March 25, 2025 • 30 mins
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Nina Sossamon-Pogue.
She is a sought-after speaker, two-time best-selling author, and podcast host. Hers is an extraordinary journey through Elite Athletics, Television News and Corporate America defy the ordinary.
Leaving home at age 13 to train, Nina made the USA Gymnastics team, and graced
magazine covers as an Olympic hopeful alongside Mary Lou Retton but failed to
make the Olympic team. Later, when competing for SEC powerhouse LSU, Nina suffered an injury that ended her gymnastics career.
The moment became a catalyst for an esteemed 20-year career as an Emmy award-
winning journalist and News Anchor. Ever evolving, a transformative life event led
Nina into a new path from TV to Tech and into corporate leadership. As a celebrated
executive, she navigated the intricacies of a highly successful IPO.
Now, a resilient powerhouse, Nina has conquered life’s obstacles with grace and
shifted her focus to creating success for others. Drawing on her extensive
experience in communications, corporate leadership, and resilience research, she
helps individuals and organizations thrive through challenges and change to reach
new levels of success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rashaan McDonald, our host the weekly Money Making
Conversation Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show
provides are for everyone. It's time to stop reading other
people's success stories and start living your own. If you
want to be a guest on my show, please visit
our website, Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
guest button. My guest is a sort otter speaker, two
(00:23):
time bestselling author, and podcast hosts. Drawing on her extensive
research and experience in communications corporate leadership, she helps individuals
and organizations thrive through challenges to reach new levels of success.
She's here to tell us all about it. Please welcome
to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Nina saw someone pogue. How
(00:44):
you doing, Nina?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I am doing great. Thanks so much for having me on.
I a'm looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Well, first of all, when I found out you lived
in Charles and South Carolina, you know, the thumbs went
up on both hands.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Tell us about your.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Community soon, A fabulous community. I moved here in nineteen
ninety two, so I've been here a long time, and
I came here for a television gig, just for a
reporter position, and I just fell in love with Charleston
and State. But I'm in I live in the Mount
Pleasant area. Now I'm in the Park Circle, like North
Charleston area, but I'm very much a part of this community.
After being the news anchor here for like fifteen years,
(01:20):
I'm sort of part.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Of the woodwork absolutely, So you know, the thing about
being in front of the camera, leadership motivation, We've seen
that's a dominant part of social media. And because of
social media, mental stress. You know, I've admitted many times
on this show I've had to deal with mental stress,
and I'm not saying I know how to deal with
(01:41):
it correctly. When you talk about mental stress in the
everyday life, how do you approach it, Nina.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, there's a lot of pieces and parts to stress.
But I think what's really interesting now is all our
lives are so public it had stressed to it. So
think about back in the day, like when I was
a gymnast at LSU, I would have like sweatshirt that
said you know, I was a gymnast on it, or
my T shirt and my bumper sticker. Nowadays, we really
identify ourselves a certain way and put ourselves out there
(02:09):
publicly with all the social media. So the stress comes
internal stress, and then we have people who really care
about that, validating stress. And then there's this all other
piece of stress that we didn't know about before, the
other eyes that are on us. Plus we have all
of these new influences because everybody's on social media, and
maybe you see something that's for your buddy down the street,
(02:31):
like man, I got a new car, and that adds stress.
You know, all this stress we didn't see it before.
I don't want to know everybody's going on vacation every minute.
It just makes me feel bad.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So I'll tell you some I hear some people just
addicted to social media. This is my schedule, Nina. I
get up at four thirty on Monday through Friday. I
get up four thirty Eastern Standard time. I go to
stagger out of my bag because I really don't want
to get up. I stretch and watch TV at the
(03:03):
same time. Have my phone and I flip it open
and I'm watching TV, so I find out about the
weather and traffic and all that stuff. And then I
staggered to another room. When I read the newspaper. Use
I started with the Houston Chronicles originally from Houston Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I was on the fine out by my hometown.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And then I read CNN, A Fox, and then I
go over to ESPN, and then I go to my computer.
And this is all done in my world. And I
think that alleviates a lot of pressure for me. And
sometimes I may put pressure on my staff because I'm
so prepared when I come in and they're staggering in
at eight o'clock because that's what they've been told mentally,
(03:42):
that's when they go to work. So when you look
at the schedule like that, I'm not saying I'm doing
the right schedule. How does house should one prepare themselves
to start their day?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, everybody has their own rituals. So there are some
people who need more sleep than others.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think I hear that a lot. I hit it.
I need eight hours. My wife always said, I gotta
get my seven. Leave me alone. I gotta get my seven.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, my father had Alzheimer's, and so I'm really aware
of brain health, and so and my mental health and
my brain health and sleep is one of the best
things you can do right to avoid having Alzheimer's. Who
your body heels your brain heals at night kind of
does a reset, so you need that. But in the morning,
I think everybody has their own routines I have. You know,
I've had a lot of success in my life, and
(04:28):
you know I talk sometimes. You know, people will introduce
me like you did. I was on the USG gymnastics team,
I was an Emmy Award winning a news anchor. I
did all these other things. But they don't really talk
about the negatives, the difficult things I've been through, and
so that's what I talk about now. So my morning
routine really is a level set for me. Every day.
(04:49):
Start with gratitude. I don't pick up my phone first thing.
I start my day with gratitude, and I think that's
one of the most important things people can do. And
then I also think keeping that phone off to the side,
have an hour, my first hour of my day. I'm
not picking the phone up, and I start with gratitude.
I stretch, move my body because I'm not a kid anymore,
and an all earths and if you don't, and then
(05:11):
I spend time breathing and meditating. But I'm not a
real zen meditator. I just get really quiet and listen
to my thoughts and spend time with myself before I
go okay.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, you know we usually listening to your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
What is that, well, listening to your thoughts, you know
through the research I've done, So I do a lot
of research on resilience, right, And one of the things
that's really important as we look at how we're resilience
is your ability to adapt in a positive way, And
that ties back into the adapt is learning and grow
stronger from things who don't go things that don't go right.
(05:48):
So a lot of times I'm listening to myself, I'm
thinking what's going right, gratitude, and then I go into okay,
what's not going right? And I try to learn from
what's not going right, things that I haven't done right
the days leading up to it, no, or of things
that still need more attention from me. So when I
get really quiet, I try to hear myself think about
(06:08):
learnings from the days before, but what is really important
right now for my big picture of my life. So
resilience is about the big picture, you know, stepping back
and looking at the big picture of your life. And
it's also about hut, you know, putting in perspective and
then being able to think about what I can, I
act on't have control over, and moving forward and learning
(06:32):
with the new learnings that you have.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm speaking to Nina Sossimonkol.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
She's just sought out the speaker, two time bestselling author
and podcast Let's talk.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Let's go back a little bit in Collin.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You world class gymnasts and so which creates body stereotypes,
you know, and my daughter she was a.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
World class athlete.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
From the standpoint of tennis, she was a feenoe and
so a lot of pressure to look this way to
concent training and evolution in talking to parents, because this
is all about social media now, because people really do
a lot of body shaming on social media. Talk about
that process when you stop being a gymnast and started
(07:32):
be living life and people started your body started to
change before social media is so dominant right now, how
did you deal with that and how do you give
advice for individuals and parents as they see their child
change and maybe not that athlete that they wanted them
to be, but living a life that they want to live.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, it's difficult. I have three grown children, so I've
gone through this with my own. I had two boys
and a girl. So I think one of the most
important things about social media. When I was a young person,
it wasn't a thing, but I was very body conscious,
and as an athlete, I'm sure your daughter is the
same way. You really control what you eat, and you're
being told constantly to lose the weight and look a
(08:15):
certain way, and look good in this outfit and do
all things you have to do because you are putting
yourself on display as an athlete and either winning or
losing it. And there's a lot of not just how
muscular you are, but how low your body fat is.
And that's changed through the years. We look at phenomenal
athletes like Jordan Chiles who like broken that stereotype and gone,
(08:37):
I'm going to be me. You know, I'm that girl.
I'm a big fan. But I think that it back
when I was it certainly played a part in my gumastics.
I was there in the eighties, so I was beliemic.
My coach would say, I don't care if you have
to pardon, this may be trigger, but I don't care.
If you have to stick your finger down your throat
or go spit in the cup, you will make way in.
(08:57):
And so that was part of what I grew up
with was a very different time. The sport's not like
that now, but that has stuck with me through the years.
I continue to have weird body dysmorphia. I'm five foot three,
I'm a little bitty person, but in my head, I'm
still too big for everything, and I have a hard
time by clothing and I have a hard time with
(09:19):
my food choices. So it's something I've had to work
on my whole life. And for parents, I wanted so
badly not to pass this along to my daughter, and
she ended up being in ballet, another area where again
so much has to yeah, so much has to do
with your body and your and how you're built. And
it was really that's even more difficult than gymnastics, I
(09:41):
think in some ways because you're in this, you're being
put on a stage right next to other people, and
being compared with gymnastics, you're one kind of one at
a time, but the comparisons and with dancing, they're constantly
looking in a mirror, which is hard to when you
have body you're very body conscious. I think this for parents.
There is a whole new world of body positivity out
(10:04):
there that we can lean into. It's not like it
used to be. Thank goodness, We're in a new era
of body positivity. I think encouraging healthy eating habits and
encouraging people everyone to take care of themselves is you know,
as a parent, you know, putting that responsibility back on
the child is really important. I'm a big fan of
letting your kids fail and letting them learn from it.
(10:26):
So sometimes you have to let them make some bad
choices and then figure out how to make good ones.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
No, here's something interesting because you know, like I said,
you were training as a gymnast through your middle school.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Because when you start, you start that young.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Go to high school and you had your parents there, okay,
and you're still being monitored by coaches. Then you went
to college and your parents weren't there anymore, and so
you have these adults who telling you, like you said,
weight requirements training. And so did you grow up fast
or did you respond back to your parents about I'm
(11:02):
just trying to let people listening to this show to
understand some of the processes that you went through, and
we're going to get to your book that put you
on the radar. Will be at the Bennut because of
the fact that Nina, you dealt with something that is
so important today, and it's weight, it's about luck, it's
about stereotypes, it's about performance, and it's in social media.
(11:25):
You know, when you know, when you see people who
are actors and sports, especially on the women's side, you
don't get it that much on men. Like when Zion
Williams weighed five hundred pounds, people say he was just
fat and went on by their business. Okay, a woman
who like Sidney Sweeney, you know, she gained weight to
do a boxing movie. They immediately went into the body
(11:48):
shaming with her brow, look at her word. She don't
check you anymore. And so how does you deal with
that as a as a young adult, and then transmit
that transfer that information to your kids as well as
you a motivational speaker.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
So it's just not the first time you.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Heard this from anybody like me, And so I hope
I am not doing any triggers here today you do.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I can't believe you that talked to about. No, that's
not the case at all. So I think you know,
when I was young, it was a different era and
it was really difficult for athletes are in that eighties, nineties,
and even in the early two thousands. I mean, it's
it's been very much that Victoria's Secret model or the
(12:30):
zero body fat look in the sports. So that became
part of my norm. And here's where it gets kind
of tricky. So I moved away from home when I
was thirteen, and I moved into the Olympic Training Center.
So from thirteen on, all those years where my body
started to grow and change, I was living with coaches
for the most part, and they had more influence on
(12:50):
me than my own parents did, and I can see
that influence now. And then when I went off to college,
there was not as much structure. Actually I had a
little more freedom, and I started I've got the freshman
fifteen ban. You don't get to do that. Actually as
a gymnaster it all falls apart, but I did that.
I had a hard time dealing with food intake, and
(13:11):
then I blew out my knee in college and lost
my sport, and it was a really difficult time for me.
And then I get into an industry, which is television
or once again, everybody's looking at you and looking at
your you know how big you are and in your ratings. Yeah,
and I got some cheeks. I got these from my daddy.
They're not going anywhere, so that matter. How can I
get these? Are stay it? So I got into this
(13:35):
next industry where they just really pick on you and
will come right out and say whatever they want. I
had two children while I was on the air, and
I can remember women walking up to me in the
grocery store and I'm like, got a baby on my
hip and one and a buggy and I'm just in
between newscasts, trying to get it all together, and someone
would walk up to me and say, oh, you should
(13:56):
wear that that red blazer that makes you look busty.
I'm trying to get groceries from my children, right. Why
are we having this conversation?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Why?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Why do you hear but people don't come up to
you and say anything. I had a woman call me
one time and say, you can't wear those dangly earrings.
I can't hear a word you're saying. When you're I
just keep looking at those dangly earrings.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No man gets that call, No man gets the care
you wrinkles looking like a prune on TV. Oh god,
he looks he looks, he looks respected.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yes, he looks charming, or he looks distinguished.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right, I like that's the word, write that distinguished.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Distinguished.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
They the grave distings.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
You can't a woman cannot look distinguished. Now a man
can look distinguished.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Like wrinkley and old. And we are told I remember
when I was pregnant, someone calling the TV station and
going tell her to push away from the table.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
O my god.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And that's that's that's what we're talking about, you know.
And it's worse now because of social media, because of
the fact that people can comment. It's still share comments
and then forward things to other people to share comments,
and that's how things go viral and you can come
up become a victim and that could be a state
of being a bullet being bullied through social media. Now,
(15:18):
let's talk about something that captured my attention in twenty twenty.
You know, I started my podcast in twenty seventeen and
you didn't even know ra Sean McDonald, But with Sean
knew need them and so when this opportunity came across
my desk the interview, I jumped on it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The book This Is Not the End. And the reason
I talked I wanted to bring.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Up that book was the fact that it was a
personal book because they talked about some journeys. Now, I
was fortunate I represents Stephen A. Smith, ESPN. And he
wrote his book Straight Shooter, and it was a very
difficult book. He talked about it was a memoir and
there was a lot of moments when he had to
(15:54):
really rethink the process, how it impacted his family because
the fact that he's may have said some things that
they aren't aware of or may not have wanted it
to be made in public. When you did this book,
talk about that journey and some of the challenges you
had to go through to write it.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, so it was difficult in lots of ways. So
the book is called This Is Not the End, and
it has a typewriter in the front the end, as in,
it's not the end of your story, right, And the
book was really written about your journey or this whatever
this is that you're dealing with. And I talked to
the reader that way, like this thing you're dealing with.
But in order to explain why I might be somebody
listen to, I have to share and you go through
(16:36):
that cathartic process and digging up all of my this
is so I share my big points. Yeah, yeah, let's
just visit that for a little while. That's so I do.
I do five. I go and visit five areas at
points in my life where I had really big failures
and thought this is the end, like my life's over.
(16:57):
And then the hardest one was when I was thirty
seven and I was involved in an accident and I
really went through a dark time, but I managed to
get out of it and have big success on the
other side. So what the book is is, if you're
in a tough spot, let me get you through this.
And I take people through certain steps to get them
just unstuck. So you don't want to be the person
(17:17):
who get stuck in the death of a loved one
or a divorce, or getting fired or the big things
that happen in our life. So I talk about in
there not making the Olympic teen and being so full
of shame and blame and having to walk through the
halls of my high school and was just so embarrassed,
and I felt like I'd let down my friends and
my family and my coaches. Obviously, so at the ripe
(17:38):
old age of sixteen, feeling like a failure and that
I wasted my life. And then I talk about blowing
out my knee. When I'm nineteen and in college, I
ended up blow out my knee, and in order to
keep my scholarship, they you had to work for the university,
and they put me in the laundry room. So here
I am this world class athlete. I'd actually done some
modeling and things, and now I'm working in the lawn
(18:00):
room on crutches every day. And not like washing cute
little leotards. Now I'm washing all of the athletic equipment.
I sometimes joke you like this, I sometimes joke my
claim to fame was almost that I washed Tequille O'Neal's jockstrap.
Probably you know, but I worked in this laundry room
at nineteen, and I was really another low point, thinking
(18:20):
I had wasted my whole life in the gym. Why
you know, now, what was I going to do? I
just hadn't even thought it forward, and I was in
a really bad spot. Made some poor choices, you know.
I can remember taking my percoset with a shot of
yeager and crutching my way into physical therapy and just
being a really unpleasant person to be around, right, But
I found my way out of that through some a
(18:41):
series of variables, and then I became a news anchor,
had shrut lake success as a news anchor, and then
I got let go at one point and they went
younger and blonder, so I had to navigate my way
through that. So and then I had this this horrible
accident when I was thirty seven and that I was
involved in, and I had to really figure out how
to tell that story. That was the hardest one to
(19:02):
do as far as the book goes, because that's when
I had real suicidal ideation and it wasn't just my
story to tell. There are other people involved with it.
So it's always a balance of I really felt it
was important to tell the story, but I wanted to
respect everybody's privacy and everybody else's journey that they went through,
So that was probably the hardest part to tell.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, this is why I brought the book up and
hopefully people go and pick up this book, and because
it's still available and a reason because transition is happening
in this country right now. You know, layoffs, people being
fired and transitions, and so this is not the end
(19:44):
kind of like motivates people doing these moments of what
may be considered darkness or unsuspecting or periods I didn't
see coming. How do companies or individuals who are being
suddenly shocked by these job transitions, how can you evolve
mistakes I'm talking about on the side of the company
(20:06):
and also as individuals when these things come about, how
to evolve a look beyond what's happening to them and
see there's a positive opportunity that's being presented to you.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's a difficult time for so many people, and
so I'm really thankful that you brought this up. So
in the book, there's seven seven different strategies. Book is
really written for the person going through it. It starts
out in the first sentence is well, this is a
grappy way to meet you, you know, and it's like
as you're going through something. So it's the book I
was looking for when I was in a really dark place.
(20:38):
So it is specifically strategies create a script to protect yourself.
Put it in perspective all different things you can do,
because that's the book I was looking for when I
was in a tough place, because there's always these other
people's stories, which is the last thing you want when
you're in your in the middle of your own tragedy.
And then there were a lot of PTSD workbooks, and
there were a lot of other things like that, but
(20:58):
I wanted, like, just somebody tell me what to do
so I don't go jump off this bridge, like I
just needed that. So that's what this book is. And
I'm my workshops called the now What Workshop, which is
now what you know and it gets people unstuck. But
there are four steps. There are four things that through
my research and as you said, going back and looking
at all the unpleasant points in my life, what did
(21:19):
I do to not just survive it, but to thrive
on the other side, to really have some big success
on the other side of many events that would have
stopped somebody from progressing in their life. And so I
looked at those, and I looked at organizations, lead athletes, artists,
like musicians, you know, actors who almost almost you know,
(21:40):
hit that rock bottom and then found their way back
to not just survive, but thrive, and the four things
were it's Thhis is the acronym I use because it's
this whatever you're this is that you're dealing with as
I'm not going to pretend to know your world or
how you have to manage your way through it. I
just know whatever this is. You wake up in the morning,
you're thinking about this. It affects you every day, and
(22:00):
then you had a bed think of that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It's big.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
So the tea is timeline, and that's this perspective piece.
I ask people to make a timeline of one to
one hundred and put dots ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet
all the way across to it. If you live to
be one hundred, which I need to drink less wine
and take better care of myself, I'm gonna pretend that
I'm gonna live to be one hundred. And then I say,
on this timeline, put a dot on where you are
right now, on what's happening. So if you're in your fifties,
(22:25):
my dot's in the fifties right in the middle of
that timeline. Somewhere someone in their thirties their dots way
over here. So I asked them to put that there
and then you know, we do a little work with it.
Everything you've done brought you up to this point, and
then down below the line, I say, you know, like
your your accolades, what you would put on LinkedIn, all
of your thinks. You bought the house, you married, the girl,
(22:45):
you got the degree, took a course, whatever. That's all
on the top, and then down below. I asked people
to put down all the stuff that they've gotten through,
and I call that your reverse resume. Tough stuff we've
all gotten through because nobody got a pass. You don't
know what somebody else is going through. We're all struggling
with something. So we put that down below. But then
there's this dot and I say, the magic in this
(23:05):
image is all the blank space ahead. You can put
it there, anything you want to. All that blank space
ahead is for you to fill out. So that's the
timeline thing. It's this perspective piece. And then it's a
little bit stoicism, a little cognitive behavior therapy, a little neuroplasticity,
trying to change our brains, you know. But that's the
t and then the h is humans. When we go
(23:26):
through something, we feel really alone. And the people who
have big success myself and all of those incidences. And
then also, as I said, all the research that I've done,
people who have big success don't just survive something, but thrive.
They don't go it alone. So you have to look
at your people, who's helping, who's hurting, and make sure
somebody's in there with you, whether it's a friend or
(23:46):
a therapist or something that's the human piece. It's h
And then the eye is called isolate. And I know
this is a long answer, so thank you for letting
me get through it. I call isolate, which is on
that dot you put line up and down on your page,
and you can't talk about what happened before the what
it should have could as that's the past. And any
(24:07):
therapist will tell you spend all your time in the
past thinking about that. That's where depression lives. And then
I say, okay, and on the other side that you
can't talk about the other side of that dot, either
the what ifs and the doom state scenarios and where
does this all? You can't go there either. That's the future,
And then you get therapists will tell you spend all
your time thinking about that. That's where anxiety lives. So
we have to be writing, like, what are we doing
(24:28):
in this moment right now? It's the isolate, What can
I actually take action on right do what you can
with what you got, and move forward. That's the isolate.
And then the last piece is an S which is
for story, and that's the words in our head that
come out of our mouth that become our story. And
that's some of the self sabotage and stuff that we do.
(24:49):
You know, we make that story up in our head
and it becomes our reality. But what's really important about
that when it comes to getting fired is you have
to be or losing a job at this moment. You
have to be careful about that language because you need
keep yourself hirable and no one wants to hire the
angry person. No one wants to hire the bitter person.
So you have to you got to find somebody who
can let that all out with. But one of the
(25:10):
biggest things we need to do at this time is work.
Watch the language in our head. We can say that
I'm starting a new chapter. I've got I don't know
what opportunities are out there, but I'm looking for opportunities,
not I got to get a job or I just
I'm looking for opportunities, something news coming. We've got to
get our minds and our brains in that area, because
(25:31):
when you're the one that's like, they're idiots, they don't
know what they're doing. They shouldn't have fired me so
and so. Still they are good luck, They're never gonna
make without me because he's a jerk or whatever that language. No,
that's what the story is. When people call and check
in on you, how's he doing, how's she doing? They
repeat what you just said, Well, he says the no,
you're you know, they're never gonna survive without me, and
(25:52):
they should have fired so and so instead of me,
and they don't know what they're doing. That's the story
that you're putting out there. If you get fired, same
person gets fired and they're like, well, you know, struggling
a little bit. I didn't see this coming, and I'm
looking for an opportunity. And I got to pay the rent,
I got to get my bills paid. So I'm really
looking for anybody has anything. I'm a hard worker, you
(26:14):
know I am. I mean, you still get to say
you're a hard worker, you say you're looking. It's just
a different way of going about it. People want to
hire that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Person, right. You know this show.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
First of all, I meet so many interesting people that
I would have never met, like you, Nina.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I can actually launch dinner hang out with you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I was like, I feel like I feel like you
had a.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Little bedside man of voice, you know, like you shine,
come down, We'll go on.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You have a great voice. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
In this world of podcasts, your podcast host just like me,
we always meet people, and sometimes you meet so many
people you go wow. I didn't know that, and that's
why I always look. I always tell people before they
come on to the show. Ladies and gentlemen who listen,
I always tell them, I'm just a storyteller. I bring
some man of experts onto my show. They helped me
tell stories on your show as a host. Any guests
(27:06):
that stood out that went wow, they really I didn't
see that coming and shared with my audience on money
Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah my favorite. I have a lot of great guests,
if any of them here this one. Make sure I
said a lot of great guests. Everybody's great. But the
name of my show is this Seriously Sucks, the right
podcast when life goes seriously wrong. So I've had people
on there who have had, you know, lost a spouse
or lost a child, or they've incarcerated and been addicted,
(27:37):
been human traffic. I did a lot of people on
my show who've gone through things I cannot even imagine.
But one of them, his name is Joe Della Grave
and he is a three time Paralympia and now he's
the head coach of the national wheelchair rugby team for Paralympia.
He's this rugby two chair rugby. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
(27:57):
And his story that see, that's just that, right, that's
that's the best story. He's like, yeah, we're a bunch
of crippled people and we reel around trying to make
each other more cripple. And I can say that, you can't, right,
he just kill it, PC, He just kill it PC.
He is because I can say that and you can't.
But he's just this really inspirational cool guy. We become friends,
you know how, like you meet somebody like I feel
like that person would be my friend. So we have
(28:19):
become friends, and we've done some speaking gigs together and
we're in a couple of groups together. But I met
him and he has such an amazing story. He was
a college football player who became paralyzed from the chest
down and then took him a while to get in
the chair. That's his thing, Like, what's your chair, folks,
Sometimes you just have to get in the chair to
get going. You know. He really resisted getting in the
(28:42):
chair because he didn't want to be that guy. And
then once he got in the chair, it took him
down the aisle to marry his wife, it takes him
to the sidelines to coach his kids soccer teams, like
and it's taken him all over the world that chare
to go all over the world and be and represent
the United States and be a paralympian. So he's one
of my favorite ones because I cannot imagine that. And
(29:02):
when it comes to me sharing my stories of how
I got out of tough stuff, that's why my podcast
works because people have gone through stuff a lot tougher
than me, and then we can kind of test my
concept the tchis and they can take me through the
things that they did and they have done the same things,
which is really a very reassuring for me from my research,
but also just a cool way to think about how
(29:24):
people get out of really well.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It took five years. I finally got on my show, Nina.
I found you. You were hiding in Charles and South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Come down and eat some good food.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Got great food around over by low Country.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Okay, I know what's going on down and good stuff. Well.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations Massive Class,
uplifting me, providing information to my audience and having a
great conversation about life that you can get through it.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And this is not the end. If you find your.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
This for Shana, it has been my pleasure. Thank you
so very much.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Hopefully talk soon, and thank you again for coming on
Money Making Conversation Masterclass. This has been another edition of
Money Making Conversation Masterclass hosted by me Rushaun McDonald. Thank
you to our guests on the show today and thank
you for listening to audience now. If you want to
listen to any episode I want to be a guest
on the show, visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media
(30:22):
handle is money Making Conversation. Join us next week and
remember to always leave with your gifts.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Keep winning
Hi, I'm Rashaan McDonald, our host the weekly Money Making
Conversation Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show
provides are for everyone. It's time to stop reading other
people's success stories and start living your own. If you
want to be a guest on my show, please visit
our website, Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
guest button. My guest is a sort otter speaker, two
(00:23):
time bestselling author, and podcast hosts. Drawing on her extensive
research and experience in communications corporate leadership, she helps individuals
and organizations thrive through challenges to reach new levels of success.
She's here to tell us all about it. Please welcome
to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Nina saw someone pogue. How
(00:44):
you doing, Nina?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I am doing great. Thanks so much for having me on.
I a'm looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Well, first of all, when I found out you lived
in Charles and South Carolina, you know, the thumbs went
up on both hands.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Tell us about your.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Community soon, A fabulous community. I moved here in nineteen
ninety two, so I've been here a long time, and
I came here for a television gig, just for a
reporter position, and I just fell in love with Charleston
and State. But I'm in I live in the Mount
Pleasant area. Now I'm in the Park Circle, like North
Charleston area, but I'm very much a part of this community.
After being the news anchor here for like fifteen years,
(01:20):
I'm sort of part.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Of the woodwork absolutely, So you know, the thing about
being in front of the camera, leadership motivation, We've seen
that's a dominant part of social media. And because of
social media, mental stress. You know, I've admitted many times
on this show I've had to deal with mental stress,
and I'm not saying I know how to deal with
(01:41):
it correctly. When you talk about mental stress in the
everyday life, how do you approach it, Nina.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, there's a lot of pieces and parts to stress.
But I think what's really interesting now is all our
lives are so public it had stressed to it. So
think about back in the day, like when I was
a gymnast at LSU, I would have like sweatshirt that
said you know, I was a gymnast on it, or
my T shirt and my bumper sticker. Nowadays, we really
identify ourselves a certain way and put ourselves out there
(02:09):
publicly with all the social media. So the stress comes
internal stress, and then we have people who really care
about that, validating stress. And then there's this all other
piece of stress that we didn't know about before, the
other eyes that are on us. Plus we have all
of these new influences because everybody's on social media, and
maybe you see something that's for your buddy down the street,
(02:31):
like man, I got a new car, and that adds stress.
You know, all this stress we didn't see it before.
I don't want to know everybody's going on vacation every minute.
It just makes me feel bad.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So I'll tell you some I hear some people just
addicted to social media. This is my schedule, Nina. I
get up at four thirty on Monday through Friday. I
get up four thirty Eastern Standard time. I go to
stagger out of my bag because I really don't want
to get up. I stretch and watch TV at the
(03:03):
same time. Have my phone and I flip it open
and I'm watching TV, so I find out about the
weather and traffic and all that stuff. And then I
staggered to another room. When I read the newspaper. Use
I started with the Houston Chronicles originally from Houston Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I was on the fine out by my hometown.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And then I read CNN, A Fox, and then I
go over to ESPN, and then I go to my computer.
And this is all done in my world. And I
think that alleviates a lot of pressure for me. And
sometimes I may put pressure on my staff because I'm
so prepared when I come in and they're staggering in
at eight o'clock because that's what they've been told mentally,
(03:42):
that's when they go to work. So when you look
at the schedule like that, I'm not saying I'm doing
the right schedule. How does house should one prepare themselves
to start their day?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, everybody has their own rituals. So there are some
people who need more sleep than others.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think I hear that a lot. I hit it.
I need eight hours. My wife always said, I gotta
get my seven. Leave me alone. I gotta get my seven.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, my father had Alzheimer's, and so I'm really aware
of brain health, and so and my mental health and
my brain health and sleep is one of the best
things you can do right to avoid having Alzheimer's. Who
your body heels your brain heals at night kind of
does a reset, so you need that. But in the morning,
I think everybody has their own routines I have. You know,
I've had a lot of success in my life, and
(04:28):
you know I talk sometimes. You know, people will introduce
me like you did. I was on the USG gymnastics team,
I was an Emmy Award winning a news anchor. I
did all these other things. But they don't really talk
about the negatives, the difficult things I've been through, and
so that's what I talk about now. So my morning
routine really is a level set for me. Every day.
(04:49):
Start with gratitude. I don't pick up my phone first thing.
I start my day with gratitude, and I think that's
one of the most important things people can do. And
then I also think keeping that phone off to the side,
have an hour, my first hour of my day. I'm
not picking the phone up, and I start with gratitude.
I stretch, move my body because I'm not a kid anymore,
and an all earths and if you don't, and then
(05:11):
I spend time breathing and meditating. But I'm not a
real zen meditator. I just get really quiet and listen
to my thoughts and spend time with myself before I
go okay.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, you know we usually listening to your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
What is that, well, listening to your thoughts, you know
through the research I've done, So I do a lot
of research on resilience, right, And one of the things
that's really important as we look at how we're resilience
is your ability to adapt in a positive way, And
that ties back into the adapt is learning and grow
stronger from things who don't go things that don't go right.
(05:48):
So a lot of times I'm listening to myself, I'm
thinking what's going right, gratitude, and then I go into okay,
what's not going right? And I try to learn from
what's not going right, things that I haven't done right
the days leading up to it, no, or of things
that still need more attention from me. So when I
get really quiet, I try to hear myself think about
(06:08):
learnings from the days before, but what is really important
right now for my big picture of my life. So
resilience is about the big picture, you know, stepping back
and looking at the big picture of your life. And
it's also about hut, you know, putting in perspective and
then being able to think about what I can, I
act on't have control over, and moving forward and learning
(06:32):
with the new learnings that you have.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm speaking to Nina Sossimonkol.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
She's just sought out the speaker, two time bestselling author
and podcast Let's talk.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Let's go back a little bit in Collin.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You world class gymnasts and so which creates body stereotypes,
you know, and my daughter she was a.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
World class athlete.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
From the standpoint of tennis, she was a feenoe and
so a lot of pressure to look this way to
concent training and evolution in talking to parents, because this
is all about social media now, because people really do
a lot of body shaming on social media. Talk about
that process when you stop being a gymnast and started
(07:32):
be living life and people started your body started to
change before social media is so dominant right now, how
did you deal with that and how do you give
advice for individuals and parents as they see their child
change and maybe not that athlete that they wanted them
to be, but living a life that they want to live.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, it's difficult. I have three grown children, so I've
gone through this with my own. I had two boys
and a girl. So I think one of the most
important things about social media. When I was a young person,
it wasn't a thing, but I was very body conscious,
and as an athlete, I'm sure your daughter is the
same way. You really control what you eat, and you're
being told constantly to lose the weight and look a
(08:15):
certain way, and look good in this outfit and do
all things you have to do because you are putting
yourself on display as an athlete and either winning or
losing it. And there's a lot of not just how
muscular you are, but how low your body fat is.
And that's changed through the years. We look at phenomenal
athletes like Jordan Chiles who like broken that stereotype and gone,
(08:37):
I'm going to be me. You know, I'm that girl.
I'm a big fan. But I think that it back
when I was it certainly played a part in my gumastics.
I was there in the eighties, so I was beliemic.
My coach would say, I don't care if you have
to pardon, this may be trigger, but I don't care.
If you have to stick your finger down your throat
or go spit in the cup, you will make way in.
(08:57):
And so that was part of what I grew up
with was a very different time. The sport's not like
that now, but that has stuck with me through the years.
I continue to have weird body dysmorphia. I'm five foot three,
I'm a little bitty person, but in my head, I'm
still too big for everything, and I have a hard
time by clothing and I have a hard time with
(09:19):
my food choices. So it's something I've had to work
on my whole life. And for parents, I wanted so
badly not to pass this along to my daughter, and
she ended up being in ballet, another area where again
so much has to yeah, so much has to do
with your body and your and how you're built. And
it was really that's even more difficult than gymnastics, I
(09:41):
think in some ways because you're in this, you're being
put on a stage right next to other people, and
being compared with gymnastics, you're one kind of one at
a time, but the comparisons and with dancing, they're constantly
looking in a mirror, which is hard to when you
have body you're very body conscious. I think this for parents.
There is a whole new world of body positivity out
(10:04):
there that we can lean into. It's not like it
used to be. Thank goodness, We're in a new era
of body positivity. I think encouraging healthy eating habits and
encouraging people everyone to take care of themselves is you know,
as a parent, you know, putting that responsibility back on
the child is really important. I'm a big fan of
letting your kids fail and letting them learn from it.
(10:26):
So sometimes you have to let them make some bad
choices and then figure out how to make good ones.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
No, here's something interesting because you know, like I said,
you were training as a gymnast through your middle school.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Because when you start, you start that young.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Go to high school and you had your parents there, okay,
and you're still being monitored by coaches. Then you went
to college and your parents weren't there anymore, and so
you have these adults who telling you, like you said,
weight requirements training. And so did you grow up fast
or did you respond back to your parents about I'm
(11:02):
just trying to let people listening to this show to
understand some of the processes that you went through, and
we're going to get to your book that put you
on the radar. Will be at the Bennut because of
the fact that Nina, you dealt with something that is
so important today, and it's weight, it's about luck, it's
about stereotypes, it's about performance, and it's in social media.
(11:25):
You know, when you know, when you see people who
are actors and sports, especially on the women's side, you
don't get it that much on men. Like when Zion
Williams weighed five hundred pounds, people say he was just
fat and went on by their business. Okay, a woman
who like Sidney Sweeney, you know, she gained weight to
do a boxing movie. They immediately went into the body
(11:48):
shaming with her brow, look at her word. She don't
check you anymore. And so how does you deal with
that as a as a young adult, and then transmit
that transfer that information to your kids as well as
you a motivational speaker.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
So it's just not the first time you.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Heard this from anybody like me, And so I hope
I am not doing any triggers here today you do.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I can't believe you that talked to about. No, that's
not the case at all. So I think you know,
when I was young, it was a different era and
it was really difficult for athletes are in that eighties, nineties,
and even in the early two thousands. I mean, it's
it's been very much that Victoria's Secret model or the
(12:30):
zero body fat look in the sports. So that became
part of my norm. And here's where it gets kind
of tricky. So I moved away from home when I
was thirteen, and I moved into the Olympic Training Center.
So from thirteen on, all those years where my body
started to grow and change, I was living with coaches
for the most part, and they had more influence on
(12:50):
me than my own parents did, and I can see
that influence now. And then when I went off to college,
there was not as much structure. Actually I had a
little more freedom, and I started I've got the freshman
fifteen ban. You don't get to do that. Actually as
a gymnaster it all falls apart, but I did that.
I had a hard time dealing with food intake, and
(13:11):
then I blew out my knee in college and lost
my sport, and it was a really difficult time for me.
And then I get into an industry, which is television
or once again, everybody's looking at you and looking at
your you know how big you are and in your ratings. Yeah,
and I got some cheeks. I got these from my daddy.
They're not going anywhere, so that matter. How can I
get these? Are stay it? So I got into this
(13:35):
next industry where they just really pick on you and
will come right out and say whatever they want. I
had two children while I was on the air, and
I can remember women walking up to me in the
grocery store and I'm like, got a baby on my
hip and one and a buggy and I'm just in
between newscasts, trying to get it all together, and someone
would walk up to me and say, oh, you should
(13:56):
wear that that red blazer that makes you look busty.
I'm trying to get groceries from my children, right. Why
are we having this conversation?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Why?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Why do you hear but people don't come up to
you and say anything. I had a woman call me
one time and say, you can't wear those dangly earrings.
I can't hear a word you're saying. When you're I
just keep looking at those dangly earrings.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No man gets that call, No man gets the care
you wrinkles looking like a prune on TV. Oh god,
he looks he looks, he looks respected.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yes, he looks charming, or he looks distinguished.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right, I like that's the word, write that distinguished.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Distinguished.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
They the grave distings.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
You can't a woman cannot look distinguished. Now a man
can look distinguished.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Like wrinkley and old. And we are told I remember
when I was pregnant, someone calling the TV station and
going tell her to push away from the table.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
O my god.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And that's that's that's what we're talking about, you know.
And it's worse now because of social media, because of
the fact that people can comment. It's still share comments
and then forward things to other people to share comments,
and that's how things go viral and you can come
up become a victim and that could be a state
of being a bullet being bullied through social media. Now,
(15:18):
let's talk about something that captured my attention in twenty twenty.
You know, I started my podcast in twenty seventeen and
you didn't even know ra Sean McDonald, But with Sean
knew need them and so when this opportunity came across
my desk the interview, I jumped on it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The book This Is Not the End. And the reason
I talked I wanted to bring.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Up that book was the fact that it was a
personal book because they talked about some journeys. Now, I
was fortunate I represents Stephen A. Smith, ESPN. And he
wrote his book Straight Shooter, and it was a very
difficult book. He talked about it was a memoir and
there was a lot of moments when he had to
(15:54):
really rethink the process, how it impacted his family because
the fact that he's may have said some things that
they aren't aware of or may not have wanted it
to be made in public. When you did this book,
talk about that journey and some of the challenges you
had to go through to write it.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, so it was difficult in lots of ways. So
the book is called This Is Not the End, and
it has a typewriter in the front the end, as in,
it's not the end of your story, right, And the
book was really written about your journey or this whatever
this is that you're dealing with. And I talked to
the reader that way, like this thing you're dealing with.
But in order to explain why I might be somebody
listen to, I have to share and you go through
(16:36):
that cathartic process and digging up all of my this
is so I share my big points. Yeah, yeah, let's
just visit that for a little while. That's so I do.
I do five. I go and visit five areas at
points in my life where I had really big failures
and thought this is the end, like my life's over.
(16:57):
And then the hardest one was when I was thirty
seven and I was involved in an accident and I
really went through a dark time, but I managed to
get out of it and have big success on the
other side. So what the book is is, if you're
in a tough spot, let me get you through this.
And I take people through certain steps to get them
just unstuck. So you don't want to be the person
(17:17):
who get stuck in the death of a loved one
or a divorce, or getting fired or the big things
that happen in our life. So I talk about in
there not making the Olympic teen and being so full
of shame and blame and having to walk through the
halls of my high school and was just so embarrassed,
and I felt like I'd let down my friends and
my family and my coaches. Obviously, so at the ripe
(17:38):
old age of sixteen, feeling like a failure and that
I wasted my life. And then I talk about blowing
out my knee. When I'm nineteen and in college, I
ended up blow out my knee, and in order to
keep my scholarship, they you had to work for the university,
and they put me in the laundry room. So here
I am this world class athlete. I'd actually done some
modeling and things, and now I'm working in the lawn
(18:00):
room on crutches every day. And not like washing cute
little leotards. Now I'm washing all of the athletic equipment.
I sometimes joke you like this, I sometimes joke my
claim to fame was almost that I washed Tequille O'Neal's jockstrap.
Probably you know, but I worked in this laundry room
at nineteen, and I was really another low point, thinking
(18:20):
I had wasted my whole life in the gym. Why
you know, now, what was I going to do? I
just hadn't even thought it forward, and I was in
a really bad spot. Made some poor choices, you know.
I can remember taking my percoset with a shot of
yeager and crutching my way into physical therapy and just
being a really unpleasant person to be around, right, But
I found my way out of that through some a
(18:41):
series of variables, and then I became a news anchor,
had shrut lake success as a news anchor, and then
I got let go at one point and they went
younger and blonder, so I had to navigate my way
through that. So and then I had this this horrible
accident when I was thirty seven and that I was
involved in, and I had to really figure out how
to tell that story. That was the hardest one to
(19:02):
do as far as the book goes, because that's when
I had real suicidal ideation and it wasn't just my
story to tell. There are other people involved with it.
So it's always a balance of I really felt it
was important to tell the story, but I wanted to
respect everybody's privacy and everybody else's journey that they went through,
So that was probably the hardest part to tell.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, this is why I brought the book up and
hopefully people go and pick up this book, and because
it's still available and a reason because transition is happening
in this country right now. You know, layoffs, people being
fired and transitions, and so this is not the end
(19:44):
kind of like motivates people doing these moments of what
may be considered darkness or unsuspecting or periods I didn't
see coming. How do companies or individuals who are being
suddenly shocked by these job transitions, how can you evolve
mistakes I'm talking about on the side of the company
(20:06):
and also as individuals when these things come about, how
to evolve a look beyond what's happening to them and
see there's a positive opportunity that's being presented to you.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's a difficult time for so many people, and
so I'm really thankful that you brought this up. So
in the book, there's seven seven different strategies. Book is
really written for the person going through it. It starts
out in the first sentence is well, this is a
grappy way to meet you, you know, and it's like
as you're going through something. So it's the book I
was looking for when I was in a really dark place.
(20:38):
So it is specifically strategies create a script to protect yourself.
Put it in perspective all different things you can do,
because that's the book I was looking for when I
was in a tough place, because there's always these other
people's stories, which is the last thing you want when
you're in your in the middle of your own tragedy.
And then there were a lot of PTSD workbooks, and
there were a lot of other things like that, but
(20:58):
I wanted, like, just somebody tell me what to do
so I don't go jump off this bridge, like I
just needed that. So that's what this book is. And
I'm my workshops called the now What Workshop, which is
now what you know and it gets people unstuck. But
there are four steps. There are four things that through
my research and as you said, going back and looking
at all the unpleasant points in my life, what did
(21:19):
I do to not just survive it, but to thrive
on the other side, to really have some big success
on the other side of many events that would have
stopped somebody from progressing in their life. And so I
looked at those, and I looked at organizations, lead athletes, artists,
like musicians, you know, actors who almost almost you know,
(21:40):
hit that rock bottom and then found their way back
to not just survive, but thrive, and the four things
were it's Thhis is the acronym I use because it's
this whatever you're this is that you're dealing with as
I'm not going to pretend to know your world or
how you have to manage your way through it. I
just know whatever this is. You wake up in the morning,
you're thinking about this. It affects you every day, and
(22:00):
then you had a bed think of that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It's big.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
So the tea is timeline, and that's this perspective piece.
I ask people to make a timeline of one to
one hundred and put dots ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet
all the way across to it. If you live to
be one hundred, which I need to drink less wine
and take better care of myself, I'm gonna pretend that
I'm gonna live to be one hundred. And then I say,
on this timeline, put a dot on where you are
right now, on what's happening. So if you're in your fifties,
(22:25):
my dot's in the fifties right in the middle of
that timeline. Somewhere someone in their thirties their dots way
over here. So I asked them to put that there
and then you know, we do a little work with it.
Everything you've done brought you up to this point, and
then down below the line, I say, you know, like
your your accolades, what you would put on LinkedIn, all
of your thinks. You bought the house, you married, the girl,
(22:45):
you got the degree, took a course, whatever. That's all
on the top, and then down below. I asked people
to put down all the stuff that they've gotten through,
and I call that your reverse resume. Tough stuff we've
all gotten through because nobody got a pass. You don't
know what somebody else is going through. We're all struggling
with something. So we put that down below. But then
there's this dot and I say, the magic in this
(23:05):
image is all the blank space ahead. You can put
it there, anything you want to. All that blank space
ahead is for you to fill out. So that's the
timeline thing. It's this perspective piece. And then it's a
little bit stoicism, a little cognitive behavior therapy, a little neuroplasticity,
trying to change our brains, you know. But that's the
t and then the h is humans. When we go
(23:26):
through something, we feel really alone. And the people who
have big success myself and all of those incidences. And
then also, as I said, all the research that I've done,
people who have big success don't just survive something, but thrive.
They don't go it alone. So you have to look
at your people, who's helping, who's hurting, and make sure
somebody's in there with you, whether it's a friend or
(23:46):
a therapist or something that's the human piece. It's h
And then the eye is called isolate. And I know
this is a long answer, so thank you for letting
me get through it. I call isolate, which is on
that dot you put line up and down on your page,
and you can't talk about what happened before the what
it should have could as that's the past. And any
(24:07):
therapist will tell you spend all your time in the
past thinking about that. That's where depression lives. And then
I say, okay, and on the other side that you
can't talk about the other side of that dot, either
the what ifs and the doom state scenarios and where
does this all? You can't go there either. That's the future,
And then you get therapists will tell you spend all
your time thinking about that. That's where anxiety lives. So
we have to be writing, like, what are we doing
(24:28):
in this moment right now? It's the isolate, What can
I actually take action on right do what you can
with what you got, and move forward. That's the isolate.
And then the last piece is an S which is
for story, and that's the words in our head that
come out of our mouth that become our story. And
that's some of the self sabotage and stuff that we do.
(24:49):
You know, we make that story up in our head
and it becomes our reality. But what's really important about
that when it comes to getting fired is you have
to be or losing a job at this moment. You
have to be careful about that language because you need
keep yourself hirable and no one wants to hire the
angry person. No one wants to hire the bitter person.
So you have to you got to find somebody who
can let that all out with. But one of the
(25:10):
biggest things we need to do at this time is work.
Watch the language in our head. We can say that
I'm starting a new chapter. I've got I don't know
what opportunities are out there, but I'm looking for opportunities,
not I got to get a job or I just
I'm looking for opportunities, something news coming. We've got to
get our minds and our brains in that area, because
(25:31):
when you're the one that's like, they're idiots, they don't
know what they're doing. They shouldn't have fired me so
and so. Still they are good luck, They're never gonna
make without me because he's a jerk or whatever that language. No,
that's what the story is. When people call and check
in on you, how's he doing, how's she doing? They
repeat what you just said, Well, he says the no,
you're you know, they're never gonna survive without me, and
(25:52):
they should have fired so and so instead of me,
and they don't know what they're doing. That's the story
that you're putting out there. If you get fired, same
person gets fired and they're like, well, you know, struggling
a little bit. I didn't see this coming, and I'm
looking for an opportunity. And I got to pay the rent,
I got to get my bills paid. So I'm really
looking for anybody has anything. I'm a hard worker, you
(26:14):
know I am. I mean, you still get to say
you're a hard worker, you say you're looking. It's just
a different way of going about it. People want to
hire that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Person, right. You know this show.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
First of all, I meet so many interesting people that
I would have never met, like you, Nina.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I can actually launch dinner hang out with you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I was like, I feel like I feel like you
had a.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Little bedside man of voice, you know, like you shine,
come down, We'll go on.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You have a great voice. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
In this world of podcasts, your podcast host just like me,
we always meet people, and sometimes you meet so many
people you go wow. I didn't know that, and that's
why I always look. I always tell people before they
come on to the show. Ladies and gentlemen who listen,
I always tell them, I'm just a storyteller. I bring
some man of experts onto my show. They helped me
tell stories on your show as a host. Any guests
(27:06):
that stood out that went wow, they really I didn't
see that coming and shared with my audience on money
Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah my favorite. I have a lot of great guests,
if any of them here this one. Make sure I
said a lot of great guests. Everybody's great. But the
name of my show is this Seriously Sucks, the right
podcast when life goes seriously wrong. So I've had people
on there who have had, you know, lost a spouse
or lost a child, or they've incarcerated and been addicted,
(27:37):
been human traffic. I did a lot of people on
my show who've gone through things I cannot even imagine.
But one of them, his name is Joe Della Grave
and he is a three time Paralympia and now he's
the head coach of the national wheelchair rugby team for Paralympia.
He's this rugby two chair rugby. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
(27:57):
And his story that see, that's just that, right, that's
that's the best story. He's like, yeah, we're a bunch
of crippled people and we reel around trying to make
each other more cripple. And I can say that, you can't, right,
he just kill it, PC, He just kill it PC.
He is because I can say that and you can't.
But he's just this really inspirational cool guy. We become friends,
you know how, like you meet somebody like I feel
like that person would be my friend. So we have
(28:19):
become friends, and we've done some speaking gigs together and
we're in a couple of groups together. But I met
him and he has such an amazing story. He was
a college football player who became paralyzed from the chest
down and then took him a while to get in
the chair. That's his thing, Like, what's your chair, folks,
Sometimes you just have to get in the chair to
get going. You know. He really resisted getting in the
(28:42):
chair because he didn't want to be that guy. And
then once he got in the chair, it took him
down the aisle to marry his wife, it takes him
to the sidelines to coach his kids soccer teams, like
and it's taken him all over the world that chare
to go all over the world and be and represent
the United States and be a paralympian. So he's one
of my favorite ones because I cannot imagine that. And
(29:02):
when it comes to me sharing my stories of how
I got out of tough stuff, that's why my podcast
works because people have gone through stuff a lot tougher
than me, and then we can kind of test my
concept the tchis and they can take me through the
things that they did and they have done the same things,
which is really a very reassuring for me from my research,
but also just a cool way to think about how
(29:24):
people get out of really well.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It took five years. I finally got on my show, Nina.
I found you. You were hiding in Charles and South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Come down and eat some good food.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Got great food around over by low Country.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Okay, I know what's going on down and good stuff. Well.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations Massive Class,
uplifting me, providing information to my audience and having a
great conversation about life that you can get through it.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And this is not the end. If you find your.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
This for Shana, it has been my pleasure. Thank you
so very much.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Hopefully talk soon, and thank you again for coming on
Money Making Conversation Masterclass. This has been another edition of
Money Making Conversation Masterclass hosted by me Rushaun McDonald. Thank
you to our guests on the show today and thank
you for listening to audience now. If you want to
listen to any episode I want to be a guest
on the show, visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media
(30:22):
handle is money Making Conversation. Join us next week and
remember to always leave with your gifts.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Keep winning
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