Over the last five years, Beyond the Crucible has conducted a two-phase quantitative study to develop a valid, projectable understanding of how people experience life’s crucible moments. We wanted to understand how some people turn trials into triumphs — and why others get stuck in the aftermath, sometimes spinning their wheels for months, years or even decades without being able to truly move on.

On our podcast, Beyond the Crucible, we have recorded more than 120 interviews (and counting) with people who have not only bounced back from their own crucible moments, but successfully bounced forward to build new lives of significance. In listening to these stories, we noticed something: No matter how different the crucible stories and their bounce-back journeys were, they all shared certain beats along the path to recovery and significance. Every person’s story was so very different — yet they had remarkably similar touchstones.

What if we could actually identify a predictable path for bouncing forward from a crucible moment to a life of significance? We theorized that if we could do so, we could help people accelerate their journey forward. And we might even be able to help people who were stuck on the path from trial to triumph get unstuck and start moving again.

The Big Aha Moments: Mapping the Journey from Trials to Triumphs

After surveying more than 11,000 people from all walks of life across the United States, six important learnings emerged.

1. Most of us admit to having experienced at least one devastating loss or setback in life that changed us for good. Nearly three of every four people (72 percent) report that they have experienced at least one crucible moment so traumatic or painful that it fundamentally altered the course of their lives.

2. What about the 28 percent of people who say they haven’t had a crucible moment? In short, they’re in denial. No one gets to sail through life without having their trajectory altered by some loss, failure, or setback. About 1 in every 4 people have experienced what we call “veiled crucibles” — crucible moments that remain unacknowledged by their bearers, but still have a measurable and discernible effect on their lives.

3. There is a predictable map for moving from crucible to triumphs in life. This bounce-forward map is comprised of five progressive stages:

4. Your starting point on your personal path from crucible moment to a life of significance is not a product of your age, gender, personality, ZIP code, marital status, religious affiliation, or any other label or reason. It is 100 percent a product of how you see yourself, your crucible, and your place in the world at a particular moment in time. It is a “you are here” indicator on your own personal path from trial to triumph.

5. One of the things that surprised us most in the research: As part of our hypothesis, we posited that people who understood how they were wired would be better at bouncing forward from their crucible or following their own path. (At Beyond the Crucible, we refer to this as understanding how you were “designed.”) In fact? No. Knowing how you are inherently designed — what you’re good at and what you’re bad at, what you like doing and what you don’t — does not give you a statistical leg up or a shortcut on your Trials-to-Triumphs journey. While understanding your design may accelerate certain stages of your personal journey across the map (such as how fast you can turn your vision into reality, for instance), it does not fundamentally change your path. Moving from trial to triumph is all about moving through your crucible, learning to let go of the pain associated with it, casting a significant new vision for your life, and charting a course to transform that vision from an idea into your reality.

6. While there is one map, everyone’s journey from crucible to triumph is not the same. There are six different types of journeys, or paths across the map, that people can take to bounce forward. Take our free Beyond the Crucible Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to find your own unique “you are here” mark on the map” as you being your journey. Then listen to our podcast series unpacking each of the profiles to learn more about how you can triumph a reality in your life.

Reflection

  1.  Have you found yourself stuck in trying to move beyond your crucible? If so what can you do to start moving forward?
  2. Which of the five stages of moving beyond your crucible has presented you the most challenges? Why do you think that is?
  3. When you think about “triumphs” in the aftermath of your crucible, what does that destination look like for you? Write down as many thoughts as come to mind, so you can refer to them after you take the assessment as you chart your course to a life of significance.

Are you ready to move from trials to triumphs? Then join us on the journey today.  Take our free Beyond the Crucible Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment.

We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.

Listen to our Beyond the Crucible Podcast here.

Many leaders want to grow, to advance in their careers, and some want to grow as human beings as well. One of the tools we can use to grow in every sense of that word is by having mentors. Mentors can be one way we accelerate our learning and potentially accelerate the process of becoming who we want to be. It is not a cure all for solving all our career or life challenges. But it can certainly be helpful.

I have had some experience with mentors. Some were quite helpful and others were not as helpful.

We may be wondering what we should be looking for in a mentor. Here are some tips to finding the right mentor.

1. We have to be ready. We have to be at a point in our life and our careers where we want to learn. We want to grow. And we are open to help from others to get us there. This is critical. If we feel we know everything, asking for advice from a mentor will be pointless. We will be wasting their time and ours.

2. Do a readiness check. To ensure we are ready for a mentor, we need to do an internal check, a soul check if you will. We need to start from a place of humility. There is much we don’t know and much we need to know. We want to minimize our mistakes and accelerate our growth in our careers and lives. We must make the commitment to listen, even if the advice we hear is not always pleasant. Growth can be painful. It typically is. So count the cost ahead of time.

3.The right mentor matters. We need to define what we are looking for in a mentor and why we feel we need one. Perhaps we want to get further in our careers; it could be many different kinds of jobs. Perhaps we are a new mother or father and want to get advice from those parents who we admire and want to learn from.

4. A good mentor knows more than we do. If we feel a prospective mentor does not know much more in their field than we do, it may not be a great fit. A good mentor will be someone we admire. Not only do they know more than we do in our field, but they are doing it the right way. How they do their job is as important as the job they are actually doing. We might want to do our job and grow in our career the right way. Treating people well, not cutting legal or ethical corners. We want to grow in our vision and impact in our profession and we want to be around people with similar values to us and who have vision and want to impact the world in a positive way.

5. A great mentor is a great listener and asks great questions. They will not tell us what we should do. They will not give us a roadmap. They will not tell us how they grew in their career and then tell us we should use exactly the same approach. A great mentor will ask us great questions. They will want to know what our goals are, what our values are and what vision we have for our career and our life. They will ask us about legacy and what we want to leave behind. They will ask us if our lives and careers are all about us or about serving others and some higher purpose.

6. A great mentor will make us do the work. They will not do it all for us and write a big report with all the career steps laid out. They are there to guide and advise and ask us great questions. But ultimately, the responsibility for growing in our careers and lives is up to us. It is our responsibility not theirs

7. A good mentor will share our values. They will also have a balance with being encouraging and affirming while also seeking to push us forward in a gentle way to achieve the goals we say we care so deeply about. Values matter. If we say we want to be humble servant leaders who strive to be about the team and not so much about our own agenda, and that we want to make a positive difference in the world; we need to find mentors who share those values and objectives. This is critical. Mentors who have values and goals different than us could well lead us down a path to becoming exactly what we don’t want to become.

Growth in our lives and careers is not easy. We definitely need all the help we can get. Having a mentor can be helpful. But is not a cure all. Ultimately, we need to take ownership of our lives, our decisions and our mistakes. To make our vision for our lives become reality, we have to take positive steps forward, one day at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time. It will take humility, perseverance and forgiving ourselves and others. It is a long journey. If we believe our mission is important enough, we will keep going. This is our journey and our lives. Mentors are there to assist us, to help us get there faster but also become the person we want to be. A great mentor can be invaluable, an important tool in our careers and our lives. But it is only a tool. We are responsible for our lives and the growth in our lives. No one else is responsible for this.

Reflection

You are more than your failures and setbacks.

We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.

Listen to our Beyond the Crucible Podcast here.