ZNDP 049 – 2020 Goals and Updates

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Zigbits 2020 Goals

In Today’s episode we are completing a deep dive after action report on our 2019 Goals, setting up our 2020 goals, and talking about whats been happening the last few months. We also talk about Cisco Live Europe thats happening next week. Lets get into it shall we!! 🙂

General Updates

What have I been doing the last 3 months you may ask?? Well here is a quick run down of whats been going on. 😉

  • Helping out with Books
  • Creating Course content. Helping out with some course content for the community. Once its launched I will post all of the relevant links.
  • Writing practice test questions. I had no idea how much work this would be when agreeing to it. Great experience and I’ve learned a lot from doing it.
  • Day job has been working me to the bone. A ton of 100-plus weeks and traveling all over the world. This sounds a little negative so I just want to say I love my day job, even when I am working 100-plus hours a week. 😛
  • Currently getting ready for Cisco Live Europe in Barcelona (Jan 27th -31st)
    • I will be presenting BRKRST-2044 on Jan 29th at 830am. There is roughly 25% new content from Cisco Live US 2019. This is including new lab and GitHub related content. After the session I will post all of the links to the lab content.

If any of you are going to be at Cisco Live Europe and wants to meet up to talk about design, to have a drink or really just anything feel free to email me at Feedback@zigbits.tech or send me a message on my twitter account @zig_zsiga. I would love to meet you lovely nerds and geeks out there!

Deep Dive into 2019 Goals

I’m a huge goal oriented person. I like to set a ton of goals every year and for the most part I meet them. It’s very rare for me to not meet a goal within the specified time frame. That doesn’t mean there is ever an easy button when shooting for your goals. It takes a lot of work, dedication, and persistency to achieve your goals in life. The best lessons are learned from failure, so embrace your failures and learn from them.

Top 5 Personal Goals from 2019

1. Strengthen my relationship with my wife daily.

Something I strive to do every day of my life! 🙂

2. Maintain a healthy lifestyle

I’ve stopped all caffeine, including energy drinks, in 2019. I’ve stopped eating all carbs / sugar foods. Currently on Keto and loving it. I’ve been working out 5-6 days a week, every week since I started this goal. When I started this, I needed a visualization of my goal. Its just something I do. So I decided to grow a beard…and I will not shave it off until i’ve reach my goal of 200 pounds. My wife hates the beard but I’m sticking to my guns and wont shave it off until i hit my initial goal of 200. My ultimate goal is 180 – 185 pounds.

I started this process in Sept 2019 and was 262 pounds, today I am 225 pounds. Everything is getting easier and I am loving it!

3. Raise my son to be a great man

I want to ensure my son is equipped with what he needs to be a great man. To understand right and wrong, and to fight for what he truly wants in life.

4. Become one of the top technical leaders, coaches, and mentors in the world

Above all us, I want to help people in this community, in this industry, and in this world. The best way I know to do that is to lead, coach, and mentor others on whatever I can.

5. Create a personal brand that is honorable, professional, and evolutionary

I want to create a brand that set the bar higher for our industry. I want to create a brand that provides outstanding value to each and everyone in this industry. This personal goal rolls right into the different Zigbits goals I have for 2020 further down.

All of these Personal Goals from 2019 rollover into 2020!!

Zigbits 2020 Goals

1. More Consistent content creation this year.

When you complete an after action report from last year (2019) I created 15 pieces of new content: (9 podcast shows and 4 youtube videos). This is not the standard I set out to maintain when I started this podcast in 2016. If we take a look at 2018, we can see I created 30-plus pieces of new content: (30 podcast shows and 12 Blog posts).

I need to get back into the cycle of a bi-weekly ZNDP show

I need to get back into creating the ZBISE blog posts / youtube videos

2. Launch the Zig Zsiga show

I’ve been wanting to create this show for the last year or so now. Time flies when you are busy and having fun with other projects, but enough is enough. When I vocalize a goal out loud it becomes real, thus I am telling you today that I will be launching this specific podcast that will be all about Leadership, Mentoring, and Coaching with real world experiences. Its going to be a ton of fun and I can’t wait to get the first few shows recorded and out to you all!

3. Launch the first Zigbits book

These next two goals, I will need your help on. I want to create content that provides you value. Value that you receive everyday of your lives, be it in your career or at home. I can really write a book about anything in a number of different topic fields but here are some examples:

  • Consultative Leadership Book
  • Design Focused Whitepapers
  • Migration Whitepapers

4. Launch the first Zigbits online course

Could be a course on pretty much anything but here is a quick list of topics I had brainstormed:

  • Segment Routing Video course
  • IPv6 Video course
  • Multicast VPNs Video course
  • Automation / Programmability Video course
  • DNAC / SD-A Video course
  • SD-WAN Viptela Video Course
  • Integration between DNAC and SD-WAN
  • Migration Video course
  • Network Design Course
  • Achieve any goal Course

5. Launch the Zigbits email list

I started this late in 2019. I have the service, i’ve added the sign up on the site, but I just haven’t figured out how to leverage it yet. My intent for this email list is to be able to provide what people are needing more effectively by filtering people in the list based on what they are doing, and what they are asking for. I also would like to leverage this email list as a way to announce new content, new events going, and potentially new products as they are released.

Call to Action!

I need your help!!

I have so many ideas of what I could do and then there is the list of ideas that I would love to do. Some of these ideas include creating a Network Design Course, a SD-WAN course, a SD-A / DNAC course, or an ISE course, while other ideas are less IT focused but more focused on life such as creating a course around how to achieve your goals in life with weekly, monthly, and annual accountability checkins. Could even create content around finances, stress management, and health.

But all of this is 100% overwhelming and I am not sure what is the right item in these lists of ideas to do for you. I could easily create a course, a book, and / or a product but I truly want you to help me decide here.

So here is the question… The call to action in this episode… What would best help you today in your daily life, be it at home or at work? Please take a couple of minutes and email me your answer or DM me on twitter. I would sincerely appreciate it!

I just want to focus on the one thing thats going to change your life the most.

Provide Feedback

Transparency:

This post may contain affiliate links to products or services were I may receive a level of compensation from your actions by following those links. This is seamless to you and does not add any additional cost to the products or services in question. In addition, I do not let any affiliate relationship cloud my judgement or my recommendation of a product or service. My recommendations will always be above reproach.  This is my commitment to you Ziglets!

About Zig Zsiga

Zig Zsiga, CCDE™ 2016::32, CCIE™ #44883 has been in the networking industry for 20 years. He is currently a Principal Architect supporting the CX US Public Sector Business and Customers. Zig holds an active CCDE and two CCIE certifications, one in Routing and Switching and the second in Service Provider. Zig also holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from Park University. Zig is a father, a husband, a United States Marine, a gamer, a nerd, a geek and a big soccer fan. Zig loves all technology and can usually be found in the lab learning and teaching others. Zig is a published author now working on his second book, the CCDE OCG. He is the host of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast (ZNDP) where he interviews leading industry experts to talk about network design. All of Zig's content is located at https://zigbits.tech. Zig lives in Upstate New York, USA with his wife, Julie and their son Gunnar.

One comment

  1. Hey Zig

    Your 2020 Goal podcast was my favourite one so far. It was non technical but it was very personal – thank you for being so honest and sharing your thoughts with us geeks. Many of us will be in the same boat as you (introverted, not great communicators with loved ones, and not living a healthy life style). You turned all that on its head in one episode. Well done mate! I really hope that you get back on track in all things that you are planning to do.
    I hope to see you at CLUS in Vegas this year. The Melbourne Live got cancelled – but I had already made plans to go to CLUS for the first time.

    I think a network design course would be great – BUT -not to teach the traditional Cisco Access/Distr/Core method – but rather to take a fresh approach with SD Access (just as an example). I am finding it hard to undo 20 years of classic “design” and to adopt the DNA/SDA approach. And even worse than that – how does one migrate a brownfield setup to SDA in the smartest way.

    On a less serious note, how the heck do you get through the day without a single cup of coffee? An espresso based coffee is just pure bliss 😉

    Love your work
    Cheers

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