The biographies of "successfull" people are full of failure already. Stefan Zweig committed suicide out of despair in 1942. Stalin, undeniably successfull, was a depressive paranoid maniac. Blaise Pascal renounced math and lived in a religious convent. The author provides their own example!

Reading biographies makes me feel deeply satisfied with my boring, stable life. Biographies help with that perspective precisely because so very few of those who make it into the pages of history managed to achieve that dream.