Slow Down

And You Just Might Go Faster

I love Costco. Low prices, great options, $1.50 hotdogs, and many other factors contribute to my affinity for the wholesale giant, but their cashiers stand out in particular. My wife and I commonly use self-checkout stations at almost any other store, but Costco is always the exception. Aside from the consistently positive demeanor they carry, Costco checkout staff are *incredibly* proficient in their role. During one of my first trips, still fascinated by the novelty, I remarked, “wow, y’all are fast” to which the checker replied:

“No, no. Don’t say that. We aren’t fast, we’re efficient.”

Of course, the Industrial Engineer in me absolutely loved this. Efficiency is the combination of swiftness, precision, and accuracy - minimizing time without sacrificing quality.

My mind drifts to a race. Of course, the goal is to be as fast as possible; to be the first to finish. But winning a race isn’t about sticking your foot on the gas without letting up - you would crash into the first turn. Rather, there’s a sweet spot. If you drive on a very specific line, you can reach a certain speed without spinning out of control. The closer you are to that speed, the better. Much like The Price is Right, you want to be as close as possible without going over.

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There are plenty of theories as to why people try to move too fast, but the one that resonates with me the most is feeling like I’m behind. (Cue the influencer who claims he’s 21 and a multimillionaire promoting his 5-step plan from a yacht…) We are fed so much nonsense of what or who we “should be” when instead we ought to focus on moving forward. Hustle culture says its about how fast you drive, but success culture says it’s about how well you drive fast.

Comparison is indeed the thief of joy. We benchmark ourselves to where we want to be and ask “why am I not there yet?” Worse yet, we justify our irrational self-deprecation by pointing at someone who is already there, completely ignoring that they started their journey years prior. (And, newsflash, that 21-year-old on Instagram is on his buddy’s dad’s yacht and is trying to scam you. Just saying… )

If a man is a beginner in the gym, would it be wise for me to drag him through an expert workout routine? No. It might kill him. Worse, it might kill his belief that he can grow at all. Instead, he ought to slow down.

Lets say we start him with benching 50 pounds for 3 sets of 10 reps. If he was able to complete all three sets, we would scale him up for the next workout. Depending on how easily he completed them, we might even skip a couple steps in his growth chart. Eventually, we’ll find that sweet spot weight that he can *barely* complete, and then the real growth starts. Had he started his journey trying to bench 300 pounds, he wouldn’t have lasted long. But by starting slow and accelerating into a speed he can *just* maintain, he’ll get there one day.

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The smartest people in the world love to learn. The best athletes love the game they play. The best speakers love to teach and encourage others. They aren’t transfixed by the goal, but they are enamored with the process of getting there. They savor its aspects - the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the failures, the good days and the bad - all of them part of a path that leads to glory. Glory, however, was never the objective, but the path itself. And when you love the journey, you learn how to take it slow instead of rushing perfection. Success then isn’t just possible, it is inevitable.