What People Taught Me About Being Human
When people ask me today what I believe was the greatest secret of my journey through life, many expect an answer connected to the business world. Some think I had a special talent for entrepreneurship. Others attribute my journey to perseverance. Intuition. Hard work. Or perhaps a little luck. Then I smile. As the years passed, I began to understand ever more clearly that my life had not been shaped primarily by my work.
My life was shaped by the people I met. Events sometimes determined the setting. But human beings gave it meaning. Looking back on my life, I can say without hesitation that my greatest teachers were the people who crossed my path. Each one left something behind. Sometimes a beautiful memory. Sometimes valuable advice. Sometimes an unexpected helping hand. And sometimes a painful disappointment.
But almost always, a lesson as well. Looking back today, I see my life as a long journey during which thousands of people walked part of the road with me. Some for only a few minutes. Others for many years. A very small number remained in my heart forever. But even a brief encounter can change a life. A sentence spoken at the right moment. A gesture of trust. A door someone opens for you.
Or a hand extended when you no longer know how to continue. No sincere encounter is truly without meaning. When I was a young salesman, I thought my task was to persuade people. I prepared my arguments carefully. I planned every visit down to the smallest detail. I wanted to show that I knew my products perfectly. I thought a good salesman mainly had to know how to speak a great deal.
But over time, I discovered something far more important. People rarely buy only a product. They place their trust in someone. And trust cannot be imposed. It cannot be demanded. It can only be earned. By being honest. Keeping one's word. Listening. And remaining present after the sale when a problem arises. That realization did not only change the way I worked.
It changed my entire way of looking at life. I began to understand that behind every professional encounter stood a human being. A customer was not a number. A colleague was not a position. A supplier was more than a name on an invoice. Each person brought their own story. Their expectations. Their worries. And their need to be treated with respect.
During those years, I discovered two books that would accompany me throughout my life. The first was Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. The second, Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World. I did not read them once and then put them away on a shelf. I opened them again and again. I read certain passages so often that I knew them almost by heart.
But their true value did not lie in reading alone. It lay in putting their lessons into practice in daily life. Knowledge that is not lived remains mere theory. To me, neither were they books containing simple sales tricks. They did not teach me magic words capable of persuading every customer. They taught me something much more important: how to treat people with greater attentiveness. Dale Carnegie helped me understand that criticism rarely changes a person in the way we want.
When we attack someone harshly, that person usually feels first a need to defend themselves. Even when our criticism is partly justified. I saw that countless times in my life. People do not always need us to agree with them. But they want to feel they are being heard and understood.
When someone feels truly heard, part of their need to defend themselves constantly often disappears. That is why I tried to listen first. Not while already preparing my own reply in my mind, but with the intention of truly understanding what the other person was trying to say. It is much more difficult than it seems. Listening requires patience.
But above all, humility. It means daring to set our own convictions aside for a moment to make room for someone else's reality. That does not mean we must always agree. Understanding is not approval. But only when a person feels understood can a genuine conversation begin. Through my contact with so many different people, I learned that behind visible behavior often lies an invisible story.
Pain can hide behind anger. Uncertainty behind stubbornness. Fear behind aggression. And behind a hard exterior, sometimes a heart that has been hurt too often. From then on, I tried not only to listen to the words. I also tried to pay attention to what was not being said. A look. A silence. A sudden change of voice. Sometimes a human being says as much through what they leave unspoken as through what they say aloud.
Over the years, I discovered something else. Despite all our differences, I constantly found the same deep desires in human beings. The desire to be seen. To be respected. To belong. To love and be loved. And to feel that one's own life has meaning. Whether someone was rich or poor. A professor or a worker. Young or old. Italian, Belgian, or of another origin.
Beneath all the outward differences, I often recognized the same human needs. Perhaps that was one of the most beautiful discoveries of my life. We are different from one another. We speak different languages. We grew up with different customs. We do not all believe the same things. We have different dreams and different ways of looking at the world.
But those differences need not distance us from one another. When we truly listen to each other, we often discover how much we nevertheless share. That awareness helped me not to judge people according to their origin, occupation, title, or wealth. To me, a person was defined above all by character. Honesty. The way that person treated the vulnerable. Whether their word had meaning.
And the humanity they showed when no one admired them for it. During my career, I met ministers. Directors. Factory owners. Architects. Professors. But also workers. Café owners. Miners. Salespeople. And small independent business owners. Who impressed me most deeply? Not necessarily the person holding the highest position. Nor the one with the largest car or most important title. Very often, it was precisely the simplest people. People who, despite their own difficulties, still found time to listen to someone else.
People who kept their word even when it cost them something. People who remained beside you when the fine words ended and difficult times began. Those were the people I admired. Not because they were powerful or famous, but because they were good people.
In the end, that is far more important. From Og Mandino, I carried one simple thought with me throughout my life:
"I will persist until I succeed."
Those words gave me strength during many difficult periods. After financial setbacks. After losing companies. After disappointments. During sleepless nights. And every time I had to begin again from the start. After Marco's death, those words took on another meaning for me. It was no longer about succeeding in business. There was nothing to win. No victory could bring him back.
Persisting then meant something far simpler and, at the same time, far more difficult.
Continuing to live for one more day. Taking another step. Trying again to pay attention to the people who still stood near me. And slowly learning that continuing did not mean leaving Marco behind. Today, I know that perseverance does not mean never falling. Nor does it mean winning every battle. Some losses cannot be repaired. Perseverance means that, when possible, we seek again the courage to rise.
Sometimes with strength. Sometimes hesitantly. And sometimes with the help of someone holding our hand. In my life, I also met people who disappointed me deeply. I do not want to deny that. Promises were made and then not kept. People disappeared when I needed their support most. Trust was betrayed. That hurt me.
But those people too taught me something. They taught me to be careful without becoming entirely distrustful. To be strong without becoming hard. To set boundaries without closing my heart to everyone. And to forgive without having to pretend the past never happened. Some lessons come from people who love us. Others from people who hurt us. We do not always choose our own teachers.
But we can choose what we do with their lessons. If I could give one piece of advice to young people today, it would be this: Do not invest only in your education or profession. Invest above all in people. Learn to truly listen. Treat everyone with dignity. Keep your word. Be honest even when no one is checking what you do. And never forget that trust is built slowly, but can be lost in a single moment.
That is true in business. But even more so in life itself. A good reputation does not arise from what you say about yourself. It arises from what others recognize in your actions over many years. From how you act when everything is going well. But above all, from the person you remain when everything becomes difficult. If, looking back on my life, I had to draw one conclusion, it would be this: To me, the most beautiful encounters rarely seem like mere coincidences.
Some people enter our life and bring joy. Others hold up a mirror. Some help us rise again. Others teach us, through their behavior, what kind of person we do not want to become. And a few succeed in making us happy while teaching us something that remains. I owe all those people far more than words can ever express. They did not merely influence my journey through life. They helped me become the man I am today.
Perhaps that is the most important lesson people taught me about being human. We do not live entirely separate from one another. Our words have consequences. Our actions leave traces. A small gesture may mean more to someone than we will ever know. And every person who crosses our path entrusts us for a moment with part of their story. We do not live for one another. Nor only beside one another.
We live together. And the value of our existence is ultimately measured not only by what we accumulated. It becomes visible in what we left in the hearts of others. This chapter therefore does not end with a period. It forms a bridge. Because after everything human beings taught me, one final question remains: If people taught me all of this... what did life itself truly teach me?