In my opinion every single individual is self made. May be half baked but still self made :)

There are some personality types who thrive on adversity and give their best when cornered. That challenge inspires them to prove themselves. However if they get everything easy, they instantly loose motivation. So being disadvantaged works in their favour. Some of the disadvantaged people always blame their misfortune and never try hard enough to improve upon their circumstances but even then whatever little they achieve is due to their effort or lack of effort. Even begging or stealing needs effort though it is not a constructive type of effort. If someone is considered a failure in life, he has earned that tag himself and hence a “self made failure”

And there are people who inherit wealth and takes it to a new high and some people who inherit wealth and good fortune spoil it and get lost into oblivion. Having favourable circumstances is no guarantee of success, you will still have to work hard as now the situation and circumstances are different than what the situation was when your father or forefathers built the empire. The world is ruthless and will not let you survive on mere name and fame of your ancestors.

If a person is enjoying wealth created by ancestors and is not adding any value to it, obviously he will not be considered a success but might earn any tag to describe oneself. Whatever the tag, it will be earned by oneself and hence it will be a self earned tag.

I do not agree with this theory of self made person as coined by Douglass and Benjamin Franklin. If at all something like this has to be defined it can be termed as “Self made successful person”. Even then I would argue that every successful person is self made, being advantaged or disadvantaged notwithstanding.

In addition to your factors in my opinion there are others. For instace, the status and profession of your parents, the social class you are in, your economic situation (money is the prerequisite to produce/invent something, determination and luck (why not). 

Being self made doesn't necessarily mean that other events didn't happen that affected your life. Many people experience negative events/challenges, important people etc. and make nothing of those things. Life is what you make of it.  If you read a book and use that knowledge to make a success of yourself, that is a self made success.  The words on the pages mean nothing without your efforts.  If all it took was to read a book, everyone would have the tools/ability/means to succeed and success would be much more commonplace. 

Maybe another way to look at it is that many people have self made mediocrity due to a lack of ambition.

Hello, Knight.

Thanks for your reflections on the subject.

All people have the chance to change their lives for the better but not all people enjoy these chances.