[nicksellen]

Congratulations for your hard work and achievements :)

I presume you know other people with your background that haven't managed to achieve this, do you have any insight into what the differences are?

Innate abilities? specific values? good luck? - I can imagine the general differences, but the specifics are really interesting to me.

[steven2012]

Emphasis on education, but a lot of very hard work. Intelligence will get you some of the way, but hard work is everything.