How might slowing down the pace of your days shift what’s possible, instead of staying back-to-back and constantly swamped?
It’s the end of my third week working with Mobius, and I have to say, the difference in working culture from McKinsey (and, to be fair, most of the corporate world) is massive. For the past ten years, I have been immersed in a culture of overload – a world where there is too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. “I’m swamped” and “I’m back-to-back all day” were common phrases. I don’t mean to sound critical of McKinsey – there are many wonderful aspects of its culture as well – but I hadn’t realised what a rhythm I had gotten into of waking up, doing my morning practices (yoga, meditation), eating breakfast, and then embarking on the waterslide of the day ahead, emerging at the end of the day as if shot out from the bottom into a G&T and an episode of Succession. There’s a famous (short) story by David Foster Wallace where two fish are having a conversation, and a third fish swims by and says, “How’s the water today?” The two fish look at each other and one says: “What’s water?” That’s what had happened to me over the past 10 years – I was so immersed in the culture of overwork that I didn’t even think twice about it.
By contrast, my days with Mobius are MUCH more spacious. I would describe the culture as ‘emergent’ – we have enough space in our experience for beautiful ideas and offerings to emerge. We are encouraged to immerse ourselves in learning. For the first half of this week, a part of me was feeling anxious. Why are my days not packed, and back-to-back? Does that mean I’m not adding value? What happens if I’m under-utilized? There’s so much MORE I could be DOING!!!
But then I came across a quote by Karmapa, the head of a school of Tibetan Buddhism, that brought my experience into sharp focus: “Brilliant ideas occur to people when their minds are relaxed and open.” And then, of course, I realised that this is the culture a company like Mobius needs in order to do the work it does in the world. We can’t facilitate deep transformational work with clients if we, as practitioners, are feeling constrained and overwhelmed. It doesn’t work. The energy would be all wrong. We need our minds (and our hearts, and our bodies) to be relaxed and open. And to reach that state of being (NOT doing), we need to actively cultivate spaciousness and luxuriate in it.
I remember, in my early days at McKinsey, when Zafer Achi, a Partner in Dubai, was late for a faculty call for a leadership workshop we were running the following week. When I called him to see if he would be able to join, he said “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was lost in a book on leadership.” That sentence became an aspiration for me – what an amazing thing to be lost in a book on leadership on a Tuesday afternoon. And now this is my life experience as well. Time enough to get lost in new ideas, when my mind is relaxed and open enough to shift the energy of others’ experience. To be able to slow down the pace enough so that new possibilities emerge. I’m so grateful.
I woke up this morning with Billy Joel’s song Vienna playing in my mind. I grew up listening to Billy Joel – he was one of my parents’ favourite artists. My mom even met him in a bar when he played at her university (before he was massively famous) – she said “I don’t really know who you are, but my friend Karen loves you. Will you sign this napkin?” So, Billy Joel is a big part of our lives. R makes fun of me for my love of his music, but actually, if you listen to it, he can be quite poignant. The Stranger, And So It Goes, and 2000 Years are some of my favourites (I’m sure at least some people watching this are going on a nostalgic walk down memory lane via YouTube or Spotify right now. In the spirit of spaciousness, I just watched all three of these live performances in full).
Vienna, to me, is about slowing down the pace of life so it doesn’t pass you by (“you’d better cool it off before you burn it out.”) It’s a song I wish I could play to every insecure over-achiever in the corporate world, as a way of letting them know that, as Billy Joel sings, “it’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two.” I looked up what ‘Vienna’ means to him – apparently, it was one of his two favourite songs on his album The Stranger. If you’re curious, you can read the story here; in brief, it’s about reframing what it means to get older, inspired by a visit to his father in Vienna.
Whatever it meant to Billy Joel, I hope this week’s Friday Pause also inspires you to ask yourself: “What’s one thing I can do to slow down my own pace a little bit, so I can cultivate a more relaxed, open mind from which brilliant ideas can emerge?”
