Stories in Motion
A monthly reflection on business, life, and the lessons gathered along the way.
A Shade Installer in Russia
A few years ago, my wife Ana joined an online English meetup group to polish her conversational skills. Students were paired completely at random. She was matched with a woman named Natalia, who lived in Russia. It started as standard small talk—just getting to know...
They Mourned a Woman They Never Met
I've started this message a dozen times in my head. And every time, I run out of words before I run out of emotions. So let me just try this again... My mom spent her last days at ICESP—São Paulo's largest cancer center in the largest city in Brazil. And I want to...
Painfully Comforting
The clock ticked slower there. In that wing of a medical center in São Paulo, time stopped being in a hurry. You heard every tick. You felt the space between them. And you would have given anything to fill that gap with something other than what was coming. My mom...
Statistical Impossibility
The odds of dying in a car crash are about 1 in 95. Yet we all jump in our cars every day and go on with our lives without questioning it. The odds of dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 11 million. And somehow… people are still scared to fly. The odds of winning...
They Told Me to Write a Book
I didn't start writing to become an author. I started writing to sell window shades. That's the honest truth. I needed to promote my business, and someone suggested starting a blog. So I sat down and did it. In broken English, a language that wasn't my first, in a...
What No Inheritance Can Buy
She was a teenager when she climbed into her cousin's truck and rode 3,000 miles to São Paulo. No plan. No safety net. Just a young girl leaving her home state behind, betting that anywhere had to be better than where she came from. A Childhood Built on Grit My mother...
Rush Rush and Wait
The wheels barely touched the ground. The plane was still rolling. Still fast, still loud, the engines throwing everything into reverse to slow us down. And somewhere behind me: click. Somebody's seatbelt. First one off. Then another. Then five more. By the time we're...
Nineteen Years of Tuesdays
Before we put the World Cup on a shelf for the next four years, I want to bring you back to one scene. Monday, June 15. Cape Verde against Spain—the opening match of their group. Nobody scored. Nobody won. And the Cape Verde goalkeeper, Vozinha, is face down on the...
I Got Fired for Doing a Good Job
I always wanted to have my own business. Since I was a kid. But the fear of trading security for "maybe" always spoke louder. Then, one day, life decided for me… I was working full time as a truck driver. Good pay. Health insurance. Three weeks vacation. Stable. Safe....
Be the first inside Nobody Told Me That.
Doing everything right… and still feeling stuck?
Yeah—I’ve been there.
No fluff. Just real stories.
Get the chapter + Stories in Motion —my monthly reflections.