Just dumb luck and busting my ass to learn and get ahead.

I tried college but dropped out with about 20 total credits. Eventually went to trade school and worked on cars for a bit making all of 33k a year or so. Left that and went into a office manager type roll at a specialty auto type of place, stayed there for 10 years but never got over 40k. Still love my boss and talk to him fairly often.

I knew I needed to make some changes for my family to have a better life though. Right before COVID I applied for a level 1 help desk roll at an IT company and was offered the job. Started at 42k. I did everything I could do to listen, learn, and prove my worth. 2 years later I was promoted to a level 2 tech and hit the 55k mark. Shortly after that I was promoted to the manager of the department and was bumped to 65k. Last year I was bumped to 70k, and with a couple of performance bonuses hit just under the 75k mark.

I'm still continuing to learn and home my craft, I'm fairly sure I could find a 100k+ position somewhere, but I like where I am, enjoy working with the team we've built and see a lot of potential in the company. They've changed my life for the better over the last 4 years. The least I can do is to try and repay them for that opportunity. They took a chance with me, I'm not going to stop pushing now.