I learned to barbell squat at forty.

The first thing my coach taught me wasn't how to lift. It was how to fail. How to dump the bar safely. How to bail without getting hurt.

That lesson changed how I lead.

Here's why: once you know you can fail safely, you stop sandbagging. You add more weight. You push closer to your actual limit instead of staying comfortable.

It works the same way with teams. Great leaders push their people to the edge of their capabilities. And great leaders create the safety net so they can actually go there.

The combination sounds contradictory. It's not. It's the whole job.

I wrote about this with a Tim Ferriss lesson and a Henry Kissinger story: