At the same time, I can refuse to be a loser in chess and I'll still have 0% chance of beating Magnus Carlsen.

I'm very much a proponent of hard work to the best of your ability but I'm also a realist.

I'm pretty good at programming. I doubt Usain Bolt would ever be as good as I am at programming, even if he tried, and I certainly wouldn't be even close to be as good as Usain Bolt in running no matter how hard I tried.

I know how fast I was running in high school compared to 30 of my peers (my class) and there was never a path from there to a world class athlete.