Beyond the Crucible

2024 Rewind: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Perseverance Winston Churchill was known for many things – including always looking for ways to move onward after a trial or challenge. That’s the perspective we all should hope to have when life’s crucibles knock us for a loop. When setback and failure are all-too-common companions. When we’re wrestling with our own darkest hour. This week, as par...

2024 Rewind: Jason T. Smith's Surprising Life of Significance We're closing out the year with a look back on a few of our most powerful episodes of the last 12 months. This week, we revisit Jason T. Smith. who thought he'd missed out on his calling to be a medical missionary, until he realized he'd been gifted a new one. Smith's vision for being a doctor helping heal those in underserved nations c...

Sir Warwick Fairfax: A Man of Noble Character It’s certainly not uncommon to hear a son talk about his father with respect, admiration and love – the way Warwick talks about his father in this week's episode. But the noble character Sir Warwick Fairfax modeled to his son has had an impact that’s birthed the business that son founded, including this podcast you’re listening to right now. In this la...

Make Sure Your Passion Serves Your Purpose How do you handle your passion with care? How do you help ensure when you're off-the-charts passionate about your vision, that you don't go off the rails in pursuit of it? How do you keep that race car that is your passion on the track? In this week's episode, Warwick and I discuss his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com titled Why Your Passion Must Serv...

Building a Resilience Strategy: Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier Relationships, including with those we call fellow travelers, are critical, we learn in this week's episode, to crafting the resilience we need to move beyond our crucibles. Our guest this week, Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier, is a pioneer in the field of strategic resilience. Her studies and experience have taught her that thriving through se...

FDR: He Didn't Let Polio Derail His Calling This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership, we look at the courage, good humor and determination – both personal and political – that made Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of history’s most celebrated figures. None of what he accomplished in the White House, we discuss here, would have been possi...

Seek to Win A Friend, Not an Argument Do you find yourself, when engaging in discussions about hot-button subjects, spending more time trying to win an argument than trying to build or maintain a relationship? If so, then this episode is for you. This week, we discuss his latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com , in which he offers seven tips for not turning a discussion of issues into an us vs. them...

5 Years, 5 Big Learnings Inspiring, uplifting and so much fun. That Warwick’s summary of the milestone we celebrate on this week’s episode: the five-year anniversary – to the day, on the date this show drops – of the Beyond the Crucible podcast. Our look back focuses on five key learnings from these past five years that have come from interviews and discussions on the show. Those insights – your w...

Emotionally Paralyzed By Her Dad's Paralysis Charis Santillie was plagued by undealt-with emotions after her father was paralyzed in a hot-air balloon crash when she was just 19 years old. The accident’s aftermath left her a workaholic, allowing her to live the illusion of safety and control. It was only after meeting a coach who asked her why she was suffering from emotional paralysis that Santil...

Horatio Nelson: Naval Hero, Leadership Icon Confident. Calm. Decisive. A man of sound judgement. That’s Lord Horatio Nelson, one of the most celebrated military leaders in British history. He was a hero of Warwick’s growing up, who’s become an example of someone with the personal character and interpersonal skills that can benefit all of us as we navigate our journey to lives of significance. This...

How to Avoid a Professional Identity Crisis Remembering you’re more than your worst day and less than your best day is just one of the nuggets of wisdom we discuss this week in our examination of Warwick’s latest blog at  beyondthecrucible.com  about the truths that will help you avoid a professional identity crisis. Among the points from his blog Warwick and I discuss are the need to do...

Leaning Into Her Own Homelessness to Help Other Women Escape Theirs: Leanna Fairfax Leanna Fairfax, a distant relative of Warwick's, talks about her rough early years – homeless at 15 and off-and-off again through the years after that, in an abusive relationship, plagued by the gnawing feeling that she would always live her life on the margins. But that’s just the start of Leanna Fairfax’s journey...

His Dreams of Being a Doctor Dashed,  He Found a New Calling Running a Physiotherapy Business: Jason T. Smith Jason T Smith thought he'd missed out on his calling to be a medical missionary, until he realized he'd been gifted a new one. Smith's vision for being a doctor helping heal those in underserved nations came crashing down when he didn't qualify to study medicine. So instead, he pursue...

From a Tin Shed to the United Nations: Stephanie Woollard Not a handout but a hand up. That’s what our guest this week, Stephanie Woollard, just described about how she responded when did when, during a visit to Nepal, she encountered seven women living in a tiny tin shed. They were suffering from physical handicaps and from being marginalized by their society because of those challenges. And...

Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership: Abraham Lincoln on the Character to Build a Team of Rivals The best people possible. That’s who Abraham Lincoln drafted for his Cabinet during the most precipitous time in U.S. history. And most of them weren’t the biggest fans of the country’s 16th president. This week, in the latest episode of our series within the show, STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE L...

Kind, compassionate words are life-giving to us when spoken by others after we’ve been through a crucible. And they’re also life-giving to us when we speak them to others .. a truth the main characters in the movie TOY STORY learn when their initial rivalry turns into an unlikely friendship. This week, in the 9th and final episode of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we di...

Compassion and empathy. Two traits that help elevate Rocky Balboa out of his hardscrabble life as a small-time boxer who will need both his fists of stone and his heart of gold to escape the crucibles that have dogged him most of his life. This week, in the eighth episode of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we take a look at 1976’s Oscar-winning ROCKY, both written by and...

Courage. It’s indispensable to our pursuit of a life of significance in the wake, and especially in the midst, of a crucible. That’s one of the key truths we unpack in our discussion of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the latest movie from the American Film Institute’s Top 100 we discuss in our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCUBLE LESSONS. The first movie in director Pe...

Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons VI: To Kill a Mockingbird  One person doing the right thing. That sums up succinctly TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the movie we discuss this week on the sixth episode of our summer series, CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS. The person who keeps doing the right thing in this movie the American Film Institute ranked at number 25 on its Top 100 list is Atti...

Helping other people and having a higher purpose. That's a spot-on definition of what a life of significance is all about ... and also what IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE -- the movie we discuss on this week’s episode of our summer series -- is all about. The movie’s become an iconic Christmas tale because, as we discuss here, it shows that when we live our lives guided by our character and values, rather...

This week, we focus our summer-series discussion on the Oscar-winning SCHINDLER'S LIST, No. 8 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies. Specifically, we focus on Oskar Schindler’s journey from an amoral man focused on profiting from World War II and his fellow Nazis’ barbaric treatment of Jews … to a savior of those victimized people. How does he end up there? His compassion and his charact...

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time, its title song a fabulous exhortation to face crucibles with a happy refrain and a smile on our face. This week, in part three of our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we talk in entertaining depth about the lessons the movie – number 5 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 U.S. films – c...

In this week's episode, the second in our summer series CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS, we discuss THE GODFATHER, number 2 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. It's a cautionary tale that spotlights how critical it is we live a life guided by beliefs and values rooted in something nobler than our own self-Interests. We zero in on Michael Corleone, the youngest son of the mafia f...

This week we kick off our special nine-week summer series, CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS. We begin our examination of the lessons we can learn from movies on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 U.S. films of all time by discussing CITZEN KANE – No. 1 on AFI’s list. Unlike most of the conversations we have on the podcast (and unlike most we’ll have on this series), our look...

A life of significance is not a numbers game. That’s just one of the kernels of wisdom and inspiration you'll hear in this week’s episode, in which he unpacks his new blog at beyondthecrucible.com  – titled Why Your Life of Significance matters. It offers you the hope and insight you need to turn your worst day into your greatest opportunity.   Warwick runs through some things you should...