First, there is a strong sense that they have scratched and clawed their way to the top, but that once they’ve arrived, there is a risk of losing the honor and dogged authenticity that motivated them on that journey to begin with. Indeed, there is honor associated with the success, but the deeper and more authentic honor—especially given American reverence for self-determination and myths about rags-to-riches—is in the early stages of the struggle itself, where individual will seems the only fuel for survival.

But what happens to your self-identity after this noble struggle is complete, and you’ve made it? Success can squash authenticity. They are no longer the scrappy underdog, but the privileged aristocrat. They now play a different, and seemingly less honorable, role in the American story. The question then becomes, how, if at all, do you reclaim that sense of scrappy authenticity, both for your own self-identity, and for how you are perceived by the rest of society?