Carl Honore is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and TED speaker, Ageism Disruptor and voice of the global Slow Movement. His latest book is called Bolder. And I am really pleased to have had him on the podcast.
If you have been on your spiritual path for any length of time, you would have heard invitations to slow down, so I thought it would be good to have Carl on the podcast as the expert on the topic.
Carl’s journey started as a stressed father who was always rushing. Every day was a race against the clock and I think a lot of us can relate to this. One day as he was trying to rush through the bedtime story he was reading to his son, he took stock and realised that it had gone too far. This set him on a course to understand our relationship with time. As the journalist that he is, this took him around the world, as he explored the different ways cultures approach time.
The Western world has a capitalistic relationship with time. Everything revolves around the clock. We believe that time is money. So slowing down is costing us.
Carl talks about reconeccting to his inner tortoise, which I find very endearing but which also reminds me of Grand Master Oogway in Kun Fu Panda.
During our discussion, I think Carl and I were able to recognise that the moment he took stock of what he was doing, in terms of rushing fatherhood, was an awakening moment of some sort. He had another one that led to another book called Bolder, that I am reading at the moment and finding enlightening.
Even though Carl identifies as agnostic, he is open to the idea that life has a spiritual dimension and he is definitely on a quest to find answers. Carl can be found on his website and on LinkedIn. You can subscribe to his substack account with this link. To watch his TEDtalk on the power of slow, click here. To watch his TEDTalk on ageing, click here.
To listen to the episode, click here.