I worked my ass off.

I never made it out of 9th grade, at 17 I landed a carnival job that would take me all across the country for 5 years. By the time I settled down and quit that I had enough money to just hang out in a cheap place for a year and not work (that was the "not working my ass off" period of my life) had I been smarter, I would have invested a good chunk of it but eh hindsight 20/20 right?

Anyways, when the bank started getting low I decided to get a regular job, picked the first thing that I could find which was hotel housekeeping. It sucked and it was hard but I showed up, came in on my days off, stayed late and always volunteered to cover a shift.

After 3 months of housekeeping I was promoted to Housekeeping Manager,

2 months after that I was moved to the front desk (Same pay scale seeing as I was actually making more than a front desk person with no experience and they didn't want to doc my pay)

6 months after that I was promoted to Front Desk Manager

1.5 Years of that I was promoted to Operations Supervisor

3 Years after that I left the budget hotel I was working at and got a job at a popular high end hotel as a General Manager, which I am currently 6 months into.

It took time, and a lot of effort and overtime (holy hell the amount of overtime it took!!) I absolutely spent more time at work than I did at home. Worked every single holiday and every single weekend. I did what was asked of me, in time and correctly. Most importantly, I educated myself on every position above me before I applied so I would know what I was doing. Lots of work, lots of reading, lots of stress and aggravation.