Currently...

I am planting thousands of trees in the Amazon rainforest, rebuilding portions of it that had been devastated in the past years.

I do whatever I can to broadcast our endeavour and gather supporters to our initiative.

I deal with customers who buy trees myself, I print the tags that are tied around the trees and I get my hands dirty planting lots of trees too.

Before I escaped...

I created something called a receivables investment fund, the first one in Brazil.

I worked for 10 different banks (yes, ten...) and investment funds in eleven years (choppy CV or what... :)).

I also started and managed a few companies in the financial sector.

My moment of truth...

Since I was little, I've dreamt of making a difference - leaving behind something that counts.

When two former colleagues started punching each other over a few dollars on a trading floor about a year ago, I realised that was it for me. I'm out of here and off to my "better world" dream.

Planning for it...

I didn't plan. I thought that if I started planning around, it would consume too much time and energy (and Excel would eventually end up tangling me along the way or somehow dim the emotional motivation).

So I left my job at the last bank and started creating the Amazing Forest literally the next day with the very, very little cash reserves I had. Then, once the wheel is spinning, funding comes.

The worst and best bits...

Worst bits were waiting for the action to begin - waiting for the website to be finished, for the company to be created, for the sales to start picking up, for rain to stop so we could plant.

Also, it's not fun at all having the doubt constantly rumbling in your stomach whether you did the right thing or should you have done this differently, waited for that thing to be completed first etc... You're out in the dark, by yourself and without the corporate nest to comfort yourself in... :)

Besides the obvious freedom upside, the best bits of making this happen are watching the trees grow from what used to be an empty void. We are creating life here. There was land and now there are thousands of baby trees. And they grow fast. We plant them 1 foot tall and they reach 7 feet in one year...! Making that happen is hard to beat on a regular corporate job.

Best advice...

Do what you like. Never mind money. Money is a means to an end. Never let it get to you as the end in itself. It's nothing more than a stupid bridge.

Start extremely lean on cost, but start. Don't sit around waiting for the big funding to come so you can begin doing your stuff. Do it yourself. If you are doing nothing but creating spreadsheets and presentations to pitch your business before you even start it, that's tedious corporate life all over again. Just stick you neck out and start doing.

Don't hire anyone until you are at cruising altitude. In the beginning, this is what makes it fun (doing things and making them happen). Forget about bossing people around. Roll up your sleeves and do what you would hire people to do instead.