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CRUCIBLES Podcast

CRUCIBLES Podcast

By: The Referent Group
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The CRUCIBLES Podcast (hosted by The Referent Group) explores leadership through stories of defining moments.

A crucible experience, according to scholars Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas, is "a trial and a test — a point of deep self-reflection that forces us to question who we are and what matters to us." Each episode ventures into a moment or event that disrupted assumptions, tested identity, and forced reflection. The stories aren’t about winning or surviving. They’re about meaning, transformation, and the ways hardship reshapes how we see ourselves and the world.

Copyright 2026 All rights reserved.
Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Growth Mindset: MLB Pitcher Jamie Moyer's Improbable Resilience
    Jun 16 2026

    In 1992, at 29 years old, Jamie Moyer was out of baseball.

    Released by his third MLB team in four years, unable to garner interest from even overseas clubs, Moyer faced a crossroads that would have ended most careers. Instead, he chose to rebuild — not just his pitching, but his entire approach to the game and to himself. What followed was one of the most remarkable second acts in sports history: a 25-year career that stretched until age 49. Moyer would become an MLB All-Star, a Seattle Mariners Hall-of-Famer, a World Series Champion, and one of the 20 winningest pitchers of baseball's modern era.

    In this episode of the Crucibles Podcast, Doug Crandall, Matt Kincaid, and guest-host Tim Porter sit down with Jamie to reflect on the crucible that could have sent him packing and the growth mindset that instead became the foundation of his mental edge.

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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Impossible Possible: Sandy Hook Elementary Teacher Kaitlin (Roig) DeBellis
    Jun 1 2026

    On December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and took the lives of twenty children and six educators.

    Acting instinctively, Kaitlin (Roig) DeBellis made the "impossible, possible" to protect her first grade students by huddling them in a tiny bathroom. In the years since, she has carried the weight of that morning while finding the courage to reflect, heal, and lead.

    In the second episode of the Crucibles Podcast, Doug Crandall, Matt Kincaid, and Traci Fisher sit down with Kaitlin to reflect on the "darkest hour" that reshaped her understanding of resilience, purpose, and what it means to move forward in the aftermath of unimaginable tragedy.

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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Selfless Service: Dave Magarity, Maggie Dixon, and the Army Women's Basketball Team
    May 1 2026

    In the fall of 2005, just weeks before the start of the season, Army West Point Women's Basketball hired 28-year-old Maggie Dixon as its head coach. By March of 2006, Coach Dixon had led the program — in thrilling fashion — to its first-ever Division I NCAA Tournament appearance.

    Three weeks after facing Pat Summitt, Candace Parker, and the University of Tennessee in the first round, tragedy struck.

    In our inaugural episode of the Crucibles Podcast, Doug Crandall, Tom Hustead, and Matt Kincaid of The Referent Group sit down with Coach Dave Magarity and team captain Michelle Piasecki to reflect on the crucible that changed their lives, and many others, on April 6, 2006.

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    1 hr and 21 mins
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