The Spain Effect: How a New Yorker Learned to Wait in Line
I didn’t move to Spain for the culture. I moved because of a ban.
In 2011, I was a professional poker player. I was grinding live games and online tables, living that high-speed, high-risk life. Then “Black Friday” hit. Online poker was effectively banned in the US.
I was in Bristol, UK, visiting my wife’s family, and I had a choice:
Go back to the grind, or pivot.
I chose the pivot. We moved to Spain.
The New York Burnout vs. The Spanish Cashier
Coming from New York City, my operating system was wired for speed. In NYC, if you take more than 3 seconds to pay for your coffee, you are an enemy of the state.
Spain broke me.
Stores closed at 3pm, and sometimes reopened later, seemingly never at the scheduled time. I remember standing in line at the grocery store early on. The person in front of me was having a full, animated conversation with the cashier. They were talking about the weather, their families, the ham, completely unbothered by the line forming behind them.
My New York brain wanted to scream.
“Move! We have things to do!”
But then I realized something.
They weren’t being rude.
They were being grounded.
They were prioritizing the human moment over the transaction.
I decided right then to make a deal with myself. Outwardly, I would relax. I would learn to wait in line. But inwardly? I knew I still had the speed of the fiber-optic internet waiting for me at home.
This became the foundation of my life here: Slow World Outside, Fast World Inside.
The “Team” Trap
For the last decade, I used that speed to build things for other people.
I ran social media for major poker sites behind the scenes.
In 2020, I started an Esports team, HypeHorizen. Great idea, wrong people. Like pulling the plug on a computer, it failed.
I launched a clothing brand, from HypeHorizen in 2023. It taught me sourcing, logistics, and the brutal reality of shipping to the US.
I’ve always been a “people pleaser.” I spent years aligning my energy with other people’s agendas, trying to push teams that didn’t want to move as fast as I did. I was a Ferrari engine stuck in a vengabus.
People have told me for years, “Mark, you’re a walking encyclopedia. You need to teach.” But I was too busy building everyone else’s dreams and empires.
The Solo Pivot
Besides playing poker, VengaDragon is the first time in my life I am going solo.
No partners. No shipping logistics. No “unaligned agendas.”
It is just me, my 55 years of lessons (the poker, the sourcing, the failures), and the 35-year-old speed of the AI tools I use.
I realized that all those “failures” (the clothing brand struggles, the esports crash) weren’t wasted time. They were R&D. They were the training ground that taught me how to be the face of a brand, how to create content, and how to spot a bad deal.
The Spain Effect
Spain didn’t make me slower. It grounded me enough to let me focus.
I live here for the weather. I live here because the internet is fast. But mostly, I live here because it taught me that you don’t need to be rushing 24/7 to be effective.
You can wait in line at the grocery store, have a chat with the cashier, and then go home and build a media company at the speed of light.
That is the Venga way.
Venga!
Mark (VengaDragon)
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If you know someone who’s been building for everyone else’s agenda instead of their own, someone who’s tired of being the Ferrari engine in someone else’s minivan, forward this issue to them. Tell them it’s time to go solo.
The tools are free. The internet is fast. And your place like Spain aren’t going anywhere.
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I showed you why I am where I am in Spain.
The lesson I learned waiting in that grocery line applies to everything I build now. Speed matters, but so does being grounded. AI tools give me the velocity of a 35-year-old, but my 55 years of experience is the filter that keeps me from flying off the rails.
You can move fast and still get it right. You just need to know when to wait your turn and when to sprint.
In the comments: What’s your version of “Slow World Outside, Fast World Inside”? Where do you let yourself slow down so you can speed up where it matters?