It's taken Warwick Fairfax more than 30 years to write his book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, and have it published. Why such a long time? He explains this week in conversation with cohost Gary Schneeberger that losing control of his family’s 150-year-old media dynasty in a takeover bid that ultimately failed at a cost of $2.25 billion was too painful for too long to relive on paper – or a computer’s hard drive. But his perspective began to shift after...
Oct 19, 2021•58 min
In advance of the Oct. 19 release of host Warwick Fairfax's book, CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP: EMBRACE YOUR TRIALS TO LEAD A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE, he and cohost Gary Schneeberger discuss the key building blocks inside its pages. You’ll hear helpful, hopeful details -- from Warwick's own journey and the stories of some of history's greatest leaders -- about the importance of embracing your crucible, discovering your purpose, crafting your vision and leading and living with impact. You'll also get your fi...
Oct 12, 2021•55 min
Have you ever thought your life would be grand if … fill in the blank? Dov Baron helps people move beyond those if-onlys. A best-selling author and one of the nation’s leading authorities on meaning-driven leadership, he speaks no-nonsense truths to empower clients and audiences to live their purpose, share their inner genius and not –as he puts it – disenfranchise the parts of themselves that are critical to leading lives of significance. “Most people’s pain,” he tells us, “is hidden by our suc...
Oct 05, 2021•59 min
As we wrap up six weeks of exploring what resilience is and how to build it, BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and co-host Gary Schneeberger discuss the insights and inspiration offered by guests Stacey Copas, Katie Foulkes, Heather Kampf, Lucy Westlake and Dr. Craig Dowden. Among the wisdom and practical action steps they offered that are discussed in depth here: Resilience is a skill that can be learned just like building muscle in the gym. If you have access to the resources you need t...
Sep 28, 2021•55 min
Dr. Craig Dowden describes his coaching practice as bridging the gap between what science knows and what leaders do. What science has found, he says, is that harnessing resilience is two-part process: first, finding our way back to baseline – i.e., where we were before our crucible hit; and second, charting a course to move beyond that point. To not merely bounce back, but bounce forward. "We as human beings," he tells us research has shown time and again, "are far more resilient than we give ou...
Sep 21, 2021•55 min
Seventeen-year-old Lucy Westlake is an accomplished mountain climber (she started at age 7) who is the youngest female to have ascended the highest peaks in all 50 U.S. states. But you can’t have a peak without a valley – and Lucy also describes the low points she’s faced in learning this resonant truth: the ideal way to build resilience is overcoming small failures, so that when the big ones come – and they will -- we have a reservoir of grit to keep climbing. To learn more about Lucy Westlake,...
Sep 14, 2021•46 min
It was a moment seen by tens of millions of people across the globe thanks to a viral video: Heather Kampf falling during the final lap of an 800-meter race in college, then springing to her feet to not just catch her competition, but win. Yet Kampf cautions those amazed by her triumph to take a deeper message away from her 2008 feat than "Never give up." What fueled her miraculous comeback was having a vision for the race long before it started and sticking to that vision when the crucible came...
Sep 07, 2021•59 min
Katie Foulkes had to harness resilience as a member of Australia's Olympic rowing team in 2004. After one of her teammates stopped rowing during the race, the outrage that erupted (the country's prime minister called the team "UnAustralian") rocked her to her core. Now a leadership coach who researches what builds resilience, she's found it's about more than just digging deep within yourself. It also requires casting wide outside yourself -- calling on the resources around you to help you surviv...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 1 min
What Stacey Copas knows about resilience was born of tragedy: A diving accident at 12 left her a quadriplegic whose spirit was in tatters. But she turned a corner emotionally when she realized "we connect with other people through our adversity, not our success." Today, in her writing, speaking and coaching, she shares how resilience is a skill that can be learned just like building muscle in the gym. To learn more about Stacey Copas, visit www.staceycopas.com To explore Crucible Leadership reso...
Aug 24, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Benjamin Franklin once said it takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it. Jennifer Cunningham has learned and teaches others that you have to keep your eyes on the values that matter to you as you look to bounce back from a crucible that leaves you feeling defeated and humiliated. The key is to apply the lessons from that painful experience to help repair your good name. For more information about Jennifer Cunningham, visit www.reputationrepaircoach.com . T...
Aug 10, 2021•58 min
You can't reverse great loss any more than you can undo failure and setback, but you can move beyond every crucible you face with your heart full and your head held high. Alison Pena has moved past losing her husband to cancer to lead a full and rewarding life rooted in identifying and embracing the blessings still available to her. It's a strategy she shares with clients as Bad Widow -- the name she gave herself because of her refusal to be boxed in by society's expectations. To learn more abou...
Aug 03, 2021•46 min
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? Or do you find such talk "airy-fairy” – nebulous nonsense with no practical application to your business and your relationships? Listen in and discover how dialing into your values and treating others with kindness, dignity and respect as a result is far from airy-fairy – it’s critical to team morale (including your own) and the robustness of your bottom ...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min
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? It could be something you’re thinking that’s tripping you up … or something someone else is doing that’s holding you back. Discover how to master your mindset from Gina L. Osborn, an Army veteran and former FBI special agent who knows firsthand that crises can be managed and chaos can be controlled even though change is inevitable. From establishin...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr 5 min
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. She and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host and Crucible Leadership founder, Warwick Fairfax, discuss the lessons she's learned about resilience from growing up with a bipolar mother. She also shares what she teaches executives about addressing the mental-health challenges faced by t...
Jul 13, 2021•1 hr 2 min
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. What he discovered on the journey changed his life – leading first to an NFL football career and now professional fulfillment as a business owner and sought-after motivational speaker. But don’t call him a success. That’s a word and a pursuit, he says, that’s root...
Jul 06, 2021•56 min
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. Warwick lays out seven steps you can begin practicing today to culti...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 8 min
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. It wasn't until she embraced her relationship with God that she took the journey to become a ther...
Jun 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min
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? Kevin Edwards, host of the Real Leaders podcast, has discovered through hundreds of interviews with high-powered high achievers – interviews that date back to college – that one of the greatest crucibles most face is settling for success and not pursuing significance. The antidote? Finding a calling that allows you to do ...
Jun 08, 2021•1 hr 3 min
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. It was the combination of the accident he was surprised he survived, and the damage his obsession with making money was doing to his marriage and his faith, that led him to something better than the bottom line. When he heard a message at church about pursuing a greater purpose, one that involved serving...
Jun 01, 2021•1 hr 14 min
How do you maintain the delicate balance between pursuing a vision that you are passionate about and treating well the men and women who are sharing that journey with you? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax unpacks practical tips to follow in this conversation with co-host Gary Schneeberger. From keeping your ego in check … to focusing on the process, not on chasing an outcome … from making sure team members know you value them as much as you value your visi...
May 25, 2021•57 min
Despite being born with small hands and shortened ligaments that left him unable to even hold a cup as a boy, Wael Farouk has diligently – some would say miraculously -- carved out a career as a celebrated concert pianist. This spring, in fact, he performed Rachmaninoff's piano concerti Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in one evening -- the first time the prodigious musical feat has been done. Farouk lives and works in Wisconsin, where he is an assistant professor of piano and director of the Keyboard Studies at...
May 18, 2021•1 hr
We’ve all heard that living with your purpose top of mind – what we at Crucible Leadership call a life of significance – leads to a more joyful and impactful life. But did you know it also can lead to a longer life? Author Marta Zaraska makes an eye-opening case for that truth in her best-seller, Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 – a book steeped in science (she studied more than 600 research papers in her research) that points to the health benefits o...
May 11, 2021•59 min
Chris Leeuw had his entire life ahead of him -- and it looked very bright. A self-described "adrenaline junkie," he reveled in outdoor activities like water-skiing and kayaking and loved his job in local TV news. It all changed in a tragic instant. Chris, at 28, was paralyzed from the neck down in a freak recreational diving accident -- and thought he'd never walk or be able to care for himself again. But despite the physical and financial crucibles he faced, he refused to give up. Chris let eve...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Your soul is the you that you don't have to think about, where your essence, your truest self, lives. But how do you discover what your soul reveals about you? More importantly, how can drawing on the insights you find there help you bounce back from a crucible and lead a life of significance? Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax and cohost Gary Schneeberger take a deep dive into those questions, offering up 7 ways to live with your soul top of mind. The belie...
Apr 27, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Some people may look at John Ramstead's life and say he’s lost a lot. Crucibles cost him his dream of being a Top Gun fighter pilot, almost ruined him professionally and financially and nearly killed him in an accident that led to dozens of surgeries over two years -- and still left him with physical challenges. Yet Ramstead, an in-demand leadership coach and successful podcast host, says those "losses" helped him find the most important things in his life: his faith and his purpose. He recounts...
Apr 20, 2021•58 min
Adversity, Taryn Marie Stejskal says, is a trip we take. Resilience paves the road we walk to move beyond it. As one of the foremost international experts on building and exercising resilience in business and in life, Stejskal has crafted the Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People through exhaustive research into the subject ... and informed by her harrowing experience of being stalked in high school by a man who eventually assaulted another victim. It's not the absence of crucibles tha...
Apr 13, 2021•57 min
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. But his life began to turn around after a stint in juvenile detention set him on a path to get a job, join the military and build the responsibility and resilience that has led him to help others employ the principles tha...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 1 min
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. And when it does, it can be dangerous. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax talks with cohost Gary Schneeberger about why we should avoid chasing GOATdom – and, more importantly, how to do it. Warwick unpacks five insightful steps we can t...
Mar 23, 2021•1 hr 3 min
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. But when he started to "drink the Hank Kool-Aid" and believe he was as fabulous as the press coverage he earned said he was, his world collapsed. Living in a hotel with his two boys for two years, needing its free...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 15 min
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 a means of building confidence in themselves and camaraderie among their peers. It's leadership authenticity Price learned ...
Mar 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min
