Episode Overview

Podcast: Special Ops with Emma Rainville
Episode: Why Fast Thinking Is Killing Your Morale, Creativity, and Profits
Date: October 7, 2025
Host: Emma Rainville
Guest: Tiago (Operations Team Member)

Main Theme:
Emma Rainville and her team member Tiago unpack the high-stakes consequences of "fast thinking" in business, discussing how a constant rush leads to morale issues, operational fires, lost creativity, and ultimately lower profits. They share strategies and personal anecdotes for slowing down thinking, embracing operational excellence, and carving out time for deep work—key to building more sustainable, profitable companies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fast Thinking Trap

• Consequences of Fast Thinking:
  • Speed leads to operational problems–“fires” that distract everyone from higher-value, creative work.
  • "When you create a bunch of fires, everyone's focused on operations instead of the creative part of your business, which is really what makes us the money."
    — Emma (00:15, 00:43, 01:44)
• Morale & Profitability:
  • Teams lose morale when caught perpetually fighting fires, and the business loses profitability and innovation.

2. The Role of the Visionary and the Operator

• Visionaries’ Strengths & Weaknesses:
  • Visionaries are prolific, creative, and quick—but their solutions can create unforeseen mid- or long-term issues.
  • "They're going to come up with solutions, which is one solution and one problem, like mixed together, probably a short-term solution and a midterm problem or a couple of them, actually."
    — Tiago (01:58)
• Operator as Counterbalance:
  • Operators help visionaries slow down, test ideas, and prevent chaos.
  • Emma stresses the importance of hiring people smarter than herself in the specific domains, to challenge ideas and operationalize plans.

3. The “Body” of the Entrepreneur & Speed

• Physical State Impacts Mental Pace:
  • Constant stimulation (coffee, stress) speeds up both body and mind, making it harder to slow down.
  • Emma and Tiago debate caffeine:
    • Tiago: "You probably shouldn't have seven espressos." (00:22, 03:47)
    • Emma: "I'll argue that with you. I can have seven espressos." (00:27, 03:47, 03:52)
  • Emma highlights how stimulants affect people differently, especially those with ADHD.

4. Letting Creativity Flow (And When to Rein It In)

• As operators, the instinct is to weed out "bad" ideas too early, sometimes stifling innovation.
• Let creativity come to life before poking holes. Heavy thinking comes after the creative phase.

"Visionaries I've worked with... have all said to me, like, hey, let creativity flow. Don't knock it before we've even hit, like, let creativity flow."
— Emma (05:35)

5. The Power of Deep Thinking and Slowing Down

• Tiago’s Framework for Deep Thinking:

  • Step back and ask “Why? What for?” to clarify goals.
  • Take a "drone view" for situational awareness.
  • Map out resources, timing, and implications—what’s noise, what’s waste, what’s mission-critical?
  • “Operations is economics... we have limited resources.”
    — Tiago (09:12)

• Fighting Noise:

  • Noise = anything (tasks, apps, messages) fragmenting attention or overwhelming systems.
  • Example apps: Slack, Google Drive, ClickUp, and email are key culprits.
  • Metaphor: “When you open the task administrator in your computer, like, you’re going to see all the processes running in the background and that’s taking processing power.”
    — Tiago (11:25)

• Avoiding Context-Switching:

  • Each new process or initiative increases “noise” and hurts productivity.

6. Practical Solutions and Tools

• Deep Work (Cal Newport):
  • Emma recommends reading Deep Work, and finding rituals to block off uninterrupted “deep” time—even for busy operators.
  • She blocks 2–3 stretches of two-hour "deep work" weekly, plus team deep-dive sessions monthly/quarterly (12:29-14:45).
  • “When I learn to quiet everything... I realized all of the pieces that were on the floor that I was leaving that really, if you're going to talk about operational excellence, shouldn't be left there.”
    — Emma (13:37)
• Tiago’s Ebook:
  • Resource: How to Slow Down and Reduce Noise—available free in the Visionary Vault.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Slowing Down, Challenging Visionaries:

  • Tiago: “The first part is actually hearing and listening. So if you give me that resource... it’s making myself time to dive in and analyze... what’s the purpose?” (07:11)
  • “Sometimes, just saying ‘no’—not because we won’t do it, but to trigger the other person.” (07:29)

• On Morale and Breakdowns:

  • Emma: “When you put a funnel at risk and it doesn’t work or it causes a lot of chaos on the back end of it, you absolutely kill your team morale. No one’s excited about a broken anything…” (08:24)

• On Operational Waste & Noise:

  • Tiago: “Noise is processing power... it can be context switching... every new process you add is noise added.” (11:04–11:25)
  • Emma: “I’m noise.”
    Tiago: “You can be. Yeah, you certainly can be.” (10:44)

• On Triggers & Pause Buffers:

  • Emma’s main triggers to “stop and think”:

    1. A staff member in trouble or nearing burnout.
    2. Dropping profits.
    3. Poor quality—anything that “makes us look less than excellence.” (15:38–16:53)

  • “Anything that makes the company look less than excellence… everything stops. There’s... a button that is in my office that is not real. But it is. And when I push that button, everything stops.”
    — Emma (16:20)

  • Tiago’s advice: “Even if it’s a 10-minute buffer, just say pause, like 10 minutes. Change it.” (17:04)

Actionable Takeaways

• Read Deep Work by Cal Newport; implement weekly deep work sessions (12:29–14:45).
• Download Tiago’s ebook, How to Slow Down and Reduce Noise (available in the Visionary Vault).
• Audit your “noise” sources: Clean up Slack, Drive, ClickUp, and use buffers between tasks.
• Map your projects visually, challenging the "why" and "what for" every step.
• Identify your triggers—what situations cause you to speed up, and preemptively build in pausing routines.

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–01:44: The problem with fast thinking: operational fires, morale, and profit.
• 01:55–03:12: Visionaries, stimulants, and the need to slow down.
• 03:53–07:11: Letting creativity flow, operator vs. visionary dynamics.
• 07:11–08:24: Slowing down: frameworks for deep analysis.
• 08:24–11:49: Practical examples of operational "noise" and how to tackle it.
• 12:29–14:45: Deep Work, shutting off distractions, and operational excellence.
• 15:09–16:53: Identifying “trigger” situations that require slowing down.
• 17:04: Tiago's pause-buffer trick for better decisions.

Final Thoughts

Emma and Tiago offer a candid, practical exploration of why relentless forward momentum—if left unchecked—can be toxic for creativity, team morale, and profits. Their advice: slow down, get analytical, embrace deep work, and make time for strategic reflection. Download the playbooks, build pausing/buffer routines, and surround yourself with collaborators who can challenge and refine your vision.