Ricardo – that’s me – just celebrated my 29th birthday (11 years ago) and that is how I like to live: with a smile on my face!
Married to the best person that has ever happened to me. That’s Patrícia. She makes my life a lot better and I do whatever I can to deserve her, everyday. With little success, I must confess.
We have a daughter, called Emma, which is the main reason behind the topic “NO SO SECRET ME” on this blog.

I’m passionate about life, people in general, jazz, good wine, psychology and, above all, smiles.
I’m one of those who touches others and that likes hugs 😄
I love to communicate (read: talk too much) and I always find great conversation topics even when no one else is interested anymore.

In the family, we are lucky to have a black labrador, Zorah, that happens to be the best dog we could have wished for.
We also have many dreams: to adopt a child, to visit the +/- 200 countries in the world, contribute to the happiness of those around us, to appreciate the simple things in life, to volunteer more e, most of all, to feel like we left something good in the world.

I work for Decathlon for about 16 years and I had the chance of living an amazing adventure, of which I’m very proud, through different jobs in Portugal, France – where we lived for 5 years – and a fantastic experience in Africa (RDC)

I started working as a part-time sales assistant, while I tried my first college degree in engineering. Something that, like many other things, didn’t end well.

After a few years in retail, I entered the world of Marketing & Advertising, still in Decathlon Portugal.
Meanwhile, I went back to college to get a degree in this domain. That went quite well, actually.

At some point, we decided that we wanted to live an international experience and we went to live in France. We got jobs in Decathlon HQ, where I had the chance of working on amazing projects. I was head of the Marketing Directors job description, skills, etc., then I myself was Marketing Director of Decathlon City, Essential and Mobility brands, and yet Marketing Director of Decathlon Democratic Republic of Congo, in Africa.

Once I was sick and tired of so much advertising, I had one last experience in Decathlon as a Management Leader (at least I think that’s how the job was called), with the responsibility – with many others – of accompanying the human & cultural transformation in the company, worldwide, towards more simple relationships, a more simple and liberal management, more autonomous coworkers, which I believe is the reason why Decathlon France has won 1st place of Great Place to Work.

While I was doing all that, I went to study Facilitation and I postgraduate in Coaching, with the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

This last experience accompanying people and teams achieving their objectives made me feel something I don’t think I had experienced in all of my working years. To feel that this is what I’m supposed to do. This is why I was here for.

I’m not quite sure I do one explains this… Once I was asked: “If you had to work for the rest of your life for free and the only thing you could choose was the job you’d do, what would it be ?”

I remember answering something like: “I have to think about it. I don’t have an answer right away…”

The person who asked me that, like if he had guessed the answer already – or perhaps he had already asked someone else before me – smiled and asked: “Would it be the job you do today?”. My answer was a lot faster!

I left Decathlon a few years ago, to dive into this new life’s project, about which I’m passionate everyday and that is helping others achieve whatever they feel is important to them. Which is great, because they do all the work and I usually do nothing. And that suits me just fine!

Well, you might have guessed it. Today I work for free, accompanying young adults that seek solutions to face the challenging situations they have to live with.

While I do all this, I’m postgratuating (yep, again!) in Psychology, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go back to college to become a psychologist, but that’s for another day…