Why Gibraltar is not Spanish


Be surrounded by lots of British people in New Zealand, from time to time the hijos de la G Bretaña come up with questions about Gibraltar.

Few things touches more our Spanish balls than seeing those monkeys that never die in the rock and the Royal Quilt waived by the gibraltareños, those guys that are able to speak the English of the King and the worst Spanish with Andalusian accent.

Well… the origin of this situation is situated in another King Charles.

Charles II was the last Habsburg king of Spain.

His health was notoriously poor, and he was considered mentally and physically unfit to rule.

This is what happens when his family had been marrying cousins for generations….

The guy was so ugly that not even Carreño, the best student of Velazquez, could paint him “right”.

People believed he was cursed or "bewitched"—hence the nickname "El Hechizado."

Despite his clear inability to govern effectively, no one in his court dared to tell him the truth.

His advisors, ministers, and even doctors concocted absurd treatments to "cure" him.

They claimed he was cursed by witches, subjected him to bizarre rituals, and wasted vast resources trying to "heal" him with potions and prayers….

What made it worse was that his court was in constant chaos, plagued by factions and internal power struggles. The beauty was easier to manipulate than a kid with ice cream.

Despite the dysfunction, the court maintained a facade of control, and nobody questioned the absurdity of what was happening.

Of course, such a “Hechizado”, could not procreate and when Charles II died without an heir, the Spanish War of Succession broke out, plunging Europe into conflict.

It was a kind of France against Germany in Europe, with the British on the German side, this time. The Spaniards decided to kill each others in preparation for better times.

When the British saw that they were going to lose, let the Habsburgs at the bottom of the culvert… To say thank you, Spain gave just a rock… until today.

Not being able to tell the truth brings many problems to your life. Consequences for generations.

You won’t make much progress, and you’ll always have a rock in your shoes.

I’m building something to remove rocks.

You can tell me if you are interested, below.

​Click here. ​

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.

Vicente Valencia

Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇

Read more from Vicente Valencia

I have a friend. A colleague. She is very interested in putting her knowledge to work. On her own. In the consulting space. I always tell her that selling air conditioners probably has a much better future. You know. Climate change. Installation fees. Recurring maintenance revenue. All that. But she loves infrastructure. Let her be. She wanted to know how to create a service for a particular government agency. My answer was simple. Ask them what they need. Do not spend three months creating a...

Governments love plans. Ten-year plans. Twenty-year plans. In NZ, we are bold and we have now even a thirty-year plans. A great recollection of projects, without a vision. But still… Beautiful documents. Pipelines. Strategies. Dashboards. Digital systems. All useful. They normally forget one small thing… Very small… Almost invisible… Someone still needs to do the work. That’s it. Someone needs to understand the information. Challenge the assumptions. Structure the project. Run the...

You don’t need to be loud to be powerful. But you do need to stop hiding behind safe opinions. Mainstream opinions. Collaboration. Governance. Value for money. Quality. Those words per se mean nothing. They have been used so much that they have become empty. Give me an example. Be specific. What exactly do you mean? Give me your definition. If you believe something deeply, say it. Stand by it. Own it. And own the reaction too. The people who matter won’t always agree with you. But they will...