The Most Magnetic Thing About a Capable Man (Hint: It’s Not the Grind)
By Asana
I know a certain kind of man.
He has a calendar that looks like a city skyline and a brain that does not have an off switch. He can close the deal, fix the thing, carry the weight, and answer the email at eleven at night with a clear head. The one thing he cannot seem to do is sit in a patch of sun and let it be enough.
Audri & Asana enjoy finding time together to be creative
I say this with great affection because I am a little like him, too.
Here is what I have noticed about high performers. There is always one more rep, one more call, one more item to handle before they are allowed to exhale. So the exhale keeps getting pushed to next week, and next week has its own skyline, and the whole thing just rolls forward forever like a wave that never gets to be the beach.
I want to let you in on something.
Nobody is going to walk into your office, look at your impressive little empire, and say, "Well done, you may now relax.” You have to be the one to decide whether the work will survive without you for an hour. And it will. I promise you it will. I know, I know, you feel like it is a slippery slope if you take an hour off, or maybe you are addicted to the work. I have been there. The adrenaline rushing through my brain is kinda a high. But when highs are compounded, there is eventually a crash, or GD forbid a massive mistake bc you are going too fucking fast.
You do not need a silent retreat or a mountain or three weeks off the grid, though if those are on offer, by all means. It can be smaller and weirder than that. It can be standing naked, barefoot in the grass for four minutes. It can be a slow stretch on the floor before bed. It can be lying flat on your back in a sunbeam.
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I do a lot of my letting go with art and creativity.
Because that is where my brain finally shuts up long enough for the good stuff to find me. You might be the type who needs a walk with no destination, or ten honest minutes of breathing. The form matters less than the letdown. The point is that for a little while, you stop being the man who handles everything and go back to being a body in the world.
Yes, you will think more clearly afterward. Yes, the work gets sharper. But that is not the prize. The prize is that you actually get to be here for your own life. You get to feel the sun instead of just looking out the window, wishing you were on a long bike ride. You get to be the kind of relaxed, charismatic, and sexy man that makes other people want to know more, because there is almost nothing more magnetic than a capable man who is also completely at ease in his own skin.
So consider this your permission slip, signed and handed over by someone who is rooting for you.
Put the phone in another room. Find your patch of sun or your patch of grass or your slow stretch on the floor. Let your whole body go quiet for a while and discover that the world, shockingly, keeps spinning without your supervision. and see if new inspiration comes. You might just find that problem that has been challenging you unblocked in your mind.
Go be useless for an hour. You have earned it, even if you would never have given yourself the day off to find out.
TL;DR:
"The Permission You Keep Waiting For”
High performers treat rest as a reward they haven't earned yet, so the exhale is always pushed to next week. But nobody is coming to give you permission to relax. You have to decide whether the work survives without you for an hour, and it will. Letting go can be small and weird: barefoot in the grass, a slow stretch, a creative endeavor, lying in a sunbeam, ignoring your own thoughts. The real prize isn't sharper work afterward, it's actually being present for your own life. Permission slip, signed, go be useless for an hour.
