Our Members and Alumni

My name is Thomas Armstrong, and I just graduated from NC State University in Raleigh. I studied entrepreneurship and at the same time my brother and I built a digital marketing agency, 9miles Media, from 2 to 14 people based in downtown Raleigh. https://9milesmedia.com

I was introduced to Peter Mellen several months ago by a mutual friend, and he’s been an invaluable mentor to me. This came at the perfect time in my story – I recently went through an exercise to define my purpose in life. I realized that ever since my parent’s divorce when I was young I’ve always been someone who wants to see everyone around me be happy, succeed, and not in conflict. This led to creating my mission – to empower people to dream big, take action, and achieve fulfillment through their maximum potential.

To take action towards this, I recently started running “challenge teams” – accountability groups where 6 peers meet twice a week for 2-4 weeks to improve ourselves in a specific area. Over the past 6 months, I’ve facilitated a dozen of these teams, and learned so much through the process. I currently split my time between being the COO at 9miles & building this project. It’s snowballing, with other people coming on to facilitate and more people joining each time.

The “why” behind these teams (that I’m incredibly passionate about) is to empower people to take ownership of their learning. I would love to connect with each of you to hear more about your stories and work through challenges together. Here’s a really quick intro to my personal mission in case it’s helpful: https://youtu.be/LeQPHlO-NrM