It's the most wonderful time...
This year has been uncomfortable. That's the best word I can give it. The year I learned the most in my life - in several areas simultaneously. I had a challenging time at the beginning of the year, which reminded me that what we do with all our experiences can go only one of two ways:
1. Help reinforce who you are/have always been
2. Transform yourself into someone new
I decided to choose the second option. As someone who has always lived behind the scenes, helping many people, brands, and projects get into the spotlight and achieve their goals, I've delved into being a facilitator and driver of ideas throughout my 13-year career.
Moving to a new country, improving my language skills, getting to know new cultures, and studying more of the subjects that interest me were personal projects that, fortunately, with a lot of focus and prioritization, have happened intrinsically over the last four years almost constantly. It cost friendships, relationships and a comfortable life in Brazil (my hometown). And frankly, I wonder if I could dedicate myself to other people's projects with such dedication and depth if these personal projects weren't going on in the background. Honestly, I don’t think so.
Personal interests need to be taken seriously. They are the gasoline for everything else to work. If you look too much only at work, you become it. When you feel dissatisfied with your career position, you automatically associate that feeling with your identity. A dissatisfaction of being, like something is wrong with you.
In 2022, there were times when I neglected these personal projects: I didn't enjoy the city I love and choose to call home as much, I stopped studying French (one of my 2024 goals), I travelled less, and I completely disconnected from reading and writing (which were highly present in my childhood and adolescence). All this because of work. And the satisfaction went down the hill. I even questioned whether it made sense for me to work in the creative industry - why not drop everything and become a lawyer since mediating and facilitating ideas was a skill I had developed very well? Nuts. Lowkey, I think I would be a good lawyer.
But this is not the point here.
I needed to be more careful with my interests. My attention went to other places - perhaps better known (consciously or not) and/or more comfortable. I urgently needed to recalculate my route.
I always had dreams, ideas and sketches that never got off paper. I'd start an idea; if it wasn't perfect, I didn't have or want to finish it. What a great self-sabotage behaviour. An excellent parallel is that I've saved over 250 drawings that I started and didn't finish. The self-pressure to develop something great in the first five minutes was constant. I had a few moments of more patience and perseverance, but they were infinitely less than the moments of frustration with personal projects related to my abilities at work.
There was also a lot of experimentation. Even before I went to university, I started designing websites and developing HTML code at the age of 14, as well as designing my own birthday invitations or Photoshop collages (I started using it at the age of 6, but that's for another day). During and after college, I worked as a stylist, photographer, videomaker, illustrator, make-up artist, etc. I've always been very curious, and exploring new creative paths has always caught my attention, but secretly, I was afraid of not being very good at anything; the famous and terrific word for every creative: generalist. Or even worse, shallow.
But... thanks to a lot of therapy, the power of conviction and me (aka Snoop Dog), I knew that I would find what would connect all the dots within my work and put my own professional projects into practice; I didn't know when or how.
Digesting information, finding patterns, observing inconsistencies, breaking down concepts, and organizing content have been my obsessions since primary school. Summaries, sketches, diagrams. My notebook was the one that went through the school photocopy machine the most. Everyone wanted to study with my summaries, complete but succinct - the essentials.
It's similar to what I've been doing with clients on the internet and teaching at universities today. The difference is the coolest and most extraordinary thing: being able to help transform people's lives so that they, too, can choose path number 2 I mentioned at the beginning of this email. Become someone new every day.
I don't regret anything I've experienced in my creative career; on the contrary, I'm very proud and privileged to have immersed myself in so many areas. They write chapters of my story that no bot can take away: the human experience. Only you can allow yourself to be more and more human, experimenting, breaking and rebuilding yourself every day.
I'm glad about the word I’ve chosen to describe this year. Discomfort is the key to taking you where you’re supposed to be.
I wish that whoever is reading today will be different tomorrow. I hope your tomorrow self is working more profoundly on you and your desires in 2024 (and all the following days of your life).
