My favorite aphorism about luck is that you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.

After becoming adults, luck rarely falls into our laps. We have to make decisions that make us lucky.

Through that lens, bravery is the will to buy a ticket. Many people don’t. Cleverness is the quality of the ticket, since they have different probabilities of success. And persistence is the decision to keep playing the game, even after you’ve lost every other.

So I think the three qualities are aligned with the view that success is just another word for luck.

Doesn’t your upbringing essentially manifest itself into your personality and virtues?

I definitely agree with the idea that we choose to will something! I tried to get that across in the essay, but maybe not as well as I could have.

What I meant between skill and will is that a skill is multivariate, whereas will is more unidimensional: you choose to do something or not.

That unidimensionality levels the playing field a lot. Let’s say someone is struggling to communicate well. They might need to learn and practice having an audible voice, avoiding verbal tickets, and having an understandable line of thought. If someone is struggling to be brave, they just need to practice going for what they believe to be right.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing which increases the probability that one may be brave, but I believe it does ultimately come down to that next decision. You may be more brave by having a better track record of bravery, but it can be washed away with a single cowardly decision. The playing field is much more level.

Regarding wealth, it’s a good point. Perhaps I should have clarified that “success” is relative. Success for someone born into poverty is different than someone born into royalty. I’m focused on the post-adulthood qualities we should focus on to maximize our personally determinable chances of success.

What do you think?

I'd add two more:

1. Luck. Plenty of lucky successful people out there. Not to say only luck gets you there, or that luck alone is always enough, but it makes a massive difference.

2. Lack of understanding of risk. Probably not an overall good thing, but a common thing among successful people (IME). Quite often the backstory involves some hideously crazy risks the person took at some point that paid off, but the cost of failure would have been unbearable.