About Tamela Rich
“I am fortunate to earn my living doing a variety of things that I enjoy: writing for clients, writing and speaking about the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been, and publishing books of my own.”
I GHOSTWRITE for professionals–mostly advisors, accountants and attorneys. Output ranges from newsletters and white papers to editorials and articles, all of which can be re-purposed into books.
I WROTE “Live Full Throttle: Life Lessons From Women Who Faced Cancer” based on two years of cross-country motorcycling for cancer causes. It’s a collection of the stories I heard from women facing life’s ultimate sink hole with grace, humor, moxie and joy.
I’M WRITING “Leaning Into Life: Lessons from the Road” based on my experience coming back from the financial and emotional ruin that ensued in the wake of a failed business. Motorcycling taught me valuable life lessons that will be featured in 365 days of meditations for readers. Publication 2Q 2012.
I SPEAK to businesses and community organizations on the ups and downs of life (personal and professional) from a long-distance motorcyclist’s vantage point:
- Everything wobbles, but not everything falls.
- Blind corners abound, just take uncertainty as it comes.
- Spills are inevitable, but you can lessen their impact.
- Exploit the detours, they’re usually providential.
- Embrace the switchbacks, the smartest way to the mountaintop isn’t the shortest.
Early Career
As a teenager with a long school bus route, I wrote Nancy Drew-type mysteries after devouring all of Agatha Christie‘s novels. Society admonishes kids to “get a real job” so instead of pursuing a literary life, I went into the “family business” of insurance. I spent a decade in sales management and business development roles with financial services firms Allstate Insurance (where I opened an agency), The Hartford, and First Union (now Wells Fargo).
I enjoyed a freelance career when my children were preschoolers: a book columnist and features stringer for The Charlotte Observer, a commentator for local NPR affiliate WFAE and a producer for Carolina Business Review (a PBS affiliate production).
Business School and Beyond
I went to business school at Duke in my late 30’s while holding down a full-time job with two children in elementary school. My teammates always turned to me for the final writeup on cases involving finance, operations, marketing, economics, accounting and management/leadership. The seeds of my business ghostwriting career were planted there.
After B-school I went the entrepreneurial/small business route including a stint on the pre-IPO management team of LendingTree; a privately held software and consulting firm; and my own industrial/environmental cleaning company. I raised capital, forged business partnerships, filed a trademark, priced products and services, sued deadbeats, and led a company through an orderly shut down. Small business owners and professionals in private practice, I’ve felt your pleasures and your pains.
Full Circle
The meltdown of my industrial cleaning company brought me to my knees and a moment of mid-life clarity. I found a truth in the words that Janice Joplin once sang, ”Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” I’d always wanted to write, so I decided to harvest my rich business background as a business ghostwriter.
That mid-life clarity came into sharper focus in 2010 when I became obsessed with the idea of learning to ride a motorcycle. Three months after getting my motorcycle endorsement, I set off on a 7500-mile, mostly-solo motorcycle journey from my home in North Carolina to Oregon and back. Looking for a good cause to champion along the way, I joined a group of American and Canadian women motorcyclists raising money for breast cancer causes and my first book, Live Full Throttle: Life Lessons From Women Who Faced Cancer was born from that experience.
I am fortunate to earn my living doing a variety of things I that enjoy. Yes, I have a “real job” working for many employers, including myself. I won’t have it any other way.
I live in Charlotte, NC with 3/4 of my family (my elder son has moved out on his own). I aspire to be a true Baha’i. I knit compulsively, and my knitting buddies constantly encourage me in my adventures. I am an animal lover whose semi-peripatetic lifestyle is more suited to cats than dogs. My last dog, a beloved Corgi, died during my first road trip in 2010 a day after I reached my Oregon destination. Perhaps some day I’ll have a pillion pet.
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