Stanford psych professor Carol Dweck has research and written extensively on how your adoption of either a "growth" mindset - achievement is largely work-based - or "fixed" mindset - achievement is largely gift-based - is largely determinative of the long-term success of those to whom things seem to come without effort younger in life.

https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/cdw...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck