Chief Change Officer
#156 Career Math 101: Erica Sosna’s Formula for Bouncing Back – Part One
Sat, 1 Feb 2025
Life’s Toughest Recalculations. Part One. Erica Sosna, author of The Career Equation, knows a thing or two about career pivots—but 2022 threw her a plot twist she never saw coming. An accident left her paralyzed, forcing her to relearn not just how to walk but how to rebuild her life and business from the ground up. Two years later, she’s standing tall—literally and figuratively—proving that resilience isn’t just a mindset, it’s a full-body workout. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Two Jobs, Two Failures: A Gut Check Moment “After two roles that didn’t work out as planned, I hit a crossroads. I took a step back and asked: am I in the right place? I needed to rethink my priorities, work style, and the kind of organization that would truly support me.” The School of Hard Knocks: Rejections and Redirections “Returning to the corporate world after running my own social enterprise was unexpectedly tough. My CV was different, unconventional, and people didn’t trust me to hold down a job. It took resilience to find an organization that valued my unique experience.” Shifting Gears: When Your Work Becomes Your Solace “Returning to my consultancy after a year’s absence was grounding. My work has always been my passion, but after such a physically uncontrollable experience, the familiar structure felt like a comfort. It also became a chance to rethink: How could I reach more people, make a bigger impact? And so, the podcast was born.” A Balancing Act: Rediscovering Purpose in a Three-Day Week "Managing a business on a three-day week, while also recovering from a spinal cord injury and parenting, meant redefining success. I’ve refocused on what truly matters, aligning my time with my gifts and refining how I reach people. It’s been a balance of impact and sustainability.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Erica Sosna --Chief Change Officer-- Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself. Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs, Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts. 6 Million+ All-Time Downloads. Reaching 80+ Countries Daily. Global Top 3% Podcast. Top 10 US Business. Top 1 US Careers. >>>100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.<<< --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.12 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Erica Sosna and what is her story of resilience?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm speaking with Erica Sosna, a fellow podcast host and the author of The Career Equation, who, like me, is passionate about careers.
But what makes Erica's story unique is her remarkable journey of resilience, purpose, and transformation. In 2022, a life-changing accident left her paralyzed. Facing months of recovery through immense pain and uncertainty, Erica fought her way back. Back to walking? Back to work? and back to a renewed mission.
After a year away from her consultancy, Erica returned with fresh purpose, balancing her career on a three-day work week, launching the podcast, and expanding her reach to create a bigger impact. Today, part one, Erica shares her career journey, the twist and the turns and the accident that changed everything.
Then in part two, airing tomorrow, she'll share the hard-earned wisdom she gained from overcoming paralysis, starting a new chapter shaping a path to personal and professional growth. Erica will also dive into the career equation she created and how we can all work towards becoming better versions of ourselves in our careers. Good afternoon, Erica. Welcome to our show.
Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Thank you so much, friends. I'm delighted to be here. Erica is also a podcast host, and she covers careers. So does that make us competitors? I don't think so. I see it more like we are part of this big circle, a world where so many people are focused on their future, their life, and their career.
I think we are both contributing to something bigger by sharing insights, lessons, and experiences in a human, direct way. Hopefully this helps someone get inspired or maybe even get unstuck. So Erica, let's start with you. Tell us a bit about yourself, your story and your experience before we drill down into your insights.
For sure, Vincent. It's exciting to be in a careers community with you. That's how I'd describe that, I think. So I'm Erica Sosner. I'm the creator of a model called The Career Equation and a book and a podcast by the same title. I've
I've made it my life's work really over the last 20 years to help people connect their insides, what matters to them, what's important to them, the skills and talents that they're born with their outsides, how they spend time, how they make money, how they create value for themselves and for other people and how they learn to really enjoy their lives.
So I guess on a sort of very simple level, I'm a careers thought leader. I've been a career coach for over 20 years and have coached thousands of people all over the world, all sorts of industries, all sorts of ages and stages to use the career equation to get super precise about what they want, how to work and to make a plan to get towards that and really align that.
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Chapter 2: How did Erica Sosna redefine her career after a life-changing accident?
where we explore how do I align my gifts with how I spend time and make money. And that sort of tightrope of, first of all, knowing what your gifts are and knowing what gives you joy, because that can evolve and change as your life evolves and changes as your priorities evolve and change.
And then how do I spend my time consciously around that in a way that generates value and success for myself and other people? That's a kind of constant adjustment. It's a constant tightrope walk of teasing out how do I stay on course with that? And I think for me, it became clear that my work is still my work. The subject matter still really works for me. I still love it.
But perhaps the way in which I was transmitting it needed to shift or I wanted to add something to that. And that also returning to a three-day week, so I run a business on a three-day week, was definitely all that I wanted to do, given that the job of rehabilitating my spinal cord injury is really a kind of a lifetime's work. And the job of being a good parent is also a lifetime's work.
And just in terms of what was realistic in slicing the pie of my life, that was going to be the time that I had available. Yeah, it's been an opportunity really to fine tune what really matters to me and also to really get a sense of how exceptional, I'm going to use that word even though I feel a bit shy about it, How exceptional I can be when I'm up against it.
Because in the last two years, I have gone from completely paralysed to walking again. I have rebuilt a business and launched a podcast. I have been a great parent in spite of all of those challenges and obstacles. So it really has caught me a lot of good things about myself. It's really shown me a lot of good things about myself.
And it's been interesting to see how inspiring and empowering that has been for other people to witness as well. It wasn't really something I expected, but... The outpouring of kind of generosity and support and encouragement and positive feedback has also been, you know, really an exceptional experience, really.
It really taught me a lot about who I am and the impact that I have in the world in a way that's been very moving.
Just now, Erica shared her career journey, the twists, the turns, and the accident that changed everything. Tomorrow in part two, she will share the hard-earned wisdom she gained from overcoming paralysis, starting a new chapter, shaping a path to personal and professional growth. Erica will also dive into the career equation she created.
and tell us how we can all work towards becoming better versions of ourselves in our career. Come back and join us tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, Don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.
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