Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. It is the repertoire of individual resources that we assemble over time. These are the investments we make in ourselves, the things we do well enough, or long enough, that they become a part of who we are.
I don’t think you should spend much time being unhappy about the bad breaks. You get a lot of them, but you also get a lot of good ones. The thing to do is just to maximize your odds of using the good ones and minimizing the effects of the bad ones.
I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.