So as I’ve been preparing for this Women’s Conference this weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about female role models and the transformative power of exercise/sports.

And then the other week, when Ryan and I were watching TV, I stumbled across a woman who’d undergone a great transformation and was also a GREAT role model – Nicole Eggert.

So I don’t know how many of you have seen the show “SPLASH”…And it is actually really really stupid but for some reason we watched it anyway…And now I’m sort of glad we did because I came across Nicole…

But anyway, it is a diving show in which celebrities who have never dived before compete.

And Nicole Eggert, a lifeguard on Baywatch, was one of the participants.

Nicole in her Wonder Woman suit. YES!

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – sports and exercise are incredibly empowering.

Over the course of the show, you saw a huge transformation in Nicole. She became stronger, more confident and empowered as she overcame physical challenges day in and day out.

At the beginning of the show, you could tell that she wasn’t confident in her body or in her abilities. But she had decided to compete and didn’t want to give up with her daughter looking on. She even bounced back after suffering a bad fall when practicing one of her dives publicly before the show.

She could have given up and even done an easier dive when she fell from the board in warm up.

But she didn’t.

She had worked hard and she was willing to risk everything to prove to herself that she COULD do it.

And guess what!?!

She did do it!

And each week, her dives got better and you could see her confidence grow.

Nicole wasn’t a world-class athlete competing for huge rewards. Many people won’t even remember what she did because she didn’t end up evening winning the Splash title.

But she was a REAL woman working hard to overcome challenges she’d never faced before. She was a REAL woman battling the same self-doubt that most of us women struggle with daily.

Nicole did probably the hardest thing that many of us could do – she put herself out there and risked failure…and in this case…very public failure.

She put herself outside her comfort zone and didn’t give up when the going got rough. She competed to the very end.

Nicole was a REAL woman who found REAL STRENGTH through sports.

Nicole is a REAL role model.

So this weekend, decide to become your own real role model. Set some goals and take a risk to achieve something you previously thought impossible.