3 Critical Lessons All 5 Crucible Types Can Teach Us

Gary Schneeberger

May 30, 2023

I don’t say a whole lot during the Beyond the Crucible podcast I cohost with Warwick.

As I explain to guests before we hit record, if he and I were a sports commentating team, he’d be the play-by-play announcer, the one with most of the insights and mic time; and I’d be the color analyst, whose job it is to make sure the audience catches and understands the important moments of action on the field.

One of the ways that plays out most often is my pointing out to listeners how the guest’s crucible experience, while its details differ greatly from Warwick’s story of losing his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty in an ultimately failed $2.25 billion takeover, nonetheless shares many emotional beats with his journey.

It’s astounding, sometimes, how a guest whose worst day was suffering through abuse or addiction or being hit with a devastating physical injury or medical diagnosis uses the exact same language Warwick does to describe how it felt to be at the bottom of the pit … and needed to muster the same resilience to get out of that pit.

Reflecting on those moments led me to think it could be helpful to offer a primer on the kinds of crucibles we’ve encountered on 164 episodes of the podcast, and the universal lessons we’ve discovered that can emanate from them.

After all, I end every show by saying a variation on the theme that your worst day doesn’t have to define you; in fact, if you learn the lessons of your crucible, that worst day can lead to your best day because it can be the fuel to carry you to a life of significance.

In broad brushstrokes, we’ve discovered crucible experiences fall into five categories:

• Business crucibles
• Physical crucibles
• Life crucibles
• Emotional crucibles
• Quiet crucibles

Business Crucibles

Warwick’s crucible was a business crucible. It was on his watch that four generations of family history was lost – at least tangibly.

Guests who’ve experienced business crucibles include Hank McClarty, who by his own admission grew a bit too cocksure as a successful financial planner and wound up unemployed living in a hotel with his two boys needing to rely on the establishment’s free breakfasts to get by.

Kelly Sayre hit a similar low in business – losing a job she thought had her on track to a great career because of a boss who didn’t deal squarely with her.

Physical Crucibles

We’ve heard from many guests who’ve endured life-changing physical crucibles.

Like David Charbonnet, a Navy SEAL who was left a paraplegic after a training accident.

Or Jason Schecterle, a police officer rear-ended in his squad car at a stoplight who nearly died from the fourth-degree burns he suffered.

And Andrea Heuston, who lapsed into a weeks-long coma after an ovarian cyst burst.

Life Crucibles

Among the guests whose life crucibles knocked them down were Donte Wilburn, who turned to selling drugs as a teenager and college student and was nearly killed when a sale went bad.

Adam Vibe Gunton, whose addiction to heroin was so debilitating he begged God to take his life.

And Katie Foulkes, an Olympic rower for her native Australia whose gold-medal dreams were dashed in a very public scandal involving one of her teammates.

Emotional Crucibles

And the emotional crucibles we’ve heard about have been many and varied.

From Esther Fleece Allen, who found herself abandoned by both parents as a teenager, to Chris Singleton, whose mother was murdered in a mass church shooting.

Quiet Crucibles

Quiet crucibles are the kind to which we dedicated our eight-part series on discovering your second-act significance. These are those moments in life when you find yourself questioning “Is this all there is?” You may not have been knocked off your feet, but you definitely feel stuck in an unfulfilling place.

That’s what Robert Miller felt, a successful lawyer who had dreamed since his teens of being a musician.

Nancy Volpe Beringer, too – who found her life’s calling as a fashion designer after a successful career as a union representative that still left her feeling something was missing.

I’ve not drilled down too deeply on any of these stories, because the focus of Beyond the Crucible is never as great on what our guests have been through as it is on how they got through their tragedies and turned them into triumph. And there are definite themes in their stories in bouncing forward from their setbacks and failures that each of us can lean into when we encounter our own crucibles. Here are just three:

1. Mindset is everything.

Our guests have universally come to view their crucibles not as things that have happened to them, but things that have happened for them. The traumas and tragedies they’ve experienced, they’ve come to believe, do not define them, but have refined them. Developing that perspective, is the only way to build a ladder to climb out of the pit.

2. Don’t go it alone.

Moving beyond your crucible is a team sport. What our podcast guests have done, what Warwick stresses as so important to do, is find and lean into fellow travelers. Family, friends, colleagues, professional counselors and coaches will provide insights and strategies to help you find the strength and resilience to rise out of the pit.

3. Take the first right step, then the next right step.

Very few of our guests have gone from tragedy to triumph in a one-and-done leap. Incremental gains have been the order of their recovery. As you allow your crucible to teach you more about how you are designed, what you are off-the-charts passionate about, you can begin to set your feet on the path of what a life of significance looks like for you. If will not just lead you out of the pit, it will lead you to a life lived on purpose, dedicated to serving others.

Crucible experiences come at us wrapped in myriad circumstances. As different as they may seem from each other on the surface, underneath the way we experience them, the things we must learn and do to overcome them are surprisingly similar. In that truth there is great hope that they are not insurmountable.