by Corrine Casanova

Chances are, if you live or work in Reno/Tahoe you probably have either met Breakthrough Training’s Jeffrey Benjamin or at least heard about him. With over 150 corporate trainings a year, most of which are local, he’s a familiar face in the Reno/Tahoe business community.

While he’s traveled the world and has done work in places as far away as Dubai and Costa Rica, he prefers to conduct trainings in the state of Nevada. He shared, “I like to live in the same community that I build for personal development. I enjoy seeing that progress first-hand. I probably interface with 100 people a month who go through my trainings here locally. I can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone who has been through one of my programs or trainings. So, it’s very valuable in that respect because I’m also building relationships with my clients. When I travel to other places across the globe, I will most likely never see those people again.”

Benjamin offers 12 different type of corporate trainings and has been in business for over 25 years. He also has free monthly Breakthrough Networking mixers that anyone can attend. At age 23, while a senior communications major at the University of Nevada, Reno, he started Breakthrough Training. He explained, “Ever since I was 18 I would go out and talk about personal achievement to anyone that would listen. I would get a list of non-profits and ask if I could speak about the topic of goalsetting for free. When I would show up, they would typically ask me who I was. I would explain that I was their speaker as at age 18, I looked pretty young.” As he began building each of his 12 programs, he worked in the banking industry. At age 29, he decided he wasn’t going to spend any days over the age of 30 not doing what he loves every single day. And that’s when he began working at Breakthrough Training full-time.

His love of personal development began at age 16 when he read, How to Take Yourself Apart and Put Yourself Together Again by Harold Morrow Sherman (published in 1971). Then he began devouring personal development books by the hundreds. Author Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich helped Benjamin realize how fortunate he was to be working on his life’s mission and to know exactly what he wanted to do at such a young age. “This is all I will ever do. I have no desire to do anything else and been doing it for so long that it is so ingrained in me that I could do it with one eye closed and hopping on one leg. Plus, I’m a big believer in this as well. I am not the PowerPoint guy. What I enjoy doing is interacting with my clients and creating real life change,” said Benjamin.

He prefers a training environment where there are about 24 people rather than public speaking to large crowds. He prefers this style so he can see what people’s individual needs are and then deliver on that. He explained, “It’s a real art and skill to be able to discover what someone needs. If you really observe, you can tell what they really need to work on and focus on that. I don’t view myself as a speaker, rather a trainer. While a motivational speaker pontificates and shares information in the hopes you will do something with that information, as a trainer I provide information that is more focused on my client’s needs.” He gave the analogy of a personal trainer who is actively participating with their client by pushing them to succeed. Clients typically have the greatest intentions but need the push and an accountability partner. Benjamin provides precisely that. His goal setting training is one of his most popular and just like a personal trainer, he doesn’t share all the reasons why goal setting is important, but instead gets his clients selecting goals and then sharing those goals while he brings in the accountability aspect.

While Benjamin has had employees throughout the years, he does not have any regular staff. “I create and do all own trainings. I am like Picasso, I like to have my signature on those plus it’s hard in this particular business to duplicate yourself especially to the highest quality and standard that I have for my trainings. I like to control that quality as much as possible,” he concluded.

Jeffrey Benjamin is the founder of Breakthrough Training in Reno. He is the co-author of the Real Life Habits for Success book series and has a series of audio books and many published articles. Contact him at BreakthroughTraining.com or at 775-337-1600.