334. What If Slower Was The Secret To Success?
While I stress-eat through back-to-back Zooms, my clients are off the grid — and somehow still crushing it. Maybe going slow is the secret to success after all.
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My name is Jeff Matlow. I help leaders solve big problems fast.
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It’s August. My client Markus just texted me from a beach in Croatia.
Markus has been radio silent for three weeks. I’ve heard nary a peep from the lad. (I’m his leadership coach, which may or may not matter in this story.)
Earlier this week, I sent him an email. All I got in return was an auto-reply that said, “back in mid-August.”
Markus is the CEO of a tech company in Amsterdam. He has 200 employees, and they are killing it. His company’s revenue is on track to grow 35% this year. EBITDA will grow 40%.
Meanwhile, he’s spending an entire month incommunicado, hanging out at some postcard-perfect place with his family while I’m stress-eating chocolate-covered protein bars at 8 PM because I haven’t stopped volleying between video calls since 7 this morning.
Something is definitely wrong.
A Day In The Life Of My Secret To Success
My friend Tobin Trevarthen always gets me thinking. In a recent issue of his newsletter, ShiftStory, he dropped this knowledge:
In America, acceleration is a drug.
Every ping, every swipe, every calendar hold whispers:
Move faster. Do more. Don’t stop.In America, we’ve confused motion with progress so thoroughly that we’ve forgotten they’re different things.
I’ve read that quote about twenty times so far. Actually, I just read it again, so let’s make it twenty-one.
It’s the right message for me at the right time.
You see, I’ve been stressed lately. There is a voluminous amount of things on my to-do list. Deadlines are haunting me in my sleep, and I’m scared there isn’t enough time this month this year in my life to get them all done.
I’ve been jolting awake at 3 in the morning as if a defibrillator is attached to my dreams, shocking me into consciousness the moment I relax.
My mind feels like an F1 car at full speed, recklessly careening around turns in a desperate attempt to cross the finish line before I crash into a fiery wreck on the sidelines of life.
But there’s a truth I need to admit to myself: I love the chaos and calamity of over-commitment. I am most productive when I am most overwhelmed.
I suppose I am simply a product of the manic expectations of our increasingly manic society that proselytizes intensity as the secret of success
However, whenever I dip my toe into the pool of serenity, I realize my life is a hypocrisy. Or maybe it’s a dichotomy. If only I did better on the SATs, maybe I could figure out which problem I have.
You see, I’m pretty sure that my secret to success is to live the rest of my days rocking on the porch of a remote lakeside cabin. Give me books to read, a computer to write with, and an endless supply of trails to run on. That’s all I think I need. (Also, you. I need you. I appreciate you.)
And that’s why Tobin’s words have struck a majorly dissonant tone with me, kinda like if the last chord in that Beatles song “A Day In The Life” actually came to life.
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Is The Secret To Success To Be Busy?
In my executive coaching practice, I work with high-functioning leaders who like to move fast. Their lives are overbooked.
Their self-pride is inversely proportional to the number of hours they sleep on any given night. In fact, “busy” is their status symbol.
I truly love working with them. I love what I do to help bring out the better leader in wonderful people.
This is why I feel stuck. Because I am at once drawn into the life of being constantly on the go, while also wanting to do the same thing I do, but slower.
And that leads us to my main question:
Can we achieve the same level of success we desire, but do it by moving slower? Like, much slower. Rocking-chair-on-the-porch type of slower.
Tired People Sabotage Success
As I mentioned above, I coach and consult for a fair few leaders at European companies. Some of them are based in countries that have Right to Disconnect laws.
That means work-related conversations have a legal start and end time. Even if you have a game-changing epiphany in the middle of the night that you absolutely, positively need to share with your team, you still have to wait until official work hours. It’s the law.
One of my clients, the COO of a company based in Portugal, told me that they close the office at 4 pm every Friday. They don’t just do this during the summer - they do it throughout the year. You know why?
“Because tired people make expensive mistakes,” she told me (but she said it with a Portuguese accent).
It makes sense. It also makes me nervous. How can they grow if nobody is working?
As it turns out, they’ve figured it out. Her company has insanely high revenue retention, and - maybe sit down for this one - they average $2m in revenue per employee! That’s in. sane.
To put it in perspective, the average revenue per employee in the US is about $200k. From that perspective, they are 10x more successful than the average US company - and they do it all within work hours.
Oh, and in August, most companies in the entire European continent pretty much shut down.
They’re kicking our ass and they’re doing it in fewer hours over fewer months with presumably less stress.
Which brings us back to my client, Markus.
Is The Secret To Success Not To Care?
Markus is probably galavanting across Croatia right now as if he has no cares in the world. The thing is, he probably doesn’t.
But here in America, taking even a two-week vacation is grounds for leering looks and questions about your commitment to the company culture.
So tell me, are the Europeans moving slowly because they’re European, or are they moving slowly because they’ve figured out how to succeed at that pace?
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The Secret of Slow Success
One would think that there is less stress when you move slowly. But that’s wrong.
According to the Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988), it’s the mental effort of the work that causes the stress. You don’t reduce the stress by moving slowly, because the cognitive load doesn’t go away. However, by going slower, you have more time to work through the stress and, as a result, you can make better choices.
Going faster isn’t always the answer to stress. Oftentimes, it’s just the opposite. The Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908) found that stress actually increases performance, but only up to a point. Too much stress eventually leads to a decline in performance.
In other words, slowing down doesn’t reduce stress, but it allows you to keep stress levels in an optimal range for performance so you can increase your chances of success.
As my client in Portugal said, the stress of speed increases the chances of making expensive mistakes.
The Secret To Success Is Slow
Faster isn’t always better. Speed without focus is just time-wasting chaos.
The faster you move, the less time you have to make thoughtful decisions.
But what I’ve realized is that slow isn’t the opposite of successful - as long as we understand that “slow” is different than idle. Slow is when you:
Think before you react
Proactively build instead of reactively fix
Choose instead of accepting
Guide the team instead of constantly putting out fires
We’ve built a culture where “I don’t have time to think” is a badge of honor. The Europeans I work with have built one where “I don’t have time NOT to think” is a basic requirement in their secret to sucess.
The Secret To Going Slow
The secret to going slow isn’t about adjusting your to-do list; the secret is to adjust your relationship with urgency.
Here’s how.
Clean your calendar.
If every hour is booked with a meeting, you’re not busy - you’re not valuing your time. You’re probably not effectively choosing what is important and what isn’t. Change that.
Protect thinking time
If you’re not protecting your calendar, then you’re not protecting your slow time. Schedule and protect very specific time to think about growth.
Question the urgency
Most fires burn themselves out if you don’t feed them with panic. That email you think you have to respond to immediately? That fire may fizzle in another hour.
Measure yourself differently
Instead of “How much did I do today?” ask yourself, “How well did I think today?”
Take real breaks
Forget those phone breaks you always take. Put the phone away. Start taking “I’m unreachable and proud of it” breaks.
The Real Success Metric In The Secret To Success
Success isn’t how fast you move, it’s how intentionally you move. That’s important to remember.
And here’s the irony: The people who move slowly get there faster.
Plus, they enjoy their journey a lot more.
So here’s your challenge:
Protect one hour this week. Put it in your calendar right now.
No emails. No interruptions.
Just you, your thoughts, and the belief that moving slowly might be the fastest way forward.
Markus gets back from Croatia in 10 days.
I bet he’ll be ready to tackle the rest of the year in a ferociously slow way.
I’m trying not to be stressed about it.
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Love this reflection - feels like a gentle nudge to trade the hustle for a hammock. Maybe the real productivity hack is learning to pause with purpose.