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

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 [email protected]

"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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]  

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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