Pulling Over without Losing Ground

I am not a “stop and smell the roses” person. I am a “roses are nice, but let’s get where we’re going” person. In leadership, in travel, and especially in road trips, my default posture is efficiency. Fewer stops. Tighter timelines. Maximum output. The reward, I tell myself, is waiting at the destination.

This worldview did not survive an 8.5-hour road trip with two young children.

I had a plan. Of course I did. Snacks were portioned. Entertainment was queued. I believed, earnestly, that with the right combination of preparation and willpower, we could simply drive. This belief was both optimistic and deeply unserious.

Somewhere early in the trip, the human variables began to assert themselves. A sudden and urgent need for a bathroom. Hunger, despite the presence of snacks that had been rejected on principle. Big emotions triggered by something so small it could not be identified by science. And so, with a sigh heavy enough to be felt across state lines, I pulled over.

What surprised me was not the stop itself, but the result. Twenty minutes later, everyone was calmer. Fed. Emotionally reconstituted. We didn’t just get back on the road - we got back on the road better. It turns out relentless forward motion is not the same thing as leadership. Sometimes it’s just stubbornness in a respectable outfit.

The next stop was intentional, which already felt like growth. We laid out a picnic using Christmas Day leftovers, because nothing says “flexible leadership” like prawns in a roadside park. There was potato salad, eaten with enthusiasm and low standards. Oreo cheesecake, which felt wildly inappropriate for lunch and therefore perfect. Fingers were used. Rules were relaxed. Joy was abundant.

It was delicious. And fun. And wildly inefficient.

And yet, it struck me how rarely leaders pause to enjoy what they already have. We rush from one objective to the next, rarely stopping to say, “This is good. This was worth it.” Celebrations get deferred. Gratitude gets postponed. The picnic rug stays in the boot while we chase the next milestone. But people don’t thrive on perpetual striving. They thrive on being nourished, sometimes literally.

The third stop arrived without consultation in the form of a Boost Juice. A beacon of colour and cold sugar. Orders were placed with the gravity of a Strategic Plan decision. Flavours were debated. Straws were shared. For a few minutes, no one was asking how long until we arrived.

Later, when recounting the trip, the children did not mention the destination. They mentioned the smoothies… and the cheesecake.

Which, frankly, felt like a leadership case study. We obsess over outcomes, assuming that’s what people will remember. But memory is emotional, not transactional. People remember how it felt to be on the journey. They remember whether there was space to breathe, to laugh, to feel human in the middle of the effort.

By the final stretch, I had stopped watching the clock. Control had loosened its grip. I wasn’t managing the trip anymore; I was in it. And paradoxically, everything worked better.

We arrived later than planned. More relaxed than expected. Full - in every sense of the word.

I still believe in focus. I still value momentum. But I now know that leadership without pauses becomes brittle. That efficiency without joy is short-lived. And that sometimes the most intelligent thing a leader can do is stop driving so hard, pull out the leftovers, order the smoothie, and trust that the journey itself is doing important work.

After all, anyone can get there fast, but not everyone knows when it’s worth pulling over.