[munificent]

> He thought that so very much that never even had to think it consciously.

This is such a huge part of it. Our upbringing gives us our culture and the set of ideas and expectations that form our "default mode" thinking.

If your default mode assumption is that you are capable and have agency, that investing in a long-term project will reliably produce long-term value, and that risks are often worth taking, you are set up to try to build something amazing.

But if your default mode is that you are a pawn at the whims of other people, that whatever you try to build can be easily swept away by chance or bad actors, and that you've got no room to fail, then at best you'll just try to eke out a stable existence with as little risk taking as possible.

[ryandrake]

Plus, this isn't just a mindset that people have in their heads, some chip on their shoulder from their upbringing holding them back: It's their actual reality.

Some people do have agency to act, and the assurance that their actions will produce value, and they are in fact not in catastrophic danger. And some people really do not have agency, they are pawns largely under the control of others, and live on a knife's edge where everything they have might be swept away by things entirely outside of their control. These realities shape whether it is even possible to take the risks that are necessary to reach success.

[pmichaud]

I agree, although in a way that mirrors my opening statement from OP: I think people who don't have this disadvantage tend to underestimate how real it is, and those who have it tend to overestimate how real it is.