99 chances you can do anything

so

when i was invited to give this talk i

asked myself

what would my 30 year old self ask me

about yours

for sure it would have been outweigh

beaten

so this talk is going to be a little bit

about what i’d say to 30 year old david

and a couple of conclusions and

adventures that i had along the way

so join me on this journey dear david

there are far too many variables to

control

so instead of trying to beat the odds

prepare yourself

and be open and flexible to what the

universe brings your way

this doesn’t mean don’t have goals or

objectives flowing

it’s very different from drifting

there’s a quote i particularly like from

eisenhower

in preparing for battle i have always

found that plans are useless

but planning is indispensable

so let’s see a little bit of what

happened these last 10 years

don’t take it as the absolute undeniable

truth

it’s only my experience question

everything and most things you’ll only

learn

by crashing against the wall and that’s

totally fine as well

so in 2010 i fell on top of the world

had my company i fundraised i was in

magazines had entrepreneurship awards

it was a lot of what i had imagined that

success

looked like and what i wanted in life

the things a little bit that

you believe during your mbas

i had a clear plan that seemed to be

working

looking back my sense of worth was

driven a lot by ego

and recogni recognition from others but

if you want to talk about thoughts so we

had this amazing contract

took me six months to negotiate and sign

and should have made us a very wealthy

and successful company

that same contract took our company down

also an investor that said it was

putting enough money to take us through

the next two years of exponential growth

had a heart attack so suddenly things

went wrong

i was in mexico city sleeping on a

friend’s couch

trying to make ends meet by january 2012

i had to close the company and lost most

of my savings that i had invested

i broke up a four-year relationship my

grandmother died

and therein one of my best friends was

killed in a really stupid accident in

miami

i was where i had never been before i

felt defeated

i remember being ashamed of going to

family parties because i had fundraised

money from family and friends and that

money

was now all gone so a very quick lesson

here that has been proven right

several times over be very careful of

doing business with friends or family

most of all with your romantic partner

too much at risk

for too little gain so

i had no idea what to do next all my

plans were shattered

i remember having coffee with a friend

of mine in lisbon and she told me the

world was going to end on december 21st

that year

according to the mayan calendar it was

february

so i decided well if the world is going

to end

how am i going to live and that’s what i

did

so at the time my country portugal was

going through a deep crisis

and brazil was a very appealing market

for people to immigrate to

i was working in sao paulo and my

friends kept asking me for help on how

to move there

so i started social community on

facebook called jobs in brazil for

foreigners i could answer

everyone at the same time four weeks

later

somehow i had 65 000 followers

and suddenly i have the bbc calling me

about the community

i remember during the interview on the

phone i kept thinking

this could be an interesting business

and came up with a business model

during that same call so once they asked

me what we were going to do i said we’d

provide career advice immigration

lawyers

conferences and job boards when i hung

up i started working on it

one month later we had a talk show on

national tv

gave paid conferences for over 2 000

people published a book and supported

many people to move to brazil

so he’s paid for my year and definitely

it was a lot of fun

but something more important happened

the universe

is far more creative than you and has

more interesting paths

than the ones you imagine so during one

of these conferences

the director of a top university saw me

presented and we were chatting during

the break

and i mentioned my experience with

e-commerce and digital transformation

weeks later she called me and asked me

if i want to interview for a position

teaching e-commerce at the university

i never wanted to be a teacher and

thought i had skipped far too many

classes in college to go surfing to

actually be a good teacher

but if the world was going to end what

did i have to lose

i did like speaking in public actually

my first job was actually

as a tv show host and i knew the subject

pretty well

so i took it this unlikely path

took me to finding out one of my biggest

passions

education which i now believe is our

greatest tool to change the world

now i teach over 300 students every year

at

different universities around the world

and have a school here in mexico

so now i had some money i was even a

professor but was still

completely clueless about what to do

next many of my peers had very

successful careers in banking

consulting and all those things sounds

kind of cool like 10 years later at the

ted talk saying i was lost but let me

tell you that it kept me awake

many nights during that year so

i decided to flow and see what happened

it’s something called

my attention and i could afford it i’d

go for it

and i went all over the world

one of them one of the most

transformational experiences that came

about at this time was a survival course

i did in the

desert of utah so

we keep making all these rules for our

lives that go against

our genetics our basic instinct that’s

animals all kinds of diets the keto

the no carb everything relationship

formats and so on

here you become the animal you are i’m

not speaking about your spirit’s animal

no i’m speaking about the animal the

basic you

that need shelter food and sleep

everything else becomes insignificant

and you go back to your basic self so

curiously the most things were not how

to make fire or eating a rattlesnake

which you actually did

the two key lessons were simple you have

much more in you than you believe

and you are great at finding excuses why

you can’t do it

you are tired you are not prepared etc

etc etc

if i tell you that most of you have to

run a marathon

now you’ll tell me you can but if it’s a

matter

where your mom’s life depends on it

trust me you’ll do it

and you’re going to break records the

other very important lesson i’ve learned

there was

no expectations by having expectations

you don’t enjoy the way

and if things don’t happen the way you

plan you feel disappointed

and that brings you down also it closes

you to much

better things that can happen so now on

a more practical tip that will save you

several times some people have tattoos i

have scars and broken bones

paradise becomes hell really quickly

i’ve had my leg open down to the bone

and had to close it myself

after a motorbike accident in vietnam

ran out of air 20 meters deep in the

great barrier reef

had horseback riding falls in the middle

of nowhere and several

really dumb accidents if you do extreme

sports

train with the best learn well but

everyone should take a first aid course

it only happens one of out of ten

thousand times

but then it does it saves your life and

probably someone else’s

the world as you know ended up not

ending in 2012 so it was time to get

back to work

i went back to mexico city and posted on

facebook that i was in town

the vp of google saw it and told me that

there was this large company that was

having issues with their ecommerce

so we went for lunch with the director

of that company

and she ended up hiring me as a

consultant

two years later we had built a company

with 80 people

the path to get there however was hard i

was trying to rebuild myself

living on my best friend’s couch getting

my projects refused over and over again

clients not paying working long nights

to finish a project

but we were a team it was tough and

intense but we were in it together

hard times can be great times and a lot

of fun community

having a cause that is larger than you

and overcoming obstacles together

is one of the most fulfilling

experiences you can have

take care of your friends and team

so although my previous venture hadn’t

gone well people

people considered me hard-working that i

thought out of the box

was honest and got things done a couple

of things i’m really proud of

when we closed our previous company the

investors

put a mention our last meeting notes

that

we did everything we could to save it

several of the people we had to fire

when we closed the business

joined us later in the new company we

created and some

work with us to this day so

education and reputation allow you to

rebuild yourself from the ground

over and over again another thing that i

remember that my dad used to tell me and

i threw around the word freedom

is there is no freedom without financial

independence

being able to fire your boss or your

clients because you don’t really depend

on them financially

is one of the biggest assets you can

have once you have financial freedom you

can change a lot of things in your life

at any time

if you’re not really enjoying what

you’re doing

so let’s go back to 2013 after that

initial consulting project

we started growing one thing led to

another and we created our new company

called beats adventures

blitz stands for life is too short

adventures

because it’s about our adventures in the

business world

we started by helping companies with

their ecommerce and digital

transformation

yes we know a lot about big data and

tech and e-commerce and digital and so

on but what truly differentiated us

was that we were helping people change

and transform

we are transformation catalysts

soon we realized we’re making great

plans for companies but they remained

just that plans most companies didn’t

have the capacity and people to

implement what we proposed

so we started to help with the people

side of things and help them create

their vision

and support them on that implementation

great people make great companies and

great societies

i found that to drive big changes you

have to take care of yourself

how by looking at yourself as a top

athlete that needs to be in top shape in

four areas

mind body emotional

and spiritual once all these four are in

balance

you’ll be able to flow through life like

a sphere and if you see actually that’s

the logo of our company

so mine mine is about your professional

skills intelligence logic things

typically

very valid very valued in our society

and rightfully so

so keep learning dedicate at least 30

minutes

a day to learn something new body

is about how you keep yourself in shape

just ask yourself

if you’re given just one piece of

clothing for your entire life

how would you take care of it and then

emotions and spirituality this gets a

little more controversial

as a fun fact we have a shaman in our

office and it has done

wonders for our companies my approach

here is

simple i can’t prove if god exists or

doesn’t

but if it makes me happy to think that

there is something

else bigger than us i’ll just go with it

i don’t really want to be right i just

want to be happy

you don’t need to prove everything in

life 200 years ago if someone saw a cell

phone

they would call it black magic and

probably try to burn the person

the fact that science hasn’t explained

it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

also some things you can just understand

with your heart

it’s very hard to explain a sunset to a

blind person

i find intelligence often to be

overrated and was guilty of judging

people in the past fight

isn’t it wonderful to look at the

butterfly and just be amazed by it

is it really better knowing its latin

name

so it always seems that when people like

me

give these 12-minute talks that is

probably longer than 12 minutes now

that we’ve made it and we live on an

ongoing blissful state

but am i happy i’m in a good place i’m

healthy

sleep well at night surrounded by great

friends and family

love what i do our company has a

positive impact on our clients and

society

pays the bills and i have the freedom

and finances to manage

a lot of my time life is not an

instagram story

with just nice moments we all have

insecurities tough moments

feel down feel that the whole world is

against us at some

time it is an adventure with ups and

downs

the only place you arrive is that and if

there is no hurry for that

until then might as well enjoy it don’t

take life so soon

laugh more understand what’s important

dedicate time to it

and believe in magic so what are your

odds

after all this 99 you can do

anything thank you