Building Resilience: A Thought Leader's Guide to Thriving After Tragedy | Nina Sossamon-Pogue | 626

·45 min·4 clips

Nina describes backing over a baby and considering suicide, a turning point in her resilience journey.

The episode begins with host Bill Sherman introducing the theme of public failure in thought leadership and guest Nina Sossamon-Pogue, an author, speaker, and resilience advocate. Nina explains how her thought leadership practice evolved from speaking and writing, driven by a desire to give back after corporate success. She describes her transition from journalism and tech roles to finding her unique message on resilience, which she defines as learning, growing stronger, and adapting positively. Nina recounts early public failures, including not making the U.S. gymnastics team at 16 and a career-ending knee injury in college, which led to identity loss. She then shares a pivotal tragedy: at 37, while picking up her kids, she accidentally backed over a friend's baby, causing severe injuries. This event brought public scrutiny and drove her to suicidal thoughts, but therapy and community support helped her recover. Nina discusses how this experience motivated her to create a resilience framework, initially as a seven-step guide in her book, later refined to four common steps after two years of research and testing with others. She introduces 'excellence exhaustion' as a modern challenge for high achievers in a constantly connected world. Nina reflects on the pressures of the speaking industry and her commitment to authenticity over showmanship. In closing, she expresses a goal for her 'resilience route navigator' framework to help college students and reduce suicide rates, aiming for it to become a widely used tool.

As heard by us

A candid look at how public failure, reflection, and responsibility can shape thought leadership.

Thought leadership often sounds confident after the fact, but this episode stays with the messier question of what happens when public work is shaped by failure.

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Why you'd press play

You want a serious conversation about how public failure, tragedy, and resilience can shape thought leadership.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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