(soft music)
- You know when life events take place,
when there are big changes in your life,
it makes you think.
My father recently passed away.
One of his aims was to reach 80 years of age
and he just made it.
So just after his 80th birthday, recently he passed away.
Now in his memory, I want to give 80 people access
to my Wireshark course.
A lot of people have been asking for access
to this course, so 80 people will get access
to my Wireshark course in celebration
of my father who passed away 80 years of age.
Now sometimes in life, things change you.
Sometimes in life things happen
to make you think about what's important.
What's important for you?
What are you focusing on?
♪ 'Cause we both deserve it all ♪
(upbeat music)
- Now to celebrate his life I'm gonna be giving 80 people
access to my Wireshark course.
So 80 people in this video will win access
to my Wireshark course.
I hope this helps you.
I hope this helps you make something of your life.
Don't let life dictate to you what happens.
You can change your circumstances by putting the effort in.
I've seen this with many people including myself.
If you put the effort in, if you do something every day
to change your life, you can change your life.
You're not stuck where you are forever.
Things can change if you put the effort in.
Don't let things around you dictate to you
what happens to you.
You go and do something to change your circumstances.
There are too many people in the world who make excuses.
Stop making excuses.
If you're struggling,
do something today to change your circumstances.
Do something to change your situation.
I as an example, moved from South Africa to the UK.
Moved from one hemisphere to another.
Huge change.
Country's different, weather's different,
this weather is kind of like South Africa
but this is not what it always looks like in the UK.
It's a lovely day here in the Lake District
in the north of England.
But it's not always like this.
Culture is different, the weather is different,
the way things work is different.
I had to start again from fresh.
I had to learn how this country worked.
You can do the same.
You can move city, you could move country,
you could do something and change your circumstances.
That's obviously not always an option for everyone.
But the point is is that you can do something
to change your life.
I think it's really important that you have focus
and that's what I wanna talk about in this video.
You need to have focus, determine what's important
for you and then focus on those goals.
Life is not a straight line.
You don't go from point A to B without any problems.
There are gonna be problems on the way.
I've had many problems in my life.
The older you get, the more problems you perhaps
have encountered throughout your life.
My daughter is an example.
Almost passed away when she was young.
So she was just a few months old
and she had this serious illness
and basically the doctors called me one night
and said, "Come to the hospital where your wife is
"and your daughter is
"because we don't think she's gonna make it
"through the night."
So there was a period of my life
when things we're really, really dark, really difficult.
I didn't know how we were gonna make it
from one day to the other.
But my daughter is now almost 13 years old.
She made it.
So I'm very grateful and very thankful for that.
The point is is determine what's important
and focus on those things.
Spending time with my family, doing the right thing
for my family is really important for me,
I often fail, often make mistakes.
But again, the destination is to look after my family
and have a good family relationship.
From a career point of view, what's important to you?
What are you focusing on?
Where do you wanna go?
If you don't have a direction, you're gonna go nowhere.
This book is really good.
If you're not sure about how to determine
what's important for you.
So spend some time reading this book,
think about where you want to be in the future
and work backwards.
That's basically the premise of this book.
Don't just wonder through life
because life will knock you around.
You need to determine where you wanna go
and then work backwards from that.
So some principles I've learned is number one,
focus on what's important.
What is important to you?
Focus on the important stuff.
Don't get busy.
In this book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People",
the author talks about how you need to focus
on what's important and not focus on what keeps you busy.
Being busy doesn't mean that you're moving ahead in life.
You could just be going around and around in circles.
Make sure that you spend your time on what's important.
Now something I've learned over the years
is you need to spend time with the right people.
Ignore haters.
Don't spend time with people that are gonna drag you down.
There's a saying that you are the sum of the five people
that you associate with.
Now I think there's some truth in that.
The people around you will effect you.
So make sure that you're spending time
with people that build you up,
people that help you accomplish your goals,
people that have the same ambitions as you,
or the same way of thinking as you.
Don't spend time with people who for instance just want
to drink, have a party, and don't care about their futures.
You're more likely to be influenced by those people
and become like them.
If that's your goal in life, then I suppose that's fine.
But if you're goal in life is getting certified,
if you're goal in life is getting ahead,
providing for your family,
then those are not necessarily the type of people
that you want to be around.
You want to be around people that build you up,
you wanna be around people that help you reach your goals.
Don't spend time with people who drag you down,
who what I like to call the haters.
Don't spend time with people
that criticize you the whole time.
Negative people in your life will cause you a lot of pain.
So if you can, remove them from your life
and spend time with people who are positive.
There are always gonna be people that criticize you,
that say that you can't do this, you can't do that,
that you're dumb, that you're not good enough,
and so forth and so on.
Don't spend time with those people.
Get those people out of your life if you can.
And spend time with people that have your best interest
at heart, that want you to succeed.
You know, growing up in Africa,
there's something I've learned.
Be grateful for what you have
because there's always someone who has less than you
or is in a worse position than you.
Be grateful for what you have.
There's a saying that I really like,
"I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes
"until I met a man with no feet."
There's always someone who is in a worse position
than you, who has less money than you,
who has a worse job than you.
You know, there's some terrible jobs in the world.
Who goes to bed at night hungry, or thirsty.
If you have a computer, if you have an internet connection,
you're ahead of many people in the world.
Use that to your benefit.
Study, learn, and get ahead.
Who are you blaming?
Stop blaming others.
Take a life by the horns so to say and do something.
Stop blaming circumstances.
Go and change your life and do something.
So are you a talker or a doer?
Are you gonna talk about changing your life?
Are you gonna talk about what you're going to do,
or are you simply going to do it?
I personally don't like spending time with people
who tell me, "I'm gonna do this, that, and the other"
and then they do nothing.
I'd rather spend time with people who just get on
and do things.
Don't be someone who just talks and talks and talks
and never does anything.
Rather keep your mouth shut and go and do something.
Show the world by your actions who you are,
don't show the world what you want to be
by just talking about it.
Rather be a doer than a talker.
Don't talk, do.
As people that go to gym often say,
"The weights don't lift themselves."
You've gotta go and do the work.
Go and do the work.
Go and do something every day to help you pass your CCNA
or your CCNP or whatever certification you're studying for.
Go and do something every day.
Don't just talk about it.
Go and do it.
Now in memory of my father who reached 80 years of age
before he passed away, 80 people will get access
to my Wireshark course.
The first 40 people that use this link
will get access to my Wireshark course.
But to make it fairer, I'm going to also add a link
below this video so that people can enter
and then 40 people will be randomly selected.
So 80 people will win access to my Wireshark course.
I wanna challenge you.
Are you spending your time on what's important?
Are you spending your time on things that make a difference?
♪ 'Cause we both deserve it all ♪
(upbeat music)