The Pause Before Action

Jul 15, 2025

The Soul of a Leader – The Conversation

✦ The Pause Before Action ✦

We are taught to value momentum.
To keep going. Keep producing. Keep moving.
As if speed confirms purpose.
As if urgency equals importance.
But action without alignment becomes noise.
And momentum without meaning becomes escape.
There is a moment—often ignored, often dismissed—
when the soul calls for stillness.
A pause.
Not to retreat from life, but to return to yourself.
This is the space between knowing and doing.
Between sensing and choosing.
Between the inner shift and the outer step.
This is the pause before action.
— Soul of a Leader, p.13

The Conversation

Do you ever feel rushed?

The day opens, and you’re already downstream—
caught in a current of calls, emails, messages, promises.
Even your curiosity finds distractions, and suddenly—
you’re at the end of the day, wondering:
Where did I go in all of this?

We are not lazy.
We are just entrenched in momentum.
And without knowing it, we’ve made speed a god.

The question isn’t “How do I do more?”
It’s:

Can I return to myself in the middle of the doing?

I invite you to try something radical in its simplicity:
Pause.

Pause before writing the next email.
Pause before responding to a text.
Pause before answering the phone.
Pause before saying yes to anything new.

How long?

Just three seconds.
Just one good inhale.

That’s it.

In that breath, you interrupt the trance.
You allow intuition to enter the room.
You create space—for presence to return.

You’ll notice something extraordinary:

Some responses aren’t needed.
Some decisions aren’t urgent.
Some “yeses” want to become no.

The pause doesn’t cost time.
It creates time.

It expands the day by restoring your agency within it.
It reclaims your rhythm from the machinery of urgency.

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Pause and Remember

Before any action—

a reply
a send
a scroll
a yes

Take one breath.
Ask softly:
What is true right now?

Then, act from that place.

Your life will feel more spacious.
And you may find—
it was never about doing more.
It was about being more present to what already is.

Try it and Share

Give this practice a try this week.
Let it be gentle. Let it be enough.

If you notice something—anything—
more ease
more clarity
even resistance

Please come back and share your thoughts in the comments.
This isn’t just a post.
It’s a conversation.

We’re all walking each other home. One pause at a time.