most people don't even try
Nowadays, it's so easy to learn something and achieve something because most people are so mired in the abyss of information noise and in the flow of weak personalities that a person who can simply get up from the couch and start doing something and learn something for at least a couple of hours already becomes more competitive than many people.
I recently met my old school friend, we chatted a bit, and he said: "Man, you're lucky to have become a programmer. I'm already too late/won't be able to learn this." This surprises me every time - all it takes is literally dedicating a couple of hours each day, week after week, month after month. No one was born with knowledge of algorithms or any other skill in their head. An experienced surgeon became a surgeon not because he was lucky, but because he spent his best years gaining experience. An engineer became an expert because he spent his time learning different things.
Instead, I observe the same behavior in many people - refresh Instagram feed, open TikTok, scroll through 250 videos and remember none of them, open YouTube, return to Instagram, scroll TikTok again, open Reddit, repeat the cycle a couple of times - and there goes your whole day, and you've only filled your head with completely useless garbage.
Many of us lack the ability to simply reject this information because we're used to it. I don't particularly like using this phrase because it's already overused, but "grind" is what many people lack to achieve anything. Slowly but surely.