Episode 6
What's Next with Carl Honoré
We have a quick chat with Carl Honoré about slowing down!
Carl is the voice of the Slow Movement. "In a world addicted to speed, slowness is a superpower!"
ABOUT CARL HONORÉ
Carl Honoré is a bestselling author, broadcaster and the global voice of the Slow Movement. His two main-stage TED Talks have racked up millions of views.
His first book, In Praise of Slow, chronicles the global trend toward putting on the brakes in everything from work to food to parenting. The Financial Times said it is “to the Slow Movement what Das Kapital is to communism.”
Carl’s second book, Under Pressure explores how to raise and educate children in a fast world and was hailed by Time as a “gospel of the Slow Parenting movement.”
Carl’s third book, The Slow Fix, explores how to tackle complex problems in every walk of life, from health and relationships to business and politics, without falling for superficial, short-term quick fixes.
Carl’s latest book, Bolder: Making The Most Of Our Longer Lives, explores ageing – how we can do it better and feel better about doing it. It’s also a spirited manifesto against ageism.
Published in 35 languages, his books have landed on bestseller lists in many countries. In Praise of Slow was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and the inaugural choice for the Huffington Post Book Club. It also featured in a British TV sitcom, Argentina’s version of Big Brother and a TV commercial for the Motorola tablet. Under Pressure was shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Award, the top prize for non-fiction in Canada. Bolder was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and a Reader’s Digest (UK) Book of the Month.
Carl featured in a series for BBC Radio 4 called The Slow Coach in which he helped frazzled, over-scheduled people slow down. He also presented a television show called Frantic Family Rescue on Australia’s ABC 1.
Carl is an advisor to Jack Media, which makes messaging apps, and sits on the Board of Trustees of Hewitt School in New York City.
Carl lives in London. While researching his first book on slowness he was slapped with a speeding ticket.
**CARL'S LINKS**
www.carlhonore.info
twitter.com/carlhonore
**FOLLOW US**
INSTAGRAM - www.instagram.com/activeintworld
TWITTER - twitter.com/ActiveIntlUK
KARIM - twitter.com/karimkanji
PODCAST WEBSITE - www.thewhatsnextpodcast.com
Transcript
- Hello, I'm Carl Honoré.
Speaker:I'm a journalist, author and a speaker, broadcaster.
Speaker:And for the last sort of 15 years,
Speaker:I've been the voice of what's called a Slow Movement.
Speaker:So I've been traveling around the world
Speaker:sometimes quite quickly, making the case for slowing down
Speaker:arguing that in a world addicted to speed,
Speaker:slowness is a superpower.
Speaker:- [Karim] Carl, thank you so much for joining me today,
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:- Thanks, great to be with you.
Speaker:- [Karim] Carl, talk to me more about Slow Movement.
Speaker:What does that actually mean?
Speaker:- Well, I think what it doesn't mean, to start off with it,
Speaker:it doesn't mean doing everything very slowly.
Speaker:I mean, that would be absurd, it'd be preposterous,
Speaker:I'm not an extremist or a fundamentalist of slowness.
Speaker:I love speed, faster is often better we all know that,
Speaker:this Slow revolution, Slow with a capital S
Speaker:this is about doing things at the right speed.
Speaker:So it's about knowing that sometimes fast is the way to go
Speaker:but other times you want to slow things down, right?
Speaker:So there's turbo mode but there's also tortoise mode.
Speaker:Musicians talk about the tempo giusto,
Speaker:the correct tempo for each moment.
Speaker:That's a way of thinking about slow.
Speaker:It's a mindset really, it's quality over quantity,
Speaker:it's being present in the moment, doing one thing at a time.
Speaker:Ultimately slow is about doing everything
Speaker:not as fast as possible, but as well as possible.
Speaker:- [Karim] Interesting, if we just think back a year
Speaker:if not just a little bit more, we'd wake up early,
Speaker:quickly get dressed, quickly leave the house
Speaker:drive through traffic as quickly as possible
Speaker:quickly get to work, to finish things at work
Speaker:as quickly as possible, to quickly get home.
Speaker:And if we had kids or have kids,
Speaker:how quickly we can get them to soccer or piano or hockey
Speaker:to then quickly get home
Speaker:and things are always quick, quick, quick.
Speaker:- No, I was going to say, I mean this is the state
Speaker:of the modern world is that we're all racing
Speaker:through our lives instead of living them.
Speaker:The virus of hurry has infected
Speaker:every corner of our existence so that everything feels
Speaker:like a dash to the finish line
Speaker:and it's reached ludicrous levels.
Speaker:I mean, you can attend speed yoga classes
Speaker:or drive through funerals,
Speaker:I mean, there's nothing we won't accelerate now.
Speaker:And people always say, well, I can't slow down
Speaker:because life will pass me by,
Speaker:that's completely the wrong way to think about it
Speaker:because life is happening right here right now.
Speaker:And the only way to get the most out of it
Speaker:is to slow down and be in the moment with that slow spirit.
Speaker:- [Karim] And do you think that the pandemic
Speaker:has helped people realize the benefit of slowing down?
Speaker:Because we're not rushing,
Speaker:like I don't need to rush from my bedroom to my desk.
Speaker:- Hallelujah.
Speaker:Yeah, I think the pandemic is a great moment
Speaker:of global reset.
Speaker:It's forced the world to go
Speaker:through a mandatory workshop in slowness, right?
Speaker:And I'm not a fan of the pandemic
Speaker:it has been a total nightmare, right?
Speaker:- [Karim] Of course, yes.
Speaker:- But I think the silver lining,
Speaker:the silver lining, I think is that people have experienced
Speaker:the good side of slow, right?
Speaker:So if you look at the whole boom
Speaker:and home cooking and home baking,
Speaker:all the walking people are doing.
Speaker:People talking about having time to listen
Speaker:and spend time with their loved ones
Speaker:and families that are the ones that live with anyway,
Speaker:and also feeling more productive, getting more done at work
Speaker:'cause they're not distracted,
Speaker:they're not fast all the time.
Speaker:And they're able to control their speed,
Speaker:their rhythms work-wise.
Speaker:And also just on a structural collective level
Speaker:you're seeing cities around the world,
Speaker:closing down roads to traffic
Speaker:and making them now pedestrianized
Speaker:or setting the side for cycling.
Speaker:So we're slowing down the rhythm of transport
Speaker:through our urban landscapes.
Speaker:There are many things now,
Speaker:that people are coming out thinking,
Speaker:well, I've had a bunch of months now where I
Speaker:as you say, haven't been rushing, right?
Speaker:I've rushed less, I've done less, I've spent less
Speaker:and they're thinking, you know what?
Speaker:I wouldn't mind hanging on
Speaker:to a little bit of that when this pandemic passes.
Speaker:- [Karim] That is so true.
Speaker:I want to focus a little bit on work.
Speaker:And what that means for people that want to embrace,
Speaker:the Slow Movement or slowness
Speaker:and what that means for work as a whole.
Speaker:Do you have thoughts on that?
Speaker:- Definitely, people think that slowing down means
Speaker:you're a loser or you're a slacker, you're unproductive,
Speaker:it's synonymous.
Speaker:This is part of the taboo against slow.
Speaker:It goes so deep in our culture that slow is a dirty word,
Speaker:it's a byword for lazy, unproductive,
Speaker:everything nobody wants to be especially at work, right?
Speaker:But actually slow is crucial in the modern workplace
Speaker:even more than it was in the industrial era, right?
Speaker:Because we're knowledge workers
Speaker:and human brains need those slow moments.
Speaker:The Economist Magazine did a big survey looking
Speaker:at the pace of business and the working world
Speaker:before the pandemic and came to a conclusion
Speaker:that's a perfect summation of the slow creed.
Speaker:The final paragraph of that Economist survey was
Speaker:something like it said, "Forget frantic acceleration
Speaker:"mastering the clock of business means choosing
Speaker:"when to be fast," right?
Speaker:We all know that bit.
Speaker:"But also when to be slow," right?
Speaker:When to be fast and when to be slow.
Speaker:So the future of work lies in that on off switch, right?
Speaker:So when to be on, when to be off when to lean in
Speaker:but also when to lean back, right?
Speaker:It's about mastering all those different rhythms
Speaker:and paces, knowing when to switch off
Speaker:and when to switch on, relearning the lost art
Speaker:of shifting gears and that, those are the people.
Speaker:The people who master that art,
Speaker:which I just described as the art of slow in a sense,
Speaker:those are the people who will inherit the earth,
Speaker:starting in the workplace.
Speaker:- [Karim] I'm thinking it's more of a mindset, right?
Speaker:Rather than the speed of how things get done?
Speaker:- Exactly, because you could be moving very fast
Speaker:but on the inside, you're calm, you're focused,
Speaker:you're still, you're in control.
Speaker:It's like athletes talk about being in the zone, right?
Speaker:They're moving through a hockey game, a football game,
Speaker:a soccer game, a tennis match at superhuman speeds.
Speaker:But on the inside, they are super calm, right?
Speaker:They are still, there almost serene.
Speaker:And that's that mindset,
Speaker:when you regain that ability to shift gears
Speaker:to have slow moments, to move into faster moments,
Speaker:to move fluidly between the two.
Speaker:Then when you're in the fast moment
Speaker:and everything is spinning around you at 100 miles an hour,
Speaker:you're like an Oasis of Zen, right?
Speaker:You can control it much better.
Speaker:And that's why they've shown that people who meditate
Speaker:over a period of time develop more density
Speaker:in this cerebral cortex which allows them
Speaker:to process information faster,
Speaker:which brings me to what I always think
Speaker:of as the delicious paradox of slow.
Speaker:That those who slow down with meditation,
Speaker:which is one of the slowest things you can do
Speaker:short of sleeping, are better able to cope in the fast world
Speaker:all that data and distraction coming at us
Speaker:than those who never slowed down at all, right?
Speaker:So I come back to what I said at the beginning,
Speaker:in a world addicted to speed,
Speaker:slowness really as a superpower.
Speaker:- [Karim] That's really fascinating.
Speaker:There's a lot of...
Speaker:It's interesting that you talk about meditation.
Speaker:I've seen, on Twitter, especially a lot of senior executives
Speaker:or people that you would sort of look up to as successful
Speaker:have embraced meditation recently.
Speaker:- Exactly, you can't swing a cat
Speaker:without hitting a mindfulness program, right?
Speaker:In the corporate world at all levels from the C-suite
Speaker:right down to the factory floor because it works, right?
Speaker:The science is crystal clear
Speaker:that meditation sharpens concentration,
Speaker:reduces feelings of stress, enhances feelings of calm,
Speaker:produce wellbeing.
Speaker:And does that other thing I said a moment ago,
Speaker:that allows you to handle and cope with the barrage
Speaker:of speed that's going around you.
Speaker:So it's an ace-in-the-hole, it's a no brainer,
Speaker:which is why people including
Speaker:and maybe even especially the fastest sectors
Speaker:of the global economy, like Silicon Valley, tech,
Speaker:Wall Street are all over meditation, right?
Speaker:Because they're not doing it
Speaker:'cause it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling,
Speaker:well they probably get that too
Speaker:but they're certainly not doing it
Speaker:because it gives them a halo of new ageism, right?
Speaker:They're doing it 'cause it works.
Speaker:These are people who measure things
Speaker:by the bottom line, output and metrics.
Speaker:And they know that meditation,
Speaker:the ultimate act of slow, delivers.
Speaker:- [Karim] There's, I can't remember the name of the app
Speaker:but I've seen commercials and I don't know whether it says
Speaker:as I was watching the US presidential election
Speaker:and everything happening there, or as I'm watching sports
Speaker:but there would be like a 15 second commercial
Speaker:or a 30 second commercial
Speaker:that a meditation app would be advertising.
Speaker:And it would say, "We're giving you
Speaker:"back 30 seconds of your life just breathe."
Speaker:And that's all it does for the 30 second commercial.
Speaker:And there's sort of like a timer there
Speaker:where all you're doing is just breathing
Speaker:or that's what it empowers the viewer to do.
Speaker:So it's really interesting.
Speaker:- I love that.
Speaker:- [Karim] Yeah.
Speaker:- It's sort of gloriously counter-cultural, isn't it?
Speaker:Because so much of especially TV advertising
Speaker:is breathless, right?
Speaker:It's this bombardment of sensory distraction and information
Speaker:and then to take an ad and flip it around
Speaker:and say, actually we're going to give you 30 seconds
Speaker:just to breathe.
Speaker:Don't be breathless, breath, be breath full.
Speaker:It's a nice spin on it there.
Speaker:I think, just if I could just make a little addition here
Speaker:to the work discussion and slow, and so on of the pandemic,
Speaker:I think one of the benefits of the pandemic,
Speaker:or one of the lessons that we're going to take away
Speaker:is that what the pandemic has done for many people
Speaker:has given them control over their own working rhythms,
Speaker:their own times.
Speaker:And that's something you were already beginning to see
Speaker:as part of the Slow Movement of the workplace
Speaker:before the pandemic.
Speaker:Was that forward-looking companies were saying to staff,
Speaker:okay, we understand that everybody
Speaker:has different metronomes, internal metronomes.
Speaker:So some people are going to thrive getting up at six
Speaker:in the morning, (indistinct) report out by eight.
Speaker:Others will be better off sleeping till nine
Speaker:and getting up and doing their creative work between nine...
Speaker:And this is what I think companies will be doing
Speaker:more and more in the future is saying,
Speaker:okay, here's the big deadline at the end,
Speaker:we've got six weeks to get there.
Speaker:You work out how you're going to use your time
Speaker:between now and then, either individually or in your team.
Speaker:So if you want to come in at three in the morning
Speaker:on a Saturday to knock out some code, go for it.
Speaker:But if you want to leave the office or leave the desk
Speaker:at noon on Thursday to go watch your daughter do ballet
Speaker:or your son play basketball, or whatever,
Speaker:you do that too, right?
Speaker:Because we trust you.
Speaker:And that's why I think a lot of companies
Speaker:that have found themselves just forced by the pandemic
Speaker:to give more autonomy, more temporal autonomy control
Speaker:over their time to their staff
Speaker:are seeing this big productivity payoff.
Speaker:So I think we're going to see a lot more of that in future
Speaker:and that's completely in harmony with the Slow revolution.
Speaker:That's a big part of what it's all about.
Speaker:It's giving people control over their own time
Speaker:and their own rhythms.
Speaker:- [Karim] That's also like a mind shift,
Speaker:for management to be able to,
Speaker:I'm not saying that there's no trust there
Speaker:but it's almost like,
Speaker:we've got these regular check-ins, right?
Speaker:So whether it's a weekly check-in
Speaker:or it's people know if you're online
Speaker:or not at nine o'clock or 8:30,
Speaker:especially we're all connected with all these,
Speaker:whether it's devices or whether it's software,
Speaker:where you know whether your coworkers
Speaker:are quote unquote online.
Speaker:And I'm wondering, sort of that challenge
Speaker:of working from home, if there's this understanding
Speaker:that you've got a home life, you've got a family life,
Speaker:you've got a work life
Speaker:and there's this need for balance,
Speaker:versus this idea of
Speaker:my boss knows when I'm working
Speaker:and that challenge, push and pull challenge.
Speaker:- There's a big challenge there.
Speaker:And I am not at all a fan of the software programs
Speaker:that measure everybody's movements
Speaker:and presence of the computer took down to the last second.
Speaker:I think that that's actually going
Speaker:in the wrong direction.
Speaker:I mean, the traditional workplace has been one
Speaker:of command and control, right?
Speaker:It's you rule from the top by fear.
Speaker:And that probably made a lot of sense
Speaker:in the Victorian factory,
Speaker:it doesn't make sense in the knowledge economy, right?
Speaker:When people need to be relaxing, they need to tap
Speaker:into what psychologists called slow thinking, right?
Speaker:The kind of creative blue sky innovative thinking
Speaker:that comes when we are in a relaxed state,
Speaker:networking, team building,
Speaker:All that stuff you can't download that from an app
Speaker:or mandate it with a tight schedule, right?
Speaker:These things only flourish
Speaker:and blossom when the powers that be back off
Speaker:and give everyone else in the trenches,
Speaker:the space, the time and the freedom just to breathe, right?
Speaker:Coming back to breathing,
Speaker:just to let things happen at their pace.
Speaker:I'm not saying you don't have any control
Speaker:but I think again, before the pandemic
Speaker:what we were starting to see again,
Speaker:among smart thinking, forward looking companies
Speaker:was a move away from the top down control,
Speaker:fingers around the neck of your subordinates approach
Speaker:and giving devolving power out, devolving freedom,
Speaker:handing out autonomy and seeing a payoff, right?
Speaker:And you put your finger on a very important word there,
Speaker:which is trust.
Speaker:Yeah, there's got to be trust.
Speaker:I think for companies to take that first step
Speaker:there's going to be a bit of a jump in the dark
Speaker:but you'll see the benefits.
Speaker:If you don't see the benefits
Speaker:then maybe that's the wrong staffer, employee for you
Speaker:and you move them on.
Speaker:Or maybe you need a conversation to work out
Speaker:how that person can use the new freedom more wisely.
Speaker:So it pays off for them and for you as the company.
Speaker:But this has to be the way forward.
Speaker:It seems to be a retrograde step to move into a world
Speaker:where people's bathroom breaks are being timed.
Speaker:I mean, toxic is the word that comes to mind.
Speaker:- [Karim] I totally understand.
Speaker:Carl, this has been a fascinating discussion
Speaker:and yeah, I'm sure people are going to want to take
Speaker:some time and really dive in.
Speaker:If you could Carl, I know you've got a website
Speaker:and various Ted Talks and books.
Speaker:What would you recommend people do to find out more
Speaker:about the Slow Movement and how to embrace it
Speaker:at their work and in their lives?
Speaker:- Sure that's easy.
Speaker:I have a kind of one-stop shop site for that
Speaker:It's just www.carlhonore.info, no punctuation,
Speaker:carlhonore.info
Speaker:And they're all there.
Speaker:You'll find the links to everything
Speaker:from talks to digital courses.
Speaker:So I've just published my first workbook, "30 Days to Slow,"
Speaker:helping people slow down, books are there.
Speaker:There's lots of video, audio, just loads of resources
Speaker:for people to take their first step,
Speaker:because everybody's going to find their own way
Speaker:towards the Slow Revolution.
Speaker:Some people are going to come at it through work,
Speaker:others through food, others through sex,
Speaker:others through their family life, with children.
Speaker:So there's no right recipe to finding your inner tortoise
Speaker:but we all have one and we all aspire I think,
Speaker:to reconnect with it.
Speaker:So I would just say, go out there and find your own way.
Speaker:And start on our website, it's a good place to start.
Speaker:- [Karim] Carl, thank you so much for your time,
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:- Thank you very much, good chatting with you.
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