Zigbits 2020 The Pandemic year in review – ZNDP 073

ZNDP 073: Zigbits 2020 The Pandemic Year In Review

Zig Zsiga: Zigbits 2020 The Pandemic Year In Review Episode 73

Zig: Hey my friends we made it to 2021 Pat yourselves on the back that is a huge accomplishment 2020 could not have gone soon enough but guess what today is the first day we're in year 2021 and we got to start on the right foot today so happy New Year my friends hopefully you didn't stay out too late last night and hopefully you're getting into it and you can listen to a nice little happy New Year episode today.

Zig: We are going to do one of the most important aspects of goal settings today and that is the after-action report, the after action review on how we did with the goals we set out to achieve.

Zig: We need to be 100% honest with ourselves to ensure we meet the goals we set out to meet and then if we need to we adjust the course so. Which which actually means to make the necessary changes to ensure our own success towards those goals.

Zig: I like to call that reserve the right to change things as things shift. I always like to call this whole process attack your goals attack the day and make progress my friends.

Zig: So stick around because I'm going to show you how it's done we're going to jump into our after Action Report here and here we go

Zig: Welcome back my friends nerds geeks and ziglets out there we have another episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast where zigabytes are faster than gigabytes we strive to provide real-world context around technology

Zig: Hey what's up everybody? I hope everyone is doing great happy New Year it is the first day of 2021. 2020 is in the past we've made it we're moving on here and welcome to episode 73 of the zigbits network design podcast once again my name is zsiga I'm here to help you with network engineering, network design and network architecture and one topic we have to cover is goal setting. Specifically my after-action review process to ensure we either made progress towards the goals we set out to achieve or that we need to make some serious changes in our mindset and tasks so we can properly hit those goals.

Zig: All right so at the beginning of 2020. We had episode 49. Episode 49 was about 2020 goals and updates that's actually what I called it I started this episode one of the sayings I like to live by.

Zig: The best lessons are learned from failure so embrace your failures and learn from them

Zig: Pretty pretty impactful right like the best lessons are learned from failure. So embrace your failures and learn from them.

Zig: All right so we're gonna do a quick recap on our 2020 personal goals first and the couple that we're going to really great ourselves on is the first one is family and the second one is health

Zig: I had started out 2020 with family and health at top of my mind right I was losing weight I was doing really good in the health front and and the family I was hanging out the family doing the family stuff making it a priority. With the pandemic and literally this shift and how we did do everything, everything shifted.

Zig: Family maintained my top priority. Honestly, family was the number one top priority but with that said my health was not I don't know about you but I'm going to be fully open and transparent as always. I had been coping with all the stuff going on in 2020 and the way I've been coping with it is by consuming a ton of food and a ton of drinks and I'll be very specific food like sugary food and you know anything they did emotionally balanced out the coping mechanism with all the different changes of 2020 so I've been eating a whole bunch of junk food whole bunch of sugary treats and I do you name it I've been probably eating it and I shouldn't be and then drinks. I've been drinking a whole bunch of soda.

Zig: Honestly more often than not the occasional alcohol beverage so those are just things that has kind of happened in 2020 and honestly this stuff is not the best for me. and I know this, I don't do the best with sugary Foods I don't do the best with soda I don't do the best with alcohol.

Zig: Now in addition to just not not eating correctly I ended up not working out really at all like I had been before the pandemic I mean I was working out everyday and in 2019 even at the beginning of 2020 I was working out every day and then once we went School stopped and travel stopped and we had a redo our entire business how we function as a business.

Zig: I mean I just stopped taking care of myself and that's a problem. Here are some metrics, some numbers right before the pandemic actually hit I was at 215 pounds I was 15 pounds away from meeting my initial goal weight of 200 pounds.

Zig: 15 pounds I was so close today at the time of this recording again this is the first day of 2021 January 1st here I'm back up a 245 pounds so not at my highest weight of like 265 270 but I have some work to do here in 2021 and I need a swift kick in my butt honestly I need to reprioritize myself and working out and eating right and need to get back on my my goal of hitting that 200 pounds and then eventually hitting my end goal of 180-185.

Zig: All right so those are the only family goals personal goals with everyone call them and I like to give letter grades.

Zig: Real quick easy letter grades right so as for the letter grades here family would get an A minus, A plus some thing along those lines somewhere in that ballpark I always feel like I could do better as a father as a husband. I feel like you can always do better so that's why I kind of get myself an A minus.

Zig: And then health, gets a whopping C minus, like we're going downhill on that so I need a really good kick in the butt for 2021 and we're doing it we're not going to waste any time we're going to hit the ground running and we're going to hit those goals like we're supposed.

Zig: You know we got to adapt we have to adapt and overcome to the things that happen in our lives and I don't think I overcome I don't think I adapted and overcame appropriately for the health goal in 2020.

Zig: All right so let's focus on our zigbits goals let's kind of refocus on the 2020 zigbits goals we're into a recap and we're going to do the grading I think again on the zigbits schools to so.

Zig: Number one for 2020 we had a goal of being more consistent so again if you look at that episode 49 you can see that one of the goals the top one there was to be more consistent on content creation so the numbers I use there was in 2019 I created 15 pieces of new content

Zig: 15 those nine podcast shows and four YouTube videos that doesn't add up right that's not 15 so I must have missed something there those are the numbers I saw. That doesn't add up to 15 and adds up to 13 so I'd like to shy now.

Zig: Wait for it because in 2020 while it was the pandemic right it was the year of the pandemic. I created a whopping... a whopping 75 New pieces of content this year. this past year most of it over the last six months so 70 pieces of new content and roughly six months I don't even know what that math is. If I do 75 divided by 6 what's that math well it's more than eleven right so what's 6 times 12 I don't even know but 6 times 11 is a 66 right so I mean that's that's roughly eleven pieces of content every month I think I did that right you guys can let me know alright so let's summarize some of that content right.

Zig: 24 new zigbits network design podcast episodes 24 we had 45 YouTube videos. I held six free webinars. Six free webinars oh my gosh I was so busy man I was just making content like it was cool well it is cool honestly and then some other kind of facts right so that's content that like for that then I had I started the zigbits email list so if you don't know about that You can join the zigbits email list. I also near the end of 2020 created a Zigbits Discord community, so you can join that if you want to just chat with me live everyday you could chat with the group The ziglets the whole family here the whole Community where we're talking design we're talking technology shoot we're talking life and career and goals and we're talking everything this is we're not limiting what we're talking about.

Zig: But if you want to be part of that Community you can join the Zigbits Discord Server here. Both the email list and Discord server are free, go join it have fun if you want to be a part of that Community if you don't don't worry it's there for you whenever you need it

Zig: Some of the other stuff that I was doing this year that you don't you might not know about and how much work and content Creation in addition to the stuff that is public and free and out there.

Zig: I'm working on a course right I'm working on a network design course and if you want to hear more about that I do weekly updates to the email list if they do if you do want to hear more go here you can be added to the email list but specifically you'll be added to my weekly content email list for the course so I kind of give out a quick little spiel about hey this is what I'm doing this week and then on Friday so hey I hit I did these things and I didn't do these things and then I say hey you know next week is going to be this I'm going to do these things and you know and then the following week I tell you hey I did these things or I didn't do these things right accountability but also letting everyone know hey this where I'm at with the course you can join that here if you're interested.

Zig: So for the course content creation I did a whole bunch of stuff right so I want to be very clear branding which I had no idea about branding for the course I had an icon created an image I had an intro and outro animation created and I had PowerPoint slides created so three branding items created in 2020 an addition to The Branding things though I published and create a publisher just say published 18 course lessons for the course so 18 course lessons at the time of this episode this podcast episode and more I'm sure in the near future because I'm trying to get this thing out there for you to consume

Zig: 18 course lessons and that means I outlined the course I scripted it I recorded it and when I recorded it I and a lot of times are recorded video of Me video of my screen screen recording slides PowerPoint or slides or diagrams also different camera views as well depending on the need of the lessons so it's not as easy as just saying hey I'm recording audio like I am here on the podcast. It's actually a lot more work and a lot more work on the editing side as well to produce these course lessons but in addition I recorded I edited the the course lesson and then I fully published them in my early adopters group got to see them firsthand again I have a group of about 20-25 people that paid the early adopters price for the course which was $149 and they are getting the content literally as it's published for them and they get to review it and they get to tell me hey Zig you hit the mark here or hey Zig you suck whatever they feel comfortable they probably just say that every morning

Zig: But that's the point right that's the point I want, I want a group of people that's going to tell me hey this is good or hey this sucks and I want that real honest feedback to make sure because once this publishes officially to the masses to the group to you right. I don't want you coming back and say hey this sucks you know I want to make sure I'm hitting the Mark at least I best as I can hit the mark for everyone and make it really really outstanding and the value and and make you the best network designer you can be so this group is so critical in the success of this course but enough about the course right.

Zig: I created those 18 course lessons in addition to all the other content I created in 2020. So we do that math right that was we had 75 / approximately 75 New pieces of content created this year and then we also had 18 course lessons created so if you add that math I mean that's close to almost a hundred new pieces of content that was created most of it in the last six months I literally have been working my butt off alright so that was number one more consistent content I think I hit that Mark pretty well and we'll do the letter grade in a little bit when we're all done with these.

Zig: Number two is launch the zsiga show and I'll say this one morphed a bit in 2020 it was my Daily Zigbits Show on YouTube that I did so I instead of doing a podcast I went ahead and did some video shows on YouTube for a couple reasons. One because I wanted to focus on leadership and coaching and mentorship, things that I feel like I can't always focus on on this podcast show. I want to use a lot of my military experience and background and we don't talk about leadership, we don't talk about coaching and we don't talk about mentorship and I think we should. It's extremely important in every career and being successful and also helping others be successful. This was a daily YouTube series where I did 20 episodes, now these were weekday only episodes so Monday through Friday.

Zig: They were short little nuggets short little nuggets is not the right word short little segments I guess 3-7 minutes length really going through and identifying things that really matter and what you should really focus on. You can go take a look at them here.

Zig: I liked that content being created in the content creation process for YouTube video audio lighting, Editing of the video and audio, scripting out anything I wanted to script out which I don't really like scripting everything out it doesn't feel real to me if you script every little thing out I like to be real I like to be me and I'd like to be raw and when you script every little detail out it doesn't make it real now if you script yourself being real it's a little different.

Zig: But yeah so I did that for 20, 20 episodes or so and I had to stop I'll be honest I was going to keep going with it I was really enjoying it I was actually really passionate about it I was really loving the feedback and building this content and people looking for that content every morning. But I had to make a decision to stop it because I had too much on my plate and that's something that I do a lot as I have all these great ideas and then great idea fairy keeps coming and I'm like I'm going to do that and I picked that up and I start working it.

Zig: I don't know the impact of how much time it's going to take to do that thing in this case this was a pretty big time sink in the morning and I just didn't have enough time to do everything else I had planned or had vocalize it was going to do this year so I you know I did my last episode of this zigbits show not the podcast be very clear the YouTube Daily zigbits Show the last video episode of it number 20 and I said hey I'm going to pause this for a little bit because I have other things I need to focus on I got to be up some front and so I went back to focusing on other things like the course content creation and creating you know podcast episodes and I don't know a whole bunch of other things webinars what not.

Zig: Alright so the next one number three was luanch the first zigbits book so you know. I think with everything that we do when we set these goals out. We Don't understand the implications of how much work and time and effort is going to be to attack these goals and achieve them and in addition to that. We don't know what we don't know right so.

Zig: Those the zigbits book goal I have punted until 2021 at a minimum it might end up being in a 2022 goal right but I can't focus on so much right I have a very demanding day job I work at over a hundred hours a week at most weeks for my day job and then on top of that here I am spending you know another 20-ish hours give or take the a couple hours here they're on during the weeks, each week creating zigbits content so I only have so much time where I can create and build the content for zigbits and for you in and you know all the ziglets and all this other people in the community I only have so much time.

Zig: I had to be mindful of what I'm putting in that block of time and so for the time being the zigbits book is going to get punted until at least 2021 and we'll get the more on that what I plan to do for 2021 and a little bit, but I made that decision I reserve the right to change the goal mainly because of the next one the next goal, number four here.

Zig: Launch the first zigbits online course and here's where we're at with this I've been working pretty hard at creating this network design course that we talked about and again it's going to help everyone it's a literally going to help everyone and networking that's the whole point of it and you know I could do the whole Spiel right but again I don't think a lot of us never learn I think a lot of us never learn that were Design Elements until later in our careers I know for me it was probably your 12 or 10 and my goal is truly the fix that. I mean you can check out all this content. Everything is going to be focused on that, the podcast, the YouTube channel, this course and any additional content is going to be focused on design and if you want to hear more again that that email list to get weekly updates is here.

Zig: I'm not going to go through the whole spiel again but that's the whole point of that and because I'm focusing so much on this course I made the decision to move the book idea until this course is published and done.

Zig: The last thing here that I have is a goal was launched the zigbits email list which I did. This year I started the design digest, which was my name design digest which is a Weekly Newsletter that provides tools, tips, resources and really anything else that helps Network Engineers, Network designers, and network Architects so if I find something that helps I'm going to share it

Zig: It could be content, it could be a freebie item of some sort it could be a giveaway it could be anything I find right if it's something that's mine which I actually will have some paid content at some point you know I will tell you about it right but I will not be pushing it in your faces I will not be sleazy that is not who I am and if anyone thinks I am acting that way please send me a message let me know because that is not my goal at all I am not a sleazy salesperson I'm far from it so if you feel like that let me know send me an email at Zig@zigbits.tech and we can deal with it and I will adjust course because that is not who I ever want to be.

Zig: Alright so now for the letter grades right we're going to do a drum roll I don't have a drum roll button but we're going to do a drum roll all right all right so number one which was the more consistent content since June if we do a time frame since June 2020 I would give myself an A plus yes A plus, for the the entire year of 2020 I would give myself a B-.

Zig: A+ since June that's really good B- since January not the best you could be better could be better all right.

Zig: I had to learn a lot and then 2020 with all the other stuff going on number 2 was not the launch the zsiga show give myself an A plus all right I did this I did it for a little bit and then I give myself an A plus again like a bonus a place for realizing I had way too much on my plate I needed to pair down a bit so I give myself that okay.

Zig: You have the reserve the right to make changes as things happen we can plan and we can plan we can do goal-setting right but as things happen you have to reserve the right to make changes that make sense. Don't be hard on yourself I mean be real be honest. Understanding right and then if you had to push something push it right reserved the right to make the change.

Zig: All right number three launched the first zigbits book right. I punted this until 2021 or until my first course is launched so I give this an NA not not applicable we're not going to grade it right. We're not going to grade it

Zig: All right number four is launch the first zigbits online course we're going to give this a B- for now because I could have done more and done earlier in 2020 I had a lot of great ideas come into my mind again it's the good idea fairy right and when I have these great ideas on what yes I should do that right now. But I had prioritization issues and prioritize this goal for whatever reason also I didn't know what I didn't know about this entire process I don't know how much work it would be and what I would have to learn that they get a very beginning of the process I mean you're talking someone that's never done a video content ever really. And in learning video lighting editing a video. How to talk to the camera I mean I do and I'm not great I don't think at it put the whole point isn't just me talking the camera it's building content that's consumable but I mean this is a learning curve it's a learning it's a fairly big learning curve. Right and I didn't know what I didn't know and having to learn all this stuff and then take all that information and then and leverage it and put it into practice put it into real practice into real situations where I'm creating content that's video content and then editing it and then publishing it.

Zig: The course won't be launched in 2020 which yes right here we are in 2021 and I'm talking about it but the goal is to launch it in 2021. Specifically we're planning for February 2021 now that might slide a little bit depending on what happens but we are pushing hard on creating the course content, and again the goal is to have the first launched it will be a limited launch of the course may be the only to you who is listening right now. Maybe to the email list maybe to this Discord server or Channel I'm not sure but we want to get it launched in February 20 21 and might move to March based on the content schedule.

Zig: Number five number, five was launched the zigbits email list and I give myself an A plus I got this off the ground and running had some issues with my mindset the beginning of this process but I got it off the ground running good to go. So that was a review of our personal my personal and also zigbits goals of 2020 so all in all not bad the big the big kind of. One that needs a lot of work was my health goal honestly I need to refocus and realign my priority

Zig: Let's do some personal goals for 2021 while we're talking about it so family. I think I can always do better on the family side you know family is really what we're here for right it's our. That's why we're here I mean that's that's why we do all this so I would like to spend more quality time with my family one-on-one time to with my wife one-on-one time with my son really good quality family time and make it meaningful right and I also want to make sure. When I'm with them I'm with them and I'm not looking at my phone I'm not my mind's not on something else I want to be able to fully disconnect. From all this other stuff although the day job tasks all the zigbits content and really spend the time with them.

Zig: All right so the health front right this is the big one I need to refocus I need to realign my priorities to put here I need to put myself first I need more mental breaks and I need to disconnect from both work and family stuff. With the pandemic and you know honestly not leaving the house being an introvert it's extremely hard to recharge in this new world for me at least and maybe I'm talking for myself here only but like I've been finding it extremely hard to recharge and you know we have to dedicate the time to do this effectively are we will have serious coping issues and you can see that you know this is what happened to me I had serious coping issues in 2020 and so my goal for 2020 one is to address those coping issues I need to dedicate real time for me to recharge and that means disconnecting from the family honestly I you know working being being in the home all the time but then also doing the home stuff to it doesn't leave any chance to really disconnect and I need to I personally need to probably leave the house to disconnect at this point and I hate to say that but that's I need to leave the house for a bit to disconnect, maybe leave for an hour every day or two hours honestly all you need to go for a walk or go on a hike.

Zig: That what kind of you know hit two birds with one stone. Recharging as an introvert getting away from you know other people as an introvert but then also doing something physical doing something, walking and activity hiking running getting out and doing something like that would be helpful.

Zig: So that's for personal stuff I'm going to really make a change on my health side of things I got to do it because if I'm not around it's not healthy I'm not going to be around right so I got to make some changes serious changes to that.

Zig: All right so zigbits goals for 2021 one number one and we have five again I don't know why we went ahead and added five so there's some new ones here when there's some old ones.

Zig: Maintain consistent new content every week we're going to keep doing this right we're doing pretty well we got our zigbits Network design podcast we doing a weekly show now no longer bi-weekly we're doing weekly so hopefully by the end of the year we should have at least what is it 52 new episodes in 2021 well that's the goal right when every week and then also YouTube channel content right have a ton of ton of plans with myself content that put out on YouTube and then also other people and most likely this is going to probably happen once the course is completed right again I have a very finite finite time amount of time to create content so this will probably end up being more around the courses done I'm probably gonna take a couple weeks off of creating video content and then I will probably get back to the YouTube side of things to create some of that content

Zig: Number two is to publish first online course there it is I have a plan of attack for this right now we're Design This is the network design course and I'm planning to get the course published February 2021 once again assuming everything goes to plan if it does not go to plan that might slide a little bit into March

Zig: Next one is a new thing launch giveaways. All right so I need your help here too if you want to let me know what your thoughts are I want to start giving items away to this community to you to the Discord server to the email list whatever however I can do it

Zig: I want to give books I want to give courses on to give membership subscriptions coaching programs I mean honestly it whatever I can find that would be helpful I would love to give something away every month in 2021.

Zig: How would I word that we're going to leave it in I have some ideas but I would love to hear what your ideas are as well what do you want to see right where would you want as a giveaway and that's the whole point again anything that I would do would be something there I purchase or I would get based on my connections with people or anything that was donated right anyone that could donate something I would give it away and make it a free giveaway in ought to be part of that giveaway you either would have to.

Zig: You know like the Twitter account or join the Discord server or whatever share content something like that right some way to. Um get into the giveaway and then you'd have a number of spots in the giveaway and then I'll be a random draw. I like to do something like that every week or every month I need to be really beneficial and really helpful to the community and I think you'd like it I think you like free stuff right we all like free, free is my favorite color so I'm happy with free all right

Zig: Number four launch merchandise store! so you know I thought about doing this before 2021 but I honestly just didn’t have enough time with everything that's going on. Some of you have reached out to me asking for the zigbits Branded items so I'm going to create a merchandise store with some items. I had planned to redo the zigbits icon and so that's also another reason why I put this on hold but will knock this out fairly quickly I think in 2021 will get it out there and we'll get it so people can get shirts and hats hoodies and I'm a big fan of socks I don't know why but maybe we'll get some cool looking socks with the zigbits saying and icon and all that stuff on it also maybe get some of the the network design course icon and tagline merchandise as well so if you're not see if you haven't seen that that could be kind of cool and you might like it. I'm going to something to give away give it to you as a way to you know both. Market the content Market the brand but then also help help the brand help zigbits right help the team so

Zig: Number 5 we're going to identify and plan out the first zigbits book. I added the zigbits book here again right it's lower on the list of priorities and honesty emblem being a little bit more realistic here. I don't know what I don't know as I said and I learned this with going through the course content creation process. Right if I would have to think that there's a lot more to writing a book then I think so with that said I'd like to identify the topic that I want to write about and I want to run it effectively high-level outlines then I need to start figuring out all of the steps needed to write a physical book but I also don't want to stop there like I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right like that's just how I've always been the course of the same thing I'm going to do this I'm going to do it so. I'm not just gonna write a physical book alright the physical book I'll do the graphical outline cover image or whatever I'll also write an e-book to and he ebook version so if you know different different way you get a physical book any book but then I also want to do an audio book written as well I fought my thought there is if I'm going to create something a book in any form I want to create an all forms honestly and I think that's going to be a larger benefit to the industry.

Zig: That's it man that that's what the goals that's not that's that's a wrap right so we had the two personal goals family and health and then we had the five zigbits goals:
Zig: Number one maintain content consistent content keyword is consistent.

Zig: Number to publish first online course again that's plan for February 2021

Zig: Number three is launch giveaways and we already have to kind of giveaway ideas ready to go but we're going to launch giveaways like to do one every month in 2021

Zig: Number four is launch a merchandise store right again just a way for you to get some zigbits branded items.

Zig: Number five is to plan out that first zigbits book and get it get it started get it outlined and get the process understood and then start working towards that end goal

Zig: Hey Friends, nerds, Geeks, and Ziglets that's going to close out today's episode of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast where we discussed the network Design Technique Modularity. Keep in mind that Modularity is one of our Network Design Techniques that we all should know. We'll have all the links and all the things mentioned on our show notes page.

Zig: I think a lot of us never learn Network Design elements until later in our careers, and my goal is to fix that. You can check out my other free podcast episodes and YouTube videos that do just that!.

Zig: If you haven't’ heard yet, I am creating a Network Design course! Yep I am doing this, its a real thing and I am super excited about it! This course is a vendor and certification agnostic Network Design Course. My goal is to literally make you the best Network Designer you can be no matter where you are in your career today, be it just starting out or a 30-year seasoned network engineer. If you want to hear weekly status updates on where we are with this course, join the email list here. I send out a quick email every Friday highlighting what I did that week and what I plan to do the next week. If you are interested in knowing more, sign-up here!

Zig: We also have a Zigbits community on Discord! Come hang out with me and the rest of the Ziglets out there as we have live discussions around Network Design. If you are interested here is the direct link to the Zigbits Discord Server.

Zig: If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hi, You can find Zigbits on all of the socials: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook by searching for Zigbits. You can also find me on twitter @Zig_Zsiga. You can also email me at Zig@Zigbits.tech.

Zig: Don’t forget to #AttackYourGoals #AttackTheDay #MakeProgress on the things you care about!

Zig: As always I appreciate and thank you for listening!

Zig: Bye for now!