Re: CCIE R&S Discouraged

Well, I'm not a family / marital counselor or psychologist so this is
probably worth what you pay for it -- Why not try and prioritize your life
and make the CCIE a large part of your time on paper and on purpose? I
first started my track in July 2008 and I got married in May, 2008.
Needless to say, some discussions had to be had with the new wife about
time priorities and why I was doing that and why it meant so much to me and
why I needed her support in doing it.

Maybe it would be possible to talk to your wife and work out some sort of
scheduling to where you have your certain days and hours for just studying
ALONE in the basement, but you also make time for x, y, and z in your
life. Maybe you could speak to your boss about getting some time to
advance your skillset and obtaining the CCIE but explain that you would
appeciate some time to work on that career goal.

Ultimately, at least in my life it helps to have things being done on
purpose and to a certain "plan" or I get bogged down.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Guillermo Ruiz <gruizesteban_at_gmail.com>wrote:

> Joe,
>
> When I start studying the CCIE track (almost 3 years ago) the only
> reason of doing that was for personal knowledge. I've spent lot of
> money building my home lab (over 25 devices...till I discovered GNS3)
> and taking CCIE bootcamps. My frustration is not about those that are
> cheating..I'm frustrated about the limited time I have to study
> (always overloaded at work + family & marital tasks). I don't even
> know if some day I will take the lab exam, earn those wonderful digits
> and tattoo the old CCIE logo in my leg , but the only thing that keeps
> me enthusiastic is all the network challenges I face everyday.
>
> Keep the track, there is no better feeling than solving problems and
> carrying with all that stuff that nobody wants. This is what keeps me
> "young", and it's wonderful to learn everyday new things.
>
> And in the worst case you will end like me, with a 10-months child
> that recognizes Cisco logo...and cries when he hears Juniper. LoL!
>
> Regards
>
> Guillermo Ruiz
>
> 2011/12/3, Joe Sanchez <marco207p_at_gmail.com>:
> > All,
> >
> > I wanted to send a quick email out to all of you to get your take, and to
> > hopefully give me some words of wisdom.
> >
> > I recently took my CCIE R&S Lab exam at RTP on Nov 9, 2011; I failed and
> > I'm ok with that, I knew going into the exam that I was not 100% however
> I
> > scheduled the lab months prior, set my goals and tried to reach them
> before
> > taking the lab. I fell behind on a few of the goals that I set prior to
> > taking the exam, but I felt I needed to go ahead and take the lab and get
> > the butterflies and overall anxiety out of my system.
> >
> > I know what I need to do, so that my next attempt at the lab is
> successful,
> > and I'm working on those now.
> >
> > So here is the part were my discouragement comes into play and really my
> > overall mindset to stop studying for this exam and move on with my life,
> as
> > we all know that studying for the CCIE takes away your life for a while.
> > I've been studying for the CCIE off and on for almost 2yrs, and there
> have
> > been a few breaks in my studies as I have family and work obligations
> like
> > most of you all, "i digress".
> >
> > I came back from RTP and I had a few questions on my lab that I
> absolutely
> > had no freakin clue, so I set out looking through the CCO Doc CD and
> trying
> > to figure out the answers to the questions and I read every page on this
> > particular subject however, I couldn't find solutions the lab wanted.
> So I
> > set out in the world of google and began using search strings to find my
> > answer, and what do you know I found several scenarios from people that
> > were pretty close, so I modified my search string and began my
> > seek-and-find again. After searching for a few minutes more for my
> answer,
> > up pops a website URL in Chinese that redirects me to a website that has
> a
> > document in adobe web viewer so I think lets read this and see what I
> > find. I begin to read the document and see that it is a lab and as I
> > scroll down I begin to see the network topology and physical and logical
> > layout and the beginning general guideline requirements and I say to
> myself
> > "wow, this is very familiar" as I continue reading I again say " this is
> > way to close" and as I scroll down I see a topology that looks exactly
> like
> > the topology I had on my Lab, so I stop... dig out my notebook, "they
> one I
> > drew my LAB topology in, at the airport after my LAB exam" and I say
> "What
> > the hell" this topology is 100% exact to my LAB in RTP and not only that
> > but 100% ip addressing, vlan names and numbers, IGP AS numbers, BGP AS
> > numbers, "yes" i continued to read and yes everything, again everything
> was
> > 100% my LAB " I found the answer to my question". So I stopped... stared
> > at the wall for hmmm... a long time then said "Why" Why do I nearly kill
> > myself studying trying to get these digits when people are out there
> > cheating, but not only cheating but killing the reputation of a Expert
> > community because they feel that if they get the Digits they can make
> more
> > money than what they deserve. So I went home, because I don't study at
> > home as this is distraction most of them, and I asked myself the entire
> > ride home to whether or not a should continue.
> >
> > So I suppose my Question is to the whole community here is "should we
> even
> > continue", I've spent thousands or dollars getting equipment, labbooks,
> > video's not to mention the hours, but what is the point if people are
> > cheating and Employers know that people are cheating, and I've seen this
> > over the last few years that some CCIE's don't have a clue.
> >
> > I'm frustrated, p'd off, and discouraged.
> >
> > I await your thoughts and reply's.
> >
> > Please do not email me or request that I give you the website or name of
> > the company that is supplying the exact labs, as I will make you publicly
> > known for asking in this email group and forums. Really it's not worth
> it.
> >
> > Joe Sanchez (Chicago, IL)
> >
> >
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> >
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-- 
Regards,
Joe Astorino
CCIE #24347
Blog: http://astorinonetworks.com
"He not busy being born is busy dying" - Dylan
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net