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This week’s 6 of the Best takes us to Spain, a country with “paradise-like beaches” and whose national team provided a dream win for today’s subject – OPTIMA CEO Jacob Lopez.
Keep reading to find out about the film based on a true story that such a small number of people understood, and why Spanish success in Russia this summer would evoke different feelings for Lopez when compared with La Roja’s first ever World Cup success in 2010.
Best Holiday
The best holiday was in Spain, in the paradise-like beaches of Cádiz and Almería by the Andalusian coast – the first time when I discovered them in a full week of visiting all the Spanish south coast long from west to east.
So close and so unknown to so many people, with so many places that make you think you are unbelievably close to paradise. Having travelled around the most beautiful beaches in Europe, Africa and America, when you put together the people, the gastronomy, the landscape, the quality of the beaches, the heritage, the highest mountain in the Spanish peninsula (in Granada), you realise that if you live in Andalusia, you don’t have to go very far to enjoy the best time. No doubt I was with the best company, my family, when I was in that tour, and that made it also unforgettable.
Best Album
101 – Depeche Mode. I discovered Depeche mode with this Album and that’s why it is so special for me. I’m since an unconditional fan of the English band. I got captivated when I watched the 101 film and concert edited in VHS format, about the tour with the same name.
The quality of the performance and the power of their music made just with synths, the emotion that Dave transmit to the audience, all paired with technology, which I’ve been so close to since I was a young boy, definitely caught me then and still today does.
Songs like Never Let Me Down Again, Everything Counts, Black Celebration, Stripped, Just can’t get enough, Sacred – I can name every one of the songs of this live performance – and both the music and the depth and meaning of the lyrics are great, each of them.
As a note, I cover myself quite successfully some songs of this album, my friends say, when I’m in front of my synths and home studio. Back to DM, every time I can attend a concert of the band, I do – four times last year when they were touring Europe, and I’ll do this year again, I’ve seen them already once and have my tickets ready for the next one.
Best Film
‘The Big Short’. A true story. It tells so much about something that such a small number of people knew about – how the disaster of the 2007/8 financial crisis came about.
Takes a very difficult to understand situation close to those who never understood (and still many don’t understand) why the sky was falling onto them, without knowing the why’s and the how’s, only the what’s, the consequences many experienced when they lost everything they had, and that they thought was absolutely normal, without suspecting the big lie behind all that apparent wealth. A good lesson to learn about not wishing more than one really needs.
Best Sporting Experience
Spain winning the football World Cup in 2010 – I feel so proud every time I remember that night. It was such a hard match, with passages of real close to violence action in the pitch, and the euphoria of the goal close the end.
We were all feeling that we had the best team, but we were not able to get through quarter finals, yes that night it happened, the magic, we were all, absolutely everyone, who didn’t have the possibility to get to South Africa to see the dream coming true, glued to the TV until the referee indicated the end of the match, and the start of the dream.
We celebrated, of course we all did, and it will be a night that all Spanish football fans will never forget as it was the first time Spain was a World Champion. Surely it won’t be the last time Spain will win the World Cup, but for me, it won’t feel the same, I’m 100% sure of that.
Best Book
Many here as well, but I’ll highlight two. ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu, as I think is a book every businessman should read and carefully understand. It tells so much about change, competition, strategy, and conflict, that is hard to believe that anyone that has read it wouldn’t immediately, from the first page, recognize the value of the book and even though it was written a very long time ago, there are paragraphs and chapters that today, in the information and artificial intelligence era, are fully valuable, valid and applicable for today’s business, of all sizes and types.
The other was ‘The Art of Loving’ by Erich Fromm, introduced to me during my days of student by a teacher, Rafael, who taught me philosophy and history. The book captured my attention immediately, discovering many aspects of one of the topics many of us probably don’t master enough, love. Definitely it helped me shaping my principles from the perspective of what loving means in reality. I still recommend and buy this book to give to persons I really appreciate as a present.
Some of them, who read it normally come with a certainly personal analysis, each of them with its own peculiarities. I’ve not seen many common agreements around the entirety of the book. Not an easy to understand book though, but one that I consider one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Best Bet
Of course, those that my team build for our partners, and for which results are evident through the success of those partners who trust us to develop the applications they build their business on.
And Sky Scanner, when you have to travel so many times and into so many different places with many times, so short notice, being able to quickly find the flight that is better regarding duration, stops, departure time, arrival time, price…usually is of great help.
Could I live without it, probably yes, who does not, but certainly I will be a bit less happy that I´m today, especially when a flight gets cancelled in front of your eyes.
