Some of us don't have that luxury because life & people have treated us terribly so to survive, succeed, & amplify our potential, talent we had to become ruthless.
There's someone who influenced me greatly. A writer from my teenage years we had a close friendship, he was extraordinarily talented winning 1st prize in numerous literary competitions. We had a philosophical disagreement that lead to us falling out. I believed that humanity was inherently inhumane & he believed others to be benevolent. After we stopped talking I watched him get systematically crushed by our world. He could've been something great everyone knew it.
My career; what I do is 10x more successful than him & not for lack of talent on either of our parts. Only because watching that happen made me grittier & more relentless. We for all intense in proposes were very similar in character we were practically inseparable. Philosophically & personally our impact on each other was profound.
It's very similar to the novel "Scorpio" in House of cards" Considering how we were pretty much exactly like each other sometimes I feel like a ripoff. But now I realize, I had to watch this person die & become immisserated in order take succeed.