Beyond the Crucible

Misaligned, misguided identity is one of the greatest tripwires to our crucible experiences. Placing our worth in other people’s perceptions of us – based not on our true inner selves – is a recipe for struggle and setback.   This week, we talk with former NFL quarterback Jeff Kemp, author of the new book, Receive: The Way of Jesus for Men. He stresses the necessity for men to build deep and...

A parent’s worst nightmare. That’s what Gerard Long and his wife, Jeannie, endured in 2005 when their son, Alex, committed suicide. And, inconceivably, it wouldn’t be their last nightmare. Their daughter, Rebecca, was killed in an accident in 2014.   How did the Longs bounce back from their pair of life-shattering crucibles? Not quickly. And not easily. The trauma of the events nearly ripped...

Conflicting. Confounding. Confusing. Did you feel any of those emotions when gathering with family and friends over Thanksgiving? If so, we’ve got the antidote for turning those difficult feelings into warm memories.   This week, Warwick discussed his latest blog at Beyond the Crucible.com, “Not Feeling Thankful? These Seven Tips Can Get You in the Holiday Spirit.” We recorded this episode be...

Doug Fleener, had been living without serenity, joy or purpose since the vise grip of addiction started closing around him when he was just 12 years old. The lowest point came decades later, when he woke up hung over in an airplane that had just landed, unsure how he got there – or how the large sum of cash in his pocket got there.   Fleener shares not only how he got clean from drugs and alc...

It can be a difficult, even scary journey when we set out to accomplish a challenging and noble goal. But that did not stop William Wilberforce, the British politician in the late 1700s and 1800s who fought for years to end the slave trade in his nation.   Wilberforce is the subject of our latest episode of the series within the show STORIES FROM THE BOOK CRUCIBLE LEADERSHIP, Warwic...

Image. Identity. Success. Failure. Topics you’ve heard us discuss often on the show. And topics that this week’s guest, Dr. Glenn Williams, covers in discussing his new book, WHEN LEADERS ARE LOST.   Williams talks in detail about what he’s learned about feeling lost from his professional setbacks and the personal tragedy of losing his son, as well as insights he's gleaned as an executive coa...

This week, we discuss Warwick's latest blog at BeyondTheCrucible.com. That piece, and the discussion we have here about it, is designed to show you that if you think your vision is too small, you’re not giving yourself, or that vision, enough credit.   We explore seven truths that can change that perspective: from realizing you’re not in a vision competition with anyone else to focusing on wh...

"I'm guilty" is not something you hear from the mouths of those who work in politics very often. But Tim Goeglein mustered the courage and character to say them … and that rare immediate honesty taught him valuable lessons to move beyond his self-inflicted crucible.   In his interview with Warwick, Goeglein confesses how he on several occasions plagiarized the work of others for a column he w...

This week we kick off what we’re calling a series within the show, which we’ve named Stories from the Book Crucible Leadership. That’s Warwick’s Wall Street Journal bestseller, filled with examples of how historical figures and his family members weathered their crucibles to lead lives of significance – and the character traits that led them to do it.   Our first discussion is on John Fairfax...

Losing millions of dollars -- twice -- was not the hardest crucible Ken Eslick has had to face. The most challenging thing about moving beyond those setbacks was decoupling his identity from the number of zeroes on his balance sheet. Describing himself as someone who was good at making money but not at keeping it, he needed to change the story he had told himself about himself since he was a teena...

We have a confession to make: When we sit down to interview a guest about how he or she has moved beyond a crucible, we assume – subconsciously we’ve come to realize – that you’re listening because you’ve struggled through a crucible too … or maybe find yourself smack in the middle of one.    But our own research tells us that that might not be the case.  Our study found that 72 per...

The COVID 19 pandemic cost many of us many things. It cost this week's guest, Katie Jesionowski, the children's superfoods business she'd spent more than a decade building -- just as it was poised to really take off. But from the ashes of that crucible, she has been able to build a new, equally rewarding life of significance.   Jesionowski explains how both the tragedies and the triumphs of h...

In this final episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, we offer you some “assembly instructions” for how you can take what you’ve learned in the previous nine episodes and get to work on turning what’s been broken into breakthrough. While the vision for a life of significance you bring to reality will look different for each one of you, the process of making it all happen centers on o...

Reality. Moving from a vision in your mind to action in your life. That’s been the journey we’ve been taking you on in our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. In this final episode exploring the hacks that will help you move from setback to significance, we offer up a pair to clear the runway for you to launch your unique vision into reality. One’s called The First Steps, the other’s called Ove...

We say often here that moving beyond your crucible is a team sport, and the team we’re helping you build on this episode of our summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, is what we call your fellow travelers. Without them, your pursuit of a vision that will lead you to a life of significance is far more difficult – if not completely unlikely. The hacks we offer this week focus on helping you identify the two...

A world of what could be or needs to be. That’s the stuff of vision. And looking to films that resonate with you to find the seeds of your own unique vision is one of the hacks we offer in this week’s episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. In this seventh episode of the series, all about the development of vision, our second hack takes you through several questions to help you in cr...

The real you. We’ve spent the last few weeks helping you discover who that is – now we shift our attention to the importance of making sure you live in light of what you’ve learned. That you resist the temptation to don a mask and instead show the world the authentic you. In this sixth episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS, we offer a pair of ways you can help ensure you’re living a...

Once you've identified your beliefs and values and your passions, the next step to crafting and executing a vision that's unique to you is coming to a deeper understanding of your talents.  Our hacks this week, "Look to the Past to Forge the Future" and "Words Matter," are all about identifying where your gifts lie, because knowing what you’re good at, and what you’re not good at, is a critic...

Excavation. Digging deep to discover what you’re truly off-the-charts passionate about. That’s the focus of this episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. As we continue our step-by-step journey through the Beyond the Crucible Refining Process, we offer you three hacks to help you unearth the passions that will guide you along your pursuit of a life of significance. We call them “...

Beliefs and values … two connected building blocks of the road that leads you to a life of significance. But how do you know what yours are -- and how do you make sure they line up with each other? That’s the focus of this third episode of our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. Warwick and Gary offer you a pair of hacks this week – one to help you identify your beliefs, called Be the Change. A...

Finding the healing in heartache and hard times is not easy -- but it is an absolutely indispensable step we all must take to recover from a crucible experience.   This week, in episode 2 of our special summer series CRUCIBLE HACKS, Warwick and Gary share how you can understand how you were refined by the challenges you’ve faced. They share two hacks that will help you find beauty from the as...

This week, we launch our special summer series, CRUCIBLE HACKS. Each of the 10 episodes focuses on fresh insights to guide you along your journey from tragedy to triumph.   We start with the end in mind -- significance. What does it mean to live a life of significance … and how do you get there? That’s where our hacks come in: We'll walk you through a pair of them: Emulate it Till You Make it...

Mission drift may come on slowly, imperceptibly even, but its impact is like death from a thousand cuts. What can it kill? Your purpose. This week, we walk you step by step through our latest blog, 7 Ways to Realign With Your True Purpose. It all starts with understanding that purpose … and along the way we talk at length about how to know if you’ve drifted off mission, what you can do to right th...

We’ve heard some remarkable stories on this podcast, but Alice Tsang’s is one of the most remarkable … and triumphant. That's because from the crucible of abject poverty that saw her sharing a tiny apartment with more than a dozen others, needing the quarter a day her uncle could spare that allowed her to eat lunch at high school, she gained an unlikely education that she’s put two use in a pair o...

Janine Shepherd was on track to represent her home nation of Australia in the Olympics as a cross-country skier – but then her dream, quite literally, crashed when she was hit by a utility truck while on a bicycle training exercise with her teammates. She came out the other side of that horrific accident and the 6 months of arduous recovery that followed to discover she was a paraplegic. But as sh...