Isaiah Gulino, a New Yorker oil painting artist who depicts graffiti and the New York City environment, and whom I’ve met personally at a party and then I’ve interviewed, teaches me that beauty can be found in the most mundane places, it’s all about how you frame it, and a situation can result in beautiful artwork to be appreciated. This paradigm of deciding what beauty is has passed away in the eyes of the new generations that are more and more open to new visual inspirations, with the growth of social media and easy access to information.

At Websummit I learned an interesting lesson about how analytical people make conclusions 100% based on facts, whereas creative people make conclusions about nonexisting factors. The creative industry of arts and design has a close proximity to emotions, psychology, and a deep understanding of people’s reactions. Taking those factors into consideration to build a brand is very important. For example, sometimes lowering the price of your product may seem the best solution because of the market and competitors, but by thinking like that we are not thinking about the possibilities that do not exist yet, because others are not doing it we don´t see them, so there is a possibility in this case of putting your product in another context and actually raise the price that will open a new nonexistent market and you will be the first one exploring it.

Amanda Ho, co-founder of Regenerative travel teaches me that you need deep understanding by going to places and knowing people’s stories and then combining it with your vision and taste. Is very important to have a vision and stick to it, but adapt it and filter what the reality is to combine your vision and turn it into a reality that people will connect to. Having a vision and not doing the process of learning, going, and meeting the right people will turn you into a genius in your room. Alone we are not able to turn our vision into reality.

Nature The Artist's work brings the future of what fossils will be and lets nature be the base of his creations. Personally in conversations, Nature teaches me that fear and persistence are the only things that you need to achieve and disrupt. Embracing your fears and using them to fight and be persistent will result in perfection, organically you will achieve your goals and be able to push yourself more, and without thinking your work will become disruptive.

Amazing conversations with Tim Vieira a Portuguese Shark Tank entrepreneur who had multiple companies over the years, taught me that finding our motivation is important to drive us through the path of building something big. In his case, searching for independence was the main objective of why he became an entrepreneur, so the way he sees failure does not affect him and actually brings him a different perspective making him see failure as a learning lesson to grow and keep going.

The work and conversations with Jason Bard Yarmosky, an artist who depicts evolution, challenging societal perceptions of aging, and the profound impact of his close relationship with his grandparents, teach me that as an artist, our childhood and family relationships shape our perception of the world. I’ve also learned that if we focus on our work and ourselves as an artist the personal brand builds by itself, there is no overthinking on what to do or how to do it. And if we applied it to any brand it works.

I met Bernardo Carreira randomly just to hear his story of success, as a young entrepreneur who has turned - in his words “the stupid idea of building a shoe made of cannabis fabric” (hemp) I’ve learned that there are no bad ideas and we need to be open to the stupid ideas at companies more than ever, they can seem strange or not appropriate at first and they can have a lot of challenges associated but in fact to innovate you need to face those challenges. Choosing the easy path and following ideas that have small challenges will end in having a product or business that will also have little impact on people’s lives.

The incredible story of courage, resilience, and hard work of Joana Garcia, a lawyer who changed her life to dedicate it to building a successful cheese company in Portugal has taught me that part of the work of building your company is in you. You will need to be able to move and see the bad moments as opportunities, the number of stories Joana told me about adversities and how she turned them into advantages for her business made me realize that our work as an agency building your brand is important also in those difficult times and that the storytelling of your brand is key to help you change the perspective at the reality you are facing.

Didier Lopes the CEO of OpenBB built his own company by being open to the world. He had a goal of changing the finance industry of investment which is a very close mind of sharing information and sources, and changing that main point in the industry let him become successful and innovative. Didier teaches me that little details can become very big and lead to big changes in an industry, so you need to not be afraid of those changes, embrace them, and make them yours.

In an engaging interview with Kievin Yoo, I learned that sometimes for companies all you need is a simple idea, stick to it, legally save it to you and the rest will come. With a lot of work also on your brand and vision, but most importantly the focus will be on how other companies will use your product. To make it possible, the brand and communication are very important to open people’s eyes to your simple idea. That will help you organically to sell it without much effort, just by making the right contacts. This also brings a challenge to communication, everything that is simple is not always simple to communicate, and the effort is bigger to make it clear and perceptible.

An interesting merger between David Yu and Kai Lim focused on revolutionizing traditional Eastern medicine using AI and cutting-edge technologies has taught me how helpful AI and new technologies are in bringing up traditional practices to improve people’s lives. Everything needs to evolve and adapt to the new generations, otherwise will disappear in front of our own eyes. There is always an opportunity if you make the effort of looking back, looking now, and imagining it in the future.

Emilie McGlone told me her detailed story of how she started on Peace Boat and everything she did that led her to grow and bring value to the project and lead her to become the Director after a long journey of love for the cause and hard work. This story told me that you need to bring your energy and love into what you do, and success will follow. Of course, you will need to adapt and learn a lot, but after a while, things will align with your purpose.

In a conversation with Tiago Correia one of my deepest friends, I learned that our beliefs can be turned apart if we do not use wisely who we choose to talk about it. To be more clear, when you have an idea, a concept, or work that is evolving and not finished, sometimes you show it or tell it to get people’s opinions, that is exactly the time when you need to be careful about who you choose to talk to. Is very important to understand that there are people who have their own vision and are not able to understand yours, their feedback will be very relevant to what they are good at but will destroy your beliefs on what they do not know or understand. In this phase, you need to seek people’s opinions wisely, choose the ones that you know will give you their taste feedback, and also the ones who understand what you are building and are able to give you constructive criticism. Those who will tell you everything you do is good, seek them only to cheer you up and give you emotional strength.

In a conversation with Júlia Flamingo, Art curator of Underdogs Gallery, we talked about AIA MIND and how much of an artist a computer can be. I understood that being an artist is defined by his search for new visual techniques and concepts, there´s a need to improve all the time and to explore his artistical mindset throughout time, so it´s hard for a computer to become an artist before it starts to be 100% aware of his creations and starts to develop his own style. Also, an artist never knows or is never sure about what defines himself as an artist or if his work is completed, therefor this controversy in the computer needs to exist so that it can begin his self-search.