Everything is in the Beginning:

English. Spanish. Italian (Video)

Julián Carrón - Religious Sense and Work. A dialogue.

Moderator (Francesco Napoli): Good morning, everyone, and welcome. My name is Francesco Napoli, and I oversee institutional relations here at the Foundation. A very warm welcome to all of you. We have already met with some of you in recent days to formalize your registration. So, on my behalf as well, welcome to the start of the new academic year at our Jobs Academy.

Before introducing our guests, allow me to briefly mention today's title: “Everything is in the Beginning.” It is a simple title, yet it is enormous—huge. It describes exactly what we are about to live right now: the start of a journey, a new step, an attempt. It is a choice that already contains something good within itself, almost like a promise. It is a hypothesis regarding the meaning of our life, our future, and our work.

Today, we have the opportunity to explore this theme with two friends who, for different reasons—one is a priest, the other an entrepreneur—have made this promise inherent in the beginning a decisive point in their experience, never neglecting or abandoning it.

With us is Don Julián Carrón: priest, theologian, and educator. He has accompanied and continues to accompany thousands of young people and adults in rediscovering the beauty of their own humanity, in understanding that you are beautiful just as you are and that there is a meaning in everything. Consequently, you can look at life with interest and courage, just as you are doing here today.

Next to us is Danilo Dadda, entrepreneur and CEO of a large group, Vanoncini S.p.A., a leading company in the field of sustainable construction and technological innovation applied to building. In addition, he is the founder and consultant of OSM Edilizia, a company that offers many entrepreneurs the opportunity to relaunch themselves, helping them to live their entrepreneurial endeavors with drive, perhaps even picking them up again during a difficult phase.

Thank you very much for being here. One last thing before we begin our dialogue: this meeting, this “beginning,” is designed for you. Not to lecture you, but to help us look at what is happening to us: the start of your human and professional path. We want to look at your desires, fears, concerns, and attempts, and understand how this whole tangle of feelings and expectations can be brought into your daily lives, without censoring a thing.

Let's try to take this beginning seriously: the beginning of the year, the start of your professional journey, and the dawn of a question that concerns us all: What does the heart have to do with work?

This is the first question I ask both of you: What does “beginning” mean to you? What is at stake in the beginning? Perhaps thinking of a young talent entering the workforce, or an entrepreneur running a company.

Don Julián Carrón: Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to share this moment with you, because it is always a beginning for me, too. You never know how things will happen, so I like to remain open to the unexpected. I am Spanish by origin, and I love an analogy from the bullring: the torero never knows where the bull will come out. You never know how life will challenge you.

So, it is always a beginning; it is never a repetition. Today is not a repetition of the day before yesterday for any of us. You are here, brand new, and we are meeting: it is always a chance to see if a spark will fly that might interest us. That is why, when we say that “everything is in the beginning,” it means that we are the beginning. Our whole person is here today, and we are just waiting for something to happen that will ignite that spark, that “volcano” we have inside us. Without this happening, we risk becoming flat, with nothing attracting us enough to set us on fire.

I realize, from my work as an educator, that work is an essential part of this “ignition.” Why? Because at this historical moment, work is a huge provocation. I don’t know if you are aware of how much unease exists in the world of work today: the “Great Resignation.” After Covid, many people asked themselves, “What’s the point?” Work is a provocation to understand what we have to do with what we do.

If one is attentive, all the human issues that burn within us come to the surface. I have always liked a quote by Luigi Giussani—taken from a book we will use for further study—which says: “In facing the daily circumstances involved in work, man deepens the original dynamic.” From the continuous impact with reality—with difficulties, challenges, and burdens—the constitutive needs of the "I" emerge: the need for truth, goodness, justice, and beauty. This dynamic, as a continuous discovery, is a true work within the work; indeed, more properly, it is the true work of life.

When this does not happen, something begins to malfunction. Last week, I was talking to an entrepreneur in Milan and, while preparing, I read in Il Sole 24 Ore that 38% of people work only for their salary. That is, they are not engaged by their work, they aren't enthusiastic about it; they work hard only to get their money at the end of the month and “start living” afterward. But in that way, life is not implicated in the work.

I remember meeting a girl, Giorgia, who was just starting out like you. I asked her, “Giorgia, tell me something beautiful about this weekend.” She replied, “Yesterday, I got a tip at work.” She was a waitress. I asked her, “Why do you think they gave you that tip?” “Because I applied myself. I was attentive, totally focused on responding to the customers’ needs.” “And when you were focused, did you check the watch to see when you would finish so you could start living again?” “No, I forgot about the watch. I was that involved.”

I was amazed. I said to her, “Look, it’s you! You are starting to enjoy your work so much that you forget the time. In addition to the tip, you’ve earned the joy of working this way.” She looked at me seriously and said, “Prof, everything in me goes back to zero.” My blood ran cold. One can experience a moment of intensity, but afterward, nothing remains; the person does not grow. Everything resets to zero. Work can be a tomb if one does not do this work within the work to learn to grow and enjoy it more and more. This begins today and is constantly repeated. Welcome to this fascinating adventure of living.

Danilo Dadda: Here I am! First of all, thank you. I am honored and excited to be here. What does it mean to begin? For me, beginning means emotion. I don’t know if you remember the first time you did something, the first time you met someone, or your first soccer game. I was just an altar boy—we have a theologian here!—but I remember the first time I put on my vestments to serve Mass: that adrenaline, that tension, that pure emotion that makes you be yourself. That fear of uncertainty.

For me, starting is feeling that adrenaline rush, and it is wonderful. Public speaking is one of the most common fears, and I used to be terrified of it. Today I’m here, totally excited, and it’s a total blast. I’m reminded of the words of the maestro Pavarotti, who said in an interview: “Every time I have to perform, I practically wet my pants.” I thought: Wow, if the great maestro feels this way, I can feel it too!

What is the connection with work? Happiness in working life is feeling this emotion every day. Waking up and saying: “Come on, let’s get moving! Look at the wonderful people around me, look at the wonderful things I’m doing.” I hope you feel this emotion every day of your life, whatever you do.

Moderator: You have brought up an important point. Don Julián says that it is necessary to do a “work within the work” because it is not enough to just work to be happy. Danilo says he wants to be happy and amazed every day. I ask you: What allows each of you to get up in the morning without taking anything for granted, without censoring anything, maintaining this attitude of wonder?

Don Julián Carrón: What makes me wake up is that the reality I find myself in pushes me further. Think of a child: as soon as he opens his eyes in the morning, he may have a room full of toys, but what does he do? He cries. Because everything else is not enough for him without a Presence. He needs to see his mother. As soon as his mother enters his horizon, he is at peace.

What is the presence that, at your age, allows you to wake up with something in your eyes for which everything else is not “too little”? I remember a friend who, in front of a breathtaking view in Tuscany, said, “After a while, I get bored even here.” The panorama is too little without a presence. Imagine being in love and being invited to a perfect corporate party, with incredible music and food, but the person you love is missing. You would miss everything.

I love a line by the songwriter Guccini: “I’d like to be the song I want to be, but I’m not when you’re not here.” The question of living is whether we have someone who makes us wake up every morning with the desire to see them again. Many relationships are trivial; they are not enough for us. The question is finding something that lasts over time, because what is true is what lasts. Without this, we return to our mental loops that weigh down our lives.

Danilo Dadda: I could spend hours listening to Don Julián. What gets me going in the morning? Apart from hunger... it’s my values. At a certain point in my life, I faced great difficulties. At 22, I was crushed by a crane load on a construction site. I spent nine hours in agony, thinking my life was about to end. I fell asleep in the operating room convinced I would never wake up again. Instead, I woke up to my mother’s face saying, “Everything went well.” I was confined to a bed for six months. There, I came to the realization that if I got out of that bed, I would never stop. But I asked myself, “What will I do? And above all, why?”

I thought long and hard about my personal values and my goal. If you’ve never asked yourself this question, I invite you to do so: What are the values that guide you? I walk with my personal faith. For me, faith is believing in something that has not yet manifested itself. Being an entrepreneur means having faith in your team, seeing something in people that even they don’t see. This is my mission, and it’s what makes me get up in the morning and say, “Come on, let’s get started!”

Moderator: It is clear that you cannot separate work from your self, otherwise everything becomes flat. But is there a method that you have learned that helps you live in such unity? That has allowed you, Danilo, to become a successful entrepreneur and you, Don Julián, not to lose that Presence?

Don Julián Carrón: The method is fundamental. I owe my life to Don Giussani, who taught me the method of living. As a child, I had an enormous desire to live up to my humanity, but I didn’t understand how. Giussani made me aware that what we have inside is like a detector that allows us to judge whatever happens. He said, “I am not here to convince you, but to teach you a method so that you can judge whether what I say is true.”

Thanks to this method, I could verify everything. Even when I made a mistake, I was happy not because of the mistake, but because the “detector” made me aware of the mistake, allowing me to learn. A friend who works with Elon Musk told me that they value all the mistakes made in space launches because they are useful for learning. The point is not to avoid making mistakes, but to have a method for learning from them. Life becomes an adventure in which you don’t want to be spared anything, because you want to see if what you live for can withstand the impact of reality.

Danilo Dadda: Let me start by saying that I’ve made enough mistakes to fill an encyclopedia! If I am a consultant today, it is precisely because I have made so many mistakes and I make my experience available to others. My method changed when I realized that everything that happens to me depends on me. Before, I always blamed others: if my son left, he was ungrateful; if the company was doing badly, it was the market’s fault. But that way, my life was adrift.

Thanks to great masters, such as Pietro Antonio Vanoncini, I realized that I shouldn't feel crushed by the faults of the world, but see what happens as an opportunity to improve my skills. If a customer does not confirm an order, it is not because they are a jerk; it is an opportunity to ask myself where I went wrong and improve. It is very difficult, like Fonzie in Happy Days who could not say “I was w-w-wrong.” But you can say it! In addition to values, you need discipline: working on yourself every day.

Moderator: In the business world, performance is often everything. If you are not successful, you are worth less. Have you ever failed to “perform,” to succeed? And what did you learn from that?

Don Julián Carrón: For me, the problem is not failure, but that sometimes even success is not enough. Pavese said that in every pleasure we seek the Infinite. Look at the rapper Marracash: he started from nothing and achieved enormous success. But he said, “Now that I’ve gotten here, I realize that this isn’t enough for me. I would give away the Rolex because I want to understand who I am.” Leopardi said that feeling that everything is little and small for the capacity of the soul is a sign of our greatness. This is not a manufacturing defect! It is proof of how great you are. If you get angry because things are not enough for you, it is like the glass getting angry at the drop of water because it doesn't fill it up.

Even in large multinationals in Dublin, full of benefits, people change jobs after a few years. Because the salary is not enough. As Billie Eilish said after winning the Oscar: “What was I made for?” If we don’t discover this, even success won’t satisfy us.

Danilo Dadda: As a kid, my success was playing in Serie A. Then I realized that it wasn't in the cards. So I wanted my own technical studio. I worked in a studio where I fell asleep on the drafting machine because it wasn't my environment. Then I met the company of which I am now President. There, I found the conditions to express myself. First, you have to look for the WHO, then the WHAT.

But let me tell you a story. Years ago, even though I had everything, I wanted to sell the company. I was feeling bad. I took part in a charity auction for the association Imprenditore Non Sei Solo (Entrepreneur, You Are Not Alone). A friend auctioned a valuable watch. The bidding went up, and there were two of us left. The auctioneer stopped us and said to the donor, “Did you expect this amount?” He replied, “No, but those who give to others will receive a hundredfold.” I raised the bid and won the watch. I spent a lot of money and felt ashamed in front of one of my colleagues who was present. The next morning, during a meeting, I received a message. I showed it to my colleague: an order had arrived that was exactly 100 times greater than the amount I had spent the night before. I learned that success is not about money. If you work for money, you will die poor; if you work to help people grow and help others, you will be a successful person.

Moderator: Thank you, that’s wonderful. Now let’s hear two questions from our second-year students.

Giorgio Marchesi (Student): I wanted to ask: what past mistakes and difficulties have allowed you to create ideas for your future experience?

Matteo Drago (Student): I did an internship at an events company and had an almost “religious” experience in terms of dedication and attention to detail. I wanted to ask Dr. Dadda how he perceived the religious sense, in terms of values, within his work.

Laura Rampello (Student): We went to China, and immersing myself in a different culture changed me; it made me more open-minded. How can we continue to live every day with this same desire to put ourselves out there and keep our eyes wide open to the world?

Danilo Dadda (Responding to Matteo and Giorgio): For Matteo: For me, the religious sense in work is having faith in people. Seeing in them a worth that even they don't see. The best thing is when someone says to me, “Thank you, I didn’t think I could do what I’m doing.” To Giorgio, on mistakes: The biggest mistake I’ve made, and still sometimes make, is to focus more on “doing” than on the person. You have to focus on the person because every person is a diamond. The mistake is to look only at the bottom line and not at the human being.

Don Julián Carrón (Responding to Laura and Giorgio): On mistakes: When I was young, I was sent to a village of 600 people. I thought, “I’m going to die here.” Instead, it was three spectacular years. I learned not to confuse reality with the image I have of it. Reality is always greater than our imagination. For Laura: The other is a good not because he or she is like me, but precisely because he or she is different. In China, diversity forced you to broaden your horizons. Any circumstance, even one that does not coincide with our expectations, is a “friend” because it makes us grow. Do not be afraid of the unexpected. The only sin is to waste the opportunity to grow. Life is enriched if we remain open to the fact that there is more reality in heaven and earth than in our philosophy.

Moderator: How wonderful! Thank you, Danilo, thank you, Don Julián. You have given us so much today.

Unrevised notes by the author. Bergamo: JobsAcademy Italy.