Introduction | Illumination | Quick Study Problem Solver

What’s My Line? or Who am I?

I always loved that TV show growing up in the 1950s. People would try to guess what someone else did for a living.

A panel would ask questions of the ‘mystery guest’ and was provided with only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses.

Throughout the questioning there was interaction between the panelists and comedy to make the show entertaining. From the answers to the questions, the panelists would try to figure out either what the guest did for a living or their identity.

There are so many people in the world. Until we either ask them what they do or they share with us what they do, we simply can only guess based upon our own life experience.

Like most people, my life has had good times and very challenging times. Each provided opportunity to grow by making choices, seeing results, and making new choices as needed.

I offer the following to provide a glimpse of my life.

Formative years — While growing up, I learned that I was a very curious person and that I had a unique, innate ability to dissect and distill the essence of a given situation and/or facts. I made a career out of creatively solving problems of all kinds using those two talents.

My life-experience learning started with my mathematics education and my lifelong immersion in all types of fiber arts. I discovered that writing was more my style compared to verbal communication.

Reading was promoted in our home with the implied goal to enable me to understand and gain wisdom about anything that interested me.

As a family we made weekly trips to the library to check out books for an entire week’s reading.

Learning to write — My writing journey began during English classes in high school and college. The spark was ignited because I had great teachers. Those few teachers demonstrated the power of voice through the written word, which enabled me to discover the joy in writing.

Exact communication — What gave me personal joy was attempting to find that precise word that would convey what I was thinking and feeling. I did not want anyone to misinterpret what I had to say.

Creativity — I discovered that my creativity came from dissecting bits of information from my perspective of life and recombining it into something new. The word puzzles comes to mind. That’s how I view life: one giant puzzle.

“Our whole life is solving puzzles.” — Ernӧ Rubik.

Career choices then became finding ways to apply the written word, data, and graphics into meaningful information for others. I would provide research, data compilation, and analysis for communication to be used in letters, proposals, and presentations,

Professional Career: Design, implementation, and management of processes and operations for entrepreneurs and small businesses, offering

After applying my learned skills to a variety of jobs, I discovered that I could create a unique visual from data at my disposal. The way I saw things was now expressed in both words and graphics. Once shared, it also exposed to me how I systemically processed problem solving.

Starting in the 1980s I was able to include technology to transform those communications, often labor intensive, into both words and creative display. In analyzing each work situation or project I touched, I discovered my personal pattern.

I observed how I did it, how I gathered the information required — tangible and intangible — and transformed it to provide solutions others were looking for. Before moving on to whatever was next, my efforts not only transformed a given situation but also provided structure, order, and elevation — based on the needs of that individual or company.

In other words, the systems improved so that they served the individual or company based on how they/it worked/functioned. It served *them*.

I soon realized it was a very valuable asset to others. That is how I developed my career path.

I grew up in the world of manual typewriters, carbon paper, and no photocopy machines. During my business career those tools transitioned to electric typewriters, and ‘wet’ copier machines, and finally to data processors and computers.

That first computer filled an entire room and required teletype printers, data cards, feeders, and output to get the results.

I was fascinated at being able to tell something what to do and have it complete the task without argument.

You see, I was a single mother of a 2-year-old, strong-willed child at that time.

The problem was of course the programmer (me). The computer did precisely what I told it to do, errors and all. Lesson learned: One must learn the language of the other (person or machine) before communication works.

Over the years computers became smaller, faster and easier. I have been part of that digital evolutionary journey for decades, consuming progress along the way.

A fun way to describe what I do: chase chaos…discover order…transform… wherever I go…whatever I do

As aging will do to all, my corporate career using my experience and talents ended about 7 years ago.

Looking for a way to transition my efforts to online money-making projects, I first published a book.

I had in my possession photography and the memoirs of my Uncle Paul from the 1940’s, 1950s’ and 1960s. His memoirs were handwritten from his time in the military in World War II. His photography consisted mostly of Seattle images during that era. After hearing how his life concluded at the end, I wanted to honor his life by publishing his memoirs.

From there I decided to try my hand with other book publishing, journals, coloring books, puzzles. I wanted to learn how to publish to Kindle. With that training I created a number of children’s books under the name of “Mimi Kelly”. I had great fun compiling these and continue to earn money from all the books I have published. All are available on Amazon if you choose to take a look.

And here I am — still processing words and graphics to communicate messages to others. “Retirement” to me has always been the opportunity to really choose how to spend my days.

I currently work in a healthcare position where I am able to meet 25–30 families each week. One thing I enjoy is conversation with them to discover what they do for a living — what’s your line? It makes the time fly while performing a screening exam on their newborn baby.

Most importantly to me though is that those conversations provide new pieces for me to add to and to complete the puzzle that is my life.

Thank you, Dr Mehmet Yildiz and ILLUMINATION for this opportunity to introduce myself.

Solutions Sleuth and Content Creator. If we haven’t connected yet, you can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.