Beyond the Crucible

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 m...

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 de...

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...

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 you...

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...

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 resul...

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...

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 bip...

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 s...

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&nbs...

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 s...

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...

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...

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 wor...

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 scie...

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 ag...

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 tak...

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, say...

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 stal...

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 a...

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 c...

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 s...

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 con...

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. So she decided to embrace both her figurative and literal wild hair -- trading her...

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. Crucible Leadership founder and BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE host Warwick Fairfax unpacks why some leaders reject the aid of a team as they pursue their vision while others embrace tackling a missio...