make (one’s) bones
v.— «Shah is a 41-year-old publisher of small provincial newspapers who made his bones after winning a bitter strike against the unions that tried to shut down his northern England operation when he brought in computers and offset presses three years ago.» —“Murdoch Challenging British Unions” by Timothy Harper Dallas Morning News (Texas) Feb. 24, 1986. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
On a busy day in the emergency room, Alisa of Dallas, Texas, told an efficient colleague that she was really humming, meaning it as a compliment. Her colleague took offense, maintaining that humming meant “smelly.” Since the 18th...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...