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I am not desperately trying to find somebody to tell me it's impossible to make a decent living playing poker. If you read the original thread, my basic hypothesis was merely that I thought that there were probably fewer people "making it" than many people assume, and that a lot of the big names don't win as much in poker as you might think (since almost all the big names supplement their income with tangential things like books, etc.).

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I think in your post above you could replace "poker" with just about any small business owner label. Many "mom and pop" shops find themselves in the situation of running a store/business (think of the neighborhood hardware store vs home depot as an example) that in reality they have the intellect and drive to make the same if not better employed for someoneelse. They trade some of the financial success for either non-monetary benefits (freedom of schedule, etc) or for the chance to "make it big" (the big score where they discover some niche and get purchase by a microsoft-type corporation).

Of the number of small business owners I talk with, a large number of the financially successful ones have a diversified portfolios. For example they may have made their original "nut" in making/selling widgets but then have taken that money and invested in the real estate market to build a large recurring income base.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that while you can make $X doing something for 4-8 hours per day it's smart to make $1/8x by signing your name to something and letting the recurring royalties roll in without applying much time/effort to it.

Your observation about people "making it" in poker, could be applied to just about any business/living field.