You don't rise to the occasion...

Six months of solid training gave me a personal best in this half-marathon in 2014.

Two bums fighting in the middle of a crowd. That’s what my buddy John saw as he walked down Spadina street in Toronto, some years back.

Fighting is a bit of a generous word. It was more of a beatdown, one of them was wailing on the other.

This is wrong, he thought.

And he stood there.

Now for context, John was in his mid/late-20s at the time, and was pretty powerfully built.

And still, he was paralyzed in the moment.

He stood there until an old man pushed his way to the centre of the circle and broke up the fight.

Years later, John’s story is still with me. And when I mentioned it to John the other day, he was surprised - he had completely forgotten about the incident.

“But,” he said, “I do remember a similar story that you told me…”

And I had totally forgot about my story until he shared it back with me.

You see, most of us like to think that we’ll rise to the occasion. Generally, we don’t.

Instead, you sink to the level of your training.

We talk about this and more in today’s podcast episode.