I won't pretend to be successful but many successful people I know did the following: 0) School, education, apprenticing, whatever. Helped someone else's dream

I won't pretend to be successful but many successful people I know did the following: 0) School, education, apprenticing, whatever. Helped someone else's dream along and forfeited their wants for a bit. 1) Did mind-numbing grind work for a long time. 2) At each step of the way, bemoaned that their successes and increases in expertise, skill, and profit were incremental at best. 3) Did step (2) about a brazilian times 4) At some point looked back and realized they were now successful. Startup culture confused me for a while because of this. It seemed backward.