You will have challenges, but those challenges are there to prepare you to be better.”

The closest Rainie Moody had been to competitive sports growing up was when she was a cheerleader in seventh grade. But that changed a few years ago, when the 43-year-old managing director of Cincinnati Union Bethel’s “Cincinnati Scholar House” joined a co-worker at a CrossFit class. Her Strong Woman photo shows her mid-way through her first CrossFit competition. In it, she sees more than muscle and hard physical work. She sees the strength to say ‘yes’ to new opportunities, even when the outcome is uncertain—whether that’s in a gym with hundreds of spectators, or applying for a new position at the employer where she’s worked for 18 years.