I did 5 years in the Navy as a UNIX server admin, and the extent of my programming experience (aside from two community college classes in QBasic and Visual Bas

I did 5 years in the Navy as a UNIX server admin, and the extent of my programming experience (aside from two community college classes in QBasic and Visual Basic) was making some small changes to a PHP-based trouble ticket system. After I got out, I found out through a friend that his mother-in-law's boss wanted to build a scheduling system specialized for TMJ doctors. I did a few hours of research on the Internet and put together a presentation proposing a PHP backend with AMFPHP connected to a Flash front-end. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I could figure it out. It probably took about twice as long to build as it should have (and knowing what I know now, the code was terrible and I would love to re-write it with Rails and SproutCore), but it worked and ended up costing the client a lot less than it would have cost him to have someone else build it (I only charged $30/hour). That gig gave me the confidence to know that no matter how hard the problem is I can figure it out, and I was able to take on gigs that other people at my experience level would have balked at. I've been a professional programmer ever since, both as a freelancer and as a salaried employee.