The Valuable Lessons in Others’ Mistakes | Turning Other People’s Mistakes Into Your Success

Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond The Crucible. I’m Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. To be able to calmly analyze what happened and what are the lessons in other people’s misfortunes and mistakes, we’ve got to be able to forgive. Because very often those mistakes and misfortunes, like in the case of abuse, may have directly affected us, may have caused us immense pain. And so forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning, but you’ve got to find a way to forgive them for what they did.

Gary Schneeberger:
Forgive them for what they did, come to terms with how what happened to them has affected you. That’s what we discussed this week as we unpack Warwick’s latest blog called How Others’ Mistakes Can Teach Us Valuable Lessons. He explains the difference it can make in our lives to hit the reset button, understand the why, and to decide to live differently. Warwick, we are back again this week with the kind of episode that we do about once a month, and that is, it’s based on a blog that you’ve written.
It’s available right now at beyondthecrucible.com, and it’s called How Others’ Mistakes Can Teach Us Valuable Lessons. Very, very intriguing subject for us here at Beyond The Crucible, and I really wanted to start with asking you, what was it? Because this one isn’t a typical one that you’ve written before. What was it that prompted you to write on this particular subject?

Warwick Fairfax:
That is a really good question, Gary. What did prompt me to write this blog and want to discuss the subject? I find I often write blogs, think of things to discuss based on things I’m struggling with, things I’m pondering. And we often talk about how do we bounce back from our own crucibles? How do we get beyond them? How do we learn from our own mistakes or from maybe bad things that happened to us? Some of which may not be our fault. And that’s very valuable. You have to learn the lessons from your crucible to be able to bounce back and find a vision that leads to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So that’s very helpful.
But I was thinking to myself, “Well, what about learning the lessons from mistakes and misfortunes that others have gone through, maybe even their own crucibles?” And it’s complicated because sometimes other people’s mistakes and misfortunes can actually become our crucibles. We’ve had people that have grown up in abusive backgrounds, and those mistakes in this case of others have led directly to their own crucibles and sometimes other people’s mistakes and misfortunes can lead to our own mistakes and misfortunes and even crucibles.

Gary Schneeberger:
And to make it even more complex, is that those mistakes and misfortunes many times don’t manifest themselves to the people to whom they happen as crucibles. So there are situations that maybe others don’t see as crucibles that affect us as crucibles. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. So there’s a lot of uneasiness around this subject, I think, in some ways.

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And sometimes it could be a friend who suffered a physical misfortune or maybe abuse or what have you. It doesn’t affect you directly, but you are their best friend and you grieve for them. And it’s something that’s just present. And whether it’s something you’ve experienced directly because of somebody else’s mistakes and misfortunes, whether it’s mistakes and misfortunes of others that have not really affected you directly, that have not led to a personal crucible for you. Maybe you’ve just read about somebody, watched a documentary, learned from history. There are many tragic circumstances that we can learn from. And so either way, we talk a lot about learning valuable lessons from our own crucibles.
Well, I think we can’t ignore the opportunity to learn valuable lessons from other people’s mistakes and misfortunes, whether they affected us directly or not, they’re extremely valuable. And when I think of my own life, there were mistakes and misfortunes in my own family that affected me in some sense, but certainly they were things that I could learn from. So just to give some examples, I think of my parents. My father was married three times, my mother was married twice, and I saw the consequences of growing up with divorced parents. So I was fortunate in that I was from the last marriage of each. So I wasn’t shuttling from one parent to another parent, and that’s normal for many.
So in that sense, I was fortunate. But I remember thinking to myself as I was growing up, “I don’t want to go through what my parents did. I would like ideally, if I could, marry one time or at least to my level best, to marry the right person and be the right person.” You need both, in my opinion, for a happy marriage. And I’m blessed. I’ve been married to my wife for, gosh, this month it’ll be 36 years. So yes, those trials of my parents provided a very valuable lesson for me in that sense. Another lesson I can think of was in my father’s younger years, when he was in his thirties, maybe forties, and he was in his first marriage, he grew up in a very wealthy background.
As listeners know, he was head of a very large what became 150 year old family media business in Australia. And he was a lot older when I was born. So when he was younger in the 1930s and early forties, he had nannies to help raise his kids, which was somewhat normal back then. And there was a time in the thirties where he and his first wife went to England for a year without his very young kids. That might seem just unbelievably strange, almost wrong, but that was somewhat normal for wealthy parents back in the day. And so when I was growing up, fortunately my father was a lot more present and we spent a lot of time together. And as listeners probably know, one of the ways we bonded was talking about history.
He loved history. So when I was very small, I’d say, “Daddy, tell me some history.” And we’d have these great conversations. So he was present for me. But all that’s to say is as we were having young kids in the nineties, I was very focused on, I want to be a present dad. I don’t want to take some job as whatever, investment banking, management, consulting, whatever profession that is somewhat common for Harvard Business School graduates, as I then was to do. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I wanted to make sure that I would be present as my kids grew up. And as it happens when we have birthdays, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, we give words of affirmation.
And when it’s Father’s Day or my birthday, my kids will talk about, “Hey dad, you’re always there for my sports game or dance recital or choir, what have you.” That’s like about the first thing they say on the list. You are present, you were there. So clearly it mattered to them. It mattered to me. So I wouldn’t have been so focused I don’t think on being a present father if not for the lessons from my parents and my father in this particular case. It’s not like I suffered the consequences of my father’s mistakes. Maybe some of my older siblings did. I did not. So it didn’t directly affect me, but I was able to learn from it because I didn’t want the path that he led when he was younger.
So all that’s to say is well… And I guess some other lessons I’ve learned quite a few, I guess. I’d like to think. Growing up in a very wealthy family business, you can have your identity wrapped up, in my case, of being a Fairfax, a descendant of the founder, John Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather. And it’s like, who am I if I’m not a Fairfax? Being a person of faith, I’d like to think my identity is in Christ and as a child of God, but I didn’t want my identity to be wrapped up in that, which maybe it was to a degree and I was in charge of this family business, but sometimes people with wealth can think they’re better than other people. Even when I was very, very young, it was like, “That will not be me.”
That’s the one reason that humility is one of my highest values. I don’t want people to think that I think that I’m better than anybody else because I’m not. We’re all different. It doesn’t make me better. So growing up in a wealthy background made me very focused on the value of humility, not thinking of myself more highly than I should, and not thinking that myself is better than anybody else. I mean, those are just some lessons that I’ve learned from my background and my parents, in some cases, my parents’ mistakes. So I guess all this to say, just to sum up as we sort of start this discussion, there are often valuable lessons we can learn from others.
They may have affected us or not affected us, but either way, I think why wouldn’t we want to learn these valuable lessons from other people? Because it’s really a rich territory to mine from.

Gary Schneeberger:
And it’s rich territory to mine from and there’s many opportunities to mine it because, let’s face it, as we go through life and bump into each other, family, friends, total strangers. We’re bumping into each other, we’re going to get a little bit of us on other people for good or ill. And when it comes for ill, when it comes for mistakes and how the mistakes of others affect us, you’re absolutely right. You’ve got to be able to, in order to get to your life of significance, to live out your vision, you’ve got to be able to adapt to learn the lessons of those situations as well, which is why this blog is so valuable, I think.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s so true. Gosh, we’ve had unfortunately a number of people who’ve suffered abuse, and we’ve had people that suffer from alcoholism. I mean a number of things. And it’s often the case that those who’ve been abused will abuse others, maybe even those who have been alcoholics can become alcoholics, I don’t know. But certainly in the case of abuse. And so I think we have the opportunity to break that generational cycle so that we’re better for our kids, our stepkids, our families. We can break the cycle.
And so that’s why this isn’t just some academic exercise. This is very, very important to learn these lessons, especially when there’s been generational mistakes, generational misfortune. There are some cases where we can chart a different course. So learning these lessons can be not just valuable to us. They can be valuable to all those we love and care about.

Gary Schneeberger:
Well, let’s dive in then to how we learn those lessons, the lessons we can learn and how we can apply them. Again, the blog is called How Others Mistakes Can Teach Us Valuable Lessons. Warwick’s been talking about kind of the on-ramp to the discussion. Now here’s the meat and potatoes of the discussion, the points from the blog. And the first point there, Warwick, is hit the reset button. So why is that both important and a good place to start?

Warwick Fairfax:
So often with mistakes and misfortunes, there can be a sea of emotions. We’ve used some examples. Let’s say you’ve been abused. You might have this incredible sense of anger, of feeling like a victim. This is so unfair. But before you can start thinking about, well, how do I learn from this? You have to find a way to kind of hit the reset button and understand what happened, understand the pain that you’ve suffered, but try to look at it in an objective manner because when you’re full of a sea of emotions and anger, it’s very difficult to almost clinically analyze it. Again, that doesn’t mean that we condone what happened.
It could be family members who’ve lived lives in a way that hurt themselves or hurt you, so you can feel sorrow for what they went through anger for what they did to you. It might include family members or those you care about who’ve suffered a life-altering injury or illness. You might feel angry at what happened, angry at God, or the universe, however you sort of frame it. You might feel this incredible sense of injustice. But for us to be able to calmly look at it, you’ve got to hit the reset button and separate the often understandable emotions from what happened.

Gary Schneeberger:
And then point two logically follows… I love this when you do a blog, everything is a step. Everything is a stepping stone to get where we’re going. And the second point that you have is a critical one that we talk about quite a bit at Beyond The Crucible, and that is to forgive.

Warwick Fairfax:
So it really is a point that follows on from hit the reset button, to be able to calmly analyze what happened and what are the lessons in other people’s misfortunes and mistakes. We’ve got to be able to forgive because very often those mistakes and misfortunes, like in the case of abuse, may have directly affected us, may have caused us immense pain. And so as I mentioned a minute ago, forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning, but you’ve got to find a way to forgive them for what they did. If it’s, let’s say, some tragedy that somebody you love went through such as an illness or life-altering physical challenge, maybe that forgiveness might be to try and forgive God or some higher power.
And from my perspective, from a Christian perspective, it’s not that God causes things. He might allow things for reasons that we can’t often possibly understand or fathom. But however you look at it, you’ve got to find a way to not be consumed by anger and find a way to forgive. You can’t learn and understand the lessons of what happened to others or as to what others did that affected you. Unless you can calmly look at the situation and say, “Yes, I have to hit the reset button.” You’ve got to find a way to forgive. If you can’t forgive, I think it’s almost impossible to learn any lessons from situations that might be rich territory you learn from.

Gary Schneeberger:
And you’ve talked often about forgiveness really is for yourself. Forgiving other people is really for yourself in the sense of you release the hold that whatever occurred because of the other person is having on you. So talk about that a little bit, that forgiveness, yes, you forgive another person, but the chief beneficiary is yourself, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s so true. When we talk about even people who’ve been victims of abuse, the reason you forgive certainly one reason is because if you don’t forgive, we often say it’s like drinking poison or being in a prison. You’re consumed with anger and angry people sadly often take out their anger on other people. Anger leaks and you cannot control typically where that anger will manifest itself. You might end up being angry with people who you love dearly who had no part in the abuse that you went through.
It’s not their fault. They may be wonderful people, but you take it out on them. That’s not right, and then it will cause you more anguish and angst. “How could I have done that? It wasn’t their fault.” So anger tends to leak. It’s really important to forgive. You don’t want to be that person, and you don’t want to be consumed by anger. It’s just anger can just destroy your life.

Gary Schneeberger:
And your third point kind of is what helps with forgiveness. If it’s hard for you to get to the point, folks, where you’re able to find forgiveness for the things that we’re talking about. Warwick’s third point, understand the why can really help you in your walk toward finding forgiveness for those whose misfortunes and mistakes have impacted your life. Explain a little bit how that works, how understanding the why is so critical.

Warwick Fairfax:
I know in my own life with some challenging circumstances that I’ve faced with my family, understanding why they were the way they were, maybe some of the things that they went through may have been very damaging. In some ways helps me forgive. It doesn’t mean condoning, but it’s like I can see or suspect some of the reasons that they behaved the way they did. Again, doesn’t mean it was acceptable, it doesn’t mean I condone it, but it does help to forgive if you understand the why. So in the case of some of the guests we’ve had on the podcast, very often people that abuse have been abused themselves. It’s sadly statistically very common. That does not at all make it right.
It does not at all mean that you should condone it, but if you imagine, “Gosh, my father and mother were the way they were…” And again, just looking at some of the guests we’ve had, you can say, “Well, that wasn’t right, but I understand it.” Those two statements are really important. It was not right. But I understand some of what may have led them to behave that way. I will choose a different course. I will choose not to behave the way they did because life’s about choices. I understand the why and I’m not going to make the same mistake.

Gary Schneeberger:
Good. Fourth point, again tied to that, and that’s understanding something else that’s very critical and that’s understand what they might’ve done differently. So once you grasp the why, you sort of have an idea of why they turned out the way they did, they acted the way they did, then you can understand what they might’ve done differently. And it’s important to really reach around in there because you can’t get to the next point without going through this point like many of these points. So talk a little bit, Warwick, about why understanding what they might’ve done differently is a key piece to what you’re talking about.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s very true. I think really the example of my father that I mentioned, being married three times and with his younger kids, especially from his first marriage not being as present, he was working very hard in the newspapers those days. And then as I mentioned, he was away for a year with his first wife when his two kids, a son and a daughter, were very young. So I think there are lessons to be learned. And what’s interesting is my father did learn those lessons and I was the beneficiary of the lessons that he learned. Because when I was growing up and he was in his sixties and early seventies through the time that I was younger, he was a very present father.
I mean, it was clear to me… And yes, you could say he was more like grandfather age, but he was still through a lot of that time, chairman of John Fairfax Limited, the family media company, a lot going on at the time. We had newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, magazines, newsprint mills, and it was a very large company. So if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have to be present. He could have worked all kinds of hours, but he didn’t. We would go on different holidays, vacations, we would go on camping trips to the Outback and the May holidays in Australia at the time, and then we’d go up to far northern Queensland in the August holidays, which is sort of a tropical.
He was a present dad. And so the fact that he learned those lessons meant that I had a different upbringing than my older brother and sister from my father’s first marriage. So he understood what he might’ve done differently by definition, and that led me to have a very different upbringing and a very close relationship with my father. I mean, it was hugely helpful. So obviously I realize that my father, my mother, it’s complex, but I think ideally both of them would have married once, would have made sure they married the right person and being the right person. And certainly there are lessons.
I think just more generally when you look at your own circumstance with your parents, or maybe you have friends from high school, maybe they kind of experimented with drugs, marijuana or what have you, and that led to cocaine or various other things. You might think, “Gosh, we were such close friends when we were in elementary and middle school and we just went in different directions and maybe we still would have been close friends if they’d made different choices. But their lifestyle made it almost incompatible to be friends because we just had different values and my life and their life have gone very different directions.”
So you can look back and say, “Gosh, I wish they’d made different decisions because it’s ruined their lives.” So I think understanding whether it’s our parent’s close friends, or just maybe those we know and think to ourselves life is about choices, but what choices might they have made that have their life so different?

Gary Schneeberger:
And that’s a great place to pause for a second because it occurred to me as I was looking through these points, and we’ve gone through four of them so far, folks. Hit the reset button, forgive, understand the why, and understand what they might have done differently. And what’s interesting to me about that work, we haven’t talked about this beforehand, but those four points are all about being others focused to help yourself. Focusing on the experiences and the behavior of others as a way to help yourself.
And now we’re going to pivot into ways that you can focus on yourself to help yourself. And the fifth point is break the cycle. So talk about why breaking the cycle is important, but also talk about this idea of looking, examining others to help ourselves, but then also pivoting and helping ourselves.

Warwick Fairfax:
That’s a really interesting perspective, Gary. I hadn’t really thought about that until you mentioned it. I guess you’re right. The first four points are focused on learning from others, understanding the why, forgiving, understand what they might have done differently, and now we’re going to be pivoting to how those lessons and others can help you. We talk sometimes about the inner journey precedes the outer journey. Well, in this case, the reflection on others and what you can learn from them proceeds how you move forward and the lessons you take from them. So I guess this particular one, breaks the cycle.
As we said, it is often the case that we don’t learn from history. Sadly, there’s a reason we study history because there have been mistakes that countries and leaders of countries have made, and history does tend to repeat itself because we tend not to learn the lessons. How could it be possible? I guess it’s just human nature, maybe a lack of curiosity, a lack of desire to learn. I’m not sure. But with break the cycle, it’s an opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes and just chart a different course. We said before that it’s all too common for people who’ve been abused to abuse their own children.
We need to say, “What was done to me was wrong. I cannot, I will. I refuse to do it to my loved ones, kids, spouse. I’m going to chart a different course. I’m going to understand why they acted the way they did to the best of my ability. I’m going to forgive, not condone. I’m going to hit the reset button and I’m going to make a decision that I will not live the way that maybe my parents did or others that I loved did.” Maybe back to the example of friends in high school, maybe they did drugs, and some people may have more of a tendency than others. Maybe you’re under stress and just, “Gosh, I’d love something to ease the pain and just numb what I’m going through.”
And it’s like, “But I remember Billy growing up and nah, I will not succumb to that temptation. I will not do what he did, even though I may be tempted, but no, I’m not doing that.” So making a decision to break the cycle can be so helpful. In my case, my parents had this spoken and unspoken expectation that I would go into the family media business. They never said, “Hey, Warwick, look, this is what I did,” in the case of my father. “But you don’t have to go into it. It’s been here 150 years. Empires fall, empires rise. Nothing goes on forever, at least in this world.” But he was not able to do that. That was certainly a lesson that he was not able to learn.
So with my own kids, my oldest son had a birthday yesterday, and we do words of affirmation. And one of the things I said is, “Money and success is really not what I’m focused on. I want you to be happy and I’m grateful for the person that you are. And really faith and character to me is what’s important.” So I’ve never said to my kids, “You’ve got to achieve A or achieve B and be an accountant, a lawyer, or find your own entrepreneurial business.” I’ve never said any of that. So I’ve really tried to break the cycle of ideally, not obviously always under our control, but to the best ability I could to marry once, not three times in the case of my father.
But I’ve also tried to break the cycle in terms of not putting expectations on my kids to be in some family business or to achieve some benchmark of success. And so I think there’s real opportunities in breaking the cycle for you to have a better life and for your kids and loved ones to have a better life. So breaking the cycle, it’s a decision. It’s an absolute line in the sand decision is I will break the cycle. I will live differently. I will be different. I’ll make my own mistakes. I’m not perfect, but I’ll do my level best to break the cycle.

Gary Schneeberger:
I’ve never thought about it in the terms I’m about to express it. In all the years that we’ve worked together, all the years that we’ve hosted the show, I imagine that there are people, whether they speak it to you or not, who think when they think of Warwick Fairfax. They think, “Man, that guy, bad luck, lost the media company and he missed out on some prodigious riches.” What you’ve lived though, what they don’t understand though is you have accumulated even more prodigious riches in a different way.
And that’s really what you’re talking about right there when you’re talking about it’s not about money and wealth and power and all that stuff. It’s about sitting around the table talking to your family about what you appreciate and love about them. That’s the rich life, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
That’s very well said. Very well said. I mean, I’m fortunate we’re still very financially comfortable, but as comfortable when you grow up in a business that’s very large, and I made a $2.25 billion takeover, there’s a few more zeros. Money and wealth, fame, houses, large companies don’t necessarily make you happy. They typically don’t because as we often say, you don’t want your money and possessions to own you. You want to own them. And typically it’s the other way around. They own you. I mean, there may be a few less zeros, but my kids didn’t grow up with the expectation of having to go into the family business. They grew up in the US where the name Fairfax doesn’t really mean as much.
I mean, they were just able to be normal people with normal friends, and they all work hard, have strong faith and character, and they didn’t have to grow up with all of that wealth. So yes, I mean, when I think of my wife and my kids, what do you want to be rich in? To me, you want to be rich in family, in faith, in significance, in the things that really build up your soul. Building up your soul and the souls of others is I think a lot more valuable than really building up your bank account. Where do you want to be rich in? Your soul, your friends or your bank account? I mean, which is going to make you more eternally happy. I think it’s pretty clear.

Gary Schneeberger:
And it’s also pretty clear because what we’re talking about folks is Warwick’s blog, which is called How Others Mistakes and Misfortunes, he’s added, can teach us valuable lessons and what we’ve been talking about, what that summation was just about Warwick is that you learn valuable lessons about what’s really important in life through the way that you were raised and the experiences you had when you were younger. And actually, I didn’t even realize this, but 0.6 of the blog is what I just said without saying it, and that is learn the lessons.
You’ve learned the lessons, right? Talk about that. Why is learning the lessons so important? You’ve just expressed how you learned them. Why is it so important for everybody to do that?

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s kind of funny. I literally just talked about that, didn’t I?

Gary Schneeberger:
I know.

Warwick Fairfax:
But so I think gratitude comes, at least in my case, from learning those lessons. So again, back to my situation, I wanted to marry somebody that loved me for who I was not being the heir to some very large family fortune and family business. I was looking for faith and character and common interests and common outlook in life. So there were lessons I learned from the fact of my parents being married multiple times, from my father not being as present a dad with his kids from his first marriage as he was with me, of some of my family having their identity wrapped up in the family media business. I mean, there was really, as I think about it, a treasure trove of lessons for me and my family.
There were many, many lessons. I mean almost a cornucopia of lessons that I could learn, if you will. So I didn’t know that I was very grateful for it growing up because I was affected by that in many ways. I mean, what I’ve been through, and I think I’ve talked about this quite a bit in my book, Crucible Leadership. In one of the chapters on authenticity, I say I grew up in the world of the inauthentic. And by that I mean the dinner parties and cocktail parties that we had growing up with ambassadors, prime ministers, the odd visiting Hollywood person, the rich and the famous. So many of them were just concerned about their image and bragging about who they’d met and the business deal they’d done.
And it’s like I became almost allergic to that. And so one of my passions is being authentic, which I really try to my level best ability to be authentic. Well, why? Because I hated the whole inauthentic putting on the mask. So another lesson that I’ve learned so many of my values and the way I want to live my life is because of the lessons that I have learned.

Gary Schneeberger:
Very well said, and again, builds right to the next point, point number seven. You mentioned in talking about point number six that some of the lessons that you learned, you didn’t really learn them when you were younger because you were kind of in it, but you learned them later. This seventh point is something that you learned later, that you experienced later in your life. And that seventh point is find an anchor for your soul. We talk about that a lot here at Beyond The Crucible. Why is that so important to how others mistakes can teach us valuable lessons?

Warwick Fairfax:
I think as you try to lead a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, it’s really important to find an anchor for your soul because I think it’s often the case that those who’ve made mistakes, whether they abuse people or they have their identity wrapped up in their wealth and money, maybe they marry the wrong people. It’s often they don’t have this anchor for their soul. They don’t really have the set of beliefs and values that govern every decision they make. So maybe they’re thinking of getting married to the man or woman of their dreams, and are they thinking about, “What’s the anchor for my soul? And do my set of beliefs and values correlate with what that other person’s beliefs and values are?”
That other person might seem like a wonderful human being that we respect, but if you have fundamentally different beliefs and values, it’s not about whether you’re right or they’re right or you’re wrong, they’re wrong. That’s not so much the point here. It’s really important to have a common set of beliefs and values, from my perspective, for marriage, if you’re going into business with somebody. Maybe they don’t have quite the same belief and values, but some of them better be the same. If your values are humility and integrity and theirs are like arrogance and win at all costs, and let’s crush the little guy. That’s incompatible.
I don’t care how much money they have, how much expertise, maybe they have a patent on some game changing invention. Run, flee, it will not work. So finding an anchor for your soul, it’s very practical, whether it’s thinking about who you will marry or be in relationship with, who you’ll be in business with, it’s absolutely critical. As you move forward, you’re trying to learn the lessons of other people’s mistakes and misfortunes, some of which may have been your crucible. You’re trying to learn these lessons and choose a path that’s different. Well, in choosing that path, it’s my belief that we need help. We need help from other people, but I believe that we need help from a higher power.
In my case, it’s my faith in Christ. And as I was trying to bounce back from the adversity, I went through losing a $2.25 billion business, just being incredibly self-critical of the mistakes I made. Having an anchor in my faith and scripture memory like Philippians 3, forgetting what is behind, straining toward what is ahead to win the prize, which God has called me heaven in Christ Jesus. There are a number of scriptures, a number of key biblical thoughts that helped me move forward, and that helped me find that anchor for my soul, which would really govern every decision that I made, whether it was marrying Gail, the person I did.
Whether it was, I guess in about 2003 when I was working for an aviation services business, doing marketing and business analysis. I just felt like God saying, “You’re playing small. You’re not using all your gifts and abilities for me.” It’s not so much about the job being above me, beneath me, but that anchor for my soul helped me through some executive coaching, through somebody that did mid-career assessments, said, “Warwick, you have a great profile based on some assessment tests to be an executive coach.” And that led me ultimately on the path that I am now with Beyond The Crucible.
I talked about the details of this story elsewhere, but that anchor for my soul has led me to make better decisions than I would have otherwise.

Gary Schneeberger:
Friends, I want you to do something for me at this point, in this episode. I want you to take a look at a calendar, find a calendar in your house or on your phone, just look at a calendar. And I would like you to, if you can, circle the date, don’t do it on your phone, but circle the date on your calendar if you can, mark the date on your phone because this is a truly paradigm shifting day in the history of the Beyond The Crucible podcast. And that’s this. If you listen to these episodes-

Warwick Fairfax:
Do we need a drum roll?

Gary Schneeberger:
You know what? Yes, please. Scott, drum roll. Very good, Warwick. Because folks, if you’ve listened to any of these blog episodes in the past or you’ve read the blogs, you notice that Warwick’s blogs, and I’ve teased him about it on the show several times, always have seven points. Well, guess what? That find an anchor for your Soul was the seventh point, which means this episode, this blog has eight points. It’s a first. That’s why I wanted you to circle the date on your calendar because on this date, Warwick Fairfax went beyond seven points for his blog and arrived at eight.
And it’s a good reason why, because we’ve been talking about all of this stuff, all this stuff about how others’ mistakes can teach us valuable lessons because the lessons that we learn can help us get through crucibles or avoid crucibles. So the first eighth point in the history of Beyond The Crucible blogs is this, decide to live differently. Warwick, why was that the point that you picked and how does it relate to the whole reason for Beyond The Crucible? And that is to get beyond crucibles, to navigate through them, and perhaps when you can, avoid them. How is decide to live differently tied up with overcoming crucibles?

Warwick Fairfax:
So you might’ve hit the reset button, you might’ve forgiven, understood the why, understood what they, others, might’ve done differently, you might’ve broken the cycle, you’ve made that desire known, you’ve learned the lessons from what happened to others, and you found an anchor for your soul that’s going to guide every decision moving forward. But ultimately, that decision to change has got to come to fruition. It’s good to have a plan, but a plan is not very helpful unless you execute the plan, unless you live the plan. So you’ve got to make a decision to live differently. You’ve got to make a decision to proactively and positively decide how you’ll make a change moving forward.
In the 1980s, as I was thinking about who I would marry, really what became important to me is to find a woman that had strong faith and character and who I enjoyed being with. And I didn’t want to do it three times like my dad. And so I made active decisions in terms of who I chose to go out with, that they would frankly meet that kind of criteria, if you will, that people of faith and character, that we had a common worldview and common interests and how we wanted our lives to look. I decided that I would be a present dad, and as I’ve mentioned with my own kids, when we do words of affirmation as we did yesterday at my son’s birthday. My kids say, “You were present at my dance recitals, sports games,” what have you.
So I made a decision to live differently. I made a decision that… And it took a while to make sure… I wanted to make sure my identity wasn’t wrapped up in what I did. I had to realize my identity was at one point when I was younger, wrapped up in being a Fairfax, not so much in the money and power, but more in, “Somehow maybe it’s God’s plan for me to resurrect the company and the image of the founder.” So my identity as being a Fairfax had a bit of a different hue, if you will, than money and power. It’s more about calling, but still from my perspective in terms of my anchor for my soul, identity should be in God, should be in Christ, at least that’s my faith perspective.
Not in the things that we think we can do, even if those are beneficial things. I’ve really tried to live differently than aspects of how I grew up and some aspects of my family, people that I ran into. I want to live authentically and be a humble person to the best of my ability, which was not always the case with people that I ran into growing up at some of these cocktail parties with my parents. So I think more generally, we might have grown up with all sorts of tragedies, whether it’s being victims of abuse, alcoholism, maybe parents who were married multiple times, friends who’ve made poor lifestyle choices in terms of drugs or what have you.
Or maybe we have friends that we grew up in the neighborhood and we’ve done okay, but they’ve done fabulously well and have much more money than we have, but their lives may be miserable. That power and money and multiple houses all over the globe, that’s fine, but that may not be where true happiness lies, which I don’t think it is. So we need to make a decision not just to learn the lessons of all these crucibles or mistakes and misfortunes that others may have gone through. Some of them may have deeply affected us. We need to make a decision to live differently. And really that’s a day by day decision. Yesterday might’ve been a good day.
You might’ve made a good decision. You got to make a good decision today too, and tomorrow and the next day and the next day. You got to keep making those good decisions. And how do you do that? It’s back to some of the points we discussed earlier. Learn the lessons, understand what others may have done differently, find an anchor for your soul when you’re making each of those decisions. Make sure that that’s in line with your fundamental beliefs and values.

Gary Schneeberger:
And that’s really a good resonant way to land the plane on this conversation on a very helpful and serious note. I’m going to then put a pin in that and make a joking note and say, deciding to live differently. You did that with this blog because you have eight points, not seven. So you did indeed decide to live differently in writing this blog. So bravo for you. As I always do, Warwick, I’m going to ask you, there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve covered.
There were eight points, there were myriad kind of sub points and all those points. What’s the one takeaway that you hope our listeners and viewers take away from this, I think very helpful and hopeful conversation?

Warwick Fairfax:
We’re very focused and rightly so at Beyond The Crucible on learning the lessons of our crucibles, we often say they didn’t happen to us. They happened for us. Whether those crucibles were our mistake, whether they were misfortunes that happened to us that were not our mistake at all. It could be physical crucibles, for instance, or an illness. But there are also valuable lessons that we can learn from others’ mistakes and misfortunes. Some of those mistakes and misfortunes may have affected us. Their mistakes could be something that really caused a crucible within us. Sometimes maybe you had a mom or dad that was successful and maybe they made mistakes or maybe something happened to them that wasn’t their fault at all, and you went from having a large house to a lot smaller one.
But whatever those mistakes and misfortunes are, there are such valuable lessons that we can learn from. I’ve outlined, gosh, a number of them, quite a lot actually as I think about it. That I have tried to learn from in terms of mistakes and misfortunes that my parents and others that I knew growing up went through like my dad being married three times, my mother twice. The sense of having your identity all wrapped up in being a Fairfax, people at cocktail parties, just with the lack of authenticity, arrogantly talking about their success, many mistakes and misfortunes that I’ve had the privilege of learning from. And so why not allow yourself to learn from these mistakes and misfortunes that others went through?
Whether they affected you or not, it’s a chance to be different, to live different, to love differently, to just be a present father or mother. It can have generational impact. Generational challenges can be broken. That cycle of abuse, it can end. Your kids and family may not have to experience what you experience. So challenges can be life altering. They can be tough to grow up with, but every day we have a choice. Are we going to live differently? Are we going to decide to be a different person to care for those around us? Are we going to decide not to live life all about us, but to live a life of significance, a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others?
We have that choice. So there’s such rich territory to learn from in the mistakes and misfortune of others. So just don’t allow those mistakes and misfortunes to go past without you learning from them. There are rich territory and they can be so valuable that can lead you to live a life that is really truly in line with your belief and values. It really does make you feel like you can leave a legacy in terms of character and faith and how you treat others that you and others could actually be proud of. So it’s very important.

Gary Schneeberger:
And there’s also folks rich territory in the points that we’ve covered from Warwick’s blog on this episode. The blog, again, if you want to go read it at beyondthecrucible.com, is called How Others’ Mistakes Can Teach Us Valuable Lessons. And as we always do, we’re going to leave you with some reflection questions that Warwick has prepared for you to kind of ruminate on what you’ve heard in this episode. First one is this, what mistakes that others have made and misfortunes that others have faced can you learn most from? That’s a good one. Second one, what lessons do those circumstances have for you?
That’s where you might want to get out one of these, a pen and write down what some of those lessons that those circumstances have for you, what are they? And you don’t have to… Here’s the beauty of it. That’s why it’s called reflection, because it can take time. You don’t have to do it in five minutes, and then you’re done with it. Keep reflecting on it because you’ll find some very, very good answers there. And then the third point is, what specifically will you do in your life so that you will live your life differently? The eighth point, the miraculous eighth point in Warwick’s blog was decide to live differently. So all of this wraps up our episode here at Beyond The Crucible.
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