Portuguese Montrealer heading to Toronto for Speaker Slam 2024

Portuguese Montrealer Steve Furtado is taking his experience as an entrepreneur, along with his personal challenges like being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and losing his mother, and turning them into a powerful narrative of overcoming adversity.

Furtado will be taking part in Speaker Slam, North America’s largest inspirational speaking competition, on July 16.

Furtado’s story began in 2018 when he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. That was the first day of his life that he says he felt “blessed with the curse, but also I was able to realize that I was lost as a person.

“I was able to look at myself and say it’s time for change.

“I was always telling myself that brighter days were coming ahead, you know?”

He adds he was “in divorce proceedings, fighting for custody of my kids. I was mentally and physically and emotionally drained.

“The biggest challenge is sometimes we get overwhelmed, right?

“Even though my specialty is mindset, you know, there’s still the inner struggles that we deal with that only allow us to stretch ourselves.

“But stretching ourselves is also the key to growth.”

As Furtado was going through his divorce proceedings, he says “that was a very, very dark moment.

“It led to a place where we found out she (my mom) had stage 4 cancer.

“And by July, seven months later, I lost my mom.”

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The loss of his mother led him to feeling alone. “It also allowed me to realize that being alone is a great place to continue to offer more contribution and growth to my life and realize that what I do in my work today only helps to serve others,” Furtado said.

When Furtado thinks back to his upbringing and values, he traces it back to one person.

“For me, my grandmother was definitely a huge cornerstone in my life.

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“She brought a lot of the values and integrity that led me to become the man I am.”

He reflects on his roots and his heritage: “Anything that I did in my upbringing from my Portuguese heritage is definitely a stepping stone of who I am today.”

And he credits his mom, someone he calls his role model, for who he is today.

“My mom too, even though she had her ways, she was definitely my world, right?

“She was who I looked up to.

“But she definitely imprinted a high level of ethics and integrity in me that a lot of people sometimes don’t live because a lot of times we live with inauthenticity in our lives.

“We’re usually wearing a mask that doesn’t allow us to really show who we truly are, but my mom was always that person that said be the best version of yourself.”

In Furtado’s opinion, consistency is key. “Understanding the foundations of mastery, the steps of mastery, you know, we all have a glass ceiling over our heads,” he said.

“And understanding that unconscious incompetence is a level where we reach a platform but also that creates those fears within us.

“And by working and practising something that I’ve never done before, like speaking publicly in front of an audience, it’s definitely a challenge but also a beautiful space to show and be in the example that stretching yourself is a part of growth.”