There is a question that has stayed with me for over thirty years.
It is not a question from a book. It is a question from life. And it always surfaces at the same moment — when the last page is read, the book closes, and the silence that follows demands an answer.
What now? What do I actually do with what I just learned?
I never found that answer ready-made anywhere. So I decided to build a space where it could exist.
The Why: A Gap Nobody Was Filling
When I started looking for content about books online, what I found was, more often than not, more of the same: audiobooks, summaries, loose recommendations with no context, long and exhausting presentations that describe a book without ever landing on what matters.
Nothing served me.
And I realized I was not alone. The question the literary content market was systematically ignoring was not “how do I retain 70% of what I read?” It was something far simpler — and far more demanding: what am I going to do with what I learned?
That distinction is the heart of everything you will find here. De Livro com a Vida is not a summary channel. It is a space for applied curation — where the book is the starting point, not the destination.
The Journey: From Telemarketing to the World of Ideas
To understand the project, you need to understand the path. And it begins before any company or channel.
1989 — The Book That Changed Direction
I was between 16 and 17 years old, growing up in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, when I read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It was not a school assignment. There was no obligation. It was the curiosity of a teenager who sensed that understanding people was more decisive for life than anything a classroom had ever taught.
That book did not give me a diploma. But it gave me a tool I used in every environment I stepped into over the thirty years that followed.
2004 — The Start of a Corporate Journey
I began my formal professional career as a Telemarketing Operator. Ten months later, I moved to Technical Support. Shortly after, IT Analyst — without the degree the role formally required. In 2011, I became IT Coordinator, a management position that once again required a university qualification I had not yet completed.
I share this not to impress, but because the pattern reveals something I only understood later: the belief that I was not capable of going further was the only real obstacle. Once I removed that internal limiter, the path opened — not because the environment changed, but because I changed first.
Reading played a direct role in that shift.
2016 — The Dismissal, the Chaos, and the Restart
I stayed in coordination until the end of 2016, when I was let go from the company where I had grown for twelve years. It was a jolt. But it was also, in time, an opening.
I had already begun building a digital marketing structure quietly and without grand ambitions. The idea was simple: generate extra income. When I was later dismissed from a second company where I was working as an IT Consultant, the situation became urgent — and that is when the project gained real momentum.
I looked at what I had built, at the people who had followed along, and asked myself the most honest question anyone can ask in a moment of crisis: what are these people actually looking for? What can I offer that has real value for them? The answer led me to imported clothing — and over the years, ADZ Imports grew into something I had never planned: a YouTube channel with over 40,000 subscribers, a highly engaged Facebook fanpage, followers across Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, six WhatsApp groups with 250 members each, and a Facebook community with 25,000 members that remains active to this day.
The End of ADZ Imports — and the Beginning of Something Else
The closure of ADZ Imports was not a strategic decision. It was chaotic. And honesty requires me to say that.
ADZ carried the initials of someone dear to me — and when that relationship came to an end, it took part of the project’s meaning with it. At the same time, my son, without realizing it, gave a hacker access to my accounts. YouTube suspended my first channel. I was exhausted. Sometimes life does not ask you to decide. It decides for you.
When everything finally tipped over, the space that opened was not empty. It was fertile. What grew there had been there for years — in accumulated readings, in book recommendations I had always made to people, which I later discovered had genuinely changed something in their lives. Some came back years later to tell me they had bought a certain book on my influence. I found that more than nice. I found it significant.
De Livro com a Vida has no official start date. It grew quietly, gently — from years of ideas, from experience that settled layer by layer, from a maturity that only time can build. By the time I noticed, there was already much to say.
Mission, Vision and Values
Mission To transform readers into practitioners — connecting the knowledge found in great books to the real decisions of everyday personal and professional life.
Vision To become the reference in applied reading curation for those who believe that human development is the highest-return investment that exists.
Values
- Intellectual honesty: What I do not know, I say I do not know. What is opinion, I present as opinion — never as universal truth.
- Applicability: Knowledge that does not change behavior is intellectual decoration. Every analysis here has a practical landing point.
- Depth without pedantry: It is possible to be rigorous and accessible at the same time. That will always be the choice.
- Consistency: I only speak about books I have read. I only apply what I have lived. The credibility of this project depends on that discipline.
Eduardo Godim — The Face Behind the Pages
I am from São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro. Father of two children from different chapters of my life — my older daughter, married, who has already given me three wonderful grandchildren; and my younger son, who lives with his mother.
I am a financial market analyst in training, former IT Coordinator, former e-commerce entrepreneur, and a reader since I was 16 — when a book by Dale Carnegie opened a perspective that no classroom had ever touched.
My path is not linear. It never was. It passed through telemarketing, technical support, analysis, coordination, online sales, financial markets, and now knowledge curation. What connects all of these points is a conviction that has grown stronger with every turn: intentional development — through reading, reflection, and application — is the only asset that no dismissal, crisis, or hacker can take away.
Books have been my silent mentors at every stage. And this project is my way of giving that back — creating the content I wish I had found when I first started searching.
What You Will Find Here
De Livro com a Vida is organized around five pillars — not for editorial convenience, but because they represent the five dimensions where human growth manifests in concrete ways:
- Mindset: The foundation of everything. Beliefs, purpose, practical philosophy.
- Performance: Theory in action. Habits, execution, energy management.
- Leadership: Impact that expands to others. Management, influence, leading by example.
- Finance: The sustainability of the journey. Markets, behavior, freedom.
- Relationships: The link that multiplies everything. Communication, empathy, connection.
Every article published here follows one commitment: present the book, show the backstory of the author and context, and always — always — answer the question that moved me to create this space: what are you going to do with this?
Ready to Begin?
If you have read this far, we already have something in common: the conviction that reading with intention is one of the most powerful ways to grow.
The YouTube channel is where everything starts. It is where I analyze books with depth and without detours — and every article on this blog is born from a video built around a book I have read, lived, and believe will make a difference for you.
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See you there.
Eduardo Godim De Livro com a Vida