The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Nina Sossamon-Pogue: Building Resilience in Sugar Addiction Recovery
Have you ever wondered if the key to conquering your sugar addiction lies not in your diet, but in your mindset?
In this episode of the Kick Sugar Coach Podcast, I sat down with Nina Sossamon-Pogue to explore how the principles of resilience can be the game-changer in your journey to overcome sugar addiction. Nina’s life story is one of continual reinvention—from training for the Olympics to facing career-ending injuries, to becoming a bestselling author and sought-after speaker. Through it all, she’s mastered the art of bouncing back stronger from every setback.
What if you could apply that same resilience to your relationship with sugar?
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How Nina reinvented herself after a devastating injury and how her approach can help you reinvent your relationship with food.
- The crucial role of “now what” moments—those times when life throws you a curveball and you’re tempted to fall back into old habits—and how to navigate them successfully.
- Nina’s unique concept of a "reverse resume"—acknowledging and celebrating the challenges you’ve overcome as a way to fuel your ongoing recovery.
- Practical strategies for staying resilient during both the highs and lows of your sugar addiction recovery journey.
Nina’s insights are not just about resisting temptation—they’re about reshaping how you see yourself and your ability to overcome challenges. Whether you’re just starting your recovery journey or have been struggling for years, this episode offers powerful tools to help you stay the course, adapt to setbacks, and ultimately, thrive.
Ready to transform your approach to sugar addiction? Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation. Watch the full interview now and start applying resilience to reclaim control over your health and life.
Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts—share your feedback with us here!
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Hello and welcome everybody to an interview today with Nina Sossaman-Pogue, and I'm going to just hit you up with a little bit of her bio. So Nina is a sought-after speaker today. She's a twice best-selling author, she is a podcast host and she likes to describe herself as having been on a journey of repeated reinvention. When she was 13 years old, nina left home to go and train for the Olympics at the age of 13 with her also equally renowned gymnast colleague whose name I'm forgetting Mary Lou Retton. There we go.
FLORENCE:I knew it was going to come to me, but unfortunately Nina sustained an injury and the door to that career as a gymnast closed and she had to reinvent herself. So reinvention number one and she became a journalist, a news anchor. She became a journalist and then she moved over into corporate leadership and today she's a world renowned speaker, sharing her message of resiliency which, as we obviously know, ties very much to the journey of learning how to unhook from sugar and fall in love with whole foods, because it's really a closed door for us as well. For whatever reason, we know that door needs to close and Nina is the queen of knowing what to do when the door closes and how to reinvent yourself. So I'm so excited to have her here with us today. Let me see if there's anything else I want to offer. Just that she was recognized as the woman of distinction by the state of South Carolina and she also has her own journey with food and sugar that she will share with us today. Welcome, nina.
NINA:Thank you for having me. What a lovely introduction. It is great to be here and I certainly along with all of my own accomplishments as you put them out there I've had plenty of struggles and my food journey has been part of the struggles. And what I talk about now is not all of the accomplishments that you mentioned, but more so all the tough times and how we get through them, Because it may look like some of us have it easy, but nobody gets a pass and everybody goes through their own stuff, and for me, food is comfort and the food is something I've always been very acutely aware of. I'm one of those wake up what do I get to eat today, people? And go to bed thinking about what I get to eat tomorrow, which is not healthy, and I'm fully aware of that. I have lots of therapy.
FLORENCE:I kind of almost feel like are you a woman? You probably have a food issue right Somewhere on the spectrum and maybe there's the few rare exceptions and some outliers. But generally speaking, it's a really easy place to get tripped up in our modern culture for lots of reasons. The convenience of the junk foods are everywhere, they're cheap, they're easy, they're fast, like all those things. Plus there's so many stresses on women, so many stresses, and I feel like it's an easy crutch that we can lean into to keep going, to keep moving, to keep doing until we crash. And then there's a reinvention pivot.
NINA:Yes, absolutely, and I've done many of those pivots in my life. You mentioned several of them there, but along with, like I'm sure, some of your audience is similar to me. I'm in my 50s. I'm 57.
NINA:I've been through on this journey of health and discovery over and over again many times. I'm the mother of three adult children. I have a daughter who I was so worried to pass along all of my food issues to her. So my food journey and my success journey are tied together, both as financial success, physical success, career success and failures. Along the way. It's been ups and downs and one of the things that I like to share because people look at me and think I'm just a success because now I'm healthy and I'm in a good space is that it's okay to be not okay. You know like we all go through tough times, but I'm a firm believer and you hear me say this several times and, I'm sure, the time that we're talking. I'm a firm believer and it's not okay to stay that way and it's up to us to figure out the path forward.
NINA:So it's okay not to be okay. We all are in different parts of our journey. Right now, I happen to be, happen to be good, it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. We got to figure out how to pick ourselves back up and get healthy and moving forward and successful again.
FLORENCE:So before we hit roll on the camera or the Zoom video, you were saying that you yourself have also broken up with sugar, that you consume no sugar. What inspired that?
NINA:Well, that has been in the last five years and I actually two years ago said done, I'm not putting any more sugar in my body as much as I possibly can. I mean, certainly there's instances birthday cakes and things like that where I will make an exception, but the impetus for that was my father had Alzheimer's and I was one of his caregivers and I got to learn a lot more about how sugar affects our brains, not just my joints and things like that that it made such a big difference from. I noticed that after I quit it. But really I got into this no sugar journey because my father had Alzheimer's and I was in my 50s and I figured I'm next. What can I do to avoid this? And sugar is one of the most important things you can do cutting sugar out of your diet to take care of your brain, sugar and exercise. So those are my go-tos now I know sugar and plenty of exercise.
FLORENCE:When you were younger, as an athlete, did you eat a fair bit of sugar then?
NINA:No, I was bulimic. I was that generation of gymnastics where you just weighed nothing, not healthy, looking like they are now, and so I didn't eat much at all. I didn't eat. My coaches wouldn't give me sugar. Obviously it wasn't something we were allowed and I would sneak it when I could. It was such a treat. So I became very much associated with a treat or pleasure or getting away with something which made for not the best when it came to later in my life, when I could have control of my own life. But I didn't need any sugar much as an athlete, no.
NINA:And then when I got to college, after I didn't make the Olympics in 84, and then I went on to do college and then I got injured. But in those years after the 84 games and going forward, I had my fair share, a fair share of sugar, one of my first big sugar bombs. I will never forget it and my daughter now has this. We had the same love of this one candy bar when I didn't make the Olympics in 1984, the Olympics were in the US that year, so they sent us to America to see the games. I'm sorry, they sent us to Australia to say come to America and see the games. That was the thing. So the handfuls of us who didn't make it in different sports were sent to different countries and said come to America and witness the 1984 games.
NINA:And so I was sent to Australia and I'd never had much sugar, I'd never drank, I'd never dated, and my first beer over there, I had my first beer, a Foster's lager, and a big old can.
NINA:And then, but I had my first real introduction to falling in love with a candy bar and I had a violet crumble. I don't know if you guys have ever had a violet crumble. You can find them in some specialty shops but it's like honeycomb with chocolate on top and it's in a purple wrapper and it was magic and I made myself sick. I ate so much of them. While I was over there my body went into a little bit of sugar shock, but yeah, and I was denied it a lot as a child and so it became very much a treat and something I wanted and I leaned way into that for a while and and and not only just got heavy, you know, gained weight, but I also, you know, my joints and the rest of my body. I realize now some of the, some of that was from all that sugar in my body.
FLORENCE:You know it's funny, it's every mother, many of us mothers that are on this path, that are trying to figure out how do we feed our kids and our grandkids, knowing that we don't want to set them up for an eating disorder and at the same time we don't want junk going in their bodies. And I look at you now and I think you know your mom spared you. It sounds like you weren't allowed it as a kid, that your mom was kind of on the hey Nina, I'm going to feed you the good stuff. And then your coaches were like hey, nina, we want you cutting edge athlete here, we're going to feed you the good stuff. And you were spared some of the early developmental damage that sugar can do to your body. I mean, I get that it sets you up for you know, the forbidden fruit syndrome issue, but but at least while your bones were being built and your body and everything like, you've got the good stuff in because there were people around you that were protecting you.
NINA:A hundred percent and I'm very thankful for that. And I I'm the youngest of four children, so food was, you know, and it don't come from a lot of money. I'm a Navy brat, so food was very much a nourishment for the family. Everybody got as much as they could in. But I'm very thankful for the way in which being an athlete and the way my childhood was, that I was spared, that my mom was an early adopter in walking. Like I remember she used to tell me stories. She would walk and people would stop on the side of the road like, do you need a ride? She's like, no, I'm out for a walk, but it wasn't a thing back then. She's 90 now, but she also was one of the first to give up red meat and make pizzas with zucchini instead of pepperoni. Like she was definitely cutting edge back in the day in the 70s and 80s. So I had an opportunity for that Now with my own kids. I tried to play that forward. You know I was fully aware by the time I had children I had my first when I turned 30 of what nutrition could and couldn't do for the body and for a growing body, and I was really good about it my favorite story. I didn't think I was going to tell this on here but this is fun, my favorite story.
NINA:I was a news anchor for almost 20 years. Three shows a day, very popular news anchor, but he kind of knew who I was in the big fish little pond in a small town, usa. Anyway, I had my kids came by the newsroom one day to see me after school, after preschool. They were about three and five and they were after preschool and running around in the newsroom and I had to go cut a news brief. And so one of the other reporters said oh, I'll take them, I'll watch them for you. So I go down it was kind of down these steps and I go cut my news brief. And it's like, coming up tonight and six o'clock, here's what's blah, blah, blah. And I come back and my daughter with her big tails and her big eyes comes running up to me and she has this thing in her hand and she says mom, this is the best bagel ever. It was a donut. She'd never had one before. Oh my gosh. And the whole newsroom was like you're the meanest mom ever. Your child doesn't know what a donut is.
FLORENCE:Wow, that's such an amazing story. And to also highlight that it's almost instant love. Like, don't tell me sugar isn't a drug, like it is a thing to just have the body go, what's that I can remember her pigtails and her big eyes and like, oh, what is this magical bagel thing?
NINA:It's the best thing ever. It was a Krispy Kreme donut and to this day she's in New York. Now she's a grown up and she will tell you Krispy Kreme donuts have a special place in her heart.
FLORENCE:Oh, that's so amazing, yeah. And now I imagine, for you to two to five years down the road. It actually turns my stomach at the thought of a donut like deep fried potato starch, rancid oil, extra sugar, Like I. Just it sounds disgusting to me now.
NINA:It would make me sick, it would make me, it would make me ill. I actually last year for those of you who are listening I tried semiglutide, so I had a surgery and semiglutide is one of the things that's also good for brain health. And on my brain health journey I did that for a little bit and I thought, okay, I could stand to lose a few pounds and it could be good for my brain health. But when I did that, I did it for about four months and I found really interesting results. I mean, I did drop a little weight but and dropped a little weight in my face. I have chubby cheeks. I've had them since the day I was born. Doesn't matter how thin I get, I'm built like that. I got them from my daddy.
FLORENCE:You do.
NINA:Yeah, I think like it doesn't, it's not going to change me Anyway, but I tried that and I found that really changed any sugar I put in my body I really had an adverse reaction to, so it was helpful for me.
NINA:It changed my relationship with food a little bit more because, unlike if you haven't so if you're listening or you've been doing this a long time, but for newer folks, if you haven't gotten to where you can cut sugar out, doing something like that kind of does it for you because it makes you already, jumps you forward like you haven't had it in your body in a while and it makes you feel pretty crappy.
NINA:When you put crap in your body, you know it instantly makes you feel bad and then you're aware of it. You know, and I can eat, I can run, grab a deviled egg or grab something else and I feel fine and it doesn't do anything when I'm on that. But if I put some fried food or something else that my body can't process quick, you know well without whatever chemical it is, yeah, it really shows you what your body is not reacting well to. I thought that was really an interesting part of that. Med was the way in which it reacted to fried foods and to sugar um sugar and processed junk, yeah, and and other things I could eat.
NINA:I could eat a pork chop or I could eat a um. I, I did keto for a while, I've done everything, Um, but I could eat some of those foods, um, and be perfectly fine. It was just the junk that my body wasn't processing. I think it's similar to if you haven't had sugar in a long time and then you have it, like the semaglutide for some reason, just instantaneously went. Oh wait, this is not something we're going to be happy with, that's so interesting.
FLORENCE:It can go one of two different ways. If you have a long break, like let's say a year or two or more, it doesn't appeal to any more. But let's say you accidentally ingest it. You thought there was no sugar in something and it turns out there was, it can sort of make you feel a little queasy, or it can light that brain pathway up again and you're like oh, it's like your daughter all over. Oh, wow, this tastes so good. And all of a sudden you're like wait a minute, this tastes too good. Something's not right here.
NINA:Yeah, it absolutely does that with me. Sometimes there are certain things. I'll order unsweet tea and I'll put you know, I think I'll put a little monk fruit or something in it. I'm a big monk fruit fan. I'll put a little monk fruit or something in it and then I'll be like this is extra sweet. Then I'll like something will trigger extra sweet.
FLORENCE:then I'll like it'll, something will trigger like oh, they brought me a sweet tea and then I put monk fruit in it. Oh God, yikes, yikes, mutiny. Oh sorry, I was just gonna say something about. It's gone, I'm gonna go in another direction. I'd like to bring this back to back to the, to the topic of resilience. So, so, very, very, very often we will be fine eating whole foods, really grateful, getting benefits and results from it, and then a curveball happens, a stressful event moment or a protracted stressful experience, and we just go. It wears us down. Eventually we go F it like just I'm going to go get the donut. So how would your experience and your expertise and knowledge of resilience be helpful in those moments for people that are truly wanting to stay the course of eating whole foods and not the junk?
NINA:Well, I think the staying the course is the term that we need to be careful with, because staying the course, sometimes we do fall off the rails or have a bad day, or we could have a death in the family, we could have a big breakup, something could happen with our children and, you know, in those moments we find comfort in food or we just need something to make our brain, you know, make our brain those dopamine centers go off in our brain. Sometimes food can be that comfort. I don't think it's horrible, like if you don't stay the course, but always getting back on track is the key. And so what I talk about with resilience is the getting back on track part, because it's sort of like because resilience, the definition of resilience and what I really lean into in my research and my books and my speaking is the ability to adapt in a positive way when something doesn't go as planned, when something doesn't go well in your life. Adapt in a positive way when something doesn't go as planned, when something doesn't go well in your life, adapt in a positive way to whatever happens in your life. And the adapt piece is really key and one of the ways in which we can think about this for everybody, because we all went through this.
NINA:A lot of people say persistence or stay the course. That persistence piece Persistence is great, staying the course is great, but when 2020 hit and the pandemic hit, none of us could just double down and go hard and stay the course. We had to adapt and do things differently. Our world changed around us, so you had to adapt somehow and get through that and then you could get back on course later. So it was the matter of getting back on course later, but you couldn't just double down and go hard. I mean, january 1st 2020, we had vacations we were going to take and we had diets. We were going to go on and we had this is the year we're going to like, save some money and lose the weight, like. And then the world changed and we had to adapt. What our goals were to get through the vacation was no longer there or some other piece. Our work changed, our people around us changed, so we had to adapt to those. So where the resilience piece comes in, with diet and what we put in our bodies is that ability to adapt and get back on board.
NINA:That goes back to my it's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way. You have to adapt and figure out how to go forward, and I have a framework that helps people move forward. But one of the main things is knowing that if you're in a tough spot or you mess up, no one's defined by the one thing in their life. It's not your whole life, it's not your whole story, it is just a chapter.
NINA:A bad day doesn't make a bad week. A bad week doesn't make a bad month. A bad month doesn't make a bad year. Like, you can have a bad something and you can get back on track and the rest can be great.
NINA:So the best time to plant a tree, they say, is 10 years ago or today. So I remind myself of that all the time. Today would be a good day to start again and get my stuff together. See, I edited there. Today would be a good day to start again and get my stuff together and move forward in a positive way, and we all need the ability to give ourselves grace that it's not perfect all the time. Yep, yesterday was a bad day. I fell off the wagon, I you know. I grabbed a handful of chips and needed to just plop down in front of the TV for a minute. That's fine, we have those moments, but that doesn't mean you stay that way. It's the staying there and not taking responsibility for getting yourself back up and moving forward. That's where we get ourselves into trouble. So that's the resilience piece. It's your ability to adapt in a positive way to whatever happens in your life.
FLORENCE:Got it, yeah, and I imagine for many, many, many people, the idea of just plopping on the couch for a minute and having a few potato chips, regrouping and going okay, this is what I want. I want to get back on track. I want to adapt to whatever this stressor is and I want to get back on track with what's important to me, my values around, how I care for my body and the foods I choose, et cetera. And there are also people who genuinely believe that they fall on the addiction spectrum and, like an alcoholic, are like oh no, no, it just doesn't matter what. It doesn't matter what the event is, it doesn't matter how stressful it is, it doesn't matter how much I need to sit on that couch and have some potato chips. That is a no-go.
FLORENCE:What is plan B? Because it's just this hard line? Because, if I start, there's this wonderful woman named Judy Wolf who shares her story of the 80-pound cheesy. She'd lost 80 pounds, maybe more, but at that point she was at a party and had been a long time. She was doing great Curveball came she decided to take one bite, one cheesy, 80 pounds later. Right, she gained 80 pounds back. So she's like I learned that is a no-go. That's a hard line, that's a no-go. I know myself that when I have one matter of time before it's two, it's 20, it's 200, it's every day, I'm back 80 pounds up. I don't want to fight that battle. I don't want those cravings, I don't want the hassle of the brain going. Give me another. It was really Right. I just I will. I will say okay, I know you want the potato chips in the couch, that's a no-go. But what can I get you? What would feel maybe next best or next helpful, or give you that regroup moment? So what? What are your thoughts on that?
NINA:I think it's super important and I have an addictive personality. I always warn my children of that too. Like you get it from your mama, you have a bit of an addictive personality. I'm a victim of the last book I read. I fall madly in love. Like I get all in on things. That's just who I am. Like I was all in on being an athlete, then all in on being a journalist, then all in when I was in tech, Like I'm an all-in person. So for me, where it comes to food, with that all in personality is very similar I will fall off the wagon and it can be a. It is triggery for me. Now that I'm at this age and I've done it so many times, I know what that feels like. I know the journey ahead is going to be a long one, Like I am aware that I have done this before. So if you're young and you haven't, you haven't regained that 50 pounds over and over again and you have that personality, you're gonna, unless you've, until you can break that cycle and you can know that that's your personality and you cannot have the chips on the couch because that's just going to open up Pandora's box. Yeah, but sometimes it takes until you're much older.
NINA:I think I was in my 40s before I stopped the like, constantly gaining it and losing it. My mind was like about 15, 20 pounds, I'd go up and then I'd get it back down and get in shape. And then I'd go up and I'm 5'2". That's a lot of weight on a little bitty body. I'm a gymnast, you know. I'm tiny, so to put 20 pounds on was a lot and to lose it back. That's why I joke about gaining the COVID-19.
NINA:I mean, when the pandemic started, I called it the tandemic. I was like I'm just going to lay back, I'm going to get in shape, I'm going to work out. This is so great, I have time. And so I got in really good shape at the beginning of that 2020 year because I wasn't traveling and doing all my normal things. I was like I can use this time. And then it just kept going and going and I was like, oh, now I'm just binge watching Netflix, drinking wine and eating popcorn. This is the worst, like all of us did, and we have to give ourselves some grace. That was unprecedented. But very quickly, boom, it all came back. And then some, like it does every time all comes back and then gives you a few extras as you age.
FLORENCE:So, yeah.
NINA:So you just have to know if you have that addictive personality, if you have that piece of your brain that's going to be really happy when you give it something. You can't give it something. You know I've I've always told my kids like you can't try drugs, You're going to like them a lot, Like you are. Like I never tried them because I know I would like them a lot. Like I drink I drink some alcohol, but earlier in my life, you know, I really liked it a lot Like you. Just have to know that about yourself. Um, be fully aware that our brains are pretty amazing and they are hardwired in some ways and you have to work within the parameters of how you're hardwired and react. Wiring is really really difficult. So it's, it's work, it's work, and so I've gained it and lost it and gained it and lost it. Like I said, and I can see, I can see my success, like in my career, and things also go up and down, as my weight's gone up and down. It's definitely tied to stress and that cortisol. It's tied to stress, eating and needing that release. But when we think about the things that are important to move forward, now is the best day to start as any. You know, on the timeline of your life you could draw a line from, like if you took a piece of paper, draw a line across the middle of it and go 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, all the way up to 100, you know, and you can put yourself on a dot on that timeline, Like I'm right here, Like for me, I'm at 57. I'm kind of in the middle somewhere. I plan to live for a long time. Take good care, like you take care of myself. I need this body to hold up, but you can put a dot on there and then you can see all the stuff you've done has brought you up to that dot. But there's all this blank timeline ahead and I love the magical thinking around. What am I going to do with all this blank timeline ahead? And I can start right now to do something. Me five years from now is going to be so happy with Me. Five years from now is going to be so much happier if I don't eat the chips, if I don't do the thing. You know how do I create some new habits or do some things that just me, or do something little that me five years from now is going to be happy with down that timeline and all that space ahead, you know.
NINA:So that's the first part of the framework that I work with folks on is the timeline piece, and then I also talk about the people in your life. That's a big part of it. Like there are people who are helping and hurting. Who's helping, who's hurting? Maybe you need to edit your people to get through a tough time or to get to a new place. Nothing changes until you change. So if you don't change your setting and who you're around, honestly nothing changes until you change. Doing the same thing over and over will get you the same thing over and over. That's how that works and our brains like that. You know that our brains don't like change. That's a big part of what I talk about. We like the same. We like, you know, predictable. The same is predictable, it's efficient, it's safe to do the same thing you did yesterday Predictable, efficient, safe. It uses less energy. So to make ourselves make that change takes work make that change.
FLORENCE:It takes work. It takes work. One of the things you talk about in your resiliency work is that we need to learn how to navigate the highs, not just the lows. So you're talking a bit about those curveballs and those dark days and weeks and maybe months, and how to remember that there's still time ahead and there's grace, and just start fresh from when you're ready, that moment when you're ready right to do something different and to head in a different direction. But what do we need to understand about highs and how to navigate those?
NINA:Interesting that. That's part of what you tied into and I guess it makes sense for the space that you're in and for the food space. Our highs are very much associated with food. We have celebrations, we have birthday cake, we have champagne, like. Think of all the ways we celebrate. We put stuff in our body when we celebrate. It's bizarre, but it's the way our culture has become. I mean, think about when little kids oh, you did such, you get an A, you get to stop and get ice cream on the way home. I mean we do this. We've been conditioned that part of the highs, the celebrations, come with food. So that's an interesting part just being aware of.
NINA:But what I talk about in the resiliency piece, outside of food-based solutions, the highs are say, a young athlete wins the Olympics, this is the best day of your life, but where is that young person supposed to go from there? This is the best thing that's happened yet. That word yet is really important in the highs. A lot of times we get to like we work really hard for something and we got the new house or we bought the new car, we took the big vacation, and then there's this high and then there's the now what I call it the now. What moments. And those now, what moments. You need the same framework you do in these now, what moments. For the low it's you know. Look at all that timeline ahead. What am I going to put in it? Who are the people around me? What makes you know who's helping, who's hurting? What exactly can I do in this moment, this moment forward? Not all the stuff where we got beforehand, you know. And then the other piece that we haven't talked about yet, the fourth part of my pillars, my framework is the thoughts in your head. So what's in your head comes out of your mouth and that becomes your story. So the other piece is that the language we use and to avoid that self-sabotaging language.
NINA:But at the highs I mean that highs and I use the Olympics because that's where I've done a lot of my research they spend millions of dollars on mental health for Olympians because after the Olympics the levels of depression and just they're in mental illness really high after someone has been that high in their space. The amount of money and the whole teams that travel to the Olympics just for mental health help and support is amazing, because that high no one stays up there all the time. No one stays on the high all the time. There's always the now what. Same thing with the lows. No one stays down there all the time. There's always the now what. It runs its course. There's a now what. So that's why I talk about the highs and lows it's the now, what moments to move forward out of them and adapt in a positive way at the highs and adapt in a positive way at the lows and keep moving forward in your own amazing life journey Like yours is different from mine, and we're all on our own life journey. Like you have to adapt in a positive way and move forward. And the highs can be sometimes really difficult and the fact that they're all tied to food is kind of interesting too.
NINA:I know I travel a lot. I'm a speaker, so tomorrow I'm jumping on a plane, I'm going to Texas, speaking in Texas this week, and I know I will finish a keynote and I've done this a few times. I'll finish a keynote in front of like a thousand people in a big ballroom and everybody's like yay, happy, and then they all leave and go to the next session. I'll be standing there by myself and I've done this. At every time I do it. I say I'm not going to do it again, but I want to like celebrate. But I'm standing there by myself after like knocking it out of the park and having such a great day and influencing so many people Everybody's happy and then they all rush out and go to their next session and I'm left kind of by yourself that's how the keynote speaking industry is and I will walk out in the hallway and, for some reason, always after the morning break is the cookie break and there'll be those big plates of cookies at a conference sitting out there and I've done this.
NINA:I'm like I deserve a cookie, that's it, and I'll grab one of those big old cookies and I'll be eating that thing. As I'm walking to the escalators and heading out of a conference hall and I won't even be out the building before I start feeling horrible and I'm like why do I celebrate and put this crap? That was a celebration. Now I don't feel good, you know. So we all do this. It's the highs come with it as well. So when I talk about the highs, we make bad choices in the lows and we can make bad choices in the highs too. We feel like there should be something more than now, what moments Does that make sense?
FLORENCE:It really does, nina. Actually, I think that's really incredible because we know in the addiction recovery space that people don't tend to relapse in the lows. They do, but it's worse in the highs. So we're taught to watch for those high moments, when you think you've got this, when you're at a wonderful event and you're feeling good, like you're at risk there of relapse even more potentially than in those moments when you're feeling low but you're committed.
FLORENCE:It catches you off guard. You're not expecting to have this wave of euphoric recall about how good that cookie would be, and I never thought about the fact that we were conditioned to equate those high, happy moments with all of our feel-good drugs and drinks and drug foods I should say I meant to say drug foods like cookies and ice cream and all that crap that lights up our brain. And I wonder also if there's some intuitive sense that this is going to go. I'm at the peak. This is going to go down. How can I keep myself here? I'm feeling the letdown, but I don't want the. I want to stay in this lovely, peak, high, lovely moment of energy.
NINA:Yeah, and I don't know the answer to that. I always find it fascinating that I've done this over and over. I travel with my own food, like I've already packed my food. I leave tomorrow on a plane. I've already packed my food for the weekend, like I are for the weekend. I travel with my own food. I'm really careful, I'm really good at that. Yet I will walk off a keynote stage and like like, grab a cookie, like what? And they're huge. You know the cookies at keynotes. They're like as big as my head and yeah, I don't know the answer to that, but we, certainly the highs, will do that. Or grab a glass of champagne. If I'm, you know, together with a bunch of people. You just feel like it's okay, now I'm fine. There's something to that. Like that, yeah, I've made it.
FLORENCE:I've made it, yeah, I'm immune. Now I'm, I've got a buffer. Somehow these good feelings will make it possible for me to have the cookie and not have anything bad happen, maybe or something, or it just it just adds to the, the high that's there, and maybe there there's a sense that maybe I can hang on to this, maybe I can hang on to this, the letdown after everyone leaves the auditorium what.
NINA:Yeah, it is. It's a strange business. That's just an example of that. And I think in television we would do a great show, like I did the 5, 6, and 11 o'clock news and some nights after like some great coverage of some big event, we would all go out and have drinks afterwards, like we're all so hyped up we couldn't go home and go to bed at 1130, 12 o'clock at night. We're so high up and we would go out and find food and drink. That would be the celebration of the let's all go out for a drink, let's all go out and you know, or some pizzas late, or something like that. Yes, it's definitely. We equate that to the like celebration.
FLORENCE:Totally, totally.
FLORENCE:And you know what that makes me think of is my husband is a bit of a musician, loves all his music and watches all of the Netflix shows or all of the streaming documentaries about bands on music, and you know it's the same theme. They get hooked into drugs and alcohol because they're high as a kite after their big giant performances and they don't know what to do with that energy. And so they go and they party all night until they get sucked into the dark end of all of the. You know the dark end and the despair of it all, and they're like how did we get here? We're at the top of the world. Like all of my dreams have come true, like my, my album sold, I'm sold out concerts.
FLORENCE:Like what am I doing? Shooting up heroin, like what? And so it's just so helpful, I think, for you to point out that there's something that we need to know about the highs that can protect us perhaps from I don't know. I guess crashing in a way. That sort of leaves us more vulnerable to reaching for things that can help us navigate those letdown moments.
NINA:Right, I mean I should, like I love I weirdly really do enjoy going to the gym or I enjoy going outside in nature, Like there's a million other things I could do. Thank goodness I don't go for the heroin. It's just a cookie that is heroin. I know I haven't upped my game that far. I'm still at the cookie phase. Let's see if I can stay there. I got to get that under control first, but that could be.
NINA:Maybe cookie's the gateway, cookie is the gateway to all the other stuff. But for me it just is a really perfect example for how food has played, or sugar has played into a reward system, you know. But I do find and it was so interesting when I was raising kids like, hey, congratulations, you got all these, let's go stop and get ice cream. Or oh, what a fun day. Everybody was so good. Today Y'all want to stop and get a treat Like or you're in this, everybody did great. In the store on the way out you can pick out something in the candy line, like it's part of the way in which our society is set up.
FLORENCE:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we really need to all play our part in turning it around, because the lone parents in circles or the lone person at a staff meeting or on a team that's trying to just eat whole foods, like still today, it's like, oh, come on, can't you just have a little relax? You know that's too extreme, yeah, yeah, but we, if we can all just get the right message and keep sharing it, we can get on, we can support each other and doing the right thing by our bodies for future generations, if not just for ourselves. I wanted to go in there to talk a little bit about what you call your reverse resume. You have all these amazing accomplishments, but one of your greatest accomplishments, you think, or one of the things you're most proud of, is your reverse resume. What is your reverse resume?
NINA:It's the concept that I came up with and everyone's got one. You've got one, I've got one, all of your listeners have one. So that same line that I was talking about. If you draw a line across a piece of paper from zero to a hundred, your accomplishments are all above the line. For me it's. I made the S team, I got this job, I won this award, I did the thing. All of your accomplishments are above the line. Every award you've won, job, you've secured things that you've achieved all above the line. That's the stuff you would see on LinkedIn, the stuff you would put on a resume.
NINA:And then I always have folks go down below that line and tell me all the hard stuff you've gotten through. And it could be maybe someone had some addiction, or it could be a divorce. It could be a bad accident. It could be a divorce. It could be a bad accident. It could be a disability or having to parent someone with disability. It could be the death of a spouse or death of a loved one. What are the hard things you've gotten through? They all go below the line. They're still in the timeline. Where are they in your life? That bottom line fills up and if you look at all the things that you have managed to overcome down below the line losing your job, like anything, put them down below the line then that is what makes you really who you are, because you've survived all of those, you've gotten through all of those. You've learned from all of those, you have moved forward from all of those.
NINA:So that resume of all that, the bottom part of your resume, I call your reverse resume. Those are the things that really make you who you are. And I always tell you know management leadership, go. You need to find a few people who have a heavy reverse resume because if you get into crisis communication or to a big you know a product launch that fails or something big happens with your company, those people are the people that are going to get you through it, because they've dealt with failure and hard times before. So your failures and stuff go below the line. And I think that reverse resume is really fascinating because you will find people who have so much strength, maybe not a lot above the line, but they bring a lot to the table because they've gotten through so much.
NINA:So it works both ways and when I've done this in large groups and people have done it. Then I have them connect the lines up and down over that, like above the line, below the line, and it looks almost like an echocardiogram. Like that's life you have highs and lows and like, if you put them in line, like highs and lows, that's it. We keep going up and down over this line and every time we get back up over that line we are stronger and more resilient because we've learned something, we've gotten through something and it continues. And you wouldn't want the echocardiogram to stop right, you don't want to be flatlined, you want it to keep going. So that's just the way life is. It's got these highs and lows and we just have to be able to adapt in a positive way, be resilient and move forward through them.
FLORENCE:That's brilliant. I absolutely love that. I got such a clear visual. It gives you hope when you're down and you think I'm going to get stuck here and I'm never going to be happy again and I'm never going to have a happy ending and things aren't going to work out. I can't see a way forward out of this place. I'm in Right, and what a good thing to look at your. For decades, you have been going into these difficult circumstances, figuring out what the lesson is, how to get stronger, more resilient, and then you move into your next good thing that happens in your life.
NINA:Yeah, and you keep doing that. That's the name of my book, my first book. I'm very proud of it. It's called this Is Not the End. Whatever this is that you're dealing with, it's all about you and whatever this you're going through. So that this is not the end. Whatever this is that you're dealing with, it's all about you and whatever this you're going through. But, yeah, so that this is. You know that this is the highs and the lows this thing is. It's not the end, and the book has looks like a typewriter on the front, like the words the end being typed.
NINA:Yeah, so it's our life story keeps going. But that echocardiogram look that up and down, and up and down, and up and down. That's part of the way in which we need to look at our lives and it also, again, you want it to keep going. You don't want to be flatline and you get back to that magical blank space ahead, and this can be in your weight loss journey and your health journey. There is always this magical blank space ahead where you get to decide what goes there. It's all up to you.
FLORENCE:Possibilities, possibilities. It reminds me of that absolutely adorable scene in a film I think Maggie. Something or another from the UK was in it. And there was this hotel in India and there was this very charming host of the hotel and the hotel was falling apart and there was no running water and you turn the tap and it fell off and these guests thought they were coming to this five-star luxury hotel. Do you know what I'm talking about?
NINA:Do you remember this film? Oh, marigold, the something Marigold.
FLORENCE:Marigold, I think that's it. Do you remember he used to go around and say, oh, don't worry about it, it's not, it's it's the ending's always happy it's. It's the ending's always happy, it's. We're just in the middle, the end it's. It's not the end yet it's the. It's good at the end. Right, like I will fix this and it was it's that message.
NINA:But yeah, like the yeah yeah, it is a sweet, sweet marigold, something like that. Now I've got it that kind of marigold hotel yes, it's a wonderful, it's a wonder.
FLORENCE:Yes, and it reminds me about it same message I had the, the vision of that charming oh, don't worry, it's not the end yet. Basically is what he's saying right, like you, just hang on, get this wonderful and get through this, get through this um, and you know what? The addiction recovery journey is very similar. You're doing great, you have a couple days, a couple weeks, you have a couple months, maybe longer, a couple years, and then you might slip. You might slip, you might relapse, you might, you know, drop below the line, back into a, into a, um, I think, a donuts or whatever. And it's not the end. It's not the end.
FLORENCE:You're going to learn something there. You would not be below the line, I would say you would not be there if there wasn't something for you to learn. Not a chance. There's something for you to learn there and when you learn it, boom, you can move back up into the above. The line space with your journey, that is super cool. The line space with your journey, that is super cool. And you know, what's interesting too is that in the age of social media, where it's very, very easy to overestimate how happy everybody else looks and underestimate their below the line experiences, right, um, it's even more important than ever to remember that everybody has probably equal amounts of these below and up and down. Like there's nobody who you know, we don't get stuck, hopefully, in either place.
NINA:And nobody gets a pass. That is what life looks like and I have done that reverse resume. I've done it in workshops and I've done it in keynotes and for big companies and small companies and whole organizations, and everyone has their ups and downs. Nobody comes into it without both and it's really interesting to see in a big room of people, what people learn about each other. Sometimes I'll ask if people want to share in small groups and stuff and what people learn about each other and like I had no idea you were going through that, you just don't know what other people are going through.
NINA:People have looked at my life and thought I've just had it all great, you know, but I didn't make the US team. I blew out my knee in college and lost my sport. I've been fired at the top of my game. They went younger and blonder. I've been divorced. I was in a traumatic accident where I was questioning whether I wanted my timeline to go on.
NINA:That's one of the places where my book comes from, and so I think people just think everybody has it easy and I have three kids. They weren't all perfect all the time. That's a whole other battle. I definitely stress eight over my kids plenty, yeah. So I think you just have to know that the people around you are all going through their own thises, their own things, and what you see on Facebook and Instagram or whatever you're looking at. I mean, I just feel like everybody's on vacation all the time and everybody has nicer stuff than me and everybody's kids, like they're kids, are better than mine, but that's just because they're posting the best of the best and that's what we put, that face we put forward yeah yeah we just have to remind ourselves of that yeah, sorry, um, yeah, and it's almost as if like sharing.
FLORENCE:There's a fine line between sharing all the sort of grumble, dark, dark slash, all the petty complaints and stuff like that in our lives. No, but there's a place for the genuine, authentic sharing of. I'm going through a tough time and I'm not just slapping on my photo the one time this week where I smiled and there's the photo on Facebook. I had a very interesting experience with Facebook very early on. I have my best friend. Her name is Pam and she has three beautiful kids and she had a husband who was an entrepreneur and made lots of money and she's always been drop dead gorgeous in my opinion, like absolutely goddess gorgeous, like thick, curly, black hair and gorgeous creamy skin, while I had horrible acne in my 20s and anyway, she's beautiful.
FLORENCE:And when social like Facebook was was coming on and people were posting photos, I was quite excited about it. I was really intrigued. I'm like, oh, she's got the three kids on a hike again on the east coast of Canada. Oh, isn't that nice? Oh, look at, oh, right, and I could feel myself like get activated in a way. This was my best friend, like I should be happy and delighted and feel included and close to her. Not what I was feeling, nina and I have not gone on Facebook since. Like a rare day will I look at someone's post because I don't want to run the risk of having my stomach sink and feel like, oh, here I am going into the, you know, compare and despair mode.
NINA:Yeah Well, the world's so full of FOMO, fear of missing out. When people go to parties and you're not invited, you see it all on Facebook and when people you know, I even catch myself and I'm fully aware of how this makes me feel. But I have to be in that space for what I do for a living. But I will see other speakers who I love and adore. I love their message and I know how hard they work, all the things. But I will see them on bigger stages or on fancier planes or on, like, having more success than me, and I'm like, and I'll be, I'll be. I don't even it's not even jealous. I'll almost be like comparison myself, like how come then, instead of me, what? How come I can't get there? How come I can't get there? I'm not jealous of them, I'm angry with myself that I'm not there. Right, this is my journey. I'm not on their journey. I don't even speak on the same topic they're on. I'm not on the same journey that they're on. They haven't, they don't. So a lot of them don't have kids and I have all my stuff, I have my great kids and I have all of my former careers, you know and this is a really interesting thing I was working on. This is going to be a blog post pretty soon because I've half written it and it begins with I sent it in one of my newsletters recently.
NINA:Am I a failure? I know it, I might be a failure. I am an Emmy award-winning news anchor. I was on the US team Emmy award-winning news anchor. I took a company public and made millions of dollars, like all the things. But I may be a failure Right now in a career and speaking. I'm not Mel Robbins yet I'm not, so I guess I'm a failure.
NINA:It all depends on where you are. There's always somebody ahead of us, always somebody behind us. I've had plenty of success in the past. Why I would let someone else's success put me, not just be happy for them, which is what I want to be, and truly I'm happy for them and thrilled for them.
NINA:But at the same time, there's that piece of our brain that says wait, I should be doing more, I should be better. What's wrong with me? That I'm not doing the thing? But that's not your journey. You are on your own journey and that feeling that you have that I'm not doing enough. It is putting all those chemicals in your brain, similar to what we do when we get stress and food things. That cortisol, it's that adrenaline, you know, it's the norepinephrine, it's the focus of our brain, like it's all unhealthy. And we do that to ourselves every time we pick up our phone and we scream you know it's summertime, we're going to see everybody on vacation, you know. So every time we do that, I have friends vacationing in Europe. I'm like why am I not vacationing in Europe Totally? I'm like why am I not vacationing in Europe? Totally? I didn't plan it. I didn't plan it, I didn't want it. It's not even something I was thinking about, but now I feel like I should be there.
FLORENCE:Right, right, absolutely Gosh. I love this thread because I can equate FOMO and that whole sort of comparison thing to the journey of recovery, because there are people you know, why aren't I thinner? Why aren't I losing 17 pounds? I just had a woman lose 17 pounds in a month, whereas average is 8 to 10. On the high end, 6 to 8 is kind of sort of. I should say 6 to 8 is average, 8 to 10 is kind of high. She crushed it. She just wow. Her body was like I am very, so happy that you're eating whole foods now. I'll just start getting rid of some of this stuff here, but it's so tempting to miss the fact that that person can serve as inspiration instead of this, this horrible feeling of like what's wrong with me? Why aren't I keeping up? Why, yeah, that whole thing that you just put words around that's. We can apply that to the journey of working with our health and weight and sugar addiction recovery.
NINA:Absolutely, absolutely. And I I'm constantly comparing myself to others and it you know, five two, with a very athletic body. I'm built more like Mighty Mouse than you know Barbie. But my best friend is built totally like Barbie and so we will walk around together and she's 5'10" and she's also a news anchor. So she's 5'10" and she's really skinny like no muscle, thin, that kind of beautiful, and I could, you know, pick her up and throw her across the room. I'm strong. She can barely pick up a purse, but we just have different strengths, but she's beautiful and she's elegant and that's the way she carries herself. So we for me to want to be like her, her to want to be like me, cause she's like, oh, but I'd give anything to be strong Like you, me. We have this conversation a lot, but that comparison culture that we live in is really really unhealthy and we do it to ourselves all the time. It's fascinating to think about, yeah.
FLORENCE:Yes, yes. What's your best advice for us? To stop that, to stop that.
NINA:It's the same thing I told my kids every day when they left for school and every day when they left for elementary and high school and college. And even now when I go visit my daughter in New York or my son's in the Air Force I got another one who's finishing up med school I always will tell them like hey, go be you, everybody else is taken. And it's you know. Dr Seuss said it, marcus Aurelius said it. I mean, it's not like it's anything new. They said it in different ways. But the concept of go be you, everybody else is taken. If you don't do you, you won't be done. Like there's nobody. That's got your life experience in your brain and the things that you're doing. Just go be you, which is easier said than done. We have to remind ourselves. I remind myself of that all the time and on the food journey piece, I remind myself of that often because I will constantly slip back into comparing myself. Now. And I am not like you. I'm not all whole foods, I don't eat sugar, but I will eat me a potato chip, let me tell you. Um, you know, that's kind of my. I don't like. I'm really away from sweets now, but I do love me some salty and it's not always the healthiest. I know I should have a handful of nuts and those kind of things that are whole foods, but I am not to 100%. You know whole foods, as you would say. I think that's the term. You know whole foods, as you would say. I think that's the term you used. So I can't compare myself to you. I mean, do you inspire me? You absolutely inspire me. I'm probably going to eat better the next, you know, 24 hours after talking to you, but I am not there yet. I'm on my own journey and I'm proud of myself for just cutting the sugar out. So there's always somebody ahead of us. There's always somebody that wishes they were where we are.
NINA:I went to give blood last year and you have to give your weight and I was pretty. I was overweight at the time for me and not feeling good about myself. I had like some baggy sweats and stuff and I was just going up to the Red Cross to give blood and I go, I plop down and this young girl comes over to take my blood. She said you know how much do you weigh? And I told her and she goes my goal weight, girl, that's my goal weight and it just changed my whole day. I was like, ah, I'm living at somebody else's goal weight and I'm bitching about it, you know. But yeah, I was walking around the world at somebody else's goal weight, feeling bad about myself, and I thought, you know, that is really really interesting and it changed the way I thought about things. It was really really good for me.
NINA:And when you mentioned the comparison piece too, I don't know if any science around this, I haven't done any research, but I believe it's just a theory that I have that the more someone is like you, the more that it's harder to be inspired by them. If they're just a little bit ahead of you or if they're a peer, it's harder to be inspired by them Like I'm inspired by you. We're very similar. That's a little different. So maybe that doesn't play the part. But where I was thinking is sometimes, when people are really in great shape, I'll be less inspired by them because I'm like I'm never. You know that's not really what I'm aiming for to be jacked and, you know, ripped.
NINA:But there's a guy that I work out with now I see in the gym in the mornings and he was about 450 or 500 pounds. He's a very big boy and I've known him since he was a teenager. He's one of. He used to be a bagger at the grocery store and now he's the head of produce at the grocery store. I've known this kid forever. He's 40-something, has a couple of kids now, but he is a big boy, very big boy, and I've seen him in there for the last year and a half or so. He never misses a day. He's in there working out and he's down more than 100 pounds now, probably about almost 150 pounds he's down and it's been over a year's long journey. And I'll see him in the morning. I'll always give him a big high five or a hug and tell him how great he looks and give him some encouragement. But he's so happy and excited Like he's just so. Like I'm actually doing this.
NINA:You know I did 40 to be that big and heavy and from lower socioeconomic. Like he doesn't have the money to go buy whole foods or do a semi-glutide, like he didn't have the money to do this. He is doing the work. I'm so inspired by him. I will eat healthier the rest of the day. Every time I see him, I work out harder, I eat healthier. I'm so thankful for my lot in life. Like he's cause he comes from a you know a different socioeconomic place than I am he's a young black man in South Carolina Like that's a hard place to be and I grew up in a poor family and has not the access to the food or the medicine that I do. So I see him and I'm like I'm going to go rock it today because I just someone like that. Like he's doing it and he's so happy about it and he's so proud of himself. It makes me want to be a better person. And he's so different from me he couldn't be more different than me, but I find him very inspiring.
FLORENCE:There's some science I don't know there's got to be something to that, got to be something to that. And I love the idea of here is maybe he was 450. I don't want to make it up the numbers. Let's say he was 450. Now he's down to 300 and he's walking around, going that's 300. Yeah, and that whole idea that we get to celebrate being at 300, even though there are people who are at 200, like miserable, that you know, like they can't, and they got their way down there, like that we get to celebrate every bit of progress in the direction of what's lighting our you know ourselves up.
NINA:Yeah, he's like I can get in and out of the car yeah, I can fit in a seat. Like he is so excited about me, that's so awesome. I said you wait till you get there. I'm like you're going to be. He's got, I know he will. I can see this, I can see it in him. He is not and he goes.
NINA:My daughters are eating healthier now because they're around me, because his daughter he has, you know, two teenage daughters and they're kind of big girls too, sharing, you know, talking with him. Again, I've known him since he was a teenager, so it's neat to see people like that and that inspires me to do better, be more. I don't know, it just gets me, it makes me go, oh, like, of course I could do this too. Like I am usually like 10 to 15 pounds from where I want to be. That's kind of where I walk through life, like if I'm not in a good place. 15 pounds from where I want to be. That's kind of where I walk through life, like if I'm not in a good place. I've never gone. I've gone as much as 30 over, but that's, that's not a huge, huge change. Like it is for some people who totally transforms their lives. Yes, Cause.
NINA:I never could get. I mean, I was on television so I had to keep it in check and you know, yep, yep, yep.
FLORENCE:Yep. Is there any final words you'd like to say before we?
NINA:wrap up today. Well, first, thank you so much for having me. You were lovely. This was a fun chat. I feel like we're sitting in our kitchens talking about things, so really appreciate the time to chat with you and learn from you. I think the final thought for your viewers or people listening, and so I'll just repeat what I said earlier it's okay to not be okay. Quit beating yourself up. It's okay to not be okay. Just, it's not okay to stay that way and you decide when. But you got to do something to move yourself forward. So the okay, it's a bad chapter. It's a bad chapter. It's not your whole life story. You get to decide how this life story ends up.
FLORENCE:And I'll end up on that. Tell us where people can find you and remind us of your two books, so we can make sure we go out and get our copies.
NINA:Sure, so you can follow me on. Instagram is where I am. I'm doing some on. I'm on TikTok and Instagram and all the places. I'm on Facebook too and on LinkedIn. If you're a business that's listening, my Instagram is Nina Speaks, so it's Nina Sossam and Pogue. If you look for that Sossam and Pogue, there aren't another one of those. Any way you spell it, you'll still end up with me. But Nina Speaks and it's Nina underscore SP, period E-A-K-S. So we thought we were being really clever because there's other Nina's speakers and they're fabulous but their topics are different and stuff. So it's Nina underscore SP because it's awesome and pogue. So we thought that was kind of fun and it goes right into eaks for speaks. But it really is horrible to find. But there you go. You find me on Instagram at Nina speaks, or on Tik TOK at Nina's awesome and pogue. I'm out there everywhere.
NINA:My books. The first one is this Is Not the End Strategies to Get you Through the Worst Chapters of your Life, and it is a quick read and there's also an audio book. You will find it anywhere you find books and audio books. And if you or someone you know is going through a tough time. It is written for you. It's not my story. It's not a bunch of science. It is truly the book I was looking for when I call it my don't jump off the bridge book, but it's strategies. I want someone to tell me what to do. I didn't want to read a book on PTSD. I didn't want to read a book on somebody else's story. I just need someone to tell me what to do. So that's what this book is, in a very plain language with some humor thrown in there. So it's helpful.
NINA:And then my second book is called but I want both, and I don't even like this book. It's not horrible. It's actually got great information, but I'm not as proud of it. It's too long. It's a book I wrote during the pandemic and I got real wordy and you know it's not. I'd love to do a rewrite on it, but if it's, it's for people who it's written for women.
NINA:It's called, but I Want Both a working mom's guide to living, creating a life she loves. And it's for women whose career takes off at the same time they have children, which happens so often. And it's that. You know what I want both. That's why it's called that, but I want both. You want the career and you want to be a great mom. It's a helpful book on how you choose the path to do both, because you can do both, but there's give and take and there's different ways to think about it, so it helps people who want to be successful in their careers and also be great parents. Think about and I it's just written for women, but many it would work for them as well Think about the choices they need to make and who they want to be. Who do you want to be? Because you got to decide you can't do everything, so let's just figure out what really great success looks like for you. If you want both. That's what that book is, but I want both. That's an amazing book. Thank you for letting me say that.
FLORENCE:Yes, thank you for all your writing and your time today. It was absolutely wonderful. I appreciate it.
NINA:So, so nice to meet you, Florence, and I appreciate for you allowing me to be on today and share with your listeners All the best to you.
FLORENCE:Thanks everybody for tuning in.
