From: Victor Cappuccio (vcappuccio@gmail.com)
Date: Wed May 14 2008 - 23:40:32 ART
Congratulations Yemi.
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 10:06 PM, yemi soyibo <ysoyibo@hotmail.com> wrote:
> THE JOUNEY TO CCIE #20739
> Finally I became CCIE #20739 on the 8th of May 2008 in Dubai.
> I thank God Almighty for this achievement and I give him all the glory. If
> you
> don t yet know who JESUS CHRIST is ..man, you need to ASAP. Read John 3:16
> I thank my wife, Funke and my 3 boyz. They put up with so many late nights,
> lonely weekends, holidays. Thanks for understanding.
> I thank Paul Jaikaran and Francis Odo. When things in the office were
> getting
> crazy, they still gave me some space to lab scenarios and to study. Mr.
> Jaikaran, you are a true CTO in the real sense of the word. You are the
> real
> deal ..from another planet.
> At times, I felt like I was chasing a mirage, looking for the lost city of
> El
> Dorado but I kept pushing. I ve mostly been a silent member of GS and I
> must
> thank Paul Borghese for making this to happen.
> To Paul Borghese, This list is an awesome list. You can t fathom how many
> lives you have changed with this list. When you are 70 yrs and above, you
> will
> just begin to realize it. You are truly unique.
> I Thank all the five star generals in the field Narbik Kocharians, Brian
> Dennis, Scott Morris, Kawar Butt, Brian Mcgahan.., anyday I ll be under
> your
> command. I would also thank all the others that always contributed on the
> forum. Joseph brunner, Victor Cappuccio, Yemi Salau, Scott Vermillion ,
> Sadiq
> Yakasai Thanks a mill guys. If I didn t mention your name, pls forgive me.
> Please permit me ..this will be long. I want to use this to encourage
> somebody
> out there. Hold on to your dream. Circumstances, situation of life,
> setbacks
> will hit you hard. You must persevere as if your life depended on it and
> at
> the end of the day your dreams will be actualized. Circumstance s will want
> to
> take away your dream, hold on to it tight.
> I noticed something about CCIE s. There is this thing inside of them that
> says I shall not quit in the midst of any adversary, when things seem to go
> contrary to plan, they say they shall weather the storm and make it. Call
> it
> faith or whatever you want, it s there, believe me. Sometimes I call it
> the
> eye of the tiger..Rocky anyone
> Every morning when I got to the office, the first websites I went top were
> Internetwork expert, IP Expert, netmasterclass etc to see who and who
> passed
> and what the digits were now.
> Many posts gave me belief and encouraged me. One particular mail made up my
> mind for me. It was about a guy that posted here on GS and said he had done
> it
> 2-3 tmes , failed and he was giving up and he didn t want to do it anymore.
> Someone called him a loser. At times I wanted to give up but I didn t want
> to
> be a loser. I wanted history to record that I was one of the CCIE s that
> walked on the planet earth.
> Nothing is impossible for man to achieve because we were made in God s
> image.
> The tower of Babel would have been built even if it would have taken a
> billon
> years .So please remove failure from your mindset. In anything I do now, I
> label failure as a setback. The word failure has finality to it. Every
> setback
> that comes, comes to make you tougher. It comes to test you, to see what
> you
> are made of whether you are powepuff or made of stern stuff. There s a
> saying
> that say when the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you continue
> knocking, the door of success will eventually open. Remember Abraham
> Lincoln,
> Ted Turner and other man (Men of Honour, Mohammed Ali) that wouldn t give
> up.
> You know what history has to say about them.
> I did the lab 5 times before I passed. My advice is that don t waste your
> money as I did. I quote Narbik..don t go until you are ready. The 1st
> attempt
> I went for, I wasn t ready. But right now reflecting on the mistake, I
> still
> used it as part of the experience along the journey. After it, I knew and
> experienced firsthand the pressure cooker that was the lab.
> My question to future CCIE s is DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? .in terms of
> time,
> studying, practicing lab scenarios, navigating the Cisco Doc CD etc. If the
> answer is yes, then the CCIE No is just by the corner.
> The CCIE Lab will test your knowledge. It will weed out the weak areas that
> you have and magnify it. You would be amazed when and how you will be found
> out. Nothing should surprise you in the lab. You need to have simulated it
> before or know about it.
> I started with the IE COD s. This was an invaluable tool. I didn t have
> much
> hands on. It was later after 3 attempts I started using Dynamips. I bought
> rack time on line but it wasn t the same. It constrained me to use it at
> their
> own time. I made notes from the COD s. A 4 hrs class might take me 3 days
> to
> go through because I was jotting down notes and even printed the capture
> screen of the configs and show outputs. Its as if I know the 2 Brians, I
> can
> still hear their voices now. Thumbs up to you. Their blogs are also cool.
> 1st Attempt, 5th Feb. 2007
> Went just for lunch. It was a humbling experience. After 4 hrs, I knew I
> wasn t going to make it. I stared at the monitor for about 15 mins and
> didn t
> know what to do. I asked myself, that do normal people actually pass this
> test? Anyway, I went through the rest of the lab and answered the questions
> just to get some experience.
> 2nd Attempt, 15th May 2007
> Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Taxi cab missed the turning and
> got
> there 30 min late. Before lunch I was doing ok, but after lunch the s..t
> hit
> the fan. I came out angry with myself, everything and everybody.
> 3rd Attempt, 29th Aug. 2007
> This was the real attempt that I felt I has a chance of passing. I got
> the
> result and wasn t angry. I sat back and it dawned on me that I was a better
> Engineer now. I could type quite fast, I did tasks in the office faster and
> more efficiently. I was concentrating so much on getting the CCIE that I
> just
> realized this after the 3rd attempt. Have you ever watched a Chinese film
> where the master tells the student to do repetitions of a particular task
> over
> and over again. The student does this for donkey weeks and so has his
> muscles
> built up so much that when he incorporates it into his fighting style, it
> becomes his specialty. That s how felt.
> 4th Attempt, 12th Jan. 2008
> Not much to say here. It was close.
> I met a double CCIE after the lab and he advised that I go for a bootcamp.
> He
> said frankly that after 3 attempts you might not know what you are doing;
> you
> need a bit of direction. Most times when we are doing things and not
> getting
> results, we need to listen to words of wisdom. I took the advice and went
> looking for bootcamp.
> Choosing one was a function of cost, venue and availability. I believe all
> the
> vendors know their onions and are in business because they are good. If all
> the indices and criteria to choose one were the same, I would have flipped
> a
> coin and chosen one.
> I chose Narbik s bootcamp in Dubai because his was the most value for money
> at
> that time. The venue was easy to get to from Nigeria (no visa issues), cost
> was $2500 (a steal), and his workbook was da bomb. I really enjoyed the
> classes. It was 60% practice labs, 40% whiteboard lecture and the rest 10%
> were jokes. Man, we laughed. Narbik is very funny. I remember the joke
> about
> the lady he said would come 2nd in a beauty pageant.
> This bootcamp built my confidence levels, allowed me days of serious
> labbing
> and tweaking scenarios. It really filled my gaps. Before I went for the
> bootcamp, I had fixed my date but couldn t tell anyone. My company paid for
> the first 2 attempts and they paid for the bootcamp. You can imagine how
> much
> debt I was in. I was being chased from left to right and center and imagine
> sending 3 kids to school.
> 5th Attempt, May 8th 2008
> Finished in 6 and half hrs, didn t take anything for granted. I double
> checked
> everything. For the first time had the time to do the tcl script. It helped
> cos I had a route I couldn t ping. Would not have seen it without th
> script. I
> left the lab and said to myself that I had passed. Six hrs later, I saw
> passed, CCIE 20739
> In summary
>
> Finance willing, go for a COD and Bootcamp. Don t waste money on an attempt
> without having at least one of these two.
> Lab up every scenario you don t understand. Practice..practice ...need I
> say
> it more?
> Cisco DOC CD. This should be your CCIE Bible
> Have a belief in yourself. Every CCIE out there has only one brain, you
> have
> one also. They have just used it more.
>
> Next 1 2 yrs of my life CCIE SP or Security, MBA, Business Venture?
> Will
> decide soon.
> Nice to be among the expert field ..even though still a baby
>
> YEMI SOYIBO
>
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-- Victor Cappuccio www.vcappuccio.wordpress.com
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