7 CCNA CCNP Study Tips for the New Year - 2018!! w/ Keith Barker CCIE

Key Takeaways

[Music] hey what's going on guys so this year what are you doing for your sheriff occasions what are you doing for your career what are your goals in this video I want to give you a few tips kind of like last year so study hacks and tips to get you going this year to make this year your year the 2017 one bit no worries brush yourself off let's go 2018 this is it [Music] [Applause] [Music] so one of the first things I would do is hacking your mindset now what do I mean by that I'll give you a hint I'm hacking my mindset right now so basically when I wake up in the morning the best thing to get my day going to get myself in the right mind frame for doing whatever I have to do that day is I run gets my endorphins flowing it's my focus sharp now that's just one example of what I do for routine but like other other ways it's like what before I study or before I create content I have to like hack my mindset get myself to the right frame of mind if I come up with something like if I come at studying with the bad mindset like if I'm just in a bad mood had a bad day it's not gonna be efficient for me so what I do is I take a second just a few moments or or maybe a few hours if that's what it takes and do something I like or enjoy that just put me in a better mood now I'm kind of stealing this from garyvee so when I talk about mindset I mean you're kind of your worldview how you're viewing your life right now sometimes we don't have the perfect worldview about our life right I mean we get really down about things we get caught up in the minutiae of life and the everyday cycle and something bad might hit you might have a really bad day and you get conscious in a negative thought process well here's what I do I get a cup of coffee I sit down and I just think about what I have I think about my family I think about being an IT and what a wonderful opportunity this is I mean start thinking about gratitude and just deploy gratitude in your life just be thankful for what you have do you know how lucky you are to even be watching YouTube right now to be in a place where you can actually have internet watch YouTube and then you can treat you're changing your career right now and you can actually get your CCNA and change your whole whole life that's that's awesome the fact that you can pop up in a book and study and change your life is incredible so deploy gratitude hack that mindset wait guys you know what hold on I've got I've got someone here he's like really distracting what no here here he is you're yes oh that's so weird you let it out the parts today don't want to turn off the office light okay I started over can you believe that oh this is blackmail material right hey I'm here at the house with Network Chuck and he asked me to talk with you for looking at myself in the video I asked you a shot about a few tips about starting in an IT career like how do I get going with things like network plus or CC NT or CCNA you're out switch and the first thing to do is remember that rome isn't built in a day or wasn't built in a day start with where you are take what do you have and where you're at and start from there the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and that's absolutely true and don't get overwhelmed step-by-step you can make progress if you shoot for the moon and you get to the top of the trees hey you're at the top of the trees baby and that's a lot higher than most people get so just take every day go in the right direction stuff happens as it does brush yourself off you know don't get up the feet up stick and hurt yourself just take the next day and continue making progress step by step it's easy I remember h3r Paramount Pictures back in nineteen ninety four ninety five s Forrest Gump days um I worked with some really great technicians and about ten years later I heard from one of them and they contacted me on social media and said hey ma let's see here and maybe more like fifteen or twenty years later because social media was out anyway he contacted me and said hey I need my CCNA wha what should I study how should I do it I thought to myself what have you been doing for the last you know decade or two if he's just taken like every every week per month just studied something and made continual progress and he could have been way ahead so the fact that I've got a couple CCS I've gotten other certifications from HP in VMware and Microsoft and so forth I didn't get those overnight I spent a lot of time my first CCIE I spent on eight months I spent as I recall about four hours a day five days a week of my own time and studying and was able to pass the CCI in 2001 for the first time and then I got my second CCI in security a couple years later and I didn't get that the first time you know why because I thought Oh mister you see I can just pass that no worries kicked my butt so I had to go back to the drawing board Rhee study step by step so I know what it feels like on both sides I know to feel like to win and I also know it feels like to not win immediately and so you just treat the not winning immediately as stepping-stones into getting where we need to be I totally went over the time I was intending to hey thanks network Shepard let me be on your YouTube channel for all of those of you who are pursuing a certification or pursuing getting better at anything my hat's off to you good luck [Music] other snippets for you guys who are waiting for that perfect course you can find like you want to buy CBT Nuggets you want to buy ine so you're saving up money or maybe you're just waiting to start your studies to get that just perfect the perfect training materials no no here's what you're gonna do and what you should do start today start today you how many online materials are free you can find any CCNA training you want online for free guys point is you don't have to be fancy now it's certainly easier to get your CCNA if you follow a structured course right I mean yeah that's easier but you can do the same thing get the blueprint you know IP subnetting go find free YouTube videos on how to IP subnet password recovery you can look up YouTube videos on that so do not waste your time start today if you don't have the perfect training course don't worry about it it might come it might not but I know you can get your CCNA with free materials I've seen it happen if you can buy CBT Nuggets buy it buy CBT Nuggets it's amazing it's the best training out there but this is for those of you who just maybe can't right now it's not in the cards for you you don't have enough money there are still ways to study for your CCNA but if you can get CBT Nuggets trust me [Music] [Applause] [Music] now this one is something I didn't understand completely until I experienced it how did I do this how did I study before and that's don't don't study alone find community studying by yourself is rough I mean it really is right when you study with community you got people to bounce ideas off of you get people to encourage you keep you accountable so what can you do well we've got the network chuck CCNA study group if you haven't already joined that join it we're over 5,000 members strong now so getting there post your questions people are in there they're asking questions or answering questions it's amazing you know if you're if you're at a job right now get a study group together find some guys who are studying their CCNA if you're subscribed to CBT Nuggets they use slack for an amazing learner channel these guys are in there posting constantly encouraging one another it's it's amazing but people were meant to be around people and you need people to encourage you so find somebody to help you out find a mentor line someone [Music] this one please because this one saved me so much stress I guess I would say I got in the habit of trying to manage my time like manage like when I get home from a 6:30 to 7:30 I'm doing this from 7:30 to 8:30 I'm doing this being like very strict in doing timeslots on my calendar it worked for a while but I burned out it didn't work out eventually over time so what I've learned from other other motivational guys I follow is manage your energy and not your time so for example when you're really really tired like you're falling asleep and you're just you can't keep your head out of your book do you think that's the best time to study probably not because you're tired your brain isn't going to absorb the topics as easily as it normally does when you're really like in the right mindset member mindset yeah and I've been through times where I would stay up till 1:00 to 3:00 in the morning studying but don't skimp on your sleep that's another thing too I mean this is kind of the part of the manager energy when you sleep your brain you know regenerates it I don't know if it regenerates but it deals itself and it's ready for the next day I mean I've gone through maintenance weekends you know working over the weekend staying up late doing stuff and by Monday I'm just like I can't even think straight I can barely drive home that's a crazy right well your brain repairs itself overnight and it cements those things you learn the day before now also with managing your energy you want to do the most the more difficult things first when you have your best energy like you know when you start your day some guys might be really tired but like after I have my coffee after when I start my day and I have my coffee that's when I do my best work so the most important things I have to do I will do those first cuz that's my best energy so if you can study in the first part of your day or maybe the best part of your day with the most energy is when you get home at maybe after you workout and you're like you feel really like you're good to go you're ready to fight that might be the best time to study but wouldn't has never worked for me consistently is just bulldogging it trying to bulldoze my way through a study session even though I feel exhausted it just doesn't work out you need a rest you're a human you're a person your body needs rest your mind it needs rest so don't skimp on rest and schedule your study sessions around your best energy again that could be morning that could be that could be at lunch do not reserve your study time for the times you know you want to be exhausted so normally well again when I was doing my study sessions it was late at night and I just I was exhausted it wasn't gonna work now this is something that drives my wife insane and it's this is what it is the best way to learn something is to teach it so what I'll do is when I learn a topic I'll try to learn it the best I can and I try to figure out how to explain it simply to my wife because you really if you can't I think heaven Wallace has us all of our stuff and it's a quote from somebody else but if you can't explain it simply then you don't know it well enough so I try to figure out a way to explain it simply and and it reinforces my knowledge helps me to really make sure I know it it's incredible so like with this YouTube channel this is my original intent to help me with my with my studies I would learn something in that I'd make a video video about it so if you're learning right now spread the knowledge and maybe you're in a study group and you usually you guys could each take turns teaching each other if you're in my network chuck face book study group make a quick facebook video go live teach a topic it will reinforce those topics in your brain like you like you didn't even know it's awesome so if you want to learn if you have already noticed I'm in Vegas right now I spent the whole week hanging out with the one and only Keith Barker CCIE CBT nugget trainer extraordinaire that guy's amazing it had the best time I'll link his channel up here you already know who he is come on it's Keith Parker and CBT Nuggets man you got like a look at his training top-notch I got to see how he makes it that was super fun and I got to learn a lot of the tricks of the trade too so that was amazing now I'm borrowing this one from last year and it still stands today lab lab lab teaching will enforce the thoughts in the end the processes in your mind always think about how you know like surgeons when they go into surgery how you know you got a surgeon that's been doing it for 30 years and they could they could go in and like do an appendectomy with their eyes closed because it's just muscle memory at that point that's what you want for your CCNA you want to be able to go in there and and just subnet or or work with OSPF or work with spanning-tree you want to have that just be second nature practice practice a lab lab those concepts will slowly just form a little section in your brain those synapses will fire and suddenly it's just it's there and you know it you know the topic now how do you lab well I made a video about what lab equipment you should use you can go physical or you could go virtual which is what I recommend packet tracer the best way to do it right now if you're just starting out you can get fancy with gns3 gns3 is fun you will need gns3 for your CC and p level stuff but for CCNA just starting out go pack a tracer no-brainer well guys 2018 it's gonna be awesome I know you'll get certified this year keep studying 2018 is your year now just a quick thing what am i working on well I mean I'm working at CBT Nuggets so that's incredible what am i studying I'm creating the CCMP collaboration course for CBT Nuggets so I'm working on that but I'm also working on my CC and PT routes which just got one more test to finish that up but I'm constantly studying so I'm right here with you guys and by the way if you're working on your CC and P collaboration I also started a Facebook study group for that so jump in there link below and guys if you haven't already subscribe you know that's about it catch you guys next time oh and by the way if you have some like study tips that you follow that I haven't already mentioned mention below let us know start teaching us [Applause] [Music]