Tempo: Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision-Making

Tempo is the pace at which something moves, whether a project, dinner party, or heart rate. We are highly influenced by the tempo around us, made up of rhytm, emotion, and energy. Changing a tempo is like a state transition, requiring activation energy to push it from one to the other—significantly harder than following the pace already set. Rao states that “emotion is the result of tempo of the environment not meeting expectations.”

All of that was in the first few chapters, and I enjoyed exploring this concept. Then it got so abstract that I could barely remember what I’d read. That’s when I closed the book and moved on to something else.