Articles
Reflections on relational, emotional, and financial intelligence.
Black Friday is here. And you, how are you?
“The success of Black Friday is a symbol of the triumph of consumerism as a way of life in today's society, where we consume, replace, and discard at an ever-increasing and, therefore, unsustainable pace,” Pablo Ruisoto, Professor of Psychology at the University of Navarra.
November 19, 2025
You can't take care of your finances without taking care of your relationships
Many people talk openly about their sex lives and other intimacies, or even the most scatological topics. But ask about their income… Or worse… how they spend their money… if we even remember or know at the end of the month how or where it was spent. Uncomfortable, right? In my opinion, for a few reasons: We feel guilt, shame, and even fear when the subject is money.
November 19, 2025
Financial Education is Human Sciences
Being financially successful isn't just about what you know. What you know, and how much you know, certainly greatly increase your chances of making more money and increasing your income. But it's how you behave that will determine your financial health. And it's very challenging to learn and teach about behavior, even for the “smartest” people.
November 19, 2025
We aim for authenticity and end up with the herd effect
Normal. Normalcy. Norm. What is culturally imposed on us and we reproduce, even if it makes no sense at all. We aim for authenticity and end up with the herd effect. We want respect and recognition as unique individuals, but we behave to fit into places and relationships. We repeat patterns all the time so automatically, that even what has been culturally normalized gets confused with what is natural to human beings, intrinsic. This dynamic is very costly.
November 19, 2025
Every choice, a renunciation. Is that so?
Nonviolent Communication says that we, human beings, have the same needs. Yes, everyone needs the same things (which are not 'things'). Here is the list of them, and I invite you to read it (and tell me later if it makes sense to you).
November 19, 2025
I aimed for freedom and hit submission
So I started working at 15 to have money. I spent all my money, no matter how much came in. And the more money, the more I spent. By age 20, I was using overdraft limits and credit cards. Taking out loans to cover others and working exhaustively to cover all that damage.
November 19, 2025
The Price of Fragile Vulnerability
I really liked Ecycle's definition of fragile masculinity on their website: “Fragile masculinity is the anxiety a man feels when he believes he is distancing himself from what society defines as standards of masculinity. This feeling can motivate the person to engage in compensatory attitudes and actions, which aim to restore ‘true’ masculine actions.”
November 19, 2025
The abyss between what I need, what I want, and what I do or ask for
In my opinion, for those who don't know what they want, NOTHING serves. It's what I call chronic dissatisfaction. A life of doing and consuming things that simply don't make sense.
November 19, 2025
Happiness, stress, and money
Do feelings impact finances or do finances impact how we feel? “If we focus only on the happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something. We also need to think about all the worries it can free us from.” Jachimowicz, professor at Harvard Business School.
November 19, 2025
What I don't need, even if cheap, is expensive
A phrase adapted from Marshall Rosenberg, the "father" of NVC - Nonviolent Communication: "Violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need." What is most important to you, and what strategies have you been using to nourish all of this?
November 19, 2025
What is the price of the stories you've been telling yourself?
The first pillar of NVC is observation. In this text, I summarize the 4 pillars and today I will detail the first one, bringing a reflection on its importance in our relationship with money.
November 19, 2025
Who would you be if you had more money?
Empathy without authenticity is passivity, internalizing discomfort (overflowing at some point). Empathy is not putting yourself in someone else's shoes; that is impossible and even violent for those who try to do it. It is not passivity nor submission. It is not sympathy. It is embracing differences. Listening to understand, before wanting to solve. It is the willingness not to know. Of not having, and not even needing, answers. It is being together and embracing the authenticity of the other person.
November 19, 2025
Who pays the bill?
Nobody “has to” do anything. I'll start from here to write about the controversy in Caio Castro's statement regarding paying the bill on a date. After saying he doesn't mind paying the bill, he adds: “What bothers me a lot, a lot, is this feeling that I HAVE TO pay…”
November 19, 2025
The dynamics of power and submission and their impact on the relationship with money
NVC believes that the reason we live surrounded by violence is that we continue to reproduce a system that was born and developed based on relationships of submission and power, which always seek the “right” and the “wrong.” Reward and punishment. To maintain my power and rewards, I need to prove the other person wrong, or a villain. And it is this logic that distances us from what is human and makes our relationships so difficult.
November 19, 2025
Let's start from the beginning: NVC and Finance
NVC is the abbreviation for Nonviolent Communication. It cultivates the most essential skill for the human species: self-expression. And often there's a chasm between what we need and the message we convey, to ourselves and to the world.
November 19, 2025