Welcome to Episode 100 of When Women Fly! To celebrate we go back to where it all began, Episode 1 with skydiver, life coach and writer - the amazing Melanie Curtis. True success — the kind you can sustain over time — demands a different relationship with ambition and action. Mel takes a deep dive into serving a higher purpose and how that gives meaning to life, a healthier, more sustainable model rooted in elevating the human condition. We reflect on the last 2 years, current lives and future goals.

In this episode, Sylvia talks to Serinity Young PhD, about her astonishing study into women and flight. Weaving together the concept of airborne women, she unfolds an investigation into the recurrent motif of women free from earthly constraints and empowered with the ability of flight. They discuss the ways flying women appear in a variety of cultures’ historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. They dive into how airborne women have been both influenced and understood by society and religious traditions.

In this first episode of 2021, Sylvia talks with Alaska native and speaker Shannon Huffman Polson about her journey as a thought leader on grit and resilience. She served as one of the first women to fly the Apache helicopter in the US Army and earned her MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth before writing The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience, and Leadership in the Most Male-Dominated Organization in the World and founding The Grit Institute where she coaches people on developing grit in careers and workplaces.

When Mandy first became interested in becoming a fast jet pilot in the Royal Air Force, women were not permitted to fly in the military. In this episode, you will hear Sylvia and Mandy talk about the early influences that led to her career in aviation, building mental resilience, deciphering between when to be a leader and when to be a team player, training versus being in combat, transitioning to motherhood, and so much more.

In this conversation between two female pilots, Sylvia and Amelia Rose Earhart discuss what it means to embody a role model, setting boundaries, Amelia’s around-the-world flight, how to overcome challenges in personal and professional settings, and so much more.

In this episode, Sylvia speaks with Pilot Carole Hopson. Before becoming a pilot, Carole spent decades working in various corporate careers from journalist to an executive-level employee in human resources. Carole stepped away from her corporate career to pursue her dream of flying, and it has taken her to places she couldn’t have imagined.

In this first episode of 2021, Sylvia talks with Alaska native and speaker Shannon Huffman Polson about her journey as a thought leader on grit and resilience. She served as one of the first women to fly the Apache helicopter in the US Army and earned her MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth before writing The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience, and Leadership in the Most Male-Dominated Organization in the World and founding The Grit Institute where she coaches people on developing grit in careers and workplaces. We talk a lot about grit, what it is, how it is built and what its soft underbelly looks like.

Today, we highlight Melanie Curtis in the fifth installment of our Summer Series. Melanie is an a coach, speaker, author, entrepreneur and professional skydiver. She has jumped out of an airplane over 11,000 times and competed at the highest levels in the sport of skydiving, with numerous team world records. Melanie is a fierce champion for growth and inclusion. All of this has led Melanie to a powerful position of positive influence in her expanded career as a life coach, speaker and author.

In today’s episode Cecilia shares her story of moving through fear, learning to fly & dismantling the perceived limitations that gripped her. For little girls & women aspiring to achieve great things, it’s the story of overcoming incredible barriers & achieving your dreams. For the rest, it’s a reminder of the consequences of unexamined implicit bias, privilege, bullying, and negativity.