I help you make sense of the journey you've been on.
What's my story?
When I was 13, my mother gave me a typewriter.
An unusual present for a teenager you might think. I know I certainly did. But in hindsight, it wasn’t just a present. It was a nudge, a hint, a clue my mother left on my bedroom desk.
That old, yellow typewriter helped me join the dots between my love for reading and the manual, physical act of creating the words, sentences and paragraphs that made up the stories I surrounded myself with growing up.
My mother recognised my love for stories was something worth nurturing, that it could lead somewhere.
Like many young fellas I dreamed of playing sport for a living when I grew up
But around the same time my Mum gave me the typewriter, I slowly started to accept I wasn’t the best player on my street. And I clearly wasn’t good enough to play any sport professionally. But I thought maybe, just maybe I could write about sport instead.
I taught myself how to touch type on the typewriter my mother gave me, a skill that came in handy when I got a summer job at the local newspaper. I also volunteered as the Sports Editor for my school magazine. And I was committed to a career as a writer, or at least as committed as any 17-year-old can be.
I convinced the editor of my local paper to give me a shot as a rookie Sports Reporter. I didn’t have any experience or qualifications. But I could touch type and I knew a lot about sports. That was enough.
Since then I’ve worked as an award-winning freelance journalist for various newspapers and magazines including: ESPN.com, Metro, New Zealand Geographic, Sky Sport The Magazine, Herald on Sunday, and the Sunday Star Times. I also spent five years working with Red Bull as the NZ editor of their global magazine, The Red Bulletin.
I wrote my first book in 2016 and since then I’ve written six books and hundreds of Origin Stories for owners, founders and entrepreneurs.
Your journey. Your voice. Your book.
The key to collaborating on a book with a client or a company is to translate their experience, expertise and ideas into words worth reading. Before I write your story, I read between the lines. Finding the deeper meaning within your experiences, I help you to make sense of your life and the journey you’ve been on.
It takes a rare blend of intuition and experience to step inside someone else’s world — to understand their values, and express their truth in a way that captures their voice and makes the reader feel like they’re in the room having a conversation with them. That’s what I aim to achieve with every book I write.
Recently, I recieved this feedback from a client of mine who sent a final draft of their book to a close friend of theirs. Their friend told them:
“I was totally captivated by your book and the thing I liked most about it is that it’s in all your own words. It’s the way you speak, It’s you to a tee.”
Every ghostwriting relationship begins with empathy and curiosity. I give you time, space and permission to dig deep and tell the real story. You don’t have to share all of the skeletons in your closet. You get to decide what stories to leave in and what stories to leave out.
It’s your story and your book.
My job is to make it as good as it can be.
Write. Run. Repeat.
When I’m not writing or chasing after my three crazy kids, I’m proud to call myself a running fool and I love exploring the hills and forests of Aotearoa to run long-distance trail races.
I ran my first road marathon in Iceland in 2003 and since then I’ve competed in lots of trail running events in New Zealand, including 100 kilometres at the Taupo Ultra.
I’m a proud Irishman but I moved to New Zealand in 2004 and I feel lucky to call this beautiful part of the world home. I also feel lucky to have worked with ghostwriting clients all over the world.
My surname is pronounced ‘Tie’ not ‘Tig-He’ but most people call me Rob.
