Wow, that makes sense when applied to all sorts of successful people and celebs too. Jim Carey comes to mind. I believe his family lived in a car for a period of time while he was growing up.
Counterpoint food for thought: everyone’s got problems, so of course anyone successful will have had them; we just hear about it now because they’re famous
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That seems true too. Maybe it’s a both/and type of deal. Maybe everyone has problems, but some people are just better at using theirs as fuel for improving.
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Here’s something else to consider:
Success in any field often involves risk-taking behavior. Going all-in on anything, especially things like competitive bodybuilding and the entertainment fields, requires risks – risks that a more “sensible” person might avoid.
Since trauma can increase risk-taking behaviors, it makes sense that some of the people that achieve success have been through some stuff. Now, since trauma might increase all forms of risk-taking behaviors, maybe that’s why we see so much drug use (not just roids), cheating, etc. in entertainment and competitive bodybuilding.
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That would’ve been my thought too, but my wife loves spending time re potting and playing wit the plants. I am only useful for when the big pots need lifting and moving somewhere. LOL
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People tend to base their judgements off of reference points, and trauma can result in a higher reference point for “hard” is. Therefore, if the person is resilient and gets support, they are able to handle challenges or effort that would make others quit.
trauma could also make a much more counterfactual more salient
For example, double days in the gym or on the field might suck, but probably suck less than being in an abusive house or at the mercy of gangs, in prison or whatnot
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Whoa. That makes a ton of sense. Excellent point here.
Absolutely.
Maybe those who struggle with consistency would benefit from some sort of mental strategy that gets them thinking about worse things they could be doing than working out.
This has gotten me through so much in my academic “career”
“real analysis sucks, but I COULD be in the section with the tough professor with illegible handwriting like my friend”
“This project is hard, but at least no one working on it with me is hospitalised or pregnant”
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Love how working with someone who is pregnant is a worst case scenario for you 
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It’s not a worst case scenario. One of my undergrad senior thesis advisor was pregnant and had a very hard pregnancy. It caused her to be absent at critical times during the process (had to redo the experiment 2 months before the paper was due because my other advisor and I were unfamiliar to protocols) and for her to be super super late in writing/sending my letters of recommendation, which got me rejected from 2 schools I applied to
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HAHAHA I can’t believe I missed that! Anna cracks me up!
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I separated pregnancy from hospitalisation because people reacted strangely when I lumped both as “serious medical complications” 
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Only pulling your leg, but your world view is always unique and equal parts amusing and bemusing to me!
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No joke: I used to wake up from this recurring dream I’d have in Baghdad that a professor at West Point had called my commander and told him I failed a class and never really graduated and I had to come back and finish. In the dream I’d be begging my commander to tell him I was important and needed to stay in Iraq. I’d always be relieved to wake up on the floor of some half-destroyed building.
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I’m not saying the military is worse to it’s own members than literal terrorists, buut…
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Ha! I also remember one of the times I flew home some general wanted to be on tv to greet us as if we got off the plane. He wasn’t there when we landed though. They literally made us sit on the plane for 3 hours with the door closed so this jerk could get there on his own time and make a show of shaking our hands on the tarmac. Ridiculous
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wow, that bad?
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It really wasn’t; it’s just college with rules - you still eat 3x a day and sleep in a bed and all that. I guess I just liked Iraq better. Just to your point of changing reference points.
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Regarding the past trauma discussion, I was at a Bill Kazmaier seminar, where he expressed the sentiment that he legitimately felt bad for competitors who grew up with well adjusted families in good homes with love and support, because they wouldn’t have the tools necessary to really dig deep and overcome to become the absolute best.
Was interesting food for thought.
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I do agree with this concept. You hear folks like Shaq talk about there’s no way they would do their children the disservice of giving them money (how true that plays out in real life is beside the point), because it cripples them from having the ability to go achieve.
Spoiled children are weak adults in training.
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