Breaking Barriers and Embracing Challenges: Lessons in Courage and Excellence from M'Lis Ward, the First African-American Female Captain in Commercial Aviation

M’Lis Ward’s bio reads as a string of “firsts”, so it’s only fitting that this pioneering aviator is the first interview for The Uplifters Podcast. M’Lis is a United Airlines pilot and the first African-American female captain in commercial aviation. She graduated from the University of Southern California, where she also played on a National Championship Basketball team. She then joined the US Air Force, where she was an instructor-pilot on the T-37 and a First Pilot on the C141, and the first black woman flight instructor for the U.S. Air Force. 

 

Lisa Feldman Barret’s work in neuroscience shows us that who we surround ourselves with matters, and that’s certainly true in M’Lis’s work. In the 1970’s her mother, Anne B. Ward, decided she wasn’t helping people enough while looking for cures for diseases in a laboratory, so she decided to go to medical school and became the first black woman to graduate from  The University of Chicago Medical School. She did it all while caring for three small children. Witnessing that inspired M’Lis to say yes to challenges throughout her life, instead of shying away from them.

 

Here are a few of the many lessons I learned from M’Lis’s approach to life:

 

How caring about doing a good job can stand in the way of courage and learning

Why we must learn from life’s ups and downs equally

How important it is to admit that we want success, and how fears of looking greedy or ambitious block our progress and potential

How to avoid letting other people’s opinions distract us from excellence