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MAKING HEADWAY

BY RICH FARRELLY

Photo Credit: Me

Welcome to issue #6 of Making Headway, a monthly letter to you, with a focus on doing your best leadership work and hopefully, making some tweaks to your life. I love that you are here. If this was forwarded to you, subscribe here.

Sunday, April 6th, 2025

Butter-up Pucker-cup,

This letter was supposed to land in your inbox on Sunday evening Melbourne time. But, I messed up the sending schedule.

If you were waiting in eager anticipation… thanks for being great. Also: I’m sorry.

The truth? It’s been a struggle to get this letter started at all this month. I’ve been dancing with that all-too-familiar love-duo: Overthinking and Lost Momentum. 

It took my goal-setting group to haul me back on the wagon. Or is it off the wagon? I always forget. Whichever one means I’m doing better now… that’s where I’m at.

Maybe you’ve been there too? Caught between doing something and doing it perfectly, until you do… nothing?

I was a ball of mass. No movement. Just potential.

And then I paused.

Not a give up kind of pause. A gather myself kind of pause. A wait, what actually matters here? kind of pause.

Which, it turns out, is exactly what this month’s letter is all about.

More on that in a moment - but first, some personal updates from March, aka: The Month of Lattes, Viruses, and the Very Wise Susan Rodrigues, PhD, FRSC (yes, she’s earned all the letters and then some).

🌡️ I was sick for a week (missed book club = heartbreak).
🎉 My wife and I celebrated our birthdays - while both sick.
☕️ I became the proud owner of my very first coffee machine. (No more $6 lattes! Also, my local barista was surprisingly pleased about the news and promptly sold me a $20 bag of beans)
🤝 Susan visited from the UK and treated me to lunch. She didn’t fly all the way here just to buy me lunch for my birthday. (She owed me. And had other things to do.) But I do recommend connecting with her. She’s smart, sharp, and the kind of person who makes you want to raise your own game.

So yes, it’s been a month of milestones, misfires, and mini-comebacks.

And the common thread through it all?
The pause. The deep breath. The in-between space where clarity shows up.

I once exclaimed to my boss during one particular period of overload of work, "It never rains, but it pours!!" She misheard me and replied, "Yeah, how do we arrange a pause?"

Let’s talk about that and start the lesson here:

👇

* * *

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about pausing. I mean the kind of pause that happens right before you make a decision. The breath you take before you hit send. Taking a beat of silence after someone says something that rubs you the wrong way, but before you react.

That kind of pause.
It’s where the magic happens.✨

The pause is underrated. Overlooked. Lost in the shuffle of all the pings in our day, AI prompts, and end-of-Q3 (or Q1, depending on where you are in the world) performance goals. But here’s the truth:

The leaders who pause? They’re the ones who last.

1. Pause to Think Better
I've been running a few workshops lately on critical thinking. What I love about critical thinking is that it’s not just a corporate buzzword - it’s a muscle. And the pause is the gym.

Smart thinking isn’t about being the fastest to answer. (AI is the go to for that now.)
It’s about being the one who asks the better questions.

Before your next “quick decision,” try asking:

• What assumption am I making here?
• What might I be missing?
• What if the opposite were true?

One writer called it thinking like a philosopher. Which sounds like you should be in a robe and holding a scroll, but really it just means: slow down long enough to see the whole chessboard. Get on the balcony.

2. Pause to Learn, Not Just to Ship Something Out the Door
Covid was a thing infecting workplaces everywhere. The new thing infecting them is Big Urgency Energy. Or as it can be referred to, BUE. It rhymes with "phew," which is the sound we make after rushing to finish something that maybe didn’t need to be rushed in the first place.

Urgency gets work out the door and puts those spotfires out.
But reflection? That’s how we make sure it was the right work and find out where the ember attack is coming from.

So:
📆 Book your next team retrospective before your next big project kicks off.
💬 After a major meeting or launch, shoot a quick message to your team: “What worked? What flopped? What’s can we do better for next time?” You can ask them in-person, but probably prime them first and give them a chance to think about it.

Reflection isn’t extra. It is the work.

3. Pause to Forgive (Yes, Really)
This one might be the hardest.

We’re great at goal-setting. KPI and OKR-chasing. Spreadsheet-wrangling.

But what about the moment when someone steps on your toes at work (figuratively or literally) and you’re left with that weird stew of annoyance + silence + low-grade resentment? It's where you want to shout 'Stay in your lane.'

Here’s the thing: forgiveness doesn’t make you soft. It makes you stronger.

Because grudges? They’re heavy. And they slow everyone down.

Start with something simple: ❤️ Write down 3 things you value about someone who recently drove you nuts.
📝 Reframe a workplace “ugh” into a story of growth.
🎤 Host a “clear-the-air” moment in your next team meeting. Keep it light, keep it real. I put a little elephant statue in the middle of the table and we talk about the elephant in the room.

So let’s make 2025 a little less churny, a little more reflective, and a lot more human.

Breathe in.
Pause.
Lead on.

P.S. Got a favourite “pause” ritual? A weird-but-wonderful team habit? Hit reply—I’m all ears (and occasional snorts of laughter).

* * *

Finding Our Way (and the Right Train)

The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority has just released its first major subway map redesign in decades. It’s sleeker, more digital-friendly, and designed for how people actually navigate the city today. Naturally, because it's New York, the update’s been met with both applause and outrage. Some love the clarity, others miss the old quirks. You can modernise the map, but you can’t mess with a New Yorker’s sense of direction. Their iconic “I’m walkin’ here!” as you accidentally step in their path is more than a catchphrase - it’s practically policy.

It got me thinking back to 2011, when my wife and I were married in City Hall in New York. The next day, we had to get our marriage documents notarised in three different offices across Manhattan - a bureaucratic scavenger hunt, basically. The subway was our lifeline, except... we had no idea where we were going. We paused under one of those classic glowing green orbs at a station entrance, completely unsure which train to take. The map was a mess, the platform loud, and everything felt just a little overwhelming.

But we figured it out. Took a few wrong turns, had some good laughs, and stumbled upon a food truck serving the best soup I’ve ever had. That day was a reminder: even in the chaos, a short pause can help you get your bearings - and sometimes lead you somewhere better than expected.

Guest Post

I am trying this idea of a 'Guest Post'

(To be honest, no one has taken me up on this yet. I'll keep trying)

We all have something we have crafted or created, or an idea we are toying with, so if you are keen to take it for a test drive or push whatever it is you have to say a little further, let me know and I can include the whole thing or a link to it. It does not have to be polished. Even a photo on a napkin will be enough. Who knows who you will touch. 

For the avoidance of doubt, all the creative juices remain with you. I am just giving you a platform to tease them out and maybe get feedback.

I like to think we are all little cheer squads for each other in this world and our default position is that we all want each other to succeed in business and in life, so feedback and ideas are always welcome. I know it is coming from a good place. I am even open to a ‘letter to the editor’, if you are inspired to write.

Thanks for reading this far. 

Write to you next month.

Rich

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