Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Uplift: She has conquered life’s obstacles and now creates success for others in life and work.

Transcript

Uplift: She has conquered life’s obstacles and now creates success for others in life and work. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Rashaan McDonald, our host the weekly Money Making
0:03
Speaker 1: Conversation Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show
0:07
Speaker 1: provides are for everyone. It's time to stop reading other
0:10
Speaker 1: people's success stories and start living your own. If you
0:13
Speaker 1: want to be a guest on my show, please visit
0:15
Speaker 1: our website, Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
0:19
Speaker 1: guest button. My guest is a sort otter speaker, two
0:23
Speaker 1: time bestselling author, and podcast hosts. Drawing on her extensive
0:27
Speaker 1: research and experience in communications corporate leadership, she helps individuals
0:32
Speaker 1: and organizations thrive through challenges to reach new levels of success.
0:37
Speaker 1: She's here to tell us all about it. Please welcome
0:40
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Nina saw someone pogue. How
0:44
Speaker 1: you doing, Nina?
0:45
Speaker 2: I am doing great. Thanks so much for having me on.
0:48
Speaker 2: I a'm looking forward to this conversation.
0:50
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, when I found out you lived
0:52
Speaker 1: in Charles and South Carolina, you know, the thumbs went
0:55
Speaker 1: up on both hands.
0:57
Speaker 3: Tell us about your.
0:58
Speaker 2: Community soon, A fabulous community. I moved here in nineteen
1:02
Speaker 2: ninety two, so I've been here a long time, and
1:04
Speaker 2: I came here for a television gig, just for a
1:07
Speaker 2: reporter position, and I just fell in love with Charleston
1:09
Speaker 2: and State. But I'm in I live in the Mount
1:12
Speaker 2: Pleasant area. Now I'm in the Park Circle, like North
1:14
Speaker 2: Charleston area, but I'm very much a part of this community.
1:17
Speaker 2: After being the news anchor here for like fifteen years,
1:20
Speaker 2: I'm sort of part.
1:21
Speaker 1: Of the woodwork absolutely, So you know, the thing about
1:24
Speaker 1: being in front of the camera, leadership motivation, We've seen
1:28
Speaker 1: that's a dominant part of social media. And because of
1:31
Speaker 1: social media, mental stress. You know, I've admitted many times
1:36
Speaker 1: on this show I've had to deal with mental stress,
1:39
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying I know how to deal with
1:41
Speaker 1: it correctly. When you talk about mental stress in the
1:44
Speaker 1: everyday life, how do you approach it, Nina.
1:47
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of pieces and parts to stress.
1:51
Speaker 2: But I think what's really interesting now is all our
1:53
Speaker 2: lives are so public it had stressed to it. So
1:56
Speaker 2: think about back in the day, like when I was
1:58
Speaker 2: a gymnast at LSU, I would have like sweatshirt that
2:01
Speaker 2: said you know, I was a gymnast on it, or
2:03
Speaker 2: my T shirt and my bumper sticker. Nowadays, we really
2:06
Speaker 2: identify ourselves a certain way and put ourselves out there
2:09
Speaker 2: publicly with all the social media. So the stress comes
2:12
Speaker 2: internal stress, and then we have people who really care
2:15
Speaker 2: about that, validating stress. And then there's this all other
2:19
Speaker 2: piece of stress that we didn't know about before, the
2:22
Speaker 2: other eyes that are on us. Plus we have all
2:24
Speaker 2: of these new influences because everybody's on social media, and
2:28
Speaker 2: maybe you see something that's for your buddy down the street,
2:31
Speaker 2: like man, I got a new car, and that adds stress.
2:33
Speaker 2: You know, all this stress we didn't see it before.
2:35
Speaker 2: I don't want to know everybody's going on vacation every minute.
2:39
Speaker 2: It just makes me feel bad.
2:43
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you some I hear some people just
2:47
Speaker 1: addicted to social media. This is my schedule, Nina. I
2:53
Speaker 1: get up at four thirty on Monday through Friday. I
2:55
Speaker 1: get up four thirty Eastern Standard time. I go to
2:58
Speaker 1: stagger out of my bag because I really don't want
3:00
Speaker 1: to get up. I stretch and watch TV at the
3:03
Speaker 1: same time. Have my phone and I flip it open
3:05
Speaker 1: and I'm watching TV, so I find out about the
3:07
Speaker 1: weather and traffic and all that stuff. And then I
3:10
Speaker 1: staggered to another room. When I read the newspaper. Use
3:14
Speaker 1: I started with the Houston Chronicles originally from Houston Chronicles.
3:17
Speaker 3: I was on the fine out by my hometown.
3:19
Speaker 1: And then I read CNN, A Fox, and then I
3:22
Speaker 1: go over to ESPN, and then I go to my computer.
3:26
Speaker 1: And this is all done in my world. And I
3:29
Speaker 1: think that alleviates a lot of pressure for me. And
3:33
Speaker 1: sometimes I may put pressure on my staff because I'm
3:35
Speaker 1: so prepared when I come in and they're staggering in
3:38
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock because that's what they've been told mentally,
3:42
Speaker 1: that's when they go to work. So when you look
3:44
Speaker 1: at the schedule like that, I'm not saying I'm doing
3:46
Speaker 1: the right schedule. How does house should one prepare themselves
3:51
Speaker 1: to start their day?
3:53
Speaker 2: Well, everybody has their own rituals. So there are some
3:56
Speaker 2: people who need more sleep than others.
3:58
Speaker 3: I think I hear that a lot. I hit it.
4:00
Speaker 3: I need eight hours. My wife always said, I gotta
4:04
Speaker 3: get my seven. Leave me alone. I gotta get my seven.
4:07
Speaker 2: Well, my father had Alzheimer's, and so I'm really aware
4:10
Speaker 2: of brain health, and so and my mental health and
4:12
Speaker 2: my brain health and sleep is one of the best
4:14
Speaker 2: things you can do right to avoid having Alzheimer's. Who
4:17
Speaker 2: your body heels your brain heals at night kind of
4:20
Speaker 2: does a reset, so you need that. But in the morning,
4:23
Speaker 2: I think everybody has their own routines I have. You know,
4:26
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of success in my life, and
4:28
Speaker 2: you know I talk sometimes. You know, people will introduce
4:32
Speaker 2: me like you did. I was on the USG gymnastics team,
4:34
Speaker 2: I was an Emmy Award winning a news anchor. I
4:36
Speaker 2: did all these other things. But they don't really talk
4:39
Speaker 2: about the negatives, the difficult things I've been through, and
4:43
Speaker 2: so that's what I talk about now. So my morning
4:46
Speaker 2: routine really is a level set for me. Every day.
4:49
Speaker 2: Start with gratitude. I don't pick up my phone first thing.
4:51
Speaker 2: I start my day with gratitude, and I think that's
4:54
Speaker 2: one of the most important things people can do. And
4:56
Speaker 2: then I also think keeping that phone off to the side,
5:00
Speaker 2: have an hour, my first hour of my day. I'm
5:02
Speaker 2: not picking the phone up, and I start with gratitude.
5:05
Speaker 2: I stretch, move my body because I'm not a kid anymore,
5:08
Speaker 2: and an all earths and if you don't, and then
5:11
Speaker 2: I spend time breathing and meditating. But I'm not a
5:17
Speaker 2: real zen meditator. I just get really quiet and listen
5:21
Speaker 2: to my thoughts and spend time with myself before I
5:24
Speaker 2: go okay.
5:25
Speaker 3: You know, you know we usually listening to your thoughts.
5:28
Speaker 2: What is that, well, listening to your thoughts, you know
5:32
Speaker 2: through the research I've done, So I do a lot
5:34
Speaker 2: of research on resilience, right, And one of the things
5:37
Speaker 2: that's really important as we look at how we're resilience
5:39
Speaker 2: is your ability to adapt in a positive way, And
5:42
Speaker 2: that ties back into the adapt is learning and grow
5:45
Speaker 2: stronger from things who don't go things that don't go right.
5:48
Speaker 2: So a lot of times I'm listening to myself, I'm
5:50
Speaker 2: thinking what's going right, gratitude, and then I go into okay,
5:54
Speaker 2: what's not going right? And I try to learn from
5:57
Speaker 2: what's not going right, things that I haven't done right
5:59
Speaker 2: the days leading up to it, no, or of things
6:02
Speaker 2: that still need more attention from me. So when I
6:05
Speaker 2: get really quiet, I try to hear myself think about
6:08
Speaker 2: learnings from the days before, but what is really important
6:12
Speaker 2: right now for my big picture of my life. So
6:16
Speaker 2: resilience is about the big picture, you know, stepping back
6:19
Speaker 2: and looking at the big picture of your life. And
6:21
Speaker 2: it's also about hut, you know, putting in perspective and
6:26
Speaker 2: then being able to think about what I can, I
6:27
Speaker 2: act on't have control over, and moving forward and learning
6:32
Speaker 2: with the new learnings that you have.
6:35
Speaker 4: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
6:38
Speaker 4: Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
6:48
Speaker 4: Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald.
6:52
Speaker 3: I'm speaking to Nina Sossimonkol.
6:54
Speaker 1: She's just sought out the speaker, two time bestselling author
6:57
Speaker 1: and podcast Let's talk.
6:58
Speaker 3: Let's go back a little bit in Collin.
7:00
Speaker 1: You world class gymnasts and so which creates body stereotypes,
7:05
Speaker 1: you know, and my daughter she was a.
7:08
Speaker 3: World class athlete.
7:09
Speaker 1: From the standpoint of tennis, she was a feenoe and
7:13
Speaker 1: so a lot of pressure to look this way to
7:16
Speaker 1: concent training and evolution in talking to parents, because this
7:22
Speaker 1: is all about social media now, because people really do
7:24
Speaker 1: a lot of body shaming on social media. Talk about
7:28
Speaker 1: that process when you stop being a gymnast and started
7:32
Speaker 1: be living life and people started your body started to
7:36
Speaker 1: change before social media is so dominant right now, how
7:41
Speaker 1: did you deal with that and how do you give
7:43
Speaker 1: advice for individuals and parents as they see their child
7:48
Speaker 1: change and maybe not that athlete that they wanted them
7:51
Speaker 1: to be, but living a life that they want to live.
7:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's difficult. I have three grown children, so I've
7:57
Speaker 2: gone through this with my own. I had two boys
7:59
Speaker 2: and a girl. So I think one of the most
8:02
Speaker 2: important things about social media. When I was a young person,
8:05
Speaker 2: it wasn't a thing, but I was very body conscious,
8:07
Speaker 2: and as an athlete, I'm sure your daughter is the
8:09
Speaker 2: same way. You really control what you eat, and you're
8:13
Speaker 2: being told constantly to lose the weight and look a
8:15
Speaker 2: certain way, and look good in this outfit and do
8:18
Speaker 2: all things you have to do because you are putting
8:20
Speaker 2: yourself on display as an athlete and either winning or
8:23
Speaker 2: losing it. And there's a lot of not just how
8:27
Speaker 2: muscular you are, but how low your body fat is.
8:30
Speaker 2: And that's changed through the years. We look at phenomenal
8:33
Speaker 2: athletes like Jordan Chiles who like broken that stereotype and gone,
8:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to be me. You know, I'm that girl.
8:40
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan. But I think that it back
8:43
Speaker 2: when I was it certainly played a part in my gumastics.
8:47
Speaker 2: I was there in the eighties, so I was beliemic.
8:50
Speaker 2: My coach would say, I don't care if you have
8:51
Speaker 2: to pardon, this may be trigger, but I don't care.
8:53
Speaker 2: If you have to stick your finger down your throat
8:55
Speaker 2: or go spit in the cup, you will make way in.
8:57
Speaker 2: And so that was part of what I grew up
9:00
Speaker 2: with was a very different time. The sport's not like
9:02
Speaker 2: that now, but that has stuck with me through the years.
9:05
Speaker 2: I continue to have weird body dysmorphia. I'm five foot three,
9:09
Speaker 2: I'm a little bitty person, but in my head, I'm
9:12
Speaker 2: still too big for everything, and I have a hard
9:16
Speaker 2: time by clothing and I have a hard time with
9:19
Speaker 2: my food choices. So it's something I've had to work
9:21
Speaker 2: on my whole life. And for parents, I wanted so
9:25
Speaker 2: badly not to pass this along to my daughter, and
9:27
Speaker 2: she ended up being in ballet, another area where again
9:31
Speaker 2: so much has to yeah, so much has to do
9:34
Speaker 2: with your body and your and how you're built. And
9:38
Speaker 2: it was really that's even more difficult than gymnastics, I
9:41
Speaker 2: think in some ways because you're in this, you're being
9:45
Speaker 2: put on a stage right next to other people, and
9:47
Speaker 2: being compared with gymnastics, you're one kind of one at
9:49
Speaker 2: a time, but the comparisons and with dancing, they're constantly
9:53
Speaker 2: looking in a mirror, which is hard to when you
9:56
Speaker 2: have body you're very body conscious. I think this for parents.
10:01
Speaker 2: There is a whole new world of body positivity out
10:04
Speaker 2: there that we can lean into. It's not like it
10:07
Speaker 2: used to be. Thank goodness, We're in a new era
10:09
Speaker 2: of body positivity. I think encouraging healthy eating habits and
10:13
Speaker 2: encouraging people everyone to take care of themselves is you know,
10:18
Speaker 2: as a parent, you know, putting that responsibility back on
10:21
Speaker 2: the child is really important. I'm a big fan of
10:23
Speaker 2: letting your kids fail and letting them learn from it.
10:26
Speaker 2: So sometimes you have to let them make some bad
10:29
Speaker 2: choices and then figure out how to make good ones.
10:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:32
Speaker 1: No, here's something interesting because you know, like I said,
10:34
Speaker 1: you were training as a gymnast through your middle school.
10:37
Speaker 3: Because when you start, you start that young.
10:40
Speaker 1: Go to high school and you had your parents there, okay,
10:44
Speaker 1: and you're still being monitored by coaches. Then you went
10:48
Speaker 1: to college and your parents weren't there anymore, and so
10:51
Speaker 1: you have these adults who telling you, like you said,
10:53
Speaker 1: weight requirements training. And so did you grow up fast
10:58
Speaker 1: or did you respond back to your parents about I'm
11:02
Speaker 1: just trying to let people listening to this show to
11:05
Speaker 1: understand some of the processes that you went through, and
11:08
Speaker 1: we're going to get to your book that put you
11:09
Speaker 1: on the radar. Will be at the Bennut because of
11:12
Speaker 1: the fact that Nina, you dealt with something that is
11:15
Speaker 1: so important today, and it's weight, it's about luck, it's
11:20
Speaker 1: about stereotypes, it's about performance, and it's in social media.
11:25
Speaker 1: You know, when you know, when you see people who
11:28
Speaker 1: are actors and sports, especially on the women's side, you
11:32
Speaker 1: don't get it that much on men. Like when Zion
11:34
Speaker 1: Williams weighed five hundred pounds, people say he was just
11:37
Speaker 1: fat and went on by their business. Okay, a woman
11:40
Speaker 1: who like Sidney Sweeney, you know, she gained weight to
11:44
Speaker 1: do a boxing movie. They immediately went into the body
11:48
Speaker 1: shaming with her brow, look at her word. She don't
11:51
Speaker 1: check you anymore. And so how does you deal with
11:54
Speaker 1: that as a as a young adult, and then transmit
11:57
Speaker 1: that transfer that information to your kids as well as
12:00
Speaker 1: you a motivational speaker.
12:02
Speaker 3: So it's just not the first time you.
12:03
Speaker 1: Heard this from anybody like me, And so I hope
12:05
Speaker 1: I am not doing any triggers here today you do.
12:08
Speaker 2: I can't believe you that talked to about. No, that's
12:14
Speaker 2: not the case at all. So I think you know,
12:16
Speaker 2: when I was young, it was a different era and
12:19
Speaker 2: it was really difficult for athletes are in that eighties, nineties,
12:25
Speaker 2: and even in the early two thousands. I mean, it's
12:27
Speaker 2: it's been very much that Victoria's Secret model or the
12:30
Speaker 2: zero body fat look in the sports. So that became
12:35
Speaker 2: part of my norm. And here's where it gets kind
12:37
Speaker 2: of tricky. So I moved away from home when I
12:39
Speaker 2: was thirteen, and I moved into the Olympic Training Center.
12:42
Speaker 2: So from thirteen on, all those years where my body
12:45
Speaker 2: started to grow and change, I was living with coaches
12:48
Speaker 2: for the most part, and they had more influence on
12:50
Speaker 2: me than my own parents did, and I can see
12:54
Speaker 2: that influence now. And then when I went off to college,
12:56
Speaker 2: there was not as much structure. Actually I had a
12:59
Speaker 2: little more freedom, and I started I've got the freshman
13:02
Speaker 2: fifteen ban. You don't get to do that. Actually as
13:04
Speaker 2: a gymnaster it all falls apart, but I did that.
13:07
Speaker 2: I had a hard time dealing with food intake, and
13:11
Speaker 2: then I blew out my knee in college and lost
13:13
Speaker 2: my sport, and it was a really difficult time for me.
13:16
Speaker 2: And then I get into an industry, which is television
13:19
Speaker 2: or once again, everybody's looking at you and looking at
13:22
Speaker 2: your you know how big you are and in your ratings. Yeah,
13:25
Speaker 2: and I got some cheeks. I got these from my daddy.
13:27
Speaker 2: They're not going anywhere, so that matter. How can I
13:31
Speaker 2: get these? Are stay it? So I got into this
13:35
Speaker 2: next industry where they just really pick on you and
13:39
Speaker 2: will come right out and say whatever they want. I
13:41
Speaker 2: had two children while I was on the air, and
13:44
Speaker 2: I can remember women walking up to me in the
13:46
Speaker 2: grocery store and I'm like, got a baby on my
13:49
Speaker 2: hip and one and a buggy and I'm just in
13:51
Speaker 2: between newscasts, trying to get it all together, and someone
13:53
Speaker 2: would walk up to me and say, oh, you should
13:56
Speaker 2: wear that that red blazer that makes you look busty.
13:59
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get groceries from my children, right. Why
14:04
Speaker 2: are we having this conversation?
14:06
Speaker 3: Why?
14:06
Speaker 2: Why do you hear but people don't come up to
14:12
Speaker 2: you and say anything. I had a woman call me
14:14
Speaker 2: one time and say, you can't wear those dangly earrings.
14:18
Speaker 2: I can't hear a word you're saying. When you're I
14:19
Speaker 2: just keep looking at those dangly earrings.
14:23
Speaker 1: No man gets that call, No man gets the care
14:27
Speaker 1: you wrinkles looking like a prune on TV. Oh god,
14:30
Speaker 1: he looks he looks, he looks respected.
14:33
Speaker 2: Yes, he looks charming, or he looks distinguished.
14:37
Speaker 3: Right, I like that's the word, write that distinguished.
14:39
Speaker 2: Distinguished.
14:40
Speaker 3: They the grave distings.
14:42
Speaker 1: You can't a woman cannot look distinguished. Now a man
14:45
Speaker 1: can look distinguished.
14:47
Speaker 2: Like wrinkley and old. And we are told I remember
14:49
Speaker 2: when I was pregnant, someone calling the TV station and
14:51
Speaker 2: going tell her to push away from the table.
14:55
Speaker 3: O my god.
14:56
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's what we're talking about, you know.
14:59
Speaker 1: And it's worse now because of social media, because of
15:02
Speaker 1: the fact that people can comment. It's still share comments
15:06
Speaker 1: and then forward things to other people to share comments,
15:09
Speaker 1: and that's how things go viral and you can come
15:12
Speaker 1: up become a victim and that could be a state
15:14
Speaker 1: of being a bullet being bullied through social media. Now,
15:18
Speaker 1: let's talk about something that captured my attention in twenty twenty.
15:21
Speaker 1: You know, I started my podcast in twenty seventeen and
15:24
Speaker 1: you didn't even know ra Sean McDonald, But with Sean
15:26
Speaker 1: knew need them and so when this opportunity came across
15:28
Speaker 1: my desk the interview, I jumped on it.
15:30
Speaker 3: The book This Is Not the End. And the reason
15:33
Speaker 3: I talked I wanted to bring.
15:34
Speaker 1: Up that book was the fact that it was a
15:36
Speaker 1: personal book because they talked about some journeys. Now, I
15:42
Speaker 1: was fortunate I represents Stephen A. Smith, ESPN. And he
15:45
Speaker 1: wrote his book Straight Shooter, and it was a very
15:48
Speaker 1: difficult book. He talked about it was a memoir and
15:52
Speaker 1: there was a lot of moments when he had to
15:54
Speaker 1: really rethink the process, how it impacted his family because
15:59
Speaker 1: the fact that he's may have said some things that
16:01
Speaker 1: they aren't aware of or may not have wanted it
16:04
Speaker 1: to be made in public. When you did this book,
16:08
Speaker 1: talk about that journey and some of the challenges you
16:11
Speaker 1: had to go through to write it.
16:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was difficult in lots of ways. So
16:16
Speaker 2: the book is called This Is Not the End, and
16:18
Speaker 2: it has a typewriter in the front the end, as in,
16:21
Speaker 2: it's not the end of your story, right, And the
16:23
Speaker 2: book was really written about your journey or this whatever
16:26
Speaker 2: this is that you're dealing with. And I talked to
16:28
Speaker 2: the reader that way, like this thing you're dealing with.
16:31
Speaker 2: But in order to explain why I might be somebody
16:34
Speaker 2: listen to, I have to share and you go through
16:36
Speaker 2: that cathartic process and digging up all of my this
16:39
Speaker 2: is so I share my big points. Yeah, yeah, let's
16:43
Speaker 2: just visit that for a little while. That's so I do.
16:47
Speaker 2: I do five. I go and visit five areas at
16:50
Speaker 2: points in my life where I had really big failures
16:53
Speaker 2: and thought this is the end, like my life's over.
16:57
Speaker 2: And then the hardest one was when I was thirty
16:59
Speaker 2: seven and I was involved in an accident and I
17:01
Speaker 2: really went through a dark time, but I managed to
17:04
Speaker 2: get out of it and have big success on the
17:06
Speaker 2: other side. So what the book is is, if you're
17:09
Speaker 2: in a tough spot, let me get you through this.
17:12
Speaker 2: And I take people through certain steps to get them
17:15
Speaker 2: just unstuck. So you don't want to be the person
17:17
Speaker 2: who get stuck in the death of a loved one
17:19
Speaker 2: or a divorce, or getting fired or the big things
17:22
Speaker 2: that happen in our life. So I talk about in
17:24
Speaker 2: there not making the Olympic teen and being so full
17:28
Speaker 2: of shame and blame and having to walk through the
17:30
Speaker 2: halls of my high school and was just so embarrassed,
17:34
Speaker 2: and I felt like I'd let down my friends and
17:35
Speaker 2: my family and my coaches. Obviously, so at the ripe
17:38
Speaker 2: old age of sixteen, feeling like a failure and that
17:40
Speaker 2: I wasted my life. And then I talk about blowing
17:43
Speaker 2: out my knee. When I'm nineteen and in college, I
17:46
Speaker 2: ended up blow out my knee, and in order to
17:49
Speaker 2: keep my scholarship, they you had to work for the university,
17:52
Speaker 2: and they put me in the laundry room. So here
17:55
Speaker 2: I am this world class athlete. I'd actually done some
17:58
Speaker 2: modeling and things, and now I'm working in the lawn
18:00
Speaker 2: room on crutches every day. And not like washing cute
18:03
Speaker 2: little leotards. Now I'm washing all of the athletic equipment.
18:06
Speaker 2: I sometimes joke you like this, I sometimes joke my
18:10
Speaker 2: claim to fame was almost that I washed Tequille O'Neal's jockstrap.
18:12
Speaker 2: Probably you know, but I worked in this laundry room
18:18
Speaker 2: at nineteen, and I was really another low point, thinking
18:20
Speaker 2: I had wasted my whole life in the gym. Why
18:23
Speaker 2: you know, now, what was I going to do? I
18:24
Speaker 2: just hadn't even thought it forward, and I was in
18:26
Speaker 2: a really bad spot. Made some poor choices, you know.
18:29
Speaker 2: I can remember taking my percoset with a shot of
18:31
Speaker 2: yeager and crutching my way into physical therapy and just
18:34
Speaker 2: being a really unpleasant person to be around, right, But
18:37
Speaker 2: I found my way out of that through some a
18:41
Speaker 2: series of variables, and then I became a news anchor,
18:44
Speaker 2: had shrut lake success as a news anchor, and then
18:47
Speaker 2: I got let go at one point and they went
18:49
Speaker 2: younger and blonder, so I had to navigate my way
18:51
Speaker 2: through that. So and then I had this this horrible
18:55
Speaker 2: accident when I was thirty seven and that I was
18:57
Speaker 2: involved in, and I had to really figure out how
19:00
Speaker 2: to tell that story. That was the hardest one to
19:02
Speaker 2: do as far as the book goes, because that's when
19:04
Speaker 2: I had real suicidal ideation and it wasn't just my
19:08
Speaker 2: story to tell. There are other people involved with it.
19:11
Speaker 2: So it's always a balance of I really felt it
19:13
Speaker 2: was important to tell the story, but I wanted to
19:16
Speaker 2: respect everybody's privacy and everybody else's journey that they went through,
19:21
Speaker 2: So that was probably the hardest part to tell.
19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why I brought the book up and
19:25
Speaker 1: hopefully people go and pick up this book, and because
19:29
Speaker 1: it's still available and a reason because transition is happening
19:34
Speaker 1: in this country right now. You know, layoffs, people being
19:40
Speaker 1: fired and transitions, and so this is not the end
19:44
Speaker 1: kind of like motivates people doing these moments of what
19:48
Speaker 1: may be considered darkness or unsuspecting or periods I didn't
19:53
Speaker 1: see coming. How do companies or individuals who are being
19:58
Speaker 1: suddenly shocked by these job transitions, how can you evolve
20:03
Speaker 1: mistakes I'm talking about on the side of the company
20:06
Speaker 1: and also as individuals when these things come about, how
20:09
Speaker 1: to evolve a look beyond what's happening to them and
20:12
Speaker 1: see there's a positive opportunity that's being presented to you.
20:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a difficult time for so many people, and
20:19
Speaker 2: so I'm really thankful that you brought this up. So
20:22
Speaker 2: in the book, there's seven seven different strategies. Book is
20:26
Speaker 2: really written for the person going through it. It starts
20:29
Speaker 2: out in the first sentence is well, this is a
20:31
Speaker 2: grappy way to meet you, you know, and it's like
20:33
Speaker 2: as you're going through something. So it's the book I
20:36
Speaker 2: was looking for when I was in a really dark place.
20:38
Speaker 2: So it is specifically strategies create a script to protect yourself.
20:43
Speaker 2: Put it in perspective all different things you can do,
20:45
Speaker 2: because that's the book I was looking for when I
20:47
Speaker 2: was in a tough place, because there's always these other
20:49
Speaker 2: people's stories, which is the last thing you want when
20:52
Speaker 2: you're in your in the middle of your own tragedy.
20:55
Speaker 2: And then there were a lot of PTSD workbooks, and
20:57
Speaker 2: there were a lot of other things like that, but
20:58
Speaker 2: I wanted, like, just somebody tell me what to do
21:01
Speaker 2: so I don't go jump off this bridge, like I
21:03
Speaker 2: just needed that. So that's what this book is. And
21:05
Speaker 2: I'm my workshops called the now What Workshop, which is
21:08
Speaker 2: now what you know and it gets people unstuck. But
21:11
Speaker 2: there are four steps. There are four things that through
21:14
Speaker 2: my research and as you said, going back and looking
21:16
Speaker 2: at all the unpleasant points in my life, what did
21:19
Speaker 2: I do to not just survive it, but to thrive
21:22
Speaker 2: on the other side, to really have some big success
21:24
Speaker 2: on the other side of many events that would have
21:26
Speaker 2: stopped somebody from progressing in their life. And so I
21:31
Speaker 2: looked at those, and I looked at organizations, lead athletes, artists,
21:35
Speaker 2: like musicians, you know, actors who almost almost you know,
21:40
Speaker 2: hit that rock bottom and then found their way back
21:42
Speaker 2: to not just survive, but thrive, and the four things
21:45
Speaker 2: were it's Thhis is the acronym I use because it's
21:49
Speaker 2: this whatever you're this is that you're dealing with as
21:51
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend to know your world or
21:53
Speaker 2: how you have to manage your way through it. I
21:56
Speaker 2: just know whatever this is. You wake up in the morning,
21:58
Speaker 2: you're thinking about this. It affects you every day, and
22:00
Speaker 2: then you had a bed think of that.
22:01
Speaker 3: It's big.
22:02
Speaker 2: So the tea is timeline, and that's this perspective piece.
22:06
Speaker 2: I ask people to make a timeline of one to
22:08
Speaker 2: one hundred and put dots ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet
22:11
Speaker 2: all the way across to it. If you live to
22:12
Speaker 2: be one hundred, which I need to drink less wine
22:15
Speaker 2: and take better care of myself, I'm gonna pretend that
22:17
Speaker 2: I'm gonna live to be one hundred. And then I say,
22:20
Speaker 2: on this timeline, put a dot on where you are
22:22
Speaker 2: right now, on what's happening. So if you're in your fifties,
22:25
Speaker 2: my dot's in the fifties right in the middle of
22:26
Speaker 2: that timeline. Somewhere someone in their thirties their dots way
22:29
Speaker 2: over here. So I asked them to put that there
22:32
Speaker 2: and then you know, we do a little work with it.
22:35
Speaker 2: Everything you've done brought you up to this point, and
22:37
Speaker 2: then down below the line, I say, you know, like
22:39
Speaker 2: your your accolades, what you would put on LinkedIn, all
22:43
Speaker 2: of your thinks. You bought the house, you married, the girl,
22:45
Speaker 2: you got the degree, took a course, whatever. That's all
22:48
Speaker 2: on the top, and then down below. I asked people
22:50
Speaker 2: to put down all the stuff that they've gotten through,
22:53
Speaker 2: and I call that your reverse resume. Tough stuff we've
22:56
Speaker 2: all gotten through because nobody got a pass. You don't
22:58
Speaker 2: know what somebody else is going through. We're all struggling
23:00
Speaker 2: with something. So we put that down below. But then
23:02
Speaker 2: there's this dot and I say, the magic in this
23:05
Speaker 2: image is all the blank space ahead. You can put
23:10
Speaker 2: it there, anything you want to. All that blank space
23:12
Speaker 2: ahead is for you to fill out. So that's the
23:13
Speaker 2: timeline thing. It's this perspective piece. And then it's a
23:17
Speaker 2: little bit stoicism, a little cognitive behavior therapy, a little neuroplasticity,
23:21
Speaker 2: trying to change our brains, you know. But that's the
23:23
Speaker 2: t and then the h is humans. When we go
23:26
Speaker 2: through something, we feel really alone. And the people who
23:28
Speaker 2: have big success myself and all of those incidences. And
23:33
Speaker 2: then also, as I said, all the research that I've done,
23:36
Speaker 2: people who have big success don't just survive something, but thrive.
23:39
Speaker 2: They don't go it alone. So you have to look
23:41
Speaker 2: at your people, who's helping, who's hurting, and make sure
23:44
Speaker 2: somebody's in there with you, whether it's a friend or
23:46
Speaker 2: a therapist or something that's the human piece. It's h
23:50
Speaker 2: And then the eye is called isolate. And I know
23:55
Speaker 2: this is a long answer, so thank you for letting
23:56
Speaker 2: me get through it. I call isolate, which is on
23:59
Speaker 2: that dot you put line up and down on your page,
24:02
Speaker 2: and you can't talk about what happened before the what
24:04
Speaker 2: it should have could as that's the past. And any
24:07
Speaker 2: therapist will tell you spend all your time in the
24:08
Speaker 2: past thinking about that. That's where depression lives. And then
24:12
Speaker 2: I say, okay, and on the other side that you
24:14
Speaker 2: can't talk about the other side of that dot, either
24:16
Speaker 2: the what ifs and the doom state scenarios and where
24:18
Speaker 2: does this all? You can't go there either. That's the future,
24:21
Speaker 2: And then you get therapists will tell you spend all
24:23
Speaker 2: your time thinking about that. That's where anxiety lives. So
24:26
Speaker 2: we have to be writing, like, what are we doing
24:28
Speaker 2: in this moment right now? It's the isolate, What can
24:31
Speaker 2: I actually take action on right do what you can
24:34
Speaker 2: with what you got, and move forward. That's the isolate.
24:37
Speaker 2: And then the last piece is an S which is
24:40
Speaker 2: for story, and that's the words in our head that
24:42
Speaker 2: come out of our mouth that become our story. And
24:46
Speaker 2: that's some of the self sabotage and stuff that we do.
24:49
Speaker 2: You know, we make that story up in our head
24:50
Speaker 2: and it becomes our reality. But what's really important about
24:53
Speaker 2: that when it comes to getting fired is you have
24:55
Speaker 2: to be or losing a job at this moment. You
24:57
Speaker 2: have to be careful about that language because you need
25:00
Speaker 2: keep yourself hirable and no one wants to hire the
25:03
Speaker 2: angry person. No one wants to hire the bitter person.
25:06
Speaker 2: So you have to you got to find somebody who
25:08
Speaker 2: can let that all out with. But one of the
25:10
Speaker 2: biggest things we need to do at this time is work.
25:12
Speaker 2: Watch the language in our head. We can say that
25:16
Speaker 2: I'm starting a new chapter. I've got I don't know
25:19
Speaker 2: what opportunities are out there, but I'm looking for opportunities,
25:22
Speaker 2: not I got to get a job or I just
25:24
Speaker 2: I'm looking for opportunities, something news coming. We've got to
25:27
Speaker 2: get our minds and our brains in that area, because
25:31
Speaker 2: when you're the one that's like, they're idiots, they don't
25:33
Speaker 2: know what they're doing. They shouldn't have fired me so
25:35
Speaker 2: and so. Still they are good luck, They're never gonna
25:37
Speaker 2: make without me because he's a jerk or whatever that language. No,
25:42
Speaker 2: that's what the story is. When people call and check
25:44
Speaker 2: in on you, how's he doing, how's she doing? They
25:48
Speaker 2: repeat what you just said, Well, he says the no,
25:49
Speaker 2: you're you know, they're never gonna survive without me, and
25:52
Speaker 2: they should have fired so and so instead of me,
25:54
Speaker 2: and they don't know what they're doing. That's the story
25:58
Speaker 2: that you're putting out there. If you get fired, same
26:00
Speaker 2: person gets fired and they're like, well, you know, struggling
26:05
Speaker 2: a little bit. I didn't see this coming, and I'm
26:07
Speaker 2: looking for an opportunity. And I got to pay the rent,
26:09
Speaker 2: I got to get my bills paid. So I'm really
26:11
Speaker 2: looking for anybody has anything. I'm a hard worker, you
26:14
Speaker 2: know I am. I mean, you still get to say
26:16
Speaker 2: you're a hard worker, you say you're looking. It's just
26:18
Speaker 2: a different way of going about it. People want to
26:21
Speaker 2: hire that.
26:21
Speaker 3: Person, right. You know this show.
26:24
Speaker 1: First of all, I meet so many interesting people that
26:28
Speaker 1: I would have never met, like you, Nina.
26:31
Speaker 3: I can actually launch dinner hang out with you.
26:33
Speaker 2: I was like, I feel like I feel like you
26:34
Speaker 2: had a.
26:35
Speaker 1: Little bedside man of voice, you know, like you shine,
26:38
Speaker 1: come down, We'll go on.
26:42
Speaker 3: You have a great voice. You know.
26:45
Speaker 1: In this world of podcasts, your podcast host just like me,
26:48
Speaker 1: we always meet people, and sometimes you meet so many
26:51
Speaker 1: people you go wow. I didn't know that, and that's
26:52
Speaker 1: why I always look. I always tell people before they
26:54
Speaker 1: come on to the show. Ladies and gentlemen who listen,
26:56
Speaker 1: I always tell them, I'm just a storyteller. I bring
26:59
Speaker 1: some man of experts onto my show. They helped me
27:02
Speaker 1: tell stories on your show as a host. Any guests
27:06
Speaker 1: that stood out that went wow, they really I didn't
27:10
Speaker 1: see that coming and shared with my audience on money
27:13
Speaker 1: Making Conversations Masterclass.
27:15
Speaker 2: Yeah my favorite. I have a lot of great guests,
27:17
Speaker 2: if any of them here this one. Make sure I
27:19
Speaker 2: said a lot of great guests. Everybody's great. But the
27:23
Speaker 2: name of my show is this Seriously Sucks, the right
27:26
Speaker 2: podcast when life goes seriously wrong. So I've had people
27:30
Speaker 2: on there who have had, you know, lost a spouse
27:33
Speaker 2: or lost a child, or they've incarcerated and been addicted,
27:37
Speaker 2: been human traffic. I did a lot of people on
27:39
Speaker 2: my show who've gone through things I cannot even imagine.
27:43
Speaker 2: But one of them, his name is Joe Della Grave
27:46
Speaker 2: and he is a three time Paralympia and now he's
27:49
Speaker 2: the head coach of the national wheelchair rugby team for Paralympia.
27:54
Speaker 2: He's this rugby two chair rugby. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
27:57
Speaker 2: And his story that see, that's just that, right, that's
28:00
Speaker 2: that's the best story. He's like, yeah, we're a bunch
28:01
Speaker 2: of crippled people and we reel around trying to make
28:03
Speaker 2: each other more cripple. And I can say that, you can't, right,
28:06
Speaker 2: he just kill it, PC, He just kill it PC.
28:09
Speaker 2: He is because I can say that and you can't.
28:11
Speaker 2: But he's just this really inspirational cool guy. We become friends,
28:15
Speaker 2: you know how, like you meet somebody like I feel
28:17
Speaker 2: like that person would be my friend. So we have
28:19
Speaker 2: become friends, and we've done some speaking gigs together and
28:22
Speaker 2: we're in a couple of groups together. But I met
28:24
Speaker 2: him and he has such an amazing story. He was
28:27
Speaker 2: a college football player who became paralyzed from the chest
28:30
Speaker 2: down and then took him a while to get in
28:35
Speaker 2: the chair. That's his thing, Like, what's your chair, folks,
28:37
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just have to get in the chair to
28:39
Speaker 2: get going. You know. He really resisted getting in the
28:42
Speaker 2: chair because he didn't want to be that guy. And
28:44
Speaker 2: then once he got in the chair, it took him
28:45
Speaker 2: down the aisle to marry his wife, it takes him
28:47
Speaker 2: to the sidelines to coach his kids soccer teams, like
28:51
Speaker 2: and it's taken him all over the world that chare
28:53
Speaker 2: to go all over the world and be and represent
28:56
Speaker 2: the United States and be a paralympian. So he's one
28:59
Speaker 2: of my favorite ones because I cannot imagine that. And
29:02
Speaker 2: when it comes to me sharing my stories of how
29:05
Speaker 2: I got out of tough stuff, that's why my podcast
29:08
Speaker 2: works because people have gone through stuff a lot tougher
29:10
Speaker 2: than me, and then we can kind of test my
29:13
Speaker 2: concept the tchis and they can take me through the
29:15
Speaker 2: things that they did and they have done the same things,
29:18
Speaker 2: which is really a very reassuring for me from my research,
29:22
Speaker 2: but also just a cool way to think about how
29:24
Speaker 2: people get out of really well.
29:26
Speaker 1: It took five years. I finally got on my show, Nina.
29:30
Speaker 1: I found you. You were hiding in Charles and South Carolina.
29:34
Speaker 2: Come down and eat some good food.
29:36
Speaker 3: Got great food around over by low Country.
29:39
Speaker 2: Okay, I know what's going on down and good stuff. Well.
29:42
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations Massive Class,
29:45
Speaker 1: uplifting me, providing information to my audience and having a
29:48
Speaker 1: great conversation about life that you can get through it.
29:52
Speaker 3: And this is not the end. If you find your.
29:55
Speaker 2: This for Shana, it has been my pleasure. Thank you
29:58
Speaker 2: so very much.
30:00
Speaker 3: I appreciate you.
30:00
Speaker 1: Hopefully talk soon, and thank you again for coming on
30:03
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation Masterclass. This has been another edition of
30:07
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation Masterclass hosted by me Rushaun McDonald. Thank
30:11
Speaker 1: you to our guests on the show today and thank
30:13
Speaker 1: you for listening to audience now. If you want to
30:16
Speaker 1: listen to any episode I want to be a guest
30:18
Speaker 1: on the show, visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media
30:22
Speaker 1: handle is money Making Conversation. Join us next week and
30:25
Speaker 1: remember to always leave with your gifts.
30:28
Speaker 3: Keep winning