Hello, everyone. Today I came to where my interviewee is. I am here at the Magalu gallery, at the Magalu Experience House, and I'm waiting for Luiza Helena Trajano, this woman who needs no introduction. I'm very anxious, with butterflies in my stomach to start. It's not an interview, it's a conversation, because I really want to hear what she has to tell us. Stay with us [music] it will be an unforgettable conversation. I confess to you that I have butterflies in my stomach, which I think is a very healthy butterfly, because Luiza Helena Trajano represents a lot to me and she gave me the satisfaction and honor of giving me some of her time so that we could be here together. Luiza, thank you very much.
In this place, hi, people. Pleasure, you know? And in a place that I've been spending a lot of time lately, because it's an innovation of the department, it's the old to the new, it's the theater with YouTube. So, it's bringing the digital, which is a reality, it's artificial intelligence, it's Lu's house, but also bringing a theater, also bringing a meeting point, you see how many places for people, the place for people to sit.
For women to have a place of beautification, to see a soccer thing, the museum changes every three months, people had to pay to go there. Every two months there will be the Pinacoteca museum. You know, Luiza, I've been reading, because I also participate in these innovation things, about this new way stores provide experiences. I've been reading, soon I'll be in one.
You are a pioneer, right? It's all experience. Now someone came to me and said: 'There's a little treat in this area, come try it because it's for the customer, they're talking to me.'
Yes. No. And today? Today there will be a World Cup game, there's already popcorn, already screens.
No, because popcorn is every day.
Because you like popcorn, right? Ah, I've heard. Rafa told me.
[laughter] Rafa Martins at Xer.
Who is also our mutual friend. Want to...
Yes. And my daughter did mentoring with you at Gramado Summit.
Oh, she was very enchanted. She said: 'Mom, what a humane, true, hardworking, warrior person.' And I wanted to ask you, because I have to tell you how I got here. And when Luiza sat in front of me, she said, I talk to so many people, I have so many things in my head, Valesca reminds me. So, I recorded the episodes at Gramado Summit, we had a time, unfortunately we didn't record, and I kept thinking how I could record a conversation with Luiza. And then after Gramado ended, I interviewed 30 people, very different people. And I kept thinking about the things they told me that my daughter said about you. And then one day I woke up and a text came to my head that was the title of the text was: 'What do Luiza Helena Trajano and Leonardo da Vinci have in common?' And what caught my attention most, what they have in common, is that both were raised in their essence basically by women. And then I got her email and she replied that she liked the text. And today I'm here because of that.
I even asked her to remind me, people, because Roberta only said: 'I scheduled it because you met at the Gramado summit and you promised to record the interview [laughter].' Then I said: 'Okay, if I scheduled it, there must be some reason I scheduled it, because also they, I say yes more than they, they say no more. I'll keep saying yes.'
That's what the assistants are for. The RTA she refers to is her assistant. But then I spoke with Tati Mizete and I said: 'Tati, how do I send it to her?' And she said: 'Send it by email.' And I sent it on a Saturday night and the next morning, like 5 in the morning, she replied.
Oh, do you sleep a lot? I always slept little.
Little? How many hours? 3 or 4 hours a night.
Imagine if you slept 8, 10 hours, no one could. It would be a rocket.
But you know what's interesting? On the other hand, it gives me much more ability to do things, because so, you have more hours in the day, more hours, and when I arrive very late I don't have anymore, when I stop, my energy also stops. Then I clean my skin, I have my ritual to sleep.
What time do you go to bed at night? It depends. I go at 11:30, midnight.
Oh, you don't sleep early? I don't sleep early.
So, because yesterday I got home at 10:30 at night, I had a dinner after a day, a business dinner, business that I talk about Luiza, come here to meet so-and-so or people want to see you here at the dinner at my house. So, I go to very different places. So when I wake up early and I can sleep 3, 4 hours, because when I don't sleep that much it doesn't do me good. Of course, but when I sleep about 4 hours straight, I wake up with a lot of energy at 5 am.
And was it always like that, sleeping little, or was it something? If my husband were alive, he would say, it's not that she sleeps little, she doesn't sleep. He would say,
he would say that I... So, on the other hand, I think it's good, but also I'm a normal person, I watch those little movies on TV, on the thing to distract myself. And if, for example, I'm at home on a Sunday, I don't lie in bed, I have little sofas in my houses, I can also sleep half an hour, 40 minutes after lunch. But if I'm in motion, I'm in motion. So at 5 am it's good that I read emails, I read, because I also am very careful not to have my cell phone in front of others.
So I make a campaign for people to be fully with each other. So I, but when I arrive at 9, 10 o'clock earlier, I look at all that. Of course I have an assistant, if it's a client case, they've already sent it. If it's a serious case, it comes via WhatsApp to me. But I read everything, I don't just read what they send me.
Yes, I am living proof of that. So, [laughter] then I function well at that time.
Uhum. I keep something that I left from the other day on the sofa to put away. I take care of it and I have daughters who live in Europe, so at 5 am it's 10 there and 9. So if I don't call at 5 in the morning, she already calls. 'Oh mom, everything okay?' Then today I say: 'I'm sleeping a little more.' That is, you're in Brazil's time zone, but also in Europe's time zone.
Europe. Here I have two daughters abroad. One lives in France, which is 5 hours difference, and another in Lisbon, which is four.
So, I already wake up getting news from them, them from me, what did you do yesterday, what happened? And I imagine if there's a little time they already wonder, what happened that mom isn't, but if they don't see me on the network, she already says: 'And then?'
Oh, how sweet, Luiza. And so, you started working very early, right? Young, practically a pre-teen, right?
Yes, I started like this, I say I had two very interesting mothers. First, I was raised to work and I was not raised to... I say, mothers know, your mothers, you know that when a girl was born, she already started making the trousseau. If I tell you that I got married, if my husband were alive, I would be celebrating 50 years of marriage. When I got married, I didn't have a single piece of trousseau. So my upbringing was a bit different. I was about to get married, my mother said: 'If you don't want to get married, don't get married.' That's nothing. If you think 50 years ago, it's very revolutionary, that's why today she makes these huge movements of women breaking these paradigms. So, I had the pleasure of being born into an entrepreneurial family, I had an aunt who said, who started from nothing and said that money was never an obstacle, it was work that solved things. So that was, and a mother who had a lot of emotional intelligence. So if I, an only child, my aunt didn't have children, I am Luiza because of her. The sisters were very united. How many sisters were there? Four. Oh, it was your mother, Aunt Luiza, an Aunt Maria who had only one boy who was like my brother. We were raised. Another who became a widow. Only had one. And what's the name of the one who became a widow? Luzia. And Luiza. So they were, they sufficed. Two lived together. One lived on the fifth floor and the other on the 13th. It was a community of strong women who also respected the masculine. So, but it was strong. And they believed more in the strength of women than anything, right? So, I was answering your question, I didn't... and a mother that when I came home from school saying: 'The teacher did this to me.' She said: 'What can you do to make the teacher change?' So, I was raised without pampering and with a solution-oriented mind. Then that little friend fought with me. Ask him why? So, the problem was always inside me and not in the other.
Yes. And the power that is, at 12 years old now, at 12 years old, because I was alone, I still love giving gifts. Then my mother said, and I wanted to give to the whole family at Christmas. At that time, Christmas worked until midnight. Then Christmas was all a...
Because, just to recap, the family had the store. Yes, my aunt was an employee for a long time at a store, and then she got married, moved to Franca. The dream was to return to Franca, buy a store to generate employment for the family. Uhum. And then your mother worked at the store? Then the four went to help, that's what I mean. So they all united in the store to be able to... But buying the store was my aunt with my uncle who returned to Franca, bought on credit, she only had the money for the down payment, she did, she was very well known in the city because she already worked as a saleswoman at the main store. In the old days, it was those traditional people from the family stores in the interior. There was a store, there was even a bridal list, there was even a bank, there wasn't much ready-made clothing, but there was fabric, there was construction material. And she took care of the silver, crystal, and gift sector. And she was always very good, an employee, didn't need training. My problem with her was that, to say that she wasn't like everyone else. Yes. So, and my mother had a lot of emotional intelligence, so I think I had these two, I was very privileged, of course I also paid prices. No one and it's not because [clearing throat] that I went there without price, without anything. Everything you choose or what you were, you have good things and things you don't get alone.
And entrepreneurship is a challenge, right? At 12 I said: 'I want to give gifts.' Then my mother said: 'Go work and earn gifts.' And I went to work at the store, I became a saleswoman. I already spent a lot of time there, but not like that. And then I earned and I sold so much that they made my first savings and I managed to give gifts. So it was cool that they saw that I also had a knack for dealing with people, but also with this whole DNA, right? I had a knack, but not the others, there are others who didn't, that I had a knack for dealing with people and I liked it. So, every vacation I went to work and then my cousins went together and look how interesting. I have six grandchildren. Today my granddaughter is already at GV and my granddaughter when she had my son's child at 12, 13, 14 years old that she could, she looked for a store and became a saleswoman and she bought a lipstick for a grandmother, a little thing for another. So, when did I think that my granddaughter at 14 would repeat? Because all my cousins went at the end of the year, because everyone helped, it was that movement, there weren't that many people to work, right? There was no structure.
But I never thought that after so many years, more than 20 years passed and my granddaughter, about 15, she was 14, about 18 years old did the same thing. How cool, right? How sometimes we can't even have told, but it passes, right? It passes and how you inspire generations without knowing that you are inspiring by an attitude.
Yes. You know, Luiza, I have been talking to diverse women from many sectors and many have told me the pleasure they have in working, because as if working a lot is something that is not cool. Are you addicted to work? I am addicted to movement, you know? I think movement, I still say too much movement is not productivity.
So it's not because you move. So, I measure productivity a lot, so I say: 'Wow, [laughter] what did I do? So, I don't like movement. Movement is not productivity. So, I don't keep moving. I move, for example, I knew that I was going to be on a podcast now with Luana, I was going to be with you. So I know that there I know well, I know that if I scheduled it, it's because we have some function. Either I'm there because it's important for you, no matter, or I'm there because it's important. Do you think my presence is important? Hmm.
So, and I left there where I was dealing with science, medicine, everything and came in and sat here that I couldn't even do in the theater, because they are doing another one now with Ludmila.
Yes, yes. And this movement of not being rigid.
You adapt. No, I think my daughter who works with a lot of rigidity, she says: 'One of your great merits is never having been rigid, closed in that. The people from the South are more process-oriented. I even when I need process I go to the stores in the South, because they teach me a lot in that, but I don't have the rigidity.'
So I need to be on top of everything. No, if I don't call her to know why she's coming here, will she lose? No, I say, I believe.
Ah, you know? I believe and it will work out.
And believing it will work out. Is there any moment when you feed yourself with faith, self-reflection to have energy to handle so many things at once? No, I am very holistic too. Aham. I am very intuitive.
But I also when I decide to put order I learn because I listen a lot to people, people think I'm very intelligent, but I ask questions and listen to people. I listen carefully to people and they like to tell me things because I always think I'm learning. Now today I'm talking more about spirituality and more about purpose.
