Lot more luck than people like to think. I mean when I think about most of my accomplishments it's been luck that put me into the situation where I could accomplish them.
First I was lucky to be born into a first world county where going for a higher education is relatively easy, lucky to have parents with some generational wealth that made it plausible for me to go for a PhD rather than immediately work after I got the bachelor's degree, and lucky to have met people at conferences that gave me connections to get a postdoc at a fancy university. Working hard is what keeps the doors open, but the trap people can fall into is thinking that working hard will always open those doors. I know people that worked much harder than me in graduate school but because of who they worked for and their own luck at conferences they are now working a job someone with a bachelor's could do making nowhere near what they should for their skill set.
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