Youth Coaching
I am planning on completing some more coaching certifications next year. These include the USA Football 2026 Youth Tackle certification and the USA Wrestling Copper certification. I am still wanting to do Youth Football and Youth Wrestling next season. I think this will prepare me for a job that will be more beneficial for my anxiety and allow me to get back on track.
Goals in 2026
There are some goals that I have for 2026, and these include re-certifying for both my CCNA and A+. To re-certify for the CCNA, I will be working on doing the ENCC certification from Cisco. This is the CCNP level Enterprise Cloud Connectivity certification and covers cloud networking, SD-WANs, and VPNs.
I will be working on the A+ re-certification by doing the Network+ coming up in September 2026. Re-certifying for these two will drive my main goals this coming year. I also want to, as part of my training, do the AZ-104, AZ-700 and AWS Cloud Practitioner - Foundational certifications. These are some of the certifications that would be in line with the ENCC exam objectives.
Additional certifications that I will be looking at doing for the ENCC include the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, the AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty, the Google Cloud Digital Leader, Google Cloud Engineer, and the Google Cloud Network Engineer. In addition to these, there are some things like SD-WAN and VPNs that are on the exam objectives for the ENCC exam.
GSEC Studies
I will also be studying for the GSEC through five certifications that are in line with the GSEC. The five certifications that I will be doing are the Certified in Cybersecurity, Security+, CySA+, AWS Cloud Practitioner - Foundational, and the Network Defense Essentials certifications.
I have been working on some of these with additional studies; however, I want to do these five mainly at the end of 2026 or into 2027. For the certifications that I will be doing for the GSEC the Security+ is the most valuable. This will allow me to get some cybersecurity skills in addition to my computer networking skills.
Conclusion
I am starting to do more specialization-oriented skills that will make me more multi-dimensional. The ENCC might have to wait until later in 2026 as I will be studying more Azure and AWS training materials. I am also thinking about doing some Google Cloud certification prep as well. Planning on completing four or five IT Certifications and two to three youth coaching certifications.
The training for this year was somewhat unplanned, but I am adding more structure and want to work on the ENCC and GSEC certifications for 2026. There are some additional aspects of my training which include Sports Psychology, Sports Nutrition, Mental Health, Youth Coaching, AI Prompt Engineering, Docker, Kubernetes and some more Ruby programming.
New Beginning
This is the new beginning, the dawn of a new chapter. I have been working on Football, Wrestling and NFHS coaching certifications. The main reason that I am doing this is to extend my grandpa’s legacy in coaching youth sports which I am doing in honor of him. There are some altruistic benefits that I will be giving back to the community and to the students. I am working on more certifications in Youth Football and Youth Wrestling.
I am working on getting a volunteer coaching job for both Football and Wrestling. I already hold the NFHS Coach Level 1, and the 2025 Youth Tackle Football certification from USA Football. In addition, I have the Teal certification from USA Wrestling. This is a girls and women’s wrestling certification.
Sports Background
I was in Football from 1997 to 2004, which I did with Spartan Copper from 1997 to 1999 and went to high school at Eaglecrest High School in Aurora, CO where I did Football and Wrestling, graduating in 2004. I have been around football since 1996 rooting for the Denver Broncos and still occasionally watch the NCAA Wrestling Championships. I have done some time in Soccer and Taekwondo and work on my Tai Chi along with stretching three times a week.
I will be better able to work on my dream job, which is still the CIO, CTO or CISO role. Coaching will help me achieve my goals by being better able to train my staff and be a mentor to my future employees. Working with a sports background has helped me get back my life by doing exercises to help me not be stiff and to reduce my anxiety.
Technical Training
Life is not all roses and sunshine as I will still have some work to do on the technical training. I have got to a point where I don’t want to work on the MD-102 certification even though I have completed the training materials. I made this choice due to my interest level in learning more about Intune and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
I will be working on the Microsoft Certified Trainer designation, however. I’ve decided to pursue the AZ-104 instead of what I perceive as a more general certification in the MD-102. This is in line with my career goals, as I am going to study for the CCNP ENCC which is where the AZ-104 fits in.
Conclusion
I will be working on both the Sports Coaching certifications and the IT Certifications next year along with hopefully getting a volunteer coaching job with Spartan Youth Club and Eaglecrest Wrestling Club. I have been working on the NFHS Middle School Coach Level 1 certification and plan on getting the USA Wrestling Copper Certification next calendar year.
Conferences
I tried to go to the VR & XR Entrepreneurship conference however the link didn’t work as that was the day that the Cloudflare outage happened. The next day was the AI Small Business Summit, and the Eventbrite email system was down, and I couldn’t get into the event. They were both virtual conferences and I am planning on doing one or two per month.
Training
I have been training for the MD-102 and am hitting it hard so that I can get a better score on the exam. Having goals has put me working on the CCNP ENCC exam. This will be in about eight or nine months. The training that I am doing is more for my IT skill set and I am working again on the GSEC with an indeterminate goal as of now.
The GSEC is something that will help me out with one of my career milestones, the GIAC Security Professional. Working towards this will help my anxiety out over time. I am still working on the MD-102 and have scheduled the exam for December 4th, 2025.
TryHackMe
I am currently doing the SOC Level 1 learning path again due to the updates on this learning path. Through about 64% as of now. I am ranked all-time at 5151, in just the U.S. I am ranked at 626. Also have done 317 rooms with 47 badges and 39094 points.
Aaron W. DeJong
Being more engaged at my sole proprietorship has made me think more about sponsored links and some study plans to sell for one of my new projects. I will be doing mrcertification.tech as a website that hooks into Medium and Linktree and do another division of Aaron W. DeJong focused on certification related content.
I am also redoing the aaronwdejong.net website and should have both up in the next two or three weeks. The sole proprietorship is getting into more things like the study plans and sponsored links on my Linktree page.
Conclusion
There are things that I will learn from doing more with the CCNP ENCC and GSEC studying. I am pursuing more certifications and will be doing around four or five next year. These will include the Network+ and Certified in Cybersecurity at least. I did get resolution on the Udemy Streak issue, I am now at 183 weeks which is the highest that I have gotten.
I have some free tickets to two more virtual conferences in the next few months so we will see how it goes. I will put them off until I get to the event and will provide some synopsis of the conference and how I did with my anxiety. I am excited to start working on the ENCC and will be doing the certification that is mainly a cloud networking certification.
Go to my Linktree at https://linktr.ee/dejongaaron. Connect with me on social media.
Article
There is an article that I wrote on Medium called CCSI and MCT Technical Training. Click on the link below
https://medium.com/aaron-w-dejong-it-articles/ccsi-and-mct-technical-training-164500402d9f
The article is about the process of becoming a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and a Cisco Certified Systems Instructor (CCSI).
Conferences
I have been thinking about how best to market myself and my sole proprietorship and came up with the idea of doing virtual conferences. These conferences are sometimes having a free tier. I am interested in these conferences because they allow me to go as my sole proprietorship and they help my marketing in the industry.
I am going to attend two this month, which are the VR & XR Entrepreneurship Conference and the AI Small Business Summit. These conferences are about Metaverse technologies and AI technologies, and I am excited to go to them.
The VR &XR Entrepreneurship Conference is more about the Metaverse and the accompanying technologies. The AI Small Business Summit will help me get more of a business orientation on the AI technologies in a small business setting.
Training
I am working on the training materials for the MD-102 and am still on for the exam which I have scheduled for December 4th, 2025. The training is going well, and I just finished the second readthrough of the MD-102 book.
There are some things that I am studying for my Home Lab and some that I am working on as hobbies. Thinking about doing the Docker Certified Associate sometime in the future as this will help with the Home Lab.
CCNP ENCC
I want to do more Cisco stuff and came up with doing the CCNP ENCC certification as more of a longer goal to have in around eight or nine months. I am putting together the Study Plan and will share it once I get to a good point in my studies for the ENCC which doesn’t have a book for it.
I also am working on doing a recertification for next year and want to pass the Network+ for the recertification of my A+. Another one of my goals by the end of February 2026 is to take and clear the Certified in Cybersecurity certification.
Conclusion
Studies for the Certified in Cybersecurity will resume and I will be working on the ENCC exam knowledge through notes and courses. These are on SD-WAN, VPNs and IPSec along with how it relates to AWS, Azure, and GCP (Google Cloud Platform). There are a lot of training materials on the ENCC, just not a unified certification guide.
I will be doing some more video courses on Udemy, LinkedIn Learning and YouTube videos on the topics covered. I will be working on the AZ-104 next year in preparation for the AZ-700 which is somewhat covered in the training that I have selected.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Check out my Linktree at the link below!
https://linktr.ee/dejongaaron