Inspirational Support From my College Freshman Liberal Arts Professor
We never know what to expect in life. The coronavirus has truly shaken up everything in my life, from personal to business.
But there are always hidden gems in every situation.
Today I want to talk about one of them – my college professor from freshman year – Dr. Silvio Laccetti – reached out to me during the Coronavirus outbreak to see if I was doing fine, but also seeing I had a PR angle to leverage with it.
A few back and forth emails with “Doc”, I wrote an Op-Ed article (which got picked up in VA news) and the snowball continued up to Wall Street Journal and Yahoo Finance TV.
While there are many more emails from Doc and I – here’s one that really inspired this post.
You doing all this stuff, and my seeing you on your blog, brings me back to the old old days of Mikey the freshman at Stevens. Remember the editorial you wrote about Italian-Americans, which was well-received? Then your first appearance on TV in the tape about y2k – when you were stumbling all over yourself and the class felt sorry for you when I showed it??!! Now look at you. Confidence, smoothness, affability, sincerity and relatability. I could go on…4 books, writing improvement is tremendous. Everything about you in potential has come to pass in these past 15 years or so. You have good reason to be proud.
Only one thing hasn’t changed. You still look like you are 18!!
Love your kids.
Keep going and keep me in the loop and vice versa.
Wish I had a proper photo together with him – I remember him asking me in freshman year to write more OpEd articles. In the quote he reminds me about the Y2K (I was a freshman in college in 1999 – 2000 right in the middle of the Y2K and bubble) as well as the Italian Americans upset about all the Mafia TV glorification.
Thank you Doc, I really appreciate you and pushing me out of my comfort zone.
I was truly clueless in that freshman year of college. Thinking back to my mindset and idea of the world – wow – truly like night and day now.
Update – Coronavirus has reached him / New Jersey USA
Since writing this…. I just learned that the first case of Coronavirus has reached New Jersey… pray everything goes smooth and safe for him and all my friends from NJ, USA, the world.