This article comes from an episode of The Unstuck High Performer Podcast. Listen to the full conversation below.
You track your sleep, dial in your workouts, count your macros, and refuse to let a 20 minute drive go to waste without a podcast playing. Then you sit down with the people you say you’re doing all of this for, and you’re quietly waiting for the moment to end so you can get back to your inbox. If that stings a little, good. It’s worth looking at, because learning how to be present starts with noticing where you’re not.
Your best business skill becomes a liability the moment you walk through the front door
Let me be clear: your ability to optimize is a superpower. It’s why you spot inefficiencies fast, solve problems and course correct, and why people bring you their questions. It’s a big part of how you built what you have.
But the same skill that makes you effective at the office can turn into kryptonite at home. At work, you want every conversation to get to the point, every problem resolved right now, and everyone aligned with your priorities and your schedule. At home, the people you love don’t work like that, and they shouldn’t have to. That’s why learning how to be present means putting down the skill that built your success, at least for a while.
So ask yourself honestly: do your wife and kids get to have their own pace, their own feelings, and their own needs? And what happens inside you when those needs interfere with your plan? That discomfort is worth paying attention to.
The kitchen island moment: when the dishes could have waited
A couple of months ago, I was having dinner with my son at the island in my kitchen. He eats standing in his little step-up seat, bib on, learning to use a fork. It’s one of my favorite things in the world.
But I had the sink running and something on the stove. I’d take a bite of my own plate, then circle back to help him get food on his fork. He was just watching me move a million miles an hour, trying to knock out meal prep, dishes, and tomorrow’s preparation.
The dishes could have waited. I could have cooked after dinner, or even cooked with him. Instead of sitting next to him and being fully there, I was treating dinner as a task to compress.
The same thing shows up as your kids get older. Your daughter wants to read the same book for the 5th time. Your son wants to step on every crack in the sidewalk, or tells a story that takes 6 minutes to reach a point you understood in 30 seconds. And you’re hurrying them. Toward what?
Sometimes there really is somewhere you need to be. But sometimes you’re rushing because moving slowly feels uncomfortable. Think about what you’re modeling when you constantly hurry, correct, or try to improve every little thing. If this is all your kids ever know of Dad, how do you picture that relationship when they’re 10, 14, or 17?
Why solving your wife’s problem in 30 seconds may push her away
Your wife starts telling you something difficult. Within 30 seconds, you’ve diagnosed the problem and lined up three solutions. You think you’re helping.
But have you heard her? Can she be upset without you needing to resolve it immediately? Can the conversation run longer than you planned without you glancing at the clock? Can you stay emotionally available when there’s nothing useful to suggest?
Being efficient with a conversation is not the same as being available for a conversation.
Rushing to a solution may make you feel more comfortable. But what about her? She may need your presence far more than she needs your answers.
Try this: if you’re wondering how to be present when your wife is struggling, let her finish the whole story, then ask whether she wants help solving something or just wants you to listen. It’s a small question, and it can change the entire tone of the evening.
When even date night, vacation, and rest become projects
Optimization doesn’t stop at conversations. It follows you into the places that are supposed to be restorative.
Maybe you’ve put date night on the calendar every Tuesday or Friday. That’s a good instinct. But when the night arrives, are you keeping it on schedule and running it exactly as planned, or do you leave room for wasted time, inefficiency, and spontaneity?
It’s the same with downtime. You take a walk but feel guilty without a podcast, an email, or a quick work call. It’s football season, you put the game on, and you knock out a few emails during it. You go on vacation and pack the schedule so tightly there’s no space for curiosity or surprise.
Even rest has to justify itself by making you better at working tomorrow.
When was the last time you did something simply because you enjoyed it, and let that be enough?
There’s a performance cost here too. The idea I keep returning to is that growth equals stress plus rest. For a long time you could get by on constant stress. At your level, without real rest, you burn out. And if you multitask through your rest, you never actually get any.
What slowing down brings up, and why you’ve been avoiding it
Here’s where I want you to get honest. When you stop optimizing and slow down, what shows up? Guilt? Anxiety? Restlessness? The thought that someone else is getting ahead? A feeling that you’re wasting your potential?
I suspect staying productive has been a habit for years, and it may be helping you avoid feelings you don’t know what to do with. If being useful is how you learned to feel valuable, an afternoon with nothing to accomplish can be surprisingly hard to enjoy.
That’s not a character flaw. It’s a learned program, a collection of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors you picked up and practiced. That means it can be examined and changed. It’s the kind of pattern I work on with clients through mindset coaching and hypnosis, because the root is rarely a time management problem.
You may also fear that if you slow down, you’ll lose your edge. I’m a walking testament that you won’t, and so are the many clients I’ve helped with this exact challenge, including founders and CEOs who thought the same thing. It is safe to slow down, switch off, and be present. You get far more out of each moment when you stop trying to optimize it.
Three things to try this week
You don’t need to dismantle your systems. You need a few places where you deliberately stop using them. Start here:
- Put your phone away when you get home. Drop it in a drawer, or buy a Brick device if you need help. Then let your son or daughter choose how you spend the next 60 minutes.
- Listen before you solve. When your wife tells you about her day or a struggle, let her finish the whole story. Then ask whether she wants help or just wants you to listen.
- Pause when the urge to hurry or fix appears. Notice what happens in your body. Maybe your chest tightens, your jaw clenches, or anxious energy builds. Don’t fix it. Just get curious.
- Remember that optimization has a place. The goal isn’t to abandon it. It’s to stop bringing it into every room, because choosing doing over being is a recipe for disconnection.
- Treat the discomfort as information. If slowing down leaves you guilty, restless, or reaching for something productive, that deserves your attention.
The people you love are the ones paying for it
You’ve already proven you can build, improve, accomplish, and optimize. The harder question is whether you can let a conversation take longer than expected, enjoy your kids without hurrying them, and rest without feeling you have to earn it.
If slowing down feels harder than building your business, that’s not a sign something is wrong with you. It’s a sign you’ve gotten extremely good at one way of being and haven’t had much practice at the other. The people who love you aren’t asking you to be less driven. They’re asking you to be there, and they’re the ones who pay most when you aren’t. Learning how to be present is a skill like any other, and you can build it.