I've Got This: Nina Sossamon-Pogue on Resilience and Change

In this episode, we sit down with Nina Sossamon-Pogue, a former elite gymnast, television news anchor, tech executive, and author of "This is Not the End: Strategies to Get You Through the Worst Chapters of Your Life," to explore the theme of resilience. Nina shares her journey from the heights of athletic success to the challenges of career transitions and personal setbacks. She offers valuable insights and steps on how to navigate life's highs and lows, embrace change, and build inner strength. Whether you're facing professional challenges or personal struggles, Nina's experiences and advice will inspire you to say, "I've got this."

About Nina:
Nina Sossamon-Pogue is a sought-after speaker, two-time best-selling author, and podcast host with an extraordinary journey of repeated reinvention. Leaving home at just 13 to train for the USA Gymnastics team, she graced magazine covers and captured the imagination of a nation alongside teammate Mary Lou Retton. Her path diverged from gymnastics after a career-ending injury competing for LSU. The moment became a catalyst for an esteemed career as a news anchor and Emmy award-winning journalist.
Ever-evolving, a transformative life event led Nina into a new path of corporate leadership. As a celebrated executive, she navigated the intricacies of a highly successful IPO in the tech industry. Today, with her extensive experience in marketing, communications, and PR, she is a trusted advisor for organizations seeking to refine their narrative and attract investors. Nina's influence extends beyond her honors and thought leadership. She embodies the essence of resilience and empowerment and has been recognized as a 'Woman of Distinction' by the state of South Carolina. Nina continues to inspire others to overcome adversity and thrive in this ever-changing, fast-moving, FOMO era of uncertainty.

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Transcript

It’s Kristina Driscoll, host of the She's Brave Podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me. I did not start out brave at all, but I learned that we can do brave things one small step at a time. at a time. After caregiving for my husband and young son for 12 years, it was definitely time for my next chapter.  

 I want to get brave women's voices out there in the world and inspire women to find their own bravery within themselves. A year later, I'm in the top 2 percent of All podcasts globally. I've interviewed amazing women who have overcome and accomplished so much to live the life of their dreams. If they can do it, you can do it too.

And so can I. Let's go.    

.Hey, everyone. It's Kristina with the she's brave podcast.  Do you ever feel like navigating the highs and lows in today's world? It's just harder than ever. I gotta tell you guys, I certainly feel that way a lot. It's just a constant challenge, right?

What about change? Change is inevitable, right? We cannot go through life without going through change, and yet, change isn't always easy. In fact, a lot of the time, it's really hard.

Today's guest says that navigating these highs and lows of today's world can actually make us stronger. She's also an expert on resilience and change. Her name is Nina Sossman-Pogue, and she's a motivational speaker, inspirational thought leader, and author on resilience with a focus on change and mental wellness.

Nina is an inspirational powerhouse on and off stage. In fact, her slogan is, I've got this. All right, Nina, I already love you so much. Welcome, Nina.  Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Happy to be here. I was so glad you're here. I still have some more things to share with my audience about you. And I'm so excited you guys are going to learn so many amazing things. Nina is a catalyst for change. You also have a dynamic fusion of science and stoicism. She's a former USA gymnast. She trained with and competed with Mary Lou Retton. She's an Emmy winning news anchor, accomplished corporate leader, and best selling author. Nina's journey is a tapestry of triumphs  and tribulations woven together with resilience and grace. Nina. Wow. I want to start by talking a little bit about your own personal story.  I can't even imagine getting to the level that you got to in gymnastics and then boom, it was gone overnight. Sure. And you know that trials and tribulations and triumphs and tribulations that sounded better than suck and success. So I think that's how they edited that. And when they send this out, but yeah, it's a little bit of both. I moved away from home when I was 13, like so many young athletes do.

So I was a gymnast, a talented young gymnast and talented athlete at a young age. So I moved away from home at 13 and I moved into the Olympic training center. Sure. And then I made the U. S. team, which was a big deal, and I went to Japan, Hungary, Germany, Australia. I got to travel all over the world, wear my USA sweats.

It was the Mary Lou era, that group. And yes, we roomed together, but that's because my maiden name was Rofie, and we were Rofie and Retton. It was both R's. Oh, Rofie and Retton. It wasn't because we were number one and number two. That was not a thing. But we were friends and roommates and then, you know, you get hyped up and I'm on the front of magazines and I'm Olympic hopeful.

 I went to a pool. public high school for a part of the day and they'd make announcements, watch Nino on ABC Raw World of Sports this weekend, like it was a thing. But then I blew out, I had a horrible meet leading up to the Olympics.  In the qualifier, I didn't even make it to the trials. Back then all it took was one. They didn't have the system that they have now. So I bombed a qualifier and didn't make it to the final Olympic trials where they just have a handful.

And so it was just devastating as a kid to have to go back to my high school walk down the halls of my high school embarrassed and my whole family. They've given up so much for me to be there.  It was just the 1st time I felt like a failure. I'd wasted my whole life. That kind of concept when you're a kid. I just was, shame and sadness and all those things at an early age, very public shame and sadness. I like to share that because nowadays, think about these kids now, it's their Instagram and their Facebook Like they definitely identify with a sport or something. When you have a failure, it's very. Much out there for everybody to see your failures. So that concept of public pain and public failure.

I did college gymnastics at LSU, I was a top recruit. It was a big deal to make it to a big program like that. LSU just won their first national championships in the last few weeks. Very exciting. I competed for LSU, but then I blew out my knee, my freshman year of college. Once again, I thought my life was over. Who am I without gymnastics? I was a career ending injury.  I had to figure out who I was. It's very difficult to have something happen where very publicly you have a failure.

You Are the living, breathing, beautiful example of a incredibly brave woman Like  you've gotten up over and over again in your life.  You have a book it's called, this is not the end. N O T is capitalized. I love that. Strategies to get you through the worst chapters of your life.  I'm going to quote you a little bit because your speeches are amazing. You guys go back and watch  her YouTube videos. They're so good. You've said your life isn't ruined. You're just in a  tough plot twist and it won't always be like this.

Nina, you've had not just one, but a series of devastating events happen to you.  In your book, you have these six practical strategies that you like to use.  I thought that they were incredibly powerful. Number one is figuring out where to put this in your head. So tell us more about that.

 I will preface this with, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, she just didn't make an Olympic team, more went on. I got big into television. The top of my game after being like Charleston's favorite news anchor for many years was let go and budget cuts, devastating  very public embarrassment. I also worked my way back up and I had a traumatic experience that left me, yeah. questioning whether I even wanted to go on. So I've had some other things happen in my life besides just not being a great athlete.

So this concept, this first piece of the strategies, where do you put this in your head, I call it my timeline thinking. When something happens it feels like it takes up all the space in your head. Like you wake up thinking about it. You go to sleep thinking about it. It is all encompassing, whether it's a divorce, I've had one of those too, it is just the thing that's going through your brain at that time.

So It's figuring out where to put it because you can't go back and undo it. It is now there. It's part of you. And so you have to come to terms with it, it's an acceptance piece. Some people talk about the stages of grief and how you get to acceptance. For me, it's not just the acceptance like this that happened, but in that timeline of your life, if you drew a line, where does it fit?

Are you 19? Are you 30? Are you 35 and going through a divorce? you got to draw that timeline and put a dot on it and the magic in it is  no matter where it is happening in your life, it's all this blank space ahead.

You have to come to terms with it. This is part of your life now, whether you want it to or not. Can't do a do over. This is how life works, but you have all this blank space ahead and it's okay to not be okay But it's not okay to stay that way. So the concept of where to put it in your head  In my book I talk about it's like I could vision it like a bunch of doors and it doesn't fit anywhere or that old game mastermind where you had to put all the pieces in the different shapes and you have one that just doesn't fit. But you have to find a place for it. You have to figure out the path forward.  That's the, where does it fit in your head?

That requires acceptance and being, coming to peace with it and finding a place for, I love that phrase, how you said that. Your number two is create a script to protect yourself in public.  

Yeah.  We do this all the time. We do it to other people we don't mean to trying to be nice.  If I can flip this back at you I'm sure when your husband passed, people would come up to you all the time and go, Oh my God, how are you doing? All day, every day. And even on a day when you're having a good day and you have a moment where it's not, you're not full of grief and it's taking over everything, then you have to talk about it.

And you find yourself taking care of the other person cause it makes them feel bad because you're like projecting your sadness. So this concept of. Create a script to protect yourself is come up with a sentence that you can say that keeps your emotions intact and Helps the other person move forward.

 For example, I went through a traumatic experience. People were like, Oh my God, I can't believe this. And they would just dig, can you tell me about this? Tell me about that. And I would say, I'm doing better. We're all praying for everybody. I'm not in a position where I want to talk about this right now. I have some good people around me, but how are you? How are the kids flip it? I love it. So you can just take it. Thank you for thinking of it. Thank you for praying for me.  I'm not in a position where I want to talk about this right now, but thank you and move it forward. I love it. So it's just, it's taking ownership and taking care of the other person so they can move forward because otherwise you, for example, and me, whoever, when someone passes, this is always happens.

People just want to jump in and talk about it every time you see them and you have to relive  those things in your head, there's images and feelings and emotions and you get that cortisol and that's all the chemicals in your brain, just like you're there again.

So you have to protect yourself from that and to have a sentence that says this is what it is. We don't have to share every detail of our life with the whole world. We don't yeah, there's a whole section of my book on divorce because if you're in the middle of a divorce, you do not need to share all the gory details for everybody.

They do not need justification. All you need to say is thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for asking. Yes, it's hard for all of us. We're getting through it. How do you and your family like to move it forward? I will share that I have three kids. So are my three adult children now, but when they were in college they'd have friends come home and something would come up,  like this young boy.

Came home with my son and he said he had gotten really drunk at a party and made a complete jerk of himself and was embarrassed and he wasn't doing well in school and he had fallen and knocked a tooth and he was just in a bad place. And we talked for a little bit. I said, what if you just called your teachers and went, Hey, I totally screwed up.

I'm super embarrassed. I'm not going to be in class for a little bit, but I need your help to get through this semester. And then you do the same thing with your friends. That was super embarrassing. We'll be doing that again. And now I know who my friends are and who they aren't. Thanks.

Those who helped me and the rest of you. You're now edited out, but to have a script to just own it and go, I won't be doing that again, or that was stupid, or  just to give it voice and something that he could use to protect himself, and he did, he went back and we practiced it out loud a few times, and he went back and used that sentence.

I love it. All the professors jumped in and help and his friend all his friends were all like, Oh, dude, man. Yeah, it was bad. I'm glad you're okay. Like it gave everybody an opportunity to move past it. Yeah. And I am really getting to more and more of a place in my life where I think I was like that overly independent adult, Even when I was caregiving for my husband, like I look back on it now and say, I should have asked for more help.

Like I  should have just asked for it. What's the worst somebody can do? They might say no.  That's okay too. Like  Most of the time when we ask for help, people are there for us.

And I'm horrible about asking for help. Same as you were probably the same, similar generations where we just, be tough, be a woman. Don't, you don't need to. I don't. Lean on anybody, but yeah, asking for help and asking for, giving whatever you're going through a voice and not just keeping it all inside. That's that piece of that creating a script to protect yourself and the people who care about you will be there for you and the people who aren't, you'll know pretty quickly.

There's some that'll, That's why the script works too, because there's some people will keep going back to it and ask again and ask again. I'm like, and that's when you just keep saying, Hey, I'm not, I don't really want to talk about this right now, but how are you? I don't really want, and if they keep going, that's on them. That is not on you.

I love it. It blends into number four, which is to assess which people and places are helping you or hurting you. I love this one so much. Oh yeah. And I went through this when I went through a traumatic experience because it was very public and people kept wanting to relive the trauma.

And I was trying to move on and be positive and get my head together and move forward. And people just kept wanting to stay in that space. And they're like, we're praying for you. I'm like, I don't think you're actually praying for me. I think you want me to give you a little bit of gossip for your little friends and go down that road.

And I don't want to be part of this any longer. This has gone on long enough. I'm ready to move on to a new chapter in my life. And people will be helping. Some people are just so pessimistic and down you want to help them, yeah but you also need to distance yourself if you're going through a tough time.

You need people who will lift you up and will care about you and will actually listen when you speak. So I say who's helping and who's hurting. Thank you. And if you just take everybody in your little universe, when you go through something, everybody fits into a category. Nobody gets to be in the middle. They're either helping or they're hurting. You have to choose one and figure out where they are. And if you don't have enough people helping, that's when you know, I need to get a therapist, I need to talk to somebody, I need to pull some other people into my world, because you don't want to go through something tough alone.

There's no reason to go through really tough times alone. There are people who've been through something similar, there are people who have been on your journey before, there's someone who understands it in a different way. So I'm a big proponent of don't go it alone, and people who have success on the other side of any kind of trauma or life events or firing or divorce or just the big things that set our lives back and take us, take our lives in a new direction those people who have big success and happiness on the other side of it, because you're allowed to be happy again, that happiness on the other side of it are the ones who find the right people and get help.  People who go it alone, it's hard in your own head to, to get to where you need to be.  

Yeah, for sure. And I've said this before in my podcast, but I think it's worth mentioning again and reminding, you know, after you, you spend an hour or two with someone ask yourself, when you say goodbye and get in your car, just check in with yourself and not say, how do I feel right now? How am I feeling? Am I feeling good? Or did they just pull me back down again? I have an example of this. That's pretty recent. A few months ago, I got together with a group of girlfriends and one of them is just an acquaintance, but, after chatting with her I just didn't feel very good about myself. The whole time she was talking about how perfect her family was, how incredibly wealthy she is,   it helped her to feel better about herself I just decided that's not somebody that I really want to be friends with.  Thank goodness it's just an acquaintance.

You are completely on point when you said check in with yourself. Does this person make you feel better? , my oldest son played baseball very good baseball player. And I would tell him, I'm like, when you step into that dugout, be the guy adding the energy. Don't be the guy that everybody else has to build up and give their energy to. We can't always be that all the time. But for sure, we have to be careful who we surround ourselves with because  misery loves company and we all go through tough times. I even tell my husband, we have to take turns. Like we don't get to both have a bad day to day. Like one of us has to pony up and get our act together if we're both having bad days. You just have to be careful because that amount of energy and the amount of goodness and happiness, it is chemicals in your brain that affect your body.

If you have ulcers and people who have, heart problems, it all comes from how our chemicals and the, how our brains and bodies are reacting to our thoughts and feelings. There's a great book  really heavy, but it's called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It talks about how, when we do things, that cortisol and adrenaline and that norepinephrine, just from any kind of change, like it surges into our body and physically, it's affecting us and the piece with the zebras is like a zebra has the fight or flight. As soon as the lion chases them across the safari and they're done, they go back to eating grass and being fine and they don't ruminate they get back to level and their bodies do not create.

We constantly like, what if that happens again? Am I ruined?  We do all this stuff in our head we're in fight or flight all the time. And our body keeps sending  chemicals into our brain, into our body, which is really hurting us really.

 It made me think of another analogy. I'm sure you've heard this one too, but I just love it so much. To mallard ducks males, they will often. Fight, right? Like they'll just have a little bit of a physical altercation in the pond and then they will both go in opposite directions. They will literally shake it out and go on with their day.  I recently. Read that , even as human beings, physically shaking it out is actually a thing that actually works for humans too.

Isn't that crazy? And humming. Humming does a magical thing in your brain. I have not heard that. Oh yeah.  Humming takes over the space in your brain that, that would take you in another direction.  There's a bunch of research on that.

I think that's fascinating.

 I do a thing from the stage and I talk about this, why zebras don't get ulcers a little bit. And I had the zebra running across and then it survived, and it hides in the bushes and it's standing there and its heart rate's going down and its blood pressure is coming, and then the, the adrenaline's wearing off and it's catching its breath.  Then I have the zebra do something very human, pick up its cell phone and look and check in and see what the, what should the animal kingdom's doing.  The zebra swipes over and sees flamingo on the beach. Man, flamingos on a, I wish I was on a beach sick of these stripes, wish I could wear pink, this whole concept, we also have this new thing in the last 20 years, since we now have all of our friends in our pockets, taking vacations and buying new cars, and their children doing amazing things we can take away our joy in a minute, comparisons to Thief of Joy, we can, even though that zebra outran that zebra, Lion.

And there's like such a rockstar frigging amazing zebra  in the moment that she picks up her phone and looks at it. She's Oh, I'm not even great at, I just want to be, I just want to be flamingo on the beach. I want to eat shrimp. So anyway, I absolutely love that zebra story and it's such a great analogy  we all do it. I do it. I try to like, I try not to get sucked into everybody's vacations and stuff. I'm like, Oh, let me see a baby goat. Let me find a baby goat. Makes me happy. That's put some good things in my brain. Make me laugh. Come on, baby goats. But in, in reality, I see friends taking vacations and I'm like, how can they keep going on vacation? Or I see their kids getting some award or something. Somebody even lost 20 pounds or who knows =We all get jealous. We don't have to define it as jealousy. It's a comparison.    So much good stuff that I'm taking notes. Nina,    

number four is process a traumatic event as a fraction of your life story. This really resonates with me because I do feel like, and I might be wrong, but. It seems like we can, get very fixated on whatever traumatic event we went through and stay stuck because of it.

Absolutely. And this is my favorite. Chapter in the book.  My daughter will say, Mom, my friends are so screwed up, they think their lives are over because they failed a test and I have to do chapter six on them all the time.

 Timeline thinking.  The example that I'll use here too is imagine.  Summertime when you were 10 years old it seemed like this big long stretch of time when you're 10 Like it wait two weeks to go to summer camp like you play with your friends  in the street now Imagine summertime when you're 40 it's a zoom and it's all different.

Yeah. It's a very different feeling when you're 10 that year of your life is one 10th of everything you know.  One 10th piece. Ah, you get a 10th of a piece of pie when you're 40 that whole year of your life is one 40th of everything, and they had have experienced. So it's a little sliver of pie, one 10th and one 40th and it's the same 365 days.

It feels really different depending on where you are in your life. Every day of our lives. It's a smaller piece of the whole and we want the pie to keep getting bigger. So every day she's going to be a smaller piece of the whole. And the math that I use to explain this is when I blew out my knee when in doing gymnastics in college, I was 19.

And at that point, gymnastics was 75 percent of what I knew in life. I had been in the gym since before I was 5 years old, I had spent all my life in the gym, giving up a lot, went to high school parties or dances. And I felt like I had wasted my whole life. We hear this from young people today ugh, your mom, you're ruining my whole life or you're wasting my whole life. Four years of college seems so big and there's so many big decisions to make and it might be who you love or the career you get. Like it's such a big, heavy part of life, but in reality it's a very small fraction.           I love it.          

 Number five,  grasp that public pain shall pass, even trucks on the lawn. So there's gotta be a story behind trucks on your lawn. Do tell. Okay I don't, my, my story of trauma is very triggery, so I don't share it openly any longer.  I found I can explain to you  the follow up to it without having to take you to that moment.

But at one point in my life, I was involved in a very traumatic accident and I had I had news trucks on my front lawn. So I went from being the news anchor reporting the news to being the headlines. Wow. And so I had these news trucks on my lawn, so that piece of it is like, how do you get past that when it is?

All encompassing and it felt like the world would never move on and this is when I get into that five minutes of fame or five minutes of shame, whatever it is. Five minutes of fame or shame. You hear about people in and out with Tik Tok, like people who put something out there, somebody having a big fall or doing something ridiculous like that. All eyes are on you and you will always be known as that,  because whatever has happened in your life becomes bigger than life, larger than life.

Yeah. But it all moves on. Yeah. Think of any new story you've ever thought of, like it comes and it goes. Yeah. There's the one hit wonders. I can use a music analogy. The one hit wonders. Oh yeah. Lots of those. Yeah. And like it was the songs on the radio.  You still can hum the tune, but you don't remember who played it. Yeah. Yeah.

But that was their five minutes of fame or there was a young girl down in Florida who cheated to win prom queen. She had hacked into the computers and done something, I don't remember, but I remember thinking when that story came out, I sent her a copy of my book and I was like, you just made a huge mistake.

You did something really stupid. But that isn't who you are or who you have to be for your whole life. But I could see in her sweet little heart, that.  She was probably going to think she was going to be that her whole life. And the number one killer of girls 13 to 25 is suicide.

In America right now. I did not know that. Yeah. So I worry that this five minutes of shame or five minutes of fame or what, people who, even these young people who come TikTok stars and then they're not anymore. Like how did they get past this and become the next version of themselves? So that's that thinking in that chapter about how do you move from news trucks on your lawn?

It just, is it's an example, it's a lot of examples of  the world keeps moving on even though it. It feels like it's not going to in the moment, I promise you. The world will move on away from your story and somebody else's something will come along or some global event or, something that everybody changes their focus and moves on to other things.

So whatever you're in the middle of, hang in there. Yeah, I'm going to add, I'm going to add something to that, which is. People in today's world, I think again, because of our phones and social media, there's, a need to look perfect, be perfect and all this people are craving connection people. And part of connection is being vulnerable, being real.

That's why we have some ums and ahs and some flaws in my podcast is far from perfect, but people love it. Because I'm not perfect. I don't pretend to be perfect.  So ironically, some of those big, horrible things like  the girl that, changed the prom vote, she may be able to take that incident that feels so horrible today and turn it into something good someday.

And She will be relatable to people. They'll think I, maybe not in that particular way, but, and there will always be a certain group of people out there that will just be like I totally relate to that and I need this. I need this connection. I need to know that there's other people that have made mistakes in their life.

Yes. I, I remember when I got fired from a TV station. They went younger and blonder. I just, I was very popular, but they went younger and blonder, and I remember sitting in my car thinking.  I don't know what to do with myself. Who am I and how did I get here and what now? , when I tell the story, often people are like, yeah, I've had moments like that. Like how did this happen? It, when, cause that was no fault of mine. I just got older and somebody else was younger and blonder and cheaper, it was just budget cuts across the board. But these what now moments that we all have whether we've done something or it's something that's no fault of our own or we've made a big mistake, everybody has them.

Like during the pandemic, I always say I gained the full COVID 19 plus some like I  heard that, but I love it. Oh yeah. At first I was like, oh, I'm just going to use this time and I'm going to get in shape. I called it the tan demic. I'm like, I'm going to get tan and work out. It was like a thing. And then it just kept going on and on.

And like the rest of the world, I like did it. Binge Netflix and drank wine. I was like, okay, look in the mirror. I'm like, I am the full COVID 19 plus. Like I gained all of that weight. And then some so yeah. And I, everybody can relate to that. Like we, everyone can relate to that. Everyone did. And what I heard recently they've now are studying like alcohol consumption before the pandemic, during and after.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's spiked way up during the pandemic and now it's going back down again. Yeah. Yeah. We're all trying to get our lives back together. Yeah. You mentioned something there I was going to get back to,  you mentioned something earlier. I wanted to tap into about people feeling not connected. And there's a lot of new research on the fact that we have our phones and we have instant TV and all that we're lonelier than we've ever been.

There's a loneliness epidemic in the world right now, it's mostly in the United States, the research they've done. But people feel more lonely because they're not communicating fully like we used to. And you can avoid somebody really easily, you just don't answer the phone or just don't text back or go, yeah, there's a real loneliness that's  happening all across the globe because we have this need to connect in a more meaningful way. So that goes back to my don't go to loan stuff too. Anyway, you just mentioned that I wanted to bring that up. Yeah. No, I think that is such an important point and yeah. Yeah. You are a resilience expert and, I, in the past with my podcasts, even, she's brave. I use the word persevere, persevere feels really heavy and it feels really hard.  You like to replace the word persevere with resilience. Perseverance feels that feels hard. It feels like drudgery. Resilience sounds  more optimistic and hopeful. You have worked also with corporations,  dealing with constant change and adversity has our workforce struggling, mental health declining, and companies held hostage. This is the missing part of the resilience conversation. So you have this whole concept around the word this. Yeah. Tell us more. There's a lot to unpack in, in that the The word resilience is really important to me.  And I think that the pandemic, since we mentioned earlier, is the best example of why persistence and grit cannot be the answer when you go through something.

Persistence or grit, you couldn't just double down and go harder or make up your mind to do this thing.  That's persistence and grit. Resilience is your ability to adapt in a positive way. The adapt piece is the part of resilience. The definition of resilience that I use is from the center of resilience and it's the ability to learn and grow stronger from adversity and adapt in a positive way to whatever happens in your life.

That adapt piece. Like you can't do it the same. You had to make changes. Yeah. And that's the perseverance is it's important. We have to have it to have big success. We have to persevere when things get tough, but when things change or you have a huge challenge in front of you, you have to adapt and you have to.

Work your way in a new direction. And so I say you adapt to adversity and the adversities I call this, and there's the big this is, capital T, capital H, capital I. Yes. All caps. And then there's the capital T H I S, which is the first letter capitalized, and then the little this is, just lower case.

And I talk about them in different ways. And the big, All caps. This is the ones we've been talking about. Divorce death in the family, a death of a loved one losing your job, a traumatic event where it takes your life in a whole new direction. You have, it's not going to be the same on the other side.

It's just not, it's going to be like, no one gets married and, plans on getting divorced. It's not part of the plan. Got it. So that's the big this is. And then the capital T H I S's are the ones that sidetrack us for a little while, but not for, we can get back on track. Last year my mom had a fall and she's 89. And so I've had to step away from my work and be there for her. I was in the hospital and the trauma unit and then step down unit and I had to move in.

Like I had to change my life, but then she got better and I could get back to my life. Those are the big, this is just the capital T. Not the all caps. And then there's the little this's and they're just the little things that happen all day. Like you could, you're in the middle of a big meeting and your kid's school calls or you get all dressed to walk out to go to work and you spill coffee on yourself and you got to go change or you hit traffic or just stuff that we all deal with all day long.

Yeah.  If you manage any other humans or you're a parent, it's not just you're this, it's everybody else's around you too.  You're dealing with so many other things that are not part of your plan that day. The little things that just happen. Don't spend too much energy. Don't let that cortisol and all that stuff get in your system. Know that they're going to happen. Deal with them and move forward because all of your energy and time you're spending getting mad about them is not helping you have any happiness or success.

And then the big ones know that you will get back on track. The capital T H I S is you will get back on track but, letting it be, you're going to be not okay for a bit, but then you can get back. And then the big this is all caps are the ones where you have to adapt in a more meaningful way and knowing, like getting to the acceptance of, yes, this is now.

A new chapter for me so those are my big this's and I unpack it a lot of different ways my book takes it through six steps, but it's more for the big this's and the trauma, but for the little ones, I take it through four steps and I say, Take the big this and shrink it down to where it fits in your big, messy, magical life.

Is it really the whole thing? No, it goes on that timeline somewhere. Yeah. And then isolated is the second part. Not what happened before it. Wish I had done something different. What's happening right now. What can I actually take action on? That's the magic. I love it. Any good therapist will tell you if you're living in the woulda, shoulda, coulda in the past piece, that's where depression lives, right? And then if you're living in the, oh my gosh, what if piece, that's where anxiety lives.

So you do have just this magical little right now where you can actually take action and that's where happiness lives. If you could just figure that out. And then I draw a circle around it and say okay, who's in this with you? That's my don't go it alone part. Who do you pull in the circle with you? Who do you push out of the circle? The people part. And the last part is the story part, which is a part of that scripting that we talked about earlier. What are you calling this?  What are you calling this? Is this terrible? Is this ruined? Is this a tragedy? Is this horrible?

Or Is this a challenge? Is this, something to get past? Because the words in your head. Yeah. Come out of your mouth and that becomes your story. We're really bad about how we talk to ourselves. We have a lot of self sabotage. Yeah. And if the language in your head is, this is ruin and this is terrible and, If Bob had done his part, if we belabor, like all of that becomes this self sabotage piece. So we have to change the language. That's just gold. All of that right in there. I want to get back to what I talked to you about when I was introducing you, navigating the highs and lows today. Today more than ever, it's a constant challenge and I'm going to quote you here.

You say that mental struggle can actually make us stronger. Tell us more about that. It can and you will find, I always say when I work with big groups, I'm like, you find the people in this room who have been through some stuff and gotten through it and they will be the ones that help you next time something big comes up because they know it's not gonna, crush them.

 Let me start with the highs and the low parts. So we also have this thing in our society and all of us as humans where the highs are the  just won the Olympics. I just went on the vacation. I just got the promotion. Like these highs, like this is the best day of my life.

And we forget to put the word Yet, because I love it. Just throw the word yet up there. Like even I won the Olympics. It's the best day of your life. Yes. That's when yet nowhere to go.  So we all are going to have the highs, like those big moments and you can't, no one lives up there all the time. You don't stay up there.

You're going to level back out or you're going to hit a hard time. It's almost like an EKG so you see that up and down. And the highs are the highs, obviously, and the lows are the lows. And you don't want to be flatline. That would be bad. Yeah. So you have to the highs, no one lives up there all the time. And the lows, you have to know how to get yourself back up over that line. If you're listening to me right now, you've survived everything that life has thrown at you. You're here, you survived it. So you've gotten back up over that line every time you survive something,  you're a little bit stronger. Your body and your brain, that muscle memory in your body and your brain, your being  is saying, oh, wait, we've been through tough times before. We can do this. Now, if you've never been through a tough time. Then you wouldn't know that you could do that. So the more tough times you go through, the more you go, Oh yeah, here's another one.

Getting through this one too. Here we go. Wow. Wow. Like where you build resilience over time.      I may have listeners out there right now who are saying yeah, but Nina, you're an adapter. You've been through all this stuff, give us some advice on that. That's why I wrote my first book and that's why I continue to speak because I became this go to person that people would come to for advice and they would say, Hey I know you're good at getting through tough times.

Can you help me? When I worked, I had about 200 people or so who reported up to me when I was in tech and a vice president. And someone would book some time on my calendar and I would end up in this little glass cube.  In a corporate office. With this young kid who's probably 30 and um, has his back to the glass and he's called this meeting with me. I don't even know what the meeting's for. It's a sink on my calendar. And I'm like, hi. And he's Hey you don't know me, but I. I just heard you were really good at getting people through really tough times and I'm having panic attacks as I'm coming across the bridge and my wife's pregnant and I'm freaking out. I'm like, I got you. Or it'd be a young woman who. One young woman who lost her husband and she had two children and she's I just don't even want to go on. I don't know how to keep doing this. And I would talk with them and I would tell them things and it would be helpful.  Once I had a guy in my neighborhood knock on my door and I opened the door and he stand there with two beers in his hands, one in each hand and he has tears in his eyes and he's I just got fired I don't know what to do. Oh, wow. And I was like, I got you. We walked through the house. We sat on the end of the dock and we worked through it. So I knew I was helping people. But I didn't know what it was or exactly how I was helping people.

But I had become this person. that help people through tough times and had figured out how to adapt. So that's when I started my research and really stepped away from my corporate job and did the work and wrote the book because I wanted to be able to help in a more meaningful way. So if you have people who are listening who are in the middle of a, but you adapt, how do I adapt moment?

There's lots of pieces to it and it's not the same for any of us. But there are some things that really have worked for me and have worked for so many people throughout the centuries. So mine is some Stoic philosophy there's some ancient Chinese philosophers, a few things I quote too, And then some of it's psychology, like behavioral psychology and cognitive behavior therapy and replacing good thoughts, replacing the bad thoughts with good thoughts and how do we do that. Some of it is just neuroscience, thinking about those chemicals in our body and our brain, how our thoughts create our emotions and our actions. For people who are. Working hard to adapt or working hard through something I think that goes back to your discussion about persistence and resilience.

The resilience piece is that hope and that is, you have to adapt. To do the same thing over and expect it to be different isn't healthy it's okay to not be okay. I'll say it a million times. It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way and no one's coming to save you.

You have to make some changes and do it yourself. So that's the resilience piece.      I feel like in today's world, more than ever, things change faster than they ever have in human history. So having to learn to adapt is a skill that we all need to learn. We have to learn.

Yeah.  Anything happens, figure out where it fits in your life, who's in it with you, what's happening right there.      

You've had so many courageous moments in your life, but this very recent one where, you had a very successful career in tech and we're like I don't there's a need out there that needs to be filled and I am going to write a book about it and I'm going to help people to be more resilient and adaptive and learn to deal with change. Walk us through a little bit of how you had the courage to make such a big career move from, stable job, right? Excellent paycheck to. I'm writing this book and I'm like going to be on speaker platforms all over the world and I'm going to do all this stuff. Like, how did you have the courage to leave your job like that?

It was, it is a brave thing to do that one. I'm proud of that. Also  wonder sometimes how I got so, I got that moment, but I'll tell you what. brought me to it and you will relate with this. My father had Alzheimer's and so I was his caregiver. My mother was too, but I was there often and he's right here in town and some things she just couldn't handle and I did. So I, Through his journey, I thought of all the things that I had left unsaid that I wanted out there, and I also worry genetically. Am I next? I'm in my 50s. And I thought, oh, I need to write all of these things down that I want to pass along to my children in case I'm not here to share with them.

And that's where the idea started. And it had such a varied life.  Yeah, you have very interesting television and I've, flown through hurricanes and I've ridden elephants. I've done crazy things that most people haven't done because being a journalist and being in an athlete.

So people had always said I should write a book. Through my dad's journey, I got this book.  I should probably put this all down in writing at some point. And the more I started thinking about it, I was like, why would I do that? What would I do that for and who would I write it for? Am I doing it as a vanity project?

What am I actually doing here? And then it became this time in my life also, my kids were all away at college, my last ones left for college. And so I had all three out of the house and I did what so many people do in their fifties when they become D Nesters. I sat down and looked at what I was good at and what I what I liked about my job and what I didn't like about my job.

And I realized that the things that I really loved were those little syncs on my calendar where I that's not, I'm not in HR, I was not part of my job. But those times when people would come to me for help and I loved mentoring and helping people manage their lives and manage other people. And I realized I, I liked that part and it wasn't part of my job.

How could I help in a more meaningful way? That became the impetus for writing the book and going down that road now. I was very fortunate because I had some financial success. We took the company public and we did a very successful IPO. So the brave part was a little less brave because I had some money in the bank.

But it's hard to step away from a big paycheck. Yeah. And also you stepped away from a big identity as well. Yeah. Lots, lots and lots of people reporting to you and, it's one of the biggest companies  in my community and, people know that you're part of that success.

And I used to, drive into the parking lot and look at all those hundreds of cars. We had about 2, 400 people when I left and think, that's a lot of mortgages being paid, car notes being paid, kids were sending to college we have to get this right. But to step away from that would, I think I was able to do it because, one, the financial piece was there, two, I knew that I was really good at this, helping people and I wanted to do it in a more meaningful way and I knew it wasn't for the vanity piece of it.

I just wanted this next chapter of my life. I've had big success. I was like Big Fish, Little Pond, famous on TV. I've been athletically, I've done all kinds of things, triathlons, like I, I had big success and I thought if I could go on to do another big success, how could I really make a difference in people's lives?

It wasn't just for me.  And that's where this became,  it got a, be in my bonnet or a bug in my ear. Everyone, I don't know what that saying is. Couldn't undo that once I started thinking about it. And the fact that I ended up with resilience was entertaining because I went down this road and wrote this book and launched my speaking career in 2020.

And then the pandemic hit. Oh, wow. Did not know that about you.

When I wrote my book, the first few times I got letters or emails from someone who said, for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to, take my life today. I was like, and done. If I do nothing else that I've made. Yeah. If you do nothing else in life. Wow. What a difference you have made.

So I feel like I've done things braver than that, but had I still had children at home, I don't think I could have done it. Had I not had the financial means to step away?

Yeah. There were a lot of pieces. That's part of my bravery piece too, is Hey let's recreate ourselves.  When we're older, like one way that we show up brave is instead of just saying maybe our mothers, I think when they hit their fifties or forties and fifties, they were like, okay, it's all downhill from here. Or, I mean they were okay with it, but they didn't try anything new. They didn't start a new business. They didn't. Get themselves out there and we're not that way. We can change at any point in our life. And that's one of my things that I'm trying to get out in the world.

Don't put yourself in a box. Start poking holes in those box. Like I'm teaching, I'm just finishing up teaching a podcasting class and I went on a rant this and it just came in my head about being in a box and I said, start poking holes in your box, and then I said, poke enough holes that you can grab that box and just throw it across the room.

You don't need the box. Yes, we don't need the box. I went, dang, that's a great analogy. that up. I like it. That is good. First you're poking the hole so you can breathe, and then you're poking a hole and you don't even need the box. And then you don't need the box, and then you just grab the box, like from a big hole, and then you just throw it across the room.

We don't need that. I love that. That is great.  I know other women and men my age who are. Rethinking how they can give back at this point in their life.

Yes. And actually I've heard that we may be wired that way too. And in many ancient cultures, like that's, that was always the role as you get older, you give advice out to the younger people. That's the role  yeah. Yeah. And I want to pass along that wisdom.  Part of it with my father losing his memory, I was so afraid. What if I'm not here to tell my children these things to be able to really share in a meaningful way was a beginning of it.

Then I think the other piece of it is just, we didn't have the platforms that, that This is new to be able to have a platform and to be able to be a speaker and to be, to have a podcast and to write books. All of it has gotten easier and I think to be able to use those resources that weren't there a few years ago to make a difference.

 My first book through, through a group called Difference Press and everyone in our cohort, everybody was writing a book to make a difference and they all had their own, niche. And. It was really interesting to see so many amazing people out there trying to make a difference. And I, like I, I applaud you for being out here trying to make a difference. And we're not just sitting back and I'm not a I can never see myself just being one of those people who sits back and goes to a country club or hangs out and I just, Yeah, me neither.  I don't know if you know who Louise Hay is.  She wrote a book. She was like new thought in the nineties and I heard her interviewed on the radio of course back then in the nineties when she was  in her early seventies and the interviewer said it was , me listening to this interview and she's written a lot of books and they said, okay, Louise, you can retire now

and she went, Oh no, my work is not done. And, she said, I have so much more to do on this planet. I have a solid 20 plus years. And sure enough, she just kept on going. And then one day when she was in her early nineties, she just, you know, passed away in her sleep and she was living her best life right up to the very last second, there is something to be said for that to just reinventing and putting some goodness out into the world.

Yeah. For sure. I don't think of myself as the energizer bunny or anything but I do think that I've got something to give back.  And that there's a responsibility there to give. I love that so much. Nina, this conversation has been incredibly inspiring. It's just a topic that we need so much more. We can't be reminded enough of the things that you're talking about today. And so with that being said,  are there any last words, any last piece of advice that you would like to leave with my listeners?

 I will say, and I've said it before that no matter what you're going through, and we all have our struggles, there's no one out there who gets a pass. It's okay to not be okay. Get help if you need it and know that it's all right to be sad and mad and all the things, but it is absolutely not okay to stay that way and it is up to you, listener,  to do the things to move yourself forward and get through it. No one's coming to help you. even if they do, it's in your head, it's in your being in your body. You've got to make some changes and do the work to get yourself to the next place.

You are such an inspiration, Nina. You've had a beautiful life. You're just this beautiful example of literally these things happening, but you just saying, okay, take it easy. Time to change direction, time to pivot, time to adapt. It's just beautiful.

Thank you. And I haven't gotten it all right. I don't want you to think that there were plenty of times where I got it horribly wrong and that's and learn from those mistakes. But I do hope by sharing that other people don't have to make those mistakes and can get it right. Oh, I love that so much.

Thank you so much for having me on. You're lovely. It's been a lovely time. Oh, thank you, Nina.