Mary Beth Wilkas Janke is a master of staying calm and level-headed in the most daunting circumstances. A former US Secret Service Agent, Mary Beth has fought in life-or-death circumstances and executed high-speed defensive maneuvers in vehicles -- all the while maintaining enough cool to get the job done.

Her new memoir, The Protector: A Woman’s Journey From the Secret Service to Guarding VIPs and Working in Some of the World’s Most Dangerous Places, tells all.

Mary Beth, now a professor of Abnormal Psychology at

Alice Combs transformed herself from a divorced mother of two on food stamps into a successful entrepreneur and owner of Vulcan Wire, a provider of baler wire to recycling companies in northern California.

Alice shares the trailblazing stories of her journey from the bottom to the very top of the male- dominated trade. She can describe her eye-opening ordeals with an embezzling partner, cutthroat competitors, and employees who proved unreliable when they were most needed. She can also provide her lessons learned about how to survive and thrive in a man’s world.

Fairy tale expert Anne Beall explains through her research why queens and princesses don't get their happily ever after.

News stories have been playing up the fairy tale theme in covering news of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s decision to opt-out of the royal family. (E.g.: “When Did the Fairy Tale Go Sour?” and “A Royal Fairy Tale Turns Grim.”)

But what about the role of fairy tales themselves in making and breaking the fantasy of Meghan and Harry?

Author Anne Beall, Ph.D. an expert on fairy tales, data and the psychology of gender, says that if we’d taken a close look at real fairy tales, we could have easily predicted this unhappy ending.

Anne’s firm analyzed 169 of the 200 Grimms’ fairy tales including Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Using statistical methods to identify hidden patterns, she discovered that happily ever after is often elusive or questionable for women who marry a Prince or King.