From: Fernando Carvalho (fernando.cagica@t-online.de)
Date: Thu May 15 2008 - 05:11:29 ART
Weeeeell done!!!
Congrats.
-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] Im Auftrag von
yemi soyibo
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. Mai 2008 22:06
An: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Betreff: THE JOUNEY TO CCIE #20739
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
dont 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. Ive 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 cant 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 fieldNarbik Kocharians, Brian
Dennis, Scott Morris, Kawar Butt, Brian Mcgahan.., anyday Ill 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 didnt 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. Circumstances will want
to
take away your dream, hold on to it tight.
I noticed something about CCIEs. 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, its 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 didnt want to do it anymore.
Someone called him a loser. At times I wanted to give up but I didnt want
to
be a loser. I wanted history to record that I was one of the CCIEs that
walked on the planet earth.
Nothing is impossible for man to achieve because we were made in Gods
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. Theres 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 wouldnt give
up.
You know what history has to say about them.
I did the lab 5 times before I passed. My advice is that dont waste your
money as I did. I quote Narbik..dont go until you are ready. The 1st
attempt
I went for, I wasnt 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 CCIEs 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 CODs. This was an invaluable tool. I didnt have much
hands on. It was later after 3 attempts I started using Dynamips. I bought
rack time on line but it wasnt the same. It constrained me to use it at
their
own time. I made notes from the CODs. 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
wasnt going to make it. I stared at the monitor for about 15 mins and
didnt
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 wasnt 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. Thats 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 Narbiks 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 couldnt 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, didnt 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 couldnt 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. Dont waste money on an attempt
without having at least one of these two.
Lab up every scenario you dont 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 lifeCCIE 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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