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This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

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in this podcast will explore tools, technologies and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. I am AJ Murray at No Blinky Blinky. And tonight we've got a almost full crew. Aaron's on vacation. Hope he's having a good time. Andy, how you doing tonight?

00:38
Hey AJ, I'm doing well sir. Happy to be here. Andy is at Andy Laptaff. Permit IP Andy Andy. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I love that. I love your brand Andy. Thank you sir, working on it. I'm about to buy my domain and get a WordPress low down from you sir. Can't wait. Dan, how you doing? Howdy, how's it going? Dan is at

01:09
No Dan Twitter. Yeah, and it's broken, I guess. Dan no likey Twitter. Don't worry, we will bring him around. We will get him to get on board with the rest of us so you can follow him and see his antics. He has a lot of great things to say. He just doesn't like to say them. He's on LinkedIn. That's true. I am. I don't know, it just...

01:36
The guys keep cracking down on me about Twitter. And I'm just not fully sure if I want to just yet, guys. So let's hear some feedback about if I should or not. Yes. How would you hear that feedback if you weren't on Twitter? I want everybody who wants to follow Dan to let us know on the Art of Network Engineering Twitter account at artofnetcheng and tell Dan that he needs to get a Twitter account. We should also do a poll on.

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what my handle should be. What was that one that I suggested for you a few weeks ago? Daggum packet or something like that. Yeah, I don't know. Daggum Dan. We'll have to come up with a couple and do a poll or something like that. I like that. Let the listeners decide your fate. It's all in your hands, guys.

02:33
All right, and this evening our guest with us is Eugene. Welcome, sir. Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening, everyone.

02:42
Eugene, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Glad to be here. I started this podcast so I could talk to all of my favorite people on Twitter. And I have been looking forward very selfishly to doing this episode with you tonight. So thank you for joining us. Glad to be here, man. Before we get started, I just want to thank everybody that again continues to reach out, continues to shout out.

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tweet, share their thoughts on the podcast. It is amazing. So last week I looked at the stats and we were at just under 3000 total downloads of all the episodes since we started this thing back in late July. And right now we are at about 4000 downloads. So that's another thousand plus downloads in a week. Wow. In a week. And I am.

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humbled, taken aback, and so appreciative for everybody that's decided to subscribe and continue to follow us. And I know people are sharing it because it seems like this thing is just continuing to blow up. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

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while you're talking about social media, what about Eugene's social media? Oh, he's got a great handle. Yeah, he does. I like this one a lot. Underscore rise to grind. It's that Twitter. Rise to grind. Rise to grind. I love it. I love it, man. I love it. Your tweets are so inspirational. They really are. And like I was telling you in the pre-flight, there have been...

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days that I get up and I'm just like, man, I do not want to rise and I do not want to grind. And I read this uplifting tweet that he posts and it's just like, okay, no, I do want to rise. I do want to grind. Let's do this. Let's do this. Awesome. I think you're really... Yeah, go ahead. I can't wait to get in to the conversation with you and how you kind of keep that upbeat all the time, at least seemingly all the time. And we'll get there. We'll get there.

04:51
I think it really echoes what we were talking about in one of our earlier episodes about having that drive to be in this field. And with a name like that, I mean, you know, how do you beat it?

05:05
Exactly, exactly. So Eugene, give us a little bit of background. Are you currently working in the field? I am help desk tech currently working, studying for my CCNA right now and just looking forward to getting it and continuing to move up to the next level. So is this your first IT job? Yes, it's my first one.

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And so what were you doing before you broke into IT? I was mailroom, mailroom guy, just there loving tech, and just finally had the opportunity. And they pulled me over to the IT side and just, you know, started at the ground level and learn and continue to learn just continue to learn and just

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you know, as you touch different things and see how things work and you're doing this more interesting. I'm like, okay, as I continue to, to, to, to step forward and to develop, then I start, okay, what's this network networking? What is this about? And just started reading some things about it and I said, okay, this would be interesting. So net plus, which was, that was, that was a

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That was a moment for me and then now working on the C-Center. So you got your net plus? I have it. Yes. Nice. Nice. Congrats. So you said you stepped over from the mail room. So were you at the same company? Same company. Doing the mail room thing? Same company in the mail room. And then I found this out later on that I was going to be downsized. And yeah, I found this out. If you had stayed in the mail room, you would have been downsized.

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Because I was going to be downsized, I guess my boss still the CIO now, he had the mail us under his department. I don't know why, but anyway. So he pulled me over. He, of course, he knew that this was happening and he said, hey, I'm gonna pull you over. And I was like, okay. Didn't know it at the time, maybe three years later, I found out that that's what was gonna happen. I was like, wow, okay.

07:23
So yeah, so I'm still here and still grinding. So, so why do you think he pulled you over? Did you like express to him some interest in it? I expressed, there was a, there was a position that I didn't qualify for that they put out and I said, I went in his office and I said, Hey, you know, I'd love to apply for this and you know, they told me, well, you, you don't have any qualifications at all of, you know,

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I'm sorry that we can't give that to you. I was like, all right. And I'm just like, I mean, you know, I'm thinking to myself, hey, I'm here. You see how it works. You can teach me, but I get it. There's specific things that are needed and I didn't meet that. So from there, and I was also cool with a lot of the IT guys. And so I believe that one of my guys who were there, he's not there anymore, he put in a word for me, I'm sure. Hey.

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you know, probably maybe two, three years in a row, hey, we can bring Eugene over. He's, you know, he's good. He's he's bright. He's interested. He's, you know, he's willing to learn. And at that time, just myself was just messing around with a lot of mobile stuff, just hacking Samsung devices and, you know, all of that stuff back then. So, um, and, uh, so I believe that some of that happened, uh, from there. And then he pulled me over and then, and I'm there now. And.

08:48
He's trying to make another move. So, yeah. So do you think you applying for that position that you were not qualified for? Do you think that like, was he was he around during that time? Yeah, yeah, he was around. OK, so so do you think that like planted a little seed in his brain, maybe like, hey, he's at least trying to apply for these positions over here. And then then you said some of your guys that you were

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closer to in the IT side Said they were putting good words for you and everything. So so would would you agree that maybe? Even trying for a position that you weren't qualified for at least got your name out there and then also knowing the right people Potentially helped you in that in that scenario as well absolutely, I think that I think that that I don't I Believe that that's that's what happened. At least Lisa saw me, you know, and I think that

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you know what did I have to lose I mean if I don't remember what the name of the position was but it was a lot and I was just saying to myself okay well I'll just have to learn this I mean if he says if I get it then hey all right well I'm gonna have to just figure out because at that point I was really like green didn't know anything but I was like hey let's take a fly let's go for it so I believe that

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that showed him that. And I also think it showed the guys that, because I told them, hey, okay, I'm going to go for this. And whether I had the experience or I didn't, I was like, I wanted it. And so I believe that they saw that passion as well. And I think that's a good point too. I think, you know, people, I know personally myself, I've not applied at certain jobs because when I saw like the requirements or the job title, I was like, there's no way

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I don't have experience for that, you know. But, you know, sometimes I think like Andy's backstory, and I hints on that, you know, and he said every time he bombed an interview, it's like they still liked him as a person and liked his personality and they gave him the shot anyways, you know. So I think there's something to that, that you put yourself out there, even though you weren't technically qualified at that time. I think that there's something to save for that.

11:17
Is it safe to say Eugene that you were kind of building a good reputation at that company? Because when I hear that the CIO pulled you off from where you were to, I mean, it sounds like you're a really hard worker, you're really engaged. I mean, you know. I believe so. I mean, especially because we're small, so we have to interact with people every day.

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management, senior management to, you know, regular everyday employee that's there. So if you do something wrong, everyone knows. As soon as it happens, it reverberates around the company. So yeah, I believe that that that did help and just my day to day and just who I am and I think that assisted with helping me

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get over to the other side.

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So how long have you been in Helpdesk now? It's been, it's going to be five years in January. Five years. And, yeah, you hear it, yes, five years. Tell us how you're really feeling. And I mean, you know what, I love it. I love dealing with, I love helping the user. Right, I mean, some calls are, but.

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But I love helping the user. And so I get to shine there as far as just the interaction and just holding a hand and just solving the problem, solving an issue. And of course, if I don't know the answer, I have my guys that will come back to, or I try to figure it out myself. What's a typical day it helped us look like? Because...

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It seems like it's a good starting point. You know, when we talk to network people to say, yeah, you know, I got a spot at the help desk and it got me rolling in the technical, you know, career path. You know, people can't connect to a printer, their laptops broken, their phone doesn't work, is it all that kind of stuff? It's all that kind of stuff. And then I guess because we're smaller, I do get to touch some other things. So outlook issues, email.

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you know, creating an account in AD, unlocking, you know, usually what I hear is that a lot of help desk, they don't get to even see what active directory looks like. They're like, what is that? No, you can't touch. So being able to have those admin credentials to be able to, the ticket comes in, I can't connect, all right, VPN, I can't connect, we're troubleshooting down, okay, what's going on here? Is it the device? Is it your ISP at home? Like what's happening? So.

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terminal server, so I touch all of that, along with deploying laptops and surfaces and getting ready for new users. They come in sold, yeah. Really good troubleshooting experience it sounds like.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. This, I mean. Nobody calls you with good news. No. Nobody calls you and says, hey, the next week. Nobody calls to say thank you. It's working today. Right. You know what's funny? We do get some of those. There's some people who are like, oh, Eugene, thank you so much. You helped me. You know, because there's some time, especially now with COVID, when we had to get everyone home. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, it was.

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It was tough and the users understood because for about a month VPN was just bad. It was just bad. Probably didn't have the capacity. Exactly. Everyone was on and we were just putting the new people daily. Just putting new people on daily. So it was what they understood and we got it done and we fixed it and they're doing all right now.

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So you said that you had some friends or people that you knew in the IT department. Were they friends before you started working there? Did you just kind of get to know them, you know, because you wanted to let them know, like, hey, I'm kind of interested in what you do. Right. When I got to my job is that this one, we build a relationship there. So just just daily again, just daily work.

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You know, you see some guys, you start talking, you go to lunch, you know, like this, oh, you like phone, you know, you start to deal with the new phone, this, what apps do you have? And just build it from there. And they're talking sports, just talk, you know, just the regular. And so that's how we build it. And then, then they able to see even something without me saying I want to, they just, hey, he would be a good fit. You know, he would be a good fit over here. You know, so that's how some of that happens. Well,

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I definitely think there's an aspect to it of like, you know, if someone's going to be a good teammate or not, just because they know. I think we talked about this on a previous episode, but just because, you know, your stuff, but let's say you're a grumpy butt all the time and, you know, nobody wants to deal with that. And so, yeah, I could see, you know, you forming a friendship with these people. They would definitely want you on their team kind of thing. That's right. And I think another thing is, are you teachable? Yeah. I think that's a big.

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That's a big thing because I know, like I would say my mentor there, uh, cause when I came over and it was like, yo, take them under your wing and just teach him. And I just thank him for the patience that he had, but also knowing, Hey, he believed that I was teachable and he just taught me everything that he knew. And, um, he, he didn't, I mean, the questions that I had to ask and, you know, sometimes you're like, I don't want to ask that question. He showed me that already, but

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One thing that they said, listen, you ask a question again, but you try to figure it out. This is what they saw of me. You try to figure it out and you're not asking the same question over and over again. So we know that you are learning. You know that you're trying to advance. So it's just like, all right, cool. So it was being teachable is huge. It is huge. I think finding that mentor figure too, I know my career progression so far when you can find people to take under their wing and show you the ropes.

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You know, it really accelerated my learning and my development. Right. You know, having somebody take an interest in you like that, that's really helpful when you're climbing. Definitely. Definitely is. So how big is the IT department there? Is it just everybody is in IT or do you have like the help desk, maybe a systems team, a networking team, an apps team? What's it look like? We have...

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We have tech guys, it's myself and my mentor now. There used to be three of us. Then we have a security network team, system admin, land administrator, he's our boss. And so I'd say there's about nine of us, 10 of us, and it's broken down like this really, you know, so a lot of guys wear multiple hats. And like we have data analysts, programmers, like two of those.

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And then I guess the systems analyst just deals with data information there. So it was about 10 of us. So it's small and wear multiple hats. Sounds real familiar. Yeah. Jack Jack of all trades, master of nothing. It's a good, you know what? It's, um, it's, it's a great place to learn. I mean, it really is because you really not hindered.

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to except for if the person doesn't want to show you right when you servers are there, you have the switches there. You had you know, until now that I'm getting into networking, you know, the questions are right. So can I get some show access? You know, you know, and you know, guys, like, all right, you know, take it up to the director and all right, let's get him. Let's get into that. So you have you're able to wait, we're about to install some servers here. That's not my thing. But I'm just

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tagging along, hey, how are you doing this? Show me what you're doing, let me help you out. And yeah, I think that builds the team, and then I'm learning other things on my way to becoming a network engineer. You know, I think that starting out in the help desk presents a unique opportunity, especially to somebody who's...

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who's green to the IT field to begin with, right? You get a taste, a little bit of everything and you get to find that like, oh, I really like servers or oh, I really like networking. And so it's a really good way to like find your passion. And personally, I believe that if you have that background when you start to step up to say a network engineer.

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and you have that understanding of Active Directory and applications and you know how all that stuff works. I think that that gives you a little bit of an edge over say another network engineer that doesn't necessarily have all that kind of experience or whatever. I'm not saying that you can't be a good network engineer if you don't have it. I just think it provides you a different perspective having had that experience going into being a network engineer.

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Yeah, I'll definitely second that because I feel like it also gives you a better understanding of how to troubleshoot things. Like if, like, you know, you're talking about VPN earlier. So a lot of people base, you know, what if you're allowed VPN access off of your AD account, right? Well, you know, if you're getting weird, you know, not able to connect issues or something like that, you know.

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And you know that about AD, like their user account has to be in an AD group that's checked by like Radius or LDAP or something. You know maybe, hey, I need to go check and make sure that they're in that VPN group, in that AD group, right? And so I think you hit that one right on the head there, AJ. I think having that knowledge definitely makes you a better, at least in a troubleshoot sense, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

21:57
Absolutely. So you're in the mail room, you're talking to and establishing a rapport with some IT guys and gals and that I would say absolutely led to you getting into the IT department before you you know, sounds like you would have gotten let go otherwise. And so the soft skills definitely came into play there. So now you're in the help desk and you're trying to make your way into the networking team. Are you using the same approach? Yeah, that's the only I mean, I

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It's even more direct now because I've been around these guys for directly for almost five years. So I'm like, hey, you know, I just ask what are you doing here? What's this? What's that? I mean, because I just I'm just trying to absorb as much as I can. And and because we're so small, it's just like, hey, let me lend a hand. I mean, I don't know how it will help me later on. I don't even necessarily think like that all the time. It's just like, hey, we're a team.

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And I'm eager to learn. I'm very hungry right now, right? So I'm like, all right, this may be way above my pay. You know, I don't go to the meetings, but I'm like, hey, what are you doing? You're doing what? VMware what? Okay, so how did you, so what, okay. So I tag along, can I come and see? You know, what are you doing? You know, and I ask those questions and we have those discussions, which if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't be able to be a part of that.

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You know, as they discuss planning and we want to deploy this and when they're okay. So yeah Yeah, I mean Honestly, it's someone in your position Asking hey what's going on? Like the worst they're gonna tell you is like, oh, sorry This is really isn't free for you. Like we'll figure it out. Like this. It's kind of rude, you know, whatever It for me if somebody takes the time to like hey, what do you do? I like I

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I will probably not stop talking I was on site with a customer was just like, oh, hey, so what are you doing? and I was like, well, let me tell you. I was there for over an hour.

24:19
It sounds like you're in a group of people that are pretty similar. You know, you ask a question and they want to share their knowledge. And like you said, you know, like you just want to help out. And I don't think on a small team, anybody's going to say no to that. You know, they probably have more than enough things to do. So if you have a little bit of bandwidth, you have some interest, if they can teach you how to do one or two things, that's one or two things less that they have to worry about. Absolutely. And that curiosity, I think it's contagious and it'll, it'll take you far. You know, I'm.

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you know, you're asking how you can help and what you can do when you're hungry. And I know when somebody comes to me with that, I just like, like you said, AJ, it's a 15 minute job. And an hour later, I had a maintenance a couple of weeks ago and there's a knock guy monitoring for me. And you know, he sees me, I'm bleeding some traffic from one zone to another. And I'm using NetFlow just to make sure it's going where I needed to. And he started asking about NetFlow. Oh, what is that? And how do you do that? And how do you configure it? What do you look at? And yeah, it was, you know, an hour and a half later, it was, it was a 10 minute job, but

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he was hungry and he's working on his CSCNA and like I love running into those people at work or you know outside that you know they want to learn they're curious they're hungry because I can relate to that you know and and I think that'll take you really far you know it it gets my juices flowing like AJ just said the same thing and you know and it's gotten you where you are already you know you keep doing that I mean you know more about Active Directory than I do you know I mean if you're honest with me like I mean that's you know you have you have skills

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Once you're, I mean, I guess network engineering is at your end goal being you're studying for the CCNA. Yeah, that's yes. Okay. Yeah. You're going to have skills when you get there that I can tell you, I don't have, and I've been doing the job seven years. So I.

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your varied skill set and that hunger and your curiosity, don't ever lose that because I think it'll take you as far as you want it to go. Definitely. I have a question. Does your team know that you're studying for the CCNA? Yes, they do. So they know your intentions then? Yes, down to my directing. Know my intentions. I need it. Go ahead. Oh, you got it. No, I don't.

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Because so there's no, I guess, network engineer there. I don't know how it plays out. There's no legitimate certified network engineer there. We have guys who know what they're doing, do it, but as far as dedicated, there's not. And so, you know, I...

26:56
I put my hand up and said, okay, this is where I am, this is what I'm doing. And it's a grind there, you know, studying and getting everything together. But they know, they know what I want to do. And let's see what happens by that time if they're able to create that space for me to step into. And are they, are they supportive of it?

27:23
Like, are they supporting you? Are they paying? Are they doing anything? Or are they at least giving encouragement to you? They're giving encouragement. I mean, right now, because from the net plus, they, you know, they were, I mean, they had said, hey, you know, we'll pay for your training. It didn't happen. But I did what I had to do. I wasn't gonna let that stop me.

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And then now with the CCNA, I'm paying for that myself. They did talk about the next step after I finished this CCNP and paying for bootcamp for that and whatnot. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens as far as that's concerned. But I'm putting a little pressure on them, at least by just letting them know, hey, this is where I am. I'm studying for my CCNA. As soon as I get it, I'll let them know. And.

28:16
And then right now what I'm also trying to look at these little projects, the one of the friend of mine was like, Hey, get show access. Like that. So much you can do by getting show access and CDP, like Dan said before in the pre-fight. Right. So, um, so I'm working on that just to try to, which helped me with my studies and, um, hopefully put me in a position to be that admin.

28:46
and everything will work. Yeah, what I think of a fun trick that you could do is if they do get you show status on there, is if you mapped out the entire network and...

29:00
Drew it out on either Vizio or, you know, paint whatever and hand that to them. You like, hey, is this the network? How accurate was I? You know, that'd be becoming so CDP neighbor is your friend. Yeah. Yes. I still crawl our network doing that. And I was also going to say, too, if you get your hands on some drawings, I don't know how the documentation is, but if you can get some show access and some drawings in your hands, choose a good place to work, create the documentation yourself,

29:29
that'll go far. What's your CCNA studying looking like? Are you self-study? Are you going to a network academy? I'm self-study. I just did a boot camp. I thought I was going to be ready at the end of August. So, Boson said, no, you're not ready. So, my date is I changed it until October.

29:59
like first week in October. And so I'm self studying. I am I have a Pluralsight. I have Neil Anderson. I got the OCG. So I'm reading and Packet Tracer. AJ's helped me already with the session and just really trying to, you know what I'm learning how I learn. That is

30:29
Huge just really trying to understand was it video was it video and reading is it writing the notes? Is it you know some I'm actually going through trying to understand that so I can retain this information and Understand it so um So that's why I am right now as I study school trying to understand. How was it that I learned effectively? So so what is your routine is it?

30:57
What does help you? Is it the videos? Is it labing? What really drives it home to you? I think that it is... I think labing helps. But I think... I think under... So I may read something and then I may watch a video and I may not understand it. So I have to go someplace else to try to see if I can understand what's happening.

31:25
I think it does and then you jump into a lab and you know, it'll be an hour and a half you still got something that's like yo this should be so simple and then you know you come back and you're like oh you know did I put the IP address wrong or did I you know you know some some little error and you're just like but I'm sitting there like what is so I believe that reading which I don't like but I think that has helped me.

31:54
along with a mixture of seeing a video about that specific topic and then jumping into that lab. Definitely. So like it. But let's say this too though like so for me personally it's whenever I mess something up and I have to fix it and I have to figure it out that I will never learn anything better than that right there because I'll give you a short story here one time I was at my

32:24
I was messing with the port channel on our core switch and it goes to the main, the distribution switches that were on our floor. Well, and I was adding a VLAN to the port channel and I forgot to do switch port trunk allowed VLAN add and then the VLAN, I forgot the add part and I lost my connection the second I hit enter and my heart like.

32:52
I don't know if you've ever had one of those moments, but it's not fun. And deleted all the VLANs. Oh yeah. You know, and then guess what? Dan's running down the hallway with his laptop and his console table, you know, because, and I passed, of all people I passed my, uh, we don't have directors, but we have VPs and he's like, something happened. I'm like, yep. And headed on down to the, uh, to the data center.

33:19
But you know as much as that sucked and we were down you know our floor was down for like you know five minutes or so I Learned a lesson though, and now I've never done that again, so I remember I have to add ad on there So I'm gonna do Dan awesome. Well. Thank you. I'm glad I'm not going you know I got lucky So I was working for a customer. We were adding a new VLAN and I put an IP address on that VLAN

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on this, you know, access switch. And just so we could do some end to end testing, right? Just something to ping. And I go to add the VLAN to the trunk and I was thinking to myself, I'm like, I gotta make sure I use the keyword add. And I forgot to add add. And sure enough, you know, we finished the call, wrapped things up, testing works, no problem.

34:11
And like a half hour later, the customer calls me like, hey, wireless dropped out and a few other things. Maybe something you did. I'm like, uh-oh, I know exactly what I did. But luckily, because I had put an IP address on there for testing, I could still VPN into the network and then SSH into the switch and make the changes I need to make. So I didn't completely cut my arm off. Oh, I completely cut that sucker off. It happens to the best of us. It does. But I think that's good.

34:41
you know, like, don't be afraid to fail like that. Like, I mean, obviously there's some, what they call those resume generating events. Yeah, RGE's. Yeah. But, you know, don't be afraid to mess stuff up because that's honestly like where I learned the most is in my mistakes.

35:00
I guess I would just caveat that depending on the environment that you work in. Like if you're in healthcare, you're doing something on the network that controls the surgery stuff, maybe try that in TESS first. Yeah, maybe in a lab. Don't screw it up. You'll learn. If lives aren't at stake, go ahead, send it.

35:24
So I'm going to cut right to it now, Eugene. Like I kicked off the episode, selfishly, I follow you. I love your tweets. They get me fired up. I know they get other people fired up. How do you keep that positive attitude seemingly? I mean, I'm obviously not talking to you every single day of the week. But every time I see you tweet, it's like early in the morning, first thing, there's Eugene with that, let's go, let's get it, let's grind, let's rise. How do you do it?

35:54
That's where you have to start. I mean, it's the energy that you get when you get up. And you know what, like you said, some mornings you're not, you don't want to get up. You know, whether it's you're just tired from a long week or a long night with your kids, stress of life, whatever. But if you could just get a shift in your mind frame for that moment, because it's just its moment and then it's another moment. So it's just like you put that one foot in front of the other.

36:23
And you can just really like, all right, that moment where I had some issues was that moment is over now. This is a new moment. So let's get up and let's make the best of what we have right now. You know, and then we have to interact with people, you know, so many different things, so many different things as far as life is concerned. We have to interact with our with our kids, our wives, whatever it is that your day, you know, so it's like the right perspective when you're getting up. It's important. And so that's I think it starts early morning. And if you're hitting it hard.

36:51
early morning, just changing that mind frame, getting up and you're going and that's also when I work out. So you know, I try to get up, get it in early in the morning, just get the blood flow and put it in for the day and go from there. So that's the jumpstart. I love that that that moment to moment like, yes, stuff happens. You know, it's inevitable. But if you if you can take that mindset that Eugene sharing with you and

37:21
learn to leave that moment in that moment and move to the next one. Like every moment's a new start, every day is a new start. I went through lots of fits and starts with my studies because I kept failing. I failed 10 times and it beat me up and it gave me this definite like imposter syndrome, do I belong here? And finally it was just like, you know what, I'm just going to study a little bit, I'm just going to dive in a lab, try this thing.

37:48
Like tricking my mind, like, oh, hey, look at this. Now I've spent an hour studying when I didn't plan to spend an hour studying. And just changing that mindset is really all you need. And I love it, man. It's really inspirational. I love following your dreams. If you're not following Eugene, you should be following Eugene. Cause it's a good dose of wake up every morning. Yeah. And it's a good reminder that mindset's a decision, right? Eugene, you know, you can, you can decide.

38:17
if you're going to be happy or miserable today, you know, and you getting up, what time do you get up? Cause I think getting up and working out is a really good thing I'd love to do. You know what I mean? It's hard to get up. Five. I mean, if you can do it, I can do it. You start getting up at five. It's really, it's, it's, um, you know, it comes back to the discipline, right? So, you know, the night before.

38:44
And I mean, it's not like I have it all together. Some nights are late nights, but the night before, you just try to see if you could cut it down just a little earlier, you know? Are you studying at nights? I study at nights, and I also sometimes I wake up and I study in the morning. Okay, because that's what I run into, is if I'm studying until 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night, that 5 a.m. wake up, do something, and it's like, oof. It is, it's tough.

39:07
It is. Are you get are you getting sleep? I mean, are you like a five hour night guy? Yeah, and I think I need more like now with the studying. Yeah, I think I think I need more because I'm trying to also figure out that nice balance with it. But um, but you just make the make some adjustments and and it doesn't have to be five. Yeah, it could be six a.m. You know, just depending on your day. But it's like, you know what? Try it. You know, get up a little earlier.

39:38
whether it's a go for a walk, whether it's a jog, something in your living room, just to kind of say something different, just to kind of jumpstart you, and then go ahead and continue on with your day.

39:53
Some of the best advice that I got when I was trying to change the mindset is sometimes you wake up in the morning, you're tired, you're groggy, you don't really wanna get out of bed, you lie there for a little bit. As soon as you wake up, get up. And after doing that for a while, that just kinda tells your body like, hey, when I'm awake, it's time to get up, it's time to go, I don't need to lie here. And that kind of washes away that groggy feeling. So get up, start your day. Even if you just...

40:19
Get up, hey, grab a cup of coffee, grab a book, read a chapter, read a paragraph, you know? Make some progress. Absolutely.

40:28
So what's the plan now? You think you're gonna crush the CCNA come October? I have to. I have to. Like that's just, there's no, that is, and I, listen, I'm not gonna lie. Like yeah, it's a big deal. And my plan is to crush it. Like I, you know, even now, yesterday I was just thinking about, I have to make some tweaks.

40:58
and make some more adjustments and just dive in just a little bit deeper as far as the material is concerned and you know cut out some of these distractions like that's you know I want it and if I say I want it then I gotta I gotta go ahead and put the action to it that's just really what it is so I plan on crushing it bottom line that's that's it I like it I know you're gonna I know you're gonna

41:25
I can't wait until you do it. When you do, I want to do another impromptu recording and we're going to do this celebration like yeah, Eugene crushed it. Absolutely, that would be awesome. Little micro episode, we'll do the recording, we'll drop it, we'll let everybody know Eugene crushed the CCNA. Awesome, awesome. We'll follow up. That's lovely. I think we need to share some of these tweets to you every once in a while.

41:48
if anyone's hitting roadblocks or feeling down or anything like that. I was just looking through some of your tweets. Those are definitely, uh, good ones. So I think, uh, maybe we should share some of those from our page, man. Yeah, absolutely. So, so what, what's, what's your inspiration? What inspires you the most to get up and do what you do? Well, uh, I mean, I believe it definitely comes down to my faith in God.

42:18
my family. I got two little ones, you know, my wife. For them, this is for them, it would be better for them. I want to give them opportunities as they grow and to be the best that I can be for my wife as a husband, as a father.

42:38
And just the example of going out there and grinding every day. So my son sees that, my daughter sees that, even my wife sees that. You don't know how that changes the dynamic inside the home. And so that's the inspiration really to continue to go out there and be the best you can be, regardless of, you know, like some days may be rough, you know, some days you're going to fall on your face, right. But it's really you getting back up again. So it keeps me going.

43:05
I come home and daddy, daddy, you know, you be coming at me, you know, that just, okay, yeah, you know, let's go ahead, let's reset. Today was a hard day, let's reset, let's get it again. So, definitely. I can definitely relate to that. I mean, you make some sacrifices, right? When you're cutting out time to study.

43:26
you're spending less time with your wife in the evening, you're spending maybe less time with your kids, or even if you're studying after the kids go to bed, you're still making some choices to cut something out of your life that you maybe used to do. Maybe some of it's a good habit, you're cutting some video game time to make time for studying, but there's definitely some sacrifices involved in, and just like you said, you wanna be that good role model. If you're making sacrifices to not spend time with family, to spend time studying, then...

43:53
you want a positive outcome. When you don't get a positive outcome, when you fail, then to a degree it kind of feels like, at least the way that I felt, it was like I was letting my family down. I spent all this time studying, I spent all this time labing, and I didn't get to pass, and now I gotta go back and I gotta do more of it instead of spending time with my family. And so my wife never made me feel that way, my kids never made me feel that way, but it was just definitely this personal weight that I carried with me every time I didn't.

44:21
make the pass. Yeah, I agree. When I took my net plus first, I failed it. And I didn't look at anything for a year. And I felt that same way. I was like, oh, okay, you're an imposter. No, this is not for you. Let's just cut it out. And my wife didn't say, and she was really encouraging me. You know, of course my kids didn't, but that was the weight. It's so right. That was that weight that, you know, I guess we all would carry.

44:51
And, um, but, hey, I turned it around and did it again, passed it and just pushed it forward here. So, yeah. Do you think you studied harder the second go around on that? Oh, absolutely. Well, you know what? No, not harder, smarter. Smarter. Hey. I, I, I was smarter about it because I was like, okay, what was I doing? Like, what, you know, it's like a whole bunch of information over there. I was like, all right, let's slow it down. I think that was the issue. Things were just coming fast. I was just trying to, I didn't really self-assess.

45:21
I think that's another thing. I didn't sell it. As far as every exam gives you a guideline. So let's check this thing. I didn't do that initially. And so that, yeah. So you already have a failure plaque under your belt there. Yes, I do. That's good. Yes, I do. And that feeling is... It sucks. Oh, man. It sucks. But it's part of the journey.

45:51
There you go. It is part of the journey. It's all about that journey. Yes, it is. That's a shameless plug for AJ there. You know what they're like? I wrote about it in my CCNP Journey blog article. Had I not failed as many times as I did, I would not be.

46:15
sitting here today recording this podcast with all you guys. And this is by far the most fun thing for me to do right now. I look forward to recording episodes. I love releasing them. I love hearing the fanfare. And this has been the most motivational thing for me. And I can tell you right now, if I had just passed bang, bang, bang, route, T-Shoot, switch, I wouldn't be here. I really wouldn't be here. And I don't know that maybe you guys would be doing the podcast without me. I don't know.

46:43
But I can tell you that I wouldn't be here doing this with you. So it really is all about the journey. Yeah, failing sucks, sure. But you learn so much from it every time you fail. And so I'm thankful I failed. I really am. And I look forward to failing because I can't wait to see what I'm going to learn from that fail. So I don't fear it. You know, let's study as hard as I possibly can. If I fail, I fail.

47:12
I learned from it and move on and eventually, I know eventually if I've learned anything this year, I know eventually I'll get to pass. That'd be great.

47:24
And hearing other inspirational stories, we've heard from so many people about, you know, how they deal with stuff and what their journey has been like. And I just love hearing all these journeys. Like I said, this has kind of been like a selfish thing for me to get, you know, people I know, either personally or through Twitter or whatever, get them on the show, get them to talk about their journeys. It really is all about the journey. And I've been tying to talk to you for a long time, man. Like, I love your tweets. I love hearing your progress.

47:51
I can't wait to see you succeed and crush it and get into that network engineering position. I know it's going to happen for you. You got the right attitude. You got the passion. And I know you're working hard for it. So it's definitely going to happen. It's just a matter of time. You should definitely. I'm looking forward to after you crush it, let's get on another podcast because I'd like to hear about it. Absolutely.

48:20
So what's some advice that you could give somebody that's looking to break into IT? I mean, it sounds like you've had a pretty good experience coming from the mailroom and moving on into IT. So what was kind of key for you to make that move? And if there's somebody that's trying to do the same thing, what would you recommend to them? Don't be afraid to ask questions. I think that sometimes when you get into that new position with guys who know more than you.

48:49
You kind of shy away from asking whether it's about your job, whether it's about something else that you may be interested in. Because the worst you can get is no, honestly, that the worst and you know people's body language will show you maybe I shouldn't but if you want it, like you really want to get it and you want to break in, you want to learn, you know, I think that that's where you start.

49:18
You know, I want to learn and that's how you use, you use that to go, hey, what are you doing here? You know, and you come to work every day just ready to work, ready to do whatever it takes. So being a good team, team player and not being afraid to ask the questions. Because honestly, if you're in a room with five guys, it's five new guys, or let's say three new guys come in.

49:47
and you're invisible. Cause the guy who doesn't say anything and doesn't ask anything is invisible guy. If the other two guys are asking questions and all of a sudden you see them with the networking guys and he both, he, he, he's asked a question. He sees his interest, just like you guys said, right? That gets your juices flowing. So now, okay, hey Eugene, let's go. Well, you're gonna come with me.

50:10
And you never know that would be the day when you're like, you know what? I'm going to bring them with me on this. And you know, you don't know when that would happen, but because you've shown that interest and you're consistent with what you do, opportunities open up. So I don't be afraid to ask that question. It's just, you know, come every day ready to run.

50:31
I think there's a flip side of that too, you know, for us who have actually been in the field even a little bit longer, we need to be more open to people who are, who have curiosity in what we're doing, especially if they're in like a help desk role or, or even the mail room role, right? Like, you know, if people start showing interest in what you're doing, I think you need to, it's part of your duty to share your knowledge and not, because it-

50:59
I'm saying this from experience because I've worked with people that it's like they want job security by not letting anybody know what they've worked on, you know, or how they did something or what they were thinking when they made this decision. And it sucks. I hate that for... I hated it for myself and I hate it for anyone else that has to go through that. I think those of us that have been in the field a little bit longer, we need to make sure that we do our part in sharing our knowledge.

51:29
or people like Eugene in this situation. You hear it from his side and I just want to hear it from my side kind of thing. Yeah, Dan, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I've definitely worked with more than enough people that kind of kept the company secrets or whatever close to their chest and thought that that made them more valuable. And if anything, it didn't make them more valuable per se. It's just...

51:54
maybe more dependent upon and maybe felt like you gave them some more job security, but you know, they were probably working 10, 12, 18 hour days, whatever it was, because they were the only ones that knew how to do certain things. And it's a fact sooner or later, you're going to be replaced either because the company let you go, you decided to move on, or maybe you just stayed there until you were tired, like sooner or later, you're going to make the decision to move on. And so

52:20
sharing that knowledge with somebody else kind of helps groom somebody to come into the position and inevitably I feel like it's going to elevate you, right? Like if you share the information and give some of those responsibilities to somebody else, that now opens you up to take on more and different responsibilities for yourself and help yourself grow. And I think what Eugene was saying was some really, really sage advice, right? Like to...

52:49
Ask questions and kind of get yourself in there and make it known that you want to be in this team. When an opening comes up, I think it's a no-brainer for a hiring manager to promote from within because there's this known quantity like, hey, we know Eugene. He's a good guy. Like we can train him. He's got the right attitude. He's really personable. He's got the soft skills. Like why would we take a risk on bringing in somebody from the outside that...

53:18
might have the tech skills, but we don't really know them as a person. You know, so I think you just created either intentionally or by accident, you created a huge opportunity for yourself. And I think that that's some really great advice to give anybody, to actually really give anybody, not just somebody like looking to break into IT, like if you're already in IT, you're already a network engineer and you want to break into the SOC or if you want to be a senior network engineer or whatever the case may be.

53:47
keep asking questions and talk to the people that you want to be in their position and learn as much as you can from them and when an opportunity presents itself, they'll think of you and that's exactly what you want.

54:04
I want to ask Eugene before we get too close to the end. So I passed my CC in Allen with eight, nine years ago. The new blueprint. What's the most difficult?

54:18
part of this new blueprint for you. I mean, like I'm studying for Encore right now and I'm just not crazy about automation. You know what I mean? It's just, I know it's all the rage and everybody loves it and I'm this weird outlier because I'm like, oh automation, but like I don't want to learn the code, but I have to and it's going to be great and AJ show me some killer Ansible stuff. When you're studying for the CCNA, is there one section that you're just like, man, this is a big mountain to get over? Not.

54:45
Not really, there's not one section. I think that the whole thing, I honestly just, the information, because when you look at the blueprint, I'm like, okay. And so, and I'm just trying to be able to understand each bullet point, right? And of course, you hear the stories like, and the exam sometimes goes outside of that. I'm like, what? Like, we gotta make sure that we have

55:15
understanding of everything you've listed here, but then you may have some questions, you know. So to me, it's the whole thing. I'm like, okay, how do we internalize this thing here? So, you know, yeah. It's- And trying to remember it all, right? You get to the end of that 700 page book. That's- I don't know how you guys do it. Yeah. What did I read in the beginning? I don't know how you guys do it. I don't know.

55:45
Yeah. Google Eugene. Yeah. Google. And isn't there, there's two of them, right? Yes, there is. Volume one is in all. Volume two is a two volume set. Yes, there is. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yes, it is. Yeah. And it's not like a nice novel that you sit down. It's just, no, it's not. It's not. It's not a choose your own adventure. No. That's not how spanning tree works. Not at all. So. There's no plot twist. Yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah. What?

56:14
A little by little, bite after bite. That's how we're going to dissolve the hardest thing.

56:21
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really good advice too. Like that's how you get through this stuff. That's how you get through the Encore book. That's how you get through any of this stuff. You just sit down and take it one bite at a time, one paragraph at a time, section, chapter, just break it down, you know, and eventually you'll get through it and you'll surprise yourself. You'll master it. You'll be there before you know it. It just, it certainly feels overwhelming and I can...

56:47
I can definitely say that if I were green again and looking at the new blueprint, it's just so wide. There's automation, there's wireless, there's routing, there's so much. Before, it was just routing and switching. It's like, okay, all right, there's a lot here, but it's just routing and switching. But now it's so much more and it's crazy. You're definitely going to be a well-prepared engineer by the time you get to the end of your CCNA.

57:14
And it sounds like probably more so in your position because you work at a smaller company and you're already touching all these different systems. So you'll be doing a little bit of routing, a little bit of switching, a little bit of wireless, a little bit of automation in there to help keep things clean and moving forward. And I think you'll definitely be ready to fill that role when it opens up. I know that working at a small place, I worked at a place.

57:40
The title was Network Engineer or Network Admin. And I think it definitely caught my attention, like, oh yeah, I wanna be a network admin. But it was network in a very generic term, like you're the administrator of everything. Networking was a very small portion of my job, so it was a huge misleading kind of job title. Got you. It was all encompassing.

58:08
You'll have that.

58:14
I think that will, you know, once I'm able to move up here, that'll be part of it just because of the environment, you know, so that'll be alright. You'll get there. I know you will. Yeah, definitely. We want to hear about it too when you do. I will definitely share. I'll definitely share. Absolutely.

58:44
All right, well, this seems like a good time as any to wrap this thing up. Eugene, thank you so, so much for coming on and sharing your story with us. I hope everybody learned something that they can take to their daily job, either rise to grind, change that attitude one step at a time, ask questions, be persistent, and, you know, be the nice guy that people can come to when they've got questions or think of when a position opens up. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, guys.

59:15
So he is Eugene, his Twitter handle is at underscore rise the number two grind. Make sure you follow him and look for those inspirational quotes almost every day. I don't know if I catch him every single day, but I catch him most days and I look forward to him.

59:36
And he is Andy at Andy Laptaf, permit IP Andy Andy. Any last minute thoughts, sir?

59:45
No man, great talking to Eugene, good luck. Knock it out of the park in October and if you don't, don't beat yourself up. I failed it like four times. You'll be alright. Thanks man, thanks. And he is Dan at... I don't know.

01:00:08
We'll see. Look for the Twitter poll sometime after this episode. Maybe that's the Twitter handle, at question mark. I don't even know if that's allowed on Twitter. Maybe you spell it out. I'm sure we've all used the question mark at some point in our career. Yeah, I'm looking forward to see what some people come up with. I think this will be fun.

01:00:39
Watch you end up with something silly like, you know, Bodie McBoatface. Yeah. That's what people want. So, so just remember this when you said, when you made the decision that you were going to let the community decide your fate on social media. It'll be good. All right. I have faith. I do too. I know we'll take care of you. I know the community won't, won't steer you wrong. Yeah.

01:01:09
You've been good to them, they'll be good to you. All right, I am at No Blinky Blinky. AJ Murray, thank you all for joining us for another episode. Please follow us on our Twitter handle, at Art of NetEng, that's at Art of N-E-T-E-N-G. Make sure you check out our website. We've got lots of great blog posts from co-hosts, from guests on the podcast, guest bloggers.

01:01:39
and just getting all sorts of good information out there. And check out our YouTube channel too. We've had somebody from the Discord recently, Andre, gave a wonderful presentation last Saturday morning on SD access for the CCNP Encore. Fantastic video, he did a really great job breaking it down. In fact, his video has gotten more views than our episodes on our own YouTube channel.

01:02:06
So that's definitely a telling sign that we gotta drop some more content like that. So definitely gonna check that out. All right guys, thank you so much. Have a great evening, morning, wherever you're listening to us. We'll catch you on the next one.

01:02:21
Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher.

01:02:27
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 NetEng. That's Art of N-E-T-E-N-G. You can also find us on the web at arto 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.