What France Taught Me About Slowing Down

I built my career on speed. WHISK started in 2012 in SF in the middle of the startup boom, surrounded by founders who optimized everything and moved fast by design. That pace shaped how I worked for years.

France didn't ask me to slow down. It just made speed feel beside the point.

The producer who makes something extraordinary isn't checking email on Sunday. The relationship that opens the door you actually want to walk through gets built at the market on Saturday morning, not in a follow-up sequence. The meeting that matters happens over a two-hour lunch not because anyone is being inefficient, but because that's how trust gets built here.

I spent the first year fighting this. Then I spent about a week realizing it had made everything I do better.

WHISK became more intentional in France. Kismet Comptoir became possible in France. The work I'm most proud of came from slowing down enough to actually see what I was building.