The GovNavigators Show

“Sometimes You Should Be Late”: Alex Snider on His New Book and Slowing Down in Government

• Adam • Season 4 • Episode 166

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This week on The GovNavigators Show, Robert and Adam welcome Alex Snider, a former GSA and State Department official and author of the new book Sometimes You Should Be Late, to talk about what mindfulness has to do with government management. Alex walks through his career path in the Executive branch, and explains how recovering from a bike accident and the concussion that followed sent him toward meditation, therapy, and a new relationship with time. The conversation digs into the way breath is important to helping us live in the present, how bringing mindfulness into stakeholder meetings and performance reviews changes how public servants relate to one another, and why "sometimes you should be late" isn't an excuse for flakiness but a case for slowing down enough to notice the things that matter. Plus, Alex lets us in on the realities of a first-time author’s book launch, and how it further reinforced his idea that we should let go of the things we can’t control.  

Show Notes: 

What's on the GovNavigators' Radar? 

July 14th: 

July 15th: 

July 16th: 

SPEAKER_02

Welcome everyone to the Gov Navigator Show, a government-focused program that won't make it easy. We're the Gov Navigators. I'm Robert Jack. And I'm Adam Hughes. We hope to enlighten and live in your week with news and insightful entertaining guests, all on the topic of government management.

SPEAKER_01

Join today's episode of Gov Navigators brought to you by the creative geniuses behind the award-winning podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's not as hot as it was last week. I don't know if that's a plus or if I'm just in the delusional state of the summer heat because it's still pretty hot.

SPEAKER_01

And you know what old people say.

SPEAKER_02

Oh no. Do they just talk about how hot it is?

SPEAKER_01

We really needed the rain.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, we did. Literally, my wife said that to me yesterday. Good Lord. Good Lord. We did need the rain. No, this is a true statement. Okay. So DC has not slowed down. The government has not slowed down, even though it's not.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. And things happen without things happening.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, in multiple ways. Which one were you thinking of?

SPEAKER_01

The housing bill became law. That's right. And nobody had to do anything. Nope. Massive reforms to not only the government's operations, but state and local government as well. So hopefully that will unlock a lot of housing stock.

SPEAKER_02

And I'd have to go back and check the record, but I can't remember a piece of legislation that has passed into law that both Republicans and Democrats have been so excited about. Except the main one. Yes, no, true. Greg Rabaccia is leaving OMB. The federal CIO has announced he's leaving at the end of August.

SPEAKER_01

We're also losing CIOs at DOT and Interior. Yep. And the HUD CIO is going to backfill the CIO at Interior. Do you think they get in a room and work all this out? It's like, okay, who's going to take interior?

SPEAKER_02

They might draw straws. It's possible. We should ask our friend Darren Ash if he drew the short straw. That's why he ended up at Interior long ago. Yeah. Another thing, that wasn't really big headlines, but the Department of Government Efficiency has officially expired. Out with a whimper. Yeah, it really was. That was a good idea. You said it, not me. The official authorization has expired. I'd say there's still maybe vestiges of Doge around, but we've really moved on a great deal, particularly considering the atmosphere in 2025 compared to now. We've moved far past it.

SPEAKER_01

In other news, the White House hosted tech executives on the subject of quantum computing. Oh, and we know a lot about quantum computing. Okay. Actually, this came on the heels of IBM and the Cleveland Clinic and Oak Ridge Labs announcing a major quantum breakthrough. Buckle your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. So I asked Claude for some help. I said, tell me what this does, like I'm a third-year-old. They used a fancy new computer to help work out a better recipe for the sponge that makes fusion fuel. It doesn't power anything yet. It's one early step toward making clean energy someday.

SPEAKER_02

So major breakthrough, nothing substantive to report. This sounds like a GAO report, honestly. Well, that's great though. Congrats to the team there.

SPEAKER_01

No? So let's talk about something else big that happened this week, and it'll make everybody jill. I agree. Adam, I need you to do me a favor. Yes. Anything for you, Robert. Take a deep breath. I suppose to let it out? Yes. Okay, that's fine. Let me ask you another question. Yeah. Is that the first time that anybody's ever asked you to do that in a meeting?

SPEAKER_02

In a meeting at Governmentors? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. So maybe ever actually.

SPEAKER_01

It's not the first time it's happened to me. And that's why we're so excited to talk to Alex Snyder, who's a former OMB executive, which, as you know, is one of the finest organizations. It's just fine, honestly.

SPEAKER_02

But Alex is great. Other OMB execs that we know may not be also great.

SPEAKER_01

He's written a great book. Sometimes you should be late. Maybe my favorite title of all time. I don't want to encourage you. Alex, let's get to you. Thanks for being with us. It's so great to be here. So before we get to your latest best-selling tome, give us a walk through your career.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's not been a straight path in any way. I had sort of three phases of my career. The first was having been a diplomat's son growing up. I found my way on this very inertial path towards political science major, masters in foreign affairs, and then joining the State Department as a presidential management fellow and spending a decade there. Then, about 10 years in, I decided that it was time to look at our domestic democracy and to do something in that world. And so I spent a year and a half in the Senate, and then I came over to GSA. And so I actually wasn't an OMB executive, but my job was to make the OMB executives look good, supporting them from the perch of GSA. I stand corrected. I stand corrected. We still love you.

SPEAKER_02

I knew it was fantastic.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Salt of the earth GSA employees making OMB people look good. I wonder who that could be like. Yeah, back to our guests.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. And then this third stage of my career, which is sort of launching now, it came in in a very strange way, in a very unexpected way. It came in through a bike accident. And so about 10 years ago, I had a bike accident that left me with a pretty gnarly concussion. And that led me needing to accept things I couldn't change in my life. And it turns out putting in lots of effort and forcing things and the ways that I learned how to be a good public servant didn't really serve me in my recovery. And that led me to meditation. It led me to therapy. And it led me to thinking differently about time. And what I noticed in the fast corridors of the White House and government bureaucracy is that we moved pretty fast and not always for the right reasons. And so what I tried to do in this next stage was to bring in that mindfulness background to help people, help myself slow down a bit and remember what we miss when we move fast. And that eventually led to me writing this book, Sometimes You Should Be Late, about trying to make sense of, on one hand, the beautiful work of public service, the care that public servants, like both of you, have put into making government work better to serve the people, but also what happens when everything becomes an urgent crisis, and we mark every email with a red exclamation mark saying we need to get this policy implemented by, you know, COB or else. So that's what this book's about.

SPEAKER_02

So, Alex, I want to go back to how Robert started with breathing, because I think I've seen you post a number of times on LinkedIn. You talk about the importance of meditation, breathing, taking time even before individual meetings start. Talk a little about the role of breath and why that's so important before we get into the details of the book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a fun question, Adam. And I mean, just like laughing at the importance of breath. It's essential. None of us would be here. We could survive without water for a bit of time, without food for even longer, but we all need to breathe. And I think what's so interesting about breath is, and I'll get to sort of why this matters in public service in a second, is the only time you can breathe is right now. You can't have breathe 20 minutes ago, you can't breathe two hours in the future. It's got to be right now. And so when we take a moment before a meeting, before going into your principal's office before some big moment, and you take a breath, what it does is it helps kind of bring you back to what is actually happening now. And so for me, the point is not breathing. The point is slowing down enough to have a sense of what are we doing here? And what's kind of coming up for me, what's in the background. Am I really stressed about something happening at home? Am I really worried about the reaction I'm going to get? And so the slowing down, it's not something that's valuable in its own right. It's something that gives us more awareness about what is actually in the field. And so when Robert was talking about before these meetings, my invitations to take a breath, it's what happens to create the space between people coming in from their busy days or email inboxes and to be there in that room and decide why am I there? How do I want to show up? And what do I want out of this time versus just rushing forward blindly? How does that land with you, Adam?

SPEAKER_02

Just before we started recording, we were talking about Monday as one of our in-office days, and it's a little chaotic. And no, I think it's perfect. And I've never thought about it the way you're talking about it in terms of at work. Like I ran for a long time. I've been an athlete, breath has always been central. And we were just talking this morning about different breathing techniques are helpful if you can't fall asleep at night. Like there's a lot of connection to it to the way that we live, but I've never really thought about it in work, in work settings. But I love the connections you're making.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's sort of the way this came about in my mind. OMB and GSA were convening stakeholders in the president's management agenda to get their feedback, which was itself a generous gesture. But then at the beginning of one of these meetings, Alex called on us to take a moment for mindfulness. And it's not something I'd ever considered with the group of nerds you convened for that meeting. But to hear you talk about it, it's almost the opposite to be true. Even though public service is so harried that we don't take time to pause, be mindful so that we could do better. The work is so important that it may be more important in that context than any other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to bring it to this exact moment now because right now I'm looking at a frozen screen in front of me. And it's a little bit strange hearing a voice, but seeing a disconnected face on that screen. And so I'm noticing I'm kind of going back to my breath, being like, okay, it's a little bit tricky to follow this, but I'm with this. I can be with it. And so going back to the context of those meetings and why it was necessary there and why it's important in government. So you talked about those meetings and getting feedback as a generous act. And even that word is so interesting because it it gives a different meaning to that time together. So we have so many meetings in government on our calendar, engaging stakeholders, briefing individuals, getting information from different people. But to take a moment before and to add some context about why am I doing this and what feelings do I have about going to this meeting, the people that I'm meeting with. And so, in that context, on one hand, that was just something else on my agenda of many meetings that day. And it was possible just to get through with them, just to have that meeting take place and then move on. Or we can take a moment and say, these people gave their time freely to be with us for an hour to give us their views on how to make our approach better. They didn't have to do this, they chose to. And so you talked about me asking for feedback as a generous gesture. That moment helped me recognize the generosity that I was receiving too and helped shift my relationship to it. And so I think that's what's possible with slowing down in government more broadly. It's about going away from our colleagues in different departments as people whose approval we need or stakeholders we have to engage to do something. But as humans, as people with views, of fears, of hopes, and it really helps add new context to our relationships when we do slowdown, because it's so easy in these complex matrix hierarchies to see people as inputs rather than full humans.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so let's talk about the book. I get these emails all the time. You know, have you ever thought about writing a book? I'll write a book for you. I'm assuming that's how you came to this, right? Or do you just said, no, we need a manual for people like me who are maybe more often than not sometimes late.

SPEAKER_00

So this is how it came to be, Adam. So I had this frustration of having, on one hand, this deep connection to mindfulness and meditation. I'm a teacher in that world, but also I was in the bureaucracy and trying to bring those tools into the bureaucracy. And I reached a limit of what I could do. And so I started writing publicly about it. First in GovExec, Federal News Network, and then eventually psychology today. And most of my articles, they were good. And people were like, Yeah, that sounds right. Good job, Alex. But when I wrote an article called Sometimes You Should Be Late, it was the first article I got criticized about. People said, Aren't you just justifying flakiness? And like, who are you saying that being late is the kind thing to do? And so when I received that feedback, I was like, Oh yeah, this is juicy. I want to have these conversations.

SPEAKER_01

I love it.

SPEAKER_00

And so that's what launched me into saying this is actually a book.

SPEAKER_02

So then I want to know more about the process. We've talked a little about the substance. We can get things out a little more, but how do you write a book? Is it a compilation of articles? Like, how do you get it published? I have so many questions.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm gonna give you maybe a bit of an unconventional answer here. And it's the same answer of how do you support your team in a bureaucracy? And the way you start is by caring. So if you want to care for your team, you start by not, you know, here's our meeting hack, here's our off-site bonanza. It's like, oh no, these people matter to me. And so to write a book, the first step is to really care. And so for me, it really was a long process of moving towards slowness, seeing how when I did slow down, when I did allow myself to be late, it made me a better friend, a better son, a better brother, a better colleague. And so the first part of this process was okay, why do I want to get this into the world? Because anyone who has written a book who wakes up early before having a nine to five job, who doesn't on the weekend, it's really hard to stay focused and to stay committed to that. And so step one was to care. And step two was y'all are gov navigators and you have like life preservers. It's to have sort of a need. And at that point in the Trump administration, number two, I felt that what I was offering the world was a little bit bigger than the role I had in GSA in that moment, the stuff that I wanted to do. And so writing a book, partly it's about having a message to share with the world, and partly it's about what having a book allows you to do in terms of being an introduction to the kind of work and ideas that you do. So that was about saying I wanted to shift away from government, and having a book out there is a really great stepping stone to do that.

SPEAKER_01

I want to pull you back into government for a minute. Tell us more about where you saw opportunities to inject mindfulness, where you got resistance, where you think it could have been more beneficial.

SPEAKER_00

I'm pausing because I think one of the biggest mistakes people make about meditation and mindfulness, and I made this myself, is to think that it's a discrete activity, and then you stop being mindful. And so, okay, I did my meditation, I have it logged onto the app, and now I can go into my meeting and just like cruise on, and then I'll come back to mindfulness later. And so, kind of the glib answer to where do we need mindfulness in government? It's every single moment. Because mindfulness is just awareness, it's awareness about what's happening in your mind when you get that panicked email from some colleague, when you get a chat from your boss that says, we need to talk. Like, what is happening? And there's these stories that come up of like, oh my God, what did I do? And of course, when you meet with your boss, like, I want to nominate you for an award, and you're spent all this time in your mind worrying about for no reason. And so I think there's these deep opportunities for us to think about being more aware of what's happening on a very regular basis. Yeah. So there that's that. But I think the beauty, and like one of the things I was working on a lot my last few years is looking at the employee experience, what it's like to be a federal employee from the start of hearing about government to the end. And so, on one hand, you can say mindfulness is this continual process of noticing what you're noticing. But there's also these discrete moments when it matters in particular. And one of those moments is performance reviews. And in my experience, I'd say probably about 95% of my supervisors, it was a bit of a check the box exercise. And you sort of go in there, we had to do them statutorily, blah, blah, blah. But what a great moment for mindfulness to say, this is my chance to really take stock of what it's like to be the supervisor of this employee, what about them I really value, caring about their personal growth, their future, their career. And then also for the employees to look at their supervisor and say, yeah, you have a hard job. You're managing all these people, you're doing all these things. Like, thank you for caring for me and for caring about my personal growth. Yet that sort of level of meta awareness and gratitude and interrelationship doesn't happen that often. And so that was just one example of a place where having a bit more of a mindful lens can help us have stronger relationships, more resiliency, and have some of those hard conversations in a way that we're leading with the care we have for one another.

SPEAKER_02

So, how has it been now that the book is out? What's the process? Like, when are you going on Oprah? I love the title and the approach so much. I feel like everyone should know about this. And obviously, you wrote this with a little bit of a government lens, maybe a lot of a government lens, but as you've been talking about, it's pretty much applicable everywhere.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I actually made a very explicit choice not to make this a government book and not even to make it a leadership book. And I'll say a few words about kind of getting this book into the world. But first, just on this idea of a government book, a leadership book, and how it applies everywhere is one of the biggest things that I care about is this divide between our work selves and our personal selves and how fictitious it is. You know, you might have seen severance and this idea of like, okay, now I'm in my work mode and I'm just going to leave that part at home. It just doesn't exist. The anxieties, the frustrations, the gifts, the creativity that we have in our home life, it's also what we bring to our work life. And so that's why I wrote a book that is a general book about how we relate to time, how being more intentional about that can help us live lives that are closer to our values. Because doing that with our kids when there's chaos and stress is the same thing that happens when there's chaos and stress before a major event. Pause. And then in terms of getting a book out into the world, it's really hard. I have a publisher, which is great, but they're a small publisher. And so essentially they're helping me get this book into the physical world, and you can buy it on Amazon and bookshops, all these places. But in terms of someone wanting to engage with, to interview a first-time author who they don't know anything about, who doesn't have a gigantic publisher PR infrastructure, it's tricky. And so having personal connections with you all and having the chance to talk on your podcast is such a gift. And it's tricky. And it's interesting too because it's been its own mindfulness practice. Because thinking about getting this book into the world, on one hand, I can say, all right, I wrote the book, just take a vacation and rest. And on the other hand, I can say, I need to frenetically rush so that my launch week is like number one thing. And I actually wrote an article in my Substack, Slow Mindfulness, just yesterday about the imperfect book launch process that I've had so far of getting my author copies in the mail late and they showed up on a palette, and then a thunderstorm was about to come. So I had to rush home and these sort of things happen. And then I want to bring this into the world, and so I have a book tour that I'm planning, but it is a duct tape and doing the best I can book tour where I naively thought I would just email people about my book at these bookstores across the country, and they would just be like dying to have me come into their bookstore. Whereas I think for the most part, they're like, Who's gonna come to this? No one knows who you are. And so, on one hand, I believe in the ideas. I think there's something obviously deeply resonant about them. And also, there's a sense of sort of this broader unfolding of the ideas that I really can't control. And I can put effort in, I can get on great podcasts like this one. And also getting on Oprah is not something that I have a real strong hand in. And it's actually a really important thing to think about in the context of government. And what I mean by that is controlling and planning versus opening up to sort of the serendipity of things that we can't quite control. I mean, having a coffee with a colleague who works at a different agency. What is that? Is it like a detailed planning process, or is it building relationships for this uncertain future together?

SPEAKER_01

What a great way to end. We're out of time. Unfortunately, we're not on the mindfulness schedule. But this was fantastic, Alex. We're so grateful that you've invested so much in making this contribution. We hope this is a bestseller. Because what you've articulated would be good for individuals, for the government, and for the country. And so we're rooting for you 100%.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks, Robert. Thanks, Adam. And just a note on this bestseller thing. That would be nice. But the thing that I really care about is that this book is of service to people. Because when someone buys a book and it sits on their shelf, that doesn't mean anything. And so I spent a lot of time trying to write this book in a way that people can actually see their own wisdom and bring it into their life, whether it's home or work. And so I'm much more interested in people engaging with this book, disagreeing with it, and then finding their own way through it than despicing it. So thank you for this opportunity to connect with you both and just really grateful for the way that you have a fun, joyful way of approaching government management. God knows we need that. Thanks, Alex.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks, Alex. That's fantastic. It's okay to be late. It's okay to be late. I mean, I've proven that throughout my career. So everyone knows that. Oh no. Okay, we've got a stacked week coming up, by the way. The Center for USA Lending is having an event on July 14th on student loans. This is a great organization. If you don't know about it yet, you should check it out. There's a delightful reception to follow. We're big fans, so that'll be in the show notes. The new SIN that is out. There is an informational webinar also on the 14th. If you want to learn more about that and how to either participate in it or understand what it's doing. We haven't had enough SIM jokes. That's true. Andre was on. She had plenty of opportunity to drop SIN jokes. And then on the 15th, we have dueling fraud hearings on Capitol Hill. Which one are you going at? Do we have to flip a coin?

SPEAKER_01

Well, obviously, I'll be going to the one at which our client, Jordan Burrows from Zocures, testify.

SPEAKER_02

Good point. Good point. Yes. On the House side, the House Oversight Committee's operations subcommittee, chaired by your former boss. That's right. Yeah. His GAC is also having a fraud hearing. Is that correct? That's the other one. That is exactly right. Fraud in America or something like that. Then on the 16th, Gov Exec has put together a stacked speaker lineup for their government efficiency summit. Honestly, you should check out who's going to be there. I looked last week and it was phenomenal. So they put a really good event together on Thursday. This is a big week. This is a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01

That's like the first post doge efficiency game.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. That's right. Awesome. Well, hang in there, everybody. Have a great week. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Gov Navigator Show, brought to you by GovNavigators. We sure hope you enjoyed it and learned something in the process. And didn't get T Tick. Right. Of course. If you want to know more about us and what we're up to, please follow us on social media or visit govnavigators.com. Ahoy!