I distinctly remember in one of his talks he said words to the effect of “I wrote corporate C++ and Java for years and eventually realised I had to do something else, or else quit the industry”. So he took a year long sabbatical and created Clojure.
It's very interesting to go through the bookshelf he read during his sabatical. He was inspired by many languages aside from CL, including Mozart/Oz, AspectJ, and Prolog.
The bookshelf list was originally on Amazon, committed by Rich, but now behind a login wall. However, a Goodreads clone is easy to access: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clo...
I know few people that made it in shiny businesses (Serie A and Champions League players like Fabio Liverani and Simone Pepe, or Massimiliano Rosolino swimming gold metal at Olympics) and they all absolutely either hated or found 99.9% of their career an endless marathon of mundane boring activities.
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of exceptions of people that like their job, and jobs that may make it easier, but it looks to me that most of people find their job mundane and boring most of the time.