Hi there. I’m Michael Pollock, a Life Coach, blogger and student of personal development. I share ideas about how to overcome self-defeating behaviors, and replace them with empowering habits that move you confidently in the direction of your goals and dreams.
My Professional Background
I joined the U.S. Navy in 1986 and worked as a Hospital Corpsman (medic) for 8 years. After leaving the Navy in 1994, I began a 12-year career in sales and sales management. At some point during that 12-year period, I realized that I didn’t like working for other people and started looking for a way to start my own business. The year was 1999, and the Internet was growing quickly.
My First Online Business – Life Coaching
In May 2000, I began training to become a Life Coach with Life on Purpose Institute (LOPI). Later that same year, I launched my first online business, a life coaching practice focused on helping people bring more purpose into their personal and professional life. As part of my new venture, I began learning about website design and marketing.
After I earned my Life Coach certification in 2001, LOPI offered me a position as a Faculty Coach. I gladly accepted and spent the next two years training and mentoring new coaches.
I enjoyed my work with LOPI, and I enjoyed my life coaching clients. Still, my fascination with website design and marketing became too much to resist. So in 2003, I completed my work with LOPI and closed my life coaching practice to make way for something new.
My First Blog – Small Business Branding
Near the beginning of 2004, as blogging went mainstream, I launched Small Business Branding, a blog about how to build a strong brand on the Internet. It was a fun project, and I learned a lot about blogging, small business branding and Internet marketing.
During the two years I owned Small Business Branding, my proudest moment came when Entrepreneur Magazine named it one of the best marketing blogs on the Internet. After a couple of years though, I was ready for a different challenge, and I sold Small Business Branding to Yaro Starak in December 2005.
My First Six-Figure Online Business – Solostream
In mid-2006, I launched a blog design and consulting company named Solostream. The timing couldn’t have been better as blogs had just started to gain credibility as a valuable tool for marketing a small business. I’d established a strong reputation with Small Business Branding, and that helped me get a fast-start with this new project. Within a few months, I had plenty of blog design and consulting work to keep me busy, and I left my full-time job to operate Solostream from home.
Near the end of 2007, Solostream started selling premium WordPress themes (templates) that people could purchase and download from the Solostream site. Along with Brian Gardner of StudioPress (and a few others), I helped pioneer the premium WordPress themes market. Before long, Solostream was generating six-figure profits from theme sales, and I decided to stop doing custom design work. It was certainly an exciting time for me.
In September 2008, I received a generous buyout offer for Solostream and decided to sell the company. As fate would have it, I continued to work with the new owner until September 2013.