Brazil Taught Me More About Life Than Sales Ever Will
I spent the first quarter of the year in Rio de Janeiro, a city as beautiful as it is dangerous.
Living in safe places all my life, it was a new experience to smell real fear everywhere—on the streets, during Uber rides, or at the beach.
Carnival is particularly tricky because it draws many tourists, which in turn attracts people from the favelas looking to rob them. The number one rule is to never take your phone out—especially downtown, where we were on that day.
It was during a large parade when I took my phone out for a second, and someone took it.
Normally, I should have let it go since I had insurance and a backup at home. But, having had my previous phone stolen at a Starbucks in Berlin just weeks earlier, I instinctively chased the thief.
I ran for over a mile, jumping over fences and trash bins, and fortunately, thanks to wearing runners and some newfound confidence from starting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I managed to keep up. Eventually, the guy dropped my phone and took off.
Still high on adrenaline, I called my friends who were more worried than impressed. They told me I was an idiot for risking a possible ambush or worse. They said no Brazilian in their right mind would have done what I did and that I should be thankful I was still alive.
This experience, and being in Brazil as a whole, gave me a new sense of feeling alive, tapping into an energy driven by survival; a stark contrast to living in European capitals.
It uncovered a part of myself I hadn't fully explored, having grown up around men who displayed more passive-aggressive and submissive traits rather than healthy masculinity.
Brazil pushed me to not only stand up for myself but to do it without worrying about pleasing everyone else. Countless Latin women I have met or dated tend to criticize the macho behavior of their men but then often miss a healthy dose of it when dating Western men.
Even before going to Brazil, dating Brazilian women showed me this shadow aspect in myself. Coaching and therapy with women who were balanced in their masculine and feminine energy, as well as studying the readings of people like Carl Jung (“anima/animus”; “individuation”), made me conscious of it.
Being in Brazil—including this incident during carnival—made me act on it in a transformative way that I have since carried with me, in business and in my personal life. It feels incredible.
Men lead many of the negative statistics when it comes to depression, being homeless, not finishing school, or being addicted to substances. Without oversimplifying too much, I feel that a lack of that healthy integration of both feminine and masculine sides is often a reason.
The good news:
We don’t need to wait for extreme moments like these; we can choose to face voluntary "dangers" each day: work out, say what we think, or just approach that woman.
P.S. Is this message only for men? No. But as a man, I can only speak from my perspective.
