Perhaps the best metaphor is this:
We found this Stock-Picking lever, and hoped that by pulling it we could accelerate the growth of our portfolios. We pulled and pulled the lever back and forth, wearing ourselves out. After years of doing this, we realized the lever was having no effect. Our portfolios were right where they would have been otherwise, and that was kind of a lucky outcome because we had taken on a lot of risk playing with that lever, and were not compensated for that risk in the least. The lever was broken, although we didn’t all realize it at the same time (and some never did, mistaking the resistance and effort for progress).
So we resumed cranking on the levers we knew worked: Savings Rate, Wage Growth, Fitness, and DIY’ing. As we diverted our stock-picking efforts into these non-broken levers, our growth started accelerating again and we “won” years of freedom for the effort.