Break the hurry habit: Carl Honore
Carl Honoré is a journalist, author and TED speaker. He’s also the voice of the global Slow Movement. He has written a series of books on the topic of slowness, slow parenting, slow living and ageing, and he travels the world as a speaker, sharing how to thrive in a fast world. His TED Talks have millions of views. Carl also has a new book coming out in the U.S., Slow Adventures: 40 real life journeys by boat, bike, foot and train. In this episode, we talk about why slow matters, his ah-ha moment reading a bedtime story to his son and practical steps we can all take today to live tempo giusto, the right speed. Transcript: Debra Hotaling (00:04): Hello and welcome to the Dareful Project. I'm Debra Hotaling. Carl Honore is a renowned journalist, author and TED speaker. He's also the voice for the global slow movement. He's written several books on the topic of slowness, slow parenting, slow living and aging, and he travels the world as a speaker. In fact, his TED Talks have millions of views and he has a new book out. It's called Slow Adventures, 40 Real Life Journeys by Boat, bike, foot and Train. Carl, welcome. Carl Honore (00:39): Thank you very much. It's great to be with you. Debra (00:41): So I first have to make a confession, real deal here, Carl. I super, super struggle with slow. I'm the person who's over caffeinated. I've actually had job reviews at the end of the year where they're like, you got to slow it down on those business phone calls. This is something that I really struggle with. Ground me on the basics. Carl (01:10): Well, you'll be relieved to hear as a fellow type A, that the slow revolution and the slow philosophy is not about doing everything slowly, which would just be an absolute nightmare for you, me and many other people in between. No, it's about doing things at the right speed. So musicians have a lovely term. They talk about the tempo giusto, the correct tempo for each piece of music, and that kind of gets at with the slow culture quake, the slow movement is all about, it's about choosing the right tempo for the moment. So sometimes yes, fast, sometimes you want to be in turbo mode, but other times it pays to slow down into tortoise mode, right? So really if you dig a little deeper into slow, it's a mindset, it's a mentality. It's quality over quantity, it's being present and in the moment, it's doing one thing at a time. Carl (02:02): Ultimately, slow with a capital S is about doing everything not as fast as possible, but as well as possible, which let's face it, it's a very simple idea. It's core, but it's also at the same time, an immensely powerful one because it has the capacity to revolutionize in a good way, everything you do. So that's why in every field of human endeavor now, you will find a slow movement, people coming to the party saying, how can I do this thing better and enjoy it more by slowing down to the right speed? So you mentioned in the intro there are slow travel, slow parenting, there are slow food, slow management, slow art, slow fashion, slow medicine, you name it. People can do it better by finding the right pace. And very often that means these days in our fast forward world, it means taking it down at notch or two and slowing down to find that correct tempo. Debra (02:52): Now, you've been an advocate for this for a time, right? I believe your TED Talk on the slow movement was 2005? Carl (03:03): Yeah, my first book, the book in Praise of Slow or in Praise of Slowness in the US is 2004. So we're actually a couple of weeks away from the 20th anniversary. So I've been on this track for some time. Debra (03:14): Congratulations. And tell us, what have you seen over the course of since 2004 when you started talking about this? Carl (03:24): Well, it's a mixed bag. On one side, the keynote of modern society remains acceleration, and in some ways we have got faster. So when I first floated the idea of a slow movement back in 2004, we didn't even have the iPhone then. We didn't have social media. And since then we've added artificial intelligence. I mean, there's been a real cranking up of pace and speed in many ways. But the good news is that in parallel, the countercurrent for slow has also grown fast as it happens. So when I first began talking about this idea, could we talk about slow as a creed, a philosophy that could reshape everything we do? You looked around the world at that point there was slow foods, slow cities, there wasn't much more. Now, like I said a moment ago, they were slow. Everything, and people at all stages of life are waking up to the folly of doing everything faster. Carl (04:21): So yes, on one hand the hallmark of modern society remains speed, but the countercurrent is stronger and stronger all the time. And I think actually the pandemic gave a real boost to the slow movement because what was the pandemic for many of us, if not a global workshop in slowness, right? It basically just stopped the world. And I didn't like, it was funny actually, when the pandemic hit, so many people wrote to me and said, you must be so happy, right? Everybody's been forced to slow down. I was like, no, I'm not happy at all. The pandemic is a total nightmare for all of us in so many ways, but like many nightmares, I think it brought a little silver lining, and it was the fact that we got a taste. Many of us got a taste of what it would be like to live without FOMO, to live without overstuffed schedules, to live with more time for baking, for playing with our children, for going for a walk with our partner, for doing all the slow stuff that gives life texture, meaning color, transcendence. Carl (05:20): And so that's why you see now the pandemic, well hopefully is receding into the past. People are coming out of that moment, that extraordinary moment in human history and making deep tectonic changes in their lives. So they're coming out and saying, you know what? I am leaving that bad relationship, or I'm changing careers, or I'm moving from the city to the country, the country to the city, or I'm learning a new, I'm making a big change. Because they had time finally, for the first time ever to slow down, pause, reflect, and grapple with big questions like, who am I? What's my purpose here? Am I living the right life for me? Because when you get stuck and fast forward, very often you find yourself living in autopilot. You're just following someone else's script. And for many people, the pandemic was a wake up call. It was a moment to say, okay, I'm slowing down here. I'm looking at the terrain. I'm joining the dots. I'm contemplating the horizon of the big picture. And I realized that I was just racing through my life instead of living it. So I've seen since the pandemic hit a real ratchet up of the slow movement. Debra (06:18): Well, that totally makes sense because it's hard to do this. Just wake up one morning and go, okay, I'm going to be slow today. It really is going to take maybe a job loss or losing a partner or loved one or an illness scare, right? Something's going to really shake your world. Carl (06:36): Absolutely. And for me, my wake up call came all those years ago when I started reading bedtime stories to my son. And honestly, back in those days, I just couldn't slow down. So I'd go into his bedroom at the end of the day, sit on his bed with one foot on the floor and speed read Snow White. So they're skipping paragraphs lines. I became an expert of what I called multiple page turn technique, which was you'd try to see three more pages, but it never works, right? I mean, our kids know these stories inside out. So my son would always catch me. He'd say, daddy, why Snow White? Why are there only three dwarves in the story that I knew what happened to Grumpy? And I realized that this was just almost an obscene approach to story reading. But I couldn't stop. I was so fast. Carl (07:22): I had to get through it as fast as possible. I couldn't. And then my wake up call came when I caught myself flirting with a book I heard about called The One Minute Bedtime Story. I remember that. I was, hallelujah, man, Amazon Drone delivery. I need that book right now. But then it was the light bulb over the head, second thought, and I just thought, no, what? No, this can't be true. Am I really prepared to fob off my son with a soundbite instead of a story at the end? And that was the moment of genuine searing epiphany. It was like an out-of-body experience. I suddenly saw myself there in sharp Relief, and what I saw was, oh, it was ugly, it was unedifying, it was just wrong. And I thought, nah, I cannot carry on at this pace because something has to give. Something is already giving. And that for me was hitting rock bottom, and that was my wake up call. Debra (08:18): You talk a lot about parenting, and I want to talk about grandparenting too, because our kids are really overscheduled. They feel our stress and their own stress in their lives. And you have a terrific book that is out in the UK and Europe and other parts of the world and will be available in the US next May, and it's called Slow Adventures, 40 Real Life Journeys by Boat, bike, foot and Train. And this feels like a super cool opportunity to do what you're just talking about here. It makes you, the transportation makes you slow down. If you're sitting in a train, you're going to have a conversation with your little human instead of sort of, we got to be here. We got to be there. What prompted you to write that book? Carl (09:10): Well, I know from my own personal experience that travel has often been, especially with my own family growing up as a child and now my family with my own children, that the moments I found it easiest and maybe even some ways most rewarding to slow down were when we traveled. So when we would go somewhere as a family, whether it would be to another city or to the countries, wherever we went,
