Turning Small Steps into Big Dreams

How's it going? Everyone? This is another security unfiltered mentorship episode. So it's been a while. It's been quite a while.

I think the last one of these that I did was sometime in August or something like that, after DEF CON. And, to be quite honest with you, you know, ever since DEF CON I've just been burnt out because for that conference it was nothing but meetings. I barely even attended any of the talks or any of the villages. You know. I mostly met with vendors interested in potentially, you know, becoming partners with the podcast and sponsors of the podcast and whatnot, and meeting people to get new, more interesting guests on and whatnot. You know, lots of, I guess, business development, if that makes sense, you know. So the trip overall was very much worth it, but it's.

I got into this state where I basically needed a vacation to recover from my vacation, because my vacation was so, you know, jam packed with everything and especially, you know, it's in Vegas in the summer, so it's really hot out and the traffic was insane because construction is everywhere getting ready for the F1 race. This is even back in August, you know. So it's just a lot going on. And, you know, right after DEF CON I went and did the CISSP certification. I passed that certification and then I started to study for the AWS security specialist certification, so I already got it. I got it like three years ago but it was up for renewal, so I have to. I still have to retake it, but you know I'm working towards it, along with everything else that I have going on in my life. You know, I just got a little bit burnt out, you know, and, to be completely honest with you, you know I just needed to like take the month of October off from you know, mostly from the mentorship episodes, but also I didn't really record that many episodes in September. Everything that was released in September was, for the most part, you know, already recorded and edited and everything else like that.

But with that being said, I am back, you know, and I think today's episode will be interesting. I think, you know, I think people will find it valuable, or at least I hope that you all will. And you know, pretty soon here I'll be announcing a new sponsor for the podcast, so that's very exciting. And also I'm also speaking at the Sonarize Security Access Summit on October 12th. So if you want to, you know, register for it, it's free, go ahead and listen to all the different talks, gain some information, gain some knowledge.

You know, these are the little extra things that we talk about in this podcast that will eventually set you apart from everyone else. You know you taking the initiative, going to these talks, learning about new topics, seeing how other people present them, what's evolving in the field, and then taking that back to your workplace and really showing it, improving it and, you know, really grinding and working on your craft. That's what's really going to separate you from the rest of the pack at the end of the day. So today I really wanted to talk about how to stay motivated to achieve your dreams. You know and this is it's interesting timing right, because I just talked about how I was burnt out I was a little bit burnt out because I needed a little bit of a break, but I wasn't burnt out because I wasn't motivated. There's a huge difference when you're not motivated to achieve your dreams or achieve your goals or progress your life or your career. You know, it's very easy for humans to become complacent. It's very easy for you to hit a certain salary or income number and immediately say, okay, I'm set right, I'm set, I'm good here, they're not going to fire me. They're not going to get rid of me. You know, you can come up with a million reasons and I bring this up because you know I have a.

I have a good friend of mine that Reached out to me with this exact problem. You know, he told me that he's not motivated to do any work at work. He's not interested in the work that he's doing. It's not challenging him, he. You know, he's basically in a situation where he can coast and get by and everyone Really loves him being around, everyone loves him at work. They think that he does great work which I'm sure he does, there's no doubt about it but you know, he is not motivated at all to do any of that work. So he really only does what he has to do to get by. And you know, one of one of the things that he said was well, I'm already making Decent money. They're not gonna fire me. Why should I continue to push myself?

You know and this really comes back to what your vision is for your life you know, this year I started this mentorship series Really to help people, you know, defeat issues like this and navigate issues like this right. The reason is because and you know, the reason is because I get these questions a lot, and so the place that I always tell people to start is Well, what's your vision for your life? You know what. What do you want your life to look like at the end of your life? How do you want that to look? Do you want to have an easy life at the end of your life? Do you want to be able to take your grandkids on a trip around the world? Do you want to be able to, you know, not have to work at Home Depot or Walmart or whatever might be. There's nothing wrong with working those jobs. But I guarantee you, if you ask those people in their in their 60s, if, when they were in their 20s, that they plan on working here when they're, when they retired, they probably would have said no.

So how do people actually end up there, you know, and it's really without having that vision, without having that plan. You know someone said before right, no one plans to fail, they fail to plan. You have to have a plan, you have to have a vision in your head of what you want your life to look like now. For me personally, I Really wanted, I really want an easy life. At the end of my life, when I retire, you know, I'll still probably work in some capacity, maybe doing consulting or something like that, but it's not gonna be no, nine to five. Right, it's gonna be doing something that I love, which is security, but I wouldn't want a nine to five, if that makes sense, you know, and Based on that, right, you know, another part of my vision is, you know, being married, having grandkids, having kids you know all of that sort of thing and and having them live a comfortable life, comfortable in terms of you don't have to worry about the money.

You know, like, if you want to go, and you know, play baseball, play hockey, play whatever, right, you don't have to worry about asking, you know, me for the money to get your new shoes or whatever it is. That's something that I went through as a kid and I don't want my kids to ever have to go through playing simple, and so that is all a part of my vision. And so now you look at what you're doing present day and you say am I doing Everything that I can right now to make that a reality? If the answer is no, then you should probably change something, right, if it's? If it's yes, then good job. But you know there's a lot of us that you know say that, oh yeah, you know I'm working towards this thing, or you know I want this thing. It's really easy to say that you want something right. It's very easy to say it. Words are cheap, cheap, right, actions are expensive.

You know, I used to, I Used to be friends with someone that would always complain about his job, and the complaints of his job Was really about the complaints of his industry. You know, he was in the marketing field and he hated it. He hated basically every minute of it. He did not enjoy it at all. He wanted to get out of it. He wanted to make a career change.

This person is like 30 years old at the time, right, very young, early on in his career. I would say Still a lot of time to make a change. And you know, go from there, right you. And for years he said he wanted to get an IT. He said it and my only response was well, hey, you've been talking to me about this for three or four years now. At this point, what are you doing to get yourself an IT? Because if you were doing anything, if you were doing the right stuff, you'd be an IT by now. You would be an IT, you know. And he had no answer. He had no reply, right, and so that just goes to show you. You know, talk is very cheap. The actions are expensive, because that's where you have to put in the time, that's where you have to put in the effort, that's when you have the late nights, that's when you know you're beating your head against the wall because you can't figure out this problem, because you've never encountered it before and you don't even know what to Google, because you know you don't even know what is going on. Right, how do you work through those situations?

And it's critical for you to not just have your vision down and have it understood and really ingrained in you, but it's also very important for you to also have your goals, you know outline for the entire year. Like I said before, you have to have different goals that fall under different categories. Could be your faith, religion, could be your personal self-development, your business, your career. You know career-focused development. Maybe you wanna learn how to code in Python. Maybe you wanna learn Golang. Maybe you wanna get a certain amount of certifications or whatever they might be. All of those things.

You need to write them down At the very beginning of January. I'm talking, you know, the very first week of January. I'm gonna be honest with you, the last week of December, maybe the last two weeks of December, I'm starting to write them down right, I'm starting to at least think about it. At a very minimum, and no later than the second week of January, are my goals for the year, you know, written down right, like they're always written down, and I'm already moving towards them by the second week of January. And you know you have to write them down right. I hear this a lot, right, and a lot of people miss it. They don't wanna write it down, for whatever reason. And I think it's because you know it's a method of holding yourself accountable to yourself, right, because at the end of the year, when you look at those goals and you say, oh, I didn't do this, I completely forgot about this, I didn't even do this or work towards this or whatever it might be, you know that is frustrating and then that really should it should at least, you know, force you to do better next year and maybe you take those goals that you didn't complete and you move them into, you know, the following year, which is something that I'm gonna be doing. Actually, whatever I don't complete for this year on my goal list, we'll just move on to 2024, along with all the new stuff that's coming in 2024. You know? And so, along with that, how do you achieve these goals?

You know, the best way for me that I have found is that on my work calendar, specifically my work calendar, because Monday through Friday, nine to five, you know, my schedule is run by my work calendar, and so I put in just an hour every single day, five days a week. That says training, right, and I tell my manager what it is like. Hey, that's for me to study for a certification. Maybe I'm gonna learn a new skill, maybe I'm learning, you know, a new technology or whatever it might be. But that's for me to get better in my own career. And he knows, don't book anything during that hour, right, it's right at the end of the day. And so sometimes, yes, it's a little bit difficult to get to it and I may miss the day, you know, because I had a busy day or whatever might be going on. I just don't feel like doing it. But you know, the following day I'm right back into it. I'm doing something To build myself up to achieve that goal and whatnot.

So you know, like a lot of us in IT insecurity, we have to get Certifications pretty, pretty often. You know, we have to be brushing up on our technical skills. Pretty often we have to be aware of all the different technologies and whatnot that are Evolving in the field, all the different attacks and things like that. We have to be reading up on all that stuff. All of that can go into that one hour. You know, and maybe you, maybe you read a couple articles in that one hour. It's not you working within whatever tool or whatever project you have for your nine to five, but it's kind of a blend. You're working on yourself. You're also working on Making things better at work, right for your company, and so it's a win-win in my opinion.

And that's just setting aside an hour a day. You know, just an hour a day, it's nothing crazy, right? And that one hour a day that you spend is based on the goals that you set. So, for instance, I set a goal of game I see ISP this year for an hour a day. From June all the way until the second week of August roughly, I Studied for an hour, at At least an hour there were sometimes I went a little bit more, but every single day I studied for an hour, five days a week. I typically didn't study on the weekends. Sometimes I didn't even study on Fridays, but you know, I still got it in. I took notes, I paid attention and At the end of my studies I wouldn't achieve my certification. I passed the certification right, and now I'm gonna do it again with the AWS security specialist and the AWS solutions architect associate. So it just goes to show you, you know, that just an hour a day can help you make improvements and strides towards that goal. You know and I Personally, I listened to a lot of podcasts.

Right, I listened to a podcast with David Goggins and he said you don't have to be doing insanely difficult or uncomfortable things Every single day for you to be better. You can do just one thing, one small thing that takes you a little bit out of your comfort zone, makes you a little bit uncomfortable Every single day, and you'll get better, right? You know the the reason for that is that for us humans, it's very easy for us to get into a comfort zone, to get into a place where you know you're good. You don't really want to, you know, do anything else. There's no need for you to venture out or anything like that, and so you get comfortable, you get complacent, you stop learning, you stop pushing yourself, you stop learning new technologies, you stop learning different processes and skills and you know all the different facets that make up it. You stop doing all that and you focus on the one thing that you have deemed that you're good at. Now this, this probably doesn't sound like a problem of 50% of the time, right, because what if you find something that you're good at and then you go all in on it? Right, and you're really good at it? That's great.

But you could also very likely be pigeonholing yourself in a company. And I'll give you an example. I have a good friend of mine that I worked with him for a year and he was at this company for 25 years, literally, quite literally his entire career and he's had the same manager his entire career there and he only did maybe one or two things. He was known as, like the office clown office. You know, jokester, he he was absolutely very funny. You were gonna have a good time when you were hanging around with them, you weren't gonna get much work done. And yeah, that's basically what it is. And he was good at handling, you know, very easy things that, like you know, year one IT help desk people can be resolving right. That that was just what he did.

He never really pushed himself beyond that, and no one at the company pushed him beyond that either, because he said, well, if I'm here and everyone likes me, they're not gonna get rid of me, so why would I do anything? Why would I take that time? Why would I take that extra energy and effort and, you know, learn all these different things when they're not even going to use me for it? They already told me that what I'm doing now is the only thing I'm ever gonna do here, and I'm fine with that. And they even told him we're never going to give you a pay raise. We'll give you a bonus, but we'll never give you a pay raise. You're never gonna be put on, you know, new projects. You're never gonna be handling new technology like that. You're gonna be doing the exact same thing that you've been doing all the way until you retire at this company.

To him that sounded great. To me that sounds very risky. Very risky, because what that means is that that company can easily Remove you from their company and not even notice that you're gone. Now look with probably 90% of us, right, they can do that. You know, I work for a large automotive manufacturer. Right, I'm one of like 700,000 people at this company. Are they gonna worry if I get, you know, hit by a bus or something? They'll probably feel bad for me for getting hit by a bus, but the company is not going under. That's the thing, right?

And so, you know, hard times came on the market and this individual got laid off. The one thing that he never expected to happen to him happened, and now he's in the situation of reinventing himself. Right, because he had it made up in his mind they're never gonna get rid of me. They like me, you know. So why am I gonna do anything extra? And so now he has to learn, you know, things that he should have learned 20 years ago, right, he has to not only get caught up on the tech that has evolved since he got into the field. He has to then learn all the new stuff that's coming out that everyone else would be learning, and he has to create new skills, you know, learning how to code and everything like that. It's gonna be very difficult for him and you know, luckily, right, he has a little bit of runway in his savings and whatnot. He got a you know very good, a Very good you know package when they laid them off and whatnot you. But still you're still under the gun. At the end of the day, you're still in a situation where you don't have money coming in and you don't have the skills that match the current industry, and so you're in a bad situation. You see, he got comfortable.

You know you, doing an hour a day studying for a certification may not be the most uncomfortable thing in the world, but To 90% of the other people in your shoes, it is uncomfortable. You know, I've, like I just said, I've been friends with some people for years and years, and One person has even been at his company for over 10 years, right, and he has talked about getting an IT for at least the last seven years. The problem is that he doesn't take that hour a day and work towards it. When I wasn't in security and I was just an IT help desk, I Took an hour a day and I studied. Did I like it? No, no, I. I Really disliked it because I felt like I was very stupid, because I couldn't grasp the topics. It was very difficult for me at the time. Was it uncomfortable for me? Yeah, but did it pay off? That's the real question, and it absolutely did. It's gonna pay off in ways that you won't be able to see.

Right, my goal was to was to get into security, was to make a decent amount of money where I could support myself. Well, I hit that goal, but it also enabled me to develop the work ethic to Advance my career, to start this podcast, to help other people get into this field and be successful. So you don't know. You know exactly where you're gonna be getting from the investment that you put into yourself, and you have to see it like that. You have to see it as an investment in yourself. You know you are literally spending your time, money, effort, energy into this thing to hopefully make yourself better. It is an investment when you're learning a new skill, when you're learning a new technology, learning a new whatever. It is an investment because you're expanding yourself, you're expanding your mind, you're you're doing better overall, right, because you're putting in that work.

And so when, when my brain switched with doing, you know, this one hour a day thing. It's when I realized, oh, I'm making an investment in myself, just like how I buy stocks and crypto and invest in different things. That also needs to be done. I need to be investing in myself, buying stocks and crypto and other investments. That's great. You're investing in your future, having a 401k Roth IRA, all these other things. That's great. You're investing in your future.

But you also need to invest in yourself so that you can have the future that you want, so that your future self matches the vision that you had. That that's the. That's the biggest thing that you know I could ever tell you. It sounds really simple, but if you go through the steps, if you go through the process, you know something will change. It will change eventually.

It may not be in a year, it may not be in two years, right, but I guarantee you, after 12 months, you'll look back and you'll say, oh, I actually learned a good amount of stuff about this. I actually made a decent amount of progress. And you know, same thing five, ten years down the line, right. Ten years down the line when you're investing in yourself. Ten years down the line when you're in the role that you wanted. You know right now, right? Um, you're gonna look back and you're gonna be like man I didn't know anything Right but little by little I learned it every single day, and I want to leave you with this You're either going to have a hard life In the beginning of your life and an easy one later, or you're gonna have an easy life in the beginning of your life and a very hard life at the end of your life. Which one do you choose? I guess there's no right or wrong answer right. To me there's a wrong and a right answer right, but to you there may not be one. But you have to make that choice for yourself. You have to figure out what you want your life to look like at the end of your life when you look back.

Reason being is that it's all about time. We only get a certain amount of time. You cannot exceed that time. You cannot buy more time. There's no way for you to get more time. You only have a certain amount of time on this earth, and this life and how you spend it will matter greatly.

And what I mean by that is that you could get to retirement and say I didn't feel fulfilled in that career. I didn't feel fulfilled in that job. I should have traveled to this place. I should have done X, I should have learned X, I should have tried to be better at whatever, right? That's what I'm talking about. So, with that, guys, that is all that I have for this week's mentorship episode. Like I said before, I'm gonna be getting back into this. So next week you can expect another mentorship episode and so on, right, and if I need a break I will let you know. But regardless, the podcast will always be here. I enjoy doing it. I love talking to the people that I talk to and everything else like that. So if you've made it this far in the video, I really do appreciate it. Thanks, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope it'll help someone See ya.