Totally agree, our culture definitely focuses way too much on idolising wonderkids, which often isn't realistic and is far from the truth of how success usually happens. You see it so clearly in sports, it's often not the most naturally gifted kid who ends up achieving the most, but the one who trains harder and just refuses to give up. I wish I knew the secret to bottling this life lesson up for my own kids but it seems this only comes naturally with time.

Re life lesson, simple study was effective: praise effort over results

At some point you need actual results. Otherwise people will very quickly start abusing it by saying "I tried" and walking away from problems.

Yes, sorry I wrote short. The praise was about when the child achieves something you yse language like "you worked hard to succeed there" rather than "you're so talented to succeed there"

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6176062

(& this supports your point somewhat in that unconditional praise is also suboptimal)