Tuesday morning I passed my fifteenth straight certification exam (dating back to May 2025). I am grateful, but I am also remembering that hard work pays off. My worst streak was not quite a decade ago, when I failed eleven out of twelve (January, 2014 through June, 2017).
I sat my first certification exam in November 2001. Over the next twenty years (through 2021) I sat 97 exams… with an abysmal pass rate of about 62% (60 passed, 37 failed). I am deeply ashamed of that. Fortunately, that is not where my story ends. As of this writing, the percentage has jumped to just under 69% (86 passed, 39 failed). I matured, I turned things around, and I began taking exams much more seriously.
My life would be very different today if I had paid the same amount of respect to the exams I took back then as I do to the exams I take now. I am ashamed to admit that since I started sitting certification exams I have failed thirty-nine of them. I could hide that number from my colleagues and from my students… but I do not. Why not? I want my students to understand that there is no shame in “not passing” (failing!) as long as you learn from it; take your score report, look at the domains in which you missed a few, and study hard so that you can pass on your second attempt.
There is a Japanese proverb that goes: “Fall down seven times; Stand up eight.”
While there are a few exams that I failed and never went back to pass, there are far fewer than there could have been. As I mentioned at the top, I have passed fifteen straight exams. On May 22, 2025 I failed an exam (SC-100) which I then reviewed and passed two days later. If I had passed the first time then my streak would actually be 21-straight exams dating back to a beta exam that I failed (after not studying for at all) in May, 2023. I hate failing… but I will not stay on the floor. I will get back up and try again every time.
Over the course of my adult life I have failed at a great many things, but when I have tried – I mean really put the effort into it – I know there is very little that can defeat me. I am not invincible… but do not ever mistake me for someone who will stay on the floor after he is knocked down. You have the wrong guy if that’s who you think I am!
(For the record, of the 39 exams that I failed, 37 of them were Microsoft exams, and the other two were VMware exams for recertification, after long periods of not touching the platform. I have never failed a CompTIA exam or an ISC2 exam, and have perfect (albeit less impressive) records with numerous other certification providers.)
—
There is a Thomas Paine quote that I love: “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.” Of those thirty-nine exams that I have failed, I paid for fewer than eight of them. When I was a Microsoft community leader they would give me all sorts of exam vouchers, but I also wrote many beta exams (for which there was no cost) and I failed eight of those; when I was going to TechEd there were often free exams, and while I cannot count the numbers I would bet there were at least a dozen that I failed (yes I passed some!). My point is that I did not have the level of respect for those exams that I do for ones that I pay for… and for many of them I put in absolutely zero hours of preparation time.
The previous sentence makes it sound like I spend thousands of dollars on certification exams. If I had paid for my last fifteen exams I would have paid $4,479 (plus taxes) in exam fees. In fact I believe I have paid less than $400 for all of them, because companies that I teach for have sponsored almost all of them. Does that mean that I respect them less? Absolutely not! In fact, I respect them a lot more, because while I may not be paying out of pocket, my reputation with the companies providing the training is worth more to me than money. In fact, I would be absolutely ashamed to go back to one of those companies and say that I failed on their dime. It would be the same as saying, ‘While I appreciate the opportunity you gave me, I squandered it.’ I am too proud to let that happen. In fact, the exam that I passed on Tuesday was possibly the first that I have paid full price for in five years – there was an urgency to it that I will not go into – and I was pretty sure that I would pass it.
We should never be embarrassed or feel shame in falling down. Giving up? or Disrespecting an opportunity that someone else paid for? That’s a whole different story. Those I would be ashamed of… and that’s one of the reasons I am going to put every last drop of effort I can into every exam that I take… whoever is paying for it.
Leave a comment