[EngCanMan]

Your views are ones that are unfortunately too common in society, the common theme being ‘the successful guy has it easy, if he had my problems…’. The successful probably worked harder than you, made smarter/luckier choices than you, and had to overcome many of the same problems as you. Society needs to stop excusing their own problems as if the successful don’t have them too.

[hn_throwaway_99]

What you've written is a total, 100% mischaracterization of my opinion. I don't think Nicklaus "had it easy", nor do I think there probably weren't lots of things he had to overcome.

But at the very top echelons of sport, virtually all the difference in success comes down to innate talent. Why? Because at that level, basically all the competitors are putting in nearly the maximum about of time and practice necessary to succeed. We don't ever really try to deny this either - look at how sportscasters talk about people like Bolt, Nicklaus, Messi, Ronaldo, Biles, James, Phelps, etc. etc. Nobody denies they work really hard, but also nobody denies their innate gifts are otherworldly. I mean, I've seen loads of articles that talk about how Phelps is almost genetically constructed to have the perfect body for swimming.

And I don't begrudge any of these superstars for their success - on the contrary, they bring me lots of joy by sharing their insane talents with the world.

What I do begrudge is the messaging that we can all "be like Mike" if we just put our mind to it and work hard, and then we can have a nice work-life balance to boot. I'd much rather read articles about "average" people and how they learned to balance their desire for success with healthy relationships.

[k__]

The truth is actually the other way around.

Right, the successful people have problems too, had to work hard to get where they are.

Often the only difference between successful and unsuccessful people is their success.

Having the same problems as successful people, without the success, doesn't really make for an easy life