interview with Emanuele M. Sacchi performance trainer, prof. MBA, autore di best seller

1. You have been on many stages for work, for profession. What made you passionate about the stage of this award?

First of all, the people who work on this award, who put in so many days of work and who put in, let me say, so much money. 
Because there were no sponsors in the previous editions, so there was someone who took an extraordinary location, who organized a high-level evening and who pampered all the guests from start to finish. 
And these are not things that one does for visibility, because they are people who do not need visibility, they already have it, they are people who are established in their field. 
They are people who evidently feel in their soul that they are doing something that is right and something that is good. 
And so when I do training courses I obviously deal with business, marketing, negotiation, sales. 
On that stage there was no business, there was generosity and therefore much more heart, much more heart.

2. Emanuele, what did you learn about the human soul by listening to the kind stories during the  Italian Kindness Award ceremony?

I have learned that there is a lot of beauty inside each of us, only that a little rust has probably formed on top of this beauty. 
We are all a little bombarded by negative news. 
For example, we know that TV news and newspapers give more emphasis to negative news because it seems to make more news, but perhaps it is part of the human soul to talk more often about what does not work rather than what does work. 
Let's say that not for everyone, fortunately, but for many people it is easier to criticize than to appreciate. 
Instead, listening to kind stories it turns out that it is more important to appreciate, gratify, encourage and not just criticize.

3.Would you like to tell us what it feels like to be the godfather of the Premio Gentilezza Italiana as the host and also the star of the gala evening? This year will be your third time!

I'm happy that they called me back because it means that things went well. 
At the same time, you are dealing with people who have certainly important stories, not only from a professional point of view, but also from a human and relationship point of view. 
You have to give substance to this evening, you have to leave your mark. 
I can tell you a particular anecdote. 
There was a guest of the evening who needed a ride. He had left his car in the province of Pavia, he didn't know how to get back to get his car, no one was going in that direction. 
At the end of the evening, even though I was tired, I gave him a ride, I accompanied him to the province of Pavia to get his car and then I returned to the hotel very late. 

I wouldn't have done it in a normal situation. He was a person I didn't know and so selfishly I would have said to myself why should I worry about a stranger if he has a situation to resolve, he should resolve it by himself. 
During the evening of kindness something clicks inside people, it clicked in me too and I did something that I was very happy about because I returned to the hotel tired, dead, I had traveled a hundred and more kilometers, but happy with that gesture of kindness that was not in my nature, that was not something I would have done in any situation. 
Kindness can be contagious, not only negative things are contagious, also kindness.

4. Every year at the end of the award do you take home something that you then use in your private and professional life?

Absolutely. 

You listen to stories of people who sometimes with very few means, with very few resources, have created something truly important. They have literally changed, literally improved the lives of hundreds and in some cases thousands of people. 
And then you realize how... there's that saying that when a butterfly flaps its wings, then this small gesture can have consequences on the other side of the world. 
I had a hard time believing it. It seemed like a slightly exaggerated metaphor. 
Instead, listening to these stories of priests, of entrepreneurs, of even ordinary people who have done extraordinary things starting from scratch, you realize that sometimes a spark can start a fire, a very positive fire obviously. 
And so you take home the fact of believing in it, of believing in all the little things because you know that if not all of them will come true, well, if you don't try they will never come true, if you try they might come true.

5. At this point we could define you as an Ambassador of Kindness, a title that may seem unusual for those who work in the world of negotiation. Why did you choose to wear it?

Sometimes we think that negotiation and sales are something that has to do with manipulation, with being able to persuade a person of something that perhaps that person is not entirely convinced of. 
And perhaps this is a very old way of understanding sales and negotiation. 
Nowadays we know that selling also means building customer loyalty, it means making sure that the customer speaks well of us and brings us other contacts, other customers. 
So it means creating an ethical, deep and lasting relationship. 

So kindness is part of this way of negotiating, which is not a push sale, a forced sale, as they used to say, but it is a sale that leads to creating strong and lasting and continuous bonds. 
And kindness is part of this. 
I have met many entrepreneurs who obtain excellent business results thanks also to their kind way of coordinating, of leading a company.