The Permission to Slow Down
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER | April 2026
Most of us weren't taught to pause. We were taught to keep moving.
Get through it. Stay strong. Figure it out. Chin up.
For many leaders, that instruction became the operating system. The one we rarely question, because it always seemed to be working. Until it quietly stopped.
I've been sitting with something lately that I hesitated to share. Not because it's too personal, but because it took me a while to understand what it was telling me. And when I finally did, I recognized it as a truth I've heard in variations from nearly every leader I work with.
So I'm sharing it with you now.
THE BOOK THAT HELPED ME LISTEN
I recently picked up Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara — a love letter to the hospitality industry that shaped a significant part of my early career. Reading it brought back vivid memories of a time when service, creativity, and crafting memorable experiences were at the center of my professional world.
It woke up a familiar energy. A sense of fulfilment. A pleasure I hadn't realized I was missing.
I knew I had left that chapter by choice, without bitterness. I've never regretted the path that followed. But as I turned the pages of Unreasonable Hospitality, I couldn't shake the feeling a familiar part of me was stirring—excited and unsettled all at once.
What were these emotions trying to tell me?
That question made me pause. As my friend Peter Reek writes in Shift: 7 Mindsets for an Inspired Midlife, “Some things are meant to be felt first. They need a little time to settle in before we try to make sense of them… some truths work on a different clock.”
So, I let it sit. Not to hope it would go away, but to understand what was going on beneath the surface.
Some things aren’t meant to be solved right away — they’re meant to be felt, and understood in their own time.
WHAT WE CARRY
Reflecting on the past several years, it's fair to say I've navigated my share of difficulty.
Less than ten years ago, over a period of eighteen months, I lost four members of my family. Each loss carried its own weight. Its own kind of grief. And grief, as I came to understand, has a silent loneliness: it is carried individually, while the world expects you to keep going.
So I kept going. There was work to do, a new role to figure out, bills to pay.
Chin up. Soldier on.
And somewhere along the way, I slipped into a state of constant vigilance — moving forward, staying composed, keeping emotions in check so the day-to-day could unfold in a manner acceptable to others.
The challenge with that approach is that emotions rarely travel alone. When we block certain feelings, we often end up muting others too.
Including joy.
I've sat with enough leaders to know I wasn’t alone in dealing with this approach of handling feelings. This experience is nearly universal. The specifics vary — loss, burnout, prolonged uncertainty, years of carrying others — but the pattern is the same: we manage so well, for so long, that we stop noticing what's gone silent inside us.
WHAT WAS CALLING MY NAME
Around the same time, I finished the book, I felt another steady pull, this time toward something I'd allowed to drift away: photography.
Photography had once been a genuine creative outlet for me. But I realized that I had shelved my camera when I began to soldier on to deal with life and its unpleasant turns. Then a pandemic arrived, and the camera moved a few shelves higher. Now it seemed to be calling my name.
Where have you been?
The technology had changed enormously since I'd last used that shutter. And when I looked at thousands of photos scattered across hard drives and folders, the thought of reorganizing everything felt overwhelming. I almost talked myself out of it.
Then I wondered, could AI help me get back up and running?
Over a single weekend, I used ChatGPT to rebuild my entire storage architecture and revamp my photography workflow. Not only did it surface images I'd nearly forgotten, it also reignited something I thought I'd simply set aside. It was exciting. Joyful.
And it struck me — I'd been thinking about AI entirely as a workplace tool. An instrument of efficiency. I hadn't considered that it could also be a companion in reclaiming what I'd let go.
One of the quiet joys I'm rediscovering: noticing light again.
Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa
WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH LEADERSHIP
I needed to give myself permission to slow down long enough to notice what had been living beneath the surface.
Grief. Fatigue. Longing. These don't respond well to being rushed.
You may have a similar list.
Leaders must navigate an increasingly accelerated and disrupted world — one that expects them to keep moving forward, to remain strong, composed, and focused. That pressure is real. But there’s another truth here.
Occasionally, the most important move is to pause.
Not to step back.
Not to disengage.
But to slow down long enough to understand what is quietly asking for attention. Because it turns out that the wise path forward isn't always about addressing the loudest demands.
Sometimes it's about pausing long enough to see what's been calling to you — even as you've tried to ignore it.
This is not indulgent. It is not weakness. It is the kind of self-awareness that makes everything else possible: clearer decisions, steadier presence, more genuine leadership.
Joy dims when safety is thin — not because something is wrong, but because something needs care.
AN INVITATION
If any part of this resonates (the quiet things you've shelved, the feelings you've managed rather than truly felt), that's not a flaw in your character. That's the understandable cost of carrying a great deal for a very long time.
You don't have to keep carrying it alone.
Coaching offers a steady place to pause, to make sense of what's stirring, and to reconnect with clarity, especially when the world keeps moving faster than we'd like. If you've been considering that kind of support, I'd be honoured to explore it with you.
And before you rush back to the noise and demands, I’d like to leave you with one question:
What is quietly asking for your attention right now?
