Combat tests you. Being a beat cop tests you. Life tests you. Three brothers and being the only girl...tests you. Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour has been tested her whole life. A gutsy trailblazer, her resume is an impressive collection of “firsts” including America’s first Black woman combat pilot. She served two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine. She was also a diversity liaison officer to the Pentagon for Headquarters Marine Corps. After her military service, FlyGirl revved up her career in the private sector as an entrepreneur, consultant to business, and author of Zero to Breakthrough, The 7-Step, Battle-Tested Method for Accomplishing Goals that Matter. As a speaker, FlyGirl unleashes hard-hitting advice and amazing anecdotes from her adventures on the battlefield and in business. She helps individuals and organizations Get Gutsy and build a sustainable inner force and conviction, that results in accomplishing significant goals.

Early on in my career, when my company was in the aftermath of a $5B acquisition, I almost quit. Fueled by frustration and stress, I found myself on the precipice of walking out of the office and never coming back. Had I done so, I would have become another statistic. Yet another African-American female departed from a STEM-driven industry. Top talent voluntarily resigning during a time of significant organizational shift. Another change victim. But I didn’t. Instead, I woke up one day and decided to view those feelings as a signal that I was sitting in a moment of opportunity. An opportunity to transform that chemistry, that feeling into something better. To choose every day to do something, say something, behave in some way that would move the needle of my work experience towards a better feeling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was cultivating a teachable strategy to inspire anyone to become enthusiastic about change, to find their unique power of resilience during turbulent times. Today, I help organizations disrupt ‘change as usual’. Through a practical and repeatable framework, I show them how they can transform their culture from surviving change to growing through change.

Known as the Iron Cowboy, James is an endurance athlete who has breaking records for years. In 2012, he completed 30 Ironman triathlons (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) in one year. No one had ever done anything close to this. In 2017, he did the unimaginable, completing 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 consecutive days in 50 different states, all while raising money to reduce childhood obesity. It was an amazing physical feat, an astounding logistics challenge and fair bit of chaos, all at the same time. You can watch the trailer here for the critically acclaimed Amazon Prime documentary; Iron Cowboy | The Story of the 50.50.50. But that wasn’t enough. In 2021, he pushed further, a lot further, beyond what doctors and physiologists thought was humanly possible, and completed the CONQUER 100…100 Ironman distance triathlons in 100 consecutive days, this time raising money to combat sex trafficking. That’s 140.6 miles per day, every day, for 14 straight weeks, for a total of 14,060 miles!