Gregory Robinson’s crucibles piled up in his youth: raised without a father, kicked out of the house at 16, eking out a day-to-day existence swiping soap from restaurants to wash up and making ends meet hustling pool while flopping with other boys from hardscrabble backgrounds.

The Greatest of All Time. Shorthand, GOAT — especially in sports contexts. But the single-minded pursuit of being the best (fill in the blank) in your sphere of influence can invade your professional and personal life, too.

He was, in his own words, an “intense goal-setter” from the third grade. And Hank McLarty achieved most of what he set his mind to: a football scholarship to Auburn, a financial services career at prestigious firms, recognition and wealth as one of the youngest and best in his industry.

Seton Hall University students who attend the Buccino Leadership Institute discover early the value of learning and leveraging the lessons of their crucible experiences. That’s because the institute’s executive director, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bryan Price, teaches a freshman course in which students share their most painful setbacks and failures with their classmates as…

From the outside looking in, Tracy J. Edmonds’ life couldn’t have been sweeter: a high-profile executive job with a Fortune 30 company at which she excelled. But on the inside, where she discovered it really counts, her career had come at a high cost because of a self-imposed crucible: not being her authentic self.

Visionaries who are also mavericks, who prefer to conquer what needs to be conquered as a solo expedition, often find themselves foiled by crucibles that could have been overcome had they taken a team approach.

He was born with Poland’s Syndrome, a rare disease that left his right hand malformed and his muscle development non-existent. But Johannes Atlas was also born to parents who, as he puts it, “refused to baby him.”

What do you do as a thought leader when crucible experiences force you to face that you’re a “practice struggler”? That’s the situation Kaley Klemp faced when she and her husband, Nate, hit a patch in their marriage so rocky they wondered if it might be the end.