(Extracted from Fat, Happy, And In Over Your Head by Morgan Housel)
Marcel Hirscher is the greatest ski racer in history, winning the World Cup Overall title in each of the last eight years. Few of you have heard of him because ski racing is tiny in America. But in Europe he’s like Michael Jordan.
Hirscher announced his retirement last week. It baffled many; It’s like if Jordan retired in 1993. Nowhere close to slowing down, his margins of victory just months ago were the highest they’ve ever been. He probably had 5-8 more good years in him. He could have kept winning, kept earning millions, the king of his sport.
But he’d had enough.
“I always wanted to quit when I knew I could still win races,” he said. He avoided major injuries and wanted to stop before his luck ran out. “I want to play football with my little boy, climb the mountains and do things without any serious injury or pain.”