About Nina.

 NINA SOSSAMON-POGUE

“I want to be in a room full of smart, hard-working people who are facing a challenge or change and embolden them to keep going, then give them the tools to handle anything that gets in their way.” ~Nina

Nina Sossamon-Pogue is an inspirational thought leader who reframes resilience and empowers audiences to create successful futures.

With a diverse background as a former USA gymnast, Emmy-winning television news anchor, tech executive, and now a sought after speaker and author, Nina shares a unique framework for resilience and emboldens audiences to envision their futures in new and innovative ways.

Nina’s experience as a communicator powers her ability to share her framework for handling challenges of all sizes.

Passionate about learning and growing from the challenges we face, Nina has a lifetime of lessons and research to share.

Nina left her role as a Vice President at a publicly traded SaaS company to embark on a mission to empower hardworking individuals to thrive through tough times.

Drawing from her own experiences of success and failure at the highest levels of sport, television, and corporate America, Nina researched other high achievers to understand why some businesses and individuals thrive during adversity while others get stuck or fail.

Her findings culminated in her first book, "THIS is Not The End," in 2019 and then the creation of her science-based, stoic philosophy-infused resilience framework: Resilience Route Navigator.

Nina now dedicates herself full-time to writing, speaking, and sharing her message of resilience. Her dynamic blend of experience, science, and stoicism is igniting people around the globe to achieve new levels of success.

Referred to as a rare ‘triple-threat’ in the speaking world, for her experience in sports, television and tech, Nina is dynamic on stage and connects with audiences on multiple levels.

Background:

Nina was a member of the USA Gymnastics team in the 1980’s, traveling the globe with Team USA as an Olympic hopeful, and then failed to make the 1984 Olympic team. The first year Mary Lou Retton won the USA Championships, Nina also completed, but only won ‘Miss Congeniality’.

Nina competed for Louisiana State University in 1985-1986. While competing with LSU Gymnastics, an SEC powerhouse, Nina suffered a career-ending knee injury. The Revelie Newspaper featured of photo of her fall, with the headline “Another One Bites the Dust’.

Nina became a reporter at WBRZ-TV after college, then moved to Charleston SC for a reporter position and became an award-winning journalist and Emmy-award-winning television news anchor at WCBD and then WCIV in Charleston, SC. She won the Emmy Award for ‘Best News Anchor in the Southeast’.

Nina left TV for Tech in 2007, and spent 12 years on the leadership team of the SaaS company, Benefitfocus, during its hyper-growth expansion. Nina was the VP of Marketing and Communications during its highly successful IPO. Forbes Magazine listed it in the top ten tech IPO’s of 2013

Nina’s repeated successes, and her ability to adapt and find new levels of success after some devastating plot twists in her life are a testament to her resilience and determination. After repeatedly being asked, “How’d you do that?”, she began her research into why some people thrive while others struggle or get stuck when faced with adversity.

Years of research and two books later, she identified the commonalities - specific actions and mental shifts - that successful individuals use to ‘adapt in a positive way’ to the challenges that life hands us all. She created a proven framework that anyone can use to handle adversity and reach new levels of success.

An expert on Resilience, Nina uses her story as a backdrop to show how the highs and lows in each person’s story create a lifetime of learning and new strength. She challenges audiences to rethink their own life journey, identify strengths, and take on new challenges, and she gives them tools to handle anything that gets in their way.

Nina’s trademark concepts - ‘Your Lifetime Timeline’ and ‘High Achiever’s Success Cycle’, plus her ‘Resilience Route Navigator’ which becomes your GPS for success - are all parts of her body of work that she is very proud to share.

Her first book, This is Not The End: Strategies to Get You Through the Worst Chapters of Your Life (2019 Morgan James Publishing) is for readers going through life changing events. In it, she shares insights from her most devastating challenges and offers readers strategies to handle life’s most difficult challenges and control their own destiny.

Nina is also the host of the podcast “This Seriously Sucks, the Right Podcast When Life Goes Seriously Wrong”, where she shares stories of amazing people who have overcome devastating challenges. (this is currently on the back burner to make time for other projects, but 2 seasons are live wherever you listen to podcasts)

Nina sits on several non-profit boards and is an Executive Advisor with the Alzheimer’s Association. She focused all her non-profit efforts on Alzheimer’s when it took her father from her in 2017.

Nina has lived a very public life that has had a subplot of ‘encouraging people’: As a teenage gymnast, she was named Miss Congeniality at the USA Gymnastics Championships. During her television career, she was voted Charleston’s Favorite News Anchor for 10 consecutive years. As a corporate leader, Nina was named a ‘Woman of Distinction’ by the state of South Carolina. Her friends say, that ‘caring about others’ is in Nina’s DNA.

Nina and her husband Ben have three adult children.  She lives in Charleston, South Carolina and speaks throughout the United States, inspiring audiences to take control of their lives and think of their futures in new ways.

Her Mission:

‘Helping Hardworking Humans Thrive Through Tough Times’

We’re in a Mental Health Crisis that is crippling individuals and organizations across the globe, and we need our best and brightest to keep reaching new heights. Nina’s message can help during this unprecedented time. “I want to make the world a better place by motivating and equipping our best and brightest to tackle challenges and navigate change.” - Nina

New in 2024:

Nina introduced the term ‘Excellent Exhaustion’, to describe the new paradigm in our workplace.

Excellence Exhaustion: A condition characterized by the relentless drive to surpass previous achievements, exacerbated by the perpetual demands of modern technology and constant connectivity, leading to diminished productivity and well-being, ultimately resulting in anxiety and decreased motivation.

Excellence Exhaustion is a unique condition affecting today’s high achievers. This condition leads to chronic stress, anxiety, and diminished productivity, undermining even the most dedicated professionals. Unlike traditional burnout, Excellence Exhaustion specifically impacts those striving to maintain exceptional performance in an ever-evolving competitive landscape.

Why Excellence Exhaustion Matters

In today's fast-paced world, the pressures of constant innovation and connectivity have pushed high achievers to their limits. Excellence Exhaustion captures the unique struggles of these individuals, who face relentless demands to excel while navigating an environment that never slows down. This condition not only affects their mental health but also impacts overall productivity and job satisfaction. Addressing Excellence Exhaustion is crucial for sustaining long-term success and well-being in any organization.

Why Nina Sossamon-Pogue?

With a rich and diverse background as a former USA gymnast, Emmy-winning news anchor, corporate leader, and best-selling author, Nina Sossamon-Pogue is uniquely positioned to address Excellence Exhaustion. Her dynamic presentations blend science, stoicism, and real-life stories, offering a fresh perspective that resonates deeply with high achievers. Nina's personal experiences and research into resilience provide actionable insights and practical tools to help individuals navigate their challenges and thrive.

Why Now?

Today’s work environments can feel relentless - constantly changing at an unprecedented pace, with an expectation to not only keep up, but to continuously level up. Working to be successful today is a very different process than it was a decade ago. It’s a non-stop pressure cooker fueled by data-driven KPIs, KROs, global project management, quarterly targets, and aligned corporate goals. The result? An epidemic of stress, anxiety, burnout, and disengagement that threatens both individual and organizational success.

Nina’s Framework

THIS framework is designed to help high achievers navigate change and confidently keep raising the bar:

1. Timeline: Putting current challenges in the broader context of life, reducing their overwhelming nature.

2. Humans: Leveraging support and wisdom from others to overcome obstacles collaboratively.

3. Isolate the Problem: Focusing on present challenges without the baggage of past and future worries.

4. Story: Transforming internal dialogue with optimistic and empowering self-talk.

All of Nina’s Audience Engaging Keynotes and Workshops include:

• Aha moments! – sharing research, data, and insights about success and failure, Nina allows the audience to figure out how their own strengths and weaknesses play a role in their success.

• Levity – using pop culture, current events, and stories from her life, Nina makes sometimes difficult concepts, easy to ingest.

• Head & Heart – simplifying complex concepts through stories and analogies to challenge the audience’s thinking, Nina also tugs at heartstrings to connect and influence audiences to care.

• Big Picture Thinking - combining years of research and her own experience at the highest levels of sport, television, and corporate America, Nina shares unique insights into into today’s competitive workplace.

• Proprietary Practical Framework – applying Neuroscience, Stoic Philosophy, Behavioral Psychology research, current events, and data in Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today, Nina created the ‘Resilience Route Navigator'‘ a framework; a four-pillar approach designed to help individuals manage their challenges and regain control over their lives:

 BIO

Nina Sossamon-Pogue is a sought-after Motivational Speaker dedicated to researching and sharing how we can all become more resilient and mentally healthy in this era of constant change, being fueled by new technology, massive amounts of new data and machine learning.

Nina was a hyper-growth tech executive (2007-2019, Benefitfocus), Emmy-winning television news anchor (1992-2007) and USA Gymnast (1982-1984).

Nina is the author of two best-selling books:

This is Not the End: Strategies to Get You Through the Worst Chapters of Your Life. (2019 Morgan James Publishing) Offering a proven approach to get through devastating life events and empowering people to take control of their future.

But I Want Both: The Working Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life She Loves. (revised and updated edition to be release Fall 2023) Offering a proven approach to working and parenting for high achieving individuals.

Nina is the host of the podcast - This Seriously Sucks: The Right Podcast When Life Goes Seriously Wrong. Offering a platform for sharing strategies and coping techniques for anyone going through a tough life event. Along with her own insights, It includes the ‘overcoming’ stories of successful people who are at least 10 years past their traumatic event.

Nina enjoyed success at some of the highest levels of sport, television and corporate America. She also endured devastating life events, including an injury that ended her athletic career, a very public lay off from her TV role, and a car accident that put her at the center of a story gripping the headlines and left her flirting with self-sabotaging and suicidal thoughts.

Often asked how she managed to rebuild and reach even higher levels of success throughout her life, Nina stepped away from her corporate job to research and develop a framework to help others thrive through tough times. Today, her mash-up of storytelling, science, and stoicism, is igniting audiences as she delivers the motivation, mindset and tools that strengthen resilience, increase productivity and improve culture.

Nina brings a wealth of experience and energy to everything she does. Her passion for helping others comes through in all her work.

Along with acting as CEO of her communications company, she sits on several non-profit boards, passionately works with the Alzheimer’s Association, and was named a ‘Woman of Distinction’ by the state of South Carolina. Nina and her husband have three adult children. She lives in Charleston, SC, and travels the world empowering audiences to take control of their future and overcome anything that gets in their way.