“When I was a child,” Jim Ballard says, “I believed that the world was a dream, and that when you die you wake up. As I spent more years in the company of my family and others who took events so seriously, I learned to keep that sense of the unreality of the material world to myself. What a joy it was to come to the teachings of the great Indian sage Paramahansa Yogananda, author of spiritual classics such as Autobiography of A Yogi and The Second Coming of Christ, and learn that indeed the world is a dream of God. (Corroborating the dream nature of the world are the findings of particle scientists who are proving the essential unreality of matter). Yogananda taught that while we are to play our parts in this dream well, we should not be overly elated by success, or cast down by sorrow. That is how I want to live, and help others to live.”

Jim Ballard spent 10 years in schools as a teacher, guidance counselor, and principal, then another 10 years conducting teacher-training seminars in classroom management, team-building and affective curriculum. When he met Ken Blanchard in 1973, Jim moved over into corporate training. As a consulting partner with Blanchard Companies, he designed and facilitated award-winning management courses, and co-authored a number of books with Blanchard, including Managing By Values, Everyone’s A Coach, Mission Possible, Customer Mania, and Whale Done!

On his own Jim has published What’s the Rush? (Random House), Mind Like Water (Wiley & Sons), and Little Wave and Old Swell, A Parable of Life and Its Passing (Simon & Schuster). He has been the primary writer of Whale Done! and Whale Done Parenting, compiling the stories and suggestions of his co-authors and working them into a parable. His writing focuses on the themes of positive relationships, change, and empowering people to deal with problems like information overload.

Jim is a life coach and enjoys coaching readers at large through his blog and other writings. Jim lives in Amherst, MA, with his partner Barbara Perman.