From: Fabrice Bobes (study@6colabs.com)
Date: Thu May 01 2003 - 16:02:33 GMT-3
Scott,
Wow, nice post! I am happy I was part of your success.
You will be definitely a great asset to the CCIE community.
Thanks,
Fabrice Bobes #8609
It seems I cannot post my URL either ;-)
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Scott M. Livingston
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 8:51 PM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: 800lb. Gorilla Captured - #11510
Friends / Colleagues / Mentors,
Wow 13mths of poundin' away at racks reading everything most everyone
else is reading and trying to have a life like everyone else. Now I can
pen one of these personal testimonies.
First, and foremost I need to give all glory to God for giving me the
strength, encouragement and wisdom to accomplish this goal my wife and I
set out for ourselves. Second, I need to thank my wife for being so
supportive and strong during this past year+. Without her behind me on
this one I would have folded this cert up a long time ago; thank you
Baby! Third, (and I said I wouldn't single individuals out) I have to
either plug and or thank some folks. I won't use this as the forum to
explain what they did to help me (that will be done outside this
broadcast), but they do need public honorable mention. If I left you
off, please forgive me.
No particular order;
1. Greg Elmore
2. Fabrice
3. Pat Zimmer
4. Tom Payne
5. Mir Ahmad
6. Rahul Kachalia
7. Wayne Lawson
8. Martin Molina
9. John Spearman
10. Brian Dennis
11. Brian McGahan
12. Paul Borghese
13. Chris Whitaker
14. Many IPexpert's folks!!!!
15. Many GroupStudy folks!!!!
There are so many more of you that I have learned from, but I felt I had
to mention the individuals that consistently help not just me, but
rather all of us to become better professionals. I am sure there are a
few I forgot - I apologize once again!
Ok, now on to what I did to prepare....
I passed the written on March 8th 2002 and shortly after that (about a
month) I put together a partial lab at the house. At this time I was
still staring at TR / CAT500 etc... the 3550's and QOS were not big
subject matter yet. While putting my lab together I spent an enormous
amount of time reading success stories of CCIE's. I needed to know what
it took and what their preparation strategy was and how they obtained
their goal. I remember one night I started reading and saving those
types of posts to my local disk - at 3am my wife peeped out of the
bedroom and asked me what the heck I thought I was doing eheheh.... this
was her first taste of what the next 13mths would be like.
I also spent quite a bit of money on the recommended reading list. I
read all of them and in some cases more than a couple of times. I also
did pretty much all their practice scenarios in these books. I utilized
http://www.fatkid.com/ back then. I haven't been out there lately, but I
would imagine that there are still some awesome free practice materials
out there. Aside from a few books and "fatkid" scenarios I made up my
own topologies and labs scenarios before my first attempt on December
11th 2003. That is something I wish I would have done differently. I
wish I would have purchased the IPexpert's lab workbook and e-Scenarios
in the beginning or at least a couple of months before my first attempt;
instead I purchased both of them after my first failed hack at it and a
couple of months before my 2nd.
I made attempt #2 on March 4th, but came up a little short again.
Looking back at attempt 1 and attempt 2 I could only think of about (2)
2 or 3 point tasks that I had no clue about, but if I had knew the CD a
little better I could have found them. Obviously, I didn't do as well w/
the stuff I was familiar w/, but my point is, is that if you are working
hard and watching boards you won't be surprised by too much... so take
that 'what if I am ignorant of the majority of the lab tasks' anxiety
off yourself - it simply wont happen if you are working hard. After
this second attempt I was really crushed. I walked out of that lab w/ a
smile and knew that I unfortunately wouldn't be seeing Mr. Howard (RTP
proctor) for quite a while - nice guy.... I even called my wife and told
her I thought I nailed it. What a blow you could imagine I felt the
next morning. :) Anyway, what can you do? I decided to work harder and
keep moving forward (this is where wife, friends and colleagues really
picked me up). Thank you everyone!!!
I made my 3rd and final attempt April 25. Between the 2nd and 3rd I
studied pretty much on just my weak areas and left much of the "core"
stuff alone. I figured I would touch up on "core" material until the
last week prior to the sitting date. I spent a lot of time pinging a
couple of those brilliant minds we know of on GroupStudy and IPexpert's
(Brian Dennis and Raul Kachalia) - these two guys really took me above
my level of understanding of certain topics such as QOS and crazy,
whacky ACL's. Another thing I did differently this final trip to
RTP.... I relaxed and focused on each task and thought about my solution
before actually slapping it on the router. I took a more holistic
approach this time, something I really wasn't doing well enough w/ the
first 2 attempts. Keep in mind that you might get 3 out of 3 or 4 out
of 4 points for a specific task, but a couple or a few hours later
another task or two might get 'jacked' because you didn't provided the
'optimal' 'holistic' solution to that task earlier (you just potentially
missed 3 - 8 points).... ALL THINGS NEED TO WORK COHESIVELY!
What this journey meant to me?
------------------------------
Even before my first attempt I soon realized that I wanted this # for
all the same reasons, but the primary reason had changed. I no longer
wanted this # for just a better future for me and my family, or to
become a better network professional, but my wife and I wanted it
primarily because it was OUR goal! It was an achievement that wouldn't
come easily and in fact wasn't. There were lots of things that were put
on hold and many sacrifices were made. Obtaining this # was more about
setting out on something, committing to it and then doing what it took
to reach it. Yes, I have obtained a #, but more importantly is the fact
a goal was set and thanks to God, friends and mentors the goal was met.
What I would have done dif?
-----------------------------
Relaxed more. Not taken this test so seriously. What I mean is; if I
did this again I wouldn't have let so many things take the back seat. I
pretty much stopped working out - not good - even for the brain. There
are other onzies and twozies that I wish I had back, but I can just
learn from those things I did wrong and hopefully not do them again for
the next cert. Yes I did say next cert. :) Vacation first!!! Also, to do
it over again I would have purchased IPexpert's material at the
beginning of my journey and taken my first crack at the lab at 6mths out
from written.
Miscellaneous:
--------------
1. 50+ brutal paper cuts
2. High home electricity bills
3. Over 1,000 lab hours. Possible to accomplish goal under 500 hours,
but I did it wrong.
4. Experienced a HIGH pitch noise like a whistle right before I fell
asleep at night. This only occurred when I was studying WAY TOO MUCH!!!
5. Didn't watch a single full quarter of football last season - WEIRD!!!
6. Forgot my own birthday; wife reminded me. :)
Plugs:
------
1. FatKid - (Free Labs)
2. IPexperts - Wayne is a cut above! (Awesome CS! Awesome products!
Awesome message board!) - No affiliation I pay too!
3. (I didn't have an opportunity to obtain their labs, but their board
is cool) I can't give you their url as it gets filtered. Send me an
unicast and I will get it to you.
4. Fabrice Bobes is an Awesome dude who has an awesome $50 practice lab!
Keep your eye on him! Again I can't seem to post his url.
5. Bradshaw Labs - I used them for ATM and VOIP. Great CS!!
6. GroupStudy - DUH! :)
7. Brian Dennis - Watch out; this guy has some awesome stuff that will
hit the industry soon. I was privileged enough to be a guinea pig for
some of it 2 weeks before my last attempt. Certainly helped to push me
over the edge.
8. Rahul Kachalia - Lab 36 IPexpert's - awesome stuff! Another piece of
material that helped me obtain my goal! This guy is one to watch!!!
Thank you everyone for all your help!! I hope now to spend more time
giving back to forums that helped me! If you don't hear from me in a
while I am somewhere warmer and sunnier. :)
GodBless,
Scott Livingston
#11510
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Jun 02 2003 - 15:13:35 GMT-3