Long time lurker, first time poster, thought I would take my shot at a free ticket at Blackhat, I figured if Z can win tickets to SANS WhatWorks, maybe I got a shot

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Just a general discussion about what it took for you other pro's who have been in the industry for a while to really feel confident in your ability to do your job and feel like you were no longer "new" to the arena of pen-testing or vuln-research...
For me I guess it was a few years into my career (3 or 4 roughly) and I found my first 0-day vulnerability, that seemed for me to be a major turning point in my confidence, where I kinda said "Hey, you know what, I might actually be really good at this vulnerability research and pen-testing thing... " ... I am sure it was not the same thing for everyone that gave you that confident edge that sets the real pro's apart, maybe it was the first time you popped a shell on a Solaris box, or the first time you successfully completed a social engineering exploit (and yes it is an exploit, it is just the people that are the vulnerability).... Give us your story and how you think the confidence has helped you since...
-Jordan