Do you have a good handle on the values that guide your life and work? The character traits you admire in others and try to manifest yourself?
Are you tolerating something in your life that is leading to chaos and crisis … and causing or at least giving oxygen to the crucibles you’re facing?
As we rise in organizations and become more successful and as our businesses grow, life gets more hectic and more demanding. We travel more, are away from home more, the pressure intensifies. Our bosses or our boards seem more demanding. The shareholders expect and demand continuous quarterly earnings increases. But something else happens, too. Perhaps imperceptibly, we begin to change.
How you think and what you feel as you move beyond your crucible is critical. It’s just as important, in fact, as what actions you take to get past it. Michelle Dickinson shares this truth as a corporate well-being strategist.
Shawn Harper has learned from his crucibles – which include extreme poverty as a boy, suffering from learning disabilities and being kicked out of two schools – that the only way to move beyond those challenges is to move through them.
Have you suffered setback and failure? Then you probably have struggled with anger and maybe bitterness as you think of those who contributed to your pain. In this episode, Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax discusses with cohost Gary Schneeberger the critical need to forgive those who have wronged us (or even ourselves) in order to move past our crucibles and toward a life of significance.
Crucible experiences are hard to get over. One of the hardest parts of getting over a devastating failure or setback is forgiving others or yourself.
She knows her childhood was not unique, but that didn’t make it any easier for Andrea Anderson Polk to grow up in a dysfunctional family in which feeling safe was hard to come by even as she tried to protect her younger siblings from emotional trauma. The crucibles she endured made her question both her faith and the therapy her parents underwent to try, unsuccessfully, to improve their family life.
How do you find purpose in your life and work that allows you to create a legacy that stretches beyond the bottom line of balance sheets and the showy flash of corporate perks?
John Sikkema had it all. Except peace. Having carved out successful careers in insurance sales and finance, he felt in his 40’s that his life was careening out of control. Soon his car was, too.
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