Overcoming tragedy and joining the 5 certs in 5 weeks club!

David’s note: Sandip, this is the sweetest story that touches every emotion. Pain, struggle, hard work, hope, success, love, gratitude. You embody the best of SFDC99 and you’re an inspiration for me too to work harder on my dreams even if things don’t go as planned. I am not surprised by your success and I predict much more will come your way too!

Dear David,

I am really happy to tell the world my story on the most popular Salesforce blog. David, the only reason I have had this opportunity to put my words here is you and your amazing work spread by SFDC99.com.

Well 4 years back, I failed in my first technical interview for an internship project while I was in my final semester of my masters. The final words of the person taking the interview were ‘You can’t write a single line of code. Think about some other career options and stop imagining your career in IT companies.’

“You can’t write a single line of code. Think about some other career options and stop imagining your career in IT companies.”

I was very nervous and abandoned all hope. Though I had basic understanding of coding concepts, I didn’t code for any project or application. Maybe that’s the reason why I got rejected in the interview, I confess.

Motivational speeches helped me a lot to keep thinking in a positive way during this time. I thrived and successfully completed my thesis build on ‘Neural Network’, the most difficult topic I have ever worked for. Also, I joined a company as a trainee ASP.Net developer to learn programming on live projects. I was working all 7 days a week to manage both my thesis and company’s work.

After four months, I got an offer for Salesforce developer position. Since I was dreaming of a career in could computing, I decided to take the job. I prepared for the interview and got the job. The first few months passed and I began to understand just the basics of Salesforce. It was a daily practice for me to bookmark each useful link and learn Salesforce concepts from it after office work.

While searching for some help on Google, I came across SFDC99 and read through all of the pages within a day. ‘David Liu’ became my role model and I decided to be included in ‘5 Certificates in 6-weeks’ club after reading success story of Mayank and Adam.

When I began preparation and started gathering study materials in September ’15, my beloved sister passed away leaving me crying. It was really hard time to come back from the situation and look after my family. I was forced by conditions to quit my job.

“In September ’15, my beloved sister passed away.”

At some point, I had another chance to live my dreams. Days passed and everything came back to normal. I appeared in an interview again and was selected. My eagerness towards earning Salesforce certifications was still alive and my wife was well aware of this.

One day while discussing the exam and preparation plan, the discussion came to the end with a planned goal for ‘5 Certificates in 5 Weeks’ before July ’16. My wife sketched my schedule for preparation and compromised with an Anniversary Gift to arrange my exam fees at once for 5 certificates.

The actual preparation started and my days passed 14 hours working in front of computer screen: 8 while in office and 6 for SFDC exam preparation. I touched almost all of the ‘Help for this page’ links and the bunch of bookmarks created from my 3 years’ experience. The workbooks and ‘Limits & Consideration’ sections for each topic, Quizlet, and practice exams were also very helpful to pass the exams.

Finally, the day came on 22 July, I passed the Service cloud consultant certificate and entered into ‘5 certs in 5 weeks’ club.

At the end of my story, I would like to thank some special individuals who are directly or indirectly attached with my journey.

My God – I believe, He lives inside me, listen to me every time and He loves me a lot.

My father – He trusted me on every phase of my life whether it is about choosing the career option or allowing me to resign from government job before my masters.

David Liu – As a living inspiration, you have truly encouraged lots of people like me to learn SFDC and coding. David, you are the ROCKSTAR of Salesforce!!

Nishant Pradhan Sir – The leader who is known for his personality. Nothing I can say will ever convey the amount of gratitude, I owe to him for showing me how to have the right attitude.

My first interview taker – Thank you so much for opening my eyes to another beautiful life!

My wife – If I could, I would marry her thousand times.

Thanks,
Sandip Patel

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