There is also something to be said for getting a running start. I started in car sales because I mostly wasted my mechanical engineering degree. I worked 2 years straight, only taking two days off a year because they closed the building for Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I became top 0.1% nationwide basically within 9 months. I made enough to pay off my house at 28 years old. I had an amazing reputation and executives of the public corporation I worked for would come talk to me when they were in town. Being that good so quickly (the few people ahead of me in the United States had been selling for a decade plus and operating off repeat customers, so by some metrics I was easily #1 in the United States), gives you many advantages that come from recognition and reputation. Would I do that at 40+ with kids? No. But I also wouldn't need to if I had done it as described from 24-30 years old.