Alexandrioim, you founded Technoy in 1983 when the concept of wellness was completely unknown. Nothing of what it is today. How did you see this? What made you find the importance of beauty and health and exercise that you could combine together with technology?
Yes. When I started in this small family garage, the industry didn't exist. I thought, how possible to activate humanity? People need to move. Means 20 to 25 kilometers per day. Now, after thousands of years, the average is 2 to 3 kilometers. The idea is to connect and combine the two passions: techno because I am a designer of technology, and gym because I am passionate about sports, gymnastics. When I started in this small family garage, I thought how possible to leverage the Italian quality of life, the Italian lifestyle, because the healthy lifestyle, the mind, the body started during the Roman era 2,000 years ago. My enthusiasm, passion, I thought how possible to create a new phase of my life as a wellness designer. I was very attracted to fashion designers when I was young.
My dream was to work for Giorgio Armani, but it didn't work out when I was 21. After the fashion trip, the fashion attraction, I transformed fashion into human design because I am a designer. Then I saw fitness in the US, and I thought how possible to transform fitness into something else? The word was well-being. I invented wellness from fitness to wellness. We registered the trademark 40 years ago. I wrote a book about wellness, the first is The Wellness Choice. Today wellness is a common word in the dictionary of the English language. I combined the Italian ingredients: the beauty of the Italian Renaissance heritage, the relationship in terms of emotional connection, the heart, technology. Technogym is close to Ferrari, and Ferrari inspired me in terms of technology and design. Nutrition, the Mediterranean diet, spa, relax, all the Roman era ingredients I put inside wellness up to date. Today wellness is the new luxury living, the new desire for the new generation, the new value for humanity. For this reason, I founded the Wellness Foundation 23 years ago, and we created the first Wellness Valley in the world in my city, in the small region of Romagna, near Bologna, Italy. Because wellness is an ecosystem, not only going to the gym three times a week, but a mindset. It is a culture 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wellness is the heart of technogym, the art of wellness, the happiness, the balance. I think it's a very important opportunity to launch the wellness economy. We believe in the green economy, in sustainability, but personally I think we need to reset the priority from environment to the person, from environment centricity to person centricity. Why? Because if we create awareness and respect ourselves in terms of good lifestyle, automatically we respect the environment. If you don't respect yourself, you don't respect the environment. When we speak with the young generation, like Instagram-driven, they don't have trust in climate change within 20, 30, 40 years because it doesn't mean anything for them. If you speak with the young generation about energy, body shape, balance, beauty, emotional, automatically they respect the environment.
Near Bologna, Italy. Because I think wellness is the ecosystem, not only to go to the gym three times a week, but the mindset. It is a culture 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wellness is the heart of technogym, which is the art of wellness. It is the happiness, the balance. I think it's a very important opportunity to launch the wellness economy. We believe in the green economy, in sustainability, but personally I think we need to reset the priority from environment to the person, from environment centricity to person centricity. Why? Because if we create awareness and respect ourselves in terms of good lifestyle, automatically we respect the environment. Automatically. If you don't respect yourself, you don't respect the environment. When we speak with the young generation, like Instagram-driven, they don't have trust in climate change within 20, 30, 40 years because it doesn't mean anything for them. If you speak with the young generation about energy, body shape, balance, beauty, emotional, automatically they respect the environment.
Now, you said you wanted to work for Giorgio Armani. You wanted to work in fashion. When that didn't turn out, you turned to all of these that you had just told us. But why? Why? Why exercise? Why fitness? Why not cars as you talked about Ferrari? Why fitness? Did you do a lot of exercise? I went to a small training center for bodybuilders in Cesena, in my city, a very small village close to Bologna. And I realized that how people use the bar, the disc, to create the squat with our hands, people help the athlete or the person. It's possible to automate this application.
Yes. And I transformed the problem into the solution.
In terms of vision, I thought for the owner of the club, the garage is, what do you think if I deliver a product like this is the squat? And I realized in my small family garage the squat with safety, beauty, functional, very incredible details. I brought the product to the small bodybuilding center.
The garage is, what do you think if I deliver the product like this is the squat? I realized in my small family garage the squat with safety, beauty, functional, very incredible details. I brought the product to the small bodybuilding center.
And people there, 'Ah, wow, amazing.' And okay, I realized the second machine, the third machine, the fourth machine. In the day, in the night, because I was 21, in my small garage. I was an employee for the local packaging industry in the R&D department. After one year and a half, I founded Technogym. The logo is the same, nothing changed. Technogym. Nothing changed. Exercise technology. Today we have the leadership in the world, and 75 million people use Technogym every day.
Now I know that you always talk about the importance of prevention. You have to be active to be healthy, and not wait until you are sick to do something about your health.
Yes. The wellness lifestyle is the good lifestyle. Exercise is medicine. It is the powerful prevention. What does prevention mean? Prevention means to reduce the health risk: no smoke, no alcohol, no stress.
No alcohol for an Italian?
Beautiful red wine. Not alcohol means one glass. Alcohol means every day. Smoke means every day. Sedentary every day. The sedentary is the first issue in terms of obesity, diabetes, impact, Alzheimer, cancer. The activation, people activated, they are 40% less risk than the people. For this reason, we created the university inside Technogym about education. We spend a lot of money in investment in terms of communication about 'Let's Move for a Better World' message. We have the purpose inside the mission, vision, strategy to add the humanity to leave a legacy for the new generation. We are very lucky for this opportunity to promote wellness in different segments of the market: human performance in sports, wellness lifestyle balance, health prevention, rehabilitation recovery, and fitness, body shape, functional fitness, strength. It depends on the different seasons of life and the different needs and passions of the person. It starts from fitness functional when you are very young, 18 years old, looking good. When you arrive in the adult, you think about how to live better. And then when you reach the older level, the evergreen level, you have the possibility to reduce the risk dramatically through health.
Yes, your muscles are your...
