Raheel Iqbal, CCIE #35290

I started my CCIE mission a year ago...initially i bought All access pass and went through some videos for couple of months...and went through lots of notes and books i had...then bought some time on racks and did few labs from workbook 1 and workbook 2 and attempted a lab in October and in the first hour of my lab, i was thrown out of Brussels....i only managed to do 2 tickets in the first hour..my mind was not in place.. plus i was under prepared...and only managed to do 5 tickets all together.. i knew i had failed.. and the remaining 8 hours i hardly did anything.. just sat their to take as much experience as possible.. couldn't even eat lunch properly.. although i planned to eat as much as i could to recover the cost... but was very down and couldn't eat anything.. anyway that horrible day ended somehow.. came back to London...and planned to rest for a month or so before starting again.. but i couldn't resist.. next day i planned again... i promised myself to go through the videos again for a month and notes...no time for books anymore...and then practised INE workbooks 1 and 2on GNS...i was very slow... in doing workbooks..after each and every task i would go through the explanation .. which really helped to understand the technology much better..i spent two months doing vol1 and vol2 on GNS.. and then did my revision again...went through ine deep dives.. very very very helpful... and then bought some rack time and practised Vol,3,4 ...i could feel i was upto the speed... and booked a lab in April again and aced it easily..!!!! what i learnt from this is.. there is no short-cut to CCIE.. atleast good 3-6 months of serious time and effort can get you a number.. INE products are amazing...i dont see any vendor coming close to INE atleast in R&S Track.. ;)