About Me — Roo Benjamin

Why I use a pen name and who I really am

Where do you start when you’ve been alive for forty-five years but only existed for three months? Such is the dilemma of a newly created identity; someone writing under a pen name.

Roo Benjamin is my Ziggy Stardust (a David Bowie alter ego for those unfamiliar). Roo is a chance at reinvention, or maybe to discover who I am underneath or behind all the experiences of my life. An opportunity to find or create a new expression of myself.

I am not coming to you as an infant. I am not writing from three months of life experiences. I was born out of a long and tumultuous pregnancy of adventures and misadventures. It is these experiences that I am writing about here.

How do you create a bio?

I’ve never been good at this. I have never known what I wanted to be when I grow up. My career, whatever that is, has been very eclectic. I’ve “been” a childcare worker, teacher, at-risk-youth worker, expedition leader, leadership consultant, sales manager, fundraiser, CEO, consultant, systems-change facilitator, digital innovator, social entrepreneur, mentor, coach, and writer.

Not one of those things, nor all of them combined, adequately sums up who I am. But I do believe that the combination of unique…