Slow Down to Speed Up
“Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
- John Wooden
When I was coaching, my training philosophy was clear: The game of football is based in movement. To be successful, you must move faster, more powerfully, and more efficiently than your opponent.
But here’s the part people miss—especially leaders: To move better, you have to slow down first.
That sounds backward to most people. Especially in today’s culture, when everyone wants fast results, quick answers, and rapid progress. But what I’ve learned over decades as a coach, working side by side with athletes—from high school fields to the NFL—is this: You can’t build anything that lasts by rushing it.
You don’t train speed by going fast. My teaching hierarchy was based on three key factors: How To, How Fast, and How Much. First, we needed to teach technique and fundamentals, and then the concept of 'How Fast' came into play. How fast could the athlete go until the How To fell apart. We then would go back to the How To, at that tempo, and fix the mistakes during the training phase rather than have the wheels come off on game day.
In both your business and personal life, the same rules apply as you begin to build.
Learn the fundamentals first. Begin to expand slowly, addressing any issues that arise, and then continue to grow until you are up to speed.
As a leader, you don’t create momentum by pushing harder. You create it by being more deliberate.
Why Slowing Down Isn’t Weakness
One of the sins of youth is the desire to have everything NOW. We want to speed through all of the lower-level positions as we move towards the “big chair” in the big office, making big decisions. But I have been around long enough to know that forcing forward progress without a foundation leads to setbacks.
Instead of jumping straight into the C-suite, we need to ensure that we build a solid foundation. Much like in my training, we knew we needed to transition to heavy volume or complex programming, but only after we had prepared ourselves for the training loads that were on the horizon.
We didn’t just train muscles—we trained movement.
We didn’t just build power—we built movement patterns.
When you are climbing the corporate ladder and take that same approach, it won’t slow you down; it will launch you forward, stronger, smarter, more resilient.
And that’s leadership.
It’s not about being the first to move. It’s about making sure when you move, you don’t have to stop and fix it later.
Slowing Down Builds Better People, Not Just Better Plans
I’ve worked with athletes who were physical freaks, but mentally scattered. They could jump through the roof, but they didn’t understand their bodies. They moved fast, but they didn’t move well. Why? Because no one ever slowed down to teach them the basics.
I have worked with companies that had young executives who were looking at their watches as soon as they walked into the meeting room, rather than ensuring they had enough ink in their pens and paper in their notebooks.
When I see this, I start my presentation with questions. Simple, for those who knew each level of their company's product and marketing, but impossible for those who think they are doing their job when they are busy yelling and pushing people to move faster.
This is when I get called in, when everything is moving yet no one is in sync. Leaders are often obsessed with output but fail to invest in understanding. They’re sprinting through the process without ever anchoring the people.
I tell my clients to slow down. Communicate your fundamentals to each level of their company. Gain feedback from the “production floor” – the people who are doing the hands-on work. Formulate a plan. Communicate the plan. And then, and only then, move forward.
That’s not wasted time. That’s what earns trust, and trust is the thing that holds up under pressure when everything else starts shaking.
Clarity is Found in the Pause
When you’re in the weight room, the magic doesn’t happen in the lift. It happens in the space between reps. That’s where recovery lives. That’s where intention locks in.
Leadership is the same.
You don’t gain insight when you’re racing from meeting to meeting. You gain it in the pause, when you stop to think, reflect, and adjust. I’ve built entire off-season programs off a single quiet moment where I caught something others missed.
Slowing down isn’t being soft. It’s being precise. It’s building with purpose.
Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.
If you want long-term performance, whether in sport, business, or life, you have to earn it through discipline. Not just the discipline to grind. The discipline to wait. To slow down when it’s easier to rush. To hold the standard when others are panicking. That’s what separates real leaders. Anyone can move fast. That’s easy. But can you slow down long enough to build something that lasts?
That’s the challenge.
And that’s where championships are won.
