I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has sent me best wishes and congratulations. I had a few that asked me to share my story and approach , so since i'm on a 8.5 hour flight I figured now was as good a time as any.
November 2011: Passed CCIE written. I spent the remainder of November researching vendors for IE training and allocating materials to complete my at home lab. Thank you IPexpert and EBAY. I began the Audio and Video on demand series of the product in December and finished it in about 3 weeks. After that i began to go through the Volume 1 labs. My study time consisted of 2.5 - 3.5 hours each night, M-F and then 10 to 12 hrs a day on Saturday and Sunday. And YES this is the actual amount of time that i studied. I gave up TV, and fishing....ahhh i can go fishing again, for the entirety while i studied. I went on like this through Volume 1 labs and then i went onto the most recent 5 labs. I knew that these were the most recent so i started with the 5 labs and then went back to the Volume 2 labs. In the beginning rounds of the 5 labs and Volume 2 labs i would go through a lab from M-F and then again on Saturday and Sunday. This would allow me to do a full lab 3 times per week. By the time Sunday finished i would have a pretty good understanding of the topics that i had completed in that lab that week. However, in the beginning months I still couldn't finish the labs in 8 hours even on the Sunday attempts. I would also like to state that I would go through the Video on demand lab explanation and the written versions from the very beginning of the week. I saved a lot of time by giving into the fact, that i was no where near an expert and it was time for me to learn not test. Thus i used all the assets that i could to make sure i knew and understood a topic before i attempted them. I continued my studies like this until I had been through all but about 3 or 4 labs a couple times each. This was about the June time frame, so i went ahead and booked my two , week long bootcamps at SJC. I went to SJC for the classes in July of this year. After returning home from the classes, I had two weeks to really put what i had learnt to the grindstone and make sure i knew the tech. fla t out. By this time i could complete the IPexpert labs in about 5 to 6 hours. I would take lunch breaks and small breaks from time to time but i really focused on strategy more than anything. My strategy for the most part consisted of : Gateways to include everything but srst and some mgcp registrations. That would be followed by CUCM configuration, i worked from the menu on the left and tried to hit everything that i could on my way through the menus on the right. I must say here that, this is something that you can really sharpen in the OWLE, Vik has what I believe the best approach to the Lab. It worked for me anyhow. Haven already auto registered my phones , and my complete device pools, i would then go through and setup all of the phones to their final config or as final as possible anyhow. I think that it really saves a lot of time to go through and touch these phone configs pages as little as possible. And of course you get to this ability with hours and hour s of practice. Following that i did my QOS configs for WAN and Campus. From here it kinda seemed like a seat of the pants kind of a feeling. Some tasks required others to be in place first. So every lab differed in the tasks completed from that point. So finally lab day... Beginning of August. I arrived at 6:30 am having slept very little the night before, my nerves really got the best of me. At 7 am the proctor brought us in and gave us the run down.. "here's the bathroom, here's the food, run this way in case of fire, on your mark get set go!" So i sat down and began to go through my normal paces. Very shortly in i realized that i was very nervous and was watching the clock as if it were getting ready to helicopter off the wall. But i buckled down and tried to stick to my guns as best as possible. After lunch I had an inclination that i would be best served to slow down and take in as much as possible for my next go round. So i tried my best to complete what i could and not introduce any more troubleshooting requirements than were already there. After the day was done, i left licking my wounds with a few tasks having never even been touched. Ok time to go home and regroup. I tried to remember as much as i could on the way home and then i proceeded to la b those items i had issues with while they were fresh on my mind. I then took a two week break and didn't even look at the Cisco website. Upon returning to my lab after two weeks i found that i was very rusty, but it turned out to be a good thing. I had forgotten some of my bad habits and had to re-look at some tasks to make sure I was configuring them correctly. This allowed me to learn even more and hone in my techniques even finer. I would study a few days a week up to my second lab attempt, but not for more than about 10 to 12 hours a week. However in the final week I practiced about 2 , 8 hour mock labs, just to make sure i was still in my targeted time frames. The last two days before the test i did nothing. In between each lab attempt i took about a 6 week period. The night before the test i took my wife out to a local Brazilian steak house i had found the previous time and then cut back to the hotel for an early nights rest. Fat chance of that happening. I t ossed and turned for a good part of the night... "am i truly ready, what if i run out of time again, should i have waited longer, etc..." . but i finally put those thoughts to rest and slept for a good little while. The following morning I awoke with the realization that I would either pass this time or i wouldn't , greater people than I had taken many more attempts to pass, why was I any better? So i went in this time with a renewed spirit. I was very at ease and did not let my self get too worked up. So there i sat at 7 am in RTP with the rest of the folks, waiting on the proctor. Everyone was focused and nervous. So I did what i thought would help and started talking to everyone. Where are you from, what test are you taking etc... and so on. In all actuality i was trying to lighten the mood for everyone in the room including my self. It's hard to be too nervous when you have my Alabama accent talking about technology. So then in walked the proctor... "here's th e bathroom, here's the food, run that way if there's a fire, ready set go!" So i sat down at my station opened a terminal window and ABSOLUTELY FROZE UP!!!! Oh crap, why am i not typing?? Type something Justin, anything.... Then I said a prayer, I gave in to let go and let God, had a moment and began to go to work. I knew that being at ease would be the difference for me this time so i refused to look at the clock at all. I was moving along pretty good and felt pretty good about my chances this time. I would get to a new task and silently go "yes, i know this one...i think". It's probably best to be respectful of the test at all times or she'll catch you when your not paying attention and "pants" you in front of all your buddies. I'm just saying... So lunch came , we all sat down, gave out some jokes, talked about traveling, and then went back to work again. This time I actually finished about 1.5 hours before time was up. I then went back and tried to fail all o f my questions that I had completed. I tried to pick apart everything I had completed as if I truly wanted to mark the question wrong. This helped tremendously, i found several small mistakes that would have meant a big fat "goose egg" for that question. I left that day with a smile on my face. I knew it was in God's hands, but I knew i had given everything i could to that keyboard at that station. So completely spent for the day i laid down with hopes of a good nights rest....WRONG!!! I tossed and turned. So i checked my email every 5 minutes until my wife threatened to throw my IPAD out the window. I slept some but finally just got up at about 5 am and watched a little TV. So as i'm sure you don't want to keep hearing my complete life story... I received an email the next morning from Cisco...please click here for your results. I clicked and i conquered!!!!!!!! So that's it. I spent the rest of that day telling everyone that i knew about my accomplishment , I n ever could find one of those planes that writes stuff in the sky, but i think i got just about everyone else covered. P.S. I slept like a baby that night!! Thanks, Justin McIntyre CCIE Voice #36706 This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended for the sole use of the individual to whom they are addressed. 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