The Day I Became The Italian Fraud

Why I'm starting a weekly letter about business, identity, courage, and becoming real

He called me The Italian Fraud.

His name is Scott. I had known him for maybe forty minutes.

It was June 3rd. We were at a mastermind retreat at Jesse Itzler’s house in Connecticut, the kind of place where interesting people end up in the same room and something unexpected always happens. They invited us to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Scott and I ended up next to each other, and he started asking questions.

So I started talking.

I told him I was an Italian woman. That I owned an Italian marketplace and cooking school. That I taught people how to cook Italian food and sold products straight from Italy.

And then I told him the rest.

That I do not like cheese.

That I do not like wine.

That I do not drink coffee.

That I do not like whole tomatoes.

He looked at me.

And then he said it.

“You are an Italian Fraud.”

I laughed. Because honestly, it was funny. We had just met. He had no idea he had just handed me the title of my newsletter and maybe, one day, of my book.

But that is the thing about the right words at the right moment. They do not feel like a big deal when they happen. They just stay with you. And stay. And stay. Until you realize they were not really about food at all.

---

The fraud that was not about food

Basically, if there were a citizenship test for being Italian based on food stereotypes, I might be deported.

I know. Very suspicious.

But the more I thought about what Scott said, the more I realized the phrase was staying with me for a reason that had nothing to do with cheese or wine or tomatoes.

Maybe I have felt like a fraud for a lot longer than that.

Not because I am fake.

But because I have spent so much of my life feeling like I needed to explain myself before people misunderstood me.

I am Italian, but I do not fit the perfect Italian image.

I own a cooking school, but I am not a chef in the traditional way.

I built a business, but sometimes I still feel intimidated by the business I built.

And here is the part I do not talk about enough.

I built it because I had no other choice.

I came to America to practice my English. I got a job at a CPA firm in the Empire State Building. And then my father (an entrepreneur, son of an entrepreneur, grandson of an entrepreneur) told me that a nine to five in the country of opportunities was not enough. That I had to think bigger. That I had to bet on something.

So I did.

I got an investor visa, tied myself to my own company, and walked away from the only safety net I had. From that moment on, there was no plan B. No going to work for someone else if it got hard. No quiet exit.

I had to make it work.

And I did.

Last year, Healthy Italia did one and a half million dollars in revenue. I have thirty employees. I built a cooking school and a marketplace from an idea and a leap of faith my father dared me to take.

And I still wake up some mornings wondering who gave me permission to do any of this.

---

The permission problem

I love personal development, but there are still days when I do not feel developed at all.

I want to write a book, but I keep waiting to feel more ready. More qualified. More organized. More successful. More clear. More something.

And maybe that is the real fraud feeling.

The feeling that you cannot start because you are still full of contradictions.

The feeling that before you speak, you need to become more polished.

The feeling that before you are visible, you need to have everything figured out.

The feeling that before you call yourself a writer, or a leader, or a founder, or a woman with something to say, somebody has to give you permission.

I have waited for permission in so many areas of my life.

Permission to write.

Permission to be seen.

Permission to lead.

Permission to want more.

Permission to say, “This is who I am,” without immediately adding a disclaimer after it.

For a long time, I thought the answer was confidence. I thought one day I would wake up and feel ready.

But I am starting to think that readiness is overrated.

Maybe the point is not becoming a woman who never feels like a fraud.

Maybe the point is becoming a woman who can keep moving even when that feeling shows up.

---

What the business taught me that nobody warned me about

You think you are building a business.

Then one day you realize the business is building you back.

It shows you where you avoid conflict.

It shows you where you need approval.

It shows you where you confuse being busy with being brave.

It shows you where you want growth, but you do not always want the discomfort required to hold it.

It shows you where you say you want to be visible, but secretly hope nobody looks too closely.

That is the uncomfortable part of entrepreneurship nobody warned me about.

You think you are building systems, marketing, and numbers.

Then you realize it is asking for a different version of you.

---

Why I am starting this newsletter

That is why I am starting this newsletter.

Not because I have all the answers. Actually, the opposite.

I am tired of waiting until the story is perfectly packaged before I tell it.

I am not writing this from the mountaintop.

I am writing from the kitchen. From the store. From the office. From the car after a hard conversation. From the notebook full of ideas I still have not organized. From the messy middle of a business I love and a version of myself that changes every day.

This newsletter is going to be about business, but not only business.

It is going to be about personal development, but not the polished kind where everything becomes a lesson immediately and everybody sounds enlightened.

Because sometimes the lesson comes after the crying.

Sometimes the lesson comes after the mistake.

Sometimes the lesson comes after you say the same thing to your business coach for the hundredth time and finally hear yourself.

Sometimes the lesson comes after life makes you so uncomfortable that you have no choice but to become more honest.

So yes, I will write about business, about Healthy Italia, about food, about identity, about leadership, fear, ambition, money, relationships, loneliness, family, visibility, and all the strange comedy of becoming yourself in public.

And I think this newsletter is also going to be part of how I write my book. Because I have been saying for a long time that I want to write one. And I have also been doing the very human thing of waiting.

But maybe a book does not start as a book.

Maybe it starts as one honest page. Then another. Then another.

So this is my first page.

---

I am not an expert. I am evidence.

Evidence that you can be full of contradictions and still build something meaningful.

Evidence that you can feel like a fraud and still be real.

Evidence that maybe the parts of you that make you feel unqualified are the exact parts that make your story worth telling.

So welcome to The Italian Fraud.

A weekly letter from an Italian entrepreneur building a business, a book, and herself.

I do not know exactly where this will go.

But I know this: I am done waiting to feel ready before I begin.

---

This week’s question

What is the thing you keep waiting to feel ready for?

If this speaks to you, subscribe and come with me. Every week, one honest lesson from building a business, writing a book, and becoming the person my future keeps asking me to be.

---