"You never will be good enough of a coder unless you hinge your existence on your code. Not your business skills. Not you marketing skills. Not your people skills."
Penny for your thoughts.
The same comment goes on to say "When you jump of the cliff their is exponential growth before you hit the ground. When its time to pay bills well climb back up the cliff when you get to the top of it you will find your self much further." so there's either an awful lot being lost in translation, or this is someone to whom coherent thought does not come easily.
Plenty of examples to counter that, although it might be true for some. Having to get good fast in order to put food on the table certainly sounds like it'd be motivating, although in a way I'd find unpleasant.
"Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem; work hard to improve." - Alan Perlis