I'm a dreamer. Being Italian I'm also a lover of life, food, fashion, family and friends.
I'm a very driven person, ambitious, always ready to work hard, ready to push myself to the limit to succeed. I'm eager to learn and to improve myself. I have big dreams. I'm a risk taker and a believer that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. But it was learning Transcendental Meditation a year ago that helped me to get the right results.
I was convinced that to succeed there was no time to loose. Therefore no time to rest. So I was often skipping the gym because I was too busy working on my projects and depriving myself of a good night sleep because the day were too short to do all the things I needed to do.
I'm sure many of you reading this Blog recognizes themselves in this description.
Since a year I'm practicing Transcendental Meditation: twice a day 20 minutes. A year ago I would have thought that this was not possible for a person like me. I'm sure that's what you are thinking.
All I can say is that I'm grateful I learned it. It completely changed my life and made me realize my biggest dream.
For year I was working on finding funding for a project. My dream was to bring the beauty and mystery of Venice and my message of love to the United States with my romantic music. I wanted to film my show From Venice With Love as television special for the public television. My show was already doing great in small and medium size theatres all over the East Coast. But I needed exposure to reach more people.
I was watching for years great artists like Andrea Bocelli, Chris Botti, Celtic Women on Public Television. I had seen that a television special on PBS in support of a tour had brought those artists from unknown to very loved artists. I had some contacts with PBS and they loved the idea to have my show.
To find funding for a talented but a relatively unknown artist like me was the toughest things ever. I had come to realize that many people didn't understood that even great artists, once were unknown too, until they were offered a chance, a moment of luck, some help.
I was working non-stop. I wanted a chance too and it was not easy at all.
Then suddenly three years ago I got also the scare of my life. I was suffering of low sugar for a while. I was told it was hypoglycemia. Then suddenly I started to faint on a daily base. I was brought to the emergency room one day after fainting again and they told me I could not leave or I would die because my sugar was not able to stabilize.
After 10 days of research they found three rare tumors called insulinoma in my pancreas. I spent one month at the Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC where an incredible team of doctors, major surgery and probably a miracle gave me my health back.
That experience changed my life. I had now a new prospective of life. I knew I needed to listen to my body and take care of my mind.
That's when Transcendental Meditation was introduced to me by a Vietnam veteran Ed Schloeman, who I had met after one of my performances. He was telling me how TM had helped him to overcome his problems with the depression and stress that he had been suffering ever since his return from Vietnam. He was saying how meditation had brought him close again to his family and to his wonderful wife.
He invited me to an event organized by the David Lynch Foundation and among the speakers practicing TM and raving about the greatness of TM were also Arianna Hufftington, Ray Dalio, Dr.Oz and Chef Mario Batali. I knew right there I wanted to learn TM.
After only a few months the changes were visible. I was sleeping better and had so much more energy to do things. Thanks to TM it felt like I had more control of my brain.
I learned that to dive within ourselves during TM was better than the best sleep we ever had. And when we come out of we feel refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life.
I worked for a year organizing showcases and inviting all people we knew that could help to fund my project. I started to think outside the box. I was somehow more confident. I was able to find investors like Joe Grano (former chairman of the UBS Bank and lead investor of the Broadway hit Jersey Boys), Barry Habib (mortgage expert and lead investor of the Broadway hit Rock of Ages) and Ron Sansom, a very successful business man. I was able to surround myself with an incredible team of Award winning professionals, like music arranger Chris Walden, Grammy Award winning music producer Gregg, television director Alex Coletti, Emmy Award winning line producer Frank Garritano. And in 7 months I was able to raise more than a half million dollars that I needed to film my television special.
I strongly believe that all happened thanks to TM. I'm always looking forward to do TM. I get new energy and great ideas, solutions. It looks like the time is not lost meditating, but just gives extra time that we loose struggling and getting nervous.
I'm right now working on the post-production of my television special. I'm also working on finding extra funding to set up a tour of 56 dates for next year.
Just like one of the songs that I sing of the Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun." But thanks to TM life is more balanced now and the successful moments more enjoyable and the challenging ones easy to deal with. If you feel better, you look better and that confidence is maybe the key of success.