[lbeltrame]

I was told the same: that if I weren't able to give up everything "I would not be successful". 8 months later and with a breakdown, I was fired from that lab. Better, because people were forced to work (literally forced: even if you had nothing to do you needed to stay until 8pm) at least 12 hours per day, no weekends, no days off, nothing. And my scientific productivity tanked.

I managed to somehow continue to a PhD and then I even got a permanent position, but for that mindset I am "failed scientist": I'm over 40, I don't lead anyone, I don't have grants (only two failed ones that caused me so much stress that I didn't want to do them again), nor I have a teaching position (I would gladly get one if it were just teaching, and not the hell of grant seeking). I do the same stuff I was doing during my postdoc years, with a little more job security, of course.

FTR, I made sure that my connections outside work were nowhere near labs, and nowhere around science. Much better for work-life balance.

Academia seems so obsessed with "excellence" it's not even funny. And that excellence needs to be obtained at absolutely any cost. Probably I wouldn't have chosen this career had I known beforehand what I was getting into.