I come from a culture where you just get on with things…you kinda of have to.
The government is not there to help you, corruption is the norm and money talks so people just need to get on with it.
This is what I remember about Brazil…I left 18 years ago…
In my case I can’t complain about my childhood….
I grew up in upper middle class…but as a result of that my path was already carved for me before I was born.
As a female you were bound to follow the “unread” rules of a chauvinist society where girls were expected to behave in one way and boys could do whatever they wanted….
By behaving according to society expectations, as a girl you would hopefully find yourself a ‘man’ who was from a ‘good’ family meaning same social economic level as you or better.
And after finishing school, you were expected to go to university, get married and have kids.
Part of me feels that I decided early on unconsciously that nobody was going to carve my path for me.
So I was indeed the ‘black’ sheep of the family…the first one from a large extended family who left Brazil without a plan at 21 years old.
All I had was a Spanish passport, €1000 and a strong desire and naivety that I was going to prove to everyone, one could do something else other than what was expected of them.
I lived one year in Spain, 3 years in Belgium, 4 years in England, went travelling for 1 year through Central and South Amercia, lived 6 years in New Zealand and have been in Australia for 3 years.
I never went back to Brazil ( a couple of times on holidays)…I have never asked helped from anyone.
And yes I am super proud of this as I worked very hard for it.
But it wasn’t until recently that I did an exercise with Dean Graziosi that shocked me.
The exercise is called the “Seven Levels Deep Exercise”.
You ask “why” questions 7 times, moving progressively deeper into answers.
Why do I wanna gain capabilities? Why do I want more success? Why do I wanna achieve more? Why do you want financial freedom?
For example in my case I started by asking myself:
“Why do you want to be successful in life?”
My answer was “Because I want to prove myself”
Then I asked again
“Why do you want to prove yourself?”
to which I answered…”because I want people to think I am capable, honest, independent”….
then you keep going asking ‘why’ questions for 7 times.
By question level 3, something came out of my mouth that I had never said before…I said:
“I never thought I belonged anywhere”
That hit me and my husband who was next to me, like a brick wall…
when I said it, I realized that I had never felt I belonged in Brazil either, in my own country.
Previous to that I thought I didn’t feel a sense of belonging because I lived in different countries, I was a foreigner after all but truth was I never felt I belonged to where I came from either.
And my last answer shocked me even more…
I simply said…
All I wanted was to feel safe…it wasn’t money, power, a nice house, a nice car…it was simply because I wanted to feel safe.
As I write this, I actually feel deep inside that my answers are a reflection of my life, what I have worked for, what I have always craved for…a sense of belonging, feeling accepted and safe wherever I am.
It sounds crazy that such a simple exercise can have such an impact on people’s lives.
Most people really don’t know their ‘why’. They might know on the surface level. But when you go from a surface level, from thoughts on why you wanna be successful or why you wanna something, to anchoring it in your heart with feelings and emotions, things start changing.
There may not be a more powerful motivating factor on the planet than knowing your true “why”.
When you know; in your soul, why you get up every morning and fight for your dreams, you’ll never let anything get in your way of becoming the person you are meant to be.
If that is where you are right now…you are not sure about your ‘why’, you are looking for purpose and meaning in your life, I would strongly recommend you to check out Tony and Dean’s training that started changing my life: