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.

Are You A Good Life Coaching Candidate

You might have heard me talk of this before.  And, it does bear repeating from time to time.  Life coaches are here to help, and at one time or another, almost all of us can significantly benefit from a life coach.  We need to ensure we are ready and want to make the changes we need to do better.

Not everyone is the right candidate for life coaching at a given time. It takes some determination and some motivation to get what you need out of life coaching. Below are some explanations as to what tendencies some people may have. This is to give you an idea of what plays well for life coaching and what does not.

Are you willing to change?

Life coaching is all about wanting to change for the better. Life coaching is about your discovery of who you are and what you want to be and where you want to go in life. If you don’t like change, or you are unwilling to change, you may not be the best candidate. Life coaching is about understanding yourself and finding the changes that will make you a happier and better person.

Is your life good enough?

If your life is okay, and it’s good enough for you, then what is your motivation to change? Life coaching is about figuring out where you are in life and where you want to go. Life coaching helps you to figure out those where and whys.

Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.

Life coaches are not here to hand you a path of what to do. They are here to help you examine your life needs and desires. I could tell you what to do, and it would be great for me, but it would be entirely wrong for you because we are, after all, different people.  You have to face and answer your questions to know what you need and how to get there. Life coaches help by asking questions.

Do you have needs or desires you find unfulfilled?

If you do have needs that you are willing to look at and ask yourself the tough questions, and you are ready to take a chance on yourself to be a better and happier person, then you could be a suitable candidate for life coaching.  If I can help, please let me know.

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

Ways A Life Coach Can Help

Many things we help with boil down to having a misconception on how a person views their life and actions.  Although we are often willing to give someone else a break, we often see our own lives as stark 100% right or wrong with nothing except the extremes.  Life is not black or white; instead, it is infinite shades of grey.  Here are some of the ways we work ourselves into a rut.

We have a tendency sometimes of dramatizing small actions into gigantic events, which will end our chances for good things. Sometimes an error is just a tiny thing that is understood, and everyone moves on.

We love to jump to conclusions.  We probably think this would save time, yet we do not know what the future will bring, and we are usually not the best mind readers.

 We spend a lot of time in our past trying to tell ourselves what we should have done.  You cannot change the past.  Trying to find ways to fix that past is just a waste of time.  Change “I should have” to “I will.”

We often blame ourselves for not doing the right thing.  We forget that we were not the only ones involved, and we use emotions rather than facts to keep focusing on the negatives.  We need to balance our thinking.

If you find yourself labeling yourself and others or using some of the worries listed above, a life coach could help you refocus on better and more productive thoughts. If I can help you in any way, please let me know.

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

Mike Balof, Life Coach

415 N. Tejon St.

Colorado Springs, CO 80903

719-205-2773      mikeb@reveile.rocks     http://www.reveille.rocks

Your Destiny

Are you on an adventure?  Most of us are, whether we want to admit it or not.  What makes our lives an adventure? We want to do something, go somewhere, or end up in some location doing specific things and living life to a particular style.  Why is this an adventure?  Good question.

Our lives are adventures because although we know what we would like to do, we may not understand all the hurdles of procuring what we need and getting to where we want to be.  The biggest problem is that the future is continuously changing, and no one can tell you what is actually going to happen.  Side note: If you can actually see the future, I need the winning numbers for the upcoming Saturday Powerball.

We can guess at the future. We can use what has happened in the past as a stepping off point for the future.  We can watch what others are doing and pattern ourselves after them.  Yet there are no guarantees.  The best hope we have is to choose our path and walk it with our head on a swivel looking at the terrain and knowing when we see something different so that we can adjust as needed.

With Artificial Intelligence on the rise, we do not even know if the career we are working in will be accomplished by humans.  Even life coaching has a chatbot on your phone to help you.  I prefer the human to human experience.  At least we can better relate to each other.

The only thing worse than going off into the future with no plan is not to go at all.  We each have our own destiny, and we must each face it, head-on.  The best thing is that if we work at what we want, we will probably do okay.

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

Taking Care

When you look at a superior business that draws in good revenue and repeat business, it is not the fancy machines. In the long run, the volume is only slightly controlled by advertising.  The companies that do exceptionally well year in and year out are the ones with dedicated employees who are happy and pleased to be working with their clientele. 

These employees are a cut above.  Employees that are always willing to help, always cheerful, and always putting the need of the client first.  These are the employees that you can put your faith in and trust.

Any worker can be an exemplary employee.  Each employee reacts to how they are treated and how they are groomed for their position. The staff does not show up and get hit over the head with a magic wand to become outstanding.  They are trained and cared for by management that knows the worker will approach clients with the same care and attention that he or she was is given within the company.

I have not invented the idea of taking care of your staff so that the team can take care of the employees.  It is a business model you can see in action throughout many sectors. I am just asking leaders to take a look at the idea and see if it is something that could help your bottom line.  How would you use monies saved by a lower turnover cost?   How much would customer retention recover for you in advertising costs, and how stable could your business really become?

Just a few thoughts.

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

  

True Worth

I know that some companies and some individuals look at people as only what they can produce and add to the bottom line.  I know that people are worth so much more than a set of arbitrary numbers on an electronic spreadsheet.  People are the owners and caretakers of our society and our world. We must respect each person based on their overall contribution and not on how fat they can make our bonus check.

We should make an effort to understand those around us.  We need to know not only what each person has to offer, but we should also know what that offering does to those they touch.  Does society benefit because of what they do or have done?

The first person you might want to evaluate is the person in the mirror.  I am not saying that everyone should be measured by the standards you hold yourself to.  I am only saying that if you are going to measure anyone, you should make sure where you stand on your scale.  Fix any shortcomings in yourself before setting off to offer changes to others.

We each play a part in making the world a better place.  From the surgeon who replaces joints to the person who can calm a tot by giving them a high five or playing peek-a-boo, everyone has a talent to share. Having people to help others, whether paid or not, is what our world is built on. 

What are your unique talents? How often do you share the abilities you have been blessed with to those who might need them? Remember all those other people with their exceptional skills?  When was the last time you thanked them for making life better?

Just a thought.

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

Buried Alive

Today it seems as though we are being inundated with mail and email we never asked to have.  As Christmas neared, I found myself apologizing to the mailman once again and offering to kick in a few bucks for his back surgery.  I do not know where all the catalogs come from or how they found our names and address, all I know is that the sales magazines came in at a rate of up to 27 a day.

I would like to think it was a mass mailing, yet somehow I have the feeling we were being targeted.  To top that, the spam is even worse.  I can find over 100 spam emails on my computer every day.  I would keep them to show how popular I am, only it makes it difficult for me to see the one or two emails I receive from my clients and friends.

I cannot block email for everyone because I am looking for new clients to use my email to contact me.  And no, I do not have any outgoing blanket email adds right now because of all the trouble I see them causing.  I would prefer to build my business one person at a time.  I think that life coaching is better that way.

I know that there will be a solution with all of the spam we get, and at some future point, it will fade away.  The only downside to its demise is the fear of what might replace it. Then again, 65% of what we worry about never comes to happen.  So, why waste time worrying.  We need to concentrate on that which brings us and those we love some joy.

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

Is it Me or Not

Ever have one of those days?  The kind where everyone else is just wrong, and they are all conspiring to get on your nerves.  You are to the point that you feel you just need to get up and leave the room.  Well, maybe, you should.

You need to get out of the room and find a mirror.  Take an honest look at yourself.  And you need to figure out the answers to some questions.  The important thing here is only doing this if you can be honest with yourself.

First, when everyone seems to be bothering you, is it on a particular point, or is everything coming at you not sitting well today?  If everything is off, you have some more mirror time. The odds of everyone trying to bother you with different work, problems, or expectations are rare.

Is there anything that has happened to you lately that would cause you to be on edge?  Has something from the past come back to the forefront.  Is the rest of your life in balance right now?

I am not picking on you.  You do need, though, to understand if there is a problem, is it based on what others are sending, or what you are receiving.  If it is them, you can speak to them and nicely figure out what the concerns are and how to fix them.  If it turns out you are on edge, then maybe you need a time out.

We do not stand in the corner with grown-up time outs.  You should get out and walk for 20 minutes.  Find a vista, and enjoy it a little while.  Or, do something else that releases the mind and the tension and allows you an opportunity to reset yourself a little closer to normal.

You should never look at this type of exercise as ‘who is to blame.’  It is more of how ‘we’ get back to normal.  As long as someone is on edge, normal cannot freely exist.  When we take the edge off, normal can return.

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

Stick to Your Path

There are many things that a smart person with a little drive and ambition can accomplish.  The question starts to become, should I do this or that?  Some jobs are actually above our skill sets, and some are so far below that they are a waste of our time.

Yes, we can all probably be a greeter at a big box store. Yet if we take a job with no challenge, we end up bored, complacent, and either quitting or being let go. If we feel we should be the manager or supervisor, and we have never built the needed skillset within ourselves, we will drown in our own lack of knowledge and end up being fired for lack of ability.

When looking for a job, be open and adaptable.  Know that you may have to take a position with skills you usually do not use.  Also, know if you stray too far from your actual ability and work experience, you may actually do yourself more harm than good.

How do you avoid the pitfalls of gaining the wrong job?  Study the situation and what the employer wants.  Use a pro and con chart to figure out if the work is right for you.  Also, look at the tasks involved with the position, especially the soft skills that the posting can often overlook.

If the job you need is not available exactly when you need it, taking a lower position to keep bills paid and bread on the table is understandable.  Just remember that it is a short step to your new placement and not an end within itself.   Never give up looking for your correct position on your path of life.

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

A New Era and Venue

In my life, I have worked on the theatrical stage.  I was in the Air Force, I was a counselor at a cemetery, built computers and servers, and taught others to use a computer and find jobs.  Along the way, I wrote some books and some courses on how to find and pursue your future.  I am happy to say that my next adventure is finally underway.

I have studied for over three years and become a life coach. It is my goal to work with those who have found themselves in a rut and need some help getting out. I have also come to understand that with the aggregated collection of data going on today, I will be a continuous learner for the rest of my life.  I think that is good.  At least we are all learning, and hopefully, the knowledge gained will help everyone to live better.

I would not even attempt this undertaking if I did not think I could help others to find more happiness and understanding in their lives.  I cannot guarantee results, and 100% of the processes do not aid 100% of the people. Yet, I am willing to work with who I can and help them to find their full potential.

Many people ask why a life coach does not just tell you what to do.  We cannot do that because the answer is not in us.  The actions live within you. The only thing a life coach can do is ask questions that help you to consider and better understand yourself.  When everything works correctly, you should be able to better understand yourself and make the right decisions for you. 

I wanted to tell you that I am here, and if I can help you, I would be glad to do so.  I can work via Zoom to most areas in the world and even use video and audio so we can see and talk to each other live.  Most readers may not need my services.  If you are interested, you can go to my website and sign up via the coaching page.  If you have any trouble contacting the web site, please write to me at mikeb@reveille.rocks.

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

In Remembrance

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Today, we remember and honor Dr. King for his tireless work and his goals helping to move all of us forward in life.  Taken far too soon, he is truly missed.