T.Talks com Luiza Helena Trajano

The floor is for you, Luiza. Pedro, everyone I saw before, it's a great joy, partner. Wow, so much time. And what impressed me the most was the praise you received here, all your team. How good is that? I was saying here, we need to praise our suppliers and partners, because that's how I work, it's a win-win. So I think one of the most difficult things is to change premises from 'where will I win from the other' to 'how will we win together', everyone wins. I was very impressed when I said I was going to be with you. Frederico even came here saying, 'I don't know, I passed this on, and if I'm doing it, I'm going to participate in a live with Pedro. Wow, I'm going to go greet him.' He's very systematic, very friendly. Great brand. I was very happy, I am very happy to be here with you, and happy to know that they are two companies that never gave up on purpose, and we will talk a little about that, and managed to grow and maintain our way of being, which I think is our biggest challenge: to grow well without losing what brought us here. It's much easier, much lighter when you have purpose. And I said that purpose is my backbone. I am driven by purpose. If you can't break it, you can even bend it a little, but you come back. Many times when we held on to our purpose, we let go. At Netshoes, for example, on the eve of Netshoes, we had a competitor that was offering more than us in the market. We never get angry with people, it's part of the game. We took it to the board. We had reached X, and he had already reached more. Then I asked the board. The board is just the board. The rest is all... there is a family representative, but not the owner. Then I asked, 'Did we buy the company to win or to grow our operations?' No, we bought a company to say we won in the market? No, we bought it because it was good for us, good for everyone. So we won't go beyond that. We will reach that point. And everyone said, 'It's true.' Frederico, who wanted it so much, our purpose was that we should get out of that. We were buying to win against each other, not to reach the maximum. And there were several situations. Many times when you have a purpose, you don't give up the next day. We suffered a lot. I took a plane to Portugal for my grandson's baptism. I still managed to see it at 11 o'clock the next day. Poor Frederico took a morning plane, and the plane had no Wi-Fi. He only found out he won after 8 hours of travel. So, it doesn't mean there is no suffering, but you take a measure knowing why you are taking it when you have a life purpose.

A family from the countryside, right? I'm from Franca, a city that is 70% Mineiro and 30% children of Mineiros. It's in the northwest of Minas Gerais. So we speak 'porta portão'. One of the things that was very cool for me, Pedro, and for everyone watching, is that I never wanted to lose my conscience or my essence. I am feminine. I use my feminine mind to manage. So that helped me, I don't know if it was something. And my family was raised with a lot of purpose. So, my aunt, who has no children, I am an only child, and my aunt bought the company. She was a saleswoman at a very large store, and when she bought it 63 years ago, in November, she only had money to pay the first installment. It was a small store in front of where she had worked. She got married, became a representative. My uncle lived in Franca, and her dream was to return to Franca. From the beginning, she knew why she was setting up a store: to generate jobs for the family. Money was never the end for us; it was always a means to get where we got. And she never paid an installment if someone told her, 'Dona Luiza'—I call her Isa because she has no children, Ana Luiza—but I am so honest. She would say, 'I don't see any advantage in pressuring the supplier.' Unlike even me, she would squeeze to always win for the supplier, but she never said, 'You understand me, I'll pay you on time.' She never told a lie. So I come from a family with very strict principles. Even when there was no money, if a customer told her—back then there was no control, no computer, no payment booklet—if a customer said, 'Oh, Dona Luiza, I already paid,' she wouldn't receive it to avoid being seen as dishonest, even if that money was needed. So first, I come from a family like that. Second, since I was a girl, I was very questioning of inequality. My mother would say to me, 'Girl, too much frankness is a lack of education.' Why was I single? Why didn't I have this? I questioned why others had it and I didn't, and I did things to have it. I was born with this spirit. And the first golden rule I set from the moment I started working is: do to others what you would like them to do to you. So that led us our whole lives. If I can't do it for the other, then if I don't do it for myself, I can't do it for the other. When you have that very strong inside you, you get a little lost. Sorry, look, I really wouldn't do to Pedro what I would do to myself. And so we started. In 1991, I was already a fact. My whole life, my family was entrepreneurial, not even a bit managerial. I am a chaotic manager. I just do it. I do it, I make mistakes, I change. If I get it right, I change too. But I am not committed to getting it right; I am committed to doing it. And quickly. To close the first time, fine. If I make a mistake the second time, the same thing, I'm already getting irritated. The third time, call me stupid, because I say I have to make room for new mistakes. New mistakes, new errors. And so, Pedro, my whole life, when I was a little girl, I started working at 12 during the holidays, because I was raised that way. I think the thing that helps me the most, that people ask me a lot, is being raised with a solution-oriented mindset. If I brought a small problem to my mother—only child—'Mom, that teacher rejected me,' she would say, 'Good, now you can prove she will have to regret rejecting you.' And that happened. In the first year, those lines... My mother put me in school at six, I was going to turn seven. I was already small, so I was very tiny. The main teacher was absent. The next day she arrived and said, 'If I had been here, I wouldn't have let this little girl stay.' I was in the video. I heard it. I came home and told my mother. She called the teacher and said, 'Look how intelligent, why did you do that to my daughter?' She said in the simplest language, 'It's not like that. She will still have to be very proud of you.' And today I can't even say that in front of her because she is alive. She says, 'I was the one who said it.' And Luiza Helena, so if I brought a problem, she made me find a solution. And the little friends... I was raised with this solution-oriented mindset. So, not feeling sorry for myself. That is very strong. My aunt was the same. Despite having an Italian uncle, I will go. And the struggle of being a woman is no different from all the others, except that I don't feel sorry for myself, and I also love a challenge. So when something... I arrived in São Paulo to talk about Magazine Luiza, no one knew me. I spoke 'porta portão', without a business card, being a woman. So even today, I am the name of the woman president. And when I felt rejection, I would think, 'I'll find a way.' When they said, 'When talking to you, a woman has to be more competent than a man,' I would say, 'Good, I'll need to challenge myself.' On the other hand, I tell you, the struggle of women is very big, very serious, just because of being a woman. So today I fight a lot, not for myself or for my daughters, who were already raised in an environment of overcoming, but for the role of being a woman, which is still very difficult many times. Today, there are 7% of women on the boards of public companies. If you take out the daughters of owners and the owners themselves, it's 4%. To get to 50%, it will take 120 years. Where have you seen a board with no women? Because it's the woman who decides which computer, which card to buy, everything to buy. So yes, I tell men, you have to look at this a little. There is structural machismo, which is very difficult, just as there is structural racism, which we will talk about now, which is very serious. It is structural and ingrained. So it's very serious. And I joke with my friends when they show machismo. 'Look, you spoke machismo faster.' Since I am very feminine, I don't traffic in the masculine area. I would tell my husband, 'That's your thing.' And to Marcelo Silva, who was the president of Magazine, not the board, I would say, 'Marcelo, that's your thing.' Sometimes I would say, 'Marcelo, I'm going, I'm going. Believe it, believe it, it will work out.' He even believed it. But now, Pedro, your Paulo, I've been including him lately. The other day at the board, there were 7 votes, 6 in favor of entering a business, and only mine against. But I respect it. I took it to the board, I respected it, I stayed quiet. I said, 'Fine, all six.' But Frederico the next day wanted to know why I didn't want it. 'The boy was already approved, you run with it.' So now, when I talk about intuition, and when I say no, 'Oh my God, what is she including? What is she thinking?' But it's also an achievement. So I think what was most important is... I'll just make a point here that you made: purpose used to be cheesy, now it's profit. Nothing better than when something arrives at its time. Because there was a lot of breaking in companies, stock exchange, short-term results. Just to give bonuses to directors, to not be what? To not be what went there and put a result that the audit said was right, and suddenly it wasn't. I was talking about the triple bottom line. The pandemic brought that. Where will you measure culture? The way you do business, because otherwise it doesn't survive. But the pandemic accelerated this. I was telling you, how many funds do I meet now that say, 'Luiza, you have to talk about purpose.' Frederico, not just because he is my son, he wants to be among the first companies to work for. He knows that this, besides being a true thing of ours, he knows that it gives results. So this is very important. So the feeling I had was that I had a ping-pong ball of purpose and a ball of profit. I confess to you, once I turned down 40 million from a French company. After two years, we were going to be credit partners with Unibanco. Because when I closed the contract, each time she brought something, I closed the package, she brought another contract, she brought something more. I'm not complaining about her, but my purpose is not what you think it is. It's what you believe. I told her, 'If it's like that, I don't believe in a company that changes every time.' The last time he brought it, I was even pale. He said, 'Don't worry, they will give up what they put in.' I said, 'The deal is off here. I don't want it anymore.' I needed those 40 million to save my company. It was my salvation, even for the family. But the story was so strong, and I realized that if I had done it, we wouldn't be here today. The company didn't work out and left Brazil. So it was very big. So many times, you don't give up in the short term. To audit a balance sheet, Pedro, in 1995, when no retail was doing it, Arthur Andersen was the best. When he brought me the result, I said, 'Wow, we paid so much for you to speak so badly of us.' And this first one is terrible. Then the solution-oriented mindset kicks in. I called the three of them to come to Franca before releasing the balance sheet and show the cash flow with him. Because what breaks a company is cash flow. I opened the cash flow and said, 'I am digitizing a company that retail is not used to, not even the big ones, doing this. And I'm going to show a very bad balance sheet. I need credit, working capital.' And then there's the guy who today presents the IPO. I always talk about him. He was the financial director of Brastemp. He left, Pedro, praising a lot. 'Look, there's a company from the countryside, from Luiza. I went there, she audited the balance sheet. She is having the courage.' He helped me by endorsing it. And the balance sheet that was going to be bad, this balance sheet made us have funds, made us have partners later. Because without a balance sheet, it's a saying. So, giving up something for the benefit of the future is a purpose if you want the company to last 100 years. So for you, we can talk about purpose because now everyone wants it. At first, they thought, 'This player from the countryside, it won't work out very well.' Many times I was labeled like that until recently. Now it's, 'Luiza likes purpose a lot, but she doesn't like profit.' It's working, right? And even today I still hear that sometimes. I'm just answering at the right time. It's not very nice. You say something that is very important: when you have purpose, it's in crises that you make your purpose more tangible, and that's when you gain even more value. So see, you returned 40 million. How many crises have you had where you had a dividing line? When you say, 'What is my purpose? That you be happy. That's for culture, for your peers.' So if you return it and don't break it, you keep going. And you go, you don't know which way. And that's also for people who don't have a company. And I wanted to say something to your team that I think is very important. The pandemic accelerated things. I was already saying in my lectures, 'Guys, I was seeing many networks before, and we concluded that they were already studying a lot that you hire a person for their technical ability, but you fire them for their behavior. 90% to 10%.' And that's where the red-handed companies come in. Magazine was even doing it with a training program. There are international companies that do 10 blind tests to see how you deal with stress, with behavior, with others. Then later, technical ability and having good degrees don't matter. The first screening will not be by technical ability. And now in the pandemic, I'm hearing a lot of companies looking for methodologies to do this. Because if you don't screen for behavior, you acquire attitudes. If you want your child to be chosen for this, you can't say, 'I'm paying you, you can't discriminate against people,' because he will be chosen by behavior first. Then technical ability comes later. Do you understand? Because even if you get a very technical genius, you can even use him a little, but if he doesn't know how to deal with money, with life, with purpose, he will be seduced by the most expensive job and will change. You must have this problem in this area too, right? So I tell you, those who are watching, look for your purpose. I will read a letter from Frederico that I wrote for his first job in 1996. Believe it or not, I never told him to be president. I never told him to work at Magazine Luiza. No one believes this, Pedro. They think I pressed a button on the computer and he came out like that. Never, never. You will see his first job, where I wrote what he needed to apply: principles. Even my son was here. But when you talk to Luiza Helena, you think of things to pass on. I never pushed my son. I think this is extensive. It passes a little because we have to let people who do the right things, who have principles, that this passes. Look at the example you had. Dakotinha, back then it wasn't easy to invest in people in retail. The last thing people wanted was to be a salesperson. When nothing worked out, they would become a salesperson. I always loved being a salesperson. I come from a family of salespeople. In 2005, I took out a full-page ad in Veja magazine. I wasn't even that well-known as a woman. And I said, when I saw that no one wanted to be a salesperson, 'What should I do, Pedro?' I removed all the titles in the company, and we all became salespeople. When everyone was a salesperson, I went to the full-page ad and said that. Today I look and say, 'Wow, a director has a woman, right?' I continue doing that. I will read the letter, then we can go. I looked at the end, but I said, 'Now Frederico entered very early at GV. He was always very determined to do things.' My three children, I had little expectation. They would be this. I just wanted them to play in a band, do something they liked, that was cool. I had a few fears: car accidents and drugs. The rest they had to figure out. So I wrote on March 18th, when he left for his internship. Like every mother, I get emotional with the first child, arranging the cleaning. You don't have more experience than we do in business. A mother feels the same things that every mother has to see. And so, on March 18th, he went for his first internship. He was in the 3rd year, 2nd semester, 3rd year, and he went for an internship. So I wrote on March 18th, 1996: 'It is very good for us parents when we feel and witness an evolution and the cycles of our children, especially when these cycles are conquered with determination, effort, and above all, with a lot of love. Today you are beginning another stage of your life, and I would like to register my satisfaction. And as a mother, I couldn't miss some guidance: Always believe in yourself, in your faith, and that you have absolute... Seek not to identify things or people. Always have an attitude of exchange, of giving and receiving. Do not give up your ethics, morals, and belief in the evolution of men. Know that you have a mission, a purpose. Discover it and fight for it. Have time for everything, so organize yourself with rhythm and routine. Have passion for what you do, because only then will it be better and easier. Always be yourself, with truth and transparency. It is very important at this moment. And always ask for wisdom, authority, and justice.' And that's how you see that I didn't tell him to get money. I didn't tell him to be president. I didn't tell him anything. I told him to be a person, to do things with compassion, to seek to do things, to believe in the strength of work, in people. Because this thing about 'a crooked tree dies crooked'... So if you have education, you have to believe that people change if they want to change. So that's it.

It's incredible how we started talking about this and people lost their fear, right? And after a year, also with the best press working for women. So this thing of putting it on the table, talking about the value, saying you can, the centrality—the centrality is in the person. That is transformative. What comes from this exchange that you mentioned, right? The give-and-take. My company, we are the company, Pedro, that has been in the Great Place to Work ranking the longest. They came to Brazil in '97, I joined in '98, there in the interior. So it's 22 years that I'm at Magazine Luiza, never leaving the top five. And what did I do? I took the report and worked on it. I trained myself to hear what I don't want to hear. Let's go, I repeated that, I trained myself to hear what I don't want to hear because you are like a spiral—if you only hear what you want to hear, you don't move forward. So I don't care, on the contrary, when I start something, if someone comes to me with praise, I already tell them to tell me what I need to change. So I took the best company report and worked on the points I didn't like, especially regarding women. I did that overall. And then I ask myself a lot—I was about 12 years old—I said, 'Why does the company grow so much and people aren't happy? You have to set up an institute.' Nothing against it, but I never sent an institute—nothing against it, it helped a lot—but suddenly I send everyone away in the dead of night, I don't want that. Why a company? I used to discuss with my mother: why a company? I want a company that is happy, that makes mistakes and gets it right. But if people... Pedro asks me a lot: 'What was the most emotional moment of your life?' I say, after you have children, people, it's paying the piper. I don't want to be humble anymore, you always think you know everything because you pay the piper. But I say, after 2003, you don't know... we won 'Best Company to Work For' among all, and it was the first retail company in the world to win 'Best Company.' Why? In this contest, industries, services, banks enter. We already had about 10,000 employees. For those with over 1,000, it's a test where they ask the employees, and they answer directly. In 2013, we won 'Best Company to Work For' in Brazil among all. The other day I posted it on my Instagram on Thursday, that TBT, Roberta even said I'd post the cover of the best. And we have never left the top five because when we receive it, we take seriously what we are doing, what we need to improve, and what we don't need to improve. For women, I wanted to say a little to those watching: it's important to have small pearls that cost very little for companies. Managers need to know this. For example, 15 years ago I had a 'Mother's Check' because one thing is me, Luiza, Helena, Roberta, my assistant, the director—who today we have forty percent in the council. If we didn't have that, we would be in trouble. We changed, we have that perspective for all positions. Today we have a structure. So I thought: sixty percent of the women working in our companies, sixty percent of the community in Brazil are people who earn very little, women who are breadwinners, the maids, the people who are there, and they walk four hours to get here and four hours to go back, and when they get home, there's no way, the children are alone. So 15 years ago, Pedro, I created the 'Mother's Check': every woman who has a child up to 11 years old, regardless of her position, at Christmas she gets a 'Mother's Check' to pay a mother to stay with the child, a neighbor, a school, regardless of position. And then the union already loved me a lot, but I put it in anyway. I don't know why I put it in, but I put it in. So as a Brazilian woman, I fight a lot so that every block has a full-time school that welcomes women to work. But in the meantime, I could do this. These are pearls. But now I realized that women would reach the point of a director, the way we treated them, but the position that most derails the career is when you go from supervisor to store manager. Only they have to spend six months in training. So there's a career inside the store. And then I realized there were few women going for that position. So I went to talk to them, I'm always talking to them. 'What's happening?' 'I have to stay six months away from home with no support, it's very hard.' So we made small pearls: they can be up to 100 km away, help, we doubled the 'Mother's Check' for the bath help, and they can go home every weekend. So today we have 50 percent of managers in training, even more. These are small things I want to alert you to, and it makes a difference. And the men, Pedro, say, 'Luiza, I want a check too, I want a boss who pays.' Okay, I know you're great fathers today, you help. I see my sons, my nephew, the company's employees. But I want to ask you a question: if by chance your children don't work out, your mother-in-law or your neighbor will say, 'Who told you to work?' And I said, for us women, they will say that as long as you don't pay the social price, I won't give you the check. By the time you pay, it will take too long. So see, because for a woman, anything she says, 'What? He only told me to work,' even though many times she is the breadwinner. Woman of class, exactly that. In Magazine Luiza, small things. When you look at research and talk to people, this check, we can do a little bit. Sometimes a little bit that won't do anything new, but it has an impact. That's what people say. It's the profit, both, and you can do both because a little bit you do has an enormous impact. So that's very cool. There are many tools like Great Place to Work, B System, Conscious Capitalism, many entities that help executives and companies with purpose. Because purpose is not just a marketing thing; it's inherent to the market. A beautiful garden won't sustain itself. The things I hear most at Magazine Luiza are like this: people at the stores, all 100 stores across Brazil, come to our employees and say, 'Magazine Luiza is like this.' But the question most asked to our employees is, 'Is she really like that?' Imagine now. She is like that. They send me because I too was very afraid. My biggest fear wasn't having money for the next day; it was this. I always worked and managed my affairs. My biggest fear was losing the human touch. As you grow, you get big, go public, the stock market pressures. And I said, 'Wow, Marcelo, I'm afraid, I'm afraid.' So what did I do? I created a closed-door policy. I wanted a simple thing: the non-negotiables. That's very cool about your perspective. I learned from a company: five non-negotiables. Those who do them will be fired for cause. There's no huge ethical code, just five non-negotiables. If you do those, you know you'll be fired for cause: harassment, taking any company asset. It's very interesting, the non-negotiables. And I created a line since 1995 directly with the field people, those without high positions. I tried to find another name, but I call it 'Disque-Denúncia' (whistleblower hotline). I dance on it because you have to make sure the non-negotiables are being followed. They have to warn me. And it's very interesting. I've been doing this for over 20 years. They all come to me because I always listened to everything. I have three auditors who only work for me because they say, 'Luiza, this one isn't following the non-negotiables, this one is embedded in something for the client, the climate isn't good.' And they don't tell me directly at first; they try, and if it doesn't work, they say, 'I don't know if you know, but I have a line with the client.' Very famous since 2001. Let's go up. I have a line. I came to São Paulo and saw that things were very technical. I said, 'I don't want that.' I don't want to know what happened to him. So much so that they get mad at me because I learn everything. People write everything. I say, 'This transport has a problem, this store had this happen.' And the employees say, 'Look, this happened.' The client only sends me, Pedro. I tell that to you: when he has already sent to all places, the opportunity to know where I stand. Because organization is like a regime: if you let up a little, it becomes very big. The client says, 'Look, I'm here with Complain Here.' Great, Val. That's fine. As long as I'm receiving 10 per 10 per week of complaints on my social network, on my WhatsApp, then it's okay. Because if no complaints come to me, that's not good. He got very angry one day: 'You're not bringing that number to me.' 'No, I was born to serve every customer well.' They don't buy just because it's a human being there. You want to tell me the five non-negotiables? Now I'm curious, what are the five non-negotiables you have? Give them to me.

First, any type of ethical harm to the client and to our company. It can be 20 years of experience, 20 years in the company, and if you took something, if you tap or embed a product that makes a lot of money for you and the company, the first time you get a warning letter, the second time you're fired for cause. If the customer says, 'I didn't buy this product, this warranty,' because of rudeness to the customer, very simple, and you embedded the warranty, you're fired for cause. Any type of discrimination, Pedro, any type. If it's proven, any type of demoralization, of course there's training, but any in the company. We don't have an age to enter or leave. So any type of inspiration... Actually, any type of harassment, we work a lot on violence against women because I lost an employee and we did one of the biggest surveys on sexual harassment. If you want, I'll send it to you. 18,000 people responded. The leader had to be present to know what I don't like as a joke, what I don't like to have done to me, what sexual harassment is, what moral harassment is. Then we tried to act in the company. We did discrimination and sexual harassment, any type. And we understood that people don't want to say, 'That's a joke.' So we called the 1,800 and said, 'Forbidden to say it's a joke.' So any type of harassment—people forget that today there's WhatsApp, proof of harassment is very quick. Inappropriate jokes, comments. There's one here that's very interesting at the company, very special: this thing about not being able to have father and mother and child and family work together. We cannot have aggregated workers? But employees can have father and mother, child, but only if they don't work in the same leadership. I also don't want here, look, there are several marriages that came from here that were in leadership. So that one: leaders and subordinates without immediately communicating to HR. Because when I started launching this, I said, 'Look, I can't go against love. If you moved to a region and fell in love with a manager, or the manager fell in love with you, that's fine, but you have to report it.' And when we would call attention, they would say, 'But I'm seeing if it works out.' And then everyone would tell me because everyone said that. The manager, so-and-so, would tell me. So the non-negotiable is that: leaders with subordinates without immediately communicating to HR. As soon as it starts, report it, because then we remove them from one another. Don't wait to receive a complaint because you'll be fired. Otherwise, I have to remove them. And it's so good when the kids say, 'I want to work at Magazine Luiza.' A wife who works often, when they report immediately, we talk, move one, move another, fix it. Because you can't forbid love, but you also have another: any type of attitude you might have, including arrogance, energy that denigrates the company's image. So we can't have conversations like, 'I'm at the best company in Brazil, I'm the richest, I'm this.' That's forbidden. Anything that harms you or any attitude of yours that denigrates the company's image—they are our symbol. And non-negotiable. But then each one is explained, it's all clear, they sign it. Once a year, new ones sign. I only fire you for cause. They send me, 'Luiza, I was fired.' 'You knew that, right?' 'Yes.' 'My son, I can do nothing.' Luiza, the agreement doesn't come at a high cost. That's some life sayings, not just Magazine Luiza's, but life sayings: if you do something, you have to face it as it comes. It's no use coming two months later and saying you didn't know. You could have said it earlier. That's why we work a lot on freedom, responsibility, and transparency. Look how cool, look at that. You have to have it, otherwise excuses don't help.

We only end in this phase: communication is not what I think, but what the other understands. When you understand that, it completely changes your life. So communication is not what you say, but what the other understands. Then you pay a lot of attention because it's a continuous process of improving your communication.

Yes, Pedro, I learned a lot at the SPOT. I learned a lot. I was a saleswoman for 20 years. I worked at a store. My children were born in the store. And I was a saleswoman. So empathy is changing roles with another, in the other's world, not in yours. And to sell, I had no choice but to change roles. The customer would come in simple, wanting to buy a TV. They didn't know what size, how they could pay. I found a way to understand what they wanted and sell it without issues. At that time, we lived on 30-month installments with interest, and the customer often thought they were paying cash, but it was 30 months. I would say many times: 'Sir, you are paying in 30 months.' And others wouldn't come back. So I had to learn empathy by selling. And it worked. I was a very good salesperson. And now, download the Magazine Luiza app. Great.

We have a communion ritual. This ritual, people didn't understand anything at first, thought it was corny. One day, when you come physically, or you enter our now digital one, you have a ritual where we show all the results—transparency is important—the campaigns, the birthdays. We also created highlights for each area. How is this done? I felt that people had difficulty speaking well of themselves because at school, being a good student was 'CDF' (teacher's pet). If you were, you were a brown-nose to the boss. So there's a minute of... first now, a minute for the 'Indomável' (indomitable) person. They have to go to the front and say why they were chosen as the best highlight of the area. And those people have to gather and analyze the highlights. So once a month, we have that. We have birthdays, campaigns. Frederico reports when he goes to the stock market: 'Today I'm going to the market, it's like this.' And we sing the national anthem and the company anthem for 22 years. That's the difference. The young people, you know, people tell me, 'Young people don't like to sing the anthem.' But they do sing and stand quietly. Rituals are part of the company culture. You have rituals and they remain. Of course, you modernize the ritual, but you can't take away the essence of the ritual. All our 1,200 units, for 22 years, every Monday, we do spiritual. So we have that which needs to be done. And other rituals, we have meetings, we have many rituals that help maintain the culture. And I will never have a paper on culture, mission, or anything if it is not received from the field. Our flag was a woman. Our mission was written when we had those big field meetings because it needs to be in motion. Now, I'll just tell you: I have a lot of fear of losing the human touch. Then the pandemic came, and it gave me that comfort too. Through suffering, Frederico and his team gave me a better human touch than I would give. I can say that, Pedro. I'm very well served. I never had a personnel department; I always had HR in the company. Since I'm small, I always worked directly with the HR manager or director. They took care of the health like I've never seen. They hired 15 doctors. Frederico personally called all the health plans. He created a group where every day the statutory directors had information about who was sick, who was the person—not that. They set up telemedicine in 7 days, then emotional support. They took care of everything. And look, the company was doing well, had working capital, the family had sold 50% of the sale, but they acted like they had nothing. And they created a partner program that was spectacular, with 600,000 embroidered printed items at the hypermarket. Then I told them: 'After this, I...' They say, 'Don't leave a vacuum for my mother to enter.' So I enter. I will say that I exist. I don't want to go back. I'm not one to cry. I don't leave before others remove me. I change cycles. I live changing. So I say I can die peacefully because they did such a good job. Look, they knew everything, they gave full coverage, took care of jobs. We didn't fire anyone. We sent everyone away. We were one of the first to close stores and the last to open. So we did such a good job that you can't imagine how we did it. So today I say the pandemic gave me this: look, for me to say they did it better than me, and I didn't give a hint. It was them. 10 months of little rocket, right? You started talking and ended here, Luiza. Thank you very much.

I just want to thank and say: start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. But start doing something. I did a live with... I like this example he cited: if your car breaks down on the road and you stay inside the car crying, no one will help you. But if you start pushing the car, many people will help you. Push the car of your life. Don't leave it stopped. Don't stay inside it. Stop lamenting. And thank life and the good job you have, that health works—the best thing in life. Thank you very much, Pedro. It was a great pleasure. Felipe, all of you, with such an incredible group. For you, I have no words to thank.