Applying the Actionable Truths 10: Significance

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.
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