The Run Within 16: Flops Are Not the Footnotes. They Are Part of the Story.

Last week I did something a little different on social media.

I posted my flops. See here.

Not the highlights. Not the race wins, keynote stages or the milestone moments. The actual flops. My horrific golf swing that should never see the light of day. The ankle injury I sustained playing basketball four days before my first race back, that set me back another six weeks. Comparing myself to where I think I should be. The moments I let Voice One win and I didn’t show up.

And the post resonated with a lot of people, because people don’t connect with perfection. They connect with honesty. The setbacks. The self doubt. The grief. The seasons where you are not growing rapidly but simply trying to get through it. We all go through periods like that. Not everyone wants to post them and that’s ok. But the reason I did, is to show people that those seasons are a normal part of the journey too.

Flops are an important part of the stories I tell. When you’ve done something most people can’t fathom doing for one day, let alone 5.5 months straight, it can be hard to connect. The flops are the bridge. They shouldn’t be the embarrassing footnotes that we hide until ‘we are successful enough’ to laugh about them. They are the actual story. The part that makes the wins much more meaningful. The part that shows what it actually takes to keep going when things aren’t going to plan.

Here is what I know about flops from everything I’ve learned on the road, on the stage and in the quiet moments in between.

Every single flop is Voice One having its moment. The comparison. The perfectionism. The overestimating. The caring too much about what other people think. The belief that a setback means you have gone backwards. That is all Voice One. Loud, convincing and very good at making ordinary feel like the only option.

But here is the thing about Voice One. It is not the end of the story. It is just the first draft.

Voice Two is the one that looks at the flop honestly and asks what can I learn from this. The one that says give yourself some grace, you aren’t going backwards, you are rebuilding. The one that keeps showing up even when showing up feels pointless.

My confidence took an enormous hit after my run around Australia. 2025, the recovery year, was the hardest year of my life. Not because I went soft. For 5.5 months I’d been writing cheques my body was always going to have to cash. The crash was it collecting. That part wasn’t a flop. It was the cost.

Voice One showed up later in my recovery. The transition from the biggest physical challenge of my life to building a speaking and coaching career was much harder than I anticipated, and Voice One had plenty to say about it. You should be further along. Look how slow this is. You’re letting yourself and people you love down. That was the flop. Not the crash. The story I told myself about the crash, when I should have reminded myself that great things take time, and shown myself some grace for the ringer I’d put my body through.

But things are changing. I am doing the work. I am showing up consistently. I am back to a place where I feel genuinely good about the direction things are heading, with a lot less care or fear of what anyone else thinks about my journey and my decisions.

And sharing my flops last week was part of that, because The Run Within is about the battle of the two voices, not just about the moments you chose Voice Two and everything worked out perfectly. It is about the moments you chose Voice One, felt the cost of it, and then chose Voice Two anyway the next day.

That’s the real story. And it is worth telling.

So here is what I want to leave you with this week 👇

What is one flop you have been carrying around that you haven’t yet let yourself learn from? Not the polished version you would share in a meeting. The real one. The one that is still sitting with you.