Interview: Deb Bailey talks about Navigate Your Impact

Deb Bailey is a leadership coach, facilitator, speaker, and author. Deb works with a range of leaders and business owners across all industries. She delivers individual coaching, group training and facilitation programmes and speaks at events and in-house conferences. Her areas of expertise are leadership, teams, strategic planning and culture. Deb talks to NZ Booklovers about her new book, Navigate Your Impact.

Please tell our readers a little about your book.

This book is for people who want to make confident decisions, pursue goals that matter and create a life that reflects their values. Have you ever set a goal with excitement, only to watch it slowly fade beneath a wave of self-doubt, busyness or overwhelm? You’re not alone. Despite good intentions and well-designed plans, many of us struggle to follow through on the goals that once felt deeply important. In Navigate Your Impact, Deb Bailey offers a refreshingly honest and practical approach to goal setting that goes beyond SMART templates and surface-level tactics. You’ll discover:

• Why some goals fizzle out, even when they seem right

• How to tell the difference between meaningful goals and shiny distractions

• A holistic, values-driven decision-making process to guide your next steps

• Tools to overcome inertia, self-doubt and the myth of needing to do it all.

With real-life stories, reflective questions and actionable strategies, this book is your guide to clarity, confidence and consistent progress — on your terms. Whether you’re at a crossroads, starting something new or simply ready to move forward with intention, this is your roadmap to making the impact you were born for. Are you ready to stop spinning your wheels and start moving with purpose?

What inspired you to write this book?

This is a topic that I am very passionate about – you can say I’m even obsessed with it. I love seeing people be successful and so I wanted to provide a holistic way for people to identify, design and execute their goals more effectively. I think this topic has become even more important as life gets busier and busier. I am inspired by living a life by design and not by default.

What research was involved?

I conducted research myself over a summer vacation period back in 2017/18 as I was interested to hear from people what their challenges and wins were with regards to achieving goals they set for themselves. As this was over the NZ summer break, it didn’t seem weird to be having these conversations with people, given the New Year was just around the corner and I knew that people would be thinking about their resolutions.

What was your routine or process when writing? Do you have a regular routine? Once I had the structure of my book in place, and this can take a bit of time, I would then decide which Chapter I wanted to work on. For this particular book, I found that carving out quite a big chunk of time and just working away helped with the flow and meant I could complete all the thinking on any particular chapter.

Where do you write?

This was interesting for me this time around (this is my second book). I found that I could be more creative if I didn’t use my office to write in. I found that being in an environment that wasn’t too cluttered and that, on reflection, had a great view, meant that I could allow my mind to not get bogged down with other tasks I felt I had to do. My office can sometimes remind me of all the admin tasks I still have to do!

What did you enjoy the most about writing this book?

I enjoyed most aspects of writing this book because it’s a topic I’m so passionate about. I loved the conversations with people. I enjoyed delving into the processes to help people diagnose for themselves where and why they maybe ‘fell off the wagon’ with their goals and how they could get back on track. I love solving problems and I love providing pragmatic approaches to people so they can take action on what matters most.

What was the most challenging aspect?

The most challenging aspect of this particular book was locking down my thinking. The book actually took me 12 months longer to write than I had planned as I kept wanting to add interesting research facts or different tools people could use. I had to remind myself, often, that my audience are already busy so I definitely wanted to keep the word count to around 28000 words, which means you can read the book in a couple of hours.

What kind of books do you like to read for enjoyment? What’s your favourite of the books you’ve read this year?

I love books and I’m often drawn to leadership impact books of sorts. I also enjoy biographies. Two books I thoroughly enjoyed this year were: Michell Obama, Becoming and Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Both were absolute page turners for me.

Do you read physical books or digital ones? Why?

I’m definitely a physical book kind of gal. I love the kinaesthetic motion of turning the pages. I love the smell of the paper and the texture of the book. That being said, I’m not a fan of 4-point font and butcher's paper. The aesthetics of a book are really important to me and I like people to have a pleasant experience with my books.

What’s your next writing project?

As is the norm with me, I often have a couple of ideas mulling around in my head. However, I am off to walk the Camino del Norte in Spaid at the end of August 2025 for a couple of months. My partner and I will walk about 1000 km and I’m sure the next book's topic will emerge at the end of my Pilgrimage.

www.deb-bailey.com