I don’t say a whole lot during the Beyond the Crucible podcast I cohost with Warwick.

As I explain to guests before we hit record, if he and I were a sports commentating team, he’d be the play-by-play announcer, the one with most of the insights and mic time; and I’d be the color analyst, whose job it is to make sure the audience catches and understands the important moments of action on the field.

One of the ways that plays out most often is my pointing out to listeners how the guest’s crucible experience, while its details differ greatly from Warwick’s story of losing his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty in an ultimately failed $2.25 billion takeover, nonetheless shares many emotional beats with his journey.

It’s astounding, sometimes, how a guest whose worst day was suffering through abuse or addiction or being hit with a devastating physical injury or medical diagnosis uses the exact same language Warwick does to describe how it felt to be at the bottom of the pit … and needed to muster the same resilience to get out of that pit.

Reflecting on those moments led me to think it could be helpful to offer a primer on the kinds of crucibles we’ve encountered on 164 episodes of the podcast, and the universal lessons we’ve discovered that can emanate from them.

After all, I end every show by saying a variation on the theme that your worst day doesn’t have to define you; in fact, if you learn the lessons of your crucible, that worst day can lead to your best day because it can be the fuel to carry you to a life of significance.

In broad brushstrokes, we’ve discovered crucible experiences fall into five categories:

Business Crucibles

Warwick’s crucible was a business crucible. It was on his watch that four generations of family history was lost – at least tangibly.

Guests who’ve experienced business crucibles include Hank McClarty, who by his own admission grew a bit too cocksure as a successful financial planner and wound up unemployed living in a hotel with his two boys needing to rely on the establishment’s free breakfasts to get by.

Kelly Sayre hit a similar low in business – losing a job she thought had her on track to a great career because of a boss who didn’t deal squarely with her.

Physical Crucibles

We’ve heard from many guests who’ve endured life-changing physical crucibles.

Like David Charbonnet, a Navy SEAL who was left a paraplegic after a training accident.

Or Jason Schecterle, a police officer rear-ended in his squad car at a stoplight who nearly died from the fourth-degree burns he suffered.

And Andrea Heuston, who lapsed into a weeks-long coma after an ovarian cyst burst.

Life Crucibles

Among the guests whose life crucibles knocked them down were Donte Wilburn, who turned to selling drugs as a teenager and college student and was nearly killed when a sale went bad.

Adam Vibe Gunton, whose addiction to heroin was so debilitating he begged God to take his life.

And Katie Foulkes, an Olympic rower for her native Australia whose gold-medal dreams were dashed in a very public scandal involving one of her teammates.

Emotional Crucibles

And the emotional crucibles we’ve heard about have been many and varied.

From Esther Fleece Allen, who found herself abandoned by both parents as a teenager, to Chris Singleton, whose mother was murdered in a mass church shooting.

Quiet Crucibles

Quiet crucibles are the kind to which we dedicated our eight-part series on discovering your second-act significance. These are those moments in life when you find yourself questioning “Is this all there is?” You may not have been knocked off your feet, but you definitely feel stuck in an unfulfilling place.

That’s what Robert Miller felt, a successful lawyer who had dreamed since his teens of being a musician.

Nancy Volpe Beringer, too – who found her life’s calling as a fashion designer after a successful career as a union representative that still left her feeling something was missing.

I’ve not drilled down too deeply on any of these stories, because the focus of Beyond the Crucible is never as great on what our guests have been through as it is on how they got through their tragedies and turned them into triumph. And there are definite themes in their stories in bouncing forward from their setbacks and failures that each of us can lean into when we encounter our own crucibles. Here are just three:

1. Mindset is everything.

Our guests have universally come to view their crucibles not as things that have happened to them, but things that have happened for them. The traumas and tragedies they’ve experienced, they’ve come to believe, do not define them, but have refined them. Developing that perspective, is the only way to build a ladder to climb out of the pit.

2. Don’t go it alone.

Moving beyond your crucible is a team sport. What our podcast guests have done, what Warwick stresses as so important to do, is find and lean into fellow travelers. Family, friends, colleagues, professional counselors and coaches will provide insights and strategies to help you find the strength and resilience to rise out of the pit.

3. Take the first right step, then the next right step.

Very few of our guests have gone from tragedy to triumph in a one-and-done leap. Incremental gains have been the order of their recovery. As you allow your crucible to teach you more about how you are designed, what you are off-the-charts passionate about, you can begin to set your feet on the path of what a life of significance looks like for you. If will not just lead you out of the pit, it will lead you to a life lived on purpose, dedicated to serving others.

Crucible experiences come at us wrapped in myriad circumstances. As different as they may seem from each other on the surface, underneath the way we experience them, the things we must learn and do to overcome them are surprisingly similar. In that truth there is great hope that they are not insurmountable.

Reflection:

Ready to create a life you love?

We’ve just finished an entertaining and insightful series on our Beyond the Crucible podcast called BURN THE SHIPS. We interviewed seven guests from wildly diverse backgrounds who had one critical thing in common: They made bold, dramatic pivots in their lives, leaving one direction behind — even a lucrative or rewarding direction — to pursue something that to them is more fulfilling/daring.

From each one of those guests, we learned the very real stakes that accompany a “burn the ships” moment. Consider the meaning of the idiom, as defined in the Cambridge Dictionary: “If you are in a situation and you burn your boats/bridges, you destroy all possible ways of going back to that situation.”

That takes courage. Belief in your vision. Trust in your abilities. All three of those statements apply to the guests we interviewed.

From their journeys (and our own) we learned five crucial truths necessary to achieving a life of satisfaction and significance when determining to take a match to your ships:

1. Beware of “toxic persistence.”

That’s the counsel of Mike Beckham, who left behind a fulfilling executive career at a nonprofit ministry to apply his skills to the corporate world. He would go on to found the uber successful bottle, tumbler and accessories company Simple Modern – but not before an earlier effort fell short of gaining enough traction to generate a sustainable bottom line.

While the conventional wisdom in such a situation is to batten down the hatches and press on, he decided to burn another set of ships. That’s because, he told us, while mustering the pluck to stick to an idea through hard times is almost universally applauded, sometimes the wiser decision is accepting the reality that success is not in the cards.

“Persistence in the wrong context is more destructive than anything else,” he said. Having the moxie to live out that truth led directly to the multimillion-dollar success of Simple Modern.

2. Lean into your passion.

We heard this, saw evidence of it, from a few guests. One was Eryn Eddy, who was earning a nice living and building a nice career in the music industry, licensing her songs to popular TV shows, when something she did almost impulsively as a thank you to fans made clear she was even more dedicated encouraging others. After spray-painting the phrase “So Worth Loving” on TV shirts sent to her by her supporters, she saw the life-affirming hope those words gave to those who needed to embody the message. She burned her musical ships to devote herself to spreading that message more widely, establishing the apparel and accessories brand So Worth Loving.

Darwin Shaw had a similar experience when he walked away from a medical career in his native Britain. He became an E.R. doctor after years of education and training, but left it all behind for more creative pursuits like acting and filmmaking. He’s played the Apostle Peter in the record-breaking TV miniseries The Bible and been featured in two cinematic universes – James Bond and Marvel.  He offers this advice to others contemplating  similarly radical burning of their ships: “If you can hone in on what’s truthful for you and follow that, I don’t think you’re ever going to regret it.”

That’s the life our guest Joel Hungate is living today. A biomedical engineer by training, he’s been drawn to the adventure offered by the outdoors from an early age. After his mother died by suicide, he made some of her final words to him, “Just do it,” his life’s motto. That’s led to his appearance on Netflix’s survivalist reality series Outlast and prompted his pursuit of his life’s mission showing others how to live a life of “adventure readiness.” “It’s the next frontier in well-being; where health is a ‘means’ not an ‘end’ — where people are empowered with the inspiration and know-how to go places they never thought they would go, do things they never thought they could do, with a confidence and community they never imagined they would find, where adventure truly becomes a lifestyle.”

3. Do the inner work.

Finnian Kelly had accumulated his share of success – a prestigious military career, top-shelf entrepreneurship, star of a National Geographic channel documentary. But it all eventually failed him. Because he had never cared for the wounded soul he suffered as a boy, he told us, his world crashed around him in the wake of a difficult divorce. That’s when he finally did the inner work necessary to allow him to move on to a life of authentic purpose – to give him the courage to burn his ships. Today, he’s healed sufficiently to help others do the same as a speaker and coach who guides them into living with authentic intentionality.

Dan Wolgemuth also had inner work to do. For him, the shift from a corporate career that included a stint at General Electric during its heyday under the leadership of Jack Welch to leading the nonprofit ministry Youth for Christ only after he came to terms in his head and heart that he was not the author of his own life’s story. He had to hold his success with open palms to find true significance, he explained. “That burn the ship moment,” he told us, “had to happen first in my own soul.”

4. You don’t need all the details at the start if you have the direction.

The most dramatic story we heard from a guest was that of Donte Wilburn. He fell in with the wrong crowd in high school and started selling drugs, graduating to bigger deals as he worked to graduate from college. But then a sale went bad and he found himself with a gun barrel pressed against his forehead.

He survived that night, but still faced incarceration. Contemplating suicide as he awaited the outcome of his legal troubles, his mindset shifted when his mother told him repeatedly, “It’s going to be OK.” And it was. He was sentenced to work release and finished up his degree while working the only job he could find – washing cars at a detailing shop. He didn’t know where his life was going to end up after he burned the ships that got him on the wrong side of the law. But he kept sailing in the right direction.

It’s all become much clearer now. He graduated college and kept working his way up in the auto detailing business. He now owns it and mentors the teens and twentysomethings who work for him. “I know what change looks like because I had to do it myself,” he told us. “I found that my darkest time was the beginning of my best times.”

5. Little ships count, too.

It’s easy to think for a moment to qualify for burn-the-ships status, it needs to be an ocean liner you’re setting ablaze. That’s not true – at all. We learned that on our own journey, which we documented on the podcast series, when we changed our name from Crucible Leadership to Beyond the Crucible.

As we’ve explained, we realized that what we do day-in, day-out was less directed just at business leaders and less focused solely on Warwick’s personal story from setback to significance. We’ve become more about offering tools to help people turn their trials into triumphs.

That has been the inspiration for our free Life of Significance Assessment and our most ambitious undertaking to date, our Discover Your Second-Act Significance e-course. The shift in names is not a pivot from our mission and vision, but an adjustment. We sparked up some boats, but not our biggest vessels and not to sail to a completely different destination. It’s still igniting the ships, to be sure, but more of a controlled burn. And that takes its own kind of boldness.

Reflection:

Ready to create a life you love?

We’ve shifted from Crucible Leadership. And that opens up some very exciting opportunities for the future.

Stop a minute before you read any further and look at the page header on this blog. You’ll see it says Beyond the Crucible. That’s the new name of the business founded and led by Warwick Fairfax. We’re still all about hope and healing, helping you realize your worst days don’t have to define you; still committed to joining you on the journey from setback to significance, still dedicated to setting you on and helping you along the path that leads from trials to triumph.

The new name does not mean we have a new vision or mission. It means our vision and mission have been refined. That’s what we’ve been telling and showing you for the last five years – visions grow and change over time. Now we’ve taken steps to spotlight how that truth applies to us.

How has the Beyond the Crucible mission and vision grown since Warwick founded the company to share the lessons he learned about bouncing back after his $2.25 billion failure that cost his family the media dynasty started by his great-great grandfather?

Here are three desires that fueled the changes we’ve made:

1. We wanted to make clear we don’t just serve business leaders.

Crucible Leadership was the perfect name for what we did when we started. Warwick created the company to highlight the key takeaways from his book, Crucible Leadership: Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance, which he had written but not yet published. The book focused on how such things as faith, authenticity and perseverance led him to “get out of the pit,” as he puts it, of his crucible.

As our team worked to help Warwick find a great publisher (he did — Morgan James Publishing) and polish his manuscript, we started to add additional offerings besides this blog and his social media pages. The highest-profile addition was, of course, the Beyond the Crucible podcast, which premiered Nov. 5, 2019. In the going-on-four-years we’ve been doing the show (on which I am blessed to be his cohost), we increasingly discovered something important from the scores of guests we’ve interviewed: not all of their crucibles were leadership — or business — related. In fact, it was far more common to talk with men and women who had been through personal tragedies — physical illness or injury, abuse, the death of loves ones and other difficult life challenges.

What we were doling day-in, day-out — especially after Warwick’s book launched as a Wall Street Journal best-seller — became more focused on offering tools to the widest possible audience. That has been the inspiration for things like our Life of Significance Assessment and our most ambitious undertaking to date, our Discover Your Second-Act Significance e-course. It became obvious to us that we needed to reset the brand to encompass all that we had become. Hence expanding the Beyond the Crucible name beyond the podcast to the organization as a whole.

2. We wanted to emphasize our pivot from primarily telling Warwick’s story and the stories of other leaders to helping you live out yours.

We help you live out your story through the stories from our many podcast guests, and from the insights and tools that we offer and will be offering.

One of the truly breakthrough moments for Beyond the Crucible as a brand has been the data we’ve collected from those who’ve taken the Life of Significance Assessment. What we have learned from the more than 5,200 respondents is that nearly three-quarters of them — 72 percent — report they have experienced something so traumatic or painful that it fundamentally changed their life. That’s a result not from a quick-and-dirty online poll; it’s a scientifically valid number. And it’s just one of the numbers that provides great insight into not just the frequency of crucible experiences, but their effects on those who go through them.

What does that mean for you? The insights we’ve gleaned not just from Warwick’s story, but also from our wide variety of podcast guests, can now be augmented by statistically relevant perspectives about what those hit by and bouncing back from crucibles go through. We have both quantitative and qualitative evidence to help you better understand the setbacks you’ve endured and muster a battle plan to move past them. Stay tuned. You’ll be hearing much more about this — and given the chance to seize new tools rooted in those revelations enroute to your life of significance — in the weeks and months and years to come.

3. We wanted to offer you more and deeper opportunities to interact with us.

An important thing to note about the change that comes with our updated branding is that we’re moving from a label (Crucible Leadership) to an action-oriented promise (Beyond the Crucible). We hope you will engage with us from this point on by asking a simple question: How can this offering or product help me move beyond my crucible?

This is not a minor point. We want you to think of us more than ever as a partner in helping you take an action that moves you closer to the life of significance you’ve always wanted to lead. To that end, Beyond the Crucible will offer you greater opportunities to interact and ask questions of Warwick and others on the team. Be on the lookout for more live Q-and-A’s and real-time teachings. In fact, let’s not wait to make our communications to you more an invitation to dialogue than purely a monologue. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve gifted us with your attention through this blog. Now allow us to gift you in return. Take a moment right now to ask us a question and send it to info@beyondthecrucible.com … And please keep that email address handy to use anytime you have a question or suggestion you want to send our way.

We look forward to walking alongside you as you move beyond your crucible with Beyond the Crucible.

Reflection:

Ready to create a life you love?

To be a “Scrooge” during the holiday season carries the connotation of being miserly and miserable, prizing possessions and position over people. As written by Charles Dickens in his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol and brought to motion-picture life in more than a dozen movie and TV adaptations, Ebenezer Scrooge has become synonymous with “a crabby, selfish old man who hates Christmas.”

Of course, “Bah, humbug!” is not the end of Scrooge’s story… In fact, here at Beyond the Crucible, he could be the poster character for, as we often say, not letting your worst day define you, for moving beyond setback and failure. Especially this year, in fact, one in which we’ve spent a good deal of time exploring how to discover your second-act significance, there may be no better character who comes around every Christmas to study as a means of learning how we each can move from “Is this all there is?” to “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”

We devoted an entire podcast series to the stories of guests no longer willing to suffer through that frustration, who sought to make changes in what they did for a living and how they did their living. Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t come to that crisis point of his own volition, of course; he is not self-aware enough to feel stuck, dissatisfied with the direction of his life or discontented that he’s not living with a sense of purpose and calling.

But those visits he receives from the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future – what are they if not a word-for-word summary of the 3 Steps to Significance Process we’ve laid out in our first-ever e-course “Discover Your Second-Act Significance”?

Those are the beats of any faithful filming of A Christmas Carol. Let’s examine them as they play out in the 1951 version, considered the most classic telling, to help us navigate our own journey to an authentic life and career filled with deeper meaning, purpose, fulfillment and joy.

  1. Learn lessons from the ghost of Christmas past. 

The first ghost takes Scrooge back to his childhood, lonely at boarding school, rejected by his father who sent him there. “Nobody has ever cared for me,” he sadly tells his beloved sister, Fan, who comes to tell him their father has relented in his disdain for the boy because their mother died while giving birth to him. The ghost also shows him scenes of the parties and dances he used to attend with friends at Christmastime as a young adult, his sweet courtship of his girlfriend Alice and the people-first priorities of his first boss, Mr. Fezziwig. “It’s not just for money we spend a lifetime building up a business,” the older man says after a Mr. Jorkin, with decidedly different thoughts about what’s most important in life, tries unsuccessfully to buy him out.

But then life gets harder, and Scrooge gets colder, in the scenes the ghost shows him. Fezziwig loses his business to Jorkin, who hires Scrooge and pairs him with the more cutthroat Jacob Marley to run the operation. Fan dies giving birth to her son Fred, Scrooge’s nephew. Jorkin embezzles funds from the company and Scrooge and Marley make it right with the board as a means of taking over the firm. Alice breaks off their engagement, saying the harshness of the world has made Ebenezer callous and fearful. As Marley lies dying, Scrooge refuses to leave work even a moment early to say a final goodbye to his partner. He misses the chance but feels no remorse; in fact, he takes the man’s money and house.

These insights from the ghost of Christmas past mirror what we urge those who take our e-course to examine: what they both enjoyed and didn’t enjoy doing when they were younger and what they can learn from those experiences to help them craft a new vision to launch them into their second act. The journey through his past reminds Scrooge he once lived life in pursuit of something more than making money. He once not only liked people but loved them. The ghost suggests it’s not too late for him to have all of that back again, to recover the earnestness and kindness he lost as he grew older and more jaded. He dejectedly says, “I’m too old and beyond hope.”

But the next ghosts prove to him that isn’t true…

  1. Plant seeds of a new vision from the ghost of Christmas present.

The second ghost brings Ebenezer into the lives of the people he knows, and treats shamefully, in the present day. They can’t see him, but he can see them. First his nephew Fred and his friends and family, who are having a festive holiday gathering and talking about Uncle Scrooge in kindly terms. They feel love for him, but a little pity, too. Next they visit Alice, who is caring for the poor at a shelter.

Then on to the home of Bob Crachit, Scrooge’s clerk. The Crachits have an ill and disabled son, Tiny Tim, but they are enjoying a warm Christmas together – their patriarch not saying a cross word about his boss despite the demanding, compassionless way he is treated by him.

In these moments Scrooge is allowed to see himself through the eyes of others – those whom he treats with indifference and disdain. The ghost tells him the purpose of the visits is to show him “the good in men’s hearts,” but Ebenezer sees more than that. He recognizes the same good that was once in his heart. This is the moment in A Christmas Carol that Scrooge takes stock of his life and wonders “Is this all there is?” Working long hours for money he hoards, no one to love and no one to love him? Even before the final spirit appears, Scrooge is beginning to imagine what a new vision for his life might look like.

  1. Transformation is possible courtesy of the ghost of Christmas future. 

When the ghost that shows Scrooge the future shows up, he has been moved enough by what his first two visitors showed him to ask a critical question: “Surely the ends will change?”

When he is shown his destitute servants showing off the meager possessions they took from him after he died, when he is given a glimpse of the Crachits after the death of Tiny Tim, he emphatically declares, “I am not the man I was!” He has come to realize it is not, indeed, too late for him to change. Not too late for him to live his life differently. Not too late for him to launch a second act of true significance.

He awakens Christmas morning “light as a feather” and “happy as a schoolboy.” Not only has his outlook changed, but his personality and even his visage has. He happily tosses a coin to a boy on the street – the kind of urchin he would have derided before – and asks him to bring the butcher’s grandest turkey anonymously to the Crachits. The next day, when Bob returns to work a bit late, Scrooge pretends for a moment to be his old taskmaster self, poised to scold his clerk. Instead, he raises the man’s salary and when his largesse is met with a befuddled look says, “I haven’t taken leave of my senses, Bob. I’ve found them!” The character and talents he lived by in his younger days have been reignited. By the end of the movie, the narrator says that Ebenezer Scrooge has not only become a man “who knew how to keep Christmas well,” but also a second father to the healed Tiny Tim. God bless them, every one, indeed.

Scrooge’s journey in A Christmas Carol may not be a common road to take to find a life of second-act significance, but as different as the details of his story might be from ours, we all can still learn from it the steps to take to find the fulfilling existence we’ve always wanted. It begins with understanding where we’ve been and what gifts and abilities got us there; then crafting a unique vision rooted in our wiring now that we are again tapped into it; and finally making that vision a reality by taking one small step at a time toward living life on purpose in service to others.

Even without the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, that’s a recipe for banishing the “Bah, humbug!” from our lives.

Reflection:

Ready to create a life you love?

When the Beyond the Crucible team was brainstorming a name for our special fall podcast series on navigating through crucible experiences involving the loss of a loved one, or of a dream, or of an aspect of our identity, we were a little concerned about the name we settled on: Gaining From Loss. Was it too glib? An oxymoron? Would listeners – not to mention our guests sharing the details of their losses – think it insensitive?

At the root of our trepidation we wondered: Is it a bridge too far to say that a loss that devastates us can lead to a gain that enriches us?

We worried unnecessarily, as it turned out. Each of the five guests we interviewed agreed that gain could indeed come from loss. That it indeed came from their losses. With the holiday season now upon us – serving to heighten the intensity with which so many of us struggle with losses both old and new – we’ve culled key learnings from each of our guests to help you on your journey of gaining from loss.

Here are five practical action steps to lead you along that path:

  1. Be patient. 

Jason Schechterle was barely a year into his dream career as a police officer in 2001 when his squad car was hit from behind while stopped by a taxi traveling more than 100 mph. The explosive fire in which he was trapped for minutes left him in a coma for two and a half months, initially robbed him of his sight and led to severe scarring and disfigurement as he endured 56 surgeries to first save, and then improve, his life.

Through the physical and emotional trauma of all that he lost in the crash, he has come to live by a motto he encourages those he talks to as a motivational speaker to live by: “Sometimes the most beautiful, inspirational changes will disguise themselves as utter devastation. Be patient.”

His patience led to him and his wife adding a third child to their family, realizing his dream of working as a homicide detective and embracing all he’s not just suffered through, but grown through. “I have gained everything,” he says today, “and lost nothing.”

  1. Work to change what you cannot accept.

Shelley Klingerman’s police office brother, Greg, was murdered last year in an ambush while he walked to his car after work. She was devastated by the loss but refused to let that evil act be the period on the sentence of Greg’s life. She refused to “accept what she could not change” and instead dove into changing what she could not accept.

She launched Project Never Broken, a nonprofit committed to extending hope and healing through stressing resiliency to other law enforcement officers and their families struggling through the aftermath of trauma. In doing so, she is ensuring the true essence of Greg lives on while also serving others.

  1. Understand there is room for your pain on the other side. 

Kayla Stoecklein lost her husband, Andrew, to suicide in 2018, leaving her a widow with three young boys to raise and an unexpected, uncertain future to face. What she learned as she moved forward, tentatively at first, was that “It’s a daily choice to welcome and acknowledge the pain, and it’s a daily choice to welcome and chase the joy.”

“The wounds we carry with us are not obstacles to simply get over,” she says. “Rather, our wounds are the way through. And loss gives us new eyes to see the grace threaded through all humanity.”

She wrote a book — Rebuilding Beautiful: Welcome What Is, Dare to Dream Again, and Step Bravely into What Could Be — to both document her journey in gaining from loss and to help guide others along the same path. It is a 256-page encouragement that “a beautiful world waits for us on the other side of loss. A world so expansive it has room for our pain.”

  1. Intentionally cultivate joy as you continue to grieve. 

Marisa Renee Lee’s mother lost her battle with breast cancer when her daughter was just 25 years old. In the near decade and a half since then, Lee has crafted a successful career working on Wall Street and in the Obama White House. Her successes, she says, have come not in spite or even because of the loss she’s lived through. She has been able to live with the loss and thrive beyond it because she’s also never stopped living with the love.

As she puts in in her book, Grief Is Love: Living with Loss, “We are taught that grief is something that arrives in the immediate aftermath of death, and while that’s certainly true, it’s not the whole story. Grief is the experience of navigating your loss, figuring out how to deal with the absence of your loved one forever. It’s understanding that the pain you feel because of their absence is because you’ve experienced a great love. That love doesn’t end when they die, and you don’t have to get over it.”

In fact, she says, a critical key to managing grief is to find joy to accompany it through such means as leaning into celebrations – even if it’s for obscure holidays – and focusing on serving and encouraging others. She calls that “Being a Lisa” – her mother’s name – because that’s who her mother was.

  1. Live as a good ancestor to those who come after you. 

Steve Leder, Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, says that even after officiating more than 1,000 funerals, it wasn’t until his own father died that he felt in his heart, rather than just knowing in his head, the depth and breadth of losing a loved one. The lessons he’s learned and the applications he’s still walking out have made vivid to him that the losses of all stripes we experience can be the fuel for living more intentionally.

In his book The Beauty of What Remains he exhorts readers to do that via a simple message: to recognize how fleeting and finite time really is, and to allow that realization to prompt us to make the most of our blessed lives with the people we love.

He has a surprising way of inspiring that in others. “I often tell people that a great way to think about your life is to live as a good ancestor,” he says. “We don’t think of ourselves as ancestors when we are alive, but we are all going to be ancestors after we die.  A very instructive question to ask while alive is, ‘Am I living as a good ancestor for the generations yet to come?’  Most likely that will lead to a very meaningful life.”.

Loss is one of life’s most devastating crucibles. But it can not only be moved beyond, it can be an experience that leads to some of life’s most enriching gains.

Reflection:

Get the whole story…

Ready to create a life you love?

When you work hard at something over an extended period of time that you’re passionate about, one of your highest hopes is that what you’ve created will be appreciated by others and will be beneficial to them.

But it’s always a nice surprise to experience just how beneficial it is for you too.

That’s been the experience of the entire Beyond the Crucible team as we’ve readied our first-ever e-course, Discover Your Second-Act Significance, which is hosted by our founder, Warwick Fairfax, and cohosted by me.

The course leads you on a journey of self-discovery from feeling stuck to awakening your passion, helps you craft a vision rooted in your talents, and guides you into unleashing a more fulfilling life that leaves a legacy you’ll be proud of. Plus, it’s all presented in a way that allows you to go through it at your own pace.

While there are a lot of things we can tell you about the course – like it’s three one-hour long video modules, over a dozen downloadable worksheets, and insightful clips from our nine-part podcast series on Second-Act Significance that ran all of April and May – frankly, this blog is more than an advertisement.

Even as the guides of this course, Warwick and I learned a lot…

For me, the “a ha” moment was coming to understand the nature of the journey we were guiding people on. After we finished the Second-Act Significance podcast series, I wrote a blog that recounted some of the key learnings guests have shared from their experiences. You may remember the star of that blog – which you can read here – was a friend of mine in the late ’90s, Albie Pearson, baseball’s 1958 American League Rookie of the Year.

I won’t get into all the details of Albie’s story again, but the key point was that despite his success as a pro ballplayer, he faced a moment in which he was forced to ponder, “Is this all there is?” Was the life he was living his destiny, his calling? Was he following a vision he was off-the-charts passionate about and living on purpose, dedicated to serving others – what we call a life of significance?

We don’t mention Albie by name – strangely enough – in the e-course. But we do talk about that feeling of “Is this all there is?” that so many people experience when their first acts aren’t as fulfilling as they’d hoped.

And I realized, smack in the middle of recording the e-course, that the journey we were guiding people on when it comes to second-act significance is not so much “from setback to significance,” which Warwick and I have said hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times in describing the path from moving beyond a failure or setback.

I realized that the journey when you feel stuck – perhaps even successfully stuck – and unfulfilled is a little different. And out of my mouth popped the phrase “From ‘Is this all there is?’ to ‘This is all I want.’ That was a powerful moment for me. Moving from dissatisfaction to satisfaction. It’s different than moving from setback to significance, but definitely an emotional and circumstantial cousin.

Another eye-opening aspect of directing people through this course was the depth that gets added to the learning when you move beyond storytelling as a learning tool and add in the soul work of the worksheets we’ve included. Warwick found the one called “The Younger You” particularly moving and meaningful.

It asks questions about your earlier days like “What was most fun for me?” “What was decidedly not fun?” and “What inspired me when I believed that everything was possible?” That third one really resonated with Warwick, who said he had to think back to what he really wanted to be when he was young. He’d never thought about it at all.

He thought, as the fifth-generation heir to his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty, that he needed to be the next Fairfax to take the reins of that business. But the worksheet got him thinking deeply about the things that inspired him when he was younger. One of the first thoughts to leap to mind was his love of science fiction dating back to the late ’60s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was fascinated, captivated by the vision of the future it painted, with then-unthinkable technology like a talking computer and video conferencing – a commonplace reality today.

As an adult, he was drawn to Star Trek: Next Generation, perhaps because Capt. Jean Luc Picard was a philosophical thinker who reminded him of his dad. Those influences, and his love of history, a passion he inherited from his father, made Warwick realize he’d always been a bit of a dreamer, a reflective person. He connected the dots to realize that much of what he loves about leading Crucible Leadership – drawing stories out of podcast guests, encouraging vision, passion and vulnerability in our audience — could be traced to those “younger days.”

What we’re most excited about, though, is the journey this e-course can take you on. It really is designed to help make the learning actionable and more concrete. Yes, we always hope that our podcasts and blogs make an impact, but the e-course takes it to another level through concrete tools we haven’t offered before.

So, if that sounds like something you think may benefit you, or maybe even a friend or family member, please visit www.secondactsignificance.com to learn more. You can also listen to our recent podcast episode on which Warwick and I discuss the origins of the course and why it may be the first one we offer, but it certainly won’t be our last. You can listen here.

We look forward to guiding you on your journey to achieving second-act significance!

Reflection

Learn more about our new e-course…

This month we’re wrapping up our special BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE summer podcast series Lights, Camera, Crucibles: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. It’s been a fun and insightful ride, packed with critical takeaways from some of my and Warwick’s favorite superhero, action hero and sports hero films that can help all of us – even those without secret identities – move beyond challenges and chart a course to lives of significance.

Here are five of the lessons we can apply to our own lives from the stories of these beloved characters:

  1. Develop perseverance

Captain America tells the story of Steve Rogers, a slight, sickly young man at the outset of World War II who wants desperately to fight for America because he can’t stand bullies – and he sees the Nazis as just that. After getting turned away several times at enlistment offices, he is selected for a top-secret super-soldier project by the doctor who developed the drug. Steve is chosen over more “qualified” candidates because the doctor sees in the Brooklyn kid kindness and humility and a never-say die attitude. Steve refuses, for instance, to take the military’s “no’s” for an answer. Often bullied, he tells his attackers, “I could do this all day” – and that’s exactly the kind of perseverance he will need after receiving the serum and becoming Captain America.

Perhaps even more than his chemically enhanced strength and agility, Steve’s spirit to keep meeting challenges head-on – in or out of costume – is what makes him a hero. As we encounter our own crucibles, adopting that mindset of “I could do this all day” as we move beyond them is a key element to achieving a life of significance.

  1. Find a team of fellow travelers

A key truth in Crucible Leadership is the importance of having a team of advisers who don’t just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Early on in Iron Man, such people aren’t the ones Tony Stark surrounds himself with. The billionaire industrialist playboy only has time for admirers – until he is attacked overseas by a foe using missiles his company made.

He only recovers in captivity because another prisoner, a fellow scientist named Ho Yinsen, inserts a magnet in his chest to keep his heart from being pierced by shrapnel. But Yinsen doesn’t just save Tony’s life – he makes it worth saving. Yinsen’s admonishment that Tony stop wasting his life, and his sacrifice in laying down his own life to save Stark’s, inspires the businessman to make other people his business. He improves upon the suit of iron he builds to escape his captors — to defend the world from earthly and cosmic threats.

We similarly need a team of fellow travelers who will speak truth to us as we pursue lives of significance.

  1. Live life on purpose, dedicated to serving others

Peter Parker is a brainy high school kid picked on and labeled as nerdy by classmates. But when he’s bitten by a radioactive spider during a field trip, he develops the proportional powers of an arachnid. The new abilities come with new crucibles for Peter, though. His me-first attitude, focused on trying to earn money with his strength to buy a car to impress the girl he secretly loves, leads to his beloved Uncle Ben, who raised him like a son after Peter’s parents died, to be murdered.

Peter learns the lessons of that crucible, and of his uncle’s last words to him – “With great power comes great responsibility” – to become Spider-Man and protect New York from those who would prey on the city and its inhabitants. Spider-Man’s commitment to putting others ahead of himself makes it impossible for him to be with Mary Jane, the girl he loves, reasoning his enemies will always try to attack those close to him. But he continues to live a life of significance spurred on by Uncle Ben’s exhortation.

Using our gifts and talents in a responsible way that is others-focused, not self-focused, is what a life of significance looks like.

  1. Don’t lose sight of your mission … or the values that undergird it

In The Natural, Roy Hobbs is an otherworldly talented baseball player whose aspirations to be “the best who ever played the game” are sidetracked when he is shot as a teenager by a woman he didn’t recognize as a threat. He beats the odds, though, and finds his way to the majors many years later to become his era’s top player, even as an unscrupulous owner and a wily gambler try to keep him down.

His blind spot for alluring women almost is his undoing again when he falls for a moll in the gambler’s employ who distracts him from his vision to be baseball’s greatest star. He goes into a terrible slump that almost costs his team a playoff berth – but is pulled back from the precipice by the love of a truly good woman, the high school sweetheart that reenters his life.

The relationship redeems Roy by setting him back on the course he carved out that aligned with his passions and talents. The same discipline in keeping our eyes on our goals is critical for us, especially in the wake of crucibles.

  1. Keep your sense of humor 

We’ve all heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”; this is true even/especially when the sickness we’re fighting is moving beyond a crucible. In Die Hard, cop John McClane finds himself doing solo battle with a group of terrorists that seize the office building where his wife, Holly, works. Even as life-threatening crucibles pile up, he does not take himself too seriously.

He finds the humor in his plight, as deadly serious as it is. Like the gag he pulls after killing the first henchman: Sending him a down in the elevator to where the terrorist leader, Hans, is holding their hostages, having plopped a Santa hat on the dead man’s head and written on his sweatshirt: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho-Ho-Ho.” Later, while crawling through the building’s air ducts to evade his pursuers, he flips on a Zippo lighter he took from one of the other terrorists he neutralized and quips as he tries to navigate his way forward, channeling Holly: “Come out to the coast. We’ll get together, have a few laughs.”

Lines and actions like these serve to cushion the blow of the crucibles McClane keeps suffering. He teaches us the most tragic circumstances can be met with an attitude of hopeful optimism. We don’t laugh because what we’re going through is funny, but because it helps stabilize our spirits to meet the challenges – emotional and otherwise – we’ll encounter on our path to significance.

Learn the lessons of these movie heroes and you’ll be ready for your close-up – even in the midst of a crucible.

Reflection

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We are in the middle of a special summer podcast series at BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE we’re calling Lights, Cameras, Crucibles: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. It’s been fun for me, both as cohost of the show and as a movie and hero fan since childhood, to dive into these insightful and practical discussions with Warwick for what will wind up being eight weeks in duration.

It occurs to me, though, that some friends of Crucible Leadership might be wondering why we’d spend so much time – two months – talking about fictional characters and the therefore fictional crucibles they’ve faced. With so many real-life men and women who’ve had all-too-real traumas and tragedies, isn’t it more important to focus on their stories?

Of course, there is great inspiration that comes from hearing the journeys of those who are navigating beyond their crucibles to live lives of significance. Those are the individuals, after all, whose stories we usually bring to listeners of the podcast. But as an article a few years ago in Psychology Today pointed out, there are surprising ways fictional heroes improve our lives. And in addition to unpacking the lessons these characters can teach us about moving beyond setbacks and failures, we also wanted to offer the truths discussed in that article.

So, as you continue diving into Lights, Camera, Crucibles, keep these points in mind from Psychology Today.

  1. Heroes produce an emotion called “elevation”

As the article by Scott T. Allison from April 6, 2014, notes, research suggests heroes and heroic action may evoke a unique emotional response that scientists have labeled “elevation.” The term and the concept undergirding it come from Thomas Jefferson, who used the phrase “moral elevation” to describe the euphoric feeling we get when reading great literature.

When we experience elevation, Allison wrote, we feel a mix of awe, reverence and admiration elicited by a morally beautiful act. Think about it: When Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane and defeats the Green Goblin, or Batman saves Gotham City from the Joker’s latest scheme to terrorize innocent civilians, or John McClane defeats the terrorists who’ve laid siege to Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve in Die Hard, don’t you experience the climactic moment(s) with a sense of elevation, satisfaction and euphoria that the white hats have triumphed over the black hats?

  1. Heroes heal our psychic wounds

In ancient cultures, tribe members huddled around a communal fire at the end of each day, gathering together for warmth, yes, but also for protection. These acts of coming together also included another key activity—storytelling. And these initial stories were quite likely tales of heroes and heroic action, related in part to add to the sense of protection. Those listening felt safer knowing that forces of good were out there preserving their safety. That’s why so many modern hero stories exist in multiple iterations. Robin Hood has been a film staple since the silent-movie era because we are comforted when we imagine there’s someone dedicated to battling the forces of oppression to make life more livable, more enjoyable, more safe, for the marginalized and maligned.

  1. Heroes nourish our connections with other people

Storytelling is a community-building activity, Allison writes. The sense of connectivity it builds is critical to human emotional well-being. Hero stories create a strong sense of social identity, especially if the hero is a winning one – not just in outcome but in character and personality. The best, most resonant heroes reflect and reinforce the community’s most cherished values. Captain America’s character, Coach Norman Dale’s humble redemption in Hoosiers and Spider-Man’s sacrificial love for those closest to him give us something to aim for in our relationships.

  1. Heroes show us how to transform our lives, turning us into heroes ourselves.

Comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell said in 1988 that all of us undergo a hero-like journey throughout our lives. It’s only by having the courage and faith to risk change and growth in our own lives that we reach our own potential. It is nearly impossible to watch any of the movies we are discussing in our series and not feel the pull to a similar brand of heroism – not saving the world though superpowers, maybe, but dedicating our lives and gifts to serving others in ways similar to how a superhero, or action hero, or sports hero lives a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.

Psychologist Eric Erikson’s stages of human development, as discussed by Allison, posits that adults grow in significant ways as they gain age and experience, then in mid-life reach a stage of generativity, which Erikson defines as pouring something meaningful back into the society that has given them so much.

That sounds like living a life of significance, doesn’t it?

Reflection

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As a baseball-mad boy growing up in Southern California in the 1940s, Albie Pearson dreamed of being a big-leaguer. At 6, he snatched his mother’s blue satin pillows from the house and made a makeshift diamond in the backyard. 

Each “game” featured the same ending. Swinging a bat all alone, he’d mime hitting a home run against the New York Yankees to win the World Series. He rounded the bases to the imagined roar of the crowd, joyous over what he hoped would be the crowning achievement of the baseball career he longed to have. 

As he crossed “home plate,” though, he heard something else. A voice in his head saying, “Join my team.” He wasn’t entirely sure what it meant and forgot about it as quickly as it came to him.

Pearson went on to get his shot at the majors, playing for a few teams before coming back to Southern California to join the Los Angeles Angels. Just 5’ 5” tall, he was what sportswriters call a “scrappy” ballplayer, one who would win the 1958 American League Rookie of the Year Award and hit just 28 home runs in his 10-year career.  

One of them came against the Yankees, off six-time World Series champ and eventual Hall of Famer Whitey Ford. As soon as he deposited Ford’s curveball over the right-field fence, Pearson didn’t celebrate, though. He recalled that voice in his head three decades earlier and realized what he had just achieved would not be his life’s most significant moment.

I was close to Pearson in the late ‘90s. He’s the father-in-law of my pastor at the time in Palm Springs, Calif. When he told that story to me, a fellow baseball fanatic, he said the thought that struck him as he traversed the bases was, “Is this all there is?” His boyhood dream had come true – and he realized it wasn’t his dream at all. Serving others as a pastor – joining God’s team, as the voice he heard at 6 had implored him – was where he would find his life’s true purpose and calling over the next 50-plus years.

I’ve thought of Albie a lot during the last several weeks, as our BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE podcast series Second-Act Significance has unspooled. The beats of what he went through – discovering that there was a richer life on the other side of what occupied years of his attention and effort – has echoed in the stories our guests have shared. 

Their experiences have highlighted three truths that stretch throughout their journeys – whose details are as different as their demographic profiles. They offer a roadmap for how to scratch that “Is this all there is?” itch Albie Pearson felt in the 1960s.

1. It’s never too late, or too early, to pursue a next act in life that brings you more significance

Robert Miller wanted to make music his career from the first time he picked up an instrument in high school. But his dreams were deferred by the usual beats of life – a successful career that took him in another direction, family joys and responsibilities, and a crucible in his 40s when he broke his neck in an accident. 

But in his 60s, he grabbed his guitar and launched his band Project Grand Slam — and finally felt the rush of playing original songs at festivals and concerts around the world. The group has released 11 albums of its unique brand of rock-Latin-jazz fusion.

Miller didn’t just think about his longing to make his dream come true. He had to act on it. Even if his 60th birthday had just passed.

“I said to myself, ‘If I don’t do it now, when the heck am I going to do it?’ ,” Miller explained on the podcast. “I decided if I’m going to do something, if there’s really something left that I want to do, when am I going to do it if I don’t do it now?”

Yvette Bodden, a young mother going through a heart-rending divorce, faced that same decision. As the life she knew unraveled, she slowly found blessing and purpose she would not have discovered without going through that crucible. Bodden stepped into her calling as a thought leader who inspires women – through her Web platform Awakened Woman — to dream big as they pursue their own passions by exercising their giftings. 

“You can fall 100 times, but you can rise up,” she said on the podcast to describe Awakened Woman’s counsel to readers. “I know it sounds simple, but I want to inspire that fight in other women. And I feel my writing is doing that.”

2. When you set out on a journey to new significance, follow your heart and lean into your talents

Melissa Reaves wasn’t sure how her life was going to be OK again after she was fired from her well-paying advertising job. But the assurance of her inner voice gave her the courage and inspiration to embark on a new career that has become a mission – helping professionals use the power of story to write happy endings for their businesses. 

She coaches clients to make what she calls mind movies that add depth and meaning to their communications. Doing so has allowed her to tap into her youthful affinity and talent for acting – reviving a part of her she had allowed to atrophy a bit in her initial career choice. 

“I deep down always thought I would be an entrepreneur,” she said on the podcast. “When I was 25 years old, I thought, ‘I have taken Toastmasters. I am an excellent speaker. I am going to teach people Toastmasters.’ But I was only 25. I then went, ‘I’m not ready for it.’

“But that entrepreneurial Melissa was born inside me. So, when I was stepping out of the smoldering flames (of being fired) and I started to listen to my higher self — all of a sudden, my second half now is on my terms. It’s my life.”

3. Starting small is OK because it’s starting

Erik Orton’s dream job as a playwright and theatrical producer came to a crashing halt when his off-Broadway show was closed after only a few performances. The failure left him fearful and rudderless – until his curiosity about sailing became his family’s passion for it and they steered their boat’s rudder on a 5,000-mile journey from New York to the Caribbean. 

What Erik and his wife Emily learned on the trip, with their five kids sharing the adventure with them, was how to turn worry into wonder and the importance of building confidence, credibility and calm. Those are truths they now teach others through their speaking, writing and coaching.

And it could not have started any smaller. 

“I’d go down to this high rise in the financial districts every afternoon and I’d work 3 till midnight,” Erik said on the podcast of the job he took to make ends meet. “I would take a dinner break right around sunset, and I would walk along the Hudson River. I would see these sailboats that just carve their way up and down, silhouetted against the sky.

“During my dinner break, Emily and I would get on the phone, and we would talk as we try to figure out how to dig ourselves out of this hole we found ourselves in. She was happy that I would see these boats and that they gave me a sense of peace. As I described it often enough, I realized that there was a sailing school right downstairs, and that’s where these boats were coming from. She said, ‘You should go check it out. Maybe you’d want to learn how to sail.’ ”

Second-act significance looks different for each of us. But the steps to get there, to scratch the “Is this all there is?” itch, can be followed by any of us.

Reflection

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Like any good Christmas movie, Die Hard ends on a festive musical note – the yuletide favorite “Let it Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” Along the way, cinematic flourishes associated with The Most Wonderful Time of the Year abound: a big holiday office party, family traveling to join each other to celebrate, characters wearing Santa hats and other clothing that spotlights the season, plastic explosives blowing off the top of a newly built skyscraper.

OK, that last one is a little out of the ordinary for a Christmas film. So is all the gunplay, the terrorists-turned-thieves looking to swipe $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds, the greatest splash of red coming not from wrapped presents but from the protagonist’s wrapped foot after he is forced to run barefoot through glass shattered by machine-gun fire. Those points explain why there are sharp divisions on social media and around the dinner table this time of year about whether Die Hard is really a Christmas movie at all.

In fact, a 2020 poll by YouGuv (not exactly Gallup, but this is not exactly electing the next president) found that only 34 percent of Americans surveyed believe the 1988 action thriller that made Bruce Willis a movie star is also a Christmas film, compared to 44 percent who aren’t buying it. No matter which side you find yourself on regarding that question, though, there is no disputing that Die Hard spotlights insights into moving beyond setbacks and failures in pursuit of a life of significance.

Christmas movie? Up for debate. Crucible movie? Without a doubt.

Consider these key Crucible Leadership teachings and how you might apply them to your life the next time you watch Die Hard (even if it’s after Dec.25):

1. Crucibles often come in bunches, and even though weariness can set in, keep taking one small step toward making your vision a reality

Willis’ character, John McClane, is a New York cop visiting Los Angeles to see his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and their two young children for the holidays. That’s crucible No. 1 – a troubled family life. But McClane hasn’t even dipped his toe into the snowbank of trials he will face.

He arrives at Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve for the Nakatomi Corp.’s company party, dropped off by his chatty limo driver Argyle (De’voreaux White), who agrees to hang around in case the family reunion doesn’t go so well. It doesn’t. Seeing Holly again is not hugs and kisses and “I’ve missed yous”; they squabble about why she’s now using her maiden name, Gennero – and that’s the last time they’ll talk to each other until the end of the picture because of the cavalcade of crucibles that come.

The unraveling begins when Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his henchman arrive at Nakatomi Plaza, kill the security guards and cut all communications, then kidnap and terrorize the party guests – all while John is still in the bathroom cleaning up after his flight. When he hears the gunshots, he’s barefoot (his cabin neighbor on the plane gave him the tip that to relax after air travel anxiety, he should “make fists with his toes” after landing), but he grabs his holster and weapon and runs out to see what’s going on and how he might help.

The crucibles come fast and furious after that, all rooted in McClane trying to stay alive and free the hostages Gruber and his men have taken to make it appear they want something other than all that money in the vault. As the terrorists hunt him down, every little victory runs headlong into another defeat, and our hero can’t seem to fully extricate himself from the corners he gets backed into and the tight spaces he winds up in as he tries to escape.

But here’s the relevant point to apply to our own, likely less chaotic and life-threatening crucibles: Don’t give up. And don’t try to jump to the end. Take one small step, followed by another small step, tackling the challenge right in front of you before moving on to the one behind that. String together enough of these little victories and you wind up with the big win you’re aiming at.

2. Keep your sense of humor

John McClane does not take himself too seriously – and he certainly doesn’t meet his crucibles with somber depression. He finds the humor in his plight, as deadly serious as it is. Like the gag he pulls after killing the first henchman: Sending him a down in the elevator to where Hans and Co. are holding their hostages, having plopped a Santa hat on the dead man’s head and written on his sweatshirt: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho-Ho-Ho.” It’s his way of letting the black hats know there’s a white hat on the job – and it’s done with panache.

Similar dashes of humor come from his running dialogue with himself. Alone in the building, capture or death lurking around every corner, he keeps his spirits up by keeping his mood as light as possible. After realizing the first terrorist he kills will not be able to help him solve his footwear problem, he monologues incredulously, “Nine million terrorists in the world and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister.” Later, while crawling through the building’s air ducts to evade his pursuers, he flips on a Zippo lighter he took from one of the other terrorists he neutralized and quips as he tries to navigate his way forward, channeling Holly: “Come out to the coast. We’ll get together, have a few laughs.”

Lines and actions like these give Die Hard a joie de vivre that helped redefine action films in the ’80s, but in the context of the plot they serve to cushion the blow of the crucibles McClane keeps suffering. We’ve all heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”; this is true even/especially when the sickness we’re fighting is moving beyond a crucible. The most tragic circumstances can be met with an attitude of hopeful optimism. We don’t laugh because what we’re going through is funny, but because it helps stabilize our spirits to meet the challenges – emotional and otherwise – we’ll encounter on our path to significance.

3. You need a team of fellow travelers

McClane is often painted as the lone-wolf everyman hero, but that perspective overlooks two relationships critical to his saving the day. Without Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson, the Twinkie-eating cop) and Argyle, he wouldn’t achieve his goals.

Powell’s chief role is to be his confidante and cheerleader. After a rough start to their relationship (McClane prevents him from leaving Nakatomi Plaza before becoming aware of the hostage crisis by throwing one of the terrorists he killed out a 32nd floor window and onto Powell’s police cruiser), Powell offers a sympathetic ear and actionable intelligence. They bond over their disdain for law-enforcement bureaucracy and love for their families. And when fatigue and discouragement turn McClane fatalistic, he turns to Powell to carry a message to Holly when it’s all over: “She’s heard me say ‘I love you’ a thousand times. She’s never heard me say ‘I’m sorry.’ I want you to tell her that John said he was sorry.” Powell refuses to let his new friend give in to the grief of his crucible. “You can tell her that yourself,” he replies.

Later, when McClane kills Hans during the film’s climax, we learn it’s not really the climax at all: that comes when John and Holly (have we mentioned her name is a word strongly associated with Christmas?), reunited and having rekindled their love, are heading away as the exploded building drops bearer bonds all around them. On their slow walk to happily ever after (remember, this was before the sequels when we didn’t know the full arc of their five-film romantic journey), a terrorist it seemed John had killed leaps up and points a machine gun at them, only to be stopped by Powell – who draws his revolver for the first time since he accidentally shot a kid.

And Argyle? After spending most of the movie listening to music and chatting up women on the car phone in the parking garage (which he is not even aware has been locked down), he hears a news report of the Nakatomi takeover and drives into a better position to act if given the opportunity. He finally gets that chance when the terrorists’ electronics whiz fetches the getaway car (an ambulance, actually) and Argyle stops him by ramming his vehicle with the limo.

The lessons here for us are clear. Don’t go it alone when fighting through crucibles. Confide in others. Lean on them. Take their counsel and encouragement to heart. Let them apply their abilities and expertise to help us achieve our vision. Powell saves McClane’s life. Argyle saves his significance. Which leads us to …

4. Success is great, but significance is greater

The big payoff in Die Hard is not that McClane saves the day from greedy, nattily dressed terrorists. It’s that he reunites with his wife and children, and they become a family again. Yes, as we’ve hinted at, more familial crucibles come in the sequels (John and Holly are estranged again in No. 3, he and his daughter Lucy are at loggerheads in No. 4, and he and his son Jack have some issues to work through in No. 5). But based on what we see in Die Hard II, when John has left New York to join the LAPD and support Holly in her career with the Nakatomi Corp., he was living a life on purpose in service to others – his family.

You might even say that Christmas is saved by the reconciliation of the McClanes at the end of Die Hard – just as it is saved by Scrooge’s change of heart in A Christmas Carol, by the residents of Bedford Falls bailing George Bailey out of his jam in It’s a Wonderful Life or by Rudolph with this nose so bright guiding Santa’s sleigh in Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.

But, if you do come to and express that Christmas conclusion, be prepared for some dissenting opinions as you pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie.

Reflection

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