How Slowing Down Accelerated My Growth and Career
Saturday, 7 June 2025. Hello again—I'm back on a writing streak. Today, I want to share a deeply personal reflection on growth and career, particularly on what I’ve learned over the past year. This isn’t a how-to guide or a list of quick hacks. Instead, it’s a story about slowing down, reassessing, and learning to grow more deliberately.
1. Ego Is a Double-Edged Sword
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a crusade against ego. Ego, in moderation, has driven many people toward success. It can be a source of confidence and ambition. But ego, unchecked and unexamined, can also be one of the most destructive forces in personal development.
In my own journey, ego often gave me a false sense of confidence. It made me impulsive. It blinded me to how much I didn’t know. It was like the Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids—especially when I stepped into new territory, thinking I could master it simply by sheer willpower or intellect.
What changed everything was learning to let go of that attachment to ego. Once I did, I found space to grow. I could self-evaluate without shame. I could see things—my career, my finances, my emotions—with much more clarity. That shift toward humility opened up doors to deeper learning and growth.
A clear example? Finances.
There was a time when I thought I had a solid grip on personal finance and investing. I knew all the stats: how most people underperform index funds, how day trading ruins portfolios, how retail traders often lose money. I knew all that—and yet I still thought I would be the exception.
No experience. No mentors. No track record. Just misplaced confidence.
I lost a significant amount of money. Not enough to ruin me, but enough to teach me a painful lesson. And that loss forced me to finally acknowledge: I don’t know as much as I thought I did. That realization led me to seek mentors and stop trying to reinvent the wheel alone.
2. Mentors and Guidance
Lowering your ego leads to something beautiful: openness. Once I accepted that I didn’t know everything—and never would—it became much easier to learn from others.
Mentors became not just helpful, but necessary. When you’re young (or new to something), it’s easy to overestimate what you know. But the truth is, we don’t have the luxury of time to figure everything out through trial and error.
Mentorship is a way to compress decades into days.
Even the greatest minds sought guidance. Socrates mentored Plato. Plato mentored Aristotle. Learning from someone more experienced isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom. It’s the smart move.
Think of climbing Mount Everest—would you ever attempt that without a Sherpa? Of course not. You’d want someone who knows the terrain, the dangers, the shortcuts. Someone who’s been there. It’s the same in your career, in life, in business.
Seek out mentors. Pay for their time if you can afford it. Use free resources if you can’t. But don’t skip this step. It will save you from countless missteps—and speed up your progress in ways that trial and error never could.
Final Thoughts
I’ve made mistakes—plenty of them. I’ve let my ego damage relationships, waste money, burn time and energy. I’ve responded emotionally when I should have been still. I’ve taken the long, hard way when wiser paths were available.
All of these things—time, energy, money, relationships—are limited resources. And while making mistakes is a part of growth, trying to learn everything the hard way is just foolish.
Slow down. Reflect. Learn from others. Drop the ego.
Because sometimes, slowing down is the very thing that lets you accelerate forward.