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Welcome to the final video in this course.

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Can you believe that we have been together now for twenty five hours.

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That is such a long time.

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I don't want this to end in this really hurts but this is what I really wanted to share the last kind

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of piece of advice and this is just the going away video and I want to talk about life advice and career

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advice and a lot of this stems from a blog post that I wrote talking about my journey into infosec.

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I'm going to link it in the references.

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Please go read it if you're interested.

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You don't have to is not obligated but please read it.

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It talks about how I went from an accountant to my first day on Help Desk to my first day as a pen Tester.

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And I did that in two years time.

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So if you're thinking man how can I do this.

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How long is it going to take me.

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It depends on your effort right.

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And it depends how long you how much time you can dedicate this how long you've already been in the

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field.

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There's a lot of little factors but if you want to read my journey I think it will be useful for a lot

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of you.

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So with that here is my career advice.

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First thing is you should always set goals and stay motivated.

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So when I talk about this I talk about setting goals however it makes sense for you.

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So for me I like to study.

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That's part of this job is you're always studying and if there's some topic that I want to do while

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also the date for it like say an exam for example there's a certification exam want to take.

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I'm going to go ahead and book that exam for that certification and say I'll do it a month out.

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Well that'll put pressure on me to get that done in that amount of time.

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I love having that pressure.

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I love feeling against the wall because that helps me study the most and I actually even did that with

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this course.

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It is December 22nd today and I said on public social media I'm going to have this course finished wrapped

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up by December 30 first.

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And I felt a lot of pressure a lot of late nights doing it.

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You know I'd been up for 4:00 5:00 6:00 in the morning recording these videos but I set that deadline

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for myself and I wanted to stick to it.

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So I always set goals for yourself and stay motivated and falls into this do not be complacent as well.

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You got to keep motivated in this course to be successful.

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Don't be complacent.

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I've met many good people in jobs and they're happy in these jobs don't get me wrong.

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But they're they're still working the job that they had five years ago.

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They they aren't you know they're not doing anything to move up and you know if somebody wants to stand

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helpdesk for five years 10 years that's them.

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You cannot be that person if you want to be an ethical hacker and you really can't be that person in

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life if you want to continue to move up in your career and be successful.

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It's okay to be complacent.

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It's OK to want to stay in the role if you're incredibly happy there but for a lot of us that have this

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mentality that make it into this field we do not have that complacency.

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You just cannot have it so absolutely stay motivated.

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Always want something more.

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Be hungry stay hungry.

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Want more.

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Never feel satisfied completely.

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You can be happy about achievements but don't always feel like you've you're there there's always something

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more to learn.

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Right.

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There's always something more to learn.

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You don't know everything.

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Don't act like you know everything.

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So that's really my harp on this and I won't harp on it too much more.

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So let's move on to the next one where you don't you should never be afraid to apply for a job that

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you're unqualified for because you're gonna be unqualified for every single job.

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The requirements on job postings are ridiculous.

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They're absolutely ridiculous.

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I would still to this day never have a job.

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If I looked at the job requirements and took them seriously.

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If you find a job.

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Interesting.

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Just go ahead and apply for it.

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What's the worst that's going to happen.

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They're gonna send you a rejection letter OK.

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That's fine.

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But you never know what's gonna happen until you apply.

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And I have found amazing job opportunities that I did not think I would ever get calls back for simply

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because I applied.

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And you have to you have to apply or you're never gonna get that job.

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So don't look at a job description and just be like yeah that's that's not for me I'm never gonna get

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this.

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So what you might be right but so what if they reject you it's just a rejection letter.

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It's not a big deal now let's say that you do get to an interview.

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There's a couple of things that I really want you to focus on when you're in the interview.

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One is always be willing to admit that you don't know.

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Don't be the person who sits there and tries to guess at questions and just say look I don't know the

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answer to this but I am willing to learn.

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And if you say that entire interview it's going to look so good for you.

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I'll give you an example.

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There was a interview that I had that was for a network engineer position and I was coming off help

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desk.

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I was working network administration but I was working through Cisco more Iraqi type work which is all

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on a gooey interface.

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And this shop specifically was a CCMA type shop a Cisco command line type of shop and I had no experience

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with that whatsoever.

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So a lot of these questions that they were coming at me with were questions I had no answer to at all.

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And I told them I said Look I don't know the answer to this but I I'm going to learn it I will learn

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it for you.

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And this is something that comes up in interviews too is you might have an interview where you don't

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know the answer to a question always write it down if you don't know the answer.

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Write it down because guess what.

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And the second interview they might ask you that same question again to see if you actually went back

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studied it and came back having additional knowledge that you didn't know from the last time.

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And this also falls into place with be willing to prove yourself.

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There are multiple jobs not only the job with the network engineer but my first job as the Help Desk.

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I had zero experience zero certifications whatsoever.

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I was unqualified for that job.

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And I told them I said Look I really want this job I'll take less money let me prove myself to you that

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I am the right candidate for this job.

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And sometimes it takes saying that to an employer to have them to take a chance on you.

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I've I've taken less money.

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I've said I've said you know I don't know I've I've proved myself in many situations.

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And that's really you gotta you gotta get your foot in the door.

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And then you can work and worry about working your way up.

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So always be willing to prove yourself.

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Always be willing to admit your flaws and your honesty is going to take you very far in life.

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Now when you're looking for jobs you should always determine what you want from a job and only apply

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to those that meet your criteria.

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The more I grow up in this field the more picky I get.

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I would not take a job anymore that was not remote.

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I would not take a job under a certain salary.

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I would not take a job that required me to have a poor work life balance.

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Life is too short.

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You should take those criteria into account.

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Don't just apply to anything and everything.

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A lot of people take this and I think it's a mistake.

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Your job you should be patient unless you are completely broke and you absolutely need to get something

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right now.

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Then I would be patient with your choice.

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Make sure that the choice that you have has a good manager something that you want to do and something

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that you're going to be happy at.

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The happier you are in life the better you're going to feel the better your work's going to be everything

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around you is going to be better right.

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You got to make sure that the job you're going to work for is the job you really absolutely want.

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Don't just take it for the title.

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Don't just take it because it's a job unless you absolutely have to.

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Now with that out of the way you should always strive to be the dumbest guy or girl in the room always

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if at any point you feel like you are the smartest person in the room.

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It is time to move on from that job.

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You should always be in a situation where you are learning something if you're not learning it's time

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to go.

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OK.

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And if you surround yourself with talented people and let me tell you this field is full of talented

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people and there's a lot of career fields where they're full of talented people soak up that knowledge

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ask them questions learn and then be at the same time be the person who is willing to share that knowledge

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back to the people below you as you move up.

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But you should always strive to be the dumbest guy or girl in the room because it will take you really

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far in your career and you will learn so much from so many smart people.

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Lastly network network network I went to business school for six years and the one thing that I took

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out of every single class was to network with people when I was getting into the field of ethical hacking

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and penetration testing.

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A lot of it came down to who I knew.

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I've had multiple jobs now in this field because of who I knew.

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Join a discord channel.

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Join a slack channel.

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Make friends.

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They could be virtual friends but if you prove yourself to people you make these connections.

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You never know these seeds that you're going to plant when they're going to grow when they're gonna

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pop up and when they're going to pay their dividends back to you.

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So always meet people you know you don't have to be an extrovert to do this.

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Just go out there and try to make friends in the industry.

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Just be somebody that people know and you're going to find that doors open for you a lot quicker and

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there's going to be a lot more doors open for you.

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So I hope this advice is useful for you.

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I really hope you enjoyed this course.

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I'm going to miss you guys.

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Hopefully you know I see you around you leave you know leave feedback for me let me know if you love

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the course.

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If you hated the course I'm always open to it and criticism helps me grow so I'm always welcome to that

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as well.

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So you know look at the bonus video if you haven't already check out some of the resources that I have

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available out there.

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There's a lot of free resources a lot of things that I do out there that are completely free to you

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and just you know helps towards getting people into this field and in you can stay in contact with me

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as well.

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So I'd love to hear from from former students current students etc. So thank you so much for for being

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on this journey with me for twenty five hours together it's a long time hopefully I haven't annoyed

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you to death but I really do appreciate you being here so I am signing out my last video thank you everybody

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so much and until next time my name is Heath Adams and I really do thank you for joining me.