4/16/2025-On this day: fly Harriet Quimby!

Harriet Quimby did a lot of living in her short life and spewed confidence and courage wherever she went and whatever she did.

On this day in 1912, American aviator Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, guiding her monoplane through heavy overcast from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France.

So why is this important to you, high-flying sales star?

One word: courage.

Flying a rickety plane built in 1912 across the English Channel took immense courage.

Getting out of bed each morning smiling and pushing your customers toward "yes" takes courage, too.

Neither is easy, but both are exhilarating!

Pick that one thing you’ve been avoiding and summon the courage to do it today.

Is it a tough call you need to make to a client?

Is it a challenging convo you need to have with your manager?

Courage is the lever you’ll pull to succeed with that one thing.

What’s the alternative? More procrastination?

Channel Harriet’s channel courage. Today.

Harriet Quimby was only on this planet for 37 years, but she had a massive impact on the early era of aviation.

Harriet was born in 1875 as a pioneering American aviator, journalist, and film screenwriter. (You GO girl.) Being the first U.S. woman to earn her pilot’s license was not enough for Harriet; she needed to be the first woman to fly across the English Channel. (Again, GO girl.)

Harriet was a spitfire of activity and achievement. In an age when women were rarely in the limelight, Harriet wrote seven screenplays developed as silent film shorts. She even took a small role in one of them! Harriet moved to Manhattan in 1903 to work as a theater critic and published more than 250 articles over a career that spawned a decade.

But flying was her true love, and she regularly participated in air shows, earning up to $1,500 per show and often attracting 20,000 spectators. Alas, that was what did her in – she crashed in a show near Boston in 1912 and never saw her 38th birthday.

Harriet Quimby did a lot of living in her short life and spewed confidence wherever she went and whatever she did.

This vignette on Harriet’s life might be the shot-in-the-arm you need today.

Born into poverty, Harriet became the first woman to earn her pilot’s license in the U.S. only a few years after the Wright brothers created human flight.

When she made her historic flight, she was basically flying in a lawn chair screwed into wood slats wrapped in canvas.

Courage.