Megan Tobler (00:00.75)
Nina, I was just talking to you offline here, but I was saying that your tagline on your website, You Got This, is exactly the words that I needed to hear today. So thank you so much for, even before you knew it, being such an inspiration to my, honestly, a little bit of a stressful day.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (00:16.726)
I’m so glad that I could be that piece of your day that kind of picks you back up. I always think of motivation as like a shower. You can’t just do it once and be, you need a little bit of it all the time. We all need a little bit of a reminder like, hey, you got this, you know, a little bit of that. Yes, please. Yes.

Megan Tobler (00:29.23)
Just drench me in it. Yes. Full, everything shower today, please. Now for anyone that’s not familiar with you, do you mind just like sharing a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (00:43.23)
Sure, so I have quite the journey and when people introduce me they always say she was a member of the U.S. gymnastics team and an Emmy award winning news anchor and a part of an executive team that took a company public in technology and wrote a book and author and best seller, all the accolades. But really I am the woman who when I was a girl didn’t make the Olympic team after being on the cover of all the magazines. And then I went to college and was a top athlete but I blew out my knee.

And then I was on news and I was Big Fish Little Pond, very popular news anchor for many years. And then I got let go and budget cuts. They went younger and blonder. And then I went on and did tech and had some big success. But I spend a lot of my time talking about my failures and flops and all this stuff that people don’t really share because we’re all human. And I think it’s really important for people like me who have had big success and parented kids and things to level set with the next generation and go, hey, hey.

It’s perfectly normal to screw up or to fail or to think you, know, that all the imposter syndrome, all of the struggles that we have are perfectly normal and you will get through it. You got this. Yeah.

Megan Tobler (01:53.41)
You got this. And I think that this is the reminder that every single person needs to hear no matter their stage of where they are in their life and their business. Because even with someone like you that has the most impressive resume, even like gymnastics, like you were on the USA gymnastics team, that’s not something that everyone gets to do. You even talk about not making the team because quote unquote failures and flops here. Even the most successful people have their moments where life doesn’t go according to plan.

And I think that’s really great that you’re highlighting the fact that that is the case because that’s life. But what do we do to be able to overcome these failures? I think that’s really what sets the person that has the failure and doesn’t do anything with it from the person that, okay, I have this failure, I recognize it, and let’s see how I can learn from it and grow.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (02:43.24)
Yeah, and that’s where my research started. It’s really interesting because anyone you meet who is doing something big or having success, they’ve gone through some struggles, they’ve learned and figured it out and gone forward. But there are some people who don’t continually succeed, don’t thrive on the other side of it. I said it’s a really different story from those who survive things that happen and those who thrive on the other side. So I did some research because that’s where my brain started. I’m like, how come?

I am the one that people keep coming to going, how did you do that? How do you keep finding more success on the other side of this? How do you keep reinventing yourself and like, you know, doing the next big thing? And I didn’t know the answer. I knew the way I thought, I knew books I’d read, I knew there was some like some stoicism and I started looking more deeply at how the things I had done. And then I looked into entrepreneurs and businesses and.

elite athletes and artists who are real successful and look for the commonalities. What is the difference between someone who makes it once, like peak to high school person, or like a one hit wonder, and somebody who continually has the ability to not just…

get up but level up every time. And that’s where my research and all started going and it became really fascinating to find those commonalities and that’s what I share now. There are some real specific things that it’s not brain surgery. It is just things that are common that people like me and others who have had big success do.

Megan Tobler (04:11.086)
Okay, so I have to say, let’s just dive right into the good stuff here. I’m really curious to hear what are these commonalities?

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (04:13.995)
Good.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (04:17.406)
Okay, so there’s four, and again, this is my mix of stoicism, neuroscience, cognitive behavior therapy, books I’ve read, experiences I’ve had, and all of the research I’ve done. And there are four things that I boiled it down to, because I’d love to tell you all of them, but you don’t have time to read all the books and do all the things I’ve So the four things are what I call this framework. So whatever you’re going through is your this, and you know this, because you hear people say, I can’t handle this.

This is too much. How did this happen to me? Why is this my, like this this, whatever your this is. So it’s T-H-I-S, it’s this framework to get you through this, whatever this is in your world, because your this is different than mine. So the T is timeline, and the H is humans, and the I is isolate, and the S is story. So I always say you take it like it’s a big old this, and you have to put it down in the timeline of your life, your big messy marvelous life, and then you have to pull in the right humans.

And then you have to figure out not what happened before after, what are we dealing with? And then you have to craft that story. The words in your head come out of your mouth, and that becomes your story. So I can break those down for you, but that’s the big picture of it.

Megan Tobler (05:26.638)
Well, that makes sense why this is highlighted on your website here. I didn’t know that that was a framework. It makes so much sense. I was just thinking it was a wonderful, wonderful chat here that we’re gonna dive into today. This is even better. So yeah, I would actually love if we could dive into each one of these in a little bit more details here because obviously you’ve done a lot of research and there’s people like me who I would like to benefit from this research without not having to dive into all of the different books and resources and all that stuff that you’ve already dove into yourself.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (05:54.902)
100 % that’s why I went down this road and that’s why I’m a full-time Speaker and author and try to put this out there in as many ways as I can because I truly not just believe but know that it’s helpful so the first thing I say is You know well first I want you to understand the difference between resilience and persistence before we jump in because I think it’s really important before the conversation people think that persistence and resilience are the same thing so persistence is you know

get up and keep going, get up and keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, doing over and over and over. Resilience is not that. Resilience is not the people who can fall down and get up again. It’s the definition is resilience is your ability to learn, grow stronger, and adapt in a positive way to whatever happens in your life. And it’s that adapt in a positive way piece that I really dug my research into. That adapt in a positive way to this when this happens. So I set that up because

What does that mean to adapt in a positive way? please give me some steps for that. And that’s what I put together. So the T is how people take a piece of paper, turn it sideways and just draw a line across it. This is your timeline of your life. And you put 10 dots on it. And that’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. However, you’re going to live to be 100. We’re going to pretend. I need to drink less wine and take better care of myself. But we’re going to pretend that we live to be 100. And we put our 10 dots there. And then whatever you’re dealing with right now,

You can put a dot on there and go, if you’re in your 30s, put it in the 30s somewhere. If you’re in your 50s like me, put it over there. And the concept with this is this is your big messy marvelous life, okay, the whole sheet of paper. That timeline is where you are right now at a point. And two pieces of this are really important. One, everything above the line, if you go back, you can put your resume there, all the accolades and things about when they happened in your life.

And then down below, I have them put their, what I call your reverse resume, all the stuff that you’ve gotten through. If you were bullied in school or didn’t make the dance team or didn’t make the basketball team or failed a course, lost a loved one, weren’t in a horrible accident, got a medical diet, like all that goes across them. A parent and a child with a disability, all that goes across the bottom. So you have your resume and your reverse resume and it brings you up to this dot where you are now. And then I always say, now look at all that blank space ahead. There’s nothing there.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (08:15.038)
and you are more in charge of what goes into that blank space than anybody else. So let’s figure out what to do with that blank space. So that’s the timeline piece. Let’s put it in perspective. It’s just a zoom out to your big messy marvelous life with the good stuff and the bad stuff and then all this blank space ahead. That’s the T. And then the H is I have people circle it on that piece of paper. Circle their dot and go, okay, when something happens, you feel really alone. Like you feel like nobody else understands it like you do. We all feel like that, whether you’re going through a breakup or get fired, whatever.

And always say, take all your people, the humans in your life, and put them into two categories. Who’s helping and who’s hurting? Who’s helping, who’s hurting? And then you have to figure out who’s in the circle with you. Put the people in there that are helping, and if you don’t have somebody in there, find them. But you can’t go it alone, because the commonality in all of these people, one, after the big perspective piece, the other commonality was people who have big success don’t go it alone. They let other people in.

You have to. You can survive something and get through it maybe, but to have big success on the other side, everyone has let people in. Whether it’s a coach or a mentor or think about it, even Olympians still have coaches. I we need people to be helping us in this journey. So that’s the humans piece. Like who are you going to put in that circle with you? Edit your humans and then decide who stays and who goes. And if there’s not enough people in there in the right areas, pull some people in. Does that make sense?

Megan Tobler (09:39.97)
Now, quick question on that too, because a lot of the listeners are aspiring or relatively new entrepreneurs here. And this is something that I talk about a lot is sometimes entrepreneurship can feel very lonely, especially at the beginning, because the people that are the closest to you in your life sometimes don’t really understand what you’re going through because they can’t relate. So they’re not really as supportive sometimes as you would hope, just because of lack of understanding and also wanting what they think is best for you.

So that’s why I always recommend to be able to turn to like community and finding resources like coaches and mentors like you were talking into to tap into. But how do you potentially figure out who’s helping you versus who’s hurting you? In this specific instance, who’s hurting you if it’s also someone that’s maybe relatively close in your life like a loved one?

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (10:31.22)
Yeah, sometimes the people who love us the most and who we love, they are not helping. So, you know, I mean, and if you have a spouse who’s never been an entrepreneur and you’re trying to explain to them all the struggles you’re going through, then that’s a struggle in itself. Or if they would like you just to go back to your corporate job and get a paycheck, that’s a struggle in itself. And for those of us who have come from corporate and gone into the entrepreneurial space, I have found it’s really lonely at first. used, I was used to having people around.

And I thought I was gonna love not having all these people to manage and not having anybody to answer to. But after a little while, I was like, I would really give anything for a morning meeting and a team of folks to think this through with and somebody to blame, like all the things that you don’t have when it’s just you. I was missing that for a while. And like so many of us do, I tried to do a lot of it on my own. And I wasted years that could have been stronger and better had I let people in or listened more.

thought I knew the answers, I jumped in and thought I could do this my way, and the reality is even in the speaking business or the book writing business, there are people who’ve done before and who are really good at it, and I joined a group to write my first book. I joined a group to figure out the speaking business. I continue to be parts of masterminds so I can figure out how to get on podcasts and how to my word out, the word out there, and how to make sure that my, what I’m sharing is, know,

rock solid and I understand it in my own head enough to say it in many different ways. Because when you first start off you think, I know this, and then enough people poke holes in it you start questioning whether you really know it or not. So the humans piece, if it’s somebody you love, somebody who’s close to you, the answer to question is you may need to kick them outside of that circle for a while and you have to compartmentalize that. You know, they’re going to be in your life if it’s family, but if it’s a parent who doesn’t believe in you,

My mother is, every time I try something new, my mom’s like, you can’t do that. Like, really? Kind of think again. Yeah, watch me. Don’t tell me what not to do, because that’s dangerous. yeah, I’m going big now. I was just thinking about it before, but now you said I can’t? Totally doing that. So you have to look at who your people are and find a place for them. They’re not inside the circle. You got to put them out. If you’re going to try to have big success,

Megan Tobler (12:28.174)
Watch me.

Megan Tobler (12:33.176)
feels like we’re doing it even more, right? Yes.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (12:49.506)
When I went through trauma and some things in my life where I was really in a dark place, I went through a really difficult time in my 30s, there were some people who just kept wanting to relive the drama and the trauma and wouldn’t let me move forward. And some of those were the people closest to me. And I had to just separate myself from them for a few years. They were kind of on the periphery. And these were family members. They were kind of on periphery of my day to day. I love them the same. I just didn’t pull them in and share as much. They weren’t my people. They weren’t going to help me get there. They were going to pull me back to where I’d been. So you have to…

Look at your people and be honest with yourself. Nobody needs to see that list with you. Who’s helping? In your heart of hearts, get quiet and think, is this person helping me or is this person hurting me? You know the answer. And then go, know something, I need more of these people and a little less of those people.

Megan Tobler (13:35.128)
Well, and like you said, you know the answer. This is something that I’m currently going through myself because naturally I love to connect with people and I love to help people and really give back, but I’m also having to figure out, okay, how do I feel when I’m having these conversations? Am I feeling stimulated or am I feeling drained and depleted from that? And I feel like sometimes it’s just, have to listen to that inner voice because it’s…

telling you something for a reason, especially when you’re in the middle of a growth mode where you are building your business, you can’t really afford to feel depleted. So I think it just speaks to, you know the answer already. Like no one needs to know it other than you, but just listen to that little voice that’s inside because it’s there for a reason.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (14:16.021)
Right.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (14:19.766)
And you know you better than anybody else knows you. And you know what your vision or what you want, what your vision of success looks like. It’s not the same as other people’s. You know, especially with young women. So I speak at women’s groups sometimes. And my second book is called, But I Want Both, A Working Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life She Loves, because I found when I was mentoring a lot of young people, their careers take off at the same time they start having a family. That is just the way it works. And if you’re a woman, welcome to being a woman. That’s it.

Megan Tobler (14:21.837)
Okay.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (14:49.16)
So, and I had successfully done this, so I mentored a lot of people behind me and helped them through this. And my biggest, you know, where we started with all of these and my biggest lesson to take from it was, we’ll just decide what success looks like for you. And for me, the laundry was not always folded and put away in my house. My best friend, she would never go to bed, still to this day, will never go to bed without everything folded and put away in her house spotless. That wasn’t success for me. That felt like organization and success for her. For me,

The laundry wasn’t always done. I would be on the floor doing puzzles with the kids instead of doing that. That was fine. My kids would go to school and I would be happy if both their shoes matched. That was a win. Yay, they have shoes on. Yeah. But for me, I was fine with that. And that’s who I wanted to be. That’s the person that I was in my heart and my being. I was not the mom that was going to have it all figured out. I didn’t bake the cookies for the school. I was busy going to work. I didn’t.

Megan Tobler (15:32.482)
have shoes.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (15:47.35)
think that success had to be all of it. I figured out what success was in my lane. But some things were very important to me. Nutrition was really important to me with my kids. Getting dirty and science and bugs and things. Things that other moms were like, why in the world would you think that was more important than some other thing? I just, for me, I wanted my kids to know that. So you have to decide what success looks like for you, because you can’t do it all. Reality is we…

when they decided that women could go to work and be all they could be, when we were told as young girls you could do everything you wanted to do, they didn’t have any money in the backfill the roles that we already had. So that’s just not ever going to happen. So we got to figure out who we want to be in this funny world. I have a great story. I’m speaking at an event on Thursday, and I’ve been working on this in my head. I’ll share it with you. And it’s in my first book. I just hadn’t revisited it in a long time. My son was probably, I don’t know.

eight months old, six, eight months old, and I’m back on the air. I was a news anchor, you know, for three shows a day for almost 20 years. was a news anchor, so hair done, all done. And I had to get back on the air doing television, and I worked two to midnight, and I’d sleep a little bit. Babies wake up early, you know, stumble through my morning with a baby, and then take a shower and go do all again. But my husband left for work one day, and I was there with this baby, and I was exhausted.

He put him on the bed with me and I remember he had tried on lot of ties, my husband had. So I grabbed one of the ties and I just tied it around my wrist and then I tied it around my baby’s ankle. I went back to sleep in the middle of the king-sized bed. I’m like, I just can’t, I just can’t. He’s a doctor now, he didn’t die folks, he’s fine.

Megan Tobler (17:23.953)
that’s hilarious.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (17:33.822)
But I remember that so vividly, if like I barely couldn’t even get out bed, like, there’s a tie that he left there. And I tied his tie around my wrist. And I tied it around the ankle of my baby, my baby boy. And I just put him near me in the middle of the bed and went, God, just let me sleep five more minutes. We all just get through it the best we can. If you think there’s some magic pill that’s not out there,

Megan Tobler (17:53.614)
you’re speaking to the season of life that I’m currently in. I’m a little bit outside of the sleepless nights at this point, but my son’s 17 months. And I definitely have those, or had those mornings, or those days, I should say, where I could barely get through the day without a nap because he was up all the time. I also was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, so I didn’t realize my energy levels were all over the place. I completely, if I had known about that little hack there, I probably would have considered it. Let’s just put it that way.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (18:01.17)
Ugh.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (18:07.828)
Mm-hmm.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (18:23.214)
the Department of Social Services didn’t show up at my door. was like, I’m pretty sure you’re not letting tie up your kid, but. Thank you, thank you. Right, right.

Megan Tobler (18:28.544)
Now this is a judgment free zone and I think that we’re all doing the best that we can with what we have. And you were talking about different levels of success. And that’s something that I’ve gone through as a new mom here as redefining what success looks like for me. Because before I was thinking success was tied to climbing the corporate ladder and getting the big paycheck, having the house, going on vacations, like having that kind of life. And once I became, or.

once I found out I was gonna be a mom, it completely changed overnight. It was no longer tied to what’s the best title that I could do, have, and who’s gonna report underneath me, and the impact I’m gonna have this way. It’s like, okay, what’s the impact I’m gonna have down onto my son? And that is success for me, is making sure that he turns out to be this wonderful human being, and that I’m there for his life moments. And that was a very big shift that I think that people don’t talk about enough, is that it happens when you become a mom.

I do think you can have both, but it looks very different than if you were to choose one or the other because it’s integrated into one and you can’t be perfect at everything all the time.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (19:37.014)
Yeah, I believe you can. You can have both. I mean, you can have both. You can’t do it all all the time. But you can definitely, definitely have both. And it’s interesting that you say that, oh my gosh, 18 months was my favorite age, too. You’re coming up on some just joy, my friend. But I can think about this in a couple of different ways.

Megan Tobler (19:42.134)
Exactly. Yeah.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (19:56.626)
I think of it as seasons of our life. So when I was in that season of my life, I mean, I was just doing what I had to do to get by and I’m working. I was a breadwinner, so I had to get back on the air and do the things. And at other points in my life, it was easier and I had more time with my kids. And then in other seasons of my life, when I got into tech, there was time there when I was on a plane and gone and going all the time. And that was that season of my life. I was doing that for my family so my kids could go to whatever college they wanted to.

Like I had reasons for it. It all came back to my values, I truly value. Family’s way up there, obviously. But I value kindness, lifetime learning, inclusion. But my family, obviously, is not a value. It’s a priority. I think of it as a priority in my life, not one of my core values. But it all played together. And I think for seasons of your life, you’re going to have seasons where you’re just

Making it the best you can you’re have seasons where it’s you have more freedom to think and do the things that actually make more sense in the moment and you’re gonna have some seasons where you’re nose to the grindstone working long hours because you’re doing it because you want something in the future and then That in the future is mean now I mean had I not done those heavy years of hard work Then I wouldn’t have the freedom and the ability to do the season that I’m doing now, which is sharing and giving back so it

ebbs and flows and I say seasons because you each season your vision of success changes along with your priorities like you get a different vision of what success feels like at one point I wanted the big house in the car and the thing and then I wanted to downsize and not have any of the things like you don’t know you don’t know till you’re there

Megan Tobler (21:36.238)
I like to think of it as seasons as well. And there was one woman that gave me the best advice during my pregnancy. And that was to give yourself grace during this season. Because the season, you don’t know it until you’re in it, but it goes by so fast. And so these seasons just before you know it, you blink and you’re into the next one. So I think it’s just really important to like sit back sometimes and take the time to soak in that season of life because it might never come back again.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (21:50.39)
Yeah.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (22:05.046)
Yeah, and it doesn’t come, you don’t get to go back. You get the moments that we have right now. Yes, and oh, that’s perfect for getting to the next piece, but I’ll tell you, that season, like my kids are adulting now. Even the whole season of being a parent goes by like, it seems like forever when you’re in it, you wait. There are years where you’re like, the middle school years were the hardest for me. I actually loved the high school years, middle school years. I was like, why do we go through these? Yeah, ugh, so yeah, with my kids. Anyway.

Megan Tobler (22:11.01)
talking about that timeline.

Megan Tobler (22:29.102)
Pretty sure my mom would say the same thing too.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (22:33.842)
But it is, the seasons, it’s a great way to think of it and to give yourself some grace and get through it with what you have. So that was the timeline and then we did the human. So the next piece is isolate. And by isolate, on that same piece of paper, so now you have your timeline on there and you’ve circled your dot, you have a dot and you’ve circled it with your humans who gets in. Then I say draw a line up and down, vertical line, up and down on each side of that dot.

because for this moment, while we’re trying to get through a tough thing, you can’t go back, and any good therapist will tell you, if you’re in the past, the woulda, shoulda, coulda, shouldn’t have taken that job, shouldn’t have married that guy, shouldn’t have done that thing, hung out with those people, whatever, if you’re living in that world, that’s where depression lives, in the past, and that’s why we have the line, so you can’t go over there, and if you’re over in the future,

This therapist will tell you in the what ifs and the doomsday scenarios that you play out and all the scary stuff we play out in our head that probably never will happen. That’s where anxiety lives over there. You know, there’s one study said this is 90 now they’re up to 90 93 % of the things we think about never happen. So we’re spending a lot of time in there. So if you’re in the think about the past, that’s where depression is. If you think about the future, that’s where anxiety is. So you draw this and you’re like, what do I have to work with right now? Like in the right now?

What action can I take? What can I do? What am I actually dealing with? You know, what is the thing I’m dealing with? If I just take it out of the past and out of the present and look at the situation I’m in right at this moment. And sometimes when I’m doing this in an event, I’ll put a glass of water up there with, you know, half weight with stuff in and I’ll say, is this glass half full or half empty? And I’ll wait and wait and someone will finally say, half full. And I’m like, yeah, we all want to be the half full people, of course, but it’s not. It’s a six ounce glass with three ounces of water.

So when you’re in these moments of your life, you gotta get your own opinions out of it. And if your wants and dreams out of it, you gotta go, what am I actually dealing with right now? So that’s that isolate piece.

Megan Tobler (24:29.358)
But then going to S to story, how does that tie everything together?

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (24:34.042)
Story is your story. So this is your story you’re telling. And the words in your head come out of your mouth, and that becomes your story. This is the language that we’re using. And we can be really tough on ourselves. I’m guilty of it. This self-sabotage language, we do. We overgeneralize. This always happens to me. know, catastrophize. This is never going to work. It’s ruined, like the catastrophe language. We belabor it, going back to if so and so had done this, if, if. Or we exaggerate. I have 8 million things to do.

50 loads of laundry. Have you really done 50 loads of laundry? No. No, no, we just say it. Six loads of laundry in a weekend is crappy weekend. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not fun. But we make things bigger than they are. And all that language and self-sabotaging, we jump to conclusions. They haven’t texted me back, so they must think I’m an idiot or not like me. The words in your head come out of your mouth, and that becomes your story. So we have to start talking to ourselves a little kinder.

The example I use is how you would talk to a child. Often I’ll say, a woman comes home from work and she’s really grumpy. And her daughter’s like, hey, are you OK, Mommy? And do think this woman’s going to say, well, I’m an idiot and I work with a bunch of idiots and everything went wrong today and probably going to lose my job. We’re probably going to have to cancel Christmas. No. No one talks to a child like that. She would probably say something like, oh, baby.

I just had a rough day, but mommy’s smart, mommy works with a bunch of smart people and we’re gonna figure it out. It’s not like we have to cancel Christmas or anything. Like we have to get a little better at that with ourselves. Like we would talk to a friend or like we would talk to a child. So that’s the story part. It’s that the words that we’re using.

Megan Tobler (26:14.382)
Well, and it’s so interesting because even single words can make a huge impact and difference on just the tone of how you’re talking to yourself. I know when I was pregnant, right after announcing my pregnancy, I was a part of a massive layoff. So it was one of those things where in the moment it’s gut wrenching and you’re having these thoughts. What am I gonna do? I need the healthcare. Do I go back and find another job? What do their benefits look like? All those things going on in your head.

But as I started to sit with it, I realized it was actually a gift and it didn’t happen to me, but it happened for me. And so I was really trying to figure out why did it happen for me and to move forward, to sit with it like you were saying and sit with it in that moment to as to why I was potentially here and what can I do with it to propel me forward with that given those circumstances and that those two shifts going from two to four has made the biggest difference in how I

how I viewed that time in my life.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (27:16.31)
Yeah, and it’s interesting, especially with layoffs and things like that. I can meet people and we’ll talk and they’re like, oh, did you like that job a lot? And they’re like, no, I hated that job. I’m like, well, it was a gift. You no longer have to do it. So start there. You don’t have to get up and go do that thing you hate tomorrow. That’s one thing. And now let’s figure out what, now you have this gap in your life, let’s figure out what to put there that you actually might enjoy more or better or maybe a better fit for you.

I have found very often when we, like you said, sit with it for a minute, we can go, I actually, the universe is knocking on my door and this is actually what’s supposed to be happening right now.

Megan Tobler (27:54.67)
It just shows us that no matter what is put in our way, if you do implement this framework, it shows us that we do have this, we got this. And we make things bigger than they need to be.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (28:06.42)
Yeah, you got this. You already have everything you need to make a good decision. And then this framework is really a tool. You can run it through this filter, put it in timeline, pull in the right humans, isolate this problem, and now what am I calling it? You can do that very quickly for the big stuff and for the little stuff. And it just gives you that control. And the main thing we need when things are going wrong or we’re not doing well or we’re questioning, we just need a little sense of control. And this framework gives you that control.

Megan Tobler (28:33.292)
Now, I know you referenced two of the books that you’ve authored here, but you also are a speaker. So I’m sure people are listening today and thinking, I need more of this in my life. I just cannot get enough of Nina. So tell us more about where we could potentially find you and get a little bit more of all this goodness and positivity that you have to to the table.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (28:50.678)
Thank you so much. That’s really kind of you to say so. You can ask my husband. Not everybody wants a little bit more. I’m a lot sometimes. But no, I do really believe in my message. I would love to share it more widely and love to help in any way. So you can follow me on Instagram. It’s NinaSpeaks, and it’s broken up. Nina underscore SP period eeks, just because there was other Nina speakers. And we thought it was clever because SP was Sausman Pogue, but really it’s a horrible, horrible handle. So Nina Speaks on Instagram.

Megan Tobler (29:19.175)
never thought of it. That’s great.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (29:20.682)
Yeah, Nina Speaks on Instagram and then on LinkedIn, Nina Sossam and Pogue, you can find me there. And I’m on Facebook and other places as well. My books are This Is Not The End. If you’re going through a really difficult time, it’s the Don’t Jump Off The Bridge, Let Me Get You There book. It’s a really, I’m very proud of it. It’s hard to write a short book. It’s a really good book. It’s all about, let me get you through it. It’s not my story, it’s yours. This Is Not The End. And then my second book is But I Want Both. We mentioned that.

It’s a little long. I’m actually in the middle of a new edited version coming out hopefully at end of this year. But it’s out there as well. And then I just launched, and I’d love to share it with you, Megan. It’s real new, the Now What Workshop. And it’s an online, self-guided, you you can do it in privacy of your own time and space workshop, just like when something big happens and you go, now what? You lose your job, now what? You have a breakup or a relationship falls apart, now what?

you have a death in the family now what just the big stuff but it’s those moments where we just we don’t want to get stuck there so if you don’t want to get stuck in a bad situation then now what workshop is that and I was really hesitant to do it for a long time because I truly believe find a clinically trained therapist someone with all the accreditations I’m a big pro therapy person so I didn’t do it for a long time but sometimes people aren’t ready for that and they just want someone to kind of get them to the next space and I will

get you there and probably get you more comfortable with the thought of therapy too. But it’s that let me just get you to the next so you don’t get stuck in this moment that you’re having.

Megan Tobler (30:51.722)
it’s so needed because no matter what happens in life, we’re all going to go through moments where we are feeling a little bit more stuck than others. And sometimes we do need that outside hand to be able to pull us out of that little funk and help us realize that life is still good and you can get out of this and let me help you here. Just take my hand and let’s do this together. Well, Nina, this has been so good. I always like, I warned you of this beforehand, but always.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (31:12.746)
Yeah, that’s the whole concept behind it.

Megan Tobler (31:20.578)
like to end the show with just one piece of advice for any woman that’s listening out here that is really dreaming of starting a business of her own. What would you tell her?

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (31:29.878)
Two pieces, can I do two? I’m do one, okay. One piece and then my signature thing, I can’t leave a podcast without saying. One piece of advice is don’t go it alone. Entrepreneurship does not mean alone. People get those two things mixed up. Find some people who have been through it, someone similar, read the books, listen to podcasts like this, you’re already doing it by listening to a podcast. But don’t think you know all the answers, because you don’t. You don’t know what you don’t know, no matter, you can be five years into this and still not know what you don’t know. So don’t go it alone.

Megan Tobler (31:31.182)
Please, yes.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (31:58.782)
be my number one piece of advice. Just because it’s an entrepreneur doesn’t mean it’s alone. And then the other thing I always like to end with is it’s okay to not be okay if you’re struggling. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s just not okay to stay that way and it is up to you to move yourself forward. So okay to not be okay, not okay to stay that way.

Megan Tobler (32:19.598)
That’s good. Well, we’ll sit with that for a second and I just have to bring it back to the H here that I know we were talking about who you’re gonna push out of the circle and who you’re gonna let into your circle, but I feel like I just found a new person for my circle today. So Nina, thank you so much for joining my circle and the Self-Starter Circle.

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (32:31.721)
Yay!

Nina Sossamon-Pogue (32:36.424)
I am so proud to be a part of it. Thank you so much. And I will try to live up to it. anything I can do to help, please pull me in. I’m happy to be part of your circle. Thanks so much, Megan.

Megan Tobler (32:44.718)
Well, thank you.