I entered the best market for someone like me. And the worst, at the same time

I entered the best market for someone like me. And the worst, at the same time.

September 2021. Brazil's Selic rate below 5%, cheap capital, triple-digit growth, a sector that seemed designed for my profile. The most regulated one I have faced in my life, but regulation was exactly what I read well. I arrived, executed, delivered results. Everything was right.

And that was exactly when I made my biggest mistake: confusing the market I had understood with the market that existed.

In a few months the ground moved. The dollar, the currency that commands the entire sector, shot up. The Selic rose and turned every hesitation into cost. A new law approved for 2023 came into play, and the fear of it became a competitor's sales pitch.

The plan I had was not wrong. It was old. Old within months. The market did not wait for me to finish executing before changing the rules.

So strategic planning stopped being annual and became quarterly. Three months to read the new scenario, design the response and execute before it expired. Five versions in a single year, when Trump came in and geopolitics took the helm of the sector.

The company remains solid. The sea calmed down, I left the executive role and dedicated myself to Boards. That cycle sharpened my strategic and geopolitical reading to a level I never imagined reaching.

Now turn it inward.

• Is what runs today your decision, or an inheritance nobody had the courage to touch?
• What changed in the last twelve months that your plan still pretends not to see?
• Who is testing in practice the hypothesis you are still debating in meetings?
• How much has the version you pushed to next quarter already cost, in cash and in position?

Whoever does not review strategy at the market's pace does not lose the plan. He loses the helm.

Who rules your company: chance or you?