In this inspiring episode of B the Way Forward, Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with resilience expert and author Nina Sossamon-Pogue to explore how setbacks can become defining moments of growth. Nina shares her unconventional journey from elite gymnast to Emmy-winning journalist, tech executive, and now author of This Is Not the End. Along the way, she reveals practical strategies that helped her reframe failure, lean into mentorship, and uncover unexpected career paths.
Nina also introduces her THIS framework—Timeline, Humans, Isolate, Story—a proven method for navigating life’s toughest chapters with perspective and grace. Whether it’s learning to see setbacks as just one dot on the timeline of your life, editing your circle of support, or choosing the story you tell yourself and others, Nina’s approach is about resilience as adaptation, not just grit. Her wisdom offers a reminder that no matter what your “this” may be, it does not define you, and the blank space ahead holds countless opportunities.
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Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services.
Episode Transcript
Nina Sossaman-Pogue: I didn’t make the Olympic team and I thought my life was over, I had wasted my whole life. I had so much shame and guilt. I let down my friends, my family.
Brenda Darden Wilkerson: Nina Sossaman-Pogue was only six years old when she began her athletic career in gymnastics. She went on to become a member of Team USA. Competed alongside grades like Mary Lou Retton and managed to bounce back from the disappointment of not making the Olympic team. She then won an athletic scholarship from LSU, a powerhouse in college gymnastics.
Nina: But then I blew out my knee at the right old age of 19. I lost my sport altogether. I was like, I don’t even know who I am without this sport.
Brenda: It was the second massive setback in Nina’s life, and she wasn’t even 20. And to be honest, she didn’t handle it great.
Nina: I did not do well in school that year. I would, made bad choices. I took a Percocet in the morning, I’d take my Percocet with a shot of Jager and crutch into the, the physical therapy room, and I was not fun to be around.
Brenda: Now, normally this is about the time when I would say something like, today, Nina’s super successful and yada, yada, yada, but we’re not there yet.
Nina: I was 35, I’d been Charleston’s favorite news anchor for seven years running, and I walked into the newsroom, and they said, hey, you know, the GM wants to see you. And he sits me down and he says, Nina, per your contract, we are releasing you without cause effective immediately.
Brenda: Still, Nina rebounded again. She found another job in news. She even won an Emmy. But then in the wake of a terrible accident, she once again found herself questioning everything.
Nina: I felt like I could not find a way forward, and I kept doing my morning walk thinking I should step into traffic. It’s just done. I was just done. I was exhausted. I just was in a really dark place.
Brenda: Nina was struggling with the question that so many of us have after major failures or setbacks or even tragedies. How do I get through this? This season, we’ve been talking to all sorts of amazing women about their answers to that question, what they learned from their worst setbacks, and how they discovered their key to moving on. And while it’s possible that Nina may have had more challenges than some, she did get through it.
Nina: I just wanted a book that said, tell me what to do. And so that’s the book I wrote.
Brenda: Nina transitioned from TV journalism to tech, helping lead a SaaS company from startup to IPO. And along the way, she began to seriously study resilience and how people cannot just survive serious challenges but thrive. Her research became the book, This Is Not the End, A Strategy Guide and Framework for Dealing with Life’s Worst Chapters. In this episode, Nina shares those insights and the stories that inspired them.
We talk about reframing terrible lows as moments in time instead of the end of your journey. Why the way you speak about what’s happened to you becomes the story that influences other people for better or for worse. And the single question you can ask that opens up entirely new ways of understanding your skills. Plus, why most of us define resilience the wrong way and what it really means. I’m Brenda Darden Wilkerson, and this is B The Way Forward. After the break my conversation with Nina Sossamon-Pogue.
Well, I am here today with Nina Sossamon-Pogue, and I can’t wait to get into your story. Nina, welcome to the podcast.
Nina: Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this.
Brenda: Yes, me too. So, for our audience, we’re all tech people here, Nina’s got a tech journey as well. But we’re going to start in the beginning of her path and really come to understand so many things that she’s done. I mean, Nina, you seem to have lived so many lives. So, I want to start with your gymnastics career. You made it to Team USA. What was that experience like?
Nina: I did Brenda, that’s a fun place to start because you know, the things that happened to us when we’re young, the things we go through kind of build us as we go through life. So, I was a gymnast. I moved away from home by the time I was 13 and into an Olympic training center.
Brenda: Wow.
Nina: And then I made the US team traveled all over Japan, Hungary, Germany, Australia. It was an amazing time to be on Team USA. It was Mary Lou Retton, Bart Connor, it was that era. It was in the 84 games.
Brenda: I remember!
Nina: Yeah. And Mary Lou and I were roommates a couple times on the road, mainly because my maiden name is Rofi and she was Retton. We were both Rs, it’s not because we were number one and number two. You know, I always like to say the first year that she won the USA championships, I won Miss Congeniality at that meet. So, she was always way up there. But then I didn’t make the Olympic team. At the rip old age of 16 I thought my life was over, I had wasted my whole life.
It was a really big learning experience for me to figure out how to go forward and like go back to my high school. I had so much shame and guilt. I let down my friends, my family, my coaches, obviously. So, that was my first big learning. And I look back now and I can see how much that shaped who I am. And then I went on and did college gymnastics. You know, I did buck, you know, buck up and get myself back together and was one of the top recruits that year.
And I went to LSU, powerhouse in gymnastics, and I had a time where I did gymnastics at LSU and was kind of back on my game, and then I blew out my knee. And I lost my sport altogether. And so that was another moment in my life where I was like, I don’t even know who I am without this sport. It was very much my identity. Like, like back then, I mean, it was the eighties, it was my bumper sticker and my on my car and my sweatshirt. Nowadays you have these young kids and it’s their, it’s their TikTok and their Instagram, and it’s very much how they identify. So, I lost that piece of me and I struggled through another big failure at the ripe old age of 19, yeah.
Brenda: Wow. So, what was going through your mind as you faced having to give up your identity so to speak.
Nina: You know, it, it’s interesting, you’re, you’re young at that point in your life, you know, your prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully functioning, you, you’re just making stuff up as you go. So I, I struggled some, I did not do well in school that year. I would, made bad choices. I took a Percocet in the morning. I’d take my Percocet with a shot of Jager and crutch into the, the physical therapy room, and I was not fun to be around at that point.
I spent a lot of times looking backwards and I didn’t spend, I realize now, anytime looking forward, until fortunately one of the athletic advisors, they didn’t have mental health counselors back then, just academic advisors actually sat down with me and for the first time in my life, had a real conversation about, what do you want to do after gymnastics?
Because I’d never thought of it. It had been everything I could imagine. I mean, my, it was everything that I thought about all day, every day since I was three or four. And I started, I mean, it had been everything.
Brenda: You transitioned into news and there you found a lot of success. You were even voted Charleston’s favorite newscaster, right? I
Nina: was, I was 10 years in a row for, I was kind of big fish little pond in Charleston, South Carolina. But I, I. Found television the first time I walked into a newsroom. I loved it. It was competitive, it was difficult. It was different every day. And it was adrenaline junkie that, that I needed from coming from gymnastics. And it was performative, you know, I got to be on camera.
Not at first. At first, I did all the horrible jobs in a newsroom before I finally got in on air position. But I did get one, and I became a reporter, a political reporter, an investigative journalist, and then I finally became a news anchor. And I, I actually wanted to be the next Christiana Almanor and like, travel all over the world and like, be her who wouldn’t, right But then I, I sold out and they offered me the anchor job and I was like, ugh, I’ll take the money because I’m tired of being poor.
But anyway, so I became a news anchor and I had some you know, real big success in Charleston. The community really embraced me. I loved it there. I moved to South Carolina without knowing a soul just for a job. And now I, you know, I’m still there. I’ve been here for, you know, more than 30 years now. So, news became my life, kind of like gymnastics had. And I spent, you know, two decades almost in a newsroom reporting the news and doing the news and it became something else that I could excel at and get better at and better at and better at.
And throughout that, I also had some big setbacks even in that space, even after winning Charleston’s favorite news anchor. And, and I’ll share one of those. I think it’s where you were going with this, Brenda. I was, I was let go from my job. I was fired when I was 35. I’d been Charleston’s favorite news anchor for seven years running, and I walked into the newsroom, and I’d won it on a Thursday and on Friday as I was walking down to cut a news brief.
So, I’m in full makeup, headed down to the studio and they said, hey, you know the GM wants to see you. I said, sure. And I think he’s going to give me a raise or a bonus like, or an attaboy or something because I’ve won this seven years in a row. And he sits me down and the woman from HR comes and sits across from me in the table and he says, Nina, per your contract, we are releasing you without cause effective immediately.
And I was blown away. And I was, first, I said, excuse me, he had to say it several times. And you know, now in hindsight I know it was a nationwide layoff. It was a big crunch. They were letting a lot of people go and I was just a numbers game, but at the time it felt very personal. And they went younger and blonder and, and in a new direction, you know?
Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so there’s so much there. You know, first I want to really, you know, observe one thing that I was observing as you were speaking about starting this new career, you know, starting doing the not so fun jobs and building your way up to, you know, being award-winning seven years running. I feel like the same tenacity that with which you approached your first career, gymnastics, served you in this career, right?
And, and I guess you know what I’m getting at is, we have people listening to this story going, okay, you know, what did I get from doing that first thing and it didn’t work. You had some really great habits that you built that you poured into that second thing, so that that’s a win, right? And you know, I feel like this conversation is so important right now because we’re in this interesting time period really in our world, right?
We could say in our nation, but really in our world, we’re, you know, up is down, down is up. And so, the ability to really introspect and see what you got going for you that you can take forward after a potential disappointment, I think is really important. And, and that’s, that’s part of what I’m seeing here, right?
Nina: Absolutely. In gymnastics, I performed. I was great on floor. I was good at being in front of people, so that translated into television. I won Miss Congeniality. I was really good at working with people and talking to people, and I was always rooting for everybody else. And that also played well when I got into journalism because I could walk up to, you know, a person on the street to get a comment on something. I could walk into a big event where everybody’s in black tie and talk to the governor.
And the next day I could walk into a jail and talk to the convict who had been convicted of something and had the same conversation. I was just good with people. Also live television, like in gymnastics, you fall down, literally fall on your face and have to get up and smile and keep going.
Brenda: Yes.
Nina: So, to be able to fall down and get up again. And that happens in live television all the time. There are mistakes and you know, things go wrong all the time and you have to be able to adjust and adapt and keep going. So, I found the things that I, in my sport that translated into that. And then years later, what I call, I know you’ve probably talked about it, it’s that talent stacking, you know, what other talents do I have? I stacked on top of that, the tech stuff.
But back to the, to the new stuff, the things that I had learned through being an athlete and the discipline and the work ethic and all of that really played an important part in the rest of my life. It kind of made me who I am. But after I got let go from news the first time I did some soul searching, I walked along the beach and thought about what I liked about my, the time in television, what I didn’t like about it, what I was really good at, and I decided I loved TV and I didn’t want to get out of it.
So, I did go to another TV station after being let go. And at that TV station I doubled down and worked even harder to prove myself. And that’s when I won an Emmy award for best newscaster in the southeast. Kind of a little bit of a jab at the people who let me go. Don’t get me wrong.
Brenda: I would say!
Nina: Yeah, but, but I, I did double down and work harder. And sometimes you don’t realize how much you like what you do until you can’t. And I was like, oh, I may complain about this job. And it is a lot, but I truly enjoyed it. So, I did go back and do television for years. And then I had a time where I decided I wanted to not be in front of the cameras. I went through a tough time, into my thirties and I went through an accident and I, I had some traumatic PTSD stuff going on in my head and I thought, I think I’m ready to step out of the spotlight and take a back seat. And then I had to think about where do these skills take me going forward?
Brenda: So ,this is the third time now that you’re reinventing yourself, when you left the news industry transitioned into tech, which, you know, I’m excited that you did. So how did you know that you were ready to make that shift?
Nina: Probably one of the smartest things I did when I looked around me. I was on TV and I was on charity boards and doing a lot of other things in the community. I thought, what am I good at? I don’t even know. I can read a teleprompter, I can talk to people. Like, where does that transfer? And I did probably the smartest thing I have done. And I highly recommend if anybody’s out there trying to figure out what’s next. I found three people I very much admired and I invited them to coffee.
And first was a man who owned a marketing agency, because I thought I could get into marketing! And I sat down with the head of this marketing firm and said, if you had to hire, I’m not asking for a job, but if you, you know me, you know you’ve seen me on tv, we’ve been on some charity boards and at events together. If you had to hire me, what would you hire me for? And he gave me his feedback, pretty much said that he wouldn’t hire me and that I don’t know anything about marketing and that I could probably sell cars or carpets on tv and that’s all I was good for. But very harsh.
Yeah, very harsh, but I needed to know. And then I went and had a coffee with a woman who I very much admired, Jeanette Alderman, who’s the head of the Center for Women in our community. She’s just an amazing woman. And I sat her down and said, you’ve seen me, we’ve known each other for a while. I looked at her as to her as a mentor. I said, if you had to hire me tomorrow, what would you hire me for? What am I good at? And she had other feedback.
And then the third time I met with a person who owned a law firm and said, you know, what would you hire me for if I got into that space? And they said, you know, we actually could use you to train our lawyers on how to work with the media. And so, all three of them had very different ideas on what my options were going forward, but all people I admired in very different areas and it helped me look at my skills differently.
And through that I had also the word got out, I was looking. One until you start putting it out there, no one knows you’re looking. The word got out there was looking. And then a friend who had just done a tech startup, they had gone through all their angel investors and they had just been bought out by Goldman Sachs. And so, they had some money. Google had just bought YouTube and he said, hey, I need someone who understands video, how to create it. What does a producer do, a director? How do, how much does it cost? How do I do that?
It was all very new back then and that became an opportunity and I had the confidence, thank goodness, to jump in and go, I can figure this out. Let’s do this. Yeah. So that’s when I decided to go from TV to tech and I chose to go into the tech space. And I also was very smart at, at, at a couple of things. I told them, through other people. I was doing a charity gala. You’ll love this, Brenda. I’m doing a charity gala and I’m like in my gown for the American Heart Association, and I’m doing my stuff and auctioning off the or whatever it is they had me doing.
And this man walked up to me and he said, I hear you’re talking to Sean about his company. And I said, yeah, and I knew this guy too. Both of these were not people that were close to me, just people who knew of me and knew I was looking, and he said, I think the world of him, I would work for him for the options, not even the paycheck. And I just nodded and smiled and went back to doing what I was doing. I didn’t even know what an option was. I was in television, you know.
But I went home and did my homework and then I had the conversation with him. I listened throughout this a lot. I really had to make myself listen to the people around me. And so, thank goodness I listened to him. And then I went to my buddy and said, hey, you can’t afford me, but I’ll work for the options and a basic paycheck, you know? And so that changed my life. I jumped into tech and worked for a lot of options and it made me very valuable to him because he knew I had skin in the game to make sure this was a success.
Brenda: Wow, there’s so much there. There’s so much richness there. I hope, I hope our listeners caught all of that. You had to, you had to put yourself out there to ask questions of three different people and be able to receive whatever they shared. These are all amazing strategies as it were, to use that got you to the next level.
And then finally, most people don’t know anything other than working for a paycheck. Right? And you said you didn’t even know what he was talking about, but you did your research and you did something totally different and it made all the difference. So now I want to talk about your book, This Is Not the End. This is, you know, tough stuff to talk about, let alone go through. So, what pushed you to write this book?
Nina: One, my father had Alzheimer’s and he was losing his memory quickly, and I had three very early adulting children and I thought, oh, what if I’m not here to help them with all my wisdom through these years? And I thought I’d write a book for them. And then I got into a writing program, and then they asked me some very difficult questions about the most difficult things I’ve gone through in life. And they said, oh, wait no that’s the book you need to be writing. Not just a mom’s, you know, stuff for your children.
So it, it pushed me down that road to write a very, a much more difficult book. But it was very cathartic to write it. What I ended up writing when I worked with a coach to figure out what exactly I wanted to put out in the world, I said, I remember standing in the row at Barnes and Noble. I was going through a very difficult time in my life. I felt like I could not find a way forward. I had suicidal ideation. I kept doing my morning walk thinking I should step into traffic. It’s just done. I was just done. I was exhausted from all of life, lifeing at me.
So I just was in a really dark place. And I stood in Barnes and Noble and I thought, someone just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. And they were big PTSD workbooks, and there were all sorts of other people’s stories. I’m like, I don’t have time. I can barely get my own story in my head. I don’t want somebody else’s story. And all these other books and heavy psychology books. And I just wanted a book that said, tell me what to do. And so that’s the book I wrote.
Brenda: There’s a lot more of my conversation with Nina Sossamon-Pogue after the break. See you soon.
I want to talk about your book. It’s called This Is Not the End: Strategies to Get You Through the Worst Chapters of Your Life.
Nina Sossoman-Pogue: The first line of the book says, well, this is a crappy way to meet you, because I figure if people pick it up, it’s because they’re going through a tough time. But it is a book, and obviously I use my stories and my research and experiences as a backdrop to it. But the book is really about, hey, if you’re going through something big and you can’t find a way forward, let me, let me show you. There’s always a way forward. And it’s truly strategies you can do to figure out how to keep going forward, even very difficult times.
Brenda: So, what’s the, this part? So this is not the end. What does this stand for?
Nina: So, this is whatever you’re going through. So throughout the book I talk about this. So this is doing this, this is taking up all the space in your head. So this is what you’re dealing with when you step out in public. So people keep asking you about this. It’s whatever you are dealing with. And even, and one example could be maybe you’re going through a divorce and everywhere you go people ask you about this.
Or every, you know, you wake up in the morning going, I’m still dealing with this. It’s your this. So, I use that phrase because I didn’t want the book to be about me. I wanted it to be about whatever your this is. And I share my big five this’s in chapter two. So I’ve been there and I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but whatever this is that you are going through, let’s take it apart and figure a way forward.
Brenda: Okay. Very powerful. Very powerful.
Nina: Thank you.
Brenda: So you developed a framework called this or THIS that helps people work through those situations if they’re stressful situations or low points by adding a little perspective. Can you walk us through it?
Nina: Sure! So it’s THIS. The T is for timeline. It’s timeline, humans, isolate and then story. One of the coolest things that I worked on when I started my research into resilience, like how come that didn’t define me any of these moments? Like I have my ability to move on and find bigger success on the other side of it. Where did that come from?
If you take that moment when I’m 19 and I blow out my knee, all right. And you like put it on a timeline of your life, you drew a line across a piece of paper and put 10 dots on it, and you’re 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, all the way up to a hundred. I’m going to pretend that I’m going to be a hundred. I’m going to drink less wine and take better care of myself to get there. But let’s pretend.
Brenda: Yeah, me too.
Nina: Let’s pretend we’re going to get to a hundred. So anyway, you draw that line, it’s, it’s got 10 dots on it. So, when I lost my sport at 19, I can put that dot on there and go at 19, at that point in my lifetime timeline, when I’m 19 years old, gymnastics was 75% of what I knew in life. Like that much of my life had been spent in a gym. Now, if I fast forwarded, and when I’m 50 and I’ve already had all those years in television and all those years in tech and my kids are leaving for college all those years, parenting, then gymnastics was no longer right that 75% of my life, now it’s like 28% of my life.
It’s a much smaller piece. That time alone at home parenting was bigger with the kids at home. The time I was on television is bigger. I can look at it and see those pieces of my life in perspective. And, and if I live to be a hundred, as we said, then gymnastics is just 15% of my life. So, you can do the math, but of course when you lose something and something happens, whether you are, you know, listening to this and you’re 20 and you’re in tech and you’re thinking about your career, like it feels like everything because you put everything into it to this moment.
But if you can look at that big blank space ahead and go, okay, let’s do the math here. It’s so much of my life right now, but when I’m 50, what does it look like? Just that way of thinking. So, the timeline is making that timeline across a piece of paper. Turn your paper sideways and make your timeline. And then I have people write down all their accolades above the line about when they happen, all the stuff that’s in your LinkedIn profile that goes across the top on about when it is. And then I have them go below the line and I have them talk about all the tough stuff they’ve gotten through.
All of that goes across the bottom about when that happened too, and, and it kind of makes this up and down. It looks kinda like an echocardiogram. You kind of see your life going up and down when you do that. And I always say, you don’t want to be flat line, like this is what life looks like. You have highs and you have lows. You don’t wanna be flat line. But then there’s that point, wherever you are today, however old you are, you put that dot on there. And the magic of this is this big giant piece of paper is there’s all this blank space ahead. And I had people really lean into the blank space ahead to grain, some perspective to zoom out. And whatever you’re dealing with is just a part of that big long timeline.
If it was a story, it’s just a chapter in your story. It is not your whole life. So that’s the timeline piece. Let’s put it in a timeline and think about it that way. And then on that same piece of paper I had them circle that dot and I’ll say, now we’re going to do the H, which is humans. Let’s look at your humans in your life. But sometimes we’ll have them turn the page over and I’m like, I’ll draw a line down the middle. Who’s helping, who’s hurting? Everybody has to go in a category and sometimes the people we love the most are not helping. So,
Brenda: Oh boy.
Nina: You know, I mean, we love these people, but they’re not helping. And when you’re going through a tough time, you have to edit those people and spend more times with the ones who are helping in less time with the ones who are not. And then if you find that you’re in, in your circle, who you pull in during these times. If you don’t have people to help, that’s when you can’t go it alone. And through all of my research, people who have big success on the top, on the other side of a failure or a struggle, they don’t go it alone.
So, think about even elite athletes have coaches, people have mentors, CEOs call each other when things go wrong. How are we getting through this? Throughout time, people have called on other people to get through tough times. So can’t go alone. You have to pull somebody in there, whether it’s a friend or a therapist or a mentor or someone that’s that part of the humans. That’s the H. And then the I, I take that same piece of paper and I have them draw lines up and down. You can’t think about what happened before or what happened after.
You’re isolating it. That’s the I, isolate this dot. And any good therapist will tell you if you spend all your time, you know, on the woulda, shoulda couldas, that’s where depression lives. And if you spend all your time in your head thinking about the future, the what ifs and the doomsday scenarios, and filling in all those blanks with worst case scenarios like we do that’s where anxiety lives. So we have just this really precious time right now in, in the now to go, what can I actually do with what I’m working with right now?
And I’ll show people sometimes a glass of water with, you know, that’s only got some water in it. What’d you call it? Would you call it half full or half empty?
Brenda: I call it half full.
Nina: Yeah. Yeah. We all want to be the half full people. I totally want to be the half full person, but I’ll tell them, no it’s not. It’s a six ounce glass of water with three ounces of water in it. You have to just look at things exactly like they are. You have take your want out of it. In this, in the isolate piece, it’s okay to not be okay. It’s just not okay to stay that way. So. Yes, you, you can be in a crappy chapter. You have to feel the feels and go through the stuff, and that’s. Some, sometimes it’s long, longer, you know, sometimes it’s shorter. A bad day doesn’t make a bad week and a bad few weeks don’t make a bad month and a bad few years don’t even make a bad life. I mean. It’s just part of being human. That’s the isolate piece.
And then the last is the S and it’s the story. And that’s where you can do a lot of work and, and you can start it today. And it’s the words in your head that come out of your mouth that become your story. And that’s all that self-sabotage we do. And you know, Brenda, as women, we are hard on ourselves.
Brenda: Oh boy are we, it is crazy.
Nina: So, the self-sabotage is the overgeneralization. This always happens. Catastrophizing.
Brenda: Yeah. Never and always.
Nina: Yeah. Catastrophizing. It’s never going to work. This is ruined. Yeah. All that. And we jump to conclusions. They haven’t texted me back, so they must think I’m an idiot or they don’t like me, you know? No, they’re just busy living their life. But we fill in the blanks with all of that.
Brenda: I think trauma is a lot of this conversation, right? We bring the trauma of what happened before into current situations, right? If somebody responds to you in a way that reminds you of something that happened in the past, then that’s your, can be your interpretation versus, I mean, it could have nothing to do with what’s going on. And I think, you know, for, for me, that’s when that introspection happens when I stop and ask myself, why does that make you so mad? Yes.
Nina: And that can be, that can be in your work, that can be in your, your friendships, that can be in your, your marriage. Like we do that in all those areas. We fill in all the blanks ourselves, and that’s really dangerous. So the story is, the words in your head come out of your mouth and that becomes your story. So an example that I give is, if you get fired, picture this which you get so you get let go from your job because that’s happening all over the place these days. And it’s not something you’re expecting.
And you go home and somebody calls, usually somebody in group’s, like someone should call and check on them, you know? So somebody will call and check on you and you pick up the phone and they’re like, hey, how you doing? They pick up and they go, well, you know, well, I can’t believe they let me go and, so-and-so’s still there and he’s an idiot. And you know, good luck making it without me ’cause I was doing my part and y’all are gonna, you know, this whole thing’s gonna crash and burn you, but y’all better start sending out your resumes and, you know. You didn’t see this coming and, and everything’s gonna be terrible in the future. Like you have this really negative response to someone checking on you and they’re just trying to be helpful.
And then they picked up, put down the phone and the people in the room go, hey, how’s he doing? And they’re like, whoa. He didn’t see it coming. He’s really ticked. He thinks Bob should have lost his job. Instead, he says, we, we should all put our resumes together. I mean, that’s the conversation. Same conversation. Ring, ring, ring, pick up the phone. Hey, how are you doing? Well, I didn’t see that coming and blindsided, but you know, you guys know how smart I am and if anybody knows of anybody, let me know.
And good luck to all of you guys. I know you got challenges ahead of you, like good luck and, and if, and I, I gotta, I gotta pay the bills so if anybody needs, knows of anything, let me know. And you guys know I’m good at this. Then they put the phone down and they’re like, hey, how’s he doing? They’re like, well, he didn’t see it coming and he’s obviously gotta pay his bills and he’s hoping one of us knows something. That’s a very different scenario. And it is the same human choosing their language more carefully.
Brenda: Yeah. Wow. I mean, it really, everybody think about that for a second, because sometimes that negative language is just a habit. It’s just a habit. Or it can become an expectation. My husband was a person who was very positive and people would make fun of him. Oh, you’re just a happy go lucky, you know? It was almost like encouraging him to say something negative. But I think the other thing that, that I’m hearing throughout this conversation is choice. We have choices. No matter the situation, we feel like the situation is happening to me for whatever reason, but we still have choices on how we respond or how we react.
Nina: You always can choose your reaction and think about that scenario. Who wants to hire that guy who’s just mad, right? Like no one wants to hire no one. That was like me in college when I blew up. Nobody wanted to be around me. I was just grumpy and horrible human. And that guy who picked up the phone, nobody wants to hire them or be around them, They’re gonna avoid ’em like the plague. Now on the other end of it, they’re gonna be like, hey, well call, let’s grab a beer, let’s brainstorm and find some places. Or, I know a guy may not be hiring, but yeah, like it’s very different and you’re setting yourself up for success.
Brenda: So, what would you say is the biggest takeaway from all the research when it comes to resilience? Because that’s what we’re talking about here.
Nina Sossoman-Pogue: So the definition of resilience, so people get it mixed up with persistence and grit. So persistence and grit are very different than resilience. And the best example I have is think about January 1st, 2020. Yeah, we all were there. You were alive at that point, January 1st, 2020. You probably had New Year’s resolutions. Maybe that was the year you were going to take the vacation or get the promotion or do the thing, lose the weight. You know, that was all, all of the things that we had listed on our, our lists of things we were going to do.
So we got up and those, we had that list, and then the world changed, right? And we couldn’t take the vacation or we couldn’t do all the things we were going to do. We couldn’t even go to the gym. You know, I started off, I called it the pandemic. I was like, yeah, I’m just going to get tan and lay out and get in shape and then it just kept going. And then I, like I said, binge watched Netflix and drank way too much wine and gained, I gained the COVID-19 and then it became the COVID 25 like. Anyway, back to that January when we all had those dreams.
Then the world changes and we have to do things differently. You couldn’t just double down and go hard. Persistence, I’m going to keep going at this, was not going to get you through that year. Grit. I don’t care how hard it gets, I’m going to keep going. Kind of was not gonna get you through that year. You had to be resilient. You had to adapt in a positive way to what life was throwing at you. So, the definition of resilience is your ability to learn, grow stronger, and adapt in a positive way. And that’s what my framework does. It helps you adapt in a positive way to go forward.
Brenda: This has been a masterclass.
Nina: Thank you.
Brenda: And I am, I, I just can’t wait to like go back over all of these amazing points. Nina Sossamon-Pogue, thank you so much for being with us today.
Nina: Thank you so much for having me, Brenda. It has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for trusting me with your audience and spending some time today.
Brenda: Wow. Right? There was a lot of amazing insights in that conversation. A huge thank you to Nina for sharing her journey and introducing us to her THIS framework. Now, if you want to dive deeper, I highly recommend checking out her book, This Is Not the End. But for now, here are three takeaways that really stuck with me. Number one, the setback is a dot, not the whole line. Now, I love this visual exercise from Nina. You draw a long line that represents your entire life.
Then you put a single dot on it to represent your setback. Instead of staring at that one dot, you look at the whole picture. What do you see? Everything that came before it, and even more importantly, all the open road you still have ahead. When you’re dealing with a failure or a major challenge, it can feel all consuming. But this simple exercise is a powerful physical reminder that this one moment isn’t your entire story. Number two, take control of your story. This is such good advice when a setback hits. It’s easy to let it define the story we tell. But Nina’s point is crucial.
People believe the story you tell them, if your story is about how the company that let you go is doomed without you, you might just sound bitter. But if your story is, yes, I’m disappointed, but I’m focused on what’s next. Now you sound resilient and ready. Like Nina said, feel all your feelings. Absolutely. But be strategic about who you share them with. Especially the people who could open the next door for you. And finally, number three, the reverse job interview.
I really love this one. Picking the brains of people in your network is great. We tell people to do it all the time, but just chatting over coffee can lead to generic advice if you don’t come to the table with specifics. So next time, try Nina’s prompt for cutting through all the noise. Find someone you trust and admire.
In a field or role you are interested in, ask them, if you were hiring me today, what role would you put me in? It’s a brilliant way to see how others perceive your core strengths in a practical way, and don’t be surprised if it changes the way that you think about your own skills and what you might be able to use them for.
But here’s the key. Ask this of a mentor or a contact, not someone you’re actively asking for a job. It takes all the pressure off and invites a truly honest answer. If you want to know more about Nina and the THIS framework, we’ll have links for you in our show notes. As always, if you enjoyed our discussions, then please follow B The Way Forward wherever you listen to your podcasts.
If you can, I’d appreciate it if you could take a moment and rate and review the show. It really helps other people discover these conversations. And of course, you can also watch video episodes of this podcast on the AnitaB.org channel on YouTube. For more information on how you can be the way forward, visit AnitaB.org.