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.
