We take a look this week at the third actionable truth our research has shown us helps you move from trial to triumph: authenticity.
This truth is the first in the processing phase of our Beyond the Crucible Roadmap for moving past our worst day toward new opportunity. This phase, we discuss, is marked by the need to overcome fear and commit to change — two things we can only do by leaning into who we really are, not who we want others to think we are.
“We cannot move forward,” Warwick explains, “without being our true authentic selves and pursuing our unique authentic calling.”
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
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Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. You got to make a decision. Am I going to lead the fake life or the real life, the false life or the true life? It's a fundamental, life-altering, life-changing decision, but you got to make that decision. Be who you are truly made to be, be you. Don't be somebody else.
Gary Schneeberger:
Now, those are words to live by, words to lean into as you navigate your way beyond your crucible. And here's another one, authenticity. That's the third actionable truth from our Beyond the Crucible roadmap that we discuss in depth this episode. What does it mean to live with authenticity? What are the roadblocks that can keep you from doing so, and how do you push past them? We discuss that and more this week, so don't touch that dial or push that button or grab that mouse.
Well, welcome friends. This is another episode of what we're calling the series within the show, and that is on the actionable truths that have been born out of what we call Beyond the Crucible roadmap. And this is just to catch you up if you've missed the first couple episodes, and we encourage you if you have to go back and watch or listen to them.
But this is our refreshed way. It's not entirely new, but it's really laser focused of helping you get from your worst day to your greatest opportunity. And that's what we've named the Beyond the Crucible roadmap. We describe it like this, and I'm going to read directly from my notes to make sure I get it right, how we help people turn their worst day into their greatest opportunity. We provide the essential actionable truths to inspire hope, enable and equip them, that's two more, to write their own life affirming story. So that's what we're talking about here is to offer you exactly that. Warwick said it many times, we're dealers in hope. We're hoping to deal a little bit today in this episode. The roadmap, just so you know, has been built from our research into how people experience crucibles and what we've learned from our experience and the experiences of all the guests we've had on this show about what it takes to turn trials into triumph.
And the most really revolutionary news, as I've said, is that while building this roadmap, we identified the actionable truths of the brand. And to pass along these life-changing truths to you, we're going to do, as I said, a series within the show. Once a month, we're going to, with the exception of when we have our summer series coming up in a few months, but once a month we're going to do an episode like this, where we're going to talk about what the actionable truths are, why they are true, and more importantly how you can be actionable about them. That's what the whole purpose of this episode and episodes like this are. So Warwick, let's set the preamble aside and get down to business here. And let me begin that by asking you this question. Level set for folks for our discussion on this third actionable truth, why actionable truths and what do we mean by that?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, Beyond the Crucible, we focus a lot on how do you get beyond your worst day and lead a life of significance. As you've mentioned, we now have this roadmap we're calling Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, how you go from trial, in other words, crucible, to triumph or a life of significance. And as we've studied really what it takes to go from trial to triumph, from crucible to life of significance, we've looked at the research we've done, we've actually looked at my book Crucible Leadership, we've found there are 10 actionable truths that we believe are catalysts that help you move you along your journey from your worst day to a more positive point in life, to living a life-affirming division.
And so when you're in that state, you're triumphing, you're living a life of significance. And these actionable truths, they've always in a sense been there, as I mentioned, they're implicit in my book, Crucible Leadership. But what we're doing now is we're making these 10 catalysts, these 10 actionable truths explicit. And so I'm looking forward over this year to really delving into what they are and why they're important to help you move from your worst day to a life of significance.
Gary Schneeberger:
Well, you've just set up the next question because why they're important, I'm going to ask you this. They're important because they help us move from setback to significance, but how do they do that? Right? Actionable truths. How do actionable truths, these actionable truths help us do that?
Warwick Fairfax:
We view these actionable truths as accelerators, even enablers, to help you move from your crucible or trial to a life of significance or triumph. And I think it can make a good case that without these actionable truths, you're going nowhere. You're stuck in the pit, you can't move beyond it. And we've already discussed crucible, self-reflection, and we're going to discuss another, I think, very interesting actionable truth here in a moment. But-
Gary Schneeberger:
Good teaser. Good teaser, Warwick. Good.
Warwick Fairfax:
Without these actionable truths, I think you're stuck. It's like having an engine without oil. You've got to have oil to make the gears work. So these actionable truths, they help you move forward. I'm not sure that it's possible to move forward without these actionable truths. So they're really critical to go from your worst day to a life of significance.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that's folks why we're going to continue to talk about these all through 2025. And we are, as Warwick indicated, we're at the next one. And the next one is interesting because it moves us into a different section of the road map as well. But in our first two discussions, you may remember if you haven't, and as I said at the outset, if you haven't seen the first two episodes, please tune in to those. We talked about where the trial begins. So that was the trial phase of the road map, and that was your crucible, and then where you begin to move beyond, quote, unquote, "your crucible" is self-reflection. Both of those came under the part of the map which we call trial.
We're now moving into a part of the map, the second part of the map, which we call processing. We're moving into processing now. So you've had the trial, you've self-reflected, and now it's time to take some action. So the third truth is what we've determined is one of the critical turning points to begin the forward motion necessary to turn your trial into triumph, and that is authenticity. I should have stopped and said, drum roll, please. Authenticity. Let's do that now. Drum roll, please. Authenticity is the third truth that we're going to discuss in this episode. Warwick, why is authenticity a critical step after a crucible to begin the journey from trial to triumph?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's funny, as I reflect on these actual truths, I'm passionate about all of them, but as we'll get into in a bit, I'm really, really passionate about authenticity. It's one of my highest values that I've sought to live my life around. So let's talk about authenticity and why it's so important. So after we've been through a crucible and we've reflected on what happened, why it happened, what are the lessons learned, what are the things we could have done differently? What can we learn from what was done to us? We're at a point where we're hopefully ready to move beyond a crucible. But a critical step to moving beyond a crucible is authenticity. We need to be our true authentic selves, and I've certainly found this, it's easy to live a life in which you hide behind a mask, you pretend to be somebody else.
But to move forward, we've got to be us. We can't just be somebody else, hide behind it. And part of that is we tend to not always want people to know who we truly are. We want to be maybe the life of the party. We just want to be liked, and so we become the person we think others want us to be, and we lose our sense of self. It's almost like we become an actor. Sometimes with the actors, you want say, who are they really? And you can lose yourself in your role. We don't want to be actors in our own lives. We want to be ourselves. And so that's one part of it. Another part of it is we need to own how we were authentically made. We need to lean into our unique gifts, skills, and passions, and we need to stop trying to please other people and pursue professions that others may want us to pursue, whether they're friends or family. It's just not really very helpful.
I mean, it can often be the case kids growing up, maybe their mom or dad is a doctor, lawyer, whatever it is, and hey, this is a good profession. And it's like, okay, I guess so. And rather than thinking, well, how was I made? What do I love to do? You tend to pick the safe option. The smart option. It's not a smart option. I'm not even sure it's a safe option. It's not a smart option to be somebody that you're not. That tends not to work. So those are really the two sides to authenticity. We need to be our authentic selves, but we also need to pursue a calling or a profession that's authentically in line with who we are. We really can't move forward from the pit without being authentically who we are and pursuing a vision that's true to who we are. You really can't move forward without authenticity in both those two facets, the being your authentic self and pursuing a profession that's authentic to who you really are.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. As you talk about that, it's interesting, something popped in my head. People say all the time when you're in tough straights, fake it till you make it, right? And I think what we're talking about is the exact opposite of that, right? If you don't fake it, you will make it. I think that's what this actionable truth really brings to bear on this subject is that don't fake it, don't wear a mask. Don't run from who you really are, run into who you really are.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely, Gary. I think you can also say, if you fake it, you won't make it. I'm somebody that's a pretty disciplined person by nature and have high perseverance, but if you try to be somebody that you're not, it creates a lot of dissonance within you, within your emotions, psyche, soul. It's just being somebody you are not creates a lot of anxiety and stress because at your deepest level, you know it's wrong. You know it makes no sense. And just to put on an act every day, it's just so draining. It's just stressful.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
To be somebody or not and be in a profession that you hate and don't feel called to, and you're thinking there's got to be something else. There's got to be something else that makes me more happy and fulfilled than this. It's just, it's drudgery. I hate my job. It's just not who I am. I guess I got to be sensible, and it's just soul crushing, soul-destroying. And so how do you move beyond your worst day when your soul feels crushed and it's draining you of energy? Rather than a catalyst or an accelerator, you've got a massive brake in which it makes it very difficult to move forward. You're trying to push a massive boulder uphill. That's not a way to move beyond a crucible. You'll tend to roll right back into the pit. The boulder will push you there, if I can mix metaphors there.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Of course you can. You're the host of the show. I am going to, as I do every episode here, I'm going to read the dictionary definition, and not just any dictionary definition, folks. This is the dictionary definition from Webster's first dictionary, what I call Webster's 1828, Noah Webster's very first dictionary. And this is how he describes, well, actually authenticity wasn't really a word used, I guess, but authentical, this is what he describes it as, "Having a genuine, original or authority in opposition to what is false, fictitious or counterfeit. Being what it purports to be. Genuine and true." So all those things, I think, are exactly what you've been talking about here. That is indeed what it takes to be authentic, to exhibit authenticity.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean, that's a really great word, authentical. I guess we could have called this accelerator, authentical.
Gary Schneeberger:
I've never heard that word before, so that's funny.
Warwick Fairfax:
I'm not even sure we use that. It'd be interesting to see if it's in the modern dictionary.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
But yeah, to be genuine and true, not to be false. We need to be genuine and true to who we are. Not false or fake. I mean it seems so obvious when you just contemplate that dictionary definition, but yet, it is, as we'll get into in a moment, it's challenging to be yourself and to authentically perceive a calling that you feel is in line with who you are. It's challenging as we'll get into in a moment.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, I mean to wear the mask is to wear a mask without eye holes. You can't see where you're going, right? I mean, it really is what we're talking about when we talk about this. So there are, as I said earlier there, this is a new stage of the roadmap called processing. We're moving beyond the trial and now we're processing that trial. And there are two stages, two things that come up, two ways it manifests itself as you're processing. The first one of those work is overcoming fear. That's the first thing we have to do in processing. So I'll ask you, how does authenticity or being authentical as Webster's 1828 says, how does authenticity help us to overcome fear?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's interesting. One of the big reasons people are not authentic, they put on a mask, they don't pursue a career in line with who they truly are. They put on a mask because people fear that if they're truly who they are, if they're truly their authentic selves, what happens if people reject who we are? It's one thing if they reject the mask, but if they reject our true self, we feel seen in the sense, but we feel exposed, we feel rejected. We feel they're rejecting our soul. They're rejecting everything that makes us who we are, but we need to make a decision. We need to own our authentic selves and not shrink back from that. For me, it really comes back to my faith perspective. I believe that as humans we're uniquely made by God and his image, and we're all made differently. We're all maybe a different facet of that image.
And so from my perspective, we need to honor that and own that. I think Psalm 139 says, "We're beautifully and wonderfully made." Well, if we're made a certain way with certain personalities, a certain appearance, whatever it is, maybe even certain quirks, I think we all have those quirks, we need to say, okay, that's who I am. And if some people don't like that, oh, well. But we need to really make a decision that we're going to be our authentic selves. And we often live in fear of disappointing others, friends and family. And so that influences what professional calling we pursue. Oh, let's make the safe choice. Let's make mom, dad, and friends, teachers all happy. But when we pursue a profession that's not true to who we are, we're just miserable. We need to also make a decision that we're going to pursue a calling that's authentic to who we are, that is something that we feel passionate about, is in line with our gifting.
And yes, there is some people that may reject that saying, "That's nuts. Your mom or dad's an accountant, a doctor, they have a great business, a good clientele. How can you reject that profession?" But it really reminds me of one of the things we talk about at Beyond the Crucible all the time is having a team of fellow travelers. We need to have people around us that believe in us that like the true authentic us, and as we're trying to pursue a professional calling or a vision that's in line with who we are and what we believe, that they will cheer us. And those that don't, well maybe don't see them as much. I mean if they're family, it obviously creates more challenges. If they're friends and they keep pulling us down and wanting us to be who we're not, then maybe the level of contact maybe shouldn't be as high as it was before.
We need to be around people that believe in us, believe in who we are and the path that we're moving towards so they can really help us be our true authentic selves, and pursue a true authentic profession. And those that are naysayers, they're like brakes, they stop us moving out of the pit. So we don't need brakes. We need people who will help us accelerate moving forward. And the right fellow travelers can actually indeed do that.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And I have not told you this beforehand. I just thought about it this morning as I was preparing what we're going to talk about, and I have a real life example of this that dates back 22 years. It was 2003, and you may remember work in those days in the early 2000s, men's retreats were very big in Christian circles, and I went to a men's retreat and one of the things that was done was friends of mine, guys I knew from work and from childhood and my family, my dad, my brother, they wrote letters to me, and those letters were then presented to all the men in the retreat at some time after they broke us down a little bit, then they gave us these letters. And I'm just going to read a couple of paragraphs from what I said to all the people who wrote me a letter because it speaks to this idea that you're talking about, about being authentic to who you are and about fellow travelers affirming that authenticity.
So this is just a section of what I wrote them. "Many of the individual things you and other friends and family told me in those letters moved me mightily, which I'm not going to talk about right here and now because crying in the office is frowned on, and I can feel the tears welling up just remembering. But I can and really need to tell you how the Lord used you to minister to me through that." This is me saying this now, "See at a very basic level, at the level Jack Nicholson described to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, is the place you don't like to talk about at parties. I have always pretty much been ashamed of who I am. As a kid, I heard shut up a lot from my parents because I was always full of questions and conversation."
"In school, I was a bit of a class clown, and the teachers never really thought a lot of it, even if my classmates did. Through the years, I learned, I guess, that while the personality I had made my peers laugh and like being around me, those in authority over me were displeased by it. I wasn't serious enough to be good. Although that personality has mostly survived in the years since I came to Christ, so has the shame. It's intensified, in fact. So has the sense that I'm just not serious enough to be as good a Christian as this or that person. I've known and enjoyed the friendships of fun I've had in my time here at the place I worked, focused on the family, but there have always been a part of me, a growing part of me that suspected I was disappointing God for being too frivolous. That he, like my mom and dad and teachers, was displeased with me for being who I was and that this has made me so displeased with myself."
"In that place I don't like to talk about at parties that I've thought of my shame that the most a lot of you can do for me is a begrudging tolerance. You endure me." I wrote. "And then I read your letters and what jumped out at me, what really pierced my heart wasn't that you really did like me and consider me a friend, but that was nice to know, touching in its own right, but what really set my tears and sobs into overdrive was this. As I read letter after letter and began to see the pattern in what you and others wrote about, that very part of me, I've always been so ashamed of, that outgoing, fun guy personality was actually something that folks like you see as a positive. My love of helping, of being around people, which I've passed off more often than not is trying to win approval was actually something the Lord had used to bless others, far from thinking of me as too glib or flippant or not serious as a person."
"Every person after person, including many of you, recalled moments where you felt I had blessed you and others through just being who I was. And that slayed me because I understood in that moment what I'm trying so hard to still understand now that I've returned to my real life, is that God never has been ashamed of those aspects of my personality. Far from it, in fact, he made me that way." 22 years ago thinking that my authentic self wasn't good enough, and my fellow travelers affirmed that indeed it was. Miraculous.
Warwick Fairfax:
Gary, that is so powerful. There's so much to reflect on. I think it's extremely helpful to talk about this just growing up, that sense of shame. Hey, I'm the class clown, so to speak. My buddies liked it, the teachers feel like, yeah, this guy's not going nowhere. I mean class clown, he is not serious enough. He's not going to work hard. It's just like, you don't tend to think of class clowns winning the Nobel Prize or something and going somewhere. You just feel like they're funny, but yeah, probably not end up anywhere too helpful. That's the notion. And those fellow travelers saying, "Well, we like you, Gary, because of that class clown fun-loving guy. That's what we like. And you can still be funny and actually achieve things, As you have. You did then and you do now."
So I guess 20 plus years later, imagine you were writing that letter again.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Would it be different? And you'd be thankful, but would you still feel like, gosh, I still have this sense of shame and I'm just less than and there are other Christians that achieve more than I do? Or how would that letter differ if you were writing it today versus 20 years ago?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, I think part of stepping into my authentic self and being comfortable in my authentic self, because sometimes masks can feel comfortable. So being comfortable in my authentic self, I think now, I know now that I don't compare myself to others in that way. Are there times that I'm like, ooh, I probably shouldn't have cracked that joke, or I should have maybe been serious at that time. I mean, there are still moments like that, but I don't think that there's this wholesale disregard or lack of affinity or affirmation from those around me because of that.
So I have not just come to peace with my authentic self. I have come to understand my authentic self has been a positive in my life. So that's flipped. And it's the point of what we're talking about here. You have to embrace your authentic self to overcome a crucible because that's the way that you're going to go from trial to triumph. I was bouncing through trials and challenges, and I would come out on the other side, but I still had never really embraced that part of me. I lived it, I didn't hide it, but I just thought it wasn't good enough. And I think now I know from my own perspective helped by fellow travelers who wrote me these letters, which I have in that folder I was holding, that it is good enough, because that's who I was created to be.
Warwick Fairfax:
So I'm sensing that that word you use, which is a very strong word, that I'm sure a lot of people can relate to, the word shame, would it be true to say that that's not really part of your vocabulary anymore as you think about who you authentically are, that you're not ashamed to be Gary Schneeberger?
Gary Schneeberger:
No, not at all. I mean, are there things that I do and say ad that are just antithetical to who I am at my core that maybe brings in sadness? Yes, but that aspect of my authentic self, who I am authentically does not bring me shame. It brings me actually comfort. It brings me hope. It brings me the ability to endure crucibles. So I don't know that some of the crucibles since then in the last 22 years could have been overcome if I still thought that I was a mess. I don't think I'm a mess in that way anymore.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I mean that's a path that we should never be ashamed of who we are, and I'll get into more my story later, but in some ways I can relate to what you're saying as we'll get into it, but we should never be ashamed to be authentically who we are. But really that's the point of this question is we tend to fear being our authentic selves because if we are, people won't like us or people will be ashamed to be with us or almost like in the Bible, like a leper, unclean, go away, live on the edge of town, don't be where everybody is, just go and be separate so that we don't have to see you. That's that abiding sense of shame that we can have. But that's where we just need to realize that we're perfectly made by God from my perspective and not be ashamed of who we are.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So thank you for indulging me as I take up a whole lot of time of the episode in talking about that, but it just me this morning and I have all these letters nearby in my files, and I was like, that is exactly what we're going to talk about. And here's exactly what else we're going to talk about, folks. There's two parts to this processing, and the second part of that processing work is committing to change. Again, talk a bit about being aware of but being resistant to change. Why is committing to change so important here?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, and Gary, committing to change is tough. Change is tough, and it's typically scary. Ironically, I'm somebody that's lived in a bunch of different places, Australia, where I'm from, the UK, New York, Chicago, Boston, a bunch of different places, partly education, and I'm somebody that actually does not like change even though I've done a lot of different things. So I certainly get the fact that change is tough and it's typically scary. So especially when we want to try to be our true authentic selves and lead our authentic calling, but really we have to put a line in the sand and make a commitment to change. We've got to move beyond our crucible, and we're not going to do that unless we're true to who we are and authentic to the calling in our life. It's really one of the most critical and fundamental decisions we're going to make in life.
So you might be scared, you might be thinking, gosh, are people going to like me if I'm my true authentic self and pull down the mask? And if I lead a life or a profession that's in line with who I authentically am made to be and my passions and gifting, is that going to work? There's a lot of fear, but you've just got to make a commitment. As we often say, one step at a time. The first step is often the biggest, but we've got to make a commitment. I am going to be who I am and pursue a calling that I feel led to, and hopefully you'll have some fellow travelers to encourage you, but you got to make a decision. Am I going to lead the fake life or the real life, the false life or the true life? It's a fundamental life altering, life changing decision, but you got to make that decision. Be who you are truly made to be, be you. Don't be somebody else.
I think some comedian or some wise person has said, "Everybody else is already taken, so why not be me?" Or something to that effect, which I think is, I forget who it was, but it's a very profound statement. There's a whole bunch of other people. Let them be them. Good for them. But you be you. You got to make that commitment. That's really a critical first step in being authentic. Just make that commitment that you got to be you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And we've reached now folks, my favorite part of these shows, and I will put on my authentic identity as class clown to say, we're going to examine patient zero of Beyond the Crucible, and that's our host, Mr. Warwick Fairfax, because Warwick's story and the things he went through from trial to triumph, before we ever called them actionable truths, before we ever knew that we could think of what actionable truths might be, Warwick lived these things out as he moved from his trial to his triumph. So let me ask you this, Warwick, how did authenticity help you truly begin to move beyond your crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
Authenticity is one of my highest values, but it was a challenge. In some ways, ironically, I could relate to what you're saying, Gary, about shame. I don't know if I would've used that word, but as listeners know, I grew up in a very large a 150-year-old family media business. And in Australia there's a strong egalitarian philosophy, which is obviously good in many ways, but there's a thing called the tall poppy syndrome, which basically means that if you're successful in anything other than sports, and Australia is a sports mad country, if you are good in business, the arts, any profession you can think of, it's like, ah, so you think you're better than us. It's like if you're successful. And so ironically, I say ironically because I felt this, and it's ironic because I went to a private boys school in Sydney where I grew up, and the school fees were high, if not very high.
So the kids in that school, the boys in that school, they were like sons of stockbrokers and doctors and lawyers, they were not impoverished, but yet they would say, "Well, Warwick, you think you're better than us, don't you?" And anybody that knows me now or back then, I have my issues, but that was never one. I was never a kid that run around boasting. I would be more just hiding and saying nothing. There's no truth to that allegation. And so I would just be mortified. "No, I don't think so." They'd say, "How many cars did your dad have and how much money?" My dad did have a few cars, one of which was actually an Aston Martin that was almost identical to the one that James Bond drove in Goldfinger. So-
Gary Schneeberger:
Did it have missiles that popped out when he pushed the button?
Warwick Fairfax:
Not that I know of.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, okay. Good. Good, good, good.
Warwick Fairfax:
There might've been one time when my dad said, "Don't touch that button."
Gary Schneeberger:
That's awesome.
Warwick Fairfax:
I don't know why he said that. I have no idea.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Warwick Fairfax:
Good job I didn't. But yeah, there was just this sense of, I don't know, I don't think I would've used the word shame, but maybe it would be appropriate if, I didn't want to be seen as somebody that was different than other people. And just there was this sense of huge expectations that I'd have to fill in terms of one day being in a leading position within the family company. I was not particularly athletic growing up. I wasn't terrible, but I was the last one picked for, I guess you call it tag here, we call it tip in Australia, whatever the game was. So there was a lot of reasons over the years in which I felt like, gee, I'm not as athletic as the next guy, and I'm not a handyman because when you grew up the way I grew up, you don't have to fix the projects yourself. You'd have people that do that for you, obviously.
Even if that wasn't the case, I still wouldn't have been good. I'm not like a crafty guy with the wood shop, and it's just not what I enjoy. So there's plenty of things that I would've thought, oh, I just... I just wouldn't have felt great about who I was in that sense, despite the fact that, yeah, I went to Oxford, Harvard Business School, and I suppose that helped a bit, but it's easy to look at the things you don't have and wish you were that. So I guess back to authenticity, one of the reasons authenticity is one of my highest values is, as I say in my book, I, in a sense, grew up in the world of the authentic. My parents were prominent folks given that my dad for most of my growing up was chairman of John Fairfax Limited, this iconic media company that had newspapers, magazines, newsprint, we had all these radio stations, and had the equivalent in Australia of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal.
So my parents would have parties with... My mother was pretty social, so she loved organizing these things. They'd have parties with ambassadors, prime ministers, politicians, leading business figures, and occasionally even visiting folks from Hollywood. And I guess because my parents saw me as the next generation, that even at a young age, 10, 12 or what have you, I'd be invited to attend these parties. They wanted me to be around and just see what that world was like and just be ready for my future. And so often people would just try and impress each other with how brilliant they were, the deals they'd done, the important people they knew in Europe or Hollywood or wherever, and it was just so fake. Ever since, I've just had no desire to be around people that want to boast like that. I wanted to be around real people, so I don't really hang out in those circles. I didn't voluntarily hang out in those circles when I was growing up, but I don't choose to.
So I really became allergic to the world of the inauthentic. But what's interesting is it's not like I was authentic. Okay, so it isn't that you have to be inauthentic or authentic. Well, I guess I found a third way, which is I put on a mask. And so it's not like I pretended to be somebody else, it's just nobody knew what I was thinking. In fact, after my $2.25 billion takeover the family company, which I think as people would know, did not work out, during those takeover years, when I was in control of this massive 4,000 person company, there was an article written in an Australian magazine, and I was in fact on the front cover and the title of the article, and again, it was on the front cover, was the Man Behind the Mask and had this cartoon of me with this mask. And what this article was saying is that people found me very difficult to know.
In fact, some of my advisors at the time said, "Warwick's the hardest person I've ever got to know. He's inscrutable." So after my crucible of the bankruptcy of this 150 year old family media company happened, and it happened under my watch, I had a lot to think about. I moved to the US because that's where my wife is from, and we've lived here since the early nineties. And I think over time I gradually pulled down the mask. Of course it was easier because in the US nobody knew who I was. So it was easy to be me and be a little less paranoid about opening my mouth on not so much opinions, but just being me. It just gradually happened over time. The second part is over time, I gradually pursued a calling that was authentic to me. I mean, it wasn't easy, because who was I? I knew I wasn't this corporate raider, CEO big business guy, but who was I?
I probably realized that I was more like my father than I was willing to admit. He was a, would've been a better philosophy professor, was very reflective. I don't know that I've ever had a desire to be a philosophy professor, but that reflective aspect of his nature, I think that was there. And so really what I am is a reflective advisor, but I didn't quite realize that through most of the '90s. So there were several steps on the journey. I worked in finance and marketing strategy for an aviation services company in Maryland where we live. And one of the key steps for me in finding out who I authentically was, was I went to a woman that did mid-career executive coaching and she said, "Warwick, you have a great profile to be an executive coach." So I've become a certified International Coach Federation executive coach. But when she said that, I felt like it made sense.
And I remember, I think it was 2003, I went to my first International Coach Federation conference in Denver, and I felt like these are my people. They were very curious, non-judgemental. They wanted to know who I was and I wanted to know who they were. And that was maybe the turning point I would say, in me finding my true authentic self. I didn't quite realize it at the time. In fact, we've talked earlier about making a commitment to change. One of the key turning points in my life, I remember we had Michael Lindsay, he's the president of Taylor University where my kids went. He wrote a book Hinge Moments, and that was a hinge moment for me. It wasn't a crucible, but I made a critical decision.
And that really came, I just felt the still small voice of God while I was working in the aviation services company, and I felt like God telling me, "Warwick, are playing small. You're not living in light of who I made you to be." It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with working in finance and marketing strategy for an aviation services company, but there was a lot more that I could give, and I wasn't doing that out of maybe fear or ignorance or what have you. And so when you feel like God telling you, you are playing small, you're not being who I designed you to be, it's like, wow, okay. That was a wake-up call, and I made that commitment, okay, I'm not going to apologize for being me. I don't think anybody should apologize for being them. And so the first key step was becoming an executive coach.
And after that, one thing after another kept moving forward because I was curious and asking good questions and doing some executive coaching, I was invited to be on team nonprofit boards, the elder board of my church, a non-denominational evangelical church in Maryland where we still go, and my kids' Christian school. After a talk in church as some illustration, I decided to write a book about what happened growing up, my thoughts on leadership and life. And that led to a brand that we called at the time Crucible Leadership that we now call Beyond the Crucible and led to this podcast.
But that key hinge moment, that key turning point was that moment where I felt like God's saying, "You're playing small, you're not being authentic to who you truly are." And that executive coach that said, "You have a great profile to be an executive coach." I don't do as much executive coaching anymore, but it was a key turning point, I didn't realize at the time, that led me to where I am now. So this wasn't an easy journey, but I just made that decision that I'm going to be my true, authentic self. I'm going to pursue an authentic calling that's true to who I am. It's interesting, this family media business was founded by my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax. It was his true authentic calling, but it was not my true authentic calling.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Really, as we're dialoguing about shame and all of that, I think like you, I'm in a much better position. I am not as athletic as some people, but I have reasonable hand-eye coordination. I'm not as bad as I might think I am. I play tennis with my kids. Yeah, I don't enjoy building decks. So what?
Gary Schneeberger:
I don't either.
Warwick Fairfax:
I can assemble Ikea furniture. I'm pretty reasonably tech-savvy. I'm not terrible, but I just need directions, but just don't ask me to build a deck. And so I'm comfortable with who I am.
Gary Schneeberger:
As you were telling that story, when did you say you went to the International Coach Federation conference?
Warwick Fairfax:
I think that was 2003.
Gary Schneeberger:
You know what's interesting about that work? That's exactly the date of that letter I read, was in 2003.
Warwick Fairfax:
Wow.
Gary Schneeberger:
So we both found the truth of our authenticity at roughly the same time. That's amazing.
Warwick Fairfax:
So in the word of, again, Michael Lindsay's book, just as that was a hinge moment for me because it probably wasn't necessarily a crucible, was that a hinge moment for you as a turning point?
Gary Schneeberger:
For sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
Those letters in 2003?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Yeah, it was I'm not all these bad things I thought I was. It was absolutely a hinge moment. So wow, how amazing. I feel like just dropping the anchor on this one and ending it, but we can't do that yet, folks, because I want to ask you, Warwick, like I do at the end of every one of these episodes. What's your one takeaway for folks who've listened and watched us talk about the actionable truth of authenticity? What's the one takeaway you'd like them to walk away with from this conversation?
Warwick Fairfax:
If you want to bounce back from your crucible, if you want to get out of the pit, if you want to move beyond your crucible, you have to be your true, authentic self. Don't be ashamed of who you are. Don't listen to the boys and girls at school. Mean boys, mean girls, kids can be really brutal. And it's worse today with social media, which we didn't have when we were growing up, but you've got to put a stake in the ground. Make a commitment to be who you are, don't be afraid of being your true, authentic self, and don't be afraid of pursuing a calling that's authentic to who you are, and that's unique to who you are. I think God made us all uniquely with our own unique set of qualities, strengths, things we might think are weaknesses or just things maybe you're not as good at as some with their own quirks that some may find charming, some may find annoying, we might find annoying, but it's just who we are. Quirks and all.
Just accept, do more than accept. It's like if we're made this way by God or however we think it works, then be true to who you are and pursue a calling that's unique to you. And if you don't do this and try to be somebody else and try to pursue a calling that's not in line with your gifting and passion, I think rather than moving beyond your crucibles, you'll lead the paraphrase in a different way, it's a wonderful life, you will lead a crucible life. You'll be wanting to jump off the bridge, the snowy bridge every day. That'll be a normal day because you will live a crucible life. It'll be one crucible after another.
Life is tough enough, but if you follow a calling that's not unique to you, that's not authentic to you, if you try to be somebody else and not your true, authentic self, you'll create crucibles. Rather than having to just endure the ones that come at you, you'll be creating them. I mean, why live a life journey from crucible to crucible, and mistake to mistake, and then creating crucibles? It makes no sense. Don't do it. Be your true, authentic self. Live a calling that's authentically you, and you'll have a much greater chance of living a life of significance, going from trial to triumph, from your worst day to a life of significance. Living an authentic life is an accelerant, is an accelerator. Try to be somebody else, that's the opposite. It's a massive brake. It's a boulder that will tend to stop you getting out of the pit and one crucible after another will tend to whack you right back in the pit. You're creating pit after pit, it makes no sense. So do yourself a favor, be you, be your true, authentic self and pursue an authentic calling that's unique to you.
Gary Schneeberger:
And your authentic calling is as an airplane pilot because you've just landed the plane in our conversation, Warwick. Bravo. Another really great, great discussion, folks. This is just the third actionable truth we'll be discussing in depth this year. Each month we'll take a look at another one and how it's connected to the previous one that builds out our Beyond the Crucible roadmap. And the next time we will be discussing, drum roll please, Scott, faith. That's what we're going to be talking about, and you want to stay tuned for that, folks, because we have a definition of faith that's a little bit different than you might expect. So stay tuned. That's coming up. So until next time that we are together, please remember this. We want you to believe these truths, but we also want you even more to act on them. That's why they're actionable truths, because that's what's going to help you along the roadmap from trial to triumph, and 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.
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His childhood was something out of a mafia movie — boy attracted to what he saw as the glamour of the flashy toughs in his working-class New York City neighborhood. And Robert Borelli’s story was not headed for a happy ending.
What began as running errands for the mobsters he idolized turned into committing crimes that escalated in their violence and an addiction to drugs that robbed him of the respect he worked so hard to get.
But Borelli’s story did a sharp 180-degree turn to redemption when a question from his young daughter while he was in prison led to his getting clean from drugs and getting a fresh start through what he calls a miracle of God.
Today, he talks to at-risk youth about avoiding his early path and embracing his life-saving one.
To learn more about Robert Borelli, visit www.www.robertborelli.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 leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure 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.
Robert Borelli:
I was calling my daughter a little bit, and this one time I call her, she's crying. And her name is Brianna, and I said, "Brianna, why are you crying?" She said, "Because you won't come and see me." And those words, for some reason, if I could have ran and got a drink or a drug or anything to numb the feeling that happened, my heart just shattered in pieces, man, and I was crying. And I didn't want the inmates to see me so I slammed the phone down and ran back to my cell.
Gary Schneeberger:
That harrowing story is just one of the crucibles Robert Borelli, our guest this week, discusses about his life in the mob, a life filled with crime, and prison, and a crippling addiction to drugs. But the moment he just described was also the moment where he broke free from his crucible and started to live his beyond. The healing he's experienced, he tells us, is nothing short of a miracle.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, Robert, it is so good to have you on our podcast. I love just reading a bit about your story, which is, it's a remarkable story. It's a story of tragedy, but it's a story, ultimately, of redemption. As you put it, it's a story of second chances and it's never too late. So for folks that may not know your story or background, just help us understand where you grew up and what was the backstory that really ultimately led to your crucible, but where did you grow up and what was life like for a young Robert growing up?
Robert Borelli:
It was tough. I come from a pretty tough neighborhood. I didn't know until later on, as I got a little bit older, it was basically run by the Gambino Crime Family. La Cosa Nostra had their hand in my neighborhood, and it goes back for a long time of many of the old gangsters from Murder Incorporated. Their families were still in the neighborhood, even though those guys are no longer with us. So it was a pretty tough neighborhood.
I look at my life and I could see three, I guess, principles of my life, if you want to say it that way. My mom and dad worked really hard. They were legitimate people, worked really hard. We come from a pretty poor neighborhood. Mostly, arguments in my home would've been about finances, not having enough money maybe for the kids' clothes or just struggles that they had, which a lot of families in that neighborhood did have. And at an early age, it's not like I want to be like my mom and dad because I didn't want to have those struggles growing up, so I was looking at life a little bit different.
Then as I got a little bit older, some of the older gentlemen, the other guys from the neighborhood, were drafted into the Vietnam War and they were just coming back and they were pretty messed up. Not all of them, but some of them from my neighborhood were either strung out on drugs or alcohol and I didn't want to be like them growing up. And then you had the wise guys down the block. Now I didn't know they were wise guys at the time, I just know there was bunch of guys that hung out at the social club. They were dressed nice. They had money in their pocket. They had cars which, in my neighborhood, was a rarity, not everybody was able to afford a car. So I gravitated to that lifestyle.
But also, my neighborhood was gang-related. We had gangs. Every kind of little intersection you went to, there was a different gang, either Eastern Parkway, F&R, coming from Fulton Rock so we called it F&R. And there was always gang fights and stuff like that. And I just happened to be one of the kids that was very small in stature and didn't want to get picked on a lot by the other kids. So I would be the wild one, you would say, of the crew that we had there. And the guys down the blocks started noticing that about me and they would take me into the club and I'd hang out with them a little bit, shoot pool and stuff like that. And then after that, I was just infatuated. Most kids probably want to be a fireman or something like that, I just really just wanted to be a gangster.
Warwick Fairfax:
So just to give folks context, for understand, this is in Brooklyn, New York in late '50s, '60s, '70s. It was probably different back then, I imagine, than it is today. But I guess people have to understand where you were, who you were growing up in this family with financial challenges, and the people that looked like they'd made it, were going places, were people involved in the mob. They dressed nice. They had nice cars. They had money. And so as a young kid, you're thinking, "I don't want to be poverty-stricken like my parents. I love mom and dad, but I want to make something of myself. Where are my role models for making something of myself? The people who dress nice, have money and nice cars." I mean, putting yourself in your shoes, it makes some degree of sense of why a young Robert would gravitate there.
Robert Borelli:
And you can see some of that is still being waved around today. Guys that are in poor neighborhoods and drug dealers or anybody that's involved in, you see that they have nice cars, money in their pocket. It's attracting, let's put it that way. You see a mob story, you're more attracted to the mob story than the Jesus Christ story, to be honest with you. And I'm not downplaying my savior, not at all, but I'm saying, it's just something that people are fascinated with that lifestyle. So it's understandable even today how gangs get involved and how young kids looking for a better life and they gravitate towards those people that...
Look, the only problem is they don't tell you. See, when somebody in my neighborhood, one of the older guys from the club, wouldn't be around for a while, they didn't tell me where he went. Maybe if they would've told me that he was in prison or something like that, maybe I would've shied away a little bit [inaudible 00:06:22] that part to-
Warwick Fairfax:
He could be in prison or worse.
Robert Borelli:
Or worse, right.
Warwick Fairfax:
They may not be on this earth for whatever reason.
Robert Borelli:
Yes. We had a lot of magicians in my neighborhood too. They knew how to make people disappear.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And just tell us a bit about how you began to get involved with the mob, with the Gambino family, because what's fascinating is, obviously, your last name is Borelli, and there's a story to that which we'll get to, but your original name was Robert Engel, which doesn't sound very Italian. Is that German? I mean, I don't know, Engel?
Robert Borelli:
You hit it on the head, Germans.
Warwick Fairfax:
So how does a kid of a German-American background, and here's the Italian Gambino family, I mean... So it's not like, culturally, hey, you're Italian, therefore they might think, of course, you not need to be in the mob, which obviously makes no sense, but it might make sense from their perspective. How did you get involved? Not of that background, you're in the neighborhood, you were attracted to them, but yet, they kind of started including you, inviting you in. How did all that happen?
Robert Borelli:
Well, my mom was Italian. And my mom's family was pretty known in the neighborhood. Not as tough guys, but in the neighborhood, everybody knew everybody. So my mom's family grew up in that neighborhood, so they knew my mom, they knew her brothers and sisters and stuff like that. So a lot of them knew my family in that sense.
And believe it or not, a lot of people, even back then, didn't understand that I wasn't Italian. But I walked it, I acted it. I grew up more on my mom's side of the family. Didn't really know too much about my dad's side of the family. He was from Yonkers. We never really went there. And if we did, I don't remember much of it. So they really did that, looked at me as the Italian kid even though I had a German father.
But as I started hanging out with them, they gave me little bit more things to do. They would have card games in the back and then I would serve sandwiches. And if you've seen the movie Goodfellas, or if you've seen the movie A Bronx Tale, how that little guy, the young kid is raised and stuff like that, that's kind of like how I started. Only thing is, I grew up to be a little bit more than that.
Warwick Fairfax:
So what was that progression, from hanging out with these older guys in the clubs, doing small little things that got to big things, I guess. I was looking at your video on your website. I think there was a guy, was it Nicky or somebody that was mentoring you, took you for walks in the early hours of the morning? I mean, from a faith-based perspective, we talk about discipleship. Jesus discipled his disciples. There was discipleship here too, but it was for a very different purpose. They were grooming you. And it might've seemed like, "Gosh, I have family here, they really care about me," but yet, it was for a much darker purpose. Just talk about that whole discipling, if you will, and how you went from just as a kid hanging out in the clubs, doing little misdeeds, to greater misdeeds, to crimes. How did that whole evolution is pulling you and tighter and tighter in the mob happen?
Robert Borelli:
Well, a lot of the people in the neighborhood was getting a little bad. In other words, there was other nationalities coming to the neighborhood. So a lot of people started moving out, and even the club moved out and they moved towards Queens. And I started hanging out in Queens and I had becoming a friend of one of the big wise guys in the neighborhood's son. And he would bring me around him and go see his dad, and his dad would have... I remember, every Friday night, there's big spread, food, all you can eat kind of thing, a good chef cooking the food. And all these people would come in and recognize his father and give him respect, and they would sit down and money was exchanged. I don't remember a lot of that at that time, but when I seen how much respect that his dad was getting, from all these people running really sharp-dressed guys, I said, "Man, that's my next set. That's the way I wanted to go." So I started hanging out with his son and building a reputation for myself.
I didn't want to be known as Andy's son's friend. I wanted to be known as Robert Engel. I didn't want no subtitles. So I was a kind of a wild guy, and I got recognized for fights that we had in bars, out of bars. I was the one that would go, I don't know, be a little bit more violent than everybody else. But at this one time, somebody got killed, and I was wanted for that murder. Me and another friend of mine was wanted for that murder, and my friend's dad hit us out for a little bit. And as I was on the land from the lure, something happened where we were and we had to come back into the neighborhood. And that's where Nicky comes in the scene.
They placed me with Nicky who had a storefront on Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue, and they would hide me up in somebody's apartment there. And that's when Nicky started mentoring me. He was a man that loved pigeons. And on top of the roof where I was staying, there was a pigeon coop and he would come up there and he would come and get me and my friend Joe and bring us up there. That's how all the mentoring discipleship started. And then I got really close with him, and then I got locked up for two murders at the age of 20 years old for two murders and possession of a weapon. And he orchestrated everything for me to get bailed out. I had to lay up for a while, but they finally got me in front of a judge that was going to give me a decent bail and they bailed me out. And from then on, I was paraded around like I did the right thing, because one of the murders that I was locked up for... Well, I can't talk too much about them. [inaudible 00:12:19] for a lot of that.
But anyway, the point is, after that, I was paraded around as the up-and-coming star. And that's why I was getting brought around to other fans, Mulberry Street. And then two years later, I ended up beating one of the murder cases. With five eyewitnesses against me, I still got acquitted. And that really raised the roof of my reputation was as a kid that went to trial, beat a case, stood up, stand up guy. And from then on, I just became a legend in my own mind, I guess, probably a legend in other people's minds.
Warwick Fairfax:
Wow. So your friends, people in the mob saw you as this tough guy that did the right thing, didn't turn anybody in, beat the rap, and you were getting respect. You were at a point in your early twenties when you had exactly what you wanted. Probably money, nice car, nice clothes, and above all, respect. In one sense, you had everything you wanted. So did it feel like, "I've made it. I've got respect. I've got a family," in the broad sense of that word. How did it feel at that time?
Robert Borelli:
Well, I did. I felt like I was really being well-known in the neighborhood. So if I go places, people, if it was a restaurant, they take care of me nicely. I just got a lot of respect. And for me, I think every young boy or young man wants respect. I think that's one of the major things that we strive for is people to respect us. The only problem is, I didn't command it, I demanded it. And it's a little bit of a difference when you demand respect.
In the movie A Bronx Tale, something said there that really stuck in my mind. He said, "You could get respect either through love or fear." He says, "I choose fear because sometimes love fades away. Fear in the heart forever." So anyway, that was some of the stuff that I... That was just me, man. I was a man that wanted to get respect and demanded it from everybody. And if I didn't get it, I became violent.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's really interesting that you mentioned A Bronx Tale a couple of times because I've seen that movie, really enjoyed that movie. For those folks who are listening and watching, haven't seen it, directed by Robert De Niro who also stars in it. His son is a young boy than man. That is much like what happens that you've been describing, Robert. He gets around the mobsters and he's sort of caught up in that. But one of the aspects of that movie was, Robert De Niro who plays his dad, really sort of tried to pull his son back and his son was having none of it early on. I'm interested to know, how did your parents react to your being sort of absorbed a little bit into this mafia culture and those individuals? What role did they play maybe to help you?
Robert Borelli:
Well, it's a good question. I think because of the drugs and seeing a lot of the older guys that are in the neighborhood, being all drugged up, they... Drugs was pretty big back in the '60s, goof balls and all that kind of stuff, sniffing glue, all that kind of stuff. So she thought that might've been the better place for me to be because these guys weren't involved with that kind of a lifestyle.
And then, since I was getting respect too as I got older, it transformed to them too. They were starting to get a little respect. They definitely don't want to say anything that's going to offend anybody. My parents both are gone but I still have relatives. I just think my mom thought that was a safer place for me. And of course, she didn't know the tragedies that came with that or the violence that came with that. She just thought I was better off hanging out in the club than hanging out in the streets.
Warwick Fairfax:
So here you were, Robert, in your early twenties. In one sense, you're at the pinnacle, I suppose, of your career in the mob. You had respect, money, clothes, cars, but it sounds like you didn't stay at that pinnacle for too long. Things started getting more challenging. So just talk about what happened, because it's not like you kept moving up in the ranks and getting more and more respect. So what happened? What, in a sense... It's weird to say what went wrong. You could say, well, it's already wrong, but from your career perspective at the time, things started going wrong. What kind of changed?
Robert Borelli:
Well, I remember one time, Nicky and Lenny, they were partners, Nicky and Lenny, the gentleman that we talked about that was mentoring me, came to me and he said, "Everything we have, we're going to end up giving it to you. Go straighten out and all that." I had to remind them that I had a German last name. And they said, "Oh." So I couldn't get straightened out because, at least, your father had to be Italian. So they said, "Oh." Didn't even think about that.
So right away from that, now I know I need to really start making a lot of money. An episode happened at one of the dice games that I was working, where this gentleman came in, really sharp, good-looking guy came in. A lot of them were, but this guy stood out the most. He lost a lot of money out of his pocket, probably about $10,000 maybe, and didn't faze him in the least. Me, I was a bad gambler. If I lost $25, I was upset. And he didn't show any of that there. And after he didn't have any more money, he asked one of the guys that run the game if he could send me out to his car to get a bag in his back seat. And they said yeah. So he gave me his keys and it was a brand new spanking beautiful Jaguar. I'll never forget it. And in the back seat, there's a bag. Now I don't go look in the bag, but he said give him the bag. So I pick up the bag, I bring it to him. It's just more money.
Now, I don't remember if he got his money back lost at all, I really don't remember the end of the story, but I just remember, at the end when the game broke up, I asked one of the guys, what the heck does this guy do they'd lose that money? You broke about in the '70s, the middle of the '70s. It's a lot of money. I said, "What does he do that it didn't even bother him that much? They lost that." And they said he's one of the biggest drug dealers in Harlem. And when they said that, now I want to be like him, to have that kind of money, gamble it, lose it, and know I have a lot more money. And I got involved with the drug business. And it didn't take too long, probably about 10 years of that, then eventually the drugs got involved with my business.
Warwick Fairfax:
The theory is, you exploit other people without it hurting you, without you taking the drugs. But it sounds like you started taking some of it. So tell us what happened, because that seemed that that was part of the beginning of the road downwards, if you will, in terms of...
Robert Borelli:
Well, even though in my neighborhood, I didn't see a lot of coke being shoved around back in the middle '70s, but in Manhattan where I was hanging out now working games and stuff, a lot of those guys were doing coke. So I thought it was more acceptable now because I've seen a lot of these other guys starting to do coke. So I started hanging out in bars with them, and then I'd do a little coke with them. But eventually, after a period of time, the coke got the best of me and I got really strung out on coke. So even though I was trying to make money with the drugs, I was doing more of the supply than selling the supply. So eventually, there was nothing happened. That's why I say the drugs got involved with my business.
And then back in '78, I think it was '77 or '78, something like that, Richard Pryor had an accident with freebasing cocaine and he [inaudible 00:20:24] fire. And that kind of hit the neighborhood. And somebody turned me onto freebasing. And I did a little bit of it and I had no cravings anymore. And I figured, okay, this is better for me than snorting the coke. So I got involved with freebasing, but then after a while, that became very addicting to me. And then I started losing everything, started losing lot of respect in the neighborhood also, started losing a lot of respect for me because now I was getting addicted to freebasing. And then I didn't have any more money and I was losing everything, and crack cocaine came around, which was a cheaper high back in the '80s, and I started getting high on crack cocaine, and eventually, wound up homeless back in 1996.
Warwick Fairfax:
So the drugs really began to take hold, not just hurting you, your health, but bankrupting you, if you will. And I guess, from the mob mentality, you're meant to be in control, and you weren't in control anymore. You might've been a tough guy, but the drugs beat you. You couldn't win against drugs. And so then, respect was probably the most important thing to you, and you lost respect from your peers. I mean, that must have been devastating, to lose that respect and have them look at you the way they probably did. That must've been searing experience.
Robert Borelli:
Yeah. But I also lost a lot of respect for myself. I tried to fight the drugs, went in rehabs and stuff like that, but eventually, it got hold of me and I just couldn't let... Matter of fact, it came to a point in time that I didn't want to live without getting high. So I was getting high 24 hours, seven days a week, and the only time I wasn't getting high is when I passed out or had a blackout and fell out.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, as bad of as that was, from what I understand, things actually got worse. How could they get worse? So just talk about Rikers Island, which is a prison in New York, and your daughter. That's almost sort of like the bottom of the pit of your story. Do you know what I'm saying? It just felt like it was even worse than where you were, in some sense.
Robert Borelli:
Yeah, well, I've been in and out of prisons a lot of times, but this one time... Because after I cleaned up a little bit and went to Florida to live with my mom, and Nikki then came down, I started doing stuff for them. But 1996, I didn't know it because I was living on the streets of Brooklyn and Queens around the borderline there, that I was wanted for a case, a RICO case in Florida where everybody got arrested already and they were looking for me. And then also, I had a drug case, but when I knew the Feds were looking for me, I stopped going to court for the drug case, so I had warrants out for me.
Just to go back a little bit, just to let them people know that in 1993, my daughter was born, and seven weeks after she was born, I was pretty good. I just came out of a rehab, was doing pretty good, started getting some things back, started to get some respect back. And then once I got a little bit of that back, I went out one more time to get high after having an argument with her mother, and then I wasn't allowed to see my daughter anymore. So that's the big part of the picture of being in Rikers.
I got what I call a wake-up call by two angels. I call them angels today, but actually, they were warrant officers at that time. I passed out on somebody's house, and because of the warrants, two guns were pointed at me. The warrant officers found out where I was and they put me in Rikers Island. Now I know I'm not going to get any bail or anything like that, and I know how to play the jail scene and the prison scene. And there's two things that are pretty important when you're going to be stuck in prison. One is, you need to get a good attorney to get you out of the mess you got yourself in, and that worked pretty good for me because I never did a real long stretch of time. I did a couple of years here and there, but that always worked out pretty good for me.
But you got to remember, I was on crack cocaine so I didn't have any money. So now I'm calling up some people that I feel maybe I did them a favor or something in the past and they would want to help me out, but everybody was telling me no. And then I know you need to get commissary money so you can live as comfortably as you can while you're incarcerated. And everybody was just refusing me, even my own family, in a sense, which just really felt that I was safer or better off in prison than outside the streets.
And I have to tell you, that brought me to a place of complete despair because the people... I'm not saying that they didn't love me, but I felt unloved at that point in time, and I felt abandoned by everybody that they would stick me and leave me in jail, that they thought I was better off in prison than back out on the street and I had to rethink about that. But my daughter's mom now is letting me call my daughter. And I was calling my daughter a little bit, and this one time I call her, she's crying, and her name is Brianna, and I said "Brianna, why you crying?" She said, "'Cause you won't come and see me." And those words, for some reason, if I could have ran and got a drink or a drug or anything to numb the feeling that happened, my heart just shattered in pieces, man, and I was crying. And I didn't want the inmates to see me so I slammed the phone down and ran back to my cell.
Now I'm going to say something because it's nothing against Roman Catholics, but I was raised Roman Catholic, I went to a Catholic school, grammar school, and I knew about God but I didn't have a relationship with God. I knew about Him. And I ran back to my cell, got on my hands and knees, tears coming down my face, and I just cried, "Now, God, if you're real, have somebody kill me or change me. I don't want to live with the pain that I'm living with right now." And I just kept crying, "God, please help me. God, please help me." And I truly believe that God answered the sincerity of my cry of my heart at that point in time. And if I'm talking to you, you know He didn't do the first part because I'm still around, so I believe that at that point in time, God really entered my heart and started just changing the way I was thinking, the way I was feeling.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, that had to have felt like maybe the lowest point in your life because you were craving respect. The mob has obviously abandoned you. It's like, "This guy's going nowhere, he's not going to be able to help us. He's on drugs and we're not going to let our high-priced lawyers help him out. He is on his own. We're washing our hands off him." And then your own family probably maybe they thought it was tough love. You felt like you were abandoned. And then to have your daughter say, "Dad or daddy, why can't I see you?" I mean, it must have felt like the whole world has abandoned you. And for some people at that point, they might say, look, life's not worth living. How in the world did you choose faith, choose God, or maybe he chose you? I mean, that has to have been the lowest point in your life. Everybody's abandoned you. Nobody cares about you. You don't have respect. How in the world did you, at that lowest moment, choose faith? That just seems a remarkable choice for somebody in your position.
Robert Borelli:
I actually didn't understand it. I just was crying out for help and nobody else was answering me. So like I said, I knew about a God, and I cried out to Him. What really attracted me to Jesus is when I got the Bible and I started reading how much he loved me, in spite of all my defects. And that attracted me to know more about this guy that really loves me in spite of everything that I did.
But one of the things I wanted to say that when my daughter cried out to me, "Because you won't come and see me," there was so many... The flashback that came to my mind in an instant was, how many times are you in the neighborhood and you'd rather get high than even try to go see your daughter? Whether the mother would've let me or not, I didn't even try to go see my daughter. I'd rather get high. And that, I think, was the lowest point in my life. Not that everybody abandoned me, that was pretty big, but that as a man, any type of man, would a abandon his own daughter because he loved drugs more than he loved his own daughter. And that devastated me.
Gary Schneeberger:
I want to dive back into a little bit, because you've said it a couple of times, this idea that those close to you, those around you abandoned you. We have a saying here at Beyond the Crucible that we use a lot, and that is, those bad things that happen, your crucibles, they didn't happen to you, they happen for you. And I wonder if, because if that abandonment hadn't occurred from the people you knew, it sounds like maybe your encounter with Jesus wouldn't have happened. So have you come to a place where you see that, perhaps one of the best things that those folks could have done is exactly what they did, leave you to your own devices, because you had nowhere to turn in the natural world to get out of the pain you were in? Does that make any sense?
Robert Borelli:
It makes total sense, and I speak about that all the time when I give interviews and when I go out and speak and share my testimony.
There's a picture a long time ago that I watched, and Robert Kane, I think it was Robert Kane or... Michael Caine was in it. And it was about this guy, and Jim Belushi was in it, and he grows up and wants to go back to when he was a kid because he felt bad that he didn't hit the home run with the bases loaded to save the game. He struck out. And Michael Caine shows him that if that didn't happen, he wouldn't be where he was today.
I look at my life, not exactly that, but I look at my life and I always say, if any decision that I made, or even the bad decisions, God worked it out for his good. I believe God knew I was going to fall in love with him, and he worked out everything for good. So if I were to change one thing, I probably wouldn't be where I am today, talking to you guys about my Lord and Savior.
Warwick Fairfax:
So just talk about those first few weeks and months, as you're exploring your faith. How did that change your outlook on life, because you were at the lowest of the lows? How did you begin to claw your way out of that deep dark pit that you were in?
Robert Borelli:
I don't take any credit for any of that. When I share my testimony, I try to share this like a before and after, or before Christ in my life and after Christ in my life, and try to paint the comparison picture, would you want the life that I had before Christ or look at the life that God has given me, the new life that he's given me? So that's just how I look at my life. So I give all credit to Christ living in me and living through me. There's just so much that he's done in my life, and continues to do in my life, but he gets all the credit. There's nothing I did.
I say it this way. They say the average person, this is the statistics that I looked up a couple of years ago said, the average person makes about 35,000 decisions a day, the average person. I tried to add that all up, I couldn't even come up with the figures, but over 10 million decisions that I made in my life. But there was one decision that changed the outcome of those tens of millions of decisions. That was my decision to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. From that point in time, my life has changed dramatically, not just what I do, but how I think.
I don't look at Christianity as a religion. I look at it as a way of life. And I tell people, when I was Robert the gangster, everybody in the neighborhood knew I was a gangster. I lived it out to the fullest. When I became Robert the crack head, everybody in the neighborhood knew I was Robert the crack head because I lived that out to the fullest. Now I'm Robert Borelli, the born-again Christian, and people in my neighborhood know that I'm a born-again Christian because of the way I live my life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. One of the things we talk a lot about at Beyond the Crucible is identity. Before you had your identity in being Robert the gangster, Robert is going to get respect in the neighborhood, but I'm guessing your identity is different. How would you describe your identity now, of who you seek, where your respect comes from? How would you look at it now?
Robert Borelli:
Well, now, I say I command it, just by the way I live, and it's not like I'm looking for it, I just get it [inaudible 00:33:43] the person that I became. But when I went into the Witness Protection Program, they take everything from your past away from you. You put everything in a black bag and everything's gone. Pictures of your daughter, your mother, whatever you had, they're taking that away from you.
And then they give you a new identity. They relocate you. They give you a new identity. What I try to do is do a comparison of how it is to be born again in Christ Jesus. What the government did was wipe my slate clean. I have no police record, I have no nothing. I have a fresh new start as Robert Borelli. Nothing from my past came with me, physically anyway. Of course, I still had some of my old thoughts, but what the government did for me in the natural, Jesus Christ already did for me in the spiritual. He wiped my sins clean. I have a fresh new slate with Jesus Christ. I have a new identity in Christ Jesus. I'm no longer Robert Engel. I'm Robert Borelli. And my identity as Robert Borelli is in Christ Jesus.
Warwick Fairfax:
You mentioned witness protection. How long were you in prison in Rikers, and talk about, without getting into details that you obviously can't get into, because people might be listening and say, okay, so he's in prison, where does witness protection come in? I mean, how did that all happen? And how long were you in prison before that happened?
Robert Borelli:
Well, I was in Rikers Island probably for about four months. Now, there's a lot of things that transpired, and I think afterward, even though I hated it at the point in time, because my lawyer wasn't getting any money, so I would be waking up at four o'clock in the morning, shoved into a bullpen with 50, 60 people, crowded. You stand just putting your arms together. And I would go to the courthouse and never see a judge, and that happened for quite a few months. And I would stay there from four in the morning until sometimes 12 midnight.
And what happened was, after everybody said that they don't think there's anything that they can do for me, because of that, my mom... I was calling my mom and my mom said that this FBI agent kept coming around, trying to get information from her about me, stuff like that. And after everybody turned their back, and I'm not making any excuses for what I did, what I did was selfish in the sense, but I called up that FBI agent. I got his phone number, called him up, and he gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. He said, "If you cooperate with us, we'll make a recommendation for short time and place you in the Witness Protection Program. You can start your life all over again." And I just thought that was the best option that I could have had at that point in time.
Because remember, even if I stopped the drugs, I would never have been Robert the gangster anymore, at least not in the level that I wanted to be, because once drugs has messed up your life, they're not going to trust you that much with things. So you're always going to be thought of as Robert the drug addict, even if I clean myself up.
And then the thought is, every time I went and came in and out of prison for a period of time, I kept being Robert the crack head. So I thought that was the best option. So I finally decided to cooperate with the government. And then from Rikers Island, they put me in the Dade County Jail. You would think that life would get better. You have God, you have the deal with the government, but it didn't happen that way neither. I was left off with solitary confinement because I was a witness for the government for quite a while, and I started to cooperate with the government.
Warwick Fairfax:
And so they eventually let you out. How long were you in the Witness Protection Program for?
Robert Borelli:
I was locked up for two years after that, and then when I got out and got relocated, I was in the witness protection close to two years. And then because I married somebody from what they call your danger zone, which was from New York, even though she didn't know them personally, they said I violated my agreement with them. I jeopardized my security. And they actually didn't want me to tell my wife that I was in the Witness Protection Program, and there's no way in the world I'm going to marry somebody and not tell them something like that. So they decided that you can't be here no more, so they threw me out.
Warwick Fairfax:
What's fascinating to me is, obviously, as part of the Witness Protection Program, you choose a new name. You chose a name of Italian background. It's like, "Gee, let's make it difficult for people to find me. Let's use an Italian name." I mean, if this was a movie, the script that the director would say, "Cross that one out, that's not believable." I mean, nobody's ever going to do that, so why choose an Italian name?
Robert Borelli:
Because I look Italian. Most people who hear my dialect sounds... If guys from Brooklyn talk automatically, they take you're Italian. They look at Brooklyn at the language as an Italian language. So one person asked me what country I was from when I was in Texas. I didn't know Brooklyn was a country, but I come from Brooklyn, New York.
And that's the reason why I choose that. But I didn't actually really just think about it. What happened is, I was giving them some names, and I always wanted to have an Italian name, I don't know. I love mammole, I guess. I don't like the German part of my background. But I would give them names and they would come back saying that name's no good. And I happen to be watching this episode of MASH. And then this episode that I'm watching at the point of time just before they come in, they have to send out a doctor, an emergency to get this doctor into the MASH unit from another unit to do an emergency surgery for one of the patients that they had in the MASH unit. And he happened to be Dr. Borelli. So when they came in, that name stuck in my head and I said, Borelli. They came back later on and said, "Okay, that's your name."
Warwick Fairfax:
It's stunning to me that they will say, that's okay, rather than, hey, Robert, try again. But that's just confounding to me. So-
Gary Schneeberger:
An interesting fact, if I may, sorry. An interesting fact about Dr. Borelli on MASH, I just looked it up on my phone while we were sitting here, and he was played by who, Robert?
Robert Borelli:
Alan Alda's father.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. He was played by Robert Alda. Alan Alda's father played Dr. Anthony Borelli on MASH in two episodes, in 1975 and in 1980, so there you go. It's got some heritage there, certainly in the MASH universe as well.
Robert Borelli:
Well, also shows I'm not making it up.
Warwick Fairfax:
There you go. Amazing stuff. So from what I understand, part of that is, you're intimating is, you met your wife, Patricia, I believe, at least during that time, which partly ended the witness protection. So talk about that because she knows you as a different person. She probably didn't know-
Robert Borelli:
Well, she heard a lot about me when she was in New York, but...
Warwick Fairfax:
You were a different person as you got to know her, at least, in Christ and all.
Robert Borelli:
Believe it or not, we dated on the phone for five and a half months because she couldn't know where I was. A Christian friend of mine met her at one of these conferences or something and felt that she would just mention that me, in a sense, to this girl, because she was looking for a husband and I was looking for a wife. And she just put us together. She couldn't know where I was so I have to call her through a calling card, which doesn't show where you're actually calling from, and that's what the government issued for me. And we dated for five and a half months. And then at the end of that there, I had asked that she would come to meet me in San Antonio, Texas where I was relocated, and made the stipulation, "You have to stay with my family minister, you can't stay with me." I wanted to keep it as pure as you possibly can.
And I would stay there and we got to meet each other and know each other a little bit for like 10 days. And then she's ready to leave. And I'm asking God, okay, what do I say to her? "See you later?" She's going back to New York. "I'd give you a call."? What you would normally say to a girl that you really weren't that interested in. And [inaudible 00:42:42] God was telling me to ask her to marry her, and the crazy woman would say yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, one of the things that folks listening are going to be wondering is, I understand, because you're dating somebody from where you lived, and witness protection says, well, that's violating parole, so you're now no longer in witness protection. In the movies, you're typically not okay when you're not in witness protection. The bad people mobs, at least in the movies, so now we know where Robert is. And again, you don't need to tell us details, but how in the world are you okay, given in witness protection, you are giving information about people? How can you be okay? Is that just a miracle from God? Again, you don't need to tell us details that you don't want to.
Robert Borelli:
In the beginning, once I got thrown out of Witness Protection Program, I was a little concerned about all that. The more my faith grew, my wife also a born-again Christian, her recommendation was, now, you can tell your story, because you're not bound by the Witness Protection Program, because when you're in the program, you can't tell anybody that you're in the program. So now, I could share my story. And we did get a little bit nervous and we left San Antonio, a friend of mine put me up in Utah. And I stayed there for a couple of months and there was a...
My friend knew Pat Robinson. They mentioned my story to Pat Robinson. And my heart was for ministry. I was doing nursing home ministry for a couple of years when this happened. And Pat's recommended me go to Christ for the Nations, which is a Bible institute, and I signed up for that. And after a couple of months in Utah, I moved to Dallas and went to Christ for the Nations. And I just look at it...
It's hard to tell people that they need to surrender their life to Christ. Now this might sound foolish to everybody else, but how could I tell everybody they need to surrender their life if I'm still holding back part of my life in fear or something like that. I don't believe fear comes from God. I believe it comes from the devil. And I truly believe that fear could probably paralyze you for doing what God has called you to do, because he didn't save me just to save me and go to heaven. He had a plan and purpose for my life, and fear could have interrupted that if I lived in fear. But think of it this way, what's the worst that can happen to me? If I get killed, I go to be with the Lord. And if I don't get killed, I stand here and do what God's called me to do, so I don't think I could lose either way. And that helps clear my mind a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, that's truly remarkable. I mean, that is faith at a level that most of us can't relate to, but somehow... I mean, how many years has it been since you've been out of witness protection?
Robert Borelli:
See, I got thrown out in 2001.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's more than 20 years, and somehow, God had a plan that we all will pass at some point, but it seemed like God had a plan saying it won't be the way that you think it could be, the way it is in the movies when you come out of witness protection. So, do you look back in saying that's remarkable, that God had a plan for me and it wasn't what it could have been?
Robert Borelli:
Well, [inaudible 00:46:15] if I could trust the government to keep me safe, but not trust God to keep me safe, I think I have a problem with my faith?
Warwick Fairfax:
That is so well said. On your website, you have a video, it's a great video, and I love how the title of the video, it starts as Unredeemable, and it shifts to Redeemable. Just talk to me, why did you use those terms? Because that's a big shift from Unredeemable to Redeemable.
Robert Borelli:
Most people who know me from my past didn't think... I was beyond redeemable. So we're just trying to put the point out, no matter where you are, wherever you're stuck with, whatever your past looks like, whatever your present is right now, it's never too late for a new beginning. And I try to always stipulate my new beginning started on my hands and knees crying out, "Lord, please help me, Lord, please help me."
Warwick Fairfax:
So talk about your ministry and speaking. I know you have a real heart for kids. Talk about what's on your heart. You have a passion for redemption, to give people second chances. Talk about what you do now and really what your heart is.
Robert Borelli:
Well, we'll just go back to the whole scene, if that's okay with you guys.
Warwick Fairfax:
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Borelli:
When I was brought to San Antonio, Texas, relocated there, my mom was diagnosed with, she was a year before I got released, with the terminal lung cancer. And my mom had passed away before I even got a chance to really have any relationship with her. I didn't understand God's plan at that point in time, because I'm saying, if anybody needed this new type of love that she'd given me, it would've been my mother who I put through so much, we could say, hell on earth, murder trials and all the stuff that I did. And I just felt God was talking to me. [inaudible 00:48:09] if you go give that to other mothers and fathers.
And I had started doing nursing home ministry and I did nursing home ministry for 13 years, but I didn't go once a month. I went twice every week in nursing homes, and I would do different functions for them to show them that they're not unloved, that we still love them. Some of them, their families abandoned them. Some of them, their churches abandoned them. And I didn't want them to feel the way I felt when I was locked up in prison being abandoned. So I just dedicated my life to nursing home ministry and did that for 13 years straight, twice a week.
And from there on, then God started moving me around and doing other things and people will come to me and say, "What's your story? You need to really start reach other people, lost people and stuff like that." And then that's what we started doing. So I got involved with sharing my testimony, going into churches, into schools. All the schools started a little bit later, but wherever God opened up the door, that's where I would go and share my testimony. It's just a message of hope and how much Christ really loves them. For people who feel that they're unloved or abandoned or stuck in a bad situation, and I say, "It's never too late for a new beginning, you don't have to stay there. God has a plan for each of our lives." So those are the things that I do.
Now, we're even on YouTube. We're on TikTok. We're doing social media. I was totally against that at one point in time. I didn't want all that kind of stuff going on, and I don't know how to do it neither so I had to hire people to do. But we found out we're reaching a lot more people. Now, there's a twofold kind of thing. What we're doing is we're showing them the mafia thing. We're getting a lot of people wanting to see the mafia part of my story, and then we're switching it over to how my crisis changed my life. So we're doing all these things. We have the possibility of a script being written, stuff that we're trying to raise money for now, and the chance of maybe the possibility of getting, not a synopsis, but a series kind of show going on about my back story to just a message.
And I think that's so much needed today. This is not my story, it's God's story. I couldn't come up with these thoughts in my own mind on my own. But we're in a place today where, like you said earlier about truth, everybody thinks that they had their own truth, but in reality, there's only one truth. There's only one truth. And we're divided every place in our country, in the world, in the churches. There's just so much division. I think young kids today really have a hard time to know what the truth really is because you're seeing one person's truth.
And I don't want to get into the politics part of it, but how everything is so divided in our country and I wanted to introduce them to the one truth, and that's the word of God. If they really want to know the truth, get into the Bible. Jesus loves them. He wants to speak to them, and he wants to give them the one truth, a message of hope. And that hope is not into something, but in someone whose name is Jesus Christ.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that sounds, you heard, folks, sounded a lot like the captain turning on the fasten seatbelt signs, indicating that our plane has begun its descent to the end of this conversation, but we're not there yet, because as always, Mr. Fairfax, I'm certain, has another question or two for Robert. So, Warwick, I turn it over to you.
Warwick Fairfax:
I guess a couple of things occurred to me, one, and listeners might be curious, how's your relationship with your daughter? There was a period where you were in prison, in witness protection. How did that part of the story turn out?
Robert Borelli:
Well, after a certain amount of years, my wife found her on Facebook and wanted to know if I wanted to get in touch with her. And her mother didn't want me to be part of her life, so I didn't want to violate that. So I said, let's pray about it a little bit more. The mother kind of have to pray in a lot of years for the child to change, to soften the mom's heart about me because they're involved with that lifestyle too, from the neighborhood. And a guy that liked what I did was total taboo for that lifestyle. Anyway, God did that and I started seeing my daughter.
Right now, we're still hitting some rocky roads where she's having a hard time forgiving me because she feels that I abandoned her. And I don't know if she could completely understand what addiction is or how you could just fall in love with a drug more than you could fall in love with your own child. And I probably understand that to an extent, but that's the bottom line. So she still has a sense of I abandoned her and I took drugs over her. So we're working on things and we're just praying a lot to this [inaudible 00:53:09].
Warwick Fairfax:
I'm so sorry. I mean, I understand where she's coming from, but I'm so sorry. That's a tough thing.
I guess another question that occurs to me, whether it's my story or Gary's, a lot of people obviously on our podcast that have been through tragedy. When you talk to other people about what you've been through, when somebody says, "Robert, what you said helped me, it gave me hope." Does it fill you with some kind of... It doesn't make all the pain go away, but does it fill you with some sense of, I don't know, some redemptive moment when people say, "Robert, what you said helped me." Does it feel like a little bit of, I don't know, water for somebody that feels like they need just some refreshment, if that makes sense. I mean, what does it feel like when people just tell you, "Thank you, Robert. Boy, that helped me. It gave me one more day of hope."?
Robert Borelli:
I just feel like I'm accomplishing what God wants me to accomplish for his glory, for his purpose, for his plan for each and every person's life, that does change to his message using my circumstances. So like I said, there's nothing I do today that I take any credit for, except just accepting Him as my Lord and Savior. But he's doing it all and he's living in me and throwing me in, and that's the exciting part of my life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Last question. There might be somebody today, and maybe they're at the bottom of the pit, maybe today's their worst day, maybe something horrendous was done to them, maybe they've done something they feel is unforgivable and unredeemable. What would a word of hope you would offer to that person who feels like, "I'm not worth loving. I've done too much. Too much has been done to me."? What would've hope be to that person?
Robert Borelli:
Well, it's really hard to speak to somebody in a biblical sense because they're not there. I don't think they're there anyway. But like I tell my, it's never too late. You don't have to stay stuck at where you're at and you don't have to. Nobody's unredeemable. Nobody. If you listen to my story and God could reach out and touch my life and transform my life, he wants to do... Matter of fact, he already did it for them. All they have to do is believe it and receive it. He did it when he went to the cross.
And he values their life. If he didn't value their life, he wouldn't have died for them. It's one thing. In my lifetime, I would die for my friends, and there's times I put my life on the line for my friends. But if my enemy wanted me to die for them, ain't no way I'm going to die for them. But yet, Christ, through his love, for his people, for his children, he went to the cross for them. Nobody is unlovable in the eyes of Christ, and everybody's redeemable, in the power and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken, and our guest, Mr. Robert Borelli, has just spoken that last word.
Warwick, we've just finished talking with our guest, Robert Borelli, who had a remarkable story to tell about being fascinated by, being drawn into the mob, the mafia, when he was a young boy in New York, and just all the crucibles that came after that, and then his redemption after that. Lots of things to talk about and unpack. What is, as you think about it this soon after we're like less than two minutes after doing the episode, what stands out that can help our listeners and viewers that Robert talked about?
Warwick Fairfax:
Robert Borelli's life is a life of redemption. He, at one point, would've said his life is irredeemable, it's unredeemable, and now it's being redeemed. He started off life in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York in the late '50s, '60s, '70s, thinking the way to get respect is to be in the mob. His parents were not very wealthy. They didn't have much, but he saw the wise guys, as he put it, with the nice clothes, the fancy cars. They're in the clubs and they had respect. He wanted respect. He didn't want to be poor, and so, he got respect. He was discipled, in a sense, by people in the mob, by older people that saw him as a promising young up and coming guy. He would be tough, do things maybe other people wouldn't do, and he was working his way up.
But then he fell. He started taking drugs. As a drug dealer, from what I understand, you're not meant to actually take the product yourself but he did, and he spent more money on drugs than he was getting in, and he was then shunned by the mob. He was shunned by his first wife. He wasn't able to have a relationship with his daughter because, at one point, he would rather, as he puts it, do drugs than see his own daughter. Then he is in prison, he couldn't see his daughter. So it's easy to look back and say his was an unredeemable life, and his identity, at the time, was completely in being in the mob. That was his sense of self. "My respect only comes from being respected by my fellow folks in the mob." And then in prison, and then afterwards, he comes to faith in Christ and now his identity is in Christ.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. He said a couple of times, as he was talking about his descent into both the mob and then drug addiction, that some of his old friends had abandoned him. At one point, we asked him, because he used that phrase a couple of times, and I brought up the idea that we say all the time, it didn't happen to me, it happened for me, and I put before him the question, "Is this abandonment that you experienced, can you perceive it like that?" And he said yes, he could. In fact, he had done that, which was remarkable to me because I don't know that we've had a guest who had quite the level of...
I mean, listen to this episode, folks, watch this episode. He's on trial for murder. He's deeply addicted to drugs. He had a lot of very, very difficult things happen to him that he caused to happen, some things that just happened to him. He gets abandoned by folks. He sees then that the way that they treated him by shoving him aside, by not coming to his aid, was actually the thing that led to his redemption. I just think that's a remarkable story, from a very remarkable, difficult story.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a great point, Gary. In one sense, his abandonment was the key to hope. How can abandonment lead to hope? Here he is. He is abandoned by his first wife. He's not able to have a relationship with his daughter. He is abandoned by his parents. At least, that's the way he sees it. They might see it as tough love. He's certainly abandoned by the mob in that he went from being Robert the mobster, the gang leader, to being called Robert the crack head. You get no respect, from what he says, in the mob if you're a crack head on drugs, and so, his career was done when that happened. And so here he is, abandoned by his family, abandoned by the mob, and yet, that brought him to his lowest point where he sought God or he sought faith in Christ. That wouldn't have happened without that, if he'd not taken drugs.
Let's say he hadn't taken that first sample of cocaine or whatever it was in Manhattan all those years ago, and he stayed being this tough guy, this wise guy, he might've had a decent career in the mob. But because he went so low, life totally changed. I think his perspective would be, if he had stayed on that life, I don't know if he would've been dead or in prison, maybe one or the other. I don't think it would've been a very happy path. It would've been a dark path. I think he pretty much implied, he may not be here if he'd got, whether it was through drugs or whatever else, he may not still be alive. And so, yeah, talk about pain for a purpose. That abandonment was the key to him seeking a different path, faith and faith in Christ [inaudible 01:02:27]. How could anything good come of abandonment? In his case, that was the key to him turning his life around, as a horrific experience as it was.
Gary Schneeberger:
So until the next time we're together, everybody. You heard it here, crucible experiences are difficult. They're hard. You've heard it in every episode that we've had, and Robert's story certainly adds some perspectives you haven't heard before on the show. But what you have heard him say that you have heard before on the show is that no one is irredeemable. You have heard him say that. What happened to him, it didn't happen to him, it happened for him, some of those things that he went through that were difficult. That is our story as well. That can be your story as well. When you learn the lessons of your crucible and you apply them to your life, you can move forward to the most fulfilling destination of your journey, and that is where Robert's landed, where Warwick's landed, where I've landed, 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.
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
A comment from a recent guest on the show about the tension between growth and comfort as we aim to move beyond our crucibles prompted a blog on the subject that fuels this week’s discussion. Warwick and Gary examine three truths about why prioritizing comfort rather than growth when setback and failure strike will not lead you to the joy and fulfillment of a life of significance.
The only way forward is to press into what your crucible teaches you about yourself, the growth it’s granted you in your wisdom and resilience, and be ever-ready to dial them up as needed.
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.
Gary Schneeberger:
Comfort is something that we feel, and as we've discussed here, we can feel it in different ways. We can feel it, the crucible is comfortable, because it's what I've known, and even it's hell, but it's home. Or comfort can be, "I don't really have a crucible. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here." That can be comfort too, that emotion. But growth is an action. Growth is something that happens to you. Growth is something that you step into. Growth is something that you pursue.
Growth and comfort. Two distinct concepts that we talk about this week is we take a deep dive look into our latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com, Why Growth and Comfort Can't Ride the Same Horse. That phrase is something our recent guest, Dr. Margie Warrell told us. And we not only unpack why it's true, but also how you can make sure you saddle up for the journey that will lead you to growth and to a life of significance.
So, Warwick, this is one of the episodes that we talk about a blog at beyondthecrucible.com. This blog is entitled, this one that we're going to talk about here is called, Why Growth and Comfort Can't Ride the Same Horse. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it, folks? Keep listening, because you'll find out why. One of the interesting things about this though, Warwick, is that this is the first time we've spoken on the podcast about a blog that was written by somebody other than you. This particular blog was written by me, and I'm just going to explain a little bit of the inspiration for it before we get into the details of it. But it came from an interview we did a couple of weeks ago with Dr. Margie Warrell, who is a friend of yours, and she's a friend of the show, and she said something while discussing her book, The Courage Gap, that I used for the title of this blog, which is, Comfort and Growth.
She actually phrased it, "Growth and Comfort Can't Ride the Same Horse." And it stuck in my head in a way that I just couldn't get it out. It's like, why is that true? What does that mean? And it's interesting for me, just by way of introduction, folks, I was going to say as Warwick and I were preparing for the show, I was going to say I'm a quote nerd, word very kindly suggest that I should call myself a quote connoisseur, because that sounds better than quote nerd. But I have a whole bunch of books of people with quotes, right? Here's Winston Churchill, what's this one called? The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill. I've got quotations of Ronald Reagan. I've got Abraham Lincoln, the Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. I've got something here from Brooks Brothers clothiers called Classic Wisdom for the Good Life, and I've even got, folks, The Wit and wisdom of James Bond. So-
Warwick Fairfax:
That's great.
Gary Schneeberger:
In addition to, right, here's the big one. The big one is this is sort of the small B bible of quotes, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. So, I bring all that up, because you've probably heard on episodes of the show, especially episodes we talk about a blog, you've probably heard and seen me bring out quotes and get Warwick's reaction to them as he's making points through the blog. I probably won't do that, since this is the blog I wrote, pulled out for quotes. But I just wanted to set the stage of, Margie's quote really struck me, and I really wanted to unpack why that was and how that helps us move beyond crucibles.
And it's interesting, one of the things that we've noticed from the show is that we've gotten a lot of quotes over the years. We could put our own book, Warwick, we could put out our own Beyond the Crucible quotes from Guest's book, because people do say truly insightful and meaningful things to us on the show here. But I just want to ask you, Warwick, since you know Margie, as much as it struck me, I'm wondering, when she said to us, "Growth and comfort can't ride the same horse," what kind of impact did that have on you? Did that stick with you? What are your thoughts about that quote?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, when Margie said that, it sure did. It struck a chord. It makes so much sense. And really, the first thought that occurred to me is that when we're talking about growth and comfort can't ride the same horse, that is literally true, because one of the big stories that she shared was about a real horse. That growth and comfort can't literally ride the same real horse. So, the story that she shared was she grew up in Australia, a number of hours outside of Melbourne on a dairy farm, so there were horses on that farm. And when she was somewhat of a young kid, I don't know if it was 10, 12, somewhere around there, she wanted to ride a horse, and the one they had was a tame horse, but it was enormous, certainly compared to a young Margie. And she was terrified, but she was not going to let that horse, the fear of riding that horse overcome her.
She got on it and eventually learned to ride it. Now, ironically, that was the toughest moment, because later on she said to her dad, "I'd like to a bit of a wilder horse," a brumby horse as we call it in Australia. And that wasn't that big a deal, even though it was a wilder horse, the toughest moment, the toughest time was riding that first tame horse. And so, I think what that means more broadly is that none of us, certainly me included, maybe me especially, like doing potentially risky and scary things. I don't really like change that much, to be honest. But in order to grow, to expand your learning and capabilities, you have to have the courage to try and use scary things. You have to, in Margie's case, be willing to ride that enormous big horse, to get on that horse for the first time and make that horse move a few steps.
Typically, in horse riding you stick your feet in the backs, the heels into the horse. That's what you're meant to do. Maybe shake the reins a bit and off you go, hopefully not too fast. For me, it's ironic, while I don't like change, I don't like doing new scary things, I've done quite a few things that are very different in different parts of the world. As listeners may know by now, I went to Oxford at age 18, that's other side of the world from Australia, and didn't really know anybody there. Worked on Wall Street, again, didn't know anybody then at age 21 in New York City, then I got to Harvard Business School. Later on I launched this $2.25 billion takeover of my family's 150-year old family media company. And one of the things that I most didn't like about it is it put me in the limelight. I was on TV, at least my image was pretty regularly. I'd go to the mall and people would go, "Oh, that's Warwick Fairfax." I hate being noticed like that, so that was not fun.
And then later on I spoke in church in 2008 giving some illustration about my story, about what I went through in my family business. I've written and got a book published, launched this podcast. Each of those things were scary and new and led me to grow. So, it's ironic, I'm somebody that really doesn't like change or doing new things, but yet I've done many new things in many parts of the world.
Gary Schneeberger:
We talk a lot at Beyond the Crucible about what, Warwick, is called the pit, right? That bottom level when you bottomed out after your crucible, you can be in the pit. And we've heard it described by so many guests, including us, have talked about it's unbearable, it's searing pain. Warwick said it, I think earlier here, it's a very difficult place to be. But as I thought about that and I thought about my own story, that pit can also be comfortable. That pit can also be, yes, the way that I phrase it in the blog is, it's hell, but it's also home in some ways. And in my own experience, as having struggled with alcoholism in my early 30s, I mean through my early 30s, I was, after I became sober I was not comfortable venturing out into social situations with friends who knew me as someone who drank.
I was worried, folks, I was worried that I would not be liked as much. People would not want to share my company, that I wouldn't be funny, that I wouldn't be, all those things that I thought in my weaker moments, despite the difficulties alcohol caused me, those things that helped make me, me, I thought were tied inextricably to alcohol. And so, that was uncomfortable to walk out of that. And I discovered that comfort, I'm going to stay in this pit here a little bit, because if I go out of it, even though I'm sober, if I go out and venture out into the world, people are going to either reject me or not like me as much. That was a difficult thing to get over. It was only by going out and doing those things, going out with friends, not drinking, where I realized that nobody held being sober against me. Far from it, they were happy for me that I was no longer on a destructive path.
So, the courage I had to muster to overcome the comfort of the pit feels like home. Even though it was destructive, the courage I had to muster to get beyond that was to go enter society again as a sober person. And those two things could not have ridden the same horse. My comfort in the pit and my moving beyond my crucible could not have the growth to get there, could not have ridden the same horse. This point, Warwick, comfort can often be what keeps us tangled up in the aftermath of our crucible. What's your perspective on that truth?
Warwick Fairfax:
Gary, as you share your story, it's so interesting. Not everybody has gone through your crucible of alcoholism, but yet, there's a broader metaphor. You're thinking, "Hey, this fun-loving persona, this sort of happy-go-lucky guy, it only exists with alcohol. Unless I'm inebriated on my fourth, fifth glass or whatever, I'm just going to be this, I don't know, gray-like boring person that people will not want to be around." And that you hear the good voices, or the bad voice, it just says in your ear, "Gary, without alcohol you're nothing. Nobody will like you. Alcohol is all that produces the fun, loving, happy-go-lucky Gary that everybody likes."
And then when you found in, I'm sure those first months, years when you weren't drinking, it's like you're still the same person. Maybe better. Now, maybe some of the people that just like drinking themselves under the table, maybe it's like, "Oh gee, I don't want to be around Gary, because it makes me feel bad, because he's sober and I'm not," whatever. That's a dip. But your real friends there was like, I don't know if they said finally, but it's like they like being around you. So, there's this negative voice you've referred to, the phrase self-talk is different than self-reflection. The phrase you use, the negative self-talk says, "I'm nothing without alcohol," in your worst months. But you found, "If anything, I'm funnier, happier, people like me more." Does that make sense? It's like you felt like this was home, but in reality it was all a lie that wanted to keep you there. Does that make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, absolutely. And it'll be, gracious by the time this episode airs, it'll be close to 28 years since I've been sober. You're absolutely right. It was something that just, I allowed it to make me feel comfortable and that comfort and growth couldn't coexist. I had to break out of what felt like comfort, which really wasn't, to go into living this post-crucible life. I had to live the post-crucible life. I had to get on the horse, throw the comfort away and go toward growth. And I did do that, and it's made all the difference in my life. And so, so many of my friends, just a couple of weeks ago before we recorded this I celebrated my 60th birthday, had a big party and neighborhood friends of mine who were my drinking buddies when I was in the grips of my alcoholism, still my friends, still love me, still came out to celebrate me. So, you're absolutely right. People have discovered in fact that they liked me probably a little bit more than they did when I was not sober.
Warwick Fairfax:
Who knew, right? It's like, "Huh, maybe I'm more than just the alcohol. Maybe that's diminishing the true Gary, not enhancing it." And that's the lie. So yeah, I mean, when I think of this whole issue of comfort and growth and I love that phrase you used, "It's hell, but it's also home." I'm reminded of a movie that we both love with Tim Robbins, The Shawshank Redemption. I think it was set in a prison in Maine, and I don't if it was the '30s, maybe it's the '50s, it was a long time ago. In one of the scenes there's an inmate that gets released and he can't handle being out on the outside. And from what I understand, this is somewhat common that prisoners get released and they find a way to commit a crime to get back inside, because that's the new normal. They're somehow comfortable in some strange sense. I guess more broadly, it is possible to feel like our own prison of our crucibles can be comfortable.
In my sense in some way I can relate to this, as listeners know, I grew up in a large 150-year-old family media business in Australia. In one sense I grew up in a crucible. It was a 24/7 crucible life. I was expected by my parents to one day lead this large company. I felt immense pressure and expectations from them, certainly myself, as well as some degree of inadequacy. I felt like I had to be almost like Superman in some sense. It's like the bar was so high, pretty much impossible to reach. And so, as I often talk about, in the Bible talks about the prodigal son who went away and wasted all this money. Well, I was the "good son" that stayed home and worked hard. I did my undergrad at Oxford, worked on Wall Street, got my MBA at Harvard Business School, and it was all part of a plan to prepare myself to one day be the leading figure, or a leading figure certainly in the family media business.
So, pre-takeover, which we'll get into later, it was very challenging. There were infighting amongst family members going back decades. Just pre-takeover my father died. So, despite all this growing up in the family media business, John Fairfax Limited in Australia, it was the only life that I knew and I never would have left voluntarily. It's like, could there be a better life outside The Crucible, which we'll get into. I'm not even sure that I would have called it that. It's like, "Well, I don't know, but I can't do that. That's my duty." And to step out aside of the circle, step outside of the John Fairfax Limited zone, who am I if I'm not the fifth generation heir to this family media company? I'm nothing. It would be a very scary thing. So, is it possible to have a better life outside of that crucible? I couldn't have even asked or answered that question. It just, this was home. It might be extremely painful, very scary, very difficult, but there is no life outside of this.
I think also the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbits in the Shire, they never left the Shire. It was the only life they've ever known. You never leave the Shire. It's this comfortable place. That doesn't seem so bad, but the point is, accomplishing things and saving middle Earth and all that, no, no, you don't leave the Shire. Well, in my case, you don't leave John Fairfax Limited. This is the only world I ever knew. And no, I never would have left voluntarily. So yeah, I get how you can be comfortable amidst the crucible. It may be painful, but it's the only life you've ever known, and how can you leave that for some scary unknowable future that in the midst of your living in hell on earth, if you will, it's like, well, anything that's different, it's going to be worse, right? A bit like Eeyore and the Winnie the Pooh, it'll be worse. The saddest this is, change will lead you to a place where it will be worse and more painful, so why change?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, I mean, for me, again, my alcoholism cost me a job, cost me more than one job. Cost me friends, cost me relationships. It cost me a lot of stuff, but still in that twisted way it felt like this was comfortable, because it's something, it was what I knew. And that's the thing that we're trying to get you to realize, folks, is that when, that's one of the reasons why growth and comfort can't ride the same horse. So, find growth, look for growth, have the courage to pursue growth and let comfort fall to the wayside. Because at the end of the day that's not going to, comfort's not going to pave your road to a life of significance. I think that's fair, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.
Gary Schneeberger:
Second point in my blog, weird me say ... It's weird for me to say in my blog, second point in my blog is this, and stick with me on this one, folks, because it's pretty much a 180 from the first point. The second point is, comfort can breed a false sense of having overcome a crucible. By that I mean, it's sort of the other end of the spectrum. If the first point is that comfort can come from the crucible, because it's all you've known, as painful as it is, it's what you've known, it's what you feel you've become. It's what people relate to you at, this one is, the pit doesn't feel safe so much, it doesn't feel like a pit.
At some point you're allowed, you get yourself to believe it's not a pit, it's not that bad. This idea that comfort can breed a false sense of having overcome a crucible or having not even had a crucible. That's what can happen in what is at point two here. We forsake the notion that we've experienced something that has changed the trajectory of our life, and we continue on just sort of, I've heard you say, Warwick, on this show, a dozen, more than three dozen times, "Nothing to see here." You get into that kind of nothing to see here attitude, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.
Gary Schneeberger:
So, two times for me, just to continue my story, two times for me before I entered rehab and got sober, I danced around the edges of it. One time I actually started to see a psychiatrist. I went to a couple meetings, I mean, a couple appointments. He talked to me, I felt, "Hey, I'm feeling pretty good." Never went back, started drinking again.
Then one night things were so bad that a good friend of mine who had encouraged me before to get sober had driven me to the rehab hospital. I eventually went to six, eight months later, drove me to the front door, called in. There was someone there who was ready to meet me, and I never got up the courage to knock on the door, because I was convincing myself, "You know what? Now that I'm standing here, it's not so bad. I have some issues, and I might have lost some respect from some people, but I'm not as bad as the other guy, or I'm not as bad as what they tell in the movies, or something." I talked myself out of it. I tricked myself into believing I was not in a crucible. And that's what this second point is really all about. So, I know, Warwick, this may not fit your story exactly, but what's your perspective on this idea of the second point that we can indeed convince ourselves that our crucible isn't anything like that at all?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's such a great point, Gary. I think listening to your story, and you've shared this elsewhere, I think you felt like, "I can handle this. I mean, I'm not dangerous when I'm drunk. I don't hurt people. I'm just a fun-loving guy. I don't do anything terrible. I don't yell and scream at people and put them down. I'm not that kind of alcoholic, that kind of drunk person, and heck, I can get my job done."
Gary Schneeberger:
I was high functioning. I was high functioning. I could be out all night. I could get up the next morning and I could drive work. So, you're right, that made it harder to get help, because I didn't feel I needed it because I was still humming on all cylinders in some areas of my life.
Warwick Fairfax:
And I think a number of us can feel that way. It's like, "It's not that big a deal. It's not really derailing my life." And maybe it is in some ways, but you kind of overestimate how effective and functioning you are and underestimate how much you may be hurting people. And so, you feel like, "Nothing to see here. It's all good." And yeah, you're right. Mine is not quite the same. But in my case, growing up in this large family media business, if you said, "Do you think you're in the midst of a crucible?" And I'd say, "Well, no. It's just life. It's my life, but it's just life." It's like, boy, do you realize in certain parts of the country, like where you are, Gary, in Wisconsin, it gets cold? Maybe you'll get below zero at night. There'll be highs are teens.
Gary Schneeberger:
Maybe? Come on.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. And you're thinking of like, "Am I living in a crucible living in Wisconsin?" No, it's just life. It's hot in summer and cold in winter, and that's just life. Many people, they may not like their job. Maybe they're living paycheck to paycheck and maybe the kids are going through some challenging times. Maybe life is tough at school. Maybe some of the teachers aren't great. Maybe your boss isn't great. That's not a crucible, it's just life. As one of our former prime ministers in Australia in a moment of madness, as Malcolm Fraser in the 1975 election, he said, "Life wasn't meant to be easy." As a politician that's not a good winning slogan.
Gary Schneeberger:
No, that's not going to look good on the campaign button or a bumper sticker, I don't think.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I'm sure his public relations guy said, "What are you thinking, don't say that. That doesn't play well in the media. Life wasn't meant to be easy." But yeah, in my case, I just felt like there were so many challenges with family members and infighting and expectations, and was this a crucible? No, I just felt like it was just life. And more generally, we can think of other situations such as the workaholic father or mother that might say, "Look, I've just got to work hard for the season for these next few weeks, the next few months, and then I can spend more time with my spouse and my kids." And tomorrow never happens. I think of that great song, that haunting song Cats in the Cradle by Cat Stevens. And there's several lines in there where the father tells his son, "Look, sorry son, I've got a lot on my plate. I can't be with you. Can't play with you, but soon we'll be together." And the line is, "We'll have a good time then."
And it's just haunting, because I remember thinking, "I never want to be that kind of dad." And fortunately, I was able to be present with my kids and I didn't have that particular story or issue. But it's easy to fool yourself into thinking, whether it's alcoholism or being a workaholic or whatever your challenge is, "It's just a season. It'll go away, or I can handle it. And after all, isn't it about quality time, not quantity time?" The quality times I have with my kids and spouse and friends, that's really what matters. So, when you're in this kind of crucible, you can fool yourself into thinking, "It is temporary, it won't last, or even that it doesn't exist. It's just life."
And so, by dismissing it, inevitably you don't deal with it, because it's not a problem, or if you think it's a problem, it's a manageable problem or it's a temporary problem. Here's all these lies and negative self-talk that convinces you you don't have to do anything. It's either not a problem, a temporary problem, or you can deal with it and it's not that big a deal. Those lies are very destructive to your own life and typically to your friends and family.
Gary Schneeberger:
And I just thought of this, as you were talking, and I can't believe I didn't think of it beforehand. Because as I said, my birthday, a couple of weeks ago I turned 60 and every year on my birthday since I turned 50, I've posted on social media, X number of years, my age, X number of things I've learned in X number of years on earth. From the beginning of this, actually, from my 50th birthday, so for the last 10 years I changed them around from year to year, add some new ones.
But one of the things that I write that I believe to be true is that comfort can be a form of cancer in the sense that it can erode away your life. If that's what you prize, if that's what you value, if that's what you grasp, if that's what you grab for, only living in comfort. I mean, we talk about that all the time at Beyond the Crucible, right? A life of success, a life of comfort is not the end goal necessarily. You've got to have a life of significance. I think comfort can be something that keeps you, to the point of what this blog talks about, keeps you from getting beyond on your crucible. And if you don't get beyond your crucible, you don't get to your life of significance, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's such a good point. Comfort can be its own crucible. I think of people who retire. You get to the point in life, you work at your company for 30, 40 years, and you think, "Great, I can retire." Maybe you've got a decent package from the company financially, and play golf or live at the beach. And typically, people who retire who do that, they die young. That's what the studies show. What that means is, you want to live a long life, which we all do, you need purpose, you need meaning. You need what we call a life for significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Maybe you retire from your regular job, but maybe you volunteer with church or nonprofit or find something that you feel like is rewarding using your skills and things you're passionate about.
So yeah, I mean, as you were saying a minute ago, "Some people who think life is all about success. If I'm CEO or start a big company or whatever it is, and I have this nice house, great cars, the boats, the travel," it becomes empty. You achieve everything you ever wanted to. And it's like, "Well, what now?" You tend to fool yourself into thinking, "Oh, if I get a bigger house, a bigger car, if I grow my company 30%, then I'll be happy." But it never happens.
And so, you are comfortable financially, but yet very often, typically sometimes you are miserable. Money and success in of themselves, and as listeners know, I grew up with about as much money, success, and status, because the Fairfax family were very respected in Australia and certainly Sydney. It's like being a Kennedy or a Bush, Rockefeller, what have you. But yeah, extreme comfort, which I suppose we had in some sense, at least financially, it doesn't make you happy. Certainly true in my family. So yeah, comfort can be its own crucible. And if comfort is your highest goal, certainly in terms of success or financially, it won't lead to joy and fulfillment. You might think, "Oh, once I get to that next rung on the ladder, then I'll be happy and fulfilled." You won't be. And that's the sad thing. So, comfort could be its own prison and crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, and the reason that you don't get to that joy and fulfillment is the purpose, or is the point of this blog that we're talking about and the point of what Margie Warrell said, and that is, "Growth and comfort can't ride the same horse." The reason that you end up stuck there in a place of where you're leaning into whatever that comfort may be as opposed to that growth is that you haven't saddled up, right? You haven't saddled up a horse that's carrying growth that can help you get to that life of significance, that joy and fulfillment.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And at Beyond the Crucible, now that I think about it, we define growth in a particular way. Here at Beyond the Crucible we believe the ultimate goal in life is a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, that will lead to joy and fulfillment. We believe certainly the Christian faith, and I would say almost all major religions, psychologists will tell you that focusing on others and life on purpose certainly will lead you to more joy and fulfillment than just focusing on yourself and money and fame. So, it's really a universal truth. When we talk about growth here is better than comfort, we're talking about growing as a human being, growing in the sense of trying to bring a vision to reality that others said it, that somehow has a sense of purpose and meaning.
We're not defining growth as in you grow your company or you grow how much money you have in the bank, but you are physically growing the size of your house or how many cars you have. We're not talking about self-centered growth. We're talking about growth in the sense that leads you to being a better person that somehow has a greater impact on the world, whatever that means to you, that helps others and has some sense of purpose. So, at least at Beyond the Crucible, that's how we define growth, if that makes sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, for sure. And that also, this is so funny, when we do episodes where you've written the blog, you always take the last point or one of the points before I get to them, and you lay it out perfectly. And you did it again on the blog that I wrote, which is fabulous. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's beautiful. The third point in my blog, the final point in my blog is that growth is the only elixir that can propel you beyond your crucible. And Warwick just explained that, that getting beyond your crucible from our perspective means getting on that journey to a life of significance. And you can only do that. Growth is what is the fuel, is the rocket fuel, the jet fuel, the elixir that gets you to that place.
I mean, on every episode, more or less, I will end a show with something along these lines to folks, like you who are listening and watching. I'll say, "We understand that your crucible experience is hard. We understand the pain, we understand it can knock you off your feet. We understand it can change the trajectory of your life, but we also know it's not the end of your story. We also know that if you learn the lessons from your crucible and you apply those lessons, it can lead you to on a journey that will end at the greatest destination you can ever end at." And the last words I say on every episode of the show, maybe not the first couple, because I hadn't thought of it yet, but the last words are, what is that end destination? A life of significance, like Warwick just said. That is where growth, saddling up the horse for growth, putting comfort aside, going toward growth will lead you to a life of significance. And by definition that means you've moved beyond your crucible.
One key point I want to say before I turn it over to you, Warwick, is that even when that happens to you, folks, even when you've done that, great example, right? I've been talking about my crucible of alcoholism. And I've been sober now, as I said, it'll be 28 years in April, and that crucible's done. But guess what? I've had other life-rattling crucibles that have happened since then. So, those things that I learned about how to manage a crucible, those things that we talk about at Beyond the Crucible can help you get through the crucible you're going through right now, can help you get through crucibles that come in the future.
Because here's the truth about crucibles. They tend to come back like hiccups, right? They tend to come back. Different circumstances, but as Warwick says, it's rarely, rarely one and done. Warwick has not launched a takeover that ultimately failed for a second time at a cost of $2.25 billion dollars. But he'll be the first to tell you, he has gone through crucibles. Crucibles come back in different forms, and the lessons that we learn, the growth that we accumulate as we're riding that horse toward it are things that we can then apply to further crucibles. So Warwick, this third point, what's your perspective on the idea that growth is the only elixir that can propel you beyond your crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I just thought of a heretical point, which is-
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, good.
Warwick Fairfax:
... crucibles can be a blessing. We don't seek them, but you only grow with challenge. You only grow with obstacles and crucibles, and none of us really seek crucibles, at least I think we shouldn't. But yeah, inevitably, you're right. It's typically not one and done. Life is not easy. Inevitably, there'll be crucibles that come. It could be at work, at home, health challenge. There could be all sorts of crucibles that will happen. Some may be your fault, some may not be your fault. We tend not to be the kind of people it's like, "Well, I made one big mistake in my life and I've never made a big mistake since. I've never made a bad decision since." No, we're human, so we tend to make mistakes, some big, some small. We can have big and small crucibles.
But ultimately, the reason they may not feel like it crucibles can be a blessing is because pain causes you to step back and go, "Ow, that was painful. What the heck happened? Why am I here?" And we can learn and grow and become better. The new opportunities to use our crucibles to help others, which many, if not all of our guests on the podcast have done that, used their worst day to help others. When you think about getting beyond your crucible and how to move forward, there's two aspects. One is, you've got to understand what happened and why. It's often very painful, but why did I make that mistake? Why did that happen to me? What can I learn?
And the second is, you've got to find a way forward. In the first part you've got to do a lot of what we call inner soul work, a lot of deep inner reflection, and it can be very painful, but you've got to do that deep reflection. But having done that, okay, you understand your crucible, you understand what happened, you understand why. Well, now what? You've got to find a way to move beyond it. And moving beyond your crucible can often be terrifying and scary, you don't know what to do. But the key is figuring out one small step. And that small step may not lead in a linear fashion to your life of significance to some life-affirming vision, but it's a small step forward. It's almost like a small step forward, anywhere it can be helpful.
And as we've heard from Maggie Warrell in just the example of that horse, when she was a kid growing up in Australia, it was pretty scary, even though it was a tame horse. The key is, what's one small step you can move forward, you can move beyond your crucible? And as we've said, that first step is often the scariest step. It typically does get less scary. You move the flywheel, to get the flywheel moving can feel like you're pushing this massive boulder uphill. But once you start getting it moving, it's a lot easier.
For me, in my case, I had to reflect on what happened when this 150-year-old family media company went under, went bankrupt in late 1990s, and I realized that I was living my great-great-grandfather John Fairfax's vision and not my vision. I was living the life of a corporate takeover CEO. That was just not who I was. It wasn't in line with my skills and gifting, I'm more of a reflective advisor. I was trying to deal with conflicts in the family that went back decades. That alone was incredibly challenging to overcome. And all of those collectively were very challenging.
So, I realized what happened. Part of it was my fault, part of it wasn't my fault. I'm living somebody else's vision. It's not in line with my skills and abilities. And so, okay, so I learned the lessons of it. I understand it, did this self-reflection, extremely painful, but I learned the lessons. Well, now what? Well, I had to make a decision to move forward. And it's like, "Well, how do I get a job? I mean, who's going to give a job to a former medium mogul, an out-of-work media mogul?" It's like there really aren't job openings for that. So, it was tough. But eventually I got a part-time job in Maryland at a local aviation services company as a financial analyst that was then turned out to a permanent job, so that was a big step forward.
Later I gave a 10-minute talk in my church in 2000, made a certain illustration about my story. I'm not, certainly back then was not comfortable speaking in front of, I don't know, six, 700 or however many were in the auditorium that day in church. But that led to me decide to start writing a book. That was all very scary and painful, writing two or three hours a day about some of my worst, most painful experiences, it was just unbelievably painful. But I did, because I felt like this could help people. Each of these steps, starting off as a part-time financial analyst thinking, "Gosh, I'm probably the lowest paid Harvard Business School graduate in history." I don't care about money, but it was pretty ... Somewhat humiliating, I have to say. But I needed to do something. I can't just keep sending out resumes and hearing nothing back, I've got to do something.
Giving that talk in church, that was very scary, starting to write my book, that was scary and painful both. I think what this means is that when you've gone through a crucible, you've got to reflect on what happened and why I learned the lessons. But then you've got to take a step forward. You can't just feel like, "Oh, Shawshank Redemption, I feel comfortable where I am. Any step forward has got to be more painful than where I am." That's a lie. You've got to have faith and belief that, "There is a better tomorrow. I'm going to take that next step forward. No matter what happens, going to try and move beyond my worst day."
Growth is always painful. Change is always painful, but you've got to be willing to go through the pain and you will look back once you make a few steps and say, "Gosh, I've moved a few steps beyond my crucible. I've grown, I've learned." That gives you more courage, like a flywheel of courage, if you will, to take the next step. But you've got to reflect on what happened and have the courage to take that first step forward, that first step of growth beyond a crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
And as we wrap up, as we get close to wrapping up here, one thing that jumps out at me about the conversation is that comfort is an emotion. Comfort is something that we feel, and as we've discussed here, we can feel it in different ways. We can feel it, the crucible is comfortable, because it's what I've known. And even right, it's hell, but it's home, right? Or comfort can be, "I don't really have a crucible. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here." That can be comfort too, that emotion, right?
But growth is an action. Growth is something that happens to you. Growth is something that you step into. Growth is something that you pursue. Comfort really is something you just lean back. We're all, comfortable chairs at home. We just lean back and let it absorb us. The idea of the reason that they can't ride the same horse, I think, is that there's only room in the saddlebag for one emotion. And that emotion is a desire to move beyond your crucible. That emotion is courage. That emotion is wanting to find a better day, and that's the only way you can direct that horse to go.
I think another way of looking at this is, growth and comfort can't ride the same horse, but the saddlebags on the horse can't contain a whole lot of emotions. The best one to take with you is a growth mindset. That's kind of an emotion, "I want to grow." And then go pursue it. That's the way to get it done. That's my takeaway from our discussion, Warwick, what's your takeaway from what we've discussed here on the show?
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, just as you're talking, Gary, I'm reminded growing up in Australia, I don't know if they do it here, but there would be a number of government, public service commercials, inspiring, start to promote or to elevate the populace, if you will. And there was one with this couch potato, I think they're called Norm or something. So, any Norms out there, I apologize. And it was this cartoon, animated cartoon character, and Norm was just sitting on the couch watching TV and doing nothing. And the slogan of this public service commercial was, "Life, be in it." And so-
Gary Schneeberger:
Amen.
Warwick Fairfax:
... just sitting on the couch proverbially, you might feel comfortable, but inevitably that will lead to a crucible life. You'll feel depressed and frustrated. You don't want to feel like you're lost hours on earth, or you're thinking about what legacy you will lead or what your family and friends will think, or somebody's giving a sermon about your life. And it's like, yep, "Norm was a fine person, but he led a comfortable life. Never really did anything, never took any chances. In fact, he really had kind of a miserable life, but he wasn't willing to get out of his crucible. And really, as we look back on Norm, it was a very sad life and we feel sorry for him." I mean, nobody wants that to be a eulogy, right?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. For sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
We feel sorry for him. It was a comfortable life in one sense. But no, I mean, you've got to take steps to get off the couch, get out the door, and be in life, whatever that means. And to be in life will mean it will require growth. And with growth that requires pain. When you think of people who want to lose weight or exercise more, those first few days, jogging, cycling, eating less, whatever it is, it's not fun. But as you do it more, it's like the second day of jogging, or the third day, the third week, fourth week, whether it's jogging or cycling, it's like, "Okay, this is so bad. I can do this. I feel like I'm getting a bit more energy, a bit fitter. Here we go."
But if that first day is often the toughest, so really as we sum up here, growth and change are not easy, they can be painful. They can be intimidating, scary even. We think of the prisoner in the Shawshank Redemption was just too scared to be out in the outside world, wanted to go back. We've got to have the courage to take that first small step, like Margie Warrell having the courage to ride that tame horse, to get on that horse. That first day it may be tame, but it was enormous and she was scared. I mean, I think she was literally scared to her stomach, I think as I remember Margie talking about.
But it's that first small step that requires so much courage. I remember, for me, in a different situation that I've spoken about so far, I was in this aviation services company in Maryland, in Annapolis where we live. I at that point was doing financial and marketing business analysis. Yeah, the pay wasn't great, but we were okay. I was getting great performance reviews. I was comfortable. I knew how to do the job. I knew how to do it well. I was certainly comfortable, but yet, there was that still, small voice from my faith perspective. I think it was the Lord just saying, "Warwick, you may be comfortable, but you're not using all your skills and abilities that you could, certainly for some higher purpose." And so, I quit, and my boss was like, "You really want to do this?" Couldn't quite understand why I would quit, because I was doing a good job.
And I'd received some coaching from a mid-career executive coach, and she said, "Warwick, you have a great profile to be an executive coach." So, I went to my first coaching conference in Denver in 2003, and subsequently I became an international coach, federation certified coach. That was one of the most significant steps I've taken career wise, because I felt like this is something I can do. Ended up, I think being a good executive coach, I'm curious, and that led to being on two nonprofit boards, including my church elder board at the time. It led to that talk in church. Then that led to writing my book, Crucible Leadership. It eventually ended up with Beyond The Crucible. The fact that I like to think I'm a good coach and love asking questions, that led to what I do at Beyond The Crucible with this podcast.
I feel like I can ask questions, I'm curious. I can do this. That was a big step for me at the time, quitting that comfortable job to go and become an executive coach. That wasn't the end of the journey at all, but it led to other things. So, I was comfortable, but I made that decision, as scary as it was at the time, "I'm not going to live in the world of comfort," which it was comfortable. "I'm going to grow because I think there's something more for me where I can have more of an impact and do things that are more in line with my gifting and have a purpose that makes some small impact in the world." And so I made that choice.
I think for all of us, you don't want to live in the land of comfort, even if it's a crucible level comfort. Maybe this is the only world I've ever known, but you've got to move beyond comfort, move beyond your crucible, and take that first step towards a life of significance. Take that first step towards a life of purpose, focus on others. It will lead you to a far more rewarding life than a crucible life or a life of comfort. That's not a fulfilling life, that won't give you joy and fulfillment, crucible life, a life of comfort. We all want joy and fulfillment. You want joy and fulfillment. Go through the pain of growth. Don't just stay in the land of comfort.
Gary Schneeberger:
That is a great ending to our discussion of the blog at beyondthecrucible.com, "Why Growth and Comfort Can't Ride the Same Horse," a quote from Margie Warrell. I mentioned at the outset of the show, before I get into our points of reflection, that I am a connoisseur of quotes. So, let's look at what James Bond, The Wit And Wisdom Of James Bond. Let's just pull one at random and see what James Bond has to say about this, if it's any helpful. Let's see. Bond says in The World Is Not Enough, "If you can't trust a Swiss banker, what's the world come to?" I don't think that has any bearing whatsoever on our discussion, but it is a fun point to end on.
Let's truly end, folks, on these points of reflection from the blog. The first point of reflection is this. What does growth and comfort can't ride the same horse mean to you? And this is important. Jot it down in your own words, and then ruminate on it a little bit, right? Then reflect on it a little bit. What does it really mean to you? You've heard what it means to me and Warwick. What does it mean to you that growth and comfort can't ride the same horse?
Second point of reflection is this. Have you ever had a tough time getting out of your post-crucible pit? Because as painful as it was, it offered some comfort too. What did you do to overcome that? And if you haven't overcome that yet, what can you do to overcome that? And that could be very well where leaning into a team of fellow travelers can be a really good help.
And the third point of reflection that we have here is, has feeling comfortable prevented you from moving beyond your crucible? How did you overcome that? And again, if you're still in the midst of that, if you come to realize, "Comfort's keeping me, it's holding me back." What can you do to overcome that? And again, team of fellow travelers, good place, and us as fellow travelers is a good place too. Send us a note at info@beyondthecrucible.com, or tap in. Please tap into the podcast, other episodes of the podcast for inspiration.
And speaking of other episodes of the podcast, we would ask you if you enjoyed this episode of the podcast to either rate it on the podcast app on which you're listening, or go if you're watching on our YouTube channel, to leave a comment there for us so we can know what it is you like about it and what it is you'd like to see us do in the future.
Until the next time we're together, I'm going to say what I said I say all the time, and that's this. We know your crucible experiences are difficult, but we also know this, they're not the end of your story. Warwick has talked about how it wasn't the end of his story. I've talked about how it wasn't the end of my story just within this episode. In fact, if you learn the lessons from that crucible, if you indeed take the first step, that very difficult first step to climb on a horse, that will take you to growth, where that horse can take you, where that destination can be at the end is the most rewarding destination you can ever find, 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.
Flexible Leadership, the title of business consultant Kevin Eikenberry’s latest book, offers a new way to think about leading, helping managers break out of leadership styles that may no longer be useful to navigate the challenges they face.
In our interview with Eikenberry this week, we discuss his new framework for leadership, built on flexors that allow us to break out of the rigid boxes that limit the ways we approach the thorniest issues before us. The key, he explains, is flexing tactics but not values and principles.
“The intentional, wise choices that this framework helps you think through, should help you move through a crucible faster and more efficiently,” he explains. “Not because it becomes easy, but because it becomes more manageable and navigable.”
To learn more about Kevin Eikenberry and get a free gift based on his book, visit www.kevineikenberry.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 leave a comment at our YouTube channel 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.
Kevin Eikenberry:
The reality is the firm rooting for us as leaders are our principles, our values, our purpose, right? The overriding mission of our business, if you will. Those things aren't moving, and so that becomes the firm foundation upon which our plant, us as leaders can grow.
Gary:
But life and leadership are about more than the things that are foundational to our day-to-day existence. It's also important as our guests this week, Kevin Eikenberry goes on to explain that we're flexible enough to account for the shifting circumstances we encounter. That's especially true when crucibles hit. "The key to navigating the middle ground," he says, "is the art of negotiating life's flexors," as we practice the title of his latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Kevin, it's a delight to have you on our podcast, and I so much enjoyed being on your podcast, Remarkable Leadership, and we're going to talk quite a bit today about your new book that's coming out, Flexible Leadership, Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence. Before we get to that, I'd love to hear a bit about the back story. Understand you grew up in a farm in Michigan that really shaped a lot of your thinking, so just talk about what was it like for young Kevin growing up in Michigan on a farm?
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, I suppose I could say I had the idyllic childhood. It's the only one I had. I'm pretty happy with it. I mean, I think there's a lot of good things about growing up in the country, growing up on a farm. Again, it is my experience, but there's a lot of ways in which it shaped me. I saw something the other day that reminded me that farmers may be the biggest gamblers on the planet. They invest a bunch of money and then they go borrow a bunch of money and then they put a crop in the ground and then they hope things go well enough that they actually can get a crop out in a few months, or if it's animals, it's a similar sort of thing. There's a bunch of stuff outside of their control, and so they try to influence what they can.
I think I learned a lot about that. I learned a lot about the idea of influence as a kid. I had the chance in many ways to grow up with my parents because they're just 20 years older than I. I was tagging along with dad in the truck to meetings. I was interacting with folks a lot older than me at a very young age, which served me super well early in my career. We had an ag business related to the farm, and so I had a lot in both of those endeavors. I had a tremendous amount of responsibility that at a very young age that is pretty hard to replicate. For all those reasons, plus just I think it's pretty safe to say that I learned the value of hard work. There's just so many ways in which work that it shaped me and has served me in my life.
Warwick Fairfax:
I know that we hear a lot in management about leading in uncertainty and all of that, and I am reminded growing up in Australia, my dad loved the country, and so we go out into the outback and there it's pretty much, it's either a drought or a flood. Rarely is it anywhere in between. Imagine, I don't know how you farm there. You've got some places where it's so desolate you can't have more than one head of cattle per acre. I mean, it's unbelievably desolate, you know hundreds of thousands of acres. Yeah, farming, it's a tough life. I mean, you've got to lead with uncertainty when the context changes, the environment changes, the family may or may not want to go into the business. There's all sorts of uncertainties. It's got to be challenging. You probably must have learned some really key life lessons and management lessons from that family farm.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Yeah, I believe that I did. I think that there's another piece there, and that is that I think the other thing that I learned was in a small business, and so this may be a little less farm-related, but being involved in a small business, a family business from an early age, there's a sense of ownership that I always thought people, everybody took in their work. I came to learn that not everyone has that level of ownership in their work, but I think it served me, I mean, it took me a while to figure that out when I was working in a big company and that sort of thing.
I think how that served me was I saw a picture of what employee engagement could be and really can be. I think that that's helped me in leading our team, and I think it's helped me help other leaders see what's possible. Well, all the conversation that it gets had about employee engagement and all that stuff and all this stuff we've been trying to do, we as leaders, been trying to do for 30 years about increasing employee engagement. According to our friends at Gallup, the number isn't really moving very much. Yet I think that if we have a vision of what that could be and if we understand what engagement really is, then we got a better chance of helping to move that needle for our team, for our teams.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. I mean, talking about some of the values and things that you hold most dear, I mean, one of the things I know that you've said, is there a couple of key words for you, several, family, trust, values, possibilities, and empowerment. Talk about how your experience of growing up in that family farm taught you what are probably just lifelong values or as a friend of mine calls them virtues, perhaps. Talk about how those things are really the core of who you're and what you believe.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, I think that all of us develop our values, at least in part through our experiences as a kid. We've talked about some of the things that helped to lead that for me, but I think a couple of other things beyond what I've already said is that first of all, I mean, it's that value of hard work and it's that value of recognizing doing what we can influence even if we don't always have control. I've got this sort of tremendous sense. Well, I'll go back and say I had the good fortune several years after graduating from Purdue with a degree in agriculture to be asked to come back and I got an award and as an alumni, and they said, "Well, Kevin, you don't do work that's at all what you went to school for. What's the connective tissue?"
I said, "Well, I went to school to learn how to lead and grow mechanical and biological systems, and now I help to lead and develop and grow human systems." I think the value that I have around just growth and the pleasure in seeing growth happen, whether it's in a field as the crop comes up and you can see down the row, my dad would say a very straight row, by the way. Then seeing that in members of my team or in those that we have the chance to work with in workshops or in a keynote setting or whatever, is just, I can draw that connection all the way back to my kidhood as well.
Warwick Fairfax:
That kind of leads into your career. I think what you're touching on after Purdue, you work for Chevron, apparently. It's obviously a very big oil company. Was that, for some reason I thought it was San Francisco. Was that the West Coast or maybe-
Kevin Eikenberry:
Yeah, it's San Francisco. I mean it's now not officially San Francisco, but the Bay Area, but when I was there it was, and so I worked in the chemical business, in the fertilizer business at first. Makes sense. You're in an agricultural guy. I relatively quickly found my way figured out and then found my way into the corporate training and development group, which was sort of the jumping off point to the work that I've been doing now outside of Chevron for over 31 years. I had a great fortune there to work with some leaders who were really wonderful, who were great exemplars, who were great mentors, who believed in me, who helped me move from the chemical business to the people business. Yeah, I'm forever grateful for the time that I had the chance to spend there.
Warwick Fairfax:
Talk about that pivot. I mean, it may not have been a crucible moment, but it was certainly a key shift in your career. You could have stayed at Chevron or other large corporate organizations, and my guess is with your hard work ethic and drive, you probably could have done pretty well if not very well, and risen up the ladder. You made a decision in 1993, and I love how you put it, but how you shifted from Chevron to decided to come back to the Midwest, come to Indianapolis. Talk about why you made that decision, why leave, why come back to the Midwest, Indianapolis? That was a huge shift in your career.
Kevin Eikenberry:
It really was, and there's a couple of pieces. The first is because you all know now a little bit about my background background, and so I really never saw myself being employed, but rather to be an entrepreneur, to run a business. Even when I started at Chevron, in fact, the first interview I had, I told who became my boss, I said, "Listen, I'm really not looking for a job." At the end of the interview he said, "I'd like you to go talk to my boss about this job, but as long as you don't lead with your first line, isn't Kevin ... Kevin, don't just start by saying, 'I'm not looking for a job.'" I said, "I can promise I won't do that." I ended up taking the job and I was there, but my goal always was to start my own thing. While I was at Chevron, I figured out what that was, which is the work that I do now.
Once I got into doing training and development work inside of the corporation, and I figured out that that's really what my calling was, then with the forethought that I wanted to have my own business and with now the great clarity that came with this is the work that decision was I think easier than most might think. On the other hand, within one year we had our first child, I started a business and we moved. The only thing I didn't have was a marriage, a divorce and a death to have the top six most stressful things in life. I suppose three of the top six.
I am doing the work I was put on the planet to do, and I'm very clear on that. I'm clearer on that now than I was in 1993. Yet that clarity had a big part to do with, I'm going to leave. Now, a lot of people at Chevron thought I was only leaving because I wanted to live in the Midwest, come back to the Midwest where I'm from, where my wife's from, raise our family here, which, of course, is true. As an individual business owner, I could choose to live wherever I wanted to. I needed to be by a big airport. Other than that, it didn't matter. But that really wasn't the biggest reason. It was a really nice extra reason.
Warwick Fairfax:
I love how you term it, that your life's purpose was to grow people, not plants or animals. I'm sure purpose tends to evolve and maybe not shift, but it gets more clarity, but it seemed like you had a clear vision. I spent my early years growing plants and animals, but I want to grow people. I want to help people flourish and grow and live their own lives. It just seemed like you had a clear purpose when you started your business in '93.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, it has evolved a bit. I mean, that underlying point that you just made is still 100% true. Over time, it became being largely about leaders because if we can help leaders grow, then we can help the world change. It is still about growing people and certainly, we're working with people across organizations and around the world, but we spend most of our time with leaders because that's the highest leverage point. Because nothing positive happens in the world without somebody leading. Things can go negative without help, but things aren't going to go positive on their own. Someone needs to say, "Let's go that direction, let's go to there." If we can help leaders be more effective, we're not only helping them, there's a ripple effect across the organization in the community and eventually around the world. That's the only, that's sort of the clarification that's come over time.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's great. I want to talk a bit about your book and as we talk about your new book, Flexible Leadership, Navigating Uncertainty and Leading with Confidence, we'll also weave in how you bounce back from crucibles because obviously on this podcast we talk about how do you not let your worst day define you and its leaders? Organizations can go through crucibles, leaders are human, their families, their situation, their town, their context. Yeah, maybe let's just talk about it from the point of view of your book. You're a thought leader, you've written many books, you have a wonderful podcast, Remarkable Leadership. You do [inaudible 00:14:12]-
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, it's wonderful because you were on it so that automatically [inaudible 00:14:16].
Gary:
I should say it was his first podcast appearance. That was your first podcast work was Remarkable Leadership.
Warwick Fairfax:
When I was on somebody else's podcast, yeah, so that was a while ago. You do so much good for leaders and empowering them in so many ways. Let's talk a bit about flexible leadership and why. I think you've said this may be one of, if not your best book yet. I think I read somewhere that you've said. Talk about, because you've been in this a while about leadership and helping empowering leaders, talk about why this to you feels different. It's not just one more book that you've written. It feels like almost a seminal work in your career. Talk about why this is so important to you.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, I'd like to think it's a seminal work, and if we sell a lot of copies and it makes a difference, then I'll claim that. What I will claim is that even though we've had the good fortune to sell a lot of books over the last number of years, I do believe, and two of my co-authors work for me. For me to say, "This is my best work," it may not feel real great to them, but ultimately, I do believe that it is. The ideas underneath it took several years to coalesce and for me to have the, I'll say, confidence to put it to paper because, I think, it is different than a lot of leadership books, and that's even sort of hard to say. Knowing how many books about leadership there are, knowing how many of them I've read, it's different in some ways because it challenges some traditional thinking.
While oftentimes, authors will say, realistically, "That leadership is complex, here are some simple things that you can do." That's kind of a paradoxical in and of itself, and yet that helps to sell books, "Try these 12 things or these four things or whatever," and that's all great, and that's all well-intentioned and quite honestly, in Flexible Leadership right from the start, I'm saying if you make the choice, if you see the picture I'm painting for you, it's going to make your job harder before it makes it easier because it forces us to look at things differently than our natural reactions, our natural tendencies, our past habits, our past experiences.
It forces us to consider some things a little differently on the front end. I think on the back end, it's well worth the effort, but it is different in that regard. I think I come at it pretty clear-eyed that this is hard work and leading while in some ways hasn't changed since the pyramids. The context and the nuance has changed a lot and it's changed a lot in the last few years. Since we locked down the world and Corona became a beer, excuse me, became something other than a beer, the world has changed a lot in a very short period of time, and that's not the only stuff that's creating uncertainty, but that's certainly part of it.
To think that we can lead the way we always did, because that's my style, that's my approach, that's what's always worked for me to think that it will still work as the context is changing and the complexity is increasing. Seems sort of silly. I think almost everyone would agree with that once I say it, and yet most of us are still sort of operating as leaders largely on autopilot and wondering why engagement's not increasing, productivity is not increasing, et cetera, et cetera.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I want to pick up on that, but one of the things I loved in the early part of the book is you talk about, yes, the world's growing more complicated and challenging, and we've got to find ways to understand that context without losing sight of what matters most. You say that that's the key goal, basically see and embrace complexity, but yet, and you write later on about a branch is pliant, but the tree is firmly rooted. I feel like this book is a book of paradoxes and we'll get into flexors later, which is a series of paradoxes. It's sort of like embrace the paradox. You want to be firmly rooted in your values and purpose, which you talk about later. You got to be flexible. It's like, huh? It's like a book of paradoxes. Talk about just that yin and yang, that the paradox, which you're really seeking leaders to embrace amidst a complex world.
Kevin Eikenberry:
It's really interesting. You're the first person that's used that word, paradox. May not be the last, but the first one in these early conversations I've had, and when I first was the ideas for the book, I actually thought something about paradoxical leadership or something around the word paradox might actually be the title. I'm actually glad it's not now. Yet there's no doubt, they're all through the book and that's the first one.
The very first word in the title is flexible. Yet a lot of people say, "Wait a minute, Kevin, shouldn't we be consistent? Isn't consistency good?" Until it's not. There's the paradox, and you use the metaphor of the tree. A tree or any plant needs to be flexible above the ground to bend with the wind, to not snap. If it's too rigid, it's going to snap in the elements, if you will. If it's not firmly rooted, it's not going to survive either. The reality is the firm rooting for us as leaders are our principles, our values, our purpose, the overriding mission of our business, if you will. Those things aren't moving. That becomes the firm foundation upon which our plant, us as leaders can grow, but once as we're growing, we have to be flexible and pliable and adaptable, because while we want to be firmly rooted in the principles, values, and purpose, we need to be flexible in approach.
Gary:
Let me jump in just for a second and pull this into the Crucible Leadership context because that's a paradox in itself. One of the things we say all the time here is your crucible experience didn't happen to you. It happened for you. Which sounds paradoxical, right? This terrible, life-changing, life-altering thing didn't happen to me. It happened for me. You said something, Kevin, in the document, we have guests fill out so we can ask informed questions. You said this about crucibles, "Don't deny the setback, but work to gain perspective on it. There are lessons to learn, so learn them. There are positives that will come from the setback. Look for them and make sure you don't try to do any of it alone." This idea of being flexible in leadership also applies to being flexible when you've gone through some trial and trauma, doesn't it?
Kevin Eikenberry:
100%. I mean, I can give you all sorts of examples of that. I'll give you an example from our business because Warwick, earlier you made a comment that we experienced crucibles, our businesses experienced crucibles, and we had one of those in our business this year. A member of our team has been here a very long time, wakes up one morning and finds out about 45 minutes later that her adult daughter has died in a car accident. Then that information gets to our team, a team of 15 people-ish. It's a big thing. I mean, there's the impact that it has on Marlene and her family, the impact that it has on us as a part of her extended family, the impact it has on the business in terms of her not having, understandably, having the level of focus and ability to do work for some period of time and really, for some long period of time, continuing to heal is a huge thing.
Would we wish it to happen? I think that's what I would add, Gary, to what I wrote to you guys before we did this. Just because we find positives from it doesn't mean it overcomes it or we would wish it to have happened because of that. It's not. We can, another paradox, we can recognize the positives that come from a challenge or a crucible situation and not say, "Well, okay, now that overwhelms it, and so it's a good thing that that bad thing happened." No, that doesn't have to be, both can be true. It can have been awful, and we can have great learning lessons, opportunities from it. Ultimately, and you mentioned it a minute ago, Warwick, about flexors. This idea of flexors in the book is that both can be true. We can be consistent and flexible. They are not opposites, though there might be tension.
We can have a crucible moment, which is awful and hard and difficult and life-changing, and yet from it, good things can come and both can be true.
Warwick Fairfax:
One of the other things I love and you talk about situations being clear, complicated, complex, chaotic, and all sorts of different environments, and I love how you talk about organizations as a living thing, which really brings leadership back to agriculture in a sense, which is cool.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, not the first person to talk about it like that after all. The word organization is actually based on the word organism, but yeah, it maybe is a nice connection point for me, but I'm certainly not the first person to bring that idea to the floor.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's a good metaphor that we tend to view organizations in very rigid terms. This is our culture, this is our structure, this is how we do things, rather than what the context can change, that people can change, the competition, the marketplace, where we are in life, that we need to view it as more as a living thing and evolving thing and adaptable thing rather than some rigid structure, which most people don't like change typically. I mean, they might change org charts. We say, "Well, we keep changing org charts, but basically we're not really making much of a change. We're just moving boxes around, but the essence of how we do things doesn't change." Talk about why that's so critical to be fluid organizationally.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, and we do that, we change the org chart around because if we view the world, if we view business in a mechanical sense, I can take the toaster apart and I can put the toaster back together if have got the right skill set and then it's still going to work. I can't take apart your favorite pet and put your favorite pet back together and have it be the same thing. It just doesn't work that way. Even the idea of we'll change the org chart and change the organization, fundamentally says because the organization is mechanical. Yet all of the people who are in that organization are not mechanical. They are wonderful, amazing and messy human beings. It's just back to flexors, right?
Are there things about organizations we're thinking about it in a mechanical way or useful Yes. If we only think about it that way, is it most helpful? It is not. Is an organization exactly like an organism? Not exactly, but are there a lot of things about it that are more organism than mechanical? 100%. What I think is it's not just ... So hopefully, what I'm helping people do is see the world differently rather than just saying, "Well, you really ought to try to be fluid or you really ought to try to be flexible," but here's why. Because fundamentally it's what will it actually mirrors the way the world is far better than the ways we've looked at it in the past.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true. That really leads into, I think, one of the areas that's the heart of the book is flexors. I love how he introduced an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, which you would don't have to think of him as one of the leading authorities on leadership, but maybe he was. You have this quote, which I'll read. "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless, yet be determined to make them otherwise." Just talk about flexors in general and then we'll get into big picture flexors and that every day. Talk about why flexes are so important in your whole leadership philosophy and why this is, I think, arguably a breakthrough in leadership thinking.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, I appreciate that. Those are very kind words. Let me say it this way that we try, I said earlier that one of the things that this book challenges us to think differently and actually challenges to think harder. Here's the underlying thing, and it goes with the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, which I love. That is that we tend to want to think about the world as either or. Direct, indirect, black, white, win, lose. There are certainly some things in the world like that, but most of the world is not like a game of checkers or even a game of chess where it's win or lose, a win, a loss, a black, a white, either, or, zero, sum. Much of the world isn't that way at all. It's really both and. The idea of being able to hold those two ideas in our mind together is to say that both can be true.
Just like we said, both being consistent and being flexible can be true. The world is far more shade of gray, shades of gray than it is black and white, and yet it's simpler to think either or. Our brains are built around pattern recognition, which looks for yes or no, right or wrong. Flexible leadership challenge, the idea, underneath, flexible leadership is to challenge ourselves to think both and so that we have the chance to hold these two things in our mind at the same time and say, "This can be true and this can be true too, and which is more helpful to us right now. Just like we were talking about direct and indirect? Which one is more helpful to you, Pete, right now?" Intention, context, flexor.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, and I think that is profound in so many ways. When you're coming back from crucibles, it's easy to see things that black and white, was this the worst day that ever happened to me? Yes. Was it terrible? Yes. Are there ways that we can learn from this experience and bounce back? Was there blessing and gifts, Mr. Crucible? Yes. Were those terrible people that did something to me? Was that awful? Yes. Are there lessons? I think in my own life, which I think we spoke a bit about on your podcast growing up in this very large family media business, when I did my couple billion dollar takeover months after graduating from Harvard Business School, was I an idiot in a lot of ways? Yes. Should I have assumed that other Fannie members would've stayed in a Fannie business controlled by a 26-year-old? Was that a stupid assumption? Yes.
On the other hand, were there factors leading up to it with division that goes back many decades, my father having died, other Fannie members showing him out as chairman 11 years before that, colored subconsciously how I looked at life and my emotional well-being in some sense? Yes. Was it all my fault? My go-to tends to be, if there's a problem in the world, it's my fault. I don't have a problem with owning my mistakes. It's like, okay, well that's fine, Warwick, but there's a both-and right? There's a paradox. Yes, I made some critically cataclysmic poor assumptions, but on the other hand, you could say I was set up to fail and there's so much division going back decades and hearing my parents' version of the truth, which wasn't necessarily the same as other people's versions, it was a both-and situation, which has actually helped me move on because it's not as simple as it's all my fault or it was always somebody else's fault. By understanding the nuance, it's actually helped me move beyond my worst day, if that makes some degree of sense. Understanding the paradox [inaudible 00:31:25]-
Kevin Eikenberry:
There's a really important thing that you just said, and that is that it's extremely helpful and healthy for us to recognize taking ownership, which is what you said, right? If it's something out there, what part of this do I need to own? That is profoundly important for us to get to, and we're far more effective as human beings and leaders if we get there or when we are there. Yet we can't control everything, even though I can take ownership of what was mine. Yet there's only so much in the world we have control over, right? What we do, say, think, feel, choose, we have control over, and that has influence on a lot of other stuff, but we can't control or even influence everything. Recognizing the tension even between what we can control and what we can influence and recognizing the difference is incredibly important, incredibly empowering, and is really the only source of understanding how to be accountable is to recognize this is mine. It's not all mine, but I have to be clear about what's mine and then move from that place.
That's underneath flexible leadership too. Okay. The situation is difficult. Okay. The situation is complex. Okay. The world is uncertain. What can I do as a leader given that to improve the chances we succeed moving forward? There's no guarantee. Whatever you do, when you had that conversation with Pete, there was no guarantee it was going to work, right? But you felt like this is my best shot, improves my odds of a better result. That's the underlying idea here. How do I flex in any one of these given ways to give me/us the best chance of success right now in this situation, in this context?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely, and be at peace with the things you can't control. If you're on some family farm, especially in Outback Australia, if you want to be a farmer, there'll be drought and there'll be floods and rarely anything in between. You might see why in the world would you want to be a farmer in Outback Australia? I mean, you're set up to fail, but maybe that's what you've done and your parents did, so okay, there's a flood after years of drought. We have anything between, no. Okay, so what do we do? Rather than complain about what you can't control or gosh, maybe I should have been smarter or built a few. I don't know what more irrigation in the drought or few bores with the artesian water. Maybe I should have this that maybe, but we are where we are and let's just move on rather than second-guessing.
Kevin Eikenberry:
I want to go back to something else you said earlier. We were talking about your experience and you mentioned, rightly so, several times, the fact that one of the positives that come out of a crucible situation are the lessons. I know having talked with Gary before, and you and I having talked before, that we value learning and we value lessons and likely most of the people listening feel the same. Yet I think there are other positives that can come out after a crucible than just lessons and learning. I don't mean to discount them, but others say that there's other stuff too, right? Because of this thing that happened other. I'll just take the loss of a family member in our company this summer. Because of that, other people stepped up and took on responsibilities they didn't have before. Our team is stronger because of it.
Because of that, some relationships on our team are even stronger than they were before. It is lessons, but it's also, other things. You talked about when your father died, this is not the focus of this conversation, but I lost my father in 2007 and the number of amazing things that have happened in my life and for my family since then are innumerable. Many of those things that I'm speaking of right now would not have happened if my dad was alive. Now, would I trade him? Would I rather have my dad? Sure, but do I not want all these other amazing things? I want those too. I just have to say that's life. We've got to look at both of those in that way. So I just wanted to go back to the good stuff that comes out of a crucible can also be opportunities. It can be freeing us up to something new. It can be a whole bunch of other stuff. Lessons, 100%, and I think more too.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I think we talk a lot about gratitude and obviously, there are others that do that. Yes, it was obviously a searing experience, but one of the benefits when I look at my kids, there were 33 down to 26, they all grew up in the US without having the whole pressure and expectations of the Fannie business. They're all doing very well. They all have, faith is very important to me, so all have a strong faith and their work ethic is very good. You give them a task, you know it's going to get done. They're just are great human beings. That would've been much tougher in Australia being a Fairfax, which is sort of being a Rockefeller or Kennedy or a Vanderbilt. I mean it's really tough. Everybody knows who you are and how do you find who you are, which is a journey of most young people. Who am I? What's my place in the world? What do I believe? I tell them often I think they realize how fortunate they are not to grow up the way I did with all the expectations. That was a tremendous gift in a way to them.
Kevin Eikenberry:
You certainly weren't thinking about that in the middle of the Crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, no. I was thinking, "Gosh, what did I do? How stupid was I?" I want to touch a bit on just a couple of categories of flexors here. Big picture and every day. It's almost like dials and I don't know if you have favorite ones, but you've got so many compliance, commitment, best, [inaudible 00:37:40]-
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, that's one of my favorites, so let's just talk about that. Compliance versus commitment. It's one of my favorites because I think, and so the overarching or the big picture flexors end up being the things. I had all of our team read the first seven chapters of the book before we had our whole team, who is remote, who are remote, we're all together for our annual meetings last week. As a part of us doing the work and the launch for the book, I wanted everyone to have context for the book. We all read the first seven chapters, and one of the things one of my team members said was like, "No one can remember 19 things, the number of flexors." I say, I really want it to be more about understanding. These are examples of not that there's going to be a quiz at the end, and what are the 19.
Listen, Warwick, you've read the book since I have, so let's not go down that path. Let's talk about one those overarching ones, which is compliance and commitment. I've asked leaders this for a long time in around country and virtual rooms around the world, "Would you rather lead for compliance," or I would say, "merely compliance or for commitment?" Nearly everyone says, "Well, I want to lead for commitment." Awesome. Guess what? There's a whole lot of leaders that clearly aren't doing that, even if that's what our desire is. Because if we were really leading for commitment and being successful, employee engagement, for example, would be way higher.
What we often end up doing is leading to, I just want them to say yes and move on. If all you really want is yes, sir, or yes ma'am, you're leading for compliance. By the way, there are some times when that's exactly the right answer. If we're in a chaotic situation, in a chaotic moment, they're looking for someone to point us in a direction. That's what we should do. Those are not the moments for us to say, "Let's gather and explore this and come to some consensus about this." No, they want someone to say, "Go this direction," and everyone says, "Okay, boss, I'm in."
Warwick Fairfax:
For instance, you're on the Titanic, it's sinking, so let's talk about it. Should it be women and children or men?
Kevin Eikenberry:
Exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
First class, second class, back of the boat, front of the boat. Let's just talk. We want to make clear. We get on the same page before it's sinking, it's sinking,
Kevin Eikenberry:
It's sinking, and here are boats. You go here, you go here. 24 people for each boat, whatever, right, so 100%. Is there a time to lead more in a place of all you need for people to do is to comply? Yes. If we're there all the time, is that a problem? 100%, more now than ever. I would like to hope that I'm leaning into that my team would say, "Kevin leads in a way that creates greater commitment." I hope that that's true every day, but that doesn't mean there aren't times when I just need to say, "We've got to make a decision here. We're going here."
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, and you might find 98% of your team is with you, and there might be a 2% that's like, well, if they're not wholly invested in the vision, maybe they need to get in another boat. On the other hand, maybe it's like they've got particular skills that are so valuable that if they're willing to comply, maybe I make the decision for them to stay, even though they're maybe not as excited about the vision as I'd like. Okay, I can live with compliance so long as you do your job excellently. It's not as simple as one or the other.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Let's just take that person one step further. That may be absolutely the right answer now, but a year from now, that may not be the right answer. In other words, I would rather subtract that expertise because of what we'll gain. That decision could be the decision, as you described, it could be absolutely right at one point and not the best choice later. We're at the crux of this whole thing.
Gary:
We talk a lot at Beyond the Crucible about the idea of the ultimate goal of moving beyond your crucible is to lead a life of significance, which Warwick has defined as a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. As we talk about this conversation here about compliance and commitment, absolutely understand that there are times that compliance needs to be the goal. You indicated, Kevin, that if you asked your team, you hope they would say that you tend to default more to commitment.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Hope so.
Gary:
It seems to me that commitment, if you lead with that commitment foot, that is going to help you get to a life of significance, right? A life on purpose dedicated to serving.
Kevin Eikenberry:
I think 100%, right? Let's go back to what we said earlier about what are the roots and the roots are purpose. Purpose, values, principles. I also, think it's pretty safe to say that if you ask my team, what is our purpose here at the Kevin Eikenberry Group that they could tell you that in one way or another, they're going to say, "It's about helping as many leaders as we can make as big a positive difference as we can to make the world a better place." Now, we say it sometimes slightly differently. That's what it is. They all know that too. If we are all bought into that, then we got a lot better shot. Then I have a lot better shot of, and we have a lot better shot of leading a life and running a business that creates significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, well said. One of the flexors, at least as a person of faith, I found very interesting. You don't often see this in a management book or leadership book, truth versus grace. I mean, that's like I think I've never seen that in any, and somebody for years being an elder in a Evangelical church, that is something that I think about a lot, that paradigm. Truth is important, but so is grace, to say, "Hey, you messed up." There's a paradigm that both are important and in a business setting, yeah, there's a right way to do things in terms of operationally. Then there's, okay, you messed up. You've got to give somebody some grace. There's the rule book approach. If you make one mistake one time, almost Old Testament like, you're out of here. There's the ultra grace approach, which is so long as you have good intentions, it doesn't really matter if you get anything done, it's all grace. I mean, I love that paradigm. That's not a normal management flexor to talk about truth versus grace.
Kevin Eikenberry:
I'm going to take that as a compliment.
Warwick Fairfax:
You should. I think it is good. People, even in a normal business setting, they should understand both, it is not either or, it's truth and grace and there's paradigm depending on the situation.
Kevin Eikenberry:
It's absolutely both. Let's just for a second, and I don't know if Marlene will ever listen to this podcast now that I'm talking about her daughter, did I coach Marlene differently in the days and weeks and months after that event? I sure hope so, right? Different in July than in May. I sure hope so. It's not one or the other. It's both. It's and, so back to what we said earlier, it's both and, how do we balance them? How do we, I a little bit more in truth versus grace. If people don't ever think about that, then they don't feel any tension. They're just at one end of that or the other. As we said from the beginning with any of the flexors being at the ends of this flexor are rarely the response that will get you the best long-term results.
Once we recognize a flexor or even the idea that there are flexors, the way I responded to your thing about the story with Pete is to say, "Oh, there's a flexor there, so how can we think about it in that way?" I've got 19 in the book, but what I'm really trying to do is give you a new way to think about the way we respond in a given context. Once we recognize that truth and grace are at play, we have a chance to consider the tension between them. If we've never thought about it, there's no tension because we haven't considered it.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. Life is about tensions and paradoxes. There's a couple more things as we round out our discussion. I love when you talk about identity and basically your identity shouldn't be wrapped up in being in a certain style of leader. For me, it could be I'm a diplomat. There are others that are more of the take charge, take no prisoners. That's who I am. I'm a sort of Jack Welch kind of leader. It's not right or wrong, but just realizing your identity shouldn't be in a style of leadership. It should be how do I get the job done? How do I stay true, which you talk about later about my purpose, my principles, my values, but my identity should not be in a style of leadership." Hey, I'm the servant leadership guy. I'm the take no prisoners guy. I'm like the general commander type," so that's so important.
Kevin Eikenberry:
I'm a leader and that means that I'm trying to reach, another flexor for you, reach valuable outcomes with and through others. Both of those are my job, outcomes and others. The minute that we label ourselves, we limit ourselves, right? Because now we say, "This is where I'm supposed to be or this is what I am, and so that I don't even consider anything else." People say, "Well, I'm a truth teller." Well, if I'm a truth teller, then maybe I'm not thinking about grace very often.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a good point. I love, as you say towards the end, what doesn't flex your purpose, your principles, your values. There are some leaders that can be like, "I will tell you anything you want to hear. This is what I believe. Now, I don't believe it, but it will help move the organization forward, at least in the short run." Eventually people find you out and they get incredibly mad. "You lied to me about who you were. You shared some heartwarming story about growing up that never happened." It was a great story, but it was a lie or an exaggeration. I talk about how you can flex your leadership style. You can do a whole bunch of flexors, compliance versus commitment, but you start flexing your purpose, your principles and values, A, it's wrong, and B, you will fail with 100%, at least in my perspective, 100% certainty. Talk about why you don't flex those A, because it's wrong, but B, because it's also dumb to try and flex those things.
Kevin Eikenberry:
I couldn't say any better than that, right? If we go back to the tree, if the tree's not rooted, there's not even a tree. You're not a tumbleweed. Right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly, so well said. Really the last thing I think you say in the book, one of the last things is you talk about how the world needs leaders and it's easy to think of what can I do? You use the metaphor of an acorn. Talk about how just that acorn philosophy, if you will, with leadership, 'cause we all can think of what difference can I make? I'm just one person. Talk about why we need to think of ourselves more as acorns.
Kevin Eikenberry:
Well, when you look at an acorn, you can say, okay, that's a seed that would plant an oak tree. One acorn, one tree. If the tree takes root and the tree grows, what are you going to get? A bunch more acorns. I often say that leadership is the highest leverage point in an organization, because we have the chance to have the greatest impact through what we do and choose, don't do and don't choose, say and don't say and all those things. If we realize that if you ask yourself how many trees are in the acorn, it's in an infinite number of oak trees inside of that acorn. We have to plant our acorn in the soil. We can't leave it sitting on the concrete.
You could listen to this whole conversation and say, "This is really good stuff, but I can't do that." It's like putting your acorn on the concrete. Nothing's going to happen. Something's only going to happen if you take action. That's my ultimate hope for me in this book is that people will say, "There's something here that I can see the world differently. I can choose some new behaviors even if they're uncomfortable, even if they're not natural, even if they're not what I thought I was supposed to do or be." When we do those things, when we take those actions, when we connect intention to action, magic can happen.
Warwick Fairfax:
Today might be somebody's worst day, they might feel it's hopeless. How can I get beyond what this day to have some life-fulfilling purpose, life of significance as we talk about a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Talk about how some of the key principles in this book, Flexible Leadership, can get a person, get a leader beyond their worst day and really empower them to be that acorn, to be a leader that helps others. What are some of the key philosophies would help that person who maybe today is their worst day, be the person, the leader that can really help a whole bunch of other people?
Kevin Eikenberry:
I'm just going to say one thing. I'm going to speak to you as if it is a rough, hard day. As leaders, that's often true. The first part of the flexible leadership model is intention. What I would say, if you're having a hard day, if you're not sure if you can see beyond this, you're not sure leadership's what you were cut out for, you're not sure why you're doing this. Take a breath, take an hour, sleep on it. There's power in increasing response time. When we increase response time and reflect, then we can move forward with intention. When you hook that together with the realization, with the perspective that we talked about earlier, that bad things have silver linings, take the breath, take the moment, and know that you can build your confidence slowly and move in that direction.
Gary:
I am going to show my flexible leadership as the kind of the traffic cop of these episodes to say, this is a great time to end our conversation with Kevin Eikenberry.
Warwick, we just finished your interview, our interview with Kevin Eikenberry, the author of a new book called Flexible Leadership, and it was a different kind of episode for us in the sense that it wasn't about a personal crucible he's been through. It wasn't all about his perspective on crucibles, but there was a lot of information in the discussion that can be applied to any of our listeners and viewers who have gone through crucibles. What was your takeaway, your number one takeaway from our time with Kevin?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great question, Gary. I would say that life and leadership is about paradoxes, about both and, and contrast. One of the things he spoke about that your worst day is indeed your worst day, irrespective of the kind of crucible that you've been through, is a horrific, painful circumstance that likely, in some sense, might last your whole life. You might find a way to get beyond it, but the scars will likely remain. You might be triggered from time to time depending on what happens. Yes, it is your worst day. On the other hand, as many of our guests have said, blessing has come from their crucible. They're even thankful in some ways. How can it be your worst day, something you would never wish on another human being, but also be something that you are grateful for and there's a blessing?
Well, life is about paradoxes. Life is really one or the other. It's both and, so whether it's in life or leadership, we need to be less about the extremes, but realize life can be both and. One of the other metaphors that Kevin used was about a tree or a branch. I mean, it's pliant, it can move, but yet it's also firmly grounded. Really, this was a discussion about paradox and certainly, I would say what is the chief paradox when you think of Beyond the Crucible? It's the fact that your worst day is incredibly painful. It forever changed your life, but yet there may be a blessing or even some gratitude that comes out of your worst day. That is, I'd say, maybe the biggest paradox in what we talk about at Beyond the Crucible.
Gary:
One of the things that he talked about, and I'd never really expressed it in this way. We talk a lot have since the beginning of the podcast, the beginning of Beyond The Crucible, when it was still Crucible Leadership, we've talked about you can learn lessons from your crucible and the importance of learning lessons from your crucible, but he added in explicitly it's not just learning lessons, it's also a crucible can create new experiences for you to pursue. We certainly had guests who've talked about that, we've talked about that, talked around that, gotten to that. I've never heard it expressed from us that way. Your crucible can give you experiences that you wouldn't have otherwise had if it wasn't for the crucible. What's your reaction to that?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, I think in my own story, I had several experiences that I had my version of truth about what my parents thought, how the company was being run and not being run well and strayed from the values and the vision of the founder. Then there was another truth by some other Fannie members that thought that things were going fine. It's easy to think that your truth is truth, but that experience taught me you see truth, I'm not really talking about absolute truth, but in terms of a version of events, you see it through your lens, but there are other lenses. That experience has really has changed the way I look at leadership as well as at life. Certainly, that experience was very painful that I went through, but it taught me what's important, which is not so much success but significance. It taught me about the value of people and just how painful it was to me.
It gave me, I think, a degree of empathy for other people's experiences and other people's stories. I wouldn't be who I am now without those experiences. I would say everybody we've ever had on the podcast, you could say it's not just the crucible, but the experiences that they went through has made them a different person. You can use those experiences as lessons to help you be a better person, help you have a calling that you never would have otherwise. Yeah, we're shaped by our genetics, but we're also shaped by the sum total of our experiences, both are true for the paradox.
Gary:
Right, and one of the things in the book that really sort of caught your attention was his talk about flexors. The yin and yang of some things. The one that he pulled out that was the most meaningful to him was between compliance and commitment. The tensions between that and how do you deal with that? He talked about how when you lean into commitment, when that's your first foot forward. Maybe, that is the path to a life of significance. Compliance, there's time for that. You guys talked about the time for that. I'll let you talk about what times for that that you mentioned in the show, but that was one of ... I mean, why did the concept of Flexors arrest your attention so much, and how in particular does this idea of compliance and commitment speak to a crucible experience in an aftermath of a crucible experience?
Warwick Fairfax:
I think very often we tend to lead or live from a certain perspective. "Hey, I'm a servant leader. I'm a go-to, get it done. Maybe military-type of leader. I'm a consensus builder." We have our favorite style. It's almost like a favorite shirt or favorite pair of shoes, and that's great, but in life, you need to be flexible, especially coming back from a crucible. I mean, things are got to be very challenging, and you need to be flexible about how you live and lead personally and professionally.
Even one of the flexors he talked about later was truth and grace, which from a faith-based perspective I'm very familiar with. More broadly, you could say, "Okay, you need to perform and if you don't buckle up, you're out of here." That can be appropriate. On the other hand, there can be times when grace is important. Maybe there things going on in somebody's life. Truth and grace, yeah, they're both important, but what do you use? It really depends on the situation. Obviously, for me, I tend to lean towards grace and forgiveness, but truth is important too. When he mentioned compliance versus commitment, yes, you want your whole team to be committed to the vision you have that in our world, we want people to lead lives of significance, lives on purpose, dedicated to serving others. Commitment's important, but at the end of the day, things have got to get done.
Gary:
Yeah. Well, and I'm going to demonstrate it right now. We didn't get time at the end of the podcast. It's in the show notes of the podcast, but Kevin has a free gift for everyone at kevineikenberry.com/gift. Go to the internet, grab that. It's a gift that's related to his book on flexible leadership. Folks, if you've enjoyed this conversation and I've enjoyed it, so I hope you have too. A couple of things we'd like to ask you to do work and one, if you're listening on your favorite podcast app, we would ask you to subscribe to the show. That way you don't miss any episodes. Life gets busy, and you can make sure they just show up every week on that podcast app.
If you're watching us on YouTube, we ask you to leave us a comment, what did you think about this episode? How have you needed to benefit? How can you benefit from flexible leadership? Leave a comment and then subscribe to our YouTube channel. Until that next time that we are together next week, remember this, we know that crucible experiences are not easy, they're difficult, but if you learn the lessons of them and if you seek the opportunities, as Kevin pointed out, it's not just lessons. There's also opportunities that come from them, and you go after those opportunities where you can end up. It's not the end of your story, it's the beginning of a new journey in your story, and that journey leads to 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 road map to a life of significance. Ready? Visit BeyondTheCrucible.com, take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
We take a deep-dive look at the second actionable truth that helps you move from trial to triumph: self-reflection.
Our discussion centers on the ways in which 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 to a life of significance.
“It is all too easy to start acting and moving without reflecting,” Warwick says. “We always say at Beyond the Crucible that the inner work precedes the outer work.”
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. It's all too easy to start acting and moving without reflecting, and we've had people on the podcast that have been like this. It's like, hey, nothing to see here. I'm moving forward and I'm tough, I'm strong, and I'm not going to let this get me down. I'm just going to move as quickly as possible. I'm not really going to think about what happened, why it happened. I'm just moving. I'm a strong person. Here we go.
Gary Schneeberger:
But where we going if after we endure a crucible we don't take the time to self-reflect? The answer to that question is nowhere good which we talk about this week as we explore another actionable truth we must lean into in order to move along the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap to a life of joy and significance. Welcome, friends, to another episode in what we're calling the series within the show, and it is us talking about a refreshed way, not an entirely new way, but a laser-focused way of helping you get from your worst day to your greatest opportunity, and it's what we've named the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. We describe it as this, and I'm going to read this right from my notes so I don't get it wrong, we describe it as how we help people turn their worst day, people, by people we mean you, how we help you turn your worst day into your greatest opportunity. We provide the essential actionable truths to inspire hope and enable and equip you to write your own life-affirming story.
The roadmap has been built from our proprietary statistically valid research into how people experience crucibles and how they move beyond them. It's also informed by the experience we had with podcast guests and those we've spoken to about how indeed they have moved beyond their crucibles. But the most revolutionary news about all of this, folks, is that in analyzing this roadmap we identified what we're calling the actionable truths of the brand. To pass these life-changing truths along to you, our listeners and viewers, this year we are going to do, as I said, one episode every month that's going to focus on one of these 10 actionable truths, and a couple weeks ago we did the first episode, this is our second episode. We'll hold you in suspense before we know exactly what it is we're going to talk about because, first, Warwick, I want to ask you to kind of level set our listeners and viewers about this second truth and explain why actionable truths. What does that mean? What do we mean by that?
Warwick Fairfax:
At Beyond the Crucible, we've always been focused on 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. But what we have now is what we're calling the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, and this roadmap shows you how you go from trial or crucible to triumph or a life of significance. So this roadmap is very significant, so to speak, and we've found as you go from trial to triumph, from crucible to life of significance, there are 10 actionable truths. Think of those 10 actionable truths as catalysts, and they help you move along the journey from your worst day to triumph, to that life of significance. Without those actionable truths, you get kind of stuck.
So what's interesting is we identified these actionable truths in the last few months, but they've always been an implicit part of our thinking, even though we didn't quite realize it, and we'll talk more about it in coming episodes, whether it's authenticity or perseverance, vision, there's a number of actionable truths. They were in my book, Crucible Leadership, and in what we've talked about on the podcast, but as we did our research and thought about it, how do you go from trial to triumph, really it's these 10 actionable truths, these catalysts that really help you get from A to B, from your worst day to triumph, to a life of significance.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and it's always interesting, isn't it, Warwick, when we do these sorts of things, naming things, right? It's hard to do, and the more I reflect on, the more I say the words actionable truths, the more I'm like, "That's dead solid perfect what we're talking about here is it's truly, it's got to be true or it's not going to help you at all. It's got to be actionable or it's not going to help you any." Put those two things together and you can conquer the world and conquer your crucible for sure. So that leads to the next question I want to ask you, again just to level set us at the outset, and that's how do these actionable truths help those who receive them and act on them move beyond setback to significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's an interesting question, Gary. I agree with you. I do like the name we've come up with, actionable truths. A truth is good, but if you don't act on it, it's not particularly helpful, and we've talked about this before, but if you said, "I have a truth I believe in which is being honest, I just tend not to be in the workplace," you know?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
I believe in being authentic, but authentic is a bit overrated, so I just, so I'm a sales guy, and so I just like to be who my customers want me to be. Whoever you want me to be to get the sale, I'll be. So, yeah, in theory I believe in authenticity, but in practice not so much. So that's why we've called them actionable truths. They are truths you have to really live by. The one way to think about them is they are accelerators or enablers enabling us to move from your worst day, from the bottom of the pit as we sometimes call it to your best day in a sense, a triumph, your life of significance, and I think you can make a case that without these actionable truths you're not going to get out of the pit. You're not going to go from trial to triumph. You'll be just stuck permanently, and over the course of this year, as we talk about things such as authenticity, perseverance, vision, each one of these is really critical to help you move forward.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And therein, folks, ends the preamble. Here we're going to get into the meat and potatoes of this episode that is unpacking truth number two. The first truth, a couple of weeks ago as I said which we discussed, is the beginning of the journey from trial to triumph, and that's the trial, that's your crucible. That's the first truth. The second truth is what we've determined is the second action we need to take to move beyond our crucibles, what we need to start journeying along the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, what our research and our experience has shown us that that is is... and this is where I'm going to cue Scott, the producer. Scott, I need a drum roll. It is self-reflection. Warwick, how would you define self-reflection and why is it the critical second step after a crucible to begin the journey to recovering from a crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
So before we talked about the first actionable truth crucibles, and really with a crucible you have to make a choice not to be defined by your worst days. As we say at Beyond the Crucible, it didn't happen to you, it happened for you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
And so you've got to make a choice, okay, I'm going to get out of the pit. I'm going to get beyond my crucible. But then having made that choice, well, now what do you do? You made a decision, but now what? And we believe the next step, the next critical step is self-reflection. So self-reflection is an internal examination of what happened and who you are amidst the challenge that happened. It's all too easy to start acting and moving without reflecting, and we've had people on the podcast that have been like this. It's like, hey, nothing to see here. I'm moving forward and I'm tough, I'm strong, and I'm not going to let this get me down. I'm just going to move as quickly as possible. I'm not really going to think about what happened, why it happened. I'm just moving. I'm a strong person. Here we go.
That kind of sense of I'm strong and I can get beyond this, I can move forward, that's very laudable, but if you don't reflect, what tends to happen is history tends to repeat itself, and you might find yourself in a whole journey or sea of crucibles or roadblocks and brick walls because you'll just do the same thing again and again or be in the same circumstance. And so it's really important to reflect on what happened and why. One of the things we say at Beyond the Crucible is that the inner work precedes the outer work. We're all for moving forward. We're all for living visions that lead you to a life of significance. But for all that to really happen in a meaningful, sustainable way, you've got to do the inner work. You've got to begin to ask yourself some tough questions, how did I get into this crucible, what mistakes did I make, what can I learn from what happened to me, what can we learn about ourselves in the aftermath of the crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. I mean, as you've talked about that, what comes to my mind is before you look down the road, you got to look in the mirror, right? But I mean, you've got to take a look at what's going on within you, how did those things happen. What I did the first episode, I'm going to do it in the second episode, and I'm going to do it in every one of them, is I'm going to read a dictionary definition of it's not self-reflection, it's reflection which is the same kind of thing.
Here's the dictionary. I use Webster's, Noah Webster's first ever dictionary. I call it the Webster 1828 because that's when it was published. And this, I've not shared this, I love this, I've not shared this with you until now because I want to get your reaction to it, but this is what this dictionary says about reflection. It's the operation of the mind by which it turns its views back upon itself and its operations, the review or reconsideration of past thoughts, opinions, or decisions of the mind or of past events. Is that not a perfect Beyond the Crucible explanation of what self-reflection is from 1828 which was a little bit before we founded this?
Warwick Fairfax:
It surely is, Gary. Yeah, just reflecting on your past thoughts, past actions, what happened. A wise person reflects on who they are, what they've been thinking, what's happened, try to understand them, understand how those events or thoughts impacted you. Yeah, I mean, a wise person knows themself well and examines themselves and their motives and their actions and things that happened to them. It doesn't mean that you don't act and move forward, but you know who you are, why you are, what happened, why it happened, your part in it, the part that was not your fault. A wise person does do some reflecting, does do some self-examination.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I came up with my own definition from the Schneeberger 2025 dictionary. What we're really doing here, folks, is revisiting what happened to us so that we can revise the circumstances around how we move forward. So we're revisiting to revise. I think that's another good explanation of what we're talking about. But there's three stages, Warwick, of our research, which is both qualitative and quantitative, that we've discovered people experience after a crucible. The first one is this, limited awareness of the problem. How does self-reflection help us grow that awareness, make it less limited, and do that for our benefit of moving beyond our crucible? How does self-reflection kickstart that process?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, Gary. Without self-awareness, we typically don't know what happened. At the bottom of the pit after our worst day, we feel pain, often searing pain. It is awful. We know something happened. It was terrible. We're in agony. But we're not always thinking, "Okay, what happened? Why did it happen? What am I feeling?" It's just, "Oh my gosh, this is just awful. I'm just in such pain." But to get out of the pit of a crucible in a meaningful and productive way we have to do the inner work which we sometimes call deep soul reflection, and that involves asking ourselves some very challenging situations. How did I get into this mess? Did I trust the wrong people? Was I in a role that didn't match my gifting? Was I working for a company that was not in line with my beliefs and values? There could be a number of other questions that we need to ponder and reflect on, but these are a huge questions.
One thing that we need to remember is if we don't self-reflect, history will tend to repeat itself. History does tend to repeat itself because we typically don't learn the lessons. Nations very often don't learn the lessons of their past mistakes. People typically don't. Civilizations don't. And so you just make the same mistakes over and over again. That is normal, unfortunately. For instance, we might keep trusting the wrong people. We might be in the wrong role or keep working for companies that just don't match our beliefs and values.
So the best way to avoid a life of self-made crucibles is to self-reflect. Life is tough. Undoubtedly for most people it's typically not one and done with a crucible. They might be of various intensities, but life is tough enough without you saying, "Okay, there are some dangers and minefields in the road up ahead. Let me put some more tacks in the road and more nails and more things ahead of me just to make life more challenging because, hey, I love a challenge." I mean, that's great, but life is going to be plenty challenging enough. You don't need to add more to yourself.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And to hear you talk about it, to hear you sort of explain how you think about it makes me think of, we've all heard of if not gone through a 360 evaluation. Either we've done it for other people or it's been done for us in our professional sense. This really what we're talking about here, what you just described is a bit of a 360 on yourself. It's what are all the things, and you named off a few of them, am I with the wrong company, is this not where my passions or my talents lie, and there really is no... you can't ask yourself too many questions in this process of self-reflection because that's going to be the raw material that you're going to use to help you move on to the next stage of getting through the roadmap and getting through your crucible, right? I mean, this is where more questions to yourself about what happened that informed your crucible are pretty significant, aren't they?
Warwick Fairfax:
That's very true, Gary, and it's interesting that you mentioned 360s. As an executive coach, international coach, Federation executive coach, I've done 360s with people, with clients, and it's fascinating. There are some people that go, "Boy, this is interesting. I really need to listen and learn," and other people have a different attitude. And just for folks that may or may not have done a 360, basically a 360 means that you get input from your supervisor, your boss, from your peers, and those that work for you. So hence 360, it's above, below, and beside. I've had cases where feedback has come back in a work setting with people that really know that person very well, and the person will say, "Oh, well, I know..." because often it's done confidentiality. Often it's done with confidentiality. So it's you don't know who they are. It's some online instrument. I mean, there's several that are good ones. And so they won't know exactly who those people are necessarily or who said which, put it that way, and they'll say, "Oh, I know who that is. They never liked me."
Whether it's boss, peers, people who work for them, and it's like if everybody around you says you're not good at listening and you're too hard driving and you're impatient, they could all be wrong but they're probably not. If everybody around you says that, your default should be, "Gosh, I never think of myself as somewhat short-tempered and impatient and poor at listening, but if everybody says so, my default assumption will be that that's true unless proven otherwise." But I have to tell you, there are some people that you could have the best 360 instrument in the world and they will ignore all the advice, they will ignore all the inputs. So that is really the opposite of what we're saying. That is just refusing not only just to examine yourself, but to listen to feedback from anybody else. That's sort of the worst-case scenario, but it's actually more common than we would like to think. So yeah, it just brings back memories of doing 360s and go, "Huh. So nothing to see here. Nothing you can learn from everybody that knows you so well that you work with, nothing to learn. Really? Okay."
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and when it comes to applying that concept to ourselves, doing the 360 about what we've been through, we can't afford to do that. We really have to dive into that self-reflection because we'll move on to the second thing that tends to happen to people after a crucible, and that is that there's an increased awareness of the need to change is the second thing that comes out of that. Again, talk a bit about the ways in which self-reflection can help us overcome this blind spot that we have about the awareness of the need to change.
Warwick Fairfax:
So once we start doing this self-awareness, and sometimes it can be through your own self-examination, friends, colleagues, coworkers, family members can also help out with this, we begin to realize there are some things that we need to do differently. Maybe we were in a role that was not matching our gifts and abilities. Maybe we just, we became lawyers because Mom or Dad had a law firm or had friends who were lawyers and you can get a good job doing that. But maybe we thought, "Gosh, I really don't like law. I'm not really gifted in that." Well, you need to be thinking about why am I doing something that I feel I'm not good at.
Or maybe you work for a company that didn't match your beliefs and values. Well, I just needed a job and they offered me really quite a great package, a great salary and benefits. Okay, great, but if every day is miserable because what the company is doing, maybe they have products that you just don't believe in, that you believe are hurting people. Or maybe the way they treat people, even if it's not you, maybe it's your coworkers, you feel like it's just not appropriate, people aren't being honored and treated appropriately. Maybe we've had people on our team. If you own your own business, be it big or small, maybe you have advisors or people that work with you and for you that, yeah, they're talented, but they don't really have the same values that you do about how to treat people and how to do things, and they kind of get the job done but not always in a way that you feel is appropriate and not the way that you think things should be done.
Well, you just have to ask yourself some tough questions, and really we're the sum total of the choices we make in life. So making some of these changes about what role we're in in terms of our gifting, the beliefs and values of the company we work with, the kind of team members we have, it can change the direction of our lives. If we don't make some of those changes once having identified the problems, and typically there's more than one, we can keep going in the same rut, in the same path, or we can make a decision saying, "I want to do something differently. I don't want to just keep being in a job for a company that I don't respect, in a role that I'm not good at, with people that I don't like working with because they just have different values than I do." You have to make a choice and say, "I'm going to forge a new path."
And so really after doing this kind of self-reflecting and inner soul work, we believe that there'll be a lot fewer blind spots. I mean, life is a voyage of self-discovery. It doesn't mean that you'll never find another blind spot, but if you can take some of the major ones out, some of the false assumptions you have about who you are and what you're good at or the environment you like working in, it can be a game changer in your life and significantly increase your chance of living a life of significance in going from trial to trial. So self-reflecting and this inner soul work is so critical and can be hugely valuable.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, right. The price to pay for continuing to resist change is, and you hinted at it a bit there in your answer, and that is it sort of puts you on a crucible loop, doesn't it? If you don't change the things that got you, that contributed to your crucible, whether they were internal or external, whether they were thoughts or actions on your part or on other people's parts, you're going to sort of... we talk often about the flywheel of hope, right? It can lead to the flywheel of despair because you're in a crucible loop, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Or it could be the flywheel of doom, for instance. Yeah, things can get worse and worse. The thought occurs to me, in a summer series we did a number of movies and the couple that were challenging in a sense were Citizen Kane and The Godfather, and there was some of that flywheel of despair in those movies. People made choices and life seemed to get worse and worse in a lot of ways because of the choices they were making. Does that make sense, Gary, about those two movies-
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. Yeah, oh yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
... sort of emblematic of flywheels of despair?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
It got worse and worse, right?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and we do not want folks who are listening and watching us right now to end up in the flywheel of despair because, my chuckle aside, that is a bad place to be. So the resistance to change, overcoming that is a critical part of moving through Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. And here's the last critical part, and that's this, Warwick. One of the things that we found in our research is that there's often fear. There's probably always fear in the aftermath of a crucible. Resistance to change is a great example of that. How does self-reflection help us combat that, that fear of I know I should do something different, but boy, I'm afraid of trying to do something different? How do we combat that?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's an interesting question. Many of us don't like change. I have to confess I will be one of them as my family can attest to. I mean, I have changed, growing up in Australia, and at, I don't know, 18 or so going to university at Oxford in the UK and then working in New York where I didn't know anybody in banking and Harvard Business School in Boston, and after the family business didn't work out coming to America. It's not like I've not changed, but I can't say that's my love language. I don't like change. But in order to move beyond our crucible, in order to move forward beyond our worst day, we have to change.
Again, we're the sum total of our choices, and I'm reminded, speaking of movies, of that other movie, The Shawshank Redemption, and this is set in a prison in Maine, I believe, and there's a scene where one of the prisoners finally gets released and he can't handle being on the outside. From what I understand, it is sometimes the case that prisoners who've been inside for quite a while, they get released and they commit crime so they can go back to prison because it's the new normal and they're not comfortable with change. They're not comfortable with being on the outside.
So we can be like this in the metaphorical sense and not want to make tough decisions. We might be afraid of operating in our giftedness or with people that are aligned with our beliefs and values. It's like, well, what happens if we fail at that, what happens if we find the wrong people again, or what happens if that doesn't satisfy us. Change can be painful. Maybe we've been a lawyer for years, we hate it, but it's all we ever knew. After all, we have a law degree and passed the bar, and gosh, maybe I want to start a small business or work in a nonprofit, or I don't know. Change is tough and it's like, I know I hate what I do and I'm not really that good at it, but it's all I've ever known for the last 10 or 20 years. Change can be tough. I get that. What if I try some new job and I'm fail at that? So I get that, but we can't let fear and uncertainty force us to be in prison for the rest of our life because we won't make changes.
Yeah, it's easy to say, "How can I find people that I'm going to trust? How do I know what my beliefs and values are? How do I know who I am?" You can get all so negative that you just want to hide under the covers. But we have to realize that if we don't change, we'll keep hitting brick walls, and there may be pain in changing, but think about the pain of not changing is likely to be so much more. So we need to make the decision to change. I think of a recent podcast guest we had, Maggie Warrell who wrote a new book, The Courage Gap, and she has this wonderful phrase when sometimes we're afraid of taking, afraid of having the courage to change, she asked this question, for the sake of what.
So I would use that question that Maggie uses and says and I'd say, "For the sake of what do we want to change?" Maybe there's a nonprofit we want to start, maybe there's a new business, maybe there's a new role that feels a bit scary, but we feel that it can help a whole lot of people. For the sake of what? That can often make you think, "Well, it's going to be a bit scary to change, but it's this new venture that I'm going to do, I wouldn't say it's too important to fail. I would say it's too important not to try." I don't want to be on my deathbed saying, "Gosh, I could have tried to do X and I didn't do it."
Very few people have regrets about things that they... challenges they tried. It may not have worked out, but they tried. It's often more the case people have regrets about the things they didn't do and the risks they didn't take. So don't be that person. Just remember, you may be afraid of changing, but for the sake of what? Why do you want to do this new venture? Why do you want to change jobs? Why do you want to work with different people? For the sake of what? And typically, it's not just about you, it's about other people you can help, it's about a cause you want to devote your life to. So think of the end goal, as they say, keep the end in mind. Think of what motivates you to really want to change, and that will hopefully give you enough perseverance and courage, frankly, to get beyond the fear of changing.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and I didn't plan on doing this, Warwick, but I'm going to do it. In my own crucible, my own biggest crucible, and that is the alcoholism of my past, there was an enormous amount of fear about changing. There was an enormous amount of fear because I, in the nineties, through the eighties and into the early mid-nineties... I got sober 28 years ago this April. But my thought was if I quit drinking... because so much of my social life, so much of the way I hung out with my friends, so much of what I thought was my personality that was attractive to people, that made people like me, so much of that in my mind was tied into when I drank, how much I drank, the person I became, the happy drunk that I was when I was like that. I was terrified when I finally got to the end of my rope and realized that, "it was not working for me," quote, unquote, anymore, I was terrified of what was going to happen in my life.
So here's how that can work in a crucible. If I hadn't quit drinking... I wasn't thinking how terrible my life was going to be if I didn't stop. I was thinking how terrible it was going to be if I did stop because it would take away, in my mind, I thought it would take away things that made me comfortable, things that made me attractive, not in a romantic sense but attractive to friends and people wanted to be around him. That was hard to overcome. It's hard to overcome these fears when we're looking, even when on the other side of overcoming those fears, tackling those fears and changing our trajectory can give us a life of significance, in my case ensured I had life.
I've said before, I was a guest on the show, you were gracious enough to interview me for an episode. I'm about to celebrate, by the time you hear this, folks, I will have celebrated my 60th birthday. I would've never gotten to 60, I don't believe, if I hadn't quit drinking. So if I'd let that fear that I was not going to be embraced by my friends, I was not going to be as comfortable around people if I quit drinking, if I let that win, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. I don't know if you have anything to say about that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's-
Gary Schneeberger:
I mean, I hadn't thought about that until you started talking about fear.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a great example, Gary, and thank you for sharing that because I think it's helpful because people's challenges may not be drinking, it may be all sorts of other challenges, but it may be this is the only person I know or people like me, how will I come across if I'm doing a different job with different people. It's like, well, this is who they know. Maybe nobody will like the real me or the changed me or the me in a different role. That's a real fear. So I guess the question I'd have for you, Gary, is how did you get over that fear of change and being somebody different or the way you thought of yourself, people might see me differently. How did you get over that fear?
Gary Schneeberger:
You know, it was experiential. I had to insert myself, once I got sober, I had to go back into society, right? I had to go back into my friends, and people were gracious, and I began to discover over weeks and months and even years that who I was, who I am internally didn't... it wasn't alcohol that made me who I am. It was my personality that made me who I am. It was my God-given personality. That's what fueled my friendships, not alcohol.
But I had to walk that out because I couldn't imagine where that was. I couldn't think my way there to the point of actionable truths, right? I couldn't reach the truth until I took an action, if that makes sense. I had to go out. I had to go be with people who might've even been drinking and I wasn't drinking so I could see that people could still relate to me. I could still tell a joke and people would laugh. I could still be both turned to people for counsel from them, I could still give counsel to others. I was really everything I was without alcohol that I was with alcohol. I was just a less self-destructive version of that.
It took me a little bit of time to reach that. But each, we say it all the time on this show, each small step, each little step, one small step at a time, each small step gave me more and more confidence, more and more courage to keep taking those small steps, and that's how I did it. But I had to do it. I had to act. I couldn't just think it. I couldn't say, "Okay, I'm going to be fine." I had to go out, test the theory, be with people and see that the way that they reacted to me overwhelmingly was not different than I thought it might be.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's such a great point. It's not like you were being less scary. I mean, you probably always were fun-loving, kind of friendly guy, sociable, caring, wanted to help folks. It's not like that wasn't there. The alcohol probably had its side effects, but it's not like you were being less Gary. Maybe you were being more Gary without some of the other stuff that wasn't helpful. So it's not like you completely changed as a human being-
Gary Schneeberger:
Exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
... and gosh, I can't recognize Gary anymore. It's like he's a completely different personality. But that's part of the fear, right? It's like, oh, it's only alcohol that makes me friendly.
Gary Schneeberger:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's only alcohol that makes people like me. And it's like, that's a lie. If you believe in spiritual warfare, which we do, it's like that's a lie from the enemy. It's like, no, no. You were always like that. Alcohol didn't make you a friendly, fun-loving guy. That's just how you were born, right?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Yeah, and then as I walked it out, I realized the times that I wasn't catching were the times the alcohol made me the other guy who wasn't a very likable guy and that's what was removed. So going through that process and realizing that truth and being willing to take that change, yeah, it was scary, but doing it not just changed the trajectory of my life but made it worth changing and kept me on a trajectory to continue to live my life.
I planned to say none of this, so thank you for your forbearance as I said this, because we wanted to talk about, right, we wanted to talk about your crucible because I've said, folks, many times on the show that Warwick, when it comes to Beyond the Crucible, Warwick is kind of patient zero. He's where it all started. This brand began in the life of Warwick Fairfax. And as we're talking about the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap, as we're talking about the actionable truth of self-reflection, I want to ask you, Warwick, and I want you to tell our listeners and viewers, how did self-reflection help you get moving on your journey from setback to significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, Gary, it's interesting. A number of people are not very reflective. They just sort of move, they act, and no time to think or navel-gaze, let's just move. I'm not really that person. For better or worse, I'm a very self-reflective person. This is just like breathing to me. It has its strong points, it has its annoying points, like anything. I tend not to move without doing a whole lot of thinking, as I jokingly say, other than when I did my fail 2.25 billion-dollar takeover of my family's 150-year-old family business in Australia, other than that, and there's all sorts of reasons that we'll get into a little bit. But after that all failed in late 1990, this 2.25 billion-dollar takeover of my family's media business in Australia, I did a lot of reflecting.
My wife's American, so we moved in the early nineties to the US, and I certainly was in searing pain. I was thinking, "I've caused the loss of this 150-year-old family media business." And it wasn't just the business. It was started by my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, who was a person of very strong faith, faith in Christ. I'd come to faith in Christ at an evangelical Anglican church at Oxford. So I felt like there was some spiritual legacy that I destroyed. That was incredibly painful. My actions, the takeover, caused friction within my family, instability within the 4,000-plus employees of the company, and my ever present self-talk was actually not very helpful. It was how could I have been so dumb, how could I have assumed that other family members wouldn't sell and would want to be in a privatized company controlled by a 26-year-old, as I then was in 1987 when I launched the takeover, and-
Gary Schneeberger:
Can I stop you just for a second, Warwick? Because you said a word as you were saying that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Sure. Sure.
Gary Schneeberger:
You said your ever present self-talk, and I just want to make sure people understand, right? Self-talk is not self-reflection. Self-talk in the way that you used it is sort of self-degradation, not self-reflection, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yes.
Gary Schneeberger:
The self-talk was not leading you to solving a problem, it was leading you to pile the cause of the problem on yourself, right? I just wanted to make sure people heard that. Say what you will about it and then move on. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure people caught that.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, it's an excellent point. Self-talk is like, "I'm dumb. I'm an idiot. Nobody likes me." It's like in the case you were mentioning, Gary, negative self-talk is nobody will like me if I'm not drinking. The only reason people want to be with me is because of drinking. Without that, I'll be shunned. I'll be like a leper in biblical times. I'll be in the outskirts of town and unclean. Nobody wants to see Gary. Nobody wants to see Warwick. That's the negative self-talk, and it's very real, those sorts of notions. So excellent points.
So for me, that negative self-talk was how could I have been so dumb, how could I have assumed that other family members wouldn't sell into a takeover, being trapped by this young 26-year-old, all of which led us to having an unsustainable level of debt, how can I think that a hostile takeover was a good idea, that it wouldn't cause incredible friction or that financially it would work. I remember telling people, gosh, one or two ahead of time, "I think this makes business sense, but gee, what does God want?" which I'm not sure I really got a great answer to the question. But the point of the story isn't so much the second part. I thought this made business sense. This was 1987. I just graduated with a Harvard MBA. I'm meant to be not a moron, certainly not in business. How I could have assumed that this ever was going to be financially viable is still a bit mystifying to me.
So yeah, and so really, my assumption, my parents' assumption was that the company was not being well-run and not being run along the ideals of the founder. But even if that's the case, and you could make a case that that was true, was the cure worse than the disease, worse than the problem? I mean, my gosh, is that really the way to handle it? So self-reflection, in my case, while painful, it taught me some valuable lessons. I realized that the vision for this family company, John Fairfax Limited, it wasn't my vision. It wasn't even my dad's vision who really at heart probably would've been a better philosophy professor. He was very intellectual, not really a business guy. He definitely could write very well. But I realized that vision, it wasn't my vision or my dad's vision, it was my great-great-grandfather's vision, John Fairfax. So I realized that you can't inherit a vision.
It was such a poor fit. I'm not a take-no-prisoners corporate executive. I'm more of a reflective advisor. Having me at least notionally in charge of 4,000 people and having to make all sorts of pressure-filled decisions, it just was a terrible fit. It was just not my role. I came to realize that this was always going to be a very challenging situation. There was infighting amongst the family going back decades. This wasn't going to be easy for anybody to fix, let alone a 26-year-old me. I mean, this was a very tough situation. I learned or realized that I ignored the advice of good advisors who said the numbers don't add up. Merchant bankers as we call them in Australia, investment bankers in the US, I ignored their advice, and then I retained advisors who'd done some takeovers with some of the biggest corporate traders, and yeah, sure, they said, "Yeah, that can work." But I'm not sure that their values really lined up with mine. So I just made some poor decisions about the advisors that I ended up using.
One of the things I've had to learn about myself is, yes, I'm very self-reflective, but I have this tendency, I almost jokingly say this, that if there's a problem in the world I assume it's my fault. So my default is how could I have been so dumb, it was all my fault. And obviously I made some terrible assumptions and have my share of blame or accountability for what happened, but it's too simplistic to say it was all my fault.
As I mentioned, there was infighting amongst family for decades. It was a very challenging situation. My dad had just died in early '87. I launched the takeover in late August 1987. Other family members had removed my father as chairman at the company 11 years before in 1976. Subconsciously, although I didn't quite realize it at the time, subconsciously clearly that affected the way I viewed certainly some other members of my family after what they'd done to him. So there was sort of a very challenging mix of elements that caused me to make the decisions I did. Doesn't mean that I made good decisions, but there were reasons why and it was a tough situation.
So now I look at it in a more balanced way, understanding who I was, who I wasn't, and just the very challenging situation I faced and the challenge situation I had with my dad having just died and subconsciously thinking other family members who were in charge, they're the ones responsible for, in my view, unfairly removing my father as chairman. So it was a very, very challenging situation.
So yeah, I think I look at the whole takeover situation I think more objectively. I've learned so much about who I am and who I'm not. I'm not this business executive type. I'm more of a reflective advisor. I've learned that who you work with matters. It's my belief I'd rather work with people that are 10 or 20% less qualified, if you will, but who have 100% alignment with my values. Obviously, I'm happy to get both, but it's like if somebody is like a star in a certain area but I'm not sure if their values align with mine, I don't care how good they are, it's going to be no. Values alignment is so important from my perspective, and I think you can get both, great people who have the values that match up with yours, but if there's a choice, you just say no. Don't hire people or work with people that don't match your values.
So for me now, I feel like I've learned the mistakes of that failed takeover bid. I love what I do at Beyond The Crucible. It matches my gifting as a reflective advisor, executive coach, podcast host. The vision of Beyond the Crucible, it is truly and authentically my vision, not somebody else, and I've surrounded myself with a team that believes in the vision of Beyond the Crucible and has a similar value set, has a similar set of values of how to treat people and what's important in life. It's not all about fame and success. It's about giving back and having a positive impact on society and the people around you.
So these lessons are hard won, if you will, but I feel like I've learned a lot of lessons. I'm always learning more lessons and try to be a better person and do better with what we do at Beyond The Crucible. But I've learned so much about what not to do and what my gifting is not, and yeah, I love what we do and what I do. Yeah, it has been challenging getting here. There was a lot of fear, but just getting to this point where you have a vision that's authentically yours and where, from my perspective, what we do at Beyond The Crucible we do lead lives of significance. It is about living a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. I feel like that's what we all do. So I'm very blessed and grateful for it, but it was not easy. There was certainly a lot of pain getting here, but it was absolutely worth it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Well, and here's another reason why it's worth it. I didn't mention it to you while we were recording. This is episode 250 of the Beyond the Crucible podcast. So look at that. You're talking about how rewarding it is, what a blessing it is, and it's been a blessing now for 250 episodes which is pretty, pretty astounding, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. Amazing.
Gary Schneeberger:
So we've covered a lot of ground in this episode, Warwick. As always, when we do these kinds of things I like to have you sort of grab the balloon strings and talk about what's the one takeaway that you want folks who've listened and watched this episode. What's the one headline, the one thing you want them to remember from our discussion?
Warwick Fairfax:
Unless you self-reflect in a meaningful way... again, we're not talking negative self-talk. We're talking an accurate, sober appraisal of who you are. Unless you self-reflect and learn the lessons of your crucible, you cannot move forward in a meaningful, healthy, and productive way. Unless you self-reflect, inevitably you'll be destined to repeat your crucibles over and over and over again. Life is tough enough, but if you keep putting yourself in a situation where it doesn't fit your gifting and abilities, the people you work with, the company you work for, it doesn't match your values and beliefs, if you just live a life out of line with your design and your beliefs and values, life is not going to be pleasant. Life is tough enough without you going down a direction that's going to make it tougher.
So I get the fact that self-reflecting can be painful. Change is painful as we've discussed and as you said very eloquently, Gary, we can be very fearful of the change, will people like me, will people like the new me. And really the question is not so much the new you is will people like the authentic you, and I think the answer is yes. Being your authentic, true self is not something to be afraid of, and if there are people that don't like that authentic self, then maybe you don't need to be friends with them, you know?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
They can go have other friends and that's fine. But if they don't respect your values and the person who you authentically and truly are, then it doesn't serve them or you to keep being such good friends. It just doesn't. People select their own values and what's important, and that's fine, but it doesn't mean that you have to be in a situation that's not helpful to you. So self-reflection is important. It's hard to get out of the pit of despair. As I mentioned with The Shawshank Redemption example in prison, it's easy to feel like this is painful, but maybe what's out there could be so much worse, or maybe it won't be. Just think if you're being truly who, from my perspective, God designed you to be, I think you will be happy of being truly who you are, living a life of your values and beliefs. That's a way to greater happiness and fulfillment, not to misery. Misery is just staying in the pit, being in a role that doesn't fit you with people that don't respect your values and beliefs and aren't in line with it.
So we all want a life of joy and fulfillment. That only happens after a crucible by doing some self-reflection of what happened and why it happened, learning the lessons from your crucible and moving toward a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. When you're using your gifting and your beliefs to help others, that fills you with joy and fulfillment. It can't help but not do that. So I get we can be afraid of changing, but that's why self-reflection is so important. To really move ahead out of the pit, to move towards a life of significance, a life-affirming vision, you've got to do the hard work of self-reflection. It's not easy, it's painful, but for the sake of what? For the sake of your future life, for the sake of people that you love and care about. It's important to do the inner work so that you can have a flourishing life.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that, folks, brings the plane on the ground. One of these days, one of these times, I'm going to ask Scott, our producer, to do a sound of a plane landing. Not this week, Scott. Don't worry. But this is just, folks, the second actionable truth we'll be discussing in depth this year. Each month we'll take a look at a new one and how it is connected to the previous one to build out the Beyond the Crucible Roadmap. Next time, Scott, get ready, because I'm going to call on you to do something. Next time we'll be discussing, drum roll please, authenticity. So stay tuned. Next month, that's what we'll be getting into. But until the next time we're together, please remember this. We want you to believe these truths that we talk about, but more important than that, we want you to act on them because that's what's going to help you along the roadmap from trial to triumph, and we will see you next week.
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.
I’m a big fan of quote books – volumes that collect the insightful, instructive sayings of famous people and everyday people alike. Among my collection are utterances worth remembering from Winston Churchill, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.
I have one called Classic Wisdom for the Good Life that features insights from everyone from American Founding Father John Adams to Superman film star Christopher Reeve. I even have a license to quote from The Wit and Wisdom of James Bond. And, of course, there’s a special spot on my bookshelf for gold standard of the genre, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
One of the things you may have noticed from our Beyond the Crucible podcast is that I frequently, in my role as cohost, during episodes that are discussions with Warwick about a key truth for bouncing forward from a crucible, roll out some quotes to illustrate a point we’re trying to make.
And by now, more than 250 episodes into the show, we could publish our own book with some of the brilliant perspectives from the guests we’ve interviewed. One such example just came from Dr. Margie Warrell, whom we recently talked to about her new book, The Courage Gap. I’ve been rolling it around in my mind since she said it because it speaks to such a profound truth about what it takes to turn a trial into a triumph:
“Growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse.”
Margie unpacked it during the show as the need to reset our relationship with discomfort and convert our fear into a potent catalyst for action. By practicing what she calls the “one-brave-minute” rule, we are able to summon the courage to step forward, strengthening our neural pathways with each successive step, growing progressively more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
It made me think about why what she said struck me as so empoweringly true. Three thoughts occurred to me.
1. Comfort can often be what keeps us tangled up in the aftermath of our crucible.
We talk a lot at Beyond the Crucible, on the podcast and in writings like this one, about “the pit” we can find ourselves in when setback and failure knock us down. That pit, we and our podcast guests have said, is a painful place that seems both unbearable and inescapable.
What we don’t talk about as much, but which is just as true, is that the pit, however tortuous it may be, can feel safe in a twisted way. When we’ve grown accustomed to living under the heavy weight of our crucible, there can be a very real, very tempting pull stay there. It’s hell, but it’s also “home.”
This was true for me in my crucible of being caught in the grip of alcoholism in my early 30s. The disease had cost me friends, respect, a job – but it also had also given me what I thought was my identity. My friends liked me when I was drunk, I reasoned. Being inebriated allowed me to be me – outgoing, gregarious, funny. As many problems as it caused me, it nonetheless felt as though I’d lose the essence of what was good about me, too is I abandoned the bottle. The pit offered me what felt like protection for my personality.
But as I tentatively began to climb out of it, I realized how not just untrue, but foolish, that thinking was. I began to venture out sober with many of my friends – and I soon found they not only still liked me, but, more importantly, were happy for me as I continued to put healthy distance between me and my crucible.
That’s true regardless of what your crucible is. Breaking the emotional hold it has on you – the idea that the pit is better for you than doing the work you need to accomplish to climb out of it – is a lie. Don’t live it.
2. Comfort can breed a false sense of having overcome a crucible.
At the other end of the spectrum, we can wear comfort as evidence that we’re moved past our struggles. The pit doesn’t become “safe,” we just trick ourselves into believing it’s not a pit at all. We forsake the notion that we have experienced something that’s changed the trajectory of our life by believing that we’ve gotten back on track without doing the work required to not just move away from our crucible, but truly beyond it.
Two times before I entered rehab to truly commit to battling my drinking demons, I explored what treatment looked like but never embraced it. Once, I saw a psychiatrist a couple of times, then walked away believing I wasn’t as bad off as a thought. Another time I visited a rehabilitation hospital in the middle of the night at the bequest of a friend who drove me there, but I never went in or even knocked on the door.
In both instances, I talked myself out of getting help because I talked myself into thinking I didn’t really need it. I leaned into the comfortable familiarity of my alcohol consumption and concluded I was OK. I wasn’t, but I was still comfortable enough to not really stare the need for growth and the opportunity to experience it in the eyes. I was, I concluded, just fine as is.
3. Growth is the only elixir that can propel you beyond your crucible.
If I’ve learned anything as the communications director for the brand Beyond the Crucible and as the cohost of the podcast Beyond the Crucible, it’s the truth of the statement above. There is no way to get from setback to significance without growth. You have to do, as Warwick often says, the critical soul work: reflecting on your crucible, the loss it left you with and the lessons it’s taught you about how to move forward. In the simplest possible terms, you can’t grow without talking those steps.
I close every podcast with some variation of these words: “We know how difficult and painful crucibles can be. But we also know that if you learn the lessons of them and apply those lessons moving forward, it’s not the end of your story. In fact, it can be the start of the greatest new chapter in your story, one that leads you to the best destination of all: a life of significance.”
And even when you arrive there, when you have experienced the healing and hope of walking in your gifts and passions pursuing a calling dedicated to serving others, it remains true that that comfort and growth can’t ride the same horse. Because crucibles, like the hiccups, can always return – and often do. In most cases in a different form, accompanied by different circumstances, but having moved beyond one crucible does not make you immune to another. I haven’t had a drink in nearly 28 years, but I’ve had plenty of other personal and professional life-rattling crucibles in that time.
The best way to keep yourself prepared to avoid or bounce back more quickly from a subsequent trial is not to rest in the distracted comfort of believing the road before you is absolutely devoid of potholes. Instead, press into what your earlier crucible taught you about yourself, the growth it’s granted you in your wisdom and resilience, and be ever-ready to dial them up as needed.
Because you and the growth you’ve internalized not only can ride the same horse, they must.
Reflection
What does “growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse” mean to you? Jot it down in your own words.
Have you ever had a tough time getting out of your post-crucible pit because as painful as it was it offered some comfort, too? What did you do to overcome that?
Has feeling comfortable prevented you from moving beyond your crucible? How did you overcome that?
We share inspirational stories and transformational tools from leaders who have moved beyond life’s most difficult moments to create lives of significance.
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.
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.
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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.
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