DIY MBA program while increasing my salary

I just knew I could not be out of work for two years while AI was starting to develop. This is how I quit my corporate job to DIY my own MBA program and instead of spending a quarter million dollars in tuition, I'm actually making more money now than I was before I quit my job. For context, I was a pretty high achiever throughout my 20s. I worked my way up in marketing at multiple tech companies. I helped take a company public. I was the head of enterprise marketing at a really visible AI startup. But I really struggled to see my path at a traditional enterprise software company. And I also struggled to see my path to disappear into the abyss. Everyone recommended that this was a perfect time for me to go back to school and get my MBA. I could pivot into whatever industry I want, I could take time to explore. I did not want to set myself back financially with two years of not making any money and a quarter million dollars in tuition. So I DIYed my own MBA program and I did it in three major phases over the last year. Phase 1: Exploration. This was the biggest upfront investment. I had saved for this, so I had runway when I quit my corporate job. I really took six months to just reset, explore, I traveled with my partner, I traveled luxury, I spent time at home, going to museums, doing all the things that people typically do on sabbaticals to rest and reset. Phase 2: Experimentation. The next phase was really experimentation. Without putting any pressure on myself to actually generate an income, I started testing out different ideas on what it would make sense for me to do. I started creating a lot. I also played around with the idea of starting my own startup right, like what would it feel like to be a founder of a services company or a SaaS company. Starting my own advisory is the idea that stuck and I started scaling it and actually figuring out how to make money from it. I now advise the industry's fastest-growing dating app, I advise a fashion tech client, I also advise a technical model layer company. Running my own advisory has been the biggest hack because it feels like I'm doing a rotational program across a number of different companies. Phase 3: Scaling what worked. What's working well? I'm meeting 10 times more people than I would if I was tied to a traditional nine to five at one organization. I'm also learning by doing, so finance, accounting, social media strategy, sales. Importantly, I'm now making more money now than I was at my corporate job. What I still need to figure out. At a traditional MBA program, you don't just get a professional network, you build very real friendships. People meet their partners, they meet their future bridesmaids. I'm not really getting that here. My professional network is expanding, but it's not translating into a personal network. The way that I probably would if I was in person at an MBA program. I could definitely be more strategic about continued education, so I'm learning by doing, which is how I learn best. But there's so many free resources out there. I need to be more intentional about how I incorporate continued education into my day-to-day, especially because I have the bandwidth as someone that runs my own advisory to build my own schedule in a way that I like. Phase 4: intentional community building & structured learning. So the next iteration or phase four of my DIY MBA program is building intentional community and really figuring out what continued education looks like, but I am so happy to do that without racking up debt as we speak.