[Tycho]

Luck is too broad a term.

I suggest that success is down to two components: alpha, and creativity.

Creativity is whatever value you create with your own talents and your own hard work.

Alpha is whatever opportunities come your way, which you need to seize to benefit from.

Obviously some people are just born in a better position to capture/generate alpha. And also you can work at gaining a better vantage point for seeking alpha. But seizing it still takes skill (and most of it goes unrealized), and people can be rightfully proud about that (as long as they don't confuse the alpha component with the creativity component, which would be somewhat tiresome).