Kidnapped, Rescued and Redeemed: Lauren Burns

From a Life Sentence to a Life Restored: Judy HendersonTo explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected] age 18. Judy Henderson married the man who would become the father of her two children. What began with hopes of family and stability turned into 12 years of domestic abuse, a period she later recognized as foundational to her vulnerability in subsequent relationships.In 1982, she was wrongly convicted of capital murder in a case tied to her then-boyfriend’s criminal activities. He was acquitted at trial; she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. At 32,Henderson entered the Missouri prison system with no history of criminal behavior and little understanding of the legal process that had condemned her.What followed was not just the passage of time, but a metamorphosis. Angry and disoriented at first, Henderson turned inward to confront her past and embrace her faith. Therapy sessions and support groups — particularly those for survivors of domestic abuse — helped her understand the patterns of trauma that had shaped her decisions. She came to recognize herself as a battered woman, a term she had not known before incarceration. Her eventual release came in 2017 through the clemency of then-Governor Eric Greitens, who made history as the first Missouri governor to personally visit a prison to deliver news of a commutation. Now in her seventies and living near her family in Missouri, Henderson works for Catholic Charities and remains an active advocate for criminal justice reform.She recounts it all in her new memoir, When the Light Finds Us: From a Life Sentence to a Life Transformed.To learn more about Judy Henderson, including how to buy her memoir, visit www.judyannhenderson.comTo explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Applying the Actionable Truths 4: FaithWe take a look this week at the fourth actionable truth our research has shown us helps you move from trial to triumph: faith.To effectively move beyond a crucible, we need to have an anchor for our soul, a guiding light for our journey. Something that will keep us on track and in touch with who we really are. That is what we call faith at Beyond the Crucible.It may include different belief systems, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. It could be different philosophical or spiritual ways of thinking. But to withstand the storms of life and the crucibles we may encounter, we have to have an immovable north star that guides us to our life of significance — especially through the challenges we encounter along the way."The point," Warwick says, "is that we need to get in touch with what we believe at our very core."To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Lauren Burns was 7 years old when her father, a Jordanian national divorced from her mother when she was just a few weeks old, kidnapped her and took her to his homeland. His plan was to raise her there.But Lauren's Mom fought tirelessly and valiantly to bring her back home to America. The details of how she succeeded in being reunited with her daughter, told here in edge-of-your-seat detail, feature a clandestine rescue operation led by former U.S. military operatives and what Lauren describes as miracles that not only got her home but also fueled her Chistian faith.To learn more about Lauren Burns, visit www.laurenburns.netTo explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Building a Life You Don't Want to Escape FromWe discuss Warwick’s latest blog at beyondthecrucible.com, with thoughts on how we can shift from a life of quiet desperation to a life of joy, fulfillment and purpose.We've got all the questions you need to ask yourself here, from What is your true calling?  to What are your beliefs and values?, from How do you want the rhythms of your life to look? to How do you see this adding up to a life of significance?"It is our life, and we get to choose our own adventure," Warwick says. "We can design a life we want to live."To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Tackling M.S. with Mindfulness: Scott EblinScott Eblin describes himself as feeling "bulletproof" after working more than two decades as a executive leader and a leadership coach. Then he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The illness set him on a journey to develop mindfulness practices in his work and life that have made both better.He says mindfulness is the intersection of two qualities—awareness and intention. The first helps with understanding what’s going on both around you and inside of you at any given moment. The second enables you to act in the moment to create a particular outcome or result.His emphasis, he tells Warwick, is on small steps that, when taken consistently over time, lead to big results.To learn more about Scott Eblin, visit www.eblingroup.com/To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Applying the Actionable Truths 3: AuthenticityWe take a look this week at the third actionable truth our research has shown us helps you move from trial to triumph: authenticity.This truth is the first in the processing phase of our Beyond the Crucible Roadmap for moving past our worst day toward new opportunity. This phase, we discuss, is marked by the need to overcome fear and commit to change — two things we can only do by leaning into who we really are, not who we want others to think we are."We cannot move forward," Warwick explains, "without being our true authentic selves and pursuing our unique authentic calling."To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

His childhood was something out of a mafia movie — boy attracted to what he saw as the glamour of the flashy toughs in his working-class New York City neighborhood. And Robert Borelli's story was not headed for a happy ending.What began as running errands for the mobsters he idolized turned into committing crimes that escalated in their violence and an addiction to drugs that robbed him of the respect he worked so hard to get.But Borelli's story did a sharp 180-degree turn to redemption when a question from his young daughter while he was in prison led to his getting clean from drugs and getting a fresh start through what he calls a miracle of God.Today, he talks to at-risk youth about avoiding his early path and embracing his life-saving one.To learn more about Robert Borelli, visit www.www.robertborelli.comTo explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.comEnjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.

A comment from a recent guest on the show about the tension between growth and comfort as we aim to move beyond our crucibles prompted a blog on the subject that fuels this week's discussion. Warwick and Gary examine three truths about why prioritizing comfort rather than growth when setback and failure strike will not lead you to the joy and fulfillment of a life of significance. The only way forward is to press into what your crucible teaches you about yourself, the growth it’s granted you in your wisdom and resilience, and be ever-ready to dial them up as needed.To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Flexible Leadership, the title of business consultant Kevin Eikenberry's latest book, offers a new way to think about leading, helping managers break out of leadership styles that may no longer be useful to navigate the challenges they face. In our interview with Eikenberry this week, we discuss his new framework for leadership, built on flexors that allow us to break out of the rigid boxes that limit the ways we approach the thorniest issues before us. The key, he explains, is flexing tactics but not values and principles."The intentional, wise choices that this framework helps you think through, should help you move through a crucible faster and more efficiently," he explains. "Not because it becomes easy, but because it becomes more manageable and navigable."To learn more about Kevin Eikenberry and get a free gift based on his book, visit www.kevineikenberry.comTo explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]

We take a deep-dive look at the second actionable truth that helps you move from trial to triumph: self-reflection. Our discussion centers on the ways in which reflecting on your crucible can reveal important insights about yourself — your strengths, weaknesses, even vulnerabilities — that you can use to forgive yourself, forgive others and bounce forward to a life of significance. "It is all too easy to start acting and moving without reflecting," Warwick says. "We always say at Beyond the Crucible that the inner work precedes the outer work."To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel and be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at [email protected]