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Once I thought that I would be rich, that I would be successful… because I worthed it. It wasn’t that Hollywood crap about “work hard”, “American dream” and all that stuff. I considered myself smart, and just because of that, I thought that the riches will come to me effortless. I learned how to read at 3… just by myself. First some children books. At 5, the bible. At 6, the Quixote… Top at school, university, MBA… I was going in a right direction, you would say… And you are wrong. And I was wrong. How smart you are, or you think you are, is irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant. Being smart won’t bring you anything. Nada. Absolutely nothing at all. If you are really smart, you may end as a lab rat working for peanuts or, in the best case, working a 9-9-6 in a highly pay corporate trap… as a trapped rat in the rat race. Sorry, but no… not for me. To do great things in life. To leave a legacy to the world, to your children, you don’t need to be smart. It’s all about attitude. It’s all about mindset. Your brain can be just ballast. Remember that. Primitive risk aversion. Primitive loss feelings. Primitive sense of protection. Primitive finite games. You are still wired as if you were living in the caves… and many things have changed since. And I was wired like that. Corporate chain. Good position. Good paycheck. Pay as much taxes as possible. Avoid bothering anybody, including the taxman. Don’t make too much noise. Just do your thing and you’ll be accepted and protected in your tribe. Well… I was able to break those chains… despite excess of ballast, I would say. And you know what? Anybody can. Because, how to do new things, change your mindset and attitude can be taught and learned. If you want to start with something interesting, I propose you this: ​Even you can make money in real estate​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
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Sometimes I’ve walked into meetings where you could smell the blood from miles away. In one of those meetings, the SPV chair looked like he had just fallen off a tree that same morning. Stuttering like crazy. Like a guy from my hometown we used to call “The Stutterer”… el Tartas de mi pueblo. Impossible to take seriously. Looking at his papers. Looking at the screen. Searching for inspiration in the PowerPoint he put together the night before. He already started badly… talking about the...
A PPP somewhere in Canada. Mid 2010s. Saturday night. Concrete poring of a key structure in the critical path of the project. Everything looked perfect on paper. Full closure approved Concrete plant booked Pumps lined up Crew ready Weather… “acceptable” 22:00 : Go time First trucks arrive. Pumps start. Concrete flowing. Then… rain. Not heavy. Not dramatic. Just enough to start messing with the surface. The kind of rain that kills quality slowly. The dangerous one. 23:30: First tension Quality...
Unless you want a horror story. Or an “insĂpida” story that says nothing. You don’t put on the market an unconnected series of projects. That’s not a vision. It’s election time in New Zealand. And every time I’m invited to a forum, I repeat the same message. Infrastructure needs a long-term story. A real one. What do we want to become in 30 years? Because it cannot change every time the government changes. That’s not strategy. That’s improvisation. Or shooting yourself in your foot. If a...