Leadership requires balls. Most people have let theirs atrophy.

These are balls. Big ones.

I have those. So does my wife. That's part of why I married her.

Having them matters. Especially if you lead anything, business, sales, politics.

My clients work with me partly because I have them. It's a big reason they pick me over a safe full-time US hire.

The great ones had them too. Alexander the Great. Tamerlane. Ben Gurion. MacGyver. Shaft. Optimus Prime. The list goes on.

It used to be the baseline. VP Sales, SDR lead, President, Prime Minister, you could not do the job without them.

Then something happened. Easy times. Atrophy.

Now "leadership" is something they try to teach you in a workshop. At a nice retreat in Bali.

Nope. That is not how it works.

Training, hardship, overcoming difficulty and yourself, that is what builds a real leader.

So what if you don't have it? What if all you have ever known is a cushy life, a cushy job, a cushy environment?

Then you acknowledge it. And you outsource it.

Or you wait for the hard times to restart the cycle.

I work with the ones who acknowledge it, or who waited too long and now, in tears, ask me to rescue their company and their revenue.

Which one are you?