[georgemcbay]

"I'm confused. In my mind Dave is already a success."

Virtually everyone is a failure depending upon who or what they compare themselves to.

The odds against being a pro basketball player are astronomical -- everyone in the NBA is a huge success relative to those who didn't make it, but if they aren't Kobe Bryan, Lebron James or Dwyane Wade they may consider themselves failures. And even the top active guys live in the shadows of Jordan, et al.

I'm pretty sure this is the root of dmc's problems. The nature of his work has him surrounded by insane statistical outliers (some of whom are probably more lucky than 'good', though I'm sure there are both). His feeling like less than a success in this situation is unfortunate, but probably a perfectly normal human response.