Years ago, I scheduled a certification exam that I knew was important for my career.
The problem was that I procrastinated. Badly.
From everything I had heard, this wasn’t the kind of test where you could casually skim a few notes and eliminate the obviously ridiculous answers. Every answer sounded plausible. The challenge was figuring out which one was the most right.
People studied for six weeks for this thing.
I gave myself four days.
I considered rescheduling. Honestly, I probably should have. But eventually, I decided I had made my bed, and I was going to lie in it.
So I went to a bookstore and disappeared into study mode. Morning to night. Page after page. Problem after problem.
Then I took the exam.
And somehow, I passed.
I remember sitting in my car afterward feeling genuinely overwhelmed with relief and excitement. I had pulled it off against my own expectations.
For about ten minutes, I was incredibly happy.
Then I started looking at other certifications.
I paused for a second and thought:
“That’s it?”
That was the whole celebration.
No shared exhaustion.
No one beside me who understood the weight of it.
No story that would keep getting retold years later.
Just me sitting in a parking lot, scrolling for the next mountain to climb.
That moment taught me something foundational about how I want to operate.
I firmly believe very little worth building is done better entirely alone.
Personal victories are good. They matter. You should absolutely be proud of your accomplishments, and you can high-five yourself for a job well done.
But there is something fundamentally different about a shared victory.
Something deeper.
Some of my favorite memories in life are tied to difficult things endured alongside other people.
I think about football and track. About pushing ourselves until we were exhausted and physically sick, then laughing about it afterward like idiots.
I think about testing for black belt with a group of close friends.
We weren't just taking a test next to each other. We were memorizing not only our own kata, but everyone else’s too, because at any moment we might become part of their demonstration. We were exhausted, stressed, attacking for each other, and literally holding each other's physical safety in our hands.
We still talk about it today.
We still laugh about it.
I think about the project I’ve written about before—the one where I sent the fax at one in the morning trying to win a massive job.
Winning the project felt good.
But what stayed with me even more was the shared vulnerability of the execution.
My team and I went through an enormous amount of friction together on that project. Problems. Pressure. Long nights. Cross-country logistics. We learned in real time. We adapted in real time. And despite all of it, we executed extremely well.
We didn't just share the win. We shared the sweat.
We still talk about that project, too.
Not just because it was profitable.
Not just because it was successful.
Because it became part of us.
Years later, one of the people from that team followed me to another company. Together, we kicked off another major project. Over time, I watched her grow into the role more and more until eventually, she was running
the project herself with her own team.
Watching that happen felt better than any certification I ever passed alone.
Because at some point, victory stops being only about proving something to yourself.
It starts becoming about building something with other people.
Helping carry the weight.
Watching people grow.
Standing beside people during difficult things and coming through the other side together.
Personal victories feel good.
Shared victories keep paying you back for years.
Because victory is not just a destination.
It is the byproduct of who you stood beside,
what you endured together,
and who you became in the process.
