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- So how important is your networking career to you?
How important is it to you that your pass your next exam
whether that's CCNA, CCNP, or CCIE?
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How important is your career actually to you?
And what excuses are you making?
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You know in life, everyone has problems,
everyone has challenges, some of us have bigger challenges
than others.
But I think for the most of us, we have no excuse.
Most of the excuses are just up here.
What crutches are you learning on?
Or what excuses are you making to yourself that stop you
from reaching your goals?
You know, I personally knew a network engineer
who only had one arm, just think about that.
This guy had one arm, one hand,
but yet, he was configuring routers and switches
with that one arm.
I remember at the time, when I met him,
he was preparing for his CCIE, a lab exam,
so having one arm didn't stop him.
What are your excuses, what's holding you back?
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This is diamond beach, Iceland.
Are you gonna turn your problems into diamonds?
And make the most of them?
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Don't let your problems stop you
from making more of your life.
Make sure that you turn your hardships
into diamonds.
And do more with your life.
I think for most of us, we have no excuse.
Because for most of us, there's someone else
who is in a much worse position than we are.
Most of us have no excuses.
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All it takes is hard work and determination.
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Now I think for most of us the problem is up here.
It's a problem of thinking, it's a problem of prioritizing
our time, and doing things.
A lot of people will talk but won't do.
A lot of people will complain, but they won't take action.
What are you going to do to overcome your problems
and hardships and reach your goals?
What's holding you back?
Perhaps in school, you were told that you were dumb,
or that you couldn't do anything.
I think that's a real problem in schools.
Teachers or others may have told you that you're dumb
or you may been bullied, you've gotta overcome
those challenges and make the most of your life.
I was bullied at school, but don't let that stop you,
shows those bullies, show those doubters,
show those haters what you can do with your life.
Don't let them stop you.
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I think one of the most powerful things you can do
is to forgive them and to go and do something
with your life.
Don't focus on them, focus on you and what you can do
in your life to make a success of what you're doing.
Don't let others dictate to you what you do with your life.
It's your life, make the most of it.
Take that pain, take that hate, take that doubt
and then use that and funnel that to create something
constructive.
Do something with your life to prove all of those haters,
and all of those doubters wrong.
Are you blind?
Are you deaf?
Perhaps you've heard of Helen Keller,
that that didn't stop her.
What about Stephen Hawking, who just passed away?
His physical disabilities didn't stop him
from doing something with his life.
So if you have no physical disabilities,
then you're in a much position than many other people.
What about time?
Now all of us have 24 hours in the day,
what are you doing with your 24 hours?
There's 24 hours, perhaps you sleep for eight hours,
that still gives you 16 hours.
Perhaps you have to go to work,
perhaps you're fortunate, and only work eight hours,
or less fortunate and work 10 hours,
but that still gives you six to eight hours every day
to do something.
So how much time every day do you spend watching television,
going on Facebook, watching YouTube videos
that are not relevant to your goals,
or perhaps playing computer games?
Now if you're a professional gamer, it makes sense
that you spend lots and lots of time
playing computer games.
But if you're not a professional gamer,
but you wanna be a network engineer,
or wanna enhance your career in networking,
it doesn't make sense to spend hours and hours every day
playing computer games.
If you wanna become a gamer, then do that,
but if you wanna become a network engineer
that's probably not gonna help you accomplish your goals.
So 24 hours, eight hours for sleeping, eight to 10 hours
for work, you still got say six hours every day.
What are you doing with those six hours?
Let's assume that you have to spend three, four hours a day
with the family or doing other things,
that still gives you at least one hour every day
to do something.
What are you doing with that one hour every day?
And what are you doing on weekends
when you're not working?
What are you doing with those 48 hours on the weekend?
Are you spending your time watching television again
or going to a football match or doing something else?
Or are you spending that time on enhancing your career?
It's all about priorities, what are your priorities?
What is important to you?
Don't tell me that your networking career
or any other career is important if you're not spending time
developing yourself and enhancing yourself,
if possible, every day, or at least, a few hours every week.
Then it's not important, then other things are important,
such as leisure, watching television, playing sports
and doing something else.
At the end of the day, you need to decide what's important
for you, and you need to spend your time
on what's important.
Perhaps you said that you don't have money.
But if you have a computer or a phone
or access to a device in the library,
you really don't have an excuse.
There is so much content available for free today
on the internet.
Just on my YouTube channel, I have hundreds
of videos that you can access for free.
There are videos and labs for CCNA, CCNP,
as well as newer technologies
such as network programmability.
In the past, it used to cost something like $2,500
to attend a training course.
You had to go away for five days to a training center
and spend huge amounts of money to be educated,
that's no longer true today.
You can go to Udemy and pay $10 and get access
to a full CCNE course.
Whether that's my course or someone else's,
so there's free content on the internet,
there's free content on YouTube,
there is content available on Udemy and other platforms
that doesn't cost a lot of money.
So I don't think that's an excuse for many of us.
Now I often heard complaints about how networking
changes all the time, or technology changes all the time,
but I think that's a huge advantage.
Think about it, perhaps you're new to networking,
but that's an advantage, you don't have to learn about
analog modems, you don't have to learn about frame relay,
ISDN, and old technologies,
learn the new technologies, learn the stuff
that's gonna be important for the next five years.
Most networking engineers with many years of experience
aren't programmers, but that's an advantage,
if you're new to networking,
perhaps you've just come out of college.
You may have taken some programing courses in college,
leverage that knowledge because programing
and network automation are gonna be more and more important.
Now perhaps you're older
and you're stuck in a rut, get out of that
and learn the new things to change your life.
It's an advantage that networking is changing all the time.
Because everyone has to learn something new
every single day.
It doesn't matter if they've been in networking
for two years or five years or 20 years,
they have to keep on learning to stay ahead
because things change all the time.
So what are you gonna do?
What are you gonna learn to make a better future
for yourself and your family?
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