Nina Sossamon-Pogue
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And that one I made on my own. That was not a forced change. That was one where I said, you know something? I'm going to do something different and bigger now that I've decided that I don't want to be front and center and on TV anymore. I want to be the next version of Nina. That was a big change.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Yeah. And I think this is probably what your listeners can take away from this podcast the most is when you do have something happen or you decide to make a big change, there's always a lot of opportunities. There's always new things you've never even thought of. And for me, going from television, live TV to anything else, I had to figure out one, like you said, what am I good at?
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And then two, what Where's the money? Obviously I had three small kids. I had to go and figure out where is the money? Like I have to go keep working. So what am I good at? Where is the money? And then what is the industry look like? is the industry that I'm jumping into on an upswing or a downswing. And I wanted to make sure I was jumping into an industry that would be the best space for me.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
So what I did was I said, I had coffee and I went to lunch with people who knew me, who I had admired, but I didn't work for them. And they were business owners. And I said, if you had to hire me for something, what would you hire me for? You see me on TV every night. We'd We've known each other. We've been on some boards together. We've done some projects together.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
But if you had to hire me, what am I good at? What would you hire me for? And I listened. And I met with someone in marketing. I met with someone who was at a big law firm. I met with different people that I respected, women business owners that I respected. And so I, from them, came up with a list of what my skills were. Like the marketing guy said, you don't know marketing.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
You just know how to be a product. You're on TV. And then the attorney I was going to work with, I was going to teach his teams how to interact with the media. He said, I would hire you to help me teach my biggest attorneys how to talk to the media. So there were a lot of different things I was thinking about.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And then I met with one friend with this startup, and he said, here's what my technology is. I couldn't even understand it. I didn't know technology, so it was hard for me to understand technology. what exactly they did. It was a software as a service platform for health insurance, nothing sexy. But when I looked at it, it was very lucrative. That's where the money is.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And in healthcare and in tech, obviously, and that was 2007. And at that time, Google had just bought YouTube. And so I could see, oh, video is going to be a part of people's platforms. People's software platforms are going to have to show video to explain things.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
It's going to have to be embedded all over those platforms to keep you in a process when you're signing up for things, to answer questions. It's going to be a big part of where we're going is going to be video in software, online, And think about this back in 2007 and 8, that was a big deal. The thought process was, I am good at being on camera and video and I know that world.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Google had just bought YouTube. The money was in healthcare and software. And I could see the mashup of all of those creating a very successful future for me. And so that's why I was willing to leave a very comfortable job in television and make that change because I wanted to do something bigger and better. And now on the same side, television news was going down. That industry was going down.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
So everything was going online. We didn't quite have the news in our pockets like we do now on our phones. But we were able in the 2007 era to be able to, it wasn't just three television shows a day, there was TV 24-7. And there were a lot of places to get information that weren't just on TV. So that industry was changing a lot as well.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And it was one that was going on the downside while the other one was on the upside. So I just jumped from the ship that was sinking to the ship that was going up. That was what I did.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
It was a new opportunity for both you and the company. I was going to add to that, if I can jump in for a moment. I was going to add to that because you made a very good point. I figured out what I was good at, and it wasn't just me communicating on TV. What people told me that I didn't realize I was good at and through those meetings is that you're a journalist.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
You're really good at taking very complex things and making them simple. making them sound simple so everybody can understand them. So for me to jump into a tech space where they need to explain healthcare and healthcare offerings and insurance and all of that, it wasn't sexy, but it was a lot of information and it was changing.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
We had the Affordable Care Act and things here in the States and it was changing. And so I could take all this really thick documentation and all this information and get it down to 30 seconds and give it to the person so they could make a decision. And what I learned through those coffees and things was that, you know what you're good at, Nina?
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
You're good at taking a big bunch of information and getting it into a tiny little tight ball and handing it to the person. And that is what we need. It was interesting. When you look at what you're good at, you may not realize what you're good at in a way that other people do. That's why those conversations are so important.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Absolutely. And be creative in your own head as you're thinking what you're good at. But I really encourage people to, you might not have seen that about yourself, but she did. Same thing for me. I didn't see that in myself. Other people said, oh, you could do this. Having conversations with other people that ask them, what do you think I'm good at, is really interesting.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
You really will learn a lot about yourself. It's hard when we're in our own head. One, we might not see our skills. Two, it's something that other people think is really valuable that we can do. For us, it may be second nature. We don't even think of it as a skill. It's just who we are. So really cool to look at it that way. She saw something in you you might not have seen.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
I had the same situation when someone saw something in me. So for your listeners, maybe get an outside opinion, figure out what else you might be good at that you don't even see.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Thank you so much for having me on, Vince.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Excellent. Thanks, Vince. Yeah, I feel like I could steal your name and I could be the chief change officer with all the changes in my own life. I was, as you said, I was a young gymnast and that was from childhood back when I was four or five years old, all the way until I was almost 20. So my big bulk of my childhood was gymnastics and I was on the US team, traveled all over the world.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And then I didn't make the Olympics. Very crushing blow and very sad time for me to regroup and figure out what's next. And then I became a collegiate athlete back on top of my game, happy again, doing my thing. And then I got injured and another big change in my life. I had to figure out who I was without gymnastics. And then I found television and I loved that.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And I had big success in television.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
became a reporter and then a news anchor and won some awards and then I had another big change in my life and had actually a very difficult time at 37 in those years and then when I was 40 I changed again and I went from television to tech and then jumped into that space and did that for a dozen years and then changed once again and became an author and a speaker and now
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
I'm out here talking about just that. How does someone change something that very much is part of their life and they identify with? How do you go from one thing to another and not just survive some of the big changes in our lives, but to thrive through them and really find bigger success on the other side?
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Absolutely. It's very much what defined my early resilience. And I think gymnastics is a great example of resilience. You literally fall down and have to get back up all day, every day as you're learning new skills. And I was very young and active when I was little and the youngest of four kids. And my parents put me in gymnastics. as an outlet for all of that energy that I had.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And then I just got really good at it really fast. I was competing at six or seven. And then I moved away from home at 13 into an Olympic training center near Washington, D.C., here in the States. And I made the U.S. team. And I get to travel all over the world, Japan, Hungary, Germany, Australia. So I'm out there doing it. And that resilience, that being coachable resilience,
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
came in and being coachable and being told, change this, do that. When you fall, get up, keep going. That's early, those early seeds of resilience and how to adapt and keep getting better. That's what gymnastics is. You just keep adapting and getting better. You try a skill, you adapt, you get it better, you adapt some more.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Arms higher, twist sooner, whatever the coaching is, you are continually adapting to get better at the sport. And so that adaptation honestly helped me very much when it came time to do all the other things in my life. And when I didn't make the Olympic team, I had to adapt once again to figure out what was next. So yes, that resilience definitely was born into me at a very young age.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Yeah, I love it that you love the 84 games. Those are the ones I was training with Mary Lou Retton and Bart Conner. That whole group was who I traveled all over the world with. So I blew up. So I first I didn't make the games simply because I was not the best. I bombed a competition going into it. Only a handful of girls make it. The U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
team probably has 20 girls on it, had about 20 girls on it back then. And then six make it to the Olympics. Now only four. So it was not that I injured myself or anything. I just wasn't the top. But then when I got to college and competed, I actually did injure myself. I bombed. The meet, not to make the Olympics, happened to be a balance beam routine.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And then in college, I did a beam dismount off the balance beam and I blew out my knee. So lost my sport altogether at that point. And It was a very difficult time for me because I had to figure out who I was without gymnastics. Because as you said, I mean, you watched it on TV. We all did. It was such a big sport in the U.S. and around the world.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And to be a part of that was such a cool thing to be a part of. And even when I went to college, it was still part of me. But when I could no longer do the sport, I had to figure out who I was without gymnastics. One of the biggest changes in my life. Who is little Nina? I was only 19 at the time. Who is Nina without gymnastics? What was I going to change into, to use your word change?
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
What was I going to change into? What was the next version of me going to be? And it was very difficult for me to, one, accept that I could no longer have that identifier as a gymnast, and two, figure out what was going to be next for me.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Yeah, so when I blew out my knee in college, in order to keep my scholarship, and my family didn't have a lot of money, so I had to have a scholarship to go to college. So in order to keep my scholarship for gymnastics without being a gymnast, I had to work for the university.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And so I ended up working in the laundry room, like not washing cute little leotards, but in an athletic laundry room washing like... men's football and basketball uniforms. Like, it was not a fun job. And I would sit outside that room. I'd switch out the laundry and I would sit outside in the sunshine while the laundry was going.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
One day, a person walked by and I was always unhappy and grumpy and I was on crutches. I was still in a very bad spot because I hadn't figured out what was next for me, not being a gymnast. And one day, an athletic advisor who was an academic advisor, not a light coach or a mental health coach, they didn't have any of that back then.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
But this young guy came by and he plopped down and he said, hey, how are you? And I probably said something weird. snarky. Great, can't you tell? But over time, he would stop and he would plop down next to me and talk to me. And he is the one who finally said, hey, what do you want to do after this? And no one had ever asked.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And I had never thought about what I wanted to be after this thing, after gymnastics. And so he got me thinking about it. And I found journalism. I ended up working. I moved from the laundry room to work for the sports information department for the college. And then I got an internship in a TV station. And the first time, Vince, that I walked into that TV station, I was hooked.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
I loved the energy and the excitement. I loved it. Like you had to get the story done that day. It was fast. It was challenging. No two days were ever the same. I just fell in love with that concept of journalism. And so I switched my mic. my schooling and went down through the journalism program and graduated and started my journey into that.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
First as a reporter at different small TV stations, and then I got an anchor job and really loved being a news anchor and being part of a community.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
Yeah, so I was in television for 17 years. It was a long stretch of my life as a reporter and then a news anchor. And during those years, I had some big changes too. So in my 30s, when I was on television, I did three shows a day, live TV, three shows a day, every single day, Monday through Friday. And... During those years, I went through some of my own changes.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
At one point during that time, I was let go from a TV station and big nationwide layoffs, budget cuts. They let me go and I had to figure out. And I had just one favorite news anchor. I was just voted favorite news anchor for the seventh year in a row. But they let me go and I had to figure out. They just... pulled me into the office and said, we're releasing you from your contract.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And so I had to find a new way forward and I went to another TV station. So that was one really difficult time. And I also went through a divorce during that time. So that was a big change in my life. So I had a lot of changes there. And I was involved in an accident during my time on television.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And I won't go into all the details for your viewers because you guys don't want to hear all the sad stuff. But it was really sad and I wasn't at fault or anything. It was just a sad thing to be a part of. And I had a hard time figuring out how I was going to be happy again on the other side of it because I was so sad.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And I went through a very dark time then and decided during that rediscovery of who I was and wanting at times to end my life, it was very difficult. I realized then that maybe TV was not going to be my forever. And I started looking for what is the next thing. And so I decided to get out. And I had a friend who had a startup who made me a great offer. And so I jumped from television to tech.
Chief Change Officer
#269 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part One
And that was a huge change. And I could talk to you more about why I chose this specific team, this specific company. There was a lot that went into it. But then I had to learn technology. I had to learn a whole new world. And that was a very scary time to make a big change. I was really excited about this next chapter of my life as I look at it. That was one of my biggest changes.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
and what you do with the pieces that you've been given. And I would do something different with the pieces that I've been given in my life. That's just one way to look at it. I like a Lego analogy because we all can think of them as the pieces and parts. We've all played with them. And the pieces and parts that we are dealt, whatever you get in that Ziploc bag, that's who you are.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
That's your personality. That's your talents. That's where you live, what you do. Actually, our Lego, our Ziploc bags wouldn't be exactly the same, most likely. But even if we had some of the same skills and talents and things, we would make different things. Your definition of success is very personal to you. What a successful lifetime looks like for you is very personal to you.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
But you have to decide what that looks like because otherwise you won't be happy or feel fulfilled if in your head what success looks like isn't what you're actually doing because you're doing something that is somebody else's level of success. Does that make sense?
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
My pleasure. My pleasure. The definition of resilience that I use is the ability to learn, grow stronger, and adapt in a positive way. That adapt piece is really important. So you have persistence and grit. That's double down and go hard and just keep going. That's very different from resilience. Resilience, you have to make a change. That is adapt in a positive way.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
So I love that you had me on today. I love that you have this Chief Change Officer podcast. I think it's fantastic. I hope that I've shared some nuggets of wisdom that can help your listeners today.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Absolutely. And be creative in your own head as you're thinking what you're good at. But I really encourage people to, you might not have seen that about yourself, but she did. Same thing for me. I didn't see that in myself. Other people said, oh, you could do this. Having conversations with other people that ask them, what do you think I'm good at, is really interesting.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
You really will learn a lot about yourself. It's hard when we're in our own head. One, we might not see our skills. Two, something that other people think is really valuable that we could do. For us, it may be second nature. We don't even think of it as a skill. It's just who we are. So really cool to look at it that way. She saw something in you, you might not have seen.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
I had the same situation when someone saw something in me. So for your listeners, maybe get an outside opinion, figure out what else you might be good at that you don't even see.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Yeah, so I came up with this concept a few years ago and I think it's super valuable for anybody who's in the middle of a change or who's just looking at what skills they have or what their life looks like. Sometimes we get really frustrated and we think, can I even keep going? What is my next thing? I'm tired and exhausted. I'm anxious, that anxiety and stress from working all the time.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And what I have people do is to draw a line across a piece of paper, and then put little dots, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 10 dots across that line. So turn your paper sideways and put 10 dots across that line. So it looks like a timeline. And then I call that your lifetime timeline. And you can go and put all the things that you mentioned, all your achievements on the top there and about the year.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
So if that's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, however old you are, Put the stuff that you've done, your achievements on the top, the things that you would find on your resume, your LinkedIn, wherever you keep your CV.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
So you put that across the top and that's, you got this award and you took this, you got this degree and you have the certification, the jobs you've held, all of that, the good stuff you're proud of is on the top. And then I ask people to go down below the line and put down things that you have overcome. And this could be anything. This could be raising a child with a disability.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
This could be a death of a loved one. This could be being raised in a poor situation. This could be an accident you overcame or an illness you overcame. Or if you're later in life like me, this could be the divorce or the getting fired or all that other stuff that you have gotten through. The big challenges you face, you put those down below. And then...
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And that's your reverse resume, what I call your reverse resume. Those are the things, the down below the line stuff is what makes you who you are. The top stuff is your accolades. That's great. That's what you're doing. Down below is who you're being. So that's your reverse resume shows you all you've overcome and all of those things that you have managed through.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And I always tell people there's hidden gems in there that can tell you who you really are, what you're made of and who you are as a person. And that reverse resume is really important because that tells you what you're made of. And so when I'm hiring someone, sometimes they'll say, what's something you've overcome, something you've challenged that you have managed through.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
That piece of who you are is really important. a big part of the strength that you bring to the table. So every time, when you look at it on a line like this, you can see the above the line and the below the line. And if you draw a line from one to the other, it's like this up and down, like an echocardiogram, like it's your heartbeat. And life is all these ups and downs.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And that bottom part is really important to figure out who you are and what you have to offer. That's becoming more resilient. Every time you're back up over that line, that's when you become more resilient.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And the cool part about it is you can see all your achievements. If you keep this piece of paper, you can see all your achievements above. You can see all you've overcome below. And no one has a blank resume above and below. We have stuff above and below that we need to be not just acceptance of, that this is who we are here. But we should be proud of we've gotten through these things.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
You should be as proud that you've gotten the reverse resume, the stuff you've gotten through, as much as you have the stuff that you have achieved. So it's both pieces of it. And the best part about this, Vince, is you're on a dot on that right now. So however old you are, you put that dot on there. on that line, the line with the, I'm between the 50 and the 60 right there.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
I could put my dot there. And then the magic of this, on those tough days that you mentioned, or if you're in the middle of a reinvention, on those tough days, you can see that there's a dot and then there's all this blank space ahead. All that blank space, you're going to decide what goes in there. And all that blank space ahead, you could be something different. You could have more above.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
There's going to be more below, unfortunately, because that's life. But you can see all the blank space ahead and start to imagine what might go there.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Yeah, it's... how you want your next chapter to be. I always say it's okay to not be okay. We all have tough times. It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. So if you're one of those down moments, you've got to figure out how to get yourself back up over that line. back into the happy part of the resume up there instead of the tough part of the resume.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. And if you look at all that blank space ahead, your next chapter could be your best chapter. You just don't know. It gives hope and optimism. Like when you put that dot on the line, all those years, all that blank space ahead, if it was a book, it's all the empty pages. You are in control of what's going to go there.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
More so than your spouse or where you live or your children or your boss. Like you decide the words and the language and how you're going to feel about things going forward. So that blank space ahead is where you can want to imagine what might go there and you're responsible for putting stuff there that you like. and making it successful. You got to get back up over that line.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Okay not to be okay, not okay to stay that way. It's your responsibility to make the next chapter something better.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Yeah, it's how to look at success. And I call it your lifetime timeline, your success timeline. So if I asked you, Vince, what does success look like? When I say, oh, he's successful, what do you picture?
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Yeah, not your own definition of success for you, but if you go, he's successful, a lot of times what people say is, if I say he's successful, he's got the nice house or the nice car, or he's got a boat here in the US, that's a big thing. Or he's got things, or he flies in nice jets and things like that. He's successful, what that looks like, that imagery.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
Now, if I say the same thing, he's had a, or she's had a successful lifetime. That looks different in your head. He's a success or he's had a successful lifetime. She's a success. She's in a great suit. She's got a great job. She's a success. She's had a successful lifetime. That looks different. What does that look like?
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
And so I ask people to, this timeline helps you look at, oh wait, am I just having a success or For me, I had some success, some financial success. I bought a nice car. I had a nice house. I had things. But I want to build a successful lifetime. And for me, that's how do I give back? That's raising my kids. That's all the other things that go into it.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
so that's with this timeline you can see what does that whole life look like the big messy marvelous life because we each get one you can put it all on one piece of paper and go does this look successful so each of us has to define our own successful timeline
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
yes yes so you have legos right and you're in hong kong yeah you have legos i think the whole world has legos so if i yeah if i gave you a ziploc bag full of legos and you had it there in hong kong and i had the same match of legos here in the united states and i had my own ziploc we both had the same ziploc bag full of legos We would dump them out on a table, same colors and shapes.
Chief Change Officer
#270 Nina Sossamon-Pogue: From Olympic Dreams to Pink Slips—and Back Again — Part Two
We have identical ones. We would dump them at a table and you would make something very different than me. We wouldn't make the exact same thing. So I look at your life as you've got your own bag of Legos, your stuff, your skills, your things, and you would make something very different. That's your success. What you're building is very personal to you.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And I would do something different with the pieces that I've been given in my life. That's just one way to look at it. I like a Lego analogy because we all can think of them as the pieces and parts. We've all played with them. And the pieces and parts that we are dealt, whatever you get in that Ziploc bag, that's who you are. That's your personality. That's your talents.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
That's where you live, what you do. Actually, our Lego, our Ziploc bags wouldn't be exactly the same, most likely. But even if we had some of the same skills and talents and things, we would make different things. Your definition of success is very personal to you. What a successful lifetime looks like for you is very personal to you.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
But you have to decide what that looks like because otherwise you won't be happy or feel fulfilled if in your head what success looks like isn't what you're actually doing because you're doing something that is somebody else's level of success. Does that make sense?
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
My pleasure. My pleasure. The definition of resilience that I use is the ability to learn, grow stronger, and adapt in a positive way. That adapt piece is really important. So you have persistence and grit. That's double down and go hard and just keep going. That's very different from resilience. Resilience, you have to make a change. That is adapt in a positive way.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
So I love that you had me on today. I love that you have this Chief Change Officer podcast. I think it's fantastic. I hope that I've shared some nuggets of wisdom that can help your listeners today.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Absolutely. And be creative in your own head as you're thinking what you're good at. But I really encourage people to, you might not have seen that about yourself, but she did. Same thing for me. I didn't see that in myself. Other people said, oh, you could do this. Having conversations with other people that ask them, what do you think I'm good at, is really interesting.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
You really will learn a lot about yourself. It's hard when we're in our own head. One, we might not see our skills. Two... something that other people think is really valuable that we could do. For us, it may be second nature. We don't even think of it as a skill. It's just who we are. So really cool to look at it that way. She saw something in you, you might not have seen.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
I had the same situation when someone saw something in me. So for your listeners, maybe get an outside opinion, figure out what else you might be good at that you don't even see.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Yeah. So I came up with this concept a few years ago, and I think it's super valuable for anybody who's in the middle of a change or who's just looking at what skills they have or what their life looks like. Sometimes we get really frustrated and we think, can I even keep going? What is my next thing? I'm tired and exhausted. I'm anxious, that anxiety and stress from working all the time.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And what I have people do is to draw a line across a piece of paper and then put little dots, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 10 dots across that line. So turn your paper sideways and put 10 dots across that line. So it looks like a timeline. And then I call that your lifetime timeline. And you can go and put all the things that you mentioned, all your achievements on the top there and about the year.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
So if that's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, however old you are, with the stuff that you've done, your achievements on the top, the things that you would find on your resume, your LinkedIn, wherever you keep your CV. So you put that across the top and that's, you got this award and you took this, you got this degree and you have the certification.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
the jobs you've held, all of that, the good stuff you're proud of is on the top. And then I ask people to go down below the line and put down things that you have overcome. And this could be anything. This could be raising a child with a disability. This could be A death of a loved one. This could be being raised in a poor situation.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
This could be an accident you overcame or an illness you overcame. Or if you're later in life like me, this could be the divorce or the getting fired or all that other stuff that you have gotten through. The big challenges you face. You put those down below. And then... And that's your reverse resume, what I call your reverse resume.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Those are the things, the down below the line stuff is what makes you who you are. The top stuff is your accolades. That's great. That's what you're doing. Down below is who you're being. So that's your reverse resume shows you all you've overcome and all of those things that you have managed through.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And I always tell people there's hidden gems in there that can tell you who you really are, what you're made of and who you are as a person. And that reverse resume is really important because that tells you what you're made of. And so when I'm hiring someone, sometimes they'll say, what's something you've overcome, something you've challenged that you have managed through?
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
That piece of who you are is really important. a big part of the strength that you bring to the table. So every time, when you look at it on a line like this, you can see the above the line and the below the line. And if you draw a line from one to the other, it's like this up and down, like an echocardiogram, like it's your heartbeat. And life is all these ups and downs.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And that bottom part is really important to figure out who you are and what you have to offer. That's becoming more resilient. Every time you're back up over that line, that's when you become more resilient.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And the cool part about it is you can see all your achievements. If you keep this piece of paper, you can see all your achievements above. You can see all you've overcome below. And no one has a blank resume above and below. We have stuff above and below that we need to be not just acceptance of, that this is who we are here. But we should be proud of we've gotten through these things.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
You should be as proud that you've gotten the reverse resume, the stuff you've gotten through, as much as you have the stuff that you have achieved. So it's both pieces of it. And the best part about this, Vince, is you're on a dot on that right now. So however old you are, you put that dot on there. On that line, the line with the, I'm between the 50 and the 60 right there.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
I could put my dot there. And then the magic of this, on those tough days that you mentioned, or if you're in the middle of a reinvention, on those tough days, you can see that there's a dot and then there's all this blank space ahead. All that blank space. You're going to decide what goes in there. And all that blank space ahead, you could be something different. You could have more above.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
There's going to be more below, unfortunately, because that's life. But you can see all the blank space ahead and start to imagine what might go there.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Yeah, it's... how you want your next chapter to be. I always say, it's okay to not be okay. We all have tough times. It's okay to not be okay. But it's not okay to stay that way. So if you're one of those down moments, you've got to figure out how to get yourself back up over that line. back into the happy part of the resume up there instead of the tough part of the resume.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. And if you look at all that blank space ahead, your next chapter could be your best chapter. You just don't know. It gives hope and optimism. Like when you put that dot on the line, all those years, all that blank space ahead, if it was a book, it's all the empty pages. You are in control of what's going to go there.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
More so than your spouse or where you live or your children or your boss. Like you decide the words and the language and how you're going to feel about things going forward. So that blank space ahead is where you can want to imagine what might go there and you're responsible for putting stuff there that you like. and making it successful. You got to get back up over that line.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Okay not to be okay, not okay to stay that way. It's your responsibility to make the next chapter something better.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Yeah, it's how to look at success. And I call it your lifetime timeline, your success timeline. So if I asked you, Vince, what does success look like? When I say, oh, he's successful, what do you picture?
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Yeah, not your own definition of success for you, but if you go, he's successful, a lot of times what people will say is, if I say he's successful, he's got the nice house or the nice car, or he's got a boat here in the US, that's a big thing. Or he's got things, or he flies in nice jets and things like that. He's successful, what that looks like, that imagery.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Now, if I say the same thing, he's had a, or she's had a successful lifetime. That looks different in your head. He's a success or he's had a successful lifetime. She's a success. She's in a great suit. She's got a great job. She's successful. She's had a successful lifetime. That looks different. What does that look like?
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
And so I ask people to, this timeline helps you look at, oh wait, am I just having a success? Go for me. I had some success, some financial success. I bought a nice car. I had a nice house. I had things, but I want to build a successful lifetime. And for me, that's how do I give back? That's raising my kids. That's all the other things that go into it. So
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
That's, with this timeline, you can see what does that whole life look like? The big, messy, marvelous life, because we each get one. You can put it all on one piece of paper and go, does this look successful?
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
Yes. So you have Legos, right? And you're in Hong Kong. You have Legos. I think the whole world has Legos. So if I gave you a Ziploc bag full of Legos and you had it there in Hong Kong and I had the same match of Legos here in the United States and I had my own Ziploc. We both had the same Ziploc bag full of Legos. We would dump them out on a table, same colors and shapes, identical ones.
Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
We would dump them at a table and you would make something very different than me. We wouldn't make the exact same thing. So I look at your life as you've got your own bag of Legos, your stuff, your skills, your things, and you would make something very different. Your success, what you're building is very personal to you. and what you do with the pieces that you've been given.