Episode 05: Tammie Jo Shults: Crash Course in Courage

 
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Transcript

Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.

Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.

Patsy: And you’re listening to Bridges.

Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations

Patsy: Tammie Jo Shults is our guest today. You’re gonna be on the edge of your seats. The name of the book: Nerves of Steel. She is a leader of the best kind, so we need to listen in, girls, because this is a real scenario where it takes courage and it takes training to be able to do what Tammie Jo did. Isn’t that right, Andrew?

Andrew: That’s exactly right, Patsy. Now, if you don’t know who Tammie Jo Shults is, she was the captain of Southwest Flight 1380, a flight that was destined for disaster. Listen in to this incredible story.


Patsy: Well, I always start with a bridge, but this one’s a little different because it isn’t one I can exactly point to because it’s not one bridge; it’s 21 Bridges. And it’s a new movie that’s out. I have not seen it, but I saw the trailer and it was intense when all 21 bridges had to be shut down at the same time. Now, you have to have a cool head to be able to think through how to find the bad guy and get all the bridges closed. And our guest today has nerves of steel.

Andrew: She does indeed. Tammie Jo Shults is with us today. Tammie Jo, welcome to Bridges. We are so grateful you are here. We have been diving into you new book Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge. Through one of the largest dramas in real life, I would assume in your life, but that we’ve encountered too even in the news anywhere. So we want to open up the story to you to tell us about that dramatic flight that you were piloting in 2018.

Patsy: We don’t want you to give away the whole story because I know you’re saving that for the people to break open this book. I can’t imagine being put in the spot you were and maintaining a sense of even mental connection. How can you do that? How does that happen, you’re that brave?

Tammie Jo: You know, I don’t know that it’s brave when you don’t have a choice.

I don’t know that it’s brave when you don’t have a choice.
— Tammie Jo Shults

Patsy: Whoa.

Tammie Jo: So when it happened, it was instantaneous. My first officer, Darren Ellisor, and I both, talking about it later, we both thought we’d been hit by another aircraft. The hit was such a violent jolt, sending the aircraft sideways, pitching down, and rolling over. It certainly had a startling effect. 

At that point, there’s a number of things that kick in, whether they’re just habits or training, experience. I don’t think we’re monolithic. I think moments like that draw from all kinds of layers in us, and I would say the layer that was tapped instantaneously for me… It’s pretty reactionary when you’re starting to flip over to grab the yoke and keep from flipping over and right the wings, to level the wings. That’s reactionary for most pilots. I think everyone would’ve probably done that. 

That point where we leveled the wings and we couldn’t really focus our eyes suddenly because of such a shuttering in the aircraft, so it was like being in a snow globe with somebody shaking it fiercely. Neither one of us had ever experienced anything like that, and we couldn’t focus our eyes on the instruments, on checklists. And then there was such a roar going through the aircraft at this point, we couldn’t communicate. We only sit a foot and a half apart. We had a stabbing pain in our ears, and we couldn’t breathe.

When all of that happens in a tiny slice of a time, adrenaline kicks in. I think for everyone. And where it makes you really strong and fast physically, mentally it just puts you into warp speed. Even though it feels like you’re thinking at a very leisurely pace, it all happens in a moment of time. And I remember just thinking, I don’t think everything that we need to land is going to stay on the aircraft at this point.

Andrew: Because tell us real quick, catch us up to that moment of what did happen. Why are you in this situation?

Tammie Jo: Well, the No. 1 engine had a fan blade that had a molecular deep, where no one could see it, flaw, so the fan blade broke at a very extremely high RPM. And we’re at 32,500 feet, so when that broke, uncharacteristic of anything that’s happened before, it shredded the outside of the engine as well as the inside. The reason we had all these things happening was because when it did that, the big pieces that cover the engine, the cowling was torn and peeled back kind of like a banana peeling but remaining attached and flailing in 500 mile an hour wind. And the pieces that had blown out had struck the wing, the aircraft, and severed different things, hydraulic lines, fuel lines, but it had also hit a window, which had blown out because of the 7,000-foot pressure inside versus 32,000-foot pressure on the outside. 

Going down the road when you’re at 60 miles per hour and you roll down your window, it’s loud. But at 500-plus miles an hour, going by a window, it’s just a roar you can’t communicate over, and you really can’t imagine it unless you’ve heard it. So that all leant to the drama that we were feeling, and then, of course, that caused a rapid depressurization or, actually, an explosive compression, which means it’s like watching a balloon pop. That’s a rapid depressurization. When a balloon pops, it is air equalizing pressure with force rapidly. 

Those were all the things happening to us. We didn’t know… Like I say, all of that, we really just treated the symptoms for quite a while. And until we landed and they had looked at it, we didn’t know what all we were dealing with.

Patsy: What prepared you for being able to do the first, second, and third steps? What was the preparation?

Tammie Jo: You know, we left it at a cliffhanger before I explained what had happened. The moment of adrenaline pumping in to all of our minds, it sends us on the thought process that we’ve created a habit for. So if you have the habit of just going, I have no idea what to do, then that’s probably what you’ll do. That’s where your adrenaline rush will send you faster. And the adrenaline rush helps you remember things you should and things like that.

But for me, I will say it sent me to that cliff of what if. If the pieces won’t stay on and we don’t make it to a runway, then the next logical thought is this would be the day I meet my Maker. And honestly, that’s when I just had a calm. I had a pause. I backed away from that mental cliff of what if and realized if this is the day that I meet my Maker, then I won’t meet a stranger, that I meet with Him everyday. So that’s where the calm, I feel like, came from, and that’s, part of it, from a habit of who do you turn to, what do you turn to, when. 

The calm in my voice that’s heard over the ATC tape was really a reflection of the calm that I had in my heart. And I don’t feel like that was of myself. I feel like that’s something that we’re promised in Scripture that we will be given a peace beyond understanding, a calm beyond reason, because truthfully we had 20 more minutes of a lot of decisions. The runway wasn’t a made issue until we landed. There were a lot of things that we didn’t know until we got down closer to the ground that made getting it to a runway a difficult…

Patsy: So you were making a lot of decisions very quickly.

Tammie Jo: Yes.

Andrew: And 20 minutes, too, but if I think about 20 minutes of extreme drama and dramatics, that’s a long time of sustained…

Tammie Jo: That is a long time to know if anything is going to tear off and you’re not going to be able to control it.

Andrew: Yeah, so without that internal peace, without that internal calm, without that ability to…kind of like what you’re saying. It seems like an impartation, really, of the Spirit to say… I don’t know that it’s doable. How’d your first officer feel about that? Was he or she in a similar place with you, or was there panic?

Tammie Jo: Darren Ellisor handled himself magnificently under pressure. He was the one who was flying when it happened because we alternate — captain flies one leg, first officer flies the next — and he did a great job. We both kind of worked on it together for a while, just because settling it down and getting our oxygen masks on so that we could communicate with each other. But also, it’s protocol for the captain to land emergencies, so we switched around I think 17,000 feet. We lost 19,000 feet in the first five minutes. It was 10,000 pounds overweight to land because we had planned on doing a long flight to Dallas out of New York.

Patsy: So you had a lot of fuel.

Tammie Jo: We had a lot of fuel, and instead of landing in three and a half hours, we were 20 minutes into the flight and had so much damage and drag on the wing that once we got down close to the ground then we couldn’t use the thrust that we had anticipated using to level off and fly a little more normal pattern. Because there was so much drag and we were so heavy that the pull to the left, we could compensate for that with the rudder, but when you add power on the right that pushes you to the left, now that’s too much. We were much more of a glider than we had anticipated when we got closer to the ground. We had to reevaluate and fly a very tight, high, and diving pattern compared to the one we’d planned.


Bridges Sponsorship Message

Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has, and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes is involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea, and they’re talking chickens.

Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.

Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.

Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.

Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.

Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges. 

Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.


Bridges Sponsorship Message

Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this Scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.

Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.


Andrew: I think about how many instant decisions are being made. I think about how flexible you must have to be. Do you feel like that’s your personality already? I mean, even hearing you recount it, it’s strange the amount of composure and calm. And, of course, we’ve heard that from in flight. Do you feel that’s part of your just internal nature, too? Because I was reading in the beginning of the book in that kind of split second where things go awry and you’re having to make decisions immediately, you talk about being able to access that peace that you knew there was this good news and bad news and how you said, “But the good news was we’re still in flight, so now’s the time to fly this plane, to get to work.” Is that your work ethic? It’s kind of like no matter what, we move forward.

Tammie Jo: Yes. And I would have to say just coming from two parents — my dad, incredible confidence and common sense — that there was just nothing that happened on the ranch that he didn’t tackle and conquer. And my mom, great common sense and wisdom. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to go through the book very much. I told her, “I’m going to have to be really careful that I don’t quote you more than Scripture.” She had just such great common sense. If you want a friend, be a friend. Silence is consent. She was a woman of taglines before her time. I’m just now realizing that. 

So I was raised by very can-do folks. They gave us responsibilities young in life with the authority to carry it out. 

Patsy: And you said they were not discriminating who got what chores, so everybody did whatever was before them.

Tammie Jo: Right.

Andrew: Because it was you and your brother.

Tammie Jo: Right. And we sometimes had hired hands, but again, I was in the lineup to get an assignment just like everyone else. They were very forward-thinking, but work needs the workforce and that’s just the bottom line.

As we got older, my brother tended toward being very mechanically-minded, and I tended toward the animal, taking care of things — medical, birthing, whatever it was with the animals. And I didn’t realize, honestly, until I got out of college that there was definitely some lines drawn out there in the world. It was kind of shocking, at 21, to realize, Oh my goodness, there really are lines drawn about what you’re allowed to try for.

Andrew: Based on gender.

Patsy: Right, but you have a great mindset in regard to that. What do you do with a no?

Tammie Jo: Right. I learned early to try to figure out is it an answer or an opinion because opinions can be changed or gone around. Answers you deal with. There were many times not just in my home but in my trek through aviation that I had some noes. Instead of letting an offense block an opportunity, that’s when God gives us some great examples, like Joseph and Daniel and Esther and all those people that had just their lives directed by an unfair, a cruel often, and ungodly hand. They dealt with it, and God blessed more than them through their obedience to be faithful even when it isn’t fair.

Patsy: And life often is not fair. As I was reading, I saw how wonderful it would be if this book Nerves of Steel could be in the hands of young women seeking direction for anything they’re going to do in life because they’re going to run up against noes and against prejudice and against other obstacles, that this would be a real book of hope for them. 

I also saw that it would be a wonderful thing for young women who are trying to determine their future mate. I love the slow, consistent development of the love that was between Dean and yourself and that blossomed so beautifully. I mean, I enjoyed following it and thinking how lovely and how smart it was that it wasn’t all about wild emotion but it was about mutual respect and evaluating each other’s standards. That was really lovely.

So I think any age will enjoy it and any sex will enjoy it, but I think there are some groups especially that I think it would be advantageous for their lives to read what you’ve done.

Tammie Jo: I do have to say, because I get asked quite often how did you just keep going when you had so many noes and so many blockades and so many deterrents. If you read all of it, you’ll find that I just had a number of bad guys to try to work around or get over, get through. And one of the things that I felt like was kind of an unfair advantage that I have, but it’s available to everyone, is knowing my worth in Christ and that I have an inalienable worth in Christ. It doesn’t even matter what I do in life.

An unfair advantage that I have is knowing my worth in Christ.
— Tammie Jo Shults

Sometimes I think we get too wrapped up in what we do for a living. I really do. I think realizing that our worth is independent of what we do in life is the first step to having that confidence to step out and try something. So whenever I ran up against the bullies in my life, in my adult life, I did what probably any junior high girl would do. I went home and cried. But I also cried out to the Lord. I tattled on them to the Lord. 

Psalm 35 gives us such a great example of tattling to the Lord, and then by the end of the psalm, you see he’s come from “contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Rise up with sword and buckler.” I mean, he’s really calling down the… And then he turns to praising the Lord, and I feel like that’s what God does. Whenever we lay good or bad before Him, He sorts through it, He puts in perspective, and we get up off our knees taller than we were when we got down on them.

Andrew: Do you find yourself now, especially with the book and you speaking about it in so many different mediums and formats, are you finding yourself with an audience of sorts? Maybe some like Patsy was suggesting. Maybe some younger women who are rising up in their own careers or even just in discovering their own self-worth. Are you finding new audiences or new people that you’re relating to because you have now told these details of your story in public?

Tammie Jo: You know, I’m sure I’m finding more. I will say I had plugged in years before this flight put a spotlight on my life, and I always taught in whatever age my kids were, whether it was Sunday school class or I still coach javelin. So I’ve always plugged into the kids that were my kids’ age, and then when they got old enough, they were ready to leave home, I started plugging in other. I kinda recycled back to other younger kids, and having a few years of getting to mentor some freshmen in college, young ladies headed into the military. I think it’s rewarding. I feel like I get more than I give always.

I loved learning some of the things that you need to navigate life without having to go on the field trip, and I think you do that through true stories. And so that’s one of my prayers, that like you said, Patsy, it doesn’t matter if you’re gonna go fly, if you’re gonna go… Being a stay-at-home mom, that is navigating and managing an incredibly important business: your home. And so whether you’re stay-at-home or gonna fly jets or anything sideways or in between, I do think there’s just an order in our life that needs to be in order no matter how busy or quiet we are. And that order starts with our Maker, which I will have to say, I must get in that the young women as well as the women all the way up to my age, at this time in life, I think in America there’s so many banners that declare themselves pro-women. But if you look down the banner to who’s holding the flag, it’s not always true. 

If there’s one thing I would like to say to the women of today, it is that we have a champion, an incredible champion of women. He went so counterculture at His time to not follow wealth and influence but to go to the shadows and pull some groups out of those shadows, one of which was women. He hallmarked their faith, highlighted their courage, and His name is Jesus and we can meet Him on the pages of Scripture.


Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.

Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.

Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?

Patsy: What?

Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com


Bridges Sponsorship Message

Patsy: I’m excited about Food for the Hungry because they know how to get to the need of people. If you meet their needs, then their heart is open to anything else you say, so they’re feeding the children not only to nurture them and prepare them for real life but to hear about Jesus. And one of the ways that they’re able to help these families and it be sustainable is by chickens, Andrew.

Andrew: That’s right. It’s incredible. For just $14, you can provide a family with a chicken, and if you want to multiply that blessing, you can provide them with two chickens for just $28. And we know that chickens multiply, so that’s more eggs for the children to have the protein that they need, for them to sell the extras at market, and those chickens last eight to 10 years. It’s a huge blessing. All you have to do is go to fh.org/bridges.


Patsy: Now, you earned wings. How does that happen? I love birds. Nerves of Steel, your byline here, it says “How I followed my dreams, how I earned my wings, and how I faced my greatest challenge.” And your greatest challenge was highlighted all over the world. But how did you earn your wings?

Tammie Jo: Yes. You know, one flight at a time. The Navy was the only branch of the military that would allow me to even take the test to get in.

Andrew: As a woman?

Tammie Jo: As a woman. And all the branches were open to it, I found out later, but the Navy was the only branch that would allow me to take the test and process my application. Now, it did take me three Navy recruiters before I found one that would process it, but I did find one. 

When you look back sometimes at all the blocks — and then I had to go this way, and then I didn’t get to do this — like the two years out of college that I thought, I am the only person in my family that went to college, and I’m the only person without a real job. And just kind of feeling a little bit like I really need a direction in life. So I had those two years that you would think I kind of wasted, but I had a younger brother who was going into first grade when I went to college, so those two years Deshane and I got to rekindle a real friendship. And also, if I’d have gotten right in the Navy, I would’ve missed meeting my husband, I wouldn’t have flown the F-18. It would not have been open for women at that point.

There are just so many things in my life that would’ve been different. So I have to say that whenever you feel like you’re hitting a roadblock, sometimes that timing turns out to be…

Patsy: Pretty divine.

Tammie Jo: Yes. And in T-34s and then on to T-2s. T-34s we learned how to fly; T-2s we learned how to fly faster. And then we went to the carrier in T-2s, which as a student, the first time you go to land on a carrier, you’re solo. The joke in the Navy is they couldn’t pay anybody enough money to be in your backseat is why. But in truth, it’s because you need a very tight decision loop and not worrying about what the person in the back would do, could do, would say. You are your own net of safety. But it is on the edge of the seat kind of moments, and my folks even said, “Don’t tell us ever again you’re going to the boat. You tell us when you get back.”

And then we went on to A-4s, and A-4s we flew even faster. Now, this was a combat aircraft from Vietnam era pulled back into training, so it was agile, sleek, tough, but it was unforgiving, so no training wheels anymore on this one. And we did a lot more things. We did low levels 200 feet above the ground — 400, maybe 500 knots — bombing, strafing, back to the boat, and then finished off with some great air-to-air combat dogfighting. Everything a girl dreams of.

Andrew: That’s Patsy’s favorite aircraft definitely. You can see right here on her jacket. She’s still waiting to earn her wings, but she’s got the jacket. 

Tammie Jo: I should’ve brought you a patch.

Andrew: Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.

Patsy: My wings are very, very tiny. You might miss them.

My wings are very, very tiny. You might miss them.
— Patsy Clairmont

Andrew: Notice she’s low to the ground.

Tammie Jo: You have to flap them fast.

Patsy: Yes. I did not grow up with nerves of steel. I grew up to be an agoraphobic, so being such a scaredy-cat throughout a great deal of my life, it is so exciting to meet a woman who early on exhibited nerves of steel. And that’s why I think you are such a cheerleader for all generations.

Andrew: And for all genders, I say as the male in the room. I grew up with very independent parents — I love hearing about your relationship with your parents — who very much were into being relationship with each other but also had their very own personalities and mutually respected and supported that, which gave me — I had all brothers — a real leg up in respecting women and seeing women as my peers, because it could’ve gone another way with another mindset in potentially my father or mother.

But it’s good for us to be in the room too and to hear stories and hear the inspiration behind stories of women because I just think it puts us… When we all get down to it, if you want to look at this from a spiritual worldview, greater perspective, we are all the same. Regardless of gender, et cetera, we are all human, we are all in need, and we all have access to the power of the Spirit within us. So anyway, I want to say thank you from my own perspective. It is very empowering even to a man to see women who are doing empowering things and still respecting men at the same time too, which you obviously do.

We are all human, we are all in need, and we all have access to the power of the Spirit within us.
— Andrew Greer

Tammie Jo: Oh, definitely. I definitely do. I think you’ll meet some of the men that were — they probably hate me using this word — precious in their ability to stand up no matter what. My first instructor, Captain Coston, a funny note is I think they drew straws on who was going to have to take the girl because I was the only one there, and he drew the short straw. He was a marine and always amiable. He never made me feel like, Oh gosh, I’ve got the girl. For the first few weeks on the squadron, he was really about the only one that spoke to me. And then there was such a funny exchange that happened that kind of broke all the ice, and we all went on happily together.

I’ve had some incredible men, and I think that it’s misguided when there’s any group that feels like the other group is the enemy. I know that it’s going to be shocking when I say this, but I remember talking about the different -isms at school and I came home and I was telling my mom all about racism, chauvinism, feminism. At that point, feminism was at school taught to be very pro while the others were very negative. And my mom, just while she was working in the garden or whatever, said, “I don’t know, Tammie Jo. I would just say any -ism seems a little narcissistic.” 

I know that some might not say that, but I will say we can get so focused on demanding our own acknowledgement and even bashing the other side until we’ve picked up the very club that we pried out of their hands and we’re using it.

So, that’s enough on my feeling of men are not the enemy. Men with bad attitudes are no more an enemy than a woman with a bad attitude. We’re all capable of taking on a cause that’s not noble.

Andrew: Well, we’ll take the shocking talk all day long. This is a shocking podcast. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that yet. We tend to err on the side of I don’t know…I don’t know what word to insert next. But I have to ask you before we wrap because I was a reader, an avid reader. I remember at my grandparents house they had a subscription to Reader’s Digest, and so guess what I would flip to first. Drama in Real Life. And this is the story that was there. So I’ve got to ask: What was the first flight like back in the pilot seat? 

Tammie Jo: Well, it’s going to be anti-climactic to tell you. It was fine. In fact, I asked to go back. I just needed a little slice of normal.

Andrew: Was that to get back in there so you wouldn’t fear it if there was too much distance between…?

Tammie Jo: Well, it wasn’t even fear. It was just truthfully, at this point in our professional lives, there’s a complexity to the aircraft we fly that there’s a scan and habits and memory items and flows and checklists that just run more smoothly when you do them more often. The company was so gracious. Southwest Airlines was so gracious with all of us to give us as much time as we wanted off. We could come back and fly and go away again. I just thought, I am going to take some time off, but I’m going to keep my hand in it. So it was actually nice to get back in and fly.

I know that that is not the case with all of those that were on that flight, and I have to say I was in a very different seat. I was in the captain’s seat. I had the controls. That’s very different than being in the back not knowing, Can the captain handle this? Is she still in control of the aircraft? It’s like being in the back of the bus when it skids on ice near a cliff. It’s a little mind numbing, but if you’re the driver, you’re busy figuring it out. And so that’s why my seat was such a different seat to sit in during that flight. So for me, getting back in and back into the swing of starting engines and pushing back and taking off. I flew down to Puerto Vallarta that day, and it was really nice.

Patsy: Well, thank you so much. You are not only as far as I’m concerned a woman with nerves of steel, but you’re a woman with a warm heart and a very gracious way of sharing your story. So thank you for using your expertise in ways that helped to control a situation that was uncontrollable, and I believe that there is a divine element just as you do that allowed this to all come about in the way that it did. 

We thank you for your investment and time and effort and your story. I loved in the center all the pictures because I got to watch you grow up. I felt like I really got to know you better, and that always feels good from the reader’s perspective. It’s a wonderful book. 

We encourage everybody. The name is Tammie Jo Shults. The book is Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge.


Patsy: You’ve been listening to Bridges, and I’m Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.

Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Tune in next time to Bridges: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.

Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.

Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.

Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.

Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com

Andrew Greer