Be Smooth

I first wanted to motivate myself with “go faster”, plastered all over my devices and work space. While I’ve had considerable success, I could have all the success of my wildest dreams, if I was just motivated to “go faster”.

I’ve had many ideas in my career that turned out to be really great and hugely successful, judging by the results achieved by the people who could actually execute on them. While I looked on and said, “I had that exact idea, in the right place, at the right time.”

Why was that? Well, in many cases I didn’t even start! I had too much to do already. How could I possibly add another thing to the mix? How about all the other brilliant ideas I have? I can’t do them all, but which one(s) to pick? If I could at least go faster, I could get something done and move to the next thing.

Yeah, that’s a great plan. Let’s sprint through a marathon and see how far we get. Nevermind jumping around between multiple marathons.

I was a Wanderer and this particular idea may have been my most foolish.

I needed to be a Warrior. Warriors make difficult decisions and accept the responsibility that comes with them. They commit and focus. Warrior me needed to figure out how to choose the best path forward and proceed responsibly, while honoring decisions from the past, (good and bad), that lead me here.

I built a tool to help with that, but that’s not the topic of this post. More about that somewhere else.

One more thing I get from the Warrior archetype is a motto, “slow is smooth and smooth is fast”.

This is the topic of this post. I asked ChatGPT to fact check the origin of this phrase:

The phrase “slow is smooth and smooth is fast” is often attributed to the U.S. Navy SEALs, but its exact origin is uncertain. While the phrase is commonly associated with military training, there is no definitive source or specific event linked to its creation. It is a motto that emphasizes the importance of focusing on precision and avoiding unnecessary haste to achieve optimal results.

This made so much sense to me in my work as a developer working for other people’s businesses. When it came to my own, it was lurking in the back of my consciousness, trying to be heard over the noise of all my “brilliant” ideas and daydreams.

But when I heard this phrase out loud one day, it finally came out of the background. Of course, it was one of those brilliant ideas I’d already had long ago but did nothing about!

After this recycled epiphany I thought, No! Go faster, is not the correct motivational phrase. What about “Go slower?”

Almost, but it could also be a slogan for retirement. No, the right slogan for me is “Be Smooth”.

Committing to being smooth means I will go at the pace I need to, to smooth everything out. The result is that I’ll go faster the smoother things are. The smoother my life is, the faster I can run without tripping, the farther I can go in less time, the more I can smooth out my business.

It also plays into another daydream of mine; being smooth like James Bond. Surely that type of smooth can help you move fast too.