There was one time when I started doing some part time work for a financial company. I had an engineering degree rather than a finance degree, and was only doing this on the side of a full time engineering job, so I had to get the work by showing that I know what I'm talking about by giving a portfolio of work and by chatting with a pro with 4 decades of experience to explain how I can offer him value. The reason I had knowledge was that I started studying finance when I was a kid, and never stopped. I was given some work doing corporate financial analysis on the side, and over time, he told me that I know more than most MBAs do, that I'm rough with some of the superficial accounting details but that I have a deeper level of knowledge than most people he works with, including people at his level.
I think the reason I was proud of that was because I sought the whole thing out, pursued it, and was successful. For most other things in life, I felt like things kind of just fell in place without much involvement from me, like I was following some life template. But for that, the whole thing just kind of developed from nothing over time