Bringing All of You To Your Role

Rob: 00:00:00

What I like to do in these is just understand what someone does and really

Rob: 00:00:05

their journey of what led them to it.

Rob: 00:00:07

You're slightly different in that you're you're in between jobs.

Rob: 00:00:10

I know you do coaching is that something that you offer?

Rob: 00:00:13

Actually, rather than me reading into my assumptions of your

Rob: 00:00:17

post, let's start with, if you explain who you are, what you do.

Eduardo: 00:00:22

It's a wonderful question, Rob, and I love that you tried very hard at

Eduardo: 00:00:26

first, because it gives me the sense that, yes, it's sometimes difficult

Eduardo: 00:00:31

for people out there to understand.

Eduardo: 00:00:34

And I think it comes back from this concept of a portfolio career.

Eduardo: 00:00:38

That is something new.

Eduardo: 00:00:39

That is something that is still developing human or mankind has been for many years

Eduardo: 00:00:45

overly developing into niches, right?

Eduardo: 00:00:48

To the point that even this platform that we use to connect to each other supports

Eduardo: 00:00:53

even for us this over specialization.

Eduardo: 00:00:56

The more you niche down, the more you get into something very

Eduardo: 00:00:59

specific, the more rewards you get.

Eduardo: 00:01:01

And work has been like that for so many years, since Ford, right?

Eduardo: 00:01:06

And, okay, you specialize in your A little piece.

Eduardo: 00:01:09

And that's what you do.

Eduardo: 00:01:10

And that's how you're going to get the best results.

Eduardo: 00:01:12

My background is technology.

Eduardo: 00:01:13

I started in infrastructure in technology.

Eduardo: 00:01:16

So I was the guy that work on the servers, even the cables and stuff like that.

Eduardo: 00:01:21

And I migrated into software development and wrote back then.

Eduardo: 00:01:26

20 little bit years ago.

Eduardo: 00:01:28

Let's not get into the details.

Eduardo: 00:01:30

Software development was you do everything I would install the operating system.

Eduardo: 00:01:37

I would install the databases.

Eduardo: 00:01:40

The applications that run on top.

Eduardo: 00:01:42

I will do the coding.

Eduardo: 00:01:43

I would program the databases.

Eduardo: 00:01:45

I would transported from server to server.

Eduardo: 00:01:48

You would do absolutely everything.

Eduardo: 00:01:50

And even in that profession, what happened was over specialization, right?

Eduardo: 00:01:54

Nowadays, you hire Okay.

Eduardo: 00:01:56

Front end developer, what they call that will just design the interface

Eduardo: 00:02:00

for you, just the screen to make it beautiful, to make it useful,

Eduardo: 00:02:04

to make it accessible and so on.

Eduardo: 00:02:06

Then you have the backend developer that is going to do the more intricate stuff.

Eduardo: 00:02:11

Then you're going to have a DBA database administrator that

Eduardo: 00:02:15

is going to coordinate that.

Eduardo: 00:02:17

Then your DevOps engineer that is going to make sure that this systems go to

Eduardo: 00:02:22

the production systems and all that.

Eduardo: 00:02:25

And what I'm doing with my career now, is almost the opposite.

Eduardo: 00:02:28

I am spreading myself across.

Eduardo: 00:02:30

So I am still corporate animal.

Eduardo: 00:02:33

So I'm still to the point of the transition of jobs.

Eduardo: 00:02:37

Looking forward and working on getting a new position in corporate,

Eduardo: 00:02:41

in technology, leadership roles, but that's happening at the same time

Eduardo: 00:02:46

that I am developing my coaching.

Eduardo: 00:02:48

Yes, you're right.

Eduardo: 00:02:49

I do offer coaching services and I have my clients.

Eduardo: 00:02:53

I have had my clients ever since a few years now.

Eduardo: 00:02:56

And it started back when I was in a corporate position, right?

Eduardo: 00:03:00

That's how I got interested into coaching.

Eduardo: 00:03:03

But even that's not the end of the story because I'm also authoring books.

Eduardo: 00:03:08

That's also not the end of the story because you know about my

Eduardo: 00:03:10

contributions in LinkedIn and that's not the end of the story because

Eduardo: 00:03:14

I'm also having a small partnership for doing some app development.

Eduardo: 00:03:18

A little bit on the entrepreneurial side of the things, and I see the future

Eduardo: 00:03:24

of work a little bit like that and the future of mankind a little bit like that

Eduardo: 00:03:29

people are going to discover more and more that they have more than one talent

Eduardo: 00:03:34

that they are interested by more than one thing and that is nothing wrong in

Eduardo: 00:03:38

pursuing a few of them at the same time.

Eduardo: 00:03:40

It's actually making people way more interesting.

Eduardo: 00:03:44

How to explain that sometimes cumbersome in a platform like Linden, absolutely

Eduardo: 00:03:48

impossible, but that's why I value so much this kind of opportunity is getting

Eduardo: 00:03:52

back and together with people and having conversations and then explaining.

Rob: 00:03:56

That's interesting because I've followed you for quite

Rob: 00:03:59

a while now, over a year.

Rob: 00:04:02

And I didn't know about you developing apps you're writing books.

Rob: 00:04:07

So that interests me straight away.

Eduardo: 00:04:08

You maybe bringing this a little bit more to the open, but it's not

Eduardo: 00:04:12

something that I talk too often about.

Eduardo: 00:04:13

No.

Rob: 00:04:14

I think you're a bit like me that you have lots of interests and I'm

Rob: 00:04:19

not very disciplined in, I should just really, I know, talk about relationships,

Rob: 00:04:22

talk about conflict and talk about trust and teams and this kind of thing.

Rob: 00:04:26

I'm not that person.

Rob: 00:04:27

I can't sit down and go, okay, I'm going to do this.

Rob: 00:04:30

I have an idea and I want to share it.

Rob: 00:04:33

And I think you're quite similar in that, but where that becomes a problem is

Rob: 00:04:38

it's hard to pigeonhole someone, whereas certain people you can go, okay, there.

Rob: 00:04:43

This person, they do this, they do that.

Rob: 00:04:45

There's no doubt about it.

Rob: 00:04:46

But it's, it takes a lot of discipline to do that.

Rob: 00:04:49

And I think you're similar to me that we have too much that we see something.

Rob: 00:04:54

We want to talk about that and develop that idea.

Eduardo: 00:04:56

Absolutely.

Eduardo: 00:04:57

It resonates with me.

Eduardo: 00:04:58

Rob I am, I just listed the things that I feel like I'm having real progress with,

Eduardo: 00:05:04

I could list another 10 or 20 things that I'm also very interested about and

Eduardo: 00:05:09

pursue in a certain degree or the other.

Eduardo: 00:05:11

And it does make it, A little harder for us because of course we have

Eduardo: 00:05:16

only so much attention to give and distribute to other people.

Eduardo: 00:05:20

I have, though, learned over time that it has its benefits, you don't need to

Eduardo: 00:05:25

be known by everybody for just one thing.

Eduardo: 00:05:29

Eventually, if you're just connecting around teams and topics and interests

Eduardo: 00:05:35

instead of connecting just with people, it will naturally for the people that I

Eduardo: 00:05:41

really care about that they understand I have a corporate career that I have

Eduardo: 00:05:46

this leadership aspirations and so on.

Eduardo: 00:05:48

Namely executives hiring managers recruiters, and so on.

Eduardo: 00:05:52

They know me for that.

Eduardo: 00:05:53

Even if they get sometimes a little confused, hey, but you're

Eduardo: 00:05:56

still doing the coaching thing.

Eduardo: 00:05:58

That's okay.

Eduardo: 00:05:58

They still know What is important for them to know about me and how I can help them?

Eduardo: 00:06:04

Same thing with my coaching clients every now and then I'm having

Eduardo: 00:06:07

this coaching conversations And people address all sorts of topics.

Eduardo: 00:06:11

You probably know that.

Eduardo: 00:06:11

And then somebody comes out where, okay, having, this actually

Eduardo: 00:06:15

happened not too long ago.

Eduardo: 00:06:17

Somebody came up with the topic around SNOP meetings.

Eduardo: 00:06:21

That's sales and operation planning meetings.

Eduardo: 00:06:24

And that's a concept that comes from supply chain management, which is

Eduardo: 00:06:27

something that I have studied and I used extensively in my latest corporate

Eduardo: 00:06:32

job, and then as she was getting into it and she noticed that I actually

Eduardo: 00:06:37

understood what she was talking about without she having to explain

Eduardo: 00:06:41

it to me, she was really puzzled.

Eduardo: 00:06:43

How do you know about that?

Eduardo: 00:06:44

I'm struggling to implement this and I don't know what is the value.

Eduardo: 00:06:48

Yeah, we can talk about it because.

Eduardo: 00:06:50

This is part of what I'm doing.

Eduardo: 00:06:52

Oh this job and that job.

Eduardo: 00:06:54

Wow.

Eduardo: 00:06:54

You did all this things.

Eduardo: 00:06:56

Yes.

Eduardo: 00:06:56

She was my client and she was still very surprised to know

Eduardo: 00:07:00

that I had such a background.

Eduardo: 00:07:02

Again, it was not important for her, at least up to that point, to

Eduardo: 00:07:05

know that I had that background.

Eduardo: 00:07:07

What was important to her.

Eduardo: 00:07:08

Was that she knew I was a coach and the kind of coach that I can deliver

Eduardo: 00:07:13

and the kind of difference I can make.

Eduardo: 00:07:15

And I think you continue in the spin you're going to find in your life.

Eduardo: 00:07:20

You're always connecting with the people around the teams, around the

Eduardo: 00:07:23

topics that are of mutual interest.

Eduardo: 00:07:25

And that's enough.

Rob: 00:07:26

And also the other side of that is that the more interest that you

Rob: 00:07:30

have, the more cross pollination.

Rob: 00:07:32

And so that helps you be better at.

Rob: 00:07:34

different things.

Rob: 00:07:35

Although they may seem different on the surface there's a lot of commonalities

Rob: 00:07:41

and interrelationships and you can transfer them from one field to another.

Eduardo: 00:07:46

Absolutely.

Eduardo: 00:07:47

On the example of supply chain management, right?

Eduardo: 00:07:49

I have been working with technology for many years.

Eduardo: 00:07:52

And one of the things that are core to technology is to understand systems

Eduardo: 00:07:57

and systems are extremely easy, right?

Eduardo: 00:07:59

You have inputs, you have process, you have outputs.

Eduardo: 00:08:02

It's not harder than that.

Eduardo: 00:08:03

And as I started studying supply chain management, what do you think I found?

Eduardo: 00:08:08

A big system.

Eduardo: 00:08:09

It's the same thing.

Eduardo: 00:08:11

You have.

Eduardo: 00:08:12

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:08:12

A lot of inputs.

Eduardo: 00:08:14

You have a lot of processing, intricated rules and everything, but it's processing.

Eduardo: 00:08:17

It's not that complicated to understand.

Eduardo: 00:08:19

And you have outputs.

Eduardo: 00:08:21

And once you, you just transpose and you can do this at several levels when

Eduardo: 00:08:25

you get into process for example, you can understand things like dependencies,

Eduardo: 00:08:31

bottlenecks, and the sort in the same way that you understand it in the context of

Eduardo: 00:08:36

software development and people would say what technology and it's something else.

Eduardo: 00:08:41

No everything in life.

Eduardo: 00:08:43

Okay.

Eduardo: 00:08:43

It's connected in some way, how that's up to us to learn, to discover, to exercise.

Eduardo: 00:08:50

And I think this is actually the value that human beings bring.

Eduardo: 00:08:54

That's the one thing that artificial intelligence cannot, at least

Eduardo: 00:08:58

not as of yet bring to the table.

Rob: 00:09:01

So you began work and you began work in tech.

Rob: 00:09:05

What led you to that?

Rob: 00:09:06

So maybe what were your influences as a child and what led from

Rob: 00:09:12

childhood to going into tech?

Eduardo: 00:09:14

That's probably a very common story, right?

Eduardo: 00:09:16

It was my parents, or most specifically my father when I was seven, eight, he

Eduardo: 00:09:24

decided to give up his banking job.

Eduardo: 00:09:26

And start a business firm himself with a few partners.

Eduardo: 00:09:29

And guess what?

Eduardo: 00:09:30

He decided to start with tech.

Eduardo: 00:09:31

I have seen my father working with it for a little bit of time.

Eduardo: 00:09:36

And back then in Brazil, we are talking about 30 years ago.

Eduardo: 00:09:40

Now, it was really not common for anybody to have access to computers.

Eduardo: 00:09:45

I wouldn't have most probably I wouldn't have for many years still.

Eduardo: 00:09:49

If it was not for the job of my father, the kind of work that he was doing.

Eduardo: 00:09:53

And that was fascinating.

Eduardo: 00:09:54

I think it was the aspect of the mystery of the novelty of being

Eduardo: 00:10:00

something that people still didn't know how to deal with and so on.

Eduardo: 00:10:04

And as a child, I started where pretty much every child would

Eduardo: 00:10:08

start with computers with games.

Eduardo: 00:10:10

As I was 12 then there was a lot happening in the family.

Eduardo: 00:10:14

My parents are divorced and then my father actually found it would be a

Eduardo: 00:10:19

good idea to get closer to me, to have an opportunity to be closer to me if

Eduardo: 00:10:23

I would work with him for some time.

Eduardo: 00:10:25

So I started splitting my days mornings, I would work with him.

Eduardo: 00:10:29

Afternoons, I would go with to school and at first work with him meant

Eduardo: 00:10:34

I would do office shorts, right?

Eduardo: 00:10:36

I would run to the bank.

Eduardo: 00:10:38

I would deliver some notes.

Eduardo: 00:10:39

I would do even some cleaning if that was necessary, but there was always some

Eduardo: 00:10:43

time available and I started reading the books that were around there.

Eduardo: 00:10:48

That's by the way, how I started learning English as well.

Eduardo: 00:10:51

Because you couldn't access any technical books in Portuguese back then.

Eduardo: 00:10:55

And I started playing with something called Lotus 1 2 3.

Eduardo: 00:10:59

I don't know if you remember what that thing is.

Rob: 00:11:01

One of the original spreadsheets.

Eduardo: 00:11:03

That's the Excel of the past, right?

Eduardo: 00:11:05

And I started doing some cool stuff for him that he didn't thought was possible.

Eduardo: 00:11:10

Because again, even he didn't know.

Eduardo: 00:11:12

He was more into reselling the computers and stuff like that,

Eduardo: 00:11:16

more working at the hardware level.

Eduardo: 00:11:18

And I got more and more fascinated with the possibilities.

Eduardo: 00:11:21

We are now in 2024 and we are talking about automation.

Eduardo: 00:11:25

Automation for me started 30 years ago,

Rob: 00:11:27

One thing you mentioned is that you worked with your dad in the morning.

Rob: 00:11:30

Was this like really early or do you not have school in the mornings?

Eduardo: 00:11:33

No, in Brazil, there was completely different system.

Eduardo: 00:11:37

And I realized that now that I have lived in the U S and here in Europe the

Eduardo: 00:11:40

school I was in public school it was only four and something hours per day.

Eduardo: 00:11:44

And you had a choice.

Eduardo: 00:11:46

You could do it in the morning.

Eduardo: 00:11:47

You could do it in the afternoon.

Eduardo: 00:11:49

And if you have some two things, Either if you had the need or if you would have

Eduardo: 00:11:55

repeated too many years, then you could do it at night because that probably meant

Eduardo: 00:11:59

you needed to work even at earlier ages.

Eduardo: 00:12:02

So I decided because I was never a morning person to do it in the afternoon.

Eduardo: 00:12:08

So I was doing my primary school and secondary school throughout

Eduardo: 00:12:12

the time in the afternoon.

Eduardo: 00:12:14

It usually started like at.

Eduardo: 00:12:16

Two two and something in the afternoon, which meant that at the

Eduardo: 00:12:20

age of 12, I could then go to my father's to work in the morning.

Eduardo: 00:12:25

And then after I would have lunch and then go straight to school.

Rob: 00:12:28

That's a much better system.

Rob: 00:12:29

I wish we had that.

Eduardo: 00:12:30

No, it was not a good system.

Eduardo: 00:12:33

I could tell you horror stories about it, how the classes were.

Eduardo: 00:12:36

And even in this few hours that we were supposed to be in the school,

Eduardo: 00:12:40

mostly we didn't have the teachers.

Eduardo: 00:12:42

Public school has been failed and it's a failure in Brazil for many years now.

Rob: 00:12:47

What I remember from Brazil when I was younger, I remember there was you

Rob: 00:12:53

had such inflation that the money that you would get in the morning in, oh,

Rob: 00:12:57

this is the reports that we were reading, the money you would get in the morning

Rob: 00:13:01

you wouldn't be able to buy enough stuff because the inflation was too high.

Rob: 00:13:05

So crazy at that time.

Eduardo: 00:13:07

Yeah, that's the early 90s.

Eduardo: 00:13:09

We managed to get more than 100 inflation a month and It's funny.

Eduardo: 00:13:14

I was talking to some friends about it the other day here living in

Eduardo: 00:13:18

switzerland the habits are very different compared to brazil and one of that.

Eduardo: 00:13:22

One of those habits is grocery shopping And the thing is, I noticed they go

Eduardo: 00:13:27

much often to the groceries to get whatever they need to get sometimes

Eduardo: 00:13:32

even three or four times a week or coming back from work or stop quickly.

Eduardo: 00:13:37

And in Brazil this inflation thing was so strong that it has

Eduardo: 00:13:42

built culture, a habit, in us.

Eduardo: 00:13:45

that we would go to the supermarket once a month, load the shopping cart

Eduardo: 00:13:51

to the point it blows up and take everything home and store, which meant

Eduardo: 00:13:56

that the refrigerator had to be huge.

Eduardo: 00:14:00

We needed freezers.

Eduardo: 00:14:01

We need a lot of space because of how afraid people were regarding inflation.

Eduardo: 00:14:07

So whenever people ask me, can you build habit, can you change culture?

Eduardo: 00:14:12

Yes, you can.

Eduardo: 00:14:12

Just make it hard enough that you're going to see that it changes.

Rob: 00:14:16

That must have been some interesting times to be growing up then.

Eduardo: 00:14:20

Luckily for me, in a way I was still maybe too small to understand all

Eduardo: 00:14:25

that to the level that I understood in later the worst years I was like 10.

Eduardo: 00:14:30

So it was a little bit before I started working.

Eduardo: 00:14:33

from the point that I started working and onwards we had a better economical plans.

Eduardo: 00:14:38

We had a little bit better structure.

Eduardo: 00:14:40

The current currency that is in Brazil is the same ever since 1994, which is

Eduardo: 00:14:47

a record for the country, by the way.

Eduardo: 00:14:49

Before that, we had a new currency every two, three years, which is absolutely nuts

Eduardo: 00:14:54

and also explains the inflation and all.

Eduardo: 00:14:56

So things change for the better in that sense, for the much better.

Rob: 00:15:01

It sounds idyllic growing up in Brazil.

Rob: 00:15:04

I suppose if you're in the right part of Brazil but I just imagine

Rob: 00:15:07

beach, sunshine relaxed football.

Rob: 00:15:09

Was that how it was for you?

Eduardo: 00:15:11

It was it was, but let me add here, big disclaimer.

Eduardo: 00:15:15

Brazil is a huge country.

Eduardo: 00:15:17

And you have a lot of inland where people would never ever get near the beach.

Eduardo: 00:15:22

So you, you may cross paths with Brazilians that would

Eduardo: 00:15:25

tell you, no, I never did that.

Eduardo: 00:15:26

And that would be absolutely normal, but lucky me.

Eduardo: 00:15:29

I had family.

Eduardo: 00:15:31

So Sao Paulo is a big state.

Eduardo: 00:15:32

In Brazil and the capital city.

Eduardo: 00:15:35

It's where I come from Sao Paulo as well.

Eduardo: 00:15:37

It's one of the biggest cities in the world.

Eduardo: 00:15:39

It has been like that for the last 40 years.

Eduardo: 00:15:42

It's around 25 million people.

Eduardo: 00:15:45

So really huge.

Eduardo: 00:15:46

And that means that you have, in a way, access as long as you can grab

Eduardo: 00:15:50

some money to many experiences, different things that you can do.

Eduardo: 00:15:55

And on top of that, there is a coast nearby.

Eduardo: 00:15:58

So in one hour, you can be there.

Eduardo: 00:16:01

And a lot of people will just go over the weekend for the day and then come back.

Eduardo: 00:16:05

Again, lucky me.

Eduardo: 00:16:06

My father's family comes from the beach on my grandmother lived

Eduardo: 00:16:10

there for many years, and I would spend part of my vacation there.

Eduardo: 00:16:14

Also, the weekends as a grower.

Eduardo: 00:16:15

When I was just leaving university, I actually got a job there

Eduardo: 00:16:20

and I spent a couple of years living with her on running team.

Eduardo: 00:16:25

On the beach, by the beach pretty much every day, every morning.

Eduardo: 00:16:28

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:16:28

The entirety of the year, because you basically don't get many cold days

Eduardo: 00:16:32

or rainy days or anything like that.

Eduardo: 00:16:34

It was marvelous.

Rob: 00:16:35

See, I live 20 minutes from the beach.

Rob: 00:16:38

Most days you wouldn't want to go there.

Rob: 00:16:40

Our clocks change in summer and winter and in winter at four o'clock, it's dark.

Rob: 00:16:44

So when you were talking about going to school, yeah from December, So

Rob: 00:16:49

like late November till January pretty much by four o'clock, it's dark.

Rob: 00:16:53

So if you were going to school at two o'clock, yeah.

Rob: 00:16:56

That's tough.

Eduardo: 00:16:56

How did you manage that?

Rob: 00:16:58

We're lucky here.

Rob: 00:16:59

We have a lot of things.

Rob: 00:17:00

We have a lot of stability.

Rob: 00:17:01

The infrastructure is good.

Rob: 00:17:02

The health services is relatively good.

Rob: 00:17:05

But we don't have weather.

Rob: 00:17:07

But we have stability and it's good for growth so yeah, it's pluses and minuses.

Eduardo: 00:17:12

I always tell my Swiss friends here that I know why

Eduardo: 00:17:15

God didn't give them a beach.

Eduardo: 00:17:17

It's because things are so perfect here.

Eduardo: 00:17:20

Then it would create hell, you would have everything.

Eduardo: 00:17:22

Why would you go anywhere else?

Eduardo: 00:17:24

It's that

Rob: 00:17:26

kind of

Eduardo: 00:17:27

thing.

Rob: 00:17:27

When I think of Brazil, one of the things, it's the beach, it's the football,

Rob: 00:17:32

but when you look at a lot of some of the greatest footballers Ronaldo, they

Rob: 00:17:36

were, they never really achieved their talent in the same way that someone like

Rob: 00:17:40

Messi or Christiana Ronaldo, because the party lifestyle was too strong.

Rob: 00:17:44

The

Eduardo: 00:17:44

professionalism.

Eduardo: 00:17:45

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:17:45

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:17:46

I think it's something that's changing though.

Eduardo: 00:17:48

I know you like football so it's also something we can talk about.

Eduardo: 00:17:51

I am a big supporter of Palmeiras in Brazil.

Eduardo: 00:17:54

Okay.

Eduardo: 00:17:54

And there are a few players that are coming to, one of them is

Eduardo: 00:17:58

coming to Real Madrid this summer.

Eduardo: 00:18:01

Endrick.

Eduardo: 00:18:01

And you can see that things changed with that boy.

Eduardo: 00:18:05

And I follow the team, I follow all levels.

Eduardo: 00:18:08

So I can tell you that it's not only that boy, that it's more systematic

Eduardo: 00:18:12

now they are getting very professional.

Eduardo: 00:18:15

That is a work that is done with a boy.

Eduardo: 00:18:17

That is work that is done with a family.

Eduardo: 00:18:20

That is a lot of work that is done in the transition between every level on

Eduardo: 00:18:25

the teams, a lot of care to what kind of behavior is expected, what they

Eduardo: 00:18:30

should and should not do and how they can actually achieve higher levels.

Eduardo: 00:18:35

And I was just listening to an interview by the boy, he's 17 now

Eduardo: 00:18:39

extremely professional, very mature.

Eduardo: 00:18:41

To the to a point that you'd say what happened they really changed the country.

Eduardo: 00:18:45

So I think that is awakening.

Eduardo: 00:18:46

The thing we can never forget about Brazil is that Brazil is still very

Eduardo: 00:18:51

young country in so many ways, right?

Eduardo: 00:18:54

The culture, whatever people call Brazilian culture is according to

Eduardo: 00:18:58

many historians still developing.

Eduardo: 00:19:01

Because it was a big mix off Europeans with Africans with Indians

Eduardo: 00:19:08

as well to a lesser degree and all that took a lot of time to adjust.

Eduardo: 00:19:13

It was not for example, like in the U.

Eduardo: 00:19:15

S.

Eduardo: 00:19:16

that started with one specific culture and then later on

Eduardo: 00:19:20

started embracing other cultures.

Eduardo: 00:19:22

Brazil has always had a very strong mix and large mix across the country.

Eduardo: 00:19:28

So we are maybe sometimes running a little bit behind.

Eduardo: 00:19:31

But I do have this feeling that the country is progressing over time

Eduardo: 00:19:36

and we see that in football as well.

Eduardo: 00:19:38

So the technique, the abilities, the skills have always been there.

Eduardo: 00:19:43

And probably because I was playing football the whole day, and

Eduardo: 00:19:47

that's what everybody does, but I see that now that is awareness.

Eduardo: 00:19:51

It's raising the awareness of the kids, of the parents, of the clubs of the

Eduardo: 00:19:56

structure in society that we have created.

Eduardo: 00:19:59

We don't take it more serious than things are not going to work that

Eduardo: 00:20:03

well because of the examples you have mentioned, Rob fantastic football

Eduardo: 00:20:07

players that got nowhere, but also because of the national team.

Eduardo: 00:20:11

That is huge pressure over there.

Eduardo: 00:20:14

Why is that?

Eduardo: 00:20:14

The team is not ever winning the World Cup again.

Eduardo: 00:20:18

And why is that?

Eduardo: 00:20:18

It's collecting some significantly negative results against even

Eduardo: 00:20:23

in expressive national teams in the world scene, and then things

Eduardo: 00:20:27

really are supposed to change.

Eduardo: 00:20:29

And I trust they are going to change.

Rob: 00:20:30

Now, I remember coming from England, which is a team, which

Rob: 00:20:34

has had many great players.

Rob: 00:20:36

And apart from like 1966, they've never been able to make the national team work.

Rob: 00:20:41

But I remember my earliest memories there was magic about Brazil, with

Rob: 00:20:44

Zico, Socrates when those players Play football was different.

Rob: 00:20:48

There was just this swagger and there was a beauty to it that no other country had.

Rob: 00:20:53

And so everyone, so I think particularly people who were around

Rob: 00:20:57

them saw, they see Brazil as a different type of footballing country.

Eduardo: 00:21:03

And I think that's an extremely good example on abilities,

Eduardo: 00:21:08

on closing gaps, some performance, because you can have Like the Brazilian

Eduardo: 00:21:12

players have all this ability.

Eduardo: 00:21:15

What did mostly the Europeans did to close the gap?

Eduardo: 00:21:18

They put in the effort, they did a lot of put science to work

Eduardo: 00:21:22

physiology here in Europe works on a completely different level.

Eduardo: 00:21:26

You have different training structures, you have much

Eduardo: 00:21:29

better organized tournaments.

Eduardo: 00:21:31

I am always surprised here in Switzerland with the level of organization they have

Eduardo: 00:21:37

even for young kids in every village.

Eduardo: 00:21:40

It doesn't matter if it's three, 10, 15, 000 people, you're

Eduardo: 00:21:44

going to have a football team.

Eduardo: 00:21:45

This football team is going to be organized having a few to train and

Eduardo: 00:21:50

coaches to train them and et cetera.

Eduardo: 00:21:52

It's part of the community life.

Eduardo: 00:21:54

And then it always raised my own question.

Eduardo: 00:21:56

Okay.

Eduardo: 00:21:57

Is Brazil the country of football or is this place here?

Eduardo: 00:21:59

Look at how much more serious they treat the thing, right?

Eduardo: 00:22:03

Just to say that you can close gaps in terms of abilities.

Eduardo: 00:22:07

If you're aiming for higher performance to science, to data, to discipline, to

Eduardo: 00:22:12

organization, and then the task of those who are skilled, who have these higher

Eduardo: 00:22:17

abilities is to catch up with that.

Rob: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Rob: 00:22:20

I think an example of that is Germany.

Rob: 00:22:23

Germany traditionally whatever the players they've had, they've always

Rob: 00:22:25

just been there in terms of World Cups.

Rob: 00:22:28

And yeah, they often won without having the greatest players.

Rob: 00:22:32

But just through that organization.

Eduardo: 00:22:34

Organization.

Eduardo: 00:22:35

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:22:35

That that's how you can make things work.

Eduardo: 00:22:38

And you see the results it's undisputable.

Eduardo: 00:22:40

Now you see when Spain decided to organize themselves, what happened,

Eduardo: 00:22:44

they also got their work cut.

Rob: 00:22:46

Yeah.

Rob: 00:22:46

Which I often think is analogy for England.

Rob: 00:22:50

Because had what we call the golden generation with so many individual talents

Rob: 00:22:55

and yet no one could get them to work.

Rob: 00:22:57

And Spain, I think were like that for many years, great individual players,

Rob: 00:23:00

but they never performed as a nation.

Rob: 00:23:03

But then that all comes down to, like you say, the organization and

Rob: 00:23:06

being able to make them as a team,

Eduardo: 00:23:08

And for that, what, how important is the role of what we

Eduardo: 00:23:12

would call the leader, the coach.

Eduardo: 00:23:13

As I was younger and following football, there was some praise to the coach to the

Eduardo: 00:23:19

role of the coach and the importance for tactics and et cetera, but not like right

Eduardo: 00:23:24

now people understand that much better.

Eduardo: 00:23:27

That it's not only about organizing the 11 guys in the field and telling them

Eduardo: 00:23:32

to do this or that, but it's managing the other 11 that eventually don't play.

Eduardo: 00:23:37

It's organizing the interpersonal relationships, the dynamics, understanding

Eduardo: 00:23:42

that it's managing the peaks and valleys of each player and matching that it's

Eduardo: 00:23:47

understanding their opponent that's it.

Eduardo: 00:23:49

Big piece of what the coach does to adjust that extra technique, keeping

Eduardo: 00:23:54

that flexibility within themselves and then spreading that to the team.

Eduardo: 00:23:58

So it's not too rigid.

Eduardo: 00:23:59

And the opponent will not be able to read you that easily.

Eduardo: 00:24:03

That knows that you're always going to do this, going to do the same thing.

Eduardo: 00:24:06

So I feel the role of the coach also has a much higher stand right now.

Eduardo: 00:24:12

Understandably and we could translate that back into corporate just as the

Eduardo: 00:24:16

same, where you see the best coaches, you're going to see the best results.

Rob: 00:24:20

Okay now when you went into tech what was that journey from

Rob: 00:24:25

working on like the actual tech?

Rob: 00:24:28

How did you develop into software and then the other areas that you've moved into?

Eduardo: 00:24:32

Accident.

Eduardo: 00:24:33

My life is full of lucky accidents that I am.

Eduardo: 00:24:37

Yeah, I treasure them so much, I was in the university.

Eduardo: 00:24:41

So what happened was.

Eduardo: 00:24:42

I worked with my father, then I stopped for a year went to a small school

Eduardo: 00:24:47

to teach informatics when I was 15.

Eduardo: 00:24:51

Stayed there till right before the the uni.

Eduardo: 00:24:54

And then in Brazil we have a national exam that you do in order

Eduardo: 00:24:58

to get a position in the uni.

Eduardo: 00:25:00

And I wanted six months to study for that because it's really tough exam.

Eduardo: 00:25:04

Then I entered and I got back to work with my father for a year or so.

Eduardo: 00:25:08

At that point in time, I was already a Microsoft certified specialist and

Eduardo: 00:25:13

things like that, working really hard on again, infrastructure side of the thing,

Eduardo: 00:25:19

servers operating systems and so on.

Eduardo: 00:25:21

And one day a guy called me from this company in Santos and said I'd like to

Eduardo: 00:25:26

talk to you and like to run an interview.

Eduardo: 00:25:28

If you would come it would be nice.

Eduardo: 00:25:30

Okay.

Eduardo: 00:25:31

I have nothing to lose.

Eduardo: 00:25:32

My grandmother is there.

Eduardo: 00:25:33

I can pay her a visit.

Eduardo: 00:25:34

Fine.

Eduardo: 00:25:35

Went to talk to him.

Eduardo: 00:25:36

He was really impressed with my technical certifications and how

Eduardo: 00:25:40

early I was in the career and so on.

Eduardo: 00:25:43

And he offered me a job and the job was to be a software developer.

Eduardo: 00:25:46

I don't know.

Eduardo: 00:25:47

I really only did that in the university and only at student level, right?

Eduardo: 00:25:52

I can probably learn that, but just letting you know

Eduardo: 00:25:55

that I never did this before.

Eduardo: 00:25:57

That's fine.

Eduardo: 00:25:58

I think you are going to do fine.

Eduardo: 00:25:59

And anyways, I'm going to negotiate the salary accordingly.

Eduardo: 00:26:02

So it's a distributed risk.

Eduardo: 00:26:05

Okay, fine.

Eduardo: 00:26:06

I took it and within three months I was performing at the highest level.

Eduardo: 00:26:12

It was so natural to me.

Eduardo: 00:26:13

And I feel it's like that.

Eduardo: 00:26:15

In life, when you get into the things that you're naturally good at, it

Eduardo: 00:26:19

just flows, the things I'm naturally bad at, it's equally easy to see and

Eduardo: 00:26:24

understand, yeah, I suck, I'm not born to do that, when I got into that

Eduardo: 00:26:29

thing, it was like heaven for me.

Eduardo: 00:26:32

I love languages.

Eduardo: 00:26:34

That's why I've learned English from earlier on, then Spanish now later on

Eduardo: 00:26:39

German, a little bit of French and so on.

Eduardo: 00:26:41

And for the people that sometimes struggle with computers, let me

Eduardo: 00:26:45

just say, programming is pretty much like learning a new language.

Eduardo: 00:26:50

that is spoken by the machine.

Eduardo: 00:26:51

It's not harder than that.

Eduardo: 00:26:53

Once you understand how the machine likes to be talked to what are the

Eduardo: 00:26:57

expressions, what kind of sentences you use, what kind of words, and it's

Eduardo: 00:27:02

much simpler than any other language that I know, then it's really easy.

Eduardo: 00:27:06

And then it's more about solving problems, which is something that I love.

Eduardo: 00:27:10

Okay.

Eduardo: 00:27:11

I need to get from this point to this point.

Eduardo: 00:27:13

What can I use?

Eduardo: 00:27:15

So what's the strategy?

Eduardo: 00:27:16

And so on.

Eduardo: 00:27:17

And yeah, that was pretty much the transition.

Eduardo: 00:27:20

Lucky interview out of the blue not applying for positions or whatever and

Eduardo: 00:27:24

then just getting into the technology.

Eduardo: 00:27:26

Then I need to say it was probably also luck that I was joining a team of

Eduardo: 00:27:32

wonderful people, really wonderful people.

Eduardo: 00:27:35

They were very good software developers and they could have

Eduardo: 00:27:38

mistreated me or diminished me or not paid attention or just let me on

Eduardo: 00:27:44

the side, this guy doesn't know what he's doing, what he's doing here.

Eduardo: 00:27:46

But instead they embraced me.

Eduardo: 00:27:48

They really supported me.

Eduardo: 00:27:50

They.

Eduardo: 00:27:50

Shared whatever knowledge they had, they shared examples,

Eduardo: 00:27:54

code snippets, books, whatever.

Eduardo: 00:27:57

And in no time I could keep up with them and work together with them.

Eduardo: 00:28:01

And in six months I was leading the team there.

Eduardo: 00:28:04

And even that transition was so smooth.

Eduardo: 00:28:06

I know a lot of people worry about leading peers or even

Eduardo: 00:28:11

leading their previous bosses.

Eduardo: 00:28:13

And my experience was so positive over there that I have to say big

Eduardo: 00:28:19

thanks to them, maybe they are going to hear this and they deserve it.

Rob: 00:28:22

Let's talk about that.

Rob: 00:28:23

Moving from a programmer to a leader.

Rob: 00:28:27

When you say that was smooth what, when you say that it's natural and

Rob: 00:28:31

this comes naturally to me that that means that there's a, like a through

Rob: 00:28:35

line a theme throughout your life.

Rob: 00:28:37

And those, and you've been able to transfer those talents.

Rob: 00:28:40

So when you talk about languaging and the problem solving, that to me

Rob: 00:28:45

says empathy and problem solving.

Rob: 00:28:48

Can you speak to what you found natural about that jump to leadership?

Eduardo: 00:28:53

Oh, great question, Rob.

Eduardo: 00:28:55

What was natural in that jump?

Eduardo: 00:28:57

I think it gets back to college, really.

Eduardo: 00:29:01

Now I'm just thinking about it.

Eduardo: 00:29:02

I think it's the first time somebody asked me exactly this question.

Eduardo: 00:29:06

I was an introvert as a young boy.

Eduardo: 00:29:09

Very introvert and the typical nerd, as some would call high grades, a good

Eduardo: 00:29:14

student but quite kept to himself.

Eduardo: 00:29:17

Some people nowadays would say bullied I, I wouldn't label it like that,

Eduardo: 00:29:21

but it was rough sometimes and it was not like I was taking any kind

Eduardo: 00:29:25

of leadership position in school or with friends, anything like that.

Eduardo: 00:29:29

I cannot pinpoint exactly what happened, but the moment I started

Eduardo: 00:29:34

college, I just felt different.

Eduardo: 00:29:36

And one of the things that, that happened then is that I started organizing events.

Eduardo: 00:29:43

I started organizing the group work.

Eduardo: 00:29:47

I started organizing class activities.

Eduardo: 00:29:50

I was the one taking the responsibility to do the presentations, the oral

Eduardo: 00:29:55

presentations, but I didn't stop there.

Eduardo: 00:29:57

I started teasing the entire class to participate in the discussions.

Eduardo: 00:30:02

It was like really lively discussions.

Eduardo: 00:30:04

Some people even hated me for that, for bringing them up and making

Eduardo: 00:30:08

them stressed, but it was such a great experience that I felt.

Eduardo: 00:30:13

This is what I need to do.

Eduardo: 00:30:14

This is where I belong.

Eduardo: 00:30:15

When I see these people doing so much while having fun while

Eduardo: 00:30:21

developing, while, it's the kind of environment I want to build.

Eduardo: 00:30:25

It's the kind of experience I want others to have.

Eduardo: 00:30:28

And if I can be in a position to do that, that's what I'm going to do.

Eduardo: 00:30:32

And if I have any opportunity.

Eduardo: 00:30:34

To enable that's what I'm going to do.

Eduardo: 00:30:36

So when I moved from the company of my father, when I was an individual

Eduardo: 00:30:42

contributor, we would call and that's because the company was very small.

Eduardo: 00:30:46

It's three, four people, every person just do the job, into a

Eduardo: 00:30:49

company where there was a team.

Eduardo: 00:30:51

I just felt natural to start taking some responsibilities that were not

Eduardo: 00:30:57

software development related, that were more related to taking care of the team.

Eduardo: 00:31:01

I just felt naturally good with that to represent them, to support them,

Eduardo: 00:31:05

to fight for them to defend them to bring their results to management to

Eduardo: 00:31:11

bring them closer to the customers and all those things, it just felt right.

Rob: 00:31:16

So what I get a grasp on is you had very solid foundations on what you were

Rob: 00:31:21

doing, like you studied, you knew what you were doing, you were good at that.

Rob: 00:31:25

You developed your social network and you increasingly took on

Rob: 00:31:29

more and more responsibilities.

Rob: 00:31:31

You took initiative.

Rob: 00:31:32

So what it seems to me is you were if you imagine a circle and if you imagine

Rob: 00:31:37

you keep going out of your comfort zone, you just keep expanding that.

Rob: 00:31:40

Now it makes perfect sense why you do so many different things, because

Rob: 00:31:43

you've started from this core of a very clear idea of who you are.

Rob: 00:31:47

And expand it out so that who you are now is has many different aspects

Rob: 00:31:53

because you've become a bigger circle.

Rob: 00:31:56

What also comes to mind is I know that you're a fan of Spiral Dynamics.

Rob: 00:32:00

I am, yes.

Rob: 00:32:01

Really like the idea of Spiral Dynamics.

Rob: 00:32:03

I really like the way that explains how, because I see this, that we move

Rob: 00:32:07

from, when I was growing up, things were very much you do as you're

Rob: 00:32:10

told, authoritarian and centralized.

Rob: 00:32:13

And now it's become, you look at Gen Z it's very much of power

Rob: 00:32:18

to the kids, power to everyone.

Rob: 00:32:20

And so through these polarities, spiral dynamics creates so it's

Rob: 00:32:25

like a more conservative sense.

Rob: 00:32:28

It's like the blue, blue one is conservative and then it

Rob: 00:32:31

becomes very hierarchical.

Rob: 00:32:32

Yeah, which is like the eighties of everyone for themselves.

Rob: 00:32:35

And then it goes back and it bounces.

Rob: 00:32:37

So where I'm looking at as you've expanded now, you're a very positive person.

Rob: 00:32:42

I can tell that you're not a complainer.

Rob: 00:32:44

But.

Rob: 00:32:45

I'm guessing there must've been challenges.

Rob: 00:32:47

There must've been setbacks.

Rob: 00:32:48

Because what it seems like too easy, seems too perfect that you

Rob: 00:32:53

would just grow exponentially.

Rob: 00:32:55

So was it that it just grew out or was it a spiral where you each

Rob: 00:33:00

time had a setback, which then led you to the next level which analogy

Rob: 00:33:05

would fit best with your growth?

Eduardo: 00:33:07

Yeah, I love the spiral dynamics, Rob, because it first of all,

Eduardo: 00:33:12

it reminds us that we are not fixed.

Eduardo: 00:33:16

One thing that a lot of people don't understand on the spiral is that you can

Eduardo: 00:33:20

spiral up or you can as well spiral down.

Eduardo: 00:33:23

And it's not up in the sense of better and down in the sense of worse.

Eduardo: 00:33:28

It's a lot influenced by the context, by what's happening and

Eduardo: 00:33:32

what are the triggers, right?

Eduardo: 00:33:34

And adapting to the situations and making the changes again, in

Eduardo: 00:33:39

whatever direction is always going to mean there is some rupture, right?

Eduardo: 00:33:43

I'm not a complainer.

Eduardo: 00:33:45

You're right.

Eduardo: 00:33:46

But I probably gave you some hint very early on my parents are divorced

Eduardo: 00:33:50

and their divorce was terrible in, in pretty much every sense they it left

Eduardo: 00:33:56

a lot of unsolved things that I had to solve later on as a young adult.

Eduardo: 00:34:01

For example the whole process of becoming an expat going out of my

Eduardo: 00:34:06

comfort zone from Brazil to the U S given that if that was one of my dreams

Eduardo: 00:34:11

had a lot of fractures one of them, again, getting back to the family team

Eduardo: 00:34:16

It was a big rupture with my father that I had to work on later on again.

Eduardo: 00:34:21

And even the theme of coming to Switzerland was not an easy thing at all.

Eduardo: 00:34:29

Think about it.

Eduardo: 00:34:29

I was my dream place to live back then.

Eduardo: 00:34:33

I was happy and I had everything that I could possibly want.

Eduardo: 00:34:36

I didn't want to come.

Eduardo: 00:34:37

It required a lot of convincing.

Eduardo: 00:34:40

And for me, a lot of letting go and changing deeply rooted ideas that

Eduardo: 00:34:45

I had about life, about human beings about culture and so on that I had to

Eduardo: 00:34:49

change in the process So no, It was not easy I tell this tale in brazil.

Eduardo: 00:34:55

It's very normal that middle class young boys would get their cars whenever

Eduardo: 00:35:00

they are 18 or 19 stuff like that.

Eduardo: 00:35:03

My younger brother got his car and started driving around.

Eduardo: 00:35:06

Back then there was a lot of pressure for a boy of middle

Eduardo: 00:35:10

class to have this kind of stuff.

Eduardo: 00:35:12

And I made my own decisions that no, I wouldn't do that.

Eduardo: 00:35:15

My path was different.

Eduardo: 00:35:17

My priorities were different.

Eduardo: 00:35:18

And I would commit to that.

Eduardo: 00:35:20

I had my first car when I was 27.

Eduardo: 00:35:23

And a lot of people didn't really understand he's putting all the work,

Eduardo: 00:35:27

the effort and where are the results.

Eduardo: 00:35:30

And this kind of stuff is very heavy because I could feel the pressure

Eduardo: 00:35:33

that was again coming from society, from family, from friends and whatnot.

Eduardo: 00:35:38

And.

Eduardo: 00:35:38

You had to deal with this shit if you want to get somewhere.

Eduardo: 00:35:41

Not complaining, not I never complained that I didn't have a car.

Eduardo: 00:35:46

That I was robbed in the bus stop because of that.

Eduardo: 00:35:49

That I would take two hours to get to college when other people

Eduardo: 00:35:53

would take 30 minutes and You just carry on, you decide your strategy

Eduardo: 00:35:58

for life, you commit to it and go.

Eduardo: 00:36:01

And when it's time to change, then you need to realize it's

Eduardo: 00:36:04

time to change and go again.

Eduardo: 00:36:06

That's it.

Rob: 00:36:07

Okay.

Rob: 00:36:07

Yeah.

Rob: 00:36:08

So where I'm looking now is it's more like a, It's not a spiral, it's more like an

Rob: 00:36:13

upside down funnel, that you had a very strong core and you have something that

Rob: 00:36:19

makes you able to push yourself out and out of your comfort zone and to grow.

Rob: 00:36:24

And maybe it was the difficult experiences you talked about your

Rob: 00:36:29

parents, but also about how school might have been challenging.

Rob: 00:36:33

And maybe it's those difficult.

Rob: 00:36:34

experiences that you resolved early on, which give you the foundation so

Rob: 00:36:39

that you're able To grow from then on.

Eduardo: 00:36:41

I think that one of the reasons was that I had difficulties,

Eduardo: 00:36:46

if I hadn't had any difficulty then maybe I wouldn't have got anywhere.

Eduardo: 00:36:51

But I was Growing up in an environment that was showing itself very limiting,

Eduardo: 00:36:56

that I couldn't do or reach or achieve these or that or the other thing.

Eduardo: 00:37:01

Traveling abroad was like a big no go for me as a kid.

Eduardo: 00:37:06

Can you imagine that?

Eduardo: 00:37:08

So I would never have dreamed about it.

Eduardo: 00:37:10

For a short period of time.

Eduardo: 00:37:12

We were not hungry, but we were struggling to get food at home.

Eduardo: 00:37:16

And I think this experiences helped me shaping up this

Eduardo: 00:37:21

idea that I know what I want.

Eduardo: 00:37:22

And then that I am capable enough as a human being to develop a strategy.

Eduardo: 00:37:27

To get what I want.

Eduardo: 00:37:29

And then be flexible enough, right?

Eduardo: 00:37:30

That's where the spiral comes in.

Eduardo: 00:37:32

And I only learned this much later, but without knowing it, that's what I have

Eduardo: 00:37:37

been using pretty much my entire life.

Rob: 00:37:39

So that's where you've come from now, when you look

Rob: 00:37:41

ahead what is it that you want?

Rob: 00:37:43

What's the things that drive you?

Rob: 00:37:45

Or maybe what did drive you and what drives you now?

Eduardo: 00:37:48

One thing I hope came already across quite loudly is the

Eduardo: 00:37:54

enablement of other human beings.

Eduardo: 00:37:56

So I want to play an active role in developing people.

Eduardo: 00:38:01

In making sure that others are having the opportunities that I had

Eduardo: 00:38:05

that they are having developments that they need, want or aspire.

Eduardo: 00:38:09

I'm making a difference in their lives.

Eduardo: 00:38:11

I think especially with my kids.

Eduardo: 00:38:13

Yes, they are growing up and I see I'm making that difference there for the

Eduardo: 00:38:19

good for the bad because we all fail.

Eduardo: 00:38:21

I got a huge reinforcement that this is my role in the world that I am here to

Eduardo: 00:38:28

serve others to help others to enable others and that I need to be in positions

Eduardo: 00:38:34

where I can actually make that difference.

Eduardo: 00:38:36

So that's definitely one thing that I continue to look forward to.

Eduardo: 00:38:39

And that's why I have this at least dual role and the corporate on one

Eduardo: 00:38:44

side and coaching on the other, because you can also interact, change a lot

Eduardo: 00:38:48

between the two and I can feel like I'm fulfilling my mission very easily.

Eduardo: 00:38:53

I just mentioned Rob, My family is my treasure, so I definitely want

Eduardo: 00:38:58

to make sure that I'm here for them, that I'm supporting them through their

Eduardo: 00:39:02

development, and hopefully that I'm given a number of years to watch them, what

Eduardo: 00:39:07

they do with their lives after that.

Eduardo: 00:39:09

I'm very curious about it.

Eduardo: 00:39:10

I would love to to see, just watch how it blooms for them.

Eduardo: 00:39:14

And the other thing that I am resolving and I'm working on right now is again,

Eduardo: 00:39:19

settling in this country, in Switzerland, that was a complete 180 degrees change

Eduardo: 00:39:24

for us and yes required some time and now over the last two, three years already,

Eduardo: 00:39:30

I'm feeling really deeply like home and we take even further steps in order to settle

Eduardo: 00:39:36

here and making this country, our country.

Rob: 00:39:39

So making a difference.

Rob: 00:39:40

I'm trying to hone in on why making a difference?

Rob: 00:39:44

What is it about?

Rob: 00:39:46

What is the why that that powers you?

Rob: 00:39:49

It's making the difference in others.

Rob: 00:39:50

And how does that make you feel?

Eduardo: 00:39:52

That makes me feel extremely good.

Eduardo: 00:39:55

I have read it somewhere.

Eduardo: 00:39:57

It's the most egoistic thing that you want a human being can do is to help others.

Eduardo: 00:40:03

Because the most egoistic thing you can do is help others.

Eduardo: 00:40:08

Because when you help others, you feel fantastic.

Eduardo: 00:40:11

It's the best feeling you can really experience in this planet.

Eduardo: 00:40:15

The joy of giving the joy of taking somebody by the hand and seeing after a

Eduardo: 00:40:21

year or two, how that person has grown has been promoted, has reached goals

Eduardo: 00:40:27

and et cetera, nothing compares to that.

Eduardo: 00:40:29

I was talking to one of my coaches this afternoon, and we were talking about

Eduardo: 00:40:33

LinkedIn experiences a little bit.

Eduardo: 00:40:35

One experience that I have and you've probably had that too, is somebody

Eduardo: 00:40:39

reaches out and thank you for A difference that you made in your life

Eduardo: 00:40:42

because of piece of content advice, something you recommended, whatnot.

Eduardo: 00:40:47

And this happens at least here around that happens live people

Eduardo: 00:40:51

actually stopped me every now and then in parks to say, thank you.

Eduardo: 00:40:56

I'm following you.

Eduardo: 00:40:57

And what you said these days really helped me.

Eduardo: 00:40:59

I was having this problem, that problem.

Eduardo: 00:41:01

And every time that happens, I feel like fulfilled.

Eduardo: 00:41:05

That is no other word.

Eduardo: 00:41:06

fulfilled.

Eduardo: 00:41:07

Like I'm whole, like I'm part I belong here and I'm making a difference.

Rob: 00:41:11

I think we all want to contribute.

Rob: 00:41:14

So for me for me, this, the, when I work with someone, it's

Rob: 00:41:17

about giving them freedom.

Rob: 00:41:19

So I see a lot of people tied up in relationships.

Rob: 00:41:24

I started.

Rob: 00:41:25

Way back, it was a problem of people not sticking to the gym, and then

Rob: 00:41:28

it became happiness, and then it became relationships, then it became

Rob: 00:41:31

conflict, then it became teams.

Rob: 00:41:32

But for me, it's because I see a lot of people who feel trapped and particularly

Rob: 00:41:37

most bad relationships are because people don't know they can have better.

Rob: 00:41:42

People get together with someone for a vague reason.

Rob: 00:41:45

Doesn't really make sense.

Rob: 00:41:46

The relationship doesn't work out because of that and they're trapped

Rob: 00:41:49

because they don't know any different.

Rob: 00:41:52

So the thing I wish through my work is to give people, set people free.

Rob: 00:41:57

I understand the fulfillment because every, I think everything for most

Rob: 00:42:01

of us comes through other people.

Rob: 00:42:03

So what, if you could give them one quality.

Rob: 00:42:06

What would that be for your case?

Eduardo: 00:42:08

The sense of progress.

Eduardo: 00:42:09

So I really love to see that they achieved something that was important for them.

Eduardo: 00:42:16

I had this discussion once.

Eduardo: 00:42:18

What if it's the wrong thing?

Eduardo: 00:42:19

I would rather get them getting the wrong things for a little bit for them

Eduardo: 00:42:24

to realize by themselves that these are the wrong things and then they can shift

Eduardo: 00:42:29

and start working on the right things then leave them there struggling, To

Eduardo: 00:42:34

your point, I don't want to fix anybody.

Eduardo: 00:42:37

I want people to live their lives in whatever shape, form,

Eduardo: 00:42:41

color that they want to live.

Eduardo: 00:42:44

And I believe in every single human being as is a potential.

Eduardo: 00:42:49

I believe it's there.

Eduardo: 00:42:50

You're set to do truly set to do.

Eduardo: 00:42:53

They are going to do, they are going to achieve.

Eduardo: 00:42:54

We need to bake in time, we need to bake in effort, discipline and all those

Eduardo: 00:42:59

things, but it's completely doable.

Eduardo: 00:43:01

And the way that they understand that is in progress.

Eduardo: 00:43:05

So for me, progress is what nails it.

Eduardo: 00:43:08

And progress according to their terms, not my terms.

Rob: 00:43:11

Now that kind of fits with that idea of growing out.

Rob: 00:43:16

I like to be able to tie things up so I can see how the congruence of someone.

Eduardo: 00:43:22

You do a great job, Rob, I must say.

Eduardo: 00:43:24

But I knew it, I knew about it because I saw the other interviews before.

Rob: 00:43:28

We covered the coaching the books that you're writing.

Rob: 00:43:31

So this is what I'm interested in.

Rob: 00:43:34

Cause one of the questions I would write, I would ask is if you're going

Rob: 00:43:37

to give a TED talk, what would it be on?

Rob: 00:43:40

But the other aspect of that is if you're going to write a

Rob: 00:43:42

book, what is the book on so

Eduardo: 00:43:44

Let me tell you out loud, so I.

Eduardo: 00:43:46

I actually wrote two books, and I am seriously considering

Eduardo: 00:43:50

to publish one of them.

Eduardo: 00:43:51

The first book that I wrote, which is by the way, this one is my take, my

Eduardo: 00:43:56

personal take on the wheel of life.

Eduardo: 00:43:58

You will know the concept, right?

Eduardo: 00:44:00

You have these different angles and then how you can work to integrate them.

Eduardo: 00:44:04

And basically what I do in that book.

Eduardo: 00:44:06

I.

Eduardo: 00:44:07

I focused on the elements of the wheel of life where I feel I can most

Eduardo: 00:44:11

contribute to in terms of experiences and tools and practices to others.

Eduardo: 00:44:16

And that was the book that I wrote thinking about my kids.

Eduardo: 00:44:19

So I wanted to make sure that regardless of what happens over the next many

Eduardo: 00:44:23

years they would have a reference.

Eduardo: 00:44:25

About that, because that's probably the number one tool that I used throughout

Eduardo: 00:44:30

my entire life, ever since I was 16 or 17 when I got acquainted with

Eduardo: 00:44:35

that tool, I started using it and it really made a difference in my life

Eduardo: 00:44:40

and thinking about objectives, not from one angle, but from all of them.

Eduardo: 00:44:43

And when I think about purpose that came much later.

Eduardo: 00:44:47

It was really easy to find it because of the congruence of the

Eduardo: 00:44:52

elements in my wheel of life.

Eduardo: 00:44:54

So that's why I decided to write about it.

Eduardo: 00:44:56

It's a little bit of memories in a sense, because I talk about personal

Eduardo: 00:45:00

experiences, a little bit of practices, a little bit of jokes and fun stories that

Eduardo: 00:45:06

I share again with the first intent to give a little bit of a gift to my kids.

Eduardo: 00:45:10

And then why not to distribute that to the world.

Eduardo: 00:45:13

Then the second one I, I wrote that's one I won't publish.

Eduardo: 00:45:18

But yeah, I will leave it here for again, maybe my kids to

Eduardo: 00:45:21

read at some point in time.

Eduardo: 00:45:23

When I found out that I was about to be laid off, I thought about many things and

Eduardo: 00:45:28

one of the things I thought was, Hey, this is a great opportunity to test this idea.

Eduardo: 00:45:33

How would it look like if I would write a journal about that journey?

Eduardo: 00:45:38

And that's what I did.

Eduardo: 00:45:39

So it's a hundred thousand words or something like that over more than a year

Eduardo: 00:45:43

telling the story and telling this story.

Eduardo: 00:45:46

From the perspective of how I was feeling on each of the days, depending

Eduardo: 00:45:51

on what was happening with announcements with how I saw the colleagues with

Eduardo: 00:45:56

how I felt about it myself and which means that it's quite unfiltered.

Eduardo: 00:46:00

It's quite raw, which means that some people would get probably very sensitive

Eduardo: 00:46:05

about some of the things that I wrote and that is no need for that, right?

Eduardo: 00:46:08

So that's why I decided not to publish it to keep it as memories of mine.

Eduardo: 00:46:13

I love what I wrote, to be honest.

Eduardo: 00:46:15

I think that's, that there's some gold there and I can, The one thing I can

Eduardo: 00:46:19

do is just recommend people to journal about pretty much anything that they

Eduardo: 00:46:24

want to journal in their lives, but especially if they are going through

Eduardo: 00:46:27

a situation like that, it's such a powerful tool, such a powerful tool.

Eduardo: 00:46:31

It helped me greatly going through the experience and yeah.

Eduardo: 00:46:35

So that was the second one.

Eduardo: 00:46:36

And now I started another one, which is still bare bones idea.

Eduardo: 00:46:40

Now it's a little bit more on the field of fiction.

Eduardo: 00:46:43

But interluded with business administration.

Eduardo: 00:46:45

So I'm talking about leadership using an animal story to, to

Eduardo: 00:46:50

illustrate some of what happens.

Rob: 00:46:51

You're even more prolific than I

Eduardo: 00:46:54

thought.

Eduardo: 00:46:56

And I will not even tell you the ideas.

Eduardo: 00:46:58

I already noted down to write next all over the place.

Rob: 00:47:01

Okay.

Rob: 00:47:02

And the apps you're developing.

Eduardo: 00:47:04

So that's something I had an idea because of my coaching practice.

Eduardo: 00:47:09

I noticed that is a little bit of a gap on how coaches are Getting trained,

Eduardo: 00:47:15

getting certified around the world.

Eduardo: 00:47:18

And this is still on the hypothesis.

Eduardo: 00:47:20

So I'm not going to share much details, but that's the

Eduardo: 00:47:22

problem I'm trying to solve.

Eduardo: 00:47:24

So I'm thinking about my fellow coaches and their struggles as they start

Eduardo: 00:47:28

in the career and how I could help.

Rob: 00:47:30

Before we go into that, so who would be ideal kind of person that could.

Rob: 00:47:35

Go on a growth journey with your coaching.

Rob: 00:47:38

What would they be looking for?

Rob: 00:47:39

And like what end result, what situation might they be in?

Rob: 00:47:43

What end result might they want?

Rob: 00:47:45

And yeah in, in what way could you help their journey?

Eduardo: 00:47:49

Most of the people that have significant results with me, they

Eduardo: 00:47:53

come from senior management positions.

Eduardo: 00:47:55

So they already sorted out a lot of A lot of stuff for themselves

Eduardo: 00:47:59

and already realized that it's time for them to stand up as leaders.

Eduardo: 00:48:04

So they are trying to change their practices, change some of their

Eduardo: 00:48:08

behaviors in order to, to change managing groups to leading teams.

Eduardo: 00:48:13

That's what most people have benefited working with me.

Eduardo: 00:48:17

Usually they are Having some very clear goals for themselves, though.

Eduardo: 00:48:21

Sometimes they're not.

Eduardo: 00:48:23

And one of the things that I do is I help them finding different alternatives

Eduardo: 00:48:27

to get to those goals and keeping their accountability in order to get that.

Rob: 00:48:31

That's quite clear.

Rob: 00:48:32

And in terms of what's next for you in terms of corporate what are you

Rob: 00:48:37

looking for from your next position and what, where do you see that going?

Eduardo: 00:48:42

That's a great question.

Eduardo: 00:48:43

One of the things that I am making a point again is that it's a leadership

Eduardo: 00:48:48

position where I have responsibility for the development of other talents.

Eduardo: 00:48:52

That's part of the job for me.

Eduardo: 00:48:54

Otherwise, it's not really interesting and because of everything I told

Eduardo: 00:48:59

you about my technology background that's what I want to play, right?

Eduardo: 00:49:02

So you can decide, okay, I want to focus on people.

Eduardo: 00:49:05

I am a people manager, but what is the scope?

Eduardo: 00:49:08

And for me, the scope is technology, especially with all

Eduardo: 00:49:11

this digital transformations happening across the globe.

Eduardo: 00:49:14

across companies companies of all sorts of sizes.

Eduardo: 00:49:17

That's where I feel I belong.

Eduardo: 00:49:19

Hopefully this this next job, this next opportunity I'm going to take

Eduardo: 00:49:24

on will lead Both the company to change the processes considering a

Eduardo: 00:49:30

digital mindset not only implementing technology for the sake of technology.

Eduardo: 00:49:34

So we are really talking about transforming businesses while

Eduardo: 00:49:38

doing the same for the people.

Eduardo: 00:49:39

I think even in technology, Rob, to be honest.

Eduardo: 00:49:43

It's sometimes scary how much people are a little bit behind in this change curve

Eduardo: 00:49:49

with technology advancing so much faster.

Eduardo: 00:49:52

And I will be very happy to help them get into the curve attaching and grow much

Eduardo: 00:49:59

faster than they have been doing so far.

Rob: 00:50:00

It seems to be a recurring theme of how technology can

Rob: 00:50:04

multiply so much quicker.

Rob: 00:50:06

While Theoretically people could change quicker.

Rob: 00:50:09

There's so many barriers to that.

Eduardo: 00:50:12

Technology doesn't change anything.

Eduardo: 00:50:14

And so I mentioned to you, I work with supply chain management

Eduardo: 00:50:18

for the last four or five years.

Eduardo: 00:50:20

15 years ago, I was working in finance, the kind of technology that we had

Eduardo: 00:50:26

back there 15 years ago, right?

Eduardo: 00:50:28

A little bit of robotics process automation, a little bit of

Eduardo: 00:50:32

workflows automation in general some algorithms, maybe a few.

Eduardo: 00:50:37

Dashboarding technologies visualization tools, everything that already

Eduardo: 00:50:41

existed 15 years ago could have transformed supply chain back then.

Eduardo: 00:50:46

Now people talk about generative AI, and I will tell you that people

Eduardo: 00:50:51

are still not even using that technology from that long back.

Eduardo: 00:50:54

And they hope to make the jump because they are still betting that the

Eduardo: 00:50:58

technology is going to solve the problems.

Eduardo: 00:51:00

No.

Eduardo: 00:51:01

The people are going to solve the problems.

Eduardo: 00:51:03

This is where focus is required.

Eduardo: 00:51:05

And that's not easy at all.

Eduardo: 00:51:07

You need to think about their fears.

Eduardo: 00:51:10

You need to think about their concerns.

Eduardo: 00:51:11

So you need to think about their personal needs about upscaling, about rescaling.

Eduardo: 00:51:16

It's a complex ecosystem.

Eduardo: 00:51:17

And if you can do that, then the kind of productivity that you

Eduardo: 00:51:21

can enable is out of this planet.

Eduardo: 00:51:23

Even with the most simple of the platforms and tools.

Rob: 00:51:27

There's so much potential in people.

Rob: 00:51:29

Everything in organizations is set up from when we had factories.

Rob: 00:51:33

And there's the hierarchy and then this flow and people are like the

Rob: 00:51:37

whole thing of human resources is people are seen as resources.

Rob: 00:51:40

What we almost need to do is change and start from now.

Rob: 00:51:45

And you build around the people but that's a bigger discussion and One

Rob: 00:51:49

that's not going to change anyway.

Eduardo: 00:51:51

Will beg to disagree, Rob.

Eduardo: 00:51:53

It will change.

Eduardo: 00:51:54

It may be taking some time.

Eduardo: 00:51:56

It may be that we don't see it, but it will have to change because The way

Eduardo: 00:52:00

technology is going people are going to realize or must realize that the values

Eduardo: 00:52:06

the important things are not the things that we have worked the last century.

Eduardo: 00:52:11

That's the past.

Eduardo: 00:52:12

And what gives me trust, what gives me a lot of optimism is that what we are living

Eduardo: 00:52:17

right now is not the first time humanity is going through, we have had these

Eduardo: 00:52:22

waves, these cycles in the past again.

Eduardo: 00:52:25

Oh, now it's AI is different.

Eduardo: 00:52:26

It's more.

Eduardo: 00:52:28

If you would go back there 200 years ago, the changes for them were as overwhelming

Eduardo: 00:52:34

as AI is right now, it also looked like the world would collapse, and it didn't.

Eduardo: 00:52:41

So I think.

Eduardo: 00:52:43

One of the jobs we have, me, you, a lot of highly intelligent people

Eduardo: 00:52:47

in this platform in LinkedIn.

Eduardo: 00:52:51

We have as a job is to help people to move through this change and to

Eduardo: 00:52:56

evolve because we know it's possible.

Rob: 00:52:57

Which kind of goes back to the whole Spiral Dynamics stuff.

Rob: 00:53:01

Yeah.

Rob: 00:53:02

Sometimes we have to see the problem.

Rob: 00:53:04

I always look at in terms of technology adoption in we've had the ability for home

Rob: 00:53:10

shopping, home working since for about 20 years and it took COVID for people.

Rob: 00:53:16

There has to be a trigger.

Rob: 00:53:17

And I think what's happening at the moment is systems are breaking down.

Rob: 00:53:22

Burnout all of these things, lack of engagement, all of these

Rob: 00:53:26

situations are creating the conditions for people to change.

Rob: 00:53:31

But they need to have the trigger generally before people change.

Eduardo: 00:53:36

And it needs to be real that's one thing that I talk about often when the

Eduardo: 00:53:41

context of change management some change management frameworks, they are going

Eduardo: 00:53:45

to tell you the first thing is to raise awareness of the problem, whatever it is.

Eduardo: 00:53:49

And what often happens is that people are trying to follow these frameworks,

Eduardo: 00:53:54

they're doing their very best, but they are not raising a genuine problem.

Eduardo: 00:53:59

They are not elevating something that deserves the attention of any human being.

Eduardo: 00:54:04

It's a lot of artificial problems, a lot of artificial needs, and

Eduardo: 00:54:09

unfortunately, a lack of transparency.

Eduardo: 00:54:12

People lost a little bit the ability To say the things that they want or they need

Eduardo: 00:54:16

or how they want to drive because they are afraid of how this is going to look

Eduardo: 00:54:20

like external stakeholders or whatnot.

Eduardo: 00:54:22

So some sort of a sustainability agenda in place, because

Eduardo: 00:54:26

that's what the market needs.

Eduardo: 00:54:27

Nobody buys that.

Eduardo: 00:54:28

So you need to be clear.

Eduardo: 00:54:29

That's what I want.

Eduardo: 00:54:30

And this is why I want this.

Eduardo: 00:54:32

And that's how you're going to drive there.

Eduardo: 00:54:34

Because it's true, because Honestly, authentically, that's what you

Eduardo: 00:54:39

want to do for your business.

Eduardo: 00:54:40

And I feel like leaders are lacking a little bit that, that ability.

Eduardo: 00:54:45

You told the story about COVID, right?

Eduardo: 00:54:47

So one thing that disappointed me a lot was.

Eduardo: 00:54:51

I was in the meeting after the whole COVID thing was over.

Eduardo: 00:54:55

And then an executive mentioned that it was time for all of them to realize

Eduardo: 00:55:01

that the travel for a two hour meeting over the Atlantic was not required.

Eduardo: 00:55:06

That they could do a zoom meeting or a team's meeting, whatever it is.

Eduardo: 00:55:10

And it just got me thinking, it really required COVID for you to figure out that.

Eduardo: 00:55:15

It's not possible, the technology is there for the last 10 years, man.

Eduardo: 00:55:19

And you're spending time Companies time, resources all sorts of money

Eduardo: 00:55:26

investments blocking other people's agenda, making it harder for everybody

Eduardo: 00:55:31

because you need that COVID to tell you.

Eduardo: 00:55:33

We can do better.

Rob: 00:55:34

Yeah it's crazy, but it's, I think one of the problems is constant

Rob: 00:55:38

stress, constant just busyness.

Rob: 00:55:41

It's like on a treadmill just constantly.

Rob: 00:55:43

And that creates a environment where people can't think.

Rob: 00:55:46

And there's never stopping to think and never stopping to look up.

Rob: 00:55:49

And yeah, so it's all kinds of craziness, which we all pick

Rob: 00:55:52

apart every day on LinkedIn.

Eduardo: 00:55:55

Yeah.

Eduardo: 00:55:55

You probably heard that everybody should do 20 minutes meditation every day.

Eduardo: 00:55:59

Very busy.

Eduardo: 00:56:00

People should do 60 minutes.

Rob: 00:56:02

It's always the people that need it most don't.

Rob: 00:56:05

So we've talked about your growing circle of capacity,

Rob: 00:56:10

skills concerns, responsibilities.

Rob: 00:56:13

So now I'm looking at where is the comfort zone for you now?

Rob: 00:56:16

What's the challenge?

Rob: 00:56:17

You've overcome so many challenges.

Rob: 00:56:19

You've assimilated and become this much, so much more capable

Rob: 00:56:23

competent, confident person.

Rob: 00:56:25

What's at the boundary of Eduardo now?

Eduardo: 00:56:28

Very good question.

Eduardo: 00:56:29

I think it definitely has to do with this coaching practice that I'm building

Eduardo: 00:56:34

that is again and glad that we are talking about it because I can openly

Eduardo: 00:56:39

say it's not a plan for tomorrow.

Eduardo: 00:56:42

It's not something that I'm doing to get up and running like next week.

Eduardo: 00:56:47

That's my next 10 15 year plan.

Eduardo: 00:56:49

That is a lot that I have built into that plan that I want to happen

Eduardo: 00:56:54

for me to develop as a coach, as an individual to reach to certain

Eduardo: 00:56:58

milestones and then extend my impact.

Eduardo: 00:57:01

But that's definitely the.

Eduardo: 00:57:03

Boundary for me, the border for me.

Eduardo: 00:57:05

That's where I feel very uncomfortable.

Eduardo: 00:57:07

The part of building your own business.

Eduardo: 00:57:09

I'm grateful to have so many amazing people around me, especially after I

Eduardo: 00:57:15

started contributing in LinkedIn, I got in contact with so many people.

Eduardo: 00:57:19

Outstanding entrepreneurs that share the stories how they did, how they plan

Eduardo: 00:57:23

and et cetera, but it's definitely the place where I feel most uncomfortable.

Eduardo: 00:57:27

And that makes me very excited.

Rob: 00:57:30

I shall be watching your journey for when you make that change, Okay,

Rob: 00:57:35

so last question is so anyone who might be looking to hire you as a coach or a

Rob: 00:57:44

corporate that's looking for a leader that can solve the kind of problems that you

Rob: 00:57:48

do, where should they reach out to you?

Eduardo: 00:57:50

My LinkedIn page.

Eduardo: 00:57:51

I have organized it in a way that it's very easy to set up some time with me.

Eduardo: 00:57:56

You have straight there in my profile, the Calendly link, and we can quickly

Eduardo: 00:58:00

get into an hour conversation, 30 minutes conversation, whatever it is.

Eduardo: 00:58:05

And even with coaching clients, I always tell my clients and other clients.

Eduardo: 00:58:10

Come and spend an hour with me interest free because we need to see if it's

Eduardo: 00:58:14

a match on both sides, and that's how it works for companies as well.

Eduardo: 00:58:18

That's why we do interviews.

Eduardo: 00:58:19

So get in touch go to my profile, go to my calendar book some time and let's talk

Rob: 00:58:25

okay.

Rob: 00:58:26

Thank you For being so generous with your time.

Rob: 00:58:27

It's been great to understand your journey and to get a sense of Who you

Rob: 00:58:35

are what you do and where you're going

Eduardo: 00:58:37

I had a feeling it would be fun to do this with you rob and I can say I

Eduardo: 00:58:41

was right So for whoever is also watching and thinking should I get together with

Eduardo: 00:58:46

Rob in one of the sessions, go for it.

Rob: 00:58:48

Okay.

Rob: 00:58:49

Thank you.

Rob: 00:58:49

It's been a pleasure.

Rob: 00:58:50

Thank you so

Eduardo: 00:58:51

much, Rob.