I went to his office for work. That was the plan. Nothing philosophical, nothing profound—just a regular professional visit.

His office, perched high above the city, reflected everything he had built: expansive glass walls, immaculate desks, screens glowing with data, assistants moving in and out with purpose. On paper, it was the definition of achievement. In reality, it felt like a place that never exhaled.

He wasn’t late—but he was unavailable.

As I sat across from him, he was signing documents, replying to messages, giving instructions, approving decisions that felt both urgent and oddly small for someone holding a national-level position. Every two minutes, someone walked in. Every five minutes, his phone buzzed. Every conversation was punctuated with “just a second.”

That second never ended.

“I’m listening,” he said at one point, eyes still on the screen.

I smiled. “I know.”

I watched him for a while. Not judgmentally—curiously.

Here was a man trusted with strategy, scale, and leadership, yet consumed by operational details. The irony wasn’t lost on me. The higher he had climbed, the narrower his attention had become.

At some point, I said gently, “Do you realize you haven’t taken a breath since I walked in?”

He laughed it off. “This is normal. This is how it has to be.”

That sentence stayed with me. This is how it has to be.

Is it though?

Eventually, he waved his assistant away and turned his chair toward me fully—as if offering me the courtesy of his presence.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just one of those days.”

I looked around. “Isn’t it always one of those days?”

He paused. Just for a second.

“That’s the job,” he replied. “If I slow down, things pile up. If I step back, control slips.”

That’s when the real conversation began.

“Do you ever feel,” I asked, “that you’re managing everything except yourself?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Leaders are trained to respond quickly. Silence is not their comfort zone.

“I used to believe,” I told him, “that being constantly needed meant being important. That availability was leadership.”

He nodded vigorously. “Exactly.”

“But somewhere along the way,” I continued, “it started feeling like erosion. Like I was present everywhere except in my own life.”

He leaned back, rubbing his temples. “I don’t even remember what a slow day feels like.”

That confession didn’t sound like pride. It sounded like loss.

He looked at me and said, “People depend on me. At this level, slowing down feels irresponsible.”

I didn’t contradict him immediately. Instead, I asked, “Do they depend on you… or on the system you’ve built around urgency?”

That question unsettled him.

Slowing down scares people like him because their identity is deeply tied to motion. Stillness feels like weakness. Pauses feel like gaps where things might fall apart.

But what if slowing down isn’t abandoning responsibility—what if it’s choosing discernment?

I gestured around his office. “Look at this space. Everything here is designed for efficiency, speed, output. Where in this room is there space to think?”

He smiled ruefully. “Thinking happens between meetings.”

“And how often does that happen?”

Another silence. The truth is, environments reflect inner states. His office mirrored his mind: productive, impressive, and relentlessly crowded

He finally asked, quietly, “So what does slowing down even mean for someone like me?”

That was the most honest question of the day.

“Slowing down,” I said, “doesn’t mean doing less. It means doing fewer things with more awareness.”

It means:

• Letting go of the illusion that everything needs your immediate attention
• Accepting that some fires don’t need you to personally put them out
• Creating space before life forces it through burnout or illness

What I did, I shared wuth him, which was definitely not easy…….

We need to stop confusing urgency with importance
Not everything that demands attention deserves energy. Leaders burn out when they treat every issue as existential.

We need to build time that is not accountable to output
Time where nothing is expected of you except presence. This is not laziness—it’s maintenance.

We must delegate the small, preserve the significant
If your mind is cluttered with nitty-gritties, it has no room for vision.

We must allow ourselves to be temporarily unreachable
Being unavailable is not abandonment. It’s boundary-setting.

He listened—really listened this time.

He admitted something most people at his level never say out loud.

“When I stop, I feel restless. Almost anxious.”

I nodded. “Because slowing down removes distraction. And distraction protects us from uncomfortable truths.”

Slowness brings you face-to-face with questions you’ve postponed:

• Am I fulfilled or just effective?
• Is this pace sustainable?
• Who am I when I’m not needed?

These are not questions the office calendar makes room for—but life eventually demands answers.

As our meeting wrapped up, his assistant knocked again. He raised a finger, signaling “later.”

That small gesture felt significant.

“You know,” he said, “I always thought ambition meant expansion. More responsibility, more scale, more speed.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now it feels like ambition might be about longevity. About being able to do this—and still be alive inside.”

That, to me, is the shift.

The new ambition is not to be everywhere.
It is to be present somewhere.

When I left his office that day, nothing dramatic had changed. His calendar was still full. His role was still demanding. But something subtle had entered the room—a question.

And sometimes, slowing down begins not with action, but with awareness.

In a world obsessed with acceleration, choosing to slow down is no longer a luxury.

It is the bravest ambition of all.