Author: Mike Balof

A retired Air Force Master Sergeant, Mike used to lay in bed at night and worry about what would happen if his plant closed or found himself without a job. One day his plant closed. Rather than panic and hysteria (OK, maybe a little) Mike found himself carried away on the adventure of his life. Mike started with the best job he ever had working at Home Depot. He spent 8 years working with job seekers at a local workforce center, helping them to find employment. He then started his own company developing courses, writing books and urging others to follow their own paths into the future. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Training and a Bachelor of Business Management, earned through the University of Phoenix and an AAS degree in Electronics Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. Mike is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society.

How do you like to learn

There are times that I really like to sit and read. If I am more hurried, I will either dictate what I am writing or grab information off YouTube faster. I can’t do it for everything because not everything is found in fast-to-find places.

I mention this because I am starting to write a series of courses that will begin to come out in a month or two. It doesn’t matter how I would write them for me, I’ve already researched and found the information. I am writing them for you.

Today I am deviating from my one question at the end of my blog to three questions. I am very interested in your responses because you are the people for whom I am building the courses.

Do you prefer to read one or two-page fact sheets or watch a video? Do you like to have an interactive training session where you make choices and then move forward based on the option you have made? If there is a course with both reading and video watching, what percentage of each would you prefer?

Thank you for your time in considering this, and please let me know.

Keep Learning

I thank all of you who read my blogs regularly. I honestly do appreciate it. Even if you only get to come by every once in a while, I hope to give you something worthy of the time you take to read it.

By the end of next week, I am going to start introducing new courses. The first one is free, and I plan to make even the highest-paid training affordable to everyone. My goal in making these courses is more about help for you rather than money for me. These courses are designed to help you fight off limiting beliefs and find gainful employment you will enjoy.

I would appreciate hearing from you about courses you would like to have. I am always interested in building new approaches to learning new ideas.  If there is a demand for a specific topic, I would be more than glad to work on that for you.

Have you ever wanted to learn something and not been able to find a course you could afford? Please tell me about that experience.

Working New Methods

I am now building three courses on Thinkific where I am designing them and, eventually, on Udemy.  This time I have changed how I’m doing things a little bit. This time I am listening to the experts and using their advice.

I have tried this in the past and have not gotten very far. I can’t blame those who offered me suggestions, only myself, for not following the excellent information I had received. This time is different; I will pay attention, be a good student, and hopefully succeed.

I am dedicating a whole month to doing this. With the advice of the professionals, diligent planning, and executing specific courses to provide specific help, we will hopefully end with positive growth in students.

If you have ever been so excited to do something that you ignore the professionals and jumped right in, how did that turn out?

Help

I have come to understand a simple phrase. It is a phrase that holds a wealth of information in communicating with people. It boils down to a straightforward request. Please don’t tell me what you know; please help me find what I should do now.

When people tell me that they are trained in NLP, CBT, neurolinguistics, and other regiments, it doesn’t impress me much. Mainly because I’m the one with the problem. I need to know how to get my problems solved.

Telling me what you know and could do for me does not help me at this particular moment. My problems are with me now, and I need help now. I have strayed too far from the path I wanted to walk and found myself in the high grass, lost.

The questions are easy. Which way do I go, and what do I do now? If you can help me figure this out, I need to talk to you. If you can’t, I need to speak to somebody else. Acronyms and degrees mean very little to me at this moment.

Who am I? I am every potential client who walks through the door.

Have you ever needed help?

Golden Blessings

It is a great day. We have snow on the ground, which means we have moisture for the Spring. Hopefully, the water from the snow will keep our fire season at Bay during the summer. And it may even help me have a better garden this year with the trees and the ground getting the moisture now.  

We need to find ways to be thankful for the things that we have and receive in life. Nothing is ever truly guaranteed, and we should find positive ways to look at and use that which does come to us. Because honestly, there is a blessing within everything.

Of course, we’re all thinking creatures able to find good and bad in anything. We need to be able to spot the good and accept it. Anyone can gripe about anything.  

If we apply a little more thought and willpower, we can find hidden treasures within what we are handed. We can see and use real gems of ideas and knowledge which the ordinary person could just ignore. They would, unfortunately, lose the golden gift within their complaints.

Have you found any golden blessings lately in something that others are complaining about?

Next Job

Yesterday, I started my work in Thinkific to build my new course on finding your next position.

Back during the recession of 2008, a very well-known columnist lost a job when the paper fell on hard times. He was seeking a post in another newspaper. He was a famous and excellent columnist.  He believed picking up another outlet for his columns would be no problem at all.

Because of the changes in technology and consumers, His perceived easy task turned into what he called the most challenging two and a half year job of his life. The job? Finding his next position. 

He did find a new job on a paper, yet it took everything he had and 54 months of his life.

Have you ever started a critical job you thought would be easy, only to find it the fight of your life?

Ask Yourself A Question

If you want to get somewhere, you must constantly be moving in that direction. It does not matter if success is imminent. What matters is that you have made a decision and are working your way towards success. As long as you have movement, you’re doing something positive.

When gold was found in California, those already on the ground seeking fortune had the best chances for success. When the industry was needed at the start of World War II, the corporations that were already manufacturing were in place to reap the greatest reward.  

And when the world needed to go into the new age of computers, the forward thinkers, already knowledgeable, made the most profound impacts and gained the most profitable rewards. The people who won the day in all these situations were the ones who sold the materials required to go find the dream.

Those who sold picks and shovels, the gear the soldiers needed, or the apps and hardware required to run the machines usually earned a good part of the wealth. Look around you. Look at the skills you have and how they can help others succeed at whatever the money maker of today is. Please ask yourself a simple question, “What can I offer for profit which will make others more successful?“

If you have done this, you have just answered your question.

Virtual Assistant

I am a life coach, trainer, and writer who is starting to take on more items and responsibilities within my company of one.  I work with clients over zoom; I write a blog several times a week.  I do write articles.  I am now starting to develop evergreen courses and have been writing books.  I am getting busier all the time.

I have been told that I should get a virtual assistant.  My problem is that I am not sure what a virtual assistant can do for me.  I am just starting to make money, and things are a little tight right now.  Yet, if I could understand how a virtual assistant could help, I would be interested in sharing the load.

I was told that virtual assistants can do a lot of the writing (blogs, letters, and books.)  Yet, I write my own stuff and am not really looking for a ghostwriter.  I am not sure exactly how I would find a virtual assistant to help me.

If you use a virtual assistant, could you please share what they do for you, and is it genuinely worth having one?  If you are a virtual assistant looking for a client, please write me and tell me how you could help me.

Some days

Some days just never get started right. Colorado went to daylight savings time this weekend, and that just seemed to throw everything off. And that was good. When everything is thrown off, you sometimes find the time or at least a different view to consider what you really want to do.

My Alexa made sure to wake me up at my usual 5 o’clock. Only this 5 o’clock was really 4 a.m. within my mind. I had just lost an hour of sleep. I spent the rest of the morning dozing between the Sunday morning shows and trying to get myself together.

With my schedule in disarray, I carved time to do the one thing I’ve been trying to do. I set my goals for the rest of the year. Not down to the minutia level, instead on an overall view of the plan at 30,000 feet.

You may not think that is something significant; however, for me, I can now look at one sheet of paper and know exactly what I should be focusing on and where I should be. When there is any doubt to be cast, the sheet tells me whether I should focus on the one thing I’m thinking about or focusing on something within my scope for that month.

Did you ever find yourself doing things you really didn’t plan to do, and when you did, what did you do about it?

Opening Up

I’m lucky to be where I am. Getting to this point in my life, I look at as something like a miracle. It is not that I’m rich; I’m not. I’m not handsome or good-looking. I’m nowhere near the sharpest tool in the shed. Yet, I found something I thought I never would. I have found happiness.  

I can give you only one hint as to how you can find happiness. You will never find happiness in things or in inanimate objects. You can only share the joy with other living creatures, those who also think and love and have happiness of their own.

Happiness could be a singular entity, and if it is, that is very rare. Happiness is most often found in sharing. It is not a give or take, rather something shared between two or more thinking beings. It is almost impossible to stage happiness; it is where you find it.  

If you want to find happiness, you should be kind, understanding, and open.  Everything has a risk in life to go along with the reward that can come from it. If you open yourself up, you leave yourself open to risk. You also leave yourself open to rewards.  You have to chance one, to find the other.

Can I guarantee you that there is always a happy ending? No. I can only tell you of my experiences in life.

Have you ever opened yourself up to risk and found either reward or failure?