Lying in a hospital bed, unable to do anything for her only son but watch him leave and wondering if it would be the last time she’d see him was the traumatic crucible Sarah Willoughby faced after she turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in a desperate attempt to have another child. Diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and secondary infertility after losing another baby, she was at the end of her physical and emotional rope. That’s when she decided to stop trying to force her dreams to come true – and instead live her life with as much gusto and gratitude as she could. That determination has led her to a life of significance she couldn’t imagine at the depth of her crucible. She’s a life coach who helps clients love and heal themselves and is the author of a just-released book, INFERTILITY SAVED MY LIFE. 

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

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




Sarah Willoughby:

One of the most defining moments was realizing that I may not recover and having to send my son back to the UK with his grandma. And he walked out of the hospital doors holding his rabbit, his well-loved rabbit, in one hand and his grandmother's hand in the other and just turned around and looked at me and smiled. And I smiled at him and I thought, "I hope I'm okay. I hope I get to raise you."




Gary Schneeberger:

It's hard to imagine a more heartbreaking crucible than that. Lying in a hospital bed unable to do anything for your only son but watch him leave and wondering if it would be the last time you'd ever see him. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Our guest this week, Sarah Willoughby, endured that unimaginably scary experience after turning to in vitro fertilization in a desperate attempt to have another child. Diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and secondary infertility after losing another baby, she was at the end of her physical and emotional rope. That's when she decided she was going to stop trying to force her dreams to come true and instead live her life with as much gusto and gratitude as she could. That determination has led her to a life of significance she couldn't imagine at the depth of her crucible. She's a life coach who helps clients love and heal themselves and is the author of a just released book, Infertility Saved My Life. She describes just how that's been true in ways you won't believe in this conversation with me and Warwick.




Warwick Fairfax:

I first heard about you, just saw some posting on social media, saw that you've got a book coming out with Morgan James. I guess the eBook's coming out in June which will be when the podcast... And then printed later in the year. So my book was published late last year, October 2021, by Morgan James. So yeah, we have that in common which is fabulous. And just the title of your book, Infertility Saved My Life, I mean it's counterintuitive and there's a whole story there that we'll unpack. So I loved the title and the butterfly on the front and just on your website, when you talk about is this your opportunity to transform your life? You talk about this is the right place if you're ready to heal, love yourself, achieve more, transform your life. So I love just what you're about. And obviously, your story's anchored by your crucible with polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS, which I must confess I had not heard of until reading about you.




Warwick Fairfax:

But before we get a bit into your story, tell us a bit about the backstory. You grew up I think you mentioned in England before coming to Australia a number of years ago. So what's a bit of the backstory that makes Sarah Willoughby who you are and some of the threads that I'm sure you've picked up later on?




Sarah Willoughby:

Absolutely. So yeah, I grew up in the UK and I lived that typical life. I went to school, I studied hard. I spent six years at university and I followed the corporate path. So this life that I had expected for myself and other people expected for me. So I worked my way up the corporate ladder and I got there and I wasn't happy. It wasn't filling me with joy. But I didn't know how to leave because I felt like it was already too late, which is really ironic because I was actually only still in my early twenties. But I felt like I put so much work into this life and I knew where I was going and then it didn't really make my heart sing.




Sarah Willoughby:

So at the same time, I was going... And I was really stressed. I just want to say working in the corporate world was very, very stressful and I didn't feel like I was being a good employee, a good wife and a good mother at the time. I just felt like I was in survival mode, not thriving for sure. And at the same time, I was just going on this journey to try and have a second child, and that's where it all started to fall apart.




Warwick Fairfax:

So talk about PCOS and there's probably some listeners, maybe a number who don't know what that is. It changed your life in a lot of bad ways, but it seems like incredibly, given your book's called Infertility Saved My Life, there was some good that came out of just horrendous tragedy. So talk a bit about life was swimming along, you had a corporate job, a young son, a husband, maybe life could've been better but it doesn't sound like it was terrible.




Sarah Willoughby:

No. And yeah, from the outside looking in, I had it at all. I had a beautiful lifestyle. I traveled. I had a good income. I was using my brain. I'd spent six years at university so that was important to me. But my desire to have another child was the thing that really was pushing me forward in life and was very challenging. So I found out in my early twenties that I had PCOS, it was actually a very late diagnosis. And because I'd had my son very easily, I didn't think that I was going to struggle to have a second child. It just didn't even enter my mind. It took me two years to conceive. And at that point, I then had what's called a missed miscarriage which is when you're still releasing all the pregnancy hormones, but your baby's actually died. So a lot of women find out at their scan, their 12 week scan, that their baby had died a number of weeks before. And you have no idea.




Sarah Willoughby:

So at that point, I had to decide whether to wait for a natural miscarriage or whether to have surgery to remove everything because the pregnancy can continue for weeks and weeks and weeks. So I opted for surgery and that was really, really hard, really hard. And a lot of women go through this. I actually ended up on ward where lots of young girls were having abortions, so effectively the same operation but for different reasons. And no judgment around that, we're all at different stages in our life. But that was very, very confronting. I felt like the universe had put a baby in the wrong body sort of thing. And I felt very numb when I woke up from that surgery and I was crying and one of the nurses said to me, "Do you want to speak to the hospital chaplain?" And even though I wasn't religious, I said, "Yes." And that was absolutely life changing for me because she was the first person that acknowledged that I lost a baby.




Sarah Willoughby:

And I think for a lot of women and men going through infertility, there isn't that acknowledgement that you have lost a child. It's like oh, it's just a group of cells or just get over it. So there isn't that compassion and understanding. And she put on a proper funeral service for my family, so me and my ex-husband and my son. And that was beautiful. And the reason I share that is because for anybody going through infertility, there is a grieving process that you need to go through and there is an acknowledgement of the life that was that grew inside you that you felt, but a life that also now is not going to be. So that was really important for me. And from there, I basically was told there wasn't really much that they could do for me with how my body was reacting to everything. So I was told, "Go through IVF." So IVF is an emotional roller coaster. You're taking hormones, it's something that's done, again, behind closed doors. You don't talk about it. You don't want people to know.




Sarah Willoughby:

So I'm trying to carry on with this really stressful job and hold down my life at the same time that I'm trying to have another child. We went over to Norway actually to have the IVF because we'd lost a lot of faith in the UK system, and they messed up a lot of my care and detrimentally. So went over to Norway, had IVF treatment. And unfortunately, my body didn't like the drugs and it reacted very badly and I ended up in intensive care. And I can genuinely say I hope I never experience that level of physical pain in my life because I was on morphine and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. It was very, very confronting. I put on about 20 kilograms of fluid in about 72 hours. My body just filled up with fluid. I had fluid on my lungs, I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was drowning. I had an enlarged heart. I was at risk of blood clots and there was just nothing that the doctors could do to stop the deterioration. They just have to treat each symptom as it arose.




Sarah Willoughby:

And I guess one of the most defining moments was realizing that I may not recover and having to send my son back to the UK with his grandma. And he walked out of the hospital doors holding his rabbit, his well-loved rabbit, in one hand and his grandmother's hand in the other and just turned around and looked at me and smiled. And I smiled at him and I thought, "I hope I'm okay. I hope I get to raise you." That was really challenging. And it made me realize like, "What have I done?" This was an elective procedure, I've put myself in this position. And I felt guilt and I felt shame and just excruciating physical, emotional, mental, spiritual pain.




Warwick Fairfax:

Wow. I mean thank you for sharing that because obviously I know it's not easy. You share it for a purpose, to serve others which we'll get into. But you have a mixture of horrendous physical pain and emotional pain. I mean there's probably a whole sea of different things you're going through. I would imagine there's probably a number of people, a number of other women that have never heard of this secondary infertility. Your average person, average woman I imagine thinks once you get pregnant the first time, you're probably good to go. Obviously, as you get older, it gets tough. As you get closer to 40, it gets pretty difficult. When you're in your twenties, in theory, it's easier and then it gets harder as you go from 20 to 30 to 40.




Warwick Fairfax:

And so there's probably a lot of women that says, "Well Sarah, how can that possibly be? I mean you've already had a child, how can there be an issue, right?" You probably thought once I've had that first one, I'm good to go. Things are working the way they're meant to and let's go. So did you find other women like what is it and just couldn't understand what you were talking about?




Sarah Willoughby:

I think there was a lot of guilt for me around feeling the loss and the grief and the confusion and the resentment towards my own body because I'd already had a child. So I knew a lot of people who were struggling to have their first child. So this is something that a lot of women going through secondary infertility feel like they can't even talk about it. So there's a silence, an even bigger silence around secondary infertility because you feel like you should just be happy that you've had a child. And of course I was, he was my life.




Warwick Fairfax:

Right. So what you're saying is there are some women who've never had a child which would be saying maybe in their worst moments, and we all have them, who are you to complain? I would do anything to have a little boy, little girl, little child. And so they probably found it very difficult to understand why you would be... Because you can't really empathize fully with something you've never experienced. If they obviously have-




Sarah Willoughby:

No. And that's the same in life for anything, isn't it? Until we've walked in somebody else's shoes, we just can't understand. But I think because there's so much silence and stigma and shame around infertility and it's something we don't talk about, I think that's what makes it harder whereas if you're on a different health journey, there's a lot less silence around some of the other big issues that people face. So that's why I share my story because I want to break that silence. I want to really shine a light on this and take away that shame because we know that shame is the lowest vibration. And when we shine a light on shame, we take away the power that it holds over us.




Warwick Fairfax:

So you've talked obviously a bit about the physical excruciating pain, but it sounds like as bad, maybe worse, I don't know, but as bad with just the emotional torment that the mixture of shame, of, "What have I almost done to my son?" I mean every mother is going to think, "Nobody's going to be able to care for my child the way I can." That's just I think a part of being human, a part of being a mother. And nothing against grandparents or husband, you feel like, "I want it to be me because I'm going to love my child in a way that nobody else on the planet is going to be able to do." That's just your natural feeling I'm sure. So you've got that sense of maybe shame, anger, resentment. Maybe there was some anger and resentment against universe, God, or whatever. So talk a bit about those sea of emotions both towards you, towards others and maybe even to higher power, whoever's up there. Talk a bit about some of those emotions.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah. I think for me, it made me realize how much resentment and hatred I had towards my own body. I was like, "Why is this happening? What have I done wrong? Was I a bad person in a past life? What's going on here? What lesson am I not learning?" I've always believed there's a lesson and a gift in everything that we experience, that nothing is black or white, life is about duality. So I knew that there was a bigger purpose for all of it. When I actually started to recover, when the process started to reverse itself and the doctors realized that I was going to be okay, which was incredible, one of the consultants who actually wasn't working on my ward at the time, she came in, it was about 10 o'clock at night, and she came and she sat down and she put her hand on my leg and she said, "You've been really lucky." And then she looked away and she had tears in her eyes and she became my guardian angel. I have so much gratitude for her because I really understood in that moment what she was telling me.




Sarah Willoughby:

She was telling me, "You're lucky to be alive. Life is really short." And that's the message that I try to share with people now is don't wait until you're in the situation that I was in. I got the biggest kick up the bum from the universe and I'm grateful for that because it changed my life. So that's why my book is called Infertility Saved My Life because it saved me from a life that would've lacked resonance. It took me on a different path, but the path that I was destined to be on that I had been too scared to follow. So in that moment when she'd left and I reflected and I laid in bed by myself and I thought, "I have to step up for myself and for other people. I have to be who I need to be. And I have to make these decisions to move forward in my life." And then from there, I recovered, went back to the UK. Fortunately, we had done the egg retrieval so I had 10 frozen embryos.




Sarah Willoughby:

And when I recovered, I went back to Norway and I had two transferred and I got pregnant with twins. And I was like, "This is why it's happened." I'd always had this romantic notion of twins. And I was so excited and we'd already started planning an emigration to Australia, sorry, and so my whole life was going to come over here, family of five. And then in that process of moving over here, I lost one of the twins and then I lost the other one. And then I sat with myself and thought, "Do I go? Do I stay? I've got nothing left to lose. We've got to go. We've got to start a new life." And we had no jobs to come to, we didn't know anybody. We just threw it all up in the air. We left the UK in the recession so we couldn't even go back if things hadn't worked out, we wouldn't have walked back into our jobs. And we came over here, began a new life and I surrendered. And I think that's what changed emotionally for me was I let go. I just surrendered. I let go.




Sarah Willoughby:

My life went into flight. I had this pivotal moment of lying on my bed thinking I feel peaceful for the first time in my life. Don't ever let me forget that. And within six weeks, I fell pregnant with my daughter who is now 11. And then four years later, I had my other daughter who is now seven. And for me, just that surrender to life was life changing. And again, that's what I try and share with other people that we have all the answers inside, but we can't always hear them. So let's connect with self to find them. But it's okay also to not have all the answers at any point in time. Just take that first step. Just be brave, show up for yourself.




Warwick Fairfax:

So boy, there's so much of what you've said. I mean it sounds like your worst moment, this whole PCOS, infertility changed the direction of your life ultimately for the positive. It was an extremely painful experience. And sometimes, certainly in my case which is extremely different, somebody's told me several times you can't compare crucibles, losing a $2 billion family media business which wasn't so much about the money, but 150 years of heritage felt like I'd let down generations of my family. And even the country in some warped sense and it was a pretty difficult experience. And I also left in this case to go to the U.S., my wife's American. So everybody's experience is different.




Warwick Fairfax:

But talk about, I think you've begun to, is how you let go of some of those negative emotions, whether it's anger towards the universe, some sense of self-loathing, self-hatred of, "How could I do this to my son?" Or how did you let go of those negative emotions to surrender? I don't know, it doesn't seem like it was a coincidence that after that happened, you had two more beautiful children. Because I know a lot of listeners are going to be wondering, "Well Sarah, how could you let go of that anger to yourself and to the world and the universe? How could you let go of that sea of negative emotions and anger and frustration and shame?"




Sarah Willoughby:

When my body healed itself and I had no long-term symptoms, I realized how amazing our bodies are. And I also realized that the relationship that I had with myself and what I was saying to myself was the most important one. Whether we like it or not, we're stuck with ourselves for the rest of our lives, it's the only relationship that is guaranteed. And I made that conscious decision that it was going to be a good one and that I was going to practice self-care and that I was going to nurture myself. And instead of putting myself last, I was going to start putting myself first. And as women, a lot of us don't do that. We nurture and care for everybody else and we give so much of ourselves to everybody else that we have nothing left really for ourselves. But the analogy around you can't pour from an empty cup is so true. And our cup doesn't just need to be full, it needs to be overflowing so that we're not taking from the cup at any point.




Sarah Willoughby:

And that's the work that I do with a lot of people is helping them to understand that if you're okay, your family will be okay and those people around you will be okay. But if you fall over, then nobody's okay. So I think that change around mindset of celebrating my body, realizing that our body gives us clues all the time. We get a lot of our answers from our body. We feel it in our body. We get that gut instinct, intuition, whatever you want to call it. But we have that deep knowing. And when we can tune into that, then we are always on the right path. We just need to get rid of the distractions and actually be able to learn how to tune in. So that was really important for me in that journey of healing and realizing that anger was not serving me. And it's okay to be angry. We actually have to acknowledge our emotions and I'd pushed a lot of them away.




Sarah Willoughby:

And I think that was what changed too, was that I was able to start labeling how I was feeling and observe it without getting pulled into the drama and then allow it to just move through my body and let it go, because an emotion only really lasts for about 90 seconds. But we push it away, we push it away, we push it away. We don't want to feel it because it feels uncomfortable. But we need to do that because it's not the emotion that's the problem, it's what we do with the emotion and our behavior around that that's the issue.




Gary Schneeberger:

On the subject of emotions, and I might have heard you wrong, but a while back in this conversation, I thought I heard you say, and if this is what you said, I'd love you to unpack it a little bit, that shame is the lowest vibration. Did you say that?




Sarah Willoughby:

Yes. Yeah.




Gary Schneeberger:

That just struck me as very profound. What do you mean by that? Because a lot of people who go through crucibles who have those experiences that change the trajectory of their lives feel shame over it. Warwick went through that. I've gone through that.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah.




Gary Schneeberger:

What does that mean it's the lowest vibration?




Sarah Willoughby:

What it means is my belief system is that we are all energetic beings having a physical experience. And we naturally resonate with people, don't we? We're drawn to certain people, we're drawn to certain situations and that's all energy. But shame is the lowest vibration in terms of when we sit in that energetic space, that's where a lot of people commit suicide. That's where a lot of people go in their darkest days and their darkest moments. But what disempowers shame is talking about it, is shining a light on it, is bringing it to light and realizing that a lot of the things that we are ashamed of people don't look at it in the same way. We hold a lot within ourselves and when actually share it with other people, we realize that nobody else feels that way.




Sarah Willoughby:

So it really is about talking to other people, whoever you feel comfortable, I'm sharing that with or somebody that's completely objective and just bringing it to light and starting to unpack it. But Dr. Brené Brown, I encourage people to read her work, follow her, she's been an incredible inspiration to me on my journey about understanding vulnerability, that's another one that is really difficult for people to understand, shame, empathy, courage, being brave. Her journey in itself is really, really inspiring. She now works with Oprah Winfrey and her TED talk, I really encourage people to watch her TED talk because it's gone viral.




Warwick Fairfax:

Help listeners understand why that's so important, just the willingness to seek help and certainly seek help from others, being willing to share these things.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah, certainly when I was going through IVF, I fortunately had sought the help of a hypnotherapist. And one of the best pieces of advice that she gave me is that a lot of people make the mistake of allowing their tragedy or whatever they're going through, their lowest moments to define them. And like you said, we have a choice. We can use our pain to be powerful and become our purpose in some way or we can allow it to take us down. So I think mindset is just this crazy journey of every day having to catch our own thoughts because we are so critical. What we say in our own heads we wouldn't dream of saying to other people. And when we actually start to acknowledge some of those negative mindsets, the repetitive mindset that we have that is very derogatory, then we are halfway there to being able to stop it. We have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, 90% of those are repeated from the day before and 80% of those thoughts are negative.




Sarah Willoughby:

So we're already on this uphill battle of every day having to really work hard to change what's going on in our minds. And one of the things that's helped me is the word, "Yet." So putting the word, "Yet," on the end of a sentence, "I don't understand it yet, I'm not good at that yet," is really empowering. So there's lots of little things that we can do to actually help to reframe how we show up for ourselves and other people. And like I said, finding people that we trust. So finding a tribe, whatever you are going through in life, finding people that just love you for you, that understand you, that realizing we don't have to be perfect all the time. That's impossible, we can't be. There's a perfection in imperfection. When we start to be brave and we start to really be who we came here to be, we attract all those people into our lives that help us to continue to be our best version. So it's this vicious cycle and it's a beautiful one when we actually trust ourselves.




Warwick Fairfax:

Talk about what motivated you to write that book which I think you've talked about some of. And what from my words, if you don't mind me, your ministry, your work, your coaching, yeah, just what do you feel that your life's mission is through this book and your mission to help others is?




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah. So the reason I wrote the book and it has been a very confronting journey because it's my story, so I know that you will understand that. So the first part of the book is a memoir, it's my life story and how I got to where I am now. And then the second part are the tools and techniques and wisdom and insight that I learned along the way, things that I wish I'd known sooner as well that helped me through that. So I wanted it to be a really practical resource for people. So it wasn't just a story of so what do I do now? How does that impact my life? How can I move forward? I wanted to integrate the two things. But the reason that I wrote it is primarily because I don't want anybody else to go through what I felt when I was going through my infertility journey, because I felt so much shame, silence, stigma, isolation and I dealt with a lot of this behind closed doors. And we don't need to because the statistics show so many people all around the world are dealing with this.




Sarah Willoughby:

We all know somebody who is dealing with infertility or we will do, and those figures are increasing. So we can hold space for those people. Even if we don't understand that journey, we can hold space for those people to be able to make that journey easier for them. So that's the reason that I've written the book is to break that silence and to help ease suffering and pain because that's why we're all here. We're all connected. We are all just walking each other home in very different ways, but that's the reality of what we're all here doing. And we can do that with love and compassion or we can become very self-centered and just think that life is just about our journey, but it's not. It's about the bigger picture. I also wanted to leave a legacy for the generations to come. So I wanted to leave something that would touch those people whose lives... I'll never meet those people.




Sarah Willoughby:

But if I could just help one person, then my work is done. It was very much about that. In terms of the work that I do now, I just love supporting people to see themselves, truly see themselves and realize who they are, see their potential, connect with their heart space, really help them to live more fulfilled lives because I believe that if we were all doing that, we wouldn't have war, we wouldn't have crime, we wouldn't have hate, we'd be in a different space. And again, the ripple effect of that, the ripple effect of the work that you're doing is huge. We don't necessarily see that with our own eyes, but we know from a heart space that we need to do this work. All of us need to do the work on ourselves, but we need to do the work for other people.




Warwick Fairfax:

It seems like there's two levels in a sense in your book, one is others who are dealing with infertility and if you have it, and obviously not all women do, I mean a huge amount do, but certainly the secondary infertility that even women that struggle with infertility may not be aware of this, take away the stigma of that and help people just give themselves some love and grace. But as you've mentioned, there's another level with people that are dealing with shame and self-judgment from any challenge, there's a whole other level in your ministry in a sense, your work that's so important. And I love this phrase, I think you have it on your profile somewhere, and I love what you wrote. You wrote, "If you have an idea or a dream that still needs to be birthed into the world, don't give up. Everything happens in divine timing and if you keep trusting, the universe will co-create with you."




Warwick Fairfax:

Well in some sense, the tragedy you went through you used as a springboard for a dream, for a bigger purpose in your life. And that seems like that's your message to the wider world. So how would you put that message to that wider world, those who are dealing with shame and grief and they may not be seeing themselves as having a dream, or they may think to themselves, "I'm worthy of nothing. Nothing I have can help anybody. I just need to hide in a hole until it all ends," because there are some people that feel that way? "Just don't look at me, shun me. Please shun me, I deserve to be shunned." Talk about how you have a different vision for people.




Sarah Willoughby:

I think for me, I connect with people on a soul level. So I see beyond all the facade, the masks that we wear. And I really encourage people to start to get still. So we've talked about mindfulness, we've talked about for me, meditation was that thing that saved my life. If I hadn't had learned meditation, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have got through what I went through when I was in hospital in Norway all those years ago. So nature is that thing that helps me every single day to get out of a dark hole or a dark head space or however I'm feeling. So that is something that each and every one of us can do. Even if you don't believe in yourself, even if you don't believe you're worthy, even if you don't know where your life is going, I really encourage people to go outdoors to just be, not do, we spend our whole lives doing and we just need to spend more time being.




Sarah Willoughby:

And what happens when we're in nature is that everything just starts to fall away, our mind, the negative monkey mind chatter that goes on constantly starts to lessen and we start to connect with our heart space. And when we start to feel that, we start to feel worthy and it's a process and it's a practice and we need to push ourselves to do it and go out, even when we don't feel like it. It's like going to the gym, even when you don't feel like going to the gym, remember the feeling that you have when you come home and you're like, "I did that workout and I pushed myself." We can do that gently, we can do that in nature, we can do that with meditation, we can do that through prayer. We can do whatever our belief system is, but really commit to finding that thing for you that fills you up, that brings you joy because you need to draw on that for when you're going through those challenging times.




Warwick Fairfax:

I know we're getting close to closing, but I want to just dwell a bit on what you've said here, Sarah, because it's so profoundly true. Like you, I love nature and because I'm a reflective person, I can reflect on all sorts of things, some of them positive, some of them not so positive. And just over the weekend, we happened to be in far Northern Michigan for the summer. My wife doesn't like hot weather, she's got a Norwegian Irish background. And so anyway, it doesn't get too hot where we are because we're so far north. But there are just beautiful woods, birch trees which obviously you have them in the UK. I'm sure if you go up north and certainly in Norway, you would have them-




Sarah Willoughby:

Yes.




Warwick Fairfax:

When you were there. And just walking in the woods, we went on this just beautiful bike trail. And I remember thinking to myself, "Okay, I'm going to focus on being present right here, right now for this second. I'm going to listen to the wind going through the trees, the sunlight speckling through, then looking at the meadows and the fields and the farm houses in the distance, the beautiful mid-seventies weather," which for those in Fahrenheit, probably 20 Celsius somewhere. But I remember thinking to myself, "I'm going to focus on being present and being so grateful for this incredible bike ride and then earlier this incredible walk in nature." And whoever you believe created it all, it makes you think, "I'm a part of something bigger than myself and how blessed I am to experiencing this beautiful spot." For us, it could be nature, others, it could be music, whatever transports you to a place where you're focusing on something that's positive that helps you heal your soul. I mean it does work, it does for me. I love walking in nature or cycling in nature. It's awesome.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah, it is the most beautiful experience. And I didn't realize how connected to nature I was until I moved over to Australia and I know I'm blessed to live by the beach and just watching the sunset, the sunrise is so incredibly healing. And it's like you said, you realize you're just a small part in this amazing world. It's just we're all connected and we're just part of something so much bigger. We're a drop in the ocean, but we're part of the whole ocean. And I think when we really understand that, that is when life changes and gratitude has been huge for me.




Warwick Fairfax:

Well since you mentioned the G word, gratitude, I have to comment on that. So I so love, love that point. And obviously, I didn't create this whole idea, there's a bunch of people who've written on gratitude, but I do, when I start getting negative, try to focus on I'm so blessed. I have an incredible wife of over 30 years, I have three adult kids, two boys and a girl, I'm so blessed by them. We go to a non-denominational church in Maryland. I mean there's so many things. I love what I do in Crucible Leadership and the team that we have. I have a long list of things that I'm so grateful and so blessed by. And so dwell on the things that you're blessed by.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm sure you probably have a long list. You have I'm sure three wonderful kids. You live in a beautiful part of Australia, the Mornington Peninsula, South of Melbourne. I mean I'm sure you love what you do, you've got a book coming out. I mean those are just probably the tip of the iceberg just of the little things I know that we've spoken about. There's probably a longer list. But rather than focusing on why life is so bad and life's not easy, just being in nature and just being grateful, focusing what you're grateful for. You go through that list, after a while, it'd be pretty tough for that despondency not to break a little bit, right? Some rays of sunshine to break through the clouds.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to say with the gratitude thing too, it can be something really small. And I think for some people, when they're in that really difficult head space, as the saying goes, you can't see the wood for the trees and you can't find the things to be grateful for. So start small, be grateful for the warm cup of tea you're drinking, be grateful for the hot shower you had this morning, be grateful for the bed that you're lying in. But really just start to notice and take note and write things down, three things every morning or every evening, whatever works best for you, write them down. And before you know it, you'll have a whole book of things that you can read back when you're having a really bad day and say, "Okay, I do actually have these amazing things in life," because I think previously, I'd thought that you couldn't be happy and angry at the same time.




Sarah Willoughby:

You couldn't have all these conflicting emotions at the same time, but you can be going through the hardest time of your life and you can still be grateful. And some of those moments that were hardest in my life, ironically I have the most gratitude for those because they had a bigger purpose. They had a bigger purpose. When I think of gratitude, lying in hospital in the most intense pain, but one of the things that I'm so grateful for is that lady that came, that consultant that came to speak to me. Those two things at the time were just... But they can both exist at the same time. You can be grateful and find moments of happiness even when you're grieving, even when you're going through the hardest times.




Gary Schneeberger:

Also, what can happen at the same time is you can be in a plane and the plane is about to land. And that sound you just heard, listener, was the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign indicating that we're going to land this conversational plane in a bit. But before we do, I have to point out something that I love. I love a lot of things about co-hosting this show. The thing I love the most is when Warwick and the guest speak the same words in different languages, if you will. There have been so many instances in this conversation with you, Sarah, in which you've said something that's a shading of what Warwick talks about all the time in Crucible Leadership. And the one that sticks out to me, Warwick defines the end goal of moving beyond your crucible as a life of significance. And he defines that as living a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.




Gary Schneeberger:

And you used a phrase in this conversation, it just slipped by, but I wrote it down because it strikes me that that's your way of saying the same thing. We're all just walking each other home. There's just something so beautiful about that idea of, again, you're living your life on purpose, you're noticing things and you're serving others, we're all just walking each other home. That's just one of the examples and it's just one in this episode in which you guys have talked about similar things, similar rhythms in different words. And that shows me the universality of the principles of what we're talking about. I would be remiss before the plane gets on the ground though, Sarah, if I did not give you the chance to let listeners know how they can get in touch with you, how they can know more about your book and how they can buy your book. So where can they find you on the internet?




Sarah Willoughby:

Thank you. So through my website, sarahwilloughby.com.au. I'm also on LinkedIn, Sarah Willoughby 2019, and Instagram and Facebook, Sarah Willoughby Australia. So basically search my name and you will find me. I love connecting with people. In terms of my book, my ebook is being launched on the 7th of June, which also happens to be my birthday-




Warwick Fairfax:

Happy birthday. That is wonderful timing.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yes, that's perfect.




Sarah Willoughby:

Yeah. And I didn't even tell them it was my birthday, but that was what was chosen. So I love that. And seven is a very spiritual number, so it's all just perfectly aligned. So that's available as an ebook on the 7th of June and then it's available in global bookstores on the 6th of December from all the usual online retailers and places. So I really encourage people to, even if it's not for them, there's probably going to be somebody that might need to hear that story of hope and inspiration. So thank you.




Gary Schneeberger:

Warwick, as always and as appropriate, the last question or two are all yours.




Warwick Fairfax:

Well Sarah, thank you so much for being here. I just find your whole message so encouraging, it's a message of hope. And gosh, I feel like your story in part, I love the title of your book, Infertility Saved My Life, it was excruciatingly physically painful, spiritually, emotionally, I don't know, I can't think of too many other axes, but whatever axes there are in life, you felt them all in a huge way. But yet in some ways, the life you're living, the life of purpose which you are dedicated to serving others was birthed in the excruciating pain on every level at that time. And I know it's not easy to understand if today's your worst day, whether it's through infertility or it might be hard to understand, but maybe it's a message of hope.




Warwick Fairfax:

Talk about how you've found some purpose in the pain that you went through. And I know for me, I'm guessing it's true for you, it doesn't eliminate the pain, but somehow it makes it easy to deal with. So talk a bit about that whole pain for purpose and Infertility Saved My Life. Talk a bit about how that crucible may be excruciating, but good can come of it and how it can almost be healing in some ways. I don't know, does that make sense at all?




Sarah Willoughby:

It does. I think for me, I realized that this was bigger than me. This wasn't just about me. And I think I went on this journey of realizing that I was enough. Everybody is enough as they are. And when we get to that place of accepting who we are, flaws and all, then life really does change. And when we realize that we're enough, then we want to find our unique gifts and talents and skills and we want to share those with the world because we need them. You think of all the people that have come before us and all the inventions and all the beautiful things that this world offers us, that all happened because people were brave and because they stepped up and they believed in themselves and they believed in their dream, their goal, their vision, whatever it was. And then they took action. So it's not just enough to have the dream, we've actually got to take those steps.




Sarah Willoughby:

So whatever people need to do to get to that place of feeling enough, we've talked about it, connecting with self, mindfulness, prayer, being out in nature, writing, seeking help from others, connecting with your tribe, whatever it is, do one small thing today, take one small step right now, as soon as you've finished listening to this, because I learned the hard way how short life is. And would I have had a life of regret? I absolutely would for all the things that I didn't do, for the fact that the music was going to die inside me, for all the things that I hadn't been brave enough to walk towards. Everybody has that ability, that opportunity right now to draw a line in the sand whatever they're going through and say, "Enough is enough. My life starts again right now." And I really encourage people to do that and to find the tools to help them to do that every day.




Gary Schneeberger:

I have been in the communication business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken and Sarah Willoughby just spoke it. She didn't just speak the last word, she also did my job because I was going to round up all the things that she said as we closed the show and she just listed them all off. So I don't have to do that because Sarah is such a good communicator that she also gets it and she summarized everything that we've talked about in that last statement. So I'm left with this, listener. You've heard Warwick talk a little bit here about his story and you've heard the commonalities between Warwick's bounce back from his crucible and Sarah's bounce back from her crucible, completely different crucibles, but the emotional journey back, very similar in some ways. And you can learn more about Warwick's or learn more about it, again, Warwick's journey by reading his book, buying his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, which you can order on our website at crucibleleadership.com.




Gary Schneeberger:

There's also lots of other resources there that Warwick provides. There's blogs, there's an assessment that helps you understand where you are in your own journey in charting a course toward a life of significance. So come to crucibleleadership.com and spend a little time getting to know the assets that are there. And since Sarah took my ending away, I'm going to steal an ending from her website because as Warwick hinted earlier or said earlier, there's some things on her website that are just really profound. And on Sarah's website, when you go there to learn more about her, she gave you the website earlier, there's a slogan at the top right next to her name, Sarah Willoughby. And it says this, and I want to leave you with this based on this discussion, listener, and that is that, "Life begins right now. You've got this." That's the message of what we've just talked about. That's the message of Beyond the Crucible.




Gary Schneeberger:

So listener, until the next time we're together, do remember, we understand your crucible experiences are difficult, they're painful, they're traumatic. They can knock the wind out of your lungs and change the trajectory of your life. But as Warwick and as Sarah both have talked about today and have proven with their lives, they're not the end of your story. They can in fact be the beginning of a brand new exciting story, one that brings your heart alive as they've both said, one that if you take one little step at a time, you can get on a course toward the best chapter of the best story of your life because where it leads you ultimately is to a life of significance.

Ian Dibb knows firsthand that from the ashes of your crucibles are born the strength and wisdom to not only survive – but to live a life dedicated to serving others. Dibb’s most devastating moments were the deaths of his sister and his mom within months of each other – life-rattling tragedies that birthed his calling. He turned his pain into purpose after struggling to settle the estates left behind by his loved ones – an experience that led him to launch keylu, an online portal that helps users organize their assets for those they’ll one day leave behind. As he explains, his efforts are about more than just keeping important documents in order. They’re also about preserving important memories that give your legacy is greatest meaning.

To learn more about Ian Dibb and keylu, visit www.keylu.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

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




Ian Dibb:

I could have easily just sat back and let the grief swallow me. There was points when I'd wake up in the morning and think, "Well, what's this all about?" The sadness and emptiness I felt for a while was too much at times to really bear and I actually thought to myself, "Why?" I was 28 at the time. I'm 46 now. The choice I made was to I've had to go through this. So the toughest steel is made in the hottest fires. We are given experiences to help others and my experience of losing my sister and mum has given me this energy to do whatever it takes to help people.




Gary Schneeberger:

Have you been through, are you going through right now some of your life's hottest fires? This week's guest, Ian Dibb, has some words of comfort for you if you are. From the ashes of your crucibles are born the strength and wisdom to not only survive, but to live life dedicated to serving others. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Dibb's hottest fires were the deaths of his sister and his mom within months of each other, life-rattling tragedies that birthed his calling. He turned his pain into purpose after struggling to settle the estates left behind by his loved ones, an experience that led him to launch Keylu, an online portal that helps users organize their assets for those they'll, one day, leave behind. But as he tells me and Warwick in our interview, his efforts are about more than just keeping important documents in order. They're also about preserving important memories that give your legacy its greatest meaning.




Warwick Fairfax:

Before we get a bit into your crucible story, just give us a bit of the background of Ian Dibb and some of the threads that make you who you are and maybe have led to what you do now, but tell us a bit of the backstory of you and your family.




Ian Dibb:

Yeah. I was born in Liverpool. We lived there. Mum was a GP. My dad worked for the British Medical Association. I had an older sister, Jane. I've got two younger sisters, Amy and Beth. We moved down to Cornwall when we were five, beautiful place. It's a great place for me as a dad now. This was my mum's reasoning from moving to Cornwall. It's a safe place. There's not much going on. It's quite sleepy. We're a four-hour flight from London, which is incredible. But at the same point, for me, it's been an absolute blessing. We had moved out to Cornwall when we were five. Attended school, did the normal stuff, part of a family of six. It's just been a journey. I'm one of these guys who never really looks at the end destination. I enjoy the day to day, believe we're very much on a journey, which none of us knows what's going to happen, but I just embrace it and it's something I've always said to my family about.




Ian Dibb:

I don't care what they become, but as long as they're better people and they leave this world a better place they came into it. So that might be they become the next prime minister or it might be they just become somebody who cares for people who makes a difference to their lives. My background, I went to university in Worcester, not too far from actually Warwick in the UK. After I left university, I decided I want to see the world, so I left and went through Thailand, Malaysia. Ended up in New Zealand, living there for a while and it was while I was in New Zealand actually my crucible story really took effect.




Warwick Fairfax:

Okay. Wow. Well, yeah, talk about that. That's a great lead in. So in New Zealand, so talk about what happened next.




Ian Dibb:

Yeah. So I was living in New Zealand. It was amazing, such a beautiful place and the place I would've dearly liked to stay. While I was traveling, my mum, Anne, was a GP and she was complaining about back pain for the best part of 12 months, but just put it down to some kind of pulled muscle. I spoke to mum daily. I would still love to speak to mum daily. But while I was there, I received a phone call from mum and the message was, "Ian, your sister's gone missing." To most people, it wouldn't be that much of a big deal, but my sister Jane had been suffering from bipolar for the best part of 18 years. Numerous suicide attempts in her life. Every single one of them had failed, fortunately, but this was a different occasion.




Ian Dibb:

A week later, I got another phone call from mum about half past 1:00 in the morning and that could only mean one thing. I got the call from mum and it said, "Ian, we found your sister and she'd taken her own life." It was devastating, absolutely devastating. As much as you know one of your loved ones has bipolar, there is a high chance you might lose them, you never really think it's going to happen. So I flew back from New Zealand back to the UK. I think it was the following day and started the preparations for my sister's funeral. I was 26 at the time. Jane was 28. I'm back in the UK for two weeks, dealing with the funeral and also my sister just bought a house, so having to deal with that as well. Eventually, we went into hospital late one evening and she was diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer. So that back pain actually turned out to be a grapefruit-sized tumor underneath her lung.




Ian Dibb:

As a doctor, mum knew exactly what that diagnosis meant. So it went from a family of six within a two-year period to losing two of the most inspirational people I've ever met. It was a point in your life where you either just let this wash over you and have let grief take hold of you and destroy you or you actually say, "Well, if this has happened to me, how many other millions of people is this going to happen to? Why does it need to happen in the way it happened to me? What could be done to make a difference in these people's lives?" So yeah, it was a dreadful time in my life, but off the back of that, it's given me a absolute mission to help other people who will eventually go through the same situation.




Warwick Fairfax:

You mentioned your mum and sister were an inspiration. Just talk about who they were as people and why they had such a massive influence in your life.




Ian Dibb:

My mum, as I mentioned, was a GP, but she was just one of the funniest, most caring people I've ever known. Just super kind, super caring. For me, I looked to mum. It's 5:30 and I'd be looking at the door, waiting for her to come in. I would spend hours listening to her, just being with her. Mum and dad didn't have the best relationship, so I always made sure mum was okay. From the day I left the university till the day she passed away, I probably either spoke to her or saw her every day. My sister Jane didn't have it easy. For 18 years, she suffered from bipolar. She was a teacher. She was an incredible teacher and she would often put herself into really difficult situations or places to challenge herself and she didn't have an easy time, but she kept positive though. They never lost their faith right to the end.




Ian Dibb:

As a nonbeliever at the time or somebody who had taken a step off the track, to see them go through what they did and maintain their faith and love was unbelievable. I've been blessed. We haven't had the easiest of life, but even to have, I think the best part of 28 years with mum and 26 years with Jane, it's not about how long you have, it's about the time you have with that person. They are still the people that when things go well in my life or things go bad, I want to pick up the phone and speak to them. I can't anymore, but yeah, I was blessed for those years I did have them.




Warwick Fairfax:

You mentioned your mum had a very strong faith. Just talk about that and the impact it had in your life, because in some ways, she sounds almost like a role model of a mother and a human being that just... A lot of people have difficult parents, but it sounds like you had about as good a mother as it's humanly possible to have. So just talk about her and her faith and the impact it had on your life.




Ian Dibb:

Faith is one of the most interesting things that I couldn't understand why when mum had been dealt with some of the toughest cards you can be, a daughter with bipolar, I said failed marriage, your own terminal diagnosis, but yet to still smile and shine, it just shows you actually that there's got to be something behind this. We had this kind of jokey relationship. My mum says, "Look, Ian. I'm not concerned. He's going to get you. You will become a believer." And I was like, "No, mum. That's never going to happen. It's not going to happen." Then one day, it was probably five, six years ago that I attended an Alpha course, walked into the Alpha course and instantly felt this peace flood over me like I haven't felt for the best part of 10 years. It was incredible this peace I felt. I instantly felt a small section of what mum had been blessed with as a Christian her entire life.




Ian Dibb:

One of the things mum had written in her Bible was, my children will find faith through their spouses. My wife found God two years before me and my wife was the one who got me onto the Alpha course. All of a sudden, all these things which I used to put down to coincidence actually started making sense. Even when mum was on her final day, she said, "Ian, you don't need to worry about me. I'm going to a better place," and she was completely at peace, completely at peace of where she was going. I just remember on her final day, she was in the hospice. It's quite late at night and I spent the evening with her. She turned around and looked over her shoulder and she said to me, "Ian, I love you," and that was the last thing I've ever heard from mum. It's something that sticks in my heart, that somebody who had been through so many difficulties had the strength to inspire even at the very last minute.




Warwick Fairfax:

How did you get beyond that? Because listeners are probably going to be thinking, they had obviously faith, your sister, Jane, and your mum, and you go through that, a lot of people would be pretty angry. Maybe some people "deserve" to die sooner, sometimes the humanly thinks so, but mum? No way. Not her. She's a saint. That makes no sense. I needed a few more decades with her. How did you deal with, for most people, would be anger, frustration? How did you get beyond that? I'm assuming you felt that.




Ian Dibb:

Yeah, horrifically. Losing Jane was tough because Jane was 28 and she was at the start of her life. She'd just bought a brand new house the week before she took her own life. The pressure of that was too much. Unfortunately, in the way my sister took her life, there was no way back. Most of the time, she would find a way back from it. So there was a part of me saying if I was in the UK at the time, could I have helped? Would I have been there? So you've got that survivor guilt to a certain level. With mum, I would've given my own life for my mum in a heartbeat in the same way as I would my daughter. You don't even need to ask me that question. I would be there. I'd put myself and switch instantly. So for a lot of time, there was an immediate anger, especially with God to say, "How can you let this happen? This is one of your best disciples. Somebody who's loved you and worshiped you since the day they were born."




Ian Dibb:

But then there was a kind of off switch, which was a kind of numbness which just takes over. So the grief goes. You go for a period of just existing. You don't have the super highs. You don't have the super lows. You continue to progress. From the outside, everything looked rosy. My friends would've said, his life is all a party, but inside, I was just feeling almost empty. Then it really only changed when my daughter was born and she came into the world. I go, "Okay, I can't do this anymore. Now I'm a dad. My job now is to give my daughter the safest, most loving environment I can, to know that I will do anything for her," and it changed everything, but there was still that underlying sadness, which probably lasted between six and 10 years. It really only fully disappeared when I walked into the church on the Alpha course that evening. It was like being jet washed with love. It wasn't just from the past, it was just this peace I felt. It's what, probably now six years I've been a Christian.




Ian Dibb:

Don't get me wrong. It hasn't given me the easiest times in the world. I still have my challenges. I still have tough days. I had amazing days, but off the back of the Alpha course and my growing faith and my family's faith as well, I have a peace. My sisters, unfortunately, aren't in the same place as me. They still take antidepressants quite a lot to get through this. I'm trying to get them to come on the Alpha course with me because I know it'd be incredible for them, but unfortunately in the female side of our family, we have got this depressive gene. My mum's mum had it. My mum had it to a certain level. Obviously, my sister, Jane, took her own life, and my younger sisters had the same kind of gene, which runs through the family. But I know I was the kind of guy who will try and bring lightness. I say that I'd like to be the lighthouse on the cliff providing safety and somewhere these people can go to. I'm always there for them in the same way as my mum always was.




Warwick Fairfax:

You mentioned earlier just about choice and one of the things we say on Beyond the Crucible all the time is you go through a horrific tragedy like you did in the space of, what was it? Like 18 months losing a sister and a mum, beloved sister and mum. You could have been angry and bitter against God, against yourself. Gosh, if I'd only been in the UK and not New Zealand, maybe I could have saved my sister, which is unknowable. But the unknowable things are often the ones that taunt you the most. You can't prove that it's wrong, that there's nothing you could have done. That's not like, "Oh, I'm convinced I couldn't have..." You can't prove that case. So because it's unknowable, that's the kind of thing that can haunt you.




Warwick Fairfax:

You had a choice in which one side would be for the rest of your life, the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years to be angry at God and angry at yourself and gone to, I don't know, drugs, alcohol, or there's all sorts of manner of destructive behaviors, but you made a choice not to go there. Part of it was your faith. Because there are some folks that are listening today. Maybe they have lost loved ones and they're angry at themselves and God. What would you say to folks like that? What does it mean to make that choice? Talk about that choice and what that meant for you.




Ian Dibb:

Yeah. There's a quote I love by Winston Churchill, which is, "If you're going through hell, keep going." Why would you stay in a place which is painful? Luckily, through my experience, I'm connected to some incredible people who've lost far more than I ever will. These people have lost children and they've lost so much and yet, these are the people who say, "Well, I'm going to make a difference because I don't want anyone else to go through this." So I could have easily just sat back and let the grief swallow me. There was points when I'd wake up in the morning and think, "Well, what's this all about?" The sadness and emptiness I felt for a while was too much at times to really bear and I actually thought to myself, "Why?" I was 28 at the time. I'm 46 now. The choice I made was I've had to go through this. The toughest steel is made in the hottest fires. We are given experiences to help others and my experience of losing my sister and mum has given me this energy to do whatever it takes to help people.




Ian Dibb:

It was quite late one night we received an email into the platform of somebody whose son had joined our website and had sadly passed away. We took his mum through the process of dealing with the estate and he'd left her a message. That one message was if that's all we ever achieved at Keylu was enough because it gave her peace of mind that she had done all she could for her son and how much she loved her. For the entire team at Keylu, it just blew our minds that we've made a difference. So many people go through life without really making a difference. They exist and they have a lovely time and go on their holidays, but they don't make a difference. I want to save people from the pain I've been through. If it was 10 people, 100 people, a million people, that's my mission. To get people thinking ahead and actually to make you think, "Well, if this is going to happen to me, what can I do to make this easier for my loved ones?" I guess in life, that's something we all do.




Ian Dibb:

We keep our children safe. We do all we can to make sure we provide a safe environment. That's what I wanted to create. I wanted to give people a place where they can do something to help their loved ones.




Warwick Fairfax:

Let's talk about Keylu. How did that happen? It's a magnificent concept as we'll hear, but what were you doing at the time professionally? What was life like and what were those strands that led to Keylu happening?




Ian Dibb:

After mum passed away, I was working for a print company running their digital studio. It was a simple job. It didn't take too much mind power, which is what I needed after losing mum. I remember sitting around my sister's house one evening and it just came into my head actually. Why don't people plan for this? I sat around with the family and said, "Look, guys. If I build this, would you use it?" and it was 100% yeah, absolutely. This would've made our life so much easier with mum and with Jane. So then I asked a few more people and a few more people and said, "Look, if I build this platform, would you use it?" Back then, it wasn't Keylu. We were called Once I've Gone. What happens once I've gone? What happens to your information once I've gone?




Ian Dibb:

So Once I've Gone came from a simple conversation, and then I just checked it with dozens and dozens of people saying, "If I build this platform, would you use it?" So we built a very early stage platform way before people were using technology as they are today. It was too early, so we parked it for a few years. Then technology has since caught up and as a result of that, we rebranded as Keylu. We wanted to not really just focus on end of life planning. No matter, even though we know we're all mortal and there will be a time we're not here, actually, we should be managing our lives on a day to day basis. So really, Keylu moved into the place where it's not focused on planning for death, it's managing your life. Then if something happens, it's easier for your loved ones. So very much, it's been a journey from initial sat around a table with the family to where we are today, Warwick.




Warwick Fairfax:

I think from what you said before, there's a need for this, but it's personal because talk a bit about how it's not a judgment. Everything wasn't tied up in this nice, neat bow with papers and memories and photo albums and videos. There wasn't a Keylu back when your mum and Jane died, but talk about how this is personal, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but to a degree you don't want other people to go through what you went through. Just help the listener understand why this isn't just a business, it's very personal for you.




Ian Dibb:

Oh, hugely. As I said, Jane was 28 when she passed away. She was a teacher. She had documents here, there, and everywhere. Mum, 57, GP, two or three filing cabinets full of data. Some of it was live. Some of it wasn't. It really was a traumatic 16 months in my life trying to organize the estate administration and probate. Very difficult, especially when you're not prepared for it. But then the emotional side comes in that you no longer got any opportunity to speak to that person and I deeply miss hearing my mum's voice. It's been 16 years with Jane, 18 years with mum. What would I give for one sound bite from each of those people for me? That would be far more valuable than all the different assets they own. Off the back of that, you start to realize that we spend a huge amount of time on our phones. We capture photos and videos, but how often do we turn the camera around and capture a moment with somebody?




Ian Dibb:

One of the things we love to do is I taught my daughter Alice to ride a bike. She rode off across the field. I turned the camera around on myself and said, "Alice, it's your dad. You just learned to ride your bike. You have no idea how proud I am of you and how much I love you." I store that in Keylu because that is a unique moment in my child's life. That is what I wanted from my mum and my sister, that type of knowledge that there might be a point they weren't in my life, but they planned for that, the emotional side that when somebody passes away.




Ian Dibb:

There's a lovely saying that when an old person dies, a library burns to the ground, because all that knowledge that person contained is gone. What we want to do with Keylu is actually help you to curate your own legacy, so recording messages, moments, favorite times, songs you and your family love together. So if something was to happen, it's all passed on to them and you've basically done all you can to make sure that person's still got this unique link to somebody they loved.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I just want to mention, something just occurred to me, obviously, Keylu didn't exist when my dad died in early '87 or beyond, but because my family was pretty prominent and most families are not in terms of wealth and status, a fair amount is known about them. My great-great-grandfather came out from England to Australia in the late 1830s, founded the whole John Fairfax Limited media empire. Because he was prominent back in the early '40s, when there were still folks that maybe had some memory of him when they were small, they wrote this loving portrait of him for the family. He died in the 1870s. I have that book. I can't tell you how many times I read it, how much that means to me. Now, most families don't have a book about their great-great-grandfather.




Warwick Fairfax:

We're talking five generations ago, like zero. Maybe if you're, I don't know what, the Duke of Marlborough or some prominent English aristocrat, maybe you do, but for average person, they don't. But he was a person of very strong faith and elder at his church. So reading that, it means everything to me. When I came to faith in Christ, at St. Aldates in Oxford, I felt like this is part of our heritage. It means everything to have that. There are some letters that my grandfather wrote and a couple letters that my dad wrote me. Those are precious treasures, but most people don't have that. How long ago did you start Keylu?




Ian Dibb:

We originally started Keylu, the concept was 2009, but as we mentioned, it was just too early. In 2019, we relaunched and we put a bigger team behind it. We actually said, "Okay, this is the time." We are now all using mobiles every single day. They've become a huge part of our life. Everything is now digital, so when you buy life insurance, car insurance, house insurance, you don't get them sent to you anymore. They're actually either emailed to you or you are given access to an online portal, but how many portals do you have to manage? The average person has about 80 to 100 passwords they need to manage just to manage their lives. One of the big downsides to this amazing digital changes that all of a sudden, if you are not there to actually link into those portals, that information is lost or extremely hard to find.




Ian Dibb:

There's a statistic in the UK that 25% of cohabitant couples are completely in the dark over their partner's financial situation. In the UK, there was around 200 billion in unclaimed assets, so bank accounts, savings accounts, pension portfolios, and it's only going to get worse. So it's really is that when we first came up with the idea, people, you still get your bank account details or your monthly letters sent out to you. That doesn't happen anymore. So all of a sudden, we are going to build this knowledge gap that when somebody passes away, how are they supposed to find that information? You spent a fortune on your pension, but if your family don't know where that is, it's going to go unclaimed.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. So with Keylu, talk about how that's different than maybe other financial institutions, estate planning folks. How is this different than what some people do?




Ian Dibb:

There are people out there that say, "Well, I've got a spreadsheet on my computer" or "I've got some stuff in the Dropbox account," but what Keylu is, it's a very guided process. So from signing up to making sure all of your documents are in one place. Everything is kept up to date. You've got the latest bank account. You've got the latest will. You've got your life insurance. It actually gives you a process from being one, completely unorganized to two, knowing that everything is completely organized and up to date, so if something was to happen to you, it's really easy for your family to manage the probate, giving them time to grieve and also saving them a huge amount of money that they would be spending on specialists in this area. But also, whereas you look at Dropbox as an opportunity to store documents, Keylu actually gives the opportunity to curate your own legacy, leaving behind an incredible messages, memories, photos, videos, family recipes. It's all about you creating a gift for somebody else. I think that's what this is. It's the last most precious gift you can ever pass on.




Warwick Fairfax:

Wow. Just talk about the peace of mind that having all those records and memories in one place gives, because it sounds like you went through, was it 16 months what you said of probate. Talk about how just that legacy that you can give to your loved ones by having all this organized.




Ian Dibb:

Yeah. If you were to sit down with your family and say, "Look, okay. Where are my documents?" most people wouldn't have the clue where to start, and that's basically what you're doing by not planning. The peace of mind is that with a click of a button, trusted contacts in your Keylu account can instantly download every single document they need to deal with the probate process. That is with a touch of a button, they can then pass it on to a professional and says, "Here's everything my dad had from his pensions, to his savings, to his investments, to his share certificates. It's all here." That, all of a sudden, you can then pass on and the process of probate will be far quicker, far less painless.




Ian Dibb:

My mother-in-law is going through this at the moment here in the UK. I think they're 16, 18 months in on a simple one-bedroom flat in London with a savings account. It doesn't need to be this complicated. The reason it is this complicated, it takes months and months and months to find missing or lost assets. So by planning ahead and making sure everything is kept up to date, it just makes that processes far easier for your loved ones and at the same point, they can just get on dealing with the grief, which will come, but this will make it easier.




Gary Schneeberger:

One of the things I love about what you've been saying, Ian, is that you've referred a couple times to how these devices, these mobile devices, everybody has them. I think we all feel sometimes, even though we're all really using them and into them, I'll raise my hand, I'm into them myself, but what you've done in a very real way is redeem them a bit from the perception that they're time wasters, from the perception that they're distractors from... We've all seen in restaurants, when you sit down and you look over at the table next to you and people aren't talking, they're looking at their phones. You've redeemed that idea of taking that phone to create a document, to create memories, to create a legacy for your family. You said earlier that there's a saying that when an older person dies, it's like a library burns to the ground.




Gary Schneeberger:

What I love about what you're doing with Keylu is that the legacy you're leaving is you're using technology to when someone dies, their loved ones inherit a library. They get a library full of both that financial legacy, which is so important, but as you indicated, even more important, more emotional, more meaningful is that emotional legacy that is able to be passed along. That's a great one-two punch and it's really important here at Beyond the Crucible, because Warwick talks all the time about the reason you live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others is that it helps you leave a legacy to be proud of and that's one of the things that Keylu allows folks to do. Before I let Warwick ask the next question though, I don't think that you've defined for everyone who's not Cornish what Keylu means and why you named it that.




Ian Dibb:

Yes. We wanted a name which embraces family and protection. The Cornish name for family is Teylu, T-E-Y-L-U. The K comes from keep or your key information. So we combine the two words. Basically, it's where you keep all the information for your family. Miraculously, all the domain names were available as well, so it's absolute blessing.




Gary Schneeberger:

Indeed.




Warwick Fairfax:

Oh, that's great. I love this concept of obviously keeping all the documents at one place, but just keeping memories, it's so important. I think of your story and as you share about your mum and Jane. You founded this company in 2019. 100 years from then, let's say it's 2119, without this, how would your great-great-great-grandkids, how would they know anything about your beloved sister and mother? They probably wouldn't unless there was a book written about them or whatever. Their memory would pass, but I'm sure you've probably recorded a bunch of videos and writings and other material, I'm guessing, about your mum and sister and certainly about yourself and your wife and kids, daughter. Those memories will be preserved. I know obviously, it's early days in one sense, but imagine in 100 years, the legacy that your ancestors will have that you don't probably have from your ancestors 100 years ago.




Warwick Fairfax:

Did that make sense? You are giving a legacy and a gift that your mother's memory will not be lost. Your ancestors, hopefully for hundreds of years, will remember the incredible person she was and your sister. That's a legacy worth preserving.




Ian Dibb:

Well, one of the things that still hurts is I remember I sat there with mum in the hospital on the night she was diagnosed with cancer and she turned to me and she said, "I'm never going to see your kids grow up." That still hurts. It's as fresh as it was all those years ago, but what we could have done if we had Keylu back then, she could have recorded some messages about who she was and we could then play them for the future generations. My mum had a wicked personality. She really did. There's some stories that when I retell them, it brings her back to life. There's some key things she did, which to most people would mean anything, but to me mean the world. I think what we're trying to do with Keylu is you might not record every single moment, but just capture some key memories because we've all got our own unique personalities.




Ian Dibb:

I like to be quite sarcastic with my daughter and as a result, my daughter is super sharp. Some of the things she writes down, I will actually just put down on a piece of paper and say, "Alice, tonight, you said this." It might not mean anything to her now, but in the future, it will mean the world to her. I've just had a clear up in the office actually. I've got probably 100 hand-drawn pictures from when Alice was one right through till now. We can't keep everything because otherwise, your fridge will just collapse under the weight of hand-drawn paintings and the magnets won't allow the fridge to work anymore. But what you can do is actually grab a photo of that, put it into Keylu and put the time and date next to it and say, "Alice, this was when you were one." Then you've got a video of the kids on their first day at school, their graduation, their wedding.




Ian Dibb:

You could start capturing key moments in a person's life; otherwise, those key moments just disappear and all of a sudden, 10 years has blurred into 20 years, blurred into thirty. You realize that actually, you haven't captured a lot of stuff. You've got all these photos on your phone, but you won't be in any of them because you are taking the photos or the person on the other side of it is taking the photos of you, but there aren't any moments of you as a whole. So what I do quite often is I'll turn a camera around, grab a moment with me and my daughter because it's so important you capture that one moment in time. To me, that's one of the things I do. I don't know many other people that do actually, instead of take a photo, grab a moment, capture it, capture that key moment in time, record it, add it to Keylu so you can enjoy it now with your family, but in the future, that gift will be the most precious thing you can leave behind.




Warwick Fairfax:

Do you talk about this to folks that are thinking of using Keylu how do you use Keylu, how do you create a legacy, what are the kinds of things you should capture?




Ian Dibb:

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of stuff we are going to continue to add to the platform. Here's a user guide. Here's how to add a video. Here's how to add a message. Here's what people are adding to their bucket list. Most people want to see the Northern Lights or see the Grand Canyon, for instance. We can provide you with some prompts and some best uses of the platform, but loads of people go to it and just explore in different ways really, but it's all about with the mobile app makes it even easier. You're walking along. You've captured an amazing picture and you go, "Now that was a moment I want to record and store forever." So it's all about actually just, it's a really easy to use platform, but how can we make it even better, which is what the team continues to do.




Gary Schneeberger:

One of the interesting things about it that you mentioned to me, Ian, is that yes, there are direct to consumer transactions where people will get this for themselves to leave a legacy to their family, but you also work with some professionals like estate planners and lawyers who have leveraged this to offer their clients, right? There's a B2B kind of application as well, isn't there?




Ian Dibb:

Yeah. We work with financial advisors, solicitors, estate planners, mortgage brokers. We work with charities. We offer Keylu completely free of charge to anyone who's been diagnosed with a terminal illness. We work with organizations to provide that. That's something we've always been a key part of who we are. We want to make sure we're constantly giving back. But yeah, so we work with all these different organizations to provide a benefit, not only to them, but also to their clients, helping their clients to understand the importance of estate planning, getting their affairs in order. I think one of the key things is it's a great way to keep up to date on all your financial situation, so make sure everything's kept up to date because it's quite easy to have your will written and forget about it for the next 20 years realizing you/ve had another kid and bought another property.




Ian Dibb:

I think what Keylu does, it provides regularly notifications and updates to say, "Hey, Gary. It's been six months since you added your will. Has anything changed?" or "It's been 12 months since you added your insurance policy. Is this the latest one?" So it's actually keeping you up to date on everything in your life. It's like a life management, life planning tool as much as it is that legacy creation tool.




Warwick Fairfax:

That's incredible. Talk about some of the feedback you've received from Keylu users because I'm sure you've received a lot of feedback. What are people saying and how are they using it? What impact has it had on their lives?




Ian Dibb:

Unfortunately, a lot of people who come to us say, "I wish I have seen this six months ago or 12 months ago because I've just gone through this with mum or dad. I've not got a clue where to start." It's that kind of situation. You have to normally have a trigger point go off in your life, which makes you understand you're mortal and that might be, you've just lost somebody you love. You've just been given a terminal diagnosis. You've just potentially bought a house. So there's lots of triggers in your life that make you understand the importance of getting your affairs in order. But the overwhelming response we get from a Keylu user is I've got peace of mind knowing I've done all I can for my loved ones. Of course, all the information on our platform is completely encrypted. No one within the Keylu team has access to it.




Ian Dibb:

The only person that will ever see that information is you as the account holder and those trusted contacts you've added to access it after you've gone. I think the key thing is actually, this is brilliant because I can deal with my affairs now knowing that I've done something incredible for my loved ones. It's just the ability actually to know those people receive that message in the future. I'm just going to have a look behind me now and see where I'd put it. I've got a cassette tape here which my mum left for me. Let me just see if I can pick it up.




Gary Schneeberger:

For your younger listeners, a cassette tape is the way that we used to record things before our phones did it all for us.




Ian Dibb:

But here we go. This came before CD players and MP3 players. This is a cassette tape. On this cassette tape it says, Anne Radio Cornwall. Then my daughter came into the room and she said, "Dad, what's this?" Luckily, she didn't break it, but on it is the only recording I've got of my mum's voice. It's unbelievable because my mum hadn't planned this. My daughter found it in my memory box. That's the most valuable thing I now own, above anything else, my mum's voice on that cassette. So what we've done is taken that forward because you don't need to use a cassette tape. Keylu allows you to store all of this information. You could be walking along and something amazing happens. You open up the Keylu app. You record that message to somebody you love. Click save. Click who it's going to go to knowing that you have the peace of mind the recipient is going to get that heartfelt message at some point in the future where that've been the most valuable item they ever received from you.




Warwick Fairfax:

I want listeners to really understand how important that is. Again, I just go back to my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax. Your daughter, in the coming decade, she's going to remember you well. Yes, you've got the videos, but she will have memories. But let's assume that she gets married one day and has kids and they have kids. There's going to come a generation that never met Ian Dibb. You will have died before they were born, maybe decades before they were born. They're going to say, "Mum, dad, I've heard of my grandfather or great-great-grandfather, Ian. What was he like?" It's like, "You know, I don't really know. I was four when he died. I don't really remember him. I'm sorry." Well, they won't need to say I'm sorry. They'll be able to say, "Well, he is a pretty amazing guy. Here he is. Here he is with your grandmother, Alice. Your great-grandfather is helping your grandmother learn how to ride a bike." Now, how cool is that? It's hard for people to imagine, but that will happen.




Warwick Fairfax:

This is a gift that generations of your family and generations of other families will have. Help people understand, I know maybe it's obvious, but why that's important and why for most of us, we just do not have that in any way, shape, or form.




Ian Dibb:

I think you only realize the importance of it when you can't access it anymore. For me, I knew where my mum grew up in Bristol, so I did a little tour on Google Maps a few weeks ago and I found the street my mum grew up in and I zoomed in with a little orange man and instantly, looking at that house brought back hundreds of memories and moments that you know they're somewhere, but you need some trigger to kick them off. Unfortunately, I can't access any further because that line of my family's life is gone. So I want to make sure that there's photos. Every now and then, I walk around the house and I do a full video of the house knowing that Alice, when she's older, can go back into her house, follow that video and see the rooms I've set up at Christmas because I want to make sure that information is passed on.




Ian Dibb:

So as you said, that when I'm 96 and Alice has got kids and I've got grandkids and all that type of stuff, they can actually see that I wasn't always this 96-year-old. I traveled the world and I was just like they are, because I think that if you look at it now, when we're looking at our grandparents, the photos are in black and white and there's no videos of them. Actually, it's very hard to associate yourself with something that looks so far away from you, but actually, if you look at people doing what they've just done with the World War II, they've recolored it. It makes it actually far more real now that is in color. We can provide something incredible for our loved ones by providing dozens and dozens of videos. You can upload as many as you want to the platform, knowing that these are actually key moments that at the moment, might seem quite silly.




Ian Dibb:

I've got a video of myself and my daughter play fighting. I turn the camera around because she loves to play fight, my little girl, and it's just a really special thing that when she looks back and she's 60, she can go, "This is your granddad and me having a play fight," and that would just be so special that we're just trying to say, actually, just capture everything. It's not just when we used to have film cameras and the camera would come out at a special occasion. We now have these unique tools in our pockets that can capture videos whenever we want it. But what we do with those, how are we using those to curate a legacy at the moment? They go into the iCloud account and that's where they remain locked behind passwords and unavailable to anyone else, clearly gives you the unique opportunity to curate that into a story for your loved ones for now, for them forever, really.




Gary Schneeberger:

I want to do a couple things here, listener, before Warwick asks what I'm sure is going to be a very good question. First of all, I want to say that sound you heard is the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign, which indicates we've begun our descent of this episode, but we're not there yet, so you still got time to enjoy the flight. I wanted to add a personal story that emphasizes exactly what you're talking about here, Ian, because I got a cassette tape too after my mum passed away. My mum passed away more than 30 years ago. Late in her life when she was married to my stepfather, my mum always liked to sing and she never got to do it when she was married to my dad. Well, my stepfather was an organist who played all around the region where we live, where I have moved back to in the last six years. So my mum would go out and sing with him at these places.




Gary Schneeberger:

In the garage, I remember, and it was embarrassing when I was like 17 because my mum would be in the garage with my stepdad and his organ and they would be playing and singing and my friends would be like, "What is that?" But they recorded cassettes that they sold and when she passed away, one of them found its way to me. I digitally burned it. I have it on my phone, but where that has paid off, where that paid off, when I got remarried in 2017, my mum obviously could not be at my wedding, but she was because I did a daddy daughter dance with my stepdaughter to a song of my mum singing from that album.




Ian Dibb:

Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

I can't hardly talk about that moment now without getting emotional about it, and that's the power of what you're talking about, those memories that move from memory to reality that you can then bring into life as you move forward. That's a precious gift that you can pass along to your loved ones, for sure. Warwick, sorry I interrupted you there a little while.




Warwick Fairfax:

No. No, that was such a great, great point. So just as we close, gosh, a couple of different thoughts. One thought I have, I guess before I ask a question is, because my family, the Fairfax family in Sydney were very prominent, we have more memories than most families. Prominent families seem to want to capture themselves for whatever reason. So as I said, we've had a book written about my great-great-grandfather. There were letters. When we sold the house I grew up in, which my dad was born in and died in back in the day when you actually were born at home, not in a hospital, there were all of these photographs going back to maybe the 1850s. There were some from the early 1900s, 1920s. Obviously, I knew some of them. I recognized my dad and others. He was in his late 50s when I was born, but there was a host of people around him and I'm thinking, I have no idea who these people are, because we're talking about 1890s, 1910 or something and I felt this sadness.




Warwick Fairfax:

Some of them were family, some of them were friends. Who were they? What were their stories? Even in my family where we have more photographs and memories than most, there was this sadness. So what you're doing with Keylu is preventing that kind of sadness. Who were the family and close friends? So really, as we close, obviously, you've moved on at least as best as you can from the grief of losing your beloved sister and mother, talk about what you do with Keylu and your life. I'm assuming there's some redemptive quality about what you do. Obviously, your business is successful. It's well thought out, but just talk about maybe the sense if that's true of redemption, hope to what you do now brings to you.




Ian Dibb:

It's everything. The saying that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. It couldn't be truer. We work with some amazing people, some amazing companies, not only in the UK, but the opportunity to work with people around the world that you actually see different people at different stages in their journey as well. Now, if you look at where you are on a journey and you compare yourself to somebody who's never experienced it, you're obviously dealing with grief still. But then you look at people at the start of it who don't even know how to get out of bed because they've just lost someone they love and they've no idea what to do. From everything I do with Keylu, I believe that we should be the light in somebody's life and we should look back and lift people up and bring people with us. Everything we're doing at Keylu, we're doing that, but we do it on a world stage as well to say it doesn't have to be this bad. It can be easier, and actually, by just making little steps each and every day.




Ian Dibb:

Keylu doesn't have to be completed in one day. It's a journey. You can get to it over time. But for me, the experience of losing mum and Jane was the catalyst in my life to say, "Okay, now step up and make a difference. Be the person who's going to change people's lives. Don't expect it to be done for you." That's something I absolutely love at Keylu is I have an opportunity and the team all share my passion and vision. We want to make a difference. We want to help people. If people are struggling, actually look towards us because we've been there. We're used to saying quite a lot, "We care. We've been there," and that echoes through everything we do at Keylu. We've been to where you've been and we've been through it and we are continuing to grow. I always think that don't always look ahead of you. Look where you've actually been and sometimes, look around and you might think actually, I'm judging myself against people who are out there partying and drinking and look super happy.




Ian Dibb:

But look on the other way sometimes and there's people who are worse off than you that actually you can step out and help them to get to where you are. For me, it's very much a journey we are on and I'm just really blessed to have had 28 years with mum and Jane. That's far longer than some people have had. But from that to be given a life mission to help others, I think it's actually been a blessing.




Gary Schneeberger:

I have been in the communications business long enough and you've heard me say this before, listener, pretty much on every episode that I know when the last word has been spoken on a subject. Normally, I would say our guest has spoken it; however, I'm also in the communication business long enough to know when I've messed up because I was so emotional in my last comment that I did not give our guest, Ian Dibb, the chance to let you know how you can find out about Keylu online. Ian, how can people, you mentioned that domain names were easy to find, how can they go to one of those domain names and learn more about and even sign up for Keylu?




Ian Dibb:

You can find us directly at keylu.com, which is K-E-Y-L-U.com. You can find us at Facebook.com/Keylulife and you can also find us on LinkedIn as well. But yeah, we are easy to find. Please log onto the platform. Let us know what you love about it, what you don't like. We're on a journey.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that is the last word of our episode today, listener. So until the next time that we're together, do remember that we understand crucible experiences are inordinately difficult. Ian described one here today, two, a couple of here today for himself and then also some crucibles that other people go through that he's worked with. They're painful. They knock you off your feet. They change the trajectory of your life, but they do not have to be the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons from those crucibles and you apply them to your life moving forward, they can be the start of a new chapter, a new story in your life, and that story can be the best story of your life. Ian's just revealed it in what he's talked about here. Warwick talks about it every week in his own life, because that new story, that new direction leads to a truly worthwhile, hope-filled future, and that is a life of significance.

What do you think of when you hear the word “cuckoo”? Those cute clocks that chime with chirps at the top of every hour? There’s nothing cute about real cuckoos — predatory birds that camouflage themselves and their destructive intentions in visiting chaos upon other birds.  Andrea Anderson Polk, a licensed professional counselor and author of the new book THE CUCKOO SYNDROME: THE SECRET TO BREAKING FREE FROM UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS, TOXIC THINKING AND SELF-SABOTAGING BEHAVIOR, discusses the behaviors exhibited by those we’re in relationship with that cause similar harm in our lives. The figurative cuckoos that plague us, she explains, take advantage of our fears, doubts, failures and grief. That’s the challenging news. The good news? They can be defeated, launching you toward finding new purpose and a life of significance.

To learn more about Andrea Anderson Polk and to buy THE CUCKOO SYNDROME, visit www.andreaandersonpolk.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

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




Andrea Anderson Polk:

A lot of my clients, if they're engaged in a cuckoo dynamic, the most common phrase I hear is, "I don't know who I am anymore, and I've lost myself," because they unknowingly have an imposter in their life who has become their purpose. So they lose their purpose because all of their time, energy, and attention is on this relationship that doesn't belong in their life in the first place.




Gary Schneeberger:

Did you hear that phrase a cuckoo dynamic? Maybe when you hear that word cuckoo, it makes you think of those cute clocks that chime with chirps at the top of every hour. But that's not the cuckoo we're talking about on this week's episode. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Warwick and I had an eye-opening, soul-nurturing discussion with our guest Andrea Anderson Polk, a licensed professional counselor and author of the new book The Cuckoo Syndrome: The Secret to Breaking Free from Unhealthy Relationships, Toxic Thinking and Self-Sabotaging Behavior. She talks not only about the predatory, cleverly camouflaged actions of the birds themselves, but more importantly and practically, the behaviors exhibited by those we're in relationship with that visit similar harm upon our heads and our hearts. The cuckoos that plague us, she explains, take advantage of our fears, doubts, failures, and grief. That's the challenging news. The good news? They can be defeated. And she tells us how.




Warwick Fairfax:

I so much enjoyed your book. Maybe, I don't know if that's the right word, but because part of is painful. As I was going through each of these chapters, it's like, "Check, check. Yeah. Experienced that one. Been there. Wow. This is..." So I don't know, at least a survey of one, it's absolutely makes sense. Obviously, I love the last few chapters, which talk about transforming your pain into purpose, but there's so much in this book that I just love and it rings so true. It's understandable why you've helped so many people because you have a philosophy and a method that works, that actually helps people break free from the shackles. So we'll get into this in a minute. I'd like to start a bit with this, what we call on Crucible Leadership the origin story. Tell us a bit about why you wrote the book, why you went into counseling? What's the origin story that made you feel like this is my life's purpose, to help people and to be a counselor?




Andrea Anderson Polk:

I strongly believe that our greatest place of pain is our greatest place of power and our purpose. My journey of healing started decades ago during a difficult season of my life when my parents were going through a divorce, which landed me in therapy and a personal growth journey. Out of that experience, it was so freeing for me that I decided to pursue a career as a licensed professional counselor in order to help people the way that my counselors helped me. So that's the story of how I became a counselor.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Then writing the book, it actually happened during my quiet time one morning, I was struggling in a relationship with a close family member that had left a peculiar wound in my heart. I had gone through forgiving this person. I had compassion, went through therapy again, learned how to set boundaries and was still feeling stuck. I felt guilty and selfish anytime I'd try to make room for myself in the relationship, and I'm sort of a geek. I like to study science and psychology, weave those things together in my own life.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So I, of all things was researching cuckoo birds at the time, which I can get into a little bit later exactly what cuckoo birds are, but their nature is predatory creatures. They're imposters; they're brilliant manipulators and deceivers. I was looking through these pictures on the internet of what a cuckoo bird looks in real life. I had this breakthrough a-ha moment that I was looking for with this family member. It really set me free and helped me understand how to navigate through the complexities.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So what I did is I laminated this photo that I found on the internet of the cuckoo bird, and I took it into my private practice. When I would meet with clients who were in a similar cuckoo dynamic, I would show them this photo of the cuckoo bird and it would evoke the same breakthrough a-ha moments, anger, self-compassion, tears. So that's something I had been doing for years and decided to write a book about my experiences, their experiences. So that's where the book originated.




Warwick Fairfax:

That's awesome. So for those that may not know, just sort of briefly get into what the actual cuckoo bird does and why it's such an insidious, almost evil little creature because that really sets the backdrop for your whole book. So talk about the cuckoo, what it actually does with the poor robins and what have you.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yeah. So in a nutshell... Well, first of all, when we think about cuckoo birds, we think about the wooden figurine that pops out of a clock that we remember from our childhood. But in reality, cuckoo birds are cruel and clever. They're predatory creatures. The technical term is they're brood parasites, which means that they will lay an egg in a host nest. For the purpose of this example, just going to use a robin and they will take advantage of the host parents so they never have to raise their own young. Then they cause harm to the host. So a parasite is someone that takes advantage of the generosity of another person withoutmaking any useful return.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So what will happen is a female cuckoo will hone in on a host nest, so a robin's nest, for example, and she'll secretly watch the patterns of the robin parents. When the nest is empty, very quickly, she'll swoop in and lay an egg that looks nearly identical to the host egg. She has, it's an egg mimicry that's found in their DNA. So the egg resembles the host egg in shape and color. So for example, it would look like a robin egg, blue with the brown speckles. So what happens when the robin mother comes back to her nest, she doesn't notice that the egg is an imposter. She incubates the egg as if it's one of her own. Then another thing about the cuckoo egg itself and its DNA, it has a shorter incubation time. So it hatches first, before her eggs hatch. It grows very large extremely quickly. When you look at a picture of it, it's sort of this grotesque-looking chick that overtakes the nest.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Once it hatches, it'll do one of three things. It's born with this hooked beak. So it'll either stab the other eggs in the nest to death, or while it's still blind and featherless, you can watch videos, it'll use its wings and knock the other eggs down the nest so they fall to the floor and die. It just does this instinctively. If that's not sad enough, what happens to the host parents, the robins, is that their eggs never hatch and come to life. So they expend their energy, time, and attention on this imposter chick that's not its own and they raise it. Even when it grows and leaves the nest, they still follow it around and feed it because a cuckoo chick, it has an insatiable appetite and this begging call. So the host parents exhaust themselves, like I said, feeding and taking care of it and their own eggs never hatch and come to life.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. So let's get into that metaphor. Obviously, you talk in the book about there's different kinds of cuckoo syndrome, the relational cuckoo, unhealthy dysfunctional relationships and self-inflicted cuckoo, which is self-sabotaging toxic behavior. So talk about how this whole cuckoo syndrome manifests itself and how we think in our relationships.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So a cuckoo dynamic in terms of relationships, it could be an unhealthy relationship with a spouse or a significant other, with a boss or a colleague, a friend, a family member, a counselor even, a mentor, pastor, ministry leader. It's a relationship that is one-sided, where you are the one who is doing all of the work, where you've adopted a role as either the fixer, the pleaser, the rescuer, the always on-call person. But essentially your time, your energy, and attention is given to this unhealthy relationship. What all these cuckoo relationships have in common that I always tell my clients is that you're the host. There's something that you are doing in that relationship that is kind of feeding this dynamic. So I help my clients sort of go back into discovering what is making them susceptible or vulnerable to this one-sided relationship.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So rather than being mutually loving and giving, it's one-sided, which is the cuckoo is being a parasite. It takes advantage of the generosity of others and makes no return. You spend your life nurturing, sort of feeding this relationship, and you essentially lose your purpose because that relationship becomes your purpose.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

In terms of self-inflicted cuckoos, the cuckoo dynamic in your life, it might not be with a person, an unhealthy relationship with someone else, but it's an unhealthy relationship with yourself, which I call self-inflicted cuckoos, which could be perfectionistic tendencies. It could be tying your worth and your value and your identity to your work, your career, your ministry. It could also be behaviors that can become addictive and take over your life. In terms of you exhibiting self-control, they start to control you. So that can be anything from shopping, exercising, online dating, your to-do list, anything that even can start out as a good thing or a passion, but it becomes obsessive and then also starts to take over your life.




Warwick Fairfax:

Help the listeners understand how this is so common, and it's not as easy as you think just to say, well, if you have any self respect, then you'd get out, which is maybe part of the problem. But help the listeners understand who may not be in this sort of toxic relationship in particular why it's so insidious and why it's just not easy to get out.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yeah, that's a great point. The cuckoo syndrome exists on a spectrum. Abuse would be the most extreme form of that, and emotional abuse, for example, where another person belittles you, controls, deceives, manipulates. I've had a lot of clients over the years say it would be easier if this person had an affair or hit me because the crazy-making feeling of being in a relationship where the wound is invisible and the pain is so prevalent. It's like a death by a thousand cuts where the person is in this extreme suffering, but the pain being inflicted upon them is not as obvious, which is why the cuckoo analogy has been so helpful for my clients because it's a subtle, deceptive, manipulative process that occurs over a period of time. Even though this unhealthy relationship perhaps is right in front of them, it's an invisible enemy. They can't see it initially, especially in cases of emotional abuse, where typically the person shows their best self initially. They could be very charismatic. Again, it's this sort of predatory behavior of I'm going to mimic who you are and what you want, but essentially you'll be left purposeless.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

A lot of my clients who are engaged in, whether it's an emotionally abusive relationship or, for example, I have a lot of clients with their adult parents, let's say their mother who has maybe a mental illness or a personality disorder like narcissism, where it's difficult for them to put their finger on the pain, but they've got this sort of invisible dynamic that they can't see because it's not obvious initially.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So what I was going to say is a lot of my clients, if they're engaged in a cuckoo dynamic, the most common phrase I hear is, "I don't know who I am anymore, and I've lost myself," because they unknowingly have an imposter in their life who has become their purpose. So they lose their purpose because all of their time, energy, and attention is on this relationship that doesn't belong in their life in the first place.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I want to get to some of the solutions, maybe that's the wrong word, but sort of the ways you combat this. Just, I want to touch on some of these. You have a great list here about when we're talking about how you deal with cuckoos. I love when you say it's time to guard your heart and stand strong, and you've got five steps: honor your reality, stop doing their work, set boundaries, validate your emotions, obviously seek professional help, which makes sense. But it seems like one of the core tenets you have is we need to stop avoiding truth. The path to healing means we might have to feel pain, even excruciating pain, acknowledge the truth, even let yourself get angry. There are ways of getting angry that isn't destructive to everybody around you, but in a healthy way. So talk a bit about just some of those steps, especially this concept of navigating what is the truth, not the lies that you've been surrounded in a web of lies, so to speak.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yes. A common phrase found throughout the book that you mentioned that's been helpful in my life and my work with clients is that we suffer when we avoid reality, reality being synonymous with truth. In the case of the cuckoo syndrome, one of the realities that we can avoid is our pain, which is understandable. Facing pain can be hard and scary. A lot of people don't have the tools to deal with their pain.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Another reality that we tend to avoid is knowing who we truly are and what we want. That's what the last part of the book gets into, which I know that we share a common message on purpose, which is the antidote to cuckoos because the more... and which is interesting in biology with the cuckoo bird...Biologists have done studies that not all hosts get tricked by the cuckoo bird. The more unique their eggs are, the more that they have a signature on their egg, like squiggles and the more unique they are, the less prone they are to a cuckoo invading their nest. In the book, I talk about letting your eggs, which represent your purpose, hatch and come to life. So the more you know who you are, the more unique your purpose is, the less of a target you'll be to cuckoo birds.




Gary Schneeberger:

I want to address the elephant in the room, to mix animals. That is, the elephant in the room is so much of what you're saying, Andrea, is so much of what Warwick says and so much of what Crucible Leadership's about. I mean, Crucible and cuckoo only share two letters, but they share a lot of points together when you get through it. The thing that you said there that really hit me was this idea of people trying to avoid their pain, and that in your book, you say your pain contains truth and truth dispels cuckoos because truth is the catalyst for healing.




Gary Schneeberger:

One of the ways that we say that in Crucible Leadership, part of coming back from your crucible is recognizing that what happened didn't happen to you. It happened for you. Now, we say that not glibly. We say that a lot because that's been Warwick's experience and the experience of the guests that we've had on the show and people who've contacted us. Is that a fair statement to make, that if you make that mind shift from it didn't happen to you, but it happened for you, that that helps you move along this idea of truth becoming a catalyst for healing?




Andrea Anderson Polk:

That's a great point, Gary. I love that statement. I find that powerful and really resonates. A lot of my clients, once they realize they have this cuckoo dynamic, their initial inclination is to go into shame. Then we have a good laugh because I say, "Well, now you're like a cuckoo 2.0. Now you're going through suffering, and then you're ashamed for the reality that it's even something you're struggling with in your life." So what you're saying, Gary, is so important because having that cuckoo dynamic or the crucible as you defined it, as a trauma or a tragedy, a setback, a failure. I love the work that you do in Crucible Leadership because it's creating a culture of honorability that gives people courage to share things they might be ashamed of, their failures because they realize there is hope here and this crucible experience can become something beautiful. It's this pain being transformed into a purpose. So we do share that message. I really feel that it helps eradicate that shame and gives people hope to realize it's not the end of the story, the crucible or the cuckoo, it's the beginning of purpose, really.




Warwick Fairfax:

Let's kind of transition into purpose. I just love how you say the antidote to cuckoos is discovering your purpose. The cuckoos in your life destroy your purpose. But I love talking about pain is a platform for purpose and your signature is your purpose. So talk about what purpose means, and you talk about purpose as different than dreams. So there's a lot of things in there with signature eggs, purpose, dreams, or just pain. So talk about how you transition from pain. You've hopefully, with a trusted friend or a trained counselor, you know the truth; you know what reality is; you've felt your pain. You've even got angry. You're maybe sobbing at times. You're ready to move forward. It's not going to be easy. But talk about from pain to purpose, the difference between that and dreams.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yeah. So once you've identified who or what the cuckoo dynamic in your life is and you go through the necessary work, it's not easy. It's hard. It's the right kind of hard to deal with those cuckoos. Then it frees up your life to look at, "Okay. I feel like perhaps I've lost myself or I don't quite know who I am anymore." So it's getting back to the treasure of your true self.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

I feel like there's a distinction between dream and purpose. A lot of times I think the word dream can be tossed around and be a bit of a cliche about, well, dream big and finding your dream, which is an important part of purpose. It encompasses your dreams. The way I see purpose, it's a study of the person and their story, which includes their pain. We were talking earlier about crucible experiences or cuckoos, which are painful. The failure of tragedies, traumas, setbacks become the platform for your purpose. So I see purpose more as a state of being rather than something that you're trying to obtain. It's more of who you are. For example, you've written a book, I've written a book. That can be an extension of our purpose, but it's not the true source of our identity. So purpose, it's a deep-seated joy of the soul and it's your passions, your heart's desires, your dreams, your visions, but also your pain and your story.




Gary Schneeberger:

I've learned this in doing public relations for people who've written books for years now, and that is if you want to find the nuggets in a book, go to the chapter titles and the subheadings within the book. There's a subheading that speaks to this point, Andrea, in your book The Cuckoo Syndrome, where you say Your Dream Is Situational, but Your Purpose Is Relational. I think that's a beautiful way of putting a ring around what you just said, that it's not what you do so much; it's kind of who you are. It bubbles up from within. Fair?




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yes, absolutely. I remember in our initial interview that, Warwick, you said, "I put 12 years of my life into this book, but I don't tie my self-esteem or self worth to the success of my book or how many copies it sells, or if it's on a best seller list." As I was preparing for the timer, I remember you had said that. So I do believe there is a distinction there, that you had mentioned that the true source of your identity is being able to help other people. So again, your book is a dream. It was 12 years of your life. But when you kind of pull out the purpose, the purpose is it's your identity. It's who you are. You can have different seasons of purpose, but at the end of the day, your purpose is secure. It's not dependent on what you do or don't do.




Warwick Fairfax:

One thing you said, it's just made me think, dreams can be quicksand and from a faith perspective, if you're not careful, they can be like idols. Obviously, bad things happen when you worship idols. For many people, certainly in the US, it could be success, fame, notoriety. They just never satisfy your purpose. For people of faith, ultimately your purpose and your faith in God, your purpose is like an anchor. Dreams are like quicksand. They will pretty much always let you down if that's what you worship. So I don't know if that kind of makes sense, that whole concept of idol, idol worship, if you will.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yes. I like the word idols. I say desire imposters. When I think about desires of the heart, I think about there's desire imposters. There's things that come up that we, like you were saying, worship or idolize, and then they become so big in your life. They could be good things or for a person of faith, even God things, something that you feel like God has called you to do. Yeah, I have compassion for people that obtain a lot of their worth, value, and identity from what they're doing. Usually, there's some sort of wounding, whether it's in childhood or in their adolescent years, or even in their adult years where they've had some sort of tragedy or trauma, a failure, perhaps there's shame around that. They don't quite know who they are, what they want. So they're more susceptible and prone to attaching their worth and value to more to a being instead of a doing.




Warwick Fairfax:

One of the things I found so compelling, it's really the last chapter, which you talked about, Let Your Eggs Hatch: Treasures from Darkness. This is almost a confounding thought, but it's also profound. You say purpose like treasure often come from darkness in hidden places. I think Gary was talking about earlier is what you said about Crucible Leadership, that tragedy, our crucibles can almost be a gift, which is a bit of a growth concept for me that I didn't say probably up until a few months ago. But somehow there can be hidden treasure coming out of our pain, even out of our worst tragedy. So talk about that because that's not a concept that makes sense to most people, almost anyone. So talk about how that you'll have this incredible phrase and I'll read it exactly. "Part of your story and what makes you unique is the process of uncovering the treasure hidden in the dirt of your life and exposing it in all its beauty." So talk about the hidden treasure that's often found, as you say, very aptly in the dirt of your life. How does that work?




Andrea Anderson Polk:

When I was studying purpose a few years ago, I stumbled upon this scripture in Isaiah that really spoke to me. I believe it's Isaiah 45:3, which says, "I will give you treasures from darkness, riches hidden in secret places." And that stood out to me in terms of our purpose being our treasure and coming from dark places. To me, that means painful places, tragedies, things that happen in our life that create an undercurrent of suffering. So going through this process, when you think of a treasure, often it has dirt on it. You think about a diamond. It's found beneath the earth's surface and there's this beautiful process of allowing it to shine, allowing yourself to go through this journey of self discovery and not making yourself a project to fix.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

A lot of my clients come in and they've never been able to put a voice to their pain or share their story in a safe place. A lot of my clients come in, they'll sit on the edge of the sofa, sort of anxious and it's like they have this notion of can you fix me? So I just have to allow them to sort of sit back and I'll say, "Share your story," and co-creating this dynamic with them where they're not afraid of their pain anymore. They start to learn the tools to be able to go into the pain and discover the beauty in that, the truth, and a lot of times the purpose that can be birthed from those places.




Warwick Fairfax:

There's one other thing that has occurred to me. I don't know if you've found this, but my book Crucible Leadership came out last fall, October, 2021. I began speaking to different places. But I remember a couple places. We went to Seton Hall in Northern New Jersey and then Taylor University, which is a great Christian school where my kids have gone in Indiana. As I was speaking to them, it just seemed a lot of young people really resonated with this message of hope and how crucible doesn't have to be the end of your story, coming up for books and wanting me to sign them. And that was all gratifying. But there was a mixture of both joy and gratitude and pain all mixed up in the same ball or egg, if you will, because there was a sense of gratitude as in, "Wow, my book is making a difference."




Warwick Fairfax:

But at the same time I was feeling joy and gratitude and being a person of faith, thanks to God, it also rekindled just the pain of loss of a 150-year-old family media business and relational pain. It was all in the same emotion. It was both. There was joy and there was a sprinkling of agony in there, too. It was another level of healing where you don't get the level of healing unless there's a bit more pain to be healed. So we're never "totally healed", but I don't know if that makes sense. It was a weird mix of emotions. There was joy and immense gratitude mixed with a tinge of pain and agony. So I don't know if that makes any kind of sense, Andrea.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Thank you for sharing that. That is a huge revelation. I feel like what you shared is truth that can lead people that are listening to freedom. It's this concept of both/and, and being in a season where you simultaneously feel joy and gratitude, but also a sadness and loss, which really shows an emotional maturity there because what happens when we numb our painful emotions, more difficult ones like rage, grief, sadness, shame, then we also numb the positive emotions. You can't really pick and choose. So the fact that you were in this place where you felt gratitude but also felt some sadness and some grief is a healthy part of the process and necessary because that sort of experience does evoke a lot of emotions.




Warwick Fairfax:

I think what you do, Andrea, is with counseling and your book, you give people tools. The goal isn't to be in counseling forever, not that I'm against it, necessarily. Depends on the circumstances. But giving people tools to know the truth and deal with the lies. I mean, another example, not to get into too many details, but my wife's mother passed away just recently, and we were going through some... Her estate wasn't that massive relative to the way I grew up. There was some just legal things I was just helping my wife look at and it's all very normal, all very standard, and everybody's all happy and wonderful, very functional people on my wife's side of the family.




Warwick Fairfax:

But there was something in there that just set me off. It set me off the deep end. I knew I was completely overreacting. It had zero to do with what was in these documents. My reaction was completely uncalled for, unreasonable, made no sense. I knew it in that instant. Why am I reacting this? This is ridiculous. It was objectively ridiculous. Obviously, I'm blessed. Married to a wonderful wife, 32, almost 33 years. I said, "Gail, I know this is ridiculous. I shouldn't be reacting this way. So can you help me figure this out?" I had an idea of why, and obviously it led back to family business and various estate things, and I don't know, whatever. I dealt with it and prayed about it and moved on. But I guess the point of the story is you can't control your emotions. I can't stop that. That'll happen again. Something will hit me and it'll touch off a nerve and a little bit of lava will break through and that's just life.




Warwick Fairfax:

So I want listeners to understand, no matter how functional and "healed" you are, you're going to have those moments where a little mini volcano will burst or lava will pop out and you got to learn to have systems to deal with it. Not just say, "Oh, I can't believe I did that. I mean, that was irrational." I don't know if that makes sense because I want listeners to understand no matter how functional you are, if you've had some level of brokenness, you're going to have those little bits of lava that'll perk up now and again. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. You just got to have a system and a method to deal with it, if that makes sense.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yes. That's so important. I feel like a lot of people have a false narrative or a lie they believe, that if they experience painful emotions or intense emotions, then they're doing something wrong. As you're sharing in your experience, it's quite the opposite. Our emotions, they're indicators, not dictators. They don't need to govern your behavior. You can respond instead of reacting out of an emotionally intense place.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Being able to, first of all, give yourself permission and self compassion of, "Okay, this is a difficult time. These emotions are coming up." There's pain, perhaps, and there's truth waiting in that pain to show you something about yourself or other people that perhaps you haven't known before, or a deeper level of healing can take place. So absolutely. There doesn't need to be this shame, or we don't need to attach meaning to the fact that we experience emotion. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's wrong, or just because it's scary or evokes some kind of anger towards a person doesn't mean that you should eradicate that person from your life. It's an opportunity to grow and learn from those feelings and to feel your feelings and make a conscious choice to do so is hard but important.




Gary Schneeberger:

That sound you heard, listener, was not the cuckoo clock striking the hour. It was the captain in fact-




Warwick Fairfax:

Cuckoo!




Gary Schneeberger:

-turning on the fasten seatbelt sign, letting us know that we're going to have to land the plane here in a bit. But not yet. And before we do that, Andrea, I would be terribly remiss if I did not give you the opportunity to let listeners know how they can find out more about you and how they can get your book and find out more about it.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Thank you, Gary. My website is andreaandersonpolk.com. It's sort of a one stop to ordering my book that's now available. If you want to work together one-on-one, there's information on how to do that. So andreaandersonpolk.com is where you want to be.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. I'm going to jump in before I throw it back to you, Warwick, and this is the surprise I told you was going to come. On your website, Andrea, you have what you call the Cuckoo Syndrome quiz. I took that quiz this morning. It's an amazing experience, and here's why it was an amazing experience for me. I am not unaware of particularly one individual in my life who is a challenge, let's say, sometimes. Not all the time. But is a challenge sometimes. But even at the question level, before I pushed submit, and I got my results, the questions that you pose in this very short quiz about the nature of relationships that may sort of prick at your self-confidence, may prick at your self-worth, may cause you troubles, I mean, it opened my eyes to the fact that this situation, this relationship was more harmful than I had realized even though I've talked about it with my wife; I've talked about it with people. It's not, again, not like I'm not aware of it, but I became more deeply and more significantly aware of it just by the questions.




Gary Schneeberger:

I'm not going to bore everybody with my entire result, which I have right here. But there's a couple things that in the result that were just remarkable. I couldn't believe that this was extrapolated from the answers I gave. "Most days," the results say, "You are trapped in a vortex of unhealthy relationships, toxic thinking, and self-sabotaging behavior occurring simultaneously." I'm the combination cuckoo, which is the most common result, you say. "You really invest yourself deeply in both your relationships and your work, whether it be career, ministry, or a passion project. You're intelligent, conscientious, and hardworking. You do it all. You have an intense inner drive to succeed in business, family matters and community related endeavors. The truth is underneath, you battle insecurity, doubt, and fear." And this is a part that got me.




Gary Schneeberger:

"From the outside looking in, you've got it all together, or you're living your dream. What people don't see is that you're burned out, fatigued, struggle with frequent bouts of depression and are anxious most of the time. Or perhaps you don't spend as much time as you want with the people closest to you." 7 questions on a quiz or 10 or 15, whatever they were, it nailed things that I, again, not unaware of at the surface, but you got me at the bottom. That quiz got me at the sort of the midpoint to the bottom of that iceberg. So thank you for that.




Gary Schneeberger:

Listeners, I cannot endorse enough. This is not a Crucible Leadership endorsement because I don't speak for all of Crucible Leadership. But Gary Schneeberger, the co-host of Beyond the Crucible says go to Andrea's website, take the Cuckoo Syndrome quiz. You will find some revelation and some points to work on to pray about if that's what you do, to work out, to talk to people about, to explore in therapy. Is a very valuable resource. Thank you for providing that. And it's all free of charge.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Thank you, Gary, for sharing that and your vulnerability, that the combination cuckoo...When I took my quiz that I created, that's what I came up with also. I have this tendency in areas of my life where I get so passionate and I invest myself that I tend to burn out and neglect other important relationships in my life. So thank you for taking the courage to share that. I can relate to that. I feel like it's something a lot of people can relate to, the cuckoo dynamic not might not be a person or a harmful relationship, but yeah, it can be something that's happening internally. So I appreciate that. That was a gift to me for you to share.




Gary Schneeberger:

Thank you. Warwick.




Warwick Fairfax:

Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

Take us home.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. Well, Gary, thank you so much for sharing that. That is really profound and helpful and it just goes to show, we may seem we have it all together and life is good, which I think for you and I, I think we know each other pretty well. I think all things being equal, life is pretty good. We're both grateful and thankful for our wives and family. But it's a journey and it's just life is not easy. Yeah, so that was just profound. Thank you so much.




Warwick Fairfax:

The last thing I had on my notes, Andrea, that to me maybe I feel sums up a lot of what you're about. This is what I'd written down from your book, and you say, "A person's greatest place of pain is their greatest place of power. Their area of weakness is their area of gifting." So talk about... That does feel like a message of hope. So talk about how that, what you just wrote there really is a message of hope for those who are listening.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

Yes. That's interesting. When you read that, even though it's something I wrote, it evokes an emotion. That was unexpected in me right now because my greatest places of pain growing up were counseling because of the decades of counseling people that were close to me went through that hurt instead of helped. Like God, the church, faith is a very painful place. I would never, if someone had told me that years ago, I just would've looked at them like they were crazy. Being able to talk with you today and have such a profound, meaningful conversation as a counselor, as a person of faith who's helping other people has now become the greatest joy of my soul and all of those things were so painful to me growing up.




Andrea Anderson Polk:

So I feel very blessed to be able to sit here and to share with both of you today. It's such a gift and it is a message of hope because the greatest lie we can believe is that we should avoid the places that cause us, not even the pain itself, but avoid the places that cause us the most pain. That's such a lie because the truth is when you press into that, there is a beautiful purpose that's waiting for you there.




Warwick Fairfax:

I just want to add one more thing before we close because I think what you said is so profound, and as I look back at the pain I've gone through and losing this $2 billion family business and letting down parents and some pain from a close family member. As I'm able to use that pain to help others, there is healing. There is gratitude. It's been years in the making. I've come to a point where I can honestly say I'm grateful for what I went through. There's a sense of gratitude because the mission and purpose I have and perspective, I wouldn't be who I was without that pain. It's just a part of my DNA. I'd be a fundamentally different person.




Warwick Fairfax:

Not to get into historical figures, I think of Franklin Roosevelt, who was this happy-go-lucky aristocratic kind of guy, life of the party in the '20s. He got polio as an adult, which is very rare and death sentence back then in terms of politics. You were meant to just hide away, it was shameful back then. Well, he became president during the Great Depression and he had a level of compassion and empathy and courage. He wouldn't have had a prayer of being elected president if he hadn't had polio, never would've happened. He became a fundamentally different person. So I don't know if Franklin Roosevelt would've ever said his polio was a gift. Hopefully he did, but it was a gift of the country, both in the Depression and World War II. It's a weird thing to say your greatest pain could be your greatest gift, but I think for me, and I think maybe for all of us, that would be the case. So I'll let you have the last word. But does that make any kind of sense?




Andrea Anderson Polk:

That's beautiful because our pain has a dual purpose, which is it allows us to move into a deeper level of freedom and healing and it allows us to touch the lives of other people because your pain, it makes you human and relatable. The purpose of purpose is to be able to serve other people and give them hope. It's not because I'm so special that this happened in my life. It's I want to be able to help you and serve you and give you the hope and courage to push through that pain and to see what's waiting on the other side.




Gary Schneeberger:

I have been in the communications business long enough, listener, to know when the last word on the subject's been spoken, and Andrea has just spoken it. On this episode of Beyond the Crucible, which I think, well, no, I don't think, I know this is a historic episode of Beyond the Crucible because all three people who've been talking got really close to crying in talking about what we were saying. That says, in all seriousness and all transparency and all honesty, that speaks to the effectiveness and the import and the value of what it is that Andrea and her book The Cuckoo Syndrome bring to our discussion here on the show about how to make sure that your setbacks and failures aren't the end of your story, how to move beyond them.




Gary Schneeberger:

So until the next time that we are together, listener, please remember that we do understand, hopefully you heard it in this episode. You'd be hard pressed not to have heard it in this episode. That we understand that your crucible experiences are painful, that they're difficult to navigate. They're difficult to move beyond. But again, what I hope you heard in this conversation is that they're not the end of your story. They, in fact, if you learn the lessons from them, if you come to regard them not as something that happened to you, but happened for you; if, as Warwick said, you can see them as a gift, they can be the start of a new chapter in your story. That new chapter leads to the greatest place it possibly could, and that is a life of significance.