I'm happy that I finally get to write my success story :-)
The story of my first attempt below
http://ieoc.com/forums/p/24377/186185.aspx#186185
After my first failed attempt, I had a very good idea about where I was with my skills and how much more I needed to do to meet the standard.
I took 5 months out to work on my weak areas and solidify the technology areas I was comfortable with. After another preparation and sitting for my second attempt, I still failed. But this time, I felt no disappointment at all. I knew I had all the technologies pretty much knocked down but my strategy on the day didn’t work. At this point, I felt I was so close.
I took a week to unwind and got back to preparations for third attempt, I knew I didn’t have to wait any longer so I rescheduled my lab to the nearest available date I could find that was convenient for me. This time round a lot of the focus was on my strategy…developing my psyche, getting into the mood gradually and doing more technology focused labs.
Finally the day came again; I walked to the lab from my hotel in a very casual way as if there was nothing at stake. I had been through it 2 times so that fear was conquered unconsciously. Proctor came and ushered us in, did the usual drill and the clock starts. I took my time, read through the instructions and questions and started my attack from the seemingly easier tasks. 1 hour into troubleshooting, I had completed 6 tickets. I felt good. I worked on remaining and had some time to verify. Couldn’t very all but the last one I verified was just about 1min down the clock. I found I missed something, I quickly fixed it, tested it and it worked..saved the configs, I checked the time and it was on the 5 seconds countdown timer…before I could blink, my session ended and I took a deep breath and smiled.
I then moved on to configuration section. I redrew the topology on my scratch sheet, read through the entire lab and started out. This time around, I used notepad a lot more for repetitive configurations and that saved me a lot of time. It went pretty well and I got to the golden moment…I tested my full reachability and oh yes, all I saw was !!!!! all over my screen :-) . Right after that, I started dreaming about my digits because I had reasonable time to finalize remaining tasks. When I was finally done with config, I had about 1 hour to verify. I went through the tasks and found very important configs that I corrected in order to meet the task requirements. The remaining time passed by and it was over. It was the third time but I felt the exact same way after the lab, completely drained of all my energy…physically and mentally.
The morning after, whiles at the airport I decided to check my mail. And there was the mail from Cisco, I quickly logged in, fixed my eyes straight on the result area of the webpage…and there was the pass!!!!!!!!! I looked up the screen and there was my digits also nicely displayed…I leaned back, heaved a sigh of big relief and smiled :-)…the rest of the feeling I cannot describe.
Now I sit back and I ask myself where I got all these energy from, and I can only thank God. INE materials were fantastic and indeed I learnt a lot from this community. The journey is usually long and rough and it seems like an impossible thing to do. But when you want something that bad, you will find the time and commit yourself to it, persevere and “never say die”. It’s a dream come true and it’s been a long time coming. If you want to be a CCIE, eat it, drink it, walk it, sleep it and dream it until it “hurts”. At the end of it all, it’s totally worth the sacrifices. Excuses don’t help...life happens to everyone. As they say, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Where there is a will, there is a way. It takes time but with hardwork, determination and above all God's grace, it's possible.
Cheers!!!!!
Dan Ameme, CCIE #40008