Self-knowledge allows us to recognize our characteristics, limits, strengths and weaknesses in order to empathize with others deeply; only by knowing and accepting every part of ourselves, even the ones we like least, we are able to attune to others and to enhance every single person. Otherwise, we won’t be solid, credible and fail to engage effectively but without engagement there cannot be any change.
As part of our Social Impact Heroes series I had the pleasure of interviewing Elena Lo Baido’s founder of start-up ‘Gigey’ which is revolutionizing psychophysical wellbeing with new technologies. During her EMBA at POLIMI Graduate School of Management she gained inspiration and the skills to develop her technological platform with an AI tool. She believes leadership is about influence and change as well as ethical responsibility.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
In recent years, I have become acutely aware about the widespread discomfort that has arisen amongst society since the pandemic. The analysis of the post-pandemic context has clearly highlighted a state of widespread strong psychophysical discomfort which, unfortunately, increases year after year and significantly impacts the life of the individual both in terms of the relational, social and professional spheres. Metabolic disorders, eating disorders, and obesity has increased, the state of dissatisfaction and widespread malaise has led to an increase in requests for intervention given the greater sensitivity towards the care of one’s state of well-being.
Alongside this, I have also witnessed how digitalization is completely reorienting medicine. As such, during my EMBA at POLIMI Graduate School of Management between 2021–2023, I gained inspiration and skills to found “Gigey”. Gigey is a technological platform with an AI tool that provides an innovative holistic healthcare path and supports medical class to practice (to take the best care of the patients) at the same time.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
Psychophysical well-being as the key to shaping a better future is at the heart of his project. We want to help people feel better and reach a state of deep well-being through a multidisciplinary professional approach. We want to contribute to the development of Sustainability and Social Equity and we believe that widespread psycho-physical well-being is the key to creating a better future, in which each person can express their potential.
The medical class is also increasingly tested and subject to burnout as well as the human capital of companies that have begun to invest resources in welfare and wellbeing projects which, however, from surveys carried out, are still not very effective. Considering that, post covid, the waiting lists of the NHS have exploded and there are 4.5 million Italians who give up on treatment because they cannot turn to private healthcare. As such, we saw it as urgent to adopt a more effective, timely, democratic model of health care that embraces the individual in his entirety.
The telemedicine market is also growing strongly, projections from now to the next few years indicate that innovative technologies will increasingly play a leading role in treatment pathways. I understood that the project could become a reality also thanks to all the positive feedback received from the Stakeholders to whom I presented the idea.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
The ability to influence ethically and inspire a team or an organization in order to turn the vision into reality. In my opinion Leadership is about influence and change, includes the achievement of a common goals together and the ethical responsibility of leaders toward others and vice versa; so, it is much more than one process. Being leaders means attracting, influencing, being able to listen attentively, encourage and motivate others but to attract and influence successfully, true leaders must have full self-awareness.
Self-knowledge allows us to recognize our characteristics, limits, strengths and weaknesses in order to empathize with others deeply; only by knowing and accepting every part of ourselves, even the ones we like least, we are able to attune to others and to enhance every single person. Otherwise, we won’t be solid, credible and fail to engage effectively but without engagement there cannot be any change.
Successful leaders don’t need any armature to hide their fragility, they are not afraid of mistakes, and know how to manage emotions and conflicts. Last but not least, have a strong sense of responsibility, the good of the team at heart and will do everything to ensure that the team is always protected. A leader will never see the team as a means to achieve the goal but as part of the goal!
Therefore, I strongly believe that no one can be a successful ethical leader without working on himself before.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why.
1) Most often the critical issues you will have to manage are not what you would expect.
It is essential to be prepared to manage unexpected events flexibly and quickly because you have to respect the schedule in order to meet your commitments to all Stakeholders. You can’t predict everything but in the value chain every cog is connected so to avoid the domino effect, you have to be ready to identify creative solutions very quickly.
2) Even if you love your project viscerally and what you do is perfectly in line with your purpose, you have to take breaks to take care of yourself.
When you do something you love, managing energy is not so easy, the risk is to run out of oxygen because you put all of yourself into the project. In order to contain the positive obsession that pushes you beyond your limits over and over to give life to the project, you have to stop and take care of yourself from time to time.
3) Despite everyone professes the importance of promoting innovation, the resistance to change is much stronger than people think.
Apparently, everyone would like to change, get out of their comfort zone, experiment new solutions and approaches but when the time for action arrives, the fear of change paralyses many people. Sometimes we lack the courage to lose our balance for a while because this is terrifying. For this reason, it is essential to be aware of the difficulty of innovating so as to allocate the right time and energy in identifying the most effective levers to persuade all Stakeholders.
4) Creating your own project will be one of the most exciting experiences in your life.
If someone had told me that the creation of your own project from scratch was so exciting, I would have started earlier. All the people you talk to before starting your adventure talk about the difficulties, the fatigue, the problems, and advise you on dealing with the critical situations and, to be honest, all this is very useful because the purest truth is that creating an innovative start-up is a titanic undertaking. For this reason and since being an entrepreneur requires a lot of courage and strength, let’s talk also about how intense, beautiful and fascinating the journey can be.
5) Have your values clear in mind and put them first.
The project you decide to embrace expresses your values, business comes after; the proof is the fact that when you are in trouble and you have a choice to make for your organization, your values show you the way.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Albert Einstein
I am a very curious person who loves experimenting, I have always tried to figure out how to create value in different ways: “be original, provide a new point of view, break habits and patterns to progress and improve the ecosystem we all live” is my Mantra. I am constantly asking myself questions to understand whether the pre-established models and paradigms really work or can be improved. Sometimes breaking rules is very risky and I’ve not always succeeded, in fact I made many mistakes but this ‘Life Quote’ pushed me to be mindful that to promote real changes and create value I need to have the courage to abandon logic to let the thought start running. If I want to be truly disruptive, I cannot move in a linear way, I have to move multidimensionally at the same time and I can do this only through imagination.
The imagination leads me in a space where I break the boundaries, where anything is possible and allows me to see what I would like to build offering endless possibilities. The energy, that the creative process instils in me, is something I transmit to other people when I tell my vision stimulating a flow of sparkling collective ideas. Currently Einstein’s Life Quote is part of my DNA so much that, periodically, I stop doing things to create and nurture my personal space. Despite the fact that analytical and critical processes are suspended, magically new insights come to power rational thinking too. Some time ago I imagined what Gigey would look like inside my virtual laboratory, today I have already seen what Gigey will be in the future. Pablo Picasso suggested also that everything you can imagine is real! Furthermore, if I had only used logic, I would never have found the courage to try to make my dreams come true!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company or organization?
More than a particularly story that happened to me; since I started my company up, what I have been finding very interesting and enlightening are the many exceptional stories and projects I began to know thanks to the innovation ecosystem I came into contact with. Special events, innovation contests, many other start-up founders and innovators from different industries and with different background are enabling me to understand new dynamics and learn different paradigms. Stay in touch with those who are seeking to create value and make a positive impact on people’s lives, inspires me and gives me valuable insights and inputs to think about. This scenario provides me new lenses and perspectives to look at my project, fills me with more and more enthusiasm to stay very focused on my purpose and lures me to expand my knowledge.
Nobody knows exactly what the future holds because of turbulent economy, ongoing climate crisis and technological complexity; but thanks to I am living today, I am persuaded that if we want to design a positive future for all of us, we need to spend time constantly with bold people who have a vision, ideas to share and desire to build together.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
How Elena Lo Baido Is Using AI and Holistic Health to Redefine Modern Wellbeing was originally published in Authority Magazine Europe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.