From: http://psychology.about.com/od/overv.../persondef.htm

That says to me that we have at least two components; one that comes from living life and our experiences and how we have chosen to apply what we believe we have learned and another "tinting" aspect that is kind of what we're born with (happy, serious, anxious, etc.).

Some of what we were born with (I was born "anxious") is going to influence our learning experiences, so, me as an example, I am going to have an "anxious" way about me, about thinking and I'm going to be inclined to jump to an anxious/worry mode of being by default. However, that does not mean I am predestined to be anxious/worry about everything; I can use other attributes of mine (good intelligence, common sense, humor, creativity/imagination) to override the automatic anxious so I can learn to not be anxious. Experience trumps almost everything else so if you can get your head believing an experience shows you X then next similar experience, you are going to go to X rather than something else. I got only 2 A's in 16 years of schooling and those in badminton and typing! I entered school again when I was in my 50's and got straight A's. I'm the same person but my adult experience trumped my anxious background/previous battles around school and education I'd had with my stepmother growing up.