In the winter on a Sunday afternoon, Brunello Cucinelli can spend six hours in front of the fireplace, just looking at the flames and thinking. By evening, he says, he is drunk with beautiful thoughts. His wife asks what he’s looking at. He says: the fire. That image has never left me. A man who built a fashion empire worth billions, and his idea of a perfect afternoon is staring at a fire until his mind overflows with beauty, truth and wisdom.
Brunello has changed how I think about almost everything. Work. Dignity. Beauty. Time. What it actually means to live well. I can’t overstate what his words have given me. This distillation is my best attempt to pass them on.
“Enthusiastically build an extraordinary reality day after day.”
01
His Father’s Tears
There are moments in our life that seem to influence everything that comes after it. For Brunello it traces back to seeing his father after he took a job at a plastic factory. He never complained about his wages. He never complained about the work conditions. He complained about being humiliated. He would come home in the evening and say, “What did I do wrong to God to be subjected to such treatments?” And his eyes were filled with tears.
“I felt helpless, since I could not defend my father, but one thing inside me became instantly clear: even if I did not yet know what I would do in life, I knew that I would definitely live and work in order to foster the moral and economic dignity of man.”
Brunello was sixteen. He saw his father with different eyes for the first time. A man in his prime, forty-five years old, disappointed and troubled by the disrespect. That moment is where everything starts. Every company policy, every building restored, every wage raised, every artisan’s school funded. It all flows from his father’s tears.
He saw his father humiliated. And instead of becoming bitter, he decided to build something that would make sure nobody who worked for him ever felt that way. Everything in this distillation sits on top of that.
02
Early Years — Following the Sun
The first part of Brunello’s life was spent in the countryside. No lights. No electricity. Thirteen family members living together. They were farmers who worked the land with animals. Since they had no electricity, they would follow the sun along its path until sunset. The stars and the sky were a great source of inspiration.
They were not poor. They had enough food on the table. But they had something most people alive today have never experienced: a complete harmony with creation. The ground, the animals, the water surrounding them. Brunello still believes we need to recover that kind of harmony.
Dinner was the most meaningful time of the day. It was always the same yet always new and longed for. Few words were exchanged. The silence lasted long. Yet they were all in harmony. Their parents’ eyes spoke of their love and invited them to reciprocate that feeling.
There’s a line from Brunello that has never left me: “Basic flavours have no less taste than the most refined ones, since water and a piece of bread give the fullest pleasure to those who learn to appreciate these values.” Brunello grew up with almost nothing and describes it as the richest time of his life.
03
The Soul
Brunello believes there are two types of intelligence: the one that comes from educational study, and another that comes from your soul. We must mix and combine them both. I think about this all the time. The analytical mind alone isn’t enough. The soul has its own intelligence.
“I have a better and more reliable tool than my eyes to distinguish the real from the fake: it is the soul.” — Seneca
“At difficult times, we all need to take a break, and then raise our eyes high to the heavens. Our soul needs to be nourished and fed daily like our bodies.”
Saint Benedict was a great source of inspiration for Brunello: we need to feed our minds through study, feed our souls through prayer, and then we need to work. If you work a lot, if you are online a lot, when do you have time for your spiritual freedom? When do you have time to raise your gaze to the heavens?
Almost every leader I work with has fed the mind and fed the ambition. But the soul is starving. Brunello figured this out decades before the rest of us.
04
Silence & Solitude
Brunello is known for wandering the streets of Solomeo in the early morning hours, alone, connecting to his spirit. He has become what he calls a “chaser of silence.”
“In the winter on a Sunday afternoon, I can spend six hours in front of the fireplace, just looking at the flames and thinking. In the evening, I’m drunk with beautiful thoughts.”
Saint Benedict said: “Stars do not shine except in the dark night.” We cannot appreciate the beauty of our inner voice except when there is silence. When Brunello was a child spending hours alone in the countryside, the silence was rich. Birdsongs. The rustling of poplars., water flowing in ditches. Slowness dominated.
The wise Epicurus explained that when public life prevails, it deprives us of the rest necessary to restore our soul. We need time for “creative idleness.” Not just sleep. Thinking, writing, reading. The core of knowledge. For the ancient Romans, “otium” meant time free from public office, the best chance to spend time with oneself, to regenerate the soul, to study and reflect. There was no material gain ever associated with this idly active time.
Too many people today are drowning in noise. Almost none of them have space for creative idleness, time to think, time to be. And they wonder why they feel hollow.
05
Philosophy & the Wise Men
“I’m seduced by the purity of thought of so many exceptional men.”
Brunello has always carefully listened to the wisest words of the greatest men of humanity. The great thinkers, the scientists, the emperors, and the saints. They taught him to feel and act as a guardian and caretaker. They taught him to believe in respect, dignity, kindness, grace, and good manners.
Since he was a child, he has jotted down the most meaningful things and his daily thoughts in a notebook. He re-reads them over time. I have the same practice. One should not expect coherence in these writings. The true meaning of his life seems to be a spontaneous drive and energy.
Brunello came across Kant when he was 17 or 18, and one quote changed his life: “There are two things that move me: the starry sky above me and the moral law inside me.” And another that he placed at the entrance to Solomeo: “You should act considering mankind, not just for you, but for others too, not just as needs but as the highest purpose.”
Brunello studies philosophy to figure out how to live. He’s been talking to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, and Socrates for fifty years. They’ve become, according to him, friends.
06
You Must Have Courage
“Sean, you are very young, I could be your father, and what I’m saying to you is that you must have the courage to envisage the golden century that is forthcoming. I think that we fathers have made two major mistakes. First, we have taught our children to always be fearful. Why don’t you replace the word fear with the word hope? Because a life without hope, there’s no point in living it.”
His grandfather taught him courage. He went through hunger and war. He never, never talked about the hardship of that time. Always talking about courage.
The second mistake: we told children that if they were no good at school, they had to go to work. And this way we blamed work for everything we had done wrong with education. Brunello believes you have two kinds of intelligence: what you learn at school, and what you have inborn in your soul. We must nourish the latter. We must nourish a very special relationship with human beings.
Brunello’s father was not a very educated man. He didn’t go to school. Yet he would repeat daily: “You should be good. You should have courage. When you feel despair, you should try and raise your gaze to the heavens because you might find inspiration there.”
“Oh my God, help me accept what I cannot change. Help me change what I can.” — Thomas More
When Brunello said this to me, it wasn’t a lecture. It was a man looking at me with kindness and saying: don’t be afraid. His courage isn’t loud. It’s quiet. And it comes from somewhere so deep that fear can’t reach it.
07
The Man Brunello Was Ready
Between 15 and 25, Brunello was hanging out at the local bar, learning about life. He has a belief: when a person turns 20, their personality is already fully formed. By 25, he didn’t yet know what would become of him. But he had a clear-cut character.
While still pondering what to do with his life, he already felt the importance of fostering respect and dignity. He kept asking himself: why should anyone offend other human beings?
“At 25, the man Brunello was ready. And then I came up with this idea of colored cashmere. You might ask me why, how did it happen? I do not know, because until the day before I was still busy at the bar playing cards.”
Everything can change in an instant. He didn’t have a business plan. He didn’t have industry experience. He had a fully formed character and a sense of purpose. And he was ready when the moment showed up.
I have to confess that my initial motivation arose out of recklessness and instinct. Today I am firmly convinced that we must act even when we have feeble hopes, because sometimes the most incredible success arises out of utopia. There was uncertainty at the beginning, but I persevered and one day something changed for the better. And that’s how and when I started my very tiny business.
08
Dyed Cashmere — The Idea That Changed Everything
Brunello’s first meeting with Alessio, perhaps one of the most expert cashmere dyers in the world, was wonderful. He brought six women’s sweaters and asked him to dye them in six different delicate colours. Alessio’s first reply was blunt: “It is crazy to dye cashmere in these colours.”
Brunello spent nearly the whole morning trying to convince him. Finally: “Let’s try, but I’m not sure how it will turn out.” It was undoubtedly the most important moment of Brunello’s life. He is extremely grateful to that man.
“For the first time I started to take myself seriously and to believe in the future of my company. My business knowledge was still limited and I knew nothing of my competitors, but this did not jeopardise my enthusiasm. I had the feeling I had been waiting for that moment forever — the moment when my life changed direction.”
Radical changes in people, which are often due to a great dream, are fascinating. His purpose was already clear. Human dignity. He just needed a vehicle. Colored cashmere became that vehicle. The interesting thing is it just wasn’t about a love for fashion but Brunello wanted a company that would foster the dignity his father never got.
09
My Dream
Brunello’s dream has always been simple in its articulation and vast in its ambition: joining together the beauty of the past with the beauty of the future. It means combining business with family, innovation with tradition, profit with giving back, money with humanity.
“I would like its strength to lie in the heart rather than in the mind, because I like it more, and because the heart is always stronger than the mind. Feelings succeed in obtaining results that mathematics would deem impossible.”
He has always been firmly convinced that in order to stand out, you need to focus on one single project representing the dream of your life. He was reminded of the moving story of Takashi Paolo Nagai, a Japanese doctor who died after being exposed to the A-bomb radiation in Nagasaki. Nagai told his children:
“My dear children, do have a dream. Have a beautiful dream. Follow only one dream, the dream of your life. The human life that has a dream to cherish is happy. A life that pursues a dream is new every day. Those dreams that, once achieved, can make a whole community happy cannot be achieved by a single person.”
“If we discover the dreams nurtured by our heart, we will achieve the most important goal of our lives.”
10
Humanistic Capitalism
Brunello and his trusted advisor Massimo de Vico Fallani discussed something they decided to call “humanistic capitalism.”
“We imagined a business embodying the rules of ethics in their noblest form. I dreamt of a form of contemporary capitalism rooted in strong ancient values, where making a profit should never harm or offend people or things, and where part of the earnings should be earmarked to promote initiatives aimed at concretely improving the condition of human life.”
The human being should be at the center of any production process, because this is the only way to restore dignity, since quality cannot exist without humanity.
“If we work together and, even with one look, I make you understand that you are worth nothing and I look down on you — I have killed you. But if I give you regards and respect, out of esteem responsibility is spawned. Then out of responsibility comes creativity, because every human being has an amount of genius in them. Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.”
Dignity generates responsibility. Responsibility generates creativity. I’ve seen this play out in every organization I’ve worked with. When a leader treats people with real dignity, not the performative kind, something unlocks. People start taking ownership. They create. They stop waiting for permission. Brunello proved this works at scale.
11
Beauty — I Feel Responsible for the Beauty of the World
Emperor Hadrian said: “I felt responsible for the beauty of the world.” Brunello took that personally. Each of us can feel responsible for the beauty of some part of it. Maybe just our threshold, keeping it tidy and clean, adding plants and flowers.
“Beauty is simplicity. Simplicity does not mean getting rid of something. It means applying knowledge and choice to come up with synthesis. This is why it is about being brave and strong. The greatest minds can convey deep and complex thoughts with words that are understandable to everyone.”
“One should always be ready for something beautiful.”
Beauty is not mere appearance. Beauty is the shape of the inner qualities of people and things. Wherever there is beauty, there is positivity.
Time changes the shape, but not the substance of things.
They planted a small oak tree in the valley. The gardener commented regretfully that they would never get to enjoy its vast shade. Brunello saw it differently: that tree was an investment in something that would embellish the life of those who come after us. Obtaining everything at once deprives things of their true value. Limitation does not always mean impoverishment. It’s an incentive to creativity. When we close our eyes we notice things that our open eyes hide from us.
12
A Fashion Empire Is Born
How was this small company going to be organized? Brunello wanted his employees to work in better places. A castle dating back to the 1300s. He wanted them to make better wages. He wanted them to become the thinking souls of the business. He knew that every single person has a pinch of genius in them. He just wanted to be the organizer of that genius.
He gives 20 percent of the company’s profits to his charitable foundation and pays workers wages 20 percent above the industry standard. He funds an artisan’s school in Solomeo where young people are free to work either at his company or for another Italian company. We think that protecting the brand is more important than promoting it.
In this company, you cannot send emails after 5:30 PM. “The first time I was in New York, they were emailing across the office. I said, no way. Just get up and go to your neighbor. Look me in the eye. You smell me, my presence. Maybe I take the opportunity to ask about your family. Don’t you feel better than if you get an email?”
14
What Mom & Dad Taught Me
Both of Brunello’s parents, each in their own way, passed on lasting values. More through example than words. Above all, the silent courage to persevere despite the hurdles fate sometimes places on your path.
The feeling he associates most with his mother is tenderness. From her, he learned patience and spirituality. From his father, he learned the courage to dream and to choose. His father is a simple man, but Brunello owes him the awareness that any project’s ultimate purpose must be mankind and its dignity.
The feeling he associates most with his mother is tenderness. From her, he learned patience and spirituality. From his father, he learned the courage to dream and to choose. His father is a simple man, but Brunello owes him the awareness that any project’s ultimate purpose must be mankind and its dignity.
The willingness to make sacrifices for others. The ability to wait for a reward. The devotion to work. For Brunello, these are everlasting values. There was no wealth, but they were happy. And it makes him think: having enough is a form of wealth.
Poverty should never be a reason to offend someone. Brunello is fascinated by Seneca’s thought: all men are equal before true good and true evil.
15
Death
Death is part of life. Brunello learned it the painful way when his mother died of a stroke. She was seventy years old. In spite of all the confusion, he had a chance to spend almost an hour with her alone. A time that made him grow up years.
Holding her hand, he whispered: “Dear mum, you have had a wonderful life. You have raised us children according to noble ideals and great values. You are not really abandoning us — you’re just preceding us to reach a peaceful place where we will all meet again eventually.” He was recalling Seneca’s words: his son was not dead, he simply preceded him in a different place, where he could think of him every day.
“The thought of the lost loved ones gives me strength and a reason for living. Even today, almost every evening before falling asleep, I talk to my mother, to don Alberto, to my dearest friends who have passed away too young. I miss them a lot when I meet my other friends in the evening.”
Seneca, speaking after his son Lucilius’s death: “Let us therefore reflect that we shall soon come to the place he has reached. And perhaps, if the sages are right and there is a place that will welcome all of us, then he whom we think we have lost has only been sent on ahead.”
16
We Are Custodians
Confucius said: “I do not create, I hand down.” It is not about nostalgia for the past but about authentic values, in which we find every answer we need to build the future.
“We have to act as guardians, and at the same time plan for the coming 2,000 years.”
Brunello has always thought of himself as a guardian, and today also as a true ferryman commuting from the past to the future. He sees the roots of the future in family, spirituality, craftsmanship, and agriculture.
Most people build to win. Brunello builds to hand down. His time horizon isn’t a quarter or a year. It’s centuries. That changes every decision.
17
Technology & Balance
Voltaire was right: “If you don’t embrace the spirit of your time, you will be left with the worst of it.”
“You should always buy the most cutting-edge technology on the market. But be careful. Otherwise it will steal the soul that creation has given to us.”
Over the past 30 years, we have tried to rule mankind through science only, but it is not possible. We need our souls too. Technology is a blessing from creation. But we must find the balance between humanism and technology. This is particularly important for the next generation.
Marcus Aurelius had to run Rome, manage an economic downturn, and fight a war. And still he said: “Live according to nature. Try and find peace, find balance.”
18
The Future Generations
Kindness is nothing but generosity, a sign of moral strength and the language of beautiful souls. Kindness is not a means but an inner attitude. A seal. A mark of human beings.
If you are able to fall in love with beauty with both your senses and your mind, if you can listen to nature. The voice of the wind, the rivers, the sea, the sky, and men. You will learn how important it is to preserve the integrity of Creation.
If you listen to the elderly, you will eventually be able to see beyond their wrinkles and find the children they once were.
“When my father would say to me, ‘You have to make the furrows straight because straight means more beautiful’ — that’s the importance that beauty has in our lives.”
There are three things you can’t hide for a very long time: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Brunello often thinks of a world where men and women from any corner of the earth can go and live anywhere they choose and integrate without having to wear a mask. A world where every new encounter means enrichment, not fear.
19
Let Values Guide You
Today we are experiencing a crisis of civilization. Values have been put aside. Perhaps by mistake, distraction, or haste. Those values will always be the backbone of mankind.
Brunello compares values to seeds we might forget or discard. One day, to our wonder, a green leaf sprouts. That shoot will become a great shady tree spreading life for centuries.
“You do not need examples to put moderation into practice. You do not need formal rules. You do not need laws. Each of us has these rules carved in the most certain part of the heart.”
We know by instinct when it is the right time to stroke our children, when to give to those in need. We know when we exaggerate, if it is time to pray or reflect or act. We know when we need to be alone, or to seek company.
20
From Brunello’s Notebook
Brunello has kept notebooks his whole life. These are some of the passages he returns to. And that I return to:
“Beauty will save the world.” — Dostoevsky
“You live if you are useful to many.” — Seneca
“I only follow paths that do have a heart.”
“Love is the oldest of gods.”
“Work makes the spirit of man sublime.”
“It is beautiful to make progress, even when you have reached infinity.” — Goethe
“If you combine pain, focus and dedication you get success. That is the truth.”
Emperor Hadrian wrote: “There has never been a clear explanation that has not convinced me, a pleasant disposition that has not won me over, a joy that has not made me a better man.”
John Ruskin: “The man who does not know when to sacrifice himself does not know how to live.” And: “If you understand the art of life, you will eventually realize that every beautiful thing is also necessary.”
Confucius: “At fifteen I began to take a serious interest in my studies; at thirty my character was formed; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I understood the Divine will. At sixty nothing I heard upset me.”
Marcus Aurelius: “The world is like a single living creature made up of a single substance and a single soul.”
21
Our Ideals for Life & Work — The Ten Rules
After everything Brunello has lived and built, these are the principles he distilled for how he wants to move through the world. Reading them after understanding the man behind them. His father’s tears. The fireplace., the oak tree, The 2,000-year time horizon. They land differently than if you read them cold.
I. We love and respect Mother Earth: we cultivate our land according to nature and welcome its fruits as its greatest gift.
II. We do not use more resources than necessary or natural. We make careful use of the universe.
III. We always act as loyal and affectionate guardians of creation.
IV. We believe in the moral and economic dignity of human beings.
V. During work we support fair profitability and harmony between profit and giving back to the community.
VI. We seek harmony between fair work and human privacy.
VII. We commemorate our forefathers. They taught us to respect the law, and our story is written in their words.
VIII. We believe in universalism and act displaying great respect for all civilisations.
IX. We welcome fair change in order to experience the best from our time.
X. We are fond of young people and pass down to them hope and the dream of a bright future awaiting them.
22
Final Words — The Golden Century
Until now Brunello has been a man of his time and has tried to be guided by his heart, courage, and caution. All his efforts have been devoted to bringing some good to mankind. Never manufacture anything that could harm Creation, neither directly nor indirectly.
Marcus Aurelius, comparing life to theatre: “In life, a mere three acts can be the whole drama.” It is a reassuring thought, because whoever has set Brunello’s time here has also established the course of his actions. This is why he keeps living and acting, ready to leave the stage peacefully, because the one who will give him his exit cue is peaceful.
Erasmus from Rotterdam said: “My God, please let me live 20 years more because the golden century is about to come.” Brunello says the same thing. He believes the golden century is forthcoming. A century of contracts, agreements, and brotherhood.
“Try and be good, decent people. Try and be visionary, be amiable, be respectful, and take care of creation. Being good people pays off. Believe in universal humanism. Be enlightened, and enlighten others. And may creation always protect us.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile.”
“After all these years and experiences, I know nothing, nothing at all, that compares to the love for another person when it comes to reaching immensity and infinity.”
I’m an executive coach who works privately with CEOs, founders, and investors. The stuff I help with doesn’t have a playbook. It’s the things you can’t bring to your board or your spouse or your team. If you’re looking for someone who can sit in it with you, let’s talk.