Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Timi Gleason. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Timi , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

When I was graduating from college, there were no jobs. Every night on TV, they talked about how graduate students were working at coffee shops and burger places just trying to
survive. I was only graduating with a bachelor’s degree, so this was intimidating news!
Interestingly, it also lit up my imagination and the tenacity aspects of my personality. I was
already working two part-time jobs as a college student. I had just finished an internship for
the State of California, Department of Corrections. It was an experimental program to see if
the State could recruit college grads to their ranks. For this internship, I had interviewed with
the Director of the Health and Human Services who was in charge of various other civil
servant departments in California. So, I knew his name and face, and technically, he knew
mine (if I reminded him). He had shared their goal.
I was the student representative for the Student Employment Office on campus. Because of
the dire job shortage, I was seeing this deficit of full-time jobs on campus too. More students
were looking for full-time jobs instead of just part-time work, and I didn’t have access to
those jobs. My person in Sacto was over the State of California employment division too.
This gave me an idea. I used my previous short interview with the Director of Health and
Human Services as a contact for my pitch to the State of California in Sacramento. I said
they should hire me after I graduated.
I suggested they allow me to bring jobs on to my campus and to other big campuses in San
Diego. What would be in it for them was access to qualified candidates for the jobs via the
students at San Diego State. Students would have access and the State would have good
candidates. They could increase their numbers (successful placements).
I did not hear back right away. But in the background, the Director of Health and Human
Services sent a note to his Regional Administrator in Riverside, who forwarded his
instructions to the head of EDD (Employment Development Department/the Job Service) in
San Diego. A secretary, reached out to me to invite me to an interview with him. I was
shocked and thrilled. I couldn’t wait!
However, because he had no choice in the matter, he didn’t receive me well. He wouldn’t
shake my hand when we greeted each other. He told me, “I already have a room full of
trained people out there, why should I hire you!?” It wasn’t an easy experience for me as a
24 year old.

But I stood my ground and gave the interview my very best. Later, safely out of there, I cried
and beat up my steering wheel of my car; I was so glad this unfriendly experience was over.
I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to work for such jerks. I was sad and disappointed. It was
terribly stressful and I thought, very mean-spirited considering I had made it that far in the
process.
BUT THE NEXT DAY, a new person called me. It was my future boss who was eager to
meet me, make an offer, and have lunch ASAP. He was wonderful and turned out to be a
great mentor to me for well over ten years.
So, my ability to stay focused when I interviewed and maintain my poise through “the idea
to the job”, the pitch, and the final “maturity test” to see if I was ready to play with the big
boys, paid off! And in retrospect, the man who had been rude to me, had issues with
assertive women, which he admitted later when he apologized.
Fast forward another ten years, his future wife (another very assertive woman and peer to
my boss), referred me for my next big job…a job she’d been offered…and she felt like it
belonged to me. I went on to double my income and change my career with her help when I
was 34. I left the State and went on to be a top leader in HR for a Fortune 200 company.
This was another big jump for me, as I had not worked as a supervisor yet. I jumped several
levels to “director” past supervisor and manager, which rarely happens, but did to me. And
yes, I had a HUGE learning curve for about 18 months.

Timi , 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’m Coach Timi in Southern California. I am a women who has been sustaining myself since I was 17 years old; and at this point, I work from my home. I provide strategy
leadership support to clients in the United States who have teams globally. My background
is in Human Resources and Organizational Development and Fortune 200 leadership.
Clients pick me for several reasons: I am an expert in helping people get promotions to the
VP level. I know how to help them with their communication and stress issues, and I know
how to show them how to move from being too tactical and “in the weeds” to being strategic
thinkers. www.executivegoals.com
I also have a separate passion project and product called a Soulwork Map. My Soulwork
Map incorporates two well-known business assessments and a client’s name-numerology
and birth date into a life road map. A second product that works with the Soulwork Map is
the Birth to 99 chart that maps your life themes and events. The three assessments make
up my Life Trilogy Solution for professional and entrepreneurs who are seeking more
meaning and spiritual structure in their lives. www.soulworkmaps.com

I am the mom of a daughter and son who are both grown up and successful professionals.
And I am the author of two Amazon business books: Becoming Strategic: Leading with
Focus (2015) and Inspiration and Conversational Intelligence @WORK (2023).

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Some of my more interesting consulting jobs have come from volunteering my time to speak at conferences and at professional associations. People in the audience saw me and
approached me about additional work. Potential clients may have been looking for (or
thinking about trying to find) a certain type of person to fill a special need they had, and I
showed up!
Often, I don’t have any competition for the jobs that I am offered. When they see me and I’m
what they were thinking about, I have no competition. They hire me from the audience.
I can think of at least three times this has occurred. Those three times were worth well over
$8000 for 2.5 days of work. Another time when I was doing a half day consulting job, it led
to a seven-year dream job. First, they offered me a six-month consulting job. At the end of
that, they offered me a full-time, regular career with this pitch: “If you were to come to work
for us, which job do you want? How many hours do you want to work? And do you want
benefits?”
If you are comfortable speaking to small groups, put yourself out there. You never know
who’s looking for someone just like you.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience and agility have been key traits for surviving changing times since I can remember. I have three stories:
1) When I was 22, there was no credit for women (not until 1974 with the ECOA), so I
started a credit union with six friends to bridge that gap for 2 years which we did not
know there was a law going to be passed. It cost us $35 to get started and a lot of
our volunteer time. The moral of the story: start your own solution if there isn’t one
for you. (Ultimately, we carried on for another twenty years even after the laws
changed.)
2) When I was 38, my employer laid a huge responsibility on me to figure out how to
keep 12 people who did not know how to use computers. I was the HR Director and
had been told since day one, that “they had this handled” when the time came.
However, our new incoming technology required computer skills. None of these
impacted workers were eligible to work in other departments when the time came.
Computers were new and something young kids knew, but not our seasoned
employees who were doing everything manually. We were in newspapers.
I designed an assessment of the entire department with three scenarios over an 18-
month period: Group 1) ready to learn the new technology/knows how to use a
computer; Group 2) knows the customers and business and is trainable on
computers; and Group; 3) knows the business and doesn’t want to stay once we

move to the new technology so will help us hold the fort down while Group 2 is
trained.
It took lots of trust to pull this off without legal problems. The ones learning computers
had to agree to a pay freeze for 18 months. Group 1 was financially accelerated as
they completed certain “new technology” training milestones. And Group 3 had to be
willing to endure some extra workload and pressure in order to support their quickly
advancing colleagues. In the end, the plan worked out great.
The moral of the story is “be ready to pivot” (agility).
3) Eleven years ago, when I lost my corporate job, I also lost my ability to pay my
mortgage payments which were $1900/month. I was older and probably not going to
be able to get another job like the one I’d had. I wasn’t the right age to lead a
department in five years when my boss would retire. I was a Baby Boomer too. So
for almost four years, I dodged bill collectors calling about my delinquent mortgage
payment, and bore the burden of restrictions on my ability to refinance the house
because I was behind on payments and was expected to pay back 80 thousand
dollars first. Although I had gone to work for myself and was making enough income,
I didn’t have a “real job” any more, nor did I have any savings to pay back such a
large sum of money.
The key to being resilient during this long period of time was to figure out how to
minimize all the stress I could. I needed to stay engaged and ready to go to work
and solve my problem, even though I didn’t have much advantage at the time. To
reduce my stress: 1) I turned off the ringers on my phones, 2) I turned the ringers
back on anytime I was willing to answer the bill collector’s calls. I did that at least
every two weeks, even though they were calling multiple times per day. I always had
good or hopeful news. I always treated them with respect and tried to have an
upbeat conversation; 3) I realized from working in call centers that they weren’t
individually calling me. It was an auto dialer calling three people at a time and that
they weren’t paying attention to me that closely. And so for over three years, while
others were losing their homes, I saw an opportunity and took a chance, and
ultimately won.
I was surprised at the end of the third year to realize that steady income was going
to start coming my way in about three months. It was a small pension of $375, and
there was another one for $1000 because of my age. The income was going to be
steady and I could bridge the gap with my work income the rest of the way IF they
would let me refinance.
I had protected my mental health, reduced my stress and was proud of myself that I
could see this idea, as it wasn’t obviously a solution. I let the mortgage company
know about my new fixed income by applying for a reassessment of my mortgage.
However, they denied me within a month.
I was very alarmed and couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t want to work with me?
They had been taking people’s homes for over three years, didn’t they have enough

homes? It took me a few days of looking at the returned paperwork over and over
before I saw in tiny grey print at the bottom of one of the pages: “future income not
considered.” My determination to not give up easily, paid off.
It was now less than a month before Christmas so I decided to formally re-apply
again to hold them off through the holidays because I had no plan and I was freaked
out. Since they had sent the denial letter, I was now on their radar, and they were
threatening to take my house in ten days. I had friends who knew better and told me
to “ignore it”. That wasn’t easy, but right on the Internet it says the foreclosure
method is at least three months and 21 days. So, I got back on my horse and kept
riding.
I resubmitted my application with attached paperwork validated the start date of my
new fixed income. Worst case scenario, I had bought myself 30 days. However, my
efforts paid off and before Christmas, they called me with a newly refinanced
mortgage offer.
They presented it to me over the phone. It had much better repayment terms and the
new cost was half the previous cost of my old mortgage. My debt that I had incurred
during the previous 46 months was deferred without interest until I sell my house
someday. My resilience and tenacity had paid off in spades with better results than I
could have ever imagined or wished for. Moral of the story: stay in the fight! Don’t let
yourself shut down. Outmaneuver your opponents!

Image Credits
 Soulwork Maps Photo  Birth to Ninety-Nine Photo  LinkedIn Photo