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

If your team spends more time on format than content… Your company… Your project… Your leadership… Has a problem. A big one. “Not professional.” “Not following the brand guidelines.” “My boss will not approve it.” “My client will not approve it.” Trust me. A well-written, well-structured memo in a blank Word document with no logo can do maravillas. The fanciest PowerPoint with no substance only does one thing: It extends useless meetings at a rate of 6 minutes per slide. Minimum. The excuses...

I haven’t been involved in disputes or claims lately. I gave that up. Entirely. The reason? Nobody wins. No matter how well you do it, one side ends up unhappy. Sometimes both. And unhappy endings are not my cup of tea. I prefer to focus on preventing misunderstandings, disputes, and nasty claims before they happen. Because it is possible. It is feasible. And in many cases, you can create those conditions by design. How? By understanding the good, the bad, and the ugly. What works. What...

Some people are working in a disaster project. But they don’t know it. Because they have never seen a good one. They think delays are normal. Claims are normal. Meetings with 23 people and zero decisions are normal. A contractor sending 17 notices before breakfast is normal. A client changing its mind every Thursday is normal. 50 notices being exchanged at 4:50pm on Friday is normal. A SPV board asking “where are we with this?” every month is normal. No, my friend. That is not normal. That is...