THE PRICE OF SUCCESS.

Last night's Special Forces featured an instructive debriefing of Carli Lloyd, who holds all sorts of awards in women's footie. but has not been able to complete, successfully, any of the tasks the training staff have put the cast through.  A clip of the debriefing is not yet available, although the full episode is available if you re properly paid up.  People has part of that debriefing, although, it being People, it doesn't get to the serious stuff.

In an exclusive clip from Wednesday's episode, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and retired soccer star, 40, reveals that the experience of being estranged from her family was the impetus behind her joining the show's ranks.

"It was like being taught to become numb, emotionless, which then led into my life off the field and pushed my family out," she opens up to the Directing Staff. "We didn't speak for about 12 years."

She continues, "They suffered, I suffered. I missed out on weddings, birthdays, holidays — literally everything."

She hired a life coach of some kind, the better to be able to get to the highest levels of women's footie, and that might have contributed to the rift with her kin. "Lloyd has since cut ties with the man at the center of the conflict, James Galanis, who was her personal coach of 17 years."

So it always is with ambition, there are tradeoffs, whether it's going for Olympic gold, or a doctoral degree, or qualifying for the special services, and the trainers, in their role as Masonic masters, surely know something about being on long deployments and doing things they can never talk about, and possibly hearing well-meaning advice to "lighten up" or grousing from people who care but don't care about being "inside a wall".  There was a lot in that short clip for a unit psychologist or people who have a better understanding of human interaction to dip into.  One excerpt:

"They've missed out on my wedding," she says. "I didn't feel anything. The plan was for me to become the best in the world and accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish in the soccer world but it's freakin' hard though."

Yes. In the course of being the best in the world at something, or some set of things, one chooses, explicitly or implicitly, not to be the best, or even mediocre, at an infinity of other things.  Don't any of us who get good at something sometimes muse about how if it were easy enough that anyone could do it, it wouldn't be a goal worth pursuing?