Don’t wait to do what you want

7 years ago I got rejected from McKinsey, BCG, Bain and Accenture.

I felt like my life had crumbled

The year was 2019. I was finishing my Masters in Finance in NOVA SBE, and had all my life planned out

• High-paying in Strategy Consulting
• Spend 5 years learning, get an MBA
• Exit to create my own company

I spent months preparing for the recruitment process

• Doing 3 case studies per day
• Doing 4 test interviews with other friends
• Apply for other companies to practice in their application process

I practiced so much that I got to the final round of interviews in all of them!

But then, one by one… The rejections letters arrived

“We encourage you to apply next year”

“We have closed our positions for this year”

The door seemed closed.

I kept my job search, and got offered an M&A position at KPMG. I took my time to think it through

Last minute, my friend Francisca tells me “hey, there’s this cool position at a local bank! You should try it”

And so I did - in the marketing department

I knew nothing about Marketing, but Marisa, the manager who was hiring, believed in me, and so I started

9 months later, I was coming over her desk to say “I’m starting my own company!”

And everyone on the team wished me success

6 years later, I’ve already

• Created 2 successful businesses
• Lived in the US
• Operated in 4 countries (Portugal, Spain, the US and now France)

My end goal was always to create my own company.

The rejections made my dream accelerate by almost 10 years.

Don’t wait to do what you want.