Nina Sossamon-Pogue - Resilience for reinvention and change

[00:00:00] Hi everybody and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast that examines all aspects of personal and organisational resilience. A huge all-encompassing subject that covers the ability to thrive in life by harnessing your cognitive, emotional, physiological and contextual abilities. I share

[00:00:26] stories from people who have thrived despite remarkable obstacles, as well as highly successful practitioners and experts across a range of topics. This podcast introduces their amazing stories and expertise, as well as my own reflections, perspectives, strategies and

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[00:00:58] our work and contributing more proactively, you can find our new Patreon page at patreon.com then search for Resilience Unravelled. So let's get started. Enjoy the show. Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and I'm going to take a run at this. Are

[00:01:18] you ready? Here we go. I'm talking today to Nina Sossaman-Pogue. Perfect. I was sort of waiting for a cheer, a round of applause, but I mean that was quite underwhelming I have to say.

[00:01:30] You have to dump that in later, but it was really good. It's not an easy one. Nina Sossaman, Nina, it's a joy to talk to you. Very nice to talk with you. And I can tell by the accent you're not from these shores, so where in the

[00:01:42] world are you today? I am in Charleston, I'm in the US. I am in Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, I was there last year. It was a lovely place. I have to be honest, I'm going to

[00:01:53] tell you a secret and please don't hate me for this, but I did prefer Savannah. Really? Is that terrible? No, that is terrible. Yes, I'm not sure I want to keep going now. Part of the reason was when we were in Savannah, there were some trees and there

[00:02:05] were some baby owls growing in the trees. That's quite cute. I do. I love Savannah. They call it our sister city and it's got a little bit different vibe. It's smaller than Charleston and we've gotten pretty crowded.

[00:02:18] Traffic's more here than it is there, but Savannah has some like the College of Art and Design is there. I actually, my family, trace it way, way back, is from Savannah. There's a graveyard, one of those old graveyards with the big

[00:02:32] trees. And if you walk through it, it says Nina, Nina. There's a bunch of Ninas buried there. Yes, because Nina Anderson Pape, who I am named after, started girl scouting here in the US with Juliet Lo. And so there's the Pape School and all of that.

[00:02:46] So I will let you be a Savannah fan. I will forgive you this once. And in the midst of the bevy of not Nina's, how about that? Well, it's a joy to talk to you today and I'm enjoying your accent.

[00:02:59] It's a lovely accent. I can listen to that accent all day. Fantastic. So you better tell us a little bit about yourself, Nina. What is it that you do or what is it that you've done even more?

[00:03:09] Well, there's a lot to that. That's a loaded question right there. So I am a full time speaker. I'm a motivational speaker. I've written a couple of books. But what I've done where I got to this is I've had a very eventful life.

[00:03:24] I was a member of the US gymnastics team. So moved away from home at 13 to train like so many young gymnasts do in the US. And then I didn't make the Olympics. And then I went on to be a college gymnast and did very well.

[00:03:35] And then I blew out my knee. And then I found journalism and I became a journalist. I was an investigative reporter and then a news anchor. That's the voice. And then I did that for a while.

[00:03:46] And then I was let go at the peak of my career and some major layoffs across the nation. And then I found myself, did news for a while longer, had a very life changing event at one point. And then I got out of television and got into tech

[00:03:59] and I jumped into a tech startup and rode that wave. And we took the company public. I was the vice president of marketing and comms. So I have this tech experience. And then I got out of that. And because people kept saying, how do you keep reinventing yourself?

[00:04:14] How do you keep having these things knock you back and keep going? Got out of that and wrote a few books. And now I speak about resilience, which means you and I have quite a bit in common. We do. And we do well.

[00:04:26] OK, I've just been writing everything down so I can unpack some bits. And I have to say, I've run out the piece of paper. So great. So it's interesting. You use the phrase reinventing yourself a few times. So let's start there. What do you mean by reinventing yourself?

[00:04:44] Well, a lot of times in life, we have a goal, something that we you know, like, for example, my gymnastics, we have a goal that we really work towards and it's how we define ourselves. Think about young athletes today. It's their Twitter and their Instagram and their everything

[00:04:57] and how they brand themselves near TikTok. But when we go down that road and then something happens in life, those what now recalculating moments that I call them. Something happens. You have to reinvent yourself. You have to. That's no longer going to be part of your life.

[00:05:14] I had a career ending injury. Who was I without gymnastics? Figuring out what the best path forward for me was to not just stay where I was and be a former gymnast, but be something new. So the reinvention is what is the new and exciting thing

[00:05:29] I'm going to become in the next chapter of my book. If you want to think of it in chapters or your life story. So you're almost you're almost re casting your identity, in a sense. Yes. And and I I don't call it recasting your identity

[00:05:44] because I think we all have core values and beliefs that we hang on to. But reinventing who I am and what I'm going to do for success, whatever success means to me, to you, to what is that success going to look like in the future? Yes. So interesting.

[00:06:00] So so what you said, you described it. I mean, I can see actually how there's a there's a line from where you started to where there is now. And that's interesting. So how much of the how much of the stuff that you learned as a gymnast

[00:06:13] actually is who you are today? That's a lifetime ago, if you think about it, because I was 19 when I blew out my knee and now in my 50s, I'm 173 now. In my 50s, it feels very different from my 19 year old self.

[00:06:30] But there's some basics, whether you're a gymnast or if any of your listeners are athlete of any type. You know, with gymnastics, you learn to fall down and get back up. Smile like you can fall off, but you have to get back up and smile and keep going.

[00:06:44] You have to be coachable. You know, you learn from what you do wrong, not from what you do right. So those types of things, I think, carried on in my life. I got thick skinned because you are literally being judged every day subjectively.

[00:06:57] So that being able to be judged, being able to be coached, knowing to stand back up and keep going when you fall sometimes on your face and you have to stand up and smile and dance your way out of it. Interesting.

[00:07:10] People use the word thick skin a lot of me. And I mean, what do you mean by that? You know, that's a weird term. We should go back and look at where that term came from. But I think what I mean by it is

[00:07:24] people poke at you or stab at you and you have to not take that and let it wound you so deeply. Maybe that's what we mean by thick skin that not be wounded by everything everyone says about you.

[00:07:35] You know, I went from that to going to television and on TV, people will say horrible things about you all day long. Not everybody is going to like you. And so in you're not always going to be the best in your market or the best at some story.

[00:07:50] You may not get the story that somebody else gets. So you don't win every day. And then literally people I would go to the grocery store when I had two little kids, I'd have one in the buggy

[00:07:59] and one like in a backpack or my arms, like trying to maneuver like moms do with a shopping cart. And I was this TV personality. And people would come up to me and go, oh, you wore that red jacket yesterday and it made you look busty.

[00:08:11] I don't like that. I was like, really? I thought that's what you're worried about. Can you see that I'm navigating life right now? This is not the most important thing. But that's what I mean by thick skin just going, oh, OK, well,

[00:08:24] thank you for your feedback. And on we go. Interesting, isn't it? So why do you think people judge people in that sort of way? What do you think is going on? Oh, how do you make sense of it? It's very it's very difficult to make sense with.

[00:08:39] And it's gotten so much worse because when I did television was pre TikTok and Instagram, it was pre every your Facebook and everything being on social media. So it was harder to get to you nowadays. People can just say whatever they want, whenever they want,

[00:08:54] with no filter often and say horrible things to you. So I think that that concept of, you know, being thick skinned or managing that, it needs to continue to be something we all work on because it's not getting better.

[00:09:10] It's getting worse. And I worry about young people today. I don't know how it is there in the UK, but in the United States, the number one killer of young women, I think 13 to 25 is suicide, which is horrific.

[00:09:24] And if you think about where we were a few years ago, you could be the nerdy kid in your school or make a mistake or if you're in college, you get drunk at a party and fall on your face. And it was a small group of people now.

[00:09:35] It's out there for the whole world to laugh at and give you a hard time about. So I think that that concept of people picking on people, you know, there's a lot of anti-bullying stuff out there. There's they're putting new laws and new things in place

[00:09:50] to keep people from harming people through social media. But kids are dumb. Their prefrontal cortex isn't formed yet. They put things up without thinking and it harms people. So I don't know what the answer if you're looking for me for an answer,

[00:10:02] I don't have the answer to that. No, that's interesting because it strikes me that the way what you've been describing is because there are so broadly well, there's lots of different strategies, but there's two broad ones. One, which is that you let this stuff bounce off you.

[00:10:14] And that's what you're sort of describing here. You've got the facility to if anyone, you know, fires a dart at you, it sort of just bounces back off you. And there are some people who it penetrates.

[00:10:24] And for some people, they can they can figure that out, sort it out. It makes them strong. It's like having poison, isn't it? You deal with the poison, you build immunity and you and you move on.

[00:10:33] And I mean, that's played in the best way, but there's a lot of people who get hit by the arrow and they get poisoned and they don't recover. So there's there's something in that. So strategy one is bouncing off.

[00:10:44] So that's what you were talking about here a lot. And I like that because it's it's it's a really great place to start, isn't it? So when someone says something horrible to you, what do you think or do you just ignore it?

[00:10:59] Well, I don't think we can ignore it because our brains remember and our brains remember the bad stuff more than they remember the good stuff. So we have to come to terms with it and figure out where it fits in

[00:11:09] to our big, you know, giant messy life that is our life. It's not our whole life. And we have to remember if we're going through a tough time or people are judging us harshly or these people who have their five

[00:11:20] minutes of fame that aren't that aren't something they want to be five minutes of fame for that you can go through a bad time, a bad chapter, as I call it. It's not your whole story. Having a bad day doesn't make a bad week.

[00:11:33] You know, having a bad week doesn't make a bad year. Having a bad year doesn't even make a bad life. It's this concept of it's OK to not be OK. Yes, it hurts. Doesn't feel good. Let me figure out where to put this in my head.

[00:11:44] But it's not OK to stay that way. You got to move past it at some point. You've got to come to terms with it, figure out in your head where you put it and say, OK, yep, somebody said this or this happened

[00:11:54] or people don't like this about me. How do I feel about that? And then make it part of your own story. You either agree or disagree or you make a change or and then move forward. There's the ownership piece.

[00:12:06] I don't think that, you know, turning a blind eye to what people say is healthy because it eats away at you. I used to say and I still talk about this a little bit when I was in, I've had a very public life.

[00:12:18] So out there on the US team, out there on television and then very publicly out there as an executive at this very popular company. It used to be public pain because I was a public person. But that's not a thing anymore with the social media.

[00:12:33] Everyone's pain is public pain. There is no hiding it. I mean, everyone when you when somebody put something out there, you have to figure out how to manage through that and move forward. And that's part of my message is,

[00:12:48] you know, that public pain piece that used to be private, you know, kind of private in me and my small world. Now you on the other side of the pond know what's happening in my life. Why? Why would you?

[00:13:00] Why would you care about someone at Charles in South Carolina? But if something I did went viral, it would be out there for everybody to care about. And if it was something embarrassing or humiliating, it would still be out there for everybody to care about. Yes. To judge.

[00:13:15] And it takes and it takes it takes practice. I think what people don't understand is when you're young, you just haven't got the practice to understand how to make that choice and understand the the consequences of the choice you're making and the choice to be harmed or

[00:13:31] negatively affected by something is still a choice. And I don't think people understand that, do they? And sometimes we make that choice because we don't know how to make a different choice as well. I mean, this is part of the thing about learning, isn't it?

[00:13:44] I'm not sure we I'm not sure that we understand that resilience actually has a major component of learning in it. Like you said, when you're a gymnast, what they used to do is used to fail. And they used to say, now, this is how you do it.

[00:13:56] You know, you got that wrong. This is how you do it right. And there's that learning component, which means that every time you fail, you fail in a different way. The point is not to fail the same way over and over again, isn't it?

[00:14:05] And I think that's what we're seeing with a lot of youngsters. They've not learned. No one's teaching you how to fail and learn. Thoughts? 100 percent. So the definition of resilience that I like to lean into is one from the center of resilience.

[00:14:19] And it's the ability to adapt in a positive way to whatever happens in your life. It's that adapt in a positive way. So dig into that. What exactly does that mean? But the adapt piece is really, really key. You have to do things differently.

[00:14:34] We don't really learn from things we get right. We only learn from things we get wrong. And I think that young people today, you know, they get they get stuck or they think it's it's so big and out there when something happens, they can't see past it.

[00:14:46] I do a fun piece. It's chapter six in my book of my daughter, who when she was in college, she would call me and she'd go, Mom, my friends all think the life is ending. And I have to do chapter six once a week on my friends.

[00:14:57] But it's this concept of life is long. Like, and I do the math around it. So I think we have time. I'll do it real quick for you. So the math, when I blew up my knee, I was 19, 19 years old.

[00:15:09] But I've been in the gym since I was about four or five. So that's 75 percent of everything I knew in life had been gymnastics. So, of course, it felt like my whole life was over. I had wasted my life. I hadn't gone to high school dances.

[00:15:21] I just wasted my life in the gym. My life was over because it was 75 percent of what I knew. OK, now fast forward when I'm 50 and my kids are graduating from college or going off to college at three.

[00:15:35] So when I'm 50, I can look back and go, oh, at 50, when my kids are all leaving for college, that was now 28 percent of my life was gymnastics. And I've had a bunch of years in television, a bunch of years in tech, 20 plus years raising babies.

[00:15:49] And it looks very different, 28 percent of my whole life. And if I magically do the math and draw that timeline longer and I live to be 100, which I need to drink less wine and take better care of myself. But if I live to be 100, when you do,

[00:16:05] when I live to be 100, then it's only 15 percent. So that it's the kids like it does feel like everything when it's happening to you. But it is not your whole life. It looks very different when you play it forward.

[00:16:20] So you have to take that ownership, figure out where it fits in like, oh, this is a really stupid thing I did in a crappy chapter in my life. But it's a crappy chapter. You know, this year of college where I screwed up

[00:16:30] is a crappy chapter in my life. It's my whole life. But the thing about but the thing about crappy chapters and the thing about what you did is you didn't waste 20 percent of your life. You actually experience a hell of a lot of good stuff in that 20 percent.

[00:16:43] It was just the the bit of not succeeding at something or breaking it or messing up an easy issue. And and I actually think that crappy chapters are just choices. You're just thinking it's a crappy chapter. Actually, it's just so it's just another form of learning, isn't it?

[00:16:59] It's you know, we have to get things wrong to be able to move forward. Now, I do believe we can learn from the things that we get right. And I think a lot of people do. And I think there's a lot of coaching and guidance and self help

[00:17:10] based around happy, clappy, grubbit, you know, sort of toxic positivity brigade. And I like the fact you're saying that we have to learn from what we get wrong. But actually, we don't spend enough time really figuring out that,

[00:17:23] you know, how we turn a strength into a superpower thing, because we do spend a lot of time, especially in the corporate world. I mean, I'm sure you came across this yourself. We spent a lot of time agonizing about people's weaknesses

[00:17:33] rather than figuring out how to work at their strengths. So someone who has obviously a strength and resilience. I mean, you would you would double down on wouldn't you? You'd go out, you take more risks, you'd make more mistakes.

[00:17:45] And that's what you sort of done really, isn't it? It is because I realize it's not going to kill me. It's not going to end me. I know I can survive it and go keep going. Now, our brains don't like change. We know that.

[00:17:57] I mean, if you do the neuroscience of what's going on in our brains, whenever something happens, people don't like. I do a thing when I have a big audience full of people and I'll say, OK, in just a moment, I'm going to ask everybody,

[00:18:08] please pick up your things and switch seats. And the whole audience, you can just feel the in the room. Like in that moment, they don't like me. There's verbal like I can hear them go or like you can see.

[00:18:20] And then I read and I go, OK, I'm really not going to ask you to switch seats. But in that moment, cortisol came through your body because that's that stress hormone, adrenaline, some of you, your heart rate went up

[00:18:30] and you started sweating like I don't know where to go and what to do. That norepinephrine like you get really focused, like, wait, I was kind of paying attention. Now I'm really paying attention to what she's saying. Like the chemicals in our brains and bodies change through change.

[00:18:42] And so that constant, you know, feeling of when something changes, we have to figure out how to regulate our body. So when the big changes come and all that adrenaline and cortisol and all the things happen, we can self regulate and go, oh,

[00:18:56] I lived through this in the past. I'm going to live. This is going to be fine because our brains want to do all the stuff that that is comfortable, that is efficient. If we did it yesterday, then we know it's safe. Our brains default to comfortable, efficient, safe.

[00:19:13] Well, dependable. Are you saying this? Now I need to pick. I need to pick some some fight with you now, because of course, which is what you're saying is completely right, but not everybody. And the default mode you're talking about is absolutely right.

[00:19:28] But also our brains are hardwired for novelty. They're hardwired for innovation, the hard fight for new experiences. And and, you know, we are hardwired to see the world and look for different things every single day. There are a bunch of people who are hardwired to be,

[00:19:43] you know, in that default mode, which is the sort of negative and sort of cautious approach. But not everybody. And I suspect you're not either. I'm not, I'm not. And I think you are the survival, the survival piece of us, though. You know, whatever didn't kill us yesterday.

[00:20:00] Our bodies just kind of want to do that again because, hey, that worked. Let's just stay alive. Yeah, you said you. But you say that. But you but you say that. But again, we've got to be really careful that there is that is true.

[00:20:10] And I'm dancing around the edges just to sort of stem stimulate the debate, really. But we do like novelty. Otherwise, why would we have left Africa in the first place? Why would we have gone across the plains and savannas? Because it was very dangerous to do that change.

[00:20:27] And yet we did it. You know, it was very different to move houses. And yet we do. It's very different. Say all those things that you said. What you're talking about sometimes is that minor inconvenience. And actually, human beings are really good at innovation change frontiers

[00:20:40] going out, adventuring, exploring. Otherwise, otherwise, we'd all be sitting in Africa just, you know, worried about social media. No, 100 percent. And I think sometimes we forget that the resilience thing creates this capacity for great works. That's the point of it.

[00:20:59] Yeah. So I think we're saying the same thing differently. I'm saying that your brain, our bodies don't want to do this. Resilience is the ability to adapt. We want to go out and do things differently.

[00:21:10] We weren't made to be flatlined and just had the same thing be the same. We're going to have the good times. If you look at it like think of an echocardiogram, like we don't want to be straight flatline. The good times are up, the bad times are down.

[00:21:21] And we're going to have this bouncing up and down. We want the line to keep going. But the ability to adapt, that's where success and happiness comes from. We do. We need that as humans. We need to adapt.

[00:21:33] Like the resilience piece is building that muscle so we can have joyful, happy, innovative lives that continue to grow. That's what I've gotten good at through my years, is building that muscle so I can be innovative and think,

[00:21:45] how do I want to go do new things and have the courage to go do that? Yeah. And for the courage, you need the threat. And the threat creates the threat change. And we're really good at dealing with threats. So therefore, we're very good at dealing with change.

[00:21:59] Yeah, we don't want to just be the flatline board. Like especially if you were like listening to a podcast, to stimulate and think like you don't want to just sit on the couch and do nothing all day or stare at the ocean and wonder what's up.

[00:22:11] Like we definitely, as you said, are wired for adventure and innovation. And we want to do big exciting things. But being resilient is the ability to, you know, when things don't go as planned, to adapt in a positive way and continue to find new paths forward.

[00:22:26] Yeah. Sometimes I'll say it like a GPS, like the light that your GPS of life says, recalculate something happens. And it's like, OK, recalculating route. And when we're actually on a road trip, it's kind of nice that there's a GPS that says, OK, I know where you are

[00:22:40] and here's where you're going. I'm going to reroute you. But in life, there's nobody that says, OK, you're right here. We're going to reroute and go over there. So we have to do that ourselves, that that figure out how to move forward

[00:22:51] and which way to go and what adventure is next. So so OK, that's great. I love all that. And that makes a lot of sense to me. So we're looking at the world. And what we know about the way that the brain works is that we

[00:23:01] we have a slightly foggy view of the world. And what we do is we fill in the detail of the world based on our confirmation and our biases and according to certain theories. So so basically we get what we believe. And it's one of the biggest

[00:23:15] and it's one of the biggest things I listen to people talk about. We don't like change. And then we're surprised when people say, yeah, I don't like change. And if you talk to people about actually liking change, it's peculiar how they like it.

[00:23:27] So I've worked in organizations where we sat down and said, we're going to do some change. And everyone's gone, yeah, let's do it. Because actually what the culture is about is about it's not about resilience. It's about mindset. It's about saying that we get what we believe.

[00:23:41] So why don't we believe that the choices we can make are positive that day? Yeah, and I think that if you sat down a whole organization or whole company and said, you're going to make a change, you would get 50-50.

[00:23:53] I mean, you get a lot of people who love change. I mean, to not change is to stay where you are and keep doing the same thing over and over. People don't want to do that. They want change. They want to grow.

[00:24:04] That's the adapt and grow stronger piece. They want to grow. They want to learn new things. We want to expand our minds. All of that is adapting and growing. And there is no growth without change. There's zero growth without change.

[00:24:18] Exactly. We've got a sort of lovely bell curve now, haven't we? Because we've got people at the end who are very happy to do nothing and actually very happy to die because they're wired that way. And, you know, we've we'd in the past, we've we'd those people

[00:24:31] at the, you know, the population because they've done that. And you've got people at the far end and the vast majority of people are in that bell curve, aren't they? And I think what's important is that for me, I'm very optimistic about things. I like judgment.

[00:24:46] I think judgment is really positive for us. And the fact that people the people that say stuff to us is fascinating, isn't it? Because what people are doing when they're judging us, is they're actually telling us about themselves. They're not talking about us at all.

[00:24:58] What they're doing is they're revealing themselves to us every single day. So I quite I quite enjoy when the media storms, you know, blow up, because actually it's it's a window on the soul of the human psyche, isn't it?

[00:25:11] It is. And that goes back to you can enjoy it. But when you're young and you see it that way, it's very difficult to see that they're actually projecting themselves. You take it personally. So that's part of this learning.

[00:25:26] That's part of the reason we have these conversations is so people can see it that way. It should just be fascinating that someone doesn't like you. Oh, wow. What does that say about you? Because especially if you like yourself, like I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea.

[00:25:38] Like, all right, Nina's kind of a lot and very optimistic like you. Like, oh, she should be worried about all these things. Well, really, I don't know. They're not things that are within my reach or within my scope of having the ability to affect them.

[00:25:51] So I go and move on and work on things that I can affect and choose to be happy. Yeah, and there's the magic word again. You see, so that's it. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's like life every single.

[00:26:03] And that's what we should be not should. But it it's the point of parenting, isn't it? Is to is to teach youngsters at a very early level. That's there are choices, choices have consequences. And this is how it works.

[00:26:14] And I mean, it's fascinating because I watch quite a bit of American television and I watch models of parenting being explored. And your television is fascinating because it's all ideologically based. So if you have a sitcom, you know the ideology of the city.

[00:26:28] I sit behind it and people talk about this and then they disempower people from doing it, especially women. I mean, I find the role of women. I mean, it's fascinating. You had me too. And I always think why would you have me too?

[00:26:40] And and then, of course, then you spend some time in America and you realize why. And you look at American culture and you realize why. It's actually quite staggering how it's still the role of 50, 60,

[00:26:51] 70 year old white men to tell women what they have to do and what they have to think. It's quite staggering, isn't it? I mean, what's going on? Staggering is one way to put it. That's a whole other podcast.

[00:27:00] If you want to open up that can of worms with me, we're going to be here. We should because when are you all going to stand up and do something about it? Oh, there's plenty of people standing up. I hope so trying to do things about it.

[00:27:09] But yes, it is a very misogynistic world that we live in here in the States. And I raised two boys and a girl. And it was very hard at times to, you know, force my will upon them and outside of what culture and society says.

[00:27:28] But I like to think that there is a generation of women who are successful women who have really done the thinking and the work to put another generation of people out there to keep fighting this fight. It is not an easy battle, though, let me tell you.

[00:27:43] And it's I won't get into our current politics or what's happening now. It is all getting ugly all over again in new ways. So, yeah, my husband is always saying, OK, when are we going to move to whatever country? Yes.

[00:27:55] The trouble is, the choices are quite poor, aren't they? Because you go to Canada and it's really cold and you can't go south because apparently it's full of murderers and all those other things that are apparently south of the wall.

[00:28:06] I do feel a bit sorry for Americans, but there you go. We have our own choices, too. So don't feel sorry for us. I don't really know. I figured you didn't really, but I just wanted to correct that language. So OK, then. So so you're busy now.

[00:28:24] You're writing books, you're podcasting, you're influencing, you're speaking and such like 10 years time. Where are you going to be from from here? I'd like to still be influencing the audience of young people that's coming up.

[00:28:37] I am I a lot of my work right now is in the corporate space, but I'm leaning into more college work and trying to help in the in that mental health space. I'd like to still be in the mental health space.

[00:28:47] I'd like to have a few more books under my belt. I don't need to write 10 more, but I have a few other original thoughts. I'd like to spend time putting out into the world. And I really enjoy the speaking.

[00:28:57] I enjoy the speaking piece of it being on stages because I spent so many years in television in a little box. I'm doing this with my hands like Vogue. I spent a lot of years on television and it was just a talking head.

[00:29:10] I like being around people and getting that feedback and having conversations like this that make me think of things in new ways and hopefully plant some seeds that help people think of things in new ways and manage through the tough times in their life.

[00:29:25] I like to say my focusing on empowering high achievers right now. I'm really focused on that high achievers to sustain their ambition. Don't give up and not want to do hard things or try to innovate or do new things without compromising your mental health.

[00:29:39] So that's a big piece of what it is. Ten years from now, that's what I want to be doing. So not compromising your mental health. That's really interesting, isn't it? Is that... There's a real word I want to say here and I have to struggle.

[00:29:52] I can't say it. It's infantilizing. Is that a word? It's what I mean. But I think sometimes we do get into this thing about be careful. Don't look after your mental health and all that sort of stuff. But actually, your mental health, which was challenged at the beginning,

[00:30:08] which has been the foundation of your success. So I wonder whether we start talking to people about mental health too much instead of actually creating opportunities for people to learn and challenge themselves and innovate and such like. I think it's the same thing.

[00:30:25] I think it's all wrapped in there together. I think the mental health piece is the stress that we create by wanting more and wanting to change and grow and adapt. That does become stressful. And the mental health is the comparison culture

[00:30:41] in the FOMO world that we live in right now. People just start feeling good about themselves for a moment, then they pick up their phone and their world can change. That's very new. This is a very new, fascinating piece of mental health.

[00:30:55] The fact that we have so much information in our pockets and so many ways to compare and judge in our hands. So I think that's a new part of the conversation. So 10 years from now, who knows what it will be like,

[00:31:08] but I still want to be part of that conversation. And so the effort, the big work should be around parenting, shouldn't it? Parenting skills. I think, yeah, parenting skills. And somehow we have to get what is cool or accepted

[00:31:26] or like, the vibe needs to adjust a little bit right now because this pointing out people's mistakes and faults and blunders and making that the coolest thing you can see online, that's got to change. Yeah. But then human beings arguably are inherently cruel things.

[00:31:46] We've got a track record of going to new countries and killing everything left, right and center. It's how we survived. So it's how do we tame that in a beast? I can't think of a better word. I don't mean beast, but you know what I mean.

[00:32:00] But it's there. But generationally it's there. Well, I worked in television all those years and people used to say, hey, do some good news stories. And I said, well, if it was good news, that would be, that was different from the norm. The reason things make the news

[00:32:14] is because they're not the norm. So if we start talking about the good stuff and that's the norm, like, oh my gosh, someone baked a cake and gave it to their neighbor this week. That would be scary if that was the oddity of life.

[00:32:28] So we do, we are fascinated with the trends. When they say it's a train wreck, I can't look away. We are fascinated with that. The whole generation of journalists, it bleeds, it leads. That's true. It was just horrible. Yeah, the journalists are terrible creatures, aren't they?

[00:32:43] And marketeers, although, I mean, basically social media was great and so the marketeers got their hands on it. So as we all say, and I put myself in that category, but I have to say now, all I'm thinking about is cake. So thank you, or pie.

[00:32:56] So, but look. Go on, go on. I couldn't decide if I was going with cake or pie in that example, but cake just sounded really good right now. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite kind of cake? The important stuff. What kind of cake do you like?

[00:33:08] Cake, any sort of cake. Really? Is there a bad sort of cake? No, I've never met a cake I didn't like. You're right. Just soap. Yeah. That's a terrible old joke. Now, all right then. So Nina, how do people find out more about your work?

[00:33:22] How to sell them? Just noticed our time is leaking on. I want to respectfully be yours. So how do people find out more about you? Where can they engage with you in fact? Super. I am on all your social media platforms.

[00:33:35] I'm not on X, that's the only one I'm not on. But on Instagram, it's probably the best place to follow me on Facebook or Instagram. It's Nina Speaks and you will find it, it's broken up. S-P period underscore stuff. It's not exactly like it looks,

[00:33:50] but you'll find me if you look there under Nina Speaks. And on LinkedIn. Is it Nina speaking? Nina Speaks. Okay. There's several Ninas who are speakers. Also fantastic speakers. So mine is broken up a little bit and I came up with a way to do it.

[00:34:10] It was not the best. So it's not easy to say on a podcast how to find me, but you can always find me on LinkedIn. Yeah. On LinkedIn. If you connect me to business, if you want me to speak to your group

[00:34:20] or to connect with me that way, I do quite a bit of posting on LinkedIn as well. But Instagram and LinkedIn. You can always find me on Facebook on Nina Sossum and Vogue author. I'm all over the place. And I would love to have some new followers

[00:34:34] and some new feedback and people to join this conversation from wherever your listeners are. Or just, I mean, I have to just take my hat off to you there because that was proper news anchor. At the end of that sentence from where

[00:34:48] just the way you delivered that was just a masterclass. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, I've done this. I've done the television and then this voice stuff for a long time. So I guess some of it is just automatic.

[00:35:02] We're wrapping up and now I should say a thing and that's how you say the thing. Yeah. I mean, it's just watch. It was like poetry. It really was. I'm not being sarcastic because I know Britt's soul. But no, I'm genuinely- Three shows a day for 20 years.

[00:35:16] I can wrap up and get out whenever you want me to. And maybe I should learn how to do that. So look, Nina, it's been an absolute joy to talk to you today. Thanks so much for your time. And whatever you're gonna do in 10 years time

[00:35:28] you'll still be there rocking it, I'm sure. So thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you very much Russell. Thank you for having me. Pleasure, you take care. Hi everybody. I hope you found that episode useful and interesting. Feedback is always welcomed.

[00:35:46] And if you're in the mood to subscribe to us or even leave a comment on iTunes or Stitcher that would be amazing. If you want to suggest ideas or even people you would like me to interview then reach out to us at qedod.com forward slash contact.

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