Thoughts

Successful people:

People who have achieved any sort of success can be considered to be at a higher level that unsuccessful people. Luck alone cannot be the considered the reason for success, as this would only mean that we have to wait for fate to turn to our side. And that sounds too much like being religious.

People with any major gains in their life over an insignificant person, must have a majority of qualities that are better. It can be assumed that almost all qualities are at a better rank that the average individual. But being normal humans they must always be on the lookout for growth and must have the main focus on certain subset of qualities that they might consider themselves to be lacking in. When asked what is the most important quality to their success, they might either answer the quality they lack in or more appropriately the quality lacked in their losing competitor.

Now if, the person has won against a lot of people who simply took wrong decisions, the winner has to say that he won because of the right decisions. But he has spent most of the time being worried about a quality that he was weak in. Not the ones that he was strong in. As he has to work a lot more on the quality that he was weak in, he would mention it as the reason for success. If he did not work hard, he would give an accurate answer for the reason for his success. But most probably the efforts by the competitor would negate the possibility of the person's success.

Looking at the above analysis, it can be clear that the qualities mentioned by a person that he considered for his success might have nothing to do with the actual reason for his success.