Praise for The Wolves
and the Mandolin
“What an extraordinary true story of courage, tenacity, focus, and perseverance . . . and sometimes the intervention of fate. Brandon Vallorani chronicles the courageous and perilous journey of his great-grandfather, Papa Luigi. I highly recommend every entrepreneur and business owner read his story and study the valuable leadership lessons it reveals. When life’s problems seem overwhelming, you’ll think of Papa Luigi and realize the wolf at your door isn’t all that scary.”
—Lucy Hoger, CEO and Growth Strategist,
Visionocity
“Brandon Vallorani is a risk taker, and risk takers built America. He seizes opportunity the way Julius Caesar seized ancient citadels. Brandon has one of the greatest marketing minds at work today. Everyone that dreams of building a great business should stop and listen carefully to the advice Brandon Vallorani gives in his book The Wolves and the Mandolin. Advice this good demands your attention.”
—Floyd Brown, CEO,
USA Radio Networks
“Luigi’s pursuit of the American Dream still lives within his great-grandson. Much as Luigi stood his ground during battles in Benghazi and Sciara, Brandon’s perseverance and old-world determination has enabled him to maintain his entrepreneurial spirit and succeed while dodging his own bullets in the form of two recessions. This journey is as much about a family’s history as it is our nation’s.”
—Steven A. Castleton, recipient,
US Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal
“My mother told me to never run with the herd because it is usually going the wrong way. Brandon Vallorani’s ambitious book, The Wolves and the Mandolin, is a reminder that if your goals are big enough and you are audacious enough, you will find the strength to keep persisting until you succeed. You can live the life that God intended for you to live.”
—Steven F. Hotze, MD, founder and CEO,
Hotze Health & Wellness Center
“Brandon Vallorani’s The Wolves and the Mandolin is a mellifluous blend of life and business lessons wrapped up in the actions and approaches taken by his Italian ancestors from a bygone era. Prepare to be educated, inspired, and entertained simultaneously. Bravo, Brandon!”
—Monica Luedecke, President,
Hotze Enterprises
“Brandon Vallorani takes us on a ‘Godfather-esque’ journey through his ancestors’ lives and how the lessons they’ve learned still apply to our everyday lives today. He quickly integrates you into the picturesque, brutal, and sobering world of good versus evil and family pride. With a humble appreciation for his past, Vallorani reveals his ancestors’ sacrifices and how much their decisions impacted his very existence. Having had an uncle who stood on the deck of a warship engaging the enemy during the attack of Pearl Harbor, I’m grateful to Brandon for telling his story. Don’t miss this book chock-full of amazing stories and life lessons!”
—Scot Ferrell, national and international best-
selling author (It’s Not Them, It’s You),
speaker, and media personality; behavior coach and
consultant to CEOs and executives;
Founder and President,
The Scot Ferrell Companies
Copyright © 2017 by Brandon Vallorani.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written consent of the author, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.
Published by ForbesBooks, Charleston, South Carolina.
Member of Advantage Media Group.
ForbesBooks is a registered trademark, and the ForbesBooks colophon is a trademark of Forbes Media, LLC.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 9780998365572
LCCN: 2017932189
Cover design by George Stevens.
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To my loving parents, Ray and Linda Vallorani: Thank you for believing in me and inspiring me to work hard. Thank you for teaching me the value of faith and family. Because of you, I believe anything is possible. To my wife, Jan Vallorani: Thank you for sticking with me through the ups and downs of my entrepreneurial life. To my children, Bethany, Adam, Josiah, Isaac, Charity, Sarah, and Levi: I love you and believe each of you will accomplish great things.
Table of Contents
foreword
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Wolves and the Mandolin—Why This Book?
CHAPTER ONE
“A Pretty Tough Guy”
CHAPTER TWO
The American Generation
CHAPTER THREE
The Education of an Entrepreneur
CHAPTER FOUR
The Genesis of a Leader
CHAPTER FIVE
A Vision for America
CHAPTER SIX
The Tipping Point
CHAPTER SEVEN
An Entrepreneur’s Dream
CHAPTER EIGHT
Facing Your Wolves
CHAPTER NINE
Coming Home: Vallorani Estates
In Closing . . .
photos
foreword
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
So quipped the fictional Italian America hitman Pete Clemenza in a notable postassassination sequence famously depicted in Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic adaptation of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Is this just some Hollywood ploy inserted for levity after a brutal murder? Or is there something deeper and necessary happening in this assassin’s admittedly bent—but still human—heart? Should one’s work and life take the time to include small enjoyments . . . like cannoli?
Brandon Vallorani masterfully demonstrates that despite the inevitable presence of formidable wolves (and our own bent hearts), there must be intentional times devoted to cultivating joy in small things—that hard, entrepreneurial work on the one hand, with enjoying good wine, fine cigars, and family on the other hand need not be fierce competitors.
As a man of faith, Vallorani recognizes that life is not just eternal but also must be abundant right now. It’s certainly an Italian thing, but really it should also be a human thing stemming from how we were designed, thus it is an indispensable thing. But how? And why does this fuel the spirit of the entrepreneur?
The Italian American story Vallorani weaves serves as
the platform for pursuing, cultivating, and enjoying this abundant life, including the sustained full life of the entrepreneur. To understand Vallorani only by his marked success and heaving company revenues is to miss the ethos of why he’s been successful. It’s to confuse means with ends. And it’s to miss being fully human.
What we see as Vallorani unfolds his jubilant entrepreneurial journey is that relationships trump transactions; flourishing motivates far more than fear; community prevails over commodity; and incarnation (living it) precedes proclamation (talking about it). And taking the time for good wine, fine cigars, and la familia fuels and sustains this abundant life. I know; I too come from a similar Italian American immigration narrative.
Vallorani’s story and his keen practical insights offered in The Wolves and the Mandolin reflect an arc and pattern we must all increasingly emulate. He doesn’t give us yet another recycled, mind-numbing checklist or yet another artificial, rote “how-to” formula but rather he causes us to focus on a higher, more human conception of the business vocation. He calls us to go well beyond making a living and instead challenges us to make a difference. The key is cultivating joy in small things, the human things, despite the reality of wolves. Vallorani’s work, steeped in both respectful tradition and out-of-the-box innovation, exudes a contagious mind-set, posture, and vision for incubating and sustaining success. And yet, there’s plenty of practical stuff here, too.
Vallorani demonstrates what success “looks like” in whatever endeavor, personal or professional. The successful person, the real and realistic person, will overcome the yapping and sometimes biting wolves by enjoying sweet respites with the mandolin. To understand this juxtaposition of wolf and mandolin, keep reading.
What is the pattern for sustained and rejuvenating success? Vallorani in essence shows us that we must recognize the following:
The successful person inherits. What do we have to learn from the past? There are valuable lessons to be inherited if we take the time to learn them, and Vallorani’s Italian ancestors and their stories embody this truth.
The successful person incarnates. We may not simply know, but we must be and live what we know in order to be fully human—including taking the time and space to enjoy and rejuvenate around the small things.
The successful person invests. We are duty-bound to blessedly give, to enhance and promote the flourishing of others. Otherwise, our joy will be truncated and self-absorbedly crabbed—a lose/lose proposition, antithetical to the true entrepreneur.
Brandon Vallorani’s journey and evident success—whether involving vineyards, cigars, or family—distills down to his fervent conviction rightly answering and ordering two key questions:
What can mankind do?
What is mankind for?Only by first understanding the latter question can one rightly direct entrepreneurial energies toward the former for maximal flourishing and enjoyment so vital to a sustained abundant life, a life certainly lived among wolves but not defined by the wolves.
Rather, to expand the titular metaphor, a well-ordered, well-lived life features a soundtrack not dominated with rancorous howling and the baring of wolves’ teeth; it’s a soundtrack provided by a sweet melodious mandolin, a soundtrack of goodness, truth, and beauty best shared in relationships and moments with others generationally for their enjoyment, flourishing, and beauty.
Vallorani also understands that the world is a wheat field, not a weed field—he realistically calls us to deal with the weeds but not to dwell on them. No Pollyanna pabulum here.
Vision requires us to cultivate wheat and enjoy its harvest with others. As Augustine, who would have been an Italian if he had had a choice, counseled: “Love God, and do what you want.” Rightly understood, this encapsulates the entrepreneur’s mode. Vallorani models this humbly, but confidently, and calls us to this abundant life as well, loving God and almost recklessly doing what we want. Why? For the bigger things: we cannot “do good” unless we do things well, and enjoying the small things catalyzes doing things well.
Vallorani’s story is thus one of sustaining a winning rhythm: ebb and flow, desire and design, leadership and learning, faith and fidelity, and loving, not merely tolerating, leisure such as actively resting in the abundant life with good wine, which makes the heart glad; with fine cigars, which are units of protected time, as another Italian friend quipped; with family because as Don Vito Corleone, also of The Godfather, warned, “A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
Brandon Vallorani is not a fictional man; Brandon, my paisano (pal), is a real man, and he knows what it takes to become and be a real man—and he shows us here that in that pursuit, one must enjoy the small things: good wine, a fine cigar, great coffee, la familia. And now he invites us into his story to promote the flourishing of others—a story best shared with others—to ponder, reflect, and enjoy the little things which propel us to the big things, the entrepreneurial things, and the permanent things . . . and it helps to do so with good wine, a fine cigar, and la familia. Can you hear the mandolin in the background? Turn up the volume, fill my glass, and pass the lighter. It’s time to read.
Jeffery J. Ventrella, J.D., Ph.D.
Senior Counsel, Senior Vice President of Training
Alliance Defending Freedom
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Dr. Steven Hotze, for inspiring me to write this book. Thank you, Liz Darnell, for your tireless assistance as I wrote this book. You have been my right arm for over ten years. Thank you, Gary DeMar, for giving me your blessing to start my own company while I was still working for you. Thank you, Jared Vallorani, for helping me lead Liberty Alliance as our CEO and achieve ranking on the Inc. 5000 list five years in a row. Thank you, Tracey Clarkson, for keeping up with me and for providing the financial leadership as my CFO that I needed over the years.
I owe a big thank you to Alison, Jenny, Helen, George, Katie, Shelby, and the rest of the team of editors, designers, and publicity gurus who work with Adam Witty at ForbesBooks. You helped make this book not just a goal but a reality. Thank you!
Last, heartfelt appreciation is due to the many who have been a part of my life over the years, though I may not have been able to mention each one of you by name. I wouldn’t be who I am without your influence.
Introduction
The Wolves and the Mandolin—Why This Book?
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
Pope John Paul II
The legends we memorialize reflect a view of our place in this world and what it will be for generations who follow us. This is one story that has been passed down in my family.
The Wolves and the Mandolin
Deep in the rocky foothills of the Apennine Mountains of Abruzzo, Italy, lived a great-uncle who was a popular mandolin player. He would travel on foot far and wide to neighboring villages to play at a wedding or a festa and then walk the long miles back to his own village when the party was over.
These mountains were full of wolves, and the way was dark and lonely. One night, as he trudged the stony path back to his village from a party, he heard the unmistakable sounds of a pack of wolves gathering around him and quickly getting closer. You can imagine the prickles on the back of his neck as his eyes strained to locate shelter or a hiding place, but all he could see was one lone tree. It was better than nothing.
He scrambled up into its branches and managed to reach a crook at the top, just out of reach of the wolves. Knowing he would be forced to stay there until daybreak, he settled himself as best he could in his precarious perch.
The wolves gathered beneath him, jumping at the tree trunk, snapping their massive jaws at him. To while away the time, he began to play his beloved mandolin.
The sweet strains of beauty filled the darkness. His heartbeat calmed and his breath slowed, with the starry sky’s expanse over him and the still night air clearing his lungs. Ahhh. What a privilege it is to be alive, he thought. But it
is more than that. To be able to play beautiful music, to hear it, to breathe in the night air is a precious privilege indeed.
Soon, the baying and the snarling ceased. The wolves stopped stalking around the base of the tree. Calmed by the simple melodies he had played all night, my great-uncle found the wolves had stolen away before dawn, no longer a threat. He climbed down and continued home with quite a story to tell.
It’s a classic story that my kids beg me to tell them over and over. But it’s more than an exciting kid’s tale of scary wolves growling with sharp teeth waiting to rip the man limb from limb. This tale speaks to the ideals of resilience, of staying calm under pressure, of dealing with danger and hardships in a smart and resolute way. This tale reminds us that beauty can be found even in the midst of growling wolves and that even the fiercest wolves can be calmed. This story reminds us to take the time to enjoy life’s privileges in spite of the wolves we might face.
In my own visits to the Apennine foothills over the past decade, I have been struck by the beautiful landscape. This part of Italy hasn’t been overrun by tourists and caterwauling vendors peddling selfie sticks and bottled water. It’s the old Italy. Towns are constructed of local travertine marble, and you can sit in cafes that haven’t changed for a hundred years, built over the ruins of old Roman structures.
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