Slowing Down Isn't About The Speed you are Travelling

Ever played sleeping lions? The one where kids have to hold still for 60 seconds. 

What I notice when I’ve played is how differently the same amount of time is experienced. Some think it's over in half the time. Others settle in and just... wait.

Time really is a perception. And slowing down doesn't have to mean taking more of it, it’s a state of mind not a speed. 

When people talk about slowing down, they sometimes mean doing less, moving at a different pace, creating space in the calendar.

That can be one version. But it's not the only one.

You can be moving fast, under pressure, with a head full of competing agendas – and still be slow in the way that matters.

It's a standpoint, not a speed.

One leader I worked with recently was good at their job by every visible measure. Capable. Respected. On top of the detail.

But when demands increased, something shifted and their pace would increase to compensate. Rushing to fill silence before finishing their thinking. Arriving at meetings not quite knowing where they stood and leaving conversations having been moved further than they'd intended. Reactive rather than responsive.

They didn't need to slow down. They needed the clarity to be fully with their immediate challenge. Hold the space till a way forward crystallised.

That was the work. Not pace. Presence.

Over time three things changed. They got more comfortable with silence, their own and other people's. They started arriving at meetings already knowing what they thought, so the loudest voice in the room stopped being the most influential one. And in high pressure moments they stopped absorbing the urgency around them and started responding from their own position.

Same pace. Same demands. Completely different experience.

That's what slowing down can mean at senior levels. Not quieter. Not less. Just — grounded before it counts.

Because you can't think clearly from inside someone else's momentum.

In your pressured moments, are you responding from your own position? Or from the pace the environment has set for you?

Slowing Down Isn't About The Speed you are Travelling