# Uplift: She has conquered life’s obstacles and now creates success for others in life and work.

An episode of [Money Making Conversations Master Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1264705641), 25 Mar 2025, 31 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/b1db7263-d1a3-4d00-8976-af62012aab44/df087759-0cca-4a4d-bbcd-b2aa01321fda/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=35a10561-3e1b-4d05-a529-af62012aab6a

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Nina Sossamon-Pogue. A former elite gymnast, Emmy-winning news anchor, bestselling author, and resilience expert. Here’s a summary of the key themes and insights from the episode: 🎙️ Guest Introduction: Nina Sossamon-Pogue • Former USA Gymnastics team member and Emmy-winning news anchor. • Author of This Is Not the End and host of the podcast This Seriously Sucks. • Focuses on helping people navigate life’s toughest transitions with resilience. 🧠 Mental Health & Daily Routines • Nina emphasizes the importance of gratitude, mindfulness, and limiting early phone use to start the day with clarity. • Rushion shares his own structured morning routine and how it helps him manage stress and stay productive. 💪 Resilience and Personal Growth • Nina defines resilience as the ability to adapt positively and grow stronger from adversity. • She encourages people to reflect on what’s going right, what needs attention, and how to move forward with purpose. 🧍‍♀️ Body Image, Athletics & Social Media • Nina shares her experience with body dysmorphia and bulimia during her gymnastics career in the 1980s. • She discusses the long-term impact of being judged by appearance in both sports and television. • Offers advice to parents and young athletes on navigating body image in the age of social media. 📘 Her Book: This Is Not the End • Written for people facing major life setbacks—job loss, injury, grief, or personal failure. • Nina shares five personal “this is the end” moments, including: • Not making the Olympic team. • Career-ending knee injury. • Losing her job as a news anchor. • A traumatic accident at age 37. • The book provides seven strategies and a four-step framework (T.H.I.S.) to help readers move forward: • Timeline: Gain perspective on your life journey. • Humans: Lean on others—don’t go it alone. • Isolate: Focus on the present moment. • Story: Reframe your internal narrative to stay empowered and hirable. 🎧 Podcast Highlight • Nina’s podcast This Seriously Sucks features guests who’ve overcome major life challenges. • She highlights Joe Delagrave, a Paralympian and coach, whose story of resilience and transformation deeply inspired her. 💬 Closing Thoughts • • Rushion praises Nina’s authenticity, voice, and ability to connect. • Nina encourages listeners to embrace their “this” moment and remember: “This is not the end.” #BEST #STRAW #SHMS Money Making Conversations Master Class with Rushion McDonald is America's premier entrepreneurship, business leadership, financial literacy, and wealth-building podcast featuring successful entrepreneurs, executives, founders, celebrities, and industry experts sharing actionable insights for professional and financial success. Business Podcast Entrepreneurship Small Business Business Growth Financial Literacy Wealth Building Black Entrepreneurs Minority Business Leadership Executive Leadership Business Funding Marketing Strategies Personal Development Startup Advice Sales Training CEO Interviews Founder Stories Professional Development Economic Empowerment Business Success Networking Brand Building Innovation How to start a business Small business funding Entrepreneur success stories Business leadership podcast Wealth building strategies Black entrepreneur podcast Minority business development Marketing for small businesses Business growth…

## Transcript

[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

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