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This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

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this podcast to look for keys, 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.

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Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Aaron Wyler, also known as at Aaron Engineered on Twitter and everywhere else in the social universe. With me, I have AJ. Hey guys. Who is known as at NoBlinkyBlinky on all of your favorite social accounts and Andy Lapteff. Hello everyone. And he is appropriately named Andy Lapteff at.

00:55
Andy Lapteff on the Twitters, if you're into the Twitter machine. And he's got a really cool name that he uses for YouTube that he's actually not able to fit into Twitter because it's so good. They saw him try to type it and they were like, nah, brother, try again. That's too catchy. And that is permit IP Andy Andy. So if you guys are, you know...

01:20
Professional network engineers already or if you're studying to be you'll get that reference right away It's super topical. So hopefully Twitter at some point will come to their senses and allow him to do that so that he can get cross-branded across our social accounts and to that point Today's episode is going to be talking primarily about How to brand yourself

01:50
And this can mean a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people, but I think there's been a couple of times on the show throughout the couple of episodes that we've had thus far where we've talked about competition. And when I say competition, I mean, everybody that's sort of fighting or trying to get the same job that you are or potentially would be, that could be a little scary to think about. It's like, wow, there's a hundred people applying for this. And LinkedIn even shows you.

02:18
how many people have applied for it, and where you stand in the stack rankings of people who've applied for a job, right? Gosh, do not read that. Don't do it to yourself. It's awful. It's like, hey, you're in the top 50%, so the glass is half empty or half full. That's in the eye of the beholder, I guess. But point being, there can be a lot of competition, and how do you sort of set yourself apart from those other people? We were talking earlier,

02:47
AJ, you brought up a point where it was like, you know, you don't have to, because people think of branding, they think of like, hey, let me just put myself out there. Like, let me get on Twitter, let me get on YouTube, let me get on, let me write a blog. Or maybe you don't think that, but that's just one of the ways to go. But your stance is that like, you don't have to do any of that, right? Right, absolutely. But like, your personal brand, just like when you think about a brand of something that you enjoy, right? Like you go back to that brand of whatever, because...

03:17
you like the taste or you like the feel or you like something about that brand. And when we talk about personal brand, it's kind of the same thing. So my personal brand is I don't want to burn bridges because I've realized that the IT community is way too small. And there's definitely a separation of my personal brand versus my online brand. Right? Like I don't go into a customer environment or an interview and be like,

03:43
What's up? I'm no blinky blinky. I shouldn't have to tell you because, you know, like you already know who no blinky blinky is, right? Like I've honestly never even had somebody like a customer or whatever make that connection. And I don't necessarily want them to, right? Because I don't want to mix the two. Like I want to go in there, do the job that I've been sent there to do and leave them with a great taste in their mouth about AJ Murray and the company that I represent. So that way they want to come back for more.

04:11
Well, what about the opposite end of the spectrum there? What if, cause you know, you would never go in puffing your chest like, what? You don't know me? I'm no blinky blinky, you know? Like basically this job isn't for me because you don't know who the heck I am. But what if it was the opposite? What if they were like, wait a minute, I know you. Like, would you assume like, and that's all they said, would you assume good or bad from that?

04:40
I, you know, at this point I'm not sure. I would hope good because I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about my interactions with people online, but I'm not going to assume anything, right? Like if somebody read a blog article of mine that they just didn't agree with, maybe they don't agree with a lot of what I read about or say, I'm not just going to assume that, you know, they like my brand and associate positive feelings with me. Yeah. No, I just think it's interesting because there's, there's, it's a double edged sword

05:08
right, building a brand out of yourself. And something that you mentioned just now when you were talking about like not burning bridges and stuff, you're really kind of getting into like character traits, like integrity, right? Like I would say that that's like kind of a very old school. This is something that like my dad would say, right? Like it's like, hey, you know, just be a good person, you know, like, and it's what's so funny to me is how shocking it is when you actually get out into like,

05:38
the real world of like, you know, being a person in a career and you realize how many people weren't told that. Yeah. Or they ignored it. You know what I mean? Like it's so there, there is a situation where just being a good person or having integrity or like just being an, a well-rounded like go-getter we'll call it. We'll actually set you apart.

06:05
from all these people that you see on LinkedIn to my earlier point that are apparently 50% in the top 50% and you're not, and you're somehow setting yourself apart from them, it doesn't matter how many accolades and stuff that you have, if people say bad things about you because you're just that type of person, that's where you're gonna end up. I mean, it's gonna come back to you, right? Exactly. And to that point too, if you don't have any accolades and people speak very highly of you or think very highly of you,

06:33
they will overlook the, okay, well, he doesn't have any, or she doesn't have any certifications, but they're an awesome person. They've established a great rapport. I really like working with them. Let's give them a chance anyway. Maybe we can provide them some training and help pay for their stuff, because certifications are important for that particular business. That's interesting. More of like, back how we always beat up the, hey, do you need college or do you need certs

07:03
You know, we're never going to answer these questions. Well, we have, but they're all very heavily opinion-based. But this is something that gets overlooked. And I'm just speaking from our experience on this podcast. It's been overlooked by us thus far, which is, which is probably why we're doing this episode for one, but, but the point is that, you know, someone's speaking about you.

07:32
could potentially outweigh all of those things that you've done that you think have gotten you where you need it to be, right? Like maybe there's an amount of social engineering that needs to happen. I agree with that 100%. I have seen the social engineering done poorly and I have seen that bite people in the bottom. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Details.

08:00
You can't just do that. You can't just save that and then not tell us what you're talking about. It's just if you're the kind of person that burns bridges with places you work, like I'm never going to talk to these people again. They did me wrong. And maybe they did. Maybe they did. But if you burn that bridge and they have now they have bad stuff to say about you before, like maybe before you burn the bridge.

08:26
you had some bad stuff to say about them because of the way they treated you, but you still worked hard. Now you burned the bridge. Now they have bad stuff to say about you. Somebody's going to call them for a reference and they're, Oh yeah, well, you know, he walked out on the last day. Uh, you know, he just gave his notice and then pieced, uh, and didn't like actually work out some sort of termination agreement with us or whatever you want to call it. You know, if you, if you start creating a bad rap for yourself and if everybody calls around and, and, you know, cause that, that, that kind of stuff happens, right? People check for references. Uh, and, and if

08:56
you know, sooner or later, nobody has anything nice to say about you. No one's going to want to hire you. And I, and I've literally seen that happen, you know, uh, people not interact well with those around them. And it's professionally, it's personally, because you will have people call your friends for references. So if, if you're somebody that is always like, Oh, Hey, um, I can do that for you. And then you fall through for any number of reasons all the time. And you're now known as the undependable, uh, person.

09:25
That kind of stuff's gonna catch up to you sooner rather than later. So don't think for a second that blowing people off and not making good on commitments and stuff like that. Like you said, just being a simple, simply being a good human being. Yeah. It's simple. It sounds simple. I mean, I find it simple, but it's like common sense, right? It's not that common.

09:54
You know, I mean, how often do you run into the person? I don't want to turn this into the, the look at all these people that are doing it wrong session, but, but you do run into them quite a bit and you walk. And if you're anything like me, you probably wonder yourself like, and this doesn't even have to be an IT, honestly, this could be in any industry, you know, this could be, maybe you work, uh, at McDonald's, you work at the, at the cash register at McDonald's, you know, and it's like,

10:22
You see the one person come in that works right next to you. They stand at the cash register next to you. They do the exact same job you do. And you're like, how did this person get hired?

10:32
I don't get it. And I'm not saying like they're stupid or something. I'm just saying like they just have like a general just, you know, off-putting disposition about them that you just, there's something you just can't put your hand in. You're like, this is not nice. Like you don't have to be nice to get a job, I guess is the point, but it sure helps. You don't have to be. But yeah, you don't need a lot of stuff, right? We always talk about that. There's needing and nice to have are

10:59
completely disconnected. So go ahead and disconnect those in your brain right now if you haven't already. Yeah, reputation goes a long way. I mean, I've even gotten a few jobs because of my reputation. I worked at a place for a little while. I left there. I left there on good terms. I was very pleasant with working with people. And then a couple of years later, somebody from that place calls me up and was like, hey, I'm over here at this new place. I need an IT guy. And you're the first person I thought of. I really want you to come apply for this job. That's awesome.

11:29
I mean, I would say that was uncommon, but if you hear that and you think to yourself, that doesn't happen often, right? There's no way that happens often.

11:43
change the way you're thinking right now and go to work henceforth trying to be someone that would be referable if that makes sense right like i i always have this thought in my head like you know going to work is actually two different jobs right and i mentioned social engineering because that's a part of it so i go to i go to work every day as a sales engineer

12:14
That's a 50% of my job. The other 50% of my job is being a social engineer at work. Not just because I'm in a sales-related position, but because oftentimes when you want things to get done internally as well, you have to treat people with respect, and the more help you give other people, the more help they're gonna give to you. And you'll often find too that giving people help is way more rewarding.

12:43
than asking for it and getting it yourself. Andy's shaking his head. I know he's probably thinking the exact same thing I have. We both have worked at companies, I still work there, that have over 100,000 people. I don't know the percentage, but that's more people than most of the cities in the US. You know what I mean? Unless you're in a major metropolitan area, that's a lot of people.

13:12
It's a small, it's a large city. So to navigate that, and if you put it in perspective like that, just assume everybody is always kind of listening and waiting to see what you're gonna do, and you have an opportunity every single day to change that perception.

13:37
You know, whether it started out as bad or good, you have the opportunity. So, cause I wanna bring up what you said, which is, if I do the right thing every day, all it takes is one day of me firing off nasty emails that just piss off the wrong people to ruin me for years. Just cause I was having a bad day. That sucks.

14:04
So you're talking about reputation, right? You work hard, you're a nice guy over time, and I think that's part of what the branding... To brand yourself, you're basically trying to create a visual representation of that, you know what I mean? Of your work ethic, of who you are, of how you work. At least I think that's what should be encapsulated in your brand. What is your reputation? Yeah.

14:34
Yeah, all your character traits, good or bad, right, is what you're saying. That's all gonna get captured into your, we'll call that like your human being brand, you know? The one thing we all can't change is the fact that we're all humans. I know that sounds so profound, right? But it's true, right? So in that regard, we're all exactly the same and social intelligence is just so hard.

15:05
You would think it'd be really easy because all we do is interact with other other humans all day, every day, but it takes work, man. You have to, if it, if it takes you waking up every day and like, actually thinking about consciously making an effort to do something different, then that's going to be worth it in the long run. You know what I mean? It's the same way when we talk about like studying and stuff and

15:32
and you always hear people with the excuses like, oh, I don't have time, I have three kids, you don't understand, or I'm a single mother, or maybe I grew up by myself and I've always been on my own and so no one's ever showed me anything, just whatever the circumstance is, you still have to take the time and put in the effort. It's not just inclusive to studying or

16:02
learning like a skill or technology. It's also learning soft skills.

16:11
Yeah, I think a lot of times the soft skills get overlooked. Like you could have all the certs hanging on your wall. You could be the sharpest tack in the box. You can troubleshoot your way out of anything, but if you don't have the soft skills, if you're just, you know, not a nice person, uh, that's, that'll do you in more than anything. And we've probably all met that person, right? You know, the person who's incredible at the job, but, you know, nobody can stand them or are.

16:38
you see them coming up on a meeting or a phone call, you're like, oh God, they have all the answers, but they're very abrasive and tough to get along with. And you said earlier, Aaron, like I think, I don't know, something that I, it sounds kind of cheesy, but I try to think like, you know, how can I help today? You know what I mean? Who can I help? That's not cheesy at all. Well, you know, it's just- Well, but you know why it sounds cheesy to you though, is because no one else is saying it, right? And you're saying it out loud and it-

17:08
It sounds cheesy, it just sounds different because like I said, no one else is saying that. So it sounds abnormal, but it's 100% correct. Yeah, and I've received so much help. Like there's absolutely no way I could be where I am today without so many people having helped me. And you know, I guess you get to a point, I mean, maybe it's intrinsic in our personalities. Maybe there's just some people who don't care and they're just trying to get to the top and they don't care who they step on. But.

17:37
I feel, and I know you guys too, where I've received so much help to get here that you just kind of get to a point where like, how can I help? You know what I mean? I know there's a lot of people coming up. I mean, we're all connected with them on the socials and talking to them and they're coming to us and our study group and just so many people coming up that could really use, you know.

18:00
I don't want to call like mentors, but just people with experience who are nice, who want to help. And it really goes a long way. I don't know. In my very beginning of my journey, I wasn't plugged into the community like I am now. And there's just so many kind people that'll give their time and effort to try to help you, whether it's a assert you're struggling with or just a particular topic or...

18:23
you know, hey, I'm not sure what I want to do. You know what I mean? I want to change careers. I mean, the other day, like there was that, you know, person works in the medical field and you're thinking of jumping over to IT and they're out there, you know, on social asking about it. Like, hey, what, you know, what do you guys think? It's what I'm going to do. And you can get a lot of feedback and help. So I don't know. Yeah. I think it's just a good mantra to be a good person. Like you said, is, you know, who can I help today? If I can help one person today, and even if it's just at work, you know.

18:49
work can be stressful and people are under timelines and there's a lot going on and sometimes it's confusing. But if there's one person you can help in that chaos, at least for me, I feel like it was a successful day at work. Well, you brought up a good point in the middle of that, which was kind of what AJ was talking about earlier. And you said that early on, you weren't connected on all the social accounts and stuff and you are now.

19:19
And clearly, if you're not connected on social accounts, you'll probably not find this. You know what I mean? So if you're listening, I would have to imagine that you don't live under a rock on Mars, right? I mean, I feel like that's a fair assumption, right? I mean, even if somebody showed you at work, like, oh, hey dude, check out this cool podcast, because why wouldn't you do that anyway?

19:46
and a PSA. But you don't have to be right. So Andy, when you weren't quote unquote connected into all the socials like you are now, and you're not, and I will say that like giving back is you, it's so like you do it, you know, AJ does it, I do it, many others in our Discord channel do it, they just genuinely get a lot of thrill out of it. Like it's fun, it's fun to help. But there's a time in our lives where none of us

20:16
There was a tipping point where we all decided to do it. Was that career motivated at all though?

20:26
to wanna help people? No, to go out on social and- To get connected. And yeah, cause AJ teed it up perfectly. We don't have to be active on any social media account whatsoever to have a brand, right? That just could be another aspect of it. For us three sitting here, it's absolutely an aspect of our lives. Like that-

20:56
the name like a brand has never been truer than to us because you know we talk and retweet stuff like this constantly and try to like help and you know Even just helping people move in the right direction here and there for whatever that's worth but like If you're not doing that We've all been there. I mean, what's the tipping point that says? Okay. I need to be doing that now, too I mean, do you just reach a certain point where you're like?

21:26
I'm not doing enough.

21:30
For me in the beginning, like why I got connected on social, like the reason I started a Twitter account and started a blog, it was, I guess, I don't wanna say selfishly motivated, but I was a career changer. And when I started going to school for my CCNA, I was trying to come up with ways to overcome my lack of experience. I know there's that conundrum of how do you get the job without experience, experience without the job. So I know that that was gonna be an uphill battle and I thought that if I could.

22:00
I wanted to show passion. If I was in an interview, like, yeah, I don't have any experience, but hey, check out this blog that I've been writing about my journey. I'm connected with all these people on Twitter and you can see that my entire feed is tech. You'll never see anything on my Twitter feed, for example, that isn't network engineering or tech related. I'm not going to get pulled in any nonsense. I'm not going to tell you.

22:26
what I believe or who I think should or shouldn't be in charge of anything. I just want to talk tech with tech people. And that's why I got started, was just really trying to show passion to an interview, to a prospective employer. But it's become so much more than that since I really enjoy it. I met you guys through the social. Ain't nothing wrong with that at all, is there? No. So the reason I got in is a different reason.

22:55
I participate now, but that was my start. That's interesting. And because I know we're gonna talk a lot about this, like in this episode, like the social aspect of branding yourself, because it can be a negative too, if you're out doing exactly what you just said, right? Like if you're saying, vote for this or do that, like that can be a slippery slope, but, and I would never discourage anyone from not saying something that they wanna say, and something that they believe in or feel.

23:25
Just know that it'll be out there. So if you're okay with saying it, just know that. Just know that anyone can find that and it's now out there in the universe. Do you think that your job, since you went and got the CCNA after your buddy had told you, hey man, I'm doing this, you should go check it out. Do you think that if you would have done that earlier that your career trajectory would have changed at all?

23:57
Well, the old adage is it's all who you know, maybe. And when I, back then, I didn't know anybody. So I kind of felt all alone and the people I were working with told me I was wasting my time going down the path I was. So I kind of felt all alone, isolated, taking a leap of faith. If I had gotten maybe plugged into the network community earlier, I would have had support that I didn't necessarily feel like I had, at least from my peers at work.

24:27
Yeah, so maybe it could have just given you more of a head start. Because the running theme clearly is that this is with everything we talk about. And I always say this, there's no wrong answer. Right? And obviously hindsight is 20-20, so you can look back. But that's why I'm asking the question, because I just want to know if you saw that. Because AJ, when did you start your blog? 2017? Yep, three years ago. Guys, if you have not checked out AJ's blog,

24:56
There's a lot of cool stuff on there. He's into, he's truly the guy that he said he was in episode one. He's got VMware stuff on there. You know, you could just get lost. There's a lot of stuff. It's really good. Yeah, it's really good. He's got a lot of stuff on there and that's proven too, because, you know, people approach him and ask him to do guest spots and stuff all the time. So clearly he's doing something right. But what?

25:24
Do you think that it would have changed your trajectory had you started that blog earlier? Or did you just feel like at one point you got so comfortable that you were like, all right, you know what? Right now, I have overcome my fear of imposter syndrome and I feel comfortable with putting my thoughts out there on the internet, because that's a real thing, right? And I'm gonna give you an exact example. So like two weeks ago, I put out a blog post about

25:53
like WAN technologies. It is the most basic post you could possibly read, right? Like I'm assuming that like a 12 year old could read it and get the idea of what I was talking about. But that was the goal. But part of me, and guys clearly, I hope everybody knows this, clearly I know more than that. But that's not the point. The point is not to show what I know. The point is to help someone understand something that may be having a rough time. And now that I know that,

26:23
I can help them with that. And for a long time I was scared to put myself out there like that. I don't want, and the same is true about my YouTube channel, I don't want to put myself out there and the fear of rejection is super real. And maybe I said the wrong words AJ, maybe it's not necessarily imposter syndrome, but it's like, who's this guy? You know, and most of the internet and most of the social stuff that you do is all opinion based. You know what I mean?

26:52
So it's like, yeah, you do a lot of write-ups, like this is how you configure XYZ, but if you go to Twitter, who the heck is just going on Twitter to tweet, hey, by the way, make sure that you always have an OSPF area zero, right? And this is how you configure it, and then that's your tweet. No one does that. I mean, no one wants to read that tweet anyway. It's like, okay, cool, dude, thanks for that little tidbit, a little nugget, but.

27:19
So you know what I'm saying? So like, was there a point that you would have seen yourself before 2017 that it would have changed who you, maybe not even like career wise, but like who you are as a person now? Like would this podcast have happened two years ago? No, absolutely not. Why not? Absolutely not.

27:42
Back to the blogging. Um, when I started no blinky blinky a few years ago, that was not my first, uh, venture into blogging. Uh, I, I started a blog. I still have it. It's, it's kind of mostly shut down. I don't, I don't think you can actually go visit it anymore. Uh, but I started a blog on WordPress called beer and chips. Uh, and it was, it was where I would do little techie write-ups for my family and friends and show them how to do cool things.

28:10
I would review beer because I love micro brews and beer, and this is kind of a big thing up here in Vermont. And I actually got approached by a little software company that was starting up and they were making like this remote desktop screen sharing software. And they're just like, hey man, we want you to use our software and help out your friends, help out your family. And then after you use it for a little bit, do a write up, let us know what you think.

28:37
And it was completely unprovoked. Like I wasn't putting myself out there for that kind of thing. Uh, they just, they found my blog. They came to me, they asked me to do this. I didn't get paid. I actually re you know, reviewed it. Uh, and, and so it was kind of cool. And so, um, I've always enjoyed blocking. I've always enjoyed writing. Uh, it's actually something that I didn't know that I really enjoyed until I started doing it and what. Kind of prompted me to do it is that.

29:02
Everybody goes to Google University, right? If you work in IT, you frequent the Google search bar a lot, I'm sure, to find answers on stuff. And some of the best info I've always found has always been on someone's personal blog. You could go to tech documentation all day long to write to the manufacturer and they never seem to have the right answer. It's someone's personal experience.

29:29
writing about it that's always helped me out. So I decided like, all right, I have some cool experiences. I've figured out some pretty tough problems. I think it's time for me to give back. It's time for me to take the next step. Like I enjoyed blogging before on beer and chips. Now I wanna do my thing. And so I kind of decided to go with no blinky blinky because that was kind of as always like a phrase that I used, right? Like if I was troubleshooting network stuff with somebody else and he's like, oh, no blinky blinky, no blinky blinky, try again. You know, what are we gonna do to get that port up?

29:59
get that thing working. So it just kind of stuck. All right. Well, I learned something. I don't know why I never asked you that, but that's the origin story of No Blinky Blinky. So you were a blogger before. So you're different then. So you were cool with, even with the beer and chips thing, you were cool with putting yourself out there and just talking about whatever it was you knew, right? It took Andy...

30:23
CCNA, like he wanted to go out there and write about it because he realized, you know, the chicken before the egg scenario, like, you know, experience. I didn't have that. So how do I do that? Very creative, by the way. I think that's a huge takeaway from here is like, if you feel like you don't have any experience and you're going up against a bunch of people with experience, AJ talked about it in the first episode with his life story, which is, you know, to show you're interested. I'm building a lab at home. You know, you throw up a couple YouTube videos, it's free, right? Everybody has a cell phone.

30:51
Throw up a couple, and I'm not saying you have to do this, I'm just saying, this is just a suggestion. Throw up a couple YouTube videos of you configuring a switch, you're configuring a trunk port between two switches, right? Or you're setting up LACP, just something, you know? Just to prove to the world, and maybe not just prove to the world, but someone could stumble upon that video and actually be helped by it. They were looking specifically how to set up on...

31:20
an LACP between two Cisco switches and they stumbled upon your YouTube channel and God forbid you actually helped them, right? Like what a byproduct. So I guess the main point is helping other people eventually helps you. Absolutely. Right? Is that the kind of the thing? When you're putting yourself out there like that, you want to be as thorough as possible. If you're going to put this information out there for everybody else to view or to read,

31:48
you want to make sure you're accurate. So not only are you going to explain what you did, but you're going to do some extra research, dive a little deeper, and make sure you're kind of covering all of your bases. So it definitely, I think, makes you test yourself. It makes you make sure you know what you're talking about before you put yourself out there. That's a good point. You know what I love about a blog is that it's more conversational. And like the writer's personality comes through. I spent...

32:16
I spent days suffering through Cisco Press material and DMVPN a few years ago. And I finally got good at it. I got it built in a lab. It was working. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to write this up and it's going to be much easier to read. I'm going to save you the days of suffering that I went through. And hey, here's the DMVPN. Here's the six protocols that make it work. Here's what each one of those protocols does. Isn't this cool? Here's my, you know, here's my diagram. Here's, here's, here's the lab. That like you said, AJ, when I'm.

32:45
Googling a technology. I love when I find a blog article on it because it's succinct. It's written in a conversational tone that I find that vendor documentation is not. It's dry and you have to kind of suffer through it. That's part of why I love blogs. And I'll tell you, when I first started out, a big thing I was doing was building a home lab.

33:09
I've had dozens of people over the years, I'll see them asking a question about like, hey, I'm trying to do this on a console server. I had a hard time with this cross connector. I'm trying to use these T1 wick cards between my routers for more port density and I can't get the link up. I shoot them the blog post I wrote on when I built a HomeLab and I ran into that exact thing. So it does feel really good once you build up some of that content and then you run into people that need it and you can direct them to it. It felt really good. Yeah.

33:40
help first mindset. So if you have the help first mindset.

33:47
eventually, maybe even quickly, but eventually at some point, that's going to come back to you tenfold. Right? Because we started off by saying, has anybody ever said, oh yeah, I know you, no blinky blinky in a job interview, right? I think it's kind of joking. But what if they did and they were like, dude,

34:12
What if they saw your blog and they were like, yeah, I need you to come apply for this position right now. You'd be perfect for it, dude. Could you be, or even just part time, could you be a technical writer for us? Because we want to put out marketing material, but like, we just don't know how to make it make sense to people. You know? Like, how do I tap into that? And you seem like you know what you're doing. You're very personable and you're really, and this is...

34:39
This is what's great about blocks too is like everybody's just taking their experiences like Andy just hit on everybody's just taking their experiences That they read out of some crappy technical doc. That's impossible to understand and put it into their own words. And when they did that, it made it extremely readable. And as you pointed out, you know, almost sounds like their personality coming through. I try personally to write exactly how I talk.

35:07
So I don't hold back. Yeah, same here. If I say like or dude, guess what? That's part of my vernacular, you know? And I don't want to go to Toastmasters International to have them beat me down because, oh, you said like 13 times in this thing. Well guess what? That's who I am. You know what I mean? So don't go bashing the person for who they are. I'm out here just trying to help, man. If you didn't like it because I said like too many times or it wasn't technical enough, well that's not exactly, you know.

35:36
It is, that's just that person trying to prove that they understand too. And just get that some people are like that, right? Haters exist, that's okay. But what we're trying to convey is that, again, no wrong answers, but there are multiple aspects to creating a brand of yourself. And that could be on the internet, we're in a tech world, we work in a tech industry,

36:06
you should expect at some point that you're going to be, you know, facing the internet, right? Like, your time will come at some point if it has not already. If you, like, most of us kind of grew up in it, right? So it's unavoidable. So embrace it, right? Use it as a tool. And the other part is, is your personality and who you are as a person and your social skills and your soft skills and being able to convey what you know to people.

36:34
Knowing something and being able to convey it to someone are vastly different, yet should be married perfectly together. Because it doesn't do any good sitting in your head. It's going to do so much more good for the entire world if you share what you know and you're even able to do that for yourself in like, let's say an interview.

37:02
You know, so let me just give you an example. So you brought up DMVPN, Andy, and you did a whole write-up on, hey, here's the protocols, here's the different steps it goes through, right? This is how it works. You had a diagram and all that stuff. Like imagine showing up into an interview like with that on deck. Like I have this here. I just wanted to show you that this is why, this is what I do in my free time. I just wrote this up. Just, you know, just thumb through it in your free time. Just take a look at that. But like...

37:30
you have that and someone else doesn't. You know what I mean? You just set yourself apart. And I think it shows passion, like we've said in almost every one of our podcasts so far. Passion is just, I don't know, AJ mentioned before they interviewed a bunch of people and one guy was just like, oh man, this is amazing. Your boss was like, oh, like that passion.

37:54
just really comes through. And yeah, if you're interviewing two people and one guy, you ask him about the NVPN in an interview, he describes what he knows and he's like, by the way, after the interview, if you wanna go check me out at blah, blah, blah, I got this post on the NVPN, that would go really far for me. Like, wow, this guy's knowledgeable. He can speak well, he can write it down. He wants to help people. Let's say you- I wanna- Go ahead. Let's say you had a problem, like you've-

38:20
you've measured yourself accordingly, which is very difficult for humans to do about themselves, right? Like you've looked in the mirror and you said, you know what, Aaron, this is what I'm failing at. Go fix it. Right? But let's say I did that randomly because I just love beating myself up in the mirror, especially, clearly. And I go into the mirror and I like, you know what, Aaron, the one thing you're really not good at is explaining things. Like because I went to an interview today and they asked me stuff and

38:48
It's stuff I know, but for some reason I just couldn't get it out. You know, and here's an example where practice makes perfect. Put yourself in that uncomfortable situation so that when the time comes again, you will not get burned again. Right? Get good at explaining stuff. If you know they're going to ask you stuff, get good at explaining things. And then also get good at saying, I don't know. I really don't know. Um, I know a lot of stuff, but that just.

39:18
It's not my wheelhouse, you know? And that's okay, right? You don't want a job that it's gonna be having you do stuff that you don't necessarily wanna be doing anyway. So it's a whole nother subject. But yeah, so many different moving parts to this, especially nowadays with people being on the internet so much. What do you think is the most impactful social media platform or internet facing platform, we'll say?

39:51
I think it depends. What's your goal? Okay. So, from a career standpoint.

40:00
Absolutely 100% LinkedIn. Okay. So, this is the part of the SAT where I say, and explain your answer. So it is one of those places that employers are absolutely going to go and look. It's pretty much a standard protocol now for an HR department. Even if the hiring manager doesn't do it, an HR department will still go and look at probably all of your social.

40:29
presence but specifically they will go and look for you on linkedin and then you know i've done it i know other people are doing it if you're about to interview somebody uh... either you're going to be interviewed by them or you're interviewing them because they're coming onto your team or whatever the case may be you go to linkedin and you look them up go skit go uh... get your prejudgments out of the way when you can tell so much you could tell so much about somebody

40:55
on a platform like that too. If you're hiring a network engineer and they need to be detail-oriented and you go on their LinkedIn profile that they direct you to, there's no picture, there's no banner, there's barely any information of what they've done in their career. To me, that tells me something about the person. This is your representation of yourself to the world. That's not who I saw in the interview, but you're telling me you go check out my LinkedIn and there's nothing there. It's free. Yeah.

41:23
I mean that's free, right guys? To me, this has to be a no-brainer. All social media platforms are free for the most part, but this one in particular is, since you just pointed out AJ, that this is the most important for career development and socially, internet-wise, getting you linked in with other people. They're clever, aren't they? Getting you linked in with other people.

41:53
It's shocking to me that anyone, and if you're listening to this and you don't have one, go make one. Yes. Your reason, you don't have a reason to tell me I don't have one because X. You're not going to say anything to anyone that's going to make any sense regarding why you don't have one. There's no excuse. It's free.

42:19
You could list, it's an online resume, right? You go in there, you can put in all your certifications, you can put in all your school, you can put in all your volunteer work that you do, right? You can put in all the activities you're interested in, you can go follow all of the stuff that you're interested in, and people can see that. And you're right, recruiters go directly there. They wanna see who you are and what you're about. Is your stuff even up to date? Guess what, updating your LinkedIn profile, also free.

42:47
Oh, we've got a theme here. And there's a lot of online application processes where you want to go to apply for a new job someplace, you just log in and it'll scrape your LinkedIn profile. Perfect, right? And as long as your LinkedIn profile's up to date, it has all the accurate information, then they're gonna get all of that. Yeah, how easy is that? And you don't even have to give them your resume. That is your resume. It's a nice digital resume. The recruiter that placed me at my current job found me on LinkedIn. Found you. Found you. Yes, found me on LinkedIn. And your social reach,

43:17
coming full circle, right? You put yourself out there and the more feelers you have out there in the quote unquote universe, in the worldwide web, the easier you are to find. And if you want opportunities, you have to put yourself out there in the universe because they could come to you, but don't expect that if you're not putting yourself out there. That...

43:46
That's slightly ridiculous, right? So what do they say that there's no luck, right? It's like, or luck is like the crossroads of timing and preparation or something. I think Malcolm Gladwell says stuff like that, where it's like, he found that the most successful people or the people that maybe us three look at and go, man, how the heck did that guy get that job? How does one even find themselves into that situation?

44:15
And oftentimes it's because one of us will eventually just go, Oh, he just got lucky or she just got lucky. Right. Oh, she was just at the right place at the right time. Yeah. But, you know, that's not everything because if you're in the right place at the right time and you don't have what it takes, you're you're you probably won't even know that that happened. That opportunity just walked right in and right back out and you, you don't even have anything to talk about because you didn't even see it. So

44:45
Putting yourself out there is such a huge thing, especially on LinkedIn. It's a free online resume. In fact, to AJ's point, it'll even fill out applications for you. And like I was saying earlier, I was joking about it, but it'll tell you like how many people apply for a job even, right? So if you wanna scare the heck out of yourself or vice versa, if you look at this job and it's like, it's been posted for 30 days and not a single person has applied for it. Well, you know that the competition is

45:14
clearly very thin. Right? It does scary stuff, guys. I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but I had LinkedIn Premium for a while, which you do pay for. And if that's something you wanna get into, that by all means, I would say give it a shot. But it tells you the credentials, basically, of everybody that's applied for said job. Right? Like where they went to school.

45:42
It'll be like 20% of the people that apply for this have a master's degree. That's crazy. Like the stats are nuts. So that'll intimidate the heck out of you. But at some point you gotta get to the, so comfortable with yourself that you're like, let me see if I can beat these other people out that have master's degrees in here, right? Like to me that's like a personal vendetta and I guess it's worked out in my favor. But like I look at that as a challenge like.

46:11
I wish one more person would come at me with a master's degree for this job and I can beat them out and I can put that feather in my cap and be like, yeah, that's right. All these, I know exactly how many people applied for this job. Not a single one of them got it. I did. How? Because master's degrees aren't everything. Right? Yep. Truth. I have one. Absolutely. He has one.

46:37
And I don't. Yeah, I'm at the bottom of the totem pole here, guys. So I want to throw something out there because I'll kick myself if I don't before we're done here. So we're talking about branding. And I studied advertising for a couple of years in college and where every conversation started in advertising, it's all about the brand. What is this product or service? What is this personality? What does it mean to people? What does it provide to them? And everything starts from something called a USP.

47:07
the unique selling proposition, which basically is what makes you unique? Why are you different? And it's the hardest question to answer in marketing, advertising, branding, and a lot of companies don't do it well. But if you think of your favorite brand, I mean, it could be, I drive Hondas. Why do I drive Hondas? Because I've had three of them. I've never had a problem with one. I've never broken down. And they're older Hondas. These aren't new.

47:37
But to me, just that H on the grill gives me that feeling. I know what they are, who they are, the benefit I get. And so if you can, and now that's a rare example, one letter and just you have a whole emotional experience when you think about it. But if you can figure out what makes you unique and then build your brand, quote unquote, from there, I don't exactly know what makes me unique, but I hear a theme between the three of us, which is basically,

48:07
We're knowledgeable. We know what we're talking about technically and we want to help people. So even though the three of us share that, I think that goes a long way. And if, if I were interviewing someone and what made them unique was, Hey, they're smart, they know what they're talking about and they want to help people. They have a blog, they have a YouTube channel. These guys started a podcast. They're bringing on people that are, you know, onto the podcasts that are coming up that, that, that want to talk to the community. I mean,

48:35
But you gotta find what makes you different. And yeah, let's say we're all network engineers. What's gonna make you different? Well, there's gonna be people that are out there, are writing blogs, are making YouTube videos, and are reaching out to up in commerce trying to help them. And there are those that aren't. So at the very least, you can be in the right camp of those two. And if you can take it further and really stand out, well, now you're a branding rock star, but that's my advertising 101. That's also free though, right? Like helping other people, that's free. It's all free.

49:02
And it feels good. So along those lines, you keep saying the word unique, unique, unique. And if you want to find something that makes you unique, look around at what everybody else is doing and go in the opposite direction. And that's kind of what started it for me. When I was working the help desk, I would see a lot of my peers get frustrated with people while they're responding to tickets. And I kind of started to settle into the same path because it was just kind of.

49:28
what people did and then I realized, you know, I'm uncomfortable treating other people this way. And so I'm going to take a different approach. And whenever I had a help desk ticket, I would make sure that I would spend time not just correcting the issue, but showing the person, hey, if this happens again, here's how you can deal with it. And that does a couple of things that that shows them that you care that teaches them something and they have now been empowered to fix something themselves in the future. And guess what?

49:57
you don't get another help desk ticket on the same thing in another day or two, because you actually showed them how to take care of it yourself. And then you walk away with a good reputation. No, the wealth of knowledge coming out of this is astounding to me. I think we're, maybe I'm tooting my own horn here, but we're smarter than I thought we were when it comes to this. You know, and I guess that's because, like, have you ever-

50:25
Either one of you guys, have you ever sat down and actually tried to quantify that you're, hey, I'm doing this, so this is a good thing, right? So until we have a specific branding conversation, I don't think about on a daily basis, like, gosh, what am I doing to boost my social presence? Or what am I doing to even help people? I don't even ask myself that, like you do, Andy. I just go, oh, what's something cool I could do that I think people will find interesting?

50:54
Because I find interesting. And real quickly, I just wanted to point something out. I had a book that Andy reminded me of when he was talking about the USP, the unique selling proposition, right? So even products, all products, they have that. You are a product, right? You are a, better yet, you're a business. You're actually an entrepreneur. You don't know it. You are running your own business, which is yourself and your life, whether that's personal or whatever. But there's a book called The Unfair Advantage.

51:24
Um, that I, I, if you have the bandwidth to read quality stuff, this would be something that I would put on your list. Um, it's, it's about how you already have what it takes to succeed no matter where you came from in life. Um, and I'll just give you a real quick example because for people that are struggling when they hear that, like the unique selling proposition part,

51:50
people who are trying to understand what that actually means or maybe they're trying to figure out for themselves what that means about them. It's a very hard thing to do, I'll admit that, but this maybe might help you out because it points out that one of the guys that's writing the book was, basically he sucked at everything and he came from an extremely poor family and he became an entrepreneur because he was always used to selling things to help his family.

52:19
but he got really good as an entrepreneur because he was really good at budgeting and doing all these things, right? And he wasn't the best programmer in the world, so he found a guy that was, right? Who is that guy, that guy's, his USP is being a programmer and this guy's is being able to allocate funds appropriately to keep a business operating. You know what I mean? Just stuff that you may not have thought about, life was teaching you the whole time that you can use to propel you

52:49
ahead of everybody and to create a space for you in the world, you know, the small little space that is you, and then you become highly marketable. Right? So anyway, the book's called The Unfair Advantage. Check it out on Amazon. Maybe we'll think about putting a link to it in the description, so it'll be easier for you guys to click on. But anyway, back to what you were saying, AJ.

53:16
right before I cut you off and started talking about this book. I kind of got lost. It was soft skills and I was going to jump on that AJ that- Yeah, go for it. If, well, just to expound on what you said, if you're a technical person who is good with people, that is a goldmine. That is something you should buy. Don't know. I think it's a-

53:45
I think it's a rare skill. I have seen a lot of people throughout my career that are very good technically and not so good socially. And that's, I think that's just a character trait of the kind of people that get into IT and it's good, bad, or indifferent. So when you can stand out like that and, you know, be good technically and be good socially, it's not like other people in our field. That's interesting. It's like a-

54:14
It's almost like we were typecast from those 80s movies where it's like, uh, okay, I'll give you a perfect example. Revenge of the nerds. Right? So, you know, we're into computers and electronics and tech and, you know, just, you know, I was the guy that was programming the VCR. Not because I was smarter than anybody else, but because I read the freaking manual. It's not that hard. I read that, I read that somewhere a long time ago. That was kind of funny. Oh, I think it was the guy that started Geek Squad.

54:43
We all remember Geekswap, it's still around actually. So this kid started this in like, and this is a great story that, gosh, this is perfect. So this kid, he was in college, right? And this was in like the early 2000s, I think. And so, we're all around that era. So basically like us, where in the 80s and the 90s, technology wasn't a thing necessarily. It was like, it was very basic stuff, right?

55:11
You know, you weren't running into like super nerds all the time, but all of us knew at some point like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, if you want to set up your home router, this is what you do. Or it's like your friend calls you and you're like, Oh dude, you just need to format that hard drive, you know, like, or, you know, you just stupid stuff, right? And so this guy started this business in college up in like Minnesota and somebody asked like, you know, how did you come up with this and,

55:37
you know, do you consider yourself like a genius or like smarter than everybody else? Because everybody comes to you for these, these problems and I'll never forget this. He goes, there's not a single person on this planet that I'm smarter than, smarter than, and I'm paraphrasing. Um, but when everybody is out, not paying attention, like having a good time. I'm the guy reading the manual.

56:06
Like, isn't that so true for like who we are as people? It's like, we read the manual. And the reason why that's hard to do is because we just pointed out like 100 times, the manual sucks. Like, it's a technical document and no one, if it was a blog post, we'd all read it. Clearly, I think we just decided that too, right? But isn't that interesting? So it's like, we're not any smarter. We just read the manual, you know? And so basically that's all you have to do.

56:37
but don't be the guy that sounds like the manual is what Andy's saying. Yeah, I like that, I like that. Right? And it might come down to brain science. I mean, the people who were like uber technical, there's that part of their brain is super, you know, developed and the part that's good with people, maybe not so much. I mean, I know some really, really bright people that just, you know, having a conversation with.

57:02
is kind of painful. So it could just even be how you're wired. But if you are, like you said, if you are technical and you're great with people, whoo, that should be something you want to point out. And so, I mean, it'll come out in an interview, but how do you get in front of that hiring manager? Well, if you're on LinkedIn and you have the right keywords and you have social profiles and they can find you and see, oh yeah, this guy has a conversational tone. He's...

57:28
He's smart, he writes, he seems like a guy I'd want to have a beer with. That's the power, I think, of branding and all these social platforms. You can almost get in front of these people before you get in front of them. They can find out who you are and what you're all about. Good or bad. Yeah, if you've branded yourself correctly or well enough and they can see. You get 10 candidates on LinkedIn. All right, let me check these people out.

57:57
I mean I do it with podcast guests that we're gonna have. I check them out, I see who they are, what they're up to so that I know something about them. I mean hiring managers are doing the same thing to us on socials. Well you said something in there earlier that was if you're a goldmine basically if you could talk to people and you're smart, right? But I think to further that.

58:25
If you're not someone that can talk to people, if you would just treat that as you do with everything else, so if you're super smart and you are lacking social skills or you feel that you have the inability to talk to people or you get stage fright, you can't speak in front of groups, that's just something that you're gonna have to get over. So why not treat that like everything else you've treated?

58:54
to make you smart. It can be learned. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. It can be learned. My sister-in-law is a pediatrician. She teaches at the medical school and the class she teaches is teaching doctors how to talk to patients. That's crazy. Because some of these, I know, I couldn't believe it was even a class when she told me, but some people are very gifted in a certain area and just have a heck of a time talking to people. So it can be learned. If you're not that person, like you said, you can learn it.

59:22
It's a skill you can learn. I couldn't sell anything. In high school, they give you the Reese's Pieces and you have to sell them or you can't play sports on the thing. I bought them all myself and ate them because the idea of going to people's doors and saying, can I have a dollar for this, was mortifying. But years later, I got a sales job. Somebody taught me the skill, how to do it. I sold a ton of stuff. Somebody who couldn't sell a dollar Reese's candy bar in high school.

59:49
sold a whole lot of stuff later in life. So it's a skill you can learn. You can learn people skills for sure. I believe you can. I can't, yeah you can. And actually speaking of LinkedIn, there's a bunch of free courses that exist on LinkedIn too. Again, free, where they teach you stuff like that. Empathy, you know, like what words to use and how to convey yourself properly. And it's-

01:00:16
It may seem unnatural to you because if you're looking for help in that realm and it seems unnatural to you, it's because that's not how you were either brought up or how you were taught or whatever, but that's okay. You could still reverse that. You could still learn something, you know, like how to ace an interview. And if people just took enough time, like even preparing for interviews, which I I don't want to get into interviews too much here, because I feel like

01:00:45
subsequent episode would warrant an entire conversation around that. But just to briefly kind of touch on it, when you're talking in an interview, they're going to ask you certain things, okay? What they vary from, like, you can learn all of that. Okay, like, let's put it in perspective. You're studying for the CCNA.

01:01:16
and you're like, gosh, I don't know what they're gonna ask me. So what do you do?

01:01:22
you prepare that they're gonna ask you anything and everything, right? You have to. Why, if you have a CCNA then, you have no excuse to go to an interview and be like, well, I have no idea what they're gonna ask me. You already have the methodology. You've already done it. You've already written that book. It's prepare for everything. So get you one of these little

01:01:52
Half the time they're free on Amazon, like Kindle. They just send them to you because they're so cheap. Or you can just Google it. What are the top things that recruiters are asking? What are the top things that interview people are asking? You just memorize them. Come on. One question they always ask me is, tell me a little bit about yourself. Yes. There's your elevator pitch. Have it. If you haven't worked on it, you're going to stumble and fomfer and not feel great.

01:02:21
about it. It's something you can prepare ahead of time. You can go through that 100 interview questions. You can go through the CCNA blueprint, get the technical, have an answer for tell me a little about yourself. It doesn't have to be complicated, but tell your story in a minute. Yeah. So in those books, that's the kind of stuff they say is like, tell me about a time where Superior told you to do something that you didn't agree with. You know what I mean? But what I mean is there's so many of them. And so people are just like, well, I'll just go in and

01:02:50
If you just took the time to, cause you wouldn't walk into Pearson view without even having looking at the blueprint. I mean, that sounds stupid, right? Like we're just like laughing, but like that sounds ridiculous because it is. Just like it's ridiculous to go to an interview without preparing interview questions for yourself. If you have a husband or a wife, significant other, kids, grandparents,

01:03:19
whatever, friends. This is like a five to 10 minute exercise where they could be asking you questions and you could just come up with answers, right? And you could refine that. And you're not sounding like a robot either, right? You just have an idea of what you wanna get out because that's a hard question. That's a great one to bring up, Andy, because that's a hard one to answer off the top of your head. Seems like a very easy thing, but it's not.

01:03:45
Yep. So you bring up a good point. You know all those people. You can go talk to them and have them give you questions. Well, all of those people have probably been in interviews before themselves. I would hope so. Ask you the kinds of questions that you would likely face in an interview. Maybe not so much the technical questions that you might get when you're applying for an IT job, but definitely what I would say, standard run of the mill. Like Andy said, tell me about yourself. That's definitely something I've seen in probably every interview I've had. Yep.

01:04:13
No, that's funny because you could just go around and ask everybody you knew, like, hey, because everybody will remember this because it's like a scarring moment. What's the most difficult thing somebody's ever asked you in an interview? And everybody's going to go, oh, God, one time, right? Because like they remember it because they didn't prepare and they soiled themselves on the spot. They go, I don't know what to say. I need an adult. You know, what do I do?

01:04:41
So they all remember like what was the worst thing they asked you so like have them ask you that right on the spot dude Prepare for anything

01:04:50
Yeah, if you prepare for the worst, if you train really hard by the time you get there, it's going to feel really easy. Easy. And interviewing is a job, I would say, too, right? So just make sure that interviewing places is not a bad thing. That doesn't make you unloyal if you're looking for a job and someone said that they were going to hire you. Continue to interview. It's a skill. It's a skill in and of itself. It takes time.

01:05:19
Just like everything else, no one's natural at it. Um, and I would say that even a lot of people, like recruiters and things like that, uh, are hiring managers. They're not good at conducting interviews a lot of times. Right. So like, don't expect to go in there and, you know, I don't know how to put that, like deal with someone who's like a professional, like interrogator, right? That's not, that's not the point. They might be even like reading from a list.

01:05:47
Stuff that they have to ask like that's usually what happens right you just have like a little printout. They're like, yeah, so Yeah, and I would take what you said and just push it a little bit further You know you said even if you're not gonna take the job go interview If you've been working somewhere for a long time and you have no intention of leaving still go out and interview Hmm, cuz then then you can learn, you know, what's the market looking for right now? Like god forbid if I lost my job right now. Am I still?

01:06:15
somebody that can just go out and get a job. Do I have the right skills? Has the market changed so much that I don't have the right skills to go out and get another job? Should I lose my job right now? And you know, like you said, like interviewing is definitely a skill. If you've been in a job for a long time and you're not interviewing, that it's going to be really rusty if you've got to go back out there again. So even if you have no intention of getting another job, leaving the place that you're leaving, even if you got offered stupid money, right, you know, you're perfectly happy, still go out and interview.

01:06:44
That's a great nugget because there's an old school loyalty thing that people feel like maybe they're cheating on their employer even if they're treating them well, but that's not the case. You're trying to up your skills, right? Maybe that helps your current job. Who knows? It could have ripple effects. So I think that's a great place for us to kind of wrap that up.

01:07:14
wrap this conversation up with because We kind of went all over the place right social media Who you are as a person the interviewing stuff If you take one thing away, please get your LinkedIn Created if you don't if you have it update it put a picture up there not of your cat But of yourself your beautiful beautiful face So so quick quick story. I know you're wrapping it up. But quick story. My wife is job hunting

01:07:43
She wants to get a new job. School's starting soon. She would love to break into something that is work from home. And so she's like, I want your help. You're really good at this stuff. And I told her the first thing you need to do is go update your LinkedIn profile because it's from like two jobs ago. You haven't touched it. Oh, and by the way, the picture of you on there is from you drunk at a party one night. Like, sure you look nice.

01:08:04
and you're smiling really nice, and maybe it's just because I personally know that you're buzzed at a party, I don't think that's the appropriate picture for your LinkedIn profile if you're trying to break into a new career, get a new job. Well, see, that actually goes back to earlier. We were talking about just being a resource for everybody and just helping, right? You are now a LinkedIn job hunting resource and you're spreading the love and you're helping, even though it's just within your own family.

01:08:33
Um, something I just want to point out too that while we were recording this, um, uh, a young gentleman named Reg followed me on Twitter, um, and his handle is poorman89 and he is a geek future engineer. And I just want to say that for all of us, Reg, from all of us, if you hear this, we hope that you don't stay poorman89 for very long.

01:09:03
and that you have a very illustrious future engineering career, sir. Appreciate the follow-up. Aaron. Yes, sir. I want to float this out there as we wrap up. If you are working on your branding and you're struggling or if you want help, please reach out to us. I'd be happy to help anybody. Discord, yeah. Discord. Just reach out. We're all here to help each other. So, you know, we're talking about branding and your personal branding and it's not the easiest thing to do.

01:09:32
How do you encapsulate who you are and what you stand for in a tagline or a username? So if you need help, you're trying to get it together, reach out, we have a community. Yeah, we're not just network engineers, we're life engineers. So hit us up. We've made so many mistakes that we kind of know what the right path is in some aspects at least. So I did mention it earlier, but at No Blinky Blinky.

01:10:02
at AaronEngineered at Andy Lapteff. Go to our Twitter profiles, social medias, zzz. You'll be able to find our YouTube channels, our blogs. Additionally, the Art of Network Engineering website, so thea has links to all that stuff. And we even do guest posts for blogs for people that are maybe looking for a platform, just like we described today. They're trying to put themselves out there in the universe. And...

01:10:29
That's a good place to start. So if that's something you're interested in, by all means, hit us up. Like Andy said, if you're looking for a little guidance here or there, no matter what it is, there are plenty of people that would help you in our Discord channel. Find us on all those social media outlets, again, to link up with us. And again, if you don't have a LinkedIn, get a LinkedIn. All right, and until next time, we will see you guys around.

01:11:00
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 eng. That's art of NETENG. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co hosts and guests.

01:11:27
and also a lot more news and info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.