It has been interesting. I wanted to teach at university so I went straight into a PhD program after my 4 year engineering degree. Found out that being a professor, at least at an ivy league school, was 10% teaching and 90% funding and politics, also did not mesh well with available projects and support, dropped out with "half a PhD". Worked 12 years at steel mills, the first one sucked but I learned a lot, the second one really developed me into who I am now from an entrepreneurial and leadership POV. Went to business school at night and simultaneously got a Manager job at a shitty company, got fired, got an engineer job elsewhere and quickly promoted to manager where I rocked the house. Left for a senior engineer role elsewhere with better pay and work life balance and I am loving it so far.

Lots of luck, lots of effort, lots of learning through failure and success. Best thing I did was probably business school. The engineering degree is what gets me in the door but the tools I learned in getting my MBA have proven more valuable because most of the problems I need to solve are not exclusively engineering problems.

It was really weird to go from a high performer at one company to getting fired at the next. Thankfully I've had two great experiences since then, so I guess it was probably them not me. Getting fired messed with my concept of self worth for a bit but I have worked through that now.