• The episode delves into Rômulo Carvalho's application of strategic design and systemic thinking in his transition to a digital nomad lifestyle. Strategic design involves a deliberate approach to planning and problem-solving, which Rômulo applied in reimagining his career and lifestyle post-50. He emphasizes the importance of a systemic view, which he acquired from his early experiences in holistic medicine and logistics, allowing him to see the interconnectedness of various aspects of business and life.

• In becoming a digital nomad, Rômulo utilized these principles to adapt to the fluid nature of modern work environments, where traditional career paths are increasingly giving way to more flexible, location-independent roles. He discusses the significance of understanding the broader system in which one operates, including the digital economy, remote work technologies, and the global community of digital nomads. This systemic perspective helped him identify opportunities and navigate the challenges associated with such a significant life change.

• By employing strategic design, Rômulo was able to plan his transition thoughtfully, considering factors such as the impact on his professional identity, financial stability, and personal fulfillment. Systemic thinking enabled him to adapt to the unpredictable nature of this lifestyle, learning from each new experience and integrating these insights into his ongoing journey.

• This approach underscores the value of flexibility, continuous learning, and the willingness to embrace change, which are crucial for anyone considering a shift to a digital nomad lifestyle. It highlights how strategic design and systemic thinking can provide a framework for navigating the complexities of modern work and life, offering insights into achieving balance and fulfillment in an ever-changing world.

Dreamers and doers, welcome to the Podbrand, a podcast about design, strategy and innovation.

In 2024 we celebrate a remarkable occasion, the 99 years of the Art Déco movement, an aesthetic force that revolutionized design and architecture.

The Podbrand, aligned with the principles of innovation and elegance that characterize Art Déco, pays homage to this movement that transcended time, influencing the way we perceive and create beauty, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire contemporary design, reflecting our passion for forms that combine functionality with a touch of magic.

I am Maurício Medeiros, consultant in strategic design, mentor and author of the book Árvore da Marca, Simplifying Branding.

Our conversation highlights the incredible journey of Rômulo Carvalho, a former executive who faced an unexpected career transition at 50.

We will explore the doubts, challenges and the mental and emotional impact that these changes brought, as well as his motivation to become a digital nomad.

We will discuss how the concepts of purpose of life and purpose of professional value shaped his new trajectory and the importance of regeneration.

Rômulo will share insights about his mentors, including Flo, explaining the creative flow and his method.

Rômulo, welcome!

Thank you, Maurício, it's a pleasure to be here.

You were talking about Art Déco, I was remembering Salamanca, and the opportunity to go to the Lis House, if I'm not mistaken, which is a fantastic Art Déco museum.

I was fascinated.

Congratulations on the celebrations and the initiative.

Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to have you at Podbrand.

Art Déco is our inspiration for 2024.

Last year, when we completed one year, the inspiration was Seneca, and the whole principle of the Stoics from the works of Lucius Seneca, which was actually born in Cordoba, which is now Spain, but at the time was part of the Roman Empire.

Look, another coincidence, I have a product that I am developing, it will be released now in February, I will be able to talk about it, about Rome, and there is a part of Seneca, there is a phrase of him, work as if you were never going to die and love as if today were your last day.

This is a problematic phrase that I use in the course.

Another integration between us.

Excellent, excellent, this synergy of thoughts.

Entering the subject, when you saw yourself facing a break-up at the age of 50, what were the most impactful thoughts that came up at that moment?

And how did they influence your journey from this resignation or break-up to the point that you began to draw a new direction for your career and professional life?

Still, how was the transition process between reflecting on the past and creating a new professional future?

Complex question, but I think I was already, like so many others we will hear and see here, in a position of discomfort, I didn't want to be there anymore.

And we live day by day, answering the questions that we have to answer, adapting ourselves, but with a degree of discomfort and loss.

Mental loss, because you are not exercising your full potential that you can exercise.

Loss in various areas when you are in a position that is akin to your potential.

That shirt that is no longer useful and you keep wearing it.

It was more or less the situation I was in.

But my planning was for the following year, 2016, 2017, to start a solo career.

I was still thinking about nomadic life, but it was a career as an entrepreneur, especially in the field of consulting, since I had an experience of more than 30 years.

I was able to navigate in various areas.

I was able to understand logistics, finance, marketing, commercial.

I was a marketing and business director.

I had the privilege of meeting companies and organizations from various points of view.

Maintaining a systemic vision.

My first professional experience in knowledge was Oriental medicine.

I was a computer scientist and theater therapist.

That gave me a systemic vision.

My systemic vision began there, then I went to the logistics area, which needs to have a systemic vision.

When you start to understand things in a way, you don't see anything else.

You don't go back to a more accurate view of the world and things.

At that moment, I thought that the following year I was going to run a consultancy with a strategic design, with a systemic design, with all the thinking I was preparing.

At that time, Maurício was the expansion director of a brand.

He had an annual goal that by April or May he had already achieved.

He had already flown.

I had prepared all the conditions for the beginning of the year.

Sometimes you have a bigger freestyle.

It's not the merit of that year, but it's the merit of the preparation you did that ended up happening that year.

The realization of what you prepared.

And I was super good.

When the CEO of the company, it was a well-structured company, with an administrative board, called me and said, Rômulo, I need to call you.

He was moved.

I worked for that company for many years.

We had an important friendship relationship.

It's not by your process.

It's very bad.

When you hear, you didn't work out, it's a thing, it's a pain.

Now, when you say, you're doing very well, but I can't stay with you, it's another story.

As much as I wanted to leave for my life as an entrepreneur, sometimes you have an intention that is not necessarily a plan.

I was still building.

This is important.

I think we'll be able to talk about when an intention actually becomes a realization in doing and thinking.

But at that moment I absorbed the blow, which is a blow of surprise.

As much as you want, it's something that generates some emotions.

The first one is refusal, the negative.

You don't serve anymore.

This is a reaction that maybe everyone who has been disconnected feels.

And this is a confusion because it doesn't necessarily mean that you're not good.

On the contrary, you can be even better elsewhere.

I say it happened.

But this is the first reaction that generated me.

The feeling of not being good enough, of being thrown out, of being discarded.

And then I went to my room, I took my things, I was with my team, I said, I can't talk to anyone.

I took my things and silence, which is also a moment of solitude.

And these moments of the entrepreneurial career, of entrepreneurship itself, are moments full of solitude.

It's not even the solitude of the people around you, but the solitude of the decision, of the responsibility for what you're doing.

And I first felt that responsibility, exactly in that silence of taking my things, and following the parking lot to get my car, and then see what I'm going to do with my life.

A mixture of feelings.

When a HR director had a very nice attitude, very correct, and went for a walk with me to get the car.

This walk with me, of the first person who was symbolically accompanying me, and she did it in a very skillful way, already gave me a certain certainty that no, there's a lot to do.

Because one thing is the physical structure, another thing is everything I've built as a network, as a relationship, as knowledge.

I need to look at this now.

And soon after, a person told me, look, Rômulo, the world out here is more colorful, it can be more dangerous, but it's more colorful.

And I really started to realize that.

And Maurício, even the emotions, because there are moments when you feel an immense sense of freedom to do what you want to do, what you've always thought of doing.

Hours later you feel fear, how am I going to do it?

I have nothing stable anymore.

And I didn't want to go anywhere else.

I was in my fifties, I had a moment in my career.

Maybe you even have the opportunity to leave one company as good as the other and position yourself in such a challenging position and with an improvement of the level you have there for your career.

But it's not always possible.

And I also said, I don't want this anymore, I really want to exercise my freedom, to undertake.

I had a lot of ideas in that company, in that box I was going to talk about.

It's a box developed and idealized by someone who thinks of a strategy in relation to the goal.

And often your goal, your strategy, your purpose are aligned with that company.

So you're in the same direction.

But there comes a time when you say, no, I would do it differently.

I think I believe more in that, it's more from that angle.

You have a commitment, you end up staying there.

So it was an opportunity for me to be able to do exactly that.

And then freedom comes fear.

Fear is a very pleasant company, I would say, of freedom, because it generates tension.

And when it happened to me, I started to say, I need to organize myself better.

I had a trip to Europe, that was in June, and I had a trip in July with my children here.

I'm now in Prague here.

And I said, and some people said, don't go, save that story.

Then each one says, and I also realized, what you feel and realize about your own life.

The advice is good, but you have to filter it.

It wasn't about me and what I could do.

It was about how that person was seeing her life and wanted to reflect for me the fears she had.

I started to think, no, I'm going.

I'm going first because I don't know if I would have another opportunity and I'm going because I think at this moment we need to have an attitude, not only in the case of my trip, but an attitude towards life, to go in the direction you are looking for.

And in the middle of a train, leaving Munich to Italy, passing through Innsbruck, to Austria, my son and I, my son is 30 years old today, a very good guy in technology, in a travel blog, we started to design, let's set up a company.

And that's where the first company was born, which was a consulting company focused on many entrepreneurs who don't have a financial management.

Because when we understand what the role of a company is, obviously the role of this company is to generate an impact on society, what it intends to do in the world.

You, as a brand specialist, know much better than me how important it is, even to make business profitable.

But it obviously has the need to cause profit, as we are breathable, it needs to make profit.

And I realized that most organizations, small, medium, large, even considered large, in certain cases, segments, did not have a strategic financial management.

So my first strategy was to enter the companies as a partner.

First, do you have control?

Do you have organization?

Do you have control?

Do you have management?

Because a box number is not the number that is there, but it is everything that is happening in marketing, product, client, process, technology, and reflects there.

It was a way to look at the company from a point of view, from a point of view of a very important partner, my partner in the technology area.

Then he went to California, he spent some time in Silicon Valley, I was alone.

And we go through the phases, the first phase of enchantment.

Fear and enchantment, then you go through the first difficulties, you need to find a market, a client, you need to adjust the product, there is a trajectory.

And you go, I think we all learn, and we continue to learn today, obviously, as entrepreneurs, the more time we have, it is always a day that you open and say, it is a completely different day, it will not be like the other, I will need to reinvent myself again.

But at that moment, with a new business, it is even more challenging in this aspect.

So it was migrating, we were growing, we started to get other brands, other businesses, other segments, I started to adjust the product, hire people, we established ourselves in two offices at WeWork, which at the time was the largest company in the world, then it even fell, but there I had contact with many startups, so I think I was lucky to have a formation of thought, very structured in philosophy, in strategic design, in the systemic issue, in logistics, social sciences.

And at this point, I had a bath of youth, of technology, of new ideas, of transforming the world, it was like that, I think two or three years there, that enriched me a lot.

I had had an interesting experience in another area, when I studied social sciences and started to travel to Brazil, I started to make an analogy between what I studied, culture, behavior, as you know very well, training, how to distribute a product that was born there in São Paulo, as the thought of a room in São Paulo, and will distribute it in Manaus, Belém, it's another environment, you can't think with your head here in that room that you are conditioned, you have to go there and see the market.

So I was lucky to make some compositions, among them this vision of Brazil, from a social and business point of view, this vision of start-ups, of refresh, and we were doing very well, we had two offices there, when the pandemic came, in 2020, and then, that cut, that must have happened to you and everyone who was listening, I made the first decision, I talked to all the clients, I said, if you can't pay, I'll stay with you, let's go together.

That was a very interesting moment, of rediscoveries, of those who had the opportunity to discover new things, to rethink life, I think it had a lot of meaning at that moment, but also of who is who, of those who are together to face something that we didn't know, what it would be, our challenges.

We continued with some clients, others not so much, but we went to the digital world.

We started doing digital transformation.

I worked with the strategic area, financial planning, strategy, positioning, and Gabriel, my son, worked with the technology area, transformation, creation, digital architecture.

We did that for a while, we also kept collaborators, we managed to keep all of them.

It was a victory, obviously, gathering the resources we could gather, reacting in the way we all decided to react at that moment.

But then, on my birthday in July, my daughter unpretentiously said, dad, why don't you live in Portugal?

We have some questions, Maurício, that are unpretentious and sometimes relaxed, and sometimes they fit, and I said, why not?

And this is a question I always ask, why not?

And then, in September, I bought the ticket, in November I was disembarking in Lisbon, and from then on, I lived a new reality, with new difficulties, but with one more step.

I started traveling the world, seeing what I saw in Brazil, now in the world, and trying to capture this, bring it to my experience, to my professional delivery.

So, there is a strategic goal, besides having a personal goal, we can talk about it, but there is a strategic goal, this vision of a nomad, to look at the diversity of the world, to bring this issue of changes.

So, it was this trajectory, I still consider myself, and I always want to consider myself, an apprentice.

One thing I learned in this trajectory, that I became very aware of every day, is that all the knowledge you have in the past is worthless today, if you don't know how to read and interpret where you are, what you are going to do, how you are going to do it.

So, having an ability to interpret the present, to look at the future, to have an openness, is fundamental for you to even use your repertoire.

And that's how I've been doing it, and it's been a pleasure, and I think, in a way, it's rewarding.

Your story is wonderful, and with two transitions in a short space of time.

The transition of the disconnection, then the transition because of the pandemic, and it makes you believe that the first one had a greater weight because of this existential emptiness that follows the feeling of judgment, and the judgment that we often interpret as unfair, of what we went through in past times.

But apart from that, during this transition process that you had, how did you deal with these emotional and mental challenges, including what you commented in some points, the certainty or uncertainty and the possibility of failure?

Could you share a little more the experience of how you felt particularly challenged, perhaps discouraged, even during this process?

There are some shocks, I think, for those who undertake, for those who are listening and seeing.

First, it's the question that a business, you set up something, it's not for the present, but for the future.

And until you have this future being realized in such a way that you can, for example, have a remuneration compatible with what you need, many times you leave a career and have a remuneration X and you go to the area of entrepreneurship, and you have a variation of recipe, you have a beginning that you need to deliver more to the business, because the business can deliver you.

This was a point, my financial reserve versus the business's ability to deliver me, versus the opportunity that knocked on my door to go back to work in a company.

I keep my flow here to be able to make this business grow, and then I'm going to consume a little of my reserve over time, I assume a position and I'm going to maintain security.

This was an emotional aspect relevant to me, how to deal with this.

And I think that's where the strategy comes in, if you understand what can happen worse, what can happen better, and try to understand what can happen in these paths, if I can't do it, what will happen if I reset my reserve?

I think it's looking ahead to the problem and understanding the necessary strategy to deal with it.

There is also the other side of being able to be very good.

So I think I've amortized this emotion, a very critical, relevant emotion, through the strategy.

The second is that you leave a company where you have a structure, you have a marketing department, then you become everything.

Even if you are already entering with a better structure, you start doing more things than you did before, you need to learn things you never thought about doing, because you are an entrepreneur and you need to make it happen, regardless of how it is.

Then you become smarter, delegate what needs to be delegated, and do what needs to be done.

But it's another thing that also starts in the emotion of you feeling more overloaded and more alone.

But this is normal.

I think that the other day I saw a question, when you run, do physical activity, you feel pain in both legs, it's normal for you to feel a muscle overload.

If you feel pain in one leg only, it can be an injury.

I think the pains have this point.

You have natural pains of entrepreneurism.

You will go through it.

Others may be some symptoms that need to be looked at more carefully, etc.

In these cases, they are normal.

Emotions later, I think we also, I don't think it happens, but there is a career transformation and a transformation of individuals, of the person.

Values, habits, ways of seeing.

Today, more than ever, the world is liquid, we are transforming, entering our own dilemmas and changing.

The world today is much more challenging, obviously.

At that moment, I was already in a process of essentialism.

I was already looking to get rid of material things that weighed more than they were useful, added less.

Emotions, feelings, thoughts, anything that was weight.

I started to understand that life can be simpler in many ways, and I started to practice essentialism, meditative, as it is called today.

I think practice is important.

We have a practice, each one has their own sport, music, singing, dancing, doing what goes to the company.

We need to have practices that balance us.

Because one thing is the situation you live in, and the situation can change.

What was a problem becomes a solution, what was stable overnight is no longer.

The situation will change, we know that.

This is a fact.

The condition we are in, what we do, how we think, what we feel, this is a choice.

As you have more self-knowledge, you will understand that this is a choice.

We all have emotional vulnerability.

But I think it was a learning that was being built there in some difficult moments.

Many times I do not sleep again.

Like a mother who has children, she will no longer sleep as she slept before.

Sleep changes.

I think the entrepreneur goes through that too.

Sleep is no longer the same.

Either you have a great idea at night, for example, and you are always thinking about your business, or you have a concern to deal with a problem.

But you are always taking the company in your mind.

This is another point.

We need to know how to detoxify in the right way.

We used to have a lot of work on Monday, Friday, at the end of the week, a fragmented block.

Not today.

Today things get confused with technology and digital.

It is important to have this moment of knowing, this perception, this space.

This is my condition, this is the situation.

I need to live a little the individual.

Even to be able to think better about that problem, to be able to reflect better about that solution, I need to move away a little.

This is part of the game.

I think it was a growth, Maurício.

But it comes, fundamentally, I would like to leave a message for those who listen to us, to accept the path.

If you are an entrepreneur, you have to accept this fact.

You can't accept something just for the good side of the story.

When we choose to accept something, we have to understand that we can improve this package, but there is a set that you are absorbing.

It's not just selecting this as good and I don't want this as bad.

It's a collateral effect.

Every business has a strong point, it has a collateral effect.

It's often the same proportion.

So, there's no way.

I think it was a learning and I've been learning.

That was the way I dealt with these emotions and I think you touched on a crucial point that many times the problem, and in these methodical constructions that I do, I realize that the problem is not in the model, it's not in the segment, it's in the equation of the business.

Sometimes it's in the mindset of who's playing that business.

The relationship between the leader, it can be the executive owner, etc., and the business itself.

This is very important.

I think it's an area that I work on today within the issue of entrepreneurship, mentoring.

This is very relevant.

So, when you touch on this issue of emotion, you touch on a crucial point, which can come from artificial intelligence, it can come from technology, but this point of emotion, knowing how to deal with emotion, is fundamental, isn't it?

You mentioned an expression that you used, that it's important to move away to be able to see reality.

In our last episode of 2023, dear and also your friend, Marielice Medina, used an expression that struck me a lot.

She said that to see the island, we need to move away from the island.

And if that doesn't happen, many times we realize an entire continent.

And then I started to reflect on this quote.

If you feel an entire continent, it's a very heavy burden that we carry alone.

And the frustrations are very related to this weight, right?

If we can't carry it, we consider ourselves inadequate, inapt, or not worthy.

And it's not the case, maybe that weight could, should have been shared.

So I found this relationship of what you commented with Marielice's quote perfect at this moment.

And already entering this new phase of yours, as a digital nomad, what was the main motivation that led you to choose the mentoring and consulting process in a more autonomous way?

And not only autonomous, itinerant.

It's practically a gypsy life, right?

Digital gypsies, let's call it that.

Yeah.

I read a lot of Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist, I was enchanted by him.

In liquid life, liquid modernity, liquid love.

And already at that time, a few years ago, I realized that the world as it was in my childhood, adolescence and so on, would be much more liquid.

And I identified myself first with the concept of the world view.

This brought me a series of reflections and awareness, Maurício.

First of the liquid, myself, I can change.

I can change.

I can make mistakes.

I don't have an absolute certainty anymore, or something that I need to be perfect, or a way of being that I have to be like this all the time.

I can be liquid, or actually, I must be liquid because the world is and will be more liquid to it.

That was the first perception I had.

I think, as the saying goes, you look at the island when you see it from afar.

It's a bit like when you move away from yourself and what you're living.

I have a habit of going to high places when I have a problem, I go to a high place, I arrive in a new city, I like to go to a high place and look from above and understand that there is a distance necessary for you to observe better.

And I realized this, this liquidity.

And I realized that this was a game, technology.

This was a game I needed to play when I was 40, 50, 80 years old.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how good or bad I was in the past, how much I have or don't have knowledge, it doesn't matter.

What matters is what I see from now on, what is my way of acting from now on.

I began to realize this, I began to sharpen myself as I saw it.

I created a strategic process with myself.

First, accept the error.

Accept the error.

Provoke the error.

Develop processes from the error.

This gave me an incredible freedom of action and with that, see the different, know the different, the strange, the different.

Many times you have something close to you that is strange.

Something you encounter far away, you never think about knowing it.

And when you know it, you talk to your family.

So, the familiar and the strange are not questions related to geography, you are in a place or in a certain culture that you were created.

Because sometimes you are created within a structure and that is no longer familiar to you in the sense that you feel represented.

And I started to realize that too.

I started to look for the different.

And in the different, I met a family member.

I began to realize that this is a process of us getting in touch with the different, with the strange, because that's where creativity comes from.

I think if we always see the same elements, the same structure, we are able to create very few things within a standard.

Now, when you start to take an element from an area, for example.

I try to serve myself, you talk about art later, I was fascinated because you are bringing something out exactly from the context of the subject, of the specific content that you bring into this environment.

This is fantastic, you know?

You are connecting.

And this analogy can be used always.

It was something else I learned.

We have a world of opportunities in art, science, behavior, and so on.

But we can build our mosaic and understand that there is a problem.

Okay, let's see this problem from the point of view of art later.

We can do an exercise in this regard.

So I started to have greater creative freedom.

This gave me conditions to explore more possibilities with more different projects.

I started to receive different clients from different people.

It's a challenge, but it's very interesting because I need to get into that area, study a little, to be able to interact in a qualified way.

But it's the different that challenges me.

And often this area here, you're talking about art, plastic art, for example, I can take and bring to this other point here, which is a shoe industry.

There may be something to link.

Because often we need to think with an external reference to the context in which we are.

If I bring you to an external reference, as we are talking about the island, our mind leaves where we are and we imagine an island, you looking from afar.

When we do this, we leave that box, that pattern and can think of the problem as another possibility, which is what we need to do today in the friendly world, in the world with all the issues that exist, complex issues, with you dealing with your strategic design process.

So, it was a universe that I started to enter and today, in mentoring and consulting, one of the ones I use is Flow, because of this, because as it is a consultancy, a strategic mentoring that starts from the point of the purpose of the other, of that project, that person, for the effective realization of this purpose, of this dream, of this goal, for practical actions with results.

And then I can see financial and economic results, of social impact, but it is born from a purpose, from an origin.

Why are you wanting to do this?

I understood that Flow, where there is a starting point, what is the purpose?

And I think this is where we stop a lot, at the beginning of the mentoring, I strengthen a lot here, which is important because in the middle of the way, when you are in difficulty, you will think about your why.

Why am I here?

Because I want to get there, because I have this mission, because I like it, because I do it.

So it's a way to first correctly direct the strategy, second, it gives you energy to get there.

So we do a lot of work on purpose, from the purpose we go to the value proposal, how you deliver, who is the one you deliver, there are a lot of people who enter the mentoring with a very inward look, your own content.

I have this, I have this product, I have this strategy, I have this problem.

The first thing we need to deconstruct is to look outside, to the market, to the client.

Let's lose your vision a little and let's look at this person, not at this client, but at this person who is much bigger than the client.

What he sees, what he feels, a map of empathy.

And then I enter that vision.

There is often an effort of this person to look beyond the problem.

But when she starts to look and see beyond her process, she starts to see a series of possibilities.

So I work from the purpose, the value proposal, the client's vision, I start to develop what you have as a solution, product, experience, what are the tangible and intangible aspects of this.

Because today, when you say I have a product, you can't define product, solution.

What is a podbrand, for example?

It's a set of things.

So you intertwine elements that value and differentiate what you're delivering.

We do some work in that sense.

How do you communicate that?

And it's another thing, sometimes people come and say, I need to record videos, communicate better on the internet, and I see that you have a good vision.

I try to capture what she's looking for.

Are you looking for a communication of your brand to capture more videos?

The video I make is my way of doing it.

We need to find your way.

I work communication and I'm getting there.

At certain times, Maurício, the project lasts longer, I can even implement, put a financial strategic planning to work and then periodically follow if the strategies and results are coherent and I'm advising this person.

At a certain moment or in certain processes, there is a session, two sessions, three sessions, I think the person already falls into a trap.

She already comes with a doubt, an indecision.

She comes with an indecision.

She has a decision to make, she doesn't know if it's A or B. I think the doubt is broader.

And she herself already has this inside her and many times we validate what she has already come to the conclusion that she needs to do.

It's a bit of that.

It is to reveal the power that is already present in the person, often unknown to herself.

Perfect, that's right.

That's my mission.

I did it, I was able to make it possible to help fulfill my goal.

Very good.

You mention the importance of regeneration in your approach.

How does this idea translate into practical actions for people who are facing or planning a professional or business transition?

And how can this approach benefit them in this re-design of the journey?

I read a book, a book that I will recommend to you here in your program, which is the Design of Regenerative Cultures, Daniel Wall.

It's that book, there are some books that changed my way of seeing.

There are books that add knowledge to you, there are books that cause entertainment, but there are books that change a way of seeing.

They don't give you everything, but they give you a point of view, a vision.

And Daniel gave me this vision when he talks about regeneration.

Even looking at the environmental point of view, and we can see the social, and sometimes even business, life, even personal life, it's no longer sustainability, it's regeneration.

The level of wear has reached a point where we need to regenerate.

And this culture of regeneration, it goes...

I think there are two parallel things that we need to understand when to use one and when to use the other.

One of the things is the need for you to have new things.

Capitalism imposes the need for you to produce, to develop, to grow.

It's a constant movement, and we are in this frequent dynastic.

The new, many times, has more value than what already exists.

This is a point.

I always joke that we need to be current, we need to be what we are always, what we already have, the new together, and this mixture becomes the current.

We are still us, but we are antenated by the present.

This is the big point.

There is another story of you staying in the past.

You have a constant renovation movement, the old that exists in a valley, which is only worth the new.

This is a movement that feeds the normal capitalist system.

There is another that is the retrograde, which is the utopia of looking at the future, and there is a thing, there is a man, a sociologist, I don't remember now, of you staying in the past.

Imagine that the past was the best moment.

The utopia is to look at the future as the best moment, and some people say that the past will be the best moment.

So there are these two movements, a movement of only renewing, and another moment of staying in what already exists.

What is new, I don't understand, I don't like.

These two movements, these two extremes, they are not healthy.

When you look at it systematically, we need to regenerate a lot of things.

And when I say regenerate, I mean a business that has its financial deficit there, how do I regenerate this business?

Most of it, Maurício, goes through the brand, the brand, the reification of the brand, of a repositioning, of a value, of a new positioning for a new market, possibly.

So there is a regeneration here based on decisions, on directions, and many times these decisions are hard.

I need to cut one thing to regenerate the other.

These are strategic decisions.

There is an individual who, many times, I have a group of people, of clients, who, many times, of women, which is something I've seen meeting a lot, who lived marriages for a long time, they were professionals, and during the marriage, they dedicated themselves to family life, raising children, etc., opening up the world of career, while the husband continues in his career.

At a certain point, life is a separation.

These women, and they are not just women, but predominantly women, position themselves in a situation, or are in a situation at that moment, and I do not have, I am unheated professional, I do not have confidence often in me, this is a moment of regeneration.

It is necessary to regenerate that capacity, that competence of that being.

This is just an example of a group of people, but there are others here who need to look at regeneration as a possibility.

After regeneration, you have all the subsequent issues, obviously.

So, when we look at business, when we look at individuals, when we look at nature itself, at the environment, when we look at the social, we need to think beyond supporting, as you said about ESG, which is something today, before we go live here, we were talking about it, which today is a more regulatory thing, but we need to look beyond this, obviously, we need to regenerate our relationships.

I think this look at regeneration is not a look to stay in the past, but it is to do what has value and exists in something even better being the current, but always, obviously, with the goal of regenerate.

This is a good example.

Interesting, because regenerate has an origin in Latin, which comes from regenerare, and the re is not only a indication of repetition, but also of intensification, and the gerare, which is create, renew, so it can mean also an intensification of this creation, and when you talk about relationship, it could be an intensification of an action, increase it in the sense and then comes the value of etymology to just bring this meaning further, the understanding that we have in the day to day.

You mention within your Flow mentoring, in an expression that brought me a intellectual curiosity, which is the creative flow.

How do you conceive it, and how does it fit in this consulting approach that you carry out?

Perfect.

I loved your vision of regeneration, I've already copied and pasted here.

Another interesting thing that we have the opportunity today of this exchange, it's a mosaic that you bring, it's very good to be here talking to you.

The Flow, creativity for me is an ability, it's a practice, I'm creative, nobody is creative, people practice creativity, a good idea comes from many ideas, everyone who had a good idea practiced many ideas.

This is an equation, it's a fact, as you practice you get better, this is another issue, you exercise that.

Creativity is a process that is not only linked to the art, I'm a musician, nothing like that, creativity is a daily ability, we are creative all the time, I always use the example of a lady who has three children alone and needs to turn around.

What level of creativity does such a person have?

Enormous.

She creates from where she least imagines value.

This is a beautiful example.

Creativity is a practice.

Second, in the world, I face problems in two ways, the problem of breaking your head, you move a piece here, joining with another there, you will solve it, the solution is inside the problem, you just have to fit it in.

And that problem that is a mystery, that problem that you need to research, you need to elaborate a thought, you need to work creatively.

Current problems are much more in this second option than the first one.

I think people and companies get lost a lot here, looking inside when they need that slogan, think outside the box, but it's a little bit of that, you think outside and creativity impulsifies it.

Another thing, we lose a lot of ideas out of fear of wanting perfection, we cut a lot the possibilities of good ideas already at the beginning.

Ah, but it can't be like this, but it has to be like this.

The limitation, this lady who raised two children has the creativity exercised because she has a limitation.

It is the limitation, one of the elements that makes her exercise creativity.

The limitation is an important thing to create yourself, but the feeding of the situation.

You can't limit yourself to the situation.

Your creative thought can't limit itself to the situation.

What if I did this?

What if I changed the situation?

What if I did it in another way?

I mean, creative freedom needs to have space to be able to exercise what it can contribute.

And then we have an exercise in mentoring, I use a lot the diamond duo, Silent Pink, that is, let's start from a fixed point, what is your problem, what is your purpose, what are you dealing with, but let's now exercise as much as we can.

And then let's elaborate, create, and if, and why not, elaborate this.

This is a way to start looking to the future, those possible, those imaginable, those we expect, to start looking at a future elaboration.

Because your present will be the fruit of the elaboration of the future.

If I imagine that it can be that way one day, as someone imagined, and today we have here, we are talking with the situation of this technology, someone imagined that this would be possible and someone did it.

So, what today is obviously reality, someone imagined in the past that it was.

So we need to imagine constantly the future and we need this creative freedom to imagine.

Many things will not be possible now, inside the box that we have.

But if they remain there, on the bench of ideas, in my vision, they will one day connect to something else.

Then you ask me the question about nomadic life, I let my mind connect with different things.

Even if I lived in the same city, I would go to different places, I would walk different paths, I would read different books, I would do different things, because I think that creativity also has its own life.

When you expose yourself, expose your mind, your sensory perception, there are stimuli that will naturally make your creativity flourish, you just need to be a channel.

So this moment to unlock the vision of mentoring, for a broader vision, even if it is not a guarantee of immediate success, but that can become fundamental.

Soon after, we close.

The flow is free, but it has a direction, so we are accommodating ourselves, but we need a direction that is how we are going to do it, what we are going to do, how we are going to control it, etc.

But the creative process has to be like this, no one stumbles on anything sitting down, so you have to move, and I put people, I seek to put people to make this movement.

For example, now, in February, I'm launching a course, it's an experience course, it's a trip, that's the concept, three things at the same time, based on Rome.

So in every city I am, I am bringing a concept linked to this city, Rome is how to create and conquer markets, where there are eight classes, where we talk, as I told you about the purpose, about value, about communication, about market segmentation, etc.

And there is what I call story living, I bring the person to live some experiences in Rome.

It's a spice, let's say, on the plate, the course is the main course, but the spice is this story living.

Why?

Because I want to bring this person into a situation where she is in Rome, within that environment of Rome, with dilemmas, living situations in which I am bringing in the course.

It's a way to insert her into learning, in search of bringing more knowledge, more experience.

It's a creativity exercise, it may be amazing, it may be that my initial goal is to test, and that's what, Maurício, I exercise.

In my Instagram communications, you need to test, it's the exercise, that's what I do, it needs to be coherent.

So that's what I'm doing.

But there is this conception of bringing in.

Now in Brazil, I'm going in April, and there is a project of immersion called The Sustainable Lightness of Being, based on Milan Kudera's book here in Prague.

Then I said only in UI.

What did I think of this?

The sustainable, this essential life, nomad, how do you create a sustainable through, when we look at it financially, we look at several aspects, right?

This sustainability, lightness, how do you make yourself light?

What is essential for you?

The being.

We will also do an immersion project, with some exercises and such.

All of this is directly linked to creativity, the exercise and the practice of creativity.

I don't think so.

It's the great solution for this equation between artificial intelligence, machine and work needs.

We need to be creative.

Right?

How cool is your initiative to launch these courses, because it's a way to create more economic access for people who cannot do mentoring, to access this knowledge.

I invite everyone who follows Rômulo's Instagram channel, which is nomad underscore, which is the line below, the line below, strategy, nomad, line below, strategy.

On Instagram, you will probably disclose the launch of these courses on your Instagram channel, right?

Yes, I'm starting now more strongly.

The course will be launched on February 20th and more strongly now.

And Maurício, one of my goals too, right?

My courses and everything I do is to interlace, integrate, rather, the individual purpose.

After the pandemic, we think that I need to work every day, get a car, go to work, catch traffic, right?

I saw Eduardo Galeano, not Eduardo Galeano, it was Eduardo, an economist saying something very interesting, a philosopher thinker, an economist that I like a lot, saying something very interesting.

You go from here, you go on foot to your job, you go on foot, the PIB doesn't move, you have an incredible quality of life and the PIB doesn't move.

Then you get the car, you face two hours arriving at your job, you spend gasoline, the PIB moves.

So, sometimes the economic indicators, the indicators we have, no longer respond to the vision we need to have of the world, as a parameter.

So, we need to think about alternatives more compatible with our current reality, with what we really need to do.

So, I always migrate on this side.

In the pandemic, all of us questioned, do I really need to go get my car and do this?

Do I really need to have all of this here?

Do I really need to live this way?

What do I really want to do?

What do I want to do?

What is the best world I live in?

What do I want to leave as a legacy?

What bothers me?

What do I like to do?

These aspects are fundamental and predominant aspects of the success of any business, any project.

Having a business, what gives money?

I'm going to invest, what gives money?

You are an investor who takes the capital and puts it in place.

It's a way of acting.

Now, if you are an entrepreneur who seeks in your activity as an entrepreneur, a professional activity also within a company, to exercise your being more full, and one part is there, and it's an important part, that's where I need, I intend to navigate.

It is to take, to bring tangible, important aspects of the business with often intangible aspects of the human being and integrate that.

So both Flo and these products I'm producing have this goal of there's no way to divide anymore.

You're not going to be happy in a job where you earn a lot of money if you don't like it.

And it's not going to be done a job you love, but you can't survive.

So I try this way.

I think that this analogy between the GDP and the quality of life, who mentioned it, was the economist and philosopher Eduardo Janetti da Fonseca.

Eduardo Janetti, that's it, perfect.

My memory is horrible and I have a great, sometimes I forget the names, but the people and the content, the concept, their value to me never.

Eduardo Janetti da Fonseca.

I have several books by him and this mention he made caught my attention because he also used another example in this same narrative, which was the basic sanitation.

The moment you have running water, sewage for people, it drastically improves people's lives.

This technically decreases the GDP or does not increase the GDP, because the person stops moving to the supermarket, stops buying a bottle of water, this bottle is no longer produced, plastic, transport, the market, anyway.

So he made this analogy that not always the improvement of quality of life affects the increase in GDP.

It's a sum of factors.

I think Bárbaro, the way he expresses the knowledge he has, because in addition to being an economist, he is a philosopher, he congregates these two disciplines very well.

Very well, and he for me is a vision, is a type of vision necessary for the world today.

It is not only a financial vision, as for companies and for people, you can't just look at one point.

You have to look a little further, look at the island from afar.

Yes.

What is the message, or another powerful insight that you could or would like to transmit to people, especially the most mature?

And then I'll tell you why.

When I created Podbrand, it was in the sense of reflecting my mission in life, which is to help people reach their best version.

And my mission in life became the purpose of Podbrand.

So there is the relationship between what I'm doing today and what I like to do, which is my own mission in life.

And I imagined it would be for an audience of young people who expect to undertake or who seek their autonomy and everything else.

And yet, I was wrong in my scenario planning.

The audience of Podbrand is 45 years older.

They are entrepreneurs, they are liberal professionals, they are people who are already in a career or in a evolved professional life trajectory, or who are looking for a transition or an evolution, but who are wanting more.

And I interviewed, not long ago, a person who is also a teacher and who mentioned that those who seek more knowledge are really people with more maturity, who are thirsty for it.

And I am enthusiastic about knowledge.

Well, complementing the question, what could you bring as a message to this generation of more mature people or who have already gone through a successful professional career or are facing, who knows, a similar challenge of reinvention?

How do you see it?

Maurício, it's very interesting, I think this market, this look at people who have a phase in life now, an opportunity to live life with a greater, better wisdom.

I hope we can have a wisdom from the years we have lived, but at the same time a life ahead, possibilities and such.

I think it's a very interesting moment in our lives.

We have 40, 50, 60, 70 years, life ahead.

I wouldn't have anything big, but I think it's one of the little things.

I usually say that the impossible is the sum of the possible.

So, look, allow the error.

I think the main point is to allow yourself to make mistakes, not to define yourself from an error, not to define yourself, in fact, from a previous condition.

It is in constant transformation, which is how we are.

Our cells are in constant transformation all the time, the planet is in constant transformation.

So we can't think that we are still, we are also transforming ourselves.

And the error, the attempt, the search, the weight, are part of this trajectory.

I think we need to feel, what I would give as an experience of mine, which has been very interesting, is to allow yourself, to allow yourself to make mistakes, to allow yourself to bet, to allow yourself to learn, and to allow yourself to lose too.

Because sometimes we lose to win.

Or we lose and realize that what we lost didn't make as much difference as we thought it would.

So we will lose things along the way.

You can't stay on a progressive path, understanding that you will continue taking things with you.

So you need to leave things, you need to assimilate new things.

For that, you need to be open to the error, to the test, to learn.

I think that's the big point.

Knowledge exists a lot.

Another issue is that there is no standard.

There is no, I'm going to teach you the methodology so that you be careful with that.

That doesn't exist.

If someone, obviously it is important that we look at the methodologies, the practices, but no methodology by itself, no tool by itself generates the result.

It is necessary to have a posture in the face of the problem, it is necessary to have a vision, it is necessary to have a series of things that are not specifically in the tool or in the methodology.

No solution is magical.

I think the sum of the little things daily, a habit here, another there, a learning here, another there, a permission here, another there, this construction of the present, which is a construction, it is not definitive.

What I was yesterday, I will not be today.

I have the essence, but today I'm going to add something new.

I need to get to the end of the day.

I had a way when I worked, I still do it from time to time, but with people who worked with me, I said, what did you learn today?

I asked every day.

And the person had to, before leaving the company, say something she learned.

And as much as I asked, that person already realized that she was going to get out of there looking, I learned something.

The result meetings were meetings where we looked at results.

It's not a result meeting, it's an appraisal meeting.

The most important thing here is not the greatest result, but what we learned from this result.

Even in the success or failure, the appraisal was incredible, let's take this appraisal and let's practice it in practice.

This attitude, in the face of life, of accepting the process, the change, and having fun, bringing new things, learning new things, and making mistakes along the way, and laughing at yourself when you make a mistake.

I think for me it would be the advice, or the tip, whatever I have experienced, I think it's worth it.

The rest, yes, we have a lot of knowledge available.

And if you have a curiosity, today the great wealth is attention.

One of the great riches that we dispute in the world is attention.

And attention follows interest.

If you have interest, you have attention.

Interest follows curiosity.

If I'm curious about a theme, I'm interested, I draw attention, I start to be good at that theme.

And that theme brings me interest, curiosity about the other.

And I go in this process, at 70, 80, 50, 40, it doesn't matter.

What matters, I think, is this constant flow of learning and permission that we need to have.

I think that's it.

Very well.

We have now reached the pinga-fogo.

These are three questions I ask all the guests.

What are the virtues of a successful entrepreneur?

Vision.

I think vision is fundamental.

You are an entrepreneur when you see something, a problem, a solution, a pain, a gain, something you can do for someone.

Vision is fundamental.

Seeing beyond.

Vision is fundamental.

When you are not seeing, you start to suffer, you start to look at the operation and stop being an entrepreneur.

Obviously, resilience, balance, are part of this empire.

Without that, you can't do it.

I think that's it.

I also think that no business, no model, no project needs to be stable, permanent.

You have to pivot.

Maybe the client has changed, maybe the product is different, maybe the market is different, maybe the model is different.

What are you doing today?

Don't stick to the current model.

Look at the possibility of continuing to be an entrepreneur.

What defines the fact of being an entrepreneur is not the store, the website, the industry, the channel that I have.

This is an element, a product that I have.

It's not the best-seller that's more important.

It's my ability to generate best-sellers.

It's this ability that I have.

And when I look at it, I look and suddenly it's not free.

It's something else.

When I start to look at the game in a broader way, I have the power.

I think this is fundamental for a successful entrepreneur.

There's a word from neuroscience that maybe translates this concept well, which is plasticity.

The ability to shape the new reality, a reality added to the previous one.

Let's put it that way.

For me, this is my mantra.

I arrived here and went to the supermarket in Prague.

I was in Italy.

At the time of leaving, it was free.

I kept imagining my brain in this situation, trying to adjust, seeing new connections.

I'm in a new place.

This, for me, is my mantra.

I understand.

What differentiates dreamers from doers?

Dreaming is already a great merit.

I think the dream is a great merit.

I think it lacks a dream.

Dreamers are missing.

Now, the dreamer alone does not solve any problem, does not create a new reality.

But the dream is important.

And dreaming is really dreaming.

Dreaming is big.

Dreaming is out of the box.

Dreaming, imagining, visualizing.

What differentiates a dreamer from a doer?

I think it's courage.

I don't know what word I can use that represents it.

I fly.

I go to the game.

You're on the edge of the field and you say, I'm going to enter the field.

Can I lose by 10?

Can I win by 10?

I'm going to enter the field.

I'm not going to sit there looking at life, looking at things and saying, I could have gone.

If it doesn't work, it didn't work.

But I prefer to have the pain of having gone and not having done the right thing than staying and saying, I think that's it.

I use, eventually, an expression, a word that I don't even think exists in the dictionary, according to them, actually.

The first is initiative.

It's part of the dream.

Then the tocative, which is part of the action.

The sum of the two generates the ending, which is the conclusion, leading to believing that the next two words are not in the dictionary.

But anyway, they are comprehensible, right?

Perfect.

It fits perfectly.

Fantastic.

And the last one, what is design?

Oh, boy.

Design.

I don't dare to define design, but I would say for me.

In fact, I changed my way of understanding a lot about design.

How incredible design is.

How you see it.

I was in Copenhagen recently and I saw that it's a city, Denmark itself, but Copenhagen specifically, is a city that has design in the vein.

And it's amazing the design up there, in the north.

And you see in the way you use public transport, you see the design present in society, the way of thinking.

And that's amazing.

In an object, in the flow of a construction, in politics, in the way you solve problems in the public sector.

Anyway, that's amazing.

It's very present in the way people are.

You can clearly see that.

It was amazing to me.

And I think design is the format of content.

That thought is the format of content.

I like Marina Garcés, I'll quote an example from her book here, Barcelona's Philosopher, where she says a lot that what we instrumentalize, if I'm a tennis player, I get a tennis racket, that also instrumentalizes me.

If I use a computer, if I use a notebook, everything I use, everything I live in the environment, it instrumentalizes me, it shapes me too.

It's a bit of that.

What I build and build, and vice versa.

It's a cycle of relationship between you and the environment, the objects.

That's amazing.

So design is there, it's already there.

The way we understand what we live, the environment we use, the things we do, I think all of this is design.

And I'm enchanted by design.

I use design a lot.

I think it's strategic.

I think it's fascinating.

And I've been wanting to go deeper, to understand more, to go deeper in tools and practices that use design, especially within strategy.

You are also a strategic designer, and there's a lot that we can do.

I'm fascinated by that.

But I think it's a bit of that.

It's everything we interact with, the way we interact, we build, and what builds us, develops us too.

Very cool.

What inspired me to ask this last question from Penga Fogo is a book edited by a friend of mine, a designer from São Paulo, that asks this question to everyone.

What is design?

So he invited several designers, entrepreneurs and designers, to define what design is.

Each page of the book has the answer of one of these guests.

In the last edition I was also invited, and my answer was the silent dialogue of the soul with reason.

What a poetry!

Fantastic!

Do it!

Repeat it for us!

It's the silent dialogue of the soul with reason.

Look how cool!

Translate a little what you thought when you put this sentence.

I don't see design as a process, I see design as a way of thinking.

And design, it not only thinks possibilities, but it requires an attribute that everyone has, often unexplored, which is creativity.

And the dialogue of creativity is often silent.

Creativity is expressed by unusual things.

We live examples of built creativity at every moment in our day.

Just wake up, just look at the clock, just the alarm clock, play a new song.

Anyway, everything has related creativity and design to apply.

So why is it silent?

Because the dynamics between the things we produce and what people enjoy is built by a design, by a thought that was planned, that was created.

This can be translated through engineering, architecture.

You talked about Copenhagen.

There is a design museum in Copenhagen, basically of the furniture, which were precursors in various styles that are contemporary, including to this day, and in this museum the originals are exposed, which is incredible.

It really is a cradle of Nordic design.

So I see design as a way of thinking and that often is not perceived.

Hence the silent dialogue.

We don't hear the silence, but there is dialogue anyway.

I loved it.

I see that creativity comes from the soul.

It comes much more from the soul than from reason.

It is true.

I see that reason is what externalizes the construction of design.

But I think the origin goes far beyond that.

There is a metaphysical key in this process.

My training is in philosophy, so I seek this origin a lot.

I have looked at you, but I have heard you other times about it.

I actually became a designer.

I was not a designer.

I didn't do philosophy as a form of production, but as a way of understanding life.

And it also reflects, and it is in my book, which you will receive, my purpose of life, which I ended up discovering, or rather, I ended up contextualizing it later, also after my 50.

I am 55.

And I wrote the book after this process.

My purpose of life is to have a prosperous and harmonious life in search of knowledge and meaning.

The knowledge I am exercising now with you.

I am learning each word you bring.

It is one of the great retributions that Brandon can give me.

And the meaning, maybe I have studied philosophy, I was already looking for it.

Without being so clear.

And in my book I quote, because I help in my book through the branding process, and this also fits the construction of a personal branding, is to identify your purpose, your mission, which is point A, the starting point, or the starting point, and point B, which is the vision, which is the point of arrival that you want to seek in life.

And my book brings this in a very illustrated way, as if it can be built in a simple way, to understand, let's say, without having to do philosophy.

No, fantastic!

I will read.

When we started to connect, I think the profile interested me a lot.

Strategic design, a way of seeing life and business itself.

A strategic look, a look at the design, I said, the conversation will be great.

Intensive.

In the same way.

We now enter one of the most researched sessions on the website of Podbrand, podbrand.design, which is the indication of readings.

Which books impacted the trajectory?

There are many.

One of the most difficult decisions for me when I became a nomad, when I put my life in a suitcase, was to leave my books.

I had a lot of books, I was attached to them.

There are many.

And I think books say a lot about certain phases of life.

There is a book that at that stage was fundamental.

Sometimes you go back to that book.

There are books that make you think.

I brought some here that have to do with our conversation and some that don't.

But I think it makes sense to bring.

One is the Design of Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Walke.

I'll send you a reference later.

It talks a lot about a thousand possibilities that exist today.

There is a sentence that says that noise makes evil.

Evil makes noise.

Evil makes a lot of noise.

And that's a fact.

And he narrates several initiatives in an incredible world, where people are regenerating, creating forms of regenerative cultures in a very interesting way.

I recommend it.

Another one is the Platform, the Revolution of Strategy, by Michael Kohlbeck, which also made me see business models as a platform, an understanding of the dynamics of a company.

The funnel model, buy, distribute, sell, and the platform model, where you interact with entities.

It's also very good, the Revolution of Strategy.

And recently, a book called The School of Apprentices, by Marina Garcés, which talks a lot about knowledge today.

I highly recommend it.

It's a well-oriented philosopher, with a very good present.

And I would recommend a book called Jerusalem Before the World Was Born, because, for example, we are executives, we are employers, and we only read books that open the mind, reinforce the concept, bring a new process here and there.

It's nice to go to a book, interesting to go to a book, completely different.

And he does an incredible gymnastics, with a lot of illustration.

So, I recommend the book Jerusalem Before the World Was Born.

Although I still have a lot of this, but just reading.

I think reading is the exercise of creativity, maybe the most exercise you need to imagine.

The good problem of Paul Dubrand's book recommendations is that I end up wanting to read all of them.

And these four are already the priority today, because they are the most recent.

And all of them woke me up, it's a very big intellectual.

Come on, it's going to be a challenge.

That's good, that's good.

To facilitate the access of everyone who accompanies us, we make available the links of these books directly in the description.

In addition, I invite you to explore our book section on the website pauldubrand.design.

There we have a curatorship with more than 300 books recommended by our guests.

Be sure to check it out.

And the link is also down there in the description.

Well, I still have the question of my guest last week, Marcelo Teixeira.

He is a designer, architect and teacher.

And he is completing his doctorate in this area.

He asked this question without knowing that you would be our next guest.

His question.

How will humanity face this avalanche of technology?

Look, it's a difficult question he asked.

We have to...

In fact, technology and all technology, all technology, all instrument will depend on how humanity can function or use it.

When we talk that the GDP goes up when you buy a car.

If this society thinks this way, if the transit from my house to my work takes two hours, it pollutes, but I'm generating GDP and this is the value, this is the direction, technology will leave us more and more problems in areas that we need to solve or minimize or, in another way, regenerate.

If we look at technology as a tool to solve serious problems in the world, to really contribute with the quality of life of humanity as a whole, regardless of where this humanity is, then it's another thing.

It will depend, in my opinion, very obviously, on the way we will understand each other as a humanity and what we will do with it.

What is a fact is that in a world very unequal, a very unequal structure, any new event, technology, but, anyway, it depends on the conditions that would have been maintained or would be maintained, to increase this inequality.

So, the more technology arrives, maybe this inequality grows more.

This is one point.

Because they are technologies that can be used even to reduce this inequality, to eliminate misery, to a series of things that we need to solve as a humanity.

We can't look at the world or humanity as at the end, I'll give you an example here, of the rich countries or the billionaires or the technological evolution or the man of Mars.

We need to look at our weakest link as a humanity, which is a child who died of hunger today, which is still admissible in the world, which produces much more than we need.

So, if technology is used with the objective and the intention of really solving problems, I think we're fine.

Now, if we continue with the same logic, that's why I really believe in the design of relative cultures, because there are movements all over the world, and that thing of the impossible becoming the impossible, that's why I believe.

These movements, small, isolated or sometimes larger, added up, constitute a direction that can bring humanity to another social level, another level of balance.

After the pandemic, we're going to see two wars, at least there are others.

So, we continue, insane, a technological evolution far beyond our evolution as a species, as a community, let's put it this way.

I think his answer to this question is very much there.

If I look at it today, I see that we're going to greatly increase inequality, we're going to have a problem of unemployment, of repositioning, because inevitably we need a qualification of a large number of people to absorb this technology and to be able to remain employed along with this technology.

I also think that all the technology that comes, the technology that we already use today, they already came, they already went, when they arrived, this is going to end, and we also mold ourselves, that is, that professional ends up knowing how to use that technology, we end up entering an equation, this happens, but we can't help but look at a totally unequal world, and that in fact technology will perhaps make it worse.

So I really hope that the world has the vision of design, that the rulers have a vision of design, because when you think about improving the lives of millions of people, billions of people, you're actually improving the system as a whole, you're balancing the system as a whole.

So it's smart to act systematically, and acting in the sense of balance, thinking like design.

That's what I imagine, but it's a difficult thing.

And to finish, if you could ask a single question to our next guest, what would it be?

Look, I thought of a question here that I'm curious about, which is what will always be current in future challenges?

What for us will always be something that technology, the world has changed, I think it will always be current, always necessary, always important, the challenges we have in the future with all this technological change that is happening.

Perfect.

Our next guest will be made.

Well, Rômulo, I want to thank you very much for how I like to learn, and today it was spectacular to be able to hear you, and I thank you very much for your dedication, time and having engaged in the purpose of Podbrand, which is to help people reach their best version.

Thank you very much, certainly your life story and all this baggage as a consultant and mentor that you brought to us today will help many people.

I thank you enormously for this conversation, congratulations for the work, congratulations for the initiative of Art Déco, I think 2024, I'm absolutely sure it will be a very interesting year, very amazing for Podbrand.

I am at your disposal in what you need, I loved the experience here and I want to wish everyone who sees us and heard a lot of success in 2024, make a lot of mistakes, create a lot, and especially live your best version.

Thank you very much.

A big hug and see you soon, Rômulo.

See you.

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