Beyond the Crucible

The Grief She Couldn't Drink Away: Finding Purpose After Loss Maureen Benkovich had built a life around health, fitness and discipline. But beneath her successful career as a personal trainer and fitness competitor was a grief she couldn't outrun: the heartbreak of never becoming the mother she had dreamed of being. After infertility, miscarriage and a failed adoption, Maureen turned to al...

The Power of Self-Sacrifice Self-sacrifice, we discuss in this week's episode of the series within the show MORE STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP, means — as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it — being willing to give up your own interests in order to help others or advance a cause. Our focus for our conversation? The Bible's Queen Esther and how she exemplifies the truth tha...

Your Diagnosis Isn't Your Identity What if you could train your response to fear  before  the crisis comes? Jenna Schutt learned the importance of that question while fighting for her life. A former cardiac nurse, Jenna endured a rare and incurable bone-marrow disease, chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. In hospital rooms where fear and "what if" thoughts threatened to overwhelm...

Rewrite Your Story, Change Your Future In this week's episode based on Warwick's latest blog, we discuss the steps we can take to write our own unique stories. Even rewrite them. We can take the good parts we admire and want to emulate and meld them with new stories we aspire to. The result? We get to chart a new course for ourselves. To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our...

Obey First, Understand Second: The Creed of World Cup Dad Our guest this week, Zach Duke, has lived a life with a winding path. From an eighth-generation Indiana farm kid to a college football player and missionary, Duke thought he knew his calling—until years of chronic illness left him believing his best days were behind him. Then his audacious act of faith pursuing soccer, a game he had never e...

The Adviser Every Leader Needs Queen Elizabeth I once said of one of her closest advisers. Lord Burghley, that “you will not be corrupted with any manner of gifts, and ... you will be faithful to the state.” Those are pretty strong words of endorsement, especially coming from a monarch. This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show, More Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership,...

Five Lessons for Getting Back to a Better Future Moving forward after a crucible with conviction, even when you're uncertain you'll be successful, is just one of five key truths for overcoming setback and failure we discuss today in our big-picture look at the lessons we learned from our recently completed summer series, BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA. We suggest y...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA VIII The Martian The Red Planet may not wind up fearing astronaut Mark Watney's botanical expertise, but his science skills — and his creative ways of applying them to overcoming being stranded on Mars — impress NASA and a watching world when a mission crucible leaves him stuck there with little chance of getting back to earth ... or even...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA VII Star Trek: First Contact Heroes versus villains. The latter looking to rule the galaxy, the former looking to save it. This week, in the seventh episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA, we look at STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT, in which Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the Starship Enterprise...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA VI Stars Wars Episode 4: A New Hope The names C3PO and Luke are familiar to anyone who's watched the Star Wars films but maybe not from the vantage point we discuss them here. This week, in the sixth episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA, we unpack the crucibles not only these two cha...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA V Jurassic Park Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. That's the chief lesson of Jurassic Park — but it's not one the man who brought dinosaurs back to life and turned them into theme-park attractions learns until it's too late. This week, in the fifth episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA IV Back to the Future Thinking crucibles aren't likely to be overcome is exactly how the McFly family of BACK TO FUTURE responds when they encounter setbacks. At least until their son Marty starts doing some time-traveling in a souped-up DeLorean. This week, in the fourth episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE C...

BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA III - Terminator 2: Judgement Day A robot leading a life of significance in which it puts the safety of another ahead of itself? That's a key plot point in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, which we discuss this week in the third episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA. A machine that lives i...

Poor leadership. It's the Achilles heel of the ship's captain in the movie ALIEN, which we discuss this week in the second episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA. As the movie makes clear, the only way to overcome leadership that's lacking is when others on the team step up and do what they know to be right, regardless of rank or hi...

When a stranded astronaut reveals he's not the animal the ruling class of apes thinks all humans to be in Planet of the Apes, it kicks off the film's examination of just how dystopian American culture in the late 1960s was thought to be. This week, in the first episode of our special summer series BACK TO A BETTER FUTURE: THE CRUCIBLES OF SCI-FI CINEMA, we examine the film's central cr...

3 Lessons From 3 Years: How Movies Help Us Overcome Crucibles Would you believe movies can be a key ingredient to creating the secret sauce that can help turn trial into triumph? Listen to our discussion of our latest blog, 3 Lessons from 3 Years of Discussing How Movies Help Us Move Beyond Crucibles, and you will. In advance of our 2026 summer movie series that begins July 7, we talk about the in...

How He Brought YOUNG WASHINGTON to Life: Diederik Hoogstraten Our guest this week, Diederik Hoogstraten, shares what he aimed to bring to life about America's most celebrated founding father as he was co-writing the upcoming film  Young Washington . The movie, hitting theaters July 3, looks at the early days of the man who would lead the American colonies to victory in the Revolutionary War an...

Lessons in Being a Good Adviser: Louis Howe Without Louis Howe, most historians agree, Franklin Roosevelt likely would not have become president of the United States. We discuss Howe's impact on Roosevelt this week in our latest episode of our series within the show: More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership. You'll learn not just who Howe was and how he changed the trajectory of FDR&...

Finding the Greener Grass of Purpose: Dale and Brian Karmie Brothers Dale and Brian Karmie longed to do work that gave them purpose and offered the same opportunity to others. They found both blessings in the artificial-turf business. They launched ForeverLawn, the industry's synthetic grass leader, in 2004. As they discuss this week, the journey was not without its crucibles — including the devas...

To Move Beyond Your Crucible, Step on the Gas Eyes forward, not backward. That's the key if you want to turn your worst day into your greatest opportunity, we discuss in this episode based on Warwick's latest blog, Don’t Be Afraid to Hit The Gas to Move Beyond Your Crucible. We discuss nine steps you can take to move with enough speed to glide over life's bumpy waves rather than be capsized by the...

15 Minutes of Horror, 20 Years of Healing: Jenny Lynn Anderson Our guest this week, Jenny Lynn Anderson, was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant who did the unthinkable in 1990 when she left her hotel room during a convention she was working with. The horrors of that day deeply affected her for two decades, until she rekindled her faith at a women's Bible study and took her first steps toward w...

Lessons in Overcoming Crucibles: Joni Eareckson Tada In this episode of our series within the show, More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership, we discuss the incredible journey of Joni Earekson Tada, who has had to not just learn to live with, but find a way to thrive in, her life as a quadriplegic. We examine Joni's inspirational careers as an artist, author and public speaker as well as...

Building an Unbeatable Mind: Mark Divine Our guest this week, Mark Divine, discusses what his Navy SEAL training taught him about unlocking human potential through integrated training in mental toughness, leadership and physical readiness. It's led him to create the “Unbeatable Mind” system—a framework that integrates physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual development that he...

Grace and patience. They're the two things we need to lean into, and we need to receive from others, when we find ourselves triggered by a crucible. How do we reach those destinations. That's what we discuss this week as we offer tips for doing just that from Warwick's latest blog — everything from being patient with yourself, asking others for help and growing in self-development. ---...

How She Found Strength After Losing Her Brother and Parents: Lauren Sisler Lauren Sisler lost her brother, Allen, while on a speaking tour promoting her book SHATTERPROOF, in which she tells the story of how their parents died just hours apart of hidden opioid addictions. How has she kept moving forward after such a devastating pair of emotional body blows? She has moved beyond dwelling on the wha...