Merryl Tengesdal - Shatter the Sky

Merryl Tengesdal has the most extraordinary and unique resume that weve ever seen from a contestant on the show Tough As Nails. From her background as a helicopter pilot, and then as the first and only black woman to fly the U2 aircraft, which fly twice as high as a commercial jet, we knew she was the real deal and perfect for Tough As Nails.

As soon as I met her, I knew Merryl would bring strength not only to the individual competition, but also to the team. She is unflappable and it became obvious very quickly that the military had instilled in Merryl a sense of camaraderie and loyalty to her teammates.

As I got to know her personally, I saw that the strength that she portrays on the outside, runs deep. Inside that tough as nails exterior, is a huge and giving heart. Merryl showed up as a tough competitor who came to win, but she was also the first person to lend a hand when one of her teammates was down. She showed up each and every day with a commitment to succeed , and would keep working until her body gave up.

Merryl epitomizes what it means to be on Tough As Nails. She has pure grit, is not afraid to take chances and she pushes herself and her team to excel each and every time. Merryl never gives up on herself or her team and will not quit until she gets the job done.

When Merryl asked me to write the foreword of her book, I was honored. I wasnt surprised to learn that her books title is Shatter the Sky. Thats what Merryl does.

Phil Keoghan, Host and Executive Producer Tough As Nails and The Amazing Race.

With my military background, as a retired pilot, and as a personal trainer, I thought I had a tough background. But nothing prepared me for the experience I was about to go through in the show Tough As Nails.

After 23-and-a-half years in the military, where I was indoctrinated into the world of heavily classified, top-secret missions, it was a strange phenomenon for me to promote myself on social media. Everything in my background taught me to keep it under wraps. In the military, and as a U2 pilot, we were dissuaded from using social media. In the U2 community we keep everything very quiet. What we do is very top-secret, a lot of the things we did were classified, so my social media presence was very limited.

When I became a personal trainer, I had to get into the world of social media. When I got on Instagram and Facebook, I decided to put myself out there with this persona that motivates through training. The reason I wanted to do that is I wanted to show people that you dont have to train for a specific event, or to lose weight; you train to be a holistically healthy person mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I began to introduce some of my family life and my daily struggles to my social media pages. Im human too, I have my challenges just like everyone else, but the military had instilled some discipline in me, and I wanted to pass that on, teach some techniques.

I got a job at a local sports club and brought boxing for fitness to the club. I have done martial arts since I was 19, and its really a part of me. It helps center me; it helps ground me. I have done everything from jeet kune do to Kung fu, to Muay Thai, to boxing.

Im not a morning person, but one morning I had an early fitness class. Before the ladies arrived at the gym, to get in the mood, I put on Lizzos Like a Girl, and began to dance. I was just feeling myself, having fun and recording it on video. I decided to post it on Instagram and Facebook.

Next thing I knew, a woman reached out to me on social media scouting me to be on this show Tough As Nails. At first, I was skeptical, I thought she was trying to scam me. She later told me that her curiosity was piqued because she had seen me dancing, but when she looked at my wall and saw my military background, my personal history, my family life - she knew I was unique. On the show, they often referred to me as a unicorn you dont see many black, female military pilots, especially not U2 pilots, or retired Colonels.

After an extensive interview process, I got to be on the second season of Tough As Nails. The premise of the show is that there are two teams who not only compete against each other, while still competing individually. The teammates are 12 everyday working people, from the Blue-collar trades. The challenges are not just physically tough, but mentally tough. You need to have grit. You need to be disciplined. Whatever the obstacle is in that challenge, you have to give one hundred percent. Because some of the challenges involved situations I had never done, I had to look at the challenge and give it everything I had.

What I love about the show is that there were no eliminations of the contestants. The idea is that no one goes home. So, you get to see peoples stories, how they got to be where they are.

Sitting in the Tough As Nails casting trailer, one of twelve cast members from different backgrounds and walks of life, I thought about the many paths we all followed to end up on this blue-collar, everyday hero, backbone of America, reality show.

We were individuals, we were teammates, we were competitors, and we were motivated to overcome the obstacles and accomplish the tasks dreamed up for us. We had that much in common. But I was sure that no one else had started out in the Bronx with dreams of being an astronaut, studied electrical engineering in college, gone on to Navy officer candidate school, flown helicopters on deployments in the southern hemisphere, piloted Air Force U2s that grazed the edge of space, worked in the five-sided building where majors answered phones for generals, and traveled to parts of the globe that never heard of Starbucks.

The skill set that resulted from that path is certainly eclectic. It grew not only from my experience but also from personal traits such as competitiveness, self-discipline, and the ability to maintain focus in adversity and under pressure. The skills I brought to Tough As Nails would not have developed from any other journey, nor would they have been as practical in any other career.

Well, maybe one other. I realize that if I had made a few different decisions, I could have been an immensely successful white-collar, cyber-hacking, criminal. There were times in my life when I might have taken that divergent path, applied my skills and determination for less admirable ends, and ended up in a completely different reality show. If I hadnt had a few people in my life redirecting me, or seeing my potential, I might have gotten into a lot of mischief. I mentioned this to Nancy, one the shows consultant in the wardrobe trailer, and she just laughed.