Our research into how people experience crucibles and chart a path beyond them has led us to identify a core set of “actionable truths” — 10 in all — that will help you overcome the obstacles you face as you navigate your unique journey from trials to triumph. This week, in our overview episode of what we’re calling the series within the show, we’ll discuss the insights our newly crafted Beyond the Crucible Roadmap offers and identify each of the actionable truths.

Then, each month throughout this year, we’ll spend an entire episode unpacking the importance of each of the truths, along with tips on how you can activate them.

To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.

Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.

Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com

Transcript

Warwick 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.
But before we can move into what we're doing next, we need to take a little time reviewing where we've been. So we've got some new stuff that we want to tell you about that's going to be part of everything we do in 2025, meaning once a month we will have an episode devoted to what we're calling the actionable truths of this new phase of how we help you get from trials to triumphs. But before we can move there, we have to talk about where we've been. And where we've been, Warwick, is it started with your book. It starts all the way back to Crucible Leadership, your Wall Street Journal bestselling book. And I'm just going to very quickly set you up with what the model was, has been for us since the book was published, and we've never tossed that aside. That's always been part of what we do.
And when you hear it, folks, when you hear what the new organizing construct is for us, which we're going to talk about in this episode and explore more throughout the year, you'll understand that we're not throwing anything out, we're just refining things. So let's talk about, I'll call this stage one in our development, our life cycle at Beyond The Crucible. And that is that Beyond The Crucible was founded as Crucible Leadership in 2018. The model we developed to help people move from setback to significance was rooted, as I said in Warwick's book, which he talked about his personal experience, his personal crucible of losing the family media company. These were the building blocks for the book, Crucible Leadership, as I said, informed by what Warwick went through and learned from what he went through, lessons he got for the book and from his great-great-grandfather and father and historical figures like Churchill, Lincoln, and Washington.
That's a churn of all of the insights that are in that book. And what it boiled down to, the process that we laid out for how you get from trial to triumph was this. It starts with being refined, refined. Then leaning into your design, refined design. Then casting a vision, refine, design, vision, and then making that vision a reality. So Warwick, I've already talked way too much in this episode, so I'm going to turn it over to you and ask you a question here. How has this model that I've just laid out created as a pathway to moving beyond your crucible, how did it serve us? How has it served us in helping people navigate from their trials to their triumphs?

Warwick Fairfax:
It's interesting, Gary, as I was writing the book and we were meeting with the team, including Cheryl Farr that leads our branding and marketing team, we were talking about the book and the key elements. And we had this discussion that in Crucible leadership, there was an intrinsic model that was behind the book, and it was laid out in some ways in the chapter headings and the section headings that each chapter fell into. And there was sort of an intrinsic model, and it was refine, design, vision, reality. And this was my reflection based on my own story as well as stories from other family members, my dad, Sir Warwick Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, who started the 150-year-old family media business in Australia as well as historical faith and inspirational leaders that I wrote about. And really the first step refine is when you're facing your worst day, your crucible, it's exceptionally painful.
And so the first step to moving beyond your worst day is you got to process it. You got to reflect on what happened. And we often say that crucibles don't have to happen to you. They can happen for you. There can be a benefit, even a blessing as some of our podcast guests have said. So it's not an easy shift in thinking, but it's a choice that we have to make. So 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'll left with something that's refined, purer, sort of the essence of who you are. But that's a choice to make. You can go through a crucible and you can choose to be refined, or you can choose to be stuck there and not move on. So that's really the first step.
So the next step after refine is design. And one of the things I certainly found in my life is it's very easy to be following your parents' views of what you should do or teachers or colleagues or just be practical, be a lawyer, be a doctor, even though maybe you don't really care about either, but maybe it's a good way to make a decent living. So it's not wrong, but it's tough to live a life that's not in line with your design. So what we say by that is you've got to live a life that's in sync with how you are wired. And so in my case, growing up with this 150 year old family media business, what was needed arguably was this take charge chief executive type. I'm more of a reflective advisor. I don't like making lots of decisions quickly. I tend not to make good ones.
Like when I launched my $2 billion takeover and didn't do enough self-analysis and reflection, and obviously, we talk a lot about that in other podcasts. So I was operating out of my design. I now operate in line with my design. So you've got refine, design, and then vision. We believe vision is also something you can't inherit. It's got to be something that's yours, and we believe it's something you've got to be off the charts passionate about. And from our perspective, a vision that lasts has to lead to a life of significance, which we call a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. If this isn't something you believe is other focused that you're off the charts passionate about, you probably won't have enough perseverance to keep on going because life is tough, and there will be roadblocks. So finally, reality is where you make your vision happen.
So a vision that doesn't come to reality, an unfulfilled vision is tough, especially one that you're really passionate about. So you really want to make that vision become reality, especially if it's something you really truly believe in and that will help others. As we talk a lot about, to make your vision become reality, you really need a team around you, what we call a team of fellow travelers to make that happen. So as we looked at my story, the story of my family, the story of others, leaders, historical and faith inspirational in the book, we found there was this pattern of refine, design, vision, reality that helps you move from your worst or your crucible to get beyond it. Hence, beyond the crucible to a life affirming vision, a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. That was the original model largely from my own experience and from stories in the book.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And what's great about this conversation is that everything that you just mentioned is still so much part of the warp and woof of what Beyond the Crucible is. And what we're talking about here today, folks, doesn't change any of that. So keep your ears tuned as we indicate, yes, there's some new ways we're going to talk about things. There's some new processes that we're going to help you learn and gain insights from to navigate your way beyond your crucible. But there aren't wholesale changes going on here, right, Warwick? I mean, this is all pretty much in the same zip code. We're refining to use one of the words from what we've been talking about. We're refining the process a little bit to make it even more actionable. Hang on to that word, folks, actionable. You'll hear more about it, to make it even more actionable for you. How's that for teasing, Warwick? That was a teaser, wasn't it?

Warwick Fairfax:
It was, it was. I think really as we'll cover in more detail, our model, our thinking has been refined, and it has evolved. I think all of life we should be continuing to evolve, to reflect, to seek to improve, to grow, whether it's your business, your nonprofit, your family, how they interact, how you are personally with people, how you are as a human being. Life should continue to grow and evolve. And that's what we at Beyond the Crucible are seeking to do is that as we have new information and new thinking and new reflections, we try to say, okay, this was valid, is valid, but maybe there's there a more refined way of looking at it. How can we make it better and again, to use your word, more actionable for folks? So that's really, it's not so much tossing it aside, it's seeking to have that model grow and be refined and evolve as we think more and as we get new information often from our guests.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. As you said that, what popped in my head is anybody who's familiar with Iron Man from the movies, he had his Mark one iron and then he went through Mark XXVIII, right? What we've just been talking about, refine, design, vision, and reality is sort of beyond the Crucible Mark I. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about, right, we'll talk a little bit about Mark two because we do have a stage two of where we've been. And that as the brand grew, we added original quantitative and qualitative data that taught us more about how people experienced crucibles and bounce forward from them. We commissioned a statistically valid study that found 72%, you've heard that number before. It still surprises me when I hear that, 72% of people have experienced a trial so serious that it changed the trajectory of their life.
We built a groundbreaking self-assessment rooted in the data we uncovered, and that allowed us to build profiles of individuals with different crucible experiences. Those profiles provided to put a you are here point on a map to help them better understand where they were on their journey from setback to significance. And finally, that's the quantitative data. Here's the qualitative data. We started a podcast in 2019, last year celebrated its five-year anniversary. We did a podcast on the day of that actual five-year anniversary, which is pretty awesome. And from that podcast, we've been able to add rich stories of men and women of vastly different backgrounds and experience and vastly different types of crucibles. Those stories allowed us to better understand what real people experience in the aftermath of a crucible, how they struggle, how they persevere, and how they overcome.
So my question to you, Warwick, is this. This stage, stage two, Beyond the Crucible Mark two, to use the Iron Man example again, this stage, stage two added really great insights into how people experience crucibles and move past them. What stood out to you most once we understood both the quantitative and qualitative data that I just talked about?
Warwick Fairfax:
We had this book, we had stories that I've written about myself, family members, historical, inspirational leaders. We had refine, design, vision, reality. So then in chatting to our team and to Cheryl, we said, okay, this is good, but I wonder if we can do really a robust research into this to see if this is true more than just anecdotally in terms of my reflections in the book, but if it's true in a general, statistically valid way. So as you mentioned, we decided to commission a robust research study of more than 11,000 people. And again, as you've said, what's really remarkable is that over 72% of people said they largely had had a crucible because it's easy to think, oh my life isn't that bad. Well, life is tough, and for most people, crucible is in the eye of the beholder. If you feel like you've had an experience that was so traumatic that fundamentally altered the course of your life, you choose your truth in that sense. If you believe it was painful, then it was painful. It's your experience.
What we found that largely speaking, our model was validated as an overall concept. There was some tweaks, but one of the fascinating things is that typically when researchers test data, there can be differences with demographics and gender. And what was astounding to the researchers, David and Heather Lucas, who at Dark Horse Insights who helped us with this, and they do this a lot, they found that when people were moving from their worst day crucible to a life of significance, that journey and it is a journey, it did not vary with gender, men, women. It didn't vary with age, personality, what zip code they lived in, whether they're married or any other label. It was 100% a product of how we see ourselves at a particular time. And that was just astounding.
And what we found out of this research is while they are a journey, there are a number of different paths you can follow. And if you take our assessment, you can see that in more detail and it really depends on who you are, your personality, how you see yourself. Some people have a personality that they just tend to go a mile a minute, mark five, they're not reflective and just go really fast. Other people can be so reflective, they hardly move.
And I'm not quite that bad. I'm more reflective than I am a mark four kind of person. But depending on your personality and how you make choices, they can be different paths, but it's really these aren't paths that depend on demographics or gender. It's more personality driven than it is demographically driven. So then what was fascinating is we had this whole quantitative piece, but then as you mentioned, we had the qualitative piece. We've had in the last five years, more than 240 podcast episodes, and across all the guests we've had, this gave us valuable qualitative data. And what was fascinating, as you and I have been chatting to so many guests, is that these guests came from different backgrounds, men, women, they had every crucible you can imagine from financial to physical to victims of abuse.
I mean every kind of crucible. Loss of loved ones, every kind of crucible you can imagine. And despite the diversity of crucibles and the diversity of backgrounds, the path back was universally pretty much identical .and there were things, we talk a lot about it Beyond the Crucible on our podcast and our writings. It's things like learning the lessons of your crucible. It means forgiving yourself and others. Again, we always say it doesn't mean condoning, but to be able to move on. Every guest we've ever had has said they've had to forgive in some fashion. Finding a life-affirming vision, which often for our guests comes out of their crucible. And it's pretty much, I should say, not just pretty much, it is never me-focused. I can't think of any guests we've had said it's all about me. It's about having a vision that they believe in that is really just that they're off the charts passionate about, but it's always others-focused.
So we connect the dots with the quantitative and the qualitative. They all really told the same story that coming back from your worst day isn't a function of where you live or your background or even the type of crucible. It's really a mindset shift. It's a choice of how you choose to move on. And so it really largely validated our thinking, but it certainly refined our thinking in that who knew that coming back from your worst day did not depend on where you live or your background or your gender. It's more a way of thinking. That was astounding. And certainly the researchers, David and Heather Lucas, they were amazed because it's incredibly rare for that to happen. So that was an evolutionary model in our thinking and provided extremely valuable information to us.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and what's interesting about talking about all of this is this point that we're at right now is we're going through the life cycle of Beyond The Crucible is the perfect point for this discussion we're having because it points backward to what we've been talking about stage one, stage two, the way that we've talked about moving from crucible to life of significance. But then it informs as well, the stuff that we've been talking about has helped us to get into stage three. So we are going to spend time once a month going through some of the things that we're talking about in this episode. So this is, yes, we've been revisiting where we have been, how we've gotten here, but now we're going to pivot to talk about stage three, where we're going this year in 2025, as we help you navigate your way beyond your crucible.
And the way that we've done that is we've combined the statistical and story insights. Doing that has allowed us to create this stage three that I'm talking about in our understanding of what it takes to move beyond a crucible. We call it the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. Remember that phrase, folks. If you have a piece of paper nearby, just write down Beyond the Crucible roadmap because we're going to spend a lot of time over the next 12 months talking about the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. We describe it this way. How we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity. We provide the essential actionable truths. Ding, ding, ding. There's that phrase again, actionable truths. We provide the essential actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip them to write their own life affirming story. Again, if you've listened to the podcast, if you've followed us, you've read Warwick's blog, you've seen him on social media, none of this stuff is necessarily unheard of from us.
It's not new in that sense, but the way that it's packaged and the way that we're going to talk about it is we believe more insightful and more helpful because we understand more now where you're at as you're going through your crucible and what our role is in providing, I'll say it again, these essential actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip you to write your own life affirming story. That's what we're really drilling down into in 2025. So let's go through. We talked about refine, design, vision reality and the first model that we had for how you move through a Crucible. I'm going to just unpack what the Beyond the Crucible roadmap is now, because these understandings from what we've been talking about has guided us to adjust it a bit. Again, haven't thrown it out, haven't really negated anything from it. We've added to it. We've tweaked some things, we've tightened some bolts, and we have what we believe to be a better tool to help you move from setback to significance.
So in stage three, here's what the roadmap looks like. It begins with the trial, which in our language is the crucible. And that is the aftermath of a life of altering, crucible moment where we are fundamentally changed. That's the first step, the starting point, the starting blocks of the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. This stage is often characterized by feelings of hurt, loss, sadness, anger, failure, and or grief. It may be hard to consider that there is a way out much less what that next step might be, right? If you're among that 72% who's experienced the crucible as our data found, you know what that feels like. You know what stage one, step one of the beyond the Crucible roadmap is. You've experienced it, the trial and the Crucible, but these other stages that we're going to go through, those are the ones that are going to help you get beyond stage one.
The second step in the roadmap is this processing. The necessary step of processing the fallout from a crucible so we are free to move ahead, critical step. To move out of this stage, we must recognize and let go of the feelings of anger, hurt, or unfairness that resulted from the crucible and overcome our fear of repeating the past. Again, we are your, Warwick coined this phrase, I love it. We're your dealers in hope on this, folks. We're your dealers in hope to help you get to that place of processing and not just get to it, but get through it. The next stage is vision. Sound familiar? We talked about that refine, design, vision, reality, right? Vision, still there because it's so critical. Vision, this is a time to cast a new post crucible vision for life. That vision may not come immediately. Instead, we may have to experiment with new ideas and experience, explore untapped talents, develop new skills, and or find a new community to land on the right new vision for life.
This is where the rubber meets the road. Casting your vision. It's a critical part. And you'll learn throughout this year why it's so critical. In particular, it shows up a lot in what we're going to be talking about as we go through 2025. But for now, put a pin in this vision, third point in the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. We then move to step four, which is reality, right? That's refine, design, vision, reality. It follows vision. It's followed vision since the inception of Beyond the Crucible, back when it was Crucible Leadership, reality, critical. Now we create and execute an actionable plan to turn that vision into a new everyday reality. Shaping a new place in the world for yourself isn't easy. You may find obstacles or roadblocks along the way or be tempted by old ways of thinking or doing, but stick with it. The reward will be worth it, and that's one of the reasons that we're here.
That's a major reason that we're here to be, I'll say, ding, ding, ding again, Warwick's phrase, to be dealers in hope for you. When things get tough, things can get tough. We're here to help you move through that to get to reality. And why is getting to reality so important, so critical to moving beyond your crucible? Because of where it ends. It ends with triumph. Triumph is this. We are well on the way to a new and significant post crucible life. We have acknowledged our crucible and its transformative impact on us. We've moved beyond the hurt to cast a new meaningful vision for life, and we are turning that exciting vision into a new achievable and sustainable every day reality. That's a lot. Again, Warwick, this is unusual. You're always the play by play guy in our conversations, and I'm calling all the plays here, but...
Warwick Fairfax:
All good.
Gary Schneeberger:
It feels weird to talk so much. I'm sure people probably feel like, why is Gary talking so much? Here's why.
Warwick Fairfax:
I don't know.
Gary Schneeberger:
I'm going to stop talking for a while, and I'm going to turn it over to Warwick because here's the pivotal point that Warwick as the founder, as the chief visionary here can unpack, and that's this. Warwick, this is a journey that we're talking about. We've talked about it internally amongst ourselves as a bit of a hero's journey like Frodo takes in the Lord of the Rings films, like Luke Skywalker takes in the Star Wars movies. Talk about this latest stage, this stage three, mark three in Beyond the Crucible and the development of our thinking here at Beyond The Crucible. Explain a little bit how we got here, why we're here, and why it's important. Warwick offers the insights only he can into why we've created the roadmap after these words from our sponsor.
Warwick Fairfax:
Certainly this model of trial or crucible, processing, vision, reality, triumph, it bears some relationship to the old model of refine, design, vision, reality that came out of the book and stories from there. But this model is really being refined and augmented by the work we did in our quantitative and qualitative research. And so based on the data, we can really say that this model that's Beyond the Crucible roadmap is a statistically valid model that maps out how you do get from your worst day to a life of significance from trial to trial. And that's why we're so excited about it because this is based on the research, and we believe is a valid framework to help you navigate your life beyond your worst day. So as you've mentioned, it starts with trial, where we're fundamentally change, and that's where we have a choice. We can either say, this was awful, I'm going to wallow in it. I'm going to hide under the covers of the rest of my life, or I choose to move beyond.
It's only if you make that choice that you get to the processing stage in which you say, okay, this may be unfair, but what happened? What can I learn from this? Maybe I can learn a whole lot about who I am. But you only move from trial to processing if you make a choice that you won't be defined by your worst day. You can make a choice that I'm going to be defined by my worst day. I'm giving up. I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm not moving on. Then you just get stuck. So once you've really refined and reflected on it, one of the things that people talk a lot about in counseling and therapy, from what I understand is you've got to feel your feelings. You can't stuff it. As one of our guests said, stuff it in the basement. You've got to reflect on it and you've got to understand what happened and why it happened to be able to move on. So that's absolutely critical.
And so the next step after you process it is vision. You've got to say, okay, I don't like what happened, a process that I've understood, but it's time to cast a new post crucible vision for your life, one that's life affirming, that's focused on helping others. And so once you have that vision and we believe it needs to be other focused, it needs to be something you're off the charts passionate about, then it's like, okay, well then how do we make this a reality? There's nothing worse than a vision that doesn't become reality. And so for that, you often need help.
And so once your vision has become reality, then there's a sense of triumph. I'm living my best life. If you are having a life that's focused on others, a life of significance, we believe you'll have a joyful and fulfilled life. It doesn't mean there won't be further crucibles and setbacks and tragedies, but in terms of the arc of your life, you'll feel like I was put on this earth by God or however you look at it spiritually to make a difference, I'm making a difference. That gives you this sense of fulfillment and almost quiet inner joy. That's what we mean by triumph. It's not about your bank account. It's really more measured by just the impact you feel like you are having. It doesn't mean it could be global or it could be your neighborhood. That's really not the point. It's feeling like you're really triumphing in the sense of you're making some small step as a force for good. You're making a difference in the lives of others in your family and your community.
And that's I think, where we all want to be, that sense of joy and fulfillment, that I'm making a difference. I'm not wasting my one and only life. That's really what we mean by triumph.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that even when we've reached the triumph stage, it doesn't mean that other trials, other crucibles aren't going come. And that's why I think it's so important. And we spend a lot of time, folks, Warwick can attest to that. We spend a lot of time, what are we going to call these things that are going to help you along this journey? And we landed on actionable truths for a reason. And the reason is think of what you know to be a truth. Gravity, okay, that's a truth. It's actionable. If you're on the roof of a tall building, you're not going to jump off if there's concrete below because the actionable truth is that's not going to be a good landing. The truths stay with you once you get them and you process them, and you make them internalized.
And that's what these things that we're going to talk about, these 10 actionable truths that we're going to get to in a minute and we're going to talk about all year, are designed to be there to live within you as you go through life when other crucibles come, because they are. To use Warwick's words that he's said many times on the show, it's not always a one and done.
I've been through a crucible. I'm done. I got the chicken pox once. I can't get it again. I mean, it's not like that. You can have crucibles can come back. They often do come back, and that's why actionable truth fits so well because it's something that you carry within you once you realize it to be true. Okay, so before we talk about what those truths are, folks, Warwick, can you explain to everybody the role that they play in our journey along the road from setback to significance, right? We call them actionable truths, like I said, for a reason. What's the role that they play for folks even before we talk about it so they understand what it is we're talking about and why we're talking about them. Because there'll be words that they've heard before, but we're talking about them in this specific context.
Warwick Fairfax:
We view these actionable truths as accelerators. Life is tough. To go from your worst day to a life affirming vision, from your crucible to a life of significance, from trial to triumph, you need help. And really these actionable truths, they're more philosophical constructs, they're more systems of belief, systems of thought. They're less something so concrete like a wrench or a hammer. It's like, okay, got it. I need this for one specific task, I'm done. These actionable truths, you might pick them up at different points in the journey that we'll talk about more later and on later episodes, but they're with you for life. They're ones you might use every day in multiple different scenarios at work, at home, on the playing field, with volunteer work, in every aspect of your life. It's not like, okay, so I need to saw because I'm doing woodwork, and that's fine, but this is something you could use if it was a house for any part of the house, any particular thing you are doing. And that's why it was a bit challenging for us to figure out what to call these things,
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Philosophical constructs feels like a bit of a, too hard to say. But actionable truths is what we landed on. And we're very excited about these because these actionable truths in a sense have always been there, a little bit like digging for gold, if you will. They may be there, you just don't know where they are, or diamonds. You go back to the original book, Crucible Leadership. There are words that we're going to get into in a moment that if you go thumb through the contents of the book, you'll find those words in the book. We talk about these words a lot in the podcast. We have blogs that we write that talk about these. So that's why it's so exciting. I'm just going to give one small example before we outline them. Teaser alert. One is called self-reflection, and Gary's going to outline in a moment all of the 10 actionable truths.
I mentioned that because we said earlier, Gary said earlier that crucibles happen throughout your life. So for instance, something just happens. Maybe a friend lets you down, you get fired from work, maybe you've got an issue with your family, a challenge in a nonprofit you volunteer with. There could be all sorts of things that happened. And so yes, you're going to be frustrated, maybe angry, how come this happened? Well, what do you do? One of the things that accelerates your way through this is self-reflection. What happened? Why did it happen? What's my part in it? Do I need to apologize? Is something bad happen at work? Maybe I wasn't thinking in the right way. Maybe we need to think a bit differently to get beyond this challenge with the market, with the industry, whatever it is. You need to do some self-reflection.
So if you know that's one of the actionable truths, you'll know, okay, I've got to spend a minute getting angry and frustrated, but I need to make a choice and move beyond to start reflecting. So it's like, okay, so I'm done with reflecting. I did that 20 years ago in my crucible, I'm done. No, life happens, challenges happen. Self-reflecting can be a part of your daily or the very least weekly or monthly way of living. Okay, what happened? Why did it happen? What can I learn? What are the lessons? How can I move on? So that's one example which we'll get into more later about why each of these actionable truths, not one and done. It can be ways of thinking that helps you every single day. So that's what was fascinating to us as we came up with these actionable truths.
Gary Schneeberger:
And I mean even to the point every day, yes, but every moment, right? Right now, someone could be listening to this, and some crucible event could be happening. One of these 10 actionable truths, and I'm going to talk here in a minute, is something that's as it gets inside you, if it's inside you, if it stays inside you, if you continue to nurture that, you can apply that immediately to the situation that you're in. So it's always there for the thinking and the acting. This is why we call them actionable truths, the thinking is truth and actionable because it can be activated. Okay? Have we teased it enough, folks? Have we done enough teasing? This is the first time that we're going to list them in the way that we're going to list them, and I'm going to give you a preface to what I'm about to go through.
Don't get mad at me because I'm not going to do much more than say what the actionable truth is and define it just a little bit. But please know, even though this is the introduction episode for this shift, this mark three of Beyond the Crucible and our roadmap, we're going to spend a lot of time in 2025 talking about these things. Once a month, we're going to have an episode that's dedicated to one of these 10 actionable truths that I'm going to talk about. So don't get frustrated that we're not going to spend a lot of time going through them here. I'm going to introduce them, I'm going to ask Warwick a question about them, and then we're going to go so that these actionable truths can kind of settle on you. You can think about them a little bit before we start being dealers in hope and offering you perspectives on how you can apply these things internally so that you can apply them externally in action whenever you need them.
So are you ready? I need a drum roll. I need a drum roll. There we go. Drum roll. The first one of our actionable truths is this, crucibles. That's where it all starts. Your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you. Your worst day is not the end of your story, but the launching point for a life-giving new story. And what I'm doing here, folks here, I'm not making eye contact with you if you're watching it on YouTube. I'm making sure I get these right. I'm reading them off my notes right here. So I want to make sure that we get these right as we lay the groundwork for our conversation throughout the year. Second one is self-reflection. Warwick already talked about that a little bit. Reflecting on your crucible can reveal important insights about yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, even vulnerabilities that you can use to forgive yourself, forgive others, and bounce forward. That's the second actionable truth.
Third actionable truth, authenticity. To move beyond your crucible, you must embrace your authentic self. It's time to be true to who you really are, not who others want you to be. Are you noticing something about this? We'll talk more about it as we get into them week by week, but they kind of fit together, don't they? Crucible, self-reflection. Then you lean into authenticity. Here's the fourth one. The fourth one is faith. Believing in something beyond yourself that serves as the immovable anchor for your soul no matter what's happening around you. The fourth actionable truth. The fifth, character, how you live out your faith in the real world. Character is your belief system in action. Next, vision, a sacred calling that summons you to a mission beyond yourself. No matter what the size of your vision, it has meaning and it matters. There's that word again, that's been with Beyond the Crucible, as most of these words have been with Beyond the Crucible since it was crucible Leadership, and it was contained in the pages of a book that Warwick wrote.
The one, two, three, four, five, six, seventh actionable truth, fellow travelers. You've heard that as well. A team of trusted advisors and a community of like-minded people are key to turning your vision into reality. Eight, perseverance. Continuing to move forward in pursuit of your vision, even in the face of difficulties and obstacles. Perseverance is hope. I love that. Perseverance is hope, believing in your heart of hearts that there's a brighter future ahead. Redemption, number nine, your worst day can be redeemed. We're going to spend a lot of time this year talking about that your worst day can be redeemed. It's not over. You can get beyond it. And getting beyond it involves redemption. Your worst day can be redeemed. We are all worthy and capable of turning failure, loss, and trauma into a catalyst of transformation, growth, and a renewed sense of purpose. We should spend two weeks on that one. That one's really good.
And then number 10 on the list, and this is maybe the word you've heard the most on the show that's not an article, an a and the, something like that, is significance, a life lived on purpose dedicated to serving others. You can have a whole new life-giving story, one in which true success is measured by how you positively impact the world around you. Folks, those are the 10 actionable truths that will help you as you move through, move on down the journey through the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. So Warwick, we'll slow down here for a second. We've covered a lot of ground, and it's a lot of new ground. Even though it's familiar words, there's new ground about the way we talk about them. What's the number one takeaway you would like our friends, our listeners, and viewers to have from this episode and then hang onto that, think about that as we then move through what's coming over the next 12 months?
Warwick Fairfax:
We've been on a journey of Beyond the Crucible to better understand how you get beyond your worst day and ultimately live a life-affirming vision. We've studied that through the book I wrote, Crucible Leadership, through my story, the stories of my family, stories of historical faith and inspirational leaders. We've studied that through quantitative research and the qualitative research that we've done, more than 240 episodes that we've had on the podcast. And so with all of this research and reflection from the data, from the stories in the book, from stories from our podcast guests, we've come up with Beyond the Crucible Roadmap to help you go from trials to triumph and these 10 actionable truths. So we believe this Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, gives you the clearest picture of how you get beyond your worst day to figure out where you are with the assessment on that journey and what you need to do to get there.
And that's why we're so excited, not just about this Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, but the actionable truths because they help you make a daily choice to move on. They help give you ways of thinking. So for instance, one of the ones we just talked about, authenticity. Okay, maybe you need to be honest with yourself and others about what happened in your worst day. Does that mean you are done? No. You might work with a team of people at work. Do you need to be authentic to who you are or just put on some mask because I know where we're going, but I'm going to seem like the take charge leader, even though today I might feel a little scared. I mean, one of the things we talk about is vulnerability for a purpose.
You don't need to talk about every silly thing you've ever done or weird thing you're thinking, but I think it's okay to say, I know we'll get through this, but I don't know about you, but I'm a bit nervous about where we are. The market's pretty difficult right now. We're in the midst of a recession. I'm confident we'll figure out a way through. But I've got to be honest with you, I'm anxious too. That's vulnerability for a purpose. That's being authentic. To say in the midst of a recession, I'm fine. I think we should all have hope and everything's good, and we'll look back and we'll laugh about this and say... We'll laugh about this, really? No, we might be crying a bit. Maybe we'll get through. But don't just have smoke and mirrors. So 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. They can make a vision happen sooner and better than it would've otherwise. So they might seem like just philosophical constructs, but we believe they're actionable truths. We use that phrase for a reason because we think they're vital in helping you get beyond your worst day, live a joyful and fulfilling life, and ultimately live the life that we like to think you've always dreamed of, a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So these actionable truths we think can be game-changing and life-changing.
Gary Schneeberger:
So what do you think, folks? Does any of this, does all of this sound like something that is going to be both insightful to go through this year, helpful to go through this year, and hopeful all three of those things? We certainly hope that's the way that you perceive this, and that you continue to come back to us to get more insight on these actionable truths, because that's going to be a lot of what we talk about. They're going to be, yes, we're going to have episodes once a month on each of these actionable truths, but we'll weave discussions of them throughout everything that we do this year. As long as you're going to be here this year, we ask you to do a couple of things for us. One, if you're watching us on YouTube, leave us a comment about what you thought of this episode, what you think of the show in general, but then also subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you can make sure that you get episodes all the time and not just full episodes.
We also have little clips of individual episodes that maybe came before you started joining us, so you can get some insight on some of the guests that have come before, some of that qualitative data that we talked about earlier. And then if you're listening to us on your favorite podcast app, we ask that you would subscribe to the show so that you never miss an episode. Every Tuesday we drop a new one. And if you subscribe to the podcast app on whatever, however you listen, that'll just show up on your computer or on your phone, and you can catch us every week. You'll never miss an episode. And I'm going to try to make this a tagline for this year. We'll see what happens.
We want you to believe the truths that we talk about. But more than that, we also want you to act on the truths that we talk about as we guide you, as we help you down through the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. So until the next time we're together, we know crucible experiences are hard. We're here to offer you hope that they are overcome-able, that you can move beyond them. We'll see you next week.
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