David Richman hasn’t just taken a day to walk in others’ shoes. He’s spent hours, and miles, and months, getting to know the stories, the fears, the hopes and the lessons learned from men and women whose lives have been touched by the ravages of cancer. In his book, CYCLE OF LIVES, he chronicles his interviews with 15 people whose crucible encounters with cancer vary from patient, to doctor, to loved ones. In each interaction he has a singular goal: truly providing them a safe space to talk about the roiling emotions they experience in the aftermath of diagnosis. What he’s learned is that deep meaning and emotional healing can be born in those moments of vulnerability – even if physical healing isn’t part of the equation.

To learn more about David Richman and to buy CYCLE OF LIVES (all proceeds go to cancer charities), visit www.cycleoflives.org

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

David R:

You just never know what people are going through or what they have gone through. And to hear it, to say that, sounds trite, but to really get deep into it ... when you say, "Take a day to walk in somebody else's shoes, and then you really understand them," we never do that. And really what people go through, what each of us have gone through or have dealt with in our lives is quite fascinating, inspiring, evocative, sometimes wonderful, sometimes terribly tragic. And we just don't know. And I think that that was an awakening for me at such a deep level, going through this process of this book, that it really made an impact on my life.

Gary S:

David Richman hasn't just taken a day to walk in other shoes. He's spent hours and miles and months getting to know the stories, the fears, the hopes, and the lessons learned from men and women whose lives have been touched by the ravages of cancer.

Gary S:

Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week, Warwick and I talked to Richman about his book, cycle of lives, which chronicles his interviews with 15 people whose crucible encounters with cancer vary from patient to doctor to loved ones.

Gary S:

In each interaction, he has a singular goal, truly providing them a safe space to talk about the roiling emotions they experience in the aftermath of diagnosis. What he's learned, he explains, is that deep meaning and emotional healing can be born in those moments of vulnerability, even if physical healing isn't part of the equation.

Warwick F:

Well, David, thank you so much for being here and I'm really looking forward to getting into your book, Cycle of Lives, in which you talk about 15 people who've had cancer and just their stories, which is just incredible.

Warwick F:

And then I love the title of your previous book, Winning in the Middle of the Pack: Realizing True Success in Business and in Life, because we talk a lot about significance and success and you can have both, but success doesn't always mean significance. Different concepts. So I love that.

Warwick F:

Before we get into your book, I'd love to hear just a bit about the backstory that led you to write the book, because I think you grew up in Southern California, Los Angeles, from what I understand, and you have an interesting intro in saying being a smoker, overweight, sedentary and all. But you're also a finance guy. And one of the other phrases I love in your bio is that you realized you enjoy managing people more than money. Not all finance guys are like that. It's like, oh, people are kind of annoying, but you got to have people if you're going to have clients, right? But it's all about making money. But so talk a bit about your background as sort of a bit of a backdrop for your book.

David R:

Oh, sure. I'm going to keep it short, Warwick, and I appreciate it. And thank you for that intro, Gary. Very nice.

David R:

So yeah, my background's kind of interesting. I was so intrigued to talk to you because of this idea of crucible moments, and I've had quite a few of those. And not like a normal step from one stone to the next kind of path ... not that everybody does, maybe even most people don't ... but mine seems a little crazy. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley area of California.

Gary S:

That's crazy of and by itself. I used to live there, so that is crazy of and by itself.

David R:

That's crazy of and by itself, yeah. I had a weird dynamic growing up. My parents were nearly 40 years difference in age, so my father was entirely too old to have kids. My mom was entirely too young to have kids. Neither one really wanted kids at that point in their lives. And so my sister and I kind of grew up quite alone and self-sufficient, which helped me when I embarked on the world at 18 to rely on that self-sufficience as bad decisions and bad luck gave me a lot of challenges and obstacles to overcome.

David R:

I just went kind of from one job to the next, but always found myself in a management role. And that's where you mentioned that I like managing people more than money. I feel like there's not ... there's a lot of people that can manage money, maybe not all of them well, but there's a lot of people. But there's very few people that can manage people, and I really, really enjoy that. And almost everything in my life, including my writing, has gotten me to the point where I really love deeply connecting, being inspired by, and helping to inspire others through life experience, through difficulties, to areas that will better enlighten them, set them on a more authentic life path, those type of things. So I know that's a little out there, a little ethereal, but that's kind of where my life's path has taken me.

Warwick F:

So why finance? And how did that notion of focusing on people more than money, how did that kind of come through in the world of finance? Because not everybody that's a people person which you obviously are thinks, "Oh, let me go into finance, because if you love people you go into finance."

David R:

Yeah. It's a good question. And I kind of have this polymath life where I just cannot seem to focus on one thing. I mean, I feel like I'm really good at a lot of different things. I'm not great at anything. And when I manage people's money, I feel like I needed to be great at it, and I wasn't. I was good at it. I feel like I'm only great at a few things, but I love doing a ton of different things. So that's probably what brought me into finance, is just the intrigue, the math, the difficulty of it, the science, the art of it. It's interacting with people, but also dealing with spreadsheets. I just love that. But I really found that my skills were in dealing with people more than in dealing with the money.

Warwick F:

So you've been in finance for obviously a lot of years, and you could have kept doing that, but it seems like your life took a bit of a turn from just focusing on finance. So I'm guessing that was probably just the passing of your sister. Was that ... I mean, what was the key moment that shifted you from just being a finance guy to writing now two books?

David R:

Yeah. So I was always a writer in the background, but I'd never authored any books. Actually, I did author a couple of books in the finance world and one in endurance athletics before these two books came. But really it wasn't a focus. What happened Warwick is I was in the middle of a really difficult time in my life. I had had great success at work, but I was really not feeling entirely fulfilled. I was in a terrible personal situation. I had four year old twins and I was married to an abusive alcoholic. I was terribly overweight. I was a smoker. I just wasn't enjoying life and found myself at a really dark place. And I had to escape my personal situation for my safety and for my kids' safety, and I did.

David R:

And kind of in that same window, a very short window of time, where I said, "Okay, man, I got to start taking charge of my life and becoming who I want to be on purpose," I got a call for my sister who said, "Hey, I've got terminal brain cancer." And so it was this kind of weird dichotomy where I finally ... it was in my 30s, late 30s, I finally decided that I've got to take charge of my life and make a path towards where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be, and meanwhile, my sister, who I was super close to, at that same moment in time, had to decide how she was going to navigate a path that would lead to her eventual and untimely death.

David R:

So it was this weird kind of dichotomy and it really just ... seeing what she was going to have to go through with family, young kids, a great career, a wonderful life, that was ... she now was on a journey to the end of that. I'm on a journey to what I'm think is the beginning of my life, so those kind of things more, I don't know, accentuated the urgency of trying to live on purpose. And that's kind of where most of the changes came from, if that makes sense.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, I want to dwell on this a bit, because we talk a lot in Crucible Leadership about being in the bottom of the pit, trying not to let your worst day define you. And we've had, I don't know, 70, 75 guests, I guess, on the podcast. And there's typically this moment of choice. It could be you might be abused. Maybe ... we've had paraplegics, quadriplegics, people have lost businesses, and often just really, really tough challenges ... an adverse health diagnosis ... and you're faced with this choice. Either you can be angry and bitter, and you have a lot of reasons to be angry and bitter. Whether you're a person of faith or not, whether it's God, the universe, fate, however you ... whatever paradigm it is, it could be like really ...

Warwick F:

I mean, my kids and family situation is one thing. But then my sister who I love ... I mean, what is the deal here? I mean, one would be horrific. Both is ... for many that say, "You know what? I'm checking out. I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm going to be self destructive to myself or to others." And you're faced with a choice. Either you can spiral down to anger and self pity, which I have to say, would be completely understandable. I'm not judging you or anybody. I mean, I can't imagine what that would be like, what you went through.

Warwick F:

But yet as pretty much most of the folks or all the people on our podcast, they've made a different choice. And it just always amazes me. How can you make that other choice? You chose clearly not to be angry and bitter and to move forward. What led you to make that choice that many don't? Many, sadly, and I'm sure you know folks, they just stay angry and bitter at themselves, at the world. How did you choose a path that wasn't anger and bitterness?

David R:

It's a great question. It takes a little bit of unwinding on the answer, because for me, I kind of have always had an ... not hopeful ... I'm not very hopeful about things in those type of situations, because you can get swallowed up by the turmoil and the trauma and the misery and the difficulty. But I have been always in the background optimistic. And that's different, right? It's not event-driven. It's just kind of a thing that just, okay, it's going to work out.

David R:

Well, sometimes you have to really take an extra step to make it work out. And for me, that was being honest with myself and relying on myself in a different way. And where that came from is ... and I remember it vividly ... I was only a week or so out of that very bad situation. My kids were asleep in the other room. And I stood in front of a mirror in the bathroom and not quite in tears, but almost, and I just was looking in the mirror going like, "Who do you want to be?" Like, "Okay, you're this and you're that for this person. You're a good employee. You're a good boss. You're a good this. You're a good ... "

David R:

I nailed all the things that I am, but none of those things was who I wanted to be. And I just kept saying, "Who do you want to be? Who do you want to be? Who are you?" And I think that that desire to find out rather than to wallow in the single event stuff was what drove me, and then I wanted to find out. And everything I did at that point, from that point forward, was to find out the answer to that question, is who am I, and who do I want to be? What do I want to do?

Warwick F:

I mean, that's fascinating, because I think somewhere you talk about you can focus on making others happy and it's all about ... I mean, serving others is different than, I'm going to live in light of other people's expectations. I mean, as listeners would know, in my story, growing up at a 150 year old family media business in Australia, 2.25 billion dollar takeover and all, which ended up failing, it was all about living in light of my ancestors' dreams. It was nothing to do with what I want to do. It was making my ancestors happy and parents and whoever.

Warwick F:

So yeah, I had to unlearn. It's like, it's okay to think about what do I want in life and what do I want to contribute to life? Right? You can still serve others, but out of your own reasons, your own motivations. So that took me a long time to unlearn, but I'm hearing you.

Warwick F:

So your sister passes away and I believe you said as she was ... before she passed that somehow you wanted to use her story to help others, which led to ... I mean, you're a sort of ultra marathoner type. I think I've got here, competed in 50 triathlons and 15 Ironmans and races in 5,000 mile bike ride from California to New York, which is to me crazy stuff. Not crazy in a bad sense, but crazy as in most of us would never do that.

Gary S:

On my Fitbit, for instance, they give me badges every time you achieve a new milestone. So my badge I've got for steps distance so far is through the center of the earth. But that's over nine years. You did that on a weekend or something when you took that bike ride that you took. So I'm like, oh my gosh, you're like Forrest Gump, who just ran from one coast to the other and then turned around and just ran back.

Warwick F:

Yeah. It's unbelievable. So just talk about your sister passing and just ... you've obviously, amongst other things, a passion for triathlons and bike rides, and which led to the books. So talk about just those different strings, if you will, how they worked together.

David R:

Yeah, sure. First of all, I will say that nothing of significance ... and you had to go through a very, very significant change ... it doesn't happen because you decide to turn left one day instead of turning right and become somebody. It takes a lot of relearning, a lot of forgiveness, a lot of understanding, a lot ... it's scary, because you're going down new alleys and you're discovering new things. Significant change happens step by step by step. Right?

David R:

And I have a very ... let me just tell you a super quick story. I have a story that happened to me on one of my endurance events ... you'll appreciate this, Gary ... That became an analogy for change and significant change.

David R:

So I'm doing an 85 mile roller blade race, if you can imagine that. Who races 85 miles?

Gary S:

I can't, but I'm sure it's great.

David R:

It's completely stupid. And it's through the hills, the gentle rolling hills of Georgia, which there's nothing gentle about the rolling hills of Georgia. I have no business being on roller blades alone, let alone on an 85 mile race. I've never done anything like that.

David R:

And to make a long story short, I'm about 30 miles in and I'm heading up this hill that I cannot get up. It's just impossible. And I'm at the end of my rope. I'm a few hours in. I'm pouring sweat out of me. I was still overweight. I was still a smoker. And I looked down and I see my sweat had created this little line in front of me. And I was perpendicular to the hill, because otherwise I would've gone back down.

David R:

And I said to myself, "Okay, David, you can either turn around and just go home and call it a day, and there you would've known everything about yourself and everything you're capable of doing. Or you can just figure out a way to make one ... go past ... one step past that line, one little roll. You get one leg across that line and you discover something new. And every you take another step, you're going to learn something new and something new and something new."

David R:

And that's where I feel like that significant change ... or how do you go from smoking to doing a million triathlons and Ironmans and a 5,000? You do it by taking one little step and learning something new about yourself. And that's the way that you invent yourself. The way you rewire your mind is not to take on something that's impossible. You can't just one day not be affected by just a seriously traumatic event. You got to take it step by step. Find out something just a little bit new about yourself and then build on that and build on that.

David R:

And that was kind of like a parody for how I think about things, right? That's an analogy for how my brain works, is that I don't ever want to know the answer. I don't want to reach the line. I don't want to reach a limit. I don't want to think I know everything, because if I do, I might as well just pack it up and go home, because life's done. Right? I got to keep finding out what's past that line.

David R:

And that brought me to understanding or trying to understand what people were going through on an emotional level when it came to their cancer. And not just ... guys, not just people that were going through cancer, but caregivers, doctors, loved ones, survivors, those type, because they were really good about dealing with the tasks of their cancer. But when it came to the emotion of cancer, they had all hit that line, right? They didn't know where to go. They didn't know what lay beyond that line, because most people don't know how to deal with the emotional side of trauma.

David R:

And you guys know this. You talk to people about this all the time. It's the emotional side of it that's so difficult. And so I embarked on this project of saying, "How can I shed a light on what people have gone through or what they're going through and limiters or the things that have enhanced their ability to be able to navigate the emotional side?"

David R:

And the reason I wanted to do that, to wrap this very long answer up, is because I felt like if I could shine light on really traumatic, evocative, inspiring stories of people who had dealt with, or at times not dealt with, the emotional side of this, and we could really, really understand and bond with them in an authentic, heart-centered, deep, authentic way, then we might be better equipped to be able to help people in our lives that are going through difficult times because we might have a better understanding of what they're going through. Long answer, but that's where it is.

Gary S:

It's a great answer. And Warwick, before we pivot, and I know that you want to ask more about that, because that sets up the next part of the story, I want to back up just a couple of feet. I guess in your world, David, I want to back up a few hundred feet since you're used to going a lot longer than a few feet. But Warwick says all the time ... he uses the phrase, "one small step" a lot. And I think we have ... we think about it only as one small step because biting it off more than that would be too much emotionally to do.

Gary S:

I think what you said and what I heard is that it's also important not to go more than one small step because you don't want to bite off too much that you can't chew. You don't want to go from point A to point Z because that's a less chance of success, a less chance of completing it than if you just take that step that you took across that line of sweat, which I think is really important for listeners to know.

Gary S:

And it's fascinating this is how these things work. Today, I'm writing a blog for Crucible Leadership's website about the lessons that you can learn about crucibles from the movie Die Hard. It's going to be out by the time you hear this, listener. It'll be on crucibleleadership.com. But one of the points I make, and I just wrote this 10 minutes before I got on this call, is that one of the things that John McClane, Bruce Willis in that movie does, he keeps running into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall after brick wall, but he doesn't try to get out of it all at once. He just wants to survive crucible A and then move on to crucible B. That's his perspective. That's what helps him win in the end.

Gary S:

And I think what you're saying for you, what helped you at that moment of truth with the line of sweat on the ground was just taking that one small step and not thinking too big, but thinking big in terms of effort, in terms of emotion, but not in terms of activity of what you had to do. I think that's a critical point for listeners to understand as we move forward.

David R:

Gary, you're right. Let me add one thing to that. That step by step thing, and I love that idea of one little step at a time, is wrapped inside of what I think is a huge goal. So what I'm saying is I think you can set a goal that goes from A to Z, a purpose that goes from A to Z. Right? I feel like we don't often challenge ourselves to a difficult enough level to really make a meaningful difference in our lives. But when you go after something that is really difficult, overcoming severe trauma, accomplishing a major business or personal goal, you kind of got to go step by step, because it's impossible. It's impossible to jump from A to Z. Now I like the goal A to Z, but you got to go one little step at a time in order to get there.

Gary S:

Yeah. And the only way Bruce Willis could save Nakatomi Plaza was surviving one incident at a time.

Warwick F:

Yeah, no, it's such a great point. And yeah, just to dwell on this one more moment, because it is critical ... everybody we've spoken to on the podcast, they've just had notion of, okay, what's one small step? And really kind of the way I think of it, whether it's ... I have a book that came out in October, this fall of 2021, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. I mean, it took years to write, but it's like, okay, what's the next step? What's the next step I can do? And be disciplined about yes, I wanted to get it published and have as many people as possible read it, but release the consequences of the outcome. I can't control the outcome. I can't control how many people read it. I can't control how many people's lives are touched or not touched. But what's one positive step forward that I can make today?

Warwick F:

Focus on the ... I mean every good athlete I've ever read about has said this. They focus on the process. What training do I need to do today? What can I do today to make me a better athlete, a better quarterback, a better tennis player, a better whoever? I'm from Australia, so cricket's real big in Australia and the Ashes cricket series between Australia and England is going on right now.

Warwick F:

So there's all sorts of analogies. But elite athletes, they always focus on the process. Every interview with an elite athlete, they'll always say that, right? I'm sure it's true in people who ... ultra marathoners. What's the process? What's one ... so that way of thinking, it cannot be stated too often. And certainly if today is your worst day, what's one small positive baby step that you can do? So it doesn't always change the outcome of a health diagnosis, but maybe it can change ... we can't always control that, but people that we've spoken to have come from hugely challenging physical challenges. They may not ... if they're quadriplegic, that likely won't change. After the first few months, you pretty much know where you are, but how can I change the way I think? That's something you can control.

Warwick F:

So let's talk a bit about your book, Cycle of Lives, because it's fascinating that people are sadly all too familiar with cancer, physical tragedies. They know from their friends, their family. But you're right. People don't talk about the emotional side, the how do you ... what are those stories? How do you deal with that? It's it just seems like people don't talk about that for some reason.

David R:

They don't. And that's not just ... I'm not just saying that. Every person that I ran into had to some level, if not an entire complete diving into this idea of, yeah, I don't know how to deal with the emotional side of it. And that is literally every single person that I spoke to. And I witnessed it as well. My sister and I were able to talk about things on an emotional level, which which only strengthened my idea that that's very much the exception. And I'm not saying that nobody knows how to deal with it, but most people don't.

David R:

I spoke to a woman who was an oncologist at NYU, Perlmutter Cancer Institute, 40 years as an oncologist dealing in female and male breast cancer. And when I sat down and I said to her ... I said, "Hey doc, can I ask you questions that you don't talk to people about?" She goes, "I don't talk to anybody about this stuff. Not my husband, because we don't want to bring each other down. Not my peers, because I'm a woman doctor. I can't show weakness. Not my friends, because we're worried about going to a museum or going on a hike." She goes, "I certainly can't talk to my patients about the emotional side of it." But she had a very dynamic, wonderful story to get out about her emotional journey.

David R:

She just had never talked about it with anybody. And so that was an example of just ... it was every single person I spoke to had had that realization that they didn't know how to talk or even process the emotional side of it. And when I saw that, and I saw it watching my sister pass away and the people that I witnessed during a bunch of different events I did and talking to doctors and all of this, I just said, "I got to figure it out."

David R:

So when I put the Cycle of Lives project outline together, I just said, I want to grab as many different types of people, different age, different types of cancer, different points in their life, different traumas, addiction, abuse, abandonment, making bad decisions, being dealt a bad hand in life, you name it. How did all of these traumas affect them? Whether they were a one and done cancer, or they had lived their whole life with cancer or had given their whole life to treating people with cancer or whatever, so that when we say something trite like, "Oh, you never know what people have gone through," that we really start to get some understanding. And people like you that write books like you have, the lessons that you want to give are not in a preachy, prescriptive way. They're in a, "Hey, I really lived this. I really went through this. This is the ways in which I was enlightened by these really true, authentic experiences, and I'm just going to try to give you some insight into it so that you can take whatever you can from it."

David R:

And that's what I wanted to write these books for, because we both ... well, we all know, that oh, one step at a time doesn't really mean anything until you're not able to take a step. And then finally, when you're able to take a step, you can take one step at a time. Right? And so I have a tremendous number of lessons learned from these peoples' stories that kind of overcome that little ... trite sayings that we never want to listen to.

Warwick F:

So tell us a bit about ... I mean, there's probably individual lessons, but what are some of the themes ... and just for listeners to know, as you interviewed these 15 people, it was in the context of a bike ride across the country in a fairly short period of time, wasn't it?

David R:

Well, the bike ride was in the short period of time. So the bike ride actually came as a bit of a joke. Like I ... okay, you got the whole double meaning of Cycle of Lives, but is that I said, if we're all connected by emotion, which I think we are, and we're all connected by stories ... ever since before man could talk, we were drawing stories. So when I put these together, I said, "Ah, what better way to connect us than to get on my bike ride and kind of be the thread that connects the stories?"

David R:

And so I had talked to the people in the book, and many that didn't make the book, for a couple years. So to get super deep, I was talking to people for dozens, if not hundreds of hours in a few different places to really get super, super deep into their stories so that I could tell them in an authentic, real way, so that we would be able to really take something from their experiences. The bike ride kind of came as an afterthought. I did it in a very short period of time, yes, 4,700 miles in 45 days. A million wonderful stories along the way, but my bike ride was the thread that tied those stories together.

Warwick F:

So yeah. So what are some of the key learnings that you have? Maybe some commonalities, maybe not with all 15, but with a number of them, what are some of the key learnings that you learned from these incredible people that you write about?

David R:

Well, there's two things that I learned, one I'll tell you and ask you to believe, the listener to believe, that even though it's trite, there's so much more behind it, and that is, you just never know what people are going through or what they have gone through.

David R:

And to hear it, to say that, sounds trite, but to really get deep into it ... when you say, "Take a day to walk in somebody else's shoes, and then you really understand them," we never do that. And really what people go through, what each of us have gone through or have dealt with in our lives is quite fascinating, inspiring, evocative, sometimes wonderful, sometimes terribly tragic. And we just don't know. And I think that that was an awakening for me at such a deep level, going through this process of this book, that it really made an impact on my life.

David R:

I'd say the second thing that I learned is that if you do give yourself a chance to really connect with somebody authentically, you can take something from their story, from their experiences, and it will be carried with you as a very, very light, but as a weight, maybe a positive weight. But it'll be carried with you for life. And I'll give you a super quick story if I could guys.

David R:

So you said something earlier, right? Just take one, one step, right? Just figure out a way to take one step. So when I started talking to this woman, if you would've told me ... one of the people in the book ... if you would've told me, "Hey, David, you know what the key to life is? The key to life is just figure out a way to get your feet off the bed, onto the ground, stand up, make your bed, and go about your day. That's how you get through life," I would've maybe punched you in the jaw. Like don't tell me something stupid. I mean, really? That's just stupid.

David R:

So when I talked to Patricia and when I got into her story ... I'm not going to go super long into the story. But when I got into her story, it was absolutely mind-boggling, amazing the things that she had gone through. Not only did she wonderfully find somebody who would love her and that she loved and went through her adult life together, which is a hard thing to do, but it was in the backdrop of her having five different cancers over a 35 year period. Basically her oncologist was like, "Dude, there's nothing left to cut out. So I can't ... you've been at the practice more longer than I have. You're done. Next time you get cancer you're done." Five different cancers. She took care of her dad who was dying of cancer while she was going through chemo herself. I mean, this woman has been through the ringer.

David R:

But that wasn't really her story, guys. Her story was all of that, this finding love and learning how to love and be loved and dealing with a lifetime's worth of cancer and just a tremendous trauma, is that she had spent years trying to escape an insanely brutal, abusive relationship where she was beat up if he thought she looked at somebody. She had to reinvent herself. I mean, it was the most horrible thing anybody could ever go through. And it was just terrible.

David R:

And she told me, and I said to her ... one day I go, "Patricia, how in the world did you ever get through life? I mean, I can't even imagine the amount of trauma and difficulty you got through." And she said, "Well, David, listen. I escaped a certain death when I left that relationship and I escaped death at least five times through my cancers." She said, "The very first day of freedom I had from that relationship, I told myself, 'Every single day, I'm going to get up out of bed and I'm going to put my feet on the ground and I'm going to make my bed and I'm going to go about my day.'"

David R:

And she said, "Sometimes when I went through chemo, that meant as soon as I made my bed, I laid down again because I didn't have the energy to do it. But that's how I get through every day, is I'm optimistic that I'm going to be able to go about my day." And I'm like, "Whoa, that to me is a lesson." So now if I say or I hear somebody say, "Hey, just put your feet on the ground and figure out a way to get through the day," there might be so much more behind that. And now that I know her story, that makes an impact on me. And when I'm not feeling good, I go, "Get your feet on the ground and go about your day."

Warwick F:

Yeah. I think there's that optimistic mindset that really links everybody that's come out the other side of tragedy, that's come out the other side of the pit, is it's one small step, but it's like, I'm going to move forward in a positive way. I'm not going to be angry. I'm not going to be bitter. I don't know one person has gone through tragedy and come out the other side who's angry and bitter. I've not met that person, probably because it's not possible. Anger and bitterness, it's like poison. It will stop you moving forward.

Warwick F:

But I mean, you said so much there that it's ... we know very little about people. You meet somebody at a conference or a meeting, church, wherever you congregate ... and especially in the digital world where it's sound bites, you say, "Hey, my name's Warwick, who are you?" And you might talk about husband, wife, kids, job, but you're not going to say, "So who are you?" "Oh, I'm Warwick. I grew up in 150 year old newspaper business and I lost it at age 30, a billion dollar thing, and it took me most of the 90s to recover. And I'm in a better place now, but it was pretty horrific letting down everybody in my family. That's who I am. And how about you?"

Warwick F:

Like you, David, could say, "Well yeah, I've had a challenging family, marriage. I wanted to save my kids. My sister died of cancer. And I just wanted to really focus on telling people's stories who've gone through tragedy. Hey, that's me David", or some version of that. But who does that as an intro? Wouldn't that be helpful? Is if when they ask you who are you, you just calmly give a couple minute elevator speech, if you will, of who you really are? But we don't do that in our culture.

David R:

We don't do that in our culture. And one of the things that we talked about before is what are some of these limiters? And you know what? People are vulnerable. And one of the things that was a common factor, not in everybody, but in a lot of people I spoke to, was this fear of abandonment, or they had been abandoned or they self isolated, or they were forced to isolate.

David R:

And so what you're not going to do is you're not going to have that conversation with somebody that you don't feel safe with. And who feels safe with a stranger? Who feels even safe around people that know us? Because they might not know us like that. And so it takes a fair amount of strength and understanding that vulnerability is okay, that if you're safe to talk to somebody about the real you, that's okay.

David R:

I had lunch ... sorry to tell you this story, but it's been weighing on me for a couple of days. I had lunch earlier this week with a gentleman. He's 73 years old. He's going through a life change. He's ridiculously successful. And he read my Winning in the Middle of the Pack book and he went, "Holy crap, David." He goes, "You talk about this thing of caring about what you want in life. I've led my entire life knowing that I was supposed to be successful because that's what my family told me." He goes, "And I don't think I've done that. And now I've got to worry about myself? I've never done that in my life before." And it's like, he would've never told me that if he didn't feel safe, right? But how wonderful to know that I can know him at that deeper level now.

David R:

And so that's what we do when we write books or we tell stories or you guys interview wonderful people on your podcast, is you want to unpack it. You want to create this safe space to get to the real heart of the matter.

Warwick F:

Yeah. What you're saying I think I want listeners to really hear, because I've had a number of folks on our podcast that have said, "Thank you, Warwick, you create a safe place where we can feel heard," which means everything to me. But part of the reason for that is, and it's really the whole brand, the whole message, if you will, is I'm very open about my own tragedy, if you will. It's not a physical tragedy. And it's funny. Early on, I would almost apologize for what I went through, because it's not cancer. And I remember ... I know you're originally from California ... we had somebody that was from Southern California, Navy Seal, that was paralyzed in a parachuting training accident. He was an ultra ... as fit and as good a Seal ... his dad was a Seal ... as good a Seal as probably exists, at least from his dad's perspective.

Warwick F:

And so all of that was behind him. And I just was ... one of the very first podcasts, I was apologetic. I said, "Look, what been through is nothing compared to what you've been through," and he said, "No, that's ... Warwick, my perspective is this. Your worst day is your worst day, right? It's not a competition. You could say, oh, maybe some people you've interviewed have worst cancer than others. 'So you only have one cancer? Oh, I had 30. Okay. I got you beat 30 times.' It's not a competition between oh, you've got stage four or five or gee, you've only got one. Ha. You're lucky.'" And it's not that mindset.

Warwick F:

But I guess my point is, as you are vulnerable yourself ... I believe in being vulnerable for a purpose ... it gives other people the opportunity to be vulnerable because you've created a safe place and you say, "Hey, this is me," and other people will share with you. It just creates so much more meaningful dialogue, which would be so useful, because most people we don't know. But you love people so you want to know people. And I'm a bit the same way. I'm a lot the same way in that sense.

Warwick F:

I love learning about people who I know nothing about. I love hearing their stories because that's part of what it is to be part of the human race, right? What are our stories? I mean, for hundreds, if not thousands of years, ancient peoples in every corner of the globe would share stories about their families and about their tribe and their people group and they would hand it down from generation to generation, even before there was the written word, because that's our history, is our stories. Every ancient people group had that philosophy, but we somehow have lost it. We don't share our stories.

David R:

And I mean it's wonderfully said, and what I've found, and I know that I can tell from your experiences just in this podcast, is what you found is that those stories that we share when we do give ourselves a chance to really understand what's going through somebody else's life are really fascinating. They can be transformative. They can provide us with lights that we can use for the rest of our life. And to be open to this idea, and I love this, this concept of everybody's living their own lives and we're just passer-byers in everybody's life. I can never know what either one of you have gone through and vice versa.

David R:

But when you do open up and you do connect in a really authentic, heart-centered, meaningful, true way, if even for just a few minutes, it can provide us a directional light that we keep for forever.

David R:

If I could tell you a super quick story, I'm near the end of the bike ride, okay? And I'm heading over the George Washington Bridge. I'm going to finish at my self proclaimed finish line in Central Park. I got a big group of people and I don't know really how to navigate across the bridge to Central Park. And I roll up on these two cyclists and they're finishing a conversation and one of them rides away, and I asked the girl that's left, I said, "Hey, can you tell me how I get to so and so?" And she goes, "Yeah, you go here, you go here." And then she's looking at me and she sees this little patch on my arm that says, "Stupid cancer."

David R:

And I go ... she says, "Oh, well, what are you doing?" And I told her, "I did a bike ride," and dah, dah, dah, dah. "I'm just finishing it up from California." And she was like, "Oh my god. And you're doing it for cancer?" I go, "Yeah." She goes, "Geez. My dad died of cancer four years ago." And the old me would've said, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Thank you for the directions and I'll talk to you later."

David R:

But then knowing that if she could just find a safe space, there might be something she could give me. She gave me something I'll never, ever lose in my whole life. I said to her, I said, "Oh my gosh. Were you close?" And she said, "Oh, we were so close. He was a cyclist. He got me into cycling. Even as he was going through chemo for stage four cancer, we would go on these cycling trips when he was able to. And we just had the greatest things, the greatest experiences and memories ever."

David R:

She goes, "And he had a real good sense of humor. When he died, his cycling buddies used to make fun of him because he wore this shirt with a bunch of little ice cream cones on it. And he said, 'Hey, I want the viewing to be with me in this ice cream cone jersey, because it'll give all my friends a smile.'" And she started crying and laughing and we had this wonderful five minute conversation.

David R:

And when I drove away ... I gave her a hug. I knew we'd never see each other again. But I thought to myself, "I'm never going to feel, forget the idea of a man who knew he was going to die and spent time with his daughter and then as a joke to his friends and because I could learn ... like how graceful and wonderful and poetic is it that he wanted to be seen in something that would give people a smile, even though he was getting buried." It just ... the whole thing just stuck. It'll never leave me, right? And so we found this safe space to know each other for five minutes, but it was a light that will never ... that story will never leave me, right?

Warwick F:

That's amazing. So what are some of the ... I mean, there's some commonalities. Were there differences? Or maybe another question would be out of everything you learned in the book, what's maybe something that most struck you? Maybe biggest takeaway or ...

David R:

I think the biggest takeaway is no matter how strong people were, whether they were a doctor, a medical professional ... I mean, I talked to one guy who was a chief medical officer of a very large medical company. No matter who they were, this idea that they felt isolated or self-isolated or that they were abandoned at the biggest time of need. When they needed most to talk about things they couldn't, or they didn't have the safe space or they didn't have people in their lives who cared or knew how to deal with it. How hard is it for us to talk to somebody when we're having a good day or just a normal day? And we know they're having a ... and who doesn't? Right now, I'm sure both of you know somebody that's going through something difficult and it's like, "Shoot, man, I haven't called them in a couple of weeks," or, "I said I would call him and I haven't and it's been a couple of weeks." How hard is it?

David R:

It's just really difficult to find ourselves in the firing line of trauma and know how to deal with people, and that just isolates them. And even though sometimes we don't want to invade their space and we don't want to say something stupid and we don't want to look like an idiot or we don't want to look uncaring, so maybe what we do is just not deal with it, that just isolates them or abandons them in a way that is just it repetitive and ... so that was a theme that touched me the most, is that every person I spoke to either self-isolated or felt abandoned, especially when it came to having those meaningful, emotional interactions with people. And so they just learned to tuck those things away and not deal with them. And that's the thing that touched me the most.

Gary S:

It seems, David, for sure that you and the captain of our plane are on the exact same timetable because this is an excellent point. I think I heard the captain turn on the fasten seatbelt sign to indicate that we're getting close to where we have to put the plane on the ground, but we're not there yet.

Gary S:

Before we move forward and Warwick asks you a couple more questions, I'd be remiss if I didn't give you the chance to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you and your work online. How can they find out more about David Richman?

David R:

Well thank you, Gary. That's nice. The book, I wrote it to help people and to better equip them to have more meaningful connections with the people that are in their lives. But I also wanted to raise awareness and money for great organizations that deal with people that are going through trauma. So 100% of any penny that comes to me from the book or anything related to the book is going to ... is divided between the charities and the hospitals and the other nonprofits that the book participants each chose.

David R:

So if you do go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever books are sold and you think it might be a book that might speak to you, Cycle of Lives, I think you'll get some tools that you can put on your tool belt for how to form deep connections. You'll also be raising a tiny bit of money to help great organizations. So you can go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever books are sold, my website, cycleoflives.org. You can find out more information about me, the book, and everything else. And thanks for that, Gary.

Warwick F:

Sure. There's one thing that I heard, David, that really intrigued me. I think you said something like you discovered in people's stories, the more significant the trauma, the more likely they are to focus on helping others.

Warwick F:

Now, I don't know if I got that quite right, but it's hard for me to get my head around that one. So talk about that, because that does not seem intuitive, doesn't seem normal, doesn't seem to even make sense. So just help us understand that one.

David R:

It's tough because I don't want to sound preachy, right? But there is some truth to the idea of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I mean, there really is some truth to that. And not everybody comes out on the other side better. Not everybody has a happy ending. And that's the reality of this crazy thing called life, is that sometimes things don't work out. They just don't. And it's a sad a thing, but it's the reality. But I have found that what doesn't kill you can make you stronger. When you think about what it might take, one of my book participants walked in when he was six years old on his mother killing herself. Could you imagine how that could be used as a deep well to dive into anytime life gets difficult? Instead, he's learned from that on how to learn how to rely on people and not feel abandoned. And he spreads that message. Not in a preachy way, but he just ... he imbibes someone who wants to help others who feel abandoned.

David R:

I have this one ... a doctor that's in the book. She loves hugging her patients. And there's a lot of reasons behind that. She went through some unbelievably difficult times where she could feel no human contact and all she wants to do as a doctor is hug people. And it's just this wonderful idea of what doesn't kill us can make us stronger. When you go through something as difficult as you, some of your guests, what we all kind of probably go through in life, not measured against each other, but just difficult, our worst days, and you come out on the other side, sometimes if we do come out on the other side better off, we want to just help people. We want to ... we have some empathy for what others might be going through and we want to help. It's just a beautiful, beautiful aspect of life that we just don't focus on enough.

Warwick F:

There's one final comment, because I know our time is going. One of the things I've found is ... and I know I've heard other guests say this, is as you use your story to help others, your trauma, your tragedy, there is a healing balm. There is a healing component in it. Obviously not physically for those who have physical challenges. But I know for me, the book came out October, fall of 2021, and as I've begun to speak and people are saying, "Warwick, that story really helped me. Thank you for sharing." And yeah, I mean, you get over tragedies like that, at least in the sense that it's not an open wound, but it's still a scar.

Warwick F:

Not to belabor this, but one person, in fact, a student at a college outside of New York, Seton Hall, he asked me, "So is it challenging or is it difficult for you to go back to Australia?" Now, he asked that question because he understood my story at a deep level. It's not terrible, but because of the whole memories of the family business, and when you've got a wealthy family, there's often a lot of dysfunction, yeah, it's not totally easy. It's not terrible, but it's not a piece of cake. So I felt heard in that moment.

Warwick F:

But I guess the larger point is as I'm sharing my story and people are getting help out of it, it makes meaning out of the pain, but it also doesn't all go away. But it's absolutely very helpful. There is a healing component of it, at least psychologically and emotionally. And I have to believe that the folks you talk with, as they're focused on helping others, at least in their spirit, in their psyche, there's a healing component as they use their story to help others. Does that kind of make sense as we round up?

David R:

It totally makes sense. And it's really something that is quite unique. I think it's wonderful. I think the world needs a lot of healing. I think that when we are going through trauma, and there's trauma all around us, but we just kind of just accept that that's the way it is. I walked to school uphill both ways in the snow barefoot, right? I mean, suck it up and deal with it, man. That's just the way we've done it, but there's such an appetite now for that type of growth and that type of connection.

David R:

And again, because we can say this without it sounding trite, I'm unbelievably moved by people like you and the guests that you have and others who are willing to share some insight into what's behind that, you never know what people are going through, what they have gone through so that we can connect in a meaningful way and take something with it as we're trying to figure out our own lives and our own path and what we're doing in life.

David R:

So I'm terribly inspired by it. I'm very proud of you for doing it. It's very, very difficult to put yourself out there in a vulnerable, real way. And to have an altruistic hope that you will inspire one person or several people is just really wonderful. So I'm totally with you. I don't say those things lightly. There's not a light meaning behind it. It's a heavy meaning behind it. And I just think it's really, really powerful.

Warwick F:

Well, thank you so much, David. We're frankly blessed to have you and just you share some of the stories and what you've learned and yeah. Thank you so much for coming on.

David R:

You're welcome, both of you. Thank you Warwick and thank you, Gary.

Gary S:

So here's how I know that the plane is on the ground and it's time for us to gather our luggage and depart, is I was going to actually ask ... I've been sitting here for like 10 minutes wanting to ask the question that Warwick asked at the end. And we don't communicate behind the scenes here. I'm not sending him notes on Zoom to say, "Ask this question." So I was going to ask this question as a closer, what he asked you about healing being possible even when physical healing doesn't happen. And that was a beautiful way to end the conversation, I think.

Gary S:

And I want to leave you, listener, with sort of a mashup of the two big lessons from this conversation I think. It's a homework assignment that's a mashup of the two big learnings I think that we had here today with David Richman.

Gary S:

One, we talked a lot about taking small steps to get to your vision, to achieve significance, to reach your goals. There are small steps that ... wake up, put your feet on the ground, get out of bed, that small steps. That's one concept that we discussed here.

Gary S:

The other concept that we discussed was something David said about, we know very little about people and we do that because we don't pause often to ask about people. David told a story of a woman who indicated that her father had passed away of cancer, and rather than just saying, yep, thanks for the directions that he asked for, he paused and he asked a question that went a little deeper.

Gary S:

So here's the homework that's the mash-up. What is one small step you can take, listener, to move beyond perhaps an acquaintance relationship and build a deeper relationship with someone when it comes to this idea of asking more meaningful, deeper questions? Please make sure that it's appropriate to do so. So I say someone who's an acquaintance, the small step you can take. Look around you. See if there's someone in your orbit that you can take a small step and ask a question that you have not asked before that takes your existing relationship deeper and may unlock, for the person you're speaking to, may unlock some of this healing that we're talking about that comes from being vulnerable.

Gary S:

Warwick's experienced it. He's experienced healing from his crucible through his vulnerability. David saw it in the people he interviewed for his book. So let's mash up those concepts of taking one small step and really getting to know each other, really getting to know people in our orbits, mash those things up and see what we can create by doing so.

Gary S:

Thank you, listener, for spending time with us on Beyond the Crucible this week. We would ask that if you like what you hear here, that you would subscribe to the show. We also want you to know as we depart that we understand, we know from experience, both our own experiences and the experiences of the people that we talk to, that crucible experiences are difficult. They're hard. They change the trajectory of your life. But here's the really, really, really great news. They're not the end of your story. Not by far. They can in fact, be the beginning of a new story, a better story, a more exhilarating story that leads to a far better place than just success. It can lead to ... if you learn the lessons of your crucible, apply them as you move forward, what it leads to is a story that ends at the final period of the best chapter you can possibly have, and that is at a life of significance.

In this episode from February 2020, which we’re running in its entirety as we approach the new year and the personal reflection that always accompanies it, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick and cohost GarySchneeberger explore practical ways we can live today in a manner that leaves a legacy that outlives us well into tomorrow. The key, you’ll discover, is pursuing your career and caring for your family with the kind of character you want to define you in life … and beyond. “If it matters to you on your deathbed,” Warwick notes, “why not get a head start and do something about your legacy now?”

Highlights

Michelle Kuei never really had a chance to dream about what her life could be before a tragic car accident at 11 in her native Taiwan left her with physical and emotional scars that plagued her for 30 years. She just wanted to be normal, she said in this interview first aired in May 2020. But then she discovered she was more than normal, finding inside herself what she says we all have inside of us – a diamond just waiting to shine. And shining is exactly what Michelle Kuei is doing today through her thriving coaching and speaking practice, Elevate Life Coaching.

To learn more about Michelle Kuei, visit https://elevatelifecoaching.org/

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Michelle K:

I finally had an aha moment just a couple of weeks ago and I spent all my life wanting to be normal, and my book was talking about normal, like being perfectly normal. But I'm here, I am here in the middle of the road and that was my past. I've already done that. I am more than normal. I climbed Machu Picchu, I did all that. I'm able to hike. I did all these things, but that's not normal. That's not normal at all. People can't do that. People can't just wake up one night and they say, “You know what? I'm going to go high Machu Picchu.” No, that's not normal at all. I'd done something very extraordinary that not many people can do. Why not accept yourself for your extraordinary? Why not accept yourself for who you are? You are more than just enough. Why not accept yourself for the gift that was given to you?




Gary S:




The gift that was given to you? In the form of a crucible? Accept the traumas and tragedies of life not as things to be erased? But embraced? Hi, I’m Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show.

You just heard a snippet of the interview Warwick and I did last May with Michele Kuei – a conversation so inspiring and insightful we’re running it again, in its entirety, as we head into the holiday season.

Kuei never really had a chance to dream about what her life could be before a tragic car accident at 11 in her native Taiwan left her with physical and emotional scars that plagued her for 30 years. But then she discovered inside herself what she says we all have inside us – a diamond just waiting to shine. And shining is exactly what Michelle Kuei is doing today through her thriving coaching and speaking practice, Elevate Life Coaching.

Warwick F:

Well, Michelle, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. You have an incredible story. I'd love to just start with tell us about your story that leads up to your crucible moment. Yeah, just tell us a bit about Michelle and your story.

Michelle K:

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and in isolation, but it doesn't feel like isolation right now. I'm surrounded by a lot of love. To start, basically, I grew up, like Gary said, I grew up in Taiwan. I was born in Taiwan and as I was growing up at age 11 years old, just like all the other kids who go to school, I came off school one day and I remember that day my mom was running late. I was waiting for her at school and when I saw her coming towards me to pick me up, she was on her motorbike. There's a lot of motorbike in Asia. She was coming off on her motorbike, and I got up from my chair, I ran across the street. I wanted to meet her on the other side of the street.

Michelle K:

As I was approaching and walking to the middle of the street, I realized that my best friend was waving her hand at me and she said, “Stop, stop.” And she was waving at me and there's a lot of shouting that was going on. I was confused. I was standing in the middle of the street and I could just smell the rubber that was burning, and I don't remember where the sound was coming down. Then the next thing I know was that I woke up and I was in a hospital bed. And when I woke up and my parents were standing next to my bed, and they were talking to the doctor. I started to have sensation and I started looking down on my waist, and from my waist all the way down to my ankle, I noticed I was wrapped with this plaster that was surrounding my body.

Michelle K:

Basically, the doctor had… because of the accident, I had the accident while I was standing in the middle of the street, and the doctor had to stabilize me by wrapping me with a plaster from waist all the way to ankle. Following that incident, three months afterwards, I was basically trapped at home in isolation. I was in bed and I couldn't go to school, and I couldn't go anywhere. But what's the crucible, and I love the title of this podcast because it's crucible. What's really difficult in those moment at age 11 is that the fact that I was a little kid and I wanted to go out to play. I wanted to meet my friend and I wanted to just be where the life that I used to live in, but I couldn't do that and I was starting to live a different life.

Michelle K:

That moment was like a turning point for me because I no longer can do all the things I wanted to do in my past. And now I have to learn how to walk after they unwrap me. I have to learn how to do a lot of things by myself. Learning how to walk, learning how to make new friends was another thing at age 11. That was the beginning of this crucible moment. From age 11 all the way till 40 years old, so I spent 30 years of my life living very differently. It's not a normal life where… so just to backtrack a little bit to gave the listener an idea of how I look like.

Michelle K:

I'm 4 feet, 4 inches tall, very short, very petite. This has been the same height since I was in elementary school, because the accident actually required the doctor to go back and perform a lot of different surgeries, so I had a lot of scars on my leg. And with that, something must have happened and inhibited the way that I was growing. I had not grown since when I was 11, the same height as I was 11. Growing into adulthood, being with the same height, it created a lot of challenges for me.

Michelle K:

There's moment where I go to school, I can't reach stuff on the shelf. When you're a kid, that's okay because people will… adult will just reach over and grab it for you. But when you reach over to adulthood or when you're in your first job, and I remember my first job, I work in a pharmacy where the counter is taller than me. In order to me to work like everyone else, I have to use a step stool, I have to reach to the top. There's a lot of climbing. There's a lot of physical strenuous activity that I need to be able to do in addition to all the other responsibility that I have. That's quite challenging.

Michelle K:

And I could never figure out why when you walk into a grocery store, all the essential items would be on the very top shelf rather than on the bottom shelf, that I never figured out. That's also really very, extremely essential challenge for me because I need to buy essentials and I can never reach to the top. And there's something about asking that always frightens me in the past. I never liked to ask people what to do or help me with things. What ended up happening is if I need to reach the toilet paper on the top, I can't do that. I was just using an alternative rather than asking, putting myself out there and ask.

Michelle K:

That's 30 years of my life growing like that. During that time, I was also battling with what's going on in the inside, because as adolescent, as I grow into adolescent, I was experiencing a lot of that peer pressure where people are dressing up, all these girls they're looking very pretty. They started to wear… it was during the ‘80s, so I don't know if you guys remember the ‘80s, the hair.

Gary S:

I had hair in the ‘80s, so.

Michelle K:

The hair, the mini skirt and I wanted to look exactly like that, and that was one of my dream, wanting to look that way when I go out. When I'm in a social group, when I'm with my friends, when we hang out, I want to dress like that, but I couldn't because with my leg, the way that the surgeon was performing, the doctor had told me that, “Michelle, from 11 years old, after the surgery, you have to wear these metal bracelet because as you're growing, we don't want you to grow your bone into a deformity.” I was given a pair of really ugly metal bracelet that I was supposed to wear up until the age of 18.

Michelle K:

But by age of 16, I was struggling with the look. I said to myself, “You know what? I'm not going to wear these. These are too ugly. I want to take it off.” I decided I was going to take it off, I took it off. And the minute I took it off, I started to use my body weight all on top of my leg. That created pressure and as I'm walking, it started to hurt my back. And by the time I reached my college, I noticed that I could no longer walk comfortably without any assistance. For the longest time, my mom was my crutch. She goes everywhere I go. I always hold onto her hand. She goes where I go.

Michelle K:

Once I got into graduate school, I had to live in the dorm. I went when off and left home, I started to live in the dorm. I couldn't take my mom anymore, so I got to figure out a way to somehow walk. My doctor told me, “Well, this is time, basically, at this point, your leg is so disfigured. If you don't use a crutch to walk, you're not going to make it.” I said, “Okay, fine.” I started to use two arm crutches. Instead of holding on to my mom, I used arm crutches. And being short is one thing, it's already a challenge. Now I have to deal with two arm crutches, holding on. I have no hand to hold anything else.

Michelle K:

A lot of times when I go out, it's a matter of how do I strap things on my body so I can carry groceries. How can I use my body so that I can carry things that I need to carry with my hand? And when I see people going to a coffee shop and I get so envy of them because they have the ability of holding their coffee in one hand and looking at their phone at the other. I don't have that luxury. I have two crutches and I can't do neither one of them. I often have to stop either to get my phone, put my crutches down or one or the other. I couldn't do both. And I get really jealous of people having the ability to do that.

Michelle K:

And that was something that I was really struggling with for 30 years of my life because I want to look normal. I want to have that life that everyone else has. Being able to go to a store and reaching to the top without asking people for help. I wanted to dress up pretty in my clothes so that when I go out people will say, “Michelle, you're beautiful.” That first impression I never had, the first impression that we all value. Even during job interview, we look at someone, we look at the first impression. I always thought that that's a luxury that I don't have because I don't have that first appearance.

Warwick F:

Wow, that's an incredible story. And I want to go back a bit. And before age 11, you were probably just a typical girl, had a lot of friends. I'm guessing you've always been a happy kind of person in your nature.

Michelle K:

I was a happy, happy baby, my mom said.

Warwick F:

I can imagine. When that happened, I mean, sometimes there's anger and resentment, like depending on your beliefs, God or some spiritual force, why did you let that happen? Maybe if my friend hadn't waved to me, I would have kept going or why didn't this car see me? And did you go through a cycle of anger and resentment, and how could this have happened?

Michelle K:

I did. I absolutely did. And I thought if my mom had come just a minute earlier or she hasn't run late that day, maybe all of this wouldn't happen. Or maybe if I were to just wait just one second more before I start walking across the street, then maybe this wouldn't have happened. I went through that period initially, at least for a good 10, 15 years of my life, thinking why does it have to be me? Why is it just me that happened? I have two other siblings. I have a brother and a sister, and I'm thinking, “Why couldn't it just happened to them? Why does it have to have happened to me? What is it about me? Why did it happen to me?”

Warwick F:

Why does the world not like me? I mean, you used the word normal before, which is we all want to fit in. It's just part of being human. You want to be liked. You said growing up in the ‘80s, you want to be seen as pretty, be able to wear all the fashions and just like your friends. And it's like, “Well, why can't I be normal like my friends? Why can't I be like everybody else? How has this fair?” I mean it just, the comment you made, “Why can't I hold a cup of coffee in one hand, a phone in the other? I mean, is that too much to ask? It's like I'm not asking for, I don't know, a million dollars and a beautiful house. I just want a normal life.” Right?

Warwick F:

And so, for that must've been not just the accident, but the years after and grad school, and do I have to have my mother around me. I mean, I'm sure you love your mother, but can't I go somewhere without that? And so that must have been… it sounds like it was years and years of dealing with that frustration. It wasn't just the first few years, it was how many years would you say that frustration of just the-

Michelle K:

It was a good 30 years and I just wanted to be normal. And not being normal to me means that you have the normal body shape that we all… we flipped through the textbook, the biology textbook, this is how a woman or a man should look. There's physically, they look identical, they look perfect, their legs are straight. That's normal for me. And that's how I define normal. And that's what I believe normal should be. When I see myself in the mirror, I actually felt really ashamed of my body because this is not what I was taught. This is not what I see around me. This is not normal.

Warwick F:

It's almost like I cannot be happy and fulfilled unless I'm normal. Was that the mindset that you're going through? And therefore, it's impossible for me to have a happy, fulfilling life because I'm not normal, as you looked at it.

Michelle K:

Yes.

Warwick F:

And so, I mean, I'm sure a number of listeners maybe have had physical challenges, there are all sorts of challenges that make you feel like nobody can love me and accept me. And it's all from physical challenges to abuse, to you name it, there's all sorts of things that people feel like nobody can possibly love or want me kind of thing. How did that change for you? Because there are certain things like physically, I imagine that's a difficult thing. I mean, certainly you probably had to accept that you can't actually change, but how did you manage to combat that and just change how you thought about things?

Gary S:

And especially if I can add here, especially from an emotional perspective, one of the things, Michelle, that strikes me about your story, your crucible experience is that it is both physical and very devastating, and also emotionally very devastating. One of the things that you and I talked about in advance of our interview time here and the note I took is that romantic relationships were very difficult. There's an emotional aspect of this that is in very real ways as painful in different ways, but real ways as painful as the physical aspect of it.

Gary S:

To Warwick's question, how did you overcome that both from a physical and emotional sense? And I guess for listeners who face some of those same things, there's a physical crucible and emotions tied to it. Which one was perhaps more difficult to overcome?

Michelle K:

I would definitely say the emotional is the most difficult to overcome. Because a physical challenge, like what I did was I used a step stool. These physical external challenges can overcome by accommodating with a step stool or with something else, or with a crutch for nowaday, I reach over and just push things to the edge. External physical challenge is really easy to overcome, but emotional challenges, what I find that really were the core of the energy, the majority of the time that we're spending dwelling on.

Michelle K:

And I remember one of the incident was I was in my 30s and that was during the time when I first got into relationship. And I remember I was just sitting there one day and there was an empty chair with a man's jacket on the chair on the back. And I was just looking at the jacket and looking at the chair, and I started to crying. I was crying. And there's an enormous sense of loneliness that was inside that was coming out for me, because for the longest time I was longing for someone to love me. I was longing to be loved, to be appreciated and to have that love be returned to me when I send it out.

Michelle K:

But when I'm not getting that reciprocate of love and caring from another person, from another man, I felt extremely hurt and alone. And that was the emotion I was going through from ever since I started to explore the relationship side. And there's so much of interpersonal relationship that we deal with every day. What I've learned is that it says a lot about… it's teaching a lot about who you are. When I was in those moments, and perhaps this is something that the listener can and find value in, is that in order to overcome your emotional challenge, many times you have to be able to recognize it. You have to allow it, you have to accept it.

Michelle K:

And my condition, my physical challenge was something I needed to accept. This is how I am and this is who I am. This is how I'm going to look for the rest of my life. I can sit here and not accept it, and keep having resistance, keep having that fighting emotion and keep wanting to understand why has it done to me, and keep wanting, exploring it in that victim thinking mentality or mindset. Or, I can accept that this had happened. It's very unfortunate, but it happened. I can accept this is how I look and I can embrace every part of me because there's something else other than, greater than what we see on the outside. It's not just the physical appearance, it's not just what we see externally. It's what's going on in the inside. There's a light that's inside each one of us. That's what we need to accept.

Warwick F:

I mean that is so profound about focusing on the light that's within us, accepting the things we can't change. How did you do that? Because as you said, I think it was like, what, 20, 30 years of battling with this. I mean, it's not easy. I mean, you're an intelligent person. You're somebody that looks like when they want to achieve something, they do. I mean, you strike me as that kind of person. It's not like you're somebody that just sits there and does nothing. How did you get to that point where you could actually accept the physical limitations and change how you thought about yourself? How did you do that?

Michelle K:

One of my biggest challenge in this life is my physical challenge, right? I grew up 30 years of being physically challenged and this is my limitation. And part of it has to do with the word that you used, combat. And when you're in that combat mode, you realize there's something that you need to fight. What is it that you need to fight for? And for me, what I need to fight for is to find a light, to find my purpose, find the reason why I am here. I started to tap into that anger, that resentment. I want to know why.

Michelle K:

And one day I remember I was waking up and suddenly, I was getting so tired of living this life. I told myself, “All right, so here you are. This is your physical challenge. What are you going to do about it?” I was asking, having a conversation with myself, I said, “What are you going to do about it?” My answer was, “Well, if physical challenge is my challenge, guess what? I guess I have no choice but challenge my physical challenge.” I decided that in 2016, I'd never been to a gym before. I never signed up to a gym, don't know how to work the easy equipment. I was really afraid of breaking them. And being myself, getting myself broken. I was afraid to go into the gym.

Michelle K:

But in 2016, I decided I'm going to go sign up in the gym. I did that. That was my number one, my first step of wanting to find out what would it take for me to fight in this. I went and signed up to a gym, and then the second thing I did was I hired myself a personal trainer because obviously, I don't know how to work these machines, so I need someone to show me, to teach me how to do it. I hired a professional, I hired a personal coach. And then the third thing I did, at that time all my friends, they were talking about how amazing it is to do hiking, to go out and climb the mountain, and going to Peru.

Michelle K:

And so, I could never participate in those conversations with them because it was some part of me that I just couldn't do. One of my goal is actually to be able to participate in those conversation. That same year, 2016, I made a promise to myself, I'm going to promise myself that I can do this and I'm going to do whatever it takes to hike. I started hiking that year. And the other goal that I had was I don't want just hiking, I don't want to just go up to any mountain, I want to go up to Machu Picchu and I want to do the Inca Trail.

Michelle K:

The Inca Trail is 26 miles and it's a four-day hike. And each day you have to just camp out and you have to rough it out. There's no shower, there's no toilet whatsoever. You really have to rough it up. And so, in addition to just being rough it out there, I flew myself to Peru in that same year, in September. I flew myself to Peru and I don't speak Spanish, by the way. I flew myself there and I had my two crutches and I brought my two pink arm crutches because it has to be pink, it has to be pink. I brought my pink crutches, went up to the mountain, I got food poisoning the day before the hike, check myself to the infirmary the night before.

Michelle K:

And I remember calling my sister. I said, “I'm really sick. I'm in the hospital right now. I don't know, can you talk me out of it?” My sister was like, “Yeah, you need to come home. Come home today.” And I thought about it, right? And I was, “No, I made it this far. I'm going to go.” After we hung up the phone, I told my sister, “I'm going to go.” And lo and behold, the next day, I went out to Machu Picchu, started my first day of hike. On the first day, it was all uphill. It was all inclined. I remember I had a lot of difficulty because the high-altitude syndrome, it was real.

Warwick F:

Right.

Michelle K:

Yeah, it was real. And I remember I was getting tired. I was dehydrated and so my immune system was kind of down. The first day was a struggle and I barely made it to the final camp that night. And my team leader, the tool guy who was with us, he sat me down and he asked me, because past the first day if I made a decision to come back, then there was still a chance that I can come back. He sat me down and he said, “Michelle, I know you were struggling and I know this is something that you want to do, but you were leaving behind you had to a difficult time to catch up. What do you want to do?” He gave the option to me and I thought about it. I said, “Thank you. I appreciate that you're letting me know that after this point, there's no turning back.” I said, “I appreciate that, but I want to continue.”

Michelle K:

Every morning after the first day, so starting on the second day, every morning, I will wake up at five o'clock in the morning, I would start my hike. I would put my headlight on. It's still dark outside. You can't really see the steps. I would put on my headlight and I would start my hike. Every day, five o'clock, I would start my hike. And I can barely just made it to meet everybody around dinner time, around lunchtime, around break time. And all these people that I met during that trip, it's been an amazing journey.

Michelle K:

And so, I did that in September 2016, and the very last day of the Inca Trail hike, we were at the point of the Sun Gate. This is the final entry point before we get into the Machu Picchu, so I was looking at the steps, the final 50 steps at Machu Picchu. I looked up, it was 60 degrees angle or 70, yeah. I was looking up, and I was, “Oh my God.” I wasn't sure what have I done? How am I going to finish these last 50 steps with my two crutches? And the steps were really narrow and small. I stood in front of the Sun Gate, I was looking up and I thought about all my life for this very moment. “Okay, I'm here. What do I have to do to finish this?”

Michelle K:

I gave my two crutches to my team leader, took off my day pack, hand the day pack to him. I say, “Here, you lead me to the top.” I sent him to the top. I got down to my knees and legs, I started to crawl because that was the only safe way for me to go to the top. I got down to my hands and knee, I started crawling every step, every step, one step at a time. And by the time I went to the top, my team leader was clapping. I turned around and there was someone else taking a picture. I took my hand up, that victory gesture. I was in the air. It felt so accomplished.

Michelle K:

Then I turned around, I started approaching to meet everybody and my teammate, and all these other travelers at this big platform at the Sun Gate. I walked in, everyone stood up and they were clapping, they were cheering for me. And I actually got a pin from Canada. It was an honorary citizen. I still have my pin. I still have my pin. And it was amazing. And that was the moment that I start to realize that I am capable. Whatever it is going in front of me, that I am capable as long as I set my mind to it.

Warwick F:

Well, it seems like that moment was pivotal on your journey, that changing how you think about things. I mean, there's the internal and there's the external, exactly sort of busting into the picture here.

Gary S:

Hi Buster.

Warwick F:

For the listeners who are listening to it, there's a beautiful old Tabby cat that just emerged. But Michelle, there's the internal and there's the external, as I said, to think about this story. There's externally, you are having an enormous impact on those around you. I'm not quite sure which to start with but just maybe on the external. You felt alone, like nobody wants to see me, but yet you had a whole bunch of cheerleaders, people that were with you. What did it feel like or as you looked at their faces, they were on team Michelle, right?

Michelle K:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

They were your team, they wanted you to win, they wanted you to succeed. Talk about the effect that you had on them and how it felt back to you.

Michelle K:

It was a really strange feeling because when I was in that moment, when I was so busy caught up in my own misery and tragedy, and thinking that the world, just all the bad things just happen to me, when I'm so busy tied in thinking about that, it was really hard to believe that I had any impact on others. Actually, that's what my teammate had to called were Team Michelle, and we actually celebrate it with a cake on my last day of the trip that says Team Michelle.

Warwick F:

Oh really?

Michelle K:

It was really hard for me to believe that because I was so busy thinking about my own misery. And when you start changing your mind, when that shift starts to happen and you realize that you are not alone in this. There's so many people around you who celebrate you, who cheer for you, who stood out for you and who clap for you. Now they really see you as the light at the end of their tunnel. It was a complete different experience for me and it was eye-opening to really stress seeing them for the first time.

Warwick F:

It's almost like if you let them, they want to be with you, they want to not just support you, they want to cheer for you if you'll let them, and you could see that. And then just it's often we think of physical limitations and there are limitations, but yet it seems like you did what most people would say is impossible. Machu Picchu, I don't know how many thousands of feet height is, but it's very high altitude, sickness that a lot of people get. You got these 50 steps, 60-degree incline. It's like most people would say somebody with your challenges and crutches, it's impossible. Give it up. You're going to hurt yourself. But yet you overcame that physical limitation.

Warwick F:

Talk about the feeling you had when you're on top of those steps and you'd done what most people thought was impossible. What were you feeling at that moment when you'd achieve the impossible, seemingly?

Michelle K:

I was crying, the minute I reached to the top, and to answer your question, it's 14,000 feet high.

Warwick F:

Oh wow.

Michelle K:

That's the altitude.

Gary S:

Oh, just 14,000 feet.

Michelle K:

And when I reached the highest peak, I broke down and cry. And I think a lot of it has to do with that spirituality, that feeling that there's something greater than myself, there's something bigger than myself. And when I look around, the whole environment, the whole world, the mountain, there's something bigger than just me. It helped me to lift my thinking away from that egocentric me, me, me, me, me, to a broader view of I am not in this alone. There's so many people around me who celebrated me and there are so many people who's going through the same journey, and they're struggling too. I may not see their physical struggles, but they're struggling too.

Michelle K:

And on my journey, I remember there's a guy, the perfectly well, very fit. He probably worked out a lot and he was just kept throwing up. Every 10 seconds, 10 minutes, he was throwing up on the side and it was a race between him and I, because he has to stop and throw up, and I have to stop and catch up. It made me realize that yes, my struggle was the physical challenge, this is my limitation. But for someone else, it could be something that's going on inside. There's a storm that they are experiencing on the inside and I don't see that. It's not my place to judge them of what they're going through.

Gary S:

Right. This is a perfect time, I think, to jump in and read something, Michelle, that you wrote in that form I talked about that we have guests fill out. And I have to tell you that we have had every guest that we've had on fill this out, and yours is one of the most inspirational ones I've read. But you said this and I think it summarizes your story perfectly, not just from your perspective, but also, I hope from the perspective of listeners who have different realities to their crucible experiences, but the emotions are the same.

Gary S:

But this is what you wrote in talking about how to think about a crucible, and you just described the way that you did that when you were going through yours and when you were bouncing back from it. But here's what you wrote, in part what you wrote. “So what if this very moment, whatever this setback you are experiencing was meant to be something bigger than yourself? What if this is the universe's gift to refine and polish the diamond within you? What if you are meant to find the gem, and that is what makes you different, unique and extraordinary? How would you choose to see your setback? How would you choose to see your tragedy? The misfortune that measured only a small fraction of our entire lifetime.”

Gary S:

That is a beautiful summary of not just your story, but the story of a lot of folks who are listening right now. And listeners hear that and realize that gift was not a word, I'm sure, Michelle chose lightly. That your crucible can be a gift from the universe, from your spiritual tradition. Can be a gift to help you realize things you're capable of and to help you realize what you were, as Warwick talks about, what your true purpose is here on earth.

Warwick F:

Yeah, so great point. Michelle, talk about how what you went through can be seen as a gift, which for most people they just said, what are you talking about, Michelle? Not getting at all the hidden gem. I mean, there's a lot of profound words in it. Talk about how your thinking changed and your message, frankly, to the world. Talk about that message in your perspective.

Michelle K:

I think each and every one of us are a gift. We are a gift to this world. For me it's I'm really good at doing medicine. I'm really good with pharmacology. I'm a pharmacist, right? That's what I do. And that's a talent that was given to me. And for someone else, they could be a really good engineer. They could be someone who has a lot of analytical thinking. Each one of us are very unique and there's a purpose in our life that we came to this earth for, and that's how we serve to the world. Right?

Michelle K:

And when I talk about gift and each one of us being the diamond, you have to believe, you have to start to believe that you are this thing that we dig out from all the dirt, and what's behind all that dirt, it's actually something very beautiful, very profound, and very special, and very unique. Because there's something inside of you that makes you who you are, that defines who you are, that makes you perfectly different than everyone else. And that is the gem. That is the diamond of you. You are the diamond, and you have to believe that because that's who you are.

Michelle K:

And until you believe that, and until you have that grind in your brain, in your memory, in your mind, everything else in this world just have that impermanent sense, right? Everything that happens to us are just experience.

Warwick F:

Talk about how you began to see yourself as the diamond, because that aged 11, aged 28, 30, that I don't think was where you were at. What did that look like for Michelle, for Michelle Kuei, for looking at yourself as the diamond? How do you change that thinking and what did that look like for you?

Michelle K:

Before I saw myself as wanting to be normal, I just want to be normal. Whatever that normal is that's acceptable to the society, I want you to look just like everybody else. I meet you, I want you to be able to do things on my own. I want you to be able to hold a coffee, a cup of coffee in my hand. I want to be normal, which is fine, but living in normal, that's not who we are. And I keep emphasizing that you have a purpose in life. What is your purpose? There's a reason why we're all here on this earth. And with that purpose, you need to be able to serve.

Michelle K:

Do you want to be normal? Do you want to remain and just being enough? And our purpose is not just being enough. And I think a lot of people, a lot of listener might resonate with this because we're constantly thinking about, “Oh, it's not enough. We're not good enough. We're not pretty enough.” Well, why even bother settling for enough? What if the idea is that you are more than enough? What if the whole idea is for you to find your purpose, find your strength so that you can use that purpose, use that strength to serve others who needs your help? Whatever that strength that you have, that is your purpose, that is your gem, that's your diamond.

Michelle K:

For me, the way that I found it and how did I begin to see myself as a diamond is I start to realize, and this is actually just happened recently, I finally had an aha moment just a couple of weeks ago and I spent all my life wanting to be normal, and my book was talking about normal, like being perfectly normal. But I'm here, I am here in the middle of the road and that was my past. I've already done that. I am more than normal. I climbed Machu Picchu, I did all that. I'm able to hike. I did all these things, but that's not normal. That's not normal at all.

Michelle K:

People can't do that. People can't just wake up one night and they say, “You know what? I'm going to go high Machu Picchu.” No, that's not normal at all. I'd done something very extraordinary that not many people can do. Why not accept yourself for your extraordinary? Why not accept yourself for who you are? You are more than just enough. Why not accept yourself for the gift that was given to you? And then that was my aha moment. I said, “HUH,” so I lived all my life just wanting to be normal. But in fact, there's nothing normal about me. I'm really abnormal. I'm unique, I'm different, and I'm embracing it. I'm going to live it, I'm going to love it.

Warwick F:

And that's a profound message that we all want to fit in, be normal. But I guess why be normal? I mean, as you said, we're all unique, extraordinary in some sense. We're all designed a unique way, with certain backgrounds, talents, skills. We all have a different purpose. Normal is overrated. Why be normal? Why not just embrace being extraordinary, embrace being different? Because everybody's different. Why fit in? Fitting in is limiting, you know? And it sounded like your whole attitude to life changed.

Warwick F:

Talk about how you do pharmacy, but I know you do a lot of coaching and writing, and speaking. Talk about what is, it's a word that's tough to embrace for most of us, but talk about in what ways is Michelle unique, a gem, a diamond, even extraordinary, if you will. How does that manifest itself? What is your purpose in the world, do you feel?

Michelle K:

My purpose in the world is to inspire. I do everything. One of the things that I do very often is to speak about my story and the journey that I came through, and how I was in that place of feeling sorry about myself and just playing small, from the fact that today I see myself as a diamond. It sounds very like I give myself a lot of credit, but I truly feel that I am the diamond. And in order to have this contrary journey, there's a breakthrough moment. There's an aha moment that I finally said, “You know what? I'm going to step in. I'm going to start doing this.” That is my inspiration for everyone and my purpose is to inspire those to start to lead for themselves.

Michelle K:

And I think self-leadership is such a very important process and message that the world needs to learn and to hear. Because through self-leadership, you become the best version of yourself. And when you are the best version of yourself, you start to influence all these others around you. You start setting up example for them. You start showing them the way to lead their life. You're not telling them how to lead their life. You're showing them that it is possible through this crucible moment that you can find your way and make yourself shine, make yourself stand out.

Warwick F:

And what you're saying is so profound. I think one of the things I've also found in my own life and I think some or many others have, is as you take your focus off yourself on to other people, how can I help others? How can I inspire them? How can I… it's not just overcoming your own demons or your own self-limiting thoughts for yourself, by doing that, you help to inspire others. It's almost like the, I wouldn't say the challenge is greater, but the challenge is even more inspiring. It's what is the purpose of getting up? And part of it is you want to inspire others.

Warwick F:

And so, as you're focusing on others, it helps you feel less focused on yourself and how you look. Because when you focus on others, there's not as much room to think about yourself, right? There's what I call a healing balm, like a healing ointment, if you will, by focusing on others. Have you felt that just within your own spirit, as you focused on others? There's a healing component to that, right?

Michelle K:

Absolutely. And when we start looking at the bigger picture, that's where the healing comes in. Because you're no longer focusing on the wellbeing of yourself, you're focusing more on the wellbeing of the society, the community within your family. You still have that broader view of life.

Gary S:

We're at the point of the show where we're going to have to begin to not land the plane yet, but I think the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelts sign. We're starting our descent a little bit. But one thing to follow up on that point, Michelle, one of the really a blessing in getting to know you even before we started this interview, is you are very connected on social media. And after we first talked, you sent me a friend request on Facebook, and I have so enjoyed watching you live your life and the way that you live your life, and the way that you encourage people with exactly what you just talked about. Being focused on bringing joy to people, being focused on not what limits us, but the things that we can do.

Gary S:

And one of the things I said at the outset when I read your bio, the last line, if you're looking for a Michele, odds are you'll find her at the gym. There's a video you posted on social media a couple of days ago and it speaks to this entire story that we've been talking about. On one side, there's a photograph of you with your arm crutches, somewhat at some point after your accident. Obviously, you're older but you're still using those to get around quite a bit. And then the video is you-

Michelle K:

Doing a jump rope.

Gary S:

Right? You're skipping rope and you're not just skipping rope like I'd skip rope. Okay? You're skipping rope like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. You are skipping rope like a prize fighter. You are skipping rope fast. You are skipping rope well. I mean, it is in 45 seconds, hugely, hugely inspirational. In the time that we have left, first of all, let listeners know how they can connect with you to maybe hear some of the things that you can help them along their route as they're going through their bounce back from their crucible.

Michelle K:

They can definitely find me on my website at elevatelifecoaching.org, or if they like, they can definitely follow me on Instagram, which I'm very active on Instagram. It's a Elevate Life Coach.

Warwick F:

Michelle, you have such an inspiring story, that it's one thing to have a physical limitation, but you've changed your whole perspective. You view yourself as, I don't know, to me, a lot better than normal. You view yourself as, as we all should, as a diamond, uniquely created. We all have extraordinary attributes. You've changed the way you're thinking and your focus on the helping and inspiring others. I mean, rather than being normal, you're somebody that people admire. You're somebody that people look up to. I know that you probably think, “Well, how could anybody look up to me?”

Michelle K:

They're probably looking down on me.

Warwick F:

I'm 4-foot something but yet people do look up to you. In that moment when you were on top of those stairs at Machu Picchu, people were saying, “This is one extraordinary woman. This is somebody I admire. This is somebody that can teach me a lot.” It's very difficult to change your way of thinking, but you've done… I mean, that is miraculous. That is extraordinary. You are, in a sense, a role model.

Michelle K:

Thank you.

Warwick F:

Helping people see that we all have limitations. Most people feel bad about themselves. I mean, if you take off the mask, give them truth serum, most people do or many people do. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but not much. But yet you're giving people hope. Your limitations are clear. For many, it's not so clear, it's internal, but you've changed the way you're thinking. You give hope that we all can change the way we think and focus on helping others, and using our extraordinary qualities we all have to help others. You have an amazing story, an amazing mission. Thank you for what you bring to the world.

Michelle K:

Thank you.

Gary S:

And one last thing I have to ask because I'm going to go back to this form that we had you fill out, and we ask every guest the same question at the end. If we could only ask you one question, what would that question be? And no offense to our previous guests, but your answer to that question is the best one I've seen. And this is what you said when we asked if there was only one question we could ask you, what would you want it to be? And I'd love for you to answer this question. Here's how you answered our question and then you can answer your own question. Fill in the blank. You said the world needs what? What does the world need, Michelle?

Michelle K:

The world needs more love.

Gary S:

On that note, listeners. See, I'm sitting there thinking it's going to be a nice long. No, it's very inspiring. And when you can make me like at a loss for words, you've done something, so bravo. But thank you truly, thank you truly for that. I mean, because that summarizes what you're talking about, I think. And listeners, thank you for joining us today on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. There's a few things from Michelle's story I was taking notes on as she was saying them that I hope you heard as well, and I want to accent again before we go because I think there's some good takeaways.

Gary S:

There are far more good takeaways from her story than the three I've written down, but here's three that as you look at your own crucible experiences, as you look at your own desire to bounce back from those to embrace your vision and live a life of significance, here's three things that Michelle has talked about today that I think you can apply to your own life. The first thing is that it's true that crucibles can change the things you love to do and they can even change your ability to do certain things, but you can conquer so much of that with a positive attitude and positive action.

Gary S:

The second takeaway I think from Michelle's story, and this is a powerful thing, and she said it herself here in our conversation that it's hard, but press through how hard it is and do it. Second takeaway point, ask for help. The key to overcoming crucibles, Warwick has talked about it many times, is having a team of people around you, formal or informal, professional or personal. Ask for help. There are people out there who want to help you, who are willing to help you and who are able to help you.

Gary S:

And then the third point, I think that all of us would do well to follow in our crucible experiences, that in order to overcome emotional challenges, Michelle talked about it in depth. In order to overcome emotional challenges tied to your crucible, you have to accept the reality of your crucible. Pretending it's not there, pretending it didn't happen, pretending there aren't repercussions of it isn't going to work. You have to accept the reality of it. But don't camp out there, like we said at the outset. Let it inspire you to action, both in the way that you think about yourself and others, in the way that you act in to yourself and to others. Yes, it's real, but you can make it. You can find the diamond inside.

Gary S:

That's all the time we have, but thank you again for joining us on Beyond the Crucible. We'd ask you for a quick favor, listener, if you can do it right now on whatever podcast app you're listening to this show on, click the Subscribe button. What that will do is make sure that you don't miss any episodes of what we talk about here on Beyond the Crucible. It will also help us to reach more people with inspiring stories, with hopeful stories, with stories filled with joy and laughter like Michelle's. A quick subscribe, share it with friends. That will be a huge benefit to, I think, your friends and a huge benefit to us as we can share the realities of how people are overcoming their crucibles and the hope and healing that comes from that.

Gary S:

Until we're together next time, remember that crucible experiences are real. They do happen. They can be devastating, but they are not. Michelle Kuei's story proves that they are not the end of your story. They are the beginning of a new chapter of your story if you choose to dive into them and learn the lessons of them. And that chapter of your new story can be the best one yet because it points you toward, leads you to a life of significance.

This has been a banner year for Crucible Leadership, so founder Warwick Fairfax discusses his gratitude for all that’s happened in 2021 – from the release of his book, to some life-changing insights from our podcast guests, to his excitement – mixed with a little surprise – over the appreciative reception he’s experienced on the first leg of his speaking tour.  Why are we taking the time to revisit the highlights of the past 12 months? Because Warwick believes gratitude is one of the most important keys to unlocking a life of significance – and rocket fuel for tackling new opportunities to propel ourselves forward for the next 12 months.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Warwick F:

One venue we're at, all of the books went and I don't know, stacks of people signed up to get a book. And there was a line, seemingly a mile long for students in one location at the end of the day wanting me to sign the book. It blew my mind. I mean, it was just, so the reaction by all folks, business folks, but certainly, students, it's like it felt like this book mattered to them. My story the lessons learned about living a life of significance. As we say, often you're not defined by your worst day, how you can get over that worst day and just live a life of significance a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. I mean, it was such a blessing to see that my book was helping people.

Gary S:

What you just heard was not a man taking a victory lap or giving and accepting high fives, puffing out his chest over his accomplishments. No. What you just heard was Warwick, the host of this podcast, talking about just one of the blessings he feels has come his way in the year, quickly drawing to a close. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger his co-host. And what you'll hear this week is a conversation between me and Warwick, in which he expresses his gratitude for all that's happened for Crucible Leadership in 2021.

Gary S:

From the release of his book, to some life changing insights from our podcast guests to the excitement, mixed with a little bit of surprise, over the appreciative reception he's experienced on the first leg of his speaking tour. Why are we taking the time to revisit the highlights of the past 12 months? Because Warwick believes that gratitude is one of the most important keys to unlocking a life of significance and rocket fuel for tackling new opportunities to propel ourselves forward for the next 12 months.

Warwick F:

This time of year, with the holidays coming up, we've got Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year. Many folks are going to be with families in the US and just different parts of the world. And as you're with families, it's a time to pause and reflect. And hopefully, I think, in an ideal sense, it's a time to be grateful, to be thankful and really, just to count your blessings, so to speak. So, as I look back on this last year, certainly personally, but definitely professionally with Crucible Leadership, I truly feel blessed.

Warwick F:

So often, life is so busy. I think human nature is such we tend to focus more on what irritates us or our deficiencies or challenging relationships, all of which is totally normal. And when a good thing happens, we go, "Oh, that's nice," and we just promptly forget it and move on. So, it takes more work to think of our blessings than our trials. Trials bring pain. Pain forces us to remember and not forget or left to its own devices. So, I think it's a good exercise to focus on how we're blessed in this last year and don't just skip over it. So, that's kind of what we're going to do here. It's going to be some broader lessons learned for I think all of us, but part of the springboard is just the sense of feeling blessed in Crucible Leadership and what's been happening. So, that's kind of the thought, it's just taking stock of our blessings and being grateful.

Gary S:

If I had to summarize the subjects that we're going to discuss, I'll channel my mother's Southern heritage and I'll say that it's all about, this episode is all about blessings and lessons, right? We're going to talk about blessings and we're going to talk about the lessons that those blessings have imparted to us as we look to move beyond our crucible. And we hope listener, that they'll also be encouraging and equipping to you.

Gary S:

An interesting point, Warwick that you just made there about particularly around the holidays. Thanksgiving has passed by the time listeners hear this. The other holidays, Christmas and New Year's, are coming up. But you mentioned that we can easily focus on the opposite of blessings - what we don't have, what's gone wrong, worry those kinds of things. Why do you think that's both so common and why do you think that's dangerous as we go into this time of year?

Warwick F:

Yeah, it's a good question. I think as you focus on your trials, challenging relationships, I mean, for some gathering with family in the holidays, is a blessed event. For others, they look forward to it with dread or maybe they've lost a loved one. And so, gathering together with the Christmas dinner table or Thanksgiving, it can be a time to remember what you don't have. That loved one is no longer there - a husband, a wife, partner, parents, grandparents. It's all understandable, but grieving is a part of certainly the process, but if you just focus on trials, you tend to get stuck.

Warwick F:

And if you want to live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, which is what we're all about here at Crucible Leadership, at a certain point, you don't ignore the grief, you honor those who are no longer with us. But you also have to, not move on, but in a sense, maybe honor their memory by living life to the fullest. And part of living life to the fullest is just being grateful, being thankful. Because counting your blessings to use that oft used aphorism, it does give you sort of rocket fuel. It's like turbo power to help you really contribute to the world, so it's not just doing it for the sake of it. It's a really important exercise that's both encouraging to you and it can be encouraging to others.

Warwick F:

So, it's a very important thing to do because if you just wallow in your pain, however understandable it is, not only are you not helping yourself, you will typically not help others. And in the extreme when you wallow in your pain, not only is it not helpful to you, you might end up hurting other people, especially those you love, which is never what you want to do. Nobody wants to hurt people they care about. So, grief is a real part of loss and I honor that, but you've got to also count your blessings. You've got to focus on gratitude and what you're grateful for. It's just really important to do that.

Gary S:

And as we talk about at Crucible Leadership and Beyond the Crucible, this idea of did a crucible happen to you or for you, I think what you're saying there is, can you find things that are positive that happened for you. For instance, I mean, I'll just use my example. As we're recording this episode, my father's birthday would have been tomorrow. He passed away this summer, at age 93. It is going to be a difficult day. I can choose to feel bad about that, be sad about that, and I will be. I can live there, camp there, or I can focus on the things not that my father left me, but what my father left me.

Gary S:

I can find those learnings there and use those to, as you have said, calm my spirit, center my soul, give me energy and passion for today. Find those silver linings in the clouds, which we urge people to do through crucibles all the time. That applies as well to this holiday season and to not being knocked down by those emotional things that might tug at us, but pushing through them, learning lessons from them and indeed finding blessing in them.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, it's such a good point. I mean, as we're talking here, Gary, both of us have lost our parents. I had lost my mother a few years ago, 2017. My dad a very long time ago, in early 1987. He was in his 80s when he died. He was a lot older when he had me, so it's easy to focus on a loss and we'll be spending Christmas here in Maryland where we live now, not in Australia and we no longer have the house we grew up in. There's a lot of things we'll never experience, so I could focus on all of that.

Warwick F:

Or I could focus on just wonderful memories of having Christmas Day in Australia in Sydney, which is because Australia is on the other side of the world, it's simply the hottest day of the year, which is obviously different than a lot of North America. And just think of those happy memories. We all have them and just to give you one example one happy memory that I have is Christmas Eve, we would gather in one of the rooms that what was a large house in Sydney. And there was a grand piano there and we would sing in Christmas carols. Well, a lot of people do that, but my younger brother and sister, my parents, we would always have this ritual in which my dad would begin to play the piano with two hands.

Warwick F:

Now at that point growing up, he's in his 60s and 70s, he really hadn't played the piano in I don't know, 50 odd years. He probably was never really that good, so we'd always start off with two hands and he'd always start off with, his favorite Christmas carol was Hark the Herald Angels. So, we'd be like, "Hark," wait, wait a second, hang on, hang on. "The," okay, just a minute. "Herald." And we'd be like, "Dad, okay, just go to one hand." Eventually, he'd go to one hand, and then we get through it. Every single year, it would always be the same. Start off with two hands, couldn't do it.

Warwick F:

And so, that's a happy memory of gathering around the piano singing Christmas carols. And it was it's a happy memory, because it was all so comical with the two hands, go to one hand. So, we all have those memories in our past. So, focus on those happy memories rather than the sense of loss. And I'm sure, obviously, you would have, we all have those memories. I'm sure you do, too. So, focus on those happy memories around this time and why we're blessed rather than the sense of loss.

Gary S:

Absolutely. Moving now into specifically Crucible Leadership territory. Over the last several months, listeners may have picked it up if they've really listened closely to some of the episodes prior to this one. But you've had a kind of a significant shift in your thinking about crucibles vis-à-vis blessings, just over the last several months. Talk about that a little bit as we then sort of transition into what are some of the blessings that we've enjoyed in 2021.

Warwick F:

Yeah, and we'll talk more about it as we progress, but one of the interesting things is, we've had maybe like 90 plus episodes of our podcast Beyond the Crucible, 70 plus guests. And one of the things I really enjoy is we learn so much from our guests. We had a Resilience series recently. And, there was a woman, Stacey Copas, Australian woman who was injured in a diving accident, an above ground pool in the suburbs of Sydney. She was about 12, I think, at that time, somewhere around there. And like a lot of kids, they just sort of ignore their parents' advice, which "Don't dive into the pool. It's not that deep." And "Yeah, sure, whatever, mom, dad." She did and she was diagnosed as a quadriplegic.

Warwick F:

That was devastating, as you would expect. She had some substance abuse issues in her teens, but now, she is just this vibrant, happy woman that coaches, that speaks and helps. Actually, coach and speak on resilience and she views what she went through as a gift, almost as a blessing. I mean, nobody would want to go through that kind of crucible or anything. But like what we've picked up from her, and indeed many of our guests, is they obviously don't like what they went through. Whether it was their fault or not their fault, but they're using their pain for a purpose. They're seeing it in terms of a blessing.

Warwick F:

So, I don't know that I ever would have looked back and said what I went through was a blessing before or a gift. I would say a lot, some good things came out of it. I learned a lot. I'm doing what I love. But I think it's been a bit of an evolution in terms of well, maybe, it was a blessing, maybe it was a gift. So, that's certainly been an evolution of my thinking and just the great value of learning from other people. Every human being, I think, has something to teach us, if we will let them. And certainly, I have learned from all our guests and most recently, I certainly learned from Stacey Copas.

Gary S:

And since I am your PR guy as well as the co-host of this show, I think that now gives me the right or the opportunity to put out a press release that says, "He lost $2.25 billion and says it's a gift." Okay, maybe we'll talk more about that. Maybe we'll have to talk more about that, but that would be a headline.

Warwick F:

Indeed.

Gary S:

That would be a headline on a press release that would catch the media's attention, for sure.

Warwick F:

Indeed.

Gary S:

Let's shift a little bit now into a more traditional discussion of what blessing is and sort of the meat and potatoes of what this show is about. And that is 2021 was a pretty phenomenal year for Crucible Leadership, wasn't it?

Warwick F:

Yeah. It's interesting. Part of the genesis of the idea for this episode is recently, we were discussing with our team, "So what happened in 2021?" Because basically, in order to start thinking of plans for 2022, standard strategic planning kind of process is what worked well? What could have worked better? What are some of the strengths? What are some of the areas we want to improve? Standard stuff that most businesses go through periodically. And that is a springboard for, "Okay, so what we want to do utilizing our strengths, for instance, for next year? Because there's a lot of things we could do, but what do we want to focus on.

Warwick F:

So as we were having this discussion and going down the list of the things that happened in 2021, it's easy to forget them in a sense of when you're in the trenches focusing on, "Okay, what do we need to do today? How do we fix this or that? What are we going to do tomorrow?" It's easy to get lost in the weeds in the trenches and day-to-day hustle and bustle of activities.

Warwick F:

But as we were going through the list of things that happened, it's like, "Oh, my gosh. I do indeed feel blessed." I do indeed feel blessings have been showered on me from my perspective, being a person of faith to the Lord. I have a lot to be grateful for, a lot to be thankful for. And so, I did in a sense as I was in the middle of that meeting, just a few days ago, I just felt blessed.

Warwick F:

And obviously, the biggest one is the book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. That was in some sense, you could say 30 plus years in the making from the day of the takeover, 1987. It was probably at least 12 years in the making. As listeners would know, I've often told the story. In 2008, my pastor wanted, in sort of church we go to in Annapolis, Maryland, he was giving a sermon on the life of David, being a righteous man falsely persecuted by King Saul. I'm not David, but I gave a 10-, 12-minute talk.

Warwick F:

Somehow people felt like my story and the lessons learned was very helpful. Hence, at that point, I felt led to write a lessons learned book. It took years to write and then years to get it published. You've got to build a brand, create a following. And that culminated in a book deal with Mount Tabor Media and Morgan James. And as of October 19, this fall, it was published. Well, that's at least 12 plus years in the making, if not more, depending on how you look at it.

Warwick F:

And I feel blessed to actually have a book. It looks good. It went through a lot of, some editing, which you were a part of, and I feel good about it. I feel like this is a book I'm actually proud of. I think it's something that can really help people, but when you have that kind of book and it's taken so long to get there, you cannot help but be blessed. Well, you should feel blessed and you should be grateful. From my perspective, I'm grateful to the Lord for making it possible. So that's, that was probably the biggest blessing this year and that's no small thing to have a book published. So yeah, I feel blessed.

Gary S:

Let me pause here before we move on, to tie a ribbon on that mention of the book, and also set the stage for what's coming next. If you've listened to this show, once or twice before, listener, you know that Warwick is not an ego-driven person. Warwick is not talking about the book here to say, "Look at me, I got a book published." The reason to sort of take this tour of blessings, as we've talked about, it isn't to spike the football, to use a term you've used offline with me, Warwick. It's to create energy and ideas for growing and cementing the life of significance moving forward.

Gary S:

Everything that you're going to talk about here as a blessing, a key moment in 2021 for Crucible Leadership in that meeting that we had as a team sparked ideas for things we can do to take it further in 2022. So, let's be clear. This is not a "Hey, look at me, I had a great year in 2021." It's, "Here's the things that happened in 2021 that give us energy and ideas and passion and purpose for moving on to give you, listener, more content, more hope in 2022." That's fair, isn't it?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. I mean, there's a phrase, I'm sure many of us have heard, "Having an attitude of gratitude." There's a fair amount of books that are printed on gratitude, so it's certainly popular in our culture, but there's a reason for it is that as you're thankful and grateful, it fuels you with energy to take the next positive step. So this book, which we'll take too long to get into, but there were many positive steps.

Warwick F:

I mean, I had some great conversations with potential publishers in Australia a number of years ago. That didn't quite work out just because of the market needs in Australia and what they were looking for and what I was looking for. And there's a couple of editors in Australia that helped me. Then here, we had some recently more editing. We had a fantastic person help us with the cover design, interior design, great team at Morgan James. We walked together in those final editing stages.

Warwick F:

The point is behind this major blessing of getting Crucible Leadership published, there were many blessings along the way. There were positive steps that I was grateful for, that fuelled me with energy to take the next step. Okay, we've got, more of a structural edit. Fantastic. Let's do more of a proofreading edit. Let's make sure we get a great cover designer. Terrific. Let's make sure we get a great designer for interior layouts. All of these things, this major blessing was a compilation of mini blessings. And so having a positive, yeah, obviously, a vision that you're off the charts passionate about, but by being grateful each step of the way, it helps make this bigger blessing possible.

Warwick F:

So, your attitude as you pursue it is huge. If it's like, "Oh, my gosh. This is so much work." Year after year goes by. I couldn't quite seem to make it work in Australia. "Oh, it will never happen and oh, my gosh, it takes so long. And gosh, to go through each chapter." And it was 100,000 words initially and Morgan James very rightly said, "We want it more like 80,000." And be like, "Oh, my gosh, here we go again. What's this edit number, 800?" It wasn't edit number 800. It felt like it. So, I could have had...

Gary S:

I think it was 807.

Warwick F:

Yeah. There you go.

Gary S:

If I remember correctly.

Warwick F:

So, rather than an attitude of gratitude, I could have had an attitude of whining or as we say in Australia, which is worse, an attitude of "whinging," which is like whining squared. I could have complained all the way. What would complaining and whining and whinging or being irritated have done? It would have guaranteed the book never got published. I would have said, "It's all too much. Let's give up." But by being grateful and positive, good things happened.

Warwick F:

So, that's some really important lessons in getting this book published. Not just about the book, it's your attitude can fuel the direction of your life. It can fuel your success frankly. Your attitude can also doom you to misery and failure. You want to guarantee that you will fail, irrespective of what other people do, be grouchy, grumpy, whiny, whingey, and complain every second of the day, and I guarantee you that success won't happen. It's guaranteed if you follow that path, you won't succeed at anything.

Gary S:

And in Crucible Leadership terms, not only will success not happen, but the other S-word, significance won't happen and that's truly a trauma. That's a crucible oven by itself if you're living a life of quiet insignificance, to paraphrase what you quote Thoreau was saying.

Warwick F:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you say, you don't want to, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, lead lives of quiet desperation. You go to work every day and it's just, everything is miserable. Your whole life you think is just awful. You just, you hate the thought of coming home. You hate the thought of going to work. You might even hate the thought of being alive. At least as far as you can change that with your attitude, you want to, I realize there are some circumstances that are very challenging, but you don't need to make it worse with your attitude that can make a difficult situation far worse. So, attitude is everything and that's really why we're talking about it. So, yeah, the book was huge. There's no question.

Gary S:

But the book was not the only blessing of 2021. What else? Again, a blessing that helped fuel your passion that allowed you to work in your giftings and your vision. What else happened in 2021 that you want to single out as a blessing?

Warwick F:

Yeah, as you're talking, Gary, I think and as we're going through each of these items, it's important to note that the reason, one of the reasons they're a blessing is that I'm not a take no prisoners kind of corporate executive, as I often say. Maybe it was arguably needed in my Fairfax Media days. I'm more of a reflective advisor, a writer, a thinker, now, speaker. I love learning and listening, so everything that we do is in line with my design, from my perspective, divine design.

Warwick F:

We don't do things that are off-brand or something that I don't have remote kind of gifting for, because that would make no sense. So, one of the things that really, we've done this year, we started a podcast. I think, a couple of years ago, this fall and Beyond the Crucible, which is what you're listening to now and we took some significant steps forward this year. For the first time, we had a whole series. We had a six week series called Resilience.

Warwick F:

And really, one of the things that's definitely helped us with is the folks at Content Capital, who helped produce our podcast. That Resilience series was huge to have a series based on a certain theme that have helped with our marketing efforts to take our downloads and be able to have our message reach a broader audience.

Warwick F:

Same folks at Content Capital also have an arm that does audiobooks. And so I was thinking, not everybody does it, but I was thinking, I'd love to have an audio book and they have a division that does that. And so I spent a week in Austin, Texas, in August, in sort of a sound booth. And they had a Grammy Award winning sound engineer behind the booth, so to speak, which is, pretty impressive to have that level of quality. And...

Gary S:

Absolutely.

Warwick F:

... so, I kind of narrated the whole book. It was a long week, but took plenty of breaks. And so I actually, it sounds weird, I actually almost enjoy listening to the audiobook because I'm hearing my own understated passion. It takes a lot for me to say that, but they did such a great job.

Gary S:

Absolutely.

Warwick F:

So, they helped take our podcast and the audio book to another level. And just the quality of guests we've had on the podcast. I mentioned Stacey Copas. We've had a bunch of others that I've really learnt so much from. So, I just love learning about from people that I knew nothing about. Another example is we had Jason Hardrath on. Actually, I think it's a very recent episode. Maybe the episode-

Gary S:

Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago.

Warwick F:

Yeah, shortly before this. And here's somebody that had an accident in 2015, stopped him doing triathlons and running. But he shifted to mountain climbing, which he could still do just because the way his knee was injured, he could kind of go up easier than he could run on horizontal ground. And he has an ADHD challenge. But I learned so much from him because of his challenge, he has a gift, which is he has no fear.

Warwick F:

He will just try crazy things like, "Gee, I can barely swim three laps of a pool. I'm going to sign up for a triathlon, which involves what, like 2.4-mile swim" or something like that. And nobody would tend to do that. It's like, "Well, okay, if I can hit a mile swim maybe I'll sign up for a triathlon in six months." But because of his challenge, he holds no fear. It's like, "Gosh, I can learn from Jason. The sense of set a goal but don't have fear." Plan, but just go for it.

Warwick F:

Too many people fail not because they're not going for things because they're not willing to try. So, that had a huge impact on me as I reflect on that gift that Jason gave to me. His lack of fear. He's willing just to go for it, because I'm more plan, plan, plan, think, think, think, then stick my toe in the water, then go back and plan think some more. Now, I'm exaggerating. I'm not as bad as I used to be.

Gary S:

Not much. Not much.

Warwick F:

I'm cautious by nature, fearful, even. But, so what we've achieved with my natural, fearful, cautious design 2021 is nothing short of a miracle. Because you would look at it to say, "How could a fearful person accomplish everything that we've done and we have even got to speeches. Speaking of fear. I mean, oh, my gosh, I used to say-

Gary S:

Before we go there, let me rewind a little bit and talk a couple of things about what you just mentioned. First, the Resilience podcast series, Harnessing Resilience. I encourage you, listener, if you haven't picked that up, go back into our archive and grab the Harnessing Resilience six-part series. Strong guests, who have harnessed resilience in a variety of different ways, both anecdotally, experientially and then also we have some research about what leads to resilience.

Gary S:

But one of the things from that show that really was spot-lit for us here at Beyond the Crucible was that resilience is nearly impossible, if not truly impossible, to move beyond your crucible, as the show is called, if you do not have resilience. And Stacey Copas is sort of becoming the MVP of this conversation, because we've mentioned her now three or four times. But Stacey says something, something in that, in her episode of that series, where she talks about resilience as something that happens where you're crucible is kind of like being on a trampoline. And the lower down your crucible takes you, the higher up resilience can launch you. And that was a real learning point for me.

Gary S:

So as you talk about learning points and little bits of insight and inspiration that we pick up through the show, I hope listeners feel the same thing. I hope you have your own, listener, your own tidbits that you've picked up to help you walk out your path beyond your crucible. But that thing from Stacey about a crucible experience is, think of it as a trampoline. The lower down you go, the higher up you can be launched was a true difference maker for me in terms of how I orient myself toward crucibles. And then Warwick, your mention of the audio book.

Warwick F:

Yeah...

Gary S:

Oh, yeah, please.

Warwick F:

... just before we leave podcasts and Stacey Copas, the Resilience series, I think, we can tie this back to what we're talking about. Because every guest in Resilience series, indeed, every guest I think we've ever had, one of the keys is being a positive attitude that may have gone through a season like Stacey Copas did of substance abuse, of being just angry and bitter. And because it was her fault from her perspective, she was really tough on herself. "Why did I dive in that pool? Why didn't I listen to my parents at age 12?"

Warwick F:

But you're young. Young people do silly things. It's part of growing up. Obviously, there were pretty bad consequences here, but every guest we've had from Jason Hardrath to Stacey Copas, everybody we had on the Resilience series, they've had this positive attitude. They've not let grief or anger about what happened to them or the mistakes they've made overwhelm them. Yes, they've had a season to have to deal with that. And you go through pain, there will always be scars, but they had a positive attitude.

Warwick F:

They count their blessings. They're grateful. They find a way to see and find gratitude in the most unlikely places. And that positive attitude is probably the key to their bouncing back, it's key to their resilience and it's key to their ability to lead a life of significance. So, if you go underneath the hood of everyone of every guest we had in the Resilience series, their mindset, their positive mindset was absolutely key to fueling and strengthening their resilience muscle. It's just staggering to me.

Gary S:

And hopefully, listener, as I said, what Warwick just described is what you have experienced listening to those guests along with us. We've talked about some of the takeaways that we've pulled from the shows from the guests that we've talked to, but we know that, we hope, we pray that you have had those same experiences. One of the things that you don't know is after every episode that we record, Warwick and I talk on the phone, after we turn off play, hit stop and we talk about, "What did you think about that? What stood out for you?"

Gary S:

And it's always amazing, because there is always a learning. Never once in more than 90 shows have we had a phone call after we recorded an episode and gone, "Okay. Well, it was all right. See you tomorrow." We unpack the learnings that we have had and we've studied the guests beforehand. So those conversations, again, we hope continue to use the word of the day for this episode. We hope those conversations continue to bless you.

Warwick F:

Amen.

Gary S:

I want to say this before we get into the next subject because you teased it a little bit, your speeches. And I want to set the tone or the stage for you as you talk about the speeches that you've been giving across the country about your book. And I want to say this to the listener. You've now, if you've been with us for any period of time, a few episodes, you've come to a place where you kind of have an impression of Warwick.

Gary S:

Warwick is a contemplative man. He is a reflective advisor type. He likes to ask questions. He listens before he asks questions. Now, because Warwick is the host of a podcast, which is a form of entertainment, it's also a little form of journalism, you might wonder like you do with some people in entertainment realm, "Is that really who Warwick Fairfax is?" I'm here to tell you what you see is what you get with Warwick. So, when he says to you what he's going to tell you about speaking, have that mindset there.

Gary S:

Warwick when he tells you as he's about to tell you, "I didn't start out as the greatest speaker and it was a little nerve wracking for me," he is telling you the absolute, unvarnished, transparent, vulnerable truth. This is something that he had to work at and when he calls it now a blessing, when he now talks about how he feels as a speaker versus how he felt as a speaker when he started, that is a true movement along the line of a life of significance. So, talk about the blessing of the speaking tour that you've been on and will continue on after the first of the year.

Warwick F:

So, it's interesting, almost a lifelong journey. I remember, at an early age, teenage growing up in Australia, in my mind's eye, I saw myself taking a leading role in Fairfax Media. Giving speeches to employees, encouraging them, making them feel honored, treasured, respected. I just saw myself, just helping them feel like they matter. It was just this daydream as you do when you're a teenager. And so, obviously, whether that whole thing was my vision or ancestors vision is another question.

Warwick F:

But I think over the years, if you ask me about speaking, I'd say, I'm like the world's worst speaker. It is not my gifting. I'm not an outgoing, extroverted person. I'm probably more introverted, shy. I don't like being in the limelight. I can't run around with no notes and just speak off the cuff in some compelling a way. I mean, it's just not me. So, I'm thinking me speak? I mean, that's going to be a heavy lift. It's just not a natural thing for me to be on a stage in front of a whole stack of people.

Gary S:

Now, let's stop here for a second because I knew the pivot was coming. I want to unpack something. I'm going to pull the sweater string now that you'd like to pull on guests.

Warwick F:

Please, you go ahead.

Gary S:

Because that's the first time you've ever told that story about how you thought about as the proprietor, the head of Fairfax Media speaking and inspiring the troops as it were. And I've never heard you tell that story. And you tell that story as if you really wanted that to be true and that there might have been a tinge of disappointment that it wasn't. That's the first time I've heard you articulate something about the failure of the takeover that was sort of a ding to your desire of what you wanted to do. It may not have been your vision, but that aspects of speaking and inspiring people you wanted to do. Did it hurt? Did you think about that through the years that that was something you lost when you lost it?

Warwick F:

Well, it was a lost opportunity, because I was so scared and I just felt like completely out of my element. We had so much debt, as most listeners would know, after the $2.25 million takeover. I spent most of my time in refinancing. I was in my late 20s. I just, I was shy, so typically what you do is you manage by walking around.

Warwick F:

I never walked the floors of John Fairfax Limited. Talking to journalists, staff members, "How you doing?" I mean, I have the capacity to ask questions and be empathetic, but at that time, I was too scared, deer in the headlights, to do that. So yes, lost opportunity to make people feel encouraged and cared. And I was just so out of my element that it was just almost impossible for me at that time.

Gary S:

So, it must make it much sweeter now that you are on the road and you are speaking to audiences about your book and a book that you wrote. It's important to note, I don't think we mentioned it here yet, in a lessons-learned format. It's not just the Warwick Fairfax story. It's in lessons learned how you overcome a crucible and lead a life of significance. That's got to be even more richly rewarding for you now, having not had that opportunity that you thought about before. So, talk about what's been happening on the road. I know the stories, but the listeners don't know them yet.

Warwick F:

So, we had a number of opportunities this fall. A couple of different universities - one faith-based, one more general, some business groups. And what's been amazing is the reception from both business people and students. I mean, it's amazing to me that we would ship books and sometimes, it'd be like, "Well, don't be disappointed if all of them don't go because students are busy." All of them went.

Warwick F:

And we have a moment in the general speech in which we hand out cards and pens, and we ask the audience, "So, talk about a vision that you're off the charts passionate about. Talk about what your life significance is going to be. What one next step will you do this week?" Well, the students heads were down and it felt like two or three minutes were going by. It's like they were writing like an epistle, like a tome. I mean, what's going on here? I was-

Gary S:

Yeah. You had to cut them off...

Warwick F:

No.

Gary S:

... to continue.

Warwick F:

And then we had a time where you kind of leave the question part of it. And the questions they asked, I mean, they got what I was going through. They would say, they might even say, "Do you view now your life is a blessing that, maybe it worked out for the best?" One person even said or asked, "When you go back to Australia is it painful?" Well, yes, it is. Not as painful as it used to be. You've got to be listening very closely to get the fact that it's painful. That was an incredibly good question.

Warwick F:

And then at the end, one venue we were at, all of the books went, and I don't know, stacks of people signed up to get a book. And there was a line, seemingly a mile long, the students in one location at the end of the day wanting me to sign the book. It blew my mind. I mean, it was, just so the reaction by all folks, business folks, but certainly students, it's like, it felt like this book mattered to them.

Warwick F:

My story, the lessons learned, about leading a life significance. As we say often, you're not defined by your worst day, how you can get over that worst day and just live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. I mean, it was such a blessing to see that my book was helping people. And the questions they were asking. They were engaged. It felt like students that when you would ask them, what one next up.

Warwick F:

So many of them said, "I'm going to talk to my mom or dad this week. I'm going to tell them what I'm thinking of." I mean, that when a student says that, they don't talk to mom and dad about everything. They talk to mom or dad when it really matters, about something you really care about. So, it was such a blessing. So, and I can honestly say, I'm not the world's worst speaker. I think I can say I'm competent, maybe even good. And for me to admit that I'm good at speaking, it's a miracle. It makes no sense, given that this is not my area of strength.

Warwick F:

It just goes to show you that anything is possible. If you're passionate enough about what you're doing and you care enough about helping people, anything is possible. I mean, it's a miracle that I can get to competent, if not good at speaking. It makes no sense. It's a miracle. I'm absolutely grateful and I absolutely feel blessed. It just, it blows my mind.

Gary S:

Two points, actually, three. First point, not necessarily a miracle. You worked hard at it. So, second point, you mentioned earlier in this episode, Jason Hardrath and your appreciation for Jason through his crucible in his athletic career, that he seemed to have no fear. That he just was like, "Okay, I'm just going to, I'll figure it out." And he just pushed ahead and he was not immobilized by fear.

Gary S:

I've watched you as you've embarked on this journey to craft a speech, prepare to deliver a speech, deliver it, you've done the same thing. You've not been afraid. You've not been slowed or stopped by fear as you've moved forward to do that. And there's a pivotal moment that I want to bring the listener's attention. You were practicing the speech, it was me and Keri Childers, who you mentioned earlier, your speaking agent and a friend of ours. And you were performing the speech. You were giving the speech to me and Keri as your as your stand in audience.

Gary S:

And every other time as you're telling the story of the takeover bid, every other time you'd ever talked about it on this show, in other people's podcasts, in interviews, in conversation, behind the scenes, you always refer to yourself as a failed media mogul. In context of, most often in the context of when you were asked to give a speech at church about the life of David, you told your story in the context of a sermon series on the life of David. And you said it moved people and your line was, "I don't know how it moved people. There weren't a lot of other failed media moguls in the audience."

Gary S:

As you were delivering the speech to me and Keri, out of your mouth, and I listened for it more than once to make sure it wasn't just a change that happened because you changed your tune once. You said, you stopped saying failed media mogul and you said, "I don't know how it moved so many people because I looked out in the congregation and there weren't any other former media moguls." And I listened and you said it once and twice and three times and you've continued to do that.

Gary S:

And to me, that was an enormous sign that not only were you not afraid, but you had grown in confidence in delivering that speech, and more than just delivering the speech, in talking about that time in your life and how you've moved on beyond it, how you're living a life of significance. You were walking around in that, not feeling cocky, feeling confident and comfortable in your skin. And that's why you stopped, in my view, that's why you stopped defining yourself as a failed media mogul.

Gary S:

But as a former media mogul, because the truth of the matter is, you were in charge of John Fairfax Limited for three years. It did go into bankruptcy, eventually, but you were still a media mogul for three years. That to me was a pivotal moment in how comfortable you became in sharing that story, for again, a lessons learned format. Is that a fair observation?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. Well said. I mean, it's a sign of inner healing, of coming to terms with things and shifting my inner mindset from failed to former. That was a very, it's a very astute point. And I think as I look back at speaking, it's funny, Jason Hardrath and I couldn't be more different. I mean, obviously he has-

Gary S:

That's true.

Warwick F:

He has ADHD. He's fearless. I'm a cautious planner. Think, think, think, step. Think, think, think again, but yet, and I sometimes overdo my parody almost of myself. Because coupled with fear and caution, I have, in fact, I once went to somebody who assessed me years ago, and they said I had like almost off the charts perseverance. I mean, extremely high and that is true. I have very high perseverance. I'm a person of, obviously, deep faith, at least I like to think and deep conviction.

Warwick F:

So, once I decide this is important. It's not about me, it's helping others. And I'm convinced that I need to do something; 99% of the time, it will get done, because my conviction and my perseverance overcomes my innate caution. And my innate inertia and I can be detail orientated when I want to be. So once I decide to do something, I hate things not getting done. It's a part of my DNA. So, once I decide to do something, it and each step will tend to happen.

Warwick F:

And so there's, we often had different parts of ourselves, almost at war within our souls or. So, that's part of what happened is trust the process, trust the team. And because it was so important for me to get my message out and to help people, to help business folks and students, that inner conviction of "This is important. I need to find a way to do this." And I also felt like, "Look, even if I deliver it poorly," and this is, some of this, the reason I'm saying this is I think it can help the listener.

Warwick F:

Even if I give my speech badly or poorly, the innate story of losing $2.25 billion, of bouncing back to lead a life of significance, of focusing on helping others. That innate story is powerful. I know it's powerful, just objectively speaking, so even a bad story delivered with authenticity, passion, honesty, and hopefully, a dose of humility even badly delivered can work. So that gave me the confidence of saying, "This is a good message. It can work. Even if I mess it up with horrendous delivery, it can still work."

Warwick F:

So, that gave me just a sense of inner confidence and saying, "Okay, what's the worst that can happen?" It still got a pretty decent chance of working because of the power of the story and I'm a passionate person in my own understated way. So, that's some of the thinking that was behind the hood. It's like, "I have perseverance." But I felt like this is a good message. And I've got, I've had great help and so, "Let's go for it." So that, some of that inner psychological working within you as you seek to accomplish your dreams, this is important work.

Warwick F:

And the most important thing is if you believe in your message and you believe in what you're doing can help people that will get you through a lot of fear and a lot of caution. You'll be willing to do things you never thought possible. And you will do better than you ever thought possible because people want to listen to people with convictions, who have a message that they feel that can help them. So, that's part of what got me through my innate caution is my conviction and perseverance and the belief that this message matters. I want to help people get through their worst day.

Gary S:

That sounded a lot like the Captain turning on the "Fasten seatbelt" sign indicating that it's about time to put the plane on the ground. But I know you're not done yet, Warwick, in talking about not just the blessings that have happened in 2021, but as you said at the outset, this all was birthed, this conversation, this idea for this conversation was birthed out of a meeting we had as a team talking about what we can pursue in 2022.

Gary S:

So, what do you want to share about what your hopes are for the next year? What you're thinking of for the next year? What listeners can expect? Where are things headed for Crucible Leadership?

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, again, I can't help but I'm reflective. But as I look back, I think if I had to sum up everything we've said, I feel blessed from the book, to the printed book, the audio book, the podcast, the speaking, I think there's been another level of healing. Both in listening to folks like Stacey Copas and thinking, "Gosh, it is a blessing, it's a gift." And when you see young folks, in particular, it moving them, that matters to me. It would matter to anybody that's human. There's a level of healing in that.

Warwick F:

And then not only is there healing, as I mentioned, there's learning. Learning from the people we've been on from Stacey Copas to Jason Hardrath, so that's kind of super excited. So, I think as we look to the next year, we're going to continue to grow the podcast and seek to grow and have more series on there, like Resilience. We'll see what we have to come. I'll be speaking in different groups from business groups to students, that's our hope and plan. And maybe, there's all sorts of different things you can do from webinars to online courses, so stack of things we're discussing right now. Different ways to get our message out and the material and ways, both in the breadth of the coverage of the message. There's also a depth of ability to interact with it.

Warwick F:

And I think as I sum up because I want listeners both to understand our journey and what we're looking to do. But I also want listeners to think, "Well, what does this mean to me? How can I use this in my own life?" And I think it's, be grateful. Take stock of your blessings. Count your blessings. Don't forget them, whether it's family or career, take stock of that. And as Stacey Copas says there can be a gift and a blessing in your pain. It's hard to fathom in your worst moment, but think about it, reflect about it.

Warwick F:

Is there a way that I can use this to help people? And when you're using your pain to help people, there can be some level of healing, not necessarily physically, but at least emotionally and spiritually, so. And the other thing about the wonders of being grateful and thankful and counting your blessings, that is like rocket fuel to help you accomplish your vision to lead a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.

Warwick F:

When you're thankful, your ability to accomplish that vision in ways that are beyond your imagination is possible. So, it's not only a good thing from an ethical or moral point of view, it's a practical thing. It will help you accomplish your vision bigger, better, and quicker than you ever thought possible. So, count your blessings. Be grateful, be thankful. You will both feel better and you will accomplish much more than you ever thought imaginable.

Gary S:

I'm going to grab my carry on bag and head off the plane. You just landed it. That was fabulous. I'm going to end this episode, listener, by asking you a couple of questions. Because we've been talking about what we've accomplished in 2021 at Crucible Leadership and what we're looking to do in 2022. So, a couple of questions for you and we want your feedback. What would you like to see? Is there anything you'd like to see content wise from Crucible Leadership? If so, email us at info@crucibleleadership.com. That's info@crucibleleadership.com and tell us what kinds of content would you find helpful as you navigate your own journey beyond your crucible to a life of significance.

Gary S:

And then if you'd like to hear the ex-media mogul, not the failed media mogul or the former, not failed, media mogul if you'd like to hear him speak, if you'd like to have Warwick come to your group or to your business, to your classroom, whatever it is. If you'd like to hear Warwick speak, you can also email to info@crucibleleadership.com. And we will get back to you and discuss how we can make that happen.

Gary S:

Speaking of making things happen, we are thankful that we made it happen that you joined us today. That you made it happen that you joined us today on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. And until the next time we're together, please remember we talked about it here, crucible experience as we know are difficult. They can knock the wind out of your sails. They can make you feel like your life is forever changed. And even if it is, though, here's the great truth. They're not the end of your story.

Gary S:

It was not the end of Warwick's story. He talked. We spent this entire episode talking about things that weren't the end of his story. Things that happen after his crucible. Things that happened because he learned the lessons of his crucible. And that's the great news about moving beyond your crucible is if you learned the lessons of it, it's not the end of your story. In fact, it can be the beginning of a new story for you. And it can be the best story that you live because what the story reads at the end when it says "The End" when you turn the last page, that ending is a life of significance.

Think of “hinge moments,” the subject of Taylor University President Michael Lindsay’s recent book, as cousins to crucible experiences. Lindsay has discovered in interviews with some of today’s greatest leaders that how we react to those moments in life when doors either open or close – hence the hinge metaphor – determines how successful we’ll be in charting our course to a life of significance. The key, he says, is keeping our metaphorical hinges in good working order.

To learn more about Michael Lindsay, visit www.taylor.edu

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Michael L:

There are seasons of transition, like stages that you go through, kind of like stages of grief. There are low points, but then there are also become points of real redemption. I find that people who are most successful are ones who are able to sort of make sense of the tragedy or of the crucible that they went through, in large part because it's about shaping your character. You really can't control how other people react. You can't control, in many ways, the outcomes that ... Those will be largely the aggregated results of lots of different people's actions and behaviors, but you can control, you can shape your own character and the kind of person you become as result of the crucible you've gone through.

Gary S:

Focusing on what you can control and extracting from your setbacks and failures, the lessons, the truths that will help shape your character for the better as you navigate your road beyond trials and tragedies. Sound familiar? It should, if you're even an occasional listener. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week, Warwick and I talk with Michael Lindsay, President of Taylor University about what he calls hinge moments, cousins, if you will, to crucible experiences.

Gary S:

What Dr. Lindsay has discovered in interviews with some of today's greatest leaders is that how we react to those moments in life when doors either open or close, hence the hinge metaphor, determines how successful we'll be in charting our course to a life of significance. The key, you'll discover, is keeping your metaphorical hinges in good working order. How do we do that? Listen in.

Warwick F:

Well, Michael, thank you so much for being here. Really excited to have you. One of the reasons I'm so excited is obviously Michael is a expert in leadership, which is certainly our passion here, but he's also the President of Taylor. I've been blessed to have three kids graduate from Taylor, the youngest one, or the latest one last year in 2020. I've been to Taylor, actually a fair bit in the last few weeks. Michael instigated the 175th commission at Taylor and anniversary of the founding of Taylor with collection of alumni, parents of alumni, and other folks just to provide input about the next chapter in Taylor's history.

Warwick F:

I was very privileged to be at the induction ceremony with Michael as president. Gosh, this past Monday, I had the great privilege of speaking at Chapel at Taylor and then to a business class later on. Yeah, I love Taylor. It's a very Christ-centered missional place with a very strong culture. Michael, thank you so much for being here and just looking forward to our discussion and yeah, thank you for being the president of Taylor. I think everybody's just super excited and we're really excited to see what God will have for Taylor in these next years.

Michael L:

Well, we were delighted to have you at Chapel. You were wildly popular, as was your book, which were out like hot cakes after Chapel immediately. Clearly, it really struck a chord with our community and excited to see your book get greater interest and opportunity. I do think there's some resonance with some of the work that I had done on hinge moments. So, thanks for having me on.

Warwick F:

Just before we kind of get started, I was fascinated by hinge moments because there's overlap with crucible experiences, but yet, I don't know, I was thinking about this. Maybe all crucible experiences have the potential to be hinge moments, but not all hinge moments are crucible experiences. Just, for the listener that might be used to the crucible experience world, just explain the difference between the two and the basic philosophy of hinge moments as we get started.

Michael L:

Well, the idea here is that all of us experience moments of significant change, inflection points in our life. There's probably, I don't know, 12 to 24 of them that happen over the course of a life. The moment you meet your spouse, the moment you get your dream job, the moment your family has the first significant tragedy, all of these become significant inflection points in the larger trajectory of our life. In God's providence, we are prepared for and respond to those changes over months or seasons of transition.

Michael L:

Hinge moments is really talking about the process whereby we navigate change and maximize transition for both our greater good and the wider good in the communities where we find ourselves. I think you're right. Every crucible moment is a hinge moment, but not every hinge moment's crucible. So, not every change that we experience occurs in the furnace of challenge or intensity. Sometimes it's just great joy and delight, but average American has 73 million minutes that we'll experience in life. And yet, probably there's two dozen of them that have an outsized impact on the trajectory of the rest of our life.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Just reading your book and story, it's amazing how, and you talk in your former book, View From the Top, about platinum leaders, some of the best leaders for-profit and not-for-profit, how the best leaders navigate the hinge moments exceptionally well, maybe that's part of one of the hallmarks of a great leader, which is fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I want to drill down on hinge moments, but that's your perception that the ability of the platinum leaders to tackle hinge moments is sort of like off the charts, it would seem.

Michael L:

That's right. I studied 550 senior leaders. Did interview with Presidents Bush and Carter, cabinet secretaries like Condoleezza Rice, or Colin Powell, who recently passed away, CEOs of the largest companies and largest nonprofits, presidents of Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. Out of those 550 interviews, I concluded all of them experienced hinge moments and a disproportionate number of them handled their hinge moments very well, which allowed them to recover from challenges, mistakes, failures, or stumbles, but also to maximize opportunities when they came along their path.

Warwick F:

I guess, let's just go back for a second. I love hearing the origin story. I mean, you have a passion for leadership ever since you studied sociology at Rice. Where did your passion for leadership and understanding what makes leaders great? Why did you decide to pursue that? Because obviously you're an exceptionally bright person and could have pursued a number of different disciplines, but why leadership?

Michael L:

I find almost all of our academic pursuits are biographical a bit in nature. My dad was president for PG of America and the golf industry when I was growing up. My mom was head of an independent school in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. So, both of them were leaders in their own, right? I think sitting at their dining table, hearing the conversations they would have in person or on the telephone, sort of piqued to me an interest of both the challenges and opportunities of what it is to lead an institution. As a sociologist, I really believe in the importance of organizations and institutions and the vitality of having great leaders in those positions of responsibility.

Michael L:

When it came time for me to figure out what I was going to make the focus of my scholarly research, I think part of it was I drew upon my own journey of watching my parents and hearing their stories and having a desire to be able to shed some light that could be able to be of use to my students and to the institutions where I serve.

Warwick F:

That's so good. I mean, I know for me, I always struggle about the whole notion of being a leader because as listers would know, after the whole 2.25 billion family takeover that failed at the 150 family media company, probably in the '90s, which were pretty difficult years for me. I would feel like I couldn't lead my way out of a paperback. Me lead? I mean, come on. But I'm probably more of a reflective advisor than an upfront leader. But yet, I too, from a different standpoint, have a passion for leadership because certainly, in my own family media company, which at one point had I don't know, 4,000 plus employees, 700 plus million in revenue, the impact in leadership in people's lives is enormous. We spend so much time at work. It can make their life a joy or it can be oppressive.

Warwick F:

Good leadership makes such a difference, and from a kingdom perspective, to have godly leaders that lead well that achieve their objectives, but care for people along the way is so important. It seems like in this day and age, it seems, it's not that often that we have, as Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great, he talks about humble, but driven leaders. You talk about platinum leaders. It just seems rare unfortunately. There's too much of the egotistical, it's all about my agenda, and if I have to tread on people as I get to the top, oh well. Does that make sense? It's just, leadership is important and it's not easy to find good leaders, at least in the public eye anyway.

Michael L:

Well, I actually think that there's great opportunity. I mean, we are in a societal wide hinge moment coming out of the pandemic in the recovery mode. As a result, I think there's a real opportunity for folks who have always wanted to have a chance to sort of maybe get their voice heard or to provide greater leadership. There's a real moment of opportunity right now. We're seeing massive labor shortages in every industry, in every sector of our society. That's also creating opportunities for greater management, more opportunities for us to lead well. I also think that, while it's true that every institution has to be led by someone, you can be a leader without being in a position of institutional responsibility.

Michael L:

There's tons of leaders who have moral authority because of their circle of influence. Fundamentally, leadership is about having a group of followers. It's about a relational enterprise. Whether you're leading a little league soccer team or leading a fortune 500 company, I think there's opportunity for us to lead very effectively. And it's my hope that people of faith will provide greater leadership in our society because I think there's a real hunger for moral leadership in the wider world.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, I think that's so good. We do talk about leading at all levels, whether it's the boardroom, the living room, whether it's leading your community to maybe take back a park for kids in your neighborhood. It's so well said. I want to drill down a bit into your book, Hinge Moments. As I was reflecting on, and I want to ... There's some key hinge moments that you talk about, but listeners will be familiar with this, but as I look back, I think of a couple of key hinge moments that I went through that I didn't really think about. They weren't crucible moments, but they were hinge moments. Just for listeners, they've heard this, but not in this context, so just to maybe help make the connection between who we are and what we do here and my life and hinge moments.

Warwick F:

There was a couple for me. I know in 2003, as listeners would know, I was working at an aviation services company in Maryland doing business financial analysis and I'm pretty analytical. I was doing well, getting good performance reviews. But after about six years, in 2003, I felt like, and like Michael, I'm a person of faith, I felt like God was saying, "You're playing small. You're not using all the gifts that I've given you for my glory." It wasn't that it was beneath me because humility is one of my highest values, but I felt like I was not using all that I was for the Lord.

Warwick F:

So, I went to a woman that did mid career assessments. She says, "You have a good profile to be an executive coach," so I learned about that, got certified as an International Coach Federation Executive Coach. Then from there, I got on a couple nonprofit boards and my journey continued. That was a hinge moment in the sense that I felt like this nudge from the Lord, I was doing well, so to speak. But I was discontent because I felt like I wasn't using all that I was for the Lord. As I read about your definition, I was like, that is a hinge moment. Then another one is, again, I mentioned in Chapel at Taylor, and listeners would be familiar with, in 2008.

Warwick F:

My pastor asked me to give a 10 minute message on somehow comparing to David who was being pursued by Saul. I said, "Well, I'm not a righteous person, falsely persecuted. I brought a lot of it on myself. Anyway, public speaking is not something certainly back then I did a lot of. It's certainly not my happy place by all means. But somehow what I said resonated with folks. I was like, huh. Then I did some intense praying and scripture reading. I felt like the Lord saying, I want you to write a book, but not a tell-all, but write a book about your story in a thematic lessons learned leadership format.

Warwick F:

Both of those were hinge moments, 2003, 2008, when again, like Michael being, Christ is the center of my life, I heard that still small voice that nudge and I knew what his will was and I moved ahead. If I hadn't made those decisions, my life would be radically different. Those were key hinge moments, for me anyway. Does that kind of make sense from your framework?

Michael L:

For sure. I think that all of those are moments that you can point back to specific. Each of us in our own journey have different things. So, what might be hinge moment for you might not be for someone else, but I think when we take stock, we can see that there are clear defining moments that change the trajectory of our life.

Gary S:

One of the things I want to mention about those hinge moments that you described Warwick is that again, going back to the idea that not all hinge moments are crucible moments, but all crucible moments can be hinge moments, what happened, those two hinge moments that you described were key to you moving beyond your crucible, to quote the title of this podcast. You've talked about them in the context of the failed takeover. Those were two key moments that led you toward the life of significance that you're now leading.

Gary S:

I think that's the way to kind of mash up these two very important concepts of crucible moments and hinge moments. That's how they worked for you. Those hinge moments helped you as you move beyond your crucible and I think we can extrapolate that out to, right Michael? To anybody who goes through a crucible moment. Your hinge moment, if you identify it, that can be the thing that can help you move beyond your crucible.

Michael L:

I think that so much of what you have to do ... In the book, I talk about that there are seasons of transition, like stages that you go through, kind of like stages of grief. There are low points, but then there are also become points of real redemption. I find that people who are most successful are ones who are able to sort of make sense of the tragedy or of the crucible that they went through, in large part because it's about shaping your character. You really can't control how other people react. You really can't control, in many ways, the outcomes that ... Those will be largely the aggregated results of lots of different people's actions and behaviors, but you can control, you can shape your own character and the kind of person you become as a result of the crucible you've gone through.

Warwick F:

Yeah, that's so well said. Gary, thank you for making that connection, because you're right. As I've reflected on it, the connects between Crucible Leadership and Hinge Moments, you go through tragedy, and that's obviously an epic hinge moment. As we say, you can either hide under the covers, be angry and bitter at yourself and others, whether it's your fault, not your fault. There's a lot of room for anger and bitterness and just hide under the covers and wait for the next 30, 40, 50 years to pass and eventually it'll all end. Or you can say this was awful, I was an idiot or what happened to me was just not right. And you can make a decision to move on from that as pretty much, most of the 70 plus guests we've had on the podcast, their crucibles, they've all pretty much, without exception, used their pain in the service of others.

Warwick F:

They've found some level of healing by finding, out of the ashes of their crucible, a vision that will ... A life of significance focused on others and a higher purpose. But as I look at hinge moments, as you try to move out of the depth of your pit, those hinge moments help you achieve your life of significance quicker, better, more true to who you are and your values if you just listen to those key moments. If you're a person of faith, it's listen to the Lord. If you're, some other perspective, maybe it's your kind of inner soul. But hinge moments and managing them well are key to getting out to that pit quicker and fast and achieving your vision.

Warwick F:

I mean, it's critical to me. I want to go through each of the kind of seven chapters, but you have your own incredible hinge moments and you write about it in the book and you're obviously open about it. There's a couple, in particular you're studying at Rice or you're a Rice sociology professor. I'm not sure you're even yet 40, maybe close, and some recruiter comes to you and says, "Hey, there's a job open at Gordon."

Warwick F:

But you weren't like, "Great sign me up. Let's go." Talk about, that was a hinge moment and you handled that obviously well, but not everybody would've made the decision you did, or they might have said, "Oh, I'm young. I love where I am in Texas, in Boston." I don't know. Talk about that hinge moment, because that was certainly one of the early critical moments that changed the whole trajectory of your life.

Michael L:

I was a faculty member at Rice and I thought I'd be there my whole career. It's a great institution, lots of resources and things were going really well. A search consultant called and said that they were working on the presidential search at Gordon and wondered if I would be considering. I said, "I really appreciate it, but I have a whole pathway in front of me. I need to become a department chair and maybe a dean, and then a provost. Maybe I would do that down the road, but I think it's probably 10 to 15 years from now." And he said, "Well, would you just pray about it?" And I said, "Sure." I probably prayed a couple of times, but not very seriously about it. But a month later after that initial call, my 32-year-old cousin was killed in a car accident.

Michael L:

I was very close to him. He was like a little brother to me. The family asked me to deliver the eulogy at his funeral, which I did. After the funeral, we loaded up the kids and started driving back to Houston. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was driving along. The kids were taking a nap and it was quiet in the car. I began thinking about my cousin, his name was Trent, and he died about six weeks before Christmas. I wondered, what did he plan on getting his kids for Christmas that year? I knew that he was a planner and probably had some great ideas. I knew also that he was hoping for a big promotion at work and I wondered how close he was to getting that, how far along was that? Then I got to thinking about his life and wondering, what does he want to do 10 to 15 years from now?

Michael L:

The minute that question went across my mind, I instantly thought of that conversation I had a month earlier with a search consultant who had asked if I would be interested in pursuing the presidency, and I said maybe in 10 to 15 years. It just dawned on me in that moment, we are not promised tomorrow. We live our life as if we're in control, when in fact we're really not. That was a moment of great conviction for me because throughout my life I had said I wanted to be open to doing things, even if it wasn't always my idea. I wanted my faith to really drive who I was.

Michael L:

The next morning I called the search consultant and said, "I don't know if you're still looking, but if you are, I'd love to be able to throw my hat into the ring." Never thinking I would get it, just thinking it'd be a part of my own growth and development. But over the next three months, the process moved forward and in the end I was selected. I really think that my cousin's death, in some ways, was redeemed in a small measure by my own sense of calling. I mean, I still greatly miss him. It's a tragedy that he died so young.

Michael L:

At the same time, we have to use tragedies that happen in our life as a way of sort of signaling to us how we might grow and develop. I'm very grateful that, that became a hinge moment in my own life that put me on a trajectory of pursuing positions of institutional leadership.

Warwick F:

Then let's shift to the next, or one of the next big hinge moments. You've been at Gordon College for 10 years as we heard earlier, record fundraising, things are going great. You love the area. Listeners know I went to Harvard Business School and I had parents of my friends that had a place in Cohasset, which is on the south shore of Boston. Love the area. I could totally get why you would want to live there forever. It's a beautiful area. Winter is a bit cold, but it's a nice place. But yet, some folks came knocking on the ... Well, let me pause for a second.

Warwick F:

This is a classic hinge moment. You were doing well, but yet you were feeling some level of discontent, but yet everything was going so great, which seems like it's a classic hinge moment. Talk about, even before Taylor came knocking, talk about that hinge moment at Gordon College.

Michael L:

I was feeling a little restless. Arthur Brooks, who had been the very successful president of the American Enterprise Institute, came and spoke for an event we did. And in it, he talked about his decision to step down after 10 years on the job. I got these butterflies in my stomach and I went home that night and I said, "Why was I nervous for him? He's made his decision. It doesn't really affect me." My wife said, "Well, maybe you're realizing that your 10 years at Gordon will come to a close next year and you're wondering if name thing might be in your future." I said, oh, that's a crazy idea. I can't imagine that." Then a couple months later, I was working on the manuscript for hinge moments and I was rereading every single interview I'd done. I came upon this interview with Bruce Kennedy, the CEO of Alaska Airlines.

Michael L:

I had long forgotten, but in his interview he talked about the decision for him to step away from the CEO job after 10 years on the job. As soon as I saw those words on the page, my heart started beating fast and I got the butterflies back in my stomach. I realized, well, there is something about 10 years that maybe is standing out. Over the next six to eight months, I really, I prayed. I thought, I reflected a great deal. In the end, I concluded, many of the things that I'd set out to do, I've actually accomplished. One of them was a very significant reduction in the cost of a Gordon education.

Michael L:

It takes a long time to reduce expenses and to grow revenues, to get to a place where you can do something significant. Last fall, we were able to announce a 33% reduction in the sticker price and a reduction in the actual price for every single student. That was a big deal. I just realized that I thought, perhaps it was time for me to do something different. It was upsetting and nervous because I've never stepped away from a job without having another job.

Michael L:

But I really felt a confirmation that, that was the right move. I went to my board and they said, "Oh, you just need a break. Let's sign you up for another five years." I really appreciated that. But that actually wasn't really what I felt. So, I stepped away without really knowing what would happen. It was scary for several months. I mean, there were moments when I thought, will I ever get the job that I love again? Will I ever get a chance to do something that meaningful? But I'm also living proof that there are many roles, there are many paths that we can take.

Michael L:

I think if we're open to God's leadership and trying to be responsive when we feel those hinge moments are occurring in our life, that restlessness, that holy discontent can be a way in which the Lord prepares us to move on. By the time I had the opportunity to assume the Taylor presidency, I felt really confirmed in what I was doing. I'll just say, I'm very happy, very satisfied. I feel like it's a great fit for what I bring to the table, what the institution needs, and we are really thrilled to be in Indiana.

Warwick F:

That is just amazing. Obviously I know all of the Taylor community is super excited to have you. Taylor's obviously a great place, Christ-centered, top academic institution, but it has a history of having an extremely close knit culture. As you would know, better than I do, culture is ... It can take decades to create. It's not something you can just flash a wand, and hey, presto, we have a good culture. Obviously you got a great foundation.

Warwick F:

I want to shift to hinge moments and there's this amazing chart in here that's on every chapter. Basically, it starts, in terms of level of confidence, it starts at discernment, goes to anticipation, intersection, then goes up to landing integration, inspiration, realization. Basically intersection is where you're between the two spaces and you're feeling the most uncertain, the least confident, the most wobbly in the knees. It's a fascinating way to look at it. Let's dive into some of these things and just talk about how in that first stage you talk about it's the stage of discernment, approaching the door in your life. You've had a couple of those when you were at Rice and then at Gordon. What's kind of the key concept behind that first step of discernment.

Gary S:

Can I jump in before we do that?

Warwick F:

Please.

Gary S:

Just for the listeners' benefit, we've been talking a lot about hinge moments, and I think it would be really beneficial, Michael, if you defined what a hinge moment is before we talk about them in depth, in terms of how it plays out in your excellent paradigm. What is, how do you recognize a hinge moment, and why do you call it a hinge moment?

Michael L:

A hinge moment are those dozen or two minutes that happen in our life that have a disproportionate impact on the rest of our life because of key decisions or actions that took place in that moment. They, like the hinge of a door, open up doors of possibility or close other doors of possibility because of the impact of them. Oftentimes they have a directly personal effect on us, but they can include not just your family life, not just your love life, but your professional life as well as wider world events. For some of us, 9/11 was a hinge moment that forever changed your life. For others, it was just another minute that changed our world, but didn't directly impact us. Hinge moments oftentimes are disproportionately impactful on us as individuals and they begin to reshape who we are.

Michael L:

As Warwick says, there's seven stages of transition that we go through. And you start at a relatively high level of confidence, but then you begin to discern, either through that sense of restlessness what I described as butterflies in our stomach, sweaty palms, or maybe it's dreams we have at night or conversations that we have, or intuition that we feel, we begin to discern or anticipate that a change is on the way. Then we begin to sort of lose confidence because we begin to think, well, huh, I thought my life was going in one direction and maybe it's going in a different direction.

Michael L:

Actually, it continues to slide down until you get to sort of the low point of confidence, what I call the intersection phase, the liminal moment. Liminal is sort of a word that's taken from the Latin word, which means threshold, when you're literally between two rooms or two seasons or two chapters of your life. You're leaving one and you're starting another, but you're sort of in this betwixt and between phase. That's the hardest time. And it can last a matter of a few days to a matter of a few years when you're dealing with the death of a spouse or the loss of a child, and you are really sort of coming to grips with that.

Michael L:

But then, over time, we begin to sort of find our way into a new room, a new season, a new chapter. We become integrated into that community. We begin to feel like we have got a way of making sense of it. As we become integrated into landing in this new space, making new friends, developing our own sense of calling, and then eventually, we get this opportunity where we become a source of inspiration for other people. At some point in time, whereas you started at this level of confidence, you go through a low point, you actually rise up to a higher level of confidence on the other side when you realize all of this is about the development of your character and opportunities for you to sort of grow and develop.

Michael L:

You discover, maybe you're not going to be managing the family business that you thought you were going to do in Sydney, but instead you have a new sense of calling. In many ways, it's one that is even more meaningful because you've actually gone through some of the difficulties or challenges that make you a stronger, richer, better person. These hinge moments go through these seven phases of transition that in the end, on the other side, we're a better person because of it.

Warwick F:

Boy, that's so well summarized. Wow. I guess the discernment is sort of an interesting phase. You talk about being prepared, and we'll get to, in a later chapter, the virtues like humility, courage, and self control. That first step of you talk about silence and meditation, self examination. When a potential opportunity comes, there's that phase of both internal discernment as well as seeking counsel. These are really the best practices of, when an opportunity comes knocking, what's the best process of figuring out whether to say yes and then move into it, because there's bad ways to handle it.

Warwick F:

But this is sort of like, from my perspective, the best way. Talk about some of those, in those early stages, I love that phrase you say, "Respect your restlessness and seek counsel." Talk about why that's just so important in those early stages.

Michael L:

I think one of the things that's important is that we have to sort of go between two poles. One is immersion and another is isolation. I think that you have to do both of those things when you're really discerning things. Immersion means you're getting fully into the context. Maybe it's that you pay a visit to the place where you think you might be working or you spend a long weekend walking around the community where you think your new house might be, but you're fully immersed in that. But you also have to run what I called, get on the balcony. You have to be able to pull out in moments of isolation. That might be a quiet walk on the beach or thinking alone while you make a long run, something that gives you an opportunity to really contemplate and to get alone with yourself.

Michael L:

You have to do both of those kinds of things in the discernment, both immersion and isolation. The net result of that is that I think you begin to develop a sense of both calling and responsibility and you get greater clarity around what might be coming ahead.

Warwick F:

That's good. That really goes into the next phase of anticipation. I love the phrase that you mentioned of overcoming caution and the fact that most humans are risk averse. I mean, I certainly am. I like to think I'm a relatively fearful person, but fortunately from my mother, who is a very strong willed force of nature kind of person, I get some pretty high degree of perseverance and conviction. Once I feel like this is what the Lord wants me to do, my conviction and perseverance tends to overcome my natural caution, so that's a bit of a yin yang kind of thing that I have to go through. But most humans are risk averse, but overcoming over caution, I love that phrase.

Warwick F:

Back in the days at Rice University, you had to live that one out. You could say, I could become department head, dean, provost. I love Texas. I love where I am. Why give up the tried and true path to jump off in some other place I've never been to? Talk about why overcoming over caution is just so critical to life.

Michael L:

Well, there's a ton of neuroscience research that shows that, generally speaking, we will do everything we can to mitigate risk. While we might think of ourselves as brave and courageous, most of the time, we're not. And it requires us to sort of be goaded in one way or another to push ourselves to try something that is risky. My book is designed to try and encourage people. It's actually, generally speaking, better for you to take the risk. Certainly when you're thinking about new ventures, most of the time you're going to be much more successful in that new venture. So, don't be too cautious.

Michael L:

I mean, it's important to make assessments and to count the cost. At the same time, too often we do become paralyzed by that and we miss out on some amazing opportunities. Virtually every one of the platinum leaders that I interviewed had to get to a point where they were willing to push themselves to do that was very different. A great example, Condi Rice. Condoleezza Rice thinks she's going to be a world class concert pianist. She goes to the Van Cliburn competition as a 14 year old and realizes, "I am never going to play the piano as well as some of these other people who are younger, less experienced than I am. They're just more talented. They do this better."

Michael L:

So, she has a soul searching experience. She thought her whole life was going to be in a certain direction. She decides to enroll at the University of Denver as a 16-year-old, much earlier than most kids go off to college. While there, she doesn't major in music. She explores a variety of different fields. Takes a class on a Soviet studies, and through that develops a real passion and love for Russian literature, Russian culture. That in turn gets her interested in international relations. She graduates from the University of Denver. Decides to go straight to Notre Dame to pursue a PhD, which she does international relations.

Michael L:

Of course, she ends up having a whole career as a provost at Stanford, becomes a national security advisor and secretary of state. None of those things would've been pathways for her if she had stuck to her pathway of thinking that she was going to be a concert pianist. Maybe she would've been able to play piano at her local church, and maybe occasionally she'd have some concerts. She never would've had the platform that she ended up having in her life if she had been overly cautious. Sometimes we have to just be willing to take the risk.

Warwick F:

That's such a good example. It's funny. I think if somebody we had on our podcast, at least we recorded, just couple days ago, Jason Hardrath, and he's somebody, teaches PE at an elementary school in Washington State. He has ADHD. And the way he copes with that is he has to move. He cannot sit still. But because, as you would know, with challenges, there can become blessings, there can come gifts with challenges. He doesn't have the risk averse chip in his brain.

Warwick F:

He does things that are nuts, but then he achieves things that most of us humans couldn't achieve. Like he had an accident, which I won't get into all right now, that limited what he could do, but he decided to do a triathlon and he wanted to compete in these elite deals. Well, part of the triathlon is like a 2.6 mile swims, two point something anyway. Well, at the time he could barely swim the length of a 50 meter pool. But he signed up for this triathlon six months later saying, "I'll figure it out. I'll get there." And he did.

Warwick F:

Now, most of us wouldn't even dream of signing up for triathlon if we couldn't barely swim the length of a 50 meter pool. Maybe if we felt okay, I've satisfied myself I can can swim a mile, now I'll commit to it. But 99% of humans would never do that. I'm not suggesting everybody lives the way he does because he has a certain challenge with a gifting, but I look at that and I'm awe inspired. I mean, his lack of risk averse is ... There's a challenge with that because his lack of ability at time to control impulses, but that's super human level of courage, but that's because of the gifting side of the challenge.

Warwick F:

When I heard that I said, golly, that's just ... Talk about lack of risk averse. I mean, no wonder he achieves some of the things he does. I mean, it's not that hard to break records if you don't have that risk averse chip in your brain.

Michael L:

That's right. Absolutely.

Warwick F:

Anyway, but obviously that's a whole nother story. We move then to intersection. You've talked a bit about that. That's the hardest place between those two spaces. One of the things in here that you talk about is the importance of having a mentor. You relate it to stories and films, whether it's Bilbo having Gandalf, and as any Star Wars fan would know Luke having Obi-Wan. Clearly, I mean you've had mentors your whole life. You're a wise man. Talk about how, especially when you are in the land in-between, almost sounds a little bit like Moses between Egypt and the promised land. Of course, he was there for 40 years, which you don't typically want to be in the land in between for 40 years, heaven forbid, but talk about why having a mentor is so critical when you're between those two stools.

Michael L:

I think you have to have mentors and sponsors, people who are willing to sort of step into your life and create opportunities, but it's helpful for people to speak into our life who can remind us of our giftings and our interests and our capabilities, but also one who opens up doors of possibilities. That's why I love working with college students is because it's great to get a chance to help them make some good connections.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Then we kind of move into landing, and probably the key phrase there is, so the welcome mat and you are the guest is the importance of listening and you've got like impression, plus impression, plus impression equals reputation. That makes so much sense. It's so easy to get into a new job saying, "Okay, I don't need to listen. I'm a successful ..." You could have walked into Taylor and saying, "I'm a successful leader of a Christian college. I know what I'm doing. Taylor just needs to listen to me and let's go." But you didn't. You had a hundred 175th commission, you listened to alumni, parents of alumni, other folks.

Warwick F:

You didn't walk in day one in Taylor saying, "Okay, here's a plan. Let's go. Hey, what's your name anyway? Because I really don't know who you folks are." But you're obviously too intelligent for that. Yeah, talk about why just that sense of those early impressions of listening and just being on your best behavior, as you put, it sounds obvious, but there's a lot of leaders that get into a new job, they do the exact opposite of what you suggest.

Michael L:

Well, I think experience is the best teacher to us. I've made tons of mistakes along the way. The benefit of a second presidency is it's a chance to reset and to learn from things, and hopefully do things a little bit better. I certainly have benefit so much for being part of this community and to learn from the wisdom of other folks. I also think you get to a certain point where you don't have to prove yourself. You're pretty comfortable in your own skin. I think that becomes a sign of leadership maturity. Certainly, I think your crucible moments that you experienced had a way of, through the refining fire, helping you to become a place where you don't have to prove yourself. But instead, you become an opportunity to learn, grow, and hopefully invest in other people.

Warwick F:

Well said, well said, and then we move into integration where being trustworthy and trusting your team is obviously is so huge. I mean, that kind of makes abundant sense. Then somewhere to dwell as we, kind of in our remaining minutes, chapter six, the hinge inspiration, this is where you really unpack the concept of the hinge. You mentioned that, people might be familiar with the phrase, cardinal virtues. You talk about how the word cardinal is from the Latin word, meaning hinge, and just the importance of having a very strong hinge. Really, let's sort of dig into that one a little bit about the importance of having, as you put it, a reliable, robust hinge when hinge moments come. Talk about why that's just so critical.

Michael L:

I think all of us have a set of values that we live our lives by. It orients our priorities, how we spend our time, how we spend our resources. Not everybody takes the time to enumerate what those values are, but I think each of us have a set of them that are really guiding us. The book tries to lay out, there are four cardinal virtues that have been around for a millennia and shape who we are, whether it's justice or self-control, or a real commitment to trying to pursue wisdom that might be true in our life, a variety of different values that help shape who we become.

Michael L:

I would just say that, to all of your listeners, it's important to use the hinge moment as a chance to say, okay, what are those key principles or values that really matter to my life? And then how do I live by them? Because when you get to the end of life, people are not going to give a eulogy based upon all of your bullet points of your resume. They're going to just talk about your character. What is your character and how did you live it out?

Warwick F:

Yeah, that's so important. I mean, we talk about in crucible leadership and we have a broad audience. I'm clear about my faith in Christ, but I say, leadership needs to be anchored in fundamental beliefs and values. It could be religion, a philosophy, a set of values, and then importantly, beliefs are important, but they need to be acted upon. From our framework, that's character, which is beliefs acted upon. Like in James, it talks about faith is good, but deeds is where it fleshes itself out and it's obviously for the believers. It's still saved by grace, but if you really believe in what you say you believe, it will shape your character.

Warwick F:

Otherwise, there's a question about whether you believe in the first place, at least from a Christ centered perspective. But that is so good, is just, even before those hinge moments come, just understanding what your values are. You talk about prudence and fortitude, temperance, justice. I love how you define justice, I guess from, is it Cornel West somewhere? What love looks like in public, justice. I haven't heard that. That's a brilliant definition. Then we go to the last one, inspiration.

Gary S:

Can I back up a second?

Warwick F:

Please, please.

Gary S:

And stay on hinge for a minute.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

Because I think it's fascinating, Michael, that you use hinge as the metaphor because hinges are interesting. They're sort of hidden, right? It's the least important part. When we're go one through a door, we don't think about the hinge, but if it wasn't for the hinge, we wouldn't get through the door. Hinges also are metal usually, they're susceptible to rust, they're susceptible to the nails falling off. They need a little care. What does it look like, metaphorically, if our hinges rust in our lives? What is that like and how can we prevent it? Because I think that's critical to part of what you're saying, is to keep those hinges well-greased and well oiled.

Michael L:

I think, fundamentally, if you don't have those principles in your life, if you don't care for those values, nurture them, strengthen them, help them to become more central to who you are, then the hinges can't perform their function and so the door doesn't open or it doesn't close. The engineering marvel about a hinge is that it's the same device that is used to keep a slab of wood from staying ... It stays in place and yet it can also create a range of motion so that you can take something that is closed and open because of a hinge. You also can take something that is open and closed because of a hinge. And also, it can leave it in the current position until it needs to be adjusted. That's an engineering marvel that a little device like that can do all three of those things well.

Michael L:

But if the hinges are rusty and if they no longer function, you're going to find that either doors that need to be closed in our life, because there are certainly necessary endings that we all have to experience in life that won't occur, or doors of opportunity that need to be opened, they won't be there. Or the things that are supposed to stay open, suddenly become closed, or things that become closed, suddenly become open. It actually changes the trajectory of your life for all the wrong kind of reasons, which is why you have to really care for those hinges so that they can be sustaining over the long call.

Warwick F:

Yeah, and that's such a good point, and thanks for making that excellent point, Gary. I mean, having good, robust, rust-free, well-oiled hinges based on the fundamental values that you have in life, and we all have values. I mean, I talk about in the book, humility and integrity, probably my two highest values along with authenticity and vulnerability, probably integrity and humility are my number ones, it helps you make better decisions when those hinge moments come. You made, I think it's easy to look back in life.

Warwick F:

As you rightly say in the book, life is better understood looking backwards. Unfortunately, it's not easy to look forward, but that's why we have faith because the Lord understands the plan and we just have to say yes one step at a time when he gives us that next step. But as you look back on those two key hinge moments for you, whether it was Rice University or being at Gordon, you had a robust hinge, you knew your cardinal virtues. You had mentors you could talk to. You had all the process and systems in place to make good decisions, and you had the power of prayer. You had the right system set up to make, it's not foolproof because we're human, but to make good decisions.

Warwick F:

So, you made a decision that many wouldn't have. Many would've stayed at Rice, most maybe at that age, just objectively speaking. And many might have said, "Look let me shoo that holy discontent thing out of the way. It's Gordon. They have high confidence in me, the board of trustees. We're doing well. Record fundraising, lower tuition. I could just coast here for the next 10, 15, 20 years and life is good. Why would I want to leave a good thing? Who does that? Most wouldn't. They would stay there forever. You probably could have. But yet, you decided not to. And it was only because of how robust and rust-free your hinge was.

Warwick F:

Thank you for bringing this back to that Gary, because it's ... To make good decisions, you need good hinges. I feel like, why would you leave on the table what the Lord would have for you in life? If you're a believer, you'll still go to heaven all. If you're not a believer, you could still have a great life, but maybe there's an optimal path that you're missing out on. Why miss out on that optimal path of even greater service and joy and fulfillment? Why do that? By navigating your hinge moments well, you will be open to some of the most exciting, fulfilling experiences you could possibly have.

Warwick F:

Yeah, now's the time to oil the hinges, figure out your own cardinal virtues. I'm an executive coach at heart, so whatever that means to you, every person has the God-given right, from my perspective, to figure out their own path and their own virtues. Figure it out, have a good team, have a mentor and you'll be better set for when those next hinge moments come. So, excellent. Just as we kind of wrap up here, we've got the last one of realization. One of the things you talk about here is, which is very personal, you talk about responding to hard joys.

Warwick F:

You mentioned you've got three daughters, but your oldest, you found out when she was a few months old, that there was some genetic things going on. I mean, I've never really heard that phrase a hard joy. Why'd you put that in that last chapter in realization? What was the link there between? Because that's sort of fascinating that you talk about that there.

Michael L:

I think a lot of times we look at everybody else's life and just assume that everything is rosy, that the trajectory they've been on is like a line graph where everything is moving up and to the right in a real positive direction. When in fact, a lot of us encounter challenges and hardships along the way. Parenting a special needs daughter was not something my wife and I expected. We love Elizabeth and are grateful for all the good that has come in to our life. And there has been joy, but it has not been easy at all. Caring for Elizabeth is an all consuming part of our family's calling. So, it's been a hard joy in a number of ways. We have to just be honest and acknowledge that. And yet, there have been moments of real encouragement and inspiration and it's certainly changed who I am for the better.

Michael L:

From my own sort of character development, I would say, I'm a much better father, I'm a much better person, I'm a much better boss because I have had some of those hard joys along the way. My hunch is that each of us can probably point to things that have been ongoing sources of pain or difficulty that it's God's providence, have become real sources of great joy and inspiration as well.

Gary S:

That sound to you, our listeners, is the captain turning on the fast seatbelt sign indicating that it's about time to land the plane of this conversation, but we're not quite there yet. Before we get there for sure, Michael, I would be remiss if I did not give you the opportunity to let listeners know how they can both find out more about Taylor University and about you online. How can they learn more about your books and about your college that you're president of?

Michael L:

Well, you're very nice to say that Gary. I hope that folks would check us out at wwwd.taylor.edu. Taylor is an amazing institution, just ranked number one university in the Midwest and we're really proud of the good things that are happening here on campus. If you have a son or a daughter, or a grandson or granddaughter, or somebody who is of the high school age that's looking at universities, we hope that they'll consider Taylor. My web presence is also on taylor.edu/president, and you can learn all kinds of good things. I hope you'll consider buying a copy of Hinge Moments. It's a great book and one that we're hoping to share with a much wider audience. Thank you so much for having me on today.

Gary S:

Great. Warwick. You get the last question so bring the plane on the ground.

Warwick F:

I love one of the last things you talk about in your conclusion, is redemption through hinge moments. You talk about how God uses failure to help us grow and grow up, and just the value of failures or successes for that matter. And certainly in my case, just the pain of losing this 150-year-old 2 billion plus business, which was excruciating, and even when you recover from crucible experiences, there are always scars that are left. But that sense of redemption, certainly in 2008, when I gave that talk in church and somehow my story, it felt like could be used to help others. That was a hinge moment where I definitely felt redemption.

Warwick F:

Speaking at Taylor and just seeing the response. I'm very careful whenever those things happen as to physically or proverbially get on my knees and say, "All glory to God, All glory to God," because it's all him. But just talk in, it's our last question, I've just loved that phrase, redemption through hinge moments. That really rang true to me.

Michael L:

Well, it's certainly, I find that the best way that you sort of make sense and make meaning of these hinge moments is for us to take stock and say, okay, well, how has this shaped my character? How has this helped me to become a better person, a better family member, a better professional? I think that that does become the way in which redemption will occur. It can use the pains and difficulty, and while you're right, it does leave scars, those scars don't remain open wounds. Because of that, your skin becomes tougher, stronger, more supple, so that it can navigate additional challenges. I also find that, generally speaking, we rise to the level of the challenge, whatever it might be.

Michael L:

For those who are, in the current moment, being given great challenge, it's because you also have great character and great potential. My hope is that through the crucibles that we experience and the hinge moments that come along our way, God can use that to redeem us so that we can be even more effective in our respective callings.

Gary S:

I have been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject's been spoken. I also know when someone has just added something to his or her resume. Michael's resume is very, very, very impressive with his books and his education and his leadership of colleges. Who knew he could land a plane so well too? He landed that plane perfectly in our discussion. Listener, thank you so much for your time with us.

Gary S:

As you wait around for the next time, which comes in a week if you're listening to this episode when it comes on live, you have homework, and it makes perfect sense to have homework because we're talking to a college president. You have homework. The homework is this, make certain that your ... Take the time in the next week to make sure that your hinges are inoperable order. Oil them. Make sure that the nails are there, make sure that there's not any rust on them. Really dig into, find out, identify your hinges where they are and make sure that they're in working order.

Gary S:

Then, until the next time we're together, please remember that we do understand your crucible experiences are painful. They do change the trajectory of your life. All of us have experienced them. You have experienced them, but we know, through our own experience and through the experience of guests like Michael and other folks we've had on this show, that your crucible experience is not the end of your story. In fact, it can be the beginning of a new chapter in your story, which can be the best chapter in your story. Because when you learn the lessons of your crucibles, when you embrace them as hinge moments to walk to something new and better, they can be the best chapter of your story, because where they lead at the end of the day is to a life of significance.

Most of the time, we define crucible experiences as setbacks and failures. But can success be its own crucible? Dean Niewolny  didn’t think so as he climbed the corporate ladder in his financial-services career. He was focused on not just keeping up with the Joneses, but surpassing them. He had the corner office, the multiple homes, the plane … but he also had a gnawing sense there was more. That he wasn’t living his calling. That changed when he got involved with the Halftime Institute, which helps men and women look beyond their life’s bottom line to its impact. He’s served the organization as an executive and captured the insights of his work helping others live with legacy in mind in his book TRADE UP: HOW TO MOVE FROM JUST MAKING MONEY TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

To learn more about Dean Niewolny, visit https://halftimeinstitute.org/team/speakers/dean-niewolny/

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Dean N:

Going from success to significance doesn't mean you have to give up success. You surely, surely can be successful and significant at the same time. I would argue that in today's day and age with the younger audience, it's, "Hey, I want to be significant now. I want to make a difference now" so the idea of going from success to significance was a fantastic tagline in the '90s for the book Halftime, but that's a little dated in my opinion at this point, but for me, personally, I just started to feel as I got more successful, that every time I got more successful, there was another hill to climb, there was always someone else in front of me, there was always ... It didn't matter what I accomplished. There was always someone else that I needed to try to jump over. I'm like, well, this is just an endless game for me because it wasn't bringing me happiness, it was bringing me a lot of stress.

Gary S:

Most of the time, we define crucible experiences as setbacks and failures but can success be its own crucible? This week's guest, Dean Niewolny says that was the case for him. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show.

Gary S:

In his conversation with me and Warwick, Niewolny describes how not just keeping up with the Joneses but surpassing them fueled his career for far too long. He had the corner office, the multiple homes, the plane but he also had a gnawing sense there was more, that he wasn't living his calling.

Gary S:

That changed when he got involved with the Half Time Institute, which helps men and women look beyond their life's bottom line to its impact. He's served the organized as an executive and captured the insights of his work helping others live with legacy in mind in his book Trade Up: How To Move From Just Making Money to Making A Difference.

Warwick F:

Well, Dean, thank you so much for being here. I love the title of your book, Trade Up: How To Move From Just Making Money to Making A Difference, and the whole notion of Half Time to help leaders of organizations, business leaders, really all leaders move from success to significance, which is sorely needed in our societies.

Warwick F:

Tell us just a bit about your family growing up in Wisconsin and the background which, obviously, you end up at Half Time but what was it like for Dean growing up and your family? Tell us a bit about the backstory.

Dean N:

Sure. Yeah. I am a Cheese Head. I'm a Wisconsinite and grew up in a little town called Wausau, Wisconsin in north central Wisconsin and grew up with a fantastic family, probably a low to middle class family I would say. We didn't have a lot but we had everything we needed. Two sisters. They're all back in Wisconsin and while I'm living in Minnesota.

Dean N:

As a young guy, we had what we needed. We were farmers and we worked hard but I always had this dream at a young age of how can I get out there and be the next Warren Buffett or the next Bill Gates? As a young man, I ended up going to a school in Wisconsin and then ended up getting hired initially by Arthur Anderson, I went out to be a consultant with Arthur Anderson, and then went into the financial services industry. A very Midwestern upbringing, family of farmers. It was great.

Warwick F:

Just in looking at your book, you tend to look over the fence or over the other side of the tracks and people were successful and, "Hey, this could be me." There was just this drive from a young age and athletics was huge for you in high school and college. Talk about ... Was that you? Was there any examples in your family? It seemed like almost from birth you just had this drive to ... You wanted to make it in life. You weren't just satisfied with the status quo. Where did that come from, this drive?

Dean N:

Yeah. Great question. I would say I had fantastic parents. My dad is my best friend. Very close to my parents. We were always comparing ourselves to others. We would see others who had bigger cars or bigger homes and nicer things, if you will. I just remember us always comparing ourselves to those folks. As a young kid, it was ingrained into me that I want to be one of those folks, I want to have those things because that's what we were looking up to. I thought if I can just achieve what they have achieved, and that success and money and material possessions, that'll bring me happiness. No disrespect to my mom and dad whatsoever but as a young man, it was ingrained in me as I started to look at others that I want to be like those folks.

Warwick F:

It's kind of interesting because, obviously, I grew up in Australia but definitely respect America and part of what makes America America is the sense of inventiveness, they're willing to try, they're willing to fail almost, the sense of you want your kids to have a better life than you had. For 150 years, 200 years, that's always been the ethos. It's not wrong to want to better yourself and do well and achieve, per se.

Warwick F:

That notion you grew up with is probably a notion that many, if not most, American families grew up with. Say, "I want my kids ... If I didn't go to college, I want my kids to go to college. I want them to have a better job than I did." That's generations of family in every state in the country has that ethos. It's not unusual in that sense and we'll get into there's nothing wrong with success but in of itself, you don't want to worship it.

Warwick F:

I mean, as you look back, that probably wasn't that unusual in that sense, your friends that you hung out with, it's probably you weren't the only family that said, "Hey, we want to better ourselves and do well", right?

Dean N:

Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. My son right now is 19 years old and he talks like I did when I was a young kid, "I want to be wealthy and I want to have all these things." What ended up happening in my life is that that became the center point of my life. That was the main focus. That work was going to bring me happiness if I just focused on that. It was an idol to me. I was obsessed with it at a young age. That becomes a challenge.

Warwick F:

Indeed. Let's talk about that. An idol is a good word. You started off in finance with Arthur Anderson. You're thinking originally accounting and you thought, "I don't think I want to do this. I want to be in sales. I want to sell finance stuff." Talk a bit about those first few jobs as you ... I think there was one, you were, as young brokers do, dialing for dollars. Like 300 calls a day and you were disciplined, you were on it, which is admirable. Talk about those early days as you were working your way up.

Dean N:

Sure. Sure. I did become a stock broker but actually it wasn't a dream of mine. It happened when I was at Arthur Anderson and the guy next to me said, "You know, Niewolny, you don't know what you're doing. What are you doing here? You should go out and get a different job" so that's when I started thinking, "Well, what should I do?"

Dean N:

I was 23 years old and decided being a stock broker sounds like something that would be really interesting. I knew nothing about stocks, nothing about financial markets and walked into the Merrill Lynch office, way back in 1987, and just said, "Hey, I would really like to become a financial advisor. Do you have a position for me?"

Dean N:

I'll never forget it, the gentleman that I was talking to was on the way to the Final Four basketball tournament. He said, "You know what? I don't have a lot of time right now. You seem like a good kid. Come back in two weeks and you have a job." That was it. That started my financial career with Merrill Lynch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin back in 1987.

Dean N:

You're right. What happened at the very beginning as a young financial advisor, my boss told me, "Dean, you need to make 250 dials every single day, 50 contacts every single day, and then hand the sheet into me at the end of the evening", which I did. He said, "If you live two years like no one else wants to, you'll live the rest of your life like no one else can."

Dean N:

Of course, this drug being money, for me, at the time, that was just music to my ears. I was just locked and loaded for the next two years. I just dialed for dollars and made the cold calls and became reasonably successful at a young age, at 23, 24 years old.

Dean N:

Yeah. That's how I started in the financial business.

Warwick F:

Over the years, you started moving up the ladder and I'm sure being a manager and being very successful, you had I think ... What? Maybe several houses at one point, the lake house, the boat. Talk about ... I mean, that rise, your dreams did come true in that sense. You were successful, you worked very hard, and I'm sure you earned your success but talk about that rise up the ladder from young stock broker to I guess the pinnacle being a manager of a $100 million portfolio at Wells Fargo. Talk a bit about that journey. Any sort of high points on the way?

Dean N:

Absolutely. Yeah. I was financial advisor out in Carmel, California and then moved back to the Midwest and I was encouraged at that time to make a transition from Merrill Lynch to a company at the time called Payne Weber, which no longer exists, but they merged with Kidder, Peabody, and, ultimately, were bought by UBS.

Dean N:

I was encouraged at that time to move to Chicago and go into management. What ended up happening is during that time, one of my crucible moments happened in 1994, right after I moved over to this new organization, I ended up going through a very difficult divorce at a young age.

Dean N:

I had to start over. Here I am, 1994, I'm 31, I'm successful, I'm making money, have all these different toys, married, and pretty soon everything unraveled and I had to start over. As I started over, I moved to Chicago, got into management, started moving up the ladder and did various jobs with UBS. I went down to Texas and then back to Chicago and then became a regional manager and a market manager.

Dean N:

At the same time, as I started to rebuild, I met this beautiful lady, who is my wife, Lisa, and had two fantastic kids. Like you said, started accumulating possessions. We had a home in Chicago and a home outside of Chicago and a lake house and actually I became a pilot at that time and had a little airplane, nothing major, single engine but a little airplane and a boat.

Dean N:

I was thinking to myself, "As I continue to make money and accumulate these things, I'm just going to have more joy in my life and more happiness." What ended up happening was the complete opposite for me. It was the opposite. I actually had a bout with hives and I was so stressed out thinking, "Well, I have to pay the insurance on that house. I have to get the airplane fixed. I've got to take care of the boat", that I was so stressed out about taking care of my stuff, that in 2006, I just had this moment where I just said, "There just has to be more to life than this."

Warwick F:

Talk about that scene. I think you write in the book, was it like the 40th floor of some massive skyscraper in Chicago and you're looking out. Just talk about that moment. It feels like that's one of the pivotal moments in your life. It's like what is life about? Take us through that moment as you're staring out that window.

Dean N:

Sure. I'm going to back up just a little bit, in 1995, I accepted Christ and started going to a church in Chicago. My first thought was, "Well, if I accept Christ, I have to leave the marketplace and go into the ministry. I'm not supposed to stay in the marketplace."

Warwick F:

Right. Right.

Dean N:

The pastor that weekend said, "Well, if everyone left the marketplace and went into the ministry, who would be a light in a dark world?" I thought, "Well, I'll stay in the marketplace."

Dean N:

In 1999, there was this gentleman that got interviewed, Bob Buford, and I was in the third row and I was thinking, "Boy, that guy is impressive, he's talking about going from success to significance." I'm thinking to myself, "Well, I'm all about this success thing. I'm not so sure about the significance piece."

Dean N:

But then we fast forward six years from there to 2006, 40th floor of the Mercantile Exchange Building, the corner office, all the homes and the airplane, the boat, beautiful wife, kids, and I just looked out the window one day ... I shut the door, looked out the window one day, and just said, "God, there has to be more to life than this. There has to be more to life than this."

Dean N:

It was up to that point Warwick I spent so much time focusing on myself, it was all about me and accumulating things and making me happy and I wasn't thinking of others. I just remember that day really, really well. I didn't hear an audible voice but I felt the lord say, "Dean, I have other plans for your life. Start to simplify your life." That was the episode on the 40th floor. It was a game-changer.

Dean N:

My boss actually reached out to me two weeks later and said, "Would you be interested in doing a book study?" I said, "Absolutely. What's the book?" He said, "It's Half Time. I'd like you to read the book Half Time." I said, "Well, I heard that guy get interviewed in 1999" and that was just perfect.

Warwick F:

What's fascinating about your story is it's not a simple kind of Paul road to Damascus moment. It seemed like it was a journey. You'd come to faith in Christ at a church in Chicago a few years before. You'd heard Bob Buford, who for listeners, I think was from Texas and had a bunch of TV stations and was very successful and, obviously, you know better than I do, but lost a son in I think a drowning accident, which turned his life and, gosh, what is life about? You lose your only son. That's about as devastating as it can possibly be.

Warwick F:

It wasn't like this road to Damascus moment, okay, I've accepted Jesus, boom, you know? Dean Niewolny's life instantly turns on a dime. I think it's more realistic because for most people, life doesn't change overnight. It's almost like being an aircraft carrier, right? It changes slowly. Just talk a bit about that journey. I think it's very realistic and it's more typical.

Dean N:

You're right. When I heard Bob speak in 1999, and he talked about this idea of going from success to significance, that really did begin a journey for me that I didn't even realize at the time, that just little by little, I started to look outward and I started to volunteer and I served at a homeless shelter and I helped the homeless put resumes together so they could go out and get gainfully employed.

Dean N:

But God was using that time in my life as building blocks to get me to this point of 2006, and everyone doesn't need to make a transition like Bob Buford did from the marketplace to the ministry, or like I did. Most people actually stay in the marketplace. But for me, it was a journey. If I look back, it's interesting, you can connect the dots in how it was a building block kind of effect up to 2006 when I had the 40th floor office experience.

Gary S:

We're going to get into what significance is and how you discovered that but for the listener who hears this in apposition, the idea of success and significance and thinks, "Success still sounds like it might be kind of interesting", it's very rare to be sitting in a virtual space with two individuals who have had after their names, $100 million, in your case, Dean, billions in your case, Warwick, and both of you have come to the same conclusion, that that success didn't bring happiness.

Gary S:

For people who hear that sometimes and think it's empty, this idea of, "Success doesn't really fulfill, that's not true, success would fulfill me. It was just you had a problem with it", talk a little bit, Dean, about what was it about success that was unfulfilling for you ultimately. There you were, you were saying that the other side of the tracks is where happiness lies. It wasn't that. Was there a moment besides your health failure? When did you start to sniff that success just wasn't what you had made it out to be when you were younger?

Dean N:

Yeah. Great question, Gary. Just to clarify too, I wasn't personally worth $100 million. I managed a $100 million business. What ended up happening is as I started to be successful and started getting promoted and making more money and accumulating more things, it actually had the opposite effect for me, like I said earlier. It started to cause me to be more stressed than I was without those things.

Dean N:

I really had to take time and think through why is that? What I want to make sure and say here is that going from success to significance doesn't mean you have to give up success. You surely, surely can be successful and significant at the same time. I would argue that in today's day and age, with the younger audience, it's, "Hey, I want to be significant now, I want to make a difference now" so the idea of going from success to significance was a fantastic tagline in the '90s for the book Half Time but that's a little dated in my opinion at this point but, for me, personally, I just started to feel as I got more successful that every time I got more successful, there was another hill to climb. There was always someone else in front of me. There was always ... It didn't matter what I accomplished. There was always someone else that I needed to try to jump over.

Dean N:

I'm like, "Well, this is just an endless game for me" because it wasn't bringing me happiness. It was bringing me a lot of stress.

Gary S:

Yeah. You were constantly crossing over the tracks, right? You were constantly trying to get to whatever was on the other side of the tracks over and over and over again. That's got to be exhausting.

Dean N:

Yeah. It was for me, personally. For many others, it may not be. Having material possessions and money and all that, there's nothing wrong with that. For me, what was wrong with it was I made those things an idol. That was my total focus, right? This idea of making money, nothing wrong with that. We need people to make money. Hey, our nonprofit needs money, so make money. You know? The reality is how do you use that money? Is the money for personal gain? What is it really for?

Warwick F:

Yeah. No. It's such a good point what you're saying. I have, as listeners would know, a very different journey. Similar experience but about as different a journey as you can imagine and listeners know this. I grew up in about as wealthy a family as you can imagine in Sydney, Australia. A 150 year old, very large media company, newspapers, TV, magazines. Not only did we have wealth but we had status and respect.

Warwick F:

For people on the marketplace, that's ... You've won the lottery at that point. We didn't just have money. We had respect in society. Money, respect, status, what more is there that you want in life? Some people have money but are not respected at all. You know? When you have all of them, you've got everything the world says that you would want, and so we had that. We had parties with people from Hollywood, ambassadors, business leaders, and it just all seemed to me so empty growing up, everybody trying to impress each other with the deals they had done and royalty they met or whatever. It just seemed so empty. I don't know. It never was attractive to me. I was almost inoculated at a young age.

Warwick F:

I'd experienced all that and it certainly wasn't making my family happy. You know? In of itself, wealthy families have typically lots of problems.

Gary S:

If I can jump in right before you turn into, and say something to our listeners that I think is fascinating by both of the stories that you've just told, because it's very rare it happens on Beyond The Crucible that this is true, in some ways, is it true for both of you that success was its own crucible? The way that you experienced success, the way that you chased it, the way that you wrapped yourself around it, did that become, at some point, for both of you, your own crucible?

Dean N:

I'll chime in here, I would say, for me, it's still a crucible, what I'm working on. Absolutely. It was a crucible for me because it was my driving focus, day in and day out. Back prior to going through the Half Time program and what I'm doing now in the nonprofit world, the idea was all about myself and focused on myself. Once I went through the program, I started thinking of others and trying to make a difference with my finances.

Dean N:

I'll tell you every day, even now when I get up, I still have to pray every morning that that doesn't become an idol for me, that I don't focus on it day in and day out. I'd love to say I'm succeeding at that but I'm not. I have to work at that every single day.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, I want to come back to that in a second because that's such an ... Thank you for being so honest about it because that is helpful. Yeah. For me, I guess the pinnacle of success, if you will, is I launched this $2.2 billion takeover in late August '87 and within a few months, it had "succeeded" and I was controlling shareholder proprietor of this big company at age 26.

Warwick F:

The world would say, "Boy, controlling a multi-billion dollar company at 26, that's pretty good. Not too many people have achieved that kind of benchmark." A media company that had the equivalent of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, but yet it was kind of miserable because it was, as listeners know, all about duty and living up to my great-great-grandfather's vision. I wasn't even fulfilling my own vision. As soon as we had succeeded, it was miserable. I just did not want to be there. There was no joy. Even though, for me, it wasn't so much about money, it was this idealistic vision, but I think what you just said about being aware of your idols and temptations, a wise man or woman does that.

Warwick F:

For me, it's not money but it's more ... My Wikipedia entry until recently was young, hot-headed kid could have had it all and blew it. Do I mind that? Yes, I do mind that. You know, would it be nice if folks in Australia and the media gave me a little ounce of respect one day? It may never happen but do I mind that? Sure.

Warwick F:

With this book that when I first got a copy of that book a number of months ago, like in April, I was literally on my knees in prayer and saying, "Lord, I don't care whether this book sells one or 10,000, my self-worth is not going to be bound up in book sales." My sense of, okay, he's back finally I'll get some respect here. I don't want that desire for respect and that desire for redemption in the world's eyes to define who I am.

Warwick F:

Yes, I'm human, so if a gossip column comes out in one of the Australian papers, as it did a few weeks ago, and it was the snarky stuff like, "Hey, Warwick has a book, which he'll sell you for a price." It's like who sells a book for nothing? It's like, "Warwick talks about failure. Well, he'd be an expert on that, wouldn't he?"

Warwick F:

It's like really? Did I mind that? Yes, I minded that. I've gotten over it, kind of, but do I mind that? Yes. Money is not my deal. It's more respect, redemption. For me, I wouldn't say idol but know your temptations and when you feel that little negative thought coming, if you're a person of faith, get on your knees, pray, and say, "Lord, help me with this temptation. Don't let me have my self-esteem wrapped up in money, redemption, respect." It's for my, and your perspective, it's only in you Lord, not ... Yeah. My temptations are different but they're still temptations, if that makes sense.

Warwick F:

Let's talk about Half Time and your book Trade Up because I think this is fascinating. There is one story in the transition that ... I don't know. Your wife, her name is ... Your wife's name is Lisa?

Dean N:

Lisa.

Warwick F:

I don't know whether she's a prophet but I guess she was at one point, which is just crazy. Talk about that prophetic moment that she had about your role in Half Time, which at the time seemed like crazy stuff, right?

Dean N:

Yeah. Yeah. It did. I think she's a prophet. Anyway, what ended up happening is in 2008, I went through the Half Time program after having this 40th floor office experience. One thing I realized at that point is I'm going to figure out what God wants to do through me one way or another. We read the book Half Time, went down to the Half Time program, which was fabulous.

Dean N:

But at that point, I was still working in the marketplace. We transitioned from Wachovia to Wells Fargo Advisors and I was working there in Chicago overseeing that business. Lisa loved southern California, still loves southern California, and Chicago. She knew those two places on the map. I said, "Why don't we go to Laguna Beach? They're having a Half Time event. You can enjoy California and I can enjoy Half Time."

Dean N:

We went together and I had an interaction with a gentleman from Bob Buford's organization there that day and he came up and said, "Hey, Dean, I really would like to get to know you better. Do you mind if I come up to Chicago and spend a little bit of time with you?" I said sure. At that time, Half Time was looking to get into the financial services a little bit and partner with some financial services organizations. I thought, "Sure. Come on up to Chicago."

Dean N:

Well, that night, we go to bed and three o'clock in the morning, and this is not like my wife, whatsoever, by the way, woke up at three o'clock in the morning. She's sitting straight up. I said, "What happened?" She goes, "I just had a dream." I said, "A dream about what?"

Dean N:

She said, "The dream was about we're moving from Chicago to Dallas, Texas and you're going to become the CEO of the Half Time Institute." I said, "Lisa, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard." I said, "They probably want me to come to talk about the financial services industry" and that connection. She said, "No. You're going to become the CEO and we're moving to Dallas, Texas."

Dean N:

Well, I knew when she said Dallas, Texas that that had to be from the Lord because it wasn't from her. That's not where we were thinking of moving. Nonetheless, he came and four months later, they offered me the position, as you mentioned earlier, of managing director of Half Time. I said, "Lisa, see, I wasn't the CEO. I was the managing director." Then a year later, they changed it and said, "Now you're the CEO." Yeah. It was a dream that she had, that's why we're here.

Warwick F:

Talk a bit about Half Time because not everybody will be familiar with Half Time and then, obviously, that leads into your book. What is the mission of Half Time? What's its vision?

Dean N:

Sure. The vision really is to help men and women around the world identify what we call their Ephesians 2:10 Calling. Ephesians said we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that he has prepared beforehand. We believe that everyone has good works, that the lord has given to them, and Half Time helps men and women all over the world identify what are their strengths, what are their spiritual gifts, what are their passions, and we connect them into those things.

Dean N:

We really teach, coach, and connect individuals around the world into their 2:10 Calling, as we like to say.

Warwick F:

You know, one of the things I found fascinating in your book and I can relate to this, that a lot of churches and places, somebody, some businessman or woman comes to faith and it's like they don't know what to do. Maybe they start being an usher or setting chairs and there's nothing wrong with doing any of that but the question is from God's perspective, is that the best use of their gifts for the kingdom, setting chairs or being an usher? Again, it's not about it being beneath you but it's kind of what ...

Warwick F:

It's funny. I guess there is a story in my life that really directly relates to I think to me what's a core, from what I understand a Half Time concept is just lean in to your gifting and I would say God-given passions and calling. There was a time, as listeners would know, I was ... Back in the '90s, when I was not doing too well, just after this whole company went under and I felt like I had let God down ... The founder of the company was a strong believer. When you feel like you've let God down, that's a pretty crushing crucible for a believer.

Warwick F:

Anyway, I ended up working in an aviation services company doing financial and business analysis because I'm pretty analytical, I can do that. I remember in 2003, I felt like the Lord telling me, "You are playing small. You're not honoring me with all the gifts and abilities that I've given you." It wasn't so much that it was beneath me but yet I had more to offer, so then I got into coaching, a couple of nonprofit boards, including my church board and then from there, Crucible Leadership, which is a whole other story.

Warwick F:

That was a pivot point for me feeling like the Lord saying, "You're playing small. You're dishonoring me because you're not using all of the gifts you have for the Kingdom." That feels like ... I didn't know it at the time but it's sort of a Half Time way of thinking, wouldn't you say? In terms of Half Time's philosophy?

Dean N:

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, Warwick, I like to say volunteering is something you get to do, your calling is something you have to do. Very rarely do folks take the time to really understand what is their true calling? God gives us and provides us with strengths and spiritual gifts and abilities, and I believe he wants to use those and plug them into areas of need and, like we say, things that Jesus really cares about, the orphans, the widows, the prisoners, others.

Dean N:

When I was younger, I volunteered, like I said, for a homeless shelter, which was fantastic. I loved it. I enjoyed helping them put their resumes together. But my skillset and my ability allowed me to do more than that and make a bigger impact. It's the leverage impact. I agree with what you're saying.

Warwick F:

Talk about how Half Time does this. You know, we talk about this a bit in Crucible Leadership. Let's say a leader comes in, they're probably still on the fast track, initially, but they're curious about Half Time and about Jesus and all. How do you begin to turn that ship in terms of finding their calling? Talk a little bit, at least, at a high level, some of the elements that Half Time does to try to ... As that newbie CEO type comes in and is all about focus on success, but yet they're curious about the lord and you try to turn into what's the Ephesians 2:10 work that God would have for them. How do you do that? It sounds like not an easy thing to achieve or to accomplish.

Dean N:

Yeah. Most folks who come through the program are at that point that I was at, that smoldering discontent state trying to figure out what is my life really all about? Most successful leaders, not all, but most successful leaders that I've encountered really struggle to have close relationships, close friends, and they're lonely. If you're a CEO or a leader and you're struggling through a crucible issue, who do you go talk to? You're not going to talk to your staff or your team.

Dean N:

Most come ready to really figure out what does God want to do through me? What's the next season look like? All people want to leave a legacy and have an impact and make a difference. When they get there, we have different exercises that really allow that person to be vulnerable and open and safe and we go about it in such a way that once they get authentic and real, we start talking about the head journey, which is, of course, the head journey has to do with we decide what we think we're going to do or what we're good at but then there's a heart journey. There's the holy spirit, there's the guidance from God who guides you. It's the head and heart journey.

Dean N:

At first, you're right. When they get there, I would say most are struggling through something, they're unhappy, they're at this point where, "I want more to my life. I want to make a difference. It may be initially they're struggling in their marriage or with their kids or don't have relationships there." We help with those things to help them get free and then get clear and then get going as we like to say.

Dean N:

It's a very interesting process that if someone comes in and they have an arrogance about them and they're not ready to be coached and they're not in that season, it is difficult. You're absolutely right. But most are ready to do that.

Warwick F:

You have a couple fascinating things. I think you talk about also in your book, the whole 80th birthday party experience, what do you want your legacy to be? That's such a powerful question. Talk just a little bit about that whole concept of legacy and that 80th birthday party image, because it's a fascinating image.

Dean N:

Yeah. It brings back scary memories for me, quite honestly. I remember what ended up happening, I was working at the time still in the marketplace, and I actually did go to a funeral for a lady who was a teacher and there was 500 or 1000 people there. I was like, "Why are so many people here?" They said, "Well, it's because the impact that she had on their lives, the difference she made."

Dean N:

I was sitting in the pew thinking to myself, "Well, if today was my funeral, one, would anyone show up? But secondly, what would they say about me?" That was a very scary thought at the time. When I got to Half Time, they do an 80th birthday party exercise, I guess now we should up it to 85 or 90, but you're invited to your birthday party, your wife or good friend takes you out or spouse takes you out and 200 of your closest friends are in the room and there's a microphone up in the front of the room and, one by one, they walk up and talk about the difference you made on humanity, not on yourself. What difference have you made on humanity? What difference have you made on others? What would you like to hear?

Dean N:

I remember when we went through that exercise, I was like, "They would say, 'Dean is successful, making a lot of money, he has all these different toys" but the impact I had on others or humanity was very minimal at the time. It's an exercise, as you think forward, at the end of your life, what do you want your legacy to be? What impact have you had? That's the 80th birthday party exercise.

Warwick F:

I love that. One of the things I sometimes talk about, obviously, in the world of finance, you talk about ROI, but I often think what about EROI? The eternal return on investment. You know? I wonder if the time is like what's my EROI? What kind of impact am I having for the kingdom? Would I invest in me? At that age, that would have been an interesting conversation at that time. You know? Would I get the buy this stock or not buy this stock from a kingdom perspective?

Dean N:

Well said. I never thought about it that way but you're right.

Warwick F:

One of the other things I love about Half Time is you talk about having a personal board of directors that will ask good questions but these are people that know you, I think you mentioned your wife, your coach but within Half Time ... Talk about that whole concept. Most people do not have a personal board of directors that have the backstage pass, the freedom to say, "Hey, Dean, Warwick, there's a problem here." You know? Who sets themselves up for those conversations? Nobody. Talk about why that's so powerful.

Dean N:

Yeah. The personal board of directors is critical. I think it's right up there with coaching that we do at Half Time. The personal board of directors ... To have those cheerleaders when you need those cheerleaders, when you're down and you're struggling, you need cheerleaders around you. When we talk about the characteristics of someone who finishes well, there's five things and one is have a group of encouragers around you.

Dean N:

The personal board of directors, for me, personally, has been life-changing. I identify four personal board members, if you will, and any good company, of course, has a strong board. For my board, I actually have someone when I'm having marital issues or issues with my children, there's someone, he's a pastor that I would reach out to for that and if I'm having challenges maybe around business, there's someone that I chat regarding that.

Dean N:

I have four to five folks on my personal board of directors but they have carte blanche. They can say anything to me, and I want them to say what's on their heart. It might not be what I want to hear, but it's probably what I need to hear, right? I don't mind them sharing. It's the person at 3:30 in the morning, if I have a major issue is going to answer the phone and be there. You're right, most don't have that but it's really something that's vital to have for sure.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Just keep you on the path you want to be on. You mentioned those five things. I think it's the five characteristics of leaving a legacy, those are the five you're talking about. Just give us a little overview of those five because you mentioned I guess a second one is maybe cheerleaders, the personal board of directors, but talk about some of the other five.

Dean N:

Sure. Health is critical. The five characteristics of those who finish well really has come out of countless hours of coaching over the years. Tens of thousands of hours. The five that have come out of that, believe it or not, number one, those who succeed and win and leave a legacy have taken care of their health. It's hard to go and live out your Ephesians 2:10 Calling if you're not healthy.

Warwick F:

Indeed.

Dean N:

You need to be healthy. They're flexible. Flexible, meaning as we get older and I'm surely guilty of this, I'm getting old and stodgy, I don't want to make changes, I don't want to make adjustments. My son just had a football game that was changed 10 miles away and I was complaining about them changing the site. I was not very flexible. But those who are flexible absolutely succeed.

Dean N:

Then you have, I already mentioned it, the encouragers, those folks around you who are encouragers and, of course, your spouse and others. You want to identify those folks. The fourth would be your family. Put your family number one. This was a big learning for me. When I went to Half Time, I remember Bob Buford asking me, "Where is Lisa in all of this?" I said, "Well, I don't know where Lisa is but I know I need to get going and I've got to figure out my 2:10 Calling." He said, "Dean, whatever you do, just stop." Putting others' interests ahead of your own. Then, of course, your calling, figuring out what is your Ephesians 2:10 Calling, what's God's calling on your life, those are the five.

Gary S:

I was going to say speaking of calling, one of my callings as co-host of Beyond the Crucible is to know when the sound I hear in the distance is the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign to indicate that we're getting close to when we're going to land the plane. We're not going to land it yet but it's time to gather our peanut bags up and get ready to give them to the flight attendants to throw away.

Gary S:

Warwick, in the time we have left, I know you have some questions you want to ask, Dean, go ahead and do that. Just wanted to fulfill my calling as the co-host.

Warwick F:

All good. All good. I guess as we wrap up, there's so much in the book that we can't get to and I'd encourage all listeners to get Trade Up: How To Move From Just Making Money to Making A Difference. I love the phrase that you and Half Time use, it's not just from success to significance but success to significance to surrender. I mean, oh my gosh, that's a powerful concept.

Warwick F:

I wanted to just ... This may be a last question. I think it's the first chapter, you ask these three incredible questions like is there not a cause? Is there in you a sweet spot? What is your giant, which is kind of the smoldering discontent. Just that notion, is there not a cause? I guess that's relating to calling, right? I mean, that's like the first question you start out with the book. You use the example of David. Talk about ... I love that phase, is there not a cause? Just talk about that phrase.

Dean N:

Most folks, or a lot of folks, feel they don't have a passion around anything and what we find out is everyone's passionate about something, everyone is passionate about some cause. We do an exercise where we ask folks, why don't you read the USA Today for a week and come back to us and let us know what makes you mad, sad, or glad. What really catches you?

Dean N:

This idea of having a cause or something that you really care about, that you're passionate about, everyone has it but it takes time to uncover it. It's not a weekend seminar where all of a sudden it just kind of pops up. Now it can happen that way but usually it takes time to uncover it.

Dean N:

The second part, I think folks sometimes make it too complicated. We have a lady that went through the Half Time program and she said, "You know what I love to do? I love to rock babies." She rocks babies of drug addicted mothers in Houston at a hospital. Another gentleman went through and his passion was prayer. He wanted to see more prayer and he invited a few folks to pray and that has turned into the global day of prayer. His passion was prayer, her passion was rocking babies. Everyone has a passion.

Dean N:

I remember something that really stands out to me when we had a group in and a gentleman said, "I'm really not passionate about anything" and about 30 seconds later, he starts talking about, "I just wish everyone could go to college. I don't know why some get to go to college and some don't." Right there was his passion.

Warwick F:

Right. Right.

Dean N:

Education for everyone. The causes, they're not a cause. Everyone has a cause. Everyone has a passion.

Warwick F:

And within that cause is somebody's God-given calling. As we say in Crucible Leadership, you want to align it with your divine design because our belief is God doesn't make mistakes, so if he designed you a certain way, he wants you to use that for his purpose, so you link up your design, your God-given passions with calling, in our world often that can come out of a crucible. It doesn't have to but I don't want anybody ever to go through what I went through, whether it's abuse or could be a cancer survivor. All in there is calling.

Warwick F:

Maybe the final observation, for me, at least, is as I've found that I've used my brokenness and gifting for, I'd like to think, a Kingdom calling, there's some level of not just joy but healing. It makes it easier to go through the pain and I guess as we close here, have you found that?

Warwick F:

I've certainly made massive mistakes and it sounds like you've made some things that maybe you would look at as maybe sub-optimal choices in other words, maybe mistakes, but does it make it easier to deal with when it's like, okay, I'm living my Ephesians 2:10 Calling, and ... Do you know what I mean? Sometimes we can be our own worst critic and it's like, okay, I was young, I made mistakes but it's when you're using your gifting in service of others, maybe it's a little easier to forgive yourself a little bit, if that makes some degree of sense.

Dean N:

Yeah. Yeah. I'd even add to that that sometimes the pain in your life, ultimately, turns into your calling. It has for you, and it has for others. Who better to guide and coach than someone who has been down a path that you're struggling with? It may be divorce, who knows what it may be. Yeah. Sometimes pain turns into this opportunity to help others and, ultimately, find joy in the pain that you had before because you're serving others. For sure.

Warwick F:

Absolutely. You come across some maybe 30, 40 something person in the world of finance who is just killing it and has got the fast car and the boat and the houses and is doing great. Who better to talk to that person than Dean Niewolny? It's like I've been there. You know? I was you. You don't want to be doing that in 20 years time. You'll have no relationship with your wife or kids. Trust me, you don't want to be there.

Warwick F:

You would be the perfect person to minister to that person, right? You know?

Dean N:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Well, thank you. Thank you for what you do and I love what you do in Half Time. Just your book Trade Up: How To Move From Just Making Money to Making A Difference. Really, I want listeners to hear we're not against success. You just don't want success, as you very well put it, to be an idol. Success is fine, if you use it for the right purposes. You just don't want to worship it. Easier said than done.

Warwick F:

Half Time is a great organization. They will help you understand in the practical ways how to move from success to significance and, ultimately, to surrender. I mean, it's all the Lord's and we're just here as managers and his servants. That's the ultimate destination spiritually and in terms of joy and fulfillment. Thank you so much.

Dean N:

Yeah. Thank you, Warwick. Gary, thank you.

Gary S:

The flight manifest would say that this is the time for the captain to actually land the plane but I have radioed the cockpit to just delay that a little bit because I want to make one thing clear to our listeners from you, Dean, and that is this, I think when people hear the name Half Time, they're like me, they may not be very good at math but they can divide things in two and they go, "Okay, Half Time, if you're supposed to change your life from success to significance, Half Time means if the average life expectancy is, let's say, 85, there I go, I give myself a number 84, you go to 42, it's at 42 that you're supposed to do this."

Gary S:

It's not exactly that specific. You've described it, it's not so much an age Half Time, as it's, what? How would you define it for people to help them understand?

Dean N:

Sure. It's a season of life. It's the season that you're in. Half Time, the sweet spot used to be the 45 to, let's say, 60 year old. What we have seen is that now 20 somethings and 80 somethings, are in that season of Half Time. It's not defined by age. It's defined by the season of life that you're in. You can have smoldering discontent when you're 27 years old. We just had a gentleman go through our program who is 27. He was trying to figure out what's next. We had someone who was 83.

Dean N:

Great question, Gary. The Half Time does sound like it's 45 years old or whatever but it's really much broader than that.

Gary S:

That sound you just heard was the captain putting the plane on the ground. Last words have been spoken on this conversation. Listener, I have a different ending than I normally do here and that's this, because we just kind of expressed this idea, maybe we're listening to this going, "Well, I'm 27. I don't have to worry about this." What Dean just said was it's for anybody. It's a season of life. It's never too early. I think everybody on this conversation would agree, it's never too early to begin thinking about how you can live your life, pursue your purpose, to help others to live your life of significance.

Gary S:

I would say that the learning, your homework assignment here regardless of whether you're 24 or 94, your homework assignment here is to go back and to listen to the section where Dean talks about those five characteristics of people who finish well. They know their calling, they're living their calling, they have cheerleaders, what Dean described as a personal board of directors who can speak truth to them, they're really focused on their family, they have taken care of their health. It's really hard to live your life with significance if you have to live your life marginally because your health has suffered. Especially in your earlier years in life, take care of your health. Then finally, the flexibility, so that when they change your son's sporting event to 10 miles away, you're like, "Okay, great. I get to spend 10 more minutes in the car to chat with my boy." That's the way to look at it.

Gary S:

Listener, thank you so much for spending time with us on this episode of Beyond The Crucible. We hope you have learned some things here that will, indeed, help you as you look to move beyond your crucible. We really encourage you to remember, as you think about what we've discussed on this show, what Warwick and Dean have discussed, hopefully, it's come through loud and clear that your crucible experiences are painful. We know that. We have two men here who have described their crucible as different crucibles, some similarities but different circumstances but the emotions are the same and they're painful, painful things.

Gary S:

Here's the good news, your crucible is not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons of that crucible, if you apply the lessons from that crucible to your life moving forward, it can be the leaping off point to a whole different and a whole better life. Far from being the last chapter in your story, your crucible can be the beginning of a new story, a new chapter in your story, and the best one of all, because where it leads, by the time you get to the final period on the final page, where it leads is to a life of significance.

With the release of my book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance on Oct. 19, I have been speaking a fair amount these last couple of months.  I get a lot of great questions, and one I am always  asked is what is the biggest lesson of my failed $2.25B takeover of my family’s 150-year-old media business in Australia.  My answer is always the same.  The biggest lesson I learned is that you have to live in light of your design.

Growing up, I felt it was my duty to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors.  The company had been in my family for five generations and had grown into a large media company including newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio stations and newsprint mills.  I did my undergraduate degree at Oxford, worked on Wall Street and received my MBA from Harvard Business School.  This was all about fulfilling my destiny as the heir apparent, as my parents saw me.  It was all about duty and family legacy.  It had little to do with what I wanted or with my

In my speech, there is an opening scene where in December 1987, I walk into the John Fairfax Ltd. building for the first time since the takeover had been launched a few months earlier.  I was now in control of the company.  I walk into the elevator with journalists and other staff members.   I remained silent as did they.   I was so uncomfortable.  I couldn’t wait until the elevator reached the top floor.  But it did not get any better.  I entered the wood paneled board room, with the old board, including members of my family about to hand over the reins to my new board.  Staring down at me from the walls of that board room were paintings of my ancestors going back five generations, including the founder of the family company, my great-great grandfather John Fairfax.

The pressure was intense.  In that moment, at some deep level I knew I did not want to be there.  I knew subconsciously  I was in the wrong place.  But I pushed those feelings aside, remembering that I felt it was my duty to do the takeover to restore the company to the ideals of the founder and to see it was well managed.

You probably have not launched a $2.25B takeover at age 26 as I did in 1987, but you might feel that you are living someone else’s life. That you are living a lie.  That you are not being truly you.  We may get to such a place for different reasons.  Our parents or family members may urge us to go into a family business; it could be a law firm, or a family farm, a local hardware store.  Perhaps you have friends and family urging you to be practical.  You write well, so you should be a lawyer.  Or you are mathematical, so you should be an engineer.

But maybe you hate law.  You just want to write poetry or a work of fiction.  You might be good at math, but you love music (mathematical brains often have the same wiring as those who are good at music do).  But you say “yes” to friends and family — and in the words of Henry David Thoreau, you lead a life of “quiet desperation.”  Each day going to work is drudgery, going up a steep hill, just waiting for the day to end and for a glimpse of temporary freedom, until your journey back to prison, your place of work, begins the next day.

But life does not have to be like this.  You can enjoy, even love what you do.  You can feel off-the-charts passionate about what you do.  It starts with living in light of your design.  I believe we are all divinely designed — from my perspective designed by God.  We are created for a purpose.  Ignoring your design prevents the universe from being blessed by your true self.  Ignoring your design puts your soul in prison.  It subjugates you to a life of misery.

Here are some tips to finding your design.

1. Take an Assessment.

There are some good assessments out there.  These include Myers Briggs, the DiSC, StrengthsFinder and the Enneagram.  At Crucible Leadership we have our own assessment, the Life of Significance Assessment.

2. Talk to Family and Friends.

Taking an assessment is helpful, but so is asking family and friends, who have known you your whole life, who are you.  What are you good at?  What do you enjoy?  What do you love?  Even asking them what do you hate can be helpful.  The opposite of what you hate may well indicate aspects of a job or a career that you will love.

3. Take Small Steps.

You don’t have to quit your job all at once.  Try some things on the side.  So if you are a lawyer, but are really a frustrated writer, try writing for some local smaller publications or writing some articles online.  Perhaps some small jobs will begin to start coming, and that will lead to something bigger.

4. Trust The Process.

It is almost impossible to see the grand plan of how individual steps will lead to your life calling.  That is where faith in yourself and in the process helps so much.  To people of faith, trusting that there is a divine hand guiding you along the way is also helpful.  Just focus on what one next step you feel called to take.  Trust your gut.  Trust yourself.

For me, I discovered after the family company went bankrupt and left family control on my watch, that I was not some hard-charging corporate executive.  I am a reflective adviser who prefers to write and speak about issues I care deeply about; namely how to live an authentic life that leads to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.

Before I dreaded going to work, as the elevator scene illustrates so well.  Now I love what I do.  I have written a book, write blogs, host a podcast (Beyond The Crucible), and am now giving speeches about my book.  Being a reserved person by nature, speaking does not come naturally.  But now I am able to do it, actually pretty well.  Yes, I have had help crafting a great speech and in how to deliver it.  But the core reason I am able to speak effectively is that I am giving speeches about something I care deeply about and utilizing my core strength of being a reflective adviser.

Living in light of your design for a purpose beyond yourself leads to pure joy and deep fulfillment.  Commit today to begin taking off the chains of bondage to a life that is not yours, and to living an authentic life in light of your design.  That is the path to freedom.

Reflection

Order Crucible Leadership here

Jason Hardrath has spent his fair share of time in what he calls “the pain cave.” That’s where he developed the skills and perseverance to compete as an elite triathlete – and also where he found himself when a rollover accident that ejected him from the car left his body broken, ending his dream of winning an IRONMAN title. But the crash didn’t steal Jason’s goals – it only changed them. He poured his athletic prowess and passion into mountain climbing, a sport he could pursue at a championship level even with the toll his injuries had taken on his body. And he’s wound up making history in the sport by setting a record you won’t believe in a way that’s even more unbelievable.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Jason H:

To become a decent endurance athlete, you spend a lot of hours suffering. You put yourself into the pain cave to build that strength later. You're willing to endure pain now for benefit later. That's the fundamental premise. It's like I'll endure extra effort now because I'll be able to do something amazing tomorrow. I will do today what others won't do so that I can do tomorrow what others can't do. And that had become a part of my process. I just came to understand this is how the world works. And I think that, that's really fundamental when you're navigating the hardships life throws at you, because it's really easy when you're already in pain to want to back off anything that causes more pain, that makes it worse. But oftentimes what you have to do is lean in more to the practices that, yeah, they're going to suck in the moment, maybe they're going to add more suffering, but you trust in that process that this is the way we get better in the end.

Gary S:

We've all heard the old aphorism, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If Beyond the Crucible had a bumper sticker, in fact, that might be what we'd print on it. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week's guest, Jason Hardrath, has spent his fair share of time in what you just heard him describe, as the pain cave. That's where he developed the skills and perseverance to compete as an elite triathlete. And it's also where he found himself when a rollover accident left his body broken and ended his dream of winning an Ironman title. But the car crash didn't steal Jason's goals, it only changed them. He poured his athletic prowess and passion into mountain climbing, a sport he could pursue at a championship level, even with the toll his injuries had taken on his body. He's wound up making history in the sport by setting a record you won't believe in a way that's even more unbelievable.

Warwick F:

Well, Jason, thank you so much for being here. I think of my book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, that could be Jason Hardrath's story. I mean that you live what we talk about. It's just mind blowing and we'll get to the accident here in a moment. And as we mentioned, you're an elementary school teacher at Bonanza Elementary School. I love the name. I imagine most of your students have never heard of the TV series from the 60s or wherever it is.

Jason H:

No, they haven't. Well, at some point, it gets brought up. If you grow up in a place called Bonanza, you're bound to hear, oh, like the TV show?

Warwick F:

Yeah, and they go, what?

Jason H:

Yeah, no, it's a fun school to be a part of.

Warwick F:

I can imagine. So I'm sure you've loved spending time with the kids. So before we get to the defining moment in 2015, your accident, I'd love to just hear a bit about how you grew up. And obviously you grew up with a certain, I guess, condition ADHD, is that the term? And that's not always diagnosed as early as it can be. So just talking about growing up as a kid, what was your family like? What was life in school like? So give us the backstage pass, if you will, on Jason Hardrath and growing up.

Jason H:

Absolutely. So yeah. ADHD, the term gets tossed around a lot now. And a lot of people these days with modern technology, cell phones and how they're programmed to steal our attention, they struggle with directing their attention. But this was back before cell phones were, especially in kids hands common. And I was legitimately tested where in the test I ended up testing with a 37 second attention span. And that's how long it took for my mind to completely lose what it was focused on as a child. So you can imagine a kid that was tough to direct, difficult to parent, difficult to teach, because easily distractible, but also I had an impulsive side to it as well, where if my brain thought up an idea, before the prefrontal cortex could analyze it and go, "Ooh, that's a bad idea," I would act on it.

Jason H:

And so messed up relationships, got a bad rap at school, all these different things, because I would do something that to everybody else was obviously something a person shouldn't do, but to me, I would have that realization the moment after I'd already done it. So grew up with this chip on my shoulder, just struggling. And with a deep understanding that movement was really necessary if I was going to succeed at all, got very much in touch with moving my own body and the difference it made in the function of my mind. And eventually that became a path as you read in my bio, that became a path to have some success, to have some wins in life, by pursuing increasingly difficult goals in this physical realm. It was a place I could succeed, I could build. It even was a part of my identity, especially through the middle school years, something I could lean on where it's like, "Well, yeah, but I'm good at this."

Jason H:

And so yeah, I grew up in a small town. Grew up with it being normal to go in the outdoors. And I was in an egg town. So normally it was like you go outdoors to hunt, you go outdoors to ride a motorcycle. But then later on, it became a meshing of the two worlds where it's like I'd fallen in love with moving my body and pursuing these big, audacious physical goals. And I knew that the outdoors were a normal place for human beings to spend time. And so it became a natural place where it's like, "Well, let's express the two together."

Warwick F:

So how old were you when you were diagnosed with ADHD?

Jason H:

Oh goodness! Still in elementary school, probably fourth or fifth grade.

Warwick F:

So I imagine you had supportive parents that tried to help you figure stuff out and how does this all work? And if you're not something that your kids are, like if your parents weren't like that, it's probably not the easiest thing in the world to know how to help, because it's hard to understand what's not you?

Jason H:

No, absolutely. I have to shout out to my mom. If it wasn't for her truly being a dedicated mom who was all in on supporting me, during elementary school, she showed up to support me at school probably more days than she didn't, getting calls from teachers that I was struggling or misbehaving or getting distracted. She would show up to make sure I got the work done. I think back to those years, if she didn't bother to do that, all of the success that's contingent on education that I've had, I probably wouldn't have had, because I would have been too far behind. Even though I'm a fairly intelligent person, I just would have been so far behind that passing high school instead of being rather easy would have been difficult.

Jason H:

So yeah, huge shout out to her being as supportive as she was through those formative years. And yeah, no, my dad on the other hand, he definitely struggled. He grew up in an abusive household growing up with a stepfather that was super abusive. And so anytime you've grown up that way, that's locked inside you. And so he really struggled to deal with a kid that would do impulsive things and couldn't learn from mistakes very quickly and would repeat things. I can recall these times where I was scared, where he came close to being physical with me. And I can remember we had one of those bouts where I did something wrong and he got really angry and he had knocked me down and then he just stopped and turned and walked off. And then from then I noticed he would take my brother out to go do stuff, but not take me. He would leave me with mom.

Jason H:

And I totally understand he was doing it, because he didn't want to become his stepfather now. But as a kid in the moment, that's a lot to try to sort through why doesn't dad like me. And yeah, that became a fuel and a part of this athletic identity as well, because that was something he reconnected with me through as I advanced through middle school and high school. And so that catharsis embeds it even deeper, because, oh, this is something that I'm able to... My dad cares again. Yeah. I guess this sets the stage for 2015 being all the more significant in it's a crucible moment for me, because all of this is wired in.

Gary S:

Good foreshadowing.

Warwick F:

Yeah, that makes sense. And in terms of relationships, I could easily see that Jason Hardrath was a young boy, a young man who could be misunderstood. It's one thing ADHD, but then to not understand you're not a mean bad kid, just because of what you had, there was this impulse with being very difficult to stop doing what you're thinking. And so if you understand, it's easier to give grace and understanding, but if you don't understand it, which how many people do, I imagine other kids, other friends were like, "What's wrong with this guy? Doesn't he care? Why is he doing those dumb things that may be hurtful?" So I got to believe it was hard to have friends that really got who you really were and fully understood the real Jason Hardrath.

Jason H:

It was very difficult to feel seen. I would say the track that was on repeat for my entire childhood was this track of doing something and realizing how much I'd messed up in that split second before anyone even had time to react. For example, one of my earliest memories of this type of behavior is I was in kindergarten at Sunday school and the teacher was passing out scissors. And I had up until that point only really seen scissors used for haircuts, when my mom would give me a haircut. So literally the teacher sets the scissors on my desk and as they hit my desk, this isn't like wait and try to get away with it, this is the moment the scissors leave the teacher's hands. She's still standing there looking right at me. My hands grabbed the scissors, cut the hair of the girl in front of me, just boom, bang, boom.

Jason H:

And as everything goes in slow motion, and so as her hair is falling, I'm like, "This girl is going to hate me, I've messed up her hair. Her parents are going to hate me because they're going to have to pay for her to get a new haircut. My parents are going to get told. They're going to be furious because this is really embarrassment." I was smart enough to be like this has effects, but it was right after I had cut the hair. And so, of course, all of this, I'm beating myself up like why did I mess this up again? But then everyone else joins in. So it's always this moment of I'm already down on myself and now everyone else is too. And that was the track on repeat.

Warwick F:

The hard thing for people that understand is clinically, technically in a sense, it's not your fault, because it's... At least it feels like it's not your fault, because how can you stop something that you're not able to stop? It'll happen so quickly. It sounds too glib to say that it feels... That feels like close to accurate. It's certainly not as much fault as people think it is. I guess that's certainly an accurate way of putting it. So let's move on here a little bit, because you've got a lot of fascinating beats to your stories. So I think we mentioned you broke the six minute mile in middle school, you biked across the country. So just briefly talk about that from Atlantic to Pacific. So what happened there?

Gary S:

Of course, a dumb thing, right?

Jason H:

So I'd obviously fallen in love with running and the goal setting mindset. And so advanced running in high school and the goal to make varsity and then the goal to go to state and then make it onto a college team. And then as I'm in college, I decided to do a mini triathlon, an off-road triathlon, but I'm like, "Well, if I'm going to buy a mountain bike, I'll buy a road bike as well," because financially responsible decisions when you're going into debt as a student. And so I get on a road bike for the first time and literally no joke. The moment I hit 20 miles an hour on my very first road bike ride, this idea hits me like a brick out of the sky, "I should bike across the country, this is amazing." And it just sticks.

Jason H:

You laugh it off like, "Oh, what a silly thing to think on your first ride," but then it just sticks in there for the remainder of my college experience percolates. And finally, as I'm getting near graduating, I'm like, "I'm about to start the rest of my life, who knows if I'll be able to make time?" And one of my greatest fears at that moment was waking up 30 years later and wondering what the hell I'd done with my life. So I'm like, "I have to do this now, otherwise I'm going to become that guy that wakes up and doesn't know what he did with his life." And yeah, so right after I graduated, I started a bike trip with a couple of friends from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. We raised money for a child center to be built in Guatemala over the course of the ride. We raised about $7,000 for that, which was awesome.

Warwick F:

So tell us again where you started and where you finished?

Jason H:

Started in Ocean Shores, Washington, and finished right across the Hudson from New York, New York.

Warwick F:

Okay. Wow, that's amazing. One of the things I think it'd be helpful for the listeners to understand is obviously it's not fun I'm sure having ADHD, but there's a lot of us, certainly me, I think very carefully before I do anything. I double think and triple think and quadruple think. And because I have pretty high perseverance, once I decide to do something, it will happen. But just doing something new, oh my gosh, I am very unimpulsive, extremely not impulsive. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but in a sense, none of this sounds weird to use the gift word, but because you are impulsive, you do things that most of us would be too fearful or we would think through it so much we talk ourselves out of our dreams, if you will. You don't talk yourself out of your dreams, you don't talk yourself out of your bold adventure, you just go for it.

Warwick F:

And so as the years have gone on, do you look back and say, "Well, I don't know that I'd choose to exactly be like this and having the challenges I do?" But there's a good side to it, if you will, because I'm not afraid to just try anything. And sometimes that can be good, like going across the country. Do you get what I'm going with that deal?

Jason H:

Absolutely. No. And I think that is a bit of a superpower of my type of cognition is I can handle chaos very well, because mentally I live in it every day, all the time. I'm constantly like everything's chaotic inside and disordered. And my ideas bounce around and connect in weird ways. And so I'm able to step into situations where most people would be like, "Whoa, this is way too many logistics or what if this goes wrong or that goes wrong?" I've literally landed on flights to foreign countries to climb mountains and not had reservations for where I was going to spend that night. Like just flown into a country I've never been in where I don't speak the language and just been totally comfortable that it's like, "Yeah, okay, I'll figure it out." That comes fairly natural to me to be able to just be in the moment and solve problems on my feet, so to speak.

Warwick F:

That's another superpower, to be comfortable in crisis, to be comfortable in chaos and trust yourself enough to know I've been there, done that, I'll figure it out. Having a plan is fine, but there can be so much over-planning you never do anything. And then chaos will hit you whether you want to or not, whether it's COVID or whatever. There's a lot of things that are unexpected in life and you have the superpower to deal with the unexpected, which again, that's a blessing in some ways. It's crazy.

Jason H:

Absolutely.

Warwick F:

So it's quite a few superpowers here. So I'm not being facetious. It's amazing. So let's talk about 2013 on also up to 2015. You really got into triathlons and maybe the pinnacle was qualifying for Kona, which I understand is the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Probably a lot of people have seen it on TV. So how'd you get into triathlons, because obviously you started running and love the outdoors, but what shifted you to triathlons being a huge love for you?

Jason H:

The journey for me, as I reflect back on it has always been this process of finding the next highest iteration, the next big challenge, and to just constantly pursue self improvement through that process of pursuing challenge. And so naturally, I'd pursued all these things and running. I transitioned up to running marathon distance, and then I biked across the country. So I ended up having a fabulous time biking and I was quite good at it. Got strong at it quite quickly. I was like, "Well, shoot, I run and I bike and triathlons are run, bike and swim." So I signed up for a full Ironman, because that's what you do when you decide you're going to do a triathlon, you go right into full Iron distance.

Warwick F:

And just remind those of us who may not know, what's the full Ironman thing? What are the distances of each of the three legs?

Jason H:

2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full 26.2 mile marathon run back to back to back.

Warwick F:

For most of us mortals, that feels kind of insane, but wow.

Jason H:

It is kind of insane. But I signed up for this thing and dropped my $600 entry fee. Again, responsible decisions when you're a young student in debt. And I couldn't swim more than three lengths of a pool. So it was like, I'll figure it out. I signed up. I had six months. It's like I will teach myself to swim, I'll ask everybody I know, make friends with people at the pool and ask what drills they do and I'll teach myself how to swim. It's just going to happen. I want to do this thing. And so yeah, I signed up for a full Iron distance and really could hardly swim when I did.

Warwick F:

It's just remarkable. Most people don't do that, but just because of the way you're wired, you will take courageous decisions and accomplish things that others only dream of. So yeah, there's probably a book in there is you may not be wired the way I am, but even if you're not, there are some things you can learn from me. So that'd be an awesome book.

Gary S:

I know where the conversation is going to go here. It's going to switch in a bit to your big crucible experience. And I want the listener to be able to focus on what we've talked about so far, what Jason's gone over so far. You said something really interesting in the last bit, Jason, that your life became about finding that next challenge, finding that next thing that you could conquer. And you didn't have to have a roadmap to it or an outline for it, you just went and you did it. That is an important thing to have when you talk about your ADHD in some ways being a superpower, not a super problem. The ability to look at a crucible as a superpower in some sense as something that you can learn from.

Gary S:

All of these things seem to have been churning so that when your crucible hit, you were prepared, not necessarily for the crucible, but you were prepared to tackle the next thing you needed to tackle to get beyond it. Is that a fair thing to say that all the things that you went through, maybe didn't prepare you for the details of your crucible, but it did prepare you mentally and emotionally for it?

Jason H:

Absolutely. It makes me think about the process of becoming an athlete, especially with... Well, any kind of athlete. I should be fair across the board even handed. But to become a decent endurance athlete, you spend a lot of hours suffering. You put yourself into the pain cave to build that strength later, you're willing to endure pain now for benefit later. That's the fundamental premise. It's like I'll endure extra effort now because I'll be able to do something amazing tomorrow. I will do today what others won't do so that I can do tomorrow what others can't do. And that had become a part of my process. I just came to understand this is how the world works. And I think that, that's really fundamental when you're navigating the hardships life throws at you, because it's really easy when you're already in pain to want to back off anything that causes more pain that makes it worse.

Jason H:

But oftentimes what you have to do is lean in more to the practices that, yeah, they're going to suck in the moment, maybe they're going to add more suffering, but you trust in that process that this is the way we get better in the end. And that's something you have to do constantly as an athlete. And I think it was a huge mental and physical preparation for facing my crucible.

Gary S:

Ironically Warwick's book, its original working title was suck in the moment.

Warwick F:

Yeah, could have been. But yeah, that's pretty funny. I want to comment on what you just said before we get to 2015. What you said is just so profound is that to get better at anything, there'll be times in which preparation... It's often not easy to do something different. I've had a book that's came out a couple of weeks ago and so as part of that, you have to go on a speaking tour. Well, I'm by nature a more reserved person. I'd rather ask questions like we're doing here, then get up on a stage and speak. It's not at all in my comfort zone, but I realized if I want to get my message out, it's all about helping people, giving people hope. I got to do it.

Warwick F:

So over time with some training and people that know how to create a great speech and a great team and friends like Gary, you practice and you work on it, you try different things, you get from adequate to competent to maybe actually almost to the level you can say somewhat good. But there's pain and practice saying, "Boy, I'm awful at it." I used to say, "I'm the world's worst speaker, I suck at this." Well, I'm not the world's worst anymore. There's at least a few that are worse. Few that suck more. But if I sat back there and said, "I'm not going to do it because I'll be ridiculed," well, then you've got to lean into the pain, trust the process, follow the steps. Everybody has those examples. So it's so true.

Warwick F:

So let me get to 2015, because that was really one of the defining moments. So talk about 2015 and the car accident. And so what were you doing leading up to that? I think you're trying to get from point A to point B. I think I read an article you were pretty rushed and a little frenzied. So just talk about that day.

Jason H:

Absolutely. So yeah, I was in the throes of Ironman training. And what I'd done is I'd qualified for the 270.3. So half Ironman World Championships. And I hadn't put together a good race at the full Iron distance yet. But all through 2014 had a really strong year. Came into 2015 in a place I'd never been that early in the year, just breakthroughs with my training. And I'd taken on some responsibilities at work as a coach and then also as a representative at the district office level for my school with the superintendent. And the other coach didn't show up that day. And so I was stressed out and then practice ran long because I was trying to coach all the different athletes, track and field. So I was trying to coach all these different subsets of the sport all by myself. And so practice ran a little long and I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to be late to a meeting with the superintendent in my district." And I was still a pretty young teacher. So that was a really big deal in my head like, "Oh no."

Jason H:

So I was just super stressed out. But I think it's important also to paint this part of the picture. Literally the Sunday of that week, I went for 140 mile bike ride and got off the bike and went for, I think it was a seven or eight mile run and it felt like I hadn't done anything, just felt super strong and casual. Just that feeling of those seldom moments in life where you just almost feel invincible, like I can do so much and I'm not getting tired. And then on a Tuesday, went out my car window in a rollover accident. Was ejected from the vehicle. Should have died. One of my doctors said that if I was just a typical 40 year old male, I don't know why he chose 40, but in what he said, he said, "If you were a typical 40 year old male, you probably would have suffocated on the side of the road. So it's good you are in good shape."

Jason H:

But yeah, I ended up breaking nine ribs, collapsing a lung, broke my shoulder in two places and completely shredded the ACL and LCL of my right knee. And so yeah, went from the invincibility of being able to ride a bike 140 miles and get off and go for a run and then just feel casual and hang out the rest of the day to not being able to get my own drink of water. And that was a pretty life altering thing. And on top of that, when you think about it, if I'm training that much, putting in these 30 hour training weeks on top of my job, all of my friendships were built around people I biked with, people I swam with, people I ran with. I had no casual friends, they were all active friends. And so at the same time, I lose my primary identity, my primary coping mechanism, because when I would get angry, I would go for a run or a bike ride. My primary coping mechanism for life and access to my social network all in a snap.

Warwick F:

Wow. Obviously when you go through something like this, you're in recovery, and by definition in recovery, you're probably laid up, which is for you probably your worst nightmare, because you want to do stuff, but certainly in that moment you're physically capable of doing hardly anything. It probably felt like being in a straight jacket in a dark room, a dark dank cold, whatever the image is, it must have been almost a virtual nightmare. It's like let's design a nightmare for Jason Hardrath. That was probably pretty close to perfection. That was probably just awful being strapped there.

Jason H:

It was very close to worst case scenario for sure.

Warwick F:

And one of the challenges when you're in that situation, you can't help think. Your mind probably goes pretty fast, faster than most of us. And it's racing with all these thoughts. I think I read that you didn't have a seatbelt on, you were trying to plug in your headphones to listen to some music. And did you go through all of these recrimination thoughts from why did I not have my seatbelt on? Why was I reaching for those headphones too? If that coach had only turned up, I would have been be able to finish sooner and I wouldn't have had to drive like a crazy man to get to the superintendent thing. And oh, by the way, why did I care so much about what he thought? If I was 10 minutes late, it probably would've been better. And it did all those thoughts run through some self recrimination others, because as humans, we're human wanting to blame others like the coach? And did all those thoughts go through your head?

Jason H:

I don't think there's any way that they couldn't. I wish I could say I was perfect in how I handled it. But there were definitely a huge amount of doubts that ran through my mind like this is it, it's all over, everything I've built and worked towards and dreamed of, it could all be out the window now. And in fact, one of the first doctors I had when I brought up my passion for mooving and my passion for triathlon and running, it was like, "Oh, you'll probably just have to let that part of your life go," and then walks out of the room.

Jason H:

So I had to face a lot of these difficulties. And yeah, it's really easy to want to point blame elsewhere. But on the other hand I also had enough self awareness and as a teacher, I literally do teach, I taught students of mine like usually it's not one thing that just goes catastrophically wrong that messes us up, it's always a series of small overlooked things. Like if I'd had my seatbelt on, I would have been back at work the next day, I would have been fine. Like you mentioned, if I hadn't been reaching for the headphones, if I hadn't been rushing, if the other coach had shown up, all these different things that were factors and it was just the perfect storm.

Jason H:

And I have to acknowledge that I fell prey to one of the very things I try to teach others not to. It's really easy to just get caught staring into your own glaring ineptitudes like, oh, I suck at this, I suck at that, and never actually go do anything. And I do think that I'm a person that I've made this decision in life that once an idea reaches a place that it's like, yeah, that's possible, it's like, okay, go for it. Not, oh, well, now I better plan out all the details. It's possible, I have the necessary skills, it's unlikely that I'll die because I was an idiot, go for it. That's the equation in my head.

Warwick F:

So let's shift to mountain climbing. So you suffered all these broken bones, ACL, LCL. I think from what I've read you couldn't lock your knee, which is necessary to be able to run. But there's something about climbing mountains and uphill, it's just easier for your knee. So that sounds all very logical actually, but in terms of, okay, what's the next step? Okay, well, I can go up. Going up is not as painful, so fine. I'll just keep going up until I run out of room and mountains, eventually, unfortunately, even Everest ends. But so talk about how you shifted to mountain climbing. And that's not your identity obviously, as you alluded to, but it's your passion. Talk about that shift, because that must have been freeing. Okay. Maybe I can't do triathlons, but there's something physical I do, because I have to move. If I don't move, I won't be a happy camper. So how did that all happen shifting to mountain climbing?

Jason H:

Absolutely. So you've done your research. Yeah, I'm a physical educator. So I had to understand biomechanics as a portion of that learning to become a PE teacher. And I was aware that when you run in order to run efficiently, you have this moment where your knee locks out to basically be able to pull that stored energy and the giant rubber band that is our Achilles tendon. That's what makes us efficient runners. That's what gives all humans the ability to move with the efficiency we do. And I couldn't do that anymore. So I could hobble limp after four or five months. I could hobble limp my way down the road painfully, but it would feel like a hard effort and I would move at half the speed I used to be able to run. And that was de-motivating right, and also difficult to do and hard on the rest of my body to be in a constant limp.

Jason H:

But I realized, okay, I can walk up and down steep hills. And when we think about how we walk up or down something that's really steep, we tend to keep our knees bent. And so I didn't need to have that access to a completely straight knee. And so it was like, okay, well I'll just hike the local hill and then started going up some of the mountains around. And then that led to wanting to go up the bigger more difficult mountains in my area. And pretty soon I'm tackling peaks and series and I'm running into peaks that have technical summit pinnacles. And so I'm like, "Okay, well I'm a rock climber now."

Jason H:

And I think this comes around to something you said about taking up speaking, which is not natural to you. I'd been an endurance athlete who intentionally let my upper body atrophy to save weight, and suddenly I'm taking up rock climbing. And I'm literally the worst person in the gym. Plus I've got a bum knee. So I have limited use of one of my legs and I have weak upper body. So I'm literally the worst person in the gym. And it makes me think of this quote that I've seen float around, be brave enough to suck at something new. And I had to embrace it. And I'm lucky because I'm a PE teacher and I get to teach kindergarten kids. I think they teach me as much as I teach them. You hand a kindergarten kid a basketball, they'll miss 1,000 shots and be no less excited to take the next one.

Warwick F:

They don't have fear. At least it seems like we come out of the gate somewhat fearless. And then over time we get to be fearful. Some of my kids, I've got one extrovert, two little bit more introverted, but in elementary school they were different. It's like, what happens? Where do they learn fear? And they're not fearful, don't misunderstand me, but you get what you've seen in your kids.

Jason H:

It's our development of self awareness. So self awareness is a great tool to have to be aware of ourselves and our strengths and our weaknesses. It's powerful. It helps shape us. But the downside is hand in hand with it comes self judgment, and we get quicker and quicker at judging stuff the older and older we get, where we get finally to a point as adults where we'll try something once for five minutes and go, "No, not for me." It's like, "What?" I always think about this when people tell me they tried running and they went out and ran for two weeks, I'm physiologically, it takes two years for your body to adapt to the stresses of running if you haven't done it properly. You haven't truly tried running until you've stuck with it for a certain amount of time and your body can adapt enough. You go, "Oh, wait, I actually can do this quite well."

Jason H:

And the same is true with the rock climbing. I had to abide sucking, being the worst one, and I had to push those thoughts of self judgment away and just embrace the play. Another tool I learned from my kindergartners, just embrace the process of playing regardless of how good I am at it. And then over time, I can remember the first day someone came up to me after I climbed a route at the gym and was like, "Hey, could you teach me how to do this?" And I'm like, "Wait, I've arrived, someone actually thinks I'm good at this." And that was a cool moment, but it takes time and we have to be able to abide some tough feelings in order to reach that place where finally we're like, "Okay, I've done something with this."

Gary S:

I have to jump in for a couple of reasons. One, the name of this podcast originally was abide sucking.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

Gary S:

So you've got both the book originally and the podcast. This is the time in the show normally when I would say, the captain's turned on the fasten seatbelt signs, we have to land the plane pretty soon. But because we have a school teacher with us and because he is at school as we're talking and he has to go back to class, I'm going to do this instead.

Warwick F:

I want to get to Bulgers list, because that's one of the most recent things you've done, which is really the epitome of just leaning into mountain climbing, doing something that initially you felt like you sucked at, because not enough upper body strength. So talk about what Bulgers list is and you've completed it like a couple of months ago. So talk about that whole deal.

Jason H:

Absolutely. So yeah, I guess to make a quick transition here, over a couple of years of rehabbing and doing all the exercises and letting the knee heal, running started to come back to me. I'm still not as fast as I used to be, but I was able to start combining the two. So I was able to start, go out and climb a mountain, run on a trail to another mountain and climb a second mountain in the same day. So I was able to have these big days out just with blending two things that I loved. And then I discovered these fastest known time records, fastestknowntime.com. For people who want to check it out, you can see all sorts of awesome routes and cool things people are doing. And I was like, "Well, this is what I'm already doing, this is what I already love, I might as well run a stopwatch and see if I can break some records while I'm doing it."

Jason H:

And started taking these things off one after the other. Decided, you know what? As silly as it sounds, I should go for 100 of these records. As humans, we're drawn to these big silly, big round numbers. And so made this decision I'm going to be the first person to do 100 of these. And so I start moving toward this goal over time. And eventually people ask, "Well, what are you going to do for number one 100?" Your 100th record, what is it going to be? It's going to be something unique, something big. And I came across this Washington Bulgers list, which is a list of the 100 tallest peaks in the State of Washington. And I'm like, "Oh, 100 peaks for the 100 FKT?" Something poetic about that and also ridiculous.

Warwick F:

And FKT is fastest... What was that?

Jason H:

Fastest Known Time.

Warwick F:

Got it. Okay. Awesome.

Jason H:

So I decided, again, it was like, okay, this thing is really big, it's not like peak lists in some other states where there are trail heads and trails and everything's easy to access. Washington is a temperate rainforest. The North Cascades are some of the most brutal terrain in the 48 states. There's deep back country bushwhacking, route finding, orienteering and fifth class rock climbing and glacier travel with crevasses. So it was this full package experience being a teacher, a cumulative exam, if you will, of everything I'd pursued up till that point. And once I started doing the planning and realized it was possible, I was like, "This is what I have to do." Like I said, that equation in my head, once the pencil hit the paper and it made sense, it's like, yeah, no, I'm going for it. And managed to do it in 50 days, 23 hours and 43 minutes.

Warwick F:

And that was way quicker than whatever the last time was. What was the previous time?

Jason H:

It was 410 days.

Warwick F:

Yeah. It's like over a year. That's stunning. So as we bring it to a close, you've got some key principles. What are some of the principles that you've learned? I know from what I understand, one is celebrate each moment. So just talk about... Because you work with elementary school kids about helping them understand physical activity and mindset. So you are pouring into the next generation, future leaders, future folks in our society, and you speak at different places. Talk about some of these principles. So what do you mean by celebrate each moment?

Jason H:

So, one thing I had to do as I was in the throes, the deep beginnings, the darkness of my crucible is I had to let go of the living in the shadow of my prior self. Right. I couldn't. We already struggled comparing ourselves to others and that's something we work to overcome to be like, "No, it's not worth it to just compare myself to others. There's no joy there." And I had to do that with myself, because it would have cut my own motivation to constantly be like, "Well, I'm not able to do this like I used to, I'm not able to do that like I used to." So instead I still to this day, refer to anything I did prior to the accident as my former life. It creates this mental clean cut where it's like, okay, I can go back to focusing on the process.

Jason H:

And part of focusing on the process is whenever we start into something, we naturally celebrate each small win, each bit of progress we see. It's easy to lose that over time, because you start to expect, oh, I should be able to run 10 miles or, oh, I should be able to run a business, I should be able to write a book. And so you don't celebrate those little breakthroughs anymore. You just assume them. And so what I had to do is go back in my mind to like, oh, this is as far as I've ever bent my knee, this is as far as I've ever walked without pain, this is the most weight I've lifted, this is like noticing those things that I used to take for granted and celebrating them and being stoked at each little bit of gain, because it's always our process that takes us wherever we want to be in life. And I think that's easy to lose track of.

Warwick F:

So good. How about two and three? So two is noticing progress instead of noticing far you are from where you used to be. So talk about the whole noticing progress part. What is that principle?

Jason H:

Basically, I've wrapped it in with how I described the last one, is just seeing how you're moving toward what you want instead of seeing the gap left to get where you want.

Warwick F:

Got it. Okay. Yeah. Seeing how far you've come, not how far you've got to go. Makes so much sense. And I think you've just talked about the third one, don't compare yourself to others or who you were before. So there's so much wisdom, because sometimes we can be held back about what we could have accomplished at a younger age or before an accident. We either wallow in the past or spend too much time daydreaming about what might happen in 20 years time, which who knows? Nobody can predict their paths or life. And instead of just focusing on the moment and what's the next step. So as we wrap up here and obviously you are investing in the next generation, what's a message of hope, because we're all about how do you stop your worst day defining you? How do you find a light at the end of the tunnel? How do you find pain amidst the crucible purpose out of pain?

Warwick F:

Some people have talked about what they've gone through physical tragedies as a blessing or a gift, which I find hard to understand. I've heard more than one person say that. So what's your overall message to both young people and people in general about what you've been through and what you've learned?

Jason H:

For me, it comes down to it's that believing in the process and understanding that's all you ever own. What's the old quote? You can love your labor, but not the fruits of your labor. You're never promised anything. In the snap of fingers, like I said, it can all be gone. And so continuing to be in love with your process, be in love with the little intermediate goals, be in love with the steps you can take to move forward. And then on top of that, I always remind myself, and I tell my students this as well, you're always preparing for opportunities you can't see yet.

Jason H:

Did I know I was going to break the record and end up in mountaineering history for climbing the 100 tallest peaks in Washington? No, I didn't even know such a thing existed. When I started down this path. I had no clue that I would end up doing this. But because I followed my process and I pursued one goal after another and I continued moving forward and finding things that made me feel alive, eventually I landed in a place where that next thing was something that rocked people's world. And it was an amazing experience for me at the same time.

Gary S:

So before we let you go, Jason, I'd be remiss if I didn't give you the chance to let listeners know how they can find out more about you and your exciting adventures.

Jason H:

Absolutely. I have a website, jasonhardrath.com. I'm on Instagram and Facebook, pretty easy to find in those two places. And actually a super fun thing, a film crew followed me around for some of these records and for some of the peaks of this 100 peak Bulgers effort. And so the trailer's been released to a documentary that's going to be released in February. I'll make sure that you guys have that for the show notes. So yeah, people can connect with me all those ways and hear a bit more of my story and see some of the visuals on these things I talked about. It'll make your palm sweat.

Gary S:

Well, thank you listeners for spending this time with us at Beyond the Crucible. And until the next time, we're together. Remember that your crucible experiences, we know they're painful, we know they're traumatic, we know they can take a long time to get through, but we hope you have heard in this episode, in this conversation with Jason, that your crucible experiences don't have to be the end of the story. In fact, they can be the beginning of a brand new story, and that story can be the best story yet, because where it leads as you learn the lessons of your crucible and move forward is to a life of significance.

Being authentic is not easy; in fact it is hard. So how do you develop that kind of mature authenticity? And what are the benefits when you do? Host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the key building blocks of an authentic life – from having an anchor for your soul to finding true friends, from putting yourself in the environment that fits who you are to doing what you’re good at and passionate about. And be sure to listen for an excerpt from the just-released audio version of Warwick’s book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance about why authenticity is so hard, but also so essential, in moving beyond setbacks and failures in business and in life.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Warwick F:

People want to follow authentic leaders. Young people especially, they want real. They want vulnerable, they don't want some cartoon character with a mask and when you say that you care, they want to know you really care, not because you went to a seminar or read it in a book.

Gary S:

"It takes courage," the poet E.E. Cummings said, "To grow up and become who you really are." So how do you develop that kind of mature authenticity, and what are the benefits when you do? That's the subject of this week's episode. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Warwick and I discuss today the key building blocks of an authentic life, from having an anchor for your soul to finding true friends. From putting yourself in the environment that fits who you are to doing what you're good at and passionate about. Along the way, you'll even get to hear a section from the just released audio version of Warwick's book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, about why authenticity is so hard but also so essential.

Gary S:

I know you're looking forward to this one because it's about one of your favorite subjects, because I hear you talk about it all the time when we're recording a podcast and when we're not, and listener, that is we are talking today about authenticity. Specifically about the importance of authenticity in moving beyond your crucible, getting through your crucible, surviving your crucible. Authenticity, if you plotted a roadmap along your crucible experience, authenticity would show up as a necessary flag, a pin, in a lot of places along that journey, and Warwick, as we get going here, one of the things I thought was interesting about, and I haven't thought about this before, but authenticity is both hard when you're coming out of a crucible. It's also essential in order to come out of a crucible, and that's, when you think about it, to be said of a lot of things that we talk about here, right? About humility, about vision, all those things. Vision is hard but it's important, it's essential.

Gary S:

But landing here, this is I know a particularly important subject to you, near and dear to your heart, authenticity. Why is that? Why is authenticity maybe not your favorite aspect of moving beyond your crucible, but I know it's one that you talk about quite a bit.

Warwick F:

I think in a way the world wants us to be somebody else, to be inauthentic, and we tend to be pulled into wanting to please others, to put on a mask, to be scared of who we are and we'll talk a lot more about that. But when you're coming out of a crucible, it's especially tough because you might feel like whether it was setback, failure, maybe something terrible was done to you, the last thing you want to do is be yourself. You might feel ashamed of yourself, embarrassed about yourself, and so the whole concept of being authentic, it's almost the hardest time is when you've gone through a crucible, you want to hide. The real you is in pieces, is broken, typically in the depths of the pit of your crucible. So it's hard anyway, but in the crucible, it's really, really hard.

Gary S:

And it's interesting. Here's a trivia fact, listener, that you may not know. You probably don't know because I'm not sure we mentioned it in the 90 episodes that have come before this, but your book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, had a working title in your mind at one point. What was that working title?

Warwick F:

It was Authentic Leadership. Back in as listeners know 2008 I gave a short message in church to some sermon illustration and somehow what I shared about my story and lessons learned made folks think, "Gosh, we want to hear more about this story," and so I started writing the book. So this notion of being authentic, I mean there's another book called Authentic Leadership that's more of a scholarly business work, but yeah, that notion of authenticity really was one of the core pieces of why I wanted to write this book.

Gary S:

Which is why, as we're kind of looking to pull apart the book a little bit, now that the book is out, as we do the podcast, that's one of the reasons why we landed on authenticity as sort of the first subject that we talk about that comes from the book because it was so important to you, you almost named the book that. Even before you had kind of gotten your hands around the idea of moving beyond your crucible, you were talking about the importance of authenticity.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Gary S:

So here's the great thing about the ever-expanding roster of crucible leadership assets, and that is rather than just listening, especially listening to me as the co-host blather on listener, you get the opportunity to listen to Warwick read from his audio book. Warwick is going to ... We're going to play a section from the audio book. Rather than Warwick and I spending a lot of time unpacking why authenticity is so hard, remember I started the conversation here by saying authenticity is both hard and essential to moving beyond your crucible, there's a section in Chapter Three of Warwick's book that's called why is authenticity so hard. So to really kick off the conversation, here is Why Is Authenticity So Hard, from Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance.

Warwick F:

Being authentic is one of the scariest and most difficult things you can be. It flies in the face of our culture and conventional thinking. You could even say it flies in the face of conventional business thinking. Marketing teaches us to identify the needs of the target market, and then design a product and the communication about it to meet the needs of the consumer. Give the consumers what they want and tell them why that product meets their needs. This may work in marketing products, but not in leading people. People want to know who their leaders really are. Being authentic is one of the biggest gifts you can give to yourself and to other people. Simply put, you cannot lead if you are not yourself. People do not want to follow inauthentic leaders.

Warwick F:

However, being authentic, being truly you, takes courage. It is one thing to be rejected while you're wearing a mask. In that case, people are not really rejecting you, they are rejecting your mask. Putting on a mask is safe. You can craft a mask that appeals to the broadest possible group of people. Do people want you to be outgoing? Then you can be outgoing. Do they want you to be witty and intelligent? Then you can be witty and intelligent. Whatever role is called for, you can play. All it requires is a bit of training, perhaps the right degrees, and observations of people who have the characteristics you desire, and you can be whoever you want to be. But when you are so concerned about being who your target audience wants you to be, or who they think they want you to be, you forget who you really are.

Warwick F:

Consider politics. Candidates poll-test what the hottest issues are for a given election cycle. Then they appear to know what they're talking about on those issues. This strategy sends the message that real solutions are not as important as appearing to be knowledgeable, credible, and understanding. So whether it is healthcare, energy, the economy, foreign affairs or the great social issues, candidates try to appear knowledgeable and compassionate. Above all, they want to appear to be more knowledgeable and compassionate than their rivals. But many if not most avoid authenticity. As Jack Nicholson famously says in the movie A Few Good Men, you can't handle the truth. Can you imagine a candidate telling the public what he or she thought the important issues were, even if they were not even among the top 10 issues their pollsters said people were concerned about. It is the ultimate taboo, telling the public not what you think they want to hear, but what you believe they need to hear and being yourself as you do so. Maybe your pollsters are telling you that the public wants you to be compassionate and empathetic, but you're more of a tough, no-nonsense, tell it like it is kind of person. The pollsters will tell you that if you have to deliver painful medicine, i.e. the truth, say it in a way the public wants you to say it. Don't be yourself when delivering the bad news.

Warwick F:

The point here is not that cold and gruff wins or that being compassionate and understanding is bad, nor that it is wrong to try to be compassionate. It is that you have to be yourself and do what you believe. That is the hallmark of authenticity. Simply put, it is being who you are rather than who you are not. You might be thinking, "Okay, I buy the fact that you need to advocate for what you really believe in and be yourself, not some other person. So what's next?" The problem is that being yourself and advocating for what you believe in is more difficult than you might think. Who do you know who stands up for what they believe in, no matter what anyone thinks, and they were truly themselves without a thought of putting on airs or a mask. Think of your friends, your co-workers, and your family. Think of people in the public eye, politicians, entertainers, or people in the media. Think of people in history. How many people can you think of? It's difficult for most of us to come up with more than a handful.

Warwick F:

Authenticity in leadership is rare. The higher you go in the economic and social spectrum, the harder it is to find authentic leaders. It is easy to criticize leaders for being phony. That is certainly my tendency and though I may be more sensitive to this than some others because of my background, I believe this is a common experience. The challenge is that as a person rises in leadership, the temptation emerges to put on airs and be who others want them to be or be the right kind of person to fit in or get ahead. It is like a virus that creeps up and infects a person. How many times do we read about people who have been changed by success or a rise to prominence? They ditched their old friends from the neighborhood, those people simply wouldn't fit in, they tell themselves. They wouldn't feel comfortable in these circles. They acquire the trappings of power and success. The large house, the nice cars, and of course, the right friends. People who are comfortable with the house, the cars, and the new status. Not only do they have these designer friends, but they may also have designer wives. While there may also be designer husbands, it seems to be all too common for a man to make it and then ditch his wife for the younger model, who he believes can better showcase the fine clothes and jewelry he can now afford.

Warwick F:

It is easy to look down on all of this and condemn those who rise to economic and social power, seeing how their souls corroded and how they seemed to sell out to the lifestyles and values of the rich and famous. However, try being in the situation, and withstanding the pressure that can form. I know how tough it is.

Gary S:

Why do you know how tough it is and before you answer that, let me go back to something that you said in that segment from the book, and I didn't notice it before. You said that you're sensitive, you personally are sensitive to not believing people are authentic because of your background. Talk a little bit about the way you grew up and how authenticity played or didn't play into that.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean I'm trying to remember if it's in this current version of the book because there's been a few versions going back and forth. But there was one version of authenticity chapter in which it said, "I grew up in the world of the inauthentic," and it's sort of a haunting line because when you grow up as listeners would know, a 150-year-old family media business with newspapers, TV, radio, assets, the equivalent of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. We grew up in a large house in Sydney, Australia on the water. My parents had parties for visiting dignitaries, prime ministers, politicians, business leaders, visitors from Hollywood. So we had just some of the elite people in society. My mother would throw parties for 300 like it was nothing. I mean these were parties of a scale that when people from Hollywood come to Australia, they'd say, "Go look up Lady Mary Fairfax. She'll throw you a party the likes of which you're not used to in Hollywood." That's telling you something.

Gary S:

That's saying something. Yeah, because I lived and worked in Hollywood for several years, so I know exactly how big a statement that is.

Warwick F:

And it's really as much of the style and that was wonderful. I think that was tremendous. But some of the people there, they were just so concerned with impressing each other. "Oh, I did this big deal," and, "I met Prince so and so or Count whoever it was." It was this air of I've made it, I'm successful, and I know these powerful people, and I was sort of invited to those parties as a teenager because my parents for the future of the newspaper business wanted me to be at those functions, and ever since then, I just became allergic to the whole putting on of airs to inauthenticity and I've always craved the real, not the phony. Still to this day, I don't have a whole lot of time for people ... A lot of politicians irrespective of their political party by definition tend to put on a mask as that's part of being a politician. So ever since growing up in that environment, I've always been pretty allergic to lack of authenticity.

Gary S:

So the book's called Crucible Leadership. Your consultancy is called Crucible Leadership. Talk a little bit about how authenticity or lack thereof can lead to crucibles and on the other hand can sort of chip away at your leadership. I mean you said in the segment of the book that we played or you read, depending on how you're consuming this, listener, you said Warwick, "You can't lead if you're not yourself." So how does the idea of authenticity play into both aspects of crucible leadership? The crucible part and the leadership part?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean I think lack of authenticity, and you'll probably get into this more, is really fundamentally a question of identity. It's this notion that people won't accept the real you, whoever you are. Maybe you grew up in a certain background and you want to put on this polished tone. I know in the U.K., they talk about learning how to talk in the BBC accent, sort of the polished, upper crust accent, and that's real. You talk in the wrong accent, at least when I was in college in England in the late 70s, early 80s, it could be a job killer for getting into elite business. Hopefully it's not as bad, so I get it, I get it. I'm not sugarcoating this, but in general, I think ... And hopefully it's not as bad in America. There is the pressure to conform, but by not being yourself, it can sort of erode your sense of self. You don't know who you are and you're sort of striving to be somebody else. You can think, "Okay, I'm going to be happy with the cars and the wives," because typically there's more than one for guys that have made it. You just lose your whole sense of self as you're trying to be somebody else. You just wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and it's like, "I don't know who that is anymore."

Warwick F:

It's unrecognizable to me and so by lack of authenticity, there's a pretty good chance you will lose your sense of self, your soul, and whether you start drinking, substance abuse, other failures, bad stuff is probably going to happen if you try to put on some mask and be somebody that you're not. It's never good to be who you're not. The soul yearns to be authentic, and you fight your divine design, you fight your soul, that's a good way to lead to depression, anxiety, frustration, misery. It's not good. You could see a psychologist, they'll never tell you to be somebody else. It's not a good way for mental or psychological health. So bad things inevitably happen.

Warwick F:

People want to follow authentic leaders. Young people especially, they want real. They want vulnerable, they don't want some cartoon character with a mask, and when you say that you care, they want to know you really care, not because you went to a seminar or read it in a book and you ask a few questions, but it's clear that you could care less about the answers. You just ask and say how's the family, how's the this, and it's obvious you don't care. So if you want people to follow you, especially in times of crisis, you want to be real, you want to be authentic, you want to be vulnerable, so it's critical to both your sense of wholeness, your sense of being happy, fulfilled, being authentic, and it's critical in leadership. If you're not authentic, nobody's going to want to follow you. Especially in this day and age when there's so much inauthenticity in some ways, people crave the authentic. As much now as any time in history, so it's just so critical for yourself and your own sense of well-being as well as to lead anybody in anything.

Gary S:

You talk about being authentic as a leader. You also have talked many times about ... And you said it here I believe as well, that when you launched the takeover, you were trying to be a media baron. You were trying to step into the shoes that were left to you from your great-great-grandfather up to your dad. You then realized later on that that wasn't who you were, that you were more of a reflective advisor than a take no prisoners take charge media person. I've never asked you this question, have you ever wondered if the takeover would have gone differently if who you were authentically was that take charge media baron person?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean if the company had been successful, it would have been tough, because I don't know that I ever tried to be someone else. But it's funny, we're talking about masks. There was an article that came out in an Australian magazine, it was sort of the equivalent of the New York Times Sunday magazine, that kind of thing many years ago during the takeover years, and the headline was The Man Behind the Mask, and the notion was since I never gave interviews, who is Warwick? What does he think? He's inscrutable. It's like what's really going on inside, and so I was sort of paranoid about people knowing who I was. It wasn't so much I put on a mask of who I was not. I put on sort of like this opaque mask in which you couldn't tell what was going on inside. That's a different kind of mask. It's just like not giving interviews, just being neutral. Because I was just really afraid, I was in a position of not wanting to make mistakes and yeah. So I in a sense did put on a mask but it wasn't a mask with another face on it. It was like a mask, just a blank mask with nothing.

Gary S:

Well I was going to say, and readers can see that picture from that magazine cover which is included in your book. You have that photograph of the man behind the mask because that was one of the stinging examples of the way the press covered everything after that.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean I think another aspect of really what you're asking is in a sense I was trying to live somebody else's life and I've talked about this a bit in the book and obviously before. I was trying to live John Fairfax's vision, which was a wonderful vision, to have a paper that would be non-partisan, the original masthead of the paper of The Sydney Morning Herald was, "May Whigs call me Tory, Tory call me Whigs," which is basically may liberal call me conservative, conservative call me liberal. That was a wonderful vision to have a non-partisan paper that would uplift the then colony of Australia. But that really wasn't even my dad's vision. He inherited that, so I was living somebody else's vision which is hard to live an authentic life when you're living somebody else's life, so I did the whole Oxford/Wall Street/Harvard Business School as listeners would know but I wasn't living my authentic life, I was living somebody else's life, somebody else's vision, and that caused angst, frustration, and I didn't do it well because when you live somebody else's life, you won't do it well by definition. You will feel frustrated and out of place, and I felt frustrated, out of place, and yeah. Every day was like a deer in the headlights, going to work and again we've talked about this in the opening line of the speech that I give.

Warwick F:

I talk about walking in December of '87, when the takeover had finally completed, I walk into the building, walk into the elevator for the first time as proprietor. Everybody knows who I am, my face was on newspapers, magazines, TV, and I'm in that elevator with journalists and other staff of John Fairfax Limited and I'm saying nothing. I'm so uncomfortable. I just wanted to get out of that elevator. It was emblematic of that whole experience of just I wasn't living my authentic life and it was very painful when the takeover failed ultimately in December of 1990 but in other ways it was a relief. Because I didn't have to live a lie as people say, to try and be a person I fundamentally was not. So yeah, I can testify how living a life of inauthenticity in the sense that I wasn't putting on somebody else's mask, I was putting on this faceless opaque mask that really covered up who I was and what I was feeling and it was miserable.

Gary S:

That is a good time, and I hate to say it after you say that, I was miserable. That's a good time to kind of turn a little bit and explore ... Listeners, as you're hearing Warwick talk about these things, and you're thinking in the back of your head, "Am I living authentically? What are my strengths and what are my values and what are my things?" There are, in the book, you talk about this and we can do it in kind of two stages. There's a first stage of sort of assessing where you're at. Are you living authentically? Are there ways, what are the ways Warwick that listeners can start today. You talk about one small step a lot. What's one small step they can take today to sort of assess whether they're living authentically and then we'll move on after that, after we sort of assess here's your baseline, here's where you're at, then how can you go and actually move toward living more authentically, but what's the first step to kind of ... It's sort of an audit of where you're at, right?

Warwick F:

Yeah, absolutely Gary. So one step is ... There's a number of assessments that can give you a handle on your strengths and weaknesses that form a pattern some have called motivated abilities. It's not the totality of who you are, no assessment will capture everything, but you've got obviously well-known ones like Myers Briggs and DISC, 360s which are very popular in the corporate world which assess what do people above you, beside you and below you in the organization chart think of you. One I like is The Leadership Practice 360. There's the Enneagram which is another assessment that is a good way of capturing who you are, so all of those provide a good snapshot.

Warwick F:

I think it's also helpful to ask friends, family, even co-workers who you know well, about strengths and weaknesses and that's probably a weird question to ask them but it's ... So who do you think I am? If they say honestly, I have no clue, I don't know who you are, that would not be a good answer, or I used to know who you were, now I don't know. I talk a lot about successful people. I mean I grew up in a very wealthy background, so it's a little abnormal. But for those people that have "made it", they typically grow up with one group of friends, they make it, and they move on to another group of friends. That's the typical journey. So maybe go back to ask the folks you knew in middle school or high school or friends and say, "So who do you think I am?" You may like what you hear or you really may not like what you hear, so that's almost more of a character audit in terms of am I being real. So if you ask the right questions and as we often say, be careful what you ask for. Because if you ask those questions, there are people that may be dying to tell you.

Warwick F:

If one person says, "Look, you're just so fake. I don't know who you are." That's fine, but if all your family and all your friends when you grew up say, "Yep. You're just a fake. I don't know who you are anymore," they're probably not all wrong. That's one of the things about a 360. Why 360 is powerful, which is slightly different but it's all related, it's if everybody around you, your boss, your peers and those under you say, "You know what, Warwick, Gary? You are terrible at listening to people." Could they all be wrong? Maybe, but if everybody that works with you says something, my assumption is they're probably right, innocent until proven guilty. If everybody says or you're a micromanager or whatever it is, so ... All of those things can be very helpful.

Warwick F:

So you use those assessments both formally as well as informal conversations with family or friends, they can give you a lot of data that is helpful and may be painful too.

Gary S:

The thing that you're looking for there I think when you do that on the plus side and the negative side is those aha moments. We've all taken those assessments that you're talking about, the Enneagram or the DISC test, and it says ... I'll just say for me, "Gary is outgoing and persuasive." I'm like, "Oh yeah, that sounds like me." Right? I mean you'll have reactions when you hear that sounds like me will be your aha reaction or, "What? That doesn't sound like me." To your point, if the same four things show up in four different assessments that you say, "That doesn't sound like me." Or when you ask four different people, you say, "That doesn't sound like me," to your point, as my mom ... I mean it's funny to hear you say that Warwick, because my mom's best advice to me ever was if one person says you're a bad word, it's a difference of opinion. If three or four people say you're that word, chances are you may be that word.

Gary S:

So that becomes that aha moment as you get that feedback, either through an assessment or through conversations with friends and family, look for the aha moments. Are you agreeing with that? Those are things that are authentically you. If you're not agreeing with that, those are probably also things, if they show up a lot of times that are authentically you. So look for those authentically you things that are both "positive and negative" and that will help you as you move forward.

Gary S:

Another part of this Warwick is after you sort of do a baseline assessment, there are some things you write about in the book that folks can do to build, dig into, understand more about, build more authenticity. One of the things you mentioned, and this is in Chapter Four in the book, one of the first things you mention is to have an anchor in their lives, and as you talk about that, talk about it from the third person perspective, you're giving wisdom to people, and then if there's anything from your own story, bring that in as well.

Warwick F:

Yeah, it's a good question. I think really, we talk in Crucible Leadership a lot about choice. So when you've had a crucible, you have a choice. Hide under covers for the next 30, 40, 50 years until it all melts away, or, "Hey, this was awful, it was unfair, I'm going to choose to find my way back to a life of significance, a life of purpose dedicated to serving others."

Warwick F:

The same is true of authenticity. It's a choice. Am I going to choose to be who I am? Now if you've gone through a period of self-loathing, it could be because terrible things were done to you or you have a low self-image, I think you need to do some soul work. But I think you need to come to the point where I believe God made us all who we are and scripture talks about we're beautifully and wonderfully made. So who you are is a beautiful and wonderful thing. So it starts with part of having an anchor for your soul, whether it's a major religion, like for me it's my faith in Christ, it could be another religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. It could be another philosophy, set of values. Dig deep into your fundamental values and beliefs. Who is whoever God is or the universe, who have they made me to be, and accept that, honor that, cherish that. I don't mean some sort of self-worship thing, but it starts with a choice that I'm going to choose to believe that I am wonderfully and perfectly made and I'm different than anybody else, and so it's okay to be me.

Warwick F:

If you can't get to the point where you can say it's okay to be me, then you'll never be authentic, because you won't want to be. You will run from it. No assessment will help those who are consumed with self-loathing, and sometimes there are reasons because of terrible things that have happened to you. So it starts with a choice, I guess for me, I never so much put on this mask of who I wasn't and it was just this opaque thing, and so over time, I've realized it's okay that I'm not some take no prisoners kind of executive. I'm a thoughtful advisor, I do make decisions, quicker than I used to really, I'm probably more decisive than I actually give myself credit for. I think, I'm thoughtful, I'm reflective, I'm not overly competitive per se. I try hard but unlike a lot of guys that want to pulverize the next guy at a golf game or tennis game, I'm not. So there was a period of my life in my thirties for instance where I'd be like, "Oh, how come I'm not like the next guy that likes to play golf and bet a dollar a hole or something?" That's not wrong. That is the last thing I'd want to do. I just feel so uncomfortable. So it's, "Well I'm not that good at building decks," or whatever. So what?

Warwick F:

But not everybody knows how to fix things, but on the other hand, I love talking about history or faith, I mean really a whole stack, music, a stack of different subjects. So it's coming to the point where you know, it's okay. Just because I don't have this desire to pulverize somebody else at golf or tennis doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It just means I'm different. It sounds stupid and childish. We all have those things within us that we wish we were like the next guy or the other woman. How come I'm not as pretty as that woman or whatever, how come I'm not taller or how come I'm not thinner or how come I'm not A or B. We all have our list of things.

Warwick F:

So this whole area of have an anchor, you just got to make a choice to believe that whoever made you, you are beautifully and wonderfully made, and just because you're different, different doesn't mean bad. Different, I believe means beautiful in a sense, from a soul perspective. So if you have that anchor, that foundation, you are well on your way to living an authentic life. If you don't have that, you will find it almost impossible to live an authentic life if you're filled with self-loathing and self-hatred, as vast amounts of people are unfortunately.

Gary S:

You need to accept those things and that's where again, if you go through the assessments, if you go through asking friends and family, weigh that counsel, that feedback, seriously, and apply it as it's appropriate to help you as you move forward. The second thing you talk about in the book about how to dig your way into authenticity is to find true friends. What do you mean by that?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean you can find friends who almost in quotation marks who just want to pull you down and always knew you'd fail or ... They just kind of don't encourage you to strive for anything. Or you can find for the rich and famous, the Hollywood people for instance, you can find friends who they just want to be your friends while you're successful, and as soon as you maybe have a few movies that didn't go so well or maybe you got fired from your CEO slot, they disappear in a nanosecond. It's like they walk on the other side of the street and I never knew you, don't know who you are. Gary who? Warwick who? They just don't know who you are. That's pretty soul crushing, if you thought that they were your friends, so you want to find people that are not there to be with the fake you, the inauthentic you. They like the real you, quirks and all. We all have our quirks. That makes us who we are. I would say that makes us beautiful people in the real sense of the word, not the Hollywood sense of the word.

Gary S:

The third point that you make about how you can dig into discover some ... Reset your authenticity is to find the right environment. What do you mean by that?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean really, it can be as simple as if you're somebody that kind of likes the country, rural areas, or the mountains, if you need to be in nature for your soul to sing, don't be holed up in some apartment or some cubicle in a skyscraper in Los Angeles or New York. It's not wrong, but it may not fit with who you are as a person. If you're somebody that more likes the buzz and the activity of the big city, then don't be in the middle of nowhere. It's not right or wrong. Similarly with the companies that you work with and organizations, if you're somebody that likes a slower pace of life, and you want to have time to smell the roses and chat to people, don't work in some New York investment banking firm when you got to work till 10:00 p.m. every night and most weekends. I mean it's not right or wrong, although I think for family reasons working 24 hours a day is probably not a good way to have a happy family and happy spouse, but that's a whole nother conversation.

Warwick F:

But you want the environment you're in to support who you are and from a values perspective, if your values are I don't know, honesty, integrity, kindness, and you're working in a corporate deal-making environment, that's not going to be a good fit and let's forget value judgments for a moment. You want to have an environment that supports the real you, the real authentic you. Because environments tend to want to mold you into being who they want you to be. Again I come back to Hollywood, such a classic example. It tends to want to mold you into who they think that you should be. So it's not wrong to want to do that, not at all in any way, shape or form. But find an environment, both physically, location, and in terms of culture, that supports the real you. Don't try to be a kind of fish out of water, you love the ocean and somehow you're stranded on a beach somewhere. You know what will happen to a fish, it dies if it doesn't have water. So your soul will die if you're in an environment that is toxic to what you treasure and who the real you is.

Gary S:

A while back, you described an elevator ride you had when the takeover of the family media dynasty was successful. On paper it was successful, you were in charge, you were proprietor. But you described that elevator ride as being up there you're in charge, you're surrounded by your employees, and you are uncomfortable. Safe to say that was not the right environment, being the proprietor of John Fairfax Limited?

Warwick F:

It certainly wasn't. I mean at heart, I'm a reflective advisor. I don't yearn to be in charge. I would rather listen and learn. I love learning about things that I don't know anything about, which is one of the things I love about this podcast we have, Beyond the Crucible, when we have guests, I'm continually learning about people's stories that for the most part I didn't know anything about. So I love that.

Warwick F:

So yeah. I'm a reflective advisor. Being on a board is not a bad fit, writing a book, talking on podcasts and other things we do about how your worst day doesn't have to define your life and how you bounce back to live a life of significance from your crucible. That's all a good fit, but being in charge of some massive media company, it wasn't my vision and it so wasn't who I was. I don't yearn to be in charge of some big company making 100 decisions a minute. That's just not who I am. I think and consider too much. So no, that was just an incredibly bad fit to who I was and certainly wasn't ... The person I felt needed to be in that slot wasn't me. It certainly wasn't the authentic me.

Gary S:

And that, more than anything else we've talked about I think, is a floodlight on how important authenticity is to your sense of fulfillment, your life of significance that we talk about a lot on this show. Because what you just said was being in charge of a multi-billion dollar corporation. We tend to think money is going to make us all very happy. Power is going to make us all very happy. The key to joy is to have things and to have influence and that's the other part of the family media company is you had a lot of influence in Australia. That company was an opinion shaper. All of those things weren't as important to you, weren't as fulfilling to you, as being who you are authentically. That is a powerful endorsement of just how critical authenticity is, right?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean for me and frankly, it gets into another subject, I don't think power and money make too many people happy but there is a personality maybe that could have been happy in that but yeah. I mean it was miserable and so when I moved to the U.S. in the 90s when my kids were small, just being with my young family and throwing a ball or going to ballet recitals or whatever it was, that would fill me with ... I would enjoy that, being an executive coach, helping people accomplish their dreams, writing. These are all things that I enjoy and over time and this wasn't a one and done thing, it took years, not just to come back from my crucible, but to accept that I am who I am and it's okay to be me. It was not an easy journey, we talk about the way back from the crucible. The way back to it's okay to be me, like I'm at the point where I don't worry about golf games and competitions and I tend not to sign up for those things, I don't enjoy it. It stresses me out, and so I'm okay with that. There are other things I enjoy doing.

Warwick F:

So the journey to authenticity, a bit like the journey back from a crucible, it can take a while to say it's okay to be me and take those steps. It's not self-love, but it does come back to the identity, it's okay to be you, but it just takes a while because most of us don't grow up in an environment where we think it's okay to be me. Because when you say it's okay to be me, that means by definition you are secure and self-confident in the best sense of the word, and there aren't too many secure and self-confident people in the true, soul sense of that word. It's another side of the coin to authenticity. It's a journey to really being willing to be a true authentic self.

Gary S:

Yeah, and I know what you mean when you say it's okay to be me, but really, it's better than okay to be me, right?

Warwick F:

Right.

Gary S:

It's essential to be you, it's the road to significance to be you. That's one of the first cobblestones on that road. The last of the four things that you talk about in how to kind of build authenticity, to kind of lean into it, is to do what you're good at. You tease that a little bit, you talked about it kind of, you touched on it in this last section about the right environment, but do what you're good at. Unpack that a little bit for listeners.

Warwick F:

This is a phrase and I think it was a former chaplain of the U.S. Senate, Dick Halverson, at least that's what I was told, and the phrase is something like this, "Don't do what you're merely good at. Do what you're great at." That sounds a bit arrogant, but I believe frankly from a divine perspective we're all made by God a certain way. So when you fully live in line with how you are made, your true authentic self, I believe that we're all great at some things, and for me, I feel like I'm a good writer, I think I am pretty good at asking questions, I reflect, maybe some degree of wisdom in certain areas. I'm good on boards because I listen, I reflect and ask probing questions, so there are things I like to feel like in some sense that I'm good if not great at. It's hard to say that about yourself, but I think that's true. So don't just do things that you're good at. Do what you're great at. Like I had training because I worked on Wall Street in financial analysis. So if I wanted to in the two non-profit boards I've been on, I could have been on the finance committee. But I avoid those like the plague because I'm not interested in finance.

Gary S:

Right.

Warwick F:

But just because I have knowledge doesn't mean that's truly who I am and just because I'm good at it technically, I don't enjoy it, and so I'd rather have people that actually enjoy numbers and finance. When it comes to the full board, I'm happy to ask questions because it's like I do understand this stuff. But I don't want to wallow in it if you will for hours and days. So I feel like we're all great at something. We all have certain gifts and abilities. I believe God doesn't make mistakes. So if he's given you certain gifts, abilities and passions, those are God given and the more you lead in light of that and be that person, that true authentic self with your passions and your God-given abilities, especially, and this is the other key in crucible leadership when you use the gifts and abilities and passions in service of others for a higher purpose, what we call a life of significance, that is the path to joy and fulfillment. If you try to be who you are not, the inauthentic self, the mask, that is a way to misery.

Warwick F:

So you want to be filled with joy and be fulfilled. Be your true authentic self with your gifts and abilities and your God given passions in a way that serves others. I mean it's really that simple. If you need a motivational talk for why be authentic, don't you want to be the real you? You know you do. You know you want to be you. Wouldn't it be nice if your friends said, "You know what, Gary, Warwick? I like you just because you are, quirks and all." Isn't that a wonderful thing? They like the real me? Like really? And you're somehow using the real you in service of others? That's the way to joy and fulfillment, and who doesn't want joy and fulfillment.

Gary S:

Well one of the things that is the authentic me as the co-host of the show is to point out when the sound we hear is the captain turning on the fasten seat belts sign indicating that we will be landing the plane soon but not quite yet. We have a little bit more time, listener, to explore this topic, this important topic of why authenticity is so important to both leadership and to moving beyond your crucible, and one of the examples you give in the book Warwick, in the chapter on authenticity, is ... We've talked about it before on the podcast for different reasons, but he's one the leaders that you admire I think is Abraham Lincoln. So how did Abraham Lincoln manifest authenticity and what did that allow him to do as a leader?

Warwick F:

Abraham Lincoln, as some would know is voted by historians as the most famous but I would say the most respected president in U.S. history. Lincoln was somebody that didn't put on airs. He became president I guess around about April, March, April, 1861 as the Civil War was about to begin, and he was from the then backwoods of Illinois, it was considered the West back then. He was not particularly well-educated in the sense of schooling, he was self-educated, he read a lot of books, he was a country lawyer doing the rounds in Illinois, and he would just share, even with his cabinet, these homespun stories. Instead of making a point, he would go on for probably 10 or 15 minutes with some story and his cabinet members' eyes would roll and here we go, the president's going to give one of his stories again, and off he'd go. But he was who he was. He was authentic, he was probably one of the most self-confident and secure people that's ever been in office, probably by a wide margin. If you said to him, "Mr. Lincoln, I think your policy here is wrong," he'd say, "Well you're probably right, but tell me why you think that."

Warwick F:

His presumption is, "I'm going to listen to you and you got to have evidence," but he was just very authentic and obviously he had other characteristics of just strength and certitude in a time when ... One of the darkest days in American history with the Civil War, but he was so real. He didn't put on any airs. What you saw is what you got. I mean he was one of the most authentic people in American history and you could see the goodness of his soul too, which was sort of remarkable. He didn't try to be some East Coast fancy person. He grew up in a small log cabin so to speak as folklore in a sense tells us. He was very authentic, and okay, he wasn't some fancy sophisticated East Coast person. He didn't care. He was who he was, and initially, some of those East Coast elite people looked down on him, no question. Including his own cabinet, most of them were his rivals for the Republican nomination, but over time, they began to see the real Abraham Lincoln, the authentic Abraham Lincoln was a great man, was a great person, so he won them over.

Warwick F:

But initially, they just said, "Who is this guy? Where's he from? Illinois, which is way out west." Yeah, but it takes courage to be authentic, and he had certainly plenty of courage.

Gary S:

That is an excellent way to land the plane I think. It takes courage to be authentic. I mean if you had to summarize what it is that we've talked about here, it takes courage to be authentic. It takes courage to stand up and say, "Yes, I am a guy and a guy stereotypically is supposed to know how to fix cars and I'm with you." I mean my way of fixing cars is to say how much is that and then I write a check. That's the way that I do those things. It takes courage to be authentic, and you can build that courage muscle by doing some of the things that we've talked about on the show today, right?

Warwick F:

Yeah. I think it starts with identity. If you're a person of faith, think of it this way. Or even if you're not a person of faith. God loves you for who you are, warts and all. It doesn't mean if there are things you need to make right in your life and stop hurting people, it doesn't mean you don't have to fix some of those things. That's got nothing to do with authenticity. But the fundamental person that you are, God loves you because of who you are. Hopefully you have a spouse or some friends and family that love you for who you are and they know the real you. So it really starts with saying God loves me for who I am, hopefully I have some friends and a spouse, a partner who love me for who I am. That is then a foundation to say, "I am going to make a decision that it's okay to be me, and I'm going to be the real me and I'm not going to put on a mask, and if some people don't like it, they can move on.

Warwick F:

Move on, I don't need people who don't like the real me." I'm not talking about the stuff that hurts people, I'm not talking about that. But I mean the true you, not some of those other things. But the real you, you don't need those friends that you don't like that. Surround yourself with the people that do like who you are and find a way to use who you are in service of others and a passion that you feel like will make the world a better place. That will support your authenticity, so it really as we often say in crucible leadership, it begins with a choice. Choose to be the authentic true you. Choose to be the authentic true you today. It starts with a choice.

Gary S:

The plane's on the ground. Way to land the plane, Warwick. That's an excellent exhortation for listeners to ... It's okay to be you. Remember that. I've never done this before, this is the second week in a row in which I'm going to end the show not with takeaways but I'm going to give homework to you, listener. Sorry, I hate to be ... I'm sort of authentically like your high school English teacher, because in each chapter of his book Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, Warwick has reflection questions and there are three reflection questions at the end of Chapter Four, which I think are good for you to kind of lean into as you reflect on what we just talked about on this episode of the show.

Gary S:

Question one is what are your strengths, weaknesses and personal values? So dig into that as we talked about here. Ask some other people about that. Take some assessments, some things that help you get to the bottom of that question. Second question, in what situations or scenarios might you be putting on a mask rather than being your authentic self, and then this, this is critical. Why do you think you do that? Identify the situations where you may be masking up and then ask yourself why do you think you're doing that. That requires to use one of Warwick's favorite words on the show, some real soul work to honestly answer that question. To authentically answer that question of why do you think it's more comfortable for you to wear a mask in those situations. Then the third question, how can your authentic self inspire and help others, and that really is the focus of why we do Beyond the Crucible. It's to help you find that way to inspire and help others, to lead what Warwick calls a life of significance, a life on purpose in service to others.

Gary S:

So listener, until we meet again next time, do remember this. We understand, we know, hopefully it's come through in our conversation today, that your crucibles are difficult. Those experiences can be very traumatic. But we also know this to be true. They are not the end of your story. In fact, they can be the start of an entirely new story that can be the best story of your life. Your worst day of your life can turn into the best day of your life, because as you learn the lessons from that trauma and tragedy and setback and failure and apply them to your life and move forward, the destination that you reach is a life of significance.

How could viewing your crucible not as something that happened to you, but something that happened for you, change the way you chart a course for moving beyond it? This week you’ll hear from James Kelley, author of THE CRUCIBLE’S GIFT, who discusses with Warwick how setbacks and failures can be a catalyst to increase self-awareness, live with greater integrity and develop deeper compassion – for others, yes, but also for ourselves.

To learn more about James Kelley, visit https://www.qchange.com/

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

James K:

Be open to the possibility of what if there's a different narrative you could tell yourself. What if there's a different question you could be asking yourself? What if the crucible that has held you back is untethered and is actually that opportunity?

Gary S:

What if indeed? How could viewing your crucible, not as something that happened to you, but something that happened for you change the way you chart a course from leaving beyond? Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show.

Gary S:

This week, you'll hear from James Kelley, author of The Crucible's Gift, who discusses with Warwick how setbacks and failures can be a catalyst to increase self-awareness, live with greater integrity, and develop deeper compassion for others, yes, but also critically for ourselves.

Warwick F:

Well, James, it's wonderful to be with you and thanks so much for being on the podcast. We got in touch, I don't know if it was a few weeks ago. It wasn't that long. And it's just amazing. I love the title of your book, The Crucible's Gift, and mine is Crucible Leadership. It's okay. Yours was first like 2018 or something. And so it's like, "Hey, what's going on here?" And you actually spent some time in Western Australia, which we'll get to in a moment, but obviously my book is sort of anchored in my story and my crucible on the 150 year old family media business, but I love the title-

Gary S:

In Australia.

Warwick F:

Yes, indeed.

Gary S:

The 150 year old family media business in Australia-

Warwick F:

Absolutely. And so, I love the title of your book, The Crucible's Gift, and we'll get to that in a moment because I've been thinking about that. Just recently we had a harnessing resilience series on our podcast and the word gift has come up. And so, I've really been... Because Gary asked me, I don't know, a few weeks, few months ago, "Do you see what you went through as a gift?" And I was like, "Ah, not really," but I've been changing my mind just recently. Talk about continuous learning, but before we get into the themes of your book, tell us a bit about the origin story, the backstory of The Crucible's Gift and how you came to write it, a bit about you growing up. You probably had a few crucibles, but the love of this book came out of somewhere, right? The desire to write this. Talk about sort of the origin story.

James K:

I just want to first start by saying thank you to both of you guys for having me on today. And secondly, since my book came first with the word crucibles, I am requesting royalty fees on your book as you sell them, just to be clear.

Warwick F:

There you go. That's so good.

James K:

The origin story of the book is never the book itself, it's the path leading to it, right. And hence your book. And so I found for myself that I'd always wanted to be better at leading, right, but I had a bunch of baggage and I was really curious about how individuals or leaders that I interviewed, how they perceived their baggage and what they did with it and how did they unpack it and how did they refold it back in the luggage and keep moving forward? And so for me, it was really an interesting exercise of accepting what was, what is, and the possibilities of what could be.

James K:

And so, I went on this journey. I had a podcast for three years and that's where all of these interviews came from. It was a podcast. And it was always about not what you do, but really who you are in your journey. And that's where I think it comes from. At the end of the day, just to say it succinctly, the origin of the book was me trying to unpack why I felt like I was failing as a leader and how can I embrace my own crucibles as a springboard to the future?

Warwick F:

And where did that come from? That sense of, "Gosh. I'm failing as a leader." So, talk a bit about maybe some of the crucibles you had or what led you to that kind of viewpoint of yourself, if you will.

James K:

I mean, clearly, it's lack of self-esteem. We can start with that part. Yeah, I just think I didn't have the best modeling as a child, right. And so that's your framework of a house is that as your parents. And so, the framework wasn't great. I often tongue in cheek say I grew up in an Irish-Catholic household with a touch of violence, all the guilt, and no Catholicism, right. And it wasn't overtly violent. It wasn't the worst house ever, but it was cold. My mom's Scottish-Canadian, which just in itself of an old-school Catholic is innately a bit cold. My dad, he was a product of a World War II vet who was at Pearl Harbor. So, there's just a series of things that I think culminate together that left me not feeling great about myself over time. And then self-talk, obviously, is a huge part of that negative self-talk.

Warwick F:

That is interesting since you had that experience. And so, what were some of the other beats of your crucible stories that had moved on from that kind of family?

James K:

Yeah. The other thing that came up later in life is that I had a learning disability. So, I think when all you know is you're bad at something or you're not good at something, or you can't succeed at something, those seeds are planted quite young. And reflecting on my parents... And I always say this to my mom. My dad passed away when I was 20. We can talk about that. That definitely was a crucible. They did the best that they could with what they knew. So, I don't hold any resentment towards them, but I'm still a product of that environment. I mean, there's a really vivid story.

James K:

My dad, by all accounts, was a good human being with... But he's flawed, he's human. And I vividly remember this. The orange shag carpet with the wood paneling walls at our house growing up, very '70s chic, which would probably be really in style now anyways, but I remember my older brother who was 16 at the time. My mom was married previously and my dad married and adopted these two kids, which was great. Part of the adoption was that their biological father wanted nothing to do with them and my dad agreed... And the guy was wealthy, but my dad was willing to take that on because my mom and he loved the kids. So, my oldest brother, John, just has a series of problems. Still does at 53 years old. A lot of problems, but I remember him and my dad were getting into it, yelling, and I vividly remember my dad pushing my brother down. My dad was a very intimidating individual. He grew up in the farms in Colorado, baling hay the old way with the hooks. So, he had Popeye forearms like just this big strong man.

James K:

My brother, John, is in puberty. At 16, he could bench press 225 like 15, 20 times; squat 500 pounds. Really big, but 5'8", right. So big and strong. And I remember them getting in a fight and my dad pushed him into a chair. His fist was cocked back. My other brother who was 14 or 15, who is 6'2", 200 pounds, was holding him back. I'm in the corner cowering down. My mom is screaming. And so, those events didn't happen every week, but boy, they happened enough to make you afraid of male authority, to make you afraid of standing up, but I will say in that moment, the ability to say to yourself, "Boy, this is chaos. Boy, this is really, really unhealthy." I got that at 9, 10. There's some other stuff that happened in there as well, but the other story I remember vividly, and this kind of speaks to my resilience, I think, as a human being.

James K:

At 13, and I don't remember the whole instance of what happened leading up to it. I'm sure I did something by the way. I was 13, but I remember my dad backed me into the sink and he poked my chest two or three times and I said "If you ever effing touched me..." And we never swore in the house.

Warwick F:

Sure, sure.

James K:

The kids never swore, but I said, "If you effing touch me again, I'm leaving." And he slapped me and I walked out the door, and I hear my mom screaming, "Craig, go get him." And I run up the street and I run around the corner and he gets into his car and he's like, "Get in the car," and I'm yelling, "Are you going to hit me again?" And what was fascinating is that shame that I put on my dad because the neighbors heard it. He never touched me again except for one other time when I was 18, but I totally deserved it. And I knew I deserved it when he hit me. Slapped me, I guess is probably a better way to say it because I said something derogatory to my mom, and I deserved it when I said it. But I mean, it was interesting that in that moment I had the strength to stand up to a man that was hugely scary to me as a child. So, that was another crucible moment of saying, "Okay, I'm not going to take it anymore."

Warwick F:

You had some challenging circumstances in your family, brother, dad, but... We say and I'm sure you say, I know you say, when you're faced with a crucible, you have a choice. And I love the fact that one of the people on there said something about... I forget who it was. Choice to wallow or not. I mean, I swear I used that word wallow all the time. It's the weirdest thing.

Gary S:

Every week.

Warwick F:

Yeah. And hide under the covers and let the next 30, 40, 50 years go by until it's all over or to say, "Gosh, this is awful, but I'm going to go in different direction." You chose a different path. You mentioned just getting through school, college, PhD. It wasn't easy. There are some people that it's like studying is just easy. 4.0s, it's like breathing. I mean, I'm blessed. I did undergrad degree at Oxford and Harvard Business School and all. Well, I had to study.

Warwick F:

I remember there was this English guy that... Drinking age is 18 in the UK. So, drinking himself silly most of the day and he would get perfect grades and he never studied, but he was just a genius. Well, that wasn't me. Seeming it wasn't you. I find that all fascinating that your path to writing this book, your path to getting a PhD, none of it was easy, but yet how did that serve you that life wasn't easy, even in your chosen path of academia in a sense?

James K:

Yeah. There's something deep inside me and it's probably as unhealthy as it is. The PhD is a great example. I wanted to prove people wrong who thought that I wasn't smart, and I thought by getting three additional letters behind my name would prove those people wrong. Lo and behold, they didn't prove a damn thing. They didn't really care. And so, I gave weight to a bunch of people that really didn't matter. And you're laughing because I feel like maybe you can relate to that a little bit.

Warwick F:

Right. I mean, I have an Oxford degree and a Harvard MBA, but did that help me when the company went under? No, I thought I was a moron. It actually made it worse. How could a Harvard MBA make such massively stupid decisions?

James K:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

And we're talking... I graduated in, I don't know, May/June '87. I launched the takeover in late August '87. Wasn't like, "Oh, it's 20 years. Just probably forgotten his classes." Well, no. We're talking a couple months. I mean, golly. So, yes. No, I can relate it. Didn't make me feel any... It made me feel worse actually having the credentials.

James K:

Yeah. Well, I can imagine that situation. I've met enough Harvard MBAs where there's sometimes... I won't say generally speaking. I'm going to say generally speaking, not always, there's a bit of arrogance from it, right. And guys from Harvard, I know it. And then to walk out and basically make a big mistake, it has to hurt your ego a bit.

Warwick F:

It does. It gives you a bit of humility. And you spent some time in Western Australia. Did you get your PhD there or was that... I forget-

James K:

University of Western Australia.

Warwick F:

Right. And that was a remarkable experience.

Gary S:

There's something you told me, James, when we talked beforehand and I thought was really fascinating. There was a couple things. You were talking about what you went through as a young man in your teens and your 20s. And you mentioned just now about your resilience, but as Warwick said, we just finished a series on resilience. And one of the things that two of our guests said who have researched resilience scientifically is that it's not just about digging down deep inside yourself. True resilience is also, yes, you find some power, some strength within, but you also reach without. You reach for the resources around you. You told me something about in your 20s. I want to find the exact quote where you said that guys in their 20s, empathy isn't part of their skillset. So, as you were trying to find your resilience, it was hard for you, wasn't it? To find it kind of in your peer group because us guys in our 20s aren't always prepared to provide that kind of support to our friends.

James K:

Yeah. My dad died when I was 20. I was in university. He died relatively quick within six months. He had a congestive heart failure. He didn't make the cut to get a heart transplant, then he did, and then he passed away. So, it was quite sudden. My parents had moved from... I grew up in Portland. They moved to Chicago and I went to college. My dad had just taken a job, a transfer with this company down at Atlanta. So, he dies that summer. I go back to school and not many men in their 20s has dealt with their parent dying.

Gary S:

Right.

James K:

So, there was just this gap of empathy and understanding and connecting. I was a captain of the water polo team. I lived with five guys, six guys, and it just was this void of understanding, and unfortunately or fortunately, I kind of always think things happen for a reason. I really delved into drinking for about three to five years as a way to cope. One of my perceived skills... I say a skill for evil, if you will, I was really good at the college wooing, if you will. And so, I would find my self worth in getting girls to like me and then we would hook up or whatever, but my worth was tied up into getting that chase because I didn't feel valued or wanted. And that's where my value came from. And unfortunately I hurt a lot of people in that phase in my life.

James K:

And so, that lack of empathy and connection and understanding was really hard. Fast forward a few years and my mom's calling me saying, "I want to commit suicide." And I'm like, "I can't deal with this. I'm barely keeping it together myself." And my response to my mom probably wasn't the nicest, but I was like, "Hey, you're going to do it, do it or go get help, but I can't help you right now." I was like, "I'm not someone who's in a position to take care of his mom in her mid-50s. I'm trying to sort my own self out in my early 20s."

James K:

And so, the drinking really culminated in... I don't even know the year, but I was 24 or 25 when I got a DUI driving home. I remember the story really vividly. I was out on the other side of town. My mom lived in Vancouver, Washington at this time. She had moved back from Atlanta back to where we grew up. And so, she was in Vancouver and I was in downtown Portland driving back and I had gone out after work, and I was coming home and I was really close to my house, probably a quarter mile. And in my head I was Mario Andretti or in today's parlance, you probably could say like... Oh my gosh. The Formula 1 driver that wins everything.

Warwick F:

Lewis Hamilton.

James K:

Yes, Lewis Hamilton. I'm trying to modernize the story a little bit. At the time, I thought I was Mario Andretti and there was this little S-turn by my house and I was going probably 70 in a 35. And the police officer whips around. I see him. And I thought in my head, "If I can get home before he gets to me and I get in the house, he'll never know I was there."

Gary S:

Sanctuary.

James K:

Yeah. That's what I was thinking. I was like, "I can make it." And so, I get there... This is such a funny story. So, I get there, the lights come on, my mom is in a very residential. Leave it to beaver neighborhood. Lights come on, I'm in the car. My mom had just started dating this guy, and he comes out in his t-shirt and tighty-whities "What's going on here?" And I was like, "Oh my goodness." So, I ended up going to jail for the night, get out. And the police officer was super nice. He was like, "I'm really sorry to do this." I'm like, "Nope, I broke the law. It's my fault." I was really accountable to the moment.

James K:

So, the consequences to this; I am leading to the consequence of this is that I had to go to an outpatient program for two years. And so, the first six months was four nights a week, three hours a night, super intensive. Then it was six months, once a week for three hours, and then it was a therapist for the next year. And I think at the time... Kind of going to your point, Gary. I think at the time I really had a choice on how I was going to approach that. I think most 24 year olds would have been real bitter and resentful. I chose to say this is an opportunity. And this is that to and for statement, right. It happened for me, it happened to me. And I really said this was a for-me moment and really dove into that as an opportunity to really start to peel back the layers of the onions of myself and try to understand, what am I trying to do? And why am I acting this way? And what's wrong with me? And all of those things that you kind of have in your early 20s that still kind of follow you in your 40s. And now if you're in your 50s, sometimes that follows you as you go.

James K:

Gary, to answer your question in this long-winded way, I figured out at some point in my life, for whatever reason, that you have to look inside you, but you also have to accept things for what they are and what they are not. And there's a nice serenity prayer, right. You have the wisdom to know the difference is what I always hold on to of what you can and can't control. And so, there's things when I can control it and it's wrong, I'm accountable. When I can't, I have to let it go. And I think that's kind of where I sit with a lot of my life and choices and outcomes is if it's bad, it happened for me. If it is good, it's happened for me.

James K:

But I think when you move from "I'm a victim" to a victor, there's a huge change in shift mentally in your mind that happens. And I think quite often... And I'm guessing, Warwick, this was you for quite a while is you were a victim of your own circumstances and whatever. And so, it happened to me. And I just think psychologically that's really tough to manage over a long period of time.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Wow. I mean, thanks for sharing that. I mean, I started thinking if this book, Crucible's Gift, was a movie and they talk about the flashback, the origin, you've obviously had a number of crucibles, would that be like... If you had to do two minute origin flashback, would that be the scene going on these back roads near, I think, Vancouver, Washington and the DUI, would that be... If you had to pick one crucible story that said, "Okay, this is where I made a choice. I'm not going to cry and complain about this. I'm going to move in a positive direction."

James K:

That is such a hard question for me because I could go back to... My earliest crucible was being exposed to pornography at nine years old, 10 years old. That has a direct long-term impact.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

James K:

Right. I think that if I was to say the moment of where I realized I had probably more control of how I responded was with my dad at 13. I think that that was a point of saying, "Oh, my strength made a difference in his response." Okay. On some deep level, but yeah. But I mean Warwick, you would probably agree that yes, your big crucible was that event, but then you got married. That's a different type of... That's a healthy crucible, right? And then you have kids. That's a healthy crucible, but they're all chaotic and you feel out of control, but they're all in good.

Warwick F:

Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, it's so well said. And I want to turn here to your book, but just by way of illustration. Yes, you could say the biggest crucible for me was launching the takeover in 1987, but as listeners would know there was an earlier crucible in 11 years before in 1976, where some other family members threw my dad off as chairman of the family company. They had enough shares that they could get together and throw him off. I was 15 at the time. I mean, I loved my dad and I was just devastated. I mean, how could they do this to him? And we talk about it. They feel like there should be a shift, but don't just throw him off. And then it's like, "Well, since he's off." At that moment, I was in my parents' eyes, the heir apparent. It was crushing for me emotionally, loving my dad, but then it was like, "Uh-oh, it's now me." Not yet, but it will be. The reality of what I was headed to in my future crucible, though I didn't quite know what would happen, came then. So, yes. It was a foreshadowing of later crucibles.

Warwick F:

So, one of the things I'm fascinated by... I mean, everything you've done, I'm fascinated by, but you chose an interesting path to writing this book, The Crucible's Gift. You decide, "Well, let me interview a bunch of people," which... That people do do that when they write books, but you did it through a podcast Executive After Hours. And I loved the term you used because from what I understand, it's like, "Well, I don't want to just know who they are 9:00 to 5:00, but who are they really at home with their family? I mean, who is the real man or woman leader?

Warwick F:

And then I sense you had an idea for the book, but the exact nature of it changed partway through. So, talk a bit about just what made you decide to write this book at all and use this interesting mode of a podcast as a research method? How did this whole thing start? This passion for crucibles?

James K:

So, it did shift. I think I was going to try to write a traditional leadership book of some sort. That was my interest, but what I realized is as I was interviewing these leaders and the tagline of the podcast was, "I care about who you are, not what you do because who you are defines what you do." And as I was doing the podcast, I was more interested and curious at dissecting their problems than their job. I didn't really care about like, "Oh, what makes you a great leader?" That wasn't interesting to me because I think as you've noted, a person's story is way more interesting than being a CEO or being a bank clerk, whatever their choice of living is, which is totally fine. The exciting part is always their story. Like, "How did you get there?"

James K:

And my favorite part of the podcast was always listening to the story and then get to the end and do a wrap up of saying, "So, I saw when you were 12, this happened, and it seems like you're reflecting that at 37. Is this the case of what I'm hearing and seeing?" They'd be like, "Yes, I never thought of that." And that to me was kind of like my juice. I was like, "Yes, I'm listening well. I'm connecting the dots and they're getting someplace new and different." Not to take a page out of Dax Shepard, but I really felt like an Armchair Expert in psychology while I was doing this. And so for me, it was really fun. And so, the notion of writing about people's crucibles spun the idea of, "What made them be better at whatever they were doing? How do those crucibles help?" And that's where kind of that framework of the model came up was diving into literature, reading a bunch of books and kind of layering that with stories that kind of supported what I found.

Warwick F:

Did you almost feel like maybe forensic accountant isn't the right word, but maybe Sherlock Holmes, but somehow you were trying to understand, okay, these folks are great leaders in the holistic sense of the word. Not just the numbers, but as human beings, how they treat people. Self-aware, compassion. All things you have in your model. Where did that come from? And you start digging in their background and their story. And it felt like you had story after story where you found... Maybe it was an example or maybe it was reaction to what happened and said, "Look, I'm not going to do that." There was one case. I forget. Maybe a set of twins and one went and the other went the other. I mean, you had-

James K:

Yeah, yeah. Bridgette Mayer and her sisters.

Warwick F:

You hear that a lot in families, right. My brother and sister went one way, but I chose to go a different. I can't tell you how many times. I'm sure we both heard that, but that's fascinating. I mean, that must've been fascinating just as you dug into the sort of Sherlock Holmes. But where do all this come from?

James K:

Yeah, I love that framing though because that's what I felt like. And I also think you touched on something else that was really interesting. I wasn't defining leaders by numbers and by size of paycheck. I was defining them by human beings, right. So, really that framework I came up with, though it's couched in the terms of authentic leader, it's really about just being an authentic human. And for me, they blur together. The model was developed in a sense that every good leadership book should have a model. That's kind of what I was being told, but it made sense to me and really the core of that whole entire book is the growth mindset. That really is everything. Without it, you're stagnant. Without it, you don't embrace. You don't use it happened for me. You say it happened to me. Without a growth mindset and open to the possibilities of what could be, if you think about something differently and ask different questions.

James K:

And I found that those leaders that made the book, that made the cut, were really asking the questions of why did this happen? What is the learning? How can I use this? And so as I wrote the book, I had a clear sense of lens of what I think a good human being would look like based on... And it's super subjective. You can add 25 other features of this thing by all means, but from my perspective, that was kind of the path or spiral to authenticity, if you will.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I love that concept. I know you talk later... I think it's in chapter six. Learning about Carol Dweck and the whole growth mindset, which I think is partly what you're talking about. You say growth mindset is when a person basically continues to want to learn and design mastery likes feedback and a fixed mindset, performance, and they certainly don't like feedback. I mean, there is this choice that people make to learn from what they went through. I mean, one of the things we talk about is... For me, I had to go... Why did I end up this way? And I had to learn, "Gosh, I'm not a Rupert Murdoch take-no-prisoners chief executive. I'm a reflective advisor." So it was a terrible fit. I wasn't living my own vision. I wasn't even living my dad's vision. I was living a vision five generations, 150 years before John Fairfax was an entrepreneur. Those entrepreneurial genes kind of faded over the generations. It became extinct really. We were more like philosophy professors, not entrepreneurs. It died.

Warwick F:

I mean, there was so many lessons. It's just I was living somebody else's vision. I wasn't living in light of my design, but I could have said, "Oh woe is me," but I basically brought a lot of trouble on myself like, "Okay, this is awful." But eventually, "Now what I'm going to do?" I was 30 years old. I mean, what am I going to do now? So, yeah. You have to make a choice.

Warwick F:

So, let's just start with crucible because I love your definition there, and I think the guy wrote the foreword. He puts it this way. "James Kelley defines a crucible as a significant moment, positive or negative impact, which forces a leader to become introspective, assess their strengths and weaknesses, leading them to become more self-aware." So, I feel like one of the core theses or thesis, if you will, about a crucible is, there's an opportunity to become self-aware. So, talk about that because that feels like that is one of the core premises of your book, which I completely agree with.

James K:

Yeah. But this dovetails on really what I said before. To be self-aware, you've got to be open-minded. You've got to have a growth mindset. So, that's why... Not that the audience can see it, but there's three rings in my model. The middle ring is the crucible and the next ring out is really half and half of growth mindset versus self-awareness. And there are different types of self-awareness. There's a self-awareness of, "That's not my fault," which isn't really self-awareness. It's other awareness. And then there's self-awareness of "What is the learning that can happen in this?"

James K:

If I was to put my philosophy hat on, if you will, as I still have the entrepreneurial genes, but I'd love to be more of a philosopher, that the reality is of self-awareness is that it's the scariest thing because you might find something you don't like, but you also can quickly find something that you love. And I think it's knowing the difference is really important and embracing both. If your aim is perfection, you're going to be miserable your whole life because nothing's perfect. If your aim is just to be a better version of you, accepting what you're not great at, but work on being better at it, that's a much better way to live. It's much more tolerant and way kinder to yourself. When I talk about compassion in the book, I talk about self-compassion. it's probably one of the most important things. And I struggled at it. I am my own worst critic. I'm hardest on myself.

Gary S:

So is Warwick. That's why he's laughing. So is Warwick.

James K:

Yeah.

Gary S:

He is own worst critic.

Warwick F:

Amen.

James K:

Yeah. I mean, it's unhealthy, but it is what it is. And so, I think the goal in life is to be more self-compassionate as you get older, but it's not easy.

Gary S:

And Warwick, before we leave the subject of how crucible is defined in James's book, I looked up how crucible is defined by you in your book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, which came out on October 19th. And here's how it's described in your book and listen. Some of the same words is fascinating. This is what you wrote, Warwick. "Moments that bring us to a critical crossroads in our lives and provide invaluable opportunities to reflect, reassess, and redefine our purpose and vision in life and leadership." That's your definition of a crucible and it's... I mean, you guys are both onto something that is not just your opinion, but it's based on lived reality that so many people have been through.

Warwick F:

No, it's so true.

James K:

And just to add to that. One of the things... And Warwick, you're probably the poster child for this, by the way. One of the things that I think is most fascinating is that not everyone embraced their crucible in the moment. It might be 10 years, it might be 20 years.

Warwick F:

Right.

James K:

And so, it's never in the moment. In the moment, it's terror, it's freak, it's scary, it's this, it's that, but as time and distance goes from that, it's the ability to look back and ask that question that's really important and pertinent. And that's the thing I think that you've done over time that I've done over time. And that's what I found in the book. The person who wrote the forward, Joe Burton, he was a high flying executive by 40 years old, but he was broken. He was broken as a man, broken as a body. He was broken. And he had to go back and look through his childhood to figure out why he was how he was and uncover that crucible to redirect his life, but it took him 10, 15, 20 years to get to that point.

Warwick F:

Oh, it's so true. I mean, for a lot of the '90s, I wasn't so much blaming other people. I mean, yes, there was instability in the family for decades and I could point to all that, but for me it was just like, "How could I've been so dumb? How could I've been so dumb? And how could I think that doing a $2 billion takeover that the rest of my other family members would want to stay in a privatized company run by a 26 year old?" I mean, come on. Harvard MBA. I mean, Harvard MBA. I mean, how could I've been so dumb? So, that was a lot of it.

James K:

Was that ego?

Warwick F:

No, for me, it was more youthful naivety and idealism. It was feeling like the company is not being run along the ideals of the founder who was a person of great faith. I was too. So, not so much Jesus lives on the front pages, but more just in terms of how people are treated in the company and the quality of the newspaper, but it was just the sense of, as my parents' belief too. The vision has strayed from the founder. I wanted to see the company be well managed or better managed. So, it was more youthful, naivety, idealism with a bit of a crusader mentality. It wasn't about money or power or... It's like, "Yeah, I'll still work in the marketing planning department whilst you guys keep your titles."

Warwick F:

It was all very naive, but it was idealistic. The intentions, I think, were good, but it was a lot of bad things can happen with good intentions, but yeah. I mean, to your point about bouncing back just the self-awareness, I know for me and from my faith perspective, sort of anchored in my Christian faith, it's had to go from "I screwed up God's plan" because I felt like, "Oh, God had this plan to restore the company to the ideals of the founder." Poor theology. If he wanted it to happen, it would have despite my mistakes and stupidity, but really the core of me reclaiming my self-esteem and self-awareness is God loves me and I believe every human on the planet unconditionally. Not because of what we do, just because we're human. As humans, we have innate worth and beyond Christianity, I think most major religions, philosophies believe in the worth of a human being.

Gary S:

I want to jump in just for a second because Warwick says this all the time, James, and I never get this opportunity to have someone who understands this stuff as well as Warwick does. And you've interviewed all of these people. You've written this book about how people process their crucibles, how they move past them, move beyond them. And one of the things Warwick says that I'm always a little sad to hear him say, not that he's being authentic and he's acknowledging mistakes, but he often says I was stupid. And that always strikes me as perhaps not the emotional wisest place to be. It's great to be authentic and Warwick is one of the most authentic people I know, but that's self degradation, if you will. I don't know. In your experience and who you've talked to for our listeners, not just for Warwick, but for our listeners, is that helpful or are there better ways to go about that perhaps?

James K:

No, I think you should be harder on yourself, Warwick. I think you should be harder on yourself. I feel like that's a loaded question, Gary. Of course, it's not helpful, but it goes back to that idea of acceptance, right? You said something, Gary, that was really interesting. And I know you weren't trying to be flippant with the words like they move on from crucibles, whatever. To me, you don't move on, you accept them. And I know it's a small difference in language, but it really matters in this because you can never leave them behind. That's a scar on your back, right.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

James K:

And Gary, you have your scars and you shared a little bit of your story with me when we did a pre-interview. We all have scars and it's the ownership of them. That's the brilliance. That's the best part because that ownership is the experience that allows you to be a better version of yourself.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

James K:

And so, I never want to minimize my crucibles. I mean, geez, I've lived on four continents and I've dragged my kids to two different continents in the last five years. Their crucibles are equally their scars on their back. Good or bad as it might be. And so, I think they're essential. I think, again, the point I keep going back to and I think is so relevant, and it drives the self-awareness is the ability to accept them for the goodness in them, not the badness in them. You hear of stories of women and men who've been abused or raped or whatever, and those that say, "Hey, you know what? That was a blessing because of X. I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't great. I would never want it on anybody else, but it made me a better version of myself because of Y."

James K:

And those people, I love so much because they have every right to hate and detest and be negative, but they choose not to. And for me... You can see that gets me really fired up. For me, it's so important for our world to stop hanging on to what's wrong, right? We just hang on to all the crap and all the disagreements and all, and it's just not helpful for anybody. And I'm going to step down off my soap box and we can...

Warwick F:

No, no, no. No, I think what you said is just so profound. I want listeners to reflect on this because one of the things you talk about is just this growth in gratitude. And part of that obviously is acceptance. And then seeing some blessings that have come through that. I mean, we've interviewed maybe 70 plus guests of every kind of background, gender, race, from a Navy SEAL that was paralyzed in a training accident, to victims of abuse, business failure, every kind of crucible you can imagine. And the journey back is always the same and very much in line with what you write is acceptance, but somehow finding meaning in it, finding purpose. I mean, we had a woman on a few weeks ago and we have a few Australians. Funnily enough, I don't know why we have so many Australians on the podcast.

Gary S:

Yeah. There's been five Australians and one person from Wisconsin where I'm from.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

James K:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I don't know why that happens, but anyway, she was paralyzed and was diagnosed as a quadriplegic at age 13 in a diving accident in an above ground pool. Parents kept saying... Her name is Stacey Copas. "Stacey, stop doing that. Stop doing that." You know what kids when they're 13, they're not going to listen to listen to their parents. Well, this had lifelong consequences. So, obviously, she went through years of, "Oh my gosh. What did I do?" And had some substance issues, which she talks about, which understandable, but she now says that what she went through was a gift.

Warwick F:

And you've obviously heard this before, but this is stunning. How could a diagnosis of a quadriplegic be a gift? But so many of them, they see blessings in what they went through. It's only recently that I'm thinking maybe what I went through was a blessing or a gift because, I don't know, a few weeks, few months ago, I said it can be useful, but a gift, but...

Gary S:

That's exactly what you said because I put it in a press release and you're like, "I don't think it was a gift."

Warwick F:

Yeah. So, finally, I'm trying to grow and learn myself, but for me really the turning point just by way of analogy was 2008. And again, listeners would have heard this, but 2008 at my church, the pastor... It was like a 2000 plus evangelical church. The pastor was giving a message on the life of David. Saul was trying to kill him because he was doing a good job. This day and age if your boss doesn't like what you're doing because you're showing them up, they typically don't kill you, but they did back then.

James K:

I'm glad we've modernized our employment situations.

Warwick F:

It's like, "Oh, I'm fired? I can take being fired. Just don't kill me." But anyways, he's feeling bad about himself. So, he wanted a sermon illustration of a righteous person falsely persecuted. Well that's not me. I made a lot of my own mistakes, but the point of the story is I shared my story in about seven to 10 minutes of growing up in Australia in a big family media business, and nobody had ever heard of, but obviously Australia's a long way away. But weeks and months after, people came up to me and said, "Warwick, what you shared was so helpful." Well, how many former media moguls are out there in the audience? None? It's one thing to say you're a cancer survivor or abusive survivor or-

James K:

There is one. I mean, there is one in the audience.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Me.

James K:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Sadly some crucibles so many people have gone through. Point of the whole story is if by sharing my story and writing my book, which was unbelievably painful, it took years to write because imagine writing about in exhaustive detail about your worst experiences, which you've done some of. So, you get it, but if my pain can help others, now that motivated me. I talk about. There's some healing in being able to use your pain to help others. Yeah, all that's to say is, as you can see a blessing and a gift in what you've been through, that was part of my journey back. I mean, I'm assuming that's your experience with the people that you've interviewed and just the benefit of seeing what you've been through is having...

James K:

Can I comment on something you said that was really interesting?

Warwick F:

Yeah.

James K:

This epic failure... Let's be clear. It was an epic failure.

Warwick F:

Sure.

James K:

Right. Crucible. You're talking 10... How many years later before... 2008 from that.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

James K:

Was it 20 years, 10 years-

Warwick F:

Well, it was 1990 that the company went under. So, I don't know whatever that is. 18 years later on.

James K:

So, almost 20 years, right.

Warwick F:

Yeah, yeah.

James K:

So, what that says to me though is that you never had acceptance, right?

Warwick F:

Maybe.

James K:

If it's still painful for you to talk about it eight, 20 years later and write about it, then there's that level of acceptance of it is what it is and to move on, right? So, for me, as we kind of open the show, my acceptance of my failures happened pretty quick. I may blame myself for them, but I accept it like it is what it is. And so, for me, that's a great sign that if you're now shifting from... Kind of it happened to me too. It's a gift that happened for me. It's unpacking and unraveling that package and pulling out those gifts and showing them, which is what it sounds like you were starting to do now.

Warwick F:

Yeah.

James K:

That's my point about... Time doesn't care about your crucible. It's you have to make the decision of how you're going to open that gift or not.

Warwick F:

And I feel like acceptance doesn't for most people... Certainly, for me, it didn't happen overnight. It was a growth process. Step by step. I mean, there was a time in the '90s when I got invitation to Oxford reunions and Harvard Business School reunions. I wouldn't go. I was too embarrassed. I'd feel like I'd be like a leper. Unclean, leave the town. And I eventually went to one and it was okay because there are other Harvard MBAs have actually had business failures. Who knew? But maybe not quite so epic, but...

James K:

Yeah.

Warwick F:

Yeah. So, I'm just trying to... I mean, there's so much in this. Obviously we talked a bit about crucibles, self-awareness. You talk about the public versus the private self, which I get. The public persona, but round out some of these other things you have because you've got integrity, compassion, relatableness, great word, learning, which you've talked about. What are some of the other parts of the model that really are the keys to being an authentic leader?

James K:

Yeah. So, to unpack that a little bit, the compassion to me is really important. And initially the book started with empathy as the main core idea, but I kind of said, compassion means you want to remove that person's pain. You want to really try to figure how you can help them. And in doing compassion, that's a level of selflessness. And in selflessness, there's actually joy and giving is joy. And so, I kind of wanted to make that leap to say, "If you really want to be a better version of yourself, give yourself to someone else in a way that's helpful for them."

James K:

When we speak about relatableness and integrity, I think integrity goes without saying, but I'm really narrow on integrity and this is probably a reflection on my life. The biggest thing I saw and I see in business and I see in interactions is, follow through with the request you made or the promise you have. Too often people give themselves outs. "Yeah, I'll email you later." And then they don't. And it's those little tiny micro things that actually have a huge weight on how people perceive you. I hate the phrase, "Hey, let's meet up for a drink." "Hey, let's go get coffee," but you don't really mean it. You're not going to really do it. Then why say it? And then it becomes this parlance of it's totally acceptable that you're never going to see that person again, but you're going to say these things because it's the polite thing to say. And I think there's just other ways to go about not falsifying the intent, if you will.

James K:

So, for me, integrity is really the micro things that are the most important. I think macro, yes we can agree. Killing is bad. Yes. I think that's pretty clear. So, there's the macro levels of integrity, but the relatableness one for me is really the most important one. As a PhD in consumer psychology, a lot of this was based on research that was backed up by interviews. And what I found was the value in relationships far out exceed anything else, and I use a phrase in the book called micro-moments of meaning. And for me, it's such a critical piece of who I am, and I'm not always great at it, but the premise of micro-moments of meaning is that when you engage in a conversation one-on-one, two on one, when you leave that conversation leaving the other people smiling or laughing, there's a neurological impact that happens on their brain. And the research suggests that when you leave a conversation with two people and they're smiling or laughing, they're more likely to replicate that with the next person they talk to.

James K:

And so, it becomes this spider web of positivity that you can embed in someone by creating that micro-moment of meaning. It may not mean a lot for you, but it could mean a lot for them. And that kind of goes back to the compassion side of being of service of others. That's my Jesuit background. Being of service of others. And so, the relatableness is about creating those micro-moments of meaning that have a long-term impact because that's also the last way they remember you, right? So, that smile, that's their last memory. That's their most immediate interaction with you. So, that means that that's how they're going to frame you in their mind as the funny, nice, kind, happy person. And so, that's really important as a way to leave somebody in a moment.

Gary S:

I am going to try to interject a micro-moment of meaning here by saying... And hopefully it will leave you with a smile on your face, James, when I'm done talking, but the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. It is time to begin preparing the cabin for landing, but before I do that, I would be remiss if I did not give you a chance, James, to let listeners know how they can find out more about you, the services you offer and particularly where they can find your book because, obviously, you and Warwick traffic in some of the same stuff, and there's great wisdom in both. So, how can they find out more about you?

James K:

Yeah. So, the book is on Amazon. It's got the digital... The audio book is great. I hired three actors to come in and act out the different scenes and the different stories in the book. So, that makes the book really fun and engaging because it's not just a voice. So, I really encourage the audio book out of all of them as you do it, but the book is on Amazon.

James K:

In terms of me, you can always reach out to me at jkelley, K-E-L-L-E-Y, @qchange.com. It's the letter "Q" and then "change.com". As for what I do and what we do as a company, we're really in the business of impacting people at the point of choice. And so, what does that mean? Our product or solution helps leaders be better at their job by giving them behavioral prompts, soft skill prompts immediately before a meeting. But then after the meeting, we're asking them, "Did you do this?" We ask those around them. "Did you see this?" And we allow them to grow in the flow of work, not intrusively, just twice a day. But what's great about it from an individual level is that you can get that repetitive behavior prompting that you need to be better at being a better version of yourself.

James K:

In our solution, we have a whole authentic leadership area. So, if someone is trying to be an authentic leader, they have those options to work on. Beyond DEI and communication and strategy. So, that's what we do. We're at Microsoft Teams, and that's our main platform that we sell our product in. So, yeah. It's awesome. And we've had a ton of great feedback around it. And I wouldn't tell you if we had that feedback anyway, so don't worry about it.

Warwick F:

Oh, good. Well, thank you so much, James. I mean, I was just thinking as you were talking about integrity, compassion, relatableness that I often think to me with great leaders there's something that fuels them, not just because it's a good way to be successful in the holistic sense of the word, but it comes from a value. It could be a faith perspective or maybe an example from childhood, but I know for me one of my highest values is treating everybody with dignity and respect. And so, I am not perfect. I have my bad days like we all do, and I can be cranky and obstinate, but I really try to know what's happening. And so, if that's what you're talking about with relatableness. "Gee, I'm sorry. How was the weekend? Oh, your kid was sick? Oh, wow. Really? That's awful." The next day. "How is your daughter? Is she better now? How was that sore throat? It was strep. Oh, really?"

Warwick F:

I mean, you ask. You follow up, not because you try to be successful, because it's the right thing to do out of your set of values. If it's out of your intrinsic values, you're not going to forget because you will do it because you want to do it. With integrity, I love your definition. Do plus say equals trust. Again, that comes out of values that if you say you're going to do something, then do it because it's the right thing to do. If you say you're going to call somebody, well then... I mean, it comes out of and being compassionate again. I love that sense. Empathy is fine, but compassionate is like empathy and action, if you will.

Warwick F:

So, all these things relate to us. I don't know if it's a worldview, but just a desire. A certain set of values. And maybe even... I guess my sort of last question as we sort of try and sum all this up, which is a challenge because there's so much here. With Crucible's Gift, what's the biggest lesson that you would want people to have as they read this book and reflect on it? What's the biggest lesson you would offer people in Crucible's Gift?

Gary S:

It's good you're making him think. That's good Warwick.

James K:

Yeah. Sorry. Is this silence awkward for everyone?

Warwick F:

Not at all.

Gary S:

No. The plane is just circling the runway. We're good.

James K:

Everyone's seatbelts are buckled. Yeah. I think the biggest lesson I want someone to get is be open. Be open to the possibility of what if there's a different narrative you could tell yourself. What if there's a different question you could be asking yourself? What if the crucible that has held you back is untethered and is actually that opportunity? So, just what if?

Gary S:

And that was the sound of the plane touching down. There you go. Please gather up your belongings and we'll see you the next time. Listeners, thank you for spending time with us on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. I have some homework for you. Rather than takeaways from the episode, I have some homework for you. I love this idea that James talked about, about micro-moments of meaning. So, the homework from those of us at Beyond the Crucible is go out today and find at least three opportunities that you can leave someone with a micro-moment of meaning. Flip back to the podcast, back up, hear James describe it, so you know exactly what you're looking to do, but let's do some of that to each other. I think we can really turn around a lot of people's days if we do that and it connects to and... Talk about dating ourselves. The old shampoo commercials and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on. If everybody passes that along, it could make a great impact.

Gary S:

So, until the next time we are together, please do remember this. As we've discussed here, your crucible experiences are painful and they're not easily overcome in most cases. You've heard us talk about it in every episode of the show. And you've heard James and Warwick talk about it today, but they can be overcome. The key is your perspective on what the crucible means to you. Did it happen to you or did something happen for you? Can you learn the lessons of it, apply those lessons and move forward? Because when you do, it's not the end of your story. It's not the worst chapter of your story. It's a new chapter that can become the best chapter of your story because where it leads in the end as you follow the road on that journey is to a life of significance.