Beyond the Crucible

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 

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 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 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

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 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 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

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.

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

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

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 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  

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 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  

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/

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/

'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/