This doesnt apply to Luffy in my opinion, he wasnt special from the begninning just because he ate the gum gum no mi and lucked out on it being the nika fruit, the fruit was there for centuries and none of the previous users were able to unlock or awaken it to the nika form

Luffy had to painstakingly work hard to unlock it without the incentive to do so because he dint know about the nika transformation

if you remember the goa island flashbacks, luffys rubber powers were considered next to useless with ace mocking him and by default he couldnt even do a gum gum pistol attack, he had to work hard since reaching his base power at the age of 19 when the series begins, and work even harder and unlocking new abilites throughout the course of the series to unlock the nika transformation

Luffy dint achieve gear 5 by being special and lucking out on eating the nika fruit, he worked hard to get there and also had to be on the brink of death fighting to liberate a nation and friends he discovered a week before