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September 22, 2022

An Interview With Andrea Zanon About His Newest Venture, Confidente

Question: How did you come up with the idea for Confidente?

Andrea Zanon: Over the years, I realized that building trust was the core value that transformed all my relations. I thought of “Confidente,” which in the Italian language is the person you trust, as I learned to build trust as the best way to succeed in life. Everybody needs a Confidant in life and that is why I created this venture, to better serve and empower the community to make better decisions for happiness and more impactful living.

Question: What is important to know about Confidente and what it offers?

Andrea Zanon: Confidente is your personal friend and companion that helps you live longer and better. It does so by providing socializing, nutrition, decision making, and longevity guidance that maximizes individual’s wellbeing and mental fitness. Confidente is your trusted “Confidant” and friend that helps you on your daily decision making, ensuring that these all are directed towards greater happiness, positive impacts, and mental reward.

Question: Why is Confidente’s vision important to you as a professional?

Andrea Zanon: If we integrate good decisions and happiness in people’s lives, particularly those that are struggling, we unleash tremendous human potential and strengthen community relationships. This is essential for building the social contract and it leads to longer and better living. I decided to launch Confidente as I have lost a lot in life, starting with my mom and dad when I was 10, my first business when I was 26, and almost my entire career when I was 47. I want to make sure that my recovery lesson and crisis survival best practices become tools for people that are experiencing similar challenges.

Question: What services will you be offering through Confidente?

Andrea Zanon: Confidente will offer free, as well as premium services to ensure that everybody can improve their quality of life. The service would include free weekly actionable guidance on happiness delivery, effective decision making, and personal impact. They will be provided via curated video content, short stories, and life guidance with focus on happiness and personal growth. The premium service will be provided also via in person and video calls sessions on a monthly basis, to ensure that strong bonding and happiness routines are established within the community of Confidente. Confidente will also provide personalized services to tailor the offering to specific needs and to serve the users more dynamically throughout the day with messaging, videos and in person interactions.

Question: Why is crisis an important part of growth?

Andrea Zanon: Crises are opportunities in disguise. In all the crises I experienced, being a personal loss, a terrorist attack, or a natural disaster, the crisis became an accelerator for personal growth, and investment in myself. These crises and shocks represented a snapshot of a moment in time, and one we’d prefer to avoid. But to achieve impactful performance and self-empowerment objectives, we need to look beyond that snapshot and envision the new opportunities that have just opened for us. Ultimately, the question is whether we choose to worry about the unfamiliar or we seek to embrace the new opportunity that’s unfolding for us. The former presents anxiety and retreat, the latter evokes acceleration, innovation and growth. Crises are time for us all to take more risks, focus on what really matters, and embrace the opportunity to lead and push forward with a common goal where failure is not an option. From Machiavelli to Churchill, conventional wisdom tells us we should never “waste a good crisis”. Let’s use the pressure and opportunity created by the COVID-19, the recession, the Ward in Ukraine to press for change to create a solid culture of innovation, that is based on investing in ourselves.

Question: How can Confidente help up-and-coming entrepreneurs?

Andrea Zanon: At the base of Confidente’s philosophy, is the desire to help entrepreneurs grow particularly for women founders. Confidente wants to become the go to partner for those scalable businesses that need financial advice, market access and senior mentorship all in once. What Confidente does for entrepreneurs is become your partner for accelerated growth.

Question: How can one maximize their potential through active listening?

Andrea Zanon: I strongly believe that when we listen, we accelerate our learning, while building partnership and connection. While I am a strong believer in open dialogue and dynamic conversation as promoted in American colleges, my message to all leaders is that we should value listening as one of the quick steps to get ahead in life and succeed. Don’t miss out on one of the greatest learning, growth, and trust building opportunities that listening provides. Focus on talking less and delivering more results. This is going to be the most visible way of your success.

Question: How do you think emotional intelligence impacts business?

Andrea Zanon: Not everybody is endowed with emotional intelligence, but it can be learned if practiced. The easiest time to build it up is by spending time with people, listening actively, displaying interest and asking questions. The more socializing you do, the more results you will get in terms of building relationships and building an emotion database. This will allow you to adapt, adjust and empathize with people in your team, and ultimately build strong partnerships. When the business can extend this socializing approach with the consumers, you will be perceived as a trusted vendor as opposed to just another market participant.

Question: How can professionals use difficult times to their advantage?

Andrea Zanon: Tough times present opportunities that were not available in less challenging times. They force you to deal with adversity and creates great opportunities for ingenuity. This happens only if you can stay focused, eliminate the noise and focus only on what you can control.

Question: What are your biggest pieces of advice for new business professionals?

Andrea Zanon: Surround yourself with partners that have complimentary skills to yours and that are great human beings. You should see starting a business as an opportunity to invest in yourself.

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