I just realized it has been one month since my book, Mid-Career Momentum: Design Your Next Phase with Purpose and Joy, was released.

Though somehow, it feels much longer.

Perhaps that’s because so much has happened in one month. Or perhaps it’s because writing and publishing a book is one journey, and releasing it into the world begins an entirely different one.

My analytical mind naturally wants to know:

How is the book doing?

The truth is, I don’t really have a benchmark.

I have numbers, of course.

In its first month, Mid-Career Momentum received 18 Amazon reviews and a 4.7 rating. About 72% of readers chose the paperback and 27% the e-book. And beyond the U.S., copies have found their way to Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Bangladesh.

Those numbers make me happy.

But one month later, I’m realizing that some of the things that mean the most to me are much harder to put into a spreadsheet.

When your work leaves your hands

Many reviewers didn’t simply leave a rating. They took the time to write several paragraphs about what resonated with them, what they learned, and what the book made them think about differently.

I’ve also been surprised by the range of people who have found something useful in the book.

One of my coaching mentors, who is in his 70s, told me he found it thought-provoking and relevant to his own phase of life.

People with about five years of work experience have found it useful. So have executive-level leaders and startup founders.

I wrote Mid-Career Momentum primarily for professionals navigating the middle phase of their careers. But this first month has taught me something:

Once you put your ideas into the world, you don’t get to decide exactly where they will land.

Sometimes they travel farther than you imagined.

Rethinking what “marketing” means

As a first-time author, I was skeptical about the “marketing” part of publishing a book.

There seemed to be no limit to how much an independent author could spend trying to get attention. I wasn’t sure that was the path I wanted.

So I chose to start somewhere else—with relationships.

While I am a new author, the work behind this book isn’t new. It grew out of 17 years of coaching leaders and professionals, along with my own experiences navigating career transitions, leadership, setbacks, and reinvention.

Some people already knew this work, had experienced it, or had watched it evolve.

So I asked for their help.

Friends, family, colleagues, former clients, and professional connections shared the book with their networks. They wrote posts, told their colleagues and friends. made introductions and bought copies. And they took the time to write thoughtful reviews.

Their words were genuine because the relationships were genuine.

I used to think of this as “book marketing.”

Now I think about it a little differently:

It is people helping meaningful work travel farther.

A journey with a village

The same lesson showed up during my book launch.

Producing a book itself involves so much uncertainty and hard work. By the time publication was approaching, I couldn’t imagine also carrying the pressure of planning and leading a celebration.

So I decided not to do it alone.

Instead of designing the event around me as the speaker, I asked my cousin to host and interview me. That let me have it as a conversation instead of feeling responsible for carrying the whole speaking part myself. That decision alone took a huge amount of pressure off me.

And he showed up wholeheartedly. He returned from an international trip less than a week before the event, fought through jet lag, and finished reading the book so he could be ready for our conversation.

Others stepped in too.

My daughter, amidst her own busy schedule, made sure she was there. She designed the table decorations and took care of the photos and videos so that I could be present and enjoy the celebration. Friends and family helped in so many other ways to make the event special.

I called the celebration “A Journey with a Village.”

Looking back, I couldn’t have chosen a better name.

While creating the book, my village included beta readers, my editor, designer, endorsers, and others who helped shape it.

After publication, that village expanded to include people who read it, reviewed it, recommended it, shared it through their networks, and opened doors for the ideas to travel farther.

The book has my name on its cover. The journey has many names behind it.

Meaningful goals are rarely achieved alone

Recently, someone told me she was impressed by how I had set a goal and achieved it.

Something about that description didn’t quite feel right.

Because it wasn’t that simple.

The process was actually very similar to what I describe in Mid-Career Momentum.

The goal was big and hairy. The path wasn’t linear. There were twists and turns, unexpected problems, delays, mistakes, uncertainty, and plenty of course corrections.

What kept me moving wasn’t simply determination.

It was staying connected to what mattered to me—the purpose and quality of the work—and finding the right people to lean on when I needed expertise, encouragement, perspective, or simply another pair of hands.

That may be one of the biggest lessons this journey has reinforced for me:

Meaningful goals aren’t just about arriving at a destination. The journey refines us. It asks us to learn, adapt, receive help, and become the person capable of taking the next step.

This applies far beyond writing a book.

Whether we are pursuing meaningful career goals, stepping into leadership, changing direction, starting something new, or navigating the next phase of our lives, we often celebrate the visible achievement without seeing all the people, adjustments, setbacks, and small steps behind it.

Very few meaningful journeys are truly solo journeys.

Perhaps there is a question here for all of us:

When you think about a meaningful goal in your career or life, who is in your village? And are you allowing yourself to lean on them?

From a book to a conversation

Something else has begun happening during this first month.

The ideas are moving beyond the pages.

I’ve had opportunities to talk about them through podcasts and conversations with different communities. This month, I am bringing my work on resilience to a Boeing audience. Next month, I’ll be speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration, continuing conversations about resilience, leadership, career, and navigating change.

That has changed the way I think about what it means to launch a book.

I once thought of the sequence as:

Write the book → Publish it → Market it

Now I see it more like this:

Write the book → Release the ideas → Create conversations → Learn from what comes back

The book may be finished.

The conversation is just beginning.

One month later: mostly gratitude

One month in, what I feel most is gratitude.

For every person who helped create the book, bought it, read it, reviewed it, recommended it, invited me to speak, introduced me to someone, showed up at a celebration, or simply sent me a note saying, “This made me think.”

I don’t know yet what numbers will ultimately define the success of Mid-Career Momentum.

And yes, my analytical mind would still very much like to know.

But I’m learning to pay attention to another kind of data too:

The conversations.

The connections.

The people who see something differently after encountering an idea.

And the village that helps meaningful work travel farther than any one person could take it alone.

One month in, that feels like a pretty wonderful beginning.

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Mid-Career Momentum: Design Your Next Phase with Purpose and Joy is for professionals who have achieved much and still feel another chapter is waiting—one with greater fulfillment, purpose, and joy.

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