I’ve gone missing from my own blog, so I decided to sign up for a challenge.  WordPress offers a Blogging 101 course, even though we are almost two years old here, I think I should finally figure out what I’m doing.  Already I’m three days behind, go figure?

Today’s assignment: write and publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post.

I think I spend more time on this topic in my head than I do anything else.  If I only knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Today, I am still 50 – yep, 5 – 0 – five decades under my belt and life continues to change daily.  I’ve spent some time recently describing, at least to myself, who I was at 15, at 25, at 45 – turns out, I haven’t changed a great deal.

I am more confident, more aware, more…just about everything, but I’m still a girl who participates from the fringe, who is more comfortable on the edge of a crowd than in the middle, a girl who would rather be in the background.  I’m still the girl who dreams big and wants to be a change leader, I want to better the lives of others.  I’m still the girl who loves mightily, and fears decidedly.

I’m preparing for a writer’s conference in six weeks and have been thinking about my Author’s Platform – if that isn’t a scary thing!  Part of that process is having business cards, believe me, I’ve got them – but which do I use?  My life is so diverse, every day I’m working on eight or more different projects, many of them completely unrelated, so how do I put a title to who I am?

Here’s a sample of what I do daily…

I manage the business and finances of an event management company specializing in offroad events, both motorsports and running related.

I write, blogs, business plans, fiction, non-fiction and children’s books.

I develop ideas and promotions with a business partner for a food truck.

I work with a business partner on creative ideas and business plans for a gift line.

I am the current managing partner for a non-profit public awareness safety campaign to be launched in two short weeks.

I prepare tax returns for others, together with consulting and financial management.

I pitch potential product ideas to an engineer to develop products that we can bring to market.

I dream.

I dream big.

Am I an entrepreneur or ‘trep as the current business climate calls it?  Am I a business woman utilizing the CPA certification I worked so hard to earn so many years ago?  Am I just a fifty year old with an identity crisis?

In the writing world they say to create your platform, tell people who you are and own it. So this is how I’m going to describe myself for the future.

Shelley Krehbiel Klein, Creative, author, businesswoman, partner, dedicated to sharing knowledge and improving lives, her own and others.