Struggling to gain resume building skills and experience

I was introduced to BP by an MBA classmate of mine. At first we connected over day-trading and stock picking but he mentioned BP to me also. Eventually, he said he gave up on stocks and was considering dropping out of the MBA program because he didn't see it as career necessary as he once did. He also was hooked on the idea of real estate investment. As we progressed through the program fewer of our classes aligned, but when we would run into each other, he would almost certainly bring up rental. At that point I joined BP, but forgot about it as certain points of the MBA were very consuming. As I came close to finishing, I began to ask myself, "what next?" I had considered several options, maybe too many. From getting a PhD, to starting an online next-big-thing. Some may have been way out of reach, but in retrospect the real problem was that I just had no focus and had too many pipe-dreams. Just before graduation, my family and I found our current home, and then all the joys of homeownership flooded us. We bought slightly out of our pay range, but sending out kids to great schools and having a 5-10 minute commute was well worth it. 

So now we were tied down to a mortgage. There went some of my dreams. I was ok with it, but now the immediate issue was paying for all the small things that came with owning a home. We needed a little more income each month. My wife ended up taking a second job, namely because my job allowed for me to pick up kids after school, thus avoiding child care costs. During this time, I realized that I was underpaid now that I had the fancy new degree in hand, but since my employer had no positions open and paid for my entire MBA, I was stuck. I knew the new positions might come up and I needed to thing short-term and long as to how and where to take my career. 

That began the challenge of skill building. Do I learn SQL? Do I master Excel? Do I read the WSJ everyday? Do I looking to other professional certificates? ….Do I go back to school and get a more technical bachelors? Once again too many choices and nobody to tell me where to go and how to do things. During this time, I had interviewed for an internal position. I knew I was underqualified but it was worth the risk. I didn't get it. I feel into a slump for a while and sought out pipe-dreams again. Then another opportunity came up. I applied and this time went through several rounds of interviews. I thought it was mine to lose. I didn't get it, again. 

I did sulk for a little bit. It was rough. One thing that compounded the stress was that my wife was pregnant with our second. I couldn't throw my pity party for too long. Within a month or two of getting passed up, I was hitting the BP podcasts hard while sitting at work. Now, while on LOA for the birth of our son, I've been spending multiple hours a day listening, reading, and learning. 

I'm nearly finished with David Greene's BRRRR book. I'm seeking out my Rockstar team. I'm networking with everyone that I can. And most importantly, I've focused all of my future possibilities onto something that isn't a pipe-dream and something that isn't dictated by my boss or anyone in the c-suite. I've burned the bridges to any sort of backup plan.