No one likes to admit it, but every entrepreneur has thought about giving up. Me too. And not just once or twice.

There were several. Moments when the weight seemed greater than the strength, when the numbers didn’t add up, when the uncertainties screamed louder than the motivation.

The difference is that, over time, I learned that these moments are not the end of the journey—they are part of it. Giving up is a temptation that visits those who are truly trying something big.

I remember well the early stages of SEDA, when everything seemed to go wrong at the same time.

The model was not yet sustainable, the team was small, and the bureaucracy of doing business in another country seemed endless.

There were days when I wondered if it was worth continuing, if the dream of building a global education school wasn’t too big for me. Today, looking back, I realize that it was precisely in those phases that I learned the most valuable lessons.

The first is that discouragement is not a sign of weakness — it’s a reminder that you care.

When the journey is meaningful, it’s natural to feel fear, doubt, and tiredness. The problem isn’t thinking about giving up; the problem is believing that this is the end.

I learned to see these moments as necessary pauses, not as defeats.

Instead of giving up, sometimes all I needed was to breathe, reorganize myself, and remember why I started.

Another thing I learned was that the biggest turning points came after the worst days. Almost always, when the urge to stop was strongest, the path was about to open up.

It’s as if the universe tests how much you really want it.

And it was there, in the uncertain early mornings, in the silent internal conversations, that I found the kind of faith that doesn’t come from outside, but from the conviction that the purpose still makes sense, even when the result hasn’t yet appeared.

These moments also taught me to trust people more and to ask for help.

Entrepreneurs have a habit of carrying everything alone, as if admitting exhaustion were a failure. But I learned that strength lies precisely in recognizing limits and seeking support.

Many times, what prevented me from giving up was seeing the team’s dedication, the sparkle in the students’ eyes, or even a simple “thank you” from someone who was transformed by what we created.

Today, I know that every time I thought about giving up, something in me transformed. These moments shaped my patience, my resilience, and, above all, my purpose.

I discovered that success is not only made of achievements, but also of the times we decide to continue even without guarantees.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in these years, it’s that almost giving up is part of growing.

Because it’s in that “almost” that we redefine ourselves, strengthen ourselves, and learn what really matters.

And, in the end, perhaps that’s exactly what separates those who dream from those who achieve: the courage to continue, even when everything inside you asks you to stop.

I’ve met incredibly talented people who started with all the energy in the world. They had good ideas, solid projects, and often even more preparation than I had when I started.

But, for some reason, they stopped halfway. Some because the results took longer than they expected, others because they became frustrated with the difficulties, and some simply because they lost their purpose.

And it was by observing these stories that I learned one of the hardest lessons—many people don’t fail because of a lack of ability, but because they give up too soon.

The truth is that success is rarely linear. The journey of building something requires resilience much more than genius.

The problem is that we live in a time when everything needs to be fast—the result, the recognition, the validation.

But what truly has value takes time. And that time, between effort and reward, is what separates those who continue from those who stop.

It is in this space of uncertainty that many give up, thinking that nothing is happening, when, in fact, the roots are silently growing.

When I started my business in Ireland, I also thought about giving up more than once. There were phases of doubt, of making mistakes, of learning what I didn’t know, and of starting over from scratch.

But I realized that each obstacle brought a different kind of maturity—and that progress is not always immediately visible.

Sometimes, it happens internally, in the way we react, decide, and deal with adversity. Growing requires patience with the process, and that is something the modern world has forgotten how to cultivate.

Observing those who gave up too soon taught me that the difference between success and frustration is often a matter of silent persistence.

The kind that no one sees, but that you practice every day. I’ve seen brilliant people abandon incredible projects at the exact moment they were about to succeed—because fear, exhaustion, or comparison with others spoke louder.

What they didn’t realize is that the discomfort that precedes progress is a natural part of every great achievement.

I also learned that giving up, sometimes, isn’t the problem—the problem is giving up without having learned anything.

There are times when you need to change course, yes, but never your purpose. And it is this purpose that needs to be the guiding principle, even when everything seems uncertain. Persistence is not stubbornness; it is confidence in the process, even when the result has not yet appeared.

Today, when I see someone about to give up, I usually say: “hang in there a little longer.”

Not because blindly believing solves everything, but because, often, what you seek is one step beyond giving up.

The journey is tiring, but the regret of not having tried hard enough is much worse.

Over time, I realized that growing is much easier than remaining whole.

The entrepreneurial journey, especially when it starts to work, has a subtle power to distance you from who you were at the beginning—the one who dreamed, believed, and did things for a genuine purpose, not just for results.

The truth is that success, if not nurtured, creates a dangerous distance between what you experience and what you feel.

And it took some ups and downs for me to understand that growing cannot mean losing your essence.

When I founded SEDA, everything was simple: the desire to help people learn English and find a path outside of Brazil.

I knew firsthand the fear, difficulties, and challenges of starting over in another country. That’s what guided me in every decision. But as the business grew, new pressures arose—numbers, goals, investments, responsibilities.

And, amidst this whirlwind, it’s easy to forget why it all started.

This is where many entrepreneurs get lost: they start managing a structure, but they stop nurturing the meaning that gave rise to it.

Growing without distancing yourself requires awareness. It’s a constant exercise in remembering who you were when you still had nothing to prove.

The perspective from the beginning carries something that time cannot replace: authenticity.

It’s that enthusiasm that makes you work late, not out of obligation, but because you believe in what you’re building.

With time, maturity brings discipline, and that’s great. But if discipline isn’t accompanied by purpose, it becomes empty routine.

I’ve learned that preserving the essence isn’t living in the past, it’s keeping alive the flame that made you start. It’s remembering that the values ​​that guided you in the beginning are the same ones that should sustain you at the top.

Every time I find myself overwhelmed, I like to revisit simple memories: the first students, the first days in Ireland, the conversations with those who believed in me when the project was just an idea. These memories anchor me.

They remind me that what brought me here was the honesty with which I did things—not the size of what I built.

Real growth isn’t just about results, but about the ability to remain human while they arrive.

It makes no sense to conquer the world if, in the process, you lose yourself.

Today, I believe that the greatest challenge for those who grow is to remain the same in essence, only more aware, more mature, and more grateful.

Because, in the end, the success that’s worthwhile is the one that allows you to look back and recognize the face of the person who started it all and smile knowing that they’re still there, inside you.

For a long time, I believed that growth meant accelerating. That the faster I went, the closer I would get to my goals.

Work more, do more, think of more ideas. And, for years, this mindset propelled me. I achieved results, paved the way, and saw SEDA expand.

But I also learned—the hard way—that growth isn’t just about movement. It’s also about pausing.

Entrepreneurship has a silent trap: it convinces you that stopping is wasting time.

That every minute stopped is a wasted opportunity. But, in practice, it’s the opposite.

When we are always accelerating, we stop seeing what is really in front of us.

Haste distorts perception. The tired mind begins to confuse urgency with importance, and what was purpose becomes routine.

It took me a while to understand that slowing down isn’t giving up—it’s recalibrating. It’s having the courage to look inward, question the direction, and make adjustments before the path loses its meaning.

I remember times when the pace at SEDA was so intense that I couldn’t celebrate the achievements.

Each goal reached was immediately replaced by another. I had to stop to realize that true growth doesn’t happen through speed, but through awareness.

Slowing down taught me to value the time it takes for ideas to mature.

To understand that not every opportunity needs to be seized, and that saying “no” is also a way to move forward.

When I took my foot off the gas, I gained clarity. I started listening better to my team, my students, and especially to myself. I discovered that sometimes the most valuable answers are born in silence.

The pause plays an essential role in building anything lasting. It is in the pause that we process learning, that we transform experience into wisdom.

And this applies to both business and life. Growing fast can take you far, but growing well is what keeps you standing. The difference lies in knowing how to balance the pace — running when it’s time to act and stopping when it’s time to reflect.

Today, I believe that slowing down is a way of respecting the process itself. It’s recognizing that the journey matters as much as the destination.

It’s understanding that success that comes too quickly usually goes away just as fast. True growth isn’t measured by speed, but by depth.

That’s why slowing down isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. It’s what allows us to continue growing with more purpose, more clarity, and, above all, more peace.

Change is never easy. It’s a process that shakes everything that gives us security—routines, certainties, the roles we’ve learned to play.

At the beginning of my journey, I thought change was a matter of rational choice, but over time I realized it’s much more emotional than logical.

Change is saying goodbye to versions of yourself, and that hurts. But I also learned that, behind every difficult change, there is a silent invitation from life: to move forward, even with fear.

When I decided to leave Brazil and start over in Ireland, fear was in every detail. Fear of the language, fear of failure, fear of not fitting in.

It’s curious—the bigger the dream, the greater the fear that accompanies it. And, for a while, I thought courage was the opposite of that fear. Today I know it isn’t.

Courage doesn’t eliminate fear; it only chooses to move forward with it by its side. The difference between those who change and those who stay is simple: one waits for the fear to pass, the other decides to walk even while trembling inside.

Change requires humility. When I arrived in Ireland, I had to abandon titles, comforts, and the recognition I had built in Brazil. I went back to being an apprentice.

I started as a waiter, observing more than speaking, relearning how to communicate and understand what it really meant to start over.

At that moment, I realized that changing is not about losing who we were, it’s about discovering who we can still be.

Every true transformation begins when we accept that we don’t have control over everything.

Over time, I understood that the fear of change is much more linked to the need for approval than to the change itself.

We are afraid of judgment, of making mistakes, of the gaze of others.

But the truth is that the world will always have an opinion, and no one but ourselves knows the price we pay for remaining where we should no longer be.

Fear paralyzes us when we give more weight to external expectations than to our own intuition.

Moving forward, for me, is an exercise of faith — faith in something that doesn’t yet exist, but that begins to take shape with each step.

It was this faith that kept me firm when I decided to start my own business, when I created SEDA, and when I needed to start over countless times.

Fear has always been there, but I’ve learned to use it as a sign that I’m moving in the right direction. Because fear only appears when something important is at stake.

Today, when someone asks me how to deal with the fear of change, I answer: don’t fight it, walk with it.

Fear is not the end of courage; it is proof that it is alive. Life wasn’t made to be predictable, and the security we seek is rarely where we begin.

It’s in the step we haven’t yet taken — and in the courage that arises when we finally decide to move forward.

When I look back at everything we’ve built with SEDA, one thing strikes me: the most transformative ideas were born from simplicity.

They didn’t come from long strategic plans or presentations full of projections and graphs.

They arose from a clear need, a genuine purpose, and a simple question—how can we help more people learn and grow? Over time, I’ve learned that the true power of ideas lies in clarity, not complexity.

Simplicity requires courage. It’s easier to hide behind complexity—using difficult words, lengthy processes, and elaborate plans to appear to be in control.

Simplicity, on the other hand, exposes you. It forces you to know exactly what is being proposed, why, and for whom.

That’s why simplifying isn’t synonymous with reducing, but with seeing the essence. Simple ideas have depth because they are honest. They are born from observation, listening, and the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

When I founded SEDA, the goal wasn’t to create the biggest language school in Ireland—it was to help people adapt, learn English, and feel welcome in a new country. That was the central idea.

Everything that came after—expansion, technology, recognition—was a consequence of that simple and true proposition.

The clarity of purpose is what kept us steadfast amidst changes, crises, and reinventions. Because when the idea is clear, decisions become easier, and the team understands where it’s going.

I also realized that simplicity is more powerful because it connects with people. Complexity can impress, but it’s simplicity that touches.

The best brands, the most inspiring leaders, and the products that truly transform the world have something in common: they all communicate with simplicity.

They don’t need embellishments because they have essence. And essence is what remains when everything changes.

Over the years, I’ve learned that simplifying is an act of maturity. When we are young entrepreneurs, we want to prove too much, to show everything we know.

Then, we understood that true mastery lies in being able to say more with less.

It’s the same logic as good writing, good design, and good leadership—removing the excess until only the essential remains.

Today, every time a new idea arises, I ask myself: is it simple enough to be explained in one sentence? If not, it’s not ready yet.

Because, in the end, it’s the simple ideas that survive, that spread, that inspire.

They don’t need to be perfect—they need to be true.

And it is this simplicity, when combined with purpose, that transforms projects into legacies.

After so many years of entrepreneurship, making mistakes, learning, and starting over, I’ve come to the conclusion that a company’s success doesn’t depend solely on good ideas or well-executed strategies. It all starts with attitudes.

It is in these attitudes that the true mindset of an entrepreneur is revealed.

The tools, methods, and business models change all the time, but the attitudes that sustain a true entrepreneur remain the same.

The first of these is the courage to begin. It seems obvious, but it’s precisely the point where many people stop. It’s easy to have ideas; it’s difficult to act.

When I decided to leave Brazil and start my life anew in Ireland, I had no guarantees, investors, or certainties. I had a purpose and the desire to do something meaningful.

This courage—even if accompanied by fear—is what separates those who dream from those who achieve. Entrepreneurship is understanding that the scenario will never be entirely favorable, and that the first step needs to come before security.

The second essential attitude is the humility to learn.

When I started, I had to accept the role of apprentice again — as a waiter, as a foreigner, and later, as an entrepreneur in a country that wasn’t my own.

Humility is what allows you to listen, adapt, and evolve. Entrepreneurs who believe they know everything end up trapped by their own ideas.

Those who keep an open mind find paths that didn’t exist before.

The third is resilience in the face of uncertainty. Entrepreneurship is about living with the unexpected. There are days when everything goes right, and others when everything falls apart.

I learned that what keeps a company alive is not the absence of crises, but the ability to overcome them. Resilience is not stubbornness — it’s consistency with purpose.

It’s continuing to believe when the results haven’t yet appeared, because you know you’re building something bigger than a business: you’re building a legacy.

Another attitude I consider indispensable is empathy.

No entrepreneur gets far alone. Understanding people — customers, partners, teams — is understanding the business itself.

At SEDA, I realized that what kept us going wasn’t just a good product, but how we treated people.

Entrepreneurship is, in the end, about service. It’s about using what you create to improve someone’s life.

And, lastly, there’s consistency. The entrepreneur needs to be the first to practice what they preach.

Leading by example is the biggest differentiator in a world that talks too much and does too little. Consistency between discourse and attitude creates trust, and trust is the most valuable asset of any company.

Over time, I learned that entrepreneurship is much more about who you become in the process than about what you achieve.

Ideas evolve, businesses change, but the right attitudes—courage, humility, resilience, empathy, and consistency—are what transform an attempt into a trajectory.

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.