Faith and Constancy

The Foletto family has Italian origins, in the region of Vicenza, and carries an old motto, centuries old: Faith and Constancy. I don't hold on to coats of arms for status. What interests me in those two words is how demanding they still are today.

Faith, the way I read it, is less about religion and more about believing in something before you have proof — betting on a company, a person, a path, when the numbers don't confirm it yet. Without some faith, no one starts anything hard.

Constancy is the harder part. It's continuing when the excitement of the beginning has passed. It's going back to the same work on the day it doesn't pay off, holding the course when quitting would be easier. Almost everything I respect — in business and in people — was built through constancy, not sudden talent.

The family crest speaks to that: the lion (strength and protection), the mill wheel (the discipline of facing the current and pressing on), the keys (the knowledge that opens doors). I'm especially fond of the mill wheel — it's the most honest image of work: turning every day, against the current, and producing precisely because of it.

I don't know how well I live up to Faith and Constancy. But I'm glad to have inherited a motto that demands something — and to be able to pass it to my children not as decoration, but as a question: what do you have faith in, and what are you constant in?