Slow Down To Go Far

Today, we're living in a world where it's all about fast food, fast cars, speed dates, fast Internet, fast money, fast success. But you know what? In this podcast, I'm going to share with you how you can slow down to go far. Let's get in. You know, we are living in a world right now where things are going so fast and people want everything on demand that we sometimes miss the importance of slowing down in just like a baby. Once a baby is conceived in the stomach, it takes nine months for the baby to grow. Similarly, even, you know, if you know the journey of a caterpillar to going into a cocoon and then becoming into a butterfly, there is a gestation period. And a lot of people don't understand the importance of a gestation period in growth. And when I look at my life and my journey in business like today, the reason my business is why my business is successful is, is because of those 15 years of going through that gestation period. I'm not saying that everybody needs to go through that, but a lot of people, they want instant everything these days, especially the Gen Z.

With Instagram. And if you look at the word Instagram itself is like, it's all about Insta. Everything is insta, Insta, okay? They want everything instant. So the purpose of me recording this podcast is to share my views on why it is important to slow down, to go far. It's not about going fast. And sometimes it's better to slow down to really understand the direction in which you're moving so that you can play the long term game rather than just the short term game. The lot of the big problem in today's entrepreneurial world also is that a lot of young entrepreneurs or even existing entrepreneurs who are starting off, even if they're 35, 40 plus, they, they watch an ad, they get started, they get excited, they jump into a journey, and they, they want to go for the fast, you know, success, the fast path. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, going on the fast lane is bad, but again, looking at how is that lane going to develop you as a person, that's what matters. Okay? And there are different processes where transformations can happen. And that's what I've been studying also for many, many years. So it's not about going through, you know, like a 10, 15 year learning curve. You can cut short that learning curve if you're in the right environment and the environment creates a transformation. So I understand all of that, but the point here is the intent with which you start the journey is Going to determine how far you're going to go. People who are looking for the bursts and the sprints of success, they are going to be course correcting themselves, jumping from one thing to the next every year, every two years, every three years. And compound interest on effort is never going to kick in. So some of the most successful people in the world today are the ones who have stuck to one thing and who have built that over a long period of time and the long period of effort and investment of time, energy, money into one project, into one thing, into. That's what creates success. So let me take a step back and get into what I mean by slowing down. Okay, let's look at the education system. You know, parents want their kids to be fast. They want their kids to be first. In our business and our careers, we want to go faster and faster and faster. You want to go with speed. And today, like I mentioned, everything is on demand. Especially in a digitally connected world. We sometimes we feel entitled that we need to have everything now, everything fast. But the big question is this, is fast consciousness really helping our human society? Like, how fast should we go.

How fast should you go and how long will you last trying to keep up with the speed of this race? And more importantly, are you competing with machines and now with AI doing things at like ten hundred times faster than humans? The question is, what happens if you hit a road bump at that speed? That's my question to you. What happens if you hit a road bump at that speed? So, you know, after careful observation of my life and you know, many successful people, I've realized that nature reveals something different. Okay, so it was year 2001, you know, and I told about my journey. I've also written about this in my book, you can coach. It was a deciding year of my life, 2001, 12th standard. And my tuition teacher told me when I entered the tuition class, he said, know, if you struggle this one year, you can enjoy your whole life. If you enjoy this one year, you can struggle your. You have to struggle your whole life. And for some reason, I did not want to believe him because the pressure was on right from school days. Like, I had to be fast and everything had to be first and everything. You know what? But the outcome of that experience that I had was I flunked my 12th board exams because I was forced to halt at the most critical point in my life. And that was one of my first big road bumps where I had to slow down. I had to slow down and think about my life. And what do I really want to do. And I'm so glad that I failed my 12th because if I had gone with that same speed or just moving in some direction which I was not interested in, then I would not be doing what I'm doing right now. But when I look back in time, it was a very tough situation. But that experience opened up new pathways in my brain to think different. You know, those three months of slowing down, it helped me think about what do I really want in my career? Okay, three months I completely slowed down. And if I have to like look at what really integrated for me in those three months is one is I picked a course that I really loved, my sound engineering course. And then because I slowed down, then I went into something I really wanted to do and I started to speed up over there. In that course, I scored 92%. I started teaching at the age of 19. I composed more than 175 songs within a span of a year, one to two years. So that slowdown, it was so much needed in my life. You know, the slowdown helped me build the next phase. So I did well. I went to Dubai, I made a lot of ringtones, I got married early. I started my race in the career. I grew up the corporate ladder. Life was good, it was stable. And then I get the pink slip. That was the second slowdown that I had. 2011, okay. And that time I had a 12 month slowdown in my career. My wife was pregnant, I had to make it or break it. But the new pathways that opened up was I started to re educate myself, I started to pick up new skills. I decided to change my industry from the mobile industry to the digital industry. And of course the result of that slowdown was, you know, I stepped into entrepreneurship. I started to impact other businesses. I started to feed like 20, 30 families who are the employees working for me. So that slowdown help me shift sail and direction to impact more people, you know. And then what happened? I was working hard. I was going through the struggles of a startup, erratic life, poor eating patterns. August 15th, I suffered a major, major panic attack. I was unable to sleep for two weeks. And it affected all areas of my life because I was not taking care of my health. And I was going through a lot of anxiety and frustrations because of know, poor cash flow in my business and multiple other things. So the observations that my observation about things is that nature works in cycles. There is day and night, there's seasons, there's yearly cycles. And it's very counterintuitive, this concept, but slowing down will actually help you do more and achieve more in a fast paced world.

So that phase when in 2015, when I went through this panic attack, for me, I had to step out of the rat race. You know, I had to change my environment. I learned some of these principles that I had to. I can only multiply my results by subtracting all the crap from my life. I had to create new patterns. Okay? So some of the patterns that I implemented after that episode was I stopped packing up my calendar with stuff. I stopped picking up calls.

Once in a week, I used to go into a complete digital detox. Once in a year, I went into a mind and body detox. Once in a day I just connect with myself. Me time, just go drive and connect with myself. Once in a quarter, I take a small vacation. Once in two hours, I like to take a break. Once in a month, I give myself a break. So the key point that I learned through those phases, that it is important to give yourself the permission to slow down every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year. And I continue to do that because that slowing down or the recovery is more important than building muscle. Those of you who have been hitting the gym, you know that, right? It's not about building or lifting up weights in the gym. It's about how you recover. And the recovery is what creates the muscle to be formed. So I want all of you to think about this. The lifestyle choices that you make in a fast paced world is going to determine whether you're going to be moving far or you're going to burn out. Okay? People who want to do everything fast with super speed and who are not understanding these laws of nature are going to burn out and they're going to be going to crash and burn, okay? They're going to go through all kinds of depression, they're going to go through anxieties. So if you want to really overcome this, you have to break the patterns for your life and break the patterns and define the life that you desire, okay? Define the patterns that fulfill you. Because patterns of your life, they make you or break you. Think about what patterns shackle you and what patterns free you. And once you decode these patterns, then everything is going to be, you know, unfolding into a beautiful life. So what are the patterns? I would like you to, you know, observe. One is your overall quality of your life. You know, are you going, are you spending time in nature? You know, are you a smoker? Break that pattern. You know, are you always on the phone? Break that pattern. Do you drink Are you into alcoholism and stuff? You know, or if, even if you're a casual drinker, but still, if, you know, if it's not the right thing for you, just break that pattern, okay?

And what you need to do is.

Think about which areas you need to slow down in, okay? Because these patterns that we are living in are like clues, okay? The patterns of whether you're getting burnt out or it's inspiring you to do something every single day. That's all. I mean, these patterns give you the clues. So having said that.

The patterns that I broke in my life are. The first pattern was the pattern of education, you know, so I stepped out of the traditional education system, dropped out of college and went on. Now the second pattern that I broke was the pattern of. In entrepreneurship itself. So though I grew a traditional business for some time, I had to break the pattern and create something new. So I had to slow down there. I had to break some patterns within my own family and really take charge of my own life, okay? I also had to break patterns by being in a comfort zone in Bangalore, moving to Chennai for my wife and her music career. So I had a pattern shift that happened over there in my life and then in my child's education also when I was, you know, put him through Montessori and there was a time when, you know, during COVID that we didn't feel it was the right thing to do. And even my son, I asked him to take a pause from the typical system and gave him a one year gap and a break where he did not go to any school. We were homeschooling him and then he found something that he really wanted to do. Yeah. And then there were also patterns where previously we used to watch television and this and stuff at home and now nothing. For many years now we don't watch those things. I hardly watch movies, I only check into documentaries and I'm very conscious about my inputs, you know, what goes into my head, what I eat, the energy in my body and all that stuff. So just like how on your phone, sometimes if you have to make the phone faster, you got to delete some of these apps and remove all those additional processes that are running to make the phone faster. And you have to have a longer battery life. Similarly, your patterns in your life are like your applications on all the apps on your. In your memory. And you have to free that memory and free that cache memory in your mind for you to able to do more. You got to slow down, you got to remove all the things that are not fitting into it, you got to find your ikigai. Yeah. So I would like to end this podcast by letting all of you know that slowing down consciously at different intervals and working in cycles can be the greatest gift that you can give yourself to go far. This game of entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship is not about speed. Yes, you can build momentum, but the momentum can be built even by going slow. And all of you know the story of the tortoise and the hare. I mean, the rabbit, tortoise and the rabbit, right?

The tortoise won. It's not about speed. It's about just being consistent. So I hope you found this podcast useful. And if you're connected with this episode, please make sure that you subscribe to more of this in the future on Apple or Spotify and tune into more of these episodes. And if you're already a part of my community, please go to Sids co Diamond if you'd like to know more about my diamond membership, because that's where you know all these concepts will get integrated. And if you're not a part of my community yet, you can go to my next webinar. Go to Sidharthrajikar.com, you'll see a webinar link. Watch my webinar. And I would love to have you in my community where I can teach you step by step on how you can build a very fulfilling and profitable digital business from the comfort of your own home, where you can spend more time with your family and your kids and you can live that lifestyle of freedom. And freedom, according to me, is not about not doing work. Freedom is about doing the work that you find the most meaningful.

Yes. And to be able to plan your own day, to be able to work out your own hours, and to make a difference in your life and other people's lives. Yeah. Wish you all the best. Catch you in the next episode and have an awesome one.