#69 Career Equation Author Erica Sosna: Rebounding from Physical Paralysis to New Heights – Part Two
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What unique challenges did Erica Sosna face?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm speaking with Erica Sosna. a fellow podcast host and the author of The Career Equation, who, like me, is passionate about careers. But what makes Erica's story unique is her remarkable journey of resilience, purpose, and transformation. In 2022, A life-changing accident left her paralyzed. Facing months of recovery, through immense pain and uncertainty, Erica fought her way back. Back to walking, back to work, and back to a renewed mission. After a year away from her consultancy,
Erica returned with fresh purpose, balancing her career on a three-day work week, launching the podcast and expanding her reach to create a bigger impact. Yesterday, part one, Erica shared her career journey, the twist and the turns and the accident that changed everything. Today, in part two, she'll share the hard-earned wisdom she gained from overcoming paralysis, starting a new chapter, shaping a path to personal and professional growth. Erica will also dive into the career equation she created. and how we can all work towards becoming better versions of ourselves in our careers. Your experience and the journey are exceptional.
What is Erica's superpower in overcoming challenges?
The challenges you faced, both physical and mental, are beyond what many of us could even imagine. I deeply applaud you for that resilience. As I listened, I wondered, now that you're looking back and you call yourself exceptional, which I think is entirely fitting, what would you say is your superpower? If you had to pinpoint exactly what it is that helped you sustain and succeed through all of those things, what would that be? Is it a deep-rooted faith, something within your career equation, or an other quality? What do you think that allowed you to endure all the pain and ultimately come back even stronger?
It's a really good question, Vince. And in many ways at the beginning, when people were saying so inspiring, because I was posting a bit on LinkedIn about my physio and things because that was my work at the time. And I wanted to feel like I was in the world and that people knew what I was up to. Initially, when people started saying that was really inspiring, I can't believe it. How do you do it? I can't imagine how I would do it. I was a little bit dismissive. I was, look, you don't know until you're in the situation. Of course, you would do the same if you thought there was any possibility that you could recover your function, whatever it is. I had a spinal injury, but plenty of people have all kinds of debilitating health and mental health conditions and all of that.
How does acceptance play a role in recovery?
Of course, you would just go for hell for leather for recovery, wouldn't you? And it took me a while to realize that the answer to that was not recovery. Yes, for everybody. So then I started to ask myself exactly this question, which is what, so what am I doing that perhaps might be useful and helpful for other people to get a grip on or that they could use? And I suppose there are a couple of things. I think one of the things is I do have a strong faith. I have a faith in the kind of goodness and benevolent intention of the universe I suppose like that. And that meant that I wasn't in resistance to what had happened to me. I was once taught that when something rubbish happens to you accept it as though you chose it.
I found that to be a very helpful thing, whether that's you're being made redundant unexpectedly or you've had a loss or an illness or it sounds crackers in a way to say, accept that thing as though you chose it. But what's the alternative? The alternative is not to accept it, even though it's happening to you anyway, or to be in battle with it when you can't change it. Embracing the experience as though, okay, this has happened and I'm just going to accept it as though it was on my list of things to do. And then I'm going to act in response to that in a positive way. So the first was accept it as though you chose it. The second is that in your life plan and your career plan, which is the program that we run around the equation.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What unique challenges did Erica Sosna face?
0:11–2:54
2
What is Erica's superpower in overcoming challenges?
2:54–4:39
3
How does acceptance play a role in recovery?
4:39–6:07
4
What is the importance of visualizing outcomes?
6:07–8:12
5
What unconventional healing methods did Erica explore?
8:12–10:18
6
How can we prepare for personal transformation?
10:18–12:32
7
What lessons can be learned from the hero's journey?
12:32–19:45
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Chief Change Officer™: Ensemble
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