Beyond the Crucible

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 

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

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

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 

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

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 

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

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

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 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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