“Luck” is where opportunity meets preparation, right? Fantastic financial outcomes are the culmination of a lot of factors coalescing in a very specific way, but we tend to only focus on one: effort.

So much American lore (and by extension, American…personal finance advice?) is constructed on the foundation of the self-made meritocracy.

One such “statistic” that often gets touted in these conversations: Somewhere in the ballpark of 88% of US millionaires are “self-made.” But where does that figure come from? How was it determined? And where do its implications fall dangerously short?