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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 👇
Eastern Europe. Late 2000s. If you are old enough, you can feel the context. A massive highways PPP. Toll road. Billions in capex. One of those “nation-building” projects politicians love to parade in front of TV cameras. You can smell now the country… Your consortia are seasoned. Anyone knowing how to pour asphalt on top of something lined up. Your lenders are aligned. Your traffic advisors have gone blind staring at stochastic models. Everyone is gearing up for a clean, competitive...
I buy houses, apartments and buildings from 20.000km distance. In Spain, Panama, New Zealand… and I can stay anywhere. Of course, I don’t recommend that for you. Some people want to push globalization too much. Having assets in London, NY, Madrid, Singapore, Sydney, etc. at the same time is not good for your health, nor your pocket. You miss specialization. You miss learning and knowing well a market. When bidding PPP projects, I have seen successful bidders doing so from the distance....
It happens a few weeks ago. “Tell me about Madrid and Spain, how do you do it? I heard a business case that Madrid has been able to deliver the cheapest tunnels in the world…” I did not know about that case, but my answer was simple: “Do you know how many TMBs had Madrid at the time?” Look. If you want cheap infrastructure, create a pipeline. Madrid had during more than 10 years between 7 and 8 TBMs (the machines to make tunnels in engineering slang). They are extremely costly. So, they...