Letter 58 - When Nicole Lost It All!

Hello Bregdan Woman!

Ginny here…

Yesterday, I wrote about the first ever female Thunderbird pilot in the United States Air Force. To say Nicole Malachowski is a powerful Bregdan Woman is understating it a little.

Which is why it was so hard when she lost it all!

Let’s take a look at what she accomplished during her 21 years in the United States Air Force:

She was the first woman in history to fly with the Thunderbirds (US Air Force Demonstration Squadron) and went on to be the Commander of the 333rd Fighter Squadron, where she trained more than 200 students to fly the F-15E fighter jet. She later served as the Deputy Director for US Air Force Readiness and Training for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In addition, she served in the White House: first, as a fellow for the U.S. General Services Administration (2008-2009), then as the executive director of the White House “Joining Forces” Initiative (2015-2016). Ms. Malachowski was at the peak of a long and promising career.

Until…

She first realized something was wrong in 2012, while serving as the commander of the 333^rd Fighter Squadron. She battled intractable pain, insurmountable fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and speech impairment. During the next four years it progressed to include disorientation, confusion, anxiety and temporary paralysis.

Because I’ve dealt with a life-changing disease, as well, it’s easy for me to understand how devastated she was as the woman she had been began to fade away.

She was forced to medically retire from the Air Force after 21 years. Nicole was only 43. She could no longer provide for her children, and her husband became her caregiver.

She had access to both civilian and military physicians, but no one could give her answers. Instead, they initially suggested she was overstressed.

Yep, that’s what they told me too. Maddening!

It took over four years, 24 doctors, and multiple misdiagnoses before she was accurately diagnosed at the Dean Center for for Tick-Borne Illness in Boston, Massachusetts.

Finally!

With an actual diagnosis, she started treatment. With the same unstoppable attitude she had exhibited in the Air Force, Nicole regained her abilities to stand, read, and speak. Not all of her symptoms disappeared, but she was able to be independent again.

She struggled with the realization that she had to reinvent herself to accommodate her new normal. She was still young. The thought of crafting a new professional identity was daunting, to say the least!

Change is hard for most of us, but when it is forced upon us by an unexpected illness, it is particularly debilitating.

Resilience is the ultimate key to success.

But first… go ahead and give yourself a good pity party. It’s hard to lose who you are!

Nicole gave herself a pity party – until the answer came.

YIELD TO OVERCOME.

Applying her fighter pilot mental framework, she reflected on an aerodynamic principle where she sometimes needed to loosen her grip or “fly loose” in order to embrace change and fly through turbulence with ease.

She began to apply this yield to overcome principle to her illness. Instead of wallowing in what she could no longer do, she started asking herself some hard questions:

What is it that I can do now?

What tools and resources do I have at my disposal today?

What do I need to be doing right now that will give my life purpose and meaning?

These are powerful questions! The same ones I’ve asked myself over the years.

Nicole took all her experiences in the Air Force and decided to reinvent herself as a professional speaker. It gave her the opportunity to leverage her unique personal and professional skills and experiences.

Equally important, her new career provided her the flexibility to accommodate the realities of day-to-day life with her illness.

Read this next part very carefully…

“Yielding is not about quitting, weakly surrendering, or giving up,” explains Malachowski. “In my mind, yielding is all about accepting the present moment.”

Go ahead and reread what Nicole just said.

This acceptance of her new limitations helped her pivot into an exciting new career as a keynote speaker sharing her life lessons and advice on not just how to be resilient but how to be resurgent.

In fact, she now views her military career as a bit of a steppingstone for the work she does now. “I used to think my destiny/legacy lay in having been an officer and fighter pilot,” she explains.

“The severe illness taught me that being a fighter pilot gave me the skills and traits I needed to survive my illness and turn to my new mission of advocating for others.” Ultimately, she feels a tremendous sense of solace and satisfaction in the fact that she’s able to impact more people on a grander scale now than she would have if she’d stayed in the Air Force.

In her words, “It all worked out.”

It all worked out…

Nicole has more lessons to share:

As one who continues to struggle with the debilitating effects of her illness, Malachowski recognizes the importance of allowing time to grieve. She explains, “It’s ok to reminisce about the past, but not ruminate about it.”

Malachowski reminds her audiences, “The runway behind you is always unusable; all we ever have is the runway in front of us.”

Such TRUTH!

She encourages those facing hardship—personal or professional—to dig deep and take decisive action. “Only you have the power to reinvent yourself and write your own story,” she insists. “When the unexpected happens, are you asking yourself the right questions?”

Today, Nicole still experiences persistent symptoms from her late-stage tick-borne illness. She struggles with chronic fatigue, persistent pain, and executive cognitive dysfunction.

She’s not yet regained the ability to read and write with ease or exercise to past standards, but she's redesigned a life that accommodates her physical limitations and is both truly rewarding and brimming with enviable achievements.

I don’t believe there is a person alive who is going to navigate all of life without some kind of difficult challenge to overcome – at least, I haven’t met them yet!

If it hasn’t happened yet, it will.

If you can accept that…

If you can walk into it with the decision to YIELD TO OVERCOME…

If you can ask yourself the tough questions and then dig deep for the resilience to overcome, you can face whatever life throws at you.

That’s simply what Bregdan Women do.

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What will you do to be a Bregdan Woman?

What will you do today to impact history??

We’re on this journey with you… (and have 2 FREE Gifts for you below…)

Ginny & Suess

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