We have playfully merged together the replies to our questions about the “quest for the business hero” of Alessandro Farina, ITL Group Managing Director and Luigino Bottega, coach and author of “IO – how to win the game of life”.
Ethics, sustainability, and creativity: Atlas World aims to spread these values with the support of its community of Hungarian-based Business Heroes. They join forces to improve the world. We interviewed Alessandro Farina and Luigino Bottega to learn more about their histories and expectations for the future of society.
1. Please introduce yourselves
Alessandro Farina: I’ve been living in this country for the last 30 years; I was one of the young interns and one of the few that have remained with passion. I could develop my profession in this country; Hungary gave me the pleasure of getting a lot of experiences and meeting people. Every morning I wake up with the joy of going to my office and looking and expecting what’s next. With the same attitude, we are pleased to be the founder of the “Atlas World”.
Luigino Bottega: I express myself in different ways: I do life coaching, I wrote a book about how to win the game of life, I develop marketing strategies for companies. I also like to organize events, especially events where people can be happy together and multiply their energy.
2. Let’s start with an easy game of word association. What comes to your mind when I say “business”? And what comes to your mind when I say “hero”? There are no wrong answers!
Alessandro: The definition of business is a challenging one; very often, business is associated immediately with money. Money is the consequence for a good business, but cannot come as the cause or the principle of it. In everyone’s imagination, the hero is flying, arriving, and saving the world, and taking care of the others without any personal benefit.
This is the key to the hero. The hero is not being paid to be a hero. They believe in what they are doing, and they do it for a good cause. So, it’s an exciting profession if you want to see it from this point of view. And the world always needs heroes around.
Luigino: When I hear the word “business” I have this strange feeling that it is not the strongest word, because “business” comes from “being busy”, and only “being busy” is not the best for you. The best is to be efficient, because to be only busy is not enough: it is crucial how you invest your energy. You can create impact: you take action and involve others in that direction.
About the word “hero”, which comes from the Greek word “protector”, I think that we are the heroes of our life: only we can win or lose the game of our life by expressing ourselves by serving others and realising our bliss, our inner prophecy, to be helpful for the evolution of the humanity.
3. Now, let’s combine them together…what do you think is a business hero?
Alessandro: Business heroes are those who can combine their business skills, with a powerful impact on the future of our society. We want to create a community of those we call business heroes who have a deep feeling about what society’s values will need for a better future.
Luigino: “Business hero” can represent a person who can efficiently imagine and realize, through his actions, a better world. When I say “world” I can also say “nature”; we’re nature. It also means that when we do something bad to nature, we do something bad to ourselves. So a Business hero is a successful person who can imagine and realize a better future for themselves, others, and the world.
4. Every business person goes through a journey: when did you hear your call, and how did your journey start?
Alessandro: I come from a family of entrepreneurs, where everybody in the family was creating their own destiny as a business person. One day, I realized that my moment was there.
Hungary was a wonderful place for me to do it. It was a learning-by-doing experience that went on and on and it’s still not finished. It still gives me the same adrenaline.
Luigino: I heard different calls in my life because my awareness changed over time. I was always focused on learning what happened inside me, how I could express my talents, and how my talent could be helpful to others.
Initially, some calls attracted me to the area of creativity, and I expressed myself by developing software or becoming a graphic designer. I also took the responsibility to create a company to realize more significant projects.
In the last few years, I have felt that my mission is to empower and foster people to lead their destinies. I’m focused on my personal development to be a better person and to use any energy and resources to support others to discover themself and create something for humanity.
5. Which obstacles did you encounter during your journey?
Alessandro: I went through many obstacles, with many mistakes, and a lot of good learning. In Hungarian, they call it the “Tanulópénz“, which means the “money of learning”. Each mistake costs energy and sometimes financial resources.
There is a moment when it seems that nothing is scaring you because you went through so much. Obstacles give you new challenges; challenges give you new ideas. Hard times are an opportunity to rethink what I was doing.
Luigino: Every situation can be described as something to be scared of. Or, you can be excited to see this new challenge! It means that every day is a call to becoming a creator.
It would be best to see the challenge you face only as an element that permits you to grow. Especially failures are a good moment for learning and making a jump to understand yourself better.
6. Did you find a mentor or inspiring leader to help you go forward?
Alessandro: A very good friend of mine convinced me to change the office where we were working. It seemed like small things, but we went from a tiny, old-stylish place to where we are now. And that was a brave move with a severe economic impact. This happened in 2007, with the crisis of 2008 coming next.
So I was a little bit scared, as you can understand. Still, he was very much present during this period, and we did great together.
We need to always find the best part of the people around us because there is always a lot to learn by listening. And we don’t always have to look for the biggest names in the world to be inspired, but we have to look with different eyes around us.
Luigino: Everybody around us is a mentor, even an enemy, somebody who hurts you, or a child. Everything that happens around you makes you grow.
Talking about classic mentors, I like to study a lot from international mentors. I learn from the online platform where there are international mentors that you can acquire information for your life or your business activities, your reactions, or also in the level of the spiritual awakening (I believe there is something more than only the body).
7. What important lessons did you learn, and what is your contribution to society?
Alessandro: Many of my failures in business terms have been extraordinary experiences, because I loved and didn’t regret them. But now I know what I should do and should not do again, and I definitely learned a lesson from some of those.
When I think about my contribution to society, I must mention the not-for-profit area of ITL Group within our “Projects without borders“.
In 2008, we established the first newspaper in Italian language speaking about Hungarian, Economia.hu. Then we realized in 2010, the Database of Italian companies to facilitate their networking. In 2014 we published a book that has been appreciated by Italians and Hungarian institutions: Hungary 2014: a Guide to Investment.
To answer the crisis, in 2012, we established the Budapest Business Party, which has quickly become iconic. Then Covid arrived, and we created the storytelling platform called “Fear is the Mind-killer“. In 2019, we created the Atlas Award for the good people around us working for a better society.
Luigino: The key is the journey to awareness, which means that what is more essential for us is to know ourselves and the direction in which we can express our bliss and why we’re here. Only in that way we do give meaning to our life.
8. Atlas World is looking for business heroes with an Ethical, Sustainable, and Creative approach: can you think of someone that embodies these qualities?
Alessandro: I don’t want to make it too easy to mention Gandhi or history’s big names. As I said, I prefer to keep the example of people next to us who, in a way, are contributing to making a better society. In my mind comes my younger cousin, who lives in Italy. I feel that the new generation is sometimes thirsty and hungry for change, much more than our generation. She started her own business activity just one year ago, and she started in the field of sustainability, with sustainable products, bio products, in a brilliant way.
The young generation is linked to new start-ups, to sustainability, to ethics, to social impact, to inclusion, to a lot of those things that we are in a way now, trying to create the platform, to create the business community, to put together. It will be fascinating to see which business heroes we can include in this, so I’m looking forward to that.
Luigino: I think that it’s not easy to find one person that follows this ESC philosophy in the beginning because all these three together are describing an inspiring leader who is already “complete,” but of course, depending on your network of contacts. I have in my mind some and, every day, I can see that these people are committed to transforming themselves. Mainly because you can change the world into a better place starting from ourselves. I can see that these people are committed to being better day by day and are very sensible in these three keywords. In business we need people that follow the Ethical way, the Sustainable way, which means that they also care about the future generation and be every day creative, and innovative. These are, for sure, the essential elements to generate a business efficiently.
9. Do you consider yourself a business hero?
Alessandro: I dream of becoming a business hero. All my work is a drop in the ocean, but I don’t think that is the key point. I hope to keep my enthusiasm about creating community, about giving back to the business society what it’s giving me. Because if I get, I can donate, if I give I can receive. So yes… I wish to be considered a little bit of a business hero, or at least, I hope so.
Luigino: Of course! I am joking; I want to be better and better every day with these three keywords. I want to use these three keywords also to serve others. And let my practical actions show if I am really one business hero or not.
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