Doesn't seem to have held you back any...
You know it's not about being the best or even being better than anyone else. It really just boils down to being able to use your brain and figure things out.
I never had turned on any type of metal lathe or milling machine or knew the first thing about G-code or CNC.
These are all things I taught myself (with the treasured help of a few close friends at times in need).
1995 and 2 weeks into my short apprenticeship and the first challenge was thrown at me. Granted most all I had done so far was sweep the floors and pick up stuff.
We both were looking through the Billiards Encyclopedia and in there is a picture of some Gus Szamboti's forearms glued up in the squares but before they were turned round.
Was challenged to be able to make a fixture that I could cut those squares on a table saw in the compound cut fashion they were cut in and to be able to duplicate those squares best as I could. After buying a table saw (my first piece of cue building equipment) and about 2 weeks later and a fixture model #101 and then a fixture model #201 and we were cutting squares and gluing points in them.
I later figured out how to add the butterfly cuts on the table saw and built a fixture to achieve that also.
Were the points and flies perfect? Not really, but I then taught myself how to adjust the centers on both ends to be able to get them pretty darn close.
Those fixtures are still around the shop here somewhere with a few of those original glued up squares that never got turned round along with a few cut squares that never had points glued in them.
When I started this journey I thought it would just be the cats meow to be able to sell a pool cue for $1000! I never sold a finished cue till approx 4 years after I got started. The very first finished cue I ever sold was for $1000. The second cue I ever sold was $1200 because it had an ivory joint and butt cap. They were both purchased by someone who had never heard of me or had we ever met or spoke previously. He still has them both today (but may have passed them both on to his business partner if I understood what I had been told.)
This was all before I knew the internet existed and if you needed some help in building a cue butt or turning a shaft, you'd better have a friend that you could phone and talk to that already had that experience under their belt or be able to figure it out yourself cause there was no AZB.
I'm telling this story not to make people think I'm great or even that I'm good. I'm only the same as most. I wake up in the morning and put my pants on one leg at a time. The biggest difference is my pants are jean shorts 99% of the time.
I'm telling it to let people know if you really want to do something, put your mind to it and figure it out. It will require time in testing and wasting wood and more time testing and wasting more wood. Going to sleep at night thinking about what it is you have accomplished in your day of testing and waking in the morning with thoughts of what you can do to make what you learned yesterday better.
Do this and it'll be lessons you'll never forget for the rest of your journey!
when I'm at the beach. 
