The Speed of a New World

What changing careers is teaching me about pace, patience, and recognizing progress when it looks different.

Everything moves fast—until it doesn’t.

As we all continue to navigate how our individual worlds approach, adapt to, and apply AI (I do love alliteration), I have found myself thinking about a different kind of speed lately.

The speed of transition.

More specifically, the speed of the business world compared with the world of athletics.

For most of my professional life, I operated in an environment where things moved quickly. 

Very quickly.

Before becoming a coach, I had no real sense of just how fast the hiring process in college athletics could move. Generally, when a coaching position opens, someone has left for another opportunity, has politely—or perhaps not so politely—been asked to vacate the position, or, as in my case, has decided it is time to pursue something different.

Regardless of how the position becomes vacant, you learn quickly that it will not remain that way for long.

Athletic departments need someone steering the ship. Recruiting doesn't stop. Players need answers. Staffs need direction. The transfer portal certainly isn't waiting for anyone.

So administrations move.

I remember one position where I was contacted on a Monday. By the following Thursday, I was being announced.

See what I mean?

Fast.

For years, that pace became normal to me. There was always a next game, next recruit, next decision, next season. Progress was easy to recognize because it was constantly being measured: wins, losses, commitments, rankings, contracts, championships.

Then I became an entrepreneur.

And suddenly, the scoreboard changed.

A Different Kind of Fast

One of the more interesting parts of my transition has been recognizing that the pace I became accustomed to in athletics doesn't always translate to business.

You can have a fantastic conversation with someone on Tuesday and leave thinking, This makes so much sense. We absolutely should work together.

And you might.

Just not on Thursday.

Organizations have budgets, decision-makers, competing priorities, planning cycles, internal approvals, and needs that may not align with your timeline.

At first, that difference in pace can feel like a lack of movement.

I'm learning that it isn't.

In fact, I have realized that business development feels far less like hiring a coach and much more like recruiting a talented freshman or sophomore.

You see a young player and immediately recognize the potential. You think they would be a great fit for your program. But that doesn't mean they are ready to commit—and it certainly doesn't mean you should expect them to.

So you build the relationship.

You learn what matters to them. They learn what matters to you. You ask questions. You listen. You spend time understanding whether what you believe is a great fit actually is a great fit.

And perhaps most importantly, you build enough trust so that if you eventually decide to work together, the relationship has a foundation strong enough to withstand the pressure that will inevitably come.

That takes time.

Slower Doesn't Mean Stalled

What has become apparent to me is that meaningful business relationships don't—and potentially shouldn't—always move at the speed of hiring in athletics.

When you are sharing your services, ideas, expertise, or vision with another organization, both sides need the opportunity to understand what the other brings to the table.

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Where is there alignment?

What does success look like for both sides?

And perhaps the most important question: Is this truly the right partnership, or are we simply excited about the possibility of one?

Those questions require something that high performers are not always particularly comfortable with:

Patience.

Transition has a funny way of changing the scoreboard on you.

The measurements that once told you that you were moving forward may disappear. The timelines change. The feedback loops get longer. Progress becomes quieter.

And if you're not careful, you can mistake different for wrong.

Transition Truth #1: Learn the Pace of the New Arena

One of the biggest mistakes we can make during transition is expecting our new world to operate according to the rules of our old one.

We bring expectations about pace, progress, success, relationships, and results from an environment we understood into one we are still learning.

But part of transition is not simply learning what to do next.

It is learning how the new arena moves.

I am learning that some opportunities require urgency.

Others require cultivation.

Some doors open immediately.

Others open after months of conversations, relationship-building, and staying connected when there is nothing immediate to gain.

Neither is necessarily better.

They are simply different.

So maybe the question for any of us navigating something new isn't:

Why isn't this happening faster?

Maybe it's:

Am I actually standing still—or am I learning what progress looks like here?

As a lifelong learner, consummate student, and self-proclaimed nerd (and proud of it), I am certain this will not be my last Transition Truth.

Twenty years of coaching gave me a tremendous amount to carry into this next chapter. Entrepreneurship is teaching me which lessons transfer exactly as they are—and which ones need to evolve.

I'm learning the new arena.

And that, too, is part of the transition.