I’ve personally given up a lot to get where I am and to keep this site going as well as new projects but they don’t really feel like a sacrifice.
I’ve given up:

Chatting online with friends
Watching TV
Lounging about at Starbucks as much
Reading fiction

Since the twins have been born I’ve had to be brutal with my time. It seems that I’ve only jsut sat down some days before the day is finished and I’ve still got more to do.  I’ve stopped all the repetetive e-mail answering and added auto responders to train people to read the FAQ before
they send messages.

I’ve got others to help out instead of trying to do it all myself (badly).

I’ve found freelancers to do stuff for me such as web design and formatting and adding content. It has saved me having to learn a new skill plus endless hours doing the dog work.

If you want success at your exams and career than you have to say no to the good to say yes to the great. I see so many people and members getting bogged down with stuff they just don’t need to.

The best book I have read in my life is The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. He gets you to answer some very hard questions about being efficient or being effective.

Click me.

 

If you look in the mirror and see a fat bast#rd then that is feedback. If you walk into the door and your wife and kids ignore you, that is feedback. If, every time you get up for work and feel awful about it then that is feedback.

I started a training and healthy eating regime last week and I have a special set of weighing scales which checks my body fat, weight, water content etc. After a weeks of training and eating well I dropped a very small amount of weight and body fat.

It was quite annoying actually because I felt that I had been eating and training well. The feedback told me otherwise though.

We need to pay attention to feedback and check it regularly to see if we are on track. Feedback for our exams is practice exams, speed of doing subnetting, speed and accuracy in labs and ability to answer forum questions.

It is also how many flash study cards we have left to read because we mark those we no longer need to read again.

Check your feedback, alter your plan and change course.

Paul Browning

How Typos Can Mean Failure

We have had a few issues posted on the forum this week and it turned out that the issue was a typo on the part of the student.

That got me thinking about the consequences.

When I look back at network problems I have spend many hours troubleshooting plus many of the issues posted on the forum when people ‘follow’ my labs I would say around 80% were due to a typo.

Our brains tend to scan text and skip over text or numbers and fill in the blanks with, well with whatever. I’ve written many books also and what came back from my proofreader made me wonder about my command of the English language.

In the past 24 hours three students have posted with problems they actually created themselves.

One put a NAT pool together of CCNA but called it CCCNA in the config later on.

One configured a serial interface but not the one his cable was attached to.

Another missed off one line completely.

Actually, about fifty percent of the customer service posts are due to people not reading stuff at all. Even when I put massive icons on the page saying ‘Watch this Video’ or ‘Download the software here.’ And I get ‘Hey, where is the darn software?’

Think about your Cisco exams. When you type in that config would it matter if you got even one number or letter wrong? You betcha.

Real life? You type the wrong port number into a firewall rule for a customer. Bye bye contract and hello legal action.

I don’t have an easy solution to this one. I suggest you take a break from the screen and double check for the silly mistakes. Get a second set of eyes on it and if possible, check configs on test labs first.

In the exam read stuff out to yourself.

Paul Browning

“Can you cancel my account please. I’m unemployed and have to cut back on my costs until I get a job.”

I get the above e-mail maybe five times per day. It never ceases to amaze me. What exactly does this person think is going to happen to improve their job chances if they quit the very thing which will open doors for them?

I’ve been broke myself. I lived off porridge and powdered milk for three months and never paid the rent. I had to go everywhere by bicycle as I couldn’t afford petrol. I never stopped buying books and investing in my education though. I knew that knowledge backed by qualifications was my ticket to a better quality of life.

Think about it. I am probably preaching to the converted here but if you have to cut your expenses to the bone, cancel the cable package, eat in every day and walk instead of taking the bus could you somehow, some way, still be able to afford a buck a day to invest in yourself and your future?

Paul Browning

Here is the conversation:

Student: I just failed my CCNA exam,I’m gutted. That is $150 down the drain.

Me: Oh dear. Have you rebooked it?

Student: Yes, but I’m going to buy some Boson exams to study from as well.

Me: You don’t really need them. What were you getting in my CCNA exams?

Student: Oh, about 90% or so.

Me: (gritting my teeth) Right, but you are supposed to be getting 95% at least in my exams before you take the real one. I say that several times on the site.

Student: ……..

Here it is again. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not take the real exam until you are consistently getting 95% or more in my CCNA exams. Same for Voice, Sec and CCNP. If you can’t get that then you are not ready. Throwing more money at exams or videos eleswhere is not the answer.

Please fail using my method before you try you own.

Paul Browning

So you want to learn about ACLs for example. How much extra work should you do beyond what you need to pass the exam?

There are two camps here:

1 – you learn what you need to know to pass the exam. Do the labs, learn the theory, do the crams, flash cards etc. and then pass.

If you need to dig deeper later on then do that but your main focus should be passing the exam.

2 – you can’t just learn what you need to know. You should dig deeper to gain a more thorough level of knowledge about the subject. This makes you a better network engineer.

Both of the above are correct but taken too far they are both wrong.

I’ve seen people focus purely on passing the exam which leads to a person who can pass exams. Even the Cisco exams can be passed by such a person.

I’ve also seen people get lost in subjects for days or even weeks. They fall off the study wagon and become almost obsessed in the tiniest details. Instead of taking about two to three months to pass they take six or more.

We are all grown ups so we make our own choices. My personal recommendation is to read all you need to know, dig deeper if you have spare time outside your study schedulle. If you are doing some more advanced exams you will be digging deeper anyway.

As a qualfied engineer you will be able to go back AFTER you passed and dig as deep as you like at your leisure.

Paul Browning

Recommended Study Path

Please bear in mind that this is my personal advice based upon my 10 years in IT as an employee, contractor and company owner. Add to that the 3,000 plus students I have coached and supported in their studies and careers.

I don’t know you personal circumstances to take what I have to say on board and then make your own mind up!

I recommend this path:

CCNA – CCNP – [CCNA Voice/Sec] [CCSP] CCVP] – CCIE

I do not personally recommend:

CCNA – CCNA Voice/Sec – CCNP etc.

My Reasoning ————

If you want to cut the mustard as a Cisco network engineer you will spend 90% of your time dealing with VLANs and routing issues. 10% will be security and or voice.

If you want to earn maximum money and get the best return on your study time then CCNA and CCNP is the way to go. A CCNP will out earn a CCNP every time as well as avoid the mad dash for CCNA level roles when advertised.

If you find yourself working in a strong voice or security background then you may want to do the CCNA sec or voice before the CCNP. That is up to you and your circumstances.

If there isn’t a strong call for that where you are then either avoid the CCNA voice/sec completely and stick to learning the 90% of stuff you will need to know day-to-day as a Cisco engineer.

Your Call ———

Please just take what I have said into consideration and then take a few days to think about it and then make your own mind up.

If your passion is voice or security then go for it. Just bear in mind that if you can’t get the VLANs or routing to work then your voice and security experience won’t help you fix the issue.

Paul Browning

Which is best for you – multiple vendor certs or be an expert in one area?
There seems to be a lot of speculation about this including some very bad advice.

I should start out by saying that you need to work out what it is you want from your career and be very careful about listening to uninformed opinions. I know of several people with zero contracting experience and who have worked for one company their entire career dispensing advice to unsuspecting newbies on forums.

Generalist – you can work across several vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco as well as a few other area. By the very nature of the role you will be okay to good at many things but quickly hit the limit when dealing with a complex issue on one of the platforms.

At this point you will have to raise a support request or call in expert help.

You will be suitable for helpdesk type roles, maybe up to level two or working for small to medium sized company who can’t afford to have a dedicated person for each role.

Specialist – you are at a high level for one type of technology and have dedicated yourself to becoming good with one vendors technology such as Linux, Cisco or MS.

You have narrowed the type of role you can apply for but you will be involved in higher level work requiring the services of an authority.

This type of role is suitable for a larger company who has a dedicated person or team for different parts of the network. You will often be called in for project work and probably gravitate towards contracting.

Which is Best?

There is no actual best. If you want to be doing more support based work and more variety then you will go for a generalist position and try to please all people. If you want to focus your time one vendor then you will naturally become a specialist and be able to command higher salaries or contracting rates. You will also be lifting yourself from the lower level support based roles.

The choice is yours.

Paul Browning