Special WSB: Be.Do.Have!

By Fernando Vilela*

The order that builds a purposeful career—and maybe even your LinkedIn!

Building a solid career goes way beyond filling out resumé or stacking your LinkedIn profile with certificates and fancy job titles.

If you want to stand out, it’s no use blasting out resumés to random openings or taking courses just to post the diploma on your feed. You need to build a trajectory with clarity, strategy, and intention.

And first of all: CLARITY. I’m not talking about market trends or external opportunities. I’m talking about what’s inside of you. I’m talking about self-awareness.

The starting point is not what you want to HAVE, like most people think. It’s about who you ARE, where you ARE right now, and where you genuinely want to go. Most people live in reverse: they want to have something, then they’ll do something, and finally, they’ll be someone. That classic thinking: “When I have this, then I’ll do that, and I’ll be happy.” But that’s not how the game works.

As the Cheshire Cat said in Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.”

In today’s competitive, volatile, and demanding market, that “any road” usually leads to frustration, anxiety, and identity crises.

In mentoring sessions with CEOs and entrepreneurs, the structure of self-knowledge looks a lot like project management. First, you define the vision, values, and aspirations of the person—what I prefer to call the “Human Being”—separate from their professional life. Then, you reverse engineer the plan with SMART goals, building a timeline from the future back to the present.

It only makes sense to create plans and tasks once the goal is clear and aligned with who you truly are—not with what others expect you to be. And here’s the core truth: you can’t expect to DO or HAVE anything before knowing who you need to BE.

If you’re still not clear on that, let me spell it out: you need to BE first, then DO, and only then you’ll HAVE.

And how do you know if you’re on the right track? You measure it. If you don’t measure, you can’t improve. If you don’t know where you are, not even the best strategy in the world can help you.

Here’s where The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*, by Mark Manson, hits deep: self-awareness isn’t about thinking you’re amazing. It’s about recognizing where you fall short, where you’re weak, where you need to improve. As he says, “true self-awareness is realizing you’re not that special”—and like Carl Jung said, you’ve got to face your shadow. That’s how we evolve—with self-knowledge and strategy, not illusions.

So ask yourself right now:

What am I doing today?

Where am I heading?

Without clarity, you become a passenger in your own career. And the cost is the most expensive one there is: time.

Ironically, the cure for lack of clarity is action. So if you don’t have it yet, start moving. Do something. Try. Experiment. The path reveals itself along the way. And here comes your fuel: motivation.

The path isn’t easy. We all have bad days and face hard things. But if you want a better career, ask yourself: what pain are you willing to endure? Want to be an entrepreneur? Are you ready for financial uncertainty and the ups and downs? Want a career abroad? Are you ready to give up comfort and start over?

Set a minimum routine for yourself—even on bad days. Especially on bad days. Accepting tough moments is a positive experience in itself. That’s where you also learn to deal with your feelings—crucial skills for any solid professional.

There’s a quote I carry with me: “It’s not what life does to you, it’s what you do with what life does to you.”

Responsibility is always yours—even if the blame isn’t.

And what does all of this have to do with marketing, resumés and LinkedIn?

Everything.

Personal branding is essential. Back in the day, we talked a lot about the concept of “You Inc.” That’s still valid. Build your digital presence like a company: clear, consistent, and authentic positioning. Own your identity, your values, your voice. That’s personal branding.

More than a well-written resumé, today’s professional needs to BE what they put on paper. They need consistency, real networking, knowledge that matters, hands-on experience, and resilience to ride the market cycles.

A well-structured professional is like a tree with deep roots. The storms will come, but they’ll stand strong because they know who they are, what they represent, and where they’re going.

If you’re not seen, you’re forgotten. Update your LinkedIn, build your portfolio, share relevant content, show YOUR point of view. The market rewards those who know how to position themselves. And there’s no such thing as a bad market for that. It’s all on you.

Degrees and certificates are great. But what the market truly values is your ability to create impact.

Fernando Mattar Vilela, 41

• MBA in Business Management
• Entrepreneur with experience in civil construction, communications and marketing and the offshore market
• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Westhon, WSB and Café na Trilha