> Work life balance and taking care of his family is just part of that deal as well.
I don't judge anyone for how they like to spend their time (and certainly admire Carmack), but what work/life balance? There isn't much except work there.
If you can eliminate the average 90 minutes a day commuting Americans do, along with the average 20 hours a week spent cooking and cleaning et cetera by hiring people to do that for you, a rich person can have more life working 60 hours a week than a poor person has working 40.
Carmack is a high level martial artist. That would have required a significant time commitment.
Interestingly, it might not be the that significant of a commitment in terms of raw hours although it certainly is in terms of consistency and persistence. Quick googling reveals that it might take around 2500 training hours to get to BJJ black belt (I guess if you're pretty talented). Over 10-year period, that's just under 5 hours/week. And BJJ black belt is a pretty big deal.
With a more effective teaching model, I believe one could achieve the proficiency needed for a black belt in 2/3 of the time. However, this does not mean becoming a name on the world stage, for which much more talent and possibly more hours of practice are needed: talent saves many hours of practice that are instead needed by less talented practitioners, assuming that the latter can reach the level of talented people even in the limit of infinite time and youth.
Yeah, competitive scene is a whole different beast.