I could introduce myself as a business owner, author and TEDx speaker, but that doesn’t really tell you anything about me, other than I’m able to apply myself to different things. And you can easily look at my website to find out more about what I do.
Instead, I thought I’d use this opportunity to talk about something quite universal - the driver that often kick-starts a new business idea, propels an ordinary person into the business world, and helps keep us on the right path once we’ve started our journey into the unknown. I’m talking about ‘purpose’.
To succeed in business, to have the necessary motivation and resilience to stick it out, needs a strong sense of purpose. That’s why it wasn’t until my mid-life that I made the decision to set up on my own - I really don’t think I would have done it if there hadn’t been that moment when I recognised this burning desire that wouldn’t leave me alone. One that I was eventually able to understand, make sense of and then develop into a business so I could actually make the difference I wanted to make.
Behind every success story that has ever made an impression on me - and believe me I’ve read and listened to many - there was always a deep seated sense of purpose involved at the heart of it.
There was inevitably a thread that, only in retrospect, became visible as the defining constant that led that person to do what they do.
Mine was a slow burner. Very slow! But persistent. When I look back on everything I’ve done professionally, every job, every role that, put together, it was there all along. I was just too busy paying the bills and bringing up my family to even come close to seeing or feeling it.
But isn’t it funny how life can change, how we can change? The bridge of incidents that led me from that state of unawareness, to writing a specific book in my 50s and setting up a business on the back of that, is too long to chart here.
But suffice to say, there has always been a thread tying things together. For me, it was a natural ability to be interested in and understand people, and a fascination as to how they communicate and interact with each other - particularly and especially in the workplace. You know, the human stuff that determines how we truly experience work.
It was actually frustration in the end that made me put pen to paper and start writing about it after a 10 year period working in lean manufacturing and business improvement consultancy, where I visited literally hundreds of companies up and down the UK and talked to MDs, CEOs, Ops Directors, HR Directors, Change Leads and so on.
It made for fascinating learning.
Ostensibly, my role was to discuss and advise on operational improvement and efficiency needs, but I found that across the board these clients would use the hour they had with me to open up / vent / agonise over people issues - and these problems always turned out to be rooted in misalignment, silos and misunderstandings caused by - guess what - poor communication.
These issues they spoke of - that took up a significant amount of their time and headspace - were so universally common, no matter what the nature of business, that after a decade of hearing the same things, I felt compelled to put my thoughts into the pages of a book, and Refreshing Comms was born.
Written as an intentionally light and easy read, the book only scratches the surface, but it proved to be a very good and well endorsed start.
And now here we are in 2026, navigating at least two major shifts affecting how we work and communicate.
One being AI and the realisation of human value being irreplaceable in business after all, and that human skills such as communication, influence, empathy, judgement, wisdom are needed more than ever.
The second being the multi-generational makeup of the workforce that’s bringing a challenging mix of perspectives and expectations into organisations, which can only be resolved, and opportunities maximised, through greater understanding, better communication and meaningful connection.
So perhaps the real lesson I’ve learned from my own rather long and winding route into business, is that purpose is fuel, but not necessarily something you find at the beginning of your career. Sometimes you discover it by looking back and joining the dots.
My dots spelled out ‘connecting people, purpose and strategy’ and that’s what I continue to do.