That's life: my turning point in Private Community

"THAT'S LIFE: MY TURNING POINT IN PRIVATE COMMUNITY."

The story of Alessandro Marco D'Ambrosio – Entrepreneur | Il Sole Residenze del Sollievo

At twenty-eight, I found myself in a very delicate moment. A moment with a great deal on the go, where you can't just look away. We're going through an important generational transition, I'm about to set up a new company, a new wing of our group, and all of this brings a huge weight down on you.

I work in a group that runs healthcare facilities for the elderly. We have several entities: an SRL, a foundation, a social cooperative, a voluntary association. We started years ago with a small facility, eight or nine beds, and today we've reached fifty-four, brick by brick, step by step. It's work my mother built from nothing. She's English, she arrived in Italy without even speaking Italian, and she created everything with heart and soul.

I started early. At eighteen I was already in the company, working my way up from the bottom. Shifts, kitchen, wherever I was needed. And as I grew, I found myself inside a complex situation, especially today, because our sector is in huge difficulty. You can't find staff, you can't find the right people, you can't find resources. It's tough.

And it's precisely in this context that Private Community was a turning point for me.

What struck me most, and what turned things upside down for me in a good way, was the different way of asking for help. I came from other entrepreneurial organisations, where yes, you compare notes, but it's a different thing. In Private, on the other hand, I understood what it really means to put a problem on the table and let yourself be helped without fear of judgement.

It all started with understanding my mistakes and putting them on the table without filters. I began letting myself be helped with requests and with the Lab we do every week. That's where you realise you're not alone, that you can bring a concrete problem and immediately receive real experiences from people who've already been through it.

From there, I pretty much built myself a mental framework. Not theory, but practical things that stick with you and that you apply from the very next day.

And I've seen this not only in myself, but in others too.

There's a guy in the community who has a sweets company, a patisserie in Sanremo, an important business, a feather in the city's cap. He had a crystal-clear goal: to export his product worldwide. He kept bringing it to the table, talking about it constantly.

Then one week he didn't show up at the lab, and we wondered why. The reason was simple: that day he had a company coming to take measurements because he'd just opened his production site. And in the meantime, he'd already closed contracts worldwide.

Inside, I thought: bloody hell, that's brilliant. Because he built his success himself, sure, but bringing it into the community, in my view, sped everything up. The contribution was finding himself in front of seven entrepreneurs who told him just one thing: go for it. We're here. We'll be here. We can't wait to share your success with you.

That push, that spark, is sometimes exactly what you need to truly get moving with what you already know how to do.

One of the most beautiful things, for me, was experiencing it together with my brother. We'd grown a bit distant at work. Each of us had our own mindset, there was no longer that calm, quiet dialogue, it was always raised voices. Instead, this journey brought us together.

I remember that at the first meetings he sat at the far end of the table, detached from everyone, and I was on the other side of the room. Now, though, he's become almost the core of the group. And that's huge for me.

I myself have changed.

Before, in the company, my role was that of ‘the boss's son’, not the entrepreneur. And that weighs on you, because you end up feeling like you're not taken seriously. I took on everything myself. I absorbed other people's problems, lost energy solving things that weren't mine, and meanwhile too much familiarity built up, too many jokes. When I gave instructions, they weren't followed.

At a certain point I understood that I had to build boundaries. I started putting up walls to protect myself and, above all, the company. Then, after months, I began opening windows again. I found a balance. I understood what it means to earn respect, to have a role, to truly be an entrepreneur.

And this also had concrete effects on staffing.

I had a huge problem: feeling unattractive as an employer. In our sector it's incredibly hard to find people. Until six months ago, if I got ten CVs, I'd take the first person who said yes, and a week later I'd be back to square one.

Today it's different. In a single afternoon I received ten CVs and I spoke to every one of them. Following the advice of the Community's entrepreneurs, I've learned to be direct, quick, present. To choose. Not to take the first thing that comes along.

And then there was another huge switch: organisation.

I've always been disorganised, the kind of person without a diary. The ‘I'll do it later’ type. I'll tell them later, I'll set the alarm later, I'll think about it later. In Private I built myself a mental framework: precision comes first. I started just by using Google on my phone to note down appointments. After six months, I wake up and automatically check my day. I'd never done that in twenty-eight years.

But the most incredible thing, the one I didn't expect, was Combine®.

Right up until the first meeting I was allergic to artificial intelligence. I mean it. I thought that if I used it, I'd no longer be capable of thinking for myself, of building a project of my own.

Then I had my first go with Combine®, and it pulled out things that made me say: wow.

I went home and started using it everywhere. Over Christmas I was in the office working on a system that automatically designs staff shift schedules for me. I enter three inputs and it does it in forty seconds. Something that used to take me a whole day.

For me, that's time recovered. It's efficiency. It's clarity.

And the difference is that Combine® knows me. It's not a generic tool. It's built around me. It knows who I am, how I work, what I'm building. It's like having constant support.

In these months, many things have changed for me: my role, how I manage staff, my habits, my efficiency. And, above all, I've learned one huge thing: not to feel guilty when I take time for myself.

I watched my mother reach a breaking point. She spent two years in hospital, three months in oncology. And that's when I understood: we don't have a use-by date like a jar of tomato sauce. I can't wait to start living until it's too late.

Today, if I go for a walk on a Saturday morning, I don't have to hide it. I don't have to feel guilty. Because you only get one life.

Like the name of the Community I've grown within over these six months: That's life.

I even had that phrase tattooed on my wrist, because for me it's become a way of being in the world. A constant reminder. Life is short, it's fragile, it's unpredictable. I work with the elderly and I see people reaching 65 with Alzheimer's, no longer recognising their own children.

And then you realise there's no point living crushed by judgement, by anxiety, by the weight of it all.

"That's life" means this: you get back up, you move forward, you grow. Together.