4 Truths To Help You Get Beyond Your Crucible #162

Highlights

• Warwick’s “dark moment” (2:21)
• Why Warwick’s crucible left him in the pit of despair (5:30)
• The universality of the emotions of a crucible (9:46)
• Truth No. 1: Give yourself permission to grieve (14:39)
• Truth No. 2: Feeling broken does not mean you’re worthless (22:53)
• Truth No. 3: You are not defined by your worst day (33:01)
• The moment stopped describing himself as a “failed” media mogul (37:05)
• Truth No. 4: A small step forward can be a defining moment (42:48)
• Warwick’s word of hope for listeners (53:04)
• Questions for reflection (56:24)

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I’m Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. It would’ve been helpful if somebody had told me or if I’d read somewhere, grieving is a natural part of the process. Yes, the grief won’t completely go away, but it’ll become more manageable. There’ll be a scar rather than an open wound. This whole aphorism, this too shall pass. There will be a new day. The sun will come up. I know it may be hard to believe. And that wouldn’t have just stopped all the pain instantly, but it would’ve given me some hope that this is part of the process, that things will get better.

Gary Schneeberger:

A new day. The sun will come up. Hope. Things will get better. Those are beliefs and emotions we all want to experience when we’ve been through a crucible. It’s not easy to get there, as you just heard Warwick say, but keep listening. He’s about to guide you through the four things he wishes he’d known when he went through his darkest time to help you get through yours.

Hi, I’m Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Warwick and I talked this week about his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com, in which he unpacks all four of those points. You’ll learn that it’s okay to give yourself permission to grieve, that feeling broken doesn’t mean you’re worthless, that you are not defined by your worst day, and that a small step can be a defining moment in your life of significance. The upshot of it all, the bottom of the pit where so many of us find ourselves after setback and failure find us, does not have to be our permanent address.

That blog at beyondthecrucible.com is, and we just titled this, this is very exciting, this is hot off the presses, as two old newspaper guys, we can say that, Warwick, Four Things I Wish I Knew in my Darkest Time. If you’ve listened to the show for any period of time at all that Warwick has had indeed, a dark time, some time darker than others. The takeover that didn’t work out of his family media company. We’ll talk about that. But we’ll talk about, more importantly than the details, we have to set the details of what that trial was, but then we’ll talk about how he found his way to triumph. And that’s those four points that he wishes he knew when he was in that dark moment, Warwick. So let’s just level set for folks, what was that dark moment? I know you love to relive this all the time.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah, it’s kind of like that movie, what was it, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. And I don’t know if it’s a late ’80s, early ’90s movie. And yeah, he relives the same day over and over again. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very funny. So we’re going to be doing a version of Groundhog Day here.

Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. But the non-comedic version of Groundhog Day.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. Yeah, it wasn’t funny. Yeah. Not when you’re living through your own crucible. So basically just to give folks a bit of a picture of what the darkest time was, the backdrop to it was the 1987 $2.25 billion takeover of my family’s 150 year old media business, founded by John Fairfax. Strong person of faith. Became a massive company with newspapers, TV, magazines, radio. As we’ll get into, I prepared my whole life to be in this business. And as I was coming back from Harvard Business School in ’87, my dad died earlier that year. He was in his 80s at the time. I was from his third marriage. That precipitated some instability in the stock market. Stock market price rose. Company thought the company was in play. I, like my parents, thought the company was not being well managed and wasn’t being run along the ideals of the founder.

So when my youthful naivety, a few months after graduating from business school, I launched this $2.25 billion takeover. Things pretty much went wrong right from the start. Other family members sold out. They didn’t really believe in me and my vision. Didn’t want to be in a company controlled by a 26 year old. October ’87, stock market crash hurt our asset sales. Three years later, Australia gets in a big recession. And newspapers are very cyclical. And so in late 1990, December 1990, the company had to file for bankruptcy. So that, believe it or not, is a very brief Cliff Notes version of what happened.

Gary Schneeberger:

I love, not in the sense of this makes me happy, but I love the way that you expressed all of this in the blog that we’re talking about that’s at beyondthecrucible.com. You end one paragraph by saying, “I was not in a good place.” You just described that. I was not in a good place. You begin the next paragraph, and in fact set this one sentence aside in its own paragraph, “I was in the pit of despair.” So pit of despair is not a drive-by term. That’s a deeply felt term. Why did it feel like, why was it a pit of despair that you found yourself in after the takeover failed?

Warwick Fairfax:

It’s funny, some people might think, oh, it’s the money, right? $2.25 billion failure. That’s a lot of money. It really wasn’t – that wasn’t the key issue. It was I felt like I’d let my parents down, my father down, who had died a few years earlier, as I mentioned, in 1987. I felt like I’d caused rifts within the family. Now, they might have sold out at the height of the takeover and got lots of money for selling their shares. But their perspective would be, yeah, but we sold because you forced us to sell. You gave us no option. And so yes, they had money, but their position would be, well, you gave us no choice. So it caused rifts in the family.

It caused fear, if you will, just uncertainty, amongst the 4,000 plus employees. They were used to working for the Fairfax family. They felt safe. They felt like we weren’t going to be favoring one party versus another, one political party. They felt like John Fairfax Ltd., the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Financial Review, those are papers they were proud to work with. And so they felt like, after the company had to file for bankruptcy, who’s going to own us now? Is it going to be editorial independence? What about our jobs? I mean, it caused tremendous uncertainty, and understandably.

I felt like my whole point of doing the takeover, as I mentioned, was to bring the company back to the ideals of the founder, have it be well managed. And basically what I did helped cause the company leaving family hands. I felt like I let my great-great-grandfather down. And in a sense, if all that, it’s almost like a sales line, and wait, there’s more. You think that’s bad enough, it gets worse.

So the hardest thing for me was I was a person of faith, which happened at a evangelical Anglican church at Oxford. But the founder of the company, John Fairfax, was also a person of faith. So in my misguided naivety and theology, I thought, oh, I know what God’s plan is, to resurrect the company in the image of the founder. Therefore, I let God down. Note to listeners, anytime you think you’re pretty certain of what God’s plan is, that tends to be a recipe for disaster because that’s not always the easiest thing to discern.

So it was awful. I mean, my whole life I’d prepared myself to go into this company, undergrad degree at Oxford, like my dad and some other relatives, worked on Wall Street, MBA from Harvard Business School. My whole life, I’d prepared myself to do it. And so I was at a point where, well, what do I do now? I’ve failed in my purpose for being, I’ve failed in my purpose for living. What now? What kind of legacy? What kind of impact can I possibly have that’s even close to that? So that’s why this was so crushing. I let my family down, employees, God down. Yeah, it was just mind numbingly crushing. That’s what led me into the pit of the despair. My reason for being on this Earth has gone. There was a plan for my life, and I just obliterated and destroyed it. So yeah, you almost think, well, what’s the purpose of even asking the question what’s now? Sort of a bit irrelevant, right? It’s just – I was just really in the pit of despair without seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.

Gary Schneeberger:

But in the context of this show, my job is to ask another question, so we’re all good. In all seriousness, let’s sort of back away a little bit from sort of flogging your situation, talking about your situation, and pivot into what the blog talks about. But before we get there, one of the things that’s important to understand is that what you’ve just described, very painful, it’s your unique circumstances. But one of the things we say all the time on the show is even though your circumstances of your crucible are different, the emotions are the same. And people who’ve been on the show had the same kinds of emotions. They’ve talked about a pit of despair. They’ve been in that place.

And in fact, one of the things we’ve done at Beyond the Crucible is commissioned a study in which we surveyed now more than 11,000 people who, of those 11,000 people, 72% have said they have gone through an experience that was so devastating that it changed the trajectory of their lives. Of that group of people, 40% right now are saying that that’s still holding them back in some way. These are the folks, Warwick, that you’ve dedicated Beyond the Crucible to, to help them move beyond their worst day, go from tragedy to triumph. And really when we talk in this blog that you wrote, Four Things I, Warwick Fairfax, Wish I Knew in My Darkest Time, you’re extending that to all of our listeners who are in that 72% of people who’ve had crucibles, that 40% still being held back by them. This is not just your story that you’re telling in this blog.

Warwick Fairfax:

Absolutely. And that’s one of the crazy things is that, all the way back to 2008 when I, as listeners know, gave that talk in church about my story, and I’m thinking how could anybody identify with a kind of former media mogul, if you will, and his challenges? But so many people came up to me in the weeks and months after and said, “Your story was so helpful.” And it took me while to understand, well, how could that be?

And I think the answer is part of the human condition is challenges, is tragedy, for some even trauma, more than we would think. And so with over, I don’t know, 150 plus podcast episodes, we’ve had stories of physical challenges. Men and women have become quadriplegics or paraplegics. Victims of abuse, abandonment, business failure, loss of loved ones, divorce. And the crucibles may be different, but that sense of being at the bottom of the pit and feeling like there’s no hope and how do I get out of it?

We chatted to a guest just recently, Adam Vibe Gunton. One of the things he said is he suffered from substance abuse. At the bottom of the pit, he felt like it was a bottomless pit. He couldn’t see the bottom. He just kept falling and falling. I mean, it’s just a horrific thought. It’s nice to, okay, at least if you’re at the bottom, it may be dark, but at least you have the hope that it can’t get worse. But not in his case. That sense of tragedy, my life’s over, what do I do now? How can I even think of just getting out of bed in the morning? There’s so many people we’ve had on the podcast, very different stories, but as you often say, the emotions are very similar.

Gary Schneeberger:

Right. And the blog that we’re talking about at beyondthecrucible.com, the blog addresses four specific ways to meet those emotions. As those emotions are roiling around in the head and the heart and the spirit of those who’ve been through crucibles just like you, I mean, we posed the question, your team posed the question to you, Warwick, what are three or four things you wish you had known when you were going through your crucible experience? Your dark time. Almost called it Your Darkest Hour, but that’s too Churchillian for us. So we didn’t go there.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah, there’s a recent movie, I think, called My Darkest Hour or something involving Churchill and 1940 and Battle of Britain stuff. So yeah, indeed.

Gary Schneeberger:

So let’s unpack now these four points in your blog that speak directly to some of the most painful emotions people are going through, some of the most painful emotions you were going through. The first one, I mean, this is the starting point of if you had to map out a life of significance after a crucible, the starting point, the starter’s pistol is this point. And that’s the first point of your blog, give yourself permission to grieve. I suspect that, well, you say it right here. There are all kinds of intense feelings and you didn’t really know how to process those. And you wished, looking back, that you had given yourself permission to grieve. How did you process it right after the takeover failed?

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, I’m a reflective person, so I was just in pain. Rather than giving myself permission to grieve, I was giving myself permission to self-flagellate, to hate on myself, if you will. So my attitude in life, which is not particularly healthy, is if there’s a problem in the world, it’s my fault. So I could’ve, with some degree of justification, say a lot of it was my fault, but look, there were challenging dynamics in the family going back decades before I was born, and rifts and power and money. And yeah, I got some bad advice at certain point from some advisors that maybe weren’t as helpful as they could be. Yes, I ignored some good advice. But it was a complex situation.

But rather than giving myself permission to grieve, I just was in almost self-hatred mode. I was just really beating up on myself. And how could I’ve been so dumb? I had a Harvard MBA. How could I think the family wouldn’t sell out? What a stupid decision, mistake. And it was objectively. Why did I ignore the good advisors and get rid of them and listened to the advisors that told me what I wanted to hear? I mean, so many things. Why did I even want to go back to the family business? It would’ve been better off doing anything else because it was so complicated, and turmoil and friction and factions.

So that’s where I was going. But what would’ve been healthier would’ve been to give myself permission to grieve, yes, to feel sorrow, maybe get some counseling. Which I had, but years later. I just did not really feel it was okay to feel angry and hurt. And it’s like part of the grieving process is giving yourself permission to grieve. And I just really didn’t. I just felt so bad about myself, but I didn’t really know how to process that. I just didn’t know what to do with all the self-anger and frustration. So no, I didn’t really give myself permission to grieve. I was just self-hating, which it really wasn’t helpful. I wasn’t trying to process in a way saying, okay. So I wasn’t following a helpful process, put it that way.

Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah, I found a quote about grief and giving ourselves permission to grieve from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, and they say this, “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not get over that loss. You will heal and you’ll rebuild yourself around the loss you’ve suffered. You’ll be whole again, but you’ll never be the same. Nor should you be the same or should you want to be the same.” That seems to be a pretty accurate assessment of what you’ve been through. When you did indeed finally get to that point where you were able to grieve, you were able to give yourself a little bit of, you use the word all the time on the show, Warwick, you were able to give yourself a little bit of grace, and that helped the forward momentum, right?

Warwick Fairfax:

It did. I mean, it would’ve been helpful if somebody had told me, or if I’d read somewhere, grieving is a natural part of the process. Yes, the grief won’t completely go away, but it’ll become more manageable. There’ll be a scar rather than an open wound. This whole aphorism, this too shall pass. There will be a new day. The sun will come up. I know it may be hard to believe. And that wouldn’t have just stopped all the pain instantly, but it would’ve given me some hope that this is part of the process, that things will get better.

Gary Schneeberger:

I hadn’t thought about this till just now, but do you think that Beyond the Crucible, everything that you’ve tried to do through this podcast, through all that you’ve done at Beyond The Crucible, your book, all of the offerings that we have, is that a conscious decision, or maybe it was an unconscious decision for you to offer that lifeline to other people who are going through this? I mean, I don’t know if you made that determination, like click, I’m going to go help people do this. But what you’ve described feeling like you didn’t have the right to do it, you are extending every week on this show the right for them to do it. That has got to feel rewarding.

Warwick Fairfax:

It absolutely does. I mean, it’s one of the key motivations for what I do with Beyond The Crucible is, we’ll talk about this later, and we’re skipping to point three, but don’t let your worst day define you. And we’ll talk about that more in a bit. But it’s really giving folks hope. When I was reflecting in the weeks and months after that talk in church in 2008, and people telling me, “Hey, your story really helped me.” I’m thinking, I know it’s going to be painful writing this book because, yes, I talk about inspirational leaders and historical leaders and other members of my family, but the core of it is my story and reliving my most painful days. And it was very painful writing about it. I mean, after two or three hours a day, I was done. I couldn’t do anymore. I had to recoup and hopefully find some strength the next day.

So it was painful. But what kept me going is, if this can help one person or more face the crucible they’ve gone through and find a way to have hope, find a way to bounce back, that was really, it’s always been the mission of Beyond the Crucible is to help people in their darkest time, their darkest hour. At the end of pretty much every podcast, I ask a question, something like, for many listeners today may be their worst day. They may be at the bottom of the pit. They may have no hope. They can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. What would a word of hope you would have for somebody who today is their worst day?

Now, why do I ask that question? It’s because that’s, if you will, my focus of what we do is for people who today may be their worst day. So that is absolutely the animating driving force mission behind what we do. And I mean, it’s conscious and subconscious. When I wrote the book, I may not have used those words, but I was thinking I want to help people who’ve gone through what I’ve gone through and have hope. Some of it was subconscious, some of it was conscious, but that was always the thought, always the mission.

Gary Schneeberger:

And don’t worry about getting out of order. I mean, this is all a big soup of help. We’re just putting ingredients in the help soup here as we’re going through it. Because we are. It’s an interesting discussion because we’re dealing with what you went through, but also then how you’ve leveraged what you went through to help others going through the same thing. So a lot of these things are kind of mixed together, and that’s a good thing. Because when you’re dealing with something as emotional as a crucible experience, you’re going to grab whatever lifeline comes by.

And the second point in the blog is a really good lifeline, I think, that you wished had been extended to you. And that is feeling broken does not mean you are worthless. I’m going to say it again, listener, so you catch it, you make sure you catch it. Feeling broken, like you do after a crucible, in the midst of a crucible, at the bottom of the pit, that does not mean you are worthless. Why did you make this the second point of the blog and how does it speak to your own experience?

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah, Gary, I was broken. My mission in life, my reason for being on this earth, getting good grades in school, working hard, not wanting to be one of these dilettante kind of rich kids, humility being my highest value, or certainly one of them, Oxford, Wall Street, Harvard Business School. I spent my life serving a mission that I felt was almost like a holy cause, a sacred calling. A family business, newspaper business that plays a role in the nation of Australia. It just felt like this incredible cause that I was born into.

And so when the company went under, I just felt broken, worthless, the reason for me being on this Earth is gone. What was the point of it all? Oxford, Harvard Business School, all the work, all the effort, I just blew it by my stupidity. I mean, there was a book written in that time, late ’80s, early ’90s, the central premise was Warwick could have had it all. Eventually, it might have taken a few decades, but eventually I would’ve been the leading shareholder in the family, just in terms of the way inheritance and various things worked out. If only he’d waited, he could have been head of this company. But because of his folly and naivety, he didn’t.

And yes, there’s some truth in that. But obviously I felt like, oh, the company isn’t going to be around, or because of the stupidity in management. It doesn’t matter whether my assumptions were right or wrong, but that was my feeling. And so I really felt broken and worthless, and it was very hard to come back from that. I mean, I did. My paradigm shifted a bit. But I felt both those things, that I felt broken and worthless, and that’s a terrible feeling.

Gary Schneeberger:

We’ve talked to many guests. You mentioned Adam Vibe Gunton who said a couple of times that he felt as if he just wanted to die, right? We’ve had other guests tell us that. That moment of I can’t take this anymore. Not just the brokenness, but the emotional, then humiliation of feeling worthless. What was the turnaround for you? How did you get past that feeling? Because we’re not having this conversation if Warwick Fairfax didn’t get past that feeling.

Warwick Fairfax:

That’s very true. I guess, especially since the Evangelical Church at Oxford, I’d been a person of faith. That was late March 1982 for me. So we’re now talking the early ’90s, I guess my paradigm shifted. I went from God had a plan for my life to resurrect the company in the image of the founder, John Fairfax. I’m a believer, he was a believer. I blew God’s plan, which as I mentioned, was the most excruciating part of this whole crucible experience. It was the tip of the spear, if you will, going through my heart.

But what changed is I began to realize, despite my stupidity, and in all fairness, a lot of it was my fault, but not all of it, it was very complicated. A lot of things going back decades as I mentioned. But if God had wanted it to work out, he would have. So God’s sovereign will, from my perspective, he has a plan. And you might believe it’s God, the creator, however you look at it.

But I also came to realize that God loves us unconditionally, even when we make mistakes, which we all do, God loves us no matter what. So I came to realize God does have a plan for my life. It just may not be the one I thought it was. My hubris, naivety, and youth, but that unconditional love that we are loved because, I think Psalm 139 talks about we’re wonderfully and beautifully made. That sense that we have innate worth and value as human beings, it’s one thing to realize a proposition. It’s another thing for a proposition to work its way through the pain and the agony and the darkness that has worked through your soul.

But over time, it didn’t happen like a flash of light, over time, I came to realize that is true. And I’ve used this image like a man clinging to a mast in a raging storm. I clung to that view that, as human beings, we have innate value. God does have a plan for our lives. And we have inherent worth, and there is a plan out there. I clung to that. And drop by drop, like drops of grace, it began to give me hope. This fundamental change in my thinking, it began to give myself hope.

Gary Schneeberger:

I found a quote that I’m going to steal after we’re done, and you may want to steal it yourself. It’s a really good quote about this very issue of feeling broken does not mean you’re worthless. And that’s by Rumi. And the quote is this, “The wound is the place where light enters you.” That is something special. That’s good. The wound is the place where light enters you, right? And that’s what you’ve just described, Warwick, is that in that wound entered this bedrock belief that grew and grew and grew and grew, that you have inherent value. And led you to create Beyond the Crucible, which lets other people know they also have inherent value. Safe to say that without the brokenness, you could have skipped over, you probably wish you could’ve skipped over the worthless feeling, but without the brokenness, again, we wouldn’t be sitting here having a conversation about Beyond the Crucible, would we?

Warwick Fairfax:

It’s profoundly true, Gary. Yeah, sometimes the light, as you said so well, does come through that wound. And yeah, in hindsight it did for me. Out of that sense of brokenness and pain came a mission, as we’ll say here in a bit, to help people not be defined by their worst day, to give people hope. As I’ve spoken to people, and people have found some sense of hope and healing, that obviously gives me some degree of further healing. So it’s hard to think of it at the time, but without that crucible and the pain and the brokenness, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.

I’ve often thought if I was smarter, I don’t know that I would’ve been happier, which sounds a bit crazy, because if I’d been smarter, listened to the good advisors who said in early ’87, “The numbers don’t add up,” and these were blue chip merchant bankers, as we call it, which is Australian English speak for investment bankers, “The numbers don’t add up. If there’s a hostile takeover,” I was afraid of, “well then gather the family round, wait a few decades, try and get on with other people. Not just listen to the stories you heard growing up or what have you.” I mean, there’s a long list of things that I could have been smarter about.

But would I have been happier? I would’ve been trapped in this gilded cage. There always would’ve been different factions within the family. And it’s a large company. As I often say, it didn’t really fit my design. I’m more of a reflective advisor, somewhat philosophical. I’m not a take charge, take no prisoners chief executive type. So a lot of reasons it really didn’t fit. But if I’d been smarter, I could have been trapped in this company. I mean, very comfortable definitely. I could have been hundreds of millions of dollars more comfortable, if not more than hundreds of millions. And so great. But I don’t know that I would’ve been happy. I would’ve been trapped in a role that I didn’t enjoy, worrying about different factions and what’s going on and what’s going on behind the scenes and management and all.

Gary Schneeberger:

That is a powerful thing for you to say. Because remember, listener, when we started off, Warwick, and you’ve heard it before, the failure, in this country we think money is going to make us all happy. If I just had more money, I’d be happier. The failure was $2.25 billion. That was in 1990 money. Today, think of what that could have grown to. So that’s a profound statement. I used your word, you say profound a lot on the show, I just used your word, that’s a profound statement that you wouldn’t necessarily have been happier. In fact, in many ways you would’ve been not happier.

We are going through, listener, Warwick’s latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com called Four Things I Wish I Knew In my Darkest Time. We are moving on now to point three. We’ve teased it a couple times, sort of like a coming attractions trailer. But the third point in the blog, Warwick, that you wish you would’ve known, that someone would’ve told you, or that it would’ve been on – right – in the syllabus at Oxford, at HBS. This idea that you are not defined, we are not defined, by our worst day. That’s one of the top three. If this was Match Game, and I had to pick the top three answers of what Warwick Fairfax says the most on this show, somewhere in the top three would be we are not defined by our worst day. So why was that point, again, of only four you have in this blog, why was that point so important for you to include in this blog?

Warwick Fairfax:

We have a number of sayings, a number of things we believe are true on Beyond the Crucible. But this idea that we are not defined by our worst day, that is close to number one of the truths that we talk about at Beyond the Crucible. So what it means, we’re not defined by our worst day, it’s we all have mistakes and failures. We all have times in which things go wrong. And it’s easy to think, as I did, I thought I was defined by my worst day. I thought my life is over, 150 year old family business founded by a strong believer, I’m a believer, I blew his legacy, caused splits within the family, instability and uncertainty with 4,000 plus employees, et cetera, et cetera.

But I came to realize in hindsight that I was not defined by that. Yes, it’s part of my story, but I’m using that to help others. There have been better days. I have three wonderful children. I have a wife of over 30 years. I’m so blessed in so many ways. I’ve been on two nonprofit boards. I love what I do at Beyond The Crucible. I’m just incredibly blessed and grateful. I could not have foreseen that on my worst day. My life has not been defined by my worst day. It has absolutely not been defined by it. And so that’s really one of our central, if not the central, mission of Beyond the Crucible, to help our listeners, to help everybody understand that you are not defined by your worst day. There can be a better day.

We talk a lot about learning the lessons of your crucible that can lead to a vision we call a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. But it all begins, and we use the word choice a lot at Beyond the Crucible, you have to make a choice. Maybe it’s not on your worst day because you got to have a bit of room to process and grieve, but ultimately you’ve got to make a choice, sooner rather than later, to say “I will not let this define me.” I’m going to find a way to move forward. I might not have the answers right now, but I’m going to find a way to move forward and I’m not going to let this one mistake or this one terrible circumstance that happened to me be the defining moment in my life. It’s going to be one of the toughest moments, but it will not be the defining moment. And I’m going to make that choice to not let that day define me and define my life.

Gary Schneeberger:

I have a question to ask after I ask this one. So sort of give me a yes or no, or a very quick answer when I ask this one. That realization was not all inclusive. It wasn’t one and done. It’s still, I mean, that’s still in process in some ways, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:

I think that’s fair to a degree.

Gary Schneeberger:

Here’s why I ask that question because one of my favorite moments in working with you, Warwick, was when you were preparing for a speech that you were going to give. And every time you had prepared for this speech before you were talking about your crucible, you were talking about the failed takeover of the family media company. And then you talked about the speech you gave in church and people were moved by it. You couldn’t understand how people were moved by a speech you gave because, and you said this, you would say this in the first 25 times, I heard you say it as you were practicing, you would say, “I looked around, I didn’t understand how this could resonate with people because I did not see any other failed media moguls in the congregation.” You always used the word failed media mogul.

And then one day when you were preparing for a speech, we were sitting in your study at your house, we were sitting in your house, you were preparing for your speech, and you said, “I looked around and I didn’t see any other former media moguls.” And I was like, that’s it, right? That was that moment when you weren’t defined by your worst day anymore. You didn’t use a word that had defined you for so long, failure. You took it out, you deleted it, you threw it out. That was a powerful moment to watch you go through.

What does that liberation feel like? When you’re in stage three, when you’re in, you’re not defined by your worst day, just emotionally, because we talk a lot about emotions here, what does it emotionally feel like to be beyond that? Even if it’s only 85, 95% of it, you’re mostly behind it all the time. It’s very, very small. What does that feel like? So listeners who may be having their worst day today will know what to look for.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah, that’s a great question, Gary. You’re right to pick up on that. I mean, that says subconsciously a lot to go from failed to former. Former is more a statement of reality. There’s less emotion behind it. Failed is similar to I am a failure. It would be a synonym in this case. Not always, but in this case, failed meant failure. I am a failure forever was the subtext. So yeah, I can obviously, because of what I do and we do, I talk about the failed takeover. But yeah, it’s more objectively talking about what happened.

I don’t give a talk, and have to go in my room and sob for a few hours or something. I mean, those days did exist, but they don’t happen. At least I can’t remember it happening often, if ever, for a long, long time. Doesn’t mean there twinges every once in a while. People use this word often today, and rightly so, being triggered. Yes, I’ll be triggered occasionally by something, something I read or wherever. An article in an Australian paper that references me. Or there was some cartoon in the last few years that wasn’t overly favorable.

Gary Schneeberger:

Correct. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. But yeah, it’s subconsciously being able to say, as I’ve said more recently, that what I went through was a gift. I couldn’t say that five years ago. I’m not sure I could have said that two or three years ago. But being able to say former and not failed, that what I went through was a gift in some sense, because I wouldn’t be where I am without that, to have some sense of gratitude. I’ve used words like freedom, liberation from the situation I was in. So that’s a very significant mind shift and heart shift and soul shift, if you will.

So back to your question, today, it may be your worst day, it may be hard to fathom. I understand how that could be. But it’s true for me, and it’s true for many if not most of the guests we’ve had on the podcast, they haven’t been defined by their worst day. They’ve made a choice to move forward. And yes, I don’t know that you can get 100% healed, saying, oh, there won’t be any scar. There’ll be scars. But yet, can you get to 80, 85, 90% of feeling like you’re healed or less broken? I absolutely think that is possible. I absolutely think it’s possible.

Gary Schneeberger:

And I love, and I didn’t realize I loved it till right now, that you used the word defined here. You’re not defined by your worst day. Because what you’ve just been talking about are new definitions that you’ve added in to define your worst day. It was a gift. In many ways, in important ways, it was a gift. You’re not a failed anything. You’re a former something. All of those words, the way that we talk about ourselves, going back to the second point here, just this idea that just because you’re broken, you’re not worthless. Hanging those adjectives on ourselves, not a good thing. And what you’ve just described, you’ve defined a new position that you’re in as you’re moving through this. And that kind of freedom, you’ve described this as feeling freeing, that kind of freedom is available to all of you within the sound of my voice.

And we’ll move on to the fourth point in this blog, which is the way you put your foot on the step that will lead you there. We talked about this idea of realizing that you need to give yourself permission to grieve. That’s sort of the starter’s pistol to a life of significance. This fourth point is the start of the physical journey to that place. And that is this, your fourth point, Warwick is a small step forward can be a defining moment. Talk about that a little bit. Because I know for you, and I know for a lot of guests we’ve had on the show, that is so, so, so true.

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. If one of the defining mantras or concepts is your worst day doesn’t define you, one of the single most important pieces of advice that I and every guest has shared that I can think of is this concept that a small step forward can be a defining moment, can be huge. For most, I remember we had a series last fall, Second Act Significance, and we had Erik and Emily Orton on. And they sailed around the Caribbean. They’ve got this whole course about helping people lead kind of worthwhile lives and all.

But it all began when Erik was looking out the window of his Manhattan skyscraper. He was in theater production, and Wicked, I believe. And then he went to start a small production, which basically went under and he lost everything. And he was feeling sorry for himself. And he’s looking out the window and he sees these sailboats going down outside of Manhattan. And he’s thinking, I’d love to learn how to sail. Now you would think that wasn’t a big step, but it was a small step, but in some sense it was the biggest step. And he would say it was maybe the toughest step. Why should that be so tough? But it was very different than what he’d done. And for some reason, the next steps about getting his family to learn how to sail, and then eventually, hey, let’s sail around the Caribbean with the whole family, we can be together with his kids. Those were further steps. But the biggest step, the hardest step was the first step, which is sort of interesting.

So for me, one small step I made was we were in Chicago for about nine months in 1991. So company goes under in December 1990. Soon thereafter, we go to Chicago, where my wife had lived for about 10 years before we met in Australia. And I remember thinking, it’s cold and it’s a big city. And we had friends in Maryland, Annapolis, and they said, “Well, why don’t you kind of move here for a few months orIsix months?” And I thought it might be good to give myself a change of location, smaller town. Being from Australia, nicer weather. Did that change everything? No. Did my attitude improve overnight? Did I say, hallelujah, I’m feeling great about myself, hooray? No. But it was a small step. It felt like a small positive step forward to just be in a different environment and we were going to create a new life.

Maybe that’s why it was a small step. We were going to create, my wife and I, and she was in the early months of 1991, she was pregnant with our first son, Will. But it was an important step. And there were in steps after that, like the talk in church. Small step after that was, I think I’m going to write a book about this. Not quite sure how it’s going to evolve, but I’m going to start writing. And it evolved, and there was a series of steps.

But the power of making a small step forward rather than me just sitting in that small house in Chicago that used to be… My wife Gale’s grandfather, built it in the ’30s or something. It’s a nice, small little house. Two room house, one bathroom. I could said, well, let’s just stay here. And it has a basement. So I could have gone to the basement, sort of unfinished basement, and sat there for, I don’t know, several decades. And eventually somebody probably would’ve pushed us out, or say, “Hey, we need to use it for other people,” or, “Need to sell it.” Couldn’t have stayed there forever. We didn’t own it. It was owned by my father-in-law. But still metaphorically, I could have stayed in that basement in Chicago for decades, and just moaned and groaned and felt sorry for myself. But that’s never the answer.

Gary Schneeberger:

What you’ve described there, you talked about first small step, moving to the US, moving to Maryland, starting your family. But then you added in some other steps, and then one step led to another step, led to another step. And there’s a phrase that you coined recently here at Beyond the Crucible, which I’ve determined if we ever have a house band like they do on the Tonight Show, we’re going to name the house band this. But that phrase that you coined is what?

Warwick Fairfax:

I’m blanking out here. You’re going to have to remind me.

Gary Schneeberger:

That’s how many things of import come out of Warwick’s mouth. You can’t remember them all. Flywheel of hope, right?

Warwick Fairfax:

Amen.

Gary Schneeberger:

It creates a flywheel of hope. What you just described, Warwick, of you moving, then you started this and you did this, it was a flywheel of hope. And what that did is it then spun into what’s happening for you right now. And that is where hope is really coming alive for you and for our constituents here at Beyond the Crucible. That is kind of where your life of significance is right now, is at Beyond the Crucible, right?

Warwick Fairfax:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean flywheel of hope, even if I/we thought of it, maybe it’s not humble, but forgive me, but I do really like that phrase.

Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah, it’s great.

Warwick Fairfax:

Because it’s true. And just like with Erik Orton, that one little turn to the flywheel led to him taking lessons, having lessons with his family, sailing around the Caribbean. Then a whole mission to help other people find meaning and purpose. Once the flywheel starts going, the next steps are easier. And so sometimes it takes a while to get cranking. I know for me, there are a few years as we’re starting a new family that definitely gave life hope and meaning. It’s sort of amazing when you have young kids. You come home, and they kind of just run to you and hug you, and with this immense, unconditional love. It’s almost hard to process the unconditional love of your kids, especially when you’re broken. It’s hard to comprehend that kind of love, but it’s incredibly meaningful and healing. So it wasn’t easy in the ’90s. That flywheel took a while to get going for me, I got to say.

Gary Schneeberger:

Well, flywheels crank a little bit. It takes a while to get them cranked up.

Warwick Fairfax:

The first couple cranks can be slow, but around about ’96 or something when I got a job in a local aviation services firm, this was just kind of pre-internet, so didn’t really know who I was. So I was working in financial business marketing analysis. Got good performance reviews. Yes, I had my cubicle moment when I realized I wasn’t using all my skills and abilities for God or for some greater purpose.

But that was an important part of the flywheel of hope because I felt like maybe this isn’t the ideal job, but I was doing it well, and I was working hard, as I always do, in everything I do. It’s one of my highest values. I was getting very good performance reviews. Now, I respected the bosses I had and just tried to the best of my ability serve them and what they were trying to do. So the flywheel started cranking faster at that point. And it’s cranked. There’d been moments where it’s cranked faster with each decision, at each moment to move forward. But it’s not easy to see when you’re looking back, okay, we’re going to move to Annapolis, Maryland. Okay. What’s that going to mean? But that was part of the flywheel moving forward. And you have to believe that it will lead to other things if you just keep having that flywheel of hope perspective.

Gary Schneeberger:

Right. And that’s when a one small step becomes one major moment in your life. One of the quotes I pulled, and I have bad luck pulling quotes in that they’re really good quotes, but there’s always a name I can’t pronounce. It’s like I’m going to get this wrong. This is a quote, I’m going to guess the name is Lamine Pearlheart. It’s a quote from Lamine. “It’s the little keys that open big doors.” That’s another mic drop moment for me. It’s the little keys that open big doors. It’s that one small step that can then trigger that flywheel of hope. And next thing you know, you’ve created Beyond the Crucible, and you’re helping all of these people, including listeners to this podcast, get over their worst day. Understand their worst day doesn’t define them.

So we’ve gone through the four points of the blog just to remind listeners what they are. I’m going to keep talking and stretching it out till I can read them again. Here we go. The first thing that you wish you had known after your crucible moment was it’s okay to give yourself permission to grieve. Second thing was feeling broken does not mean you are worthless. Point three, we are not defined by our worst day. And point four is on the other side of this piece of paper. Here it is. Point four is a small step forward can be a defining moment.

All of this stuff, listener, again, all of these insights are on Warwick’s latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com. Before we get into what you always end your blogs with, really insightful reflection questions, summarize what we’ve been through, Warwick. I’ll flip your question on you. Why do you think these four points, the way you’ve articulated them in the blog, in this podcast, how and why do you think that will offer hope to folks who are listening and folks who will be reading?

Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, I think it just starts with this notion that your worst day doesn’t have to define you. That we may be feel broken, but you’re not broken forever. Shards like the Japanese pottery. I think it’s-

Gary Schneeberger:

Kintsugi.

Warwick Fairfax:

There you go.

Gary Schneeberger:

Kintsugi.

Warwick Fairfax:

Exactly. You can sort of glue those pieces together, and obviously in kintsugi it’s like gold paste, if you will, to glue them together. So you may feel broken, but you’re not broken forever. You’re not worthless, you’re not defined by your worst day. It’s really realizing that you’re not just defined by your worst day, but you won’t be in that pit forever. It’s a moment in time, and you have a choice to move forward. Sometimes there are consequences, I realize, depending on the crucible, but there can be a better day.

And really part of it too is realizing, if you have a purpose and a mission in life, we talk about the value of a life of significance, life on purpose dedicated to serving others, and there is some healing. There is some worthwhile, I mean, I enjoy writing, I love hearing other people’s stories on the podcast because I learned so much for my own life. I’m a reflective person, so I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to podcast guests and going, boy, I love what they said. And just really trying to think about that. What does it do for my viewpoint in my life?

So I feel like what I’m doing now is a blessing because, in my own small way, I am trying to lead a life of significance, to serve others, to have a higher sense of purpose. So yeah, I believe that your worst day does not have to define you. You don’t have to be in that pit forever. You just have to start taking some of the steps we talked about. Move forward, take those small steps. And part of what maybe pulls you out of the pit is, when you have that sense of higher purpose, a vision of how this could help people, it’s like there’s a rope being dangled down the pit, pulling you up out of that pit. And so, assuming that the cliff has some footholds and handholds, you can try and get out of it by yourself. But when you have that vision, it really helps you get out of the pit faster.

Gary Schneeberger:

You’ve mentioned a couple times here on this episode, Warwick, that you’re a reflective person and you always end your blogs with questions of reflection. And listener, I encourage you to listen to these, and to truly reflect on them because part of the way you’re going to get meaning that you can apply to your life out of this discussion is to reflect on these questions.

So question one is is there some area in your life where you need to give yourself permission to grieve? Do you feel like you need to journal, or talk to a friend, or seek some counseling? And Warwick didn’t write this here, but I’m going to add it here, then do it. Take that first step. It may not feel like a small step, but take that first step. Do it. If you feel like you should do it, do it. The rewards will be great as you move through.

Second point of reflection, what can you do to help you feel that you may be broken, but that you still have worth and value? Do you feel called to read and meditate on a spiritual or philosophical way of thought? Is there someone you know who can give you some positive encouragement? Words of affirmation will knock out those words of degradation all the time. Speak them to yourself and surround yourself with people who can speak them to you. And then the third point of reflection, what one small step can you take that will give you a glimmer of hope that there is a way out of the pit? I’ll add something after that too, ponder it, reflect on it, and then have the courage to take that step. Warwick, we’ve come to the end of our conversation. What would you like to leave listeners with before we go?

Warwick Fairfax:

On your worst day, it is hard to have hope. It’s hard if somebody says, “Oh, you know, this too shall pass,” which is sometimes people’s least favorite aphorism. It’s like, oh, it’s easy for you to say. You’re not where I am. Thank you so much. But I guess you just have to take this leap of faith. You have to make a choice that the pain may be excruciating, but you’ve got to believe that there is a way out, that there is a glimmer of light, even if you can’t see it. Because if you say there is no hope, there is no glimmer of light, then there won’t be. Your words will become reality. Your words will put like a cement block on top of that pit.

Gary Schneeberger:

I have been in the communications business long enough, I say all the time, when I know the last word has been spoken on a subject. And Warwick just spoke it about our robust discussion about his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com. So until the next time we’re together, folks, remember this. You’ve heard it throughout this entire episode. We understand. Warwick understands truly. He talked about it, how painful crucibles are. His was painful, mine was painful, yours are painful. But remember this too, that there is a flywheel of hope. There is a way to get out of the pit. There is a way to move beyond it to set a course for the next stage of your life, the next act of your life, which can be the most rewarding act of your life because where it leads to is a life of significance.

If you enjoyed this episode, learned something from it, we invite you to engage more deeply with those of us at Beyond The Crucible. Visit our website, beyondthecrucible.com, to explore a plethora of offerings to help you transform what’s been broken into breakthrough. A great place to start, our free online assessment, which will help you pinpoint where you are on your journey beyond your crucible, and to chart a course forward. See you next week.