True success in life, Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax explains, is not about the number of zeroes on your bank statement. It’s about ensuring your life is aligned with your beliefs, values, and passions. A life of significance, he stresses, doesn’t have to be grand in scope. A life helping others, be it many or few is a life well-lived.
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Transcript
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A key to living a life of significance is having a compelling vision you can devote your life to. And one of the most critical factors in seeing that vision come to reality is the level of passion you have for it. A vision without passion is like a car without an engine. It may look like a sleek Ferrari, but without an engine, it is going nowhere. An abiding passion for your vision is critical for its success.
So how can you make sure that you are passionate about your vision? Where does passion come from? Passion is often borne in a crucible moment. You may have gone through abuse and have a passion to help other survivors find a way back to hope and self-esteem. You might be a cancer survivor and want to help others going through cancer realize that they are not alone. Perhaps you were an entrepreneur who failed spectacularly and wants to help other entrepreneurs minimize their likelihood of failures, and if they have failed, to learn to bounce back from those failures.
Passion sometimes comes from ideas we dream about. We lie awake at night, thinking, ”What if this actually, really happened? It could change the world.”
But there is a deeper level for passion that can give it, and the vision that arises from it, greater resonance and staying power. That deeper level is rooted in your beliefs and values. The more your passion — and thus, your vision — is linked to the very core of your soul, the very fiber of your being, the more your vision will soar and become reality.
Faith and Passion
In this day and age, sometimes we shy away from faith and beliefs, thinking they are either too didactic or metaphysical to be of use in our fast-paced, practical world. But the reality is that we all have beliefs and values, whether we realize it or not. You cannot be human without having faith and beliefs in something. It might be in a particular religion or denomination, or it might not be. Perhaps you have a philosophy of life that you believe in. It might be something that you learnt from your parents, grandparents, or friends. Perhaps you read a book that transformed your life, or a teacher in school greatly influenced you.
Either way, consider what you believe and what you value. Write it down. Think about those times in life that were the most meaningful to you. Think about events or actions you were a part of that meant the most to you and that you are most proud of. Think about some of the most meaningful conversations you have ever had. Then start connecting the dots. What are the beliefs you hold most dear? What are the values you believe in strongly? Just a quick note on values: if beliefs are what we believe about the world and life, values are more about how we believe people should be treated. Typically, our values grow out of and are in harmony with our beliefs. If we believe in a loving God who forgives us, it stands to reason that we should value the ability to forgive. Living our beliefs is, of course, not always easy. If our core beliefs are grace and acceptance, then we should place a high value on our ability to accept others.
Once we are clear about our beliefs and values, the next step is to think about what we are most passionate about. Our beliefs, values, and passions should closely intersect. The more closely they intersect, the more you know you are on the right track. Write down those times in life you were most passionate and excited about. Perhaps there was something you accomplished in school or college. Or perhaps you had a time in your job, or a volunteer job, that you were particularly excited about. What were those things that excited you? Perhaps you have always liked working with kids. You loved volunteering to help kids at church, or at the local Boys and Girls Club. You feel you have an instinctive ability to relate to kids, and they believe you really understand and care for them. You might have beliefs and values that place great importance on caring for and nurturing people, which for you might mean kids. In this example, the next step would be asking how to turn this passion for kids into a vision, which could be a business, a career, or a volunteer activity. Again, write down some options.
Design and Purpose
Next, consider your wiring and your fundamental design. If you have a background in social work or counseling using this example, you career path and vision might point you in one direction. But you might have more administrative gifts, in management or accounting. That could take your vision in a different direction.
Either way, you are well on your way to having a vision that is aligned with your beliefs and values, as well as how you are wired, and that you are passionate about. A vision that you believe in, a vision that gives your life purpose and meaning. A vision that you believe leads you to having a life of significance. A life that is on purpose, that helps others, and makes the world a better place. A life that your family and friends, as well as yourself, can be proud of. A legacy that you will be proud to leave. At the end of the day, you will have lived a life of passion and purpose, a life that made a difference, a life that meant something.
Reflection
Consider the events and conversations that most determined who you are and what you believe, and write down your core beliefs and values.
Reflect on those activities and jobs that you were most passionate about. What about them made you so passionate?
What vision that is in line with how you are wired would best be in tune with your beliefs, values, and passions?
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Esther Fleece Allen overcame a traumatic childhood of abuse and abandonment to forge a successful career as a speaker and writer. But when the father she feared resurfaced to stalk her in her early 30s, she realized the successful life she had built was fashioned as a defense mechanism to avoid processing her pain. Only by learning to lament the crucible experiences of her upbringing and rejecting a lifetime of labels that limited her healing has she been able to begin living a life of true personal and professional significance. In this interview with Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax, she shares her inspirational story and the life-changing insights of her new book, Your New Name: Saying Goodbye to the Labels That Limit.
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Transcript
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The key to leading a life of significance, a life that helps others, and moving beyond a searing experience, a crucible moment, where you are forever changed, is to understand your design. We are all designed a certain way. If we look at those around us, our children, siblings, and our loved ones, we all come out of the box with our own wiring. We may be creative and artistic or love math and the sciences, or we may be adventurous and athletic. We all have certain aptitudes. If we are wise, we will understand our innate strengths and giftings, and build upon them.
Leading a life of significance and crafting a vision that makes the world a better place and helps others starts with understanding how you are wired. Sometimes, out of your crucible experiences, you learn a lot about who you’re not. Perhaps you were in a cubicle doing analysis, when you yearned to be outside relating to people. Maybe you were in a freewheeling creative space, when you would have preferred to be in a more orderly, structured environment. Being in the wrong position for your wiring can be miserable. It saps you of energy and will make it harder to have a vision that you are passionate about, one that leads to a life of significance.
So how do we truly know who we are? A good first step is to take an assessment. There are a lot of them out there. The more well-known ones include Myers-Briggs, DISC, Enneagram, and Strengths Finder. One I particularly like is the SIMA Motivated Abilities Pattern (SIMA MAP) that asks you what you are good at and what you enjoy doing at different times of your life (grade school, high school, college, 20’s, 30’s, etc.).
As good as these assessments are, no one assessment or even a combination of assessments can provide the complete answer of how you are wired. They give a glimpse but not the total picture. People are complex individuals. Even when we get the feedback from the assessment, we often find ourselves asking, “So what do I do now? What should my next step in my career be in light of this?”
A concept I wrote about in my last blog, the refining cycle, applies particularly well to understanding our design and being able to lead a life of significance in line with that design. It is a combination of theory and practice. This includes understanding the common threads from the assessments we have taken and then looking back at the different jobs and experiences we have had.
Similar to the SIMA MAP approach, it is helpful to look at the different jobs and positions we have had (including nonprofits we have volunteered with). What positions did we really enjoy and what environments did we thrive in? What jobs and positions did we loathe and couldn’t wait to get out of? Make a list of the commonalities of each job and position that we loved and each one we hated. Connect the dots. What pattern is emerging?
We can also ask friends and family who really know us well, who they think we are. We can show them some of the results from the assessments we have taken, and ask them what they think of the different jobs we have had. Ask them what patterns they see emerging.
Life is a combination of learning and doing. We were not meant to live in a lab. What I mean by that is that we need to experiment. After taking the assessments, looking at our past positions, and asking family and friends for input, it is time to try something. Look at some positions you think might be a good fit and try it. In our day and age, most people do not work in the same company or in the same position forever. If, after a couple of years, you feel it is not working out or that there is a position that would be a better fit, it is all right to make a change. As time goes by, while our innate wiring may not change, our expertise and experience may grow, opening up other opportunities.
This is the nature of the refining cycle. Observe, learn, experiment. And then repeat the process.
What are some examples of this, of observing, learning, experimenting, and being willing to take a risk on a new path?
The E-commerce Mogul
The e-commerce mogul Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1994, taking its sales from $510,000 in 1995 to $17 billion by 2011. As of 2018, Amazon had 100 million paid subscribers for Amazon Prime, which includes free shipping for Amazon products as well as video and music streaming. In 2018, Amazon was worth more than $1 trillion, the second company after Apple to hit that mark, and Bezos had become the richest person in the world with a net worth of $110 billion. As of 2019, Amazon controls 40% of all e-commerce in the U.S.
So how did Bezos get to where he is now? He was born in New Mexico in 1964 and went to high school in Miami. He had an early love for computers, building electrical contraptions in his parents’ garage as a child. He also has had a lifelong fascination with space and Star Trek. Hence, Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, is an aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight firm dedicated to giving humans access to space.
After being the valedictorian of his high school, Bezos then graduated from Princeton University with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. He went on to become the youngest senior vice president of the investment firm D. E. Shaw on Wall Street.
In 1994, he made a risky move. He quit a high-paying job with a lucrative career ahead of him. Bezos moved to Seattle to start Amazon.com, an online bookstore that became one of the internet’s biggest success stories. Amazon had success from the beginning. With no press promotion, Amazon sold books across the U.S. and 45 foreign countries within 30 days. In two months, sales reached $20,000 a week. Amazon launched Amazon Studios in 2013, with critically acclaimed shows such as Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle. Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 and in 2017 Whole Foods, a supermarket chain selling healthy foods.
Bezos’ career has not been linear, nor could you have predicted it. If you gave Jeff Bezos an assessment in high school or the early part of his career, pre-Amazon, it might have said he had mathematical aptitude, was good with computers and was a creative problem solver. A motivated abilities assessment may have picked up that Bezos is a dreamer. After all, in his valedictorian speech, he said he dreamed of the day when millions of his fellow earthlings would relocate to colonies in space.
But Amazon? Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person? Amazon with a net worth that is almost as high as any other company? Bezos is very smart. He is driven. He is a risk-taker, and he is creative. He saw the potential of the internet and e-commerce, starting with selling books. He tried it out, and then he kept experimenting. From book sales to e-commerce powerhouse to Blue Origin, the Washington Post, and Whole Foods. Bezos understood his skills, observed opportunities, experimented, and then kept going. He was not afraid to try something new, that’s for sure.
The Culinary Icon
Julia Child was the bestselling author of Mastering The Art of French Cooking, as well as the host of the popular television program The French Chef.Mastering The Art of French Cooking was considered ground-breaking upon its release in 1961 and remained the best-selling cookbook for five straight years. The French Chef, which started in Boston, became so popular it was syndicated to 96 stations throughout America. The French Chef premiered in 1962 and was so well received it went on to air for 206 episodes.
Mastering The Art of French Cooking and The French Chef succeeded in changing the way Americans related to food, certainly French food. Child is credited with convincing the American public to try cooking French food at home.
So how did this all happen? How did Julia Child become an American icon, changing American attitudes and tastes in cooking?
She was born in 1912 in Pasadena, California. Her father was also a Princeton graduate, like Jeff Bezos, and was an early investor in California real estate. Julia grew up in affluence, graduating from the prestigious Smith College in Massachusetts, where she studied history. She was tall, 6 feet 2 inches. She was athletic, adventurous and — as one of her school friends said — was, “really, really wild.”
After college, Child had a stint in New York in the advertising department of home furnishings company W. & J. Sloane. She ended up being fired for “gross insubordination.” With the onset of World War II, Child joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the CIA. In 1945, while working in Sri Lanka, she met fellow OSS employee Paul Child. The following year they returned to the U.S. and were married. In 1948, Paul was working for the U.S. Foreign Service and was assigned to Paris. While there, Julia developed a love for French cuisine and attended the world-famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. After she finished the program, she banded together with fellow Cordon Bleu students Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle to form the cooking school L’Ecole de Trois Gourmandes (The School of the Three Gourmandes) in 1951.
In 1961, Paul Child retired from the U.S. Foreign Service and the couple returned to the U.S. to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As mentioned, her bestselling cookbook Mastering The Art of French Cooking was published in 1961 and her television show was launched in 1962.
In 1993, Julia Child became the first woman inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. In 2000, she received the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor.
What accounts for Julia Child’s success? It is probably as much due to her sense of adventure and willingness to take risks as anything else. It would not have been easy to see her future career path growing up, in college, or before her move to Paris. She was athletic, was considered to be wild, and was fired for “gross insubordination.” She served in World War II in the OSS. But does this add up to world famous cooking icon? Not exactly. But Julia Child was a passionate, risk-taking person. Once she moved to Paris and attended the Cordon Bleu cooking school, she found her passion and her love. She would bring the fine art of French cuisine back to American households. She would pursue this vision with boldness and experimentation. From a cooking school in Paris with two Cordon Bleu classmates to writing a best-selling cookbook and starring in a hit TV show.
Julia Child was an original. What made her television show so successful was her combination of humor, exuberance, and unpretentiousness, mixed with knowledge of French cuisine. She was fearless as she cooked on the show. She often made mistakes while cooking, but remained unflappable, encouraging viewers to accept mishaps and continue to cook. She provided clear instructions and explanations. She would always sign off her show with her catch phrase, “Bon Appetit.”
When I think of my own experience as an executive coach, I have taken many assessments both to better understand myself and to help my clients. In the mid 1990s, I took an assessment that was both helpful and pretty accurate. It said that I was intuitive and analytical. I liked working on a common project or mission with others who were like-minded. I liked learning and personal growth, where I was solving a problem and making an impact. All this feedback was and is true. But at the time, while all this resonated, I remember asking myself, “What do I do with all this? What do I do now?”
As I mentioned in my last blog on the refining cycle, in hindsight I ended up experimenting. I took a job at an aviation services company doing financial and business analysis. Then after another assessment and executive coaching feedback, I became an executive coach. Speaking in church one day about my story led me to write a manuscript about my life’s journey. All this and some experience on two nonprofit boards led me to think I had a perspective on leadership that has culminated in Crucible Leadership. In my own way, I tried to observe, learn, and experiment. And yes, I was willing to take risks. It might not have been jump-off-a-bridge type risks, but they were risks nonetheless.
The stories of Jeff Bezos, Julia Child, and even myself offer a template for how to understand your design and apply it. Know how you are wired, know what you love and are passionate about … then experiment. Life cannot be lived in a lab. We have to be willing to move and be willing to make mistakes. Experimentation, mistakes, and even failure are the price of success and significance.
Reflection
What have you learned from the assessments you have taken?
How do you, your friends, and loved ones look at the positions you have had and the assessments you have taken? What are the common threads?
What next step or position should you be willing to take that is in line with your design, that you are passionate about, and which will move you forward? What risk do you need to be willing to take?
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Forty-nine percent of U.S. business professionals say they’ve suffered “an experience so traumatic it fundamentally changed their lives.” Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax explores the many forms these searing experiences can take and offers healing insights for not just surviving them, but thriving in the aftermath of them.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
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Most leaders don’t talk about their failures. But Crucible Leadership founder and Beyond the Crucible host Warwick Fairfax has discovered learning, and sharing, the lessons of how he lost the family media dynasty can help others move past life’s most shattering setbacks. The toughest part of his crucible moment, he explains, was not the number of zeroes in the price tag of the loss. It was the emotional devastation of feeling he had let down his parents, his ancestors, and even God. Discover how he has moved past the pain to lead a life of significance … and how you can, too.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
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You may have been through a crucible experience, a gut-wrenching, even humiliating experience. It may be a business or professional failure, or it may be a health or family challenge. Whatever it is, the course of your life has forever been changed. You have faced the fork in the road: whether to wallow in the pain of your crucible experience or to try to move beyond it. You have chosen to move ahead.
But how do you keep moving on after your crucible experience — growing, progressing even healing? It starts with reflecting on your crucible moment. Whether it was your fault or not, examine what happened. What are the lessons you can learn from it? Were you in the wrong position? Did you trust the wrong people? A crucible experience can also reveal something about your inherent wiring.
Coming out of a crucible experience, you need to understand your design. What are you good at? What are you not good at? Often our friends and family who know us well can give us helpful input. Once you understand your design, think about a vision, a calling that you are off-the-charts passionate about. It could come out of your crucible experience, perhaps something you don’t want anyone else to go through. Or it could be something you feel would be amazing if it existed. It is a vision anchored in your fundamental beliefs that you will do whatever it takes to make succeed. You even have a team around you of fellow travelers who are just as passionate about the vision as you are.
This type of vision, coming out of your crucible experience, that is in line with your design, anchored in your fundamental beliefs, which you and your team are passionate about, will have a much greater chance of succeeding. This vision, if it is a great vision, will help you and your team lead a life of significance, a life that is on purpose that helps others and, in some sense, makes the world a better place. Such a vision of significance will leave a legacy that your family and team will be proud of, and can often lead to some sense of healing — bringing purpose to the pain of your crucible experience.
This all sounds good. But is it as simple as it looks? In a word, no. As you get refined, get clearer on the lessons of your crucible experience, understand more how you are wired, and get clarity on your vision, you will find it is not a one-and-done event. It is a refining cycle that will likely take years. As you go through each refining cycle, which may be different jobs or career paths, you have the opportunity to learn more about yourself. You can learn more about the lessons from your crucible experience. You can learn more about your design. And your vision can be refined or even evolve — as can the exact form your life of significance will take.
So how does this refining cycle work in practice? Let me share the refining cycle I have been on.
Warwick’s Refining Cycle
In late August 1987, I launched an AUS $2.25B takeover of the 150-year-old Australian family business I grew up in. I had prepared my whole life to take a leading position within the family company, with an undergraduate degree from Oxford, working on Wall Street, and having my MBA from Harvard Business School. I had wanted to change management, see that the company was run along the ideals of the founder, and make our family business safe from corporate raiders. Despite bringing in new management that increased operating profits by 80 percent, the debt we needed to complete the takeover was so large that when Australia suffered a recession in late 1990, the company went bankrupt. This was my crucible experience. I felt like I had let my parents and family down. It was devastating emotionally and spiritually, as well as financially.
The first step in the refining cycle was to examine what happened and try to learn from the experience. I realized that I am a reflective adviser, not a take charge Rupert Murdoch-style leader. Running a large media company was a terrible fit for someone wired like me. The vision of restoring the company to the ideals of the founder and seeing that it was well run may have been a good vision, but it was not my vision. It was more my parents’ vision.
The first step professionally was to take a job at an aviation services company in Annapolis Md., where we live. I did financial and business analysis, and while I was not getting paid what my peers who had been at Harvard Business School were getting paid, I was happy for the work. I realized that I had an analytical ability that enabled me to perform the work well.
The next cycle began in 2003, when I began going down the track to become an executive coach. I felt that I had been playing small and not using all the gifts God had given me. I went to a woman who did mid-career assessments and was herself an executive coach. She said I had a good profile to become an executive coach. I found I loved asking questions and helping leaders bring their visions to reality. It was a good fit. I learned something else about how I was wired and what I loved doing.
Through coaching, often through the questions I asked, I found I had a leadership voice and a leadership perspective. I had not thought of myself as a leader after the disastrous takeover of the family business. Then in 2008, I gave a seven-minute talk at the non-denominational church we go to in Annapolis. The theme was about what I had gone through during the takeover, the mistakes I had made and what I learned. What amazed me was that in the weeks and months afterwards, people came up to me and said my talk had helped them. Yet I was the only one in the congregation who had been a former media mogul. How could they relate to my story? Somehow, they could.
This led me to realize that I could write a book about my story and the lessons I had learned from my mistakes that could help other leaders and other people. My confidence in the idea that I did have a perspective on leadership that could help leaders and people in general was growing. The 2008 talk in church and the resulting period when I started to write a book on my experiences and leadership perspective were key moments in my refining cycle. My vision had evolved and expanded to helping leaders become better leaders and learn from their mistakes.
As I was trying to get my book published, I came to realize that in order to do this, I needed a branding and marketing plan. This led me to a great branding and marketing team in Denver — SIGNAL.csk — and great public relations and communications advice through ROAR. The resulting brand and message is Crucible Leadership.
The vision has again evolved and grown to helping leaders at all levels get beyond their crucible experiences to enable them to lead lives of significance.
This is the latest refining cycle I am on. I now have a clear brand and message in Crucible Leadership, I write regular blogs, post on social media, have a video, and am in the process of launching a podcast, Beyond the Crucible.
A critical component to my vision evolving and growing, and even to understanding how I am wired, is the support that I have received along the way. This journey has been grounded in my faith that God loves me unconditionally as he does all of us, and the support of fellow people of faith. The support of my family, especially my wife, has been critical. Each step of the way professionally I have sought out help. When I was coaching, I had a mentor coach who helped guide me. With Crucible Leadership I have an amazing branding, marketing, public relations, and communications team with . They have helped me crystalize the vision of Crucible Leadership and have been with me each step of the way as we have made the vision become reality.
A vision does not come to reality without help, ideally from a team that is as passionate about the vision as I am. I am blessed to have such a team.
Each of the refining cycles I have been through, from the aftermath of losing the family business, to working for an aviation services company, to executive coaching, to writing a book after speaking in church, and now Crucible Leadership, have enabled me to learn more about myself and have clarified, crystalized, and even expanded the vision.
The key point is that the refining cycle is not a one-and-done process. We all wish we could do all this learning about ourselves and figure out a vision that we are passionate about in one long weekend. Well, that is not reality. It takes work and pain. It can take years. It takes being honest with yourself and allowing people to help you. It takes time, patience, and perseverance. But it is possible. As hard as it is, it is definitely mission possible.
Reflection
Where in the refining cycle are you?
What is the next step in your refining cycle of learning from your crucible experience?
Do you have the team you need to further refine and hone your vision and to help bring it to reality
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
A crucible is a cauldron where metals are thrown together and heated to very high temperatures. The metals combine to form an alloy, something that is different than it was before. A crucible experience is one that is life-altering. Who you are after your crucible experience is different than you were before. You are never the same.
A crucible experience can come in many forms:
Business Failure
Financial Failure
Health Challenge
Family Challenge
Abuse
Addiction
A crucible experience may or may not be your fault. Either way, there may be loss of self-esteem, loss of self-respect, and possibly even feelings of humiliation. You may feel marginalized and may even feel that no one could like or love you. You can feel incredibly angry at others, yourself, or even God. You often feel alone.
But you are not alone. In fact, Crucible Leadership recently surveyed more than 400 professionals, from CEOs to independent contractors, and found that nearly half had experienced something so traumatic or painful that it fundamentally changed their lives.
The commonality is that a crucible experience tends to be excruciating and devastating. The pain can last years, even a lifetime.
Three women who have overcome very different crucible experiences come to mind. These are women from different backgrounds with different personalities. But what they share is courage and a determination to not be defined by their crucible experiences.
Mary Kay Ash – The Cosmetics Trailblazer
Mary Kay Ash founded Mary Kay Inc. in the early 1960s to sell cosmetics through direct selling. As of 2018, Mary Kay Inc. generates $3.25B in revenue in more than 35 markets worldwide and is the sixth-largest network marketing company. The mission of Mary Kay Inc. is “enriching the lives of women and their families around the world.”
But Mary Kay’s company grew from a crucible experience. Mary Kay Ash had been in the direct selling business for 25 years. She was very good at making sales of in-home products. By 1963, she got tired of seeing yet another man that she trained get promoted above her and earn a much higher salary. Mary Kay sat at her kitchen table and drew up two lists. One was of the good things she had seen in companies. The other was of the things that she thought could be improved. When she looked over the lists, Mary Kay knew she had created a marketing plan for her dream company. So, in 1963, with $5,000 of savings at age 45, she launched Mary Kay Inc. with her first store in Dallas.
One of the keys to Mary Kay Inc.’s success is the strong vision of the founder. Mary Kay Ash launched Mary Kay Inc. to help women achieve their potential and bring their dreams to life. She founded the company based on the Golden Rule, treating others as you would want to be treated. Mary Kay’s principles were placing faith first, family second, career third. Mary Kay Inc. was a company “with heart,” as she would say. Mary Kay said, “Individuals sometimes feel insignificant and doubt they can really make a difference in the world. Well, believe me, one person can.” Mary Kay established the Mary Kay Charitable Foundation, which supports cancer research and efforts to end domestic violence.
Bethany Hamilton – The Inspirational Surfer
Bethany Hamilton is a champion surfer. She has had two movies made about her life, Soul Surfer in 2011 and a documentary Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable in 2018. From the youngest age growing up in Hawaii, Bethany surfed and dreamed of being a champion. At 13, her life changed. The morning of Halloween in 2003, Bethany went to surf with family and friends on Tunnels Beach in Kauai, the Hawaiian Island where her family lived. She was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark, which severed her left arm just below the shoulder.
Bethany had been a rising surf star and she was determined to not let her crucible experience stop her. One month after the attack, she returned to surfing and, within two years, she had won her first national surfing title. The key to Bethany overcoming such a horrific life-altering event was her faith and her indomitable courage. “I know life can be hard, but I’ve learned that we can rise above even the biggest challenges and fears,” she has said. No matter what you’ve come from or what you’re facing, you are loved by God, and you can overcome.”
Remarkably, Bethany sees the shark attack as a blessing. She says, “I definitely would allow the shark attack to happen. The thing for me is I know that God allowed it to happen because of all the good stuff that has come from this terrible experience. I’m still surfing, loving life, and being able to reach people a lot more than I would have probably with two arms.”
Bethany continues to give back through her movies and the Friends of Bethany Foundation. The Foundation says, “We believe there is a longing within every individual to overcome the trials, pains, and difficulties of life.” The Foundation’s most renowned program is called Beautifully Flawed, a retreat for young amputee women ages 14-26.
J.K. Rowling – The Best Selling Author
J.K. Rowling is the best-selling, world-famous author of the Harry Potter books and movies. J.K. Rowling, whose first name is Joanne, has sold more than 450 million copies of her seven-book series. In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a US dollar billionaire by writing books. Rowling has a charitable trust, The Volant Charitable Trust, which supports Scottish charities (where she now lives) to help alleviate social deprivation, as well as women, children, and young people at risk.
But Joanne Rowling’s life has not been easy and took a turn for the worse beginning in 1992, two years after she conceived the idea for Harry Potter. Joanne’s mother died after battling multiple sclerosis since Joanne was a teenager. She had a difficult divorce from her first husband, and was living in poverty on welfare in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her relationship with her father was strained, she had a young daughter to support and had been diagnosed with depression, being on the verge of suicide.
Joanne has said that she was “as poor at it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless… I think it is fair to say that by any conventional measure… I had failed on an epic scale… The fears that my parents had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”
But Joanne Rowling refused to give up or give in. She wrote her first iconic novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in cafes in Edinburgh while walking her young daughter in hopes her daughter would go to sleep and Joanne could write. Joanne submitted the manuscript for her Harry Potter book to twelve publishing houses who all rejected it. The thirteenth publisher, Bloomsbury in London said yes, and the rest is history.
Joanne Rowling has said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” In a 2008 Harvard Commencement Address, titled “Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination” she said that, “Failure was stripping away of the inessential.” She said that she stopped pretending to be anything other than what she was and began to direct all her energy to finishing the Harry Potter book. She said that, “Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.”
When asked how she pushed through the book rejections and all that she had endured, Joanne Rowling said, “I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try.” She has said, “Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.”
These three remarkable women give us clues to how to come back from a devastating crucible experience. No matter how painful or life-altering, or in some cases humiliating, those experiences were, these women refused to give up. They used their pain as motivation to rise up. The seeds of their purpose — their mission in life — were found in the excruciating life-altering pain of their crucible experiences.
Reflection
Amidst the pain of your crucible experience, what is this revealing about the essential core of who you are?
What mission coming out of the devastation of your crucible experience may be taking shape that will chart your purpose in life?
Why does the world need to hear about and benefit from your mission?
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
‘Beyond the Crucible’ host Warwick Fairfax shares the lessons he learned from losing a $2.25 billion bid to take over the 150-year-old family media dynasty he had be groomed to run since birth. From that “crucible moment,” he discovered a new vision for his life, one rooted in helping others overcome painful setbacks in their lives. Sharing the stories of men and women who have bounced back from devastating hardship and failure to live a life of significance is a key focus of ‘Beyond the Crucible.” Other episodes will explore key facets of the Crucible Leadership model, including understanding how you’re wired, crafting a vision out of your gifts and passions and how to bring that vision to reality. Be sure to click ‘Subscribe’ on your podcast app!
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
One of the most cautionary tales in recent corporate history is how Netflix embraced change and Blockbuster didn’t. As of 2018, Netflix, barely 20 years old, had a stock market value of nearly $165B, with 130 million subscribers in 200 countries. Blockbuster was out of business by then, having filed for bankruptcy in 2010 after incurring more than $1B in losses the previous year.
How did this happen — Netflix’s stunning success and Blockbuster’s equally stunning fall? Netflix embraced change. Blockbuster didn’t.
When Netflix launched in 1997, Blockbuster had for years been the undisputed champion of the video rental industry. Between 1985 and 1992, Blockbuster grew from one location in Dallas to more than 2,800 rental stores worldwide. Netflix competing against Blockbuster seemed like a David vs. Goliath scenario. Hopeless.
But through a series of disruptions and changes to the video/home entertainment industry, the tables turned. In 1997, when VHS video was the industry standard, Reed Hastings, the CEO and founder of Netflix, saw an opportunity to introduce a monthly DVD subscription service by mail. Unlike Blockbuster, there would be no late fees. When customers were finished with their DVD, they would simply return it to Netflix and get another one. Blockbuster initially did not embrace the subscription service model, charging customers per video rental, including late fees. Blockbuster was wedded to its brick-and-mortar retail outlet business model.
In 2007, Netflix transitioned from DVD shipments to online programming. Faster bandwidth and greater download speeds made this new service feasible. But Netflix didn’t stop there. It continued to innovate, creating its own programming, including the highly successful House of Cards TV series. In 2018, Netflix spent $8B annually on new programing to keep its customers bingeing online. In 2019, Netflix received 14 Oscar nominations, winning four. This put Netflix on par with the other major studios for Academy Award wins. Netflix was now a significant player in movie and TV production.
The legacy of Blockbuster, on the other hand, is one of stubbornness and missed opportunities. In 2000, Hastings, head of the still small Netflix, came to Blockbuster, proposing a partnership. Netflix would run Blockbuster’s brand online, while Blockbuster would promote Netflix in its stores. Blockbuster, then the king of the video rental industry, turned Netflix down. Eventually, Blockbuster saw Netflix as a threat. But it was too little, too late. In 2004, John Antioco, then CEO of Blockbuster, proposed eliminating late fees and launching Blockbuster Online. These two initiatives would cost a proposed $200M each. But the Board lost confidence in Antioco. Eliminating late fees would damage profitability. Antioco was fired in 2005. His successor as Blockbuster’s CEO dropped Antioco’s initiatives, which were designed to help Blockbuster compete with Netflix. Five years later in 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy.
What are the key lessons we can learn from the Blockbuster vs. Netflix saga?
1. Embrace Change
Netflix saw a technological and marketing opportunity to compete with Blockbuster with a subscription by mail DVD service. The company — each step of the way from a DVD subscription service to online video streaming, to online streaming content creation — was continually willing to innovate. Blockbuster saw itself as the video rental king, with locations all over the world. They fell in love with their business model more than they did with satisfying customer needs. Their business model of charging their customers with late fees, while very profitable, was in part based on causing their customers pain.
2. Don’t be Afraid to Fail
Netflix has constantly been willing to try new things. Many have worked out — such as their DVD subscription rental service, online streaming, and online streaming content creation. But some initiatives have not worked out, at least not initially. Netflix made an unsuccessful attempt in the mid-2000s to enter the film-making business, long before it had a large enough audience to make this a financially viable strategy. In 2011, critics ridiculed Netflix for its plans to split steaming and DVD rentals into two services. Hundreds of thousands of customers cancelled their subscriptions in the following months. Blockbuster, on the other hand, was unwilling to take risks. When Blockbuster did decide in 2004 to enter the online video rental business and eliminate late fees, not only was it late to do this, but ownership soon reversed these moves.
3. Be Willing to Disrupt Yourself
While Blockbuster clung to its business model of being a video rental company, Netflix constantly disrupted itself. Netflix went from being a DVD subscription rental service, to a streaming of movies and TV series model, to being a creator of content. Netflix would always try to stay on the cutting edge of innovation, even if it meant disrupting its existing businesses.
4. Corporate Culture is the Key to Being able to Innovate
The key to embracing change, being able to innovate, and seeing disruption as an opportunity is corporate culture. In 2009, Reed Hastings delivered a PowerPoint presentation internally within Netflix about the company’s culture and HR policies. This presentation has been downloaded more than 18 million times. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, says this document might be the most important one ever to come out of Silicon Valley (where Netflix’s headquarters is located). The title of Reed Hastings’ presentation was “Freedom and Responsibility.” In short, Netflix finds brilliant people, pays them well, and gives them freedom to take responsibility for their own work. Hastings said, “Responsible people thrive on freedom and are worthy of freedom.”
It is easy to say, who would want to be Blockbuster over Netflix? But the path Netflix took requires courage and clarity. Know what business you are in (home entertainment, not brick and mortar video rental locations). Be willing to fail, which means hiring great people and encouraging them to take risks. Be willing to hurt your profitability in the short term to stay ahead of the technology and innovation curve. Reward your team, give them a clear mission, and then get out of their way. Very few leaders and companies are willing to do the above. Fear, caution, and pride usually take over.
Reflection
Are you willing to disrupt yourself, even if it hurts your profitability for a time, to stay ahead of the curve?
Are you willing to fail, and have your team experience failure, to ensure your organization continues to innovate?
Do you have the right people on board — people who are willing to take risks — and have you created a climate that both rewards and supports risk taking?
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
