Focus on Promises

This week I received news I’ve been quietly working towards for years: my book, Focus on Why, has been shortlisted for the 2025 Business Book Awards. It’s been recognised in the 'Work & Life' category – a space that celebrates books offering insight to help people find a more intentional balance between their professional and personal lives. That’s exactly what Focus on Why sets out to do, so this recognition means a great deal to me. However, this moment was not focused solely on receiving industry recognition, it was also about a promise.

A few years ago, I set myself a quiet, personal and meaningful milestone. I’d seen friends and peers publish their books, enter these awards and share ideas that mattered to them. I made a decision, no big declaration, just a quiet commitment that one day I’d do the same. Not to tick a box or chase a title but to honour a message I believed in. One rooted in experience. One I'd seen helping my clients and community. One I felt needed to be written down.

That message is Focus on Why: Create a purposeful way of life that puts clarity, meaning and intention at the heart of how we choose to show up.

It would've been easy to let that promise slide. There were other priorities, many doubts and plenty of moments where I questioned whether it was worth it but the message kept calling me back. So, I kept writing, editing, reworking, shaping something I’d be proud of. Not perfect, not polished to please everyone but true to what I stood for. Seeing my book shortlisted feels like a quiet confirmation: the message landed. It matters and my book belongs in the business world.

Focus on Why is also a co-authored book, in an unusual way. My late grandfather, George Fleming Kerr is woven throughout its pages through a collection of his wartime journal entries and a recording I’d made with him years ago. His voice and perspective written decades ago continue to guide me today from beyond the grave.

In a letter from November 1995, he wrote:

‘Don’t be too easily put off by rejection. You’ll finally walk it… We have every confidence in a marvellously performing girl. You write very fluently and well. Let me know how else I can help. Love George’

He believed in me then and I carry that belief still. This recognition in the Business Book Awards isn’t about celebration for its own sake. It’s about what it took to get here: the time, the energy, the courage of conviction and most of all, the commitment to follow through on a promise when nothing was guaranteed. This kind of commitment stays with you and when it is realised, it changes something inside.

So, let me ask you: is there something you've been meaning to follow through on simply because it matters to you? What might shift if you finally gave it your full attention?

If you've made a quiet promise to yourself, stay with it.

You don’t need to rush and you don’t need to shout about it.

Just keep going.

Show up.

Do the work.

One step at a time.

You’ll know when the moment arrives to celebrate it.

Until then – Focus on Promises, Focus on Why.

ACTION POINT: What’s a quiet promise you’ve made to yourself and are you still honouring it?