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Self-inflicted loss
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80% of the books you read out there are a waste of time. This is still much better than the number of movies: 95%. Or the number of TV shows: 100%. But from time to time, you find good stuff. One of the problems I see today in many people is their will to overachieve. They go to a congress, present volunteer to a group of whatever, but then, they need to go to the hairdresser, pass the inspection of their car, they have to go to the Christmas party of their company, the Christmas party of their group of friends, also the group of other friends, and the group of the group of a thinking group. Never forget to buy gifts to children, nieces, the cats of the neighbours, etc. Greg McKeown in his book Essentialism said that the pressure to “do more” is often self-inflicted. We find things to do (aka excuses) to delay what is important. What makes us happy. What makes us growth, personally and financially. Greg says that we should do fewer things, but better. Stack small wins in essential areas. It does not make sense to be in a party but not being there because you are waiting for an important email that says what you know it was going to say, but you’re anxious about that and you can’t stop reading and your mind can’t stop worrying about it. “Priority” means 1 thing. Just 1. As Greg says: “Give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone.” These and other pieces of advice can be found below.
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Vicente Valencia
I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
Parkinson’s Law: Work fills the space you give it. “If you give yourself three years to complete something, completion will take three years.” Now replace “three” with whatever number… like eight. That’s what I keep seeing in infrastructure. Projects designed to take 8… 10… 12 years. Not because they need it. Because nobody in the room knows how fast it can actually be done. Some clients hire advisors who have never delivered a project at scale. Or with no direct experience in the type of...
There is a project that I follow even if I live now at the other side of the Pacific. It is… or it was… or it will be one day, one of the most ambitious (and game changer) infrastructure projects in the world. It was also meant to be a PPP. California High-Speed Rail The idea sounded great: Connect major cities. Reduce emissions. Transform mobility. On paper, it had everything. In reality… it had a problem. The scope was never stable… and still it’s not. Routes changed. Stations moved....
Not corruption. Not politics. Just… incompetence. A real project. $800M. In LatAm… No more details, as in this distribution list, there are too many people living in that country… Here you are the 4 red flags that would have helped you to smell blood miles away. First red flag: They didn’t understand their own project. I’m not exaggerating. They launched the RFP with: Misaligned traffic studies Outdated geotech data A design that didn’t match the environmental permits Second: They outsourced...