From an early age, I couldn't see myself working in something that didn't gratify me. I didn't even see work as a source of income. At eight years old, I told my parents that it wasn't fair for the garbage collector to earn less than the doctor. My father explained to me that the doctor had studied and, therefore, deserved a higher salary than the garbage collector. And that, for that very reason, I should study, to get a good job and earn well.

In my childish logic, I questioned that the garbage collector was already doing a more unpleasant job. On top of that, should he earn less? I told my parent that everyone should earn the same thing and that some would earn x in a more gratifying job and others the same x in a not-so-pleasant function, according to each one's ability, but that this should not interfere with the earnings.

Of course, no one agreed with that premise. But the idea that we should pursue a career that is pleasant to us has remained in my mind forever. Have you noticed that workers, in general, sacrifice themselves doing a job that oppresses, humiliates, wears down, consumes, generates diseases...? They do it from Monday to Friday and don't have a life, but a sub-life (that's why it's said that work is to provide subsistence, sub-existence). They sacrifice themselves from Monday to Friday to be able to live a weekend of leisure or rest.

I have never seen work from that perspective. I have always believed that it should be enjoyable, fun, pleasant, stimulating. But this clashed with the concept that work has to be something you do against your will, for money. This generated the thank God it's Friday and what a drag it's Monday syndrome.

If we ask any employee if they would rather be there, working, or at home resting, or playing a sport, or traveling, etc., almost everyone will agree that they are only there, working, because they need the money.

Let's admit that this is not a pretty sight. The consequence is that many people sabotage the company or the boss. If they can, they stay there doing nothing, stalling, going for a coffee, talking to colleagues, clogging up the productive machine. This is when they don't take home a ream of paper, a stapler, anything they can subtract, to compensate for their frustration.

A survey was conducted in the 1990s to find out how long a company employee actually works in an eight-hour day. The conclusion was that they work, effectively, for a maximum of two hours. So, why waste your existence in there, the other six hours a day, throughout your life? Wouldn't it be better to do your part in two hours and then go home? But we are victims of the paradigm that the employee needs to be at work throughout the workday. Of course, for some professions, this concept is changing to that of home office. But let's face it, there are still few.

From the book Sucesso, Professor DeRose, Egrégora Books.
Pocket Sucesso

What we propose has nothing to do with suppressing anger. The concept of conflict management consists of using intelligence instead of unbridled emotion. Suppressing would be preventing the free flow of destructive emotion. Managing conflicts consists not of blocking, but of directing, channeling, sublimating, so that emotions come out, flow freely, but in the direction that best suits us with a view to future results.

My youth was lived on the beaches of Ipanema and Leblon. Since we were boys, we learned not to fight against the current. If the current caught us, we should not fight it, swimming towards land. The result would be fruitless. We would end up exhausting our strength and die drowning. Every good open water swimmer knows that if you fall into a current, you should swim with it, outwards, go around, and only then swim towards the beach. This is also the case in human and affective relationships.

When I was younger, my hair was rebellious (thank goodness it was just the hair). For years, I changed hairdressers, looking for a solution, but all attempts to dominate those strands with my own will were frustrated. Until one day, an older professional told me not to fight my hair. There's no point in combing it back, because that's not its nature. Give in to the tendency of the strands and brush them forward first. Then down. And only then, backwards. I did that and I was perplexed! The hair accepted my command and behaved as I wanted.

Sometimes, you have to know when to give in. Don't repress yourself, but rather apply leadership strategies.

I read a lot about dog training to raise my Weimaraner daughter. The best method to get a dog to do what you want is to captivate it, and not to wrestle with it, shout at the poor thing, let alone punish it or beat it. Somewhere I heard the phrase: man is a dog with an opposable thumb. The trainer was referring to how easy it is to induce a man to do what his girlfriend wants, as long as she knows how to apply positive reinforcement leadership. And also because men, like dogs, can't think of more than one thing at a time!
We all want to be in control. Well, the most rational way that provides better results is not to play hardball or vomit emotions haphazardly. When you understand that whoever says what they want, hears what they don't want, your words and actions become more intelligent.

Imagine a huge stone, stable on the edge of a ravine. The stone is our emotional state. While it is there, stopped, it gives us the impression that its stability is perennial. However, its position is susceptible to rolling downhill. Just a small touch, perhaps with the tip of your index finger, to make it lose its apparent stability and descend destroying everything. This is our emotional state. One moment you are happy and cheerful; the next moment - for some eventuality - you become furious or saddened.

However, if the stone starts to oscillate, in the position in which it is, just a finger on the other side is enough to prevent it from falling. This is how our emotional state works.

Just one finger is enough to prevent a disaster, as long as it is applied at the right time, before the triggering. Do you remember the story of Peter, the Dutch boy-hero? He saw a crack in the dike and put his little finger in to prevent the force of the water from increasing the hole and ending up breaking the dam. Just one finger, a child's finger, was enough to prevent a tragedy.

If you can detect a threat of an emotional outburst just an instant before it breaks out, it will be very easy to avoid the tantrum, just put your finger in the gap in the dam.

I learned this with my Weimaraner. Dogs, like humans, always signal in the second before what they intend to do next. If your tutor takes too long to send a diversion command, the dog runs off, for example, to cross the street! But if the human notices an instant before and triggers the command (stay or no or any other), the educated dog, who has not yet started the action, obeys.

Book: Ángeles peludos (ES)
Book: Anjos peludos (PT)
Book: Change the world, start with yourself

I've read a lot about dog training to raise my Weimaraner puppy. The best method to get the dog to do what you want is to captivate him, not to wrestle forces with him, shout at the poor thing, let alone punish him or hit him. Somewhere I heard the phrase: man is a dog with an opposable thumb. The trainer was referring to how easy it is to induce a man to do what his girlfriend wants, as long as she knows how to apply the leadership of positive reinforcement. And also because men, like dogs, can't think of more than one thing at a time!

I learned this with my Weimaraner. Dogs, like humans, always signal in the second before what they intend to do next. If your tutor takes too long to send a derivation command, the dog takes off, for example, to cross the street! But if the human notices an instant before and shoots the command (stay or no or any other), the educated dog, who has not yet started the action, obeys.
On the other hand, if the dog has already started running to launch in front of the cars, there is no point in shouting no, stay, together, stop. If the action has already been triggered, it is almost impossible to stop it [1].
If you don't want to apply repression, just give the command come and when he approaches you reward him with a treat. If you don't have a treat, give him affection and play with him.
Dog or human, when it comes to emotions, both react in the same way! Being able to avoid the first outburst, it is very easy to manage the potential conflict. And the treat? It can be the derivation of your attention to something more interesting, more fun or more rewarding. It can be a word of encouragement, praise, friendship, a pat on the back, a hug, a look, a smile.
This applies not only to marital confrontations, but to any others, at work, in traffic, with friends, in short, in all situations.
In terms of cost/benefit, it is much cheaper to assume a small loss than to get into a squabble and pay much more dearly. My friend Fabiano Gomes, formerly a successful lawyer, now Director of one of our schools of the DeROSE Method, when approached by someone who wanted to sue another person, asked him:

• Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? If the brawler said he wanted to be right, then he accepted the cause. But if the plaintiff declared that he wanted to be happy, the advice he gave was:
• Then forget about it. Fighting brings happiness to no one.

Book: Change the world, start with yourself

We all want to be in control. For the most rational way that provides better results is not to play hardball or vomit emotions haphazardly. When you understand that he who says what he wants hears what he doesn't want, your words and actions become more intelligent.
Imagine a huge rock, stable on the edge of a cliff. The rock is our emotional. While it is there, still, it gives us the impression that its stability is perennial. However, its position is likely to roll downhill.

Just a small touch, perhaps with the tip of your index finger, to make it lose its apparent stability and descend destroying everything. So is our emotional. One moment you are happy and cheerful; the next moment - by any eventuality - you become furious or saddened.
However, if the stone starts to oscillate, in the position in which it is, a finger on the other side is also enough to prevent it from falling. That's how our emotional works.
Just one finger is enough to prevent a disaster, if applied at the right time, before the triggering. Remember the story of Peter, the Dutch boy hero? He saw a crack in the dike and put his little finger to prevent the force of the water from increasing the hole and eventually breaking the dam. Just one finger, a child's finger, was enough to prevent a tragedy.
If you can detect a threat of emotional outburst just a moment before it breaks out, it will be very easy to avoid the tantrum, just put your finger in the gap in the dam.

Book: Change the world, start with yourself

Wanting to justify your actions by blaming some circumstance or person is not a consistent excuse. You will react according to your education, your neuroses, fears, and expectations. To exemplify this, I created the following parable:

Once, a Hindu Master wanted to show that emotional reactions were not due to the events that triggered them, but rather to what each one already carried within themselves. He handpicked three disciples, whose personalities he knew well. He ordered the three to come to the front of the class and kneel before him. He gave each one a strong slap. The first one was indignant and withdrew in anger, saying that the Master had no right to assault him in front of the class. The second one became sad and cried. The third one said, “Thank you, Master!”
The stimulus had been the same: a slap. But the reactions of the three were different: anger, sadness, and gratitude. What is the explanation?
It is that each one responded with what they had within themselves. Whoever had anger, reacted with anger. Whoever had sadness, reacted with sadness. Whoever had gratitude, reacted with gratitude. The important thing is never the fact itself. It is the pretext, it is the excipient[1] to externalize what each one has in their character.

When someone bumps into you and spills your coffee, the primary cause of your coffee being spilled was not the bump, because if you were drinking tea, you wouldn't have spilled the coffee. Every time life gives you a bump, you will spill into the world whatever you have inside your mug.

[1] The excipient is a pharmacologically inactive substance used as a vehicle for the active ingredient.

From the book Change the World, Start with Yourself,
Professor DeRose, Egrégora Books.

Many times when I teach I think about how much easier it is for us to force than to relax. We understand much more clearly how to tense the muscles than how to ask the body to let go. And this applies to training and also to everyday life. Our body, by default, reacts to certain stimuli by generating tension, whether we are stressed about something or we are working under the air conditioning feeling cold and doing nothing about it. It is likely that the shoulders look for the ears as if they wanted to keep them warm and at night we are with a total contracture.

Learning to decontract is an incredible tool that in addition to making us rest better and feel better makes available an extra energy that was previously invested in tension. Let's get down to business, **how to channel relaxation?

1- Breathing is a great accomplice. It is interesting to concentrate (bring the attention) on that area that is perceived as tense and as we exhale, try to gradually release the muscles.

2- Observing our body habits also adds up: Do we breathe in an abdominal or high way? Are our shoulders relaxed or tense? Are our hands loose or tight? I don't know if you ever paid attention to that detail, when you clench your hands you tense your arms, neck and jaw. The jaw can't be left out of this journey; relaxing the mouth and the forehead also contributes a lot.

3- Register the situations of tension and generate a conscious change, in the environment if possible and, if not, in the breathing (making it deep) or in the body (decontracting the shoulders, hands, neck...).

There are infinite things to talk about and deepen on this subject, just the other day I was thinking about something specific that I would like to share: to the extent that one learns to decontract the body and therefore to relax when it is not necessary to generate tension, this can also be applied in life, start to keep track of the moments in which unnecessary tension is generated and try to let go a little, channel the relaxation.

In this day and age when we receive such a large and constant stream of stimuli and are thinking about so many things at once, it is sometimes difficult for our brains to understand what we want to have an idea about, insight or, the sometimes called, wow moment!

1➡ Define the issue and dial it in.
Which of all these thousands of things we are processing simultaneously are we most interested in? Once we have the answer it is a matter of giving it a priority place in our world, as if among all the thoughts this one is marked with a highlighter.How do you do that? With time, place, intensity and affection. That is, giving it priority and daily in our mental agenda, taking advantage of the moments of more vitality and lucidity to think about it. And finally approaching this idea with the energy of enthusiasm for something that matters to us.

2➡ Give room for the idea to emerge and write it down.
It is important to know that for an idea to emerge it is necessary, as DeRose would say, to reverse the flow of perception and stop bombarding information from the outside in. This can be done, for example, by training concentration on a simple image such as the image of a sun, for a few minutes, trying not to disperse ourselves. This also develops our ability to focus, in this case, allows new ideas to emerge, that is, to make room for them. And at that moment it is important to have a notebook at hand where to write them down (here an important detail, better a notebook than a cell phone, that just by opening it already proposes us a thousand new ways to disperse and probably leads us to lose that beautiful and incipient idea that was being born).

3➡ And finally, as Picasso used to say: Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

—I was breathless!

How many times do we hear that phrase in the face of a surprising situation or one that generates emotion and stress? A kind of popular saying that is repeated without taking into account the great truth it contains. The expression highlights a vital and organic process discovered thousands of years ago in an intuitive way: the relationship between emotion and breathing.

In the face of a contingency, emotionality shoots up. A wave of energy is released and the organism transforms it and uses it to respond to the stimuli that generate primary emotions: anger or fear. These are not the only ones, there are other varieties of emotions that derive from these two main ones and with which we deal with on a daily basis.

The automatic reading that our organism makes is that survival is at risk and we will need all the strength to perform two immediate physical actions linked to those emotions: basically, fight or flee. This is the synthesis of the well-known process called stress, that physiological reaction of the organism that brings into play various defense mechanisms to face a situation perceived as threatening or of increased demand.

What I am most interested in highlighting about this resource, which has automatically been occupied in keeping us alive for millennia, is the link that exists between breathing and emotion.

Since ancient times, human beings have found in breathing a key to managing their emotions and conquering more objectivity in decision-making. A mechanism to feel more free and self-sufficient.

Philosophical schools, religions, martial arts and other disciplines incorporated techniques and capitalized on that power. Respect for the power of air became present in almost all mythologies, in the form of attributes of deities and grandiose stories.

In Hindu mythology, Parjánya, a figure who represented the hurricane in Vedic times; in ancient Greece, Aeolus, the lord of the winds in the Odyssey and protector of Ulysses; in the Mayan empire, Kukulcán, a divinity friendly to men, who administered the winds; in Norse mythology, Njörd, god of the sea and wind, invoked in storms. And these are just a few examples.

Among the Hindus it is mentioned that we are born with a credit of breaths to consume during life. If we spend them breathing in a hurry, our life time will be shorter. With this belief they strengthen the idea that we should always breathe slowly, deeply, completely and consciously.

With its advances, science supports the claims of ancient philosophies about the need to manage breathing and use it as the baton with which we can conduct our organic harmony.

However -as Professor DeRose explains in the book Respira, the new science of a forgotten art when interviewed by the author, James Nestor-, the most important thing is not only the air: it is the energy, the prána. A force that we can define as any type of energy that manifests itself biologically. An immeasurable source of power that enhances our evolution and allows us to perceive the world and its phenomena with greater objectivity and clarity.

Maybe it's time to observe how you are breathing. Don't forget that every time you breathe in, an opportunity begins.

Translation of the chapter from the book Cosas que la vida me enseñño

Don't be under any illusions. Everything you say about a person will come to their knowledge. So, watch that tongue. After that, it's useless to feel upset about people's indiscretion. It's like this.

More than one person's secret is no longer a secret. The moment you tell your secret to someone you trust, that person also tells it to another person he or she trusts, and so on. In a short time, dozens of people will know your secret.

So why tell? Why this need to expose yourself? Whenever you need to comment on someone, only say good things. A good exercise is: when you start saying something bad or start spewing green exorcist criticism about someone, reverse the sentence and start praising them immediately. Doesn't this person have something good to be praised for? Take a good look. Everyone has something good.

Translation of the book Boas Manerias by Prof. DeRose

Many of the principles of good manners can be based on the theory of living space. This theory explains that every human being has a territorial space around him or her, which varies according to ethnicity, country and education of each person. As a general rule, the more sensitive and educated a person is, the more living space he or she appreciates being given; the less living space he or she occupies.

The living space theory was discovered when a group of scientists observed unseen several pairs of people standing inside an empty room with only two chairs to sit on. While waiting for the experiment to supposedly begin, the subjects would sit down and start talking. It was then discovered, for example, that the British sat at a good distance from each other and could carry on a pleasant conversation for hours. The Italians, however, placed the chairs so close together that their knees almost touched. They soon became excited and argued aggressively.

A person's territorial space is that which he reserves the right to enjoy and, within whose borders, any human being is a persona non-grata. Exceptions are eventually made for friends, relatives and loved ones, provided they know their limits and are restrained in this granted invasion.

Even a loved one, if they stay too long too close will generate discomfort. If this proximity is constant, quarrels arise, which can be triggered for very useless reasons.

Therefore, learn to respect and understand your spousal appendage's need to be alone. Institute conjugal vacations. Consider a Sartrean wedding, each at home. I guarantee you will love each other much more and respect each other much more.

The big problem is that when people are passionate they become attached to each other's lives. When the other is also going through a phase of momentary madness, they accept. Soon the problems start. It is the toothpaste that one likes to squeeze only at the end and the other squeezes carelessly in the middle; it is the bottle of water that one wants to close and the other sees nothing wrong in leaving it open; it is the volume of the music that one likes louder and the other likes it too low; it is the way of undressing and hanging the clothes neatly for one or dropping them inside out and throwing them any way the other can't help ...

None of these reasons would justify arguing with the delighted partner. But any one of them would be enough to motivate a divorce if it happened repeatedly inside your home, the place where you want things your way.

Keep in mind that much of what is called social etiquette is nothing more, nothing less than formal boundary setting. Cultural and ethnic clashes occur when one individual or group of individuals in some way encroaches on or jeopardizes the cultural identity of another.

If you want to preserve a friendship or an affectionate relationship, metabolize this golden rule: the only way to catch someone is to let them go; the best way to lose someone is to restrict their freedom or invade their privacy.

Have you ever heard the expression I want more? When you know the right time to leave, you let that feeling go and friends will tell you sincerely:

• But are you leaving already? It's early, stay a little longer.

Don't stay! Leave the taste of I want more. This way, you will always be welcome. Impose your presence and you will saturate the hosts who may not invite you again.