Do we look back on our career and see missed opportunities? Is hindsight bringing realisations of the chances that we could have taken? Or even regret for the choices made. Have we in our hurry to achieve, overlooked basics? What is the secret that makes others be in the right place at the right time? Can this skill be acquired?

We have all heard the story of the hare and the tortoise. The hare although fast is not able to complete the race and the tortoise plodding slowly but surely is declared the winner. Many have come up with their own version of this years’ old tale. This has been given a management perspective with examples in leadership, marketing and many more. These versions are interesting and make a lot of sense. It makes this tale still fresh and interesting even after so many years have passed. I even remember a Hindi movie ‘Katha’ from the 1980’s based on this with the slow moving tortoise winning the girl over the fast moving hare.

I have my own version of this tale which to me makes a lot of sense. I would like to share this in the event that this can help you all, like it helped me. To give you all a bit of a background about me, as a child I used to be an extremely slow talker who was repeatedly urged to talk faster by my family. I did begin to talk fast, quite fast but developed a slight stammering problem by age 6 or 7. My speech got slurred. There were certain words I could not pronounce. These would get stuck in my throat and caused me a lot of embarrassment. Speaking over the phone was worse. There would be a lot of pauses between sentences as to begin a sentence was crucial. Once begun, it was always easier to finish that particular sentence. This problem caused me immense self-issues and I retreated into myself as a child and adolescent.

This could have gotten worse but for the timely help of a family friend who actually arrived at the gist of the issue. As per him apparently, I was thinking faster than I was speaking. My brain was working at a faster pace and my speech was just not able to keep up. I started practicing thinking and slowing my mental processes to accommodate the challenges faced by my mouth and tongue. This took some years for me to overcome and I became reasonably confident of my speech with self-confidence to match. Or so I thought.

I believed I was all right but I wish to share here that I always thought of the world as slow. According to me, all my friends and family had an issue with their speech. They would talk so slowly; it was torturous to keep up with them. I would invariably fill in words and complete their sentences for them. My life always felt like I was waiting. Waiting for others to complete their sentences. To get to the point. It didn’t feel like I was fast. It’s just that others were slow. This became the normal for me and others just had to catch up.

Many, many years later a colleague who is now a dear friend pointed this out. She asked me one day, why was I so hyper? Why don’t you slow down?

This was surprising. Interestingly I always thought I was proactive, passionate and motivated, never hyper. At this point I had pretty much gotten used to everyone around me being slow and knew I just had to wait for my turn before speaking. Sometimes, even after so many years of practice, I still forget to await my turn and complete others sentences. It’s a bad habit but I believe if I persist one day this too shall change permanently.

Coming back to the hare and the tortoise story. I believe it is relevant today and my version believes that these animals were symbols and were signifying the essence of the hare and the tortoise in our mind and the race is the race of life. I have lived on both sides of this fence. Being fast, thinking fast and always being on the go denote the hare qualities in a person. While I believe it’s good to be proactive, passionate and self-motivated there needs to be a stillness in each of us. Being a hare will take you only so far as I have come to realise. The hares’ end up not reaching the finishing line and not achieving their potential in real life. I have noticed some pseudo hares who appear fast but have calm and still minds within. The hare is just a persona they have and does in no way constitute what they actually are as a whole.

Finding Our Inner Tortoise

We can all achieve our potential if we aim at becoming the tortoise. We need in essence to reflect the qualities of the tortoise in its stillness, its calm, its persistence. In Hindi there is word that describes this feeling: Sthirtaa. Being still. Within.

All around us there are many distractions. The life we lead in the fast lane today have all the makings to make our mind work faster. Be it the speed related gaming apps that are so popular today. The numerous notifications we receive on our mobile phone. The faster pace set in movies and television. The sensationalism apparent in all News channels. The teachings we receive from our surroundings where everything is competitive and encouraging us to increase our pace.

All these inputs are collectively responsible for the decrease in mental well-being we are facing today. The travel of the mind from being a hare to a tortoise for me has been significant. Being a Hare we tend to overlook details, not have the patience to wait for the best deal. Believing in quantity of achievement as opposed to quality. The Hare and the Tortoise can best be described as follows:

Recognising The Hare

Always on the move

The Hare is someone always on the go. Needs to move onto the next thing. There will be multiple items on the to-do list. All in varying degrees of completion. The Hare will always find time for playing a game or two on their phones but will always complain how busy they are.

Fidgeting

The Hare just cannot sit still. In any group, you can recognise the Hare at a glance by their fidgeting and constant movement.

Gets easily distracted

Having an agile and fast-moving thoughts gets the Hare easily distracted. This inhibits their ability to learn new things. They will always prefer to be doing instead of thinking. They will jump from one topic to the other with lightning speed.

Jack of all trades but master of none

Always wanting more, moving from one topic to the next; makes the Hare a know it all. A Hare can be trusted to have information about most topics. I have had many successful interactions with Hares and have found them knowledgeable and informative. Depending on how fast their brain works, they might not make the effort to deepen their knowledge about the subject at hand. Even though there could be a lack of depth to the conversation, they are definitely entertaining.

Seek company of others

A Hare is most happy when he is surrounded by lots of friends. Hares seek the company of others in a dedicated and over enthusiastic manner. They will have different friend circles and feel satisfied only when they can hop between these on a continuous basis. A Hare friend will usually be the centre of attraction among these groups and you will find that these circles many a time mingle to form larger circles. They will still be in touch with friends from their school, colleges, communities, etc.

The Hare may have excellent qualities and put in a lot of effort, however the result achieved would be less.

In comparison, the Tortoise will gain the advantage over the Hare. When we resonate to a faster mental pace, it can be compared to sitting on a Ferris wheel going around and round. Always moving and never getting anywhere. Seeing opportunities but never getting the full benefit of these. There are numerous advantages in calming the mind and resonating to a slower but surer mindful state. We are in essence identifying with the slowest animal here, the Tortoise.

Benefits of being the Tortoise

It might not seem possible but I have found that it is possible to slow yourself down and to achieve a calmer state of mind. To transition from a Hare to a Tortoise. To mentally slow down. To achieve a more peaceful state of mind and vice versa. When you slow down, the mind feels clearer and calmer.

When learning to drive I was taught that beginners tend to drive fast as they have a lack of control over the vehicle. Also everyone can drive fast. It takes an experienced driver to achieve a slower and surer pace with complete control over the vehicle.

In the race between a Hare and a Tortoise, who would believe that a Tortoise could win? The Hare would be everyone’s favourite contender. While both would have a sense of direction and purpose, it is the Tortoise who will be more focused. A Tortoise who will ensure that goals are met. Life cannot be lived by participating in just that one race. We all need to be periodically take stock of where we are currently and where we need to go.

Going slow without a purpose and having no goals is destructive. This can help no one and won’t get us anywhere. However, with a set goal in place, it is the Tortoise who will keep assessing the end goal with the skills and knowledge required to achieve this. They will keep their focus hats on and keep trying to improve their direction, knowledge, skills, etc.

Slowing Down

The learning being received from the world around us always praises the need for speed. While being physically fast is a good thing, it is the reverse for the mind. We all need to mentally slow down. Having a slower mind is not to be compared to having a lesser IQ level. Just slowing down our mental processes. To achieve a calmer mental state.

When we consciously slow the mind and our thoughts a shift starts taking place in the head. The mind gets calmer. There will feel like a calming feeling inside the forehead. This can feel like a personal air conditioner fitted in the front of your head. Everything starts getting perspective. The improved focus results in better absorption of studies, a deeper level of concentration. Instead of instinctively reacting to anything and everything around us, the calmer mind will calmly appraise the situation and come up with several options on how to act. The option of keeping silent is also available to a calmer mind.

Having achieved this shift will result in the following ways:

Talking softly

We can observe this characteristic in nearly all people who have achieved long term success in their respective careers. Talking loudly or shouting denotes a faster mental process. While a faster mind can take you upwards and achieve short term success, it cannot sustain. Almost everyone I respect and look up to in the corporate world has a calm persona and will talk softly.

Being polite. Avoiding swear words

Over the last 4 to 5 years, I have actively employed multiple methods to slow my mind but sometimes this gets away from me. I fall into the trap of believing being faster will take me further. I have now started to identify activities or events that make my mind work faster. Of these speaking swear words is prominent. I could immediately feel my head feeling heavier. I believe, avoiding swear words is the best way forward.

Being calm. No irritation. No anger. No reaction

Anger and irritation are sure signs of having a faster mind. Let’s imagine a scale or metrics with the Hare on the extreme left and the Tortoise at the extreme right with everyone falling somewhere in between. In such a scale people on the left will be more angry, irritable and ready to start fights. The right side will reveal people who are calm, collected and will think of solutions rather than problems. Only when calmer can we think of solutions and next action plan.

Good listening skills

A calmer mind helps you listen. There is no rush in wanting to complete the others’ sentences. Having the ability to quietly listen helps in understanding what others feel.

This helps in meetings and important negotiations. Even in family gatherings. It’s an important super power and a skill that only a calm and slow mind will generate.

Better decision making

Calmly assessing a situation helps in understanding all facets of the event. These result in better decision making. More thought out plans and actions. On the metric between the Hare and the Tortoise, all on the right side of the scale will have better decision-making abilities than those on the left. The success rate for decisions taken would be higher.

Good visualisation skills

Visualisations are practised by all successful people. Having a calm and slow mind helps in an improved and higher level of visualisation. Successful people don’t let success be their goal. They are always visualising their next goal, their next milestone. They are able to keep reinventing themselves and able to ride the tide.

Prepared to wait. Patience

A calmer mind understands that we need to wait for good things to happen. Slowing down the ferris wheel in the head and waiting for the next opportunity. Having made goals, improved skill sets and practised visualisation, the Tortoise mind knows how to wait.

We can all make this journey from having a Hare mind to a Tortoise mind. It is possible. We just need to slow ourselves down mentally. Become a more calmer, quiet and collected version of ourselves. It’s a process and a road we should all travel on. I still sometimes fall into my earlier mindset. This is however of a temporary duration as having taken this journey, I know about its importance. I am extremely grateful to all in my life who have helped and supported me to travel on the route from being a Hare to slowly becoming a Tortoise.

My own experiences have shown me the benefits of going slow. The right opportunities seem to come to us instead of us continuously striving for more. Going slow helps overcome the burnout feeling that can result in stress leading to missed chances. Being peaceful is in itself a blessing and ensures we stay charged up and are able to positively handle all challenges.

There are multiple methods that can be applied to slow the mind. That can be a topic for another day.

 

Image Source: ISChadha