[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Durani, and I'm your host.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Today's guest is Charlie Timmons. We all possess hidden talents, wisdom, and ideas with the potential to impact the world positively. However, few ever realize their potential, let alone apply it in the service of others. Charlie Timmons as a specialist in career related transitioning, Charlie believes we are always in transition. For instance, we either are transitioning to our authentic self, a satisfying job, a strategic promotion, a new client, a new career, or a purpose driven retirement. He partners with high caliber clients who need to discover what differentiates them so they can prevail in competitive workplaces, earn more money, make an impact, and have more fun. As a personal branding strategist, he mentors executives and professionals to define their purpose, craft authentic stories, build trusted networks and design. Execute a playbook to secure roles, engagements, contracts with mission driven organizations how Charlie gets his clients to broaden their impact and increase their income and productivity authentically without using a cookie cutter approach no longer stuck in second gear, they are freed to move forward quickly. He then guides them on an inward journey to rediscover their hidden treasures, identify their secret sauce, and figure out what's next professionally, while empowering them to apply their superpowers with fearless confidence.
Enjoy the show.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Charlie, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Always great to be with you, Drew. Thank you for having me today.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, it's my pleasure. So, you know, I always love chatting with my guests before we hit the record button. I always learn something, you know, new about them that we could discuss. And I'm very looking forward to your defining moment. You know, as I mentioned earlier, and I always do at the beginning of the show, you know, we're taught about, if we go about life in a straightforward way, that life is linear. If you do all the right things, a plus b plus c, then D is going to happen. And no one knows it better than me that I followed all the steps and stuff still happened to me. And that's just the way life is. So life is not linear, and we all know that. And there comes a point where external circumstances kind of get in the way of some of those letters and derail us.
And I love to have men on who don't run away from adversity. And I know you've gone through a lot in your life and you have some defining moments you can point to that. Have reshaped who Charlie Timmons is right now.
Think back as far as you have to, to grab that defining moment and lead us through your journey to what made Charlie Timmons the man he is right now.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Well, thank you very much, Drew. I appreciate that.
When I left the teaching world and I told my dad I had gotten a job at a little company known as Xerox Corporation, he said, I have advice for you. Just work hard, keep your head down, and everything will be fine.
When I joined Xerox, that seemed to be the culture. You work hard, you get promoted every day, teen months, you move forward in your life, bigger title, more money.
Until it didn't happen.
I was in the company for about twelve years, and going into my 10th year, I got a new boss.
And it. I just wasn't his kind of guy. In retrospect, that's basically what it was. I didn't see it coming. What was in my head, the noise in my head was, keep your head down, work hard, everything will be fine. Well, I kept my head down and, Drew, my head was handed to me. Thank you. We don't need you anymore. Goodbye. Nothing personal, just, I want somebody else in your seat. And that threw me into a tremendous down spiral. Went against everything I had learned about how to manage one's career and one's life. And I look back now, I probably was in depression, but I didn't know it. I was not going to admit to it. So I went through about four or five years of trying to get back on course and. But I didn't have a plan, I didn't have a methodology. I didn't know what I was doing. I kept making a lot of bad mistakes. I was chasing somebody else's dream. Bigger title, more money, bigger house, country clubs, that type of thing. Of course, until I hit rock bottom and I lost my marriage. I lost. I didn't lose my kids, but I lost a lot. And then things began to change a little bit. When I bumped into my guardian angel, who basically asked me to come work for him, I was ready to hire him to help me figure me out. He said, no, why don't you work for me? I was puzzled. I was frightened. I was scared, of course, but I took him up on it. And what started out as a part time job ended up being a career, a profession, if you will, over a course of several years, about 1012 years. And then another pivotal event happened that happens to all of us. There were 56 distinct inflection points that have been documented. I've gone through maybe 26 already, some of them more than once, unfortunately. But this was one of them, an inflection point where I had risen to become part owner of a career management business. We'd gone from $0 to three or $4 million a year, and my partner, a 51% owner in the company, died.
His widow decided she was going to close the doors.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: And there I was with seven people on my team being told that we're going to shutter the place and walk away from it. Well, after I discussed things with her about how this may damage the reputation of her husband, she recanted. And what we decided to do is I got the ip, I got the computers, I got the furniture to start anew, not as the old company, but company I am today, personal marketing associates. And I said to her, we have 164 clients that have paid us money to help them, and you're about to shut them out. What do you think that's going to do with your husband's impeccable legacy? Of course it's going to destroy it. So I said to her, let's activate this particular plan. And I did. And shortly after we got started, all of a sudden, some very negative press began to appear on the Internet. I'm going back to about 2002, that period of time, and all of these claims were being made about the character of our business and our ethics and the fact that we did not do what we said we're going to do. My staff and I were puzzled.
Who are these people? We've never heard of them before, Drew. It took us two years to figure out that was a bunch of disgruntled former employees.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: We had no way of figuring it out until I became aware, through a colleague of mine, who the people were. The minute it got exposed, it stopped. I was so tempted to walk away. During that period of time, I look back and I estimate maybe a million dollars worth of revenue was lost because of the situation. So the question is, why did I not caveat?
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:07:58] Speaker C: Why did I turn it around?
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Why did you not cave, Charlie?
[00:08:01] Speaker C: Because I always believe in there's a better way. I'm always searching for better ways to. For myself, for my clients, etcetera. This was not a job. This wasn't even a career anymore. This was a calling. Of course, I was here to serve other people. I was here to help other people get through these periods of transition, troubles with their professional life, to get them on the right track so they could have the impact they wanted to make. Their audiences they were going after. So that was down inside of me, and that could not be crushed. And I kept moving forward, moving forward, moving forward, until we got out of the woods, moved forward, and came to be what we are today.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Okay. This is a fascinating journey, and I have a lot to unpack here, so I want to rewind all the way to dad's advice, which was solid advice from the heart.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: From dad, to the words ww two veteran.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: There we go. That's what you did, right?
[00:09:01] Speaker C: That's what we did, yeah.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: So, at times, that does work. I know that if there were times in my career, if I did just put my head down and work hard, not open my mouth, I may not have been fired a couple of times. Then again, that may be a good thing. Where I want to go is you mentioned you got out of education, and I'm curious as to what got you into education and why you left.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: Well, I was graduating from college during the Vietnam War. And you got a ticket to stay out of the war. Be very candid. That's what got me in there. But the God works in wonderful, strange ways. I fell in love with it, because here I was helping young kids. At the time, there were middle school kids who ultimately were problem children. They were kicked to the curb by the system. Nobody wanted anything to do with them. And as part of my master's program, I put together a curriculum that would help them exist outside of the mainstream in order to get through middle school and into high school. And that's indeed what I did. I fell in love with it. It was fantastic. One of the greatest things I ever did in my life. However, I had a family by that time. Back then, you needed three or four jobs just to keep your nose above water. So I made a decision to transition into the business world, and it was through networking. We all talk about networking, how important it is that two gentlemen from this country club where I worked for years made each other a bet that their former employers would hire me. Lo and behold, doc Sterner won the bet. It was a $25 bet that his company, Xerox, would hire me. And they did.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: That's the transition out of teaching. But be truthful, Drew. I've been teaching my whole life, all the way back to first grade.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yep. I was going to say high school.
[00:10:59] Speaker C: I did it in college. I'm doing it today.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: I'll tell you, Charlie, I was going to say that teaching, I believe, is your calling. It just doesn't mean you have to do it in the four walls of the. The education system, the way it's set up now. You can teach in other environments. So I understand that aspect is certainly a calling for you.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: May I share with you what teaching means to me?
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Please do.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: It's identifying the hidden potential within people, then finding a way to get it out of them so they can manifest it into the world. To me, that's what it was about, and it still is today. Everybody has potential. And if you take that potential to your grave, the world loses. So what is the potential that you drew have that you haven't even tapped into yet that would make more people beneficial from the things that you know and can do for them?
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Well, I love that, Charlie, because it's true. Each one of us has greatness inside, and majority of us don't realize that. People don't. Don't remind us that we do.
And I love how you seem to be a person who tells us that we don't have limits.
The world puts limits on us, Charlie, and there doesn't need to be. So I applaud you for that philosophy and for taking that philosophy into action, following the new boss coming in and saying, we don't need you. How did you pick yourself up?
[00:12:35] Speaker C: I resisted asking anybody for help.
I looked within myself to try to find a way. What I've learned about myself is I'm always looking for a better way. No matter what situation I am in. If it's not working, what will work? And I try to find my way out of it now. It enabled me to make a living. It enabled me to keep my head above water. But I still wasn't tapping into my true purpose. I had to find my purpose before things began to fall in place. There had to be a reason other than just myself or a paycheck for which to live in order to feel fulfilled and meaningful. So it's a combination of success and fulfillment. I did not know that had I not gone through that downward spiral, I would not have experienced it. You and I probably would not be talking today because I had to go through that fire in order to figure out what it is that I was meant to do.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. Now, you mentioned a little bit earlier about not asking for help. Now, obviously, in context, asking for help is good, depending on who you're asking. At that point, you looked within yourself because you knew you could find a better way and wanted to.
And in a way, you did, kind of. You were ready to ask for help for that gentleman who ended up asking you to come work for him.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Well, he needed somebody.
I found out after the fact that he had my handwriting analyzed, and I was a perfect fit.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That's all right.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: I found that out after the fact.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: That's fine. It put me on a particular path to move forward. But what.
How can I say this? I was in shame.
I did not want anybody to know my deficiencies. I didn't want to expose myself to be vulnerable. Fast forward to today.
One has to be vulnerable today. That's how you build trust. That's how you build engagement. Right. I did not know that back then.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Of course, a lot of us did.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: The wisdom that I have gained over time has me, when I work with clients, to try to get under that superficial layer that most people exist with, to drive deeper, because that's where the answers are.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: I love that, Charlie. A lot. Most often, we have the ego that protects us because we're afraid of what lies ahead if we are vulnerable. And we do learn that as we get older.
So explain how the adversity you encounter that you pushed through kind of made you who Charlie is now as opposed to life happening to you. It happened for me versus it. It happened to me. That distinction.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: Well, I have a business now, so when my partner died, I loved the work that we were doing. I just. Now, I was totally responsible for that. So I put that on the back of my shoulders, and I carried this forward. So maybe it was out of fear. I don't know what. But that's what was driving me, because I. I knew that what we were doing served clients well and that we were helping people move forward, and that kept me moving forward. Moving forward, moving forward. I didn't look back every day. How can I get better every day? How can I come up with something better? Every webinar I took, every book I read, how does this apply to myself and to my clients? Because everything I do with my clients, I've done for me, I'm the guinea pig to find out if it works or not. So, again, I am a continuous learner. That's one of my strengths. Constantly learning, constantly finding a better way. And many times, that takes me off the main road into a contrarian way of thinking, unconventional way, because oftentimes, that's where the answer is.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me that you didn't give up when all those negative things were being said by the former employees when you didn't know who they were coming from. Obviously, you couldn't control their behaviors. Did you find out if they were employees that just had allegiance to your. To your co, your partner, or were they ones that were let go after he had passed and you took over?
[00:16:58] Speaker C: They had left the prior company, had gone to work for competitors and hacked into our system.
They were. Had access to our email, to our website.
This is before we even knew this kind of stuff existed.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
Yeah, that's the thing. So this stuff happened, has been happening for years. It's just gotten more press right now because of, you know.
[00:17:22] Speaker C: So we went through months and months of confusion as to what was going on and just kept focused because we believed in our mission.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me, tell us a little about your business right now. What you do for people. Even if you wanted to paint a. A current client on what you do for them, to make them look good.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: I had said earlier, drew that about potential. We all have it.
Many people have never tapped into it. They don't know what their superpowers are, etcetera. And part of it is because they don't know who they really are. So over the years, I've developed a methodology to take a deep dive inside of a person. Non psychological, but take a deep dive to take a look at what are they all about? What have they done? What is their purpose, what is their mission? To get to the heart of it. Because unless people can understand themselves, it's very hard for them to sell the most important service in the world themselves.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:24] Speaker C: Whether they've left corporate America and are trying to get into a consulting role or something like that, inevitably nobody knows their name, nobody knows who they are. They don't come from a credible consulting background. So as a result, they stumble. And when I talk to them, they cannot tell their story to people. They have a difficult time communicating. Less than 5% of the people in America have been trained in how to sell. They don't know how to sell. They do not know how to convince people to sign on the dotted line and give them a check for their services.
That's an audience that I serve, people that have left corporate America, and they're trying to make it out there on their own. There's more to it than just quitting and starting a job. Even when you buy a franchise, success or failure of that franchise depends on you, not the franchise, or to do that.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: When I first entered into this field, we were working with out of work people, trying to help them find work, so they would hire us, would work them to help them find work. Couldn't guarantee it, but what we tried to do is make them the best candidate possible. I still do that as part of my services to people. I also am spending more time now with. 67% of the population says they're unhappy with what they're doing. Yes, they want to do something different, but what's next? They don't know what's next. They do not know how to get out from underneath.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:49] Speaker C: They don't know how to plan an exit strategy and come out ahead of the game. Many of them jump from the frying pan into the fire, and now they set themselves in a downward spiral like I did. I want to prevent people from doing that type of thing.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I do have a question, though, Charlie.
If we look at the current structure of the recruiting in corporate, more people look for work when they're out of work.
And when that happens, there's more desperation and they don't necessarily follow. Will their standards align with the company's standards? They jump in to say, well, I've done this before. Let me look for a job where I can do this. And my goal is to get the interview. Then after the interview, my goal is to get the job. So there's not a lot of authenticity there. So getting back to what you said, find out who you are first before you look for a job is crucial. Would you agree with that?
[00:20:50] Speaker C: I believe you have to start with you. You're correct. You mentioned earlier about the ladder, that lives are no longer linear. Always talked about climbing the corporate ladder. Today the term that's used is a corporate lattice where you move sideways, up, down diagonals. Sometimes you move back to move forward. And that's difficult for most people to accept because they don't have a plan. They don't know how the game is played. They don't know the X's and O's of getting success in an open market.
Another group that I'm working with right now is men and women who reach a point where they. Financial advisor says, you know, Drew, you can retire if you want to. And both people don't know what to do when they retire. Are they going to do what their parents did?
Are they going to go to Florida and have an organ recital every day? What does that mean? Sitting around the pool talking about your bladder and your gastrointestinal.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: It's an organ recital, right? Yeah.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: My brain wasn't going there. I love that.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: Okay. Because if we're not doing something purposeful with meaning, we're going to die sooner. So I'm trying to help people realize, how can we take their ip, their experience, their networks, of people and do something somewhat different than what they've done before, but gives them more meaning. The money's not quite as important. They're going from making money to making meaning. Yeah, that's important to people when they reach their late fifties and into their sixties.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: A lot of those people to help them make those decisions, to move forward.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I'd love to get rid of that word retirement, negative connotation, as it has a giving up connotation. Really. You got to keep your mind going and have purpose.
So, Charlie, I certainly know that the audience has gotten to know, really capture the essence of Charlie Timmons. And, folks, you definitely want to talk to this wonderful man. So Charlie has said for the listeners, Charlie has offered to give you 30 to 45 minutes of his time to discuss what's next for you. Not a sales pitch, nothing like that, just to help guide you on your way. If you need it, you can contact him through his email, which is CJT.
Is it charlestimmons.com, and that'll be in the show notes as well. Anything you want to add to that, Charlie?
[00:23:15] Speaker C: No, it's about, I wish somebody had done that for me. Drew.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: Everybody that wanted to do that asked me to pay the money in advance for their time.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Today.
[00:23:23] Speaker C: We don't do that today. I believe in the concept of giving. Go giving. You have to pay it forward, if you will. And I'd love to do that for people because they're just one conversation away from figuring it out.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yes. Yep. The greatness is inside, and you're helping them pull it out.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: You have to tease it out of them. They haven't asked the right questions, Drew.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: I love it. Ask the right questions. All right. Talk about asking the right questions. I've got two final questions for you. Ready for these?
[00:23:50] Speaker C: Am I going to judge whether they're good questions or not?
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Drew? These are good questions, and these are. I will judge. These are good questions. So, Charlie Timmons, you have an opportunity now to sit down with young seven to ten year old charlie and give him advice about life. What advice are you going to give, young Charlie?
[00:24:10] Speaker C: Believe in yourself.
Other people have an agenda. Most people want you to be like them.
For a lot of my life, I tried to figure out how to be something other than who I am, to meet other people's expectations of what they wanted me to be because it fit perfectly into their life. I lived that way for a long time, Drew. It's tiresome. I wasted many, many years. If I could have discovered sooner who I was so that I could believe in myself and find my purpose, life would have been a lot different.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Love that advice, Charlie. That resonated. I got some visceral reactions from that, my friend. All right, different hat. You're sitting down with young Charlie, the young businessman entrepreneur, and you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:25:00] Speaker C: Relationships matter.
Building reliable, viable relationships with like minded people, it's about your values, it's what you believe in. Finding your tribe of people where you have mutual interest in the same types of outcomes, those are the relationships you should seek.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:25:31] Speaker C: Build those relationships because they will endure, they will pay dividends. And it's about helping others first without the expectation of anything coming back. I've learned that I used to be a quid pro quo, zero sum game. I win, you lose. It's not what it's intended to be. And I would say to all entrepreneurs, you have to provide massive value early in order to get people to come to you and see you as someone that may be able to be of value to them in their lives.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Wonderful advice, Charlie. I wish everybody would follow that type of advice. So, Charlie, I have to thank you for not just coming on, but being in my life.
I always like to thank people for introducing us. Now, you and I are very different. No one directly introduced us, so Charlie and I would bump into each other in a all these different networking events and always respected each other. Just never really got on the ball to have a call. And it finally happened, and I'm thankful it did. There was a reason why anticipation made it even better.
[00:26:35] Speaker C: Charlie, for many people, the pandemic was a terrible time in their lives.
But you were a gift from the pandemic to me.
And so many people have encountered you along the way that you are the gift that keeps giving to them. So look at what happened to us over that period of time as connecting with people we would have never met before that have made a major difference in our lives. You have a ton of them.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Charlie. And, you know, you too, my friend. And you're right. There's always a silver lining and a positive and something that looks dire. And, you know, you're a gift. You're a gift to me, too, my friend. Okay, everybody, I wish you well and be good to yourselves. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live? Or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second. 2nd because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com.
Feel free to also email
[email protected] dot I'd love to have a conversation with with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
