About Me & Sloww

Just looking for an overview of the site? Start here.

👋 Hi, I’m Kyle—the human behind Sloww.

I’m an ex-marketing executive turned corporate dropout and solopreneur who found and created my life purpose after an existential crisis―synthesizing the world’s wisdom on the art of living for students of life. Here’s a little about my journey so far.

My “Old” Life: As recently as a few years ago, I lived the life of “workism” and “total work.” You would have found the old me working consistent 60-80 hour workweeks in marketing and advertising, consumed by busyness, and trying to offset my hard work by telling myself “I deserve this” while upgrading my lifestyle—buying a sports car and McMansion in the suburbs (aka “lifestyle inflation“). Life was heavy—one thing after another that I had to do. Externally focused. Lacking purpose. Superficial. Complicated. Reactive. Unconscious and spiritually poor.

“Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of a world’—the collapse of an old philosophy of life.” — C.G. Jung

My “New” Life: In 2018, I quit my 9-to-5 job—and essentially my decade-long career—to pursue entrepreneurship. I’ve also been downshifting to simple and slow living while upshifting meaning and life purpose. In 2019, we sold the house! (and the car will be out of here when we get around to it). Life is lighter—one thing after another that I get to do. Internally focused. Purposeful. Deeper. Simpler. Intentional. More conscious and spiritually rich—or, at least on the path of spiritual growth.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” — Joseph Campbell

What? Why? How? Let’s back up a bit.

In November 2015, I had an existential crisis. The crazy hours at work finally broke me for the first (and last) time. This is when the questions started. I questioned everything—everything I’d ever known, believed in, and thought was true. The acute portion of my crisis lasted six weeks—I started to give myself a deep, self-taught, crash course on life.

“I’ve never heard of anybody who awakens in their comfort zone.” — Eckhart Tolle

I struggled every single day with the new information I was learning (awareness) vs. how I was still living (action)—causing a high level of cognitive dissonance or what some may call “divine discontent.” I felt like I had a foot in two worlds:

“Many people who are going through the early stages of the awakening process are no longer certain what their outer purpose is. What drives the world no longer drives them. Seeing the madness of our civilization so clearly, they may feel somewhat alienated from the culture around them. Some feel that they inhabit a no-man’s land between two worlds.” — Eckhart Tolle

My crisis was the beginning of the end of my glorification of busy and unconscious consumption—and the beginning of my awakening to intentional living.

Previously, I had no idea there was another way (or a way out) of how I had been living. I had followed the typical path in Western society: go to school, get a job, get another better job that pays more, buy more, spend more, etc. I followed this path without questioning a thing for over a decade. Totally guilty of keeping up with the Joneses—a sucker for the modern definition of the American Dream.

“I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

More and more things and experiences offered no long-term fulfillment. I was more miserable than ever. Many people already know money can’t buy happiness, but knowing and doing are two different things. I thought I knew too, but it took me living it to really open my eyes. I had to learn the hard way. I was a “high achiever” in school, sports, and work, but I had completely missed the most important subject: LIFE.

“You can get all A’s and still flunk life.” — Walker Percy

What was missing? I realized that things and experiences were really just band-aid solutions. What I really wanted was to align my life with my newly discovered purpose:

“I wanted more than a job. I wanted deeper congruence between my inner and outer life.” — Parker J. Palmer

Since late 2015, I’ve been exploring many different aspects of intentional living (and beyond): slow living, unbusyness, simple living, voluntary simplicity, downshifting, decluttering, minimalism, digital minimalism, essentialism, financial independence, life purpose, happiness, self-actualization, lifestyle design, psychology, philosophy, spiritual growth, wisdom, enlightenment, transcendence, and more.

I truly believe I’ve discovered secrets to living a fully alive life. Ancient wisdom and spiritual traditions have known these “secrets” for ages, but they are just now being validated by modern science and research.

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” — Kahlil Gibran

Welcome to Sloww

To get a deeper look into Sloww and how it has evolved over the last few years, check out: What is Sloww?

When I was in the midst of my existential crisis, I emailed my parents on Christmas Day 2015:

“Just bought the domain Sloww.co. Not sure what I want to do with it yet, but I’ve been inspired reading about downshifting, minimalism, simple living, and the slow movement.”

The seed was planted. It would germinate for another year and a half before my first post on the site in mid-2017. In the years since, Sloww has published 400+ posts. You can catch up on everything I’ve learned to date by reading “short” summaries of posts 1-100, 101-200, 201-300, and 301-400.

Sloww is creating the web’s deepest guide to the art of living through an interdisciplinary synthesis of the world’s wisdom across diverse yet interconnected disciplines:

What I do:

Sloww is essentially my public, digital, “commonplace book” where I’ve attempted to combine and align everything about myself: my personality, my purpose, my play, my philosophy, my philanthropy, and more.

Thinking is my passion. The term I’ve found that best describes what I do is “synthesizer” or “synthesist.” In short, the approach I take is: self-taught + syntopical reading + summarizing + synthesizing (synthesizing as a thinking style and a writing style).

I’m not a philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, professor, scientist, or spiritual teacher. Who am I then? I’m an interdisciplinary dot connector across all those humans and many more.

There’s no operating manual for life, but life is an open book test. We’re all copying the best of those who came before us and “standing on the shoulders of giants.” I do all the homework—researching, curating, reading, note-taking, summarizing, synthesizing, writing, creating, and sharing. You get all the highlights—so you spend less time on all those things and more time learning, practicing, and mastering.

What you get:

You get a growing resource of the world’s deepest knowledge to maximize your human potential.

You get a trusted guide on your journey to transformation: self-realization, self-discovery, self-development, self-actualization, self-transcendence, and more.

You get high-signal content with a high wisdom-per-word ratio so you can get wise in less time:

You get me as your personal curator to surface the most interesting content from around the web to you weekly (via the free Sloww Sunday newsletter).
You get the most detailed book summaries of the world’s best books (via free book summaries).
You get syntheses of the dots connected to live the good life (via Sloww Premium).

Who is Sloww for?

Anyone who is ready to slow down, live simply, and design a lighter life (“intentional humans”).
Anyone who is ready to find and create life purpose and be the hero/heroine of their own journey (“heroic humans”).
Anyone who is ready to be a student of life, master their mind, and become wise (“holistic/meta humans”).

The internet is a big place. My goal is for Sloww to become a go-to resource for you on your journey—your own quiet corner of the web to slow down, think deeply, get inspired, and ultimately create an action plan to live better.

No matter where you are in your journey, Sloww is your guide to awaken and actualize the art of living fully alive.

What’s next?

“You were born that way … quiet, thinking, observing the crazy things in life.” — My Mom (who just told me this in my 30s)

Go with the Sloww,

Kyle Kowalski
Founder, Sloww