Hi friends! Today I've invited Danielle Mapes to tell us about what she does and what she wants to be when she grows up.

As a child, I wanted to be a Dolly Parton when I grew up. I carried a notebook around the elementary school playground and wrote songs. I thought that I was destined to be country music star!

How close (or far) is your current career from that dream? Not as close as I would like to think. Although I do write for a living, so I suppose my old notebook paid off in the long run.

What is your official job title? Content Writer and Blogging Coach

Ok, now what does that really mean? I write blog posts all day long for all sorts of different companies. I also meet with professionals who are trying to get their blogs going but need a little push. As part of my coaching, I have recently created an original blogging ecourse, called “Camp Blog” designed to help female bosses find their voice as business bloggers by first discovering who they are as business owners.

What is a typical day like? My mornings always begin with coffee in my home office. I like to spend the first ten minutes of my day by planning out which clients I will be working with, which projects I will take on and then create a roadmap of my day from there. I really try to only have a handful of “YES Clients” and “YES Projects” each day. I’ve come to realize that the more individualized attention I can give to my clients, the higher quality of work I can produce for them. And, by only tackling a certain number of projects each day I’ve definitely learned how to financially and effectively maximize my business opportunities. Most of my morning hours are dedicated to my shorter, simpler projects.

My husband is a business consultant, who also works from home, so we try really hard to have lunch together every afternoon away from our computers, and then escape for a quick walk outside.

Normally, I save my larger projects for the afternoon, so this period of my day tends to fly by! I love having bigger projects to do in one sitting!

Sometimes after dinner, my husband and I will sneak back into our offices and do a bit of work, or I like to spend the evening writing in my personal blog. It’s incredibly important to me that I dedicate a little bit of time everyday for “fun writing”. Soon we’ll be having a baby, so I know that I our evenings will start to look quite different. But for now I embrace the silence of that golden hour in my office.

How did you end up in this career? I’ve always enjoyed writing. And after about ten years in childcare, my husband and I were finally in a place where I could quit my day job and take the plunge! At the time, my husband had a website that I helped him manage. This gave me some “resume” experience doing blog writing and other content management for the site. It also helped me gain a lot of confidence in doing something so different than my previous career.

What kind of education or training did you complete for this career? I have two Bachelors Degrees in English… but I wouldn’t say those really prepared me for this job. The best training I had for this job is maintaining my own blog and really getting into the habit of consistent writing. For a lot of years, I wrote as a hobby, even when I wasn’t getting paid.

The other thing that really helped train me was joining a local marketing group. I quickly realized the importance that comes in learning from other business owners and creatives. Through conversations with these professionals, I have been able to advance my career to much higher level than I ever imagined.

What advice would you give to someone who wants a similar career? Introduce yourself as who you want to be, not who you are. It took me longer than it should have to say, “Hi, I’m Danielle and I’m a Writer”. But once I did I felt inspired to really dive all in! Don’t be afraid of what you haven’t done yet. Make sure you believe in yourself and above all else, always, always represent yourself and your dreams with respect + dignity.

Do you have any other career dreams? What do you want to be when you grow up? I’m excited to create more writing courses for entrepreneurs and business owners. And my husband and I are really hoping to create an educational product to sell together some day, too. I kind of like where I am where right now and I hope that I never grow up too much. I hope there is always a part of me that still feels like that little girl on the playground humming tunes and writing down words.

Any last thoughts or encouragement for others trying to decide what they want to do “when they grow up”? Stop worrying about what other people are doing. Put on your blinders and create your own path. The more time you spend looking at other people, the less you’re able to grow. Recognize that to get to where you’ve never been before, you have to do what you’ve never done before; and just focus on challenging yourself every day.

And that's what Danielle does! A huge thank you to her for sharing her story. If you'd like to know more about what she does, head to her website.