7. An OVAX story without numbers: my father in WW2
The story below shows both free-will choices driven by Values, and destiny, working together in a lifetime . It shows how war times can affect an ordinary life.
It is an example of a format that I call "Value-Life-Story" because it shows the evolution and changes of Values over time. This example may guide you in writing your own Value-Life-Story over your "Life Seasons". It can also serve as an example for you to write the Value-Life-Story of your loved ones, or of people that you are interested in, socially or professionally. In each case, you can apply the OVAX methodology to their stories, in a text form, without numbers.
In the following pages, I only show two life seasons of my father's life story, while the full story is in my book.
First job and wedding (1936-1938)
His first employment was with Fiat in a small town in the South of Italy, Cosenza. He was able to rent a central apartment and budget for his married life. He got married to a land-owner country girl from Campania in central Italy, whom he met through his brother Fortunato.
Character: Stubborn, self-confident, hardworking, devoted to family.
Talents/ assets: Good public-relations talent as an employee in the Fiat sales department; a reasonable salary and small income from land ownership.
Values:
. Relationships: to be a good husband; to keep good contacts with his in-laws and siblings.
. Work life: to build-up a good reputation with the Fiat head-quarters in Turin.
. Lifestyle: to provide all possible comforts for the home, and follow his passion for cars.
Actions: Devoting most time to work and care for family, investing in a good car.
Experience: Fulfilment and happiness coming from family and work, and from travel in a good car to visit relatives and land properties in central and southern Italy.
Children and War (1938-1945)
Soon after his wedding and his first child, at the start of his good job, Italy went into World War 2 (1940), with the crazy dream of re-establishing a Roman empire model for "our sea", the Mediterranean. This dream was not shared by many Italians, not by Nini. He moved his family (wife and two children) to the house of his mother-in-law in the countryside of Campania. The soldiers he was in charge of, defending Campania, hated war, and would say to him in their dialect "we cannot shoot these people (the enemy), they may be fathers of children, like we are!". Nini would try to enforce discipline by replying: "When you catch sight of the enemy and you run away, do not leave your rifles on the ground, they are expensive, carry them with you".
Character: Stubborn, self-confident, always calm, understanding the different views of people, devoted to his family, moved by the suffering he observed (e.g. resulting from bombs), generous with his subordinates, brave.
Talents/ assets: Talent in driving all kinds of vehicles (motorbikes, horse carts, cars); being trusted by his subordinates; managing family survival in the most difficult conditions.
Values:
. Relationships: to find ways and means to protect his family, mother-in-law, and friends, keep them away from bombs, find food and beds for them when moving from one shelter to another; to be friendly with the enemy soldiers, because they are people like us, Germans and Americans alike (both of them took possession, at different war stages, of the family house of the mother-in-law in Campania).
. Work life: to follow the military rules for the war, in a charitable way.
. Lifestyle: to get food, sleep, and avoid bombs, as a question of pure survival.
Actions: Mitigating military duties as leader of a group of soldiers; moving the family from one place to another (from south of Italy to countryside locations in central Italy) to escape bombs and keep safe from different stages of military occupations.
Experience: It pays to be friendly with everybody, subordinates, compatriots, and even war enemies.
CITY life and a new business (1945-1966)
At the end of the war, Nini's life needed a new start and that was an opportunity for big changes: a move of residence from the small town of Cosenza, from the countryside of Campania, from chicken and horses, to one of the biggest cities in Italy, Naples. That involved investment in an apartment overlooking the bay (still occupied by American officers), new schools for two of the children (while one was still a baby, and a forth one was to arrive later, to be Neapolitan by birth), a new car, and a re-established work contact with Fiat, in a relationship of loyalty established over many years. On this basis, he obtained a very exclusive licence from Fiat: to start a Fiat car-dealer business in Naples, with two prestigious offices. It needed risky financial arrangements, using his, and his wife's, land assets as well as bank loans.
Character: Stubborn, self-confident, hardworking, always calm, devoted to family, brave in business terms, with a passion for work independence.
Talents/ assets: Excellent public relations talent for "sales", energy to work at any time of day or night, trusted by associates and clients.
Values: Relationships: to love and support his family; to keep strong contacts with his relatives and land of origin, the South; to make new friends in Naples.
Work life: to work hard as an entrepreneur, to gain more work freedom and growth potential; to make his car business grow and achieve a prestigious clientele.
Wealth: to risk the high investment because of the hope for greater wealth; to save money for future needs and for retirement.
Lifestyle: to manage his time in his own way; to arrange social programmes with friends, like card-game-parties, very popular in those days; to follow his passion for cars; to devote any free time and holidays to visit relatives and "lands-of-origin" in the South, and to develop a Summer house there.
Actions: Hard work with long hours at crazy times like late nights; investments in the business, in the Naples apartment, in the Summer house in the south; keeping-up the management of the Campania land; parties at home with friends with card-games; regular family holidays in the South Summer house by the sea.
Experience: Life in a big city is different and more exciting than any previous experience, with big challenges and opportunities. While in the countryside everybody knows and potentially helps everybody, in the city it is very important "who you know".
WIDOWER and consultant (1966-1976)
His wife died young (1966)! This left him with reduced enthusiasm in life and no more interest in social programs in Naples. He sold his Fiat car business, a major event in his life.
Following his interest in cars and in family life, he became the business advisor, house guest and mentor of his nephew Meni who had started a Fiat car business in the south of Italy, very similar to the one in Naples. Meni had a small family and a circle of friends that welcomed Nini. He worked crazy long hours with crazy travel, still with enthusiasm for owning a good car, more useful now for the long and frequent trips, Naples to South and back. More travel demands were added, because, one by one, his four children moved to Rome, and he visited them whenever he was not on urgent tasks and dead-lines in the South.
Looking after his apartment in Naples and the Summer house in the South, kept him even more busy.
Character: Stubborn, self-confident, hardworking, always calm, devoted to family.
Talents/ assets: Many years of experience in the Naples business gave him the talents needed to be a good advisor for the car business in the South. His material assets were two homes, two cars, and "unprofitable" land in the South.
Values: Relationships: to persuade his family, including new granddaughters, to spend time with him in the south Summer house; to adopt his nephew's family as his new family.
Work life: to be recognised for his business skill and knowledge; to be of service/ make a difference as advisor to his faithful nephew in the car busines in the South.
Lifestyle: to enjoy a good car for his frequent travels; to be master of his own time.
Actions: Many hours spent driving his car and enjoying the new Italian motorways. Hard work in the business in the South, but also some social programmes with family and friends of Meni. Hosting his (Nini's) children (now in Rome and London) and their families and friends in his original sea-side Summer house in the South. An enjoyable visit to his son in London. These many activities made him somehow disorganised, with no time-keeping and no tiding/ maintenance of his homes in Naples and South.
Experience: Too many commitments to the car business work in the South and to the management of houses and land (that were far from each other), the frequent and long car travels, took away precious time that he could have spent with sons, daughter, and their families, in a leisurely mood rather than struggling with duties and deadlines.
BUSY retirement (1976-1999)
His nephew Meni retired from his car business in the South, and that resulted in Nini's real retirement now. He still had land management demands for his land ownership in the South and Campania, and a passion for spending time in his Summer house by the South sea, and buying latest types of Fiat cars for his travels. He sold his apartment in Naples (a major event in his life), and most of the properties in Campania, in order to move to Rome where three of his children were now living. His new apartment was just outside Rome and involved long travel times to go to the children in the centre, because of the traffic. But the near-rural environment of this new apartment allowed him to go shopping on a bicycle! His ambition was still to spend time with his children and grandchildren in Rome, and arrange with them holidays in the Summer house in the South. Somehow, he was always busy with some admin work and deadlines.
Character: self-confident, always calm and relaxed, easy going, helpful, devoted to family, enjoying simple programs like going out for a pizza with family.
Talents/ assets: love from children and grandchildren, many good memories kept alive by his collection of all kinds of objects, even utility bills, from the past, from his wife. Still unprofitable land in the South and Campania.
Values: Relationships: the most important Value now, to be in contact, to spend time, with his children and their families.
Physical: to use his bicycle as a healthy exercise while doing useful chores.
Work life: to keep up with the necessary administration of the remaining properties, also imagining that the children will enjoy them for many future years.
Knowledge: to read some of the hundreds of books and magazines he had collected and kept during his lifetime (never achieved for lack of time!)
Wealth: to be able to leave some valuable assets to the children
Lifestyle: to drive to and from the centre of Rome for any opportunity of programs with the children, even a simple pizza dinner.
Actions: Travel to the South in a good car, for keeping-up with the Summer house, the wine making season there, etc. A trip to London and to Jamaica, to visit his son and family. Car trips to the centre of Rome (from his apartment just outside), with traffic delays of all kinds, for any even minimal program with his children and their families.
Experience: time fills up with small things, even if the main work commitments of the past have been eliminated; time to remember good past memories is worth a lot, and this can happen even when tiding up old papers; time with children is the best priority; all local activities, within bicycle reach, are a blessing.
The End
Nini died in Rome in 1999, missing by a few months his desire to see what the new millennium would look like! If his Values were different, from birth, from experience, would his life have been different? Better or worse? This may be impossible to answer, but will make us now reflect on our own Life Book, past and future!