What strength is for

A lot of what we talk about is getting strong, and it would be easy to come out the other side of a few months of training thinking that strength is the number on the bar or the time on the run.

Real strength is measured by what you do for the person in the room who cannot defend themselves. The child being picked on. The colleague being talked over. The old man being ignored at the counter. The person the joke is about. Strength that never gets used for someone else is just fitness.

This is the oldest idea in the book, and we mean the oldest book. The strong protect the weak, and a culture where the strong protect themselves is one where nobody is actually safe. Most of us know this, and most of us, on the day, look at our shoes.

The ask is small. Notice, and say something. Stand a little closer to the person who is on their own. Do the small version of it this week, at work or on the school run, and see what it does to the way you walk into a room.