Reading about any major success the people sacrificed what they could so they could have 100% time focused onto their business. Examples are Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, Paul Mitchell, Victor Pride, Stallone and MJ DeMarco. MJ himself quit so he could focus 100%. If you read his book he barely had enough for a month of rent when he started. Freedom of time and a singular focus appears to be the theme here.
I see where you're coming from. This seems like survivorship bias to me.
For every one person who has "made it" by backing themselves into a corner and "making shit happen", I know of 100 more that crashed and burned; some needing therapy to come out of the other side.
This mentality is at the core of what Alexis Ohanian calls hustle porn.
I personally have backed myself into a corner 3 times with the intention of motivating myself into doing something incredible. It didn't work for me, personally.
It was only when I gave myself permission to have a job that real growth started to happen, and real big business opportunities presented themselves.
I would suggest that you look for success stories that are counter to the narrative of backing oneself into a corner. The story of DHH and Jason Fried, for example, comes to mind.
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