There are many challenges in life, but there are also many opportunities. When people ask us to help them, for many of us it is hard to say no. Or perhaps you see a lot of opportunities where you can have an impact, where you can make a difference. This could be business opportunities, or nonprofit or charity work. It could even be with your family. Perhaps your kids are in sports or artistic activities. You volunteer to coach your kids’ basketball team or help out with a dance recital.
All these opportunities to have an impact or do something you enjoy or that seems so fun are hard to resist. They can be opportunities that you may not look forward to, but someone you care about asks you to help. You feel you can’t say no. You don’t want to disappoint them.
The problem with saying yes to everything — or to a lot — is you spread yourself too thin. You can end up not doing anything that well. You then may well disappoint people, and you may let down the very people you don’t want to let down. That eats away at you, and you feel terrible.
So as we start this New Year, let’s have a resolution to just say No! That is, to say yes to less and no to many opportunities that come your way. But how do you know what to say no to and when to say no, and what about disappointing people? All good questions. Here are some points to help you work this out.
1. Anchor all decisions in your beliefs and values. When assessing an opportunity, whether it is something you come across or something someone asks you to help out with, evaluate to what degree does this opportunity align with your beliefs and values. If it does not, the answer is simple. It is No! Sorry, I can’t help out with this. You don’t have to get into all the details necessarily, but decline the invitation or opportunity.
2. It must relate to your purpose and the legacy you want to leave. As we start exploring and living our vision for our lives, we should have a sense of what our purpose is and what we want our legacy to be. We need to know how the things we do will lead us to living a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Potential opportunities should fit into the vision we have for our lives, the purpose and legacy we want to leave. If it doesn’t, find a way to say no.
3. It should tie in to your skills and abilities. We may be asked to help out with an activity for which we have no aptitude. Make sure what you spend your time on is in line with gifts and talents.
4.Make sure you are passionate about the opportunity. You need to be excited and enthused about the activities that you will spend your time on. Perseverance only goes so far. You need to really want to spend time on this opportunity.
5.Beware of your energy level. We all have different capacities. Some people get up early, go to bed late. They just have high energy levels and seem to take on a lot — almost anything, it seems. We are different with varying capacities and energy levels and a different ability to take on several things at once. Know your capacity and energy level. Don’t judge yourself if you feel your capacity and energy level is not as high as others’.
6. Be realistic. No matter how much energy or capacity you think you may have, we as humans tend to underestimate how much time and energy a prospective opportunity will take and overestimate how much energy and capacity we have and how many things we can do at once. Get advice from a few trusted friends, potentially family members, who know you well. They may well be more realistic than you will be about how many activities you can take on at once.
7. It is not about what others want you to do. You can’t live your life based on satisfying other people’s expectations. First, that is not the way to live. Second, you can never keep everyone happy and satisfy everyone’s expectations. That is a losing battle. Decisions should be based on what you want to do; and how the opportunity lines up with your beliefs and values, gifts and skills and passions, and the purpose and legacy you want to leave.
I am not a huge believer in New Year’s resolutions. Most of us don’t keep them and then we are disappointed. But a New Year’s resolution to just say No? That makes sense. Resolve this year to pare back your activities to the key ones that tie into your beliefs and values, are in line with your gifts and skills and passions and your purpose and legacy.
Say yes to the great opportunities, and say no to the good. Make the bar for you to say yes higher. It is not about keeping everyone happy and not disappointing them. It is not even about doing so much that you are competing with yourself to make sure your legacy is not just good, but incredible. It is not a competition with others or yourself.
To have a great impact and make a difference, do less. You will end up having a greater impact and making a greater difference than you think.
Reflection
Pare back your activities. Resolve to say no to the good so that only the great opportunities are left
Make sure all your opportunities and activities are in line with your beliefs and values, gifts and skills, your passions and reinforce your purpose and legacy.
It is not about making others happy or competing against yourself to make you feel worthy. Do what you feel led to. Your self worth should not be tied up by how many things you are doing.
We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.
Our yearlong examination of the actionable truths that will guide you along the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap begins with a discussion of where your journey from setback to significance begins: your crucible. We look at what you need to do to reach the point where you understand it didn’t happen to you but happened for you.
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 be sure to subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. A crucible is something that is so painful that it fundamentally alters the trajectory of your life. There was a life before the crucible, and there's your life afterwards. Typically, you are never the same after that crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
That will be a painful and can be a pivotal thing, an inflection point in your life's journey that can set you on the road to what we believe is the most fulfilling destination yet: a life of significance. In this first episode of our Series Within the Show, unpacking the actionable truths that help you navigate the Beyond the Crucible roadmap, we'll help you see the hopeful perspective, that your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you.
Well, friends, we're excited that you're with us today, because today, we're going to talk about our refreshed way, it's not entirely new, but it is laser focused, to helping you get from your worst day to your greatest opportunity. It's what we've dubbed the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. This is how we describe it. I'm going to read it straight from the notes here. How we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity.
We provide the essential actionable truth to inspire hope, enable, and equip them to write their own life-affirming story. That's what we're going to talk about today. Last week, we talked about the big picture of how we built it. Now, we're going to talk about the first actionable truth. It's all tied to this roadmap that we built from our proprietary statistically valid research into how people experience crucibles, and what we've learned from our experience and the experience of our podcast guests about what it takes to turn a trial into a triumph.
The most revolutionary news to us is that in analyzing this roadmap, we've identified what we are calling, as I said, the actionable truths of the brand. To pass these life-changing truths along to you, our listeners and viewers, this year, we're going to do something similar to what we did last year with our Series Within the Show, we called it, which featured stories from Warwick's book, it's right here, Crucible Leadership. We're going to do the same sort of thing here in 2025.
We're going to go through each of the 10 actionable truths, one per month, and explore the ways they can help you make your way through the roadmap. Again, I'm never used to talking this much in an episode, so I have to catch myself, or catch my breath or something. Everybody wants to hear from you, Warwick, and the first question I have for you is to help level set folks to our discussion of the first of these truths. Let me just ask you straight up, why did we call these actionable truths? What do we mean by that?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a good question, Gary. Just to expand a bit more on what we've been talking about, at Beyond the Crucible, our focus has always been how do you get beyond your worst day to lead a life of significance, which we define as a life on purpose dedicated to serving others? How do you get out of the pit of your worst day? With all the research, quantitative and qualitative, and the work we've done in our Turner Plus episodes on the podcast, we've developed what we now call the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap: how you go from trial, in other words, crucible, to triumph, which we define as a life of significance.
As you're moving along the journey from your worst day to a better life, a more fulfilling life that's focused on others, we've found that there are 10 actionable truths, and we think of them as catalysts. They help you move along the journey from that worst day to your life-affirming vision. In other words, when you achieve that vision, you're living a life of significance. In a sense, we believe that these actionable truths, they're implicit in our work. If you look at the chapter headings in my book, Crucible Leadership, you'll find things-
Gary Schneeberger:
This book right here, sorry.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly.
Gary Schneeberger:
Book right here, Crucible Leadership.
Warwick Fairfax:
You'll find things like authenticity, vision, perseverance, a number of the actionable truths that we'll talk about. What we're doing here is we're actually talking about them more, because they're so critical in moving from trials to triumph.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I don't think we can accentuate that enough, that this is not brand new stuff, but it is groundbreaking stuff in the sense that in the first episode that we did on this, Warwick, you made the point of saying that it's truth, yes, but it's truth in action is where the rubber meets the road, where the crucibles get overcome, moved beyond. I think that's a critical emphasis, why we call them actionable truths.
It is, to your point, I don't think we can say it enough as we talk about it. This is not really new stuff, it's just a fresh perspective on the stuff we've always talked about. That's fair, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really is. I like the emphasis you're putting on truth and action. That's a great way to phrase it. You could say, "Yeah, I believe in being honest, but in my life, I tend not to be honest, like ever. Perseverance, absolutely, I highly value perseverance, but the first line of trouble, I give up." Those are not actionable truths, or those are meaningless truths. A truth is only a truth to you if you actually live it. They're probably not truths at all.
We think these actionable truths, as we've been talking about, they're accelerators, they're enablers to move from trial to triumph from your worst state of life and significance. I think you could make a case that without these actionable truths, you may never get out of the pit. You almost certainly won't live that life-affirming vision that you've always wanted to live, a life of significance, as you put it, a life of triumph, which is, in a sense, how we define a life of triumph.
When you think about it, and we'll talk more about today's actionable truth in a moment, but without perseverance, without authenticity, without vision, so many of the things we're going to talk about, how do you really move ahead in a meaningful way? I don't think you do.
Gary Schneeberger:
All right, there is the preamble for what we're talking about here today, folks. Now, the meat is what is the first actionable truth? The first actionable truth is, and this is where we need in post-production, we need like a ding-ding-ding or something when I say it, because the first actionable truth is crucible. This is where the process starts. It starts with the crucible, and that goes all the way back.
That first truth goes all the way back to, for the third time, your book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance. You use that word crucible for a reason. We've used that word crucible, we named the podcast Beyond the Crucible. What, for our purposes, Warwick, is a crucible, and why is it relevant to what we're discussing, what people go through after a setback?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, Gary. Crucible is really the defining concept that we have. The book is called Crucible Leadership. Our podcast is called Beyond the Crucible. A crucible is something that is so painful that it fundamentally alters the trajectory of your life. There was a life before the crucible, and there's your life afterwards. Typically, you are never the same after that crucible. It's really essential to what we're talking about is how do you get beyond your crucible? How do you get beyond your worst day?
The challenge that we all have is when you go through a crucible that's so excruciating, how do you get beyond it? How do you not let your worst day to find the rest of your life? It happens. You might have a friend or a family member in which you might say, "It's so sad to say, but their crucible, it really did their lives. They weren't the same. Their spirit wasn't the same. The way they treated others, it just, they never emotionally or spiritually recovered. They never got beyond it."
What our mission here is to help people get beyond their worst day. Yeah, a crucible, it's painful. We understand that, but how do you figure a way to be able to move on from that terrible experience?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and one of the ways that we've talked about a lot, and it's baked into this actionable truth, and all of the actionable truths, actually, is this idea that we've said many, many, many times: your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you. That is really a great way to think about this first actionable truth is that part of the action to take is to understand, it didn't happen to you, it happened for you, which is critically important.
One of the things I'm going to do here, Warwick, when we do every one of these, is I'm going to try to give a dictionary definition of what our actionable truth is, and I'm going to use, when I do that, folks, because it's my favorite dictionary, I'm going to hold it up here. It's big, it's heavy. It's the American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster from 1828. It's his first ever dictionary.
There's just some really great ways that words are defined in very foundational terms. Here's how that dictionary describes what a crucible is. It's a chemical vessel or melting pot made of earth, and so tempered and baked as to endure extreme heat without melting. It is used for melting ores, metals, et cetera. That's really what happens, right? When we go through a crucible, it's hot, it hurts, but it does refine us. That's the reason that you chose the word crucible all the way back to your book, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true, Gary. A crucible is yes, as you said, a cauldron of molten metal that it really separates the core, the essence from the impurities. Like with alloys, it forms something new. It creates something that wasn't there before. Yes, it's painful, but we believe a crucible can be refining. As you said, it didn't happen to you, it happened for you. I would say pretty much every guest we've had on the podcast, yes, they may have wished what they went through hadn't happened, but yet in another sense, they were grateful, because it made them a person that they were not before.
It gave them a mission. So many of our guests have said, "What I went through was a gift, in the sense I wouldn't be who I am, I wouldn't have the passion to help others." Very often, a mission is formed out of what you went through, and you want to use that mission to help others who maybe have gone through your circumstance. It's really, it's painful, but there can be a blessing, a gift in that cauldron of molten metal, because it can help you become the person you never expected you would be, but are grateful for who you are.
Maybe none of us enjoy the process. Life is not easy, but having gone through the process, you want to think, well, I don't want to have gone through this for nothing. There's got to be a purpose to the pain. With pretty much every guest we've had, there has been a purpose in the pain, there has been a mission, there has, at least according to our guests, there has actually been a gift amidst the cauldron that they've gone through.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. I love the fact that we've put these actionable truths in the context of what we're calling Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, because a roadmap gets you from point A to point B, and it doesn't do it overnight, usually. It doesn't do it in the first 15 seconds you pull out of the driveway, right? There's a time period here. When we talk about understanding, it didn't happen to you, it happened for you, please understand, folks, we're not saying that 10 minutes after your most difficult, painful day, you're going to land in that space.
Warwick's correct. All of our guests have talked about this in one way or another, but for some of them, for many of them, for Warwick and for me in our own crucible experiences, it was a matter of years until we started to move in that didn't happen to me, happened for me perspective. Don't rush yourself through the road map, I guess is the message here. Let's go now into, Warwick, there are three stages in our research that have shown us people experience these things after a crucible. The first one is this: limited awareness of the problem. Unpack that a little bit for folks.
Warwick Fairfax:
You often are aware that you're in pain, but you might not be aware of the pain that you might have caused, or the circumstance might have caused to others. We're very often focused on ourselves, not other people. As you go through the journey from trial to triumph, our hope is that your self-awareness grows, and including your self-awareness about the crucible. What happened? What was I feeling? Why did it happen? How many other people were affected? Maybe we blamed ourselves more than we should.
Yes, we might know the pain, but really, we might have a limited awareness of what happened, why it happened, how many people were affected. One of the interesting things that we found in our research is that 72% of people did say that they had a crucible that was so painful, it fundamentally transformed their life. There was the 28%, and they said they didn't have a crucible.
What's interesting is when we spoke to our researchers, David and Heather Lukas, they're experts at research, they dug through the data, and cross-tabulated all sorts of data points. Their conclusion, based on the data, that 28% were in denial. Life is so tough, it's hard to believe that nobody's had something that was painful that it changed their life, that was very painful. The conclusion was, while everybody may have had a crucible, some people may not be as aware of it.
Maybe they're saying, "Well, life is tough. Everybody I know has just been through a terrible circumstance. I don't really think of it as crucible. It's just called being alive. It's not fun." They might view it as almost as fatalistic mentality. Why call life a crucible? What does that mean? The first step is really being aware that you had a crucible in the first place.
Don't discount it saying, "Well, everybody else has gone through challenging circumstances, so I don't feel I'm special. Therefore, it's not really a crucible, it's just living." Don't discount it because you can't move on from something if you're in denial that it has happened. If you're in denial that it's changed you, and you need to be aware of that change, and make sure you're being changed for the good, not for the worst.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
You've got to be aware of the problem. You can't deny it, and you have to be aware of the extent of the problem. You also have to be aware that this problem very often didn't just affect you, it affected others.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. I hope people don't, and I certainly maybe have beat myself up in my own crucible, my big crucible is that maybe I didn't get that point quickly enough. The reality of it is, as you were talking, I started thinking about if you take it for me, if I take a really, really hard nap, I'm really out, I'll wake up and I'll be like, the phone will ring or something, and I'll wake up and I'll not know where I am for a second.
I think that's a normal experience sometimes after a crucible. Not that you don't know where you are, but in our research, we talk about change the trajectory of your life. That can take you from everything's fine to everything's not fine, and it's not uncommon to not know, get your fingers on the full awareness of what you're going through. That's going to be a process pretty much every time, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great point. If you've, you said, had a nap, and you'd been knocked unconscious, and you're kind of waking up, you're not thinking clearly. You're not thinking, "Okay, I've got five things to do today. Got to make sure I call this person, and care for that, and do this." You're thinking, "Ow, what happened?" Basically. Typically, if not always, when you go through a crucible, in those first days, hours, months, your chances of making a good decision are low, between low and zero, probably.
Because you're in such pain, you can't think clearly. You can't feel clearly. Spiritually, you're typically in a bad way. Yeah, your awareness of yourself and what's happened, all you can think of, "This pain is excruciating," and that may be all the level of thinking that you're going through at that point. How in the world can you be fully aware of a problem when the only thing you can think of is, "This is excruciating, this is agony?"
That's the primary thought, rather than, "What happened? How much was it my fault? Are other people hurt? Let's look at it. What can I learn?" You're not thinking that. You're just thinking, "This is agony."
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, but here's the good news folks. That's not where it ends, right? The second example we have here about the way in which people experience crucibles in the aftermath of crucibles, the second example is there develops an increased awareness of the need to change. First thing is there's a limited awareness. Then as time goes on, as healing starts to bubble up and happen, the second step then becomes increased awareness of the need to change. Talk about that a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's one thing to be aware that you've had a crucible. Maybe you're even aware that other people have been affected, but it's another thing to do something about it. In those first hours, days, months, you might be thinking, "Oh, my gosh, this is so painful. This is excruciating." You're not initially always thinking, "Okay, great, this is painful, but how do I get beyond it?"
Still, lastly, you're thinking, "Well, I'm grateful for this pain because hey, it didn't happen to me. It happened for me." Those aren't the initial thoughts.
Gary Schneeberger:
No, no, they're not.
Warwick Fairfax:
We get that. It's not like from zero to 100 in two milliseconds. That's the roadmap. No, it takes a tad longer than that. Eventually, and it could be weeks, months, maybe years, you've got to make a decision that says, "Okay, how do I move beyond this? How do I get out of the pit? How do I not let my worst day define me?" There's a reason we use that phrase so often at Beyond the Crucible, because we really don't want anybody to feel like their worst day has defined them, nobody listening, nobody anywhere.
How do you not let it define you? You've got to figure out, how do I move on? How do I move from trial to triumph? How do I move from my worst day to a life of significance? One of the things we say a lot at Beyond the Crucible is life is about choices, and we have to make the choice to move on. We have to make the choice that we're going to find a way to get out of the pit. We're going to find a way to move forward.
It may not be easy, it may take years. We've got to make a choice, "Okay, I'm not going to live in this pit any longer. I'm going to find a way to move on."
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. The third point, I say of my own crucible, I tell people my alcoholic past, and I get sober. In my own testimony, I become a Christian. Then I tell people jokingly, "And then everything was perfect after that," which is just simply not the case after crucibles, right? That's why the third point here, I think, is extraordinarily helpful that our research uncovered, is the third one is fear: a resistance to change.
Why is that so prevalent in what people go through, that one step forward, one step back? It's not always, as you have said many times, a one and done. You can pass through stage two, where you have an increased awareness for the need to change, but then stage three can make you fearful and resistant to it. Why is that third stage, what happens there and why is that important?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, change is hard. It's often painful. Maybe you were used to the old life, but maybe that life is never going to be the same. Certainly, if you've had a physical crucible, there will be physical challenges that you didn't have before. If you're a survivor of abuse, you've lost a business, failed financially, maybe a marriage broke up, you've lost a loved one, there will be realities that you don't understandably want to face. It's so painful. How do you live in the new normal?
Often you're thinking, "Well, I don't want to live in the new normal. I'm not going to accept that what happened happened. I'm not willing to move on. I don't want to move into this new world." Ultimately, you can't undo what happened, either what happened to you or what you did. You've got to find a way to move forward. Yes, it's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. You're going to be a different person. There's going to be a new normal.
You've got to accept that fact, but it's so easy to fear the pain of the hard work that is going to be required. How do I get through today and be a different person? How does that happen? It's not easy. We get why people fear change and just don't want to change. What's the alternative? Staying in the agony of the pit? That's the alternative. You've got a choice. Do I want to go through the pain of change and moving on, which ultimately might lead me to triumph, to a life of significance?
There is a promise of a better tomorrow, so it's going to be painful, but it's pain for a reason. It's pain for a purpose in the sense to get to a better tomorrow, to a triumph, to a life of significance. The other pain is one that leads to no hope, to eternal living in a pit. That's a certainty if you don't move on. Why in the world would you want to do that? Of the two pains, there's one pain in which there's no hope. The other pain is one in which there is hope. Make the right choice. Choose the path of potential pain that leads to hope.
Gary Schneeberger:
Our conversation takes a fascinating turn when we discuss something not talked about a lot about the pit, but first, these words from our sponsors. It's true, isn't it, Warwick, that sometimes in crucible situations, the pit can feel comfortable, right? It's definitely haunting, it's definitely difficult, but it can feel comfortable, and it's hard to break out of.
That can be something that can knock people for a loop too is that the pit, as bad as it is, is known, and it's comfortable in the sense that you know what you're getting there, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a good point, Gary. I think of that movie that's set in Maine, the Shawshank Redemption, and there's a scene in that movie where a prisoner gets released and he can't handle being released. In fact, so much is his inner turmoil, he actually commits suicide. It is not uncommon for prisoners when they're being released to find a way to commit a crime to get back inside. It's the new normal for them. They're used to the pit.
Sometimes, as hard as it may be to understand, we're used to who we are in that pit. There may be some people that have grown up in a circumstance in which being in a crucible is the only life they've ever lived. We've known people in which there was never a before the crucible. The crucible was always what was.
There's a tendency in which we don't like to go into the world of the unfamiliar, and so we're used to the crucible, and we do understand that, but you may be used to it, it may be comfortable in a sense, but don't you want to live in a better tomorrow where there's hope, where you're helping others? Not just focused on your own understandable agony and pain, where you triumph, where you lead a life of significance?
We want you to live a better and more fulfilling tomorrow, and we think that's the better choice. Yes, there'll be pain, but just think, do you really want to be comfortable in agony, as opposed to maybe it'll be challenging, but it will be a more fulfilling life? We understand that, but don't choose comfort in the sense of staying in the pit, because ultimately, that's not a choice that you want to live your whole life through.
Gary Schneeberger:
No, and that's the great thing about the actionable truths is that they offer the hope that wherever you're at, whatever truth you're at, whatever part of the roadmap you're on, there's hope if you just take another step forward. You talk all the time, Warwick, about the power of one step, and that ability to take stock of the situation, and take that one step, even if it's fearful, even if it may not be comfortable, is critical to moving from trial to triumph.
Actionable truths truly are an important measure. Guess what, folks? We know they work. You know how we know they work? Our host has walked through them. This is going to be an interesting part of this Series Within the Show on the actionable truths, and Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, because we're going to look this, every actionable truth, we're going to look at it in a real life test. We're going to look at it through a real life lens.
Let's talk about your crucible, Warwick, and apply the three things we just covered from the example of your story.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Gary, I grew up in a 150 year old family media company in Australia. It was founded by my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax. It grew to be very large. It had newspapers, TV, radio, magazines. It had the equivalent of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, with the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age of Melbourne, and The Financial Review. In early 1987, my dad died. I was 26 years old. I was actually finishing my last year at Harvard Business School.
I'd done my undergraduate degree at Oxford University, and then worked on Wall Street, and there was turmoil within the family. I believe the company wasn't being well-run and wasn't being run along the ideals of the founder. The market felt that the company was right for hostile takeovers. There were various corporate raiders that seemed to be lurking. In late August 1987, I launched a $2.25 billion takeover to bring the vision of the company back to the founder and see that the company was well managed.
Unfortunately, through the takeover, we ended up having too much debt. Yes, I brought in new management that helped increase operating profits by 80% the first year, but the debt was so high, newspapers being very cyclical, that by late 1990, company had to file for bankruptcy. This was a devastating crucible. I felt responsible for ending 150 years of family control of this iconic media company. I felt I'd let my parents down, my family, and frankly, thousands of employees in the company. They felt safe with the Fairfax family.
Who was going to own the company now? It was just a lot of uncertainty. I was in a bad way. In my case, I was in a lot of pain. I felt like a lot of what happened was my fault. I'm somebody that tends, when things go wrong, not to blame others, but to blame myself. I don't know whether that's good or bad. It just is my typical psychological precondition, if you will. That's how I respond to things. I felt I'd let so many people down, parents, my dad, family, employees of the company.
Yeah, I don't know how much I was analyzing the problem, other than what have I done? How could I have been so dumb? That was the overriding thought. I made such cataclysmic mistakes. I had a Harvard MBA. How could I have made those assumptions? How could I have assumed that other family members wouldn't sell out when this takeover that they viewed as hostile was launched by a 26-year-old? Who'd want to be trapped in a company controlled by a 26-year-old?
I was focused on my part and just look what I've done. How could I have been so dumb? That was sort of the main analysis, the main feelings that I was going through. Yeah, I probably didn't have an accurate awareness of what happened.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. We talked earlier as we were unpacking what happens in the aftermath of a crucible, this idea that it's not one and done. There can be one step forward, one step back, one step forward, two steps back, three steps back. Another way to think about that is there's delayed healing. It's not instantaneous healing, and it's not necessarily healing that's over and done, next, check the box. Move on.
In your own story, did what you've just described, did what you were going through after your crucible, did that lead to some delayed healing for you as you were, even before it was created, the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, as you were traversing the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap before it existed, but it was in what you were doing? Was there some delayed healing in your process?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I think there was. As the years have gone by, I realized, yes, I certainly share a lot of responsibility and blame for this, but I look back, and there were rifts within the family going back decades, even before I was born. My father dying, it was certainly a catalyst in terms of some of the divisions, perhaps. There was just a lot of things that would make being in that situation very difficult. I'm more of a reflective advisor, not a take-no-prisoners, corporate raider, or even a general manager executive.
There were so many reasons why to make that work would've been very difficult. I was listening to my parents' truth, if you will. My dad had been thrown out as chairman by other family members 11 years before, 1976. That, I didn't consciously think that was a factor at the time. Looking back, clearly it was. I felt like, how could other family members throw my father out as chairman, a man who I deeply admired and loved? There was all sorts of emotional influences, rifts.
It was just a very, very difficult situation. Doesn't mean to say I didn't make mistakes or I shouldn't share a blame, but there were so many other factors that it's enabled me to be a bit more, not lenient, but show a bit more grace to myself. Look, I was 26. It was a very difficult situation with the family and the rifts, and my dad having been thrown out as chairman, and I was hearing my parents' truth about how bad were. Whether they were or weren't is not really so relevant here.
It's just there was all sorts of factors, some poor advice from advisors, all sorts of factors that led to what happened. It doesn't mean it wasn't my fault. I certainly made a lot of mistakes. What it means is to be fully aware of the problem, and the crucible is really helpful to realize, okay, it would've been tough for anybody. Certainly tough for me, being a reflective advisor and being so young. Being aware of the problem has been very helpful as I move forward in my life, to give myself grace, and also to help me learn some lessons from it.
Just because you're hearing one truth from one set of people, even if it's your parents, it's not necessarily absolute truth. Get other perspectives. Obviously, I was young, so I'm at that age, give myself a bit of grace about doing that. I'm not going to go to other family members and say, "Hey, I was 15. You threw my dad out as chairman. Why did you do it? I'm just curious." That would've been expecting a lot, and they never would've brought it up with me.
Yeah, I've learned more to give myself some grace about what happened, and it was tough, but I think I have a more realistic, more objective view of what happened than I did at the time.
Gary Schneeberger:
As we talk about this, what keeps becoming clear to me is that, and I've never thought about it this way, a crucible is something that starts the process of you need to recover from this. You need to... It changes the trajectory of your life. That's what a crucible is in a noun sense, right? There is actionable, it's an actionable truth too. It's a bit of a verb too. Things that you need to do, steps that you need to take, realities that you need to face, courage you need to muster.
There is something that's absolutely actionable in the aftermath of a crucible, that without it, you're not going to get to where you've gotten and where our guests on the podcast have gotten. Does that make sense, the way I'm seeing that? It really is. A crucible happens to you and it happens for you. It does both in a real way.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true, Gary. One of the things I think of with crucibles, it's not one and done. It's like, "Okay, I spent a few months, I got counseling, maybe got some spiritual advice. I've learned about my gifts. Great. I've gone through a six months intensive, get over your crucible boot camp workshop, and I'm good. I never have to, there's no residual pain. I'm never triggered. Everything's just great. I may not know my vision yet, but I'm moving forward. I'm never looking back. I'm never thinking about what happened, never blaming myself more or less than I should. I'm good to go. I'm bulletproof."
That's just not real life. In my case, it took years to recover, as we'll get into. Most of the nineties were pretty challenging. Even now, if once in a blue moon, they sort of write about me in Australia in the media, and is that painful? Sure. Going back to Sydney, it's not always easy because it triggers memories of mistakes. There's various challenges within different family members. Yeah, I like to think I'm in a pretty good place, but it doesn't mean that the healing doesn't take a while.
It doesn't mean that there won't be scars. It doesn't mean that you won't be triggered. It's unrealistic to think that you'll never be triggered by your crucible. Most of us who are human, given the right set of circumstances, of course, we'll be triggered. The question is, okay, when you're triggered, what are you going to do about it?
You're going to wallow in the sense of self-recrimination or anger when you're triggered and say, "Okay, I understand what's happening. Let me figure out a way to move on from this subsequent almost crucible aftershock, if you will, like an earthquake. How am I going to move on from this subsequent feeling?"
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Well, let's have you finish the story, finish the last mile markers Beyond the Crucible Roadmap for your own story, where the actionable truths came into play.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, the rest of the story is after the company had to file for bankruptcy, we moved to America in early 1990s, my wife's American, and those years were tough. In a sense, they were my wilderness years. I know Winston Churchill talks about that in the 1930s when he was out of power, and obviously, not in that league, but in my own little world, they were my wilderness years. I felt terrible about myself and my self-image. I was very low.
Towards the end of that decade, I realized, I got to find some way to move forward. It wasn't like I wasn't trying in terms of getting some job, but it was pretty tough to get a job with a resume that said sort of out of work media mogul, or...
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, right.
Warwick Fairfax:
It was pretty tough. You've got to find a way to get out the pit of despair and self-incrimination and self-flagellation. Eventually, really, the secret for me being able to move forward was something we talk about a lot on Beyond the Crucible, and that's the power of one small step. The step I took, it really was a very small baby step. I couldn't get even to first base with an interview with any job. I went to a temp agency in Maryland where we live, and they found part-time positions for financial analysts.
Well, I'd worked on Wall Street. Back in the day, I was actually pretty good at Excel, so they put me through a little test on Excel. It's like, "You're actually pretty good at this." I have an analytical ability. After I went to this temp agency, that led to an initial part-time position with a sports company in Maryland. It was actually a large sports company that had the US headquarters in Maryland at the time. That led to a full-time position with an aviation services company.
Bit by bit, I got good performance reviews. I worked hard doing, financial analysis and then some strategic and business analysis. That first small step, getting that first temp job at that sports company at the time, doing budgeting, that was huge. It didn't seem like a big step. I was a Harvard MBA. I was thinking, "Gosh, I'm probably the lowest paid Harvard MBA in history."
At the time, while I was, I don't really care about money, but it wasn't good for the ego, but I was just happy for something. My kids were small. I wanted to bring in some kind of income. It was a small step, but in hindsight, it was huge getting that first several month temp job at that sports company in Maryland. It was a huge step, even though it seemed really, really small at the time.
Gary Schneeberger:
What I love about what you've just talked about, because you've just walked through the entirety of your biggest crucible, which you've talked about many times in many venues, in many places, you've given speeches about it, you've done interviews about it, you've done podcasts on it. What I love about the way that you just told that is that you've now arrived at a place, because of the healing that's come as you've walked the roadmap, as you've employed the actionable truths, you've arrived at a place where you can do it.
Tell me if this is accurate, somewhat matter-of-factly. There's not pain attached with it as much as there was in the early days, I think when you talk about it now, is there?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's very true. You might be thinking, "Well, why?" I've moved beyond my crucible. I'm not defined by my worst day. I am, from my perspective, leading a life of significance, a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others. Yes, I love what I do at Beyond the Crucible. I happen to be an elder at a non-denominational church in Maryland. I've been on my kids' school board, which is a Christian school, there's a number of other non-profits that we support that I help advise, I'm involved in in different ways.
I'm involved in things I deeply care about, organizations' mission I passionately believe in. I don't wallow in what happened with the takeover, the family of business, John Fairfax Limited. Doesn't mean I'm not triggered from time to time, but I don't really think about it much. It's easier to look back at what happened when you've moved on and you've had years of helping people. Frankly, my self-image was so low, there was a time in which I would think I couldn't lead my way out of a paperback, is the image that I had.
I couldn't really help anybody. I don't say that anymore. I may not be a CEO type, a manager in that sense, but I like to think I have some wisdom, some knowledge of leadership from obviously my challenges, mistakes, if you will, a certified international coach, Federation executive coach. Through my coaching, being on nonprofit boards, through, I like to think the thought leadership we have here at Beyond the Crucible, from learning from my guests, I like to feel like I am having an impact in my own way.
I feel like people see me in a different light these days. They're not looking at, "Oh, young Warwick," as they used to call me back in Australia because my dad is still Warwick Fairfax or was. It's like, at what point am I not young Warwick? Maybe if I hit 80 or 90, I won't be young Warwick, but I don't know. It's like, surely I've passed that stage, but maybe not. I'm not defined by that anymore. People see me very differently.
I even feel like I'm respected, in some sense, where back in the day, I'd say, "How could anybody respect me? I just wanted to hide. I'm not worthy of respect. I deserve everything I get. All those terrible cartoons in the Australian paper deserve all." That was almost my subconscious sense. I don't look at it that way. I'm not perfect. There's a lot of, I'm pretty, if not very, self-aware, just because I'm a reflective person, but I'm able to objectively say, "I do make contributions in my own world that people respect, and I'm grateful to be able to make a contribution and not being seen as this idiot, young person that could have had it all and just blew it because of his stupidity and naivety."
Everybody that knows me knows my story. I talk about my story at Beyond the Crucible like every podcast. It's not like I'm hiding it. It's out there, but people don't see me that way. In terms of how people see me, they don't see that I'm defined by that mistake and those terrible circumstances. They don't at all. I don't see myself that way, and others who know me don't see me that way either. Yes, it's a lot easier to be able to talk about it because I have moved on. Doesn't mean I'm not triggered, but I don't wallow in the pit. I'm not in the pit of despair anymore.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. That, folks, right there is an example of, I have jokingly referred to Warwick as Patient Zero for Beyond the Crucible. He's patient zero in the case of how, and why, and how deeply the actionable truths work. That is great news for you and for all of us who go through crucibles. Folks, we're just getting started.
This is just the first of 10 actionable truths. Warwick, as we wrap up this episode, what would you say is the big takeaway, the big couple of takeaways that you want to leave our listeners and viewers with today?
Warwick Fairfax:
The first step is really being aware of what happened, having an accurate appraisal of your crucible, what happened, how it affected you, how it affected others, your level of responsibility, not to overly blame, or not blaming yourself enough, but just really having an accurate appraisal of what happened. As I've talked about for me, grew up in a very difficult situation with a lot of turmoil and infighting between different factions. I'm more of a reflective advisor than a take-charge corporate executive.
I was hearing my parents' truths, not necessarily objective truth. There was all sorts of factors. My dad dying, and my other family members throwing my father out as chairman 11 years before, I now feel like I have an accurate appraisal of the problem. You have to have an accurate appraisal of what happened, why it happened. You can't move on until you really know what happened and why, and look at it objectively. We also need to be aware that we need to change. You can't just live in the pit.
You can't be like Shawshank Redemption and say, "Look, this is the only life I've ever lived or the only life I can remember, or I'm such a horrendous person. I don't deserve to be paroled. I don't deserve to get out of jail. I don't deserve to get out of prison. I need to stay here because I'm not worthy of anybody. Don't look at me, don't see me. Ignore me. Put me in solitary confinement with no windows for the rest of my life."
Some people can feel like that even if it wasn't their fault. People who have been abused, from what I understand, they can feel shame, even though none of it was their fault, but they feel like they're broken, they're damaged. Whatever leads you to that sense of shame, whether it was your fault or not your fault, you can't live in that pit forever. I believe from a spiritual perspective, I think of Psalm 139, which talks about we're all beautifully and wonderfully made by God, I believe we do have a creator that did make us beautifully and wonderfully.
Every human being has worth, has value. You have worth, you have value. You do not deserve to be in the pit. Make a decision that I will not stay here. I'll figure out a way to get out of it. That's really the key point is that we need to make a choice, that we will get beyond our crucible. We will move on. We are worthy as a human being. We will not stay in the pit. We won't be there forever. I think one of the things that helps you move on, and I know this doesn't happen overnight, is when you begin to have hope in a better tomorrow.
Doesn't mean that you think, "Oh, it'll all be roses and sunshine, and there won't be any pain, and I'll get over all of my pain and everything will be good." You just have the sense that there is hope. You have to have hope. You have to think that there will be a vision, a triumph, if you will, where you can get beyond your crucible, and lead a life of significance. This will be a life on purpose. This will be dedicated to serving others. Think about that better tomorrow, and maybe there'll be pain to change, but that pain leads to hope. That pain leads to joy and fulfillment.
Change doesn't happen easily, but make the decision that faced with the pain of staying where I am, almost like eternal pain forever, the pain of change, which leads to hope and a better tomorrow, which pain is worth it? Choose the pain of change. Choose to get out of the crucible. It won't be just you by yourself. If you're wise, you'll use what we call a team of fellow travelers, people that come alongside you that are for you. Maybe you have complimentary gifts that can encourage you when you feel down, which we all do from time to time.
That first step is really making the decision to get beyond your crucible. Just to go back to what we said, think about, if today's your worst day, what one small step can I take to get out of that crucible? Pretty much every guest we've had on the podcast has said that first small step was the biggest one. What small step are you going to take to try to get beyond your crucible?
I know it won't be easy. Don't think, "Oh, it's meaningless. What's the point?" Why could going to a temp agency and getting a part-time job with a sports company, why is that... That's not revolutionary. In of itself, it's not, but one small step leads to another small step, and that leads to what we call the flywheel of hope. We want that flywheel of hope to begin. What one small step are you going to take today to get out of your crucible?
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, I have been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken. Our host, Warwick Fairfax, has just spoken it with a thunderclap. Very well done, very great episode. This has been great, folks. This is just, remember, this is just the first actionable truth we'll be discussing in depth this year. Each month, we'll take a look at a new one, and how it's connected to the previous one to build out this Beyond the Crucible Roadmap we've been discussing.
Next time, we'll start taking a look at, drum roll, please, self-reflection. That's the next topic on the Series Within the Show on the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. Until the next time we're together, folks, please remember this. We want you to believe these truths that we talk about. More importantly than that, we want you to take action on them. That's why we called them actionable truths, because that's what's going to help you along the roadmap from trial to triumph. We will see you next week.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the Helper or the Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there.
It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit Beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment, and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
Judy Isaacson Elias’ traumatic childhood was caused, she says, by the traumas her father brought home with him from his service in World War II. Her dad was withdrawn, struggled with job stability and connecting with his family. The dysfunction in her home led her to run away and turn to alcohol and drugs.
But a trip to Israel her father arranged for her led her to reconnect with her Jewish faith, and the healing she felt in doing so would decades later give her an idea to help other veterans like her father who suffered from what has come to be known as moral injury.
She founded the Heroes to Heroes, a program that equips struggling veterans with a life plan that incorporates all aspects of well-being, with spirituality as a cornerstone for ongoing support and belonging within their communities.
“The miracles that I’ve seen here are just phenomenal,” Elias says. “The reconnection to faith is just the most beautiful thing to watch. My belief is once you heal from within, all the other healing is easy.”
To learn more about Heroes to Heroes, visit www.heroestoheroes.org
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 be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
If I'm going to work with vets, I'm going to solve this problem. All of a sudden it started, it became a mission. And I don't know how in so many ways, how much control I had over this mission and whether I was able to say no.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's our guest this week, Judy Isaacson Elias talking about the moment she found her calling after a tough upbringing that lasted well into adulthood, as you'll hear her explain, the trials began due to the moral injury her father suffered because of what he experienced during his wartime military service. The nonprofit she founded, Heroes to Heroes helps traumatize veterans like her dad. How? Keep watching.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Judy, thank you so much for being here. I love what you do with Heroes to Heroes. Just working with veterans has been through so much, they've seen so much, and you talk about moral injury, which I'd never really heard of before. So I'd love to explore a bit more about that. But before we get to it, I'd love to hear a bit of the backstory because whenever we talk to people, there's often a reason behind the passion they have for serving others. There's often an origin story. And it seems like there is for you, Judy. So just talk a bit about how you grew up and your dad and just some of the themes that led you to do what you're doing now.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Yes. There's so much to it. I grew up in a tough household. We're three daughters. My father was a World War II vet. Second day Normandy, battle of the Bulge. He liberated a concentration camp and in many ways he never came home. Our family structure was just tough. Okay. I will say many people would dream to be in my situation. We weren't impoverished. We didn't have extra money, but we functioned. But emotionally, it was very, very difficult. People say to me, wow, I miss my father's smile. I miss his laugh. I don't remember my father's smile or laugh. He had a tough time just being out of military. And at the time it was buck it up, move forward, put on your best shoes and get to work. And times were tough in the house. Growing up with my sisters was a challenge. I'm a middle child. And I ended up rebelling. There was some mental illness in the house and I couldn't function with it. I really felt sorry for my dad. I made friends who were interested in alcohol and drugs and going down the wrong path and typical teen stuff, but I started taking it a little too far.
I'm from a Jewish family and my parents were very connected to their faith to a point. And everything became about you have to do this, you have to do that because of God. Not even necessarily because of God, because of being Jewish. I didn't get it. I didn't understand my faith. I didn't understand what was going on in my house, why it was so chaotic. And I checked out and I did everything I could to get away. I went to stay with friends. I didn't want to be with my family. And I kept in touch with my father. And at one point he said to me, "Would you go to Israel?" And I said, "I'm not interested. I don't want anything to do with my faith or Israel." I was gone and I felt there was no way back.
And at one point my father said, "Look, we're going to take you. We found some money. We can send you on a pilgrimage to Israel with a group of teens. Would you go?" And then he said, "Would you go for me?" And I said, "Oh boy. How can I say no?" In my 16 and a half year old way I said, "All right, I'll do it." And in my head I said, "Well, there's no drinking age. I'm going with a bunch of people my age. I'll find a reason. I'll find things to do. We'll have a good time." The next thing I know, I'm in Jerusalem where I am right now as I'm speaking. And it was the day we were going to the Western Wall. And it's interesting I'm having this conversation because about five hours ago, I was at the Western Wall today. And I said to my friends, I can't go. This is too hard. I have cursed God. I've been so bad, I can't face it. And my friend said, "Look, you're Jewish. We're in Israel. You've got to do this." And I literally had tears rolling down my face as I'm going to the wall and I was shaking. I said, "I don't deserve this. I'm not worthy of this." And my friend said, "You got to do it."
I went up to the wall, I put my hand on that wall and it was like my whole life came together. I just said, "Wait. I'm not alone and I must have a mission. I must have a purpose. I've got to do this." And I came home and I started getting more ... Just being active in my faith. I decided to keep kosher, which is something, being Jewish, it made me know who I was every minute of the day because I had to worry about what I ate. And I started getting involved more and more in my faith. I got married. We decided to raise our kids to be Orthodox Jews, which at the time I really didn't know what it was. Okay. Welcome to a real world here. But in that house I recreated my childhood home and I was walking on eggshells and I was scared to be home. I don't feel at times I was the best parent because I didn't know how to ... I didn't have a role model. I didn't know how to be that mom, that loving mom. But I worked hard and I pushed at it.
I went through a difficult time because my marriage was not a good one. And I was again here I recreated the afraid to be home, walking on eggshells in my house, afraid I was going to do the wrong thing. And in the meantime, I had a very big career in media. And so I would go out during the day, be a strong woman, come home and turn into someone else. So again, I started to run and I started to just ... Took a job where I was traveling and just be out. And in 2001, my father passed away as a result of a car accident on his way to a Jewish war veterans meeting. And I said, "What's going on?" His friends all came to the funeral. I still have the flag. And one of his friends said to me, we were so surprised your dad went this way. We thought he would go in his own time and place. I was shocked by it. And I said, "I don't really know what he's talking about. I don't get it." And I just parked it and moved on.
And in 2009, I was invited to Walter Reed to visit our soldiers. And when I walked into that hospital and I saw our soldiers there, and I looked in their eyes and I said, "There's something going on. I've got to do something as a mom, as someone who's been through some stuff." In many ways, they look like me. And I said, "Let me help out." And I started volunteering at veterans organizations. I liked some of what I saw, but there was a lot I didn't like. And one of the things I saw, people were doing what I had been doing as a teen, which is send them for a weekend, go out drinking, go out partying. Yes, everybody feels better. It's a great time. But then you go home. At 22 suicides a day I saw we were not solving this problem.
So I said, "I'm a problem solver. I've got to ..." And in many ways I was working on myself and I didn't even realize it at the time. So I thought back to when I was 16 years old and I said, "Wow. What if I took veterans who were struggling and struggling with just this pain ..." And I didn't know it was called moral injury. It was a gut feeling. What if I took them and helped them find their faith and help find them connection? Would it help them the way it helped me move forward? And I thought how I had moved very much forward but not forward enough to where I am now. And it is a growth process.
But I started studying suicide and I was looking at the research and I'm going, why would somebody do this? On my darkest days that never even occurred to me. And when you dig deep into suicide research, it seems to come to two things. People need a sense of belonging and a sense of faith. And then as I started looking at this, it started coming together and helping them, first of all find that connection to faith and find a sense of belonging. And I found with me, I had found my faith, I hadn't yet found my sense of belonging. And so it all came together at that moment in 2010. I said, "Wow. That's what I've been looking for for the past ..." At the time, 50 years. Was that sense of belonging. You know what? Maybe this is what I needed to do. And that's how Heroes to Heroes started.
Warwick Fairfax:
That epiphany you had at the Western Wall was pretty amazing. It felt like it changed your life. You found hope amidst the challenges you grew up with. It seems like as we sometimes say you found an anchor for your soul. So do you feel like there was a before the Western Wall, Judy and an after the Western Wall Judy and you were just a fundamentally different person?
Judy Isaacson Elias:
There definitely was. Before the Western Wall, Judy was ... I don't even know if I really thought things through. I think there was a lot of that teenage, how do I feel for the moment? What am I doing for the moment? And there was no, where am I going? There was no self discovery. There was no stopping and thinking. Probably, when I think back, it was too much for me to process and there was no one to reach out to. So no adult in the room in many ways I could say, "Wait a minute. I need your help with something." And that was not something I was taught to do. I didn't have access to that that I knew of. I probably did. There were probably adults there who would've said, "Hey, I'm happy to hear you." But I didn't know how to get there. When I think about that with teens and people in general, that's something that I work on very hard helping people understand that I'm there.
So there was that part. And then after I felt like had a foundation and I had something to strive for and I had something. I felt like God was with me now all the time. That I wasn't alone. That as I was making these decisions, even if they were decisions that were just little steps to move forward, I felt like I was going to be okay.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's the sense that you belong and that God cares about every intimate aspect of your life. He created the stars and the heaven. He created the heavens and the earth that there is a God that actually cares about Judy and every aspect of her life and that you belong. That's a transformative experience.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
It made all the difference in the world. I was able to go to college. I ended up spending my junior year in Jerusalem here at Hebrew University. And I was able to take chances that were really good life choice chances instead of, you know what, let me just do this and see what's going on. I was able to look at things and go, I wanted to help other people. I thought I wanted to be a social worker and I wanted to work with adoptive children. And I don't know why at the time. And I think back to that, it's not a passion for me now, but at the time that was a passion for me. And there were just no jobs there for a BA in social work. When I finished school, I ended up getting into media and building a career and liking that.
But there was always something richer in my life. And I think that's what my faith did and my connection did for me. It broadened my life. It made it richer. And as I started getting more and more observant and observing the Sabbath and observing the holidays and building a family around that, I started seeing how rich my life was and how many experiences I had that were really good positive ... I no longer had to go drink. I no longer had to go to a rock concert. I didn't have to go to all these events to get that high anymore.
Warwick Fairfax:
You had this inner peace, this inner belonging. You may not have known where God had have you go in the course of your life, but you felt like there's a purpose, there's a direction, and that gives you some sense of tranquility.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
It is. And it's like, I guess like a landing pad. If something was going on and I had a ... I don't know. I had a very tough marriage. So there was that space I could get to and I could say, "All right. You know what? The kids are all right. We're doing well. We're having a nice Shabbat dinner together. We're enjoying the holiday. We're just experiencing the greatest things in life together." Which is the family and a place where my kids are happy. They felt safe at home and I never had that as a child. So being able to give that to them and that peace. But I started growing and growing with it, and then my kids got older and moved out and my marriage got very, very difficult and I started going backwards and that was scary. And that was around the early ... Finally, I left in 2016 and it took me a couple of years again of self-discovery, but I had the basis, I had the foundation. And I was able to say, "Okay. This is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that peace."
I never had a home until I moved out, had my own apartment where I felt comfortable 100% of the time. And I said, "If I'm going to ever do this again, get married again, I want to be able to have a home that feels like this, where when I walk in, I'm not walking on eggshells and I know I can do it." Six months later, I had my first female team travel to Israel with Heroes to Heroes, and I accompanied them. And one of the young women from Israel, she had been an IDF soldier, she was a veteran. She volunteered for the program. And she turned to me on the last day and said, "I'd like to introduce you to my dad." And I said, "I don't mix business and ... I don't know." And she said, "No. I think you two are a lot alike." And I said, "You know what? I'm going to take the leap. I can have faith. I can build up that faith."
My husband and I just visited her with our fourth grandchild from her. We have been married for going on six years and it's been the greatest experience of my life. We have this beautiful, safe, peaceful home. And he decided in his retirement to study to become a rabbi. And he ended up getting ordained about a year and a half ago. And we have this just rich house of just the two of us, our dog, Benji and God, and it is fabulous. And it's just been a wonderful experience. And now he works as a chaplain. He volunteers, he works with me as a chaplain for Heroes to Heroes. And he works with our vets. He's an Air Force vet, so he has been in the military. He understands. And we're building this incredible, incredible life together that I feel like I conjured it up in a dream.
Warwick Fairfax:
So I want to shift to what you do with Heroes to Heroes. It's interesting as you talk about a very successful and at one point, Morgan Stanley and then media negotiated for advertising and agencies. I think you said you were doing great and working with some great people, but yet it felt like there was something missing. I think you've said something like it was fun and lucrative but not fulfilling. It seemed like there was a hole in your heart and your sou. It wasn't terrible. I think you're maybe close to 50, but it felt like ... It's almost like a conversation with God saying, "God, I'm doing fine, but I think I want more."
Judy Isaacson Elias:
I don't even know if I was consciously seeking something, but I think I was. I don't know. I don't know if I didn't have the confidence to do it or I just was thinking about it. But when I was in Walter Reed, all of a sudden I was like, "I have to do something." And it overpowered me. And I just went. And I'm the type of person if it needs to get done, I'm a problem solver. Solve the problem. I believe that life is about solving problems. If you solve them well, you have a great life. If you don't solve them so well, life is not going to be as fun. If I'm going to work with vets, I'm going to solve this problem. And all of a sudden it became a mission. And I don't know how much in so many ways, how much control I had over this mission and whether I was able to say no.
And I remember when I took the first team of vets. In the beginning I thought I would just take them on that journey to Israel and I would take teams of 10 or 12 vets on this journey to Israel, have some IDF vets meet them and have them go through what I went through. And that's how it started. And after the first one I said, "Maybe I'll do it once a year and it'll be like a hobby. This'll be like my heart hobby." And then when we went and they kept saying to me, I feel at peace for the first time. I feel connected. I feel like I belong to ... They were saying all the things that I started to feel, but they were even further along than I was, especially at 16. And I said, "Wow. I better do this again. I'll do it another year."
Warwick Fairfax:
So what about those first trip or two made them feel connected, that they belonged?
Judy Isaacson Elias:
We take a lot of vacations. Going to Israel is not a vacation. It's a journey. And a lot of people are scared to go. And I'm not talking about terrorism or wars or whatever's going on now. Because right now all the kids are in school, people are shopping, people are out and doing things, and we're hearing bombs are flying every minute. Okay. Thank God right now we are enjoying every minute here. But going to Israel causes everyone to confront some of the toughest stuff. It's that God relationship, which is one of the toughest relationships to build. And I know I work on it every day.
And so when our vets came here for the first time ... And I'm seeing it right now. We have 30 here now. And on Monday ... I guess it was Monday ... I don't know what day of the week. The first day we were here, one of the things they did was get baptized in the Jordan River. Now that is an intense, intense experience. And they're learning about Jesus and his life and why he spoke the way he spoke and who he was and what his life was like. And watching them grow, it's not easy to be here and not ask yourself a few questions. Yes, there's a fear of terrorism. Yes, there's a fear of war. I think in many cases there's a bigger fear of that relationship. And what is it going to do to me and how is it going to change me, change my spouse, change my child, whomever it is we're with? It's scary. Because the air is different.
I went to the western wall today, my four-year-old granddaughter wrote this note. She was upset we were leaving. So her mother said, "They're going to the Western Wall. She had been there in April. Do you want to write a note to God?" And she wrote, "Thank you. I love you.", and drew him a picture. And today I did a video of me folding it up and putting it in the wall. And I said, "Now Hashem is going to read it. He has your note." And I sent the video home.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick asked Judy about the specific ways Heroes to Heroes helps veterans overcome moral injury after these words from our sponsor.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
It's intense. For me because I'm here so much, it made going to the wall so much more important, crucial. That was a connection that my granddaughter is going to see throughout her life. She now has a video of that note. So it's very life-changing and every time I come, I learn more and I get more connected. And one of the things I'm working on is my personal connection to God, which we call bitachon. And it's the trust and it's the faith.
Having these conversations with these vets. We talk about God, we talk about faith practices. We talk about things that ... We actually work with them through the Hebrew Bible to teach them about repentance and paths to repentance. Because as Jews, we repent twice a day. And my husband met with a team today, and one of the questions was, well, how do you repent? And my husband gave a very wise answer. I'm going to paraphrase it. I can't quote it directly, but he said, "We repent at the end of our lives." And they said, "So what does that mean?" And he said, "We never know when the end of our lives is so we repent every day. And on Yom Kippur we have this special day." Right now we're talking about forgiveness in the curriculum while they're in Israel. Last night their assignment was to write a letter to God. And we actually have a published book of some of the letters to God. And I would say to your viewers, if you haven't written a letter to God, write a letter to God. Because what you will learn about yourself and where you are and your struggles when you lay it out ... If you lay it out and God knows what you're looking for and you're willing to accept his guidance, you make it easier for him to help you.
Warwick Fairfax:
So what you do is with these veterans are so profound because psychology, lots of things can be helpful, but so much as you talk about moral injury, it's this war within the soul, it's self-hatred or what did I do or what did I not do and what did I see? And it's just things that obviously you would understand better than I. But to really link this to faith, maybe it seems obvious, but it seems revolutionary. And what I find fascinating is obviously you have veterans from different faith backgrounds, some Jewish, some Christians, Catholic, Protestant, there's different nominations obviously within-
Judy Isaacson Elias:
We've had Muslims-
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. You have people of all sorts of different backgrounds. But I find it fascinating that you have different, probably pastors and ministers, rabbis, imams, you have people to help reinforce the faith backgrounds that people came from. That seems a pretty radical idea. So somebody coming from the Jewish faith, for instance, having pastors or people that can help people reconnect to their Christian faith or maybe even more radical to help Muslims collect to their Muslim faith. At least from a Jewish perspective. So talk a bit about that because that's mind-blowing. Why do you do that? It sounds amazing, but not everybody would do what you've done if you follow.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
I don't know. Personally, I don't think it's extraordinary. I think it's dealing with people where they are. And faith is so important and life is so important. And God created each one of us. One of the things that veterans need to understand and people who before they get to a place of suicide of even that thought, our life was given to us by God, and it's not up to us to take it away. And one of the things that we were put on earth for and we were created for is to be God's servants. And if we do something like take our life away, we're stealing from him. And to build that, to build that connection is so important. About 80% of the vets we work with will say that they believe that God wishes they were dead. Okay. Now, how do you wake up in the morning when you feel that way?
I know in my faith, the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning before we say good morning to our spouse is thank God for giving us another day. We have a prayer we say. It's 12 words every morning. It's called the Modeh Ani and it's thank you for giving me another day, for giving me my soul. And we don't give enough time, we don't give enough credence to fixing a soul. When people go to war and these moral injuries, the shame and guilt, those are soul crushing. So we've got to fix that soul. And what I find is it doesn't matter whether the soul is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu whatever. It's about that connection to God and that belonging and that faith and just giving everyone that opportunity. Israel has it for everyone and Israel becomes our tool. But our 12-month curriculum starts with values.
And values are so important. Identifying values. We talk about faith values, we talk about living a life of values. And if faith is one of your top three or five values, how do you live that life of faith? What are the steps you take? Often one of the things that is a challenge, I know in Christianity what I'm seeing is there are not a lot of action steps. In Judaism we have to watch every food we eat. Friday night we have ... What we wear. The clothes we buy. Everything is ... We have 613 commandments. There's something about everything in there. We can't just walk into any restaurant. We can't walk into restaurants. My kids go to McDonald's only when they're in Israel and find a kosher McDonald's. We don't have the world open to us like that. We've got to look at everything. And on Friday, what time is the Sabbath? We're preparing for the Sabbath, we're preparing for holidays. It's constant.
One of the things we talk to the vets about is how do you make Sunday into Sabbath? You were given this day. So tomorrow night is Friday night, it's our Sabbath, and for the first time we're going to show them what it's like to observe a Shabbat. So tomorrow night, they're going to go to the Western Wall because they're going to see what it's like to bring in Shabbat at the Western Wall, the Sabbath. They'll come home and my husband and I are going to show them what it's like to have a traditional Shabbat the Sabbath dinner. Friday night dinner. There's a blessing we give our children. Every single one of them will get that blessing. My kids, they're in their 30s, I still call them and they get their blessings each week or they'll call me to get their blessings. One of my sons, because of the schedule, we're not going to be able to speak tomorrow. He called me last night. He wanted his blessing. So when parents bless their children, what we're saying to them is, you are my blessing. You're so important to me.
Warwick Fairfax:
So just talk about just with these veterans, they've been through moral injury and it seems like a key to them stopping with the suicidal ideation and forgiving themselves is to anchor them in their faith and beliefs. And maybe there's a little bit of theological work there. In other words, whether it's Judaism or Christianity, God is a loving God. He's a forgiving God. Doesn't mean there aren't consequences for actions or inactions, but here's a God that forgives and wants to bless us. Obviously theology looks slightly different on Judaism and Christianity, but the concept is the same. So it's like God is not a vengeful God that will never forgive. So it's part of helping them unlearn poor theology. Whether it's Judaism or Christianity for that matter, if that makes sense. It's a tough thing to understand God does love you. There is a purpose, and at least on our podcast and the stories, very often God will use what you've been through to help others.
I think of the story of Joseph in I think Genesis 50. Something somebody said to me when I lost the 150-year-old family media business, which was not about the money, but just letting down thousands of people and family members. It was a very difficult thing to get through. In the story of Joseph at the end of Genesis 50, it says something like, they made it for evil, but God made it for good. And the sense that God had a plan. Joseph might have understood about being sold into slavery and somehow being pharaoh's right-hand man, basically prime minister. And there was a plan. And so just the sense that God can use your worst moment to help others. Whether it's Judaism or Christianity, the concept is the same. Helping them understand that this is horrific, but God can use this for good. You can help others. And when you help others in my own life, and I'm sure in yours, there's a certain redemptive level of healing. Doesn't make it all go away, but it's like, okay, what I went through the tough stuff with my dad and my first husband and all, and some of the mistakes I made, God used all that to help redeem my life and help redeem other people's lives. Does that make sense?
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Right. It's so important. And I think people ask me, what would you have changed? And I say nothing. I needed to go through those struggles. And I was blessed with going through them young. And as an adult, the struggle I had as an adult with my marriage, it was something I needed to go through because it helped me understand who I needed to be in a marriage, what my role was and what marriage I wanted and how to be that partner. And we talked to them about God gives us tests. He gave Abraham 10 tests. Abraham was the first one. He had no one to look back and say, "Hey, is this a test?" So here we are and we go through these tests. So let's enjoy those tests. They're going to be tough, but let's really learn. And instead of going over my head, I'm done. What are we being told? Start listening. It's about listening. What is it?
Gary Schneeberger:
It's interesting for me hearing you talk and how excited you get talking about what you do with Heroes to Heroes. And I'm rewinding to when you're in the media business, I'm suspecting that you're not quite as excited when you're talking about that back then. There's an excitement in what you're doing now. And I think that speaks to you ... What Warwick alluded to earlier about how your career was fun and lucrative when you were doing that in marketing and in media, but it wasn't fulfilling. Your quote goes on to say, "Founding and building up Heroes to Heroes required all the skills I had and more. Having the opportunity to redefine my life as a life of service at the age of 50 and continue to learn and develop has been a gift." So I want to ask you this question because you talked, Judy, early on about the crucibles you faced as a child. Your home wasn't a safe place. And we've come to call what I just described there as a quiet crucible. Is this all there is crucible? Of those two kinds of crucibles that you've experienced, which has been the one that you're most grateful for you have moved beyond?
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Oh, you got me there. I would say, I think the family situation. Getting beyond that, having that house, having that home ... Not house. I've just lost my microphone. But just learning what it's like to have a peaceful home. Getting my peaceful home. And I think that all comes together with what I've learned from our veterans too. And helping ... So many things I have in common with the veterans we work with is the pain at home. That's the one thing that a lot of us have in common and a lot of people have in common. And finally being at a place where I love being home. And our home is open. When any of our alumni, we call our family ... Oh my gosh, probably 600 plus vets at this point. When they're in the neighborhood, come for dinner, come for family. And I think getting to that peaceful home, I think it's the most important thing I've done in my life. Because from a peaceful home, everything is possible.
Warwick Fairfax:
It makes you so grateful. In some way I can identify ... Again, listeners know this well, growing up in this large family media business, my dad was married three times and my mother twice. I was from the last marriage of each. And there was certainly in our family in general and my family, there was some level of challenges, dysfunction, what have you. It comes often with money. So I've been blessed. My wife's American. We met in Australia. We've been married I guess 35 years this year. I have like you three adult kids, early 30s, into 20s. And I tell my kids just how blessed they are. Because they have a wonderful mother. They have just a loving family. It's like, who wouldn't want to come home? I am not so much talking about me, but our family. Of course they would. But when you experience the power and money and the infighting and the rivalry between different factions in the family, it just doesn't matter who's right and wrong. It's inevitable with money from my perspective, it makes what you have feel like such grace.
Neither of my parents were overly religious in that sense. My father had a sense of God, but was more ecumenical. That was my choice. Not because somebody told me I needed to do it. So it just makes you appreciate your home, your faith when you see your kids living it. All my kids have gone on mission trips. My daughter's doing child life at Mayo Clinic, which is with kids of parents who have cancer at all. They have a heart and a set of values. So just when you've experienced things that are different, put it this way, it makes you appreciate what you have. You don't take it for granted.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
That's right.
Warwick Fairfax:
From my perspective, every day, my wife and my family, at least from my theology ... I say, "Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus.", every single day, many times a day. I don't know. Maybe I'm an observant Christian in some sense. It's not because anybody tells me to do this, but because I want to thank God. I am so grateful. It's not a theory, it's a lifestyle if you will.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
And in so many ways, that's what it is. I think I'm doing something because people need it and it's work. Look, it's work. I've got to raise funds. And I deal with nitty-gritty and 990 forms and the IRS and all that stuff. It's all part of it at the same time.
Warwick Fairfax:
It must be so fulfilling in some ways you could say you're in the soul work. You could even say ... Again, this might be misunderstood. You're almost in the saving souls business in the sense. Not overtly religious-
Judy Isaacson Elias:
And I talk about it and I say, I'm in the God business. I'm in the God business.
Warwick Fairfax:
You're trying to heal souls because they're so broken. Nobody could love me. No God could love me after what I've done or what I've seen. You're trying to rebuild people's souls brick by brick, because if you can't love yourself or if you don't think you are worth loving, you won't be able to love anybody else. You just hurt everybody.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
And do you know that's where the self-destruction comes in. And every relationship goes, and the divorce and the problems with children. And I saw it with my father. It was so easy for him to check out. But in so many ways. I felt loved by him. I felt loved there. It just wasn't demonstrated. There was a lot of pride. The first time my name was in the newspaper for one of the radio station promotions I got, he carried it around in his wallet and showed all his friends. So it was those little things where I said, that's where the love comes from and that's why I love the guy so much, because that's an easy way for him to do it without saying it.
Warwick Fairfax:
In a sense, maybe it felt like given what he's gone through, he's doing the best he can.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Yes. And I felt that way.
Warwick Fairfax:
He's trying in his own way.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
And he was just a wonderful, good-hearted person who was very humble. We were lower middle-class people. I never felt like I was missing anything. I'm not a materialistic person. I don't care how much money I have. I don't need things. I'm not a things person. I love to bake. For me, it's feeding people in so many ways is love. My kids come and there's a freezer full of baked goods, and then there's whatever favorite meals they've had. I've learned to hear people and give them what they need. Not what I want to give them. When I'm with children, my grandkids, it's what they want to play. It's not what I want to play with them. That's how I work Heroes to Heroes. It's what they need.
And people say to me, you've got on this journey 40 times, how do you deal with the same door? I learn something each time and I learn from the people. And each time it's different because each group is different and their needs are different. My husband and I will go into their team meetings and they can ask us anything about Judaism. And some of the discussions are really interesting. And I've learned so much about Christianity. I've learned about Islam. I've learned about Mormonism, Latter-day Saints. Church of Latter-day Saints. I didn't know much about that. And it's been such an education. One of the things that comes out of the research on our organization is that people feel they're more connected to everyone else in the world because we do share more. We do have more in common than not. Especially when it comes to faith. There's monotheism. In many ways we're all the same. We're looking for that connection. We're searching.
Gary Schneeberger:
On the subject of giving people what they need, I would be lying, Judy, if I didn't say, I feel like we need to give you some time in Israel, and it's a lot later where you are than we are here in the States. So this'll be where I would normally say captain, turn on the fasten seatbelt sign. We're starting to descend to land the plane. We're not there yet because Mr. Fairfax has a couple of more questions I think he wants to ask you.
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Okay. Great.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, yeah. Thank you so much, Judy, for being here. It's such a blessing what you're doing. You are in a sense, saving souls. You'll try to patch them back, broken fragment by broken fragment to rebuild the inside. The souls of people, which is incredible. I guess one way of looking at it is you might meet a veteran for the first time, or maybe it's somebody else who's just broken in so many ways and they might feel like nobody should like me in biblical times. I might almost feel like a leper. Unclean, leave me alone. Put me out at the edge of towns, which they used to back then. They might feel like a leper. That nobody should love them. God couldn't love them. What do you say? What in that initial conversation to somebody that feels so broken and so not worth loving by anybody else or by God? What's that initial conversation you have with them?
Judy Isaacson Elias:
Hello. We're here. What can I do? I'll start with them and just say, "This is who I am. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing, and this is who we are and I would love to have you part of it." And then just so much of it taking away judgment and just accepting people where they are and who they are. I'm a very curious person. I want to know how everything works. I'm still trying to figure out radio waves. I just cannot figure that out. Stuff like that. And I was in radio for so long and I don't know how it gets from there to here. And I want to learn that. But I'm also very interested in people. One thing, it's just leading with love. Leading with our hearts. And I think we tend to lead with our brains. Let's think things through. That's for other things. But in our day-to-day relationships, and especially working with a population that's struggling and people who are struggling is, I'm here and I'm not here to judge. And I don't care where you were last week or where you were 10 years ago. Where are you now? And it's okay.
I remember that book, gosh, years and years ago. I'm OK - You're OK. He had something there. Being okay with people's faith, with their choices. It's their choices. It doesn't affect my life on a day-to-day basis. And it's not being threatened by other people's choices and what's going on in their lives. And it's hard. And one of the things that I have a challenge with is I tend to take on a lot of the stuff. And I have to just stop myself from doing that and just say, "Okay, Judy, you can't be broken all the time. You can't take their issues on." It's just really accepting people and just letting them know that you're there and whatever they say, you are not going to be the one to judge.
Gary Schneeberger:
I have been in the communications business long enough to know, and the final word on the subject has been spoken. And Isaacson, our guest, just spoke it. So until we are together again the next time, folks, please remember ... You heard it here in this conversation. We understand crucible experiences are tough. We talked about Judy's experience, Warwick's experiences, and the moral injuries that the veterans, the Judy, helps what they've been through. We understand how difficult this is, but we also understand something equally important. And that is they're not the end of your story. Because if you learn the lessons from them, if you do the soul work, as Warwick often says, and you move with intention, guided by your values to another destination where that destination will take you, that destination you'll go to is the most rewarding one of your life. And that is a life of significance.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com, take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
Our research into how people experience crucibles and chart a path beyond them has led us to identify a core set of “actionable truths” — 10 in all — that will help you overcome the obstacles you face as you navigate your unique journey from trials to triumph. This week, in our overview episode of what we’re calling the series within the show, we’ll discuss the insights our newly crafted Beyond the Crucible Roadmap offers and identify each of the actionable truths.
Then, each month throughout this year, we’ll spend an entire episode unpacking the importance of each of the truths, along with tips on how you can activate them.
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
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Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. These actionable truths, they will help you get beyond your worst day and your crucible. They will also help you make your vision become a reality. These are critical both for you and the team that you work with. So these concepts might seem like, well, yes, they're concepts, but we call them actionable truths because if you live these out, whether it's self-reflection or authenticity, just a big two out of the 10, they can be life-transforming, they can be vision-transforming.
Gary Schneeberger:
What are these actionable truths anyway? That's what you'll discover this week as we take a big picture look at a big refinement in the ways we help you move from trials to triumphs. So fasten your virtual seat belts as we begin our year-long drive through the Beyond the Crucible roadmap and the fresh insights it offers to help you not be defined by your worst day.
So today folks, we're going to discuss an exciting new development in the Beyond the Crucible thinking for turning trials into triumphs. Now, if you've been with us for any period of time, you've heard us talk about things that help you do that. We have refined what our counsel, our wisdom, and our help to you is. And this is what we're going to talk about in this first episode of the New Year. We call them actionable truths, these things that we're going to talk to you about that will help you move from trial to triumph, that will help you navigate that journey to your life of significance.
But before we can move into what we're doing next, we need to take a little time reviewing where we've been. So we've got some new stuff that we want to tell you about that's going to be part of everything we do in 2025, meaning once a month we will have an episode devoted to what we're calling the actionable truths of this new phase of how we help you get from trials to triumphs. But before we can move there, we have to talk about where we've been. And where we've been, Warwick, is it started with your book. It starts all the way back to Crucible Leadership, your Wall Street Journal bestselling book. And I'm just going to very quickly set you up with what the model was, has been for us since the book was published, and we've never tossed that aside. That's always been part of what we do.
And when you hear it, folks, when you hear what the new organizing construct is for us, which we're going to talk about in this episode and explore more throughout the year, you'll understand that we're not throwing anything out, we're just refining things. So let's talk about, I'll call this stage one in our development, our life cycle at Beyond The Crucible. And that is that Beyond The Crucible was founded as Crucible Leadership in 2018. The model we developed to help people move from setback to significance was rooted, as I said in Warwick's book, which he talked about his personal experience, his personal crucible of losing the family media company. These were the building blocks for the book, Crucible Leadership, as I said, informed by what Warwick went through and learned from what he went through, lessons he got for the book and from his great-great-grandfather and father and historical figures like Churchill, Lincoln, and Washington.
That's a churn of all of the insights that are in that book. And what it boiled down to, the process that we laid out for how you get from trial to triumph was this. It starts with being refined, refined. Then leaning into your design, refined design. Then casting a vision, refine, design, vision, and then making that vision a reality. So Warwick, I've already talked way too much in this episode, so I'm going to turn it over to you and ask you a question here. How has this model that I've just laid out created as a pathway to moving beyond your crucible, how did it serve us? How has it served us in helping people navigate from their trials to their triumphs?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's interesting, Gary, as I was writing the book and we were meeting with the team, including Cheryl Farr that leads our branding and marketing team, we were talking about the book and the key elements. And we had this discussion that in Crucible leadership, there was an intrinsic model that was behind the book, and it was laid out in some ways in the chapter headings and the section headings that each chapter fell into. And there was sort of an intrinsic model, and it was refine, design, vision, reality. And this was my reflection based on my own story as well as stories from other family members, my dad, Sir Warwick Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, who started the 150-year-old family media business in Australia as well as historical faith and inspirational leaders that I wrote about. And really the first step refine is when you're facing your worst day, your crucible, it's exceptionally painful.
And so the first step to moving beyond your worst day is you got to process it. You got to reflect on what happened. And we often say that crucibles don't have to happen to you. They can happen for you. There can be a benefit, even a blessing as some of our podcast guests have said. So it's not an easy shift in thinking, but it's a choice that we have to make. So a crucible, if we allow it, can be a refining moment, a bit like blast furnace with molten metal. The bad stuff can be removed and you'll left with something that's refined, purer, sort of the essence of who you are. But that's a choice to make. You can go through a crucible and you can choose to be refined, or you can choose to be stuck there and not move on. So that's really the first step.
So the next step after refine is design. And one of the things I certainly found in my life is it's very easy to be following your parents' views of what you should do or teachers or colleagues or just be practical, be a lawyer, be a doctor, even though maybe you don't really care about either, but maybe it's a good way to make a decent living. So it's not wrong, but it's tough to live a life that's not in line with your design. So what we say by that is you've got to live a life that's in sync with how you are wired. And so in my case, growing up with this 150 year old family media business, what was needed arguably was this take charge chief executive type. I'm more of a reflective advisor. I don't like making lots of decisions quickly. I tend not to make good ones.
Like when I launched my $2 billion takeover and didn't do enough self-analysis and reflection, and obviously, we talk a lot about that in other podcasts. So I was operating out of my design. I now operate in line with my design. So you've got refine, design, and then vision. We believe vision is also something you can't inherit. It's got to be something that's yours, and we believe it's something you've got to be off the charts passionate about. And from our perspective, a vision that lasts has to lead to a life of significance, which we call a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. If this isn't something you believe is other focused that you're off the charts passionate about, you probably won't have enough perseverance to keep on going because life is tough, and there will be roadblocks. So finally, reality is where you make your vision happen.
So a vision that doesn't come to reality, an unfulfilled vision is tough, especially one that you're really passionate about. So you really want to make that vision become reality, especially if it's something you really truly believe in and that will help others. As we talk a lot about, to make your vision become reality, you really need a team around you, what we call a team of fellow travelers to make that happen. So as we looked at my story, the story of my family, the story of others, leaders, historical and faith inspirational in the book, we found there was this pattern of refine, design, vision, reality that helps you move from your worst or your crucible to get beyond it. Hence, beyond the crucible to a life affirming vision, a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. That was the original model largely from my own experience and from stories in the book.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And what's great about this conversation is that everything that you just mentioned is still so much part of the warp and woof of what Beyond the Crucible is. And what we're talking about here today, folks, doesn't change any of that. So keep your ears tuned as we indicate, yes, there's some new ways we're going to talk about things. There's some new processes that we're going to help you learn and gain insights from to navigate your way beyond your crucible. But there aren't wholesale changes going on here, right, Warwick? I mean, this is all pretty much in the same zip code. We're refining to use one of the words from what we've been talking about. We're refining the process a little bit to make it even more actionable. Hang on to that word, folks, actionable. You'll hear more about it, to make it even more actionable for you. How's that for teasing, Warwick? That was a teaser, wasn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It was, it was. I think really as we'll cover in more detail, our model, our thinking has been refined, and it has evolved. I think all of life we should be continuing to evolve, to reflect, to seek to improve, to grow, whether it's your business, your nonprofit, your family, how they interact, how you are personally with people, how you are as a human being. Life should continue to grow and evolve. And that's what we at Beyond the Crucible are seeking to do is that as we have new information and new thinking and new reflections, we try to say, okay, this was valid, is valid, but maybe there's there a more refined way of looking at it. How can we make it better and again, to use your word, more actionable for folks? So that's really, it's not so much tossing it aside, it's seeking to have that model grow and be refined and evolve as we think more and as we get new information often from our guests.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. As you said that, what popped in my head is anybody who's familiar with Iron Man from the movies, he had his Mark one iron and then he went through Mark XXVIII, right? What we've just been talking about, refine, design, vision, and reality is sort of beyond the Crucible Mark I. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about, right, we'll talk a little bit about Mark two because we do have a stage two of where we've been. And that as the brand grew, we added original quantitative and qualitative data that taught us more about how people experienced crucibles and bounce forward from them. We commissioned a statistically valid study that found 72%, you've heard that number before. It still surprises me when I hear that, 72% of people have experienced a trial so serious that it changed the trajectory of their life.
We built a groundbreaking self-assessment rooted in the data we uncovered, and that allowed us to build profiles of individuals with different crucible experiences. Those profiles provided to put a you are here point on a map to help them better understand where they were on their journey from setback to significance. And finally, that's the quantitative data. Here's the qualitative data. We started a podcast in 2019, last year celebrated its five-year anniversary. We did a podcast on the day of that actual five-year anniversary, which is pretty awesome. And from that podcast, we've been able to add rich stories of men and women of vastly different backgrounds and experience and vastly different types of crucibles. Those stories allowed us to better understand what real people experience in the aftermath of a crucible, how they struggle, how they persevere, and how they overcome.
So my question to you, Warwick, is this. This stage, stage two, Beyond the Crucible Mark two, to use the Iron Man example again, this stage, stage two added really great insights into how people experience crucibles and move past them. What stood out to you most once we understood both the quantitative and qualitative data that I just talked about?
Warwick Fairfax:
We had this book, we had stories that I've written about myself, family members, historical, inspirational leaders. We had refine, design, vision, reality. So then in chatting to our team and to Cheryl, we said, okay, this is good, but I wonder if we can do really a robust research into this to see if this is true more than just anecdotally in terms of my reflections in the book, but if it's true in a general, statistically valid way. So as you mentioned, we decided to commission a robust research study of more than 11,000 people. And again, as you've said, what's really remarkable is that over 72% of people said they largely had had a crucible because it's easy to think, oh my life isn't that bad. Well, life is tough, and for most people, crucible is in the eye of the beholder. If you feel like you've had an experience that was so traumatic that fundamentally altered the course of your life, you choose your truth in that sense. If you believe it was painful, then it was painful. It's your experience.
What we found that largely speaking, our model was validated as an overall concept. There was some tweaks, but one of the fascinating things is that typically when researchers test data, there can be differences with demographics and gender. And what was astounding to the researchers, David and Heather Lucas, who at Dark Horse Insights who helped us with this, and they do this a lot, they found that when people were moving from their worst day crucible to a life of significance, that journey and it is a journey, it did not vary with gender, men, women. It didn't vary with age, personality, what zip code they lived in, whether they're married or any other label. It was 100% a product of how we see ourselves at a particular time. And that was just astounding.
And what we found out of this research is while they are a journey, there are a number of different paths you can follow. And if you take our assessment, you can see that in more detail and it really depends on who you are, your personality, how you see yourself. Some people have a personality that they just tend to go a mile a minute, mark five, they're not reflective and just go really fast. Other people can be so reflective, they hardly move.
And I'm not quite that bad. I'm more reflective than I am a mark four kind of person. But depending on your personality and how you make choices, they can be different paths, but it's really these aren't paths that depend on demographics or gender. It's more personality driven than it is demographically driven. So then what was fascinating is we had this whole quantitative piece, but then as you mentioned, we had the qualitative piece. We've had in the last five years, more than 240 podcast episodes, and across all the guests we've had, this gave us valuable qualitative data. And what was fascinating, as you and I have been chatting to so many guests, is that these guests came from different backgrounds, men, women, they had every crucible you can imagine from financial to physical to victims of abuse.
I mean every kind of crucible. Loss of loved ones, every kind of crucible you can imagine. And despite the diversity of crucibles and the diversity of backgrounds, the path back was universally pretty much identical .and there were things, we talk a lot about it Beyond the Crucible on our podcast and our writings. It's things like learning the lessons of your crucible. It means forgiving yourself and others. Again, we always say it doesn't mean condoning, but to be able to move on. Every guest we've ever had has said they've had to forgive in some fashion. Finding a life-affirming vision, which often for our guests comes out of their crucible. And it's pretty much, I should say, not just pretty much, it is never me-focused. I can't think of any guests we've had said it's all about me. It's about having a vision that they believe in that is really just that they're off the charts passionate about, but it's always others-focused.
So we connect the dots with the quantitative and the qualitative. They all really told the same story that coming back from your worst day isn't a function of where you live or your background or even the type of crucible. It's really a mindset shift. It's a choice of how you choose to move on. And so it really largely validated our thinking, but it certainly refined our thinking in that who knew that coming back from your worst day did not depend on where you live or your background or your gender. It's more a way of thinking. That was astounding. And certainly the researchers, David and Heather Lucas, they were amazed because it's incredibly rare for that to happen. So that was an evolutionary model in our thinking and provided extremely valuable information to us.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and what's interesting about talking about all of this is this point that we're at right now is we're going through the life cycle of Beyond The Crucible is the perfect point for this discussion we're having because it points backward to what we've been talking about stage one, stage two, the way that we've talked about moving from crucible to life of significance. But then it informs as well, the stuff that we've been talking about has helped us to get into stage three. So we are going to spend time once a month going through some of the things that we're talking about in this episode. So this is, yes, we've been revisiting where we have been, how we've gotten here, but now we're going to pivot to talk about stage three, where we're going this year in 2025, as we help you navigate your way beyond your crucible.
And the way that we've done that is we've combined the statistical and story insights. Doing that has allowed us to create this stage three that I'm talking about in our understanding of what it takes to move beyond a crucible. We call it the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. Remember that phrase, folks. If you have a piece of paper nearby, just write down Beyond the Crucible roadmap because we're going to spend a lot of time over the next 12 months talking about the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. We describe it this way. How we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity. We provide the essential actionable truths. Ding, ding, ding. There's that phrase again, actionable truths. We provide the essential actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip them to write their own life affirming story. Again, if you've listened to the podcast, if you've followed us, you've read Warwick's blog, you've seen him on social media, none of this stuff is necessarily unheard of from us.
It's not new in that sense, but the way that it's packaged and the way that we're going to talk about it is we believe more insightful and more helpful because we understand more now where you're at as you're going through your crucible and what our role is in providing, I'll say it again, these essential actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip you to write your own life affirming story. That's what we're really drilling down into in 2025. So let's go through. We talked about refine, design, vision reality and the first model that we had for how you move through a Crucible. I'm going to just unpack what the Beyond the Crucible roadmap is now, because these understandings from what we've been talking about has guided us to adjust it a bit. Again, haven't thrown it out, haven't really negated anything from it. We've added to it. We've tweaked some things, we've tightened some bolts, and we have what we believe to be a better tool to help you move from setback to significance.
So in stage three, here's what the roadmap looks like. It begins with the trial, which in our language is the crucible. And that is the aftermath of a life of altering, crucible moment where we are fundamentally changed. That's the first step, the starting point, the starting blocks of the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. This stage is often characterized by feelings of hurt, loss, sadness, anger, failure, and or grief. It may be hard to consider that there is a way out much less what that next step might be, right? If you're among that 72% who's experienced the crucible as our data found, you know what that feels like. You know what stage one, step one of the beyond the Crucible roadmap is. You've experienced it, the trial and the Crucible, but these other stages that we're going to go through, those are the ones that are going to help you get beyond stage one.
The second step in the roadmap is this processing. The necessary step of processing the fallout from a crucible so we are free to move ahead, critical step. To move out of this stage, we must recognize and let go of the feelings of anger, hurt, or unfairness that resulted from the crucible and overcome our fear of repeating the past. Again, we are your, Warwick coined this phrase, I love it. We're your dealers in hope on this, folks. We're your dealers in hope to help you get to that place of processing and not just get to it, but get through it. The next stage is vision. Sound familiar? We talked about that refine, design, vision, reality, right? Vision, still there because it's so critical. Vision, this is a time to cast a new post crucible vision for life. That vision may not come immediately. Instead, we may have to experiment with new ideas and experience, explore untapped talents, develop new skills, and or find a new community to land on the right new vision for life.
This is where the rubber meets the road. Casting your vision. It's a critical part. And you'll learn throughout this year why it's so critical. In particular, it shows up a lot in what we're going to be talking about as we go through 2025. But for now, put a pin in this vision, third point in the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. We then move to step four, which is reality, right? That's refine, design, vision, reality. It follows vision. It's followed vision since the inception of Beyond the Crucible, back when it was Crucible Leadership, reality, critical. Now we create and execute an actionable plan to turn that vision into a new everyday reality. Shaping a new place in the world for yourself isn't easy. You may find obstacles or roadblocks along the way or be tempted by old ways of thinking or doing, but stick with it. The reward will be worth it, and that's one of the reasons that we're here.
That's a major reason that we're here to be, I'll say, ding, ding, ding again, Warwick's phrase, to be dealers in hope for you. When things get tough, things can get tough. We're here to help you move through that to get to reality. And why is getting to reality so important, so critical to moving beyond your crucible? Because of where it ends. It ends with triumph. Triumph is this. We are well on the way to a new and significant post crucible life. We have acknowledged our crucible and its transformative impact on us. We've moved beyond the hurt to cast a new meaningful vision for life, and we are turning that exciting vision into a new achievable and sustainable every day reality. That's a lot. Again, Warwick, this is unusual. You're always the play by play guy in our conversations, and I'm calling all the plays here, but...
Warwick Fairfax:
All good.
Gary Schneeberger:
It feels weird to talk so much. I'm sure people probably feel like, why is Gary talking so much? Here's why.
Warwick Fairfax:
I don't know.
Gary Schneeberger:
I'm going to stop talking for a while, and I'm going to turn it over to Warwick because here's the pivotal point that Warwick as the founder, as the chief visionary here can unpack, and that's this. Warwick, this is a journey that we're talking about. We've talked about it internally amongst ourselves as a bit of a hero's journey like Frodo takes in the Lord of the Rings films, like Luke Skywalker takes in the Star Wars movies. Talk about this latest stage, this stage three, mark three in Beyond the Crucible and the development of our thinking here at Beyond The Crucible. Explain a little bit how we got here, why we're here, and why it's important. Warwick offers the insights only he can into why we've created the roadmap after these words from our sponsor.
Warwick Fairfax:
Certainly this model of trial or crucible, processing, vision, reality, triumph, it bears some relationship to the old model of refine, design, vision, reality that came out of the book and stories from there. But this model is really being refined and augmented by the work we did in our quantitative and qualitative research. And so based on the data, we can really say that this model that's Beyond the Crucible roadmap is a statistically valid model that maps out how you do get from your worst day to a life of significance from trial to trial. And that's why we're so excited about it because this is based on the research, and we believe is a valid framework to help you navigate your life beyond your worst day. So as you've mentioned, it starts with trial, where we're fundamentally change, and that's where we have a choice. We can either say, this was awful, I'm going to wallow in it. I'm going to hide under the covers of the rest of my life, or I choose to move beyond.
It's only if you make that choice that you get to the processing stage in which you say, okay, this may be unfair, but what happened? What can I learn from this? Maybe I can learn a whole lot about who I am. But you only move from trial to processing if you make a choice that you won't be defined by your worst day. You can make a choice that I'm going to be defined by my worst day. I'm giving up. I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm not moving on. Then you just get stuck. So once you've really refined and reflected on it, one of the things that people talk a lot about in counseling and therapy, from what I understand is you've got to feel your feelings. You can't stuff it. As one of our guests said, stuff it in the basement. You've got to reflect on it and you've got to understand what happened and why it happened to be able to move on. So that's absolutely critical.
And so the next step after you process it is vision. You've got to say, okay, I don't like what happened, a process that I've understood, but it's time to cast a new post crucible vision for your life, one that's life affirming, that's focused on helping others. And so once you have that vision and we believe it needs to be other focused, it needs to be something you're off the charts passionate about, then it's like, okay, well then how do we make this a reality? There's nothing worse than a vision that doesn't become reality. And so for that, you often need help.
And so once your vision has become reality, then there's a sense of triumph. I'm living my best life. If you are having a life that's focused on others, a life of significance, we believe you'll have a joyful and fulfilled life. It doesn't mean there won't be further crucibles and setbacks and tragedies, but in terms of the arc of your life, you'll feel like I was put on this earth by God or however you look at it spiritually to make a difference, I'm making a difference. That gives you this sense of fulfillment and almost quiet inner joy. That's what we mean by triumph. It's not about your bank account. It's really more measured by just the impact you feel like you are having. It doesn't mean it could be global or it could be your neighborhood. That's really not the point. It's feeling like you're really triumphing in the sense of you're making some small step as a force for good. You're making a difference in the lives of others in your family and your community.
And that's I think, where we all want to be, that sense of joy and fulfillment, that I'm making a difference. I'm not wasting my one and only life. That's really what we mean by triumph.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that even when we've reached the triumph stage, it doesn't mean that other trials, other crucibles aren't going come. And that's why I think it's so important. And we spend a lot of time, folks, Warwick can attest to that. We spend a lot of time, what are we going to call these things that are going to help you along this journey? And we landed on actionable truths for a reason. And the reason is think of what you know to be a truth. Gravity, okay, that's a truth. It's actionable. If you're on the roof of a tall building, you're not going to jump off if there's concrete below because the actionable truth is that's not going to be a good landing. The truths stay with you once you get them and you process them, and you make them internalized.
And that's what these things that we're going to talk about, these 10 actionable truths that we're going to get to in a minute and we're going to talk about all year, are designed to be there to live within you as you go through life when other crucibles come, because they are. To use Warwick's words that he's said many times on the show, it's not always a one and done.
I've been through a crucible. I'm done. I got the chicken pox once. I can't get it again. I mean, it's not like that. You can have crucibles can come back. They often do come back, and that's why actionable truth fits so well because it's something that you carry within you once you realize it to be true. Okay, so before we talk about what those truths are, folks, Warwick, can you explain to everybody the role that they play in our journey along the road from setback to significance, right? We call them actionable truths, like I said, for a reason. What's the role that they play for folks even before we talk about it so they understand what it is we're talking about and why we're talking about them. Because there'll be words that they've heard before, but we're talking about them in this specific context.
Warwick Fairfax:
We view these actionable truths as accelerators. Life is tough. To go from your worst day to a life affirming vision, from your crucible to a life of significance, from trial to triumph, you need help. And really these actionable truths, they're more philosophical constructs, they're more systems of belief, systems of thought. They're less something so concrete like a wrench or a hammer. It's like, okay, got it. I need this for one specific task, I'm done. These actionable truths, you might pick them up at different points in the journey that we'll talk about more later and on later episodes, but they're with you for life. They're ones you might use every day in multiple different scenarios at work, at home, on the playing field, with volunteer work, in every aspect of your life. It's not like, okay, so I need to saw because I'm doing woodwork, and that's fine, but this is something you could use if it was a house for any part of the house, any particular thing you are doing. And that's why it was a bit challenging for us to figure out what to call these things,
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Philosophical constructs feels like a bit of a, too hard to say. But actionable truths is what we landed on. And we're very excited about these because these actionable truths in a sense have always been there, a little bit like digging for gold, if you will. They may be there, you just don't know where they are, or diamonds. You go back to the original book, Crucible Leadership. There are words that we're going to get into in a moment that if you go thumb through the contents of the book, you'll find those words in the book. We talk about these words a lot in the podcast. We have blogs that we write that talk about these. So that's why it's so exciting. I'm just going to give one small example before we outline them. Teaser alert. One is called self-reflection, and Gary's going to outline in a moment all of the 10 actionable truths.
I mentioned that because we said earlier, Gary said earlier that crucibles happen throughout your life. So for instance, something just happens. Maybe a friend lets you down, you get fired from work, maybe you've got an issue with your family, a challenge in a nonprofit you volunteer with. There could be all sorts of things that happened. And so yes, you're going to be frustrated, maybe angry, how come this happened? Well, what do you do? One of the things that accelerates your way through this is self-reflection. What happened? Why did it happen? What's my part in it? Do I need to apologize? Is something bad happen at work? Maybe I wasn't thinking in the right way. Maybe we need to think a bit differently to get beyond this challenge with the market, with the industry, whatever it is. You need to do some self-reflection.
So if you know that's one of the actionable truths, you'll know, okay, I've got to spend a minute getting angry and frustrated, but I need to make a choice and move beyond to start reflecting. So it's like, okay, so I'm done with reflecting. I did that 20 years ago in my crucible, I'm done. No, life happens, challenges happen. Self-reflecting can be a part of your daily or the very least weekly or monthly way of living. Okay, what happened? Why did it happen? What can I learn? What are the lessons? How can I move on? So that's one example which we'll get into more later about why each of these actionable truths, not one and done. It can be ways of thinking that helps you every single day. So that's what was fascinating to us as we came up with these actionable truths.
Gary Schneeberger:
And I mean even to the point every day, yes, but every moment, right? Right now, someone could be listening to this, and some crucible event could be happening. One of these 10 actionable truths, and I'm going to talk here in a minute, is something that's as it gets inside you, if it's inside you, if it stays inside you, if you continue to nurture that, you can apply that immediately to the situation that you're in. So it's always there for the thinking and the acting. This is why we call them actionable truths, the thinking is truth and actionable because it can be activated. Okay? Have we teased it enough, folks? Have we done enough teasing? This is the first time that we're going to list them in the way that we're going to list them, and I'm going to give you a preface to what I'm about to go through.
Don't get mad at me because I'm not going to do much more than say what the actionable truth is and define it just a little bit. But please know, even though this is the introduction episode for this shift, this mark three of Beyond the Crucible and our roadmap, we're going to spend a lot of time in 2025 talking about these things. Once a month, we're going to have an episode that's dedicated to one of these 10 actionable truths that I'm going to talk about. So don't get frustrated that we're not going to spend a lot of time going through them here. I'm going to introduce them, I'm going to ask Warwick a question about them, and then we're going to go so that these actionable truths can kind of settle on you. You can think about them a little bit before we start being dealers in hope and offering you perspectives on how you can apply these things internally so that you can apply them externally in action whenever you need them.
So are you ready? I need a drum roll. I need a drum roll. There we go. Drum roll. The first one of our actionable truths is this, crucibles. That's where it all starts. Your crucible didn't happen to you, it happened for you. Your worst day is not the end of your story, but the launching point for a life-giving new story. And what I'm doing here, folks here, I'm not making eye contact with you if you're watching it on YouTube. I'm making sure I get these right. I'm reading them off my notes right here. So I want to make sure that we get these right as we lay the groundwork for our conversation throughout the year. Second one is self-reflection. Warwick already talked about that a little bit. Reflecting on your crucible can reveal important insights about yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, even vulnerabilities that you can use to forgive yourself, forgive others, and bounce forward. That's the second actionable truth.
Third actionable truth, authenticity. To move beyond your crucible, you must embrace your authentic self. It's time to be true to who you really are, not who others want you to be. Are you noticing something about this? We'll talk more about it as we get into them week by week, but they kind of fit together, don't they? Crucible, self-reflection. Then you lean into authenticity. Here's the fourth one. The fourth one is faith. Believing in something beyond yourself that serves as the immovable anchor for your soul no matter what's happening around you. The fourth actionable truth. The fifth, character, how you live out your faith in the real world. Character is your belief system in action. Next, vision, a sacred calling that summons you to a mission beyond yourself. No matter what the size of your vision, it has meaning and it matters. There's that word again, that's been with Beyond the Crucible, as most of these words have been with Beyond the Crucible since it was crucible Leadership, and it was contained in the pages of a book that Warwick wrote.
The one, two, three, four, five, six, seventh actionable truth, fellow travelers. You've heard that as well. A team of trusted advisors and a community of like-minded people are key to turning your vision into reality. Eight, perseverance. Continuing to move forward in pursuit of your vision, even in the face of difficulties and obstacles. Perseverance is hope. I love that. Perseverance is hope, believing in your heart of hearts that there's a brighter future ahead. Redemption, number nine, your worst day can be redeemed. We're going to spend a lot of time this year talking about that your worst day can be redeemed. It's not over. You can get beyond it. And getting beyond it involves redemption. Your worst day can be redeemed. We are all worthy and capable of turning failure, loss, and trauma into a catalyst of transformation, growth, and a renewed sense of purpose. We should spend two weeks on that one. That one's really good.
And then number 10 on the list, and this is maybe the word you've heard the most on the show that's not an article, an a and the, something like that, is significance, a life lived on purpose dedicated to serving others. You can have a whole new life-giving story, one in which true success is measured by how you positively impact the world around you. Folks, those are the 10 actionable truths that will help you as you move through, move on down the journey through the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. So Warwick, we'll slow down here for a second. We've covered a lot of ground, and it's a lot of new ground. Even though it's familiar words, there's new ground about the way we talk about them. What's the number one takeaway you would like our friends, our listeners, and viewers to have from this episode and then hang onto that, think about that as we then move through what's coming over the next 12 months?
Warwick Fairfax:
We've been on a journey of Beyond the Crucible to better understand how you get beyond your worst day and ultimately live a life-affirming vision. We've studied that through the book I wrote, Crucible Leadership, through my story, the stories of my family, stories of historical faith and inspirational leaders. We've studied that through quantitative research and the qualitative research that we've done, more than 240 episodes that we've had on the podcast. And so with all of this research and reflection from the data, from the stories in the book, from stories from our podcast guests, we've come up with Beyond the Crucible Roadmap to help you go from trials to triumph and these 10 actionable truths. So we believe this Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, gives you the clearest picture of how you get beyond your worst day to figure out where you are with the assessment on that journey and what you need to do to get there.
And that's why we're so excited, not just about this Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, but the actionable truths because they help you make a daily choice to move on. They help give you ways of thinking. So for instance, one of the ones we just talked about, authenticity. Okay, maybe you need to be honest with yourself and others about what happened in your worst day. Does that mean you are done? No. You might work with a team of people at work. Do you need to be authentic to who you are or just put on some mask because I know where we're going, but I'm going to seem like the take charge leader, even though today I might feel a little scared. I mean, one of the things we talk about is vulnerability for a purpose.
You don't need to talk about every silly thing you've ever done or weird thing you're thinking, but I think it's okay to say, I know we'll get through this, but I don't know about you, but I'm a bit nervous about where we are. The market's pretty difficult right now. We're in the midst of a recession. I'm confident we'll figure out a way through. But I've got to be honest with you, I'm anxious too. That's vulnerability for a purpose. That's being authentic. To say in the midst of a recession, I'm fine. I think we should all have hope and everything's good, and we'll look back and we'll laugh about this and say... We'll laugh about this, really? No, we might be crying a bit. Maybe we'll get through. But don't just have smoke and mirrors. So these actionable truths, they will help you get beyond your worst day and your crucible. They will also help you make your vision become a reality. These are critical both for you and the team that you work with.
So these concepts might seem like, well, yes, they're concepts, but we call them actionable truths because if you live these out, whether it's self-reflection or authenticity, just a big two out of the 10, they can be life-transforming. They can be vision-transforming. They can make a vision happen sooner and better than it would've otherwise. So they might seem like just philosophical constructs, but we believe they're actionable truths. We use that phrase for a reason because we think they're vital in helping you get beyond your worst day, live a joyful and fulfilling life, and ultimately live the life that we like to think you've always dreamed of, a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So these actionable truths we think can be game-changing and life-changing.
Gary Schneeberger:
So what do you think, folks? Does any of this, does all of this sound like something that is going to be both insightful to go through this year, helpful to go through this year, and hopeful all three of those things? We certainly hope that's the way that you perceive this, and that you continue to come back to us to get more insight on these actionable truths, because that's going to be a lot of what we talk about. They're going to be, yes, we're going to have episodes once a month on each of these actionable truths, but we'll weave discussions of them throughout everything that we do this year. As long as you're going to be here this year, we ask you to do a couple of things for us. One, if you're watching us on YouTube, leave us a comment about what you thought of this episode, what you think of the show in general, but then also subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you can make sure that you get episodes all the time and not just full episodes.
We also have little clips of individual episodes that maybe came before you started joining us, so you can get some insight on some of the guests that have come before, some of that qualitative data that we talked about earlier. And then if you're listening to us on your favorite podcast app, we ask that you would subscribe to the show so that you never miss an episode. Every Tuesday we drop a new one. And if you subscribe to the podcast app on whatever, however you listen, that'll just show up on your computer or on your phone, and you can catch us every week. You'll never miss an episode. And I'm going to try to make this a tagline for this year. We'll see what happens.
We want you to believe the truths that we talk about. But more than that, we also want you to act on the truths that we talk about as we guide you, as we help you down through the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. So until the next time we're together, we know crucible experiences are hard. We're here to offer you hope that they are overcome-able, that you can move beyond them. We'll see you next week.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the Helper or the Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready. Visit Beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
It’s certainly not uncommon to hear a son talk about his father with respect, admiration and love – the way Warwick talks about his father in this week’s episode. But the noble character Sir Warwick Fairfax modeled to his son has had an impact that’s birthed the business that son founded, including this podcast you’re listening to right now.
In this last episode of the year in our series within the show, STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP, we discuss the many ways in which Warwick’s father did the right thing no matter how hard doing the right thing was, setting an example for his boy that lives on today in the work of Beyond the Crucible.
You’ll want to listen especially closely for the surprising moment Warwick and I realize a poem his father wrote in a book he was working on before he died in 1987 planted the seeds for Warwick’s life of significance as founder of Beyond the Crucible.
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 be sure to tell your friends and family about us.
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. I had a deep respect for my father's faith and how he lived it out, just the way he tried to do the right thing no matter what. Especially at the events around 1976, when other family members tried to, and did remove him as chairman of the company. I truly did feel that he was a great man of noble character, and to feel like you have a parent that's a great person who you deeply respect them. I mean, that is a gift. I realized not everybody can say that.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's certainly not uncommon to hear a son talk about his father with respect, admiration, and love the way Warwick just talked about his. But the noble character Sir Warwick Fairfax modeled to his son has had an impact that's birthed the business that son founded, including this podcast you're listening to right now. Hi, I'm Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. In this last episode of the year in our series within the show, stories from the book Crucible Leadership, we discussed the many ways in which Warwick's father did the right thing, no matter how hard doing the right thing was, setting an example for his boy that lives on today in the work of Beyond the Crucible. You'll want to listen especially closely for the surprising moment Warwick and I realize a poem his father wrote in a book he was working on before he died in 1987, planted the seeds for Warwick's life of significance as founder of Beyond the Crucible.
What we're talking about today, today is another episode in what we call the series within a show, stories from the book Crucible Leadership. And we have been doing this every month, except when we had series and some other things that happened. But this is the final one that we're going to be doing of stories that Warwick concluded in his Wall Street Journal bestseller, which was published in 2022, called Crucible Leadership, Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, and we are ending. It's interesting, our first episode of this series within the show, as we call it, was on Warwick's great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax. We've now reached the end of this cycle. Maybe we don't know, there's a lot of people at Warwick talks about in his book, and there could be more of these episodes in the future. But for right now, for this year, this is the last one that we're going to be doing.
And the subject of this is Warwick's father, Sir Warwick Fairfax. So Warwick, before we talk about why we chose your father for this series, and specifically the subject of this episode, which I must be nervous talking about your dad too, I haven't mentioned it until now. It's doing the right thing no matter what. That's a lesson that your father taught you. That's a lesson of his life, and that's what we're going to be talking about here. But before we get there, just talk about your father. Let listeners and viewers know who Sir Warwick Fairfax was.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, so Gary, I was a child of my father's third marriage to my mother, Lady Mary Fairfax. So my father had two children from his first marriage, Caroline and James. He had a daughter, Annalise, and a stepson, Ellen Anderson by his second marriage. And then, my parents adopted my younger brother and sister Anna and Charles. My father was born in Sydney in 1901. He actually was born in the house that I grew up in, Fairwater, on the shores of Sydney Harbor. Now, back in the day, you weren't actually born in the hospital, you were born at home, and he indeed was born at home. And in fact, when my father died in January 1987, he died in the same house he was born in. So he was born and died in the house that I grew up in. So my father was born in pre-World War I Australia, which still was the Victorian era in a sense.
People in Australia at the time still thought of England as the mother country. They would talk about going home, which meant to England. It was just, obviously we have a much more diverse society in Australia since then. My father was a fourth generation in the family media business that was started by my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax in 1841. And he actually was an only child, the child of his parents, Sir James Oswald and Lady Mabel Fairfax. And in fact, as my father was growing up, his parents, Sir James and Lady Mabel Fairfax lived right next door to my dad's uncle, Jeffrey Fairfax, and Jeffrey and his wife Lena had no kids. So you had my dad's father and mother, and his uncle and aunt with one child between four of them. So he might have been a tad spoiled. I don't know.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, I was was going to say, your dad was probably doted upon a little bit?
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So my father went to Oxford University like his dad, Sir James Oswald and some other relatives. And he came back from Oxford in the 1920s. Later in the 1920s, my grandfather actually died, unfortunately while he was playing golf. I think he was about to go on the 18th hole, and he was about 65, so relatively young. So from 1930 to 1976, my father was either managing director or chairman of the company. So for 45 plus years, he was the leading figure in the family, and then he became director of the company after 1976 until he died in 1987.
So my father, like me, he went in the family business. I think there was an element of duty, loyalty as there was with me, and he was actually more of a reflective philosopher than a businessman. He enjoyed reading and discussing theology, politics and history. At night after dinner, he would go into his study and he might read the Bible and the New Testament in Greek or some other theological book or history. I mean, he was just a very learned man. And in fact, when I was growing up, I loved history, but most of my knowledge from history is not from reading books, which I certainly have. It was from my dad. When I was small, I'd say, "Daddy, tell me some history."
It's just like learning from an encyclopedia. It was unbelievable. So, I have a fair degree of knowledge of history, but most of it is just listening to my dad. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters all bond over different things. For us, it was history. So my father was a good writer, and as I said, I think he went to the family business, certainly out of his sense of loyalty, although definitely his writing skills helped him on the journalistic side. But while my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, was clearly a business guy, those business genes had kind of gotten a bit watered down by the time of my father. So I love my father, but he was really a philosopher and writer.
He really wasn't a deal maker, a business guy. That really wasn't his strength. And it's quite interesting as I reflect on how I felt compelled to go to the family media business out of a sense of loyalty and duty, and love of my parents and family. There are photographs of my dad in the 1940s and '50s, and there's one in which he is at the office. He is in charge of the Sydney Morning Herald, the main paper in Sydney, and he has this dour, somber look on his face. Just, "I'm here doing my duty and loyalty," but my dad, amongst other things, also loved the land in the country.
So my dad had a property outside of Sydney, about an hour and a half, called Harrington Park, and he had a Paul Hereford stud, loved raising cattle, loved the land, and he had these more country clothes, straw hat on, and he just seems very relaxed with a broad grin on his face. I've often pondered those two photographs, and wondered. Just the photograph really, it says something. But anyway, the defining crucibles of my dad's life occurred in 1961 and 1970. So in 1961, after a difficult divorce from my father's second wife, he married my mother.
Well, my mother's first husband sued my father. He was a lawyer, my mother's first husband. And basically in the lawsuit, he accused my father of breaking up my mother's prior marriage. So, some members of my family felt like, well, this is a huge controversy. It's in the papers, in the media. And they felt like for the good of the company, he needed to step down for a time while all these lawsuits were resolved. Now, they might've had their reasons, and irrespective of whether their reasons were fair or not fair, my father felt absolutely betrayed by these other family members forcing him to step down, even though it was for a few months. And unfortunately, that sense of betrayal would only get worse. So in 1976, some 15 years later, these same family members pressured my father to resign in part because of the ownership of the shares of the company.
Basically, there were three blocks of shares in the company adding up to about 50%. The rest was publicly held. So, two out of three blocks of the shares in the family really could control the outcome of these sorts of decisions. And so, they did indeed force my father to resign. They had their reasons, maybe they felt like it was time for next generation, but at the age of 74, which he was at the time, my father had a lot of energy. He was in great health. He had plans to update the company's paper in Sydney, the Sydney Morning Herald, and to modernize the company. So, my father felt that this was completely wrong, he felt like they tried unsuccessfully to remove him as chairman 15 years earlier in 1961. And now, they've tried again and they've succeeded.
So my father was hurt, felt betrayed, felt like it was completely wrong, and my father did indeed consider fighting his removal, whether at an annual meeting of shareholders, in the media, doing some other kind of takeover, or he thought of all sorts of plans to try to resist what he felt was this wrongful dismissal. But he decided the best thing for the company, for the family, and indeed for me was to resign gracefully, because my father always saw me as the heir apparent. I think he felt like he could see a lot of himself in me. I went to Oxford the way he did. I studied hard at school, got good grades, worked on Wall Street, graduated from Harvard Business School. I took life very seriously, and as I've mentioned in other places at other podcasts, that made life worse for me, because I wasn't just some dropout kid who was on drugs and drove fast cars and drank, and that would've lowered expectations.
But because I worked hard and studied hard, the expectations rose, and so therefore he absolutely saw me as the heir apparent that could maybe enact some of the policies he wanted to. And so, he was very much focused on the next generation in me. So again, part of the reason he didn't fight this dismissal of him as chairman was for the sake of the company, for the family, but absolutely for me and my future. And I was 15 at the time, so I was aware of what was going on. So over the next year or so, as best he could, my father forgave other family members. He told me that God commands us to forgive, and to the best of his ability, that is what he did. He felt it was the right thing to resign gracefully, not give interviews about how terrible this all was. And he felt it was the right thing for me, for the family and for the family business.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's interesting, when we were preparing kind of what we were going to talk about here, you indicated in the note that we were just scratching out that he felt it was the right thing to do for the family and the family business. You didn't mention in the note for you. I'm glad you mentioned it here, because is it fair to say in some sense that that was him living a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others? His ability to forgive, he was serving you in that sense, right? Is that fair?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really is. It's a good point. I mean, I hadn't thought about it quite that way, but yeah, it was to me, a life of significance because it wasn't about his agenda. If it was about his agenda, he would've fought it. Could he have won? I don't know. He was a person who was greatly esteemed. Hard to know, but it was like, well, what's good for the family? What's good for me? And as I'll talk about, the Lady's faith was not quite the same as me, but he definitely had this faith in God that yeah, he felt like that was the right thing to do, that God would have him forgive them. Again, I don't pretend it was easy or perfect, but the fact that he would say that and attempt that, I mean that alone was remarkable. So yes, his whole life, I feel like it was never about him.
It was never about, "Oh, look at me, I'm Sir Warwick Fairfax," and knighted, and it just never felt like that. Yes, one of the things he enjoyed is cars. And we had a Rolls and a 1928 Bentley, which is an amazing car of its era, and even an Aston Martin, which was pretty much the same thing as the one that James Bond drove in Goldfinger, about a year apart in model. So yes, he liked cars, but yet it felt like his service in John Fairfax Limited, the family company. It was not about him. It was about carrying on the legacy of his father and grandfather, and his great-grandfather, John Fairfax. So yeah, it felt like his life was not about him. It was serving the family, the company, the employees, and indeed the nation.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I feel like a bit of an idiot for not making this connection that I'm about to make here prior to this. I've co-hosted 236 episodes of this show with you, and this is the first time that I've really thought about your dad. Your father was sort of the father of Beyond the Crucible in that sense, right? Just the way that he lived his life, what you just described, that had to plant seeds in you that when you were then in the position to create Beyond the Crucible, that had to, not just his example that we're talking about here, but just generally the way he lived his life in service to others. That had to have a spark somewhere there for creating Beyond the Crucible, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. My father lived his whole life by a code of, try to do the right thing no matter what. Having a paper that was an independent paper, I mean, he was probably moderately conservative in his views, but he had journalists of different viewpoints, and that didn't bother him. He was not one of these media moguls that said, okay, yes, there were certain editorials in his younger days that he might've stepped in a bit. But in terms of the general writing in the paper, he never said, "You need to favor politician A or politician B." It's just not something he ever did. In the 1940s, in my father's younger days, my father wrote a series of articles talking about his views of how a newspaper should be run, and how journalists should write stories. This was published in a book after the 1943 Australian election called Men, Parties and Politics.
He wrote, "A party paper like a party man is one, which once a party decision has been made, supports, explains and justifies it loyally against all opposition, and such papers have existed. But the Herald has always criticized any and every party whenever it thought them wrong." In fact, in the book's foreword, my father wrote that the paper's present policy was one of aggressive moderation, the phrase that actually recalls Sydney Morning Herald's original motto, "In moderation placing all my glory." In fact, the original master head of the paper was, "May Whigs call me Tory and Tory call me Whig," which means may liberals call me conservative and may conservatives call me liberal.
So my father just was telling the journalists of the paper, "We are not a party paper. I'm not looking for party journalists. I'm looking for independent reporting, that reports fairly on the politicians and the issues of this day." And that phrase, aggressive moderation. I mean, that's a very curious phrase. So there was just this integrity of frankly, and obviously I know Gary, you've spent many years in newspapers. There was this concept that newspapers should be independent, and reporters should report fairly on the people that they're covering. This was something he was passionate about.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, a paper run on purpose dedicated to serving others right there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Right, not dedicated to serving himself or his agenda, which is... Yeah, it's remarkable.
Gary Schneeberger:
So, now I will ask you the question that I was going to ask you, which I should have, and you've already talked about it. What was the impact? You've explained who your father was, you've explained his background, you talked a little bit about how he did the right thing, all the time, even when it wasn't easy to do. What was the impact your father had on you, and why specifically did you choose to spotlight him in the book for this, doing the right thing, even when it wasn't easy to do?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, my father, I think as I've mentioned in 1976 when he was removed as chairman of John Fairfax Limited, I was 15 at the time. It was a searing experience. I indeed felt that my father was a righteous man, falsely persecuted. I loved my father deeply. I admired him greatly and respected him. I indeed felt he was a great man. And this incident in 1976, my father had a history of doing the right thing no matter what. We've just talked about his book that he wrote, Men, Parties and Politics and his talks with journalists about the right way to do journalism. So there was another instance early on in my father's tenure at John Fairfax Limited that shows his integrity. So in the 1930s, my father and his first wife were very good friends with Sir Robert Menzies and his wife. And they would sometimes vacation together in a place north of Sydney called Palm Beach, different than the Palm Beach here in the US, obviously, but same name.
They were good friends. And so, at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Menzies was the Conservative prime minister of Australia. And in fact, later on, he would become Prime Minister from 1949 until 1966, in fact, becoming the longest serving Prime Minister in Australia's history. So in the lead up to the 1941 election, again Menzies is Prime Minister at that point, my father felt that Menzies, his friend, was not the right person to lead Australia during the Second World War. And in fact, the Labour opposition leader, John Curtin, my father ended up supporting when he became Prime Minister as the right man to lead Australia in the election. And here's my father, who's moderately conservative, not supporting the Conservative candidate in Menzies, and ended up supporting the Labour guy in John Curtin.
And so, Menzies lost the 1941 election, so Conservatives lost and John Curtin and Labour party came to power, and my mother's told me that Robert Menzies blamed my father and the Sydney Morning Herald for losing the 1941 election. And in fact, he never forgave my father for that loss and hardly ever spoke to him for the rest of his life. Now obviously one can say, "Well, how much do newspapers really influence elections?" I don't know. Maybe they had more influence back in the '40s. There weren't other media back then to speak up, maybe radio, but whether it's fair or unfair, Robert Menzies blamed him. Yet this was an example of, "Okay, we may be friends, but we're in the middle of the Second World War. What's the right thing for the nation?" And it felt like it wasn't Robert Menzies the Conservative, it was the Labour guy.
I mean, that's a remarkable display of integrity in doing the right thing no matter what, when it's a considerable cost. And the guy would go on to be Prime Minister for an awful long time. So, I'm sure it had lasting consequences. The thing about my father is, he wasn't just a knight. He would in a sense, I guess if you're a knight, I suppose that means you are a noble, at least in some sense. But my father had this nobility of character. The people that work for him, including his staff at our family home, Fairwater, they greatly admired him. There was just the sense that they respected the fact that they worked for Sir Warwick Fairfax. Somebody not just with a noble title, but with a noble character. It was just so evident. One example of how he just treated people equally is the 1970s, we used to take trips to the Outback. I think, as I've mentioned, my father loved the country and loved going out there, and I was small at the time, so I couldn't drive.
So on one such trip, my father had his driver from the office accompanying us in this trip in the Outback. And so in the middle of Outback Australia, I think near Burke, which is Western New South Wales, the state where Sydney's in, and there was this fork in the road, and my father and his driver got in this heated argument about which way they should go, and the driver's name is Bill Smith. And Bill said to my father, "Sir Warwick, we need to go right." And my father would say, "No, it's absolutely left." And they got this heated argument and Australians are pretty egalitarian. So Bill Smith is like, he was a truck driver in World War II, and it's like, "Okay, here he is. I'm going to state my opinion." Australians are like that.
But even though my father may have thought his driver was absolutely wrong, there was no sense of, "How dare you speak to me, your employer. I'm a knight, I'm chairman of this big company." My father may have thought that his driver, Bill Smith was absolutely wrong, but he also felt he absolutely had every right to his decision, and his opinion, I should say. And that, to me is remarkable. Very few people who were in power and have a noble title, but have that attitude. But to me, that just shows you his character, that he respected people and their right to have their opinion, even if my father thought that opinion may be wrong.
Gary Schneeberger:
I ask Warwick how his father's noble character rubbed off on him after these words from our sponsors. That had to have had great impact on you. One of the things I've told people about you, Warwick, when I talk behind your back, and it's a good talk about behind your back, I say, "Warwick is," for someone who grew up the way that you grew up with, the kind of wealth that your family had, you're the least blue blood kind of person I can imagine coming out of that. So I would think your dad's perspective on the staff who worked for him, like you just described, that had to have rubbed off on young Warwick, didn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I think it did. I mean, yes, my father obviously had some nice cars, and when we traveled to Europe, yes, we stayed in nice hotels, but when we went to the Outback, it's not like you can find back then the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton Outback. I mean, it's the Outback, middle of nowhere. So we stayed in just regular motels and didn't really have hotels out there. It just never occurred to him. We would take trips up to Northern Queensland, we would stay in, I don't know, it was somewhere near Townsville and it was before. Now there's all sorts of resorts, but there weren't back then. And we stayed at this simple motel on this beautiful beach, and it was called the Moon Glow Motel, and that kind summarizes it all.
I mean, it was a fine clean place, but it was not the Ritz-Carlton, but it was a beautiful beach, and so we would stay there for a bit. My father, while he liked nice things, he just wasn't bound up with the whole thing. They were very careful in how they raised me. And so, I didn't get lots of expensive presents or that kind of thing, because they didn't want to spoil me. When I got into Oxford, and I had some money I got from an internship in advertising, they weren't like, "Oh, let's get him a BMW or Rolls or Mercedes or something." I got this small Renault five car, which back in, I don't know, I guess it would've been '79, is kind of like a Ford Escort.
It's a nice little European car, but it's not a Rolls. It's a small little boxy car, and it doesn't go very fast. But it was well-made, and I'm proud of myself that I paid for half of that car. But the point is, I think they knew I was earning some money. So they sort of encouraged that, we will buy you a car, but you can pay for half of it out of your own money. But there was never this idea of, "Oh, let's get him a Rolls or BMW." So that came out of the values of both of my parents, that they wanted to raise me in the right manner and out of some kind of rich kid.
Gary Schneeberger:
There's another aspect of your dad that you talk about in the book, the importance of faith in moving beyond your crucible. We talk about that a lot at Beyond the Crucible, and you talk about that in the book a lot, and doing the right thing as you're on that journey. That's another example from your father's life that you've teased a little bit here, but talk a little bit more about your dad's faith and how that informed what we're talking about here, doing the right thing no matter what.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's interesting. My great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, the founder of the family media business, he had a strong evangelical faith, a strong faith in Christ. As I've said before, he had about as strong of faith in Christ as any business person I've ever read about. But my father's faith was more traditional, I would say more ecumenical. My faith is more, I guess evangelical. And so it was interesting, my father being a very learned, curious person, an intellectual, he read widely on philosophy and religion, and was curious about other religions.
He read the Bhagavad Gita, which is a sacred Hindu text. He met theologians of different denominations, Anglican ministers, Catholic priests. So he was this intellectually curious person that really had this passion for understanding truth, and meaning and purpose. That was really his love. He really wasn't a business guy. I've often said he would've made a very good philosophy professor at university. So philosophy, learning, religion, history, those were his passions. So, my father wrote two books on religion. One was a book called The Triple Abyss, which was really a synthesis of some thoughts on religion and philosophy from different religions and different traditions. But just before he died, my father was working on a book called Purpose.
And in its conclusion, my father wrote a number of things that summarized his theology and character. There are words that just inspire me and amaze me, and just have such wisdom. So in the book's conclusion, my father wrote, "But I prefer an incomprehensible God to a meaningless world." And so, my father's faith may be ecumenical, but as a curious philosopher, to think of a world that's completely meaningless, that I may not fully comprehend who God is and how that all works, but I prefer a God that I may not fully understand to a world that's utterly meaningless and devoid of purpose. That's how I interpret that comment. And I think there is some wisdom in that.
Gary Schneeberger:
I know you're going to move on to a second point there, but I want to read something I found in my research, and this was in, you may have heard of this, I never have. The Australian Dictionary of Biography has a very long piece on your father, and they quoted that. I was actually going to quote that without telling you, and then you quoted it when we were preparing. So I'm like, "Oh, okay." But here's the part at the beginning of that, which when I think about Beyond the Crucible, and I think about what you talk about all the time at Beyond the Crucible, this is what your dad wrote as well, and it's quoted by the Australian Dictionary of Biography. "Existence for us is best defined as purpose." He wrote according to this dictionary, I mean, that's exactly what you believe at Beyond the Crucible, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean after all, the book that he was writing was called Purpose.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Life has to have purpose and meaning. How do we define a life for significance, a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others? He believed that a life should be on purpose. So, I guess without really realizing it or comprehending it, our motto at Beyond the Crucible, that life should be about a life of significance. Part of the core of that is from something my father felt so deeply and profoundly, that life should be on purpose.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, and I can't imagine how that feels to you having that revelation. It's got me, it moved me to having been with you over the journey of Beyond the Crucible to see that connection. So sorry, I cut you off before you got to something else that he wrote in that book.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, one of the things that he ends the book with is these few lines. He says this, "How can I say what I should aim at? To live beyond my understanding, to act beyond my love, to serve beyond my life?" I mean, that, to me is a life on purpose. It's dedicated to serving others. It's altruistic, it's uplifting. It's the opposite of a life about me. To live beyond my understanding. I may not understand everything that's happening in life. I may not fully comprehend who God is. I may not always understand what's happening, but I will live beyond the level of understanding I have of life. I'm going to act beyond my love. I may not like what happened to me, I may not agree with it, but I'm going to act beyond my own capacities to love, and to serve beyond my life is not so much about me. It's about serving others. I mean, this is deeply altruistic on purpose, dedicated to serving others. I mean, those are amazing lines.
Gary Schneeberger:
And you could, Warwick, because I did, because it's not lost on me as I read this, the three times he used the word beyond in what he wrote. So I rewrote it to say, here's his lines, to live beyond my understanding, to act beyond my love, to serve beyond my life, and his son has added to it, to thrive beyond my crucible. And that is just, it's amazing to me that he would've written that and that you would've created something called Beyond the Crucible is again, he's the Father, clearly of what this podcast and this brain is all about, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, that is remarkable, Gary. I had never, ever thought that there are three beyonds in that. And Beyond the Crucible, just the idea of getting beyond our worst day, getting beyond the limitations, perhaps of our capacity to love, to give, to be who we want to be. It's feeling like there is a journey, there is a next step. And from my perspective, there's a higher power. There's a loving God up there that can help us live beyond our capabilities, love beyond our abilities, serve and have purpose beyond our abilities to do that. There is a loving God that can help us do that. That to me is the key of living beyond, and getting beyond a crucible is relying on a higher power, which to me is a loving God. But yes, that's remarkable. Three beyonds were the cornerstone of his philosophy.
Gary Schneeberger:
And his son added the fourth beyond in there. I mean, that is just so moving and touching and incredible. So again, I cut you off. You have some more details about your dad's faith, but I just had to get that in there.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, that is profound, amazing, astounding, really. So, thank you. That's amazing. So yeah, my father's faith may not have been quite the same as mine. As listeners may know, I'm an elder at an evangelical, non-denominational Christ-centered church in Annapolis, Maryland where we live. But I had a deep respect for my father's faith and how he lived it out, just the way he tried to do the right thing no matter what, especially in the events around 1976 when other family members tried to, and did remove him as chairman of the company. I truly did feel that he was a great man of noble character, and I feel like if you have a parent that's a great person who you deeply respect them, I mean, that is a gift. I realized not everybody can say that. What's interesting is that I came to faith in Christ through St. Aldate's Church, which is an evangelical Anglican church at Oxford.
I was studying at Oxford University at the time, and this happened in 1982, when faith became very real and personal to me. So I called my father to let him know what had happened. And remember, my father had more of an ecumenical faith-looking synthesis from different philosophical and religious traditions. But despite that, what was interesting is, my father was actually pleased and proud. He wasn't like, "Oh, here we go. We've got some Holy Roller. What's happened here?" Because he said that my faith in Christ was in line with that of John Fairfax, my great-great-grandfather. It's as if, well, this is family tradition. Faith has been important to my family of the generation. So, the fact that faith is so important to you is just amazing.
I find this comment both telling and revealing. And when I was working in New York and working in banking at Chase Manhattan Bank, my father would write letters to me, and he was so proud of me and my faith, and he looked forward to me coming back to Australia and he said, "My faith in God has grown, and obviously your faith in God has grown, too. And so the two people we are now, I look forward to just growing even closer and talking about this." So it just felt like somehow, the fact that I made this profession of faith in Christ, to him, it almost if it was possible, bonded us even closer.
So, it's hard to know quite what all that means because it felt like on the face of it, his faith was more ecumenical than mine. But somehow he deeply respected my evangelical faith, and in some sense, maybe more than I realized at the time, he could deeply respect and relate to it, and wanted to grow closer through mutual faith. So it's just quite remarkable. It was a bit unexpected. I don't know what I was expecting when I called him that day in 1982, "Hey, Dad, I made a profession of faith in Christ." His, just love and respect, I guess that's another testament to his character. There was no, "Well, I don't know about this. I agree with some of it." He was just proud of me and so pleased. So again, just a testament to his faith and his respect for me. Again, remarkable.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that's been kind of what this episode's been about. There's been a lot of remarkable here. Some things that I think have been first-time revelations, certainly to me. I think to you, maybe some things as well. As we wrap up here, Warwick, for listeners and viewers, what would you offer to them as the big takeaways here? Because it is a very personal story about your father, but there's also bigger takeaways there, too. So what are the takeaways here that folks can take with them about Sir Warwick Fairfax?
Warwick Fairfax:
I feel that I've been blessed to have as a father, Sir Warwick Fairfax. He may have been head of a large media company, but for me, he was just my dad, and he was a good father. He spent a lot of time with me growing up. Our trip to the Outback, and when I went to Oxford, he flew over with my mother. And just to show you what kind of love he had, I guess because my father started flying in the 1920s and '30s, when flying was more of an adventure, pressurized cabins back in biplanes in the '20s. So he was deathly afraid of flying. So when we went to England, when I was like six or seven, we took the ship, which back in the '60s, you could still take a ship to England. He flew in 1979 from Australia to England when I got into Balliol College, Oxford, and he was deathly afraid of flying.
I remember my mother telling me at the time, "He would not have done that for me, but because of his love for you, he did it for you." I mean, and I realized that was just amazing. That's love in action, doing something you're absolutely deathly afraid of. So he was a great dad, loved me, an enormous amount. We bonded over a mutual love of history. I guess my father had this, as I've mentioned, this nobility of character. He's somebody that everybody in the country respected, be they conservatives or more progressive politicians, business people. The people that worked, thousands of employees worked for John Fairfax Limited. The staff that my father had felt like they were blessed to work for Sir Warwick Fairfax, a person noble in title, but noble in character, noble in every sense of the word.
It was just so apparent. My father was somebody, as we've discussed, that would do the right thing no matter what. The pinnacle of it was how he responded in 1976, when 15 years after they first tried, other family members finally succeeded in removing him as chairman. That was certainly how my father saw it, and he was devastated. He was hurt. He was 74 years old, but he was in tremendous shape, great mental acuity. But for the sake of the company, the family, and especially my future within the company, he resigned gracefully, and to the best of his ability, he forgave other family members. That episode in the 1940s when my father put country first by supporting the Labour party leader, John Curtin and not the Conservative candidate, Sir Robert Menzies is remarkable.
It was country first, doing the right thing first, no matter what. And just the way that my father treated other people, his staff and everybody interacted with, he just felt that their opinions were worthy of respect. Never saying bad things about other people in the sense of based on the color of their skin, or their political beliefs, again, is just remarkable. I almost think of Winston Churchill in a sense, and I believe we spoke about this when we talked about Churchill. In 1945, Winston Churchill, after having won the Second World War, along with Franklin Roosevelt, he loses the election because the British people wanted peace and prosperity, and they wanted welfare programs just to help after the devastation of the war.
Clement Attlee, the Labour leader won and some of Churchill's friends came up to him and talked about silly old Attlee and how bad he was, and just bad-mouthed him. And Churchill said, "How dare you speak badly of Clement Attlee? I may not agree with his policies, but I will support him. He's our prime minister." And there are kind of echoes of that with my father of, he may not always agreed with people who were more left of center because he was more right of center, but he didn't denigrate their character.
He respected their rights to believe what they believed. He treated people as human beings. He treated them equally. He believed that everybody is worthy of respect. So to me, when I think of what makes him a great man, it was because my father wasn't just a noble in title. He was a noble in character. He did the right thing, no matter what. He did his best to forgive other family members that removed him as chairman in 1976, and he treated other people with respect. So, that's why I admire him so much. I felt like, I do feel like my father was a great man, and to have a father as a great man, you deeply admire and respect, that is an incredible gift and an amazing blessing that I'm truly grateful for.
Gary Schneeberger:
Before we land the plane, and in honor of your father, let's make it a scary 1920s non-pressurized cabin biplane. Before we land the plane, let me ask you one more question. For folks who've heard this, and they've certainly touched by the stories, impressed by the stories, not just of your father, but your love and affection for him. Is there just one tip? Maybe there's more than one tip that you can give them, because this episode is about doing the right thing no matter what. If someone is facing this situation where they're not sure they can do the right thing. They're fighting with a family member, and the family member is being very difficult and they don't know what to do. Whatever that might be, what's one tip that they can lean into doing the right thing no matter what, that will help them from that crucible becoming completely out of control?
Warwick Fairfax:
We talk a lot on Beyond the Crucible about doing the inner work, the soul work. If your identity is wrapped up in you, in your title. So my father could be thinking, "I'm Sir Warwick Fairfax and I'm head of this great newspaper company." You could feel like, "I'm chief executive at this company. I'm the most respected person in my town and I'm very successful," or what have you. When your ego and identity is wrapped up in your title, then doing the right thing, no matter what, can be difficult.
Now, my father wasn't perfect and my father liked being chairman of that company. Yeah, probably. None of us are perfect. It's typically shades of gray in terms of character, I realize. But at the end of the day, we're defined by our decisions, and ultimately you've got to decide when you're making a decision, if you are head of the company, or whatever situation you're in, maybe it's an argument with a family member. Is it about being right? Is my identity about, I never make mistakes, I'm always right, everybody else is wrong? Your identity has to be from our perspective in some higher power. We believe in, ultimately in God. But it cannot be in what you do, or being right. So if you do this inner soul work, and have your identity that's decoupled with the decision and with other people, then it makes it easier to do the right thing no matter what.
If your identity is wrapped up in who you are, that tends to make you insecure. Insecure people tend to want to denigrate other people, even people that look different than them, believe different than them. Because what that says is, "I'm insecure about who I am and what I believe, and if I pull other people down, it makes me feel better about myself." That to me, is one of the root causes of prejudice. It's ignorance and deep insecurity of yourself. If you're secure within yourself, and you have a moral core for me, ultimately in God, then I think it's a bit easier to treat people with respect. So ultimately, I think for those who want to do the right thing, no matter what, it helps if you do the inner soul work and decouple your identity from the decision.
If you say to yourself and to others, "Hey, it's not about me. It's about what's the right thing for my company, for my family, for my town, my state, my country, the world, and it's not about my agenda. What's the right thing to do?" If you've done the inner soul work, that's a whole lot easier to do. If you haven't done the inner soul work, that's almost, if not impossible to do the right thing. Because ultimately it will be, "Hey, what's the right thing? It's about me winning and people losing," and that can lean into, do the wrong thing no matter what, which we don't advocate here. It's the inner soul work that's critical to be able to do the right thing, no matter what.
Gary Schneeberger:
Look at that, folks. The plane's on the ground, the 1920s biplane on the ground safely. Good job landing, Warwick. And that'll wrap up the final episode for this year of our series within the show, stories from the book, Crucible Leadership. But like I said at the outset, it may not be the last time we do it because Warwick's book, Crucible Leadership, does indeed have many more stories to tell. So stay tuned for that. And if you liked what you heard here or saw here, we have a couple of things we'd like you to do. If you're listening on a podcast app, subscribe to the podcast right there. You'll never miss an episode. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Same thing, you'll never miss an episode.
So until we're together the next time, folks, please remember, we do know how difficult crucibles can be. We've both experienced them. We know how hard it is to get beyond them. We know how hard it is. We've just discussed how hard it's to do the right thing, all the time. To do the correct thing, even when it's not easy. Warwick's dad did that. Warwick's dad taught Warwick how to do that. We hope you've learned a little bit about that here. So remember, as you walk your journey beyond your crucible, that it's not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons from what you've been through, and you apply those lessons to moving forward, where it can take you is to the best destination you could ever imagine, and that is a life of significance.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the Helper or the Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit Beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment, and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
How do you handle your passion with care? How do you help ensure when you’re off-the-charts passionate about your vision, that you don’t go off the rails in pursuit of it? How do you keep that race car that is your passion on the track?
In this week’s episode, Warwick and I discuss his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com titled Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose. We explore seven key truths to help you stay out of the danger zone of your passion becoming so white-hot that it hurts you and your team.
Among the insights we discuss to help you avoid creating more crucibles are being vulnerable, asking for help and being sure to channel your passion appropriately.
In short, Warwick says, “Your passion needs to serve your purpose. If it doesn’t, you need to get your passion under control until it does.”
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 be sure to tell your friends and family about us.
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Having too much passion, it's not that passion is bad, you just recognize the danger that passion unchecked and unchanneled appropriately can really cause huge amount of destruction and can hurt people. It should come with a warning label, handle with care. If you're a racing car driver and you're driving on probably the most dangerous course in the Formula 1 circuit in Monte Carlo, you have this high performing Ferrari that you're driving and you may be a good driver. But if you push the envelope too much and don't drive it appropriately, it could harm, if not kill you, and other people. These drivers know that. They know they have to drive fast, but under control, that car has to be under control at all times, irrespective of the speed. They know that.
Gary Schneeberger:
How do you handle your passion with care? How do you help ensure when you're off the charts passionate about your vision, that you don't go off the rails in pursuit of it? How do you keep that race car that is your passion on the track?
Hi, I am Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. In this week's episode, Warwick and I discuss his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com titled Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose. We explore seven key truths to help you stay out of the danger zone of your passion becoming so white-hot that it burns you and your team. Among the insights we discussed to help you avoid creating more crucibles with your vision to help you overcome a crucible are being vulnerable, asking for help and being sure to channel your passion appropriately. In short, Warwick says, "Your passion needs to serve your purpose. If it doesn't, you need to get your passion under control until it does."
Indeed. This is an episode based on Warwick's most recent blog at beyondthecrucible.com, which is called Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose. Okay? Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose. I'll begin this episode as I always do with episodes that are about the blog, Warwick, and by asking you what led you to write this blog on this subject of how you need to make sure that your passion serves your purpose?
Warwick Fairfax:
We often think that passion is a good thing. And when we're talking about passion, we mean the passion that's required to make your vision become reality, something that's really deeply on your heart. And in that sense, passion is helpful. It really helps the vision come to reality. Passion can give us perseverance to get through setbacks. You might be thinking, "Gosh, this vision is too important to fail. There are people depending on me. This can really help people. I'm so passionate about this vision, this calling, this mission." And in that sense, passion can be like rocket fuel. It can help us propel our vision forward. So you might be thinking, "Well, that sounds great. What could be wrong with having a whole lot of passion for your vision? And it's not so much that it's wrong, but with a lot of things in life, there can be unintended consequences of too much passion or maybe more accurately passion that's not channeled appropriately.
Yeah. I mean, we often talk about having off-the-charts passion for your vision, and that's good, but there can be so much passion that we can unintentionally hurt other people. For instance, we might be so focused on bringing a vision to reality to help other people that we might actually end up hurting people on our team. There might be people that say, "Well, this is a good vision, but I think we need to pause. I don't know that we have all of our ducks in a road. There are maybe some pieces missing, there are elements of the vision we need to iron out a bit before we go to market, before we roll out this nonprofit.
They might have very understandable reasons for pushing pause or want to tinker, maybe not with the vision, but how it's specifically rolled out and the strategic plans, the implementation, all sorts of things. But we might hear the word delay and feel like, "What do you mean delay? We can't delay. People are counting on us." And so we can get agitated, almost angry about it. And so vision is good, but sometimes when vision is too much, if you will, or not channeled appropriately off the charts, vision in some sense can actually be dangerous.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. We say the phrase off-the-charts passionate all the time, right? That's important to bring your vision to reality. But what you're talking about really is making sure that you're not off the rails passionate, you're not a little out of control, passionate about it, and there is a balance there. I love that you mentioned that passion is the fuel that can propel your vision to reality, but it's rocket fuel, you said, right?
What happens with rocket fuel sometimes? It can burn up. It can explode. I mean, it's a great thing to get you where you're going, but if misused, if used unintelligently, if used without restraint, if used wrongly, it can blow up literally. So that's really the ground we're going to cover here.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I love what you're saying, Gary, about rocket fuel. I think of Formula 1 which is very popular in Europe. You can have the latest Ferrari, McLaren, whatever those cars are, and they're high performance engines, but you've got to keep them on the racetrack. If you're going around the narrow street of Monte Carlo, for instance, there are times when you might be going, I don't know, 30, 40 miles an hour on those hairpin bends. Other times you're doing, I don't know what, 180 more. Those Formula 1 drivers who are the best in the world, they know when to speed up, when to slow down, and they have to keep their engines tuned appropriately. And they've got to keep them on track, otherwise, they could be injured, they could injure spectators. So that's, I think a good example of in many areas of life, if not all, it's important for passion to have guardrails or else high performance engines. High performance cars can do a huge amount of damage. Well, some driven high performing person without the appropriate guardrails. A high performing person with fashion without guardrails can be dangerous, very dangerous.
Gary Schneeberger:
And this is not just to you Warwick, this is not just thoughts that you've had. This is not even really only thought leadership. This is experienced leadership because you've been through some situations where your passion by your, as you'll talk about your passion maybe has gotten off the rails a little bit, has become a little too off the charts. Talk a little bit about that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean, I am somebody that as we'll talk about beneath my usually calm exterior, I'm a very passionate person. And certainly there's one example in my life where, yes, my passion wasn't really controlled appropriately. It didn't quite have the guardrails it needed to, and I know listeners and viewers have heard this story, but we're going to look at it from a bit of a different lens. In 1987, I launched a 2.25 billion takeover of my family's 150-year old media company in Australia. I'd just come back from several years overseas with an undergraduate degree at Oxford, a stint on Wall Street and with my MBA from Harvard Business School. My dad had died earlier that year, and I felt that the company had strayed from the vision of the founder, my great, great-grandfather, John Fairfax, and that the company wasn't being well managed.
Now, 15 years earlier in 1976, other family members had threatened my father out as chairman. I was 15 at the time. It was absolutely devastating. I felt like this was a righteous man, falsely persecuted. So all this produced a lot of passion within me. Remembering what happened to my father at 15 years earlier, I felt that the company was straying from the vision of the found, it was not being well managed. And so as I was coming back from Harvard Business School, I felt that something had to be done and something had to be done now. I was off the charts passionate, almost this righteous crusader mentality, which was never good or rarely good I should say. But anyway, in late August 1987, literally a few months, I probably graduated in May, June '87. August '87, which is two or three months later, I launched this 2.25 billion takeover. And things went wrong right from the beginning.
Now the family members sold out. They didn't want to be in a company controlled by a 26-year-old, which makes sense. Within three years, the debt in the company was so high that we had to file for bankruptcy. Australia got in a big recession and revenues and profits were down. So my actions led to friction within the family that led to instability with thousands of employees at the company. And so you might ask, okay, it seems like in theory you should have been an intelligent person, an undergrad degree from Oxford, Wall Street, a Harvard MBA. You at least knew something about business and how to structure things. I mean, I'm assuming you attended finance classes at Harvard Business School. It seems hard to fathom, hard to figure out. I mean, how could I have made so many mistakes? And I think in short, it was too much passion or I would say uncontrolled unbridled passion.
It led me to hiring the wrong advisors who told me what I wanted to hear. It led me to ignoring the good advisors that told me, "You know what? Warwick, the numbers don't add up. It's too risky to make the takeover." These were blue-chip merchant bankers, basically, Australian British-speak for investment bankers, but wasn't what I wanted to hear. We've got to make this happen, got to make this happen, got to make a change. And so I ignored those good advisors. Basically my passion clouded my judgment and caused me to make rash and ill-advised decisions. And the irony is by my nature, I don't tend to make quick decisions. I tend to think about them, ask for advice. Well, certainly now, but even back then, I never thought of myself as a quick and rash decision maker.
But all of this passion, the memory of what happened to my father. And these same, some of this is subconscious, these same family members who tossed my dad out. I felt like allowing the company to go in the wrong direction and management was making poor decisions. And so with all this emotion and passion running around within me, it led me to just be impatient and make rash decisions without thinking them through.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I think there's two aspects of that story that are important to sort of unpack a little bit. One is the passion that you described is both positive passion. You wanted to bring the company back, so it was moored in how your great-great-grandfather did it. That was a passionate, noble passion. And then there was maybe some negative passion, right? For sure there was about what had happened to your dad. Passion that can derail your vision can be both from positive sources and negative sources. That's fair, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It is absolutely fair. The sad, unfortunate thing is if you'd asked me at the time and not in 1987. Okay, so this is just a response to your feeling that other family members proverbially stabbed your father in the back. I would've said, "No. That's not why I'm doing this. It's because the company's not being well managed." And objectively, I think, I believe that is true. As I've said in other podcasts in the first year or so when I brought in new management, they increased operating profits 80%. So objectively it was certainly underperforming. Of course there was so much debt, it didn't matter what was happening at an operating level. The point is it's not like all of my assumptions were wrong. Certainly, the one about it wasn't being as well managed. I think it's objectively true. Was it a bit too sensational? I mean, I think so.
It wasn't so much that my assumptions were wrong, but it's almost like the cure was worse than the disease. And with some of that passion, some of that righteous indignation because of what happened to my dad, probably yes, but I didn't realize that at the time. I just felt like something's got to be done. So yes, there were some issues, but my passion probably magnified those issues, maybe exaggerated them. And certainly it's one thing to say something needs to be done. It is another thing to say, "Well, is this the right way to go about it? Are there other options? Can you even do anything?" This would be a whole other discussion, but sometimes something may need to be done, but you may not be the one to do it. Or there might be no way of doing anything at the present time. So maybe you wait.
There's all sorts of other options other than doing a hostile takeover to what I objectively thought at the time. And I think to a large degree objectively think now that the company wasn't being well run and I felt like it strayed from the vision of the founder. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that my actions made sense or there weren't other options I should have tried or done nothing at all.
So there are all sorts of, and we'll never know how that would've turned out. But the point is, my passion was so immense and my righteous indignation, if you will, about what happened to my dad that it clouded my judgment and prevented me from objectively looking at other options or objectively looking at whether it was even possible or wise to do the takeover.
Gary Schneeberger:
And I said that there were a couple of points I wanted to draw. The second one I think is also important for folks, and that is you mentioned that one of the things that contributed to the takeover's ultimate failure was that you had family members sell out and they didn't want to be locked into a company run by a 26-year-old. I think it's important to point out that while you were 26, this isn't just something that happens to "young people" to just starting out people, right? This is something that is no respecter of age and experience, right? This idea that passion can overtake reason and can certainly unseat your vision. That's not age-specific at all, is it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's a good point because again, with the Harvard MBA, the idea that in a takeover that's going to be deemed as hostile, that family members are going to want to sit in a privatized company where they really can't sell out very easily at all, controlled by somebody else. No rational business person would think that would make sense, whether you're 26, 56, somewhere in between. And it's not like I hadn't done plenty of cases at Harvard Business School, maybe not quite this particular case, but something would've taught me some common sense in the world of business. But I felt like, "Oh, they won't sell. They have loyalty to the company" and obviously, the advisors I was using cared more about the fee than that. So as long as they get paid or got paid, then that was fine.
But I was just making assumptions that were just idiotic. That alone to be trapped in a company by 26 year old. So you're right, Gary, that yes, it's my particular circumstance. There's billions involved when I was 26, but it could be a small business, it could be a neighborhood community group, it could be a family issue, it could be all sorts of things. With too much passion, it can lead you to make assumptions that other rational people would say, "How in the world could that person make that assumption? No sane person would irrespective of the size, of the age. Too much passion, too much emotion that washes away reason can make the most intelligent person make the most idiotic and dangerous decisions.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's the bad news folks, okay? Here's the good news. Warwick's blog unpacks seven reasons how you can prevent this from happening in your own experience. And let's start running through those Warwick. The first of your seven points about how to make sure that your passion doesn't derail your vision, that your passion doesn't cancel out all the good that you want to do. The first point is recognize the danger. It all starts with recognizing what the circumstances that's going on, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely having too much passion. It's not the passion is bad, you just recognize the danger that passion, unchecked and unchanneled appropriately can really cause huge amount of destruction and can hurt people. It should come with a warning label, handle with care. Back to the racing car analogy. If you're a racing car driver and you're driving on probably the most dangerous course in the Formula 1 circuit in Monte Carlo, you have this high-performing Ferrari that you're driving and you may be a good driver, but if you push the envelope too much and don't drive it appropriately, it could harm, if not kill you, and other people. These drivers know that. They know they have to drive fast, but under control. That car has to be under control at all times, irrespective of the speed. They know that. Their life and others' lives are on the line.
All I have to say is the first step is recognize the danger. And in my case, I'm a passionate person. I think there are many others who are also passionate. If you have a vision that you are off the charts passionate about, then you can be in the danger zone. You probably are or will be. On the other hand, if you're not off the charts passionate about your vision, it's probably not going to happen. For those who want to lead a life for significance. To those that feel like, "Okay, I want my life to be a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others, you'll almost certainly be passionate. If you are somebody that wants to lead a life for significance, then this message, this caution is for you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, for sure. And it's right, passion is an emotion. You begin rightly with here's the emotion you're going through. Now recognize that emotion could be dangerous. The next step, 0.2 in the blog is Knowledge is Power. You're taking here, you've got the emotion that you're considering. Now you need some knowledge to go with the emotion. Talk a little bit about how knowledge is power in this particular circumstance is helpful.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. We use this phrase, knowledge is power a lot at Beyond the Crucible. We used it as part of the assessment, a triumph to triumph assessment in which we talk about having knowledge helped you go from your worst day to triumph to lead a life of significance. Knowledge is very helpful. And so just understanding that passion can be dangerous, we begin to start thinking to ourselves. Okay. So we've had instances in the past like me when passion was dangerous and bad outcomes happened. And so it tells us as we seek to bring our vision to reality, we need to be careful. We need to begin to understand that we need some guardrails and we begin to start asking ourselves. Well, when we get really passionate, maybe too passionate in some sense, we can begin to ask ourselves, when does that typically happen? How does that manifest itself in an unhealthy way when we go to the danger zone.
Everybody's different. It's not necessarily the case of two people who are both passionate that, how it manifests itself in an unhealthy way will be the same. So yeah, recognize that too much passion can be dangerous. Begin to tell yourself that's true. And how specifically does it manifest itself within you? As you begin to self-reflect, you're beginning to enter a territory that could actually be healthy. You're beginning to think, "Well, I know I need guardrails but what do those guardrails look like?" The fact you're even thinking I might need guardrails is a huge win,
Gary Schneeberger:
I just have to say, because of the vintage I am in years, you've said danger zone twice so far in this conversation.
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
I am singing in my head, Kenny Loggins theme to Top Gun Highway to the Danger Zone. That's going on in my head. So I probably dropped it in your head now too. My apologies for that.
Warwick Fairfax:
No. It was already there, the 1986 movie, Top Gun. And where was I when I saw that movie? I was at Harvard Business School in Boston. That's where I saw that. I guess I didn't quite get the fact you got to be careful as you're taking off in your F-15 or whatever it is, off an aircraft carrier. Somehow I missed ... I don't know if that was the point of the movie. It may not have been, but if it was, I missed it. So there you go.
Gary Schneeberger:
We'll have to do a podcast episode about it in a series sometimes and dig into that question. But until we get there, folks, the third point in Warwick's blog following recognize the danger and knowledge is power is this, be vulnerable. Why?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's one thing to see something within you, it's another thing to say something. And so being vulnerable is really helpful. One key step of wisdom is to admit to your team and those that could be affected by your perhaps over-the-charts unbridled passion that we might have a problem. It could be with your family. It could be with your coworkers on a vision that you're trying to bring to reality. It could be with a nonprofit that you're volunteering with. Whatever endeavor that you're working on or whatever vision you're trying to bring to reality, just be honest with those folks. And just admit the fact that you believe so much in that vision that sometimes we can get a little over the top, be a little too passionate and can unintentionally cause damage that might hurt people in relationships.
In this conversation with other people, the first step is to say, using another metaphor, "Houston, I have a problem" back to Apollo 11 or the Apollo program in the '60s. You got to be able to admit that you can get overly passionate at times and maybe you're in the midst of a circumstance where you are potentially entering the danger zone. The dial in your racing car is in the red. It's never good when that's in the red, just being vulnerable, admitting that you either might or have a problem and that you're just so passionate that it's hard for you to think straight
Gary Schneeberger:
In post-production on this episode, we may have to have our producer throw in a little snippet from the song Danger Zone every time you mention it.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly.
Gary Schneeberger:
So we can have the listeners and viewers have the same problem we're having right now. What I love about this point, Warwick, is that you talk about it a lot. And you talk about vulnerability for a purpose, and that's really what this is. This is perhaps the gold standard of vulnerability for a purpose, isn't it? As you're going through managing your passion in the proper way.
How can vulnerability for a purpose help you achieve the purpose you're pursuing? Warwick answers my question after these words from our sponsors.
Warwick Fairfax:
We do often talk about vulnerability for a purpose. It's not like, "Let me tell you every stupid thing I've ever done that has no relevance to what you're doing." But if you're with your team, let's say in some venture that you believe the world needs, it's going to help people. It's your life of significance. It probably will also be your team's life of significance too, certainly in some way. Then that's where if you feel like this wave, this tidal wave of passion coming upon you, then you've got to say, folks, you know I'm a passionate person. Right now I just feel this passion that's almost, I use this expression sometimes almost like lava breaking through the surface.
And I know at times in the past that's been dangerous, but I sure feel like it's happening now. It's vulnerability for a purpose. The first step to be able to moving forward, at least from a team's perspective, they might see that you have passion, but they're not. Most people aren't going to say, "Hey, Warwick. Hey Gary. You seem to be really off the charts passionate about this. I think we've could have a problem." Not something people tend to do. You've got to go first and say, "Hey, I actually have a problem here." You want to enter into a conversation you first got to say you've got a problem.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And that leads nicely as you always do when these episodes, Warwick. You always connect them like steps that we're walking on. But the fourth point in the blog, and this speaks to something else that we talked about in a lot at Beyond the Crucible fellow travelers, but your fourth point is ask for help. You're vulnerable, right? Next step, you got to ask for help. As you said, we have to go first. So unpack why ask for help is a critical part and maybe difficult for some people sometimes.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, it's not going to be any secret to your team that you get off the charts passionate about certain things. Any leader that's, I don't know if they're a visionary leader, but a leader that's really wants their vision to become reality is going to have times in which they're really passionate. And so at this point you recognize the danger. You've admitted you have a problem, you're vulnerable, and now you've got to ask for help from your team members or those potentially affected by your passion. You can ask them, when I get like this, please tell me, or I feel like I'm being a bit too passionate. They can say, I can see that you seem really passionate about this issue and I feel like maybe I, maybe we have said something, or maybe this situation has touched a nerve because, it seemed like you were fine a moment ago or yesterday, or I just feel like it's a volcano that's come out of nowhere because it seems like your passion's at another level, so help me understand what's happening?
By just being vulnerable and asking for help, they might say, "Well, it seems like Warwick, you're getting very passionate." When I mentioned subject A, man, it's just like you said, it blew a gasket or something. I was like, "Huh, really? I didn't really think about that huh? So I blew a gasket When subject A came up? Then you can begin to think about what's going on here. But asking for help can help you identify what's going on or why you are feeling that way.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right? And it's important, isn't it? When you ask for help to ask it of people who you believe will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. You sort of indicated in your takeover experience, you had some good advisors who were telling you, who were offering you help and you weren't having any of that help. You had help that you wanted to pursue. I mean, I think it's fair to say that finding people who will speak truth to you rather than speak what you want to hear to you is really critical to this step.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And really that gets into another very important subject is we talk about having a team of fellow travelers, which is a team who have complimentary gifts to you, but they absolutely a hundred percent sold out into the vision, they believe in it. But you've got to pick the right people that have integrity that will tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. That should be a huge requirement when you're selecting your team members. There's this phrase, being able to speak truth to power, being able to, speak truth to somebody that you work for, so to the best, a degree that you can. You've got a filter for that in the interviews with these people. And then just see over time, are they doing it? If they always say yes to every idea that you have and say, "My gosh, Warwick. That is genius. That is brilliant. Wow. That's amazing."
And it's all they ever say, rather than, "I'm not sure about this one." That is a bad sign. Maybe you should test it out and just come up with the most harebrained, stupid idea you can and say, "Hey folks, I'm thinking about this." And they go, "That's brilliant." If everybody says, "It's brilliant-"
Gary Schneeberger:
Bravo, bravo. Right, right.
Warwick Fairfax:
... at that point, maybe you need to fire the team and get somebody, a whole new team. Yeah, absolutely Gary, you've got to have people that are willing to speak truth to power and be honest with you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, we are now more than halfway through Warwick's blog, Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose. We've talked about recognizing the danger. We've talked about knowledge is power. We've talked about being vulnerable and we've talked about ask for help. The fifth point Warwick is this, reflect on why you are so passionate at the moment. To use your words, why the lava is bubbling up toward the top of your head or wherever the lava is bubbling. Why is this step critical? Because you talk about reflection a lot. Why is reflecting at this point about this subject so critical?
Warwick Fairfax:
We often talk about the inner work preceding the outer work, the soul work for a leader or anybody that has a vision that they're off the task passionate about, they want to bring to reality that inner work is so important. And part of that inner work is when your passion goes in directions that are not helpful, that it does feel like lava is oozing out, that it feels like you're getting impatient or almost angry with your team or your family, depending on the context, you've been vulnerable, you've asked for help. Maybe your team has given you clues as to when your passion went to from zero to a hundred in a nanosecond, what triggered that? They will give you breadcrumbs of clues about what happened. At that point you've got some data and you can begin to reflect, so what's going on? Why did I seem to get over-the-top passionate about that subject at that time?
Reflect is the first inner work you can do in a sense that's so powerful is what happened there? Why did I just kind of lose it in one sense in terms of my passion and maybe snap at my team, what's going on? And sometimes it can relate to an issue with your team or it could relate to an issue decades earlier. It could be in childhood or something, somehow you were triggered with some emotion. Or maybe you've got so much of your identity wrapped up in your vision that if there's a roadblock or a delay, it feels like it's delaying you as a human being. Maybe it's pointing to some unhelpful aspects, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast. If your identity being so wrapped up in your vision that if there's a delay, you get wide, hot, passionate, bad things happen.
It's really a good opportunity. It's again, back to the race car analogy. When you see you've got all sorts of dials that the engine's about to blow up, there's an oil leak. Those dials are there for a reason. It gives you information that you can then go for a pit stop or maybe not push the engine into the red all the time. And at this point you've got some information, you've asked for help. We'll reflect on what is going on. Why are you so passionate? Is there something triggering that? Do some inner soul works, inner reflection to figure out what's going on? What triggered you to have this almost passionate emotional outburst?
Gary Schneeberger:
And this could be the hardest one of the seven points in the blog because in the same way that at 0.4 ask for help, you want to ask for help from people who are going to tell you, we said what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And this 0.5, as you're asking yourself questions, as you indicated, you've got to ask yourself questions that you need to hear, not the ones you want to hear, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, you've got to be able to face the music, face the internal music.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Just because you get over-the-charts passion at times, doesn't mean that you're a terrible person. It may mean that you care. Maybe too much. Passion isn't always fueled by some identity crisis or it's all about me. Passion could be fueled by altruistic motives to help people. So it's not always bad, but regardless, just that internal reflection is important, it's painful. So just go into it saying, okay, this doesn't mean I'm a bad person. Maybe it means I care too much, but since I care about the people I work with and having my vision become reality, I'm going to ask myself some tough questions." I'm going to try to understand is there something from my past that's triggering this? Again, it doesn't mean you're a bad person, it just means you're human, but you've got to do the inner work so that your team isn't hurt, and so frankly, that your vision becomes reality.
Gary Schneeberger:
For sure. The sixth points in your blog, Warwick, pretty simple one word, pray. Talk about that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed, pray. This might seem like an interesting concept, but we took a lot on Beyond the Crucible that your beliefs, your values, they need to be anchored in something. For me, it's my faith in God. I believe it's helpful for people to have their direction, their soul anchored in some higher power, something beyond themselves. In fact, one of the ways we define faith is a belief in something beyond yourself. That might be religion, that might be a different paradigm depending on your perspective. But for me, as a person of faith, when I feel like my passion may be getting a bit out of control, I pray something like this, "Lord, I feel so passionate about this, but I don't want my passion getting in the way of the mission. And Lord, I certainly don't want to hurt people. That is not my heart. Lord, please calm my spirit." And I would say most of the time, not about all of the time, because sometimes my passion is pretty strong, but I'd say-
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. It's pretty hot Lava sometimes, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed. But I'd say, the vast majority of the time, maybe not instantly, but over time, I feel like the Lord does calm my spirit. Maybe it happens supernaturally, but for me it really helps because this doesn't mean I don't want to have passion, but I don't want to have that passion overwhelm me or hurt others or get in the way of my vision becoming a reality. So for me, prayer which is defined as a conversation with God, at least that's how I see it, and others, it's having sort of the ultimate person, if you will, entity that can really help you is just calming my spirit because then I can begin to think rationally. But I believe prayer is one of the most helpful ways to have your passion channeled, calmed. Not extinguished. I'm not asking for prayer for that, but channeled in appropriate way. Just Lord, please calm my spirit. I found that to be incredibly effective and helpful to me.
Gary Schneeberger:
Six is a great point for that because you've gone through all the steps, the soul work, you've gone through asking others, your team of fellow travelers perhaps to weigh in, you've been vulnerable, then you sort of seal it. The sealant can be that prayer, that meditation, that looking outside yourself to some higher truth. And then it gets to 0.7 right? After you've sealed all that up, then you take 0.7. And 0.7 is channel your passion appropriately. I'll just add this before I ask you the question or ask you to react. Channel your passion appropriately, given the context of what we've been talking about, could indeed mean with all the talk about Formula 1 racing, could indeed mean to take your foot off the gas.
That could be the solution that you're looking for here in 0.7. After you've done all these six points, inner work, outer work, upward work, in prayer, it all ends here. Channel your passions appropriately. Talk about that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, having recognized the danger, being vulnerable, asked for help, reflected on what's going on and prayed. Now, I think hopefully you're in a place where you've calmed down a bit. You can begin to think rationally. The brain is working again. It's not just over-the-top heart passion. The brain is now getting back in gear. Your education, your intelligence, your mental faculties. And you can begin to reflect on what strategies you'll use to channel your passion appropriately. You've recognized the problem, you've understood why, hopefully at this point, and you might begin to ask yourself, "Okay, so what's happening here? Maybe this is an issue that I'm triggered by from something in the past. Maybe I'm just so white-hot passionate about this issue that perhaps somebody else on the team may be better positioned to calmly advocate for this." With a donor, a customer, presentation to somebody, you can begin to think, "Okay, what's the appropriate strategy here?"
Maybe, you know what? I know there's going to be a delay and this is really bugging me so much, but we need to make sure that we iron out some problems with this new product or this new venture, this new nonprofit. We need to figure that out so that our vision can come to reality and so that we don't start hurting people or creating problems unnecessarily. So there could be a whole host of outcomes, but once you've calmed down and you know the areas where you're being triggered with your over-the-top or off-the-charts passion, you can begin to think rationally about what the next step is and begin to think to yourself, "Okay, how do I channel my passion appropriately? Know when to dial it down a bit."
You can be passionate but yet, it's possible to be at least somewhat outwardly calm and rational, even though you're really passionate about what's happening. You don't have to yell and scream all the time to prove you're passionate. People know you so once you've calmed down, it's so much easier to think clearly and rationally, "Am I the right person to do this?" Maybe I need to push pause on this particular aspect of the venture. Maybe this secondary product that I was thinking of rolling out, maybe something with this nonprofit that we wanted to do, maybe now's not the time. Maybe the vision itself a worthy vision. Maybe you need to push pause on it. Maybe it's not the right time in life. Maybe you've got young kids and it's like, "This is going to consume my life 24/7. I'm just going to have to wait a few years." Or, "I feel like I'm not in the right place to really implement this vision. I've got to do some inner work, maybe some healing from some crucible that I've been through."
It doesn't mean it's no forever, but there could be a whole host of reasons in which you feel like I need to push pause on the vision. Maybe I don't have the right team yet. There're some critical players I need. I haven't been able to find the people with the right skills who believe in the vision, but are also going to be willing to speak truth to power. There could be all sorts of reasons to push pause on your vision or have other people help you with it and channel it in a better direction. But all of those rational thoughts won't happen until you found a way to calm down and not be in into the lava danger zone mode.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, and that does wrap up the point-by-point discussion of your blog, Why Your Passion Must Serve Your Purpose, which is available right now, folks, at beyondthecrucible.com. I wanted to end or begin to end, Warwick, on this truth. One of the great things about Beyond the Crucible, folks, is that nothing that Warwick writes about, talks about is something that he hasn't himself walked through, right?
This has all been learned, sometimes hard learned experientially, and you talked at the outset when we started this conversation, Warwick, about when you've let your, during the takeover of your family's media company, let your passion jump the boundaries, get a little out of control. But now, you've experienced since then some different ways of dealing with managing your passion. So how have you been able to channel your passion after the lessons you've learned and the experience with the takeover, specifically as you described earlier?
Warwick Fairfax:
I guess the first thing I'd say is I'm far more aware of when I'm getting passionate and that it can be dangerous. I still tend to be a very passionate person by nature. I don't know if everybody is. I certainly am and it's good and bad, but I can't really change my fundamental wiring. It just is what it is. And so, I've had a number of instances, even recently, where I can think of a nonprofit that I do a lot of work with. There was a particular issue. I was off-the-charts passionate. I had unbelievably strong convictions, and it was like lava volcano mode inside.
I mean, there's no question what was going on there, and I recognized that. And while I might've thought that my position on that issue was right, which I do, I knew that I had to find a way to calm down because it wasn't going to be helpful. Certainly, wouldn't get the mission accomplished. In fact, when I went into that meeting with this particular nonprofit on this issue, and these are people that know me very well, I said, "Look, I'm really passionate about this, so let me start even before I open my mouth, apologize. I'm going to do my best to be calm." It could be difficult, but I mean, they've known me very well for years.
And so, I did my level best to be calm. I wouldn't say I totally accomplished it, but at least I was vulnerable. I tried to be respectful and, "Look, I trust you, guys. You folks know what you're doing." Being vulnerable. That alone was a huge help. So I feel like I know myself much better than I did. Knowledge is indeed power. When I realize that I'm getting passionate, even though mostly, I'm calm on the inside, there's all these things I'm thinking and I'm just railing against something and I'm passionate about it. All this stuff is going on on the inside, then that's a big help because at that point, what I typically do, and if it's a personal issue, I'll talk to my wife Gail and say, "Gosh, I'm really passionate about this."
Sometimes I'll ask, "Well, what's going on here?" And she knows me very well and says, "Well, is it being triggered by A or B or C?" Just talking about it will help. Typically, then, I'll say, "Can we pray about this because I sure need it because I feel like it's controlling me? I don't want to hurt people and this is not helpful. So that will help." Sometimes I need to do it more than once, the prayer, because my passion could be hard to deal with at times. If it's in the context of what I do with Beyond the Crucible, I might talk to some other folks on the team saying, "Boy, I'm really passionate about this, but I don't want this to derail things. And so, we'll talk about it."
And so, at that point, we can begin to have a conversation saying, "Okay, what's the best way? Is this something we need to just not pursue or just be a little more patient about it? Maybe somebody else is the best one to talk about the issue. Maybe just drop it for now." But having been vulnerable and prayed, at that point, my spirit is a bit calmer, and I can begin to think rationally. One of the things I really try and do with this example with a nonprofit is like, "Lord, I believe this is the right course, but I'm going to leave the outcome to you and to the team who's going to make the decision," which in this case wasn't me.
And they're smart people. I have confidence in their judgment. I've presented what I thought was right. Yes, I'm passionate about it, but I'm not going to have my identity wrapped up in the outcome of this decision. And I think I pretty much didn't and haven't, but there was a lot of inner wrestling, a lot of inner soul work that precedes that. So I can't really change who I am, which by nature, I am a very not extremely passionate person. I mean, I have views about, I don't say everything, but a lot of things in life. I don't always talk about them because they're not always productive to talk about. But I really have tried over the years to channel that passion appropriately. And at times, if it comes out in unhelpful ways, I try to be ready to apologize and say, "Yeah, I was little over-the-top passionate about that one. I'm sorry." Well, if people know you, it's okay to be human. It's okay to blow it once in a while because that's going to happen. Blowing it is not failure, if you will, I suppose to mix metaphors. Failure is probably not doing anything about it and not being willing to apologize.
So I just try to be a lot better at knowing when I'm getting a bit too passionate, when it's a bit uncontrolled, if you will, realizing it, asking for help, praying about it, and letting go of the outcome. And okay, maybe this vision won't happen as quickly as I thought it would. Maybe the outcome I want to happen won't happen. I'm going to be okay with that. I'm not going to have my identity wrapped up in that decision or that outcome. It's a lot of inner soul work and a lot of asking for help and prayer. All those things have been hugely helpful to me. It doesn't mean I don't get passionate. I can't change who I am, but I can make sure that this isn't going to overwhelm me.
Gary Schneeberger:
And would you say that all those things taken together, they have allowed you to chart a course that doesn't take you to the highway, to the danger zone?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. It's led me to keep that racecar, which I like to think at times I'm driving a race car. At least, certainly, I like to think what we collectively do at Beyond the Crucible is like that. There'll be times in which you hit a hairpin bend, like it's 180-degree hairpin bend. You can't do 180 miles an hour on 180-degree turn. It's just, it'll crash and burn. Bad things would happen.
Gary Schneeberger:
Doesn't add up, yep.
Warwick Fairfax:
No. So you got to be willing to slow down at times. And the same is true at Beyond the Crucible or any vision, there are times in which you got to, as I say, you got to slow down because if you go too fast, bad things will happen. In fact, going too fast at times can make things take forever because you're going to make too many mistakes. You can't afford to be too quick. So yeah, I mean, it's definitely been helpful and it's helped me keep the race car such as it is on the rails. And maybe I'll hit the guard rails once in a while, but I like to think I'd go through the guard rails.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
Nudge it slightly at times, perhaps.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, your life is not a Fast & Furious movie. That's good.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yes, indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
So now that we've wrapped it up, you said a lot of things that are really helpful to folks who are watching and listening. What's one takeaway you like those who are watching and listening to come away from this episode with?
Warwick Fairfax:
Having off-the-charts passion is not wrong, but your passion must serve your purpose. Let me just add, this is a brilliant phrase, and I say it's brilliant, not because I'm egotistical, which hopefully I'm not. But in one of our pre-meetings when we were talking about ideas for the blog, Gary, that's a phrase that you mentioned. You said your passion must serve your purpose. That is profound wisdom. So when I say it's profound wisdom, I can say that because it wasn't me. So there you go, it was you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That's getting into the danger zone of my ego, but thank you.
Warwick Fairfax:
There you go. But your purpose, your vision, and your life of significance, they must be in control, not your passion. If your passion is in control, it will endanger your purpose, your vision, your life of significance. That is not what you want to have happen. You don't want to have your life of significance just go up in flames because you can't keep your passion under control. That is the opposite of what you do. Just meditate, pray about that, saying, "Lord," or however you look at it, "I care about this life of significance, this mission, this vision too much. I don't want my failings, my at times over-the-charts, over-the-top passion to get in the way of that. I really don't want to do this because people depend on me, on my team. People are going to be helped by this vision. I don't want to fail because I wasn't able to get my passion under control and channel it appropriately."
So think about how important it is for your vision to succeed and how people are counting on you, both in your team and the people you're going to help. You don't want to hurt other people, especially people on your team and off-the-charts, over-the-top passion that can do that. So that's not what you want to do. That's not what living a life of significance is. Living a life of significance is not about hurting people, it's about helping people. So you have to have your passion be under control. So I think we believe passion is important, and passion is a good thing, but that passion must be kept under control. Otherwise, you'll hurt people. You won't achieve your life of significance, and your vision won't become reality. So that inner work, that inner prayer to a higher power, it's so important seeking advice because you want your mission to succeed, and you don't want your passion to just go off the rails and torpedo any chance that it has of happening.
So if you're a little bit leery about doing the inner work, just think about, do you want to hurt people? Do you want your vision to not succeed? Do you want to not have a life of significance? Well, if you want all those things to happen, a life of significance and help people, then get your passion under control, put up the guardrails, seek help, pray to a higher power, just keep your passion under control.
Gary Schneeberger:
Great insight. That lands the plane. In this particular case, given what we've been talking about and some of the references we've made, it lands it on the aircraft carrier, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
But before we go, folks, as we always do when we do episodes on a blog that Warwick's written, and this one is available at beyondthecrucible.com, is we ask reflection questions, questions for you to ponder in light of all this discussion that we've had, and I would exhort you before I read these to be vulnerable and honest with yourself as you reflect on these questions.
The first one is, is your passion serving your purpose? Ask yourself that question. Is your passion serving your purpose? Number two, if it's not, reflect on what's going on and share with others that you are having difficulty channeling your passion appropriately. Being vulnerable for a purpose right there. Not just vulnerable for a purpose in a conversation, but for your purpose. For a purpose and for your purpose, be vulnerable. And then the third one, pray or meditate on what is going on and ask for your spirit to be calmed so that your passion can indeed serve your purpose.
That, folks, is going to wrap us up here on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. As always, until we're together next time, remember that we know crucible experiences are difficult. We've had them. We've talked about those things. We've talked to a whole bunch of people, more than 120 guests who've gone through crucibles. We know they're hard, but we also know they're not the end of your story. They can be the beginning of a new story if you apply the lessons you learn from them and chart a course to a new destination and that destination, if you follow your vision and your passion properly channeled can be the best destination you can reach because it is a life of significance.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience.
This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
To bring your vision to reality you have to have passion. At Beyond The Crucible, we say that to bounce back from your worst day, your crucible, to get beyond it and live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, you have to be off-the-charts passionate about your vision. That is true. Passion is important.
But as you are on the journey to make your life-affirming vision a reality, there will inevitably be setbacks. Passion helps us have perseverance to get beyond those setbacks. There are people we want to help. Our passion is like rocket fuel helping to propel our vision forward.
Unfortunately, it is often the case that that which is good can also have a downside. Left unchecked, we can be so passionate about our vision that we can sometimes unintentionally hurt other people. We are so focused on the task of bringing our vision to reality to help others we can actually hurt the people on our team. We can become short with them, become irritable and impatient. Our team members may offer suggestions to make our vision better or have it happen in a better way, and we just don’t want to listen. If those suggestions might cause delays in the rollout of the vision, even if those delays may indeed make sense and may be prudent, we are too impatient to listen. We are fueled by our passion to move forward, but we can leave a trail of destruction in our wake.
Too much passion can indeed be dangerous. I know this from personal experience. Beneath my often calm and reserved exterior, I am at heart a passionate person. I have strong convictions about many things. I just don’t happen to talk about them all the time. But they are there nonetheless.
My cautionary tale of too much passion was my $2.25B takeover in 1987. I had graduated from Oxford University, spent time on Wall Street and received my MBA from Harvard Business School. My father had died earlier that year, and I felt the company had strayed from the vision of my great great grandfather John Fairfax, who had founded my family’s 150-year-old media business in Australia. I also believed that the company was not being well managed. Fifteen years earlier in 1976, other family members had removed my father as chairman of the company. All this produced a huge amount of passion within me. I felt my father had been wrongfully removed, the company had strayed from the vision of the founder and was not being well managed. As I was coming back from Harvard Business School, I felt something had to be done and done now.
And so in late August 1987, just a few months after graduating, I launched my takeover. Things went wrong from the beginning. Other family members sold out, not wanting to be trapped in a privatized company run by the 26-year-old that I then was. Within the three years the debt was so high that when Australia ran into a recession in 1990, the company had to file for bankruptcy. My actions led to friction within the family and instability within the thousands of employees of the company.
What had gone wrong? How could an Oxford graduate with a Harvard MBA have launched such an unwise takeover? In short, too much passion. It led to hiring the wrong advisers, who told me what I wanted to hear, and ignoring the good advisers. My passion clouded my judgement and caused me to make rash and ill-advised decisions. It was a powerful and very painful lesson. From then on, I have sought to keep my passion in check, or perhaps better put, make sure my passion is channeled correctly and wisely. My passion needs some guardrails.
So how do we have our passion fuel our vision, but not cause destruction?
1. Recognize the danger. Passion is not bad, but it can cause destruction and hurt people. It comes with a warning label, “Handle with care.”
2. Knowledge is power. We use this phrase on Beyond The Crucible often. When we realize that passion can be dangerous, we can begin to understand that we have to be careful as we seek to bring our vison to reality. We can begin to understand how our passion manifests itself and when it does so in an unhealthy way.
3. Be vulnerable. One key step of wisdom is to admit to our team and those that could be affected by our passion, that we sometimes can have a problem. We believe in the vision so much that sometimes we can go over the top and unintentionally cause some damage that could also hurt people and relationships.
4. Ask for help. Having recognized the danger and admitted that you have a problem, ask your team members or those potentially affected by our passion for help. If they see you going over the top with passion, your team members can really help. They can say something like, “I can see you are very passionate about this. Is there something that has come up that has touched a nerve, because I feel your passion is at another level at the moment?”
5. Reflect on why you are so passionate at the moment. Try to calmly understand what is going on within you as this sea of passion is rising up.
6. Pray. I am a person of faith, so when I feel that my passion may be getting a bit out of control I pray. It is something like this, “Lord I feel so passionate about this. But I don’t want my passion getting in the way of this mission. I certainly don’t want to hurt people. Please calm my spirit.” That does not mean I don’t want to have passion, I just want it not to overwhelm me or others.
7. Channel your passion appropriately. Having recognized the danger, been vulnerable, asked for help, reflected on what is going on and prayed, there is another step. Having calmed down a bit, reflect on what strategies you will use to channel your passion appropriately. You may be at the point where you can begin to think rationally. You may also feel someone else on your team may be better positioned to calmly and forcefully advocate for your mission.
In the years since my failed $2.25B takeover, I have tried to channel my passion appropriately. It doesn’t mean that I never have some passion go over the top, like lava coming to the surface, but I feel that my passion serves me better now. When I feel almost too passionate, I now for the most part realize it. I am vulnerable. It could be with my wife, my team or with a number of people in ministries I am involved with. Sometimes I even apologize for having too much passion. That leads to discussions about who is the best person to talk about the issue, which may not be me. I pray as I have mentioned for the Lord to calm my spirit so that my passion does not get in the way of what I or the organizations I am involved with are trying to achieve. With my spirit calmed, I can then begin to think rationally and chart a course to continue bringing my vision to reality. Sometimes what I think is an urgent issue, is not so urgent. Sometimes when I think something must be said, it really does not need to be said.
I still have a lot of passion, but my passion is serving me better. It is fueling the vision I have and is helping it to become reality. But my passion is now serving me, rather than me being beholden to or controlled by my passion. In short, your passion needs to serve your purpose. If it is not, you need to get your passion under control until it does.
Reflection
Is your passion serving your purpose?
If it is not, reflect on what is going on and share with others that you are having difficulty channeling your passion appropriately.
Pray or mediate on what is going on, and ask for your spirit to be calmed so that your passion can indeed serve your purpose.
We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.
Relationships, including with those we call fellow travelers, are critical, we learn in this week’s episode, to crafting the resilience we need to move beyond our crucibles.
Our guest this week, Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier, is a pioneer in the field of strategic resilience. Her studies and experience have taught her that thriving through setback and failure is not a trait we manifest innately, but a skill we must build. How do we do it?
As you’ll discover in her conversation with Warwick, Dr. Pelletier says the change professionals and leaders need to make is to approach their resilience the same way they approach a successful business using a strategic plan. That’s what creates helpful, sustainable, and reliable long-term resilience.
The key components to that plan, she says, include relationships, knowing what energizes you and what drains you, and leaning into your values as you consider your next action step on your journey back from trials and challenges.
To learn more about Dr. Pelletier, visit www.drmarie-helene.com
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 be sure to tell your friends and family about us.
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Let's say right now you are very surrounded. You've got your own executive coach, you've got your own peer network. You talk to Gary on a regular basis, this is there. So if you're creating a strategic plan to get your resilience to the next level, it doesn't need to be there. It's already part of your life. It's in, you're good. You're going to focus on other things. But if it's not there, it will probably become a pillar to say, oh my God, I've been focusing on other projects and I've let go of investing in relationships even though each of our plans will be different based on our values and all this. The reality is we do have research that indicates the kinds of things that will, we know from research, increase our resilience. Relationships is one of them.
Gary Schneeberger:
Relationships, including with those we call fellow travelers are critical, we learn in this week's episode, to crafting the resilience we need to move beyond our crucibles. Hi, I am Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. Our guest this week, Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier is a pioneer in the field of strategic resilience. Her studies and experience have taught her that thriving through setback and failure is not a trait we manifest innately, but a skill we must build. How do we do it? As you'll discover in her conversation with Warwick, Dr. Pelletier says the change professionals and leaders need to make is to approach their resilience the same way they approach a successful business using a strategic plan. That's what creates helpful, sustainable, and reliable long-term resilience. The key components to that plan, she says, include relationships, knowing what energizes you and what drains you, and leaning into your values as you consider your next action step on your journey back from trial.
Warwick Fairfax:
Thank you Marie-Helene for being here. Just so looking forward to the discussion. Really enjoyed reading your book and so many interesting things in there about having a resilient strategy. Never thought about that before. We will be diving into that, but I know you live in Vancouver in the British Columbia area, but I think from Quebec or I guess as English speakers, but I guess it should be Quebec, so I'll try. But tell us what life was like for you growing up, and obviously you became a psychologist and then got your MBA. Were there clues in your background growing up that you could look back and say, well, it's not a surprise that Marie-Helene would go into psychology as a vacation?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Well, and it's an absolute pleasure to be here with both of you. It is a good question. I was looking actually not that long ago to my high school graduation book and what was in there, and one of the things at the time, there's a few pieces that I think we're not saying clearly, this is what I would do, and plus some of that I discovered as I went, really, I had not decided I would do business after psychology. I did psychology, and then I can explain how I got there, but that's where I went. But in terms of earlier years, I was very much interested in anything scientific.
So science in general, which there's tons of, that's what psychology is based on. So there's a lot of that there. Most of what I do right now is public speaking, giving keynotes and that kind of thing. At the time, I spent two and a half years, almost three years in a group that were singing and dancing, so doing lots of shows internationally, the whole thing. I was on a stage basically, so when you become a speaker and at some point people tell you, oh, you're going to get to those audiences where you don't see the audience because the lights are so big and all that. I already knew that. So there was some pieces like this, but the rest, as I said, just came with the, it's where the road took me.
Warwick Fairfax:
So what kind of musical shows did you do?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It was, I know. It was a group of, so the group itself was fairly large, about 50 people on stage. We were usually about 30, and it was a group that would sing on mostly songs that were very popular in that moment and do just choreographed dancing with that, which since then, there's been many other groups, way more professional, high level than we were at the time, but because of the time, it actually worked really well. We did the Paris Olympia in there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Wow.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yeah, I know.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's amazing.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Who knew?
Warwick Fairfax:
But I'm sure that probably helped later, the whole stage fright thing, which I know you talk about in the book, so that's fascinating. So you made a decision to become a psychologist. There's a lot of areas of science, why psychology? What about psychology just pulled you in and you thought, gosh, this is me. I love psychology.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yeah, I loved, I was amazed and at the time, again, for me, we're talking what, over 25 years ago, so now psychology is very popular. It's a degree that many people consider even as a first thing to do. They do it out of interest, all this. At the time, no, no, no. Everyone who was doing a bachelor degree in psychology was clearly on track to become a psychologist, this is what we were doing. You'd often have to explain almost what we did. Mental health was not a topic that was easily discussed, definitely not in the workplace. So for me, it realizing the amount of research that was available, the amount of change that most of us could experience in such a positive, significant way if we knew about this information, and so that to me was enough to say, okay, yes, need to do this.
Warwick Fairfax:
Interesting. So it almost seems like you went in to understand psychology because it could empower people.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
Some people go into it thinking, I want to help and fix people or cure people that might feel broken, and obviously what does that mean? I guess obviously there's scientific terms, but for you it felt like, I want to empower people. People now talk about positive psychology. That probably wasn't a thing 20 years ago, but it's more popular now.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
That's right. It was just emerging. But even when there is a thing that is challenging that we would like to in some ways fix or change, one of my areas of specialization has been anxiety in different ways because at the time it was clinical psychology and that's what was there. But even then, if you're dealing with, say, panic attacks on a daily or on a weekly basis, learning the tools and being able to apply them is a major life shift and it is empowering even in that context. So yes, it was very much my approach to it for different situations.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think you've written a bit about how you got from psychology to business and decided to get an MBA, which I think if you mentioned there aren't that many folks who have a psychology background and a business background. They seem to be different, but you-
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Plus, We're done with schooling at some point.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. So what led you to the business side to MBA?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
I was probably already a bit different from a larger majority of my colleagues here, and then I realized I was also a bit different from my business colleagues, so I'm an in of one no matter where I go. But what happened though is I decided to do my doctoral research about 20 years ago in the area of the time that was called telehealth. So could we, using video conferencing, provide therapy at a distance? Hello, we all do it now, blah, blah, blah. But at the time, we could not even use the internet to do it. It was not fast enough. I had to use six telephone lines to transmit both video and audio data to test whether this was even an option. So it required me doing a lot of relationship building. I had to have supervisors from Hawaii because, and there was an Army medical center dispatched there that would use telehealth a lot with US Army on ships.
I had to find people like this to contribute to my overall research. I also had to get a lot of people to either fund the research, find people to even work in a volunteer way with me. And so it ended up being a lot of management of money, of networking, of organizing of all this, and then I finished and I went to my PhD supervisor. I said, I'm going to need a recommendation letter. She said, fantastic postdoc. And I said, no, we're doing an MBA. That's how I realized that's at that moment, I knew this is what I was interested in doing next. So that's how it happened.
Warwick Fairfax:
It seems like you always wanted to empower people. And then so the whole management organizational challenges with telehealth, did it feel like I want to use my psychological training in the business world to empower people, empower systems, individuals, high performers? Do you feel like your vision sort of found you, if you will?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Oh, yes, very much so. It was a combination of taking risks, trying different things, seeing what's connecting with my values, what's important for me, and then seeing what's there and taking opportunities. And yes, at times knowing that it may or may not work, but we're trying this.
Warwick Fairfax:
When did you decide that your life's work would revolve around residents?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It happens because as I started doing more roles in leadership, senior leadership roles, that kind of thing, in the various organizations I was in, inevitably there would be at times people who would say, okay, we need to talk to one of your executive coaches or psychologist, and we want one of your most senior people kind of thing. So that ended up being with me. Then I ended up working a lot with professionals and leaders who were fabulous at so many things they do, and at some point needing something to give them an edge.
And I realized, oh, that is that proactive resilience. And many times, especially in the recent years, they were of course very aware of all the things we should do to increase our resilience they did not have time to make any of this happen. And then I realized it is in part because they're not being strategic about it, and it's through giving examples, helping them see it that way, seeing how it clicked and completely made sense to them that I thought, okay, and then, well, the other thing that happened is a number of them would at some point say, this is so helpful.
I'm so glad I have this now. I wish I had it sooner. And then I heard this a few times and eventually I clicked. I said, if I write it, someone's going to get it sooner. That will be one good thing. And yeah, that's what led to the book.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, that's interesting. So there's a story which we'll get to in a second of you with your husband, Nick in the Canadian Rockies, but before we get there, it seems like it's sort of a backdrop to that. One of the things you write about, there's a lot of high-performing leaders that tend to feel like I got here because I can get through anything. I'm like, Superman, Superwoman, I can get, I'm bulletproof. It's just like, give me a challenge and I laugh at the challenge and here we go, never met a challenge I can't overcome.
Then eventually you do find a challenge that's like, it's not a speed bump. It's like Mount Everest, and even high performing leaders when they hit Mount Everest, it's like, huh. I've never experienced this challenge in my life. I've got challenges at home, challenges at work. It seems like there is a trap for almost high performing leaders to a degree of setup to fail, because they've been so successful. It's like, resilience? That's for the other guy, that's for lesser mortals than me being this heroic successful figure. Did you sort of find that you had almost people with delusions of, I don't need resilience because I'm superhuman kind of thing?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes, yes. And that's interesting because even these leaders, and in many of these that includes me, we will actually tell others. That includes me. That could happen to me as well. You say the things because logically, of course, yeah, no, but deep down you're thinking not really. And now, it's in part what happens is, it's not just your fault. Yes, The reality is you've gone through a number of challenges and not everyone has, and you did and it worked, and so okay, there's a logic there. And then the other piece that happens too is people around you start telling you, you are the rock. You can do this, you can do anything. You're the rock of the family, the rock of the team.
You're like, yes, like I said earlier, we can throw anything at you, and it's obviously said in a very positive, highly valued way. So you take it and then there may be a little voice in the back of your head that says, well, careful, actually, you're human like everybody else, but no, no, no, you don't listen to this. You just carry on. And so it does become a trap. The solution to that trap, it's not complicated. It doesn't take any of your strengths or your abilities or none of this, but being realistic about it and being realistic about the fact that yes, we do need to nourish it is what changes everything.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And we'll get into this in a moment, just being proactive before the hurricane hits, so to speak. When the hurricane hits, it's not the time to say, let's plan on what to do. It's a bit late at that point. So talk about, it's almost like a parable, if you will, a real life parable of when you're on this eight day trek in the Canadian Rockies with your husband, and just talk about, there's a radical difference between day one and day eight that, again, is really, you weren't trying to exemplify your life's work. You weren't trying to be your life's work. Obviously that wasn't the goal, and you probably already had written some of these thoughts. I don't know if the book was published back then, but it's not like you had no thoughts about resilience or no understanding, I'm guessing, by the time you went on this trek. Just talk about that trip and why that is really a parallel in some sense of your work.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yeah, well, so the short version of the stories, just so everyone can understand a bit of what we're talking about here, what had happened is, yes, Nick and I did a fair bit of mountaineering, various trekking in different countries and all this, and yes, on that year we had decided to go do that eight-day traverse in the Canadian Rockies, which involved crossing a river on the first day. And we did in a very successful way with lots of planning, plan A, plan B, strategizing together, and of course we were quite fresh. It was day one. Turns out, midway through that traverse, we, for all kinds of reason, could not continue made the decision to come back. We had almost no choice, really. So we came back, which meant we recrossed this river, but the river was much bigger than the first time because it was late June of a year that had received a lot of snow, so it was actually much more tumultuous, and yeah, I almost drowned in that second situation.
And then the learning after, well after, it was, okay, wait, this really functions the same way for us in our work life as it relates to resilience on the equivalent of day one, where we're at our best, fresh, high energy, we're planful, we're strong, it all works out. Bring on the challenges. And then we get to a different context, like the equivalent of day eight there where we're like, yes, very drained from eight additional days of walking. The challenge looks the same, but it's not. It's much bigger, but we treat it the same way, blah, blah, blah. Well, then it puts our resilience in the story, our life really, but our resilience at risk, and what could change that is being more realistic about the context we're in, being differently planful and protecting our resilience.
Gary Schneeberger:
We talk a lot on the show about resilience. That's one of the words we say most often, and I think it's important for listeners and viewers to hear what you're saying. You were a bit of an expert in this subject and you went on this mountaineering trip with your husband and you fell short of some of the resilience goals that you maybe thought were innate. And I think one of the things that this episode is going to do a real lot of help for people is to explore how resilience isn't just something you're born with.
It's not innate. It's not, to Warwick's point earlier, it's not a superpower that, hey, I think we think we can manifest it at all times, and the perspective you bring is so important because you have to work at that in the same way you can't manifest big muscles all the time. You got to go to the gym. It's the same sort of thing. So I just want to make sure folks understand that and hear that, that what we're going to explore now is how you build that resilience plan and that resilience muscle to move forward.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, excellent point, Gary, and I love what you say, Marie-Helene, in their book that resilience is not a given. You need a strategy and it's not a one and done, it's sort of diet and exercise. Well, I went to the gym six months ago and I ate right and didn't eat any junk food and I'm good. I just do that once a year and I'm fine. No, if you don't do it regularly, there'll be a decline in your ability to perform at your optimal level. And I have a feeling that resilience is the same way. You've got to be doing things constantly to be at your maximum resilience performance level, which is counterintuitive for many people. It's like, hey, once I've gotten through five or 10 different crises, well, I have the tool. I mean, I know what I need to do, and there's some truth in that, but in life, you can get a little flabby and overconfident, and just because you accomplished some feat that required resilience doesn't mean you don't have to keep in shape, if that makes sense.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It does. And there is, I think, a couple of pieces to add to these analogies. So yes, in order to build a muscle, you want to, for example, go to the gym, and there will be times where there isn't a gym or you cannot go to the gym or you are in three airports over the course of 20 hours, there's not going to be a gym. Some airports do have them, yay, but most of the time, not really. So what do we do in these circumstances? Sometimes the context changes and there will be different ways to maintain your training. Maybe you're going to walk gate to gate more often even if you don't need to. So taking your context into account is important in terms of taking actions today. The other piece too is, to your other comment work, is that sometimes we'll use old data to decide where we're at now. Sometimes we'll say, oh yeah, I've gone through these, whatever, 10, 25, whatever, different things, and therefore I'm good.
Well, okay, you went through these things and they happened in a certain context. The context today is not the same. So if you are deciding that you're fine because you did these things, you were fine when you did these things, relatively, and it's old data if you try to apply this now. Different times. If we're wanting to increase our resilience even further, our ability to go through all these challenges, then we want to take into account our context. We can't just say, oh yeah, let's do all the things. That's where people get stuck. They can't. They don't.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. One of the fascinating things about your model is this whole supply and demand, which obviously economists are very familiar with that, but in resilience you talk about areas that give you energy and health and then other areas that drain, and you talk about a ratio of supply to demand. So talk about that, because that seems, it makes sense, but somewhat revolutionary to talk about supply and demand in resilience.
Gary Schneeberger:
That is indeed a very fresh concept. The notion of supply and demand in resilience. Discover how Dr. Pelletier answers Warwick's question after these words from our sponsors.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It's just terms that, and I use the terms differently than into the ways an economist would use them here, like you said, I mean your sources of energy, what brings it up, and the places where it comes down. In itself, fairly simple. Everyone's nodding, yes, okay, here are the problems. What happens is we overestimate our sources of supply. Seriously. Every single time I ask someone, what brings you energy and what do you do that brings you energy? They will start listing, oh yeah, going for walks, sometimes on my own or with my partner, and they list all kinds of things. Then I say, great. In the past two weeks, how many times? Well, the past three months have been extremely busy, so not now, but in general. So we overestimate all of these. Then when we're looking at the demands, I say, okay, what kinds of demands are you facing?
And then they usually one to three things at work that they don't like, big demands, and that's it. And it's only when I stay longer and I say, okay, what else is going on at work and at home? Demands that, yeah, the ones you would prefer not to have, but also those that you are happy to have. It's just that they're demanding energy, a renovation at home, a new role at work, a new team member at work that you need to support a bit more. You want these things, but they still represent demands.
Point is, we underestimate these. So between overestimating the supply and underestimating the demands, again, we've got no reason to invest in our resilience because we're great. But when we become realistic about this, and that's one of the worksheets, we'll have them in the show notes if your audience is interested, but there are worksheets that are free there. You can do them with the book or without the book that just allow you to make that reflection. And many times I've heard people do that particular one that you picked as a game changer for them, because if you pair this, then with your values, for example and other aspects, then your next actions start to emerge.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's funny, as I was reading your book, I'm somebody that's, I think very carefully before saying yes, I'm a reflective person. I don't make decisions quickly, which has its pluses and minuses. So I tend, and I'm from Australia. In Australia, it's not like North America. We actually do, no offense, value vacations and downtime. It's a cultural value.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yay for that.
Warwick Fairfax:
So nobody's going to say, I'm going to take off three or four weeks and go backpacking and Southeast Asia or see the mountains in Europe. Everybody would say, great, good for you. Here, it's like, what's your problem? Going to get off the fast track? But anyway, even for me, when we go to a non-denominational church here, and there were a couple of board committees and it's like, well, I can do those. And again, I think because I'm not leading them, but it gave me pause saying, am I doing something that's somewhat unusual for me and saying yes to things I shouldn't have said yes to just because I really want to do them? And we don't need to get into the analysis here, but reading your book made me think, even if there's somebody like me that tends to be very cautious about saying yes, even for me, it's possible, if you get what I'm saying, I don't tend to jump in and say yes to thousands of things. That's not my nature.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes. Well, but it's a great point what you're saying because sometimes people think that because we're, however we define it, say, more reflective, slower at making decisions, or we're more introverted, whatever the reasons are that we're not impulsively saying yes as if that automatically protected us. No, no, no, no. Sometimes in here, in that reflection comes all kinds of beliefs that will make you say yes, this is what everyone expects of me. This is the right thing to do. Or feeling any kind of guilt in case you say no, so therefore you say yes. I mean, this could all be happening here. We're not less at risk over here. So it's a great observation because I'm sure some of our listeners today may otherwise may have thought that too.
Gary Schneeberger:
One of the things that leaps to mind work was just saying that there's some things that he likes to do, but does he have, is it possible for something to be both something that gives you satisfaction but also drains on you? I mean, can you have something that is both of these opposites in some ways that you talk about as part of the resilience model? Can something be two things at once, good and bad like that?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes. The example most of my audiences will naturally come up with is usually golf. They'll say, what do I do with this? Which column does my golfing go in? So yes, that's an example. It's a good one. And there are others, of course, yes, that will happen as well. And that's okay because when we're doing this kind of reflection, different from, say, the analysts on Wall Street, for example, where there is only one place for that number and here is the column for it. In this reflection, it's a bit more fluid. So we need to tolerate that fact that, yeah, well look at this. It goes in both columns, it's fine. And then you just continue your reflection still because we're the human side of things where, yes, at times it will be like this, but I love that you brought it up because otherwise sometimes people can get stuck with it and not feel that there's doing something wrong. No, you're not. Just carry on, keep going. We need this reflection to continue so you can get to your strategic resilience plan.
Warwick Fairfax:
I wonder, just faced with Gary's example, if you've got something that's both exciting but maybe draining, maybe you ask yourself, is this net demand or net supply, what's the net effect? It doesn't mean that you say no, but at least if it's on balance, I really like this, I feel very motivated, but it's going to be huge amount of work. And so okay, it doesn't mean you say no, but you pay attention to the consequences. Does that make sense? Is it a net demand or supply this exciting new thing that you really want to do?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes. And that's in part why in the various worksheets, then you also get to the one that looks at your context because there will be times when it's a overall net positive, and there may be other times in your life where these days it's more a net negative. So it depends on the context. And I love what you were commenting on as well, that a lot of what we're doing with this, which is actually again, very aligned with when we're being strategic in a business context. It's not like being strategic and using the tools we use to help our thinking. It's not like we haven't thought of any of these things before.
They were part of the overall, yeah, yeah, they were on our radar. But what it does is it helps us avoid blind spots. It collects the information in a way that we can actually tolerate it together and then get us a decision. It increases how deliberate we are about where we're going. That's in part being strategic. That's the idea. So same here, but that's a bit of where you were going, I think, with your observation that, well, you may still decide to do that volunteer board or that committee over here that you're not chairing, but you're part of... But instead of just doing it because it looks fine, you've paused now and said, ah, yeah, okay. How long is the term for this thing? You just thought about it a bit longer, maybe you're still going to say yes. You've just said yes now with more visibility on your overall situation.
Warwick Fairfax:
Since I'm just one person, if travel comes up or something happens and I want to say, get off the ramp, that's okay. The world won't end. It's a volunteer committee. One of the other things I love and hear is you talk about assumptions and the role, and you have a very funny example where I think you were at an airport and it said, when daddy travels, it's like, hey, I travel, what about mommy travels? And you end coming back, and it turns out it was there, but they were sold out. It was on the other side of the bookshelf. So just talk about, it's a funny story, but talk about the role of assumptions and why that's important in your model.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It's important in so many ways. It's important in the healthy work culture, in psychological health and safety, in good couple relationships. I mean, watching our assumptions in general is probably a good direction to consider. And so bringing this up here in this context that, again, it's in the context of realizing which, perhaps assumptions you're making, and stepping back to reflect on, okay, what is actually realistically going on? Maybe asking questions, maybe learning more information, but not just judging too fast without checking the actual situation.
And so for some individuals, it leads to their strategic resilience plan involving a pillar that is about better estimating time. A lot of the time, people, for example, will underestimate how long it takes take to do anything, which makes them a few minutes late to everywhere they go, and they're stressed out all the way there most of the time. And so sometimes they realize, okay, wait a second, I value family, yet because of my tendency to think I can do seven things in the three minutes between now and the moment we're leaving, that means I'm going to try to get them done and maybe one more just in case. And then you're stressed out driving there or you're late, which does not align with the rest of your value. So sometimes checking these assumptions that you're operating with, making them more realistic can be the next step you need to take.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. And then there might be other people that maybe they're just being in one job their whole lives and they're so cautious that they underrate their own abilities and fear is a great motivator, unfortunately, and tends to immobilize you. It's like, well, I can't do that. So you've got people at either spectrum or as you say, depending on the context, you can be both ends of the spectrum depending on what's happening in your life. And so both aren't helpful is to be overly optimistic, overly pessimistic. You ought to be realistic somewhere in the middle. Now, you talked about this before, there are values and pillars that looks like they're a bit different, but talk about why values is important in the context of your strategic resilience plan, because it seems like it's pretty fundamental.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Fundamental, yes. And again, similarly to how our values in a business context will be fundamental. The business can potentially do many things, but they will choose to do only certain things, and that's in part connected with their values and their vision, their mission, all of that. And so similarly here, your plan right now is going to be different from your plan in six months from now and different from mine today and six months from now as well. And that's in part our context. It's also in part our values. So just like in any strategy, there's an important aspect of choosing what not to do. So same thing here. As much as we would like to do everything, not possible, so where do we put priorities? We're going to choose some elements, some parts of this situation over others, and connecting that with our values is what's going to make the plan align with who you are. We also have research showing that these choices will also lead to more happiness and better mental health of course, but that's how you make your plan customized specific to you.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, it makes so much sense rather than doing what you think you should do or what success looks like in a business sense, what does success in more of a eternal, lifelong, spiritual, whatever your sets of values are more than just success by one definition. I think in my own life, my kids are all adults now, but there was a time when they were younger and it was a high value of mine to be around and go to their sports games. And I have two boys and a girl, and my boys got more of my wife's jeans, it's more athletic. But I always jokingly say to my people, choose your jeans carefully, but what are you going to do? But anyway, so my boys say, dad, you are always there at our game. So we at birthdays just go around the table and say, what do you most admire about that person?
It's just something we've always done. So when it's my birthday or Father's Day, they say that a fair amount, which is obviously very gratifying, but they're out of the nest now. So context has changed. And so missing their sports game is not the current context. So if I wanted to, I could travel more or do other things. So for me, family was a very important value to me, and being around my kids' activity was very important. That's obviously my choice, but it came from my value set. And so that limited some choices, I suppose. But I was okay with that. I wasn't willing to be some management consultant, which I probably have the skills to do if I'd wanted to and be traveling every week of the year. That's not a judgment, it's just, as the example makes sense, I just wanted my life to be in line with my values.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
That's it. That is the idea. Yes. And what's beautiful also with this is that we're seeing emerging research on, because we've heard of course the research about that importance of meaning and purpose and belonging and all this, and a concept that's emerging a bit more also is mattering. And mattering is also alignment with our own values. When we are a parent of a younger child, mattering involves in part just saying, I value you no matter what you do, kind of thing. And that even that presence at those games sends that message, right? Whether you win, you lose, I'm showing up, I'm there, you're important. That's it. So you matter in effect. But as we get older, sometimes we need to feed that sense ourselves. And part of how we feed that sense of mattering is having clarity on our values and bringing these values in our life. So in this particular context of creating a strategic resilience plan, then yes, if we align this with our values, it all connects in beautiful ways.
Warwick Fairfax:
And it's so fascinating what you're saying, Marie-Helene, is if you're working for a company whose values are out of line with yours, forget whether they're good or bad. Let's assume it depends on your perspective, whether they're good or bad, but it's out of alignment with you. It will obviously be very draining on you because every day you feel like you're having to make decisions that's completely out of line with who you are as a person. So if you are thinking about how can I be more resilient? Well, maybe be in a context where it's more in line with your values. I mean, you should want to do that anyway over and above resilience. But I feel like young people more and more want to be in context that line up with their values and they're not willing to stay somewhere that they don't enjoy. They're just, well, sorry, I'm leaving, because 30, 50 years ago it's like you were there for a life. It's different now. So you find that's a different context that we're in now.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It is an overall different context. Depending on some countries will have children in school talk way more about mental health than older people have received in their own education. Different countries talk about it more than others as well. But overall, because we're all more connected, everyone's hearing more about it. Now, the other piece too about yes, the tolerance for this not the right fit for me is very different than the overall mentality of say, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Yes. The other piece too, to keep in mind, as because there will also most of the time not be 100% alignment. This is a workplace, I'm one of the individuals in it and we're many individuals, so there's an element of some of that will be normal, but for each of us, yeah, where is that line where the alignment just does not seem to connect the way it should?
And there's also very far on the same continuum, you get to a point where you're into moral injury, where the difference between your own values and what needs to happen here is so significant that it creates clashes. And that is not just something that is unpleasant or challenging, it gets to your mental health. And so it's important because sometimes people think that, well, if you really want to, if whatever the pay is such that I want to stay or whatever, I can just put my head down and stay. No, there is a cost to this at some point. And so you want to, again, in considering the overall context, you want to keep this in mind too.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. It can really erode your resilience. So talk about pillars, because that was another interesting element. You've got some examples like boundaries, self-care, recovery, mindfulness. Talk about why pillars are important and why figuring out your two or three key strategic pillars is critical.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Well, truly, I'm using the same tools we would use in a business. We're going to launch this new product. We want it to be successful. We've looked at the context and we realized that maybe just one other companies offering this, but not many, whatever, we may choose that one of our pillars is to own the market from a marketing perspective and be very visible, for example. Another pillar, there'll be two or three pillars, usually more than five, so that we know where we're going, we know what the tactics are in the business context, that's the actions, and we're delivering. So it provides a direction, a clarity on the structure, and we're moving. Okay. And because it's all based on the current context, it's doable. It's not impossible or anything like this. So the same here works for us. If we've gone through our values and for example, realize we value family and we have, I don't know, a number of them. Let's say 10, 12, whatever.
We've gone through the exercise of supply and demand. We've gone through the context. We may realize that we actually need a pillar here that's going to be called family relationships because it's important for us. We know this, you've been at your kids' games and all, but I'm pairing your brain with mine right now for the example. But maybe a pillar is going to be family and maybe the actions will be, I'm going back to having at least one Zoom call a week with this person. I'm going back to, if I'm working from home and someone from the family comes in my office to say something, I'm not turning with my hands on the keyboard here. I'm standing up and walking outside to be fully there for them. That's an example. And we may have two or three other pillars, but they will be personal to each of us in this context.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean that's extremely helpful, whatever that is. It could be boundaries or yeah, it's just making sure that you design your life around the context you're in, the values you have, what you want to achieve in life. I mean, it's just really being mindful in the full sense of that word, of what it is you want. And so I guess these are all elements of having a strategic resilient plan so that you don't do something crazy. And I think as we were saying earlier, the time to think about this is before the hurricane hits. Then it's like a little late just when things are fairly calm. One of the other things I'm curious about is we talk a lot on our podcast and the work we do about what we call a team of fellow travelers, people that come alongside you because no person should be an island. So where do other people come in terms of your strategic resilience plan? People that you obviously invite in, you get to decide the who and the why that you would invite them. How does that work, other people?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Yes. Well, it will depend on each person's context. Let's say right now you are very surrounded. You've got your own executive coach, you've got your own peer network. You talk to Gary on a regular basis, this is there. So if you're creating a strategic plan to get your resilience to the next level, it doesn't need to be there. It's already part of your life. It's in, you're good, you're going to focus on other things. But if it's not there, it will probably become a pillar to say, oh my God, I've been focusing on, I don't know, other projects and I've let go of investing in relationships even though each of our plans will be different based on our values and all this. As I discussed in the book, the reality is we do have research that indicates the kinds of things that will, we know from research, increase our resilience. Relationships is one of them. And so if it is not part of what's around you, I would say consider in your pillars, maybe there is one of those pillars that will allow you, force you in a healthy way to bring this back.
Warwick Fairfax:
Let's say you have some successful executive who tends to be overly optimistic about how much you can put on your plate and underrate how much you need a break, a vacation, which would be normal. Having somebody come alongside you that's, let's say known you for 10, 20 years, whatever, friend, a colleague. And when you say, yep, I can handle that, that's no problem. Somebody that can say, well, we've known each other for 20 years, and you ask them, do you think I can do this? You might, but it'll be a higher cost.
And if you had two or three people that you trust and they've known you for years, they all say, Hey, Warwick, Gary, Marie-Helene. I mean, it's your choice, but I don't know. None of us really see this as a smart move in terms of your values and you are significantly overestimating how much you can do. People talk about three-sixties a lot, and a lot of people ignore the data, but my attitude is if two or three people around me who I trust or say something that could be wrong, but the data would say probably not, and they're not telling me what to do, they're just saying, you say you can do all of this. That's not the person that I think you're underestimating how much of a challenge is going to be. Does that make sense?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
It does. It does. I think in general, we tend to just try to confirm what we already believe when someone says anything. So if it's aligned with what we're thinking, we take it. If it's not, we say, well, not valid, not listening to that. But the reality is in being more realistic about our context, and most people, most leaders and professionals, you get to a point in your career where you realize this is something to listen for. You get to a point where you're like, you know what? You may not like it, but if you listen, it's better. And I think it's in part experience is in part having not listened so many times and every single time realizing yourself later that these people were right. At some point you're like, okay, it's a blind spot. I don't tend to listen, and because I've learned it, I will listen now. And it could be a pillar, listening more to other people's opinions. So depending on where you are, maybe you're next pillar. Yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
So as we sort of begin to sum up here, there's probably some people are pretty skeptical of the whole strategic resilience plan. Sounds like an idea, but I don't really have time and I'm just resilient and all that. But when do you feel like the light bulb goes off and they go, you know what? This thing really works and it makes sense, what kind of switches them from maybe good in theory, but I don't really have time to figure out a resilience plan because I just intuitively, I'll figure it out, because a smart and capable and highly evolved, highly evolved individual.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
I know. And you are, of course you are.
Warwick Fairfax:
Everybody thinks they're highly evolved.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
So I would say, I mean again, we'll be responsive to some things more at times than others, and that's okay. If it's not for you right now, it's fine. I would say maybe have a look at the book chapter one because that's where I'm pulling the big guns. That's where I'm saying, you're telling yourself this. Here's why you're wrong. I'm saying it more gently, but that's sort of the essence really, so that we can get to your blind spots as fast as possible. The exercises are between five and 10 minutes each, so I know you don't have time. So if you're taking, I'm going to say a four-hour flight, you can get through this, and so it's doable, but if it's not for you right now, it's not for you right now. The reality is that it's backed up by research and that's what businesses do.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, and to our world, we commissioned some research with a few thousand people that showed that about 72% of people had a crisis in their lives so painful that it fundamentally transformed their life. And the researchers that did this, and I'm not a social science researcher, but they are, the 28% said no. In all probability, they weren't actually being honest with themselves, just looking at the data and the underlying answers. So the point is, you might feel like I'm not going to hit a wall. I'm not going to have a crucible. I'm good. Well, in all likelihood, if you haven't had one, you probably will have one. And so you need to have a strategic resilience plan for when that unimaginable crisis happens, because it will happen. Life is not easy. It could be external, it could be family, it could be business, it could be health, it could be all sorts of things. So it's unrealistic to think life is not Disney World. I mean, bad things will happen.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
Well, and even if it's challenges that are no bigger than any of the challenges you've had in the past six months, having a plan will just allow you to go through them in an even easier, more joyful way. Seriously.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And I'm sure as you talk to the folks that you deal with, you have a plan for investment, for sales, for costs, for acquisition. You have a plan and a strategy for everything. Why wouldn't you have a plan and a strategy for your own resilience? Because that will help you get to the next level in every area of your life. Wouldn't you want to do that? Why wouldn't you want to plan in this area? You wouldn't buy a company and say, yeah, I just have this gut instinct, but I won't do any research. I feel like it's a good idea. I mean, your board would throw you out in a nanosecond if you came in there with that recommendation. I just feel like it's good, but I've got no data to back up my opinion. I mean, so not having a strategic resilience plan makes no sense, but you've got to plan for every other area of your life, right?
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
That's right. Something to think about.
Gary Schneeberger:
I heard the sound, Warwick, I heard the sound. It was the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt sign indicating we've begun our descent to land the plane on this conversation. But you said something as the captain about, we're getting close to turning the corner here. So the captain's lined up here for this. So I will give you the opportunity to ask MH the last question here, and then we'll be on the ground.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I don't know that I have a last question other than just to thank you so much for being here, and it's just an honor to have you. I love your work and strategic resilience, and I hope people will pay more attention to what you're doing, because it would save people a lot of heartache, and there can be challenges you can't avoid, but there can be challenges you can avoid or at least minimize the consequences of. And maybe you can turn somewhat of a significant challenge into a smaller challenge with better resilience strategies.
Marie-Helene Pelletier:
That's right. And in the context where more will come, who doesn't want that, really? And yes, it can actually allow you to bring your even better self to both your professional and your personal life.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that folks, gets the plane on the ground for another episode of Beyond the Crucible, a really interesting one that hopefully you heard that resilience is not something that you're born with, it's something you can build and it can crucible proof your life in some ways, or at least make crucibles easier to get through. And that's what we're all about here. So if you enjoyed this conversation, we encourage you on whatever podcast app you're listening to, or if you're on YouTube, click subscribe to the channel that you're on and you can hear these kinds of conversations every week. And until the next time we're together, remember, you understand crucible experiences are hard, but we also know they're not the end of your story. If you learn the lessons from them and you apply them to your course moving forward, that path moving forward can lead to the most rewarding destination of your life. And that destination is a life of significance.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the Helper or the Individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit BeyondtheCrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership, we look at the courage, good humor and determination– both personal and political – that made Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of history’s most celebrated figures.
None of what he accomplished in the White House, we discuss here, would have been possible if Roosevelt didn’t have two critical things necessary to move beyond a crucible: a mindset shift that he wouldn’t let his polio prevent him from living an active life; and fellow travelers who helped him keep going so that he could indeed, move from private trial to public triumph.
“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor,” Roosevelt once said — and his life is a ringing testament to that truth we’d all be wise to remember.
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 be sure to tell your friends and family about us.
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. I've often thought that polio made Roosevelt the man that he was. Without polio, he would've been a different person. Would he have been as successful? It's really hard to see it. Would he have had the legacy that he had? Really hard to see how that would've been possible. So I mean, there's no question Franklin Roosevelt was not defined by his worst day in 1921 when he got polio. He had every right to say, "Look, it is been fun while it lasted. I'll have enough money to have a nice life. I love summers here in Campobello Island in Canada. I have a nice life and the estate in Hyde Park in New York, and I have a wonderful wife, nice family. I'll read and maybe see the odd friend in private and write a bit, but I'll have a nice quiet life on my estate." But he didn't choose that path.
Gary Schneeberger:
No, no, he did not. The man who would become America's 32nd president chose a bold path, a risky path, a path that led him to lead one of our nation's most resounding public lives of significance. I am Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show, Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership, we look at the courage, good humor and ambition, both personal and political that made Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of history's most celebrated figures.
None of what he accomplished in the White House we discuss here would've been possible if Roosevelt didn't have two critical things necessary to move beyond a crucible, a mindset shift that he wouldn't let his polio prevent him from living an active life, and fellow travelers who helped him keep the faith that he could indeed move from private trial to public triumph. "The smooth sea never made a skilled sailor," Roosevelt once said, and his life is a ringing testament to that truth we'd all be wise to remember. Just real quickly, to set you up like we do every month when we talk about this, is that Warwick's book, I still can't believe this is true, Warwick, when I say it was released in 2022, it seems like it was released yesterday, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
But it was released in 2022. And it's an important book because it's the book that birthed the business. There would be no Beyond the Crucible if there was not a crucible leadership. And each month, we are going through, we have gone through one of the historical family figures, leaders that Warwick has talked about at some length in the book that Warwick discusses at some length because there are lessons we can learn about bouncing back from our crucibles from the way that they bounced back from theirs. And this month, we are going to look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the longest-serving US president in history, and specifically what Roosevelt can teach us about overcoming adversity, especially adversity that's tied to a disability. And truly, the lessons that we can learn here, folks, from his life of overcoming physically and emotionally devastating crucibles are things that we can really, truly apply to our own crucibles.
We don't have to have the same crucibles as Roosevelt had to learn lessons from the way he dealt with them. So that's the setup here, Warwick. I know you're dying to dig in, so I'll ask you the first question. And it's pretty open-ended, and that's this why Franklin Roosevelt? There's no shortage of great leaders in your book and in general who have endured traumatic crucibles, but Roosevelt story is a bit of a masterclass in not letting your worst day, your toughest circumstances define you, isn't it? Isn't his story kind of really a shining example of what that looks like?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, Gary, it surely is. As listeners know by now, I grew up in Australia with a dad that loved history, and he loved English history, British heroes. So I grew up with hearing about Churchill and Admiral Horatio Nelson that we covered in the recent podcast of Battle of Trafalgar Fame in the late 1700s, early 1800s, as well as the Duke of Wellington and Battle of Waterloo Fame in 1815. So I grew up with all of these English heroes, but I actually had a love of American history. I had a teacher in high school, Mr. Patrojan. He just had this passion for American history and would make it come alive. And so probably partly through that, I just loved some of the great American leaders such as Lincoln and Washington. But there was something about Franklin Roosevelt that I felt, in some strange way, a special connection to.
That's because Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps as much as any president in US history, he came from a very patrician, almost aristocratic background, and he was able to achieve something great despite his heritage. He was able to, I don't say overcome it, but his legacy, we think of is not because of his heritage, because of the greatness of the man, the greatness of his character in the sense of how he led the nation. And so as somebody, as listeners would know, that grew up in this 150-year-old family business in Australia that was very prominent, was wealthy, there was in some sense, I could identify with a young Franklin Roosevelt growing up with this incredible legacy. And yet he wasn't defined by the legacy of his heritage. And so in that way, as we see Franklin Roosevelt overcoming his challenges, as I was growing up in Australia as a boy in school, there was something in me that thought, obviously being president, leader of the country is probably not going to happen, but maybe there's something about his character, something about how he approached challenges that I could learn from.
So there was something about Franklin Roosevelt that I felt this connection to. We all, as kids growing up, want to identify with people like us. And in a sense it's like, well, this is kind of like me. He grew up in a prominent family. So did I. so Franklin Roosevelt, he was born in 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. And just to show you how patrician his family was, between his mother's family, the Delanos, and his father's, the Roosevelts, he had no fewer than 12 Mayflower ancestors. That's the Mayflower that went to Massachusetts in the 1600s. And people talk about descendants of the Mayflower as if it's the oldest, most prominent families, that kind of legacy in the US. And he attended the elite prep school, Groton, in Massachusetts, and then went to Harvard University. So he had this educational pedigree, he had this pedigree by birth. He was from a prominent family.
And interestingly enough, it was during his Harvard years that he met Theodore Roosevelt's niece, Eleanor Roosevelt. So Eleanor who in this sense, her maiden name and married name were the same, she was Roosevelt before marriage, Roosevelt after. So she was a distant cousin of his. And as people may remember, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the US in the early 1900s. So quite a dynamic figure in history. So he has this connection to the Roosevelt family and obviously to Theodore Roosevelt. So Roosevelt's career started in 1910 when he became a New York State Senator. Then he became assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson. And then in 1920, he was the vice presidential candidate under the Democratic presidential nominee, James Cox. Now, Cox lost that election, but it would seem like in 1920, Roosevelt's star was on the rise. He had been a New York state senator, Undersecretary of the Navy, now vice presidential candidate. It seems like there was no limit. The sky was the limit on Roosevelt's political career.
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's a good point to stop at this point because I know what's coming next, and that is if you looked at Franklin Roosevelt's life up to this point, not a whole lot of crucibles were bumping into him, right? I mean, he had, I don't want to say an easy life, but he had perhaps an easy going in some ways life. I mean, he did not grow up hardscrabble. So what was to come when crucibles come couldn't have been something he was accustomed to.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's such a good point, Gary, because we know who Franklin Roosevelt is now in history. But a pre-1921 Roosevelt, yes, there was this patrician wealthy family, but he had this charisma, this easy going manner, this almost magnetic personality. He was the perfect kind of person you want at a party. "Oh, Franklin's going to be here, it's going to be a wild time. It's going to be a great time." So there's fun, loving, charismatic, affluent, aristocratic American. You're not thinking of him in that way because he became such a different person in a lot of ways. But that was who he was at the time. So in 1921, at the age of 39, Roosevelt was on his way to his family vacation home in Campobello Island, New Brunswick in Canada. It's just across the border from Maine. And on his way up there, Roosevelt visited a boy scout camp, and while he was there, he contracted polio.
Now, when you think of polio, it tends to be more contracted by kids. Back then in the '20s, '30s, and probably maybe even through the '40s or beyond, polio was just this real scourge, especially in summer. And people were contracted around other kids and swimming pools, and for parents, it was just an incredibly scary thing. And so here's Roosevelt that contracts at age 39 as an adult. So after he visits this boy scout camp, he goes to Campobello, and while he is there, he was swimming in the cold waters. And then he hiked for a couple miles afterwards on his way home. And then that evening, Roosevelt retired early and he felt tired and chilled. By the next day, one leg was paralyzed. The following day, both legs were paralyzed.
So it's hard to really think of what life was like in 1921 in the US, but back then, having polio was considered almost this death sentence. It was almost considered shameful. You were meant to hide at home and be an invalid and just not go outside and certainly not be in public life. That was culturally the world that he lived in. And so Roosevelt's mother indeed urged him to retire to the family estate in Hyde Park, New York, which is a few hours north of New York City. Fortunately, his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt had a different perspective because Eleanor knew that if Franklin gave up his active lifestyle and his interest in politics, his soul would die. His body was crippled and his soul was obviously hurting because his whole sense of self was wrapped up in his political career. And another important influence, as we'll see in a bit, was his longtime advisor, Louis Howe. And so Roosevelt made a choice, as we'll get into later, in terms of how he approached his physical crucible, and he indeed did get back into political life.
Gary Schneeberger:
Let me stop you there for a second, Warwick, sorry, because again, I found this great quote from him that lines up perfectly with what you're talking about, right? Because his mother urges him, "Just go retire and basically be taken care of. The family's got a lot of money." Here's something that Roosevelt said that I think just speaks to his situation, but also speaks to Beyond the Crucible so well, he said this, "Happiness is not the mere possession of money. It lies in the joy of achievement in the thrill of creative effort." That right there explains why he kept going on, that he didn't listen to his mother, that he did heed the counsel of Eleanor and Louis Howe, and he just followed his own heart. And to not being just rich, he wanted to have a rich life where he was able to give back, he was able to do things that changed the world he lived in. And that was, I think, a great... I mean, clearly that motivation was there for him in 1921 when the polio hit.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's probably unknowable, but would a pre-1921 Franklin Roosevelt say, "Well, happiness consists more in more than money and in the pursuit of creative endeavors and achievement," maybe, it's hard to know, but the depth of the truth of that statement became far truer, I think, far more ingrained in his soul after that. It's one thing to say, "Yeah, abstractly, sure, there's more to life than money. It's contribution, it's achievement." But that was surely the case because life was not easy after 1921. So that's a great, great quote. And it's interesting to hear him say that this happiness doesn't really consist in having money. Very true, which we talk a lot about on this podcast. And so well said, Franklin Roosevelt.
In 1928, Roosevelt was out to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Houston to nominate Alfred Smith as the party's nominee for president. So picture this, there's 15,000 people in the audience waiting for Roosevelt, and Roosevelt has to make a long walk to the podium. Now he's got his heavy braces on, and he is leaning on his son, Elliott's arm. And people must've been watching gasping, hoping that he wouldn't trip or fall, feeling for him. And Roosevelt refused to use crutches because he felt like it would be a huge political handicap. It would look bad. It would make him look like an invalid. Again, back then, if you were an invalid, you were meant to just stay home and retire from public or business life. That was the culture. Hard to comprehend, but it's the way it was. So Roosevelt was a smart man. He knew crutches would not be a good look. And it's interesting, in future events where he would be just sort of lumbering along these crutches, you'd have one of his two sons, Elliott or his brother helping him.
And so I read elsewhere, they had to be in incredible shape because their dad was somewhat heavily built and they had to make it look effortless as their dad was putting a lot of his weight on one of their arms, and they had to make it look like it's no big deal, and don't show any strain. I'm sure that Roosevelt gave a great nominating speech. Alfred Smith ended up losing to Herbert Hoover who became the Republican president in 1928 and was president when the Great Depression hit, which is a terrible time to be president, when you're president when the Great Depression hits. But anyway, so Alfred Smith didn't make it as president. Later that year, in 1928, Roosevelt became governor of New York, and in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt became president.
So in his inaugural address in March 1933, Roosevelt uttered these now famous words, these now immortal words, "This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nameless unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." So what's interesting about this is imagine a Roosevelt before polio. I don't think he would be talking about all we have to fear is fear itself. He might've said that and people might've thought, "Yeah, right. I mean, what have you ever had to fear?" He even used the words, "Paralyze needed efforts." One wonders if that was deliberate or not.
So during his presidency, Roosevelt had a huge array of accomplishments. He created the Social Security Act to provide a safety net for all Americans, providing unemployment, disability insurance, and old age pensions. He created the works progress administration to provide the unemployed with useful works to maintain their skills and bolster their self-respect. And Roosevelt, as we know, led the US in World War II after the Japanese Imperial forces attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. And then he, along with Winston Churchill, helped defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So it's hard to imagine history, US history or world history without Franklin Roosevelt helping to get the US out of the Great Depression, and then helping to lead the allies in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. So an incredible legacy that he leaves us with.
Gary Schneeberger:
And we talk a lot, Warwick, at Beyond the Crucible about the importance of mindset shift, and Roosevelt's ability to shift his mindset after polio is, as you have said of others, Olympic level, I think. I mean, yes, all those things that you listed, the WPA and social security, and pensions, incredible astoundingly important contributions, but the biggest victory of his life was shifting his mindset after polio and pressing in even harder into his pursuit of a life of significance in his work in government. So talk a little bit about just his mindset shift and why that was so powerful and so impactful in his life and in the life of this country.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely, Gary. I think a reason that he is so revered and beloved is not just what he accomplished, but just his character and how he just would not give up. I mean, there is sort of the physical demonstration of that in which every day, with these heavy braces, he would walk to the end of the driveway. His whole life, he dreamed of one day being able to walk again, I mean properly walk without these hugely heavy and uncomfortable braces. He was not one to give up.
In 1921, as we've talked about, in the culture, when you got polio, you basically gave up, you retired to your home, you were looked after your family, and that's indeed what his mother, Franklin Roosevelt's mother, Sara, advocated, but Roosevelt was not willing to give up. Yes, he had his wife, Eleanor, and Louis Howe, which we'll talk about more in a moment, but it was still Roosevelt's choice, and he was not willing to give up. He was not willing to give up his political career. He was not willing to give up contributing to the society of the US and advocating for principles that he believed in.
Gary Schneeberger:
As you said, he also wasn't ready, as we say all the time... He wasn't willing to be defined by his worst day. And this is the part of shows like this that I love the most, Warwick, because I find quotes, and I hope since you love Franklin Roosevelt so much, or whomever we're talking about, I hope this is a quote. I'm always like, "Oh, maybe Warwick's never heard this one before, and I'll spring some new knowledge on him." But this is a perfect time to drop this second quote that I picked up as we're talking about his refusal to be defined by his worst day.
Roosevelt said this, it's only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 words. But this is what he said, "A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor." I mean that, if this mic wasn't so expensive, I'd drop it, because that's a mic drop moment. That's a mic drop moment in talking about crucibles, about Roosevelt's crucible and bouncing back from his crucible, and anybody who's had a crucible experience. "A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor," is just a beautiful expression of the importance of resilience. Check out what Warwick has to say about Roosevelt's quote and find out whether or not I did indeed surprise him after these words from our sponsors.
Warwick Fairfax:
That is a great quote. I don't believe I've heard that, so-
Gary Schneeberger:
All right.
Warwick Fairfax:
But it's true. The smooth sea of Franklin Roosevelt's life would not have made a president that people wanted to have in the White House during the 1932 election. Is this the person you would want to be leading your country, and in one sense, co-leading the world along with Winston Churchill in World War II? What does he know about hardship? What does he know about overcoming challenging circumstances? So yeah, I've often thought that polio made Roosevelt the man that he was. Without polio, he would've been a different person. Would he have been as successful? It's really hard to see it. Would he have had the legacy that he had? Really hard to see how that would've been possible. So you're right. I mean, there's no question Franklin Roosevelt was not defined by his worst day in 1921 when he got polio.
He had every right to say, "Look, it is been fun while it lasted. I'll have enough money to have a nice life. I love summers here in Campobello Island in Canada. I have a nice life and the estate in Hyde Park in New York, and I have a wonderful wife, nice family. I'll read and maybe see the odd friend in private and write a bit, but I'll have a nice quiet life on my estate." But he didn't choose that path, and he chose the path to come back. Yeah, I mean, it's just amazing how there was something about Franklin Roosevelt that gave people hope. When he talked about this, "Nothing to fear but fear itself," people could look at Roosevelt and say, "Well, you Franklin Roosevelt personify that. You are not willing to let fear of polio, fear of being an invalid define you." I mean, you think about his campaign song in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression, his campaign song was Happy Days Are Here Again.
Now, if he was some wealthy aristocratic guy playing that campaign song, he would've been mocked and ridiculed by people, by media. It would've been, "Oh, happy days are here again? Yeah, it's all right for you and your beautiful estate in Hyde Park, New York. Yeah, probably the Great Depression hasn't hit you. You're doing fine. Some of us are actually having trouble getting things to eat. We're out of a job. Happy days are here again? All right. I'm not seeing it. The bread lines, tell me where there's a happy day, none. There's poverty, misery, and homelessness." But there was something about his enthusiasm, his charisma, and how he was able to overcome his hardships that people thought, "You know what? If Franklin Roosevelt says, 'Happy Days are here again,' he's got plans, there's all these things he's going to do, I actually believe that happy days will be here again." It's just staggering.
The other thing I think about polio, it's interesting, we've had so many guests on this podcast say that what they went through was a gift. And I don't know that I've ever heard Franklin Roosevelt describe that, but in terms of the gift he was to the nation of the US and indeed the world, I feel like polio gave him a sense of empathy, a sense of compassion that enabled him to relate to others that maybe he wouldn't have been able to without that. He would go regularly to, I think it's Warm Springs in Georgia, I believe, where there was supposed to be healing waters, and I don't know if it really helped, but he would go there often. There would be other kids, other young people who had polio, and I feel like they would see Franklin Roosevelt, the US president, and this is somebody they could identify with.
"He has polio like me. Look how hard he's trying." Now, would some young polio victim in Warm Springs, Georgia being able to identify with Franklin Roosevelt without that? I doubt it. I felt like it changed him. It gave him this compassion, this drive, this empathy that I'm not sure that he had before. So I think in a real sense, polio made Franklin Roosevelt the great man that he was. I don't know that he thought of it as a gift, but it was in the way it transformed his soul, I think it was a gift to history, the rest of us in the US and to the world.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's interesting, your comments about his experience at that rehabilitation place where the kids were there and the kids kind of looked at him and were like, "Wow, if the president who has polio can do this, I, with my situation, can do this as well." It strikes me that there's a point here we all should grab onto, and that is as we're walking through our own crucibles, when we get to a certain place, when we've learned some lessons from it, as Roosevelt had by this time, it's important, isn't it? To live that a little publicly so people can see how we're overcoming that. I mean, you do that with Beyond the Crucible, right? I've seen what people have said to you, I've been in the rooms when they've said it to you. Your ability to speak authentically and honestly about your crucible has helped them with their own crucibles. That seems to be a part of what Roosevelt brought in living publicly his life beyond polio.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a good point. There were certainly times such as when he's in Warm Springs, Georgia, this rehabilitation center, where it was clear that he had polio and was just wrestling with it, trying to get as much range of movement. This was a different time. So he didn't want to seem like he was an invalid, so hence the braces, and he would never let himself be photographed in a wheelchair, because, "Oh, here's the weak Franklin Roosevelt." So there was a sense where he felt the public pressure to not be seen as an invalid, and the press, and this is a different era, they went right along with that.
It's hard to believe the press kept the secret, not the secret, but they kind of minimized what he went through to a degree, because they knew why he was doing this, and they respected him so much. But that being said, it was clear to the public that he had had polio, and it definitely had an effect. So yeah, he wasn't all out, "Hey, oh, woe is me. I'm going to be wheeled around the wheelchair," because there was a balance between dealing with it, but not wanting to do anything that hurt his political career. Because he was a very savvy politician. But yeah, I don't know about the severity of it. People knew that he was wrestling with polio and was remarkable what he was able to accomplish and how he seemed like a very vigorous man despite what he went through.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, and I mean, you hit it on the head when you said his campaign song, Happy Days are Here Again. I mean, that says a lot about someone running for president who the public knew something was going on there even if they didn't know the severity as you said. So that does indeed, I think, and we've made the point several times in this conversation, helps people with their own trials and setbacks and failures. I think that's important for all of us to remember.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think it's a great point, Gary, whether we think of it like this or not, I don't know if Franklin Roosevelt thought of himself as a role model. He was focused on his political career as well as helping the nation. But I have to believe that whether it was intentional or not, he was, he gave people hope, certainly physically, but also he gave people hope that things will get better, that there is hope. Hope can indeed be a self-fulfilling prophecy as indeed doom and gloom can be a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of your soul.
And so he really was a role model of how to deal with physical challenges, how to deal with personal challenges, and it lifted a nation. His sunny disposition, I mean, I can't think of any time you see a photograph of Roosevelt other than a big broad smile. Maybe he got depressed in his quiet moments. I'm sure he was human, but you never saw publicly him being down. He always had this sort of optimistic, we'll get through this. There'll be another day, the sun will come up. So that disposition was incredibly impactful to other people and indeed the nation.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that, his perspective, his ability to live, that was all because of this mindset shift that we talked about. And you, in your book, make special note of his advisor, Louis Howe's role in helping sort of cement that mindset shift, keep that mindset shift on track for Roosevelt. He, in fact, you make the case... A phrase we use a lot at Beyond the Crucible fellow traveler that Louis Howe was Roosevelt's chief fellow traveler, as he navigated his way back from his crucible and navigated his way through some of the most tumultuous times in American history. Why was Howe so valuable to Roosevelt making his vision a reality?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean, Louis Howe was hugely influential in Franklin Roosevelt's life and his path back from polio. Louis Howe met Roosevelt in 1911 when Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Senate, and Howe saw something in Roosevelt. Howe was somebody who was in political circles, and he saw a young Roosevelt as somebody that had the potential to become President. Roosevelt had this natural enthusiasm, this natural charisma that just drew people in. Even back then, there was something special about Franklin Roosevelt. So ever since that time in 1911, Louis Howe was Franklin Roosevelt's key advisor. So when Roosevelt got polio in 1921, Louis Howe was probably the chief person responsible for helping Roosevelt come back. Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, she wasn't in the same camp as Roosevelt's mother, Sara. She knew that it would be this almost the death of his soul if he just sat there and felt bad for himself and was just an invalid in private life.
So she instinctively knew that, but Howe really helped put that idea into action. And so Louis Howe encouraged Roosevelt to keep his name in the public eye by having him issue statements on public issues that he cared about. He encouraged Roosevelt to write magazine articles, and he also encouraged him to appear at the 1924 Democratic Convention. Now, importantly, Louis Howe also urged Eleanor Roosevelt to speak across New York state to ensure that her husband remained in the public eye. Now we have to remember Eleanor Roosevelt that we remember during Roosevelt's presidency in World War II and afterwards, speaking at the United Nations, this was a different Eleanor Roosevelt in 1921. She was shy, she was retiring, she was self-conscious. The last thing Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to do was speak. She wouldn't have thought of herself as a good speaker. I'm sure she got training and encouragement from Louis Howe, and she indeed did overcome her natural shyness and fear of being in a public spotlight and spoke all around New York state because she knew this was part of Louis Howe's plan, to not let Franklin Roosevelt's name be forgotten.
She dearly loved her husband. She believed in who he was as a man and as a potential politician and just his future. So that was huge. And indeed, in the '20s, his name kept coming up. He would issue statements. Eleanor Roosevelt would speak. We mentioned before about Franklin Roosevelt speaking at the 1928 Democratic Convention where they nominated Alfred Smith, becoming New York State Governor in 1928, and then president in 1932. This was all due to Louis Howe as well as Eleanor Roosevelt. So when Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1932, and up until Howe's death in 1936, Howe was effectively his White House chief of staff. All of the things we've been talking about, the Social Security Act, the work progress administration, everything that was around in the '30s before he died, Louis Howe had a huge hand in making those things happen, and he was considered, Louis Howe, as the man who put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House.
And Roosevelt's son, Elliott, said this in Louis Howe. He said that, "Louis Howe was probably the greatest influence on both my father and my mother's lives." That's huge praise. When Howe died, Roosevelt had the flags put at half-mast. This wasn't some leader of the U.S. This was somebody that was his advisor, his chief of staff. That's, I'm sure, pretty unusual to have an advisor die and the flags we put at half-mast. So yeah, I mean, it's just amazing the impact that Louis Howe had on Roosevelt's life and indeed Eleanor Roosevelt's life. Without Louis Howe, would Roosevelt have been able to come back from polio? Would he have become governor of New York and President of the United States? It's really hard to know. I mean, what he was going through was really tough. I think what it shows is in our darkest moments, irrespective of our resilience and metal mindset, having somebody like Louis Howe, and then Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, is huge in helping to build up our metal of fortitude to cope with what was an incredibly difficult situation for him personally.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and from the perspective of Beyond the Crucible, I think this story highlights two of the biggest things that we all need to bounce back from a crucible. That is, one, a mindset shift. This didn't happen to me, it happened for me, and two, fellow travelers, people who will push you to persevere, because just learning the lessons of your crucible doesn't make the journey ahead of you stone free as you're walking the path, there's still stumbling blocks. There are still things that happen. So having a fellow traveler there who can lift you up, help you move forward, encourage you, share the journey with you is pivotal. So I think this story, what we've talked about here about Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a master class in what Beyond the Crucible is all about, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's such a good point, Gary. I mean, as you well say, we need two things. We need the mindset shift, and we need fellow travelers. Fellow travelers can't help you unless you're willing to make the tough decision, "I will not be defined by my worst day. I'm going to shift my mindset. My body may be paralyzed, but I'm not going to let this defeat me." You have to have that mindset shift. But having had that mindset shift, we need all the help we can get because there will be days in which we think, "Why bother?"
There've got to been days when he is making that walk down the driveway, people have written him off, and he is thinking, "Gosh, what's the point of writing that next magazine article? Is there really any point Eleanor going all across New York State speaking?" And Louis Howe probably said, "Franklin," probably would've said, "Mr. Roosevelt." I don't know if he called him Franklin or not, but just, "I believe in you. Eleanor believes in you. Your message is too important. The nation needs you. There will come a time when you'll have an opportunity in politics again. Just keep at it. Trust the process, trust yourself."
So I'm sure there were days when he needed that. There were probably days in the White House when things were not going easy, when maybe it was tough to get legislation through. And I'm sure there were days when Louis Howe said, "Mr. president, we'll find a way. We'll get this done. We have to get this done. The people need help. We'll find a way. We'll talk to the right senators and people in Congress and the House, but we'll figure out a way to get this legislation through." So I'm sure there were days in which he needed Louis Howe.
So just both of those things. We all need a mindset shift, the people who are going to be with us in the trenches when things are our darkest or things are at their darkest and can say, "You know what? We'll figure this out. We'll get through this. We can do this. You can do this. We'll do this." You need both a mindset shift and somebody in your camp like a Louis Howe. I mean, it's hard to think of fellow travelers as great as Louis Howe. He's got to be one of the greatest fellow travelers in history. I'm sure that Franklin Roosevelt would've said that.
Gary Schneeberger:
Fellow traveler hall of fame right there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly.
Gary Schneeberger:
We could call it the Louis Howe Fellow Traveler Hall of Fame.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well said.
Gary Schneeberger:
Copyright, Beyond the Crucible. So we've been up here at the 30,000-foot level talking about how our listeners and viewers can apply some of these lessons. But as we wrap up, Warwick, what are some of the big takeaways that you would want our listeners and viewers to take with them from the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's a great question. If ever there was a prominent leader in history who exemplifies not letting your worst day define you, it's Franklin Roosevelt. And it's interesting contrasting Roosevelt with some other leaders. He went through very challenging circumstances, very challenging crucibles. We've got Abraham Lincoln who was president during the US Civil War when the Southern states seceded. We've got George Washington leading the American colonies military forces during the American Revolution. They went through very challenging circumstances. But what's different about Franklin Roosevelt is his crucible was not external. It was not outside forces acting upon them or their nation, as is true of Lincoln and Washington.
In Franklin Roosevelt's case, his crucible was personal. He had to dig down deep within his soul and make sure that his paralysis was only physical and that his paralysis did not define who he was as a person. In that sense, he couldn't avoid having his body be paralyzed, but he could make a decision, would his soul be paralyzed? Well, he decided, "No, I'm not going to let this paralysis affect my soul." And that was a huge decision, and that mindset shift, not to be defined by his worst day, not to be defined by his paralysis, which back then, you were indeed, in society's eyes, defined by paralysis. If you were paralyzed through polio, that defined you, that defined the rest of your life and you were meant to be this invalid that stayed at home.
So in that sense, at the time, if you got polio, it was your worst day, and it did define you. That was the attitude of society. But Roosevelt was not willing to let that define him. So when you think about Roosevelt, he was such a gift to the nation and to the world, both during the Great Depression and in World War II. His sunny disposition and optimistic attitude was exactly what the US needed in the Depression and what the world needed in World War II. We've talked a bit about the Great Depression. The way he masterfully led the US in the lead-up to World War II is something we can't forget because he was a master politician. He knew that in the US in the 1930s, there was this tremendous sense of isolationism. It's like, "Look, what's happening in Europe with Hitler, it's not a problem. We're the US let's just not worry about." And he knew that.
Roosevelt knew that at some point, war was going to come and the US couldn't avoid it, but he wanted to do everything possible to help Britain survive that was leading the allies before the US got into the war in December 1941. So he came up with these innovative ideas like the Lend-Lease Program, which basically loaned armaments and ships to Britain basically for free. It was a long-term loan. And he used this... Probably this goes down in the public relations hall of fame, this particular comment, he said, "If a neighbor comes by and wants a garden hose, aren't you going to lend it to them?" And your average person said, "Well, yeah." Well, ships and armaments worth, I don't know, millions of dollars or hundreds, whatever it was, a little bit different than a garden hose.
But somehow, that metaphor of the garden hose, people said, "Well, of course I'd lend my neighbor garden hose. Let's lend Britain all these armaments," and they said, "Of long-term leases probably interest-free." And that was brilliant politically, and it got through. That kept Britain in the war and funded with armaments. Without that, by the time of December 1941, who knows? Maybe there wouldn't have been a Britain, which would've made coming back from that infinitely harder for the US and maybe would've meant a lot more US service men and women would've lost their lives if there was no Britain. Who knows?
So Roosevelt, not only did he not let his worst day define him, he just had this brilliant, creative mindset, and he knew how to get the job done. His political savvy and public relations savvy was just off the charts. So he knew what had to be done, but just as importantly, he knew how to get the job done. He was remarkable in so many ways. But all of these gifts that he gave to the US and the world in the Great Depression and in World War II, none of them would've happened without his decision in 1921, aided by his wife, Eleanor, and Louis Howe, not to be defined by his worst day to not give up. Yes, he was paralyzed physically, but he made a decision that he was not going to be paralyzed in his soul, and he made a determination that he would come back, he would not give up and not give up his hope and dream of being active in life and in political life.
Gary Schneeberger:
Did you hear that folks? That sounded like the plane landing. I believe our host, Warwick Fairfax, just landed the plane on this very, very, very enlightening conversation on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt can teach us about moving forward beyond crucibles, especially physical crucibles as happened in his life. And that folks, with the plane on the ground, will wrap our latest episode of the show within the show that we call Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership.
This is an exciting time because the next one of these we do... In a few weeks, the next one we do will be the final one of this year. But it's going to be... And I'm not even going to try to tease you, I'm just going to tell you, because I want to see our host smile and laugh like he's doing right now. It's going to be on his father, Sir Warwick Fairfax. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation. But until that happens, we will turn the page and wait until next month for another story on Warwick's dad to help you turn the page and move beyond your crucible to a life of significance. See you then.
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We live in divided times in the U.S. and indeed around the world. The world seems to be torn apart with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There is an election in November in the U.S. where the rhetoric is heated. Differences of opinion over politics, social issues and world affairs can cause great division and even animosity. People can get so passionate and animated about their positions that they consider people with opposing viewpoints not just to be wrong but to be the enemy. There is no desire to listen, only to yell and drown out the other side.
How can such behavior accomplish anything positive? How will demonizing other people and considering them the enemy because of their viewpoints lead to anything worthwhile?
We need to be better at listening to each other and respecting each other’s points of view. One role model I had growing up was my father, Sir Warwick Fairfax. He really did try to understand and listen to other points of view, in particular in the political and religious arena. My father was chairman for many years of the family media company, John Fairfax Ltd. in Australia. In this position, he met many political and business leaders as well as religious leaders. One friend of my father’s was Bob Hawke, who became the Labor Party prime minister of Australia. But before this, Hawke was the head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). His opinions were definitely left of center, while my father’s political views were right of center.
Both my father and Hawke were highly intelligent; both were Oxford University graduates. And despite their different political philosophies, they had deep respect for each other and would get together quite often to exchange viewpoints and ideas.
My father, being Anglican, would have conversations with a variety of religious ministers, including Anglican ministers as well as Catholic ministers. My father’s spiritual viewpoints were more ecumenical than the Anglican ministers or the Catholic ministers in Sydney he would get together with. But again, he enjoyed having conversations with people whose opinions were not always the same as his.
So, how do we have conversations with people whose viewpoints are so different from ours? How do we avoid demonizing people who disagree with us and have constructive engagement with them? It is hard to avoid having contact with people we strongly disagree with. They might be family members, friends or co-workers. People who we disagree with are everywhere.
Here are some thoughts for achieving this goal of having constructive conversations.
1. Don’t judge the motives of people we disagree with. Don’t assume they are awful people who are bent on destroying our country, our culture and our world. Give them the benefit of the doubt. They just might not be awful, evil people.
2. Try to understand their points of view. Why do they believe what they believe?
3. Have constructive conversations with them, sharing differing perspectives and have a real exchange of ideas. You just might learn something.
4. Respect those who differ from your perspective. Try to understand where their worldview comes from. Their backstory, their life story might well have been crucial in shaping their worldview. Try to understand them as real humans with real feelings, hopes and dreams.
5. Share your backstory behind your worldview. If others with differing views understand where your perspective comes from, that might build some understanding and even respect.
6. Seek to find common ground. An exchange of ideas and a genuine seeking to understand each other can perhaps highlight areas you can agree on despite the differences.
7. Have as a goal of the conversation to build mutual respect rather than trying to win them overto your viewpoint. Seek to win a friend, not an argument.
With family, friends and co-workers in particular, don’t demonize them because they have viewpoints different than yours. Preserve the relationship. In fact, have as one of the goals of your interactions strengthening the relationship through a conversation of mutual respect. Those who differ from us on issues that are important to us don’t have to be the enemy. While we shouldn’t abandon our beliefs and values, we can have constructive engagement with people who differ from us. We can learn from them, and make our relationship with them, even our friendship with them, grow stronger.
My father was managing director and then chairman of the family media company for more than 45 years. Bob Hawke was the longest-serving Labor Prime Minister of Australia. Both were deserving of respect for their contributions to the nation. They had different political philosophies but they were friends and deeply respected each other.
Having positive engagement with those we disagree with is possible. Isn’t this more of what the world needs?
Reflection
Who do you feel led to meet with whose opinions are very different than your own?
What will you do to try to have a constructive conversation with them so that there is a genuine exchanging of ideas, a dialogue that enriches both of you?
Have as your goal a conversation that seeks to build trust and mutual understanding rather than to win them over to your viewpoint.
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