It’s not easy to give a literal translation to such a Portuguese expression – desenmerda-te.
This expression is not even found in the dictionary:
We can’t translate this word/expression literally. Now, by using context, we can translate Desenmerda-te into get your shit together, unshit yourself or figure your shit out. Even so, these don’t reach the meaning of what we truly want to say with this idea of desenmerda-te.
So, what is this all about? It’s simply one of the known Portuguese sayings or one of the most popular hashtags on twitter:
Desenmerda-te as a principle
At Angry Ventures, it is one of our fundamental principles. When we see a new face at Angry Ventures, this is one of the slides appearing in the onboarding conversation:
It is interesting to see that, in the past, in this very blog, many people have written about that.
By Marta: https://www.angry.ventures/blog/figure-your-sht-out/
By Carina: https://www.angry.ventures/blog/out-of-the-comfort-zone/
If I had to define the «desenmerda-te mindset», I would say it was an attitude lived within radical transparency and truth of wanting to be genuine, the attitude of observing, questioning, stating and discovering what makes sense to us, in each moment.
Why is this important?
Today, more than ever, everything is given to us more easily. We can start watching a series on Netflix from the last to the first episode – without having to wait for weekly launches. If we want to have the next technological gadget, someone can deliver it in less than an hour; we do not have to wait 2 business days. Or two months.
When we intentionally set out to do what hasn’t yet been done, we need to indefinitely train this ability to desenmerdar, or unshit, ourselves – especially when we don’t have answers.
I don’t have all the answers – I don’t even know if I will ever have any. Every day I face dozens of decisions that have nothing to do with what I have learned in the past. Everything is new, every day. New people, lessons, unforeseen events, day after day, challenge the model in which I have been formatted.
And why would I want to have new answers for the old things I have learned? Shouldn’t the lessons also be new and recycled? Shouldn’t everything be new, all the time? So, what is the only thing that we can do in these circumstances? Desenmerdar ourselves.
Photo credits by: on twitter
#Founder, #Author, #Speaker, #Advisor and #Runner. Ah... And arrogant. Breaking world with @AngryVentures
