What inspired me to start pursuing professional certification?

As you can see on my homepage my first professional certification I earned was the Certified Financial Manager (CFM) from Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) in 2007.

I had graduated in 1990 from BYU with a BS in Finance and worked at Lockheed Martin(LM) until 2004 climbing up the Financial Analyst Career ladder. Before moving to Northrop Grumman (NG) in Utah from LM Minnesota I had started to take the exams for the CFM. At the time there was 4 exams.

I was aware of the CFM and the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) from IMA when I had graduated from BYU and had even joined IMA in hopes of getting certified one day. But as you can see I had worked 17 years before making that dream a reality.

Every month I would receive Strategic Finance Magazine from IMA and every month I would be inspired to get certified until one day I bought the CFM prep books from Gleim due to a recommendation from a co-worker who had used Gleim to successfully prepare for and pass the Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Here is a couple of secrets - for some reason the very first professional certification exam is the hardest. And if you don't pass the first time, shake it off, study those areas you were weak in and take it again. And your first professional certification is the hardest. After you successfully earn your first others are very similar which I will get into with this blog.