Quite agree with you, no one climbs a mountain just by looking at it. Most people we see as successful businessmen today, have stories of failure behind them, but something that set them aside from millions of other people that also failed is their never-giving-up stance for risk taking. Money doesn't grow on trees, therefore to generate it, value has to be created or added and that attracts some cost, that is where and why money is required to make money
I don't particularly disagree with you, I just want to add that we should not forget about pure luck here. Indeed, it is not about just luck alone since many people are pretty lucky (remember, true randomness is not uniform), but most of them just waste it ("from shithouse to penthouse and back again").
I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you're prepared for it - Denzel Washington. All those instances of shithouse to penthouse and back to square one are vivid illustrations how luck can always pay for an examination, but never have to sit out the exam for you! If you are lucky to inherit a fortune, you are going to need more than luck to sustain it, without which the fortune is already out of the window.
But, on the other hand, there are many other people who also stick to a never-give-up approach but they still fail in the end simply because they didn't have a chance. In other words, many genuinely successful people are not just persevere but also had luck by their side
And they didn't let it slip when they encountered it
Going down memory lane, we can't help but notice that failure is usually the first leg of success and people who know where they're going like Thomas Edison, do not see it as failure - they simply take note of what doesn't work and then move on until something works. At best, luck is a recognition of hard work, the more you sweat, the luckier you become!