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.

Chris Singleton’s young life changed in a horrifying instant in 2015, when his mother was shot to death along with eight others in the Mother Emmanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Singleton made headlines nationwide in the days after the tragedy when he announced he had forgiven the shooter – a white supremacist who targeted the predominantly African-American congregation in the hopes of starting a race war.

Singleton has dedicated himself since then to emphatically, dramatically denying the killer’s twisted hope – speaking coast to coast about the power of forgiveness, inclusion and getting to know, understand and love those who look and think differently than we do.

To learn more about Chris Singleton, visit www.chrissingleton.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Chris S:

Forgiveness is huge and has changed my life, but I don't believe in forgiving and forgetting, right? I don't believe you can just forgive and forget and that's it. No, I'll never forget that my mom was shot eight times while she was praying. I'll never forget that, but I can move forward in my life, right? So I've forgiven and been able to move forward, not forgetting, but now the mission that I have a simple, is to get people of all different races and religions as well, skin-colored background, everything to live in harmony. So harmony for me and unity for me doesn't mean we all sit down and listen to the same country song, right? Doesn't mean we're all sitting by the campfire listening to Chris Young or somebody. Maybe you want to listen to Chris Brown or Usher.

Chris S:

That's not what it means for me, but there's a certain level of respect that we have for human beings because we say, "You know what? Everybody has a story behind their opinion."

Gary S:

A big mission to be sure, but it takes a big mission to meet a big challenge. And this one was born of a big crucible. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show. Our guest this week is Chris Singleton, a former Major League Baseball prospect, whose young life changed in a horrifying instance in 2015 when his mother was shot to death along with eight others in the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Singleton made headlines nationwide in the days after the tragedy when he announced he had forgiven the shooter, a white supremacist who targeted the predominantly African American congregation in the hopes of starting a race war.

Gary S:

Singleton has dedicated himself since then to emphatically dramatically denying the killer's twisted hope, speaking coast to coast about the power of forgiveness, inclusion and getting to know, understand and love those who look and think differently than we do.

Warwick F:

Chris, thank you so much for being here. It really is an honor to have you because your message of forgiveness and reconciliation, given what you and your family have been through, it's hard to really understand and fathom how that could be your message given many would say, "How is that possible?" But before we get to, obviously, what would seem the pivotal moment, that horrendous moment in Charleston in 2015, just tell us a bit about maybe the backstory of yourself and your family, mom, dad. What was life for you growing up, hopes, dreams? What was life pre-2015 like for Chris Singleton?

Chris S:

Yeah, well, first, thank you guys so much for having me on. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, was born there and raised there until I moved to Charleston in about middle school. And for me, I was coming up and playing sports. Both of my parents were athletes in college and so that had been passed on to me. And I was playing baseball, which I didn't realize that there weren't a ton of black kids playing baseball, so we moved to Charleston, South Carolina. But I was playing baseball, absolutely loved it and I fell in love with the sport. And my only two things that I wanted in life when I was coming up in middle school, elementary school, was number one to get drafted by a professional team, didn't have to be the Cubs, the Yankees or anybody. I just wanted to be drafted by a team.

Chris S:

And number two, I wanted to buy my mom a really nice car. My mom was an educator and she would always see these really nice cars driving by and say, "Man, she's going to buy herself one one day," and I was thinking in the back of my head, "No need to mama. I'm going to do it for you." So that's all I wanted pre-2015, I was just a baseball player, was raised in the church. So the faith was there, but ultimately, man, I just wanted to play sports, make it to the big leagues.

Warwick F:

Well, that's a great dream. I often say it helps to pick your genes. It sounds like you had some athletic parents which obviously helped. So what was life like at home? Do you have siblings? How many siblings do you have?

Chris S:

Yeah, man, so life for me, I would say we've been throwing the word around privilege I think over the last year too. And so I was pretty privileged growing up, even as a young black man, right? I was privileged because both my parents went to college and I was privileged because I didn't grow up missing meals by any means, right? And my mother was an educator. My father worked at the school as well in special ed classes where he taught. And so I didn't really miss meals. My dad was a teacher, but one thing about my father and my home life was that he was a really, really heavy drinker, really, really bad. And so he's an alcoholic growing up and it put a strain on his relationship with me a little bit, but more so with my little brother and sister.

Chris S:

My little brother, he's seven years younger than me. My little sister's four years younger than me. And so growing up, we had a pretty decent life, except for my dad really struggled with alcoholism and he was in and out of prison with multiple DUIs where he's put people's lives in danger. But that's what life was like for me growing up. I used my sport as my getaway and was fortunate enough to have my mom as my number one fan in the stands screaming at the top of her lungs.

Warwick F:

So obviously, for what I understand with alcoholism, sometimes there's uncertainty as to what dad are they going to have, like the fun dad, "He's going to play ball with me," or the dad that's not quite so fun. And so I would assume, without getting into all the details, was that some of your experience that-

Chris S:

Yes, so for a while, I didn't know the sickness of alcoholism. I didn't know anything about it. All I knew was that my dad couldn't just drink one beer, right? He'd have to drink 20. He couldn't just have one drink with his buddies. He just would keep drinking. Ultimately, I think I was in eighth or ninth grade and I remember looking at my dad, asking him, "Why are you doing this, right? You're putting a strain on your relationship with our mom. You don't have a relationship with my little brother because you're always drunk around him." And he looked at me and a grown man, he started crying and said, "Chris, I can't stop." And that's one of my perspective on alcohol changed a little bit for my dad because I felt like even if you really wanted to, he was so sick, that it was really, really tough for him to will himself to not drink anymore.

Warwick F:

Oh, my gosh, he was at almost like not quite a prison of his own making, almost with the disease, I guess, that he knew it was not good for him and his family, but he couldn't find a way out, which it must have been soul crushing to know what's happening, but not know how to get out, how to stop.

Gary S:

As we move on to get to this story that brings us here. It's interesting to hear you say that, Chris, because it's clearly, and I come from an alcoholic background my own, so I know the instability that that breeds in people and I imagine even more so your relationship with your mom, that was a source of true stability for you as you were growing up. Every boy loves his mom and loves his dad and draws strength from that, but really you hinted at it, you mentioned it. She was at all your games, but the emotional support, the strength that you drew from her had to have been great.

Chris S:

It was huge, man. You're talking about a mom who ultimately became a single mother of three after my father couldn't put the bottle down and was taking care of us, still coming to games, taking us to practices and number one fan. And we definitely grew closer for sure.

Warwick F:

So it sounds like she was the rock of your family, that life is uncertain, life as we'll get into is not fair. In the last couple of years, it's more evident than ever that life is not fair or just or equitable. But despite all of what's happening in the world, you felt like your mother was the rock you could depend on. It sounds like she had a strong faith. She was somebody that you probably admired greatly. Is that a fair assessment?

Chris S:

Definitely. She was the smartest person I knew. When she was taken away from me, she was getting her PhD. So she was very intelligent, both in the books and street smarts, right? She's from Newark, New Jersey, so she grew up in the project, so she knew everything, man. She was that kind of person for us, but she was loving, right? She had a pretty rough background coming up, but man, she still loved us like nobody else. So she was definitely a rock that you speak of.

Warwick F:

So let's talk about 2015, horrific day for the country, but a horrific day for you personally. So just talk about that day and just in case there's anybody that doesn't know, help listeners understand that day, that event.

Chris S:

We talked about it or at least you did a little bit off air, the unthinkable or overcoming something that you never could imagine what happened to you and that's what June 17, 2015 was for me. I just had a great freshman season playing baseball. I was dating my high school sweetheart for multiple years. We're married now, my high school sweetheart, so life was really good until that night when I actually got a phone call on my phone. And a lady ultimately told me, "Hey, Chris, you got to come here down to the church right now. Something bad happened." And so I got and raced down to my church and saw that there was something that wasn't just my mom didn't get just in a car wreck or something. I knew it was something huge because there was police cars, there was ambulances, there was yellow caution tape everywhere, halfway up the block.

Chris S:

But I finally got to my church and an officer told me, "Hey, you can't come inside right now, but I can show you where you need to be." And he walked me to a hotel room about two blocks away and he looked at me. He said, 'I can't tell you anything right now. We don't have things confirmed, but there was a shooting that happened at the church tonight." Later on that night, I realized where I found out that my mother and eight other people had been shot and killed at Mother Emanuel Church AME in Downtown. It wasn't until about a day later that I found out that my mom was murdered because of the color of her skin.

Chris S:

There was a young man by the name of Dylann Roof who wanted to start a race war in this country. And so in his mind, he thought by killing nine people in a historically black church, it would be the divide that we needed or that he thought we needed to start a race war in this country.

Warwick F:

It's hard to digest ... everything you just said, somebody that wanted ... Some white supremacist, a neo-Nazi, just from what I've read, obviously, had a lot of issues, one would imagine. And there's your mother, a Bible-believing good mother, good person, she's going to church to a Bible study. And you tend to think of the church as a safe place. There's a lot of places that aren't safe in this world, but the church should be a place of sanctuary, of healing, of hope. And there she is, trying to be that and that happened. There's probably a million thoughts going through your mind, but what ... And at that point, I think you mentioned it was you and your younger siblings, I think you mentioned your dad wasn't in the home at that point, and so it was you and your younger siblings. What were the thoughts that were flooding through your mind in those first few days?

Chris S:

Immediately after, there wasn't any thoughts about the first few days. It was just like, "What am I going to do now?" right? We lost our mom. She's everything. She's our provider, protector, the priest. She's everything for our family. And so like most people do, I put up this facade of being super okay, right? I was all right. I cried that night, but the next day, I remember we didn't really sleep much. But I looked at my brother and sister and said, "Man, I have to show them what strength looks like," and I realized later that that wasn't what strength looked like. That was just me faking as if I wasn't a human being, but that's what immediately happened after.

Chris S:

I didn't even give myself time to grieve for myself. I just thought, "Man, my brother's 12, my sister's 15 and here I am, 18 about to be 19, and I got to take care of them." And so my immediate thoughts were, "How do I do things my mom was doing, provide and protect them, be a priest to them?" More than anything, I was just scared.

Warwick F:

So you're probably thinking, "I don't have time to complain, be angry, grieve. I got to put food on the table, a roof over the head of my younger brother and sister. I've got to be the leader of this family," and it sounds like your mom was. Do you stuff your anger and grief down like, "I don't have time for this. I got stuff to do, people to care for"?

Chris S:

I think mainly I was just in so much shock. I didn't even think about any other emotions. It was just, "What do I do next?" I have no clue what happens next. But I actually forgave my mother's killer the day after she was murdered. And so when people ask me about how that happened, not even 48 hours after my mom was taken away, I forgave my mother's killer, I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't God because it was, right? I can't even pretend like it wasn't for that it'd be placed in my heart. Because I'm 18 years old, my mom's killed and she's everything to me and I forgave ...

Chris S:

And when the words came out of my mouth of forgiving my mother's killer, I had no clue what I was saying, the magnitude that it would be, but I know now that it was the Lord using me in that time. I used to say it's my mom speaking through me, right? Because I didn't know, right? I don't hear some people say, "God told me this," and I'm like, "I'd never heard the voice of God, but I felt like, man, that was God speaking through me." That happened and I didn't know why, but now I do.

Gary S:

What was the format in which you spoke those words? What was the milieu? How did that come out of you?

Chris S:

So after my mom was killed, there's actually a prayer vigil at my high school the very next afternoon. And so we all went to the prayer vigil and I remember I didn't sleep at all the night before. Actually, I slept next to my brother and he couldn't sleep, so I couldn't sleep. But we got to the prayer vigil and high school full of people. I remember actually there was a reporter, I think, from the BBC or somewhere. It wasn't in the US, somewhere else. And they came up to me and they said, "Chris, how do you even feel about your mother's killer?"

Chris S:

And to be honest, I didn't even know his name or anything. I didn't know anything. I just know he just had gotten picked up. And I remember the words came out of my mouth and says, "Hey, we already forgive him." And my sister is right next to me, she looks at me like, "Are you crazy? What? We forgive who, right?" I said, "We already forgive him for what he's done." After I did that, we had a prayer vigil at my baseball college. And at this time, I'm just going where I'm being told to go. I tried to stay off my phone. I didn't want to watch any TV because I knew what was on the news. I knew what the texts were coming in. I already knew what was coming in. But I remember my baseball coach in college at the time said, "Chris, we have this conference or this press conference for you at our stadium and we think it'd be good for you to go to it."

Chris S:

And so I went there and then I said, after a ton of questions, I just said, "I think that love is stronger than hate. So if we just love the way my mom would, the hate won't be anywhere close to where love is." And after I said those words, I actually was able to sleep that night. The next morning, I woke up and I think there was 16,000 more followers than I had the day before on my social medias and that clip was played all over. And that's how things escalated in the media after I forgave my mother's killer.

Warwick F:

That is truly remarkable. There aren't too many 18-year-olds within 48 hours say, "I forgive my mother's killer," and then to say, "Love is stronger than hate." That is some of the most profound words probably anybody's ever uttered. To say that at 18, that's remarkable. As you look back in that, I know you mentioned the hand of the Lord, which makes sense to me, but how did all that happen because that's not humanly to have some white supremacist kill your mother and try to cause some racial divide to say, "I forgive you," and that isn't normal? There aren't too many people that would do that and still less would they say, "Love conquers hate." They would say, "Okay, let's go." So many wars over the centuries have happened because you take one of mine, I'll take ... They just go at it for hundreds of years. So how did all that happen?

Chris S:

Yeah, man, to be honest, I try to put it into worldly terms all the time when I speak corporately, right? I try to leave God out of it. I should try to, but it's really hard. I'd be lying if I say-

Warwick F:

This is a faith-friendly place, so you say what's on your heart.

Chris S:

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I didn't. I prayed right before I gave that press conference with a guy by the name of Pastor John Davis, who's a pastor of my college. It's a Christian university, so he's a pastor of our college. He actually has brain cancer right now, so I've been praying for him every single morning, every single night, as we speak, but we prayed, I said, "John, I don't know what I'm supposed to say," and he said, "Chris, I think the Lord's going to speak through you. Just go up there and the God is going to speak through you." And when I said those words, I didn't know until probably two years after. Man, you know what? That prayer that we prayed, that's exactly what happened."

Chris S:

And so now because of me forgiving my mother's killer, I don't constantly think about him. I don't need to or you know what else that does it? He's never said, "I'm sorry," or he's never apologized for it, but you know what forgiveness does for me, I don't need an apology. I don't. Would it be really cool to have one? Yes, because not everybody, their heart's not in the same place that is for mine, right? I wasn't the only one that was affected, but I don't need him to say I'm sorry. I realized the power of forgiveness and why God placed it on my heart. There was a student that asked me a question after I was done speaking one time. They said, "Hey, well, where's your mother's killer being held, right? We looked on the news. We saw that he got the death penalty. Where's he being held?"

Chris S:

And you know what? I said, "I had no idea." I didn't know. I couldn't even answer him. And I realized it was forgiveness that allowed me to be in a space where I've moved forward in my life, right? I miss my mom every single day, but moving forward, forgiveness allows me to not constantly think, "I need to get revenge. I need to know what he's doing every second of every single day." And so in the moment, I didn't know how powerful it was, but now I see, man. Forgiveness has freed me from so many different things and I'm grateful to God that he's done that for me.

Warwick F:

It's funny, we talk about forgiveness a fair amount on this podcast, Beyond the Crucible, and it's easy for me, not easy, but I can say this, but it's only you would be able to understand it far better than I ever could. But this phrase we talk about is that anger and bitterness puts you in a prison in a sense. When you're angry and bitter, the other person wins in some sense. When you forgive, it takes you out of that prison. And again, I know this will be obvious to you, but forgiveness doesn't mean that what was done was okay. It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences, restitution, what have you. So forgiveness doesn't mean it's all okay. It's not okay. It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences, which I'm sure you would agree, but forgiveness is just ...

Warwick F:

I often say forgiveness is more than anything. It's for you. It's for Chris. It's for your brother and sister. Because it's like your life matters. The last thing I imagine your mother would want is for you to spend your whole life in anger and bitterness. And I don't know, seek some other outlet, whether it's alcohol or whatever for your anger. That would be, I'm sure, the last thing she would want for you and your siblings. So I know that probably makes sense to you, but help listeners understand in your words why forgiveness doesn't mean that it's okay, but why forgiveness is so important for you and your family.

Chris S:

Yeah, you mentioned it that the quote where it says forgiveness is setting a prisoner free, only to later realize that you, yourself, are the prisoner, because a lot of times people will wrong us and they'll go living their lives as if nothing happened, whereas we're the ones holding like, "They don't even know what they did or they don't even know what it did to me and they're living their lives, right?" So forgiveness doesn't mean, "Hey, I'm letting them off the hook," which is what people think, "Hey, if I forgive him, I'm letting him off the hook." No, I'm letting myself off the hook. I don't have to constantly think about how I'm getting revenge. I don't have to constantly think about how I can get back at them, or in my case, forgiveness has allowed me to now want to put a stop to what has happened to my mom and to eight others that night, right?

Chris S:

So if I wasn't able to forgive, there's no way I'd be in a space to say, "Now I'm taking this upon myself as my mission to spread unity, whether it's in our schools, in our businesses, whether it's in our churches." If I hadn't been in a place to forgive in my heart, there's no way I'd be able to do it. But I think the biggest thing that people see with forgiveness, they think it's a sign of weakness. "Because man, if this person does something wrong to me and I don't retaliate, that just shows that I'm weak," is that is what people think, when in actuality, that's probably the hardest thing to do which is forgive somebody, but it's also the strongest thing and the most beneficial thing for you and your family because it's not just about you when you forgive somebody.

Chris S:

Like you said it, if I were to constantly think about getting back on my mother's killer, I wouldn't be the husband I am today, I wouldn't be the father that I am today. I still be constantly thinking, "How am I going to get revenge on my mother's killer?"

Gary S:

And it's a great source of strength. It's a great indication of strength to forgive. I was reading in a story where you gave an interview and you quoted Proverbs 24:24 as a favorite verse of yours and that says, "If you faint in the face of adversity, your strength is small," and apply to your story, what you've just been describing, that was hardly fainting in the face of adversity to forgive, Dylann Roof. It was strength and you showed that your strength was not small in doing that and the thing that, when I heard you, as you described it and I've heard this story before, obviously, when I heard you describe that he wanted to start a race war, the thing that gives me hope, that encourages me about your story, that impresses me about your story is that he didn't get what he wanted from you, you're being able to forgive him, right?

Gary S:

He wanted to foment this thing and you denied him that. That wasn't the reason why you did it, but in standing on your strength and following your mother's strength, I read elsewhere where you said, "If the roles were reversed, your mom would have forgiven if it was you who was in that church at that day. She would have forgiven the killer as well." You denied him that thing that he said he wanted, and to me, that is both hopeful and extraordinarily strong of you.

Chris S:

It's also the exact opposite happened, right? So I love where I live in Charleston. I still live here. We've got tons of history, both good and bad. When it comes to slavery, that was here. And I think it was 60 or 70% of all slaves came through Charleston at one point. And so there's definitely tons of bad history here, but I'll never forget, after my mom was killed, there were people of all different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds that were locking arms together. We weren't asking, "Hey, what did they do to deserve this?" or, "What happened before this?" No, there was none of that. We locked arms. We marched together. We said, "Wrong is wrong and hate doesn't have a place here."

Chris S:

And so I absolutely love that and it's almost as if not only did he not get what he wanted by starting the race war, the opposite happened and we all came together.

Warwick F:

That is the best victory when you can oppose what he's trying to do. It's easy to get angry and bitter, but you think about what would that do to your wife. I think you mentioned you have young kids do you now or-

Chris S:

Yeah, I've got a son and I also took care of my brother and sister for-

Warwick F:

So can you imagine? What tends to happen is if you're angry and bitter against the world, anger doesn't just stop in one direction. You've experienced what anger can happen through alcoholism. I'm sure your dad didn't intend to be angry towards your mom and your younger brother and sister. I'm sure it wasn't his intention, but when you're angry, irrespective of the cause, what we typically do is we take it out on the people we most love. And so people don't realize anger and bitterness is like, "I'm just going to be angry and bitter towards white people or towards white supremacists." "Okay, let's forget what God would think of it." Even assuming you could do that, it won't stop there because anger and bitterness, you can't chain anger and bitterness, you can't corral it, you can't damn it. It flows everywhere and people don't realize that.

Warwick F:

Why would you want to hurt the people you must love? Which you inevitably would. So you chose, to me, that the bravest and the strongest path, the most godly path, but also the path that most ensured his agenda wouldn't succeed. So talk a bit about what you do with this whole forgiveness and reconciliation because I think that's so powerful. There's a lot of incidents in history of being angry at each other for hundreds of years, whether it's Protestants and Catholics in Ireland or. There's many incidents of that.

Warwick F:

Then there's a few of, as you would be very familiar with, the Nelson Mandela in South Africa and having almost, I forget what he calls it, not reconciliation but he wanted justice, but yet, he wanted to see if, which has not been easy, I do realize, but see if South Africa could come together. He did his level best despite being in prison for many decades. That's an incredible example of relatively modern day somebody that's stood for reconciliation and forgiveness. Talk about what that means to you, what your mission around reconciliation and forgiveness is.

Chris S:

Yeah, and I want to be practical for all listeners as well. You know what? Forgiveness is huge and it's changed my life, but I don't believe in forgiving and forgetting. I don't believe you can just forgive and forget and that's it. No, I'll never forget that my mom was shot eight times while she was praying. I'll never forget that, but I can move forward in my life, right? So I've forgiven and been able to move forward, not forgetting, but now the mission that I have is simple is to get people of all different races, religions as well, skin-colored background like everything to live in harmony.

Chris S:

So harmony for me and unity for me doesn't mean we all sit down and listen to the same country song, right? It doesn't mean we're all sitting by the campfire listening to Chris Young or somebody. Maybe you want to listen to Chris Brown or Usher. That's not what it means for me, but there's a certain level of respect that we have for human beings, because we say, "You know what? Everybody has a story behind their opinion." So for instance, everybody has a stance on something, right? If you don't have a stance on it, then you probably haven't experienced anything that deals with it yet or you weren't taught to have a stance on it, right?

Chris S:

And I think a lot of people, they ultimately judge people by their stance without realizing, "Hey, there's a story behind their opinion, just like there's a story behind mine." So for a young black man, for me, I share with you guys my story how my mom was shot eight times while she was praying. And so when I say my stance is that I don't like guns, you know what? There's empathy in saying, "You know what? I can see why Chris doesn't like guns because his mom was shot eight times while she was praying. It's pretty clear, clear and simple, right?" And then when I hear somebody say, "Hey, Chris, I grew up around guns my whole life." They say, "My grandmother had a gun. My grandfather had a gun, right? My preacher who's preaching on Sunday mornings had a gun in the pulpit. That's just the way that grew up, why I love guns."

Chris S:

You know what? I can understand when he went hunting his whole life and now he still goes hunting and he feels like his grandfather's still there with him, even though his grandfather's gone. So going out hunting, shooting guns is a way that he feels spiritually connected. There's empathy because I know his story behind it, but I think the problem, Warwick, is, and Gary as well, I think when people say, "I see your stance. I see that I don't agree with you, but I don't care about your story. I don't even want to hear about it," and that, unfortunately, is what happens nowadays. And now what I'm trying to reconcile and get people to live in harmony and just love one another, you don't always have to like one another.

Gary S:

Right.

Chris S:

You don't always have to like one another, but there should be a level of respect for one another. And when I say the respect, I think that's love for me.

Warwick F:

That's again so profound. I often think it's a lot harder to hate somebody that you know if you know their story.

Chris S:

That's good.

Warwick F:

You empathize with them. It's like he doesn't mean you have to, as you say, like the same kind of country music or agree on guns. I grew up in Australia which is culturally very different than the US on, for instance, guns. It is not a big divide on that issue in Australia. I get it coming to this country, it's like, "Oh, okay." It's culturally very different, but so much, whether it's racism, slavery, the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, it's all because of, "These people are different and I don't know any of these people and because they're different, they must be bad," and it goes on and on. But if you actually meet them, it's like, "Hey, they're human. They have fears and hopes and dreams just like me. Just because they don't look like me or they don't like the same things I do doesn't mean they're bad or anything."

Warwick F:

I know this sounds childishly simple, but if you can understand their hopes and dreams and fears and maybe become a friend with them, how do you hate a friend? It's pretty difficult, right? Especially as kids. You can get ingrained over the decades, but I don't know. It's, "Hate often comes because I don't know who you are. I don't know your story. I know nothing about you."

Chris S:

And even as people Warwick, I think, we laugh about the same things, right? We joke about the same things. If a guy's holds his grandson for the first time, it doesn't matter if he's in Asia or if he's in Canada or Australia, he's going to smile. He might shed a tear, right? Because he's that proud and that's a warm feeling. It doesn't matter where you're at. I think when we forget that we're all humans and we laugh about the same things and cry about the same things, when we forget those things, that's where trouble comes in. And that's something I'm just trying to remind people. At the core of who we are, we're more alike than different.

Warwick F:

Well, exactly. It's like we're both married. It's like maybe you're talking to the guys after dinner and your wife says, "Hey, what about the dishes? Sorry, I got caught up." It's like, "I cook. You clean, okay? And many things, that's the deal." "Okay, sorry about that. I got a bit distracted." Well, anybody that's a husband has been there. It's a funny thing, but we understand that experience. It's like, "Dishes aren't going to do themselves. Come on, let's get going." It sounds so simple, but yet so often in the media or in politics, maybe there's money to be made in division, I don't know, but it's like everybody's yelling at each other. Nobody's listening.

Warwick F:

You know more about this than I do, but often think, people often say, "You need to understand me, right? I don't want to understand you. How about we try and understand each other?" Do you know what I mean? It's like, "I'm right. You're wrong. You need to listen to me." Well, even if somebody objectively is "right", how do you get reconciliation if there's no communication, there's no desire to understand each other? Do you know what I mean?

Chris S:

Yeah, what we do a lot of times is we listen, right? We'll listen, but we listen just to respond. We listen to say, "Hey, I'll tell you why you're wrong. I listened to you. Okay, now let me tell you why you're wrong." Instead of saying, "You know what? I listened to gain this new perspective, because a lot of times you may be right." I give this example a lot of times like, as a young black, I keep saying I'm a black man. But you know what? I was very privileged, I think, to be in this country growing up. I think there's opportunities here that I may not have had if I was somewhere else. I also think I'm very privileged because both of my parents went to college, right? They never missed meals.

Chris S:

And so I don't know what it feels like to miss meals, right? I don't know what that feels like. And so if I'm an educator or if I'm somewhere, and let's just give this example, kids are always skipping in line getting food, every single morning, skipping the line, skipping the line. They're not in the right, they're not, but if the kid tells me, "Hey, the reason why I skip the line every day is because I don't eat dinner because my parents can't afford for me to have a hot meal." He may be still wrong for skipping the line, but there's empathy in me now realizing, "You know what? I don't have the understanding of what it feels like for my stomach to be turning because I'm hungry." Even though he's wrong, this kid shouldn't be jumping line in the morning because other people are in front of them, there's understanding because I say, "Man, he must be terribly hungry." And so I think sometimes we listen, but we're just listening to tell somebody they're wrong or pointing out all the flaws, even though they may be right about some points. We're not thinking about those. We don't want to say we agree with them on this and that, but want to change that. No. We just want to say, "Here's where you're wrong," and that's the sad part about it.

Warwick F:

Sometimes, I won't say being right is overrated, but certainly, let's say on the marriage front and I've been blessed to be married to my wife over 30 years, she's American, but I met her in Australia, but so often, it's like you convinced her you're right and sometimes you are and it's like, "Well, let me try and understand her perspective and being reconciled." And again, I'm not trying to apply this too broadly because there is righteousness and justice. I do agree, but sometimes in a marriage setting, being right can be overrated and it's like, "I'd rather be reconciled than have my point of view be right."

Chris S:

Sometimes you lose when you're right anyway, right?

Warwick F:

Right. Exactly. I guess one question I have is, you probably have some people come up to you and say, "Chris, you live in this Pollyanna world of forgiveness. You're a person of faith. You go to church," and not a whole lot of people do these days. There might be some who come from tougher backgrounds than you, right? Maybe other young black men who says, "You're privileged. You have no idea ..." There's always somebody worse sadly or a worse story. Have you had people come up to you and say, "It's easy for you to ..."? I don't know how it can be easy for you to forgive. That to me, how could you make that claim because what you went through was unthinkable? But do you have people like challenge your forgiveness and reconciliation notion and say, "You know what? That's good for you, but you're flat out wrong and the only way we'll have justice and equity is war"

Chris S:

I've heard people say, "Chris, I don't think you should have forgiven your mom's killer. I think you let him off the hook." And I say, "Well, he got the death penalty, so I don't think he's off the hook by any means there," but I do understand where people are coming from. Now, if I were sitting on the sidelines, I forgive him and I just sit back and sip some iced tea and just do nothing, then I can understand why that makes sense. But for me to be on the road 120 days a year away from my family, still talking about this message of forgiveness, of unity, of changing hearts from people that are racist, I still see that in my work now.

Chris S:

Then because I do all those things, then that argument is not credible. Also, I lost both of my parents before I was 21, right? I was 19, taking care of two teenagers. My father died a year after my mom was killed. And so here I am, foreclosed on my house, repossessed car, taking care of two teenagers while still living in college. When people understand the full story, the full spectrum of things, there's no longer, "Hey, Chris, yeah, you experienced that, but that was it." No, I've probably experienced more than most people have in a lifetime. I just don't want to stay there. That's my thing. And I think once they hear the full story, then there's no longer any people that are saying, "Well, you know what?" or there's no longer any disbelievers or people that won't believe in what I'm sharing.

Gary S:

And there's something powerful about it. I think there's something ... Once you've committed to forgiveness, once in that press conference, those two press conferences where you say, "I forgive my mother's killer," you have to then live that out. You made that public. And I've read where you say that there needs to be something on the other side of forgiveness. And for you, what was that something? You've talked about it, in example, but what do you see is what's on the other side of forgiveness for you that you are walking out and living every day?

Chris S:

On the other side of forgiveness for me is having one of my best friends in the world, Carl Moore, he's a white guy. People always want to be super politically correct. I call him a white guy. He calls me a black guy. That's just how we hang out, one of my best friends in the world. I think on the other side of forgiveness is me saying, "I don't have to hate all white people because a white man went into my church and wanted to start a race war." Now on the other side of forgiveness says, "You know what? Even though we have different skin colors, I'm not going to look at every single young white male and say they're Dylann Roof because that's not the case." On the other side of forgiveness for me, I say, "You know what? That was just one person that was misinformed and misled to hate people that look like me and made a terrible decision that took my mother's life."

Chris S:

And now I say, "Okay, because that happened," on the other side of forgiveness, "not everybody's like that." And I think sometimes, we don't know what's on the other side of forgiveness for us. And if we don't know what's on the other side, it's going to be super hard to forgive somebody or forgive yourself if there's no reward for it."

Gary S:

And I want to speak to the listener right now who is hearing Chris describe this because that's a big, big dose of forgiveness that he gave. His crucible was extraordinary. And we talk on this show a lot about people comparing crucibles, right? "Your crucible was worse than mine, so I don't really know what that's like," and in some ways, it's almost like we need to reverse it. In other words, if your crucible is small, listener, there's still opportunities to forgive. There's still something on the other side of that forgiveness. It will look different than what is on the other side of Chris' forgiveness, by definition, just like your crucible looks different.

Gary S:

But I would think you would agree, Chris, that forgiveness, when a crucible has been caused by someone who has treated you in whatever way is wrong, whether it's the ultimate way that you experienced or someone cut you off in traffic or hit your car, those smaller "forgivenesses" are important too and there's something very good and gracious that lives on the other side of those too, right?

Chris S:

I agree, man, and you said when somebody cuts you off in front of a car and I love just that thought because that's something practical that everybody can do, most people that are fortunate enough to be able to drive. So let's say somebody cuts in front of you, immediately your emotions are going to rise, you're upset, you're angry. Maybe you say something under your breath, but I think something that's practical that we can all do is say, "You know what? That's our small crucible, so how do we respond to that?" Let's respond by staying even keeled and saying, "You know what? Maybe they're in a rush because X, Y or Z happened. Maybe they're in a rush because their wives about to have a kid or their husband is about to have surgery," or whatever it may be.

Chris S:

So I give people the benefit of the doubt until they don't deserve it anymore and that's what I try to do in situations like that. And I think that's something everybody can do. All of our listeners that are listening right now can say, "Hey, the next time this happens to me, I'm going to forgive them. Let's just see what that does for me because I hear Chris talking about it. I hear how powerful this is supposed to be. Let me see what this does for me and my heart on the small scale."

Warwick F:

That's so profound. I often think of forgiveness as a bit like weeding on the home front, whether it's with your kids or marriage or coworkers. Things are going to tick us off every day. Sometimes you want to bring it up. Sometimes it's like, "It's not big enough for me to bring up, but yeah, it's a wisdom call." But whether you do or not, just say, "Okay, I'm going to move on here. I'm going to forgive them." If it's like a marital issue, you say, "Hey, honey, you said something and you probably didn't mean it, but it caught me in a wrong way," and hopefully, she or he will say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it." Boom, you move on.

Warwick F:

But what happens if you don't say anything, it festers. It grows like weeds and what could be a simple little thing, you just magnified to this massive thing. Not everything is that easy, but it's just forgiveness and reconciliation is a lifestyle and the other sad thing that you know very well is most people, when confronted, don't apologize. We live in the world of the double down, the triple down. Nobody ever says they're sorry. It's rare, but so if it happens, hallelujah, but if it doesn't, you still got to forgive anyway. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try. This message of reconciliation, one of the things I love that you do where you speak is you have people who look differently hug each other. Talk about that because that is a powerful, powerful concept. How did you come up with that and what happened when you did that?

Chris S:

Yeah, man. This was actually preparing for one of my first corporate talks years ago and I'm just thinking, I'm feeling so noncredible at the time. I'm like, "Man, I'm 22, about to speak to this Fortune 500 company. I don't deserve this." And I remember, I was like, "What can I do that's probably never happened before? I want to tell a bunch of people that have been working in corporate America for 25 years to go hug somebody." And we did that. I made people get up and give somebody a hug that look different than them and I said, "Hey, say that you love them as well. Just say I love you." You know what, Warwick and Gary? You know what's the fascinating thing is I would ask people, I would say, "Hey, have you guys heard those three words from somebody that looks different than you before?"

Chris S:

Some people would raise your hand. Some people would say, I haven't," and then I would also say, "Well, have you hugged somebody looked differently than you before?" Some people were like, "You know what? I actually haven't." And I said, "Well, now you have." And I just think, man, there's so many different stereotypes. There's prejudices that are going on in the world, biases, both conscious and unconscious. And sometimes all it takes is for somebody to give you a hug and say, "You know what? That thing that I was thinking or the thing that I was taught growing up, I can do away with that myth right now by just having this conversation after I hug this guy right next to me at my table." And so that's where it started and now I've made people, if they say they haven't done those two things, I force the issue.

Warwick F:

I think that's such a great example. Sadly, we live in such a divided world, whether it's in school or in church and not just racially but politically. If you're a conservative, you probably don't know any people who are liberal. If you're a liberal, you don't really know anybody who's conservative. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever the group is, it almost feels like it's I don't know if getting worse, but it just seems like we don't know people who look different and believe different, whether it's faith or politics. And then we say, "Oh," let's just shift it from racial for a moment, "Oh, Republicans are evil," "Democrats are evil," or whatever and they have different policies. It doesn't mean they're evil people.

Warwick F:

Even in high school, it just saddens me sometimes, it's normal, I get it, kids that look like one color is sitting at one lunch table and kids look like another. How about just getting up and saying, "I know we haven't met. Come sit at our table or can I sit at your house?" This probably would take a massive courage for a high schooler, but do you know what I mean? It's just-

Chris S:

Yeah, and-

Warwick F:

It just seems it's all very natural not to know people who are different than you, which does not help reconciliation.

Chris S:

I think there's two things. Gary's a Cubs fan, I'm obviously a Cubs fan because they're the only team that paid me.

Gary S:

And they haven't paid me yet, darn it, just being a fan.

Chris S:

But when you talk about sports, but I just think sports brings people together. I think about the example you just talked about with the high school team. My baseball team was often we had two black kids on my baseball team and everybody else were white kids, but my basketball team was all black. I think we had two white kids on our team. But we all sat together, right? It was just that I was a connecting piece for some of our baseball team, the basketball team to hang out because I was playing both of them, but I love sports because they bring us together, man. It truly happens that way.

Chris S:

But one thing I will say works is that, unfortunately, we put people in a box. I don't think there's anybody that could just say, "Hey, I'm a Republican," or, "Hey, I'm a Democrat and I believe every single thing that has to do with both of these things. Just probably a couple things." They're like, "You know what? I don't know if I agree with that one," but we have to put ourselves in boxes sometimes or at least society tells us to, and unfortunately, that's what keeps us divided. And so now I just wish that more people would say, "I want to go out of my way to make sure I have friends that maybe have a different faith in me, just because I want to learn about what their thought processes are, right?"

Chris S:

I know even if I wasn't a believer, I would want to be one like, "Man, this is a tough place." You know what I'm saying? Like, "I would want to be a believer." But I actually have friends that don't believe, as odd as that is, right? But I do. I actually want to have those friends. Now, I'm never a person that throws a brick of religion at him, right? I try to place faith on them like a blanket like my mom did with me. And so I'm obviously not shying away from my faith, but that doesn't have to mean I'm not friends with my buddy just because he doesn't believe that God is real and he hears me praying. Not at all.

Warwick F:

And just because somebody doesn't believe what you believe doesn't mean you're going to run around and say, "Well, what you believe is evil and you're wrong."

Chris S:

Exactly.

Warwick F:

Which I think is so some Christians, some people of faith do that which I appall and think it's wrong and not helpful.

Gary S:

And I love about this conversation. Let me add this. I love about the last five minutes. What I love about this is it extrapolates and adds to your message, Chris, that love is stronger than hate. Because what you've just talked about, what you both have just talked about is love is stronger than ideology, right? Love is stronger than your bank balance. Love is stronger than religious differences and love is stronger than skin color. You can find that patch of grass that you both can stand on despite the differences. So yes, love is stronger than hate. That's the strongest expression of differences, but it's also stronger than all those other things that may not go quite to hate, but they still keep us apart and that's what I think is beautiful about your message.

Warwick F:

Absolutely. And what I love about what you're talking about Chris is having people who look different than each other, hug each other. As you say, if you have empathy for another person, that's a big first step towards reconciliation. That's a big first step towards ideally having no more Dylann Roofs or at least not as many. Because those kind of ideas won't have fertile ground. It's like, "I hear what you're saying, but I met Chris, or whoever it is and he's a good guy. I don't get it." Do you know what I mean? It's like the poison, it's hard for it to spread, right? Because like, "Well, that's not right." Even as a kid in high school, that empathy can build walls to stop that kind of poison spreading, if that makes some degree of sense.

Chris S:

It makes so much sense it. Warwick, I often say like, "If Dylann Roof would have met Chris Singleton in second grade, I'm almost certain that there's no way that he would be thinking about black people in the way that he was when he took my mother's life, right?" If we had just been friends as kids ... One of the reasons why I started writing children's books is, because first of all, it's hard for me to tell my story to younger kids. I feel like taking away their innocence. I don't want to do that, especially they think their worlds are sunshine and rainbows.

Chris S:

I'm not here to tell them that it's not, but ultimately, I'm thinking, man, after they read the story that's going to bring people together, wouldn't it be cool if there's a kid that says, "You know what? Now I want Jose to have lunch with me, right?" Now I want Kwan, meet Kwan, come over here and share my fruit snacks with me." You know what I'm saying? That's just my hope for the world, especially for our country that I live in the States. But man, I don't think things would be the same if I would have met my mother's killer as a kid.

Gary S:

This is a good time. Normally, I say this is the, "Did you hear that? The captain turned on the fasten seatbelt sign," but because I have a former Cubs prospect here in our interview here, Warwick, I'm going to say the count's three and two, bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, two outs. So the game is on the line. It's going to come to an end here pretty soon, but before those last pitches are thrown, let's go on a little bit more. Chris, I would be remiss if I did not give you this opportunity to let listeners know how they can find out more about you and the services you offer and the speaking that you do. So how can they find out more about Chris Singleton?

Chris S:

Yeah, so I do keynote talks for companies all across the country and the way that people book me is just through my website, chrissingleton.com. I have this mission of reaching 50,000 students over the next eight months really. And so people can bring me in through social medias. All my social medias are verified. If you just look up Chris Singleton or CSingleton_2, you'll find me there. But yeah, my mission in this world, it's a crazy one, but it's not and that's just to end racism. And so if you think you'd benefit from a message that's going to bring people together, I'd love for people to get in touch with me by going to my website, chrissingleton.com.

Warwick F:

Well, Chris, thank you so much. You have such a powerful message, and, boy, that is an incredible vision, ending racism. It's easy to give up hope. The bigger the goal, the more it can seem so far, but your focus on reaching 50,000 kids and your children's books, that's so right on because is it hard to change somebody who's 50, 60, 70 years old and their opinions? Yeah, frankly, it is. But somebody who's five or 15, you've got a shot. If what you said is so profound, if you could meet a second grade Dylann Roof, maybe history could have been different. So just helping people who look different and I'd say even beyond, believe different, see each other as humans and friends, whether it's through sport or the arts, that's a tremendous vision.

Warwick F:

And to me that is possible, if we did a little less screaming at each, a little less trying to convince the other person that we're right or, "I don't like your music," or, "I don't like what you wear," or whatever it is, how about trying to get to know them? So I love that vision that you have and I just think it's ... I don't know. Just in summary, we live in a world where it doesn't feel like there's a lot of hope. What message of hope would you give for what is a very broken divided world where there's often not a whole lot of justice or equity? What's a message of hope you would give folks?

Chris S:

I think mainly, we talk about life not being fair and we know that, but ultimately, I realized that it's not about what happens to us. It's all about response to it. I'm responding with the hate that had happened to me and my family by trying to spread love. If you experience something like that, we can't control those things, but we can only control how we respond to them. And every single day, I'm trying to go out and respond by loving people like you, Warwick, like you, Gary, and all of our listeners today. And hopefully, you guys will respond to your adversity, overcoming it and bringing people together just as well.

Gary S:

Now, I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken. I've also been a baseball fan long enough to know that that was a walk-off Grand Slam right there, what Chris just said. So, thank you, Chris, for being with us. Thank you, listener for spending time with us on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. Sometimes I do some takeaways from the episode and I'm going to do one here, but it's going to be in the form of an assignment, if you will, some homework, if you will. And that is to live out what Chris has described, what he does in his speeches.

Gary S:

Now, that doesn't mean run up to someone you've never met before on the street and hug them and tell them you love them because that may be misinterpreted. But in your workplace, in your church, in your social settings, in your sphere of influence, you see people, those people who know of you who you know of that maybe you haven't spent a lot of time talking to, maybe you've just had small amounts of words. Find that person who you have enough of a connection to, but you haven't really talked to. Go up to that person. And if it's appropriate, give them a hug and tell them that you love them and see what happens. See if what happens is what Chris has described happens at his speeches all across the country.

Gary S:

That could be the start of not only a friendship for you, but a start of beginning to bring the healing and the hope that we've talked about on this episode of the show. So until the next time we are together listener, thank you for spending this time with us and remember the truth that we try to bring across on Beyond the Crucible every week and that is this, your crucible experiences are indeed painful. We know that. Chris' experience was extraordinarily painful, but as he has beautifully recounted here, it wasn't the end of his story. In many ways, it was the beginning of his story and certainly the beginning of a new chapter in his story and it can be the same way for you. Your crucible experience, if you learn the lessons that are there and you apply them to your life as you move forward, what comes next can be the best chapter of your story because where it leads you is where it has led Warwick, where it has led Chris and that is to a life of significance.

It’s taken Warwick Fairfax more than 30 years to write his book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and have it published. Why such a long time? He  explains this week in conversation with cohost Gary Schneeberger that losing control of his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty in a takeover bid that ultimately failed at a cost of $2.25 billion was too painful for too long to relive on paper – or a computer’s hard drive. But his perspective began to shift after he gave a speech at church about the lessons his trial taught him – and those who heard it told him for months afterward how much hope his story of moving beyond his crucible gave them. He explores circumstances and emotions he’s never discussed publicly before as he walks listeners through the process that led to the book now being available on brick-and-mortar and virtual bookshelves all across the globe.

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Crucible Leadership. I began thinking in the back of my mind, "Huh, if my story can somehow help people, I wonder what that would be. Is it a book?" And I began my thinking from there's no way at all, ever in this millennium or beyond will I ever write a book, period, with a couple of million explanation points, there's no way. It started shifting slowly, but like moving a aircraft carrier and I begin thinking, "Hmm."

Gary S:

The out of that unexpected thought, that hmm, was born the book released today, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Depending on when you start the clock, it has been more than a 30-year journey or a little less than half that for Warwick to write his book and have it published. Why such a long time? That's what we talk about in detail on this week's show. Warwick explains why in the immediate aftermath of his crucible, which was losing control of his family's 150-year-old media dynasty in a takeover bid that ultimately failed at a cost of $2.25 billion that it was just too painful to relive on paper or on a computer's hard drive. But his perspective began to shift after he gave a speech at church about the lessons his trial taught him, and those who heard it told him for months afterward how much hope his story of moving beyond his crucible gave them.

Gary S:

The rest might not yet be history, but it is now bound between two covers and available to all who want to live and lead with significance. So let's discover how that happened. So we're going to go through three pieces, three bits, three areas from how Warwick got from step one, I don't want to write a book after his crucible. Step two, I'm calling it, I may not want to write a book, but I'm being called to write a book. Stay tuned, you'll hear why. And then part three, How do I get people to read it? Now that it's written? That's kind of the dance that we're going to go through here.

Gary S:

So, Warwick, when you say you didn't want to write a book, when I first heard you say that was a bit shocking, because there is no shortage of books on the takeover of your family's media company that was your crucible when it fell through. There's a book, not to bring up old wounds, but there's a book called The Fall of House of Fairfax, there's a book called Fairfax: The Rise and Fall, there's a book called Stop The Press: How Greed, Incompetence (and The Internet) Wrecked Fairfax, there are other books out there. And I think where I want to start here is, your voice is in none of those books. Was there never a time where you felt like, because the impulse for a lot of people, it's not just a desire, it's like a gut reaction an impulse, "I want my side of the story out there." That's not your story. That's not what you wanted. You really didn't think, "I need to get my side of the story out there," after the takeover failed, did you?

Warwick F:

No. It might be puzzling for some, but just to go back a bit. I mean, what I went through was so painful as most listeners hopefully know, losing 150-year-old family media business. I'm a person of faith started by a strong person of faith losing a $2.25 billion takeover having a company with TV, radio and newspapers, 4,000 plus employees, 700 million in revenue, fall out of family hands, going to bankruptcy, cause ill feelings, understandably, with some other members of my family, moved to America where I've been for more than 30 years because my wife's American. The whole thing was just so painful, I just wanted to forget. I just didn't want to think about what had happened. I didn't know if it was to move on or was there somehow just forget, even going to Australia back in the nineties was painful, because I would be thrust in front of memories and the house I grew up in, a large house in Sydney on the water and just family members and mostly were gracious, but it was just so painful.

Warwick F:

And the other beat of the story is it's hard to understand maybe, but I'm not wired, maybe it's wiring or values to defend myself. I've never been one to say, "Oh, I was right," because I brought a lot of it on myself. I didn't have a desire to explain this, let posterity to decide for itself what my part it in and maybe it's my faith. Ultimately, from my faith perspective God judges all of us and we're accountable there, but just this whole kind of I was right or they were wrong or just trying to defend yourself, I've just never been one to try to defend myself. It's just not in my DNA, I just think if you are a big man, a big woman, so to speak, you don't get go when they're all defensive and just defend yourself, I don't know, for whatever reason. And I also didn't like the limelight, I just never had a feeling that I wanted to defend myself and put my side of the story out there. A, I'm not like that and, B, I just wanted to forget. I did not want to relive it.

Gary S:

It's interesting because you say a lot on this show. When you have a crucible you have to deal with it. Don't stick your head in the sand, don't not get out of bed. And I want to make it clear to listeners that that's not what you're talking about, you're not saying that's what you did. You're saying that the action that you took was, at least on the subject of a book, inaction, which is a pretty powerful action given what was being tossed at you. So, I just want to make it clear so people don't hear you say, "I didn't want to deal with it." That doesn't mean you didn't want to deal with your crucible, you did. You grew your family, you raised your family, you and your wife, Gale, did all of those things, but you specifically in a box sort of set aside this idea that, "I need to have my side of the story told because it's just not that important to me."

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, so in the nineties... Yeah, I mean, I tried and applied to a bunch of jobs, but it's hard for a kind of ex-media mogul to get a job. Nobody believed I'd be humble enough to get just some regular job. And yeah, I mean, I tried to move on as best I could. It was difficult, I've got to say, but eventually, kind of the mid-nineties I worked in a local aviation services company and business financial analysis. So, I was trying to move on in that sense, but the idea of reliving memories and writing my side of the story and let me explain myself I just feel that's lame and, it's going to sound arrogant, almost beneath my myself.

Warwick F:

It's like a lot of what I did I brought on myself. It's not quite as simple as it's all my fault. There was rifts in the family going back decades, well, almost generations. But I don't want to write some tell-all book and just start causing more harm, more friction in the family by just explaining my side and, "Hey, look what other family members did throwing my dad out as chairman in 1976." Whatever it is, I wanted to move on with my life and I did not want to write a tell-all book explaining my side. And it was so painful that I didn't want to relive it.

Warwick F:

So for multiple reasons, if anybody asked, "Hey, are you thinking of writing a book?" It's like, "No, it was painful." I have no desire to write some tell-all oh, woe is me. Those books are boring and lame, and I just wanted to move on with my life. I didn't want to go back and relive past agony for some reason. It just seemed to be no point. What's the value in that? Of whining and complaining and whinging, as we say, in Australia, which is whining squared. No whinging. So I wanted to move on, accept my lumps and let posterity or God or whoever make the judgment and I just have to accept that for better or worse. That was kind of my attitude, so to speak.

Gary S:

Yeah. And it's important to say, and I'll do this as your public relations guy. When you say it was beneath you to respond in a book, what you mean isn't what most people would think is , "It's beneath me." I don't think you mean that, what you mean is it's antithetical to what your character is. It's antithetical to who you are. It's not how you're wired, is to defend yourself. That's fair?

Warwick F:

Exactly. It's against my values, which is just to me defending myself and saying, "Oh, look what I did." I mean, most of it was my fault, so it's not the easiest thing to defend. But it's not just a case of, "Oh, that's what God would want us to do, never defend ourselves." It depends on the situation, but my wiring is not to defend myself, I'll do my best and let people make their own judgments. I'm not even saying it's the morally correct, necessarily, it's just how I'm wired for whatever reason.

Gary S:

Right. Right. I have no idea how you're going to answer this question, so this is the fun part. I said at the top that there's some things that we're going to talk about that we haven't traversed before, and this is one of those areas. You talk so often Warwick about feeling when the takeover failed after it had succeeded, when it ultimately failed, and you felt like you'd let your ancestors down, your family down. I wonder, was there a part of not wanting to write a book in addition to what you just talked about about not wanting to defend yourself, not wanting to go crawl inside that pain again for no good purpose? Was there a part of it even a slice of it that was you didn't want to put your family through that again either? You just wanted to move on the entire sort of Fairfax family, from your perspective, you didn't want to get that back out in the news again if you could avoid doing that.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I think that's fair. I didn't want to put my family through it all in some big public spat and what have you. And yeah, as you mentioned, I felt like I let my family down, parents, relatives, caused friction within the family. I felt like I let God down in some naive view, founded by a person of faith, the company, John Fairfax. I thought maybe God had a plan to resurrect the company image of the founder. I'm a person of faith, so that sense of letting God down was crushing.

Warwick F:

And I was raised Anglican, but maybe from a Catholic theological point of view where you talk purgatory, maybe I subconsciously felt I deserved to be in purgatory. I deserve to be blamed for all of this, so why defend myself? Whatever was thrown my way maybe I felt like I deserved it, and so I deserved to be there while incoming arrows came my way. Maybe there was some fatalistic, "I deserve this pain, so don't defend yourself." I haven't thought about it quite that way, but maybe there was this weird purgatory view of life in those days. I deserve whatever I was going to get kind of mentality.

Gary S:

Fascinating. Yeah. And again, to me, that's extraordinarily fascinating because we've been working together for more than two years and I've never heard you sort of talk about it in that way. So, I hope listener what you're hearing from this is some aspects of this story that just haven't really been unearthed before, haven't been talked about before, because Warwick has not. Until this book, I'll say it again, Crucible Leadership, Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance out today if you're listening to this podcast on the day it is released on October 19th, you really haven't spoken about a lot of the things that are in this book until this book. So what you just said makes perfect sense. All right, it seems like we may have gotten past the first negative section, right? The "I don't want to write this book." Is there anything else in the "I don't want to write this book" section that you feel you need to say before we move on to how we started down the on-ramp to the road that led to the publication of the book?

Warwick F:

Not really. It was all so painful, I deserved it and I wanted to try and forget anything to do with Fairfax Media and my past life, and move on. I guess in a couple bullets or so, that's what I was feeling.

Gary S:

Well, and we could have saved like 15 minutes of the show by just doing that. But I think it was far more interesting to get the more robust discussion of what was going on. So, we'll move on to section two of this, the turning point, the pivot point, the inflection point. And this is where the book where your mind changes a little bit. I've headlined this in my notes because I kind of know what you're going to say, but section two is, "I may not want to write a book, but I think I'm being called to write a book." Tell us what are the first breadcrumbs of that? How does that come up? When does it happen in the process in terms of after the takeover? And what brings it to life?

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, probably the key event was when I gave a talk in church in 2008, which I'll mention here in just a second. But there was a few breadcrumbs before then, in which I mentioned I got a job in an aviation services company doing analytical kind of things. I then from there round about 2003 felt like I wasn't using all the gifts I had and I was playing small. Not that it was beneath me, but I felt like I had some gifts I wasn't using. So, assessment I did with my career coach seemed to line up with executive coaching. I got certified as an International Coach Federation executive coach. I began to see, I had a leadership perspective and the questions I was asking. So my self-esteem began growing a little bit. And then right around 2007, about a year before that talk in church, I became an elder at my church. It's a non-denominational evangelical church in Annapolis, Bay Area Community Church, around about, these days, about 2000 odd. And then I got on the board of my kids' school, Annapolis Area Christian School, a Christian school.

Warwick F:

So all of those I began to see that I had a leadership voice and I could actually contribute to things in life and society in a meaningful way. So my self-esteem, drop by drop, brick by bricks, began to come back.And really, a turning point, a pivot point, if you will, one of the biggest ones occurred, as I mentioned, in 2008, when the pastor of our church, Greg St. Cyr, he was giving a message on the life of David who was being persecuted by Saul because he was a good man and Saul felt jealous. So he was hiding in a cave feeling sorry for himself. And so, the pastor asked me to give a message on a righteous man falsely persecuted. I said, "Well, it's not me, I brought a lot of trouble on myself." And so, I gave like a 10-minute talk. And weeks and months afterwards people said, "What you said really helped me." And I'm thinking, as I often say, there weren't any ex-media moguls in the congregation that I know of.

Warwick F:

It's one thing if you're talking about cancer, abuse, loss of a loved one, sadly way too many people go through that, but how can you identify with losing a $2 billion company? I hadn't looked at it in a while, but as I reread kind of the speech I gave what's eerie is that there's so much in there that I talk about today, yesterday, the last few weeks, last few months. It's what the book is all about. I hadn't decided write a book at this point, but the whole thing about the book, the world looks at, and I'm reading from the speech I gave in 2008, "the world looks at all this as a terrible loss. To me, personally, it represented freedom from bondage, the freedom of expectations. I can now be free to be myself, to be exactly who God wants me to be." And I said, "God has provided for me financially, not to the degree I had before, but more than enough of me and my family. I'm truly blessed. God is faithful."

Warwick F:

So, it's like I'm talking about this stuff, and I talk about this today. But kind of the next kind of beat in the story is, I began thinking in the back of my mind, "Huh, if my story can somehow help people, I wonder what that would be. Is it a book?" And I began my thinking from there's no way, at all, ever in this millennium or beyond will I ever write a book, period, with a couple of million exclamation points, there's no way. It started shifting slowly, but like moving a aircraft carrier. And I began thinking, "Hmm." And this was around about April 2008. Within a few weeks, again, a person of faith, elder at my church, et cetera, obviously I read through much of the Bible. They had these 90-day Bibles and ways of doing it. So I decided I was going to read through the whole Bible in 90 days, figured out a plan with some advice. Each day I would read a chapter in part of the Old Testament, part of the New Testament, a couple Psalms, Proverbs. And I began on May 28th, 2008 and finished August, 13.

Warwick F:

And I would write typewritten notes. I mean, it's kind of bananas, but it's over a hundred pages of typewritten notes, like Microsoft Word notes. That's not mean to say everybody should do it this way. I'm not saying that's at all necessary, but I just felt there was something about that speech that's like I just felt like I need to get in touch with, from my perspective, God and His wisdom, because I felt there was something there, given the congregation's reaction.

Warwick F:

And it was somewhere along the lines of the middle of that as I'm getting in touch with my most innermost truth, the depths of my soul, the depths of everything I believe, and the depths of everything that I am, I felt like God telling me, "You need to write a book, and it needs to be a lessons-learned book." But the combination of that speech in church and doing the intense Bible reading and journaling, I just knew it was from the Lord, and I knew I needed to do it. And obviously, it was going to be painful, but the call was clear. And so, the long journey began in 2008 because of that.

Gary S:

Let's rewind a little bit for the listener who may be going through his or her own crucible. And as we say all the time, you've probably not lost $2.25 billion, but it's a crucible and it hurts and it's knocked the wind out of your sails, and it's changed the trajectory of your life. In your story, are the breadcrumbs for bouncing back from any crucible? You say it all the time, Warwick, and it's been interesting for me. This is our 88th episode. Early on, you weren't saying this, but as we talked to more people on this show, you began to say this. And you say it often, and that is, it starts with one small step, right? The journey back to moving, as the title of the show is Beyond your Crucible, is one small step. For you, that one small step was saying yes to your pastor asking you to give a sermon illustration, right?

Warwick F:

Exactly. And that was not an easy step, because talk about my story it brought, I don't know if it was 2000 people then, maybe it was 1500, who knows what the numbers were? But a lot of people. I was like, "I don't want to do that," but I just felt like the Lord saying, "Trust me, you got to do this." And I'm not somebody that's comfortable speaking in front of people. I'm reserved, shy by nature in some sense. It's the last thing I wanted to do, but I felt like if this can help people, if this can help one person, I need to do this. It's not about how I feel or how I feel comfortable. If this can help somebody, then I got to do it. But yeah, that was a step of faith, a step of obedience from my perspective. And it was not a small step to get up in church and talk about what I went through, It was no small step at all.

Gary S:

I forget exactly who it was when we did the series on resilience. I think it might have been Lucy Westlake who said this. We asked her to define resilience, and I think she said, "Say yes." Right?

Warwick F:

Yes. Exactly.

Gary S:

The idea of resilience is to say yes. And that's what you did. As difficult as it might be, you said yes to something that was a challenge. You can't say yes to something if your head's in the ground. You can't say yes to something if you're in bed sleeping it off, sleeping through it. To your point, that to move beyond your crucible you have to get up, do something, keep moving forward. That, yes, even that difficult, that scary yes, right? Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do something every day that scares you." You had to do something that scared you, and that was the turning point that led us to where we are today.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, if it's in service of others then it's worth doing. And so as I look back, those are the two key moments. To talk in church and reading through the Bible in 90 days was incredible. But as I look back, look, I'm a person of faith, so I believe God orchestrates things. There are a couple other things that led me to think, "I can do this, and this could work." I had a friend, Margie Warrell, who's Australian, who I met at some coaching conference in Washington, DC, somewhere around 2006. And she's somebody with a lot of courage and confidence. And she weaved her story into a book and originally self-published, and then she sold enough that she was able to get it published. And I thought, "Boy, that's pretty impressive." I mean, she has a lot of get up and got a lot of courage. And another pivot point is, I was at a leadership conference in California, I think it was in Palm Desert, I believe -

Gary S:

I used to live near there. I might have been there at the same time, who knows?

Warwick F:

Yeah. Well, you never know. I think it was probably like a Marriott, one of these massive places with pools and the whole setup. And this was one of the top leadership conferences you can go to. You had people like Patrick Lencioni and Jim Collins, and certainly people of that caliber. Well a guy got up by the name of Michael Abrashoff, who is a former captain in the U.S. Navy. And he wrote a book called It's Your Ship. And he wasn't Mr. professional speaker, but he was weaving lessons from his time in the Navy on that ship into a lessons-learned format. Every chapter was a different theme. And each chapter talked about an aspect of being on that ship. And I thought, "Boy, that is interesting, that lessons-learned, weaving your story in a thematic way around different aspects of leadership." Again, at the time, I wasn't thinking, "Let me write a book," but those were foundations that were set. So once I'd done the 2008 talk in church and I'd done the extensive Bible reading, I just began to think, "This could work."

Warwick F:

And the other thing that really hit home is, he in a sense was up against some of the most prolific writers and leadership great speakers. He was just a normal guy. He wasn't Mr. professional speaker, but yet people were transfixed. And we're talking about vice presidents, senior business leaders in the audience, because he was sharing a story, and he was sharing themes of leadership and parables and allegory. And probably the highlight for me is when somebody asked him, "So, what's something that maybe you felt like he could have done better?" And I don't know that he was anticipating it. He said, "When you're in the Navy sometimes you're really competitive. It's kind about winning."

Warwick F:

He was in the Pacific Fleet making your ship the best ship in the Pacific Fleet. And I was so focused on, quote-unquote, winning, that I could have done a better job of sharing what I'd learned on my ship with my fellow captains in the Pacific Fleet, because we're all part of the U.S. Navy, right? We're all meant to Navy, country first, not that he didn't put his country first, but rather he was so focused on, quote-unquote, winning. I thought that was remarkably vulnerable and valuable piece of advice that he gave. Again, the value of vulnerability for a purpose. So there were all these seeds that were sown, even though I didn't realize it at the time, so that you add them all up to the talk in church and the extensive Bible reading. It all added up to, "I know what I want to write. I want to write a book about my story, but through themes of leadership." And that's when the beginnings of the outline was formed.

Gary S:

Yeah. What I love about that story about the guy at the leadership conference who told stories of other leaders is that is what you did you do in Crucible Leadership. What's great about that is it aligns perfectly. Again, we'll talk about your personality, your character, who you are. I could right now as a test text 10 people who know you and ask, "Could you imagine Warwick ever writing a full-on memoir. From page one to page 290 it's all about just Warwick." And every one of them would say no.

Gary S:

In fact, I'm going to ask Jack, our producer, who's hiding in the background to just send me a message on Zoom, Jack, and asking me if you could ever imagine Warwick writing just a memoir, it's all about Warwick. I don't think anybody who knows as you thinks that would happen. So you found a way to tell your story, but to weave it together with other things that is more than just, "Here's what I went through." It's, "I understand what you've gone through and you can learn from what I went through how to get beyond what you've been through." And you can also learn from other leaders throughout history. That's a perfect construction for the book

Warwick F:

Absolutely. I mean, so as I was writing this book, I wasn't talking about what I went through to justify myself, it was largely... I don't diss or talk badly of other people. It's really more about, I'm talking about my own mistakes and I'm reasonably harsh about that, but it was all because, "Here's what I did, don't do what I did, but instead do some of the things that other members of my family before me and other great inspirational faith, historical leaders did." It was all in service of the reader. It was in service of leaders at all levels. As we like to say from the boardroom, from the corporate suite to community leaders who may just want to reclaim their neighborhood, their neighborhood park for kids. It was all in service of others. I was writing about some of the most painful things I went through, not to justify myself so that people would think, "Oh, look how bad he is," or whatever, more self-flagellation. That wasn't the motive at that point, it was all about in service of others. If it can help other leaders at all levels. That was the driving mission behind the book.

Gary S:

And the phrase that you were searching for a few minutes ago, a minute or so ago, is from the board room to the living room, which I have been trying to get us. I have been trying to get us to say about Crucible Leadership since the outset, and this is the first time. So on this celebration day, when Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance comes out, we hear it will help you become a better leader from the boardroom to the living room. There you go.

Warwick F:

Indeed. Indeed.

Gary S:

Thank you for saying that. I feel good that's out now. That alleviates my crucible, but I have this great line, and I want it to be used, and now it's used, so I feel better. The process of writing, you mentioned it was painful, that's what kept you away from it for a while. I actually know, but people would assume the writing process was had its own pain with it.

Warwick F:

It did. I mean, I began in 2008, it took at least five years to write the first draft. In part, life does get in the way, but think about writing about some of the most painful stupidest, or just painful experience you've ever gone through. I couldn't do much more than a couple hours a day and I had to take a break. I mean, this is so painful, reliving my worst mistakes or just the worst experiences I had, but I kept going in service of others. I didn't have some detail plan. I mean, I had a chapter outline of maybe 10, 12 big themes, and I knew I wanted to do it in lessons learned. I wanted the theme of authenticity, an earlier draft I was thinking authentic leadership. Somebody else has that title which had different, more scholarly work.

Warwick F:

But as I began writing that first chapter, the themes began to coalesce the three strands. I realized my story would be the keel of the boat, but then I wanted to talk about my father and the lessons in leadership I learned from him about my great, great grandfather, John Fairfax, and the lessons I learned from him. I love history, so I wanted to weave in lessons from historical leaders, as well as lessons from inspirational and biblical leaders. So that was all formed by the time I was in the middle of the first chapter. And so what I would do is, I would sort of write a chapter at a time. So if I got to a chapter and I thought, "Gosh, I want to weave in a story about Washington," I would stop and say, "Let me find a good book on George Washington." I'll read it, make notes on it, and then figure out how can I write about it in two or three pages? And so, obviously, I had to pause a bit to read the book and write the notes before I finished the chapter.

Warwick F:

And so, I would just go chapter by chapter until it got done, until that first draft got done. And it did take probably around five years. It's just a long process of very painful... Yes, life gets in the way, but every time I stopped and read a book takes a while to read a good book and write notes on it from page one to page 500, or whatever it is. It was a long process, but I trusted the process.

Warwick F:

I mean, it's going to sound weird, I prayed every day, it's not about me. I had this mantra, if you will, that I would pray to God and I would say, "Let my words be your words, let your words be my words." I just wanted to make sure that I was writing what I felt called to write from my inner soul. And I just started and I just kept going, and eventually, that first draft got done, but that was the end of step one, just finishing that first draft. It was a long, long journey, just even after that first draft. It wasn't like, "Hallelujah!, Let's go get it published." It wasn't remotely that simple.

Gary S:

That puts us at kind of the point that we're going to shift a little bit into the next chapter of the journey in a bit. A couple things we want to do before that. One thing I want to do is, one of the things you just said... I mean, we're talking here about the journey for you in writing your book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, which is out today if you're listening to this episode, when it drops, October, 19th. A lot of the words that you said, if you took writing book out and put in another crucible, finding a job, or learning to go on after the loss of a loved one, or a divorce, or something painful, or a business failure of your own that's less than $2.25 billion. Whatever your crucible may be, that idea of you said it was a long process, but you trusted the process. That really is a bumper sticker for how you move beyond your crucible, right? Follow a process and trust it.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, whether you believe it's God or your true inner self, your inner soul. I think most people are spiritual. You know when it's, to your very core, the depth of what you believe is true and what you believe is right. Trust that and trust yourself, and trust the process. I mean, I just went step by step, page by page, book by book that I was researching, and trust that, that it will work out and just keep moving forward. One more step, one more step, and eventually, five years later the book got written. Well, it would've been easier after six months saying, "Oh, my gosh, maybe I'm only on chapter one." I can't remember after six months or so. I can't imagine it was more than two. It's like, "My gosh, this could take decades." I mean, I could have said, "Forget it." But I didn't because I felt like this is too important. This is in service of other people.

Warwick F:

I didn't use the word a life of significance, but if I had it's like this is about helping other people live their lives of significance, bouncing back from their crucibles. It wasn't fully formed, but that's what kept me going. One more step, one more step, because this is too important. We're just going to keep going, trust the process, and trust that call that I felt. And that, to your point, yes, I think everybody that's been through a crucible has that potential. And the key is that vision that anybody has, if it's in service of others, some higher calling that links to your deepest held values, that will fuel the perseverance, the resilience, as we say, to keep moving forward. But that's the key, that inner call, that sense of in service of others, that's the key to getting something that may seem impossible done.

Gary S:

That is a good place for me to say this, if you've listened to this show in the past, listener, that one of the things I say in pretty much every episode is the captains turned on the fasten seatbelt signs and we're getting to the point where we got to land the plane soon that's my way of saying it's getting close to time to wrap up. I'm not saying that now, I'm bringing in the plane metaphor to say this, this would be a good time for some inflight entertainment as it were, because you've done an audio book, Warwick, in addition to the actual written book, Crucible Leadership, you've done an audio book of you reading it yourself.

Gary S:

And we have an excerpt that we want to play here because it continues the thought of the section we were just talking about, you feeling called by God to write your book, staying on that path, continuing to do it. It was hard, but you pushed through. And this excerpt gives a nice flavor for the audio book version of Beyond the Crucible. So, I'm going to say, let's roll tape, as they say, or as they used to say.

Warwick F:

It has taken years to get to the point where I am now. It has been a voyage of discovery to find out who I am and to live in light of it. It has taken years to throw off the weight of others' expectations and to only live in light of who God made me to be, to cast a vision all my own and make that vision a reality. Growing up, one of my dearest wishes was that I would never become world-weary. Somehow, through all the trials leading up to the takeover of the family media company, and all the trials since then, I have not become cynical or lost hope. I have been a bit battered and bruised, but I have persevered. How has this been possible with all that has happened? It's only been through God's strength.

Warwick F:

There are some great scriptures on perseverance that have encouraged me along the way. These are two of my favorites, "Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4, "Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him." James 1:12. These scriptures talk of how trials test our faith and give us the opportunity to persevere, which helps us become more mature. There is a refining fire, the crucible, that trials offer. I may not consider it pure joy when I consider all the trials I've been through, but I absolutely believe that God has a plan for my life, and I try to allow the trials I've been through, make me a better person and try in my own way to help others.

Warwick F:

This thought that God did not mean me to be in charge of the family media company, but has another purpose for my life has been a source of immense comfort. The belief that God does not make mistakes has been a huge and helpful thought for me. Without my faith, and the thought that God is in control, there is no way I would've persevered through the trials I've been through. So long as I put my faith in God and realize that my significance is not in what I can do for God, but in what He did for me by sending His son to die on the cross for my sins, I can put the things that the past behind me and persevere, and move on to live the rest of my story as God intended.

Gary S:

So what is it like, Warwick, to read your own book as an audio book? I mean, what kind of experience was that?

Warwick F:

Well, it wasn't easy. I was with the good folks, with Jack and Whitney and the team at Content Capital in Austin, Texas. And they have a tremendous team and do a great job. But yeah, it took most of a week, four or five days to do, but it was kind of strange to just read this book out loud. Yeah, it's a whole other, I don't know, it's a whole other experience as you go through. It was actually kind of enjoyable in some ways. It's not easy, but if this can help other people it's worth doing. Some people like audio books, you hear my voice and it's reliving all these moments. It was not an easy experience, but it was is definitely a worthwhile experience, there's no question.

Gary S:

Before we move on to section three, which is I've titled this, how do I get people to read it now that it's written? Before we leave the reading of it, I need to say, I said in that segment that if I asked 10 people who knew you well, "Can you ever imagine Warwick would write a book that would be just about himself given his character that's says that's not who he is? And I said, I would ask our producer, Jack, who's in the background as we're doing this. Jack has indeed confirmed that, no, he cannot imagine you doing that. That's not in your character to do so. So, all right, let's move on to the third part. So we've gotten over, I don't want to write the book. We've gotten the book written feeling that God had called you to do it and empowered you to do it. Now, you've got a manuscript in your hand, how do you get people to read it? A book isn't a book after all until it's published. How did that publishing journey start for you?

Warwick F:

Well, it was a long journey. So, I had this notion in my mind. So we're talking around about 2013 or so, about five years after I started writing it, that I would pursue a publish in Australia first strategy, because my notion was very few people have heard of my story in the U.S., but in Australia it was one of the biggest corporate takeovers in Australian business history. Fairfax Media was this iconic brand, if you will, and there could be some interest. So I went down to Australia and followed up subsequently, and I was able to chat to literary agents, to publishers. And they were definitely intrigued, because sometimes if you're not a published author just talking to a publisher is not easy, but given the level that this company was at and the magnitude of the story they were kind enough to give me a hearing.

Warwick F:

And so, some was like, "This is intriguing, but we want a tell-all book." And even then it's a lot of years after the company went under in 1990, even if it had been a total tell-all would've got published, who knows? But some they want memoirs that are like that. Just throw the dirt around. Just tell us your perspective. They might have even have said, Charitably your truth, right? Just go for it. And I would rather the book not be published than do that. It was like a never ever will I do that no matter what. I would rather the book never see the light of day than do that, it just against everything I believe in. And then others would ask me, "So, what genre is it? If you had a bookshelf in a bookstore," which not as many of those, "but in concept, where would it go?" And I said, "Well, it's part memoir, it's part leadership, part self-help, part faith, maybe part inspirational." That's the wrong answer to say to a publisher.

Warwick F:

"What bookshelf is that on?" And I could say, "I don't care. It could be on five or six different ones." Totally wrong answer. They want to know a shelf. So that wasn't helpful. And I didn't want this to be pigeonholed as a faith-based book or a pure leadership book or pure memoir, because my goal was more thematic. Yes, it's a leadership book at its heart, but I wanted to tell stories of inspirational, historical, faith leaders, my own story, my dad's, John Fairfax's, my great, great grandfather. It was clear in my mind what I wanted the book to be. The vision of the book was crystal clear and I didn't want to compromise the vision. So another lesson, when you believe in your vision, persevere. Compromise can be a good word, compromising your vision when you feel it's a calling, not a good idea.

Warwick F:

One publisher, a business publisher in Australia offered me some very good advice. Well, a couple different publishers. One said, "Well, Warwick, I know your story isn't as well known in America, but I would pursue an American publisher first, because they're going to have a blank slate attitude. They're not going to have all these preconceptions about what your story should be." A lot of people's minds are made up or they just have certain preconception of what happened and how the story should be played. So one publisher said, "You should pursue a U.S. publisher. Another one said, "Warwick, in the business space, in the business leadership space, you need a brand. You need a following of dedicated followers that when your book comes out will want to read it." Well, I have a Harvard MBA. I get the concept of branding, gosh, that made sense. I was pretty set on Australia first publishing, but at that point it's like, "Okay, I get it. I probably need to be open to other things."

Warwick F:

And so through a friend of a friend by some miracle, I don't think it's a miracle or an accident at all, some divine help, I got connected with Cheryl Farr who runs a branding and marketing organization called SIGNAL in Denver. And so, I gave her the manuscript. And as we went through it, she and her team very insightfully said... And it wasn't called Crucible Leadership back then, I don't know if it was Lessons Learned in Leadership or whatever the working title was. But Cheryl and the team said, "The story, isn't the takeover. The real story is how you bounce back and how you can help people bounce back from adversity." And we came up with this phrase, "lead a life of significance," and said that's collectively that's what it's about. And so then that whole branding thing, we said, "Well, we need to write a blog, and we need to get the message out there." Cheryl had known you, Gary, and your firm ROAR for a number of years. You said, "Well, I think it might be time to get the word out about it."

Warwick F:

And so, we started us talking and you said, "Warwick, I think there could be a podcast here." And so you had a buddy Steve Reiter, and Right Turn Media definitely helped us along the way with the podcast. And so, you've done a lot of work in radio and that kind of thing with Focus On The Family and Hollywood, and obviously, many years in journalism. So, the whole vision began to grow beyond just a book. It began to grow into social media and blog, podcast. And then, in more recent past, well, we need to get the message out through events and speaking. And so, I brought on board Kerry Childers at Kerry Childers Consulting, who's helped us with that. And then as we began to think audiobook and progressing our podcast still further. We've got in touch with folks Casey Helmick at Content Capital and Jack, and Whitney. So, the vision just progressed to where we are today. I mean, each step of the road and all these folks that I've mentioned have been extremely helpful.

Gary S:

And what ended up happening is that the book, Crucible Leadership, birthed the organization, Crucible Leadership, or vice versa, or they were both birthed kind of at the same time. There's a symbiosis there, I think, that's interesting. One of the things I love about what you were just about people telling you in Australia, that the U.S. was probably a better market. I think that's true because in Australia, and this book is being released in Australia today as well, in Australia, the story is, I think, first, about you, the takeover, the aftermath, and then secondarily about bouncing back from your crucible and all those things. I think here in the U.S., your personal story may not be as resonant here in the U.S., but the lessons from your story might be more resonant here. Less sizzle more steak, if you will, but I think that's where your vision will come true. And you never wanted this to be about you, and here in the U.S. it's going to be, yeah, about you, but I think it's first the lessons you learn that readers can learn from the book, secondarily, the memoir portion.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I think what you say, Gary, is profoundly true in Australia, certainly Australian media. I mean, if you are a journalist at Sydney Morning Herald or some of the other Fairfax Media papers, your life has been directly affected by what I did and subsequent decades of management, which some would say mismanagement, there's whole books about what happened after the takeover failed. And even then people somehow find a way to blame me even in the decades since when I wasn't even in control, but somehow things would be magically different if the Fairfax family were in control.

Warwick F:

But yeah, I mean, it's true here in the U.S. the story is interesting, but they're not so fixated on the story, they're able to say, "Okay, that's interesting. But okay, what can I learn from this? How can I translate this into my own life?" They're not so fixated on the story that they aren't able to see, "Okay. What does this mean for me?" So I think you're right. It is easier for a U.S. audience to look at it and say, "Okay, that story is interesting, but what does this mean for me in my own life, my own vision? And how do I come back from my crucible? So they're focused more on the lessons learned aspect than all of the drama and the saga of the takeover itself. So, that's very true.

Gary S:

That sound you just heard, listener, was the captain turning on the fasten seatbelts sign, indicating that we have to put the plane on the ground here in just a little bit. Before we do that though, Warwick, first, I want to give you a chance if there's something that you want to share about this journey that you've not shared to please do so, and then I have a question for you after that.

Warwick F:

One thing I wanted to mention is, I mentioned that in Australia I was concerned that people were trying to pigeonhole this as memoir, self-help leadership, inspiration. Again, somebody mentioned to me, the great folks at Morgan James led by David Hancock and then the imprint, Mount Tabor Media, that's being published as part of Morgan James, Chris McCluskey. And both Chris McCluskey and David Hancock when they read the manuscript, they believed in it, and they believed in it as written. Yes, we condensed it a bit because it was a little long, which is always a good thing. Less is more. But they didn't say, "Well, we've got to pigeonhole it." They said, "No, we believe in what it is." Yes, it's a leadership book with aspects of memoir and inspiration, self-help, historical, but they didn't say well less God or less leadership, or less self-help or whatever. So I'm so grateful for the folks at Mount Tabor Media and Morgan James in believing in this book and getting it published today. So huge, huge, thanks to those folks.

Gary S:

As people hear this, Warwick, it's the first time in anyone besides you and me and the production team is going to know what's in the book in any detail. You're a published author, how does that feel? How does that feel at the end of the journey that you've just spent the better part of this last hour describing?

Warwick F:

It's an interesting question. It feels gratifying, I'm very grateful, thankful, I'm blessed. But I'm not one to sort of sit back and kind of do a dance in the end zone and spike the football, and say, "Yeah, look at me I'm so wonderful." It's not in my nature. And one of the things I've been very focused on is, just because I have a book that's been published by a great team and a great publishing outfit and have a great team, yourself, Cheryl, and so many others, Keri. Okay, that's good, but what's the next step in the journey? Because it's about the message, it's about helping people, it's not spiking the football and saying, "Oh, look at me." I just don't think that's helpful. And just because I have a published author doesn't make me better or worse than any other human on the planet.

Warwick F:

And so I'm a great believer in don't spike the football, be thankful, be grateful, but this does not make me a better human being than anybody else. And so, I'm grateful, I'm thankful, but I don't have the spike the football mentality, I'm thinking, "Okay, great. This is good, I'm thankful. What's the next step? How can I help more people bounce back from their worst days so that their worst day doesn't define them? How can I help people have hope and healing so they can lead lives of significance, lives on purpose dedicated to serving others?" I'm focused on how can I use this book and the podcast and everything we do to help others recover from their darkest days. The journey continues, the mission continues, the vision continues, and we'll see. One more step, one more step, and we'll see where it takes us, but I just want to be faithful to the process, be true to what I've been called to and let's keep going. So that's kind of my mentality.

Gary S:

That sound is the plane landing on the ground. It does so, Warwick. I'm going to coin a phrase. Now that the plane's on the ground and everybody's getting things from the overhead bins, I'm going to coin a phrase. What you just said, Warwick, the phrase is, that's Warwick being Warwick, right? That's Warwick being Warwick. Your lack of ego in the worst sense, in the most damaging sense, that's who you are. You started this process. You talked about it here. "If my story can help some people I'll get up in church, even though it's difficult, and I'll speak." And moving on now that the book's out that's exactly where you're at. I have one more thing to say, and that's this, the captain, as everybody knows if you've ever flown in an airplane, doesn't just turn on the fasten seatbelt sign. He or she also communicates with the crew sometimes and the crew then passes the message along.

Gary S:

And I do have a message for you, Warwick, direct from the cockpit. It's from your wife, Gale. She sent it to me this morning to surprise you during the recording of this episode when your book comes out and I'm going to read it to you now. "Warwick, this is your co-pilot. As someone who has been in the passenger seat with you through your years of turbulence I am so proud of your accomplishment. I know there were days you could only write for a short time because it was so draining on you to relive all the events of the past that brought you here. You held onto your belief that God would make something of the ashes left behind. I'm so impressed to see how you have used some of the toughest moments of your life to encourage others. I am looking forward to seeing the way your story and the wisdom gained from other leaders throughout history encourages others to live a life of significance! Love you, Gale."

Warwick F:

Wow, that is just mind-blowing. I mean, that's incredible. Wow, that is just such an amazing... I mean, she gets it. She gets what it's all about. She gets why I'm doing this. I'm not quite sure what to say, that's just remarkable. She's been with me for 32 years. I mean, she gets it. She gets why I'm doing this. She gets it. I'm so grateful. I'm so blessed to have her as my wife. And that was another thing, be a different podcast, but I definitely thought the Lord's calling saying, "This is the one I have for you in life." And that was one of those steps of obedience which I am so, so blessed by. So yeah, following the Lord and His calling from my perspective can lead to tremendous blessings. So I'm so blessed.

Gary S:

Listener, we will see you next week.

In advance of the Oct. 19 release of host Warwick Fairfax’s book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, he and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the key building blocks inside its pages. You’ll hear helpful, hopeful details — from Warwick’s own journey and the stories of some of history’s greatest leaders — about the importance of embracing your crucible, discovering your purpose, crafting your vision and leading and living with impact. You’ll also get your first extended glimpse into why CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP has been called “equal parts memoir and master class,” “moving and vulnerable,” “a gift” and “a must for all leaders” filled with “nuggets of leadership gold.”

To explore Crucible Leadership resources, and to pre-order CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, visit www.crucibleleadership.com/book

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of the Crucible Leadership. How do you have that level of perseverance? And this is where I think it all comes together. It comes from not letting your worst day define your life. It comes from having an anchor for your soul or your faith, whatever that means to you. It comes from living that faith out in character, humility and integrity. It comes from not living your parents or friends design, a vision, your own vision, based in your own wiring and design. And it comes with having a vision often formed out of the ashes of your crucible that you feel will make the world a better place, that will help impact the world and really help folks live a life of significance.

Gary S:

That friends is Warwick describing some of the insight and inspiration he's packed into his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. I'm Gary Schneeberger, his cohost. If you're listening to this episode the day or soon after it goes live, Warwick's book releases in just a few days on October 19. If you're getting to our discussion a little later, what are you waiting for? Press pause, visit crucibleleadership.com, click on the book tab and order your copy today. If you can't wait to read it, the good news is you don't have to wait to learn more about what's in it. Warwick talks on this week's episode about the key building blocks of the book described by one endorser as equal parts, memoir and masterclass. You'll hear helpful, hopeful details about the importance of embracing your crucible, discovering your purpose, crafting your vision and leading and living with impact. They are all critical way-points that will guide your journey to a life of significance.

Gary S:

The first question I wanted to ask you so that you can frame this up for listeners is that while on the back of the book here it says the sections in bookstore shelves, you'll find it virtual and brick and mortar is in leadership. This is not a traditional leadership book, is it?

Warwick F:

No, it's not. A lot of people write leadership books that basically look at me, I was super successful, follow my example. And it just doesn't offer five clear linear points, it's more a collection of stories and parables anchored by my story as well as the story of my dad's, Sir Warwick Fairfax, my great great grandfather, John Fairfax, stories of historical, inspirational, faith leaders. So it's really a collection of parables and stories about what it means to bounce back from your worst day from crucibles to live a life of significance. So it's not I'm so wonderful, follow me, because look how successful I am, but it's a very different leadership book.

Gary S:

And there is an aspect. There is an aspect to it, not follow me, but here's the lessons I've learned. You talk about those lessons and what people can learn from them so they can move beyond their own crucibles. That's a fair point, right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. A lot of it's more I made some mistakes in my young and youthful, naive and idealistic days. And I think my motives were fine, but definitely made some mistakes. So a lot of it's here's some of the lessons I've learned, because I think one of our premises, when you go through a crucible, there are lessons to be learned, there are always lessons to be learned. And so that's a key theme of the book is learning the lessons of your crucible and seeking to find a life of significance, a vision for your life, from the ashes of that crucible.

Gary S:

Excellent. Well, enough preamble, listener. Let's get into the meat. And there's plenty of meat in this book. How we're going to do this, just so you know I feel like a pastor at a sermon, here's the three points I'm going to make and then we make the points. We're going to go through four sections. Warwick begins the book with laying out four sections of the book. I'm going to give you all the sections and then we're going to break into and talk about each section individually. The first section is to embrace your crucible, the second section, part two, discover your purpose, third section, craft your vision, fourth section, live and lead with impact.

Gary S:

And what we're going to do is we draw through this outline as Warwick is going to talk a little bit about not just what's in the book, but what his story was, his own crucible experience that led to him writing the book and some of the lessons that he's learned from family members, in some cases, some of the lessons learned from some of history's greatest leaders. It's not quite an audio book, although there is one of those coming. It's not quite a documentary about the book, but it's going to give you a really good grounding in what the book's about so that when the book comes out, you'll have an idea, one week from today, if you're listening on the day that this goes live. One week from today, the book is out. It'll give you a grounding to know what it is you're going to get.

Gary S:

So let's start, Warwick, with part one, which I remember early on when we were working together and the manuscript was coming through the process and I was looking at it and embrace your crucible. I'm like, wow. That's like embrace barbed wire for some people. I think of my crucibles is like I don't want to put my arms around that. But the idea of embrace your crucible, why is it that it's not just survive your crucible, hold your breath and get through it? But the idea about embracing your crucible, what is the benefit, the need, the necessity of that?

Warwick F:

Yeah, just thinking about the image you mentioned, embrace barbed wire, hug it, yeah, it does sound so strange. And that's not a bad metaphor, because crucibles, literally it's like molten metal heated to a very high temperature that forms something new. Well, crucibles are always painful. It could be your fault, not your fault. On our podcast, Beyond the Crucible, we've had every kind of crucible from people being paralyzed, abuse, business failure. And it's always painful. But really what we talk about here at Crucible Leadership is you have a choice with a crucible experience. You can either hide under the covers and say, "This wasn't fair, this wasn't right, this is so painful, I'm just going to lie here for the next 30, 40, 50 years until life inevitably ends."

Warwick F:

Or you can say, "This was awful, painful, but how can I move forward?" And ultimately the key premise of the book is how can I move forward and live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So really a crucible provides the ultimate inflection point. Do you give up on life or do you continue and try to find good, try to find purpose and meaning out of that pain? And so it's a binary choice that all of us face.

Gary S:

And that it's interesting that you just talked about crucibles, what they are, why you have to learn from them, how you learn from a little bit. And we'll unpack that a lot, listener, as we go on. But you also talked at the end there about the goal is a life of significance. And it occurs to me that Warwick's just done what you're not supposed to do with a book. He's flipped to the back pages to let you know what the ending is. And the ending is here's your life of significance. That's your goal of the end game of moving beyond your crucible is to move into a life of significance. So that's the arc that we're going to discuss today. That's the arc Warwick has lived, that's the arc many of our guests have lived and it's certainly the arc of the book.

Gary S:

So by way of getting us started here in the digging in the dirt of what happened in your life, what was your crucible? Tell listeners a little bit about how you got introduced to the idea of crucibles in a very painful, personal way.

Warwick F:

Yes. I went through a very public crucible. So I grew up in a 150 year old family media business in Australia founded by my great, great grandfather, John Fairfax. So I'll chat about in a moment. But by the time I grew up, this had grown into a very large media company. It had magazines, newspapers, TV stations, radio stations. It had the Australian equivalent of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, a mammoth company. So I was a fifth generation and by the time I came around, I was seen as the heir apparent, a little bit like the royal family as I sometimes think. I had about as much choice of not to go into it as Prince William does of saying to his grandmother or dad, "I don't think this is for me. It's no." So I spent my growing up, preparing myself, undergrad at Oxford like my dad had some other relatives; Wall Street, Harvard Business School. Came back in '87. My dad died in early '87. I was from his third marriage. He was in his 80s. Launched this $2.25 billion takeover.

Gary S:

Stop for a second and repeat that number and make sure people heard 2.25 what?

Warwick F:

Billion. It's unfortunately with a B, 2.25 billion. And so I said, unfortunately, because things went wrong from the start, other family members sold out. They didn't want to be in a privatized company controlled by a 26 year old, which I think, I guess makes sense. Three years later, the debt was so high that when Australia got in a big recession, the company went bankrupt. So I was trying to preserve it in the image of the founder, had to be well managed, top of being taken over by corporate raiders. And what I did, directly led to it falling out of family hands. So that in a nutshell is my crucible.

Gary S:

Right. Now, there are myriad reasons why that could be painful. One, is that word that starts with a B. Others are emotional. We have seen on this show, we've heard on the show from guests who have experienced both, who have experienced financial setbacks not quite at the level that you have experienced them, but also the emotional setbacks. And one of the things I say all the time as the co-host of the show is, "Okay, guest C, your physical crucible is nothing like what Warwick's gone through, but the emotions are the same." And emotionally, you've said many times, emotionally, it was harder than what happened to you financially. Can you explain just a little bit about what happened to you emotionally in public and how that affected you?

Warwick F:

Yeah, fair point. Obviously, this was major news. It was the front covers of all newspapers. There was a headline sanying banks end Fairfax era. There was savage editorial cartoons. My wife's American, which was fortunate at the time. So we left Australia in late 1990, and I've lived in the US ever since. So I felt like I couldn't move on with my life in Australia. And the issue wasn't so much the massive sum of money that I guess I lost. It was more just the sense I let my parents down, ancestors. We had 4,000 plus employees. It was like a $700 million company. Now, they didn't lose their jobs per se, but it was more just instability. Who's going to buy us, what's going to happen.

Warwick F:

And so my self esteem was crushed. And because the founder was a strong person of faith as I am, I felt like God had this vision to resurrect the company in the image of the founder or have at least be run along his principles. So I felt like there was almost this divine crucible that I had let God down. So really it just devastated my sense of self and self esteem. So yeah, that was the hardest part of my crucible.

Gary S:

Here's the good news, listener. We've gotten to the point where we're done talking about the negative pain parts of things. And now we're going to turn a little bit, because the purpose of the book is not, as I say on the podcast, as we say on the podcast every week, it's not to wallow in those things that happened. And there's no wallowing here. Warwick does talk in his book about what he went through. And we'll go through the emotional beats and also what he did for living beats, those kinds of things that happened, the self esteem beats. But really, Warwick, what you talk about, the idea of embracing your crucible is that from embracing your crucible, you pick up, you learn some things that are important in guiding you on the journey back from your crucible.

Gary S:

So I'm just going to throw out a couple of words to you that you discuss in the first section of the book and let you pick which ones you want to talk about. You talk about the importance of having an anchor for your soul, having something outside yourself that's firm, that's bedrock, so that when the winds come and it feels like you're getting blown over, you got something to hang on to. And you talk about the power, the necessity of authenticity. The worst thing you can do in the wake of a crucible is to pretend it didn't happen, stick your head in the ground, just everything's fine and dandy.

Gary S:

We've all heard stories about that, right? The person who rents the big expensive car, and they're trying to project... I guess we just had recently, Dov Baron, called it an Instagram life. You don't want to do that. You want to live authentically. So explain a little bit from your perspective, why is it important to have an anchor, pursue authenticity? Pick one of those two words that you think is most important for people to know. And again, the whole thing is unpacked in the book.

Warwick F:

Yeah. The whole concept of find an anchor for your soul, I really think of this image of you're on a ship and there's just a massive gale, there's huge storms, and you've got to cling to something, you dig your fingernails into the wooden mast on a sailing ship, and what's the anchor that's going to get you through the storm of your crucible? And for me, it's my faith and faith in Christ. It could be faith in something else which we'll broader, which we'll get into. But you've got to find amidst the storm, amidst almost this whirlpool, you've got to find an anchor and find a way just to keep being yourself. Don't like fake it till you make it kind of thing. It's just be real, don't pretend I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm good. It's like you don't have to get into every detail with people, but be real. But yeah, amidst the storm, you've got to find an anchor for your soul. Otherwise, you'll get sucked into a vortex and you want to escape. So it's like a lifeline. It's critical to find that anchor, whatever that means to you.

Gary S:

Yeah. And what you just said in addition to finding that anchor, be you. And that's the importance of authenticity, which is extraordinarily important as well. One of the things I love about the book, Warwick, is that it really is three strands in essence. There's your story, there's a bit of memoir to it, what you went through, there's the principles that you learned from that, and then there are that other people can learn from as well that you impart to people to help them on their journeys.

Gary S:

And then you tell some stories of family members of sometimes historical and religious figures, spiritual figures, as you think about this idea of embracing your crucible. As a means of starting a journey to get you to a life of significance, you talk about finding an anchor, you talk about authenticity. Is there a story? And there are many. We don't have time, unfortunately, to unpack every one of them. Buy the book and you can do that now, listener. You can read every one of those stories. But is there a story that comes to mind to you, Warwick, about what we've just been talking about, what you've just been unpacking?

Warwick F:

Yeah, there is. I think about the life of John Fairfax, a man of great faith and he had his own crucible in which he made a choice not to let it defeat him or define him.

Gary S:

And let me stop just for a second to say, John Fairfax, for people who do not know is your great, great grandfather, the founder of the company. Yeah.

Warwick F:

Indeed. Absolutely. So yeah, he came out from England in the late 1830s to Australia. And the crucible that drove him out was he had a small paper in England and he wrote an article about a local magistrate, a local lawyer, and the lawyer sued him twice. Now, the judge found in John Fairfax's favor saying, "Look, the article was accurate." But the court costs ended up bankrupting him. So the judge said, yep, what you said was right, but he was so fed up with the whole thing. He decided to leave England. He was bankrupted by the whole thing and moved to Australia. He ended up buying into the Sydney Morning Herald in 1841. And ended up growing it into a huge company.

Warwick F:

So he didn't let that setback define him. He was willing to move forward. And he had this vision of a newspaper that would be independent. It's masthead was, may Whigs call me Tory, Tory call me Whig, which basically in modern language may conservative call me liberal call me conservative. So he had this vision of an independent paper that would help grow the young colony of Australia. So he did not let, as we say, his own worst day of being bankrupted in England define his life. He chose to move forward. It's a tremendous example of embracing a crucible.

Gary S:

Yeah. And the generations that it affected after that, the legacy that came from that, the legacy you're still living is a remarkable one. Okay. There's section one of what we're talking about, about embracing your crucible. Okay. I've done that, says the listener. I've embraced it, I'm trying to learn lessons from it. What then happens after that? And the second section that we talked about that the book deals with is discovering your purpose. You mentioned earlier, Warwick, that you felt like that you inherited your purpose from your great, great grandfather and your fore-bearers after that.

Gary S:

This section of the book, fascinating. And again, here are some subjects that come up in there; humility, integrity, servant leadership, self sacrifice, character. You talk about those things in great detail, why they're important, why they were important to you, why they were important to your family members, your father and your great, great grandfather in particular. But what you really pull on and focus on in that section is faith. I know it's important to you to explain not only how faith helped you, but what you mean when you share that with people who are coming through a crucible, when you talk about the importance of having faith. You talked earlier about an anchor to hold onto, for you it's faith. You believe it's faith in a general sense. For others, unpack that a little bit from your perspective and then from the perspective that you try to coach people on.

Warwick F:

Yeah, it's a good question, Gary. Basically, it fleshes out this concept of find an anchor for your soul. I talk about in the book faith in the general sense. I'm clear about my own Christian faith, which there was a legacy of that in my family going back to my great, great grandfather, John Fairfax. For me, it was through an evangelical Anglican church when I was at Oxford University where I committed my life to Christ, so to speak. But as well get into, I'm an executive coach at heart and by profession. So I believe everybody has the God given right, so to speak, to choose their own path. So when I say faith, everybody has to find their path, find their anchor. So it could be a major religion such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. It could be a philosophy, a set of values and beliefs.

Warwick F:

We all have values and beliefs. So whatever that is, don't ignore that, don't ignore what you believe, and I'm not telling you what it should be. You have to figure that out for yourself, it's your right to find your path or whatever that is, your way back from your crucible, your way forward in life. To lead a joyful fulfilling, a life of significance, is based on that anchor, based on whatever your values and beliefs. So it's really important. It's not about listening to other people, it's more listen to yourself, listen to your soul, live in light and in harmony with your soul of who you truly are.

Gary S:

All right. I'm getting back to embracing my co-host responsibilities. And we're going to mash up two game shows here. We're going to mash up the price is right where we're going to spin a wheel for something. So you can pick a story, spin the wheel and pick a story, and then we'll do it a little bit with like the Fast Money round in Family Feud, so we can get it done in about two or three minutes. So what story in your book really had the most impact on you in writing and in telling that, that you think will be instructive for readers?

Warwick F:

Yeah. In terms of the whole discover your purpose, George Washington, the first president of the United States, he was called the indispensable man of character. One of the themes in this section of the book. True faith has its outworking in how you live, humility, integrity. If it doesn't manifest itself in how you live, then what use is it, frankly?

Gary S:

What's the fruit of what you say you believe, right?

Warwick F:

Exactly, right. And so he was called by some pretty amazing contemporaries, George III, who he defeated. George III of England said he must be the greatest man in the world. Napoleon after, he was exiled on the island of Elba, said they wanted me to be another Washington. Well, why did they say that? Because really at the height of his power, he gave it up voluntarily in like 1783 Treaty of Paris. Britain recognized US independence. There was a bunch of generals in the so called Newburgh Conspiracy that said, "Hey, General Washington, we don't think we've been treated fairly, our pay has been locked up in politics and Congress." It's funny politics existed even back then.

Gary S:

It was dirtier back then. It was even dirtier.

Warwick F:

Yeah, bureaucracy. And so he said, "Look, this is not what we're about. We didn't fight this war for me to be a dictator." And so then later on in 1783, then, believe it or not, capital of the United States or what would be Annapolis, which is where I live in Maryland coincidentally, he basically said, "I retire from the theater of action." He just said, "I'm going to go back to Virginia." And he had no intention of ever being in public life. That's why George III called him the greatest man in history. Now, as it happened, the country wasn't done with him. And so in 1789, he was elected president by the electoral college unanimously, the only president to receive 100% of the vote. Doubt that will ever happen again.

Gary S:

No.

Warwick F:

And so why was he elected by everybody? Because of his character. He wasn't a military genius. He lost more battles than he won. But he was a man of immense character. He truly lived his beliefs. So it's just an incredible example of a person walking the talk.

Gary S:

Yeah. And what I love about what you just said before we move on to the next section is that when we started to talk about discover your purpose, we talked about some of the building blocks of faith, of what we're talking about. We talked about humility, integrity, servant leadership. I just listed them off, self sacrifice, character. What you just described about Washington in that very short story hit on all of those, right?

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

It checks all of those boxes. Those are the things. It was funny to me as you were talking about what people said about what his contemporaries, even those, not that he didn't just defeat George, he separated from his country. He left. He broke off. I'd love to see if LinkedIn was around at the time, the recommendations that would be on George Washington's LinkedIn page. That would be fascinating. Next, we're going to move on to the third section of the book, which is craft your vision. Vision is an important word. Craft is an important word in that section, craft your vision. But I think the most important word would you agree is your right, because you can craft a vision that somebody else's, you can craft a vision you think the world needs it. But talk about why it's so critical to craft your own vision, and then how you did that in your own life.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Basically, you can't inherit a vision. It's often in families. Maybe your mom or dad was a lawyer, a banker, accountant, doctor, whatever. It's like, well, you know what? This is a good business, it's a good way of making a livelihood, I can get you in, I'm certainly networked in my profession. And there's some logic there, but what happens if you don't have the innate wiring to be a doctor or a lawyer? Maybe that's not your passion, maybe you just want to paint, maybe you want to play music, maybe you love math, maybe you want to be an engineer. It's not about just following what your family or friends say is logical, you want to live in light of your design and have a vision that you care about.

Warwick F:

And I was in a sense the poster child of, in a sense, what not to do in that growing up in this 150, our family business, a bit like the royal family, it was, as they say in the US military, a duty, honor, country thing. I felt like I had no choice. So I spent my whole life trying to prepare myself to one day take a leading position, as I mentioned, at Oxford, Wall Street, Harvard Business School. Not because I was passionate about going to business school, it was all about fulfilling a role. And so when the whole company went under, it's like, "Well, now what do I do with my life?" I was age 30. And it's like I had no clue. It took me years which is a whole other story to find out but you don't want to live somebody else's vision. You can't inherit a vision. You have really the God given right to follow your own path, live your own life. It doesn't mean dishonoring your parents and friends. Be you, be real, be authentic, follow your own vision.

Gary S:

There are a couple of things you say in the book. And this would be a good time since we're probably about halfway through the episode to do a public service announcement. Here's the book, if you're watching on YouTube, it's Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, by Warwick Fairfax out October 19. Can be purchased at where all great books are sold online. You can also go to crucibleleadership.com. We have a tab on the book, give you a lot of details, including the astounding number. I can say that you can't, you won't, the astounding number of endorsements of people who have said things that they love about this book, including Nancy Koehn who's a professor at Harvard Business School who said that you weave together history and his own fascinating life experience to offer a series of vital leadership insights. Whether you're responsible for a company, a foundation, an arts organization or a government agency, you will find nuggets of leadership gold in this book. That is just one of 29 endorsements that you'll find on the website. You'll find many of them in the book.

Gary S:

I say all that, not to embarrass Warwick, but to frame the book that we're talking about here in a way that you will understand that truly, it's not just me who thinks it's a great book or Warwick who thinks it was a worthwhile book to publish, lots of people who have read this book have great things to say about it. So back to our programming. You say a couple of things, Warwick, about crafting your vision that I think are really interesting for this discussion. One, you say the seed and they're connected. So I'm going to ask you the question and ask you to talk about them at the same time. You say that the seeds to your vision, your unique vision are within. So unpack that a little bit. And then you also define vision, is defined in the book as a present picture of a future reality. Talk about how those two things go together. Seeds to your vision are within, and a vision is a present picture of a future reality.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I think often the seeds of your vision can come from the ashes of your crucible. Maybe you're a cancer survivor, a victim of abuse, and you might be, I never want anybody to go through what I went through, I want to help others. A vision needs to be anchored in your design, which from my perspective, divine design. So whether you love, art, math, science, whatever it is. It's really combination of your inherent wiring, plus crucibles often where the vision lies, not always, but it has to be something that you're off the charts passionate about. And from my perspective, vision has to be others focused. It can't be all about money, power, fame, some narcissistic internal deal, because every psychologist, every religion, to my knowledge, will say that does not lead to happiness or joy or fulfillment.

Warwick F:

It has to be others focused, a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated serving others. So really the seeds of your vision are found within in that sense. And you know when you have a good vision, when you can feel it, taste it, touch it, you dream about it. When I think of John Fairfax, he was head of a local library there. And he and a buddy of his who were to found the company, they talked about this plan, the plan. And they had a vision of what the Sydney Morning Herald that they would buy was going to be like. They knew what they wanted to do. They had a dream, they had a vision. It was so compelling. They probably had trouble sleeping at night. So that's a great vision in which you can just feel it, picture it, smell it, touch it. And it's just compelling. It just drives you forward. That's when you know you've got a great vision.

Gary S:

So how did Warwick Fairfax post takeover failing, find the seeds of his vision within? And as you teased a little bit, it wasn't overnight. We had a guest on the show during our harnessing resilience series, Heather Kampf, who found her resilience in five seconds after she fell on a track, got up and finished the race and won. It took you a little longer. It takes a lot of people a little longer. It can take time to find the seeds of your vision within and act on them. So what was that process like for you?

Warwick F:

Yeah. It's interesting sometimes... Typically, it's not overnight. And for me it was steps of faith, really, steps of, from my perspective, trying to hear the Lord, some higher power, just step by step. So the first step was I worked in aviation services company in Annapolis doing finance and business analysis. From there, I felt like, from my perspective, God telling me, "You know what? You're not using all your gifts and abilities. You're playing small." Nothing wrong with what I was doing, but I just felt like there was more. And so whether you think it's God or some inner voice within yourself, whatever your perspective is, one big lesson, listen to that voice, listen to that gut. Yes, get advice from trusted folks. So I ended up leaving that company going into executive coaching

Warwick F:

After a mid career executive coach gave me an assessment, I began to find my leadership voice in the questions. And step by step, I ended up being on a couple of non-profit boards that was a good fit. And then talk in church was another pivotal moment we'll get to, I think, later. And eventually, that led to Crucible Leadership, the podcast, the book, blogs, but it wasn't like this grand plan. I think that's one of the things that people need to understand. And we'll unpack it a bit more in example of Walt Disney here in a moment. That's a tremendous example that I'm talking about. But you might have a sense, but you don't always have this grand plan all laid out. Just focus on what's the next best step for me now, what do I feel within myself I need to be called? And that's key to beginning to walk your vision out and make it happen.

Gary S:

It's a unique GPS, isn't it? It knows the destination, a life of significance, knows where you're at coming out of your crucible, but it doesn't necessarily give you all the turns, turn on this street, turn on that street. It's a journey. We call it a journey for a reason, because you have to work that out.

Warwick F:

It might tell you what street to turn on when you're like 100 foot or maybe 10 foot away, maybe. But, okay, what's the next turn after that? Not telling you. Life tends to be... You could debate philosophically, theologically why that's the case, but it just is, basically.

Gary S:

Yeah. You mentioned that Walt Disney is going to come up. Before we get there, I want to ask you a question about vision in the context of the workplace, in the context of leadership, a lot of what we've been talking about. And as we said at the start, the book is a leadership book. There's also a bit of not in love with the term, can't think of a better one, a bit of self help, a bit of self management. And then there's also some faith components to it. But from a purely business perspective, the idea of having a vision, you have this great thing you talk about, about the importance of sharing your vision with your team as a leader and ways in which you can do that in some compromises, maybe you have to make some sacrifices, maybe a better word you have to make to do that. Unpack that a little a bit.

Warwick F:

Yeah. One of the images we use in the book is Michelangelo's statue of David that's in Florence that a few years ago, I actually had the pleasure of seeing. And you think of your vision is like that, it's perfection, but you've got to give people the hammer and chisel which when you think your vision is perfection is tough. But what we say in the book is 80% of your vision that has 100% commitment is better than 100% of your vision with zero commitment. So you've got to be willing to share, to take input. We talk in that section, which we don't have time to get into, but listening and advising, listening from a broad cross section of folks, listening to a few on your team or some advisors outside, but really to craft a great vision, you've got to be willing to let others play.

Warwick F:

You can't just hold the ball in the playground and not share, because, hey, it won't happen. But even in this stage, are there other people that can make your vision better? Is not this narcissistic, it's all got to be mine. If you truly believe in your vision, why wouldn't you want other people to help make it better? It's just logical, but if you're others focused, you'll do that.

Gary S:

Warning, warning, danger. I'm about to embarrass Warwick, because one of the things that you talked about earlier is the importance of authenticity and what you just described is what you do as the head of Crucible Leadership. Those of us on the team, we have input into the vision. I'll give you an example of yesterday. Yesterday we were talking about some aspect of the audio book. And here's the cover of what it looks like. And there's like eight people on the email. I chime in and say, "Hey, why don't we put an endorsement on there?" And Warwick is like, "Well, okay, I like it looking cleaner that way." And so I bring it up again and Warwick listened to it again.

Gary S:

Here's what even members of the team don't know. Later on Warwick texts me and says that he asked another member of the team about it. In other words, he didn't just go, "Okay, I've already said no twice." He went and explored it. He was willing to expand his vision a little bit if that increased buy in. And that's the stuff that, again, my job is to point out this book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance is available starting October 19. Warwick indicated there's some stories we can't get into here in the podcast, but he gets into all of them in here. Can't encourage you enough to dig in and get those. Tell us in the time we have left in this segment, Warwick, about Mr. Disney and his vision.

Warwick F:

Walt Disney, he was a great visionary. But I think it's important, everybody knows the movies, Walt Disney World, Disneyland. In the late 20s, as he was starting, he didn't have this big grand vision. He loved cartoons, animation. That was his passion. He didn't know where it was all going to lead, but he was somebody that he didn't really let failure overwhelm him. So one key early moment is he was in New York in 1928 and a distributor of his cartoons, which back then was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which likely nobody's ever heard of. And there's a reason. The distributor swindled him out of his cartoon. There was some fine print, Walt was an animator not a lawyer.

Warwick F:

And so here he is going back with his wife, Lily, on the train to California, because remember this is the late 20s and you didn't fly there from one coast to the other back then, not easily. And rather than being depressed, he started doodling on a napkin some circles. And he drew a mouse and that became Mickey Mouse. Now, nobody's ever heard of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, but everybody's heard of Mickey Mouse.

Gary S:

I've heard a thing or two about this mouse character.

Warwick F:

And so he was just the serial visionary. In like 1937, I think it was, he created Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, an hour and a half animated color movie. Everybody thought called it Disney's folly. It'll never work. It'll hurt your eyes. Nobody will sit through an hour and a half cartoon, are you crazy? But they did. He pretty much bet the farm on that one. Later on in like the 50s, he created Disneyland in Los Angeles. Again, people thought this is nuts, it was very expensive. Amusement parks then were dirty places that weren't clean, a place for a family, and you're going to have a cover charge? It'll never work. And so he had this attitude of vision. There's this quote that he said that I think is very on point. Walt Disney famously said this, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Gary S:

Say that again.

Warwick F:

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. So that was Walt Disney. He didn't have this big plan when it was in 1928 to create Disneyland still less Disney World. But just step by step, he had this gut instinct, he trusted himself. He never gave up. He did not let that guy swindling him out of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to define his life. That could have been his worst day in his life at the time. Did he wallow for hours, months? No, on the train back, he moved on and created Mickey Mouse. Who does that? That's why he's such a great visionary.

Gary S:

He did not let someone swindling him out of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit be the end of his story. And you, Warwick, did not let the failed takeover of the family media business be the end of your story. The fourth section that we're going to talk about from the book, the fourth section of the book, is to live and lead with impact. And this is really focused on organizational leaders, how they do it, how they inspire, how they achieve and why that's important. Resilience is key. You've certainly manifested that. As you've indicated, it wasn't two weeks from the takeover to today. It was a couple of decades. Unpack for listeners, this live and lead with impact and why persistence resilience is such a key component of it.

Warwick F:

It is. And I want to feed some of the strands of what we've been talking about into this, because perseverance is key because life is hard. Life sadly is not Disneyland where every flower is perfect, everything's clean. Everybody loves Disneyland. It just seems just so perfect. Well, life isn't like that, unfortunately. We have moments, we have days, but life is tough. And so you've got to persevere as Walt Disney did. He didn't let this distributor swindling him out of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit get him down.

Warwick F:

And so how do you have that level of perseverance? And this is where I think it all comes together. It comes from not letting your worst day define your life. It comes from having an anchor for your soul, your faith, whatever that means to you. It comes from living that faith out in character and humility and integrity. It comes from not living your parents or friends design or vision, your own vision based in your own wiring and design. And it comes with having a vision often formed out of the ashes of your crucible that you feel will make the world a better place that will help impact the world and really help folks live a life of significance. You have those things. All things being equal, you will have a lot of perseverance and like, hey, this is too important, this is too important to fail. This is about helping people. This is about freeing people's souls.

Warwick F:

We're just going to keep going. And you'll also find, as we say, a group of fellow travelers. You'll have people who've embraced that vision and say, "You know what? I'm with you. We're in it." And they'll have different skills than you will, different talents. But you have a team that has if not more committed to your vision than you. And so combination of perseverance and a talented team that you empower, you get out of the way, you don't step on their toes and their areas of expertise, you provide guidance, all of that fuels a perseverance to succeed. But all these strands form... If you have a vision that's just anchored in your narcissistic needs for wealth or self adulation, that, in my view, will not have staying power for the long run. It's hard to persevere.

Warwick F:

And certainly, who would want to follow some narcissistic, self-important, self appointed king? Nobody's going to want to follow that. You'll be alone in your mansion, high atop the hill. And you just don't want to live that life. As Thoreau says, "A life of quiet desperation." You don't want to be that person, but perseverance is really the key as it pulls together the other strands to leading and living with impact.

Gary S:

What I loved about what you just said, Warwick, it's the words you said, it's the things you said, it's the concepts you imparted to the listener, because they're extraordinarily important. But what I love most about what you just said is the passion in your voice when you said it. You described yourself often and you did it in this show, I believe early on. You're a reflective advisor. You're soft spoken. You're even keeled when you speak. I don't know that I've ever heard you speak with as much passion as what you just did in summarizing what is in that book. I'm not making this up. I've got tingles as I hear that, because that is you rooting around in your life of significance.

Gary S:

You just talked about the sadness of living a life of quiet desperation. What I just heard there is a man who's living a life of loud significance. And that is extraordinarily rewarding for me as your friend. And I hope, I pray extraordinarily helpful for listeners who hear it. We have talked in each one of these sections about a story. And this was a funny one, because as we were talking about this beforehand, I'm like, you're going to have a hard time picking what story you're going to talk about, because some of your favorite people are in here. In the book, you talk about Nelson and Wellington British military leaders. You talk about Lincoln. You talk about that stuff. David, you talk about David from the Bible, but the one that you wanted to camp on here, also a big hero of yours. And I think that's a great place to wrap this discussion. The captain has put on the fasten seatbelt signs and it's getting time to land the plane. And we're about to do that. But talk about the persistence, the resilience and the impact it made of Winston Churchill.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Everybody's heard of Winston Churchill, but he's a fascinating guy. He was the grandson of the Duke of Marlborough, one of the famous aristocratic families. And he did not have an easy life. His father didn't believe in him at all. He just basically thought of his son as a waste of space. And his father died young for a variety of reasons. Back in those days, you didn't see a whole lot of your parents if you were the son of an aristocracy. So I'm not sensing, there was a whole lot of affirmation, but yet he had this persistence, this sense that he could become somebody and live a meaningful life. And so in the 20s he was called the star of the government by then, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

Warwick F:

His wilderness years began from about 1929. And then a couple of years on, he lost a lot of money in the stock market crash. He was hit by a car in New York City in 1931 looking the wrong way, which I guess happens if you're English in New York living in America. So he made a number of political mistakes, which he tended to. He let his mouth runaway with him. And so come the 1930s, Nazi Germany was on the rise. And pacifism, whether it was, in Britain and America was at its height. But Churchill could see that you can't trust Adolf Hitler, you can't trust Nazi Germany. And they all said, oh, poor old Winston warmongerer, and they wouldn't listen. It was immensely frustrating. He could have said, "Look, the heck with these guys, if they're so stupid to ignore Nazi Germany, let it be on their heads," but he didn't give up. He kept giving speech after speech, after speech.

Warwick F:

Well, finally as Hitler wore on and took over Czechoslovakia in 1938 and then Austria, people began to say, "You know what? Maybe Winston's right, maybe we can't trust this guy, Hitler and Nazi Germany. Maybe they won't just leave us alone." And finally, as we know, war broke out in 1939. And eventually by then he was getting older, Churchill was voted in as prime minister in May 1940. So after many years in the wilderness, finally, he came. And never once was he vindictive. He treated the people that came before him, prime ministers, Chamberlain and Baldwin, with respect. There was not a bitter bone in his body.

Warwick F:

But that sense of perseverance was so much a part of him. If ever a country needed perseverance it's Britain in 1940, with Battle of Britain, America wasn't in the war. All of Europe was conquered by Nazi Germany. And he gave this famous speech that inspired a nation to persevere, to hang in there. And he uses these immortal words in 1940. He gave this speech and it says this, "We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the field and in the streets and we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Warwick F:

So that's pure Churchill, that's pure perseverance. And he helped a nation persevere under the darkest of times. So he had a life grounded in perseverance, and he inspired a nation to have perseverance with his rhetoric and his example, it's true inspiration of somebody that never gave up and never just gave in when life was looking grim, personally, and for his country.

Gary S:

With that story, the Spitfire has landed. The Spitfire has landed. And what I love about what you just said at the end is that it's a great bridge to our next episode is everything that you just described about Winston Churchill, never giving up, not allowing his crucibles that he went through to be the end of his story. It's not only what the podcast is about that we do every week, but it's what the podcast is going to be about next week, because next week is the day. When next week's episode goes live, it is the day that the book goes live. That book in case you missed it, the first 127 times, I mentioned it in this episode is Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance.

Gary S:

And what we're going to talk about on next week's episode, Warwick, is the other half of this story. We've talked today about the content of this. What we're going to talk about next week on the day that the book releases is the publishing journey that you went through, where you had to, in a very real way, live by the words that Churchill spoke, never give up, never surrender, keep moving forward, where you had to find your vision and craft it, and you had to put it into practice and you had to... It's the journey of you following. It'll be an interesting show. It will be an unpacking of the journey of you following to write the book, everything that's in the book. So I can't wait for that conversation. That will be that will be an interesting one, for sure.

Gary S:

As we close, I'm going to change things up. I'm not going to do my usual post amble, I guess, I'd call it. I'm just going to say this. We talked in this episode about the contents of Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. And what sticks out top of mind for me is, Warwick, talked about if you live in your crucible, if you don't move beyond your crucible, if you wallow in your crucible, if you try to craft a vision that's not uniquely you, if you're doing things that aren't in line with your gifts and passions and those things, and you're aiming for something besides significance, you end up living a life of quiet desperation. What you've heard here today, listener, what we hope we've inspired you to do is to live a life of loud significance. We will see you next week to talk about how the book, Crucible Leadership, came to be.

Note: This blog is excerpted from Chapter 9 of my bookCrucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a life of Significance, which comes out Oct. 19 from Mount Tabor Media and Morgan James Publishing. In this piece, I discuss the lessons I learned from my failed $2.25 billion takeover bid of my family’s 150-year-old media company – and also what my experience can teach all of us about the importance of crafting and pursuing a unique personal vision rooted in our passions, talents and beliefs.

The experiences and travails during my days at John Fairfax Ltd. have affected me in many ways. They have affected my view of myself, my view of vision, and my understanding of what it takes to make vision a reality. They have also affected how I help others.

At a personal level, my “failure”—which I consider my life’s greatest crucible experience—hurt me deeply and has humbled me, but ultimately, I believe it has made me wiser and put me on a better path. What was searing was the repeated thought that I had this great vision, this God-given vision as I believed it was, and I let God down.

John Fairfax Ltd. could have been so great, and I blew it. How did I blow it? Count the ways. Either I blew it by not being the take-charge leader the job needed, or I blew it by being too impatient for change and not really giving other family members involved in the family business a chance to embrace the vision I was trying to make a reality. Perhaps I would have found some commonality between my vision and their visions. I did not ask, so I do not know. Either way, I failed in my mission to bring the vision to reality.

More Lessons Learned

But what was worse, in some ways, was what I learned about myself. That was not fun. I learned that perhaps I had a hero complex, the desire to be the crusading avenger who saves the day.

I had also made assumptions about the rest of my family, who they were and what they were about, based on others’ perceptions. I had not tested these assumptions by talking to my relatives myself and listening to them. There was resoluteness there, but there was also the other side of that, which was stubbornness. These reflections about who I was, my character and my motives, were not fun or easy. But part of living life well is learning from your failures and living life in light of these lessons.

So what are some of the lessons learned? You have to be humble. You cannot have this ego complex that you are going to be the savior of the world. That is dangerous and does not often work out well. You can hurt a lot of people while you are trying to save the world. There is another saying, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions.” I may have been trying to do the right thing. But a lot of bad things seemed to happen: to me, to others, and to the company. Having a “save the world” ego complex can be dangerous. And it is all-too-often the fuel of a devastating crucible.

You cannot inherit a vision. Just like you cannot inherit your parents’ faith, you cannot inherit your parents’ vision. I tried it and failed. If it is not your vision, no matter how noble it is, do not try to make it your vision. If you do, you risk facing a life-changing crucible of your own creation, causing pain in your own life and the lives of others.

For this reason, it’s important to have an accurate assessment of yourself, a healthy self-awareness. As a leader, as a human being, it is not enough to have a great and worthwhile vision. You have to ask yourself, in all humility, Am I the right person to make that vision happen? Do I have the skills and the gifts, let alone the requisite experience, to bring that vision to reality? How has this experience with vision shaped me and molded me?  

Funnily enough, I am still attracted to vision. These days, though, I am more cautious regarding my own role in a worthy vision. I no longer see myself as always central to the picture. I am happy to help others with their visions. I am older and hopefully wiser. I have a few battle scars. I am more realistic, both about the challenges of making a vision a reality and about who I am and who I am not. But I have not given up on vision.

As I have said, I hate cynicism and defeatism—the sense that it is hopeless, nobody cares, why bother. Fortunately, through God’s grace, I have not become world-weary. I am still idealistic. I still have hope. I still believe the impossible is possible. I am committed to the truth that crucible experiences can be overcome if we learn the lessons of them, craft a vision to move beyond them that is rooted in our gifts and passions, and dedicate ourselves to making that vision a reality as we pursue a life of significance.

What It Takes to Find Your Own Vision

In my capacity as a coach and consultant, when people ask me for advice on job transition, or if people who have sold businesses come to me looking for a new direction, I have a paradigm I use. I ask them about their gifts and abilities. I ask them about their passions (that is, what activities or causes they are excited about). If they are Christians, I ask them how their planned new job or activity would advance God’s Kingdom. (If they are not believers, I might ask them how that job or activity would fulfil a higher purpose.) So, if that new job or activity is in the center of their gift set, in an arena they are off-the-charts passionate about, and they believe it advances God’s Kingdom or fulfils a higher purpose, my belief is that they will feel fulfilled and, I would say, “called” to that position.

In my life, too, I try to live by that model. I believe I am at my best when I am advising, facilitating, and writing. I am passionate about my faith. I want everything I do to advance God’s Kingdom. When I advise, my desire is to help people follow a calling that fits them, that draws on their greatest passions and talents. Helping people fulfil their visions gives me as much pleasure and joy as anything else in life.

Sometimes to be the best version of yourself you have to go through some trials and tribulations you do not want to experience—crucibles. Research done by Crucible Leadership has found that 49 percent of business leaders have had crucible experiences, events so painful that they have fundamentally changed their lives. I am certainly among that 49 percent. I have experienced much pain, and much self-reflection and soul-searching. The benefit of coming out on the other side of the failed takeover is that I now have a vision I am truly excited about, one that is truly my vision.

Where does vision come from? Is it internal or external? It would seem vision is often inspired by external events or comes from sources outside ourselves. Consider John Fairfax’s vision of the great newspaper he wanted to build one day. That vision was nurtured while working for a London newspaper and during the trials of working in newspapers in Leamington. His vision was cemented by the crucible of failure and then flourished under the promise of the young colony of New South Wales.

There was much external encouragement, such as that from John’s wife, Sarah. Yet that is not to say there was no internal component to John’s vision. Perhaps the greatest internal influence was his character, coupled with his aptitudes. John’s character made him want to build a newspaper that was fair, would fight for just causes, and help build a young colony. The facets of John’s character—fairness, justice, and compassion—were inextricably woven into his vision. Remember:

Vision occurs when deep-seated beliefs and character meet circumstances in an area in which the visionary has aptitude. This was certainly the case for John Fairfax in a way that was not true for me.

Reflection

Order Crucible Leadership here

Have you ever thought your life would be grand if … fill in the blank? Dov Baron helps people move beyond those if-onlys. A best-selling author and one of the nation’s leading authorities on meaning-driven leadership, he speaks no-nonsense truths to empower clients and audiences to live their purpose, share their inner genius and not –as he puts it – disenfranchise the parts of themselves that are critical to leading lives of significance.

“Most people’s pain,” he tells us, “is hidden by our success.” And that hiding place, he explains, is where crucibles often cause the most damage. He knows from experience, having survived a brutal fall while rock climbing that shattered the bones in his face and almost shattered his soul.

To learn more about Dov Baron, visit www.dovbaron.com

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Dov B:

If you're living your life in any way, even inside your own head, not necessarily saying it out loud, I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when I find the right partner, I'll be happy when we get married, I'll be happy when we have a kid, I'll be happy when I get a house, when we get a bigger house, when we get a bigger car, when we buy a yacht, when we get another million, another billion. You're never going to get there. It's never going to happen because the problem with it is, and this is the hook, this is the hook, this is the drug, is all those things you're saying I'll be happy when, they all work. That's the hook. They do make you happier, but it's so brief.

Gary S:

Do you identify with that? With the idea that life would be grand if and fill in the blank? If we're honest, most of us would have to say we've been there. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, cohost of the show. Our guest this week, Dov Baron, helps people move beyond the if onlys. A bestselling author and one of the nation's leading authorities on meaning driven leadership, he speaks no nonsense truths to empower clients and audiences to live their purpose, share their inner genius, and not as he puts it, "disenfranchise the parts of themselves that are critical to leading lives of significance." "Most people's pain," he tells us, "is hidden by our success and that hiding place," he says, "is where crucibles often cause the most damage."

Warwick F:

Well, Dov, thanks so much for being here. I love the image you have of the dragon leader, the dragon's lair, the fire that might destroy us, but yet there are things we can learn from it. Just your whole notion of both helping leaders improve their organizations, but helping improve themselves. And we'll get into your book, One Red Thread, where you expound on this a fair bit about purpose and significance and success.

Warwick F:

But before we get into that, I'd love to hear, and obviously we'll get to the physical fall, I mean, some of us have had metaphorical falls, but you've had a big physical one. I'd love to hear a little bit about the background. We've talked off air just, I think you're from UK and you've even spent time in my homeland, Australia, on the other side in Perth. Just tell us just a little bit about Dov Baron and his family growing up and what's the back story behind Dov?

Dov B:

Well, first of all, gentlemen, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure and an honor, I am grateful to be here and I am appreciative of what you're doing and the work that you're doing. I think it's really important. For those of you who are listening, remember these guys put these shows together, they don't get paid to do this. They're sharing this with you to give you value, so make sure that you do rate, review and subscribe to the show because they're giving you quality information all the time. I'm honored to be here to serve in that capacity.

Dov B:

As a Reader's Digest version of my background, which we could spend a long time on, but we won't, I promise. I was born in Northern England, I've been gone for more than 40 years, so I've been gone much longer than I ever lived there. But I was born in abject poverty, surrounded by crime, violence, addiction, all kinds of traumas that we don't have to get into. I watched people be defeated before they even reached their teens. It was clear to me that these people had already been defeated and were never going to be anything else. It's very interesting because I don't know anybody else who made it out from my neighborhood. But I do know other people who made it out, who I didn't know. For instance, Albert Finney, the famous actor was from where I was from, as was Robert, what was his name, last name? Sorry, just want blank on him. He played Jesus of Nazareth, he made it out. Ben Kingsley and several others who are all from the exact neighborhood I grew up in. I think there's a technical term for it, Shitsville. Yeah, that's the place.

Dov B:

It was a pretty terrible place and pretty oppressive, but I made a decision when I was 14 years old to leave. I had made a commitment and my mum thought it was crazy that I had the idea and I decided I was going to get out. I did. I got out of Salford and particularly the ghetto inside of Salford, which is called Lower Broughton. I made that commitment, nobody thought it was true, I knew it was true. As I got a little bit older, the drinking age in England is 18, which means everybody's in the pub at 15, which I was. So I'd sit around with my mates and I'd say, "I'm out of here, this place sucks." And they'd say, "Yeah, it does." Then one day I came at 20 and said, "I'm out of here." They're like, "Yeah, we are too." "No, no. I got a ticket, I'm going." "What, you going to Spain for a holiday?" "No, no, I'm leaving."

Dov B:

Nobody would believe that and it was interesting because all that yacking about how I was going to leave and they were going to leave suddenly became, "Well, you can't leave. We got Man United and we got Man City, we've got Boddington's Bitter, we got fish and chips, we got your family." "Yeah, and I got to go." So I began to travel. Now, I'd already studied. I studied as a small child. My mother thought I was possessed so she shipped me off to the rabbis because I would say things that were just strange and I began to study Kabbalah. So my travels at 21 was to travel and start studying with all these spiritual masters. I studied Vedanta, which is Hindu philosophy, Buddhism, the Dao, Coptic and Gnostic Christianity, Kabbalah, and all these different religions.

Dov B:

Studied and lived with these masters and then discovered that even though I had great spiritual knowledge and I met people with great spiritual knowledge, they couldn't get their stuff together. So I started studying psychology. I studied Jungian psychology, hence the metaphor of the dragons and I became a Jungian therapist and got really sick of people moaning and complaining, but not doing anything. That wasn't working for me. So I started studying what was called the psychologic of excellence, which today is called leadership. I started studying these people who are enormously successful, and I found many of them were soulless, they were lost. Had all the toys, but were lost. I was already working with people who were in a similar position to what you were in Warwick, back in the day. But I could find that they were lost people.

Dov B:

So I started then studying, putting those things together and in about '83 I stumbled into quantum physics when I was in Melbourne. I lived in Perth, but I was in Melbourne on a trip. Started studying quantum physics and from there I started studying neuroscience and then later wrote a thesis on how they come together; quantum physics, metaphysics, and psychology with neuroscience.

Dov B:

That was the background and my friend just came to me one day, who owned a national menswear company that you may or may not remember, Warwick. It was called Renoir's, do you remember Renoir's menswear clothing? It was a national clothing company, the guy who owned it was a friend of mine. He said, "I want you to come speak to my managers." I said, "About what? I'm not a speaker." And he said, "Anything you want." I went, "Are you crazy?" He goes, "No." I said, "Okay. I don't understand." He said, "But I have one condition." I said, "What's that?" He goes, "You come dressed exactly as you are today."

Dov B:

Now, you should know this 1984 and my hair is below my chest and I had the old Howard Stern hair; the black ringlet curls. That is what my hair's like, it's thick, black, curly hair. I had earrings, but in those days they were big enough to hang parrots off. I was a body builder and when you're a body builder and you're in your early 20s, it's important that everybody knows by looking at you immediately that you're a body builder. So you always wear T-shirts that are too tight and ripped jeans and the designer stubble and all the long hair and all that. But I also used to wear beautiful suits, that's how I met him because he made my suits.

Dov B:

He said, "But I want you to wear this." I said, "But can't I just wear a suit?" And he goes, "Nope, I want you to look like this." I go, "Well, I can put my hair in tail." He goes, "No, I don't want your hair in a ponytail, I want it to look like this." My hair was wild. I turned up that day as he instructed, I put my head in the door and I saw everybody at this long, the old boardroom table. They saw this hippie stick his head through the door and they look at me and they give me what we called in the UK, the F off nod. The F off nod is F off, you're in the wrong room. They give me that look and I just stayed there, waited.

Dov B:

Then they said, "Let's welcome our speaker, Dov," Steve says that. I walk in and jaws hit the deck. I said, "And you'll remember this Warwick. You'll remember this time because the whole issue with how the aboriginal people of Australia were treated was really high level stuff. That was becoming very aware, the white rabbit fence and all that stuff." I said, "Put your hand up if you're a racist." Well, who's going to put their hand up? Nobody, I knew that. I don't remember my speech, but I remember this. I said, "Put your hand up if you're a racist." Nobody put their hand up. I said, "Put your hand up if you would judge somebody by the color of their skin or the way they look in any way, shape or form." Nobody put their hand up.

Dov B:

I said, "You're a bunch of freaking liars. Every single one of you judged me by the way I look. What you don't know, is I'm your customer because the reason I know Steve is you guys make my suits. Yes, I look like this, but I don't always look like this. If I'd have walked in your store, you would have lost a customer. But I walked in when Steve was there and he got a customer." Now, I don't remember anything else I said, but I looked over at Steve and thought, "Oh, my God! I've pooed the bed on this one." He had a smile that was so big, he knew what he was doing. He's far smarter than me.

Dov B:

That was the beginning of my speaking career and it really is what it means to be authentic, is show up as you, with your personal what it is you bring to a situation and call out what is the lie. One of the challenges we have in leadership today, is that nobody calls out the lies. That's what happened. That was the beginning of the career. That's a very long, short version of my story.

Warwick F:

Oh, my gosh! I mean, that is so fascinating. I mean, you know England far better than I do, but I went to college in England. The college I was at, at Oxford Balliol was pretty progressive so it was more diverse than the other colleges, so we had folks from Northern England. It was like, "Do they let people like us in Oxford?" because they were sons of coal miners. I mean, they were Northern Ireland, all the rest of it. Still back then, the classes didn't mix. This is early '80s, which is pretty sad even within an Oxford college and that's a whole nother story. So I'm somewhat familiar with the situation.

Warwick F:

But there's this mentality, at least when I was there, that it was so rigid that if you thought that you could do something better, they'd be like, "So we're not good enough for you? What's the problem?" You're almost discouraged from moving out of whatever situation. But what you did showed so much courage. People were like, "Everybody talks about getting out, but who does it?"

Gary S:

Before we leave this subject, I have to fill in for listeners who are like, "Dov said at the beginning there were several people who he knew left what he called Shitsville, and succeeded. One of them he said was Jesus of Nazareth and he said Robert. I just looked it up, it's Robert Powell. Just so everybody knows.

Dov B:

Robert Powell, yes.

Gary S:

Robert Powell is one of Dov's fellow travelers from his hometown. I just wanted to make sure people knew that.

Dov B:

Robert Powell is a Salford lad who made it out. But he didn't keep his Salford accent, that's for sure.

Warwick F:

Wow, yeah.

Dov B:

But there again, neither did I.

Warwick F:

Well, you've obviously been a lot of different places, but. I love what you do with One Red Thread and all. Just briefly, because I want to shift into that, you were a successful speaker in leadership and doing well. Then you had this physical fall, which it seems like you were doing well. You were focused on helping leaders. My sense is it shifted your perspective on leadership. So talk about the physical fall and how that shifted your perspective.

Dov B:

June 1990, I was the most successful I'd ever been up until that point. National tour, speaking, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, all those things. It was pretty great. That moment of thinking, "Oh, my God, I've made it." What a joke, such a clown, I even believed my own press. I came back from a tour, I was exhausted, took a few days off. Went up to a place called Whistler, which you may be familiar with. The Winter Olympics 2010 were there in British Columbia. Had a couple days hanging out. But what people didn't know about me at that time is, aside from doing the things I was doing speaking, I was also a full blown addict. Now when I say addict, I'm not talking about drugs, I'm not talking about alcohol. I'm talking about adrenaline. I was a major adrenaline junkie. I did stupid stuff all the time.

Dov B:

At that time, we'd spent the day, we had a lovely day out by the lake and all of it. Then we came back to a place called Brandywine Falls, which is this magnificent glacial waterfall. It's about 200 feet up, the water comes rushing down the fall off the glacier. In June, you can imagine it's now nice and warm, the glacier's melting, but it's still the end of spring. It's still been pretty wet everywhere. We watch this water come down and there's a view site. I said to my buddy, "Let's see if we can hike down." There's no path and we're not dressed for it. But he's like, "Yeah, okay." So we hike down, we get to the bottom. I said, "Let's see if we can get behind the waterfall." He's like, "What are you talking about?" I go, "There's a gap between where the water comes off the edge and behind there's a wall of rock." He goes, "How wide is it?" I go, "I don't know. Let's see if we can get behind it."

Dov B:

Well, it's about four feet wide. Inappropriately dressed with 70 mile an hour spray coming off that waterfall as it lands. We're climbing over these mossy rocks, we get behind the waterfall, which is filled with negative ions. Negative ions make you feel positive, it charges the body positively. Feels fantastic. When I came out of the other side, I felt like Superman. I felt like I had a big S tattooed on my chest and I could do anything. We were inside going, "Yeah!" If you'd put your hand out, that waterfall pressure would have ripped my arm off, it was that powerful. I said to him when we got on the other side, said to my mate, "Let's not hike back." He goes, "Should we take the elevator?" I'm like, "No. Let's free climb."

Dov B:

Now, you may be a bit nervous about mountain climbing and think that people who mountain climb are crazy. I understand that. But mountain climbers have gear, they have safety lines, they have hooks, they have all those kinds of things. Then you go, "Well, okay. But free climbing is crazy, right?" Well, it's more crazy for sure, but you have chalk, you have the right clothing on. You made sure your site is set, okay? Free climbing while you're soaking wet, with the wrong footwear on and the wrong clothing, that is insane and that's what we began to do. At 120 feet, I reached for a rock and that rock dislodged a bigger rock that came down and hit me in the face, full force and knocked me right down 120 feet, 12 stories and I landed on boulders below. Not on grass or gravel, but boulders and my head opened up like a coconut. Just split me wide open.

Dov B:

I've had somewhere around 10 or 11 reconstructive surgeries. I can tell you the gory details but you don't need to know that. I did die five times during that process. But I was from Salford, I was a tough lad, I was a boxer, I'd been a martial artist. I was a trainer of leaders. You can't tell me, man. I'm coming back. People would say to me, "How you doing?" With my jaw wired closed, I'd say, "I'm coming back. I'm great, I'm coming back." It was a lie, it was a lie because when I was in the quietness of my own time, I was deeply, darkly depressed and I felt like my life was over.

Dov B:

That went on for a long time. I'd go out with my mates and nothing would be funny. And I'm a funny guy and I hang out with funny guys. Nothing would be funny. I'd just think, "My life is over." Then one night my mates took me out, the lads, and I had a great night and I laughed for the first time. I thought, "Oh, my God! I am coming back, this is great!" I was in just a fantastic mood and I came home, all the lads dropped me off. I came home, I opened the back door into my house and I was just feeling so much joy. The light from outside shone across the kitchen floor and across the floor, I could see garbage everywhere. There were meat wrappers and coffee grinds and kitty litter, and empty cans and it smelled horrible. I went from being in pure joy to being in pure rage. I knew exactly who the culprit was and I was going to find the culprit and I felt like killing the culprit. That rage was so fierce.

Dov B:

When I go into the living room, there was the culprit curled up all cozy on the couch, comfy. I put my hand up like this to strike and about halfway down, that's not who I am. I'm not a violent person, even though I've been trained in those things. It's not my nature. I stopped and put my arms down instead and scooped up the cat into my arms and the cat was cold and the cat was dead. I fell onto my knees and began to first cry, but then sob. Just ah huh ah. It was a couple of minutes and realized I'm not crying for the cat. It was the first time I'd given myself permission to feel the grief of who I had been was dead.

Dov B:

I spent a couple of hours on that floor crying. I realized I had three paths that were in front of me. The one I'd been trying to be on, which was I'm coming back. Well, I got news for you, nothing in life goes backwards. This wasn't going to work and I knew it in that moment. The second path was the most seductive of all the paths and that was stay right there. To remain a victim, to have this great story. I gave it everything and the gods were against me, fate was against me. It's not my fault, I'm a victim. The third option was to find out why I'm here. What is the purpose of my life?

Dov B:

Now, if you'd have asked me was my life on purpose the day before I fell, an hour, five minutes before I fell, I would have said yes. But I'd never really looked into that and that was the moment when I had to start looking for my red thread. To find out what was that fire within my belly that I needed to serve in the world. That was the transformation.

Dov B:

When people say, "Did the fall change your life," they think it must have. But it didn't. That's not what changes your life. It's not that moment when the thing happens, it's the moment when everything seems to go back to normal. Remember, I went out with the lads, I had a good laugh. It was that moment I could come back, I could be normal. It's that moment when you have a choice. There's the pivotal moment, which is the fall, but there's the choice moment where everything can go back to normal and you go, "No, enough. Something else has to happen." That was the transformational moment.

Gary S:

What I love about that story, Dov, and we see this a lot with guests on this show, is that your crucible happens and you don't bounce back immediately. You don't bounce back in a day, or a week, or a month and that's Warwick's story too. It took time. It can take time and it's okay, listener, for it to take time for you to learn the lessons of your crucible and come back. It took Dov time, you certainly know it's taken Warwick time to come back. But it's important, right? It's critical. Had you jumped too quickly, you wouldn't have learned.

Dov B:

You've got to give yourself that time. You're absolutely right. You've got to give yourself that time. But I want to push back a little bit and just say you're not coming back, you're coming forward. You can't come back. Listen, I want you to get this. The crucible that happened in your life wasn't a mistake. Now, believe me, if somebody had said to me, "Oh, this is all for the good and it's all going to work out great now," I'd have punched them in the throat. That's just a stupid thing to say to somebody who's going through a lot of pain.

Dov B:

The truth is, that will be true maybe two years from the moment of it happening. But not in the moment, because in the moment it's hell. There's no doubt about that. But there is no back, there's only forward or stagnation. Stagnation is the commitment to oh, I'm a victim of. But the commitment moving forward is to say what is this? I believe, this is my truth, it's not the truth, these events happen to wake us up from something and to wake us up to something. From something you've been and to something that's always been within you, but you've never allowed out.

Warwick F:

You talk about significance and success and obviously you want to empower and help those that you speak to, those who you work with and consult and coach to be successful. But yet, you want them to have purpose. I think you put it, true purpose. Talk about why that success is fine, but success in of itself is not satisfying. I think you have a chapter that talks about what's missing, I'll be happy when. Talk about that whole concept of it's not just success. It's success and.

Dov B:

To do that we have to start by addressing the mis-concept, the mass hypnosis. And the mass hypnosis is of this idea around individualism and capitalism. I'm pretty obviously an individualist and I'm obviously a capitalist, but not without compassion, not without consciousness. Not at all. What does that mean in this context?

Dov B:

It means that if you're living your life in any way, even inside your own head, not necessarily saying it out loud, I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when I find the right partner, I'll be happy when we get married, I'll be happy when we have a kid, I'll be happy when I get a house, when we get a bigger house, when we get a bigger car, when we buy a yacht, when we get another million, another billion. You're never going to get there. It's never going to happen because the problem with it is, and this is the hook, this is the hook, this is the drug, is all those things you're saying I'll be happy when, they all work. That's the hook. They do make you happier, but it's so brief.

Dov B:

You shoot the mainline of heroin, which is a million in the bank, and it's like, "Wow!" and you're excited and maybe even excited for a month because it's your first million. But you go, "Yeah," and then it starts to wear off and you go, "Oh, clearly what I need is five million," but now it only lasts two weeks. Before you know where you're at, it's fleeting all of it, fleeting. What are you looking for? What you're looking for is you're looking for an external reference point of your own joy. It doesn't exist externally, it exists internally. That's not some psychological babble or pop psych, we're talking about real stuff. You got to look at what is it in me, what is it I'm actually looking for?

Dov B:

I'm going to give you, the listener, right now the clue. Because I said away from and towards. You wake from, you wake up towards. What you're waking up from is that you've been running away from your pain. Let me give it to you straight, most people's pain is hidden by their success. We use success to hide our pain and we hide our pain behind our ego, which is our identity. So we never get to the pain, we never get to the purpose because we're pursuing externalized success. If you don't stop and go, "Hold on a second..." Here's the question. I'm going to give you the question right now so you can have the answer. Ask yourself this question. It's a very simple question, but the answer will take some time, it will take some commitment. That is: what is it that I needed when I was a child that I couldn't get or couldn't get enough of?

Dov B:

Now, listen to what I said. As I told you, I work with very high level, multi-generational families of wealth and it's the same question I ask them. What is it you needed that you couldn't get or you couldn't get enough of when you were a child? You go, "Well, I had everything. My dad put me in a private school." But is that what you needed? One of the guys I worked with, he said, "Well, I guess, okay, in that case, I guess I needed a connection with my dad." I said, "Okay, good. That's fine." And he said, "No, no. Hold on a second," because he wants to protect his ego. He goes, "I had that." I said, "Oh, did you?" I go, "Yeah." I go, "How did you get it?" He goes, "Fishing. My dad and I would go fishing."

Dov B:

I go, "Great. When you'd go fishing, would you connect at all?" He goes, "No, not really, but we were just together and that was great." "All right, that's fine. Can I ask you how many times that happened?" He said, "Sure." Said, "How many?" "Two, it happened twice." "Do you think you might have needed a little more of that?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Tell me your life hasn't been about trying to get connection with people who don't want to connect with you." The guy starts to bawl. He goes, "That's my first two marriages. That's my first two marriages, trying to connect with women who don't want to connect with me." I said, "Yeah, it's not gender specific. It's what you needed. So you need to serve the world in some way through serving a connection." Now that's vague and we have to drill down and that's when we get into the really powerful work.

Warwick F:

I feel like as you're helping leaders understand this, it must be revolutionary. Because so often we try to find love and fulfillment in all the wrong places. Sounds like a country music song or something. It's just-

Dov B:

A ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Warwick F:

And you just see it and it's like, "Here we go. The fast cars and the jets and the house in Monte Carlo and whatever else." It's just tough to be happy. You pretend to be happy because you look a bit of an idiot if you're miserable and showed people. But you're just helping-

Dov B:

But it's Instagram happy.

Warwick F:

Right, right. That's such a good phrase.

Dov B:

It's Instagram happy. It's a picture of you on a private jet with three girls who've got pushup bras on, while you're getting out of a Bentley you rented. Come on. This is the problem, this is what I'm saying, is it's a mass hypnosis. I understand it because I teach the psychology of marketing. I get it, if you're 20 years old and you're seeing that, you want it. Of course, you do. Who doesn't want to be surrounded by three girls in pushup bras on a private jet or anywhere? Yeah, of course, I'm 20. Of course, I want that. But it's not going to make you have joy, it's going to give you happiness. Happiness is temporary.

Warwick F:

Exactly.

Dov B:

Joy is a state of being. It's not externally referenced. Self-esteem is externally referenced, that's where I lived before I fell. It was self-esteem, it's externally referenced. Self-worth is internally referenced. Who I am doesn't change by whether you like what I have to say or not. I've probably offended a few people as we've talked today, may have pissed a few people off. That's okay. My job is not to build a wide fence for you to stand on with me in the middle of something. My job is to get you off the fence. Either you're on this journey towards your purpose and serving in the world from your heart and your soul, or you're not. And if you're not, that's okay, you're not on my team. That's all right. I don't dislike you, I don't think you're wrong. You can be whatever you want, but I know who I serve and you've got to decide that for yourself too. You can do that incredibly lovingly, but incredibly firmly. People don't understand it. They go, "I'm either loving and I'm wishy-washy, or I'm firm and I'm an asshole." No, it doesn't have to be that.

Warwick F:

Wow! I mean, I feel like there's so many things to say, even from my faith perspective, it talks about telling the truth in love. I feel like that is what you try to do. You're speaking truth in service of friends, neighbors, clients who you speak to. It's all those stories about the guy that said, "Yes, I had this human connection with my dad one time or something." I mean, there's this longing for connection and as we find that, who we are, our inner truth, and use that in service of others, at least in my experience, that's where joy and fulfillment come from.

Warwick F:

In my own world, in this podcast we've probably interviewed 70 plus guests. When I have a guest, some are prominent, some are not prominent and when they say, "You know what, I felt like I could be vulnerable and share my story and my truth and it felt like a safe place," I mean, that means everything to me. That gives me joy. I mean, I said to my publisher, which sounds a bit strange, who fortunately gets my wavelength, I'm doing my level best to sell as many books as I can because I believe you either do it well or don't do it at all. But my issue is not whether it sells one book or 10,000 or what have you, I just want to be faithful to what I feel like I've been called to and I think from your perspective, serve others.

Warwick F:

If I'm serving others, then that's a win. The numbers will take care of themselves. I mean, I've got a fantastic team in every aspect, but I mean, everybody wants joy and fulfillment. I think you talk about this in your book in terms of eulogy, when all's said and done, who wants to have a eulogy that says, "Joe, Mary, they were billionaire, they founded all this, they broke all these records." Really? They want to feel like their kids, their loved ones and their friends were proud of them. They want to feel like people say, "You know what, they made the world a better place. People loved who they were." Maybe nobody's ever heard of them, but you know what I'm saying?

Dov B:

I do, absolutely.

Warwick F:

You talk about this in your book. I feel like people need to understand, especially successful people because it's really tough. You've got all sorts of people telling you, as I did at one point in my life, "Oh, you're wonderful, you're amazing." All to curry favor and pretty soon you-

Dov B:

They all arrive with a smoke machine and direct it up your skirt.

Warwick F:

Even if you see it the first time, after about a couple hours it tends to break you down. There's only so much praise that we can withstand. Your cynicism meter starts getting eroded by the praise and the adulation. As they often say, praise is a pretty tough thing to withstand. But you're really fighting for people's inner soul. In fact, you talk about the soul in your book, I noticed. I think towards the end. It says, here we go, "My belief, not necessarily the truth, is that the reason we go into leadership is to reconcile our soul." That's an incredible phrase.

Warwick F:

Sorry, meandering a bit here, but does that make sense? You're fighting for people's inner truth and joy and fulfillment in the right places. Talk about how does the soul weave itself in there, into what you're talking about?

Dov B:

By the way, I want to thank you for asking these questions and these are for you as you listen to this, you want to recognize that even the questions that Warwick is asking me, maybe ask yourself. Because this is not for our entertainment, this is in service of you. Don't be passive in this, make sure that there's an activity in it.

Dov B:

For me, my talking of the soul, again, as I said in the book, it's not the truth, it's my truth. Speaking of the soul is not in the context of anything to do with any religion, although you can put it in that if you want, it's in the context of a spirituality of something that is beyond me as in the ego, mind or beyond me as in the body. What that is, is again, my truth, not the truth, you arrive here on the planet, you are not broken. You are massively brilliant in all kinds of ways that may not fit into the categories by which they determine genius or brilliance. But everybody has their own gifts. This is my psychology background, however, the desire to fit in, the desire to belong is so powerful that we trade our soul in order to get acceptance. We trade our authenticity, our sense of truth for the approval of those we need to survive.

Dov B:

I mean, think about a bird, think about a giraffe, think about any other animal. It comes out and it can pretty much take care of itself pretty fast. And oftentimes if it can't, its dad will eat it or its mother will bugger off and you're all on your own. We, as humans, we're pretty useless. We're pretty useless for a long time. For a long, long time we can't take care of ourselves. How do you mitigate that as a being? You look to those who are more powerful than you and that is the god and goddess of your life in a traditional family, which is mom and dad. They know why the grass is green, why the sky is blue. They know what time you should get up even though you're still tired. They know what time you should go to bed even though you're wide awake. They know when you should eat even though you're not hungry and they know when you should stop eating even though you are hungry. They have all the power.

Dov B:

So you learn pretty fast, if I want to survive I've got to get along with these people. As part of that survival, part of your limbic system of your brain, it's saying, "Take care of that." What that means is they're that powerful, they must be perfect. From there you get what's called defective premise. Defective premise means this psychologically, it means this: if they don't love me in the way that I need to be loved and they're perfect, there must be something defective in me. You begin to disenfranchise parts of yourself. You begin to disenfranchise your soul. Maybe you grow up in an academic family so you disenfranchise your creativity. Maybe you grow up in an artistic or creative family and you disenfranchise your academic pull. Maybe you are liberal in a conservative family and so you begin to disenfranchise that part of yourself, or vice versa. You begin to disenfranchise the parts of yourself.

Dov B:

So when I come together with these people who are enormously successful, I will say to them, "Listen, here's what I want you to know, I don't have a billion dollars, you do. That's great. So why am I here? I'm not here to help you make more money, right?" And they go, "No." "Good, let's get that established because you are going to start pulling that up." "Well, you haven't told me any business strategy. I'm not here for that. What I intend to tell you is this, what we're going to do will increase your business. How do I know? Because it's never not done that. But that's never the outset. The outset is to bring home the disenfranchised parts of your soul. This is important, your success is a result of laser beam, targeted focus. It's amazing what you've done to reach the level of success you have achieved is awe inspiring and most people would go, 'Wow! I don't know how you do it.' I'm earnestly in respect of that and honor that.

Dov B:

"You had to be laser beam focused, which means that maybe family issues and family events went by the side and other things didn't get the care that they needed, but you got to that and you achieved it. That's success. But fulfillment and purpose isn't laser focused, it's microscopically focused." They go, "What do you mean?" "If you look down a microscope at a drop of water, you suddenly see an entire universe open up inside that microscope. We're looking down and in, not out." They go, "Well, will I lose my laser beam focus?" And the answer is yes, for a short period because you're focused. But what happens is, that microscopic focus feeds the laser focus. But now you're being driven to that same level of success, with that same level of determination, but from a place of fulfilling your soul, serving others, making a unique difference in the world that only you can do. I can't make the difference Gary can make, I can't make the difference Warwick can make. Everyone of us has our own unique gift to bring.

Warwick F:

I almost feel like you help people's souls be fulfilled, but almost a sense you're a liberator of souls. You help unearth-

Dov B:

It's not a word I can use. Gary will get up from marketing. Ooh, another ooh. Oh, he's going to come over and rub my crystals, I can feel it. Are you rubbing your crystals, or is it just the way you're sitting? That's not who I am, but it is deeply spiritual. But as you can get from my personality, there's nothing whoo whoo about me. But spiritual and whoo whoo don't have to be the same. You've probably put them in the same category, but they're not. Spiritual really is connecting to your soul to have action in the world.

Gary S:

I like what you said, Dov, when you went through the several ways in which we disenfranchise parts of ourselves. Because here's why I think that's important to listeners of this podcast in particular. This is called Beyond the Crucible, we talk about crucible experiences and what you can learn from them. How you can not bounce back from them, but bounce forward from them. Change the trajectory of your life in a good way. Disenfranchising parts of yourself is a way to self-crucible-ize yourself, isn't it?

Dov B:

Absolutely, absolutely and this is why people are shocked to say, "I haven't gone through a crucible moment. I haven't, Dov. I've got a billion dollars, I've got a big house, I've got a yacht in Monte Carlo, I bought the wife a new set of hoo haws. I've got myself a new Rolex, I've got all that stuff. I haven't had a crucible moment." I say, "Really?" And they go, "Yeah." I say, "How many times have you secretly cried even without tears?" It's not an event. In my case, it's certainly an event. In Warwick's case it's an event. And the guy who had a heart attack, maybe it's an event. But it's not and I always say this, "Here's how I will explain it to you. I take a stick of dynamite and I shove it in a rock. I light the dynamite, what happens?" They go, "The rock cracks open." I go, "Great. What happens if I take 30 years and just drop water, one drop at a time every second on that same rock? Does it still not split?" And they go, "Yeah, it does."

Dov B:

It's actually more painful because it's not rapid and the level of tolerance psychologically goes up. This is the problem, human beings are tolerant. One of the great teachings is that we should be tolerant and I always say that's a terrible teaching. Please don't be tolerant. Be compassionate, be caring, be loving, but tolerance is putting up with. Don't be tolerant, I'm not tolerant. I'm compassionate, I'm empathetic, I'm understanding, but I don't want to be tolerant of things that are breaking that rock down that is my soulful foundation.

Dov B:

You're absolutely right, Gary, people are dripping on their own soul and they're creating a crucible in a fractional second over and over and over again. Selling a little shaving of their soul every day. They go, "There was no real event," no, I get it. You've been doing the event, you've been buying into the family mechanism, you've been buying into the family doctrine day after day, week after week, year after year. You're following a family business that is in something that you would have nothing to do with if you were suddenly brought into this, but you feel a responsibility. This is a problem.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Dov B:

You're right, absolutely, you're right.

Warwick F:

It reminds me of I think it's Thoreau had this quote and the people leading lives of quiet desperation. That's what some of these folks drip by drip, their soul, their happiness, their joy is eroding even if on the outside they're successful. It's just like drops of acid year after year. I know it sounds a bit whoo whoo, but you're trying to save these people. But in saving them, I agree with you 100%, they will be even more successful and more fulfilled and serve others and have tangible impact in other people's lives. I mean, that stuff is real, what you're doing.

Dov B:

If you're measuring your success by the numbers in a bank account, it's never going to fulfill you. As you mentioned earlier, Warwick, in the book I talk about the eulogy. As you listen to this, I'll tell you the piece in the book. If you've ever been to a funeral, I've been to lots, you know that the person delivering the eulogy, what their job is. It's to dry clean the person who died, to take out all the dirty spots. That's the job of the eulogy.

Dov B:

I can clearly remember going to my friend's dad's funeral. My friend's dad was a, don't know if I can say dick on air, but we'll go with that and maybe you can beep it. But he was just not a good guy, he was a really terrible human being. My friend asked me to come to this funeral, I didn't want to go. But my friend said, "I need your support," so I went. I said, "I'll sit in the back, I'm not sitting in the front." He goes, "Okay." The person in the front gave a eulogy about a story that I'd never heard and it was about how my friend's dad had paid the rent of a neighbor back in the '60s and never asked for the money back, when this person was really desperate. That's a beautiful act. It was the only decent thing he did. He also used to tie my friend to the hot water boiler and whip him with a Hot Wheels track. And he wasn't the only one, he did it to his siblings and he did it to the mother.

Dov B:

This is not a good human being, but everybody's going to remember the story, that's what a eulogy is. It's a dry cleaning of your history. Okay, but here's the thing, as we sat at that funeral, we sat at the back. And the people at the back were my friend, who definitely knew his dad, and me and the way I'd gotten to know him, and other people. I listened to the whispers. What are the whispers? The whispers were that he was an ass, the whispers were that he was mean and that he was cruel and those were the whispers, not the eulogy.

Dov B:

You, as you listen to this, no matter what they get up front and talk about how you started the Dingle Dongle Research Foundation, you got a name of a wing of a hospital after you and you started a foundation for lost dogs, or whatever the heck it is. Great, okay, wonderful. All those things are good, they're not bad, but is that the dry cleaned version? I challenge you in the book and in my work with the people, I challenge them and I say, "Here's the challenge. What are you afraid they'll whisper?" You got to go to that, not just what you want them to say in the eulogy, what are you afraid they'll whisper?

Dov B:

Part of my eulogy, is Dov was a courageous man who lived his life helping others fulfill their soul's purpose. It's not all of it, but it's part of it. But it starts with courageous man. What do you think I'm afraid they'll whisper in the back? Come on, guess.

Gary S:

You said that your friend's dad was a dick. That they say that about you, was that one of the things you fear?

Dov B:

No. The front of mine is that Dov was a courageous man who lived his life blah, blah, blah. My fear is that Dov is a coward. You have to go to the opposite. My ego immediately jumps in and goes, "I'm not a coward. Think about all these crazy stunts I did. That's not cowardly." I go through all these reasons to justify that I'm not a coward. That doesn't work on its own because my ego can justify that I'm not a coward. I went, "I got to test this." So I said, "What if I add an expletive," I won't say what the expletive is, but it's starts with F, ends with I-N-G. Dov was a F-ing coward. Ooh, that punches a little bit. But still my ego can fight and I go, "Okay. I have five grandchildren. What if one of my grandchildren is a little bit older, sits in the back and says that?" Devastating.

Dov B:

Whether it's true or false doesn't matter. It's devastating, so what does that do? The pull forward is the eulogy. I want to be Dov was a courageous man who lived his life serving others in finding their soul's purpose, yes. I want to be that guy, so I'm working towards that everyday. But when I feel lazy, when I feel I've got a lot of great excuses for not doing it, I remember the whispers of my grandchildren and I go, "Get off your ass, Dov, and do what you need to do, even though you're terrified. Even though you don't want to do it. Even though you're feeling lazy. Even though you've got all the justification for not doing it," because I don't want those whispers.

Warwick F:

And you want to live your soul's purpose every day.

Dov B:

All day.

Warwick F:

None of us are perfect. I mean, I have days in which I'm not my best self and say, "Okay, that wasn't a great day. I can do better." You do better, you apologize, whatever you need to do. We're going to have moments where we don't live up to the highest ideals of our soul's purpose, but day in, day out, overall, is that the norm of your life or is it a bit like your friend's dad? It was one kind act amidst a sea of a million torments and tortures of others. That's really the key, right? Is in sum total, I had a few days when I wasn't at my best self, or maybe a few months, whatever. In total, on average, day in, day out, in your case, I did live a courageous life in service of others.

Warwick F:

At that point, from my faith perspective, there's a scripture that says, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and I'm sure there's echoes of that in other faith traditions. That's what we all want, whatever eternity's going to be.

Dov B:

Yeah and the thing about this that I really want to make clear, in case I haven't, this is really important, this is not about you being perfect. Again, you know as I talked about in the beginning, I studied all these religious philosophies and I'll often meet people of faith, not necessarily Christian, but of whatever faith and I can see their torture. It's clear to me. I go, "It's interesting to me that I can see your torture, yet you talk about being of faith." They go, "Yeah." I say, "Do you know anything about the Bible?" They'll go, "Yeah." I go, "Okay, great. Can I ask you what you know about Moses?" They go, "Not much." "Moshe one of the forefathers of the Jewish faith, do you know that he murdered an Egyptian?" "No." "Yeah, he murdered an Egyptian. He's a murderer. "Pretty good guy, still held high, but he was a murderer.

Dov B:

"What about David? King David, he was the great shepherd. He was anointed by God, what about him? What do you know about him?" "Well, God chose him to be king." "Yeah, but here's the thing you might not know about him. That while he was the king, he saw this really hot chick. Her name was Bathsheba. Man, she had some booty. He was like, 'I'm in there.' But she was married and so what did he do? He sent her husband off to the front lines to get killed so he could get himself some action."

Warwick F:

Exactly.

Dov B:

Oh, apparently he wasn't perfect. Then there's this other bloke, you might have heard of him. What was his name? I think he was Mexican. What was his name? Jesus, yeah, Jesus. Jesus, you might have heard of him. One day he's hanging out in the temple, he's having a chat with people. He's trying to help them and guide them and all the sudden he sees these people ripping people off. They're money changers ripping people off and he loses his rag, he loses his temper, he gets pissed off. He turns over the table and starts whipping them. If Jesus is allowed a temper, if David's allowed to be horny, if Moses is allowed murder, the fact that you were not so great today is going to be okay, I promise you.

Dov B:

The only thing to do is to course correct. It's not to stay on that path, it's to course correct. I don't say that to make light of any of those great stories, I say it because I believe that they're there to teach that lesson. While you're in the flesh, you have an ego. While you have an ego, you will fail. That's okay, course correct. It's not about perfect.

Gary S:

That sound that you just heard, listener, wasn't just another well delivered point by Dov, but it was also the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign, saying that the time is approaching, it's not here yet, where we need to put this Beyond the Crucible plane on the ground. Before we do that though, Dov, I would be remiss if I did not give you the chance to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you and your services. How can they do that online?

Dov B:

Thank you, very much. I appreciate that entirely, thank you. I'm easy to find, D-O-V, B-A-R-O-N. If you Google that you're only going to find me. And you'll find many thousands of pages, but you can obviously find me at dovbaron.com, D-O-V-B-A-R-O-N dot com. You can also find either my podcast on the usual places that you listen to podcasts. I have the Leadership and Loyalty podcast, which Warwick will be on in I think it's the beginning of 2022. He'll be on there, so that's Leadership and Loyalty. And we also have the Curiosity Bites podcast, which is also you can find on the usual platforms. Of course, I'm on YouTube, there's over a thousand videos on there. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all those places. I also have an outlet on medium called The Dragon's Den, where you can find my articles. I mean, basically I'm nauseatingly out there if you want to find me, it won't be difficult.

Gary S:

Excellent. Warwick, take the last question or two.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Dov. I love how you're really fighting for people's souls, true selves. There might be leaders, maybe some are successful, maybe some are successful at a smaller level. Maybe in Thoreau's words, they're leading lives of quiet desperation. Maybe they've had a big crucible, maybe it's a series of small ones. What's a word of hope that you would give them where they might be thinking, "This eulogy thing, if I died tomorrow, I'd be a little worried." What's a message of hope you would give for those folks?

Dov B:

It's never too late. It's never too late. The only part of you that says it's too late is ego. It's never too late. What I want you to know is this, as a message to your soul: is who will suffer if you continue to play small? And by small, I don't mean success-wise. Who will suffer if you continue to ignore that deep driving purpose within you? You came into this life for a reason. You did not get your hopes and dreams by accident. They are your soul crying out for expression. When you step into that, when you claim that and you can, that is within you, you have the power within you right now. Even though they, whoever they are saying you can't, there is within you a magnificence so powerful that it can transform not only your life, but the lives of everyone that you touch.

Dov B:

But to do that, you must be willing to abandon that which you're attached to in order to get to what you want. You cannot step into the promised land while holding onto something that will never fulfill you. There is magnificence in you and you deserve to bring it to the world. The world needs you because as I said earlier, I cannot deliver Gary's message. I cannot deliver Warwick's message. No one else is you, you are uniquely made by the creative force of the universe, whatever you want to call it, to deliver your message. You can only do that if you tap into your soul's purpose. Then you will have more success than you've ever dreamed, but you'll have so much fulfillment, so much love, and you'll have joy. Not just happiness, not transitory, but true joy. And that is worth dying for.

Gary S:

I have been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on a subject has been spoken, and Dov Baron has just spoken it. Listener, you have heard me say when I close out shows a lot, here are three takeaways. If I tried to only give you three takeaways from this incredible episode, we'd be here for an hour of me trying to do that. So here's what I want to do instead. Dov asks some questions in his book that we've been talking about and I want to leave you with those questions that he asks the readers of his book to ponder, so that you can ponder them in the context of this conversation we've just had.

Gary S:

Here are those questions. First question: what exactly is my purpose? Ask yourself that question, explore those answers. Second question: what is that value that I have given or could give to all those around me? What can you give away? How can you live as we've talked about here, in service to others? The third question: what is that thing everyone else sees in me, that I can't? Could be a very positive thing, could be those whispers at the back of the eulogy that Dov talked about. What are those things? Explore some of that. Take some learnings from that. And the fourth question from the book is: what is my own genius blind spot and what has it cost me? We could do an entire series on this podcast on that subject.

Gary S:

But as for now, plane's on the ground, we're getting our bags out of the overhead compartments and it's time to go. Thank you for spending this time with us and until we're together the next time, please remember this that came through loud and clear in this episode of Beyond the Crucible. Your crucible experiences, we know are painful. Our crucible experiences have been painful, sometimes in Dov's case, very physically painful. In Warwick's case, emotionally painful. But here's the good news: it's not the end of your story. It is in fact, if you learn the lessons of that crucible, if you apply those lessons, those learnings and they lead you to move in a different direction in your life, move beyond as the title of this show is, beyond your crucible, it's not the end of your story. In fact, it's the beginning of a brand new story which can be the best story of your life because where that story takes you is to a life of significance.

As we wrap up six weeks of exploring what resilience is and how to build it, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and co-host Gary Schneeberger discuss the insights and inspiration offered by guests Stacey Copas, Katie Foulkes, Heather Kampf, Lucy Westlake and Dr. Craig Dowden. Among the wisdom and practical action steps they offered that are discussed in depth here:

To listen to each episode in the series, visit https://beyondthecrucible.com/podcast/

Highlights

Transcript

Warwick F:

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

Gary S:

And I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show, saying hi as we settle in for the final part of our six-part series, Harnessing Resilience. Warwick and I will unpack this week what we found to be the most insightful and inspirational takeaways from the five remarkable guests we've spoken to the last month and a half. So sit back, dial in and learn some best practices in the art and science of moving Beyond your Crucible.

Gary S:

So, you may ask yourself, listener, why did we decide to talk about resilience? One of the things, I said at the outset, in the video version of the show is that without resilience, you really don't have a shot at bouncing back from your crucible. It's so critical to moving beyond your crucible that you can't really talk about crucibles without talking about resilience at some point, unless you want to talk about just staying in your crucibles.

Gary S:

And one of the things, Warwick, and I think this is true, pretty much every guest we've had on the show. We've had more than 75, 70, 75 guests so far. Is it fair to say that every guest has a resilience story or a resilience shading to their story as they move beyond their crucible?

Warwick F:

Yeah, absolutely, Gary. I mean, life is tough and we've had 70 plus guests with every kind of crucible from physical to abuse, to business failure. And really, we often talk a lot in Crucible Leadership that when you go through a crucible setback and failure that can be devastating and painful, typically is, is you have a choice to make. "Am I going to just hide under the covers and just give up for the rest of my life, 20, 30, 50 years? Or am I going to choose to persevere and really try to bounce back?"

Warwick F:

That requires a huge amount of resilience to decide to not give up on life and move forward in any direction. It's life is tough and so with that resilience, you'd probably stay under the covers and you don't make the choice to try to bounce back and moved beyond your crucible. Without resilience, you're not living beyond your crucible at all. You're stuck.

Gary S:

Right. And that's, we talk a lot at the start of the show sometimes about the reason why we talk about crucibles. We don't talk about them I say, so that we can build a virtual campfire and sit around and swap war stories and feel bad. We talk about it to offer hope and healing. And helping people understand how individuals have harnessed resilience in their lives in their crucibles. And also what the science says about it, I think has offered a great perspective.

Gary S:

Where some of this stuff comes from, listener, where you'll be able to revisit some of what we're going to talk about here is there's a blog that is live now on the Crucible Leadership website. The blog is titled, What Resilience Looks Like and How to Build It. That blog is at Crucible Leadership.com right now. And you'll see you'll be able to read some more about some of the things that we're going to talk about.

Gary S:

But what we had is we were coming to, and I wrote that blog because Warwick work is way too busy right now, readying the release of his book, Crucible Leadership, Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, which is out on October 19. So, I stepped in. I was honored to write the blog about kind of what we've been talking about on the podcast.

Gary S:

And one of the things that we did is we surveyed. There's more than five hours of content in the first five episodes. This is the sixth episode as I said. In that five hours of content, there was all kinds of insightful things said about what it takes to harness resilience. We tried to pull one or two things from each guest and really shine a spotlight on that because we think those are the key learnings of what this series has brought to the table.

Gary S:

So, we will start with Stacey Copas. Stacey Copas was our first guest, Week 1. And Stacey, you may remember was injured in a diving accident when she was 12 and that diving accident left her a quadriplegic. She described what followed as not being pretty. She lived life aimlessly. She lived life hopelessly. She lived life listlessly. She had some drug issues. She had some depression. She just wasn't really, in her teen years, life didn't hold much hope for Stacey Copas. She was caught up in the what ifs and the why mes of what her crucible did.

Gary S:

And then one day, she decided she couldn't feel bad about something she was grateful for and she began to view her accident as a gift. And one of the things she said, and I'd love to get your reaction to this, Warwick. One of the things she said in our episode, when she talked about resilience was this: Resilience is a skill that can be learned just like building muscle in the gym. How do you react to that?

Warwick F:

I mean, that's just, it's so true. I think so much of leadership and life is sort of the inner game, is the inner qualities of being resilient of watching your mindset and the way you think, it's so critical. So, with Stacey, she had to reframe what she went through. A lot of it was, she's an Australian.

Gary S:

Two Australians.

Warwick F:

She was diving into an above ground pool.

Gary S:

And there's two Australians in this series, by the way.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean-

Gary S:

As usual, we're favoring the Aussies.

Warwick F:

Yeah. Who knew? I wonder why that happens. But yeah, I mean, what's interesting is her mum told her, "Stacey, don't dive into that pool. It's an above ground pool." And like a lot of kids, just ignored her parents, so she had to live with the fact that it was her fault. She was in a wheelchair because of her own mistake in her youth. Now, it's easy to say, "Oh, she's just 12." But she had a hard time letting that go. So, she had to get to the point where rather than, "I'm an idiot, why did I do that? Why me?" And get to the point where she got to "How can I use what I went through in service of others."

Warwick F:

And she now is a resilience coach and author/speaker. But when she said that she viewed what she went through as a gift, I mean, that's astonishing statement of you being paralyzed/quadriplegic as a gift? And you might say, "I can't. That makes no sense. That's abhorrent, that's wrong." But I think it's a mindset is this gives her a platform to help others. And so, I mean, it's funny, we just chatted later with Craig Dowden that we'll get to, he talked about that whole reframing and why that's so important.

Warwick F:

But she is such a stunning example of reframing what she went through to help her think of it differently and serve others. And so, it's that reframing and that mental gymnastics, in the literal sense of that word, that has enabled her to be resilient. It's that mindset shift in Stacey that is the key to her resilience. And so that she could stop with the destructive behaviors, and move in a new direction. It's just astonishing what she's done, and how she views what she's doing now and the change.

Gary S:

And it's interesting, there's something else that she said that dovetails or is sort of an on-ramp into this part of what she said, because when she said, her accident and the injury that came with it was a gift, she's not talking about being paralyzed was a gift. She's not saying that and we've had other guests who've talked about those things about how their physical disabilities, what they've gone through, their physical ailments, accidents, traumas and tragedies, they've talked about them as gifts. They're not talking about the physical ramifications.

Gary S:

What Stacey said it wasn't because the accident left her paralyzed that led her to view it as a gift. It's that the accident presented her with opportunities she almost certainly would not have had without her injury. And I think that without doing deep dive research on it right now, I think that's probably true for all the guests we had, who when they talk about their crucibles, they see something in them where they learn something. And I know that's true, Warwick, for your own crucible.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking that as you were saying that. There's no question. I mean, I've had to do plenty of soul searching listening to these guests in my own life and just the concept of a gift. I mean, what I went through losing 150-year-old $2 billion company, after a $2 billion takeover, to view that, I almost listening to folks like Stacey say, "Well, in some ways, it was a gift. In some ways, it was a blessing." Was it painful when, would I rather have not gone through that pain? Of course. Nobody wants to go through their crucible pain, but yet, it gave me a platform to talk about and identify and empathize with other people about setbacks and failures and they're painful.

Warwick F:

And try to help others get beyond them and lead productive lives, lives of significance as we call them. Lives on purpose dedicated to serving others. Well, what I do now in my book that comes out October, none of that would have happened without the pain of the crucible. So amidst the pain, there was a blessing and a gift there, which I don't know. Before this series, would I've quite used those words? I don't know, but it's making me think a lot about it now. So, I mean, it's true.

Gary S:

And that's a big statement to make about the series that we're concluding here. You've been the host of all 85 episodes that came before and for you to say that listening to the guests and the concentration of having guests talking about resilience and harnessing resilience led to you changing the way you deal with your own crucible or or how you think about your own crucible. I mean, you're the founder of Crucible Leadership does so that that's a pretty good endorsement of the series as a whole, I think.

Warwick F:

Yeah. And I think one of the other things that says is we all want to be lifelong learners. I might have had some Inklings, yeah, some good came out of the takeover, I just don't think I would have said blessing or gifts. So, listening to people in this series, we can learn a lot that helps us in our lives. It's helped, I mean, every single guest we've had has said something that I found profound and it helped me, so there's no question.

Gary S:

Speaking of that, by the way, you are doing a remarkable job at playing me in this thing. I'm doing a terrible job at playing you, I think, but you're doing a remarkable job of playing the co-host here. Because that leads me to we have identified, I said one of the quotes that Stacey said in her episode. And we identified some other things that they said that are really insightful and encouraging and inspiring. And some of them we're going to actually play throughout this episode.

Gary S:

I'm not going to shine a spotlight and say, "We're going to play a clip now on all of them." But based on what you just said, I think it's important, primarily because Stacey didn't actually say what we're about to play. I said it. And the reason that I said it is it was so inspiring and she put it in the form, we have all guests fill out in advance that I just got impatient while we were talking to her, and I blurted it out. But here, we'll play what I said, based on what she said. It's her perspective, my mouth, but listen to this idea of how a crucible, a setback a failure, use it like she says, like a trampoline. Listen to why she says that is the case.

Gary S:

There are a couple of things I love in your book, this I've just decided is the thing I love most about what you write and you say this and listener, get a pen out, get a pencil out, get chalk out, draw it in chocolate on something, but you wrote this. "Another way to visualize this is to think of jumping on a trampoline. The lower down it goes, the higher up you are launched." That is some powerful insight into what resilience really allows you to do.

Gary S:

And that idea that that we were talking about there, Warwick, about your own pain is your own pain, your worst experience is your worst, don't compare, right? The lower down you go that you get to determine that, but you also get to determine as you practice resilience, how high you go. And I think that's the example that both of you set and hopefully, our listeners hear that and draw hope from that.

Gary S:

Is that not one of the most profound things you've heard, simple and profound things you've heard in our time hosting this show?

Warwick F:

Absolutely. Gary, I mean, the idea that the lower down you go, the higher you get launched. I mean, that is positive thinking. And it's just the idea that the depth of your pain can fuel such empathy, passion, and a desire to help others. It's sort of like for every, I mean, I'm not a physicist, but for every action, there's a reaction, so it's almost like for every negative, maybe there can be a positive if you look at it that way.

Warwick F:

And that's just a profound statement and she's living that with her speaking and coaching and really her desire to help other people, other people with injuries. I mean, she's just having an enormous impact on so many people. But it's a stunning thing to say, "The lower down you go the higher you get launched." I mean, yeah, again, that's everybody in this series would win an Olympic gold medal for resilience, but also shifting mindset.

Gary S:

Yeah, for sure.

Warwick F:

I mean, that is just, that is what pretty much all of our guests on the podcast we've ever had, it's yeah. She's an amazing person.

Gary S:

So, I've not told you this, Warwick, I'm going to surprise you right here live. So one of the things I did when we started to talk about doing a series on resilience is I went online and I found the 50 best resilience quotes that are out there. So, as we move from one guest and their insights to another, I'm going to throw out a random quote I pull out of this and just get your reaction to it about resilience.

Gary S:

Here's something that Robert F. Kennedy said about resilience. And I want you to tell our listeners your reaction. Robert F. Kennedy said this, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."

Warwick F:

We've had a number of at least one other person in the series talk about that. I think Lucy Westlake gets into that a bit. But yeah, you've got to be willing to fail. You've got to be willing for that bold achievement. I'm not going to remember the exact quote. But it reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt, that has this famous quote that Brené Brown talks a lot about of talking about the man in the arena that's willing to go out and to dare greatly. I think is his words, it's similar concept. And part of being resilient is being willing to fail, willing to go outside your comfort zone, in a cause of something beyond yourself.

Warwick F:

All of these people that we've had were they believe leaders in history, whether it's Abraham Lincoln or so many others. They were willing to fight for a cause beyond themselves, where failure was a distinct possibility. But in service of humanity and what they thought was worthwhile, they were willing to dare greatly to even fail greatly. And so, that's part of what's needed. It's not for the timid, resilience, but you've got to be willing. If you're not willing to fail, you'll never succeed.

Gary S:

Well said, well said. Our next guest, we'll move on. We'll turn the page to our next guest, who also happens to be our next Australian guest. In the Harnessing Resilience series on Beyond the Crucible. That was Katie Foulkes, and it was interesting you mentioned a few beats back, Warwick. You mentioned something about gold medal winners in Harnessing Resilience. And Katie Foulkes is someone who actually was in the Olympics on two occasions. And the crucible that she explained with us came from, I believe it was her second trip to the Olympics was in Athens, right? Yeah.

Warwick F:

Yep. Yeah, you got them.

Gary S:

In 2004, she was, and help me out with some of the details of this. She was on the rowing team. So, maybe you can tell the story better than me of kind of what happened with Katie Foulkes.

Warwick F:

So, Katie Foulkes was the cox of the Australian rowing crew or rowing team, eight, in the 2004 Olympics, and they made it into the final. They came out of the blocks. They were going super fast. They felt like they really had a shot at medaling. And then about partway through the race, maybe halfway, one of the women in the boat just stopped rowing. And when one person stops rowing and lies down, the person that's next to her behind her, I'm guessing, can't row either, so that takes two out of eight, out of the boat from rowing. And so needless to say, they finished last.

Warwick F:

To stop rowing in the middle of a race was stunning and that the challenge was there was no good explanation. It wasn't equipment failure. It wasn't injury. There was nothing that their public relations team could say, "Oh, it was unfortunate, but..." There's no easy "but." And so, it is not something that Katie could really talk about because it's not her story to get into why this other woman in the boat stopped rowing, so.

Gary S:

And it's important to say, let me stop here just for a second. It's important to say before you go on to say that the crucible for her wasn't losing the race, right? That's fair to say.

Warwick F:

Right. Totally.

Gary S:

The crucible, what she went through, the difficult thing that she went through was not that they didn't win Olympic gold. What was the crucible was what, was what?

Warwick F:

It was the condemnation in the Australian press, as I often say.

Gary S:

Good word.

Warwick F:

US press isn't easy, but Australian press is another level, especially when it comes to things like this. Australians love sports. And so, this poor woman she was called all sorts of names in the press, even the then Prime Minister of Australia called that crew and what happened Un-Australian.

Gary S:

Yeah, that's just crazy to me. That's just crazy.

Warwick F:

That's as a bad thing is you can never be called in Australia as Un-Australian, because it's this huge ethos of what it means to be Australian. It was a horrendous crucible and there was no easy way out of that one. There was no easy way to rehabilitate your reputation. Even though Katie did nothing, she was part of that boat that went through this horrendous crucible.

Gary S:

Yeah. And yet, she found a way to do it, because we featured her, not only because we feature on the Harnessing Resilience series, but also because she learned some things in moving through her own crucible that led her to study resilience. That led her to see scientifically, research wise, what does it mean to harness resilience. And for me in this series, her comments were the first real big eye opening moment I had. I was one of those people who thought resilience is a matter of digging down deep inside. The deeper you can dig. Grit it out, tough it out, dig deep, find the answer within.

Gary S:

And what she discovered both what she went through and then what the science backed up is that that's only part of the resilience equation, digging down, digging deep. It's also casting wide. It's going and harnessing the resources you have around you. Here's the quote that she gave us, that's included in the blog that's on crucibleleadership.com.

Katie Foulkes:

Well, I've got these research opportunities. This is really interesting. It's showing me that something like resilience as an example, we simplify, show parallels to my rowing experience here. We simplify these complex events. We tell someone just to be more resilient. We sometimes point the finger at people and say they're not resilient and it was all very simple.

Katie Foulkes:

And as I started doing this research and thinking about my own experiences when I'm resilient to some things, not to others, resilient at some times, not at other times, I was fortunate enough to work with a gentleman called Dr. Michael Cavanagh at Sydney Uni, who had this new definition of resilience, which is really exploring what is, now I'm going to use dorky language for a second, what's in our surrounding systems. What's around us that helps us be resilient? And so the research is showing that if you have accesses to the resources you need to meet the challenge you're facing, you'll be more resilient. It's kind of obvious, right?

Gary S:

That blew me away. What was your reaction when you heard her say that?

Warwick F:

It's okay to ask for help. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. I would say it's a sign of strength, a sign of courage.

Gary S:

And it's a sign of resilience. It's a sign of harnessing resilience.

Warwick F:

Right, absolutely. It's rare that you will get through a crucible without help. And bouncing back yourself, it's very, very hard. So, she realized it was important for her and for others to get help.

Gary S:

Before we turn the page to the next guest, who's not Australian, this time by the way, the next guest we're going to talk about, let me throw another random resilience quote at you, Warwick. This is from Thomas Edison. And Thomas Edison said this, "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to always try just one more time." What do you think?

Warwick F:

The amazing thing is I feel like many, if not all of them, people in our podcast Resilience series have said that. It's basically, failure is not trying. It's not failure. I mean, Lucy Westlake, Heather Kampf may have indeed mentioned that, too. It's the notion that if you do your level best at something, that's not failing. That, again, is something that I don't know if I heard that or not, but it's such a profound, because then so long as you do your best, that's not failing, you've tried.

Warwick F:

So by reframing, because often the F-word, the failure word makes it go, "I don't want to try because I might fail and that's going to hurt my identity." But if you say it like, "It's not really failing if you've tried your best." "You're entering into the arena," as Robert Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt said. So, by all means, entering the arena is not failing.

Gary S:

Our next guest that we want to talk about, to me, was they're all remarkable. Her story was most remarkable to me because there was video evidence of it. And that is Heather Kampf.

Gary S:

Heather Kampf was in college. It was in 2008. She was a runner. She was in the big 10 championships running the 600 meters. Six hundred meters is a three-lap race over a 200-meter track. And she was, she had a lot of stuff she told us. She ran two other races that day, so she was kind of holding back in the first two laps, and she was ready to really turn the burners on for the third lap, and she tripped and fell. And she didn't just, as she put it, "It isn't like my hands just touched the track," she fell and skidded across the track.

Gary S:

And we have a clip that we showed with the episode on our social media, you can find it of both Heather talking about that incident and her actually falling and what happened next. And why that was so remarkable is that she got up. The other runners had, what, six, seven body lengths ahead of her. And she ended up in the last 200 meters sprinting and winning her heat.

Gary S:

I mean, what was your reaction when you saw that video? When I showed you that video, when we were thinking of having her on, what did you think?

Warwick F:

I mean, it's amazing. I mean, if anybody's familiar with running, at least in that indoor track, you're running as a pack, in her case with some other women. And I think somebody behind her caught her heel, maybe more than one person, just, it's a tight bunch of people. And she fell flat on the stomach. I mean, she didn't even realize how bad it was until her dad showed her the video. And she got up and somehow came back and won.

Warwick F:

I mean, it's just like out of the movies. I mean, it's like, "How does that happen?" It was remarkable for just whether she had won or not, for her not giving up and says, "Okay, I'm going to try and win this thing," and she did. It was just, that video was stunning. It's like, how can that be possible? How can you do that? It was amazing.

Gary S:

And the thing that she said in the show, I mean, she's very matter-of-fact about it. My favorite part about that interview was that video that we just discussed that you can see in our social media on Facebook at Crucible Leadership and at LinkedIn for Warwick, you can see the video. It's been viewed by tens of millions of people. And when she was talking to us about it, she said something like, "And that video that's been viewed by 6 million people," she didn't even know. That tells you everything that you need to know about the character of Heather Kampf is that she doesn't have a tally board about how many millions of people have watched her remarkable feat.

Gary S:

That's not the thing that's important to her. And nor was just "never give up," the message, even though that's the title on a lot of the videos that you'll find out there on the internet of her race, it will be Never Give Up. She said, "It's never give up and then add to it." And really her add, the learning she draws from that was have a plan. What she said fueled her resilience in that moment where she had a plan for that race and the plan did not include falling and not finishing.

Gary S:

And she talks about how her coach said, "Even if you only get one point, that's one point that helps your team and you get one point, if you finish. You get zero points if you don't." So, she was when she got up, she wasn't never quitting just to never quit, she was never quitting because she wanted her team to win. She wanted as she said later, "Significance is success shared." She wanted significance. She wanted success to be shared with her teammates by going through and winning that race.

Gary S:

And the other thing that she said, that sort of is a great takeaway for a series on Harnessing Resilience was this.

Heather Kampf:

For me, it's like never give up because you never know when your greatest obstacle becomes your greatest opportunity to do things you never imagined you could. Because I would never have pictured that I could have gotten up with a 200 meters to go in a sprint race and win. But that gave me so much confidence going into the Olympic trials that summer and to follow through in the rest of my professional career to believe that I have this gear somewhere within me that I might need at some point again. And it could be another magical moment like that.

Gary S:

I think every guest we've ever had on has had that experience, too.

Warwick F:

I mean, that's so true. Yeah, just I think of my own life and the whole takeover, the greatest obstacle become the greatest opportunity. Yeah. I mean, I've chat to people, today, yesterday. And when I say talk about the losing $2 billion, which is a lot of money even in the US, I'm willing to be vulnerable about it, which I am because it's I want to help people and its vulnerability for a purpose. I'm willing to be open about it and say, "Yep, I screwed up and made some big mistakes." People tend not to talk about failure, business failure in particular, and they don't tend to do it in an open vulnerable way.

Warwick F:

So, that's my specific way of how my greatest obstacle has become my greatest opportunity. It's not like a speech or a message I was looking to have, but whether you think it's God or some sovereign power somewhere, I guess that was the path that's been laid out. And if that can help people then I'm happy to do it, but I wouldn't have had that opportunity without that obstacle. So yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with Heather's viewpoint. It's profound.

Gary S:

And it is. You can almost mash up her comment here with Stacey Copas' first comment that we talked about. And you could say you never know when your greatest obstacle will become your greatest opportunity and your greatest gift. You can mash those things up because it's again, to your point very, very astutely made. It's a mindset shift.

Gary S:

It's the mindset shift to what was I think remarkable about what Heather did in that race was that her mindset shift happened in an instant. A lot of times it takes days, weeks, months, years, decades to get over beyond our crucibles. It took her a few seconds to get over that one crucible, and there's video evidence of it. I think that's what makes it so evocative.

Gary S:

All right. Here's my random quote that I'm going to throw at you before we move on to our next person. You're going to love this one, Warwick because I know you love, you're a big fan of this person. Winston Churchill said this, "If you're going through hell, keep going." What do you think of that?

Warwick F:

Yeah, that's boy, that's pretty amazing. I think of World War II and I guess probably his way of saying, when things are at its darkest, which it was in 1940 for Britain. America hadn't entered the war yet. It was pre-Pearl Harbor. Germany had conquered all of Europe including France. Battle of Britain was happening. They were vying for dominance over the skies. It seemed like invasion of Britain was likely. I guess, maybe he viewed that time it was, almost literal, living hell at the time for Britain. But you keep going, you just don't give up.

Warwick F:

And he gave that, probably, I guess you could say maybe the most famous speech on resilience that any leader has ever given. In which he said, "We will never give up. We will never give up. We will fight them on the landing grounds. We will fight them in the villages, on the streets, in the countryside, in the cities. And even if they would overwhelm us," back when Britain had an empire, "Our Commonwealth countries will come to our rescue."

Warwick F:

And yeah, it was like, talk about power of positive thinking. It's, "We are never giving up no matter what." And that galvanized the whole British people of, "Yeah, we're not giving up," even though life couldn't have looked more dark than it was. So, yeah, it's a great quote. And if he was about, he would win the all-time, potentially all-time, Olympic gold medal for resilience. I mean, Lincoln is up there, definitely. But Lincoln and Churchill, amazing.

Gary S:

Yeah, they were both legendary harnessers of resilience to use the title of our series. Speaking of legendary harnessers of resilience, our next guest, was Lucy Westlake. And for me, Lucy was, and I noticed this when we were doing the videos, snippets of the best bits from the show, is there's just, she's a 17-year-old girl. And she's just so sweet and charming. And Lucy's claim to fame, if you can believe this, listener, is by age 13, she was in the position to have ascended the highest peak in every US state.

Gary S:

So, at age 13, she had done 49 states and she was trying to ascend Denali in Alaska. And that's when her crucible moment hit, and she needed to harness her resilience. What happened there, and it's amazing that at age 13, she spent 20 days, she and her dad trying to find a way up to the top of the mountain. They were up at high camp, she called it and they were trying for 20 days to find a way around this, do that, it was bad weather. Then some things happened with their guides that that that made it impossible to try the ascent.

Gary S:

And it wasn't until 20 days had passed that she decided, she and her dad decided, they weren't going to be able to do it on this attempt, so she wasn't going to hit the peak. But one of the things she said to us in that conversation was at that moment, on like day 19 trying to get up the highest peak, 20-some thousand feet at the top of Denali. Nineteen days of just living through hunger and tiredness and cold, she said, "I wasn't going to go down without a fight."

Gary S:

And I'm thinking, "You've been there for 20 days. I would have said that maybe after a day if I even got there. But I mean, you've already been fighting for a long time." That's the kind of spunk and spirit that she brought to it. And she said this to us, which I'd love to get your take on because it's in the same zip code of what we've been talking about. Lucy said this, "Failure is inevitable. It's how you react to it that matters."

Lucy Westlake:

If someone just quit after the first failure, if they're like, "Oh, that defines me. I'm not good at this sport or at this job or at this role," then you'll really never reach your full potential in that because just like quitting after one failure. Failure is going to happen no matter how good or bad you are. And I think, I mean, I've definitely learned the most when I failed, that's when I reflect the most on it. When I win, I'm just like, "Okay, good job, well done." But when I fail at something, that's really when I look at what I'm doing more closely and can improve based upon those reflections. So, I'd say yeah, failure is a great learning tool.

Warwick F:

It is. I mean, in this case, it wasn't really her fault. They had some guys that were with her that were called away from some other accident, difficult situation they had to deal with. So, it wasn't like she did anything wrong, or lack of planning or lack of, I don't know, quite what. But yet, she still viewed it as a failure. Now for most people, for age 13, not being able to climb all 50 peaks in the US doesn't seem like a big failure, but for her, she's a driven person, I mean, it was devastating.

Warwick F:

She had almost have reached the pinnacle of what she was trying to achieve, literally and figuratively. And yet, she failed. Well, if you're going to go for bold adventures, bold tasks, just go for things that are not easy. I mean, most things worth having are not easy to obtain. Otherwise, you wouldn't value them that much. Yeah, it was disappointing, but she was also not going to give up. She ended up trying again, a lot of years later, and she finally made it. But it's-

Gary S:

Yeah. Four years later, when she was 17, just this past summer, she and her dad scaled Denali, and she did become the youngest female ever to hike all 50 highest peaks in the US.

Warwick F:

But she wasn't going to say, "Okay, I'm not doing that again or it's too hard. And what happens if that happens again. We don't have the right help." And it didn't go perfectly this last time, but they got it done. And she's not afraid of failing. That's one of the big lessons from Lucy Westlake. She is not afraid. She's not afraid to fail. And that just does not hold her back.

Gary S:

She told us, one of the many things she told us that was just wise beyond her years, not to be insulting, but true, she's a 17-year-old young lady. "Failure is a great learning tools," one of the things she said to us. And another thing that she said to us that I think is tied with Stacey Copas talking about the trampoline effect of the crucible, the farther down you go, the higher up you can launch. Lucy said this when you asked her at the very outset of the show.

Gary S:

And it was like it was one of those things we're trying to get warmed up at the start of the show. And you're like, "Hey, Lucy, how would you define resilience?" And this is what she said to you at that time and I think both of our, I don't remember seeing it, but it felt like both of us went, "Wow," or we might have actually said, wow. But she said this to that question, "The best way to build resilience is to try something." I mean, that's a mic drop moment in the pantheon of Harnessing Resilience, isn't it?

Warwick F:

It really is. I mean, I'm a reflective person, so I tend to think, reflect, think, reflect again before doing things. So, I do get things done, but I tend not to, other than when I jokingly say, make $2 billion takeovers. I tend to think very carefully before I do anything, especially now. But just this idea of just trying, of just trying something. Being willing to say yes, she said in another comment. People who succeed, as we keep saying in the series on resilience, they're willing to fail. And being willing to fail means you've got to try things.

Warwick F:

I mean, I think of Thomas Edison, who we mentioned, he tried like a thousand different filaments before he found, I don't know, it was like cotton with I don't know, what some substance on it for the filament for the light bulb. Well, that was probably 999 failures before he reached success. Okay, but we wouldn't have the light bulb if he said if he tried 100 filaments and it's like, "I'm giving up. This is all too hard. Forget about it."

Gary S:

Right. Like Lucy, he did not give up without a fight.

Warwick F:

Indeed, indeed.

Gary S:

I've got one more quote before we move on to our next guest. Here's this quote, "Great leaders keep going. They never give up. Their crucible experiences are never the end of their stories. They learn from and leverage them as opportunities to write a new chapter of their stories." Wait, I didn't say who said that. Who said that is Warwick Fairfax, author of Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. That's so important, right? I say that not jokingly. I say that. You wrote an entire chapter about the importance of resilience and perseverance. So clearly, this is something that you've been thinking on for quite some time.

Warwick F:

Yeah. I mean, it's one of my highest values. It's funny, in the book, I write about a lot of things I'm really poor at, perseverance or resilience. It's actually one of the areas I'm actually okay in. But yeah, I think I used the example of Churchill in that chapter on perseverance and we just talked about World War II. Well, in the 1930s, he was out of power, in part through his own injudicious political statements and actions of anger at his own party.

Warwick F:

So, as Hitler and Nazi Germany was rearming and posing a great threat, a bit like Don Quixote sort of chasing at windmills, he kept saying to the British people and the public, "You got to watch out for Hitler and Nazi Germany, we've got to rearm." And everybody said, "Oh, there's old Winston, warmongerer and what does he know?" And that had to have been frustrating. Did he give up? No. What were the chances of him being Prime Minister at that point? Really slim. He was getting older.

Warwick F:

His party, which probably thought of him as brilliant, but a bit of a pain in the neck, but somehow his time came when it's 1940 and the war is on. Who are you going to call? You're going to call Winston Churchill. But he could have easily given up in the 1930s. "Look, this is all too hard. We're probably going to be conquered by Germany. These other politicians are too stupid to listen to me." He didn't give up. And it would have been easy to back in those days. It was really, really tough. So, just this idea of as you're saying, great leaders, whether it's Lincoln or Churchill-

Gary S:

I didn't say it, you said it. I didn't say it, you said it. You wrote.

Warwick F:

Fair point, as you were reading what I said. But they don't give up. That is one of the hallmarks of great leaders, they are resilient. Think of a great leader. I can't think of any of them that don't have superhuman qualities of resilience, almost, they all do.

Gary S:

And the beautiful part of this conversation now as the captain turns on the fasten seatbelt sign and it's getting time, we're going to talk about our final guest in the Harnessing Resilience series. We did this on purpose. Our first four guests were individuals who went through crucibles themselves and had to harness resilience and talked about how they did it.

Gary S:

Our final guest is Dr. Craig Dowden and Dr. Dowden studies resilience. He studies the science around resilience. And we talked to him specifically last because we wanted to get a big picture look at, "Okay, we get it anecdotally what leads to resilience, but what does the science say leads to resilience?" And he said some just truly fascinating things. I'll start with this one. Much like Katie Foulkes said kind of experientially and then also from research, harnessing resilience is really a two-part process. And here's how Craig Dowden described it.

Gary S:

First, it's finding our way back to baseline, where we were before the crucible struck. Second, charting a course to move beyond that. To not merely bounce back, but bounce forward. That to me was one of the, that combined with what Katie said about dig deep, reach wide is probably what I'll take away from this series most. What was your response to Craig saying that?

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, it's really profound. It is not just merely getting back to baseline and that's certainly the first step. It's moving forward, moving beyond it. In our time, moving your life towards a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. A life that's focused on other people. A higher cause, a higher purpose. It's using your crucible to fuel a passion for a vision that you never had before. It's making something beautiful out of something that's awful.

Warwick F:

I mean, Craig was remarkable in that as we recounted what we'd seen with our guests on resilience or indeed, pretty much every guest we've had on the whole series of Beyond the Crucible, he was able to say what we have experienced anecdotally through our own lives and other people. He said, "The science supports this. So just in terms of how important it is to have a strong mindset to reframe what you went through, to see what you went through as a gift or a blessing."

Warwick F:

All these things he said, the science supports that, in terms of how you get back from a devastating experience, is just that sense of reframing it and seeing, making meaning and purpose of the devastating crucible you went through. It's absolutely crucial. So, it was so affirming to hear that the science supports. It was really the perfect capstone to the series because the science supports what the rest of the folks that have been on this series have said. So, it's not just good for them, it's good for all human beings was what he was saying. It was so encouraging.

Gary S:

And he said a couple things that, to talk about baseline, right? Where we're at right now, our baselines. Right now, I'm not facing any big crucibles, I'm at baseline. He said this and we didn't get to talk about this before we started recording because I just sort of listened to and processed through the episode. He says this in the episode, "We as human beings are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for." That heartens me. That is, to know that at baseline as he describes it, we're more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. That's an important thing to kind of take and tuck into our pocket, isn't it?

Warwick F:

It really is. I mean, just the human beings have a capacity for resilience. It's just unthinkable. I mean, I just think of the woman who sailed around Antarctica, Lisa Blair?

Gary S:

Lisa Blair, yep.

Warwick F:

Yeah, yeah.

Gary S:

Australian. Australian.

Warwick F:

Absolutely.

Gary S:

Look at that.

Warwick F:

I mean, those are the toughest waters in the world. I don't know if it's 100-ft. waves, 50-ft. She's in a sailboat trying to be the first woman to circumnavigate Antarctica. I mean, there was so many days and she's a seasoned sailor when she just wanted to give up, but somehow, amidst, the worst weather in the world, freezing subzero temperatures, she kept going. One more hour, one more day, one more step. But how is that possible for a human being?

Warwick F:

And she would say to anybody, she's not a remarkable person, she would say. She'd say she's not big in stature. She's not particularly athletic. She is not the superhuman person. She will consider herself unremarkable athletically is how she would view herself. So, most of us would tell, "Oh, we could never be Lisa Blair and do that. There's no way." But the human spirit is remarkably more resilient than we think.

Warwick F:

And so what Craig Dowden said is profoundly true. And I think all our guests on the series and indeed on the podcast, in general, bear that out. They have accomplished things if you said to them before, "Do you think this was possible?" They'd say, "I'm not sure. I don't think so." But they did.

Gary S:

Yeah. And he said something also that I think's a great bookend to what we said, what we talked about Lucy Westlake saying. Lucy Westlake's definition when you asked her, "How would you define resilience?" And she said, "Try something." It's all about trying something.

Gary S:

Craig Dowden talked about the opposite of that, the negative of that, the reverse of that, the dark side of that, and that is avoidance is a roadblock to resilience. Not doing something. Being too afraid or too timid.

Craig Dowden:

Resilience is a skill that we can grow. Well, if we're avoiding something we're not, it's just like being afraid to go to the gym or jump on the treadmill. And, "Oh, I don't want to raise the speed of my treadmill, because what's going to happen if it breaks or I fall off or what." Well, are we going to enhance our cardiovascular health? Well, we're only going to stay at that level. So, what's essential is we have to put these things in practice, so I love the linkage you're making because if we avoid it, we're not doing anything about it. So, we're missing an opportunity to be resilient.

Gary S:

To me, that inspires me to dismiss avoidance. It inspires me to follow Lucy, not the warning that Craig gives us, that avoidance is a roadblock to resilience.

Warwick F:

Yeah, I mean, that's probably one of the most profound things for me. Certainly, it's up there in the top few, and it's hard to separate, because they're all so profound what we heard from our guests. But avoidance is really the dark side. It's the opposite of resilience and avoidance can take many forms. It was like, "I'm going to be angry and bitter about what they did to me. It was so unfair. I'm going to be angry at myself." In my case, "I was an idiot, how could I do what I did with the takeover?"

Warwick F:

I know, there was probably a few other people I could have been angry about if I really wanted to go there. But anger is certainly avoidance. Not admitting your own mistakes is avoidance. Not saying, "Okay, I've got to accept what I went through, but how can I bounce back? How can I use this in the service of others?" So, avoidance means taking no steps, doing nothing, feel angry and bitter, hiding out of the covers until life somehow melts away. That's avoidance. Avoidance equals misery and agony for potentially decades. That's what avoidance means. And so, you don't want to be in that place.

Warwick F:

And typically, when you go through a crucible, you do have a binary choice. It's avoidance, pain and misery or it's not acceptance of, or condoning of what happened to you, but accept that what happened, happened and then how can I use this to bounce back maybe even bounce back further, as we heard, in service of others. And that's the path of resilience and joy and fulfillment.

Warwick F:

Really Craig's statement about avoidance is a roadblock to resilience, it really indicates two paths, agony, defeat and misery or joy, fulfillment and significance. And typically, when you go through a crucible, those are the two paths. There's typically not any other path. That's one of the strange blessings of the crucible. Just living same old, same old life. That's not a choice that exists for most people.

Gary S:

Now, I almost feel like I should just end the show now, because that was a beautiful way to end. But I want you as the host of the show and not just the host of this show, Warwick. But as the creator of Crucible Leadership, as the man who wrote Crucible Leadership, out October 19, who has been offering hope and healing to people that they can overcome their setbacks and failures. We're more than our setbacks and failures. This idea of harnessing resilience is so critical to that.

Gary S:

What's your biggest takeaway, final word, encouragement? What do you want to leave listeners who've spent the last six weeks with us in this series? What do you want to leave them with as you wave goodbye to the series?

Warwick F:

I would say, you and your life are not defined by your worst day, your worst moment. It's incredibly painful if today is that day, it's hard to believe that tomorrow will ever exist, because all you can think of is agony. And in my own way and our guests have all encouraged us, you can't compare crucibles.

Warwick F:

Many guests, including David Charbonnet that was a Navy SEAL, who was paralyzed in a training accident. He said this, "Your worst day is your worst day. It's not a competition." But just this notion that you're not defined by that worst day, that there is hope if you just take steps of resilience, try things, be willing to fail, that life can get better. Even in the darkest of pits, there is hope. And all of these guests bounced back from extremely difficult crucibles as have all our guests on the podcast.

Warwick F:

So, even in the darkest of times, remember, there is hope and the key is resilience and being willing to fail, and be willing to take one positive step. Yes, get help, dig deep, but don't avoid what happened. Lean in and be willing to take one positive step forward, because one positive step forward leads to another. And eventually, it can lead to a life of significance if you're willing to take that first step forward, out of from the crucible.

Gary S:

That, listener, is a mic drop moment. It wasn't actually a mic. It was the case for my earbuds, because my mic is more expensive. But that is the end of our series Harnessing Resilience. Thank you for spending the last six weeks in this focus study of something that's so critical to coming not just back from our crucibles, but moving beyond our crucibles. Not just coming back to baseline, but setting course for that life of significance that Warwick talks about.

Gary S:

So, until the next time when we're together, remember, your crucible experience is painful, but it's not the end of your story. In fact, it can be the beginning. Often, is the beginning of a brand new story that can be the best story of your life because it leads, as Warwick said, to a life of significance.