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

It can make a professional paper cut feel like a full-fledged crucible. It leaves you wondering why you and your work are never good enough. But perfectionism, for all its insidiousness, can be overcome. Show yourself some grace, find the humor in your missteps, and realize that good enough usually is, in fact, good enough. To learn more about Crucible Leadership, and to sign up to receive regular email updates and insights, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com  

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

She had a great corporate job, doing what she felt called and equipped to do. Then Toni Munoz Kaufman contracted SARS, which nearly killed her and did cost her a lung. As she recovered, she was laid off. But her joyous spirit and wisdom passed down from her father pushed her to persevere and help other Baby Boomers overcome their crucibles as entrepreneurs. To learn more about Toni Kaufman, visit www.tonikaufman.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular e-mail updates, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

Understanding what science has to say about learning the lessons of a crucible experience -- from reframing what happened to embrace forgiveness -- can be an overlooked key to moving past the pain and toward healing and significance   To learn more about Dr. Suzy Green, visit www.thepositivityinstitute.com.au/   To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up to receive regular updates, visit www.crucibleleadership.com  

Heroic leaders like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln get movies made about them -- just like superheroes such as Batman and Captain America. But the rousing triumphs that echo through history, or comic books, aren't the whole story -- or even sometimes the best story. Quietness, patience and humility are key qualities of success and significance even for great leaders. To learn more about CrucibleLeadership and sign up to receive regular email updates, visit www.CrucibleLeadership.com.

His big-deal career and its big-money perks left him unsatisfied. So he stopped viewing success as outperforming others and started serving others. Today he's the best-selling author of The Millennial Whisperer and making a lasting impact on the leaders of tomorrow.  To learn more about Chris Tuff, visit www.22squared.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership, visit www.CrucibleLeadership/com

After losing her husband to a military training accident, she fought for joy for herself and her four children by moving beyond surviving. To learn more about Sarah Nannen, visit www.sarahnannen.com To learn more about Crucible Leadership and to sign up for regular email updates from Warwick Fairfax, visit www.crucibleleadership.com

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

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

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

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

Nancy Koehn 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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