Never discount luck. The only advice I’m qualified to give is to put yourself out there and be ok with “faking it till you make it.” I worked Retail back in the early 00’s. We had a group of regulars that found out I liked PC gaming and offered me a call center job that was double my pay. Cool, I could answer a phone for a tech company.

The luck part was when the dot(com) bubble burst and the industry was wiped clean. I don’t know how but I survived and started filling expensive positions with my cheap labor (at first). I had to fake it at every step, though later I would realize they were willing to train me (OJT) as opposed to hiring an expensive, more qualified tech. Rinse and repeat at each level.