The underdog label can erase advantages that do not fit the preferred story.

The underdog story is satisfying enough that it survives contradicting evidence. Real advantages get edited out because they spoil the shape, and the label, once applied, is remarkably resistant to correction. Narrative preference quietly overrides the facts about who has what.

This is worth checking in the stories you tell about yourself. Most people have a version in which they were up against it, and most of those versions omit something. Naming your own advantages does not diminish what you achieved; it makes the account accurate. And an accurate account is far more useful when you are trying to help someone who lacks the advantages you did not mention.