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Vicente Valencia

The "PPP Guy" | Helping to deliver infrastructure through PPP faster, cheaper and easier | C-Suite Executive | Real Estate passionate and investor | Mentor, Coach, Consultant | 👇JOIN +3k for daily tips and insights 👇

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What’s your job? I’m telling you mine

I received a message from my kindle. Yes, that thing where you can read on without distractions or notifications. Congrats, 250 days without missing a single day reading… or something like that. I just erased as soon as I saw it. But then, the message stayed in my head. I don’t know when I missed a day… probably a 28 hour flight from Auckland to Madrid or something. When I tell people that I read a minimum of one book per week, they get surprised. “How do you do it? How do you have time?” I...

Let's imagine that you have a business or a job. It doesn't matter. You know how to do something. And you want to show it to the world…. And in the way, you want to make money with it. Maybe build a reputation. Fame. Whatever. A you have a long career and experience. What you’re selling is not garbage. Now, you have two ways of sharing it with the world. You can do it as a confident person. You give maximum value without wasting people's time. Or you can be insecure, with “horror vacui”,...

Consultants are vampires. Old manners, old customs, old dresses, old mentality… they behave as frozen in time. Of course, not all of them. But think a little about it. If you wonder why the construction industry is so behind, what’s their responsibility? In theory, these guys should bring innovation and modernity to the industry. They are the ones that know the most, right? The ones that design our building, bridges and roads… But, a bad revenue structure can fire back and create the wrong...

Many people don’t believe it but you can become who you want to be. But you need to want to become that person. And don’t listen to me. Look at the data and evidence. One of the classic stories in the field of self-fulfilling prophecies is of a computer in the UK that was accidently programmed incorrectly. This computer was supposed to be used by a school to put children in the “right” classrooms, i.e., in the classroom of smart people and in the classroom of the dumb people. Yeah… English...

A friend asked me a couple of days ago. What’s your opinion about the debate, who won? My answer was short and to the point. “I didn’t watch the debate. I didn’t read about it. I simply don’t care.” Look. If you worry or care about who won the debate or who will win the elections, you are in trouble. Mentally in trouble. You’ve got a mindset issue. A disability. People work and work… and work and work. Many hours. Many. Many. And still, they don’t make much progress. Same salary… well,...

You probably feel too intelligent. That’s the sure path to stay poor. When I say that A students work for B students that work for C students who are the owners I was not even close. Even Harvard Review has a recent article showing how employing people with disabilities in managerial / supervision roles boost company performances. Yes. As you hear. Or read. Correlation and statistics are stronger than MBA diplomas to measure boost in productivity. I’m not suggesting that you cut off one of...

People come to me with too many projects in their heads. Vicente, this. Vicente, that. Vicente, what do you think of... ? I have a few too. But there is a difference. People have too many projects in mind, switch from one to another, and then jump into the next, when no one is working. I didn’t start a second business until my first one was solid, giving good money, and started to behave well in autopilot. I’m not saying that you stop exploring. When nothing works, you have to do, do, do and...

This phrase isn’t mine. It comes from the entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant. If you discovered Naval with this email, I feel happy because I’ll be changing someone’s life. Well… this Naval is a very smart guy. He got free from his boss, company and the rat race… but he had a hard time: “You’ll never be rich because you’re smart, and there will always be someone who will offer you a good enough job.” This is what he says… The point is that salary is a trap, it’s a drug, just like...

Yes… as you have read. In the world of business, especially in services, people continue to have a terrible myopia. I put you two examples. Fulanito A charges you 250$/hour. Good guy. Experienced. Love to work focused, fast He doesn’t waste his time in chitchats, bad coffee machines, etc. Fulanito B charges you 250$/hour. He is stupid… Or, let’s say that he has not the same level of experience, and when you ask him to do something, he breathes deeply, take 15 min meditation prior to work, and...

Humans have lots of problems… And managers, executives and others in the zoo are humans on steroids. And, because we are always stressed, problems are going up, etc. We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up... Most of the time, with good intention, and even after having seek advice… But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first. You know it well. You look at your calendar and see meeting after meeting. The problem arrives, and you...