this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore tools technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers twas the night before natmus when all through the data center not a cable was stirring not even a fiber the servers hung with finger murdering cage nuts with care just so that customers will pull their data from there the switches were configured in a spine and a leaf in hopes that python and ansible will give their admins some relief the aisles so festive some hot and some cold keep a balance amongst the machines or so i am told as refresh time is here the engineer bustles down each row to rack and to stack the newest gear don't you know now data now storage now compute now all come switches come routers come firewalls let's have a ball i awake for my slumber to hear all the clatter to throw open the door and yell hey it's no change december what's the matter we both have a laugh and then scream down the hall now route away route away route away all happy holidays from us here at the art of network engineering oh my god tim did it again oh happy holidays you guys happy holidays how's everybody doing get everyone enjoying their holiday season uh somewhat all right i am aj murray at no blinky blinky that was tim burtino with another smashing intro at timbertino how you doing tim i'm great aj i had to festively find a way to complain about cage notes that you did a great job yeah i can't be the only one who despises those things the number of times i have screwed up my my hands on cage nuts i count but i'm like missing fingers from how are you doing well doing really well i am excited to be here as always another fun episode in the works dan at how to pack it how are you doing dan howdy i'm doing good how you doing aj you know i feel like i always ask you that because you asked me but you just answered tim so it's like common courtesy i i gotta stop for a second though i mean hearing dan say howdy in a santa hat is is really is really doing it for me i need uh i need andy to be one of my elves or something like that though right oh man well unfortunately andy couldn't join us this evening for for this particular episode but he's with us in holiday spirit oh yes well let's cut to some wins for for this week and here are the wins for this week d3 passed to ccna congratulations d3 bill murray passed the jncip enterprise congratulations adam smith completed the certified wireless technician exam jerv passed the aws cloud practitioner congratulations and kd9 cpb passed the general class amateur radio license exam congrats semper descends completed the network plus exam and a deal con passed the az-104 congratulations a deal error disabled also passed the aws ccp congratulations robin c got an award on a recently submitted english paper from college congratulations robin and ethan was nominated for the wow award where he works congratulations ethan dusty completed the test out network pro cert exam and mike v2 passed the az107 lots of winning in the discord channel this week no new patreons join the program but if you're interested in joining the patreon program you can go to patreon.com forward slash art of netenge and you can join us every time we record an episode we stream it live to our patreon group and we have a great time chatting and they can ask questions live and we can answer them live it's a good time check it out thank you to all of our listeners and from everybody here at art of network engineering we hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday season now back to the show all right every holiday season you take some time to reflect on what's going on this past year and i think that we have a lot to reflect on and be thankful for uh this has been an absolutely incredible year for us i would say individually and as a podcast and uh you know some some incredibly notable things have happened for us this year um and as well as for people in our community so i want to kick it over to tim and see what what uh what sticks out for you well i'm here now and and that happened this year yes yeah absolutely we gained tim this has been that this year's just been crazy um it's i think it's helping us all and we've talked about it before kind of get through what these last couple years year and a half has has been just you know socially for for all of us it's been great for all of us to get together both on here and to interact with with the community i love that we have this community interaction on the show directly now with with our patreon members so that's that's awesome um one thing that i'm thankful for it's a holiday episode right we we can include uh thanksgiving in this i am i'm i've said it before i'm a very awkward dude and one thing that i'm very thankful for about this episode is or this episode this show in general is that it's kind of helped me uh with for lack of a better term public speaking it's helped me kind of start getting better at thinking on my feet and stop the ums and the just the blank stares that i give people sometimes when they when they ask me questions i'm really thankful for that that's where the headlights look yeah that's it that's it i'll go put my uh my bob ross wig on but no this has just been an incredible experience i can't thank you guys enough again for for bringing me on here and making me part of this and the interaction that we get from folks and the to see that you know we we seem to be doing a little bit of good giving back to the community and in giving people a platform to discuss and learn and grow i mean we've had people getting help with certification exams we've had people help helping each other get employment i mean that's just nuts to me so this is this has been fun this has been a rewarding experience and uh i hope we don't slow down yeah i i agree you know tim i want to go back and i want to explore your your you're coming into the fold a little bit because i know that we've talked about it like off off mic but i i want to actually like draw it out here so when you came on you actually you had uh you had some intent there uh when you came on the episode uh and you blew us all away right because you came in and normally we just interview uh you know whoever our guest is for that night but you flipped the script on us that night and and you asked us questions and ever since that episode you know that just that just kind of got us thinking so good let's let's go back to that and like what was in your head there i i won't lie at all i i treated that episode as uh as an interview uh i i wanted to be a part of this thing one way or another i was doing you know the writing of the faces of the journey and that was that was going really well but i i had a lot of fun on that episode i i prepped for that i i wanted to keep coming back and glad that it turned out that way but yeah i i went full send on that i really wanted really wanted to treat that as an interview and in my script to you guys that i wanted to be a part of this well yeah i i guess like when you when you first told us that it was like oh that makes a lot of sense but it it worked right because that there was a bunch of stuff um you know that that followed that and we looked for opportunities to like bring you back and have you back on the show and i think it happened in kind of quick succession and it just it got to a point where just like the the enthusiasm and energy that you bring um it was a no-brainer for us to pull you into this uh and so and so we did we you know you know we we talked to you and i i think that you were a little coy about it at first maybe well i don't know if i want to take it on you know it's a big responsibility or there might be a lot of work to it but uh so happy well and selfishly uh flipping the script like that on the episode also prevented me from having to keep talking about myself we all know i'm a big fan of that right yeah well it worked and here you are and uh i think that you've brought so many cool things to the show you know the intros for one um they're amazing and we're working on curating all of those in their own uh little feed on our youtube channel so you can go back and watch all of tim's intros since uh since the very first one uh in um they're they're masterpieces and now we're getting ideas from uh members of our community and you've been you've been working those in as well and uh it's it's so much fun i i do wanna spin on that a little bit too uh i kind of treat the intros as kind of my contribution but it is such a tiny contribution compared to what the rest of you guys do i mean dan and andy and aj has two um take on a bulk of the editing and do all that and that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and that's something that they let me stay away from which i think is partly because they they know my level of incompetence in that area uh but i that's another thing i'm thankful for it is this wouldn't happen without you guys putting that level of effort into it it's not just we record this thing on this platform and auto send it it wednesday at five o'clock in the morning it doesn't happen like that there's a lot of a lot of things that need to be done and that go into it and i will be completely truthful i have no hand in any of that so that's all on the other guys and and thank you all for that it's a team effort there there's a lot more that goes into doing this thing you know we have the podcast we've got a youtube channel there's the all of the social media you know we got this this brand and um you know it takes a village and we all have our own pieces to that and it's it's working extremely well um i i love what we've got going on and um yeah couldn't do it alone and i i love the the skills that we have too i love dan's video editing it's fine no but also the village is kind of growing right you know we we've got people helping us like give a shout out you know jordan helping with you know show ideas and intro ideas and stuff like that and then we also have chris working with us on uh for the meetup next year right which who's not pumped about that but right right so we we have people in the community that are still helping us with uh other things that might not be in the forefront but they're definitely there so just want to get a little yeah absolutely absolutely the family's growing yeah and i think perspective is a lot of it too between the four of us and all the folks in the community i mean everybody's got a different story to tell and a different set of eyes to put on a bunch of different topics and it's so awesome to get all the different ideas versus us just having the same point of view and thinking the same things all the time i think that's a big part of this as well so you know i i just want to um to go back to the community piece for a little bit because the community has grown exponentially yes this year when i last looked um i think we're at close to 1600 members in our discord server and they're barely active right like this is this is not uh you know a bunch of people that joined once and then never came back uh it's yeah i i can't keep up yeah i mean i'll i'll look at the general chat uh that channel a couple times a day maybe and there's just tons of messages i love the amount of conversation that's that's going on there that the communication can be about anything and you know we've got the separate channels that people are really good about uh keeping on topic there but just the different kinds of things in that general channel is is really cool to see how people interact right my favorite channel has to be the wins yeah so one thing too is um i've noticed that we've got a study like ccna study group every what is it is it thursdays um oh really yeah taylor taylor set something up the other day and there's there's two people that are doing like weekly ccna study groups in there and so that's just like that's just crazy like you know we started this thing you know however long ago and now it's just the community's kind of taken over you know like it like i don't really do much in there anymore when it comes to like setting things up and trying to do all that like taylor handles most of like the discord stuff so right it's just it's just crazy squared away yeah exactly it's just crazy how much the community has jumped in to help with this stuff and um that's just awesome yeah it's nice that you know because of the growth we've been able to do some new things with a discord server so for example we we just hit a milestone where now we can be discoverable right like taylor wrote a little blob about our discord server why we're here what we do welcoming people in and and now you can go into discord if you're searching for you know i t certifications or networking or something like that our server is going to pop up in in the feed and this is going to just help get more people in here um you know because as we say it is all about the journey and and the more people we have in here the better the journey gets yep exactly so if you're a listener of the podcast and you haven't joined the discord yet now is a good time you can go to artofnetenge.com forward slash iaa tj4 it's all about the journey and uh you can sign up and you can join the discord right then and there and say hello we've got uh a bunch of different channels you introduce yourself in general you can drop the wins in winning and if you're a fan of the podcast you can go to a1 fans and let us know we actually just had somebody do that earlier today which was great to see somebody found the podcast binged it uh on a drive and then hopped in and let us know how much they're having fun listening to the show we appreciate that very much so aj you were getting ready to tell us about your favorite channel my favorite channel is the wins the winning channel i and i love it because it's not just about certifications and everything else like people share some pretty you know personal stuff in there like you know i'm getting married or you know just found out my wife is pregnant we're having a child and uh you know lots of other stuff has gotten posted in there and it's it's so great to see and i think it brings us all closer together and i think just as equally too is the failure plaques like when everyone shares like oh hey i failed today it's like oh wow like you're human yeah right you know and and so it's it's nice as much as it is to nice to see and hold each other up like the support that that goes on when somebody announces a fail and just like oh yeah you know no sweat it you're like you'll get it next time and it's just it's it's really awesome yeah and again on the on the different perspectives uh i'm obviously following the encore channel and there will be questions in there and the the answers that we get from the different kinds of people that are in there like tim mack like jeff kish cbt nuggets trainer that people ask questions and you have a a cbt nuggets trainer in this discord that's that's helping people answering their questions about this exam i mean how cool is that i mean that's incredible yeah we've had we have quite a few cb2 nuggets trainers in here and they jump in all the time and uh yeah it's it's it's awesome like especially like you know you're watching the content and then you come in here and ask a follow-up question and then you don't expect it but then jeff jumps in and answers the question it's like yeah the guy that just did the video is answering your question yeah that's crazy and i love i love that those those guys those instructors like they they joined and then they stayed right like when we were interviewing them we were talking to them you know like they found out about the the discord channel but they're they're here they're like permanent fixtures they participate very actively and it's it's such a pleasure and honor to have them to participate in this thing but uh i i'd say that the next exciting thing for me is seeing that the growth of the show you know like when we started this thing we were hoping that people would like it and uh you know i don't want to i don't want to make this whole episode tooting about us uh and i know we're not going to do that but i i just you know and this isn't necessarily about us because it's you know we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the followers and the people who listen um but you know we hit a bunch of major milestones this year as far as downloads go and the popularity of the show you know we hit a hundred thousand downloads in less than a year which was crazy never saw that coming we hit 150 000 downloads last month and then we hit 175 000 downloads right after that and and uh you know by the time this episode releases who knows we might be at you know 200 000 downloads but um as of the day that we record this we're at 181 000 downloads it's it's absolutely incredible that just the the speed that that we seem to be going up yeah and then also you know supporters of the show with uh patreon we launched the patreon this year and uh you know we i was i was blown away about how many patrons we actually gained you know up to this point and uh just just the support you know like like i think the major thing that a patreon gets extra is getting to actually join us live during these shows like like we're looking at the chat right now you know we have patreons in here chatting and it's kind of cool because you know they're they're uh they're talking about you know what they like about it and how thankful they are and stuff like that but what's nice is they're supporting us right because there's obviously overhead with all of this i mean it's not nothing's free right and so uh they're helping us support this and they don't expect anything that's the crazy thing right like uh they just they just genuinely uh generally want to support us and uh genuinely there we go i'll get that word in there and it's just crazy so that's that's a big milestone in my opinion yeah it definitely helps like it's not like a ton of money to to do what we're doing but to to have a little bit of money coming in and to be able to take care of you know those funds and then to have money additional to be able to fund giveaways right like we've with the money that we've gotten from the patreon program we've been able to buy books and give books away and and help pay to like ship other things around to make sure that people have what they need to be able to to continue on in their journeys yeah i want to add on to that that was one of the my favorite things from this year is when we got to do the uh the number of giveaways with with open gear with the a1 branded backpacks and and just seeing the outpouring when when people receive those that was that had to have been one of my favorite moments of this year yeah with uh what and that was uh they put was it jason gooly's book in there yeah jason donated a number of books to that giveaway and and i think we stuffed every bag with at least one i think some people got got more than one uh in the bag but yeah because it was like he i think he shipped over like 20 books and we had 11 or 12 backpacks to give away and yeah it was that was freaking awesome i'm a little jealous i'm a little jealous because these bags look pretty nice yeah i know they're a little small but they they still look pretty nice and they had our logo on it so that was pretty cool right we'll have to get one of those one of these days and and uh books is is another theme of the year i mean we we interviewed what three authors throughout the year of like real actual books i mean that was pretty cool uh roddy roddy hassan he didn't did he give you three books or something like that aj to give away yeah yeah he gave me three or four bucks to give away yep so i mean big shout out to roddy for that you know and that was a blast having him on here and uh hopefully by the time this episode airs we'll have a special youtube video that has come that has came out yeah yeah we did sorry if it hasn't yet ronnie did a great walkthrough demo of uh dna center and some network automation and um you know we did a whole interview dan and i were working with him and and firing questions at him throughout the entire process and and uh he did a fantastic job and dan uh dan's working on that edit and we'll get it out just as soon as we possibly can but that's that's going to be a great video to have to have out there yeah and that actually you know we can you know piggyback off that uh you know some of our goals is we want to do some more youtube videos right we want to we want to get into some more technical content and that kind of thing as well doing demos and and being able to ask questions and that in those demos kind of thing that's definitely something that's like you know in our books that we want to we want to get to goals and stuff like that so yeah absolutely um so in addition to the open gear sponsorship um we've also signed another sponsor from uh net ally uh net ally is gonna be doing a number of things um you know already you can go to our website art of network engineering dot com and you can see the net ally banner right up there at the top if you have feeling spicy give it a click and uh click on through we've also uh got some other uh stuff that that nate island wants to do with us we're going to do some youtube videos with them kind of show off their products and you can also look forward to hearing some brief ads by us for netaly in the show so thank you very much to opengear and netally for your support of what we do here we appreciate it very much and that's crazy right like who would have thought we'd have sponsors i mean it's kind of like one of those things where you're like yeah hopefully we'll get sponsors one day and then here we are two sponsors actually getting sponsors yeah so it's just i i just love that you know there's a lot of love for this this community because you know these sponsors both sponsors have basically told us that you know they they want to help the community right they they want to do the giveaways and that kind of thing to help the community and that's awesome in my opinion it all helps the podcast and the community grow and selfishly i want to keep seeing that grow because come next june the bigger this show and community is the more people we can meet uh at cisco live in las vegas or in the the asheville north carolina meetup as well that's just gonna make it that much better so yeah let's just keep growing yeah tim since you brought it up let's talk about that for a little bit and it'll be a very little bit because we don't have a ton of details on it right now but hopefully by the time this comes out we'll have some more um we are planning our very first ever meetup of both you know the podcast if you're listening on the podcast or if you're a member of our discord community um we seem to have a lot of members centered in and around the asheville north carolina area so that kind of makes sense for us to target the first one and it sounds like other interested people could get to asheville pretty easily one way or another so we are looking at right now tentatively sometime within the first two weeks of april um chris is actively looking for a place to host this we've got a bunch of options on the table we are going to solicit some sponsors to help cover the funds of this and then you know maybe they'll come in and give some presentations sponsor some swag who knows but we we want to make sure um you know we get out there and meet as as many people as we can and we would love to get the four of us together in in the same room all at once uh you know like dan and tim have graciously come to vermont uh earlier this year and uh it looks like andy and i might get together i might go down and see him in philadelphia but uh you know it would be great to have the four of us in the room at the same time um and some crazy shit i was thinking about that yeah and see that's that's actually another thing this year you know me personally uh getting to meet aj in person and just hang out with him you know over a couple of days right um that that right there is is uh it's it's crazy right because you know i met him online my first thing ever was uh seeing him post about aci stuff on instagram right and i was like dude i like this guy's stuff you know and and then we started this whole like study group thing and we were going through that and then he was like you know what hey let's have a let's have a podcast y'all want to have a podcast and you know we agreed to it and then the next thing i know i'm freaking driving up to vermont and meeting this guy and that was just so awesome it's like a 17 hour drive isn't it it's i mean that was no small feat yeah i think yeah it was the same way dan i was getting on this plane like i hope this dude don't catch it no man this dude better be real he was he was definitely uh pretty in person so it uh he was no catfish but yeah i'm not gonna lie i mean hanging out with aj and his family was incredible but man that pizza oh yeah oh my god the pizza in that beer gravity is that the one you're talking about yeah or wait no um we went to pizza before right yeah yeah yep yeah yep yeah it was incredible it's just one of those things i i can't even fathom like to your point dan it's like i told aj i had to think like think hard about the last time i got on an airplane and here i am going out to vermont to see this dude that i hope is real um but even if he wasn't vermont's a beautiful place i could have stayed anywhere uh yeah it's incredible and i wanna i wanna call this out in the chat here from from charles talking about the selfless acts of the community that's something also that we we don't always talk about even in the the discord we get hit up fairly often from community members that just want to give away stuff they want to give away gear they want to give away books all that kind of thing and and that's really neat to see that people are always willing to give back i mean you you think about why we're here right we're here for the main purpose of everybody does a similar job right and it's on the surface it can be thought of as being really competitive like why do i want to help people that are potentially trying to get the same job as me but it is completely the opposite and that's so cool to see that everybody's willing to help out they're willing to take time out of their day they're willing to give stuff away to just help each other and and help this thing grow yeah yeah and if if you happen to be somebody willing to do that hit us up please we would like to facilitate additional giveaways but yeah that it's incredible to see everything that that has happened and continues to happen in this community and i think one of the things we've seen recently are people helping each other like get jobs in various ways right like you know coaching people on uh resumes just you know the the review of the resume or um doing some mock interviews uh even to the point of like actually recommending other people you know four jobs you know because of uh uh taylor and the community he he helped to hire somebody over at red river and then you know i know that um there's been a couple of folks recently that have gotten jobs at cdw through their associate consultant program um and there's there's tons of just super cool stuff going on that out there and it's it's like i said it before and i'll just continue to say it right because it's the unintended consequences of pulling this community together right like we were just starting to discord and that was about all the intent we had we never intended this stuff to happen we didn't think that it was a possibility and people just come together and all this wonderful stuff really happens and i think that's just more fuel to for the fire to continue to keep this thing going and continue to do what we do and now you have people that were chefs a year ago and now cloud engineers yeah it's just nuts and that's that's the thing right like that we've interviewed a lot of these people that you know are basically career hopping right they're they're chained they're completely doing shifts in their careers uh was it beau he was an audio engineer right yeah and then going into networking and it's just like that just blows my mind that we're we're getting people on here that are like everyday people right you know that are doing doing this job and uh we can hear their stories of how they even got into this whole thing and it's just so relatable right um and so it's just awesome getting to hear these stories from these people and being a part of it is it's just my little santa hat you know oh and then one one other thing that i nearly forgot i i got to meet a fan in person oh yeah yeah luckily chris wasn't a serial killer so that's good and but it was cool because like we met at his hotel that sounds bad we uh you know a nice little bar there and whatnot and we and we talked for so are out several hours uh you know just going over how our experiences are with our current jobs and stuff like that and it was a real conversation right like it wasn't it wasn't just that hey how are you hahaha you know it like we had real conversations so it was awesome he i consider him a friend now you know so yeah that was so cool i i had some fomo when i saw you guys posting pictures talking about your get together it's like oh i want to meet chris and i want to hang out with dan like why can't i be there i i'm really looking forward to the to the first meet up uh i i know it's gonna happen i know it's gonna happen yeah and just to meet everybody that we've been talking to within the community uh and then to have the four of us hopefully the four of us can all be there at the same time but uh it's gonna be so much fun and uh i can't wait hey a1 fans aj here for an ally you ever heard of net ally sure you have they came from the same group of engineers that brought us network tools from fluke networks netscout and now their net ally they know networking i'm a network engineer for a partner and when i go to customers and see they use netaly i know it's going to be so much easier to troubleshoot issues we might run into the name may have changed in an ally but the way they build tools hasn't changed a bit they ask what would a network engineer want to help make their job faster and easier and then they go build it just like this etherscope nxg that ally is here to help net ally simplicity visibility collaboration visit netally.com today now back to the show to go back like we have interviewed some really just outstanding people uh you know you mentioned beau some other people that come to mind you know chris randle you know just just last week's episode um absolutely incredible the the the amount of like fire that that guy has like he just like sets his eyes on a goal and just goes for it and shreds yeah um and then john john that was an awesome episode that dude is so full of energy yeah i just want john cappy ivanko yeah exactly that that's why i was going to butcher it when when i jumped on the the podcast that night you guys were already there and john was too in john's i had never met john had interactions with him on on twitter and that kind of thing never met john he his face lit up when i jumped on the call and he greeted me like he hadn't seen like we were best friends and he hadn't seen me in 10 years that that was the coolest thing and then i got to see it again because andy jumped on after me and he did the same exact thing it was just so cool he's got just an awesome personality and he's just willing to help and he's just so excited about what he gets into i think that's what we all strive to do is just to find that passion and just to have it keep growing yeah that infectious excitement was just it was crazy great word for it yeah i'm sorry trying to keep up with the chat at the same time um i i i love that we're getting more um females from the community in on the podcast we've met some amazing females and i don't want to overlook that one bit um we we've had the opportunity to talk to yvonne sharp uh track it pacer lexi uh and um lily lily clark uh just incredible yeah tanaya um so much fun to to talk to all of these women and hear about their journeys uh throughout their career one of the things that really stuck out for me with lexi was you know she wasn't in a network engineering career she was in another career and she uh you know was not having a great time right she was working at a law office and uh things weren't going well it's kind of depressing and she kind of like marked a date on the calendar and said if if things still suck when i get to this point it's time to get out uh and i'm going to take that one with me uh and you know if i ever find myself back in that that kind of situation i'm gonna mark a date on the calendar and you know have that decision point yeah and then you got like tanaya and that oh tanaya oh my gosh he's a boss i mean five seconds working two jobs though like working two jobs and she's uh uh a mom and uh just absolutely incredible the amount of stuff that she she tackles yeah and incredibly kind i mean with all that she does she could easily be arrogant and standoffish and she's the complete opposite of that i i don't know i cannot fathom how she does everything that she does with a smile on her face yeah i don't i don't i don't get it like she's she blows me away man so uh but yeah you know awesome awesome women you know and and there might be a secret project going on and i want to add on to that too because i think that's been a theme this year and i hope continues and not just this year and i'm not saying it just started happening now but it needs to be something that continues is the theme of inclusion i i think we can all agree that i.t over the years has been typically thought of as is a male-dominated field and we need we all need to do better at at that inclusion at inviting people in and i think this community is helping that and you know when you first think of that it's like well why you know why can't people just do this on their own well people don't necessarily know that this kind of thing is out there that this opportunity is out there so i think it's up to us in people that are in it and that are passionate about it to share that passion and show that anybody can do this we've had countless guests on here that went from something completely different and pivoted it doesn't matter who you are the the support systems there you have the desire you have the will you can do this and i want to keep uh pushing that that the inclusion the inclusion the inclusion we can all do this together yeah and i think that one of the things about what we do here is this isn't just our platform this is everybody's platform that you know i i think that we've kind of made it clear that we don't just want to talk to you know notable people in in our in our kind of sphere of network engineering like we want to talk to like the people that are on the front lines doing the work the everyday network engineers right you know we've talked to people that are ccies and ccds but we've talked to people that don't even have their ccna yet and they're they're not even working in i.t yet and they're you know and they're trying to break in and you know so we've talked to a wide array of people at various points in their career and we're going to continue to do that yeah 100 because i think it's so cool when we do episodes of people who work in the help desk but they're eager to get into the network engineering team and to me that is just so cool because it's one of those things like it i don't know if you've worked with people like that before but when you have it makes your job so much more fun because they want to they want to pick your brain about something it's like oh well let me show you look up tell you right your channel works you know and it's like you know just stuff like that it it it's so much it's so much more enjoyable to work around people like that and i think those are the people that make this community what it is kind of thing you know we we definitely have our legends in the community that are you know top tier and and also to give them a little bit of a shout out too it's awesome when we have people like tim tim on here uh mcconaughey um who are willing to just share their knowledge and their time you know jump on at last minute to help this community like so when you got it from both ends it's it's just awesome uh yeah i can't i can't thank them enough for the the people who are wanting to get into network engineering i can't thank them enough for coming on here because to me i'd be scared to death jumping into a show like this uh you know not i guess knowing all of it just yet but uh i mean i still don't so i i don't know what i'm talking about but but for them to come on here and share their story right like where they're at where they want to be that kind of thing right and then also for the people who are who we we say the top tier or whatever uh for coming on here and sharing their knowledge sharing you know what what they've learned over there over their journey through all this so just big thanks to both sides of that yeah i i couldn't agree i can agree more like the the amount of people that i think have gotten you know wind of the platform and everything that we do you know we we don't quite but we have had several people kind of knocked down the door like how do i get on the show we'll get to you yeah yeah now that we're at a point where we're planning a little bit further ahead it helps yes but to to circle back to the inclusion thing i think that's some advice uh that i'd like to echo that i've learned is for one thing me as a person i always try to look for for win-win scenarios because it's great to help people but you know you also need to take care of yourself as well so one of those being somebody that is trying to break in trying to learn especially if it's something somebody within your organization take those people in don't see them as a threat because not only are you helping somebody else but you're also working on skills yourself i mean as i've tried to branch out and get more self-con or more self-confident in myself and learning things a great way to do that is to try to teach others and what better than somebody who's who's coming up and also if they are on your team or they're trying to get onto your team team is the key concept there one thing that i've learned is no matter how much you may try you can't do everything on your own and if you train people your way and teach them things they're now an ally for you not a threat an ally and they'll help you and you're all there for a common goal right to make the organization better so just just help it doesn't have to be a lot it doesn't have to be a scheduled meeting with somebody once a week it's just they have questions listen answer them ask them if they have questions because we always talk about the imposter syndrome and if we don't know something we don't always want people to know that we don't know something so don't just wait for questions ask if if people need help if they understand something you know just just be cool be cool man go ahead go ahead aj no you i'll pick damn go okay but i would also kind of challenge you know challenge yourself to go a little bit above and beyond to help some of those people who are more eager because i think i think you'll get more returns out of it you know like if you go out of your way to make sure that you teach a concept or maybe teach your environment to them uh you know i like kind of like what you're saying tim it's only gonna be a win-win really because if they're eager to learn it and you're showing them all this extra stuff like that's just more you know that's gonna help them more be a better engineer on your team like you're saying uh so go a little bit above and beyond yeah i i think that that's uh that's a theme that we've seen you know since the beginning of this right like make your intentions known put yourself out there you know tim post about a lot learn in public like if if you have someone new starting or you're working on a team like make it known that you're willing to help and show other people anything that they're interested in and then if there's something that you don't understand make it known like hey i don't i don't know about this but i want to learn about it i'm eager to learn about it you know if you make your intentions clear and people know about it you can't assume that anybody knows or doesn't know anything right like you gotta you gotta put it out there just just like we do with putting out in the podcast and posting on blogs like i do the same thing in person if i if i know something or i'm willing to share my knowledge i'll let them know like hey if you have questions about this i'm happy to answer those and uh you know i'll drop my questions in the chat and say hey can someone help me with with whatever and it just it having those clear lines of communications really helps and um you know again i just want to echo that we continue to see that in the community and in our discord and uh you know i just want to thank everybody that is so transparent and is willing to to help out because that's that's what makes this community what it is yeah seeing people put themselves out there and seeing the returns that they get on that i mean when we talked to chris uh recently that's one of the things he said i mean he he was essentially getting job interviews because of how he carried himself and the things he posted on twitter i mean what what year is this yeah hold on i need to go to twitter better need to be a better tweeter is it is it linked twitter or twitter yeah yeah yeah and i think it just goes back to that i mean we we're living in an age of so many different platforms that you know can be used for good things and bad things but if there's opportunities out there i mean it was hard for me to put myself out there to start a blog and write because who's going to want to read the crap that i have to write but it it ends up affording you some opportunities in the long run so i'm not saying everybody go out there get a blog do this do that but just trying to highlight some of the things that are out there that can get you some opportunities yeah yeah absolutely just put just put yourself out there um i just want to echo um charles hayes in in the chat said you make yourself indispensable by making yourself dispensable yeah exactly share that knowledge um a lot of people hoard it to themselves thinking that that's going to keep them uh hired in their position but uh no share that knowledge get it out there yeah right i you know i i think or i hope that that's an old way of thinking you know i hope that people realize that that's not the way to approach that stuff anymore well i'm back to the win-win too if if you go out of your way to take time to help people within your organization that word is gonna get around i mean that's gonna get back to your boss your boss's boss that that hey this this person who's been here a while is helping me out and they're they're really taking the time to teach me things and plan things for me to do and ask if i need help that's people aren't going to keep that to themselves so again it's you don't have to think of it as being selfish but if you're looking out for yourself and helping others everybody wins yep yep beautifully said i agree put a stamp on um wha wha what else what what else are some of your favorite moments from uh from this year or war what are you guys looking forward to next year i gotta say one of my favorite moments is uh be meeting tim ross that was uh definitely definitely high on my list there i i'm glad that that was uh tom hollingsworth's episode because i'm sure he was like what in the hell did i get into his face when you started talking about uh distribution switches he was just like i'll never forget that that was perfect um i would uh i'd like to bring up uh dan in the hall of chainsaws that was a good one dance at the woodshed that was a good moment the frog yeah that was man i i have not laughed that hard and i think that's a i'm glad we segued into this because i think the small moments that i've gotten to experience this last year just with this you know over the internet essentially dan when i when i would look at andy something funny that i would hear and i would i i have a hard time containing myself and then i look up and i know andy heard it too because he's giving me that look and it just i just break down those are have not laughed that hard at things in a long time and that that just makes this right yeah it's so much fun to to be able to mesh tigger bits you know what what killed me most about that night in uh dan in the shed was that was our very first night streaming to an audience it was people yeah it was that was our very first time we decided to to try that out to try out that whole capability and uh we had a whole chat room full of people hanging out watching the show and i think it was like a 10-minute tangent and i go back and you watch the video it's just dan walking back and forth you know he'd walk to one side you hear the big metal door scraping across the concrete floor you walk back to the other way and oh my gosh that was the best part is he says hang on hang on i'm gonna go shut this door and as soon as that door shuts his stream just goes and it's just completely yeah that that 10 10 door 10 roof just completely cut his lte out from under it i cut the branch i was standing on you know i i think that that particular blooper is like a dedicated video along its own so you don't have to go back and watch the whole episode you can just go right to the blooper reel and and see that that masterpiece that was that night you know and that and that's another thing too is it this whole show you know we've tried to keep it professional right but we we have our days we have yeah you know what i'm saying i missed that email but you know like there's been days we've missed the our self-inflicted deadlines right or whatever whatever you want to call them uh and it's like man it sucks but you know in the community you'll get uh messages in the discord and on twitter they're like episode where's the episode at you know and uh so it's just kind of crazy to think that you know we put these episodes up and people are actually like this is part of their routine now that that's just blows my mind but um where i was going with that is it we have a lot of fun with this right like even those stupid bloopers and stuff like that it's all because we're having fun you know it we don't take our we don't take this that seriously right like in the sense of uh oh we've got to be very scripted we have to you know that kind of thing we're all having fun so we would be screwed yeah we wouldn't make it if we had the the less scripted the better yeah i would say as far as goals i i echo uh what dan said for next year i would like to see us get into some more video content because we're getting to the point where we've had a lot of fun with this it's you know it's been relatively successful but we want to see where we can take that next step to keep providing value and provide new value that we haven't yet so i i do echo what dan said i'd like to see more videos i think we should do some some kind of and i'm sorry dan no pressure but i think we should do some kind of like behind the scenes kind of thing kind of blooper-ish behind the scenes uh i think that'd be a cool video to to throw out there too but yeah i would would love to to get more stuff on youtube both technical maybe non-technical i don't know but definitely that technical content get that straight to youtube i think that's a i think that's a 2022 goal okay yeah just add it on the plate yeah just just load it up load it up it's like i am happy to share that early next year after the the new year we are going to be releasing a mini series that will include brittany our resident network engineer recruiter and we're going to have these short videos where we just talk about something you know professional right like your linkedin profile building your resume keeping your resume up to date or update up to date uh and then you know lots of other topics like that it's going to be a really fun series where we're going to want to get more questions and suggestions from you our listeners and um that that will exclusively be on our youtube channel we're not going to release that in the podcast stream so uh you can look forward to that we'll we hope to drop those shortly after uh the new year and i think we're going to try to do like a a bi-weekly release on those as well yeah that i think that's going to be a lot of value there right just short short videos to kind of help with how to how to boost your career and like if you're looking for a job and that kind of thing i i'm gonna have to like listen to those because my linkedin sucks well maybe we'll have you on and she can tell you how to spice it up and you can update it in real time that'll be the series we just edit edit all of dan's uh profiles yeah it's like look at this hot garbage and we're gonna make it better i think not not to speak for you guys but i think i'd throw that out there too any anybody listening i mean get in touch if if you think there's some areas where we can improve or provide value uh that we just aren't thinking of i mean we're we're definitely open to suggestions yeah absolutely we i think that we get some of the best suggestions from our audience right like you know we want to do what you want to hear if there's a topic we haven't covered yet or you would love to hear us talk more about uh you know absolutely you know shout us out hit us up on twitter you can tweet right at us slide into our dms or you can send us an email at artofnetworkengineering.com or our network engineering at gmail.com emails yet there's plenty of ways to get in touch with us yeah and i mean you know we're we're super open you send us a message we're gonna reply back you know as soon as possible uh i've had a lot of people hit me up on the side and asking me question here question there uh or just to chit chat you know um and and to me that's cool because like we get to meet more of the community that way right like you know when you're in the discord group and there's a bunch of people in the channel or in the chat or whatever uh you know that's one thing yeah you start kind of seeing the names and stuff like that but then when you start talking to these people on the side and they're like hey what's your experience with this because like uh i had a guy message me on discord asking about meraki right and because i guess you know on several of the episodes i've talked about my you know my use cases with meraki and whatnot and he just had a question about you know something about the meraki and i the problem i helped him with what i knew you know uh that kind of thing so um it's just real cool getting to to chat with you guys and and that kind of thing like we love that kind of stuff so don't don't feel like oh i don't want to waste their time or something like that like we love talking to you guys so uh definitely hit us up if you have any ideas or anything like that like what aj was saying just hit us up absolutely well as always this has been fun but uh our our time has come to an end uh guys any any last minute thoughts on on our holiday spectacular here uh this is directed at the listeners they're all doing great you're all awesome keep it up these last couple years year and a half have been tough don't let anybody tell you any different right here's to 2022 let's come out stronger that's so weird to say 2020 it's coming it's coming yeah i uh i you put me on the spot aj i wasn't ready for that um and tim had a really good one so i'm just gonna say yeah what tim said i'd like to say something classy and inspirational but that's just not our style yeah everything that we've done uh just continues to elicit this response that we never anticipated from the community and that helps keep pushing us forward you know i i would love to say that i want this thing to grow because we want to make money off of it that's not what we want to do at all we want to expose what we do to more people so more people can get help right like it's so much easier to to do this journey it's so much more fun when you have other people surround yourself so you know the call to action for for you our listeners is to share this podcast with somebody that you know that you know doesn't listen to it yet get the word out there get them to join the discord follow us on twitter so they can you know because that's where we do all of our giveaways right so whenever we're gonna do a book giveaway or or anything like that you know we want to make sure that the maximum amount of people can be aware of what's going on and you know hopefully we continue to get some more sponsors and we can get more stuff to continue to give away if you have stuff whether it's books you're not using anymore lab year or if you want to buy some digital stuff to to help give away to other people please reach out to us because you know if you're not using it and we we know plenty of people that could be using it so we would love to put it into somebody else's hands and help them take the next step of their career so we just really appreciate everybody for everything that they do if you want to continue to help us and support us there's a bunch of different ways you can do that one way is the patreon you can go to patreon.com forward slash art of that edge you can sign up there and hang out with us every time we record right now we're recording two times a week i don't know if we're going to continue to do that for the long haul but it certainly is nice having a a stash of content that we can rely on and not have to record and publish every week you can uh go to your favorite podcatcher hit that bell icon to subscribe and be notified every single time new content drops go to our youtube channel like videos comment on those videos it all helps the numbers there uh and then watch the videos the the watch hours is what really helps even if you're not watching just put it on in the background go back to work listen to the podcast or youtube it really helps um all of that stuff really helps our mojo it helps our placement out there in the digital world and uh you know that that kind of rankings and systems and all that stuff uh helps more people see what we're doing and try to get accomplished here so thank you everybody for listening subscribing downloading we hope you've had a wonderful year hanging out with us and i i'm very excited and know that we have a lot of cool stuff in the works so uh from all of us here at the art of network engineering happy holidays hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of net edge that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at art of network engineering dot com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you