Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Dr. Bruno Cignacco, international business consultant, TEDx speaker, researcher and author of the Art of Compassionate Business. For more than 30 years, Bruno has advised and trained hundreds of companies worldwide on international trade, marketing and now on building human oriented, compassionate workplaces. He’s also a university professor and senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the U.K.. Bruno’s mission is to show leaders how compassion with stakeholders, employees, and customers doesn’t just feel good, it drives creativity, innovation, and long term success. Dr., welcome to the show.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Thank you, Trisha, for the invite. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you very much.

Trisha Stetzel: Very excited to have you today. So would you share a little bit more about Bruno?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Okay. Well, as you said, clearly I’m a university professor. I have been always researching on business topics. In the past, I used to research more on traditional business topics such as strategy, tactics, for example, business models and plans, budgeting, and other aspects that are very important for business in a traditional way. But lately I have been researching on nontraditional topics, for example, the importance of kindness on business activities, the importance of compassion, the importance of generosity and gratitude. And I have been also alongside teaching students at different levels at university. I have been also advising companies, as you mentioned, very clearly for many years, a few decades, on international marketing and negotiation. But lately, we have a focus much more on fundamental topics of business that are not very well disclosed in the media, such as the importance of building a psychologically safe workplace or developing strong ties, strong bonds with different stakeholders that will bring about higher profits, higher sales, and also higher motivation and higher, obviously camaraderie in the workplace. So this topic, what I observe in my talks and training all over the world are very well accepted. But there is still some resistance because most companies try to approach business in a traditional way, in a very conservative way. This means only focusing on what can be measured, what can be counted, such as profit, market share, sales. But we try to introduce an alternative view, a view that is much more complete, that includes not only the economic aspect of business, but include also the human aspect. This means caring for people. Understanding the customer is also a human being with a specific need that needs to be addressed very, very clearly. And the same happens with employees, suppliers and other stakeholders such as community members, business partners and others.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. So I understand the importance of being able to, um, treat people properly in the workplace. And sometimes it can be measurable and not so measurable in other cases. What really drove you to focus your research and teaching on compassionate business.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : What we continually see news journals and websites that are sensationalistic, but they show the negative side of business. For example, companies going bankrupt, fighting employees mercilessly, in some cases, exploiting employees, taking advantage of customers, deceiving different stakeholders, polluting the environment. We see all the negative side of business, but I read an article a while ago, a long time ago, that it was about human aspect of business. Harvard Business Review, and it was a bit intrigued because most of the articles in business are much more about strategy, tactics, the traditional topics. And I was intrigued, and I started researching on this for many years, and I started discovering that there are real companies in different sectors small companies, big companies, medium sized companies that are not only successful, economically speaking, they have all the standard of success such as high profit, high, reputation, high market share, good product, good quality, but also at the same time, they have a strong ties with different stakeholders. And this is intuitive because you might say, oh, if we focus on profit, this is the priority. We shouldn’t be focusing on stakeholders. But it’s counterintuitive because when you focus as a priority on building a strong, long lasting relationship with stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, community members, employees, stakeholders will help you build a more successful business. Why? Because there is a concept of interdependence. You cannot succeed without them. You have to help them in order that they can help you succeed. So it’s reciprocal. If you don’t care for them, why will they care for you? So I started looking for research studies on companies that are successful, but also they are building strong bones.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : And this makes a lot of sense because at the end The most important mistake that I observe. You mentioned briefly in business. The business leader, the most important mistake that they make is that they want everything measurable. They want everything that can be really counted. Measure from year to year. For example, sales can be compared. If the sales were higher or lower than the previous year, but also market share, but also the stock price. If the company is quote quoted in the stock market. So this we call this quantity can be measured precisely and can offer some standard about the how the company is doing economically speaking. However, there are other aspects that are as important as the quantitative aspect that I call qualitative, as it cannot be measured precisely. But that is so important because bring about, for example, strong relationship with customer are more prone to bring about loyalty, loyalty, ties with customers. But also this qualitative aspect also bring about what we call psychological safety in the workplace means that employees feel supported. They feel treated in a respectful way. They can give their own opinions without feeling that they’re ridiculed, and so on. And this brings about much more motivation and so on. These qualitative aspects, an example of qualitative tasks are. Support. Compassion. Generosity. Gratitude. And there is a lot of research on the positive impact of this qualitative aspect on, for example, profit market share.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : I give you one example. There is an interesting study that was published in a journal that was about companies that develop these loving workplaces, these supportive workplaces where employees feel taken care of, their respective they’re appreciated, their opinions are valued, and that the leaders are requested all the employees opinion because they try to make this participative and everyone skills is enhanced on a regular basis with training, coaching, mentoring. So this employee feels safe and they don’t want to leave the company. In this psychologically safe workplaces, there tend to be higher employee satisfaction. Higher customer satisfaction. Why? Because employees that are happy, they feel supported, they feel in a compassionate way, then to serve customers more effectively. They do this in a loving way. They try to exceed customer expectation. But also in this workplace they tend to they tend to be lower absenteeism. This means that employees want to go to work. Lower stress level. This means that employees are less prone to adopt this freeze fight flight mode. This means that they tend to be more creative, more creativity, more innovation, more motivation, and this impact positively on the bottom line. This means higher profit, better reputation. So the this model non traditional model of business is much more indirect. By caring for people, by taking care of people and respecting them and appreciating them and being generous to them. You indirectly achieve better economic indicator. Why? Because at the end you will need these people to be successful.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : No company can succeed without customer, without supply, without employees. So this means that you are creating a positive cycle of reciprocity with these stakeholders. And these stakeholders feel compelled in an unconditional way to support your company when you face difficult times. Instead, when you focus only on profits as a priority and you don’t care about building relationships with stakeholders, this stakeholder might feel neglected. They might feel unappreciated, and they might feel, in some cases, manipulated. Customer might feel deceived. Employees might feel utilized and exploited. And other stakeholders might feel also disrespected. And these stakeholders are more prone to withdraw, not to cooperate with your company. So this means that relationships are the best investment that the company can make. Why? Because it’s a long term investment that will bring about a countless fruits and an unlimited return. And human beings, people, customers, employees, suppliers are the most important asset in any company. The most important asset is not. Artificial intelligence is not finance is not technology is not information is the human being. Because the human being can generate all these resources, can generate technology, can generate business model, can generate new products, new business systems and so on. So this is counterintuitive, but I see that there is a shift in understanding and understanding that by being a appreciative, respectful and generous and kind with different stakeholders, they can bring better economic results and better reputation and better and better brand image.

Trisha Stetzel: This is such a great topic and I love the idea of humans just being compassionate for each other. We all need to give each other grace and take care of each other, and it does create a better environment. How does this look in practice? In business, I understand that the employees feel more appreciated, and they’re given more time to talk about the things that they want to get involved in, or be a part of what’s going on in the business. What does it look like in practice? So the question then is, yeah, how do I go from being a business that’s not compassionate to compassionate? What does that look like?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Yeah. Very interesting. I’ll give you an example with a supplier. Let’s imagine that the supplier, the supplier of a company, is delivering the inputs that they have to deliver to this company late. This means that this supplier didn’t respect the letter of the contract, the condition of the contract. If we are not compassionate, we will have a talk with the supplier. Probably not in person, but we will have an exchange by email. I will say, You know what? You didn’t deliver this late according to the contract. You will be penalized. You have to pay a penalty because we were expecting these goods on time, right? So we will apply only the the letter of the contract. But in practice, when you are compassionate, you won’t don’t want to break the relationship. You want to not only make the supplier comply with the condition whenever possible, but also be more understanding and understand that human being. We can face some cases, challenges some cases. We make mistakes that are not intentional, and so a compassionate person will approach this differently. We’ll contact the supplier on the phone. Probably they can personal meeting in person meeting and then they will. First they will ask about the reason why they deliver this late. To understand the reason first understanding. To see how they think and how they feel and what situation they face. And after this understanding the reasons a try to offer help support, they say, you know what? It’s okay. The reason is I guess it could be clear or not so clear, but we can say, you know what? We need this on time.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : How can we help you for you to deliver this on time? Because we want to build a strong relationship. You need us and we need you. And we want the long term relationship with you because we trust you. We don’t want this bond of trust to be breached. So the idea is and try to find solution cooperatively and try to help them whenever possible. So this means that you privilege not only what is written in the contract, right to be delivered on time for the future, but also try to privilege the relationship. So this means that you privilege the substantive aspect of the of the of this exchange means delivery on time, the quality and so on. And the relational aspect of this exchange. This means we want to build a long term bond where the needs of both parties are mutually satisfied. So this is quite important because this is how many companies like Toyota and Honda act, because they have long term relationships with suppliers. In some cases, some of their suppliers have decades of interacting with this company, and nobody wants to change supplier directly. Well, but we know that we all human beings face difficulty. We feel that we’re challenged, we have problems, and a compassionate person will understand this in business, and outside business will try to first try to understand how they think, how they feel, and when they face a problem, try to offer support. This also applies to employees.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Employees didn’t achieve the quota that was set up before the period this annual period. Well, instead of penalizing this employee and criticizing negatively, a manager will say, you know what? Thinking about the future. Okay, you know what? We can improve for the future. Our goal for the future is instead of focusing on what they did wrong, focusing on what they can do better, wording in a positive way, wording the possibility of change, and offering these employees a policy. You know what? I think that the quotas can be better in the future and explaining the reason because of this, this, this, but also we can offer you some support. We can offer you some mentoring, some coaching. We can offer you some additional training. You can shadow other employees that are achieving the quota already, because at the end you care for the human beings, and the human beings don’t want to be criticized or micromanaged or treated like naughty children, that they don’t know what they are doing. On the contrary, they want to feel competent, they want to feel cared for. And these are not economically. These are emotionally, but all stakeholders, employees, suppliers and other have different type of they have economic needs, but they have emotional need, need for appreciation. Need for support. Need for being treated in a compassionate way and they have needs to need for stimulation. Learning new things, new challenges and so on. And social need means building a strong relationship with others within the workplace or outside the workplace.

Trisha Stetzel: This what a passionate subject you have and it it’s really sits with me and the way that we treat other humans. Is there a diagnostic or a guide to know what I should or shouldn’t be doing to be a more compassionate leader or owner?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : That is it. That is a very simple diagnosis. If in any organization that you work for or you are related to as an advisor or consultant or an external stakeholder, there is a bit of fear. This means that there is not so much compassion. Why? Because fear and compassion are incompatible. Let’s give an example. Let’s imagine that a manager is continually micromanaging his or her employees. Micromanaging. We know, according to research, that micromanaging is never good because it doesn’t bring about positive results. You are treating employees other people like they are naughty children and even like babies, newborns. And so. And people are not newborns. They have discerning skill. They have experience. They have the expertise. So why why micromanaging occurs so frequently? Because of fear. Because micromanaging. When you look inside micromanaging, you are fearful that they do not achieve on their own the result that you expect from them. So you are fearful of delegating. You’re fearful of confiding instead of trusting them. What is very bad because when you don’t trust them, how they can trust you so you don’t trust them. Will they feel good because you don’t trust them? Will they be more motivated when you micromanage and they have to ask for permission for every single step? Well, this is based on fear. And there are different types of fear that I define in my book. In the workplace. Fear of being micromanaged. Fear of being fired. Fear of being, for example, rocking the boat, making suggestions that are beyond the traditional. And most companies are pervaded by what we call groupthink. There is a very common idea accepted by everyone in this company, and nobody wants to challenge this idea.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : If you come with a crazy or nontraditional ideas, you will be criticized, ridiculed at the beginning. And they might try and then they end up working. And this becomes also a main idea. But in most cases, they are not accepted. Nontraditional ideas. So this means also fear of being outpaced by colleagues. You see very important and competitive workplaces where instead of cooperating, people are not trusting their colleagues because they will get a new promotion. And so how you can be loving if you are feeling fear. Why it’s impossible, biologically speaking. Speaking why? Because you are activating your survival mode. The free fight flight mode, and your listening skills are narrowed down and temporarily impaired, and you focus only on the perceived threat that might not be a threat at all. And that is your colleague, your manager, the performance label, and so on. And this doesn’t allow you to be creative, doesn’t allow you to be used. Your critical analysis skills doesn’t allow you to be innovative, doesn’t allow you to be cooperative, doesn’t allow you to be trusting with others. So this means that a very important parameter, a clue that many people can observe is their fear in this workplace is their fear. If are people fearful of raising their voice with their ideas and all decisions concentrated in one group, they lead and nobody can participate, not even with anonymous suggestions that are there any Know-It-All in that company that is monopolizing the decision making process, and anyone will feel fearful of challenging this decision making process? So it is not participative. There is a lot of micromanagement and there is a lot of punishment.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : If people are competing with one another and it looks like a win lose game or zero sum game. We have to be aware that something needs to be changed and the and try to dissipate this fear gradually. It’s very well ingrained and part of the company’s culture. Organizational culture. A but it’s very difficult because when you are fearful, you cannot be aware of other people’s needs. You focus on your own survival. So this is a very interesting question. And this is the most important indicator that we observe when we advise companies when we deliver some Consultancy project on this type of topic because it’s actually the policies in this company. The rules, the internal rules are structure on purpose or accidentally to foster fear. So this means that there will be penalties that are very harsh for people not complying with the quotas that are already in the company’s policies. It’s impersonal. Nobody can argue them. So they have to apply the policy. Nobody can be responsible and can be considered non-compassionate. I’m applying the rules, but the rules in some cases are completely outdated and they are not human oriented. So a very important point is to review the rules, the policies. Now I’m finishing my new book that I talk about rules a bit more and other rules, human oriented or not. Are they caring for the individual or not? We have to review. Oh, but these rules have been for decades. Maybe they are completely outdated and maybe they work in the past, but they were not adapted to the new reality.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So I’ve heard you say a couple of times that when we have a compassionate workplace, we have more creativity and more innovation. It may seem very obvious to some, but not to others. How do creativity and innovation actually help with our long term business performance?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Very interesting. Well, the last two chapters of the book are about creativity and innovation. And some people find some challenges to connect the two concepts because the compassion, kindness how this connect to innovation and creativity. Well, creativity. A very famous thought leader, Edward de Bono, wrote many books on creativity, observed that creativity is the main resource of any individual. It will be the metal resource most valuable resource in the 21st century. So this means that it’s your most important personal asset, but you cannot access this creative skills if you are feeling fearful. Research is very clear with this creativity is more prone to be your creative skills, are more prone to be fostered and prodded when you feel positive emotions, when you’re not in a survival mode, when people feel much more at ease, much more relaxed, and when they can have, for example, some free thinking, they’re not continually pressurized by deadlines, they’re not stressed, they’re more prone to have free flowing of ideas that can be connected on an unconscious level and can bring about new business models, new products, new packaging, new way of promoting and creativity is key in business. Why? Maybe because of an obvious thing, because you can always add more value to stakeholders. Because the most important purpose of companies in the marketplace is not to sell product or services. It’s to add value to customers, customer by product that add value to their lives. If you don’t add value to them, the product might look good, but they won’t buy this product or service. So, and creativity P implies that you are finding innovative ways to add more value to satisfy the needs of this customer in a much more effective way, much more quickly, with better quality, better design, and so on.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : And customers appreciate this. They are open. They might have not thought on their own that a product like this could exist, but companies, by adding more value, making their life easier, much happier, more relaxed, less stressed, you are addressing the needs of customers. Customers are very appreciative and when the company fully fulfilled their needs, they lead positive reviews. They bring about a better company reputation. They support this company even in challenging times, the recommended product or to other customer. So creativity is key. But when you have a very stress based workplace, when people are treated in a very malicious way or disrespectful way, how people can take the chance to imagine new ways of doing things and essentially what they’re trying to protect themselves. They try to adopt a defensive mode defensive attitude, and they cannot bring about. They cannot enhance their natural creative skills. There are different type of creative techniques that are mentioned in the book, but the main conclusion of our research is that we are all creative, naturally creative, and this with this you can obviously harness this natural skill and obviously probably it will be easier for you to develop some new ideas or new products or new system and so on. But we are naturally creative. But by being fearful or by being feeling disrespected or untrusted, well, this will not be accessed at that moment. Why? Because we are adopting a defensive.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, I know our time has gone by so fast and we’ve mentioned the book a couple of times, but I want to talk a little bit more about the book and the work that you do with your clients. So the book is called the Art of Compassionate Business, and I would love for you to talk a little bit more about any part of the book that you want to bring out to the audience, where they can find it, and how your work with your clients really is a part of this book that you’ve written.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Thank you very much. Well, the book is in its second edition that was published a very short time ago. The book is published by Routledge and can be found online and offline in any bookshop worldwide. It’s a very big publisher and this book, as compared with the first edition, include hundreds of cases of compassionate organization, nonprofit organization and profit organization from different sector, but include also a lot of research and include additional topics such as leadership, trust based relationship and others, which the book is quite long, but it’s very The illustrative examples. All chapter include a lot of examples and include topics such as forgiveness in business, generosity in business. Gratitude in business. The importance of developing a mission which include the economic aspect, the human aspect, the environmental aspect include two chapters of creativity and innovation include also the importance of nurturing relationship with each of the stakeholders, such as suppliers, community members and customers. They have separate chapters for each stakeholders, and they have also some appendices, such as the importance of reducing stress in the workplace, a some aspect of marketing and manipulation. How can we reduce the use of manipulative techniques in marketing and be more transparent and honest, among other topics?

Trisha Stetzel: What a beautiful message you have, doctor. Thank you so much for being with me today. Is there one thing that you would like to leave with the audience as we close the show?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Yes, I want to leave the audience with this self-reflection question. Whatever the relationship that you have with a company or a nonprofit organization, you should ask yourself this question how can I be more supportive to different stakeholders? How can I be more generous and grateful to different stakeholders? How can I add more value on a regular basis to different stakeholders? By asking yourself this question, you can bring about a positive cycle of reciprocity, and you are more prone to see that the relationship with these stakeholders tend to be strengthened and brightened over time.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, so if people want to connect with you, doctor, what is the best way for them to connect with you or find the information that you talked about today?

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Cool, cool. They can find me on LinkedIn or they can visit one of my website that is w-w-w dot co double.com.

Trisha Stetzel: Perfect. So it’s w w w b r u n o c I g n a c o.com. Bruno, thank you so much for being with me today. It’s been my pleasure to host you.

Dr. Bruno Cignacco : Thank you very much Trisha. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Doctor Sancho today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston business leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Roberto Capodieci, a lifelong innovator whose journey began when he sold his first video game. I’m not going to give you all the deets because we’re going to talk about that in a few minutes. He was also nicknamed the Sheriff of the internet. Another story we’re going to talk about. And he went on to become a respected global leader in blockchain and decentralized systems from Bali, where he balances family life with leading international teams. He continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with Web3, Blockchain and digital transformation. Roberto’s motto is under promise, over deliver, and his career from programmer to author, CTO and speaker is a testament to building trust while driving innovation. Roberto, welcome to the show.

Roberto Capodieci : Thank you for having me and wow, what a beautiful introduction you’ve made.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, we don’t often do it for ourselves, so I spend some time making sure that I can represent you very well when I introduce you. So, Roberto, you’re. Yes, of course. You’re coming all the way to us from Bali. Thank you for being here. I’m very excited to have this conversation with you. So tell me a little or tell the audience a little bit more about Roberto.

Roberto Capodieci : All right. Yes. Well, I’m Italian because I’m nobody’s perfect, you know? But I grew up in Italy. Then I spent about 12 years in the United States, in Florida, mainly in Florida. And then I came in Southeast Asia a little bit in time in Singapore, and then here in Bali, Indonesia. You know, I’m from Venice in Italy. You know, probably there’s another tourist destination. Bali is another tourist destination. So if people want to holiday somewhere and make the effort to go in that place, why not living there directly, right? So we have only one life and I did my best to enjoy it the most.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. That’s beautiful. Bali is not someplace I’ve been, so I will definitely have to visit and I will come see you.

Roberto Capodieci : He’s in the bucket list of many people. It is a nice place nonetheless. I am a father of four. I’m already a grandpa. Even if I look like I’m 25. Not. But. And, um. Uh, I’m into it. And computer. Since I was a little kid, that’s what is in my life. Um, what else I can say? You know, I’m a happy person in general.

Trisha Stetzel: Very much. Well, uh, why don’t we start with something I alluded to when I introduced you and you sold your first video game at just the age of ten. So what sparked your early passion for technology, and how has that influenced you to the path where you are now?

Roberto Capodieci : As a little kid, I love the all the mechanical things, gears and things that move so many that my parents would bring me things to dismantle and study, you know, uh, then I made a choice, uh, because my father had a small programable calculator where it could be coded as a small display, and it was asking, what’s your name? If I put my name, it was a good answer if I put some other names, as I don’t want to talk with you. And that fascinated me a lot, so I shifted my interest. I’m talking about being five years old. That is at this time. And so my parents invested by purchasing computer for me. You know, the personal computer, very old, all the stuff. And um, and, you know, and I spend my time it was school just because I had to go to school and then go back home and spend time there. And at a certain point, my parents, uh, were spoiling me a little bit too much. So they decided to cut it short a little bit, and my lifestyle changed suddenly. So I needed to monetize my talent. And this pushed me to do a few entrepreneurial things as a little kid, and one of which was developing video game, making all the tapes because it was saving cassettes at the time, cassette tapes, and distributed around and started selling it. And, you know, so from there he started as everywhere there is a small trauma to start the sample. There was the mini trauma that pushed me to enter into his ability of producing income in order to have always a nice lifestyle. As a ten years old.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. So are your children also into technology? I’m just curious.

Roberto Capodieci : Not not the way that I would like every teenager in my is, you know, using technology, like it or not, because it’s part of everyday life. Today, I think what what was my blessing is that at that time there were very little things and there were not so difficult. So it was easy to reverse engineer a game or code your own game. And, you know, many times you buy the magazine. They had all the code to copy by hand in order to get the game running in your computer, and that these things made the few kids that had a computer, which was very, very few, closer to the actual functioning of the machine and so gave a certain direction in the technology, kind of, uh, you know, today your kids is playing with an iPad when they are two years old. And, you know, they just don’t question how it’s working, why it’s working, but they just consume the product. So, uh, unfortunately, now none of my kids have I don’t force them to do something like this, but they are talented in other things. They’re good in drawings. With me, I am not at all. And so.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s okay. It’s well balanced between the kids and you, right? Yeah. I remember when not everybody had a computer. I know I look like I’m 15 kidding, but I remember, uh, not everybody had a cell phone computer in their house. And you’re right, it’s so available now. Not everyone is as curious as you were when you were younger and building video games. So in the 90s, you were dubbed the sheriff of the internet for cracking cyber fraud cases. So what’s one of the most memorable challenges you tackled?

Roberto Capodieci : I would say that, uh, on one side, I lived on the other side, meaning that, uh, I’ve been a little bit, uh, thank God that there were no legislation to regulate cybercrime at the time. So whatever I was doing pretty much was okay. You know, uh, there was no, no, no, uh, you know, law that would have put me in trouble, at least in, uh, in, in Italy where I was. But, uh, um, so that was for sure. But to understand the mechanics of many, uh, you know, things that could have been done, etcetera, etcetera, which made me more alert and aware of, uh, situations. So, uh, from a particular kind of scandal there has been with Dialers, uh, for dial up modems back when the modem were making the strange noises. Right. Uh, to even finding and investigating groups of criminals, uh, online. So I did a little bit of this, uh, um, like many, many people that is there. Good on, uh, something, you know, becomes, uh, quite distinctive to, you know, walk on the borderline and say, on what side? On what side? I do what I do. So.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So how is that experience? And, um, the, the, the challenges that you had working in that space, how was that really how does that play into what you do today?

Roberto Capodieci : Well, there have been a lot of interesting. Uh, there is a very funny story, um, when I was, uh, 15, 14, 15, something like that, there were still no laws about intellectual properties, so piracy wasn’t illegal. Um, you know, every university had a copy shop right outside, so, you know, one book and then photocopy for everybody. And, uh, imaging software for computer was even less, uh, regulated because, uh, it was, uh, like something alien for those old people of the government. And, uh, I start making a huge business in, um, selling pirate video games. Um, pretty much the scene was a lot of kids were coming to my house. Is there a tour coming up? Spend five minutes leaving, and it was full of money. My parents thought I was selling drugs because the behavior was identical, right? And strangely enough, they were complaining with other people about this son that is selling drugs so much that somebody came to me, offered him to enter a larger business. Uh, you know, in, in something totally legal. I had a friend who was working in the police, so I immediately called him and said, look, there is this guy that is offering such and such. And so, you know, he became an important operation. 57 people arrested, you know, like, like.

Roberto Capodieci : And I became friend of this, uh, very special, uh, team in the, in the police. They were doing very particular investigations. And, uh, when one day I went to visit them and I find them all around the table with the highlighters and papers, a lot of papers calling for numbers. What are you doing? Uh, we are checking to see who called who. And I said, look, with the computer, you do all this job in one day. So I help them and I start implementing software to do, uh, social network analysis, organized crimes, uh, you know, analyzing of, uh, phone records, bank records, uh, you know, and all those things. And, uh, I started a very particular career in a field that was I was a pioneer because there was not yet now there is plenty of companies that sell any sort of software that does those things. But at the time, it didn’t exist. And, uh, and it’s been quite interesting. So I spent a good three years, day and night working with the anti-drug unit, uh, and doing some incredible experiences. Uh, that really shaped one big side of my. I even became a private investigator of the youngest in Italy. Uh, that has been quite, uh, quite an interesting experience.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. So you went from being accused to finding the accused, right?

Roberto Capodieci : I don’t know if my parents ever change the idea of what I was doing as a kid, but.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my goodness. Well, I know people are already wanting to connect with you, so I would love for you to give us your contact information. What is the best way for listeners to contact you?

Roberto Capodieci : Roberto and my handle in LinkedIn is R10R like Roberto C10, because the H in Italy is ten. So RC one zero. So it’s the classic linkedin.com slash slash RC one zero. And it’s very easy to see my page my profile connect with me and send me a message.

Trisha Stetzel: Perfect. Thank you for that. So let’s talk a little bit about balance. You live in Bali. You’ve raised a family. You’re, um, working with teams across the globe. How do you balance everything in your life and your professional, your professional space as well.

Roberto Capodieci : With a few nervous breakdown? No. It’s not. It’s not easy. And I’ve been through being burned out several times is, in fact the power of living in Bali. Bali, for people that don’t know, is a small tropical island in Indonesia, uh, where, uh, people just go to holiday. There are beautiful rice fields and the local culture is fantastic. Um, and this gives a lot of recharging power. So it’s easy to just, you know, go out, uh, like, breathe the air and feeling already. Um, but Singapore, which is a hub for business and technology, is just two hour flight from, uh, from here. So it’s very easy to just take a flight to go there for a meeting and then fly back in the evening. Um, so I got to a point where, like, doing a few days of consulting per month are enough to cover the expenses, and not being greedy to want too much as being easy to then, you know, balance things in a certain point. Consider that I remain a single father of two kids for many years, so I had the kids, the business and all to to bring together. So, uh, the Bali really being helpful in these times where I somewhere else it would have been very difficult.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. A single father of two. You’ve got four children and grandchildren. And I know you’re an awesome grandfather, too. Let’s talk. Let’s get a little more technical and let’s talk blockchain and Web3 both still evolving. Solving. So from your perspective, what’s the most exciting opportunity for real world impact that most people don’t know yet?

Roberto Capodieci : I think that uh we are going finally the, the spotlight is on artificial intelligence now. So blockchain as an emerging technology can finally be deployed for real purposes and not just for hype okay. Which is a very interesting aspect. Uh, and hopefully also washes away because get tainted the name by all the scam that people did with crypto. Uh, while blockchain is a tool that can do many other things except beside the cryptocurrencies. So there are a lot of applications that can come very useful as of today, in a moment where deep fake, uh, AI created, uh, you know, clones are so common, being able to certify an identity, entity should certify the originality of something. It’s very important because, um, we don’t know if I am now AI generated and talking to you or.

Speaker4: I hope not.

Roberto Capodieci : But but it could be made by somebody else pretending to be me in a business deal with some, you know, other party, I don’t know. So being able to sign and say, look, this video stream is actually authentic, you know, approved by me, even if it’s a clone and, uh, or a phone call or whatever else. So we enter a moment where we need, uh, an identity management that is very effective compared to just having an ID card, uh, to show somewhere. And, uh, blockchain between is ingredients to make the final result of blockchain has all the use of cryptography in mathematics. There is, uh, a system to guarantee signature that cannot be tampered, you know. So it’s a very powerful tool in that sense. And it’s also an amazing tool to bring back Singularity University to the digital world, because in the physical world, if I give you a painting, you have the painting. I don’t have it anymore. But in the digital world, I have a jpeg, I make a copy. We both have the exact same thing and nobody knows which is the original. Who is the real owner of the image? And with thanks to blockchain, we can create singularity on digital things. So in fact, if I give you a bitcoin, I don’t have it anymore. If I could copy and paste the bitcoin you know it would be worth nothing tomorrow. And so I can put the ownership title of my car in the blockchain. So when I pass it to you the car is yours and can be certified and is even more difficult to fake. You know somebody’s signature for a transfer of property. So there are many interesting use cases that are not so glamorous, like cryptocurrency Bitcoin, where people made a lot of money but are going to be applied because people start understanding the real capacity that there is in this technology and the utility and the reduction of costs and the reduction of needing to trust somebody else to manage our data. We become owner and controlling our data and giving it to who we want, which is very important things, you know.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And keeping everyone safe and keeping their data safe, uh, and their technology safe, all of those things are so important. Uh, thank you for sharing that. I heard that you might have a book out there. Do you want to talk about it?

Roberto Capodieci : That this is a book that has been written together while working on a very ambitious project, and the reasons on the different kind of technology that are there. So and plus there is the story of this team building this, this product at the same time. So it goes between technical and non-technical. Was it fascinating about this book is that it’s interactive. So you can see in some pages that are QR codes. And if you are reading the book with one hand or with the other, you’re holding your cell phone. You can scan the QR code and hear a commentary done by voice. You can join a discussion about the paragraph with other people. So it is a very interesting book and it’s for free in PDF is 270 pages. Or if somebody want to pay money can buy it in Amazon.

Trisha Stetzel: Beautiful.

Trisha Stetzel: So if someone’s interested in getting the book, where’s the best place to find it?

Roberto Capodieci: I think we can leave it in the comments, uh, or in the description of the video, but the link is a little bit complex to say by voice.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, perfect.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, I will put that in the show notes so folks can just point and click. Uh, and if they’re listening in their car today, when they get back to their office, then they can pull it up and grab what they need from the show notes.

Roberto Capodieci : Yeah, well, they can always write to me in LinkedIn or C10 and I give them the book.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Perfect.

Trisha Stetzel: And by the way, if you guys are listening in your car, uh, spelled c a p o d I c I just so you know, you have the right guy on LinkedIn. Ah. C ten is his link there. Uh, Roberto, I heard you may also have a podcast. Is that true?

Roberto Capodieci : Yes. Um, I was guest in a podcast a few years ago, and, uh, they asked me if I would try to co-host, and then I had my own, uh, series inside, uh, talking about, uh, security, safety. Because there is a lot of scams online. Uh, a lot of people, you know, uh, fall for those scams. They lose a lot of money. So I thought it was interesting to inform people about these things, uh, and interview a lot of, uh, very cool YouTubers that I follow that, uh, work in, uh, you know, stopping the scams and, uh, and that started and then, uh, and this was under some other people that were organizing this thing. Then I moved and I started my own, uh, things, you know, more technical, uh, or more talking about general things. So is new since January, so it’s nothing, uh, like, uh, over ten years of age, but, uh, it’s taking shape as I go ahead. It’s interesting. It’s called interchain dot me, interchain dot me. And there it is.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: I will also put the link to that in the show notes, so you guys can go directly there and again connect with Roberto on LinkedIn. Anything that you want. I’m sure he can deliver that back to you. You’re very humble man. Thank you for allowing me, uh, to talk about your book and your podcast. So as we get to the end of our conversation today, I’d love to hear more about your motto, which is underpromise and overdeliver. Tell me more about that.

Roberto Capodieci : Sure. We don’t want delusion, right? So it’s very important to be limited in the promise and then deliver always something extra that people feel more surprised and happy about. That’s pretty much a way to keep. Even though many companies promise a lot and deliver very little because it is a way to grab maybe a business and a client and create a dependency to them, because they’re the only one that can put hands on the software, etc., etc.. But I think in general it pays off, to be honest, to tell the client, no, you don’t need this to, you know. So I think there is a more important things to be modest in what people want. Let’s do the basic, let’s do the things that are important and then be able to deliver something more. And you know, people is always happy and they come back.

Speaker4: Yeah, absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: So for the young innovators and entrepreneurs out there that are listening to this show today, uh, what would you tell them about moving outside of the comfort zone or doing something new and innovative? Um, what advice would you give them?

Roberto Capodieci : Well. This is a very interesting discussion point I had with somebody that says everybody can be an entrepreneur. And I says, no, you need to have it inside. But it says any transaction in life is a business transaction. If you want accepting to be a guest somewhere or, you know, like taking a bottle of water and offering water. So yes, true, under the respect, everybody can start seeing life like a set of business operation. But on the other side, to actually run a business, uh, it is not so simple. I there is the classic aspect that if you are a good chef, uh, it doesn’t mean you can manage a restaurant. You can cook well, but that’s just one small part of what it means to run a restaurant. There is so many other things that are, you know, required to be done. So it’s important to know how to delegate and to who and trust and never give up. Meaning that if you start and this doesn’t go well, keep going, keep going, keep going. Because it’s like, keep buying lottery tickets. Sooner or later, you know, get the right one. And. That’s pretty much it’s not easy. It’s not easy. I mean like lifestyle change. Completely.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And and it takes hard work. It just does. Right?

Roberto Capodieci : Really being brave to bet on something without knowing the outcome. You know, if you have employees. When I was 18 and 19, I had 52 people working with me, and I would never hire somebody that the salary was something they needed to feed some kids or something. I always hire kids. Living with the parents where the salary was paid to them was just something extra, because I wouldn’t sleep at night thinking, if something happened tomorrow and I leave a family with no money. You know, is is not an easy, you know, aspect to, to handle. So when you have people that work with you become even more complicated because there is a lot of human aspect, a lot of business aspect, you know. Now I’m, I’m out of this a couple of years of sabbatical. So that’s a, that’s a very. Good thing. I think now there is this trend of solopreneur. So you run business, you can run with the perfect number of business partner, which is one, and with the perfect number of employee which is one. And, you know, you can make uh, I think, yeah, the world is split in two. There is those that do the regular life things with, uh, you know, worker salary or whatever. And then there is these people that do this mobile application, a very silly video game, and make a few million dollars. It is strange how these two worlds collide. But you know, you don’t even know. So there are opportunities. There are options.

Roberto Capodieci : You know it’s a matter of exploring them now with the eye. We are facilitated to do what we want. Right. So it is easier now.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: And we have the choice we get to make that choice which is so important. Yeah absolutely. Roberto thank you so much for being with me today. It has been such a pleasure to have you on to talk about technology and especially about you. And I know you’re very humble, but I appreciate you sharing about your book, which sounds very interesting, by the way, as well as your new podcast that just started in January of 2025. If you guys want to connect with Roberto, his last name is spelled c a p o d I c I, or you can find him at LinkedIn. His handle is r c ten one zero. So RC10. All of that will be in the show notes so that you can connect with Roberto. Thank you again. This has been such a pleasure.

Roberto Capodieci : Yeah. Likewise a big pleasure for me. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. And that’s all the time that we have for today. If you found value in this conversation I had with Roberto today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.