We recently connected with Hillary Saffran and have shared our conversation below.

Hillary , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

When I worked at a large county workforce center as a Workforce Development Specialist a supervisor suggested that I give workshops to the clients. I was quickly trained and subsequently gave many workshops over the next several years in a variety of employment topics, which led me to become involved in Toastmasters and other public speaking venues.
I then joined an improv group and performed for many years, which was a lot of fun and greatly enhanced my public speaking experience.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Having worked in social services for over 20 years and specializing in employment for economically challenged populations, I saw a need for a therapy to give clients fast results to live more productive lives. I found the solution in the modality of RTT, and the name speaks for itself: Rapid Transformational Therapy. The training itself, developed by Marisa Peer, an award-winning therapist, speaker, and author, was brilliant and transformed my own life in so many wonderful ways. It is my desire to empower others to live more fulfilled and happier lives through RTT.
Before I was certified in RTT, I was certified as a Global Career Development Facilitator and have worked with numerous clients on their career transitions and goals. I’ve also been an entertainer and author for over 20 years in addition to my coaching work.
In addition to RTT, I am also a health and life coach through the Health Coach Institute certified through the International Coaching Federation.
It is my desire to help people to overcome stress, anxiety and the trials of life. I believe that all of our trials can show us our resilience and strengths, and present us with transferable skills to help ourselves and others. I help people discover what brings them joy, and how to find empowerment in that process, leading to more confidence and tranquility in life. It is so rewarding to empower positive transformation in people, and to help them unleash their potential.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

This is my story from my most recent book, “Fill Your Glass with Gold – When It’s Half-Full or Even Completely Shattered”
“A Man is Not a Plan.”
Born in Brooklyn, NY more than 45 years ago, (okay, maybe 55+) I had dreams like many other women of my generation.
You graduate high school, you go to college, you get a job, you get married, you have children, you have grandchildren, you retire to the “Promised Land – Florida,” and then you die.
Well, life wasn’t turning out like I thought it would. My mother died when I was 7, leaving my father, myself, and my older brother. My father remarried soon after, and I inherited a stepmother and older stepbrother, but alas; we were not the Brady Bunch. More like a Long Island version of Mommy Dearest. My family took the word ‘fun’ out of ‘dysfunctional.’
I moved out before I graduated high school, rented a room, and worked to support myself. I put myself through college, then moved to Manhattan after graduation for a series of jobs. I had been a theater and journalism major in college, and now I was in the Big Apple with big dreams and very little confidence in myself.
I worked a series of office jobs and took some vocal lessons because I loved to sing, had some head shots taken for commercials, but found myself adrift and basically emotionally unhealed going nowhere.
Things had not gotten better with my family – I had lost touch for several years as things were very painful with that relationship. My parents had made sure that my brothers did not invite me to their weddings, and both brothers, being four years older than myself, had never taken on the “big brother” role anyway. We were always distant from each other. I found out from a neighborhood friend’s mother during a phone call that my parents had moved to Florida from Long Island – three years earlier.
I felt so lonely in New York. You could walk down the street amidst thousands of people and feel completely alone. At one of my jobs, I made friends with a gal that wanted to go to Seattle. I thought, “why not?” – I have nothing here.
We drove to Seattle, I needed a job, and got one working for a man who was from Brooklyn, who knew! He had his own refrigeration and appliance repair business, and I was the dispatcher. He didn’t tell me his “real age” and that he was not “fully divorced” and had six children when he took such a shine to me.
I didn’t know what the terms “26 – year – old rebound” and “trophy wife” meant when he asked me to marry him. I knew that he was like a father figure, but after I moved in with him, I was too emotionally entwined to get out. We went to California to get married, lived there for two years and came back to Seattle, where I became a stepmother briefly to two of his daughters. His oldest child was two years younger than me. It was like a bad Danielle Steel novel.
We had a beautiful son, but the marriage ended when I finally took myself to counseling and things escalated in an unhealthy way. Now I was a single mom of a 22-month-old child, fully responsible for our financial well-being as child support was “iffy.”
To be with my son I became a preschool teacher, but it was never enough money. So, I saw an ad in the Seattle Times – “Be a Clown, Will Train.”
That little ad was a life changer. I ended up clowning for 28 years for extra income. It was fabulous – you make $100 an hour and keep your clothes on!
I needed clown business cards, so I walked into a print shop one day when a nice-looking guy at the counter took an interest in me. I think it was one of the first times that I’m sure I heard the voice of God in my head; “Leave him alone – he’s a nut.”
True to form, I ignored that huge red flag and we were soon engaged. He had an obsession to go to Alaska, which was never an obsession of mine.
But in the endless quest of the search for Mr. Wrong I soon followed him to Anchorage, Alaska, where he left my son and I high and dry.
My things were in storage, except for my clown suitcase and some other valuables, so I walked into a pawn shop one day in search of a guitar to use for birthday parties to make some extra money aside from my job at a hotel.
The guy who sold me the guitar was enamored with me, and before you know it, he started showering me with jewelry (from the pawn shop, of course.)
One of these jewels was an engagement ring. You think I would have acknowledged the red flags, but alas, I didn’t know what he meant by the statement, “I have 59 days” (it meant sobriety). He did tell me early on, “If you live in Alaska for more than five years and leave, you will end up coming back.”
Now I was married for the second time, but I had never lived with an alcoholic and drug addict before. Two babies and four and a half years later, with my son now eight years old, I wanted to die, because another divorce loomed soon. Here I was, with a college degree, work experience, two failed marriages, three children, and now on welfare.
Where was the course Standards 101 in college?
At one point, I got in touch with my parents again. During my divorce, my father said, “You sure could pick ‘em!”
Seven months after the divorce, I met a man who was a friend of a friend of mine who was an airplane mechanic who owned his own Super Cub. An airplane guy is loads of fun. My kids loved him, I loved him, but it was an on-again, off-again relationship between his divorce scars and mine.
I couldn’t stand it anymore after several years of relationship ups and downs and had become friends with his sister in Colorado. I had also met another guy on the rebound who I now refer to as “Mr. Really Wrong” who had an obsession to leave Alaska and go to Colorado.
I thought I needed a change after 12 years in Anchorage, so I moved to Colorado, where I worked in the employment field and learned ventriloquism to add to my clowning.
Among many bad dating experiences later and Alaska Airplane Guy not completely out of the picture as he could not totally let go (and neither could I), I was laid off after living seven years in Colorado and found my youngest daughter, then 15, dating a boy much older than her.
What a perfect time to go back to Alaska! I decided to come to the Mat-Su Valley where I discovered that Airplane Guy had been seriously dating someone for some time which he had failed to reveal on his visits to Colorado and in his phone calls. But that was okay because I finally learned that a “man is not a plan.”
I became involved in the local arts community and met many wonderful people.
One day I saw an ad in our local community paper, “Make – A – Scene” for an audition for Alaska Home Companion. This was for the Valley Arts Alliance, made up of many fabulous women of a similar age. We all became great friends. When my youngest daughter graduated high school and wanted to go back to Denver, I thought of going with her.
My new friends said “No, stay here.” Most of my friends are happily married women. I asked them to pull my arm. They gladly did. So, I stayed.
I bought a beautiful home in Palmer in the picturesque Matanuska-Susitna Valley. It is my cottage in the woods. Now you, the reader, might be thinking,
“Hmm…where’s your happy ending? Are you still single and scarred from men to this day? What’s the gold in your cup?!”
I did meet someone special when I turned 62, nine years after I came back to Alaska from Colorado. We got married a year after we met. It is the happiest and healthiest relationship I have ever been in.
Now one of the ironies of my life is that my job in social services is finding employment for mostly women who thought that a man was a plan, but the dream shattered, and they find themselves on welfare. I get them jobs to get them off welfare.
So, if life does not turn out like you thought it would, that’s okay.
That happened to me when I took a long winding 35-year road to Alaska, where friends became my family, and I finally came home.
I’ve been working “on the other side of the desk” for the past two decades now and feel that I am a much better case manager and employment specialist due to what I’ve learned in my own journey and welfare experience. I empower my clients to become self-sufficient as soon as possible, and they know that they’ve acquired an authentic cheerleader to help them on their way.
I even completed training to become a transformational coach and therapist in my own practice, to more fully understand why I made the choices that I’ve made in life, and to understand my clients better. It has made me a much more compassionate social services worker and has also aided me to help others navigate their own life’s journey.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

If I could go back I would have most likely become a music therapist. I have achieved sound healing certifications, and enjoy playing the violin, harp, guitar and piano. I also sing and created a children’s CD and accompanying lyric book titled, “Hugs from Above.” I love the idea of creative therapies, and I know that music is a very healing modality.
I enjoy being involved in my local arts community, and participate in theatre groups as well as singing for seniors in an assisted living home.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hillarysaffranproducts.com and https://www.hillarysaffran.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hillarysaffran/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hillary.saffran
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hillarysaffran/
• Twitter: https://x.com/hillarysaffran
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hillarysaffran1845?si=Pmt0CAZMNr5d3-PR