Episode 379: Integrating Ancient Wisdom into Modern Business Leadership

Intro

0:00:18 – (Bob Woods): Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests teach their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. This episode of the Making Sales Social podcast is brought to you by Social Sales Link, the company that helps you start more trust-based conversations without being salesy through the power of LinkedIn and AI. Start your journey for free by joining our resource library. Welcome to the show.

0:00:56 – (Brynne Tillman): Welcome back to Making Sales Social. I’m so excited to have Cristina DiGiacomo here. She is a renowned philosopher and corporate visionary known for her profound influence in the business realm by integrating ancient wisdom with modern business strategies. I know her through the C Suite Network, and she is the chief Philosopher officer at the C Suite Network Technology Council and a celebrated author.

0:01:27 – (Brynne Tillman): Cristina brings invaluable insights to executives and business leaders, aiding them in navigating complex challenges with intellectual wellness and clarity. Her unique approach helps cultivate the mental resilience and decision-making prowess essential for sustaining success. Cristina, welcome to the show.

0:01:50 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Hi, Brynne. Thank you so much. Hi, everybody out there.

0:01:54 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, so thrilled to have you here. Every time I’m in a C Suite meeting, whether it’s a celebration or a thought leadership council, I listen to your brilliance and you bring so much value and insights. And what I love is you’ve got this core philosophy that we’re going to talk about a little bit that enhances the way people do business today and I love that. So before we jump into your genius, we ask everyone the same first question, which is, what does Making Sales Social mean to you?

0:02:28 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So it’s interesting, it’s such an interesting, compelling question. And one of the things that came up for me is I feel like we come out of the womb selling. I mean, if you think about it, like, we have to be cute as babies so that we, so that people take care of us. We have to like, and I mean this in, like, this is the most natural thing that goes on socially. We have to contribute, we have to participate.

0:03:01 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): We have to make sure that people know that we are worth staying in the tribe. I mean, selling Made Social is, is really sort of a modern take on what we do naturally as human beings, which is to connect and to share ideas and to share thoughts. And so for me, just naturally being social, you’re automatically in a way, selling. But like, and I know, but it seems like weird or you know, because selling has such a kind of connotation to it.

0:03:47 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): But all it is is sharing of yourself to other people and really taking the time to let them share of themselves to you. And, and that’s, that’s really what it is. To me, selling made social is all about. It’s just what we love that we do naturally. Yeah.

0:04:10 – (Brynne Tillman): And I mean, I love the thought that, yet from the moment we are born, we have to sell our family on loving us. We have to sell and. And we have to ask for what we need as well as, you know, other. What others need as well. So I, I love that. So let’s jump in a little bit into your. Your journey. Now. Your degree is in communications and a minor in philosophical studies. Just tell me a little bit about how you decide to kind of go that route.

0:04:45 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Sure. So I really had an interest in at least how people relate to one another, like how they communicate. And I also was very curious about, believe it or not, management and business when I was like 18, 19 years old. So I went and I got a degree specifically in inter-organizational communications and business, and I even got an advanced degree at some point in organizational change management. Like, I just always had this fascination of the human side of the business arrangement, as you can. You can say within. Within an organization.

0:05:32 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And actually, the philosophy came in because I. I felt there was something missing. There was something missing in my life. And I was working in these very intense environments that required a lot of mental gymnastics, a lot of political maneuvering, and I needed something outside of my work. So, I started taking philosophy classes at this local school. And it turned out that it was extremely helpful in being able to understand the working environments that I was in, that I was able to actually relate to the people that I was working with and truly understand what they were going through and help them.

0:06:26 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So help my bosses get through a challenging time or help steward a new idea up the ranks, like, you name it. It was so helpful. So then I just basically brought all three together, and I was like, oh, I can actually make this a thing.

0:06:46 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. So if you could just share a little bit about what is your ethos or, you know, what is that philosophical, I guess, positioning that you bring into business and leadership.

0:07:02 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So. Well, my belief is that work doesn’t have to be terrible. Okay. So that’s just like, let’s just start there. And a lot of the reasons why we have these challenges, which can be very like, very intense from external sources, whether there’s competition Whether the companies not doing really well, there’s a crisis, like there’s that, then there’s at the individual level where someone is, you know, not feeling valued or they’re disconnected to their purpose. Like all of that all of those challenges require people to actually have to intellectually and mentally engage with those issues.

0:07:58 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): The question is, what is the fitness of their intellectual and thought, you know, and thought generation and their ability to actually enter into and engage with an issue clearly and purely. So my belief is that a lot of the issues that people experience is really around their thoughts about the issues, not necessarily the issues themselves. And so what I do is I help people rethink those situations, their situation, what’s going on, so that they can actually go and very seamlessly solve those problems, make those tough decisions, have those conversations, and really, truly just get on with it, because that’s what the work is asking us to do.

0:09:00 – (Brynne Tillman): So that’s really an interesting perspective. I just want to go one more deep into that. Right. So, you know, as you went through your philosophical studies, did you learn different concepts from different philosophers? And how did you decide which ones you were going to bring into the business world? What resonated most with you, and what have you found has had the highest success with your clients?

0:09:30 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So, really great questions. Yes, absolutely. I’m multidisciplinary, so I bring in different concepts from across millennia and across traditions, whether they’re Eastern traditions or Western traditions, and all different kinds of philosophers. And how I select those really actually goes to the, the, you know, understanding the, the problem, understanding the challenge, which is why it’s important, you know, for, for me, I’m one of the only philosophers that I’m aware of that has the professional, business and executive background that I do.

0:10:12 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So, so really, truly understanding and knowing and experiencing, okay, these are the problems that occur at the leadership level, at the organizational level, at the individual level. And then what I do is I basically go and find concepts that I think would be interesting to be a solution, or at least a way for the person or the team or the CEO to kind of look at whatever that problem is in a more clear way.

0:10:47 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And so that’s essentially how I help people, is I understand what the problem is first. And because I have, you know, a lot of experience in business, I usually really understand the, the deeper aspects of that. And then I go and decide, you know, is it going to be Nietzsche who’s going to help out here? Is it going to be Socrates who’s going to help out here? Is it going to be Lao Tzu, like, and. And then that’s it. And then I take those concepts and I teach them.

0:11:19 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So I very much am a teacher of philosophy to people in the business world.

0:11:27 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, gosh, I love that. Now, you’ve got a great book called Wise Up at Work. And you dive into managing with calm and leading, you know, with leading with calmness. I don’t know if I’m saying that, articulating that well, but can you give us a couple of key insights that are really critical for leaders today that you highlighted in your book?

0:11:53 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So one of the things that’s really important is to understand the truth of what is going on. That is the most critical thing for, like, that is philosophy. First responding is knowing the truth. And a lot of times the. The truth is very, very cleverly hidden in, in a lot of organizations for a number of reasons. There’s, there’s political wills at work, there’s agendas at work. There’s people’s different, just genuine, honestly, different perceptions of what’s going on.

0:12:37 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And a leader’s job is to cut through all of that and really get to the truth, really understand the facts. The second, right after that, second thing that they have to do is to understand and observe what they think about those facts because what they think about those facts are also cleverly constructed. And so a leader’s job is also to try to remove their sort of initial reaction to whatever that truth is, to whatever those facts are, and make sure that they’re engaging with that situation or that information as purely as possible without any sort of opinions or conflation or, or anything like that.

0:13:39 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And so the whole thing about wisdom at work is how can you look at a situation, have the appropriate thoughts about that situation, discern the right thing to do, and then act, and then just act and be decisive? And so. But I would say truth being the goal is the most important thing.

0:14:05 – (Brynne Tillman): I want to go deeper into that because I think that that’s probably one of the hardest things people can. Can get to because, you know, everyone has their own version of truth. And so the. So my first question asking you as a philosopher is, is there truly one version of truth, or can there be various truths?

0:14:32 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So that’s a really great question. The truth has many faces. But if you take the time, and typically this happens in a conversation, if you really take the time and ask questions and listen and also be willing to be refuted, be willing to be. That’s. That’s the thing. This is the Socratic dialectic that I’m sharing with you. And the principles are, you know, making sure that you’re listening and asking questions, but also being willing to be challenged and then letting the conversation go, go where it leads.

0:15:14 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And nine times out of 10, there may be two different versions of events, two different ideas or truths. I say, you know, my truth and your truth. All that is is it’s my perception of the truth. And your perception of the truth and the truth may be that we just don’t get along. It’s not right. It’s not. You know, Brynne, I did my thing on time, and I’m like, well, you did it wrong. My version of the truth. Your version of the truth. The real truth is that we don’t get along.

0:15:57 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And until people get past the perception of facts and to the truth of the matter, we don’t get along or we don’t understand each other’s roles and responsibilities. And there’s more to learn. If there’s more to learn, you have not landed on the truth.

0:16:21 – (Brynne Tillman): We need some of this in our politics today. I love this.

0:16:24 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So I’ve been told. Yeah. The first person to tell me this.

0:16:30 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, that’s amazing. I love that. So what advice would you give someone who wants to start integrating, you know, philosophy into their leadership style, but they really just don’t know where to start? What. What would you say to them?

0:16:48 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, so I call the Stoics, like the gateway philosophy. They are. The Stoics are a gateway drug. To philosophy. And so I highly. I highly recommend checking out Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Daily Stoic or even picking up Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and the Enchiridion by Epictetus. So start with the Stoics. They’re pretty accessible and easy to understand and are very practical. Philosophy can be very practical.

0:17:29 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): And that’s what I do. I’m a practical philosopher, so I only work with philosophers and concepts that can be used in everyday life. So if someone is interested in. In using philosophy for leadership, I encourage them to. To look at the Stoics, but I also encourage them, believe it or not, to listen to themselves.

0:17:59 – (Brynne Tillman): So talk. Go deeper on that a little bit.

0:18:01 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So one of the practices, and this has been very illuminating for a lot of leaders, is to listen to the sound of your voice and to listen to other people. The reason for that is it is a direct line into reality. It is completely getting out of your own head and going straight into the. Your environment and the reality of a situation. And so when you actually stop and listen to yourself, Talking you will. And I’ve had leaders say, holy crap. I realize I talk a lot, but I don’t say much, or I have not truly thought out what I’m supposed to say. And I feel my voice getting away and saying things that are kind of half assed.

0:19:02 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So I’ve had those kinds of reactions with this practice. And then when they’re internalizing or listening, they’re like, wow, I heard so much from my staff or from the situation. I really felt present. So to me, if you want to actually start incorporating philosophy or wisdom, listen to yourself and listen to other people.

0:19:36 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s awesome. I love that. I’m going to throw something else out there because I think that this kind of dovetails into a kind of mentorship. So have you had mentors, and have you mentored others that have helped you through your career?

0:19:55 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yes. I would say, though later, like, I would say when I began my entrepreneurial journey, that is when, that is when the mentors came in. And I have a philosophy mentor named Tom Morris, who’s an amazing contemporary philosopher. And then I have business mentors, like the people at, you know, the feel at sweet and like, you know, I listen to you to like say really smart things and I’m like, oh, she’s so smart. And, and so in a way, like, you’re sort of like a tangent mentor to me.

0:20:32 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So. But then, I also really love mentoring myself. I’ve had several interns, three throughout my career, I did more mentoring than being mentored. And so, so yeah, I had lots of interns that, that still stay in touch with me that are like, hey, I am like a supervisor at this job doing everything that I love and it’s just wonderful.

0:21:02 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I’m finding more and more how important real good mentorship is, which is why I joined the C Suite Network, actually. Right. Because the right people are in the right room with the right stories and the right support. So you are one of them. I love listening to everything that you share as well. So I think that’s awesome. Now, you have received multiple accolades. You have two New York Times Publisher Awards.

0:21:35 – (Brynne Tillman): Just tell me, like, I’m so impressed. Tell me a little bit about that. How has that affected your career?

0:21:42 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Or has it so, you know, awards are great. Don’t get, don’t get me wrong, you know, it’s a job well done. And that’s the thing about the New York Times publishers. Aw Boards is really about leadership and stewarding really good ideas that actually make a Difference. And so that’s wonderful. And being acknowledged in so many ways has been. Has been great. The thing is, it bumps up against, like, I know that it’s important for people to see, and I know that it’s important as a way, you know, selling and in a way, the fact that I’ve had these accomplishments. But it also, in a way, there’s a tension with one of my philosophies, which comes from Aristotle, which is to seek no honors.

0:22:41 – (Brynne Tillman): Are you in conflict?

0:22:42 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, I actually am in conflict because part of it is, like, you do the work for the beauty and the value of the work itself. Itself and not necessarily the outcome. And. And so that is. That is something that, you know, I hold very dear. And so sometimes it’s hard, like, to be acknowledged in that way. And. But I know that it’s important to people, like, having credibility. So. Yeah, well.

0:23:17 – (Brynne Tillman): And it also. There, I think there’s some recognition of the good work that you’re doing.

0:23:22 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, right.

0:23:22 – (Brynne Tillman): So I think a recognition like that is, man, I’m on the right path. I can help more people by doing the right thing.

0:23:30 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So that’s how I thank you so much, Brynne. I appreciate that that has now been resolved. I feel less conflicted.

0:23:39 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m so glad because you’ve earned it.

0:23:43 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): You really have.

0:23:44 – (Brynne Tillman): And you’ve earned it because you’ve helped so many. So that’s, I think, kind of the. The best combination, for sure. So I could talk to you all day, but as we wrap this up, is there any question I didn’t ask you that I should have?

0:24:02 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Usually, people ask me who my favorite philosopher is.

0:24:06 – (Brynne Tillman): Okay. Who’s your favorite philosopher?

0:24:09 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Oh, God, I think it’s Plato for sure.

0:24:13 – (Brynne Tillman): Can I. Why?

0:24:16 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): So what people don’t realize about Plato is. Or that somehow I read into. He’s actually really funny. And. And so his writing is very serious, and he’s got a lot of really big ideas, and he. It’s really kind of, you know, to dive into Plato’s world is really to be in a totally different world. But he actually has a little bit of a. He’s cheeky. He’s got a little bit of a sense of humor. And you don’t necessarily find that in, like, you know, Schopenhauer and Heidegger. And, like, it’s just kind of nice when. When a philosopher throws in a little, like, you know, snark.

0:25:02 – (Brynne Tillman): A wink and a nod.

0:25:04 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, a wink and a nod and a little snark and a little, you know, poking fun at, like, the elite, you know, like, it’s just. It’s hard to explain. Socrates cracks me up. Like, absolutely cracks me up. And so, so, yeah, and, and what we know of Socrates comes from Plato. So that’s why I say Plato.

0:25:24 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, there you go. So, I know I said that was the last question, but now I know that you are an AI buff. Like, you just love LLMs, right? And so do you ever go on to an LLM and say, act like, play doh.

0:25:39 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Okay, so this is crazy, believe it or not. So there’s this website called there’s an AI for that, and it’s one of the largest AI tools directories that’s out there. It’s massive. And so just for the heck of it, I went. And I was like, I wonder if anybody’s created Socrates AI or. And people have created LLMs that act like a lot of philosophers. A lot. And, and so, yeah, and so that, that to me is. It is pretty wild that you can chat with Socrates if you want.

0:26:25 – (Brynne Tillman): That would be a lot of fun, I think.

0:26:27 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, he would appreciate that. Can I just tell you, that’s his personality. He would totally find it fascinating and amazing if that, you know.

0:26:37 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, yeah. Well, the interesting thing is now his legacy will live on to the next generations that may have otherwise missed the importance of the philosophers.

0:26:49 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): That’s such a great point, Brynne, because one of the things that I’m trying to do is make philosophy great again, you know, like, like, honestly, because it been really put in this like, ivory tower academic world gathering dust, and it’s so beautiful and amazing and, and so practical and, and so that’s one of. That’s a mission of mine is to expose as many people as possible to philosophy and philosophical thinking.

0:27:28 – (Brynne Tillman): Well, I thank you, and I hope that this podcast interview will do that for some folks. We’ll get that out there. Thank you so much. How can people get in touch with you and how? And also, how do people work with you?

0:27:43 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): Yeah, so I have a website, everydayphilosophy.com, so you could just like go to that, and there’s like a pop-up where you can put in your email address. And like, that’s how I, you know, and just. So just sign up, and I’ll reach out. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn a lot. I like LinkedIn. So if you want to connect with me on social, like, that’s probably the way the, the place to do it. And if you want to work with me I do lectures, workshops, classes. I have mastermind groups.

0:28:16 – (Cristina DiGiacomo): You know, I can. There’s, there’s multiple ways to engage with these ideas. You just have to, like, you know, have a conversation with me. We’ll work it out.

0:28:26 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s awesome. I, you know, you’re fabulous. I just enjoy every moment with you. And I thank you. And to all of our listeners, when you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales.

Outro:

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