Balance is great for a normal life. Becoming the absolute best in the world often requires something much closer to obsession.
Exciting UFC fights coming up - I'll be dropping my predictions on Betwave
When I was writing my prediction about Makhachev, I mentioned that it's impossible to beat a man who lives like a cyborg and does nothing but train. And I wasn't even surprised when he won, because it's the logical result of thousands of hours of hard work, with no room for anything else.
His friend and mentor Khabib is the same story. Each of them has devoted his entire conscious life to this sport and sacrifices everything to become the best at it. They have no distractions from other areas of life, no social life, no compromises. They dominate not because of genetics or where they're from, but because of extreme focus on one goal, the everyday choice to do the same thing over and over.
Their whole life is training + training, sometimes a break for cheesecake after cutting weight.
You have balance, a little of this + a little of that.
How are you going to beat them?
It's hard to achieve massive success in something you're not obsessed with. Even if you simply compare, many of their opponents don't have such an approach, not everyone is ready to turn their life into a strict monastic routine for the sake of a championship belt.
Maybe that's why one of them remained undefeated, while the other has 17 wins in a row in the UFC. And sure, they'll definitely think about balance, but only after the win.