The above questions are often posed to me & I too have gone through this process, though my dad had his own studio & we were well off. But that did not make my life easy, but all the more difficult as I did not want to become the regular studio photographer, but wanted to do something different, but did not know WHAT.

To make matters worse, nobody guided me properly in a systematic way & there was lot of confusion as those were analogue photography days.

Everybody was busy in attending to customers & I was like a disturbance to them.

So I started by buying some books & reading & asking questions in free time, which was enlightening & many a times my dad & the staff would be stumped by some questions as they never faced those situations/problems or simply never required to shoot those subjects.

My best book in those times was "The Encyclopedia of Photography", which had all the information from A to Z. For example it had a subject on "How to shoot Trees". So you can imagine how they must have covered the whole gamut of info before the advent of internet & simplified it for people like us at a very nominal price.

So coming to the point: My sincere advice would be to join any good photo studio or a photographer & work with him/her for at least a year sincerely to learn all is there to know. One has to be really patient after joining as any photographer if he or she is good will most of the times have moody behaviors, because of their creative nature. Also photography field is full of erratic timings & crazy deadlines, which can throw you off track. Be brave as sometimes it also gets lonely. 

I found solace in meditation & also used to talk to some friends, who were not from the field & would not judge me & used to listen to me patiently

There are people who are good at doing their own business & then there are people who are very good at working under someone. In both the cases you can make good money as there are good opportunities everywhere like weddings, events, advertising, real estate architecture etc.

The secret to getting rich in both the cases (business or working under someone) is saving money & investing in the right places & being patient.

I can understand that we all want to get rich quick as I too wanted to do the same, when I was young, but slowly realized that there are no short cuts.

So invest in yourself & hone your skills to become an expert in photography, how you present yourself & never stop learning.