Rafaela Moura

I would say it's a combination of dedication, discipline, and ambition. There were days that I would sit in my room for hours and hours and nights, and people would be out having fun. Those are the nights that matter, because there's really no shortcut, so you have to make sacrifices. If you're not disciplined and if you're not reaching out to the right people, or surrounding yourself with people that can help you and you can help them back and share some productivities with, then your growth will maybe be a little slower. For me, it was very important to keep growing and keep doing things, and that made me feel productive. The honest truth is, I really just wanted to find my purpose. It's a journey, and I don't think I'll ever be able to fully answer this question until I'm at my very last day on this planet. I'm still on the journey, I learn every day, and the people that come into my life, I always value what they have to teach me. I learn from everyone, and I realize that enjoying that journey is really important. There were times that I really made things a lot harder than they needed to be because I worked too hard. There is a need to balance the work and the life, and that's coming with a little bit of age. It's important to balance everything out, understanding there are moments that are going to be more positive than others, and to embrace those down moments as much as the up moments. One thing that we all share is we don't know what the future holds, we don't know when we're going to go, we don't know what our kids are going to be like. That's the most important thing I've learned, just to embrace those moments as much as the ones that you feel excited about because you achieved something.

The best career advice I received was to take up space. Don't be afraid. Even if you are underrepresented, even if you are in a room full of men, even if you are in a room full of people that may not necessarily be in the same position as you, or share the same values, or share the same view, or share the same appearance, just be able to take up space. The world is big, and everybody has a little bit of room for themselves. That's something that I always remind myself when things get challenging. I always keep that in mind, just understand there's room for you, and take that room. Take that room with the vision.

I would honestly say, take up space. We know more than we think we do. Sometimes we say too many sorries when we don't really need to be sorry. It's very difficult to step out of that traditional role, and it may not be the easiest path. But I think being uncomfortable provides you a space for growth. It's also a service to our community, because it can help pave the way for other people, other women, and especially girls and the future generation. Even if it looks meaningless, or maybe too difficult now, in the long run, it may make a big, huge difference in someone else's life, or another generation. We're only here for a short amount of time. Whatever I can do to make things better for the next generation, to make it easier for them, hopefully that will generate some positivity.

I think funding is really something that has taken a toll on the industry. I hope that maybe private investors can come in and fill some of those gaps. Bloomberg is doing that, and some other major investors can do that. But funding is the most challenging piece right now. And then there's the perception. There's this perception that it's creating division instead of uniting us. That's the biggest challenge, just to get back on the same page. We needed to collect so much data, triangulate so much data worldwide to reach consensus on what is happening scientifically, whether it's man-made or not, and then we finally reached consensus. We went through that whole struggle, and now it's just a political game. We need to really look at the science, we need to understand the impacts of the science. We've been through such a long journey, researchers and the environmentalist communities, the activists, to just throw it all away. The hardest part is not knowing how we're going to get back on the same page and unite everyone towards protecting our earth instead of doing things irresponsibly. There's room to do everything responsibly, and there are technologies that weren't available before that could help. As long as we're moving forward responsibly in a way that everybody wins, that's the best way and the best approach for the environment. Some people are very short-sighted, especially politicians who have limited terms in office. That has always been a challenge, to get those short-sighted politicians to understand a problem that has such a long-term piece. We have a long-term problem and not enough short-term solutions to solve this problem. That probably is the root problem to all the other problems, to the lack of funding, to the lack of political will. When we're sitting at the drawing table, we really have to have those long-term solutions drawn out and dedicate to them. If we have solutions that are only valid for 4 years, and then the next 4 years we reverse those solutions, it's going back and forth, and that's a deterrence to our progress towards what we want to achieve, which is to reduce our pollution and our footprint.

I would say integrity, loyalty, good communication, discipline, and consistency. I think those are very important, and they have proven to me over time, time and again, that those really matter if you want to be effective over time. Of course, if you're looking at things from a shorter-term perspective, there are much different values, like energy, speed, agility, and energy, but I think over time, integrity, loyalty, good communication, discipline, and consistency are the most important ones.