The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Welcome to The Comeback Chronicles, where raw truth meets unwavering resilience. Hosted by Terry L. Fossum, this podcast reveals the untold stories of remarkable individuals who’ve faced crushing defeats—only to rise stronger, wiser, and more determined.
Through candid interviews, you’ll hear about moments of failure, heartbreak, and doubt, as well as the transformational steps that led to victory. This isn’t just about inspiration—it’s about equipping you with actionable strategies, like Terry’s signature ‘Oxcart Technique,’ to overcome challenges and ignite your own comeback story.
If you’re ready to break free from fear, shame, or self-doubt and move boldly into your conquer zone, The Comeback Chronicles will empower you with the tools, mindset, and motivation to rise above and achieve your next great success.
Get ready to turn your setbacks into stepping stones and reclaim the life you’re destined to lead.
The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Breaking Every Limitation: Sascha Gorokhoff Story
Sascha Gorokhoff defies medical impossibility, transforming from a child given no chance of survival to an internationally recognized executive with prestigious academic credentials. His story demonstrates how rejecting others' limitations and choosing your own path can lead to extraordinary accomplishments despite overwhelming odds.
• Born with rare medical conditions including spina bifida, doctors predicted paralysis, cognitive impairment, and death by age seven
• Developed philosophy of "I'm not defined by someone else's memo" from an early age
• Reframes "disabled" as "differently abled" - focusing on capabilities rather than limitations
• Completed two bachelor's degrees in under three years and received executive education from top global institutions
• Overcame challenging childhood with emotionally unavailable parents
• Emphasizes the power of choice and clear goal-setting in overcoming obstacles
• Recommends celebrating small victories and reframing failures as valuable lessons
• Believes "There's a fine line between victim and victory. A couple of letters, and you choose"
• Encourages surrounding yourself with people who support your vision
Visit www.Saschaleadership.com to learn more about Sascha Gorokhoff 's speaking engagements and coaching.
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host Terry L Fossum L Fossum.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back to the Comeback Chronicles podcast. There's an amazing story that you're about to hear today that's going to blow you away, inspire you and give you some actionable items to be able to move forward with anything that's holding you back. Because I can pretty much guarantee you this story I can't say it's worse than yours. I don't know your story, but man, is this an amazing story? Let's get into it. Sasha Gorokhov wasn't supposed to live. He wasn't supposed to walk. He wasn't supposed to think clearly, speak powerfully or lead anyone, let alone inspire thousands. Diagnosed at birth with one of the rarest and most severe combinations of medical conditions, he was expected to be paralyzed, cognitively impaired and gone by the age of seven. His survival defied logic. His thriving defied logic. His thriving defied science. His very existence listen is rarer than being struck by lightning. He didn't just beat the odds, he made them irrelevant. Where statistics said die, sasha said watch me rise. Where science whispered no, sasha roared. Yes, he obliterated every limitation with a fire that no diagnosis, no upbringing and no environment could possibly contain.
Speaker 2:But Sasha's story goes far deeper than physical survival. He was raised in a pressure cooker of privilege and psychological warfare. A paradoxical world where love came with conditions and presence was never promised. His mother, shaped by borderline and narcissistic patterns, ruled the emotional train, with volatility, gaslighting and ever-shifting storms. Reality bent to her emotions. Warmth could vanish without warning. One moment he was adored, the next erased. His father, a brilliant yet emotionally distant CFO, chose work over fatherhood, results over relationship. Sasha was never enough, valued only when silent, exceptional or invisible. There was no hope in the world for a boy like Sasha, except for the hope that came from within.
Speaker 2:Listen, sasha completed two bachelor's degrees with honors and a marketing certificate in under three years, a feat that takes most people eight. He earned an executive master's in international negotiation and policymaking from the Graduate Institute of Geneva, which operates in direct partnership with the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum. Alumni of this includes heads of state, nobel laureates and international power brokers. He then received executive education from IMD, ranked among the top three business schools in the world. He served in leadership roles at the federal and local levels in Switzerland at executive board appointments in Geneva's most prestigious business network An amazing comeback story. Thank you so much for joining me, sasha.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me, Terry. It's really a pleasure to be with you today.
Speaker 2:So so much to unwrap, so much. You started off. You're not even supposed to live Now. There was an innate will within you already that said no, no, that's not the way it's going to end up, but that will kept developing despite all these odds. And there's a lot of people listening and of course, that's what you and I both care about is the listeners right now, who are going through a lot of challenges themselves. You went through physical challenges. You went through emotional challenges, psychological challenge. You went through most challenges that are available today. What do you think it was about you that got you coming back from them time after time after time again?
Speaker 3:Well, as you say. Thank you for summarizing all of this very, very well. For me, the story began really at the moment of my birth, where it was death or life. Life, as you said, was thought to be impossible very, very short. Then were all the other challenges, but I very quickly realized I'm not defined by someone else's memo. I'm not defined by what other people think or project.
Speaker 2:I've got to stop you because that's too beautiful. I'm not defined by someone else's memo. I love that you define yourself. Nobody else does. Is that what you're?
Speaker 3:saying. That's exactly what I'm saying I've always and that has accompanied me throughout life and I'm 47 by the end of the year is says who and says you, so it's not because it's impossible, even statistically, that it cannot be done. Now, if it can be done, which I believe that it can, because it starts with self-belief.
Speaker 1:If you don't believe it nobody else will.
Speaker 3:In fact, nobody else did believe what I saw yeah.
Speaker 2:I just said okay my legs were moving.
Speaker 3:Well, I thought very young, my legs were moving when I was born. They shouldn't have. They said it was going to be a reflex, it would stop. It didn't stop, year after year after year. So I said, okay, this is unlikely to happen in my, in my notes, in my memo, right. But then it's about knowing what it is you really want. And I've always known that if I want to make it, I will have to shoot higher than most, or at least aim higher.
Speaker 1:So I remember very, very young.
Speaker 3:As you said, my father was a very driven CFO. He had an MBA of a very, very prestigious business school. And very young I asked the question, I said, okay, what's the number one business school out there or school out there, university out there? I said, if I can aim for the highest, I will probably. I will likely finish at the highest. I don't know how, but I will at least be there where I want to be. And at the time they answered Harvard. And, as you said, many, many years later synchronicity brought me to IMD, which then happened to be the number one business school in the world. But it's about knowing what it is you want, clearly defining it, and then asking yourself says who and what do you say really?
Speaker 2:Now wait a minute. Wait a minute, sasha. Wait a minute. You're not supposed to even think clearly. Remember I did the introduction where you weren't supposed to even think clearly? Where did you get off thinking you were going to go to one of the, if not the most prestigious schools in existence? Where do you even come off thinking of that?
Speaker 3:So let me take you back in smaller steps. I always had the belief it could be done, so teachers wanted well doctors written me off. So very early on I really made it clear that unless I needed them, I did not want them in my life.
Speaker 3:I like that, I like that a lot, because I don't want to hear their memo. And if I don't need them, then why should I have somebody in my life who's not contributing positively to the choices I have made and to my goals and missions and vision? Even at four years old I thought this way, or five years old. I also remember that I was also very interested in the world and always asked how do things work? Why do things work, how do things function? And very early on I asked for there were these picture book series in Europe where they would show you the components and how they were put together and how it would work.
Speaker 3:I was fascinated by these things and very early on I realized well, all of these things were said to be impossible at some point.
Speaker 1:Well, yet they were done.
Speaker 3:So that it is reasonable to believe that, even as a child, it's reasonable to think that, well, the best business school at four or five or six years old wasn't the issue, but it was the plan, it was an idea. If I'm the highest, what is it? But then it's reasonable to believe that kindergarten can be passed and every school grade thereafter can be passed, and can be achieved.
Speaker 3:But I faced obstacles, and mainly obstacles, of people who did not believe or people who had hidden agenda or very narcissistic agendas, like my mother, who was all about herself, so it's also understanding about people's agenda. Very young I had a sense that she was not well at all.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:When I was born, she disappeared to bed for 10 years of my life, which turned out to be imaginary back problems.
Speaker 2:It came out later in life.
Speaker 3:But I realized okay, I only have myself really, and if I don't decide, who else is going to decide? So I remember when I was traveling.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this, sasha. So you've hit on many big things. I really want to make sure that the audience is hearing. First of all, if you've got people in your life that don't share your memo, then get them out of your life. There's no reason in that. But also you believed, okay, you're all alone. You believed you were all alone, but you didn't take that as a negative. Oh, I'm all by myself. Oh, how horrible, how terrible. You said, okay, I got me, and if that's what I've got, then that's what I've got. Let's roll with this. It sounds like that was your thought process going into all that.
Speaker 3:Correct you know people throughout life in younger years, not Correct you know people throughout life in younger years, not so much anymore in adult life, but in younger years. Asked me wouldn't you like to not have the condition? And I said I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can relate, I have empathy, but I cannot not have the condition.
Speaker 3:So no, I am me and I am me with everything that I am and I'll make the best out of who I am. And you touched on something very important. When I was young and throughout schooling I was very, very bullied and excluded because I was born with. One of the conditions is spina bifida, so I was born with an open lower back. So they closed it in skin with skin in 1978 and it's much later that they found out they could have put in a metal plate Too late for me because the nerve screwed to the skin they can't open it again, oh wow. But I was excluded from all sports because obviously children they can't comprehend. If they push me too violently I could be in a wheelchair, I could be dead. In the beginning girls were my friends and when girls became interested into boys, I was no longer a choice, because I was different.
Speaker 3:And yes, did I suffer. But I also asked. I remember being in my room thinking to myself when I was about five maybe, or maybe a little younger, and said what is it about me? And then I realized it's not about me per se, it's about the projection of me and then, therefore, I'm not different and that's when I started.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't I don't want to say reject, but I chose a different label than disabled for me and I said I'm differently able, I'm going to do things different and I'm going to find a way which is a legit way, a legal way. I've never cheated in school or anything else, but I'm going to find a way that is my way, with my set of conditions, with my set of circumstances that will help me get there wherever there was and the there's throughout life have changed, but wherever there was, whereas maybe in the beginning it was, there is passing kindergarten and it evolved
Speaker 1:but, whatever there is, I said okay, I can't change this.
Speaker 3:I can't change the tools I was born with. I can't change that certain tools are different than from others. But I can also not cry on it, complain about them and say, okay, this is me and let me just do the best out of it.
Speaker 2:And there's a story when I was very young that was told and I want, I want to hear that real quick, I want to make sure that the audience caught this too, though the differently abled, and a lot of times you know, happily, we're hearing that it's not disabled, it's differently abled. Okay, we are all differently abled, we all are. So if you're going, man, I don't have this skill, I don't have this talent, I'm dumb in this direction, whatever you're feeling, you've got other talents. So stop worrying about the ones you don't have and focus on the ones you do and make use of them Right.
Speaker 3:Stop worrying about the ones you don't have and focus on the ones you do and make use of them. Right, it's exactly. And much later in life, in adulthood as of my early 20s.
Speaker 2:That's what I would tell people.
Speaker 3:I do not subscribe to the notion of disabled, because nobody is ever disabled. We're all differently abled. We're all differently abled and we have a choice which was another biggie in my life a choice to either give up, complain, cry over whatever has happened or whatever we are, that we are not like others, or say this is what it is. Is it going to change? If it can change and change it, if it doesn't change like in my case, it won't change Then make the best out of it. Make the best out of it and then develop the self-awareness.
Speaker 3:So the story I was going to tell you very young I don't remember this I had my milk bottle on the table and I must have been already very aware of what I should and should not do, of what I should and should not do, and I crawled to the table and I pulled the cloth down and I caught the bottle and I crawled away Because I apparently was very self-aware that if I climbed the table, that was a very bad idea if I could fall. But then the other point is choice and self-awareness, and that's really what has guided me throughout life is choice. You have a choice and to define who you are, you have a choice to not listen to the memos that are not aligned with that. Now I would recommend you ask yourself whether these people have a point, because if they have, a point you may learn something from it.
Speaker 3:But if they don't have a point, and it's just another layer that is becoming a real disability, if you listen, then I would recommend you really don't and you follow your own belief.
Speaker 3:I always knew deep down inside that I would make it whatever make it was at the time, throughout different periods of my life. Obviously, that changed, as it all changes for us, and it's every day reminding yourself you do have a choice. So when I understood, as I was saying before, that it isn't actually about me, it's about the projection of others, and that's why I always tell people I'm as to use the term that I don't like to use, but it fits in society. I'm as disabled as I am through your eyes, because I don't feel I am there are certain limitations.
Speaker 3:There are certain things that I can't ignore, that are different from so-called medically healthy people, but I don't feel I'm disabled. I feel like, okay, then we'll find a way or we'll make a way, and that's what I've always done and, in fact, that's what I always say. There's a fine line between victim and victory. A couple of letters you choose.
Speaker 2:Ooh, ooh, I love that. I absolutely love that. Say it again. I want to make sure everybody heard that. Go for it again, please.
Speaker 3:There are a couple of letters between victim and victory and you choose. While they said I was going to be a victim, I said no, I'm victorious. Do I know how?
Speaker 2:No, but I am, and somehow a way will appear and somehow that's the way it will appear and that's so critical. Please, everybody listening on, I want to make sure you're really listening to this and again, maybe you've heard that in your different motivational stuff you listen to. Listen. This is Sasha that you're listening to here. He wasn't supposed to live, he wasn't supposed to walk, he wasn't supposed to think okay, he could have been a victim. We've seen these people who are victims with so much more going for them than he theoretically did. He chose the correct couple of letters to change it to victorious, and you can too and indeed, if you look statistically, I'm the 0.00001 percent.
Speaker 3:Yet that's how essentially I made it. And you know, even today I'm happily married to a wonderful woman and she often looks at me and she says how? Because she's physically fully abled and fully medically healthy, so to speak. And we've been together for 12 years and she still asks me something, but how? And I simply answer because I have decided, I have made the choice, I have decided and then I do it, or I'll find the way, or the way will come to me. But I have decided. And when she said but I said it is so, I have made up my mind that it is so.
Speaker 2:And so it will be. I literally got goosebumps with that one, my friend, because I have decided I want everybody write that down, write that because I have decided now. But sasha, does that really do it?
Speaker 3:it does, doesn't it it does, and you know I've also been asked multiple times, but you could have reacted different said yeah, but what? Good, would that do what good would that do if I would be crying over my whatever problems, conditions or whatnot? Yes, we all fall. The problem isn't falling. We all do, whether we're medically considered healthy or not or anything in between, or whatever. Whoever we are, everything is fine and we all fall it's okay to rest.
Speaker 3:It's okay to sit down, but what will define you is if you get back up right, right, and I have fallen in my life and sometimes in my life and I have said, look, I am taking a break yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying I'm giving up, I'm just saying I'm taking a break from all of this.
Speaker 3:I'm just you're gonna, you're going to find me up.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying I'm taking a break from all of this You're going to find me out there on my lounge chair.
Speaker 3:I'm taking a break from all of this and that's okay, right, and that's okay.
Speaker 2:but never have. I said you know what I give up.
Speaker 3:Never have I said this. As I said, get back up. I always said to my condition or the universe whoever you want to believe in and others, you can push me down, I'll get back up. It's a confidence of knowing and that confidence is really something you have to build inside and how does, how does somebody do that?
Speaker 2:there's a lot of people who have been beaten down. You know bad conditions, bad upbringing, bad whatever. How do you build that up inside of you? How do you build that up inside of you?
Speaker 3:There's again. It all starts with a choice, or what is the alternative choice? You can start with the alternative choice, and if you don't like the alternative choice, well then you have to kind of make the opposite choice, because I think there's really only two choices yes or no. Hot and cold.
Speaker 2:And once you've made that decision, we live in the duality universe really.
Speaker 3:So if you don't like the outcome of your decision, change it. There you go.
Speaker 2:It is really as simple as that.
Speaker 3:And then it's about reminding yourself to your commitments. Change it, there you go. It is really as simple as that. And then it's about reminding yourself to your commitments and it's about self-committing, Because nobody else. You cannot expect that anybody else. It's nice if it comes, but you can't expect it that anybody else comes. And is your encouragement Right.
Speaker 2:Because it's nice if you have that.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful, Cherish that if you have that. It's wonderful Cherish that if you have that.
Speaker 2:But you have to become your own cheerleader and know why you want something and if the other people in your life aren't sharing that memo, get them out of your life. You don't have to subscribe to their memo. Just like you said, you write your own memo and find the people that subscribe to it, and you know this is what I said.
Speaker 3:I come come back to what I said in the beginning. At birth, it was life or death. Number two was a terrible choice. According to me, number one wasn't, was a court was apparently impossible to do. Yet I did it, and that's why I always tell people everything is possible If you know how, and throughout life I've learned how, now Learned how. Now can I tell you that if you're in a wheelchair and paralyzed, you will magically get up and walk. No, my bladder has been paralyzed since birth. I used catheters to go to the bathroom. It still is the case, but it does not need to define you and you can still thrive if you have decided so. I've seen so many people who have given up because they have not decided another way.
Speaker 2:They kind of did decide. They decided to give up, right?
Speaker 3:Well, they blame outside circumstances, and they let themselves be defined by outside circumstances Instead of saying I'm going to make my own choice and in some way it makes sense, Because if you look back at life, when you're a toddler or a young child. Your parents make decisions for you. Sometimes they're well-meaning parents, sometimes they're terrible parents, but they make decisions for you for very good reasons. But as we grow up, we keep in that loop of letting somebody else decide.
Speaker 2:Right, giving them the power.
Speaker 3:Exactly when are you going to take back your own power to choose? And that's what I've always asked people, and from a very young age, I've decided to take my power to choose and if I like my choice, I went with it.
Speaker 1:If I didn't, then I changed it.
Speaker 3:And I said, you're always free to change your choice along the way, and it's how you approach challenges. Either you can approach challenges as saying this is the most awful thing in the universe or saying, hmm, interesting, okay, great, I see you, I'm still going to make it, I love it.
Speaker 2:So is it really that simple, sasha? Is it really that simple?
Speaker 3:It kind of really, is it?
Speaker 2:kind of really is it kind of really is.
Speaker 3:Look, of course there is much more and there are multiple frameworks that I'm consulting people on, that I'm speaking about, that I'm consulting companies on, because you can go into much more detail. But for the audience in general, it's about mindset, it's about choice and it's about knowing your values and knowing where you want to go. So many people in audiences around the world I have seen who have to begin with no idea where they want to go Right.
Speaker 2:And then I tell people look, I'd love to help you, but if you don't know where you want to go and how it looks like I can't help you. Right.
Speaker 3:It's like if you don't know where to you want to go and how, it looks like I can't help you, right? It's like if you say I want a car, well, okay, great, I bought you a formula one car and then you complained and I said, well, that's impractical, I don't know how to drive it and I don't know how to drive around the miles an hour anyways, and you can't drive this thing.
Speaker 1:It's not road legal. We said you wanted a car. What do you complain?
Speaker 3:about and I said you have to know what you want, and I always had clear goals. What did it?
Speaker 2:look like so, would you say that would be somebody's first step, no matter what position they're in right now. Good, bad, whatever. Figure out what you want and define it specifically. Would you say it is a pretty good first step?
Speaker 3:Yes, so you will hear in a different episode. When my wife Gemma, and when she came into my life after going through what she went through, which I will let you discover in her episode, the first thing I literally did like I've done with many people is I have her sit down and say okay, this has happened. Well, what do you want now? And she wanted to get up and go into her old habits and said no, no, no, we're going to be sitting right here and we're going to decide.
Speaker 3:You are going to decide, I'm going to guide you. What is it you want now? And she came up with another answer eventually and said well, I can help you with that. And that was long before we were even in love. So the story really starts with if you don't know where you're going, how do you know you're going to get there? And how do you know that you're there once you have arrived? If you don't know where it is, you've arrived because you don't know what you want to begin with. It's like a GPS put into the navigation and say bring me somewhere. It will bring you somewhere If you don't know where you want to go, you will not get there, and that's what I tell people often Go out call Amazon, tell them deliver me something.
Speaker 3:But if they deliver you something you don't like, then don't complain and most likely they will not deliver you anything because they will prioritize everybody else who knows what they want oh, there's a lot in that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot, and not to mention if you're focused on where you're at and how bad things are and all that. You're not focused on where you want to go, so you're going to stay right where you're focused on, and first, it's going to magnetize, it's going to get worse, because what you focus on expands, and that is really true.
Speaker 3:And that's why I say the first choice is know, what you want Know where you want to go, even if it means, even if you're in a terrible situation and it is just going through the day. Great, Go through the day, go through the week, go through the months. And then celebrate your victories. What is maybe nothing for someone is maybe everything to you. Don't let anybody belittle your. Everything Right on, because it is not little, it is just little to them. To you it is everything. So do not let somebody else belittle your everything.
Speaker 3:Maybe, taking one step is the hardest thing for you in the world. If you've done that, congratulations. Applaud yourself you have succeeded. Write down your successes Every day. Write down or take a mental note of your successes, because you will rewire your brain positively.
Speaker 3:Brain science has shown this in the meantime in all of these past decades. It's a big deal. In three weeks to three months, you have rewired your brain, so keep track of your successes, celebrate yourself, but if you don't know where you're going, you don't know when you have arrived and you don't know what it looks like. So be clear, Then take steps, whatever it be. For somebody it might not be first step. For somebody it might be a billion dollars. Great.
Speaker 2:That's also fantastic no-transcript, but celebrate whatever those things are like. It helps rewire. So you've decided where you want to go, you've decided I'm doing it and you're celebrating successes along the way.
Speaker 3:You are and you're recommitting to your choices every single day, if need be, multiple times a day.
Speaker 2:Outstanding.
Speaker 3:Especially people who may have ADD or ADHD. For them, it is more difficult to commit to a choice over a day or many days. A choice over a day or many days? Well then, write them down on a post-it note and put it on your mirror, put it where you see it every day, and recommit, with full intention, to it again and again, and again, and again and again until your goal has reached, and if, in the meantime, you grow out of your goal, it is also fully okay to change your goal.
Speaker 3:You don't have to accomplish something because you once said I mean my example, I once said at five years old that I wanted to do something. And when I and at 17, 18 or 20,.
Speaker 3:I find this to be unnecessary or very stupid because it was from the perspective of five-year-old. It's okay to change your goal. You're not obliged to commit something that you no longer want to commit to. Nor are you obliged to commit to something just for the sake of it. You are free to change your goals, but I would recommend don't change them because it became difficult, it became tough or you encountered friction. We all do Change them if you really no longer are aligned with them or if you no longer identify with them.
Speaker 2:So, sascha, I know we're getting close to the end of our time here. What happens, though? You're going towards your goals and, of course, again, you've had a lot of setbacks and you pushed through everything. What happens if, okay, things didn't go well, you know I failed, I failed. What's your mentality when that happens? Because I know it has it has, and I've learned something. There's no such thing as failure-only lessons.
Speaker 3:You do not want to wire your brain on failure. I said earlier write down your successes. The other thing is write down your lessons. So when I coach people and they come back, instance, and say, well, that it's not going the way it was supposed to go or I failed, I said let's reframe this, it's a lesson. Now let's go back, take a couple, take our steps back in time and see where did it go wrong, so that next time we have learnings from that and next time we are not repeating this. So nothing is a failure, everything is a learning.
Speaker 3:And I would really recommend and that has served me well to not be stuck on failure but on lessons, because you can learn if it went well well great repeat If you want to repeat, if it didn't look, what you can learn to make it go well the next time and succeed the next time, because then you come away with learnings and you become better and better, and better and better. And throughout my life and that's what I'm consulting as well on I came up, I came with a lot of learnings to save people a whole bunch of time.
Speaker 3:No, matter what it is you're going through, whether it is personal, your business or whatever you're in, to save you a whole bunch of time Because, as you said, I came back from so much, I faced so much, yet I succeeded every time.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, it took longer than other times. Sometimes I had to take a detour because there was a wall in front of me. I said I don't feel like running against the wall, so I'll have to find a way around it. It will take a little bit longer, but that's what I bring, and please find things to be grateful for, because it will actually help you to focus on the positive things. And that's what I always also tell people when they come with I failed or I have a problem, I said okay, I hear you, I really hear you. I do with all my heart, with all my soul. How can we turn this into a good thing?
Speaker 3:What good, possibly, what possible good can come out of this I love that In my case, one of the possible good that came out of this is 47 years of life Soon. A ton of learnings, a ton of frameworks that can save you and everybody in the audiences around the world a ton of time. Yet, as I always say, if you don't apply what somebody teaches you, it will never work Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Not because somebody else did it, or somebody else tells you the exact game plan and how to do it. That will just fall from the sky. You have to practice it for yourself and you have to recommit and recommit, and recommit until it's automatic for you.
Speaker 2:And understanding the hardships that we're all going through become the inspirational stories for others. So all these to me, the hardships I've gone through, I thank God for those, because those are the stories that help inspire other people who are going through similar situations, and that's where your story, I know, is inspiring a lot of people as well. We're running out of time. What thought would you like to leave the?
Speaker 3:audience with Sasha. That's a very good question, Something that we have not covered yet is really you will never achieve anything alone, but alone is not. The same thing as lonely. Achieve anything alone, but alone is not the same thing as lonely and you are never alone.
Speaker 3:You might be currently surrounded by the wrong people. You can make a choice to change that. You can make a choice if you're a young person listening to this and you can't change the first people around you right now because they may be your parents or whatnot. To make a choice if you're a young person listening to this and you can't change the first people around you right now because they may be your parents or whatnot to make a choice to not be like them.
Speaker 3:I always made a choice, since a very young age, although my mother treated me horribly and I let you look up in the audience what it means to live with somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, plus probably many more disorders. But I always said I will be a source of love, no matter how the world treats me because that is also a choice.
Speaker 3:So that is really my message to the audience You're never alone, and lonely is a temporary status that you can change. And again, that is your choice to change it. It is your choice how you think, how you believe, what you say, how you think, and it is a choice to come back and recommit to it all of the time. And, as I said earlier, that's what I really want to say and repeat. There is a fine line between victim and victory. A couple of letters and you choose. Nobody else will make the choice for you.
Speaker 2:You do. I love that. Where can people find out more about you I know you do, speaking electronically. You're not traveling to places you speak electronically. Fantastic talks there. Where can people find out more about you and your talks and everything else?
Speaker 3:So you can go. The easiest way is to go on my website. It's wwwsashaleadershipcom, that's S-A-S-C-H-A, leadershipcom, or then with my full name, wwwsashagorokoffcom, but that may be more complicated. So just go with the Sasha Leadership S-A-S-C-H-A, and from there you can reroute through the entire site.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So for all the listeners again, surround yourself. Set your own memo, set your decisions. Surround yourself with people who support your memo and if they don't find different people who do, make the decision. You have the power. Don't give it to somebody else. You have the power. Decide and then move forward and celebrate all those small things, whether anybody's celebrating with you or if you're just proud. Celebrate those things. Make whether anybody's celebrating with you or if you're just proud, celebrate those things. Make the decisions every single day. Figure out where you're going, decide where you want to go. Keep deciding every single day. You've got the power within you. Do all of these things and listen. You can have your own Comeback Chronicle. Sasha, thanks so much for joining us and sharing your story and your wisdom with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, terry. It's really been a joy and a pleasure, and you're a great inspiration to me too. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. All right, you take care, Go get them buddy. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfawesomecom to pick up your free gifts and so much more. We'll see you next week on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.