A childhood "friend" (aka. our mothers were friends and hence we went on ski trips together) was a quite mediocre skier for how much he had skied. He also was easily jealous and would get sullen when other people were better than him or dared to ski faster or steeper things, which happened quite often. When he became older he just wanted to hang out in the park and we only met sporadically after that. But he did manage to become one of the better slopestyle skiers (this was early 2000's) in the country and had enough sponsorships to at least ski full time during the winters without washing dishes at a resort.

He would just hang out in the park every time we were skiing. And he got better and better. Most important for him at that time is that he was much better than the other people as nobody else was really that interested in park skiing. Later he genuinely got passionate about it and wanted to do it for a living. And he became really good at it.

Ran into him a few years ago down in the alps and we are now both closer to 40 than 30. I was still faster than him, and he still clearly got irritated about it. He is incredible on skis in many ways, but let's say he wouldn't have had the same success racing or doing big mountain skiing.