You do realize Einstein was always studying? Sergei Brin worked like a maniac. Struggle breeds success. Not everyone successfully picks the right thing to struggle on.
Einstein was able to always study and Sergei Brin was able to work like a maniac precisely because they were able to remove the restrictions of paid technical labour that drains your brain before you even get to the interesting stuff.
Programming is no different. Other developers code in their free time. If your low energy maybe you need to fix that part?
This idea that x person worked a little harder than the rest and therefore he is successful is laughable. There is a range, say 5% or 15% or even 50% ‘worked more than the rest’, ok so what? Do you think you are within 5% or 50% of working x hours more per day before you become the next tech billionaire? You are not. It’s not that easy.
Oh and then there are the struggling artists of the renaissance which all came from the illiterate peasantry struggling to feed themselves.
And the media common folk of today, who come up because they struggle therefore they act, and everyone we see in TV was a nobody before their first big role and just worked really hard right?
Or the government families which somehow if you are the son of a governor your chance of being in government and a high ranking official far outweighs any other factor.
Or if your parents are rich chances of you being rich far outweigh anything else…
But no, alas I’ll let everyone know we gotta push just a little harder and we’ll all be rich.
Struggle breeds stress, which intern breeds health issues. If we didn’t struggle the world would not end, innovation would not stop, WALL-E is just a cartoon.
You need to be able to let the subconcious do its thing, for which it needs peace, quiet and freedom from stress. Difficult to do the step back otherwise.
The stress returns, when things then get traction, so i guess the truth is - alternation between stress free "creative" periods and stressy "realization" periods?
No idea what the optimal sinus is.
Struggle implies unsuccessful efforts. These men were not bound to busy work, crying for help. They had comfortable settings and could focus on what mattered to them. OP wants just that.
Arguing that "get out of comfort zone, grind, struggle" is the way to advance society is disingenuous at best.