Retired naval officer Emily Harman accomplished many things in her career, but realized after she retired that the one thing she hadn’t done was understanding what she truly loved to do. She was so focused on achievement that she had no idea what brought her satisfaction and could bring her significance. But she’s turned that around by taking a deep inner journey that has unlocked emotions she neglected most of her life, and opened up a new career as a podcast host and life coach. Her focus? Helping women create a life they’ll love living today.

To learn more about Emily Harman and her business and podcast, Onward Movement, visit www.emilyharman.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Emily H:

How many times do we even ask this: what would we love? What would we love in our life? What would we love to have to be, to do, to share with other people to give back to this world? What would a life of significance be for me? A lot of times we don't even stop and look up and I didn't, I was too busy achieving whatever, whatever the next step was supposed to be. But what did I want? I didn't really look at that. Or maybe I thought that's what I wanted, but we really, a lot of times don't take time to just stop and say, what would I love?

Gary S:

There is a question that's critical to ask ourselves in the wake of a crucible. In fact, sometimes it can even help us avoid a crucible. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger co-host of the show. Our guest this week is Emily Harman, a retired Naval officer who accomplished many things in her career then realized the one thing she hadn't accomplished was understanding what she loved to do. She was so focused on achievement that she had no idea what truly brought her satisfaction and could bring her significance. She's turned that around, she explains, by taking a deep inner journey, it has unlocked emotions she had neglected most of her life and opened up in her retirement from the service, a new career as a podcast host and life coach. Her focus, helping women create a life they'll love living today.

Warwick F:

Well, thank you so much Emily for being here. I really appreciate it. I love what you do with Onward Movement and the podcast in particular, trying to empower women in particular to live authentic lives, to live free of judgment, to live their dreams. It's a, I must say, a sacred calling, but it's a wonderful calling, but you've had an amazing journey, obviously leading up to your career in the Navy and government service. Talk about Emily Harman growing up, your family influences that led to the Naval Academy and probably ultimately in some ways led to Onward Movements. So who was a young teenage high school environment, who was Emily Harman growing up?

Emily H:

Well, basketball is what I would say got me to where I am today. And the reason I say that is because when I was in sixth grade, fifth or sixth grade, I started to play basketball and I was like five, six, about 95 pounds uncoordinated. And so growing up, my parents were not in the military, but what they told me and my brother and sister, the three of us is, if you do well in sports, we'll pay for your college, we're thinking that it would get us into college, which it did for all of us or you can work and then you can pay for your clothes and all that. We'll take care of you as long as you're applying yourself at sports. I used to have to jump rope for 10 minutes every morning before I got breakfast.

Emily H:

And I appreciate my parents for having me do that because that got me coordinated. And my dad worked two jobs and still spent a lot of time on the weekends helping me learn to play basketball. I was left handed. He helped me learn to shoot left and right handed, do a hook shot. So many things my father taught me and it wasn't until I became a parent myself, that I realized what a sacrifice that was for him to be spending his free time with me and my brothers and sisters too. And so in high school, I became the leading scorer in Maryland, DC and Virginia. And I could have scored 40 points and my dad, would say, good game. Now you remember that time when you went right, you should have gone left? And my point to that is the way I reacted to that as a first child, the first born, and he was trying to help me, but the way I reacted to that, I can see now looking back is I became a pleaser.

Emily H:

I tried to really please him and then that translated into being a pleaser in other aspects of my life. And first borns are typically hyper achievers. I was a hyper achiever and I was always striving to improve in my whole life. Always striving to do better and not celebrating any wins. If I did, it would be like a second, like, all right, I got that let me move on to the next thing. That childhood translated in my life, which I'm sure we'll get into about how it impacted my life in positive and not so positive ways. And so I was recruited by several colleges to play basketball. West Point was one of them. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it was cold and rainy and gray.

Emily H:

And then I went to the Naval Academy and I know you've been there and it was sunny. And I liked the basketball team and I liked the people there. And I decided to go there because I didn't know that much about the Navy, but I all also knew that education would be the number one thing. Like if I ever got hurt playing basketball or something, I wouldn't lose a scholarship. I'd still get my education. And that was a good decision. Because when I was there, I had two knee surgeries, I tore my inter cruciate ligament, but I still got a good education and graduated. That's how my life started out. That's why I say basketball has got me to where I am today.

Warwick F:

What's fascinating about your story Emily is we've had all sorts of men, women, all kinds of backgrounds, races, some folks come from very difficult families, maybe abusive or maybe parents who just were never there. But it sounds like your upbringing wasn't that bad. In the sense that you had loving parents that cared about you, maybe you could say in hindsight, I don't know that they had all the psychology books or people weren't quite as aware of parenting years ago. And so the resources weren't there, but it sounds like you had supportive parents that wanted the best for you and your siblings. Now you may have translated it into like a performance achievement way of thinking. But I think what's fascinating for listeners is you don't have to come from some terrible broken home to have challenges and you might have very loving parents that are trying to do their best, but unwittingly kids can interpret things differently. Does that make sense? It doesn't sound like you had a horrific upbringing.

Emily H:

No, I didn't. I was able to go away to summer camp for like seven weeks in the summer and horseback ride and do arts and crafts. My parents gave us a lot of opportunity. No parents are perfect. I'm not a perfect parent either. And I would say that I never saw my parents argue, they got married six weeks after they met, they're still married 59 years later.

Warwick F:

Wow.

Emily H:

But I didn't really see conflict resolution and I didn't really see holding hands. I didn't really see, it wasn't like a warm, loving relationship that I saw. We just pick up on different things. I think that in some ways I haven't really talked to them about this, but I can look back and feel there were times when I didn't feel heard or seen. And so it was so interesting when I founded the Onward Movement in 2020, I did an exercise with one of my coaches and I do it now for my clients where she helped me by reflecting on my childhood and what was missing in my life from my perspective, she had us come up with what our purpose in life, our purpose for being here.

Emily H:

And the words that I came up with were words that I had already put in the manifesto that I created for the Onward Movement, which was, "We see you, we hear you. This is a welcoming place." And although we strive to improve ourselves, we know we're enough, just the way we are. These are things that I've had challenges with in my life that I then put into the manifesto that then when I did this exercise with my coach came up as my purpose for being here in life. It was so amazing. It just brought tears to my eyes to see that correlation. And I do that for my clients and I bring tears to their eyes too, because it's just amazing to really come into a better understanding of why we're really here.

Warwick F:

Let's fast forward. So you're in the Navy and what's fascinating is it's not like you grew up thinking I want to be in the military. It was a logical choice and a wise choice, as you said, blowing out your knees and it's not like your parents said military is what you need to do, but you did. So you're in the Naval Academy and you launch into the Navy. So talk about as your career and life unfolds, you get married, have kids. You're obviously a driven person. So talk about from Naval Academy on, what was the next steps like for you in your life?

Emily H:

Yeah, I graduated and I got stationed. I went into the Supply Corps, which is like the business end of the Navy. After I went to Supply Corps school in Athens, Georgia, I was stationed on a ship, a submarine tender. And then that ship, the steel decks and everything really hurt my knees. I had had knee surgery on both of my knees. After a couple years, two and a half years or so, I got off that ship. And then I went to work for the Atlantic fleet, which is where I helped do a study on how much plastic the Navy was dumping into the ocean. This was in the mid '80s when plastic was just washing up on the shores all the time and medical waste and the ships would just dump everything overboard. We did studies and now if you go on a ship, you'll see they have these things I don't know if they call them plastic waste processors anymore, but they recycle a lot of the plastic and bring it out in balls or discs or whatever.

Emily H:

There's a lot of recycling that goes on onboard ships now. And then I got stationed back at the Naval Academy. Where I help coach basketball and I taught leadership and I was a company officer and that's when I met my kids' father and we got married and I just decided I didn't want to go back to sea again and raise children. I got out of the Navy after seven years working on active duty and I became a civilian working for the Navy in government contracting. That's what I was doing at the time. And then I did 13 years in the reserves. So I did 20 total. And then I stayed on as a civilian and I ended up getting divorced from my children's father. He was verbally abusive. And the pleaser that I had developed kept putting up with that.

Emily H:

And I didn't leave until I could see it impacting my children. That's where that pleaser personality did not serve me well there, I tried everything to make that marriage work, but in the long run, verbal abuse is really tough to overcome. And I still think it impacts me to this day, but we ended up divorcing and then I was a single parent. And so a lot of my career was pushing through. I coach in energy levels now, so on a scale of one to seven energy levels, I would say I was at energy level three. And at that energy level you push through and you look at the bright side of things and you find the silver lining and all that's great.

Emily H:

However, what you don't do is you don't really pay much attention to your feelings because they get in the way of you pushing through. I spent a lot of my career being a hyper achiever, moving up, moving up, moving up, never feeling satisfied with where I was always, trying to do more and achieve more, raising my kids, and ignoring my feelings. I didn't know all this in my head. I wasn't aware of this consciously, what I was doing, sense that I've learned how I was ignoring my feelings and I'll explain the way that happened is, it was 2019, my kids were grown. I had made it to the equivalent of a two star Admiral in the reserves. I mean, as a civilian, I was the director of the office of small business programs for the Navy and the Marine Corps advising the Secretary of the Navy and all Navy leadership and responsible for the whole program on how we provided opportunities for small businesses to participate in government contracting.

Emily H:

So I had made it up pretty high, but I still, something was missing. I didn't know what it was. And I was tired of being busy. I was busy all the time and I thought it was my job. I was busy all the time and I knew I wasn't feeling my feelings. And I kind of felt like I was turning into some of the things that bothered me about my mom. That's the way she is. She's busy. She's always fine. And so I didn't want to be that way anymore. I decided that I was going to retire. I was going to retire from the Navy that in my mind, that job and the work I had done for the Navy was causing all of my stress. I retired and I figured now I can relax. I can be who I want to be. I can do what I want to do. But who am I? Where did Emily go? Because she's buried under all of these responsibilities and pushing through and not feeling your feelings. I didn't even know myself anymore.

Warwick F:

There's a phrase on your website. I think you talk about the chameleon Emily versus the real Emily. And it feels like your whole life. I mean, you're an achiever I think you write somewhere you're in the sixth class at the Naval Academy that admitted women. You've got these different strands, it's determination, but yet there's people pleasing. And for some people they might think, well, somebody so determined and so courageous, how could you put up with things that weren't inappropriate, but yet people do. You probably know many women in particular who were equally as determined as you are and to help folks understand that bit of that psychology. Because it seems like what you are so determined. You, you got to accomplish anything. You can break through any barrier, right?

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

If there's any somebody I'm going to bet on it's Emily Harman, she can break through anything. She is tough. She is strong. Yeah. There's something about that people pleasing mentality that I don't know, help us understand that. Because it's an interesting dichotomy.

Emily H:

Well, I wish I understood it 100% because I'm a coach in an area called positive intelligence, which is about strengthening your mental fitness. And it's all about understanding these saboteurs in our mind. And two of mine are the hyper achiever saboteur and the pleaser. And these are basically the way Shirzad Chamine who developed this program, talks about it is these saboteurs in our mind is what causes all our stress. And they're really started with being strengths, but their strengths that are overused by the left side of your brain, the saboteur side of your brain. And they issue with anxiety and stress. They cause all your stress and anxiety. I could have. And right now I can achieve, but I achieve through my right side of my brain, my sage with my heart.

Emily H:

I'm not pushing, I'm not driving to prove anything to anybody. So there's a difference. So my saboteur, when I use it, it hinders me and causes all of my stress. And so that's what my pleaser did. I love to serve people. I love to coach people. That's what I do right now. But if I do that too much, then I start to get resentful and get stressed and feel not appreciated. I need to and if I'm trying to please somebody because to make them happy all the time and that doesn't help. And so I just didn't ... And so somebody asked Shirzad, can you have some different saboteurs at work than you have at home? And he said, yeah, you can. There's a lot of people like that. I didn't have a pleaser saboteur as much at work as I did at home. It was like I was two different people.

Emily H:

I am still working to figure out how can, how could I have put up with that verbal abuse? Why did I have such a low self-esteem that made me put up with being called bad names and things like that for not loading the dishwasher correctly or leaving my son's pacifier in the trunk when he was in the car and he needed it right then or not handing him the toll money in the right way. These are all ridiculous things that most people who knew me would think I would never put up with that, but it wasn't until I couldn't even leave the house to go for a walk because my kids didn't want to be alone with him and he never hit me. But I think verbal abuse is just as bad as hitting. Nobody can see it. Nobody can see the bruises, nobody can see it. And I don't quite yet understand why, but I think it's very common for that to happen.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I'm no expert. Without getting told the details I've had somewhat of a bout with verbal abuse when I was young from a close family member and it can erode your self-esteem. And I remember initially I'd push back and I'd be like six, eight, very young and I'd push back. But then eventually would wear me down and I'd say, I'm so sorry and that kind of cycle, but yeah. I'm no psychologist. I think one of the things we talk a lot here is the question of identity.

Warwick F:

And if it's like, well, who is Emily Harman? Well, she is an achiever. She's a people pleaser, but who are you beneath that? And maybe it's like, well, you were saying to yourself, I don't really know who I am. There's all these roles I play like, like in almost a Greek tragedy or something that there are these roles I play, these masks I put on, but who am I beneath the mask? I don't know. You obviously now you know far more about who you are and the Emily Harman today is not going to put up with inappropriate behavior or abuse or whatever, because you know who you are. Right?

Emily H:

Yeah. I know who I am and I love myself.

Warwick F:

Well, exactly.

Emily H:

And I have compassion for myself. And I think back then, I didn't love myself. Definitely not like today. And so what happened when I retired, when I called my retirement a graduation, thinking, yes, now I can do what I want. And then I figured that with all this time on my hands, I didn't have to work. And I knew I wanted to be a coach and a podcast host, but I figured with all this time on my hands, that I am going to have time to work out. I'm just going to have time to get up in the morning and just, I'm going to be so much more relaxed. I knew that's what would happen. And it did not. It did not happen. So my point there is that a lot of times we think, well, when circumstances change, when this happens or that happens, and if only this wasn't in my life, if only I didn't work with these people, if I did this, we tend to point our finger at other circumstances or situations.

Emily H:

And when we do that, I've learned, we have three fingers pointing back at us. So that was my crucible moment. I have got to look at me, why am I not slowing down? Why do I still have this other saboteur, which I haven't mentioned yet, which is restless. I'm always like, let me sign up for that class. Let me do that. Let me do that. And then my condo starts to, my outer world starts to reflect my inner world of unorganized, disarray, stress, anxiety, my outer world. My condo's not clean. I've got these different projects not completed. And so I've worked with coaches for the past two and a half years to figure that out. And then I also had to start feeling my feelings because what happened is three weeks after I retired, my daughter called and told me that her dad, the guy who had been verbally abusive to me, had cancer.

Emily H:

And then two weeks after that, he was paralyzed in both arms from his cancer. And he died five months later. And when that happened and my daughter helped take care of him, I helped take care of him. And when that happened, I saw a man die with regrets. And I got closure like a couple nights before he died in December. I said, "A couple nights ago would've been our 28th wedding anniversary." And he just looked at me and he shook his head and he turned away and he said "I'm sorry." And he told my son, "I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you when you needed me." My son is an alcoholic. He's almost six years sober. But from age 13 to 23, it was very, very, very, very hard. I didn't know if I was going to get a call that he was dead from drugs and alcohol.

Emily H:

His dad wasn't there. Bruce was not there for us. And so I saw him die with regrets. He was a civil servant. He was a retired army officer. He was a West Point grad. He had done all these things. He had these files. He had been successful at work, but not with his friends and family. And he had all these files on what he was going to do when he retired. And he never got to retire. He died at 64, just like that, that woke me up. And that is why I help people create a life they love living now, don't wait for circumstances to change. It's now. And we can do it now.

Warwick F:

That was part of the, I think epiphany you've mentioned earlier and elsewhere that you went to 2014 International World Domination Summit, and then the incident in 2018 where you're riding the subway to the Pentagon and all these faceless people with the ear pods, and you're on this treadmill and you decided to get off. There was still inner work to be done, but that was the catalyst, 2018, 2019, you decided I'm leaving my government career and I'm doing something new. I think one of the other faceting things you said, I think initially your first idea was, I'm going to keep achieving. This is going to be my first, I'm going to keep, now I can achieve in a different direction.

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Talk about that, there's a bit of an epiphany and in turn obviously, your ex-husband dying, all of those things. It seems like they helped you turn, not just outward, but you get to say the ultimate voyage of discovery is a journey inward.

Emily H:

Definitely. When Bruce died, yeah, I was angry, I was pissed off at him for the way he had treated us. And then I was sad for him. And I still loved him, even though he had been verbally abusive, I still loved him. And it just made me sad the way he lived his life and my kids saw it too. And everything fell on me to help my kids through it. And I saw my kids go through his basement and learn about their dad that way, because Bruce hadn't really shared much about his career as a test pilot and things like that. And so all the feelings from the divorce, all the feelings that I had shoved down when I was in that energy of push push push, came to the surface. I was a mess.

Emily H:

And I started to learn how to feel my feelings. And I started to realize that I had lived mostly in the left side of my brain, lived in my head, not connected to my intuition, not connected to my gut, just logic a lot. And that's Navy, the DOD is all charts and graphs. And so the next level of energy I tend to go to is level five, which is where you can see a whole bunch of opportunities. And I do see that I see opportunity in this, this, and this and this. And then what happens is, and that's that restless saboteur in my mind, I get paralyzed by all these opportunities and I get stressed and I go down to energy level one, which is I give up, I can't do it. I've learned so much about myself. I can put words to my different energy levels and how I show up.

Emily H:

It didn't happen overnight like I thought it would, it wasn't because of my job that I was restless and hyper achiever. It was because I had internalized that and I needed to see who Emily was beneath that. And really I am intuitive. And now I live a lot of my life in energy level seven, which is the highest energy level, which you would know it when you see a four or five year old, just the way they look at the world. That's how I live a lot of my life now. It's amazing. I'm still calm. I'm just relaxed. I'm not pushing. And clients come to me. The universe sends people to me and I'm not chasing clients or money or whatever, I am being. And it's awesome. I never thought I could be this way. I thought that it was my personality to be like push, push, push, and achieve, achieve, achieve, and do all these different projects and not be in the moment. But now I'm in the moment.

Warwick F:

I want listeners to hear what Emily said because I really feel like in using different words, that chameleon Emily is gone, doesn't exist. It's the real Emily Harman. The one that from my faith perspective God or whoever's up there always intended you to be. However, what faith paradigm, one uses. I think one of the things I've learned myself and just from other guests on the podcast is sometimes there can be gift and tragedy. Nobody wants to go through what you did with your ex-husband with verbal abuse, being at his bedside and he's in tears apologizing, which is probably, it's something it's better than not apologizing.

Warwick F:

Doesn't make up for everything, but it's a little something, but that forced you to take stock and just to change direction. And so like you, the experiences you've had, the way you are with your kids now, and I'm sure with the women that you mentor those tragedies, they're hard won lessons that come from that, but there's a gift amidst the pain that you are using for your family and for women and others all over the place. Does that make sense as you're making use of that pain, if you will.

Emily H:

Yeah. We can find a gift or an opportunity in everything. And I've told my kids, I always told my kids that your dad loves you. He suffered from anxiety. We didn't have that term for it back then. He was also an alcoholic, but he never really went to get help. It was always if you do this, if you do that. But I always tell my kids that he loved you as best that he could in his way. And we also talk about the gift and the opportunity in his passing for them to also realize how short life is and to create a life they love living.

Emily H:

And my son is just finishing up two years of, well, it's been longer than two years, but his associates degree in engineering and he's getting a little stressed and I think he's going to stop and go, he's doing it full time. He's going to stop and go to work and see if this is really what he wants to do. And he was, I think, a little nervous to tell me and I'm like, well, I'm your mom. I coach people in creating a life they love living. If going to college, like this is stressing you out and you're not sure if you want to be an engineer. That's okay.

Warwick F:

Not that it's that surprising. I also have a son named Will. It's not like it's that stranger name, but yes, I have a Will too. It's funny. We have a little thing in his room that a family member did that said where there's a will there is a way. It's a little comic thing, but yeah. Talk a bit about Onward Movement. And I think as we transition, there's probably a bunch of high achievers listening, executives, military, you can even be in the world of faith and be a missionary and have a high achievement mentality. And I'm not against achievement for whatever reason and listeners would understand, I did my undergrad at Oxford, worked on Wall Street, have MBA from Harvard Business School.

Warwick F:

It's not like I don't try to achieve things, but achievement in and of itself doesn't make us happy and strong courageous people do what you did and what you advocate. They make the inner journey. I sought counseling years ago after the whole company went under because I was in pretty bad shape in a good part of the '90s, that inward journey to understand who we are. We can't help anybody at least but ourselves if we don't do that inner journey, we don't care of ourselves, not only are we not going to be able to care for others, we'll probably hurt other people. It's inevitable, your inner pain spreads almost like cancer or poison, not to get too graphic. Your friends and family in the world, they doesn't deserve your pain hurting them, not that you want to but that inner journey that you do, it's so important.

Warwick F:

It's a sign of strength to say, yeah, you didn't grow up in this horrendous upbringing, but we all have pain and brokenness and you got to deal with it, whether it's spiritually through counseling, whatever your truth is, it's so critical. I just want listeners to really understand what Emily is saying. Talk a bit about Onward Movement, because that is maybe the mission that you were put on this earth to advocate for, but you didn't know it when you were young, but talk about Onward Movement.

Emily H:

Yeah. And that, and my podcast. The Onward Movement is part of this journey that I'm on. When I retired, I did start the Onward Podcast. I didn't start the Onward Movement right away, but I've published over 150, 170 episodes of the Onward Podcast. And initially it's all been the Onward Podcast, but it's had different subtitles. It was the Onward Podcast: Facing Adversity and Moving Forward. Well, that was my life. Energy level three, face adversity, push forward. And I interviewed people on how they had done that. And some people were more advanced spiritually and in their life and in their inner journey than me. And I didn't always understand everything that they were telling me when I was interviewing. It was interesting because my awareness wasn't there. Then I switched it to Onward Podcast: Facing Adversity, Moving Forward, and Discovering Ourselves Along the Way.

Emily H:

Because I learned, we really discover ourselves. Now I've changed it to Create a Life You Love Living Now. And it was in April of 2020, right after COVID hit that I started the Onward Movement and now it's always been since then a Facebook group pretty much. And I have an email address of about almost close to 1500 people now, of people who are looking to create a life they love living, to release that fear of what other people might say and to embrace their authentic self so that they can do that. Create a life of their dreams, a life they would really love. And so I developed a manifesto, I've got a coaching program around that Onward Movement, which is outlined some of the steps I went through to really get back to myself.

Emily H:

And eventually we're going to start having, now that COVID is lifting a little bit, we're going to start having some live events where we can get together and maybe do a retreat. But I do a lot of posting in there. Go live. I hold some Zoom meetings and things like that, where we're all talking about encouraging each other to really go for creating the life of our dreams and realizing that life is short and we can do that. And we create a space, a safe space for people to have some of these discussions and share some of their hardships and help each other along the way.

Gary S:

I want to jump in at this point because there's something you said at the very start of this conversation Emily, that's been tickling the back of my mind, and I know why now. You began talking about when Warwick asked you to tell your backstory, you said, "Well, it all starts with basketball." The basketball was the organizing construct of your life. It got you into the military, unlike you while I played city league basketball, I never led one state let alone three in scoring like you did. But I used to have a saying that I would say all the time that I applied from basketball to life. And that was, if you want to score, you got to shoot the jumper.

Gary S:

And I think what you're talking about, when you talk about create a life you love living now, embrace your authentic self. In some ways you could apply a basketball metaphor to that to say, you've got to shoot. You've got to be in the game. You've got to have the courage to take this shot. I think it was Michael Jordan who stole a line from Wayne Gretsky, who said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You've got to take your shot if you want to embrace your authentic self and create a life you want to live now.

Emily H:

Yeah. That's exactly right. And then the other thing is somebody might look at me and say, oh well, she's got ... I'm getting ready to release a new updated website. She's got her website. She's got her message clear. She's got this. She's got that. I don't know if I could start a business. I don't know if I could be a coach. I don't know. And the thing is, is that nothing was clear. I just took the shot. And I just kept shooting and I have not missed publishing a podcast weekly since June 1st, 2019, even through Bruce's sickness and death, I continued to do that. I continued to put one foot forward and keep moving forward towards my dream of becoming a coach. I had to put off getting certified, I'm getting certified in the next month or so.

Emily H:

But I had to put that off initially, because he was sick. Once again I was getting ready to retire and do everything and go for my life. And then I did put it on hold to help my kids through it and to help him. When you're paralyzed in both arms, there's not much you can do. And it happened so quickly and it was so hard to see someone go downhill that quickly. So anyway, yeah. So many times we think, well, I mean, how many times do we even ask this: what would we love? What would we love in our life? What would we love to have, to be, do to share with other people to give back to this world?

Emily H:

What would a life of significance be for me? A lot of times we don't even stop and look up and I didn't, I was too busy achieving whatever, whatever the next step was supposed to be. But what did I want? I didn't really look at that. Or maybe I thought that's what I wanted, but we really, a lot of times don't take time and just stop and say, what would I love? And then when we do well, I would love to be less busy or I'd love to have a house on the beach or I'd love to go on this trip, but I can't because of, but what if you could, how do you know you can't? Our minds hold us back.

Warwick F:

You've got to be willing to try. And one of the fascinating things that we've talked a bit about is your vision doesn't come fully formed. We've talked about obviously visionaries that everybody knows Walt Disney, he didn't have this big vision of Walt Disney World or whatever. He just back in the '20s thought cartoons could be better. They could tell a bit better story. And eventually that led to Snow White and it just evolved, he just had an idea and he started and that's the important thing is to start and noticed as you look back on the name of your podcast, it evolved, right?

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

I think there were three things that obviously you would remember better than I, but first it was freeing yourself from anger or something. And then it's like second evolution. Was it authenticity? I forget what it was. And the third evolution was the inner journey. But there was an evolution in the names of it, as you were evolving yourself in terms of what your vision was. That's a way of charting the vision. How has Emily Harman's vision changed? Well, just look at the names of the podcast and that's not wrong. That's good. Right?

Emily H:

Yeah. And my awareness has shifted. I interviewed my son Will in April of 2019 and right before I retired and then published his podcast a few months later, but we were talking about his journey, drinking from age 13 to 23. And it's the number one listened to episode that I have, and it's a really good episode. But at that time I would've been somebody who would've said poor Will, he's drowning his feelings in alcohol. I'm the mom, I'm in this level three energy, I'm going to push through. I'm going to help him, whatever. But I didn't realize that Emily was drowning her feelings in busyness, clueless about that. Now I can look back and say, what's the difference between me and Will? Okay. He was getting drunk. I look at it when my condo gets messy or whatever that, that is my hyper achiever, or maybe restless more restless saboteur.

Emily H:

It's just like me going on a drinking binge, is the way I look at it myself. Maybe that's not right. But that's how I look at it is I got hijacked by my saboteur this week and got so busy that I wasn't doing what I said I wanted to do, which is pay more attention to who I'm being as I'm doing, to be more in the flow. When my condo starts to look like that, it's not a terrible mess, but that tells me I'm not centered. And I just started taking pottery with my mom. And that was eye-opening because that's meditative and you have to be in the present moment and you to get the clay balanced from the beginning. If you don't, you're going to have a bowl that's not even, and that's just like life. We have to be balanced or else it reflects on everything that we do.

Warwick F:

I've often thought that the inner journey or inner game is it's a bit like exercise. You could say I ran yesterday. Aren't I good for the next year? No, you get flabby. You got to keep it up. And from inner perspective for me as a person of faith and for me in particular Christian faith, I do my daily Bible study and meditation. I've got my scripture memory, for others that might be mantras or different faith perspective factors that they pick up. But that centers me if I'm feeling angry about something. One of the gifts I have is I'm a very reflective person. I'm just wired to reflect. It's not hard me to reflect. It's just like breathing. Not that I don't achieve, but if I'm feeling bad, like if it's personal, obviously I'll say to my wife, Gale, I feel bad. I don't quite know why.

Warwick F:

If there are things that I know I'm not devastated by, but it's like a little ember, it could be a forest fire tomorrow. Today, it's an ember. Here's an example Gary's familiar with. Had this book come out, Crucible Leadership late last year and gossip column in I don't know, Sydney Morning Herald, one of the papers in Australia that we used to own wrote some article saying, oh, Warwick's got this book coming out and he'll share it with you for a price. Who shares a book for nothing? What's that about? And it some snarky little cartoon. Now was I on the floor sobbing? No, I was irritated, but I knew if I let that little seed or that yeast grow, bad things will happen. So I talked to Gary, another one of the folks on my team, not because I was devastated, but I knew I am not going to let that little thing get traction.

Warwick F:

And I dealt with it. But if I hadn't dealt with that, you start going down at, oh my gosh, look what I did. 150 year old company. And yeah, there was 4,000 people and I caused rifts in my family and I did this, I did this, I did this and this, I hurt this, I hurt this. You start spiraling down, which is not helpful. It's like that inner journey is understanding who you are when there's negative thoughts or negative vibes, come, figure out ways that you know that you can deal with it. Put it out.

Emily H:

What you did is you weeded your garden, right?

Warwick F:

Exactly.

Emily H:

You didn't let it get to be a huge weed. You pulled it right away.

Warwick F:

Again, it's like exercise, you want to help other people, you've got to be spiritually fit. You got to be spiritually in good shape. And just because we're in good shape today, doesn't mean we'll be in good shape tomorrow. It does mean we have tools, but don't just say, well, I went to counseling and I got that assessment yesterday and I was chatting to some close friends and I'm good. I never need to talk to a close friend ever again about anything I've been through. Because I'm bulletproof. It's like, yeah, no, it doesn't work like that. Does that make sense?

Emily H:

Oh, it makes complete sense. Because initially when I was in coaching, I was being coached and I'd be like, well, I don't think I really have anything else to work with them on, which was then every time I'd meet, it's like, oh so more and more. And then I started to realize, yeah, you're never really done. Here's another thing that explains how far I've come. I was like, I know I want to be a coach, but what do I want to coach on? This is when I was getting ready to retire. Who's my target audience? I know it's women who are so busy, they can't get everything done. And I have accomplished so much. I'm really good at time management. I'm going to help them with their time management. That's where I was going to ... Look at that. I've come from that far to now, like just be, and things will still get done.

Warwick F:

Amen. That is brilliant stuff. As you think of your podcast and Onward Movement, I'm sure the vision will evolve and grow as all good visions do. If I ask you this question in 10 years time, you'll probably have a slightly different answer. Maybe not radically different, but who knows it grow and flourished as all good things do like a beautiful garden. But at least as of right now, what's your dream that you hope for the people that listen to your podcast and Onward Movement. What is the dream that you think, gosh, this is what I would love to give to these folks in some fashion, I would love to help them. What's the core of your dream would you say?

Emily H:

I would just love to help them realize if they haven't already that there's more to life than just pushing hard. Life can be so joyful. You can be so free from your mind. You can be the observer of your mind. You are not your mind. You're the awareness, observing your mind. Knowing that and feeling it and living it are two different things. I'm feeling it and living it now for the most part. And it's awesome. And that's what I hope people will realize whether they come to me as a coach or go somewhere else, find a coach.

Emily H:

I think it's really hard to do that inner work without doing it with somebody. I think it's very challenging, I would not be here on my own if I hadn't invested in coaches. That's what I hope to help people who aren't living like that already, who see that, who are pointing to circumstances or other people, if only this would happen or this would change. And in some cases that might be perfectly right. But a lot of times we look at ourselves, we make these changes to ourselves. We improve ourselves. We go on this inner journey, our outer world changes. That's what I hope people see.

Gary S:

That sound that you just heard listener was the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign. It's about time we're taking our descent to land the plane. Before we do that though, before you have to gather up your peanut bags and leave, before we land the plane, I would be remiss Emily, if I didn't give you a chance to let listeners know how they could find out more about your services and about your coaching practice, how can they find out more online?

Emily H:

The best place to go is just my website, Emily Harman, H-A-R-M-A-N.com. And there's a bunch of information there. And then you can also find the link to join the Onward Movement Facebook group, and to subscribe to my newsletter, to listen to the podcast and you can also follow me on LinkedIn. I broadcast my podcast live on Wednesday nights at 7:30 in the evening, Eastern.

Gary S:

Before I turn it back to you Warwick for a final question, I just want to make an observation. And I hope listeners that you'll become viewers and go to our YouTube channel and watch this episode because what you'll see when Emily started out talking, I've been noticing it throughout. When she started out talking about her military career and what her life was like before, there was kind of a serious cast to her face and the way she spoke. And then when she got into what she's doing with Onward Movement and what she's doing since she is living the life that she really wants to live, it was like her entire countenance changed. You probably heard it in her voice too, if you're just listening to audio, but you can really see it on video. And it's a beautiful thing, Emily, to watch that transformation right in front of us. So thank you for that gift.

Emily H:

I'm in tears because I'm so full of joy. That's really my life right now. And I never thought I could find that. I never really, yeah. It's just amazing. I'm so happy.

Gary S:

Warwick, the last question is yours.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Wow. That is just so wonderful. We talked about often the biggest journey is the journey within, I think another journey that's almost like the Mount Olympus of inner work is to think that we are valued just because of who we are. From my faith perspective we're taught that we're loved by God, we're children of God, we're sons and daughters of God. And we have value in of ourselves with our foibles, our gifts, whether we're athletic, artistic, mathematical, there's nothing we have to do to be more loved by certainly God or the universe. And for those friends and family, who are truly friends and family, there's nothing that we can do to earn more of their love. I'm sure that would be the case with your kids and close friends. They love you and care for you just because of who you are.

Warwick F:

And we need to surround ourselves with those sorts of people and realize you are doing what you do with Onward Movement and your Onward Podcast, not to achieve things, not to score another basket, you're doing it because it's a reflection of your desire to help people. And just to be more fully Emily Harman is to do that. It's an overflow of the inner light that's going on within if you will. And I think of different ways, I think of stating what you're stating, but does that make sense that part of the Mount Olympus of inner journeys is to say I matter just because I am, and there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I need to do to earn the universe or God's love more or other people. I have value in and of myself. That frees you to actually help more people in some strange ways, not achieving the more you are doing your being work. And the more I matter just as I am somehow sounds little strength. That's a radiance that will even radiate. Any of this make sense just as we close?

Emily H:

It's so true. And then you find yourself, initially my journey, I would find myself like, I want to be like that coach, or I want to be like that, or I'm up behind her or whatever. And now it's like, there's no comparison. I'm not comparing to other people. Everyone's on a different journey. And the other thing that I would say is I never really grew up going to church. My parents both worked and on the weekends, they took us out hiking in the woods, in the mountains, in the Shenandoah Valley. And they wanted to spend time with us. And that's how I grew up. And I never really understood it when people said, God told me something, it didn't make any sense to me. I'm like God never talks to me.

Emily H:

Well, of course he didn't because I never was still enough to even freakin' listen. I was just so busy. And so I relate to that term, the universe and my intuition. When I get quiet and quiet my mind and meditate and connect with my higher self and the universe and thoughts come to me that I would not have thought of myself. That's God speaking to me. And so now I understand what people were saying, whereas before I never did. So if you're listening and you're like, I don't get it. I'm so busy. You're busy like me all the time. You can slow down, you can quiet your mind and you can hear God or the universe talking to you.

Gary S:

And with that, we can put the plane on the ground. Dare I say, the planes that we've been flying in this episode are US Navy blue angel planes.

Emily H:

Awesome.

Gary S:

And they're on the ground. Listener thank you for spending your time with us in this very exciting and emotional conversation with Emily Harman, we ask you to visit Crucibleleadership.com where can get Warwick's book. You can read blogs. You can explore more about the universe of what Crucible Leadership does in addition to other episodes of this podcast that have come before. And until the next time we're together, we ask you to remember this, that we know your crucible experiences are difficult. What Emily described today was extraordinarily difficult what she went through.

Gary S:

Warwick's crucible, as you all know has been difficult, but if you learn the lessons from your crucible, which is what we're talking about here, how do you learn the lessons of them and how do you apply them? If you do that, and as Emily has done it, we've listened to her talk about it for the last hour, she's applied the lessons of the crucible she's experienced and what she has done with that is what you can do with the lessons from your crucible experiences. And that is chart a course to a new and better life, a life of significance.

Giving his pain a purpose was the lesson this week’s guest, Dennis Gillan, learned when he took his tentative first steps as a suicide prevention speaker – as a man whose two brothers took their own lives 11 years apart. Gillan shares the devastation he experienced in the aftermath of his brothers’ suicides – but also the strength and hope he’s found by embracing what he’s discovered is the call on his life: to inspire others to how to use the trauma of their crucibles to live lives of significance. The one practical tip you want to make extra sure you listen for? The Purple File.

To learn more about Dennis Gillan and his nonprofit the Half a Sorrow Foundation, visit www.halfasorrow.org

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible, I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Dennis G:

So I spoke at a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, I got involved with those good folks, and I spoke for the first time publicly about my brothers and it was awful, five minutes, it was brutal. I got through it and I sat down and afterwards a lady came up to me and said, "You need to tell that story more often." And I said, "Oh, you just heard the one and done show that's not happening." But God kept saying, "Maybe there's something here." Everybody who's listening to your crucible moment, maybe something's in here, don't waste the pain.

Gary S:

Don't waste the pain. That's the lesson this week's guest Dennis Gillan learned when he took his tentative first steps as a suicide prevention speaker, as a man whose two brothers took their own lives 11 years apart. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger co-host of the show. Gillan shares the devastation he experienced in the aftermath of his brothers' suicides, but also the strength and hope he's found by embracing what he's discovered is the call on his life to inspire others, to not waste the pain of their own crucibles. He offers several practical tips and how to use your pain as fuel for a life of significance. The one you want to make extra sure you listen for, the purple file.

Warwick F:

Well, Dennis, thank you so much for being here and thank you for what you do as an advocate for mental health, and obviously you've experienced the challenges and the tragedies that have led you to your calling and what you do with Half a Sorrow Foundation and the purple file, which we'll get to, which is such a brilliant idea. So before we get to really the tragedies that in a sense sort of sadly changed your life in many ways with your brothers, which we'll get into, tell us a bit about what was life for you growing up? Tell us about your family, your brothers, before the tragedies hit, what was your family life and what was life like in the Gillan household?

Dennis G:

Life was good until it wasn't, it's second generation, Irish guy, all my grandparents came in to Brooklyn, New York. So that's where my parents were. So I was born in Brooklyn and then like many folks of that era, my dad chasing the American dream here, he moved out to the suburbs and the house, the little spit of land, and we ended up north of New York City because my dad worked in the city in a little town called Valley Cottage, New York it's right on the Hudson River, Hudson Valley, maybe 30 miles north of New York City, in a little town Valley Cottage in the County of Rockland. So it's near the Tappan Zee Bridge if anyone knows that area, that's where I grew up.

Dennis G:

It was, what's the word idyllic, I never get that word right. But it was awesome because I was one of five kids, we had 110 acres of woods behind us that wasn't developed yet, it's now since been developed. But it was like, this is a paradise. I lived near the local pool, there were tennis courts nearby. I walked to school. Everything I needed was in that little pod of Valley Cottage, and I loved being from a big family, five kids, I'm in the middle. There's Sheila, Mark, me, Janice and Matthew, and it was classic five, five people, count my parents seven, we had a three bedroom house everybody's crammed in there pretty good. We start moving downstairs and making rooms downstairs. It was really a great upbringing and memory, thank God for memory because it's very selective. You remember the good times you tend to forget the bad times. It was really good. I went to St. Paul's Catholic School then I went to the public high school. I have lifelong friends from both institutions. To sum it all up life in Valley Cottage was really good up until 1983.

Warwick F:

So you had an idyllic upbringing in this little town, north of New York, life just seemed to be good. It seemed like, the world, anything could happen. You could continue the American dream of your dad, it's like life was good. As you rightly put it, life was good until it wasn't. So tell us about, I guess it was Mark, was that the first? So tell us about that time and that day and maybe a bit about who Mark was.

Dennis G:

Sure. Mark wasn't built for school. He was one of those tinkerers, one of those smart guys that was good at fixing and stuff, but you put an academic, you put a book in front of them, it's not going to end up well. Mark's been on my heart lately, because I went through my office recently and I was just, I went through divorce so I have all this stuff everywhere, and I was going through my old high school announcement, when I graduated in 1981. Now this is two years before we lost Mark, and on the back of it they listed the people that graduated the previous summer and my brother was one of them. He didn't graduate on time, he graduated in August, 1980, I graduated in 1981. So he was on my program and I did not know that until now.

Dennis G:

I looked at it like, "Oh my gosh, Mark is on my program," because he graduated later than he should have because he wasn't a book guy, he was a tinkerer. We had a garage full of stuff, he hooked up a CB radio and that's an old radio for you kids out there that truckers used to use. He hooked up a CB radio to his Schwinn Varsity bike, and it ran on a generator that he rigged up so he could talk and ride his bike on a CB. It was like, who thinks of that? That's the kind of guy he was.

Dennis G:

So I go off to college after '81 and I'm there '81, '82, '83, and that's when the crucible moment number one hit, the phone rang and it was my younger sister, Janice and Janice says, "Dennis, you need to come home." It's a Wednesday and I'm eight hours away at West Virginia University. I'm the first kid to go away to university in my family, and I'm like, "Janice, now I'm exactly where I need to be." Then she told me, mark died in a car accident, which is not true. Mark died in a car but it was no accident, you all know why I'm here, and the audience is now going to get a little taste of what's in my life here.

Dennis G:

Mark died by suicide, battled depression for years, and the disease state won. So right smack in the beginning of my junior year, which is kind of technically the middle of my college experience if you're looking at four years, I'm into it and this is October and I get that phone call and I went home and things were never the same after that.

Warwick F:

Before that happened did you ever think that was possible? Did you or your family think, Mark's a great guy but he is battling, call it demons, call it challenges. Did you ever think this was a possibility?

Dennis G:

I think like most people that age, he was looking for his place, looking for his tribe, so to speak and I don't think he found it. There was one time I think when he like ran away, like he's out of here and we didn't know where he was. So there was some inkling, but anytime you're dealing with like a suicide or a traumatic event, hindsight is 20/20, when you're in it, it's hard to see it. You're like, "Hey, you'll get over this, it's okay, you'll be fine." The truth of the matter was he wasn't fine, he was battling something, they call it the invisible illness. He didn't let us in, some people kind of, "Let us in, what's going on?"

Dennis G:

Looking back, there were signs and now that I'm knee deep in the business of suicide prevention, look back, eh, that one should have saw that one, could have caught that one, and it's brutal. It's brutal on you when you start thinking like that, the would've, the could've, the should'ves, and that's why a death by suicide is unlike any other, because it's so much like, what could I have done? What could I have seen? If mark was driving along and a rock fell down a cliff and took him out, you'd be ah, act of God. Just, man that's lousy timing, just terrible timing, he was in the highway at that moment. But with the suicide, it was planned out, it was thought about, the demons were strong and it got the best of him.

Warwick F:

So you rightly put it, obviously it's horrific for the person's family and friends that's left behind. As you say, you were a kid in college, it's not like you had the knowledge you have now. I mean you had maybe no knowledge or very little so, but it's easy to say, gosh, for your parents or your siblings, couldn't we have seen this or that if we'd gotten him counseling, if we've done this, that and the other, but it's not obvious if you don't have that training. So it's easy to objectively say, "Look, it's not your fault. It's fine." But it's probably a lot harder when you're in the midst of all of that and the emotions, and you're not thinking clearly in terms of, there's no way at that age I could possibly have known, right? You don't think that way at the time.

Dennis G:

Not at all. That age for me, and I'm not going to speak university for many of us, but I was 20, and when I was 20, I'll just speak about me. When I was 20, my life was all about me. I was the center of the universe. Everything was me, me, me, me, me. I, I, I, and I think one of the beautiful things about life when you start living for others, your self dies and you start living to others and that's where you, maybe it takes time, but I always marvel that people that figure that out at an early age, it took me a long time to figure that one out. But at a time 20, and if I go back to 1983, I was just about Dennis having a good time, I was in a fraternity, social. It was all, how can I have the best life ever?

Warwick F:

Well, that's normal for kids in college or kids at that age.

Dennis G:

Sure.

Warwick F:

I mean, so that's totally understandable. So that was obviously horrendous, but as we've mentioned, this wasn't the only tragedy. It was how many years later that you got another phone call about your younger brother?

Dennis G:

Fast forward from '83. Yeah, Matthew, poor Matthew. '83 lose Mark, 11 years later. Now I get out of college, four years and eight weeks, I did a summer session I'm out, and I go back to New York and I ended up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania working for a pretty darn good company. I'm doing pretty good. I'm working for Merck Pharmaceuticals, a big pharmaceutical company, I'm a sales rep, I got a great job, married living in Carlisle. I remember this day like it was yesterday and I just like Mark's phone call, those crucible moments, you know exactly where you were when that happened.

Dennis G:

I was in Carlisle in my living room and the phone rang and poor Janice, it was Janice again. I would tease her about this, but to this day when she calls my heart skips a beat, "Is everything okay? How's mom? How are you?" "She's like Dennis, I'm fine, I'm just going to say hi." "Hi." But she had the bad misfortune telling me about Matthew and in 1983, 1994, 11 years later, a decade and a year later, my younger brother, Matthew in a drunken stupor, with access to lethal means dies by suicide. That's two, and one is awful, awful, and in the United States, we have over 45,000 a year. The estimate is like 130 a day or some crazy number like that.

Dennis G:

You can do all the stats you want, it's mostly white males, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. None of that means a hill of beans, if it happens to you, and one, one is too many and our family got struck by lightning twice and it was awful.

Warwick F:

I mean, Mark was tough enough, but when Matthew happens, I mean, what were the emotions going on with you? I guess sisters and parents, I mean, there must have been just the level of grief, tragedy, anger must have been at a level that's hard to describe I'm guessing.

Dennis G:

It's just different when it's your little brother, I'm going to tear up thinking about this. Like maybe I should have been looking out for him, but I was too busy in my own little bubble and telling myself, after Mark died, I was 20, I was already drinking a lot, and then I ramped it up another level to numb that pain. Then when Matthew died, I got drunk the night before we buried Matthew, and I remember driving back home and I went dark after Matthew died, I mean really dark. I felt vulnerable for the first time in my life. I wasn't bulletproof, the weight of the world was on me and I'm driving back and I'm like, "You know what? I can't do this anymore. I can't."

Dennis G:

I remember hugging somebody at my brother Matthew's funeral, hugging this dude and saying, "I did this already." I thought you just checked the box, one and done. I said, "I did this already." When I got back to Carlisle, I was a mess, happy to report that the night before, when we buried Matthew, when I got drunk was the last time I've ever gotten drunk. So I'm over 27 years sober.

Gary S:

Congratulations.

Dennis G:

Thank you brother. I appreciate it. I heard your story. We all have our struggles, at that point, it was just a good move for me. I was as low as I could be. I was depressed and let's be honest, alcohol is a depressant. So do I need to put gasoline on this fire? I don't think so. The fire's kind of raging, so let's let it go. So I just decided to take a timeout and I'm happy to report the timeout is still lasting. Then I got like a God moment in there.

Dennis G:

My ex-wife and I were having a little trouble conceiving a child, and that was on our list. We married, had the house and next up is a kid and we were having trouble, and I made a little deal with God and I don't recommend this for anyone, but I said, "If we have a child I'll never drink again." Martin's 26, I'm 27 years sober, do the math. I'm a man of my word. I don't welter my bets. A bet is a bet. God provided Martin, I'm sober. I came out way ahead on that deal, and I don't recommend it, but I was in a bad spot.

Gary S:

One of the things that you said to me, Dennis, when we spoke before this, since you brought up the subject of God and somewhat miraculous conception, is you said that you had tried to run away from God and you ended up running to Him, unpack that a little bit for folks because not everybody goes through that, that's not for everybody per se. But in your particular case, it's interesting that there were two tragedies, two terrible tragedies, but you have these bookends of, I tried running away and then I ran to. What did that look like for you?

Dennis G:

Sure. The strong Catholic upbringing helped, it really came in handy, complete with all the Catholic guilt that comes with it. It was good. It was a solid foundation. So God was always on my mind. There were times I ran away, I can't do this, but I always came back and for some reason God always wins. If you're going to get in a wrestling match with God, he's going to win. He's going to pin you. He's going to humble you, and I felt extremely humbled after Matthew died. The way God really stepped into the picture after Matthew was 16 years later and everything's on God's timetable not ours. 16 years later, he puts this little bug in my ear saying, "Tell the story about your brothers." And I was like, "No, thank you, God. No, thank you at all. I'm going to take a hard pass on that one, God, what else you got? Eat that cheeseburger? That I'll do."

Dennis G:

So I spoke at a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I got involved with those good folks and I spoke for the first time publicly about my brothers, and it was awful, five minutes it was brutal. I got through it and I sat down and afterwards a lady came up to me and said, "You need to tell that story more often." And I said, "Oh, you just heard the one and done show, that's not happening." But God kept saying, "Maybe there's something here." Everybody's listening to your crucible moment, maybe something's in there, don't waste the pain."

Dennis G:

I started speaking about my brothers after that. I got a call from a university that said, "Hey, we saw you at that walk, that fundraiser, can you come speak to our students and interns?" And I bombed, I cried the whole time. They introduced me, I never heard myself introduced this way. Here's a guy who lost two brothers to suicide. That's something I never heard out loud until that day, and they go, "Ladies and gentlemen, Dennis Gillan." I'm sitting there, when they're introducing me, I'm going, "Oh, that poor guy, who is that guy?" And they said, "Oh, it's you crap." Then I just cried the whole time. So that didn't go very well. Then I got another call from a school that heard me speak at that school, and they said, "Hey, come down." And I only cried half the time. Hey, progress. Right?

Gary S:

Twice as good, twice as good. Right?

Dennis G:

Then the third time, here's another session where God enters the chat. I went to a Baptist school here in South Carolina, Charleston, Southern University, and they said before our speaker goes on, let's pray for him. This woman got up and prayed for me. I needed that, this room was packed. It was 220, the room held 220, there probably was 300 kids in there because it was part of convocation, they had to show up. They had to get credit, and I love that. Normally when I speak like on a campus or something, it's not voluntary, it's mandatory. You got to go, and they don't want to be there, and I love that audience because I walk into this hostile crowd and I'm going to wow them with this story.

Dennis G:

But she prayed and that's exactly what I needed to hear, and from that night forward, I think I had my calling. So I remember driving back and I brought my pastor with me and he said, he looked at me, he goes, "You got to keep going. You got something here. You got to keep going." Which I wish you would've said, "You kind of stink at this, you need to go back to your day job." And I'm like, "All right, God was wrong."

Warwick F:

So fast forward, I think it was like 16 years after '94 or thereabouts to your talk at the American Society of Suicide Prevention. So, I can relate in one small way sometimes when it's about your worst day, somebody says, "Do you want to talk about that?" "Relive my worst day, the pain, you've got to be nuts." Again, I'm reminded one of our very first podcasts on Beyond the Crucible, we interviewed a Navy seal that was paralyzed in a training accident. He was like one of the best of the best, his dad was a Navy seal, and I said, "Look, what I went through is nothing compared to what you went through." He stopped me, this is the guy who was paralyzed, the Navy seal, and said, "You know what? Your worst day is your worst day. It's not a competition, not a comparison."

Warwick F:

We've interviewed quadriplegics, victims of abuse, you name it, all sorts of things, and they all have that view which is amazing to me. But yeah, I mean, I guess by way of analogy, I mean, there are people that said you want to write about your story of losing 150 year old family business said, "There's no way." But then a little bit, maybe like you in a sense, in a small way, in 2008, I gave a talk in my church, some sermon about what I went through and yeah, I'm not Mr. Public Speaker, certainly not back then anyway. It was like 10 minutes or so, and afterwards people said, "Your talk really helped me." I'm thinking how many former media moguls are there in the congregation? Like none."

Warwick F:

Sadly way too many people and families have suffered, whether it's suicide or abuse, cancer, but like okay, well, maybe I should write a book about my story if I can help others. But I remember I couldn't do more than a couple hours a day because it was so painful reliving the memories that most of it was just my stupidity and my mistakes. Again, you can't compare pain, but I could imagine in some very small way people saying, "Dennis, your story can help people." You're thinking, I don't care, I am not talking about it. It's way too painful. How did you shift? People might have told you that for years, I'm guessing leading up to 2000 or thereabouts. How did you actually decide to speak about it? Because it's not easy to talk about that kind of pain.

Dennis G:

It's a great, great analogy. Hey, take your worst day. Great. Let's make a career out of that. No. No. Let's talk about that every day. No, it was interesting. When I did that fundraiser, they call it AFSP, the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, it felt cathartic, and there was a calling to do something, and then people would come up to you after and say, "I appreciate that talk. I'm going through some stuff here too." So basically our misery have become our mission in a sense.

Dennis G:

I remember I sat down with this pastor, another guy and I sat down with him and I said, "I wasted all this time, 16 years, I just sat on my rear end and didn't speak about these guys, and I blew it. I blew it. I blew it. I could have been more, more, more." And he said, "No, you were not ready. Those were your days in the desert." what he was talking about was the Exodus, when they just ran around the day, not ready yet. You're not ready yet. You're not ready yet. Okay now, here's the promise land. He was so right when he said that I forgave myself, I wasn't ready.

Warwick F:

Interesting. I guess Dennis is referring to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and they wanted to go to the promised land, but they made a few mistakes, which I guess the Bible calls, sin, lack of faith and all sorts of other things. Even Moses kind of wasn't good enough to make it to the promised land, but he saw it, but then never quite headed there. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting when he's like, "Gosh, I could have done more. I could have done it earlier." You used the word forgiveness, forgiving yourself. Why did you use that word? Because objectively it wasn't your fault, what happened to either of your brothers, what do you mean by forgiveness?

Dennis G:

Well, with the suicide or death by suicide, there's a stigma that comes, it's not justified, but it just comes with it. What could you have done differently? Did you see it? Could you have called him? Could you have done this? Could you have done that? In addition to forgiving myself, I have to forgive Matt and Mark. I have no idea what they were going through at that moment in time where that pain overrode their ability to be resilient. What was happening right then and there. We did at one of these walks, they had this balloon release and they said, "Dennis, you got to go over and release this balloon." I'm like, "I'm not doing that crap." It's such a guy move, like I'm not doing that symbolism stuff.

Dennis G:

So my ex-wife at the time said, "No, your team raised a lot of money, you got to go over there." So I went over there, they gave me a balloon and they said, "All right, just think about why we're here and all this stuff." Right before I released it, and this is where, now I believe in this stuff. If you ever have something really bad happen, write a letter to that person and then burn it, even if you don't send it. But this symbolism of letting that balloon go. I said, "Matt, Mark, I forgive you." And I let it go. That was like a big turning point for me, because I was so mad at those two.

Dennis G:

I used to say to people "when I go to heaven, I don't know if I'm going to punch them or hug them, just depends on the mood when I die, what's going to happen." So it was really interesting in that way, it's just now I believe in that stuff and I also believe in what all three of us have shared the vulnerability piece for guys. It's okay to not be okay.

Warwick F:

I want to make sure listeners hear what you just said, because it's so important, and we do talk about that on Beyond the Crucible is, you go through a crucible, sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it's other people's fault and you have to forgive yourself. We had a woman on the podcast, Stacy Copas from Australia and she became a quadriplegic by diving into an above ground pool. Now she was 12. Clearly it was "her fault." But when you're young, you feel like you bulletproof and you ignore your parents and say, "Don't do it, don't do it, Stacy."

Warwick F:

So she battled substance abuse and it's like, "Why did I do this to myself?" So she had to forgive herself, and again, you're young, it's objectively saying, "Look, come on. Young people do silly things." But for everybody that we've talked to, there is no way back from the pit, from your darkest moment without forgiveness and you got to forgive yourself, you've got to forgive others, depends on the situation, I get how in your case it was both. But because that's important, I mean, from my perspective, God loves all of us, life is a precious gift and for God to use us in any way, shape or form, we have to be able to forgive us and others. Life is too important, you can't help anybody else until you take care of yourself, which you've done both in counseling and forgiveness. It's so important. I want listeners to hear.

Warwick F:

So we're at 2000, you're speaking, and I don't know if you mentioned off air that you view yourself as like this natural charismatic speaker that, hey, this is easy, I could speak anywhere, anytime, no notes. I mean, is that an easy thing or is that a challenging thing for you? Because most people hate speaking to be honest.

Dennis G:

Well, God enters the chat again. When I was looking for a new career and trying to settle in Columbia, South Carolina, I started attending Toastmasters meetings and Toastmasters is a group that trains you how to be a speaker, and I was not going to be a speaker. I was not good at it. I tried something at church one time and bombed and my leg was shaking and my voice went real high. It was a capital campaign, I was like my leg shaking, I'm like, "Hey, we need money for the church." And it was like, "Whoa, what's happening to that dude?" "It would really be nice if you guys can help." And it was horrible.

Dennis G:

I'm like, "You know what, if I want to go somewhere, I got to learn how to speak publicly." So I started going to Toastmasters, those wonderful people became my friends and started going every Friday morning at this little restaurant called Lizard's Thicket, get breakfast, do a couple speeches, and in a weird way, God was preparing me going, listen, I got to plan for you, you don't know it yet, and then sure enough, now that when I speak all those skills that I learned at those meetings where I was just going for a very selfish reason to make connections so I can get another job now are being used for this job.

Dennis G:

I've called on those a lot and I'd like to think I'm a good speaker. The topic's tough, but there are times every time I go to speak, I have to peel away right in the beginning, I tell the people I'm working with said, "Listen, I'm going to disappear for a little bit." And I go and pray and just say, "Is this what you want me to do? Because I'm about to do it. I'm going to tear up thinking about this. Like, God, is this what you want me to do?" I always hear like, "Get your butt on stage. Let's go." Then I come running back and I'm like, "Here we go, give the microphone."

Warwick F:

That's such an important lesson that I obviously wholeheartedly agree with. There is a phrase that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. Now whether you believe in God or some universal power, when you just say like, "I'm going to do my best, but I'm scared, my knees are wobbling, God you got to help me." From my experience, He always does. If you go in there saying, "I got it," you typically don't got it and it won't go well. So when you go in there and say, "I don't got it. I'm scared. You're going to have to help me." You're just being vulnerable and authentic, people yearn for that, and obviously you do. I think you don't have to be Mr. or Mrs. Charismatic Speaker to speak or really to do anything. You just got to say, "Look, I feel called to do this, so I'm going to do it."

Dennis G:

You can't teach passion, exactly, Warwick. You can't teach passion. If the person's passionate about it, it's going to come out, whether they're a good speaker or not, you're going to feel it. I've seen some really bad speakers who are really passionate about the cause, I'm like, "I'm with them. I'm with them."

Warwick F:

I want to get to obviously, Half the Sorrow Foundation and this wonderful phrase, purple file, or this wonderful concept. But one of the things I've found, and I don't know whether you found, I'm guessing you probably have is, my book came out in October last year, October, 2021. I began speaking at young people and business groups and I'm a pretty functional, healthy person, there are always scars when you go through tragedies. But when you have people say, "Warwick, your story really helped me." A young person or boy, thank you. We call it a healing balm.

Warwick F:

There's some level of additional healing, when somehow, I know everybody's heard this a million times, pain for a purpose. Somehow what you went through can help others, there is some additional level of healing. I mean, am I guessing? You've probably found that, when you speak and people say, "You know, Dennis, thank you for sharing your story, because that really has helped me." Have you found that in your own life?

Dennis G:

Oh, I've had some unbelievable God moments like that. I'll be done speaking at one school I got done at 8:00, I got back to my car at 10:30. People want to come up because you're showing them a weakness, which is actually your strength, you're vulnerable on stage, and then they want to share their vulnerability. The first time it really happened to me was at this huge sorority convention, 600 women in this room, which is kind of funny, because I couldn't talk to one of them while I was in college, and now I got invited to talk to 600.

Warwick F:

That's so funny.

Dennis G:

I couldn't wrap the sandwich. Right? So I get invited to speak to these women and I come down and grab my bag. I went up and got my disc, my files from the sound guy, and I come downstairs and grab my bag and leave, and there's a line of people waiting to speak to me, and it's never happened before. I'm like, "Okay, you want to talk to me?" And they're, "yeah." So now I build that into my presentation, I stick around as long as they need me to stick around and it's been very cathartic for me and them. But once you share your pain, someone's going to share their pain with you, and there's a kindred spirit in that, the vulnerability piece that makes us all human and we can use a lot more of that right about now.

Warwick F:

Additional level of healing. So talk about before we get to purple file, I love that phrase, Half a Sorrow Foundation. Talk about the origin of that name. Where does that come from?

Dennis G:

Sure. I believe it's a Swedish proverb and I was thinking about doing this foundation, someone gave me the advice. I crowdsourced it on Facebook, I said, "Hey guys, what would you do if you were naming a foundation?" And one guy, a good fraternity friend of mine, David Molgard said, "Don't name an after your brothers." Because everybody else was doing Matt Mark, Mark Matt, they're doing all kind of variations. I sat there like, "Huh, that's interesting." Then I always had this thing in my talk where I talk about a shared joy is a double joy, a shared sorrow is half a sorrow, and it resonates with the audience. That's the proverb, the Swedish proverb. I was like, "That thing hits home."

Dennis G:

So I started think about it, and I said, "You know what? The Half a Sorrow Foundation." Because that thing floored me when I heard it, and it took me forever. I might have heard it when I was a kid, I might have heard it in school, but when I heard it when I was driving in my car, age 50, after burying two brothers, thinking about my speaking career, that thing meant all the world to me, a shared joy is a double joy, a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Warwick F:

You've lived that right? It does lessen the agony of the sorrow at least a little bit by sharing it. Right?

Dennis G:

Absolutely, and I say in the talk, I say, "A half of a half of a half of a half, I will never get to zero." That's okay, because my brothers meant something to me. I don't want to get to zero. If I get to zero, we better check for a pulse. It's my time, turn around the Grim Reaper's behind me, like yeah, it's time. I'll always have those guys with me.

Warwick F:

So talk about what the foundation does just so that listeners can understand.

Dennis G:

Sure. We had a lot of programs that were focused on gathering and then COVID took care of that. We were doing this men's thing, this men's breakfast, trying to get men together. Again, that's my thing with mental health. I do a men's night at the local tennis center, and we do a little talk about mental health, then we go out and play, because that's how guys talk. They don't talk about stuff like one on one, they'll talk while shooting basketball or playing ping pong, that's how we talk. The genesis of the foundation was to go to schools that can't afford me.

Dennis G:

I'm not going to get rich doing this, but I had a call from a kid in Texas one time and they wanted me to come down there and this is before the foundation existed and we couldn't make it work, budgets, flights, we just couldn't do it, and I had to say no to them. I remember I was crying after the call, I never said no to anybody. That was the first time I had to say no, and I said, "Wow, if I had a foundation that could pay the way so if this kid ever calls back, I have two questions for him. One what time? And what do I wear? Because I'm coming because the foundation will cover the cost." That's where it started.

Warwick F:

That's awesome, and speaking about where it started, Gary mentioned to me and in honor of you, he's wearing a purple, maybe it's burgundy jacket.

Gary S:

It is burgundy, I'm not the Joker.

Warwick F:

It's beautiful. I love this concept of a purple file, that in all seriousness, I think can be so helpful. Talk about what that is and why that is so important for people, especially when they're not feeling that great about life for themselves. What is a purple file?

Dennis G:

Warwick and Gary, what happened with that was people would write me notes every now and then I'm like, "How do I capture this?" So I started printing them out and shoving them in this little file and it's kind of a selfish reason again. Everything's about me, but I thought one day when I die, my kids will find this file and go, "Oh my gosh, daddy touched some people." I have two boys, Martin and Brandon, sorry, but little did I know that I need the file right now, because there are some days I feel like quitting this job, like, oh my gosh, how much can a man take? Then I go back to the file and it's a living, breathing file. It's behind me in my office, right now I brought it here.

Dennis G:

I will open it up and I'll start reading some of the letters that people sent after the talk, and that rejuvenates me like, all right, stay on focus, Dennis, it's a bad day today, but we got this, we got this. Keep going. So it's a real source of determination for me, and I think everybody should have a purple file. Just a couple notes. Something you got from someone who believed in you, who saw something in you that you did not see yourself, and I print it out and I read it. I'm old school, I printed. If you have a desktop icon, just call it the purple file, and anyone sends you a nice email for work, you pop it in there, you pop it in there. It came out to be like a little brag book, but we don't like to brag, it's more of an inspiration file than anything.

Gary S:

I want to emphasize to listeners how powerful this is. I found out about this. I found out about Dennis, the current issue that's out right now, as we're recording this with Entrepreneur Magazine, he has a column that he wrote in the front of the magazine, short column, where he talks about the file and what exactly what he just said. Here's a quote from Dennis' column, "When I consider quitting, I grab the file and come back with renewed determination." Then he says, "Do you have a similar file?" I was in bed reading this and I already started pulling things together before I went to sleep that night. I just want to bring this home to listeners about the kinds of things that can go in there that do exactly what Dennis talks about.

Gary S:

In my day job when I'm not co-hosting this show, I am a public relations guy, that's what I do. My job is to get clients coverage in the media. That's not the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you pitch clients to go in the media and the media doesn't want to feature them. That can be those moments that you just described, Dennis, where you just kind of want to quit or like, why am I doing this? I'm banging my head against the wall it's not working.

Gary S:

I'm going to read a short note that I have in my purple file inspired by your article in Entrepreneur, that on those days I had on my wall, still do, I made a photocopy for the file, but this is what it says. It's from June, 2018, and this is a letter written to me by two people I represented pro bono whose eldest son murdered their two youngest children. Okay? So let that sink in and the kind of sorrow that they were going through. The media was very interested in wanting to talk to them. They went to church where I used to go to church in Colorado Springs, the pastor at my old church connected me with them and I represented them to the media, got some coverage of their hearts to make sure that they got treated fairly. This is what they wrote to me in June, 2018.

Gary S:

"Gary, thank you from the depths of our hearts for your strong support in us, your guidance and counsel has literally saved us for much more pain and confusion in a world where we feel lost and blind. You became our eyes and voice in the media and public. You have become our friend. Thank you for always listening, always praying, always encouraging us into Christ. We are eternally grateful to you, truly, don't give up doing what you do in PR, (unless God tells you) because you mean a lot, your value and worth is remarkable. It's priceless. Your passion is beautiful and inspiring. We are so beyond blessed to call you friend. Gary, we love you and thank you in the name of the father, God and Lord and savior Jesus Christ."

Gary S:

There is no journalist on the face of the planet who's going to tell me "no" when I pitch Warwick or somebody else, that's going to win my head and heart into a bad place when I've got something like this that I have in this inspired by you, Dennis, purple file. That's the power of having a purple file.

Warwick F:

Well thank you for sharing that, Gary-

Dennis G:

Thank you.

Warwick F:

That is just so, so powerful. I want listeners again, if you haven't got it already, you should listen carefully. I don't have a purple file yet, but conceptually, as I think back in our dark days, having those messages of hope, I remember when the company went under and I do have a file with this. People would write me letters, people I didn't know. Readers of the main paper, we had Sydney Morning Herald, and I had people just somewhere in Sydney or elsewhere. It's like, "You don't know me but I'm so sorry what happened, the company going under, we're praying for you."

Warwick F:

I've got a bunch of these letters that people, I don't know who they are, I've never met them, probably never will. It's like, wow, I mean, now that I'm speaking, you have people come up and say things which is very heartwarming. I did a podcast, a Harvard Business School Alumni Podcast. I had a couple of messages right after, a guy saying, "Yep, I'm some private equity guy, and I just found out that my sort of $100 million company is going under today, and I don't know what I'm going to tell my wife and kids and sort of lost everything, and thank you."

Warwick F:

I mean, those words of encouragement during our dark days, one of the things that we do, start at the same level as a purple file, but it's a family thing we do, is every birthday we go round and I have two adult sons and a daughter in the middle and we go around and say, "What is it we admire about whoever it is?" Two of my kids are writers, and so in addition to what they say verbally, they write cards, typically paragraphs. So I mean, I have those things over the years and just that sort of love and affirmation from your kids. It's one thing to say, "I love you dad," which is great, but I love you because, A, B, C, D, E, F, in great detail.

Warwick F:

So yeah, during our dark days, those are what I call drops of grace. Everything is spiritual for me, so thank you Lord, for those drops of grace. Those affirmations that say, "Hey, I'm not perfect, but thank you for that encouragement," because it helps us get through those the dark days. If you believe in light and dark and we're studying spiritual warfare in our church at the moment, which is certainly not my favorite subject at all. But if you believe there is a battle there between good and evil, which most religions say, when those dark thoughts come, prayer, reading your Bible or whatever it is, but also remembering the affirmations from people. Those are also I think, tools from above to help us sustain those dark days. So purple file, if you don't have one yet, make one physically, virtually, don't forget those good words in those dark days. So, so important. So thank you so much.

Gary S:

Let me jump in and add and add one more thing here before the captain gets on the microphone here, because I want to ask you this question, Dennis, and it goes in exactly what Warwick was talking about, about the importance of affirmation and why the purple file is so powerful for people. You said this phrase a couple of times, when you were speaking about Mark and Matthew and how they passed, you talked about how the disease state won. That's what led to their deaths, the disease state won. Is it fair to say that a purple file, those kinds of affirmations, that point out the things that you do right, that point out why you should keep going, those are some of the things that you can use to keep the disease state from winning.

Dennis G:

I totally believe that, great point, Gary and Warwick, thank you for sharing that you're going to have a purple file soon because you got enough content already. I think it's part of your self-care plan. Self-care is not selfish, that's like a buzzword in the industry, but we got to take care of ourselves, and I think the purple file is a great way to do that. If you're feeling down and out and you've got this file of people that believe in you and wrote stuff, yeah, grab it, that's part of your recovery process. Exactly what you're saying Gary, keep the disease at bay. The purple file started out, my brag book, think much of yourself, Dennis, it's now become like a self-care book. Hey Dennis, keep going man, these people, they have faith in you. You may not have the faith right now, but those folks in that file do, and Gary, that letter you have for that pro bono work you did for that family, nobody's going to tell you no and ruin your day now. It's not going to happen, not going to happen.

Gary S:

Nope. Never.

Dennis G:

They don't own your head space, because that letter is taking up all that head space and it should, it's awesome.

Gary S:

That sound you heard listener was not just Dennis making a good point at the end of his sentence, but it was the sound of the captain turning it on the fastened seatbelt sign, which indicates we're going to have to land the plane here in a bit. Before we do that though, I would be remiss, Dennis, if I did not give you the chance to let listeners know how they can learn more about the Half a Sorrow Foundation, more about your speaking, more about you.

Dennis G:

Sure. I am transitioning between two websites. I have one that's my name, dennisgillan.com.

Gary S:

Not Gillian, right? It's Dennis, G-I-L-L-A-N.

Dennis G:

That's right. You've had experiences spelling your last name. I get it. So we're going from that one to the halfasorrow.org, that's where we're going. It's funny, I was doing all my speaking under my own business saying you know what? It's bigger than me, so we're going to create a foundation so I can actually get other speakers, do more programming. So I'm migrating, I love the Dennis Gillan site, it has my TEDx Talk on there. We moved a lot of that stuff over to the halfasorrow.org site, and you can see my TEDx Talk on both of those now, but that's where we're going that's where we get a hold of me. I do monitor both of them and all the emails that come in, requests to speak and all that good stuff, and it's been quite the journey and I'm looking forward to many more years of this.

Dennis G:

Running into guys like you, we put an article out there in Entrepreneur, I hope somebody reads it, and the next thing you know, a week later, I'm on a podcast, talking to two guys who've had similar trials and tribulations in the end we all have them. So I thank you both for bringing me on.

Gary S:

Warwick, the last question or questions are yours.

Warwick F:

Well thank you Dennis, for so much, I really appreciate your message of hope, and as we close, there might on people listening today, they might have had family members who've committed suicide, I hope and pray this is not the case. Maybe there are some folks that have those thoughts. Maybe it's not suicide, maybe they've just today is a horrendous day because of what somebody did to them or tragedy, maybe mistakes they've made. What would the message of hope that you would give listeners who today they might feel like today's their worst day? What message of hope would you offer them?

Dennis G:

I had really bad worst days and everyone did, like I said earlier, we don't want to compare the trauma Olympics. Your worst day is your worst day, but I'm here to tell you better days are coming, and it sounds trite but I couldn't see out of that darkness when Matthew died, I couldn't see it. There were days if I got up by noon, that was a good day. We started the day like, "Oh, I'm up by noon." I get it. I get that dark place, what's that old poem in the valleys that I grow? Believe it or not let the grief do its work, whatever you're grieving, let it do its work, and hopefully this work when it's completed, you'll come out the other side a more compassionate human being. I feel everything now, the highest highs, the lowest lows, I feel them all and I'd have it no other way.

Dennis G:

Before I try to numb all that stuff. When Mark died I tried to numb feeling the lows, but ended up numbing the highs, I numbed at all. Suicide is not an option, I'm speaking from the heart about this. I'm going to cry thinking about this, it's a horrible option. You heard on the podcast what it did to me and my family, it wrecked us. Let's be honest, for years and going forward, we recovered sort of, and we're still on this journey by the grace of God. But if I could tell your listeners anything, just take that one off the table. Just take that one off the table. Sorry, that's not an option.

Dennis G:

You're popping your head. You can chase it out, and sometimes the purple file helps you chase it out too, if you go look at a note, chase it out and let's stick around, see where this thing ends up. Typically, on this podcast, you've heard crucible moments, people will say that was the worst day of your life, yeah, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me into a better person. I've heard that a million times. Would you change anything about that day? No, I wouldn't change the thing about that day because of who I am now. Take suicide off the table, push it aside, stay with us, and time does have amazing way of healing. But when you die by suicide, you throw away your best ally - time. Stay with us.

Gary S:

It's a wonderful problem to have when the guest takes your job of closing the show, Dennis, that was a perfect summary of not just our discussion today, but what we talk about at Beyond the Crucible all the time, and that is that crucible experiences are extraordinarily painful, but they're not the end of your story. You learn the lessons from them. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep moving forward and far from the end of your story, they can become the beginning of a new story that leads to unimaginable joy and fulfillment.

Gary S:

I believe I can speak for you when I say, I think you feel that right now yourself, that's where you are at. You've learned the lessons of what happened and you are living your best life. That's what we hope for all of you listeners. So until the next time we're together, do you remember that, your crucible experiences aren't the end of your story, that they are the beginning of a new story, that can be the best story of your life because at the end of that story, where the GPS is set to when you take that journey is what we call here at Crucible Leadership, a life of significance.

Zachary Green’s life story is the stuff of movies – a stint in the Marines that taught him survival skills he used beyond the battlefield, creating a successful business where the crucibles came early and often, then being laid so low by COVID-19 that he thought his life would end. But it did not. And neither did his dreams. He compiled the truths and tactics he learned from his military and business experiences – successes and failures alike – into WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, his best-selling book that offers readers insight and inspiration to defeat the devastation of crucible experiences and turn them into the fuel for a life of significance.

To learn more about Zachary Green and his book, WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, visit www.warriorentrepreneurbook.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Zachary G:

So I go on vacation. I tell my CFO, "Whatever you do, do not call me." I want to really check out and just be present for my family that I've neglected these last couple of years as I grew this company, and guess what happens? He calls me, and I remember his words, and more importantly, I remember his tone of voice, very somber, saying, "Zach, I'm sorry to inform you, but there is no way out of this. We are going to have to liquidate, and when you come back, we need to talk about bankruptcy options."

Zachary G:

Now, for me, it wasn't just that I was losing my dream. It was that I was letting my firefighter brothers and sisters down because I couldn't produce this lifesaving product. The bank was going to foreclose on my house, because at that point in time, I had spent all my money and I had to use my house as collateral.

Zachary G:

I would have to go through the humility of going bankrupt and being known in our area as somewhat a celebrity entrepreneur and look at how far I fell. And at that time, that's when the abyss started to really come into focus for me. I thought I was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. I dropped down to my knees. I can't breathe. I could feel tightness in my chest. I could feel electrical currents shooting down my arm. Everything they taught me in the fire service that if someone presents with that, you take them immediately to the hospital.

Gary S:

How do you move beyond a crucible like that, one that not only threatens your livelihood, but your life? This week's guest, Zachary Green, tells Warwick he did it by activating his inner warrior. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Green's life story is the stuff of movies. A stint in the Marines that taught him survival skills he used beyond the battlefield. Creating a successful business where the crucibles came early and often. Then being laid so low by COVID-19 that he thought his life would end, but it did not, and neither did his dreams.

Gary S:

He compiled the truths and tactics he learned from his military and business experiences, successes and failures alike, into Warrior Entrepreneur, his bestselling book that offers readers insight and inspiration to defeat the devastation of crucible experiences and turn them into the fuel for a life of significance.

Warwick F:

Well, Zach, thank you so much for being here. I love just looking through your book, Warrior Entrepreneur and love all the military metaphors, Spartans, and what have you. I've never been in the military, but love military history and some of the great heroes of antiquity and history. I love just understanding just what a successful entrepreneur, and the courage you have of just producing products that serve real needs and help people.

Warwick F:

But I'd like to go back, as we do here at Beyond the Crucible, a bit of the origin story. I think you grew up in the Cincinnati area, and had some challenges. I think you were in five different schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, and ADHD. So talk a bit about the backstory of Zach Green and growing up and, yeah, some of the traits probably that ended up serving you well later on in life, although it probably didn't seem so at the time.

Zachary G:

Well, Warwick and Gary, thank you so much for the opportunity to be speaking with you much for the opportunity to be speaking with you as your guest today. I chose the location of where we're going to have the discussion today at a very sacred place for both me and quite a few people in our country, and that is Parris Island Marine Corp base.

Zachary G:

Behind me, you're actually seeing a lot of activity. We are on a live, active Marine Corps base, and we just recently had a graduation of our newest Marines. So if you see some young men with a big smile on their face, it's because they just finished a very, very grueling, both crucible, which we'll talk about, before, and their experience here in the Marine Corps. So pardon in the background music, it's just simply the noise of freedom in the background there.

Zachary G:

But to answer your question, Warwick, I did struggle a lot growing up. I had very severe ADHD. Now, it's funny because when you're in school, it's called ADHD. It's considered a disability. When you get out of school, you're called a multitasker and you're very energetic and it's a great trait.

Zachary G:

And it's funny how keeping you at your desk, listening to reading, writing, and arithmetic is such a challenge, but when you get out and you do four or five things at a time and you have a lot of energy and you're able to help inspire others, like you have, Warwick, to grow and build a business, that disability becomes actually an ability.

Zachary G:

For me, what that did, though, was it gave me a foundation in my youth where I had a lot of people tell me I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't good enough. Now, for most young kids, that's something that's probably going to carry that emotional baggage with them throughout their entire life and really cause issues. For me, it did the opposite. It motivated me.

Zachary G:

The more people told me that I wasn't smart enough, or I wasn't good enough, the more that drove me to be able to prove them wrong, and always, in everything I do, I'm never, ever content with my success. I'm never, ever happy with where we've gotten, because I still feel that voice in the back of my head saying, "You're not good enough." And what I've done is I've turned that into an ability to drive me to success and greatness, and now at this point in my life, to help inspire others to do the same.

Warwick F:

So you're 18 years old and you decide to join the Marines. Why the Marines? I mean, clearly you've had this warrior... I don't know if it came from parents or other influences, but you just always had this desire to be in the military and specifically the Marines, so how did that all come about?

Zachary G:

The short answer is because they're the best, and now, I know there are other units, other branches that have their units, the Navy SEALS, the Army Rangers, but as a force in itself, nothing comes close to the Marine Corps.

Zachary G:

But let's back it up a little bit before that. I always knew I was going to be a Marine. I had posters of the Marines in their fancy uniform on my walls. I constantly was collecting videos and things around Marine movies, but I wanted to double-check.

Zachary G:

So when I was doing my round of the recruiters, I remember going to the Navy recruiter and saying, "Hey, what does the Navy have to offer me?" And he pulls out this booklet, starts showing me all these incredible pictures of all these places that I can travel to, the adventures of the high seas.

Zachary G:

So then I go to the Air Force recruiter and he starts talking about how easy it is, it's very civilian-oriented, it's a very easy transition from civilian to the air force, back to civilian. Then I go to the Army, and the Army starts throwing out all the money and bonuses I can get, and all the great jobs that I can do.

Zachary G:

So I finally get to the Marine Corps recruiter, and I'll never forget, it was Sergeant Beatrie Houston, this big, huge Marine. Big chest, tiny waist. I walk in, he greets me with this big smile and a firm handshake, and he's like, "What can I do for you?" And as a typical 18-year-old cocky kid, I said, "Well, Army offered me, Navy offered me that, Air Force offered me this. What can the Marine Corps do for me?"

Zachary G:

And that smile turned upside down into a grimace. He sat in his chair, he put his feet up on the desk and he looked at me. He goes, "Son, we've been the finest fighting force for 250 years. We're going to continue to be that way with or without you. The question is, what can you do for the Marine Corps?"

Zachary G:

So I'm like, "Wait a second," and then he goes, "I've seen your type. You're not strong enough. You're not tough enough. There's no way you could handle Parris Island and go through recruit training." And I showed him, because I yanked the contract out of his hand, signed it right there on the spot and said, "You know what? I'm going to prove to you that that's not the case."

Zachary G:

So it was a great tool to use against arrogant teenagers like myself, but before you knew it, I was down in this godforsaken place here of Parris island, the land that God forgot, with sand fleas and drill instructors, and really started that journey to ultimately become a Marine.

Warwick F:

That's an amazing story, and you were in the Marines, it sounds like, for about nine years. You went through that, I don't know how many weeks it is, but that basic training where you are right now, in Parris Island, which is probably some of the toughest training on the planet. And you got through, you did show them that you were tough enough, that you could take it, which is impressive.

Warwick F:

You clearly love the Marines, but you have... There was this, I guess, transition, this pivot point in your story, in which, from your book, you make it clear your wife is a medical doctor, and you met her, and she had this phrase, "It's the Marine Corps or me." I mean, that is laying down the gauntlet. That is laying down the challenge.

Zachary G:

Yes, that's not unique to her. A lot of women have that same phrase.

Warwick F:

So tell us about that choice. You could have said, "Well, it's the Marine Corps, sorry."

Zachary G:

To back up, at the Marine Corps... I had a wonderful family, even though I did have a lot of challenges growing up, they afforded me every opportunity to get me tested, to have me go to different schools, to give me extra tutoring, lived in a very nice upper class neighborhood. Great friends and support structure.

Zachary G:

What was interesting was, when I get down here to Parris Island, the first thing they show you is that you're not unique. Everyone's the same, and you all suck, for the lack of better words. It was interesting, I really struggled those first couple weeks, and the kids that didn't struggle were the kids that grew up in the coal mines of West Virginia, that didn't get three meals a day. The kids that were in the projects of New Orleans that didn't sometimes have a place to sleep. They excelled so quickly in this environment, where I really struggled because I didn't have that warrior skin that they had growing up.

Zachary G:

So my time in the Marine Corps was brief. It was very uneventful, which is the reason I didn't re-enlist for a second tour. I actually went through both Parris Island, then I went to Quantico and went through the officer program, and there was no deployments. I was in the infantry. I wanted to go out and kill our enemy and be a infantryman, and there was no opportunity, so I got out, and then two years later, September 11th happened, a day we all remember very well.

Zachary G:

That was right about the time that I met my wife, and decided at that point, I'm going to really pursue my career in corporate America and try to focus on some of those things that I couldn't get in the Marine Corps. And joining the fire department was a real experience because I was riddled with a ton of survivor's guilt, in that I was in the Corps, I got out. Two years later, we have this horrible event that happens. My brothers and sisters are going off to far-off distant lands, taking vengeance to our enemy and justice to them, getting killed. I went to a lot of funerals and looked at those flag-draped coffins and realized that could have been me. I left, and left a hole in my unit, and someone filled that hole, and now they're dead and I'm not.

Zachary G:

So I had this fever, and again, as I looked at the Spartans, the Marines, it's never really about them. It's just about the sense of service. It's about putting something above you, and serving to get your growth rather than just taking. And when I joined the fire department, it's funny, because in the Marine Corps, we take stuff that's really miserable... Or really fun, and we make it as miserable as possible. In the fire service, we take stuff that's really miserable and we make it as fun as possible. So it was an interesting transition as I moved from the Marines to becoming a firefighter.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's... Obviously you had no way of knowing when you got out what was going to happen. Your wife could have, as I said, threw down the gauntlet, and obviously as you said in the book, that was a fantastic decision, and you've been married many years, and obviously what a blessing that's been. But you still had this desire to serve, and, "Okay, maybe my time in the Marine Corps is up, but I could serve in the fire department." You were working at Eli Lilly at the time, so you could still serve, so it seemed like... And that was to lead to future businesses, which obviously you weren't to know at the time.

Warwick F:

So talk about, there's sort of another pivot, when you're working in Eli Lilly and you had to make a decision about being an entrepreneur, and it sounds like you had a boss that was particularly helpful in helping you think things through. So talk about that, one of the certainly key career pivot points, from Eli Lilly into being an entrepreneur.

Zachary G:

That's a great question, and it's funny because as I look back, it's interesting how I've come full circle with this, both decision process and what got me to that decision point and ultimately brought me back to it. And I'll explain that in a second. What I learned at Eli Lilly, it's all about solutions to problems. So all the problems we had were depression, diabetes, it could be sepsis. Our solutions were not a drug, not a pill, but a brand.

Zachary G:

And what we did with the brand as we first looked at, "Okay, what is the disease? What is the problem? Who are the people that suffer from that disease? How can we help them solve the problem?" We never would show on a commercial that if you take our diabetes, your hemoglobin H1c's would go down. We would show a grandfather now playing with his grandchildren, because that's ultimately what the solution was.

Zachary G:

So in that light, I was just such a fan of marketing and how we provide solutions to problems. However, it's a very large company, tremendous bureaucracy, tremendous procedures. You not only had the typical bureaucracy and process that you have in corporate America, but we had the FDA also, and all the legal and medical and compliance issues.

Zachary G:

Every time I'd come up with a great idea, it would take six to nine months to just get vetted, and by the time it was vetted, it was so different than what I wanted to do, and it was so neutered, to the point that it wasn't even a great idea anymore. And I was just like, "One day, I'm going to do my own thing."

Zachary G:

So my journey to entrepreneurship, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know when and how and what it would look like. But during my early times in the fire service, I got lost in a fire. It was a horrifying experience. Couldn't see my hand in front of my face. And as soon as I got out, I wanted to find a way to solve that problem.

Zachary G:

And what I came up with was this glow-in-the-dark material that glowed so bright and for so long, and I worked with a couple people to put it into different materials, like helmets and tools, and I started selling it out of the trunk of my car the more it started to take off. And that really was the basis of the company.

Zachary G:

Now, what I would do is I wouldn't talk about glow-in-the-dark material and how long it glowed for. What I would do is I'd go to a fire station, I'd have all my samples with me, knock on the front door, I'd say, "Hey, I'm Zach, I'm a firefighter from the Cincinnati area. Can we go in the bathroom and turn the lights off together?" And if they didn't beat me up, they'd usually say, "Oh, well that's actually cool."

Zachary G:

And the reason I did that was that dark room, I could show them the problem of disorientation. The fact they didn't know where they were because there was no windows. And then when I pulled the glow-in-the-dark material out, I could show them the solution to that problem, which is having a visual reference point to orient yourself and to find your way out.

Zachary G:

My story comes full circle in the fact that as the company started to grow, and it grew rapidly, grew very quickly outside of my capability, I missed the fact that I didn't have a team of people that I could bounce ideas off of. I missed the fact that I didn't have an HR department that could vet the ideas. A legal department to talk with if there was a liability.

Zachary G:

And it turns out all that stuff that I hated at Eli Lilly, bureaucracy and procedure, was what I missed in my entrepreneurial journey, because I didn't have that support structure, those things that were put together. So there is a reason for that. When I was at that low level, as a sales manager and as a trainer, I couldn't see it. But when I was the CEO and the founder, and ultimately I was the one that was going to get sued, I really realized what a credible process that was, that they built over that last century, of bureaucracy, procedures and the process.

Gary S:

So the lesson there is, bureaucracy is not in and of itself a crucible, right? I mean, bureaucracy can be quite a help. It's not a bad thing necessarily if you apply it in the right way, for sure.

Zachary G:

It just depends on where you look at the problem. If you're looking at a very selfish point, and that you want your idea, then yes, it's a problem. But if you're looking for the greater good, which is how can we help our company accomplish their mission, how can we ultimately help our patients have better outcomes, it's not about you. You're part of that program, and that team, and that bureaucracy and that procedure is actually a good thing.

Zachary G:

And then the same thing in our government. People say, "Oh, well, DC's so messed up." No, it's not. It is a amazing process that they put in place to make things go through procedures and committees, and get voted and filibustered. That's all there for a reason, so that when we finally have a law or we finally have a product, it's been vetted, it's been looked at from all those different areas. It's frustrating to go through the process sometimes, because we're a generation of immediacy, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of value in that.

Warwick F:

Yeah. It sounds like that was maybe a first crucible, or certainly a crucible in which at one point I think you were vacationing in Hawaii with the family and got a call that, "Hey, we can't meet payroll," and you had some financial challenges. I think you write in the book that the vast majority of startups fail. I don't know if it's 90%, but it's a massive number.

Warwick F:

But it sounds like you did what most entrepreneurs don't, that you realized you're a good founder and entrepreneur, but maybe not the day-to-day executive, because those skills are just radically different. Typically a founder or entrepreneur clings on too tightly, says, "This is my baby. I started it in my garage. I'm not giving up the keys of the kingdom," and ultimately they fail.

Warwick F:

But you were wise enough to say, "I'm going to do what I can do. I'm going to be the cheerleader. I'm going to lead the charge, be the visionary, but I'm going to have others manage it day-to-day." So how did you make that change? Because you went where most entrepreneurs don't. It takes a level of humility, courage and common sense. How did you make that pivot?

Zachary G:

So, before we can get into that, we really have to look at what the warrior's journey and how critical the crucible is during that journey. My first crucible, actually, and it's kind of amazing that I'm sitting here, happened a couple hundred feet behind me on the parade deck. And that was about week three or four into training, when I kept messing up, and again, these other kids that had all those challenges, they weren't getting the fact that I literally missed my mom. I was crying at night. It was difficult, because they break you down, you're so emotional.

Zachary G:

And I remember me messing up on something, the drill instructor leaning over me and saying, "I knew you were a failure. I knew you weren't going to make it." And then he said those words that cut so deeply. He said, "Your mommy's not here to help you." And that was the time I realized I didn't have all those benefits that my parents gave me, and I got crushed. I fell into my crucible.

Zachary G:

Now, in the crucible, there's two parts to the crucible. At the bottom of the crucible is the abyss. And as the great philosopher Nietzsche once said, if you stare long enough into the abyss, eventually the abyss will stare back. And what that means is, the abyss will consume you.

Zachary G:

If you spend long enough in a drug or alcohol problem, a bad relationship, a bad company, a bad job, or whatever, the longer you're there, the harder it is for you to transform and get out of it. But you have to respect the crucible and honor it, and recognize that it's dangerous and it's bad. Just don't go too far into it. Just like if you're walking along the sidewalk and this big truck comes by, that truck will kill you if you step out there, but just don't spend too much time spinning out in the middle of the street. Recognize it.

Zachary G:

So then the other side of the crucible becomes the process you have to do, and there's two things to get outside of your crucible. Number one, you have to conquer it. You don't survive it. You don't ride it through. You conquer it. You have to destroy what got you to that point. And a lot of times that destruction is the self-talk, the people that told you weren't good enough, the environments that you put you in that just wasn't healthy.

Zachary G:

And then the last part of the crucible is, you have to transform. So let's go back to your original question, Warwick, and that is, what happened when I got that phone call? So I knew up to that point, my company was making a lot of revenue, but we weren't making a lot of profit. I was the bottleneck. Every decision had to come through me.

Zachary G:

I had a great team of 10, 15 people, and it wasn't the big decisions that were difficult. It was a bunch of small decisions every day, and some of those were financial in basis. Do we pay this bill or do we go ahead and sit on that one and pay this bill? Do we call this person up and ask them for our money because they're a couple days late, or do we wait on it? And none of that was happening.

Zachary G:

So I go on vacation. I tell my CFO, "Whatever you do, do not call me." I want to really check out and just be present for my family that I've neglected these last couple of years as I grew this company, and guess what happens? He calls me, and I remember his words, and more importantly, I remember his tone of voice, very somber, saying, "Zach, I'm sorry to inform you, but there is no way out of this. We are going to have to liquidate, and when you come back, we need to talk about bankruptcy options."

Zachary G:

Now, for me, it wasn't just that I was losing my dream. It was that I was letting my firefighter brothers and sisters down because I couldn't produce this lifesaving product. The bank was going to foreclose on my house, because at that point in time, I had spent all my money and I had to use my house as collateral.

Zachary G:

I would have to go through the humility of going bankrupt and being known in our area as somewhat a celebrity entrepreneur and look at how far I fell. And at that time, that's when the abyss started to really come into focus for me. I thought I was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. I dropped down to my knees. I can't breathe. I could feel tightness in my chest. I could feel electrical currents shooting down my arm. Everything they taught me in the fire service that if someone presents with that, you take them immediately to the hospital.

Zachary G:

And what my wife said as she was leaning over me was, "Look, you're having a panic attack. You're not having a heart attack. You need to go out and relax." So in this crucible, so real, one is, I could quit. I could kill myself, because I thought... I wasn't suicidal at the time, but I thought, if I killed myself, I know the company's got a $3 million life insurance policy, and that could be a way out. When you're in a crisis, all options become visible. You will never, ever think of an option like that until you're in that crucible, in that crisis.

Zachary G:

The other option was, "I got to transform and change." So, thank goodness my CFO was able to dance to the raindrops. We were able to make payroll. We were able to avoid that situation. We got a short-term bridge loan. And the first thing I did is I said, "Look, I got to make the change, and the change is, I'm going to step down as CEO and I'm going to hire a CEO."

Zachary G:

And what happened is instead of having a bottleneck like that, the bottleneck went like this, and I was able to, just like you said, Warwick, be the cheerleader, be the founder, be the visionary. This is so important because a year later, COVID happens. And at that point in time, within 48 hours, I was able to convert our whole entire manufacturing process to, instead of making exit signs, we were going to make Lucite barriers for people that needed them in their offices.

Zachary G:

In addition to that, I launched a multimillion-dollar brand within 48 hours and became Home Depot's number one distributor of COVID protective products in a very short period of time because my bandwidth allowed me to focus on what entrepreneurs like you and I do best, which is innovation, creativity, excite everybody else up around that. Had I been the CEO, I would've been so focused on money and HR and what we were going to do about renting our new ..., I would've never been able to have that opportunity.

Warwick F:

I want listeners to hear what Zach has just said because for a lot of entrepreneurs or even people in larger companies, it's knowing what your strengths are, and knowing the value of a team. And obviously, as you know better than I, the team is greater than the sum of its parts.

Warwick F:

You probably had really talented folks in personnel and development and marketing and sales and management, and you leveraged all of them in doing what you do best. There's a phrase that somebody told me once, don't do what you're merely good at, do what you're great at. But what you're great at is being the visionary, the cheerleader, the entrepreneur. You might have been good at some of the other things, but why not let people who are great at it, rather than merely good at it?

Warwick F:

So you had that, I would say also part of the warrior kind of mentality. Each person probably in a team, even in the military, has different strengths, different skills, different backgrounds. Maybe munitions, sharpshooter, I don't know, you know far more than I do, but you combine the different skills in a cohesive unit.

Warwick F:

And maybe that sense of teamwork and that management structure you built probably served you well for probably a very recent crucible in December 2020, when you got COVID. As all listeners would know, because we're all very familiar with this, this was before vaccines. From what I understand, you were careful. It wasn't like you were doing crazy things, but stuff happens, and some of your family got it and they bounced back, but you didn't bounce back so easily, so talk about that crucible, because that was a massive one.

Zachary G:

We talk a lot about the crucible. You talk about it, I talk about it, but it's a metaphor. I actually had the physical crucible. Let me explain what happened. I got COVID, everyone in my family got it. Now, I never get sick. I never missed school for being sick. Never got the cold, nothing. I figure I'm invincible.

Zachary G:

Within 24 hours of getting COVID, I started to feel a level of nausea that I cannot explain, 10 times worse than anything I've ever experienced, and it lasted for about 10 days. I couldn't eat. I couldn't drink. I couldn't get out of bed. I was delirious. I was hallucinating. And the only issue my son and my wife had is they lost their taste buds, and so they went through a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce in one week, which, for your listeners, it usually takes about 10 years to go through a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Zachary G:

All of a sudden I got a tickle on my chest. That tickle changed from a tickle to an uncomfortable cough, and before you know it, I was having a hard time breathing. My wife called the doctor. The doctor said, "Take him to the hospital." She starts backing the car out. I said, "Honey, it's not going to be the car. Call 911." And thank God they did that, because by the time I got in the ambulance, my pulse ox was about to 80. Just for the listeners that are non-medical, anything below 98 on your pulse oxygen is serious. When you get into the low 90s, you're really having a hard time breathing. I was in the 80s.

Zachary G:

By the time I got into the emergency room, which, by the way, there was like 20 other beds that were lined up in the hallways, they had people lined up in the waiting rooms, I was in the high 60s, and my heart rate was starting to fall. Thank God they found out that that was the case. They immediately triaged me and sent me up to the ICU, put me on a external ventilator, and I stopped breathing. And ultimately, my heart rate... I don't think I flatlined, but I think I got down to like the teens, and I had a very intimate, visceral experience with death.

Zachary G:

I've been around death a lot in my life, between the Marine Corps and the fire service. I've seen it, I've almost dodged it a couple times, but nothing like this. The intimacy of falling down this black hole, and at the bottom of it was the abyss, that was that crucible, and the abyss wasn't black. It was a color darker than black, a color I can't even comprehend and explain.

Zachary G:

And I remember thinking, if I could get to the bottom of the abyss, I could stop breathing, they could put the tube down my throat and breathe for me, and I could get this needed... This break. I needed a break. I just couldn't breathe anymore. And obviously I was getting down there, I started hearing everyone yelling, "Zach, you got to breathe, you got to come back to us." I thought about all those crucibles that happened to me in my life before, and the warrior, and that I had so much more to give, and just did every effort in my fiber to just breathe. You don't realize how difficult it is to breathe until you lose that gift.

Zachary G:

And when I came back and was able to ultimately... I unfortunately went through that three different times until I finally was able to make the turn, but that gave me a power and a fire that is in me now to really give back and honor God for giving me this other opportunity to be alive and survive that crucible that made all those other crucibles literally nothing.

Warwick F:

And it seemed like, out of that crucible, and you write about this, and I totally agree, when you go through that almost life-ending crucible, it makes you think, "Okay, I've got these successful businesses. They're serving firefighters and protecting people from COVID." I mean, the exit signs if the lights go out. I mean, you're doing well, but you're doing well by doing good. You are serving people.

Warwick F:

That's obviously always been what Zach Green is about, but yet you had this notion coming out of COVID that you wanted to write this book, Warrior Entrepreneur. And I'd love to get into that now, but how did that happen? Just, you're trying to get out of COVID, you're finally starting to get better, you just had this notion, "I want to write this book." What led you to want to write that book?

Zachary G:

So as I went through this journey, everyone said, "Well, you got to write a book. This is a great story," before COVID. And I remember talking to an editor, and he said, "Zach, I'm sorry, but other than your mom and your wife, no-one's going to buy your book, unless your name is something crazy, like Barack Obama or Beyoncé or something."

Zachary G:

So I started to put together just some collections of essays and blog posts and just very loosely had it. When I was in the darkness of the abyss in the hospital, I was making very long, lengthy Facebook posts, because I really thought I was going to die. There was no question in my mind.

Zachary G:

And one of my favorite quotes was the wonderful poem, Invictus, from one of your countrymen in Australia, that talks about being the master of your own domain, and being able to conquer all the challenges that happen to you, and not what happens to you, but how you conquer it.

Zachary G:

So all these essays that I started to write on Facebook, that started to get shared virally, I mean, some of them had thousands upon thousands of shares. And when I got home, I just started writing, and the words just flowed from there, and I was able to complete the whole entire book in probably a couple weeks.

Zachary G:

Now, when the book was done and I started go back and rereading it, it was not good. It was one of the books that, if I read it, I would throw it away after 10 pages. But that's where the editorial process comes in, with a team of incredible editors, about five different editors. Some are in content, some are in syntax, some are in typesetting, some are just in punctuation. They were able to massage the words. They didn't really add much on. They took a lot out, rearranged things, and ultimately got us to the book that you have in front of you now.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's incredible. I know there's editing, but two weeks, my gosh, I mean, I started my book in like 2008, and took years to write in part because I was writing about some of the dumbest mistakes I made growing up as, obviously, listeners know, in a 150-year-old very large family media business in Australia. But wow, that's impressive.

Warwick F:

I want to get into some of the specifics in the book because there's so much here that is really good. One of the first quotes I see is from Walt Disney, and you've got, "All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." I mean, that's an amazing statement from Walt Disney, that I'd not heard before, so talk about why that inspired you.

Zachary G:

Well, here you've got Walt Disney, who is literally the king of happiness. Everything he does, his why, is about providing happiness. So you assume that he's had a really happy life, but he didn't. Before he created Mickey Mouse, he had issues with being a cartoonist where he either... I don't know what the story was, he either lost a cartoon or something happened. A lot of hardship.

Zachary G:

What he did was so incredible in Orlando, he bought swampland, and he recognized that in order for him to do what he needed to do, he had to not only buy the land, he had to create his own pseudo-government, his own electric, his own plumbing, his own water and everything. And it was setback after setback after setback.

Zachary G:

So when a man that is the embodiment of happiness and smiles and fantasy had gotten his you-know-what handed to him and needing that kick in the face, it shows you that on the outside, what you see is just the pretty. You don't see all the stuff that goes into it and what it takes to build that up.

Zachary G:

And those stories continue on for people like Elon Musk, and we all think he's this multi-billionaire and great guy, but the reality is, Elon Musk had a lot of challenges along the way. Richard Branson. We can just go on and on and on. And what happens with warriors, and the 10% that do succeed, because again, 90% of businesses fail within the first 10 years, are the ones that use that adversity to learn from it and to grow from it rather than make themselves feel sorry that it happened to them.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, that's such a great point. It's funny, Walt Disney also was one of my heroes and I think what you're referring to, certainly one key crisis is, he had this cartoon about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and some unscrupulous New York distributor, I think it was like in the '20s, the guy was an... Walt Disney was an animator. He's not like a legal guy.

Warwick F:

And he had this fine print in the contract that basically said, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is mine," and behind his back, he pretty much stole a lot of his key animators, this guy. So you would think Walt Disney is devastated. He gets on the train, it's the '20s, you don't fly back then. Well, not easily. And he's on the train from New York to California.

Warwick F:

And rather than getting morose, here he is with his wife, Lilly, I think her name was, and he starts doodling on a napkin three circles that turns into a mouse. And he says to his wife, "What do you think about Mortimer the mouse?" And she says, "How about Mickey, Mickey Mouse?" So really, it illustrates your point is, most people would say, "Look, I put my heart and soul into Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. My team has literally become traitors, they've betrayed me and gone to the enemy. I'm done."

Warwick F:

But no, I mean, nobody's ever heard of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Everybody's heard of Mickey Mouse, so he really exemplifies what you're saying, that grit, that, "Okay, I've got a kick in the teeth. I was betrayed by my team and my business partner. I'm not giving up." So, I mean, there's story after story of these successful folks, it's not the absence of pain, it's knowing how to deal with it, which is such a great example.

Gary S:

And I'm going to jump in as an advocate for the reader to say, do you hear things, listener, that you've heard before from Warwick? I mean, Warwick's book, as he just mentioned, talks about Mickey Mouse, and there are things... We're going to go on and talk more here about Zach's book, but just in the contents of Zach's book, as he's talking about what makes a warrior entrepreneur, here are some of the concepts, think of what you've heard on this podcast, what you've read in Warwick's book as well, to see if there's some commonality here.

Gary S:

Teamwork. Purpose. Adaptability. Don't give up. Sacrifice. Morality and serenity. These are... One person can luck out and create it, and it may be true, it may not be true. If you've got a couple of people with varied backgrounds who focus in on these things, who focus in on the fact that adversity, that crucibles, that they don't define you, they don't stop you. You can move beyond them. You can move, not just past them, you can obliterate them and create a new life of significance for yourself. That begins to add gravitas and truth. And it's not just one person.

Gary S:

My mom used to tell me all the time, "If one person says you're, [fill in the bad word that I won't say on the air here,] it's a difference of opinion. If two or three people say it, it's probably true." Well, what you're hearing, listener, is two or three people, two people right here. Warwick and Zach are saying some of the same things, and it's that your crucible doesn't define you and it doesn't stop you.

Warwick F:

Amen.

Zachary G:

Gary, thank you for sharing that, and Warwick, if I could just piggyback off of that story around Walt Disney, there's only one way that an entrepreneur and a founder can fail. There's just one way, and it's to give up. As long as you're willing to have the courage to go into the danger and to keep trying and keep focusing on reinventing yourself, this concept of failing forward, where it's better to fail multiple times and keep moving in that same direction than it is to do nothing.

Zachary G:

But eventually there does come a time when it's just not worth it anymore. The personal sacrifices, the emotional sacrifices, the financial sacrifices are not enough, and that's when you say, "I'm done." And that's okay, because that probably means that's going to lead you to something else, or it's going to make you a better person in that other area.

Zachary G:

But knowing that Disney could have quit, but instead of quitting, he used that as a way... And it's funny you say this, Warwick, because I've done business with Disney. They are the most hardcore brutal, almost to the point of evil, when it comes to enforcing their copyright and their IP. And I imagine a lot of that goes back to the days where you can't even mention that you met with Disney, it's so strict on how they protect their IP nowadays.

Warwick F:

Oh, that's so good. So I want to get into, there's a few pages where... Well, a lot of pages, actually, where you talk about the whole warrior metaphor and crucible. And I don't use that image in my book, because my background is different than yours, but I absolutely can identify with the metaphor.

Warwick F:

So, just going to read just a few little bits that talk about, to me, the heart of some of what's in your book. You say that "A warrior's journey typically has a point in which you are tested unlike anything you have ever experienced in your life. A crucible, an event that tests the soul. It is at crucible that the warrior chooses to fail and quit or to dig deep and realize that a transformation has to happen to continue their mission. The crucible can occur in the early phases of training and it can happen again in the execution of your mission. It's at this terrifying point that a warrior is made."

Warwick F:

And then you go on and say, "Here's when you look into the abyss and realize that to make it to the next stage of your mission, you have to disconnect from your past, shed your former self and transform. The warrior sees clarity in the chaos. The warrior stands tall in the face of that chaos and inspires others to be their best self."

Warwick F:

And later on you talk about when you're in that crucible and the abyss, that's when they find their why. I mean, they're some absolutely key... So talk about that whole notion of the warrior and the crucible and abyss, and how that changes you, because I think it's really profound stuff.

Zachary G:

What I talked about before, when you're in that crisis, you're in that crucible, all options become available. The clarity becomes available. And in first section of my book, I talk a lot about human anatomy and neuroscience, and the way that we've been created with sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which is kind of the fight or flight.

Zachary G:

If you or any of your listeners have ever been involved in a car accident, the one thing that happens is, right before the moment of impact, everything slows down. You literally get this like superhuman understanding of, that you can see things, smell things, hear things, similar to the basketball player that's shooting that free throw and he's able to tune all that noise out and get into that zone.

Zachary G:

That's the crucible, that's the chaos, and a lot of times we want to organize chaos. We want to stop the car right before that impact and tell someone, "Hey, slow down, don't do that." But the reality is you can't, because it's chaos, and you can't control that, and it's happening so fast.

Zachary G:

So what you need to do is embrace the chaos. The example I use is, if you're a surfer and the wave comes in, you can't get control a wave. That's Mother Nature. What you can do is sit there and try to stop the wave, in which case you're going to get crushed, or you get on your surfboard and you ride the wave, you embrace that chaos, like what I did when we had the pandemic. Instead of saying, "Hey, oh, my God, we're going to go out of business," because we would've gone out business within a matter of a couple weeks, we said, "Let's go ahead and do that." So that's the first thing, is, don't put chaos into order, embrace it.

Zachary G:

The second thing is having clarity amongst everybody else in their confusion. And the way you do that is again by absorbing and using the superpowers that your body creates, cortisol, adrenaline, that flood into your system when you're faced with that emergency situation. Your pupils dilate, your breathing increases, more blood flows to your brain, and being able to utilize those situations.

Zachary G:

So it could be something as simple as getting ready to go into a sales meeting and your computer crashes with your only copy of your presentation. It could be a car accident. It could be a situation like I witnessed firsthand where my friend got attacked by a shark right in front of my house, and seeing the process of what he did to fight the shark off, and what happened after the case.

Zachary G:

So the warrior, because of their experience, are going to be able to handle that emergency situation a lot better than the non-warrior, and anybody can be a warrior. I think some of the greatest warriors are the mom that's working two jobs just to hold things together, because they've handled so much adversity and so many things that when the guy knocks on the door and says, "Hey, rent's due," where that would crush most people, they'd be like, "Okay, we'll figure it out. We'll work through that." And not everyone's cut out to be a warrior, and that's okay. We, the warriors need that support structure and that inspiration and everything else around that.

Warwick F:

Absolutely. I love all your quotes and stories. You've got another great one, many ones, but by Thomas Edison. A reporter asked Edison, how did it feel to fail a thousand times? Edison stated, "I didn't fail a thousand times." He's talking about different filaments for inventing the light bulb. "The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps." Edison went on to say, "Great success is built on failure, frustration, and even catastrophe," and you write, "Thomas Edison recognized the same thing that warriors recognize: adversity, failure and resistance are all keys to growth needed for success."

Warwick F:

So one of the things we talk about in Crucible Leadership is when you go through a crucible, you have a choice. You'll either hide under the covers, complain, whine and say, "This is unfair," and eventually, after 30, 40, 50 years or more, life will end for all of us. Or you can say, "This was unfair. I was an idiot," which is more in my case, I was an idiot, "but okay, how do I bounce back? How do I use what I've been through to serve others?" And that's really what you are talking about is, adversity isn't the end point. It certainly wasn't for Thomas Edison, all these stories paint a similar picture, right?

Zachary G:

You go to the gym and you say, "Well, I don't want to have any adversity, so I'm just going to sit here for an hour in the gym and do nothing," you haven't helped your body. But you get on the treadmill and you push yourself, and you lift heavy weights, which is hard, you're creating adversity, that's going to grow your muscles. And that's the exact same thing that happens along that warrior's journey, is that concept of using adversity to help you grow and to do that.

Zachary G:

The other thing is, it feels so much better when you get to that win and that point, when you struggle to get there, than it does if it just comes easy. If you're playing a video game and you use all the cheat codes and you just blow right through the video game, that's one thing. But if you're playing a video game and you're able to really work and build yourself up, that creates a whole nother process.

Warwick F:

Yeah, that's so well said. I mean, I love everything you have about abyss and crucible stuff. You've got, "When you're at the darkest moments, you find yourself in your crucible and realize that to make it to the next step in your life's mission, you have to disconnect from your past, shed your former self and transform."

Warwick F:

I mean, you've lived that. You had a crisis of your company all going bankrupt. "I've got to transform. I've got to let go, not micromanage, bring in a professional team." When you went through COVID, okay, you still kept all your businesses, but you're going to transform and pivot, and write a book. So you've lived that, when you've gone through the abyss, each time it's had a profound effect on your life and career, right?

Zachary G:

Well, and if I could leave one last thing with your listeners, and that is, don't feel sorry if bad things happen. Don't pity yourself if you didn't have enough money growing up, or your mom and dad didn't give you enough love, or somebody got promoted above you. That's what happens to you, and you can't control what happens to you. You can control how you react to it, and I know that statement is almost to the point of overused and cliché, but it is so, so true.

Zachary G:

You have a decision every day to decide, "Is this going to make me stronger or is this going to make me weaker?" And even the people that you find that struggle with cancer or something like that, instead of saying, "Oh, woe is me, there's a problem," they tend to live a more fuller life when they've conquered it or as they're going through that. And that's just the one thing I would ask everyone to challenge themselves, is to look at all the things in your life that you think are difficult and bad, and use those as a force to help grow and to make you stronger and better, and accomplish whatever your life's missions may be.

Gary S:

Now, here's a situation that's bad for me as the co-host of this show. This is the time where I usually say the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, but I'm aware that I'm not talking to someone who's like at the Air Force grounds in Colorado Springs, and I have no idea about how to... I wasn't in the military, so I don't know how to use a clever phrase. So I'm just going to say, yes, the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, and it's going to be time to land this civilian plane on the ground here in a bit. However, before we do that, I would be remiss, Zach, if I didn't give you the chance to tell our listeners how they can learn more about you, and very importantly, buy your book. So, how can they find you online?

Zachary G:

Yeah, so if I can use a Marine term, we call it popping smoke.

Gary S:

Okay.

Zachary G:

So when we're on a mission and we're ready to get extricated out of the mission, we'll pop a smoke grenade, and that means, "Hey, we're getting out of the zone." So instead of landing the craft, we're at the point where we're popping smoke. Yeah, so this is where you get a hold of me.

Gary S:

I'm so lame, I should have asked you that beforehand.

Zachary G:

No worries. LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I think that's the way that I actually met you guys.

Gary S:

Right.

Zachary G:

My website is warriorentrepreneurbook.com, and if you go to warriorentrepreneurbook.com and type in the coupon code PODCAST2021, podcast 2-0-2-1, you can actually get a copy of the book for 50% off, and I'll go ahead and personalize it for you also. The last thing I'd ask all of your listeners is at the end of that, there's a Contact us information page there. Please, please, please put in your number, your name, your email, your address. I am launching a Warrior Framework program that is going to be very multifaceted. It's going to include online training. There'll be workbooks, there'll be exercises, there'll be one-on-one coaching opportunity with me.

Zachary G:

And ultimately, it's really designed more for people that want to either start a business or grow a business, but it can be for anybody else, and I'm creating a unique way, in that it's going to be a journey. So think of it as like a board game, and you're going to start off in the board and going through certain modules, and every time you make it through a module, you're going to get a pin, an award, kind of like in the Boy Scouts, a patch.

Zachary G:

And the goal with that is ultimately to create this warrior movement that I would love to investigate ways that maybe we could all work together in utilizing the crucible concept and the crucible training to create seminars, workshops, training material. Think of it as like the warrior university. That's getting ready to launch here in the next month or so, and I'm looking for beta users, so people that want to buy into the course at a very discounted rate in exchange for helping me coach me and creating that best material for your fellow warriors.

Warwick F:

Wow. Well, thank you so much, Zach. I really appreciate you being there, and I love the whole concept of Warrior Entrepreneur, and as you... There might be listeners, maybe today is not a good day for them. What's a word of hope you'd say if today's the day when the abyss, the crucible at its worst, what's a key message you want folks to hear as they try to move forward?

Zachary G:

So the first thing is just this mantra, it's going to get better. It will get better. You've got to have faith and confidence of knowing that it will get better, even if you don't know what that answer is. It's okay not to see that finish line, to be able to know that it will get better, it'll be stronger.

Zachary G:

And then the second thing I will tell people is, you got to help other people out on this journey. You can't just do it yourself. You can't just have a mentor. You need to be a mentor. And at all the times during my career path, I was both a mentor to other people and had a mentor myself, and I continue to do that. So I would just... Guess I would ask that you never know what other journeys and crucibles other people are going through, and be here to help them out in addition to getting people to help you out too.

Gary S:

I've been in the communications business long enough, not the warrior business, but the communications business, long enough to know when the last word's been spoken on a subject, and Zach, you just spoke the last word on our podcast episode. I'm going to leave you, listener, with one of the quotes that Warwick didn't read. And it's fascinating if you, if you've listened to the show a few times, you know that I'm usually the guy that's pulling out quotes and reading them to people, and it's fascinating to me, and you should be very proud of this, Zach, that Warwick was reading your quotes, because he doesn't do that often on the show. He was truly moved, I think, and again, I think it speaks to the fact that you guys speak the same language.

Gary S:

But here's a quote which I really liked, because the subject of the quote is from a guy who knows a lot about the subject, and the quote's from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and here's what you quote him as saying in your book, Warrior Entrepreneur. "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength," and that is truth, listener.

Gary S:

So thank you for spending in this time with us on Beyond the Crucible, and until the next time we are together, please remember what we've talked about on this episode with Zach Green, and that is, your crucible experiences are painful, for sure. They can change the trajectory of your life. They can put you in the midst of an abyss, and you can feel like you want to stare in that abyss, and that abyss can maybe pull you in. You can break through it. As Zach said, you really have to kind of go to war with your crucible. You have to take it on. You have to confront it. You have to move beyond it. You have to blow it up, and those things that are holding you back, you have to find a way to move beyond them.

Gary S:

And the reason why you do that is because when you do that, it's not the end of your story. Your crucible's not the end of your story. When you learn the lessons of them, when you escape the abyss that is at the bottom of them, that leads to the best story of your life. And the reason it's the best story of your life is found in the life of what Zach's described today, what Warwick has described in every episode, and that is a life of significance.

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

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership. In the Australian media and some people's minds, I will be perpetually the 26-year-old young kid who launched this ill-advised takeover until recently, my Wikipedia entry was "naive, idealistic, young 26-year-old launches $2 billion takeover. Could have had it all, messed it up and ends 150 years of family history". So it's this, almost this tragic young figure, a 26-year-old. And it is frozen in time, frozen in concrete, if you will.




Gary Schneeberger:

Does that sound familiar? Not the details of the story. Those are the beats of Warwick's journey, but the feeling that a failure or misstep or somebody else's judgment is still following you around, that your identity in a very real way has been frozen in time and not in the most encouraging ice.




Gary Schneeberger:

Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week Warwick and I have a wide-ranging discussion about how to turn a heat lamp, sometimes even a flame thrower on those frozen negative perceptions from the past that can stick to us in the present and threaten our future. We unpack several steps you can take to restore your true identity, from recognizing your life matters to dealing with the lies spoken over you, from forgiving yourself and others to embracing the beauty in your brokenness and using it as fuel for your unique life of significance.




Gary Schneeberger:

As a guy who creates, who writes for a living, me, I always get jealous when someone turns a phrase and I'm like, "Ooh, that's really good." And Warwick has a phrase he's going to talk about in this discussion of identity, and I'll point it out. You'll notice it when you hear it, but there's some great perspective, Warwick, that you have in this blog about not only the importance of identity, but a different way of looking at identity than we have tended to do here on the show.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. Absolutely, Gary. I mean, as listeners would know, we talk about identity a fair amount, but we talk about it more, don't get your identity from work, from money, from image, accolades, get your identity from within. And all of that's true, but here we're talking almost about broken identity, or as I talk about in the blog, identity that's frozen in time. This is a bit different. And sometimes it's you know identity can be actually not our true identity. It can be almost a false identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

So sometimes we're perpetually a 16 or 17-year-old teenager in high school. Maybe we missed out on the basketball team. Maybe we were a bit overweight, negative self-image. And sometimes we never really see ourselves grow out of that. Other people might, but we perpetually see ourselves as who we were as a teenager or as sadly, a lot of folks on our podcast who've been guests, and I'm sure listeners, have faced during the darkest days of your crucible moment. On that worst day, sometimes we have this negative self-image. Either I'm a failure, I made these huge mistakes. I hurt people, or it may be horrendous things were done to me. And somehow when bad things are done to you, for some people, it understandably causes a negative self-image. So your negative self-image may be rooted in your worst day of your crucible moment. You may be frozen in time from high school.




Warwick Fairfax:

So really, what this discussion is, how do you get out of that pit? How do you unfreeze this false identity, this identity which is a lie, which can be frozen in time and decades can go by and you just can't seem to get out of that hole of that negative self-talk and negative identity.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that's the phrase that you turned that I'm jealous of, frozen identity. Love that. I read that in the blog and I was like, "Oh, that's really good. I wish I'd written that." I didn't though. You did. And it's in the blog and you're right, Warwick, this discussion, we often talk about identity, beware of an overdeveloped sense of identity, right? You get your identity from how many zeros are in your bank account, what kind of cool car you're driving. That kind of thing where you're maybe pushing to be bigger than your britches.




Gary Schneeberger:

We're talking about a different kind of identity crisis in this case. It's almost underdeveloped identity. You're not walking in who you really are. You're you're stuck in a place where something happened to you, someone spoke something to you, someone spoke something over you. You encountered something and you haven't been able to shake that negative perception and the ramifications that come from it.




Gary Schneeberger:

So as soon as you brought this subject up, Warwick, it occurred to me if anybody is an expert or can speak to what it's like to have frozen identity, it's you. Because still there are places, and I know you'll unpack why, there are places who still will refer to you in the context of your takeover of the family media business as Young Warwick. True?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of crazy. I'm like, now, hard to believe the decades go by over 60. So you don't tend to think of somebody that's a little over 60 as being Young Warwick, but my dad was Sir Warwick and I had, I don't know, three knighthoods in a row in my family. You know? Sir James Redding Fairfax, Sir James Oswald, and my dad, Sir Warwick Fairfax. So growing up, they didn't seem like such a big deal. It was my father, Sir Warwick, and Young Warwick, kind of heir apparent.




Warwick Fairfax:

Still in the media in Australia, that phrase will be coined. And so my frozen in time moment, as listeners would know, grew up in this 150-year-old family media business started by my great-great-grandfather. By the time I came on the scene, it was a massive $700 million, 4,000 employee company, newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio, and newsprint mills. Had the Australian equivalent to New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, major opinion leaders. Launched this $2.5 billion takeover to bring the company back to the ideals of the founder and have it be well managed. Family sold out. Didn't work out. Three years later, company goes bankrupt when Australia hits a recession.




Warwick Fairfax:

So that's the very brief Cliff Notes version, but in the Australian media and some people's minds, I will be perpetually the 26-year-old young kid who launched this ill-advised takeover, until recently that my Wikipedia entry was "naive, idealistic, young 26-year-old launches $2 billion takeover, could have had it all, messed it up and ends 150 years of family history". So it's sort of almost this tragic young figure, a 26- year-old.




Gary Schneeberger: Right, right.




Warwick Fairfax:

And it is frozen in time, frozen in concrete, if you will. I'm trying to remember that second Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back. Remember when the guy gets frozen and I don't know if it's concrete or some metal?




Gary Schneeberger: Yeah.




Warwick Fairfax: And he's frozen, and it's like-




Gary Schneeberger: Han Solo. Yeah.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. That kind of like me, I'm frozen in whatever substance that is. And I'm still there in most people's minds. It's like, "Unfreeze me, please." You know?




Gary Schneeberger:

And the phrase, Young Warwick, that name, it's not just design. It was not just designed. Those who hung that name on you, it wasn't just designed to indicate your youth. It was designed to indicate, as you hinted at right there, it was designed to indicate you were inexperienced, you were in over your head, that you were the whelp, the whelpish Warwick who wasn't quite ready for prime time when you launched the takeover. That's where the sting comes in.




Gary Schneeberger:

It's not so much, as you said, you were a Young Warwick in the sense that you're the son of Sir Warwick, but the way that it was used against you was to paint you as... To freeze you as a failure. And I think that's...Would you say it has been that you spent some time frozen in that spot?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. And as we talk about and as in the book, there are cartoons, editorial cartoons that really personify this sort of frozen in time, Young Warwick, young, naive, idealistic crusader that kind of fails in a sense. So yeah, there's one of me as this Mongol warrior. Again, I'm like 26. I'm there as this barbarian attacking the gates of Rome, or I don't know quite what it would be, and destroying this family dynasty and destroys in a day what took more than a hundred years to build.




Warwick Fairfax:

And there's other cartoons, the man behind the mask. I never gave interviews. What's he thinking? How do you create a small business? Give Warwick Fairfax a big one. All these cartoons help crystallize this sense that my identity is frozen in time. But what happens is while there's still that perception in the media in Australia, it would seem, then you can't help but having your own identity frozen in time.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

Other people's perceptions become your reality and my internal reality, and so it's not easy to shake those. I mean, some people have nicknames for decades that they don't necessarily like, but it goes back to high school or whatever. And they just see you as this screwup from when you're in your twenties. And it's like, I'm not that person anymore. It's like, yeah, no, you always will be the screwup in their twenties who did dumb stuff.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. Yeah. It's like, I'm sure there are people listening right now who were told at some point, "You'll never amount to anything." Right? Who were told at some point, "That's why X, Y, Z, Q, P, L, Y happens to you." Those words, words have meaning and words can hurt. And when those words are spoken, they can sort of bore into our spirits, bore into our soul, bore into our psyche. And we can indeed be suspended in animation, if you will, at that time when those things might have been true for a period of time. But it's moving beyond those things.




Gary Schneeberger:

The name of the show is Beyond the Crucible, and what we're really talking about here is how do you get beyond the identity that has sort of stuck to the bottom of your shoe as you're going through life. But before we do move on to the great points you make in the blog about how to move beyond that identity, I want to say this. The joke's on those people, Warwick. The joke is on those journalists who said, "Naive, young kid could have had it all and blew it," because guess what? That young kid's grown up into a man who does indeed have it all, at least all that matters.




Gary Schneeberger:

You've talked about it many times. Family, you've got a Wall Street Journal bestselling book, you're speaking in places across the country. You have achieved things that you would, I know you've said it before, you have all that matters. So that as the Bible says, "What the enemy meant for evil God has turned to good." And what that label was supposed to make you feel, it's true, you do have it all, at least what matters most to you.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, that is well said. You know, we talk a lot at Crucible Leadership on this podcast about a life of significance being the measuring stick for every human, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. I mean, I'm blessed to have a... I married the American girl who I met in Australia. We've been married over 30 years. I've got three wonderful kids from 30 down to almost 24 in a few days.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm just blessed to have work that I do with a wonderful team at Crucible Leadership, such as yourself and the rest of the team. Between speaking, the book, podcast, I feel like I'm trying to give voice to people's stories and just really champion that your worst day doesn't define you. I've been on a couple nonprofit boards, including my church, being an elder at my nondenominational church.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, I am blessed. And my self-image is definitely in a much better place. I mean, scars tend not to go completely away, but I think I have a more realistic, more accurate picture of who I am and what I'm worth. And I believe we all have intrinsic value obviously, as children of God. But yeah, it's been an evolution. But yes, I do feel blessed, absolutely blessed.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that's a great way to sort of move into the next area that we're going to talk about. And that's the seven points that you have about how to unfreeze your identity. Because we started out talking about here's the frozen identity and it's Young Warwick, and then we come out the other side where you're living a life of significance.




Gary Schneeberger:

Now it's time, right, you're going to unpack some things that listeners can do to put the meat in the sandwich. Right? We have the two pieces of bread on the side. Now we're going to put the meat in there, and step one that you enumerate in the blog for folks who are struggling with a frozen identity is to recognize that their life matters. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. The starting point for many will be the image is frozen in negativity either because of a mistake they've made or maybe some horrific things that were done to them. Either way, your image can be really corroded and you might feel like, what is the point? I'm worthless. Nobody can love me. Nobody should love me. I'm like this leper that people should say, "Unclean," and just toss out on some garbage heap and I'm not worth anything.




Warwick Fairfax:

So the best thing to do, I mean, people who really go into negativity can say, "I need to end my life," or you can really get down a dark space. And so really the first standpoint when you're thinking about your life matters is that the world needs who you are. The world needs your gifting, your talent, your soul, your very essence. And so by wallowing in self-pity, recrimination, anger, be it at yourself or others, it robs the world of who you are. It actually robs your family, your wife, your husband, your partner, your friends, coworkers.




Warwick Fairfax:

It robs them of the essence of who you are. Because I think we're all, as we'll talk about it in a minute, beautifully made in the image of God. So the first standpoint is your life matters and you are a gift on this earth who, from my perspective, is meant by God to contribute to the world. And so wallowing in self-pity, while it can be understandable, it doesn't serve you. It does not serve others. It robs people of your gifting and your essence, and that sense of negativity, it also tends to spread. And it hurts people around you.




Gary Schneeberger:

And coming to the realization and really owning that your life matters is like planting a flag, right? My life matters. I may not have it all worked out after this. I may still trip and fall sometimes, but that recognition that your life matters is the perfect first point because it then leads to the small steps that come next. And the next one, the second step that you talk about in the blog is you are loved.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. You know, I love the image, just to drill on what you just said for a moment, of planting the flag. We talk a lot in Crucible Leadership is that when something horrific happens to you or you make a horrific mistake, rather than hiding under the covers for the next 30, 40, 50 years until life ends, which it will for all of us, you have a choice.




Warwick Fairfax:

Either just wallow away the rest of your life, or to say, "This was awful. It was unfair, unjust, or I was an idiot, but how do I move forward?" And so that's really what you're saying. That plant the flag is the choice we talk about on pretty much every episode of Crucible Leadership is I'm going to make a choice that my life matters and I'm going to make a choice to move forward. It's a fundamental decision.




Warwick Fairfax:

And so really, moving to the second point, the sense which I think reinforces the sense of your life matters and builds onto it, I believe that we are all loved by God. I think my Christian faith perspective, like Psalm 139, it talks about we're beautifully and wonderfully made. There's this notion that God loves us. We have intrinsic value, every human being, just because of who we are. And beyond just the divine, the eternal, the universal, that sense of love.




Warwick Fairfax:

I think most of us have at least one person who loves us. Many will hopefully have friends and family who are cheering us on. There's very few of us that has nobody that cares about us. Very few of us have at least one friend, one family member who just feels bad for us, wants us to get out of that hole, whether it's of our own making or others. And so we are loved both by God and, I believe, by others.




Warwick Fairfax:

So if other people love us, including God, maybe we do matter. Maybe our life should matter. Maybe our negative identity needs to change. That's people that know us well. They love us in spite of our foibles, in spite of our mistakes, idiosyncrasies. It's not like there's blind love in which they don't know us. Oh, they know exactly who we are, but they choose to love us anyway. That should cause you to think positively.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. There is, interestingly enough, as we're talking about this subject, in the current issue of Entrepreneur magazine, there's a very short column in the beginning by a man named Dennis Gillan, who is the executive director of a suicide prevention center. And he talks about he's a keynote speaker and he suffers from lack of confidence sometimes. And he's not sure how well it's going to go over.




Gary Schneeberger:

There are times that he says, as we're talking here, there are times that his identity, his negative self- image is "I just feel like quitting." This is what he writes in an article he titled The Purple File. He writes this: "When I consider quitting, I grab the file, the purple file. And come back with renewed determination. Then he asks the reader, do you have a similar file, somewhere to put cherished testimonial, comment, a piece of feedback, or kind note from a coworker, something that lifts your spirits and reminds you why you do what you do. I recommend it."




Gary Schneeberger:

I read that article this last weekend and I created... Here's my purple file. And I went through, and you're in here, by the way, for the nice thing that you wrote in your signed copy of your book to me. But I went through, like I've kept a lot of cards through the years from when I left jobs and people were wishing me well. And this is just the first thing I pulled out of this purple file. It's a high school graduation card that's 40 years this year that my brother who passed away in 1995, but this was back in '82, this is what he wrote me. Just one little bit that he wrote me:




Gary Schneeberger:

"I want you to know, win or lose in life, I'm never prouder at any time as when I can call you my brother and best damn friend I have. Thank you for making my life with you so happy." That's from my brother who is no longer with me. He's been gone for almost 25 years. That's amazing stuff. When you talk about, you've got one person who loves you, you've got people, coworkers, those kinds of things. When Dennis Gillan talks about these things in his article, this is the lifeblood of shattering that negative identity that can stick to you, I think. Fair?




Warwick Fairfax:

Oh, absolutely. Those are almost sort of markers of grace. I'm reminded of when Moses, who spent 40 years in the desert, he would instruct the Israelites to erect memorial stones as a way of just remembering God's grace and providence. And so those sorts of things, I mean, I have three adult kids. We have at least two out of the three are writers. We write birthday cards, as listeners know. We say positive things about whoever's birthday it is.




Warwick Fairfax:

You look at all those cards and they write in detail about why they love me and what have you. Obviously, the stuff some very kind folks wrote me endorsements to the book, I mean, those things matter. And you remember that and it's hard... It's funny, I often say, It's easy to remember bad things that people say about you. It's not easy to remember the good things because we tend to want to dismiss it. It's like it doesn't compute.




Warwick Fairfax:

So we're like, with our negative self-image, but that's why I think what you're saying, this purple file is because we forget those things. And reading them, it's like, maybe I'm not perfect, but maybe I do have value. And so it's such a good idea, that purple file concept.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. And if the concept that we're discussing here, and it is, is frozen identity, a purple file, the stuff inside this file is a heat lamp that melts that frozen identity-




Warwick Fairfax: Amen.




Gary Schneeberger:

... and brings you back to a place where you understand, okay, I'm not all those bad things that I'm thinking about myself right now.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's not positive, happy talk just for the sake of it. These are accurate assessments from people that know you. So it's bringing you back to reality is what that's doing.




Gary Schneeberger:

Very, very, very wisely said. Okay, the third point, three of seven, after your life matters and you are loved is the world needs us. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

So it's really a progression. So you start with the decision, okay, my life does matter. God loves me. Other people love me. The sense that because we're all uniquely made with talents, abilities, and experience by God, from my perspective, we have a unique set of combination of gifts and talents and experience that not one other human in the billions of humans on the planet have. Every person is unique with a unique set of characteristics, gifts and talents. So the world needs that.




Warwick Fairfax:

What would life be like if we didn't have some of the people that, whether it's Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln. You look at Abraham Lincoln went through a pretty tough life. He lost a mother, I think, when he was extremely young and a woman that he loved early on before he married his wife. He lost several elections. I mean, he could have just gone away and hid and said, "You know what?" And he had suffered from melancholy, which is in modern language, we'd call it depression. He could have said, "You know, I'm a loser. The world's against me. God's against me. Look at the tragedy with lost kids and a mother and lost elections," but he didn't give up.




Warwick Fairfax:

He kept pressing on. He just had this sense of drive, hope, and a sense of calling. The world needed, America needed what he had to offer. He believed, not getting too much into Lincoln, he believed in fighting against the spread of slavery into new territories which had become states. And from there, he evolved into slavery is wrong and a moral sin, if you will. But that's that sense of the world needed his gifts and his calling to oppose slavery.




Warwick Fairfax:

If he'd just wallowed in melancholy, I mean the world would not have had an Abraham Lincoln, which who knows what would've happened in this country with slavery. It's almost scary to think about it, but I'm not saying, almost none of us will be Abraham Lincoln, but the point is he didn't wallow in his melancholy. He fought that and fought negative self-image to contribute in a powerful way to the world. That we all in our own small ways or big ways can have a massive effect on folks.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. And what you just said about Lincoln, not believing his negative self-image, that was fueled in some part by what people said about him too. And that moves nicely into your fourth point, which is deal with the lie. Right? Lincoln got criticized. He was the backwoods guy from Kentucky and then Illinois. And he was never going to amount to anything. He kept getting underestimated, underestimated, underestimated. Point four, deal with the lie, what do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

Whether a crucible is your fault or not your fault, whether it's abuse or huge mistakes or just this, they think of you as a screwup from being a teenager or in high school, it's realizing, and this is a choice, it is a lie. It is not who you are. Yes, we've made mistakes, but just because you've made mistakes doesn't mean you're a bad person. There are very few people that you can say are "evil."




Warwick Fairfax:

There's some in history that maybe are worthy of that name, but most of us are not. Most of us have just made mistakes or had bad things happen to us. So part of it is to deal with that, and that may mean help. I think for many of us, I've certainly had some, you might need help from a therapist, a counselor, a psychologist, maybe from close friends, mentors, family members. And just to say, "I have this negative self-image and I don't know, why is that?"




Warwick Fairfax:

I said, "Well, that's because of maybe the divorce, your parents, or maybe it's because of the mistake. But that's not who you are. Remember all these good things you did? Remember the people you helped?" In a sense, it's almost like the purple file you're talking about in which people actually give you specifics. Remember, you did this and this and this and this. Remember that person you helped and that person? "Oh, I guess I'd forgotten that." Well, how can you be such a bad person, given all the things that you did that most people will never know.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm sure way back when, I know you've obviously had some challenges, as you mentioned a couple podcasts ago. You could have talked to your dad, your brother, some close friends, and they'd say, "Gary, don't you remember, you helped this person and that. Remember when you did this and that?" Well, your lowest moments, you're not thinking about that. Right? So deal with the lie, whether it's counseling or friends or family or both, but you can't help anybody until you help yourself.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's almost like, yeah, it's a both/and, external and internal, but you've got to deal with the internal, with the internal lie, because that cripples your ability to move forward and help anybody else. If you think you're a screwup and a leper, how in the world are you going to have the energy to help another living soul? You're not. So you got to deal with the lie and don't believe that negative self-image. There are specific steps you just got to be willing to take, make the choice, deal with the lie.




Gary Schneeberger:

I have a phrase I use for myself that gets at both of the ways we talk about identity. And I say, "I am less than my greatest achievements and I am more than my worst failures." So that helps me from believing my own press too much and believing my own worst critical reviews too much. When someone says to you, "You'll never amount to much," that's a lie, because no one's seen the future and knowing that you're never going to amount to much. They're passing judgment on you. Deal with that lie and move beyond it, as you've said.




Gary Schneeberger:

Point five in this very good blog, which you will be able to find, if not now, listener, shortly, it will be up at Crucibleleadership.com. Point five is to forgive yourself and forgive others. Boy, we spend a lot of time talking about forgiveness on this show. Don't we?




Warwick Fairfax:
We do. And honestly, that wasn't in the book, at least not the original book I wrote.




Gary Schneeberger: Really? Wow.




Warwick Fairfax:

Maybe it is, but it wasn't a big emphasis, put it that way. Maybe I'm just forgetting, but who knows? But I think let's put it this way: it's grown to a lot more prominence through the podcast, interviewing people, and as you and I have dialogued, thoughts come to mind.




Warwick Fairfax:

So basically, you're dealing with your negative self-talk and not believing the lie that your life matters. But at a certain point to not believe the lie, you have to deal with the lie. Which is in my case, I destroyed a 150-year-old family media business. I caused friction within the family, lost billions of dollars, made life unstable and uncomfortable for 4,000-plus employees. You know, if you want to take it to its extreme, because of all that instability, maybe even hurt the nation of Australia in some way. I don't know. It depends how big you want to make the lie.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

There's sometimes kernels of truth in these things. It's just the lie magnifies them massively. So part of it is forgiving yourself. Like in my case, look, I was 26. I meant well. I was young, idealistic. My dad had just died in early '87. There was instability in the family for decades before I came along. I listened to the wrong advisors. There's all sorts of, these aren't excuses, but there are reasons why.




Warwick Fairfax:

And so part of it's like, you know what? You tried hard. You were young, idealistic. Forgive yourself. Sometimes, for instance, those who've been abused, when we talk about forgiving others, you could say, "Well, what was done to me was unforgivable." And I understand the concept, but you forgive others, as we often say here on Beyond the Crucible, because you're worth it. Because by not forgiving others, it's like drinking poison. It's just this anger and bitterness stops you moving forward. And I don't see how anger and bitterness allows you to have a positive self-image.




Warwick Fairfax:

I mean, there's no room for positivity left in your soul because it's consumed by anger and bitterness and rage. It's all negative, destructive thoughts, which I don't pretend to understand. But when you're angry about others because of what they did to you, you can somehow, because of what they did to me, I'm somehow worthless. Somehow that concept, one follows the other. So for you to see yourself as having worth, you've got to be able to forgive others. Because again, you don't excuse the act. You don't condone the act, but you forgive them so that you can move forward.




Warwick Fairfax:

In that sense, you could say it's self-centered, I suppose, but whatever it takes to move forward. But forgiving yourself and forgiving others, if you don't do that, in the podcast we've had a hundred episodes. Not one person that we ever had on this podcast who's moved beyond their worst day has ever not forgiven others or themselves. Not one, not one of them. Every one has forgiven because that's the only way to bounce back from your crucible, or at least put it that way, if you don't do that, I can't see how you will bounce back because it's absolutely critical to be able to move forward.




Gary Schneeberger:

And I'll add in another aspect of that thinking of forgiveness as sort of a 360. There's forgiving others. There's forgiving yourself, but there was this incredibly insightful guest two weeks ago, me. Kidding. But I was a guest two weeks ago. And one of the things I said when I was going through Alcoholics Anonymous, that was asking for forgiveness. That was a key part for me coming to a place where I believed I was worthy of forgiveness, me forgiving me, as other people forgave me for some of the things I did.




Gary Schneeberger:

Again, nothing criminal, but I was just not a very moral, ethical, kind, nice guy. Other people forgave me that, and that helped me as well. So I think it's a three-headed thing. It's forgive others, absolutely. Ask for forgiveness, I think, is also critical. And then forgive yourself. I think those three things work in harmony.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. It's so well said. And you know, when you ask for forgiveness from others because of things you've done, hopefully they'll say, "Look, I forgive you." But sometimes they won't. They say, "Oh. You can say what you want to say, but I'm never forgiving you until the day I die," which is pretty difficult to hear. But even asking forgiveness, there will be some healing that comes from that even if they don't forgive you.




Warwick Fairfax:

Not everybody will. Because you feel like, I've done the right thing, I've acknowledged what I did to that other person. And you feel like, I've done what I can. I'm not responsible for people's response. I'm just responsible for what I do. So even if not everybody forgives you, it still is freeing in a sense, the sheer act of asking for forgiveness, if that makes sense.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. AA talks about it in this way. All you're responsible for is your side of the street. So you're asking someone for forgiveness for what, as AA puts it, making an amends for what you have done to them, toward them that hurt them is just sweeping up your side of the street. You can't hold yourself responsible for their side of the street. Just doing that, you're absolutely right, can make you feel like you're in a much better place. As I said on the show a couple weeks ago, it's amazing when you ask for forgiveness, how many people will forgive you, who will say, "Absolutely."




Gary Schneeberger:

And just one more thing I want to add as part of this, because it's important transactionally when you're talking about forgiveness to close that circle. So many times someone will come up and say, "Oh, I'm sorry." And our response will be, "Oh, no problem. Whatever." To me, that's denying them closure.




Gary Schneeberger:

In other words, if someone says they're sorry to me, I want to say back, I want to close that loop for them and say, "I forgive you. Yes, absolutely." Not just, "No problem. It's no big deal," because in some way that doesn't complete the transaction. It's they're making themselves vulnerable. They're apologizing. We ought to at least say, "Yes, thank you. And I forgive you." Because I think that then makes moving forward even a little bit more easy.




Warwick Fairfax:

As I've written the book and obviously said it to pretty much every family member I've had, I've had other people that were on the other side of the takeover that things were rocky way back when say to me, "You showed a lot of courage and vulnerability in writing that book."




Warwick Fairfax:

Well, you have to believe that meant a lot to me that somebody that was on the other side that wasn't feeling too warm and fuzzy to me at the time would say that, yeah, I had courage and vulnerability and basically admired... Because I don't sugarcoat things. I talk about my own mistakes and don't throw rocks at others. But that's part of the healing. You know? Yeah.




Gary Schneeberger:

What you just described, the way that you got forgiveness from others, that's a flame thrower to the frozen identity of "Young Warwick." I mean that will melt that frozen identity like that. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about that can really propel us forward. All right.




Warwick Fairfax: Indeed.




Gary Schneeberger:

Another place we can go to propel us forward, point six in your seven-point prescription for ways to unfreeze your identity from a bad place is to embrace the broken and the beautiful. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

I think as humans, and this is certainly definitely a faith perspective from my Christian faith, is we may be broken, but we're beautiful. And again, it's funny, we had a sermon just this last Sunday from our pastor. I think it was II Corinthians and it says, "We have this treasure in jars of clay." Basically, treasure being God's light, so to speak, and jars of clay being our broken bodies.




Warwick Fairfax:

I remember also we did a blog, I don't know if it was a year ago or more, in which we had a picture of a vase that was broken, but it was glued together with gold paint or that kind of thing.




Gary Schneeberger:

That's so funny because I'm going to talk about this after you're done talking about it. I'm going to add some more detail. So please, go on, go on, go on.




Warwick Fairfax:

Oh, so just the sense of we're broken but beautiful. In some sense, I think from my faith perspective, God can use our brokenness to help others. So in my case, I was broken by my own failures and circumstances, but it gives you a sense of compassion for others. It wants you to help. And it gives me a calling to help shine a light on other people's worst days and how they bounce back to offer words of hope and healing, so to speak, to write the book I wrote.




Warwick Fairfax:

Very often with maybe how many guests we've had, 80, 90-plus on the podcast, so many have used their worst moment, whether it's failure, abuse, to reach out to whether it's other cancer survivors, other survivors of abuse, other people who've failed in terms of businesses. They've used, to use that oft-used phrase, their pain for a purpose. So some, even amidst the ashes of the broken of your worst day, there can be ways that beauty can come out of that and you can use that as a light to help others. So yeah, we can often find our calling out of our worst moments, as hard as that is to think about.




Gary Schneeberger:

And what you were talking about, Warwick, and I have a note right here to talk about it. In the blog, The blog was October 19th, 2020, called Beauty and Imperfection: Vulnerability for a Purpose. But what you were describing is the Japanese art of Kintsugi. And I'm going to read what that is. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.




Gary Schneeberger:

Every break is unique. And instead of repairing an item like new, the 400-year-old technique actually highlights the scars as part of the design. Using this as a metaphor for healing ourselves teaches us an important lesson. Sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something more unique, beautiful, and resilient.




Gary Schneeberger:

And I have a personal story I want to share about that. So I don't have a lot of art. But years ago, a couple decades ago, I bought these things called poet's bottles. They're very intricate, delicate, three bottles. And they're etched with the words, faith, hope and love from I Corinthians. That was why I got these three bottles and I have them on a stand in our kitchen, on a nice lighted stand from the bottom.




Gary Schneeberger:

And one day when my in-laws were over, I was playing with the dog. I was trying to show how the dog plays catch with a big ball. And we bounced it to the dog and the dog hits it with her nose. The dog hit it with her nose and it went into the kitchen and it knocked over one of those bottles. It broke the love bottle. It fell on the ground and it broke. I was devastated. My stepdaughter, Alyssa, who is an artist, picked up every one of the broken pieces I had put in the garbage and this is what she did with them.




Warwick Fairfax: Oh my gosh.




Gary Schneeberger:
So there's the love bottle.




Warwick Fairfax:
Why don't you describe for the listeners who may not be able to see, so what is it you're holding?




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. I am holding one of those poet's bottles. It's the love bottle and what my stepdaughter Alyssa did was glue it back together and then use gold paint to seal up and highlight the cracks.




Warwick Fairfax: Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

And the most beautiful part of that story is that she said when she did it, the most beautiful part of that story is she said, "Because love is never completely broken."




Warwick Fairfax:
Wow. Boy, wow. Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

That's what we're talking about when we talk about embracing the beauty in brokenness. And that's exactly what this bottle symbolizes and what you were talking about earlier symbolizes.




Warwick Fairfax:

I just want to highlight what you've said. I mean, that's such a wonderful illustration. I think our brokenness doesn't necessarily make us weaker. It can make us stronger. If we, to use what we say all the time, if we embrace the crucible, if we learn from it, use it to help others, it can give us a strength, a courage, a calling that we never had before. So it can be broken and beautiful and stronger than ever before.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:
You know? It can make you stronger. It's a choice, but it can make you more resilient.




Gary Schneeberger:

And the thing that I said after she did this and she gave it to me is I said, "You know, before, when it was in its perfect state, it was something I liked a lot. Now it's something I treasure," because of what she did to piece... I mean, the beauty that she put into this is far, far, far greater and more meaningful than the beauty that the artist even put into it when he made the bottle.




Warwick Fairfax:

So what you're saying is it was beautiful before, but now that it's broken, it's far more beautiful than it was.




Gary Schneeberger: Right, right. Yep.




Warwick Fairfax: That is awesome stuff.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. It was so funny when you brought up that. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to talk about that too." So I actually pulled the bottle out here and I've been all nervous the whole time because I talk with my hands a lot and I don't want to knock it over. So let's move on to point seven. So we've gone through the first six points.




Gary Schneeberger:

The first six points, just to go through is one, your life matters. Two, you are loved. Three, the world needs us. Four, deal with the lie. Five, forgive yourself and forgive others. I added into that, ask for forgiveness from others, because that helps as well. Six, embrace the broken and the beautiful in your life. And the seventh point, Warwick, that you make in this blog on Crucibleleadership.com is to remember our mission. Unpack that for listeners.




Warwick Fairfax:

So we talk probably as much as anything on this podcast, Beyond the Crucible, or in Crucible Leadership about living a life of significance. It's what life is all about is a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So part of getting over the lie, of changing our identity is rewiring our brains. A lot of people know far more than I do about neuroscience, but it's not easy to rewire our brains, to rewire our identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

But part of that is, yeah, you want to deal with the lie. We're broken and beautiful, but what's the mission? What's that unique calling? For many of our guests, the root of their missional calling often comes out of the crucible they've gone through. It is for me. Crucible Leadership came out of my experience at losing a $2.25 billion 150-year-old company. How do you bounce back from your worst day? How do you lead a life of significance?




Warwick Fairfax:

The book, the podcast, everything we do all came from that. So it's as you find that mission and you begin... It's not like a one and done. I mean, okay, the book's done. We're going to be thinking about things for this year and who knows whether we'll have online courses or all sorts of things we're thinking about in Crucible Leadership. You keep moving forward, moving forward. And that mission, as you walk into it, it provides healing.




Warwick Fairfax:

In the fall, Gary, you were with me everywhere I went. I was speaking and the dialogues we had. As we were at Seton Hall, at Taylor University in Indiana, a Christian school where my kids were. We were at some business groups, XPX in Maryland and North Carolina, ACG, also in North Carolina as part of that. All these things we were at, and especially with the young people, they had a line of folks waiting for me to sign their book. Books just went when people said, "Oh, you know, the students are busy. They won't all take your book," which is fine either way.




Warwick Fairfax:

The questions they asked when you felt like, I'm actually helping some real people here. And it wasn't so much about, "Oh, look at me. I'm wonderful." Because my attitude in terms of dealing with that is all glory be to God, all glory be to God. Whenever anything good happens, I proverbially or physically get on my knees and say, "Glory to God." But those sorts of things make you think, you know what, there was some purpose in this pain. There's some meaning to what happens, and that provides a level of healing and a level of healing to your identity.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. And I think it also adds gravitas to the counsel and the wisdom that you give to other people. In other words, I love the fact that Young Warwick and all that that is meant to symbolize by those who stuck you with that nickname, it's because of Young Warwick that those kids at Seton Hall were in line waiting for you to sign their book and waiting to talk to you. It's, again, I go back to what the enemy intends for evil, God uses for good.




Gary Schneeberger:

Those things, that frozen identity thawed out, you can bring it into the present then and you can refer to it. Not live in it, but refer to it. And that gives you authenticity and gravitas and experience to allow you to speak into people's pain today. That truly is fuel for a life of significance once you get that identity unfrozen and you set it right. When you can refer back to it and draw lessons from it, that's what we talk about all the time here, that learning the lessons of your crucible is the fuel for your life of significance.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean it's so well said. I mean the person I am now, I wouldn't have been that person without what happened to me. I mean, you refer to that phrase, I think it's from Genesis 50. They meant it for evil, God meant it for good, referring to the life of Joseph, who was a young man was full of himself, had this coat of many colors. "Hey, look at me. I'm the favored son." I mean really unwise stuff.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

Gets thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt. Goes through a bunch of trials, ends up being basically the prime minister of Egypt. So clearly, despite his, it certainly wasn't all his fault, but some of his unwise behavior that caused a lot of jealousy, God used that. And so I look back and I could have been, I don't know, a couple billion dollars wealthier. I would've been in this family business, a bit of a gilded prison. I don't know how happy I would've been.




Warwick Fairfax:

But what I'm doing now, none of that would've happened without that. The life I lived, just the sense of fulfilling and having a wonderful family. My kids don't get to grow up with the whole baggage and bondage of family business stuff, which you know, is tough to grow up with. So yeah, I mean, I am blessed. We had a resilient series in which a number of guests, one in particular said, "What I went through was a blessing." That woman, Stacey Copas, who was injured at 12 in an Australian above- ground pool diving accident.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's hard to fathom that, but there's this sense of reframing it to say, "Maybe it was a blessing." Maybe it was a gift, what I went through, because it enables me to be who I am, to write what I write, to have a passion and hopefully compassion for people, to want to help people bounce back from their worst days to live lives of significance, gives you a mission and a calling. And that does change your identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm not perfect in that sense, but I don't see myself as Young Warwick, screwup, messed everything up. I say, "Yeah, I made some mistakes, but I have a mission in which I'm caring for others." I've served on some nonprofit boards. I feel like I am making a difference in the world in my own way. I go to historical figures a bit too much, perhaps, and none of us are going to be, almost none, like a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. But Franklin Roosevelt is just the case study in how tragedy turned his life around.




Warwick Fairfax:

He was this young guy of aristocratic New York wealth, life of the party. Everybody loved him, eye for the ladies, outgoing person. It's hard to see how he could contribute much to the world, this rich kid who everybody liked at parties. Then he gets polio and he is, I don't know, what, late thirties or something, somewhere around there. And it fundamentally changes him. He had to come back from what at the time was like a death sentence. You were meant to hide away and a bit like a leper. You weren't meant to be seen in society.




Warwick Fairfax:

Well, then he becomes president in the depths of the Depression. Well, a wealthy, rich kid, how would he be elected in the Depression? How could you relate to anybody's suffering? But because of what he went through, it's like, look how Franklin Roosevelt, it's so hard for him to walk. When he says, "All we have to fear is fear itself." The gravitas of those words came from people that had at least some sense of the tragedy that he'd gone through. There's no way that the Roosevelt of World War II or the Depression would've been that man without that tragedy. There is no way in the world. I can't imagine he would've been elected president.




Warwick Fairfax:

So again, it's not to say you or anybody else is going to be like a Roosevelt or a Lincoln, but tragedy can transform us into something that can be a real gift to the world, whether everybody knows about it or hardly anybody does. It can give you a mission that can be transforming both for your identity and to help other people's lives. So it can be huge.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. Since the two historical examples that you've used in this episode are both presidents, I'll say that the commander of Air Force One has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign and it's time to put the leader of the free world on the ground. But before we do that, what's one, if you're going to pull the best highlight, the best advice, the best counsel, wisdom, experience that you have here, what would you want to leave? What do you want to leave listeners with before we go?




Warwick Fairfax:

I think as we often say, if today's the bottom of the pit, is your worst day, it begins with one positive step. And so if I had to say, well, what's one positive step? I'd say it starts with don't believe the lie. Don't believe that you are a good for nothing screwup that shouldn't have been born. That today is the day you need to end your life. I mean, it depends how far you want to go. Don't believe the lie.




Warwick Fairfax:

You are broken and beautiful. You are made for a purpose. The eternal, I believe God, loves all of us. So don't believe the lie, the enemy. If you believe in spiritual warfare that some do, don't believe the lie that you're a screwup, you never should have been born, all that kind of talk.




Warwick Fairfax:

Begin to think, move in a positive way. If God loves me and if there's at least one other person on the planet that loves me, maybe my life is worth redeeming. Maybe I can move forward, even if it's in a small, positive step. All it takes is one little drop of grace and the flower can grow. Just one little drop, a positive thought of grace, and you'll be able to move forward, no matter how small that step is. It begins with don't believe the lie.




Gary Schneeberger:

And there you go. Air Force One's on the ground. I can hear Hail to the Chief. We've landed the plane for sure. So listeners, thank you for spending this time with us as we've talked about this extremely important subject of how do you unfreeze your identity from the bad place it may be in from some of the setbacks and failures and traumas and tragedies that you've been through. And do remember, as you've been through those crucible experiences, that they are not the end of your story.




Gary Schneeberger:

This podcast exists to reinforce that idea that your crucible is painful. We know that, but it's not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons, if you follow, as Warwick talks about here, some great tips on how you learn lessons from what's knocked you down and you apply those to your life, that can actually be the beginning of a new story that will be the best story of your life, because where it leads you is where it's led Young Warwick Fairfax, to a life of significance.