Here are 10 things I have learned after 20 years in tech

what's good youtube if you're watching this video you successfully made it to layer seven of that osi model where we give you nothing but that application you can apply directly to your life i'm your host dewine you know i've been in it a long time and what i talk about a long time i mean 20 years now and over those 20 years i've learned a lot in this video what i want to share with you is 10 things that i have learned in my 20-year i.t career the first thing that i learned in tech is that you have to be fearless and what do i mean by that intact there's something called imposter syndrome that many of us have faced and honestly i'll face it in pretty much every role that i've ever had but when it comes to being fearless the thing about that is you cannot allow fear to lead to inaction as a network engineer you'll often be faced with challenges that you may think are harder than you can actually do for instance let's say there's a change or some type of action that needs to happen on the edge router that is the entire connectivity for the organization for some people that's too big of a challenge because if you put the acl in the wrong direction or let's say you accidentally shut down the interface or you remove bgp or you just happen to make one small misconfiguration it can affect the entire organization and for some people that challenges is too much you cannot allow fear to hold you back mistakes those are going to happen another example of fear coming in your career is let's say you have a job opportunity that you feel you're not prepared for fear should not hold you back if you apply for the job you want the job why not take the job you don't know how many people i've talked to and mentor in this industry that are afraid to take positions that they really want don't allow fear to hold you back you have to be fearless in this industry the second thing that i learned in my career is you have to work smarter and not harder look hard work does pay off but smart work pays dividends think about that hard work does pay off but smart work pays dividends let's talk about that let's break that down sometimes in your career you can work extremely hard and not be rewarded for it it happens to many of us but if you work extremely smart you will be rewarded for it because when it comes to working hard in the organization if nobody sees the work that you do there's no proof of the work that you've done and what i mean by that is you're not letting your manager know the work that you've done you're not sharing it amongst your team like yeah you may work really hard and somebody else takes the credit why is that well there's things that you can do to combat that let's say you write some new code that is amazing or you implement a new process or you streamline some workflows a couple things that you can do is update the wiki for your organization which is documentation and which is version control it can clearly state who created this work this process this workflow this documentation another thing that you can do if you write some amazing code make sure you get it in github and you virgin control it because that is going to show who actually wrote this code that's changing and leading the organization to success the third thing that you can do is let's say you implement a new workflow that's improving your process and the whole teams share it out in the email let everyone know what you've done and invite them to be a part of the process this is a way to encourage others help others share with the team and let your manager know what you're doing the last thing that you can do create a training for that new process of workflow that you've done and invite your team invite your organization so now everyone can see who's actually doing the work who's actually helping the organization grow and there will be no question when it's time for that promotion now i'm not telling you to brag and boast it's great to be on social media sharing what you do amazing but make sure what you're doing on social media matches what you're doing in the workplace number three standing out in this industry is not as hard as you think look there are a lot of people in tech that treat it like a normal nine-to-five and that's okay that's great for them but when it's time for promotion when it's time for those raises when it's time to get that next opportunity the fact that you are labbing every day and you're putting in let's say one hour a day extra just to learn something new and you're getting certifications you're getting degrees you're doing everything that you can to network on social media to meet new people and to grow your network that's the easiest thing that you can do to stand out it's not that hard like honestly it's not that hard so many people say they want success in this industry but not everybody is willing to put in the work to get it you just have to be consistent at it just a little consistency and believe in yourself standing out is not as hard as you think i come from canton ohio i was on a help that stuck for six years couldn't figure it out the moment i started reading books learning something new my whole career changed of course i had to learn i had to fail a lot i had to go through some painful times but regardless looking back it wasn't that hard i just had to change and take my career as a profession and not like a job the fourth thing that i learned over my 20-year career is that technology always changes if you watch some of my interviews that i've done on other channels i tell you i started with windows nt this is the days of primary domain controllers and backup domain controllers this was before windows active directory now think about that transition we went from analog phone systems to voiceover ip we went from physical servers to virtualized servers we went from virtualized servers to containers we went from physical on-premise servers to now hosting our infrastructures into the cloud and then again we went from traditional networking to software-defined networking the industry is always changing don't marry a vendor don't marry a certification go with the times if you see something that you're interested in and it's new learn it because that's the one thing that can set us all apart is the fact that technology is always changing and sometimes if you get on web 3 or those latest cutting-edge technologies many of us are starting from ground zero at the same time kubernetes isn't even 10 years old web 3. what is that year two years i don't know how old it is i haven't really looked into it but for those of you that are you're on the cutting edge of technology and for those of you that are interested if you start now you are starting at the beginning and three years from now you could be leading in that industry think about that i love technology it's always changing so you should always stay learning and with that being said number five don't be comfortable i mentioned that some people treat tech like a nine to five so they go to their job they go home they may love their job they may give it everything they got but the sad part about tech which is also an amazing thing about tech is that technology is always changing and if you happen to get comfortable you love what you do unfortunately what can happen is tech is that technology that you know the technology that you love the technology that you are an expert in could get phased out like if you are comfortable you're not challenging yourself you should be feeling that impostor impossible used to be stepping into environments and feeling like i have no idea what i'm doing and be excited about it because you're learning something new you're going to grow from that experience whether you are successful whether you fail you're going to learn you're going to grow and you will be awesome forward so don't get comfortable challenge yourself and go after it number six communication is key i don't think this is talked about enough when it comes to being in tech one of the best things that happened to me in my career was spend six years on the help desk because in that position i got to work with and help and support people at all different levels from tier one customer service techs to managers to execs to ceos and ctos in the organization and i treat everybody the same i learned how to communicate with people and empathize with the challenges of their jobs because i never looked at it like oh you should be changing your own keyboard oh this is something simple you should already know how to fix that no no in as a help desk professional what i learned is that the person on that side of the ticketing system that has the problem they're really good at what they do and i'm really good at what i do which is tech i can't expect them to be great at their job and to know my job too right my job is to help them and bring solutions to whatever problems they have and i learned how to communicate that effectively no matter the situation somebody could be having a bad day they come around me their day is gonna get better that was my goal on the help desk communication right now is a skill in tech that is overlooked the better you can do it the more it can help you in your career number seven you know out of all the things that i learned in tech one of the most important things is my foundational level knowledge and that's understanding computing understanding networking understanding virtualization understanding cloud computing understanding computer science understanding fundamentals of security with the security plus like these fundamental skills have helped me throughout my career i'm deep level understanding of network engineering and networking of course but a lot of my networking troubleshooting skills came from understanding computing it came from understanding computer science it came from understanding virtualization once i had a understanding foundational level of okay this is how computing works this is how virtualization works once i had an understanding of that it helped me in pretty much every area every area when you are in this industry don't go too fast focus on the fundamentals if it's something that you don't understand lab it up ask a mentor do what you can to get help to get the knowledge that you need so you can grow your foundational level knowledge is everything number eight all money is not good money the more you grow your skills the more you get certifications the more you challenge yourself and work on projects the more you update your resume the more opportunities are going to come to you the bag will come that six figure opportunity will come that 200k opportunity may come and that 300k opportunity might come but when you start making those moves you need to really think if that move is in line with where you want to go because a lateral move to make more money there's a reason why they're going to pay you more money to do the exact same job i want you to really think long and hard about when you make these moves ask the right questions in the interviews what does a day today look like what does the career progression trajectory look like what opportunities do you have for growth and do your research on the companies because all money is not good money take a look at glassdoor to see what the company is like what the position is like do your research before you make any moves because all money is not good money but get yours though number nine experience is king look i have been mentoring people and the one thing that i think many people fail to understand is how important experience is these vendors do a great job of marketing certifications look i ain't gonna lie i probably did a great job promoting some certifications but those were certifications i believed in but every time i would talk about a certification i would try to express the importance of experience look getting the a plus the network plus the security plus the whatever entry level certification is cool don't get me wrong do what you got to do but the problem with that is at some point you have to get experience if you have a job you're on death side support or you're doing network engineering there's no reason you should be doing an entry-level certification there's no reason to do that because you're getting entry-level experience a certification should challenge and validate your knowledge when i get certifications it's for a certification in the direction i want to go but if i'm already there there's no reason to get a certification at that level now there are times where that may not be true for instance if you're a network engineer and you want to advance getting into ccna probably is a good idea in the ccnp it's probably a better idea but or getting a cloud certification is probably a good idea too like solutions architect those are good ideas but a better idea is getting experience and creating a plan to go to where you want to go because again when you walk in that interview the certification to get you in the door but the experience that you have and the knowledge that you obtained through that experience will get you a job so when you are mapping out your career plan and your career goals make sure that you're looking at jobs that's going to get you that experience to get you to where you want to go and get you the knowledge that you want to obtain because i learn deeper when i'm actually hands-on doing the things that i'm learning rather than being in a book or being in my lab because real world experience is king number 10 and the last and maybe most important thing that i learned in my career is that tech is a marathon and not a sprint look some of y'all out here like you saying both and i can't even not we all know how the same pace and that's something to keep in mind the turtle in the hair is a real thing because some people could be moving like this like the flash five years down the line you may be passing on by because you took your time on the foundation you stayed in a job getting real experience because there's something about job hopping when you job hop you don't really obtain everything you need to obtain in six months sometimes it takes a year maybe two years to really understand the job roles that you have so whenever you job hop every six months three of those six months is on board and for the person that stand on the road three four years they built the foundation of understanding that job they became really good at that job and then they started to excel at that job because they took the marathon route and that's even me there's jobs that i left too early now that i look back in my career because i felt like i knew everything but i probably could have bubbled a little bit more in that position and got even more experienced with certain technologies so that's something i want you to think about it is a marathon not a sprint and if you really want longevity in this industry taking the marathon route getting your foundational level up knowledge will take you a lot further now that's 10 things that i have learned over my 20-year career there's probably like 20 more things that i can add as well if you enjoyed this video let me know in the comment section below if you have things that you learned throughout your career that you can add that may help someone else comment that too as well subscribe to my channel if you have not already like this video i will catch you all on the next one i appreciate each and every one of you you have an amazing week peace

Channel: Du’An Lightfoot

Views: 3,903

Keywords: duan lightfoot, du'an lightfoot, labeveryday, cisco, ccna, network automation, Here are 10 things I have learned after 20 years in tech

Id: F6ha7ZdNoko

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2022