Chasing the right things: Keynote speaker’s keys to contentment

In about two months, Corey Ciocchetti will deliver a keynote session at the AICPA & CIMA Governmental and Not-for-Profit Training Program. He previewed that session in this episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast.

In the conversation, Ciocchetti discusses how he chose what law school to attend, why his more recent presentations mention the importance of civil discourse, and what he remembers about a speech by the founder of a prominent mutual fund company.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Why he thinks people have a hard time prioritizing friendships and pursuing a sense of contentment.
• His decision on where to attend law school and that decision’s link to a different keynote speaker at an AICPA & CIMA event.
• What the phrase “real rabbits” means to Ciocchetti.
• Ciocchetti’s recall of one early student interaction that changed how he viewed audience engagement.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Hello, listeners. This is the Journal of Accountancy podcast. I’m Neil Amato with the JofA, and I’m glad to have you back for another episode. Today’s interview is with a keynote speaker at an upcoming AICPA & CIMA event, and the topic is a good one: inspiring integrity. You’ll hear more on that right after this brief sponsor message.

I’m happy to welcome Corey Ciocchetti to the podcast. Corey is a professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. One of his focus areas is business ethics. Corey is a sought-after speaker, and I’m glad that he’s made time to join us on the JofA podcast. Corey, we’re glad to have you. Welcome.

Corey Ciocchetti: Neil. Nice to talk to you.

Amato: Yeah, great. The feeling is mutual. I’m going to ask this: You’re leading off the AICPA & CIMA Governmental and Not-for-Profit Training Program, bright and early on October 28, 8:10 a.m. Is it a challenge to be the lead off speaker at an event, especially on a Monday morning in Las Vegas?

Ciocchetti: Accountants are funny, 8:10! I go to a lot of events of like here’s yours at about eight-ish, but it’ll be nine. You all are right on time. I don’t know how people will walk into the session, but I will say that if you start a conference with a message on integrity and character, it’s huge and if it’s done correctly, it will carry through as a theme for the entire conference. In that sense, I love it.

Amato: Your session summary mentions that people should focus on the pursuit of “solid character, strong personal relationships, and a sense of contentment.” Those are the direct words from the session description. Why do you think as human beings, we don’t focus enough on those things?

Ciocchetti: Well, it sounds so obvious, why would somebody not do that? But if you think about what people actually chase is more things — like money. What people say to themselves is if I just had a little more money, I would be a happier person. Or if I was better looking, I would be a happier person. Or if more people liked me, if I was more respected at work.

My students say things like if my grades were better, if I was more popular. That’s like we’re following the sheep off the cliff. But you can easily prove that that stuff won’t work. I know a lot of rich people who weren’t all that happy, Neil, do you? My richest friends are not my happiest friends. My best looking friends are not my happiest friends or my most contented friends, and so we chase these things and they’re not bad. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. It’s just fake. It won’t do what you think.

I would rather you wake up with a sense of peace and you had three to five really good friends and you’re a strong character person. Then above and beyond that, doesn’t matter. Be as rich or good-looking as you want. Does that make sense?

Amato: Yeah, exactly, It does. I’m going to, I guess, get a little personal. You grew up in Colorado. You received your undergraduate degree from the University of Denver, where you are now a professor. But what led to you in-between to attending law school at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, which is the home base for my office.

Ciocchetti: Well, so if you want the true answer, I’m a huge Duke basketball fan. I was looking at all my law schools that I got accepted to and I said, where do I want to live? North Carolina is beautiful, and the campus is probably the most beautiful campus in the country. The law school is really highly ranked. I think it’s fourth in the country now. I love basketball. We got to graduate in Cameron Indoor Stadium; that was really neat. It was a joy. I would totally do that over.

Amato: Well, it’s interesting. I don’t know if you know this, but right after he retired, Mike Krzyzewski, Coach K, was the keynote speaker at our biggest conference event, AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE in Las Vegas.

Ciocchetti: Did you give him the 8:10 a.m. spot?

Amato: You know, I don t think it was much later. I was not there. I actually had a writer covering it remotely, but it was probably 9 a.m. On either a Monday or Tuesday in Vegas. Similar to yours.

Ciocchetti: If it’s good enough for Coach K — if he can do it, I can do it.

Amato: Yeah, exactly. Now you’ve given a speech by this name, Inspire Integrity, for, according to the research I did, about 15 years. How has it changed over the years to remain up to date with current trends in business, technology, society at large?

Ciocchetti: Neil, that’s a good question. It changes daily, just depending on the news or as I’m thinking differently about things.

The core message stays the same, that what makes you happy, that’s the same. And the cool thing is as different as people are. Diversity is real. My oldest daughter is made of fire. She’s got fire in her belly and my youngest daughter is made of peace and sugar. They just came out that way; people are different, but we’re also the same because we’re humans.

Those key things of wanting peace, and wanting friends, and wanting to be good, having a conscience, that stays the same. The crafting of the message changes based on the environment. I talk a lot now about civil discourse and how that impacts ethics and character with our charged political climate. I didn’t use to talk about that as much 15 years ago. It’s just different. But it’s cool that it morphs, and it keeps it interesting for me.

Amato: What do you think has changed on that discourse front? Why do you think it’s changed?

Ciocchetti: We think so much, in any argument, that “I need to win.” There’s this thing called the principle of charity. I talk with my students about this. It’s not who’s right. It’s what’s right, where we’re trying to seek what’s right.

Instead we’ve morphed into this culture of trying to find out who’s right. It’s funny, none of us are in Congress right now. Like, our decisions aren’t going to bind anybody else. Why do I need to win an argument with my wife? Even if I win, I lose, I don’t understand why we need to beat our friends up about some political issue. Instead, I would rather we listen and try to think together for some common solutions. I honestly, I don’t get angry about politics anymore. I don’t try to beat anyone in a fight. I don’t do that with my students. I think that’s been really harmful to this nation.

Amato: What does the phrase “real rabbits” mean for you?

Ciocchetti: Well, so should I tell you the story? Should we ruin it for everybody?

Amato: If you think it’s good preview, go ahead.

Ciocchetti: It’s a great story. John Bogle founded Vanguard mutual funds. He was an interesting character. He was a cool guy, and he came to speak at University of Denver. And so I’m listening, and he tells this story of this racing greyhound.

He said the dog was world-famous, had won millions of dollars for his owner, and the night before the biggest race of his life, the dog and the owner are sitting on the patio and she looks at the dog and says, “Hey, the race is tomorrow. We’re going to win. Are you ready to run?” The dog says, “Well, I’m going to retire. I have to tell you. I wasn’t going to tell you, but you asked and I’m not going to run tomorrow.”

She just goes, “What? Race is tomorrow, we’re going to make all this money. We’re going to be famous. Are you hurt? Are you mad at me? Are you too old?” She has a litany of questions, and this dog is like, “No, it’s none of that.” She said, “Tell me why you’re quitting,” and the dog goes, “Well, I’ve been thinking about my life lately, and I just realized ever since I was little, all I’ve ever done is run and run around this little oval track. I finally realized these little white rabbits you have us chasing, they’re not real.”

And so he figured it out, right? That’s actually a powerful message. What are we chasing? Is it real or is it fake?

It’s funny, I’ll ask my students, what’s the key character and who’s the protagonist in that story? It’s not the rabbit; it’s the dog. The dog should be chasing.

We’re that; what are we chasing? Again, if we’re chasing money, you’ll never get enough to truly make you happy. There’ll always be someone richer than you, and you’ll just chase and chase. I find that this chase is fruitless.

I met a lady once, and after I told that story, she was in my audience and she goes, hey, I raise these dogs for living. You know what happens in real life when the dog figures out the rabbit is fake or catches it. I’m like, “That’s awesome. No, what happens?” She goes, “That dog will never run again.”

You can’t get that dog to chase a bone, which is one of the great ironies of human life, like a dog with the hamburger-size brain, realizes what he is chasing is fake and just sits there. Human beings with the ability to rationalize and philosophize, whatever, we know it’s fake and keep doing it. It’s one of the great ironies of human life.

Amato: I’ll ask this for a government and not-for-profit audience. I don’t know, anything in particular that you would tailor the message for there?

Ciocchetti: Well, that’s great, sort of preaching to the choir. These are my best audiences. I love this. The audience is like this, you can go so much deeper, because I don’t have to fight this fight that I sometimes have to fight with a group of lawyers or whatever. These people have chosen their career for good.

They could make more money doing something else, and this, they’ve chosen it in a lot of ways for the right reasons. Now, that said that doesn’t mean that they’re happier, morale is high where they work or everything is great, and so they need to hear this, too, if that makes sense.

Amato: Corey, you speak on a lot of topics. You’ve spoken in many places. You spoken in Bulgaria. This morning, as we record, you’re speaking at the University of Georgia. That’s the Athens, Georgia, one, not the country of Georgia. But what else in your travels that maybe I could ask you about but didn’t as a closing thought today?

Ciocchetti: I have such a fun job. I’ve been to every state in the country three times, at least. Just get to see really cool places. When I find a really cool place, I’ll bring my family back there. You have to see this, but tonight is 800 fraternity men. Then a little while ago was the Federal Reserve Bank. I just told, every audience is different. But it’s interesting how the message stays the same. Maybe my jokes will change or the context changes a little bit. But the core message is the same no matter where it is.

I was at a high school in eastern Colorado the other day. That’s a tough crowd, a high-school audience is brutal, but it’s the same and I’m halfway through the speech and these people are just riveted and it’s not because of me, it’s just because they’re deeply thinking about their life and what really matters.

Amato: Have you ever had an audience that you’re just like, “Gosh, how do I reach these people? I can just sense they’re not with me.”

Ciocchetti: It’s an old professor trick that I don’t judge how someone’s reacting. One of them, if someone’s asleep, they’re asleep, like in that high school audience, there was a kid asleep in the bleachers. That’s tough life if you’re sleeping at 3 p.m.

But there was this other situation in one of my classes I was teaching and this student had his head down and I thought he was sleeping, and I was in the middle of the speech, I’m like dang. This is really good. How can this kid be asleep? This was when I was a new speaker. I called on him. I’m like, hey man, someone to wake that kid up, what’s going on? The kids neighbor taps him on the head or whatever. The kid lifts his head up, but he’s just in tears and he’s bawling.

He just put his head down because didn’t want other people to see that. Like, it was convicting to him, and so I just learned that day like I’m not going to judge somebody by necessarily how they’re reacting. My job is just to plant some seeds and see when it ripens, if that makes sense.

Amato: Corey Ciocchetti, we’ll look forward to your session at the event. Thank you for being on the Journal of Accountancy podcast.

Ciocchetti: I’m really excited to meet everybody, 8 a.m., 8:10 a.m. See you there.

Amato: That’s right. Sounds good. We’ll have a link to that agenda in the show notes for this episode. Corey, thank you.

Ciocchetti: You’re welcome.