Stop travelling to Abilene


A few days ago, Monge Malo, the best sales trainer in Spanish language talked about The Abilene Parados.

The Abilene Paradox happens when a group of people does something nobody actually wants to do because everyone assumes the others want it.

Like Christmas dinners.

Or most corporate meetings.

Twelve adults in a room.

Nobody agrees.

Nobody believes the plan.

Nobody thinks the process makes sense.

But everyone nods.

The junior person thinks the senior people know better.

The senior person thinks the client wants it.

The client thinks the advisors recommended it.

The advisors are billing by the hour.

And suddenly everyone is travelling to Abilene.

Nobody wanted to go.

But there they are.

Smiling.

Taking notes.

Pretending the trip is strategic.

I’ve seen this for years.

Smart people staying silent because “the client would never accept that.”

Teams wasting months because “this is how we normally do it.”

Professionals nodding at stupidity because saying the truth creates tension.

And they were never trained to handle tension.

They were trained to be polite.

To prepare slides.

To circulate minutes.

To ask for feedback.

To say “happy to take this offline” while slowly dying inside.

But not to enter a difficult room and hold their position.

That is why I created The Room.

To help you stop being useless in the meetings that decide your career.

Inside, how to speak when the room gets tense.

How to challenge without sounding like an idiot.

How to defend your position.

How to identify the real issue behind the polite nonsense.

How to become the person who says what everyone else is thinking.

Before the whole team wastes six months travelling to Abilene.

The Room is below.

Get in.

Unless you enjoy the trip.

​The Room​

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

Yesterday at 23:59, the price of the two Hand-Back Requirements courses almost doubled. As announced. As promised. As warned. So if you bought them yesterday, congratulations. You acted like an adult. Rare. If you didn’t… Maybe you were busy. Maybe you had to feed your fish. Maybe your dog needed emotional support. Maybe your procurement committee required three working groups, two memos and a risk register before approving a very simple decision. Maybe you opened the email, thought “I should...

Tonight at 23:59, the price of the two Hand-Back Requirements courses almost doubles. That is the email. Now, let’s remove the excuses. You don’t need more information. You don’t need to “think about it.” You don’t need to ask your boss, your partner, your mentor, your procurement guru, your spirit animal or the guy in the office who still thinks financial close is the peak of human civilisation. You know whether this is for you. If you work in PPPs, concessions, infrastructure, lenders’...

It doesn’t matter what project we’re talking about. PPP or else. If I took a picture of most people negotiating a Project Agreement today and compared it with one from five years ago, you wouldn’t notice the difference. Same priorities. Same obsession with financial close. Same attention to construction risk. Same drama around LDs, relief events, variations, refinancing, performance deductions and lenders’ approvals. And the same silence around Hand-Back Requirements. Nothing has changed....