One of the best parts of being a coach is how much you learn from your clients. Like the senior director of the toy company I told you about last time, whose development is galloping ahead due to his regular reflection.

He has also been the inspiration for this idea:

You have to go slow, to go fast.

Or put the other way, to go fast, you need to go slow.

I love these paradoxical thoughts. Two opposites that should negate each other and yet they don’t.

My client is experimenting with giving his team a mission and letting them figure out how to get there. But he was getting impatient, he felt things weren’t moving fast enough, they wanted to go away and have a 3 hour meeting to work through their plan.

He couldn’t believe it, they definitely didn’t need 3 more hours but he let them go away and do things their way.

The result? They came up with a much better plan than the one in his head and the bonus was that he didn’t need to spend countless hours getting them onboard with his plan. He spent an hour where it could’ve been days. It felt excruciatingly slow in the beginning but now the team are steaming ahead.

I’ve noticed how going slow to go fast is playing out in my life too.

Before Easter I attended an Energy Map workshop by my dear friend Tee Tywford. She has developed this great concept of Hustle + Hush, that to have the energy to Hustle smarter you also need to Hush deeper.

My big takeaway from the workshop was that I was all Hustle and little Hush. As a business owner, the Hustle is exciting AND I could see that if I didn’t get some more Hush I’d quickly slip into burnout. But hey, it was ok because I had scheduled the week after Easter off.

Or had I?

On Tuesday, my husband asked me what I was doing and I talked about some business planning activities I was going to do. He looked at me quizzically and said, “you’ve taken a  week off work to do work?” Yeah, not really Hushing, so I downed tools and headed to the garden instead.

Since then I have been mulling over what it means to Hush deeper and I’ve scheduled time in my diary to be away from work and do whatever I want. Watch tv, read, cross stitch, go for a walk, garden.

And now, just like my client, I’m noticing my impatience. Things are feeling excruciatingly slow and I’m wondering if I need to up the Hustle?

One of the things I notice when I’m coaching is that when I feel like we aren’t getting to the insight fast enough I’m tempted to push, to be more directive and result is that we tend to get stuck. Yet, when I let the conversation ramble* as it needs to, the rush of energy and insight hits us like a freight train at full speed.

It’s been interesting to notice my impatience and sit with it rather than acting on impulse. There’s an energy behind that impatience and I wonder where I could direct that energy instead. I’m reminded of the race between the Tortoise and the Hare, the Tortoise  winning through consistent pace vs the Hare’s impulsiveness. And as consistency is my word of the year perhaps that’s where I can put my impatient energy.

One to keep reflecting on for sure.

But what about you? What are your thoughts on going slow to go fast? Drop me a line and let me know.

*Tee makes a great point that we tend to apologise for rambling when we speak, like its a bad thing but in nature rambling is purely positive. In the UK we ramble through fields and woods as a way to connect with nature and a rambling rose is full of abundance. So there is no apologising for rambling when you’re with me, it is enthusiastically encouraged.