Do you vote for the belief that everything is moving very fast?
Most of us grew up listening or reading the story of the race between the Hare & the Tortoise. How will we forget the moral of the story Slow & Steady Wins the Race? We further grew up and challenged the very logic by asking the question ‘how many times will a Hare go to sleep in the middle of a race such that the Tortoise could win the race’. It’s important to validate the assumptions underneath and hence it’s a very valid question. When we further grow up and learn, how to set or change context, we figure out that context is decisive.
Here’s a list that Slow & Steady still wins the race:
· Be very slow in growing up to retain child like curiosity and steady in creativity
· Be very slow in growing up to retain child like heart and steady in caring others
· Be very slow in losing your focus and steady in reaching your milestones
· Be very slow in forgetting and steady in helping
· Be very very slow in hurting and steady in loving
Now, let’s change the context to ‘Life’. With this context, I want you to enjoy the ‘SLOW DANCE’, a poem which my business partner Avinash Vaidya shared with me. I really enjoyed this poem, learnt from it and even got motivated to write this article.
SLOW DANCE
————————-
Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short
The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day
On The Fly?
When you ask how are you?
Do you hear
The Reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie
In your Bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through Your head?
You’d better Slow down
Don’t dance so Fast.
Time is Short.
The music won’t Last.
Ever told your Child,
We’ll do it Tomorrow?
And in your Haste,
Not see His Sorrow?
Ever lost Touch,
Let a good
Friendship die
Cause you
Never had time
To call
And say, “Hi”
You’d Better slow down.
Don’t dance
So fast.
Time Is short
The music won’t last
When you run
So fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away
Life is not a race
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
I feel, Winners are probably those who understand the meaning of life well (slowly) and live it steadily.
Changing the context to management, you will observe that successful people spend enough time (Slow) in Thinking / Strategizing / Planning and are Steady in Performing / Executing / Validating.
This list could be endless…because we all know that context is decisive.
“Slow and Steady wins the race with a winning context” – Naveen Lakkur
Leaders never stop Learning, they find every opportunity to apply their learning and real leaders learn a lot by teaching what they have learnt. They also ensure one thing at all times, to ENJOY the whole cycle.
