Some people burn out once they've hit a certain amount of mastery as the thrill can be in the massive amount of knowledge assimilated early then no matter how gifted you'll eventually reach that flexion point and Pareto will kick you in the butt and you move to a new area. Though the drive-by cautionary tale sounds more like a locus of control sort of thing, or setting one goal and attaining it only to discover it's paper mache'.