Personal Illness Leads to Purpose

Former Novartis CEO Dan Vasella followed a path to leadership that was one of the most difficult and unusual of all our interviewees. His emergence from extreme challenges in his youth to reach the pinnacle of the global pharmaceutical industry illustrates the transformation many leaders undergo on their journeys.

Born in 1953 to a modest family in Fribourg, Switzerland, Dan's early years were filled with medical problems that stoked his passion to become a physician. Suffering from asthma at age 5, he was sent alone to the mountains of eastern Switzerland for two summers where he lived on a farm with three alcoholic brothers and their niece.

At age 8, Dan had tuberculosis followed by meningitis, which forced him to spend a full year in a sanatorium. He suffered not only from illness but also from loneliness. His parents never visited him, and his two sisters came only once. He still remembers the pain and fear of lumbar punctures as the nurses held him down “like an animal” so that he couldn't move.

One day a new physician took time to explain each step of the procedure to him. Dan asked the physician whether he could hold the nurse's hand rather than being held down. Dan recalls, “This time the procedure didn't hurt, so I reached up and gave him a big hug. These human gestures of forgiveness, caring, and compassion made a deep impression on the kind of person I wanted to become.”

Even after recovering from his illnesses, Dan's life was unstable. When he was 10, his older sister passed away from cancer. The following year, his younger sister died in an automobile accident and his father died in surgery. To support the family, his mother worked in a distant town. Left alone at 14, Dan rebelled, joined a motorcycle gang, and got into frequent fights.

Inspired by the compassionate physician at the sanatorium as a role model, Dan decided to become a physician. During medical school, Dan sought psychoanalysis to come to terms with his early experiences. “I wanted to understand myself and not feel like a victim,” he says. “I learned I did not have to be in control all the time.”

After residency, Dan realized he wanted to help people by running an organization that restored people to health. Joining pharmaceutical company Sandoz, Dan moved to America where he flourished in marketing. Shortly after returning to Switzerland, he became CEO of the pharmaceutical division, a position in which he led negotiations to merge with crosstown rival Ciba‐Geigy. Just 43 years old, Dan was named CEO of the merged company called Novartis.

As CEO, Dan blossomed as a leader, integrating the two companies and creating a new Novartis culture built on compassion, competence, and competition to empower leaders throughout the organization. His greatest success came from the drug Gleevec, which he found languishing in Novartis' research labs. He convinced his team to get the drug to market within two years, breaking all records for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. Gleevec became Novartis' best‐selling drug with $6 billion in revenues.

Dan used his crucible experiences to guide him to a purpose that animated his leadership.

My childhood illnesses, the deaths of my father and sisters, and experiences of dying patients had a powerful impact. As CEO, I have the leverage to impact the lives of many more people and follow my moral compass. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is what we do for others.

Reframing Your Childhood Crucible in Midlife

Oprah Winfrey uses her voice and her empathy to impact people rather than lead an organization, but it wasn't until she was 36 that she fully understood the impact of her childhood crucible. When Oprah interviewed a woman named Truddi Chase who had been sexually abused as a child, she was overcome with emotion. “I thought I was going to have a breakdown on television,” she says. “I yelled, ‘Stop! Stop! You've got to stop rolling cameras!’” But the cameras kept rolling as feelings roiled inside her.

Truddi's story triggered many traumatic memories from Oprah's own childhood. “That was the first time I recognized that I was not to blame,” she said, as her demons had haunted her without explanation until that day.

I was a sexually promiscuous teenager. As a result, I got into a lot of trouble and believed I was responsible. It wasn't until I was 36 years old that I connected the fact, “Oh, that's why I was that way.” I always blamed myself.

Born out of wedlock, Oprah grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. When she was young, her mother moved north to find work. “I went to live with my grandmother, which probably saved my life,” she says. Yet even as a young child, she had a vision she could make something of her life, recalling when she was 4 watching her grandmother boiling the laundry in a large cauldron. “I remember thinking, ‘My life won't be like this. It will be better.’ It wasn't from arrogance. It was just a place of knowing things could be different for me.”

Oprah recalled the trauma of being raped by her cousin after she relocated to Milwaukee when she was 9. She was molested numerous times by family members during the five years she lived with her mother. “It was an ongoing, continuous thing, so much so that I started to think, ‘This is the way life is.’” At age 14, she gave premature birth to a child who lived only 2 weeks.

Today, Oprah has built one of the most respected media empires in the world, but it was not until the Truddi Chase interview that she realized her broader mission. Ever since the traumatic experiences of her youth, she had felt the need to please people and could never say no. That day she finally understood why.

Since then, Oprah's mission has gone far beyond pursuing personal success to empowering people all around the world, especially young women.

I was always searching for love and affection and attention, and somebody to look at me and say, “Yes, you are worthy.” My greatest lesson has been to recognize that I am solely responsible for my life, not living to please other people, but doing what my heart says.

Until we spoke for 3 hours at the Nobel Peace Prize dinner in Oslo, I saw Oprah as a celebrity and missed her greater calling. As she described how passionate she is about emboldening millions of people to take responsibility for their lives, I realized the real impact of her leadership. Asked about her show's theme, Oprah says, “The message has always been the same: You are responsible for your life. I hope my show and my speeches help young people get the lesson sooner than I did.”

Given the abuse and poverty she experienced earlier in her life, it would have been easy for Oprah to feel like a victim. Yet she rose above her difficulties, reframing her story in positive terms: first by converting her crucible into the strength to take responsibility for her life, then in recognizing her mission to empower others to take responsibility for theirs. Her transformation did not occur until her mid‐30s. Often the gestation period takes that long because we need real experiences to see where we fit in the world and help us understand the meaning for our lives.

One person influenced by Oprah's wisdom is her friend Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, who grappled with his own crucible after the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. Harry used military service and wild partying to avoid thinking about the loss of his mum. His reality and that of others who experience significant crucibles in their early years is they cannot avoid thinking about them—all the time. Just when they think they have moved onto the next phase of their lives, memories of that excruciating experience come flooding back. In response, they shut down their emotions and avoid people trying to help them.

Burying your emotions and your crucible doesn't work because the active mind can't be buried. Even if you could stop thinking about your crucible, this wouldn't resolve anything. Prince Harry describes his efforts to escape the pain saying, “I would drink a week's worth in one day on a Friday or Saturday night, trying to mask something, or take drugs to feel less like I was feeling.”

Harry first had to deal with his loss and his anger. He reflects,

When I think of my mum, the first thing that comes to mind is always the same. Strapped in the car, seatbelt across, my mother driving, chased by paparazzi on mopeds, unable to drive because of tears. I felt helpless, being too young to help my mother. That happened every day until the day she died.

In‐depth introspection allows you to deal with your crucible, whether it seems large or minor. As you come to terms with your crucible, you can choose how to move forward. As Harry processed his mother's death with the help of a therapist, he resolved to take greater agency with his own family life. When his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, faced her own encounters with paparazzi, Harry said,

It takes me back to what happened to my mum and what I experienced when I was a kid. After what happened to my mum, I didn't want to lose another woman in my life.

Ultimately, he and Meghan resigned their positions as senior royals to chart their own path in Los Angeles.

Although perhaps not as dramatic as Oprah Winfrey's or Prince Harry's experiences, all of us encounter crucibles in our lives. It is naive to think that you can go through life without difficulties or spend your entire life trying to avoid them. The important thing is how you frame and use your crucibles to develop as a person and leader. One of the most important impacts of your crucible is that the experience enables you to overcome your need for external gratification and focus on who you are, your unique gifts, and how you can help others.

Daron Babcock transformed his life after he hit the bottom of a crucible that threatened to swallow him whole. A year after moving from Texas to Oregon to start his own company, Daron's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and died 2 years later. Up to this point, Daron believed hard work enabled him to control his universe, but his wife's death shattered this illusion.

Daron's loss left him rudderless, and he became deeply depressed. He recalls, “I didn't care whether I lived or died.” To dull his pain, Daron self‐medicated. He remembers, “I shot cocaine for the first time and felt no pain. Using drugs and alcohol to avoid facing my grief destroyed me. Substance abuse numbs you and blinds you to reality.”

One day at the ocean, while his young boys played in the sand dunes, Daron pushed through the waves on his surfboard. He explains, “There was this deep internal pull to keep paddling further as I didn't want to be here anymore, but looking back and seeing my boys I just couldn't do it. I was deeply wounded, but my boys saved me.”

Daron's family and friends intervened and took him to rehab, but he escaped through the window the first night. Eventually they got him to stay. He says, “Transformation is too soft to describe my experience.”

It was the difference between life and death, getting the help you need and learning how to frame your experience. My wound is an engine inside me that propels me to this day. In my recovery I went on a spiritual journey and reconciliation with God. I was like the prodigal son wallowing with pigs, when I finally cried out and said, “God, if you're real, I quit.”

Daron was ashamed and humbled by his addiction. He says, “Absent humility, life is really shallow; you may die with lots of toys, but they are meaningless.” Eventually, a friend who did prison ministry introduced Daron to the Bonton community in South Dallas, Texas. One of the most impoverished communities in the city, Bonton has only a 51 percent high school graduation rate, second highest teen birth rate, highest infant mortality rate in Dallas County, and double the rate of cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and childhood obesity. Daron says,

We walked up to this house and a guy opened the door with a federal GPS ankle monitor on and this beautiful smile. It was a providential collision, as if my whole life was preparing me for this time. I met my purpose in life with people who had never been told they could make something of their lives.

Starting with a garden in a small lot, Daron formed Bonton Farms and has grown it to two fully functioning farms, farmer's market, café, and coffee house. Daron says, “We are addressing barriers Bonton residents face, so they have a fighting chance at life.”

In spite of all the prejudice, racism, and systemic oppression, people here are beautiful people who want to build bridges and be inclusive, so they have an equitable place in this world. Bonton is a metaphor for thousands of other places like it. If we can make it work here, we can do it elsewhere.

Reflecting on his life, Daron says, “Realizing the fragility of life enabled me to search inwardly to find my real values.”

When your time on this earth is up, what did your life stand for? It's easy to fall into the trap of gaining the most status or income. Facing tragedy as a young person shifts that paradigm forever. By losing things that were an illusion, I was given a gift of real things that can't be taken away. I don't have much money anymore, but I'm the richest man in Dallas.

Life experiences like Oprah's, Prince Harry's, and Daron's reveal that the pain of crucibles can create capacity for a reorientation of our lives to service for others.

Using Your Crucible to Help People and Transform Organizations

Valerie Keller is a remarkable leader who spent the first 25 years of her life in a religious cult with rigid rules about everything from the woman's role to serve her husband to the clothes they wear. Her parents were “hippies for Jesus,” part of the charismatic revival. She says that while the cult gave people a sense of belonging, it had a “fear‐based culture of ‘us versus the world.’”

As a young girl, Valerie left her home in the Louisiana bayous with her parents and moved to the corn fields of Indiana to join cult leader Dr. Hobart Freeman. When he died, the cult fell apart and her parents moved back to Louisiana, but their belief systems stayed the same. At 19, Valerie married a man she met through the church, and was advised by church elders not to excel beyond him. Although she scored off the charts on standardized tests, Valerie attended the same community college as her husband.

Upon graduation, she realized her real passion was volunteering at shelters for the homeless. When the shelters ran into financial problems, Valerie quit her job as public relations manager for a leading financial institution to save the organization. When she found out her husband was having an affair, she says, “I escaped both the church and my marriage, causing the fundamentalist church members to turn on me. I was all alone.”

That courageous move enabled Valerie to devote herself fully to using her gifts to serve others. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she transformed the homeless shelter into a center for chemical treatment, housing development, and continuum of care. She explains, “I decided to turn my experience in the cult and the church into a positive crucible by working for a higher purpose that was more fulfilling for people.” She went on to get her MBA from Oxford University.

For her work on Katrina, she was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (WEF), where she says she “found her tribe” in young leaders committed to transforming the world. Her purpose morphed into making purpose‐driven business the norm for companies, as she saw the opportunity to help companies do purpose‐driven transformations. At WEF's meeting in Davos, she got to know Mark Weinberger, CEO of Ernst & Young (EY), who invited her to join EY as an entrepreneur. Based on her experience as a social entrepreneur, she conceived of creating a new EY organization called Beacon that would work to redefine business as a force for good as she led purpose‐driven transformation globally for EY. A year later she launched Beacon at a high‐profile event in Davos that included Virgin Airlines' founder Richard Branson, Unilever's Paul Polman, and Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington.

When Polman retired from Unilever, Valerie created the idea to form a new organization called IMAGINE to help companies become fully sustainable, and invited Paul to partner with her. She explains, “We are working with leading food and apparel companies to create sustainable enterprises and transform their supply chains for sustainability for true systems change.” She is also helping other emerging leaders accelerate their work through transformational courses at Oxford by creating a community of purpose‐driven former CEOs.

Valerie is a remarkable leader whose life is an example of post‐traumatic growth. She did not let herself feel trapped by the cult or her church, but used the experience of her crucible to devote herself to a life of service by enabling people and organizations to focus on transformative purposes.

Chad Foster initially denied his crucible, then dealt with it. When he did so, like Pedro and Valerie, he also found posttraumatic growth. When he was 3, Chad's parents noticed he had problems seeing in dark areas. They took him to Duke University, where he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease.

The doctors told Chad's parents to put him in a special school for the blind; instead, they signed him up for soccer. He played football, basketball, and soccer; wrestled; and ran track. He didn't see himself as blind or visually impaired because his self‐image refused to acknowledge his disability. When he lost all his eyesight in his early 20s, he says, “my imagined future‐self died.”

That was incredibly painful. I was in shock, in denial. I saw myself as a hard‐charging young man ready to make a difference in the medical field. After I went blind, I wasn't even sure if I could help myself, let alone other people. I felt afraid, ashamed, and embarrassed with fears of dependency and disability. I was angry, sad, and bitter.

Chad's story is one not of victimhood but rather of posttraumatic growth. Stripped of delusion, self‐deception, and unnecessary pride, he learned to accept his condition. He says, “We need to see ourselves for who we are, which is the foundation for self‐acceptance.”

Not accepting ourselves takes us down the path of defeat, depression, and victimhood. Life is like a game of cards: no one controls their hand, but everyone controls how they play their cards. Instead of asking, “Why me?” with a victim's tone, I learned to ask, “What can I learn from it?” Eventually, the answer came to me: I can give back to others through my speaking, writing, and interpersonal interactions.

Chad goes on, “I refuse to let my lack of eyesight limit my vision.”

I could tell myself I went blind because I have terrible luck or that I went blind because I'm one of the few people on the planet with the strength and toughness to overcome it and help others. Both stories are correct, but one frames me as a victim, the other reframes my struggle into a strength. We become the stories we tell ourselves.

He concludes, “We all have fears, whether fear of failing or not reaching our full potential. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting despite fear, stepping through that fear. I could live with failing in pursuit of my goals, but I couldn't live without reaching my full potential.”

None of us controls the circumstances in our lives, but we control how we show up and how hard we try. If you don't own your life, who will? Excuses are for losers. We can find legitimate reasons to fail, but how do they serve us? It's scary to hold yourself accountable for getting what you want out of life, but if we don't, we are the losers.

Are you a victim or someone who overcomes adversity? Are you letting fears hold you back? How can you reframe the adversity you have faced to realize your dreams?