Casimiro da Silva Santos, better known as Cas, uses pronouns he/his. He is a dad, a business and climate action leader, a coach, and a speaker. His mission is to create a perspective of abundance, alleviating scarcity so that we can live a brighter future. After a transformational coaching experience with Simon Sinek Inc., Cas decided to create Bring the Best®, a coaching and consulting firm for personal development and business growth. Through individual, career, and executive coaching, Bring the Best transforms lives so that each person can live the life they want and dream about. His coaching style is authentic and empathetic, with a special focus on the LGBTQIA+ community.
Casimiro da Silva Santos, Career & Executive Coach and Consultant
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Hi, my name is Casimiro, and people usually call me Cas, which I prefer (um). When you call me Casimiro, I tend to think I did something wrong because I'm so used to being called Cas. I define myself as most and foremost as a dad because that's one of the most important roles of my life, if not the most important, then a coach –life coach, business coach, executive coach and teams coach – a business leader due to my 20 years of experience in the corporate world leading and managing people and finally a public speaker. That's how I define myself. I live in Portugal n in the South of Lisbon in a town called Setúbal near the sea and the mountain, so I'm privileged to wake up every morning and see the beautiful mountains and the beautiful sea and call it my office. When I'm with my family and friends I like to go out to eat because we have such fantastic food in Portugal, I go to the beach to relax and read books, especially self-development books. I love them, and, after that, I also like to walk around on the beach and go to the movies. One of the things that might make me unique is the fact that I am inquisitive. I like to meet people. That's one of my favourite pastimes, like a hobby but more like a pastime. I love to travel to meet people and meet new cultural habits. Another thing that makes me do something that could be distinguished about myself is that I speak six languages fluently. The other one is that I'm very empathic and compassionate. My passion is people and changing lives by sharing what I have learned so far in life.
What is your business name, and how do you help your clients?
Alright, my business name is Bring the Best, a coaching and consulting start-up combining personal growth with transformational leadership change. Our purpose is to change lives. Our customers are human beings and organizations, and we help professionals to overcome their limiting beliefs to succeed in less than 90 days by avoiding their fear of failure using our PRIDE framework. We focus on providing authentic and empathic, action-driven life, career, and executive coaching to empower the LGBTQIA+ community in the workplace.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
Belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, I thought it would greatly help people to gear up the professionals and the executives that are part of organizations and belong to the community. As I said before, the business's purpose is to enable these professionals to develop their self-confidence and unlock their potential (uhm) without the fear of being or feeling unworthy.
Working with me is unique, as being part of the LGBT community I understand the struggles, I understand the feeling of unworthiness, the fear, the anxiety and of not meeting other’s expectations just because you are who you are. As a leader and manager in the corporate world, leading teams in added-value business in the chemical, water and wastewater markets I understand the ins and outs of the sales processes and commercial deal negotiation. So, we can work together from day one, we do not need to loose precious time to figure out what your business is all about. I understand that coming out in life and at work is hard, and what I can tell you is that it is worth it.
What are your current goals for your business?
As we are still giving our baby steps, the current goal of the business is to reach out as much as possible to LGBTQIA+ professionals in terms of business goals per se. I would like us to be starting to be a reference in coaching and consulting for the community in career orientation, life coaching and executive coaching services.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
I'd like to become a reference in the world of coaching, I want to pursue my ACC accreditation in ICF (International Coaching Federation), and I would like my business to thrive and to be the reference for the business community and organizations globally as the go-to company when we are talking about empowering LGBTQIA+ professionals.
Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?
Several people inspired me to be who I am today, from Nelson Mandela to Simon Sinek, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. These people inspired me, one from their human, empathic and compassionated side and the others from their business and creativity skills. I would say that Madiba and Simon Sinek are probably my greatest inspirations for the type of leadership they practised.
What is your work inspired by?
Simon Sinek surely inspires my work, and I'm a great believer in what he brings to the world. Bring The Best was founded after a transformational coaching experience with this team. I had coaching with his team, which created a transformation in me that says it is my vision and purpose to create an outlook of abundance alleviating scarcity so that we live a brighter future.
Tell us about your most significant career achievement so far.
Wow, my most significant achievement in my life, I would not say a career in my life, would be becoming a dad. This is one of the most important achievements. I am very proud of my boy who is (um is uh) the pride and joy of my eyes and probably my proudest moment also in my career would be come out at work and not be afraid of who I am and be just me and proud to be just me that's probably achievement of my career. If you want to be going now to go to the nails and bolts, I will say I would be growing a business from 90 million euros to 112 million euros and improving its profitability from an EBIT of 1% to 11.5%. All these in four years, managing more than 100 people would also be one of my career highlights.
What would it be and why if you could change one thing about your industry?
Well, it depends on the industry. Before becoming a coach, I was in the corporate world in the chemical supplier sector for industrial water and municipal wastewater treatment, so I would say that in that industry, pivotal moments would be focusing on people and sustainability. I think the industry has a lot to learn. Still there are a lot of parts of the triple bottom line (planet, people and profit) where the planet and people are not considered, more the profit. Hence, I think the industry needs to commit to SBTI targets and setting goals, and we don't see this commitment from companies in the industry.
In the coaching industry, I think we need to create an international regulating body that certifies coaches and avoids people who do not have ACTP coaching training and development do not promote themselves as coaches. Some people do activities for two days and entitle themselves to coaches. The new professional charter for coaching, mentoring and supervision of coaches, mentors and supervisors initiative from the European Commission is a step in the right direction.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
Pivotal moment in my life (uhmmm) there are two key moments for sure being a dad is one of them, and the second is the transformational coaching I had with the Simon Sinek team. These were transformational experiences at an emotional and psychological level. It is enlightening and transformational when you discover your purpose in life, why you are on this Earth, what you are set to accomplish, how to live it, and what to do to live it.
