Graham Hunt is a real estate property developer in Valencia Spain. He’s created YouTube videos for his real-estate company, included 100 tips for moving to Spain,and is the author of Laptop Entrepreneur. These are his good things.
Good things to read.
High Fidelity. The first Nick Hornby book I read was Fever Pitch of course, a book that summed everything up about being a football fan. High Fidelity summed everything up about being a bloke. The obsessive lists, the compilation tapes, the emotional depth of a blancmange, the self centredness, everything. Just like I could have been Gregory in the film below I could definitely have been Rob in this book. The film version was good by the way, excellent casting of John Cusack, but it just wasn’t “quite” as good.
Choose Yourself. James Altucher’s book has been my go to toilet book for the last year (And believe me that is high praise indeed) The idea that we are in the middle of a sea change in the way we do things in the World Economy and that the old certainties enjoyed by our parents’ generation have disappeared as jobs, careers and life has been outsourced abroad has meant that I have started looking at everything in a new way. The idea of Choosing Yourself and most convincingly the way to become an ideas machine have changed me enormously. Two new businesses later and a huge change in the way I look at any problem mean that now it doesn’t look as if I will be changing my toilet reading for a time yet.
The 4-Hour Workweek. I got this book immediately as a mindset thing but every time I revisit it I get more out of it now. (Would love Tim Ferriss to do an updated version right now with so many other tools out there and so many success stories too).
The point that most people miss about the 4HWW is that it is not a treatise on how to be “lazy” and work four hours a week while supping Margaritas under a palm tree in a hammock (Despite the cover art) What it really is are a series of tools to use to become ultra efficient. I have never even approached four hours work a week, in fact i think I am on about 70 a week at the moment. What I am doing though is the work of 300 hours in those 70. And yes you might say I am missing the point too as the aim of the book wasn’t to give you more time to do more. However I have been able to make time for great holidays now and if I want to take time out and do other stuff I just do. I choose my clients and I choose my projects. Nothing is forced on me and that for me is key.
Good things to watch.
Gregory’s Girl. Probably the greatest movie ever ;-) OK it’s cheap, it’s low tech and it’s somewhat risqué in some of the lines looking back on it now. However, I was Gregory and so was every other lad I knew at school, in fact I probably still am. If a girl ever needs to get into what the head of a teenage boy in the 80’s was then just watch this film. Awkwardness, insecurity, white jackets, football and a strange attraction to obscure facts about Caracas. What more could you ask for?
Salvados. The only programme worth watching on Spanish television. Jordi Evole is the innocent going around letting the corrupt, the inept, the self important and the bastards hang themselves with their own words. With such a huge range of potential targets to have a go at in this country, Salvados never usually misses the target. Using a style of interviewing that allows the “victim” to talk themselves into a corner where there is no escape, Evole does a great job of making the corrupt seem like slime in their own words and his reactions to their admissions are priceless.
Derek. Some people love Ricky Gervais and some people don’t. I am in the former camp. However Derek could well be the best thing that he has ever done. The Office was superb, Extras was fantastic. An Idiot Abroad had some brilliant bits and Life’s Too Short was… meh! Derek tugs at the heartstrings and also hits home runs on the comedy. Always remember that “Kindness is magic”
Good things to use.
The Valencia Cricket Ground. Three years ago I helped to start up a cricket club in Valencia, Spain… yes cricket in Spain. Two years ago I managed to set up a couple of meetings meaning we got to share the Valencia baseball ground. We have rechristened the ground as the VCG and every time we use it we love it.
My iPhone/iPad. I mostly run my businesses from my iPad and iPhone. If the iPhone is more than a metre away from me consider it a mistake. If the iPad is more than a few metres away consider it a panic attack. Why? Well they are my entertainment, my information, my work tools and of course my communications tool. I am not going to go into the apps that I use but these two things just rock for me as they work so well together along with the MacBook at home for integrated workflows.
The Grey Matter. The more I challenge my brain to come up with creative solutions to problems and issues the better it becomes at sorting things out. And I give it a lot of challenges. If I had to give advice to someone on how to use their grey matter it would be as follows:
Never let it go to mush by watching TV like the X Factor, reading stuff like the Daily Mail and repeating celebrity gossip. You have a brain for a reason. Make the most of it.
Connect with Graham, and his brain on Twitter, @grahunt to talk cricket, Spanish real-estate, or to just thank him for his good things.
