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.

Zachary Green’s life story is the stuff of movies – a stint in the Marines that taught him survival skills he used beyond the battlefield, creating a successful business where the crucibles came early and often, then being laid so low by COVID-19 that he thought his life would end. But it did not. And neither did his dreams. He compiled the truths and tactics he learned from his military and business experiences – successes and failures alike – into WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, his best-selling book that offers readers insight and inspiration to defeat the devastation of crucible experiences and turn them into the fuel for a life of significance.

To learn more about Zachary Green and his book, WARRIOR ENTREPRENEUR, visit www.warriorentrepreneurbook.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Zachary G:

So I go on vacation. I tell my CFO, "Whatever you do, do not call me." I want to really check out and just be present for my family that I've neglected these last couple of years as I grew this company, and guess what happens? He calls me, and I remember his words, and more importantly, I remember his tone of voice, very somber, saying, "Zach, I'm sorry to inform you, but there is no way out of this. We are going to have to liquidate, and when you come back, we need to talk about bankruptcy options."

Zachary G:

Now, for me, it wasn't just that I was losing my dream. It was that I was letting my firefighter brothers and sisters down because I couldn't produce this lifesaving product. The bank was going to foreclose on my house, because at that point in time, I had spent all my money and I had to use my house as collateral.

Zachary G:

I would have to go through the humility of going bankrupt and being known in our area as somewhat a celebrity entrepreneur and look at how far I fell. And at that time, that's when the abyss started to really come into focus for me. I thought I was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. I dropped down to my knees. I can't breathe. I could feel tightness in my chest. I could feel electrical currents shooting down my arm. Everything they taught me in the fire service that if someone presents with that, you take them immediately to the hospital.

Gary S:

How do you move beyond a crucible like that, one that not only threatens your livelihood, but your life? This week's guest, Zachary Green, tells Warwick he did it by activating his inner warrior. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Green's life story is the stuff of movies. A stint in the Marines that taught him survival skills he used beyond the battlefield. Creating a successful business where the crucibles came early and often. Then being laid so low by COVID-19 that he thought his life would end, but it did not, and neither did his dreams.

Gary S:

He compiled the truths and tactics he learned from his military and business experiences, successes and failures alike, into Warrior Entrepreneur, his bestselling book that offers readers insight and inspiration to defeat the devastation of crucible experiences and turn them into the fuel for a life of significance.

Warwick F:

Well, Zach, thank you so much for being here. I love just looking through your book, Warrior Entrepreneur and love all the military metaphors, Spartans, and what have you. I've never been in the military, but love military history and some of the great heroes of antiquity and history. I love just understanding just what a successful entrepreneur, and the courage you have of just producing products that serve real needs and help people.

Warwick F:

But I'd like to go back, as we do here at Beyond the Crucible, a bit of the origin story. I think you grew up in the Cincinnati area, and had some challenges. I think you were in five different schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, and ADHD. So talk a bit about the backstory of Zach Green and growing up and, yeah, some of the traits probably that ended up serving you well later on in life, although it probably didn't seem so at the time.

Zachary G:

Well, Warwick and Gary, thank you so much for the opportunity to be speaking with you much for the opportunity to be speaking with you as your guest today. I chose the location of where we're going to have the discussion today at a very sacred place for both me and quite a few people in our country, and that is Parris Island Marine Corp base.

Zachary G:

Behind me, you're actually seeing a lot of activity. We are on a live, active Marine Corps base, and we just recently had a graduation of our newest Marines. So if you see some young men with a big smile on their face, it's because they just finished a very, very grueling, both crucible, which we'll talk about, before, and their experience here in the Marine Corps. So pardon in the background music, it's just simply the noise of freedom in the background there.

Zachary G:

But to answer your question, Warwick, I did struggle a lot growing up. I had very severe ADHD. Now, it's funny because when you're in school, it's called ADHD. It's considered a disability. When you get out of school, you're called a multitasker and you're very energetic and it's a great trait.

Zachary G:

And it's funny how keeping you at your desk, listening to reading, writing, and arithmetic is such a challenge, but when you get out and you do four or five things at a time and you have a lot of energy and you're able to help inspire others, like you have, Warwick, to grow and build a business, that disability becomes actually an ability.

Zachary G:

For me, what that did, though, was it gave me a foundation in my youth where I had a lot of people tell me I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't good enough. Now, for most young kids, that's something that's probably going to carry that emotional baggage with them throughout their entire life and really cause issues. For me, it did the opposite. It motivated me.

Zachary G:

The more people told me that I wasn't smart enough, or I wasn't good enough, the more that drove me to be able to prove them wrong, and always, in everything I do, I'm never, ever content with my success. I'm never, ever happy with where we've gotten, because I still feel that voice in the back of my head saying, "You're not good enough." And what I've done is I've turned that into an ability to drive me to success and greatness, and now at this point in my life, to help inspire others to do the same.

Warwick F:

So you're 18 years old and you decide to join the Marines. Why the Marines? I mean, clearly you've had this warrior... I don't know if it came from parents or other influences, but you just always had this desire to be in the military and specifically the Marines, so how did that all come about?

Zachary G:

The short answer is because they're the best, and now, I know there are other units, other branches that have their units, the Navy SEALS, the Army Rangers, but as a force in itself, nothing comes close to the Marine Corps.

Zachary G:

But let's back it up a little bit before that. I always knew I was going to be a Marine. I had posters of the Marines in their fancy uniform on my walls. I constantly was collecting videos and things around Marine movies, but I wanted to double-check.

Zachary G:

So when I was doing my round of the recruiters, I remember going to the Navy recruiter and saying, "Hey, what does the Navy have to offer me?" And he pulls out this booklet, starts showing me all these incredible pictures of all these places that I can travel to, the adventures of the high seas.

Zachary G:

So then I go to the Air Force recruiter and he starts talking about how easy it is, it's very civilian-oriented, it's a very easy transition from civilian to the air force, back to civilian. Then I go to the Army, and the Army starts throwing out all the money and bonuses I can get, and all the great jobs that I can do.

Zachary G:

So I finally get to the Marine Corps recruiter, and I'll never forget, it was Sergeant Beatrie Houston, this big, huge Marine. Big chest, tiny waist. I walk in, he greets me with this big smile and a firm handshake, and he's like, "What can I do for you?" And as a typical 18-year-old cocky kid, I said, "Well, Army offered me, Navy offered me that, Air Force offered me this. What can the Marine Corps do for me?"

Zachary G:

And that smile turned upside down into a grimace. He sat in his chair, he put his feet up on the desk and he looked at me. He goes, "Son, we've been the finest fighting force for 250 years. We're going to continue to be that way with or without you. The question is, what can you do for the Marine Corps?"

Zachary G:

So I'm like, "Wait a second," and then he goes, "I've seen your type. You're not strong enough. You're not tough enough. There's no way you could handle Parris Island and go through recruit training." And I showed him, because I yanked the contract out of his hand, signed it right there on the spot and said, "You know what? I'm going to prove to you that that's not the case."

Zachary G:

So it was a great tool to use against arrogant teenagers like myself, but before you knew it, I was down in this godforsaken place here of Parris island, the land that God forgot, with sand fleas and drill instructors, and really started that journey to ultimately become a Marine.

Warwick F:

That's an amazing story, and you were in the Marines, it sounds like, for about nine years. You went through that, I don't know how many weeks it is, but that basic training where you are right now, in Parris Island, which is probably some of the toughest training on the planet. And you got through, you did show them that you were tough enough, that you could take it, which is impressive.

Warwick F:

You clearly love the Marines, but you have... There was this, I guess, transition, this pivot point in your story, in which, from your book, you make it clear your wife is a medical doctor, and you met her, and she had this phrase, "It's the Marine Corps or me." I mean, that is laying down the gauntlet. That is laying down the challenge.

Zachary G:

Yes, that's not unique to her. A lot of women have that same phrase.

Warwick F:

So tell us about that choice. You could have said, "Well, it's the Marine Corps, sorry."

Zachary G:

To back up, at the Marine Corps... I had a wonderful family, even though I did have a lot of challenges growing up, they afforded me every opportunity to get me tested, to have me go to different schools, to give me extra tutoring, lived in a very nice upper class neighborhood. Great friends and support structure.

Zachary G:

What was interesting was, when I get down here to Parris Island, the first thing they show you is that you're not unique. Everyone's the same, and you all suck, for the lack of better words. It was interesting, I really struggled those first couple weeks, and the kids that didn't struggle were the kids that grew up in the coal mines of West Virginia, that didn't get three meals a day. The kids that were in the projects of New Orleans that didn't sometimes have a place to sleep. They excelled so quickly in this environment, where I really struggled because I didn't have that warrior skin that they had growing up.

Zachary G:

So my time in the Marine Corps was brief. It was very uneventful, which is the reason I didn't re-enlist for a second tour. I actually went through both Parris Island, then I went to Quantico and went through the officer program, and there was no deployments. I was in the infantry. I wanted to go out and kill our enemy and be a infantryman, and there was no opportunity, so I got out, and then two years later, September 11th happened, a day we all remember very well.

Zachary G:

That was right about the time that I met my wife, and decided at that point, I'm going to really pursue my career in corporate America and try to focus on some of those things that I couldn't get in the Marine Corps. And joining the fire department was a real experience because I was riddled with a ton of survivor's guilt, in that I was in the Corps, I got out. Two years later, we have this horrible event that happens. My brothers and sisters are going off to far-off distant lands, taking vengeance to our enemy and justice to them, getting killed. I went to a lot of funerals and looked at those flag-draped coffins and realized that could have been me. I left, and left a hole in my unit, and someone filled that hole, and now they're dead and I'm not.

Zachary G:

So I had this fever, and again, as I looked at the Spartans, the Marines, it's never really about them. It's just about the sense of service. It's about putting something above you, and serving to get your growth rather than just taking. And when I joined the fire department, it's funny, because in the Marine Corps, we take stuff that's really miserable... Or really fun, and we make it as miserable as possible. In the fire service, we take stuff that's really miserable and we make it as fun as possible. So it was an interesting transition as I moved from the Marines to becoming a firefighter.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's... Obviously you had no way of knowing when you got out what was going to happen. Your wife could have, as I said, threw down the gauntlet, and obviously as you said in the book, that was a fantastic decision, and you've been married many years, and obviously what a blessing that's been. But you still had this desire to serve, and, "Okay, maybe my time in the Marine Corps is up, but I could serve in the fire department." You were working at Eli Lilly at the time, so you could still serve, so it seemed like... And that was to lead to future businesses, which obviously you weren't to know at the time.

Warwick F:

So talk about, there's sort of another pivot, when you're working in Eli Lilly and you had to make a decision about being an entrepreneur, and it sounds like you had a boss that was particularly helpful in helping you think things through. So talk about that, one of the certainly key career pivot points, from Eli Lilly into being an entrepreneur.

Zachary G:

That's a great question, and it's funny because as I look back, it's interesting how I've come full circle with this, both decision process and what got me to that decision point and ultimately brought me back to it. And I'll explain that in a second. What I learned at Eli Lilly, it's all about solutions to problems. So all the problems we had were depression, diabetes, it could be sepsis. Our solutions were not a drug, not a pill, but a brand.

Zachary G:

And what we did with the brand as we first looked at, "Okay, what is the disease? What is the problem? Who are the people that suffer from that disease? How can we help them solve the problem?" We never would show on a commercial that if you take our diabetes, your hemoglobin H1c's would go down. We would show a grandfather now playing with his grandchildren, because that's ultimately what the solution was.

Zachary G:

So in that light, I was just such a fan of marketing and how we provide solutions to problems. However, it's a very large company, tremendous bureaucracy, tremendous procedures. You not only had the typical bureaucracy and process that you have in corporate America, but we had the FDA also, and all the legal and medical and compliance issues.

Zachary G:

Every time I'd come up with a great idea, it would take six to nine months to just get vetted, and by the time it was vetted, it was so different than what I wanted to do, and it was so neutered, to the point that it wasn't even a great idea anymore. And I was just like, "One day, I'm going to do my own thing."

Zachary G:

So my journey to entrepreneurship, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know when and how and what it would look like. But during my early times in the fire service, I got lost in a fire. It was a horrifying experience. Couldn't see my hand in front of my face. And as soon as I got out, I wanted to find a way to solve that problem.

Zachary G:

And what I came up with was this glow-in-the-dark material that glowed so bright and for so long, and I worked with a couple people to put it into different materials, like helmets and tools, and I started selling it out of the trunk of my car the more it started to take off. And that really was the basis of the company.

Zachary G:

Now, what I would do is I wouldn't talk about glow-in-the-dark material and how long it glowed for. What I would do is I'd go to a fire station, I'd have all my samples with me, knock on the front door, I'd say, "Hey, I'm Zach, I'm a firefighter from the Cincinnati area. Can we go in the bathroom and turn the lights off together?" And if they didn't beat me up, they'd usually say, "Oh, well that's actually cool."

Zachary G:

And the reason I did that was that dark room, I could show them the problem of disorientation. The fact they didn't know where they were because there was no windows. And then when I pulled the glow-in-the-dark material out, I could show them the solution to that problem, which is having a visual reference point to orient yourself and to find your way out.

Zachary G:

My story comes full circle in the fact that as the company started to grow, and it grew rapidly, grew very quickly outside of my capability, I missed the fact that I didn't have a team of people that I could bounce ideas off of. I missed the fact that I didn't have an HR department that could vet the ideas. A legal department to talk with if there was a liability.

Zachary G:

And it turns out all that stuff that I hated at Eli Lilly, bureaucracy and procedure, was what I missed in my entrepreneurial journey, because I didn't have that support structure, those things that were put together. So there is a reason for that. When I was at that low level, as a sales manager and as a trainer, I couldn't see it. But when I was the CEO and the founder, and ultimately I was the one that was going to get sued, I really realized what a credible process that was, that they built over that last century, of bureaucracy, procedures and the process.

Gary S:

So the lesson there is, bureaucracy is not in and of itself a crucible, right? I mean, bureaucracy can be quite a help. It's not a bad thing necessarily if you apply it in the right way, for sure.

Zachary G:

It just depends on where you look at the problem. If you're looking at a very selfish point, and that you want your idea, then yes, it's a problem. But if you're looking for the greater good, which is how can we help our company accomplish their mission, how can we ultimately help our patients have better outcomes, it's not about you. You're part of that program, and that team, and that bureaucracy and that procedure is actually a good thing.

Zachary G:

And then the same thing in our government. People say, "Oh, well, DC's so messed up." No, it's not. It is a amazing process that they put in place to make things go through procedures and committees, and get voted and filibustered. That's all there for a reason, so that when we finally have a law or we finally have a product, it's been vetted, it's been looked at from all those different areas. It's frustrating to go through the process sometimes, because we're a generation of immediacy, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of value in that.

Warwick F:

Yeah. It sounds like that was maybe a first crucible, or certainly a crucible in which at one point I think you were vacationing in Hawaii with the family and got a call that, "Hey, we can't meet payroll," and you had some financial challenges. I think you write in the book that the vast majority of startups fail. I don't know if it's 90%, but it's a massive number.

Warwick F:

But it sounds like you did what most entrepreneurs don't, that you realized you're a good founder and entrepreneur, but maybe not the day-to-day executive, because those skills are just radically different. Typically a founder or entrepreneur clings on too tightly, says, "This is my baby. I started it in my garage. I'm not giving up the keys of the kingdom," and ultimately they fail.

Warwick F:

But you were wise enough to say, "I'm going to do what I can do. I'm going to be the cheerleader. I'm going to lead the charge, be the visionary, but I'm going to have others manage it day-to-day." So how did you make that change? Because you went where most entrepreneurs don't. It takes a level of humility, courage and common sense. How did you make that pivot?

Zachary G:

So, before we can get into that, we really have to look at what the warrior's journey and how critical the crucible is during that journey. My first crucible, actually, and it's kind of amazing that I'm sitting here, happened a couple hundred feet behind me on the parade deck. And that was about week three or four into training, when I kept messing up, and again, these other kids that had all those challenges, they weren't getting the fact that I literally missed my mom. I was crying at night. It was difficult, because they break you down, you're so emotional.

Zachary G:

And I remember me messing up on something, the drill instructor leaning over me and saying, "I knew you were a failure. I knew you weren't going to make it." And then he said those words that cut so deeply. He said, "Your mommy's not here to help you." And that was the time I realized I didn't have all those benefits that my parents gave me, and I got crushed. I fell into my crucible.

Zachary G:

Now, in the crucible, there's two parts to the crucible. At the bottom of the crucible is the abyss. And as the great philosopher Nietzsche once said, if you stare long enough into the abyss, eventually the abyss will stare back. And what that means is, the abyss will consume you.

Zachary G:

If you spend long enough in a drug or alcohol problem, a bad relationship, a bad company, a bad job, or whatever, the longer you're there, the harder it is for you to transform and get out of it. But you have to respect the crucible and honor it, and recognize that it's dangerous and it's bad. Just don't go too far into it. Just like if you're walking along the sidewalk and this big truck comes by, that truck will kill you if you step out there, but just don't spend too much time spinning out in the middle of the street. Recognize it.

Zachary G:

So then the other side of the crucible becomes the process you have to do, and there's two things to get outside of your crucible. Number one, you have to conquer it. You don't survive it. You don't ride it through. You conquer it. You have to destroy what got you to that point. And a lot of times that destruction is the self-talk, the people that told you weren't good enough, the environments that you put you in that just wasn't healthy.

Zachary G:

And then the last part of the crucible is, you have to transform. So let's go back to your original question, Warwick, and that is, what happened when I got that phone call? So I knew up to that point, my company was making a lot of revenue, but we weren't making a lot of profit. I was the bottleneck. Every decision had to come through me.

Zachary G:

I had a great team of 10, 15 people, and it wasn't the big decisions that were difficult. It was a bunch of small decisions every day, and some of those were financial in basis. Do we pay this bill or do we go ahead and sit on that one and pay this bill? Do we call this person up and ask them for our money because they're a couple days late, or do we wait on it? And none of that was happening.

Zachary G:

So I go on vacation. I tell my CFO, "Whatever you do, do not call me." I want to really check out and just be present for my family that I've neglected these last couple of years as I grew this company, and guess what happens? He calls me, and I remember his words, and more importantly, I remember his tone of voice, very somber, saying, "Zach, I'm sorry to inform you, but there is no way out of this. We are going to have to liquidate, and when you come back, we need to talk about bankruptcy options."

Zachary G:

Now, for me, it wasn't just that I was losing my dream. It was that I was letting my firefighter brothers and sisters down because I couldn't produce this lifesaving product. The bank was going to foreclose on my house, because at that point in time, I had spent all my money and I had to use my house as collateral.

Zachary G:

I would have to go through the humility of going bankrupt and being known in our area as somewhat a celebrity entrepreneur and look at how far I fell. And at that time, that's when the abyss started to really come into focus for me. I thought I was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. I dropped down to my knees. I can't breathe. I could feel tightness in my chest. I could feel electrical currents shooting down my arm. Everything they taught me in the fire service that if someone presents with that, you take them immediately to the hospital.

Zachary G:

And what my wife said as she was leaning over me was, "Look, you're having a panic attack. You're not having a heart attack. You need to go out and relax." So in this crucible, so real, one is, I could quit. I could kill myself, because I thought... I wasn't suicidal at the time, but I thought, if I killed myself, I know the company's got a $3 million life insurance policy, and that could be a way out. When you're in a crisis, all options become visible. You will never, ever think of an option like that until you're in that crucible, in that crisis.

Zachary G:

The other option was, "I got to transform and change." So, thank goodness my CFO was able to dance to the raindrops. We were able to make payroll. We were able to avoid that situation. We got a short-term bridge loan. And the first thing I did is I said, "Look, I got to make the change, and the change is, I'm going to step down as CEO and I'm going to hire a CEO."

Zachary G:

And what happened is instead of having a bottleneck like that, the bottleneck went like this, and I was able to, just like you said, Warwick, be the cheerleader, be the founder, be the visionary. This is so important because a year later, COVID happens. And at that point in time, within 48 hours, I was able to convert our whole entire manufacturing process to, instead of making exit signs, we were going to make Lucite barriers for people that needed them in their offices.

Zachary G:

In addition to that, I launched a multimillion-dollar brand within 48 hours and became Home Depot's number one distributor of COVID protective products in a very short period of time because my bandwidth allowed me to focus on what entrepreneurs like you and I do best, which is innovation, creativity, excite everybody else up around that. Had I been the CEO, I would've been so focused on money and HR and what we were going to do about renting our new ..., I would've never been able to have that opportunity.

Warwick F:

I want listeners to hear what Zach has just said because for a lot of entrepreneurs or even people in larger companies, it's knowing what your strengths are, and knowing the value of a team. And obviously, as you know better than I, the team is greater than the sum of its parts.

Warwick F:

You probably had really talented folks in personnel and development and marketing and sales and management, and you leveraged all of them in doing what you do best. There's a phrase that somebody told me once, don't do what you're merely good at, do what you're great at. But what you're great at is being the visionary, the cheerleader, the entrepreneur. You might have been good at some of the other things, but why not let people who are great at it, rather than merely good at it?

Warwick F:

So you had that, I would say also part of the warrior kind of mentality. Each person probably in a team, even in the military, has different strengths, different skills, different backgrounds. Maybe munitions, sharpshooter, I don't know, you know far more than I do, but you combine the different skills in a cohesive unit.

Warwick F:

And maybe that sense of teamwork and that management structure you built probably served you well for probably a very recent crucible in December 2020, when you got COVID. As all listeners would know, because we're all very familiar with this, this was before vaccines. From what I understand, you were careful. It wasn't like you were doing crazy things, but stuff happens, and some of your family got it and they bounced back, but you didn't bounce back so easily, so talk about that crucible, because that was a massive one.

Zachary G:

We talk a lot about the crucible. You talk about it, I talk about it, but it's a metaphor. I actually had the physical crucible. Let me explain what happened. I got COVID, everyone in my family got it. Now, I never get sick. I never missed school for being sick. Never got the cold, nothing. I figure I'm invincible.

Zachary G:

Within 24 hours of getting COVID, I started to feel a level of nausea that I cannot explain, 10 times worse than anything I've ever experienced, and it lasted for about 10 days. I couldn't eat. I couldn't drink. I couldn't get out of bed. I was delirious. I was hallucinating. And the only issue my son and my wife had is they lost their taste buds, and so they went through a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce in one week, which, for your listeners, it usually takes about 10 years to go through a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Zachary G:

All of a sudden I got a tickle on my chest. That tickle changed from a tickle to an uncomfortable cough, and before you know it, I was having a hard time breathing. My wife called the doctor. The doctor said, "Take him to the hospital." She starts backing the car out. I said, "Honey, it's not going to be the car. Call 911." And thank God they did that, because by the time I got in the ambulance, my pulse ox was about to 80. Just for the listeners that are non-medical, anything below 98 on your pulse oxygen is serious. When you get into the low 90s, you're really having a hard time breathing. I was in the 80s.

Zachary G:

By the time I got into the emergency room, which, by the way, there was like 20 other beds that were lined up in the hallways, they had people lined up in the waiting rooms, I was in the high 60s, and my heart rate was starting to fall. Thank God they found out that that was the case. They immediately triaged me and sent me up to the ICU, put me on a external ventilator, and I stopped breathing. And ultimately, my heart rate... I don't think I flatlined, but I think I got down to like the teens, and I had a very intimate, visceral experience with death.

Zachary G:

I've been around death a lot in my life, between the Marine Corps and the fire service. I've seen it, I've almost dodged it a couple times, but nothing like this. The intimacy of falling down this black hole, and at the bottom of it was the abyss, that was that crucible, and the abyss wasn't black. It was a color darker than black, a color I can't even comprehend and explain.

Zachary G:

And I remember thinking, if I could get to the bottom of the abyss, I could stop breathing, they could put the tube down my throat and breathe for me, and I could get this needed... This break. I needed a break. I just couldn't breathe anymore. And obviously I was getting down there, I started hearing everyone yelling, "Zach, you got to breathe, you got to come back to us." I thought about all those crucibles that happened to me in my life before, and the warrior, and that I had so much more to give, and just did every effort in my fiber to just breathe. You don't realize how difficult it is to breathe until you lose that gift.

Zachary G:

And when I came back and was able to ultimately... I unfortunately went through that three different times until I finally was able to make the turn, but that gave me a power and a fire that is in me now to really give back and honor God for giving me this other opportunity to be alive and survive that crucible that made all those other crucibles literally nothing.

Warwick F:

And it seemed like, out of that crucible, and you write about this, and I totally agree, when you go through that almost life-ending crucible, it makes you think, "Okay, I've got these successful businesses. They're serving firefighters and protecting people from COVID." I mean, the exit signs if the lights go out. I mean, you're doing well, but you're doing well by doing good. You are serving people.

Warwick F:

That's obviously always been what Zach Green is about, but yet you had this notion coming out of COVID that you wanted to write this book, Warrior Entrepreneur. And I'd love to get into that now, but how did that happen? Just, you're trying to get out of COVID, you're finally starting to get better, you just had this notion, "I want to write this book." What led you to want to write that book?

Zachary G:

So as I went through this journey, everyone said, "Well, you got to write a book. This is a great story," before COVID. And I remember talking to an editor, and he said, "Zach, I'm sorry, but other than your mom and your wife, no-one's going to buy your book, unless your name is something crazy, like Barack Obama or Beyoncé or something."

Zachary G:

So I started to put together just some collections of essays and blog posts and just very loosely had it. When I was in the darkness of the abyss in the hospital, I was making very long, lengthy Facebook posts, because I really thought I was going to die. There was no question in my mind.

Zachary G:

And one of my favorite quotes was the wonderful poem, Invictus, from one of your countrymen in Australia, that talks about being the master of your own domain, and being able to conquer all the challenges that happen to you, and not what happens to you, but how you conquer it.

Zachary G:

So all these essays that I started to write on Facebook, that started to get shared virally, I mean, some of them had thousands upon thousands of shares. And when I got home, I just started writing, and the words just flowed from there, and I was able to complete the whole entire book in probably a couple weeks.

Zachary G:

Now, when the book was done and I started go back and rereading it, it was not good. It was one of the books that, if I read it, I would throw it away after 10 pages. But that's where the editorial process comes in, with a team of incredible editors, about five different editors. Some are in content, some are in syntax, some are in typesetting, some are just in punctuation. They were able to massage the words. They didn't really add much on. They took a lot out, rearranged things, and ultimately got us to the book that you have in front of you now.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's incredible. I know there's editing, but two weeks, my gosh, I mean, I started my book in like 2008, and took years to write in part because I was writing about some of the dumbest mistakes I made growing up as, obviously, listeners know, in a 150-year-old very large family media business in Australia. But wow, that's impressive.

Warwick F:

I want to get into some of the specifics in the book because there's so much here that is really good. One of the first quotes I see is from Walt Disney, and you've got, "All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." I mean, that's an amazing statement from Walt Disney, that I'd not heard before, so talk about why that inspired you.

Zachary G:

Well, here you've got Walt Disney, who is literally the king of happiness. Everything he does, his why, is about providing happiness. So you assume that he's had a really happy life, but he didn't. Before he created Mickey Mouse, he had issues with being a cartoonist where he either... I don't know what the story was, he either lost a cartoon or something happened. A lot of hardship.

Zachary G:

What he did was so incredible in Orlando, he bought swampland, and he recognized that in order for him to do what he needed to do, he had to not only buy the land, he had to create his own pseudo-government, his own electric, his own plumbing, his own water and everything. And it was setback after setback after setback.

Zachary G:

So when a man that is the embodiment of happiness and smiles and fantasy had gotten his you-know-what handed to him and needing that kick in the face, it shows you that on the outside, what you see is just the pretty. You don't see all the stuff that goes into it and what it takes to build that up.

Zachary G:

And those stories continue on for people like Elon Musk, and we all think he's this multi-billionaire and great guy, but the reality is, Elon Musk had a lot of challenges along the way. Richard Branson. We can just go on and on and on. And what happens with warriors, and the 10% that do succeed, because again, 90% of businesses fail within the first 10 years, are the ones that use that adversity to learn from it and to grow from it rather than make themselves feel sorry that it happened to them.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, that's such a great point. It's funny, Walt Disney also was one of my heroes and I think what you're referring to, certainly one key crisis is, he had this cartoon about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and some unscrupulous New York distributor, I think it was like in the '20s, the guy was an... Walt Disney was an animator. He's not like a legal guy.

Warwick F:

And he had this fine print in the contract that basically said, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is mine," and behind his back, he pretty much stole a lot of his key animators, this guy. So you would think Walt Disney is devastated. He gets on the train, it's the '20s, you don't fly back then. Well, not easily. And he's on the train from New York to California.

Warwick F:

And rather than getting morose, here he is with his wife, Lilly, I think her name was, and he starts doodling on a napkin three circles that turns into a mouse. And he says to his wife, "What do you think about Mortimer the mouse?" And she says, "How about Mickey, Mickey Mouse?" So really, it illustrates your point is, most people would say, "Look, I put my heart and soul into Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. My team has literally become traitors, they've betrayed me and gone to the enemy. I'm done."

Warwick F:

But no, I mean, nobody's ever heard of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Everybody's heard of Mickey Mouse, so he really exemplifies what you're saying, that grit, that, "Okay, I've got a kick in the teeth. I was betrayed by my team and my business partner. I'm not giving up." So, I mean, there's story after story of these successful folks, it's not the absence of pain, it's knowing how to deal with it, which is such a great example.

Gary S:

And I'm going to jump in as an advocate for the reader to say, do you hear things, listener, that you've heard before from Warwick? I mean, Warwick's book, as he just mentioned, talks about Mickey Mouse, and there are things... We're going to go on and talk more here about Zach's book, but just in the contents of Zach's book, as he's talking about what makes a warrior entrepreneur, here are some of the concepts, think of what you've heard on this podcast, what you've read in Warwick's book as well, to see if there's some commonality here.

Gary S:

Teamwork. Purpose. Adaptability. Don't give up. Sacrifice. Morality and serenity. These are... One person can luck out and create it, and it may be true, it may not be true. If you've got a couple of people with varied backgrounds who focus in on these things, who focus in on the fact that adversity, that crucibles, that they don't define you, they don't stop you. You can move beyond them. You can move, not just past them, you can obliterate them and create a new life of significance for yourself. That begins to add gravitas and truth. And it's not just one person.

Gary S:

My mom used to tell me all the time, "If one person says you're, [fill in the bad word that I won't say on the air here,] it's a difference of opinion. If two or three people say it, it's probably true." Well, what you're hearing, listener, is two or three people, two people right here. Warwick and Zach are saying some of the same things, and it's that your crucible doesn't define you and it doesn't stop you.

Warwick F:

Amen.

Zachary G:

Gary, thank you for sharing that, and Warwick, if I could just piggyback off of that story around Walt Disney, there's only one way that an entrepreneur and a founder can fail. There's just one way, and it's to give up. As long as you're willing to have the courage to go into the danger and to keep trying and keep focusing on reinventing yourself, this concept of failing forward, where it's better to fail multiple times and keep moving in that same direction than it is to do nothing.

Zachary G:

But eventually there does come a time when it's just not worth it anymore. The personal sacrifices, the emotional sacrifices, the financial sacrifices are not enough, and that's when you say, "I'm done." And that's okay, because that probably means that's going to lead you to something else, or it's going to make you a better person in that other area.

Zachary G:

But knowing that Disney could have quit, but instead of quitting, he used that as a way... And it's funny you say this, Warwick, because I've done business with Disney. They are the most hardcore brutal, almost to the point of evil, when it comes to enforcing their copyright and their IP. And I imagine a lot of that goes back to the days where you can't even mention that you met with Disney, it's so strict on how they protect their IP nowadays.

Warwick F:

Oh, that's so good. So I want to get into, there's a few pages where... Well, a lot of pages, actually, where you talk about the whole warrior metaphor and crucible. And I don't use that image in my book, because my background is different than yours, but I absolutely can identify with the metaphor.

Warwick F:

So, just going to read just a few little bits that talk about, to me, the heart of some of what's in your book. You say that "A warrior's journey typically has a point in which you are tested unlike anything you have ever experienced in your life. A crucible, an event that tests the soul. It is at crucible that the warrior chooses to fail and quit or to dig deep and realize that a transformation has to happen to continue their mission. The crucible can occur in the early phases of training and it can happen again in the execution of your mission. It's at this terrifying point that a warrior is made."

Warwick F:

And then you go on and say, "Here's when you look into the abyss and realize that to make it to the next stage of your mission, you have to disconnect from your past, shed your former self and transform. The warrior sees clarity in the chaos. The warrior stands tall in the face of that chaos and inspires others to be their best self."

Warwick F:

And later on you talk about when you're in that crucible and the abyss, that's when they find their why. I mean, they're some absolutely key... So talk about that whole notion of the warrior and the crucible and abyss, and how that changes you, because I think it's really profound stuff.

Zachary G:

What I talked about before, when you're in that crisis, you're in that crucible, all options become available. The clarity becomes available. And in first section of my book, I talk a lot about human anatomy and neuroscience, and the way that we've been created with sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which is kind of the fight or flight.

Zachary G:

If you or any of your listeners have ever been involved in a car accident, the one thing that happens is, right before the moment of impact, everything slows down. You literally get this like superhuman understanding of, that you can see things, smell things, hear things, similar to the basketball player that's shooting that free throw and he's able to tune all that noise out and get into that zone.

Zachary G:

That's the crucible, that's the chaos, and a lot of times we want to organize chaos. We want to stop the car right before that impact and tell someone, "Hey, slow down, don't do that." But the reality is you can't, because it's chaos, and you can't control that, and it's happening so fast.

Zachary G:

So what you need to do is embrace the chaos. The example I use is, if you're a surfer and the wave comes in, you can't get control a wave. That's Mother Nature. What you can do is sit there and try to stop the wave, in which case you're going to get crushed, or you get on your surfboard and you ride the wave, you embrace that chaos, like what I did when we had the pandemic. Instead of saying, "Hey, oh, my God, we're going to go out of business," because we would've gone out business within a matter of a couple weeks, we said, "Let's go ahead and do that." So that's the first thing, is, don't put chaos into order, embrace it.

Zachary G:

The second thing is having clarity amongst everybody else in their confusion. And the way you do that is again by absorbing and using the superpowers that your body creates, cortisol, adrenaline, that flood into your system when you're faced with that emergency situation. Your pupils dilate, your breathing increases, more blood flows to your brain, and being able to utilize those situations.

Zachary G:

So it could be something as simple as getting ready to go into a sales meeting and your computer crashes with your only copy of your presentation. It could be a car accident. It could be a situation like I witnessed firsthand where my friend got attacked by a shark right in front of my house, and seeing the process of what he did to fight the shark off, and what happened after the case.

Zachary G:

So the warrior, because of their experience, are going to be able to handle that emergency situation a lot better than the non-warrior, and anybody can be a warrior. I think some of the greatest warriors are the mom that's working two jobs just to hold things together, because they've handled so much adversity and so many things that when the guy knocks on the door and says, "Hey, rent's due," where that would crush most people, they'd be like, "Okay, we'll figure it out. We'll work through that." And not everyone's cut out to be a warrior, and that's okay. We, the warriors need that support structure and that inspiration and everything else around that.

Warwick F:

Absolutely. I love all your quotes and stories. You've got another great one, many ones, but by Thomas Edison. A reporter asked Edison, how did it feel to fail a thousand times? Edison stated, "I didn't fail a thousand times." He's talking about different filaments for inventing the light bulb. "The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps." Edison went on to say, "Great success is built on failure, frustration, and even catastrophe," and you write, "Thomas Edison recognized the same thing that warriors recognize: adversity, failure and resistance are all keys to growth needed for success."

Warwick F:

So one of the things we talk about in Crucible Leadership is when you go through a crucible, you have a choice. You'll either hide under the covers, complain, whine and say, "This is unfair," and eventually, after 30, 40, 50 years or more, life will end for all of us. Or you can say, "This was unfair. I was an idiot," which is more in my case, I was an idiot, "but okay, how do I bounce back? How do I use what I've been through to serve others?" And that's really what you are talking about is, adversity isn't the end point. It certainly wasn't for Thomas Edison, all these stories paint a similar picture, right?

Zachary G:

You go to the gym and you say, "Well, I don't want to have any adversity, so I'm just going to sit here for an hour in the gym and do nothing," you haven't helped your body. But you get on the treadmill and you push yourself, and you lift heavy weights, which is hard, you're creating adversity, that's going to grow your muscles. And that's the exact same thing that happens along that warrior's journey, is that concept of using adversity to help you grow and to do that.

Zachary G:

The other thing is, it feels so much better when you get to that win and that point, when you struggle to get there, than it does if it just comes easy. If you're playing a video game and you use all the cheat codes and you just blow right through the video game, that's one thing. But if you're playing a video game and you're able to really work and build yourself up, that creates a whole nother process.

Warwick F:

Yeah, that's so well said. I mean, I love everything you have about abyss and crucible stuff. You've got, "When you're at the darkest moments, you find yourself in your crucible and realize that to make it to the next step in your life's mission, you have to disconnect from your past, shed your former self and transform."

Warwick F:

I mean, you've lived that. You had a crisis of your company all going bankrupt. "I've got to transform. I've got to let go, not micromanage, bring in a professional team." When you went through COVID, okay, you still kept all your businesses, but you're going to transform and pivot, and write a book. So you've lived that, when you've gone through the abyss, each time it's had a profound effect on your life and career, right?

Zachary G:

Well, and if I could leave one last thing with your listeners, and that is, don't feel sorry if bad things happen. Don't pity yourself if you didn't have enough money growing up, or your mom and dad didn't give you enough love, or somebody got promoted above you. That's what happens to you, and you can't control what happens to you. You can control how you react to it, and I know that statement is almost to the point of overused and cliché, but it is so, so true.

Zachary G:

You have a decision every day to decide, "Is this going to make me stronger or is this going to make me weaker?" And even the people that you find that struggle with cancer or something like that, instead of saying, "Oh, woe is me, there's a problem," they tend to live a more fuller life when they've conquered it or as they're going through that. And that's just the one thing I would ask everyone to challenge themselves, is to look at all the things in your life that you think are difficult and bad, and use those as a force to help grow and to make you stronger and better, and accomplish whatever your life's missions may be.

Gary S:

Now, here's a situation that's bad for me as the co-host of this show. This is the time where I usually say the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, but I'm aware that I'm not talking to someone who's like at the Air Force grounds in Colorado Springs, and I have no idea about how to... I wasn't in the military, so I don't know how to use a clever phrase. So I'm just going to say, yes, the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, and it's going to be time to land this civilian plane on the ground here in a bit. However, before we do that, I would be remiss, Zach, if I didn't give you the chance to tell our listeners how they can learn more about you, and very importantly, buy your book. So, how can they find you online?

Zachary G:

Yeah, so if I can use a Marine term, we call it popping smoke.

Gary S:

Okay.

Zachary G:

So when we're on a mission and we're ready to get extricated out of the mission, we'll pop a smoke grenade, and that means, "Hey, we're getting out of the zone." So instead of landing the craft, we're at the point where we're popping smoke. Yeah, so this is where you get a hold of me.

Gary S:

I'm so lame, I should have asked you that beforehand.

Zachary G:

No worries. LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I think that's the way that I actually met you guys.

Gary S:

Right.

Zachary G:

My website is warriorentrepreneurbook.com, and if you go to warriorentrepreneurbook.com and type in the coupon code PODCAST2021, podcast 2-0-2-1, you can actually get a copy of the book for 50% off, and I'll go ahead and personalize it for you also. The last thing I'd ask all of your listeners is at the end of that, there's a Contact us information page there. Please, please, please put in your number, your name, your email, your address. I am launching a Warrior Framework program that is going to be very multifaceted. It's going to include online training. There'll be workbooks, there'll be exercises, there'll be one-on-one coaching opportunity with me.

Zachary G:

And ultimately, it's really designed more for people that want to either start a business or grow a business, but it can be for anybody else, and I'm creating a unique way, in that it's going to be a journey. So think of it as like a board game, and you're going to start off in the board and going through certain modules, and every time you make it through a module, you're going to get a pin, an award, kind of like in the Boy Scouts, a patch.

Zachary G:

And the goal with that is ultimately to create this warrior movement that I would love to investigate ways that maybe we could all work together in utilizing the crucible concept and the crucible training to create seminars, workshops, training material. Think of it as like the warrior university. That's getting ready to launch here in the next month or so, and I'm looking for beta users, so people that want to buy into the course at a very discounted rate in exchange for helping me coach me and creating that best material for your fellow warriors.

Warwick F:

Wow. Well, thank you so much, Zach. I really appreciate you being there, and I love the whole concept of Warrior Entrepreneur, and as you... There might be listeners, maybe today is not a good day for them. What's a word of hope you'd say if today's the day when the abyss, the crucible at its worst, what's a key message you want folks to hear as they try to move forward?

Zachary G:

So the first thing is just this mantra, it's going to get better. It will get better. You've got to have faith and confidence of knowing that it will get better, even if you don't know what that answer is. It's okay not to see that finish line, to be able to know that it will get better, it'll be stronger.

Zachary G:

And then the second thing I will tell people is, you got to help other people out on this journey. You can't just do it yourself. You can't just have a mentor. You need to be a mentor. And at all the times during my career path, I was both a mentor to other people and had a mentor myself, and I continue to do that. So I would just... Guess I would ask that you never know what other journeys and crucibles other people are going through, and be here to help them out in addition to getting people to help you out too.

Gary S:

I've been in the communications business long enough, not the warrior business, but the communications business, long enough to know when the last word's been spoken on a subject, and Zach, you just spoke the last word on our podcast episode. I'm going to leave you, listener, with one of the quotes that Warwick didn't read. And it's fascinating if you, if you've listened to the show a few times, you know that I'm usually the guy that's pulling out quotes and reading them to people, and it's fascinating to me, and you should be very proud of this, Zach, that Warwick was reading your quotes, because he doesn't do that often on the show. He was truly moved, I think, and again, I think it speaks to the fact that you guys speak the same language.

Gary S:

But here's a quote which I really liked, because the subject of the quote is from a guy who knows a lot about the subject, and the quote's from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and here's what you quote him as saying in your book, Warrior Entrepreneur. "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength," and that is truth, listener.

Gary S:

So thank you for spending in this time with us on Beyond the Crucible, and until the next time we are together, please remember what we've talked about on this episode with Zach Green, and that is, your crucible experiences are painful, for sure. They can change the trajectory of your life. They can put you in the midst of an abyss, and you can feel like you want to stare in that abyss, and that abyss can maybe pull you in. You can break through it. As Zach said, you really have to kind of go to war with your crucible. You have to take it on. You have to confront it. You have to move beyond it. You have to blow it up, and those things that are holding you back, you have to find a way to move beyond them.

Gary S:

And the reason why you do that is because when you do that, it's not the end of your story. Your crucible's not the end of your story. When you learn the lessons of them, when you escape the abyss that is at the bottom of them, that leads to the best story of your life. And the reason it's the best story of your life is found in the life of what Zach's described today, what Warwick has described in every episode, and that is a life of significance.

Have you ever felt like that a failure or misstep or somebody else’s judgment is still following you around? That your identity, in a very real way, has been frozen in time?  BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss Warwick’s new blog that spotlights how to turn a heat lamp – sometimes even a flamethrower – on those frozen negative perceptions from the past that can stick to us in the present and threaten our future.  They discuss several steps you can take to restore your true identity, from recognizing your life matters, to dealing with the lies spoken over you; from forgiving yourself and others to embracing the beauty in your brokenness and using it as fuel for your unique life of significance.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership. In the Australian media and some people's minds, I will be perpetually the 26-year-old young kid who launched this ill-advised takeover until recently, my Wikipedia entry was "naive, idealistic, young 26-year-old launches $2 billion takeover. Could have had it all, messed it up and ends 150 years of family history". So it's this, almost this tragic young figure, a 26-year-old. And it is frozen in time, frozen in concrete, if you will.




Gary Schneeberger:

Does that sound familiar? Not the details of the story. Those are the beats of Warwick's journey, but the feeling that a failure or misstep or somebody else's judgment is still following you around, that your identity in a very real way has been frozen in time and not in the most encouraging ice.




Gary Schneeberger:

Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week Warwick and I have a wide-ranging discussion about how to turn a heat lamp, sometimes even a flame thrower on those frozen negative perceptions from the past that can stick to us in the present and threaten our future. We unpack several steps you can take to restore your true identity, from recognizing your life matters to dealing with the lies spoken over you, from forgiving yourself and others to embracing the beauty in your brokenness and using it as fuel for your unique life of significance.




Gary Schneeberger:

As a guy who creates, who writes for a living, me, I always get jealous when someone turns a phrase and I'm like, "Ooh, that's really good." And Warwick has a phrase he's going to talk about in this discussion of identity, and I'll point it out. You'll notice it when you hear it, but there's some great perspective, Warwick, that you have in this blog about not only the importance of identity, but a different way of looking at identity than we have tended to do here on the show.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. Absolutely, Gary. I mean, as listeners would know, we talk about identity a fair amount, but we talk about it more, don't get your identity from work, from money, from image, accolades, get your identity from within. And all of that's true, but here we're talking almost about broken identity, or as I talk about in the blog, identity that's frozen in time. This is a bit different. And sometimes it's you know identity can be actually not our true identity. It can be almost a false identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

So sometimes we're perpetually a 16 or 17-year-old teenager in high school. Maybe we missed out on the basketball team. Maybe we were a bit overweight, negative self-image. And sometimes we never really see ourselves grow out of that. Other people might, but we perpetually see ourselves as who we were as a teenager or as sadly, a lot of folks on our podcast who've been guests, and I'm sure listeners, have faced during the darkest days of your crucible moment. On that worst day, sometimes we have this negative self-image. Either I'm a failure, I made these huge mistakes. I hurt people, or it may be horrendous things were done to me. And somehow when bad things are done to you, for some people, it understandably causes a negative self-image. So your negative self-image may be rooted in your worst day of your crucible moment. You may be frozen in time from high school.




Warwick Fairfax:

So really, what this discussion is, how do you get out of that pit? How do you unfreeze this false identity, this identity which is a lie, which can be frozen in time and decades can go by and you just can't seem to get out of that hole of that negative self-talk and negative identity.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that's the phrase that you turned that I'm jealous of, frozen identity. Love that. I read that in the blog and I was like, "Oh, that's really good. I wish I'd written that." I didn't though. You did. And it's in the blog and you're right, Warwick, this discussion, we often talk about identity, beware of an overdeveloped sense of identity, right? You get your identity from how many zeros are in your bank account, what kind of cool car you're driving. That kind of thing where you're maybe pushing to be bigger than your britches.




Gary Schneeberger:

We're talking about a different kind of identity crisis in this case. It's almost underdeveloped identity. You're not walking in who you really are. You're you're stuck in a place where something happened to you, someone spoke something to you, someone spoke something over you. You encountered something and you haven't been able to shake that negative perception and the ramifications that come from it.




Gary Schneeberger:

So as soon as you brought this subject up, Warwick, it occurred to me if anybody is an expert or can speak to what it's like to have frozen identity, it's you. Because still there are places, and I know you'll unpack why, there are places who still will refer to you in the context of your takeover of the family media business as Young Warwick. True?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of crazy. I'm like, now, hard to believe the decades go by over 60. So you don't tend to think of somebody that's a little over 60 as being Young Warwick, but my dad was Sir Warwick and I had, I don't know, three knighthoods in a row in my family. You know? Sir James Redding Fairfax, Sir James Oswald, and my dad, Sir Warwick Fairfax. So growing up, they didn't seem like such a big deal. It was my father, Sir Warwick, and Young Warwick, kind of heir apparent.




Warwick Fairfax:

Still in the media in Australia, that phrase will be coined. And so my frozen in time moment, as listeners would know, grew up in this 150-year-old family media business started by my great-great-grandfather. By the time I came on the scene, it was a massive $700 million, 4,000 employee company, newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio, and newsprint mills. Had the Australian equivalent to New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, major opinion leaders. Launched this $2.5 billion takeover to bring the company back to the ideals of the founder and have it be well managed. Family sold out. Didn't work out. Three years later, company goes bankrupt when Australia hits a recession.




Warwick Fairfax:

So that's the very brief Cliff Notes version, but in the Australian media and some people's minds, I will be perpetually the 26-year-old young kid who launched this ill-advised takeover, until recently that my Wikipedia entry was "naive, idealistic, young 26-year-old launches $2 billion takeover, could have had it all, messed it up and ends 150 years of family history". So it's sort of almost this tragic young figure, a 26- year-old.




Gary Schneeberger: Right, right.




Warwick Fairfax:

And it is frozen in time, frozen in concrete, if you will. I'm trying to remember that second Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back. Remember when the guy gets frozen and I don't know if it's concrete or some metal?




Gary Schneeberger: Yeah.




Warwick Fairfax: And he's frozen, and it's like-




Gary Schneeberger: Han Solo. Yeah.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. That kind of like me, I'm frozen in whatever substance that is. And I'm still there in most people's minds. It's like, "Unfreeze me, please." You know?




Gary Schneeberger:

And the phrase, Young Warwick, that name, it's not just design. It was not just designed. Those who hung that name on you, it wasn't just designed to indicate your youth. It was designed to indicate, as you hinted at right there, it was designed to indicate you were inexperienced, you were in over your head, that you were the whelp, the whelpish Warwick who wasn't quite ready for prime time when you launched the takeover. That's where the sting comes in.




Gary Schneeberger:

It's not so much, as you said, you were a Young Warwick in the sense that you're the son of Sir Warwick, but the way that it was used against you was to paint you as... To freeze you as a failure. And I think that's...Would you say it has been that you spent some time frozen in that spot?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. And as we talk about and as in the book, there are cartoons, editorial cartoons that really personify this sort of frozen in time, Young Warwick, young, naive, idealistic crusader that kind of fails in a sense. So yeah, there's one of me as this Mongol warrior. Again, I'm like 26. I'm there as this barbarian attacking the gates of Rome, or I don't know quite what it would be, and destroying this family dynasty and destroys in a day what took more than a hundred years to build.




Warwick Fairfax:

And there's other cartoons, the man behind the mask. I never gave interviews. What's he thinking? How do you create a small business? Give Warwick Fairfax a big one. All these cartoons help crystallize this sense that my identity is frozen in time. But what happens is while there's still that perception in the media in Australia, it would seem, then you can't help but having your own identity frozen in time.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

Other people's perceptions become your reality and my internal reality, and so it's not easy to shake those. I mean, some people have nicknames for decades that they don't necessarily like, but it goes back to high school or whatever. And they just see you as this screwup from when you're in your twenties. And it's like, I'm not that person anymore. It's like, yeah, no, you always will be the screwup in their twenties who did dumb stuff.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. Yeah. It's like, I'm sure there are people listening right now who were told at some point, "You'll never amount to anything." Right? Who were told at some point, "That's why X, Y, Z, Q, P, L, Y happens to you." Those words, words have meaning and words can hurt. And when those words are spoken, they can sort of bore into our spirits, bore into our soul, bore into our psyche. And we can indeed be suspended in animation, if you will, at that time when those things might have been true for a period of time. But it's moving beyond those things.




Gary Schneeberger:

The name of the show is Beyond the Crucible, and what we're really talking about here is how do you get beyond the identity that has sort of stuck to the bottom of your shoe as you're going through life. But before we do move on to the great points you make in the blog about how to move beyond that identity, I want to say this. The joke's on those people, Warwick. The joke is on those journalists who said, "Naive, young kid could have had it all and blew it," because guess what? That young kid's grown up into a man who does indeed have it all, at least all that matters.




Gary Schneeberger:

You've talked about it many times. Family, you've got a Wall Street Journal bestselling book, you're speaking in places across the country. You have achieved things that you would, I know you've said it before, you have all that matters. So that as the Bible says, "What the enemy meant for evil God has turned to good." And what that label was supposed to make you feel, it's true, you do have it all, at least what matters most to you.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, that is well said. You know, we talk a lot at Crucible Leadership on this podcast about a life of significance being the measuring stick for every human, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. I mean, I'm blessed to have a... I married the American girl who I met in Australia. We've been married over 30 years. I've got three wonderful kids from 30 down to almost 24 in a few days.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm just blessed to have work that I do with a wonderful team at Crucible Leadership, such as yourself and the rest of the team. Between speaking, the book, podcast, I feel like I'm trying to give voice to people's stories and just really champion that your worst day doesn't define you. I've been on a couple nonprofit boards, including my church, being an elder at my nondenominational church.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean, I am blessed. And my self-image is definitely in a much better place. I mean, scars tend not to go completely away, but I think I have a more realistic, more accurate picture of who I am and what I'm worth. And I believe we all have intrinsic value obviously, as children of God. But yeah, it's been an evolution. But yes, I do feel blessed, absolutely blessed.




Gary Schneeberger:

And that's a great way to sort of move into the next area that we're going to talk about. And that's the seven points that you have about how to unfreeze your identity. Because we started out talking about here's the frozen identity and it's Young Warwick, and then we come out the other side where you're living a life of significance.




Gary Schneeberger:

Now it's time, right, you're going to unpack some things that listeners can do to put the meat in the sandwich. Right? We have the two pieces of bread on the side. Now we're going to put the meat in there, and step one that you enumerate in the blog for folks who are struggling with a frozen identity is to recognize that their life matters. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. The starting point for many will be the image is frozen in negativity either because of a mistake they've made or maybe some horrific things that were done to them. Either way, your image can be really corroded and you might feel like, what is the point? I'm worthless. Nobody can love me. Nobody should love me. I'm like this leper that people should say, "Unclean," and just toss out on some garbage heap and I'm not worth anything.




Warwick Fairfax:

So the best thing to do, I mean, people who really go into negativity can say, "I need to end my life," or you can really get down a dark space. And so really the first standpoint when you're thinking about your life matters is that the world needs who you are. The world needs your gifting, your talent, your soul, your very essence. And so by wallowing in self-pity, recrimination, anger, be it at yourself or others, it robs the world of who you are. It actually robs your family, your wife, your husband, your partner, your friends, coworkers.




Warwick Fairfax:

It robs them of the essence of who you are. Because I think we're all, as we'll talk about it in a minute, beautifully made in the image of God. So the first standpoint is your life matters and you are a gift on this earth who, from my perspective, is meant by God to contribute to the world. And so wallowing in self-pity, while it can be understandable, it doesn't serve you. It does not serve others. It robs people of your gifting and your essence, and that sense of negativity, it also tends to spread. And it hurts people around you.




Gary Schneeberger:

And coming to the realization and really owning that your life matters is like planting a flag, right? My life matters. I may not have it all worked out after this. I may still trip and fall sometimes, but that recognition that your life matters is the perfect first point because it then leads to the small steps that come next. And the next one, the second step that you talk about in the blog is you are loved.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. You know, I love the image, just to drill on what you just said for a moment, of planting the flag. We talk a lot in Crucible Leadership is that when something horrific happens to you or you make a horrific mistake, rather than hiding under the covers for the next 30, 40, 50 years until life ends, which it will for all of us, you have a choice.




Warwick Fairfax:

Either just wallow away the rest of your life, or to say, "This was awful. It was unfair, unjust, or I was an idiot, but how do I move forward?" And so that's really what you're saying. That plant the flag is the choice we talk about on pretty much every episode of Crucible Leadership is I'm going to make a choice that my life matters and I'm going to make a choice to move forward. It's a fundamental decision.




Warwick Fairfax:

And so really, moving to the second point, the sense which I think reinforces the sense of your life matters and builds onto it, I believe that we are all loved by God. I think my Christian faith perspective, like Psalm 139, it talks about we're beautifully and wonderfully made. There's this notion that God loves us. We have intrinsic value, every human being, just because of who we are. And beyond just the divine, the eternal, the universal, that sense of love.




Warwick Fairfax:

I think most of us have at least one person who loves us. Many will hopefully have friends and family who are cheering us on. There's very few of us that has nobody that cares about us. Very few of us have at least one friend, one family member who just feels bad for us, wants us to get out of that hole, whether it's of our own making or others. And so we are loved both by God and, I believe, by others.




Warwick Fairfax:

So if other people love us, including God, maybe we do matter. Maybe our life should matter. Maybe our negative identity needs to change. That's people that know us well. They love us in spite of our foibles, in spite of our mistakes, idiosyncrasies. It's not like there's blind love in which they don't know us. Oh, they know exactly who we are, but they choose to love us anyway. That should cause you to think positively.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. There is, interestingly enough, as we're talking about this subject, in the current issue of Entrepreneur magazine, there's a very short column in the beginning by a man named Dennis Gillan, who is the executive director of a suicide prevention center. And he talks about he's a keynote speaker and he suffers from lack of confidence sometimes. And he's not sure how well it's going to go over.




Gary Schneeberger:

There are times that he says, as we're talking here, there are times that his identity, his negative self- image is "I just feel like quitting." This is what he writes in an article he titled The Purple File. He writes this: "When I consider quitting, I grab the file, the purple file. And come back with renewed determination. Then he asks the reader, do you have a similar file, somewhere to put cherished testimonial, comment, a piece of feedback, or kind note from a coworker, something that lifts your spirits and reminds you why you do what you do. I recommend it."




Gary Schneeberger:

I read that article this last weekend and I created... Here's my purple file. And I went through, and you're in here, by the way, for the nice thing that you wrote in your signed copy of your book to me. But I went through, like I've kept a lot of cards through the years from when I left jobs and people were wishing me well. And this is just the first thing I pulled out of this purple file. It's a high school graduation card that's 40 years this year that my brother who passed away in 1995, but this was back in '82, this is what he wrote me. Just one little bit that he wrote me:




Gary Schneeberger:

"I want you to know, win or lose in life, I'm never prouder at any time as when I can call you my brother and best damn friend I have. Thank you for making my life with you so happy." That's from my brother who is no longer with me. He's been gone for almost 25 years. That's amazing stuff. When you talk about, you've got one person who loves you, you've got people, coworkers, those kinds of things. When Dennis Gillan talks about these things in his article, this is the lifeblood of shattering that negative identity that can stick to you, I think. Fair?




Warwick Fairfax:

Oh, absolutely. Those are almost sort of markers of grace. I'm reminded of when Moses, who spent 40 years in the desert, he would instruct the Israelites to erect memorial stones as a way of just remembering God's grace and providence. And so those sorts of things, I mean, I have three adult kids. We have at least two out of the three are writers. We write birthday cards, as listeners know. We say positive things about whoever's birthday it is.




Warwick Fairfax:

You look at all those cards and they write in detail about why they love me and what have you. Obviously, the stuff some very kind folks wrote me endorsements to the book, I mean, those things matter. And you remember that and it's hard... It's funny, I often say, It's easy to remember bad things that people say about you. It's not easy to remember the good things because we tend to want to dismiss it. It's like it doesn't compute.




Warwick Fairfax:

So we're like, with our negative self-image, but that's why I think what you're saying, this purple file is because we forget those things. And reading them, it's like, maybe I'm not perfect, but maybe I do have value. And so it's such a good idea, that purple file concept.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. And if the concept that we're discussing here, and it is, is frozen identity, a purple file, the stuff inside this file is a heat lamp that melts that frozen identity-




Warwick Fairfax: Amen.




Gary Schneeberger:

... and brings you back to a place where you understand, okay, I'm not all those bad things that I'm thinking about myself right now.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's not positive, happy talk just for the sake of it. These are accurate assessments from people that know you. So it's bringing you back to reality is what that's doing.




Gary Schneeberger:

Very, very, very wisely said. Okay, the third point, three of seven, after your life matters and you are loved is the world needs us. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

So it's really a progression. So you start with the decision, okay, my life does matter. God loves me. Other people love me. The sense that because we're all uniquely made with talents, abilities, and experience by God, from my perspective, we have a unique set of combination of gifts and talents and experience that not one other human in the billions of humans on the planet have. Every person is unique with a unique set of characteristics, gifts and talents. So the world needs that.




Warwick Fairfax:

What would life be like if we didn't have some of the people that, whether it's Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln. You look at Abraham Lincoln went through a pretty tough life. He lost a mother, I think, when he was extremely young and a woman that he loved early on before he married his wife. He lost several elections. I mean, he could have just gone away and hid and said, "You know what?" And he had suffered from melancholy, which is in modern language, we'd call it depression. He could have said, "You know, I'm a loser. The world's against me. God's against me. Look at the tragedy with lost kids and a mother and lost elections," but he didn't give up.




Warwick Fairfax:

He kept pressing on. He just had this sense of drive, hope, and a sense of calling. The world needed, America needed what he had to offer. He believed, not getting too much into Lincoln, he believed in fighting against the spread of slavery into new territories which had become states. And from there, he evolved into slavery is wrong and a moral sin, if you will. But that's that sense of the world needed his gifts and his calling to oppose slavery.




Warwick Fairfax:

If he'd just wallowed in melancholy, I mean the world would not have had an Abraham Lincoln, which who knows what would've happened in this country with slavery. It's almost scary to think about it, but I'm not saying, almost none of us will be Abraham Lincoln, but the point is he didn't wallow in his melancholy. He fought that and fought negative self-image to contribute in a powerful way to the world. That we all in our own small ways or big ways can have a massive effect on folks.




Gary Schneeberger:

Right. And what you just said about Lincoln, not believing his negative self-image, that was fueled in some part by what people said about him too. And that moves nicely into your fourth point, which is deal with the lie. Right? Lincoln got criticized. He was the backwoods guy from Kentucky and then Illinois. And he was never going to amount to anything. He kept getting underestimated, underestimated, underestimated. Point four, deal with the lie, what do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

Whether a crucible is your fault or not your fault, whether it's abuse or huge mistakes or just this, they think of you as a screwup from being a teenager or in high school, it's realizing, and this is a choice, it is a lie. It is not who you are. Yes, we've made mistakes, but just because you've made mistakes doesn't mean you're a bad person. There are very few people that you can say are "evil."




Warwick Fairfax:

There's some in history that maybe are worthy of that name, but most of us are not. Most of us have just made mistakes or had bad things happen to us. So part of it is to deal with that, and that may mean help. I think for many of us, I've certainly had some, you might need help from a therapist, a counselor, a psychologist, maybe from close friends, mentors, family members. And just to say, "I have this negative self-image and I don't know, why is that?"




Warwick Fairfax:

I said, "Well, that's because of maybe the divorce, your parents, or maybe it's because of the mistake. But that's not who you are. Remember all these good things you did? Remember the people you helped?" In a sense, it's almost like the purple file you're talking about in which people actually give you specifics. Remember, you did this and this and this and this. Remember that person you helped and that person? "Oh, I guess I'd forgotten that." Well, how can you be such a bad person, given all the things that you did that most people will never know.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm sure way back when, I know you've obviously had some challenges, as you mentioned a couple podcasts ago. You could have talked to your dad, your brother, some close friends, and they'd say, "Gary, don't you remember, you helped this person and that. Remember when you did this and that?" Well, your lowest moments, you're not thinking about that. Right? So deal with the lie, whether it's counseling or friends or family or both, but you can't help anybody until you help yourself.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's almost like, yeah, it's a both/and, external and internal, but you've got to deal with the internal, with the internal lie, because that cripples your ability to move forward and help anybody else. If you think you're a screwup and a leper, how in the world are you going to have the energy to help another living soul? You're not. So you got to deal with the lie and don't believe that negative self-image. There are specific steps you just got to be willing to take, make the choice, deal with the lie.




Gary Schneeberger:

I have a phrase I use for myself that gets at both of the ways we talk about identity. And I say, "I am less than my greatest achievements and I am more than my worst failures." So that helps me from believing my own press too much and believing my own worst critical reviews too much. When someone says to you, "You'll never amount to much," that's a lie, because no one's seen the future and knowing that you're never going to amount to much. They're passing judgment on you. Deal with that lie and move beyond it, as you've said.




Gary Schneeberger:

Point five in this very good blog, which you will be able to find, if not now, listener, shortly, it will be up at Crucibleleadership.com. Point five is to forgive yourself and forgive others. Boy, we spend a lot of time talking about forgiveness on this show. Don't we?




Warwick Fairfax:
We do. And honestly, that wasn't in the book, at least not the original book I wrote.




Gary Schneeberger: Really? Wow.




Warwick Fairfax:

Maybe it is, but it wasn't a big emphasis, put it that way. Maybe I'm just forgetting, but who knows? But I think let's put it this way: it's grown to a lot more prominence through the podcast, interviewing people, and as you and I have dialogued, thoughts come to mind.




Warwick Fairfax:

So basically, you're dealing with your negative self-talk and not believing the lie that your life matters. But at a certain point to not believe the lie, you have to deal with the lie. Which is in my case, I destroyed a 150-year-old family media business. I caused friction within the family, lost billions of dollars, made life unstable and uncomfortable for 4,000-plus employees. You know, if you want to take it to its extreme, because of all that instability, maybe even hurt the nation of Australia in some way. I don't know. It depends how big you want to make the lie.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

There's sometimes kernels of truth in these things. It's just the lie magnifies them massively. So part of it is forgiving yourself. Like in my case, look, I was 26. I meant well. I was young, idealistic. My dad had just died in early '87. There was instability in the family for decades before I came along. I listened to the wrong advisors. There's all sorts of, these aren't excuses, but there are reasons why.




Warwick Fairfax:

And so part of it's like, you know what? You tried hard. You were young, idealistic. Forgive yourself. Sometimes, for instance, those who've been abused, when we talk about forgiving others, you could say, "Well, what was done to me was unforgivable." And I understand the concept, but you forgive others, as we often say here on Beyond the Crucible, because you're worth it. Because by not forgiving others, it's like drinking poison. It's just this anger and bitterness stops you moving forward. And I don't see how anger and bitterness allows you to have a positive self-image.




Warwick Fairfax:

I mean, there's no room for positivity left in your soul because it's consumed by anger and bitterness and rage. It's all negative, destructive thoughts, which I don't pretend to understand. But when you're angry about others because of what they did to you, you can somehow, because of what they did to me, I'm somehow worthless. Somehow that concept, one follows the other. So for you to see yourself as having worth, you've got to be able to forgive others. Because again, you don't excuse the act. You don't condone the act, but you forgive them so that you can move forward.




Warwick Fairfax:

In that sense, you could say it's self-centered, I suppose, but whatever it takes to move forward. But forgiving yourself and forgiving others, if you don't do that, in the podcast we've had a hundred episodes. Not one person that we ever had on this podcast who's moved beyond their worst day has ever not forgiven others or themselves. Not one, not one of them. Every one has forgiven because that's the only way to bounce back from your crucible, or at least put it that way, if you don't do that, I can't see how you will bounce back because it's absolutely critical to be able to move forward.




Gary Schneeberger:

And I'll add in another aspect of that thinking of forgiveness as sort of a 360. There's forgiving others. There's forgiving yourself, but there was this incredibly insightful guest two weeks ago, me. Kidding. But I was a guest two weeks ago. And one of the things I said when I was going through Alcoholics Anonymous, that was asking for forgiveness. That was a key part for me coming to a place where I believed I was worthy of forgiveness, me forgiving me, as other people forgave me for some of the things I did.




Gary Schneeberger:

Again, nothing criminal, but I was just not a very moral, ethical, kind, nice guy. Other people forgave me that, and that helped me as well. So I think it's a three-headed thing. It's forgive others, absolutely. Ask for forgiveness, I think, is also critical. And then forgive yourself. I think those three things work in harmony.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. It's so well said. And you know, when you ask for forgiveness from others because of things you've done, hopefully they'll say, "Look, I forgive you." But sometimes they won't. They say, "Oh. You can say what you want to say, but I'm never forgiving you until the day I die," which is pretty difficult to hear. But even asking forgiveness, there will be some healing that comes from that even if they don't forgive you.




Warwick Fairfax:

Not everybody will. Because you feel like, I've done the right thing, I've acknowledged what I did to that other person. And you feel like, I've done what I can. I'm not responsible for people's response. I'm just responsible for what I do. So even if not everybody forgives you, it still is freeing in a sense, the sheer act of asking for forgiveness, if that makes sense.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. AA talks about it in this way. All you're responsible for is your side of the street. So you're asking someone for forgiveness for what, as AA puts it, making an amends for what you have done to them, toward them that hurt them is just sweeping up your side of the street. You can't hold yourself responsible for their side of the street. Just doing that, you're absolutely right, can make you feel like you're in a much better place. As I said on the show a couple weeks ago, it's amazing when you ask for forgiveness, how many people will forgive you, who will say, "Absolutely."




Gary Schneeberger:

And just one more thing I want to add as part of this, because it's important transactionally when you're talking about forgiveness to close that circle. So many times someone will come up and say, "Oh, I'm sorry." And our response will be, "Oh, no problem. Whatever." To me, that's denying them closure.




Gary Schneeberger:

In other words, if someone says they're sorry to me, I want to say back, I want to close that loop for them and say, "I forgive you. Yes, absolutely." Not just, "No problem. It's no big deal," because in some way that doesn't complete the transaction. It's they're making themselves vulnerable. They're apologizing. We ought to at least say, "Yes, thank you. And I forgive you." Because I think that then makes moving forward even a little bit more easy.




Warwick Fairfax:

As I've written the book and obviously said it to pretty much every family member I've had, I've had other people that were on the other side of the takeover that things were rocky way back when say to me, "You showed a lot of courage and vulnerability in writing that book."




Warwick Fairfax:

Well, you have to believe that meant a lot to me that somebody that was on the other side that wasn't feeling too warm and fuzzy to me at the time would say that, yeah, I had courage and vulnerability and basically admired... Because I don't sugarcoat things. I talk about my own mistakes and don't throw rocks at others. But that's part of the healing. You know? Yeah.




Gary Schneeberger:

What you just described, the way that you got forgiveness from others, that's a flame thrower to the frozen identity of "Young Warwick." I mean that will melt that frozen identity like that. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about that can really propel us forward. All right.




Warwick Fairfax: Indeed.




Gary Schneeberger:

Another place we can go to propel us forward, point six in your seven-point prescription for ways to unfreeze your identity from a bad place is to embrace the broken and the beautiful. What do you mean by that?




Warwick Fairfax:

I think as humans, and this is certainly definitely a faith perspective from my Christian faith, is we may be broken, but we're beautiful. And again, it's funny, we had a sermon just this last Sunday from our pastor. I think it was II Corinthians and it says, "We have this treasure in jars of clay." Basically, treasure being God's light, so to speak, and jars of clay being our broken bodies.




Warwick Fairfax:

I remember also we did a blog, I don't know if it was a year ago or more, in which we had a picture of a vase that was broken, but it was glued together with gold paint or that kind of thing.




Gary Schneeberger:

That's so funny because I'm going to talk about this after you're done talking about it. I'm going to add some more detail. So please, go on, go on, go on.




Warwick Fairfax:

Oh, so just the sense of we're broken but beautiful. In some sense, I think from my faith perspective, God can use our brokenness to help others. So in my case, I was broken by my own failures and circumstances, but it gives you a sense of compassion for others. It wants you to help. And it gives me a calling to help shine a light on other people's worst days and how they bounce back to offer words of hope and healing, so to speak, to write the book I wrote.




Warwick Fairfax:

Very often with maybe how many guests we've had, 80, 90-plus on the podcast, so many have used their worst moment, whether it's failure, abuse, to reach out to whether it's other cancer survivors, other survivors of abuse, other people who've failed in terms of businesses. They've used, to use that oft-used phrase, their pain for a purpose. So some, even amidst the ashes of the broken of your worst day, there can be ways that beauty can come out of that and you can use that as a light to help others. So yeah, we can often find our calling out of our worst moments, as hard as that is to think about.




Gary Schneeberger:

And what you were talking about, Warwick, and I have a note right here to talk about it. In the blog, The blog was October 19th, 2020, called Beauty and Imperfection: Vulnerability for a Purpose. But what you were describing is the Japanese art of Kintsugi. And I'm going to read what that is. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.




Gary Schneeberger:

Every break is unique. And instead of repairing an item like new, the 400-year-old technique actually highlights the scars as part of the design. Using this as a metaphor for healing ourselves teaches us an important lesson. Sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something more unique, beautiful, and resilient.




Gary Schneeberger:

And I have a personal story I want to share about that. So I don't have a lot of art. But years ago, a couple decades ago, I bought these things called poet's bottles. They're very intricate, delicate, three bottles. And they're etched with the words, faith, hope and love from I Corinthians. That was why I got these three bottles and I have them on a stand in our kitchen, on a nice lighted stand from the bottom.




Gary Schneeberger:

And one day when my in-laws were over, I was playing with the dog. I was trying to show how the dog plays catch with a big ball. And we bounced it to the dog and the dog hits it with her nose. The dog hit it with her nose and it went into the kitchen and it knocked over one of those bottles. It broke the love bottle. It fell on the ground and it broke. I was devastated. My stepdaughter, Alyssa, who is an artist, picked up every one of the broken pieces I had put in the garbage and this is what she did with them.




Warwick Fairfax: Oh my gosh.




Gary Schneeberger:
So there's the love bottle.




Warwick Fairfax:
Why don't you describe for the listeners who may not be able to see, so what is it you're holding?




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. I am holding one of those poet's bottles. It's the love bottle and what my stepdaughter Alyssa did was glue it back together and then use gold paint to seal up and highlight the cracks.




Warwick Fairfax: Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

And the most beautiful part of that story is that she said when she did it, the most beautiful part of that story is she said, "Because love is never completely broken."




Warwick Fairfax:
Wow. Boy, wow. Wow.




Gary Schneeberger:

That's what we're talking about when we talk about embracing the beauty in brokenness. And that's exactly what this bottle symbolizes and what you were talking about earlier symbolizes.




Warwick Fairfax:

I just want to highlight what you've said. I mean, that's such a wonderful illustration. I think our brokenness doesn't necessarily make us weaker. It can make us stronger. If we, to use what we say all the time, if we embrace the crucible, if we learn from it, use it to help others, it can give us a strength, a courage, a calling that we never had before. So it can be broken and beautiful and stronger than ever before.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:
You know? It can make you stronger. It's a choice, but it can make you more resilient.




Gary Schneeberger:

And the thing that I said after she did this and she gave it to me is I said, "You know, before, when it was in its perfect state, it was something I liked a lot. Now it's something I treasure," because of what she did to piece... I mean, the beauty that she put into this is far, far, far greater and more meaningful than the beauty that the artist even put into it when he made the bottle.




Warwick Fairfax:

So what you're saying is it was beautiful before, but now that it's broken, it's far more beautiful than it was.




Gary Schneeberger: Right, right. Yep.




Warwick Fairfax: That is awesome stuff.




Gary Schneeberger:

Yeah. It was so funny when you brought up that. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to talk about that too." So I actually pulled the bottle out here and I've been all nervous the whole time because I talk with my hands a lot and I don't want to knock it over. So let's move on to point seven. So we've gone through the first six points.




Gary Schneeberger:

The first six points, just to go through is one, your life matters. Two, you are loved. Three, the world needs us. Four, deal with the lie. Five, forgive yourself and forgive others. I added into that, ask for forgiveness from others, because that helps as well. Six, embrace the broken and the beautiful in your life. And the seventh point, Warwick, that you make in this blog on Crucibleleadership.com is to remember our mission. Unpack that for listeners.




Warwick Fairfax:

So we talk probably as much as anything on this podcast, Beyond the Crucible, or in Crucible Leadership about living a life of significance. It's what life is all about is a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So part of getting over the lie, of changing our identity is rewiring our brains. A lot of people know far more than I do about neuroscience, but it's not easy to rewire our brains, to rewire our identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

But part of that is, yeah, you want to deal with the lie. We're broken and beautiful, but what's the mission? What's that unique calling? For many of our guests, the root of their missional calling often comes out of the crucible they've gone through. It is for me. Crucible Leadership came out of my experience at losing a $2.25 billion 150-year-old company. How do you bounce back from your worst day? How do you lead a life of significance?




Warwick Fairfax:

The book, the podcast, everything we do all came from that. So it's as you find that mission and you begin... It's not like a one and done. I mean, okay, the book's done. We're going to be thinking about things for this year and who knows whether we'll have online courses or all sorts of things we're thinking about in Crucible Leadership. You keep moving forward, moving forward. And that mission, as you walk into it, it provides healing.




Warwick Fairfax:

In the fall, Gary, you were with me everywhere I went. I was speaking and the dialogues we had. As we were at Seton Hall, at Taylor University in Indiana, a Christian school where my kids were. We were at some business groups, XPX in Maryland and North Carolina, ACG, also in North Carolina as part of that. All these things we were at, and especially with the young people, they had a line of folks waiting for me to sign their book. Books just went when people said, "Oh, you know, the students are busy. They won't all take your book," which is fine either way.




Warwick Fairfax:

The questions they asked when you felt like, I'm actually helping some real people here. And it wasn't so much about, "Oh, look at me. I'm wonderful." Because my attitude in terms of dealing with that is all glory be to God, all glory be to God. Whenever anything good happens, I proverbially or physically get on my knees and say, "Glory to God." But those sorts of things make you think, you know what, there was some purpose in this pain. There's some meaning to what happens, and that provides a level of healing and a level of healing to your identity.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. And I think it also adds gravitas to the counsel and the wisdom that you give to other people. In other words, I love the fact that Young Warwick and all that that is meant to symbolize by those who stuck you with that nickname, it's because of Young Warwick that those kids at Seton Hall were in line waiting for you to sign their book and waiting to talk to you. It's, again, I go back to what the enemy intends for evil, God uses for good.




Gary Schneeberger:

Those things, that frozen identity thawed out, you can bring it into the present then and you can refer to it. Not live in it, but refer to it. And that gives you authenticity and gravitas and experience to allow you to speak into people's pain today. That truly is fuel for a life of significance once you get that identity unfrozen and you set it right. When you can refer back to it and draw lessons from it, that's what we talk about all the time here, that learning the lessons of your crucible is the fuel for your life of significance.




Warwick Fairfax:

Yeah. I mean it's so well said. I mean the person I am now, I wouldn't have been that person without what happened to me. I mean, you refer to that phrase, I think it's from Genesis 50. They meant it for evil, God meant it for good, referring to the life of Joseph, who was a young man was full of himself, had this coat of many colors. "Hey, look at me. I'm the favored son." I mean really unwise stuff.




Gary Schneeberger: Right.




Warwick Fairfax:

Gets thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt. Goes through a bunch of trials, ends up being basically the prime minister of Egypt. So clearly, despite his, it certainly wasn't all his fault, but some of his unwise behavior that caused a lot of jealousy, God used that. And so I look back and I could have been, I don't know, a couple billion dollars wealthier. I would've been in this family business, a bit of a gilded prison. I don't know how happy I would've been.




Warwick Fairfax:

But what I'm doing now, none of that would've happened without that. The life I lived, just the sense of fulfilling and having a wonderful family. My kids don't get to grow up with the whole baggage and bondage of family business stuff, which you know, is tough to grow up with. So yeah, I mean, I am blessed. We had a resilient series in which a number of guests, one in particular said, "What I went through was a blessing." That woman, Stacey Copas, who was injured at 12 in an Australian above- ground pool diving accident.




Warwick Fairfax:

It's hard to fathom that, but there's this sense of reframing it to say, "Maybe it was a blessing." Maybe it was a gift, what I went through, because it enables me to be who I am, to write what I write, to have a passion and hopefully compassion for people, to want to help people bounce back from their worst days to live lives of significance, gives you a mission and a calling. And that does change your identity.




Warwick Fairfax:

I'm not perfect in that sense, but I don't see myself as Young Warwick, screwup, messed everything up. I say, "Yeah, I made some mistakes, but I have a mission in which I'm caring for others." I've served on some nonprofit boards. I feel like I am making a difference in the world in my own way. I go to historical figures a bit too much, perhaps, and none of us are going to be, almost none, like a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. But Franklin Roosevelt is just the case study in how tragedy turned his life around.




Warwick Fairfax:

He was this young guy of aristocratic New York wealth, life of the party. Everybody loved him, eye for the ladies, outgoing person. It's hard to see how he could contribute much to the world, this rich kid who everybody liked at parties. Then he gets polio and he is, I don't know, what, late thirties or something, somewhere around there. And it fundamentally changes him. He had to come back from what at the time was like a death sentence. You were meant to hide away and a bit like a leper. You weren't meant to be seen in society.




Warwick Fairfax:

Well, then he becomes president in the depths of the Depression. Well, a wealthy, rich kid, how would he be elected in the Depression? How could you relate to anybody's suffering? But because of what he went through, it's like, look how Franklin Roosevelt, it's so hard for him to walk. When he says, "All we have to fear is fear itself." The gravitas of those words came from people that had at least some sense of the tragedy that he'd gone through. There's no way that the Roosevelt of World War II or the Depression would've been that man without that tragedy. There is no way in the world. I can't imagine he would've been elected president.




Warwick Fairfax:

So again, it's not to say you or anybody else is going to be like a Roosevelt or a Lincoln, but tragedy can transform us into something that can be a real gift to the world, whether everybody knows about it or hardly anybody does. It can give you a mission that can be transforming both for your identity and to help other people's lives. So it can be huge.




Gary Schneeberger:

Absolutely. Since the two historical examples that you've used in this episode are both presidents, I'll say that the commander of Air Force One has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign and it's time to put the leader of the free world on the ground. But before we do that, what's one, if you're going to pull the best highlight, the best advice, the best counsel, wisdom, experience that you have here, what would you want to leave? What do you want to leave listeners with before we go?




Warwick Fairfax:

I think as we often say, if today's the bottom of the pit, is your worst day, it begins with one positive step. And so if I had to say, well, what's one positive step? I'd say it starts with don't believe the lie. Don't believe that you are a good for nothing screwup that shouldn't have been born. That today is the day you need to end your life. I mean, it depends how far you want to go. Don't believe the lie.




Warwick Fairfax:

You are broken and beautiful. You are made for a purpose. The eternal, I believe God, loves all of us. So don't believe the lie, the enemy. If you believe in spiritual warfare that some do, don't believe the lie that you're a screwup, you never should have been born, all that kind of talk.




Warwick Fairfax:

Begin to think, move in a positive way. If God loves me and if there's at least one other person on the planet that loves me, maybe my life is worth redeeming. Maybe I can move forward, even if it's in a small, positive step. All it takes is one little drop of grace and the flower can grow. Just one little drop, a positive thought of grace, and you'll be able to move forward, no matter how small that step is. It begins with don't believe the lie.




Gary Schneeberger:

And there you go. Air Force One's on the ground. I can hear Hail to the Chief. We've landed the plane for sure. So listeners, thank you for spending this time with us as we've talked about this extremely important subject of how do you unfreeze your identity from the bad place it may be in from some of the setbacks and failures and traumas and tragedies that you've been through. And do remember, as you've been through those crucible experiences, that they are not the end of your story.




Gary Schneeberger:

This podcast exists to reinforce that idea that your crucible is painful. We know that, but it's not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons, if you follow, as Warwick talks about here, some great tips on how you learn lessons from what's knocked you down and you apply those to your life, that can actually be the beginning of a new story that will be the best story of your life, because where it leads you is where it's led Young Warwick Fairfax, to a life of significance.

Sometimes life can feel like the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, in which Murray lives the same day over and over again.  No matter what he does he cannot seem to get out of this repeating time loop.  Sometimes our identity is like this.  We might see ourselves as a 16- or 17-year-old teenager.  We may be older, but our identity seems to be frozen in time from those high school years.  We might have grown as a person and achieved success academically and professionally, yet we still see ourselves as that awkward, insecure teenager in high school.

If we go through crucible experiences, pain and trauma that fundamentally alters the course of our lives, that also has a tendency to lock in our identity.  We see ourselves as that person who made that horrendous mistake or who suffered that unspeakable tragedy.  We feel full of guilt, or perhaps what was done to us makes us feel worthless, fragile and completely disempowered.

This sense of frozen identity, which very often is a false identity, holds us back from being who we truly are.  It also holds us back from being the light that our world sorely needs.  If you feel bad about yourself and feel worthless, how will you have the desire or the energy to care for others?  You will tend to feel that you are incapable of helping anyone or doing any good.  The world would be better off, you might think, if you never existed.  Like lepers in the Bible, you can see yourself as “unclean” and feel people should stay away from you.  Being near others will only lead to them getting hurt.

So how do you get out of this cycle of frozen identity, be it from high school challenges or from a crucible experience?  How can you free yourself from the prison of this negative perception of yourself, so you can contribute to the world and to others?

1. Your Life Matters.

The starting point is to realize that your life matters and that the world needs your gifting and your talents.  Wallowing in self-pity, recrimination and resignation will not only be bad for yourself, it will be bad for others.  Negative self-talk will inevitably be manifested in how you treat friends and family and co-workers.

2. You are Loved.

I believe all humans are loved by God.  My faith teaches us that as humans we have intrinsic worth and value.  Many of us have at least one person who loves us because of who we are, in spite of our foibles.  Some have friends, family and co-workers who are actually cheering for us.  They wonder when we will see how special and valuable, we are.  When will we see ourselves the way others see us?

3. The World Needs Us.

I believe we are all special and unique, with a combination of unique gifts and talents. The world needs what we have to offer.

4. Deal with the Lie.

Many faith perspectives teach that there are forces of light and darkness.  So, from that viewpoint, we might have negative feelings that say we are worthless, that we’ll never amount to anything or even that we never should have been born.  Don’t listen to the lie.  Don’t believe the lie.  This is where some digging and some hard work may be needed.  For some, counseling can be very helpful to get in touch with why we feel badly about ourselves. Counseling can help us understand why our self-image is trapped in our former teenage selves or locked into the bottom of the pit during the lowest moment of our crucible experience.  Friends and family and even co-workers can help us gain a true perspective of who we are as well.

5. Forgive Yourself and Forgive Others.

If you view your crucible experience or whatever is holding you back as your fault, the first step is to forgive yourself.  This may also involve asking for the forgiveness of others who you may have hurt.  Sometimes, others have hurt us perhaps profoundly.  A key part of healing and moving on from your crucible if others have hurt you is to forgive them.  This is not so much because they deserve it, but because you deserve it.  Bitterness and anger are like poison which stops you being whole and moving on.

6. Broken and Beautiful.

We as humans are not perfect, and sometimes we may feel we are broken.  Like a broken vase, we may feel that we have many imperfections.  Yet in our brokenness there can be beauty.  People who move beyond their crucible experiences often use their pain and their brokenness to help others.  Cancer survivors help others with cancer.  Those who have suffered abuse help others who have been through abuse.  In helping others, we use our brokenness to be a light to the world, providing healing to others; and in the process help to heal ourselves.  Our pain has meaning now.  We have a mission.  We have a calling.  We have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

7. Our Mission.

Using our lives, even the broken parts, to lead lives of significance, lives on purpose dedicated to serving others, gives us meaning and purpose.  It can also lead to the rewiring of our brains.  Negative self-talk can be very powerful.  But when we use all of who we are to help others, we begin to get feedback that is out of tune with the lie.  We get feedback from those we help, as well as friends, family and co-workers that we have value.  We are doing something good to help people.  Drip by drip, this positive feedback and the evidence we see about who we really are and how we are helping people can slowly change our identity.

Changing our identity, which may be frozen in time, is not easy.  But as we begin to accept ourselves as broken and beautiful; as we forgive ourselves and others; as we begin to use all of who we are, even our brokenness, to help others; we begin to change.  Our fixed negative identity, the lie that we are worthless and should never have been born, begins to change.  The ice melts.

We begin to see ourselves as loved by the creator and the universe.  We begin to see ourselves as loved by our friends, family and co-workers.  We begin to see ourselves as having a mission and a purpose that will help others and that the world needs.  We do indeed see ourselves as broken and beautiful.  We look at ourselves in the mirror as, yes, having imperfections, but as also having incredible worth.  We might even begin to like who we see.

Reflection

Order Crucible Leadership here

Jeff Caliguire thought he was a victim when the vocational path he chose as a pastor left him lonely, depressed and lacking authentic friendships. It wasn’t until he hit emotional bottom that he found his way forward, through finding the blessings in even challenging circumstances and allowing them to transform his thinking. Today, he’s a life and leadership coach offering clients a safe space to express their doubts and frustrations about life’s inevitable challenges and work on the care of their souls through finding gratitude even in difficulty. That’s the pathway, he has discovered, to a life of significance for all of us – a life in which, as he puts it, we find our deep gladness and apply it to the world’s deep need.

To learn more about Jeff Caliguire, visit www.jeffcaliguire.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Jeff C:

I would end up dumping on my wife things that almost like she would carry. And what I didn't realize is I was almost creating this germ inside of her through my negativity and my complaining and my victimness. When we think of the hero, the hero is able to take what's happened to them and overcome it. I started to play the victim and I started to believe I was cursed, that somehow all these terrible things that were happening to me, and these people who didn't understand me were making me cursed. And it's when we get to the place where we're playing a victim, especially in leadership, that poor me, things have happened bad, that's where we are needing something new. We need a breakthrough. We need new hope.

Gary S:

Hero or victim? How are you seeing yourself these days? This week's guest, author and leadership coach Jeff Caliguire, just explained how he's lived thinking he was the latter. Now, he and Warwick talk in depth about what it took him and what it takes all of us to live and lead as the former. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Caliguire says the key to moving from victim to hero in the aftermath of a crucible is gratitude.

Gary S:

Finding the blessings in even challenging circumstances and allowing them to transform your thinking. Helping clients navigate that journey and giving them a safe space to express their doubts and frustrations along the way is the focus of the coaching he offers leaders. It's also, he says, the pathway to a life of significance for all of us, a life in which, as he puts it, we find our deep gladness and apply it to the world's deep need.

Warwick F:

Jeff, thanks so much for being here. And I love what you do with We Train Coaches and your concept about transformation through coaching. But I'd like to go back a bit, as we often say here on Beyond the Crucible, to get a bit of the origin story of how you grew up. I think you mentioned before, you grew up maybe in the New York area, and your dad maybe was a business owner, chief executive of a paper company.

Warwick F:

So, talk about growing up in New York and maybe family expectations. And obviously, as listeners know I have some understanding of the whole growing up in a family business deal, growing up in a large family media business in Australia. So, yeah, just talk about growing up and expectations and what's the path you thought you were on or maybe your parents or your dad was thinking you should be on perhaps.

Jeff C:

Yeah, my dad was a guy who grew up in the Great Depression, actually sold newspapers on the streets of Boston. He truly was, I mean, if there's ever a self-made man, I know we're all made in a lot of ways by each other. But my dad was somebody who was single mom, alcoholic dad. And he went into business in New York, started out just selling, eventually was able to buy the company. And I don't think I realized how amazing my dad was until later. I went through my own leadership issues and started to think, "Wow, my dad actually knew something." You know how you think your dad doesn't know much. But I was the youngest of three sons, and my dad really had hoped that one of his sons was going to go into the family business. And so, there was this unspoken pressure, and I worked there during the summers in New York. You get to go into the family business. And I just didn't say this to my dad was, "Do I really want to go into the family business? Is this something for me? I mean, I didn't come from the Great Depression. My life was a lot different." So, it's that unwritten, unspoken expectation that made me go, "Okay, then what if I don't go into the family business?"

Warwick F:

Yeah, boy, I know it so well. So, when you say a paper business, just out of curiosity, what kind of paper? Was it newsprint? What kind of paper product was it?

Jeff C:

And most people will get it instantly when I say think The Office.

Gary S:

Okay. Dunder Mifflin.

Jeff C:

It was Dunder Mifflin, instead it was called Willman and it was in New York City. We sold paper to printers and publishers, big rolls. My dad was an amazing salesperson, sold to American Express, Time Warner, and just had amazing success in the Dunder Mifflin type of business.

Warwick F:

Well, and you use the phrase, this unspoken expectation. I mean, I can so identify with it. As listeners know, I grew up in a fifth generation family business. My dad inherited as his grandfather did. As listeners know, my dad was married three times, my mom twice. And because I got good grades in school, I worked hard, and the expectations rose. I was the "good son." I wasn't the prodigal son, if you will, that went away and was rebellious.

Warwick F:

So, he never said, "Well, have you thought about if you're going with the family business?" The question was never asked. It was obviously expected that I would prepare myself, Oxford, Wall Street, Harvard Business School it was. And if I didn't go into it, I felt like it would have just crushed him. So, I maybe took the not so wise path. You probably had enough wisdom, courage or something to say, "I don't know that I want to do this."

Warwick F:

I wasn't even willing to go there. I don't know, five generations. I don't know what it was. But how did you go there, because you went where I didn't and couldn't. So, how did you have the courage? Did you have a conversation with your dad? I mean, how did that come up, that kind of "Dad, my brothers aren't going to do it and I guess you're hoping me as the youngest might, and I'm just not." I mean, what kind of conversation was that?

Jeff C:

My dad was somebody who I think didn't want to put pressure on me. But at the same time, I could tell when I started going in a different direction, there was a disappointment. But because I'd worked there during the summers, I got to know what it really was like and I didn't have any false expectations of what it would be like to lead that business or be in that business. And I would have people who would take me out to lunch, some older people who are part of the business and they'd say, "Do you realize the kind of opportunity that you have?"

Jeff C:

And so, there was this little bit of guilt that I had. I have this opportunity and yet, I'm not excited about it. And a question I think a lot of people who've been in family businesses go through is, all right, I can do anything I want to do with my life, but I really should go into the family business. And so, there's this tension of I can do anything but I'm meant for something else. And so, then when I felt like, "Hey, dad, what if I went to seminary? I'm considering that."

Jeff C:

I could tell he just dropped. He wasn't going to say, "Don't do that," because it was a God thing to do. But at the same time, I hated disappointing my dad. I loved my dad. So, I think there was this disappointment but at the same time, this acceptance. And I remember having lunch with him and telling him I'd like to go to seminary and him not saying much. He didn't affirm it, but he didn't tell me I shouldn't do it either.

Warwick F:

Now, obviously, you're a person of faith. Was your dad and family people of faith?

Jeff C:

Yes, definitely, definitely was. I saw faith in my dad. My dad would be the guy who was before he put his suit on, would get down on his knees at the side of his bed and pray before he started the day and when he ended the day, which marked me. I mean, I definitely saw that. But I think what happens with a lot of people is, I can almost use big word like bifurcate. You have life and you have business, and the two don't always intersect.

Jeff C:

And my dad was a man of character and very moral, but I don't feel like no one ever prayed with him about his business. And I didn't feel like he had spiritual mentors in his business that understood him. So, I think there was a loneliness. It's like I know this faith thing is supposed to be integrated in business, but it's not. And so, I do think there was a separation.

Warwick F:

Somehow, you must have felt peace that your path was to go to seminary. Did you feel like that still small voice that, with all the pros and cons, I just know what the Lord wants me to do. Did you feel that in a sense?

Jeff C:

Man, it would sound so spiritual Warwick if I just said sure. I think I was more confused. My own time in college, I did have a spiritual awakening and I did start to recognize I can have a spiritual influence and impact on people. Especially I was in an Ivy League school, and people had a lot of questions about spiritual things, and I loved being a bridge to that. But if I said, "Boy, there was this clear calling, go to seminary, all the rest," it was more I wanted to do something meaningful with my life.

Jeff C:

And in retrospect, my dad was doing something meaningful. I've come to believe that sometimes we think it was more meaningful to go to seminary than it was to be a president of a company or be in the company. I think, for me, one of the things that was like missing in a lot of my growing up was, how do you process what you're really meant to do, what you're gifted to do, what the opportunities are open. Frederick Buechner said, "The place where God calls is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."

Jeff C:

And I think a lot of us haven't taken the time to know where is my deep gladness? Where is the need? And then, how do I bridge that? And so, I think seminary for me was a way to almost avoid making the decision. It took me longer to really find my deep gladness and to connect that to the world's deep need. And I think there's a lot of peace when that happens. So, I mean, I wish I could say I love studying Greek and Hebrew and theology, but I actually didn't. There were some people who did, and they were meant for that. And so, it took me longer to really find what I was meant to do.

Warwick F:

Yeah. And we'll get into what you do now in a bit. But I think it's often interesting, and I ask the same questions at myself. I mean, we're both international coach, federation certified coaches. If a coach had asked me back then as I asked you, because I became a believer when I was at Oxford. So, around about the time I was getting to the family business, you could have asked me, "So, what do you think God's heart is? What's your gifting?"

Warwick F:

"What are you passionate about? How do you think God could use it?" Really, in similar sense that you're saying and I don't know how I would answer that. I think I probably would have been too stubborn and too, in my case, the family business was founded by as strong a businessman for Christ as exists. So, that made it seem clear to me what God's plan was. Surely, he wants another believer in the family business, right?

Warwick F:

And the faith has been waned a bit over the generations. But yeah, I mean, if you had had somebody like yourself ask a 20-something, Jeff Caliguire, so what do you love doing and what do you think the Lord wants and ask those great questions, it's unknowable how you would have responded, right? But it would have been nice to have that opportunity. I'm sure you've asked yourself those questions, right?

Jeff C:

Well, and sometimes it's your deep pain that leads to your passion. So, I mean, I had a deep pain that I didn't have those safe people in my life. One question I like asking in coaching is, "Hey, what bugs you that doesn't seem to bug other people?" And what bugs me is that there weren't people...I mean, there's a mentor of mine who said, "Hey, we figured out how to send a man to the moon but we can't figure out how to help an 18-year-old figure out what they should major in, in college or what career they should go into."

Jeff C:

And so, it bugs me that there weren't people who could help me in that way. I wish I had a safe person or people who could allow me to process, and it usually doesn't come in one question or one afternoon. But I feel like if there could be people who majored in helping people discover their major or who majored in helping people discover a career trajectory that can bring together both their experiences, with their strengths, with their gifts, and have no horse in the race. Because my dad was amazing, but he had a horse in the race. You know what I mean? He wanted me in the business. And so, just having people like that, I think, can open up so many good things. So, I guess I would just ask our listener, what bugs you that doesn't seem to bug other people? Could there be a clue there?

Warwick F:

That's an awesome question. So, let's move the story along here a little bit. So, you obviously had some experiences at Cornell, fraternities and other ministries in different groups. You go to Dallas Theological Seminary and then you start a church in Boston. And if you go to Dallas Theological Seminary, it's logical that you want to become a pastor because that's why you go there, at least in most cases.

Warwick F:

So, you start a church and in theory, that sounds like what could be wrong with that, right? You're a believer, you start a church. But yet, that path was not easy and I think it led to some crucible moments. Talk a bit about starting that church and why that wasn't easy and that led to some soul searching.

Jeff C:

There are certain things that you feel like education can't equip you for. And some of the education that I didn't feel equipped for was the loneliness of leadership and also overcoming rejection that comes in pastoral leadership. I think people look to a pastor to have all the answers to have it together. And I remember being in a Bible study one time and sharing about some struggles in my marriage.

Jeff C:

And I got a call the next day from a guy in the Bible study who said, "I'm going to leave the church." And I said, "How come?" He goes, "Because you're struggling in your marriage." And I'm like, "What?" And he's like, "I don't want to have my pastor be someone who's struggling in their marriage." And what I realized was, you want to be, especially when you're in ministry and leadership, you want to be authentic but people want you to, in some ways, be better than you are.

Jeff C:

And what I started to see and started to beat myself with, Warwick, was I started to realize I wasn't as good as I wanted to be or they wanted me to be, and that was really lonely. And so, I'd wake up in the middle of the nights and I couldn't sleep because I'd be angry at myself, I'd be disappointed with others. And I stopped sleeping through the night. I would probably end up getting three or four hours of sleep and then I was tired.

Jeff C:

And I was going through what, in retrospect, was burnout because I was working hard. But I started to feel like I'm a failure, I'm not who people want me to be. I'm really not as spiritual as I want them to think I am. And now, there's this gap between what I'm wanting and what I am and that created a crucible season in my life, where something needed to change.

Warwick F:

The sad thing is pastors are humans, and they have challenges in their lives and marriages and kids like anybody else but yeah, you're not allowed to that. I mean, that must create enormous stress in that I want to model authenticity but they don't want that. They want me to model perfection and Mr. Super-spiritual Superman is what they want, right?

Jeff C:

And again, what I felt like was lacking was the safe place to really share what was going on and come back to hope. And I would end up dumping on my wife things that almost like she would carry. And what I didn't realize is I was almost creating this germ inside of her through my negativity and my complaining and my victimness. When we think of the hero, the hero is able to take what's happened to them and overcome it. I started to play the victim and I started to believe I was cursed, that somehow all these terrible things that were happening to me, and these people who didn't understand me were making me cursed. And it's when we get to the place where we're playing a victim, especially in leadership, that poor me, things have happened bad, that's where we are needing something new. We need a breakthrough. We need new hope. And so, that's where I was in my leadership.

Warwick F:

I mean, anybody that's a pastor or even a business executive, a CEO, VP, they can relate to your story. They've been there. It's like, "I can't tell my boss I don't know what I'm doing. I can't tell my boss I'm thinking of quitting." I mean, really? That's not a conversation you can have. That's not a safe place at all. So, does that make sense?

Jeff C:

Yeah. I had two experiences that woke me up to this. One was where I was, for the first time, meeting a CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation in beautiful big office overlooking Boston. And we started to talk and share and I think I was a little bit vulnerable with him. And he said, "Hey, could you close the door?" And I said, "Sure." I got up, closed the door. I sat back down. He goes, "I need to tell somebody this and I haven't able to tell anybody this."

Jeff C:

He said, "I've been having an affair for the last six months and it's eating me alive." And I realized that here I was this young guy, totally new, and I was somebody he was telling someone as vulnerable as that. The second thing that happened was, a number of years later, there was a guy who had been the CEO of another major corporation and he was retiring, very famous CEO, a man of faith. And we had a question and answer time.

Jeff C:

He was talking to pastors and business leaders, and we did a gathering with him. And I asked a question at the end, I said, "Hey, if you were to do your business over again, what would you do differently," because he just retired. He looked down and then he looked up and tears were streaming down his face. He said, "I'd had a friend." I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "I had nobody who I could share with. I had people on my board."

Jeff C:

"I had people who are nonprofits who wanted money from me. I had people who worked for me, but I didn't have anybody who I could share the real stuff with." And that was a calling moment for me because I realized that's what my dad didn't have. He didn't have anyone in his life who he could share the real stuff with and so I think that's why he bifurcated his life and his business. And that was when for me, I was like, "I want to be that."

Jeff C:

"I want to be that for leaders, and I want to help raise up other people who can be that for leaders." Because that can change the story and change the story for them in their emotions, change the story in their relationships or in their moral issues.

Warwick F:

That's such a powerful point you just made. You wanted to be the friend and confidant that your dad didn't have and that you didn't have at that point in your life at the church. So, I want to shift from there, but talk about what was the lowest moment when you're at the church that caused you to say, "You know what, I have got to change directions here because this is just," maybe it wasn't destroying you, but it was not good for you. So, talk about the lowest moment that caused you to say, "I need to shift. This cannot continue."

Jeff C:

I can go back to it instantly. I know it in a heartbeat. There was a leader who was part of our team who had moved from Chicago to Boston to be a part of our team. And he called me to tell me that he and his wife had decided to move somewhere else, and they were leaving. And I think I put a lot of hope in him being a part of things. And I'd already been feeling alone in this. And when he told me he was leaving, I tried to keep a smile on my face and go, "Hey, if God is leading you elsewhere," I gave him all the good God talk.

Jeff C:

I hung up the phone and I picked up this 25-pound thing called a concordance, okay, which is a big book at the time before things were online. I held it above my head and I threw it across the room, breaking the book, breaking the wall and started just yelling, "I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate leadership. I hate the church." I mean, I just lost it. And my wife walked in at the moment and just looked at me with just sheer terror. Okay.

Jeff C:

And she's like, "You have lost it." And I knew at that point that I couldn't just keep doing what I was doing, hoping for different results. And in a nutshell, I ended up getting in my car, taking every journal I'd ever written, driving to Vermont, driving to New Hampshire and just getting away to the mountains, which has now influenced my own passion to have leaders get away to the mountains. But it restored my soul.

Jeff C:

I started realizing I needed silence and solitude, and I needed to get away. And I needed to have the time and the opportunity to reconsider my own life, but it was because I had flamed out. I mean, I was violent. I mean, I would have hit somebody had they come in, if it wasn't my wife standing there.

Gary S:

This is an interesting opportunity, Jeff, because we talk about it all the time at Beyond the Crucible and at Crucible Leadership in general. And we say it a lot and we don't really unpack it all that often. And this is a great pivot point where we can unpack it. We say your crucible experience can change the trajectory of your life but it doesn't have to be the end of your story. If you will learn the lessons of your crucible and move forward, it can be the beginning of a new story that leads to a life of significance.

Gary S:

That's where we are in your story right now. Your crucible is there. You've got your journals. You're driving to Vermont, you're driving to places. What was the lessons? Can you touch on a couple of the lessons and how those lessons came to you that led you back from the pit of your crucible at its most explosive to then the path that you're on now? What was the first kind of learnings that came to you as you got away?

Jeff C:

Yeah. As leaders, most of us become too busy to care for our own souls and invest in our own, what I call soul care. I ended up in this little town in New Hampshire, went into a bookstore, one of those bookstores that had about 80 books. It wasn't Barnes & Noble. And there was a book there by an author that someone had mentioned to me, a guy named Henri Nouwen, who was a priest. And the book was called the Life of the Beloved.

Jeff C:

I took the book off, started to read it there. And I bought the book, went to a coffee shop and read it front to back. And the whole concept of the book was that, that we are truly loved, not because of what we do, not because of our family name, not because of the family business, not because of how much money we've made, that in our true identity, we are someone who is loved, loved by God, and we're lovable.

Jeff C:

And what I've come to see is that, that is the foundation of everything. I mean, I've worked with millionaires, billionaires. Doesn't matter how much money you have, we still have to go, "Am I important? Do I really matter? What's my identity?" It could be somebody who's an entrepreneur, they want to succeed. But it has to start with I don't need to prove myself. I am loved. And that one concept is truly a transformational concept and we need to take it from our head to our heart.

Jeff C:

And that began a journey for me to go, "How do I keep coming back to that as who I am, instead of what I prove, what I do, what I earn?" And so, identity matters.

Warwick F:

You made a choice to go and seek some solitude to say, "Okay, Lord, what next?" Why did you choose the path of I got to figure this out and change my life, rather than I'm just going to be angry and bitter forever? Because not everybody chose your path. Why did you choose that path?

Jeff C:

I can't help but thinking of a cartoon I saw recently, where there's a monster walking into the room and there's someone under the covers. And the monster goes, "Oh, nuts, they're under the covers. I can't do anything." But I think there's this part of us that wants to just hide under the covers when there's something wrong inside of us and I think it can be physical, it can be emotional, it can be relational.

Jeff C:

Sometimes it comes from breakdown in a marriage, where there's something that's wrong. And so, a good doctor knows that you've got to start with diagnosis. You've got to get to what's really going on. And to do that, you need space. I mean, so my wife and I are creating this 26 acres in Boulder, Colorado to give leaders space, not for information but to process. My wife was talking at a summit, a Q Conference a few years ago.

Jeff C:

And she said, "There's a difference between the transfer of information and transformation." And I think what a lot of us have realized is information is great but it's not enough. We need practices. We need things that are going to bring us back to life. And in the book of John, Jesus said, "I've come that they might have life and have it to the full." And so, when we start to go, "Hey, that's a great concept. But if our life doesn't feel abundant, are we doing something to change that?"

Jeff C:

And that's where I've come to believe that certain habits, certain practices that are both spiritual as well as just life good habits can bring and breathe life back into us. And so, they've become what I call my habits of hope because I know that I'm just that far away like an alcoholic back into the guy who's going to throw the books across the room, shout my life stinks and go back there. And so, practices make all the difference.

Warwick F:

Yeah. And I want to get into the habits of hope. I love that word practices. But just before we do, you're in Vermont, New Hampshire. You're having some solitude. What was some of those first inklings that began to shift you to doing what you do now with We Train Coaches and Habits of Hope and the Soul Care Ranch? What were some of those? Maybe it's an epiphany but there were some inklings that led you to where you are now. What were some of those first inklings you were getting as you were in solitude?

Jeff C:

Yeah, it took a while but that solitude was life-giving. I mean, first, I came back a different person. One of the things that happened when I was there was my first real girlfriend passed away when she was 19 and I was 18. And I went to her grave. I hadn't been there since she died. And as I was staring at her grave, I saw this old couple pull up and go up to this tombstone. And I sat there just watching them and thinking they're going to be here soon. And my friend Cindy is no longer alive.

Jeff C:

It was almost like seeing death that made me go, "Jeff, do you want to live or do you want to die? Are you ready to engage life?" And so, I think we've all got to make that do I really want to live decision and am I really living now. And I realized I wasn't living. One of the things that God brought into my life coaches, one of whom was a mentor consultant who I still meet with. I met with him this week. His name is Bob Beal.

Jeff C:

As I was meeting with Bob, and he became that safe place, I looked at him and I thought, "Man, I wish my dad had this. And man, I wish so many other leaders had what he's bringing to me." And I thought, "How can I do what he's doing?" And certainly, it's not for everybody but I've come to believe that if there could be spiritually minded, great coaches for leaders that could help leaders have the safe place, have them find their story or change their story, that could be something that I could give my life to. And that began a journey for me of how do I learn to coach, how do I become a coach, and how can I bring coaching to others in the way that Bob has done that for me?

Warwick F:

That's so profound, I think, what you're saying. What we've said is, you wanted to become the person that you needed and your dad needed. That was maybe, you said earlier, what's the thing that you feel like It really bugs me. It angers me that there's not enough of x. Well, x for you is being the coach that you needed and your dad needed and that was maybe, some people have called it your holy discontent. That felt like that was for you.

Warwick F:

And I love all the things you do. I mean, there's so many. You mentioned before what you and your wife do at Soul Care Ranch. That sounds like it's replicating, to a degree, what you had in Vermont in those days, probably more better, if you will. It probably includes coaches and mentors, places to use. So, talk a bit about Soul Care Ranch. And it sounds like the genesis of it was that time at Vermont but it's more than that. It's more than just solitude, right? So, talk a bit about what you do at the Soul Care Ranch.

Jeff C:

Well, I think we all love content, right? I'm a content junkie. We love conferences. But what we came to believe is there needs to be space for transformation, for people to get away and be in nature because nature breathes life. The mountains of Colorado are absolutely stunning. But they need to then be able to spend time processing on some of the bigger questions. Where do I need healing?

Jeff C:

What do I need to avoid? What is the vision that is really my vision? And so, we've been creating and raising up spiritual directors and coaches who can work with leaders and then have the space and time for it. A lot of people go on vacation, and vacation is awesome. But this is like a vacation for the leader's soul, where you get away and you create the space to meet with a coach but also to meet with God, to meet with yourself, and it not be rushed. Because busyness and rush is destroying too many good things. So, what if there's this place that brings leaders to life, and that's what we've been creating in the last couple of years. And it's just been life-giving, even for Mindy and I to give and create what we wished we had.

Warwick F:

There's a line you mentioned, I think, before we were on air. And this is true probably for people in ministry and nonprofits, that they're running around trying to care for other people's souls. And I think you said, "Well, I needed somebody to help me care for my soul" or something to that effect. I think that's just so profound because leaders, even in businesses, I mean, more enlightened leaders realized they need to treasure their employees.

Warwick F:

You wouldn't have achieved profitable results without a great team. And so, a lot of leaders, well-meaning leaders are pouring out, pouring out, but nobody is pouring into them. They're not caring for themselves. And like elsewhere, you talked about elite athletes, and you got to take care of your body if you're an elite athlete. Well, if you're a leader, you got to care for yourself. So, just talk about that concept because I think it's really profound.

Warwick F:

You pour and pour out caring for others but yet, you got to care for yourself, which is not selfish. You can't care for anybody else unless you start caring for yourself. Let's talk about how do you look at that? What's your philosophy?

Jeff C:

Yeah. I remember, as a CEO, my dad used to go once a year and get this big checkup, where he'd go and have somebody look at all different elements of his physical body. And I think that's really significant, we all need that. But I also think we need times to get away and get a checkup of our deeper selves, our emotions, our purpose. Are we doing the right thing? Are we going in the right direction, our identity, our soul?

Jeff C:

And I think that, if I was to wish something, I would wish there could be an army of call them coaches who would bring that kind of surgeon general for the soul type of approach to help leaders. Because I mean, some of my mentors, and maybe you know who these people are, Gary and Warwick, is they've become tabloid of what their failures are, their moral failures. And these are good people who went down paths that they didn't plan on going.

Jeff C:

And what I found in coaching is, because I've been in that safe place, I feel like I've worked with some leaders and helped them avoid it just because I asked them the questions. I asked them like, "Hey, right now, one to 10, how are you doing personally? One to 10, how are you doing morally?" And they felt like and they knew that I wouldn't share what they were really telling me. But there are a lot of times, "Well, I'm a nine, I'm a 10."

Jeff C:

And then, every once in a while, it's like, "I'm a two." "All right, do you want to talk about it?" And so, I feel like if we could have that for leaders as a way of their regular life, no matter where you are in leadership, if you're a young leader especially, having where you get away, where somebody is going to help get into the deeper parts. And then, you meet with those people maybe once a month or twice a month over the year to stay on track. What could happen?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, that's awesome, having that safe place where you really can talk about these things and soul care. I love the concept you have in Habits of Hope. And it's like if you want to stay, it's funny, it's been in the back of my mind about some of these things even before we spoke. But if everybody these days they want to eat right, avoid junk food. They want to be healthy, exercise, stretch, cardio. Everybody knows that makes sense.

Warwick F:

But people don't tend to think about, well, what does that look like for the soul, for the inner being? Very few people do that. So Habits of Hope, so talk about, I know there's a lot of stuff in there, but talk about what are the key concepts you would say. And if you need to be physically fit to really do anything, what does it mean to have a fit soul, if you will? What are some of those habits of hope that... because you can't go on a retreat every week.

Warwick F:

What are some of those habits of hope that help sustain your soul so that you don't go to retreat and say, "Where are you morally, ethically, marriage" and it's like, oh, I'm a one, one, one on every... ideally, a retreat is good. You can't rely on that as the whole solution, obviously, which I'm sure you tell folks. So, what are some of those key habits of hope that sustains you day in, day out and sustains your soul?

Jeff C:

Yeah. One of the most encouraging things that I think has come out of neuroscience in the last number of years is that our brains can change. We're not stuck with the brain we inherited or grew up with or we had 10 years ago. There's a thing called neuroplasticity, which means that you can create new neural pathways in your brain. In the Bible in Romans, it talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that we can become better, healthier, happier, joyful, hope-filled people.

Jeff C:

And so, what are the practices that do that? And one of them is just so simple, that it's almost crazy simple. It's just you take the time each day to literally in your mind think, "What am I grateful for? What in my life is good?" Because I could paint a picture and you could feel really bad for me with things that are bad. Or I could say, "Hey, let me tell you about the things that I'm grateful for." So, every single morning after I have my coffee, I actually list out things that I'm grateful for.

Jeff C:

They could be Barney, my dog. They could be I get to live in Colorado. I mean, literally this morning, it was that I was going to be on this podcast. And so, by having those habits where you see you're blessed instead of cursed, your mind starts to believe it and ultimately, we really are blessed. But the victim part of us says, "I'm cursed, I'm broken, my life stinks." I could tell you stories of things that have happened in the last two weeks that are hard. But the heroes focuses on how am I being transformed in order to live into my better story. And so, I know I have a better story but I've got to practice the things each day that bring me back to the better story.

Gary S:

I want to make sure listeners understand the application to themselves. And that is, it is true, is it not, that no matter how bad your crucible is, no matter how rough your circumstances, even you standing by the wall with an exhaustive concordance that weighed 25 pounds, ready to hurl it into the wood or the plaster or whatever it was, even you, if you would have taken time instead to focus on gratitude, would have had things to enumerate that you had gratitude for. Is it true that all of us, regardless of our circumstances, can find if we look hard enough, and it's not that hard sometimes, things to be grateful for.

Jeff C:

Yeah, any great fiction writer knows, and I've learned this from great fiction writers is that, what they do is they bring about certain circumstances that their characters need to respond to. And how their character responds is what makes a great story. And so, in all of our lives, we're going to get faced with... I mean, we just had a huge fire come through Colorado. We get faced with these circumstances.

Jeff C:

Now, how will we respond? We can respond with, "I'm cursed, I'm a victim, and I'm even a villain because I'm going to get you for it." Or I can respond with, "Man, I get to live into this adventure. Look at how many things I still have going right. And I believe that God ultimately has things in his hands." That's where my faith comes in, that God cares about me in the midst of this, that God loves me in the midst of this. That's where I feel like there's the biggest hope. And so, the habits of hope are practicing the things that bring me back to that way of thinking.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, that's so profound what you're sharing, Jeff. I mean, I totally agree and concur. Yeah. I mean, every day, I have my practices, probably not that different than yours. Daily Bible study and reflection. My church actually, every year, our pastor puts out the chapter of daily book in which a lot of different ways of going through the Bible, but it's right there for everybody in the church.

Warwick F:

We pick it up the first few days of the year and off we go. So, that's a part of that. But also I do reflect, I think it's almost like breathing for me or just a habit. I could look back and say, "Gosh, I lost this two billion plus family business and et cetera." I look back and say, very similar to you, I've been married almost within a year, the same length of time and I just say, "Thank you, Jesus, that you brought... we've been married at '89, whatever that is, about 32 years." It was all the Lord.

Warwick F:

It's a subject for another podcast, but it was definitely I felt like the Lord telling me, "This is the one I'd have for you in life." I was 100% certain, I checked it with some brothers who are believers and all the rest of it as you should on anything like that. But as the decades have gone by, I thought that was clearly the Lord. I'm so blessed with three wonderful kids. I love what I do in Crucible Leadership. We have a great team.

Warwick F:

I get to hear people's stories such as yourself. I mean, I'm so blessed. The Lord has provided us financially, way more than we need. I mean, yeah, there are challenges, but I look at all of those things and I just say, as a person of faith, "Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus," I mean, pretty much every day. And the more you do, it's like the gratitude almost increases. You get to be just so focusing on gratitude and having those spiritual disciplines.

Warwick F:

If you're a person of faith, read the Bible. If you're not a person of faith, find whatever anchor for your soul is. I mean, at least to me, there are these A type people that go a million miles an hour. That tends not to be my rhythm. I'm a reflective person. So, I know if I don't take space to just be and not run around like a crazy person, my writing will suffer, my thinking will suffer, my interviews on podcasts will suffer.

Warwick F:

So, I try not to go too far too fast if I don't have to, and just say, "Okay, Lord, you're in control. It's not about achieving some big result. I just want to be faithful. And I don't know, I don't know if any of that makes sense. But I'm a huge believer and those habits of hope provide fulfilling life, so it's huge. I really hope listeners hear what you're talking about. Any reflections you want to add on habits? Because it's a massive subject, obviously, and really important.

Jeff C:

Yeah. I mean, I think I would just say there needs to be a paying attention to what are you doing when you're neglecting your soul and what are the symptoms? When you're neglecting, is it anger, is it victimhood, is it discouragement, is it depression? And then, when you do those things, note the difference. When you spend time taking a walk, breathing, to simply like 10 times a day, just take a deep breath and think of something you're grateful for.

Jeff C:

It could be something as simple as that. And going back to that scripture I quoted in John 10:10, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Whether you believe there's a spiritual principle out there or spiritual person out there that's seeking to take that from you, or you just are doing it yourself. What is stealing, killing and destroying? And then, what will you do to fight against that? I mean, because you can build all the strategies and get all the education and knowledge.

Jeff C:

But if you're not doing the daily practices that keep that stealing, killing and destroying from happening, and instead breathing life back into you, you're missing all that you're going to bring through your presence. I mean, you've probably heard your greatest present is your presence. And for leaders, your greatest present is your presence. Because if you're not fully there, everybody suffers, the people who work for you, with you, or even the coaches who coach you.

Warwick F:

I think another aspect of habits of hope or soul care I think listeners should consider, I think we're touching on this. If you have a splitting migraine and a few days go by, you're not going to ignore it. You're going to go to the doctor and figure it out, right? Because if you ignore it, it might be something really bad that could have been solved a lot sooner. I think it's the same with the soul.

Warwick F:

I mean, I do my daily Bible reading, I'm grateful, I pray. But being human, there are times in which I get angry or frustrated about things and sometimes I don't know what it is. So, I'll think and pray about it. Often, I'll say to my wife who knows me well, "Look, I'm angry about something. I don't know what it is. Help me figure it out." And typically, we'll figure it out. And then, "Okay, so what do I do about it? Do I need to talk to somebody? Do I need to pray?"

Warwick F:

So, when you have those early warning signs of anger, frustration, don't stuff it. Deal with it, figure it out. If you have a coach or a mentor, perfect. I'm feeling annoyed about something. I do not know what it is. Help me figure it out. Those to me is also part of, at least from my perspective, maybe it's not habits of hope but soul care. In that when you have those early warning signs, don't wait till the crisis happens. Deal with it.

Warwick F:

I mean, the tools you've mentioned, Jeff, provide outlets for that. You've got a soul care retreat. You've got mentors, you've got friends, you've got coaches. There are people who can help you get in touch with what that anger and frustration is, and you can deal with it before the whole ember turns into a massive forest fire and your house burns down. As we close and the time is getting on, does that make sense, just that early warning system?

Jeff C:

Yeah. And it's not weakness to need to surround yourself with people and processes that can help. It's actually wisdom. It's strength to know that you need others in your life who are going to ask those questions or coach you, or you need practices, and you need the time to do that. So, I would say if you see some of those symptoms, don't just ignore them. Do something proactive to get to the place where you're thriving because you thriving is what the world needs.

Gary S:

Speaking of practices that are necessary, the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign indicating that it's getting to the time that we're going to need to land the plane here in our very interesting conversation on Beyond the Crucible with Jeff Caliguire. Jeff, before we do that though, and Warwick asks you another question, I would be remiss if I did not ask you on behalf of our listeners, how can they find out more about you? How can they find you on the internet?

Jeff C:

So, you may be listening to this and thinking, "Man, I would love to be that kind of coach," because I'm trying to raise up and train coaches who are spiritual leaders. I believe coaches can be those spiritual leaders. And if that's intriguing to you, go to WeTrainCoaches.com. And then, there's an assessment there called Is Coaching For Me? And there's also people who may be going, "How do I bring a coaching approach to transform my culture?"

Jeff C:

That's also something that we work with, with leaders who are wanting to say, "How do we bring that into a culture by raising up leaders who think like a coach and raise up others in a coaching manner?" So, WeTrainCoaches.com. My wife's website is SoulCare.com. And there's tools there for those who are going, "Hey, how do I go deeper in my own spiritual practices?"

Jeff C:

The book, The Habits of Hope, probably the best place I just say, go to the habitsofhope.com and you can order it there. There it is.

Gary S:

Right here. Here it is right there. So, Warwick, the final question is yours.

Warwick F:

Well, thank you, Jeff, for being here. I mean, it is so encouraging, soul care and habits of hope and surrounding yourself with people that can really be a sounding board and really a safe place. As we sum up, what would you say is a key message of hope, that if you forget everything else, what is the most important thing you want listeners to take away from our discussion today?

Jeff C:

Hope can be grown. It really is like a muscle. If you were to say where you are personally or where you are in hope right now, and you're a six or a five or something, I really believe that hope can get to a whole new place. But just be intentional and go. If you are a person that has an amazing hope, what will that do and what journey will you go on to grow your hope intentionally?

Gary S:

I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken and Jeff has spoken it. The captain has indeed put the plane on the ground. Listener, I have a few notes I've been taking as Jeff and Warwick had been talking, some key takeaways that can help you as you embark on your own life of significance. And the first one of that, one of the first things Jeff said that really, really struck me was, find your deep gladness and apply it to the world's deep need.

Gary S:

I'll say that again so you get it. Find your deep gladness and apply it to the world's deep need. That's a recipe for what we call a life of significance. We say it's crafting a vision rooted in your gifts and passions and living out of these things to live a life on purpose to serve others. That's how we express it. And for helping discovering your deep gladness as Jeff calls it and your life's vision as Warwick calls it, you can visit our website, crucibleleadership.com.

Gary S:

In there, you can take our free life of significance assessment. Discover, are you a world changer? Are you a star performer? Are you an imagineer? Take the assessment at crucibleleadership.com and find out. Second takeaway from Jeff, beware victimhood. That's a good one. When Jeff started to view his frustration and depression as a pastor is the fact that he was a victim, that's when his crucible really went deeper and darker.

Gary S:

Your discontent is a sign but not of the fact that you're a victim. It's a sign that you need to discover a path forward in line with your gifts and your passions. And the third takeaway is what we ended our conversation on today. And I'm going to use the exact words that Jeff used when we asked him in a pre-interview questionnaire, what's a critical action you believe listeners can take to find hope and healing after a setback?

Gary S:

This is what Jeff wrote. Make gratitude your way of life. Write it, breathe and focus on something to be grateful for multiple times each day. Multiple times each day, plug into gratitude and that can change your perspective and pretty soon change your circumstances. Listeners, thank you for spending this time with us. Until we're together next time. Please remember this that your crucible experiences we know, we heard some from Jeff, we've heard Warwick's before. You heard mine a couple of weeks ago on the show.

Gary S:

Crucible experiences are difficult. They can knock the wind out of your sails. They can knock the air out of your lungs. They can change the trajectory of your life, but they're not the end of your story. In fact, if you take the lessons of those and you learn the lessons of those crucible experiences, as Jeff did, as Warwick did, as I've done, and you move forward beyond your crucible, your story can move into its greatest place ever. The greatest story of your life can be the next story of your life because that story leads to a life of significance.

Have you ever found yourself laid so low by a personal struggle that satisfaction starts to seep out of your life? Have you pondered, even fleetingly, ending the pain permanently? That’s the story of Gary Schneeberger — the show’s cohost who steps into the guest chair this week for BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE’s 100th episode. He and Warwick talk in detail about how alcoholism upended his journalism career and could have ended his life. But he found hope in AA, which led him to seek forgiveness from those he had hurt — forgiveness that, little by little, he was able to extend to himself as he embraced faith in God. He also discusses the Hollywood dream job he lost just after he turned 50 – and how that crucible has actually been a springboard to a dream life with a new family and a new business … and renewed significance.

To learn more about Gary Schneeberger and his PR firm ROAR, visit www.weroar.la

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Gary S:

I was what I would call a highly functioning alcoholic. I was someone who could go to work, work all day, stay up all night, party with my friends, get up in an hour and a half or two hours and go right back to work again. And I actually had to let people go, when I was a managing editor of a newspaper, who were good friends of mine, who would go out with me at night, drink all night and could not get themselves up and get into work. And they'd miss too much time and I had to let them go. And it was like, "Look, I can do it. Why can't you?" So that was the attitude that I had in terms of being highly functioning.

Gary S:

My work was good and my attendance was good. I wasn't falling, stumbling, falling down. Where things eroded was morally, things eroded for me ethically, things eroded for me in ways that are true crucible. That leads you to those things where after you've had the big party and you've gone out with your friends and you've had a great grand time, you lie in bed and you think, "Is this all there is?" Have you ever asked yourself that question, found yourself laid so low by a personal struggle? Maybe it's alcohol, maybe something else entirely, that satisfaction starts to seep out of your life?

Gary S:

Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show. And for this week's episode, our 100th, I'm also Warwick's guest. He and I talk in detail about how alcoholism upended my journalism career and could have ended my life. But I found hope in AA and the forgiveness it led me to seek from those I had hurt, forgiveness that I was little by little able to extend to myself. We also discussed the Hollywood dream job I lost just after I turned 50 and how that crucible has actually been a springboard to a dream life with a new family and a new business.

Warwick F:

Well, Gary, thank you so much for coming here. Because this is the 100th episode, is it?

Gary S:

One hundredth episode.

Warwick F:

Which is amazing and we thought, what can we do that's special, that's different? And obviously, listeners have heard a lot about my story but they really haven't heard about Gary Schneeberger's story. Who is Gary? He's the cohost. What's he about?

Gary S:

And why is he involved in something called Beyond the Crucible? Does he have crucibles?

Warwick F:

Yeah. And because Gary is human like the rest of us, surprise, he has crucibles. I don't know too many people that doesn't. Life is not easy. But Gary has some amazing challenges that he comes through the other side to indeed live a life of significance. I think, in all honesty, we can learn from your story, from Gary's story. And it's a story of hope. And so that's why you're here. So as we always do and you spent some time in Hollywood, we're going to get to the main event. But let's hear a bit of the origin story, the backstory of Gary Schneeberger. You obviously grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So tell us a bit about what life was like growing up and kind of the early years.

Gary S:

Yeah. And thank you for that. And thank you for the opportunity to be a guest in addition to being the cohost. It was a bit of a gimmick on our part when we said, "The 100th episode. Let's do something completely out of the box. You interview me." So we thought that would be interesting and we hope it is helpful as well. My origin story, my backstory, as you said, born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, youngest of five children. There's some interesting age differences in my family. My oldest brother, Dean, he is 71. So he's 14 years older than me. And my closest sibling, my sister Jill, is seven years older than me.

Gary S:

So, there's a wide range in ages. And when I came around, after seven years after my closest sibling, not only did she likes to point out, not only did I steal her babydom, she was not the baby of the family anymore and she has still not gotten over that completely. I was raised on my own in the sense that my brother Dean was long gone out of the house. He was in his late teens, early 20s by the time, I was kind of ambulatory and my middle siblings, there were three in the middle, seven years, eight years, nine years apart from me, they all kind of hung out together and had their own pack.

Gary S:

So I was kind of raised separately from them. So their experience growing up, their childhood and my childhood, differed a lot because we were raised in different environments, different circumstances. And the main circumstance that made that different was that our parents divorced, if I'm talking about my siblings, our parents divorced when I was 9 or 10 years old. So they grew up with mom and dad, I grew up with mom and dad but not in the same house, under the same roof with the same last name.

Warwick F:

That's obviously pretty impactful. But I think as you've mentioned to me, it's not like life was totally different. It's not like you never saw your dad or he wasn't around. You had a good relationship with both your parents even though they were divorced.

Gary S:

Absolutely. And that's not to say that that wasn't a crucible. My parents' divorce, it wasn't like when you're 9 or 10 and your parents get divorced, you think it's your fault. What did I do? You're the last kid left in the house, the last child, they didn't get divorced through the four children they had before that, it was you, when you were little, you were a problem. So there was a little bit of that that I struggled with. But I didn't last that long because was I ahead of my years in maturity, I don't know, that it just sort of the stars aligned and I was like, oh, I get that. I saw when my parents split up, as difficult as that was on me in some ways, not having them under the same roof, I saw that their lives individually improved. And as a child who loves his parents, you want to see them live the best life that they can. So there were some not great things when they were together. There were fights and arguments and those kinds of things. Home didn't always feel like the safest place in the world. So when they divorced, I still saw my dad, as you said, I saw him every Sunday. More than that, he take me to ballgames and take me to do things. So I lived with my mom. They didn't fight. They didn't argue over me. There was none of that stuff going on.

Gary S:

And I began to see at a pretty early age that they were happier humans. Not an endorsement at all of divorce, but they were happier people no longer married to each other. And in fact, as I got older, as I grew into my teens and then into my 20s, I saw that the spouses that they met after they divorced were actually perfect fits for them. And they were both inordinately happier, which made me happy. But as a young kid, I did see that home wasn't as stressful. As much as losing dad from the home hurt, home life wasn't as day to day moment by moment as stressful as it was before that.

Warwick F:

There's another interesting beat to the story as you're growing up. Your love of writing and journalism was fostered at an early age. And I think there's something I believe your mom did for you that was a help on that path. She gave you a gift.

Gary S:

Absolutely. What you're alluding to is that my mom noted that I liked to write. That was like my favorite subject in grade school. I still have in the bookshelves behind me here, I still have the very first story I ever wrote in first grade called The Pig. And it begins with like once upon a time, except I spelled once O-N-E-C. So it begins onec upon a time. But I learned to spell later. So my mom saw this in me. She saw this incipient desire to put words into sentences to arrange them into sentences and to build stories.

Gary S:

So she bought me when I was still 10, 11 years old an electric typewriter. Listeners, if you're of a certain age and you have no idea what an electric typewriter is, look it up on Google and you'll see. It's the precursor to a computer that you can do writing on, word processing on. She bought me an electric typewriter, which unlocked for me an entirely new world. Out of the ashes, if you will, of her disappointment in her marriage failing, she was able to pour into me something that ignited my spirit. And I started writing. I can remember Warwick sitting in front of the television set, watching Monday Night Football and typing out the play by play, every incomplete pass.

Gary S:

And, at that time in the '70s, the Packers stunk, so I was writing lots of interceptions and fumbles and stuff. But I was just typing so I could get the feel of what it was like to create words into sentences and paragraphs. But I eventually began to use that typewriter and I still have them again in this bookcase behind me, I still have them to this day, scripts, '70s were the height of super cop shows. So I wrote scripts where my buddies and I were super cops and we saved the city from... I still remember the name of one of the villains from JoJo Maroney who was a bad guy mobster in our city, and we save the city from that. And they're full of misspellings.

Gary S:

One of the weird things that we did is that we fought with monkey wrenches. I didn't even know what a monkey wrench was. I think I had it wrong. I saw it as like this big pipe wrench thing that you hit people with. But every episode I wrote, there was monkey wrench work going on to get us through. But what that did is create in me a place where as I was going through things that felt like something was missing. My dad wasn't there all the time when I wanted a hug right there in the house. He lived away a bit.

Gary S:

I was able to sort of pour myself into those worlds I created and I came to be able to craft stories, craft plots, do things like that. And that was a place where I escaped to, again, not run away from something that was truly horrendous. The first 99 of these shows, 70 plus have involved guests who most of them had far more incendiary crucibles than I did. But it still was painful and I was still able to go in there and put a little cool water, put a little salve on that pain by writing. And that's where my love of writing took off and I'm still doing it today.

Warwick F:

And so you began down a journalism career, it seems like there were two paths in your life. One was you love writing and you worked a number of different papers and worked your way up. But at the same time, there was something else going on in your life that was a challenge. I don't know quite how you want to unpack this but there were two tracks. You were doing well as a journalist working your way up, but then there was this other track going on that was a challenge. I don't know how you want to unpack that. But it's sort of there's two tracks going side by side throughout 20s and 30s, if you will.

Gary S:

Yeah, from my teens and what you're referring to is like many people do, we had a bar in my basement. So I'd sneak down there and grab a little drink and go, okay, that tastes terrible. But I feel a little lightheaded or whatever afterwards and it makes me feel older and cooler. And so from my mid teens into my late teens, with my buddies, I began to drink and I began to drink to excess, quite often. And then as the journalism career went on, one of the vices that they tell you... There are three vices of journalism. And I know this because I served in journalism, one, cigarettes, smoked those, did, don't anymore. Two, coffee, never drank that but I've got a Diet Mountain Dew inside this. And then three is alcohol. And that's one of the things that in journalism stereotypically can become a problem for people. And it became a problem for me. The more I moved on, the further I got away from home and the influences there that stabilized me, the more I tried to find joy, meaning, answers fun, excitement, adventure in the bottom of a bottle and never quite captured it.

Warwick F:

But I think you've mentioned before, you were a pretty functioning person. It wasn't obvious during the day that Gary Schneeberger had a problem. I mean, you talk a bit about this was going on, but your career was doing pretty well. I mean, so talk a bit about that career in newspapers as you began working your way up in journalism. I know there's a subtext there but talk about that journalism career.

Gary S:

Yeah, I was the typical itinerant journalist. I was the typical guy who every two, two and a half years left for a different paper. So I started close to my hometown in Wisconsin, then I moved to Iowa. But I never lasted more than three years because I got restless. I wanted a better opportunity. I wanted better weather. From Iowa, I went to Palm Springs, California. I ended up in Victoria, Texas. At one juncture, I ended up in Wichita Falls, Texas. I ended up in Scottsbluff, Nebraska for a cup of coffee that lasted about six months.

Gary S:

So, I moved around to different places, not because I didn't succeed per se in most cases. Sometimes jobs got cut because newspapers had troubles then too and I had to find another job. But as I was going to those places, the way that you connected, the way that you fit in, as you moved into a new community and a new newspaper, you started to run with the pack in the newspaper. And I was one of those people that in addition to growing in both the stature of my reporting nature and then I became an editor, I was one of the ringleaders, if you will, that pursued the extracurricular activities.

Gary S:

So in the same way that while I was at home, in my teens and early 20s, softball became, the game lasted an hour and the drinking lasted five, newspapers were put out, the paper we put it to bed, and then we didn't go to bed for the next four or five hours when we went out. So that just started to ratchet up. But I was, indeed, I was what I would call a highly functioning alcoholic. I was someone who could go to work, work all day, stay up all night, party with my friends, get up in an hour and a half or two hours and go right back to work again. And I actually had to let people go when I was a managing editor of a newspaper, who were good friends of mine, who would go out with me at night and drink all night who could not get themselves up and get into work. And they'd miss too much time and I had to let them go. And it was like, "look, I can do it, why can't you?" So that was kind of the attitude that I had in terms of being highly functioning. My work was good and my attendance was good. I wasn't falling, stumbling, falling down. Where things eroded, though, was morally things eroded for me, ethically things eroded for me in ways that are true crucibles, that leads you to those things where after you've had the big party and you've gone out with your friends and you've had a great grand time, you lie in bed and you think, is this all there is? And that was where I was treating people poorly. It cost me a very early marriage, it cost me friendships, it cost me girlfriends, it cost me friends. The way that I behaved, even though I could do great at work, I was not a very nice human being many times. I wasn't honest. I wasn't to be counted on in certain things. Beyond work, I was a mess.

Warwick F:

That's interesting, because some of the guests might struggle with alcoholism but some won't. And so, they might have friends, family, but it's hard to understand something unless you've gone through it at a deep level. There's levels of understanding. And so, I think what I hear you saying is it obviously caused health challenges and just being able to function on all cylinders, that make sense. But just this sense that not only did it cause that but it caused more than that in terms of you talked about moral, ethical, character erosion. I don't know that your average person thinks of it quite like that, that alcoholism can do more than just cause you health challenges. To me, that wasn't obvious to me. But that felt like it was true for you that it caused far more than just health challenges. Maybe that even wasn't the worst of it.

Gary S:

Oh, absolutely. And let's be clear, alcohol didn't cause my character deficit. It spotlighted it. I had a character deficit anyway. Alcohol just invigorated it and made it easier to do. It made it easier to not have to face the consequences of your things and deal with it. One of the things I learned when I went into AA finally and we'll get to that point, I'm sure, one of the things I learned then was what makes you an alcoholic is not how much you drink. It's not drinking an entire fifth of bourbon that makes you an alcoholic, when I was told in rehab was what makes you an alcoholic is why you drink.

Gary S:

And I looking at myself and realized I drank to change the way I felt. I felt like the kid that wasn't quite worthy of dad living in the home a little bit, way in the back of my head that was there. I was overweight as a child so I dealt with that. I felt like the guy that got rejected by girls when he dated them and they went out with somebody else. I drank to change what I felt. If I was happy, I wanted to get happier. If I was sad, I wanted to get happy. If I felt guilty, I wanted to feel free of that guilt. And those are the things that got alcoholism hooked in me and continued to go on until there was finally a rather explosive crucible that sent me on the right path.

Warwick F:

So let's talk about the switch. There's a pivot point that you had mentioned to me in 1997, a journalistic conference in which it seemed to be on if you hit a wall, or somehow you hit a point at which I can't ignore this. So talk about that day, which I know is a very challenging day. But I guess you could say some good came out of it, because out of that day came maybe one of the turning points in your life.

Gary S:

Absolutely. It was in 1997, in April of 1997. And I was working in Wichita Falls, Texas and there was a journalism conference every year, the Associated Press has a journalism conference where they give away awards for the best journalism in the state. And it was in Corpus Christi, Texas, which is on the coast, which was a fun place to go, and I was there representing my paper as the managing editor. My journalistic mentor who taught me everything I really know about journalism, he was there as well.

Gary S:

As the awards were handed out, my paper won a whole slew of awards. His didn't win any. It was like the mentee surpasses the mentor. It should have been a great moment of celebration. It wasn't. It was a great moment of degradation. In these conferences, they have hospitality suites where the journalists all gather and play games and play poker and drink. And it started out with me arrogantly bringing a bottle of my favorite top shelf whiskey. I didn't want their cheap whiskey, I brought my own. I'm shooting my mouth off. I'm flirting with a married woman who's at the card table with me.

Gary S:

I'm just acting in such an obnoxious way that this is what happened. The managing editor of the Dallas Morning News, the largest paper in Texas, every year at this conference ran a poker game in the hospitality suite for 25 or 30 years, he would deal. I sat at the table to play that game. I was so obnoxious in the way I acted from my arrogance about the whiskey I was drinking to the way I was treating people who were there. Jack Welch was his name, the ME of the Dallas Morning News, got up, took his cards and left the poker table.

Gary S:

I drove away the founder...He was a dean of Texas journalism and I drove away the founder of the most fun thing about the Associated Press managing editors conference in Texas. I drove him away from the table. I knew when I got back to the office that was going to get back there. People still talk about this in the state of Texas 25 years after it happened. And I knew that was going to happen, that was going to come back and that was probably going to be the end of my journalism career in Wichita Falls. So I went back to my hotel room. And this is the important part of the story that really pushed me over the line and helped me see I had a problem. And that was many was the time when I was drinking and I was depressed. Remember, I said, what makes an alcoholic is why you drank, you tried to get happy, it doesn't always work. The more you do it, the less it works. And it wasn't working for several years up until that point. And there were many times I would call friends in the middle of the night. We used to call it dialing while intoxicated, DWI.

Gary S:

I would call friends up in the middle of the night and I'd say, "Oh, my life is terrible, I'm going to kill myself." I would say that. Now usually speaking when you say that, it's a cry for help is the general consensus. But I remember lying in my bed in the hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas that night knowing I'd just blown up my journalism career, thinking that I wanted to end my life but not calling anybody, just sitting lying in my bed. And that scared me deeply. Because I didn't want to reach out for a lifeline as it were. I was just sitting there. And somehow I got through that night, lots of tears. The next day I flew home. Somehow I knew it was going to be my last drink because I took one at the airport on the way home. This is the last drink I ever had. And got back to the newspaper, quit the paper that same day and checked myself into rehab.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's amazing. I mean, I do appreciate you sharing us because that's a very scary moment when it's one thing to say, okay, time for the lifeline, let's call some friends. But when you don't call friends, I don't know if it's like being in an airplane and an old-fashioned plane and like, okay, you're used to hearing the sound of propellers have gone, there's no propellers, which means your likelihood is you're going to crash, and the nose is going down.

Warwick F:

So if you don't hear the propellers, you get really nervous. If you hear the propellers sputtering, you get somewhat nervous. When they stopped, that felt like it was almost that kind of moment, if you will, in which the silence, the no noise and no voice meant that a bad thing maybe was about to happen. So, some people reach that point and just say either do the ultimate, take their own life, or just say, look, I just got to keep going with this life and whatever, keep drinking. But you didn't. So, do you have any idea why? Because not every alcoholic makes the choice that you did but why did you choose to check yourself into rehab and then AA? Why did you make that choice?

Gary S:

Clearly, I mean, the biggest reason is I did not want to die. So that was a big thing. And it's interesting Warwick. I mean, we talk a lot on the show about the phrase that you first turned on the podcast here where you say it could be your fault and not your fault. I was tired of living the life I was living but there was just enough of still wanting to live a life of something. I didn't know what that was going to be but I knew that it couldn't include alcohol, which it was like I said goodbye to it. I had the one drink at the airport, like I said, and I went back and checked myself into rehab. And that was the last drink I had, April 27th of 1997.

Warwick F:

And it seems like AA was a springboard to a deeper spiritual journey, because that really maybe potentially the pivot point in your life. So talk about AA and that spiritual journey how the direction of your life from we talked about the bottom of the pit, it felt like 1997 might have been close to the bottom of the pit for you. I mean-

Gary S:

Yeah, for sure.

Warwick F:

Because we're dealers in hope here, then hope sprang. Maybe it didn't come with a huge horn but a little ray of sunshine, little itty bitty ray that grew brighter and brighter. So talk about AA and that really path to a deeper spiritual awakening.

Gary S:

Yeah. Backing up to my growing up years, we didn't go to church. I've been to church maybe three times in my life growing up. And that was to go with girlfriends on holidays. So I didn't have any experience in that area. So in treatment, they take you to AA meetings, and we all love them because even before we knew what the content was, because it was only time we could smoke, so we sat there and lit one cigarette after the other and smoke during the meetings. And that was the smokiest things in the world are AA meetings, probably still to this day.

Gary S:

But I remember the concept that clicked in my head was when AA talked about the idea of a higher power. And it was the first time truly in my life growing up non-churched, not really understanding religion at all. It was the first time in my life when it occurred to me there was a power higher than me. I wasn't sure who that power was, what that power was. But the idea that I wasn't the ultimate highest power in my life kind of cracked open a window that let some breeze in, let some sunshine in. And that began a process in which I did lean into the god of my own understanding.

Gary S:

And then that's another way that AA puts it. And that kept me sober for several months but there came a time in my life where I had to ask the question. Logic for me didn't dismiss God as there's no way that could be. Logic for me told me if it's a god of my own understanding and my own understanding is what got me lying in the bed wanting to die and not wanting to call a friend to say I wanted to die, if that was what got me there was my own understanding, how is a god of my own makeup going to help me?

Gary S:

And that was when I was open to the idea of something beyond that. That was when I started a new job in Palm Springs, California. I met a young woman in the newsroom. I wanted to date her. She didn't want to date me. She wanted to tell me about Jesus. She did over the course of several weeks that led to me accepting Christ and that that was the one two punch. AA got me on the on the on-ramp and then Christ got me to a place where true healing could then from the inside out occur.

Warwick F:

I think you've talked about this, but I just want to go one step deeper. So AA talks about you mentioned that a god of your own understanding, but yet it seemed like you had a deeper search for meaning and purpose but it wasn't enough. So just talk about, in your case, why was your faith in Christ, why is that such a pivot point for you in terms of finding meaning and purpose beyond, at least again, this is your journey, your truth as we say, nothing against AA but for you, there was something about your faith in Christ that just offered so much more.

Gary S:

Yeah. And I'm glad you said nothing against AA because I'm the biggest proponent still for AA. If it wasn't for AA, I don't think my life would have been saved. I think my faith in Christ has made my life worth saving, if that makes sense. There was the stain of my hand, the stain of the self-destructive behavior, and then there was living in a way that made my life something that reflected goodness, not self-indulgence. But what was that for me, it was a longing for I said earlier, I would come home after hanging out with the guys in the newsroom and lie in bed and go there's got to be more than this.

Gary S:

And when I was introduced to Jesus and I was introduced to people who followed him, that was when I discovered that there was indeed something more than this, there was something more than just getting by day by day, there was something deeper well before, long before, decades before. While you were still trying to bounce back from your crucible and find your life of significance, I began to understand without calling it that. What I wanted was a life of significance. And I didn't have it and I wanted to find a way to get it.

Warwick F:

And I want to shift to the next at a point in your career, which is interesting. But one of the things we talk about a lot in Crucible Leadership and indeed on this podcast Beyond the Crucible is as you begin to claw your way back from the bottom of the pit, find meaning and purpose and a life significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, one of the things that's absolutely critical is the word we call forgiveness. Sometimes it's forgiving other people, sometimes it's myself, for me, it was more forgiving my own stupidity. But I have to believe you would not be the person you are today without dealing with forgiveness.

Warwick F:

Because I could potentially understand when you said what I went through is my own fault, how did you deal with the whole issue of forgiveness? I mean, we get the Christian faith says is because Christ died on the cross for our sins, we are forgiven. Those are nice words. It's one thing to read it in the Bible. It's another thing to believe it. How did you deal with this whole thing of forgiveness of, frankly, forgiving yourself?

Gary S:

It started for me anyway with forgiving others. One of the things AA is very good on is making amends as what AA calls it. And that is the people that you look through your life, seriously, they have you do homework, you go and you write down, here's the people you've hurt, here's how I've hurt them, and then you go to them and you ask them for forgiveness. And one of the things that blew me away was how many people just without hesitation, "Yup, I forgive you. Hug me." I mean, I didn't deserve it and they gave it to me.

Gary S:

And there's some kind of transference I think as you go through that experience, as you reach out to people. And there are still people where, there are still people to this day in the last year who encountered me during my alcoholic years who I've had the opportunity to apologize to, for the way that I behaved in that time, and it's healing every time. But the more you go through that, the more momentum you build, the flywheel turns and you begin to find little ways to forgive yourself to go, okay, if this person who I treated this badly and I did this to can say I forgive you, maybe I'm worth it myself.

Gary S:

You say it on the podcast all the time, aren't you worth forgiveness? Forgive yourself. Aren't you worth that? And I had to come to a place where I felt worthy of forgiving myself. And the key to that in a large part was how many people who I truly wronged. And again, we're not talking anything criminal or anything like that but who I had treated abruptly, I had treated poorly, I had lied to, cheated on, they almost to a man and woman forgave me. And as those things build up, it becomes, to use another phrase of yours, a balm for your soul. And you're able to go, okay, maybe I'm not a black hat, maybe I don't have a black heart. Maybe there's something good inside here that someone could forgive me for that I can forgive myself for that. And that was a real turning point for me.

Warwick F:

I want to get to you shifted after being in Palm Springs to work to a very famous large faith-based nonprofit. That was a totally turning point in your professional life. So, talk about those years at that organization.

Gary S:

Yeah. It's two stories will sum that up. So the organization is Focus on the Family, founded by Dr. James Dobson in the 1970s, very high profile Christian leader. Two stories will sum up my experience there for the purposes of this and the purpose of I'm still doing my cohost job here and I'm watching the time. So I want to make this go as expeditiously as possible. But the first story is so Focus has chapel service, still does. Every month, there's a chapel service. And I got my job at Focus on the Family six months after I became a Christian.

Gary S:

And I remember the end of the Christmas chapel service, Dr. Dobson prayed for all of the staff. And I walked out of that. We called it the Chapelteria, because it was also the cafeteria. They still do. The Chapelteria. I walked out of the Chapelteria crying, because I realized that I'm getting paid for James Dobson to pray for me. That's a whole lot different than chasing news stories. And that's rewarding but it's not with a capital R rewarding or underlined rewarding or with any eternal significance rewarding.

Gary S:

So that was when I realized, boy, my spirit was going to come alive in this place. So that was the first telling story there. And then, there was just something about being able to help people with their marriages, their parenting, with their walking out their faith in the public square, it's the same thing, I think, that you think that you feel Warwick when guests say how they felt heard, when guests say, boy, that really helped me when you hear from someone from one of our listeners that something has offered them hope.

Gary S:

We were extending to people hope in difficult times, hope that marriages could be saved, hope that children who may be wayward weren't going to be that way forever. And hearing those stories every day, being involved, being able to be in the midst and help with those stories, yes, it was rewarding to break news as a reporter. But at the end of the day, not all the time did anything really change for eternal significance. These are things when I was involved with these things in Focus on the Family gave me a sense of fulfillment that went beyond just job well done. It went to the things we talked about focusing on legacy and significance and those kinds of things.

Warwick F:

So let's move on here. I know you had a stint in Hollywood from 2012 to 2016. So tell us a little bit about that and how that happened, because you moved from journalism to Focus, and now you go to Hollywood. So that's another shift. So talk about that shift.

Gary S:

Yeah, I'm a career chameleon. But I was 12 years at Focus on the Family and I was there when Dr. Dobson left and the new president Jim Daly came in and my job as the vice president of communications was to navigate in the press the transition from the founder, Dr. Dobson, to Jim Daly, the next generation leader. Had to put Jim on the map, had to get him in the press, had to make a name for himself, had to do a bunch of things to make that happen. That over the course of time did happen over the course of three years. Jim was established. He had just released a book. My last day of Focus on the Family was when Jim's book called ReFocus, which was his manifesto on how Christians should engage the public sphere, the public square. The day that book came out was the day that I left Focus, because I felt like my calling there, my job there was done. I had turned around the Titanic, the big ocean liner that is hard to turn around to go from founder, enormously popular famous founder to a lesser known but enormously talented second generation president. I raised a profile of that second generation president. He became one of CNN's top Christians to watch. Other magazines did the same sort of thing, he got identified and recognized. We did well there. So I decided, okay, I've always liked movies. Remember, I wrote scripts when I was 10 for my buddies and I to act out. So I took a job with a marketing firm in Hollywood, which faith-based marketing firm was marketed films both faith-based films and secular films with faith-based content, or that would appeal to faith-based press. The example I use all the time, people would ask me, we worked on the Superman reboot Man of Steel. People ask me, "Well, you're a faith-based marketing firm. Why are you working on Man of Steel?" And I say, "Well, it's the story of an otherworldly father who sent his only son to earth to save mankind." I read that in a book somewhere. I mean, that's a Jesus story in some sense, right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

So I went there and did that job over the course of three years and learned much and accomplished much and continued to feed this idea that we were, it was more than box office receipts that we cared about. It was more than that. It was people picking up their Bibles and reading them after a certain show came out. That was the rewarding part. That was the legacy part for me.

Warwick F:

There is an interesting story that you told me about the movie Noah. And sometimes it gets a bit of flack because the Bible isn't always full of all the details of the story. It just puts what God thinks is necessary for us to know. So it got a bit of flack but yet it definitely had a spiritual impact. I think it's just a fun story when you talk about the impact of movies spiritually that people might not know.

Gary S:

Right. I mean, Noah starred Russell Crowe. The biblical story of Noah, he doesn't speak until the ark lands on dry land. You've got Russell Crowe as your star. If you're going to do an absolutely biblically accurate account, Russell Crowe is in his first silent movie. He doesn't talk until the last third of the movie. So we can't do that. So there were some additions taken. As I would argue, they were extra biblical, not in the Bible but not contra-biblical. But the good news, despite all of the rancor that came from some in the faith community is that when that movie came out in 2014, and I'm reading this out of my book right now, the website biblegateway.com, the weekend that Noah premiered, reported a 223% increase from the previous weekend in the number of people who looked up the Noah story in Genesis chapter 6 through 9.

Gary S:

Also YouVersion, which is a Bible app, the number one Bible app for smartphones in the country in the world, saw a 300% increase in users opening the biblical account of Noah in the US and a 245% increase globally. My argument then, my argument now is how does a movie that drives people to read the Bible, how is that a bad thing? This was at a time, remember, that every movie was about a Harry Potter book or a comic book. This was the good book getting read by people because of a movie. That was a good day at the movie PR factory for me.

Warwick F:

Absolutely. So I want to talk about maybe one of if not the most recent crucible that you went through in which we were talking recently about blessings coming out of crucibles. Perhaps this is a good example. Talk about you had a crucible in Hollywood but it did lead to the blessing and what you're doing currently. So took about that last shift.

Gary S:

I was head of publicity for a PR firm that represented and promoted several movies. When you're like that in Hollywood, Hollywood operates like pro sports. When you're in charge of something and you have three or four movies that don't do well, the box office is disappointing, the studio is not going to shut down. The owner of the company probably isn't going to run away but somebody who's at the highest level of leadership in the publicity side of things, it just so happened I was let go because what the owners of the company had to do is be able to tell studios going forward, okay, this guy is no longer here who was running our publicity department, we've got new blood in place. And that helps you then get more contracts and get more things going on.

Gary S:

So no one ever said I was terrible at what I did. It was just they were good movies, the movies didn't do well at the box office. The numbers were disappointing. So they decided let's get some new people in here, like Gabe Kappeler got another job after he got fired. That's kind of what happened. And I was at a crossroads. I was at a place in my life where, oh my gosh, I'm 51 years old, I've got to find a job, what do I do? And that was when it struck me that I was going to start my own business.

Gary S:

I started my own firm in 2016 after this occurred. And I never would have had the guts to do it with a cushy Hollywood job where they give you a Lexus leased car and you get all this, that never would have happened for me. I never would have been able to leave that. But when that was removed from the table for me, it gave me the opportunity to say, you know what, I've learned a lot over the course of these years I've been doing this, let me put that to use. Not just in Hollywood, although I still do work for promotion of Hollywood films, but also for a variety of clients across the way including you Warwick in Crucible Leadership.

Warwick F:

So that's fascinating that it brings you to the current chapter you're on with ROAR that sometimes, I don't know, with me as listeners would no, I never would have been able to leave Fairfax Media if the company hadn't gone under in late 1990, I could never have left. Similar but different, it sounds like you, Gary, how can you leave Hollywood if you're helping to promote faith-based and secular films to a faith-based audience seemed like a pretty good calling. It was kind of fun. It was cool. Nothing wrong with having fun and you're making a difference but yet, if you believe in a sovereign God, for whatever reason He had another plan, and this plan wasn't just professional, it was personal. So talk about, because that really brings you to where you are now, which I think I would hazard a guess to say you feel pretty blessed I would say these days, if that's an accurate word. So, talk about how it was a professional and personal shift for you leaving Hollywood.

Gary S:

One of the crucible moments in life at Focus on the Family, Focus on the Family, marriage, parenting, helping people walk out their faith. I had my wife at the time who was by the way I mentioned, there was a young woman in the newsroom in Palm Springs who talked to me about Jesus, I ended up marrying that young woman. So we're in Hollywood and it over time became a rocky marriage, it became a difficult marriage. So I was dealing with that. I was dealing with not having a job. I got to a point where the marriage was not salvageable. I'll say only this To those of you who are Christians who are listening in, there were biblical grounds on my part to end the marriage. And I did. At the same time, as that was going on, I've had this weird habit my entire life. You've indicated Warwick, there a lot of stops on my journalism career track. I've worked a lot of places. I like social media. And so periodically over the years and many times it's been done to offer it and amends as AA would say or to apologize to people who I haven't seen who I used to work with. So I would be sitting around if I was bored and go, hey, I wonder whatever happened to Joe Smith who worked at this newspaper that I worked at in Victoria, Texas. And I tried to find Joe Smith on Facebook and say," Joe, what's going on?" We became Facebook friends. Sometimes I was able to run into the women I knew that I dated in those situations and say, "Hey, sorry about that." It's kind of this fun thing that I've done over the years. And on February 13, 2016, two days after my birthday, my mind just floated back to this reporter I knew in college who was, at the time, a young girl. She was 17. And I was editor of my college newspaper here in Wisconsin in Kenosha.

Gary S:

And I recruited her out of high school to come work for me. And she was so good that I promoted her to be an editor and I didn't know much about journalism at the time. I'm 21 but I'm trying to mentor her. I found her on Facebook, sent her a message. Could it be the one time ace journalist at the University of Wisconsin Parkside, Kelly McKissick, if so, wow, what's going on? How are you doing? Within like 12 minutes she responded back and said, "It is me, Gary." And she had been married and she was in the middle of a divorce.

Gary S:

In the course of the next several weeks, we discovered through messaging back and forth the way, the way that we first learned who each other was. And we never dated in college. I was her mentor. We were friends. So much so that when she graduated, I gave her my pen, because I want to encourage her to continue writing. We discovered that we were still friends. We discovered that we still had a lot in common. And more than that, we discovered that we were in love. So that was February 2016. By spring of 2016, a couple of months later, I moved back home from Hollywood to my hometown in Wisconsin where I courted her and we got married in 2017. So that story's come full circle.

Warwick F:

And you now have a wife and a family and kids?

Gary S:

Right. Yeah, being on Focus on the Family, not having any children, it was like, what do I have to offer now that the transition is over? And here's the funny part. All those 12 years I was on Focus on the Family and listened to all the broadcasts about raising kids, that stuff sticks to you. You learn that stuff. So I have two beautiful stepchildren, my wife Kelly, her two children, my stepchildren, Alyssa and Hunter. All that stuff I learned there has come in handy here and I've discovered that my desire to have kids, now that I have them is everything that I wanted and stuff I didn't realize I could want. And that's been an inordinate blessing for me.

Warwick F:

Wow. So obviously I'm sure you feel truly blessed. So as we bring things to a close here-

Gary S:

Yeah, the planes got to, the captain's got to turn on the fasten seatbelt sign.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

I think I've heard it.

Warwick F:

And I think maybe the managing editor is about to put the paper to bed. And I think I can hear the press. It's almost about to start to roll those big turbines as the speaker about-

Gary S:

Good job. Good job.

Warwick F:

For those of you who've never been where they print newspapers, it's pretty cool. Late at night, 2 AM in the morning, whenever it is, and the presses roll. But as you look back at your life, at the challenges and maybe the blessings, what are some lessons? And you've had some really tough experiences, challenging experiences, gut wrenching crucibles. Few people have had easy lives. You certainly have not had an easy life. But what do you feel about the lessons, I know you're a person of faith and maybe you think of that God has taught you, I'm not quite sure how you put up it, but what are some key lessons as you look back at your challenges and some of the blessings that you feel like you've learned?

Gary S:

First thing would be in 2005, Peter Jackson, who's in the news now because he made a documentary about the Beatles from the footage from the movie Let It Be. But Peter Jackson did a remake of King Kong in 2005. And I really liked the movie, but there's almost a throwaway line in there. Jack Black, the actor, plays this kind of shyster film director trying to fast talk his way to get to Skull Island to get Kong. And he keeps running into things that don't go right, don't go right, don't go right. Talk about crucibles. He hits him every time he turns around.

Gary S:

But he says to his assistant at one point, and this line always stuck with me. It's not a big line in the movie but he said this, "Defeat is always momentary." So I think that my life is a lesson about that. I bumped into a lot of brick walls. A lot of them I ran into myself head first with a running start. But it's always momentary. That's one of the things we talk about in Beyond the Crucible all the time. It doesn't have to be your worst day. Your worst day doesn't have to define you. So defeat, as Carl Denham, the character played by Jack Black said in King Kong in 2005, defeat is always momentary. That's number one.

Gary S:

Second thing I would say is it was funny, we were on a call the other day, Warwick and I said this to someone about you don't have to tell us the stuff that we do right, just tell us what we can do better. And you were like, well, I kind of like hearing what I can do right. It helps me. And I was like, oh, I felt bad. But from my perspective, you learn more about what's vital in life and the life you want to live from what you struggle with than where you excel.

Gary S:

Chances are, in fact, you already know what you do well. Pay more attention to those things you can do better, because the attitude that you can do better is the very reason why you will do better. Yes, it's good to hear you did this right. Absorb those moments. But really dig in. When we talk about learning the lessons of your crucibles, dig into those things where you stumble, dig into those things where you've hit that wall. And learn the lessons of that because as you get feedback from that, we talk about it all the time on the show, when you get feedback from people about what you can do better, that's fuel to actually do better.

Gary S:

And if your heart, mind, spirit is open to the fact that you don't have it all together, that helps you get it all together because you have the right attitude going forward. And the third thing is the biggest thing I learned when I was in Hollywood, all movies come in three acts. There's a first act, second act, third act. The third act is always the most exciting. That's when the big crisis happens. The couple who's been together for acts one and two has a conflict, they break up, something bad happens. The cop loses the bad guy and it looks like the bad guy is going to win the day. Something's gone wrong. That happens in act two. And then the action ramps up, the hero rises to the occasion. And then in the last act comes the conclusion, that third act, the conclusion comes, cowboy rides off into the sunset. In Die Hard, John McClane gets in the limo and drives away. I mean, it's where all the action happens and all the happy endings happen. And all of the legacy, goodness, satisfaction, all of those things, significance, all of those things occur.

Gary S:

When I was in Hollywood and lost my job as the senior vice president of publicity for that firm, I was 51 years old. I was just at the start, if you believe actuarial tables, I was just at the start of act three of my life. And since that, I've moved back home to Wisconsin from Los Angeles. I've married a woman who was so kind and sweet and supportive. I have two wonderful stepchildren. All of those things happened at just the start of the third act of my life. So that's my story of the third act of my life. Always remember, listeners, that life comes in acts, and each act wraps up. So no matter where you are, if it's first act, second act, or third act, there are always plot twists. There are always opportunities to move forward and end in a place that is better than the place that you started. Even if you're in the last act, the third act of your life and it seems like it's ending on a bad note. Speaking of Peter Jackson, I think of the third Lord of the Rings movie, that movie had like five false endings. Just when you thought it was over and you're gathering the popcorn, there was another ending.

Warwick F:

Right.

Gary S:

The ending doesn't have to be the ending. I'll go back to Die Hard, which we have a blog. We have a blog about Die Hard and the crucible lessons you can learn that's on crucibleleadership.com. When we think that movie is over, John McClane's dropped the terrorist out of the top of Nakatomi Plaza, oops, another bad guy shows up, throws off a coat and is almost going to shoot him and John McClane's cop buddy, Al Powell, saves him by taking out the bad guy. There can still be false ending. So even if you think it's ended on a note that hasn't been great, keep going one step forward. One small step at a time as Warwick says, because that can be a false ending. You can write your own ending. The great thing about that, all movies have three acts, you're the screenwriter of your story.

Warwick F:

Wow. Well, that is a great place to end. I think I can indeed hear the managing editor or production manager, as the case may be, hit the button and someone is rolling and the-

Gary S:

The presses are rolling.

Warwick F:

And so just as we close, and then you can close this out as you always do, I just want to say just personally, you've been such a blessing to me, to Crucible Leadership. We brought you on board originally because we felt like it was time for public relations. But you do that great but you do so much more than that. As we're in the third act of getting this book published, you're sort of my wing man as we went through the last edits to make sure it was true to the story and the message and you get Crucible Leadership at a deep level, the cohost of Beyond the Crucible. We're different personalities, actually common faith but different people, certainly different upbringing, that's for sure.

Warwick F:

But yet sometimes, different traits, different backgrounds can make for really a great complementary team, which I think we are. And yeah, I mean, we wouldn't be where we are today without you. So you've been certainly a great blessing to me personally and to Crucible Leadership. And so, thank you for helping make Crucible Leadership what it is today. And yeah, it's been a blessing to hear your story. There's so much in it that I think listeners can really find hope as you've charted through your challenges to live what is an amazing life of significance. You've kept moving forward and you are blessed and have been blessed and look at what you do now with ROAR and a wonderful family. And those are times when you wake up and you think, thank you, Lord, I'm just blessed. Is that like a fair summary?

Gary S:

Yeah. I mean, I don't think about it all the time. And that's why this is a great opportunity to talk about those things because I don't think about the moment in the hotel in Corpus Christi lying in the bed not wanting to go on. I don't think about that every day. I don't think about that hardly ever. So to go I was there 25, 26 years ago and now I'm here, those two people aren't the same people. They don't have any of the same values. They don't have any of the same emotions. They have none of those things.

Gary S:

So yeah, that's an absolutely fair summary. And it's all been because taking one small step and learning to move on and learning to say I'm sorry and learning to say I forgive you and learning to yourself and to others, and learning to do those kinds of things. We say it all the time, I'm going to say it here in a minute. It doesn't have to be the end of your story. And all of those things that happened, all the things that happened to you, listener, that are crucibles could be the end of your story but you have to let it be. And I'm surprised myself sometimes when I say all life's in three acts, all movies are in three acts, your stories in three acts, you're the screenwriter. You can write the way every act goes, no matter what act you're in. You get to write your own ending. And that is a beautiful thing.

Gary S:

So until the next time we are together, listener. Now I've put on my cohost hat. I'm no longer the guest. Thank you for spending time with us here at Beyond the Crucible. And do remember, as I just said, those crucible moments in your life are not the end of your story. I talked about all kinds of things that could have been the end of my story. And I write stories. So I know they could have been the end of my story but they weren't. So, you don't have to be at a place where those things become the end of your story either. In fact, if you learn the lessons of your crucibles, as you move forward, they can be, those moments can be the start of the best chapter of your story, the best act of your story because where they lead is where they led for me. And that is to a life of significance.

It takes quite a bit of pent-up, anxious energy to grind your teeth so violently that they shatter in your mouth. But that’s just what Nick Bradley did. More surprising yet, he says that moment of terrible physical pain brought on by equally terrible emotional pain was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Bradley says what he calls “the teeth incident” was the outward manifestation of his inner turmoil as a successful businessman who had discovered his high achievements came at the price of low fulfillment. So he changed the trajectory of his life. He started a business consultancy and launched the Scale Up Your Business Podcast to help clients and listeners be grateful, be brave, be faithful and show up for work and for life in ways that bring them satisfaction and significance beyond the bottom line.

To learn more about Nick Bradley and his podcast, now called SCALE UP WITH NICK BRADLEY, visit www.suybacademy.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Nick B:

So I've gone from this kind of real connection, starting to question things, starting to build a relationship with my dad after 30 odd years, realizing that actually he's a very success entrepreneur, perhaps that's who I should have been, perhaps I made the wrong decision with my fitness business, perhaps I should have done... All these things are going on. Then he dies, suddenly.

Nick B:

I sort of come back from that, I come back to the UK and a couple weeks after that I wake up in the middle of the night, it's about 3:00 AM, and I'm in a lot of pain. My face is all swollen, the right side of my jaw is really throbbing. And I go into the bathroom and I look in the mirror and it's all red and swollen. It's like I've been punched in the face.

Nick B:

And what's happened is I have literally grit my teeth, clenched my teeth in my sleep through probably a culmination of so many things going on that I've partly explained, and I cracked the two molars. Like, not just cracked them, like they shattered, like there's actually teeth in my mouth.

Gary S:

It takes quite a bit of pent up anxious energy to grind your teeth so violently that they disintegrate. But that's just what this week's guest, Nick Bradley, did. And would you believe, he says that moment of terrible physical pain brought on by equally terrible emotional pain was one of the best things that ever happened to him? Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show.

Gary S:

In his discussion with Warwick and me, Nick details how shattering his teeth was the outward manifestation of his inner turmoil. A successful businessman who had discovered his high achievements came at the price of low fulfillment. So he changed the trajectory of his life. He started a business consultancy and launched the Scale Up Your Business podcast, to help clients and listeners but grateful, be brave, be faithful, and show up for work and for life in ways that bring them satisfaction and significance beyond the bottom line.

Warwick F:

Well, Nick, thanks again and wonderful to have a fellow Australian. You were very kind to have me on your podcast, Scale Up Your Business, and we had a tremendous conversation. So before we get into Scale Up Your Business, I'd love a bit of the origin story, the Nick Bradley origin story. Obviously from Australia but you lived in the UK for close to 20 years, I think married a girl from over there, I'm guessing in the UK. So that's kind of what happens. I married an American girl and she brought me back to the US, so yeah, it kind of happens. Which is all good. So tell me, what's the origin story of your interest in entrepreneurship, equity, you grew up in Adelaide. So tell me a bit about how you grew up and you've clearly always had a fascination with entrepreneurship.

Nick B:

Origin story, yeah. So as you said Warwick, I grew up in this place called Adelaide. It's funny, I can't really lie about it because you know Australia so well. I can often say things about Adelaide and people go, "Oh it sounds like this nice, quaint little town." I often say it's famous for three things. Sharks, big sharks. They filmed a lot of Jaws' open water scenes there. Lots of churches. I think it's called the City of Churches. And the third thing, which always freaks people out, is serial killers. We had this spate of serial killers. Seriously. Like, yeah, this is not the podcast to go into that.

Nick B:

I suppose the summary of that is I had to leave, and I did. And I got into the world of media, and that's where you and I sort of connected a little bit. I worked for Rupert Murdoch for a number of years, specifically for his uncle, who owned a company called Murdoch Magazines. And I sort of cut my teeth in that world for a number of years, which got me to the UK, because I left that company and worked for a business called EMAP, East Midlands Allied Press.

Nick B:

I suppose it was like 15 years in corporate, in reasonably senior leadership positions. I was in sort of board level roles before I was 30. But I had my first taste of exiting businesses around 2007 when we sold EMAP to a couple of private equity firms and also a bigger German publisher. I was involved in the transition before exit, and then I saw what happened after exit, and I thought I need to go a little bit deeper into this world. So I joined another company called Getty Images, based out of Seattle but I was working for them in London and New York. That was a business that was scaled through a number of different private equity investments and exits.

Nick B:

We did multiple numbers of acquisitions when I was there. In fact, I was involved with about 30 of them. I think there's over 100 acquisitions in total. And that just got me into this whole world of... let's call it investment banking, corporate finance, high level wealth creation, all through M&A, mergers and acquisitions.

Nick B:

And I won't get to the punchline because it is the Crucible Leadership story, but let's just say the person I am today versus the person I was through that pretty amazing ride is very, very different because of some things that happened. But that's how it all started and I got kind of addicted to this world of cut and thrust private equity wealth, money, power, status, and it served me for a certain period of time but then after a while I needed to make a few changes.

Warwick F:

And that's fascinating, and one of the other things I think of Adelaide being famous for is wine, the Barossa Valley and at least in the US you see wine bottles... it'll say like Southeastern Australia and I don't know what that means. Southeastern Australia could be like 70% of the population or something. It's an arc from Adelaide to Brisbane.

Nick B:

It's like the whole of Great Britain fits in that, I think. So you better get it right.

Warwick F:

But yeah, were your parents entrepreneurs? Where do you get this business gene of loving the cut and thrust of entrepreneurship and business? Where did that come from?

Nick B:

This is an interesting part of the story. I had a business in Adelaide before I moved to Sydney when I started moving into the world of publishing. And it was a small personal training business. But at the time, we're talking sort of late '80s, early '90s. Personal training wasn't a thing. The people who had personal trainers were doctors, lawyers, stock brokers. It wasn't something that's as commonplace such as today. And I started that business not really knowing much but my grandfather, who was a big influence on me growing up, he was like, "Are you really going to do this? Why don't you go get a job? A job equals safety."

Nick B:

And I had that in the back of my mind. So I closed the business down. I sold it to a friend. Not for much money. Because I just sold my client list really. But what was interesting about that whole first introduction to entrepreneurship is I met some very, very wealthy, powerful, influential people and that was how I ended up meeting Matt Handbury and Rupert Murdoch, through that, having a personal training business.

Nick B:

But the story is I sort of thought you know, okay, well I'm not going to do this entrepreneurial thing, everyone in my family is saying it's not a good thing to do, go and get a job. So that's what I did. I suppose the long story short of that is 15 years of my life was a frustrated entrepreneur, well they call them intrepreneurs or something crazy like that, in businesses. And I just kept getting either promoted or sacked. There was no middle ground.

Nick B:

So I got promoted up because I was this chippy Australian guy, or I annoyed someone on the ladder upwards who wanted the job I was going for or something else, and then I got sacked. And that's kind of how it happened. But I was sacked within the companies, so I was moved around these divisions.

Nick B:

But here's the interesting part to your question. So I was this frustrated entrepreneur, I was quite successful, but I wasn't really happy with what I was doing. What happened was my father, he left our family when I was two years of age. The usual stuff that happens, Mum and him just sort of fell out. But then he came back into my life in my late 30s. So it was something like 35 years difference. And he was a very, very successful entrepreneur in Australia. He had a business, a jewelry business that was based in Collins Street, in fact he had a couple of different sites in Melbourne. And he lost that business in his early 40s because there was a bombing, a terrorist bombing at the Turkish Consulate, and he went from being effectively a millionaire to being bankrupt within the space of this incident because there's no insurance for things like that.

Nick B:

Now, I didn't know any of this, none of this. But then he came back into my life and I realized that he'd done this... he was very much an entrepreneur. After that incident he ended up building another business in his 40s into his 50s and effectively a millionaire again in a separate business. So when I met him, I realized that I had these kind of genes, these desires, this different outlook, whatever you want to define entrepreneurship as, that for many years I had repressed. And it was when I met him, all of a sudden it was like wow, perhaps I need to lean into this a bit more.

Warwick F:

You had this inner conviction that this is what I want to do and you went for it, which is really remarkable. So you were in these companies, you were somebody that wasn't afraid of your opinion. And sometimes that's accepted well. Those who are maybe insecure, it's like ah, Nick, no thank you for your opinion, you've given it to me about 10 times on this subject, can you just be quiet, go away. There are some people that unfortunately are too insecure or small minded that it doesn't work.

Warwick F:

So at some point you went to be an entrepreneur yourself and got into private equity, so how did that transition happen from just working within a corporate sphere to more going into private equity, venture capital, that kind of thing?

Nick B:

Yeah, so my corporate career, from the outside looking in, was pretty successful. As I said to you beforehand in terms of positions and money and roles, all those sort of things, responsibility. When I got into private equity, it felt like a natural fit because I was the guy that would effectively go and fix up problems. So the private equity firms would put me into situations that they found quite difficult operationally. So I wasn't the guy who would sit back with the spreadsheet, the MBA from Harvard and all that. I wasn't that guy. I was let's go in there and see if the people in this business can actually make it work and create value.

Nick B:

And if they couldn't, for the assessment that I would give from being in there, then I would be the person who would deliver the change, the transformation. And I was remunerated by both my time spent doing that but also the amount of value I could create by any change that I made. So if a business was invested in by a private equity firm, the investment went backwards, so it wasn't worth as much as what they paid for it. I would be paid, if you like, on what I could do to get it back to zero, get it back to above water, and then any growth that could come from it. So I found my niche in that. I found my niche. I wouldn't call myself an entrepreneur then. But I was operating in a very, very precise way in a very, very interesting environment.

Warwick F:

Yeah. But an entrepreneurial spirit of okay, we need to make some changes here, get value for the shareholders, and yeah. You usually want it done fairly quickly. So you did that for a while, and it sounds like you were very good at it. Sort of the turnaround guy, which is very valued in business, that somebody can come around and make a big change quickly. Which obviously all investors want understandably.

Warwick F:

So you did that. But does that kind of lead into, I think what you call the teeth incident where a lot of bad things happened. It sounds like professionally things were going gangbusters, things were going really well, you were very good at what you did. You had almost like a Liam Neeson like, a particular special set of skills, right? That not everybody knows.

Nick B:

It's very much like that, yeah, it is.

Warwick F:

Then again I'm not trying to... I'm being flippant but I'm not... But you were seriously good at what you were doing and you were paid understandably, which is as it should be in a market economy, if you provide value you should share in the profits. That's what the whole market economy's built on, it makes total sense. So you were doing really well, and at one level you enjoyed what you were doing, but yet... So talk about how you were succeeding, you were doing tremendously, and that led into the teeth incident which led to a pivot in your life. So talk about the Crucible, the teeth and the pivot.

Nick B:

There's nothing worse than getting a conscience, right? It's a little bit like... probably the best way to describe it, if any listeners have seen Jerry Maguire where he wakes up one day and he writes this memorandum which gets him sacked. It was a bit like that, but there was a lot of things going on at the time.

Nick B:

So when you get up to the top table in some of these investment businesses, private equity firms, that sort of stuff, there are some certain decisions that are made that are very much about the money that's going to be created. And I was involved in some of those situations where the value that we were extracting from entrepreneurs who built good businesses was disproportionately favored towards the private equity firms and the investors.

Nick B:

So we would actively go out there and try and get deals. You could argue that's fair, what's that whole caveat emptor sort of thing. But you know, there's a point where... and I know this now more so because I've delved right into it. A lot of the people who build great businesses are good at doing that but they don't know how to manage what happens up in the echelons of exits and things like that.

Nick B:

And you see that all the time. You see people who sell businesses but they don't really get the value for it. And I was starting to develop this conscience around it, thinking do I really want to go and do this when I'm not effectively lying but the integrity levels of what I'm doing is not where I want to play.

Nick B:

Now, why I started to develop this conscience is partly because my dad had come back into my world, and I realized that as a successful entrepreneur the people that I was screwing over were people like him. And I'm thinking, oh god, this is not feeling very good. And I was starting to get a bit sick, right? I wasn't feeling very good, I was feeling very stressed. And then two things happened. Firstly, I went away on this trip to Vermont, and my dad flew there from Melbourne, I was living in the UK-

Warwick F:

I'm sorry, you flew to where?

Nick B:

To Vermont, Vermont in the US.

Warwick F:

Oh Vermont, I'm sorry, yeah.

Nick B:

Yeah. Your accent's better than mine. And I ran a race there. They've got a 100 mile race, I ran the 100 kilometers because I was obviously not strong enough to do the 100 mile. But anyway, so my dad turns up, we spend this amazing two weeks together. We leave, everything's great, he's hanging out with my daughter who's a couple of years old. And literally 12 months to the day later I'm in Melbourne by his bed and he dies that day. He gets very, very aggressive cancer, lots of things go wrong.

Nick B:

So I've gone from this sort of real connection, starting to question things, starting to build a relationship with my dad after 30 odd years. Realizing that actually he's a very successful entrepreneur, perhaps that's who I should have been, perhaps I made the wrong decision with my fitness business, perhaps I should have done... All these things are going on, right? Then he dies, suddenly.

Nick B:

I sort of come back from that, I come back to the UK and a couple weeks after that I wake up in the middle of the night, it's about 3:00 AM, and I'm in a lot of pain. My face is all swollen, the right side of my jaw is really throbbing. And I go into the bathroom and I look in the mirror and it's all red and swollen. It's like I've been punched in the face.

Nick B:

And what's happened is I have literally grit my teeth, clenched my teeth in my sleep through probably a culmination of so many things going on that I've partly explained, and I cracked the two molars. Like, not just cracked them, like they shattered, like there's actually teeth in my mouth. I could taste them.

Warwick F:

Oh my gosh.

Nick B:

And the first thing happens, obviously I'm awake, right? I take some pills. In the morning I go to the doctor as soon as I can get there, they send me to the dentist, they examine it. The dentist says, "I've only seen this happen before and it's usually people who are in very high stress situations." And I sort of spoke to my wife after this, after I got it sorted out and said, "I've got to change this. I can't do this anymore." And literally that was the moment that I did change it, and within the following days, weeks, months after that is when I started to do the stuff I'm doing now.

Gary S:

Before you ask the next question, Warwick, I want to, no pun intended about crooked teeth or broken teeth, I want to drill down into something you said, Nick, when you started maybe seven, eight minutes ago in this conversation. You just very matter of factly said that your life from the outside looking in was successful. What you've just described at the end of your story there was from the inside looking out, not so much so. And I think a lot of our listeners maybe find themselves in that same position, that success sometimes can be a crucible in and of itself if it doesn't provide those things that Warwick talks about, that lead to a life of significance. Would you say that was much or sort of as much a crucible as the teeth incident? Was what you realized that from the outside looking in, everything was successful, but from the other direction it wasn't?

Nick B:

I know this now because I've examined it more for myself and others. I know there's lots of millionaires who still cry to sleep. So they may look great. Like, I had everything, the cars, the houses, the whole piece. But I wasn't living to what I now understand were proper values that inspired me so that I could create wealth and impact. To your point, Gary, yes. At the extreme of it, a lot of people don't make decisions, they sit within areas where it's sort of not too bad, it's not bad enough that they make change. So it's not great, it's not bad, it's in the middle, and that's what I was. The outside in looked great but actually I wasn't feeling congruent.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's sort of fascinating because I think of that quote from Thoreau, you know, we can live lies of quiet discontent. You weren't sobbing on the floor but it just, it seemed like there was something nagging within you saying is this all there is? Or I'm just tired of coming in and getting rid of the previous regime. Maybe it's not about lying but maybe there was other choices that may have been better for a wider group of constituencies, employees, owners, community, but maybe not the shareholders and private equity. There's all sorts of issues but when you're on a track you tend to block out those other thoughts because they're uncomfortable, then you just focus, okay I've got a job here and caveat emptor, buyer beware, and all that.

Warwick F:

It just sounds like maybe it was with your dad dying, those thoughts, some people don't come to that pivot point but you did. Why do you think you hit that pivot when you probably know scores of people that were just like you, your age, your time of life, and they didn't pivot. They said, "Ah, I hear what you're saying, but it's the world we live in and let's just keep going." Why did you pivot when so many don't?

Nick B:

I'll answer that but before I do I want to say that most people never will. And that is the travesty for me, in different ways. It's the same as someone who's in the job they hate for years and then all of a sudden they realize that time is running out to make any changes.

Nick B:

I think, I was lucky because I had an inflection point. The inflection point, which however you think about these things, I believe these things serve you. So my dad coming back in and giving me a message at that point, which I did resist, he tried to get back into my life multiple times but there was a point where I thought you know what, let's just see where this goes.

Nick B:

That created the inflection point for me to... back to my point around things are either really good or really bad, it got to a point where things were so bad that I needed to change it. That's the inflection point. So any fear I had previously of maybe going out and building a business, building an empire, all the different things I'm sort of more involved in now, I was too scared to leave the comfort of six, seven figure money coming in all the time. Until the pain got so bad I needed to make that change.

Nick B:

And the pain was, realistically, health, am I showing up as a good example for my kids, am I that person? And if I answered those honestly, at the point of time I wasn't, and those things are important to me.

Warwick F:

So, I want to shift to what you do now, but just so that sometimes opposites, or I don't want to say darkness illuminates the light but maybe challenges illuminate the light. Just so that we can understand better what you do now, what was it about your life or what you were doing that was causing you so much anxiety within you, that was causing so much inner turmoil? Because it wasn't like you were doing anything illegal, you were just doing standard operating practice, perhaps, in your industry. So what's wrong with... it's the market economy but yet something was really troubling it. How would you summarize the elements that were troubling you so much, that caused you to shift?

Nick B:

There's no such thing in my mind as what I'd call standardized integrity. Like what you think and what I think are different things. We're not wrong, it's whatever feels comfortable. There were decisions... Nothing was illegal of course, but I would sit in rooms and the conversation would be just create fear and uncertainty in the mind of that entrepreneur so we can get a lower value. Say some stuff here which is kind of on the borders of being real just so we can create a wedge.

Nick B:

It's more unethical than what I would call illegal, but it's like really? And I think back... There was a point in time where I was so driven around achievement that I didn't care about that, right yeah, whatever. But once I met my dad and that period of time was over a few years, he came back and I started to question things differently. I thought, I'm now a dad myself, all that started to happen. Do I really want to be this person? And how important is it anyway? And so that was the thinking.

Nick B:

There are still people who are in that and they may be very happy but that's where their integrity is different, I don't judge it. But for me, at that point in time, I realized I needed to make a bigger contribution to make me feel more complete.

Warwick F:

But let's shift here to Scale Up Your Business. Last thing I'll say on this is part of it is not being aware of it, part of it is you don't want to face it, because if you admit what you really think you are and the mistakes you're making, like my crucible was awfully different, it was a lot of my own mistakes, so it's hard for me to ignore that $2.25 billion failure.

Warwick F:

But yeah, I mean it's painful to look at yourself, at your mistakes and things that you've done wrong. So sometimes it's lack of awareness, sometimes it's I don't want to be aware because if I'm aware of it it's going to be excruciatingly painful. So I'd rather ignorance is bliss kind of thing. So it's a bit of both, I think, for many.

Warwick F:

So talk about how you pivoted in a way that many successful private equity folks don't, because you're on this train doing super well and there's always a desire for the next deal because it's fun, it's super exciting, the thrill of the chase. But talk about what your whole vision is with Scale Up Your Business, you have a podcast and consultancy, professional partnerships you do through it. Talk about what your vision was for Scale Up Your Business as you started it.

Nick B:

Yeah, sure. One of the things that I realized was that I needed to be more externally focused as opposed to focusing on myself. Had a bit of coaching on that, actually. It was about, I had high achievement, low fulfillment. Why is that the case? Because I'm not making a difference enough.

Nick B:

So the podcast was the first thing I started. So I didn't quit the private equity firm straight away. I was making a certain amount of money that I didn't want my family to suffer by any change that I was going through or any midlife crisis, right? So I started the podcast and I did that because of two reasons. I wanted to help people and I wanted to have a platform to share all the experiences I had in growing and scaling businesses. But if I'm honest with you guys, it was also cathartic. It's a little bit like if you journal or you go to therapy, just by saying the things it helps you.

Nick B:

So if you go to the early episodes, a lot of it is me in a dark room just talking into a microphone. I didn't do interviews for a long time. It's me for an hour just talking and sharing all of the war stories, right? And putting a perspective on it. But what I had in the back of my mind, which kind of drove that as well, was what happens if I jumped over the other side of the table? So I'm not going to leave the world fully because it's all I know, it's what I've done, but what happens if I sit on the same side as the entrepreneur? What happens if when they're going to sell their business and the private equity firms come or the corporates come or whatever, I'm sitting next to them, with all the experiences I've had of being on that side.

Nick B:

So the whole thing was, what would that do? And I started to scratch that. You know, play with that. And I realized that there was a massive gap of no one really doing that. So I built consultancy education, all that sort of thing around how can you build a business so valuable that you create a life-changing exit? What does that look like? Which is the scale up piece. Then when you get to that process, the final piece, the pathway to a sale, what sort of support do you need to be able to do that effectively so that you are leveling the table stakes against some very impressive people that may be on the other side? So Scale Up Your Business became that. It came off the podcast but it became more of that because of that one decision.

Warwick F:

So it feels like, in a sense, it's not so much standing up for the little guy but relative to some of these big private equity firms it probably feels a little bit like a David and Goliath, you're standing up for folks, you're helping them get some tools, and maximize their value, trying to level the playing field a little bit. Because I guess you could see your dad in a lot of these folks. You want to stand up for people. Entrepreneurs, they may not be financial geniuses but they have a vision for their business.

Warwick F:

And yeah, I mean I don't want to say it was a ministry, I mean you got paid for all that but there was an altruistic, it wasn't... If it just was about money, there's probably better ways to make money than helping entrepreneurs through a podcast. I mean, you've done unbelievably well, I mean it's just staggering, but do you know what I mean? Clearly your motive for this pivot wasn't how am I going to maximize personal Nick Bradley shareholder value, right?

Nick B:

Well, it wasn't, but I separated the two things. So one of the things you learn from private equity is you learn how to buy businesses. That's the whole play. So I buy businesses now. I buy my own businesses. So I build wealth by building out that and I know how to roll businesses up and sell them to private equity, so I do that. So the coaching, consultancy side of what I do, I don't look at that as oh my god, I've got to have a seven figure business like that. Because I'm approaching it in a different way, it's been more successful. Because I can pick and choose who I work with. I don't treat it in the traditional business sense. I treat it like something that's more of an interest to me.

Warwick F:

Okay, okay, no, that makes total sense. So some of the things you say in Scale Up Your Business and some of the interviews you've done is... I'm certainly aware of this. You've often got entrepreneurs that get their whole identity in the business. They won't let go, they won't bring professional management, and you would know far more than I do, I'm not aware of the numbers, 10 million or whatever the number is. At a certain point they can't do it all, but they want to do it, they're just clinging to it and their identity's all wrapped up into it, they won't bring professional managers. They can still be the keeper of the vision but bring in a good chief executive.

Warwick F:

I know you've seen this a million times, but it sounds like you're trying to come alongside those folks and help them say, "Hey, you know, if you want to get to the next level or any level, you've got to let go." So is that kind of something part of what you do with entrepreneurs?

Nick B:

My quote is this, and I say this probably more times than I need to. I even said today with a client. I said, "You can only scale a business to the level of your identity." And so if you unpack that, what does that mean? It means how you think about things, what you want to create, your bigger vision. I talk about 20 year visions and things like that with people.

Nick B:

A lot of the time I'm working on the person's mindset before I'm getting involved in the skillset that's going to allow them to create what they're trying to create. And that's the piece. If you ask me why Scale Up Your Business the podcast has been successful, is it's really a podcast about mindset. It's who you need to be. Interwoven with how do you raise money, how do you do better sales and marketing. It's not really about the business side as much as it is about the mindset side.

Warwick F:

Right, because if you don't fix your mindset, the other stuff won't happen. You won't maximize profitability, shareholder value, or be able to sell your business at a level that you would want to. That's fascinating.

Gary S:

Hearing you say that, Nick, one of the things that strikes me as is that there's a lot of scale up things we can say that seem to apply here. Scale up your authenticity, if that's part of your mindset, scale up your authenticity is a way to keep yourself from that place where you're successful on the outside but not on the inside. Scale up your significance, to use a word that Warwick uses a lot in helping people find their path to a life of significance.

Gary S:

And then a word that you used when we asked you in a questionnaire that we give to all guests, if we can only ask you one question what would it be, and you said, "What's the impact or legacy you want to leave?" There's an aspect there too, right, of scale up your legacy. That's really kind of what happens when you change your mindset along the lines of what you're talking about, right?

Nick B:

Yeah. And one of the things, I have sort of a mantra that I created in some bizarre way, and it's be grateful, be brave, have faith and show up, right? And the whole idea, gratitude, like being happy with what you've got. For many times, for many years I was chasing something and I wasn't really appreciating what I had. And that was, again, one of the epiphanies.

Nick B:

The whole idea about being brave, I think so many people don't face their fears. They think things are going to be much worse if they take action on something before they've even done it, and that's just such a travesty for me. Faith is not necessarily a religious thing, it's partly around self-belief, and showing up is taking action. Again, a lot of people, they're going to do this, they should have done that. For me it's about how you hold yourself accountable with a certain amount of discipline to make things happen.

Nick B:

So to your point, Gary, I think scaling up is firstly, what do I need to be, who do I need to become, and how am I going to do that to be able to build a business, build a life, make an impact. And that's kind of where everything's culminated into now, which is something I wouldn't have foreseen when I started this journey a few years back.

Warwick F:

That's fascinating because it sounds like when you say have an impact, you're thinking more just return on equity. You're thinking of it in a much broader way, with your family, with your employees, with society. I mean, is that fair? Like when you say impact, it's in the holistic, complete sense of that word, right?

Nick B:

It is, and I think the reason I... the point around legacy, is I think what I found to be true is once someone ticks the box of, let's call it financial freedom. They don't have to earn money again if they don't choose to. Quite often, not always the case, but quite often they then think how can I make a bigger impact? How can I go and help people? It's almost like a Maslow's hierarchy thing. I can't remember how that goes.

Nick B:

But the point being is they then go and do something. And I think, and this is probably the bigger thing for me, is I think with everything that's going on in the world right now, you've got economic stuff going on, political things, there's a lot of things that just seem a bit weird to me. I think entrepreneurs have the ability to make more change.

Nick B:

They certainly have more power, certainly some of the multibillionaires have. They've got more money than some countries. So for me, making an impact has another moral and social responsibility behind it that comes from entrepreneurship.

Warwick F:

And that's the thing that's fascinating to me, is we've talked before. I'm not against success at all, but success in of itself is not going to satisfy, it's never enough. The people with 10 million want 100 million, the people with 100 million want a billion, the people with a billion want 10 billion. It's like oh yeah, have a nice house in the Hamptons or I don't know, somewhere in the country in England, but somebody else has that nice house in Monte-Carlo or I have a small jet, somebody else has a bigger jet.

Warwick F:

It sounds silly but you know those folks. People do think like that. It's never enough. There's always somebody else... Well, pretty much unless you're Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or whatever, there's always somebody else at another level. It's like gosh, I guess I'll probably never be at Jeff Bezos' level. Well, the answer is yeah, you're probably right, you probably never will be. But so what? It's okay. He's been successful, good on him, that's great. Fantastic. He has a great business model. More power to him.

Warwick F:

But if you have your whole sense of significance in being successful and the next quarterly earnings reports, it's not going to make you happy. But when you start thinking how can we use our business to provide a place where the talent of our employees is unleashed. We're serving the greater good of our community, shareholders, customers, we're making a global impact for good, whatever that might be.

Warwick F:

That starts scratching the itch of you know what, now I'm feeling somewhat joyful and fulfilled. I mean, I don't know if you can have it all but I think with the right mindset, maybe. It sounds a little optimistic. Can you have money and be happy? Yes. But you've got to think of the bigger game, the wider impact. I mean, have you found that with people you've worked with, that they're actually beginning to feel joyful and fulfilled, and they're successful too?

Nick B:

Yeah, it's absolutely possible. I mean, you've got to think of it from the perspective... I mentioned a couple of words during our conversation, I mentioned the word achievement and the word fulfillment, right? And this was something that I had to kind of learn myself, is that you can have high achievement and high fulfillment, but high achievement in its own right won't make you happy. So Porsches, Ferraris, big houses, private jets. Achieve, achieve, achieve. I'm growing. All that sort of stuff.

Nick B:

Unless you can give something back it doesn't help you. This was the big thing for me and I've seen it with others, is I just didn't understand that. The quote that changed everything for me was the Zig Ziglar quote, it's often overused, but if you help a person get what they want in life you'll have everything you want and need in life. Now, I'd never heard that until about three or four years ago and I thought, that's weird.

Nick B:

So if I help other people, I'm going to have everything I need? Yes. So what did I do? Honestly, this is how it happened, I launched the podcast. After that quote. Because I had no awareness beforehand.

Warwick F:

Wow. And I bet just with the people you've interviewed and what you've been doing on Scale Up Your Business, having an impact in a broader sense, I'm assuming that's been pretty immensely fulfilling, the stories you get to share and the messages and the feedback from people saying, "Nick, you've changed my life, you changed my business." It's not so much about ego but when you feel like you're doing something good for somebody, there's a feeling you get that's indescribable, that level of joy and fulfillment. I mean, has that been your journey?

Nick B:

It's been life-changing for me in terms of how I... I mean, I look different. I feel very, very different. I feel I have more freedom as a result of it, because I get every single week, I'll get a number of people send me a message, LinkedIn or personal email, telling me their story of how they've been listening to the podcast for a couple of years, they've implemented the stuff that I've suggested and they've got a successful business. And that's allowing them to do other things. And I go really? I still shock myself a bit but I get a lot of personal pride from my small way, if you like, of making a difference there.

Warwick F:

Well, you probably have people saying, "Not only is my business successful, my marriage is better, I'm giving back to the community, I'm happy in the general sense of the word." I'm sure you must have had those messages too, right?

Nick B:

Yeah, because I focus a lot on, as I said, personal development, personal development and scale up businesses. So a lot of it's like, what's your routine? What are you doing? How are you looking after your health? We do cover quite a broad range of things. So I've had people who have lost all this weight, feel better about themselves. It's not a health podcast, but it comes back to the point we've discussed a few times, identity, right? How do you want to be? And are you asking enough of yourself?

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean it sounds like you are now helping people live fulfilled lives. I mean as Gary said earlier, you're helping people scale up their business but their legacy, their life, their significance. I mean, to me, I've found if you want to be joyful and fulfilled, from our perspective you've got to live a life of significance, which is a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. That's the secret.

Warwick F:

And I'm not so much judging people, it's just objectively I don't know any human that's happy without doing that. You can complain about the creator or the universe, it just is what it is and if you're human you've got to live with it, which is you want to be happy and fulfilled, you've got to figure out more than the bank account and how you can help others. And you certainly have proven that.

Warwick F:

You think of some of the great robber barons in the 1800s in the US, there aren't too many that didn't learn that later in life. You've got Rockefeller has foundations, Vanderbilt, I mean Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie. Pretty much most of them, they kind of do whatever they could to be successful. Back then the laws weren't what it is now so there probably weren't as many laws to break, you just did whatever you could to win.

Warwick F:

And I'm sure most, if not all of them, were extremely cutthroat. But then at a certain point, I don't know if they grew a conscience but they said is this all there is? So they set up these massive foundations. I just find it fascinating that some of the wealthiest people in the history of the world in terms of the growth of the business, equity and all the rest, found that sense of gosh, there's got to be more to life than just money. I've got to give back somehow.

Warwick F:

And you could say well, it's to assuage a guilty conscience, maybe. Maybe. But I just find it fascinating that a lot of these folks at some point said there's more to life than just money, I want to have a bigger impact. Does that kind of make sense?

Nick B:

Yeah, but you answered this already by saying it's the human condition, right? This is the thing, like I don't think people who go out there and let's say I'm always going to play to win. You see this in sport, like there's a great documentary about Michael Jordan, right? The Last Dance where he's so driven, so driven to win, he's not a very nice person.

Nick B:

You look at the scoreboard, you look at the championships and you go, wow, but he seems quite conflicted to me. Right? So I think there's a point here where success on the outside, a lot of people look successful but unless they're doing the inner stuff, unless they're doing what we just talked about, a lot of them are just not happy. And ultimately, we want to be happy, right?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, you mentioned sports. I think of, as you would know, all Australians tend to follow tennis, and at least about as many that play tennis as golf in Australia, which is not true in the US, at least not for men. But I think of Roger Federer, and he's somebody that equal holder of 20 majors, which will probably be broken by Djokovic pretty soon if not Nadal. But you just sense that he is internally very happy. He has a couple sets of twins and a wife that he loves, he has a foundation that helps a lot of folks in Africa. I mean, he seems genuinely at peace with himself. It's not about numbers, he just loves doing it. But yet, there are other things that he uses his fame for to help others. To me, it seems like he's living relatively speaking a balanced life a life of significance. Everybody thinks he's a super nice guy, and he seems to be at peace. Well, there's some lessons to be learned from him and others. That are doing it right in sports, if you will.

Nick B:

Absolutely. I mean, I had the privilege of meeting Hugh Jackman a few years ago, right? And he was pretty damn nice as well, I've got to say.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

Nick B:

He's successful. So you don't have to be an ass, if I can use that word on your podcast, to be successful. And I think if I go back to the story I shared, I kind of thought you had to be. And I surrounded myself with like types. And it was only when I made some of the different choices that I realized... whether it's balance or whether it's just the fact that you can do things in different ways.

Nick B:

The key thing, just to do an underline of this, people's values are different. What I was doing just didn't work for me. And I had to change that. And I think that's one of the things I want to get across. If you've got that sort of feeling, you're listening to this and you've got that feeling in your stomach that I'm meant to do more, or what I'm doing now is not my purpose, or I need to change. The worst thing I think you can do is just not listen to that niggle, that voice.

Nick B:

Because my belief, is at some point if you don't, it's either going to do what happened to me, you might get sick, that might be a blessing for you because it might make you change. Or worse, you're going to get to the end and you're going to go, "Did I actually play all out? Did I play the game that was going to get me what was really going to make me happy?"

Warwick F:

I want listeners to hear what you just said because I think it's really so profound, is that I find at least within my coaching, I'm a certified executive coach, the issue is not so much people's values are all messed up. The issue is more often than not, they're not living a life of their own values. I mean, you from your admission kind of weren't.

Warwick F:

So it's like, if you live out of line with what you believe in your heart, that will cause you anxiety, poor health. That will take a toll. So it's not about making other people happy in the sense of living their values. If you live out of line with your own values, that is the path to poor health and misery. So that's really, in a sense...

Warwick F:

In another sense you could say you're fighting for people's souls. I mean, one other kind of beat on this is that there's this notion of well, is it success or significance. I would argue that if you want to be truly successful, even financially, you're leaving... If you're Mr. Competitive or Ms. Competitive, you're leaving stuff on the table if you don't look at this wider game.

Warwick F:

Because you could be more successful even financially successful than you are, if you think about, maybe to use an often used phrase, treasuring your employees. You know, with your customers, it's like rather than trying to say well, you should have read the fine print in the contract. Customers aren't going to like that. You may be quote unquote, "Legally fine" but they'll go elsewhere.

Warwick F:

If you want to create long-term profitability, if you are seen as somebody who cares about their employees, their customers, their world, their community, all things being equal, who would you rather work with? The guy or the woman who has that more altruistic look on life or somebody else? Again, I'm an idealist at heart, but I think if anything, you won't be less successful doing what you're advocating about Scale Up Your Business, scale up your legacy if you will, scale up your significance.

Warwick F:

If anything, I think you could be as if not even more successful. So it's not an either/or choice. It's not like living your values means you're going to be less successful in the long-term. I don't know, did that make any kind of sense? I know I'm a little idealistic here.

Nick B:

People are scared, I think, of being vulnerable. So the point is if you do some deeper work on actually what you do value, if you really understand what that means and why your values are what they are... Because for me, it was explained to me, and I believe this to be true as well, is your values aren't just a couple of words that you put on a piece of paper, like integrity, honesty. It's not that, it's more deep seated than that. And it was expressed to me that sometimes your voids become your values. The things that you missed out on growing up or whatever that weren't around you, they became the things you value the most.

Nick B:

So once you understand those things, they also then help you to understand what motivates you. And then once you have more self-awareness, you then I think have more completeness. So I'm happy being vulnerable about what I've done and what I'm... I said before we pressed record, you can ask me anything, I'm not going to... I'm going to answer it. Because I've done the work to understand what makes me who I am. And a lot of people have never done that, therefore they don't lean into it, and therefore they're too scared to lean into it in case it unpacks something uncomfortable. But sometimes you've got to go there.

Gary S:

That bell that you heard go off wasn't because Nick said ass, ass is perfectly okay to say on the show, no, that's perfectly okay. The bell was the captain announcing that it's about time to land the plane, so fasten your seatbelts and get ready for landing. But before we do land the plane, Nick, I would be remiss if I did not give you the chance to let listeners know where they can find the Scale Up Your Business podcast and where they can learn more about your consultancy work.

Nick B:

Yeah, sure. Well, actually you know what's quite interesting, in two days' time. I know people will listen to this in a dimension of time, so what does that mean. Scale Up Your Business is now called Scale Up with Nick Bradley. For two reasons, partly because the guests that I've got lined up to come on the show were not just business magnates or things like that. I've got some interesting people from the world of sport coming on and all sorts. So we're talking a little bit more about scaling up more generally. But yeah, you can find that on Spotify, iTunes. You can look for my somewhat ugly face on the front of it. That's cool, look me up there.

Nick B:

Then yeah, if people want to kind of... the coaching and consultancy we do is at Scale Up Your Business, it's suyb, so Scale Up Your Business, .global. And you can check us out there.

Warwick F:

Wow, well thank you so much Nick. I mean, as we kind of close, when you're thinking... it's interesting you're changing your name to Scale Up. What would be a message of hope, encouragement that you would have for folks that are listening to you, maybe business owners, maybe people in general. What would be a message of hope that you would offer?

Nick B:

I said this earlier that I feel very, very lucky and a huge amount of gratitude that I had my dad come back, him passing away also and then the teeth thing, all of that happening in... I mean, that all happened in my sort of late 30s, early 40s, around that time. So I had the message. And had I have not done that, had that not have happened, I probably would have stayed in my lane.

Nick B:

So my message to people is, as I said previously, if you're doing something you hate, or you're doing something that doesn't feel aligned with what you really want to be doing, you owe it to yourself and to others to explore that. That doesn't mean the romantic ideal of burning the boats, giving up everything, I'm going to quit my job tomorrow and go and do this new venture. It doesn't mean that, okay?

Nick B:

It means, creating the platform, the space to explore. Because if you don't do that, we've said before, I think you could then regret but what I will also say from someone who's jumped to the other side is it's really good on the other side. So any fear that you have to do that is absolutely worth pushing through to get to something which potentially could change the whole game, the whole experience for you.

Gary S:

I have been in communications business long enough to know when the last word's been spoken on a subject, and Nick has just spoken. Listener, thank you for spending this time with us on Beyond the Crucible. That's still the name of the show, we're not changing it in the near future we don't think. But who knows, never say never.

Gary S:

And until the next time, though, we are together, we ask that you remember this, and you heard it on display in our conversation with Nick Bradley today. Your crucibles, we realize, we know are painful. They are traumatic. They're difficult to move beyond. But they're not the end of your story. And that's what this show is all about. And I hope that's what you glean from this conversation with Nick. His teeth incident, as he calls it, despite all of our chuckles at the name was painful but it wasn't the end of his story. In fact, it was the start of a new chapter in his story. And your crucible can be the start of a new chapter in your story as well. And it can be the best chapter in your story, as it has been for Nick, because where it leads you to, if you learn the lessons of that crucible, is to a life of significance.