I began as a teenager, riding an old bicycle fifteen miles to the airport each night. Nobody would pay me to work on airplanes or to work at the airport. I found a position washing and waxing airplanes at night, in exchange for airplane rental and flight instruction. At the time, airplane rental was between fifteen and thirty dollars an hour, and I had to work about thirty hours in exchange for each hour of airplane rental. It didn't pay much, but as a kid, I didn't care.
Being at the airport a lot eventually lead me to begin helping open and close airframes for 100 hour inspections, then greasing wheel bearings, then basic trouble shooting, and so on.
I eventually worked various commercial flying jobs, always turning wrenches at the same time, and years later obtained my mechanics certification based on experience on the job, testing with a designated examiner at a college. I went on to become an inspector with a repair station.
From the time I first began working at the airport, I was encouraged to buy tools. As we all know, tools are very expensive. I have wrench sets that cost seven hundred dollars or more. Rather than buy the entire set, I bought every single too one item at a time. Buy one screw driver, and pay it off. Buy one wrench, and pay it off. One at a time. Many years later, half a dozen roll-a-way boxes are full of tools, and I haven't stopped. Buying tools is an investment; I can always use another. Perhaps something new, perhaps something better. Some of the tools are very worn, some hardly used. No matter.
Along the way I've had company training, professional training, but mostly on-the-job training. When I arrived at my first repair station, I had very limited experience. My first assignment was to fabricate and test a hydraulic line. I'd never done it, so I was given some on-the-job training, then told to go to work. It was a steep learning curve. That facility handled everything from large radial engines to turbojet and turboprop engines. On any given day, one might be doing electrical work, hydraulic, pneumatic work, or sheet metal, or fabric. I fabricated, I repaired, I inspected.
There's no school like the school of hard knocks. Anything else is just preliminary.
I consider myself a perpetual student. Nearly every time I work with someone, I learn something new. I anticipate that today will be no different, and I certainly hope that tomorrow is the same.