This is a special post for me because it's my 500th post. Oddly enough, I started this blog on February 22nd, 2005, so it's also almost the 4th anniversary of writing this blog. Based on the numbers, it seems fair to say that I've written an average of 125 posts a year on this blog, which is way less than one of my other blogs, but it also means I'm averaging a post every 3 days; I'm thinking that's not so bad.

Before I go on, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, if one went back through my archives, you would see that my first listed post on this blog shows as April 2006. What happened is that my blog and website were hosted with a company that suddenly lost all its servers at the same time, and when they came back had totally erased all the content for every one of their clients. I luckily had all the files for my website, but I had lost all my content for my blog. However, based on a recommendation, I was able to find pretty much every post had been cached on Google (whew!), and I decided to repost almost all of them, but not all; therefore, I've actually already written more than 500 posts, but the ones I left alone were quite minor.

Over the years, I've touched upon all the topics that have to do with my business, which is varied, sometimes to the point where some folks aren't quite sure how to categorize me. At the time of my first post, my introduction, I didn't fully understand this concept of blogging, so it was a very short post. It took until December of 2007 to let anyone know that I did speaking engagements on a regular basis, even though I'd talked about a couple I'd given here and there. In March 2008 I talked about being a business coach for the first time.

So, it seems as if I've never talked enough about my business, or what I do. I'd like to take a moment to talk about myself, my professional self, if I may.

Overall, I am a business consultant. However, if you read my last newsletter, Reinventing Yourself, you'll see that I have redefined myself many times over. As an independent consultant, one has to be ready to be more than one thing in order to keep getting paid.

Not rehashing what I've already talked about, I came into working for myself geared towards being a consultant on employee issues: leadership/management, diversity, customer service, and motivation. It's this initial goal which prompted me to write my book Embrace The Lead.

However, my full background was in healthcare finance, a specialist in revenue cycle issues. As a consultant, I've done most of my work regarding charge master and charge capture projects. If you're so inclined, you can check out this article to learn more about charge masters in general. I have also done quite a few interim director gigs for both patient accounting (billing to the uninitiated) and registration. But I've done other projects healthcare related, as my very first project was a collections project at a small hospital in northern New York.

I also help people set up budgets to help them not only pay their bills, but to build up their savings if possible. I've been doing that one for about 15 years, but I don't do it all that often, so it's more for local folks than anything I've ever really promoted. Jack of all trades?

Though I have gone off topic here and there, I have pretty much stuck to the topics for my main business, and decided that articles related to websites would be on my I'm Just Sharing blog. However, being someone who needed more outlets, I then created a third blog, Top Finance Blog. So, with those blogs and this blog and all of my newsletters and many articles posted in other places, I have over 1,000 items posted online. But this blog was the beginning of it all. As far as topics, notwithstanding the topic for this one, the numbers are as follows:


Management/Leadership - 133

Diversity - 94

Motivation - 100

General Business - 56

Customer Service - 40

Healthcare - 38

Miscellaneous - 31

Interviews - 17

As for my favorite posts during all of this? Well, I don't want to start listing a ton of posts again, so it's easier to refer you to certain specific posts, such as the one talking about my nineteen favorite blog posts of 2008. I did the same kind of thing in 2006, listing my top six plus one; I didn't get around to it in 2007 because I was working on a big project and getting paid well. But I did have two special posts I want to highlight, both written in 2008. One was called Mitch's List, where I thanked a lot of people who helped me become who I am over all these years. The other was written on Blog Action Day, which this year was on the topic of poverty. I probably have others that go back through the years; heck, I definitely do. But I think I've added enough links in this email to keep the dedicated visitor reading for a very long time.

I celebrate my 500th post, and I hope to keep writing more and more posts, and can't wait until it's time to celebrate number one thousand.