Ten Big Truths We’ve Learned from 300 Episodes

Gary Schneeberger:
Keep having to feed the furnace, right? We’ve had to feed the furnace every week.

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. But one of the things about reaching a milestone and just the numbers you mentioned, just 1.79% have reached 300 episodes. I mean, that’s a small number, and so we feel very privileged. I certainly do to be in that company. And so having this 300th episode does make you reflect, and I think a lot of us don’t always reflect. We’re just in the midst of our busy lives and thinking about where we are and how grateful we are and all of that. So I think this is an opportunity to think back on all the guests we’ve spoken to, the incredible stories and hope and resilience, and I feel like I’ve learned from every guest that we’ve had. It’s one of the things I most enjoy about the guests we’ve had is just how much we can learn. And you think of the amazing series. We’ve had a lot of summer movie series, which both you, Gary, and I love movies.

Gary Schneeberger:
Oh yeah, those are truly really fun. Watching a movie for work is a great thing.

Warwick Fairfax:
And who knew that you could watch superhero movies and actually learn a whole lot about how to bounce back from a crucible?

Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
But you can. Now when you watch a movie you’re not thinking about, let me take notes on those Beyond the Crucible points. It’s, are we in the bounce back stage and in the crucible stage? And the life of significance. You’re just thinking this is fun and I hope the good guy wins. I mean, it’s that simple. So we’ve had a lot of great series and we’ve had a lot of great discussions that you and I write blogs throughout the year and then we’ll have a discussion on that. We’ve had discussions from stories from my book, Crucible Leadership, and even when it’s a story from the book that I wrote, insights will come out that I didn’t really think about that wasn’t precisely in the book, at least not fleshed out as much it is in an extended period of time of discussion.
So whether it’s from guests or from our own discussions from movie series or discussions based on blogs or my book, I just feel like I’ve learned so much and I’m also very grateful for the many people that have watched and listened to our podcasts and we have a great marketing team, and it’s just such a blessing to see the numbers on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts and as they go up and continue to go up, and it’s just such a blessing.
I’m so grateful for our discussions between you and I, as well as from the insights from the guests and just being grateful for the impact. I believe it has, at least in some sense on the people who listen and watch our podcast, we’re all about helping people not be defined by the pit of despair and just challenging circumstances and bouncing back, and so we’re about redemption and giving people hope.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And as astounding as that number 300 is, the true measure of the podcast, and this November 5th, 2019 is when we started, six years ago, the true measure of the podcast are the key phrases we’ve collected over that time that help us turn our trials into triumphs as we cast a vision for a life of significance. These insights have been birthed, as you’ve said, from our discussions of the best practices of how to weather a crucible, how to overcome a crucible, and the stories told by our diverse roster of guests, 146 guests, I counted them all. We’ve had 146 guests in 300 episodes and they include just as an example, an Oscar-nominated film producer, an Emmy award-winning ESPN football sideline reporter, and a former special assistant to a former president of the United States. Those are the folks we’ve talked to from whom we’ve gleaned some of these things that we’re going to be talking about today.
And what we’re going to be talking about today, folks, is we’ve pulled together a top 10 list of the phrases that have been birthed from this show and thought it would be fun and informative to run through all of those phrases as we celebrate this accomplishment. And we’re going to do it in a different way than we’ve ever done anything on this show. We’re going to do it totally at random. So we’ve got 10 phrases that were birthed from Beyond the Crucible, and I have here a hat. Those of you who watched perhaps the first a hundred episodes or 150 episodes of the show, 200 episodes, I used to wear hats like this. Now they’re just props. Here they are, but they’re holding right here, inside here are the 10 phrases that we’re going to talk about. I’m going to pluck them at random. And-

Warwick Fairfax:
And it’s not just any hat, is it?

Gary Schneeberger:
No, this is my lifeblood. This is a fedora, which is… And can see right there the other lifeblood. There’s a Batman and Robin [inaudible 00:08:58] if you’re watching folks. So that’s the wellspring from which we’re going to pull. I’m going to pull these phrases and I’m going to bring it to Warwick to talk about it. So are you ready? Warwick, are you ready to-

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.

Gary Schneeberger:
… roll the dice as it were?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yes.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right, here we go. I’m going to reach in here and I’m going to pull out phrase number one of the lexicon of Beyond the Crucible born of 300 episodes of the show. And it is this. No matter the size of our vision, it matters. Talk about that.

Warwick Fairfax:
So sometimes you can think that the vision I have, it’s not going to change the world, it’s not going to bring clean drinking water to kids in Africa. You just think this vision is so small, why does it matter? And I can relate to that in this sense, and as listeners and viewers would know, I grew up in 150-year-old newspaper business in Australia and in the late ’80s when I was 26, I launched this $2.25 billion takeover. It was a few months after my dad died. And the whole point was to return the vision of the company to the founder, have it be well led. The company’s founded by a very strong person of faith. Three years later when the takeover failed, I was somewhat despondent because I thought to myself, not only have I let down my family and the founder of the media company, my great-great grandfather, John Fairfax, but I was thinking, I will never have a vision that will have the potential impact that my involvement in the family newspaper company John Fairfax Limited could have.
And I was thinking I could have an impact, not just on the employees of the company, the 4,000 plus employees, the readers and viewers of the media that we had, but potentially on the nation of Australia. And I mean that was not unrealistic considering we had the equivalent of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal about country. So after that it’s like, well, why not just give up? Because I will never have a kind of vision that will have that kind of impact. But one of the things I realize is you might think, oh, I’ll never be CEO of Apple or Ford Motor Company. I won’t head up some big non-profit, but the size of the impact and your vision isn’t really what matters. You might be thinking, I just want to clean up my neighborhood park so that kids and families can enjoy it or a food bank in my local area or just in my small business, I just want to make people feel like they’re loved and treasured and I want to really honor my customers.
I mean, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter the size. It’s really about the vision that’s on your heart and the impact to people that you know and love. And the whole world may not have heard of you but your little world and it can feel that way to all of us. It may not feel that big, but your world have it big or small, you can have an enormous impact on that world. So for those people, you matter a lot. And so don’t be overawed by the impact that some people you read about online or watch in the media. You might think I’ll never have that kind of impact, but that’s not the point. Are you having an impact with the people you know and where you live? Do you have a vision that matters to you and will somehow help others? That’s really the point. So don’t get into the comparison game to see who has the bigger business, the bigger non-profit. There’ll always be somebody with a bigger non-profit, a bigger company. So don’t compare yourself. It’s not helpful.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And I am so glad for it. I’m so glad that this one came up first and I didn’t rig it this way. I’m so glad this one came up first because in thinking about the impact of Beyond the Crucible, I want to tell a story that I told you a couple of… like a month and a half ago or so, our guest in episode 62, I believe it was, let me look it up here. Yep. Our guest on episode 62 is a friend of mine, Ruza Markovic, who I had known since 1989 when she interned at the newspaper I worked at in Racine, Wisconsin. And Ruza and I stayed friends over the course of the years and she came on and did the show because her crucible was as a native of what was then Yugoslavia, she went back to the country in the ’90s as it was falling apart in a terrible civil war, and she recounted the traumatic things she went through that she overcame, and then the life that she built.
But Ruza over the last four or five years had been battling cancer. And we talked a lot either on the phone or via text. We had a close friendship and she died on the 26th of December. Hours before she passed away, she texted me something I didn’t get until the next morning, and I wasn’t planning on this coming up first, so I’m going to pull it up here on my phone really fast because I want to read this to folks to see just what it was that she wanted to talk about. She said this to me hours before she passed away. She said, “I was on your podcast. Please make sure that Eli,” who was her 13-year-old son, the love of her life, “please make sure that Eli hears that. Please make sure that gets to him.” That Warwick, that’s enormous impact. A woman’s dying wish was that the word spoken over her, about her on this show were heard by her only child, a 13-year-old boy who was the prize of her life. That says something about the impact you are having with Beyond the Crucible, I think.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s hard to even process what you just said because what you’re saying is this poor woman is in the last hours of her life is implicitly saying this podcast captured the essence of who Ruza was, what she was about, and what she valued. And she wanted that her legacy as she described it in this podcast, to be passed on to her son, so her son would know this is what his mother believes in, this is her journey, and this was her mission. This is what she’s about. The fact that she would say, “I want to make sure that Eli listens and watches this.” I mean, that’s as high a praise as you could possibly have. I mean, that’s… It’s beyond saying, “It’s an honor.” It’s a privilege of unparalleled magnitude that anybody say that. That’s just incredible.

Gary Schneeberger:
And Ruza, I did it. So he’s seen it. All right, here we go. Number two, Warwick, what do we have next? This one’s long. Let’s see what this one is here. This one is faith is something outside yourself that serves as an immovable anchor for your soul.

Warwick Fairfax:
So this is an interesting one. In my book, Crucible Leadership, we talk about faith in a broad sense. That’s how we define it. Now, faith can be a major religion, a philosophy, a spiritual way of thought. For me, in fact, for both of us it’s our faith in Christ. But the point is this, whatever your belief system is for you, it’s critical that those beliefs and values anchor your soul because as you journey back from your worst day, your crucible, it needs to be anchored by your beliefs and values. So it’s not so much about what I or Gary believe or others believe. Every human being believes in something.
Now, some of us don’t really reflect too much on what we believe because life is busy. We just carry on to the Mach 3 and kids and work and family. I mean, everything’s just crazy busy. But be that as it may, we all believe in something. So in particular, when you’re trying to claw your way out of the pit of despair and move beyond that worst day, you’ve got to ask yourself, well, what do I believe? What is the anchor that’s going to help me keep grounded? What’s the compass that’s going to chart my course?

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
If you’re trying to get beyond the pit of despair and move to a life-affirming vision that gives you joy and fulfillment, you’ve got to know what undergirds that journey. What beliefs and values will help you keep centered, will help you keep moving in the direction that your soul and you truly want to go. You cannot really move forward in a path that’s going to be helpful to you or to others without having that path be anchored by your fundamental beliefs and values, and that’s what we mean by faith. It’s absolutely critical.

Gary Schneeberger:
And one of the things I love about our conversations with guests is you make it very clear. You say it a lot, your truth is your truth. You point out, you and I, as you said, you and I are Christians, but you don’t have to be a Christian to be on Beyond the Crucible. You don’t have to believe what we believe to talk about how you will overcome your crucible. And that is a… I mean, that’s part of your desire to speak eternal truths to a larger audience than even just people who believe like us, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. I mean, in addition to my book, Crucible Leadership, and the host of this podcast, I’m a certified International Coach Federation executive coach. And by training and by values, I believe a bunch of things, including my faith in Christ, which is the anchor of my life, and I try to live that every day. I try to think, how am I living my life in line with the principles of Jesus? Am I living in light of that or am I ignoring it? Am I forgiving? Do I have compassion? Am I living my life in light of truth. From my own paradigm, that’s how I look at it, and I think we all have to do that, but I believe passionately that everybody has a fundamental right to believe what they feel called to believe and to live their own lives.
But while there may be different paths, what I think is not helpful to say is, “Beliefs and values are irrelevant to me, I’m going to ignore them.” Because that’s not so much ignoring what other people think. That’s ignoring yourself, that’s ignoring your own soul. It’s never helpful to ignore your own soul and your own fundamental beliefs. Good things don’t happen if you won’t even pay attention to yourself. That’s why this is so important.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. All right, here we go. Third one, here’s the hat again. I’m just going to show the fedora as often as I can. Here’s the hat. I’m going to go in here. I’ve got another one. Let’s see what we have in the lexicon of Beyond the Crucible birthed from this podcast celebrating its 300th episode as of this speaking. All right, here we go, Warwick. Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning what was done to you. There’s a couple of things in here on forgiveness. This is the first one. Talk about that a little bit.

Warwick Fairfax:
This is interesting because for a lot of people, they feel like they cannot forgive because if they forgive, somehow it means that what that person did to them is okay. No, that is not what it means. If somebody, and we’ve had people on this podcast, people who’ve been abused by one or other parents, people who’ve just suffered lost businesses, maybe they’re ripped off by somebody else. There’s a lot of people that have anger towards people that have really hurt them. And so forgiveness does not mean condoning the horrendous behavior that was done to you. But one of the things we say is that to be able to move on, we need to let go of the past. And so if you have this attitude that, well, I’m not going to forgive because then I’m condoning. No, forgiveness and condoning, two separate things. But if you don’t forgive, you keep looking at the past and you don’t look at the present or still less the future.
So it’s really a lie, a false narrative that if we’re not thinking 24/7 about the person that hurt you and what they did, that somehow you’re condoning them. No. I don’t know that this is very easy, but when you get to a point that you truly forgive, you won’t be thinking about what happened to you all the time. Will you forget it? No, but it won’t be a 24/7 thing. Maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, maybe more will go past in which, huh, I really haven’t been thinking about that because I’ve been busy with the present, I’ve been focused on how to help others, and it’s just not something that consumes many more. So that’s why we make it a very important point to say forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning, but you’ve got to find a way to forgive in order to let go of the past and move on. And if you can’t move on, how in the world are you going to help anybody? It’s just so important.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Right. I heard it described to church once, gosh, decades ago, that forgiveness is taking on the sins of another person to yourself. That’s what forgiveness… And those can be heavy. That can be heavy. And the other aspect of this work is it’s not just always other people we have to forgive. It is also ourselves we have to forgive. And I know from your story that that was one of the… You yourself were perhaps the person you had to forgive the most for your crucible of the failed takeover of the family media business, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Sometimes forgiving other people is one thing, but forgiving ourselves, that feels like the Mount of Olympus of forgiveness.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
And that is tough. For me, again, I mentioned earlier in the failed $2.25 billion takeover for my family’s 150-year-old family media business, I felt like I let down my father, my parents, 4,000 plus employees, other family members. I felt like I let down John Fairfax, incredible person of faith, my great-great grandfather. And so in the ’90s, I would just continue to persecute myself. Before I launched the takeover, I had an undergrad degree at Oxford, worked in banking at Wall Street. I graduated from Harvard Business School in 1987, months before launching the takeover. We’re not talking years, months.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, I graduated in what, like May, June? Takeover was launched in September. That’s not a long timeframe, just a few months. So it’s easy for me to say, “How could I have been so dumb, assuming family members wouldn’t sell out into a takeover or company controlled by me because I wanted to make sure we could change management and change the direction of the company?” So it made sense at the time to me, but it just was ludicrous. But over time, I got better at forgiving myself. For me, my anchor is my faith in Christ and came to realize Christ doesn’t need my stuff, doesn’t need a huge family media business. He loves us unconditionally as children of God. It’s not based on what we do.
But then I also had a more sane view that there was infighting amongst family members going back many decades. It was a very difficult situation that I grew up in. So was it all my fault? No. Did I make some incredibly poor decisions? I think I certainly made some decisions that weren’t great. Yes, they were probably poor, but I was able to let go of it in part by saying, “Look, I was so young. I was in a very difficult situation. I honestly was trying to do the right thing. I was never trying to hurt anybody, but it didn’t work out. I made some bad assumptions and I have to move on.” And certainly since I do have a life affirming vision with Beyond the Crucible that seeks to help others, it’s easy to move on when you’ve got something to move on with and to.

Gary Schneeberger:
What’s the next thing that you’re going to… I feel like a carnival barker or something. All right, what we got next? Coming up here, we got, what do we have? We have, you have to do, this is a phrase you used earlier a little bit, just as a tease, you have to do the soul work. We say this a lot here. You say this a lot here. And again, it’s like you have to forgive. Doing the soul work is part of what it takes to get you moving on that treadmill that gets you through your crucible on toward a vision that can carry you to a life of significance. Talk a little bit about soul work and why it’s important.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, we talk about soul work a lot. So we’ve talked previously about it’s important to have an anchor for your soul and have belief and values, but when you are bouncing back from your worst day, which we sometimes call a pit of despair, it’s easy to say, “You know what? Nothing to see here. This is awful. I just need to move and move as quickly as possible. Move anywhere, do anything. Just do something. Just move. Just do it. Right? Just keep moving forward.”
And yes, it can be helpful to move forward, but move forward to where and why and what from? How is this going to be different? You’ve got to do the soul work to meaningfully move forward. And that is not easy. It can be excruciatingly painful. You’ve got to dig down deep and explore your beliefs and values. Now, exploring your worst day, you’ve got to say, “Okay, how much was it my fault? Maybe I was too naive, I trusted in the wrong people. Doesn’t mean it was all my fault, but maybe I should have been smarter. Maybe I let the wrong people into my life.” Again, doesn’t condone other people’s behavior, but it’s almost like forewarned is forearmed.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
Well, how am I going to do anything different if I keep repeating the mistakes of the past? Typically, history does repeat itself. Typically, we often don’t learn from our mistakes.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
So to be able to move forward meaningfully in a healthy, fulfilling life-affirming way, you’ve got to do the soul work. And it’s just, it is not easy. When I was writing my book, Crucible Leadership, which I started around 2008, as I mentioned before, after a talk in church when lead part of my church, an evangelical church in Annapolis, Maryland, he asked me to talk about my story and I thought, well, how much can my story help others? It’s such a unique, big business kind of multifamily business story, but somehow it did. And so then I started writing my book. I thought, well, if this can help people… Well, in those early days from 2008 on, in part, as I was writing about my worst day and the mistakes I made, it was excruciatingly painful. I couldn’t… After two or three hours, I was done. I just needed a break. It’s a whole lot easier now, years later when I’ve talked about it a lot and have come to terms with mistakes I made and all that.

Gary Schneeberger:
And you forgive yourself as you mentioned in the earlier point.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, it’s hard to do things perfectly, but relatively speaking, I think that’s a true statement. But soul work is not easy. Deep reflection, it is painful. We talk about pulling off the band-aid, well, think of a band-aid on there with cement. That’s like some of the most excruciating pain you’ve ever felt. That’s what it’s like pulling off that kind of band-aid. It is not easy, I realize that. But to be able to move forward, you have to do that soul work, that very painful inner reflection. It’s critical.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right. We are four through. We’re about to go to the fifth one. Let’s see what we have. Well, this one’s fun because again, all these are fun and here’s why. The fun for me is that these words or these phrases did not exist in my vocabulary before I started working with you at Beyond the Crucible. And I don’t know that you thought about them in the same way. A lot of these things don’t even show up in your book because the podcast came after the book. So here’s the fifth point. We need fellow travelers. Again, that’s a, it should say, “Copyright Warwick Fairfax,” on it because we talk about it a lot, but explain why that is so critical to our journey from trial to triumph.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, that word, fellow travelers, it really didn’t exist in the book. It’s come out of our discussions and it’s a phrase that we have coined, and basically the thought is this is often when we’re bouncing back from our crucible, it’s tempting to say, “We’ve got this. I don’t need help. I know what I’m doing. Move out of my way. I got this.” But rarely is it the case that we’ve got this. I don’t care how capable you are, how self-confident. From my spiritual framework, God doesn’t give us all the gifts. And why is that? Because I believe he wants us to be humble and wants us to work in community. And so since we don’t have all the gifts needed, if we have a small business or a non-profit, whatever it is, we’re going to need people with skills and experiences that we simply don’t have.
And so a self-confident humble person says, “Look, I know I’m deficient in certain areas.” For me, as I’ve talked about before, I feel like I’m a good reflective advisor. I think I’m a decent if not good writer, but I’m not a salesperson. I hate selling. Every time I try to, I feel like I’m a used car salesman trying to sell the worst lemon that’s ever existed. Is that true of sales? No. But that’s psychologically what I feel like, and it’s just very ingrained and I’m a reserved person by nature, so it just doesn’t fit. So there are other people on the team who are better at promoting and selling than I am. And so that’s one side. The other side is that we need people who will come alongside us and encourage us, especially in those early days when you’re in the pit of despair, you might be thinking, nobody could want to be around me. I feel like a leper in the Bible, unclean. Leave. Go away. Don’t touch me. And nobody could respect me or like me.
But when you find a few, all you need is a few, one or two or more that says, “Look, I realize this is really tough, but I believe in you. You do have skills and abilities. You do have something within you that could be a future vision. You matter, your heart matters. You matter as a person.” All it takes sometimes is people who believe in us to take one small, positive baby step. Maybe it’s to talk to somebody that your friend knows that might have worked for you. Maybe you have a passion about a certain nonprofit or maybe it’s talking to folks that do something similar.
In conversations, it gives you a spark of confidence. It helps you take that next step. So people who encourage us on the days when we feel like I’m going to give up, it’s all too hard, is critical. So fellow travelers is critical. Without them, I think it’s hard to see how you get beyond your worst day of pit of despair, how you get that vision off the ground with people with diverse skills, how you keep going and have perseverance without people encouraging you to say, “Hey, look. Look how far you’ve come. I know you can do it.” It’s absolutely critical.

Gary Schneeberger:
How important have fellow travelers been to your own journey from setback to significance?

Warwick Fairfax:
That’s a great question. I mean, the list of people that have been our fellow travelers at Beyond the Crucible is huge. We’ve had so many, and those are people with different skills and experience, but there have been days when I’ve been a little discouraged, and we’ve got people, yourself and others who have encouraged me. Certainly more broadly than that, my wife, Gale, has been a huge source of encouragement. Even my kids, people at church. I’m an elder at my church and I’m in the Life Group community group and had all sorts of people.
When I was younger, I had people that were mentors of mine that spiritually just in those dark days of the takeover was able to encourage me. So I’ve had a lot of people that both encouraged me as well as had skills and experiences that I don’t have. So yeah, I’ve always felt like why would I try to do it all myself? I like getting input from people. I’m an advisor, but I’m also somebody that likes to take input and reflect on what people say. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything, but by the dialogues with other people, it actually helps refine my thinking. So fellow travelers is absolutely critical.

Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, I’m glad that you talked about that because we’re going take a pause in our conversation and we’re going to do something a little bit different.

Cheryl Farr:
Warwick, congratulations to you, to Gary, and to the entire Beyond the Crucible team for your 300th episode. Many may not realize, maybe just you and I, that this has actually been a ten-year journey to this extraordinary milestone.

Warwick Fairfax:
Wow.

Cheryl Farr:
When we first met in 2016, you had a manuscript and the dream of publishing that manuscript as a book. You met me because you needed a brand. When you first told me the story of losing your 150-year-old family media business, I thought that was incredible. But when I read the manuscript, which of course became your number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, Crucible Leadership, something became really clear to me. The fact that your story wasn’t about this devastating loss, but was really about your heroic journey back from it.
In your journey of self-reflection, of healing, recovery, it was clear that you had develop so much wisdom about how to bounce forward from the worst setbacks imaginable, how none of us are beyond redemption, and how we can all turn our worst trials into our greatest triumphs. Now here we are 10 years later, Beyond the Crucible has created a rich and important body of work of bounce forward stories from people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Beyond the Crucible has also become a beacon of hope for so many who need to understand and be encouraged by the truth that our worst days don’t define us, and that there really is truly light and hope at the end of any tunnel. I’m so proud of what you’ve achieved and to be part of the Beyond the Crucible story.

Scott Karow:
Well, hey, Warwick. As the person who has perhaps heard your voice more than any human on the planet, it’s my pleasure to just give you a short greeting here. I was looking back to see when I jumped in with the team on this podcast, and I was stunned to realize that I joined you on episode 66 in April of 2021. So I’ve been on board for, I think that’s 234 episodes of the 300. So that’s a pretty big deal even for me. I wanted to share the one thing that I’ve heard over and over and over again that resonates so deeply with me is it didn’t happen to you, it happened for you. I can honestly say that my life is full of a lot of it didn’t happen to you, it happened for you moments. In fact, the only reason I’m here editing your show and working with you for so long is because of some it didn’t happen to you, it happened for you moments.
And so I just enjoy rethinking through that every time I hear that phrase is just, the Lord’s been good to me through some really hard times, and I can look back honestly and say, “Those things didn’t happen to me. They happened for me.” And of course, you and I share faith and we can look to a much bigger purpose to those hard times. So I just wanted to thank you for all of those times that I’ve enjoyed personally, the moments they’ve spoken to me, and the times I think back of texting you and saying, “Hey, this was a great episode. I really appreciated it.” So thanks for everything and congrats on number 300.

Margaret Hibbard:
Hey, Warwick. I just wanted to say congratulations on 300 episodes. This is definitely an accomplishment for any podcast, but it makes me really happy to know that your show is striving and we’re just getting bigger and better each year. I love watching you and Gary have discussions every week, and it’s been amazing to be a part of the guest-booking and curating the stories that we put out on this podcast. A little interesting bit. When I started working with the team, I was going through my own personal crucible and it was something that wasn’t really on the surface for me, but working with Warwick and Gary throughout this experience has really helped me understand that your worst day doesn’t define you and that there’s a lot of wealth and resilience and enrichment that happens when you don’t let your worst day define you. I have to say this is one of my favorite jobs I’ve ever done coming from the film industry and using our skills and our connections and our network to help people and make a difference.
I think back on, we’ve had some amazing guests join us. Some notable ones for me, Amy Shippy’s episode really stuck out to me and how she let her faith give her a new direction in life. I really like Lauren Sisler. Her story is amazing and we’re hoping to have her on again soon. But overall, I’m just really proud of you guys because vulnerability over a digital format is always hard, and I feel like you guys have captured a lot of authenticity and wisdom and you have a vessel and a program that’s really helping people, and it’s a joy for me to log on every day and to work with you guys. So I’m just really proud of you and I hope that 300 is just a start and we have 300 more ahead of us. So congratulations, guys.

Casey Helmick:
Warwick Fairfax, I am so excited for episode number 300. It has been a long journey to get here, but what a fulfilling one. Scott and I talked this morning, Scott, of course, our wonderful editor, and we started with you around episode 66 and what a partnership with you. We’re so thankful to get to tell these wonderful stories. And honestly, I was thinking about which story is my favorite, and it feels like every week, every month I learn more of your story, and this is a good moment to remind yourself your story is such an inspiration for so many. We don’t talk about your story all that often. 300 episodes in, we’ve been there, done that. But just such a beautiful reminder to me here at episode 300 that one life can inspire so many, can inspire 300 of these stories to come to the world and change lives, and we’re thankful for that.
I mean, I remember personally going through a crucible just in the past year and thinking, man at the bottom of this barrel, what is left? And many of the things that you’ve shared through the years were right there waiting for me. So I hope, I pray that we can keep doing another 300. I hope that there’s many good days ahead of us because I know each and every one of these stories that is told first is meaningful to you because it is a way to give back having faced your own crucible, it’s meaningful to the whole team and to my team because we get to be inspired by these incredible people that we pulled together, and it’s meaningful to the listeners and the viewers, and we know that we can feel the impact.
The last story I thought of just sitting here laughing about is when we recorded your audiobook work and there’s helicopters flying over a forest in Austin, Texas, and we’ve got to pause every now and then because the helicopters go in to save somebody. And it’s an honor to work with you. It’s an honor to laugh with you. It’s an honor to bring these stories to life and thank you for the hard work and the investment you’re making into this world through Beyond the Crucible and cheers to 300 more.

Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, amazing. 300 episodes. I have been your co-host beside you for 297 of those if my math is right, and don’t count on that because I’m an ex-journalist and I can’t do math, but you did the first one by yourself, the 100th one I was your guest, and there was one after that in which somebody co-hosted for you. So I’ve been there for 297 of these 300 episodes, and one of the things I wanted to say to you is I have a unique vantage point being your co-host. I get to see your reaction to everything everybody says, some of the things that don’t get into the final show, and one of the thing that amazes me what you say more often than, almost as often as crucible as this, “That’s powerful.” You say to the guests, “That’s a powerful comment. That’s powerful. That’s so powerful.”
And you’re not just puffing them on. I know for a fact that you’re moved by the things our guests say, and I think that comes through in what the show gives to listeners and viewers. I always tell people all the time, Warwick, that you are a true host because you don’t have a list of 10 questions in front of you and you check them off. You listen, and then you pull the sweater strings of their story and you ask them questions based on that story. It’s a true conversation. As an old ex-journalist, as I said, you’re good. You’re very good at what you do. So I always tell people before we have them on that you and I are like a sports commentating team. I wish I knew a cricket sports commentating team. I don’t. But I’ll tell you this, I’m proud to be the John Madden to your Pat Summerall.
Well, there you go. Any… I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I mean anything to say about that. We pulled that off behind your back for the last couple of weeks, so we were very proud of how it all turned out.

Warwick Fairfax:
I mean, that’s overwhelming. What a gift. I mean, thank you, Gary, for pulling that together. I mean, that’s just, that’s incredible. Yeah, as my family knows, one of the things that’s a learning opportunity for me is I don’t find it easy to hear praise. So when it’s my birthday and listeners have heard this, we always do this thing where you go around the table and words of affirmation. So as I jokingly say, “I can dish it out, but I can’t take it very well.” I can dish out praise. I’m not so good at taking it. So when it’s my birthday or Father’s Day it’s like buckle up.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:
All that’s to say is, yeah, I mean, I just feel so privileged. All of the people you had there. I mean, Cheryl, we started off 10 years ago, and a friend of mine in Australia said, “I know you have a book, but to have a book, you’ve got to have a brand and social media. You’ve got to have some folks that will want to, an audience will want to buy your book.” So they put me in touch with Cheryl, and she helped create the whole brand that we have.
I mean, the brand we have wouldn’t have happened without Cheryl taking the words from my manuscript and just a whole team, yourself, Margaret, Casey, Scott, I mean the whole team is… To have a team that believe in what we’re doing, I mean, obviously everybody wants to be meaningfully and fairly compensated, but it feels like it’s beyond that. The people really believe in the mission that we’re doing that to help folks understand that your worth doesn’t define you. And so to have co-laborers, fellow travelers like that, that have excellent expertise in the different areas, but truly believe in the vision, you can’t get better fellow travelers than I have, and we have. So yeah, it’s an honor to journey together and thank you for pulling that together. That’s overwhelming. Well done.

Gary Schneeberger:
So shall we move on to the next point? We’re at point 6.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yes.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yes. Please get me off the hook of this. All right, here we go folks. The sixth part of the lexicon that came out of Beyond the Crucible, and the podcast specifically Beyond the Crucible is this, your worst day is your worst day.

Warwick Fairfax:
This concept that your worst day doesn’t define you. I mean, this certainly is something I’ve had to wrestle with. As I’ve mentioned before, growing up with this 150-year-old family media business, $2.25 billion takeover in my twenties, I wrestled with this concept, well, this worst day, this worst mistake is going to define me. This is my legacy. And so I had to find my way back saying, “Okay, yes, it was a mistake. Yes, ending 150-year-old business is not nothing. Again, it wasn’t totally my fault, but it felt like a lot my fault, rightly or wrongly.” So I had to find my way back to a new vision. And so at Beyond the Crucible, we do believe in second chances. We believe in redemption. We believe that if you learn the lessons of your crucible, that I’ve tried to learn those, that you can find a life giving vision, and very often it comes out of the ashes of your crucible, which it did for me. And that can lead to a life significance, life on purpose dedicated to serving others.
So this idea that your worst day doesn’t define you, that has been life giving to me almost beyond description that, okay, I made mistakes, but I’ve reflected, I’ve done the soul work. I understand how much was my fault, how much wasn’t, what my gifts are, what my gifts are not, what areas I’m passionate about. And now I feel like I’m so blessed.
I obviously love what I do at Beyond the Crucible. I’m an elder at my church in Annapolis, Maryland Bay Area Community Church. I help advise a friend who has a local ministry, Joey Tomassoni at Estuary. I’m on the campaign committee where my kids went at Taylor University in Indiana, very missional Christ-centered University. I’m so blessed to be doing all those things with people of faith and people who I passionately believe in their vision. So whether it’s my vision of Beyond the Crucible or coming alongside as an elder at my church or other organizations, it helps me say that yes, my worst day doesn’t define me. The fact that I’ve been married to my wife over 35 years, I’ve got three wonderful children, the oldest of which, Will, is getting married in May. I mean having three kids who work hard, strong faith, humble, I am blessed beyond description. So the fact that your worth day doesn’t define you, I can honestly say amen. And I do believe that.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right. We’re getting to the back half of our journey here, Warwick. We’ve got a few of these left. Let’s see what we’ve got here. Character is your belief system in action. That’s a good one. That’s a big one. That came a lot out of the actionable truths of the brand, right? Talk about that a little bit.

Warwick Fairfax:
For me, my highest values are integrity and humility, but really character is your belief system in action. I think from my perspective, faith is important, but faith without actions is meaningless.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
And one of my favorite Bible verses is James 2:17, and it says this. “In the same way faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” So to say, “Oh, I believe in love and kindness and compassion,” but you have no kindness and compassion to anybody you know, I mean, what’s the point? Or if you’re like Enron, that company from a number of years ago that had all these wonderful values that they were about, love, compassion, whatever, and they didn’t at all exhibit it, there was a lot of fraud and a lot of bad things going on, that’s one of the worst things is to say you believe in a certain set of values and not live them.
People will rightly accuse you of being a hypocrite. Doesn’t mean that you’ll live out your beliefs and values all the time every day, but as a whole over the course of your life, is your life characterized by congruence, by more often than not living in light of your beliefs and values, or is it not? That’s really the question. So your characters, your belief system in action is just so important. Beliefs without putting them into action, people may question, “Well, if you really believe that, wouldn’t you live it at least to some degree?”

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
So character is so important of just living what you believe. And it’s a journey. It’s not easy. We’re all going to make mistakes, which we have to confess, apologize, and then try to learn from and minimize them. But yeah, it’s important to do the soul work. It’s important to have beliefs and values, and it’s important to try to your utmost to live them out every day with your family, with your co-workers, people that you know, organizations that you’re involved in. It’s critical.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And as I said, this is sort of a linchpin of our series that we did on the actionable truths of the brand, right? This idea that you can believe something, that’s great, but if you’re not doing it, right, actionable truth, it’s a truth, but truth without action doesn’t get you anywhere. So talk a little bit about, you don’t have to go into all of them, but this idea, because it took us a while to land on something like actionable truth and we came up with it because it is so important. Yeah. You got to have truth, but you also got to have action behind it. That’s what’s going to propel you to your vision and then to a life of significance. Right?

Warwick Fairfax:
You might say, “I believe in fellow travelers, but I don’t have any.”

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
Okay.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:
Great, but you’ve got to have them. Or, “I think in theory it’s good to have a vision, but I’ve taken no steps whatsoever to try and figure out a vision. I’ve not done the soul work, the reflection. I’ve not talked to others to get an idea of what kind of vision it could be. Okay, I have this vision, but I’ve taken no steps to make it a reality. I’ve not tried to get on board fellow travelers be they paid, unpaid, informal advisers.” So the truths that you live your life by, they’ve got to be actionable. You’ve got to be moving the ball down the field in each of these areas. Self-reflection, that’s important. Okay. But you’ve got to do it.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s really, really painful. You’ve got to sit down and say, “What went wrong? How much was my fault? How much was others? Was I in like a square peg at a round hole? Was it not a good fit for my skills? Was it something that I could care less about? Was I in an organization, I don’t know, maybe making cigarettes and I’m thinking, gosh, that maybe is killing people or it’s not healthy? Yeah. So maybe there’s more to life than just the almighty dollar. Maybe I need to be in organizations whose products and services I believe in. Maybe we’re just killing my soul, going in every day to whatever that company was. It just treated people poorly. It sold products I didn’t believe in.” Well, you’ve got to do the self-reflection. So actionable truths is critical and doing the work on each of them.

Gary Schneeberger:
Absolutely. An actionable truth here is I’ve got to pull another phrase from the lexicon of Beyond the Crucible that was birthed into podcast right here. And here we’ve got one. This one has a bit of a long tail on it in that this one was from, and I looked it up, it was from our fifth episode. So this critical truth learned through this podcast in 300 episodes came, now, I got to do math, 295 episodes ago. And that’s this. Your worst day is your worst day. It is not a competition. Talk about that, why that’s important and where it came from.

Warwick Fairfax:
So as you say, this phrase came in our discussions with David Charbonnet. We had David and his dad, Mike, as you say, episode five. And David Charbonnet was a Navy SEAL who was paralyzed in a parachuting accident in Southern California. And I remember mentioning that my crucible of losing my family’s 150-year-old family media business was nothing compared to what David had gone through. And as I remember it, David was so magnanimous, and he said, “Your worst day is your worst day. It’s not a competition.” And that was so kind and generous because to me, being paralyzed is a whole lot worse than losing some family business, even a couple billion dollar family business, it’s not paralysis.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
And so I think one of the temptations is to say, “Oh, what I went through, I feel almost embarrassed about complaining about what I went through.” Because sadly, there’s often people who have gone through worse. They suffered more loss, more heartache, more whatever it is. You might think, gosh, I thought my story is bad. But their story feels like light years worse, and it makes you feel embarrassed. But really the idea is your worst day is your worst day, and you can’t compare yourself. I mean, your worst day and the excruciating pain that we suffer is indeed our worst day. For me, losing 150-year-old family media business, and again, it wasn’t so much about the money, but letting down my family, my father, the 4,000 plus employees, ending the vision of my great-great-grandfather, a stronger business person for Christ as have ever come across, it wasn’t maybe my vision as, at least as I’ve come to realize, but there were thousands of employees thinking that we felt safe in working for a company that was owned by the Fairfax family. Who’s going to own us now? Was it going to mean?
I mean, that was not lost on me, but it felt excruciatingly painful at the time, just feeling like, probably the worst part of it was feeling like God had a vision, from my perspective, because I came to faith in Christ in an evangelical Anglican church at Oxford, I felt like God had a vision. I let God down. Now, if God had wanted to happen, it would have despite my mistakes, but that was so painful, letting my family, employees down, letting God down, it was excruciatingly painful. So that was my worst day. And I’ve learned with that very gracious thought by David Charbonnet that it’s not a competition. It’s just not helpful to say, “Well, I should be embarrassed.” No, it’s real to you.
Somebody that loses their job as a CEO, maybe the board fires them. You might say, “Well, loses a job as a CEO, you’ll probably find somewhere else or something will happen. And gee, that’s not paralysis. That’s not being destitute.” Okay. But for them, their whole identity or their whole sense of wellbeing, maybe it does mean a pay cut. Maybe they will have to sell their home. I mean, again, I’m not trying to minimize that, but it’s like you can’t compare what you’ve been through if it’s incredibly painful to you. Who are we to judge others? Who are we to judge their pain and say, “Oh, that’s nothing”? I mean, that’s from my perspective, not right. We don’t judge other people’s pain. We don’t criticize others. We don’t make them feel less than. So this is an incredible gift from David Charbonnet.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right, we’ve got a couple more of these left, Warwick. Here we go. The next phrase out of the Beyond the Crucible lexicon, birthed from Beyond the Crucible podcast is this, lack of forgiveness is like drinking poison. It’s our second exploration of the subject of forgiveness. First one was about forgiving yourself. This one’s about not forgiving others. Why is a lack of forgiveness like drinking poison?

Warwick Fairfax:
This is a phrase that we’ve used a lot. It’s related to forgiving but not condoning, but when you don’t forgive because we can think to ourselves, if I forgive, that means it’s okay what the person did. But what happens is when you don’t forgive, it is like drinking poison. And what’s so frustrating and galling is typically when we don’t forgive, the other person could care less. But we’re thinking about it 24/7. We’re thinking about how bad it was. And it’s just what happens is it corrodes our soul. It just eats away like acid just destroying us. It can damage our physical health, it can certainly damage our wellbeing.
And what happens is when we don’t let go of what happened, the poison often manifests itself in anger and rage. And the sad thing, I think this is true, we tend to take out our anger and rage on those closest to us. Our wife, husband, kids, brothers, sisters, family, parents, cousins, friends. Do they deserve that? No. Of course they don’t. And so if you love your family and your friends, coworkers, you have to forgive because that anger leaks and it will leak on the people closest towards you. So it is like poison. It can absolutely destroy your life. And as we said before, how can you move forward when your soul is just being eroded and corroded by acid?

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:
There won’t be any soul left to move forward with. So moving forward with a life-affirming vision, it won’t happen. So if you value your family, if you value the people that will be helped by your vision, you’ve got to find a way to forgive and stop frankly drinking the poison. You just got to stop.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right. We’re down to the last one. So I’m going to put the last one down here on my… And then you know what? I’m going to flash back to the early episodes of the show. I’m going to throw my hat on here for the last few minutes. Scott, give me a drum roll before I open this one up. Okay, let me hear it. Good, good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here we go. This has truly been at random folks and is a great one to end on because this may be the one, Warwick… No, I don’t think maybe is right. I think this is the one that you struggle with the most of the things that we’ve talked about here, and that’s your crucible can be a gift. Talk about why that’s true and why that was perhaps a challenge for you to accept early on.

Warwick Fairfax:
So Gary, you’re right. To say that my crucible can be a gift, that losing 150-year-old family media business, I didn’t feel like a gift because as I’ve said earlier on in this podcast, I felt like I let my father down, my parents, family, 4,000 plus employees, my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, the incredible person of faith. And as I said, God, in some sense. I felt like God had a plan to resurrect the company and the image of the founder, and that was the plan and I blew it. So yes, how could that be a gift? But over time I came to see that there was a gift in this. One of the things I’ve learned is I prepared my whole life to work in the family media business. Undergrad degree at Oxford, working in banking at Wall Street, MBA from Harvard Business School. But I’m not this business tycoon. I’m not a CEO. I’m a reflective advisor. I don’t like being in the limelight. I don’t like having to manage.
I mean, since I have a Harvard MBA amongst other things, it’s not like I don’t understand the concept of management and what you have to do. I just don’t like doing. It’s like because I’m a strategic thinker, I understand the process of sales and the steps you need to go through to get there. I just don’t like doing it. It doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. And so I was just not being who I was designed to be. And as I’ve said before, I wasn’t living my own vision. In fact, I wasn’t even living my father’s vision. He was more of a philosopher at heart. He would’ve been a good university professor. He wasn’t really, he was a good writer, but he wasn’t really, I don’t think fully living his vision.
But the vision we were living was the vision of my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax. It was his vision coming to Australia from England in the late 1830s with virtually nothing. It was his vision to start a great newspaper, which he did and that’s wonderful. But I came to realize not only did I have not the right gift and abilities, this wasn’t my vision. Well, the book, Crucible Leadership, this podcast Beyond the Crucible, helping people bounce back from their worst days to living a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. That is my vision. It’s nobody else’s vision. I didn’t inherit it.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s my vision and I feel very passionate about it. So one of the things I’ve realized more recently is that in a sense what I went through was a gift. It didn’t feel like it. I don’t mean that the ramifications on others is a gift, but for me personally, I never would’ve left voluntarily that family media business. I couldn’t have. I would’ve felt like I’m letting down my father, parents, John Fairfax, God in some fashion. But I think somehow maybe God doesn’t cause things to happen, maybe allows it to happen to impart my mistakes. I was able to find my own life. I was able to start over in America where my family and my name is not as well known. My kids were able to grow up in a relatively normal upbringing. This wouldn’t have happened if I had lived in Australia in this family newspaper business.
So yes, it was a gift. All the things I do now from being a church elder and the other organizations and Beyond the Crucible, that is all a gift. So it’s a painful gift. I don’t think about the pain of what happened as much as I used to, but it is a gift. And what happened, I think one of the first times we heard about this was through an Australian Stacey Copas.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
Became a diagnosed as a quadriplegic. She grew up in the suburbs of Sydney. She dove as a teenager into an above ground pool. Her parents obviously said, “Don’t do that, Stacey.” As a lot of kids do, they just do it anyway. So she had suicidal ideation, substance abuse, but she came back from that and became a speaker, consultant, coach. And she said that she’s now grateful for who she is now. It doesn’t mean that she is grateful for the injury, but her truth is that the person she is now wouldn’t be possible without what she went through.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
And we’ve heard a lot of guests on the podcast have said they feel some degree of gratitude for the crucible that they went through. One is an aberration, but many, several, it’s not an aberration. There is real truth. If you can find the point where you can say to yourself, what I went, while I didn’t enjoy it, it was horrendous, but there’s some degree of gratitude that I can have for what I went through. I’m a different person because of what I went through.

Gary Schneeberger:
Well, that wraps up our discussion. The 10 sayings, the 10 phrases, the Beyond the Crucible lexicon burst from the Beyond the Crucible Podcast. I’m going to switch it up a little, Warwick. I have been, right, as I said in the video that we played in the middle of this episode, I’ve been your co-host for 297 of these and usually I get the last word. I ask you something and then I say the last word and say goodbye. Here’s what I’m going to do this time though, because I know the ground that you’re going to cover. I’m just going to ask you this question and I’m going to shut up and I’m going to let you have the last word. It’s only fitting that on the 300th episode of Beyond the Crucible that the host and creator of Beyond the Crucible would have the last word. So here’s the question. Any final thoughts about this whole robust conversation we’ve had? And it’s been a delight to be here having this conversation with you. What are some final thoughts you have for our listeners and viewers here? And I’ll just sit back and listen.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s been an incredible journey, these last 300 episodes. I would say for me it’s been a voyage of discovery. And I think for both Gary and I, and I would hopefully say for the listeners and viewers as well. I’m somebody that loves learning. I’m a curious person by nature. I can’t think of any podcast we’ve had, especially when we’ve had guests, even when it’s just you and me talking about a movie or about something from the book or a blog that you and I have written, I feel like in the discussions we have and the discussions we have with guests, I learn something from every one of those discussions. Every one of the guests that we’ve had, there’s something they’ve said, it’s like, wow. David Charbonnet, “Your worst day is your worst day. It’s not a competition.” Stacey Copas, her sense in some sense of gratitude for who she is now after what happened.
There’s so many people, I’d say everybody we’ve had on, there’s something they’ve said I’ve learned. And that helps me grow as a human, helps me grow my knowledge and hopefully wisdom to a degree. It’s borrowed wisdom, if you will.

Gary Schneeberger:
And I’m going to butt in. I’m going to butt in right there-

Warwick Fairfax:
Please.

Gary Schneeberger:
… because this is… You’ve often talked about you want to get it… That you are. I mean, you are a thought leader. But you know what else you are, Warwick? You’re a listen leader. The way that you conduct this podcast, the things that you listen for, the things that you hear, the questions you ask, that is a… Anybody can talk. Good grief, right? I mean, it’s easier to talk than it is to listen, and you do both extremely well.

Warwick Fairfax:
Thank you, Gary. I mean, I want to learn. I want to grow.

Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Right.

Warwick Fairfax:
That’s why listen. And I want to probe the story of our guest so that it helps other people learn. So often I will ask guests, which not everybody does. I’ll say, “Tell me the backstory. Was there something in your backstory that was the kernel of the dream and the vision that you are now? What was life like before the crucible?” Typically people don’t ask that, they just go to the highlight. So I like to learn and I want to create a space where our listeners and viewers can learn. And beyond discovery, beyond the crucible, we’re about giving people hope. We want people to feel like their worst day doesn’t define them. And we’re hoping that when our listeners and viewers hear from others or hear your and my discussions, people will think, if that person can get through that crucible, well maybe I can. Maybe I don’t have to be defined by my worst mistake or the worst thing that was done to me. Maybe I can indeed bounce back from my crucible. Have a life-affirming vision that leads to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.
I and I think Gary would affirm this, we’re both looking forward to the episodes that are to come, the new guests, the new summer movie series, the new podcasts that come from blogs. I’m looking forward to more learning, more of a voyage of discovery. I’m looking forward to having an impact on people that watch and listen to our podcast. And it’s just a wonderful voyage of discovery. Just as we close, this podcast wouldn’t be possible without you, Gary. You’re my co-host. I’m reserved. You’re less reserved, which it’d be a bit dull if we were both reserved people. People would fall asleep.

Gary Schneeberger:
That’s very Australian to say less reserved. It’s an understatement.

Warwick Fairfax:
If you wanted to be truly Aussie, you’d say, “Well, Warwick, you’re not wrong.”

Gary Schneeberger:
Amen to that.

Warwick Fairfax:
Which means it’s really true.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:
So yeah, no, you are more outgoing than me, but you just create a perfect space for myself and guests to really get to the heart of some of these issues. This podcast wouldn’t exist and it wouldn’t be possible without Gary Schneeberger. It just wouldn’t be. You’re just a perfect companion and co-laborer, fellow traveler to me. Without Gary, that wouldn’t be Beyond the Crucible. It wouldn’t be. So that again, I think is a God thing. I feel truly blessed. We didn’t bring you on board to do this. It was more your expertise in public relations. But as we were beginning it, it’s like I thought to myself, I think I’d rather do this with somebody else, and who should I do it with? Well, you. You’ve done in your public relations, you’ve done radio interviews, you’ve had a lot of experience at dialogues and discussions, especially on radio, but now on podcasting.
So I think I feel blessed. I think you would agree. I think we are both blessed and we’re just so looking forward to the next episodes of learning and providing a space where more and more people could be impacted and really believe the truth that your worst day doesn’t have to define you, and you can live a life-affirming vision, a vision that does lead to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So the voyage will continue, and we’re just looking forward to the next chapters of learning and discovery, and we’re looking forward to bringing them to you.

Gary Schneeberger:
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