Sharing my successes can lift others up, and sharing my mistakes can protect them.

The second half is harder to do and worth considerably more.

A senior engineer I know opens every onboarding by describing the outage she caused in her first year — the exact command, the exact wrong flag. New hires visibly relax. More usefully, none of them have run that command since.

Success stories get edited into shapes that inspire but rarely instruct. Mistake stories keep their detail, because the detail is the entire point. There's something you got wrong that someone near you is about to get wrong too. Telling them costs you a little dignity and saves them a season.