HIS LIFE
Hobbies
Trekking, exercise, reading, writing, and chatting. sometimes several of these activities simultaneously. On weekends, tennis. During the week, squash. At all times, reading, and at every opportunity, meeting to chat. An hour and a half—or until his cigar was entirely smoked—was the time Luis Valls allowed himself to enjoy a conversation with a friend. “A pleasure of the gods”, he would say, paraphrasing Plato. But how did a top banking executive find the time to do all these things?
All time, leisure time
He told a journalist1: “My life is organized as if all my time were leisure time”. This is what happens, he said, when you reach the position he held. Less stress, a good diet, and exercise. With simple tastes and sobriety as his standard, he eschewed a sophisticated life of leisure trips, yachts, or expensive shows. He was an avid reader and an accomplished writer. “It’s a way to recharge the batteries, half distraction, half relaxing work,” he used to say.
Squash
Twice a week, he played twenty minutes of squash on a court in the Beatriz Building in Madrid. Although he said almost all his time was free, he scheduled these games as just another appointment. Specifically, the six or eight o’clock slot. In a report about this sport, which gained many followers in the late 1980s he detailed his passion for squash to Futuro Empresarial2 magazine. The truth is that he liked the game because it involved a mixture of audaciousness and courtesy . “Any senior executive should be courteous and audacious” according to the reporter. Luis was in agreement and added the benefits of physical and mental exercise.
“My work requires me to spend many hours behind my desk, studying, writing, managing, reading, and discussing. All this creates stress and certainly deteriorates physical conditions. Playing squash allows me to maintain physical and mental balance more easily.”
Tennis Sundays
His real sporting passion, however, was tennis, which he played for an hour and a half every Sunday until his later years. He even played with Manolo Santana although he usually played against the same opponent, Juan López Quesada.
Bibliography
(1) Revista Panorama, 1 of February 1988. (2) Belén Del Hierro, article in the magazine Futuro Empresarial, may 1988.
