Why Doing Less Helps You Achieve More - with Steven D’Souza - The August Refresh, Archive Episode

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: Why Doing Less Helps You Achieve More - with Steven D'Souza - The August Refresh, archive episode, published on 31st August 2026.

Welcome to the Refreshing Leadership Podcast, and specifically welcome to our August Refresh series. This month I am re-sharing some of our most impactful episodes centred around the theme of rest, rejuvenation, and being a little bit more dreamy.

I am really excited to bring this conversation to you. It is with Steven D'Souza, who is the author of Not Doing, as well as various other books that we are going to talk about over the next couple of episodes.

Regular listeners this year will notice that we have talked quite frequently about moving to more of a surrender and goal-free state - which if you're a high achiever, can sound a little bit weird or even wrong. But to me, it's been a theme that's been impossible to ignore. It's kind of come and found me, and has felt too important not to share.

What I think is really important in this conversation is that we talk about going with the river rather than trying to force against it. We talk about letting the mud clear rather than reacting too quickly. And what we come up with is the idea that this isn't about sacrifice. You don't have to give up ambition and drive if you want to do less. In fact, it might be the very thing that makes your next level of success possible.

What is "not doing" and why does it matter?

Steven: The aim of Not Doing was to balance the benefits of action - as leaders we have a bias for action - but how do we make sure that we're not just in overaction? There's a writer, Samantha Gosher, who talks about the frenzied leader. The book looks at how we take effective action in a way that's sustainable and has impact.

It's based on something called negative capability, a phrase developed by the poet Keats. He described it as the ability to be with mystery, uncertainty, and doubt without reaching after fact and reason.

In terms of not doing, what's the side we don't look at? In speech, we privilege the speaker but not the listener. In action, how do we look at the things that support effective action - pausing, silence, stillness, waiting, even boredom - and how do we reframe some of these very human capabilities to add value and make us more effective?

The reason for the book was that we're caught up in a society that privileges relentless action, and it leads to a burnout culture where we feel exhausted most of the time. Many of your listeners will know that feeling - hectic days, propping ourselves up with coffee in the morning, making it through the day, and then being too exhausted in the evening to enjoy time with family or friends.

We thought there must be a better way. There must be a way that leaders can engage in activity - not through pushing, not through pulling, but working with the system. The metaphor we use is the metaphor of the river, which operates very efficiently, without effort, and accomplishes an enormous variety of things. What are the capabilities that leaders can develop to act more effectively and effortlessly? That's the broader context - trying to balance the overemphasis on action with effective and effortless action.

The power of pausing

Maya: I love that river metaphor. And there was something you mentioned about negative capability - is that the idea of pause, not doing, and listening rather than speaking?

Steven: Pausing is a very powerful technique that every listener can use, and we don't use it often enough.

A study at the University of Rochester medical school found that doctors interrupt their patients after an average of 23 seconds with a diagnosis. If they waited just six more seconds, the patient would reveal something that might change the diagnosis entirely. That's the power of a pause - actually changing what we do and the consequences of that.

In sport, think about a very tense basketball game where both teams are doing well but there's no breakthrough. The coach calls a timeout - it might be literally one minute - but it changes the whole direction of play and can make the difference between winning and losing.

I often see the same in organisations. We might be fully going in a meeting, but taking even a slight pause, a little break to think, to reflect, to create some space - that can change the direction after.

I had a client recently who was struggling to figure out where there was opportunity for him to do less, because he was feeling so at capacity and couldn't see any room for manoeuvre. We went through a few more standard options and nothing was really working. It was only when he realised that when he himself was more relaxed - when he didn't have completely back-to-back meetings all day - he was less reactive. When he was reactive, his tendency was to react quickly, create a response, create more work. When he was more relaxed, he was able to let things sit, and then it didn't always need that reaction and activity and generate new projects and new work.

For him, the way forward came from that negative capability - doing less, cultivating that mindset, listening, and creating space. None of the practical stuff worked. It was that powerful realisation that actually, that was the way he could make more space for himself and in turn reduce the cycle of continuously generating more work.

More and more I think the overactivity is because of our incapacity to be with ourselves and our own thoughts. I was listening to Arthur Brooks of Harvard earlier today, and he was talking about how people cannot stay with boredom - they need to look at their phone if they have two minutes free. This inability to stay with the discomfort of silence and not filling that space with activity - but the value in doing so is that your brain can access what they call a default system, where thoughts have time to emerge, where you can reflect, where new insights can happen. It's like a pregnant pause giving birth to something new that you might otherwise have missed.

It's a vital part of leadership - learning how to pause more. In our work environments, we're so busy managing the present. The pause is the vital juncture that enables us to focus on creating a different future. As leaders, we need to do both - manage the present and create the future, perform and transform. So it's not a luxury, it's a necessity.

The river metaphor and letting the mud settle

Maya: Let's go a bit deeper into that river metaphor, because what I love about it is that there's still momentum and energy. There's tremendous force and flow and movement, but it's not being forced. It's natural.

Steven: There's a famous Gestalt saying - and Gestalt is a form of psychology - which is: "Don't push the river. It flows by itself." Often we try to push the river. We want to force the seed to grow faster, but we end up destroying it.

One of the principles in Not Doing is this idea of letting the mud settle, and the water becomes clear by itself. When we're in a difficult situation, it's tempting to be caught up in frenetic activity to try to influence the outcome. But if we just wait a few moments, normally the mud will settle - you can see this in a glass of water if you shake it. The water becomes clear. It's the ability to pause and reflect rather than rushing into action, which can be a quick fix but may not address the underlying issues.

Maya: I really like all these natural metaphors, because we see so much activity in nature and yet we see things happening in an aligned and sustainable way.

Steven: You're right. I was speaking with a friend today about the natural rhythms of nature, actually. In winter, animals slow down and hibernate. We were talking about the idea of Sabbath - people have weekends, but some professionals take sabbaticals every seven or eight years. And we were sharing how hard it is to do that. How we want to stay active, maybe use that period to write a book or do something productive. And yet it offers an opportunity to learn from the seasons and say, "This is a period of quietness, a period of rest."

There's a fiction book called Wintering by Katharine May - the idea of how do we recognise the seasons, not just in the calendar, but in the day as well. Our days tend to be directed by our calendars rather than our energy. How do we live more in sync with natural rhythms that allow us to be more effective?

That might mean doing our most important work when we have the most energy and clarity. For some, that's in the morning. For others, they're night owls. There was some research by Annabel Abbs who looked at women writers like Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, and discovered they did their most creative work at night. When their neocortex was less active - the part that filters and modulates our activities - they were able to be much more creative.

Each of us has our own natural periods where we feel most engaged and alive. But we can learn to live much more in harmony with our own energies and with the seasons. It's something we don't really reflect on as leaders, because we're almost operating 24 hours, seven days a week.

The 30-second vacation

Steven: Something practical for listeners - rest doesn't need to take too much time. I remember saying to my coach, "I'm exhausted." He said, "Why don't you take a vacation?" I said, "I don't have time." He said, "I mean now." And I said, "What?" He said, "Yes. I want you to take a 30-second vacation. Put down whatever you're holding, put your hands behind your head, put your feet up, and just rest."

Your listeners can try this as well. Lean back, take a breath, and just allow yourself to sink in and be supported by wherever you are. Take an out-breath - often it's easy to sigh - and allow your body to go into relaxed mode. Notice your feet on the ground, the sounds around you, your centre, and then come back.

Literally, Maya, that was 30 seconds. People don't need a two-week holiday to put not doing into action. It can happen in as little as 30 seconds, and that can be an opportunity to come back a little bit more refreshed. Something as simple as a deep sigh is really relaxing for the body and for the mind, and can allow us to be more effective.

Maya: I love a mini holiday. And actually, when I was studying positive psychology in my master's, there was an intervention around mini vacations, and I was very drawn to that at the time - because between full-time work, the master's, and having small kids, I didn't feel like I had any other capacity. I was looking for very tiny solutions that could make a difference. Even the thought of planning a holiday when you're that busy is stressful - it's more admin, more things to do. So building these small things into our day can give us some of those benefits on a more regular basis.

Seasons, cycles, and the "I am what I do" narrative

Maya: The other thing I really enjoyed hearing you talk about was seasons and cyclicality. We talk about that quite a lot on this podcast, and I've had guests come on to talk about the menstrual cycle as a natural cycle to work with. But half of this audience is men, and it's really nice to hear you taking that approach and finding it meaningful and valuable, even without that particular cycle.

Steven: I think there is a narrative - for both men and women - which is: I am what I do. And that belief tends to drive this hyperactivity, and also a sense of loss if people are not doing something. If I'm not engaged in something purposeful, the inner critic comes in - that means I'm lazy, I'm squandering time.

The pressure to do is prevalent in society, and it impacts us all. It can come in many forms - even the fear of missing out. I want to go to that evening event, read that book, see that movie because others have. In essence, it's the idea that if I'm not doing, I'm not existing.

I've been experiencing a version of that myself recently. I was probably much more driven by work a decade ago, but I'm really noticing a shift - a desire for a slower way of being. It's always been there, but it's much stronger now. A lot of the really build-y bits of my career have been done. It's not that I don't want to work - I love my work - but it doesn't mean I want to go at it the same way I did a decade ago. And I'm comfortable with that.

But then every now and then I'll go onto LinkedIn - and I've actually researched this, so I know it is the worst platform for social comparison out of all the social media platforms, worse than Instagram - and it's very easy to be hit by, "Oh, I could be doing a bit of this," or "Oh, that could be cool." Unless you're incredibly mindful about it, you can walk off that platform thinking, "I should be doing more."

This is coming from someone who is pretty secure in their choices, has done a lot of work to arrive at them, and knows exactly what the mental impacts of these platforms are - and it still affects me. The world is currently not set up to support us doing less. Just like the world isn't set up to support eating less processed food unless you're extremely mindful, it's currently engineered in a way that can easily pull you down a rabbit hole. I really wanted to emphasise the difference between the idea of doing less and actually putting it into practice - because it is very difficult.

Steven: There is a tendency for overachievers to take on too much. One of the practices I give when I'm coaching an overachiever is to say no to a good opportunity every week - not a bad opportunity, a good one. It's about developing that muscle, that capacity to really focus.

I learned this as a therapist - you choose, you lose. There's always a sense of loss in every choice. There's always a road not taken. So it's being able to be okay with that, to say, "I made a choice, I recognise I can't fulfil everything, and I'm choosing this thing consciously, intentionally, for the life I want to create."

Recognising that there will be a sense of loss, and that there is always comparison with others, and that we can't be defined by that - that's an important aspect of this. I think it's mimetic. We want what others want. And recognising: this is where I want to craft my life, what I want my life to be about.

That clarity around your own values and priorities makes it easier to say no to things that don't accord with them. One of the most successful people I know says there are three things - his relationships, his health, and his business. Everything else he doesn't put attention to. Those three priorities direct his choices, how he structures his calendar, what he puts in. Not five, not ten - just those three.

Maya: It's nice to hear that, because what I was sharing is that I couldn't be clearer in my own choices - and yet I can still fall prey to the algorithm and societal ideas. Unless you're really conscious of it, you can easily get swayed. And the loss piece you mentioned - being okay with loss - I find that really helpful. Sometimes we're fed this idea that that experience of loss and sadness is not okay. But actually, it's okay to see it for what it is, accept it, and know that it's part of a full choice. If you're being holistic about it, it's one part of the experience.

Doing less inside an organisation

Maya: What about the individual listening who's thinking, "That's all right for you, Steven, that's all right for you, Maya - you've got more agency and autonomy in your work. But I'm inside an organisation. I've got a boss, a big team, so much going on amidst a really uncertain environment, fast pace of change, and cost-cutting. I didn't necessarily ask for all this to be on my plate, and I might have a young family and other responsibilities as well. How on earth can I do less right now?"

Steven: It's not necessarily about doing less, but about building your capacity and not doing what isn't necessary. Let me give you an example. If I'm boxing and I'm fighting like an amateur, they get exhausted very quickly because their body is all tense - they're using every muscle and after a few minutes they're out of breath. But the better you become, the more efficient and effective you are. You're not tensing your whole body. You've rehearsed, you're practised, you become more elegant, and you're using the minimal amount of energy.

So it isn't necessarily about doing less, but working more efficiently. Cultivating silence, looking at presence - when we're doing an activity, is our mind somewhere else or are we present with the person we're with? Learning how to pause, learning how to let the mind settle. There's also the idea of beautiful action, a term from the philosopher Immanuel Kant - doing an activity for itself, attending to the completeness of it rather than just getting through it.

And by the way, I don't think this leads to less output. It can actually be more effective. There's more impact that can happen with less movement. My first job was in hospitality, and when the management team went abroad for a week on a corporate retreat, the business was much more effective. More being in control and doing more doesn't necessarily make you effective.

That's the move from control to trust. Effectiveness isn't in direct proportion to the activities you take. Good leadership isn't about your own output. It should be about the capacity of the people you lead and what they can produce because of your guidance.

I always get frustrated when leaders say they can't go away for learning because they're so busy in their day jobs. But that is exactly why you need to go. If your team can't do without you, you're not really leading - you're managing.

Maya: And I would add to that - you can't operate in a more strategic, efficient, and effective way from a place of frenetic energy. You have to do it from a place of pause, rejuvenation, and space to reflect and think more deeply.

Steven: Yes. All the corporate scandals that have been studied - Margaret Heffernan in Willful Blindness wrote about this - most of these crises come from environments where people were sleep-deprived, working 18-hour days. That doesn't lead to better decisions. It leads to worse ones.

There's an evolutionary biologist, Robert Sapolsky, who has written books called Behave and Determined. He says much of our action is based not just on our psychology, but on our biology, our hormones, our stress levels - and they influence how we act and behave in the world. If we're always hustling and working relentlessly, that doesn't correlate with the most effective actions. In fact, it can result in poor decisions and ineffective action.

Part of it is recognising - what can I do to become more cognisant of the narratives I've bought into because of the culture I'm in, and how do I start to be more directive of how I want to lead and what example I want to set?

The best leaders I've worked with are not the frenetic leaders. They seem effortlessly relaxed, and yet more effective than the ones who are always walking around at pace and seem continuously stressed. And interestingly, the extremely busy, successful people I've approached tend to be the ones who reply first - not the ones who are less busy. There's a different relationship to time and activity. More activity doesn't equal more effectiveness.

A different relationship with time

Maya: One of the things you mentioned is that you have a different relationship to time than others. What do you mean by that?

Steven: I don't wear a watch, and yet I'm always on time. I've never done 12-hour days, and I would say I'm fairly effective in my work. There are two definitions of time. There's chronological time, and then there's Kairos - being in the moment, attending to what's in front of you, and being effective with that.

My relationship to time isn't as something I can lose or waste. I'm not ruled by it, and it doesn't determine how I operate. That doesn't mean I'm in some dreamy world - I've got a busy, full life of activities, but I'm approaching it from a very different angle.

Right now, I'm with you, and I'm present with you. I'm not thinking, "In an hour I've got this other activity to do." That will take care of itself. But I'm with you in this moment. I don't have a belief that I'm short of time, and I don't have a sense of scarcity around time.

In Not Doing we write about what we call the clock as a lock - something that determines what you can do and how much time you can spend on it. There are people who monitor every half-hour with productivity apps. But that can lead to an unhealthy relationship with time. It doesn't reflect how activities actually need to be done. If I'm doing a creative activity, I'm not going to try to do it in 10 minutes because that's all I have scheduled. I'm going to allow it to take the time it needs. And that, paradoxically, can be more effective.

It comes back to working with our energy rather than being directed by our calendar, and learning how to restore ourselves and look at our own capacity.

Surrender as a strength

Maya: We've talked about the idea of pausing, silence, and solitude. You also mentioned surrender - not as something passive or resigned, but as something active.

Steven: Surrender is a very powerful capability - actively engaging in an activity, not forcing it, but being able to follow. Not seeing it as something deficient in any way.

Maya: Surrender is my word of the year, and I've found it to be a very powerful word. There can be a tension between surrender and going with the flow versus ambition, drive, and growth. Do you experience that tension, or how do you reconcile those two things?

Steven: I don't see them as opposites. I see them as supporting each other. Being able to be effortless supports high achievement - it's a consequence of it. Being able to be relaxed, present, and to take sustainable action, to have levity and lightness rather than being stressed - it allows you to achieve much more. That's how I would answer that.

Maya: That is a gorgeous way to wrap up this first part of our conversation. Steven, thank you so much for joining us and talking about not doing. I'm really excited for the second part, which is going to be about your latest book. For now, tell listeners where they can find you.

Steven: stevendsouza.com - all the books are there, and they're also available on Amazon.

Maya: Thank you all for listening, and I look forward to connecting with you next time with the second part of this conversation with Steven.

Enjoyed this episode? Catch up here:

Watch on YouTube | Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

You can connect with Steven D'Souza at https://stevendsouza.com/

About Maya

Maya Gudka is an executive coach specialising in C-suite career progression and leadership development. She works with senior leaders in major organisations on strategic career planning, executive presence, and building sustainable influence. Maya hosts The Refreshing Leadership Podcast, which ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and has nearly 300 episodes exploring the challenges faced by ambitious professionals.