400k Views in 4 Years – A Review of My Last 4 Years

Very often in our lives we are fully focused on what is going to happen in the
future. We rarely look back at what we have done and how we got to where we
are now. People that know me, know that I’m a very focused person that is always
looking to improve my skillset.

In July of 2010 I decided that I wanted to become a CCIE. I was a CCNP at that
time and I was working in a role where I did 2nd level support. I decided that
I wanted to blog to keep my notes for the CCIE online. I wrote my first blog
post on July 16, 2010. Today on August 16, 2014, almost four years later I passed
400k views on the blog. It’s been an amazing journey and here is a look back at
what has happened since then. This post is meant to be inspirational, to see
what can be accomplished in four years if you put your heart to it, please don’t
take it as boasting 🙂

For my CCIE studies I used INE workbooks, I decided that it would be good practice
to answer questions on their forums to keep all topics current. That led to
several awards as the top contributor, a few goodies and friends that I still
interact with.

In 2011 I changed jobs and became a senior network consultant.

I passed the lab in 2012, almost two years ago now. Passing the lab has been a great
boost for the career. I have noticed an increased respect and I usually get assignments
that are interesting and challenging.

After passing the lab I wanted to give back to the community. That led me to the
Cisco Learning Network. I try to help out in the forums and I have also been the instructor
for member led sessions where I have taught Spanning Tree and OSPF. I have been awarded
the technical excellence award and I am also now a Cisco Learning Network VIP.
This took me to my first Cisco Live, in San Francisco. Through CLN I’ve had the pleasure
of learning to know a lot of great people at Cisco.

I learned that there was a program called the Cisco Champions. This seemed interesting to
me and as I already was active in the networking community, I decided to apply.
I was happy to get accepted into the program and it has been great so far. I’ve met a lot
of interesting people and it took me to the first row of the keynotes of Cisco Live.
Not a bad place to be in 🙂

Today I’m still a senior network consultant, these days I’m working with network
design and as a subject matter expert for different customers. I am about to design and
implement a large network together with two of my colleagues based on ASR9k.

I want to thank all of my readers for sticking around and I hope you have had a
great four years as well.