Welcome to Podbrand, the podcast about design, strategy and innovation.

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

The Podbrand, aligned with the principles of innovation and elegance that characterize Art Deco, pays tribute to this movement that transcended time, influencing the way we perceive and create beauty, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire design to this day.

And this reflects our passion for ways that combine functionality with a touch of magic.

I'm Maurício Medeiros, consultant in strategic design, mentor and author of the book Arvore da Marca, Simplifying Branding.

In today's episode, we address a special theme that greatly impacts leaders and entrepreneurs, the importance of personal development and resilience in the face of adversity.

Our guest, Luciana Lobo, brings a unique perspective on how to overcome deep challenges to enrich our leadership and entrepreneurial vision.

She is a Master of Biological Sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a deep connoisseur of yoga and meditation practices.

Luciana faced cancer, turning a fight into a source of inspiration and social action through the creation of the ZENcancer Institute.

Luciana will share how self-care and introspection were crucial in her journey of overcoming and reinventing, offering valuable lessons so that in an entrepreneurial environment where crises often require more than external solutions, but internal strengthening.

Luciana, welcome.

Hi Maurício, good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here talking to you and your listeners.

Luciana, I would like to thank you for accepting the invitation.

It's a pleasure to have you on the Podbrand.

Getting to the point, your journey shows us the importance of self-care and introspection, especially when faced with unexpected challenges.

In the business world, crises require not only external solutions, but also internal strengthening.

So, your experience with cancer brought a new perspective on life.

In the entrepreneurial context, we often go through similar situations.

Can you share how the practice of self-care influenced your ability to transform and reinvent in such a dramatic moment?

Well, Maurício, I always like to think that companies are made by people.

When we talk about companies and business, we are transforming it into something very abstract, without much humanization.

So, let's think that this environment is made by people, and people have their problems, their challenges.

Often, what we are in the company is not what we are in our personal lives.

We end up playing a role.

I think it's very important that the practice of self-care, but before that comes the practice of self-knowledge.

This is something that should be stimulated in schools, so that children can invest some time in self-knowledge.

What are the values, not only what they learn, but their own values, as an individual, regardless of their parents, who will one day become with their own values, with their own beliefs.

I think this should be developed since childhood.

Luckily, I found out about the practices of self-knowledge in adolescence.

It wasn't an easy adolescence, but Master Osho's books fell on my lap.

I always say that Osho's books are excellent for teenagers, who are rebellious, like he was a little bit.

It was a contradiction in the way he taught, but he helped me a lot in my meditations, since I was 16, to understand who Luciana was, what I liked, what I wanted to do.

When you go to a corporate environment, when you work in a company with people, if you don't have a little bit of that, it's harder to relate to people, to understand what is yours, what is the other's.

In this conflictual relationship, which is sometimes established as a competition, which is often not a very healthy relationship within companies.

When I emigrated, when I left the corporate environment, I worked in a company in the tourism segment, I worked at EmbraTour, I worked at JW Marriott, which is a multinational, a network of international hotels, and I immersed myself in the path of yoga and meditation.

For me, it made all the sense.

That work I was doing with myself, I didn't even think about being a yoga teacher, I didn't even think about teaching people to meditate, I just wanted to get to know myself a little more, I wanted to know a little more about these tools.

And when cancer entered my life, in a phase when I was finishing my master's degree, which is also, it's not a company, but the academic world is also very competitive, and very challenging.

And it's a very abusive relationship, often, of the students with their mentors.

And still in the master's degree period, within the university, I was able to create a meditation group, where there were not only students meditating with me, but there were also teachers meditating, and they themselves recognized how much those practices helped them to reduce the levels of anxiety, stress, and to better respond to the pressures of this academic world.

And I really like to compare, I don't like to think a lot about employment, I like to think about people who came together to work with something, to provide some service, to develop some technology, but they are people there.

And then I'm going to talk a little bit about the academic world, because when I entered the master's degree, because my graduation is in tourism and hotel management, and it doesn't make the slightest sense for someone to study science and microbiology, people always asked me at the beginning, Luciana, why did you come to do a master's degree?

And at UFRJ it's a very serious master's degree, and the selection test is already a funnel for you to enter this master's degree, it was very challenging to pass the selection test.

But once a teacher asked me, Luciana, what brings you to the master's degree in microbiology?

And then I told her a little bit about the side of those who practice yoga, of those who practice meditation, of my students.

And then I said to the class, the world I come from, yoga, meditation, people who seek self-knowledge, they don't know anything about microbiology, about the immune system, how our body works.

They don't even know how to grow a cell bottle.

But they know that if they cultivate good thoughts, good speeches, a correct action, they will get less sick and live in harmony, not only with the world around them, but with themselves.

And within this speech, it includes the first two steps in the path of yoga, which are the yamas and the niyamas.

The yamas is the way we relate to the world around us, the application of values, of virtues.

And the niyamas is how you relate to yourself, and with your inner world.

And people were standing there, looking, and I said, because I come from the world of microbiology, and you know everything, or almost everything, about cells.

You know that to keep a bottle of living cells, you need to put the right culture medium, with the right amount of cattle fetal serum, in the right stove, with or without the presence of CO2, and you forget that you are a bottle of cells.

And you eat poorly, you sleep poorly, you live stressed.

So there's a big difference between knowledge, understanding, and transforming all of this into wisdom.

So I think self-knowledge comes in there, regardless of the area you are in, be it in the academic world, be it in the business world, you need this self-knowledge.

You need to understand that everyone there should be working for the well-being of everyone, for the well-being of the organization.

And when you look at microbiology, when you look at a book called The Cell, which is the bible of microbiology, and in the chapter on cancer, it says, all the cells in your body were born, they work for the well-being of everyone, so that we have a healthy organism.

And there are social controls in there, to maintain this order, but the cells divide within this control, they feed within this control, and when a single cell changes its behavior, it acquires the behavior of a free life cell, which is the case of a bacteria, it becomes an egoistic cell, or a cancer cell.

And then, of course, in my head, as a yoga teacher, when I read that, I said, let's put this in society, looking at each individual as a cell within a great living organism, which is the planet Earth, what kind of behavior are we expressing?

Is it the behavior of a cell that cares about the well-being of everyone, or a free life cell, with a bacteria, which will end up destroying everything?

And this is all the time in my head, Mauricio, I'm always thinking about the micro, so, if yoga says that the goal is union, and people think a lot about the planets, the stars, I like to imagine looking inside us, what is a healthy organism?

It's when all the cells in my body work for the well-being of everyone.

And it should be like this also in companies, everyone working for the well-being of everyone.

Not people having inside the companies a free life cell behavior, being extremely selfish, often aggressive, and destroying, undermining these internal relationships within the companies.

This reminds me a lot of a management practice that was idealized by Dr. Eliahu Goldratt, who has passed away, he had a PhD in physics, but he was a person who developed the principle of management based on the theory of restrictions, with the acronym TOC.

He is Israeli, the headquarters of Goldratt Consulting is based in Tel Aviv, but it has a presence all over the world, including in Brazil.

And Dr. Eliahu Goldratt, in his premise, has one of the principles, which is management attention, which is management attention.

And within management attention, within this field of management and leadership, he has a principle that we must always observe the global maximum, and not the local maximum, which is the analogy I make to what you just said.

What does that mean?

That it is no use in a company an area being extremely developed, fast, efficient, if in a process that follows that activity there is a failure, an anomaly.

The global result of this company will be related to that anomaly, always on the weaker side of the chain.

So the local maximum, it has no relevance, which in a way we often give, even on a large scale, than the global maximum, which is exactly what you said, in another way, I directly remembered this relationship with the theory of restrictions.

I really like this micro universe, I am in love with microbiology, I didn't follow it because soon after, I was going to enter this second part, soon after finishing my master's degree, a few months later, I discovered breast cancer, which was also a watershed in my path.

But when you start cultivating the cells, and you start observing their growth, and it's amazing that when you need to expand a cell culture to be able to do an experiment, to be able to do something in the lab, that you need with those cells, you release an enzyme that releases the junctions between them, which is trypsin, the name of this enzyme, and then you take an amount of cells and pass it to another bottle, and they will adhere to the material, to the substrate of the bottle, and they will grow.

But when you put a little, you make a wrong calculation, and after a while in the lab, you stop doing this right calculation, you go by the eye, and many times we make mistakes.

When you put a few cells in a bottle, that is, when they can't connect with each other, they die.

They have the ability to divide, but they need a minimum amount of cells in that bottle, for that culture to really move forward.

And, of course, I was making connections with that.

I said, guys, that's it.

On a cellular level, we were born to connect with each other.

So, why not connect with each other in a more positive way, in a healthier way?

And that's what I see nowadays, from my experience as an oncological patient.

I discovered cancer at 41 years old, I was opening up my space.

It's not even a yoga studio, I say it's more like a yoga office, because it has accessibility in the doors, in the bathrooms, because I work with people with low mobility, people with rheumatoid arthritis issues, and other diseases related to the body that bring low mobility or difficulty, and need these supports in the room.

And when I discovered cancer, I was setting up this room, and I thought, what now?

What am I going to do with this?

How am I going to take care of myself, and at the same time, take care of this work, and set up this project, make this dream come true?

And it was all together and mixed together, Mauricio.

I did a chemotherapy, I went to the work, I went with the architect, I chose the clothing, I did the things, and that also gave me a sense of purpose.

A sense of, besides the children, who were very young when I discovered breast cancer, the wonderful marriage, because sometimes your life is in chaos, when a disease comes, but my life was wonderful when the disease came.

So, on the one hand, I also had all the family support to be able to go through this.

And once again, thinking about the collective, the whole, which is how I think nowadays, when I received the cancer diagnosis, I received a Buddhist teaching from my lama that I follow, who I consider my teacher, which is Lama Tsering, who lives here in São Paulo, Brazil.

And she even has several podcasts, teachings that she makes available.

And she said, when we get sick, we have a wonderful opportunity to put ourselves in the other's shoes.

Because now we know how the other feels, and what we're going to do to help the other.

So, it's not about us anymore.

But the illness can be exchanged for anything else in our life.

So, if you lose your job, or if you are humiliated at work, or if you are rejected at work, or if you are in debt at the company, anything, you know how the other feels.

And what you're going to do to help the other.

So, this becomes a collective intelligence, you know?

So, we start to learn collectively, with people's mistakes and mistakes, not keeping that as your experience, that only you can grow, or only you have that knowledge about that experience you went through.

So, I think it's wonderful when people can exchange openly.

And my story has become a bit like that.

Today, I openly share everything I've been through.

And what caught people's attention the most, I think, were the self-care practices, which you already mentioned.

So, the importance of self-care is fundamental.

And today, more and more, you start to observe, and several executives today, launching books, talking about their self-care practices, how much they practice sports, how much they meditate, how much they eat in a healthy way, that idea of the sedentary executive, with several health problems, I think this is decreasing more and more.

So, you know you improve your performance if you eat better, if you sleep well, if you meditate, if you do things that promote pleasure.

In this moment of leisure, you are more creative.

So, I think all of this is self-care.

Certainly.

And in moments of crisis, whether in the personal or even professional sphere, it is common to direct our attention to external factors, such as an attempt to escape reality, or by attributing the causes of the problems to an external environment.

Therefore, what specific meditation or yoga practice would you recommend to preserve internal balance and facilitate clear decision-making under pressure, and that can help people, whether or not they are in a critical situation like the one you experienced, of such a serious illness?

So, speaking in the context, especially of cancer, even when someone receives a cancer diagnosis, they tend to blame the external factors as well.

The stress of work, the husband, an abusive relationship, the agrotoxics, in short, cancer is multifactorial, actually.

It can be genetic, the percentage is very low, but the vast majority comes from external factors, and how your body deals with it, because it is not only the external factors, but how your body deals with those aggressions they suffer daily through food, stress, whatever.

So, I think it is very important for us to look inside.

So, when I received the diagnosis, I asked myself, how did this internal disorder occur in my body?

I cut out some words.

So, war, struggle, battle, all this energy I wanted to take away from me.

I said, no, they are all my cells.

There is even a sentence I said once in an interview, and then it was in a book, which said, just as a mother loves all her children regardless of their behavior, I love all my cells regardless of their behavior.

So, and I really love it.

So, this is what I did during all my self-care process, all the practices I did to recover my body, mainly to strengthen my body for the next cycle of chemotherapy, because there were 16 cycles, 6 months of chemotherapy.

It is a lot of chemo, it is a lot of detoxification for the body.

The treatment is very aggressive.

So, I needed to take care of myself.

The practice I did the most, and which today is, let's say, the flagship of cancer institutes around the world, is the restorative yoga practice, which today we call restorative practices, because we don't have only yoga within this practice that we offer.

We have a lot of visualization practice, meditation, breathing.

But going back to the essence, to the origin, when I got sick, and I needed to take care of myself, the tool I had at that moment was the restorative yoga practice, which is a yoga practice where your body remains permanently in the postures, in a comfortable and safe way.

So, you use some pillows, pillows, blocks, blankets.

So, you give support to your body, and you leave your body, and you induce the relaxation of your body.

In the inspiration, you feel where your body is supported.

In the exhalation, you release your body in the direction of the supports.

And when you do that, you start to loosen, not only your joints, but also your internal pressures.

And you end up creating a space inside yourself, first to welcome yourself and to practice self-compassion.

And then, for you to be able to find your internal resources, to be able to deal.

Because the truth is that we know, there are so many books of help saying that the answer is inside of us, and it really is.

But we don't stop to listen.

And many times, we also don't want that answer that is there.

Years later, we will understand that maybe that was the best answer, maybe we weren't ready to look.

And looking inside generates discomfort, generates pain.

Because we become responsible for starting this process of change.

Because you became aware of something that you need to change inside of you.

So, the practice of restorative yoga, without a doubt, is fundamental.

It's a practice that helps a lot to improve your sleep quality, your fatigue.

And I know that executives, in a moment of stress, are extremely exhausted, and they need to rest.

Sleep is something that people are starting to talk about more, and started even more during the pandemic, because it seems that the sleep of the entire world population got worse.

In the pandemic, I offered 100 days in a row of yoga and meditation practices through the Institute's channels.

And at the end of the first month of the pandemic, people were saying that they weren't being able to sleep.

And I put a class every Monday, a class given in people's beds.

So, they signed up, and I turned on the computer in my bed, and people opened their cameras, and they were in their beds, people from all over Brazil, and outside of Brazil, that I didn't know.

Many were wearing pajamas, so they opened, said good night, and closed the camera.

And I wrote a script for this trip, which is our sleep.

We don't prepare for a trip.

If I go to São Paulo today, from Rio to São Paulo, six hours by car, I won't prepare for this trip, so I have to prepare so well to be able to sleep eight hours.

So, take a shower, relax, adjust the light, put on a nice scent, don't drink a lot of water, so I don't have to stop in the middle of the way when I go to São Paulo.

You don't want to drink a lot of water either.

Drink during the day.

So, I sent instructions to prepare that person for this greatest self-care practice, which is sleep.

And I guided this relaxation by doing small movements to be able to loosen the joints.

The person lay down on the bed, and I guided the relaxation.

After a while, I turned it off, the camera went off, and the feedback, Mauricio, was incredible.

Look, I slept without taking my medicine.

I woke up an hour later, drank a little water, and went back to sleep.

I heard the time you left, but I couldn't move, and I woke up only the next day.

So, self-care is everything we can do to take care of our physical and mental integrity.

And also, I think the leaders in companies, they also...

I think the biggest leadership is by example.

I'll give you two examples of where I work.

I work in hospitals today, where I offer well-being practices to patients, supporters, and health professionals.

The hospital where we implemented these practices, based on volunteering, on the organization of volunteering within this hospital, didn't get to where it has to get.

In the hospital where I sat down to talk with the hospital manager, talking about the importance of this, the support was total.

Because the person knows that the management is stimulating them to do those relaxation practices within the hospital environment.

While in the other, if the manager is not involved, and if he didn't set an example, if he doesn't validate that, it won't help anything, because people won't adhere either.

So, this is super important, the self-care practices.

So, the restorative practice is a practice that I recommend for those who have the opportunity to do it.

And the full attention practice, which today is so widespread, which is Mindfulness.

There are many teachers, there are many videos, there are many guidelines, but it doesn't have to be anything too long, it doesn't have to be a Vipassana retreat of a week in silence.

They are small doses that you put throughout your day to observe your breathing, to adjust your breathing, your rhythm.

Because, many times, the acceleration follows your mental rhythm, and it doesn't have to, right?

It can go back to the rhythm here, of our dimension.

So, breathe slowly, feel the air coming in, feel the air coming out.

So, recapping, the restorative yoga practice, the full attention practice, and the breathing exercises that calm, not that stimulate.

I think they are fundamental for the health and well-being of people inside or outside an organization.

You touched on a crucial point, I think, in the moment in which our generation of humanity lives, which is the conflict of attention due to the massification of information that we have.

And not only that, I would say that a very large volume of information that disturbs us, in all senses.

It can be for someone who is fond of sports, and his team doesn't win, so he is disturbed by being suffering by defeat, or by politics, or by corruption, or by war, or by natural disasters.

We never had so much information available in the history of humanity as we do today.

And it is not uncommon to go to bed with your cell phone in hand and watch the news or update yourself in bed.

Exactly before the act of sleeping, which would be the antidote for those who don't want to sleep, I think it is precisely to dedicate yourself to this type of activity.

But how can we rescue more attention and slow down the rhythm, which also impacts on the impulsiveness of our day-to-day journey?

Look, I'm going to talk a little bit about my experience.

I just set up a refuge for myself.

Refuge is a word that comes from Buddhism too.

I set up a refuge in Araras, which is the Serrano region of Rio de Janeiro.

It was my dream since...

I've always wanted to have a refuge.

The moment I finished high school and went to university, I already wanted to live in the middle of nowhere.

But then I married my husband, and life went on.

We had two children, we stayed here in the city, and after cancer, I had this need to be more in touch with nature.

So I think the first thing is that whenever we have the opportunity, we go to nature.

Observe nature more, observe the rhythm of nature, observe the seasons, contemplate...

Every time I walk in the woods, I walk in parks, I always get down to pick up seeds.

I always think a seed is an incredible thing.

Imagine that all the potential to transform into that tree is inside that seed.

And so we are too, with all this potential that we have.

And many times we don't have the right soil, the right conditions to be able to let this potential come to us.

I think that the human being needs to go back to this view of caring for nature.

I think a little about ZENcancer, for example, which is my platform today, it's my purpose in life.

Today we can say that it's already a global organization, because we have volunteers in Holland, we have volunteers, we have participants in the Czech Republic, in Canada, in the United States, in Portugal.

In Portugal we have a ZENcancer foundation, we have a ZENcancer foundation in Brazil, and today we have a network of volunteers and participants who are in this search to become healthier human beings from cancer treatment.

So what ZENcancer does is promote health.

Our vision is to promote well-being to all people affected by cancer.

This means patients, family members, and also health professionals.

And all the practices we offer in the institute are self-knowledge practices, are self-care practices, and the person creates a space for it, for it to be able to be again.

There's an expression that's really cool, human doing and human being.

So we have to be less human doing, of doing, and we have to be more.

And it's a little bit like that.

And the truth, Maurício, is that when it comes to the end of our lives, and it's going to come to everyone, we don't know when, if it's going to be a collective outcome, or if it's going to be individual, it's that we're going to remember, at that moment, the simplest things.

The simplest things.

It's not going to be what we've been chasing all our lives to be able to have.

I remember when a person close to me was dying, and we wanted to make a tribute to her.

What do you want?

Anything.

She wasn't eating anymore, and we wanted to take something for her to eat, that could give her a pleasure at that moment.

And she said, I really wanted to eat a chicken thigh, and a guaravita.

And I kept thinking, of course we got the chicken thigh, fried right away for her.

The thigh is a snack here in Brazil.

You'll know, right?

It's Brazilian, I'm speaking in Portuguese.

And the guaravita, which is this sweetened drink, based on guaraná.

And we were able to take this to her.

But this makes me think that, at the end of it all, she had so much academic recognition, so many post-docs in life, so many things, and at the time of leaving, the last thing she wanted to savor was a chicken thigh and a guaravita.

So, this makes me think that, it's not the things, it wasn't that champagne, that wine, that food, that seasoning.

It's your day-to-day, really.

So, if it's our day-to-day, why not put more value in our day-to-day?

Why not live more present with the people who really nourish us, and also nourish people's lives?

Be a light in these people's lives.

Being more present, I think, is fundamental in the lives of our children, in the lives of our partners, because, many times, we're there, but we're not.

Everyone has their cell phone.

So, having time together, I think everyone needs it.

And studies are showing this more and more.

Not only the performance in companies, it increases when people are happier.

Companies are more concerned about the well-being and happiness of their employees, too.

There are, nowadays, startups focused on developing projects of happiness for companies.

But it has to be genuine.

It has to be genuine.

It doesn't have to be just to increase productivity.

It's because working alongside happy people is really cool.

Working close to a happy person is really cool.

That has to be the goal.

And the purpose, too, of doing what you do.

I think, nowadays, especially after the pandemic, many people are moving from areas because they don't see a purpose in what they do.

So, you have to have a purpose.

You have to see that it will generate a benefit for someone.

And do it with that pure motivation.

I think the advent of the pandemic provoked introspection and reflection.

Because of being away from work for a long period of time, or even working from home, in short, it provoked in people more reflection about the whole journey of life.

And this certainly has a lot of impact on decisions.

Luciana, you must have many inspiring stories of transformation that come from the Institute.

Could you share one that illustrates the strength of this integration to overcome adversities?

And how a similar approach can be valuable in the development of leaders and even in the business culture?

Look, there are so many stories that we hear about Zencâncer, so many feedbacks that we receive from our participants, no doubt.

Many people say that, in fact, there is a life before Zencâncer and a life after Zencâncer.

Some people tell us that they wanted to have found Zencâncer so much.

One year ago, my treatment would have been totally different.

But there is a story that I don't know if it will apply exactly within the concept of companies, but I recently cut my hair.

My hair was on my waist.

I started to let my hair grow.

I became bald, totally bald.

And my hair started to grow very curly, it started to get heavy.

And during the pandemic, it was at this height.

After the pandemic, I stopped cutting my hair.

I cut it last week.

My hair was a big business card when I went to hospitals to talk to people.

Because it was more palpable the idea of impermanence.

You are bald for a while, but your hair will grow.

And it may seem silly, not because of the hair and the aesthetics, but because you went through that stage of chemotherapy.

One day, I was inside the hospital, with my hair almost on my waist, and a mother came with her son who was no longer a teenager, he was 18 years old, so he couldn't have any more companions.

But the doctor called this mother to the hospital, this is a public hospital here in Rio de Janeiro, because he wanted to give up the treatment.

Because he was away from his family, away from his friends.

He was still a teenager.

He entered the adult phase.

But he still had this issue.

He wasn't ready to be alone in the hospital doing treatment, so he wanted to give up the treatment.

He didn't believe that he would have a cure for what he was going through.

I was talking to one of the volunteers, and by chance I had my book in my hand, and the picture of the book, the cover, was me bald.

And when the mother looked at that picture, saw a bald person, she looked at me and said, and I put the book aside, to see if there was any resemblance, she looked at her son, I didn't know what was going on, but she looked at him and said, are you seeing this?

And you here, wanting to give up the treatment, look here, Jesus is showing you, here is the cure in front of you.

She's an evangelical.

She's seeing here the proof that it's possible to be cured of cancer.

And he was completely out of the air, he was disconnected.

And when I listened to him, he turned to me and said, is it really you?

And I said, yes, it's me.

And he said, can I take a picture with you?

And I said, of course you can.

And he took the picture, and I exchanged some ideas with him, I talked about my treatment, and I was at home.

And then you leave the hospital as if nothing had happened.

And then he posted and called me, he called the institute, and at that moment, at that meeting, he had decided that he was going to do his treatment, because he believed it was possible to be cured as well.

This doesn't fit exactly with what you asked me, but this is one of the examples that most struck me, because it's our example, it's our example all the time.

People look at us and often look for something that we don't even know we're giving.

So I think that's it.

I think that everyone forgets the concept of the company, that thing of...

But I mean, of the human beings that are in there.

Today, I'm coordinating a field project within the FGV of Direito do Rio, called Let's Talk About Cancer in Companies.

So the students are developing questionnaires and forms to interview the R.H.s of the companies, to understand what they do when a collaborator says he or she has cancer in the company, or when he or she is a relative of an oncological patient, if there is any welcome policy.

I don't want to know about Brazilian laws, because Brazilian laws, companies are forced to comply, but because people are afraid to talk.

It's not just about cancer, they're afraid to talk about their problems.

So we should start worrying about having a more welcoming environment within the corporate environment, to make it easier for everyone.

Yes.

How the example impacts, for good and for bad.

The example...

For good and for bad, all the time.

The negative example brings negative consequences on other people, and the positive, what you said, what you experienced, was transformative for this boy.

Yes, and like this one, as a child, I have a lot inside the hospital.

So, just by entering the hospital, when I leave, I think, we can't be out here complaining.

Let's stop complaining.

It's because people can't come in to visit the hospital, there has to be a project, a purpose to enter the hospital, but when I leave, I leave much better than I came in.

I leave with a deep feeling of gratitude, to be in this place, to be able to take a word, a relaxation, to be there, in some way, welcoming, developing empathy with these people, making the process a little lighter.

Everyone should do a little bit of this.

Everyone who sits next to someone, realizes that someone is not cool at work, should try to turn that person's day into a lighter day too, right?

Yes, certainly.

I have a family experience that I experienced several years ago, my sister, she had cancer from 22 to 35 years old, and went through 5 surgeries, 5 chemotherapy treatments, in a sequence, throughout that time.

And then, at 35, when she was in a very delicate situation, in the hospital, with one side of the body paralyzed, it was close to Christmas, her birthday would be on December 15th, and I took a Christmas tree and set up this Christmas tree in her room, Christmas balls and everything else.

And since this was, I don't know, December 10th, she got angry with me, because she said, but you expect me to stay here until the 25th, I'm going home earlier.

Such was her will to live, and to want to be at home.

So I comforted her when I said, well, let's do this, the basement floor was the PUC hospital in Porto Alegre, it's exclusively for children.

So we gave the tree to the children the day you left.

Three days later, she passed away.

So, as the will, she always had a very strong will to live, to do her things, a little girl, nine years old at the time.

And how this impacts, and I never forgot this example of the Christmas tree, which for her symbolized more days than she thought she was there.

And in fact, she went to God's house, with God, three days later.

Starting the ZENcancer Institute was not just an act of volunteering, but also a demonstration of leadership and entrepreneurial vision.

Likewise, in the business world, entrepreneurs are challenged to lead with a purpose, overcoming obstacles and making a significant impact on society.

How did you identify your mission and what tips would you give to entrepreneurs in their search for their purpose?

Perhaps adverse situations provoke us more to identify them.

I'm still digesting your sister's story.

Thank you for sharing.

There are so many stories inside the hospital.

If you allow me to tell just one.

I'm writing my second book now, which is The Chest of Giselle, which was created in an extension discipline called Let's Talk About Cancer.

We created this booklet called The Chest of Grandma, and now I'm writing The Chest of Giselle, which is Giselle, five years later, returning to do her routine exams and wanting to help other children in the hospital.

I had the idea of writing this book while I was in the hospital environment with the children.

I was in the infirmary, inviting the mothers to go out and breathe a little bit, because they need to feed themselves, they need to renew themselves to be able to come back.

I had a mother who had been in the hospital with her daughter for four years.

When I was taking the mothers out to be able to breathe, I said, Mom, let's do a breathing practice.

Mom, I'm so tired.

I want to go.

I want to learn how to relax.

And she wanted, wanted, wanted, but the mother didn't want to.

And the mother said, My daughter is doing chemotherapy.

She said, No, Mom, I'm in the chest already.

The chemo is over.

A degree of maturity for her to know which is the bag that is the chemo and which is the bag that is the chest.

And I said, How can I help these people?

The book, just out of curiosity, is Giselle narrating to the children a relaxation practice, which is not just a bed for the daughter.

In fact, she's inducing a relaxation for her daughter by reading the book.

So close your eyes.

And the mother or the companion will be able to guide this relaxation.

ZENcancer was born a lot from this teaching that I received of thinking about other people.

Because I come from a very privileged place, of having a health plan, of being able to have chosen my doctors to do my treatment, to have a stable family relationship. 70% of women are abandoned by their husbands, companions, or marriage.

It's from the discovery of cancer, sometimes in up to 5 years.

So, I had everything, you know?

The feeling I had was that the universe said, Look, there's no way to avoid you from going through this.

But you will go through it in the best way possible.

And that's how I felt, that I was going through it in the best way possible.

So, it's a little voice, like this, and the other people, and the other people, and the other people.

So, it started with a genuine desire to share what made me feel good with the other people.

I opened my space to receive the people in my space, giving them what I knew how to give to myself.

But then, for example, other volunteers were coming, the Reikians were coming, the homeopaths, the people from the integrative and complementary practices were coming, the masotherapists were coming.

Everyone wanted to offer something in what was a project, a very personal project of mine.

In 7 months, we understood that there was a huge growth, that I needed to create an institute, and I didn't want to take my name, because I didn't want it to be associated only, that it was something bigger than...

We are a grain of sand inside this little dust in the space, so we don't have to fixate my name, we don't have to change it, we don't have to change the name, we don't have to change the purpose, we don't have to change the objective, which is to promote well-being to all people affected by cancer.

And it started to grow, but it was still very limited locally, I had no idea how it would grow as well.

I remember that once Lama said to me, it's such a beautiful job you do, but it's so small, your room, because it only fits 10 people.

And I said, I don't know, I don't know how it's going to grow, but it's a very big job, and I'm going to do it.

I think it's pure motivation for him to do what he does and how he does it.

And to have the determination to move forward, even when he thinks it's not going to work out.

I speak for my institute, because the first time I went to give a practice, a single participant showed up.

So today, when the volunteers are going to give a class, and they open the room, and there's only one participant, I say, don't give up.

There are 650 people, and it all starts with a single person being able to do this practice.

So I think you have to have the determination to move forward, to trust, to believe that it's going to work out.

And it's pure motivation, because it has a purpose, right?

To do what we do.

What differentiates dreamers from doers?

Look, since I'm a dreamer who does it, it's hard for you to ask me this question, right?

Even in my book, I said that everything I dream, I think I can achieve.

Because if I couldn't achieve it, my mind wouldn't even make that connection.

I think the dreamer, if he stays only in the field of ideas, of the dream, you have to take action, right?

You have to believe in what you dreamed, and you have to manifest it in some way.

I think everything starts with a dream in our inner world.

First, we visualize what we want.

And then we manifest it in the external world.

So, the ability to visualize is very much of the human being.

So, we need...

And the focus.

Everything I manifest, whether it's a house, a decoration, everything, I spend hours visualizing what's happening inside me, putting details and shapes until it manifests.

And the last one, what is design?

For me, it's beauty, right?

I love this profession.

You have a need and you create a solution.

When we think of design, look at the design of that, right?

I always think of beauty, the lines, the strokes, a creative solution, but always with beauty associated.

Very well.

I remembered, at that moment, Roberto Palmeira.

You are a member of the Institute, right?

Yes, yes.

A dear friend.

And I have a relationship with what he does with design, which is the following.

I think he draws dreams for people.

And he and all the volunteers, like you and so many others.

They are significant dreams.

And it's very funny because Roberto, I participated in so many workshops with him, so many, and I said, my God, but what is my dream?

Because I have the ability to materialize all my...

What are my dreams?

And he made me reconnect with two dreams that I had lost in life.

One is the horses, because I'm in love with horses.

So, from this workshop I did with Roberto, it did me a great favor to have this relationship again.

I don't have a horse, but I go to areas that have horses.

I need to be in contact with them.

And the other one, today, is having a house in the middle of the woods, also, because I had left this dream aside.

I recently realized this dream and every time I get there, I thank him.

Because this is also important, isn't it, Maurício?

Sometimes we have a dream that we realize and we forget.

And we forget to thank.

We need to be more grateful for each dream that we have already realized.

Yes, and for the people who don't know Roberto Palmeira, he is the idealizer of the Rope Institute.

And we have a beautiful episode at Podbrand.

Visit the website podbrand.design and there you will find this wonderful conversation with Roberto Palmeira.

So, we arrived at one of our most researched sessions on our website, which is the reading indication.

Which books impacted your trajectory?

The only book that I don't have here to tell you, is the book by Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief.

But you can put it there later.

It was this book that made me want to do a master's degree in microbiology, to have a little more of this knowledge, to dive into our cells.

It was from this book.

So, The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton.

I, Maurício, nowadays I read, basically, spiritual books.

I don't read a lot of technical books.

So, from my teacher's book, there is one that I love a lot, which is To Open the Heart.

This is it.

Oops!

Wait, I'm going to open the screen.

You can show the book.

Perfect.

Then I'll pass it to you.

So, it's a book for those who practice Buddhism.

But even for those who are not Buddhists, there are precious teachings here for life.

Ok?

It's the Shagdú Tuko.

Here it is.

Then I'll pass it to you.

All the books by Pema Chodron, too, who is a Buddhist nun.

So, all her books are wonderful, and I like them a lot.

And my book, too.

I think it's cool, where I tell my whole story with a lot of sincerity, a lot of truth.

I open my heart, I talk about my insecurities, my weaknesses, but at the same time, from these insecurities and weaknesses, a force arises, which drives me to this day, to do what I do, to go to Portugal, to inspire people, to involve people as volunteers, to participate as oncological patients, so we can establish this network of lovingness and welcome that can cover the whole planet.

You mentioned in the title of your book that people are listening through Apple and Spotify.

Yes.

What I learned with my rebel cells.

Very well.

Very good.

Excellent tip, and to make it easier for everyone to access, we made available the links of these books directly in the description.

In addition, I invite you to explore the book section on the website podbrand.design, where we gather 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, Luciano, I still have the question from Ciro Rocha, who was our guest in the previous episode.

Ciro is a creator and CEO of Enredo Brand Innovation.

And his question was, if you could choose any person in the world to live one day of her life, which person would it be?

So, in a very humble way, not comparing myself to her in any way, but a person who is undoubtedly an inspiration for the work she did for our humanity, Mother Teresa de Calcutá, I always say that she didn't need a business plan, or a strategic management plan, she simply went to the streets to gather people, so they could have a more worthy death.

And she was leading by example.

And I remember in the movie, if it's real or not, I don't know, when she arrives in New York to have a meeting with the board of the organization that was created by her, and they serve her a cup of water, and she asks, how much did this water bottle cost?

And someone says, nothing, two dollars, three dollars, I don't remember the value in the movie.

And she says, do you know how many families we can feed in India with two, three dollars, with that little bottle?

How much of the purpose was lost when she comes back to India?

So, I think she is an example, a person who lived in simplicity, and also died in simplicity in her life.

At a time when there were no social networks, Instagram, Facebook, none of that.

A leadership by example.

Excellent.

And finally, if you could ask a single question to our next guest, regardless of who it is, what would it be?

The question my husband asked me when I made a career transition.

What moves you?

Very well.

It requires introspection.

And I answered, what moves me is helping people.

Before I had cancer, before I founded ZENcancer, back then, in 2000, and before I had my children, it was in 2006 that he asked that question, what moves you?

Very well.

Luciana, what a delight to listen to you.

Thank you very much for sharing your story with us.

It's a story of overcoming, a positive impact, a great inspiration for all of us.

I deeply thank you for participating with us.

Thank you.

And I hope ZENcancer expands all over the world, based on the example you are bringing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Maurício, thank you for the invitation.

See you soon.

See you soon.

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