Last week, I wrote about the importance of coaching. Whether you are training on the sport’s field or grappling the intricacies of a commercial issue, it is often a coach that can show you the path through.

I referred to a session by coach Herb Brooks, who demanded that his team discover the meaning of the term ‘dig deep’ in order to beat a mightier opposition. Brooks was not only to achieve success with the American Ice Hockey team, who pulled in several accolades at league level.

Today I read about Noah Hertz, a seemingly innocuous ultra-orthodox Jew with eight children and a long grey beard. The article described how the former air force colonel was forced to bale out of his plane over the Golan Heights during the 1973 war. He broke his leg, received minimal treatment, was questioned, tortured, kept in solitary and………….well all the other things that most of us can only imagine through the help of Hollywood camera men.

As Noah relates, yes, he did pass to his capturers some info. However, it was basic details only. He discovered a mental and physical capability that he did not know that he possessed, even for all his exhaustive training to become a pilot.

Today, a man at peace with life, Noah views life just like a fighter pilot sees the landscape, as he flies precariously low to beat a radar trap. There are dips and troughs which zip pass the aircraft at great speed. What keeps you going – through danger and excitement – is the knowledge of a greater and specific final destiny. I guess that is what digging deep is all about.

For the record, the film about Brooks is called “The Miracle”. When you read Noah’s story fourty years on, you learn what a true miracle is.