Beyond the Crucible

FDR: He Didn't Let Polio Derail His Calling Nov 19, 2024

FDR: He Didn't Let Polio Derail His Calling This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership, we look at the courage, good humor and determination– both personal and political – that made Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of history’s most celebrated figures. None of what he accomplished in the White House, we discuss here, would have been possible if Roosevelt didn’t have two critical things necessary to move beyond a crucible: a mindset shift that he wouldn’t let his polio prevent him from living an active life; and fellow travelers who helped him keep going so that he could indeed, move from private trial to public triumph. “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor,” Roosevelt once said --- and his life is a ringing testament to that truth we’d all be wise to remember. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Seek to Win A Friend, Not an Argument Nov 12, 2024

Seek to Win A Friend, Not an Argument Do you find yourself, when engaging in discussions about hot-button subjects, spending more time trying to win an argument than trying to build or maintain a relationship? If so, then this episode is for you. This week, we discuss his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com, in which he offers seven tips for not turning a discussion of issues into an us vs. them war of words. Among the insights he offers: don’t judge the motives of people we disagree with, respect those who differ from your perspective, share the backstory behind your worldview and seek to find common ground. “Having positive engagement with those we disagree with is possible,” Warwick says. `“Isn’t this more of what the world needs? To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

5 Years, 5 Big Learnings Nov 05, 2024

5 Years, 5 Big Learnings Inspiring, uplifting and so much fun. That Warwick’s summary of the milestone we celebrate on this week’s episode: the five-year anniversary – to the day, on the date this show drops – of the Beyond the Crucible podcast. Our look back focuses on five key learnings from these past five years that have come from interviews and discussions on the show. Those insights – your worst day is your worst day, your crucible can be a gift, you can't get beyond your crucible without forgiveness, it's never too late to pursue a fresh life of significance, and knowledge is power – have become critical parts of our knowledge base for helping you move from trials to triumphs. And you’ll also want to pay special attention at the end, when Warwick and Gary pick one episode each from among the 234 that have come before this one that we believe captures the essence of what Beyond the Crucible is all about. To watch the Heather Kampf episode discussed in the show, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgbGo6Z1Xms&list=PLLohc3aLoBACZkgOBuRE1LtBBMSqc0OOO To listen, click here: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/harnessing-resilience-iii-heather-kampf-82/id1484108280?i=1000534538329 To watch the two Lisa Blair episodes discussed in the show, click on these two links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=413wO70tLuk&list=PLLohc3aLoBACZkgOBuRE1LtBBMSqc0OOO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC25FPb4lSA&list=PLLohc3aLoBACZkgOBuRE1LtBBMSqc0OOO To listen, click here: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/lisa-blair-part-1-reframing-failure-47/id1484108280?i=1000501701291 https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/lisa-blair-part-2-how-do-i-survive-tonight-48/id1484108280?i=1000502437093 To explore other Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app or You Tube and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Emotionally Paralyzed By Her Dad's Paralysis Oct 29, 2024

Emotionally Paralyzed By Her Dad's Paralysis Charis Santillie was plagued by undealt-with emotions after her father was paralyzed in a hot-air balloon crash when she was just 19 years old. The accident’s aftermath left her a workaholic, allowing her to live the illusion of safety and control. It was only after meeting a coach who asked her why she was suffering from emotional paralysis that Santillie emerged from her self-imposed shackles to help others emerge from theirs. As a certified Fearless Living coach, she now specializes in guiding successful entrepreneurial men to become the Chief Emotional Officers™ of their lives as they face personal and professional transitions. The insights she offers her clients, she says, have helped her continue her own healing journey. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Horatio Nelson: Naval Hero, Leadership Icon Oct 15, 2024

Horatio Nelson: Naval Hero, Leadership Icon Confident. Calm. Decisive. A man of sound judgement. That’s Lord Horatio Nelson, one of the most celebrated military leaders in British history. He was a hero of Warwick’s growing up, who’s become an example of someone with the personal character and interpersonal skills that can benefit all of us as we navigate our journey to lives of significance. This week, in the eighth installment of our series within the show -- STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP -- we discuss what made Nelson a brilliant and beloved leader and the lessons we all can learn from him about motivating and mobilizing teams to achieve a critical goal. We also unpack the details of the two defining battles in Nelson’s naval career: The Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar. The first one made Nelson a national hero. The second made him an icon for the ages. “Living your values, living your beliefs, is absolutely key to living a life of significance,” Warwick says. "And that’s what Nelson did.” To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

How to Avoid a Professional Identity Crisis Oct 08, 2024

How to Avoid a Professional Identity Crisis Remembering you’re more than your worst day and less than your best day is just one of the nuggets of wisdom we discuss this week in our examination of Warwick’s latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com about the truths that will help you avoid a professional identity crisis. Among the points from his blog Warwick and I discuss are the need to do some serious self-examination and self-reflection; asking others for help if you feel like your identity is wrapped up in what you do, and making sure you’re tackling the soul work that will help you keep your identity in an emotionally healthy balance. Along the way, we also discuss the inspiration for the blog, which came from two recent podcast guests … and Warwick’s own struggles with his professional identity and how he’s moved beyond them. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Leaning Into Her Own Homelessness to Help Other Women Escape Theirs: Leanna Fairfax Oct 01, 2024

Leaning Into Her Own Homelessness to Help Other Women Escape Theirs: Leanna Fairfax Leanna Fairfax, a distant relative of Warwick's, talks about her rough early years – homeless at 15 and off-and-off again through the years after that, in an abusive relationship, plagued by the gnawing feeling that she would always live her life on the margins. But that’s just the start of Leanna Fairfax’s journey. Leanna traced her ancestry to John Fairfax, Warwick's great-great grandfather, the founder of the family media empire Warwick lost in a failed takeover bid that led to his life's greatest crucible. She tracked Warwick down on LinkedIn – discovering that the details of his crucible and John Fairfax's life of perseverance helped her make sense of how she was able to persevere through her setbacks and trials. What has her perseverance looked like? Going to college after dropping out of high school, earning top marks while getting her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and now pursuing her PhD studying women going through the same crucibles she did. Her focus is on researching homeless women living in temporary accommodations, which will not only help improve their lives but has also helped her learn things she didn’t know or feel when she herself was homeless. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

He Wanted to Be a Doctor But Became an Unlikely Entrepreneur Sep 24, 2024

His Dreams of Being a Doctor Dashed, He Found a New Calling Running a Physiotherapy Business: Jason T. Smith Jason T Smith thought he'd missed out on his calling to be a medical missionary, until he realized he'd been gifted a new one. Smith's vision for being a doctor helping heal those in underserved nations came crashing down when he didn't qualify to study medicine. So instead, he pursued physiotherapy, first as a backup plan, but then with a passion for not only restoring health, but for reimagining the field. He became founder and CEO of Australia's largest physiotherapy network, the Back in Motion Health Group. He never wanted a business, he says, yet ended up as a franchisor, with more than 140 of them supported by a team of more than 700 employees. But that isn't the final chapter of his life of significance. He sold the businesses for $100 million to focus full time on pursuits like his Iceberg Leadership Institute, where he's mentored more than 1000, others just like him. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

From a Tin Shed to the United Nations: Stephanie Woollard Sep 17, 2024

From a Tin Shed to the United Nations: Stephanie Woollard Not a handout but a hand up. That’s what our guest this week, Stephanie Woollard, just described about how she responded when did when, during a visit to Nepal, she encountered seven women living in a tiny tin shed. They were suffering from physical handicaps and from being marginalized by their society because of those challenges. And her efforts empowered them to change their own lives and to help others do the same. Through the charity she founded, which she named 7 Women, Woollard has bettered the lives of thousands of women in Nepal. While equipping them with the power overcome their crucibles, she leaned into her strength and discovered the faith to help her overcome her own setbacks and challenges along the way – which included debilitating burnout. “I’ve always had the desire to make a difference,” she tells Warwick. And she’s done that – as the title of her book says – from a tin shed to the United Nations. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Abraham Lincoln on the Character to Build a Team of Rivals Sep 10, 2024

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Abraham Lincoln on the Character to Build a Team of Rivals The best people possible. That’s who Abraham Lincoln drafted for his Cabinet during the most precipitous time in U.S. history. And most of them weren’t the biggest fans of the country’s 16th president. This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show, STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP, we examine how Lincoln managed to achieve such momentous results by assembling a team of rivals. Key to his success, Warwick explains, was Lincoln’s character and the humility that flowed from it, allowing him to surround himself with men who had what it took to help him win the civil war and end slavery … even if they didn’t much care for their boss when they started working for him. In the end though, because of his lack of ego and his ability to forgive slights both big and small, Lincoln’s team came to view him, as one of them said, “as the best and wisest man he had ever known.” To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons IX: Toy Story Sep 03, 2024

Kind, compassionate words are life-giving to us when spoken by others after we’ve been through a crucible. And they’re also life-giving to us when we speak them to others .. a truth the main characters in the movie TOY STORY learn when their initial rivalry turns into an unlikely friendship. This week, in the 9th and final episode of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we discuss the dangers of comparing our life of significance to someone else’s … and unpack why great fellow travelers don’t have to necessarily be those with whom we have a lot in common. In the end, we discover, building each other and ourselves up rather than tearing each other and ourselves down is what allows us to say, to quote TOY STORY’S title song, "You've Got a Friend in Me." To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons VIII: Rocky Aug 27, 2024

Compassion and empathy. Two traits that help elevate Rocky Balboa out of his hardscrabble life as a small-time boxer who will need both his fists of stone and his heart of gold to escape the crucibles that have dogged him most of his life. This week, in the eighth episode of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we take a look at 1976’s Oscar-winning ROCKY, both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. The movie is a simple yet monumental achievement that explores the power a mindset shift and the support of fellow travelers can have on turning a life of aimlessness into a life of significance. Rocky Balboa always dreamed but never really thought he’d get his shot to change the spiraling trajectory of his life … but then a chance to fight for boxing’s grandest title, and his romance with his best friend’s shy sister, gave him a vision he could believe in and the self-respect he’d never been able to muster. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons VII: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Aug 20, 2024

Courage. It’s indispensable to our pursuit of a life of significance in the wake, and especially in the midst, of a crucible. That’s one of the key truths we unpack in our discussion of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the latest movie from the American Film Institute’s Top 100 we discuss in our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCUBLE LESSONS. The first movie in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films based on JRR Tolkien’s epic novel has at its center the most unlikely of heroes: Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit – a race of beings known for pursuing leisure more than adventure. But when dark forces threaten to overtake the fantasy world in which the movie is set, it’s Frodo who is entrusted to carry the powerful ring of the title, not the heroic men, elves and dwarves who become his trusted fellow travelers – not to mention the wizard who becomes his mentor and guide. And although he didn’t seek, doesn’t want and is in fact often terrified by the calling he’s inherited, Frodo finds the bravery and resolve to lead the charge to save civilization, discovering along the way that true heroes don’t need to expertly wield swords, just humbly wield character. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons VI: To Kill a Mockingbird Aug 13, 2024

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons VI: To Kill a Mockingbird

One person doing the right thing. That sums up succinctly TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the movie we discuss this week on the sixth episode of our summer series, CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS.

The person who keeps doing the right thing in this movie the American Film Institute ranked at number 25 on its Top 100 list is Atticus Finch. He’s a kind, compassionate lawyer and honest, dedicated father who refuses to bend to the racial prejudices of his time and place – 1930s Alabama. In defending his client, a wrongly accused black man, he models for his children, Jem and Scout, what character that doesn’t see color looks like.

As one of his neighbors tells the children at the tragic conclusion of the trial, “Some men in this world are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us ... your father is one of them.”

That would have been an agonizing crucible for many men of the era, but for Atticus Finch it was a role he fulfilled with honor and humility that can teach us a lot about weathering our own crucible experiences.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons V: It's a Wonderful Life Aug 06, 2024

Helping other people and having a higher purpose. That's a spot-on definition of what a life of significance is all about ... and also what IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE -- the movie we discuss on this week’s episode of our summer series -- is all about.

The movie’s become an iconic Christmas tale because, as we discuss here, it shows that when we live our lives guided by our character and values, rather than simply by the things we want, or at least think we want, we find the kind of joy and purpose self-interest can never give us.

That’s the lesson of George Bailey’s life … the kind of life that’s within our grasp when we place the needs of others ahead the desires of ourselves.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us.

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons IV: Schindler's List Jul 30, 2024

This week, we focus our summer-series discussion on the Oscar-winning SCHINDLER'S LIST, No. 8 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies. Specifically, we focus on Oskar Schindler’s journey from an amoral man focused on profiting from World War II and his fellow Nazis’ barbaric treatment of Jews … to a savior of those victimized people.

How does he end up there? His compassion and his character grow after witnessing atrocities that take his focus off making a fortune for himself to spending that fortune to buy the freedom – and the very lives – of endangered Jews.

He expresses his hopes early in the film that he people would say of his business acumen after the war started “He did something extraordinary” by amassing “all the riches in the world.”

That is indeed what is still said today about Oskar Schindler … but in a far different, far more significant way than he was capable of imagining when he said it.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us.

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons III: Singin' in the Rain Jul 23, 2024

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time, its title song a fabulous exhortation to face crucibles with a happy refrain and a smile on our face.

This week, in part three of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we talk in entertaining depth about the lessons the movie – number 5 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 U.S. films – can teach us about the importance of living life with authenticity and navigating our journey from trials to triumphs with a team of fellow travelers who pick us up when we're down and help us define and embrace our unique life of significance.

What the hero of the story, Don Lockwood, sings in the film in the midst of a downpour is a perspective we all would be wise to adopt when life's storms come: What a glorious feeling. I'm happy again.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us.

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons II: The Godfather Jul 16, 2024

In this week's episode, the second in our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we discuss THE GODFATHER, number 2 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. It's a cautionary tale that spotlights how critical it is we live a life guided by beliefs and values rooted in something nobler than our own self-Interests.

We zero in on Michael Corleone, the youngest son of the mafia family depicted in the film. His father, Vito, the godfather of the title, had plans for him to live a life in the legitimate world as a senator or governor, but they were upended by the violent realities of the mob life and Michael's own ambivalence about the family's business.

The tragedy of THE GODFATHER is that Michael had the temperament and skills to have led a great life of significance, but he never seizes the opportunity to live that life.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us.

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons I: Citizen Kane Jul 09, 2024

This week we kick off our special nine-week summer series, CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS.

We begin our examination of the lessons we can learn from movies on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 U.S. films of all time by discussing CITZEN KANE – No. 1 on AFI’s list.

Unlike most of the conversations we have on the podcast (and unlike most we’ll have on this series), our look at Charles Foster Kane, the title character of this classic, is not an examination of the trials he faced and how he triumphed over them – but how his inability and refusal to grow from the setbacks and failures of his life doomed him to allowing his worst days to define him.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty we can learn from CITIZEN KANE. The movie is a masterclass in why character and serving others rather than selfishly thinking only of ourselves is the only way to lead a life of joy and fulfilment – what we call a life of significance.

In exploring how Charles Foster Kane failed to leave behind a legacy to be proud of – we can discover how to do just that.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show?

Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us.

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Why Your Life of Significance Matters: 7 Insights from Warwick's New Blog Jun 25, 2024

A life of significance is not a numbers game. That’s just one of the kernels of wisdom and inspiration you'll hear in this week’s episode, in which he unpacks his new blog at beyondthecrucible.com – titled Why Your Life of Significance matters. It offers you the hope and insight you need to turn your worst day into your greatest opportunity. Warwick runs through some things you should think about when journeying from setback to significance, things like, Why do you want to help the people you want to help, what would happen to them if they aren’t helped and whether you have the skills and passion to bring your vision for helping them to reality. If you listen closely, you'll also hear Warwick say your vision doesn’t have to be about saving the galaxy. What does he mean by that? Pay attention and you’ll discover the answer – rooted in his inspiration for the blog, a beloved character from a classic movie who can inspire you to go … to infinity and beyond. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

A Natural Disaster Took Her Husband and Son, But Not Her Hope: Kim Cantin Jun 19, 2024

Our guest this week, Kim Cantin, discusses a tragedy of the deepest sorrow: the 2018 flash floods in Montecito, California, that obliterated her home and took her husband and son from her. Yet the rain and the mud and the devastation could not take her hope. Cantin was herself injured seriously and her daughter, Lauren, trapped for six hours under the debris. While the body of her husband, Dave, was found quickly in the mudslide’s aftermath, the remains of her son, Jack, would not be discovered until three years later, after an exhaustive search. In her conversation with Warwick, she explains how she had to muster the tenacity and perseverance to rediscover hope. She’s also documented that journey in her book, WHERE THE YELLOW FLOWERS BLOOM. Its title refers to the yellow flowers that grew in a place that they shouldn’t near her son’s remains … and how their presence helped her see the beauty where there should be none. Indeed, as she says here, love found a way. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Winston Churchill on Perseverance Jun 11, 2024

Winston Churchill was known for many things – always looking for ways to move onward after a trial or challenge chief among them. That’s the perspective we all should hope to have when life’s crucibles knock us for a loop. When setback and failure are all-too-common companions. When we’re wrestling with our own darkest hour. This week, as part of what we’ve dubbed our series within the show – Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership – we have a deep-dive conversation about what a great role model of perseverance Churchill is for all of us hoping to turn our trials into triumphs. Though he faced personal and professional crucibles all his life, Churchill rose above and moved through them by doing some critical things right: leaning into pursuits like writing to calm his soul; a happy marriage he worked hard at protecting; and -- maybe most importantly – adopting a magnanimous and forgiving nature when family, friends and political opponents disrespected or outright attacked him. “Success,” he once said (and then modeled throughout his life), “is to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

The CEO Whisperer Who Helps Clients Believe in Magic and Miracles: Vanessa Vershaw Jun 04, 2024

Bolstered and resilient. That’s how we all want to feel after we’ve been through a crucible. And this week’s guest, Vanessa Vershaw, is known as the CEO whisperer because she has an impressive track record of helping leaders arrive at that very destination. In her conversation with Warwick, Vershaw speaks candidly about her own crucibles – some she’s never spoken publicly about before – which include being bullied in school and as a leader in the workplace, often by other women. She’s emerged from those challenges to help organizations and those who run them reimagine their future, creating strategies and orchestrating experiences that ensure they thrive. To do so, she explains, they have to commit to shifting mindsets from desperately holding onto past practices to being open to new approaches and possibilities. It’s ground she covers in her latest book, Unreasonable Ambition: Renegade Thinking for Leaders to Create Impossible Change. The principles she shares in the book, and in this episode, she says, help her clients believe in magic and miracles. To learn more about Vanessa Vershaw, visit reinventionconsulting.com.au To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

How to Build a Great Team May 28, 2024

A team so connected, so authentic with each other and committed to the leader’s vision – sounds like a great place to work, doesn’t it? Listen to our discussion on this week’s episode that unpacks Warwick’s latest blog. That blog, HOW TO BUILD A GREAT TEAM, extrapolates lessons learned during a recent team strategy meeting we had in Savannah, Georgia. From our sessions, Warwick discusses the essentials to top-notch team building – which include picking the right people on the team, the necessity of team members being authentic and vulnerable, the power of differences among team members and why it’s critical everyone on the team genuinely cares for each other and is committed to the mission of the organization. The big headline of the conversation? Character and commitment matter … and not just to an organization’s bottom line. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including the blog we discuss here and our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com. Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure to tell your friends and family about us. Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Finding Significance on the Other Side of the Unspeakable: Teri Wellbrock May 21, 2024

A little more hope. That was a lifeline our guest this week, Teri Wellbrock, desperately needed after a soul-crushing series of crucibles that began in childhood. She suffered through the traumas of sexual molestation, rape, bank robberies, the murder of a co-worker, emotional abandonment by an alcoholic parent, physical abuse, poverty and the resulting panic attacks that eventually would lead her to the depths of despair.

But as she explains in our conversation, she discovered breakthrough the form of EMDR therapy -- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing -- a psychotherapy technique that uses eye movements to help people heal from trauma.

Within the confines of that safe space, she explains, she was able to dump the contents of her compartmentalized traumas into a heap of unprocessed memories. Sifting through that pile, trauma by trauma, with the help of her therapist, she embarked on a life-altering healing journey.

Today, she shares her insights as host of The Healing Place podcast – exhorting her listeners with a simple charge: Choose Happy.

To learn more about Teri Wellbrock, visit www.teriwellbrock.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

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Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 8: Tying It All Together May 07, 2024

We hope our series exploring the methodology and the profiles of our Trials to Triumphs Self-Assessment has offered you an exciting opportunity to process the crucible you’ve been through and apply what you learn from reflecting on it toward your unique life of significance. In this eighth and final episode of the series, we revisit the three big takeaways our discussions have unearthed: that knowledge is power, how one small step is all it takes to get the flywheel of significance turning and that there’s always hope – no matter where you find yourself on the roadmap from navigating your way from trials to triumphs. What we ultimately discovered during the series, and what we hope you discover, too, is that there are six starting points on that map … but a million journeys, no one the same as another. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 7: In a Mad Dash Apr 30, 2024

An exciting opportunity. That may not seem like an apt description for In a Mad Dash, the profile we discuss this week on the seventh episode of our series unpacking our Trials to Triumphs Self-Assessment. But stay tuned – we think you’ll be surprised, encouraged and equipped. People whose assessment results return this profile are high performers who’ve had a crucible and seemed to have moved on. But here's their challenge: They've leapt right over the processing phase and started executing on a new vision without facing the hurt or anger they're still holding on to. On the outside, they look successful; but inside, they have a niggling feeling they're being held back in some way. Eventually, those emotions will come roaring up, and they'll have to "bounce back" to the processing phase to bounce forward. So, here’s the good news to hold onto if this is your result: It's better to face those pushed-down emotions — before you hit the wall and are forced to do it. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visitwww.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 6: On A Different Track Apr 23, 2024

Life can be better. That’s the cry of the heart and the hope of the spirit for those who take our Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and get as their result the profile of On A Different Track, the subject we discuss this week on the latest episode of our spring series. Those who find themselves On A Different Track make up the 28 percent of people who have taken the assessment who don’t believe they’ve had a crucible that has changed the trajectory of their life. But as we unpack here, when they reflect at a deeper level on their lives, they realize there is a gnawing sense of “Is this all there is?” They may look happy and successful on the outside, but there remains some inner turmoil they haven’t dealt with that’s keeping them from achieving their unique life of significance. But here’s the good news: as we explore here, just taking a small step in the direction of what truly brings you joy, even if you’ve never dared to do more than dream about it, can move you beyond “Is this all there is?” to “This is all I’ve ever wanted.” To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 5: Afraid to Trip Apr 16, 2024

A really hopeful place to be. Maybe you’ll be surprised to learn that the profile from our Trials to Triumphs Self-Assessment we’re describing is the one we call Afraid to Trip. What’s hopeful about that? You’ll learn the answer to that question in this week’s episode as we discuss how those who receive this result are closer to living their life of significance than they likely realize. They’ve processed their crucible, they have a vision they’d like to pursue … but they’re wrestling with emotions that are keeping them from moving forward. But if they tap into the safety, encouragement and support that can come from others and from shifting their self-talk and the worries and fears that guide it, the obstacles they’re worried about stumbling over can change from virtual boulders that seem insurmountable into pebbles they can’t even see. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 4: Running in Place Apr 09, 2024

Not filling your bucket but draining it. That’s what it can feel like if you find yourself living the profile of Running in Place from our Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment. This week, in our fourth episode of our spring series unpacking what your assessment results can teach you about where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible, we examine this unique situation in which you find yourself with a vision in your mind you can’t seem to get started pursuing. The good news is, we also offer you insight and action steps on how you can get off the treadmill – move past living in the gray and feeling like “OK” is about the best you’ll ever feel – and start truly moving forward to a full-technicolor life of significance. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 3: Stuck at the Starting Line Apr 02, 2024

Not able to get ahead. That feeling is one of the hallmarks of being Stuck at the Starting Line, the profile from our Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment we discuss on today’s show. But fear not: While feeling stuck after a crucible is normal, it does not have to be forever.

In this third episode of our series delving into our statistically valid self-assessment, we not only explain what it looks and feels like to be stuck at the starting line, but how to get yourself unstuck. A critical aspect of breaking free is mustering the wherewithal to make a mindset shift that allows you to see your crucible not as something that happened to you, but something that happened for you.

And then, with that perspective in hand, setting a course for your unique vision for a life of significance.

To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 2: Hitting Your Stride Mar 26, 2024

Living as your best self. Pursuing your vision. Fulfilled by your life of significance. If so, we’ve got good news for you. Just keep listening. Does that sound like a place in which you’d like to stand? This week, in the second episode of our spring series exploring our Trials-to-Triumphs self-assessment, we begin examining the assessment’s unique profiles by starting with the end in mind. So the first one we unpack here is Hitting Your Stride. But listen closely. Even if you are Hitting Your Stride, there is still more to do and crucibles have a habit of appearing when you least expect it. It’s our way of casting a vision for the goal of the race we’re all running as we look to bounce forward from our crucible experiences. No matter where your “you are here” mark falls on the map, you can get to Hitting Your Stride. Stick with us … and we’ll help you get there. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment and discover your own "you are here" mark on your roadmap to a life of significance, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment 1: How and Why We Built It Mar 19, 2024

Could we really prove it? The stages and the process we go through – each of us individually – after we’ve been through a crucible … and then chart our way beyond it? The answer? Absolutely. As you’re about to discover in our spring series that begins this week on how we built and how you can benefit from our Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment. In this first episode of our eight part series, we’ll explain how and why we created a statistically valid survey and the surprising – sometimes shocking, even – things it told us about how we experience crucibles and chart our own unique course to a life of significance after them. So get ready: You’re about to better understand how your setbacks and failures have affected you … and how you can move on from those trials to experience life-changing triumphs. To take the Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit www.crucibleleadership.com. You'll get your results immediately and be able to better dig into your unique results as our series unfolds.

7 Tips To Help You Find the Right Mentor Mar 12, 2024

Someone you admire. Someone who knows more than you about your job or about the lifestyle you want to live. Someone who shares your values. People like that are the ones you should be on the lookout for in selecting a mentor. On this week’s episode, we discuss Warwick's latest blog at BeyondTheCrucible.com, titled “How To Find the Right Mentor.” Among the seven tips he offers to assist us in securing a helpful mentor are to make sure we’re ready for one, find one who will make us do the work rather than do it for us and be on the lookout for someone who is a great listener and asks great questions. “Mentors are there to assist us and help us," he says. "Not to fix us." To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Two Bullets That Led Him to His Calling: Lion Goodman Mar 05, 2024

Lion Goodman recounts his harrowing experience of being shot twice (two other bullets narrowly missed him) by a man whose car broke down in the middle of the Mojave Desert to whom he was being a good Samaritan – and the hours of discussion that he engaged in with his attacker, finally, miraculously convincing the gunman to let him go. The incident, he tells Warwick, set him on the path to becoming a coach helping clients eliminate negative and limiting beliefs, resolve childhood wounds and delete traumatic memories at their source. Today he’s CEO of the Clear Beliefs Institute, dedicated to awakening, healing, and enlightening humanity so we can get on with the job of being fully human, working in collaboration to create a world that works for everyone. To learn more about Lion Goodman and his work, visit www.liongoodman.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance asseo2ssment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

From Victim to Victor: Healing From the Horrors of Sex-Trafficking: Amanda Blackwood Feb 27, 2024

The horrors our guest this week, Amanda Blackwood, endured almost from birth are hard to hear. Decades of physical, emotional and sexual abuse … but heartache was not the end of her story. Healing was. Our interview with Blackwood, by necessity, covers the traumas she experienced being sex-trafficked on more than one occasion. But make no mistake about it: Amanda Blackwood may have been victimized, but she has emerged as anything but a victim. She fought for freedom from the demons of her past, assisted by therapy and her faith, to emerge as an author, artist and public speaker who offers hope to women who’ve been wounded by the same devastating crucibles. “The first time I got up on a stage I had a speaking voice like a mouse,” she says. “But I found there was a lion in my lungs.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: George Washington on Character and Listening Feb 20, 2024

Character. Discipline. Overcoming a natural weakness like impatience. These are critical characteristics for leaders, and for bouncing back from a crucible, and we explore this week how George Washington modeled them. It’s our focus on this fifth episode of our series within the show, STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP. Warwick discusses his appreciation of and respect for Washington as a man of inviolable character who walked away from power after winning the American Revolution even when many clamored for him to keep it as long as he wanted it and America needed it. He also examines Washington's rare gift for listening, not just hearing but heeding his advisors at a key point in the war when he wanted his army to attack the British but those who counseled him urged restraint. The advisors proved right, and Washington proved his greatness. It's a greatness we all can lean into by modeling America’s founding father, Warwick says, even though our vision will almost certainly be different than winning a nation its independence. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance asseo2ssment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Celebrating 200 Episodes: 3 Moments That Moved Warwick And Shaped Who We Are Feb 13, 2024

This week, we commemorate our 200th episode by revisiting three moments from past shows that moved Warwick and have shaped the kind of podcast we have now. You’ll discover how crucibles can often be vastly different in details but so similar to be almost identical in emotion; the power of being able to find gratitude in your traumas and tragedies; and how mindset and perseverance can be your superpowers in turning what’s been broken into breakthrough. The basic truth we aim to unpack here? As Warwick says: "We can learn something not just from everybody’s crucibles, but from how they navigate their journey back." To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

7 Tips To Start Living Out Your Unique Calling Today Feb 06, 2024

This week, we discuss Warwick's latest blog, “Seven Ways to Live By Your Passions, Not Others’ Expectations.” In the piece, and on this episode, he unpacks key building blocks to develop and deploy a vision for a life of significance that you, not your friends or family, are uniquely off-the-charts passionate about. What's a stake if we pursue what pleases others, not what ignites our spirits? Warwick says it can be "soul-destroying." Not just hard. Not just unfulfilling. Not just feeling trapped. But having your dreams and passions, the essence of who we are, obliterated. The bookend exhortations we discuss are “Remember, it’s your life!” and “Do something!” In between, you’ll discover what you need to know -- and do – to avoid living, as Warwick puts it, “A dreary black and white life of obligation and people pleasing.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance asseo2ssment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Rescuing Women From Slavery, One Backpack at a Time: Brad Jeffery Jan 23, 2024

Brad Jeffery was visiting a Kenyan slum on a business trip focused on finding ways to financially help those who lived there when he found himself asking questions about what it would really take to help the impoverished, endangered women he talked with. Just giving them money, he determined, would not solve their dire situation. So he founded Made Free, an apparel accessories brand that competes on the world stage in design and quality while serving as a vehicle for consumers to help create sustainable change through dignified work and livable wages. Every purchase supports a day of freedom from human trafficking and poverty … and moves Jeffery further beyond his crucible of feeling that his life – running a successful family business founded by his great-grandfather – lacked the significance to leave a legacy that truly helped others. To learn more about Made Free, visit www.madefree.co To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Walt Disney on the Resiliency of Vision Jan 16, 2024

Trusting ourselves and our vision, especially when naysayers offer all sorts of reasons designed to dissuade us from pursuing it, is a necessity in our journey to a life of significance. This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show, Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership, we discuss how Walt Disney did just that, not letting the doubts of others or the crucibles he encountered stop him from pursuing his dreams. Disney refused to let his vision get derailed – and it resulted in seismic changes in entertainment and culture across the globe. From bouncing forward after being swindled out of his first comic creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to envisioning a family-friendly theme park at a time when such places were seedy and suspect – leading to the creation of Disneyland – Walt Disney was, as Warwick says, never one to give up. That’s why we’d all do well to summon the same determination in bringing our own visions to reality. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Doctors Said Cerebral Palsy Would Limit His Life. Now He's a Doctor: Tyler Sexton Jan 09, 2024

Turning tragedy into triumph. You’ve heard us use those words scores of times, because we know, from experience, that it’s not only possible to turn what’s broken into breakthrough – but that brokenness is often a key ingredient of the breakthrough. This week's guest, Tyler Sexton, has cerebral palsy, a condition that has forced him to endure 18 surgeries and decades of insults and being regarded as incapable of doing much with his life. Well, Dr. Tyler Sexton has proven the taunters and doubters wrong. He's become a pediatrician who can connect with the children he treats because of his crucibles – using his skills and experience to not just treat their bodies, but to plant hope in their spirits. The philosophy he’s lived by and encourages others to adopt is rooted in what he’s discovered is a life-changing truth: “There’s always something to be thankful for.” To learn more about Tyler Sexton and his book, No Such Thing As Can't, visit www.tylersexton.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Best of 2023: Janine Shepherd – Embracing Her Tragic Paralysis as a Gift Jan 02, 2024

Original air date: June 20, 2023 Janine Shepherd was on track to represent her home nation of Australia in the Olympics as a cross-country skier – but then her dream, quite literally, crashed when she was hit by a utility truck while on a bicycle training exercise with her teammates. She came out the other side of that horrific accident and the 6 months of arduous recovery that followed to discover she was a paraplegic.

But as she explains to Warwick, her identity as “Janine the Machine,” the elite athlete, was not to be her destiny. She had another calling, learning to fly and training others to be pilots, and inspiring multitudes who have suffered tragedies and trials to embrace loss as their lives’ greatest teacher.

An in-demand speaker whose Ted talk was been viewed more than 2 million times, Shepherd calls herself “a mirror to help people see their own defiant spirits."

Her guiding philosophy? “Nothing comes easy, and if it did, it wouldn’t be worth having.”

To learn more about Janine Shepherd, visit www.janineshepherd.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Best of 2023: Lauren Sisler – Unshackling the Shame of Her Parents Overdose Deaths Dec 26, 2023

Original air date: May 9, 2023 Lauren Sisler was a freshman at Rutgers University when learned she had lost her father just hours after she had lost her mother. Having come home to grieve one parent, she was blindsided by the news that the other had died, too. And she had no idea how any of it had happened

We speak with Sisler about that 2003 tragedy, when she was not only hit with the unfathomable news of the deaths of her mom and dad, but the shame she couldn’t shake after she learned how they died: from prescription-drug overdoses.

It would take her years to break free from what she calls the shackles of that shame, keeping the truth to herself even as she launched a successful career as a sideline reporter for college football and gymnastics on ESPN and the SEC Network. But as she began to share the true story of her parents’ deaths, she discovered she could transfer the hope and healing she experienced in facing those hard truths to the audiences that heard her speaking them.

To learn more about Lauren Sisler, visit www.laurensisler.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Jesus on Self-Sacrifice Dec 19, 2023

The way of others before self. The path lined with humility, authenticity and selflessness. That's the road we discuss this week in our latest episode of the Series Within the Show, Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership. The historical figure we discuss here is Jesus – specifically His example of servant leadership and His exhortation for us to do as He did. Our conversation is designed to encourage you to think and act counter-culturally: leading in your workplace, your community, as a parent … in a way that makes the needs and wellbeing of others your highest priority. Why is that not only a noble goal, but a wise one, to aim for? As Warwick says, “Joy and fulfillment come when you’re serving other people, living with some other-centered purpose.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Discover The Ways Deep Friendships Fuel a Healthy Identity: Jeff Kemp Dec 12, 2023

Misaligned, misguided identity is one of the greatest tripwires to our crucible experiences. Placing our worth in other people’s perceptions of us – based not on our true inner selves – is a recipe for struggle and setback. This week, we talk with former NFL quarterback Jeff Kemp, author of the new book, Receive: The Way of Jesus for Men. He stresses the necessity for men to build deep and meaningful friendships with each other in which they share the most intimate and important details of their lives. Because in doing so they will be all that God created them to be … in the areas that truly matter. And Kemp doesn’t sugarcoat how challenging forging such relationships can be. You’ll be floored when he talks about just how high the percentage is of men who don’t have a close and trusted friend they can share anything with on any topic. The insights he shares here are aimed at lowering that number considerably. To learn more about Jeff Kemp and to download his free Level-5 Friendship Playbook, visit www.jeffkempteam.com/men-huddle/ To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Finding Healing, and a Calling, After Losing Two Children Tragically: Gerard Long Dec 05, 2023

A parent’s worst nightmare. That’s what Gerard Long and his wife, Jeannie, endured in 2005 when their son, Alex, committed suicide. And, inconceivably, it wouldn’t be their last nightmare. Their daughter, Rebecca, was killed in an accident in 2014. How did the Longs bounce back from their pair of life-shattering crucibles? Not quickly. And not easily. The trauma of the events nearly ripped their marriage in two, but as Gerard tells Warwick, they both found their way back to their faith – which not only helped them make sense of the tragedies, but create a life of greater significance and impact in their aftermath. Out of their pain the Longs created Awakened to God Ministries, where they carry out a mission close to their now-healed hearts: Showing others who’ve suffered hard times and loss that God can take the worst things that happen to us turn them for good. As Gerard explains, “Everything that God permits us to go through in our lives is preparation for what He’s got for us later on.” To learn more about Gerard Long, visit www.awakeningtogod.org To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Not Feeling Thankful? Try These 7 Tips to Change Your Mindset Nov 28, 2023

Conflicting. Confounding. Confusing. Did you feel any of those emotions when gathering with family and friends over Thanksgiving? If so, we’ve got the antidote for turning those difficult feelings into warm memories. This week, Warwick discussed his latest blog at Beyond the Crucible.com, “Not Feeling Thankful? These Seven Tips Can Get You in the Holiday Spirit.” We recorded this episode before Thanksgiving (the blog had already been posted) knowing you wouldn’t hear it until after Thanksgiving. Why? Because the tips we discuss to truly celebrate Thanksgiving with a capital T will equip you for day-to-day thanksgiving with a lower-case t. The key points touched on here – which include ALLOW YOURSELF TO REFLECT, CRAFT A MISSION FROM THANKFULNESS and BE PRESENT -- will serve you and your relationships the other 364 days of the year that aren’t the fourth Thursday in November. And remember – Christmas is coming. What’s the ultimate takeaway here? As Warwick says, “It’s a lot easier being thankful when you’re serving a mission beyond yourself.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Getting Sober Saved His Life and Gave Him a Model to Live it By: Doug Fleener Nov 21, 2023

Doug Fleener, had been living without serenity, joy or purpose since the vise grip of addiction started closing around him when he was just 12 years old. The lowest point came decades later, when he woke up hung over in an airplane that had just landed, unsure how he got there – or how the large sum of cash in his pocket got there. Fleener shares not only how he got clean from drugs and alcohol, but how he rebuilt his personal and professional lives by applying the lessons and practices he learned in recovery to his day-to-day existence. He’s compiled those insights into his book The Day Makes the Year (Makes a Life): Transform Your Work and Life with One-Day Success. The key principle that undergirds it all? “You can’t change something you don’t own.” For more information about Doug Fleener and his book, visit www.dougfleener.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: William Wilberforce on Self-Sacrifice Nov 14, 2023

It can be a difficult, even scary journey when we set out to accomplish a challenging and noble goal. But that did not stop William Wilberforce, the British politician in the late 1700s and 1800s who fought for years to end the slave trade in his nation. Wilberforce is the subject of our latest episode of the series within the show STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP, Warwick’s Wall Street Journal best-seller. What we unpack in our discussion are the ways in which Wilberforce modeled self-sacrifice – the commitment to a cause greater than ourselves – and in doing so changed the trajectory of humankind. Trafficking in slaves, and eventually the institution of slavery itself, were ended because Wilberforce cared more about following his convictions than attaining higher office. As Warwick says, “He sacrificed his career, his self-interest, for a higher purpose.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

When Leaders Are Lost ... And The Keys to Finding Themselves Again: Glenn Williams Nov 07, 2023

Image. Identity. Success. Failure. Topics you’ve heard us discuss often on the show. And topics that this week’s guest, Dr. Glenn Williams, covers in discussing his new book, WHEN LEADERS ARE LOST. Williams talks in detail about what he’s learned about feeling lost from his professional setbacks and the personal tragedy of losing his son, as well as insights he's gleaned as an executive coach. He unpacks how not to lose sight of our goals or give up on them when disappointment, failure, and hurt hit us head on. Applying the truth that crucibles and our reactions to them serve only as a detour and not a hard stop, he says, is the way forward to a new and joy-filled life. To learn more about Glenn Williams and his book, When Leaders Are Lost, visit www.lcp-global.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Worried Your Vision is Too Small? These 7 Truths Will Change Your Mind Oct 31, 2023

This week, we discuss Warwick's latest blog at BeyondTheCrucible.com. That piece, and the discussion we have here about it, is designed to show you that if you think your vision is too small, you’re not giving yourself, or that vision, enough credit. We explore seven truths that can change that perspective: from realizing you’re not in a vision competition with anyone else to focusing on what’s on your heart, from connecting your vision to who you fundamentally are and what you’re passionate about, to believing unwaveringly that one life changed is enough, you’ll learn valuable insights and action steps to help ensure your vision is one you are proud of. And you’ll also learn why what Warwick says is true: Your vision has to come from deep within. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Humility and Forgiveness in the White House: Tim Goeglein Oct 17, 2023

"I'm guilty" is not something you hear from the mouths of those who work in politics very often. But Tim Goeglein mustered the courage and character to say them … and that rare immediate honesty taught him valuable lessons to move beyond his self-inflicted crucible. In his interview with Warwick, Goeglein confesses how he on several occasions plagiarized the work of others for a column he wrote for his hometown newspaper while he was serving as a special assistant to President George W. Bush. You hear us talk often on the show about how forgiveness – from others and to ourselves – is a critical step to turning what’s been broken into breakthrough. You’ll want to listen to Goeglein recount how the Leader of the Free World forgave him for his actions and the bad press they caused the White House. Goeglein has continued to live a life of significance, serving as the D.C.-based vice president of external relations for the Christian nonprofit Focus on the Family. His top takeaway from his journey? “Failure reintroduces you to yourself.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Stories from The Book Crucible Leadership: John Fairfax on Forgiveness Oct 10, 2023

This week we kick off what we’re calling a series within the show, which we’ve named Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership. That’s Warwick’s Wall Street Journal bestseller, filled with examples of how historical figures and his family members weathered their crucibles to lead lives of significance – and the character traits that led them to do it. Our first discussion is on John Fairfax because there would be no Beyond the Crucible without John Fairfax. We unpack some lessons in forgiveness that were essential not just to the media dynasty Warwick’s great great grandfather built, but the legacy he passed on to his descendants. A legacy that can help you through your own crucible today. As Warwick says of his forefather, “It’s hard to fault somebody that overdoes character, that overdoes forgiveness.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Losing Millions Led Him to Find His True Identity: Ken Eslick Oct 03, 2023

Losing millions of dollars -- twice -- was not the hardest crucible Ken Eslick has had to face. The most challenging thing about moving beyond those setbacks was decoupling his identity from the number of zeroes on his balance sheet. Describing himself as someone who was good at making money but not at keeping it, he needed to change the story he had told himself about himself since he was a teenager.

We talk with Eslick this week about how he bounced back from his financial failures, and also how he overcame a drinking problem that cost him his job. Those challenging journeys helped him craft a new narrative for his life and career, one that’s led him to found The Leaders Lab, an executive search firm that’s placed more than 500 executives. He’s also the host of the popular Leaders Lab Podcast.

To learn more about Ken Eslick, visit www.theleaderslab.co

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Not Sure You've Had a Crucible? Click "Play" Sep 26, 2023

We have a confession to make: When we sit down to interview a guest about how he or she has moved beyond a crucible, we assume – subconsciously we’ve come to realize – that you’re listening because you’ve struggled through a crucible too … or maybe find yourself smack in the middle of one.

But our own research tells us that that might not be the case. Our study found that 72 percent of those we surveyed have “experienced an event so traumatic or painful that it that it fundamentally altered the course” of their lives. That’s a big number, but it leaves 28 percent – more than one in four – who don’t believe they’ve had such an experience. If that’s you, this episode is for you.

We talk this week about three ways you – or someone close to you – can ask the right questions and prompt the proper thoughts to determine if you have, indeed, suffered a crucible experience. We do it not to push you in to what we call the pit, but to help you realize if you’re already in it so you can begin your journey out of it.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

COVID Forced Her to Close Her Business But Led to a New Calling: Katie Jesionowski Sep 19, 2023

The COVID 19 pandemic cost many of us many things. It cost this week's guest, Katie Jesionowski, the children's superfoods business she'd spent more than a decade building -- just as it was poised to really take off. But from the ashes of that crucible, she has been able to build a new, equally rewarding life of significance. Jesionowski explains how both the tragedies and the triumphs of her failed startup have proven invaluable to her new career as chief marketing officer of Total Family Management. The company brings the best aspects of personal and business life coaching to the entire family unit, helping the building block of society build a clearer shared future of joy. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 10: Making It All Happen Sep 12, 2023

In this final episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, we offer you some “assembly instructions” for how you can take what you’ve learned in the previous nine episodes and get to work on turning what’s been broken into breakthrough.

While the vision for a life of significance you bring to reality will look different for each one of you, the process of making it all happen centers on one key truth.

As Warwick says, “When we use our pain in the service of others it does give our life purpose.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 9: Reality Sep 05, 2023

Reality. Moving from a vision in your mind to action in your life. That’s been the journey we’ve been taking you on in our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS.

In this final episode exploring the hacks that will help you move from setback to significance, we offer up a pair to clear the runway for you to launch your unique vision into reality. One’s called The First Steps, the other’s called Overcome Your Fears. Taken in tandem, they cover the ground Warwick talks about when he says:

“Making a vision become reality can feel like a daunting task. But the key is taking one small step.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 8: Fellow Travelers Aug 29, 2023

We say often here that moving beyond your crucible is a team sport, and the team we’re helping you build on this episode of our summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, is what we call your fellow travelers. Without them, your pursuit of a vision that will lead you to a life of significance is far more difficult – if not completely unlikely.

The hacks we offer this week focus on helping you identify the two most valuable types of fellow travelers – encouragers and complementors: that’s complementors with an e, not an I -- people you trust who have different skills and perspectives than you do.

Both types of people are critical to you turning your tragedy into triumph. Because, as Warwick says here, “Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 7: Vision Aug 22, 2023

A world of what could be or needs to be. That’s the stuff of vision. And looking to films that resonate with you to find the seeds of your own unique vision is one of the hacks we offer in this week’s episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS.

In this seventh episode of the series, all about the development of vision, our second hack takes you through several questions to help you in crafting a vision you can live out with gusto.

And remember as you try your hand at these hacks, as Warwick says during our chat, “What moves us is often what motivates us.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 6: Authenticity Aug 15, 2023

The real you. We’ve spent the last few weeks helping you discover who that is – now we shift our attention to the importance of making sure you live in light of what you’ve learned. That you resist the temptation to don a mask and instead show the world the authentic you.

In this sixth episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, we offer a pair of ways you can help ensure you’re living authentically. We call them "Anchors Aweigh" and "Forgive, Forgive, Forgive." They’ll help you as you continue to journey past what’s been broken in your life and toward the breakthrough that’s waiting for you.

Wearing a mask will not help you reach that destination because, as we say in this episode, “There are no alter egos in a life of significance.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visitwww.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 5: Talents Aug 08, 2023

Once you've identified your beliefs and values and your passions, the next step to crafting and executing a vision that's unique to you is coming to a deeper understanding of your talents.

Our hacks this week, "Look to the Past to Forge the Future" and "Words Matter," are all about identifying where your gifts lie, because knowing what you’re good at, and what you’re not good at, is a critical step to moving beyond your crucible and into a life of significance – where you can apply those talents in to others.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 4: Passions Aug 01, 2023

Excavation. Digging deep to discover what you’re truly off-the-charts passionate about. That’s the focus of this episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS.

As we continue our step-by-step journey through the Beyond the Crucible Refining Process, we offer you three hacks to help you unearth the passions that will guide you along your pursuit of a life of significance. We call them “Redeem the Pain,” “Meet the Younger You” and “Call in Reinforcements.” Each one will bring clarity to what you care most about.

“Passion,” Warwick says, “is what fuels us to move forward, to get beyond the ashes of our crucible and to use our pain for a purpose.”

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 3: Beliefs and Values Jul 25, 2023

Beliefs and values … two connected building blocks of the road that leads you to a life of significance. But how do you know what yours are -- and how do you make sure they line up with each other? That’s the focus of this third episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. Warwick and Gary offer you a pair of hacks this week – one to help you identify your beliefs, called Be the Change. And one to help you bring those beliefs to bear on your day-to-day life, which we’ve whimsically called Know Thyself, By George after George Harrison of the Beatles. Why? Press play.. As you do, you’ll keep gaining insights into building the road to your life of significance. To use the values worksheet discussed in this episode:

Direct landing page for download form: https://beyondthecrucible.com/values-worksheet/

Free resources page on website: https://beyondthecrucible.com/resources/

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 2: Refined Jul 18, 2023

Finding the healing in heartache and hard times is not easy -- but it is an absolutely indispensable step we all must take to recover from a crucible experience. This week, in episode 2 of our special summer series CRUCIBLE HACKS, Warwick and Gary share how you can understand how you were refined by the challenges you’ve faced. They share two hacks that will help you find beauty from the ashes of those setbacks and failures. One involves facing the demons of what went wrong and finding a way to turn them into angels; the other is creating a 3 by 5 card – that is, jotting down three to 5 lessons your trauma or tragedy taught you – and even looking for blessings attached to those lessons. The bottom line: “In order to reframe,” as Warwick says, “you’ve got to do the inner work.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

CRUCIBLE HACKS 1: Significance Jul 11, 2023

This week, we launch our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. Each of the 10 episodes focuses on fresh insights to guide you along your journey from tragedy to triumph. We start with the end in mind -- significance. What does it mean to live a life of significance … and how do you get there? That’s where our hacks come in: We'll walk you through a pair of them: Emulate it Till You Make it and Doing a Life 360. The idea behind it all is to equip you with new tools to live out what we call the Beyond the Crucible Refining Process as you do what this podcast is all about – moving beyond your crucible. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

7 Ways to Avoid Mission Drift and Live Your True Purpose #170 Jul 04, 2023

Mission drift may come on slowly, imperceptibly even, but its impact is like death from a thousand cuts. What can it kill? Your purpose.

This week, we walk you step by step through our latest blog, 7 Ways to Realign With Your True Purpose. It all starts with understanding that purpose … and along the way we talk at length about how to know if you’ve drifted off mission, what you can do to right the ship if you have and how fellow travelers can help keep you sailing in a straight line. Warwick also explains the critical difference between mission drift and mission evolution – the latter is a good thing – and what role giving yourself grace plays in finding your true north again if you’ve veered away from it.

“Living outside your true purpose is not fun,” Warwick says, but it’s also not irreversible.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Overcoming Poverty to Gain an Abundance Mindset: Alice Tsang #169 Jun 27, 2023

We’ve heard some remarkable stories on this podcast, but Alice Tsang’s is one of the most remarkable … and triumphant. That's because from the crucible of abject poverty that saw her sharing a tiny apartment with more than a dozen others, needing the quarter a day her uncle could spare that allowed her to eat lunch at high school, she gained an unlikely education that she’s put two use in a pair of successful careers – first as a successful fixed-income analyst on Wall Street and now as a college finance professor. Warwick talks with Tsang this week about what her hardscrabble upbringing in Hong Kong taught her about what’s truly important in life … lessons she now aims to teach her students so they understand how to cope with and overcome the challenges they will inevitably face. “We do not have the ability to be perfect,” she says. “But we can control how much effort we put into a better future for ourselves.” For more information about Alice Tsang, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-tsang-a3236190/ To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Embracing Her Tragic Paralysis as a Gift: Janine Shepherd #168 Jun 20, 2023

Janine Shepherd was on track to represent her home nation of Australia in the Olympics as a cross-country skier – but then her dream, quite literally, crashed when she was hit by a utility truck while on a bicycle training exercise with her teammates. She came out the other side of that horrific accident and the 6 months of arduous recovery that followed to discover she was a paraplegic.

But as she explains to Warwick, her identity as “Janine the Machine,” the elite athlete, was not to be her destiny. She had another calling, learning to fly and training others to be pilots, and inspiring multitudes who have suffered tragedies and trials to embrace loss as their lives’ greatest teacher.

An in-demand speaker whose Ted talk was been viewed more than 2 million times, Shepherd calls herself “a mirror to help people see their own defiant spirits."

Her guiding philosophy? “Nothing comes easy, and if it did, it wouldn’t be worth having.”

To learn more about Janine Shepherd, visit www.janineshepherd.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

How She Found Herself After Escaping a Narcissistic Marriage: Victoria McCooey #167 Jun 13, 2023

A violent altercation in which her enraged husband choked her was the last straw for Victoria McCooey. It left her 6-year-old son, who was in the room at the time, thinking she had been killed. But it also started her down a path of self-discovery and self-care. On this week’s episode, McCooey tells Warwick in detail the toll that being married to a narcissist had on her identity … as his controlling ways left her feeling unworthy and ashamed. But she also describes how she fought her way back to not only find her value, but to help other abused women find theirs – first through the same nonprofit that aided her and now as a narcissist divorce coach. She teaches her clients the Reclaim Your Power System she created initially for herself … to help them find the same freedom she’s living today. To learn more about Victoria McCooey, visit www.victoriamccooey.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Surviving the 'Gift' of Cancer: Dr. Erica Harris #166 Jun 06, 2023

Dr. Erica Harris endured a cavalcade of crucibles – starting with being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and given just two months to live after her body did not respond to chemotherapy treatments. But then, miraculously she believes, she went into remission in time to receive a bone-marrow transplant that put her on the road to recovery … only to find herself in the direst of straits again when her new immune system rejected her lungs and her life was hanging by a thread of hope. In this week’s episode, Harris explains every harrowing detail of her years-long up-and-down medical crises – finally set on a more stable path when she received a double lung transplant. Along that journey, she explains, she learned the important difference between toxic positivity and genuine positivity and discovered that the key to her recovery was a mindset shift. “I have lived a million more lifetimes than I could have if I never had cancer,” she says today – and now shares the lessons her journey has taught her as a speaker and coach who encourages others through her true wellness platform, Rise Today.

To learn more about Dr. Erica Harris, visit www.risetoday.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

The 3 Important Truths Any Crucible Will Teach You #165 May 23, 2023

Using our worst days to help others have their best days. That’s the undergirding philosophy, the bedrock exhortation, of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE. And we explore it on this week’s episode in detail so that you can apply the lessons we've learned to turn your own trials into triumphs.

Warwick and I take a tour of those learnings, ground also covered in the new blog at BeyondTheCucible.com, 3 Critical Lessons All 5 Crucible Types Can Teach Us. We’ve discovered and keep discovering with each new guest we interview that while crucible experiences vary greatly in their circumstances, they come with many similar emotions, whether it’s a business crucible or a physical crucible, an emotional crucible or a Life crucible – or even the quiet crucible marked by feeling stuck and wondering “Is This All There is?”

And those three important truths that help you navigate your way up from and out of the pit? Realizing that mindset is everything; not going it alone; and taking the first right step, then the next right step.

Putting those truths together is the key to being able to consider your crucible not as something that happened to you, but as something that happened for you.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Preventing Money from Becoming Your Identity: Kristin Keffeler #164 May 16, 2023

Helping people develop a right relationship with money, particularly the younger generations in families of wealth and influence, is the unique focus of the work done by this week’s guest, Kristin Keffeler. As a leading practitioner of family wealth advising called Wealth 360, she supports families of significant means in doing what she calls the “inner work” of money. It’s not just about managing portfolios, but developing a healthy life identity around the dollar signs. This may be the most personal episode we’ve yet done from Warwick’s perspective, given his history as the 5th generation heir to a multibillion-dollar media dynasty in his home nation of Australia. The ground he and Keffeler cover here not only offers insights and action steps for families like the one Warwick was born into, but to any family that can benefit from shoring up its relationship to money and their relationships to each other. At the root of finding that health, Keffeler explains, is understanding that the formation of personal identity separate from the numbers on a balance sheet is an important destination all of us must find our way to. To learn more about Kristin Keffeler and her work, visit www.illumination360.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Unshackling the Shame of Her Parents' Overdose Deaths: Lauren Sisler #163 May 09, 2023

Lauren Sisler was a freshman at Rutgers University when learned she had lost her father just hours after she had lost her mother. Having come home to grieve one parent, she was blindsided by the news that the other had died, too. And she had no idea how any of it had happened This week, we speak with Sisler about that 2003 tragedy, when she was not only hit with the unfathomable news of the deaths of her mom and dad, but the shame she couldn’t shake after she learned how they died: from prescription-drug overdoses. It would take her years to break free from what she calls the shackles of that shame, keeping the truth to herself even as she launched a successful career as a sideline reporter for college football and gymnastics on ESPN and the SEC Network. But as she began to share the true story of her parents’ deaths, she discovered she could transfer the hope and healing she experienced in facing those hard truths to the audiences that heard her speaking them. To learn more about Lauren Sisler, visit www.laurensisler.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

4 Truths To Help You Get Beyond Your Crucible #162 May 02, 2023

A new day. The sun will come up. Hope. Things will get better. These are beliefs and emotions we all long to experience when we’ve been through a crucible. It’s not easy to get there, but in this episode we aim to help you move in that direction. Warwick discusses in detail his new blog at BeyondTheCrucible.com about the four things he wishes he'd known when he went through his darkest time … to help you get through yours.

You’ll learn that it’s OK to give yourself permission to grieve, that feeling broken doesn’t mean you’re worthless, that you're not defined by your worst day and that a small step can be a defining moment in your life of significance.

The upshot of it all: The bottom of the pit, where so many of us find ourselves after setback and failure find us, does not have to be our permanent address.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Recovered with Purpose: Adam Vibe Gunton #161 Apr 25, 2023

Adam Vibe Gunton shares in harrowing detail how his life went from him being a “golden boy,” the star of every sports team he played on, to a tragic descent into darkness and dependence on heroin and prescription painkillers – set into motion by being introduced to cocaine at 12 and worsened when he blamed himself for a friend’s suicide. He wanted to die … until the rekindling of his faith in a miraculous way set him first on the road to sobriety … and then to significance. He founded Recovered on Purpose, a nonprofit that helps men and women in recovery tell their stories in ways that help others find sobriety, too. Just five years clean, he’s helped more than 1,000 people overcome their addictions … and has big plans for even more wide-ranging impact. To learn more about Adam Vibe Gunton and Recovered On Purpose, visit www.recoveredonpurpose.org To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Reckless Faith in Action: Beth Guckenberger #160 Apr 18, 2023

Our guest this week, Beth Guckenberger, explains how the death of her father when she was certain he would pull through knocked her off balance, making her question the faith in which her life was rooted. But when she realized God’s ways were not her ways, that they were grander and more mysterious than she had ever imagined, that knowledge was fuel for her journey to care for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of orphans through Back2Back Ministries, which she and her husband started by writing a personal check and which now has 400 employees rescuing the most vulnerable all across the globe. “If you know what you’re going to be doing 50 Sundays from now, your faith is not reckless enough,” she says, bold inspiration to all of us pursuing lives of significance. To learn more about Guckenberger's Back 2 Back Ministries, visit www.back2backministries.org. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Trials Happened For Her, Not To Her: Andrea Heuston #159 Apr 11, 2023

Your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you. You’ll hear us say that a lot – tied to that trial, set within that setback, affixed to that failure … you’ll discover seeds you can plant along your journey to a life of significance. You just have to look for and learn from them. Our guest this week, Andrea Heuston, has accumulated plenty of those seeds as she’s moved beyond her crucibles. From an emotionally wrenching infertility struggle, to a medical emergency that left her in a coma for weeks, to a fire that destroyed the home she called her “happy place” – she has faced a lifetime’s worth of tragedies. And yet she’s moved on to live a life of triumph – choosing hope and grace as she helps others to do exactly what she’s done. “I had to get over myself in order to go anywhere else,” she tells us … and the wisdom she’s accumulated can guide you along your own unique path to the life you’ve always dreamed of. To learn more about Andrea Heuston, visit www.andreaheuston. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Burn the Ships 9: Series Wrap-Up: 5 Truths We Learned About Lighting the Match #158 Apr 04, 2023

Over the last eight weeks, our guests have shared some profound insights to help guide you as you consider making a bold, dramatic pivot in your life to pursue something life-changing and significant. We distilled their top tips into our latest blog, and Warwick and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss them in depth on this episode. Our goal is to help you walk away – maybe “sail away” is a better way to put it – from the series with critical takeaways to help you decide whether it’s time for you to burn some ships … and if it is, to give you some guidance on how and when to strike the match. And you’ll want to be sure, more than ever, that you stick around till the end. Because that’s when we’ll give you all the details you need about the opportunity we’re offering for you to be personally coached by Warwick as you look to board the boat that takes you from “Is this all there is?” to “This is all I’ve ever wanted.” To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including the Burn the Ships blog and our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com

Have a question? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Burn the Ships 8: From Ministry Executive to Corporate CEO: Mike Beckham #157 Mar 28, 2023

When you find yourself with a match in your hand, contemplating burning the ship you’re in to climb aboard another that will take you in a different direction, having the opportunity to make an impact is about the best destination you can chart a course for. And that’s exactly what Mike Beckham did. This week, in the final interview in our special winter series BURN THE SHIPS, Warwick talks with Beckham about transitioning from rewarding work at a nonprofit ministry to the world of business – first as a member of his brother’s team at an e-commerce startup and then as a founder and the CEO of Simple Modern, one of the nation’s most successful sellers of water bottles and tumblers. But the brand’s moto – We Exist To Give Generously – is as critical to its mission as its bottom line. The company has donated more than $2 million to more than 1,100 nonprofits since being established in 2015. “I call myself a nonprofit refugee in a for-profit world,” Beckham says … and that’s how he’s found the impact he was searching for when he set his ships on fire. To learn more about Mike Beckham and Simple Modern, visit https://www.simplemodern.com/ To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Burn the Ships 7: From Corporate Executive to Ministry President: Dan Wolgemuth #156 Mar 21, 2023

This week, Warwick speaks to Dan Wolgemuth, whose burn the ships moment looks a little different on his resume than it does in his heart. After nearly three decades of working in the corporate world, he followed his faith into becoming president of a nonprofit Christian ministry. But he’d have never gotten there if the flames didn’t first get lit iwithin. He had to stop pursuing a career script written by and starring him and follow a new one written to focus not on what he could accomplish, but on whom he could accomplish it for. “I burned a ship in my own soul,” he tells us … and in doing so made a forever difference in the lives of troubled youth. To learn more about Dan Wolgemuth, visit www.fridayfragments.com. To learn more about Youth for Christ, visit https://yfci.org To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including our free Life of Significance assessment, visit www.beyondthecrucible.com Have a question? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Burn the Ships 6: From Drug Dealer to Entrepreneur and Mentor: Donte Wilburn #155 Mar 14, 2023

In this episode of our special winter series BURN THE SHIPS, we talk to Donte Wilburn about how he wound up selling drugs in his teens and 20s – recognizing the danger but embracing the lifestyle that dealing allowed him to live. But that lifestyle, he explains, came perilously close to ending his life. It was only after he leaned into his faith and avoided prison thanks to a judge who believed in him that he found a new ship to board – starting out washing cars for minimum wage at an auto-detailing business he now owns. His success has fueled his desire to pass long the lessons about truly succeeding he learned the hard way to the young people who work for him – so they don’t have to learn them the hard way. It's wisdom he passes along in his soon-to-be released book, Born Hungry: You Were Made for More. For more information about Donte Wilburn, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontewilburn/ To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting secondactsignificance.com

Burn the Ships 5: From Biomedical Engineer to Reality-Show Adventurer: Joel Hungate #154 Mar 07, 2023

Go do it! That's the counsel, the hope, the legacy the mother of our guest this week, Joel Hungate, gave her son. He’d need those words more urgently than he ever could have imagined when she died by suicide, leaving him to question everything on which he had based his life. In this episode of our special winter series, BURN THE SHIPS, Warwick talks with Hungate about how his Mom’s death left him in an emotional spiral that he was only able to get out of by embracing his faith. And taking seriously her exhortation to “go do it.” He’s done just that but trading his corporate career as a biomedical engineer for creating the Adventure Genome Project, in which he helps men and women not just get fit and healthy, but to do so with an eye on embracing adventure. It’s a journey he knows firsthand, as one of 16 contestants on the new Netflix survivalist series OUTLAST, premiering on the streaming service March 10. His tip for all of us: Put one foot in front of the other. That's how you get to the top. To learn more about Joel Hungate visit www.joelhungate.com. To watch the debut season of OUTLAST, visit netflix.com. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting secondactsignificance.com

Burn the Ships 4: From Crucible Leadership to Beyond the Crucible #153 Feb 28, 2023

If you’ve been listening to our special winter series BURN THE SHIPS, you’ll know why we’ve turned the microphones on ourselves this week. It's because we’ve made our own pivot – changing our business name from Crucible Leadership to the name of this podcast, Beyond the Crucible. While the change is more a remodeling of our ship than setting it ablaze, it does indeed signal an expanded vision that speaks to our new focus and the new inspiration and action steps we can offer you as you embark on your journey to turn your trials into triumph. In this episode we talk about the benefits of the new name, including more precisely articulating our desire to offer hope and healing not just to business leaders, but to anyone in search of insights and tools to make sure that their worst days don’t define them. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting secondactsignificance.com

Burn the Ships 3: From Doctor to Actor: Darwin Shaw #152 Feb 21, 2023

In this third episode of our winter series BURN THE SHIPS, Darwin Shaw describes how he set fire to a medical career, with the near-guarantees it offered, to pursue acting and the creative joys it offered. Maybe you know him as Daniel Craig’s first kill enroute to double O status in CASINO ROYALE; maybe as the Apostle Peter in the megahit miniseries THE BIBLE. Maybe from his role as a key creator of The Anti-Viral Film Project, an international effort to provide creative work for actors and filmmakers during the pandemic to tell a multi-generational story about families around the globe, who strive for connection and catharsis, against the turmoil of the COVID-19. “If you can hone in on what’s truthful to you and follow that,” he tells Warwick of his pivot from behind a stethoscope to in front of a camera, “I don’t think you’re ever going to regret it.” To learn more about Darwin Shaw and the Antiviral Film Project, visit www.six-feet-films.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting secondactsignificance.com

Burn the Ships 2: From Chasing Success to Embracing Intentionality -- Finnian Kelly #151 Feb 14, 2023

What do you do when the normal tools you use to navigate life no longer work? When the ships that have taken you to a crossroads – or maybe a crosswaters – in your life are smoldering? According to our guest this week, Finnian Kelly, you set sail in a new craft to a new destination: intentionality.

In this second episode of our winter series BURN THE SHIPS, Kelly discusses how all the success he chased, and caught – a prestigious military career, top-shelf entrepreneurship, star of a National Geographic channel documentary – eventually failed him. Because he had never cared for the wounded soul he suffered as a boy, his world crashed around him in the wake of a difficult divorce and a significant business failure. That’s when he finally did the inner work necessary to allow him to move on to a life or authentic purpose. And he’s not taking that journey alone, but helping others to also live in the now and get on their own unique path to significance.

To learn more about Finnian Kelly, visit www.finniankelly.com

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

Burn the Ships 1: From Music to Lifestyle Brand Entrepreneur: Eryn Eddy #150 Feb 07, 2023

Eryn Eddy had found a way to make her passion for music pay off -- licensing her original compositions to VH1 and MTV and some of the most popular shows on television. But she longed to give giving people more than a song to listen to. She wanted to give them a truth to live by. That makes her the ideal first guest for our new series BURN THE SHIPS, in which we’re talking with men and women who have been brave enough to make dramatic pivots, leaving behind “safe” and familiar lives to do something dramatic, new, life-changing and significant – facing down and overcoming crucibles along the way. Eddy has done just that, starting by spray-painting fans' T-shirts with the simple, profound message SO WORTH LOVING. Her efforts offered so much hope and healing to so many people that So Worth Loving became a successful lifestyle brand that, as the company mission statement puts it, exists to remind you of your worth so you can remind others of theirs. In fact, that’s been Eryn’s own story, as she explains in our interview. Self-doubt, broken relationships, fears that what she tried just might not work out – those are the crucibles she’s fought through to help others find the resilience to do the same. To learn more about Eryn Eddy and So Worth Loving, visit www.soworthloving.com To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

A Life Resolution That Will Last Well Past the New Year #149 Feb 01, 2023

The ultimate hope of every one of us is to live a life worthy of being remembered. If that’s something you’ve been thinking about during this season of New Year’s resolutions, you’ve come to the right podcast. This week, Beyond the Crucible founder Warwick Fairfax unpacks his timely new blog about ways you can commit in 2023 to live in a way that is true to who you are, anchored in a vision that is uniquely yours and therefore uniquely satisfying and significant. He discusses seven key steps you can begin taking today to seize the benefits of authenticity – from understanding your design to reflecting on your beliefs, from focusing on what you’re passionate about to surrounding yourself with a supportive team of fellow travelers. As Warwick says, the effort is worth it because your life matters!

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

Want to Align Your Values with Your Actions? They Can Help: Tom McGehee and Jim Stollberg #148 Jan 24, 2023

A critical component of Beyond the Crucible’s recipe for discovering your unique path to a life of significance is to develop a strong team of advisers to help you lean into your gifts and passions along the journey, especially in the aftermath of a crucible. This week, Warwick talks to two men serving in that role to men and women all along the-age and-stage spectrum. Our guests Tom McGehee and Jim Stollberg, the co-executive directors of Halftime, an organization that helps professionals of all stripes look for moments and experiences in their lives on and off the clock that deepen the sense of purpose with which they’re living. As you’ll hear Jim explain, an essential part of finding that balanced, rewarding life is making sure what you say are your most important values are truly the things you’re spending your time and attention on . If they’re not … Halftime and its associated group, Thousandfold, will help you identify the disconnect and rearrange the pieces. To learn more about Halftime, visit www.halftime.org To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course: Discover Your Second-Act Significance by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

"Horrible and Beautiful" -- Lessons from Her Husband's Cancer Battle: Karen Austin: #147 Jan 17, 2023

Karen Austin experienced both anguish and joy as she walked with her husband, Tracy, after a cancer diagnosis that took his life, but never his optimism and spirit. In our conversation this week with Karen, she shares with intimacy, vulnerability and, yes, humor about what she describes as her “crucible life” – the early death of her mother, her brother’s suicide and the cancer that took her husband in 2017 -- two months before their 20th anniversary. From the ashes of those tragedies, she explains, she taught herself how to thrive through grief and help others do the same as a certified grief companion. She explains that grief and mourning are not synonymous – the first happens to us, the second is something we must actively do to heal. You’ll also hear in this interview Karen talk about a medical test scheduled for after we recorded our conversation. That test revealed, she discovered after we talked, that she has cancer … and she’s already begun to, as she puts it, “make friends” with the challenges ahead – taking her own counsel as walks through this new crucible. To learn more about Karen Austin, visit www.karenaustin.net To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course: Discover Your Second-Act Significance by visiting: secondactsignificance.com.

A Marathon Skiing Battle Against Parkinson’s: Bill Brown #146 Jan 10, 2023

It’s quite common for those we interview to tell us their crucibles have improved their lives, made them richer than they would ever have been without the setbacks or failures. This week, Warwick talks with Bill Brown – his Harvard Business School classmate in the ‘80s -- who describes how he was approaching the pinnacle of his business career, as a finalist in Toro’s search for a new CEO, when a medical diagnosis derailed his plans: he had Parkinson’s. But he has refused to let Parkinson’s beat him. An avid cross-country skier before his diagnosis, he’s continued to pursue his passion with gusto, completing 20 marathon events across the globe. He’s also dedicated himself to raising money through his skiing for Parkinson’s research … and living in a way that offers hope to anyone facing a crucible of any kind that their challenges are far from the end of their story. To learn how you can support Parkinson's research, www.michaeljfox.org. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course: Discover Your Second-Act Significance by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

The Gift of a $2.25 Billion Dollar Failure: Warwick’s Crucible Revisited #145 Jan 03, 2023

In our first episode of 2023, we’re joined by guest co-host Lexi Godlewski, who interviews the host of Beyond the Crucible, Warwick Fairfax. His face and voice you know, but the deeper parts of his story you may not! Warwick shares new insights, lessons and perspectives on how he moved beyond his crucible and created a life of significance after the failed takeover of his family’s 150-year-old media business.

As unique as this story is, the message is universal: life’s toughest challenges that could have broken you may just be the blessing that leads you to create the life of significance you really want.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

To start creating a life you love, explore our new e-course: Discover Your Second-Act Significance by visiting: secondactsignificance.com

Finding Holiday Joy Amid Loss and Crucibles: Gary Roe #144 Dec 13, 2022

The holiday season, according to the songs that celebrate it, is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. It's when all is calm and all is bright and we join with friends and family to fa-la-la-la-la our way to the new year. But what if we just don’t feel that way? In our final episode of 2022, we talk with author Gary Roe about how to get through these last days of the year while coping with crucibles and being grieved by losses that grow even more intense. He shares the best practices he’s packed into his book SURVIVING THE HOLIDAYS WITHOUT YOU, offering tips on being kind to yourself, finding ways to honor loved ones you’ve lost and accepting and believing a fundamental truth: this holiday will be different, but it can still be good. To learn more about Gary Roe, visit www.garyroe.com. To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, visit www.crucibleleadership.com. And don't forget to check out our first e-course, DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, at www.secondactsignificance.com

Gaining From Loss VI: A Roadmap to Recovery #143 Dec 06, 2022

We put a bow on the package of our special fall series by exploring the wisdom we heard from all five of our guests. The insights they offered form a roadmap for how to find gain out of even the most devastating losses: be patient, work to change what you cannot accept, understand there is room for your pain on the other side of your loss, intentionally cultivate joy as you continue to grieve and live as a good ancestor to those who come after you.

To explore Beyond the Crucible assets, including the blog on which this episode is based, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

And don't forget to check out our first e-course, DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, at www.secondactsignificance.com

Gaining From Loss V: Marisa Renee Lee #142 Nov 29, 2022

What does OK look like after you’ve been through a devastating loss? How does the new person you become in the aftermath of that loss go on living even as you go on grieving? This week, we talk with Marisa Renee Lee, a former official in the Obama White House and a regular contributor to Glamour, Vogue and The Atlantic. She discusses at length the struggles she endured after her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, then battled and succumbed to breast cancer when Marisa was just 25 years old. She set that emotional journey between the covers of her book, GRIEF IS LOVE: LIVING WITH LOSS. In it, she offers a roadmap for readers to help them navigate the complexities of sadness and joy that accompany not just the loss of a loved one, but the loss of anything you love. And the first healing step on that journey, she says, is giving ourselves permission to grieve … even as we continue to love who or what we are grieving. To learn more about Marisa Renee Lee, visit www.marisareneelee.com To explore Crucible Leadership assets, and take our debut e-course DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

Gaining from Loss IV: Rabbi Steve Leder #141 Nov 22, 2022

Rabbi Steve Leder thought that after officiating more than 1,000 funerals, he understood death and the loss experienced by those it leaves behind. But it wasn’t until his own father passed away that he felt in his heart, rather than just knowing in his head, the depth and breadth of losing a loved one. The lessons he’s learned and the applications he’s still living out have made clear to him that the losses we experience in life can be the fuel for living more intentionally. He says that we can craft a life today that will make us good ancestors to our family that follows. To learn more about Rabbi Leder, visit www.steveleder.com To explore Crucible Leadership assets, and take our debut e-course DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Gaining From Loss III: Kayla Stoecklein #140 Nov 15, 2022

It is fair to ask what gain Kayla Stoecklein experienced from the loss of her husband, Andrew, to suicide in 2018. What good could possibly come from where she found herself after such a devastating tragedy? What beauty could be birthed from those terrible ashes? In our conversation with Kayla this week, she answers all those questions in ways that will inspire you as much as they surprise you. She discusses with Warwick the moving and meaningful truths she’s packed into her book -- Rebuilding Beautiful: Welcome What Is, Dare to Dream Again, and Step Bravely into What Could Be – which documents her journey of, as she puts it, discovering how loss gives us new eyes to see the grace threaded through all humanity. Her encouragement to all of us? A beautiful world waits for us on the other side of loss. A world so expansive it has room for our pain. To learn more about Kayla Stoecklein, visit www.kaylastoecklein.com To explore Crucible Leadership assets, and take our debut e-course DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Gaining from Loss II: Jason Schechterle #139 Nov 08, 2022

Jason Schechterle was a rookie Phoenix police officer in 2001 when his stopped squad car was slammed from behind at more than 100 mph and burst into an inferno. The unimaginable burns he suffered left him in a coma for two and a half months. He woke up unable to see, his appearance dramatically altered by his injuries and the surgeries he underwent to treat them. He struggled emotionally with what had happened to him – but never gave up the fight, or gave up hope that he’d win it. In this second episode of our special fall series GAINING FROM LOSS, Schechterle takes us on the journey of how he received the emotional and physical scars he still carries – but also how he found hope and healing that underscores a critical truth: the power of the human spirit can never be underestimated or extinguished. The motto that’s guided him through it all? Sometimes the most beautiful, inspirational changes will disguise themselves as utter devastation. Be patient. To learn more about Jason Schechterle, visit www.burningshield.com To explore Crucible Leadership assets, and take our debut e-course DISCOVER YOUR SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

Gaining From Loss I: Shelley Klingerman #138 Nov 01, 2022

We kick off our fall series GAINING FROM LOSS with Shelley Klingerman’s story of grit in the face of grief after her brother, Greg, a 30-year veteran law enforcement officer, was shot to death in an ambush while leaving a government building – a senseless and evil act. From that tortuous crucible, Klingerman has dedicated herself to celebrating the essence of Greg and helping his fellow officers via the nonprofit she founded not long after his killing: Project Never Broken. Her organization extends hope and healing through stressing resiliency to other law enforcement officers and their families struggling through the aftermath of trauma. Through every step, she is committed to no longer accepting the things she cannot change, but changing the things she cannot accept. To learn more about Project Never Broken, visit www.projectneverbroken.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.org

BEST OF 6: Nancy Koehn, Part 2 #137 Oct 25, 2022

Ernest Shackleton and the men he was leading on an expedition to cross Antarctica had piled up a breathtaking number of life-threatening crucibles by late 1915. Stuck motionless in polar block ice for months, hundreds of miles off course with no way to communicate their location to anyone who could help, Shackleton and his men were running low on the supplies they had already been forced to ration in miserly fashion when their greatest disaster struck: The ice that had trapped their ship now closed in to crush it, leaving the men fully exposed to the bitter cold with no choice but to traverse the ice floes that surrounded them in desperate search of safety.

Shackleton’s mission had changed for good from one of discovery to one of survival for himself and his men. On this episode of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE, Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn, who profiles Shackleton in her Wall Street Journal best-seller Forged in Crisis, explains in detail how the British polar explorer’s only hope was to forget the disasters he and his crew had endured and “face forward” with grit, ingenuity and improvisation. “Crisis leaders get better and better and better,” she tells host Warwick Fairfax. “You can see it iteratively if you study them like I do.”

To learn more about Nancy Koehn, visit www.nancykoehn.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

BEST OF 5: Nancy Koehn, Part 1 #136 Oct 18, 2022

Nancy Koehn was on track for an administrative leadership role at Harvard Business School, where she taught the history of leadership to the world’s best and brightest. But a series of personal crucibles — the death of her father, a divorce that came without warning and decimated her finances, a cancer diagnosis — caused the floorboards of her personal and professional lives to crumble beneath her. Her career aspirations drydocked, her sleep interrupted nightly at 1 or 2 a.m., she sought solace in the love of her intellectual life: history. When she picked up a book on Abraham Lincoln to help pass the agitated hours, she discovered in the trials of the 16th president that there was not only a way through her setbacks but a way beyond them. In this interview with BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax, Koehn explains how her search for lighthouses of hope in the lives of great leaders who were dented by crucible experiences helped her find healing through FORGED IN CRISIS, her best-selling book about their trials and triumphs. Host and guest take a deep-dive look at the incredible story and important leadership lessons of British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton — a conversation they conclude in next week’s episode. To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

BEST OF 4: Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal #135 Oct 11, 2022

Adversity, Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal says in this latest edition of our best-of series, is a trip we take. Resilience paves the road we walk to move beyond it. As one of the foremost international experts on building and exercising resilience in business and in life, Stejskal has crafted the Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People through exhaustive research into the subject … and informed by her harrowing experience of being stalked in high school by a man who eventually assaulted another victim. It’s not the absence of crucibles that determines our future, she tells Warwick, but what we learn from them and how we apply that wisdom.

Learn more about Dr. Stejskal and her practical and empirical insights into resilience by visiting www.resilience-leadership.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership's new e-course "Discover Your Second-Act Significance," debuting soon, visit www.secondactsignificance.com

Discover Your Second-Act Significance: A First Look at Our First E-Course #134 Oct 04, 2022

We’re launching Beyond the Crucible’s first-ever e-course – Discover Your Second-Act Significance -- in October. In this episode, host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger pull back the curtain of its creation, discussing -- among other things -- what each of them learned while filming the course. The hope is that by sharing what those who take the course can expect, they'll discover a path to move from asking themselves “Is this all there is?” to a life that is everything they've always wanted. To learn more about the Discover Your Second Act Significance e-course, and to sign up to receive the latest updates, visit www.secondactsignificance.com

BEST OF 3: Ryan Campbell: Piloting Past Paralysis #133 Sep 27, 2022

At 19, Ryan Campbell became the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world. Two years later, a horrific plane crash threatened more than the dream he birthed at 6 to make a life and a living streaking through the skies. Left a paraplegic after the accident, he fought back physically and emotionally to walk — and hope — again. Today, he’s an in-demand motivational speaker who inspires audiences to build a mindset toolbox to conquer their crucibles.

To learn more about Ryan Campbell, visit www.RyanCampbell.co

To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

BEST OF 2: Sarah Nannen: Moving Beyond Surviving to Rediscovering Joy #132 Sep 20, 2022

In this second part of our best-of series, we talk with Sarah Nannen. With four children under 6 -- the youngest just a few months old -- Sarah's life was upended as both a mother and a wife when her husband, an Air Force fighter pilot, was killed in a training accident. A former naval officer herself, she understood how to navigate through the material and logistical details of the tragedy, but needed to learn how to move through the emotional upheaval of instantly becoming a widow and a single mother. In this episode, she tells BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax that she needed to lean into her pain to build a new and hope-filled future. Today she helps others who have been rocked by crucible experiences find the emotional strength to not be defined by their tragedies and setbacks. "There is more to your life," she says, "than the thing that happened to you." To learn more about Sarah Nannen, visit www.sarahnannen.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular email updates from Warwick Fairfax, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

BEST OF 1: Tracy J. Edmonds: Embrace Your Wild Hair #131 Sep 13, 2022

In this first episode of our best-of series, we talk to Tracy J. Edmonds. From the outside looking in, her life couldn't have been sweeter: A high-profile executive job with a Fortune 30 company at which she excelled. But on the inside, where she discovered it really counts, her career had come at a high cost because of a self-imposed crucible: not being her authentic self. So she decided to embrace both her figurative and literal wild hair -- trading her corner office for a cubicle and tackling a vision that not only meshed with her gifts and passions but also allowed her to live who she truly was rather conform to some corporate mold. She's found her life of significance in coaching leaders -- focusing on other women of color -- that to be the best versions of themselves, they have to be the real versions of themselves.

To learn more about Tracy J. Edmonds and her book Wild Hair: A Courageous Woman’s Guide to a Bold and Authentic Career, visit https://tracyjedmonds.com/

To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: That's a Wrap! #130 Aug 30, 2022

This week we tie a bow on the package that has been our special summer series, LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss five key learnings from the eight episodes that comprised the series – spotlighting such highlights as Captain America’s oft-repeated mantra of “I could do this all day” as he faces challenges to John McClane’s never losing his sense of humor as he encounters an endless barrage of crucibles in DIE HARD. Added into the conversational mix are additional stories that spotlight the takeaways from the series with some examples from prior podcast guests and Warwick's and Gary's own experiences. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 8: Hoosiers #129 Aug 23, 2022

Our summer series LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure continues with HOOSIERS … and it’s the perfect film to end the series before next week's wrap-up episode. Why? Because at its core the message of the film is what overcoming our crucibles is really all about: redemption. It's the story of Coach Norman Dale, who leads his team to an unlikely Indiana high school basketball championship in the 1950s. It’s unlikely because the Hickory Huskers are a small team from a tiny school. Coach Dale has to start from scratch by instilling in the boys the confidence and discipline and what he believes is the right way to play the game. Along the way, he extends grace and offers redemption to the father of one of the boys whose struggles with alcohol had made him a town pariah. And he's earned redemption himself thanks to the second chances he was extended by friends and strangers – opportunities he met with humility, courage and character. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 7: Iron Man #128 Aug 16, 2022

Few movie heroes undergo a success-to-significance arc fueled by their crucible more dramatically than Iron Man – and maybe even more so, his alter ego, Tony Stark. In his first movie appearance, Tony is a glib, hedonistic billionaire playboy who has a lot to live with, but not much to live for. That all changes when he’s attacked with some of the same missiles his company makes and is nearly killed. As he emerges from that crucible, given a second chance by one man’s surgical skill and self-sacrifice, he becomes an entirely new man – and not just because he builds himself a suit of super-powered armor. Be sure to listen for how Robert Downey Jr., the actor who brought the character to life over nine films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, describes his journey: it sounds like something straight out of Crucible Leadership. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 6: Die Hard #127 Aug 09, 2022

In the latest episode of our special summer series, we focus on four big take-aways from the movie that made Bruce Willis a superstar that can help you move beyond setbacks and failures. Even if you haven’t been trapped in a skyscraper seized by international terrorists, there is much to learn here about triumphing over whatever challenges you have faced. Just two of the points we’ll touch on: why it’s critical to lean into your sense of humor even when what’s happening to you isn’t funny … and why you’ll need some fellow travelers to take the journey to a life of significance with you. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 5: Spider-Man #126 Aug 02, 2022

With great power comes great responsibility. That’s what Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben tells him in the film we look at on this week’s episode of our summer series, LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Living a Life of Significance. That counsel and wisdom from Uncle Ben – and Aunt May – has been a key component of three different big-screen iterations of Spider-Man over the last 20 years. It’s a key Crucible Leadership lesson, too, one that Peter Parker learns enroute to fulfilling his calling as Spider-Man: the best life is one lived on purpose in service to others – not ourselves. That’s what responsibility and the character that undergirds it look like … and it doesn’t come easily to Spider-Man, or any of us. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 4: Robin Hood #125 Jul 26, 2022

"Rise and Rise again, until lambs become lions." There’s a motto to live a life of significance by, to inspire not just perseverance in the face of crucibles, but noble triumph over them. It's the central truth explored in this episode of the summer series LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the many lessons to learned from ROBIN HOOD, particularly the Russell Crowe version of the film, in which a common archer preserves England’s sovereignty and becomes a champion of the downtrodden and dismissed. Robin finds a life and builds a legacy of significance by cultivating his character and putting the needs of others ahead of his own wants. Be sure to catch the intermission – this is a series about movies, right? – where Warwick and Gary discuss the versions of the Robin Hood legend that have resonated the most for them for decades. To get Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 3: The Natural #124 Jul 19, 2022

The life we learn with … and the life we live with after that. Those words come from THE NATURAL, the film we discuss on this week's episode of our summer series LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. It’s hard to think of a better way to express the truths we try to share each week on this show: offering hope and practical action steps to learn the lessons of your crucibles in order to chart a course to a life of significance. In this rousing story of the redemption of the otherworldly talented baseball player Roy Hobbs, he learns that talent alone is insufficient to live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. He, and we, need to sharpen our character as well as our skills and surround ourselves with those who believe in us, and challenge us -- no matter how long the journey might take. To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 2: Batman #123 Jul 12, 2022

We say often on the show that crucibles don’t happen to us, they happen for us. And in this second episode of our special summer series, LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure, we examine that truth as played out in the story of Batman. It's a powerful tale about how Bruce Wayne did not let the unimaginable trauma of seeing his parents murdered when he was a boy keep him from a life of significance. He found purpose in his pain by training his body and his mind to strike fear into the hearts of those who would prey on the innocent. And if you think he does it as a lone vigilante … well, you just might change your mind after listening.

To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES 1: Captain America #122 Jul 05, 2022

Our eight-week summer series, LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES, kicks off this week. We examine some of the most popular film heroes -- superheroes, sports heroes and action heroes -- to extract key learnings and practical action steps to help you move beyond your crucibles to a life of significance. We begin with Captain America, whose "I can do this all day" attitude offers inspiration for staying strong and standing tall when setbacks and failures come. What makes Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, heroic is not the super soldier serum that transforms him from a 120-pound weakling rejected by the army several times during World War II into a muscular front-line fighter who beats the Nazis. What truly makes Steve Rogers Captain America is not something given to him, but something he had all along: character. To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

How Infertility Saved her Life: Sarah Willoughby #121 Jun 28, 2022

Lying in a hospital bed, unable to do anything for her only son but watch him leave and wondering if it would be the last time she'd see him was the traumatic crucible Sarah Willoughby faced after she turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in a desperate attempt to have another child. Diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and secondary infertility after losing another baby, she was at the end of her physical and emotional rope. That’s when she decided to stop trying to force her dreams to come true – and instead live her life with as much gusto and gratitude as she could. That determination has led her to a life of significance she couldn’t imagine at the depth of her crucible. She’s a life coach who helps clients love and heal themselves and is the author of a just-released book, INFERTILITY SAVED MY LIFE. To learn more about Sarah Willoughby, visit www.sarahwilloughby.com.au To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Leaving an Organized, Meaningful Legacy: Ian Dibb #120 Jun 21, 2022

Ian Dibb knows firsthand that from the ashes of your crucibles are born the strength and wisdom to not only survive – but to live a life dedicated to serving others. Dibb’s most devastating moments were the deaths of his sister and his mom within months of each other – life-rattling tragedies that birthed his calling. He turned his pain into purpose after struggling to settle the estates left behind by his loved ones – an experience that led him to launch keylu, an online portal that helps users organize their assets for those they’ll one day leave behind. As he explains, his efforts are about more than just keeping important documents in order. They're also about preserving important memories that give your legacy is greatest meaning. To learn more about Ian Dibb and keylu, visit www.keylu.com To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Overcoming The Cuckoos That Plague Us: Andrea Anderson Polk #119 Jun 14, 2022

What do you think of when you hear the word "cuckoo"? Those cute clocks that chime with chirps at the top of every hour? There's nothing cute about real cuckoos -- predatory birds that camouflage themselves and their destructive intentions in visiting chaos upon other birds. Andrea Anderson Polk, a licensed professional counselor and author of the new book THE CUCKOO SYNDROME: THE SECRET TO BREAKING FREE FROM UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS, TOXIC THINKING AND SELF-SABOTAGING BEHAVIOR, discusses the behaviors exhibited by those we’re in relationship with that cause similar harm in our lives. The figurative cuckoos that plague us, she explains, take advantage of our fears, doubts, failures and grief. That’s the challenging news. The good news? They can be defeated, launching you toward finding new purpose and a life of significance. To learn more about Andrea Anderson Polk and to buy THE CUCKOO SYNDROME, visit www.andreaandersonpolk.com

To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE IX: "Is This All There Is?" #118 May 31, 2022

It's the essential, sometimes heart-wrenching, often-life-changing question pondered by those who move from one act of their lives to another: "Is this all there is?" In this wrap-up of the eight episodes of the series, SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE, host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger extract from the stories shared by guests four key steps you can take to pivot from Act 1 to Act 2 in your own life. And they discuss what all of those guests have in common with a former Major League Baseball player – an All-Star and onetime rookie of the year -- who used his own “Is this all there is?” moment to craft a second act going on 50 years that has given him more significance than any home run he ever hit.

To purchase Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal best-seller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE and to explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE VIII: Chris Schembra #117 May 24, 2022

Chris Schembra returned home to New York City in 2015 after producing a successful Broadway show in Italy, only to find himself feeling insecure, lonely, disconnected and unfulfilled. His antidote for that crucible? Food and friendship. What began as a simple gathering of a few friends to eat and share stories once a week became the 7:47 Gratitude Experience – named after the start time of each dinner -- which has sparked 500,000 relationships and helped some of the nation’s top companies create cultures of gratitude among their teams. At the height of that impact, though, Schembra -- by then known as USA Today's Gratitude Guru -- hit another crucible: one whose complex emotions he’s had to battle through to embark on a third act of significance. To learn more about Chris Schembra, visit www.747club.org

To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE VII: Yvette Bodden #116 May 17, 2022

Yvette Bodden’s unraveling began in self-exploration and ended in a painful divorce, but she found blessings and passions along the way she would not have known had she not gone through that crucible. What Bodden discovered as she walked through and emerged on the other side of the devastation was her life’s purpose: as a thought leader and writer who inspires women – through her Web platform Awakened Woman -- to not just dream, but to dream big, as they pursue their passions by exercising their giftings.

To learn more about Yvette Bodden, visit www.awakened-woman.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE VI: Nancy Volpe Beringer #115 May 10, 2022

Nancy Volpe Beringer was in her late 50s when she let herself not just dream of a career in fashion design, but pursue it. She explains that the success and security she had built professionally over several decades didn’t fully scratch the creative itch she felt as a young girl who loved to sew. That’s when she pursued her passion with vigor – earning a master’s degree and finishing as runner-up in Season 18 of TV’s reality-show smash PROJECT RUNWAY. It was on the show she discovered her couture calling: designing accessible, adaptable clothing for those who haven’t historically had access to high fashion.

To learn more about Nancy Volpe Beringer and her fashion designs, visit www.nancyvolpeberinger.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE V: John Busacker #114 May 03, 2022

John Busacker thought he was having a heart attack when severe chest pains while he was driving home sent him to the emergency room. But he wasn't dying; he was grieving. That’s what he discovered after a doctor gave him a clean bill of physical health … and he realized he had some work to do on his emotional health. Busacker describes how the deaths of his parents, his mother-in-law and several other relatives and friends in a span of just seven months made him realize he needed to slow down his pace of life and work. After a successful run in the worlds of financial services and leadership development, he has slowed to a walk that allows him to come alongside a different breed of client and help them find their true calling and finish well. To learn more about John Busacker and to buy his book GASPING FOR BREATH, visit www.johnbusacker.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE IV: Melissa Reaves #113 Apr 26, 2022

Melissa Reaves wasn’t sure how her life was ever going to be OK again after she was fired from a job in an advertising career that had served her bank balance well even if it had stopped bringing her heart alive. But the assurance of her inner voice that all would yet be well gave her the courage and inspiration to embark on a new career that has become a calling – helping professionals use the power of story to write happy endings for their businesses. She coaches clients in how to make what she calls mind movies that add depth and meaning to their communications.

To learn more about Melissa Reaves, visit www.storyfruition.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE III: Robert Miller #112 Apr 19, 2022

Robert Miller wanted to make music his career from the first time he picked up an instrument in high school – but he did not get to fulfil that desire until after he retired. His dreams were deferred by the usual beats of life – a successful career that took him in another direction, family joys and responsibilities, and a crucible in his 40s when he broke his neck in an accident. But in his 60s, he grabbed his guitar and launched his band Project Grand Slam -- and finally felt the rush of playing original songs at festivals and concerts around the word. His success in pursuing his lifelong passion also led him to create his top-rated podcast, Follow Your Dream. To learn more about Robert Miller and Project Grand Slam, visit www.projectgrandslam.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE II: Erik and Emily Orton #111 Apr 12, 2022

We take to the high seas this week with Erik and Emily Orton -- which is where they headed in 2014, after Erik’s dream job as a playwright and theatrical producer came to a crashing halt when his off-Broadway show was closed after only a few performances. The failure left him fearful and rudderless – until his curiosity about sailing became his family’s passion for it and they steered their boat’s rudder on a 5,000 mile journey from New York to the Caribbean. What Erik and Emily learned on the journey, with their five kids sharing the adventure with them, was how to turn worry into wonder and the importance of building confidence, credibility and calm. Those are truths they now teach others through their speaking, writing and coaching. To learn more about Erik and Emily Orton's family adventures and their coaching services, visit www.theawesomefactgory.nyc To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

SECOND-ACT SIGNIFICANCE I: Kari Schwear #110 Apr 05, 2022

In the opening episode of our nine-apart series Second-Act Significance, Kari Schwear recounts how at age 7 she vividly remembers thinking, “Is this all there to life?” – before embarking on a journey of soul-crushing crucibles even as she found success in each of her multiple career stops. But when she grew concerned enough about her “gray-area drinking,” her research into the subject and passion for helping others overcome it launched a second act she is pursuing with absolute gusto – as a life coach who helps her clients overcome the gray areas in all aspects of their lives, from relationships to careers to how they think and talk about themselves. To learn more about Kara Schwear, visit www.graytonic.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources to help you craft a vision for moving beyond your crucible into a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

New Series Trailer: Second-Act Significance Mar 29, 2022

Join us as we launch our newest series, Second-Act Significance, on April 5. It's a nine-part collection of conversations with guests who have gone from dead ends to new beginnings in their lives and careers. If you've ever felt like you were made to pursue and achieve more, to tackle something different that brings your heart alive and benefits others, to use your crucible as a launching pad to a life of fresh significance, you won't want to miss a single episode.

Encourage Others, Heal the World #109 Mar 22, 2022

It's easy to feel discouraged these days. War has broken out in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic is weakened but not gone and our economy continues to struggle. That’s the challenging news. The hopeful news is that the time has never been better to do our part to help each other weather the storms we’re experiencing. And the best place to begin doing that is by encouraging each other. This week, host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the impact and practice of encouragement. You’ll learn the seven key steps to becoming a master encourager, from paying attention to being specific, from giving positive feedback often to always making sure it’s sincere.

To read Warwick's blog on the power of encouragement, and to order his Wall Street Journal bestseller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

Building Sharp Women and a Significant Life: Kelly Sayre #108 Mar 15, 2022

Kelly Sayre thought she was traveling the perfect career path, not making much money but making great impact helping a coaching entrepreneur run a business that focused on empowering women. The boss had brought her on with the promise of her taking over one day -- but then it all went wrong in a way Sayre never saw coming. Suddenly unemployed and thousands of dollars in debt, she allowed herself to mourn only briefly before carving out a new calling all her own. As the founder and president of The Diamond Arrow Group and author of the bestseller SHARP WOMEN: EMBRACE YOUR INTUITION, BUILD YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND LIVE LIFE UNAFRAID, she equips women to avoid physical threats as well as relational and professional harm like she experienced.

To learn more about Kelly Sayre and to order her book, visit www.thediamondarrowgroup.com

To order Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal bestseller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Breaking Free to Thrive: Ben Bennett #107 Mar 08, 2022

Ben Bennett's crucibles were a debilitating mix of negative self-image, mental health issues, addiction and trauma. He found freedom and healing by embracing psychological, neuroscientific and biblical principles to fulfill the deep longings of his heart that had long gone unmet. A speaker, counselor and author, he discusses the eye-opening, lifegiving insights in his latest book, FREE TO THRIVE, which journeys step by step through the seven key longings of every human soul.

To learn more about Ben Bennett, visit www.resolutionmovement.org

To order Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal bestseller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Embrace Innovation to Make Your Vision a Reality #106 Mar 01, 2022

You know Walt Disney, the guy who invented Mickey Mouse and created the modern theme park. You've heard of Reed Hastings, who grew Netflix from a DVD subscription service to an Oscar-winning film studio. And, of course, there's Steve Jobs, inventor of the Mac and iPhone. But do you know they all started out with visions much smaller than the heights they would someday reach? Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss in this episode why you shouldn’t be intimidated by the inventiveness of these and other great visionaries. You should follow their example and achieve your own dreams rooted in your vision and talents. How? Start with an idea, fuel it with your passion and then just try something. Those are the first three steps of eight unpacked here and in Warwick’s latest blog.

To read Warwick's blog and to order his Wall Street Journal bestseller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

How To Love Your Life Today: Emily Harman #105 Feb 22, 2022

Retired naval officer Emily Harman accomplished many things in her career, but realized after she retired that the one thing she hadn’t done was understanding what she truly loved to do. She was so focused on achievement that she had no idea what brought her satisfaction and could bring her significance. But she’s turned that around by taking a deep inner journey that has unlocked emotions she neglected most of her life, and opened up a new career as a podcast host and life coach. Her focus? Helping women create a life they’ll love living today. To learn more about Emily Harman and her business and podcast, Onward Movement, visit www.emilyharman.com To order Warwick Fairfax's Wall Street Journal bestseller CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Don't Waste the Pain: Dennis Gillan #104 Feb 15, 2022

Giving his pain a purpose was the lesson this week’s guest, Dennis Gillan, learned when he took his tentative first steps as a suicide prevention speaker – as a man whose two brothers took their own lives 11 years apart. Gillan shares the devastation he experienced in the aftermath of his brothers’ suicides – but also the strength and hope he’s found by embracing what he’s discovered is the call on his life: to inspire others to how to use the trauma of their crucibles to live lives of significance. The one practical tip you want to make extra sure you listen for? The Purple File. To learn more about Dennis Gillan and his nonprofit the Half a Sorrow Foundation, visit www.halfasorrow.org To order Warwick Fairfax's book CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Warrior Entrepreneur: Zachary Green #103 Feb 08, 2022

Zachary Green’s life story is the stuff of movies – a stint in the Marines that taught him survival skills he used beyond the battlefield, creating a successful business where the crucibles came early and often, then being laid so low by COVID-19 that he thought his life would end. But it did not. And neither did his dreams. He compiled the truths and tactics he learned from his military and business experiences – successes and failures alike – into WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, his best-selling book that offers readers insight and inspiration to defeat the devastation of crucible experiences and turn them into the fuel for a life of significance. To learn more about Zachary Green and his book, WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, visit www.warriorentrepreneurbook.com To order Warwick Fairfax's book CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Finding Beauty in the Broken: 7 Strategies to Unfreeze Your Identity #102 Feb 01, 2022

Have you ever felt like that a failure or misstep or somebody else’s judgment is still following you around? That your identity, in a very real way, has been frozen in time? BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss Warwick's new blog that spotlights how to turn a heat lamp – sometimes even a flamethrower – on those frozen negative perceptions from the past that can stick to us in the present and threaten our future. They discuss several steps you can take to restore your true identity, from recognizing your life matters, to dealing with the lies spoken over you; from forgiving yourself and others to embracing the beauty in your brokenness and using it as fuel for your unique life of significance.

To read Warwick's blog on overcoming "frozen identity," visit www.crucibleleadership.com. You can also purchase his Wall Street Journal best-selling book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, from the website.

Find Deep Gladness in Gratitude: Jeff Caliguire #101 Jan 25, 2022

Jeff Caliguire thought he was a victim when the vocational path he chose as a pastor left him lonely, depressed and lacking authentic friendships. It wasn't until he hit emotional bottom that he found his way forward, through finding the blessings in even challenging circumstances and allowing them to transform his thinking. Today, he's a life and leadership coach offering clients a safe space to express their doubts and frustrations about life's inevitable challenges and work on the care of their souls through finding gratitude even in difficulty. That's the pathway, he has discovered, to a life of significance for all of us – a life in which, as he puts it, we find our deep gladness and apply it to the world’s deep need. To learn more about Jeff Caliguire, visit www.jeffcaliguire.com To order Warwick Fairfax's book CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

DRUNK, SOBER, SAVED: Gary Schneeberger #100 Jan 18, 2022

Have you ever found yourself laid so low by a personal struggle that satisfaction starts to seep out of your life? Have you pondered ending the pain permanently? That's the story of Gary Schneeberger -- the show's cohost who steps into the guest chair this week for BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE's 100th episode. He and Warwick talk in detail about how alcoholism upended his journalism career and could have ended his life. But he found hope in AA, which led him to seek forgiveness from those he had hurt -- forgiveness that, little by little, he was able to extend to himself as he embraced faith in God. He also discusses the Hollywood dream job he lost just after he turned 50 – and how that crucible has actually been a springboard to a dream life with a new family and a new business ... and renewed significance. To learn more about Gary Schneeberger, visit www.weroar.la

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Scale Up Your Significance: Nick Bradley #99 Jan 11, 2022

It takes quite a bit of pent-up, anxious energy to grind your teeth so violently that they shatter in your mouth. But that’s just what Nick Bradley did. More surprising yet, he says that moment of terrible physical pain brought on by equally terrible emotional pain was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Bradley says what he calls "the teeth incident" was the outward manifestation of his inner turmoil as a successful businessman who had discovered his high achievements came at the price of low fulfillment. So he changed the trajectory of his life. He started a business consultancy and launched the Scale Up Your Business Podcast to help clients and listeners be grateful, be brave, be faithful and show up for work and for life in ways that bring them satisfaction and significance beyond the bottom line. To learn more about Nick Bradley and his podcast, now called SCALE UP WITH NICK BRADLEY, visit www.suybacademy.com

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

True Connection's Healing Power: David Richman No. 98 Jan 04, 2022

David Richman hasn’t just taken a day to walk in others’ shoes. He’s spent hours, and miles, and months, getting to know the stories, the fears, the hopes and the lessons learned from men and women whose lives have been touched by the ravages of cancer. In his book, CYCLE OF LIVES, he chronicles his interviews with 15 people whose crucible encounters with cancer vary from patient, to doctor, to loved ones. In each interaction he has a singular goal: truly providing them a safe space to talk about the roiling emotions they experience in the aftermath of diagnosis. What he’s learned is that deep meaning and emotional healing can be born in those moments of vulnerability – even if physical healing isn’t part of the equation. To learn more about David Richman and to buy CYCLE OF LIVES (all proceeds go to cancer charities), visit www.cycleoflives.org To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Hope Revisited: Building a Legacy That Lasts...and Inspires #97 Dec 28, 2021

In this episode from February 2020, which we’re running in its entirety as we approach the new year and the personal reflection that always accompanies it, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick and cohost Gary Schneeberger explore practical ways we can live today in a manner that leaves a legacy that outlives us well into tomorrow. The key, you’ll discover, is pursuing your career and caring for your family with the kind of character you want to define you in life ... and beyond. "If it matters to you on your deathbed," Warwick notes, "why not get a head start and do something about your legacy now?" To order Warwick's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Hope Revisited: Michelle Kuei on Finding the Diamond Inside #96 Dec 21, 2021

Michelle Kuei never really had a chance to dream about what her life could be before a tragic car accident at 11 in her native Taiwan left her with physical and emotional scars that plagued her for 30 years. She just wanted to be normal, she said in this interview first aired in May 2020. But then she discovered she was more than normal, finding inside herself what she says we all have inside of us – a diamond just waiting to shine. And shining is exactly what Michelle Kuei is doing today through her thriving coaching and speaking practice, Elevate Life Coaching. To learn more about Michelle Kuei, visit https://elevatelifecoaching.org/

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Count Your Blessings, Capture Significance #95 Dec 14, 2021

This has been a banner year for Crucible Leadership, so founder Warwick Fairfax discusses his gratitude for all that’s happened in 2021 – from the release of his book, to some life-changing insights from our podcast guests, to his excitement – mixed with a little surprise – over the appreciative reception he’s experienced on the first leg of his speaking tour. Why are we taking the time to revisit the highlights of the past 12 months? Because Warwick believes gratitude is one of the most important keys to unlocking a life of significance – and rocket fuel for tackling new opportunities to propel ourselves forward for the next 12 months.

To order Warwick's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Leveraging Life's Hinge Moments: Michael Lindsay #94 Dec 07, 2021

Think of "hinge moments," the subject of Taylor University President Michael Lindsay's recent book, as cousins to crucible experiences. Lindsay has discovered in interviews with some of today’s greatest leaders that how we react to those moments in life when doors either open or close – hence the hinge metaphor – determines how successful we’ll be in charting our course to a life of significance. The key, he says, is keeping our metaphorical hinges in good working order. To learn more about Michael Lindsay, visit www.taylor.edu

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Significance is the Best Success: Dean Niewolny #93 Nov 30, 2021

Most of the time, we define crucible experiences as setbacks and failures. But can success be its own crucible? Dean Niewolny didn't think so as he climbed the corporate ladder in his financial-services career. He was focused on not just keeping up with the Joneses, but surpassing them. He had the corner office, the multiple homes, the plane … but he also had a gnawing sense there was more. That he wasn’t living his calling. That changed when he got involved with the Halftime Institute, which helps men and women look beyond their life’s bottom line to its impact. He’s served the organization as an executive and captured the insights of his work helping others live with legacy in mind in his book TRADE UP: HOW TO MOVE FROM JUST MAKING MONEY TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE. To learn more about Dean Niewolny, visit https://halftimeinstitute.org/team/speakers/dean-niewolny/

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

A Mountainous Achievement: Jason Hardrath #92 Nov 16, 2021

Jason Hardrath has spent his fair share of time in what he calls “the pain cave.” That’s where he developed the skills and perseverance to compete as an elite triathlete – and also where he found himself when a rollover accident that ejected him from the car left his body broken, ending his dream of winning an IRONMAN title. But the crash didn’t steal Jason’s goals – it only changed them. He poured his athletic prowess and passion into mountain climbing, a sport he could pursue at a championship level even with the toll his injuries had taken on his body. And he’s wound up making history in the sport by setting a record you won’t believe in a way that’s even more unbelievable.

To order Warwick Fairfax's book -- CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE -- and explore other resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Embracing Authenticity #91 Nov 15, 2021

Being authentic is not easy; in fact it is hard. So how do you develop that kind of mature authenticity? And what are the benefits when you do? Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the key building blocks of an authentic life – from having an anchor for your soul to finding true friends, from putting yourself in the environment that fits who you are to doing what you’re good at and passionate about. And be sure to listen for an excerpt from the just-released audio version of Warwick’s book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance about why authenticity is so hard, but also so essential, in moving beyond setbacks and failures in business and in life. To order Warwick's book, and explore other Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

It Didn't Happen To You, It Happened For You: James Kelley #90 Nov 02, 2021

How could viewing your crucible not as something that happened to you, but something that happened for you, change the way you chart a course for moving beyond it? This week you’ll hear from James Kelley, author of THE CRUCIBLE’S GIFT, who discusses with Warwick how setbacks and failures can be a catalyst to increase self-awareness, live with greater integrity and develop deeper compassion – for others, yes, but also for ourselves. To learn more about James Kelley, visit www.qchange.com/

To order Warwick Fairfax's book CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Forgiving His Mom's Killer: Chris Singleton #89 Oct 26, 2021

Chris Singleton's young life changed in a horrifying instant in 2015, when his mother was shot to death along with eight others in the Mother Emmanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Singleton made headlines nationwide in the days after the tragedy when he announced he had forgiven the shooter – a white supremacist who targeted the predominantly African-American congregation in the hopes of starting a race war. Singleton has dedicated himself since then to emphatically, dramatically denying the killer’s twisted hope – speaking coast to coast about the power of forgiveness, inclusion and getting to know, understand and love those who look and think differently than we do. To learn more about Chris Singleton, visit www.chrissingleton.com To order Warwick Fairfax's book CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and to explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Crucible Leadership: The Book That Almost Wasn't #88 Oct 19, 2021

It's taken Warwick Fairfax more than 30 years to write his book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and have it published. Why such a long time? He explains this week in conversation with cohost Gary Schneeberger that losing control of his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty in a takeover bid that ultimately failed at a cost of $2.25 billion was too painful for too long to relive on paper – or a computer’s hard drive. But his perspective began to shift after he gave a speech at church about the lessons his trial taught him – and those who heard it told him for months afterward how much hope his story of moving beyond his crucible gave them. He explores circumstances and emotions he's never discussed publicly before as he walks listeners through the process that led to the book now being available on brick-and-mortar and virtual bookshelves all across the globe. To order CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and explore other helpful resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com.

Warwick's New Book: Listen All About It #87 Oct 12, 2021

In advance of the Oct. 19 release of host Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, he and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the key building blocks inside its pages. You’ll hear helpful, hopeful details -- from Warwick's own journey and the stories of some of history's greatest leaders -- about the importance of embracing your crucible, discovering your purpose, crafting your vision and leading and living with impact. You'll also get your first extended glimpse into why CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP has been called "equal parts memoir and master class," "moving and vulnerable," "a gift" and "a must for all leaders" filled with "nuggets of leadership gold." To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Living From Your Inner Genius: Dov Baron #86 Oct 05, 2021

Have you ever thought your life would be grand if … fill in the blank? Dov Baron helps people move beyond those if-onlys. A best-selling author and one of the nation’s leading authorities on meaning-driven leadership, he speaks no-nonsense truths to empower clients and audiences to live their purpose, share their inner genius and not –as he puts it – disenfranchise the parts of themselves that are critical to leading lives of significance. “Most people’s pain,” he tells us, “is hidden by our success.” And that hiding place, he explains, is where crucibles often cause the most damage. He knows from experience, having survived a brutal fall while rock climbing that shattered the bones in his face and almost shattered his soul. To learn more about Dov Baron, visit www.dovbaron.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Harnessing Resilience VI: What is Resilience, Anyway? #85 Sep 28, 2021

As we wrap up six weeks of exploring what resilience is and how to build it, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and co-host Gary Schneeberger discuss the insights and inspiration offered by guests Stacey Copas, Katie Foulkes, Heather Kampf, Lucy Westlake and Dr. Craig Dowden. Among the wisdom and practical action steps they offered that are discussed in depth here:

Resilience is a skill that can be learned just like building muscle in the gym.
If you have access to the resources you need to meet the challenges you’re facing, you’ll be more resilient.
You never know when your greatest obstacle will become your greatest opportunity.
Failure is inevitable. How you react to it is what matters.
Avoidance is a roadblock to resilience.

To listen to each episode in the series, visit https://crucibleleadership.com/podcast/

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Harnessing Resilience V: Craig Dowden #84 Sep 21, 2021

Dr. Craig Dowden describes his coaching practice as bridging the gap between what science knows and what leaders do. What science has found, he says, is that harnessing resilience is two-part process: first, finding our way back to baseline – i.e., where we were before our crucible hit; and second, charting a course to move beyond that point. To not merely bounce back, but bounce forward. "We as human beings," he tells us research has shown time and again, "are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for." To learn more about Dr. Craig Dowden and his research on resilience and positive leadership, visit www.craigdowden.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Harnessing Resilience IV: Lucy Westlake #83 Sep 14, 2021

Seventeen-year-old Lucy Westlake is an accomplished mountain climber (she started at age 7) who is the youngest female to have ascended the highest peaks in all 50 U.S. states. But you can’t have a peak without a valley – and Lucy also describes the low points she’s faced in learning this resonant truth: the ideal way to build resilience is overcoming small failures, so that when the big ones come – and they will -- we have a reservoir of grit to keep climbing. To learn more about Lucy Westlake, visit www.lucywestlake.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Harnessing Resilience III: Heather Kampf #82 Sep 07, 2021

It was a moment seen by tens of millions of people across the globe thanks to a viral video: Heather Kampf falling during the final lap of an 800-meter race in college, then springing to her feet to not just catch her competition, but win. Yet Kampf cautions those amazed by her triumph to take a deeper message away from her 2008 feat than "Never give up." What fueled her miraculous comeback was having a vision for the race long before it started and sticking to that vision when the crucible came. What she discovered about herself during that final lap -- and in the setbacks and struggles before and since -- is that her faith gives her access to another gear critical to harnessing resilience on and off the track. You can watch Heather Kampf's remarkable fall-and-finish during the 2008 Big 10 Track Championships by watching the video in this news story: www.bit.ly/harnessingresilience1. You can also follow the now-retired Kampf's post-running career on Instagram at @heatherraekampf To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com And don't miss part 4 of "Harnessing Resilience" with guest Lucy Westlake, debuting Sept. 14.

Harnessing Resilience II: Katie Foulkes #81 Aug 31, 2021

Katie Foulkes had to harness resilience as a member of Australia's Olympic rowing team in 2004. After one of her teammates stopped rowing during the race, the outrage that erupted (the country's prime minister called the team "UnAustralian") rocked her to her core. Now a leadership coach who researches what builds resilience, she's found it's about more than just digging deep within yourself. It also requires casting wide outside yourself -- calling on the resources around you to help you survive your crucible and thrive beyond it. To learn more about Katie Foulkes, her research and her leadership coaching practice, visit www.katiefoulkes.org To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com And don't miss part 3 of "Harnessing Resilience" with guest Heather Kampf, debuting Sept. 7.

Harnessing Resilience I: Stacey Copas #80 Aug 24, 2021

What Stacey Copas knows about resilience was born of tragedy: A diving accident at 12 left her a quadriplegic whose spirit was in tatters. But she turned a corner emotionally when she realized "we connect with other people through our adversity, not our success." Today, in her writing, speaking and coaching, she shares how resilience is a skill that can be learned just like building muscle in the gym. To learn more about Stacey Copas, visit www.staceycopas.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com And don't miss part 2 of "Harnessing Resilience" with guest Katie Foulkes, debuting Aug. 31.

Repairing a Damaged Reputation: Jennifer Cunningham #79 Aug 10, 2021

Benjamin Franklin once said it takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it. Jennifer Cunningham has learned and teaches others that you have to keep your eyes on the values that matter to you as you look to bounce back from a crucible that leaves you feeling defeated and humiliated. The key is to apply the lessons from that painful experience to help repair your good name. For more information about Jennifer Cunningham, visit www.reputationrepaircoach.com.

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Good Counsel from Bad Widow: Alison Pena #78 Aug 03, 2021

You can't reverse great loss any more than you can undo failure and setback, but you can move beyond every crucible you face with your heart full and your head held high. Alison Pena has moved past losing her husband to cancer to lead a full and rewarding life rooted in identifying and embracing the blessings still available to her. It's a strategy she shares with clients as Bad Widow -- the name she gave herself because of her refusal to be boxed in by society's expectations. To learn more about Alison Pena, visit www.badwidow.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

Kindness, Dignity and Respect: Your Leadership Superpowers #77 Jul 27, 2021

Do you have a good handle on the values that guide your life and work? The character traits you admire in others and try to manifest yourself? Or do you find such talk "airy-fairy” – nebulous nonsense with no practical application to your business and your relationships? Listen in and discover how dialing into your values and treating others with kindness, dignity and respect as a result is far from airy-fairy – it’s critical to team morale (including your own) and the robustness of your bottom line. BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax discusses with cohost Gary Schneeberger seven key tactics to make sure you are not unkind in your interactions. What begins in the moorings of your values branches out into such wise pursuits as living your legacy today, serving others and a higher purpose and knowing when and how to apologize. Putting these insights into action will aid you in moving beyond your crucible … and living and leading with significance.

To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, including Warwick's blog on which this week's episode is based, visit www.crucibleleadership.com.

Battling Chaos, Crisis and Change: Gina L. Osborn #76 Jul 20, 2021

Are you tolerating something in your life that is leading to chaos and crisis … and causing or at least giving oxygen to the crucibles you’re facing? It could be something you’re thinking that’s tripping you up … or something someone else is doing that’s holding you back. Discover how to master your mindset from Gina L. Osborn, an Army veteran and former FBI special agent who knows firsthand that crises can be managed and chaos can be controlled even though change is inevitable. From establishing and living from your core values to creating boundaries, from calling for backup when you need it and avoiding those vision-killing tolerations…she offers practical action steps to help you chart your unique path to a life of significance. To learn more about Gina L. Osborn, visit www.ginalosborn.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visitwww.crucibleleadership.com

How Bosses Can Boost Team Mental Health: Michelle Dickinson #75 Jul 13, 2021

How you think and what you feel as you move beyond your crucible is critical. It's just as important, in fact, as what actions you take to get past it. Michelle Dickinson shares this truth as a corporate well-being strategist. She and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder, Warwick Fairfax, discuss the lessons she's learned about resilience from growing up with a bipolar mother. She also shares what she teaches executives about addressing the mental-health challenges faced by their employees. Millions of us are working to create a new normal after the myriad setbacks and traumas of the COVID-19 pandemic. That's why, she says, we need to be extended the grace – and give it to ourselves – to realize we are stronger than any circumstance we face. To learn more about Michelle Dickinson, visit www.careforyourpeople.com

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Forget Success; Aim to Win Instead: Shawn Harper #74 Jul 06, 2021

Shawn Harper has learned from his crucibles – which include extreme poverty as a boy, suffering from learning disabilities and being kicked out of two schools – that the only way to move beyond those challenges is to move through them. What he discovered on the journey changed his life – leading first to an NFL football career and now professional fulfillment as a business owner and sought-after motivational speaker. But don’t call him a success. That’s a word and a pursuit, he says, that’s rooted in image, not reality. It’s something you chase but never achieve. So for Harper the goal is winning, which he defines as pouring yourself into your hopes and dreams and making a difference in the lives of others where and when you can. In Crucible Leadership terms, that means living a life of significance. To learn more about Shawn Harper, visit www.shawnharper.org To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Forgiveness is Key to Moving Beyond Your Crucible #73 Jun 22, 2021

Have you suffered setback and failure? Then you probably have struggled with anger and maybe bitterness as you think of those who contributed to your pain. In this episode, Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax discusses with cohost Gary Schneeberger the critical need to forgive those who have wronged us (or even ourselves) in order to move past our crucibles and toward a life of significance. Warwick lays out seven steps you can begin practicing today to cultivate what he calls the noble character to practice forgiveness. From understanding the difference between forgiving someone and condoning their actions, to channeling your pain in more productive ways than being consumed by bitterness, you will walk away from this discussion with practical action steps you can take beginning today to start walking in this truth expressed by Marianne Williamson: “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Finding Power in Pain, Rejecting Shame and Suffering: Andrea Anderson Polk #72 Jun 15, 2021

She knows her childhood was not unique, but that didn't make it any easier for Andrea Anderson Polk to grow up in a dysfunctional family in which feeling safe was hard to come by even as she tried to protect her younger siblings from emotional trauma. The crucibles she endured made her question both her faith and the therapy her parents underwent to try, unsuccessfully, to improve their family life. It wasn't until she embraced her relationship with God that she took the journey to become a therapist herself -- and today she helps clients realize their pain can be the source of their greatest power. The key, she has discovered through her counseling practice, is focusing on what you treasure … because in pursuing and embracing those things you will find your purpose and calling while avoiding shame and suffering.

To learn more about Andrea Anderson, visit www.andreaandersonlpc.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and preorder Warwick's book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trial to Live a Life of Significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Real Leaders Embrace Their Calling: Kevin Edwards #71 Jun 08, 2021

How do you find purpose in your life and work that allows you to create a legacy that stretches beyond the bottom line of balance sheets and the showy flash of corporate perks? Kevin Edwards, host of the Real Leaders podcast, has discovered through hundreds of interviews with high-powered high achievers – interviews that date back to college – that one of the greatest crucibles most face is settling for success and not pursuing significance. The antidote? Finding a calling that allows you to do good for others even as you do well for yourself. To learn more about Kevin Edwards' podcast and Real Leaders, visit www.real-leaders.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and preorder Warwick's book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, visit www.crucibleleaderrship.com

When He Stopped Chasing Success, He Found Significance: John Sikkema #70 Jun 01, 2021

John Sikkema had it all. Except peace. Having carved out successful careers in insurance sales and finance, he felt in his 40's that his life was careening out of control. Soon his car was, too. It was the combination of the accident he was surprised he survived, and the damage his obsession with making money was doing to his marriage and his faith, that led him to something better than the bottom line. When he heard a message at church about pursuing a greater purpose, one that involved serving others, he began a journey to the kind of joy money absolutely cannot buy. Today, as chairman of Halftime Australia, an executive coaching and mentoring organization, he helps other business leaders build lives of significance in the next act of their careers. To learn more about John Sikkema and Halftime Australia, visit www.halftime.org.au. The organization also has a U.S. branch: www.halftime.org To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and preorder Warwick's book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

7 Keys to Caring for Your Team As You Pursue Your Vision #69 May 25, 2021

How do you maintain the delicate balance between pursuing a vision that you are passionate about and treating well the men and women who are sharing that journey with you? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax unpacks practical tips to follow in this conversation with co-host Gary Schneeberger. From keeping your ego in check … to focusing on the process, not on chasing an outcome … from making sure team members know you value them as much as you value your vision … to walking the talk so they believe it, they lay out a roadmap to both bouncing back from past crucibles and avoiding future ones. To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order Warwick's book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com.

Piano Keys Keyed His Triumph Over His Crucible: Wael Farouk #68 May 18, 2021

Despite being born with small hands and shortened ligaments that left him unable to even hold a cup as a boy, Wael Farouk has diligently – some would say miraculously -- carved out a career as a celebrated concert pianist. This spring, in fact, he performed Rachmaninoff's piano concerti Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in one evening -- the first time the prodigious musical feat has been done. Farouk lives and works in Wisconsin, where he is an assistant professor of piano and director of the Keyboard Studies at Carthage College in Kenosha. In this conversation with Warwick, Farouk explains how he has embraced his physical limitations, and endured the crucible of religious persecution as a Coptic Christian in his native Egypt, because of his strong belief that it is through what he calls “rough waters” that he improves and progresses.

To learn more about Wael Farouk, visit www.waelfarouk.com. To purchase tickets to a streaming recording of his Rachmaninoff performance, visit https://www.atthemac.org/events/np-rachmaninoff/ To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Can a Life of Significance Be the Fountain of Youth? Marta Zaraska #67 May 11, 2021

We’ve all heard that living with your purpose top of mind – what we at Crucible Leadership call a life of significance – leads to a more joyful and impactful life. But did you know it also can lead to a longer life? Author Marta Zaraska makes an eye-opening case for that truth in her best-seller, Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 – a book steeped in science (she studied more than 600 research papers in her research) that points to the health benefits of living life in community and in service to others. That means those steps you're taking to overcome your crucibles -- deepening authentic relationships, growing in character and kindness, leaning into the power of meditation and prayer -- can lower your mortality rate more effectively than a fad diet or obsessing over whether you're getting your 10,000 steps in every day. To learn more about Marta Zaraska and Growing Young, visit www.zaraska.com To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

How He Grasped Hope and Found Healing After Paralysis: Chris Leeuw #66 May 04, 2021

Chris Leeuw had his entire life ahead of him -- and it looked very bright. A self-described "adrenaline junkie," he reveled in outdoor activities like water-skiing and kayaking and loved his job in local TV news. It all changed in a tragic instant. Chris, at 28, was paralyzed from the neck down in a freak recreational diving accident -- and thought he'd never walk or be able to care for himself again. But despite the physical and financial crucibles he faced, he refused to give up. Chris let every physical sensation he began to feel again fuel his drive to pursue the most cutting-edge treatment and rehabilitation -- and work tirelessly to achieve the healing he once dared not imagine was possible. Now, just more than a decade later, he has regained much of his mobility and something just as life-changing: a passion for helping others with spinal-cord injuries via the nonprofit rehabilitation center he founded. To learn more about Chris Leeuw, visit www.neurohopewellness.org To explore Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

How to Tap into Your Soul to Find Significance #65 Apr 27, 2021

Your soul is the you that you don't have to think about, where your essence, your truest self, lives. But how do you discover what your soul reveals about you? More importantly, how can drawing on the insights you find there help you bounce back from a crucible and lead a life of significance? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger take a deep dive into those questions, offering up 7 ways to live with your soul top of mind. The beliefs, values and passions you find there, Warwick says, will allow you to begin living your legacy today. To learn more about The One Thing Core Values Deck discussed in this episode, visit www.the1thing.com/shop/corevaluesdeck/

To explore additional Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

The Power of Purpose: John Ramstead #64 Apr 20, 2021

Some people may look at John Ramstead's life and say he’s lost a lot. Crucibles cost him his dream of being a Top Gun fighter pilot, almost ruined him professionally and financially and nearly killed him in an accident that led to dozens of surgeries over two years -- and still left him with physical challenges. Yet Ramstead, an in-demand leadership coach and successful podcast host, says those "losses" helped him find the most important things in his life: his faith and his purpose. He recounts it all in his new book On Purpose, With Purpose: Discovering How to Live Your Best Life -- which offers readers insights and action steps to find the true north essential to navigating the journey of their lives. To learn more about John Ramstead and his book, visit www.beyondinfluence.com To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Build Your Resilience: Taryn Marie Stejskal #63 Apr 13, 2021

Adversity, Taryn Marie Stejskal says, is a trip we take. Resilience paves the road we walk to move beyond it. As one of the foremost international experts on building and exercising resilience in business and in life, Stejskal has crafted the Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People through exhaustive research into the subject ... and informed by her harrowing experience of being stalked in high school by a man who eventually assaulted another victim. It's not the absence of crucibles that determines our future, she tells Warwick, but what we learn from them and how we apply that wisdom. Learn more about Stejskal and her practical and empirical insights into resilience by visiting www.resilience-leadership.com or her Facebook page (@drtarynmarie) and her Instagram account (@drtarynmarie).

To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Becoming Unbreakable -- Gregory Robinson #62 Apr 06, 2021

Gregory Robinson's crucibles piled up in his youth: raised without a father, kicked out of the house at 16, eking out a day-to-day existence swiping soap from restaurants to wash up and making ends meet hustling pool while flopping with other boys from hardscrabble backgrounds. But his life began to turn around after a stint in juvenile detention set him on a path to get a job, join the military and build the responsibility and resilience that has led him to help others employ the principles that have made him The Unbreakable Man. The key, he says, is to never let defeat you.

To learn more about Gregory Robinson, visit www.theunbreakableman.live To explore additional Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Don't Aim to Be the GOAT, Just Be the Best You #61 Mar 23, 2021

The Greatest of All Time. Shorthand, GOAT -- especially in sports contexts. But the single-minded pursuit of being the best (fill in the blank) in your sphere of influence can invade your professional and personal life, too. And when it does, it can be dangerous. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax talks with cohost Gary Schneeberger about why we should avoid chasing GOATdom – and, more importantly, how to do it. Warwick unpacks five insightful steps we can take to decouple our achievements from our identity to help us pursue a life of significance and a legacy we can be proud of. "Truly great leaders," he explains, "don’t focus on their own greatness." To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Hank McLarty: Finding Significance by Embracing Gratitude and Humility #60 Mar 16, 2021

He was, in his own words, an "intense goal-setter" from the third grade. And Hank McLarty achieved most of what he set his mind to a football scholarship to Auburn, a financial services career at prestigious firms, recognition and wealth as one of the youngest and best in his industry. But when he started to "drink the Hank Kool-Aid" and believe he was as fabulous as the press coverage he earned said he was, his world collapsed. Living in a hotel with his two boys for two years, needing its free breakfasts to make ends meet, he slowly began to recast his vision -- away from success and toward significance. Today, he says he's blessed to have found both through Gratus Capital, the firm he founded on the principles of gratitude and humility. To learn more about Hank McLarty and Gratus Capital, visit https://gratuscapital.com/ To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Bryan Price: Building a Curriculum Around Crucibles #59 Mar 09, 2021

Seton Hall University students who attend the Buccino Leadership Institute discover early the value of learning and leveraging the lessons of their crucible experiences. That's because the institute's executive director, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bryan Price, teaches a freshman course in which students share their most painful setbacks and failures with their classmates as a means of building confidence in themselves and camaraderie among their peers. It's leadership authenticity Price learned as captain of the baseball team at West Point -- spotlighting how vulnerability for a purpose pays big dividends in our lives and careers. And the sooner we learn our identity is not tied to what we do but rather to who we are, the better we become at the essential skills of reframing failure and not falling victim to imposter syndrome.

Tracy J. Edmonds: Embrace Your Wild Hair #58 Mar 02, 2021

From the outside looking in, Tracy J. Edmonds' life couldn't have been sweeter: a high-profile executive job with a Fortune 30 company at which she excelled. But on the inside, where she discovered it really counts, her career had come at a high cost because of a self-imposed crucible: not being her authentic self. So she decided to embrace both her figurative and literal wild hair -- trading her corner office for a cubicle and tackling a vision that not only meshed with her gifts and passions but also allowed her to live who she truly was rather than conforming a corporate mold. She's found her life of significance in coaching other women of color that to be the best versions of themselves, they have to be the real versions of themselves. To learn more about Tracy J. Edmonds and her book Wild Hair: A Courageous Woman’s Guide to a Bold and Authentic Career, visit https://tracyjedmonds.com/

To explore more Crucible Leadership resources, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Teamwork Makes a Vision Work #57 Feb 23, 2021

Visionaries who are also mavericks, who prefer to conquer what needs to be conquered as a solo expedition, often find themselves foiled by crucibles that could have been overcome had they taken a team approach. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax unpacks why some leaders reject the aid of a team as they pursue their vision while others embrace tackling a mission together -- and why the latter are usually more successful than the former. Yes, pursuing your vision with a team requires more patience on your part and a willingness to share the credit and let others have a substantive say in the goals you're going after. But the benefits of camaraderie, the right mix of skills needed to get the job done and valuable input that can actually make your vision better while helping make it a reality are more than worth it.

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Johannes Atlas: Believe You Are Enough #56 Feb 16, 2021

He was born with Poland's Syndrome, a rare disease that left his right hand malformed and his muscle development non-existent. But Johannes Atlas was also born to parents who, as he puts it, "refused to baby him." Their support led him to overcome his physical challenges on a variety of sporting fields and his emotional challenges by believing -- as his mom and dad told him often -- he was "enough." Coming under the tutelage of business mentors as a young adult and inspired by his faith, Atlas has launched a growing speaking career and is encouraging others to overcome their own crucibles en route to a life of significance through his Pressing Toward the Mark events. To learn more about Johannes Atlas, visit www.instagram.com/jo_speaks To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Kaley Klemp: Living and Leading with Radical Generosity #55 Feb 09, 2021

What do you do as a thought leader when crucible experiences force you to face that you're a "practice struggler"? That's the situation Kaley Klemp faced when she and her husband, Nate, hit a patch in their marriage so rocky they wondered if it might be the end. But they fought their way back by changing their mindsets from seeking fairness from each other to showing radical generosity to each other. In the process, they applied some of the very team-building skills each had learned in their careers to bolstering their relationship -- a journey they capture in their new book, THE 80-80 MARRIAGE: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship. Kaley explains in this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax that strong marriages, like strong leaders, need ample doses of vulnerability and authenticity. To learn more about Kaley Klemp and The 80-80 Marriage, visit www.kaleyklemp.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Marvin Charles: From Drugs to D.A.D.S #54 Feb 02, 2021

From the tragic beginnings of being orphaned then abused by his guardian uncle, to his adulthood as a crack addict who fathered seven children by five woman, Marvin Charles was an unhappy story just waiting on a sad ending. But then he got sober and embraced God as his anchor -- and dramatically rewrote his destiny. Divine Alternatives for Dads -- D.A.D.S. -- the nonprofit he founded 20 years ago after navigating the legal system to put his family back together, has helped 5,000 men reclaim their roles as fathers and learn the practical and emotional skills to knit their own families back together. For more information about Marvin Charles and D.A.D.S, visit www.aboutdads.org For more information about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Don't See The "Other Side" as Evil #53 Jan 26, 2021

It's no secret we live in a divided world, especially in the U.S. But disagreeing over issues and how best to solve the crucibles we face in our world and communities does not mean those who think differently than us are the enemy or evil. BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax explains the danger in demonizing "the other side” from the comfort of our own echo chambers, and the breakthroughs that can occur if we refuse to judge and commit to listen to and understand the views of those with whom we disagree. Seeking unity, he explains, creates opportunities and growth in our pursuit of lives of significance.

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Ruza Markovic: Strength and Purpose Born of War #52 Jan 19, 2021

Ruza Markovic had dreamt of and studied for a career in journalism -- when war intervened to change the trajectory of her life. While her family had emigrated to the U.S. from their native Yugoslavia when she was just 4, Markovic didn't think twice when she was asked to return to her homeland in the early '90s as a communications liaison to the teetering government while political unrest and then war-ravaged the Balkans. What she saw and experienced, she says, laid barren her faith in country, politics, the media, and herself. Those trials and traumas, though, did not sap her spirit. They steeled her resolve to live her life in service to others -- in part as an advocate for the liberating power of education. To learn more about Ruza Markovic, visit www.proonemedia.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Daniel Harkavy: Building a Champion Perspective #51 Jan 12, 2021

Leadership is not, in Daniel Harkavy's eyes, a complex equation. Its essential elements are the decisions you make and the influence you cultivate. But putting that into practice, especially after a crucible, can certainly be challenging. In his new book, THE 7 PERSPECTIVES OF EFFECTIVE LEADERS, the president of Building Champions unpacks the mindset shifts that remove the either/or restrictions many leaders feel while simultaneously pursuing success and significance. From understanding current reality to crafting a vision rooted in your passions and putting together a team to bring that vision to reality, Harkavy offers a blueprint for pursuing your personal and professional goals with purpose and excellence. For more information on Daniel Haravy and Building Champions, visit www.buildingchampions.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Looking Back to Move Forward #50 Jan 05, 2021

In this special 50th episode of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE, host Warwick Fairfax and co-host Gary Schneeberger take a look back at some of the most powerful guests who have shared the trials and triumphs of not just surviving their crucible experiences but moving beyond them to lead lives of significance. You'll meet inspiring men and women from all walks of life who have overcome physical, emotional, and professional setbacks, failures, and tragedies to live lives on purpose, rooted in their passions and talents. From the Hollywood actor/writer/director whose first film flopped so badly it was almost his last to the young woman selling her gourmet cookies out of her driveway, from the motivational speaker who grabbed the brass ring only to realize it was lead to the former NFL quarterback who couldn't live up to the MVP career of his father but has carved out a post-football calling that helps marriages and families, you'll find hope and healing in these conversations filled with wisdom and vulnerability. To hear any of the full episodes referenced on the show, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Chart Your Own Course to Shake Off the Holiday Blues #49 Dec 22, 2020

It's the most wonderful time of the year, right? Except it doesn't always feel that way. The holidays can bring on some serious emotional crucibles -- from tensions among family members, sadness over those who are no longer with us, even struggling to overcome our disappointment in decisions made by loved ones. That's what BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax faced after a long-ago picture of his late father gave rise to emotions he wasn't expecting. How did he move beyond those feelings? As he discusses in this episode, he focused on the blessings of the present and the opportunities of the future.

Lisa Blair, Part 2: 'How Do I Survive Tonight?' #48 Dec 15, 2020

She set out on a quest to become the first woman to sail solo around Antarctica. But 72 days in, when a horrific storm with waves as high as a two-story building caused her mast to topple and nearly sank her boat, Lisa Blair's journey changed from setting a record to staying alive. In the hours that followed, she called on her months of preparation, all the courage she could muster, and her indefatigable spirit to steady her craft -- then broke off pursuit of the record to head to port in Cape Town, South Africa, for repairs. But she refused to let the myriad and monumental crucibles she'd endured derail her dream. She launched a second run at the record books that secured her a place in nautical history. To learn more about Lisa Blair and her book, Facing Fear, visit www.lisablairsailstheworld.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Lisa Blair, Part 1: Reframing Failure #47 Dec 08, 2020

She's known internationally as the first woman to sail solo around Antartica, a celebrated explorer who fought through unimaginable trials en route to setting her world record. But before she ever stepped foot off dry land, Lisa Blair was a shy, reserved Australian girl bullied at school. She headed off to university determined to shed the mask she wore in high school, and later learned the importance of viewing failure not as falling short, but not trying at all. She found her life's calling when a sailing journey with a friend led her to fall in love with the sea ... and the beauty and adventure it offers. To learn more about Lisa Blair and her book, Facing Fear, visit www.lisablairsailstheworld.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Jeff Kemp: Beating Life's Blitzes #46 Dec 01, 2020

In more than 20 years of playing football, as an amateur and in the NFL, Jeff Kemp was only once earmarked as his team's starting quarterback before the season began. His career never did match that of his legendary dad, AFL standout Jack Kemp -- whose shadow loomed even larger thanks to a distinguished career in politics and public service after he retired from the game. But while Jeff got knocked down a few times, he always got back up. He learned his life had a greater purpose than just achieving, and he's crafted a post-gridiron career helping others huddle up to build stronger marriages, more faith-filled lives, and deeper relationships at home and at the office. For more information about Jeff Kemp and his book, Facing the Blitz: Three Strategies for Turning Trials into Triumphs, visit www.jeffkempteam.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com NOTE: The photographs mentioned in the episode are available to view on the Crucible Leadership Facebook blog page: www.crucibleleadership.com/blog/

Dom Brightmon: Turning Adversity Into Advantage #45 Nov 24, 2020

Life, Dom Brightmon freely admits, can be crappy sometimes. But each of us has the power to flip the switch to "happy" -- the key is to view our crucible experiences as crystal experiences. Through books (like CRAPPY TO HAPPY), public speaking, and working with men and women going through setbacks and failures, Brightmon (a member of the John Maxwell-certified leadership team) is both a teacher and practitioner of the truth that when you advance others, you advance yourself.

To learn more about Dom Brightmon, visit www.DomBrightmon.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Battling Crucible Fatigue - The Power of One Small Step #44 Nov 17, 2020

Moving beyond your crucible is hard work, even harder when the circumstances that knocked you off your feet seem to linger forever. How do you get going again when it feels like your crucible is a bottomless pit, a black hole? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax lays down a roadmap for getting back on track toward a life of significance. "It's not an easy cycle to break when you're at the bottom of your crucible," he says. But it can be done ... if you embrace the power of one small step.

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, and to take the Life of Significance Assessment to help you take your first small step, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Kimberly Spencer: Warrior for Possibility #43 Nov 10, 2020

Her resume is wildly impressive: best-selling author, award-winning screenwriter, successful entrepreneur, celebrated fitness trainer and health activist -- she even won Miss Congeniality at the Miss California USA pageant. But Kimberly Spencer's accomplishments hid her demons -- bulimia, trying to be who others wanted and expected her to be, a victim of emotional self-sabotage. When she realized she had the power to crown herself whole, she stopped breaking off pieces of her personal and professional selves to fit into others' boxes. That revelation has led to a career as an internationally acclaimed speaker and high-performance coach who helps audiences and clients reassemble the diamonds within and build lives of joy and significance.

For more information about Kimberly Spencer, visit www.crownyourself.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up to receive regular updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Whitney-Singletary-White: The Right Ingredients for Significance #42 Nov 03, 2020

She baked her first batch of cookies in the California sun at age 3 -- with mud as the secret ingredient. Ever since that day, Whitney Singletary-White has dreamed of being a baker, and she's made that dream come true with her gourmet Nuttin' Butter Cookies. She sells the exotic nut-butter confections from her driveway these days, rising above the crucible of the COVID-19 pandemic with the same kind of grit that saw her fightback from a brutal assault that almost cost her much more than her business. Her motivation through it all? Building a life of significance with her two boys.

To learn more about Whitney Singletary-White, visit www.nuttinbuttercookies.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular email updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Sheila Heen: Defusing Difficult Conversations #41 Oct 27, 2020

We know them when we're in them. Or avoiding them. Uncomfortable conversations when it feels like one wrong word -- or even one right word expressed wrongly -- can explode like a hand grenade. But we can avoid the detonation and destruction, Harvard Negotiation Project and Harvard Law School lecturer Sheila Heen explain in unpacking the insights and action items in her books Difficult Conversations and Thanks for the Feedback. The key, she says, is recognizing that in tough conversations we're speaking words but exchanging emotions.

Vulnerability is Strength When Done for a Purpose #40 Oct 20, 2020

Want to be a leader known as strong, confident, honest, transparent, and secure? The vulnerability can pave your way to all those adjectives -- if you employ it wisely. Host Warwick Fairfax discusses with co-host Gary Schneeberger the helpful and the not-so-helpful ways you can be open about yourself. When vulnerability works, they explain, it can help your team members weather crucibles they're going through today -- and inoculate them against those yet to come.

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, and to sign up to receive regular email updates, visit CrucibleLeadership.com

Ryan Campbell: Piloting Past Paralysis #39 Oct 13, 2020

At 19, Ryan Campbell became the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world. Two years later, a horrific plane crash threatened more than the dream he birthed at 6 to make a life and a living streaking through the skies. Left a paraplegic after the accident, he fought back physically and emotionally to walk -- and hope -- again. Today, he's an in-demand motivational speaker who inspires audiences to build a mindset toolbox to conquer their crucibles.

To learn more about Ryan Campbell, visit www.RyanCampbell.co

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up to receive regular e-mail updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Adom Appiah: Never Too Young to Change the World #38 Oct 06, 2020

In 8th grade, after dreaming for years of competing in the finals of the National Spelling Bee, Adom Appiah got knocked out of the competition early. Instead of wallowing in the disappointment of that crucible, though, he turned his attention to consoling the other kids who had also fallen short. That's just one example of how this 16-year-old -- author of two books and founder of the fundraising nonprofit Ball4Good -- is living a life of significance and already focused on building a legacy of service to others.

To learn more about Adom Appiah and Ball4Good, visit www.Ball4Good.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular email updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Cami Smalley: Self-Care in the Midst of Crucibles #37 Sep 29, 2020

It's hard enough to get through failures and setbacks -- we only make them worse by beating ourselves up or trying to move past them too quickly. Author and wellness coach Cami Smalley stresses the importance of looking at crucibles through the lens of our strengths and being intentional about taking mindful pauses to fuel our recovery and build resilience.

Battling Perfectionism -- #36 Sep 22, 2020

It can make a professional paper cut feel like a full-fledged crucible. It leaves you wondering why you and your work are never good enough. But perfectionism, for all its insidiousness, can be overcome. Show yourself some grace, find the humor in your missteps, and realize that good enough usually is, in fact, good enough.

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, and to sign up to receive regular email updates and insights, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Joseph Badarocco: Lead Quietly, Reflect Regularly -- #35 Sep 15, 2020

There never seems to be enough time to finish all your work -- let alone think about it, especially when crucibles hit. Harvard Business School professor Joseph Badarocco says that's because we view reflection all wrong. It doesn't need to be a mountaintop experience, he writes in his new book, Step Back: How to Bring the Art of Reflection into Your Busy Life. It can be a mosaic pursuit, one you find time for in the margins of your life -- while driving, exercising, doing household chores. He also discusses an earlier book, Leading Quietly, spotlighting the benefits of not always aiming to be the hero in your leadership.

Toni Munoz Kaufman: Living with Joy Amid Health, Job Crises #34 Sep 08, 2020

She had a great corporate job, doing what she felt called and equipped to do. Then Toni Munoz Kaufman contracted SARS, which nearly killed her and did cost her a lung. As she recovered, she was laid off. But her joyous spirit and wisdom passed down from her father pushed her to persevere and help other Baby Boomers overcome their crucibles as entrepreneurs.

To learn more about Toni Kaufman, visit www.tonikaufman.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular e-mail updates, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Dr. Suzy Green: The Power of Positive Psychology -- #33 Aug 25, 2020

Understanding what science has to say about learning the lessons of a crucible experience -- from reframing what happened to embrace forgiveness -- can be an overlooked key to moving past the pain and toward healing and significance

To learn more about Dr. Suzy Green, visit www.thepositivityinstitute.com.au/ To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up to receive regular updates, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

The Perils of 'Heroic Leadership' -- #32 Aug 18, 2020

Heroic leaders like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln get movies made about them -- just like superheroes such as Batman and Captain America. But the rousing triumphs that echo through history, or comic books, aren't the whole story -- or even sometimes the best story. Quietness, patience and humility are key qualities of success and significance even for great leaders.

To learn more about CrucibleLeadership and sign up to receive regular email updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com.

Chris Tuff: Finding Significance by Redefining Success -- #31 Aug 11, 2020

His big-deal career and its big-money perks left him unsatisfied. So he stopped viewing success as outperforming others and started serving others. Today he's the best-selling author of The Millennial Whisperer and making a lasting impact on the leaders of tomorrow.

To learn more about Chris Tuff, visit www.22squared.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership/com

Sarah Nannen: Lean Into Your Pain -- #30 Aug 04, 2020

After losing her husband to a military training accident, she fought for joy for herself and her four children by moving beyond surviving.

To learn more about Sarah Nannen, visit www.sarahnannen.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular email updates from Warwick Fairfax, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Mike Valentine: Finding Love, Grace and Peace Through On-Purpose Living -- #29 Jul 28, 2020

Mike Valentine was a blue-collar kid who grew into a blue-collar young man, a longshoreman's son who began working as a steelworker as a teenager, walking his first skyscraper beam at 14. His was a hardscrabble existence: He spent the next decade and a half addicted to alcohol and beset with its devastations -- bar fights, car accidents and times behind bars. All that changed when his daughter was born -- and he turned his attention to living life in pursuit of a worthy purpose. Today, as founder of On Purpose Now, he helps clients address the psychological, emotional, practical and spiritual aspects of life and business to awaken dormant energy and harness real power. What have his 30,000 hours of coaching others through crucibles and crossroads taught him? That every one of us has a gift to give, a purpose to live and a vision to build ... and that the purpose most people want to aim for is characterized by love, grace and peace. In this episode, he tells BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax that pain offers us a great awakening. "What we find at ground zero," he says, "is the bottom of our hearts." To learn more about Mike Valentine, visit www.onpurposenow.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership and sign up to receive updates from Warwick Fairfax, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Lend Them Your Ears: You Must Listen to Those You Lead -- #28 Jul 21, 2020

Listening is one of the most necessary, and least practiced, leadership skills in business and life today. And lest you think lack of listening is a new phenomenon, brought on by the last few decades of tech advances that have created tech distractions, think again. Harvard Business Review found in 1957 that people remember only about half of what they hear, even when they're trying really hard to dial in. In this episode, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax explains why great leaders listen -- and how they can do it better to get past crucible moments and avoid additional ones. One of the critical keys, he tells co-host Gary Schneeberger, is asking good questions of your team to gather information from them that can help enhance your vision and, just as important, signal to them clearly that you're not just paying "ear service" to the insights they're sharing with you. "The price of engagement from your team," Fairfax notes, "is listening."

To sign up for regular Crucible Leadership emails from Warwick Fairfax, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Tim Hague: Persevering Through a Parkinson's Diagnosis at 46 to Win The Amazing Race and Find New Purpose - #27 Jul 14, 2020

Fewer than 10 percent of those living with Parkinson's Disease are under 60. Tim Hague is one of them. As a nurse for two decades, he sensed immediately what was wrong when, at age 46, he noticed a tremor in his left toe. His self-diagnosis was soon confirmed, and in the months that followed he pressed deeply into his Christian faith to grasp "Why has God done this to me?" But he refused to wallow in regret or self-doubt, and just three years later he was competing on and winning, The Amazing Race in his home country of Canada. The platform the show provided led him to see Parkinson's as winning the lottery, as he began a successful speaking career and launched a nonprofit to put his medical training to use helping others with the disease. In this episode of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE, he tells host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax that he's learning every day to live the lessons of his book, Perseverance: The Seven Skills You Need to Survive, Thrive, and Accomplish More Than You Ever Imagined. "I have to believe that there is something good in this for me," he says. "It doesn't make sense otherwise."

Nancy Koehn Part 2: Polar Explorer Ernest Shackleton's Unimaginable Series of Crucibles is a Lesson in Always "Facing Forward" -- #26 Jul 07, 2020

Ernest Shackleton and the men he was leading on an expedition to cross Antarctica had piled up a breathtaking number of life-threatening crucibles by late 1915. Stuck motionless in polar block ice for months, hundreds of miles off course with no way to communicate their location to anyone who could help, Shackleton and his men were running low on the supplies they had already been forced to ration in miserly fashion when their greatest disaster struck: The ice that had trapped their ship now closed in to crush it, leaving the men fully exposed to the bitter cold with no choice but to traverse the ice floes that surrounded them in desperate search of safety. Shackleton's mission had changed for good from one of discovery to one of survival for himself and his men. On this episode of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE, Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn, who profiles Shackleton in her Wall Street Journal best-seller Forged in Crisis, explains in detail how the British polar explorer's only hope was to forget the disasters he and his crew had endured and "face forward" with grit, ingenuity, and improvisation. "Crisis leaders get better and better and better," she tells host Warwick Fairfax. "You can see it iteratively if you study them as I do."

To learn more about Nancy Koehn, visit www.nancykoehn.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Nancy Koehn, Part 1: Harvard Business School Professor's Personal Crucibles Fueled Her Best-Seller on Leaders "Forged in Crisis" -- #25 Jun 30, 2020

Nancy Koehn was on track for an administrative leadership role at Harvard Business School, where she taught the history of leadership to the world's best and brightest. But a series of personal crucibles -- the death of her father, a divorce that came without warning and decimated her finances, a cancer diagnosis -- caused the floorboards of her personal and professional lives to crumble beneath her. Her career aspirations drydocked, her sleep interrupted nightly at 1 or 2 a.m., she sought solace in the love of her intellectual life: history. When she picked up a book on Abraham Lincoln to help pass the agitated hours, she discovered in the trials of the 16th president that there was not only a way through her setbacks but a way beyond them. In this interview with BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax, Koehn explains how her search for lighthouses of hope in the lives of great leaders who were dented by crucible experiences helped her find healing through FORGED IN CRISIS, her best-selling book about their trials and triumphs. Host and guest take a deep-dive look at the incredible story and important leadership lessons of British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton -- a conversation they conclude in next week's episode.

Warwick Fairfax Shares Pain of $2.25B Failure, Joy of Finding Significance in Book Due in 2021 - #24 Jun 16, 2020

Life has not always been easy for Warwick Fairfax. That's a statement many in his native Australia never would have associated with the fifth-generation heir to arguably the country's most influential media empire. But then he launched a multi-billion-dollar takeover of the company that failed spectacularly -- leaving him with regrets, self-doubt, and uncertainty about his future. More than 30 years after the takeover fell apart, the founder of Crucible Leadership and host of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE will speak in detail for the first time about what motivated his bid to assume control of the company and why he thinks it wasn't successful in a book from Morgan James Publishing due to be released early next year. In this episode of the podcast, Fairfax discusses with co-host Gary Schneeberger why he initially didn't want to write a book at all, why he changed his mind and what readers can expect when it hits stores. "It's a collection of stories and parables about life and leadership -- about me and my family, history's greatest leaders and biblical and inspirational figures," he explains. "If writing about my story can help people and give them hope, it's worth going through the pain."

Cathleen Merkel -- She Chased Success But Longed for Significance, and Found It When She Met the "Real Cathy" -- #23 Jun 09, 2020

Growing up in Communist East Germany, Cathleen Merkel was taught her value came from doing what others expected of her, working hard, and not upsetting the established order of things. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and she grew from a girl into a woman with dreams and passions of living a free and successful life. There was just one problem: the goals she pursued professionally and personally dead-ended a couple of times and didn't really fulfill her even when they were going well. So she took a deep look at herself, asked close friends to help her see where she'd veered off course, and finally discovered who she really was and what vision she wanted to cast for her life. The result, she tells Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax is that she has found meaning and significance as a coach and mentor who helps high-achieving female leaders reinvent their lives and careers. She walks alongside them as they realize true joy is rooted not just in the job description, but in total life satisfaction. To learn more about Cathleen Merkel, visit www.cathleenmerkel.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com

Tommy Breedlove: Surviving Abuse, Learning to Love Himself and Living a Legendary Life -- #22 Jun 02, 2020

Tommy Breedlove isn't one to make excuses. Yes, the physical and emotional violence he endured as a boy led him to become violent himself as a teen, landing him in jail for his 19th birthday. But when he was mentored by a fellow inmate and inspired to avoid another trip behind bars, he took responsibility for his recovery. He toiled at low-wage jobs by day and studied hard at night, landing a position at a prestigious financial services firm just three years later. And yet, while his career skyrocketed -- promotions, pay raises, the respect of his bosses and envy of his colleagues -- the bottom fell out of his life again at 36. Lying in a ditch, unsure how he got there literally and figuratively, he once again had to summon the strength and courage to bounce back. In the aftermath of this second setback, he tells Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, Breedlove decided to strip himself of all the identify-hiding masks he'd worn on his way up the corporate ladder -- and discovered how to love himself and let others love who he really was. Those breakthroughs have led him to a rewarding career as a best-selling author and in-demand leadership coach and speaker, sharing with clients and audiences his hard-earned insights on discovering their life's purpose and living legendary lives

For more information about Tommy Breedlove, visit www.tommybreedlove.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Grace and Tolerance: The Antidote to Anxiety and Stress#21 May 19, 2020

Conflict and leadership frequently go hand-in-hand. Add to the mix a global pandemic that comes with stay-at-home orders, shuttered schools and remote working, and millions find themselves living day-to-day in a powder keg of anxiety and stress. How best to navigate this unprecedented confluence of circumstances to minimize its affect on your family relationships and your business's bottom line? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and podcast co-host Gary Schneeberger discuss the indispensable role grace and tolerance play in not just avoiding flare-ups, but encouraging each other at a time when encouragement is more essential than ever. It all starts, they explain, with doing the same kind of self-audit that's critical to learning the lessons of a crucible experience. Then, once you understand how your unique stressors and anxiety triggers affect you, you can take practical steps to defuse tensions with others and keep lines of communication and productivity operating smoothly. "The core of grace," Fairfax says, "is treating other people like you'd like to be treated."To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Ed Kressy: He Beat Meth Addiction and Psychosis Through Spirituality, Self-Improvement and Service - #20 May 12, 2020

For 11 harrowing years, Ed Kressy descended deeper and deeper into the madness of methamphetamine addiction. From believing the FBI was trying to pin the 9/11 attacks on him, to not bathing or brushing his teeth for months, to considering himself married to the voices in his head that tormented his thoughts, his grip on reality slipped away a little more each day. It was a far cry from the life he had known, he tells Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax: a college education, a good job, home ownership in San Francisco. But then the alcohol he turned to in his teens to feel like "there was something I was good at" finally caught up to him, fueling his hellish cycle of helplessness and hopelessness. It was only after actually getting arrested by the FBI that he found his way back through the combined power of spirituality, self-improvement and service. Today, he gives back to his community by volunteering with the police and California jails and prisons -- truly significant work that has, ironically, earned him a community service award from the FBI he once so feared. "Being a value to others," he says, "was ultimately serving my own dreams."

Michelle Kuei: Disabled by a Car Accident, She Refused to Settle for "Being Normal" and Discovered Her Inner Diamond -- #19 May 05, 2020

She never really had a chance to dream about what her life could be before a tragic car accident at 11 in her native Taiwan left Michelle Kuei with physical and emotional scars that plagued her for 30 years. When her body stopped growing after the crash, her mind started racing with how she would never be "normal." It wasn't just that friendships and romance were hard -- grocery shopping was near-impossible: she couldn't grab anything to put in her cart without first discarding her crutches, and items on even the middle shelves were beyond her reach. But everything changed when she set her mind to fighting through the pain and fear and took up hiking, a pursuit that resulted in her ascending the peak of Machu Picchu and learning that she wasn't just normal, she had extraordinary in her. Finding the diamond inside her rough circumstances, she tells Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, led her into a rewarding coaching career in which she helps negative self-talkers discover inner strength and beauty by overcoming their fear of judgments. "Each and every one of us," she explains, "is a gift to this world."

Overcoming Pandemic Panic: Combatting Fear of the Unknown in Leadership and Life -- #18 Apr 21, 2020

Millions worldwide are dealing with fears of the "what if?" right now as the world struggles through the health and economic uncertainties of the coronavirus outbreak. These worries can be upsetting, depressing and even emotionally paralyzing; in fact, one scientific study has determined fear of the unknown can be more distressing than fear of serious injury or death. In this new episode of BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE, host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax offers several encouraging insights into rising above those fears and the hopelessness they can cause, noting that what the world is facing today is a hypercharged crucible experience not unlike what we all face in our lives when more intimate failures and setbacks strike. They key, he and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss, is finding outlets that create personal calm amid the chaos and continuing to move forward in active combat against the fears that plague you -- uncovering the opportunities that exist behind the challenges. "When fear starts coming on," Fairfax says, "don't wait for it to grow from an ember into a forest fire."

Trent Griffin-Braaf: Dealing Drugs Cost Him His Freedom, Prison Taught Him Humility and the Rewards of Serving Others - #17 Apr 14, 2020

His father died when he was 9. Not long after, his mother's drug addiction forced him out of his home to live with his grandparents. Money was tight, school was not his strong suit, and by his late teens Trent Griffin-Braaf was running with the wrong crowd. By 19, he was serving 4-12 years in prison for selling drugs. But he tells Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax that when he had to attend his grandmother's funeral in shackles, unable to hug grieving loved ones because of the chains, he decided he would not allow being locked up to be his legacy. He seized the academic opportunities prison offered, and when he was paroled after three years he dedicated himself to learning all he could to build a life he could be proud of. He landed a job at a hotel cleaning toilets, spent hours soaking up from co-workers the ins-and-outs of their jobs -- and in a few years had become the hotel's general manager. But he had a grander vision -- and risked all he had achieved to launch an airport shuttle serving Schenectady, N.Y.'s hotels. The business took off, and continues to grow: It now serves former inmates in the area not only with assistance in getting to and from work, but helps them find work that will allow them to build their own lives of significance. What has his journey taught him? "I believe in my heart that from doing good you get good," he says.

For more information on Trent Griffin-Braaf, visit https://www.techvalleyshuttle.com/

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Brad Kullman: Losing His MLB Dream Job Birthed His Vision to Help People Understand How They're Wired - #16 Apr 07, 2020

As general manager of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds, Brad Kullman was living his childhood dream of making a living, and life, in the game he loved. But after being passed over for permanent promotions and finally being let go, he moved past the devastation to realize he was free to pursue a passion that had become even more important to him: using the analytical tools he had pioneered as a pro sports scout and executive to help everyday men and women unlock the insights of their hardwired makeup. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, Kullman explains how standard personality tests offer insufficient help in charting a course to a life of significance for those who experience crucibles and offers insights and resources to help listeners understand and apply the realities of how they're wired. To learn more about Brad Kullman and Hardwired Makeup, visit www.maxqperformance.com. To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Follow Hope, Not Fear: How Perseverance Fuels A Life of Significance -- #15 Mar 24, 2020

If you've had a crucible experience, you are going to have to persevere through feelings of loss and fear, as well as additional setbacks, as you chart your course to a life of significance. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax shares stories from his family history (his great-great grandfather John Fairfax) and world history (Winston Churchill), while also discussing his own efforts to claw his way back emotionally and practically after losing $2.25 billion -- and the company itself -- in a failed takeover of the family media dynasty he inherited. Perseverance is so critical to the stories of these men -- and every man or woman who seeks to bounce back from a crucible experience -- that it should be considered a gift that flows from our most challenging circumstances. "In our lowest moments," Warwick tells co-host Gary Schneeberger, we find strength and courage and perseverance we never knew we had."

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Craig Perra: How Finding His Purpose Helped Him Overcome Addiction, Getting Fired (Twice) and Nearly Losing his Family - #14 Mar 17, 2020

Craig Perra admits he's the last person you'd expect to be a life coach. He was a corporate lawyer on the C-Suite track when his sexual and drug addictions left him at rock bottom in his career and his marriage, bringing him so low he attempted suicide. Then a mentor who had walked a similar path helped him overcome his demons through structured behavioral change that allowed him to understand the underlying causes of his destructive ways, create new, healthy habits ... and save his relationship with his wife. Perra talks with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax about how life's most painful moments can actually be gifts if they are harnessed to help us craft an intentional vision for moving forward with a purpose rooted in serving others. He's helped clients in 27 countries reclaim hope and joy in their lives with his Mindful Habit system, which offers behavioral change insights anyone can apply to recover from crucibles of all stripes.

For more information on Craig Perra and the Mindful Habit System, visit www.mindfulhabit.com

For more information on Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Jim Daly: Hope's Power to Grow an Abandoned Boy Into a Global Nonprofit Leader -- #13 Mar 10, 2020

Jim Daly was abandoned by his alcoholic father at 5, lost his mother to cancer four years later and had no one to turn to but his four older siblings when their stepfather emptied the family home and left them to fend for themselves on the day they buried their Mom. Before he had turned 10, he was living with a dysfunctional foster family and thinking it was all just part of the "normal" life all kids lived. But buoyed by a hopeful spirit, he embraced the structure his teenage years brought at school and through sports -- and gradually charted a course for the kind of life he once never dreamed possible. Today, fifteen years into his role as president of the international nonprofit Focus on the Family, he surprises the press by meeting with ideological opponents and continues to oversee innovative programs that in just the last year have helped 780,000 couples build stronger marriages and 950,000 moms and dads raise happier, more resilient children. Daly talks with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax about why a life of significance has nothing to do with job titles and how all that childhood pain now fuels his ministry passions and accomplishments.

For more information about Focus on the Family, www.focusonthefamily.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Significance That Lasts: Leaving an Intentional Legacy -- #12 Feb 25, 2020

What do you hope your friends and loved ones remember about you after you're gone? What words would you like spoken in your eulogy? Written on your headstone? In this thoughtful and insightful new episode, Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax explores practical ways we can live today in a manner that leaves a legacy that outlives us well into tomorrow. The key, he and co-host Gary Schneeberger discuss, is pursuing your career and caring for your family with the kind of character you want to define you in life ... and beyond. "If it matters to you on your deathbed," Warwick notes, "why not get a head start and do something about your legacy now?"

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Robert Krantz: Bringing Faith, Hope & Significance to the Big Screen -- #11 Feb 18, 2020

Robert Krantz appeared in some of the top films of the '80s -- Back to the Future, anyone? -- but when he turned his attention and talents to writing, directing and starring in his own movies a decade later, his career and life began to unspool like a dropped film reel. His first production -- which he and his wife put so much money into they had to live with his mother -- had the makings of a hit but never took off because of a disastrous Hollywood screening. That professional setback was followed by an even more devastating personal crucible: his wife's diagnosis that threatened the lives of her unborn triplet sons. The boys not only survived but thrived, and Krantz put his film career on hold to be truly present as they grew. Now that they're in college, he's back behind and in front of the camera with the critically acclaimed Faith, Hope & Love, in which he stars as a man whose up-and-down life looks a lot like his own. In this episode, Krantz talks with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax about where he's found the strength to keep pursuing a life of significance and what he wants his legacy to be as a man and a maker of movies.

For more information about Robert Krantz and to buy Faith, Hope & Love on DVD, visit https://ellinasmultimedia.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Glenn Williams: Leveraging a Crushing Career Setback for a Second Chance at Significance #10 Feb 11, 2020

Glenn Williams was living a life of success and significance in 2010 as a C-Suite executive with a global nonprofit doing life-changing work. But it all ended after his integrity was questioned by the CEO, leading Williams to resign and move his family back to his native Australia to figure out what was next for him at the halftime of his life. In this interview with BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder Warwick Fairfax, Williams shares the lessons of his crucible experience and what he's learned and leveraged from that experience. These lessons inform the work he's doing today to help leaders align their successes, influence, and opportunities to build a legacy of significance.

To learn more about Glenn Williams and LCP Global, visit www.lcp-global.com/

To learn more about Crucible Leadership and how you can chart a new course to a life of significance, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

The Power of Forgiveness to Free Yourself and Bless Others -- #9 Jan 28, 2020

Few things are tougher when moving beyond a crucible experience than forgiving others, or even yourself, for the pain you've experienced from a failure or setback. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax explains why it's essential to muster the character and courage to extend forgiveness -- or risk being emotionally and practically held back from pursuing a life of significance. How does forgiveness help you and those you forgive? Is it possible or even necessary to "forgive and forget?" Why was it so hard for him to forgive himself after his failed $2.25 billion takeover of his family's 150-year-old media dynasty? Warwick discusses this and more with co-host Gary Schneeberger in this enlightening new episode.

Margie Warrell: Silencing Your Inner Critic to Live a Life of Bravery and Boldness #8 Jan 21, 2020

She battled bulimia all through her teens and later survived an armed robbery and a miscarriage. But Margie Warrell refused to let these crucible experiences define her. She fought her way to a life of significance helping women in particular live authentic lives of unshakable bravery, not battling against external forces but against internal ones. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host (and fellow Aussie) Warwick Fairfax, Warrell describes how she has learned to silence the nagging voice of self-doubt in her head, responding to its taunts of "Who are you to try something like that?" by answering boldly back: "Who am I NOT to try something like that?" Challenging herself, and her self-doubts, so bravely have led her to become a member of the Advisory Board of Forbes School of Business & Technology, an honoree of the Women’s Economic Forum and a sought-after leadership consultant to such organizations as NASA, Johnson & Johnson and Google. Her empowering insights to women, and indeed all people, continue with her latest book, You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself, coming from Wiley in March.

For more information about Margie Warrell, visit www.margiewarrell.com For more information about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

John Ramstead: How Crucibles Led Fighter Pilot and Millionaire Entrepreneur To Help Others Find Significance - #7 Jan 07, 2020

Devastating crucible experiences robbed him of his lifelong dream to be a Top Gun Navy fighter pilot and bankrupted the multi-million-dollar business he created years later. Then, just when John Ramstead thought he had his life back on track, a freak horseback-riding accident left him with crushed ribs, broken bones in his neck, a punctured lung, and a torturous 23 surgeries during a a 20-month stay in a traumatic brain-injury hospital. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, Ramstead shares that as physically and financially shattering as those moments were, the emotional toll was even more painful. It was only after finding hope through his reinvigorated faith that Ramstead was able to find his life's calling: not striving to raise his profile, but working to raise the profiles of others. He now helps other leaders find their purpose through his coaching practice Eternal Leadership, hailed by Inc. as one of the top leadership voices in the country.

To learn more about Eternal Leadership, visit www.eternalleadership.com

To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Transform Your Life: Craft a Vision, not a Resolution - #6 Dec 31, 2019

The start of a new year leads many of us to create New Year's Resolutions, but we'd be wiser, and happier, and help more people if we instead moved into 2020 crafting a vision rooted in our deepest values and passions. Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax explains that resolutions leave us feeling obligated, not motivated -- so they tend to last only a few weeks. A vision, though, can last a lifetime because it's a picture of our preferred reality: something we are off-the-charts passionate about that grows over time and is focused on making the world a better place. It may take some time after a crucible experience to heal from the pain it caused and learn the lessons it taught, but from those devastating moments come the wisdom and the wherewithal to lead a life of significance.

Mike and David Charbonnet: Finding Purpose in Your Pain -- #5 Dec 17, 2019

Mike Charbonnet was proud when his son, David, followed in his footsteps to join the Navy SEALs. But when a parachuting accident left David paralyzed, Mike says his son summoned courage more remarkable than anything either of them ever had to muster in the military. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, David recounts how his accident left him feeling like his dreams and goals had disappeared, sending him into a dark depression made worse by terrible physical pain. Mike endured his own deep sadness as his once athletic son lost his mobility and was devastated emotionally. Yet both father and son persevered and found new purpose helping others in the wake of their crucible experiences. David became the CEO of the VIP NeuroRehabilitation Center, the ground-breaking physical-therapy facility he first encountered as a patient. Mike founded Beyond the Teams, a nonprofit that raises money for ill and injured servicemen and children -- including those treated by VIP.

To learn more about VIP NeuroRehabilitation Center, visit www.vipneurorehab.org To learn more about Beyond the Teams, visit www.beyondtheteams.org And learn more about Crucible Leadership at

www.CrucibleLeadership.com

A Life That Matters: Significance Over Success #4 Dec 03, 2019

True success in life, Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax explains, is not about the number of zeroes on your bank statement. It's about ensuring your life is aligned with your beliefs, values, and passions. A life of significance, he stresses, doesn’t have to be grand in scope. A life helping others, be it many or few is a life well-lived.

For more information go to https://crucibleleadership.com

Esther Fleece Allen: Reject Limiting Labels, Embrace Your New Name - #3 Nov 19, 2019

Esther Fleece Allen overcame a traumatic childhood of abuse and abandonment to forge a successful career as a speaker and writer. But when the father she feared resurfaced to stalk her in her early 30s, she realized the successful life she had built was fashioned as a defense mechanism to avoid processing her pain. Only by learning to lament the crucible experiences of her upbringing and rejecting a lifetime of labels that limited her healing has she been able to begin living a life of true personal and professional significance. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, she shares her inspirational story and the life-changing insights of her new book, Your New Name: Saying Goodbye to the Labels That Limit.

For more information go to https://crucibleleadership.com

Living With and Learning From Your Crucible Moment - #2 Nov 01, 2019

Forty-nine percent of U.S. business professionals say they've suffered "an experience so traumatic it fundamentally changed their lives." Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax explores the many forms these searing experiences can take and offers healing insights for not just surviving them, but thriving in the aftermath of them.

Check him out at Harvard Business School Alumni Podcast as well at : https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx?num=7006 For more info about Crucible Leadership : https://crucibleleadership.com/

Finding Hope after a $2.25B Failure - #1 Oct 30, 2019

Most leaders don't talk about their failures. But Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax has discovered learning, and sharing, the lessons of how he lost the family media dynasty can help others move past life's most shattering setbacks. The toughest part of his crucible moment, he explains, was not the number of zeroes in the price tag of the loss. It was the emotional devastation of feeling he had let down his parents, his ancestors, and even God. Discover how he has moved past the pain to lead a life of significance ... and how you can, too. Check out for more info https://crucibleleadership.com/

What is the 'Beyond The Crucible' Podcast? Oct 15, 2019

'Beyond the Crucible' host Warwick Fairfax shares the lessons he learned from losing a $2.25 billion bid to take over the 150-year-old family media dynasty he had be groomed to run since birth. From that "crucible moment," he discovered a new vision for his life, one rooted in helping others overcome painful setbacks in their lives. Sharing the stories of men and women who have bounced back from devastating hardship and failure to live a life of significance is a key focus of 'Beyond the Crucible." Other episodes will explore key facets of the Crucible Leadership model, including understanding how you're wired, crafting a vision out of your gifts and passions and how to bring that vision to reality.

Be sure to click 'Subscribe' on your podcast app and visit Warwick & Crucible Leadership here: https://crucibleleadership.com/

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