"Resolve to succeed. The greatest discovery one can make is that nothing is impossible."

Unknown

Returning to Italy was a simple choice: a challenge but at the same time a great pleasure. Continue playing was still in the plans but it was also time to start thinking seriously about what to do after volleyball.

"Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted."

Randy Pausch

Going from a volleyball player to being part of the staff of a national volleyball team was not an easy transition. Probably because it was not the moment in my timeline for that to happen or maybe it was not my vocation, but the truth is that, as I am used to doing in my life, it was an opportunity I could not let passed by and that ended up having many repercussions on my future decisions.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Wayne Gretzky

Switzerland reminded me that my love for volleyball had a limit. I liked volleyball so much but at the same time I liked doing other things besides playing this fantastic sport.

"Those who lose dreaming are lost."

Australian Aboriginal Proverb

"Failure is part of the process of success. You can't be succesful without failing first. People who haven't been sucessful are those who have never failed."

Robert Kyosaki

When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other opportunity.”

John F. Kennedy

After a few months in Argentina gathering documents and other paperwork I had to make a decision about whether to start working or giving it a try at becoming a "professional" volleyball player.

"There is no need to over power when you can out smart."

Phil Jackson

From my time at Mason, what I take with me more than anything else, is the learning experience of having to practice, live, and share most of the hours in a day with people from so many different places. Having to share everything with people from different cultures and backgrounds and sometimes, even another point of view on volleyball, made the experience more exciting.

"Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the 'me' for the 'we'."

Phil Jackson

Brazil changed my life...

During the XXVII South American Championship for club teams in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the President of Macae Sports, a youth volleyball club just outside of Rio di Janeiro, invited me to join the club's U17 (infanto-juvenil) and U20 (juvenil) teams.

"And no matter what let life happen. Believe me: life is right in all cases."

Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a young poet, November 4, 1904.