Today marks 17 years of my company, Métrica.Social, and 4 years since I arrived here at the ecovillage.
Reflecting on the day, I thought: this journey of mine to get here and Métrica are intrinsically stitched together. One involves the other, one helps sustain the other. And I realized there’s another layer to it — or rather, three: the material, the emotional, and the spiritual layers woven into all of this.
Material
I started very young. At 11 years old, I sat at the computer, opened the UOL chat, and wanted to learn how to build a site like that — a chat where people connect over the internet. It blew my mind: man, I want to do this. The next day I was already trying to learn how to build websites.
I kept at it until, at 16, I met a guy, Marcos (“Esquete”), through a friend of mine, Mateus Pedalino. He liked the sites I was making and invited me to work on the Los Hermanos website. So at 16 I was updating the website of Los Hermanos — a band I was a huge fan of, and still love today. Working remotely: my very first job was already like that.
When I turned 18, I called Esquete: “you’d mentioned starting an agency to serve other artists… If that’s happening, I’ll move to Rio. If not, I think I’ll go to São Paulo — there’s probably more of a market there for the field I want to pursue.” I arrived in Rio in 2007 and, nine months later, on September 12, 2007, he started the agency.
I spent two years as an employee, then I and a few others came in as partners and Esquete left. And I threw myself into working relentlessly. I worked a lot — 10 years at a nonstop pace. We served major artists, the biggest record labels in the country. I had many great experiences — except I was working through the night. Let’s say I only had a sleeping period, and the rest was waking up already thinking about work.
Emotional
There came a point when my body gave me signs that my mind wanted space of its own.
So I began a process of walking, meditating, looking at the world differently, giving myself more room.
Spiritual
Céu do Gamarra was always a place of spiritual recharge for me. I would visit the church for the services of the Santo Daime doctrine.
Until, during the pandemic, already in this process of improving my lifestyle, I found myself inside my bedroom — I had closed the agency’s office — working there every single day. I said: why don’t I go work in a room at Céu do Gamarra, a place that gives me that recharge?
And so I did. I reached out, and there was a retreat happening at a guesthouse, Espaço Lua Branca, where I stayed for three months. I even joked with the guy who shared the apartment with me: “look, I’m going — I’ll stay two months, maybe I’ll stretch it to three, and maybe I’ll only come back to pick up my things”. And so it went.
On the day I arrived, there was a service at the church, and I said to myself: why don’t I join the Santo Daime doctrine, which I’ve been visiting for so many years? Soon after: why don’t I live here? And so I kept moving forward, with faith, with strength, with effort. Things kept getting clearer in step with the strength I was gaining from studying the spiritual life — in a very pragmatic way too, because our mind grows accustomed to it: the beatitudes, how to treat people better, what I give to the world.
The client is decisive
Then I looked at our portfolio of clients in the cultural field and saw: we were working for Doctors Without Borders and for an energy transition institute. These are the best clients Métrica has, in the sense that we work for a meaningful purpose. They reach many millions of people, and we, as people, feel more useful.
We ended up doing the same things — digital marketing and communication strategies — but applying that to sell popsicles at the North Pole versus helping someone in an emergency makes all the difference. What kind of communication, for what audience are you working? Hence: the client is decisive.
One thing feeds the other: this strength, this inspiration I kept finding brought me the reflection of steering Métrica toward working in the field of positive impact. We recently changed the name from “agência Métrica” to Métrica.Social, where we identify as a structure that creates narratives and positive communication for things that make sense.
Gratitude
I can only thank everyone I’ve met on my journey through these 17 years of Métrica, which has given me so much joy, so much fun, so much learning. Today we are somewhere around 20-odd people involved, 18 of them full-time.
And it’s not just the people working with us today that I want to thank. Even if we’re no longer working together, the brick each person laid in building all of this remains. That solidity, that memory stays.
I also thank everyone who lives or has ever lived here at Céu do Gamarra — the ecovillage turns 37 the day after tomorrow. Just imagine how this story began. With a whole lot of will.
Time and money
What I’ve been building, for myself and within the company, is an environment where we find satisfaction in what we do and in who we do it for — and where we are rewarded with two main things that, in the end, lead to a common denominator. One of them is money; the other, time.
If we have time and money, well-being is that common denominator. We remove the worries that show up when either time or money is missing — as was the case when I had no time for myself, and my body called me out, demanded my attention.
Life as a river
My life has been like a river, carrying me left, carrying me right, always keeping me amused, amazed at things. Because look: had I not gone through an emotionally difficult time, suppressed under so much work, I wouldn’t have looked out for myself, wouldn’t have made the moves I made. I am very happy with all of it.
What I can see from where I stand in this river are good things ahead, both for the company and for my personal life. That’s how we’ve been moving forward, that’s how Métrica is recognized as one of the most humanized companies in Brazil. And that title is my reason to keep making this environment I build — for myself and for those alongside me — better and better.
Originally published on my Instagram and my YouTube in September 2024.