I was probably one of the oldest in the computer science classroom, asking questions that seemed obvious to everyone else. This was my second degree. But I had two kids at home, a career already established, and ideas I was determined to turn into reality. It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done—sleep deprived, juggling many things at once, struggling to understand concepts while my younger peers seemed to grasp them so easily.

The discipline that got me through those late nights learning to program? I learned it years earlier, on soccer fields in Brazil.

I didn't grow up looking forward to writing software or being an engineer as an adult. My world revolved around soccer.

I spent most of my youth playing in the youth academies, the official development pipeline for future professional soccer players. It wasn't casual—it was my life. I trained with professionals, traveled for matches, structured my days around practice and performance. I wasn't the most naturally talented, but effort and discipline got me there despite my peers seeming to have natural-born skills. What stayed with me wasn't just the discipline, but that specific joy (the one keeping players moving on): the feeling building something start to end, of an important play, scoring a goal, or watching the team win after months of preparation. That sense of reward when vision, idea, effort, and work finally came together into something real.

After leaving the soccer trajectory and dream (story for another day), I searched for that feeling again.

Idea guy

When I started my career in business, drawn by my entrepreneurial spirit, I began to notice glimpses of that same joy when I had daily ideas - both in and outside of workplace — process I wanted to improve, tools I wanted to create, solutions for problems I saw every day. These would consume my mind and ignite my energy.

I’ve always been an "idea guy," the one who would typically be (sometimes obsessively) spending time thinking of alternative ways for how things could work or improve while waiting in line at the post office. At work, dreaded repetitive and monotonous things (ie cold calls) but loved building complex spreadsheet models to make my work (ie cold calls) more effective, though I never understood why that ‘spreadsheet work’ brought me such satisfaction.

Same happened with business ideas, I would lose sleep over them - most of them requiring a ‘software’ or technical solution. In that process, there was always a gap: I'd get the excitement of seeing the solution clearly in my mind, but I could never complete the cycle. In practical terms, I couldn't implement them because I didn't know how to code.

The cycle repeated a few time, I was always relying on someone else—an engineer, a friend, a potential co-founder—to bridge the gap between vision and reality. That dependency became my motivation to learn. Unlike soccer, where I could step onto the field and take direct action, in the business scene I felt like someone on the sidelines, separated from the joy of execution.

Starting over

So, a bit older, I decided to go back to school and leave my country for it (also story for another day). It didn't make sense on paper, wife & I as young parents, and in a path of a soldi business & entrepreneurial journey — it would be set me back in time.

I knew didn't need credentials to solve problems at scale, but I needed skills - I needed to know how to complete the “Idea cycle’ . I wanted to understand everything about how computers actually work. I chose computer engineering because I wanted to learn the full stack, from the electron all the way to the software being displayed on my screen.

There I was, I sat in those classrooms asking basic questions, learning slowly from my younger peers. It was one of the hardest but most rewarding times of my life.

And then, after so many emotional ups and downs, one day, after I writing my first real complete program, I typed the word commands to “compile” the code in that dark screen terminal with white letters on a linux based computer and It worked! It was simple, but it worked!

I felt it again—that exact same feeling on the soccer field - my effort compensated for my lack of innate talent, and a victory - I did it again. Humble feeling, but full of excitement. Just that deep sense of something clicking into place.

That moment changed everything. I became competent enough to build my own projects and transform ideas into working tools, and now felt I could be “playing with professionals” again. I could finally complete the cycle from vision to reality on my own terms. The "idea guy" could finally execute.

Life has blessed me enough to take my way to great tech companies and work under an engineering title (one I would never imagine seeing myself) - where the process of idea generation, building and coding become a virtuous cycle - always aimed at problem solving, using code as what it should be - a tool. Over time, as I took leadership responsibilities, coding became my main hobby (alongside soccer, of course).

Ever since then, I've encouraged everyone I know to learn programming. I still do (despite knowing AI will do it all). I encourage because it’s not about the syntax on the programming language on the screen, it’s about solving problems at scale—finding ways to make things better, for as a many people as possible - it’s a problem solving (communication) language.

And I continue to code often. Despite the size of the project, it’s something deeply satisfying about starting with a problem, working through the logic to solve it, and watching that solution become something tangible.

AI Shift

For the past couple of years, watching no-code tools and then AI assisting me or almost independently doing it form me, it’s just incredible. The first time I built a functioning application by simply describing what I wanted felt like magic, I was in awe. No complications. Just a conversation that produced working software. The system understood the context and evolved based on my feedback. I spent less time writing syntax and more time thinking clearly about what I was trying to solve. That’s it! This is pure joy.

What I've always chased is the feeling of solving something—starting with a problem, working through the complexity, and then watching the solution click into place. That feeling, once reserved for people with years of technical training, is now within reach for almost anyone.

The joy of building and solving

This shift goes beyond productivity—it's about access.

We're entering an exponentially transformative moment. When millions of people who've been ready with ideas they couldn't execute suddenly can, when the "idea people" of the world finally get to build—the innovation we'll see will be unlike anything in human history. It will come from places and people we never expected, solving problems in ways we never imagined.

That's what excites me most—the shift in who gets to participate. This joy of solving problems, of watching ideas come to life, is no longer limited to few. Every "idea person" who's ever felt stuck on the sidelines can now step onto the field - people out there who've been waiting their turn—it's about finally being able to build.

The reward of vision, effort, and work coming together into something real (one I first discovered on soccer fields in Brazil) is now available to almost anyone with a problem to solve. Machine intelligence finally caught up to human intent.

This represents more than technological progress. It's human potential unleashed.

And for someone who spent years feeling that gap between vision and reality, watching it close feels nothing short of incredible.

Working alongside them has given me a front-row seat to how businesses are built. But it’s also given me something else: a clearer view into how individuals structure their lives around what they’re building.

It’s easy to assume that with more autonomy—like what comes with founding a company—comes a better, more flexible life. That assumption isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s not automatic either. What I’ve observed over time is that the benefits people associate with entrepreneurship—more time with family, greater focus on health, increased control of schedule—don’t come guaranteed with a new job or a new title.

In fact, they often don’t come at all.

And that has made me ask harder questions—not about what’s next, but about what’s true today.

For a long time, I held the assumption that certain life improvements would naturally follow a professional change. I thought that if I reached a particular stage, or launched a specific venture, or had more control over how I worked, then things like health, family time, and deep work would become easier to prioritize.

But over time—and especially in conversation with my family, self-reflection and my own faith-based answer-seeking channels —I’ve started to see the logic doesn’t hold up. It reverses the sequence. It puts the external change first and the internal change second.

But the order matters.

If I can’t prioritize what matters today—before the ideal circumstances show up—there’s no reason to believe I’ll do better under more pressure, more freedom, or more ambiguity. Delaying the change I know I need only reinforces habits that will be harder to unwind later.

So I’ve been adjusting my thinking.

Rather than waiting for a new chapter to justify new habits, I’m treating this current chapter as the proving ground. If I want to live with more discipline, more presence, and more alignment with what I value—I have to begin practicing that now. Within the constraints I already have. Within the role I’m in. With the time that’s available.

No future opportunity will create the patterns I haven’t built today.

This isn’t something I’ve mastered. It’s a shift I’ve started to make. A recalibration I’m still working through. But the realization itself has been valuable: that change doesn’t begin with new circumstances—it begins with small, consistent choices inside of the ones I already have.

One of those small choices is this: writing again.

It’s something I’ve wanted to return to for a long time. Not for visibility or output, but to think more clearly, to process what I’m learning, and to share reflections that might be useful to others walking a similar path. This is the first post I’ve written in years—and pressing publish feels like a small but meaningful step forward.

If anything in here resonates with you, I hope it encourages you to start something too—no big declarations, just one habit, one shift, one page at a time.