Trust ?? ……. One of the delusional watchword for people who think they are even to be trusted in the first place 🤣
This memory dump is being split into 3 pieces;
- The paradigm shift: This is probably the first act of manifesting, believing and speaking positively outright to yourself.
- The plan is the plan: No matter what if there is a plan follow it through even if it yields 1% profit, a plan is still a plan.
- The right people are still not good people: ohhh, you never knew ??, Not every good person is the right one for you!! hehe.
The paradigm shift
I remember days where I would always genuinely crash out to my mum, It felt like I was behind, like really really behind, even though I had the CRTP and the CPTS had that time, enough to land me a great-not-so-fantastic job, but everything I tried would just never work!!
I would wake up in the morning;
- Go to my 9-5 job with N350k/monthly paycheck
- Work on projects on ground (web pentest, network pentest, Active Directory pentest or sometimes travel to another state to run whatever pentesting project was on ground)
- 8-10 hours of my day is gone already and still need to beat Lagos traffic to go back home
- Resume back to playing attack-defense boxes for my OSCP exams preparation
- Apply to few open remote roles and cold DMs to HRs, Team leads, Line managers for opportunities
- Sleep, Then Rinse & Repeat!!
This was a typical routine of a 19 year old that just honestly wanted to grow, I just wanted to be so good at hacking like n1ghth4wk or muzec or R4t etc, people I have watched hacked things, I wanted experience so bad I was running a contract for a startup as a Web app pentester with this full time hybrid role which required me to be on premise at least 3 times a week.
I won’t even lie, the job was fun, but the culture ?? Hell nah, Just didn’t work for me so I quit!!
This was where manifestation came in, I told my mum I would quit lmao, she was like; “Ola, you are 20, you are still in school, This people gave you a chance, why would you want to quit, No degree, Just certifications, are you going to be this lucky to get your next job”.
Lot of questions came out that day, but to be honest, it felt like a beast finally got awoken in me, I told my self I was never gonna be treated that way again, told myself I would try my best to be in a position where I would always have choices, I was so Intentional and the only reply I gave my mum is that I would lock in bug bounty hunting full time, hehe.
I WAS SCARED BUT CONFIDENT
I never knew how I was gonna rock the next few months left off 2025, All the people I spoke to never got to understood me, I was loosing my mind gradually!! But sometimes YOU are the only person who is in the best position to understand yourself and to make things work out for yourself, meaning you are the only person who not only need to start taking action but to manifest and tell yourself that your ACTIONS must WORK!!!
Fast forward few weeks after, A long time OG called me, Told me “Ola, I am building a team of quality Application Security Engineers in a fintech and I would want you to be my web app and cloud (azure) pentest go-to guy”. This felt surreal for me cos I had total faith in myself that somehow I would get my sanity back.
Well, I did the interview and it was splendid, secured their cloud infrastructure blocking things like Privilege Escalation via Group Cloning, Unrestricted SharePoint Site Enumeration, Microsoft Teams Channel Email Accepts Messages from Anyone and a lot more, It was fun and I really enjoyed it considering I was working with one of the best devsecops engineer @saintmalik_ I have met in my life also, the line manager was a splendid person and a very disciplined friend of mine, The web pentest aspect was interesting also, had several account takeovers including a two remote code execution. It felt like life was starting to make sense for me, Hitting the 7 figures threshold I set for myself at the beginning of this year + bug bounty in the works behind the scene, with a full time remote role, Not even gonna lie; One of the best organizations I have worked with all my life!!
I MANIFESTED AGAIN!!
This was were everything changed for me, An organization a trusted friend referred me to in 2023 reached out to me one afternoon in 2025 around September and told me they would give me a Security Consultant role, I was so excited because to be very honest, I so much love remote roles, it gives me the opportunity to grow while learning alongside including a clear head to give my all to whatever organization it is.
They were willing to pay me twice my previous 7 figure earnings and I truly know I am worth more than that, but yeahhh, This was another opportunity to grow with A brand new team, A brand new environment, A brand new mindset and more Interestingly A brand new paycheck.
I was on boarded quickly it felt like a dream to me and trust me there is more!! marking me as the first Nigerian on the list of employees in the organization
It been 3 months in this fantastic organization and I have worked on several projects including internal and external, even got a full account takeover on a pentest recently hehe and I love and respect my manager so much, a cool and straight forward human for real.
This is probably the best result of manifestation, telling yourself and letting the people around you know that you are the best at what you do and you can always give your all in action and character, Not just prayer but every morning you wake up, look at yourself in that mirror and tell yourself, you are a beast at what you do and you would make it and that you would do this thing to take yourself out trenches, envy no MAN!!!
The plan is the plan
A plan is a plan no matter what, as far as there is a result, even 1%, you stick to it!!!
My mum’s favorite bible scripture is Habakkuk 2:2-3 :
KJV : And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
I love my mom so much, you won’t even know to what gravity, My character today is built on 75% off my mum’s discipline, she would always tell me this every year and tell me to write down my goals in a plain text paper with ink and keep a copy digitally if I want to but the one with ink on a paper must be pen down.
It was a way of telling yourself you have to checklist all of this whether or not you like it, it just some how has to work!!
I would apply to jobs without no response, I would just spray and pray lol, but this never worked out, No acknowledgment, No replies, No feedback, No interview invites, No rejections, It was like I was shooting blank;
UNTIL I MADE A PLAN
I would draft my resume template with latex template from https://www.overleaf.com/ and started to apply for roles, sooner enough I was getting rejections lol, the rejections were too much I knew I was making a wrong decision somewhere but this was progress lmao, a big progress because I now knew were the mistakes were coming from.
I started to target specific people in my niche and would build relationships on discord by joining voice channels to connect with like minded individuals, would cold DM CTOs, Team leads, Senior penetration testers asking if they would be free for interview like questions just to build relationship and see if they were willing to put me on, genuinely this almost led me to getting a job at capital one, but the location problem gave me out.
This was the perfect strategy that worked for me and put me in where I am at now including landing me an interview at Meta, because I was no longer bombing jobs with constant rejections but was moving strategic rather.
To whoever out there with a plan that yields just 1% daily, stick to it and build on it, to something great, you never know what small progress is shaping till you hit the jackpot!!
The right people are still not good people
YES, You read that well, brings me back to the statement of TRUST; “One of the delusional watchword for people who think they are even to be trusted in the first place”
If there is something 2023 to 2025 has taught me, it is finding FORM in GROWTH. I don’t think you understand me just yet, I said you have to find “FORM in GROWTH”!!!
Yes, to my young self or whoever has gotten to this part of this blog, Please don’t out shape yourself while trying to grow, be careful of who you let into your life, who you give your peace to, who you open up to, who you tell your secret, who you choose to confide in, all of this matters, don’t allow chaos into your peace, don’t ever risk chaos for peace.
I met few Interesting people in between this years, some people that I cut off early, some people who felt like they were chill from the start then started tweaking, even people who came plane to me, I was battling chasing my dreams, I was already working for a organization in Abuja at 18 and someone looked upto me and talked bull shit on my experience, lol, All those never meant anything to me but it motivated the hell out of me, Gave me confidence to enter any room and sell my self in as much as we are dealing pentesting.
Throughout this years I was young and fragile, I was learning, learning to love, learning to be loyal, learning to be patient, learning to give my all without anything in return, but things has changed now.
I don’t longer give my time to people who don’t reciprocate, I don’t longer sit with low negativity and buzzkill individuals, I don’t give my love to those who never showed it at first, I don’t sacrifice myself for people who would still not consider you in any circumstances.
Lest I forget, here is a piece of advice for someone out there;
Watch out for people who would mourn with you on your worst days and are no where to be found on your best days.
This is a psychology issue lmao, some people can’t genuinely handle success and they just tend to shower it off on you with attitude but when you are not alright they would show up to cheer and tell you that it will be fine, hence it actually get better, where as they are never happy for you low key. yeah, you read right, this set of people exist and it is better to always Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41)
Greater 2026 to YOU!!
Written by : A Trench Kid
