People don’t turn their life around until they hit rock bottom. It’s actually a tautology - once people turn their life around, it wouldn’t get worse by definition.
But the real lesson is that you can’t learn when you have an ego. When you hit rock bottom, your ego is crushed. You’re desperate for any solution. Your ego prevents you from accepting solutions that you haven’t come up with yourself.
You don’t need to hit rock bottom to get rid of your ego.