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.
