We recently connected with Mike Balint and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Mike thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

One of the most difficult things I encounter as both a creator and an entrepreneur are peoples preconceived notions on how things “should” be. In 2014 I co-founded a construction and engineering firm that has grown into an 8 figure business over the past decade. I am also a commercial helicopter pilot and flight instructor. Both of these career paths tend to be very serious in nature due to the level of detail and knowledge involved, as well as the public safety aspect. My content on the other hand, tends to be of the unhinged or satirical nature, which is almost the opposite end of the spectrum. It is a difficult concept for some people to grasp that you can joke around and be comical or even say cuss words on social media apps while at the same time having the ability to perform in a highly professional capacity when its necessary. At the beginning of my social media career, this caused some problems with some of my professional relationships on the business side. In 2021 I was even forced to resign from a youth (U14/16) hockey coaching position that I had been at for 8 years because a couple parents kept complaining about my content. I say forced because the options I was given was to either delete my social media accounts or resign and I chose social media. I’m not bitter about it however, because I do understand the perspective that at first glance my content could give off the perception that I am just a “dumb bro” that cant take anything seriously and how that could be worrisome as an organization deciding if someone should be in a leadership position that represents them. To an extent, theres some truth to it but ultimately I believe that my successes speak much louder than the lack of seriousness I have on social media. The good thing is that as more and more companies and people are using social media as primary means of marketing, that my type of content is also becoming more of the norm across multiple industries.

Mike, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into helicopters and creating social media content around the same time actually. In 2021 I was in Hawaii and we took a helicopter tour of the islands that landed at the waterfall they used in filming for the original Jurassic Park movie. That was my second time on a helicopter, but the first time landing off airport. That was one of the coolest things I have experienced. It was so incredibly awesome to just land and visit an area that otherwise would have taken a lot of hiking or ATV driving. The 3rd day after I returned home, I went for an intro flight at a local flight school. I remember flying over the airport and I asked the instructor, “so if the engine dies, we just go down right? Its kind of a risk that we are willing to accept to be able to do this?”. To which he answered by performing a full-down autorotation (engine off emergency landing simulation). That sealed the deal, I was hooked. I spent the next year training and studying the craft and by 2022 I had gone all the way through commercial pilot, instrument pilot, flight instructor and had an external load endorsement. The sense of freedom and the rush that this million dollar air jet-ski gave me was unmatched! I had already developed a following on social media that started over the 2020 pandemic that I decided would now be focused on helicopter content. Over the past year I made a big push on Instagram and Tik Tok with this content and in December of 2023 we produced our first YouTube series called “Me & Rudolf” which is a fictional 3-part mini series about trying out to be Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeers private helicopter pilot and security. The concept was to blend in a comedic story with actual technical knowledge so that people could learn while being entertained. In March of 2024, I have a full time media crew that will be working with me to produce weekly videos for YouTube that will be similar in nature and expand to some tactical, motorsport and other shenanigans.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

These are a scam to make money off of people that lack cognitive ability! I don’t understand it at all. People get all hyped that its artwork, you can prove its an original and it cant be duplicated so it holds its value. But the problem is that it doesn’t have an original appearance at first glance and duplicates can look exactly alike. Take an original, conventional art piece like a sculpture for instance. If I have an expensive one on display in my home, people that aren’t experts in the field can still tell its original. They can also immediately get a sense of the quality, whether or not its expensive or a cheaply made copy. More-so, they can generally pick up on this without any input by others. NFT’s on the other hand, do not provide any of these qualities. A $100k NFT still looks like a picture on a phone if its shown on a phone. A screenshot of that same NFT looks exactly the same as the original at first glance. Of course you can prove otherwise with the blockchain code blah blah I get it it but to me its like explaining why a joke is funny, once you have to do it, then its lost its value.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think connecting with people is the most rewarding part. I mean I wont lie, of course the attention is nice, but over the past couple of years I’ve developed some really great relationships with people just because of social media. Whether its because we have similar content or even just people that react to my content, I have felt a sense of camaraderie with many people that I haven’t even met in person. Sometimes I think its easier to get to know someone via social media because it takes away a lot of the anxiety that many people have with in-person social interactions. It has been a great atmosphere for collaborations and expressing myself and knowing that other people genuinely enjoy the content I create is of course rewarding in itself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @r_and_w
• Youtube: @MikeBalintHeli
• Other: Tik Tok: @mikebalintheli

Image Credits
Daniel Valek