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.

Why Look for Outside Problems

I find it interesting that when something goes wrong, we tend to blame something familiar to us. We often do this instead of trying to figure out the truth of what is going on. Our actions often cause us to miss the real culprit and waste time blaming the wrong machine or person for the problem.

We must remember that just because something gives us grief in one area, it may not be responsible for all negative activities. After all, even a broken watch is correct twice a day (if it is analog). Sometimes we need to apply critical thinking and figure out what is going on.

I had this type of problem confront me yesterday when the phone, who’s batteries have been dying, started giving us fits and not working correctly. The phone was dropping out about a third of the words when people called. We had little signal strength, and we could not even call our voicemail. It was the phone, on its last legs.

My sister-in-law called to wish me a happy birthday and talked about the phone and the hard time hearing us. My wife said it was the phone’s fault and I need to get a new one. Her sister agreed with her, and even when I was talking on my cell phone, the problem persisted. I was sure that that was not normal, two separate systems having the same issues. My brother called to wish me a happy birthday, and he had the same problems. And even when my son called, the signal was still mediocre at best.

As I got ready for bed, I was talking with my Alexa, and she was having problems playing music and just thinking. During the night she showed a red ring several times. At this point, all of my electronics are having a problem. Now I know something is off-kilter.

One of the first things I did this morning was to call my phone carrier. Calling the phone carrier is fun, especially when the electronics are having problems to start. I finally connected with them and talked with a knowledgeable technician who, after looking everything over and talking to me, let me know that there had been an outage in my area that had been going on for over 23 hours. The blackout would go until this evening, and they would let me know when they fixed the problem. They believe that the difficulties I experienced happened because of the outage. After talking to the technician, I think that also.

 We should always verify first before we start blaming and pointing fingers. It’s true with people, and it’s also true, with machinery. There’s nothing we could have done differently because of the outage. It is just nice to know we don’t have to pick on the poor phone.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Time for Feeling Better

It is time to start feeling a little better.  I know the world looks like it is caving in on itself. It feels as though when you turn on the news, a new apocalypse to fear is filling the screen.  Maybe it is time to pull the plug on the TV and the press and do something you enjoy.

Find something you love to do and do it.  If you can do it without leaving the house, great.  If your dwelling has a yard, it gets even better, because there could be some sun involved.  If you have a balcony, you have a view.  If you have none of these, you still have yourself, and that is a fortune unto itself.

I have fun reading, painting, talking to people on Zoom, and cooking. The trick for happiness is to remove stress factors.  If you have kids or family that are the stress factors, get them busy with things they love to do, and that gives you quiet time to enjoy what you want to do.

Sometimes we find pain points deep within our thoughts.  In that case, you may need a Counselor or a Life Coach to help you find and remove the pain. These professionals are easy to find, and most will work online these days.  Many are very good.

If you have physical pain, you call a doctor.  If you have something that clouds your thinking and is getting in your way of better thoughts, then you need a professional to help you remove the mental pain. Unfortunately, no one can do it for you. Yet, having someone to help you will save you so much time and aggravation.  And, you will find more time and fewer problems as you continue your journey.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again soon.

The Gift of Humility

One of the greatest gifts you possess and can give another is the gift of your humility.  Most people make the error of trying to impress someone they meet with all the significant accomplishments they have completed.  Often this mistake, rather than cementing a bond between two new friends, has the opposite effect, and now two competitors are trying to best each other.

The best way to achieve success with others is to tell them a little about yourself and let the rest fill in by seeing you in action.  After all, works speak so much louder than words.  Do not try to overshadow new acquaintances, work with them, and be there for them.

They will know the essential things about you when they see you in action.  How well your critical thinking skills work.  How you treat others.  And they will understand what you say about them by the way you speak of others that are not present.

When you start by bragging about yourself, you are building a wall of expectations that only a few can get over each day.  If you wait and let people learn by your actions first, you are making a super-fast communications network that will keep you connected for years.  And, yes, good communications outweighs anything you can hang on a wall.

Think about these thoughts the next time you are lucky enough to meet someone new.  Remember that some first meetings can be better than others. If an error occurs, ensure the mistake is not yours.  Relax and be yourself.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Do you Trust Yourself

When you start to believe, do you sometimes trust in everyone else first, or do you believe in yourself? I am not saying any of us are perfect. I know that I am not, and I do need the help of many others around me. Yet, when it comes down to believing in someone who has my best interest’s truly at heart? Is it me, or is it someone else?

We should all ask questions, study the answers, and do our best to understand what we hear and see. Part of that understanding is whether the thought shared is right for us.  There is only one person out of over 7 billion on this planet that can tell us the answer.  The person is hard to find. However, if you look in the mirror, then you may find him or her.

You know yourself better than most people.  You are also the only one who must live with whatever you do.  Others can stay or go.  When you are doing well and are on top, everyone is there for a piece of the action. When you fail, your waiting room starts to look like a ghost town.  So, you should always have the final decision.

If you are not sure, start small.  As you get better at choosing a snack or a cup of coffee, Step up your game.  What movie would be best for tonight? Do I want to eat out or stay in and cook a steak?

Trust is like anything else. You need to practice and learn to get good at it.  Your first trust moment should not involve which stock you invest in with the entire family fortune.  Just relax and take trust easy, seeing how it works for you. You can make the right decisions; you only need to get used to the idea.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Gratitude

Everyone has a reason to be grateful.  Did I wake up today, Great, I am very thankful that I did.  I count that as my first success of the day.  If I take the time to make my bed, it is the second success of the morning.  Hot water in the shower and I am on to the trifecta.

Gratitude is nothing more than the things we know are not guaranteed, and so, every time they happen (whether they usually do or not,) I am happy they did.  I am grateful for my wife and my kids.  I am glad they are happy and healthy.  I am thankful that I have a passion for life, and I have something I can use to help others.

Many people keep a gratitude journal, and they write down what they are grateful to have and do.  I am starting one.  Although I am 67, I am a little late to the game.  I am just thankful that I made it here.

I encourage everyone to set aside a little time each day to think of what went well for them that day. And think of what they were able to do for someone else that may have made that person’s day.  It does not have to be a lifesaving feat or an outrageously generous payment.  The simple, little things often mean so much more.  Think about it.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

We All Do It

Mistakes happen.  We are human and, as such, are not immune to errors.  So, when you make a mistake, what do you do?  Do you cover it up, or do you involve others who can help you set it right?

If you cover it up, it is still an error that you caused.  It is still out there.  Covering it up is like putting a bandage on a festering wound.  It will flare up again.  You will not know where or when, yet the problem will reappear.

If you recognize the mistake and work to fix it, you are doing better.  If you need help, bring in the right people.  Make sure that those who need to know do so.  And let them know and see that you are doing everything you can to make the situation right.

By identifying errors early, and working hard to fix them, you are doing a good thing.  When people see that you are willing to stand and own your mistakes, they have more respect for you.  Those people would instead work with someone who is honest and takes responsibility than someone who does not.

Trust yourself and check your work.  Know that if you make a mistake, there are 7 billion more of us that also cause errors.  You are just a member of a massive club.  Welcome aboard.

Thanks for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

The Time Is Here

As a little green friend on the silver screen once reminded me, there is no trying; there is only doing or not. Either you are doing something, or you are not. There is no in-between.

What projects do you Have on your calendar? What needs accomplishment, and what do you see that is important to you?. What is vital to your business? Or, Important to your lifestyle? Are these projects and ideas started? If not, why?

We all have grand ideas, and yet how many of those magnificent ideas do we accomplish? Money can always be found or gained. And an even bigger question, why not?  We are human beings, and we can do anything we want to and anything we need to accomplish. If we do not know how to do something, we can bring in paid consultants, college interns, or volunteers.

There is only one reason that something gets done, or something fails to make the grade.  The fate of our desires rests in our hands and not the hands of others. If you’re waiting for something, what? And if you’re not expecting something, it is time to get to work.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again soon.

 

 

Future Destinations

Anything worth building does not get built overnight. It takes time. Patience and restraint procured in industrial-sized containers usually provide some assistance.  No matter how greatly we care about the project, we need to go forth with the belief that our end goal will happen. And we must do those things which we believe are required. Patience, and the ability to plan, is essential along with an ability to know what the final destination will look like once we are there.

I have worked most of my adult life, first to become a trainer, and now a life coach. It is something that I have worked my whole life towards, since high school. And just because it took till nearly my second childhood, it is of no less interest or caring to me then when I put my first foot on the path to go forward into the future.

We all have dreams. We all have desires. We need to work at them wisely. Not because they may bring us fame or wealth, instead we work at them because they are the things that our passions need. And, our desires are the glue that holds us to the path that will take us to where we want to go in the future.

How important is sticking to your path? Let me explain it to you like this. You are going to the future, whether you want to or not. You can go there with your plan, to take you where you want to go, or you can just let the future pull you. If the future pulls you, you end up wherever it drops you. And it doesn’t care much where you land. If you walk your path, you hopefully end up where you decided you wanted to go.

I would rather be where I wanted to be than where something just dropped me. The destination, at least, is my personal choice.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

What-If

Ever have one of those weeks?  The kind where you plan well and start-off great, and then for some unknown reason, you end up missing just about every scheduled meeting.  The day where the plans you made to conquer the world falls apart like a magical misadventure as soon as your feet hit the floor? What are you going to do?

I see it as two choices.  Choice one, you go back home, get back into bed, and pray that tomorrow will be better and the curse on your plans lifted.  Or, you can do something else.

Stop believing in voodoo and get ahold of yourself.  When plan A fails to work, go to plan B.  If plan B does not work, try plans C or D.  You do make and keep contingency plans, don’t you? We have talked about this before.  Please don’t tell me you went back to bed those days.

OK, one more time.  There is an aura in the world that has one main job.  Its goal is to thwart any plan that gets put into motion.  The military has battled this nemesis for thousands of years.  The only way they have found around it is to have the contingency plans ready and practiced.

As a warrior in the not so peaceful world of growing your business, you need to follow the same planning strategies and have your contingency plans ready. If you have a line of people two blocks long each morning, waving $100 bills and chanting your name, that is great.  It would be best if you still had a plan for the day those people do not show up at your door.  What are you going to do then?

Planning helps you to think of all the what-ifs.  If you are used to thinking of the what-ifs, you are more on your toes and ready to react with steady movements rather than drastic over-corrections. Your life and your business have an excellent chance to move forward, no matter what that aura called life throws at you.

Please don’t take my word for this, test it out for yourself.  You may discover things that will fortify your earnings and maybe even make them stronger.  Like everything, do this in proportion.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again soon.

The Challenge

As you probably already know, I am a Life Coach.  Several weeks ago, I was in a training triad (a small group that practices a modality in life coaching) on procrastination. Those who were in my triad gave me a challenge when I told them I had been ducking this work for years. It was a challenge to clean up my art studio. I took up their urge, and even though it took well over a month to complete it, I finally got the art studio cleaned and arranged.

The project was no small undertaking. Everything had to come out of the room. A large amount of sorting had to take place with about a third of the contents and half the furniture planned for donations to the local GoodWill.  It had to go away to make a space for those things I was keeping. If this sounds like over-exaggeration, please take a look at the pictures below.

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Once the room became empty, I made a do-it-yourself craft island out of a 5-tier shelving unit I purchased for $69. The top was pieced together out of bits of wood and other material I had on hand. I then slowly sorted out what could come back and what had to go. Much Of the room’s contents went to Goodwill.

Although I could not freely shop for what I wanted because of the COVID-19 virus, I was able to fashion What I needed from what I had around the house. Everything slowly came together until I ended up with a room that I could work in, and could store what I needed to store within it. The Art Room now looks as you see below.

I sincerely thank my study partners and instructor for giving me this challenge. It helped me to get out of a rut and accomplish something that I had wanted to do for years. I believe I owe them a debt; and, I am not sure I can ever correctly repay it. Although anywhere I can find a way to do so, I definitely shall.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again