in satellite telecommunications in Russia, providing communications services to international mining and oil companies.  From there, her passion for using technology to create business solutions began.   

She has held several senior management positions in sales & strategy with startups including Arbinet, an electronic exchange for voice and data trading, which ultimately went public in 2004 and became a unicorn.

She speaks English, Italian and a little bit of Russian and Spanish.

She has a passion for technology, DIY projects and family, which includes her dog.

Melissa is the Vice President of the Association Digital Twins Italia, dedicated to promoting commerce, tourism, and art & culture throughout Italy via Virtual Experiences.

Links

https://virtique.it/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-deep-b923683b/

https://www.facebook.com/virtique.it

https://www.instagram.com/virtique/

https://www.instagram.com/melissa_anne_deep/

https://www.facebook.com/melissa.a.deep

Share, like, comment, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim

Recorded at Faminore Sound Agency, Post-production: Lorenzo Maiani

“What if we believe that what really makes us thrive as human beings, what makes us human beings, is our civility, and that we commit to it from a level of fierceness. That in the face of bullying, in the face of an error in the world system now, where people are rewarded for being nasty to each other and trying to take each other down, we stand fierce in our civility.” Joe Weston

Join me and my guest, Joe Weston, for an important conversation about what it means to be fiercely civil and why it’s so important and necessary in today’s world.

Our conversation spans from how meditation, martial arts, Taoist practices, and diverse traditions have informed and shaped the work Joe does with individuals, corporations, governments, and NGOs to how his teachings of respectful confrontation and fierce civility give us tools to transcend our biological, cultural, and tribal impulses of survival that lead to separation. Joe leads us to a discovery of strategies for releasing the gridlock caused by extreme polarization, thus enabling us to shift effectively to bridging and alliance-building, and find new solutions even in the most unlikely places and in times of turmoil.

Joe founded the Fierce Civility Project in 2020 to create a vehicle for those looking to take their innovative, passionate visions and ideas for a better, more equitable and sustainable world, and turn them into practical action.

Joe Weston Biography 

Joe Weston is an author, speaker, facilitator, and advocate for peace, whose work is rooted in resilience, compassion, and fierce accountability. With more than 30 years of international experience in conflict prevention, leadership development, stress management, and communication, Joe is the founder of The Weston Network and The Fierce Civility Project, a nonprofit initiative dedicated to healing divides and revitalizing civic engagement.

His clients span the globe and include organizations such as NASA, the World Bank, Oxfam, The United Nations, the National Cancer Institute, and Mitsubishi Motors. Joe’s teachings are informed by his lifelong commitment to service and transformation,

including his past work with veterans, inmates, and individuals in high-stakes leadership roles. He previously served as an adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s Program of Conflict Resolution and continues to offer trainings worldwide.

His most recent book, Fierce Civility: Transforming Our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, was published in English and Italian and has become an Amazon bestseller in 14 categories. He is currently expanding his work across Europe, including recent events and workshops in Italy such as the University of Pisa’s Masters in Scalability and collaborations with leadership networks, NGOs, and corporate leaders.

Now living between the U.S. and Europe, Joe continues to travel widely as a speaker and guide for those committed to creating a world rooted in courage, connection, and fierce compassion.

Links

https://joeweston.com/

A Cure for Chronic Niceness | Joe Weston | TEDxYoungstown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EmbwYM8qus

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-weston-a6327931/

https://www.instagram.com/fiercecivility/

https://www.facebook.com/joewestonauthor

https://www.youtube.com/@westonnetwork217

https://joeweston.com/weston-network/

Buy the book:

https://joeweston.com/books/

Share, like, comment, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim

Recorded via Zoom, Post-production: Lorenzo Maiani, FaMinore Studio

“When you break, you're forced to open another door, and that's when I came back here and found my roots because Nonna was strong, and I figured it had to be in me somehow. She was the key. A lot of bad stuff happened to us, but we're still together, and a lot of that came from Nonna Carmela.” Libby Cataldi on her new memoir, It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live  In part two of my interview with Italian American author Libby Cataldi, we dive deeper into her riveting personal and family story, one filled with challenges, triumphs, love, and forgiveness.

Join us to hear more about Libby’s journey, not only to Italy and back to her ancestral village, Rotondella, but also to a deeper understanding of her family and who she is today, thanks to the legacy left by her grandmother, her guiding light and example of fortitude, wisdom, and inspiration.Libby’s memoir came out this week, and I recommend it to everyone looking for a beautifully written, powerful, touching, and engaging family and personal story about immigrants in America, generational trauma, mother-daughter relationships, family secrets, and more.

Libby Cataldi Biography 

Born in Pittsburgh, I grew up in an Italian family and surrounded by an Italian community. My early years were steeped in faith as I attended St. Mary’s Elementary School and Canevin Catholic High School.

My dad, the patriarch of the family, dictated that I could attend college only if I majored in education or nursing, so I entered Indiana University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Education. A year later, I applied for and received an internship position at the University ofPittsburgh where I earned both a Master’s and Doctorate.

For seventeen years, I was Head of The Calverton School, an independent day school in Maryland.

My maternal grandmother, Carmela—an Italian immigrant from Basilicata who came to America in 1915 during the Italian diaspora—was my primary role model of steadfast love and strength. When life jumped the rails and I found myself collapsing under the weight of my older son’s heroin addiction, breast cancer and a bilateral mastectomy, my dad’s death, and the culmination of twenty-one years at Calverton, I journeyed to Rotondella, Nonna’s village in Basilicata. There, I found family and began to understand how she had become a woman of such grit and determination—the one who protected, loved, and held our family together

Today, my two sons, Jeff and Jeremy, and my granddaughters—Iysa, Monroe, and my love-granddaughter Camryn—fill me with joy. My sons and I joined together to write Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction. Jeff—who is now nineteen years healthy—and I speak to groups in both the United States and Italy about the hope of recovery.

I divide my time between Annapolis, Maryland, and Florence, Italy. In Florence, I rowed with the Dragon Boat team for breast cancer survivors and served on the board of the International School of Florence. Currently, I’m a member of AILO, a women’s association dedicated to charitable fundraising, and a founding member of the Florence Literary Society. All four of my grandparents were born in Italy, and I hold dual citizenship through my maternal grandparents.

Our family has experienced both miracles and sorrows, but like Pittsburgh steel, we have survived—and remain strong. My sons and I have been through hell and back, but we’re still together—and still staying close.

Today, I live in a space of gratitude. Where there is life, there is hope. 

Links

https://libbycataldi.com/

https://www.facebook.com/libby.cataldi

Get the Book!

https://libbycataldi.com/books/

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim 

Recorded by Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency

“My grandmother Carmela was my North Star, my safe port in many childhood storms.Strong. Independent. She swept the snow from her sidewalk wearing only a sweater, made her own wine, canned her own tomatoes, strung her own peppers to dry in the basement, and found edible dandelions for salads in the yard. She was the matriarch of la famiglia, whose grown sons stopped by every night after work to eat at her table before going to their own homes to eat again. She couldn’t read or write—not in Italian, not in English—but she was the smartest person I knew. She taught me how to eat pasta, how to cook, how to pray, and how to protect those I love.” Libby Cataldi, It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live: An Italian American story of coming home.

Join me and my guest, Italian American author Libby Cataldi, for a heartfelt chat about her new memoir, It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live. The book, and our conversation, touch on universal themes such as the immigrant experience in America, generational trauma, mother-daughter relationships, family secrets, sacrifice, the subjugation of women, love, and forgiveness. Libby and I speak about the disconnect between the real Italy and the imagined one and her first encounter with the country and with Rotondella, her remote ancestral village in Basilicata, where she went “to connect with the grandmother who loved me and to understand the mother who couldn’t.” 

Libby beautifully recounts this mysterious place that ultimately provided her with answers about her family heritage, relationships, and herself. We converse about food as “a legacy of love, culture and tradition,” language and the chasm between regional dialects and standard Italian, how dialect both shrouds and reveals, and the reality of Italy’s Mezzogiorno, a still much-misunderstood part of the world.

The episode centers on Libby’s Italian Americanness and how her upbringing and heritage shaped the person she is today; how, in her words, “by risking a solitary journey to Italy, I found strength—and in doing so, I found the grace to forgive my mother, help my son, and save myself.”

Libby Cataldi Biography 

Born in Pittsburgh, I grew up in an Italian family and surrounded by an Italian community. My early years were steeped in faith as I attended St. Mary’s Elementary School and Canevin Catholic High School. My dad, the patriarch of the family, dictated that I could attend college only if I majored in education or nursing, so I entered Indiana University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Education. A year later, I applied for and received an internship position at the University of Pittsburgh where I earned both a Master’s and Doctorate. For seventeen years, I was Head of The Calverton School, an independent day school in Maryland. 

Links

https://libbycataldi.com/

https://www.facebook.com/libby.cataldi

Get the Book!

https://asterismbooks.com/product/it-takes-a-lifetime-to-learn-how-to-live

https://bookshop.org/p/books/it-takes-a-lifetime-to-learn-how-to-live-an-italian-american-story-of-coming-home-libby-cataldi/c9bb85ab83b08019?ean=9781599542393&next=t&next=t

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/it-takes-a-lifetime-to-learn-how-to-live-libby-cataldi/1148082386?ean=9781599542393

https://www.amazon.com/Takes-Lifetime-Learn-How-Live/dp/1599542390/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3WYIFBJGCPVL&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.1YlwgQ3Oy3DTRU9Fr9vSVtlSOaE7s4TIRNiJ0NFmSo3GjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.3a1rnrDerwSTrpcXk9oshHsTmtur52MgQZ-MAayrF-U&dib_tag=se&keywords=libby+cataldi&qid=1756998445&sprefix=libby+cat%2Caps%2C77&sr=8-1

Share, like, comment, review, and subscribe!

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim

Recorded at Faminore Sound Agency, Post-production: Lorenzo Maiani

As the podcast enters its third year, we’re changing things up a bit!

The new season features another incredible lineup of guests and stories; but we’re broadening and widening the scope and taking 15 with Fosca a little outside of its niche to bring you conversations with writers, artists, and change makers exploring creativity, culture, life, and human connections from Italy and beyond.

Find out what’s different about Season 5, how and why we’re shifting, what we have in store for you, and the reasons we need stories that inspire now more than ever.

Don’t miss a new season of authentic storytelling, culture, and humanity across borders.

Share, like, comment, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Production Intern: Jasmine Kim

Recorded at Faminore Sound Agency, Post-production: Lorenzo Maiani

Aperilife featuring Sam Rich

I try to have one-on-one relationships, and I encourage them, because caring about a person and being kind is what I needed when I first came here because I was unsure. I fell in love with an Italian and I had to fall in love with Italy, with the good and the bad. Sam Rich

When I met Sam a few months ago at an event I cornered her, told her how much of a fan I am, and she, with her signature grace and kindness, happily accepted my invitation to be on the podcast and I am so glad she did.

Join us this week for an honest and joyful conversation about the reality of life in Italy as we look behind the dolce vita façade and dig deep into the nuances and intricacies of Italian culture.

Sam tells us about her first encounter with Italy, the serendipitous moment that shaped her journey, the challenges she’s faced, what’s important to her, and how she’s helping visitors and foreign residents decipher and navigate Italy through her refreshingly honest, insightful, and valuable work.

Sam is also committed to mentoring, especially study abroad students, building and cultivating community, and sharing her firsthand experiences and knowledge with candor and heart, to help people make sense of Italy and engage with the culture and Italians in a meaningful way.

Biography and Links

Sam is a globetrotting soul with a passion for untangling life’s cultural threads. With nearly two decades of experience as a flight attendant, she’s soared through over 24 countries, each journey shaping her understanding of people and the intersectionality of diversity.

Her journey in Tuscany started with serendipity, meeting her fiancé at a birthday party in San Gimignano in 2016. From renovating their home, a 15th century convent with a vineyard and olive groves, to hosting social events for her expat social club, Fiori d’Italia, practicing yoga, and setting sail, life’s flavors enrich her.

Sam’s heart beats for storytelling, and she’s had the honor of sharing her insights at universities, The Florentine, and to her audience of 123K+ followers on social media.

The name "Aperilife" is a reflection of her joyful approach to life in Italy. She sees her life as a perpetual happy hour, an endless aperitivo where happiness flows as freely as glasses of prosecco and spritz. She aims to bring together a community of like-minded souls, encouraging them to embrace the cocktail of beauty and chaos that comes with living in Italy as a foreigner.

https://www.aperilife.com/

https://www.instagram.com/aperilife/

https://www.youtube.com/@AperiLife

This episode of 15 with Fosca was brought to you by Foto Locchi, guardians of Florence’s visual memory. The Archivio Storico Foto Locchi is the world’s most comprehensive photographic archive of Florence and its history. Now you can dive into the city’s beating heart with a new video storytelling experience that takes you on a photographic journey from the 1930s to the 1960s, giving you direct access to the soul of Florence’s people, history, and beauty.

Experience Florence like never before and step back in time by taking a visual journey through The Archivio Storico Foto Locchi. Prepare to be transported.

https://www.fotolocchi.it/en/archive/

https://www.instagram.com/archiviofotolocchi

https://www.facebook.com/archiviofotolocchi

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, leave a review, comment, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis

Production Intern: RJ Plunkett

Recorded at Faminore Sound Agency, Post-production: Lorenzo Maiani

In this episode, we’re invited into the warm, magical and delicious world of Carlotta Conti, a gifted cooking instructor who originally hails from Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna and who now welcomes guests into her home in the hills just outside of her Florence.

Carlotta doesn’t just teach recipes, she offers a rare opportunity to live and experience Italian culture from the inside. Her bespoke cooking classes unfold in her own kitchen, nestled among olive groves and rolling Tuscan hills, where guests gather not as tourists, but as honored friends at the table. It’s an experience rooted in authenticity, hospitality, and the deep traditions of regional Italian cooking, the kind of Italy few travelers ever truly get to see.

Join us as we delve into the rich culinary heritage of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Italy, the influences on Carlotta’s cooking and teaching, the nuances between authentic Italian cuisine and its Italian American counterpart, and the evolution of Italian cooking from Pellegrino Artusi’s foundational works to Marcella Hazan’s modern interpretations, and right up to the present day.

BIO:

Growing up in Emilia Romagna, a region known for Parmesan, Parma ham, lasagna, and stuffed pasta, a great deal of my childhood was spent in the kitchen with my grandmother and mother. Even at a very young age, I could see that for them cooking was a passionate expression of their love for their family. While I’m filled with many warm memories of watching them cook, what I remember most is circling the table and watching the stove, waiting for any opportunity I could to steal a taste.

Being raised in a home where there was only homemade food, I’m proud to say that I carry on the family tradition of fresh egg pasta, using my grandmother’s rolling pin — an 80-year-old tool that has also come in handy for keeping husbands in line, over the years…

…and pasta is magic. Our origins define what we are, and my regional roots deeply influence me. In Emilia-Romagna, fresh home-made pasta, a skillful mixture of eggs and wheat, is the protagonist of regional gastronomic culture. Not only does it contain tryptophan, an amino acid which turns into serotonin, the hormone of happiness, but it also testifies to centuries of efforts in creating a unique cuisine. 

Emilia-Romagna, though not so famous as Tuscany, is an area of gastronomic excellence. The tradition of home-made pasta is still prevalent: the pasta machine is considered “the tool of the devil”, and we still have, in our fresh-pasta shops and restaurants, women who are rolling pasta in front of the shopwindow. Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany are the staple of national gastronomic heritage. Our good Pellegrino Artusi, publishing his Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well in 1891, created the pattern of a unified cuisine in a country which had been politically separated up to thirty years earlier. Copies of his book, stained and tattered, passed down like a family heirloom, from mother to daughter.

Links

Cooking with Carlotta – Official Website - https://cookingwithcarlotta.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookingwithcarlottainflorence/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookingwithcarlottablog/

Google Reviews: https://g.co/kgs/JqNZWJN

html

This episode of 15 with Fosca was brought to you by Foto Locchi, guardians of Florence’s visual memory. The Archivio Storico Foto Locchi is the world’s most comprehensive photographic archive of Florence and its history. Now you can dive into the city’s beating heart with a new video storytelling experience that takes you on a photographic journey from the 1930s to the 1960s, giving you direct access to the soul of Florence’s people, history, and beauty.

Experience Florence like never before and step back in time by taking a visual journey through The Archivio Storico Foto Locchi. Prepare to be transported.

https://www.fotolocchi.it/en/archive/

https://www.instagram.com/archiviofotolocchi

https://www.facebook.com/archiviofotolocchi

An Epic Ride

featuring Emma Boutcher

“When you're thinking about moving to a place it’s the people, that’s the most important thing. You get to see how they live, what it actually means to live there versus just staying on the surface. I was drawn to the beauty of this place and then had this immediate sense of what a community here is like.” Emma Boutcher

Emma Boutcher is a young U.S. expat and engineer who decided to take the leap and make the move to Italy just about a year ago. I was lucky enough to be by her side through some of the process and sat down with her a couple of months ago to talk about her path to where she is right now, how it's been going so far, what kind of challenges she's faced, the work culture in Italy vs that in the States, how to find community, and so much more.

Anyone who knows me know just how much I love talking to Gen Z and Emma, and her story, are delightful and inspiring. I find her perspective intriguing and insightful especially in light of the fact that so many of her Italian counterparts are still fleeing the country in record numbers. So, how does a talented young engineer from the U.S make her dream of living and working in Italy come true? What role did her passion for cycling, WWOOFING, and trying to save the planet play in her decision? And what’s next for Emma?

Tune in this week to find out!

Biography and Links

After graduating from Northeastern University in 2019, Emma has lived many lives - English teacher in Vietnam, product manager for Specialized Bicycle Components in Colorado, and now, by a combination of luck, determination, and being in the right place at the right time, as a Product Development Manager for MET Helmets in Northern Italy. Her move to Italy in 2024 was inspired by a desire to live life with more balance. She now calls the shores of Lake Como and finds joy in the big and little adventures that come with living in a foreign country. You can find her (at all months of the year) in the lake, on her bike in the mountains, or soaking in a shared meal with friends at home.

You can follow all her adventures at the links below:

https://www.instagram.com/emboutch13?igsh=ZGlueGdldml4NGg2&utm_source=qr

https://strava.app.link/VDXIg8icUTb

https://wp.me/PbzKAV-8

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, leave a review, comment, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis 

Recorded via Zoom, post-production, Lorenzo Maiani, Fa Minore

In this special episode, we dive into the heart of American football in Italy with Estra Guelfi Firenze, one of the premier teams in the Italian Football League. Founded in 2000, the Guelfi have become a powerhouse in the growing European football scene, known not just for their grit on the gridiron, but also for their deep ties to the local community.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary and a spectacular season thus far, I sat down with

with the team’s General Manager, Edoardo Cammi, Captain Gianluca Santini, and newest wide receiver, Frankie Stola to talk about everything football. Frankie is a recent U.S. import with a story that’s almost too good to be true: he’s the son of my Florence roommate from way back in 1990, representing a rare and beautiful full-circle moment that literally brought tears to my eyes. It goes without saying that this was a very meaningful and emotional interview for me.

Join us to get the inside scoop on what it’s like to build a football dynasty in the shadow of the Duomo, who the players are, what they are all about, their impact in the community, and why this team is about more than just wins and losses. We also discuss the team’s journey, their passion for the game, and what it means to play football in one of the world’s most historic cities.

Whether you’re a football fanatic or a fan of great stories, this episode is about sports, culture, friendship, and how a team from Florence is making serious noise in Europe’s American football scene.

Links

https://www.guelfifirenze.it/

https://www.instagram.com/guelfifirenze/

https://www.instagram.com/weplayforpizza/

https://www.guelfifirenze.it/booster-club-us/

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelfi_Firenze

Let’s Stay Connected!

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, leave a review, comment, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis

Production Intern: RJ Plunkett

Recorded at the Guelfi Sport Centre by Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency