GV #02 - Livre-se dos Entulhos

This week I came to New York to buy new equipment for our production company in Brazil and Manhattan just happens to be the perfect place for us to discuss entrepreneurship. So don’t go anywhere. The new Geração de Valor video is on.

- I think people are scared. - There is no formula. You won’t be a loser every time you try something in life.

Accumulating junk. It is fundamental to take risks. Weeks ago I was at the Stade de France watching that lousy game between Brazil and France.

Brazil lost one nil. It was such a shame. At the stadium I met with someone very interesting.

He’s only 23 and in 2010 he was a breakthrough on the internet in Brazil. His videos have been viewed by over 75 million people. Over 450 thousand people subscribe to his You Tube channel, which makes his the number one Brazilian channel.

That has brought him several publicity contracts, TV contracts, you name it. He’s a huge success. I am talking about Felipe Neto, whom I’m sure you know.

Now you’re going to learn more about Felipe Neto, the entrepreneur. I would like to talk about Felipe Neto from a point of view that is not so widely discussed. Everyone is aware of his explosive success on the “Não Faz Sentido” channel on You Tube.

His videos have been viewed by over 75 million people, isn’t that right, Felipe? 75 million and 27 videos. Over 450 thousand subscribers to your channel, number one in Brazil, right?

Yes, number one in Brazil. Which means everyone is aware of your success. Now what few people are aware of is that Felipe Neto is also an entrepreneur, who at age 16 was developing projects on the internet that were quite successful.

Tell us a little about that, Felipe. It’s true. I started working at 14.

My family wasn’t doing so well financially, so I started looking for a job at age 14, to see if I could take care of myself. I fell in love with the internet. At 15 I fell madly in love with the internet and graphic design.

I started to realize that besides working as an intern or art director, which I managed to become at age 18, I could develop my own projects, which is something people have a hard time coming to terms with. I think they’re scared, they’re afraid to invest in an idea, a project. Sometimes you don’t even need the money; all you need to do is work real hard.

And be creative. And be creative, yes. People are afraid of failure, I think.

That’s the kind of fear that should not exist. Do you think it is fundamental to take chances? No doubt.

I think this fear of failure cannot exist. You cannot be afraid to fail. You give it a try, if you fail, that does not mean you’re going to fail every time you try something in your life.

What do you recommend for someone who has a blog, for someone who’s got an internet project, even though you have spoken clearly about that? Let’s try to sum it up for the guy who has a blog or an internet project. What tips would you give to him?

The largest websites started out as amateur. The internet is run my amateurs. Most of it, anyway.

But that concept is changing. Nowadays there are projects that involve large sums of money, but personal initiatives such as blogs, vlogs, the guy who creates internet content, if this guy comes across as too aggressive, too I-want-to-be-famous, I-want-to-make-money kind of thing, people simply won’t buy it. My channel, “Não Faz Sentido”, which was a personal initiative of mine, an acting project, a video project, it only worked because it was never pretentious to begin with.

All I wanted was to have fun and to entertain people and say the things I believed in. That’s basically what matters on the internet. You have got to believe in what you’re doing.

If you don’t, if you’re only in it for the money, if you start a project you don’t believe in, you do not convey the right message to those watching it, those buying it, so it goes under in no time. So that’s what matters, you have to believe in it, believe in what you’re doing. That’s the only way people will get convinced.

So you actually believe this is worth more than money? More than money. I believe the internet has a lot of that, people realizing that something is worth their viewing, To be passionate about doing something, the resolve to do it, that is fundamental on the internet.

Wonderful, Felipe. Another great entrepreneurial story, which proves you have to have a vision, courage and competence. Vision to distinguish the opportunities, courage to take chances, and competence to do something in a way that is unpretentious and pleasant, to put your heart in it.

Felipe’s results are certainly a great example for you, for us who want to develop some sort of internet project. And to be able to hear what this 23-year-old has accomplished… Congratulations, Felipe. - Thank you, Flávio.

- Thank you. All the best to you. Bye.

I left that traffic jam that I was in and sought a quieter place for us to talk. For starters, let me tell I was pleasantly surprised and happy about people’s interest in the entrepreneurship topic. I also received a lot of questions about it.

Bavoth in the comments section of the channel and in the comments section of the videos, questions about entrepreneurship, which really shows that interest. But 99% of these questions came in the same form, usually starting with the classic: “What do I do to…? ” What do I do in order to get this?

What do I do in order to get that? What do I do to start my business? How do I do this?

How do I do that? I understand the nature of these questions, I understand that this is how people express their interest in entrepreneurship, this is why: there is a mindset that people have inherited from their educational experience. They are used to formulas.

They are used to checklists. They feel safer when they know what to do, when there is a map. Actually, since they were in elementary school, studying mathematics, chemistry, physics, and even Portuguese, people have grown used to memorizing formulas.

Even in Portuguese when they were memorizing grammar rules. Instead of learning to think for themselves, they just found a way, they simply became someone who learned to apply formulas. Obviously, as we grow older, when we decide to go out into the jungle that is the market, when we decide to develop our projects, our businesses, our careers, people come to it and realize they have a lot of difficulty, because there simply is no formula.

That is why I have decided to bring up the subject at hand. I believe and want to tell you that everything we do is a consequence of the values we have within. The way we think, our life styles, the way we are influences the way we do things.

What we do influences our results, especially our financial results. I remember when I started off, when I got my first job, I obviously had a mentor. There was this director, someone who is very important to me, someone who made a difference as I took my first steps.

It’s interesting to remember that as soon as I started in that company and attended a few meetings, a few lectures, I was shocked at my own references. I started to hear stories of success, references of success, a language I wasn’t used to, a level of confidence I wasn’t used to. I was always a good student, so, for me, a reference of success was getting good grades.

I was trained to take tests and get good grades, As most people in our educational system, not only in Brazil, but in many countries. I started to realize that my initial notion that I was very smart, very successful, wasn’t really all that. That there were people accomplishing much more than I was.

There were people who were much more confident than I was. People who weren’t insecure, people who possessed a very professional attitude, people who possessed more know-how than I did, a different mindset, a different posture. I started to realize that in those meetings and in those lectures and started to question some of my own values.

I find that very important, I want you to listen closely. Suppose you own a piece of land, right? In this land you want to construct a building.

That building is your family, your career, the goods you want to be able to have, the story you wish to write, the construction of this building on this land of yours. Everyone’s got a land. And everyone, I suppose, wants to erect a beautiful enterprise on this land.

Now, before you start building on this land of yours, you can’t start building on top of ruins. You can’t start building on top of junk. You can’t start building on top of garbage.

The very first thing you have to do before you start your construction is make sure the land is clear. I am using this metaphor to illustrate that when the time comes for us to start our construction, we have to clean ourselves of several values, principles, and concepts that slow us down, that pile up on our land in the form of garbage. These principles, these values are out there, all around, in segments of society, public opinion, so-called common sense, and we sometimes inherit these concepts from previous generations, sometimes from our own families, these concepts that pile up like dirt on our lands and guide our decisions.

Let me give you a few examples. The first one is stability. The culture of stability.

The culture of the inexistent, because stability does not exist. You can say: there are jobs out there which offer stability. No, there aren’t!

There comes a new law, a war breaks out, there’s a financial collapse. There simply is no stability. And coming to terms with its inexistence, accepting that stability does not exist, when you realize that there is no stability, you know that either you become an entrepreneur or you take that little bit of money that you deem guaranteed for the rest of your life.

And it isn’t guaranteed, either. This means that this whole culture of wishing for stability confines your potential, your vision, your creativity. When we take chances or when we’re at risk, our intelligence, our brain produces new ideas, innovations.

That is, a person that desires stability is already a land full of junk. How can you build something great if you pursue something that simply does not exist? I am not against stability.

I am telling you stability does not exist. It’s very different. And when I accept the fact that stability does not exist, I become creative, I become an entrepreneur who will construct his own building, his own enterprise, on his land, his life.

Time only moves forward. Time does not move backwards. The clock only moves forward.

Time that has passed is time that’s gone. That’s why we cannot waste time. We have to use our time being creative.

I could tell you of at least ten other examples I’d call sophistries, lies that are out there, all around us, piling up on your land like garbage, creating a mentality that is at times small, at times mediocre, at times cowardly, stopping you from constructing a beautiful building on your land. I want to wrap it up today by assigning you some homework. I want you to ponder a little, to reflect a bit more, to investigate your thoughts, the concepts you learned in school or inherited from your family, what concepts could be considered ruins, junk piling up on your land, that could stop you from erecting a beautiful building on your land.

Think. Really think about that. What other concepts, such as the sayings, “you cannot teach an old dog new tricks”, “better safe than sorry”, are there?

Think a little harder. Ruminate. Make a list.

If you want to share them with me, here’s my Twitter account, send them to me. I will comment on them, who knows, maybe I’ll even discuss all these ruins, all this junk, in a video, because the goal, in my opinion, is, if you want to erect a beautiful building on your land, clean up your land first. Move that junk right out because it will stand in your way.

Entrepreneurship is, more than anything, about learning to deal with your values. Then you won’t simply become an entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur that will make a difference in your enterprise and in the lives of thousands of people that will be a part of your project. That’s it, then.

See you next time. It’s you now, Bruna. Bye.

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