Maybe the Answer Isn't to Move Faster

I’ve been thinking a lot about pace lately. It keeps coming up in my coaching conversations, and I’ve been wrestling with it myself.

If you work in technology, I probably don’t have to explain why.

AI is changing the work almost by the day, while organizations are restructuring and expectations are shifting right along with it. Just when you feel like you’ve caught up, there’s something new to learn or another decision that suddenly feels urgent.

The message is pretty clear: keep up.

Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends found that about two-thirds of workers globally feel overwhelmed by how quickly work is changing, and 49% worry the pace of change will leave them behind.

I feel that pressure too.

But when I look back at this summer, some of the experiences that mattered most had very little to do with keeping up. If anything, they made me pay closer attention to where I was going and why.

1. Sometimes You Have to Remember What You’re Rooted In

My family and I traveled to the Dominican Republic, where my mother was born. I had not been there since I was a toddler.

I wasn’t prepared for how grounding it would feel to return with my husband and children, my parents and extended family.

I saw pieces of myself in a place I barely remembered, while watching my children experience a part of our family’s story that came before them.

I spend a lot of my professional life helping people think about where they’re going. Being there had me thinking about where we start. About the experiences and values we carry with us, even when we aren’t consciously thinking about them.

Sometimes moving forward requires remembering what you’re rooted in.

2. Teams Need Space to See How They’re Working

I saw a different version of this with an executive team I worked with this summer.

We spent two days outside the normal pace of their work looking closely at how they operated together. They had strategic priorities to deliver, of course, but we also looked at what they needed from one another to lead those priorities well.

The next day, I stayed in the room and coached them in real time as they worked through their strategic agenda.

And the patterns we had talked about started showing up right in front of us.

They could see when they were working in ways that supported the commitments they had made together, and they could catch themselves falling back into old habits.

It’s one thing to understand something about yourself in theory. It’s another to watch yourself do it.

They left those two days with just as much to accomplish. They also understood more about how they were working together and where they could get in their own way.

That’s time well spent.

3. Leave Room for the Unexpected Detours

Then there was something I never saw coming.

I was invited to become a founding curator for Galleria, a new business and lifestyle magazine here in Central Florida.

Definitely not on my 2026 vision board.

I said yes without completely knowing what I was saying yes to, and I’m glad I did.

It’s made me more curious about the people doing meaningful work around me, especially the ones we don’t always hear about. Whose story haven’t we heard? Who might we be overlooking?

I didn’t expect to find such a connection to my coaching work, but I have.

A lot of my coaching work is helping people see themselves more clearly, beyond the title they hold or the version of themselves they’ve been carrying around for years.

Who are you now? What matters to you? What are you ready for?

Those questions are at the heart of the T.H.R.I.V.E. Operating System™. I ask versions of them all the time, including of myself.

Galleria wasn’t part of my plan. But I’m glad I left enough room in the plan to recognize something worth saying yes to.

When Urgency Starts Making Decisions for Us

I’m not suggesting we all need to slow down. I spent enough years as a CIO to know that sometimes you have to make the call and keep moving, even when you don’t have all the information you’d like.

The problem is when everything starts to feel urgent.

That’s when it gets harder to tell the difference between something we actually want and something we’re reacting to. I’ve caught myself doing it too.

One of the smartest things I’ve done this summer is spend time with trusted thought partners who know me well enough to challenge me instead of rushing me toward an answer.

One question has been especially useful:

Is that actually what you want?

It can be an irritating question when you’re already halfway down the road.

I need people who will ask me anyway.

And I know I’m not alone in that. Leaders don’t get many places where they can say, “I don’t know yet,” or talk through something before they’ve figured out how to make it sound executive-ready.

That’s one of the things I value most about coaching. You get to think out loud. You get to question your own assumptions and change your mind without having to walk into the room with the answer already figured out.

Especially right now, I think that matters.

Before We Race Toward the End of the Year

We’re heading into the part of the year when the pace picks up again. There are goals still to meet, budgets to finish and plans for 2027 taking shape while we’re still very much living in 2026.

My instinct is usually to put my head down and get it done.

I’m questioning that instinct a little more these days.

Instead, I’ve been asking myself:

What deserves my urgency right now?

That question has been much more useful than trying to figure out how I can fit more in.

It’s also a question that gets at the heart of the T.H.R.I.V.E. Leadership Experience. I don’t have the answers for every leader in the room, nor should I. The work is about getting clearer on who you are and how you lead, so you can make choices about what comes next that actually make sense for you.

Our fall cohort begins September 15, and I have two spaces remaining. Over 12 weeks, we work through the six parts of the T.H.R.I.V.E. Operating System™, beginning with a personalized three-dimensional leadership assessment.

If you’ve been thinking about joining us, reach out.

I’m heading into fall with plenty I want to do. I’m not planning to move slowly.

I just want to be more careful about what gets to set my pace.

Denise Musselwhite is an unshakable optimist who believes in a future where leaders thrive authentically and courageously. She is dedicated to empowering diverse professionals to reclaim their power, harness their strengths, and break through the barriers—both systemic and self-imposed—that hold them back.

As a visionary executive coach, speaker, and strategist, Denise founded Tech & Thrive to bridge the gap between ambition and achievement, particularly for women and people of color in tech leadership. Her T.H.R.I.V.E. Operating System™ is more than a framework—it’s a movement designed to help leaders rise with clarity, confidence, and impact.

Denise’s mission is clear: to help high-achieving professionals show up fully as themselves, lead with purpose, and build careers and workplaces that honor their unique strengths, whether that’s through her leadership coaching or her partnerships with AIIR Consulting, Mission and Data, and Shore Coaching to deliver exceptional, data-informed leadership and team development rooted in authenticity. Because when we lead from a place of authenticity, we don’t just succeed—we thrive.