To do that you needed to be match-fit, you needed to know everything, to have read everything, to be more eager, to work more hours, to be tireless and single-minded.
You needed to be like a coiled spring. The trouble with the coiled spring though, is that it's not enjoying the ride.
And in creative pursuits enjoying the ride is the key.
Because people can see and feel when you're enjoying the ride, and having them see and feel that, is the key to success, or at least part of it.
I tell you this because I see it these days in David Shearer, which is why I am sad he's not running for the big job.
I saw it in David Shearer before he got the big job last time, and that's why I backed him. When you listen to Shearer you hear a likeable, intelligent bloke who's done a lot of amazing things.
But after he got the job, all that seemed to vanish, he coiled into a spring and started stuttering.
He started mincing and mixing his words. He started sounding like he was on medication and couldn't remember what he was saying or what day it was.
The joy had gone and the spin doctors had invaded his brain.
Leadership is as much a creative pursuit as painting a picture or writing lyrics.
You have to be at one with yourself, you have to be at peace. Your life has to have solid foundations, you have to have a life outside what it is you're doing creatively.
When you have that, you are free. When you are free, and you have a vision and a goal, you are unstoppable ... until you start second guessing yourself and letting it all get on top of you.
Once David lost the job, he vanished for a while ... but has now re-emerged the old David.
And in talking to him on Tuesday on Newstalk ZB about why he wasn't running this time, there he was, old David, carefree David. Articulate, thoughtful intelligent David.
If only he could have taken old David with him into that job and stayed that way, it might have been so different.
In a party full of contenders that really only have a passing acquaintance with the real world, a dose of normality is desperately required.
And David Shearer could have been that dose.
But that's pressure for you. That's life in the limelight. Having the skills is one thing, using them effectively is another.
It's why John Key is where he is. Say what you want about the guy, but he's so relaxed he's horizontal.
He's real, he loves it, he takes risks and he takes risks because he's full of confidence. He looks like he's having fun.
Which brings us to Andrew Little. Little is no Key, but in a field of four, one of whom is spectacularly dull, and another of whom is pleasant but from a world so cloistered he must find it hard to breathe out here with the rest of us, Little is your only realistic choice.
He's worked out that the wacky policies need to go, he's worked out there are too many policies, and I think he's worked out that lecturing us about how we need to think their way is no ticket to government.
He hasn't worked out the PC stuff around giving jobs based on gender or race, hence his comments about a deputy should worry everyone.
But he looks more like Mike Moore than any of them.
Mike Moore is your yardstick.
Mike Moore was a man comfortable in his own skin, mad but comfortable.
He was real Labour, proper Labour, talk-to-anyone Labour.
And he knew politics was fought in the centre.
Andrew Little is no Mike Moore, and none of the four contenders are the party's saviour.
But unless they pick the best of the lot, they're doomed to irrelevance.
