The "avoid thinking like you're a victim" is a tool to help motivation and attitude but not sufficient for success. You have to be smart enough to know the meta-model of inputs and outputs in the world to maximize your chance of ending up where you want to be.
You could work as hard as possible flipping burgers, it won't make you a billionaire, and even a very dumb person could see that.
You have to merely understand the paths people take in life that lead to where you want to be, evaluate the stochastic horizons, and act in accordance to your best bet on what would work. Whether or not, in this process, you consider yourself the ultimate master of your circumstances or a helpless victim flailing at the machinery of a cruel system makes no difference. All that matters is what affects how you think and what you do, and all the feedback loops therein.
You could work as hard as possible flipping burgers, it won't make you a billionaire, and even a very dumb person could see that.
You have to merely understand the paths people take in life that lead to where you want to be, evaluate the stochastic horizons, and act in accordance to your best bet on what would work. Whether or not, in this process, you consider yourself the ultimate master of your circumstances or a helpless victim flailing at the machinery of a cruel system makes no difference. All that matters is what affects how you think and what you do, and all the feedback loops therein.