the script we don't write

if you’ve ever felt like you’re playing a character in your own life - acting out a version of yourself that was written by your hometown, your parents, or your high school friends - this episode will hit home.

in this episode of the Modern Renaissance Podcast, Giacomo Gallazzi sits down with Mattia Oliva, an entrepreneurship student at the University of Tampa and a “pioneer” from our first nano cohort.

we explore a journey that started in the outskirts of Como and landed in the sun of Florida, but the conversation is about something much more universal: the courage to delete the script others wrote for you.

it’s also a story made of detours: England, a university dropout, a year as a freelance videomaker at 19, and then a sudden decision - sparked by a conversation with his father - that changed everything in less than two months.

sometimes life doesn’t pivot because of a master plan. It pivots because someone tells you: “Go live.”

listen here or on spotify:

Mattia says something that is both simple and haunting: “As long as I live at home, I’m always going to be the person my mother and grandmother saw when I was five years old.”

we often stay in our hometowns and wonder why we feel stuck. It’s not necessarily the lack of jobs or things to do; it’s the narrative gravity. People around us “know” us, and their expectations work as a cage.

Mattia describes his life as having lived “15 different lives in 25 years”. Moving abroad didn’t just change his address - it multiplied his identities.

Moving, whether to England, Florida, or just a new environment, isn’t just a change of scenery, but acts as a hard reset for the soul.

it gives you the “psychological safety” to experiment with parts of your identity that were previously suppressed.

one of the most liberating moments in the episode is when Mattia talks about fear.

he missed out on an entrepreneurship program at the university for two years because he thought everyone else was “more advanced.”

when he finally joined, he realized the truth: nobody has a clue of what they are doing. We are all just playing our best guess.

the difference between those who build and those who watch isn’t knowledge, it’s the willingness to play the game while being “clueless.”

in life, there is no master script, cause everyone is improvising. once you realize the “experts” are just older improvisers, the fear of not being “ready” starts to melt away.

“Why shouldn’t you be worthy of playing the game as well?” is the quiet question that stays with you long after the episode ends.

Mattia’s project, Rewire, focuses on breaking stereotypes.

drawing inspiration from Adam Grant’s Think Again, he challenges the way we reinforce beliefs through casual irony and assumptions (like “americans are stupid” or “women aren’t for business”).

but the most interesting part is why he chose these topics: not because he’s immune to them, but because he catches himself falling into them.

he argues that even our jokes reinforce our biases. To “rewire” is to treat your beliefs as hypotheses to be tested.

it’s a call to move from “I am this way” to “I am currently testing this way of being.”

Mattia touches on why community matters for “A-players” (from Netflix’s founder book, No Rules Rules). It’s not about the perks or the salary; it’s about density of talent.

in a small town, if you say you’re starting a podcast to break stereotypes, people look at you like you’re crazy. In a community like TMR, that same idea is met with: “How can I help you make it better?”

it’s also the first time, for him, being in an international community that isn’t just “multicultural”, but deliberately built around creation. Ten people, ten countries, ten different worlds colliding.

this is the spirit we are building: I am because we are.

we don’t find ourselves in isolation; we find ourselves in the reflection of other ambitious, “clueless,” and courageous people who are also busy rewriting their own scripts.

Mattia didn’t just study entrepreneurship, but he lived the friction of being a freelancer at 19, the failure of dropping out in England, and the “fate” of starting over in Tampa.

he reminds us that education isn’t just about what you know: it’s about the environments that allow you to express who you are.

in Italy, he says, he always felt unseen. Never really listened to nor ever really put in the position to discover who he could become. His mission now is to bring that same “possibility” back to Italian students who feel unheard and unseen by a system that often prioritizes conformism over potential.

stop waiting for the perfect script. Stop waiting to “know” what you’re doing.

A personal Modern Renaissance isn’t about having all the answers - it’s about having the right people around you while you figure them out.

As Mattia says: “Don’t let fear hold you back. Just go play the game.”

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