I have always wanted meaningful work of my own. And felt called to something more.
Welcome to your SOFT era.
No more playing small. No more staying in the shadows. The world needs more of you.
I’m Molly Balint. A business mentor, speaker, lover of people, Instagram nerd, and founder of the SOFT Business Movement.
It’s the little things.
Give me a pair of snazzy sneakers, my watercolor paints, family dinners on the hill, a business to help, and I’m a happy girl.
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.
A fixer-upper farmhouse, four little girls and a blog…
I started my work in the online space just under twenty years ago (please don’t do the math) when I cracked open my chunky, white iBook and began a blog to document life as a mom of four girls in a fixer-upper farmhouse. That blog was more about homeschooling, sewing, and granola-making than business, but those daily stories and photographs would unlock opportunities for me to work as both a freelance writer and professional photographer.
From magazines to marketing…
My writing and photographs have appeared in print and online in places like CondeNaste magazine, Pioneer Woman, WonderTime, Country Magazine, and creative ad campaigns for national brands you’d find in your local Target. My nerdiness for social media led to fifteen years of work as a social media strategist for the web’s #1 global media company for parents with an online audience of more than 3.5 million. But like many of you reading this, my heart felt called to something more, something bigger—to meaningful work of my own.
How it started…
I grew up on a 10-acre farm, the youngest of four kids. I showed everything in 4-H from sheep to steers to Grand Champion hard candy. And I still have the crown and sash from my one year stint as queen of the county fair. I thought my big bangs and perms made me better at sports and I excelled at volleyball and basketball despite my half-inch vertical jump. Thanks to private clarinet lessons from the age of nine, I also fell in love with music and always claimed that coveted first chair spot. (Potentially, only coveted by me.) I headed to Wheaton College to study elementary education and got a job in the suburbs of Chicago right after graduation. I’d meet a guy named Dan and my roommate would declare on the first night, “You’re going to marry him.” and she’d be right. We’d marry, have our first girl, I’d quit teaching, we’d move to Wisconsin after a family loss, have another girl, then move back to Maryland. Two more girls would come along (that makes a total of four), we’d bump around to a few more (old) homes—our favorite—eventually landing at Waffle Hill, my family’s farm on a hill. Now, my girls are spread out between college and high school. Dan still spends his weekends fixing broken things in old houses. And I still have a little flock of sheep.
