The central theme of the above-outlined categories and associated themes informed by elite performers’ interviews is success as a protective factor. Participants’ descriptions of difficult life experiences included challenges and traumas in childhood, the death of a loved one, experiences of discrimination in childhood and adulthood, and unexpected career-related setbacks and challenges. They experienced negative emotions such as anger, darkness, and grief due to these and other life stressors. Various management strategies, including channeling negative emotions and self-soothing through giving, were employed to address these emotions. The positive results of their emotion management are created through various success components, including constant busyness via action toward goals and having an unwavering belief in themselves that yields above-average career outcomes. These strategies and actions do not account for the unintended consequences of work-life conflict, insatiability, and career success only partially resolving the initial conflict and associated emotion(s). To effectively maneuver the dynamic realities and associated emotions they encountered, participants engaged in ongoing perception modification to relieve internal and external conflicts that arose.

The theory of success as a protective factor provides the blueprint for how elite performers cope with and overcome a dichotomous reality that offers levels of success that most others will never achieve while not being exempt from the unforgiving complications of being human.