My name is Samir Verkuijlen, and I am a so called life enthousiast, if that’s even a word haha. I love to push myself to see what this life has to offer me. This by challenging myself and stepping out of my comfort-zone. To make this more clear, let me tell you a short story about myself.
Who Am I
I’m a passionate IT specialist, that loves to write & speak about technology and I’m also the author of the website & channel vSAM.pro. I have worked as a consultant for lots of different companies in the field of IT for almost 10 years. Since the beginning of 2021, I’ve started my own company calles “vSAM Consultancy & Solutions”, and I’ve been working as a freelance consultant since then. If you want to know more about me professionally, check out my LinkedIn profile.
In 2014 I finished my studies in IT (Network Infrastructure and Design & Security). One of my highlights during my studies was my first Intersnhip in The USA and my graduation internship on the beautiful island of Curaçao. But before all of that or even before I developed my interest in technology, I actually wanted to become a sport teacher. At the age of 17, I finished my secondary school in the Netherlands. I finished the school with good grades, but there was nothing that I was really talented at, except for sport. Since I thought that sport and my social skills were the only talents that I had, I applied for a study to become a sports teacher. But after 7 hours of enduring tests and combatting with other participants, I got rejected. Since I was one of the youngest participants at that time, they told me to try next year, when I trained some more and got a bit older. So not knowing what to do, I started out to work as a salesman in an electronic store. I would earn some money, save it, and train myself for the tests of next year. As the year went by, my interests in technology began to grow and I acquired a lot of new skills, in particular my selling skills. After 1 year of working at the electronic store, I realised that I had more talents than the grades or subjects that were presented on my secondary school, but also that I didn’t have to become a sport teacher only because I thought that was the only thing that I could do.
So I skipped the tests and in 2009 I challenged myself by starting a study I didn’t knew anything about. I chose a 4 year bachelor in Information and Communication Technology, called Network Infrastructure Design, Forensic & Security. It didn’t take long before I realised that I was one of the worst students of all the students in my studies, haha. But after one year of hard work, grinding and persistence, I also learned that I was also one of the few students that was still left. After that first year, things became much easier and my passion for IT and technology in general began to grow, as did my mindset that hard work does pay off.
Expanding my Comfort-zone
During that 4 year period, it was mandatory to do 2 internships of 5,5 months. So I saw this as a great opportunity to step out of my comfort zone once again. I decided that instead of choosing the easy route and doing an internship in my home country, I would go to the USA and do my first internship there. After almost 7 months of trying, I still didn’t have a work visa or an internship arranged in the USA. So I decided to change my approach. I found out that foreign students could work for a school with only a student visa, as long as they were still studying there. I searched for the biggest school that I could find and arranged a student visa. Once I was there I used all of my social and selling skills to get an internship at the school that I applied for. After selling and proving myself, I got my first internship in the USA and eventually finished it with an A-, or in dutch terms, a 9.
Connecting The Dots
Since that time I realized that you can become anything and do everything that you want as long as you work hard, are not afraid to fail and just keep trying. That is the mindset that I got after that time and that is the mindset that I still carry with me. This is also the best way to describe myself as a person, and the goal and message of this site. I also learned that a lot of things that we perceive as “bad” or “undesired”, can lead up to something much greater. Or as one person once beautifully said:
You can’t connect the dots looking forward,
You can only connect them looking backwards
~ Steve jobs
If I didn’t fail at my first test, my whole life would have been totally different, and I probably wouldn’t be doing what I am doing right now, or experienced anything that I just told.
So, now that you know me a little bit, I hope that through this and this website I can inspire you to try out new things, expand your comfort-zone and help you to enjoy the process that we call life.
Samir
