Since founding SEDA, one of the things that inspires me most is observing how people deal with their own limitations.

Over the years, I’ve seen students arrive in Ireland with a wide variety of challenges: the fear of not adapting, lack of language skills, financial difficulties, homesickness.

Some gave up along the way, but many others—perhaps the majority—found a turning point in their difficulties.

And it was by interacting with them that I learned something that no management book teaches: obstacles are not the end of the journey, they are the beginning of a new way of seeing the world.

In the beginning, the difference between those who move forward and those who give up seems subtle. Everyone faces fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion.

But there is something special about those who decide to transform pain into learning.

These students don’t deny the difficulties—they give them new meaning. They learn to laugh at their own mistakes, to seek help, to try again.

And, little by little, they realize that learning goes far beyond grammar or pronunciation: it’s about developing resilience, empathy, and self-confidence.

I remember a student who arrived here without speaking a word of English and, in a few months, began giving lectures to other students.

What transformed him was not the method or the ease with the language, but the attitude.

He faced each mistake as a step and each obstacle as an opportunity to become better.

This attitude is what defines true learning — inside and outside the classroom.

Over time, I realized that this mindset is also what sustains any entrepreneur or leader. It’s easy to keep going when everything flows, but true growth happens when we are challenged.

The students who have most impacted me are precisely those who reached their limit and, even so, found the strength to continue.

They remind me every day that education is much more than transmitting knowledge: it’s teaching people to believe in themselves again.

Today, when I see a student graduate, I know that the diploma represents only part of the story. The true value lies in the times they thought about giving up and chose to continue.

That’s where the transformation resides.

I deeply believe that every obstacle brings with it an opportunity—but only those who have the courage to look with humility and persistence are able to see it.

Observing these stories reminds me why I started SEDA: to create an environment where people not only learn English, but learn to start over.

Because, in the end, that’s what life demands of all of us—the ability to transform difficulties into fuel to move forward, with more purpose, maturity, and faith in what is yet to come.

I still remember the day I decided to leave Brazil. It wasn’t an easy decision, nor was it precisely planned. It was one of those moments when life holds you up to a mirror and asks: is this really what you want?

At the time, I worked in accounting, I had stability, but I felt something essential was missing—a purpose, a broader horizon, a sense of real growth.

I wanted more than a job; I wanted to build a story that had meaning.

And, as daunting as it seemed, this calling led me to an unlikely destination: Dublin, Ireland.

I arrived with limited English, few resources, and many uncertainties. At first, nothing seemed to fit. I had a solid education, but it wasn’t worth much in a place where I could barely express myself.

That’s how I started from scratch—literally. My first job was as a waiter in a restaurant. It was exhausting and, for my ego, disconcerting.

I came from an environment where I was professionally recognized, and suddenly I found myself cleaning tables and trying to understand orders with accents that seemed indecipherable.

But it was in this contrast that I began to understand the value of humility and reinvention.

Working as a waiter taught me something that no spreadsheet or accounting report had taught me: the importance of listening, observing, and connecting with people.

Each customer was a new English lesson, each shift an exercise in resilience. And it was in this simple daily routine that I realized what truly drives human beings—the desire to grow, to learn, and to adapt.

Little by little, I began to feel that this new beginning, however difficult it might be, was preparing me for something bigger.

Entrepreneurship entered my life almost as a natural consequence of this process.

I saw so many Brazilian students arriving in Ireland with the same difficulties I had faced: the language barrier, the culture shock, the fear of the unknown.

That’s when an idea began to take shape — to create a school that was more than just an English course, one that would welcome, guide, and help people rebuild their lives in another country. This idea became SEDA College.

SEDA was born small, with limited resources and many challenges, but with a clear mission: to transform education into real opportunity.

Today, looking back, I realize that it all started on the day I decided to leave Brazil without knowing exactly what I would find. Each obstacle, each new beginning, and each shift spent working in silence were part of a larger learning process.

Starting over is an act of courage, but also of faith — faith in oneself and in the purpose that does not yet exist, but which reveals itself along the way.

Ireland taught me that life does not reward those who have all the answers, but rather those who are willing to learn as they go along.

And that’s what I continue trying to do to this day: move forward, one day at a time, learning, making mistakes, reinventing myself, and always remembering that sometimes you need to get completely lost in order to finally find yourself.

Since founding SEDA, I have witnessed thousands of students arriving in Ireland with a mix of excitement and uncertainty. Many arrived full of dreams, but also with the apprehensive look of someone who had just left everything behind.

There was the fear of loneliness, the apprehension of the language, the insecurity of not knowing if they would be able to cope. This fear is legitimate — and, in fact, it is the starting point of almost all the stories that truly transform.

Over time, I learned that what differentiates those who succeed is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to persevere even with it.

Fear, contrary to what we usually think, is not the enemy of courage.

It is part of it. The first day of class, the first conversation in English, the first “no” in a job interview — each of these experiences challenges self-confidence and confronts the student with their own limitations.

But it is also there that the deepest learning is born. Education, when experienced far from home, ceases to be solely about content and becomes about identity.

Learning a language in another country is, above all, a process of personal reconstruction: it’s about relearning how to make mistakes, how to ask for help, how to communicate in a vulnerable way.

And it is precisely in this discomfort that confidence begins to be built.

In every SEDA classroom, there is always someone who starts in silence. At first, shyness dominates, and fear seems like an insurmountable wall.

But, little by little, this same student begins to take risks: asks questions, participates, tries out their first sentences, allows themselves to laugh at their own mistakes.

And, almost without realizing it, transforms fear into movement. This is the turning point that inspires me the most: seeing courage born from everyday life, in small decisions that seem simple but require immense inner strength.

With each step, fear loses ground, and self-confidence flourishes.

These students taught me something that I also carry with me in life as an entrepreneur: confidence doesn’t come before the action, it comes during the process. Those who wait to feel ready never begin. Learning—whether in a language, at work, or in business—happens as we move.

Fear, when understood and confronted, ceases to be an obstacle and becomes fuel. It is what keeps us alert, aware, and, paradoxically, alive.

Seeing a student who arrived insecure speak in English before an audience months later is one of the greatest rewards of my work.

It is proof that fear, when faced with purpose, transforms into power.

Each story like this reinforces my belief that education is much more than mastering a language—it is a path of self-knowledge and overcoming challenges.

And, in the end, that’s what we all seek: the courage to continue, even when we are still trembling inside.

We live in an era that celebrates success in real time. Social media has transformed achievements into showcases and results into validation metrics.

But the more I observe this movement, the more I realize how lost people feel inside—even when they seem to be winning on the outside. Combining success and purpose is a challenge because it requires something that can’t be measured in numbers: self-knowledge.

Success is visible. It’s measured in revenue, growth, followers, and expansion. Purpose, on the other hand, is silent. It’s not displayed, it’s felt.

And that’s precisely why so many people get lost along the way: we spend our lives seeking external recognition without realizing that, often, true meaning lies in what no one sees.

The problem is that the corporate world, and even the universe of startups and global entrepreneurship, still values ​​speed more than direction. We want to grow, but we rarely stop to ask where to.

I’ve experienced this myself. In the beginning of SEDA, the focus was on building, growing, proving that it was possible to do things differently. And we succeeded.

But a moment came when I realized that success without purpose is like a beautiful building built on unstable ground.

You look from the outside and are impressed, but inside you feel that something is out of place. It was necessary to slow down to understand that growth wasn’t enough—it was necessary to grow with meaning.

Uniting success and purpose is difficult because the former speaks to the ego, and the latter speaks to the conscience. Success seeks visibility; purpose seeks meaning.

And finding balance between the two is a constant exercise in humility and inner listening.

It’s learning to say no to opportunities that seem good but aren’t aligned with who you are. It’s choosing the coherent path, even if it’s slower.

When a company, a professional, or a leader finds purpose, everything changes. Decisions become clearer, relationships become more genuine, and work becomes a natural extension of values, not just a source of results.

Purpose doesn’t eliminate success—it redefines it.

True success isn’t what impresses others, but what makes sense to you.

Ultimately, uniting success and purpose means understanding that achievement is only worthwhile if it comes with peace.

And this peace, contrary to what one might imagine, isn’t the end of the journey—it’s the sign that you’re finally on the right path.

For several years, I associated success with clarity: well-defined goals, detailed plans, predictable paths.

I believed that growing meant knowing exactly where to go. However, life — and especially entrepreneurship — showed me the opposite.

I discovered that true self-knowledge is born in the terrain of uncertainty, and that sometimes you need to get a little lost to truly find yourself.

When I left Brazil to live in Ireland, I carried with me a dream, but also a lot of certainties that would soon cease to make sense.

Arriving in a new country, with a different culture and language, was like landing in another me.

Suddenly, everything that defined me until then seemed distant: the codes, the references, the feeling of belonging.

That disconnect was uncomfortable, but essential.

Losing myself was the first step to understanding who I really was — and who I could still become.

There is a kind of wisdom that only emptiness offers. When we get lost, we are forced to silence automatic responses and revisit the questions we have avoided.

It is in this space of confusion that clarity begins to emerge. That’s how it was for me.

The certainties that sustained me needed to crumble so that new perspectives could arise.

I learned that there is no true reunion without first going through the experience of loss — and that, behind every disorientation, there is an invitation to mature.

SEDA was born from this journey. In the beginning, there was no foolproof plan, only the sincere desire to create opportunities for those who, like me, had left everything behind.

Between mistakes, adjustments, and restarts, I understood that the path of purpose is anything but linear.

It is made of doubts, pauses, and redirections.

But it was precisely in moments of confusion that I found the most authentic direction: to transform education into an instrument of real change.

Getting lost, I realized, is not failing. It’s about allowing yourself to fall apart in order to rebuild more consciously. It’s a painful process, but profoundly human.

Because, contrary to what we usually imagine, finding yourself isn’t about returning to the starting point—it’s about seeing what was left behind and, from that, choosing to move forward differently.

Today, I understand that the periods of disorientation were the most fertile of my journey. They taught me to value silence, patience, and the power to start over.

Getting lost was the price I paid to truly grow.

And, looking back now, I realize it was worth it—because it was in this process that I found something that no plan could give me: my own essence.

I started training Jiu-Jitsu after many years of entrepreneurship. I had already gone through crises, restarts, difficult decisions — but it was on the mat that I realized how much the sport reflects the life of someone who builds something from scratch.

Jiu-Jitsu didn’t teach me how to be an entrepreneur. It made me better understand what I was already experiencing every day.

On the mat, ego has no place. You can arrive full of titles, experiences, or achievements, but the first training session is enough to realize that everyone there is learning, everyone is exposed.

In entrepreneurship, it’s the same. The market doesn’t care who you were, only what you are capable of doing now.

And this awareness brings humility — the kind of humility that keeps you grounded even when everything starts to go right.

Jiu-Jitsu also taught me about rhythm. Not every fight is won with strength, and not every company grows in a hurry.

There are times for attack and times for defense. There are situations where retreating is the only way to find the right space to advance.

I learned to respect the timing of things, of people, of results, of maturity. And I realized that true mastery, both on the mat and in business, comes from calm amidst chaos.

Another lesson is about consistency. In Jiu-Jitsu, evolution doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of silent repetitions, of mistakes corrected little by little, of patience with the process itself.

Building a company is the same thing: success rarely comes from a single well-aimed strike, but from the discipline of those who show up every day, even when there’s no applause.

And finally, Jiu-Jitsu taught me something essential about leadership:

You only truly grow when you learn to use the strength of others in favor of building, not competing.

Solid companies are not sustained by constant competition, but by collaboration and mutual respect.

Today, I understand that the tatami mat is a perfect metaphor for entrepreneurship.

In both, victory lies not in dominating the opponent, but in dominating oneself — one’s emotions, impulses, and fears.

And when you learn to do that, you realize that building a company is, above all, a daily exercise in balance, discipline, and self-awareness.

Entrepreneurship is, by nature, a constant exercise in adaptation. But entrepreneurship outside your country is even more challenging: it puts your own identity, your own way of thinking, and even what you believed you mastered to the test.

After so many years living and building businesses in Ireland, I can say that entrepreneurship outside of Brazil means reinventing yourself every day.

The first reinvention happens internally. You arrive with plans, ideas, and expectations, but you quickly realize that the game is different.

The culture is different, the market operates with different logics, and people have different values. What was a benchmark in Brazil may be just a detail in another country.

And it is in this cultural clash that growth is born—not technical growth, but human growth. You learn that leading, negotiating, or teaching depends, above all, on understanding the other person.

In the beginning, I tried to replicate the formulas I already knew.

But I discovered that what works in one place doesn’t always fit in another.

It was necessary to listen more, observe more, and, above all, learn to make mistakes with humility.

The daily reinvention lies precisely in this: adjusting what you know without losing who you are. Being firm enough to maintain principles and flexible enough to change methods.

Every day outside of Brazil, the entrepreneur needs to relearn how to communicate — with the language, with the market, and with people. English, in my case, was just the beginning.

True communication comes from empathy: understanding how each culture deals with time, trust, hierarchy, and emotion.

Entrepreneurship abroad is a living MBA in human behavior.

But there is a gain that compensates for everything: the expansion of consciousness.

You begin to see the world with more nuance, more respect, and more patience.

You learn that success is not just about growing, but growing in harmony with realities different from your own.

And, when you understand this, your own business vision changes.

Entrepreneurship ceases to be just about opening companies — and becomes about creating bridges between worlds.

Living and working outside of Brazil has taught me that reinvention isn’t an event, it’s a state. Every day the context changes, the language challenges you, opportunities appear unexpectedly.

But it’s precisely in this movement that meaning resides.

Because reinventing yourself means continuing to grow — even when the ground shifts.

Over the years, I’ve seen many students arrive at SEDA with the same look: that of someone carrying a dream in their suitcase and the courage to start from scratch in another country.

But, every now and then, a story emerges that reminds me, with renewed force, why education and sport go so well together.

Eric’s story is one of them.

Eric arrived in Ireland without speaking English—like so many other Brazilians who decide to take the first step in search of a better life.

Initially, he faced the same difficulties I know well: the language barrier, the cold, the distance from home, the fear of not adapting.

But he also brought with him something I’ve always admired in those who succeed: discipline and purpose.

It was this combination that led him to find in SEDA the space to develop confidence and autonomy.

English ceased to be merely a communication tool and became the key to a new path—a path that led him to become a Jiu-Jitsu instructor and mentor to young athletes.

Recently, Eric was honored by the Brazilian Embassy in Ireland for his work with a group of children during the European No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu Championship.

The project he led combined sport, discipline, and cultural integration, becoming a true example of social impact.

The children, prepared with dedication and respect, proudly represented Brazil and showed that the mat can be much more than a space for fighting—it can be a space for development.

When I received the news of the honor, I felt the same pride as a coach seeing his athlete reach the podium.

Not because SEDA sought recognition, but because this is the essence of what we do: creating real opportunities for transformation.

Eric used the language, the learning, and the values ​​he cultivated in Ireland to multiply good, to inspire young people, to represent Brazil with dignity.

Stories like his prove that education and sports share the same principle: both teach you to fall and get back up, to respect others, to persevere when everything seems difficult.

And, above all, both create stronger, more aware human beings, better prepared for the world.

The Embassy’s recognition is just a reflection of something much bigger—the power that is born when someone decides to reinvent themselves with purpose.

And that’s why, every time I see a student crossing the doors of SEDA, I remember that we are not just teaching English.

We are, in some way, helping to write stories like Eric’s—stories that start small but end up inspiring the world.

For a long time, it was believed that leadership was about efficiency: mastering processes, controlling indicators, and guaranteeing predictable results.

This view created technically competent leaders, but often emotionally absent. Over the years, I realized that this model does not sustain true growth. Leading is not about understanding processes — it’s about understanding people.

Processes are essential. They organize the work, create rhythm, and make the dream possible. But alone, they don’t move anyone.

It is the people who bring the strategy to life, who transform plans into action, and who keep the culture alive, even in the most challenging phases. When a leader understands this, they stop seeing their team as pieces and begin to see them as a shared purpose.

Understanding people is a daily exercise in listening and empathy. It’s about perceiving what is not said — the discouragement disguised as “everything’s fine,” the anxiety for recognition, the potential that has not yet found the courage to manifest itself.

To lead is to be truly present, to care about the human being before the position, about the journey before the delivery. And this is not learned in training. It is learned by living together, making mistakes, and observing carefully.

At SEDA, I learned that the true differentiator of a company is not in the most efficient process, but in the culture that inspires people to give their best.

When someone feels valued, they create. When they are heard, they engage. When they understand the purpose, they deliver more than expected. The role of the leader is precisely this: to transform the environment into a space where people want to grow, not just work.

Processes matter, of course, but they are only the skeleton. What gives life to an organization is emotion, connection, the feeling of belonging.

A perfect plan is useless if those who execute it do not believe in it. Trust is the true fuel of performance — and it is born from consistency and respect.

Therefore, leading is not just guiding. It is caring. It’s about creating an environment where people can be authentic and still feel safe to make mistakes, learn, and try again.

Leadership that understands people is the kind that builds lasting bridges between purpose and results.

In the end, it’s simple: companies are made of processes, but sustained by people.

And it is the people—with their stories, talents, and imperfections—who keep the soul of any business alive.

In recent years, education has been inundated with technological promises.

Digital platforms, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, metaverse — all presented as the ultimate solution for learning.

But, after more than a decade working with students from all over the world, I need to say something that few dare to affirm: technology, alone, does not change education. Purpose does.

When SEDA started, we didn’t have advanced software, smart classrooms, or futuristic methodologies.

We had a simple idea: to help people learn English in an environment where they felt seen, welcomed, and able to start over.

And that — not an algorithm — created the foundation of what has become a global education ecosystem.

Technology is a powerful tool, but it only has real impact when it serves a purpose.

Without purpose, it becomes a distraction. With purpose, it becomes a bridge.

I have seen many institutions chasing after educational “novelties” trying to keep up with the pace of the market.

But the question that really matters isn’t “what’s the latest technology?”, but rather:

“what transformation do we want to generate in people?”

When someone decides to study abroad, they’re not just looking for modern classes.

They’re looking for identity, confidence, and a broader world.

That’s why technology enhances the experience—but it’s purpose that transforms lives.

Purpose is what makes a student keep trying when English seems impossible. It’s what connects a teacher to a student who arrived alone in another country.

It’s what gives meaning to the long journeys of those who work to create opportunities where there were previously barriers.

At SEDA, technology came in when we already knew “why” we do what we do.

It amplified the impact, accelerated processes, and opened new doors—but it never replaced what drives us.

Because the future of education will not be defined by the next tool, but by the clarity of mission of those who teach.

Looking to the future, I see a world where technology will be increasingly common—and, precisely for that reason, less and less of a differentiator.

What will make a school stand out will not be the most modern software, but the ability to look at the student and say:

“I believe in what you can become.” And that is something no machine is capable of delivering.

The future of education will be digital, yes. But it will be human, intentional, and guided by purpose. Because only purpose has the power to transform knowledge into growth—and growth into freedom.