We'll have to agree to disagree. In every success case, you'll find a nitpick. Van Gogh was innovative in his use of color, a characteristic clearly developed as an adult, and yet you dismiss it because he drew as a child. McClure has no value because he hit the jackpot once and rode from there. Conrad must surely have written in Polish and French (yet published nothing and left no manuscripts), which surely undermines the excellent storytelling abilities and remarkable prose he developed after he stopped working a full time job. A really old man can only run the marathon in over 6h, three times the world record (I'm a third his age, and I can, maybe, do the marathon walking and beat the 7h mark).
If you do not understand the bias I have presented, central point in my argument that you sidestepped, at least understand this: You can choose to believe you can do anything, or you can choose not to. There's a chance of error in each choice. The loss in the error case, for each option, clearly favours choosing the optimist option. Even if all your steps forward are followed by backward steps, at least you are dancing Cha Cha, not moping your way down to a sad grave.
If you do not understand the bias I have presented, central point in my argument that you sidestepped, at least understand this: You can choose to believe you can do anything, or you can choose not to. There's a chance of error in each choice. The loss in the error case, for each option, clearly favours choosing the optimist option. Even if all your steps forward are followed by backward steps, at least you are dancing Cha Cha, not moping your way down to a sad grave.