Andrea Zanon

How many minutes a day do you need to succeed? Ask yourself that question. Very few people know that we have 1,440 minutes a day. That is right. You have to think of these minutes as your wealth, that is your bank account. That is right, that is your number one saving that you should protect at all costs. That is 1440 minutes a day.

We spend about 450–500 minutes sleeping, that’s about 7–8 hours a day. And so we’re left with about 1000 minutes to build success. About 200 goes through eating, supermarkets and admin tasks.

So you’re left with 800 minutes a day to build your success to become what I call a time billionaire. That is right, time billionaire. The first thing time billionaires do is they use their time super effectively. They don’t go to meetings they don’t get paid for, they don’t go to meetings if they’re not contributing and they certainly don’t waste time on social media.

So I want you to start thinking about this 800 minutes as the way to project and execute your growth, your personal growth to become a super achiever. Forget about growing 10% a year, think about growing 10,000% a year. You got to start with this 800 minutes, making sure that every minute counts, making sure that you shut the noise out that you remove people from your life that are not bringing wealth, happening or positive impact. Start protecting these 800 minutes a day, and monitor how you treat your time saving account as your way to become a time billionaire.

Be tough at managing this time, and you’ll see it will convert to wealth. It will create higher impact and better social interactions. Shut the noise out and become a time billionaire join me at

confidente.io

https://confidente.io/

With the massive energy surplus financing at its disposal, Gulf Cooperation Council countries will continue to shape the future of football. This will likely result in more acquisitions of football assets particularly in the highly indebted and underperforming football market sin Italy, France, and Spain. 

Geopolitical tension caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine will continue to affect energy markets in 2023. Oil and gas prices will stay high transferring global wealth from consumers to energy exporting countries.  Global Oil and natural gas companies such as Saudi Aramco, Qatar Energy, and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company have experienced record revenues since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. These state-owned companies will continue to outperform the market and bring in stellar revenues as new supply is constrained by bottlenecks and regulatory changes. The biggest winners of the crisis are the Gulf oil and gas producers’, which control 38 percent of global oil reserves and 24 percent of natural gas reserves. According to the IMF, in 2022 alone Middle East and Central Asia energy producers have generated $320 billion more in revenue due to the geopolitical crisis. The cumulative surplus is expected to reach $1,4 trillion over the next five years.

Saudi, Qatar, and UAE Will Change Football Global Landscape

The 6 GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, and Bahrain are going to be among the fastest growing economies in the world in 2022 with an expected average of 6,5%. Saudi Arabia, the largest GCC country, will grow at 8% in 2022, and next year, real GDP growth is expected to be a solid 5%. GCC countries have combined assets of $3,2 trillion amounting to 40% of SWFs global assets. 

It is well known that since the 2008 financial crisis, Gulf countries changed investment strategy and started using their SWF to diversity their investment portfolio and start taking large equity positions in large companies across all sports segments, including football, golfing, sky, formula one, and other sports undervalued assets. This shift in strategies is motivated by their priority to diversify away from hydrocarbons, and made possible by their increased investment readiness, local teams’ strength, and increased political clout. 

Qatar: Gulf football leadership and financial capabilities are clearly displayed in Qatar's successful hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.  Qatar invested $ 220 billion to prepare for the World Cup. This is 20 times the investment done by Russia and Brazil who spent $ 14, and 15 billion respectively to host the previous 2 world cups. Qatar is creating an important precedent in football finance, bringing in over $20 billions in revenues (Russia brought in only $5.2 billion in 2018) taking advantage of December, the most lucrative TV advertising period of the year.

Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom propelled by its powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is “weaponizing” state financing to ensure that Saudi Arabia wins the bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2030. To get there, MBS will deploy oil diplomacy, savvy investment, and football activism to ensure that its partners and new friends vote for Saudi instead for Spain, Portugal and Ukraine who are bidding jointly for the 2030 FiFA World Cup. There will also be more football teams investments, which could also target lower leagues across the Mediterranean countries. 

UAE: Finally, the Emirate state of Abu-Dhabi, the largest football investor in the world, will continue to expand its football teams acquisitions to Brazil and to Europe. This will potentially add new club assets to the 12 football clubs they already own across Italian, Spanish, English (among others), and position the Emirate as the leading football“market maker” of the world. 

Global Football Is In Financial Trouble 

Covid-19 and the ongoing recession have increased the financial vulnerability of football teams, particularly in Europe, as they struggle to finance their expensive operations and fail to create more stable and innovative revenue streams. These include monetizing fans engagement, stadium naming rights, international sponsorship, and sport tourism just to name a few. The financial weakness is particularly strong in Southern Europe, where football teams are either the extensions of family businesses or have decrepit management and financial models. These financial troubles lower their book value and make these assets attractive to foreign investors, particularly the cash rich Gulf countries seeking to build football at home, while monetizing bankable football projects. For countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, target acquisitions like Inter Milan, Naples, Marseille, is a way to leverage other businesses in these cities. Particularly across fashion, logistics, ports, air-travel, and tourism. 

Conclusion

While rumors about billion-dollar football team acquisitions will abound, there is no doubt that Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds will “flex their muscle” in 2023 and use their combined financial war chest of $ 1,449 trillion to invest in football and other sports in Europe.  Qatar will consolidate its global role as the international and western focused sport partner bringing the World Cup to a successful close. Saudi Arabia will become a more prominent football investor doing whatever it takes to bring the World Cup to the Kingdom in 2030 while investing in undervalued football assets. Abu-Dhabi, via the City Football Group (CFG) investment fund, will establish itself as a powerful global football management brand, prioritizing investment in e-sports and the future of women football.

#crisis  #mental health #climate #women #empower 

As a crisis and risk management specialist I have helped Governments, Corporations and Entrepreneurs manage crises that involved natural disasters, economics, reputation management and financial meltdowns. When a crisis or bad news hits us, we all tend to overreact and get into fire-fighter mode. While this is natural, we should all learn to slow down, let things calm down, and better assess the move’s impactful options. In the early stages of a crisis, what you don’t do is more important than what you do, as these early actions set in motion a chain of reactions that will impact the future of the crisis and its effective management. Most of the time for the worse if these actions are not planned well.

Some of these crises are the result of neglect, bad decisions, excessive risk taking, but often are the result of external factors that we have no control over. The bottom line is, don’t lose sleep on any of this, but rather get to work, and while others panic, seek the silver lining in these crises. These opportunities are in disguise that are difficult to see. Keep in mind that there will be windows of opportunities that become available. For instance, during a crisis, you may realize what are the indispensable employees you need for your company to survive and prosper. In other words, during a crisis you can cut expensive personnel and bring in younger and more cost-effective staff. This stuff will bring in new perspectives and new models that you did not know you needed. Stay open and flexible and focus on what you can control.

Change is the only way forward during economic crisis

Periods of economic and geopolitical disruption as those since 2020, are challenging but rich in opportunities. The biggest mistake businesses make during a crisis (be it recession or any other type of crisis) is waiting too long to make changes, such as replacing expensive staff and overall reducing costs. While it is important not to overreact at the beginning of a crisis, the longer an entrepreneur waits to react and prepare for change, the further the negative impact of a crisis.

One area to prioritize during unpredictable ones like the recent ones, is to establish new partnerships with customers, competitors and tech companies that can help make your business processes more efficient and cost effective. Think of other market participants as you partner to bring your service and products to new users at lower prices.

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Many of us perform jobs for extended periods of time that are not the perfect fit. We perform tasks we do not like, and that do not match our skill set. We often choose to work with people we do not like nor respect just because we need to pay bills and make ends meet. Oh, well that is part of life, and part of learning and growing. While we all must go through some of this in life, we all have a chance to stand up, make some firm choices to build our own future that is best for us and for our families. I say this as over seventy percent of Americans and Europeans spend most of their lives in jobs and careers they do not like, often because of job security, risk averseness, and overall lack of a plan. These career choices often are also the result of the wrong advice, often benign advice done by our parents or our teachers.

Well, I think this can be changed for the better, and as I argue in several of my interviews and blogs, success and happiness are choices, and not the results of random events. To get there though, we need to implement decisions that help us get to the identified objectives. As a start we need to prioritize the decision we need to focus on in order to build the self-confidence that allows us to advance our personal growth.

Keep in mind that we perform around 30 thousand decisions per day, and if you are an entrepreneur this number is much higher. In order to focus on those decisions that make us grow the fastest, and “Become mentally and physically unstoppable”, here are five areas of focus to build a path to success. I call these “low regret actions” as they will deliver lasting success regardless of your identified life’s objectives”

• Exercise every day for 1 hour. While this seems like a lot, it is not when you start counting how many hours a day you spend on social media, or on other digital “non-growth actions”. Focus on your body wellness and fitness as it will deliver happiness and self-confidence.
• Read a book a month in the area of your expertise. The more you read, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the more you learn. If you are not a reader, become one. It is just a matter of prioritizing your inner growth, which coincidentally is an investment in yourself.
• Spend 15 minutes in nature every day as this will help you understand your priorities in life. Nature will act as a way to meditate and will help you prioritize what matters and let go of everything else.
• Start with no when you get offered to join a project, go to a party, and/or any other distracting event. Instead of trying to please everyone and saying yes, start saying no unless the yes will help you accomplish your N1 goal in life.
• Surround yourself with outstanding people: As we become the average of the five people we spend most time with (outside of our close family), we’d better be very selective about who you spend time with. Ensure that the five people that enter your lives are likable, ethical, energetic and talented. This will deliver lasting results and positive energy.

Final Thought

Thriving in life is the result of the sum of decisions. And often, what you decide not to do is more important than what you decide to do. Hence understand and use No as your default decision setting. Don’t worry about right or wrong decisions, as there are not such things, think instead of the smartest decision you can make that will get you quicker to your most important goal in life and in business. What you should not do to start with, is work with people you don’t like, and you don’t respect. While accomplishing this will take time, start a list right away listing people that you need to remove from your life. The sooner you replace bad or unnecessary people with incredible people in your life, the sooner you will start learning, become more confident and focused on the actions that matter most.