In the opening episode of our nine-apart series Second-Act Significance, Kari Schwear recounts how at age 7 she vividly remembers thinking, “Is this all there to life?” – before embarking on a journey of soul-crushing crucibles even as she found success in each of her multiple career stops.

But when she grew concerned enough about her “gray-area drinking,” her research into the subject and passion for helping others overcome it launched a second act she is pursuing with absolute gusto – as a life coach who helps her clients overcome the gray areas in all aspects of their lives, from relationships to careers to how they think and talk about themselves.

To learn more about Kara Schwear, visit www.graytonic.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.




Kari Schwear:

Right around this time, I heard the term gray area drinking via a guest that was on a podcast. And when I was walking my dog and I heard this podcast interview, I literally stopped in the middle of the street. It was a warm summer morning, like 7:30 in the morning, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's what I was. I never identified as an alcoholic. I was a gray area drinker." So I came home. It was like the fire was just burning inside me. I came home and I researched everything I could on gray area drinking. And there wasn't a lot out there. And I thought if I could share what gray area drinking is with more people, I'll get them to raise their hand before they get into a deeper addiction.




Gary Schneeberger:

Did you hear the enthusiasm in the voice of this week's guest, Kari Schwear? You'll be hearing a lot of the same excitement and joy, the same sense of fulfillment and significance, over the next several weeks from the guests we've lined up for our new series, Second Act Significance. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Kari kicks off our series recounting how, at age seven, she vividly remembers thinking, "Is this all there is to life?" Before embarking on a journey that had its share of soul crushing crucibles, even as she found success in each of her multiple career stops. But when she grew concerned enough about her gray area drinking, her research into the subject and passion for helping others overcome it launched a second act she is pursuing with absolute gusto, as a life coach who helps her clients overcome the gray area in all aspects of their lives, from relationships to careers, to how they think and talk about themselves. Kari Schwear has found second act significance and you can too.




Warwick Fairfax:

Well Kari, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And it'll be so fun to just hear more about GrayTonic and Question the Drink. But I'd like to go back to a bit of the backstory behind what you do. A bit like movies, there's always an origin story. There's always a reason that fuels our passion, that fuels our calling, if you will. And so, from what I understand, you live in the Richmond, Virginia area, I believe, that part of the world. So just talk a bit about your growing up and your family, and you had some challenges growing up. But what was life like in your family growing up?




Kari Schwear:

Well, first, thanks for having me. I really am very honored to be here today with you guys. This is going to be so much fun. My childhood was very interesting. I was like most kids, had parents married so forth. We lived in a suburbial house and everything from the outside world looked to be fairly normal. And unfortunately my parents started to disconnect from one another, probably around that age of six or seven. And at age seven was a pivotal point in my life and one of those memories that will stay with me forever. And that memory was being on my driveway of my parents' driveway in a hot summer afternoon in St. Louis, Missouri, which is very hot and humid in the Midwest, playing jacks. Do you remember that game, jacks? I don't know if we're all old enough to remember jacks.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah, I do. I do.




Kari Schwear:

So I'm playing jacks and I'm looking up and down the street thinking there's no one to play with. If this is all there is to life, then I really don't want to be here. I just don't see the point of living when there's not really any exciting things happening. And then my thought was, I'm seven, I should probably not be having these weird thoughts, like who thinks like that? I knew right away that it was a very peculiar question to be asking of someone so young. And that really was the start of what I call my gray area living life really started at that point. And just for fun, that was also of the same year that I declared to my mom that I would become a cigarette smoker. And so I became one. I took a cigarette from her best friend Gladys's house when she was hanging out with Gladys, having some coffee. Gladys smoked cool cigarettes. Hey, I wanted to be cool. So I thought I'd take one.




Kari Schwear:

And then moving on through the teenage years were really, really difficult. They were the years that now my parents are divorced, I'm moving around quite a bit. I went to 12 different schools before I hit my second ninth grade. I was physically and sexually abused by older boys than me. It was a very difficult time in my life. Just always trying to fit in, always being the new kid, always just trying to make friends with people. I was beaten so badly in eighth grade my parents didn't even recognize me. It was a rough several years. And then fast forward, I meet my husband when I'm in college and he was the nicest guy I've ever met in my life, and I wanted to break up with him for that reason.




Kari Schwear:

I thought he is just too nice. What is wrong with him? I was used to being with the wrong crowd, so to speak. And I called up his house, this is before cell phones, of course. This is 1980 something. And I called up his house and his mom said, "Oh, he is not here. But I'm going to tell him that you called. And by the way, Kari, I want to let you know that my son loves you so much. I hope you never break his heart." And I thought, well, dang, there goes that. I was literally calling to break up with the guy.




Kari Schwear:

And I'm like, great, she just took that away from me. But I credit her because here we are, 33 years later, still together and very happy. But this is all part of the gray area of living is what I'm talking about is you aren't expecting anything wonderful to happen. It's always this doom and gloom living in this fake world of pretend and being fine. And that was what I was trying to do. I was trying so hard to fit in and just go with the flow and say, my life was fine, and it really wasn't. That was a big piece of it. And God flows in and out of this whole story, but we can get to it.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. Wow. Well thank you. You obviously had a very tough upbringing. Most folks need an anchor. I think some of us, you and I and Gary, it's our faith, our faith in Christ. You need an anchor in something. But sounds like growing up, you had parents that just drifted apart. You went to 12 different schools. I'm assuming you were living with your mom through most of your childhood. Was it pretty much visiting him, living with your mom, visiting your dad on every other weekend or whatever the deal is, something like that.




Kari Schwear:

Yeah. One year was all with my father. My eighth grade year, my mom had moved back to her home state of Massachusetts. This is all in Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri. And when she left, that was a difficult time too. I mean what's funny, I look at the situation now with such different eyes through a different lens. I see my parents as human beings, not my actual parents. I see them as John and Nancy. I don't see them as Kari's mom and dad, which is extremely helpful by the way. Because if I didn't see them that way, I harbored a lot of resentment during that time. And now I look at them like, wow, they went through a lot and they did their best and they didn't realize how much pain I was in.




Kari Schwear:

And I think this is a message, this is one of my bigger messages that I like to talk about is that we don't realize how much of our psyche and our belief system is formed at such an early age, before the age of seven. Neurologically, we absorb so much information into our minds. And we can take that information, we can take an incident as simple and as innocent as listening to your parents argue about money and internalizing that as money causes problems in relationships, and is a disruptor with relationships. And then later on in life, you have problems with a partner regarding money. This is how our brain works. And so I didn't know any of this. My parents didn't know. I think most people don't understand how our brains work, especially as we're children and we absorb all this information.




Kari Schwear:

So I think that was part of it. And part of my healing process now looking back, and God was never part of our everyday life. And at seven, going back to that magical age, I remember, very clearly, having a conversation with my sister who is six years older than me. And she, at that time, was pretty much an atheist. And I said to her, "What do you mean? How could you not believe in God?" And she was like, "Nope, don't believe in it." And I thought, well, that's weird. But I always had this innate ability, I guess, or this innate sense, would be a better description, that there was something bigger than me. But I didn't know what it was. And ironically, it is because of my sister that I am a Christian today. She went off to college, again, six years older than me. And when she came back, she was a born again Christian.




Kari Schwear:

Now this is a girl who dealt with a lot of stuff as well. She was older than me, but she was going through the same thing I was, parents getting divorced, so forth. She was involved with someone that wasn't a very good person and also had a lot of drug use, which at that point, I was using drugs also at an early age, seventh and eighth grade. And she came back this born again Christian and I thought, who are you? What does that mean to be a born again Christian? I had no idea what that meant. And she said, "I really want you to go to church with me." And I said, "Okay." So we went to a church and I ended up just soaking in. I didn't realize at the time how much I needed it, how much I needed something outside of myself, something bigger.




Kari Schwear:

And her particular church did an altar call at the end of the service. And she looked at me and I'm sobbing, just sobbing tears. This was eighth grade, by the way. This was the same year that I was beaten so badly that my parents didn't know me. I lived with my father this year. And we went up to the altar and I accepted Christ as my savior. And I am just bawling, bawling, bawling. And I realize at that moment, this is what I had been seeking my whole little 12 year old self or 13 year old self at this point. And I accepted Him into my life. But like most kids that age, it was in the back pocket and I didn't live a quote unquote, Christian life. But it's okay because the seed was planted. So I think it's that deeper connection of that faith that has carried me through this whole time.




Kari Schwear:

And I believe 100% Warwick and Gary, 100% that I was meant to go through all the things I went through, and there's so much more that I haven't said yet. So much more that I believe I was meant to go through all of that for me to be in this place today. Otherwise, I wouldn't have such a passion for my life and a calling on my life. And I truly believe God has called me to do this work today. But it all had to be part of the plan. It had to be the setup. It's like the greatest setup you can ever imagine in history, right? Is your own life looking back. As opposed to it happened to me, it happened for me.




Warwick Fairfax:

So you carry on with life and you're obviously somebody that's intelligent, successful. You end up being, I think a dealer in a Porsche dealership. You're earning six figures. Life is going well from the outside. You're married and family imagine, and life is awesome. But yet, there was this other side that you were drinking. Characterize it, because you view it a little differently than some because some people think it's all black and white, it's all, "Hey, everything's hunky-dory," or you're quote unquote, an alcoholic. But yet hence GrayTonic, your perspective's a bit different. But from the outside, you have a wonderful husband, life seems like it's been redeemed. In theory, life's pretty good. But yet, I'm guessing, obviously drinking probably went back a lot of years too, like some of the other things I'm guessing. Talk a bit about that. There's a flip side beneath the surface that people maybe aren't quite realizing about Kari.




Kari Schwear:

Oh yes. Well, the drinking actually started in my 30s. I'm now 55 to give some context of how long this was going on. So in my 30s, I was a food and beverage manager at a country club. I was in the restaurant business for a lot of years. Anybody who works in the restaurant business knows that you drink after work, that's just what you do. Well now, I'm the manager, so can't drink at work anymore. But I was the wine buyer for the restaurant. So I became very well educated on high end wines and became very much of a wine connoisseur, wine snob, whatever you want to say. And Rob was starting to notice that I'm now drinking a glass or two in the evenings at home when I wasn't working.




Kari Schwear:

And he raised an eyebrow to that, and he said, "I'm noticing that you're now drinking at home. What's up with that?" And I'm like, "What's the big deal? Everyone does it. They do it in Europe. Everyone drinks every night in Europe, so what's the problem?" Trying to make light of it. And he was hyper super focused on it because his mom was an alcoholic and unfortunately abused some pain medication as well. And so he was very well versed on what addiction looks like. So he was aware that "Uh oh, my wife is now having a couple drinks and it's becoming habitual." Well, right around that same time, we moved to Richmond, Virginia from Pennsylvania. And that move was very stressful, as you can imagine, finding a new job, which wasn't a problem at that point. Fast forward, I'm in the medical field now at this point.




Kari Schwear:

And I knew getting a job down here in Richmond would not be a problem. Matter of fact, I had quite a few selections to choose from 10 years ago, 11 years ago. But it was very stressful. I moved my kids out of school. The whole new community, trying to make new friends, trying to build a house, the whole nine yards, that the drinking became even more so. So instead of that one or two glasses, now we're talking a consistent two to three, mostly every night. Not all the time, but a lot. And then I would play the game with myself of like, oh, I'm going to take a month or two off of drinking and would do it successfully. And then I would barter with myself, like I'm only going to drink on the weekends, not during the week.




Kari Schwear:

And then the weekends turned in to be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, instead of just Friday and Saturday. There was always these games I was playing with myself. And I started to question my relationship with alcohol, like, why am I drinking? So those internal voices started happening probably in 2014, still in the medical field. I really was in what we call the contemplation stage of knowing that I should probably do something about it, probably take this a little bit more seriously than what I am, but wasn't quite ready to make that shift. So a lot of people that are questioning anything, it doesn't have to be drinking, anything in their life, will stay in this contemplation stage until they almost feel like they're forced to make a change. Because if there's no rock bottom or there's no repercussions that's happening, or there's nothing that is forcing them to quit or make a change, well then why should they, right? It's like accepting what is, accepting well nothing's happened, so I'll just keep doing it. And this was a little bit of my attitude.




Warwick Fairfax:

I want to just dwell on this a bit because we all come from different paradigms. I personally don't drink, but not because of religious reasons. I just don't like the taste and it dulls my senses, and I don't agree with it. But my wife does, just at dinner. In fact, my kids are all adults. So having a glass of wine at dinner is what we do other than me, and that's all good. I grew up with parents that would drink wine. My dad especially was exceptionally moderate in his habits. He would drink a glass and a half of wine at dinner and a glass and a half at lunch, never anymore, like a metronome. And that was it. He would never drink spirits or gin, vodka, anything.




Warwick Fairfax:

So for a lot of folks that say, "Well, there's nothing wrong with having a glass or two of wine at dinner." In Europe, in Australia probably has, I think it has the highest wine consumption per capita of almost any country in the world. And so there are people that drink wine and enjoy it just as the whole wine pairing thing, and whites with whatever it is and reds. But yet, it sounds like you weren't this massively heavy drinker, downing, I don't know, glasses or bottles of vodka. To the outside observer, it sounds well, what's so wrong with what Kari's doing? I mean, couple glasses of wine, I realize your husband's sensitivity given his family background. But yet, I'm sensing there's nothing wrong with drinking wine per se.




Warwick Fairfax:

But I think what you're getting to, which I think listeners really need to understand, it's the why. So for those who drink wine, because they feel like it makes the food taste nicer, great. And everything's hunky-dory in life, but it sounds like with you, there was a reason you were drinking. And the reason from your perspective wasn't good. Is that the thrust of it, if you will? Because to most observers, are saying, "I don't get what the problem is. A couple glasses of wine at dinner. What's wrong with that?"




Kari Schwear:

Yeah, yeah. And that's a very good perspective by the way. And you are correct. So a lot of this is about the why. We have to look at the why. And for me, it wasn't a celebratory type experience. It was more like, man, I had a really crappy day at work. I'm coming home and I need to do something about this. It really became habitualized to my day. In other words, you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you go to the bathroom, you drink some water, whatever. It was like, I come home from work, I pour a glass of wine, I make dinner, I have another glass with dinner and then sometimes I'd have another glass. And sometimes I'd be like, well, what the heck? There's only a half a glass left in the bottom, I might as well just drink that too.




Kari Schwear:

So when I started realizing that I wasn't just using wine because I enjoyed the taste of it and wanted a glass with dinner, that it became a crutch for me, it became a way for me to cope with a job that I strongly disliked. It was a way for me to cope more importantly, this is really what it comes down to, the crux of my drinking was that I didn't like myself. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I had zero self confidence. I, yes had a very strong faith, still have a strong faith, but it wasn't enough. I couldn't see what God sees. All I saw was this broken person. And because I carried, this is a really big piece of the puzzle here is that for so many years since seven, all the things that happened to me as a child was exactly that in my head, it happened to me. I was a victim.




Kari Schwear:

I wore that victim badge so proudly, like you don't know what I went through. And people that have gone through trauma will use that as a way to justify a lot of the self-sabotaging behaviors. Not consciously, by the way. All this is done unconsciously. Our brain is so powerful and has the ability to really, really find ways to remind us, unfortunately. It's PTSD, to be honest with you. A lot of it's PTSD and trauma, that's so deeply rooted. So every time we have an experience that pops back up, unless it's healed, unless it's an area that we've healed, we're going to keep experiencing this. Well, I didn't have any knowledge of self development at this point in my life, just six years ago, I'm talking about. If I had a bad day and somebody didn't say something the way I wanted, I took that as this is why this happens to me, it happensall the time to me.




Kari Schwear:

And I'm just a rebel, I'm a rebel, I'm a bad kid. I had all the labels. I had all the self negative talk. I'm the troublemaker. I'm the one who always is expected to be in trouble. I'm the one who never quite makes the Dean's list. I'm always the short end of the stick, but I always seem to skate by somehow. That was my mentality on everything, even in my professional life. Even when I was successful in my jobs and my careers. This is my seventh career. I was successful in all of them. But it was more or less like, I can't believe I made it this far, like lucky me.




Kari Schwear:

And that's really what I saw of it. So I had all this internalization going on in my head, this back and forth inner chatter that was running a lot of my decision making, which neurologically is how it works. Our feelings really are coming from our thoughts and because we feel the feelings, we don't think about our thinking. We feel the feelings and those feelings drive us into an action or inaction that produce a result that reinforces the original belief that the thoughts are stemming from. So this is the circular thinking loop that we do in our minds.




Warwick Fairfax:

Absolutely. I want to shift to GrayTonic. But before we do, I want listeners to really hear what Kari is saying. I'm reminded the image of baptism, which is an outward manifestation of an inner transformation. That's what you always hear. And I elder at a nondenominational church in Annapolis, Maryland. So we do baptism. And so I'm familiar with all that. But it sounds it's similar in that this was an outward manifestation of inward hurt, of inward trauma, of inward unresolved. You never completely 100% heal from trauma. Certainly, there are scars and echoes.




Warwick Fairfax:

But it's one thing for it to be a scar and echo, this more felt like ghosts or whatever analogy you want to use that was unresolved and was still affecting you and your decisions and how you viewed yourself. Does that make sense? It just felt like that's what was going on. And I guess if that's true, the question is you made a big pivot, a roundabout that time. I think you're working at a Porsche dealer and life felt a bit blah, or as you put it, meh, which I guess is meh, not quite sure how you spell that. But something like that.




Kari Schwear:

Yes. Yeah.




Warwick Fairfax:

But it felt like there was a pivot and there was a shift from Kari is being governed by the ghosts and all the trauma and the damage that was done to you and other things that went on. But somehow, there was a pivot that shifted things, but below the surface that were no longer going to govern and drive. Somehow, you got out of that prison that you were in of being a victim, the bad girl, I always screw up, all of those negative self-talk. Somehow you got out of that. So tell us about how you got out of that prison and how those negative thoughts beneath the surface, which was driving the drinking from your perspective, how did you make that shift? Because many don't.




Kari Schwear:

Oh, yeah. Such a good question. Well, after I decided that alcohol needs to exit my life, I went the traditional route of figuring that out through Alcoholics Anonymous. Great program. I learned a lot. It was really an awesome place to go. However, because I did not identify as being an alcoholic and I didn't feel like it was the right fit for me, I left the program after about four months and I did all the things, the big book, the 12 steps, the sponsor, all those. And it did provide me some insight, which was good. It wasthe seed I needed to keep me going. But I realized it wasn't my long term game. And again, I had a problem with saying, "Hi, I'm Kari and I'm an alcoholic." It really was a label that I was not willing to accept, nor did I feel like I was.




Kari Schwear:

So I left the program and I worked with a coach that I used to work with, he's a physician, that we worked together in a medical practice. And I really trusted him. I was the only female that he had worked with at that point. He only coached men and he said, "Kari, I don't work with women." I'm like, "No, you need to work with me. I need to have you as my coach." And during those three months that I worked with him, they were not enjoyable, to be honest with you. It was hard work. He was tough on me and it was exactly what I needed.




Kari Schwear:

And this is where the big pivotal point comes in. He said to me on one conversation, "Kari, I think one day you're going to start your own business. I think you have everything it takes to be an amazing coach. And I think you're going to share your story with the world." And then I busted out laughing and said, "You are smoking something serious over there, dude, because that's never going to happen." And I was serious. First of all, I'm not leaving my job because I love my job at Porsche. By this point, I'm at the Porsche dealership. And I was making great money and I thought, well, coaching, okay, I might be able to think about that as a possibility, because I was already coaching some people that left AA when I did, and were coming to me for advice and solace and so forth.




Kari Schwear:

And then to share my story with the world, oh, that's where I drew the line. I'm like, there's no way. I was so private. I had everyone fooled that my life was so perfect. There was no way I was about to go be vulnerable and have anybody see the real Kari. So that was not going to happen. Well, God had other plans. And as I like to say, God's plan is the plan and my plan is just a plan. And I believe that this coach was given the ability, through God, to plant these seeds for me. It was about a year later, so I'm in church, and they're talking about starting a small group. And I said to my husband, "I'm going to start a small group." And he goes, "Okay, great. What are you going to start it on?" I said, "Well, I'm going to do something around drinking."




Kari Schwear:

Now, right around this time, I heard the term gray area drinking via a guest that was on a podcast. And when I was walking my dog and I heard this podcast interview, I literally stopped in the middle of the street. It was a warm summer morning, like 7:30 in the morning. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's what I was. I never identified as an alcoholic. I was a gray area drinker." So I came home. It was like the fire was just burning inside me. I came home and I researched everything I could on gray area drinking and there wasn't a lot out there.




Kari Schwear:

And I thought if I can share what gray area drinking is with more people, I'll get them to raise their hand before they get into a deeper addiction. And then this could be my contribution and then, okay, sure, then I can share my story. Because by this point I had a couple years, I was two years alcohol free at this point. And I thought, okay, well at this point, I don't care who knows I drank too much at one point, like whatever. And right around that same time, I said about the church, the church poo-pooed the idea.




Kari Schwear:

They actually had a recovery group at the church and they didn't want to have a competing small group. It's a small group, right? I'm like, "Are we not here to spread the love of Christ?" I'm confused. So I was really upset over it and I left the church over it. My girlfriend called me later that day and she said, "What's going on?" I told her. She said, "Kari, why are you allowing the church to dictate what you're going to do? You already have so many people that are following you, that you're helping. Girl, you need to start something on your own." And I said, "Yeah, I'll show that church I don't need them." And that was exactly how this business got started. I was on fire. I was on fire so much that I could sleep for a week straight. There were so many ideas flowing through my head.




Kari Schwear:

You know, when you first become an entrepreneur, you're like, "Oh my God, I'm going to conquer the whole entire world." I'm thinking all this crazy stuff. I bought 14 domain names within a week, and I just went crazy. But I settled on GrayTonic because I love the word tonic. By definition, it means medicinal drink of course. But it also means invigorate, strengthener, boost, pick me, up all these beautiful words. And I thought, yeah, I could be the tonic to someone who's in the gray. And that's literally how the name GrayTonic came to be, and that was three and a half years ago and here we are. I credit my coach.




Kari Schwear:

I credit God for the church saying no to me. By the way, I'm back at that same church. I'm glad that happened. I'm glad it happened exactly the way it needed to. And then I just really delved deeply, even more so into the self development world, became a certified life coach, or almost certified in NLP, I'm almost done with that, trauma training, motivational interviewing, all this certification. And every possible chance I get, I'm learning something constantly. So it's just been my world that I live in right now, yes.




Gary Schneeberger:

One of the things I love about your story Kari, is that from this idea of gray area drinking, you've expanded it to gray area living. And your assistance that you offer, your insight that you offer, your hope that you offer to clients and people is not just in the area of drinking, but maybe you're handcuffed to a job that is not rewarding, maybe you're in a relationship that is not mutually satisfying. That gray area concept and the idea of tonic coming to make it better, to soothe it, to propel you forward, that applies not just to drinking, but to other things. I imagine, and especially for a series that we're calling Second Act Significance, this new act in your life. There's enormous significance to you, I imagine, in not just focusing on drinking, while that is where it started and that's important to you, but these other very fulsome areas of life. There's got to be great satisfaction for you in that.




Kari Schwear:

Oh, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of my clients, when they come to me, it is not because of drinking. That might be one of the things that they're doing to deal with their stress and their unhappiness and their deep rooted trauma that they might have in their life. But they might be saying, "Hey, Kari, I really need help with all the stress I'm under at work or my wife and I aren't getting along or my spouse, or I'm really having a hard time in my relationships," whatever it is. We have gray areas in so many places, like you said. It could be that, like you said, handcuffed to a job or just being in an unhappy marriage. And honestly, that's part of my story too is three years ago, I found myself, after 30 years of marriage, telling my husband, I don't know if I want to remain married.




Kari Schwear:

I was really falling out of love with him. And there was a lot of things that were happening with me during my process of self development that brought me to that place of, I don't know if I want to strap in for another 30 years. And so we worked really hard through that time. And I, again, believe that I was meant to go through that period with Rob, because to be where I'm at now, which is I can help couples with their gray areas.




Kari Schwear:

Now, I coach the individual, but we bring the partner in for a couple sessions and I have a process to do that, that really makes a significant difference in the life because now they can see each other in a way that they've not seen before. That's a beautiful thing about a coach. A coach is able to look into the future and see the blind spots and see things that the client could not see exactly what my first coach did for me. He saw the potential in me. He saw things that would fulfill me and that would make me feel like there was a purpose and a passion for my life that I have never felt, starting at age seven. Why am I here? Because if this is all there is to life, I don't see the purpose. I can honestly say now that this is the reason why I'm here, is to do this work, 110%.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. What you said is so profound and yeah, thanks Kari, for just reminding us that there is a broader picture. Sometimes life can feel very gray, like it's overcast, all the buildings are gray, life is gray. It's almost like the Wizard of Oz before they turn the color on. It's just life is just boring. It's black and white, it's not all the colors of the rainbow. And for many people, they're stuck in this dead end job. If anybodywants to think of what is gray living really like, there's a film with Tom Hanks that didn't really go anywhere, but it's called Joe Versus the Volcano. And that opening scene where he goes through the mud into the bowels of this dark building, he has this it bitty little colorful lamp. And the whole thing is just boring, gray, awful.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's like you're going to prison every day. It's the most vivid illustration I've ever seen of what a gray life is, in a sense. And so for many people, it may not be drinking, but they might be unhappy in their marriage, they might hate their job, hate their life, hate themselves, all of the above. And so how do you get out of that gray living to where you love your spouse, you love who they are, you love yourself in the best God honoring sense of that word? You love what you do. If you're a person of faith, you feel honestly that this is a God given calling, or if you're not, a universe calling. So it sounds like you're trying to be who your coach was. You're an advocate for people to find their calling, to get out of the gray into just a colorful life where they love themselves and love others. Is that a reasonable summary of what you do?




Kari Schwear:

That's a great summary. That is a phenomenal summary. And you know what? I have to say, there is a client that would be an awesome guest for your show because he is the epitome of just that, and how he's touching millions of lives at this point with the work that he does. And it's just incredible to see what God can do in someone's life. And when you think about who was actually called for greatness in the Bible, it wasn't the most honoring upstanding citizens that were called. It was the lowly, undeservable or recognizable people that God was calling up to the stand to say, "You know what? You're the chosen one." Just look at the story of Saul, now Paul. You can't make this up, right? God purposely picks people that you would not expect. Even Jesus, the way that he came into the world, it's an incredible story. We don't always think it's going to look like that, but that's exactly how it is. And I'm actually very honored to do what I do. I have to pinch myself like, wow.




Warwick Fairfax:

Absolutely. I think God uses the broken for his own purposes, absolutely. So talk a bit about GrayTonic, and I know there's Question the Drink. People come to you and they say, "Kari, maybe I drink a bit too much. But it's not massive. But yeah, I don't do it for the right reasons. I hate my job, hate my life, hate my marriage, hate myself." As their coach, what are some of the things you do to try and turn the Titanic away from hitting the iceberg kind of deal? Because it's either they're on the iceberg or about to hit it. There's always, there's better, but there's often worse. If you keep going the direction you're going. What are the things you do as their advocate to help turn the ship around so it's not going to crash in the iceberg and go down?




Kari Schwear:

Oh, yeah. Well, it depends if I'm working with a one-on-one or in a group, because a group is set up a little bit differently and that's really surrounded towards drinking and some behaviorals. But with the group and with my one-on-ones, the first thing is let's hold up the mirror and let's really start to dive deep as to why you're doing this. There has to be more than just an interest. It has to be knowing what that why is because your why is your anchor. Your why is the fuel that's going to keep you going. But it also has to be of deep value. It just has to be your grounding force. It has to be that shining North Star that is just keeping you moving forward. And without a strong foundational why on how and why you want to change your life and the differences, it's not going to be very successful.




Kari Schwear:

And the next part of that is really understanding that there's a difference between goals and intentions. And I focus a lot on intentions. I don't actually like goals. I think goals are great to check a box and they're future based and yippee, yay, we can cross the box off and feel like we've accomplished something. But intentions are the daily fuel and the motivation that we need and those little micro wins provide the daily effort that is needed. And part of my program's called Everyday Effort Equals Expansion because what we're trying to do is to expand into the next best version of ourselves. And one of the guys that I follow that I just love, love, love, his name is Ed Mylett, on one of interviews, he stated that the day he dies and he's standing with God, he wants to be looking at a reflection of what he says would be his twin brother, the man that he had the potential to live up to.




Kari Schwear:

And he wants to have that reflection back, that he has lived up to his God-given potential and that he was used in every possible way, that he was every year rising to a new level and the best that he could be, both self development wise, but also spiritually. What more can we do for God's kingdom? What more can we provide? And I just love that. And for me, that's what I live by. And with my clients, yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I very much coach on Godly principles. But I'm not the one who's beating them down to say, "Hey, you need to believe in God." Instead, what I do is come at it through the back door, just like gray area drinking is a back door way in to say or gray area anything is to say, "I might want to explore this a little bit further." It's an invitation.




Kari Schwear:

So a lot of it, my job as a coach is to show the insights and the possibilities. And I like to describe I myself as the bumpers in a bowling alley. Like if you go to bowl, I'm those bumpers that are just bumping you back into the middle of the lane. So you can hit the targets and fully expand, and hit all of those pins where you can fully expand into the best version of yourself, which sounds so cliche. But it's true because if you would've told me just six years ago that I would be in this position right here right now, I would've told you, you're absolutely crazy. But yet here we are. So God's plan is really the plan. And I think if we can relax and rest into that and surrender to that, is when we allow things to happen. So a lot of it is a self-reflection, and of course I do that through some other modalities a whole lot more, but that's the high level version.




Gary Schneeberger:

That sound you heard, listener, is the sound of the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign indicating that we have begun, but it's going to be a slow descent to landing because we have some more ground to cover in this fascinating conversation with Kari.




Gary Schneeberger:

There's something about what you've been saying, Kari, that I can't get out of my head. You talk about... This gives me the opportunity to say something Warwick says pretty much every episode, when he says listeners will be familiar with, and then he tells a bit of his story. Listeners be familiar with a bit of my story in that I have an alcoholic background myself and I did go to AA for a longer period of time than you. But I sort of came to the place where while I loved the program, that didn't really do it for me, didn't work entirely for me. But the idea of why I drank to change the way I felt, the way that you talked about it to change the way you felt, I can see in what you're doing with clients now, you're dealing with, you're helping them change how they feel, but in much more constructive ways. Is that a fair assessment?




Kari Schwear:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm the pattern disrupter. But while we're making the patterns into new patterns, we can literally change the way that we think by creating new neural pathways and disrupting all that. But it's also building the confidence that they need. My whole job is to build that self love and purpose and passion inside of those clients. And when I can do that and I know I've become successful, doing that is when I know my work has been well received. And that's really the goal of what I do is to help them see what's possible for them.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that leads to this last question, I promise I'm going to throw it back to you Warwick after this last question, and something I'm going to have Kari do. The last question then becomes the series is all about, it's called Second Act Significance. And it's all about how, what we were doing before might have been great in its own way. Maybe it wasn't, but what we are doing now brings us much more satisfaction and significance. Is that true for you? How would you describe what you were doing before with the jobs you had, the Porsche dealership most recently before this, are you living a more significant life, a more satisfactory life now? And why is that?




Kari Schwear:

100%. More satisfactory because I'm not numb to what's going on around me. I'm no longer hiding behind a mask. I'm no longer living in this guilt and shame of something that I did that was wrong or that I didn't measure up. Those voices of I'm not enough, they're diminished. Are they gone completely? No. That is something that I think all of us as humans will occasionally have to look at and question and say, what is the truth here? And so for me, when I have those voices come into my head, I have to ask, is that what I really believe? Do I know that that is really the truth or is there something else that could be true? And when I realized that we have internal stories in our mind that create these feelings for us, that's what gets us into trouble.




Kari Schwear:

So for me, it's always circling back to what is most important, understanding my why, understanding the reason why I was chosen for this. And this is not about me. This is truly to bring hope and joy and peace to others that I'm doing God's work, that He has meant for me to do. And so when I take myself out of the equation and I make it about the person, then I know my direction is correct. And then when I take my eyes off of myself, that allows me to show up more vulnerably. And I think that has been a gift too. Like I said, there was no way I'd share my story publicly. And yet, now there's pretty much nothing I won't share.




Gary Schneeberger:

I would be remiss at this point, if I did not give you the chance Kari, to tell listeners how they can find you online and read your blog and learn more about your services. How can they do that?




Kari Schwear:

Thank you for asking. The best way is through my website, GrayTonic. And by the way, gray in the US is spelled G-R-A-Y. I think we're the only country that spells gray with an A, but it is A-Y, GrayTonic. And then if anybody is interested and wondering, "Am I a gray area drinker?", there is a quiz on my main website, GrayTonic. But I have another website dedicated to gray area drinking, and that is grayareadrinking.com. Again, G-R-A-Y. So either website, grayareadrinking.com or GrayTonic is a great way to learn more about me, my services and the things that I offer and more about the group program if that's something that is of interest, because it's an awesome group.




Gary Schneeberger:

All right, Warwick, I'm done. Take us in.




Warwick Fairfax:

All good. All good. I love what you're saying, Kari. One of the things you said to us in advance was the hardest lessons in life are in the storm. You say sometimes, basically the key is to know you have to go through and not around, that there's almost an unopened gift. There's a blessing in the storm. And I love what you say in that because I can relate. I don't know if it's true for everybody. It might be. But sometimes one of the keys to being able to deal with the dark in the past, the damage that has been done to us, the mistakes that we've made, and this is not an original thought, is to use our pain for a purpose.




Warwick Fairfax:

When you're using your pain in service of others, when you're sharing your story and others are saying, "Kari, you're speaking to my soul. That was me. I feel a little bit better today. Maybe everything isn't solved, but I have hope. I honestly believe the first time in my life I'll get out of the gray, I'll see some color of my life. I have hope for my marriage. I have hope for my life." It feels like at that point, boy, what I went through was awful, but I can see God's plan. I can see God's hand. And certainly, in my life, it's very different but similar in the way that I talk a lot about what I went through on my own podcast, but other people's podcasts, the losing 150 year family business, disappointing myself. I felt like I let God down because it was founded by a believer. I go into all this detail and it does get easier.




Warwick Fairfax:

I talk about it a lot, as you talk about it a lot. So just talk about for listeners there sometimes can be beauty, amidst the pain. And by sharing it, that's also a path back to the healing. And that leads to maybe that one last question you said, what would you ask us? And that question you say is with all that you've gone through, would you change anything if given the chance? I have a feeling those two thoughts are connected, if you will. There was some purpose by what you went through and it's able to provide you some healing, I'm sure. So talk about that and the would you change things if you could?




Kari Schwear:

Yeah. I feel sorry for that little girl, what she had to go through. I really do. I almost look at my younger self as a separated person from me. I'm not that person. I look at it through a different lens now. And because I'm able to do that, would I choose to go through it again? And the answer is only knowing what I know now and the impact that I get to provide is yes, I would. I almost think of anytime anybody goes through something really hard, if it's for the greater good of God's kingdom, then how could you possibly say no that you wouldn't experience it again, as painful as it was. So I think it's taking the mess.




Kari Schwear:

And listen, I think every listener could attest to this, that we all have something in our life. We all have some sort of, whether it's little T trauma or big T trauma, we have some sort of trauma or experience that has helped shape us. And instead of looking back on it saying, wow, that happened to me, that happened for me because now you can see that gift, the blessing. And there's really four types of blessings of failures, as I call them. And it's a learning, a set up, a redirection. And when we can look at that, we can find the purpose behind it, then it makes sense. And then we're like, "Oh yeah. Okay. I get it now." So yes, the answer is yes.




Gary Schneeberger:

So I have been in the communications business long enough and co-host of this podcast long enough to know when the last word's been spoken on a subject and Kari just spoke it. There's something, listener, I want to present to you. If you enjoy the show, if you enjoy the content, if you enjoy the things that we talk about here, these are all things that came out of Warwick's experiences. And there are more ways to experience Warwick's experiences. Couple of things come to mind. One, you can purchase his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. Go to our website, crucibleleadership.com. That Wall Street Journal bestseller book is available there. You also can book Warwick to speak at an event that you're holding or having. You can also find how to book Warwick as a speaker for your event on our website, crucibleleadership.com.




Gary Schneeberger:

So until the next time we're together listeners, remember that your crucible experiences, we know, we've talked about it here, we all know how hard those things are. Kari did a meaningful and moving job in talking about her own crucibles and how painful they were. But she also talked in great depth with great hope about the other truth, and that is if we learn the lessons of them, if we apply them to our lives moving forward, they can be truly blessings. They can be truly things that lead to a life of significance. And in the context of this series, which we've just kicked off, when we pivot away from those things that maybe cause us crucibles and we move into something new, we move into something fresh. We explore what we're calling Second Act Significance. That's where the depth and breadth and height of our lives of significance can truly be found.

Join us as we launch our newest series, Second-Act Significance, on April 5. It’s a nine-part collection of conversations with guests who have gone from dead ends to new beginnings in their lives and careers. If you’ve ever felt like you were made to pursue and achieve more, to tackle something different that brings your heart alive and benefits others, to use your crucible as a launching pad to a life of fresh significance, you won’t want to miss a single episode.

It’s easy to feel discouraged these days. War has broken out in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic is weakened but not gone and our economy continues to struggle. That’s the challenging news. The hopeful news is that the time has never been better to do our part to help each other weather the storms we’re experiencing. And the best place to begin doing that is by encouraging each other. This week, host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the impact and practice of encouragement. You’ll learn the seven key steps to becoming a master encourager, from paying attention to being specific, from giving positive feedback often to always making sure it’s sincere.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible, I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership. I really believe that encouragement can change the world. I mean, we live in a world that's divided, there's war on as we speak, division, discouragement, fear, uncertainty, but when you encourage somebody else and they in turn encourage others and you have encouragement spreading like water spreading out on dry land, you'll see grass growing, flowers blooming. It makes a tremendous difference if we had everybody think, "Okay, what can I encourage somebody today in?" It would encourage people to bounce back more.

Gary S:

The world just described is not a utopia, it's a reality we can all create by becoming intentional about offering one of the most effective antidotes to staying stuck in our crucible experiences, giving and receiving encouragement. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week, Warwick and I discuss his new blog on the impact and practice of encouragement. You'll learn the seven key steps to becoming a master encourager from paying attention to being specific, from getting positive feedback often to always making sure it's sincere. I even get the chance to shock Warwick with the results of a study that found for every one criticism you tell someone, you need to counterbalance it with ... Well, you'll have to listen to find out what that number is. You just might be shocked by it too.

Gary S:

One of the things I'm going to love about this conversation as it unfolds is that, it works on two tracks. There's professional kinds of encouragement as a leader, as a teammate, in the workplace, and then there's also personal kinds of encouragement. The principles behind them are the same, but we get to explore our business leadership muscle here, Warwick, as well as our self-help muscle here. Explain a little bit about, as we get started, why you chose encouragement as the topic you wanted to focus on in our dialogue discussion?

Warwick F:

We live in this world where it's paradoxical that, if ever there was a need for encouragement, it's right now, but because of the stress produced by understandable fear and division and war, it's hard to find the actual mental and emotional energy to actually encourage. So we need it a lot, but it's hard to find it in these sorts of circumstances.

Gary S:

This is a circle of life issue. Right? I mean, as you give encouragement, that then can flow back to you to receive encouragement, sometimes you get encouragement from giving others encouragement. The reaction of someone that you encouraged, the improved either relationship, if it's personal or performance, if it's professional, that then encourages you. So I think, to use one of your favorite analogies, it's a flywheel of sorts. As you encourage you get encouraged. Right?

Warwick F:

It's really true. It's one of my highest failures as we'll get into, I really try to encourage, and as I encourage people and I see them feel encouraged and their spirit lighten a bit, it makes me feel good. One of the things we say on Beyond the Crucible all the time is, we probably say this every single podcast, If today is your worst day, you're at the bottom of the pit. Yeah, there is obviously some lessons about how you get out of the pit, understanding your design, learn the lessons from your crucible and so forth.

Warwick F:

But part of it is, as you have a vision that's focused on others, when you focused on others, it just gives you this feeling like you're doing something worthwhile, you feel better about yourself, you feel encouraged because we were designed as humans to think of others and help others and serve others in the altruistic sense of that word.

Warwick F:

So, it really follows from that same philosophy, is we were designed as we think of others, part of that is encourage them. You can argue with how we're designed by the designer, whoever that is, but we are designed in a way that when we encourage, we will tend to feel encouraged ourselves, and better about ourselves just because we're encouraging others. It's part of our human design that we can't alter. It's just the way we are.

Gary S:

Right. I hadn't thought about it before. I've heard you say, I've said myself, scores, dozens, hundreds of times, a life of significance is a life lived on purpose dedicated to serving others. One of the ways that you serve others, we think of maybe more active, we're running a soup kitchen we're ... But encouragement is a way to serve others as you just pointed out. That's not the easiest, but one that we can all do any day, every day, if we're paying attention, that seems to be like a good entry point as you're looking for a life dedicated serving others. It's a good place to start. Isn't it?

Warwick F:

It is. I mean, one thought as I've been thinking about it is, it all starts with how you look at life. For instance, one of the things we say all the time on Beyond the Crucible is, today could be your worst day, you might have suffered through physical tragedy, abuse, financial loss. It could be your fault, not your fault. Like in case of my financial failure was largely my fault, but you have a choice in life. Are you going to say, "This was unfair, I'm just going to hide under the covers for the next 30, 40, 50 years till all ends?"

Warwick F:

So, in a similar way with encouragement, whether you feel like it or not, whether you feel, "Boy, today has not been a good day, I had a really tough time at work. There's family issues, kids issues, maybe my kids' grades at school aren't that good. Maybe my son or daughter got cut from the team." Bad stuff happens every day, at times, it feels like. So there's always reasons to just feel, "Oh, whoa is me." And just feel down, and I get it. That's real. I don't at all minimize that.

Warwick F:

But part of it really is a choice. "Okay, I know today isn't good, but I'm going to have an attitude that I'm going to try and be grateful for what I can, attitude of gratitude as others have said, but I'm also going to try and have an attitude of encouragement." So, it really partly ... Are you going to look at the glass half empty half full? Part of it is just a way of being, a life philosophy, a set of values that you're saying, "Okay, irrespective of how tough life is or isn't, I'm going to have an attitude where I'm going to try and be grateful and I'm going to try to serve others, certainly in this way of encouraging them."

Warwick F:

So you've got to plant that flag in the ground and say, "I am going to do this. I'm going to choose to try and have an encouraging spirit." It's the foundational choice. It's like that choice in the pit, am I going to be overwhelmed by my crucible, or am I going to choose to try to come back from it, as difficult it is? Am I going to choose to try and be encouraging, or am I going to just have an attitude of life is unfair, it sucks, and I'm just going to be angry and frustrated? That's the only emotion I'm going to think of, anger and frustration. I'm not going to be grateful, I'm not going to try and encourage anybody." So really, you got to make a life philosophy choice. That's really probably almost the underpinning to the points we're about to discuss.

Gary S:

Before we get into the content of the blog, I want to level set us with a quote I pulled from a Harvard Business Review article about the importance of encouragement. It says this, "A recent study from McKinsey & Company ..." This article was published just in November of last year, "found that although most employers believe that the large number of people who quit their jobs this year were looking for better compensation, the truth is, most were leaving because they didn't feel valued and lacked a sense of belonging at work."

Gary S:

Another study found that receiving more frequent appreciation from our colleagues and managers, doesn't only make us feel respected, it's also linked to better performance. So there's a bottom line reason to do this in a professional context. And I'd argue a bottom line reason to do this in a different sense of a bottom line in relationships because they build stronger relationships, and that is a very helpful thing.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I think that's such a good point, Gary, that you raised. That's really, really excellent. Yeah. I'm familiar with studies that basically show, whether you are lower management, middle management, wherever you are in your organization, everybody wants to be compensated fairly. That's a given. You want to feel like you're being paid fairly for the work you perform. But once you achieve that, "Yeah, okay. I'm getting paid what other people get paid in my industry. Okay, great, that's the foundation." That is certainly necessary, but it's not sufficient to make you happy at work.

Warwick F:

People beyond getting paid fairly, beyond that, that's not really motivating. It's sufficient, but it's not a motivator in the general sense of the word. So, most people leave work because they don't get on with their boss, and maybe their boss is not encouraging them, criticizing them. No matter what they do, it's always wrong. They may be out of tune with the values of the organization. To your point, I'm sure it's the case, that if your boss encourages you, values you, tells others, "Hey, Jim or Mary's doing a phenomenal job." That will not only make you feel encouraged, you will work harder, probably longer hours, more effectively, more productively. It makes just good business sense in addition to moral sense. So you're right.

Warwick F:

The power of that is absolutely paramount. People that think, for your average person, it's all about money, it really is not. Beyond getting paid fairly, they want a whole lot more than that. They want to feel like what they do matters and they want to feel like their boss appreciates them and encourages them. It's critical. In today's world where people are very mobile, you lose people in a heartbeat if you don't appreciate them.

Gary S:

Right. And that's why, listener, we're doing this podcast, and Warwick wrote his most recent blog on the power of encouragement and the patterns of encouragement, how you can do it. You'd think that Warwick loves the number seven, because his blogs almost always have seven points. The last one had eight, which surprised me, but he has seven points of how you can go about offering encouragement. And again, from my perspective, these apply in the workplace for sure, but they also apply in relationships.

Gary S:

But the first one, Warwick, that you talk about in your blog, and that we're going to talk about here is to pay attention, which seems counterintuitive. I chuckled there because it's like, "Okay, it seems rudimentary." But, nothing happens for your encouragement of others if you're not paying attention. Right?

Warwick F:

So it's this attitude of, "I'm going to pay attention and I'm going to look for opportunities to be encouraging. I'm going to have my radar up, my ears open, my eyes open. I'm going to look to be open and aware so that if something happens, I am not going to miss it." It's critical.

Gary S:

I'm glad you took it to the place I was talking about in terms of family relationships, because I wanted to share one of the things that my wife, Kelly and I do, and we have done for the last three or four years. It's a jar, it's an enormous Mason jar. Look how big it is compared to my head. It's an enormous Mason jar, and inside of the jar are three by five cards. What we do is, we keep blank three by five cards around the house. Then as we catch one another, right, doing something nice, doing something kind, and we want to encourage the other, we'll write them down, we'll date them and write them down for the entire year.

Gary S:

On January 1st of the next year, we'll pull these things out and these. It's jammed to the top full of these things. It takes us almost two hours some years to go through all of those notes of, "Hey, thank you for doing this. Wow, I was really impressed when you did this. You're such a good mom or stepdad or whatever that is that we talk about." It's really a beautiful time. Knowing that that jar is there, does fuel exactly what you're talking about, catching each other doing something good, but also doing something well, doing something that you appreciate about them and being able to express that.

Gary S:

And that doesn't mean that we don't talk to each other about things that ... We don't encourage each other 365 days out of the year, we only do it on the first of the year. It's just a secondary way, and it's a way to make sure we keep those things top of mind. I even carry three by five cards with me when I travel, so I don't miss moments when I'm away from home to then come back and stick those in the Mason jar.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Gary, I think that's just incredible. I think that would be really worthy of doing, listeners. So, you might want to do exactly what Gary and Kelly do. Just write down some three by five cards. I think really the larger point you're getting to, which I think is important, I mean, for me, it's one of my highest values. I don't want to say I do it like breathing the little bit, just because it's ... Yeah, I'm just so focused on, it's such an important thing for me. I think, find a mechanism, a rhythm. Gary's mentioned one good rhythm, one of the things that we do, again, you don't have to do this, and Gary's one is brilliant.

Warwick F:

I think I've mentioned on this podcast before, one of the things we do at birthdays or Mother's Day or Father's Day is we go around the table, three kids, adults now, from 30 down to 20s, and will say youngest to oldest, what do we most admire about that person? Now, two out of my three kids are writers. So they'll do the same thing on their cards. And since they're writers, when it's about you, there's like paragraphs and detailed praise with points and...

Gary S:

Subsection two. Yeah.

Warwick F:

Exactly. It's, "Oh my gosh."

Gary S:

Footnotes.

Warwick F:

Exactly, exactly. Pretty much. Sometimes they roll their eyes or whatever a little bit and not too much, but it's like, "Here we go." But that's just amazing. You got cards for years and you just remember some of the themes like, "Hey dad, you're always there at my birthday, at my tennis or soccer or dance recital, what have you." That's what we do. I mean, Gary's is fantastic. That just feels like that's the platinum gold style level way of encouraging by putting cards down, in addition to doing it during the day, but listener, you figure out your own mechanisms, you don't have to have a mechanism.

Warwick F:

But like a lot of things in life, sometimes mechanisms help a characteristic that you want to be like muscle memory. It helps to train the muscles in that. So I think mechanisms like that, especially Gary's, I think, is a fantastic idea.

Gary S:

Which leads us logically to the second point. And this is what I love about these conversations, Warwick, and the blogs that you write that fuel them is that, the points stick together like a stepping stone. Right? First step number one, pay attention. Okay, you're doing that, then what comes after that? Point number two in your blog in our conversation now is, if you see something, say something. Again, seems a little self-evident, but really in the workday world of how busy things are, that can get past us. Right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. We all have our sayings. This may be close to the number one thing that I say, number one mantra, if you will, if you see something, say something. By that I mean, if you see something positive, say something. We'll talk about the negative is not quite so, you don't always say something just because you see something negative, that you have to think pretty hard about, "Should I say something when ..." That's a whole nother discussion, another podcast. But let's assume that you have this attitude of gratitude, attitude of thankfulness, glass half full, you've got that mindset, you're paying attention.

Warwick F:

So once you're paying attention, it may not be a freight train, it might be just this gentle breeze for the trees. When you see something, then say something. I can't tell you how many meetings, whether it's ... I'm on two nonprofit boards, board meetings, meetings with different teams, family. Sometimes you can see on people's eyes that they're thankful, but they're not saying anything. Again, I'm not trying to throw any organization under the bus, but in a couple of nonprofit boards I've been on, there are times in which, whether it's the head of the organization or sometimes one of the heads of a department, will come to the board and give a presentation, and you'll be thinking, "Wow, this man, this woman is doing a phenomenal job. Wow."

Warwick F:

Now, how much will they value the board of the whole organization saying this is great, like a lot. Praise from the boss is great, praise from the board, that's another level, at least from their perspective. It doesn't mean we're more or less important. It's just more how it works. So, sometimes people will be wrapped up in what's the next steps, how can we improve on this, how does this report jive with other things I've heard?

Warwick F:

You're thinking about all these analytical things you're thinking of, which is great, but rather than say, "Wow, Fred, Mary, that was fantastic. What you're doing here in this ministry or in this part of the organization, it's fantastic." I'm not against anybody, it's just human nature. You get preoccupied with your own thoughts and you're thinking all these positive thoughts, but you're not saying anything.

Gary S:

Right.

Warwick F:

It's just human nature, people aren't used to encouraging. It's just not a normal thing that people do. So they're thinking these positive thoughts, but it's like, just because you're thinking of it, how in the world is a person meant to know? They're meant to be a mind reader? How are they meant to know that you are thinking positive thoughts towards them, unless you open your mouth? There's no way they're going to know. I mean, they can't figure it out by osmosis, by ESP or mind meld or mind reading. I mean, it doesn't work that way.

Gary S:

And the other thing then that comes from that, if you see something, say something, the something that you say you make in point three of your blog is, be specific. And that to me is extraordinarily important because, like most things in life, the more detail you offer, the more beneficial what you have to say is.

Gary S:

If you see those movies where someone's on a plane and some emergency happens and a passenger has to fly the plane. Right? They've got to be very specific when they get on with their control booth tower and they tell them how to fly. They got to tell them how to do it, they got to be specific. Being specific allows people to really understand what the encouragement is for, and I think then, it fuels more of that behavior as you call it out. Right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely, very well said. It's one thing to say back to the boardroom examples, somebody comes in and says, "Hey, great job." That's better than nothing. That's okay. I think another example, I'm an elder at my church, evangelical, 2,000-odd person church in Maryland. So, often the pastors we have who preach, pretty much always do a great job. Sometimes somebody say, "Hey pastor, great sermon." Okay. How often do they say why? Sometimes it's like, "Okay, what's that mean?" I mean, thank you, it's better than bad sermon. It's a step on the road. It wasn't like it sucks or I'm leaving or see you. I mean, I guess there are worse feedback.

Warwick F:

But what I always try and do, whether it's a sermon or I'm on a board or just with other people, I try to be specific. Back to the example of when we go around birthdays and I'm trying to give encouragement and praise to my kids and my wife, I will say, "Hey, I know life has been tough, but you've really been persistent. It's great you got that job. Boy, I admire the fact that, when you're in that job, you can set and forget, you're reliable. You don't miss anything, you're dependable. And that kind of character is really impressive." I mean, I try to be very specific. Certainly, in every case, but you better believe with my family.

Warwick F:

So, it's one thing to say, like a boss comes by and says, "Hey, that was great." "Okay. Well, what's that mean?" Or yeah, "you're a nice person." "Okay. What's that mean? How nice?" "Well, you're kind, you're compassionate, you're forgiving. You're always thinking of others." "Okay, now I get an idea of what you mean by nice person." It's better than nothing. But if you want to go from entry level passing grade to A triple plus, be specific. It makes a massive difference, because one can seem perfunctory. Okay. They really mean it. Just saying it because ...

Warwick F:

Being specific is absolutely critical and it shouldn't be that hard because if you're thinking nice job or you're a nice person, there's got to be a reason behind it. It's not like, "Oh, I don't know why I think you're a nice person." Be like you with Kelly. I don't know why I was encouraged by what you did today, I have no clue, but I'm just going to say thank you, Kelly. Of course, there's a very specific idea of why you appreciate it in that moment. Right? It's not like there's amorphous good feelings.

Gary S:

Right. Exactly.

Warwick F:

Right?

Gary S:

Yep. So you said there's a triple A plus way to do it. I'm going to add some extra credit because I think on this point in particular, on this idea of being specific, I think one of the best ways to do that, and you talked about it a little bit earlier when you talked about giving cards to your family at birthdays where you write things down. I think there's power, especially when it comes to being specific in a note, a written note, and I found another HBR article that talks about the power of written communications versus verbal communications. And here's a couple of paragraphs from that article.

Gary S:

"Handwritten notes mean more because they cost more, emails, tweets, texts, or Facebook messages are essentially costless. They're easy to write and free to send. And you and I produce hundreds of them every day. A recent study indicated the average corporate email account sent or received more than 100 emails per day, and Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 now send or receive nearly 100 texts per day. These electronic communications are rarely notable, but handwritten notes are unusual. They take minutes or hours to draft, each word carefully chosen, no undo or auto correct to fall back on.

Gary S:

Drafting one involves selecting stationary, paying for stamps and visiting a mailbox. They indicate investment, and that very costliness indicates value." This next part blows me away. "If as the US Postal Service notes, we only receive a handwritten letter once every two months. Each of those letters likely means more to us than the cheaper communications we receive each day."

Warwick F:

Boy, it's so true. I must confess, I don't always do that, like breathing. There's always another level that all of us can reach. But yeah, there's no question at the very least, I think all of us can send birthday cards, Father's and Mother's Day cards to our loved ones. I mean, that's something and rather than just ...

Warwick F:

And it's okay. You can say, "Well, I got this great Hallmark card" or whatever it is, and the words can be pretty good in there, if not wonderful, and that's fine. But how about taking an extra few minutes and writing a few sentences about why you appreciate them? So that's like, it's better to send a card to your loved one or a friend, it's better than doing nothing, and a card is better than an email, it's better than a text. So that's good. You're already along the way to what you're saying, but being more specific in that card of why you love them or admire them, that's the next level.

Warwick F:

So if you're going to do a card, and what Gary's talking about, handwritten note, boy, I don't know if it's another level beyond a card, it probably is. That's rarely will you receive a handwritten note. And yes, if you can find some nice station, that's extra credit. We live in this world where it's like nobody writes letters these days. I mean, it's just so rare. But you're right, it's so valuable.

Gary S:

The next point in your blog and in our conversation, point number four, is to tell others. What do you mean by that? Tell others. So we're encouraging people but telling others. How does that work and why is that important?

Warwick F:

So, it's funny. One of the things we're often told is don't gossip about other people. If you've got something to say to somebody, find a way, hopefully, tactfully without throwing hand grenades, talk to them about whatever the issue you have with them or whatever the thing is. But don't gossip behind their back and say, "Oh, Susie, John, boy, they're really ... Stuff never gets done, and they stab people in the back and they're just awful people." On and on you go. But here we talked about, if you see something, say something.

Warwick F:

If you have this positive attitude, obviously you want to start with telling them. But telling other people about them, that can be powerful. So let's say you're a coworker with somebody and you're in a meeting with their boss and somehow it's relevant. I mean, even if it's not relevant, it's like, "John, Sue, boy, they're ..." Maybe you head up a different department. Maybe you're a peer with their boss. "They really, really bailed me out in marketing. They did some extra research and stuff on the product, gave me what I needed, and it was last minute because the customer just at the very last moment said they wanted a change in the order. Boy, they just went out of their way to help me, and that just made a huge difference."

Warwick F:

What do you think that person's going to think? Thank you so much, you just told my boss. I mean, wow. So, whether it's in a family's situation, if you're thinking positively about your husband or wife, it's okay to tell the kids, "Boy, you're really lucky to have the mom or dad that you have, whatever it is, because they just did A and B." It can work with siblings, it can work with all relations. Then with that other person, they're not just getting encouraged by you, but it's like, "Hey, I heard John was telling a friend of mine that ... or you were telling a friend of mine how good a job I was doing or how nice a person I am. Wow."

Warwick F:

Even if they don't know where it originally came from, you might have a whole bunch of people just saying, "Gosh, I've had six people just this week say what a fantastic job you're doing. It's amazing." What does that do to that person? So, you want to be ... We talk about the flywheel. You want this to be a bit like a flywheel or a forest fire and you light a match and there's this ground swell of encouragement that comes from so many different sources. So in this case, gossip is one thing when it's negative, but telling others when it's positive, of course, the person would love you to tell others if it's true.

Warwick F:

So, you've got to have this attitude of, try to praise people, not just to their face, sounds weird, but behind their back to people that know them. Because that is, they will like that. So, it's not an either/or, praise them to their face, be specific, but also tell others and be specific. People that know them, that is just huge. It creates this atmosphere of encouragement.

Gary S:

The rule I've always had as a leader is correct in private, praise in public. If you've got something that you want to tell someone who works for you or with you, again, something that shows appreciation and encouragement as publicly as you can do that, the better, because their coworkers and friends are going to hear the boss say X, Y, and Z about them, and that, again, motivates folks to do better.

Gary S:

I want to level set us here as we're more than halfway through your seven points, that we're talking about all of these things, right, in the context of Beyond the Crucible, in the context of crucible experiences. I mean, what would you say, Warwick, to specifically why encouragement is important in the context of maybe someone who's going through a crucible, someone who's been through one and is trying to bounce back from one, why is this topic of encouragement something that we're talking about on this show?

Warwick F:

It's an excellent question, Gary. I think as we often say, today is the worst day, you're in the pit, you might feel like life is over, and we've heard a number of guests on the podcast who've been at a point in their life where they feel literally worthless. Some have felt so bad about it, they've even contemplated suicide. I mean, there's real depth to feeling this worthless. I'm a waste of space. I didn't have suicidal thoughts, but I certainly went through a time after I failed $2.25 billion takeover, sort of this thought that everything I touch I ruin or destroy. I mean, it's like, "Look what I did." I mean, gosh, I was feeling relatively worthless myself.

Warwick F:

So, when you can encourage somebody and say, "Look, I know what you went through was awful. I know you made a big mistake or I know what was done to you is unspeakable, but you are worth something, you are worthwhile. You're a good person, you are kind, you are smart, you're intelligent. You have a lot of capacity." And be specific. I heard somebody the other day say, "Boy, they're tinkerer, they tinker around with things. They build things out of nothing. They have this really mechanical, creative side, or maybe others they're a good writer or a good musician." Whatever it is. When they're feeling so worthless, when you're encouraging them to say, "You know what? You are worth something, don't let what happened to you destroy you. I care about you. You are worthwhile."

Warwick F:

If all that does is help them get their toe out of bed the next day and put one step forward, that's huge. So, encouragement can really make a difference between people choosing to get out of bed and choosing to say like, "I'm going to be angry for the rest of my life." They can literally, I wouldn't say save them, but be part of the process of helping them come back and leading a worthwhile life. So yeah, absolutely, encouragement. If ever there's a time you need encouragement, it's when you're at the bottom of that pit. That's when encouragement's just like this lifeline. It's absolutely huge.

Gary S:

And point number five in your blog and in our conversation is that, there's not like a cap on how many times you can do this. You don't have like, "Oh, I can only do it three times a day or I can only do it to this person once every month." It's not like that. So your fifth point is give positive feedback often. Why is that critical?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. This isn't a one and done kind of thing. Okay, I gave my a coworker or my employee on my team, one positive feedback because, hey, it was a new year's resolution and it was January one, and so we did it.

Gary S:

Check.

Warwick F:

Back to your example with you and Kelly and the bottle. Like, "Okay, we had that wonderful time. We spent two hours on January 1st, going through the bottle with all the positive feedback." Yeah, Kelly's going to have to wait till January 1st next year before she gets any positive feedback. But it'll be worth, it'll be amazing. And obviously she jokingly said, "No, it's not an either/or, it's both/and."

Warwick F:

Sometimes, especially if people feel bad about themselves, which if today's your worst day, probably extremely likely, just saying, "Oh, you can do it. Don't let what happened to destroy you, or don't listen to those people, they don't know you, being down on you." Yeah, I says, "Okay, great." And then months go by. Well, those negative thoughts will start to take hold again. It's almost like weeds. I use that kind of fertilizer, the weed and feed thing once. We're good. Right? No, you're not good. You got to use it constantly because the weeds want to keep coming back. The same with negative thoughts and negative emotions.

Warwick F:

It's almost like a spiritual battle, depending on your spiritual paradigm, there's the forces of evil and the forces of good. However you look at life. Whenever you see something, say something, not just once. So you see them do something good again, say, "Wow, that was remarkable. I can't believe what you did. That was incredible, what you did that day." Or maybe you see somebody encouraging somebody else. "That was incredible what you did, because they really needed it. Boy, thank you for doing that."

Warwick F:

I mean, to get that flywheel effect, you got to pay attention, see something, say something, be specific, tell others. But you got to do it more than once. Because there's a battle for the soul out there. A battle between being depressed and down and between encouraged, and people need as much encouragement as they can get often. Because life is not easy every day, it seems like you might get hit in the gut with something. Life is not Disneyland. It's not easy. People need encouragement often.

Gary S:

And that, listener, is not just an opinion of the host of the show, Warwick Fairfax, that is a truth backed up by research. I've found the Harvard Business Review article, which talked about a study that found how many positive comments, how much encouragement is needed compared to a piece of criticism. In other words, for the two to balance out, and for every thing that you say that's critical to someone, you should say this number of positive encouraging things. You want to take a guess or you want me just to tell you, how many positive encouraging things for one critical one?

Warwick F:

Well, why don't you tell me?

Gary S:

All right. It is 5.6 encouraging comments for every critical comment. Now, you couldn't see Warwick's face here unless you're watching on YouTube. He was shocked by that. Why were you shocked by that?

Warwick F:

I was going to say three to one, but wow, 5.6 to one that is just staggering.

Gary S:

And the article from which that statistic comes says this about why that number could be so high. It says, only positive feedback can motivate people to continue doing what they're doing well, and do it with more vigor, determination and creativity. Perhaps that's why we found with the vast majority of leaders in our database, this is Harvard Business Review, who have no outstanding weaknesses, that positive feedback is what motivates them to continue improvement.

Gary S:

And then check out this statistic, focusing on their strengths enabled 62% of this group to improve a full 24 percentage points in their work, how productive and how good their work is. That's incredible. That's an incredible statistical testament to what we've been talking about here today.

Warwick F:

Absolutely, Gary. And notice what Gary was just saying is, how offering encouraging comments can really help productivity and take people to the next level. We often think, "Oh, but I need to give them negative feedback so that they'll know and can improve." Well, yeah. You're doing it the right way, it can be helpful. But I think what it's saying is, encouragement is almost more helpful than the so-called constructive feedback. I think one of the challenges is, I hear, I know people, even folks that are really good managers that will say, "Look, don't tell me the positive stuff, I want to improve. Please tell me the negative."

Warwick F:

And that's said with the best of intention, because they honestly want to get better. So I politely say, I can think of one person I have in mind that says, "No, I'm going to give you the positive anyway, because you may not want it, but you got to get it." I don't say it quite that bluntly. But yeah, I think the human psyche is such that, like when we do these cards at birthdays, it's hard for me to process that positive feedback. If you ask me half an hour later, "What specifically did they say?" I'll say well let me get that card out again. It's hard for me to remember, to be honest, because for most of us, positive feedback is hard for us to accept. We tend to be all broken souls.

Warwick F:

Now you say, ask me a week later about the negative feedback, I'm probably going to remember that one. Get to see it, the pain serves to help us remember. Negative feedback is so often remembered, I think that's partly why the ratio, you talked about 5.6 to one is ... Encouragement is not easy to accept, which is why we need to do it often and be consistent, so that somebody's self image of themselves, which often is not positive, tends to change. There's psychological reasons why that statistic makes exceptional sense.

Gary S:

Right. There's a flywheel effect on the other side of the encouragement, right, for the person who receives it, the more you hear that, the more that's spoken to you from varied sources in particular, the better it's going to be for you going forward to receive that and not be like, "Oh no, please stop." Right? I mean, it will help people receive it the more you are part of the solution of people who are giving that encouragement.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Just one more thought on that is, it'd be like saying, "Okay, I watered that dying plant once. It's good. Right?" No, it takes a lot of water for that dying plant to thrive. Think of ourselves like that often, especially if you're in the middle of a crucible. So yeah, it makes abundant sense.

Gary S:

Here's another point that makes abundant sense. The sixth point in your blog, and this is critical too. This is another little offshoot of how critical this is, doing it often, very important, but also we want to make sure that what we say when we say it, that we're sincere in doing so, because insincere positive encouraging feedback can be sniffed out miles away.

Warwick F:

Back in my advertising days, I had an internship which we'll actually talk about here towards the end. But one of the worst things you can do is have a bad product with great advertising. Because you go by the supermarket, you go, "I just saw that out on TV. This product's lousy. I mean, this food, whatever it is, it tastes terrible." You'll get angry.

Warwick F:

It's a bit like that. You've got to be sincere, obviously be specific, just this general mantra of, "Oh, you're doing a great job." Or, "Yeah, you're a nice person." Come on, it's got to be real and be specific. Otherwise, frankly, it will do more harm than good. It will have been better to say nothing, to say great job, you're a nice person, if they're not. They will resent it. They'll be angry and they will feel unseen, unheard, and that you don't know them. I mean, it sounds strange, but insincere comments can be extremely toxic. It is not helpful.

Gary S:

All right. The summary point, this all the flywheel, all flies around, spins around to get us to this point. And that is the power of encouragement. Encouragement is powerful. Why is that true, and how is that true?

Warwick F:

I really believe that encouragement can change the world. I mean, we live in a world that's divided, there's war on as we speak, division, discouragement, fear, uncertainty. But when you encourage somebody else, and they in turn encourage others, and you have encouragement spreading like water spreading out on dry land, you'll see grass growing, flowers blooming. It makes a tremendous difference. If we had everybody think, "Okay, what can I encourage somebody today in?" It would encourage people to bounce back more.

Warwick F:

Yes, if you've gone through some things you might need counseling and if you have illness, you might obviously need medical treatment. I don't discount any of the very practical things that you need to do, but encouragement can just change people's attitude. It can change people's motivation. It can make people feel less negative, more positive. It can literally revolutionize the world if more people thought of encouraging.

Gary S:

And that is the signal that the time has arrived in the podcast where I talk about the purple file, which I do every episode now. The idea behind the purple file was Dennis Gillan, who we had on the podcast a few weeks ago, wrote an article for Entrepreneur magazine, where he talked about this file he keeps, and it's a big thick file and it's purple. That's why it's called the purple file, ingenious. But in it, he keeps notes of encouragement. That's how he describes it. Notes of encouragement he's received.

Gary S:

He's a suicide prevention speaker. Sometimes he worries that his speeches aren't hitting the mark. They're not motivating people. They're not moving people. They're not helping people. And when he gets into that place, he pulls out the purple file and finds a note of encouragement. If anything is an advertisement for the importance of all that we've talked about here, specifically, the idea of writing a note or something that even an email that you can print out, this would be it, because someone can do it again. It's to the point of, it's not just one and done that encouragement then can live on if someone puts it up on the wall, puts it in a purple file.

Gary S:

And I'm just going to read one short one here, because what this note does is hits on both aspects of what we've talked about. Throughout this entire episode, we've talked about, you can have a professional track in your encouragement, and there's also a personal track in your encouragement. In the workplace and in the home, from the boardroom to the living room. Right? You've got that kind of mix. And this is a note that I got 10 years ago. I still have the note. This is a note I got 10 years ago when I left Focus on the Family. It's written by Jim Daly, still the president of the Focus on the Family.

Gary S:

But this is what he said, on the day that I left, he gave me this note. "You've provided great leadership to the media effort at Focus, a wonderful move for the ministry, bringing you in that position. You have managed the media relationships with great ability," specific. Right? "We will miss you. Your flare will also be missed," personal, specific and personal. So there's a business. Right? You've managed the media relationships well, but your flare will also be missed. "You are one of a kind, we love you."

Gary S:

All the things that we've talked about here, the entire flywheel represented there in this idea of, if you keep a purple file, if people are encouraging you, they're giving you fodder to put in your purple file. So, as you think about encouraging others, know that it's not only is it not one and done for you to continue to encourage them, but the bits of encouragement that you give them can live on for them in that particular case from my old boss, Jim Daly, for 10 years.

Warwick F:

Yeah. So well said. I mean, that's such a great example of the purple file. So whether it's cards or birthdays or Father's Day, Mother's Day, or whether it's handwritten notes that you've kept. Those things matter. We tend to forget. And so we can look at them on our dark days and just remember. It's so helpful, so important.

Gary S:

So now you hinted earlier Warwick that there was a story that you were going to tell about your time, perhaps in a different lifetime, in a different business situation. So before we take the plane to the ground, and really it occurs to me, my whole idea of the captain's turn on the fasten seatbelt sign, we're the only two people on the plane, and one of us is flying it. So, we'll just bring it down without the captain telling us. So, we've begun our descent, but tell us that story that fits in and summarizes, I guess, what it is that we've been talking about today.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Thanks Gary. I mean, if this was a movie in a sense, this is probably the origin story of why encouragement is such a high value for me. It was an example. It's a lifelong lesson that I've never forgotten. I finished school in Australia. It was probably like, I don't know, November, 1979 or something like ... I'm sorry, November, 1978, because school years in Australia are different. It's the calendar year because the summers are round the other way. It's all different. So Oxford wasn't until the fall of 1979, it had like eight month gap or something.

Warwick F:

So for about five months of that, I got internship at an advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, used to be one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world, now merged with a few others. So, I was working in the Sydney office, and in their group, it was a Kellogg's group. So I was supporting Kellogg's Corn Flakes and a bunch of other things. And there was this Canadian guy, Don Robertson that came out to be chief executive of the Australian office. So, every once in a while we had team meetings, I don't know if there were 50, a 100, 150 people. It was a pretty big office for an advertising agency.

Warwick F:

I remember one time he gave praise to one of the people working in the group I was in the Kellogg's group and said, "The advertising we've done for Kellogg's Australia is some of the best advertising that Kellogg's have seen worldwide for the whole brand." Everybody knows Kellogg's cereal. You can probably get in every country on the planet. I mean, it's a massive brand. So for Don Robertson, CEO of J. Walter Thompson, Australia to say, this is some of the best advertising that's being produced for Kellogg's anywhere on the planet. And Australia, relative to the rest of the world, it's not like a massive market. It's not nearly as big country, but in terms of the market, not nearly as big as the US or Europe. You'll imagine what that person thought. I mean, they would've gone through a brick wall for Don Robertson.

Warwick F:

The work ethic, the commitment that, "Hey, I'm not leaving this place ever." If you're in advertising, you have choices. So that was one of those examples that I have just never forgotten. He was very specific, he told others, like headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan, wherever they are for Kellogg's. I mean, it was amazing. And ever since then, just the power of encouragement to motivate a team to get to this next level, but just because it's the right thing to do, and that was huge.

Gary S:

And that is an excellent opportunity for us to put the plane on the ground. Before we do that though, before we depart the plane, plane's on the ground, before we grab our peanut bags and head out, your blog available, if not already then soon, at crucibleleadership.com. As you always do, you end with some really insightful and thought provoking questions of reflection that readers can ask themselves. I'm going to leave the listeners, who hopefully will also be readers of the blog, with those three prompts to reflect on everything that we've spoken about here on this episode of the show.

Gary S:

First one, and these are all sequential, you can follow 1, 2, 3. First one, think of someone you want to praise. We won't do it in real time, I won't make you do it while I'm talking. But think of someone you want to praise. Two, think specifically why what they did or who they are is praise worthy. Right? One of the points that Warwick makes in the blog, one of the points we made here is be specific. That carries far more weight as you're offering encouragement to others. And then, here's the most important point. Don't let the thought die on the vine or in your brain, go and say something to them this week, right after you think about it, after I'm done talking, go tell them.

Gary S:

Think of someone you want to praise, think why you want to praise them, think specifically, and then go do it. Because the impact as we've discussed on this episode, the impact can be great. It can be a flywheel that will spur them on to greater performance, or will add depth and meaning and momentum to your relationship with someone professionally or personally. That's the benefit of this thing that we call encouragement. So, listener until the next time we're together, remember that we understand that your crucible experiences are difficult, we understand that they're painful, and that they can take a while to get through.

Gary S:

But the good news that we offer, the good news that Warwick has staked out in his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, available now at bookstores everywhere, including Amazon. What Warwick points us to is the idea that if we learn the lessons of our crucibles, if we don't stay in the pit, if we get out, and we move forward, we can land at a place that is the most rewarding place we can land, and that's a life of significance. And I want to, on that phrase, life of significance, here comes a tease, here comes a tease. Next week on the show, you will hear about our new series of this podcast, which we're calling Second Act Significance.

Gary S:

We have interviewed some truly remarkable guests who have gone from a first act in life that for whatever reason, wasn't fulfilling, wasn't what they felt they were called to do, didn't bring their heart alive, a crucible is usually involved. And then, they moved on beyond that, and in the second act of their life, they have found that life of significance that we've talked about. So, stay tuned, because beginning next week, and for several weeks following, you will get to hear more about, and actually listen to episodes from folks who have lived and are living a life of second act significance.

It is easy to feel discouraged these days. War has broken out in Ukraine and threatens to destabilize relationships among nations globally. The COVID pandemic, while it has lessened in severity of late, has brought much stress and even tragedy to our day-to-day lives the last two years. The economy continues to struggle, leading to uncertainty about the future for many people.

That’s the challenging news. The hopeful news is that the time has never been better to do our part to help each other weather the storms we’re experiencing. And one of the best places to begin doing that is by encouraging each other.

Words of encouragement, like drops of water to a withering flower, are drops of grace that can calm, soothe, and bring hope, to a bruised spirit. Encouraging others not only helps them move beyond their crucibles, it can actually help them avoid crucibles.

But how can we  encourage others, and what is the power that is unleashed when we do? Try putting these seven tips into action as you aim to become more intentional in your efforts to encourage others:

1. Pay Attention.

With people at work, with your family and friends, with people you meet, be aware of what is going on.  Have an attitude of appreciation and gratitude.  Have a mindset that if something good happens and someone does something praiseworthy, you will actually notice.

2. If You See Something, Say Something.

Quite often with our work colleagues or our friends and family, we will see someone do something we appreciate.  We will think, “That is so nice!  That was kind!  That was really wonderful!”  But then we say nothing.  If we see someone do something good or display character that is praiseworthy, we have to speak up.  It is easy to say nothing.  If we would like others to encourage us, let’s first treat others in the way we would like to be treated.

3. Be Specific.

Don’t just say, “You did a great job!,” or “You are a nice person!”  That’s OK, but frankly not great.  The other person is thinking, “What does that mean?  Where did I do a great job?  Why am I a nice person?”  If the person is a co-worker, or someone else at work perhaps even your boss, tell them specifically why what they did was good, how it helped you or your team on the job. If it’s a friend or loved one, let them know how an act of thoughtfulness and kindness or some other helpful thing they did meant so much to you. Do not take your friends and loved ones for granted.  The more specific, in both instances, the better.  The same with their character.  Give them examples that show why they were such a nice person.  The difference between a general comment that someone is a nice person, as against giving them examples that show how kind and thoughtful, they were is enormous.

4. Tell Others.

We are often told that we should not gossip about other people.  If we have something to say that is negative, we should tell it to them directly, hopefully in a somewhat tactful fashion.  But if we really admire another person, telling others about it as well as the person themselves is a helpful thing to do. It is actually something the person being praised would really appreciate.  It may even get back to them. “I have heard so many people tell me how efficient, how hard-working and how productive you are.”  If some of those people are their bosses, that is all the better.

5. Give Positive Feedback Often.

Just because you told one person once they were doing a good job and why that was the case, it does not mean you are done.  Have an attitude of gratitude, as they say.  Be on the lookout for specific instances where you can praise them.  Giving a person positive feedback over time with specific examples can make an enormous difference.

6. Be Sincere.

When you praise someone for the job they are doing or their character, it has to be sincere.  Giving false praise, such as telling someone they are doing a good job, when they know they haven’t, will only make things worse.  They will resent you, and potentially feel guilty and feel bad about themselves.  You might be too busy to know how they are doing in their job performance, and might throw around generic praises.  That is not helpful.  Encouragement must be specific, but it also must be genuine.

7. The Power of Encouragement.

Encouragement can change the world.  Encouragement can make people feel valued.  It can make them feel seen and heard.  It can motivate them to work harder, believe in the mission of the organization more.  It can improve relations with friends and family.  It can make an enormous difference.  It can have a multiplication effect.  If you model encouragement to others, they might over time encourage other people, who in turn will encourage still others.  Maybe some of those other people will turn around and encourage you.  That is not why you should encourage others, but it may be a nice byproduct.

Our world is hurting.  People are in pain, even feeling broken.  Encouragement lifts people up; it can have a healing effect.  It can bind people together.  It can lead to still others being encouraged. It can calm fears, ease burdens, and bring hope amid challenges. Isn’t this the world we want to live in?

Reflection

Order Crucible Leadership here

Kelly Sayre thought she was traveling the perfect career path, not making much money but making great impact helping a coaching entrepreneur run a business that focused on empowering women. The boss had brought her on with the promise of her taking over one day — but then it all went wrong in a way Sayre never saw coming. Suddenly unemployed and thousands of dollars in debt, she allowed herself to mourn only briefly before carving out a new calling all her own. As the founder and president of The Diamond Arrow Group and author of the bestseller SHARP WOMEN: EMBRACE YOUR INTUITION, BUILD YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND LIVE LIFE UNAFRAID, she equips women to avoid physical threats as well as relational and professional harm like she experienced.

To learn more about Kelly Sayre and to order her book, visit www.thediamondarrowgroup.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Kelly S:

You can either stay stuck in that anger or hurt or betrayal, or you can say, "How do I move forward? And what is going to be the best for me mentally?" Because I could have stayed angry. And trust me, I threw one heck of a pity party that night. It was a rager, all by myself. But the next day I got up, I dusted myself off, I went to go workout and I was like, "You had your pity party. Now it's time to move forward because this is where you're at. And if you stay stuck here, you're going to stay here, or you can figure out a path forward."

Gary S:

That, friends, is a recipe for doing what the title of this show aims to help you do, moving beyond your crucible. Is it easy? Hardly. But is it possible, and more than that, necessary? Absolutely. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show.

Gary S:

Our guest this week is Kelly Sayre, founder and president of the Diamond Arrow Group and author of the bestseller, Sharp Women, Embrace Your Intuition, Build Your Situational Awareness and Live Life Unafraid. The seed for her business and her book, she says in our interview, was the situation that led her to that pity party she described, working for next to nothing for a coaching business based on her passion for empowering women and the promise that she was being groomed to one day run the organization.

Gary S:

When that succession plan fell apart in ways you won't believe, she found her new calling, still serving women, but this time helping keep them safe from physical threats as well as relational and professional harm like she experienced.

Warwick F:

Well, Kelly, we're going to talk a bit about your Sharp Women book and Diamond Arrow Group, and I know you live outside of Minneapolis, I'd love to hear a bit of the backstory of kind of what makes Kelly Sayre, kind of who you are and a little bit of family origin... what's part of some of the threads, if you will, that make you who you are, because we're often formed as we grow up in influences and ... a little bit of the origin story, if you will?

Kelly S:

Sure. I grew up in a very small town, 500 people. Everybody knows everybody. It was a great learning ... way to grow up, I guess, a learning experience, impacted my life moving forward. My father was an over the road truck driver, so he was gone a lot. My mom was a nurse. And being the oldest of three, it was a lot of times my responsibility to take care of my siblings and we had to be very self sufficient.

Kelly S:

So it instilled a lot of personal responsibility, accountability and taking care of others. So I look at that as a benefit. We joke that my mother's bloodlines, I was very calm, centered, very realistic, practical. And then my dad's side became the whimsical, dreamer, I can do anything and go anywhere type personality. So when those two combined, when I graduated high school, I could not wait to get out of small town and go to big city and moved all over. Had some experiences with Southern California. I moved to Southern California with my best friend from college for a while. And that was a very important time in my life because it, for once, it was getting out of that small town bubble and really experiencing and getting to know people.

Kelly S:

And still pulled back, ended up back here, back home because my family is all here. So that tie and that pull back to family was also very impactful. And I met my now husband and now raising my own family here in central Minnesota.

Warwick F:

So you're back in Minnesota and I know you were working in a nonprofit, which then shifted to kind of what is maybe your crucible experience. So talk about, as you're back home and you're finding a way in the career world, you're beginning to have a family. So where did that sort of whimsical dreaming, practical side, how did that coalesce into a career path, if you will?

Kelly S:

When I was in high school, my senior year, I took an entrepreneurship class that was only allowed for seniors. So you had to start your own business for the first half of the year. And then the second half of the year was a class business, so learning how to work together. And ever since then, I had the entrepreneurship bug. I had cousins, uncles, aunts, who had all had their own businesses. So it wasn't completely out of my purview or my perspective that, "Oh, well that's something that we don't do." It was, "Oh, that could be a reality for me."

Kelly S:

And so I knew someday I would love to have my own business, but I didn't know what it was. And then life experiences, the nonprofit that you mentioned that I worked for was actually sports tourism for the convention and visitor's bureau in the St. Cloud area.

Kelly S:

So it was my job to go out and research sporting events, amateur sporting events, to bring and host in our community because that fills our hotels, that has people eating at our restaurants and visiting our shops and our retail. So it's good for economic impact. And had some great successes, some great experiences in that role and realized, I've kind of hit the plateau. I can't go any further. I have two small children, we're not leaving this area. So it's not like I could stay in this field and move to a bigger city, a tier one city, perhaps this is the time to evaluate and see what I could do on my own. And that's where I was introduced to this individual who had a company doing executive training and executive peer groups for females. And I was invited to be a member of her second executive peer group.

Kelly S:

And as part of that peer group, you also get coaching. And in those coaching sessions with her, I had shared, I'd really love to have my own business, but I don't know what that is. I was still trying to figure out, what is my thing? What am I good at? I really love planning events, but I don't want to work every night and every weekend. I have small children and a husband who has a very demanding job.

Kelly S:

And so through that natural conversation, that's where the invitation to join her company, and she was a solopreneur, and become the legacy, kind of take her company to the next level, become the succession plan, take her company and grow. And so that's where it all kind of dominoed into leaving the job at the Sports, Tourism, Convention and Visitors Bureau, a job that I loved, had a lot of fun with, got to travel, got to know lots of people and say ... It was funny, at the time I was taking classes on entrepreneurship at our local college and it was either I could pay to take classes in entrepreneurship, or I could just take the leap and go learn it as an apprentice.

Kelly S:

And that was really, obviously, one of the decisions that my husband and I made is, let's do this. Let's go all in on this and take this risk in joining this company to build it. I mean, the whole purpose was, behind the mission of that business was to empower women, to help them find their inner strength, to give them confidence, to chase after their dreams, to pursue their dreams. And what really, really made them come alive, made them embrace their passions. And because of my personality, she was the coach and she was kind of the behind the scenes of, I'll do the coaching and I'll kind of run the executive groups. You go out, you start a podcast, you create an all day women's event. You create networking events, you create these things, you kind of run these events and be that face and bring people in and help share our message.

Kelly S:

And because I was so naturally passionate about helping others, sharing other stories, it was a good fit. It was a good partnership because that's ... I liked being out in front of people and hearing people's stories. My podcast that we did was all ... I always said, women struggle with sharing their successes or celebrating because they don't want to sound egotistical or they don't want to sound like they're bragging. So I always said, "Tell me what your success is and I'll brag for you." So I'll tell your story, I'll talk you up, I'll share how awesome you are with everybody else. And that way it's not you. So it was really fun and I loved getting to know people and their stories. And one of my favorite was a woman who was going to school to be a lawyer and dropped out her last semester and became a monster truck driver and was the first female to successfully back flip and land her monster truck.

Warwick F:

Wow.

Gary S:

Wow.

Kelly S:

And this is the person who was right in our city and nobody knew, Olympians or successful business owners, that the average everyday person didn't necessarily know. To your point with this podcast, is people have stories of how they got to where they are. And it's really fun and inspiring to learn people's stories, because then you say, "Oh, well I could do that." If I can go to a lawyer and then decide to be a monster truck driver, why not?

Warwick F:

Anything's possible. I mean, that just seems like such a perfect fit, entrepreneurship, you've got meaning and purpose with empowering other women and anything's possible. It seems so good. And as I'm pretty aware in the coaching circles, a lot, if not most coaches are more on the introverted end of the spectrum. They're good at listening and coaching, but not always good at entrepreneurship and business. It's why there's tons of courses and there's actually a small, if not large business of training of trying to help coaches know how to sell and be better on the business side.

Warwick F:

I mean, there's stacks of different courses you can take. So, you didn't need that because you already had that in your DNA. So I get why the person that started the business thought you'd be a good fit. It makes perfect sense.

Warwick F:

So it seems like this is great. This should be a great arc, a great story, but it sounds like it wasn't the typical happy ending story, you ride off into the sunset, the business grows and the other person hands off to you and it's all wonderful. There were some big challenges there. Talk about how, what seemed like just a perfect opportunity you ran into, I guess, per the print behind you, some stormy seas. So tell us about those stormy seas that you had, but you didn't anticipate, and how could you?

Kelly S:

Well, and it's interesting because it does end up tying into the work that I do now, in regards to personal safety but boundaries. And when I started, because she had been an individual, it was "Well, you're going to have to take the risk and come in and prove your worth, basically you're going to have to build your own salary." So for the first six months, I mean, it was very, very minimal pay. It was basically like here's enough for a little stipend to get through.

Kelly S:

So my husband and I had made the decision to save up. So we had saved up so that I could take this financial risk for our family, not having an income, basically, to prove my worth, which going back, I had no problem. I knew I had a good work ethic. I knew I was passionate about this. I knew that I had the fortitude to follow through and that I didn't have a problem working hard. I didn't have a problem saying, "Here, I will work hard for you." But what was interesting is because I take a lot of people at their word is that's what ended up happening.

Kelly S:

So that first six months, successful, great, you've proved your worth. Going forward this next year, I went to the owner and said, "I need to make what I made at the nonprofit," which thankfully wasn't a lot. It wasn't like I was asking for a huge pay bump, but it's what my family's budget had been built on. So we knew where we could manage our family finances comfortably to continue building. And so for that whole year, I kept pushing like, "Hey, we got to get this in writing. I've got to understand, my family's taking this risk in and we need something that can solidify what is the plan moving forward? How does the succession plan work?"

Kelly S:

And finally, at the end of the year, I wasn't getting it. I said, "Here, I'll put together an initial proposal. A and B. I don't even know if it's legal. I don't know if this is contractual, but we just have to start this conversation somewhere." And, "I will take this," the owner took it and said, "I will review this. I'll talk with our accountant and our lawyer, we'll figure something out in the new year." And then in the new year, things were planning, going forward. We had had a successful year end, we surpassed revenue goals.

Kelly S:

So again, from my perspective, it's like, I've proved my worth yet again. We're growing the business in leaps and bounds, this is great. I can't wait to see where we're going to take it. We had set some pretty awesome one, three, five-year goals. And I was excited by the potential for growth. And really, the crucible moment, I guess you could say, was when I got my W-2. Yes, W-2, I always forget if it's the W-4 or W-2, the W-2 in the mail, there was big goose eggs on the tax withholding at the federal and state level. And my husband called me actually, because we had a tax appointment that day and he said, "Is this a misprint?" And called down to the accountant for the company. No, that's what it is. It's kind of one of those things where you go, "Well, can that even be possible? I didn't even know you could do that. I don't understand."

Kelly S:

And when we went to our tax appointment, my accountant, who I had known for years, said, "What's this?" And I said, "I don't know. That's just what came." And that was when we discovered that we now owed thousands of dollars in back taxes to the federal government that we didn't have the savings for because we had spent that money as part of the investment of me buying into the business, buying into the succession plan. And so now all of a sudden it was well, now what? And when I confronted the business owner, it was, "Well, I'm sorry you misunderstood. We don't have any money to pay your back taxes." And that was very shocking to me, because all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute.

Kelly S:

And there was about a two week period from there that my husband and I sat down that night and said, "We need this in writing. Going forward, we got to get this figured out." We came up with what we thought would be a compromise saying, "You need to pay this because you were supposed to withhold taxes and you didn't. And now we're stuck. We have to come up with thousands of dollars within basically 30 days from our tax appointment, which we don't have. And we've got to get this straightened out. We can't anymore be just taking you for your word."

Kelly S:

And then two weeks later, because she just wanted to talk, I wanted it in writing and it became like the Alamo, little bit who's going to give. And so finally I said, "I will meet with you in person if you come with something in writing that shows how we're going to remedy the situation going forward." And when that meeting came, it was her informing me that she was firing me. And there was a whole bunch of legal documents now that said, "Well, we'll give you a little bit, but then you have to say that you left to start your own business," and basically lie and kind of the keep your mouth quiet and-

Warwick F:

Nondisclosure agreements, as they call them, I guess.

Kelly S:

Yes. I was so shocked because I didn't see that coming. In my mind, we were going to figure this out. We were going to work it out. It was a misunderstanding, paperwork must have gotten screwed up. To me, I wasn't coming at it from an intent, it came out as a mistake, and so how can we ... We'll figure this out.

Kelly S:

And so that was very shocking to me because I did not see that coming. And then when I said, "Oh, okay, well, my accountant said the total on my return wasn't accurate, that there is some money missing. Can you talk about that? Do you know you're supposed to by law withhold taxes?" And every answer was just, "You'll have to talk to my lawyer. You'll have to talk to my lawyer."

Kelly S:

And I realized pretty quickly that this was not a conversation. This was a, here's the paperwork and we're done. And so I said, "Well, I'm going to review this paperwork. After all that my family's been through, I can't believe this is how it's ending." And when I drove away, I remember specifically because I drove away in such shock and it was like 13 minutes was all that ... the entire length of that meeting, and I called my husband and he was like, "Wow, that was fast." And I'm like, "I need an external hard drive and a big glass of wine," because on my way home, I did not see this coming. I don't know if I just lost Outlook, and we think of technology, all of my contacts, all of my calendar, all of my ... I don't know if everything's working or if it's gone or what, if she wiped the desktop clean.

Kelly S:

It was just such a shock and she hadn't, and I'm sure we'll get into this later about ... I share this story as the first time, really, because I don't believe in disparaging people. I believe people make mistakes. But from my perspective of that moment, the rug completely got pulled out from under me. I had never been fired from a job. I had worked so hard to build up this company and believed in it so much. And I could not believe that I was getting fired for basically finding an accounting error, bringing it to the attention of a woman who owned the company who talked about supporting women and building women up and asking for what they're worth, and the icing on the cake is it was International Women's Day, it was the day that she fired me.

Kelly S:

And this is where I say, and even in my book, my acknowledgements, I say, God has a really funny sense of humor with me. We get along great. But there are days when I'm like, really? You went for the trifecta, you got me fired on International Women's Day by a woman who owns a women supporting women business.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I thought this was about empowering women. Gee, I don't feel very empowered for some reason. I feel like kneecapped, perhaps, but not empowered.

Kelly S:

Yeah, we were in that position where all of a sudden I had no job. We had no savings. We suddenly found ourselves owing thousands of dollars, and no money to hire a lawyer. And every friend lawyer who I called, who in the tax space was like, "I have never heard of this situation. I wouldn't even know where to start." And so that's where it came down and kind of the moment that I really think we should touch on, because I think this is so important for anybody going through a tough time is, I had a mentor in my life that I had met sitting next to on an airplane a year prior. And he had been my mentor. And so he knew, because he owned a private business. So there were times I was like, "Well, what would a succession plan, can you give me some examples or help me figure out how to set this up?"

Kelly S:

So he knew where I was at. And when he found out that happened, he said, "I will give you a job. Here's what I'll pay you. I know you've wanted to have your own business. You have to come work for me as a contractor. So, set it up." So it was really that God had it set up, planned a long time prior to kind of have this. So we had a way forward. But at that same time, it was like, you can either stay stuck in that anger or hurt or betrayal, or you can say, "How do I move forward? And what is going to be the best for me mentally?"

Kelly S:

Because I could have stayed angry. And trust me, I threw one heck of a pity party that night. It was a rager, all by myself. But the next day I got up, I dusted myself off, I went to go workout and I was like, "You had your pity party. Now it's time to move forward, because this is where you're at. And if you stay stuck here, you're going to stay here, or you can figure out a path forward."

Gary S:

It's interesting you use the words pity party, both start with a P, another point that that illustrates that I want to make sure listeners get is that's a pivot point for you. We say a lot because a guest said it. I don't know who it was, if you're listening now guest who said it, I apologize that I'm stealing your words, but you said the words, it's the change in mindset from this happened to me, to this happened for me. That's the pivot point that you got to in that, from pity party to pivot point.

Gary S:

For listeners who maybe spend a little bit more time in what Warwick calls the pit, he cuts it off at pit, in the bottom of the pit in a crucible. What's your counsel, your advice, your hope, your exhortation to people who might find themselves stuck there a little longer? How do you get to that place where you understand, it didn't happen to me, it happened for me, and that's how I go forward?

Kelly S:

I think that pit is going to look different for everyone. It's kind of like grief. There's no set time to process grief. Everyone does it a little different. From my perspective, it's based on your life experiences. That wasn't the first crucible moment in my life that I considered. There had been other big challenges that I had faced and being able to look back and say, "Listen, Kelly, this isn't the first time you've hit a roadblock, or a concrete wall and not been able to go through it," but there's always up, down, to the sides. But I think it's the giving yourself grace to feel all the feelings, that's where I say I threw myself a pity party because I was like, I'm going to be upset. I'm going to cry. I'm going to be angry. I'm going to be mad. Just feeling the feelings, not taking it out on my kids. Not taking it out on my husband, not taking it out even on this other person.

Kelly S:

It was, this is how I'm feeling and feeling that, and then almost feeling the exhaustion for me of like, I don't want to feel this way anymore. This isn't good. This isn't productive. This doesn't get me to where I want to be. And one thing that a cousin of mine, who I'm very, very close to whose had his own business for years, he said something that really kind of helped with that pivot, to your point of it didn't happen to me, it happened for me, is he said, "Kelly, you loved your work so much. You were so passionate about what you were doing and the mission, you would've sacrificed and you would've given so much in exchange for what was being given back to you. You would've stayed there forever. So maybe this was God saying, this is not where you're supposed to go. And if I don't come in and force you out, you will always stay there. You will always find an excuse to stay there. You will always find an excuse to make sacrifices to benefit the something else."

Kelly S:

And so to me, I also say that I'm very stubborn. I get that from my mom's side of the family. And sometimes it takes a little bit of a two-by-four to get a hint across to me. And so I think that was God's way of like, if I don't get you out of this now, you're not going to achieve what I have planned for you, because you will continue to try and fit that round peg in a square hole, versus letting go and letting me lead the way.

Warwick F:

What's fascinating about what you're saying, Kelly is even though we're very different, grew up very differently, I can absolutely relate to what you're saying. Because I've said almost the exact same words that you just said, funnily enough. As listeners would know, I grew up in a very wealthy, 150-year-old family media business in Australia founded by a person of faith. Faith was very important to me. And so I felt like it's pretty obvious what God's plan is. It's always dangerous to presume that we know what God's plan is because we're often wrong, as I was.

Kelly S:

That's God's great sense of humor-

Warwick F:

Indeed.

Kelly S:

... is that we think we know.

Warwick F:

Yeah. It's like watch out, lightning's about to strike. And so in my case, I've never been in the military, but it's so about the whole duty, honor, country that ... and my dad died in early '87. I was seen as the heir apparent, did this $2 billion takeover, was "in control," and then because of debt and recession, the company went under. But I felt in some sense that it was not a good fit for me. I'm more of a reserved, reflective advisor. I'm not wired to be in charge of a massive 4,000 person, $700 million company. So in some ways, I never would've left. I would've let down my dad and ancestors. And I mean, I'm very stubborn. I'm also very high perseverance. And so I would've just kept at it. The decades would've rolled by. Wouldn't have been good for my kids.

Warwick F:

I have two sons and a daughter, like 30 into twenties, because they would've grown up with a whole mantel on their back. So in some ways I think God, said, "I know you're never going to leave because of this whole duty thing," but despite my own stupidity, which is in my case, it was largely my fault, I do believe God said, "Well, the only way I can get you out is for this company to go bankrupt. And so, one way or another, I'm going to make you leave."

Warwick F:

And as I look back, that excruciating pain was a tremendous blessing in hindsight. So it's not quite the same, but I can relate to the fact of maybe God was looking at you Kelly and says, "She's never going to leave and we'll figure this out." So maybe if you believe in the divine, there was a higher purpose.

Warwick F:

As we pivot to what you do now, one of the key things, we got to make a choice to move on. But one of the key aspects of moving on is forgiveness. And as I often say, it's not because what the person did was right. Here's a clear case that it wasn't right. Morally, legally, I don't know, it wasn't right in any shape, way or form. But as I often say, the reason you forgive is not because they deserve it, it's because you deserve it. And you were in your own prison unless you forgive. Obviously, I'm sure you probably had to go through this. How did you manage to forgive? Because you must've to be able to move forward, I'm assuming.

Kelly S:

That took a lot longer, I would say. And I can say this now so calmly and tell the story and I can assure your listeners it wasn't always that easy to tell the story without a lot more emotion or a lot more like snarled lip, but that forgiveness, I could feel myself, every time I had an emotional reaction, anytime that I felt myself adrenalizing, thinking about it and being frustrated. And it would come up at other moments, it would have nothing to do with that. But if I felt slighted or if I felt like, "gah, the world is not fair!" And starting to slip down the pity party slope again, it would, all of a sudden, it would go right back to there. And so I realized this was baggage I continue to carry with me.

Kelly S:

And while I'm all about getting good workouts and to build cardio strength and physical strength, mentally, you got to let that go, because otherwise you're not going to be fully present in the now, you're not going to be fully aware of what's going on now in relationships, or it's going to impact decisions you make going forward.

Kelly S:

And I did a lot of soul searching on forgiveness, because it's really, "Oh, I forgave them a long time ago," but then when it comes back up, you're like, "Well, maybe I didn't, maybe I just said I did." And I couldn't, because I never got an apology. I never did sign paperwork or the NDA. I just said, "I would rather walk." And I'm not someone who airs dirty laundry, but I'm going to walk away with my head held high and just move forward and not deal with that.

Kelly S:

And then it took probably a couple years, I will be completely honest, before I finally got to a place where the forgiveness thing came and it was, I can forgive, not because that they asked for forgiveness, but because this is the best thing for me. And going forward, I can set a boundary emotionally, mentally, physically that I want absolutely nothing ever to do with that person again. Still in the area, she still has her business. She still does things. I interact with people who still participate in events or business activities that relate to this person. And it was very hard for me sometimes to be like, well, I know these people and wanting them almost to pick sides and then realizing, who am I to say that? This was something that was kind of between us, but it was very hard for women to understand why I wanted absolutely ... why I had such a hard boundary.

Kelly S:

It was, "Well, if you forgave, then you should be okay." And I was like, that's something for forgiveness. And with boundaries that now, when it comes to situational awareness and personal safety is, no, you can forgive someone then and draw a hard line and say, "I don't have to let that ..." having a strong boundary isn't about kindness, isn't about being a good person, it's protecting myself, my mental health, my emotional health, because I didn't want to pick that heavy baggage back up and bring it with me anymore. I want to leave it back there. So it's a hard boundary, and that is something that applies in all areas of life. Because again, when it comes to women and personal safety, so often we imagine an attacker or a predator as this dark, shadowy male figure. And what I'm trying to do is bring the conversation about boundaries, mental, emotional, physical, it's not always that scenario.

Kelly S:

Sometimes it's at work. Sometimes it's with a female. Sometimes it's with a friend, sometimes with a boss. And so if we can remove the stereotypical predator or person who wishes ill intent, or who causes ill intent, whether that's on purpose or not, boundaries are boundaries. And if we can talk about behaviors that are unacceptable and we can realize what we're comfortable with, what we want to invite into our life, what is us, what is our boundaries and what is not us, that's all it is. Then it becomes very easy to see and to enforce boundaries in all areas of our life, which then improves our personal safety, whether that's our mental wellness or our physical wellness.

Warwick F:

So talk about how, obviously you were, I think went on a course on sort of self defense. And I think from my understand, most of those are designed by men and not women. But it seems like that pivoted into ... broader than just self defense. Situational awareness, not getting yourself into situations. It's okay for everybody, certainly women, to have boundaries.

Kelly S:

I came upon situational awareness in a very traditional way. I took a physical self defense class for women, and we spent the entire four hours hitting, kicking, doing all these great things that, again, I'm a physical person, I'm an athlete. So I enjoyed that. That was fun for me. And at the very end of class it was, but the last thing you want to do is get into a physical altercation. You need to be more aware of your surroundings to avoid danger. And then, see you.

Kelly S:

And my brain, wait, whoa, whoa. We just spent the entire time focused on what I was supposed to avoid doing, but the thing I'm supposed to use 99% of the time, we didn't discuss at all. And my curiosity went into hyper drive and went, well, what is situational awareness? And so what I thought would be the answer, "Oh, okay. This is like Jason Bourne spy stuff where you're watching body language so you know what they're going to do. They're going to take a left instead of a right. And they're going to do this and this."

Kelly S:

But the more I dug, the more I researched, the more I asked questions, A, discovered that there really wasn't anything out there for training specific to situational awareness, but especially to the everyday person and even more so, speaking to women. And when I started, well, again, it was like pulling a string where you're like, oh, okay, here's one little string and pretty soon the whole sweater's unraveled, is I kept digging deeper and deeper. And what I kept getting more and more into is the psychology behind it. And it's not this predator, the boogeyman in the bushes, it's actually social conditioning and social mores, which gets into the kindness. And women, there's a certain expectation placed on females.

Kelly S:

And again, this is all speaking very stereotypically, but there's an expectation put on females of be kind, be nurturing, be forgiving. We've heard the saying, men, it's called being assertive and women, there's definitely a different term for that behavior. And that's very confusing from a feminine perspective because, well, wait, we're supposed to be this way at work, but this way at home. But then don't get ... domestic violence, domestic abuse statistics have been stagnant for decades.

Kelly S:

So, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And so much of the work was advocacy. So it was a reactive, self defense is a reactive, you're in a physical self defense situation. How do you fight back? And for me it was like, can we just not have this happen at all?

Kelly S:

Can we start having real conversations about those little things that start out as controlling tactics, that start out pushing past boundaries and get brushed off? "Oh, don't be so emotional." "Don't overreact." "Oh, you're rude. You're being rude by not being more friendly," or if a stranger interrupts your conversation and wants to have a talk with you, well, it's rude to say no and then sit there. You're supposed to engage in conversation and small talk.

Kelly S:

And so there's a very different social perception, and what I've found in the work that I've done, and now even with my book being out for a week, literally a week now, is the texts I get, the messages I get from women. What's interesting to me is it's all coming private, because they're scared to say it publicly, but they're like, "Oh, finally, oh my gosh, you're talking about this in a real way, in the real ..." but with a sense of humor and with a kind of authenticity that says, there's no such thing as perfect, because again, a lot of women struggle with wanting to be perfect, whether that's Martha Stewart or GI Jane, they think they have to be the perfect one or the other. And it's like, why can't you be more than that? And complex? And it's okay to have boundaries. And if you don't want to be someone's friend, you don't have to.

Warwick F:

You have to almost reeducate some women to saying, you matter, it's not okay?

Kelly S:

Definitely. I mean, the saying, don't mess with mama bear. Any woman that I talk to, when I say it's okay to have boundaries, it's okay to do this. And they're like, "Oh, I don't know. I don't want to offend somebody. I don't want to be rude." But I say, "If that's your kid," and they're like, "Oh, no, you don't mess with my kids." And it's literally this pre-programming, building those neuro pathways that, well, you have words too. I get that you are being protective of your offspring, which is again, an inherent, we need the survival, we need the species to continue, but you matter too. And that's where it's bringing it up in a way that isn't, "Well, you're doing this wrong. So this is what you need to do."

Kelly S:

It's more of speaking to them and getting to the root of it. Because again, it could go back to a traumatic event that happened to them where they didn't think they had worth when they were in high school. And so they're constantly seeking validation from an outside source, whether that's work, whether that's a relationship, whether that's financial worth or something like that. And so it's really getting to that and changing the mindset. Because if you look, every self defense training, every even success in business training gets down to, you have to have the right mindset. How you carry yourself when you walk into a room to do a presentation tells the audience, gives them a first impression of you. Well, that same how you carry yourself when you walk down the street also tells someone who might be targeting you as a potential victim will say, "Oh, I'm not going to mess with her."

Kelly S:

Kind of to the point of the saying, "She's 100 pounds soaking wet, but I would not mess with her." As I say, that's how you have to carry yourself. Then there's this teeter-totter of like, well, if I'm not nice and I'm assertive and I have firm boundaries, well, then I'm a negative person and I'm not a very ... I'm a rude person. And it's like, you can still be a kind person and have strong boundaries.

Kelly S:

I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying to bring the conversation to light. And so that more people talk about the way it really works and what those micro threats on women's safety, even if it's an emotional or a psychological safety issue, how that manifests then into, or potentially has the capability to manifest into physical abuse.

Gary S:

One of the things that you say in your book, and I have the press release for your book here. And it's one of the points that's pulled out and it goes to what you've been talking about the last several minutes. And it's a great phrase that you've said, "You are not who the world tells you to be." Really, that's the summary of what you just said, is one of the things you're helping women understand, they don't have to be who the world says they are. Why is that so important?

Kelly S:

Because we get messaging, again, coming from the female perspective. And I think, Warwick, you talked about even the messaging men receive, we get messaging. Boys are supposed to be like this, girls are supposed to be like this, and we get that messaging and it gets ingrained into our subconscious. This is who I'm supposed to be in middle school, in high school. We get defined by the clothing we wear. We get defined by whether we're in athletics or not. Whether we're on the debate team, whatever it may be. And then, well now, if you're that, then this is probably what you're going to do after high school. And this is what you're going to do if you're going to go onto education, or if you're going to go into career, or whatever it may be. Well, all of a sudden you're like, "Well, this is the path. This is what I've been told I am, this is what I'm supposed to be."

Kelly S:

And in the book I do say, when kids are little and they're like, "I'm going to be an astronaut and bake cakes." And we're like, "Super! That's phenomenal!" Because we know that it's going to change 100 times before they graduate. But at some point there starts to be this, well, you can't do both, or you're a woman, you can't do that. Or, you're a guy, you can't do that. Or, you come from a small town, you're never going to do that.

Kelly S:

And so that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and our internal monologue says, "Well, that's not me. And this is who I'm supposed to be." If we don't take the time to say, "Well, what do I want to be? Who am I in this world?" And how often do we now see people in their forties, fifties doing the whole, "Well, who am I?" Because they've lived their whole life as someone else.

Gary S:

And that's an important point to make on a show that's called Beyond the Crucible. We're all about how to move past, move beyond a crucible experience and lead a life of significance. And really, what you're talking about, you're not who the world tells you to be. If you believe you are who the world tells you to be, if you believe those things that are said about you, that can fuel a crucible experience, that can cause a crucible experience that can get you off your vision, off your destiny. It can put you in places, not just where you're physically in danger, which certainly your book talks about. But you also talk about things that can put you in a place where your destiny, perhaps, is in danger. You're going a direction that you shouldn't go because you're believing these external things about yourself. You're not situationally aware that you don't have to accept those things that get thrown at you.

Kelly S:

I agree.

Warwick F:

One of the things I just want to comment on as you were speaking, Kelly, is that as we do the internal work that we are worth something, we don't have to be defined by stereotypes, be they female or male, that's a situational awareness that will help attract the people that we want to attract, be they friends or in romantic relationships and will serve to recoil those that we shouldn't be at.

Warwick F:

So if you've got some woman that's self-confident, that believes in boundaries, won't put up with dumb stuff, men with abusive tendencies will say this, "This woman's not a doormat. I better go select my target elsewhere." Not to be overly graphic, if you follow. It'll be like, "this doesn't fit my profile. This is a self-confident woman that knows who she is. That's going to be too much work for me," at the risk of being direct.

Kelly S:

And I like to preface that because a lot of times what I hear from women who are, or find themself in a relationship where they're starting to ... because of gas lighting, because of love bombing, they get confused because there's also that mantra of like, if you're with someone, you're with them in the good, in the bad, for better, for worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health. And so there's this mentality of, well, we're just going through a rough time.

Kelly S:

And then if they do suddenly come to a realization, this is not a healthy relationship, but it's been years, and let's say they're successful at work. All of a sudden there's this, everyone thinks I'm this brilliant, fantastic, business woman who has her stuff together and is self-confident, but in this area, and that's where I say again, you could be that way in your career or in this external world, because that's what the world wanted you to be. And it can be really hard to kind of internally, for those women to come to terms with the fact that how could I be so successful or so self-confident appearing, but yet be in this relationship that is physically and emotionally damaging?

Warwick F:

Just as we kind of round up here, I love just what you've said with the Diamond Arrow Group giving women courage to move forward, and Sharp Women. What's kind of, would you say, I think we've talked about it, the overall message of what you do with the Diamond Arrow Group and Sharp Women? What's the key message you want women to hear?

Kelly S:

So the whole mission of the Diamond Arrow Group is to have women have the confidence to move forward and live life on their terms, whatever that means for them. That's the symbolism of an arrow through a diamond, and a solitary arrow can also mean protection from harm. I love situational awareness. I geek out about this stuff and understanding human behavior, the psychology piece of it.

Kelly S:

And because one out of four women are assaulted in their lifetime by someone they know, that statistic is staggering. If you get a room full of five women, one or two of them have experienced some sort of an event. So this is something that I feel is very important for women and women's health. Part of what I'm doing though, is let's get down to those foundational skills of saying, it's not "okay, how many punches can you throw? Can you do a block? Can you do this type of kick?"

Kelly S:

Let's talk about some of those more psychological things that I want to call to mind that maybe you've internalized so much as a female from messaging, from social contracts, from social mores, that you don't even realize that that's how it's impacting. And that you're "Oh, well, he probably didn't mean that," or you're brushing stuff off. It's like, no. It's bringing forward.

Kelly S:

A friend of mine who had recently gotten divorced, single, had a gentleman who was pursuing her and under the preface of, "I just want to make sure you're okay. And you're doing okay?" And there was this particular instance where she was out driving, trying to run errands. And he was like, "Are you doing okay? "Yeah. I've just had a rough day." "Well, do you want me to come over and talk?" "Nope, Nope."

Kelly S:

And she had said no a couple times, but yet when she got to her house, he was sitting at the end of her driveway in his car. And when she pulled into her drive ... she didn't see it. And when she pulled into her garage and got out, he got out and started walking towards her. And she was so like, coming, saying, "Kelly, I didn't want to be rude." And I'm like, "You said for him not to come over multiple times. So this is nothing about you being rude. This is him being rude." And having that conversation, because instantly she's like, "Well, I can't be rude, he's here." And so it's changing that conversation and letting women, reminding them it's not being rude to be direct.

Gary S:

I have been situationally aware in this conversation of my responsibilities as the co-host and that sound that you just heard, listeners, the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign indicating it is time for us to begin our descent of our plane. Before we do that though, I would be remiss if I didn't do two things.

Gary S:

One, there's a quote from you, Kelly, that I think really sums up what your book is about. And that is, "Preparation is how lives get saved. When it's time to act, it's too late to prepare." That is the essence of, I think, what you get from Sharp Women, this idea that you have to prepare and when it's go time, there's no time to prepare. Love that perspective. How can listeners find out more about Sharp Women, about the Diamond Arrow Group and about you?

Kelly S:

They can go to our website, which is thediamondarrowgroup.com. The Sharp Women book is available on Amazon and it is the only Sharp Women book. So when you go to Amazon and search Sharp Women, it will pop right up. And it's available.

Gary S:

It's also a best seller, I hear.

Kelly S:

Yes, it is. It did get to the bestseller status. So, that was phenomenal. Thanks to my publishing team that I had the opportunity to work with, quite amazing folks over there. And following me on Instagram and Facebook @thediamondarrowgroup is where I talk about everyday situations. I'll see headlines and say, "Hey, here's things to think about." Because again, going back to the point you pulled out is preparation is key.

Kelly S:

We never wake up in the morning thinking something negative is going to happen to us, we're going to be the victim of an event. So how can we prepare? But I do it in a very nonviolent way or I don't use fear mongering or scare tactics. It's like, "Hey, think about these things." And then people go, "Oh, that's common sense. I just never thought of it that way."

Kelly S:

So I invite people to follow me on those channels, connect with me on LinkedIn, Kelly Sayre. And I believe you have all of the links and will be hopefully posting that stuff in the show notes. But I definitely recommend-

Gary S:

Yeah, indeed.

Kelly S:

... checking out the Sharp Women book because that is, from a woman's perspective, for women.

Gary S:

Warwick, last question is yours.

Warwick F:

Well, Kelly, thank you again for being here. It's just so encouraging and thought-provoking, love what you do with your book, Sharp Women and The Diamond Arrow Group. There may be women who are listening to this that may say, "Well, gosh, Kelly is amazing, but I'm not as self-confident as Kelly, and I'm a little scared. And I don't like to rock the boat. I like to be nice and kind, and I don't know that I could do this stuff. I mean, gosh, it just feels like it's leaping off a cliff." I mean, what would be a message of hope or encouragement to women out there thinking, "Oh, I don't know. I just ... No, I can't do this."

Kelly S:

The question, because it does get overwhelming, people say, "I'm going to walk around paranoid now and looking around, situational awareness, what am I looking for?" And I remind them, take a deep breath, get curious, because my mantra's be bold, be kind, be curious. And if you get curious about your environment, what's in your environment? It's not about always looking for danger.

Kelly S:

I did a training and I asked, what is something you noticed in your environment you had never noticed before? And one woman said, "All the lovely trees I have in my neighborhood." And I was like, "That's fantastic!" Becoming present, being aware is about getting curious. And I always say, what do we miss now is personal human interaction, communication, making eye contact is if you're curious about the people in your environment, that could be your family, your friends, and you'll notice, "wait, are they having a bad day? Hey, how are you doing?" It doesn't have to be curiosity from a self-defense, physical fight. Sometimes it's curiosity of like caring and kindness. When you do that and when you're present and aware and you're curious with what's going on, you're going to pick up good things too. So get curious is what I always tell people.

Gary S:

I have been in the communications business long enough to know when the final word on the subject's been spoken and Kelly, you just spoke it. Listener, if you are curious, indeed, about Mr. Fairfax, the host of the show and the founder of Crucible Leadership, a couple things you can do to learn more about him and about Crucible Leadership.

Gary S:

One, you can get his book, also a bestseller, Crucible Leadership, Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. That's available in the same place where Kelly's book's available. So go to Amazon and you can get both. Do that right when this is over, not now, because there's still ... I still have a few things to say.

Gary S:

The second thing that you can do if you want to hear more about Warwick's story and about Crucible Leadership is book him to speak, reach out. He has toured parts of the country. He's about ready to go back out and do some more of that. You can go to our website, crucibleleadership.com and you can click a little button that says, book Warwick as a speaker, and you can talk to our speaker agent, Kerri Childers, and she will make all of that stuff a reality for you.

Gary S:

So, until the next time we are together, listener, thank you for spending this time with us. And thank you for understanding what both the host, Warwick, and our guest, Kelly, have talked about today. And that is crucial experiences are indeed painful. They can rattle us. They can knock the wind out of our sails. They can take the breath out of our lungs, change the trajectory of our lives, but they're not the end of our stories. Kelly has proven it, terrible things happened to her as she's pursuing what was going to be a dream of what ... brought her heart alive and that was pulled from her, but she didn't stay down.

Gary S:

She got up and she pursued it. And she's now doing that very thing in her own business, which is not unique to Kelly Sayre. It can be your story as well. The key is to learn the lesson of your crucible, move on beyond that, and when you do, your crucible experience is not the end of your story. It can be like it was for Warwick, like it has been for Kelly and like it's been for all the guests that we've had on the show, and hopefully a lot of our listeners. That can be the start of a new story. And it's a new story that can lead to the best ending ever, because that ending takes you to a life of significance.

Ben Bennett’s crucibles were a debilitating mix of negative self-image, mental health issues, addiction and trauma. He found freedom and healing by embracing psychological, neuroscientific and biblical principles to fulfill the deep longings of his heart that had long gone unmet. A speaker, counselor and author, he discusses the eye-opening, lifegiving insights in his latest book, FREE TO THRIVE, which journeys step by step through the seven key longings of every human soul.

To learn more about Ben Bennett, visit www.resolutionmovement.org

Highlights

Transcript

. They come in different guises and varying degrees, but they all have one thing in common, they can be moved beyond, hence the title of this podcast. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Our guest this week is Ben Bennett whose own crucibles were a debilitating mix of negative self-image, mental health issues, addiction, and trauma. He found freedom and healing by embracing psychological, neuroscientific and biblical principles to fulfill the deep longings of his heart that had long gone unmet. A speaker, counselor, and author, his latest book, Free to Thrive, journeys step-by-step through the seven key longings of every human soul, which he and Warwick discuss in detail in this episode.

Warwick F:

Well, Ben, thank you so much for being here. I've had a chance to kind of dip into some of your book that you co-wrote with Josh McDowell, Free to Thrive: How Your Hurt, Struggles, and Deepest Longings Can Lead to a Fulfilling Life. And we'll get into the seven longings how, I guess from your perspective and our perspective God designed us to have these longings, but somehow our hurt, damage and issues can cause a break with achieving those seven longings in the way that God would intend. So, before we kind of get to the book, there's always a reason behind why people write books. I'd love to hear a bit about your kind of backstory and just about your growing up, and just some of the challenges you had that eventually led to you writing this book, but what was life for you like growing up, Ben?

Ben B:

For me, I grew up in a, well, I would say leadership family, my dad was very involved in leadership in ministry. Growing up surrounded by that was kind of witnessing that leadership, and there's a lot of good things, however, there's also a lot of bad things. And for me, I grew up experiencing lots of my dad's anger, lots of rejection, bullying from him, manipulation, threats whenever I didn't behave perfectly. And so, early on, I was hurting, I was lonely. I was not even really just realizing that there was something wrong. I thought I was wrong. I was believing shame that I was doing bad, but also bad was being done to me, and so I was wrong. So, I grew up feeling oftentimes, just worthless inadequate, and by the age of eight, I had developed all these kind of mental health struggles, anxiety, depression, OCD.

Ben B:

I started having these traumatic out-of-body experiences in group settings, and it was just very horrific and scary in many ways. And of course, I learned that people weren't safe, because the people who were supposed to be there, often weren't. And so, despite all of those things, for me, what was probably my biggest survival mechanism... I've had friends ask, "How did you make it?" For me, it was at a very young age having this realization that there's a God who is real, that he created me, that he loves me, that he wants a relationship with me, that I wasn't perfect, but I didn't have to be, because as a Christian believing that Jesus was God, lived the life of perfect obedience to God, died on the cross, rose again, freely offered me forgiveness and a relationship with God.

Ben B:

And so, early on, that was just so important to me, knowing God as bad and hard as life was, I clung onto a hope and a future, and this promises that God was always with me and that ultimately, he was going to deliver me from it. And so, I would say that that was one of the biggest things of kept me moving forward, moving through it. Eventually got addicted to pornography, got addicted to food, was dealing with body image stuff, didn't like the way I talked, didn't like the way I looked, just didn't like me, and was really struggling throughout my teenage years and into college. And ultimately, I had a rock-bottom experience at age 22, my crucible moment as you all would say, and my life was just out of control. I was 22, I was abusing alcohol, I had gained 100 pounds from my eating being out of control, hated myself, was hating other people, was so angry, riddled with these addictions, riddled with these mental health struggles, and I was on my way into full-time ministry.

Ben B:

And I was at this point where it's like, "I want to talk about God and help people," and yet there's so many things in my life that I've not been set free from, and that I'm continuing to struggle with, and I believed the lie that that was just how it was going to be despite as a Christian seeing all throughout the Bible, Jesus talk about setting captives free and binding up our wounds and this healing we can experience. And so, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and realized, "I don't want to live this way anymore. There's got to be something more, there's got to be real answers." And I got connected with a fiery pastor who had been a pastor for 30 years. He was based in Portland, Oregon, so his congregation was full of people all over the spectrum, people dealing with cocaine addiction, people dealing with sex addiction, people coming out of prostitution, business leaders, just families, everything. And he had been for about 25 years, helping people heal, helping them work through trauma, helping them with their mental health struggles and helping them overcome addictions.

Ben B:

And his big thing was, "We need an integration of theology, psychology and neuroscience," and there's so much overlap between them. And he started mentoring me and leading me through recovery and spent four years doing that. And through all those solutions, I just found the life that I had always wanted, the life that I was truly looking for. And I encountered God in ways that I'd never encountered him before. I found healthy relationships with people, new experiences, fulfillment. I started loving myself and started truly being able to love other people, and it just changed everything. That was the beginning of the last 11 years, and I've been on that journey ever since and have had the privilege of entering into other people's stories and leaders and parents, and people all over the world and coming alongside them.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I want to transition here to your book, but as we do, I think what I'm... You talk in the book about the seven longings, which we will describe and obviously, God has a plan for that, but then if we try and satisfy those the wrong way, as you say, it causes a lot of damage. So, it sounds like in your case, just to go back a moment, you mentioned you had a dad, anger issues, I think you've mentioned earlier, maybe you had some alcohol issues, so when you look back, what were the things that you didn't have? What were the longings that were broken? You've got a bunch of them in your seven. What were some of the ones that you just felt like you didn't have, because of how you grew up and the environment?

Ben B:

For me, there's key longing heart desires that every human being has, psychological research, sociological research, the Bible shows this, it's so fascinating. And one of the most foundational ones is acceptance to be known, welcomed, and loved as you are, no matter what, and this communicates I'm valuable, and it's almost like the foundation of all these other longings and desires. And for me, as I shared a moment ago, early on, I didn't experience that acceptance all the time or even most of the time. In fact, often what I experienced was rejection and believing... Because when we have these negative experiences, it always leads to something going on in our minds and in our thoughts, and we interpret our events in the things we have been through, either things that are true or things that are not true, things that are lies.

Ben B:

And so, I had these experiences of not experiencing acceptance and value that I was created to have. And so, rather than experience the truth of I'm valuable, I matter, I've got a hope and a future, I've got a purpose in this world, what I experienced was the opposite. I thought the lie was the truth, which was so... It wasn't disorienting at the time, because what I knew was normal, but it was, "Yeah, I'm not valuable." And then it's almost like you look for and experience... It's like everything else in life starts to get funneled through that. "Oh, I was away at college and studying really hard, and I didn't get a perfect grade." Okay. Well, I'm going to filter that through the lens of, "Yep, I'm not good enough. I'm not valuable." Just so many different types of ways. So, that was probably the biggest one for me.

Warwick F:

So, I just want listeners to hear what you just said as we transition to the book is that Ben, it's so important to deal with your stuff, and we'll probably get into this certainly. Listeners know that I grew up in a large family media business in Australia, 150-year-old company, launched this $2.25 billion takeover in 1987, and ended up failing three years later, and the company went under. So, there was, yeah, the sense of I damaged a 150-year-old legacy, hurt, my dad had died just before the over, hurt, disappointed him, my parents caused ill feelings with others. So, yeah, that's kind of have a sense of, "Look at me, I just break whatever, everything I do" with... And I've mentioned this on earlier podcasts, I never been physically abused, but had, I guess you could say emotional abuse from a close family member and that tends to, obviously damage your soul or am I going to have the nice person this day, or the not so nice? Or that tends to make you very uncertain about life.

Warwick F:

So, the point of that is you've got to deal with your stuff. Had mentoring by older Christian guys, some counseling, other things, you've got to... I'm very blessed to be married to a wonderful girl, an American girl that I met in Australia, we've been married like 32 years. And her love is... Obviously, God's love is unconditional which was certainly key to my coming back, but her unconditional love and my kids' has been massive, but the point of this is to echo what we're about to talk about, you've got to deal with your internal stuff. We all have it, and certainly, mine was pretty obvious, I was pretty damaged in the nineties, that's for sure. But yeah, I think this is so important. People may be believers or not believers, but dealing with your stuff in these sort of seven longings is so critical, so.

Gary S:

You said something Ben, when you started to talk about your story that is still like at the frontal lobe of my brain.

Ben B:

Yes.

Gary S:

You said, and it was sort of a drive-by comment as you were telling the deeper story, and you said you didn't like me, referring to yourself, you didn't like yourself. When you talk about acceptance, to be included, loved, approved as you are no matter what, it communicates your value - you didn’t value yourself. And I think, what our listeners experience, and if you're hearing this now, and this is how you feel, that is a good place to start, because so many people who go through crucibles of any stripe feel like, I mean Warwick described it just a little bit. "I'm a screw up. This didn't work out." And that not liking yourself is... I don't know how, and maybe it's possible, maybe it's not, it feels like it's not, is it possible really to sort of move on to some of these other longings if you don't get by? Is that not the first hurdle you have to clear is coming to the point where you like yourself, even if you have to reach, and dig to find out why? You have to like yourself before you can move out of the other things, is that fair?

Ben B:

It's almost like a longing that has to be built upon. I don't know if it's always the case where you have to experience that one first, but for example, one of the seven longings is the assurance of safety, to be protected and provided for financially, emotionally, physically. Growing up and even in life now, like financial security, safety, all of us are experiencing to some degree probably some fear or lack of safety with the pandemic we've been living in, and a lack of certainty there. And that one, I would say is not necessarily dependent on acceptance, but when all of the seven, we're experiencing the seven longings and the affirmation of our feelings and love and people entering our world, which we call attention and acceptance and assurance of safety, something happens there.

Ben B:

And most of that is experienced in relationships with God, with other people, with ourselves and a kind of satisfaction and thriving starts to happen. But to your point, what we've found is that acceptance is like the most common one that goes unmet, and is to so many people the most important one to be met that they're longing for and always looking for, regardless of location in the world, ethnicity, background, it's just this deep foundational longing.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Such a good point. Before we actually get into the seven, one of the things you mentioned in the book, just for people to get a bit of a level set of some of the numbers you talk about like 70% of teens say they have anxiety or depression, a major problem. Those at 16 to 24 is 63 times more lonely than those over 75 years old. Was it 76% of men and women aged 18 to 24 seek out pornography, it's a bit of a myth, it's just a guy problem, and it's probably more prevalent with guys, but just there's a lot of... Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people. There's a lot of people who are hurting. It's not just, "Oh, I'm fine. I grew up in a quasi happy family." Well, that's great. Every family has its challenge, it's some more than others, but there's a lot of hurting people out there. This is almost an epidemic, in a sense why you wrote the book, is that a fair comment?

Ben B:

Yes. Everybody hurts, the classic saying, everybody hurts. Sometimes it seasonal or sometimes it's that happened years ago, or sometimes it's not as intense as it once was. And so, we've got to shift our understanding of what it means to hurt, because it's so easy to say, "Well, I never experienced abuse. So, who am I to have the right to say I've been hurt?" But what we've got to realize is that we live in a world that's pretty messed up and we see messed up things and we experience messed up things, and we were never intended to experience hurt and critical words or bullying or job losses, or seeing our friends die or our loved ones die. All of these things impact us all uniquely.

Ben B:

Basically, the easiest way I've learned to help people identify if they've experienced hurt that is still impacting them is to say, "Was there a negative experience I faced that I'm reacting to through certain thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, emotions? Is there any kind of residual impact of that?" And that's a way... And it could be even just thoughts like, "Oh, now I procrastinate a lot out of fear of failure, because it just feels like it takes so much energy." Or, This is a good one. We all have those meetings where somebody's like, "Hey, I would like to talk to you about something." And our reaction is, "Oh, what did I do wrong?"

Gary S:

Oh, no, right. I'm in trouble. Right. Right. Right.

Ben B:

Yes.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

Ben B:

Which many psychologists will say is a PTSD response. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is a PTSD response. Because when we think about trauma, a lot of us may think about a war or some kind of sexual abuse or physical abuse, but what we've got to realize is that when we have negative experiences that are recurring that those things can also lead to these PTSD responses.

Warwick F:

I think another thing I think I want listeners to hear is one of the things that we say on Crucible Leadership and Beyond the Crucible is your worst day is your worst day. So, listeners have heard this story many times, one of our early guests was a Navy SEAL that was paralyzed in a parachuting training accident. And I said, "Look, what I went through losing 150-year-old family business is nothing compared to what you went through." And he said, "You know what? Your worst day is your worst day. It's not a competition to see who suffered the most." We've had a guest on recently who lost two of his brothers to suicide. It's like, well, I have not been through anything like that. How in the world do you recover from that? It's the sense of guilt of "How could you do this to us? And I should have seen the signs."

Warwick F:

You can imagine the spiral of negative thoughts. And so, you might say, "Well, gosh, I didn't grow up like Ben. My parents were a little bit distant, but there wasn't abuse, there wasn't alcoholism. It was not bad." But maybe I wasn't affirmed as much and you can start feeling guilty, because I still have the issues, and I did went through just 25% of what Ben went through. Again, it's not a competition, that's also sort of a lie.

Warwick F:

So, let's talk about these seven longings, and you've got some great things. In the book, you write, "The greatest fulfillment in life comes when these seven longings are met in our lives, and we get to be a part of meeting these needs for others." And then obviously, this is from a faith perspective, "Jesus' promise of abundance can be experienced now, not just in the next life for you and for those you love and the process can start today. As we describe the seven longings that lead to your unwanted behaviors when they're unmet and to a life of wholeness when they're met, our hope is not just to bring about understanding, but to lead you to experience life transforming power that happens when each longing is met. So, there's a negative side of unwanted behaviors when it's met in a bad way and then the life of wholeness."

Warwick F:

So, let's talk about the first one, we've got acceptance and you're right, Everyone longs to be accepted, to be included, loved and approved as you are, no matter what. They almost build on each other, but you've talked about this a bit. This sense of acceptance is absolutely crucial. So, what's the negative and the positive, finding it in the wrong way and from your perspective, what is the right way to find acceptance?

Ben B:

Yes. With acceptance, it's all about knowing that our being matters. Not that our doing matters, that's appreciation, but who I am regardless of what I do, separating the who from the do, which a lot of the times, I think when we think about, this would be the negative side, trying to pursue acceptance, it's like, "Oh, I will do that to be accepted with those people. I'll partake in that behavior." Or, "I'll... That conversation." Or, "I'll join in on." The temptation could be, "Oh, people are making jokes about this or gossiping about this, and I'll join in and I want to feel accepted." And that's a very real pressure, but that's not true acceptance. That's about being accepted for what you do as opposed to who you are.

Ben B:

So, real acceptance is getting around people, developing relationships with people who truly love you and who truly accept you, and affirm who you are, who you were created to be, which is things that can be separated from what we do like our personality. You may be a humorous person, a more kind person, those aren't exclusive, but who you are. Are you funny? Are you kind? Are you fun to be around? Do you ask good questions? What is a core part of your personality and who you are? Do people delight in that and affirm that, and believe in you?

Warwick F:

Yeah. And maybe another way of putting it is do they accept you warts and all? You write and talk about, "Oh, if they really knew me," like in your case, in your upbringing, pornography, other things, "If they really knew me, they would reject me. It would be like in the Bible, leper, unclean, leave." And there's wisdom, you don't have to tell everybody... Obviously, you're writing a book, so there's a reason for this, but you don't have to tell everybody every dumb thing or shameful thing that you've been through, but when you sense that there's a few, wife, husband, parents, close friends, they know who you are, they know you've made mistakes, they know that you're broken, because we're all broken, but they love you anyway, that is incredibly healing. I'm not perfect, and they love me anyway.

Warwick F:

We all have our quirks, often quirks come out of brokenness being... We're all compulsive, not everybody's OCD, but we're all compulsive to varying degrees in certain areas wanting it to be a certain way, and if it's not that way, we get all anxious. Yeah, that sense of acceptance is crucial. So, let's move to appreciation and you write that, "Appreciation is the longing to be thanked or encouraged for what you have done." So, if acceptance is more the who, the loving me just because of who I am, appreciation sounds a bit more like maybe I'm artistic or good at athletics, whatever it is, my gifts and talent are appreciated rather than, "Yeah, that wasn't good enough. Yeah, okay, you scored a couple of touchdowns, but you could just scored 10 more and..." Yeah, it really was. Yeah. I guess acceptance and appreciation overlap. But talk a bit about appreciation, because that's sort of the next step beyond acceptance.

Ben B:

Yeah. This one's about knowing that what you do matters and knowing your doing matters and is about being thanked, being encouraged, being appreciated despite the quality of the performance. A lot of times, we want to give people positive feedback and encouragement if they crushed it, if they did such a good job, but then there's a deficit when they tried and gave it their all, yet didn't do so well. What this helps somebody believe is that they're capable. Throughout the years, I've become more and more convinced that there's not such a thing as a lazy person, but just a person who hasn't been believed in and appreciated and encouraged, and given that kind of affirmation and feedback for their effort. I think it's easy to think about how good it feels when we do something for our boss or serve somebody that we're supervising and make time for them, and if they're like, "Thank you so much." That feels awesome hearing that thank you, but if you find yourself doing things and not hearing that, you're like, "Am I even appreciated? Do you care what I'm doing?"

Warwick F:

Being appreciated for who you are, the effort that you are showing irrespective of the result, it's, "I appreciate your heart and what you're trying to do," critical. We move to the next one, affection. And here, you say, "affection is longing to be cared for with gentle touch and emotional need." And you've got some horrific stories in here about babies who were not touched and caressed, they can almost die without that. It's critical when we were very young to have that and well obviously later. So, talk about why... Obviously, it has to be in appropriate relationships and all, but why affection, that gentle touch and that emotional engagement? Talk about what that is and why it's so important.

Ben B:

I think that is evidenced by 2020. The fact that we're physical beings and seeing that working remotely and Zoom and not giving high-fives and not hugs and things like that really took a toll on people. The social distancing which is really physical distancing, there are just so many statistics, for example, adults struggling with anxiety and depression skyrocketed from 11% to 41% during 2020. And I think a big part of it had to do with that physical distancing, not having the embodied presence of another human being. And there's something in us as physical beings that needs the physical touch and encouragement and hugs, and sitting there with someone else, but then also the emotional engagement. One of the things I've realized is that loneliness is not a lack of friends, it's a lack of meaningful connection.

Warwick F:

Mm-hmm.

Ben B:

And when we sit with somebody, and we're talking about our hardships, our stress, the good things, the bad things, we feel known and understood, affirmed in that struggle. We don't feel like I'm the only one, or it's like people enter into those hard things and affirm it, but even the good things, it does something in our soul.

Gary S:

I often say to guests, and I said it to you, Ben, before we got on the recording, my role as co-host of the show is kind of like the color commentator in a sporting event, right? Warwick is the play-by-play guy. He's going to ask all the questions, and I'm here to sort of draw on the screen on the replay to make sure listeners understand what they're watching, hearing, seeing, and I just want to wrap to make sure that listeners understand, we're going through these seven longings and their definitions, because each one of them, as you hear them, apply them, think of applying them to your crucibles. We're talking about these in the context of crucible experiences, and lack of some of these things can lead to crucible experiences. Presence of these things can help you move beyond crucible experiences. So, I just want to make sure that the listener understands why we're taking the time to unpack in such detail what it is Ben has written in his book, because it's critical to help you understand your crucible, and to help you move beyond your crucible.

Warwick F:

Yeah. So, well said, Gary. Absolutely. Lack of acceptance, lack of appreciation, lack of affection, they can cause crucibles in your life and as we often say, and others say hurt people hurt people.

Gary S:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Warwick F:

Statistically, those who have been abused have high proportion will abuse others. Those who have been maybe grown up in alcoholic homes, I would assume a not small percentage, maybe follow the same path. It's hard to understand how you could follow the path to cause such pain, but that does tend to happen. So, yeah, you don't deal with your stuff, you will hurt your friends and family, that is inevitable. Such an important point. So, we've got acceptance, appreciation, affection, access, I find a really interesting one. You say, "Access is the longing to have the consistent, emotional and physical presence of key figures." I think you're right, you can have people that are "around you," but they're not really present. They're not engaging you. You don't really... So, talk a bit about what access is.

Ben B:

When I think of access and the people I've worked with, we're talking about the negative side. One guy, an example, here, I'll just get real specific, one guy I've worked with struggled for years and he was a ministry leader with, "I just feel like a burden. I feel annoying to people," et cetera, et cetera. And we're like, "This is surprising to us, not in a shaming way, but we're surprised because you're awesome and you show up and you're so loving, and you're the last person we would think that is annoying." And for him, it all went back to early as a kid, he would often wake up early, four years old, so excited to see his dad and his dad wasn't accessible. Physically, he was, he was there, but he would run downstairs, his dad was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

Ben B:

And his dad would say things like, "Go away, you're being annoying." And it was like, "Don't disturb dad in the morning. He's not accessible." And that belief, that negative experience that hurts which led to this view of himself that was playing out in all of these ways in his life, in his relationships, in his leadership, in his view of himself, and conversely, when you have experiences of accessible people. I think about my life, my dad was gone a lot traveling for ministry and work, oftentimes not accessible, but then emotionally, just kind of closed off, little disengaged, that translated to similar thoughts to the guy I just shared, but what healed it and changed it all was having these new mentors in my life that were older and who became like these spiritual fathers and mentors to me that were always accessible and helped me believe that I was important. And then of course, God always being accessible, I can talk to him at all times, and he cares about my thoughts and opinions, and just these new experiences, ultimately, relationships can cause us to hurt the most and to heal the most.

Warwick F:

Well said. So, the next one is attention and you write, "Attention is the longing to be known and understood with someone entering your world." And you say, "By this, we mean someone taking time to recognize and participate in what's important to you, such as your opinions, dream, desires, interest." So, talk about what this one is, attention.

Ben B:

This one really gets into what makes someone tick. Why they do what they do? Why they care about certain things, their hobbies, their interests. One example, one of my friends Daniel has lived this out so well with his kids, and here's a very specific example. A couple of years ago, they had saw one of the new Jurassic Park movies and were so into dinosaurs and T-Rexs and acting like dinosaurs, and he was ordering them dinosaurs and things like that. So, what did he do? He secretly ordered this T-Rex costume and dressed up like a T-Rex, and they pull up on the bus. He's dressed up as a T-Rex chasing after them, and it was just like this ultimate experience of, "My dad knows me. He cares about my thoughts and my opinions." It's so cool to see them continue, they're all growing up, and they're confident in what they care about and their opinions and thoughts and beliefs, even if that doesn't happen for us growing up, it can happen now in the future.

Warwick F:

Finding people that care about what you care about. So, my kids are two boys and a girl, I've got two boys that are very into sports. So, whether it's Washington Football Team or I guess, the Washington Commanders as they're now called, they're big soccer fans, Manchester United, I will sit and watch if I can, not because the world's going to end if they win or lose, but it's being part of what your kids enjoy, and that's obviously critical. So, as we get down to the last two, affirmation, this is one of my highest values. It talks about affirmation of feelings and other needs we all share as human beings is a longing to have our feelings affirmed, validated, or confirmed by others. This has got to be one. They're all important, but this is a big one, right? Feeling affirmed, so talk about this.

Ben B:

Yes. A passage of scripture that I've love from the Bible is, "Mourn with those who mourn and celebrate with those who celebrate." As human beings, we like to celebrate with people we're not jealous of. It's very hard when somebody gets the thing we want, whether it's the promotion or the new car or the relationship, or the vacation or whatever, the child, it's hard for us to celebrate with those who celebrate, but there's not supposed to be any ifs, ands, or buts about it. And it's hard to mourn with those who mourn, especially when we don't understand, especially when we disagree with people.

Ben B:

I think we saw that all throughout 2020, and these dumpster fires happening on social media of people not mourning with people who mourn and just turning into fighting and all of that, but that's one of the things I love about Jesus is he tells us to mourn with those who mourn, and he mourned with those who mourned. And it means sitting with people. It means when people come to us with a problem, or we go to somebody with a problem, not trying to fix it, not trying to change it, affirming the experience, even if we don't agree with it.

Warwick F:

And that's so critical what you're saying. Certainly, guys do that a lot. Your wife either comes and tells you, "Boy, I had a hard day." Or, "This relationship at work or with the kids." And so, you go into, "Well, did you do this or that?" Or, "You shouldn't enable." Or, "How did you let the kids get away with this?" And often, you go into fix it mode rather than, "Boy, I'm so sorry, that just sounds awful. Wow. That has got to be tough."

Ben B:

Yes.

Warwick F:

Maybe you ask a question or two of coaching, if you want to at the end, but rather than getting to fix it mode, just listen and by your words, show that you understand. And a lot of us, certainly guys, we just don't do that. We get into fix it mode, which is not the way our wives or significant others want to be cared for like ever, pretty much. They want you to just listen and affirm their feelings.

Ben B:

Yes and this is one of the most crucial things we can do to be a safe person, for people to trust us. If we want people to trust us and to come to us with their problems or the things that maybe they aren't going to share with anybody else, or have been holding onto... There's that phrase, secrets that will take to our grave-

Warwick F:

Mm-hmm.

Ben B:

... that weighs us down and creates some much guilt and pain. And 11 years ago, when I got into therapy and recovery and all of this stuff, I committed to a life without secrets. And let me tell you what, as hard as it was to share my deepest, darkest secrets, the stuff I thought I'd never tell anyone, all kinds of stuff, and to be met with the affirmation of the pain from people, to be still loved and accepted for who I was and people not change their view of me, that was just so powerful.

Warwick F:

And it leads into the last one, assurance of safety, because when you have, obviously, you've got to be physically safe and financially safe and all, but when you can share your feelings and your secrets, as you put it with whether it's a counselor or some close friends, loved ones and they love you anyway, it makes in a sense, the ultimate safe space, right? You feel, "They love me anyway, and yet they know my insecurities and my challenges." And that is sort of like a flood of grace, a flood of refreshing water that soothes the pain, that helps to burn out the flaming embers, right? When you feel that love and acceptance, that is the ultimate safe space in a sense, when you feel that, when you are known, even despite the fact that they know how broken you are.

Ben B:

Yes. And so, often anxiety and stress comes as a result of the lack of assurance, of safety and fear, and fearing what's going to happen and all of those kind of things. I think of one of the things Josh McDowell, and I have seen just with many leaders we've known who have fallen morally or burnt out, one of the key things is there's a sense of external and internal pressure. And I've heard the phrase, "I felt like it all depended on me," so many times. External pressure of the expectations of others, of the deadlines, of the raising the money, of the finances and then internal pressure of, "Well, I'm the only one who can do this. It all depends on me. I've got to do all of these things." That right there is not a safe environment that's going on within somebody's soul. There's no assurance of safety there.

Ben B:

And so, bringing other people into that and sharing what's going on and having people support you in that, and trusting that actually, when it comes down to it, there's a lot of things outside of our control and trying to control it is what leads to so much stress and anxiety and pressure. This is wild, 90% of diseases, doctors say are caused by stress. And stress comes from that internal and external pressure and that lack of assurance of safety and all of this stuff that we put on ourselves or that other people put on us. And when we can have this assurance of that a lot is not in our control, as a Christian, I believe God is in control, and he loves each one of us and has a plan for us, and he protects us and provides for us, and shifts a much more... When we release control and realize how much control we don't have, and that people are there for us and want to help us, and that we matter, it really helps us feel a lot more safe and less full of worry.

Gary S:

Having reached the number seven in the list of seven, if we were indeed on a flight, we'd say that ended the inflight entertainment, right? The captain has begun the dissent, turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, and it's getting closer to the time that we have to land the plane, but there's a couple of things I want to do before I then turn it back over to Warwick. One, I want you to be able, Ben to let listeners know how they can get ahold of you, how they can learn about the Resolution Movement, they can find out more about that and engage some of the things. And then when you're done with that, there's a question I want to ask you to tie some of this together. So, tell our listeners how they can find you, and then I'll hit you with a question.

Ben B:

Yes, resolutionmovement.org. You can find links there to all of our social media things helping people overcome hurts and struggles and thrive. We've got video series, videos, podcasts up there, free email series. And then me personally, I love talking to people on social media, direct messages, all of that, I'm on there a lot, I'm @benvbennett, BenV, V as in Virginia, Bennett, I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all of those places.

Gary S:

TikTok, are you on TikTok?

Ben B:

Resolution Movement, we are on TikTok, yes.

Gary S:

All right. Well, that's relevance right there. Here's the question I want to hit you with, because at the beginning from your bio, I read this fascinating fact that what the Resolution Movement does is you offer freedom, healing in life of thriving through biblical, psychological and neuroscientific principles, then when you and I talked before we pressed record, you had said something to me and I wrote it down to make sure I got it right, you said, "As we're going through dealing with the struggles of our lives," dealing with the crucibles of our lives, as we're walking through these seven longings and how to apply them to our lives, you said, "If we only use intellect, not experiential past, our experiential life to fight these struggles, it's like fighting a fire with a squirt gun." Can you, in a nutshell, connect this idea of how biblical, psychological and neuroscientific principles all come together to help us, help you, help people move beyond their crucibles?

Ben B:

Yes. Here's an example that I've never given before, but we'll see how it goes.

Gary S:

All right. Breaking news, we've got breaking news on Beyond the Crucible. Excellent.

Ben B:

If you think about how it was trying to learn how to write back in first grade or whatever with your hand and learning the movements and shapes of the letters, and how to spell and how long that took, and how now you do it almost without thinking about it, writing. What is happening there is in your brain, you are creating these fixed neurological pathways, kind of like muscle memory. The same thing happens when we have negative experiences in life, and the thoughts we tell ourselves, the beliefs, the worldview, the styles of relating, the unhealthy behaviors, stress, anxiety, things that are developed create these fixed pathways in our brain, kind of like muscle memory. So, the challenge we face is unlearning that, it's almost like unlearning how to write with your dominant hand and relearning how to write with your non-dominant, and that can happen.

Ben B:

Neuroplasticity shows that the neurons that fire apart wire apart, new pathways developed the neurons that fire together wire together. The Bible mentions the mind, think, believe over 580 times, huge emphasis on our brains. This is how God has created us to heal. Everything learned can be unlearned, but so often we try to fix it with our intellectual brain, our prefrontal cortex high reasoning, "Okay, I'm going to get over this hurt. I'm going to stop doing that." It's like saying, "I'm going to learn how to write without ever having the experience of using your hand in learning how to write." What we need to do is have new experiences in relationship and practice, because the stronger part of our brain, the amygdala, the fight-or-flight part of our brain where our core beliefs, our experiences are stored is there, and there's more neurological pathways running from there to the prefrontal cortex, the higher reasoning portion than the other way around.

Ben B:

So, that's why it's like trying to fight fire, the most powerful part of the brain with a squirt gun. So, what we need is both and the integration there. So, what that looks like is I may have had this unmet longing, and I have those experiences, negative experiences that are stored, and I have those lives, but what I now need is to step forward, get in safe relationships, find those longings met in healthy ways, love, acceptance, affirmation of feelings, and to meet that in the lives of other people. And that is actually physically changing my brain, and the more and more I do that, it actually becomes a new default pattern. So, what happened in my life over the years with anxiety and addictions and all of those kind of things, I realized, to put this together that yes, I had this pain, this trauma, these lies, these default ways of responding that had been hardwired in my brain.

Ben B:

I got around couple of safe people, committed to a life without secrets for years, texting one another, reaching out to one another, "Oh, I'm sensing the rejection coming on." Or, "I just got cut off in traffic, and I felt rejected by somebody. Oh, I'm angry as a result of that, I'm not feeling safe." Connecting to somebody in that moment, experiencing the fulfillment of that longing, reaching out to God, sitting with God, experiencing his love. What did that do? Well, over time, those new pathways became the new default way of responding. So, rather than spiraling out of control and going all the way down to the shadow side as some of us may call it, or these unhealthy behaviors, I started reaching out and finding what I was truly looking for each and every day.

Ben B:

And now, that's the default way of responding, not all the time, but when I experience an unmet longing... It's met longings that lead to healing and thriving. So, those unmet longings lead to these unhealthy patterns, these lies, unhealthy patterns. Met longings, the seven longings going met lead to healing and thriving, our minds being renewed, rewired, and what we're truly longing for.

Warwick F:

That is so well said. That is a great summary. Thank you so much.

Gary S:

It doesn't happen often. Ben, but Warwick is still contemplating what you said to the point that he's not asking you a follow up question, which is not the way the show usually ends, it's usually a final question, but seriously, that shows the depth and the import that you're speaking about. So, thank you for that. And thank you listener for spending this time with us. And please remember, we get it, you hopefully heard it throughout this conversation, both from Warwick and from Ben, we understand how painful your crucibles can be. We unpacked here why they're so painful in so many cases, but they do not have to be the end of your story.

Gary S:

Your crucibles are not the end of your story. If you learn the lessons of them, if you get those longings met, not just intellectually, but experientially, those crucibles and the information that you take from them can be the beginning of a new story, and it can be the most rewarding story of your life, because where it leads when all is said and done, as you walk out that journey where it leads beyond your crucible is to a life of significant.

There are some days when we day dream of being a great inventor or a great visionary.  Look what we could accomplish if our idea became reality!  We lie in bed at night dreaming of what could be, of what might be.  But then we wake up, and reality hits.  Who are we kidding?  We are not Walt Disney; with Mickey Mouse, feature-length films and Disneyland and Walt Disney World.  We are not Reed Hastings of Netflix with his ever-present video-streaming service and Oscar-winning movies.  We are certainly not Steve Jobs of Apple fame with Mac computers, the iPhone, iPad, and iTunes; not to mention movies like Toy Story that were made from Jobs’ association with Pixar.

Reflecting on all that such visionary world-changers have accomplished can leave us feeling discouraged and overwhelmed.  It is all too difficult.  It is absolutely impossible.

What this negative self-talk misses is that we do not have to be Walt Disney, Reed Hastings or Steve Jobs.  We just have to be ourselves.  True success is not measured by how many millions or billions our vision turns into, or in how many people are impacted.  It is measured by how much that vision means to us.  If even one life is affected by our idea, our vision, it should be enough.

So how do we bring our vision to reality, to bring our idea from day dream to an actual product, company or nonprofit?

1. It starts with an idea.

Perhaps you wonder what if the world had this.  For those who have gone through crucibles, tough times and setbacks, maybe out of your pain or feeling stuck you have an idea that might help people.

2. Fuel that idea with your passion.

The key to your idea growing from an ember to a forest fire is that it has to start with passion.  Walt Disney had a passion for telling stories through cartoons.  Reed Hastings felt DVDs offered an opportunity for a subscription service.   Steve Jobs was fascinated by technology and the promise of personal computers.

3. Try something.

It might not be the end product or the end goal; you might not even be sure that the idea will work.  But try something.  Even if it fails you will learn something.  Steve Jobs had many successes but in his NeXT venture, his high-end computers were too expensive and didn’t sell.

4. Let your vision grow.

Visions tend to have a life of their own.  Five, ten let alone twenty-year plans are difficult to craft.  Planning can be very helpful in executing the various stages of your vision, but planning the growth of the vision itself is very challenging.

5. Link one step to the next step.

Once you start the first step, inevitably one idea, one accomplishment will lead to another idea and another accomplishment.  Yes, there may be days where it feels like one step forward and two steps back, but forward momentum, trying new ideas and a willingness to experiment (yes, even fail) will produce progress over time.

6. Leverage the power of the flywheel.

As you go from one idea to another, one product to another, and see your company or nonprofit growing, that forward momentum will fuel your passion, creativity and persistence.

7. Celebrate the wins.

It is easy to mourn the losses. What we need to do is celebrate the wins.  It is easy to say in hindsight that that first win was not that big a deal and that the challenges and obstacles will only get greater.  But by celebrating what we have accomplished we will realize just how resourceful and creative we are, which will help energize us for the days ahead.

8. Build a great team.

All great visions, great ventures have a great team beside them.  We can’t do everything, nor do we have all the gifts and talents required to grow our visions and have our visions become reality.  A great team will be as passionate about the vision as we are.  They will be creative, will be optimistic and will find a way to overcome obstacles.  Their persistence, passion and commitment will fuel and bolster our own persistence, passion and commitment.

What separates great  innovators, and great visionaries, from others is their willingness to try something and even fail.  They are passionate about their visions.  They may not have everything figured out, but they are willing to try something and to start somewhere.

Reflection

Order Crucible Leadership here

You know Walt Disney, the guy who invented Mickey Mouse and created the modern theme park. You’ve heard of Reed Hastings, who grew Netflix from a DVD subscription service to an Oscar-winning film studio. And, of course, there’s Steve Jobs, inventor of the Mac and iPhone. But do you know they all started out with visions much smaller than the heights they would someday reach?

Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss in this episode why you shouldn’t be intimidated by the inventiveness of these and other great visionaries. You should follow their example and achieve your own dreams rooted in your vision and talents. How? Start with an idea, fuel it with your passion and then just try something.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership. Each of these three people, Walt Disney, Reed Hastings and Steve Jobs, they didn't start out with this billion-dollar mega vision that says, "I have an idea. Let me try something." And each of them had setbacks. So, I think we just need to unlearn what we think of these "overnight successes." They didn't have a big vision. They just had an idea. It started with an idea, and then it grew from there.

Gary S:

Yes, you heard that right. The guy who invented Mickey Mouse and created the modern theme park, the man who grew Netflix from a DVD subscription service to an Oscar-winning film studio, and the inventor of the Mac and iPhone, all started out with visions much smaller than the heights they would someday reach. How did they do it? That's what we examine this week.

Gary S:

Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show. Warwick and I discussed in this episode why you shouldn't be intimidated by the inventiveness of great visionaries. You should follow their example and achieve your own dreams rooted in your vision and talent. How? Start with an idea, fuel it with your passion, and then just try something. Those are the first three steps of eight unpacked here and in Warwick's latest blog. And here's a tip, you'll want to pay special attention to point number eight.

Gary S:

Why we're talking about inventiveness, listener, is that one of the ways to move beyond our crucibles. And we've had scores of guests come on the show to describe this. Warwick himself has described this many times. One of the ways to move beyond your crucible is you hatch a vision. And then you proceed to launch into that vision, pursue that vision. This episode, this conversation is about what if you think that vision might be out of your league, out of your reach. Maybe you have this idea that seems too big for you to accomplish.

Gary S:

And what we want to talk about here is that that's not true. It's not too big for you to accomplish. And in fact, we're going to go through several steps, eight steps in Warwick's blog to talk about how you can begin the process of putting one foot in front of the other, and pursuing that vision of inventiveness. All visions at some level are inventive. They're all something new. It's new to you if it's not new to everybody else.

Gary S:

So, that's what we're going to talk about here. That's the long preamble to set up why we're spending time at Crucible Leadership and Beyond the Crucible talking about the subject of inventiveness and how it applies to you. So, Warwick, tell us a little bit about this blog that you've written, why you chose the subject and what you're hoping to impart to readers of the blog and today on the podcast, to listeners of the show.

Warwick F:

Yeah, thanks, Gary. I mean, sometimes you think of being a visionary and getting some amazing things done. And you look at some of the great inventors, some of the great visionaries in popular culture. You might think of Walt Disney or Reed Hastings with Netflix or Steve Jobs with Apple and you're thinking, "Well, I'm not Walt Disney. I'm not Reed Hastings. I'm not Steve Jobs." I mean, and probably the hardest time to be thinking about this is when for many of our listeners, at some point, they've been in the depths of despair, the bottom of the pit after a terrible crucible.

Warwick F:

And one of the one of the ways to move out of that is yes, you've got to forgive yourself and learn the lessons of the crucible and all that. But at some point, to move forward, one of the most healing things is if you can use your pain for a purpose, figure out, okay, is there something good I can make out of what I've been through and for most of the guests we've had on this podcast, I'd say almost all, that's been true, a vision has been formed eventually.

Warwick F:

It may take years, but it's come out of just challenging times. So, whether that to you or maybe you haven't had a massive crucible, maybe you've just hit a speed bump, maybe you're stuck, maybe you just feel like is this all there is to life, somehow you want to do something new.

Warwick F:

You look at some of the great inventors and visionaries and you go, "Wow, let's just forget about it. I mean, there's no way, there's no hope." And so, what we want to say is a couple of things. I think one of them is it misunderstands the life journey, the career journey of these great visionaries. You always just, it's like people in Hollywood, actors and actresses, it's like, gosh, how can they be so successful? Well, there were years of failed times when they were trying to get into a movie, and they didn't get the role and being a waiter or waitress, I mean, the overnight success, in most cases it's not overnight.

Warwick F:

So, that's really the premise of our discussion here is, how can you actually make your vision happen and figure out what the vision is and why you shouldn't just give up and why you shouldn't compare yourself with some of these great visionaries that you might have heard of.

Gary S:

Right. And it's easy. The "easy part" is the dream. We all dream. We have dreams, but we also have doubts. We dream but we doubt. And what we're talking about here I think is when you have the dream, you have the vision or the starts of a vision. But then you have this doubt. And then the doubt gets sprinkled with a couple of dollops of fear. Doubt and fear together can lead to serious stagnation when it comes to moving beyond the crucible, particularly as you hatch a new vision and try to move forward. So, what we're trying to do here today is to encourage folks, equip folks to know that not only is it possible, but here's some ways it is possible.

Gary S:

And it's interesting, Warwick. You talked about some sort of well-known people who've been very successful visionaries and you feel you don't measure up. You also talked about some people who have busted through after failing and failing and failing and failing. And I went and found some quotes as I like to do. We do these episodes where it's just the two of us talking.

Gary S:

Here's a great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. He said this and this is, if there was a poetic theme to what we're talking about, it's this. "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment," Emerson said. "The more experiments you make, the better." That's a pretty good jumping off point to talk about the idea that, yeah, okay. We do have dreams. They are sometimes stalled by doubt and fear. But what if we have the gumption as Emerson says here, What if we have the gumption to press forward? What if we try?

Warwick F:

That's exactly right. I mean, I think with every great visionary, they have the gumption, they have the courage to try. So, you can get in a negative tailspin of, I'm not worthy. What happened to me is awful. I made a mistake and I just need to hide for the rest of my life, 30, 40, 50 years. I'm surrounding myself with people. Hopefully you're not, but some of us do, who say, ah, you'll never make it. It's hopeless. Give it up. What if we fail and I mean, I could have written a blog that's the eight ways to certainly fail. And it will be probably the reverse of the steps we had.

Warwick F:

And many of us know those steps very well. We just, it's every day. But I think what's important is we need to relearn, if you will, or reimagine some of these great visionaries. Because the key hallmark they had is they weren't afraid of failure and they were willing to try. They had this passion and this energy. But I think one of the things we need to unlearn is you tend to think of the amazing things each of these three people I mentioned had. And it fundamentally misunderstands who they were.

Warwick F:

So, Walt Disney, for instance, when he started in the '20s and early '30s, he was just thinking, "I love animation." It was a relatively new field then, cartoons. "I think I can make a cartoon that's better and tells a better story." And he was an animator, graphic artist. He routed himself at other graphic artists. And off they went. There wasn't some big vision other than I think I can do this better.

Warwick F:

Now, it grew step by step. And I think around 1937, he made Snow White. He bet the farm and put all of his money into it. Everybody said, it'll never work. Nobody will pay attention an hour and a half movie about a cartoon, And it's in color and it'll hurt your eyes, et cetera.

Warwick F:

Well, it was a big success. And then from thereon, he had Disneyland and then Disney World, which Disney World was built. He conceived it while he was alive. When he died, I think it's '66, was built later in like '71 or something. But we think of Disneyland and Disney World and all the movies and everything he did, but we forget that, at the beginning was just I think cartoons could tell a better story. Reed Hastings, when he started, I think around 1997, sometime around there, his vision was DVDs are just coming out. It wasn't dominant yet. VHS tapes were, the people that go to Blockbuster or their local video rental store, as then was.

Warwick F:

But it's like, well, I think with DVDs, yeah, it wouldn't work with VHS, but DVDs, maybe we can kind of have a subscription mail service, where people just kind of get it in the mail. And then when they're done, they send it back. And then we get them another one. That wasn't some massive vision. It was like, I think we can do something better with video rentals using DVDs. Well then, it expanded to online streaming service when the technology came. And then now, he's doing Hollywood level movies and getting Oscars.

Warwick F:

Steve Jobs, when he conceived of Apple back in the late '70s, early '80s, he just had this vision that he loved technology. And back then, personal computers didn't exist. You get it in a kit and assemble it yourself. I think there's probably a better way of doing this. And eventually, Apple I didn't work out too well. But Apple II took off. And then from there, we've got Macs and iPads and iPods. And he also did a little stint with Pixar and Toy Story.

Warwick F:

But at the beginning was like this whole technology thing and personal computers, maybe there's a better way of doing it than a bunch of very tech savvy people assembling kits in their home. Maybe there's a better way.

Warwick F:

But each of these three people, Walt Disney, Reed Hastings and Steve Jobs, they didn't start out with this billion-dollar mega vision that says, "I have an idea. Let me try something." And each of them had setbacks. So, I think we just need to unlearn what we think of these "overnight successes." They didn't have a big vision. They just had an idea. It started with an idea, and then it grew from there.

Gary S:

Right. And if this podcast was being recorded 10 years ago, speaking of technology, I would have to say, so listener, you don't know what this is, but now that vinyl records are back in style, there's a thing you can do as you're playing a record, you can pick the needle up and move it back a little bit. And I think what we need to do when we're examining these people that you've talked about, the Steve Jobs and the Walt Disneys, we focus too much on the end game, the huge success. And we're like, "Oh, I could never do that."

Gary S:

But let's pick up the needle, bring it back on the record, put it down at the beginning, we can all do what they did at the start, which is begin, which is try.

Gary S:

Here's a quote from Vincent van Gogh. I've never heard this before, love it. He said, "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" And that's really what we're talking about here. It's having the courage to try, it's having the courage to attempt. And as you indicated, Warwick, point one in your blog is it starts with an idea. Sounds like it's almost too rudimentary. But it's got to start there.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, the first idea is it does start with an idea. Now, maybe it comes out of your crucible, and it's like, "Gosh, I went through this, and I wish there was some way that I could help people not go through what I went through." Or maybe you just feel like you're just moving along in life and you're just floating along and you don't feel like you really taking charge and you're thinking, "I wonder what would happen if the world had this?" You know?

Gary S:

Right.

Warwick F:

It could be something in your neighborhood, with friends. It doesn't have to be big. Everybody's idea, whether it's Tupperware, it starts with things back in the '50s maybe. You gather women together and they would show here are these easy ways to store food. I mean, grand visions, they tend to start pretty small, but it starts with an idea. And you think, gosh, what if. That's the key. It starts with an idea.

Warwick F:

And what you have to do when the idea comes is put away the knives and sledgehammers because what will happen is, oh, it will never work. Oh, it won't happen. And you just squash it before the level plot has grown. You've got to be disciplined. It's like, you have that idea. But don't crush it before you've even thought about it. Ruminate on it a bit.

Gary S:

One of the things I love about this blog that you did and this conversation that we're going to have is that it's a step by step process. It starts with an idea. And we'll get to the second point in a minute, but to your point that you just made about, don't give up too early. Here's what Thomas Edison, who is a little bit of an example of someone who didn't give up too early. Thomas Edison said, "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Gary S:

And Edison is an example of someone who realized how close he was to success. And he said something along the lines of he didn't fail trying to make the light bulb. He just improved it like a thousand times or whatever. He just kept after it. And that's the idea of you have an idea, to give you the energy and the fuel to stay after it, to be an Edison, to be a Walt Disney, to be a Steve Jobs, your second point is you have to fuel that idea with passion. You need to pour a little passion fire on that idea, don't you?

Warwick F:

Yeah. And passion will give you persistence. I mean, Edison's another great example. He experimented-

Gary S:

Oh wait, I'm going to interrupt you there. Because listener, listen to what Warwick just said. That's what we call at Crucible Leadership, a Warwick-ism. Passion will breed persistence. Write that down somewhere. Put it on a bumper sticker and put that on your car. That'll tweet as they say. Passion will create persistence. Sorry, I didn't mean to, but that was a good one.

Warwick F:

All these folks that we talked about, Walt Disney is a great example. He had a passion for entertainment, creativity. And he wasn't willing to give up when he was creating Snow White in 1937.

Warwick F:

Everybody said, "There's no way. It makes no sense." When he was thinking about amusement parks in the late '40s and early '50s, and he launched Disneyland in the '50s, everybody said, "Well, this is lunacy, again." Amusement parks were unsafe places with alcohol and sometimes disreputable people. Not a place that you bring kids. And so, he says, "Well, I'm going to keep it clean. And I'm going to charge a cover charge to get in." So, you don't charge a cover charge for amusement parks.

Warwick F:

So, everybody said, "This is lunacy, and it won't work." All the conventional wisdom. So, that's where passion is so important, because it will help get through setbacks, each one of these. Like Steve Jobs, yeah, Apple II was a great success, while Apple I wasn't so much. Apple II was his first big success. The Mac was great. While there was something called the Lisa, which probably about as much people have heard the Lisa as people have heard about the Edsel, not many. It bombed.

Warwick F:

He launched a thing after his time with Apple ended in a sort of a boardroom fight. He launched a thing called Next, which was this high-end computer, very complicated. It was very expensive. And people didn't want it. This is more like for universities and high end uses. Well, it bombed. But he didn't let that hold him back. And what kept him going is his passion. Each of these folks had passion.

Gary S:

So, that was point two. Point one, have an idea. You have an idea. Point two is to fuel that idea with your passion. Passion breeds persistence, copyright 2022, Warwick Fairfax. But the next step, point three in your blog, point three that we're discussing here now, is where the rubber meets the road. You've got an idea, you've got passion. And I love how simply you phrase this. You phrase it in your blog as simply try something. That's step three.

Warwick F:

It may be if you forget everything else, it may be arguably the most important step because there are some people that are born entrepreneurs. They kind of act and then think later. I mean, I'm somebody as we'll probably discuss later, I'm a very reflective strategic planning contemplative. I tend to think, think, think, think, think, think some more and then maybe stick my baby toe in the water for a second. I'm not somebody that leaps before they think. So, I do get that it's hard to try something.

Warwick F:

But at some point, and really, whether you're that kind of try something and then change course later. And there are some people that are like that. And that's great. If that works for you, more power to you. If you're like me and a bit more cautious or a lot more cautious, either way can still work. But at the end of the day, whether it takes two minutes, two hours, hopefully not two years, but let's say, two minutes, two hours or two months, you've got to try something.

Warwick F:

Yes, I have a strategic plan. I worked on Wall Street. You don't necessarily mortgage your whole house, your kids' education, all the rest of it. So, if it fails, you've had it. Yes, this whole concept of moderate risk taking. And some ideas cost more than others. But you've got to try something. And as I've mentioned before, each of these folks, they had failings. One I talk about in the book with-

Gary S:

And that book, wait. Nobody knows. What's the book?

Warwick F:

Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead A Life of Significance. Yeah. So, in the book, I talked about Walt Disney. And before Mickey Mouse, he had an animated character in I think it was in the '20s that was doing really rather well, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, household name. Everybody's heard of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. So, he signed a contract with this distributor in New York. He took the train from Los Angeles to New York, because that's what you did. People didn't fly in the late '20s, early '30s, at least not much. Not certainly commercially.

Warwick F:

This guy was a lawyer. He was very smart. And there was some fine print that Walt, the animator didn't really understand that swindled him out of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. And the guy behind his back took away most of his animators. At that point, he could have said, "Look, I'll try this whole animation thing. Clearly, I must be clueless about business. I mean, how can I be so dumb? And I've lost Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I've lost the core of my team, probably time to give up."

Warwick F:

But yet, he didn't. He was willing to accept failure on the train on the way back. He was doodling three circles on a piece of paper. And he said to his wife, Lilly, "What about a mouse, Mortimer Mouse?" And she wisely said, "Mortimer is not doing it for me. How about Mickey Mouse?" He said, "You know what, Lilly? You're right, Mickey."

Warwick F:

Well, he tried something. His passion and his persistence wasn't ... He was willing to push through the devastating loss of most of his team and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. So, it's that idea, you got to try something, but you'll hit setbacks, not hopefully as cataclysmic a scale of losing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. But it's that idea of try something and if it doesn't work, okay.

Warwick F:

He made some mistakes, something he learned a lesson of his crucible, have a good lawyer, have a business partner. Later on, he brought his brother on board. He had more of a head of the business. He learned the lessons of his crucible, but you've got to try something and not being willing to fail. And that is the key thing. Try something and if it fails, it's okay. Keep going. Learn from it. Try something else.

Gary S:

Yeah. Because whether or not it fails, ultimately, is a decision you have to make and it doesn't fail until you say it fails, and keep pushing it. And there's a real world example I want to talk about here for me right now. And I haven't talked to you about this even as we were preparing for the show, let alone just in conversations we have.

Gary S:

And I'm going to walk through the first three steps in this idea of how it came to me and it's funny. I'll preface this story by saying, so the name Dennis Gillan is where the story begins. And Dennis Gillan was a guest we had on the show a few weeks back. He is the founder of the Half a Sorrow Foundation. And he's a suicide prevention speaker.

Gary S:

And I am dangerously close to mentioning Dennis Gillan in every episode of the podcast. It's like Warwick's a huge tennis fan. And you may have noticed every now and then, he'll mention Roger Federer. Well, Dennis Gillan is my Roger Federer because I keep talking about him. But here's why I'm talking about him.

Gary S:

So, it starts with an idea. When we had Dennis Gillan on as a guest, actually even before that, before we had him on as a guest, the reason we had him on as a guest is I read an article he wrote on Entrepreneur Magazine about something he calls the Purple File. And it's a file that he has created full of attaboys and affirmations and successes and thanks that he gets from people when he speaks. And this is big Purple File. It's a literal file that he keeps.

Gary S:

And I was so moved by that that I started my own. And I have kept notes that people have given me through the years, so I created a Purple File. So, the idea that got planted in my head was reading Entrepreneur Magazine, Purple File, what a good idea. If I'm having a bad day, I can go to the file. It's going to cheer me up. I created one. Well then, we're going to fuel that idea with passion. Step two, my passion was so great that I'm like, Warrick ... In fact, I didn't even ask you, should we have him as a guest. I'm like, "Oops, sorry. I went outside of the order of things," but he turned out to be a great guest, right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

And we had him on the show. And we talked again about the Purple File. And I was so passionate about it that I then did another reading of something from my file. And that passion just kept me. It just kept churning in my head. There's something about this idea of a Purple File, this file of affirmation that you can keep when the crucibles come and help you get through it.

Gary S:

Well, Dennis and I have been talking behind the scenes and we're actually working together right now to the do something stage, the try something stage. We're going to talk about how we can create the Purple File as a thing beyond just what's happening here, beyond Entrepreneur. I went out and bought the website, thepurplefile.com. I own that now. And we're going to try, We're going to talk about developing that into something that will encourage other people to get the benefits from having that affirmation at hand the same way that Dennis created it and the same way I've aped it. I've come alongside and adopted it.

Gary S:

So, there's a great example of starts with an idea, you got to have passion, and then you try something. I don't know what's going to happen. Are analog files full of notes even a thing anymore in the digital age? I don't know. But we're going to find out. He and I are going to talk we're going to explore and we're going to find out. So, that's a great example of your encouragement, what you wrote about in this blog, that's happening for me right now in real time.

Warwick F:

That's amazing. I mean, it's a great example, really, and maybe this is the leading of the next point, let your vision grow?

Gary S:

Absolutely. Very good. Good cohosting to say, good for you.

Warwick F:

So, yeah. So, it started out with Dennis Gillan and just that whole Purple File concept. Because sometimes on your worst days, you can feel very down. And it's easy to remember all the bad things people say about you. And you tend to forget the good things. So, the reason I think a Purple File can be a good idea is that you got it in front of you and you force yourself to read it. And say I guess, maybe there are some things that I've done right and some praise.

Warwick F:

Anyway, the point that Gary is making is it came from reading something on Entrepreneur Magazine, talking to me about Dennis Gillan and we had him on the podcast, creating his own Purple File, and now, potentially thepurplefile.com. And from there, each of those were steps that started with reading a magazine. And so, that's one of the key things with visions. And I think if you look at the three people that we're talking about, Walt Disney, Reed Hastings and Steve Jobs, each of their visions, they grew.

Warwick F:

I mean, Walt Disney started with, there's got to be a better way to make cartoons tell a bit more of a story. And then, color came out and he made a deal with the people that created I think it was Technicolor, you have the patent and color and says, "Okay. Give me a year lead on every other animator. I want to be the first with color." Okay, so color cartoons. Wow. And then Snow White, Disneyland, Disney World. It went from there.

Warwick F:

Reed Hastings, he started with this DVD subscription service. But then it went to video streaming once the technology was there. And he started making his own movies that won Oscars. Same with Steve Jobs, his incredible journey and he had many setbacks. He got tossed out of Apple at one point, his own company, like the phoenix came back 10 years later.

Warwick F:

But he had lots of bumps, but he started with technology and the Apple I that didn't work out, Apple II was better. And then from later on, you have in his second stint at Apple, the iPod and the iPad. When he was with Pixar, he created Toy Story. So, these visions, they grew a step at a time and it grew out of their passion, whether it was animation, technology, the potential for video rentals and video streaming.

Warwick F:

This passion and persistence, these visions grew a step at a time over years. And there was often each of them had failures, and some big ones. I mean, getting tossed out of your own company was seemingly a big failure. He could have said, "They stabbed me in the back, those awful, horrendous people. How could they throw me out of Apple?" Steve Jobs could have thought. But yeah, I'm sure he was pretty down about it. But he didn't sit back. He went on to did other things, including Pixar.

Warwick F:

So, there's a huge point about let your visions grow, passion and persistence. And it sort of happens organically. Neither of these three people if you said when they were young, can you imagine that A, B and C will happen, and they'll go, "Wow, not really. But that sounds cool." I don't think they would have believed it themselves, that what they ended up happening. So, let your vision grow. There will be obstacles. But trust the process.

Gary S:

And you had just got done talking about how that applies to the three folks that we're mostly talking about here, Walt Disney, Reed Hastings, and Steve Jobs. There's another person that it applies to. And it's the guy whose book you mentioned a little while ago. Oh, yeah, that was Warwick Fairfax, the author of Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead A Life of Significance. The Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Crucible Leadership. Warwick, your story, this podcast, what we're doing right now is a prime example of a vision that grew. Because when you started Crucible Leadership, I'm guessing starting a podcast was nowhere in your orbit.

Warwick F:

It's a great point. And I'm a very reflective person. But I do not at all think of myself as a visionary. I don't think of myself as an entrepreneur either to be honest. I mean, I'm a reflective writer, thinker perhaps. But yeah, I had this idea as listeners know when I gave a talk in church at my church in Maryland in 2008, gosh, if I can write my story and the lessons learned in a way that helps people, it's worth writing the book.

Warwick F:

So, that was the idea, writing a book in a lessons learned format that can help people. I didn't have a whole big structure. In fact, I did something very un-Warwick like. I kind of maybe wrote a very brief kind of, not even 100,000 foot level outline, maybe a million mile high outline, very, very broad.

Warwick F:

And I just thought, "Okay, I'm just going to start writing." Because I'm a writer and this is kind of my medium. So, I just started writing. And huh, okay, yeah, maybe I'll combine my story, but with stories of my dad and John Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather, the founder of the company, maybe stories from inspirational faith figures, maybe historical figures, and it just started writing itself.

Warwick F:

I didn't quite have that three-tiered structure, if you will, mapped out before I started writing. I had this idea of writing a book to use my story to help people. And then I just started writing. And it became clearer, the chapters became clearer. They refined themselves and we've gone back a few times to refine it some more. But that's just how the book started.

Warwick F:

But beyond the book, I was thinking I could get a publisher in Australia, because my story is more well-known there. Some folks were like, "Well, we want more of a cessational book where you diss on your family." And I wasn't willing to do that. It's more about mistakes I made, not arguably anybody else. But then one, publisher said, "This could have promise. But if it's going to be in the business leadership space, you need a following, hopefully a committed following and you need a brand." Well, I have a Harvard MBA. Conceptually, I get that. He says, "Huh."

Warwick F:

Through a mutual friend, they mentioned Cheryl Farr, and her branding a marketing firm, SIGNAL in Denver. So, this was a few years ago now, maybe 2016, something like that. And okay, so we began creating a brand. And then, it grew from that. I started doing a blog and being active on social media. And then, it's like we need to take communications and public relations to another level.

Warwick F:

And you, Gary came onboard, where you had a lot of experience with radio and Hollywood and Focus on the Family. And somebody said, "Well, how about a podcast?" It's like, huh, I like doing the reflective thing. I'm an International Coach Federation certified executive coach, I can ask questions. You're used to cohosting podcasts and radio shows. This good work. We could do this. Well, let's try.

Warwick F:

And then, it grew from there. And as the book, which came out October 2021, well, we're going to need to speak. I don't think of myself as Mr. Charismatic Speaker, but well, let's try. Got training and help and we started it's like, well, it actually didn't go that badly.

Warwick F:

But if you told me, I don't know, back in the early 2000s, before that time in church or even soon after, are you going to have a ... The book is going to get published. But you're going to have a blog, social media, speak, and a podcast. It's like, wow, really? It sounds all the little intimidating. Maybe I'll go back and hide under the covers because the listeners may not believe this, but I am a relatively fearful person.

Warwick F:

So, yeah, if somebody laid out the whole vision for me, I probably wouldn't have started. It's good that we sometimes don't know the whole plan, assuming you believe in a creator up there. It's like I wasn't talking about one next step or that the truth is, don't tell me more than the one next step because I'll probably go back under the covers, just tell me one next step and maybe I can accomplish that. Because as I said, I'm pretty fearful. But it's incredible how the vision grew. I mean, it's hard to believe what's happened.

Gary S:

And what you've just described was step five, point five in the blog. And that was link one step to the next step. You linked the book to a brand. You linked the brand to a blog. You linked the blog into, there's an assessment that we have at crucibleleadership.com that you can find out where you are at on your journey to a life of significance. And then, the podcast came out.

Gary S:

I still remember, Warwick. I was in Denver. We were in Denver for meetings. And I was in my hotel room. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to present on what I think the future can hold." And I wrote down, I created this, I'm not a graphic design person. I'm a word person. But I created this terrible graphic design thing that was like, the Warwick Fairfax podcast, I called it. We came up with a better name. But that was those little seeds of things that come from point five in your blog, link one step to the next.

Gary S:

What you write here is "Yes, there may be days where it feels like one step forward and two steps back. But forward momentum, trying new ideas and a willingness to experiment, yes, even fail will produce progress over time." And that is the blueprint that Crucible Leadership is followed to get us here with this show right now.

Warwick F:

Exactly. It's all about what's the one next step I need to take. Often, we talk about what's the first step you need to take. Well, in this particular point, we're talking about what's the one next step. So, was it like 2018? Somewhere around there, we began talking about it. It's like, okay, we've got a great website. We're active on social media and blog. And what would be another way of getting the message out? Well, podcasts have become very popular. And it's like, "Well, maybe we can do this." And really, one of the things I think I want listeners to understand is often that one next step, it will be linked to what's come before, but it also will link to your design.

Warwick F:

And so, for me, I'm naturally curious. I think I'm a good listener. I believe I'm a good executive coach. So, being in a format where I'm having to listen and ask good questions, I'm thinking, I don't know anything about podcasting, but I can do this. This is something I can do. It is mission possible. Now, there are other things that I'm horrendous at, but maybe wouldn't have been so swift to try, this thought without a massive amount of help and a large army to help me get there.

Warwick F:

But this was one thing where I didn't know much about it, but I instinctively felt like, you know what, this is something I can do with help. And Gary is a tremendous cohost, and helps pull all this together. But I felt like, this is something I can do. It was a good next step. And so, think about what is the next step I can take from where I am. But also, how does it link to my design? Because if you feel like it's a logical next step and it's linked to your design in some ways like it's mission possible, it's absolutely worth a try. And to a degree almost, within reason, anything is worth a try because you got to keep moving, you know?

Gary S:

Right.

Warwick F:

It's one of the things I say about the law of business. You're either moving forward or backwards. If you think you're coasting, pretty much every business I know, the plane is about to descend and not in a good way.

Gary S:

Right, yeah, right.

Warwick F:

Yeah. You're either moving forward or you're moving back.

Gary S:

What we've just described, what you've just described in talking about, I want to write a book and I need a brand. And then, I'm going to have some blogs. And then, I'm going to do an assessment and then I'm going to do a podcast, you created something not before known. That is inventiveness in action. And the way that it all happened, it's beautiful. There's connecting all those steps. But your sixth point is what makes all of those steps work together and build momentum and that is the power of the flywheel. So, explain that as it pertains to this idea of making inventiveness happen and keeping moving forward.

Warwick F:

I think the key point about the power of the flywheel is momentum. As one idea works, it's like, okay, this is really working. Okay, what's the next step? Even within podcasts, it's like, this seems like this is working. We're having great guests, which is, I've found, very gratifying. It's a safe place. They've often said it gives them a place they're able to talk about, the story in ways that maybe haven't elsewhere. And it's like, this is great. This seems to be working. We have a balance between interviewing guests and you and I talking. It's like, "Okay, well, this is good." And so, it's like, what happens if we had a series? We had a series on resilience. We have a series coming up in in April and that was a new idea.

Warwick F:

So, even within the world of podcasts and Beyond the Crucible, there's been incremental steps, one step, one step, making it we'd like to think more robust and even better. And so, that fuels your passion for making the podcast even better, let alone the other things that we're doing with speaking. It's like, because here's an important link.

Warwick F:

Because with a podcast, I was able to tell my story on this podcast and I'm on a lot of other people's podcasts, so I get to tell my story a lot of different times, hundreds if not more. Then when it came to speaking, it's like, "Well, I don't think of myself as a natural speaker. But I've given elements of my speech a hundred times in different ways." And just putting together the chapters with yourself and some great help.

Warwick F:

So, the fact the podcasts seem to be going well and I had a lot of practice telling my story, that gave me some degree of confidence that with help, maybe I can do speaking. So, there was a link between podcasting and speaking. And so, the confidence in one actually fueled me to think, you know what, we'll do what we've always done and get a great team together, figure out a plan and make it happen. So, you begin to increase your confidence, which increases in potentially the rate that the flywheel is spinning, so it does fuel momentum and enthusiasm.

Gary S:

I love how this conversation has evolved. And we didn't really plan it this way, necessarily. But we start out with, okay, we're going to talk about inventiveness. And here's three really inventive people that automatically people are like, oh, you're worried you can't reach the level of those Walt Disneys and Steve Jobs of the world. And we've broken it down as we've gone through the points in your blog. We've broken it down, really as to what has happened with Crucible Leadership, which is, I think, much more identifiable to listeners who have, especially those who've been along with us through the ride, through a hundred plus episodes of the show.

Gary S:

So, the takeaway from what we've talked about so far is not only should you not look at and compare yourself to a Steve Jobs. You don't have to end up where Steve Jobs is at, and that's where you say all the time, Warwick, it can be in your own neighborhood. Your life of significance, the life dedicated to serving others, living with purpose can be a "small" impact, but one life is a huge impact if you make one huge impact.

Gary S:

And what you've just explained as you've walked us through this process, outlined in your blog about Crucible Leadership, it's how you've enacted a life of significance out of your passion, birthed by an idea, and stringing one idea together with another, which then leads us to, perhaps the best part of your eight points, and that is, celebrate the wins. Why is it important to celebrate the wins as you're going through pursuing a vision that's inventive?

Warwick F:

It's very easy to gloss over positive feedback and things that go well and go, "Okay, that went well." But yeah, there's always a bit like Eeyore and Winnie the Pooh, any Winnie the Pooh fans, it's like, I know, today is going to be terrible. It's going to be awful. I may as well give up. I know it's sunny now, but I know it's going to rain. There'll be lightning. I have a flat tire. You can go through life with an Eeyore mentality.

Warwick F:

But I think what you've got to do to counteract that, and we're all human, is celebrate the wins. So, yeah, when I got my book published in October last 2021, a few months before when I got that first book, it was a big day. Now, I wanted to make sure that I didn't get a swollen head and because I'm a person of faith, I was literally on my knees saying, "All glory to God and this is your success, not mine," and that's all good. But when those things happen and my team actually, you Gary and others helped me, you set this wonderful sort of plaque with the cover of the book in glass and a frame and it was beautiful and I have it in my office.

Warwick F:

And sometimes, it takes a village, it takes a team to help you celebrate because we can easily gloss over those things. But yeah, celebrating the wins, that gives you encouragement and momentum to keep going. So, it's not just about, oh, look at me, how wonderful I am. Even if it's like, oh, I have a wonderful team or God is so great.

Warwick F:

How you want to process celebrating, you've got to celebrate it because it will help give you encouragement and enthusiasm, passion and persistence to keep going. So, there's a business reason for doing that. Not just patting yourself on the back. It's so important. And it's not something I do naturally exactly to be honest. So, it's something I have to tell myself, it's okay to celebrate the wins.

Gary S:

Well, and you're not the only one who thinks that because Oprah Winfrey said this. Oprah Winfrey, who has a bit to celebrate, one would surmise. Oprah Winfrey said, "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." And I mean, talk about a flywheel. The more you celebrate life, what's happened in your life, the more there is to celebrate in your life. So, it becomes this not vicious circle, but this encouraging sort of.

Warwick F:

Yeah, as I sometimes say, this virtuous circle.

Gary S:

There you go, a virtuous cycle.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

Gary S:

There's another one. Wait a minute, hashtag virtuous circle. Warwick is dropping wisdom and pithy comments in this episode. I love it.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I don't know if I created that or not, but it's certainly something I've used over the years. But one of the things linked to that as we've talked often on this podcast and elsewhere about gratitude, celebrating the wins, it's another way of saying be grateful. Like for me, more broadly, I'm blessed to have my wife, Gail. We've been married over 30 years, three wonderful kids who are now adults. I go to a great church, have a fantastic team at Crucible Leadership such as yourself and others. I have a massive amount to be thankful for and to be grateful for.

Warwick F:

So, the larger point beyond celebrating the wins is having, and this is not my phrase, but having an attitude of gratitude also is really important. You can start off complaining about how whining and winching as we say in the industry how bad life is and life can be tough for many. I get that. But to the degree that you can, having an attitude of gratitude and celebrating the wins is so important.

Gary S:

Yeah. And it's great that that connects to because you talked about a team in the midst of that. And that really is the eighth point of your blog, the final point of your blog, is this idea of building a great team. So, once you've built the infrastructure and you've built the step by step flywheel of how you're going to bring inventiveness to work in bringing your vision to reality, having a team around you, build a great team is important. Why? Why is that such a critical part that it's the last point in what you've written.

Warwick F:

This is something that many, if not most entrepreneurs struggle with is like, "Hey, this is my idea. I created this idea in my garage, and I want to do it all. It's all me." And that's why they typically flame out or hit a wall and don't go beyond a certain amount of revenue. But we all have our positives and negatives. Walt Disney is a good example. He was an animator, creative guy. He wasn't a business guy, hence getting swindled out of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Warwick F:

Well, so he brings his brother onboard, who's a business guy. Now, obviously, there's always tension. Walt's dreaming dreams and wants to do all these things. And the business guy is saying, "Wait on, Walt. Hang on a second. I don't think we can launch 85 things this year. How about 84? I mean, come on, let's be reasonable. I got to go to the bank and get funding from this. I mean, please. Don't give me a heart attack."

Warwick F:

And there would be a meeting of the minds. And so, you have people that complement areas where you're not as strong in. So, that is critical. So, in the area of Crucible Leadership, I love writing and thinking and reflecting. That's what I love doing. But I'm fearful about lots of things. And one of the things I don't like doing is selling. I'm not good at it, hate it, hate it. And so, yeah.

Gary S:

I've heard that before from you.

Warwick F:

We've got people that Keri Childers leads our event management sales side. And so, that's just one example. But we've got people that are talented at all sorts of areas, whether it's social media and creative, helping us produce high quality videos. So, what I try and do is stay in my lane, which is reflective advisor thinking, so I don't have to worry about selling. Other people will do that that are good at it and I'm not. And I'm not a graphic artist. I'm not somebody that creates high quality videos. I'm not a podcast producer. I mean, there's a lot of things I can't do.

Warwick F:

But you've got to have the humility and the, in an ironic sense, self-confidence to say, "I know there are things I'm not good at," or put it this way, even if I'm good at, there are other people that are great at. And if somebody is great at it and I'm really good at it, I'm going to give it to the person who's great at it. Why wouldn't I? It's all about the success of what we're doing. So, yeah, building a great team, they'll celebrate the wins with you as I just mentioned my team has done many times.

Gary S:

Keri Childers is the celebration. And I mean, she's the best celebrator on the team, in my view. Keri is very good. She sent cookies when your book made it to the best seller list. I mean, she's just really, really, really good at that.

Warwick F:

She definitely has the gift of encouragement and celebration.

Gary S:

Indeed, indeed.

Warwick F:

Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah. And the last thing I'll say about building a great team, and this is something that's hard-learned lesson. You want people that absolutely have complementary skills and are the best of what they do. That goes without saying. But more important than that is having a team with integrity, having a team that will speak their truth to you, even if you don't want to hear it. And I think I have that kind of team. And have a team that has your best interest at heart. And it's not just about the fees, as passionate or committed to the vision as you are.

Warwick F:

So, building a great team, ability is overrated. Ability is good. That's a starting point, you need a way more than ability. You need integrity, humility, and absolute passionate commitment to the vision. Ideally, more committed than you are. And that's a high bar. But that's what you're looking for.

Gary S:

Now, this is the time in the show where I normally would say, "The captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt sign." Since, we've been spending so much time talking about Walt Disney and his expansive vision that he built on, I'm going to say, that sounds you heard was the Space Mountain ride coming to a stop. It's time to exit the cars here in a minute and go on to the rest of the park. But before we do that, Warwick, what's the final ribbon you want to put, the bow you want to put on the package that is not just your blog on inventiveness, but also this discussion that we've had on this subject?

Warwick F:

I think when you think about vision, yes, it starts with passion. It starts with an idea that you're dreaming about. As you go to sleep, you're thinking, "Gosh, wouldn't it be incredible if the world had this? Wouldn't it be amazing if somehow what I went through, I have an idea that could help people overcome it or maybe avoid it?" So, there's ideas and there's vision and there's dreams ruminating. But probably the most important thing is try something, do something. What one thing are you going to do today? Or maybe it's this week? Or, what's that first idea you got to do and do it.

Warwick F:

Maybe it's talk to one person, maybe have a friend help you. The most important thing with vision is all these things like the flywheel and let your visions grow and link one step to another and celebrate your wins, build a great team, those are all very important. But you've got to start with, okay, I've got this little idea. It may flop. It may fly. But I'm going to try. I'm going to stick my baby toe in the water. I'm going to do it.

Warwick F:

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be bet the farm, mortgage the house. It doesn't have to be a massive step. It can be what's one small step you're going to take and then do it. Just do it. Try something. That is the critical thing in your journey to having a vision become reality is just try something, just do something.

Gary S:

Well, I'm off the ride now. And I'm off to get a corndog. So, we will wrap this episode of the show. Listeners, you've heard in this conversation Warwick mention a couple things. One is his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead Alife of Significance. That's available now anywhere you can buy books. You can also get it at crucibleleadership.com. You can order it there.

Gary S:

You also mentioned, Warwick, talk about his speaking engagements that he is, and we're about ready to ramp those up again. If you would like Warwick to speak to your group at crucibleleadership.com, the aforementioned gift of celebration team member Keri Childers is the speaking agent for Crucible Leadership. She'll help you get Warwick to your event. You can find out all that information at crucibleleadership.com.

Gary S:

So, until the next time we're together, finding inventive ways to help you move beyond your crucibles. Remember, that we do understand your crucibles are painful. Our crucibles were painful, too. They still are as they happen because as Warwick says often, crucibles, it's not a one and done thing. They tend to keep coming. And how we survive them is by learning the lessons of them, by not saying as a guest just said the other day that I'd forgotten we've used this phrase. But it's not, why did this happen to me. It's why did this happen for me?

Gary S:

That perspective as you face a crucible and move beyond is a key perspective that helps you learn the lessons of your crucible. And when you learn the lessons of your crucible and you apply them to a vision, even if that vision is way more inventive than you are comfortable with right now, you can pursue it. You can achieve it.

Gary S:

And the beauty about doing so is at the end of that journey as you pursue that vision rooted in the lessons you learned from your crucible, it will lead to the greatest story of your life far from the end of your story. It's the beginning of a new story when you learn the lessons and move on. Because where that story ends is that a life of significance.

Retired naval officer Emily Harman accomplished many things in her career, but realized after she retired that the one thing she hadn’t done was understanding what she truly loved to do. She was so focused on achievement that she had no idea what brought her satisfaction and could bring her significance. But she’s turned that around by taking a deep inner journey that has unlocked emotions she neglected most of her life, and opened up a new career as a podcast host and life coach. Her focus? Helping women create a life they’ll love living today.

To learn more about Emily Harman and her business and podcast, Onward Movement, visit www.emilyharman.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Emily H:

How many times do we even ask this: what would we love? What would we love in our life? What would we love to have to be, to do, to share with other people to give back to this world? What would a life of significance be for me? A lot of times we don't even stop and look up and I didn't, I was too busy achieving whatever, whatever the next step was supposed to be. But what did I want? I didn't really look at that. Or maybe I thought that's what I wanted, but we really, a lot of times don't take time to just stop and say, what would I love?

Gary S:

There is a question that's critical to ask ourselves in the wake of a crucible. In fact, sometimes it can even help us avoid a crucible. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger co-host of the show. Our guest this week is Emily Harman, a retired Naval officer who accomplished many things in her career then realized the one thing she hadn't accomplished was understanding what she loved to do. She was so focused on achievement that she had no idea what truly brought her satisfaction and could bring her significance. She's turned that around, she explains, by taking a deep inner journey, it has unlocked emotions she had neglected most of her life and opened up in her retirement from the service, a new career as a podcast host and life coach. Her focus, helping women create a life they'll love living today.

Warwick F:

Well, thank you so much Emily for being here. I really appreciate it. I love what you do with Onward Movement and the podcast in particular, trying to empower women in particular to live authentic lives, to live free of judgment, to live their dreams. It's a, I must say, a sacred calling, but it's a wonderful calling, but you've had an amazing journey, obviously leading up to your career in the Navy and government service. Talk about Emily Harman growing up, your family influences that led to the Naval Academy and probably ultimately in some ways led to Onward Movements. So who was a young teenage high school environment, who was Emily Harman growing up?

Emily H:

Well, basketball is what I would say got me to where I am today. And the reason I say that is because when I was in sixth grade, fifth or sixth grade, I started to play basketball and I was like five, six, about 95 pounds uncoordinated. And so growing up, my parents were not in the military, but what they told me and my brother and sister, the three of us is, if you do well in sports, we'll pay for your college, we're thinking that it would get us into college, which it did for all of us or you can work and then you can pay for your clothes and all that. We'll take care of you as long as you're applying yourself at sports. I used to have to jump rope for 10 minutes every morning before I got breakfast.

Emily H:

And I appreciate my parents for having me do that because that got me coordinated. And my dad worked two jobs and still spent a lot of time on the weekends helping me learn to play basketball. I was left handed. He helped me learn to shoot left and right handed, do a hook shot. So many things my father taught me and it wasn't until I became a parent myself, that I realized what a sacrifice that was for him to be spending his free time with me and my brothers and sisters too. And so in high school, I became the leading scorer in Maryland, DC and Virginia. And I could have scored 40 points and my dad, would say, good game. Now you remember that time when you went right, you should have gone left? And my point to that is the way I reacted to that as a first child, the first born, and he was trying to help me, but the way I reacted to that, I can see now looking back is I became a pleaser.

Emily H:

I tried to really please him and then that translated into being a pleaser in other aspects of my life. And first borns are typically hyper achievers. I was a hyper achiever and I was always striving to improve in my whole life. Always striving to do better and not celebrating any wins. If I did, it would be like a second, like, all right, I got that let me move on to the next thing. That childhood translated in my life, which I'm sure we'll get into about how it impacted my life in positive and not so positive ways. And so I was recruited by several colleges to play basketball. West Point was one of them. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it was cold and rainy and gray.

Emily H:

And then I went to the Naval Academy and I know you've been there and it was sunny. And I liked the basketball team and I liked the people there. And I decided to go there because I didn't know that much about the Navy, but I all also knew that education would be the number one thing. Like if I ever got hurt playing basketball or something, I wouldn't lose a scholarship. I'd still get my education. And that was a good decision. Because when I was there, I had two knee surgeries, I tore my inter cruciate ligament, but I still got a good education and graduated. That's how my life started out. That's why I say basketball has got me to where I am today.

Warwick F:

What's fascinating about your story Emily is we've had all sorts of men, women, all kinds of backgrounds, races, some folks come from very difficult families, maybe abusive or maybe parents who just were never there. But it sounds like your upbringing wasn't that bad. In the sense that you had loving parents that cared about you, maybe you could say in hindsight, I don't know that they had all the psychology books or people weren't quite as aware of parenting years ago. And so the resources weren't there, but it sounds like you had supportive parents that wanted the best for you and your siblings. Now you may have translated it into like a performance achievement way of thinking. But I think what's fascinating for listeners is you don't have to come from some terrible broken home to have challenges and you might have very loving parents that are trying to do their best, but unwittingly kids can interpret things differently. Does that make sense? It doesn't sound like you had a horrific upbringing.

Emily H:

No, I didn't. I was able to go away to summer camp for like seven weeks in the summer and horseback ride and do arts and crafts. My parents gave us a lot of opportunity. No parents are perfect. I'm not a perfect parent either. And I would say that I never saw my parents argue, they got married six weeks after they met, they're still married 59 years later.

Warwick F:

Wow.

Emily H:

But I didn't really see conflict resolution and I didn't really see holding hands. I didn't really see, it wasn't like a warm, loving relationship that I saw. We just pick up on different things. I think that in some ways I haven't really talked to them about this, but I can look back and feel there were times when I didn't feel heard or seen. And so it was so interesting when I founded the Onward Movement in 2020, I did an exercise with one of my coaches and I do it now for my clients where she helped me by reflecting on my childhood and what was missing in my life from my perspective, she had us come up with what our purpose in life, our purpose for being here.

Emily H:

And the words that I came up with were words that I had already put in the manifesto that I created for the Onward Movement, which was, "We see you, we hear you. This is a welcoming place." And although we strive to improve ourselves, we know we're enough, just the way we are. These are things that I've had challenges with in my life that I then put into the manifesto that then when I did this exercise with my coach came up as my purpose for being here in life. It was so amazing. It just brought tears to my eyes to see that correlation. And I do that for my clients and I bring tears to their eyes too, because it's just amazing to really come into a better understanding of why we're really here.

Warwick F:

Let's fast forward. So you're in the Navy and what's fascinating is it's not like you grew up thinking I want to be in the military. It was a logical choice and a wise choice, as you said, blowing out your knees and it's not like your parents said military is what you need to do, but you did. So you're in the Naval Academy and you launch into the Navy. So talk about as your career and life unfolds, you get married, have kids. You're obviously a driven person. So talk about from Naval Academy on, what was the next steps like for you in your life?

Emily H:

Yeah, I graduated and I got stationed. I went into the Supply Corps, which is like the business end of the Navy. After I went to Supply Corps school in Athens, Georgia, I was stationed on a ship, a submarine tender. And then that ship, the steel decks and everything really hurt my knees. I had had knee surgery on both of my knees. After a couple years, two and a half years or so, I got off that ship. And then I went to work for the Atlantic fleet, which is where I helped do a study on how much plastic the Navy was dumping into the ocean. This was in the mid '80s when plastic was just washing up on the shores all the time and medical waste and the ships would just dump everything overboard. We did studies and now if you go on a ship, you'll see they have these things I don't know if they call them plastic waste processors anymore, but they recycle a lot of the plastic and bring it out in balls or discs or whatever.

Emily H:

There's a lot of recycling that goes on onboard ships now. And then I got stationed back at the Naval Academy. Where I help coach basketball and I taught leadership and I was a company officer and that's when I met my kids' father and we got married and I just decided I didn't want to go back to sea again and raise children. I got out of the Navy after seven years working on active duty and I became a civilian working for the Navy in government contracting. That's what I was doing at the time. And then I did 13 years in the reserves. So I did 20 total. And then I stayed on as a civilian and I ended up getting divorced from my children's father. He was verbally abusive. And the pleaser that I had developed kept putting up with that.

Emily H:

And I didn't leave until I could see it impacting my children. That's where that pleaser personality did not serve me well there, I tried everything to make that marriage work, but in the long run, verbal abuse is really tough to overcome. And I still think it impacts me to this day, but we ended up divorcing and then I was a single parent. And so a lot of my career was pushing through. I coach in energy levels now, so on a scale of one to seven energy levels, I would say I was at energy level three. And at that energy level you push through and you look at the bright side of things and you find the silver lining and all that's great.

Emily H:

However, what you don't do is you don't really pay much attention to your feelings because they get in the way of you pushing through. I spent a lot of my career being a hyper achiever, moving up, moving up, moving up, never feeling satisfied with where I was always, trying to do more and achieve more, raising my kids, and ignoring my feelings. I didn't know all this in my head. I wasn't aware of this consciously, what I was doing, sense that I've learned how I was ignoring my feelings and I'll explain the way that happened is, it was 2019, my kids were grown. I had made it to the equivalent of a two star Admiral in the reserves. I mean, as a civilian, I was the director of the office of small business programs for the Navy and the Marine Corps advising the Secretary of the Navy and all Navy leadership and responsible for the whole program on how we provided opportunities for small businesses to participate in government contracting.

Emily H:

So I had made it up pretty high, but I still, something was missing. I didn't know what it was. And I was tired of being busy. I was busy all the time and I thought it was my job. I was busy all the time and I knew I wasn't feeling my feelings. And I kind of felt like I was turning into some of the things that bothered me about my mom. That's the way she is. She's busy. She's always fine. And so I didn't want to be that way anymore. I decided that I was going to retire. I was going to retire from the Navy that in my mind, that job and the work I had done for the Navy was causing all of my stress. I retired and I figured now I can relax. I can be who I want to be. I can do what I want to do. But who am I? Where did Emily go? Because she's buried under all of these responsibilities and pushing through and not feeling your feelings. I didn't even know myself anymore.

Warwick F:

There's a phrase on your website. I think you talk about the chameleon Emily versus the real Emily. And it feels like your whole life. I mean, you're an achiever I think you write somewhere you're in the sixth class at the Naval Academy that admitted women. You've got these different strands, it's determination, but yet there's people pleasing. And for some people they might think, well, somebody so determined and so courageous, how could you put up with things that weren't inappropriate, but yet people do. You probably know many women in particular who were equally as determined as you are and to help folks understand that bit of that psychology. Because it seems like what you are so determined. You, you got to accomplish anything. You can break through any barrier, right?

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

If there's any somebody I'm going to bet on it's Emily Harman, she can break through anything. She is tough. She is strong. Yeah. There's something about that people pleasing mentality that I don't know, help us understand that. Because it's an interesting dichotomy.

Emily H:

Well, I wish I understood it 100% because I'm a coach in an area called positive intelligence, which is about strengthening your mental fitness. And it's all about understanding these saboteurs in our mind. And two of mine are the hyper achiever saboteur and the pleaser. And these are basically the way Shirzad Chamine who developed this program, talks about it is these saboteurs in our mind is what causes all our stress. And they're really started with being strengths, but their strengths that are overused by the left side of your brain, the saboteur side of your brain. And they issue with anxiety and stress. They cause all your stress and anxiety. I could have. And right now I can achieve, but I achieve through my right side of my brain, my sage with my heart.

Emily H:

I'm not pushing, I'm not driving to prove anything to anybody. So there's a difference. So my saboteur, when I use it, it hinders me and causes all of my stress. And so that's what my pleaser did. I love to serve people. I love to coach people. That's what I do right now. But if I do that too much, then I start to get resentful and get stressed and feel not appreciated. I need to and if I'm trying to please somebody because to make them happy all the time and that doesn't help. And so I just didn't ... And so somebody asked Shirzad, can you have some different saboteurs at work than you have at home? And he said, yeah, you can. There's a lot of people like that. I didn't have a pleaser saboteur as much at work as I did at home. It was like I was two different people.

Emily H:

I am still working to figure out how can, how could I have put up with that verbal abuse? Why did I have such a low self-esteem that made me put up with being called bad names and things like that for not loading the dishwasher correctly or leaving my son's pacifier in the trunk when he was in the car and he needed it right then or not handing him the toll money in the right way. These are all ridiculous things that most people who knew me would think I would never put up with that, but it wasn't until I couldn't even leave the house to go for a walk because my kids didn't want to be alone with him and he never hit me. But I think verbal abuse is just as bad as hitting. Nobody can see it. Nobody can see the bruises, nobody can see it. And I don't quite yet understand why, but I think it's very common for that to happen.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I'm no expert. Without getting told the details I've had somewhat of a bout with verbal abuse when I was young from a close family member and it can erode your self-esteem. And I remember initially I'd push back and I'd be like six, eight, very young and I'd push back. But then eventually would wear me down and I'd say, I'm so sorry and that kind of cycle, but yeah. I'm no psychologist. I think one of the things we talk a lot here is the question of identity.

Warwick F:

And if it's like, well, who is Emily Harman? Well, she is an achiever. She's a people pleaser, but who are you beneath that? And maybe it's like, well, you were saying to yourself, I don't really know who I am. There's all these roles I play like, like in almost a Greek tragedy or something that there are these roles I play, these masks I put on, but who am I beneath the mask? I don't know. You obviously now you know far more about who you are and the Emily Harman today is not going to put up with inappropriate behavior or abuse or whatever, because you know who you are. Right?

Emily H:

Yeah. I know who I am and I love myself.

Warwick F:

Well, exactly.

Emily H:

And I have compassion for myself. And I think back then, I didn't love myself. Definitely not like today. And so what happened when I retired, when I called my retirement a graduation, thinking, yes, now I can do what I want. And then I figured that with all this time on my hands, I didn't have to work. And I knew I wanted to be a coach and a podcast host, but I figured with all this time on my hands, that I am going to have time to work out. I'm just going to have time to get up in the morning and just, I'm going to be so much more relaxed. I knew that's what would happen. And it did not. It did not happen. So my point there is that a lot of times we think, well, when circumstances change, when this happens or that happens, and if only this wasn't in my life, if only I didn't work with these people, if I did this, we tend to point our finger at other circumstances or situations.

Emily H:

And when we do that, I've learned, we have three fingers pointing back at us. So that was my crucible moment. I have got to look at me, why am I not slowing down? Why do I still have this other saboteur, which I haven't mentioned yet, which is restless. I'm always like, let me sign up for that class. Let me do that. Let me do that. And then my condo starts to, my outer world starts to reflect my inner world of unorganized, disarray, stress, anxiety, my outer world. My condo's not clean. I've got these different projects not completed. And so I've worked with coaches for the past two and a half years to figure that out. And then I also had to start feeling my feelings because what happened is three weeks after I retired, my daughter called and told me that her dad, the guy who had been verbally abusive to me, had cancer.

Emily H:

And then two weeks after that, he was paralyzed in both arms from his cancer. And he died five months later. And when that happened and my daughter helped take care of him, I helped take care of him. And when that happened, I saw a man die with regrets. And I got closure like a couple nights before he died in December. I said, "A couple nights ago would've been our 28th wedding anniversary." And he just looked at me and he shook his head and he turned away and he said "I'm sorry." And he told my son, "I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you when you needed me." My son is an alcoholic. He's almost six years sober. But from age 13 to 23, it was very, very, very, very hard. I didn't know if I was going to get a call that he was dead from drugs and alcohol.

Emily H:

His dad wasn't there. Bruce was not there for us. And so I saw him die with regrets. He was a civil servant. He was a retired army officer. He was a West Point grad. He had done all these things. He had these files. He had been successful at work, but not with his friends and family. And he had all these files on what he was going to do when he retired. And he never got to retire. He died at 64, just like that, that woke me up. And that is why I help people create a life they love living now, don't wait for circumstances to change. It's now. And we can do it now.

Warwick F:

That was part of the, I think epiphany you've mentioned earlier and elsewhere that you went to 2014 International World Domination Summit, and then the incident in 2018 where you're riding the subway to the Pentagon and all these faceless people with the ear pods, and you're on this treadmill and you decided to get off. There was still inner work to be done, but that was the catalyst, 2018, 2019, you decided I'm leaving my government career and I'm doing something new. I think one of the other faceting things you said, I think initially your first idea was, I'm going to keep achieving. This is going to be my first, I'm going to keep, now I can achieve in a different direction.

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Talk about that, there's a bit of an epiphany and in turn obviously, your ex-husband dying, all of those things. It seems like they helped you turn, not just outward, but you get to say the ultimate voyage of discovery is a journey inward.

Emily H:

Definitely. When Bruce died, yeah, I was angry, I was pissed off at him for the way he had treated us. And then I was sad for him. And I still loved him, even though he had been verbally abusive, I still loved him. And it just made me sad the way he lived his life and my kids saw it too. And everything fell on me to help my kids through it. And I saw my kids go through his basement and learn about their dad that way, because Bruce hadn't really shared much about his career as a test pilot and things like that. And so all the feelings from the divorce, all the feelings that I had shoved down when I was in that energy of push push push, came to the surface. I was a mess.

Emily H:

And I started to learn how to feel my feelings. And I started to realize that I had lived mostly in the left side of my brain, lived in my head, not connected to my intuition, not connected to my gut, just logic a lot. And that's Navy, the DOD is all charts and graphs. And so the next level of energy I tend to go to is level five, which is where you can see a whole bunch of opportunities. And I do see that I see opportunity in this, this, and this and this. And then what happens is, and that's that restless saboteur in my mind, I get paralyzed by all these opportunities and I get stressed and I go down to energy level one, which is I give up, I can't do it. I've learned so much about myself. I can put words to my different energy levels and how I show up.

Emily H:

It didn't happen overnight like I thought it would, it wasn't because of my job that I was restless and hyper achiever. It was because I had internalized that and I needed to see who Emily was beneath that. And really I am intuitive. And now I live a lot of my life in energy level seven, which is the highest energy level, which you would know it when you see a four or five year old, just the way they look at the world. That's how I live a lot of my life now. It's amazing. I'm still calm. I'm just relaxed. I'm not pushing. And clients come to me. The universe sends people to me and I'm not chasing clients or money or whatever, I am being. And it's awesome. I never thought I could be this way. I thought that it was my personality to be like push, push, push, and achieve, achieve, achieve, and do all these different projects and not be in the moment. But now I'm in the moment.

Warwick F:

I want listeners to hear what Emily said because I really feel like in using different words, that chameleon Emily is gone, doesn't exist. It's the real Emily Harman. The one that from my faith perspective God or whoever's up there always intended you to be. However, what faith paradigm, one uses. I think one of the things I've learned myself and just from other guests on the podcast is sometimes there can be gift and tragedy. Nobody wants to go through what you did with your ex-husband with verbal abuse, being at his bedside and he's in tears apologizing, which is probably, it's something it's better than not apologizing.

Warwick F:

Doesn't make up for everything, but it's a little something, but that forced you to take stock and just to change direction. And so like you, the experiences you've had, the way you are with your kids now, and I'm sure with the women that you mentor those tragedies, they're hard won lessons that come from that, but there's a gift amidst the pain that you are using for your family and for women and others all over the place. Does that make sense as you're making use of that pain, if you will.

Emily H:

Yeah. We can find a gift or an opportunity in everything. And I've told my kids, I always told my kids that your dad loves you. He suffered from anxiety. We didn't have that term for it back then. He was also an alcoholic, but he never really went to get help. It was always if you do this, if you do that. But I always tell my kids that he loved you as best that he could in his way. And we also talk about the gift and the opportunity in his passing for them to also realize how short life is and to create a life they love living.

Emily H:

And my son is just finishing up two years of, well, it's been longer than two years, but his associates degree in engineering and he's getting a little stressed and I think he's going to stop and go, he's doing it full time. He's going to stop and go to work and see if this is really what he wants to do. And he was, I think, a little nervous to tell me and I'm like, well, I'm your mom. I coach people in creating a life they love living. If going to college, like this is stressing you out and you're not sure if you want to be an engineer. That's okay.

Warwick F:

Not that it's that surprising. I also have a son named Will. It's not like it's that stranger name, but yes, I have a Will too. It's funny. We have a little thing in his room that a family member did that said where there's a will there is a way. It's a little comic thing, but yeah. Talk a bit about Onward Movement. And I think as we transition, there's probably a bunch of high achievers listening, executives, military, you can even be in the world of faith and be a missionary and have a high achievement mentality. And I'm not against achievement for whatever reason and listeners would understand, I did my undergrad at Oxford, worked on Wall Street, have MBA from Harvard Business School.

Warwick F:

It's not like I don't try to achieve things, but achievement in and of itself doesn't make us happy and strong courageous people do what you did and what you advocate. They make the inner journey. I sought counseling years ago after the whole company went under because I was in pretty bad shape in a good part of the '90s, that inward journey to understand who we are. We can't help anybody at least but ourselves if we don't do that inner journey, we don't care of ourselves, not only are we not going to be able to care for others, we'll probably hurt other people. It's inevitable, your inner pain spreads almost like cancer or poison, not to get too graphic. Your friends and family in the world, they doesn't deserve your pain hurting them, not that you want to but that inner journey that you do, it's so important.

Warwick F:

It's a sign of strength to say, yeah, you didn't grow up in this horrendous upbringing, but we all have pain and brokenness and you got to deal with it, whether it's spiritually through counseling, whatever your truth is, it's so critical. I just want listeners to really understand what Emily is saying. Talk a bit about Onward Movement, because that is maybe the mission that you were put on this earth to advocate for, but you didn't know it when you were young, but talk about Onward Movement.

Emily H:

Yeah. And that, and my podcast. The Onward Movement is part of this journey that I'm on. When I retired, I did start the Onward Podcast. I didn't start the Onward Movement right away, but I've published over 150, 170 episodes of the Onward Podcast. And initially it's all been the Onward Podcast, but it's had different subtitles. It was the Onward Podcast: Facing Adversity and Moving Forward. Well, that was my life. Energy level three, face adversity, push forward. And I interviewed people on how they had done that. And some people were more advanced spiritually and in their life and in their inner journey than me. And I didn't always understand everything that they were telling me when I was interviewing. It was interesting because my awareness wasn't there. Then I switched it to Onward Podcast: Facing Adversity, Moving Forward, and Discovering Ourselves Along the Way.

Emily H:

Because I learned, we really discover ourselves. Now I've changed it to Create a Life You Love Living Now. And it was in April of 2020, right after COVID hit that I started the Onward Movement and now it's always been since then a Facebook group pretty much. And I have an email address of about almost close to 1500 people now, of people who are looking to create a life they love living, to release that fear of what other people might say and to embrace their authentic self so that they can do that. Create a life of their dreams, a life they would really love. And so I developed a manifesto, I've got a coaching program around that Onward Movement, which is outlined some of the steps I went through to really get back to myself.

Emily H:

And eventually we're going to start having, now that COVID is lifting a little bit, we're going to start having some live events where we can get together and maybe do a retreat. But I do a lot of posting in there. Go live. I hold some Zoom meetings and things like that, where we're all talking about encouraging each other to really go for creating the life of our dreams and realizing that life is short and we can do that. And we create a space, a safe space for people to have some of these discussions and share some of their hardships and help each other along the way.

Gary S:

I want to jump in at this point because there's something you said at the very start of this conversation Emily, that's been tickling the back of my mind, and I know why now. You began talking about when Warwick asked you to tell your backstory, you said, "Well, it all starts with basketball." The basketball was the organizing construct of your life. It got you into the military, unlike you while I played city league basketball, I never led one state let alone three in scoring like you did. But I used to have a saying that I would say all the time that I applied from basketball to life. And that was, if you want to score, you got to shoot the jumper.

Gary S:

And I think what you're talking about, when you talk about create a life you love living now, embrace your authentic self. In some ways you could apply a basketball metaphor to that to say, you've got to shoot. You've got to be in the game. You've got to have the courage to take this shot. I think it was Michael Jordan who stole a line from Wayne Gretsky, who said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You've got to take your shot if you want to embrace your authentic self and create a life you want to live now.

Emily H:

Yeah. That's exactly right. And then the other thing is somebody might look at me and say, oh well, she's got ... I'm getting ready to release a new updated website. She's got her website. She's got her message clear. She's got this. She's got that. I don't know if I could start a business. I don't know if I could be a coach. I don't know. And the thing is, is that nothing was clear. I just took the shot. And I just kept shooting and I have not missed publishing a podcast weekly since June 1st, 2019, even through Bruce's sickness and death, I continued to do that. I continued to put one foot forward and keep moving forward towards my dream of becoming a coach. I had to put off getting certified, I'm getting certified in the next month or so.

Emily H:

But I had to put that off initially, because he was sick. Once again I was getting ready to retire and do everything and go for my life. And then I did put it on hold to help my kids through it and to help him. When you're paralyzed in both arms, there's not much you can do. And it happened so quickly and it was so hard to see someone go downhill that quickly. So anyway, yeah. So many times we think, well, I mean, how many times do we even ask this: what would we love? What would we love in our life? What would we love to have, to be, do to share with other people to give back to this world?

Emily H:

What would a life of significance be for me? A lot of times we don't even stop and look up and I didn't, I was too busy achieving whatever, whatever the next step was supposed to be. But what did I want? I didn't really look at that. Or maybe I thought that's what I wanted, but we really, a lot of times don't take time and just stop and say, what would I love? And then when we do well, I would love to be less busy or I'd love to have a house on the beach or I'd love to go on this trip, but I can't because of, but what if you could, how do you know you can't? Our minds hold us back.

Warwick F:

You've got to be willing to try. And one of the fascinating things that we've talked a bit about is your vision doesn't come fully formed. We've talked about obviously visionaries that everybody knows Walt Disney, he didn't have this big vision of Walt Disney World or whatever. He just back in the '20s thought cartoons could be better. They could tell a bit better story. And eventually that led to Snow White and it just evolved, he just had an idea and he started and that's the important thing is to start and noticed as you look back on the name of your podcast, it evolved, right?

Emily H:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

I think there were three things that obviously you would remember better than I, but first it was freeing yourself from anger or something. And then it's like second evolution. Was it authenticity? I forget what it was. And the third evolution was the inner journey. But there was an evolution in the names of it, as you were evolving yourself in terms of what your vision was. That's a way of charting the vision. How has Emily Harman's vision changed? Well, just look at the names of the podcast and that's not wrong. That's good. Right?

Emily H:

Yeah. And my awareness has shifted. I interviewed my son Will in April of 2019 and right before I retired and then published his podcast a few months later, but we were talking about his journey, drinking from age 13 to 23. And it's the number one listened to episode that I have, and it's a really good episode. But at that time I would've been somebody who would've said poor Will, he's drowning his feelings in alcohol. I'm the mom, I'm in this level three energy, I'm going to push through. I'm going to help him, whatever. But I didn't realize that Emily was drowning her feelings in busyness, clueless about that. Now I can look back and say, what's the difference between me and Will? Okay. He was getting drunk. I look at it when my condo gets messy or whatever that, that is my hyper achiever, or maybe restless more restless saboteur.

Emily H:

It's just like me going on a drinking binge, is the way I look at it myself. Maybe that's not right. But that's how I look at it is I got hijacked by my saboteur this week and got so busy that I wasn't doing what I said I wanted to do, which is pay more attention to who I'm being as I'm doing, to be more in the flow. When my condo starts to look like that, it's not a terrible mess, but that tells me I'm not centered. And I just started taking pottery with my mom. And that was eye-opening because that's meditative and you have to be in the present moment and you to get the clay balanced from the beginning. If you don't, you're going to have a bowl that's not even, and that's just like life. We have to be balanced or else it reflects on everything that we do.

Warwick F:

I've often thought that the inner journey or inner game is it's a bit like exercise. You could say I ran yesterday. Aren't I good for the next year? No, you get flabby. You got to keep it up. And from inner perspective for me as a person of faith and for me in particular Christian faith, I do my daily Bible study and meditation. I've got my scripture memory, for others that might be mantras or different faith perspective factors that they pick up. But that centers me if I'm feeling angry about something. One of the gifts I have is I'm a very reflective person. I'm just wired to reflect. It's not hard me to reflect. It's just like breathing. Not that I don't achieve, but if I'm feeling bad, like if it's personal, obviously I'll say to my wife, Gale, I feel bad. I don't quite know why.

Warwick F:

If there are things that I know I'm not devastated by, but it's like a little ember, it could be a forest fire tomorrow. Today, it's an ember. Here's an example Gary's familiar with. Had this book come out, Crucible Leadership late last year and gossip column in I don't know, Sydney Morning Herald, one of the papers in Australia that we used to own wrote some article saying, oh, Warwick's got this book coming out and he'll share it with you for a price. Who shares a book for nothing? What's that about? And it some snarky little cartoon. Now was I on the floor sobbing? No, I was irritated, but I knew if I let that little seed or that yeast grow, bad things will happen. So I talked to Gary, another one of the folks on my team, not because I was devastated, but I knew I am not going to let that little thing get traction.

Warwick F:

And I dealt with it. But if I hadn't dealt with that, you start going down at, oh my gosh, look what I did. 150 year old company. And yeah, there was 4,000 people and I caused rifts in my family and I did this, I did this, I did this and this, I hurt this, I hurt this. You start spiraling down, which is not helpful. It's like that inner journey is understanding who you are when there's negative thoughts or negative vibes, come, figure out ways that you know that you can deal with it. Put it out.

Emily H:

What you did is you weeded your garden, right?

Warwick F:

Exactly.

Emily H:

You didn't let it get to be a huge weed. You pulled it right away.

Warwick F:

Again, it's like exercise, you want to help other people, you've got to be spiritually fit. You got to be spiritually in good shape. And just because we're in good shape today, doesn't mean we'll be in good shape tomorrow. It does mean we have tools, but don't just say, well, I went to counseling and I got that assessment yesterday and I was chatting to some close friends and I'm good. I never need to talk to a close friend ever again about anything I've been through. Because I'm bulletproof. It's like, yeah, no, it doesn't work like that. Does that make sense?

Emily H:

Oh, it makes complete sense. Because initially when I was in coaching, I was being coached and I'd be like, well, I don't think I really have anything else to work with them on, which was then every time I'd meet, it's like, oh so more and more. And then I started to realize, yeah, you're never really done. Here's another thing that explains how far I've come. I was like, I know I want to be a coach, but what do I want to coach on? This is when I was getting ready to retire. Who's my target audience? I know it's women who are so busy, they can't get everything done. And I have accomplished so much. I'm really good at time management. I'm going to help them with their time management. That's where I was going to ... Look at that. I've come from that far to now, like just be, and things will still get done.

Warwick F:

Amen. That is brilliant stuff. As you think of your podcast and Onward Movement, I'm sure the vision will evolve and grow as all good visions do. If I ask you this question in 10 years time, you'll probably have a slightly different answer. Maybe not radically different, but who knows it grow and flourished as all good things do like a beautiful garden. But at least as of right now, what's your dream that you hope for the people that listen to your podcast and Onward Movement. What is the dream that you think, gosh, this is what I would love to give to these folks in some fashion, I would love to help them. What's the core of your dream would you say?

Emily H:

I would just love to help them realize if they haven't already that there's more to life than just pushing hard. Life can be so joyful. You can be so free from your mind. You can be the observer of your mind. You are not your mind. You're the awareness, observing your mind. Knowing that and feeling it and living it are two different things. I'm feeling it and living it now for the most part. And it's awesome. And that's what I hope people will realize whether they come to me as a coach or go somewhere else, find a coach.

Emily H:

I think it's really hard to do that inner work without doing it with somebody. I think it's very challenging, I would not be here on my own if I hadn't invested in coaches. That's what I hope to help people who aren't living like that already, who see that, who are pointing to circumstances or other people, if only this would happen or this would change. And in some cases that might be perfectly right. But a lot of times we look at ourselves, we make these changes to ourselves. We improve ourselves. We go on this inner journey, our outer world changes. That's what I hope people see.

Gary S:

That sound that you just heard listener was the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign. It's about time we're taking our descent to land the plane. Before we do that though, before you have to gather up your peanut bags and leave, before we land the plane, I would be remiss Emily, if I didn't give you a chance to let listeners know how they could find out more about your services and about your coaching practice, how can they find out more online?

Emily H:

The best place to go is just my website, Emily Harman, H-A-R-M-A-N.com. And there's a bunch of information there. And then you can also find the link to join the Onward Movement Facebook group, and to subscribe to my newsletter, to listen to the podcast and you can also follow me on LinkedIn. I broadcast my podcast live on Wednesday nights at 7:30 in the evening, Eastern.

Gary S:

Before I turn it back to you Warwick for a final question, I just want to make an observation. And I hope listeners that you'll become viewers and go to our YouTube channel and watch this episode because what you'll see when Emily started out talking, I've been noticing it throughout. When she started out talking about her military career and what her life was like before, there was kind of a serious cast to her face and the way she spoke. And then when she got into what she's doing with Onward Movement and what she's doing since she is living the life that she really wants to live, it was like her entire countenance changed. You probably heard it in her voice too, if you're just listening to audio, but you can really see it on video. And it's a beautiful thing, Emily, to watch that transformation right in front of us. So thank you for that gift.

Emily H:

I'm in tears because I'm so full of joy. That's really my life right now. And I never thought I could find that. I never really, yeah. It's just amazing. I'm so happy.

Gary S:

Warwick, the last question is yours.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Wow. That is just so wonderful. We talked about often the biggest journey is the journey within, I think another journey that's almost like the Mount Olympus of inner work is to think that we are valued just because of who we are. From my faith perspective we're taught that we're loved by God, we're children of God, we're sons and daughters of God. And we have value in of ourselves with our foibles, our gifts, whether we're athletic, artistic, mathematical, there's nothing we have to do to be more loved by certainly God or the universe. And for those friends and family, who are truly friends and family, there's nothing that we can do to earn more of their love. I'm sure that would be the case with your kids and close friends. They love you and care for you just because of who you are.

Warwick F:

And we need to surround ourselves with those sorts of people and realize you are doing what you do with Onward Movement and your Onward Podcast, not to achieve things, not to score another basket, you're doing it because it's a reflection of your desire to help people. And just to be more fully Emily Harman is to do that. It's an overflow of the inner light that's going on within if you will. And I think of different ways, I think of stating what you're stating, but does that make sense that part of the Mount Olympus of inner journeys is to say I matter just because I am, and there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I need to do to earn the universe or God's love more or other people. I have value in and of myself. That frees you to actually help more people in some strange ways, not achieving the more you are doing your being work. And the more I matter just as I am somehow sounds little strength. That's a radiance that will even radiate. Any of this make sense just as we close?

Emily H:

It's so true. And then you find yourself, initially my journey, I would find myself like, I want to be like that coach, or I want to be like that, or I'm up behind her or whatever. And now it's like, there's no comparison. I'm not comparing to other people. Everyone's on a different journey. And the other thing that I would say is I never really grew up going to church. My parents both worked and on the weekends, they took us out hiking in the woods, in the mountains, in the Shenandoah Valley. And they wanted to spend time with us. And that's how I grew up. And I never really understood it when people said, God told me something, it didn't make any sense to me. I'm like God never talks to me.

Emily H:

Well, of course he didn't because I never was still enough to even freakin' listen. I was just so busy. And so I relate to that term, the universe and my intuition. When I get quiet and quiet my mind and meditate and connect with my higher self and the universe and thoughts come to me that I would not have thought of myself. That's God speaking to me. And so now I understand what people were saying, whereas before I never did. So if you're listening and you're like, I don't get it. I'm so busy. You're busy like me all the time. You can slow down, you can quiet your mind and you can hear God or the universe talking to you.

Gary S:

And with that, we can put the plane on the ground. Dare I say, the planes that we've been flying in this episode are US Navy blue angel planes.

Emily H:

Awesome.

Gary S:

And they're on the ground. Listener thank you for spending your time with us in this very exciting and emotional conversation with Emily Harman, we ask you to visit Crucibleleadership.com where can get Warwick's book. You can read blogs. You can explore more about the universe of what Crucible Leadership does in addition to other episodes of this podcast that have come before. And until the next time we're together, we ask you to remember this, that we know your crucible experiences are difficult. What Emily described today was extraordinarily difficult what she went through.

Gary S:

Warwick's crucible, as you all know has been difficult, but if you learn the lessons from your crucible, which is what we're talking about here, how do you learn the lessons of them and how do you apply them? If you do that, and as Emily has done it, we've listened to her talk about it for the last hour, she's applied the lessons of the crucible she's experienced and what she has done with that is what you can do with the lessons from your crucible experiences. And that is chart a course to a new and better life, a life of significance.

Giving his pain a purpose was the lesson this week’s guest, Dennis Gillan, learned when he took his tentative first steps as a suicide prevention speaker – as a man whose two brothers took their own lives 11 years apart. Gillan shares the devastation he experienced in the aftermath of his brothers’ suicides – but also the strength and hope he’s found by embracing what he’s discovered is the call on his life: to inspire others to how to use the trauma of their crucibles to live lives of significance. The one practical tip you want to make extra sure you listen for? The Purple File.

To learn more about Dennis Gillan and his nonprofit the Half a Sorrow Foundation, visit www.halfasorrow.org

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible, I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership.

Dennis G:

So I spoke at a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, I got involved with those good folks, and I spoke for the first time publicly about my brothers and it was awful, five minutes, it was brutal. I got through it and I sat down and afterwards a lady came up to me and said, "You need to tell that story more often." And I said, "Oh, you just heard the one and done show that's not happening." But God kept saying, "Maybe there's something here." Everybody who's listening to your crucible moment, maybe something's in here, don't waste the pain.

Gary S:

Don't waste the pain. That's the lesson this week's guest Dennis Gillan learned when he took his tentative first steps as a suicide prevention speaker, as a man whose two brothers took their own lives 11 years apart. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger co-host of the show. Gillan shares the devastation he experienced in the aftermath of his brothers' suicides, but also the strength and hope he's found by embracing what he's discovered is the call on his life to inspire others, to not waste the pain of their own crucibles. He offers several practical tips and how to use your pain as fuel for a life of significance. The one you want to make extra sure you listen for, the purple file.

Warwick F:

Well, Dennis, thank you so much for being here and thank you for what you do as an advocate for mental health, and obviously you've experienced the challenges and the tragedies that have led you to your calling and what you do with Half a Sorrow Foundation and the purple file, which we'll get to, which is such a brilliant idea. So before we get to really the tragedies that in a sense sort of sadly changed your life in many ways with your brothers, which we'll get into, tell us a bit about what was life for you growing up? Tell us about your family, your brothers, before the tragedies hit, what was your family life and what was life like in the Gillan household?

Dennis G:

Life was good until it wasn't, it's second generation, Irish guy, all my grandparents came in to Brooklyn, New York. So that's where my parents were. So I was born in Brooklyn and then like many folks of that era, my dad chasing the American dream here, he moved out to the suburbs and the house, the little spit of land, and we ended up north of New York City because my dad worked in the city in a little town called Valley Cottage, New York it's right on the Hudson River, Hudson Valley, maybe 30 miles north of New York City, in a little town Valley Cottage in the County of Rockland. So it's near the Tappan Zee Bridge if anyone knows that area, that's where I grew up.

Dennis G:

It was, what's the word idyllic, I never get that word right. But it was awesome because I was one of five kids, we had 110 acres of woods behind us that wasn't developed yet, it's now since been developed. But it was like, this is a paradise. I lived near the local pool, there were tennis courts nearby. I walked to school. Everything I needed was in that little pod of Valley Cottage, and I loved being from a big family, five kids, I'm in the middle. There's Sheila, Mark, me, Janice and Matthew, and it was classic five, five people, count my parents seven, we had a three bedroom house everybody's crammed in there pretty good. We start moving downstairs and making rooms downstairs. It was really a great upbringing and memory, thank God for memory because it's very selective. You remember the good times you tend to forget the bad times. It was really good. I went to St. Paul's Catholic School then I went to the public high school. I have lifelong friends from both institutions. To sum it all up life in Valley Cottage was really good up until 1983.

Warwick F:

So you had an idyllic upbringing in this little town, north of New York, life just seemed to be good. It seemed like, the world, anything could happen. You could continue the American dream of your dad, it's like life was good. As you rightly put it, life was good until it wasn't. So tell us about, I guess it was Mark, was that the first? So tell us about that time and that day and maybe a bit about who Mark was.

Dennis G:

Sure. Mark wasn't built for school. He was one of those tinkerers, one of those smart guys that was good at fixing and stuff, but you put an academic, you put a book in front of them, it's not going to end up well. Mark's been on my heart lately, because I went through my office recently and I was just, I went through divorce so I have all this stuff everywhere, and I was going through my old high school announcement, when I graduated in 1981. Now this is two years before we lost Mark, and on the back of it they listed the people that graduated the previous summer and my brother was one of them. He didn't graduate on time, he graduated in August, 1980, I graduated in 1981. So he was on my program and I did not know that until now.

Dennis G:

I looked at it like, "Oh my gosh, Mark is on my program," because he graduated later than he should have because he wasn't a book guy, he was a tinkerer. We had a garage full of stuff, he hooked up a CB radio and that's an old radio for you kids out there that truckers used to use. He hooked up a CB radio to his Schwinn Varsity bike, and it ran on a generator that he rigged up so he could talk and ride his bike on a CB. It was like, who thinks of that? That's the kind of guy he was.

Dennis G:

So I go off to college after '81 and I'm there '81, '82, '83, and that's when the crucible moment number one hit, the phone rang and it was my younger sister, Janice and Janice says, "Dennis, you need to come home." It's a Wednesday and I'm eight hours away at West Virginia University. I'm the first kid to go away to university in my family, and I'm like, "Janice, now I'm exactly where I need to be." Then she told me, mark died in a car accident, which is not true. Mark died in a car but it was no accident, you all know why I'm here, and the audience is now going to get a little taste of what's in my life here.

Dennis G:

Mark died by suicide, battled depression for years, and the disease state won. So right smack in the beginning of my junior year, which is kind of technically the middle of my college experience if you're looking at four years, I'm into it and this is October and I get that phone call and I went home and things were never the same after that.

Warwick F:

Before that happened did you ever think that was possible? Did you or your family think, Mark's a great guy but he is battling, call it demons, call it challenges. Did you ever think this was a possibility?

Dennis G:

I think like most people that age, he was looking for his place, looking for his tribe, so to speak and I don't think he found it. There was one time I think when he like ran away, like he's out of here and we didn't know where he was. So there was some inkling, but anytime you're dealing with like a suicide or a traumatic event, hindsight is 20/20, when you're in it, it's hard to see it. You're like, "Hey, you'll get over this, it's okay, you'll be fine." The truth of the matter was he wasn't fine, he was battling something, they call it the invisible illness. He didn't let us in, some people kind of, "Let us in, what's going on?"

Dennis G:

Looking back, there were signs and now that I'm knee deep in the business of suicide prevention, look back, eh, that one should have saw that one, could have caught that one, and it's brutal. It's brutal on you when you start thinking like that, the would've, the could've, the should'ves, and that's why a death by suicide is unlike any other, because it's so much like, what could I have done? What could I have seen? If mark was driving along and a rock fell down a cliff and took him out, you'd be ah, act of God. Just, man that's lousy timing, just terrible timing, he was in the highway at that moment. But with the suicide, it was planned out, it was thought about, the demons were strong and it got the best of him.

Warwick F:

So you rightly put it, obviously it's horrific for the person's family and friends that's left behind. As you say, you were a kid in college, it's not like you had the knowledge you have now. I mean you had maybe no knowledge or very little so, but it's easy to say, gosh, for your parents or your siblings, couldn't we have seen this or that if we'd gotten him counseling, if we've done this, that and the other, but it's not obvious if you don't have that training. So it's easy to objectively say, "Look, it's not your fault. It's fine." But it's probably a lot harder when you're in the midst of all of that and the emotions, and you're not thinking clearly in terms of, there's no way at that age I could possibly have known, right? You don't think that way at the time.

Dennis G:

Not at all. That age for me, and I'm not going to speak university for many of us, but I was 20, and when I was 20, I'll just speak about me. When I was 20, my life was all about me. I was the center of the universe. Everything was me, me, me, me, me. I, I, I, and I think one of the beautiful things about life when you start living for others, your self dies and you start living to others and that's where you, maybe it takes time, but I always marvel that people that figure that out at an early age, it took me a long time to figure that one out. But at a time 20, and if I go back to 1983, I was just about Dennis having a good time, I was in a fraternity, social. It was all, how can I have the best life ever?

Warwick F:

Well, that's normal for kids in college or kids at that age.

Dennis G:

Sure.

Warwick F:

I mean, so that's totally understandable. So that was obviously horrendous, but as we've mentioned, this wasn't the only tragedy. It was how many years later that you got another phone call about your younger brother?

Dennis G:

Fast forward from '83. Yeah, Matthew, poor Matthew. '83 lose Mark, 11 years later. Now I get out of college, four years and eight weeks, I did a summer session I'm out, and I go back to New York and I ended up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania working for a pretty darn good company. I'm doing pretty good. I'm working for Merck Pharmaceuticals, a big pharmaceutical company, I'm a sales rep, I got a great job, married living in Carlisle. I remember this day like it was yesterday and I just like Mark's phone call, those crucible moments, you know exactly where you were when that happened.

Dennis G:

I was in Carlisle in my living room and the phone rang and poor Janice, it was Janice again. I would tease her about this, but to this day when she calls my heart skips a beat, "Is everything okay? How's mom? How are you?" "She's like Dennis, I'm fine, I'm just going to say hi." "Hi." But she had the bad misfortune telling me about Matthew and in 1983, 1994, 11 years later, a decade and a year later, my younger brother, Matthew in a drunken stupor, with access to lethal means dies by suicide. That's two, and one is awful, awful, and in the United States, we have over 45,000 a year. The estimate is like 130 a day or some crazy number like that.

Dennis G:

You can do all the stats you want, it's mostly white males, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. None of that means a hill of beans, if it happens to you, and one, one is too many and our family got struck by lightning twice and it was awful.

Warwick F:

I mean, Mark was tough enough, but when Matthew happens, I mean, what were the emotions going on with you? I guess sisters and parents, I mean, there must have been just the level of grief, tragedy, anger must have been at a level that's hard to describe I'm guessing.

Dennis G:

It's just different when it's your little brother, I'm going to tear up thinking about this. Like maybe I should have been looking out for him, but I was too busy in my own little bubble and telling myself, after Mark died, I was 20, I was already drinking a lot, and then I ramped it up another level to numb that pain. Then when Matthew died, I got drunk the night before we buried Matthew, and I remember driving back home and I went dark after Matthew died, I mean really dark. I felt vulnerable for the first time in my life. I wasn't bulletproof, the weight of the world was on me and I'm driving back and I'm like, "You know what? I can't do this anymore. I can't."

Dennis G:

I remember hugging somebody at my brother Matthew's funeral, hugging this dude and saying, "I did this already." I thought you just checked the box, one and done. I said, "I did this already." When I got back to Carlisle, I was a mess, happy to report that the night before, when we buried Matthew, when I got drunk was the last time I've ever gotten drunk. So I'm over 27 years sober.

Gary S:

Congratulations.

Dennis G:

Thank you brother. I appreciate it. I heard your story. We all have our struggles, at that point, it was just a good move for me. I was as low as I could be. I was depressed and let's be honest, alcohol is a depressant. So do I need to put gasoline on this fire? I don't think so. The fire's kind of raging, so let's let it go. So I just decided to take a timeout and I'm happy to report the timeout is still lasting. Then I got like a God moment in there.

Dennis G:

My ex-wife and I were having a little trouble conceiving a child, and that was on our list. We married, had the house and next up is a kid and we were having trouble, and I made a little deal with God and I don't recommend this for anyone, but I said, "If we have a child I'll never drink again." Martin's 26, I'm 27 years sober, do the math. I'm a man of my word. I don't welter my bets. A bet is a bet. God provided Martin, I'm sober. I came out way ahead on that deal, and I don't recommend it, but I was in a bad spot.

Gary S:

One of the things that you said to me, Dennis, when we spoke before this, since you brought up the subject of God and somewhat miraculous conception, is you said that you had tried to run away from God and you ended up running to Him, unpack that a little bit for folks because not everybody goes through that, that's not for everybody per se. But in your particular case, it's interesting that there were two tragedies, two terrible tragedies, but you have these bookends of, I tried running away and then I ran to. What did that look like for you?

Dennis G:

Sure. The strong Catholic upbringing helped, it really came in handy, complete with all the Catholic guilt that comes with it. It was good. It was a solid foundation. So God was always on my mind. There were times I ran away, I can't do this, but I always came back and for some reason God always wins. If you're going to get in a wrestling match with God, he's going to win. He's going to pin you. He's going to humble you, and I felt extremely humbled after Matthew died. The way God really stepped into the picture after Matthew was 16 years later and everything's on God's timetable not ours. 16 years later, he puts this little bug in my ear saying, "Tell the story about your brothers." And I was like, "No, thank you, God. No, thank you at all. I'm going to take a hard pass on that one, God, what else you got? Eat that cheeseburger? That I'll do."

Dennis G:

So I spoke at a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I got involved with those good folks and I spoke for the first time publicly about my brothers, and it was awful, five minutes it was brutal. I got through it and I sat down and afterwards a lady came up to me and said, "You need to tell that story more often." And I said, "Oh, you just heard the one and done show, that's not happening." But God kept saying, "Maybe there's something here." Everybody's listening to your crucible moment, maybe something's in there, don't waste the pain."

Dennis G:

I started speaking about my brothers after that. I got a call from a university that said, "Hey, we saw you at that walk, that fundraiser, can you come speak to our students and interns?" And I bombed, I cried the whole time. They introduced me, I never heard myself introduced this way. Here's a guy who lost two brothers to suicide. That's something I never heard out loud until that day, and they go, "Ladies and gentlemen, Dennis Gillan." I'm sitting there, when they're introducing me, I'm going, "Oh, that poor guy, who is that guy?" And they said, "Oh, it's you crap." Then I just cried the whole time. So that didn't go very well. Then I got another call from a school that heard me speak at that school, and they said, "Hey, come down." And I only cried half the time. Hey, progress. Right?

Gary S:

Twice as good, twice as good. Right?

Dennis G:

Then the third time, here's another session where God enters the chat. I went to a Baptist school here in South Carolina, Charleston, Southern University, and they said before our speaker goes on, let's pray for him. This woman got up and prayed for me. I needed that, this room was packed. It was 220, the room held 220, there probably was 300 kids in there because it was part of convocation, they had to show up. They had to get credit, and I love that. Normally when I speak like on a campus or something, it's not voluntary, it's mandatory. You got to go, and they don't want to be there, and I love that audience because I walk into this hostile crowd and I'm going to wow them with this story.

Dennis G:

But she prayed and that's exactly what I needed to hear, and from that night forward, I think I had my calling. So I remember driving back and I brought my pastor with me and he said, he looked at me, he goes, "You got to keep going. You got something here. You got to keep going." Which I wish you would've said, "You kind of stink at this, you need to go back to your day job." And I'm like, "All right, God was wrong."

Warwick F:

So fast forward, I think it was like 16 years after '94 or thereabouts to your talk at the American Society of Suicide Prevention. So, I can relate in one small way sometimes when it's about your worst day, somebody says, "Do you want to talk about that?" "Relive my worst day, the pain, you've got to be nuts." Again, I'm reminded one of our very first podcasts on Beyond the Crucible, we interviewed a Navy seal that was paralyzed in a training accident. He was like one of the best of the best, his dad was a Navy seal, and I said, "Look, what I went through is nothing compared to what you went through." He stopped me, this is the guy who was paralyzed, the Navy seal, and said, "You know what? Your worst day is your worst day. It's not a competition, not a comparison."

Warwick F:

We've interviewed quadriplegics, victims of abuse, you name it, all sorts of things, and they all have that view which is amazing to me. But yeah, I mean, I guess by way of analogy, I mean, there are people that said you want to write about your story of losing 150 year old family business said, "There's no way." But then a little bit, maybe like you in a sense, in a small way, in 2008, I gave a talk in my church, some sermon about what I went through and yeah, I'm not Mr. Public Speaker, certainly not back then anyway. It was like 10 minutes or so, and afterwards people said, "Your talk really helped me." I'm thinking how many former media moguls are there in the congregation? Like none."

Warwick F:

Sadly way too many people and families have suffered, whether it's suicide or abuse, cancer, but like okay, well, maybe I should write a book about my story if I can help others. But I remember I couldn't do more than a couple hours a day because it was so painful reliving the memories that most of it was just my stupidity and my mistakes. Again, you can't compare pain, but I could imagine in some very small way people saying, "Dennis, your story can help people." You're thinking, I don't care, I am not talking about it. It's way too painful. How did you shift? People might have told you that for years, I'm guessing leading up to 2000 or thereabouts. How did you actually decide to speak about it? Because it's not easy to talk about that kind of pain.

Dennis G:

It's a great, great analogy. Hey, take your worst day. Great. Let's make a career out of that. No. No. Let's talk about that every day. No, it was interesting. When I did that fundraiser, they call it AFSP, the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, it felt cathartic, and there was a calling to do something, and then people would come up to you after and say, "I appreciate that talk. I'm going through some stuff here too." So basically our misery have become our mission in a sense.

Dennis G:

I remember I sat down with this pastor, another guy and I sat down with him and I said, "I wasted all this time, 16 years, I just sat on my rear end and didn't speak about these guys, and I blew it. I blew it. I blew it. I could have been more, more, more." And he said, "No, you were not ready. Those were your days in the desert." what he was talking about was the Exodus, when they just ran around the day, not ready yet. You're not ready yet. You're not ready yet. Okay now, here's the promise land. He was so right when he said that I forgave myself, I wasn't ready.

Warwick F:

Interesting. I guess Dennis is referring to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and they wanted to go to the promised land, but they made a few mistakes, which I guess the Bible calls, sin, lack of faith and all sorts of other things. Even Moses kind of wasn't good enough to make it to the promised land, but he saw it, but then never quite headed there. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting when he's like, "Gosh, I could have done more. I could have done it earlier." You used the word forgiveness, forgiving yourself. Why did you use that word? Because objectively it wasn't your fault, what happened to either of your brothers, what do you mean by forgiveness?

Dennis G:

Well, with the suicide or death by suicide, there's a stigma that comes, it's not justified, but it just comes with it. What could you have done differently? Did you see it? Could you have called him? Could you have done this? Could you have done that? In addition to forgiving myself, I have to forgive Matt and Mark. I have no idea what they were going through at that moment in time where that pain overrode their ability to be resilient. What was happening right then and there. We did at one of these walks, they had this balloon release and they said, "Dennis, you got to go over and release this balloon." I'm like, "I'm not doing that crap." It's such a guy move, like I'm not doing that symbolism stuff.

Dennis G:

So my ex-wife at the time said, "No, your team raised a lot of money, you got to go over there." So I went over there, they gave me a balloon and they said, "All right, just think about why we're here and all this stuff." Right before I released it, and this is where, now I believe in this stuff. If you ever have something really bad happen, write a letter to that person and then burn it, even if you don't send it. But this symbolism of letting that balloon go. I said, "Matt, Mark, I forgive you." And I let it go. That was like a big turning point for me, because I was so mad at those two.

Dennis G:

I used to say to people "when I go to heaven, I don't know if I'm going to punch them or hug them, just depends on the mood when I die, what's going to happen." So it was really interesting in that way, it's just now I believe in that stuff and I also believe in what all three of us have shared the vulnerability piece for guys. It's okay to not be okay.

Warwick F:

I want to make sure listeners hear what you just said, because it's so important, and we do talk about that on Beyond the Crucible is, you go through a crucible, sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it's other people's fault and you have to forgive yourself. We had a woman on the podcast, Stacy Copas from Australia and she became a quadriplegic by diving into an above ground pool. Now she was 12. Clearly it was "her fault." But when you're young, you feel like you bulletproof and you ignore your parents and say, "Don't do it, don't do it, Stacy."

Warwick F:

So she battled substance abuse and it's like, "Why did I do this to myself?" So she had to forgive herself, and again, you're young, it's objectively saying, "Look, come on. Young people do silly things." But for everybody that we've talked to, there is no way back from the pit, from your darkest moment without forgiveness and you got to forgive yourself, you've got to forgive others, depends on the situation, I get how in your case it was both. But because that's important, I mean, from my perspective, God loves all of us, life is a precious gift and for God to use us in any way, shape or form, we have to be able to forgive us and others. Life is too important, you can't help anybody else until you take care of yourself, which you've done both in counseling and forgiveness. It's so important. I want listeners to hear.

Warwick F:

So we're at 2000, you're speaking, and I don't know if you mentioned off air that you view yourself as like this natural charismatic speaker that, hey, this is easy, I could speak anywhere, anytime, no notes. I mean, is that an easy thing or is that a challenging thing for you? Because most people hate speaking to be honest.

Dennis G:

Well, God enters the chat again. When I was looking for a new career and trying to settle in Columbia, South Carolina, I started attending Toastmasters meetings and Toastmasters is a group that trains you how to be a speaker, and I was not going to be a speaker. I was not good at it. I tried something at church one time and bombed and my leg was shaking and my voice went real high. It was a capital campaign, I was like my leg shaking, I'm like, "Hey, we need money for the church." And it was like, "Whoa, what's happening to that dude?" "It would really be nice if you guys can help." And it was horrible.

Dennis G:

I'm like, "You know what, if I want to go somewhere, I got to learn how to speak publicly." So I started going to Toastmasters, those wonderful people became my friends and started going every Friday morning at this little restaurant called Lizard's Thicket, get breakfast, do a couple speeches, and in a weird way, God was preparing me going, listen, I got to plan for you, you don't know it yet, and then sure enough, now that when I speak all those skills that I learned at those meetings where I was just going for a very selfish reason to make connections so I can get another job now are being used for this job.

Dennis G:

I've called on those a lot and I'd like to think I'm a good speaker. The topic's tough, but there are times every time I go to speak, I have to peel away right in the beginning, I tell the people I'm working with said, "Listen, I'm going to disappear for a little bit." And I go and pray and just say, "Is this what you want me to do? Because I'm about to do it. I'm going to tear up thinking about this. Like, God, is this what you want me to do?" I always hear like, "Get your butt on stage. Let's go." Then I come running back and I'm like, "Here we go, give the microphone."

Warwick F:

That's such an important lesson that I obviously wholeheartedly agree with. There is a phrase that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. Now whether you believe in God or some universal power, when you just say like, "I'm going to do my best, but I'm scared, my knees are wobbling, God you got to help me." From my experience, He always does. If you go in there saying, "I got it," you typically don't got it and it won't go well. So when you go in there and say, "I don't got it. I'm scared. You're going to have to help me." You're just being vulnerable and authentic, people yearn for that, and obviously you do. I think you don't have to be Mr. or Mrs. Charismatic Speaker to speak or really to do anything. You just got to say, "Look, I feel called to do this, so I'm going to do it."

Dennis G:

You can't teach passion, exactly, Warwick. You can't teach passion. If the person's passionate about it, it's going to come out, whether they're a good speaker or not, you're going to feel it. I've seen some really bad speakers who are really passionate about the cause, I'm like, "I'm with them. I'm with them."

Warwick F:

I want to get to obviously, Half the Sorrow Foundation and this wonderful phrase, purple file, or this wonderful concept. But one of the things I've found, and I don't know whether you found, I'm guessing you probably have is, my book came out in October last year, October, 2021. I began speaking at young people and business groups and I'm a pretty functional, healthy person, there are always scars when you go through tragedies. But when you have people say, "Warwick, your story really helped me." A young person or boy, thank you. We call it a healing balm.

Warwick F:

There's some level of additional healing, when somehow, I know everybody's heard this a million times, pain for a purpose. Somehow what you went through can help others, there is some additional level of healing. I mean, am I guessing? You've probably found that, when you speak and people say, "You know, Dennis, thank you for sharing your story, because that really has helped me." Have you found that in your own life?

Dennis G:

Oh, I've had some unbelievable God moments like that. I'll be done speaking at one school I got done at 8:00, I got back to my car at 10:30. People want to come up because you're showing them a weakness, which is actually your strength, you're vulnerable on stage, and then they want to share their vulnerability. The first time it really happened to me was at this huge sorority convention, 600 women in this room, which is kind of funny, because I couldn't talk to one of them while I was in college, and now I got invited to talk to 600.

Warwick F:

That's so funny.

Dennis G:

I couldn't wrap the sandwich. Right? So I get invited to speak to these women and I come down and grab my bag. I went up and got my disc, my files from the sound guy, and I come downstairs and grab my bag and leave, and there's a line of people waiting to speak to me, and it's never happened before. I'm like, "Okay, you want to talk to me?" And they're, "yeah." So now I build that into my presentation, I stick around as long as they need me to stick around and it's been very cathartic for me and them. But once you share your pain, someone's going to share their pain with you, and there's a kindred spirit in that, the vulnerability piece that makes us all human and we can use a lot more of that right about now.

Warwick F:

Additional level of healing. So talk about before we get to purple file, I love that phrase, Half a Sorrow Foundation. Talk about the origin of that name. Where does that come from?

Dennis G:

Sure. I believe it's a Swedish proverb and I was thinking about doing this foundation, someone gave me the advice. I crowdsourced it on Facebook, I said, "Hey guys, what would you do if you were naming a foundation?" And one guy, a good fraternity friend of mine, David Molgard said, "Don't name an after your brothers." Because everybody else was doing Matt Mark, Mark Matt, they're doing all kind of variations. I sat there like, "Huh, that's interesting." Then I always had this thing in my talk where I talk about a shared joy is a double joy, a shared sorrow is half a sorrow, and it resonates with the audience. That's the proverb, the Swedish proverb. I was like, "That thing hits home."

Dennis G:

So I started think about it, and I said, "You know what? The Half a Sorrow Foundation." Because that thing floored me when I heard it, and it took me forever. I might have heard it when I was a kid, I might have heard it in school, but when I heard it when I was driving in my car, age 50, after burying two brothers, thinking about my speaking career, that thing meant all the world to me, a shared joy is a double joy, a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Warwick F:

You've lived that right? It does lessen the agony of the sorrow at least a little bit by sharing it. Right?

Dennis G:

Absolutely, and I say in the talk, I say, "A half of a half of a half of a half, I will never get to zero." That's okay, because my brothers meant something to me. I don't want to get to zero. If I get to zero, we better check for a pulse. It's my time, turn around the Grim Reaper's behind me, like yeah, it's time. I'll always have those guys with me.

Warwick F:

So talk about what the foundation does just so that listeners can understand.

Dennis G:

Sure. We had a lot of programs that were focused on gathering and then COVID took care of that. We were doing this men's thing, this men's breakfast, trying to get men together. Again, that's my thing with mental health. I do a men's night at the local tennis center, and we do a little talk about mental health, then we go out and play, because that's how guys talk. They don't talk about stuff like one on one, they'll talk while shooting basketball or playing ping pong, that's how we talk. The genesis of the foundation was to go to schools that can't afford me.

Dennis G:

I'm not going to get rich doing this, but I had a call from a kid in Texas one time and they wanted me to come down there and this is before the foundation existed and we couldn't make it work, budgets, flights, we just couldn't do it, and I had to say no to them. I remember I was crying after the call, I never said no to anybody. That was the first time I had to say no, and I said, "Wow, if I had a foundation that could pay the way so if this kid ever calls back, I have two questions for him. One what time? And what do I wear? Because I'm coming because the foundation will cover the cost." That's where it started.

Warwick F:

That's awesome, and speaking about where it started, Gary mentioned to me and in honor of you, he's wearing a purple, maybe it's burgundy jacket.

Gary S:

It is burgundy, I'm not the Joker.

Warwick F:

It's beautiful. I love this concept of a purple file, that in all seriousness, I think can be so helpful. Talk about what that is and why that is so important for people, especially when they're not feeling that great about life for themselves. What is a purple file?

Dennis G:

Warwick and Gary, what happened with that was people would write me notes every now and then I'm like, "How do I capture this?" So I started printing them out and shoving them in this little file and it's kind of a selfish reason again. Everything's about me, but I thought one day when I die, my kids will find this file and go, "Oh my gosh, daddy touched some people." I have two boys, Martin and Brandon, sorry, but little did I know that I need the file right now, because there are some days I feel like quitting this job, like, oh my gosh, how much can a man take? Then I go back to the file and it's a living, breathing file. It's behind me in my office, right now I brought it here.

Dennis G:

I will open it up and I'll start reading some of the letters that people sent after the talk, and that rejuvenates me like, all right, stay on focus, Dennis, it's a bad day today, but we got this, we got this. Keep going. So it's a real source of determination for me, and I think everybody should have a purple file. Just a couple notes. Something you got from someone who believed in you, who saw something in you that you did not see yourself, and I print it out and I read it. I'm old school, I printed. If you have a desktop icon, just call it the purple file, and anyone sends you a nice email for work, you pop it in there, you pop it in there. It came out to be like a little brag book, but we don't like to brag, it's more of an inspiration file than anything.

Gary S:

I want to emphasize to listeners how powerful this is. I found out about this. I found out about Dennis, the current issue that's out right now, as we're recording this with Entrepreneur Magazine, he has a column that he wrote in the front of the magazine, short column, where he talks about the file and what exactly what he just said. Here's a quote from Dennis' column, "When I consider quitting, I grab the file and come back with renewed determination." Then he says, "Do you have a similar file?" I was in bed reading this and I already started pulling things together before I went to sleep that night. I just want to bring this home to listeners about the kinds of things that can go in there that do exactly what Dennis talks about.

Gary S:

In my day job when I'm not co-hosting this show, I am a public relations guy, that's what I do. My job is to get clients coverage in the media. That's not the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you pitch clients to go in the media and the media doesn't want to feature them. That can be those moments that you just described, Dennis, where you just kind of want to quit or like, why am I doing this? I'm banging my head against the wall it's not working.

Gary S:

I'm going to read a short note that I have in my purple file inspired by your article in Entrepreneur, that on those days I had on my wall, still do, I made a photocopy for the file, but this is what it says. It's from June, 2018, and this is a letter written to me by two people I represented pro bono whose eldest son murdered their two youngest children. Okay? So let that sink in and the kind of sorrow that they were going through. The media was very interested in wanting to talk to them. They went to church where I used to go to church in Colorado Springs, the pastor at my old church connected me with them and I represented them to the media, got some coverage of their hearts to make sure that they got treated fairly. This is what they wrote to me in June, 2018.

Gary S:

"Gary, thank you from the depths of our hearts for your strong support in us, your guidance and counsel has literally saved us for much more pain and confusion in a world where we feel lost and blind. You became our eyes and voice in the media and public. You have become our friend. Thank you for always listening, always praying, always encouraging us into Christ. We are eternally grateful to you, truly, don't give up doing what you do in PR, (unless God tells you) because you mean a lot, your value and worth is remarkable. It's priceless. Your passion is beautiful and inspiring. We are so beyond blessed to call you friend. Gary, we love you and thank you in the name of the father, God and Lord and savior Jesus Christ."

Gary S:

There is no journalist on the face of the planet who's going to tell me "no" when I pitch Warwick or somebody else, that's going to win my head and heart into a bad place when I've got something like this that I have in this inspired by you, Dennis, purple file. That's the power of having a purple file.

Warwick F:

Well thank you for sharing that, Gary-

Dennis G:

Thank you.

Warwick F:

That is just so, so powerful. I want listeners again, if you haven't got it already, you should listen carefully. I don't have a purple file yet, but conceptually, as I think back in our dark days, having those messages of hope, I remember when the company went under and I do have a file with this. People would write me letters, people I didn't know. Readers of the main paper, we had Sydney Morning Herald, and I had people just somewhere in Sydney or elsewhere. It's like, "You don't know me but I'm so sorry what happened, the company going under, we're praying for you."

Warwick F:

I've got a bunch of these letters that people, I don't know who they are, I've never met them, probably never will. It's like, wow, I mean, now that I'm speaking, you have people come up and say things which is very heartwarming. I did a podcast, a Harvard Business School Alumni Podcast. I had a couple of messages right after, a guy saying, "Yep, I'm some private equity guy, and I just found out that my sort of $100 million company is going under today, and I don't know what I'm going to tell my wife and kids and sort of lost everything, and thank you."

Warwick F:

I mean, those words of encouragement during our dark days, one of the things that we do, start at the same level as a purple file, but it's a family thing we do, is every birthday we go round and I have two adult sons and a daughter in the middle and we go around and say, "What is it we admire about whoever it is?" Two of my kids are writers, and so in addition to what they say verbally, they write cards, typically paragraphs. So I mean, I have those things over the years and just that sort of love and affirmation from your kids. It's one thing to say, "I love you dad," which is great, but I love you because, A, B, C, D, E, F, in great detail.

Warwick F:

So yeah, during our dark days, those are what I call drops of grace. Everything is spiritual for me, so thank you Lord, for those drops of grace. Those affirmations that say, "Hey, I'm not perfect, but thank you for that encouragement," because it helps us get through those the dark days. If you believe in light and dark and we're studying spiritual warfare in our church at the moment, which is certainly not my favorite subject at all. But if you believe there is a battle there between good and evil, which most religions say, when those dark thoughts come, prayer, reading your Bible or whatever it is, but also remembering the affirmations from people. Those are also I think, tools from above to help us sustain those dark days. So purple file, if you don't have one yet, make one physically, virtually, don't forget those good words in those dark days. So, so important. So thank you so much.

Gary S:

Let me jump in and add and add one more thing here before the captain gets on the microphone here, because I want to ask you this question, Dennis, and it goes in exactly what Warwick was talking about, about the importance of affirmation and why the purple file is so powerful for people. You said this phrase a couple of times, when you were speaking about Mark and Matthew and how they passed, you talked about how the disease state won. That's what led to their deaths, the disease state won. Is it fair to say that a purple file, those kinds of affirmations, that point out the things that you do right, that point out why you should keep going, those are some of the things that you can use to keep the disease state from winning.

Dennis G:

I totally believe that, great point, Gary and Warwick, thank you for sharing that you're going to have a purple file soon because you got enough content already. I think it's part of your self-care plan. Self-care is not selfish, that's like a buzzword in the industry, but we got to take care of ourselves, and I think the purple file is a great way to do that. If you're feeling down and out and you've got this file of people that believe in you and wrote stuff, yeah, grab it, that's part of your recovery process. Exactly what you're saying Gary, keep the disease at bay. The purple file started out, my brag book, think much of yourself, Dennis, it's now become like a self-care book. Hey Dennis, keep going man, these people, they have faith in you. You may not have the faith right now, but those folks in that file do, and Gary, that letter you have for that pro bono work you did for that family, nobody's going to tell you no and ruin your day now. It's not going to happen, not going to happen.

Gary S:

Nope. Never.

Dennis G:

They don't own your head space, because that letter is taking up all that head space and it should, it's awesome.

Gary S:

That sound you heard listener was not just Dennis making a good point at the end of his sentence, but it was the sound of the captain turning it on the fastened seatbelt sign, which indicates we're going to have to land the plane here in a bit. Before we do that though, I would be remiss, Dennis, if I did not give you the chance to let listeners know how they can learn more about the Half a Sorrow Foundation, more about your speaking, more about you.

Dennis G:

Sure. I am transitioning between two websites. I have one that's my name, dennisgillan.com.

Gary S:

Not Gillian, right? It's Dennis, G-I-L-L-A-N.

Dennis G:

That's right. You've had experiences spelling your last name. I get it. So we're going from that one to the halfasorrow.org, that's where we're going. It's funny, I was doing all my speaking under my own business saying you know what? It's bigger than me, so we're going to create a foundation so I can actually get other speakers, do more programming. So I'm migrating, I love the Dennis Gillan site, it has my TEDx Talk on there. We moved a lot of that stuff over to the halfasorrow.org site, and you can see my TEDx Talk on both of those now, but that's where we're going that's where we get a hold of me. I do monitor both of them and all the emails that come in, requests to speak and all that good stuff, and it's been quite the journey and I'm looking forward to many more years of this.

Dennis G:

Running into guys like you, we put an article out there in Entrepreneur, I hope somebody reads it, and the next thing you know, a week later, I'm on a podcast, talking to two guys who've had similar trials and tribulations in the end we all have them. So I thank you both for bringing me on.

Gary S:

Warwick, the last question or questions are yours.

Warwick F:

Well thank you Dennis, for so much, I really appreciate your message of hope, and as we close, there might on people listening today, they might have had family members who've committed suicide, I hope and pray this is not the case. Maybe there are some folks that have those thoughts. Maybe it's not suicide, maybe they've just today is a horrendous day because of what somebody did to them or tragedy, maybe mistakes they've made. What would the message of hope that you would give listeners who today they might feel like today's their worst day? What message of hope would you offer them?

Dennis G:

I had really bad worst days and everyone did, like I said earlier, we don't want to compare the trauma Olympics. Your worst day is your worst day, but I'm here to tell you better days are coming, and it sounds trite but I couldn't see out of that darkness when Matthew died, I couldn't see it. There were days if I got up by noon, that was a good day. We started the day like, "Oh, I'm up by noon." I get it. I get that dark place, what's that old poem in the valleys that I grow? Believe it or not let the grief do its work, whatever you're grieving, let it do its work, and hopefully this work when it's completed, you'll come out the other side a more compassionate human being. I feel everything now, the highest highs, the lowest lows, I feel them all and I'd have it no other way.

Dennis G:

Before I try to numb all that stuff. When Mark died I tried to numb feeling the lows, but ended up numbing the highs, I numbed at all. Suicide is not an option, I'm speaking from the heart about this. I'm going to cry thinking about this, it's a horrible option. You heard on the podcast what it did to me and my family, it wrecked us. Let's be honest, for years and going forward, we recovered sort of, and we're still on this journey by the grace of God. But if I could tell your listeners anything, just take that one off the table. Just take that one off the table. Sorry, that's not an option.

Dennis G:

You're popping your head. You can chase it out, and sometimes the purple file helps you chase it out too, if you go look at a note, chase it out and let's stick around, see where this thing ends up. Typically, on this podcast, you've heard crucible moments, people will say that was the worst day of your life, yeah, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me into a better person. I've heard that a million times. Would you change anything about that day? No, I wouldn't change the thing about that day because of who I am now. Take suicide off the table, push it aside, stay with us, and time does have amazing way of healing. But when you die by suicide, you throw away your best ally - time. Stay with us.

Gary S:

It's a wonderful problem to have when the guest takes your job of closing the show, Dennis, that was a perfect summary of not just our discussion today, but what we talk about at Beyond the Crucible all the time, and that is that crucible experiences are extraordinarily painful, but they're not the end of your story. You learn the lessons from them. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep moving forward and far from the end of your story, they can become the beginning of a new story that leads to unimaginable joy and fulfillment.

Gary S:

I believe I can speak for you when I say, I think you feel that right now yourself, that's where you are at. You've learned the lessons of what happened and you are living your best life. That's what we hope for all of you listeners. So until the next time we're together, do you remember that, your crucible experiences aren't the end of your story, that they are the beginning of a new story, that can be the best story of your life because at the end of that story, where the GPS is set to when you take that journey is what we call here at Crucible Leadership, a life of significance.