I’ve always loved that line. I’ve always quoted that line. And ain’t it the truth? I mean it doesn’t really matter what happened in your training, your studying, your practice. Nor does it necessarily matter what you did in the race, the exam, the event. At the end of the game, winning is winning and passing is passing.

For me, a 19X IRONMAN finisher, it should really be related to the idea that an IRONMAN is an IRONMAN. It doesn’t matter if you were the fastest going 7hr30min, or the slowest clocking in at 16hrs59min, 59 seconds beating the 17 hour cut off. If you swim 2.4miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles all within that precious 17 hour cut off, then YOU ARE AN IRONMAN, and everyone knows what you achieved.

I had to contemplate that today. I just passed the Financial Accounting & Reporting exam after 2 years of study and my 3rd attempt. I improved from a 61 – 67 – and got a 75 which is the minimum required score to pass. And this aligns with the Audit exam where I increased from a 70 to a 75. So that’s now 2 minimum scores, but passing!

I tried to keep my wife motivated when she was trying to become a licensed Physical Therapist in the USA after having done it for a decade in Australia. She had to finish a masters, go to multiple universities for many additional courses, and then sit a 5 hour exam. Now, she’s the one trying to motivate me. She’s been great supporting me big time, so Thank You Fiona, I love you!

I was so happy seeing the great news today at work and I shared it with all my colleagues and on linkedin. And I am proud to work at a place where everyone celebrates each others successes. You can find me Kevin Patrick Coyle with Raytheon.

Next up on course is Regulation, 5 months of study, and another 4 hour exam but thankfully they get “easier” now as the passing rate for the exam when I took Audit was 49%, FAR was 43%. Regulation pass rate is 66% and TCP is 76% so I am hoping to pass these exams on my first try in May before a cruise to Alaska and then in October before I compete in IRONMAN Florida, my 20th IRONMAN since 2012 and what started me writing this blog.

I absolutely knew what I was setting myself up for when I realized I needed to do this to be a Senior Finance Manager/CFO in Australia. And I was quite nervous because I never took tests well. But my strength is in my positive attitude, my persistence, and passion. I truly believe anything is possible and I’m now half way there. I have achieved nearly all of my 2025 goals.

I’ve mentioned it many times in this blog before but I didn’t qualify for the IRONMAN World Championship on my first attempt. No, it took me 8 attempts between 2012-2015 before I got a spot which rolled down from 6 to 9. I got the last spot that day without any room for error, just like today. But on my 2nd Qualification, I truly earned my spot placing 2nd at IRONMAN Arizona in 2018. And now I’m a 3X IM WC and 2X 70.3 WC finisher. So I take that to leverage to my strengths. Now, after some champagne, it’s back to the books.

The last piece I’ll say is for my fellow CPA Candidates. The way I passed the exam was by taking the MCQ’s over and over and over again. I took 109 mini quizzes with 20 MCQ so more than 2,200 questions. I took FAR, AUD, FAR, AUD, FAR. I studied 538hours on FAR just within the software and a couple hundred more reading the text book, writing my notes which cover a complete binder. The final nail that did it was creating my “cheat sheet” which turned out 3 full pages front and back and very small font, everything I needed to know. Again, please connect with me if you have any questions or if you are looking for a Referral to work at Raytheon! http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-patrick-coyle-923761a