IT Insights Blog — certification

On Sept. 13, 1969, backstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Europe’s best bodybuilder is preparing to go onstage for his first Mr. Olympia contest. Full of confidence, he is warming up and flexing in a mirror. Suddenly, Sergio Olivia, the current and three-time Mr. Olympia, quietly enters the room. Standing off to one side, Olivia casually steps out of his overalls and flexes. At that moment, Arnold realizes he is not going to win.

As a child you were likely asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, and you likely responded with something like a doctor, astronaut or star athlete. For me, my dream was to design roller coasters (for obvious reasons), but that changed over time. My childhood dream may not have come true, but had I wanted, I could have gotten started with a few IT certifications. What is your current dream job? Are you currently working to achieve your dream job?

In 1984, playwright and filmmaker David Mamet wrote a Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play about the cutthroat world of real estate sales. Eight years later, in 1992, the play, Glengarry Glen Ross, was turned into a film with an all-star cast: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin. Baldwin pops up only briefly, appearing in a single eight-minute scene as a top sales agent who delivers a lacerating speech to three struggling peers intended to light a bonfire of fear and desperation in their hearts and spur them to better sales performance.

Congratulations! You’ve passed your certification exams with flying colors — now what? The post-certification exam phase of your career journey can be a tough one. Many are left with more questions about their career path than when they began their certification course. Rest assured that this is not a time to panic. The uncertainty is normal, and one of the best ways to find clarity is by building your personal network.

As the philosopher and poet Sly Stone once observed, getting along is this mad, mad, mad, mad world sometimes requires "different strokes for different folks." While many of us take aim at the same goals, and often achieve them by employing largely similar means, it's likely that no two individuals get to the same place using exactly the same approach, or method, or blueprint, or what have you. Success, for most of us, requires some degree of adaptation or personalization.