This time of year always feels different.
The inbox gets overloaded and then all of a sudden fall silent. Calendars become empty over the next two weeks.
And that’s often when an uncomfortable thought pops up:
“If innovation needs speed… am I allowed to slow down?”
In startup culture, stillness is suspicious.
If you’re not building, pitching, optimizing or posting, you must be stuck — or worse, burning out.
But here’s the paradox we don’t talk about enough:
many of the best strategic insights don’t show up during the sprint, but in the silence after it.
Research backs this up. Leaders who deliberately build in downtime make better decisions, avoid tunnel vision and spot new opportunities earlier. Not because they work less — but because they see more clearly.
Stillness isn’t absence.
It’s processing time. 💭
It’s where intuition, pattern recognition and direction have space to land.
Especially for impact-driven founders, this matters.
You can’t build a new system if you never pause to check whether you’re still aligned with what you’re trying to change.
Maybe innovation isn’t just a race.
Maybe it’s a breath.
Inhale: build, test, move.
Exhale: pause, reflect, recalibrate.
So if you find yourself doing nothing this week — walking, staring, thinking, or simply being — don’t rush to fill the space.
It might just be the moment the next chapter quietly knocks.
Wishing you clarity, calm and good ideas this Christmas.
Originally published in De Telegraaf
