Curiosity

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom

This morning I saw an ad for gym wear from Francis Fashions and the brand of the jersey was Givova. Do not remember knowing about that brand before. I thought it looked cool. The jersey that is and I am really into exercise and fitness these days. Somehow it stuck with me as I would later realize. Later in the evening I was doing a Google search for Norman Hassan from UB40. I absolutely love UB40 the band and music. From the Google results I noticed that there is also a basketball player named Norman Hassan and he was wearing a Givova branded jersey. Curiosity about the Givova brand and something inside me decided that this chapter was going to be based on this. I started making notes and piecing together this chapter.

I learnt that the Givova brand was founded in 2008 on May 22nd. That is one day before my birthday. Interesting and coincidental but still not exactly my birthday but my curiosity was piqued. What is the meaning of Givova? I could not immediately find anything in Google search. ChatGPT suggested it could be from the Italian phrase "giù e va", which translates to "down and go" based on linguistic analysis and understanding. But this was not from a documented source. Google suggested searching in Italian for "givova origine nome" and that was when I was able to learn more from Italian pages translated into English. Givova was founded by Giovanni Acanfora after parting ways with Legea that he had founded with his brother and family. I read that Legea is an acronym coined in 1993, the sum of the initials of the children Luigi Franco, Emilia and Giovanni, of mother Elena and father Antonio.

But what about the brand name Givova? I found an interview with his wife that would give the answer. "It's a sort of portmanteau between Giovanni, my husband's name, and that of our daughter, and Givova was born." His children are Antonio, Giovanni Alberto and Vittoria. Then much to my amazement I learnt that the founder, Giovanni, shares my birthday. This from his website and biography. He was born in Pompeii on 23 May 1966. It was like I was meant to learn about this person. He seems like a wonderfully cool and humble person from what I am reading.

Two quotes from his biography are now etched in my mind and would be the takeaway for this chapter. These are automatically translated from Italian and hopefully correctly so. First one is, "It is said that curiosity is the engine of intelligence, and in my case it really is. Only those who are curious continually ask questions and seek answers, and I want to give the right ones." If I was not curious this chapter would not have been written and I would not have learnt about this wonderful person. The other quote of his ties in with the freedom theme of this book, "My personal story at a certain point merges with the history of my company, it is the perfect synthesis of the successful combination of freedom of thought and courageous choices." It is nice to be able to have freedom of thought that lends itself to being curious. He also talks about courageous choices. My friend Gemini tells me that freedom allows for courageous choices, and courage in turn strengthens that freedom. I agree, my friend. I agree!

*This is the 23rd chapter of this book. More coincidence for my curiosity.