Adriana Gavazzoni | From ADHD to Law Degree, Professorship, & Published Novelist

Have you heard the one about the young Brazilian girl with ADHD and hyperactivity that figured out coping techniques on her own? You know, the one who learned to focus her brain on her studies, and not only achieved finishing high school, but college, law school, became an attorney, a professor, and published novelist?

This week our guest not only shares her remarkable story, but shows us how to do it too. All this and more on this week’s episode of the podcast, the Adriana Gavazzoni story!

GUEST BIO: 

Adriana Gavazzoni is the Brazilian author of a trilogy named Hidden Motives (Behind The Door #1, Lara´s Journal #2 and The Brilliant Game #3), she just released her fourth book ” Sketches of Life”. Her series won five Gold Medals: The Golden Book Award 2017 -Book Excellence Award 2017; B.R.A.G Medallion 2019 and eLIT Book Awards 2019; one Bronze Medal on Inpedependente Publisher Books Award 2018 and was finalist to the greatest literary contests. Gavazzoni’s last novel, launched in November, already got a gold badge at Pinnacle Book Achievement Award. Adriana Gavazzoni has been a lawyer for 30 years, a former professor of law and a writer of novels and legal books.

EPISODE PROUDLY SPONSORED BY: 

• Hanging Out with David Pasqualone & Friends Podcast

SHOW NOTES, GUEST CONTACT INFO, SPECIAL OFFERS, & OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Guest Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.agavazzoni.com
• Email: adriana@adrianagavazzoni.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoragavazzoni

Guest Special Offer(s):

Resources Mentioned: 

EPISODE CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

Brazil, Brasil, feel different inside, ADHD, hyperactivity, love for reading, concentration techniques, attorney, study time, passion, interest, memory tips, memory techniques, color coding, power naps, shame, guilt, power of the brain, sexual harassment, playing dumb, balance, anxious, patience, failed marriages, sec trafficking, domestic abuse, empowering women

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Transcript

Adriana Gavazzoni | From ADHD to Law Degree, Professorship, & Published Novelist | E85

Hello friends! Welcome to this week's episode of the remarkable people podcast, the Adriana Gavazzoni story.

This week, you're going to see how a young girl with ADHD and hyperactivity figured out on her own and teaches techniques to us. How she learned to focus her brain study and not only achieve finishing high school and finishing college, but becoming an attorney, a professor, and a published novelist, all this and more in this week's episode of the podcast. [00:01:00] So get your pen and paper ready, enjoy the episode. And like our slogan says, don't just listen to this great content, but do it, repeat it each day for life. That way you can have a great life in this world, and in eternity to come.
I'm David Pasqualone and enjoy this remarkable episode.

Hey, Adriana. How are you today? Find David. And how about you? I'm doing remarkable and doing remarkable. I was just telling our audience a little bit about you and they are as excited as I am to hear your story. So if you don't mind at this time, I'm going to give you the mic. Let's go through your story.
We'll start from your birth, work through your childhood, your teen years, your adult years, and then we'll bring you the audience to where you are today. We'll go through the highs, the lows and everything in between your life, and then crackle steps of not only how you overcame and achieved certain things, but we'll do it in a, [00:02:00] in like 1, 2, 3 bullet notes step.
So our audience can to sound good. Sound good. It's going to be a rollercoaster. Hey, that's what we like. We're all. We all have ups and downs. The journey's messy, but the destination is what matters. So, how did your life start? Where you born in Mexico, Brazil, Indiana, Utah. Where were you born? I was born in Brazil, born and raised in Brazil by an Italian family.
So it's a bunch of noisy people that love a chore each other, and fight a lot together and love a lot together. Get her all around the table. Yes. I was just up in Boston with my family this past week and I met my three sisters and brother-in-laws and nieces and nephews for the first time. So we have an Italian Irish, like in a, we got one brother-in-law is Greek when Berlin was Jewish, one brother-in-law is Italian also.
So there was [00:03:00] noise coming from everywhere, five different conversations at once. So if people around the world or within America, don't understand what Adriana is saying, being Brazilian and Italian, that's a lot of passion, right? That's a lot of passion, a lot of emotions, a lot of wine also we can gather without a good wine.
So what was your childhood like? Were you the only child? Did you have multiple children in your family? How did that work? No, I have two more siblings, a younger brother and a youngest mother, much younger sister. And we grew together, but we have tons of cousins around us. Both my parents came from families where they have nine brothers each.
So you can imagine the size of the family. What was it like growing up? Did you grow up traditionally where you got where's your family more on the liberal [00:04:00] side? What was your, your back. I think we are more in the liberal side because my parents always strive to be friends with us in that time I'm talking, I was born in nine and two sixty eight.
So I'm talking about a time where parents should be respected. You should call them SAR. And Madam and my parents were not like this. They always strive to be on friends. So I think it was more the liberal side. And then growing up. Did you have, like what you'd consider a normal childhood? Was there anything that you had a face back then that you'd want to discuss now?
Or do you want to move into your adolescents and maybe college year? I think assessor was a good, even with a great family. It felt different. I didn't know why it felt different. And, [00:05:00] but I, I felt there was something in me that wasn't just like the honor kids. I couldn't counsel tray. When I could concentrate, it was just in planes.
There really loved. So for example, in school, mathematics was a problem for me because I hate and history, Portuguese, English, a lot that, and they didn't know what happened. Years later, I was diagnosed with attention deficit, with hyperactive. So I was really at different key. And when you are different, the staff, because you, you don't feel you belong.
Even if you have loving parents, friends, you always feel different. It's something hard. Nowadays I think it's easy because kids are receive a diagnosis early [00:06:00] and they can learn with the help of shrinks sometimes drugs to overcome that I had to create mechanisms to overcome that without anything like that.
I just discovered I had why I was different than. 38 years old. So I really had to fight to have good grades and, and to keep a regular childhood or I was going to be inside the room, reading all the time as reading was a scape. Whenever I was reading a book felt like I could serene my mind because I've always had this agitated mind.
My thoughts are always jumping like frogs inside my head. And it's hard for it. That I had to create ways [00:07:00] to concentrate much harder than, than for any other kid. I had to steady more at home because I needed to get good grades without the ability of concentrate and teachers, teacher stock. And I was late paying, they dreaming drying.
I wasn't especially of drawings that I drive a lot during the classes, because I just couldn't for cues and things. They were saying to me, it was not interesting to me. I couldn't concentrate. Now. I know a little bit about. Present and the things you've accomplished in life. But before we go on, we have listeners over 90 countries around the world and some have great support systems and some have no support systems.
So in practical steps, you said you taught yourself techniques and mechanisms to overcome [00:08:00] the ADHD and hyperactivity. So you could focus on your studies and get things done. What are some of the things you did, Adriana that was successful to help you fight? As a kid, I understood that. I couldn't learn if I had people around me, I could learn only if I had, if I was alone.
So I discovered it was much easier to me to be alone to steady as my concentration would be better. If I hadn't noisy music, people Jed him around. I couldn't concentrate. So I learn a lot how to work alone. And I bring that to nowadays, whenever I need to make a difference. Whenever I need to write my novels, I just put myself inside a room or an office [00:09:00] and close the door and I have to be completely alone.
I can't concentrate with people around me. It's impossible for me. Yes. And I know, I thought I was functionally retarded until I was in my thirties. I had dyslexia and similar things is what you're describing. And it used to frustrate me to no end that I watched somebody study for 45 minutes and I have to study for four or five hours to get a lesser grade.
So did you pick up any study tips that you can share with our listeners? Or did you just like me, you didn't really have help and you just put the extra time in, how did you overcome because what the audience doesn't know yet as you became an attorney, so you don't get there by getting poor grades in school.
So how did you go from struggling to success? I ablated myself to study more and of course I have. I had parents that helped [00:10:00] me a lot. And they gave me self-esteem. My father used to say he was too intelligent for those grades. You are the lazy, so you have to study more. If you study more, you're going to have the grades comparable to her intelligence.
So I had this idea, oh my God, I'm intelligent. I'm not stupid. So I had to do better. It's just a matter of doing better and the studying more my mechanism. There when I was a kid was steady. Moore's going to give you a more grades because you are intelligent. And when I started to study English, for example, my first foreigner language, I speak four languages nowadays.
Oh my God. I fall in love with English and I was one of the first kid in my class. And I could jump classes [00:11:00] because I was attempted, I was always put cues. So I understood that I had to fall in love with. To do it better. And I have to learn how to follow up. Sometimes it worked sometimes what have for mathematics, for example, for example, with doesn't work to nowadays.
And I can't, I can do them at my addicts. But for me it was more informed. Yeah. And learning to fall in love with things like I was just having this discussion with people, I'm friends with an app children. I was like some things you love, some things you don't, but you still got to do it. You got to learn it.
You got to master it. It's just part of life. So were there games you played to kind of challenge yourself or trick yourself to become more motivated and passionate to the subjects you didn't. [00:12:00] Well aside a hell of a memory. My, my family used to say they, they still use to say that I am a danger because I can remember things from my first, second year of life.
And so my memory helped Mela. I tried to develop ways to memorize things if I could memorize, I could learn. So I relating names of things to some objects and creating things to remember. It was a game for me. I was always trying to remember people's name, objects, names, situations, name, when I was studying Some king of somewhere.
And when I was studying history, he's mainly is comparable to that outlet. [00:13:00] So whenever I had to remember to came, I remembered the object, then the cane, and I still do that. I still use memory and to relate to things, to remember a lot. Now that's something you developed and figure it out on your own. And I know there's tons of books and classes on those kinds of memory techniques.
Is there one that you'd be like, this one really helped me? Is there like a book or video series or someone that really helped you develop the memory? No, I have to learn it alone because I have no clue what was happening with me. I just felt different. Yeah. You and I grew up before the internet, so we didn't, we couldn't Google solutions, right?
No, no, we didn't have, we have some cyclopedia, but it didn't talk about different people and different behavior. My mother used to say, you want to nuts. [00:14:00] You are always doing negative things because as I also had hyperactivity, I was always on the move. I had to move all the time. I was always jumping from one thing to other and I lost cures in the.
First things that I love. And I was always trying to learn more and more and more. Sometimes I was on ballet classes. There are other piano classes, learning English and always trying to learn something, but it was out by myself. If I had to find that kind of mechanism to, to use collars was geared for me.
Whenever I put colors on my books, my memory could bring the phrase because the phrase was related to a cow, but it was all along. Yeah. And that's excellent. So for our listeners, there's things that Adriana is just remembering [00:15:00] as she goes, but they really help, like she was saying, color-coding also, some of you may not realize this, but Adriana, did you notice there was times of the day when you study, you would actually absorb material fast.
I used to, I still know when I'm faster, I'm first during the morning. So I start early and I'm very productive in my mind with defenses, I have to make writing novels from. 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM. That's my best time of the day. Then again, a little bit dizzy, like I can leave, I could slip something like that.
So I need tons of coffee to make my brain go back and around four to 5:00 PM. My brain is okay again for some hours. So I develop a, what [00:16:00] was it studied in the morning and a Wallace try to use the morning. The best I could because mornings are my alive. I need rest before thinking. So when I'm fresh, I had a good night of sleep.
It's another thing I understood. I need eight hours of sleep every night, or I'm not going to function the other day. Whenever my, my, my brains arrest, I can produce more. Yes. And I agree with that. One of my roommates in college, I never saw him studying. He got straight A's and then one day I was frustrated like, dude, when do you study or do you have a photographic memory?
And he taught me what you just said, Adriana. He's like, I study first thing in the morning, so he'd get a good night's sleep. He'd wake up at four 30 and he'd hit the books. And he said, because his mind was rest. He's like, even if I'm sleepy and [00:17:00] groggy, he's like, my mind is like an empty sponge. And as I study, it just sucks it in and absorbs it and then he can recall it faster.
So as much as I hated it, I didn't want to flunk out of college. So I tried that. And like you studying in the morning helped me so much. So if you're listening to this try different times of day and give it some time. To build habits and work out, you know, the flute, parts of it. But some of you may study best at night.
Some of you are like Adriana and I first thing in the morning, but to our listeners, everybody has an opinion. Right. But the one that counts is the one, as long as it's moral do it, if it works for you. So I agree with you completely about the mornings. And then what's funny is you said you're back after four o'clock I find like work productivity.
I'm the best from like, like it's usually like 9:00 PM to midnight. So do you have an eight just an, a game where you're super functional for work [00:18:00] projects or is it always in the. No, no, I can't. I learn, I, I used to feel guilty because I really needed after lunch in Brazil lunch or not, not like a United States, we really eat happily during lunchtime.
So I used to have lunch and I felt so asleep after that and they needed. Just to go to my bed or to wherever I can, even on it. When I chair, when I'm at work and sleep half an hour. And I felt guilty because I used to say to myself who sleeps in the middle of the day, but after I woke up, it's just half an hour, exactly.
Half an hour after I woke up, it's like the restart again. And I'm assumption now in game. So as we people ways I per activity, we have a brain that [00:19:00] works too fast and too much. We really need to put it to sleep for some time. And then when was late, it's back and it's completely functional, but I can produce after that.
So whenever I need something that I'm going to lose my mind a lot. I just closed my eyes. I do like that. And the sleep half an hour. It's enough for me. It's like resenting everything and starting like, I, if it was eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah. And it's funny again, you say that because power naps, five minutes to 30 minutes, not more, not less, but five to 30 minutes is considered the perfect power nap and study after study, after study shows results.
Exactly what you say. It recharges you. And it's like a reset. And maybe the first few days, you're a little [00:20:00] groggy when you wake up. But after that, it's like a power charge at your battery was just charging the outlet in the wall. So I'm there with you. I'm never more productive than when I get power naps.
And I think people all over the world do it and see the success. So was that something again you were taught or you just figured out. Just figure out by myself because my mom used to have used to put us to sleep. After, after lunch, she thought it was housing for kids and we did that. And but I, I grow up with that.
And then when I arrived to college and that moment I didn't want to slip anymore, it was a kid stuff. But I felt my buyer needed my brain's needed. And I went back to that. But as I said, I felt so ashamed to do that. So guilty. I went to a shrink to talk about it. And he said, if it's, what's makes you [00:21:00] functional price, say, go ahead and sleep.
Half an hour, the day has 24. You don't need to sleep only during, during the night. You can do that for half an hour. People who do that live more, they are more functional, but I discover by myself and I can't do that every day. Sometimes my, my schedule doesn't allow, but whenever I can, I do that. And it's perfect for me.
Yeah. I think there's great wisdom in that. And if somebody out there listening, hasn't tried power naps to do it. It might take you a few days, even if you just close your eyes. And lay there. Just stay still and trying to clear mind. And Adrianne, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but once you start training yourself for these power naps, I can fall asleep consistently without issue in less than 60 seconds, usually 30 seconds.
Is that how you find yourself? [00:22:00] Is it you just get used to falling asleep and then wake up. It's the same from you? And it doesn't mind where I am. My sister used to say I do because you are inside an airplane. And I told her. Oh, I'm going to go into sleep and close my eyes. And I was asleep immediately because I decided I had to sleep.
And I can't believe, I can't believe that you could sleep in seconds. I was like, yes, I can. And it's just a matter of closing your eyes, dried it, but it's not like that for most people, they need some time to relax. I don't just shut down. And as leap in half an hour later, I wake up and I'm like, this I'm happy again.
My skin is even as banner. Everything's great. Yeah. So like Adriana is saying it's, you can train yourself and, you know, you play how you practice [00:23:00] key practicing the power nap. I'm a huge believer in the power nap. All the most productive times in my life in Adriana's life is when we take power naps. It's not a child thing.
It's legit look up the medical research worldwide. It's a proven study, but you'll get to the point where you will be sleeping 30 to 62nd. And then you can even wake yourself up. I send alarm cause I'm paranoid. I don't know about you Adriana, but a lot of times I pull over on the side of the road for business, take a nap on the side of the road, then go back, drive and hit my appointment.
But I'm, I'd always set an alarm for 31 minutes. That way, if I didn't wake up, but 99 out of a hundred times, I woke up on my own without that alarm. So it's exactly the same that I do. I knew I'm going to wake up, but I'm a little paranoid about the time and I can't allow myself to sleep more than half an hour.
So I put usually 30 to 32 [00:24:00] minutes because I know it's the time of going to take together as leap and 30 minutes there and lead to reside. So it's like exactly what I do, but usually I wake up alarm with 29 minutes just before the. Yes. And I knew a guy, the gentleman who taught me it was brother Charles home-share.
We talk about him in the NBT episode of our podcast. I'll put a link in the show notes, but he was such a great human, probably the greatest human I've ever met. And that man took it to a new level. Not only did he take power naps and he was healthy and strong at like 80 years old, sharp, mentally, physically every way.
But that guy, you could say in any time zone, he traveled the country in the world. And he'd say, I need to wake up at 4 27 and without an alarm to do, to wake up at 4 27. Exactly. I mean, you can set your eternal clock to do so many things that we [00:25:00] take for granted as humans, because we're so spoiled. We have watches and iPhones and alarm clocks, but really God built it all in us.
So Adriana and I have learned a little bit, but take it to the next level and write us and tell us how you're doing with those parents. And there, there are famous people. Like for example, we still Churchill prime minister of England for many, many years. He used some time to talk to he his people from his bed because he needed power naps.
And it's a, it's a story, every very towels he used to do that. So it's something you have to learn, but you also have to control your mind. We don't use our mind as much as we could. It's the perfect machinery have. It's not our cell phones. Our brains are perfect. So if they are trained, they can do amazing things.[00:26:00]
Yeah. I mean, yeah, we could, the brain is a whole world of study, so, but I agree with you completely. I, I. I've seen it in my own life. I've, you know, Celine Dion, she's a worldwide superstar. She has a thick accent when she speaks, but when she sings, it's crystal clear and whatever language she's in. So the brain can control so much on every level.
And, you know, we just take it for granted and say, I can't. But even if you read books for just a few years ago, like I remember when Lincoln would speak, people would just listen once and memorize the entire speech verbatim word for word, it could go in an hour and they'd remember every word. And now we can't get kids to pay attention for 15 seconds.
So Adriana you're dead on the mind is perfect and how God made us so powerful and strong. So all of us should be learned to tap into it more. Now, with all that said between [00:27:00] your birth and when you're in high school, before you go into university, is there anything you want to cover in your life, in any aspect that you want to discuss?
No, I think I joined both. Yeah. So how did you go from struggling with learning? To getting into university. And where did your life go from there? I went to the university and when I was 17 years old and they graduated with 21 I use the same skills. In Brazil. We have a huge desks. It's very hard to pass, to enter the university I could pass and two tests for two greater universities back then we didn't have many, many colleges around.
We just have in my state three. Great. I got them to chew of them. So we [00:28:00] decided for the bias one, because it's an international aids, university, it's international. And I decided for that, I, I use the same thing naps, power naps studying alone almost all the time. And I found another thing that was important for me back then, small recorders.
Do you remember doors? Those are the small recorders first just journalists used to have. I bought a one and I used to take them for, for my classes because as I couldn't pay attention on most of the teachers even main evolve because they were boring, they couldn't making me to have any dress and what they were saying.
I recorded. And then. Back home. I used to listen to them, take notes. Then I discover another thing to learn for [00:29:00] me is writing what I hear. I don't have a good ear, a memory, but I have a great memory for everything I write and read. So I used to hear the classes like all, again, the, the classes that I couldn't pay attention, of course not all the classes to write them and then study that.
And then my grades were good. And then I could finish a university without any problems. In five years I was graduated and I was just the key to when I was already a lorry.
Yeah, that's incredible. And so not only did you learn to adapt your strengths and weaknesses and overcome. But you live in a society. Like I have a lot [00:30:00] of friends who are Portuguese, Brazilian, Portuguese, and the culture down there is machismo. Is that how you classify it? I don't want to say anything on that term, but it's male dominated.
like sexual harassment was considered a compliment in some sick way. They. It felt like they were better overall?
Not all Brazilians, not all Americans, not all Asians, but overall was that the culture you were growing up?
I could say yes, I could say it was, it was however, as it was back then, we are talking about the app I've been aware of for 31 years. So we are talking about 30 years ago. It's a long time.
But I discover early how to fight for myself because one day I was tired of pretending being blonde and stupid and not understanding and a boss that I used to have. He start [00:31:00] to say things. I tried the technique of pretending I was not understanding, but one day he was really, really stupid with me.
Really did propositions and I just saw him. I remember, I remember I was a little. And they Sue him. He lost his job and it's almost, you don't need to pretend being done again. You just need to remember you are a liar. So make people remember you are a lawyer and you are going to be respect. I was 22 years old when that happened.
So it was a short time of pertaining being dumb and things like that. And after that, I learned how to cook things like that when they happen and remind people, Hey, you're talking to a lawyer I'm not going to Bri a [00:32:00] victim of anything. So it was the bad thing. And so for our listeners, Not obviously the majority of our listeners are not attorneys, but that still doesn't mean you need to tolerate it and you can take direct action as long as you know, it's not in fear of your life.
But you can also take legal action. So the pro for Adriana is she was an attorney and she could handle this directly. The con is, she was an attorney surrounded by attorneys and in probably every country they're even more egotistical and sexually oriented. I mean, I hate to say that, but that's what I've experienced.
Is that what it's like in Brazil attorneys, the memory and more chauvinistically not now, but back then, yes, because I was too younger. I working with people that I used to have double my age. So they were from another generation. [00:33:00] They are not used to women working side by side with them nowadays. It's completely different, but still I can feel some, some machismo when when you talk to men, they, they.
Try to say they're better than you because they are man and a law. It's not a reality because a lot depends on study. You need to study your whole life and women. In general, they love to study more than men. At least in Brazil. I can see that because I was a professor for 10 years and I could see women have bad better grades than man, because the, they are more for queues, eh, maybe because they have to prove they are better.
[00:34:00] Or maybe because the learn to study more, they have to do more to be considered equal, but they study more. So in Brazil cards there is not. I'm majority, I can say, oh, if it's not a majority, it's 50 50% of women. There are judged. When I started my career, there were all men. It was a rare thing to find.
I judged that was a woman. They were all men. And now you can find lots of judges or female judges. So I think women learn, they have to do more to be treated like, like equals and that's what they do when they are better lawyers and better judges. [00:35:00] I can see that. And how far did you go with your education?
Did you stop at a master's you get a PhD? Where did you get. Well I did a master and then I started my PhD. But back then I was, I was working so hard. I have my own practice. So it's complicated. When you have your own practice, you have people working for you. You have clients for a long time. I had to stop.
I've never went back to finish my. So I finished my master and never finished my bag. Yeah. And there's no shame in that. I mean, you're successful. It's not a degree that makes you successful. It just always intrigues me. When you have people like you who have these, you know, these issues focusing, you learned to overcome them, you apply it and you [00:36:00] do such great things.
And then the part of life that you hated, probably most like, like for me, I hated school because it was so hard. And then people usually end up conquering it completely and going all the way to the PhD. So that's why I was, I was just guessing you had one because of that. You go to university, you become an attorney.
Talk to us about the journey those 31 years you spent in law. I became an attorney and as I was too young, the, where you would trust on a young blonde kid of 21 years old. So it was hard for me the six first month I open up practice and I was all alone. There no clients where you trust me. So I decided to work for Gavin and for almost 10 years, I work at, for government first in Brazil, when I was 25, I was invited to work abroad.
To work in [00:37:00] Argentina on an international product project. It was a Brazilian Argentinian, any talent project to like the, the Brazilian emergency Indian country. We were talking a lot about the south maggots back them. It didn't work out, but back then it was working. And I was invited to be the legal director of a company that was controlling those linkings.
And like, it was just a kid in a very high position. And I worked there for more or less. Five years from 25 to 30, when I was 30, I decided I had to go back to school. I was just studying this and that, but I needed to go back to school. So I [00:38:00] decided to go back to a study. I did two years of, I don't know how it's Scallon United state, but as GERD ration, maybe two years post-graduation would typically be a master's in America.
No, it's just called POS post-graduation and I studied and I started and I open the practice and I started to be a lawyer independent from the almost independent from government, the beginning, the beginning, I was just being a consultant for government. So I didn't have to travel that much. And I could dedicate a little bit to my practice finished faster duration.
I went to master master takes three years, and it's the point. You have to choose a thesis, you have to develop. So I had to travel. I've been in Columbia library [00:39:00] too, for some research for some time I've been to France in library, researching. And after that I produced the book, a legal book about or renegotiating to national conference.
So I produced the book in the master, gave me the ability to be a professor. So I decided to be a professor and I was approved quickly to be a professor. And I was a professor or a legal professor for 10, almost 10 years. Then it was too happy for me to participate to, to, to be every day in the university teaching, having my own practice in, I was driving a lot because of my clients.
So I had to quit [00:40:00] something or my house who then wouldn't be cured. I was not good. I was having health problems, but and I decided to quit teaching. And that's an important part in your life. So you're working work and work and work and work and learn and learn and learn and teach and teach and teach in what you're seeing.
I'm giving more than I'm receiving my energy and my health is going bad. How did you come to the decision to back off? And what steps did you take to get healthy? One of the things I'm really scared of are reds. And one day, I don't know why I was watching some TV and there was a small white mouse turning to his whale and I decided to face it.
I said, it's on TV. I, it's not going to jump on me, watch. And I saw that animal, [00:41:00] just doing that circles and circles and circles and circles. And I said, Hey, my life. Just like that. I wake up in the morning. I go to university, I teach, I go from the university to my office, from my office. I come home and I work out because I really needed to work out to keep at least Beverly healthy.
I take a shower, eat something. I go back to university and I come home asleep and it's all right live. It's not the regular life. I can't do that to myself. It's too much for me, but it was hard for me to choose. I really loved my students. Some of my students are my lawyers. And it was hard for me to put, I don't have kids.
I decided early in my life, I didn't want to have my own [00:42:00] children. So my students were in are just like my kids. It was like a, Hey, I'm going to band on my kids, but I have to choose. And then I decided to create the EG. And it was when my, my novels happened because I had time to be creative again, not just work, work, work, work, and not having enough time to rest.
I own that time. I couldn't have this power naps because I was always on the move and I used to sleep the whole weekends to compensate. It was not alive. So when I decided to quit. I have the nights just for myself and, oh my God, I'm here. I have a whole night for myself. I'm not teaching [00:43:00] tomorrow. You're going to go Wehrly to my office and what I'm going to do.
And subtly it was a bat with one of my lawyers. I started to write an novel and now I have five published novels because I knew how to be, to give time to myself to be creative. So I try from, from that moment on, I learned that I can't fulfill my mind was. Everything. I need to give a space for my brain.
So they are going to breathe and they are going to produce more in a more creative way. Yeah. And sometimes when we put that pressure on ourselves, it bottlenecks our brains. So we can't think, and it can't flow. Right. [00:44:00] Is that how you felt you couldn't flow until you had that freedom? No, I can't. I really can't.
When I start to work too much unbalanced my life. It's the moment. I'm not going to be creative to help a client creative, to write my novels. There are pressures to me or that I can have quality of life. I'm 53. I don't know how much on going to live before dying around me. Those last two years were off.
We don't know when we are going to die. I just know I'm going to die one day and the one to die knowing. Everything I could to be happy and to fulfill my dreams and not just work, work, work, work to I'm completely done. And one day retire and say, oh my God, what my [00:45:00] whole life now I'm old. I can't, I'm going to rest because all my life has been like this.
No, no. I need periods to rest. I used to travel. I do small vacations. I can't take long vacations because I have clients. They need me. And I do small vacations during the year and February. It took them days to go to the United States to visit museums, to go to some shows to drink wine, to eat the good food, the great food you have in America.
It's prayed. And it was good. I came back creative. I came back with my brains. All good. And now I'm thinking about another tree in John July to Eataly and then maybe another one in the end of the year, one [00:46:00] week skilled. I can go out. I can make my friends function better after, and I can enjoy life while I'm capable of it.
Why I have my imperfect conditions. My house is good because I separate one hour of my day to work. I need that. It's a matter of balance and need to work out. I need a time to read. I need that time to write. I need a time to relax. It's 24 hours. We have, I need a choose lip. Okay. There are 16. I can't work 16 hours.
I need breaks from time to time. So during my lunchtime, I work out it's good for me. Then in the aim of the afternoon, [00:47:00] I relax a little bit more to prepare, to work a little bit more, but I give myself space. So my house is in good condition. Yeah. And that is so important. I think there's a lot of wisdom in you and I are wired very similar.
The more I listened to you, I'm like, yeah, I feel the same way. But some people are like, no, I want one vacation a year for two to three weeks. And there's people like me and you where after the fifth day I start getting a little antsy seven. I'm like, okay, it's time to go at 10. So depending on the vacation, I'm looking at five to 10 days.
That's plenty for me. There's always the exception, but typically I'm tracking with you. What Adriana said about balance. Balance is a key. The mouse has a false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So you gotta find what works for you. Like we're Adriana and I might want to go on a vacation shorter [00:48:00] three or four times a year, instead of one big vacation.
You know, some people take 30 days and they go overseas and they have a great time, but I'd rather take short vacations. And I think the other thing that you said, that's so powerful is we're not guaranteed today. Not even tomorrow, we're not guaranteed today. You are, I could die right now. We're on this podcast.
Or we could live to the average life is 78, 75 years globally. Give or take some people live longer. Some people live less, but we don't know. And I just had a friend. You mentioned retirement. It was actually my uncle's friend, but I knew them worked their whole lives, made a ton of money, sacrificed a lot to bank away for retirement.
Had. Everything's set, the wife retired. And one week after she retired, she fell down a flight of stairs and died. All the money in the world is not going to help that. Right. So enjoy life. Yeah. Enjoy life each day. Enjoy the journey. Be thankful for it. [00:49:00] And like Adriana said, don't kill yourself for a future that may not come.
Especially with the global. I don't want to get into politics, but the global politics and the global pandemic and the global economy, we're in a crazy state right now. So I'm not saying be irresponsible, but enjoy the day, enjoy your life because we're not guaranteed another. No, we, we don't have any guarantees and we can win our lives in our house, just working.
Doesn't matter, the amount of money you're going to get, or I've learned from an old man. He was my father-in-law from my second marriage. He used to say coughing doesn't have pockets, so you can take your money with you, but you can be here longer. [00:50:00] If you decide to invest in your house in your quality of life.
Yeah, I agree completely. So now you make another transition in your career. You decide to write more, you've got five published novels. You're enjoying your life. You have balance, you're being wise and you're working out. You're not working out four or five hours a day and going overboard, but you're getting yourself the health that you need and want.
You're happy with your life at this point. Where do you go between there and today? I think I just gain as a person. I have time to develop as a person and to develop my, my real qualities to be a better person to try to improve myself. Even though I'm not a spiritual person, I believe in God, but I don't believe in religions, but yeah.
To improve myself [00:51:00] as a spirit, spiritual being as I'm better now than I was when I was 30 years old, I can understand humankind better. I have more patience when I was moving from one side to the other, working the region. And so I was too anxious. I didn't have time for people. I didn't have the patience for people.
So if you don't have patience or time for people you can have real relationships. I had two marriage before my last month. And they didn't finish well because I didn't have the time to pay attention to those people. They weren't good people. I wasn't, I was a person just fighting to go, I [00:52:00] didn't know where always worrying more about achievements then a real life.
In real life is a real relationship to value your family, to spend more time with your dogs. Their life is short. You can regret after they depart. You have to enjoy now. And even my work is better now because it has more quality. I have more pleasure working now than they have before, before I was too worried about money and things like that, too.
To enjoy being a lawyer. Now I enjoy being a lawyer. I received countless months from my clients. My mother cried. It was almost almost Christmas. And one of my clients send me a [00:53:00] message telling me thanks to me. His family was peaceful. He was having the best Priestman of last 10 years and things like that are important to me.
Because now I can enjoin. I can enjoy the quality I'm giving my clients. So I have to be selective. I can take every client. I need a space to do pro bono to go pro bono because people that need justice the most in the world are the needy people who can pay for a lawyer for a lawyer. And the system's not good for them.
They can't afford lawyers. And for the time to time, I try to do pro bono. It's good for the soul. It's not good for the pocket, but it's so good for yourself. Now, what law do you specialize in? What is your, your specialty. [00:54:00] Commercial. Okay. Commercial law. So if anybody's listening around corporate corporate law in United States, you're giving to just say scalper.
Now, do you have license to practice in the U S and other countries are dress just Brazil right now for you? Mentally Brazil is a massive country. It's not like that's just, I didn't mean it that way. I just meant, is there an international certification you got? Are you focused on Brazil? No, I have to focus on Brazil.
My master is in international contracts. So work in Brazil for companies. If they have international matters, I'm the person that I can't, I can't work in Brazil. If I have to work in the United States, I have to start all again. I have to go back to university in the United States. For lawyers is complicated because a lot changes a lot.
Our line [00:55:00] Brazil is totally, totally redone. If it's not reading, you can practice. You can impose in United States. It's more about decisions previous decisions of the cards and less reading the loss. So it's different. The systems are totally different. Even in Brazil, I can practice only in four states to every state I have to apply to the bar of that estate.
It's it's for a region. I hope I can be a lawyer in the whole. But if I intend to practice law regularly in the state, I need to go to the bar of that state, get another license in pay. Of course, every year. I small contribution to that. So
yeah. America is like that [00:56:00] too. We have 50 states and they exploit you in each one. So yeah, same thing here, so, okay. Well, I've had a great day and I know our listeners have enjoyed this. I mean, you went from ADHD to law degree, to a professor, to a published novelist. Where are you today? Adriana. Where are you going?
And how can we now help you get there? Well today my dream is not in a long time. Sorry, not in a long time. I would like to dedicate more to just friend novels. I love to renewables. And as I have this, I think you have the same as creative mind. Our issues raise attention. There is. And you said you had this Lexia, it gave, it gives us as a reward thing for all the trouble I [00:57:00] created minds.
So yeah, I created, I would like to pull, to put my creative more on books on just writing novels one day, I'm going to get it. And I have a goal, a dream one day, I'm going to have to see one of my novels on the big screen was a series, something like that. Yes. And you were telling me when we were on our pre-interview call, you were discussing that you really like to help and coach and empower women, help get them out of sex trafficking.
Correct. I'm writing about that. My new novel about sex traffic. And on my first novel, I wrote about sexual abuse because I've been a supporter of a shelter for abused children. And I learned how difficult are they lives after experiences [00:58:00] the experiences they had early on their lives and sometimes even later on their lives, but I love to empower women to.
Too fragile. The two women that they are powerful, they can run their lives as they want. They can have a career profession and opaque characters. They are tough women successful professionals and they pay for their own bills because I'm a firm believer that every human being must pay for their own bills.
Okay. If you pay for your bills, you are going to choose what you're going to. If you let someone else to guide your life to pay for life, you have to submit. So I w I'm always trying to [00:59:00] teach my former students, my lawyers, I love to work with the women and I have one one male lawyer in my office, three lawyers, three familiar lawyers, and I love to work with the gals to show them, Hey, follow a career, follow your own path.
Understand the not against someone who decided to stay home and take care of, of their key or their kids. It's tons of. Okay. I wouldn't raise a kid. I don't have the courage. So I'm always trying to fight for human rights. I'm always trying to show them there is more than violence. There is more than abuse.
There is more outside if you believe in yourself and you think you can overcome those obstacles some way, of course you need to help [01:00:00] like the shelter I used to help. Because if you have a shelter, the shelter is going to provide for the kids. The kids are going to face a better future, even if they had the worst of the past.
So empower women and making women believe they can, they don't need to play them. They can fend for themselves. And even if it, if they had asked, sorry, the expression, my shitty life, they can have a bright future. So I always tried to write and, and show my readers about to, to try to get their attention for those mailers abuse that can happen inside your own home.
And you don't know, sometimes our relatives that abuse our children, [01:01:00] sometimes someone we really trust and the kid is so defenseless. He's not going to tell you, so if you try to show people, normal people. Kim have that kind of problem. They can be more attention, predict kids and pay more attention for the kind of kids they are raising.
Yeah, well said, I mean, nobody knows what's going on behind closed doors. And there's so many people that are in abusive situations, male and female, and they need help to get out. And sometimes they just need a little encouragement or to hear someone else say it, to kind of guide them through the process.
So if there's a listener out there and they want to hire you to represent them in Brazil, or if there's a listener out there that wants to talk to you about domestic abuse or what it's like to be an attorney or professor to get involved in your novels, or maybe they're a publisher and they want to try to, you know, get your, get your [01:02:00] materials.
What's the best way for someone to reach you. These. That's where my mail@riannaatthatriannagaveusonly.com or social media, and very active on social media. So Facebook, Instagram to reader. I always answer sometimes I take one day or two to answer, but please get in touch and I'm going to answer awesome.
And I'll put links in the show notes. So you can just click on the link. So whether you're using Google podcasts, whether you're looking at apple podcasts, Spotify, whether you're watching this on YouTube, however you're listening or watching, I'll put in the show notes, you can just click and go. All right.
Well, Adrianne, it's been a true pleasure. I'm so thankful. You're on the show today. I know it was a long time coming, so I'm glad it finally happened. Any other final thoughts or ideas that you want to share with our audience before we part ways? First of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity, [01:03:00] David.
And it was I had a great time today. It was great to talk about life, remember things. And I just would say to people, hearing to us, listening to us it's a matter of thinking you can overcome it. Doesn't mind where you work now, what difficulties you are facing. I believe in yourself and you are going to find a way to up.
Trust in some people that can help you, but trust in yourself and never give up on your goals. If you think you, you want to be a lawyer and you don't know how talk to me, I'm going to tell you how I did if you're having difficult, I really think you are too different to be different skill. Good. I understood that.
But the only thing that you can [01:04:00] do in your life is believing you are not good enough and you can't, you can, if you try hard, you can do anything, anything at all. Yeah. And I think you're the perfect illustration of that. Maybe your other students were studying one or two hours and you studied five or six, but you had.
You just said, Hey, this is how it is. I'm going to adapt and overcome and not make excuses. So please, if you're struggling, talk to Adriana, reach out to her and don't make excuses for your life. Like our slogan says for the remarkable people podcast, don't just listen to these great episodes in Adriana's story, but do it repeat those good actions each day for life.
So you can have a great life in this world and an attorney to come. So Adriana, thank you so much for being here today. You truly are a remarkable woman. I appreciate you. I know [01:05:00] our listeners appreciate you, and we wish you only the best in your future. And hopefully we'll have you again on the show when you get that movie going.
Thank you very much, David. Thank you very much for listeners it's it was great to be here. I hope to see you some definitely, definitely. And for our listeners, please like the podcast rate the podcast, give us a five star. And if you can't email me and let me know why, so we can fix it. Right. I can't fix a big nose, but I can fix problems with the podcast.
So let me know, let me know and we'll get it done. So I'm David Adriana. Thank you for being here today and to all our listeners. We love you and we'll see you in another episode soon. Ciao.
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