Podcast

She’s known internationally as the first woman to sail solo around Antartica, a celebrated explorer who fought through unimaginable trials en route to setting her world record. But before she ever stepped foot off dry land, Lisa Blair was a shy, reserved Australian girl bullied at school. She headed off to university determined to shed the mask she wore in high school, and later learned the importance of viewing failure not as falling short, but not trying at all. She found her life’s calling when a sailing journey with a friend led her to fall in love with the sea … and the beauty and adventure it offers.

In more than 20 years of playing football, as an amateur and in the NFL, Jeff Kemp was only once earmarked as his team’s starting quarterback before the season began.

Life, Dom Brightmon freely admits, can be crappy sometimes. But each of us has the power to flip the switch to “happy” — the key is to view our crucible experiences as crystal experiences.

Moving beyond your crucible is hard work, even harder when the circumstances that knocked you off your feet seem to linger forever.  How do you get going again when it feels like your crucible is a bottomless pit, a black hole?

Her resume is wildly impressive: best-selling author, award-winning screenwriter, successful entrepreneur, celebrated fitness trainer and health activist — she even won Miss Congeniality at the Miss California USA pageant. But Kimberly Spencer’s accomplishments hid her demons — bulimia, trying to be who others wanted and expected her to be, a victim of emotional self-sabotage.

She baked her first batch of cookies in the California sun at age 3 — with mud as the secret ingredient. Ever since that day, Whitney Singletary-White has dreamed of being a baker, and she’s made that dream come true with her gourmet Nuttin’ Butter Cookies.

We know them when we’re in them. Or avoiding them. Uncomfortable conversations when it feels like one wrong word — or even one right word expressed wrongly — can explode like a hand grenade.

Want to be a leader known as strong, confident, honest, transparent and secure? Vulnerability can pave your way to all those adjectives — if you employ it wisely. Host Warwick Fairfax discusses with co-host Gary Schneeberger the helpful and the not-so-helpful ways you can be open about yourself. When vulnerability works, they explain, it can help your team members weather crucibles they’re going through today — and inoculate them against those yet to come.

At 19, Ryan Campbell became the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world. Two years later, a horrific plane crash threatened more than the dream he birthed at 6 to make a life and a living streaking through the skies.

In 8th grade, after dreaming for years of competing in the finals of the National Spelling Bee, Adom Appiah got knocked out of the competition early. Instead of wallowing in the disappointment of that crucible, though, he turned his attention to consoling the other kids who had also fallen short.