Our research into how people experience crucibles and chart a path beyond them led us to identify a core set of “actionable truths” — 10 in all — that will help you overcome the impediments you face as you navigate your unique journey from trials to triumph.
In this first episode of what we’re calling the series within the show, we’ll discuss the insights the roadmap offers and identify each of the actionable truths.
And don’t forget to tune into the 10 episodes that followed that unpack the importance of each of the truths, along with tips on how you can activate them
Don’t forget to subscribe for more leadership and personal growth insights: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondthecrucible
Follow Beyond the Crucible on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beyondthecrucible
Follow Warwick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warwickfairfax/
Follow Beyond the Crucible on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondthecrucible
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Beyond the Crucible: Actionable TruthsWarwick Fairfax: Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. These actionable truths, they will help you get beyond your worst day and your crucible. They will also help you make your vision become a reality. These are critical both for you and the team that you work with. So these concepts might seem like, well, yes, they're concepts, but we call them actionable truths because if you live these out, whether it's self-reflection or authenticity, just a big two out of the 10, they can be life-transforming, they can be vision-transforming.
Gary Schneeberger: What are these actionable truths anyway? That's what you'll discover this week as we take a big picture look at a big refinement in the ways we help you move from trials to triumphs. So fasten your virtual seat belts as we begin our year-long drive through the Beyond the Crucible roadmap and the fresh insights it offers to help you not be defined by your worst day.
So today folks, we're going to discuss an exciting new development in the Beyond the Crucible thinking for turning trials into triumphs. Now, if you've been with us for any period of time, you've heard us talk about things that help you do that. We have refined what our counsel, our wisdom, and our help to you is. And this is what we're going to talk about in this first episode of the New Year. We call them actionable truths, these things that we're going to talk to you about that will help you move from trial to triumph, that will help you navigate that journey to your life of significance.
The Evolution: Stage One & Two
Gary Schneeberger: But before we can move into what we're doing next, we need to take a little time reviewing where we've been. It started with your book, Crucible Leadership, your Wall Street Journal bestselling book. We’re not throwing anything out, we're just refining things. Stage one was founded in 2018. The process was: It starts with being refined. Then leaning into your design. Then casting a vision, and then making that vision a reality.
Warwick Fairfax: It's interesting, Gary, as I was writing the book, we were talking about the intrinsic model. The first step, Refine, is when you're facing your worst day. You got to process it. We often say that crucibles don't have to happen to you; they can happen for you. A crucible, if we allow it, can be a refining moment, a bit like blast furnace with molten metal. The bad stuff can be removed and you're left with something that's refined, purer, sort of the essence of who you are.
The next step is Design. You've got to live a life that's in sync with how you are wired. I now operate in line with my design. Then Vision—something you've got to be off the charts passionate about. Finally, Reality is where you make your vision happen. We found there was this pattern of Refine, Design, Vision, Reality that helps you move from your worst day to a life of significance.
Gary Schneeberger: Stage Two added quantitative and qualitative data. We commissioned a study of more than 11,000 people. Warwick, what stood out to you most once we understood that data?
Warwick Fairfax: What was astounding to the researchers was that moving from a crucible to a life of significance did not vary with gender, age, personality, or zip code. It was 100% a product of how we see ourselves at a particular time. In our podcast—more than 240 episodes—we saw guests with every crucible imaginable: financial, physical, loss of loved ones. Despite the diversity, the path back was universally identical. It’s a mindset shift. It’s a choice of how you choose to move on.
Stage Three: The Beyond the Crucible Roadmap
Gary Schneeberger: We’ve combined these insights to create Stage Three: The Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. Here is how we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity:
The Trial: The aftermath of a life-altering crucible moment where we are fundamentally changed.
Processing: Recognizing and letting go of feelings of anger or hurt resulting from the crucible.
Vision: Casting a new post-crucible vision for life through experimentation and exploration.
Reality: Executing an actionable plan to turn that vision into a new everyday reality.
Triumph: Being well on the way to a new, significant, and significant post-crucible life.
Warwick Fairfax: This model is a statistically valid framework. It starts with trial, but you only move to processing if you make a choice that you won't be defined by your worst day. Triumph is not about your bank account; it's measured by the impact you feel like you are having—being a force for good in your community.
The 10 Actionable Truths
Warwick Fairfax: We view these actionable truths as accelerators. Life is tough, and you need help. Take Self-Reflection—it's not one and done. Life happens, and self-reflection can be a part of your daily way of living. What happened? Why did it happen? What can I learn?
Gary Schneeberger: This is the first time we're listing them this way. Here are the 10 Actionable Truths:
Crucibles: Your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you.
Self-Reflection: Reveals insights about yourself to help you bounce forward.
Authenticity: Embracing your authentic self, not who others want you to be.
Faith: An immovable anchor for your soul no matter what's happening around you.
Character: Your belief system in action; how you live out your faith.
Vision: A sacred calling that summons you to a mission beyond yourself.
Fellow Travelers: A team of trusted advisors and community are key.
Perseverance: Continuing to move forward; perseverance is hope.
Redemption: Your worst day can be redeemed; it is a catalyst for growth.
Significance: A life lived on purpose dedicated to serving others.
Warwick Fairfax: These truths are vital. Take Authenticity—it includes "vulnerability for a purpose." Being honest with your team about being nervous in a tough market is authentic. If you live these out, they can be life-transforming and vision-transforming.
Conclusion
Gary Schneeberger: We want you to believe these truths, but more than that, we want you to act on them. Subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast apps. We'll see you next week.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible assessment. This tool reveals where you stand today and the steps to get where you want to be. Visit Beyondthecrucible.com to start charting your course to a life of significance today.
BEST OF 2025: Gregory Vetter Gained Much After Losing His $300 Million Business
Gregory Vetter describes the shock and loss he felt over losing the $300 million dollar salad dressing business he and his brothers built using their mother’s recipe.
They were forced to file for bankruptcy, he says, because of a legal battle with greedy and unscrupulous investors. He may have lost millions of dollars, but not his entrepreneurial spirit — going on to launch new businesses and help other entrepreneurs with a big idea do the same.
You’ll want to pay special attention when he tells us the lesson his crucible taught him about the four things money can’t buy.
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Don’t forget to subscribe for more leadership and personal growth insights: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondthecrucible
Follow Beyond the Crucible on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beyondthecrucible
Follow Warwick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warwickfairfax/
Follow Beyond the Crucible on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondthecrucible
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Gregory Vetter:
It tested my belief system. It tested my faith in humanity, honestly. It made me very, very bitter for a while. It started to harden my heart.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's our guest this week, Gregory Vetter, describing how he felt in the immediate aftermath of losing the $300 million salad dressing company he and his brothers built using their mother's recipe. They were forced to file for bankruptcy, he says, because of a legal battle with greedy and unscrupulous investors. He may have lost millions of dollars, but not his entrepreneurial spirit, going on to launch new businesses and help other dreamers with a big idea do the same. You will want to pay special attention when he tells us the lesson his crucible taught him about the four things that money can't buy.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Greg, it's wonderful to have you here. Greg is Greg Vetter, and just to give folks a little bit of idea of his background, Greg is a trailblazing entrepreneur. He turned a family recipe into Tessemae's. Is that close?
Gregory Vetter:
Yep, close enough.
Warwick Fairfax:
Okay. Into the number one organic salad dressing brand in the U.S., and pioneered clean food manufacturing. He's gone on to found Alta Fresh Foods, revolutionizing the salad industry with innovative processes, as well as Quenchers Vodka Drinks and Tushees Portable Toilets, showcasing his diverse entrepreneurial spirit. And he's also launched homegrown brand Accelerated to help others build the next great American brands. He is committed to mentoring young leaders and entrepreneurs, empowering them to dream big and execute with purpose. Where I thought we'd get started is this whole salad dressing became this enormous business, but the way you started it I found absolutely fascinating. You have just this pure go for broke, there is no fear, or if there is fear, I'm plowing right through it kind of spirit. So just talk about where that whole recipe came from and how you got started in that first natural food store. I love the gumption you have instead of not build it and they will come. It's like sell it and then let's build it later, kind of thing.
Gregory Vetter:
That's actually the entire philosophy. Yeah, I was selling insurance and sitting in a cubicle over top of a bodega with our scenery being a graveyard, and I'm not making that up. And I actually ended up being good at cold calling all day. I was kind of very disciplined. I could sit there and just grind through the pain. And so I went to the owner and I said, "Hey, man, I brought in three of the top five largest customers. I want to be a partner." And before I got the word partner out, he was like, "No, you make enough money. You're young. You're never going to be a partner in this. And that's that." And in that moment I realized I was not in control over my destiny, I guess you could say. And I wanted to be.
And so every day at lunch, I would go home in my little townhouse and I'd stand on my head with a journal next to me waiting for an epiphany. And they didn't come. But afterwards I'd walk downstairs, I'd make myself a big salad with protein on it, and my mom would make me this one salad dressing in a two liter bottle. It would last about a month. And I would put dressing on it and I'd go back to work and I'd cold call all day. And so one day I walked downstairs and this two liter bottle of salad dressing's missing. And you do not misplace a two liter bottle of salad dressing. And so I'm looking all over, I'm opening every cabinet, every drawer is open, and then I'm like, "Oh, man, I got to call my wife. I cannot find this." And so I call my wife, I'm like, "Hey, did you take the salad dressing to work?" She goes, "No, I didn't take a two liter bottle of salad dressing to work."
And I'm like, "I cannot find it anywhere." And she's like, "Well, maybe someone came into our house and took it." I'm like, "No one broke into our home and stole the salad dress." And she goes, "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Greg." So she hangs up. So I call some people and I get to a guy that doesn't have a full-time job, and I said, "Hey, man, random question. Have you seen my salad dressing?" Everybody prior to this point had said no and hung up. And he goes, "Yep, woke up this morning, was Jonesing for it, knew the code to your house, hopped on my scooter, came over, took it. Now I'm crushing a salad."
And I sat there in the kitchen of my little townhouse and I thought to myself, what kind of man steals another man's salad dressing? And then I thought, what kind of salad dressing is so good that someone would break into my house and steal it? And so I told him to bring it back. And then I called my wife back and I'm like, "Hey, so you were right. So-and-so broke in and stole the dressing." And so then I sat there for a minute and I'm like, "I'm going to start a salad dressing company." And so I said that as a pressure test to my wife to see her reaction, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to start a salad dressing company. Dead silence. And she goes, "That's the best idea I've ever heard. I have a weird feeling that it's going to work." And so I go, "Okay."
So I took the only business skill I had, which was cold calling, and I started cold calling grocery stores and I was just going to see if I could get a meeting. And I was just focused on, I'm going to get an educated yes or no. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm just going to call until I get an educated yes or no. And so for about two weeks, all I got were nos. But being a quote-unquote expert at cold calling, you know when it's an educated yes or it's an educated no. And so everybody just kind of picked up and they're like, "Yeah, we're not interested." And I'm like, "They didn't even ask any questions. I'm going to keep going until I get an educated no." And this one guy goes, "Bring it in today," which was a Friday in February, "and let me try it."
So I call my mom and I go, "Hey, I need you to make the greatest batch of salad dressing ever made." And she's like, "Why?" I go, "I got a meeting at this grocery store." And she goes, "For what?" And I'm like, "I'm going to bring it in there. I'm going to start a salad dressing, I'm going to take your recipe. We're going to go into business together." She goes, "You're not a company. There's no name, there's no bottle. You have nothing." I'm like, "I didn't ask you for any of this. I just need you to make the dressing. I'll take care of the rest." So she makes the dressing, I stop by her house. She goes, what are you going to put it in? And I'm like, "Give me a Tupperware container." So I take some crunchy romaine lettuce, I put it in a little Tupperware container with a red lid, and I marched myself into this grocery store and I ask for this guy and he comes up and he looks like a former professional boxer. He does not look like a guy that's buying organic salad dressing.
And he's like, "Show me your stuff." And I'm like, "Ooh." So I hold this little Tupperware container up. I'm like, "I brought you a salad. It's lunchtime." So he takes this piece of wet lettuce out of this little Tupperware container, licks the dressing off and goes, "That's the greatest salad dressing I've ever had. You need to call the regional office." And I go, "Well, why don't you call the regional office and I'll show up to the meeting." So they ended up giving me 200 pages of food manufacturing paperwork, and they said, "Fill this out and you can be in for the grand opening of this new store in Annapolis, May 5th, 2009."
And so I take the papers home and I look at the first page and it's a different language. I have no idea what they're asking me. So I start Googling, "What is a HACCP plan? What is a HACCP plan for salad dressing?" And so I'm literally just printing these documents off the internet, this is before AI could just do it in two seconds, and I'm sending this grocery store these documents. And so we ended up overcoming a million hurdles to be a food manufacturer. And we get in for the grand opening of this grocery store, and I got an apron that's embroidered, and I got my little table and samples and recipe cards. And the doors open and people are running into this grocery store. I've never seen people so excited for a new grocery store before in my life.
And the next thing I know, the four cases that they ordered were sold. So I go to the director of the East Coast and I go, "Hey man, all that dressing's gone." He goes, "There's more in the back." I'm like, "No, I sold it." And he goes, "You sold four cases of dressing in 30 minutes?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And he goes, "Well, go get more." I'm like, "I got to go make more. You said this was a month." And so I run outside, I call my mom, I'm like, "We got to make more salad dressing!" And she's like, "I'm in Pilates." I'm like, "No one cares about Pilates." And she hung up on me.
So then I called my wife. I'm like, "We sold all four cases. It's unbelievable." And so next day, same thing happened. We ended up making six cases that night. I stayed up till 3:00 o'clock in the morning making salad dressing. And sold the next six cases in 45 minutes. And in that five-day period, we set a national sales record for that grocery store, and we ended up selling 650 bottles of one dressing in one store in five days. And so that was really my pressure test of people like this, I bet I could build this to something bigger. I'm not sure how big, but I'm willing to bet everything on the journey. And so that is when the journey began, which was May 5th, 2009.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, it's just so amazing how, I guess it's maybe not resilience yet, but it's courage and gumption. I mean, you were like, "Where are we going to make this?" And you found a couple of different places initially, the back of a barbecue place, and then middle of the night at a bakery. I mean, and eventually you got a warehouse near Baltimore. But it's like friends, your brothers, friends or friends, anybody you could find. I mean, that was just, and even when people said no, some of these folks that had locations, we had to make stuff, it was like, you thought to yourself, it may be no now, but I can get you the yes. And they said yes. I mean, the courage it took in those early days. Well, the whole journey is ... I know it's easy to look back at some of the bad side, which we'll get to, but if you look back and said, "I had a lot of courage, a lot of guts that not everybody has." I mean, are you able to give yourself your fair due of some of the courage and gumption that you had?
Gregory Vetter:
Yeah, I mean, I think I honestly had to brainwash myself, right? Because you have to ignore every social norm that you've been taught up to that point to build something from nothing. Because everybody says no. Nobody wants to be bothered with your problems. No one cares about your problems. And so you're just nonstop trying to find a way to appeal to their humanity so that they will stop what they're doing and take a chance on you. And so that was really the theme in the beginning, which was we almost didn't get our manufacturing license because a shelf was a half inch too low and the guy was going to deny our manufacturing license. And I grabbed him, I'm like, "Listen, man, everything is on the line. I need you to do this for me." And he was just like, "Whoa, dude. I've never seen someone who's this crazy about salad."
Sure. Because my day, I don't care whether or not you pass or fail, but you really care. And so there was a lot of that in the beginning, and that kind of ended up running out. I think maybe we used up all of our miracles for that journey. By the end, everybody was kind of like, "Dude, we've given you all the miracles we can give." And so yeah, it was a lot of breaking social norms and really just burning the ships. I mean, we're either going to win this battle or we're not going home. And that was really the view we took. And I think when you take that view, generally speaking, the universe conspires in your favor.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's almost like, I forget the exact quote, but the Teddy Roosevelt quote that talks about the man in the arena that's willing to try and go for it. And very much that philosophy. And you grew tremendously with nationwide chains and one in California. And there were problems, but you just overcame them. We need to seal these salad dressing bottles. Well, how do we do that? Well, let's use wax from Maker's Mark liquor and stuff. And incredibly, they have a patent on that wax and they said, "Sure. You're not a competitor, obviously. You can use our wax." Which is like ... There's so many ... So talk a bit about before we get to the challenging years, you grew tremendously. It's almost like the biggest challenge you had was how can we keep up with manufacturing, with personnel, with financing? It's almost like you didn't have a problem that nobody wanted it. The problem you had is everybody wanted it. I mean, that growth must've been heady days and just one chain after another, it's like, "Are you kidding me? How many stores is this?" It's like, wow, it must've been quite a trip, if you will.
Gregory Vetter:
It was very wild. And we were also, I think a big part of the issue was we were three years ahead of the organic clean food movement. We really spearheaded that entire movement. We were just banging down doors to get people to bring stuff in. Whereas years later, all you had to say was, "Oh, yeah, it's organic and it's clean," and everybody's bringing it in and in mass truckloads. But in the beginning, nobody believed that organic salad dressing was going to be able to be a thing. And I kept thinking about rap music in the eighties and early nineties where everyone just kept going, "Well, it's just a trend. It's going to go away." And organic foods, you're like, "It tastes good and it's better for you. Why would anybody go back to something that doesn't taste as good and isn't good for you?" And those were the conversations we're having with people. But yeah, I mean, it was a Herculean effort in the beginning to match manufacturing capacity with sales demand. And it was always a tightrope where we were getting these national retailers on board and then we had to figure out how to deliver it with zero time to plan.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's get to maybe some of the more challenging years. It seems like that growth in manufacturing required financing. Just talk about how the financing felt like it was so difficult to, A, find, and then find people that you didn't have a queasy feeling in your stomach.
Gregory Vetter:
Yeah, I mean, I think the interesting part is people are willing to bet on you if they can basically take over everything. And so we were always trying to find this balance of protecting our original shareholders that believed in us with bringing in the right capital to then take the brand to where it could be. And I think because we were so early in the organic clean food movement, when people started finally saying yes, we were just so excited that someone finally saw what we had been screaming from the rooftops for for years. And so it was less about us being selective and it was more us just being grateful that somebody finally kind of believed what we had been saying and saw the data and saw the future and wanted to participate. So we really were not as selective as we should have been. For example, let's use AIs as an example. I'm sure you go in, you've got some situation and a patent and you've got this and that and this and that, and you can look at the top tier people and you have them competing against each other and you put yourself in the best situation possible. We were always being told this isn't going to work. This doesn't scale. There's never been a lifestyle brand for salad dressing. Who cares about salad dressing? And so not until after we would close these massive deals, would we then take the data points back to these people and say, "Well, look, we just got another 2,600 doors. We got another 3,500 doors. We got this and we got that."
And in not being as selective as we should have been, you start letting in people that have ulterior motives to what they originally said. And you fast-forward a couple years and the next thing you know you're paying professional negotiators to come to an agreement because everybody just wanted to take the entire thing. And so that part obviously was very tough to process because there was so much value there for everybody. And all that needed to happen was just everybody come to an agreement on the path forward and let's get it done and everybody rides off into the sunset. And that's not always how it goes, specifically for us. And so a lot of insane lessons learned, enough to write a book about, enough to be giving keynotes and lecturing to business departments across the country on the lessons learned. So a lot of wild stories there for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
So talk about how things kind of ended up at the end, because it feels like you had these two billionaires and there's a whole host of characters in the book even before that, of just the LA young guns and there's Ryan, somebody, there's all these people with colorful names, but it just seems like at the end, it wasn't about common sense, even wasn't about what was in their best interest, it was about winning to a degree, maybe crushing you, crushing the other guy. It's a lesson in that sometimes people, not only are they not just cutthroat, but they don't always act in their own interests. It just, it's win at all costs, greed at all costs. If we have to pay the lawyers hundreds of thousands a month, who cares? It's all about winning. It's not about money. I mean, that was powerful lessons, I'm sure, right?
Gregory Vetter:
Well, and it went against rational thought, because you're sitting there at the end and you're like, "We can all come to an agreement. We can all do this. Everybody's willing to play ball." And we would spend six weeks ironing out some type of deal where it worked for everybody and the board would get on the phone, they go, "We got it. It's good. I know this is going to suck for you, Greg, but it's not as good for them too, but we're all going to move forward together. And here it is moving forward." And the lawyers would send over the documents and it was nothing that was discussed or negotiated. And so then you really start thinking about, okay, well, what are the motives? To understand a person, you need to understand their motives. And it really just came down to unbelievable greed, almost like an addiction, ego to the point of addiction, but then also the need for complete destruction of their opponent. And that was the part that went against what I thought their motives were, which were kind of greed and ego, because then you layered in the destruction part and you're like, but you're going to get the greed side, that'll be satisfied, your ego component will be satisfied, but destroying me and my family, we're going to part ways and part of us will be destroyed, but it wasn't the complete destruction they were looking for. And that was the part where it gave me a completely different insight into human behavior that I didn't know at the time.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, the fact that their desire to destroy was greater than their desire for greed?
Gregory Vetter:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, the story you tell, there's a lot of stories, but the one in the parking lot when I guess as you put it, [inaudible 00:24:04] has this document, he makes you sign this template, say, "Look, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. We just need something."
Gregory Vetter:
A start.
Warwick Fairfax:
Right. And then later on, so that's not a starting point, that's the finish. So they lied. I mean, obviously that happens a lot. So obviously you're in a position where you don't have a whole lot of choices, the salad dressing market isn't what it is now, and organic, but dealing with people that you can't trust, I mean that felt like that was almost the apex of, "Are you kidding me?" moments in the book. I mean, it's one thing to play hard. I mean, you and your brothers played lacrosse, which is massive in Maryland, certainly in Annapolis. You play hard, you want to win, but it's like you play by a set of rules and you know what they are: play hard but play fair. Really? But here it's like it's all about winning. If you have to lie, cheat, steal, hey, whatever it takes. I mean, that must've been sobering to say the least, those kind of moments.
Gregory Vetter:
Again, it tested my belief system. It tested my faith in humanity, honestly. It made me very, very bitter for a while. It started to harden my heart because I had always tried to do what was right for the entire shareholder base, which included all the employees because we gave them all stock. And so when you're dealing with people that don't care about any of that and they don't care about the repercussions from a karma perspective, you're dealing with a different animal. And again, I thought people had some level of decency, right? Like, okay, I can get the greed side. My ego's fulfilled. I don't need to destroy this dude and his family. I know him. I've invited him to my Christmas parties. But no. Again, it was something I've never experienced before. And leaving that and reflecting on that, that took me a long time to really process because it really just made me question humanity for the most part.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's talk about how you got over that. Because in the book, you start in a very haunting way. Obviously you talk how there was a $300 million business that was valued and sold bankruptcy for 4.5 million, which seemed like a fair amount of money, but relative to 300 million, it's not much. It's a small, small percentage. And you talk about having in your farm in western Maryland, stacking wooden pallets and having a bonfire almost back to the Viking ship thing with the ritual. It's horrendous, it's sad, but we're going to have some kind of ritual to kind of mark this time to even say Tessemae's all-natural would go out like a Viking. You actually say that. "I decide on a funeral pyre fit for a battle-scarred warrior." So how did you come back from being, I mean, it's one thing to be battle-scarred, which obviously you are, I get that and I can certainly relate in many ways, but how did you find a way not to be bitter and angry? You could have been angry at God, who's ever up there, at not just these billionaires, but there were stacks of people after them. There was the investment bank that gave you the B team, I think you wrote, and let's do the financing road show in the summer, which is the worst time to do it because everybody's ... having done one of those myself, I get it. So there's a list of people you could feel like let you down. So how did you deal with the sense of bitterness at both at other people, the world, God, gosh, if we'd been five or 10 years later, we would've killed it. I mean, how do you process all that so it didn't just sit there forever?
Gregory Vetter:
A couple things. I started writing the book. I hired a performance coach. He said something really funny one time. He goes, "Are these stories real?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And he goes, "Listen man, I spend 99% of my time convincing my clients to not write books because they have nothing interesting to say and it's purely an ego play. I think you need to write a book." And I said, "No, I don't want to write a book about the greatest failure of my life and how stupid I was for 15 years." But he planted a seed in my brain and my leadership philosophy kind of boils down to leave things better than when you found them and lead by example. And so at a minimum, I wanted to document the journey for my kids. I have four kids, they range in age right now from a freshman in high school down to a nine-year-old, and I just wanted them to know how hard it was and what I was willing to do to fight for my dream, because I think every parent wants their kids to fight for a dream no matter what the dream is. And so I went to this kind of men's group on Friday mornings, and these guys were talking about forgiving your enemies. And I was really just not on board with that. But then I kept going every Friday and I started thinking about it, and it really helped me to ... there's a difference that these guys were talking about, which is forgiveness, which is in your heart, and reconciliation, which is with another person. So it requires another person to forgive you as well as you forgive them. So I got to the point where I go, "Yeah, you know what? I'm willing to forgive these people in my heart." Because having that much bitterness and that much anger is not going to help anybody or anything moving forward.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that's one of the things that we talk about a lot at Beyond the Crucible is that forgiveness is key, because Warwick said it, if he said it once, he said it a hundred times on this show, if you don't forgive, it's like just drinking poison, right? I mean, it's going to affect you more than it affects the other person. They're not really going to care necessarily. They may not even know that you've forgiven them, but that frees you up from the cell, that unforgiveness, from the cell that bitterness can create in you.
Gregory Vetter:
I can forgive somebody in my heart, but it doesn't require the reconciliation with another person because it really comes down to an alignment with me and God. And that took probably a year to get to. If you ever talk to the guys from that group, they joke all the time of me talking about like, yeah, man, I'm cool with all this stuff you guys are talking about except for forgiving your enemies. I am not okay with that. I eventually got there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, just as you've been talking, even though, as Gary would say, the products, the numbers, the countries are different, I can relate. And our personalities couldn't be more different. I'm not an entrepreneur at all. I could never do what you did. I don't have that kind of gumption in that area. I've got a fair amount of perseverance, but not that kind of gumption. But yeah, I mean, just like you, I wrote my book Crucible Leadership, I guess '22 it came out, took years to do it. Like you, it was incredibly painful because I was writing about some of the toughest times of my life and some of the stupidest mistakes I made. And one of the things that we say a lot on Beyond the Crucible is forgiveness doesn't mean condoning. Forgiving those two billionaires along with a whole host of others doesn't mean that you approve how they do business. You abhor and condemn how they do business, putting words in your mouth, not something that you would model or want your kid's doing. Put it that way.
Gregory Vetter:
Yeah.
Gary Schneeberger:
Let me jump in. I've hosted this show with you, Warwick, for 270-something, 280 episodes. This is the first time we've had a guest who has something approximating your story. And I'm just wondering, Greg, I imagine you don't run into a lot of people who have a story like yours and the way it's like yours down to the point that you were 25 and he was 26. I mean, how helpful is that? And I think about that across anybody who has a crucible. How helpful is it just to hear someone who's got your experience someplace? Warwick has talked before about he felt in the aftermath of the failed takeover, he felt like he was a party of one. You must have felt like that a little bit too. Is it helpful to hear somebody else who's been through some of the same beats of a story like yours?
Gregory Vetter:
Yeah, I mean, it's always helpful because I think I've always felt alone and all of the alleged consultants and advisors and experts at every phase and at every stage, I remember I went to this one performance coach in the middle of it, and he's former Army Ranger and PhD and worked with all these pro athletes, and he's so elite. He's not my current performance coach, but I went to him and I tell him the whole story and I have to pay ahead of time to get into his room. And at the end he just goes, "Oh my God. It's like you're fighting three different wars at the same time with three different weapons simultaneously. I wish you nothing but the best." And then that was it. And I'm like, "Any advice, man? Because I feel like I'm drowning." And he's like, "Good luck. Good luck to you. I don't really have any insights on that one at all."
So that is the theme. The theme is everybody talks a big game, but the amount of people that can actually sit there and empathize and provide credible insight and understanding and actually listen, to provide meaningful counsel, it is so rare I cannot begin to describe it to you. And I get all these thank you notes for my book, and it's all these entrepreneurs, they go, "Man, thank you so much for writing this because I felt alone. Because when you go on LinkedIn or you go on YouTube or you go on Instagram and you hear all these business experts, it's pay for my program and these four things will make you a billionaire and these systems will skyrocket your business, and this will do that, and this will do that. And I just feel like I'm an idiot all the time."
And so it is a very kind of rare select group of people that have endured the complete destruction of their belief system and then found a way at the end of it to pick themselves up, move forward, make the best out of it, and then even have the wherewithal to come back and try and help others. Because I can tell you, I was doing an interview with this venture capitalist and she said, "Thank you so much for your honesty because I have people on here all the time that I know have failed, and they will answer my questions and blatantly lie to my face knowing that I know because they don't want to be associated with any of the weak components of their life."
And I just don't really know what that gets you. I don't get it. I don't understand it. It's not how I parent my kids. Because life's tough and nobody bats a thousand. And these stories are important for the simple fact that someone's going to listen to it and they're going to go, "Man, I'm going through something similar. One, I'm not alone. I'm going to do some more research into these guys. Maybe their stories can provide me that one little kernel of hope or insight or advice to allow me to move forward one step the next day." Because it doesn't end. We're dealing with something similar right now with one of our businesses, not investor-related, but employee-related. And Gary, I told you when we were chatting, it was like rock bottom has a basement.
Warwick Fairfax:
Right. And that has a sub-basement, right?
Gregory Vetter:
And you're like, wow, this is as low as it gets. And then the next day you're like, whoa, it's getting lower. I thought I was there. And then the next day, you're a little bit lower and you're like, "Man, okay, well, I thought I already experienced all of this." And it's like, no, you haven't. You've only experienced one component of it.
Warwick Fairfax:
"Hey, we're going to give five minute talk to a bunch of people talking about resilience and what they've learned in business." And I said, "Well, you know my story?" And yeah, sure, and people said, "Warwick, we never knew. I was going through some of the stresses during business school because my dad dying and the expectations that we never knew, I'm so sorry." And there was empathy. I was like, but of course the lies in my head was like, oh, they're going to laugh. The dumbest Harvard MBA graduate in history, Warwick Fairfax, because if you Google me, it's actually there. And Wikipedia. So talk about how you did not let your worst day define you. You found a way to bounce back and help people.
Gregory Vetter:
Well, I think the four things money can't buy: your soul, your health, your time, and your children's love. When all of your transactional friends leave you and when all of your material possessions have no more meaning to you, you're left with the things that really matter. And every time I've ever gone through something horrible, I basically have stripped more and more and more away to get down to this core me. The St. John of the Cross has a book The Dark Night of the Soul, and there's a two-part purification process. And I have gone through it. And what you find is that really actually in the most fundamental sense of reality, there is nothing more than your capacity to be loved by your kids and love them and lead by example, to be in control over your time and your health. But then the soul component is something that that's the one that takes a lot of daily work because a lot creeps in day in and day out where you think about getting back at the people that have destroyed you, or can you still maintain the forgiveness of your enemies, or are you still leading by example? Are you still a person that is in pursuit of living this life that you're proud of? And so the shame component is real, but it's personal.
The thing that I realize is when all of your fears are realized, you understand there's nothing to lose and you actually understand what you're made of. All of my fears were exposed. They were all written in newspaper articles and everybody knows that we lost the business and there was no exit. And so it really, again, in that refinement process of the four things that money can't buy, it made me understand what I was willing to sacrifice and what I wasn't willing to sacrifice in this life for the pursuit of alleged ambition or the grand cosmic plans that God has for me or doesn't have for me. So there is a lot of continued soul-searching on a daily basis to make sure that I'm hearing the voice of God and that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing, even though sometimes I feel like I'm on hold. "Hey, are you there, man? I need some answers, brother." So, yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
You've learned some powerful lessons that you can be with your kids. So just talk about what that means to you because like you, you probably have your bad days and read an article and, "Oh, yeah, I could have been ... look at what I could have done and what an idiot I was."
Gregory Vetter:
I was talking to somebody and they're like, yeah, I sold my business for this, and I'm like, "I was right there."
Warwick Fairfax:
I have that house.
Gregory Vetter:
"I was right there."
Warwick Fairfax:
I have that house in the Caribbean, man, that huge boat. We just love going in the Mediterranean. It's just such a fun thing with the family and friends.
Gregory Vetter:
Exactly. South of France. No biggie. I'm like, okay. Yeah. But I think I realized once we won Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, I don't know what year that was, it was kind of like in the early days, I thought that was going to be a defining moment for the trajectory of our business and me specifically, and nothing happened from it. Nothing. I think we got more cold calls for copiers and everybody trying to sell something under the sun, but no one was like, "Hey, man, you're awesome and we want you on this board. You took salad dressing and ..." And nothing happened. And we went to the party in New York and it was a soulless event without any positive real connection or energy. It was kind of like a bunch of people walking around trying to figure out who's who and how can they benefit me or not me.
And I think that was the first time where I'm like, I really need to make sure that I'm not getting sucked up in this nonsense. Now, I was not that wise at that point so it's still much more bad decisions came after that. But as I look back on it, that was my first real taste of, yeah, we won the things, we were at the parties. It means nothing. It really means nothing. And the only thing that actually matters is how much my kids want to be around me and love me and tell me their secrets and want my opinion on things and want me to coach their teams and want me to take them to wherever. And I've seen a lot of people sacrifice that, the children's love side of it, justify not being around for this other stuff that doesn't mean anything. It will never mean anything.
Warwick Fairfax:
So just as we begin to close, talk about what you do now, because it must be very fulfilling as you're speaking, talking to young entrepreneurs, giving your hard-earned wisdom. There's that oft-used phrase, pain for a purpose. But I've certainly found when I've spoken, podcasting and other things, when I feel like somehow what I went through can help other people, it doesn't make all the pain go away, but it helps a bit.
Gregory Vetter:
It does.
Warwick Fairfax:
Not that that's necessarily the reason you do it, but talk about how fulfilling it is to use your hard-earned wisdom to help young entrepreneurs and other folks and just talk about what that feels like and what your mission is now, would you say?
Gregory Vetter:
Well, one, it feels great to help people. And it doesn't matter how you're helping them, whether or not you're coaching kids, which I do a lot of that because it brings me unbelievable amounts of joy, or speaking to entrepreneurial kind of incubators, regardless of the age, business departments, talking to them about risk and scale and risking it all and age. Real quick, I had somebody call and they're like, "Hey, I'm planning and I'm really worried about where I'm going to be at 25." And I go, "Hey, bud, you should be really ... like you're 20 now. I would say, where am I going to be at 45 or 50? What does that look like? Not where are you going to be at 25, because that means nothing." But trying to bring that youthful perspective to that group of people, it's super rewarding because, again, I have an unbelievable, relatable story. I'm not a genius. I didn't invent anything. I took my mom's recipe, everybody has a mom with a recipe, and I decided to risk it all, came from no money, credit cards and 401(k)s and crazy loans, and I just was willing to do it.
And so I think a lot of people can relate to that, and it gives me a lot of ... it's a new-found sense of purpose where people need to make things. People need to take risk, people need to be okay with ... I don't want people to fail. I didn't want to fail, but I learned an unbelievable amount about myself in the failure process. I figured out who I was, I figured out what mattered, I figured out what I was capable of, and I figured out what I wanted to do moving forward because I didn't have to keep up a facade to people that didn't really matter. So I just think that giving back is magnificent for me personally. And then what I'm doing now is I have a brand accelerator where we help people launch and scale companies, I do a lot of consulting work that ranges where CEO performance coach type stuff to product consulting to just helping people in turnaround situations, because I've been through a lot of wild stuff. And I really do enjoy that because I give them the insights I needed people to give me that they wouldn't give me. I was searching for answers and everybody's like, you're talking to your lawyers and they're just like, "Yeah, well, it's whatever you want to do." I'm like, "No, I need the answer here. It's not what I want to do. I need to know the right answer." Well, I've never been in this situation before, and you're just like, "Help me, please." So I love that part of it.
And then I also love exposing my kids to it all. I bring them to a lot of my speaking engagements. I bring them to a lot of the events and the book tour stuff. And so anything I can do where I'm bringing them, I bring them. And so that's been really rewarding for them to be able to be a part of it because they're at an age where they can really understand it.
Gary Schneeberger:
This is a good time for me to jump in, Greg, since you've just talked about all the things that you're doing now and the benefits that you're bringing to other people, for you to tell our listeners and viewers how they can find you on the internet and perhaps engage with you.
Gregory Vetter:
Yep. Gregoryvetter.com is my website. And then I'm on social media. I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm on LinkedIn. Just look for the aggressive loud guy with a mustache and that's me. So I have a team that responds to everybody or I respond. So if somebody wants to get to me, they will.
Gary Schneeberger:
Awesome. Warwick, as always, the last question or questions are yours.
Warwick Fairfax:
So really a couple come to mind. One is, there may be somebody today that maybe today is their worst day. And, of course, as you would say, "Never know. Tomorrow could be worse."
Gary Schneeberger:
Rock bottom has a basement, my friend.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. Yeah. So let's say they think today's their worst day. What would a word of hope be? I guess that's one question, and maybe a different question would be, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned throughout your whole painful experience? So there are really two questions. One is, what is your worst day? What's a word of hope? And then the second is the biggest lesson you've learned.
Gregory Vetter:
Worst day for hope is I always ground myself in things that matter. So read something of substance that gives you perspective. That could be the Bible, that could be a biography of great people that have done great things. Read a passage of that for perspective. I did a lot of that. You read about Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses, S. Grant, Abraham Linc- ... all these people, and you're like, "Man, my salad dressing problems really aren't that difficult." So I did a lot of that. Go on a walk. I do a lot of walking. Do something that brings you actual joy. So watch a sunset, eat dinner with your family and actually be present. Watch a funny movie. If you want to eat ice cream or something, let's not overeat and do that, but do something that brings you actual joy, and then go to bed early because tomorrow is a completely new day and your perspective on how bad yesterday was is going to be totally different.
So I really focus on that type of stuff. Where things get real bad, I'm like, for me, I just go to my kids. I'm like, I'm going to go, I got to coach their team tonight, I got to drive to this, we're going to go out to dinner. It's going to be great. Everything's going to be fine. So there's that piece. And then the one thing that I really learned from all of it is trust your gut and also have unwavering faith in your journey. Because I think so often on our worst day, we think that is the end of the game. And what I realized, lacrosse has four quarters, the kind of destruction of that first business was just the end of the first quarter, and I had three more quarters to go. And so understanding where you are on your journey I think is really important. And then just also, again, going back, unwavering faith in the journey. It will eventually work itself out for you and you just have to have faith in that. And that's really hard. It's easy to say, but it's very hard to do.
Gary Schneeberger:
Friends, I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last words have been spoken on a subject, and our guest, Greg Vetter, just spoke it. Warwick, we just got off an interview with, from my perspective, the most fascinating guest we've ever had on the show because his story is very similar to yours, and we've not been able to say that in terms of the details of his story, more similar to yours than perhaps any other guest, not perhaps, than any other guest we've had. We talk all the time. Details can differ, emotions can be the same. Here you've got details that are closer than usual and the emotions are certainly the same. So my question to you is, as it always is after an interview, what's the big takeaway that you want listeners and viewers to take from our conversation with Greg Vetter?
Warwick Fairfax:
You know, what's amazing about Greg's story is that he and I, we couldn't be more different. I mean, he grew up in Maryland, in Annapolis, where I actually now live, which is kind of crazy because a lot of the place names, I kind of know what he's talking about, but he didn't grow up with a whole lot of money. He's sort of this entrepreneur person that goes into the local health food store and tries to sell his mom's dressing. He has no manufacturing, no nothing, and it's like, "Hey, take a sample." So he has gumption in that area that I certainly don't have. Mine was sort of this family newspaper business in Australia. His was this organic salad dressing business that he grew and lost. I mean, it was massive. It was like a $300 million business that eventually had to file for bankruptcy. So there's a lot of differences, but yet there are similarities. As you say, sort of the emotions are in a similar, but one of the biggest challenges he had to face was a sense of shame, a failure. I had to face that. I mean, I'm a Harvard MBA, launched my $2.25 billion takeover within months of graduating at age 26. It was just the sense of letting down my father, who'd died earlier in 1987 when I did the takeover, letting down John Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather who founded the business. Yeah, there was that sense of shame. Just the number of things that went wrong, of just advisors in his case, bankers, actually more than bankers, but just people, potential investors that you expect people to have ego and greed, but it was like it about destroying him. That was more important to them than the ego and the greed. It's just the desire to crush one's enemy. Just some perverse satisfaction out of doing that. So I'm not quite sure whether I faced ... I faced certainly people with the greed and ego. I'm not sure about people who loved crushing people just for fun.
But yes, the sense of failure, dealing with people that maybe you wished you had other advisors. In my case, I've often said ignoring the good advisors and listening to the financial advisors that maybe weren't as good. So a lot of the emotions. Just how painful it was for him. He talked about how hard it was to forgive when he was with a group that was, I think, faith-based group, and they talked about the importance of forgiveness, and him saying, "Yeah, no, I can't do that one. What they did to me basically, in not so many words, no." It took him a year and he learned that forgiveness doesn't always mean reconciliation. You're not always going to have people say, "Oh, I'm so sorry I hurt you." People that are disreputable as he dealt with, the odds of them having a sense of self-knowledge that they're going to say, "Yeah, but I'm so sorry, Greg. We were awful to you." It's like one in a trillion or one in a billion. It typically doesn't happen. And you just have to realize most people don't tend to say they're sorry for things like this. So, yeah, I mean, while the businesses were different, the countries were different, the sense of failure and the shame in it and the sense of, gosh, maybe what I'll do now, maybe I won't have a $300 million business again. For me, maybe I won't have the same kind of impact that I could have had in the nation of Australia. And you got to tell yourself, it's not a comparison game. It's like, am I doing what in my view God's calling me to? That's what's important.
He talks about the four things that money can't buy: your soul, your health, your time, and your children's love. He played lacrosse growing up in Annapolis and he coaches his kids in sports and spends time with them. He works on his soul to make sure he doesn't go astray. He's a healthy person. He gives back by helping other young entrepreneurs and just speaks and gives advice. He's leading definitely a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. There's no question. So his lessons are hard-won, but really money and success into themselves are meaningless. Success is not wrong. But if your whole soul and identity is wrapped up in success, it's not really going to make you happy. It's not fulfilling. When you're focused on others and you have some higher purpose, you value your family, that gives far more satisfaction and is far more lasting than just building some empire.
He shared how he won Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He went to this big deal, I think probably in New York, and it just felt empty. It didn't generate him any more business. It's like, so what? I'm sure he was proud of getting it, but in of itself, he didn't seem to lead to some next level of business, still less did it lead to some next level of happiness or joy in of itself. He can be proud of it, but in of itself, you don't want to worship the fact, "Hey, I was the entrepreneur of the year." That's great. But in of itself, does that achievement make you happy or fulfilled? I'm not sure that it does. So yeah, this is a powerful discussion, a lot of common emotions, and a lot of powerful lessons about what really matters in life.
Gary Schneeberger:
So until the next time we're together, please remember this truth. We know your crucible experiences are difficult. Warwick and Greg talked about similar crucible experiences, which were similarly difficult for them. But here's the good news. Your crucibles are not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons from them and apply those lessons moving forward, they can take you to a destination that will be the greatest, most rewarding destination you'll ever find. And that is, too, a life of significance. Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like The Helper or The Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and, crucially, the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit Beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
What would you call a movie about a baby orphaned at birth, who the nuns at the convent where he lives feel sorry for because he doesn’t have a permanent home and family? A film about a baby who grows into a man who later gets adopted but looks so different from the others in his town, whose abilities are so different from theirs that he’s the least successful employee at this job? A picture about a man who is talked about as a failure behind his back by those who act in his presence like they care for and respect him?
Maybe you think that movie turns out to be a depressing drama about an unfortunate soul discarded by society who winds up living a self-destructive life. A tragedy about hope denied, a life lived in ever-crumbling shambles. Maybe even a character study of a protagonist who winds up having no character and, with nowhere else to turn, leans into a life of narcissism and crime.
Well, if those are the conclusions you’ve come to, you’re a cotton-headed ninny-muggins.
That’s because the movie whose opening beats were just described (and from which that ninny-muggins line came) is Elf, the holiday comedy classic released in 2003. But the story of Buddy the elf is not just a funny, heartwarming Yuletide charmer. It’s also a master class in what it takes to overcome the trials and traumas of life we call crucible experiences. So, here are three lessons from Elf to help us move beyond our tragedies and failures and cast a unique vision for a life of significance, a life lived on purpose, dedicated to serving others.
Your gifts and talents don’t have to match everybody else’s or anybody else’s (and probably shouldn’t) for you to discover your vision.
Buddy grows up to work as an elf at Santa’s workshop after being adopted by Papa Elf, one of the most respected of Santa’s inner circle. Buddy is given the opportunity to master the most desirable job for an elf, being a toymaker at the North Pole, referred to as “The Show” and “The Big Dance” by elves, a far superior vocation than the other two available– making shoes at night while the old cobbler sleeps and baking cookies in a tree. But because he’s a human, he only possesses two of the three skills that make elves great toy craftsmen – natural cheer and an active mind. He does not, alas, have nimble fingers.
So, when he can’t keep up with his colleagues making Etch-a-Sketches and gets reassigned to testing the quality of jack-in-the-boxes, he overhears two of his bosses deriding him for not realizing he’s a human, not an elf. Gobsmacked, he talks to Papa Elf, who tells him he was indeed put up for adoption by his human biological father, Walter Hobbs. Papa Elf encourages Buddy to go meet Walter in New York City, describing it as “a golden opportunity to find out who you really are.” Buddy then sets out on a journey to meet his father and perhaps discover what his gifts and talents may truly be.
In New York, Buddy’s plucky good nature comes immediately under attack. His dad rejects him as someone suffering from a mental disorder and has him forcibly removed from his office, where he works for a children’s book publisher. His younger half brother, Michael, thinks he’s weird. The boss of the Christmas department at Gimbels department store thinks he is a spacey employee who’s loafing when he’s really just a huge fan of Christmas and Santa who’s hanging around to help spruce up the place.
But Buddy lets all the ridicule, all the disapproval, roll right off him like his favorite food, syrup, rolls down his throat. For every insult hurled at him by others, every side-eyed glance questioning his behavior, Buddy doesn’t just stay joyous – he doubles down on that joy. It shows the most effective way to take the criticism of others when they think we’re off or odd when we’rebeing our true selves: stay happy with who we are, who we were both created and nurtured to be, whether others share that happiness or not. We’re the only ones, Buddy’s life proves, who are in charge of our personal disposition.
Serving others helps them overcome their crucibles … and helps you overcome yours, too.
Buddy begins to “fit in” better as his new friends and relatives get to know him better. Key to them getting to know him better is the help he offers them to get beyond their own crucibles. Consider Jovie, whose work at Gimbels requires her to wear an elf costume similar to the one Buddy has always sported, prompting him to compliment her for being a fellow traveler who “appreciates elf culture.” She begins to warm to him after he encourages her to not just sing in the shower – but to sing for others. “You have the most beautiful singing voice in the whole wide world,” he tells her, and challenges her with the North Pole truth that “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.”
He also rescues Michael from bullies who attack the two of them with snowballs while they’re walking home. Buddy’s prolific creation of snowy ammo and his sniper’s accuracy in hitting his human targets send the mean boys scurrying. Their shared victory makes the brothers fast friends. Michael even notices Buddy staring at Jovie at Gimbels and encourages his brother to ask her out on a date. He does, explaining to her that “I think you’re beautiful, and I feel really warm when I am around you and my tongue swells up.” Jovie is charmed by the comment she would have thought weird a few days earlier and says “yes.”
What Buddy does by helping Jovie and Michael helps him, too. That’s what happens when we help others along their journey to move beyond their crucibles. We get back as much relief and breakthrough as we give.
Perseverance is the jet fuel that propels you to a life of significance … even if that perseverance wavers and wanes at times.
When Walter gets hit hard by a crucible – his job is in jeopardy because of declining book sales – Buddy inadvertently makes it worse by insulting and then getting in a fistfight with a little person ghostwriter brought in to right the ship, because he assumes that the little person is an elf. Walter furiously tells Buddy to get out of his life – and Buddy dejectedly does just that. He sets out to walk back to the North Pole.
The outburst from his dad emotionally floors him – he could take his dad not saying he loved him, even after Buddy said he loved his father multiple times. But his perseverance is short-circuited when he feels angry antipathy, not just awkward indifference, from the man who gave him life.
But Buddy rediscovers that perseverance because his true purpose is needed again. It is needed by Santa, who’s piloting his sleigh – primarily powered by Christmas spirit – on his Christmas Eve run as he passes through New York. The sleigh is having a hard time staying in the air – Santa’s lost the booster rocket Papa Elf invented decades ago, and there’s a pronounced paucity of Christmas spirit in the atmosphere.
It’s up to Buddy to find the rocket (which he does) and help elevate the Christmas spirit all across the globe. Jovie and Walter are instrumental to the latter – she by breaking into “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” for the crowd gathered around the TV cameras covering the crisis; Walter by apologizing to Buddy and telling him he does indeed love him. Buddy’s dad helps with the propulsion of Santa’s sleigh by singing along with Jovie and the crowd witnessing the Christmas miracle.
That miracle would not have been possible had Buddy done what we caution those who have been through crucibles to never do: slip into bed and pull the covers over their heads. The Christmas crucible the world faces in Elf is overcome by Buddy refusing to let his perseverance get completely away from him.
And if anyone tries to tell you differently, they sit on a throne of lies.
Reflection
1. Have you ever found yourself discouraged that your gifts and talents aren’t like others’? What can you do to appreciate the uniqueness of who you are?
2. Think of a situation when helping someone through their crucible helped you through yours. Why do you think that happened?
3. When your perseverance starts to falter, what do you do to re-establish it?
We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.
BEST OF 2025: Big Screen, Big Crucibles IV: Les Miserables
You’ve heard us talk a lot over the years at Beyond the Crucible about the power of forgiveness — and that’s one of the core themes of our discussion this week of LES MISERABLES, the fourth film in our summer series BIG SCREEN, BIG CRUCIBLES.
Everyone in the movie experiences a crucible, but those who receive and then extend mercy and forgiveness to others are the ones who find lives of significance. Those too rigid to see the best in others, or in themselves — like the prison guard and policeman Javert — wind up — as one of the American translations of the film’s title puts it — The Miserable Ones.
Dive deeper into your personal narratives with our BIG SCREEN, BIG CRUCIBLES guided journal, meticulously crafted to enhance your experience with our podcast series exploring cinema’s most transformative crucible stories. This journal serves as a dedicated space for introspection, inviting you to connect the profound journeys of on-screen characters with the pivotal moments that have shaped your own life.
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Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
That gift would lead Valjean to being a man of grace and mercy. Grace and mercy was shown to him, and he indeed showed that to others. He looks after Fantine's daughter, Cosette, after Fantine dies; he shows mercy and forgiveness to Javert, a man who would never show any mercy and forgiveness to Valjean or anybody.
Gary Schneeberger:
You've heard us talk a lot over the years of Beyond the Crucible about the power of forgiveness, and that's one of the core themes of our discussion this week of Les Miserables: the fourth film in our summer series, Big Screen, Big Crucibles. Everyone in the movie experiences a crucible, but those who receive and then extend mercy and forgiveness to others are the ones who find lives of significance.
Those too rigid to see the best in others or in themselves, like the Prison Guard and policeman, Javert, wind up as one of the American translations, of the film's title puts it, The Miserable Ones. Welcome, friends, to another episode of Beyond the Crucible. You are in the midst of our, we are in the midst of our special summer series, Big Screen, big Crucibles, where we examine films and the crucible experiences in films that characters go through to help you navigate your own crucibles.
We're doing this again. You may remember, if you think back, this is the third time that we've done a summer series on movies, and so for eight weeks this summer, we're going to do it again. This is week four, so we're halfway through with this episode. We're taking a look at films with a wide variety of crucibles: insightful lessons they can teach us about how not only to bounce back from those crucibles, but on casting a vision for charting a course to move beyond those crucibles.
Our film this week is, and I ask you forgive, I beg your forgiveness before I say it, because Warwick has a very cool accent, I have a Midwestern accent, so when I say our movie, it's not going to sound nearly as cool coming out of our mouth. Stay tuned, Warwick will make it sound great, but our film this week, in all seriousness, is Les Miserables. The movie came out in 2012, and here's the synopsis of the film.
In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, who, for decades, has been hunted by the ruthless policeman, Javert, after breaking parole, agrees to care for a traumatized factory worker's daughter. The decision changes their lives forever. That sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it? It is. Stay tuned. Warwick, first question, as always on the summer series to you is, as I said, this is the third time we're back at the theater.
We're looking at movies again, why? What is it about film that is so revelatory about our crucible experiences and what are you hoping that listeners and viewers get from this series in our discussion here?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, Gary. We both love movies, and we've enjoyed looking at movies from a Beyond the Crucible perspective. Movies typically portray a protagonist who is facing significant challenges which they seek to overcome. We've covered movie heroes, action heroes, sports heroes, and we've also looked at last summer, at the American Film Institute's top 100 movies.
This year, we thought we'd look at movies that were some of the best ones that showed people overcoming often unimaginable crucibles, obstacles you would think that there's no way back from. Not only did they get beyond their crucible, they also led a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. The movies we're going to be doing this summer and looking at are truly great movies with incredible lessons for us all.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, before we get started, it's important for you to know a couple of things before we dive into the discussion. First, interestingly, this is the only movie we're discussing in our series of eight that is not based on a true story. It's based on a successful stage musical that was itself based on the 1862 French novel, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. Now, having said that, it depicts real life events, like the French Revolution, but the individuals who are in the film, they are fictional.
It's just kind of interesting, that out of eight movies, without even knowing it, we picked seven based on a true story. This one is based on true events in history, but it is fictional. That's interesting. It's also good to note, for those listening in watching who don't speak French, like me, that over the years, the title for American audiences has been tweaked a bit.
Les Miserables has been presented to American audiences sometimes as the Miserables, sometimes as the wretched, sometimes as The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, the Victims, and The Dispossessed. That can sound depressing. Let me tell you, please, in all seriousness, let me tell you this, as this discussion goes on, as you hear more about the movie, as you watch the movie, if this encourages you to watch the movie, it ends on a very high note, and there are true moments of joy and elation in this film.
That's my disclaimer. We get our first glimpse work of the misery and wretchedness, the crucibles, in our terms, of the central character in the opening scene. It's 1815, the onscreen graphic tells us, 26 years after the French Revolution. We see scores, maybe hundreds of emaciated men, doing hard labor in a downpour. The one the camera focuses on most intently is the chief protagonist of the film, who we will come to know as Jean Valjean. He's spent 19 years in prison, five for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's sick child, and 14 for trying to escape.
Through song, important to note, all but a few lines of the entire narrative are sung, not spoken, makes it a very interesting movie, we see him taunted by a prison guard named Javert. Warwick, this scene, this first scene lays out the devastation of the crucible that Jean Valjean has been through, and he will continue to go through if Javert has his way. We talk a lot at Beyond the Crucible about the power of hope and forgiveness, but that's not what we see when we meet these two central characters, is it?
Warwick Fairfax:
This is certainly a low point in Jean Valjean's life. He has been in prison for 19 years, and for what? Stealing a loaf of bread to help his sister's sick child who was close to death? That sure seems like maybe you deserve some punishment, maybe some rap on the knuckles, but 19 years? I guess it was five years, and then plus another 14 for trying to escape. It's just...
Gary Schneeberger:
The punishment does not fit the crime here, for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, absolutely. We see these lines of men with these long ropes, try to pull this massive ship into dock. It just seems almost impossible. We learn in this early scene, that he gets paroled, Valjean gets paroled by Javert, who will be his nemesis. In theory, that means he's free, but not really. Yes, he's free, but the papers that he carries with him, they basically say that he is a dangerous man, and he'll have to report regularly or he'll be arrested immediately.
Javert says that these papers are a badge of shame that he will wear until he dies. Doesn't really feel like freedom. Freedom kind of, but maybe it feels like purgatory, but doesn't really feel like he's fully escaped. As I said, this is really a badge of shame that he'll wear the rest of his life. It seems that in these early scenes, we get a bit of a picture of Javert, and it sure would seem like Javert does not believe in forgiveness or in redemption.
Javert's attitude throughout the movie is once a criminal, always a criminal. Redemption is not possible. You've committed a crime, and that'll follow you the rest of your life. That's the code that Javert goes by.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. His efforts to break Jean Valjean's spirit extend the fact that he doesn't call him Jean Valjean. He calls him by his number, 24601, throughout the movie, as you'll hear, these two, their paths crossed throughout the movie, but he always refers to them as 24601. You're just truly just a number. It also struck me, Warwick, that Javert thinks crucibles are a life sentence.
Imagine how for us, how tragic that would be, if all the guests we had on thought that way. If you thought that way after your crucible, if I thought that way after mine. It's definitely not the truth that crucibles are a life sentence, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true, Gary. If we were talking to Javert, he would say, "Your worst day does define you. Your worst day will be with you for the rest of your life. Certainly, if you've committed a crime and made a mistake, there is no redemption. It will haunt you the rest of your life. You make this kind of a criminal mistake, you're no longer human, you're just a number. You're subhuman, you're not worthy of redemption."
"You should be in prison, or hide away somewhere where decent people of society don't see you. You've made a mistake, and you'll forever pay for that mistake. Redemption doesn't exist. You are definitely defined by your worst day. It's sort of etched on your soul. There is no hope, there is no forgiveness, there's no grace, no mercy, no redemption." That is Javert's code.
Gary Schneeberger:
In his own way as he gets his freedom, Valjean sort of feels the same way initially, not about himself per se, but he definitely is full of hate and anger. He's carrying his crucible with him outside of the crucible experience of being in prison. He muses about what will life have for me, and what will this new life have for me?
It seems like Valjean has trouble with forgiveness himself at this juncture, and he finds out very quickly, so do all the people he seeks a second chance from, doesn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. At this point, Valjean is on parole. Yes, he has to check in regularly with his, I guess, parole officer, but it seems like he has freedom. These papers that say that he's a dangerous criminal, the badge of shame, wherever he goes, whether it's to try to get a job, or to find a room to rent, a place to sleep, nobody will let him in. He can't get work. He has no roof over his head. It really is, these papers really are a badge of shame.
He truly is a miserable, wretched person at this point, and he is no reason for hope that life will get any better, and no reason not to be angry and bitter. It's very clear that he sings, as you mentioned, that's the way the characters speak in this movie, he says that he'll never forget the years he has lost, and he will not forgive them for what they have done.
He, at this point is, "I will not forgive. I will not forget, I'm angry and bitter. What happened to me was absolutely unfair and wrong, and I'm never going to get over it." That's his attitude at this point of the movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
Then something truly miraculous happens to him. He visits, he drops by one of the people he stops by to see, looking for shelter, is the Bishop of Dean. This is the kind of man Warwick, whose radical grace changes the trajectory, of Jean Valjean's life, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Gary, this is profoundly true. The bishop asked Valjean to come into the church and give him a bed, and some food, and wine. Here is the beginnings of drops of grace. The first person that Valjean comes across, he says, "Come in, come into the church. I'll give you something to eat, a place to sleep." He tells Valjean this bishop does, "to rest from pain and wrong." The bishop is so kind to him.
Valjean is so full of anger and bitterness that it seems like at this point, it's impossible for him to receive any grace and kindness from the bishop. So much so, that what is Valjean's response to this kindness and grace that he's getting? He ends up stealing the silver from the church. Well, he gets caught, and he is brought back to the bishop and Valjean says, "Well, yeah, the bishop gave me the silver." I guess he's got to try something.
What's amazing is the bishop says, "That's true," which it wasn't, but obviously, he says that's true. The bishop says, "In fact, Valjean left the best of the silver behind." Not only does he forgive him for stealing the silver that he has, he gives him more silver, the stuff that he hasn't stolen yet. The bishop says there is a higher plan, and that Valjean must use this silver to become an honest man.
I don't know, the Bishop may see something in Jean Valjean. Maybe he sees some goodness that can be redeemed. I don't know what possesses the bishop to do what is, even for a minister, is just almost unthinkable, to not only no consequences. He could have said, "Okay, Greg, give me back the silver and be gone." He doesn't do that. That would be grace enough. Grace upon grace is you can have the silver. Use it to get yourself lots of money. That's more than grace. That's just astounding.
Valjean is overwhelmed by the bishop's kindness and grace. He says that God has raised him out of darkness. The minister has saved his soul for God. He says he's done with being a thief. He asks if there is another way then hate. He wonders why he allowed the bishop to touch his soul. What this bishop did for him, it absolutely touched and transformed his soul. He says one word from the bishop, and he would be back in prison. He wonders if there's another way to go.
In essence, he says that his past is nothing now, and another story must begin. Valjean has said, in essence, I'm going to turn the page. I'm going to become a different man. This whole episode, where the bishop shows the profound transformation that radical grace and kindness can have, this one episode, it is the turning point in Jean Valjean's life, and it transforms him from somebody full of hate and bitterness, to a person that can be redeemed, and be full of love and grace and mercy.
This one act of radical grace is, it's unbelievable in the act, but it's unbelievable, the transformation that it has for Jean Valjean.
Gary Schneeberger:
After this moment, this very meaningful and moving moment, Les Miserables then jumps eight years to 1823. Valjean has made good on his promise to serve God by helping others. He's a respected factory owner and mayor of Montroy. He is startled, though, when Javert arrives as his new chief of police. Very ironic, right? Now, Javert works for Valjean. That's an interesting deal right there.
Witnessing Valjean rescue a worker trapped under a cart makes Javert suspect Valjean's true identity, but he's not sure yet. Meanwhile, one of Valjean's workers, Fantine, is fired by the foreman of his factory when she is revealed to have an illegitimate daughter, Cosette. She has been mocked and chided by her female coworkers, Fantine has. She's been sexually harassed by the foreman. She is reduced on the streets to selling her teeth, selling her hair, and selling herself.
It's at this point that she sings the most famous song in the soundtrack of Les Miserables, I Dreamed A Dream. Let's take a look and listen to that song right now.
Fantine:
There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong...
I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high, and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made, and used, and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine untasted.
But the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder, as they tear your home apart, as they turn you dream to shame.
[inaudible 00:20:53] by my side. He filled my days with endless wonder. He took my childhood and destroyed.
He was gone when autumn came.
Still, I dream, he'll come to me, that we live the years together. There are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather.
I had a dream. My life would be so different from all this hell I'm living, so different from what it seemed.
Oh, life has killed the dream.
I dream.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, I worked on publicity for this film when I was living in Hollywood and doing PR in the film industry, so I know the movie well. When I saw and heard Anne Hathaway in this scene, just as an example, it was during a screening, was somewhere, and I said to a studio executive, "Bad news for anybody else up for a best supporting actress Oscar this year," because she was just so good in that scene. It just grabbed people so, so much.
Watching the film for the first time from a Beyond the Crucible context in particular has brought it to me in a fresh light, even though I've known that song in this movie for years. It's really a song about the bottom of the pit, as we talk about, which is caused by the pain of crucibles. We say it all the time. You've reached the bottom of the pit. This is where Fantine's at singing this song, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. Fantine is at the lowest ebb of her life. Fantine's song is so incredibly sad. She had dreams of a happier life, and they've been destroyed. That life that she lives now is so different than what she had hoped for. She believed she is literally living in hell. To have dreams that have been destroyed and be in a place of shame, and agony, and pain is about as deep a pit as a person could be in.
Not only is she in agony, but as bad as agony is, just to be at a point of shame where she's shunned by everybody, and she's forced to be reduced to a prostitute, she has no respect for herself. She's in agony. She literally feels like she is in a living hell. It's just an incredibly sad scene, and just a haunting song that she sings. It's just devastatingly sad, that Fantine finds herself.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, the last line, right? "Life has killed the dream I dreamed," right? That is truly the bottom of the pit. Unfortunately for her, the bottom of the pit is going to get a little bit deeper, because Javert arrests her when she attacks an abusive customer. Valjean recognizes her and takes her to the hospital, much to Javert's suspicion and anger.
Learning that a man has been wrongly identified as him, Valjean reveals his identity to the court, and this is a decision he wrestles with quite a bit to admit who he is will save the other man, but will put him back on the run, at least in prison under Javert or people like him at worst. Valjean ultimately turns himself in. It's the high character move for him to do. The one that doesn't just focus on helping himself, why is such honesty? Honesty that might cause us pain, so critical to Valjean, continuing to live his life of significance?
Warwick Fairfax:
Valjean is first torn. Part of him is relieved that they have caught someone they think is him, because then finally, Javert might stop looking for him. As he sings, because as we know, everything is right with his song, he sings this. If he says something in court, he'll be condemned. If he does not speak up, he'll be, in his words, damned, so condemned versus damned. That's a pretty tough choice.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. That is not a good decision to have to make.
Warwick Fairfax:
He wonders if he can condemn this innocent man and he sings, "Who am I? My soul belongs to God. Who am I? I'm Jean Valjean. Now, I wonder the man who was before he found that bishop, so full of anger and bitterness, I wonder if that man has said, 'Look, life is not fair?' I feel sorry for this guy, but I deserve to break. God or the universe who is up there, I deserve to be free, and this is a gift from God. Look, I can't help the whole world. He'll have to figure it out himself."
We don't know, but this Jean Valjean, the after that bishop showed him so much kindness and grace. He is a different man. By saying, "My soul belongs to God," it's very clear that he will do the right thing. This man is innocent. I am Valjean. The lesson here is that when you're beginning to turn to a different path, lying can erode your soul. Honesty is the path of new life and freedom. If he had started lying, he may have been free in the physical world, but in his soul, the change would've started coming back on him.
His conscience would've bothered him. He would've been in prison if he'd done the wrong thing and hadn't told the truth. It really shows that he is on a different path, and it's really something that we should all listen to and take a lesson from, that doing the wrong thing: lying, cheating, stealing, betraying, it puts your own heart and soul in prison. It's not the way out. Never is.
Gary Schneeberger:
No. Ironically, though ,the court doesn't believe him when he says that he's a Jean Valjean. The court doesn't believe him. Regardless, he's spoken the truth and it's a sign that his character has indeed changed, as you said. He must then head out on the run again, but only after doing two things. The first is he returns to the dying Fantine, promising to care for her daughter, Cosette. Talk about that scene, because it's a very touching, very sad, but very touching one as well.
Warwick Fairfax:
It surely is. Valjean consoles the dying Fantine. She sings, the light is fading, and Valjean says that she should be at peace, peace evermore. He'll protect her daughter Cosette. He tells her that her daughter will want for nothing. Fantine says, "He came from God in heaven." Valjean actually feels guilty for the situation Fantine finds itself in, because as we've mentioned, he was the owner of the factory where Fantine worked in. He feels responsible in some way for Fantine being fired by the foreman that was sexually harassing her.
I don't know that he was fully aware of what going on, but regardless, it was his factory and his mind, this new mind, this new heart, is that it's his responsibility. In a sense, by taking care of Cosette, he feels he's trying to right a wrong that he feels responsible for, for allowing what happened to Fantine to happen. This is really another indication of a remarkable change that is happening in the character and soul of Jean Valjean.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. One of the things that we talk about a lot here at Beyond the Curseable is the idea of doing soul work. We saw it earlier in the film, when he was singing, "What should I do? What do I do? Who am I? Who am I?" It's safe to say that Jean Valjean did some soul work in this film, didn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. That's a great point, Gary. He is taking positions that many people wouldn't. They might feel sorry for Fantine, but it's like, "Look, I can't be everywhere at all times. I'm not responsible for what the foreman did. Okay, maybe I'll fire him, discipline him, do something, but Fantine made her choices, and life's tough, and it's not my responsibility to sort out everybody's life. There's a lot of poor wretched souls in this world, and why am I responsible for fixing everybody's life?" That's what the old Valjean would've said.
The new one says, "No, it's my responsibility, and I'm going to take, not just help out Cosette, but take care of her for his whole life, and that she should want for nothing." He could have put her up in an orphanage somewhere, or maybe even a nice one, paid some money. Maybe she should have some decent living. She might be poor, but at least somewhat well-treated somewhere, maybe. Although orphanages back then are reminded of the movie Oliver, they were not too good back in the 19th century.
I don't know if there were any good orphanages back then, but regardless, he could have done something but not what he did, which is basically take Cosette in as his own daughter, if you will, so that she would want for nothing. That's remarkable grace. It's almost like he's learned this remarkable grace from the bishop. That's not normal grace. That's not normal philanthropy. It's just remarkable.
Gary Schneeberger:
No, he's definitely a man who, in our modern vernacular, is not afraid of getting his hands dirty when it comes to helping others, living that life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. He's truly walking that out in all that he does. His crucible remains from Javert, because he and Javert have a confrontation. The inspector tells him this, "Men like you can never change." There he is. He's changed. We've seen him change. He knows he's changed, and yet here's his voice, whispering in his ear, not whispering, but sort of barking at his, barking in his face.
"Men like you can never change." We learned a little bit though in this scene, Warwick, about Javert's own crucible life, and how it informs the harshness he carries, don't we? We see, I don't know if it causes us to feel sympathy for him or not, but we understand a little bit of where his harshness comes from, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, indeed. Valjean at this point is committed to fulfilling his promise to the dying Fantine to look after her daughter, Cosette. Then when he sees Javert and Javert confronts him, he tells Javert that this dead woman, Fantine, left a child, and he needs three days to make arrangements for the child. He's not saying "I'm going to run away forever, I just need some time to get things sorted out."
Javert says, "A man like you will never change." Javert will not listen and seems to have no compassion whatsoever. Javert says that he, Javert, was born in prison and is from the gutter, but he has learned very different lessons, and the lessons he is learned is basically one of a life of harshness with no possibility of grace and redemption.
For Javert, there are only laws in order that must be kept, no redemption, no grace, only laws and regulations, no way back, no redemption, almost like eternal damnation. That is the lessons that Javert seemed to learn from his very harsh upbringing.
Gary Schneeberger:
Valjean then visits the dishonest innkeepers, and Warwick, I apologize in advance as someone who speaks French, I'm going to get this wrong, but I'm going to try, the [foreign language 00:34:32]? Close?
Warwick Fairfax:
I think that's very good.
Gary Schneeberger:
All right. The dishonest innkeepers, we'll just call him the dishonest innkeepers from this point on, whose bit of the plot is mostly comic relief, and takes Cosette to protect her as his own. Warwick, he realizes, Valjean does, that love, the kind he feels from Cosette, has given him his true life's purpose. We talk about that a lot here at Beyond the Crucible. That's a moving realization, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. When Valjean first sees Cosette, he says he made a promise to Fantine, her mother. He says he was blind to someone in need, Fantine. In other words, he didn't realize what was going on in the factory. He feels responsible, but he says to Cosette that her suffering is over. Later, he sings that he's not alone now, and that something has begun. He sings, the world seems a different place full of grace and full of light. So much hope is held inside. "How was I to know that happiness can come so fast," he says, "Never more alone or apart."
Cosette has won his heart and brought the gift of life to him. He says, "I suddenly see what I could not see." This is part of the redemptive arc of Valjean's life. His life has purpose and meaning now. He wants to, in some ways, redeem Fantine's tragic life by caring for his daughter. Before, he had no purpose, no life. Now, he has purpose, life, and hope by redeeming Fantine's legacy, and by giving her daughter, Cosette, a life she could not have had otherwise, a life of hope and promise.
Valjean has, as part of his redemptive arc, he has purpose, and life, and hope. Joy is beginning to come into his life. There was no joy in that opening scene in the movie, where he and the other men were pulling that long rope lines of pulling that heavy ship into the dark. There was no hope. There was only anger, bitterness. Now, we see hope and love and joy. It is truly remarkable what we see in Jean Valjean.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, that he leans into his character. We have another series going on on the actionable truths of the brand, and character is one of them. The character, he acts on that. He acts on that. He acts on that. Then here comes the joy. That's vintage Beyond the Crucible. Character, if you lean into your character, you can pursue that joyous life of significance. This movie could have been written by us, maybe.
Warwick Fairfax:
Very well said.
Gary Schneeberger:
Valjean and Cosette find safe in a convent, and avoid Javert who's still chasing them. The convent's groundskeeper is the man, if you remember, that Valjean saved from the wood that had fallen on him earlier. Javert vows to keep his pursuit of Valjean. He sings, "Those who falter and those who fall must pay the price." That's Javert's worldview.
That's a hard world, isn't it, Warwick, for anyone who's been through a crucible to live in? Javert represents everything that's hard about turning trial into triumph, doesn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, as Valjean flees with Cosette, Javert is in pursuit. We learned something about Javert's theology and belief system. He sings about a fugitive, fallen from God and fallen from grace. It's as if when you've fallen from God and fallen from grace, in Javert's mind, there is no way back. Grace is lost forever. Javert will never yield until they come face to face.
He sings, "Mine is the way of the Lord. Those who follow the path of righteousness." He talks about it as if when people fall as Lucifer fell, they will get the flame and the sword. He says, "Those who fall must pay the price." He sings, "Lord, let me find him safely behind bars. I will never rest until then. This I swear by the stars," meaning he has his own theology and belief system all worked out.
He definitely has a belief in God and the Lord, but a very different belief system than Valjean, or certainly the bishop. Javert has this harsh theology, one of judgment and rules, where there is no grace, none whatsoever. He is committed to his path and his way of looking at the world and God, and he will never relent. It is hard to move beyond your crucible when you're being pursued by men like Javert, who believes there is no possibility of redemption or mercy.
As we said before, Javert's belief system is you were defined by your worst day, certainly, when you committed a crime. There is no way back. There is no life of significance. You're not even human. Subhuman people that are criminals, there's no redemption, there's no life or significance. There's only eternity of pain and suffering. That's what you deserve when you've committed a crime. When you're at the bottom of the pit, the pit is never ending, and there's no way out.
There's no light at the end of the tunnel, only eternal darkness, and that is as it should be. That's what you deserve. That is the belief system, this horrific and horrendous belief system that Javert has.
Gary Schneeberger:
To flip it on its edge, our series on the actionable truths, right? All that Javert is about is actionable falsehoods. He's acting on these falsehoods, that there's no grace, there's no redemption. You can't get better. If you've done this, once a thief, always a thief. He's constantly acting on those things. He's not just saying them, he's acting on them. That really makes life challenging, to say the least, for Jean Valjean. Well, as Les Miserables want to do what [inaudible 00:41:27] jumps ahead again after this.
The movie jumps ahead nine years in the next point, and Valjean has become a philanthropist to the poor in Paris. A new French Revolution is brewing. General Lamarque, the only government official sympathetic to the poor, dies. The revolutionist group, friends of the ABC, plot against the monarchy. Marius Pontmercy, how's that? Was that good? Pontmercy?
Warwick Fairfax:
That was really good.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, thank you. All right, I'm going to live on that for another two weeks, folks. Marius, we're going to call him from now on. Marius, a member of the Friends falls in love with Cosette at first sight, and asks his best friend, Eponine, the wicked innkeeper's daughter, to find her. He and Cosette meet and confess their love.
Eponine, herself in love with Marius, is heartbroken. In a movie full of crucibles, Warwick, this is a more minor crucible that we don't see a lot of, but this is definitely a crucible for this young woman who's known many of them, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, so absolutely. We see Marius, who is a student revolutionary, but he's from a wealthy background as we see in one scene, where his grandfather tries to stop him from getting involved in the revolution. Marius sees Cosette, and he's instantly drawn to her, as she is to him. It is almost cruel when Marius, not quite understanding what's going on, he asked Eponine to find Cosette. Eponine tells Marius that she knows Cosette, they grew up together.
What's so sad is while Marius just considers Eponine a friend, Eponine dearly loves Marius. She considers herself his girlfriend, even though he doesn't quite see it the same way. When Eponine agrees to find Cosette, it is an act of both great tragedy and incredible love for Marius. She realizes that Marius is just besotted with Cosette, and she can see there's just this deep feelings, attraction to Cosette.
The last thing that she wants to do, humanly speaking, is to satisfy that desire, because if he is with Cosette, he won't be with her, which is the last thing she wants. She loves Marius so much. She's willing to do something for him that will cause her immense pain. That is an act of supreme love that's hard to describe. When Eponine hears Marius talk of his feelings toward Cosette, it is like a dagger in her heart. Yet she moves ahead to try to find a way to unite Marius with Cosette. It is remarkable act of love and selflessness.
Gary Schneeberger:
Fearing that Javert is near Valjean plans to flee to England with Cosette, Cosette, wanting to be near Marius, though, is hesitant about the idea, but when Valjean ignores her pleas, she leaves Marius a letter, which Eponine hides from him. During Lamarque's funeral procession, the revolt begins, and barricades her built across Paris.
Javert poses as an ally, that's the kind of character that Javert has, he poses as an ally to spy on the rebels, but the street urchin, Gavroche, exposes him as a policeman. The revolutionaries hold him hostage. Valjean, who's joined the resistance to keep Marius in sight, because of Marius's love for Cosette, asks to be given Javert.
Warrick, this is a, for me, the second most moving scene in the film. Valjean has his tormentor captive. The resistance is urging him to kill the man who betrayed them. That's not who Jean Valjean is, is it? What does he do with Javert in this situation?
Warwick Fairfax:
You're right, Gary. This is one of the most remarkable scenes in the movie. Here, Valjean asks the rebels, "Hey, I'll deal with Javert." He takes him away and he draws a knife. At this point, Javert is thinking, life is over. Valjean's going to kill me. What does Valjean do? He uses the knife to cut Javert's binding, and tells him to flee, and he doesn't want revenge. This blows Javert's mind. He does not understand. This is not in Javert's belief system.
Javert says to Valjean, "Once a thief, forever a thief." He says that if Valjean lets him go, he will have to answer to Javert. Valjean says, "Javert has always been wrong." He says, "He, Valjean, is no worth on any man," and that Javert is free. There are no bargains. He does not blame Javert. Javert has done his duty, nothing more. That's what Valjean says. Valjean even tells Javert his address. That's incredible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, so he can go find him later if he wants to.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. He doubts that they paths will ever cross again, and he fires a shot to pretend to have killed Javert, and Javert flees. Valjean shows grace and mercy to Javert, which Javert would never have shown to Valjean. When Valjean frees Javert, it's like, "This makes no sense. He should not be doing this to me." As we'll find, it's sort of gnaws away his soul.
He cannot understand what Valjean has done to him or done for him. Yeah, I actually said, it's funny I said that. He did it for him, but as he will find out, he ended up doing it to him. We'll put a little teaser for what we'll talk about in a moment.
Gary Schneeberger:
That very well done, Warwick. You're very good at dropping those little breadcrumbs along the path. Stay tuned, folks, because there is some good stuff, even strong stuff coming later on. In the battle that follows, the outgunned evolutionaries are besieged. Many die. Marius is wounded. Even Javert is touched, this one hits me. Even Javert is touched by the carnage he witnesses, pinning his medal on the young boy Gavroche, who was killed.
Valjean carries Marius away to save his life, and Javert sees him and threatens to shoot him if he takes one more step, but he doesn't shoot him when Valjean doesn't listen to him, and does take one more step to get Marius out of there. What Valjean has done for him, what he has not done to him, shatters Javert, doesn't it? He has no room in his worldview for an act of mercy on that scale.
I think this makes him, Fantine's story very sad, very devastating, but these are things that happen sort of to her. I think this makes Javert perhaps the most miserable of The Miserables, as is translated in the US, because this is all coming from within. Is that a fair assessment?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great point, Gary. Here, we have Javert holding a pistol at Valjean as he's carrying Marius. Marius was wounded. They were crawling through the sewers to try to escape. At first, Javert tells them, "One more step and you die," but then Javert drops his pistol, and he speaks of almost a spell that Valjean has put on him. Javert can't stand that Valjean could have killed him, and yet he gave him back his life.
Javert is in the debt of a thief. He cannot stand being in the debt of a thief, of a criminal. It just eats away at his soul. Javert says, "There is nothing that we share. It is either Valjean or Javert." Javert is standing on the edge of the bridge, high over the waters. It's a long, long way down. He wonders if sins can be forgiven, and whether crimes can be reprieved.
There is a glimmer of trembling at perhaps a slight breaking in Javert's heart of stone. His belief system is beginning to slightly crumble, and Javert says, "Does Valjean know that granting me my life today, this man Valjean, has killed me?" He stares into the void and says, "I'll escape from the world of Jean Valjean. There is nowhere I can go. There is no way to go on." Then Javert leaps to his death. Javert is indeed a miserable and a wretched person.
His was a belief system of rules, regulations, and harshness, with no possibility of grace and redemption. Valjean's supreme act of grace and mercy, by sparing Javert's life completely, undoes Javert. Because of Javert's belief system, somehow, Javert seems to allow the grace and forgiveness from Valjean to kill him. When I said before, the grace of mercy that was done to him rather than for him, it's actually true, because Javert cannot process grace, and forgiveness, and redemption.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Now, the stage is set for Cosette and Marius to get married. Though he's happy for Cosette, Valjean flees before the wedding, he tells Marius about his past, his crimes and his prison term, and he worries that Cosette will face repercussions for his sins, even though earlier, she asked him to tell her about his past, which he did not do. He takes refuge again at the convent.
When Marius learns, it was Valjean who saved him when he'd been shot, something Valjean in his humility never told him, Marius tells Cosette her father is a saint for his actions. The newly married couple track him down to the convent. Talk about that final scene between Valjean and Marius and Cosette work, and why it's so meaningful in the context of what we've seen in Les Miserables.
Warwick Fairfax:
This is such a beautiful scene. It's really a scene of redemption, of love and grace. We see Valjean dying, and as he's dying, he sees an image of Fantine singing to him. She sings to him, "You raise my child with love, you will be with God." Valjean says that Cosette is the best part of his life. Marius says that Valjean saved him, and says to Cosette, as you pointed out, that her father is a saint.
With Cosette with him, Valjean says that he can die in peace, because his life is now blessed. For Valjean to say that his life is blessed, I think probably at the beginning of the movie, he would've said his life is cursed.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
It is a remarkable transformation in attitude. Valjean writes his last confession of his story of someone who turned from hating and learning to love when Cosette was in his care. Valjean gives this letter of confession, which basically describes everything that happened to him, and everything that he did, and the whole arc of his life, he gives this letter to Cosette to open after he died. At this point, Cosette really doesn't know who her adopted father truly was and what he'd been through.
Fantine, or at least her image, then sings to Valjean, "Come with me, where the chains will never bind you Lord in heaven, look down on him, Valjean, in mercy." Valjean's last words are, "Forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your glory," and then he dies. It is truly remarkable. The arc of Jean Valjean's life has completely changed. Previously, he was a man that was angry and bitter, who'd been imprisoned for so many years for doing so little, stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's sick child.
Now, he's become a man full of mercy and grace, who spent his life caring for Cosette, and in some sense, redeeming the life and legacy of Fantine. Valjean showed great mercy and forgiveness to his nemesis, Javert. Valjean's life was truly a life that became one of love, grace, and redemption. At the beginning of the movie, to think that his life could be a life of love, grace, and redemption, it would be inconceivable. His life is completely turned around.
He dies a man feeling blessed, who felt like he did some good in the world, who, he had some redemptive influence. Jean Valjean dies as a man completely at peace. It's just remarkable.
Gary Schneeberger:
There's one thing, as I hear you talk about it, that makes me, I think there's one big mistake that Valjean makes. We talk about it at Beyond the Crucible, your worst day doesn't define you. He believes, by withholding his last confession, by worrying of how Cosette will react to it, he believes right up until he passes away that what he's done before, his sins that he's so moved past and lived a life of significance, are going to cause problems, are going to haunt going forward.
Talk a little bit about just, we haven't talked about this before, but not on this show, we've talked about it many times on other shows, why it's so important to, when we've repented of our sins as they've caused our crucibles, and we've moved beyond them, and we've left them behind us, we shouldn't live in that space, that we should not let our worst day define us.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's an interesting point, Gary. He is really living a life of grace, and mercy, and forgiving others, but it's unclear how much he feels he is worthy of grace and forgiveness. He wants Cosette to know his story, but he's unwilling to tell Cosette the full story while he's alive. Maybe he thinks she would be shocked and would turn away from him, would be repulsed by what he's gone through, and being imprisoned and all.
He doesn't want her to think less of him. Maybe because he finds it challenging, perhaps, to forgive himself, he worries that Cosette may not forgive him, but yet, there must be a part of him that believes she will and she could. Otherwise, he never would've given that letter to Cosette to say, "Here's my confession, here's what happened." I guess maybe it's 50/50, maybe it's like, he's hoping that she'll forgive him, but just in case, he doesn't want to really see her face while he's alive.
Yeah, he's not fully there, believing. He's not fully forgiving himself what he's been through and his mistakes.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, interesting. Again, watching this movie through the lens of Beyond the Crucible was just fascinating and really illuminating to me. We've arrived at the end of the movie. Valjean has shown after death, he has shown after death, singing a song with all the revolutionaries who were killed, as well as Fantine. There's a beautiful scene at the end, where they all kind of, their spirits really sing together, a song of triumph.
That leaves me to ask you one last question, Warwick, and we've talked about a lot of stuff here. This is a dense movie, and I don't mean dumb. This is a packed movie. This is a movie that's packed with lots of both high joy and very low, low, low devastation. Let me ask you this. How does Les Miserables offer hope and inspiration to move beyond our own crucibles? What would you say is the greatest point about the movie?
Warwick Fairfax:
Les Miserables is a story of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption. Jean Valjean starts off as a man in prison for years, for a crime that was so small, stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's sick child. He starts off being so angry and bitter for what he sees as an injustice. In one sense, he could say he has every right to feel angry and bitter. He was just so mistreated. He faces a man in Javert who is, in a sense, who is all about rules and harshness, where mercy and redemption are impossible.
Through an act of supreme mercy and forgiveness by the Bishop of Dean, Valjean's life is fundamentally changed. The Bishop could have turned him in for stealing silver. He could have said, "Okay, I'm not going to turn him in, but be gone, and enough with you." Instead, he gave him all of the silver and then some, and it was such a gift, so that he really had this vision, this bishop, of Valjean becoming an honest man. That gift would lead Valjean to being a man of grace and mercy.
Grace and mercy was shown to him, and he indeed showed that to others. He looks after Fantine's daughter, Cosette, after Fantine dies. He shows mercy and forgiveness to Javert, a man who would never show any mercy and forgiveness to Valjean or anybody. Valjean's life has truly been redeemed. He has gone from living a life of anger and bitterness, to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. This movie shows that we can indeed have a second chance.
It shows us that the way of anger and bitterness leads to destruction. It leads to misery. A life with rules and regulations without grace and mercy cannot stand, as is shown by the life of Javert. Eventually, his life comes falling down like a house of cards. His belief system, it cannot stand. No matter how crucibles and what we have done, what has been done to us, this movie shows, there is always the possibility of hope and redemption.
Gary Schneeberger:
With that, folks, you may have noticed the house lights have gone on. It's time to gather your popcorn buckets, and your empty soda containers, and throw them out as you leave. We are done for another week of our summer series, Big Screen, Big Crucibles, and next week, we will be back with another one. Scott, wake up. If we put you to sleep, wake up in there, Scott, because next week, will be talking about, and I need a drum roll right now.
Excellent. Next week, Warwick and I will be discussing the pursuit of happiness. Until then, folks, please know we understand how tough your crucibles are. We also understand that they can be overcome. They don't define you for the rest of your days. Until we get together to talk about our next film in this series, remember, we'll save you a seat.
Welcome to a Journey of Transformation with Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the Helper, or the Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there.
It's more than an assessment, it's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit BeyondtheCrucible.com. Take the free assessment, and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
Applying the Actionable Truths 10: Significance
This week, in the final episode of our yearlong series within the show on the actionable truths of the Beyond the Crucible roadmap, we discuss just how we can get to a life of significance as we navigate our way back from a crucible.
Pay special attention near the end, when Warwick lays out each one of the truths we covered in order, offering a step-by-step process that can ensure we do, indeed, arrive at turning our trial into triumph.
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
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Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. True joy comes when you're really living a life of significance where you're living true to your inherent purpose and you're serving others. That's where just a sense of peace and joy and you feel like you're living in light of who you are made to be.
Gary Schneeberger:
This week in the final episode of our year long series within the show on the Actionable Truths of the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, we discuss just how we can get to a life of significance as we navigate our way back from a crucible. Pay special attention near the end when Warwick lays out each one of the truths we covered in order, offering a step-by-step process that can ensure we do indeed move from trial to triumph.
Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. It is a special episode of Beyond the Crucible. This is the 10th part in our series within the show, as we've called it this year, on the actionable truths of the Beyond the Crucible brand. So Warwick, I talk about landing the plane a lot. We're landing the plane on this series about the actionable truths today. So pretty exciting, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It sure is. It's exciting and it's almost slightly bittersweet that we've come to the end of the series because it's been such a fun series. But yeah, it'll be fun to talk about this last actionable truth.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it's the best one. It's a big one. It's an important one. But I'm going to keep you ... Well, if you've read the show notes, you know what we're talking about, but I'm still going to play a little bit of ... We're going to reveal here in a minute. But first, I want to start by saying that this is, to set the stage for everybody, this is our refreshed way. It's not entirely new, but it is more laser focused of helping you get from your worst day to your greatest opportunity. And it's what we've named the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. We describe it like this. Every time, and I'm going to do it with theatricality this time, I'm going to read it off the page right here in front of me. We describe the roadmap as this, how we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity. We provide the actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip them to write their own life affirming story.
A couple more details just to set you up for what we're going to talk about. The roadmap has been built from our proprietary research, which is statistically valid into how people experience crucibles and what we've learned from our experience and the experience of all the guests we've had on the show about what it takes to turn trial into triumph. And the most revolutionary news through all of this process in analyzing the roadmap we identified is what we've called what I said at the top, the actionable truths of the brand.
To pass these life-changing truths along to you, our listeners and viewers, all this year, we have done a series within the show, as I said, doing each of the 10 actionable truths, one per month, except over the summer when we did a summer movie series, and exploring the ways that these truths can help you make your way along the roadmap. It's a lot of conversation. Not conversation. A lot of monologue from me. Warwick, now it's time to ask you a question. Level set us on our discussion on the 10th of these truths. So let me ask you why actionable truths. What do we mean by that?
Warwick Fairfax:
At Beyond the crucible, our focus is how you get beyond your worst day to lead a life of significance. And what we have now is what we're calling the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, how you go from trial or crucible to triumph or a life of significance. And we've found that there are 10 actionable truths that are catalysts in helping you move along your journey from your worst day to where you're living your life affirming vision. In other words, you're triumphing and you're living a life of significance. Now, these actionable truths have actually always been part of Beyond the Crucible. In fact, they were implicit in the book I wrote a few years ago, 2022, I believe, Crucible Leadership.
Gary Schneeberger:
So second question paired to the first one is this, how do these actionable truths ... They're actionable and they're truthful. So how do they help us move from where the roadmap takes us from trial to triumph? How do they help us get along that roadmap?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. These actionable truths, they're actually accelerators, enablers to help us move from a crucible or trial to lead a life of significance. And these actionable truths are actually catalysts. I think of the movie Fast and the Furious or actually there's a bunch of them, right? Was it 10 or something? There's been a lot of movies.
Gary Schneeberger:
There's like 10 or 11 of them, and I happen to own every one of them.
Warwick Fairfax:
And so in that movie, if you don't have nitrous oxide to take those cars to the next level, you're not going too fast. So yeah, those actionable truths are absolutely critical. Without them, you'd be stuck at trial, your worst day, the bit of despair. So really, I think what we've determined in the research backs us up is you can't go from crucible or trial to triumph without these 10 actionable truths, which really just like fuel or turbocharge your journey back from your worst day to, in a sense, your best day, a life of significance.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it's a great place to end your comments here because where we've arrived at the roadmap in this 10th episode, folks, is we're now in the final section. And the final section is, I've said the word a couple of times, Warwick has too, I believe. Triumph is the final section of the roadmap, but it's not the final actionable truth. The 10th actionable truth, the final actionable truth that we're talking about this year is a word you've heard quite a bit from Beyond the Crucible, and that word is significance. So Warwick, I'll turn it back to you and say, how would you define significance and why is it the final step after a crucible to indicate that we've recovered from a crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
At Beyond the Crucible, we talk a lot about getting beyond your worst day and to living a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. And so we believe that when we've found a way to get beyond our crucible and that we're living a life of significance, that that means that we're truly triumphing. So what this looks like is that we're living a life that is true to who we are and what we feel is our purpose and we're having an impact on others that gives us true joy. That is triumphing. And it's important to note that when we talk about triumphing, we're not talking about triumphing in the way that the world might look at it, worldly success or money. True triumphing is when we're living in light of who we are and who we were created to be, and in some ways serving others.
So triumphing, some people might look at it in terms of money, success, fame. It's like fool's gold or maybe even a sugar high. It just tends to fade. There's no sustaining sense of joy. There's this sense of, "Oh, if I got to the next level of my career or fame or money, then I'd be happy." And it doesn't last. And so true triumphing, true joy comes from living a life of significance when you're really having an impact in the world in some way and serving others. True joy comes when you're really living a life of significance where you're living true to your inherent purpose and you're serving others. That's where just a sense of peace and joy and you feel like you're living in light of who you are made to be.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, this is a really good time to say this, and that is we've reached the end of the actionable truths, we reached the end of the roadmap, triumph, end of the actionable truths, significance. But I wanted to make it clear that unlike most roadmaps, you're driving to grandma's house, you get to grandma's house, your journey's ended and you're there and it's all fine and dandy. This isn't quite the same kind of roadmap. And I want to make sure that people understand, folks understand, listeners and viewers understand that it's important to note that there may be a finish line of sorts after a crucible, but there is no rest area. And by that I mean we have to continue learning the lessons of our crucibles and applying them even after we've reached this stage of triumph in the roadmap and this actionable truth of significance. So I wanted to ask you ... This is an important point to make, right? It's not done. We can't just like put a flag in the ground and say, "Yay, I claim this for my significance." We have to continue living that life out, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a great question and such a great point. When we're living a life of significance and we feel that we're triumphing in the best sense of the word, we can't just rest in our laurels and say, "Okay, we're here, we're good." Because in life, we're either moving forward or backward. And it's also interesting in the world of business. Companies are either growing or declining. If you see a company that seems to be coasting, that tends to be the first step towards a dip and a decline. And you don't want your life to be like that because if you're coasting, that's not good because the next step is almost inevitable. You will start declining in some sense.
So when we're leading our life to significance, it's important to ask ourselves, well, what's the next step in our journey? Maybe there's a new mission, a new vision, maybe there are new people to help. What's that going to look like? That's a very important question to ask. And it's also important periodically to ask ourselves and those who may be supporting us in our mission, whether we're still living a life of significance. Are we living in light of our beliefs and values? Have we strayed maybe? Maybe we've got distracted. So we need to be ever vigilant to ensure that we're still living a life of significance and that we're still truly triumphing because if we start drifting in our mission, that sense of joy and purpose, it will begin to fade. We've talked earlier about the difference between evolving and drifting. It's one thing if we feel like our mission and vision is evolving, we're becoming a better version of ourselves and our organization is continually moving to the next level. Evolving is different than drifting. Evolving is on purpose. Drifting happens by accident. And we've talked about this before.
So we need to ensure that we're fully living a life of purpose dedicated to serving others and it's our own unique vision and purpose and that we are living a life of significance that really is in light of who we are. It's anchored by our beliefs and values and we're not drifting. So yeah. Resting. Taking a day off is one thing, but resting in the sense of not fully considering where we're going and why we're going there, that's not a good plan. Basically, what will happen is you'll drift and that sense of significance and triumph could fade, which is obviously not what we want.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And I'm not going to fade on bringing up the American Dictionary of the English language, Noah Webster's first dictionary. Every episode that we've done this, I've taken the actionable truth and I've read what Webster's in his first dictionary, his definition was. You're going to love what Noah Webster had to say about what significance is. Just three words, importance, weight and consequence. That's what Noah Webster says significance is all about. So living a life of, to use it in our terms, a life of importance, a life of weight, a life of consequence, pretty good stuff there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Boy, those are three great words. Importance, weight and consequence. We want our life to have importance. We want to feel like we did something important, which can sound like a big word, but I think importance is in the eye of the beholder. It could be important in our neighborhood to our friends, in our town. We talk a lot about significance. It's not a competition. Who can save the most people or have the biggest global impact? We have to be true to who we are and who we feel called to be. And weight, I think it's similar to importance. It has to have some gravitas. It has to feel like that this is something that can make a difference. And consequence, we want to feel like it is a vision of consequence. Even if it's just in our neighborhood, it's making a true difference in people's lives. It's accomplishing a real purpose that we and others passionately believe in. Yeah. Those can seem like big words, importance, weight and consequence, but I think you can live a life of importance, weight and consequence that's true to you, to your family, to your town, your community. It's absolutely possible. So don't be intimidated by those three words because you can say, "Well, that's not me. Importance, weight, consequence." Okay, count me out. Looked at correctly, I think we're all absolutely able to achieve a life of significance that's truly in light of those three words.
Gary Schneeberger:
Great, great point. And folks, there are three stages in our research, qualitative and quantitative that have shown us people manifest in this section of the roadmap. So by that I mean they manifest significance in this section, in this triumph section of the roadmap. The first one is having acknowledged our crucible and its transformational impact on us. And we don't get to this point, Warwick, without this being true, do we?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. The first step in getting beyond our crucible is indeed acknowledging the pain of our worst day. We can't just say, "Nothing can see here. I'm blowing right past it. I'm not one who reflects. Let's keep going." That's not smart because whether you like it or not, that crucible will be like an anchor around you. It will stop you moving forward. So you've got to acknowledge the pain of our worst day, our crucible and we've got to realize we've been changed for better or worse. We say all the time, the person who we were is not the same as the person who we are after a crucible. It just is what it is.
And so one of the things we have to do is acknowledge that it happened and find some way to have peace with it. We've had people on the podcast with physical crucibles, victims of abuse, people who've lost businesses, loved ones. Those are irrevocable changes and we may not like them in how could we possibly, it's unbelievably painful. We've got to find a way to have peace in the sense if it happened, we've got to find a way to move on and we've got to find a way to stop being angry at ourselves or angry at others. We won't be able to reflect on the lessons of our crucible and begin to think of ways to move beyond it if we're consumed by anger and bitterness and a sense of, "I will never accept what happened to me and I will not accept the new normal." You can't even begin to think about triumphing if you wallow in the pain, however understandable of your worst day. You've got to find a way to find peace with it and acknowledge what happened and learn the lessons of them.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. The second point is we have to move beyond the hurt to cast a new, meaningful vision for life. We need this, don't we? To reach triumph and significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
Part of the healing journey is thinking of a new vision that is filled with purpose and focus on others. And when we're able to get to the point where we're beginning to think of this new vision, it says that we've taken some steps even, albeit baby steps beyond the pit of despair, beyond our worst day. And we can begin to think of what is that new vision? What is that next step in the journey? And what's interesting is very often, I think this is true of almost all of the guests we've had on the podcast, this vision comes out of the pain and the lessons that we've learned from our crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
We begin to make that shift that we talk about so often in which we say it happened for me, not to me. And as we're casting this new vision, we begin to see what our life of significance could be and will be. And as we're journeying towards this life of significance, it gives us hope and life. And we might find that we wake up many days with a sense of anticipation and a sense of excitement because we're excited about what this new day will bring. Who are we going to help? How are we going to take this vision to the next level? And as we're doing this, we're creating this new vision, this life of significance. We'll truly be able to triumph and we'll have joy, meaning, and purpose in our lives.
So this vision that leads us to a life of significance, it is a game changer. We're no longer focused so much on what happened on that worst day. Yes, we might have flashbacks, we might be triggered, but a bit like a graph which has dips as we're moving forward, there'll be temporary dips, but overall we'll just have new joy, meaning, and purpose in our lives and we'll be excited about the day. That's what a vision that's grounded in who we are and what we believe that leads to a life of significance. That's why it'll just gives this sense of triumph, which is so exciting.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And here's the third and final step, and it's the best step of all, right? It's the skeleton key to a life of significance, I think, is turning that exciting vision into a new, achievable, and sustainable everyday reality. This is really what we all long for after a crucible. When we're there and it's our worst day and we feel like we don't want to get out from under the covers and it feels like it happened to us, not for us this is what we're shooting for. This idea, this exciting new vision into an achievable and sustainable reality. That's a fair assessment, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's so true. Beyond the Crucible, we often say vision is good, but reality is better. And so when we see our vision become reality, when we're leading a life of significance, as we've said, no matter how small or big we might think it is, we're having an impact and it fills with us with joy and purpose. We have people come up to us and say, "You made a difference, made an impact today in my life, you made an impact in our town. That vision you had to clean up that neighborhood park, kids are playing there. There's joy, there's laughter, and we see the smiling faces on the kids and we're thinking, I made an impact. We made an impact." And what's important is in many cases, the vision that we have, it won't be a solitary vision, we'll have a team of fellow travelers who are helping to make our vision become reality.
And there's a special joy in not only are we seeing the joy on the faces of the people that we're helping, but we're seeing the joy on the faces of the people that we're working with. Maybe they feel that our life of significance is their life of significance, that we're part of an organization that has meaning and purpose, and they love coming to work every day. Who doesn't want to work with people when you all collectively feel like you're making a difference, you're making an impact? That's really triumphing in the best sense of the word when we feel like our vision is making an impact and we are living a life of significance. We are living a life of purpose. We are serving others. That's a joy-filled life. That's the life I think that we all want to live.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And I've got an example from just yesterday in my life that it doubles it up. So a friend of mine who used to work for me, her name's Carrie, Carrie Kintz. Hi, Carrie. Carrie has struggled for the last few years. She's felt like she was called to do a podcast. She wasn't sure she should do it. I encouraged her a couple of months ago, "Do it. You're gifted for it, do it." And she did it. She's on her sixth episode now. I'm listening to that episode yesterday. It's a faith-based podcast called Honey From the Rock, and it's all about what God's teaching her in her walk with the Lord. And as I'm listening to this, while I'm on my walk, she's speaking directly to a way I have felt about some health challenges that I've run into. So I'm like walking and she's giddy. Her voice is ramped up and she's really preaching fire and brimstone. I'm walking and I'm getting weepy and I'm walking around the neighborhood. I get home, I go sit in the backyard and I call her up and just to tell her, just to encourage her on how much that meant.
And Warwick, the two of us both were in our purposes at that time, our lives of significance. She was living it, doing the podcast. I'm living it as someone who's a mentor to her. And I sat on my backyard on the phone with her and we cried and we thanked each other and she thanked me for being a mentor. I thanked her for being so bold and speaking so truthfully about what she's gone through. That's a perfect example of what you're talking about, I think, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
That's a great example. You're encouraging Carrie to live in light and of her purpose. Anytime we do something new, as we know, like starting a podcast, it can be a little intimidating or scary, whatever that vision is, whatever that next step is. And having somebody who knows you and believes in you, knows what you're capable of, knows your skills and abilities to say, "You know, Carrie, you can absolutely do this. It's a faith-based podcast. It's in line with what you believe." Honey From the Rock sounds like a great concept to encourage others. You knew that this made sense and you encouraged her. And then just to hear her begin to have these podcasts and discuss them, she got such joy and you got joy feeling like I had an impact on somebody else's life today. Like me, you probably say I've got my good days and bad days. Some days maybe I don't live in light of my purpose as well as I could.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yep.
Warwick Fairfax:
But you think to yourself, "Today is a good day. Today I had an impact on somebody. Today I lived in light of my purpose." And that gives you strength and encouragement to go onto the next day. That is what a life of triumphing is like. Wouldn't you say Gary, when you were talking to Carrie and you're on your back porch and you're chatting, isn't that like feeling like I'm living a life of triumph in that moment?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, absolutely. And the great part about it for me is that she felt the same way. She was living her life of triumph. She's doing this thing that she was afraid of doing. She was a little resistant to doing. She's doing it and she's got me ... I'm in the backyard. I'm balling, walking around the neighborhood and I'm crying to you because it touched me so deeply. And that was a way for both of us to talk to each other about just the significance that we were both living out and how the significance that we've both been living out has impacted the other. I think that's significant squared in my book.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's so true. And I think what that indicates is when you're living a life that's true to who you were designed to be, a life of purpose as Carrie is, and you are, and you're living a life of significance, a life of impact, that brings joy that just pure achievement for the sake of itself, or trying to get higher up the corporate ladder or get more money. Achievement and rising up the corporate ladder or money in of itself is not wrong, but in themselves, they do not bring joy and happiness. Anybody that's ever had them will know that.
As we'll get into it in a bit, I grew up in a definitely very wealthy background and at various functions growing up, I knew of plenty of successful and wealthy people, but in of itself, did it give them joy? That's not what I saw.
So who doesn't want joy and meaning and purpose? Well, you want those things, joy and meaning. You've got to live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. From my perspective, it's the way God designed us. We're designed to live a life for some high purpose, whatever that means to you, a life serving others. That's the way we're designed. You might agree or disagree with the design, or I should say you might like the design or not like the design, but it is what it is. So you really can't change that. You want joy and meaning. You've got to have a life of purpose and a life focused on others.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Now I'm going to go from a story that brought me great joy that I just told you that we just talked about. It's something that's bringing me a little sadness, work. I'm going to be honest here. Because this is the last time in this series, or its our last episode of the series and it's the last time I'm going to get to do what I call turning our attention to patient zero for Beyond the Crucible. That's our host, the founder of Beyond the Crucible, Warwick Fairfax. And I'm going to talk to you about your experiences with what our actionable truth this week is. And that's going to be asking you talk about your experience work with significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
A lot of people growing up might think, "What does a life of significance mean?" I don't know that I have it. Not quite sure what that would look like. Well, for me, my life always had significance and that might not feel bad. It says, "Well, great. You started out with a life of significance like birth almost. Terrific." The problem was my life of significance, it was not acting in a vision that was my own. So it was actually acted in a vision that was my great, great-grandfather's vision. So he ended up founding a newspaper business that over the last 150 years would grow into a very large media business in Australia. It had newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio stations. It had the equivalent in Australia of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and the Washington Post. Its newspapers were major opinion leaders in our country, Sydney Morning Herald, the Age in Melbourne and the Australian Financial Review. So my parents saw me as somebody who one day would be the leading figure within that company. The company, as I mentioned, was founded by my great-great-grandfather. His name was John Fairfax. He was a man of great faith.
So after I came to Faith in Christ at Oxford where I went to university it was clear to me what my life of significance would be. He was a person of faith. I was a person of faith. And so it just felt like it's obvious that my role is to go in the company and as we'll get into, there's some challenges within the company and to resurrect the company and the image of the founder and he was a person of faith and ensure the company was well run and well managed and true to the vision of the founder.
And so my dad died in early 1987 while I was in my last year at Harvard Business School. And like my father, I also felt like the company wasn't being well run and was strained from the vision of the founder, John Fairfax. And my father had actually been removed as chairman a number of years before and by some other family members, so he really didn't like where the company was going. So the problem is trying to live someone else's life of significance does not bring you joy and it's certainly not triumphing. It's interesting. My dad was a philosopher at heart, a very good writer. He would write books on religion and try to synthesize different religious perspectives. He's a very bright, intellectual person. But when you see photographs of him from years ago, when he's at the office, although he loved journalism, it just seemed to be this dower look on his face. And then when you see him-
Gary Schneeberger:
I've seen the photos. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Right. And then when you see him in the country, he had a property, like a cattle property an hour and a half outside of Sydney. He has this straw hat on and this joy. He loved animals, loved the land. And it's not to say there weren't aspects of what he did at the company John Fairfax Limited that he enjoyed. I'm sure there were, but I sometimes think he would have been a better philosophy professor and write books on philosophy than heading up some big media company. So even he felt like he inherited somebody else's vision, again, my great-great-grandfather's vision.
So later in 1987, the same year that my father died, I launched a $2.25 billion takeover of the company to change management and bring the company back to the vision of the founder. And the takeover went wrong right from the start. Other families sold out. They didn't want to be trapped in a company run by a 26-year-old. I get that. Who would? The October '87 stock crash didn't help. So we ended up having too much debt and three years later, despite all our efforts of trying to change management the company had to file for bankruptcy. Those years, those three years I was in charge of the company were challenging because I brought in new management. They did increase operating profits 80%, but the debt was so large that really there's nothing that the management I brought in could do. I put an almost impossible no win situation.
So three years later, the company had to file for bankruptcy in 1990. And after the company went under, life was very challenging for me. I had lost my life of significance. How could I ever find a life of significance again? I had the prospect of having a life of significance, having an impact on the nation of Australia through major newspapers of media, and now I wouldn't. I would not be having a life of significance. I don't know that I talked about it in those words, but I think subconsciously I was thinking that. And certainly I was thinking, how could I ever have an impact in life at the scale that I might have had in the nation of Australia? The answer is, well, no, that's never going to happen. And there was some truth to that. How could I possibly have that kind of impact? The odds are it was going to be a no. But I began to realize as a person of faith that maybe God had another plan for my life. And I came to realize that maybe God doesn't measure significance the way the world does and the way I did in terms of the size of the perceived impact. Maybe it's more about, from my perspective, the purposes God has for each of us.
If we're following his purposes, whether we think it big or small, he doesn't. He doesn't measure significance by the number of lives we've impacted or how many employees we have in our organization or the size of the global impact we have. He doesn't look at it that way. It's, are you being true to the vision and the purpose I've given you and being faithful to that? That's how he emerges impact and purpose. That's from my perspective. And I think more generally, I think that is true too.
And so over time, I came to have my own unique vision and my own unique life of significance. So we ended up moving to the US after the company went under where my wife was from and the '90s were pretty challenging years as I was trying to figure out what should I do now with my life. But as I realized, God loved me unconditionally and the size of impact is not measured the way I think it is. God has his own purposes for each of us. I got a job at a local aviation services company in Maryland where we live. And from there, I became a certified executive coach through the International Coach Federation. I got on two nonprofit boards at the board of my kids' school, which is a Christian school, and then became an elder at my church, Bay Area Community Church, which is an evangelical church in Annapolis, Maryland.
And then one day, a number of years ago in 2008, the pastor of my church asked me to give a sermon illustration of a message he was giving. I don't consider myself back then a natural speaker, but I was willing to do what he wanted me to do. And what's amazing is the words that I shared seemed to have an impact on the congregation. As I often say, how many former media moguls were there in the audience? None. It's not like my story is like, boy, I could see myself there. But somehow weeks and months after people came up to me and said, "Warwick, what you shared really helped me." So that led me to write my book, Crucible Leadership, which took years to write. Writing about your most painful days was excruciatingly painful. There are other themes in the book about my family, other family members, and other leaders in history, other faith leaders. But writing this book led me to starting this podcast Beyond the Crucible and the blogs and social media that we write.
And so I can now say that I truly do feel that I'm triumphing in the broad sense of the word, not in this way that the world will look at it in terms of pure money and worldly success, but in the sense that I have my own unique vision, which I'm living out, that is true to me, true to what I believe, true to my faith in Christ, which is the anchor for my soul, and that I'm living a life of significance that I believe is having impact. And I don't look at impact the way that I perhaps might have in days gone by.
When I published my book, I was literally on my knees in prayer and saying, "I will be not be ..." When I published my book, I was literally on my knees in prayer saying, "My life is not going to be defined by the number of books of this book Crucible Leadership, whether it sells hundreds, thousands. I just want to be true to who I am. I'll do my best to promote it within the resources I have. I look at what we do at Beyond the Crucible. We're doing a level best to create a quality podcast and blogs and social media, and we're trying to promote and increase the number of subscribers of the podcast and viewers and subscribers to our email and make sure that as many people as possible read out blogs and look at social media. While we're doing all that, my life of significance isn't defined by numbers. We want to have those numbers grow and increase because you're either growing or declining, but that's different than being defined by. So my life of significance is not defined by numbers. It's defined by being true to my purpose and in some way, having an impact on others. That does give my life true joy, not just what we're doing at Beyond the Crucible, but in being an elder at my church and I'm involved in a strategic planning committee of another local faith-based nonprofit.
I'm on the strategic advisory campaign committee, I should say at Taylor University, a faith-based university in Indiana where my kids went. All of those are part of me living my life of significance, including just my own family, my three adult kids and my wife and being with them and encouraging them. That's all part of my life of significance, not just beyond the crucible, but everything I do is part of that. Everything I do is part of me triumphing in the broad and true sense of that word.
Gary Schneeberger:
I've got a statement and a question for you.
Warwick Fairfax:
Okay.
Gary Schneeberger:
The statement is I know I've seen the fruit of your life of significance. When you published the book, did some speaking, I remember looking at your face when people lined up to tell you how much they enjoyed the speech, how much they were looking forward to reading the book. And I watched your face and it lit up not in the way of, "Yay, my book's successful." It lit up in a way that said, "I've made a connection with this person. My story has helped me connect with this person, and this person is saying that he or she was helped by what I had to say." So I've seen that happen in your life. I'll go on to the question now. The question is this, I've heard you say on this show and in meetings and in private, I've heard you say hundreds of times over the last six years that you can't inherit another person's vision, right? You couldn't inherit your great, great-grandfather's vision, but I've never heard you articulate it this way, but I think you're also saying you can't inherit another person's life of significance, can you?
Warwick Fairfax:
As I read about my great, great-grandfather, John Fairfax, it's pretty awe-inspiring. In the last year or so, I've been reading the manuscript of a friend of mine, Stuart Johnson, who's an historian, Australian, currently living in New Zealand, person of faith and he's written biography of John Fairfax. And I knew a fair amount about him, but the more I read about him, just the person of faith he was, the wonderful father, wonderful husband, incredible employer, elder at his church. When he died, his employees said, "We've lost a kind and valued friend." He even mentored church planters, which I didn't realize until this book. And encouraged them. It's just, who is this person? So yes, it's very easy to be intimidated. And so his life of significance, having quality newspapers and just being a wonderful dad and husband and elder at his church and encouraging so many people, I feel like every nonprofit in Sydney at the time he was either on the board of or held a fund. How do you find time to sleep? Maybe he didn't. I don't know. So it's intimidating and it was a wonderful life of significance, one incredibly worthy of respect and admiration, but as wonderful as life of significance was, that's not my life of significance. God worked in John Fairfax's life to his purposes. Well, I like to think God's working in my life for different purposes.
Every human being is unique and every human being from my perspective will have his or her own unique God given purpose. So we need to live in light of that. It's not a competition. If I start trying to live up to the level that John Fairfax lived, I'd give up. It's like, if I could be 10% the man of faith he was, I'd be a happy person. And so at first, it was pretty intimidating in the last year of reading. It's almost depressing. It's like, okay, it's okay. Take a breath. Not a competition. How do you measure one person's faith against another? None of us can, only God can. That's an understandable, but a frivolous exercise. So you're right, you can't inherit a vision, you can't inherit a life of significance. I had to find my own path, my own life of significance.
And I tried to tell my adult kids, "You got to find your own life, your own path, your own journey that's true to who you are." So yeah, you can't inherit a vision and no matter how noble, and certainly John Fairfax's life of significance is about as noble as you can possibly get, you can't inherit it. You've got to find your own path and your own purpose and your own life of significance. You try to live somebody else's life to significance, you will not triumph. You got to find your own path.
Gary Schneeberger:
I have a feeling, the question I'm about to ask you, you might have just answered it there. I don't know. We'll see. We end all of these episodes we have in the series within the show on the actionable truths. I've asked you what's the number one takeaway you want to leave with listeners and viewers from this episode on triumph, the area of triumph and specific specifically on significance. If there's only one thing they can take away, what do you want that to be?
Warwick Fairfax:
To truly get beyond your crucible, you need to live in life of this 10th actionable truth, a life of significance. You truly can't triumph without embracing this. This truth, this actionable truth, a life of significance. You want joy in your life, it's not from power. It's not from money. It's not from sitting on the beach all day or playing golf all day. Not that that's wrong. None of those things are wrong. But your life has got to be dedicated to something that's important, some a higher purpose, something that serves others. And so when we've gotten beyond our crucible and are leading a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, we will feel true joy and meaning in our lives. It doesn't mean that we won't have bad days where things will go wrong or bad things will happen to us or we'll make mistakes. But a bit like a graph, we'll be getting to a better place. Overall, we'll find our life has meaning and joy.
And as we just said, this life of significance is got to be our own. We might admire our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers' life of significance, or ancestors. It's got to be our own unique life of significance. And if our friends and neighbors, especially our mentors, if we're chatting to them and say, "You know what? I'm just going to borrow your life of significance." A good mentor will push back and say, "You know what? This is my life and it's great for me, but you need to find your own purpose. Don't just copy my life of significant. My path, my vision. Go to the school where I went to, follow my path, work where I worked. No. Find your own path. My path was fine for me, but find your own and find your own life of significance. It cannot be borrowed, cannot be inherited. It's got to be discovered. It's got to be rooted in who you were and who you are. And that's a huge lesson for me. I thought I had my life of significance growing up and it was my great, great-grandfather's John Fairfax. It was never mine. I just didn't realize it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. So that is the episode, right? That's your takeaway for the episode. Now, let's move from the episode. I'll move my microphone and I'll put it over here. To indicate we've moved from off the episode, now we're talking about the entire series. And we've spent the entire year doing this work. We've spent 12 months going through these actionable truths, 10 of them and all. We've reached the 10th one. Lots of wisdom in there. There's one takeaway that folks can take with them from the series. What do you hope it is?
Warwick Fairfax:
Going from trial, in other words, crucible to triumph is not easy. These 10 actionable truths are important catalysts to get you beyond your crucible to a life filled with joy and meaning. That word catalyst is one of the single most important words in the series. Without these actionable truths, you're stuck in a pit of despair. You're stuck in the crucible. These actionable truths, they are catalysts in helping you move from your worst day to a life of triumphing. After our crucible, we need to self-reflect on what happened and the lessons of our crucible. And then we need to be authentic to who we truly are, not who others want you to be. And then we need to have faith in something beyond ourselves and have the character truly live in light of that faith. We need to have a vision that is uniquely ours and fellow travelers to help bring this vision to reality and the perseverance to keep going when we face challenges, which is inevitably going to happen.
And finally, when we live our unique vision and it's having an impact, we'll feel a sense of redemption, as I certainly did. And we'll feel our life does indeed have significance. And our lives will then have purpose that brings us joy. So these actionable truths, they're catalysts. They'll help you move on your journey from your worst day, your trial and crucible to, in a sense, your best day or best days when you're triumphing, and you truly feel like you're living in a vision in light of your purpose, and you feel that you truly are living a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.
Gary Schneeberger:
I don't know if you saw it, Warwick, but in the distance, they just waved the checkered flag in the Fast and Furious movie because we have-
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
We have completed the series within the show on the actionable truths. That is a wrap, friends indeed on this series. But fear not. Here's why you should fear not. We're cooking up another series within the show that we'll be discussing throughout 2026. So stay tuned. The last little bit of housekeeping here is that for the next ... This is our last "new episode" of 2025. For the next three weeks, we're going to go with best of shows of our best shows from 2025, three of them. Please do not think of these as repeats. Think of these as must see peats. These are the best of the best of what we've done in this past year.
So Warwick, the holidays are coming up. I wish all the listeners and viewers a great holiday season, and we'll see you next year.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
How To Assist, Not Control, Those You Want to Help
Have you ever found yourself thinking you’re helping someone, only to realize you’re really trying to fix them in a way that’s not helpful to either of you?
If so, you’ll want to listen to this discussion of Warwick’s latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com Beyond The Crucible dot com, in which he lays out several ways you can stop yourself before your actions get out of hand, from accepting that it is not our role to fix people and fix every situation, people have the right to be “wrong” and follow their own path … and always aim to treat people the way you would like to be treated.
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
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Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. We often in the midst of our passion to fix somebody, the last thing we're thinking of is, gee, how would I like it if somebody did what I'm about to do to me? That is the last thing you're thinking of. You're fixated about helping somebody, fixing them. You're not thinking how it comes across.
Gary Schneeberger:
Have you ever found yourself in that situation thinking you're helping someone but really trying to fix them in a way that's not helpful to either of you? If so, you'll want to listen to this discussion of Warwick's latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com in which he lays out several ways you can stop yourself before your actions get out of hand. From accepting it's not our role to fix people in every situation and always aiming to treat people the way you want to be treated yourself. Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. This is one of those episodes that we do once a month, which is based on a blog that Warwick has written, and this is a very interesting blog. Warwick is, he's always passionate about the things that he writes about, but this one he was particularly at this time, he was passionate about.
In fact, you could say this blog was one that he just couldn't control himself. He had to write it. And you'll see why he's laughing when I tell you the title of the blog. The title of the blog is this, To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them. That is available now at beyondthecrucible.com. And we've got some good points. Warwick has eight points this time to talk about, and they're very interesting. So, Warwick, let me ask you this question. What was it that led you to write this blog called To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them? What was the impetus for it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Over the years I can think of a number of people, friends, family, coworkers who I've cared deeply about. And what's interesting is sometimes this caring, which is not bad in of itself, this caring about others can lead us to crossing the line from merely caring to trying to fix other people. And that's really what we're going to be discussing here is what is that line, what do you do if you attempted to try and control people? And so for me, I'm somebody who's naturally very reflective and I like to think I'm a caring person. So, being reflective and caring, it is natural for me to think about how others are doing and what they're doing and how they're leading their lives. And sometimes this can lead me to fixate about others or other situations, and I might be thinking they could be making different decisions and those decisions would lead them to having happier, more fulfilling and less painful lives.
I think many of us can do that, and it gets especially difficult when it's about people that we deeply care about, such as family, friends or even some coworkers. And so we feel like we kind of know the answer about what we need to do to help them whether they want to be helped or not. We feel like we have the solution, we know the answer, we've got the magic key. But for me, fortunately, most of these thoughts stay in my head as I do have high self-control. That can also lead me to sort of almost like in some computers when you've got the, it's sort of like that little spinning wheel. Some people got the circle of doom or whatever.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh yes, yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
Spins and spins. So, it can be a bit like that in my head as I'm thinking about all these thoughts, even though I might think to myself probably wouldn't be received, probably shouldn't say it. That's also not helpful to have that little endless loop in your head about the things you might say to somebody. So, as a certified executive coach and international coach, federation coach, I believe very strongly in every person's right to chart their own path. So, while I might have these ideas in my head about what are the things that will "fix" people, I have high self-control and a strong belief that people need to chart their own path. So, that can produce some degree of inner conflict, so that can produce some tension. And despite my high self-control, I'm also a very passionate person. So, when I believe very strongly that I'm right, whether I'm right or wrong, it's a different question that this thing needs to be said, this person needs to be fixed.
Sometimes those thoughts will leak out, sometimes in productive ways, sometimes in not so productive ways. And so sometimes we're not always self-aware and we might think that these ideas in our head, we just want to offer some friendly advice, some helpful tips. I mean, it's kind of obvious we know the truth, we know what's right. We're just spreading the truth, sprinkling some divine truth in people's lives, at least as we look at it. And when we go through crucibles, this can actually sometimes make it worse because we might see somebody who's gone through a crucible that's similar to us perhaps, and even more so we feel like we've got beyond our crucible. We know the answer, we know the solution. It worked for us.
Gary Schneeberger:
We have the secret sauce, we have the secret sauce.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, if it worked for us, why wouldn't it work for every person on the planet who's gone through what we've gone through? Well, I think, and I know it's not quite that simple, what works for us may work for others or may not. And the problem is we may not always be right, nor will our solutions always be received well. So, yeah, this whole control thing, it actually can get worse. And we've gone through a crucible and we've a desperate desire to help people who've gone through what we've gone through or to help them avoid what we've gone through. None of that is a problem necessarily. We've had many guests on our podcast that have been through crucibles, that have used what they've gone through to help others, but how you do it is important. You got to be very careful you don't cross the line, as we said in the title of the blog, from assisting to controlling. That's a line we'll talk about more that we cannot cross.
Gary Schneeberger:
And just, I'll frame it up the way I think about it here as we get going, it occurred to me that people are not roads and we are not the National Highway Administration. In other words, it's not our responsibility to fix the roads, nor is it are the people who we are treating perhaps like roads. They're not to be walked on, they're not to be driven over. They're not our way to get to our destination. We can kind of think about it in those wrong terms and the roads have to repair themselves in this analogy, or at least a professional road fixer can fix them, but it's not our job. People aren't roads and we're not the National Highway Administration is the way I think about it.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, no, that's a good analogy. And people aren't potholes to use your road analogy, and it's not our job to fix all the potholes and they might say, "This is not a pothole." Oh yeah, no, we've got this great idea. We're going to fill it with rubber or sand or something because we're convinced that that's the best way to fill a pothole. Well, maybe not. Maybe our solutions aren't the right ones. So, yeah, I mean try to fix the road, clean up all the potholes, it's not our pothole, not our road. So, it's a good analogy.
Gary Schneeberger:
Thank you. Now we've got some other good points we're going to go through as we always do on these episodes, Warwick's points from the blog. As I said, the blog is called To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not to Control Them. And the first point in the blog, Warwick, is this, and we just talked about it a little bit, accept that this is not our role. It's not our role to fix people and to fix every situation. We are not the handyman of the world. It's not our job to do this. Talk about that a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean this is one of the hardest points when you deeply care about somebody to say it's not our role to fix them. It's like or to fix every situation. If not me, then who? And the inner voice in our heads often says, "Well, if not me, then nobody. Who cares about this more than me?" Especially if it's spouse, child, sibling, parent, close friend. I mean, we might feel like we've known this person for years, decades, we know exactly what needs to be done. Maybe we're right, maybe we're not. But the point is we're not God.
It's hard to sit back and say, "How can we sit here and do nothing?" But we've got to make a choice. We need to ask ourselves whether it's really our role to fix other people. And if we ask ourselves that question, I think deep down we know what the answer is. The answer is no. We can say that in our head, but it all diminish how challenging it is when you might see somebody's life falling apart and you want to throw them a lifeline, you want to fix them it. We'll talk about this more. It can come out of the best motives, it can come out of the worst motives.
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's also true that the things that we want to fix sometimes, especially as they're going through crucibles, are things that really we can't fix. Meaning I'll bring up my example. I'll raise my hand and say, when I was living in alcoholism, there were a lot of people who offered even to assist, but some of them wanted to fix, some of them wanted to take me and bring me to rehab for instance. But there kinds of really strong deep cutting crucibles, the person who has the problem, who's going through the crucible has to want it.
You can't want it for them. That's why trying to fix them doesn't work in particular because it's not the kind of problem that they're going to take your advice. Nobody could have told me and many people tried, you should go into rehab, you should stop drinking, you should do this. And they tried. Even trying to assist me in that case was like, yep, thanks. Nothing to see here. I'm moving on. So, that's another part of this, isn't it, that some things that we try to fix, in fact, we can't fix unless the person has to be the one who instigates the fixing work, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a profound point. The person who potentially needs to be fixed, and obviously if it's something like alcoholism, it's not like different people can disagree about whether alcoholism is good or bad. I mean everybody on the planet believes it's not helpful, substance abuse. So, that's one of those where there's not a debate about is it helpful or not helpful? But even in that situation where the truth is clear, it's not helpful, if the person who has substance abuse problems or alcoholism doesn't want to be fixed. There's nothing you can do.
It's frustrating, especially to friends, but there's nothing you can do. So, ultimately when we talk about fixing, we have to want to be fixed. Now, if we start asking for help, that's different. But until we're at that point and who you want to ask help from could differ depending on who you trust, who has the solutions you believe in. I mean, not everybody that has a solution is a trusted source or the right source, or even if the solution is right, they might be a bull in a china shop. It may not be the right deliverer of the "truth", even if you believe it's truth. So, yeah, it's profoundly true until a person wants to be fixed or assisted or help improve their lives, there's nothing that you can do and that is a profound truth, that it's really, really difficult for outside people to grapple with.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that you kind of get to that in your second point in the blog, and that's this. Realize that our perspective on someone in any given situation won't always be right. That requires and talk a little bit more about it. But the first thing that leaps out to me is it requires a little humility to come to that place of realizing, "Well, I may not be right in what I want to do to fix this." So, talk about that a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's such a good point, Gary. One of the challenges can be when we're fixated on something or somebody and we want to fix them, we're often convinced that we are a hundred percent right. There's not 1% chance that we're wrong in terms of what the problem is and what the solution is. We're so so convinced. But the challenge is we won't always be right. Maybe there's information or perspectives that we're not aware of. How can we know everything about the situation? We can be so sure that we know what needs to be done. We think it's obvious. We just jump into action like a bull in a china shop without even hesitating to pause. But there might be information that we don't have and almost worse, we might not have really fully listened to the person that we're trying to help. Maybe the problem is it's not always like the situation.
You mentioned alcoholism. Sometimes the problem is less clear. Maybe we think it's a problem, maybe they think it's not a problem. Maybe they think it's fine. What is the problem? Sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder, so sometimes it won't always be right, still less will the solution be right. Certainly you've got to ask yourself, "Does that person have the right to be heard?" So, often when people are going through crucibles, they don't so much want our solutions. They just want somebody to just sit with them. I was at a conference recently really talking about caregiving, emotional health and different things, and very often what a person wants is what they call the ministry of presence.
Somebody just to sit with them and listen and be with them, not to solve them, not to fix them, just to be with them. If heaven forbid, you have a good friend who has a family member that's going through an incredibly difficult health prognosis that may not end well, what are you going to say?
You can't fix this. They just want you to be with them. They don't necessarily want you to Google the latest medical techniques and say, "Have you tried A, B and C? And there's this natural, I've heard about this thing in Germany that's new trial for X." I mean, there can be a place for that, but more than just coming up with all sorts of solutions, they just want you to sit with them. So, you just got to realize that you won't have all the information. You may be wrong. So, it's important to be humble. And how about listening to the person more than trying to fix them?
Gary Schneeberger:
I mean, all we can do in that situation when we're trying to help others or trying to fix them in the context of what we're talking about here, we can see what we see, but we don't feel what they feel. We don't think what they think. So, we have an incomplete picture if we're approaching it that way. So, that's why I think your point number two is so strong is because we can't, there's a certain amount of, dare I say, arrogance to think that we've got it all figured out when we haven't talked to them about it. We're just observing and then we're assuming into evidence what they feel, what they think, where we may not know it, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean, how can we possibly have it all figured out? We might not have talked to them, maybe we haven't ever talked to friends, family, co-workers, just other people that might have information and perspectives that we don't. It won't often be the case, especially if it's let say a co-worker that we can just, "Hey, you don't know me, but I'd like to talk to this dad, son, relatives." I mean, that's not always appropriate. I mean, there's all sorts of information we just may not have and may never have. So, a little bit of humility saying, okay, how smart you are, there'll be things that you don't know. So, you've got to be willing to realize, you might be convinced you're right, that you might not be. There is always a chance and it could be a strong chance. So, a little bit of humility that can also help promote some self-restraint. If you have some doubt about whether you're right, maybe you would be a bit more careful about what you do and say.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and again, you always do this Warwick, it's great. You lead from one point into the next one, and I don't even think you realize you do it a lot of the time, but your third point in the blog goes right off of what you just said, and that is people have the right to be "wrong" in our minds, to be wrong and to follow their own path. We can't forget that even though we think we're right, we have the solution to their problem and we want to fix it. They have the right to be "wrong". Why is that so important to recognize and why is it so hard to recognize and to live out?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, let's take your case again, Gary, when you were suffering with alcoholism, people can say objectively, that's wrong. Gary's going down a "wrong" path that will be very detrimental for his health. Even in that case of alcoholism, when objectively it's not helpful and it's destructive, it's not always going to be that clear what's right or wrong. And even if we're convinced that person is following a wrong path, that will really hurt them. People have the right to be wrong. They have the right to follow their own path and make their own choices. And yes, we're defined by our choices and often choices have lifelong consequences, but that's their right to make that choice as we'll sort of say it's one thing to say, "Hey, do you mind if I offer a thought?" And I said, "I do. Please be quiet." At that point, what are you going to do? It doesn't mean you can't try, but there's, as we said at the very beginning of this in the title of the blog, aim to assist, not control.
It's one thing to ask permission. There's a way of doing that. I mean in coaching, it's all about asking the right questions, but ultimately, let's assume you do it all the right way. People still have the right to be wrong, so to speak and follow their own path, and you've got to respect that. It's not easy to love somebody and care for them deeply when they're following a path that's potentially going to be destructive and you think are wrong. We talk sometimes in relationships or marriage and love a person, right or wrong. In other words, the thesis behind that is you love them unconditionally even if you don't always agree with their choices. So, yeah, people have the right to be wrong and you've got to respect that. That's important. Again, none of this is easy, especially when you deeply care about them. Don't pretend this is a simple thing to do, but that's what we have to do. Respect people's right to make their own choices.
Gary Schneeberger:
That, folks, is point number three in Warwick's blog called To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not To Control Them. Here's point number four, treat people ... This is a good one. This is a good one. Treat people the way you would like to be treated. Put yourself, flip the script. Think of yourself as being the person that to whom someone comes with trying to fix. How well does that go over with you? So, treat people the way you would like to be treated. Why is that so important?
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, the point is, would we like to be controlled or told what to do in any given situation? I know for me, I don't like to be told what to do. I don't like to be controlled. Now ask me a good question, offer me a thought, and offering a thought means doing it with an open hand, not a closed fist so to speak. There's a spirit behind the way you do things, but if you don't want to be controlled, and most of us hate it, even those of us who at times can think, oh, we've got the answers to everything in our worst moments, we can be like that.
We typically hate it when others tell us what to do. Why would we try to force somebody to make a certain decision or live a certain way and line with our viewpoints? We would hate it if that happened to us. So, next time we're tempted to convince somebody of something, think about how we would take it. That would hopefully give us pause and give us a bit more humility. It sounds so simple, but we do need to treat people the way you would like to be treated. A simple thought, but we often in the midst of our passion to fix somebody, the last thing we're thinking of is, gee, how would I like it if somebody did what I'm about to do to me? That is the last thing you're thinking of. You're fixated about helping somebody, fixing them. You're not thinking how it comes across. I don't care how it comes across. It's not time for politeness. That's a five-alarm fire. I need to fix this situation. I need to fix the person. Let's go. You're not thinking about how it's going to come across.
Gary Schneeberger:
If we're treating people the way we want to be treated, say that you really don't appreciate it when someone says A, B or C to you. Guess what? Start your sentences with D, right? Begin somewhere else, right? If you don't like A, B and C, then begin your sentences with D and that will keep you from overstaying your welcome in the sense of trying to fix them rather than assist them. That's wisdom, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. Well said.
Gary Schneeberger:
That folks was point four. Now we're onto point 5 in Warwick's blog, To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them. You can find that at beyondthecrucible.com. And point number five is this. This is another soul-searching soul work kind of question. Analyze why we have a need to fix a given person or situation. And I think what you did here, Warwick, or what you're getting at is there are certain people that it's more of a lean into that you really want to fix certain people more than others. That's what you're getting at here. So, the idea is to analyze why we have a need to fix a given person or situation. Why is that critical?
Warwick Fairfax:
So, this can be where temptation lies. When we have a crucible situation, which we have found a way to get beyond, have bounced back from, we might care so deeply about anybody that's been through the same situation that we have and we feel like we desperately want to help them. We know the answer. And it could be that the pain or the crucible we've gone through has been so awful that we feel like it's our mission in life to help people who've gone through what we've gone through and we feel like there is the right answer. Don't do what I did, don't make the mistakes I made. This is the path back. And so when you are tempted to try and fix somebody, you want to ask yourself, "Well, why? Is it all just about the other person or is it about somehow I want to redeem the pain of my life and I want to fix everybody that's gone through what I've gone through?"
It's not wrong. I mean, we talk a lot about did it happen to you or for you, for you being there was a reason, some higher purpose used it to help people, that's fine. But there's a line in which again, you go from assist to control. If you understand why you have this desperate fixation to help somebody, which it's never good if those two words desperate and fixated going together, ask yourself, "Why do I feel so strongly? Where's this coming from? Is it coming from a good place, a bad place?" So, that's why it's really important and sometimes often our solution won't always be the right solution. So, for me, one example would be growing up in this 150 year old family media business in Australia, which was massive for the time I grew up with a family company owning newspapers, TV, radio, magazines launched a 2.25 billion takeover when I was like 26 fresh out of Harvard Business School in 1987.
Three years later, it spectacularly failed after family members sold out in October '87 stock market crashed. So, I might look back at family businesses, and I've said this before to folks just say no. Don't be involved in a family business because there'll be infighting as there was in my family for decades before, and find your own path and don't follow somebody else's vision. And that was true, I believe in my case, but it doesn't mean all family businesses are inherently toxic. Yes, there are challenges, but it doesn't mean my solution, which could be if you're a young person in the family of business, just say no and leave. You'd be a fool to stay. I'm tempted to offer that solution. Is that truth? It depends on the person, their gifting, the family.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's interesting, Warwick, we're now through five points and there's a theme that I didn't realize was here in that we say a lot at Beyond the Crucible, the importance, the need, the necessity of doing the soul work for ourselves as we dig into what's our vision going to be? How are we going to come back from our crucible? All of those things. But intrinsic in these five points seems like we can't do the soul work for the other guy, right? That's one of the things that you're talking about I think is as you're talking about the dangers of trying to fix someone. We don't know their soul work. We can't do their soul work. That's one of the reasons why that fails, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's really true. And in order to help others in the right way, we have to do our own soul work. It's back to that after use analogy when you hear the safety demonstration on an airline and they'll say, "If you have a young child with you, put the oxygen mask on yourself before the child. You have to be able to breathe first." If you can't breathe, how in the world can you help anybody else? You can't. And so one of the ways of reducing the temptation to fix people, because very often when it's done the wrong way, it's never good to fix somebody. But when do you go from assist to fix from coming alongside rather than steamroll? When does a shift happen? When and where?
It's often it is linked to our pain and our crucibles. Not always, but I think often. And so as we do our soul work and get in touch with the pain that we've been through, it will reduce the tendency of us wanting to fix things. It will give us more self-control. And in my case, my example, if I come across somebody, a young person in a family of business, I'll realize, okay, this is a wound for me. This is an area where I'll tend to want to fix it. This is where I have to be very, very careful in what I say and how I say which because I'm a trained executive coach and have high self-control, I can do, but because I'm aware of the pain it may and have done the soul work, it makes me more cognizant of where the potholes are to use that analogy that we used before and not stab at them. So, doing our own soul work will help us avoid fixating on fixing other people.
And when we get in that fixation state that I countless times get in. You know when you're in and you can hopefully try and avoid it, not always, but at least you will reduce the number of fixation moments, fixing moments that you have. None of us are perfect. We'll never be. We'll never bat a thousand. There'll always be times in which we step over the line and try to fix somebody, but doing our own soul work, just as everybody has to do their own soul work to get beyond their own crucibles, get beyond their own challenges. By us doing our own soul work, it helps us avoid fixating and try to fix people rather than coming alongside them.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, point six is interesting, Warwick. I have half a mind to not ask you a question after I say it. It's point six, folks, is let go and let God. What I want to say is next. Okay, point seven. Because really that sums it all up, doesn't it? Right. Let go and let God.
Warwick Fairfax:
It surely does.
Gary Schneeberger:
Sort of sums it up, but I'd be denying our listeners and viewers your wisdom if I didn't say, why is that so critical and so important? And it's interesting, you made it point number six. You didn't make it point number one, right? You had to work through some stuff. Now you're at this place, let go and let God, you've done everything you can do. Maybe just take your hands off. Talk a little bit about that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, there are times in which you've got to take your hands off the steering wheel. I'm trying to remember. It's years ago, I think Carrie Underwood.
Gary Schneeberger:
Carrie Underwood, Jesus Take the Wheel.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. Now, obviously not everybody believes in Jesus and God and all that, but there's a principle certainly for people of faith that a wider principle, sometimes you've got to take the hands off the steering wheel and in this case, in my belief, let go and let God. So, I think most people are spiritual. So, let's say you believe in a higher power or some religious spiritual perspective, you need to realize that we're not in control. Sometimes things unfold for a reason, a purpose that we can't fully understand, but maybe it becomes clear decades later. There are many things in life we can't control or fix, and maybe we've tried to help, maybe we've tried to do it the right way. Maybe we've fixated and being too pushing and controlling. But either way, at a certain point as somebody says, "Look, I don't want your help. Leave me alone."
As you Gary mentioned that you have said at different points in your life, you've got to respect that we need to believe in some higher power, some broader purpose, and that can give us hope that while we may not be able to fix the situation, perhaps one day someone else or some other higher power might be at work. So, let's say you were some other person and you were chatting to a friend or family member of yours when you, Gary, were in the midst of holism and that challenge and that friend might offer that family member some advice along these lines. What do you think that advice should be?
Gary Schneeberger:
I can answer the question and I can give you a real life example. I think the advice would be just he's got to figure it out. If you are believers, pray for him. If not, just be there if he ever calls and he needs something in the middle of the night, don't walk away from him. That's one of the things people can walk away from. People who are really going through. Not the most pretty crucibles, and I'm fortunate that didn't happen to me, but I have a real life story war about my alcoholism and this very idea of letting go and letting God. My cousin Sharon, I don't know if you're listening to this Sharon, but I'll try to get it to you so you can hear it because I love telling this story. There was a period of time in 1994, my mom passed away at 63.
I was 29 and I gave the eulogy at her funeral and I was kind of a wreck. And after the funeral went out and got inebriated and I was just an emotional basket case. I was really riven by that moment, losing my mom so young. Almost two years later, next calendar year, but almost two years later, my brother Jeff, who was my greatest supporter and just a great friend as well as a brother, he passed away of complications resulting from AIDS. My mom had brain cancer. And I gave his eulogy at his funeral, and as you might imagine, the extended family was there and my cousin Sharon was there and she saw just what a wreck I was, not just because of their death, but just the wreck I was. From the time she saw me at mom's funeral to the time she saw me at Jeff's funeral, she could see that I had deteriorated in the way that I was kind of comporting myself in the way I was deeply, deeply in the grips of alcoholism.
I didn't see Sharon for a few more years after my mom passed away. My stepdad was lived four more years or so, and then he passed away. But by that time when Irv passed away, I had gotten sober and I had become a Christian. So, she came. My cousin Sharon came to that funeral as well, and I give the eulogy for Irv. Well, I go up there and I basically preach the gospel and give an altar call in which I ask people to, if you want to accept Jesus, repeat after me. And she came up to me after that. It was so sweet. It still gives me chills to think about. She came up to me afterwards and she said, "Gary, I prayed for you from the time of your mom's funeral through Jeff's, through Irv, you know, up until right now, I prayed for you to get sober. I prayed for you to accept Jesus."
And that was over the course of what? Six, seven years she was praying for me. And it took, God answered that prayer. Now, God doesn't always answer the prayers the way that we want them to. Sharon probably didn't expect it. Maybe her faith might've been strong, but it was a long shot given how much of a ragtag alcoholic I was. But she saw me standing there and she realized God had answered her prayer. She had done exactly what you write here, Warwick. She had let go. She wasn't trying to change me. She saw that I was in trouble, but she didn't berate me or she didn't try to fix me. She didn't try to control me. She simply let go and let God and the results I hope speak for themselves.
Warwick Fairfax:
Gary, that is an incredible story. Your cousin Sharon, she really did it the right way. She truly did let go and let God, her heart was breaking as she was hearing you give the eulogies for your mom and your brother and stepdad.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, that's a lot of eulogies in a short period of time. And you could say, "Well, why should she have hope that you would be able to come back from alcoholism and have it not control you?" But yet having hope doesn't mean that our prayers will always be answered. We'll never quite understand how that works, but she had hope. She let go and let God. And sometimes in God's providence, those prayers will be answered and they were for her. And I'm sure that may be one of the highlights of her life I would assume if you ask her, she'd probably say that of just praying for all those years and seeing how God entered your life. And I think from your perspective, not just saved you from alcoholism, but saved you in a broader sense of the word.
Gary Schneeberger:
Amen.
Warwick Fairfax:
What more joy can there be for a person of faith? So, your cousin Sharon is really a model of how to let go and let God. Doesn't mean your heart doesn't break. I'm sure her heart broke for years.
Gary Schneeberger:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Especially the earlier eulogies, but yet she still had hope. And so hope is often one of the biggest forces we can cling to. It doesn't mean every prayer will be realized or every hope answered, if you will, but that's a great model of the right way of doing it. So, yes, you want to know what it means to let go and let God contact Sharon and she'll let you know.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, she'll love me for that. All right, that was point number six, folks, in Warwick's blog, To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them. Let's go through the first six now before we move on to number seven. Number one, accept that it's not our role to fix people and fix every situation. Number two, realize that our perspective on someone in any given situation won't always be right. Muster a little humility. We're not always perfectly accurate in the things that we think and feel. Number three, point three, people have the right to be "wrong", and follow their own path. Number four, treat people the way that you would like to be treated.
Point five, analyze why we have a need to fix a given person or situation. What is it in us that makes us lean into that feeling, that desire? And then the sixth point we just talked about, let go and let God. That brings us to point seven, Warwick, and that's this. Confess and apologize when we have stepped over the line and have been controlling. Probably the easiest point in this entire [inaudible 00:40:29]. Kidding, kidding, kidding. Confess and apologize when we've stepped over the line and have been controlling. Why is that important and how do we do that? Because as a culture, generally speaking, we're not very good at apologies.
Warwick Fairfax:
This is one of the hardest points. It doesn't really get any easy as we keep going through this. I mean confessing and apologizing when we stepped over the line of being controlling that is so monumentally hard. Often we'd like to think we have the best of intentions, but maybe our passion, our desire to "help somebody" can go from assist to control to fixation and hopefully we've done enough in our soul work to be self-aware enough that we have the tendency to be controlling in certain situations. I described if I come across a young person, a family business, whatever our crucible was, there will often be a tendency to try and fix somebody when we see somebody with a similar situation that we've gone through. So, some inner soul works and self-awareness can help us realize, yep, I tend to go over the line and I did it again.
So, that's when we have to have enough humility and say, "I'm sorry I was trying to help, but I came across too hard, too harsh. I came across like I knew all the answers, which I may not. I didn't really fully listen to you. I tried to fix you, not listen to you. So, I'm very sorry." You might be surprised. Some people will actually appreciate that and will have grace and appreciate our contrition and may forgive us and that can actually lead to a strengthening of the relationship. But when we've stepped over the line and being controlling, we have to be willing to apologize. Sometimes in an ideal world, we would do it on our own. Sometimes people will call us out.
If we've done the inner soul work, we should say, "Well, I don't know if I stepped over the line, but this is an area where I tend to. My brokenness is around this particular crucible that just talked about something in which they accused me of being controlling around this crucible. I should the very least think, pray, reflect that it could absolutely be a possibility. Because I do tend to be controlling when this situation comes up. I do tend to be triggered." If you've done the soul work, there should be bright warning lights flashing your brain saying, "I might be hearing truth from this other person that I was controlling and I stepped over the line." If you've done the soul work, at the very least, you should be seeing that yellow flashing light. At that point, did some inner soul work, prayer, whatever spiritual paradigm that you have, and then apologize. I have this thought, this aphorism if you will, that if you're 50/50 about whether you did something wrong, it doesn't hurt to apologize.
My philosophy is God will never be harsh on you for apologizing too much. You don't get dinged by God for that. Apologizing too little. I don't know, maybe, but not apologizing too much. So, if it's the 50/50 call, then either do a bit more soul work or just say, "You know what? I'm not sure, but I could have. I'm sorry." So, it's just really important because that helps you move on and it helps undo some of the damage that can be done by being controlling. If the person realizes you're a passionate person, sometimes you're going to be controlling and then you apologize. The relationship is preserved, the trust is preserved, and they might actually ask you for advice knowing if you try to control or not assist and go over the line, which you might do one out of three or four times, you'll apologize and you can move on. It strengthens the relationship. So, it's really important, the ability to apologize when you've gone over the line.
Gary Schneeberger:
Here's the eighth and final point folks, and this is to Warwick's point, they get harder as they go along, and this is probably the hardest one right here. Number eight is focus on "fixing" ourselves. And a couple of thoughts from me on this one, right? You've heard the phrase, charity begins at home. I tweak it a bit and say clarity begins at home. And so you've got to dig deep and get clarity about yourself that will help you with focusing on fixing ourselves. And the other thing is we've been talking about Warwick's blog, which is titled, To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them. That's available at beyondthecrucible.com in this particular point, point eight, really we want to control ourselves. I mean the only people we can control are is ourselves and if we're going to fix ourselves, we're going to focus on fixing ourselves, we have to get ourselves under control. So, unpack point number eight, Warwick, for folks.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great point. Instead of trying to fix somebody else's house, fix your own house first. Fix the leak in the roof, redo your house if you think there's stuff that needs to be improved, but it's so easy to focus on others. We've talked a lot about this in this discussion. We need to do that inner soul work first. We need to focus on our own issues and problems because ironically, that will help reduce the amount of times that we try to control others and fix others. And we've talked about this that often our desire to control and fix people will come out of our crucible. We don't want them to go through what we went through. We feel like we have the answers, we've got the solution. And so we need to have enough self-control inner soul work to realize that our desire to fix somebody may not come out of a great place.
And so the more that we can focus on dealing with our own issues, often as we've talked a lot about at Beyond the Crucible, if you've made mistakes yourself, which I have, there can be a tendency to crucify yourself. You've got to do the soul work of forgiving yourself for the mistakes. Doesn't mean there aren't consequences, but you've got to forgive both yourself, forgive others. Let's say it's things that were done to you. You've got to do the inner soul work. What are the lessons learned? How can they go from it didn't happen to me to happen for me? Maybe there's a vision coming out of my crucible that will help others, but doing the inner soul work will tend to reduce that desire. Sometimes we have this desire to fix people because I don't know, I'll feel better about myself if I run around the world fixing people.
Feeling better about yourself doesn't come from fixing others. It comes from believing you have high self-worth. We talk about this a lot at Beyond the Crucible. Psalm 139 that says that we're beautifully and wonderfully made. We have to believe that as human beings, we have inherent self-worth, that God loves us unconditionally despite our quirks and foibles and past mistakes. So, when you believe that you are truly loved and have self-worth and do the inner soul work, you recognize your problems, your issues, it can help us reduce the desire to fix people. Because there's a link. The more you do the soul work, the less chance that you'll step over the line. You won't be perfect, but there'll be less chance you will run around trying to fix others. And when you do go over the line, especially if other people call you out, you go, "Oh yeah, I'm sorry."
I'm not perfect. I can be defensive, but because I feel like I know my wounds well if not very well, if people call ... And I'm a passionate person beneath my reserved exterior, I have passions, beliefs about so many things. I can step over the line to the point where I'm fixating or maybe try to control a situation or a person. So, if I'm called out on that, it's like, "Oh yeah, I'm sorry. You're right." I mean, sometimes it takes me a while. Sometimes it takes me a couple of milliseconds. Because I know myself, I know the situation. I know my tendencies. Okay, fine. You don't need to spell it. I got it. You're right. I'm sorry. Sometimes, not always. It can be that quick. In our better moments, we've done the inner soul work.
We're focused on fixing ourselves. It can A, reduce the tendency we have to control and fix people and B, when we step over the line, which we will because we're human, it will make it quicker and easier for us to apologize without getting to the self-flagellation. I'm a terrible person. I can't believe I did that rather than, yep, I'm human. That was not smart. That was done. Okay, I'm moving on. I said what I needed to say. I apologized. I'm not going to berate myself. I made a mistake and I apologized. We dealt with it. We're good. I'm moving on. That is a healthy soul position to be in.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that, folks, ends our discussion of, To Truly Help Others, Aim To Assist Them, Not Control Them. That's Warwick's latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com. Check it out. Warwick, we've covered a lot of ground here. Again, as always, ground we expected to cover and then ground that just popped up that we didn't expect to cover because it was part of the conversation. That's what makes these conversations so rich I think. Out of that rich conversation, what's the one truth, the one important thing that listeners and viewers can do that you'd like to leave with them as they go?
Warwick Fairfax:
So, it's very understandable when we have family, friends or coworkers that we deeply care about that we want to help them. It's fine to offer advice or suggestions, offering questions and being a certified executive coach offering questions so that they come to their own answers is often the ideal way you ask the right question. If somebody's earnestly seeking and is trying to be honest about a situation, they'll come up with their own truth. Maybe not the truth that you would say, but that's often a better way of doing it.
But sometimes done the right way with an open hand, the right spirit offering advice and suggestions can work or can be helpful, but again, be careful. Typically, people don't like unsolicited advice. If you say, "Look, I've got a few thoughts. You mind me sharing with you? It's about a hundred points. It shouldn't take more than two or three hours and then we'll be done. Is that okay? Okay, fine. How about the top 75? At least that's part one. Part two will be tomorrow. I've got a few more because you're so messed up. I've got a lot to cover, but we'll get there. It's like a marathon hang in there."
That's just typically not appreciated. So, it's just not appropriate to fixate about helping somebody. It's at the point where we get controlling. If there's something you go over in your mind for hours about a speech you're going to give that person and it's got five sub bullets and sub bullets under the sub bullets, that's typically not a good sign. When it just spins around and around and around in your brain, that's typically not good, especially when there's the passion and there's, I got to fix them. That's when from my perspective, I pray, I say, "Lord, stop me fixating. Stop me doing this. This is not helpful." So, I try to nip it in the bud as we often talk about before the weeds become bigger weeds.
So, that's certainly for me, my truth is prayer is very helpful, but we've got to stop fixating about helping people because that will tend to alienate people and drive them away. I think about that. The serenity prayer that obviously you'd be familiar with. It's by Reinhold Niebuhr. It's widely used by Alcoholics Anonymous, and whether you believe in God or in some higher power, there's incredible wisdom, and this is how it goes. The serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. There's a lot of things we can't change and we've got to have the wisdom to know, okay, I've tried to offer my advice, my suggestions, it was not received, it was shoved back at my face.
I've got to let go and let God, maybe like Gary's cousin Sharon, maybe in the years to come and there would be hope for Gary. And there was. She didn't know that, but she prayed earnestly, "Lord, please help Gary, please help him know you. Please help him get freed from alcoholism." She had no idea what the outcome would be, but that is the right posture to let go, let God. I think faith is helpful and realize you can't fix other people, as Gary said, unless they want to be fixed. And I think Gary's situation, and you can talk more about it, you came to a point where you made a decision. Do you wanted to change the path?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yep.
Warwick Fairfax:
That was your choice and your decision. It wasn't somebody fixing you. It was between, I don't know, between you and God. It's like you made a decision. So, that's how it worked for you, I think. Is that like a fair [inaudible 00:54:33]-
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. Yeah, it was. I had to get to the end of myself as I say. I'd stretched the rope far too long, for far too long, and I just came to the end of myself and I needed help and I went and sought it, and that was 28 years ago in April. So, worked pretty well.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well said.
Gary Schneeberger:
Speaking of things that are well said, Warwick always finishes these blogs with reflection questions for you, the listener and viewer. So, I'm going to run through what those are. There's usually three of them. There are three of them this week. Number one is to identify who or what we are trying to control. You may need the piece of paper to write down if there's more than one individual or one situation that falls into that description. So, identify who or what we're trying to control. Number two is to reflect on why we are trying to control them or a given situation. So, identify it and then why, explain why it is indeed something that you're trying to control. And the third point is, this sounds so simple, but this is the hardest point of the three, right? Writing stuff down and like, okay, here's what it is. Here's why I feel this way.
But the third one is this. Make a decision to stop controlling the situation or the person. Warwick didn't write this in the blog, but I'll add it at the end. Right now, make a decision to stop controlling the individual or the person. Right now. Don't wait till tomorrow. Do it today in the moment that you're thinking about it, make that decision and then stick to that decision and things will go well with you as they say. That brings us to the end of this episode, folks. Please remember until the time we're together that we know your crucible experiences are hard. We know that the thing that we've been talking about here, this idea of trying to control people, trying to fix people, that can become a crucible for you and for somebody else. We know that's true, but we also know that crucible or any crucible is not the end of your story.
In fact, if you learn the lessons from your crucible, if you do the soul work that we've been talking about here, as you move forward, what'll happen is you will be set on a course to a destination that can become the most rewarding destination of your life, and that destination is a life of significance. Welcome to a journey of transformation with Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a road map to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com, take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
