When Shannon Brewster, a seasoned cybersecurity leader at AT&T, stepped into the studio, we knew we were in for a treat. His story isn't just about bits and bytes; it's a dynamic tale of shifting from the world of telecommunications to the cyber frontlines, all while maintaining a melody of life that includes an eclectic musical score and a firm handle on wellness. Shannon brings to the table a symphony of experiences, discussing how he managed to harmonize the demands of full-time work with family life and educational growth, thanks to AT&T's progressive culture.
Discover the unsung verses of a professional's life as we spotlight the crucial yet often overlooked personal dimensions beyond digital profiles. With Shannon's insight, we uncover strategies for cultivating a healthy work environment, emphasizing the profound impact leaders have on team wellness. Our conversation ventures into the profound effects of sobriety on sleep quality and well-being, along with the necessity of disconnecting to recharge fully. It's a candid exploration of how small lifestyle adjustments can ripple through our lives, enhancing both personal fulfillment and professional prowess.
Finally, we call upon all corporate warriors to consider the link between a sound body, a sharp mind, and the effectiveness of cybersecurity professionals. Shannon and I delve into how diet, fitness, and mental health practices like meditation and sleep hygiene can be the keystones of peak performance. Weaving personal anecdotes with actionable insights, this episode is an invitation to step up your life game, explore the transformative power of healthful habits, and recognize the interconnectedness of all aspects of our lives. Join us on this journey to integrate wellness into every facet of your existence, and be sure to catch the full symphony of our discussion across all platforms and on our website.
Please visit our website https://www.techexecwellness.com to stay up to date and subscribe to our newsletter!
When Shannon Brewster, a seasoned cybersecurity leader at AT&T, stepped into the studio, we knew we were in for a treat. His story isn't just about bits and bytes; it's a dynamic tale of shifting from the world of telecommunications to the cyber frontlines, all while maintaining a melody of life that includes an eclectic musical score and a firm handle on wellness. Shannon brings to the table a symphony of experiences, discussing how he managed to harmonize the demands of full-time work with family life and educational growth, thanks to AT&T's progressive culture.
Discover the unsung verses of a professional's life as we spotlight the crucial yet often overlooked personal dimensions beyond digital profiles. With Shannon's insight, we uncover strategies for cultivating a healthy work environment, emphasizing the profound impact leaders have on team wellness. Our conversation ventures into the profound effects of sobriety on sleep quality and well-being, along with the necessity of disconnecting to recharge fully. It's a candid exploration of how small lifestyle adjustments can ripple through our lives, enhancing both personal fulfillment and professional prowess.
Finally, we call upon all corporate warriors to consider the link between a sound body, a sharp mind, and the effectiveness of cybersecurity professionals. Shannon and I delve into how diet, fitness, and mental health practices like meditation and sleep hygiene can be the keystones of peak performance. Weaving personal anecdotes with actionable insights, this episode is an invitation to step up your life game, explore the transformative power of healthful habits, and recognize the interconnectedness of all aspects of our lives. Join us on this journey to integrate wellness into every facet of your existence, and be sure to catch the full symphony of our discussion across all platforms and on our website.
Please visit our website https://www.techexecwellness.com to stay up to date and subscribe to our newsletter!
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Tech Exec Wellness. I'm Melissa and today I have with me Shannon Brewster. Shannon is a Director and General Manager for AT&T Cybersecurity, where he leads an international team of consultants and professional services engineers focused on government and global business sectors. He first joined AT&T in 2009 and has had the privilege of serving in various management roles for the business organization, including technical solutioning, design, engineering, sales and marketing, along with operations. Shannon holds a CISSP, a BS in Cybersecurity and Master of Business Administration. He volunteers as the President of the Board of ISC2 Los Angeles Chapter, coaches and mentors, and teaches as an adjunct professor with Rosemont Colleges Cybersecurity Program. Oh, that's a lot. You're doing a lot, shannon. Shannon lives in the Los Angeles, california area with his wife and two children. For fun, he can be found outdoors on a hiking trail somewhere in the world. So today, shannon, welcome to the show. But before we get started, I want to talk about music. So what is your favorite music genre and artist, and can you share a memorable concert experience with us? So welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Melissa. We're really excited to be here. My favorite music genre, I'd say it's probably rock. I listen to a fair amount of Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, and I'd say my most memorable concert experience would probably be U2's 360 tour. I had the chance to see them at the Rose Bowl in 2009.
Speaker 1:Wow, any other concerts besides U2 that stick out?
Speaker 2:My wife dragged me along to a Justin Timberlake concert once he's actually pretty good, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know how that goes. It's like I dragged my other half to see Taylor Swift and I was like I really don't want to go. And you kind of get there and you're like, oh, this isn't too bad. Did you kind of get into it once you were there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's quite the performer. And she's dragging me to see Chris Stapleton in a couple of weeks down in San Diego, so I get exposed to a fair amount.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really cool. Yeah, chris Stapleton, I like him a lot. I like that bluesy guitar thing that he's got going on, so I think you're going to have a lot of fun. So, before we get started, kind of reading to our listeners all the wonderful things that you're doing, what led you to a career in cybersecurity.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. It's not something I intentionally sought out. Probably similar for most folks. I had really spent the better part of my career working in telecommunications and working for some startups that had spun out of the 1996 Telecommunication Act and some CELACs that really kind of laid the ground for me to get a job with AT&T and ultimately I moved my family across the country from New York to take a job in California with AT&T. Wow, I think this is where you and I maybe ran across each other and met for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We still had the exclusivity for the Apple iPhone. They seemed to be doing a lot of things in the industry and it seemed like the place to be. Since they invented the telephone and I had been working in telecom, Joining cybersecurity was really the result of once I got in the door at AT&T, they had thought to kind of look forward to where they saw the demands for their talent post 2020 and they launched this program called your Path to 2020 and they had laid out some areas of the business that they saw growth. I mean, they were also expressing a lot of concern that at AT&T there was still a lot of folks that were their whole careers depended on technologies that would be going away. You think TDM and basic POTS lines and long distance and all of these things.
Speaker 2:The whole telecom sector was going to be changed massively and cybersecurity was one of the career paths that they offered and as part of that program, they basically offered to pay for any employees that wanted to enroll in any of these programs. They went out and found partnerships or established partnerships with higher education and offered to pay for degrees and certificates, and I enrolled in the program at Champlain College and I was just kind of blown away. I loved it right from the beginning. I was class number two in that program and ultimately went on to get a bachelor's in cybersecurity from that school and kind of launched me into this whole career path. I basically pivoted over into the AT&T cybersecurity group after I had completed that program.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really amazing and that is a testament to kind of having direction and knowing where you want to go. Were you also doing your education while you were working full time? I was.
Speaker 2:Wow, I was one of those folks that kind of took the securities route with my education, bounced around between colleges, and ended up getting sidetracked, got married, had some kids, decided to go back to school. And then, when I found myself at AT&T, I was actually promoted into management. I was leading people that had you know degrees and master's degrees and it really kind of forced me to up my game. And I was working on a business degree to finish my initial undergrad, you know, and AT&T has a generous tuition reimbursement, so there was really kind of a great opportunity to do that. And then when the cyber program launched, I decided to switch my degree from business, move over to the cyber major, finished in cyber with a technology degree and then went back for the business degree as a master's.
Speaker 1:That's quite impressive while juggling a family and moving across the country. So cyber security is a very high stress industry. So what are you doing to maintain your wellness?
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's a work in progress, probably as it is with all of us. You know, I kind of applaud you for having this, starting this podcast right.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Making us think about you know what it is that we're doing, to be intentional about balancing, you know, wellness and career. I think it starts with being intentional about your day. If you let your day come at you, I think it becomes much easier for you to burn out. You know, I feel like it's really important to set good boundaries. If you're working in a hybrid model or even work from home, it's really easy to find yourself working 12 to 12 hour days and not think anything of it, and you really do need to establish a. When am I going to start work? When am I going to stop looking at my phone?
Speaker 2:Right, that sense of constantly being connected is really driven by our need to constantly check in and see what's going on at work, and a lot of people will do that right up to the time it's right till they go to bed, and I think that's pretty unhealthy. I think it's really healthy actually to shut off at a certain hour, and I guess the last thing I'd say is it's really important to prioritize sleep. I got really passionate about that after I read a book by a guy named Matt Walker. He published a book I think it was in 2017. And when I read that book it just gave me like this deep appreciation for how important sleep is and I just became manic about like tuning my environment for good sleep and it's kind of been a journey. But if you really prioritize sleep with everything else, I think it really does help with that balance and stress reduction.
Speaker 1:You know, I was sitting here listening to you and I was thinking back to when I was in the military and I was 18, 19 years old and it wasn't uncommon and I don't know what they do today but be out at the enlisted club 12 o'clock in the morning and then you're running PT at five. I certainly could not do that anymore. I definitely need my sleep. I don't know about you, but I have to have eight plus on the weekends, or at least eight during the week.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I think you do realize too that you get over 40 and it really changes things.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious, though you mentioned a book, but what other strategies are you using to manage and reduce stress? Because, like you said, it's very hard for all of us in cyber or technology to turn it off. So do you have anything, any strategies that you're doing, that you could share with us?
Speaker 2:Well, I think a big one is trained for stress. I'm a big proponent of creating artificial stress so that when you're actually under stress you're more resilient. You know there's a guy named Michael Easter that wrote a book called the Comfort Crisis and I really took a lot from that book. You know, and just trying to, he has this thing I think it's called the misogy where you do something really hard once a year. You kind of mentioned in my bio, but I like to pick something epic every year. That's really hard, like last year. A couple of years ago I went and hiked to kill him in Jaro Right.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. What led you to do that? What was the inspiration behind that?
Speaker 2:A friend kind of planted the seed in my head and I really liked doing outdoors and door program and my son was really into Boy Scouts and I, because of his desire to join that organization, I was involved and I led the high adventure team. So we just used to do a lot of backpacking in the mountains in California and the deserts, anzabarraga. So I met a lot of people who also had kind of a love of the outdoors and one of the guys from that program planted the seed in my head to go to kill him in Jaro. So we did kill it together. We also did Machu Picchu. But that's kind of glamping, to be honest with you, because you're cooking your food for you.
Speaker 1:Glamping. I've never heard that term before. Glamping what is that? Glamorous camping?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when somebody's cooking your food for you and carrying all the heavy stuff and you just get to hike with a day pack on, I mean real, real backpacking is you know, you've got to carry a bear can and carry a really heavy pack and after you've set up camp for the day you've got to cook your own food and do your own dishes and all that stuff. So and even kill him in Jaro was that, but it was. Kill him in Jaro was exhausting just from the elevation. That was probably one of the hardest things I ever did. But when you summit a peak and climb a mountain, office work sounds pretty easy. You can take that.
Speaker 1:So what do you have planned for this year? Because that I mean, I don't know how you can top that, but what do you have planned this year? Anything cool like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in a couple of weeks after we're done with the California primary election we've got some work that we're doing around that for security I am going to catch a plane to Japan and I'm doing this track called the Shikoku pilgrimage. It's actually something that takes like 50 days to do, but some people, you know, you can break it up and do it any way you want. But there's this track on Shikoku, which is one of the things the fourth smallest main island in Japan, and there's like this 1200 kilometer track that connects 88. Buddhist temples and people have been doing this pilgrimage for like 1200 years. So I'm gonna basically Walk probably about 22 or 23 of the temples over about a eight-day period and then I'll probably have to do that over multiple trips if I ever want to actually complete the track. But that's, that's my epic trip for this year.
Speaker 1:Shannon, I got to say and I think I said this in other episodes we truly don't know an individual, who they are. We see their LinkedIn profile, we see all the amazing things like you that have done so many great things, but this is a platform to dig a little bit deeper and to get to know what motivates you and what you like to do. That many people don't know. So I think that's Incredibly Fascinating and I'm hoping you're gonna put some pictures out. Maybe we can share them on our website, since we have you as a guest To say look at this, he did it. I totally that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of respect and admiration for you, so I'm wondering how do you promote a culture of wellness, so the people that you have on your team? Are you evangelizing well-being with your organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean to what extent I can drive a culture. I mean, I lead a fairly large team here, but I'm just a drop in the bucket of a big corporation. You know, I think the culture that I can create within my team around valuing work, life balance, valuing wellness, there's a lot of things that you can do to show you know that that's important to you, right, and in your team.
Speaker 2:For one thing, I try to model it myself and that actually helped me a lot to realize that I really need to do these things, because the folks are looking at you to see what you expect, right? So if I'm sending emails at eight o'clock at night, I'm sending a signal to my team that I want you to be reading these emails. Potentially, I tell my managers, right, like, don't send emails after hours, don't send signals to the team that they're expected to be looking at their email on Saturday and Sunday. And then when you're on vacation this is a big one like when you're on vacation, really truly be on vacation, because you can't tell your team that that's what you want, that they're empowered to really, truly take a vacation, but then you don't do it, right, right? So leading by example, I think is really big One thing I did you know we did this a couple years ago I really thought a lot about how to build an organization where people felt empowered but also that they could thrive.
Speaker 2:And there's this concept called like a net thriving score, where you really weigh the different dimensions of your life and score those and really try to see where you sit on the scale. And I encouraged all my managers to have these conversations with every person on their team and get to a net thriving score and and just promote having these kind of conversations right. And you don't have to problem solve, but just opening the door for having the conversation, showing that it's something that we're here to support, really can go a long way.
Speaker 1:I like that. So someone like yourself who's a senior executive and You're kind of seeing the chaos in the world, whether it's outside or whether it's within cyber, what advice would you give to individuals in the field right now that are probably struggling right now to prioritize wellness and sleep, as you mentioned earlier, with heavy workloads and pressure? What advice would you get these people?
Speaker 2:For me, I look at things like simple stuff around, prioritizing what's important and starting my day.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I kind of have this concept of Doing the important things that you want to get done in the day, first thing right. So I would encourage folks first of all to look at environment. Environment is probably one of the best things you can do to kind of bring the stress level down. You know, just constructing your workspace in such a way that it's conducive to reduce stress, like on sunday, is one thing I might desk often get out of hand. So on sundays I'll just clean up the whole workspace, make it look perfect.
Speaker 2:You know, for the to start on monday, the other thing I do is kind of a morning routine. I'd like to get up early and when I quit drinking alcohol, this actually One of the most profound impacts on my life actually is oh, please tell us about that. Yeah, I mean so a few years ago I started experimenting with this Uh, dryuary concept and every year I would do dryuary and I would get to after after like three weeks of absolutely no alcohol, like this cloud just lifts. It's the weirdest thing. But sometimes you don't want to talk about this because it sounds like almost. It's almost like a stigma. I was like oh, are you an up? Sure, right, like I don't think of myself as having been an alcoholic, but it's shocking how there's not really a safe amount of alcohol and I learned that partly through chasing sleep right. I had a ring, an aura ring, where I was chasing the best sleep score I could get every night and no matter how much I experimented with it, there was no amount of alcohol, even a half a glass of wine that would not completely sabotage my sleep scores. Interesting, and it really impacts things like deep sleep. And when, after I'd read the book by matt walker and I realized how important deep sleep was to mental health, decision making, creativity, empathy all of these things that are happening while you're sleeping, and if you're disrupting that, you're actually having a ripple effect across your whole life, even with very tiny doses of alcohol. So I just kept.
Speaker 2:Every year I would say why don't I go back? I'm never going to go back. I think it was 2018. I did three months and I swore I would never go back and then I always did, because I was in Peru and everybody was having I forget the name of that drink that they Pisco sour, I think, is what it's called in Peru and you get drawn into it, right? But a couple years ago after covet kind of like everyone else I've talked to I was like okay, 2020 was a little bit too much, right, higher year of 2021 off from alcohol, said I would never go back. I ended up going to a wedding in tequila, mexico. Sad, but when I did dry, you were in 2023. I haven't gone back and I just can't speak highly enough about how powerful, like long Absences from alcohol can really improve your life from mental perspective and stress. It really does give you an edge.
Speaker 1:No, you're absolutely correct, and I think about sales kickoffs and when I was entertaining the carrier team at AT&T, when I was working at Apple, and that would be the fun thing to do is go to dinner, have a bottle of wine, and I Don't miss alcohol at all either. I totally agree with everything that you're saying, because I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night or I'd have that very light Sleep pattern. You were talking about aura, so you see that I wasn't getting any deep sleep and I was tired of the headaches, the brain fog and Sometimes getting food poisoning on the road and having the alcohol. It's not worth it. So I'm a clean eater and no alcohol for me either, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it started to click for me when I thought, like some of the people that I'm listening to on podcasts that are like real high Performers, they're just kept being this threat. You hear high performers saying that they gave up alcohol and it changed their life, and so it really made me think deeply about How's this serving me? Right? And and get to your point like drinking is very, very prominent in you go to RSA, you go to black hat and most of the vendors are drawing huge crowds with free alcohol, right, so it's very much a part of the culture, and you kind of have to learn tricks to like hide the fact that you're not drinking Mm-hmm, put people's mind to these, which I've gotten pretty good at, and and you really don't miss it, I really don't, anyway you know what I do and that's interesting that you mentioned it.
Speaker 1:I'll do the cranberry and seltzer so it looks like I have a drink, but a lot of the the people that I hang around with there's a lot of people that aren't drinking anymore, so I don't really feel like I'm getting peer pressure now. When I was younger in sales, how come you're not drinking? Come on, have another one. I don't see that anymore and I'm and I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2:And I think you do start to build a network of people that are like-minded as well. Yeah, and I actually found a lot of really great IPA's that are non-alcoholic and I honestly say you can't tell the difference, and it's actually good for you.
Speaker 2:It's hydrating, so Really, I don't know if you know any off the top of your head, oh yeah, well, the one that I really kind of my go-to and it's gotten, it's pretty ubiquitous, that they know is athletic brewing. I think they were either Connecticut or I think they've got a brewery in Connecticut and in San Diego, but athletic brewing's. They've got a couple different versions of their IPA, but I think it's the one in the blue can so called wild, I think wild something, and then they've got a hazy IPA too. They're both really good and it's kind of this weird thing with your brain because of the way our brain and our neural Networks work. It's almost like having a drink because the flavor is so spot-on you know it does. It's pretty satiating.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to check that out. We'll definitely put that in the show notes. I want to ask, though, nutrition. What are you doing for like healthy eating, because I know you kill a manjaro. I know you've got this great trip coming up this year, but have you changed your nutrition at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm a pretty big fan of low carb. I go through stints of pure carnivore actually, and Also intermittent fasting. So this year I've actually been experimenting with the 36 12 timing my timing. Before. I've done a lot of water fasts, which you can also drink black coffee on a water fast. I've gone up to seven days on just water. But the 36 12 has been kind of good for me this year because I actually had a surgery in September and I haven't been able to work out like I would like to on my shoulder, so it's been kind of really more important to be dialed in. But you start to realize, like how carbs can really affect your mental State as well. I feel so much sharper and Clearheaded on a very low carb diet and I'm sure everybody I think everyone's bodies are a little bit different, but sure there's a lot of research out there that's saying that processed food, specifically Processed carbohydrates, are pretty bad for mental health.
Speaker 1:Now I believe that and I think I sent you a message on LinkedIn. Maybe I didn't, maybe I did, I don't remember but I started doing the Mediterranean diet now. I also believe in fasting. I'd like it if I've had pizza or something like that, because I like pizza. I don't eat it all the time, but I'll have the occasional pizza, so I started that and there's a lot of grains, olives, like it's really healthy food. Yes, with the idea, I feel very satiated with it. So are you and the wife doing any cool things like that?
Speaker 2:I've done Mediterranean, but I'm also I kind of love those types of foods right. So that's very appealing to me, and I think Healthy fats are also a really critical piece of a good diet and our healthy diet. So olive oil is supposed to be very good for you. Avocados I'm still a sucker for carbs. I'd love to make my own pizza. Get the double zero flower and we bought a pizza oven for my cottage and, like I try to like, if I'm gonna have pizza, it's it's my homemade pizza and it took me a day because I made the dough myself and then it's like okay, I'm not gonna overdo it, it's also gonna be really good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So was there a pivotal time in your I don't want to say career, but in your life where you said, okay, I got to get a hold of this Nutrition, this well-being, did anything kind of set things in motion for you, where you had this, okay, I got to get things in line?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say it's probably my. My dad passed away.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry to hear that he ended up with pancreatic cancer and that's actually a really, really devastating disease. So if you need any like inspiration to like not be overtaxing, are you're pancreas and and a lot of the things we've been talking about are risk factors for pancreatic cancer. So, knowing that I had you know, father, that passed from it it was kind of a wake-up call for me to think about. You know alcohol consumption and you know paying attention to it.
Speaker 2:I actually joined CrossFit the year my dad got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and my first CrossFit class really shatters all illusions that you are in good shape. So when I couldn't jump on the ring ring rose and lift myself up on the ring rows and I remember I was visiting a friend in Long Island and he's like come to my CrossFit class and I went with him and they just throw you in right and the coach. I couldn't get up onto the ring rows and I was like I can't do it and the coach just got right in my face. He was like, why not? And I was like I went home. I got back to California and I joined a CrossFit channel.
Speaker 1:How about those jump boxes, though? I know I was really active in Chicago with the Displanes CrossFit. I loved it because it was a group of people and you talk about the coaching. The coaching was great, the team mentality, everybody's there pushing you. I used to be able to do those chin-ups. I couldn't do one to save my life. I finally did it, but I would see people in there they're just hammering it 20, 30, 40. And I couldn't even get myself over the bar. I mean, it is tough.
Speaker 2:It's sobering right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, and I like the community at the CrossFit, I've had to leave. I mean, you get into your early your mid-40s and you start to realize that the part to keep up with this, I bought a tonal system last spring and I've actually really, really liked that as a replacement for CrossFit. It's got live workouts, it does a great job measuring and it's not quite the same as CrossFit but it's definitely not as taxing on the joints and stuff.
Speaker 1:I miss the community at CrossFit. But with COVID and everything that happened, I didn't buy a tonal but I got the Peloton, I got a rowing machine and I got a treadmill. You know what? It's one of those. What the heck is it called? It's the base model. What is the one that's out there? It's the commercial tread, the commercial.
Speaker 2:It's not the concept too, is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:that's it.
Speaker 2:No, I have one of those too. I love that thing.
Speaker 1:Very inexpensive too. Now they have, like Peloton has one, and then is it Hydro, is it? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Have the water in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I went basic. I have the flat screen in the network out area, so I just put the Peloton classes on. I think Apple has that too, so it's cool. It's not the same as going out and being around people and competing, and you really have to have that motivation to get in that workout room and get on the bike or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, for me I feel like one of the ways to you know hijack, that is the you know the atomic habits kind of stuff, yeah. So I like with the row machine, you can throw in some AirPods and listen to a podcast or something and just row. Things like that kind of help hold me accountable, because I won't do one or the other separately, but you throw them together and I feel like I've actually maximized my time.
Speaker 1:No, that's. That's very cool. With all these amazing things that you're doing, do you ever talk to your team about wellness? Do you ever like have them incorporate some best practices? Are you leading by example?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I try, you know I try to like, once in a while, drop emails that just encourage people to think about something around wellness, obviously reminding people that we do value it.
Speaker 2:You have to realize that you have to use repetition for people to really believe it, cause most people think you're just saying you value work-life balance right, or that you want to do things. So sometimes you know, a lot of corporations have a lot of great tools. Like we had a system at AT&T we've since gotten rid of it it was called Cast Light and that allowed you to do like group challenges and so a few times, like I would take advantage of that and pull my team together and we did a steps challenge together and everybody could see their steps for a month and the top team, I think, was going to win a prize, and so really kind of rallying people around doing those types of activities together and some folks lost some weight. I remember we did it a couple of years ago and they were all excited because once they committed to something and they knew everyone could see it on the app what they were doing, they've really motivated them to get up and move, which I thought was pretty powerful.
Speaker 1:I think that is such a great investment. I know when I was at Capgemini they had that. You definitely have accountability because you're splitting the teams, and then at Dell we had that as well. But I think if corporations will put the money out there to do that, they're going to see such a return on investment with the well-being of their people. I mean, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think that and you've got to find a way to like make it fun and drive community. You know you don't want it to be too like pushy, you know, set it up in a way that it's voluntary and I think it does go a long way. And with AT&T, at least when we had the Castelate system, they were given points that you could redeem for gift cards and you could do different things with it, that you were actually seeing some material benefit. They were actually incentivizing folks to go and get. You could go and get your annual blood work done or all kinds of different things that were in there and you would earn points if you took advantage of that.
Speaker 2:I would often tell the story. I had a co-worker she's actually passed away but because she took advantage of the incentive to go get her annual checkup, she found out very early that she had cancer and you know as bad as the story is and what her ultimate outcome was. She probably made it a lot longer than she would have otherwise, because I remember we were actually at a Fortinet conference and she was like oh yeah, you know how we were supposed to go. We were just at dinner and she goes, I went in and they didn't want to let me leave because my blood pressure was so high and she was not someone that you'd look at and think had high blood pressure, and I really she said that she like made the doctor, they made her sign something in order to leave and I like bagged her to go back and find out what was going on.
Speaker 2:And she did and found out she had pancreatic cancer as well. So I often tell that story when we would have anything going on at work around that just so people could see. And it's almost a little difficult because of that outcome, but at least she was able to catch it early. If you know anything about pancreatic cancer, most people don't catch it until they are very, very, very advanced. They turn yellow and they're already at stage four by that time. So just really encouraging people to take advantage of these programs I think ultimately is beneficial and hopefully you get ahead of something like that before it's been out of control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very sad to hear and thank you for sharing that. Because we come to a close, I want to ask you a question Do you think wellness plays an overall effectiveness and success of cybersecurity professionals and teams? Do you think that some of the things that you talked about today are going to cause people to be ineffective? What are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. I mean there's so many studies out that talk about just the effect on decision-making for a poor night's sleep. Right, They've done studies that show that a poor night's sleep affects your ability to be empathetic towards others and other people. It affects the quality of your decision-making. It affects creativity.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you really truly want to be the best that you can be professionally and personally, you know, really investing in the basics of good health, I think are critical and it's ultimately going to reap a lot of return for you from a career perspective. I think you'll be noticed and, honestly, there's so many unhealthy people out there. It's really sad, but I mean we kind of are very aware of the fact that the United States is one of the most obese countries in the world. It's one of the reasons that so many people succumbed to COVID. So if you really want to set yourself apart, I mean, just be healthy, Right From a career perspective, it's going to impact you and you're going to stand apart from the crowd just from investing in something as simple as a good night's sleep. Most people are showing up to work every day to sleep deprived.
Speaker 1:I know we didn't mention this during our conversation, but I think with COVID, so many people were attached to the screens and they were binge watching shows on Netflix, which I think that stuff is great, but you have to have the discipline to turn it off, because there's something I have read about it affecting the melatonin, that blue light, so it really messes with your biological. All of that and getting a good night's rest. I'm probably not articulating that right, but there's something to be said about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's something simple. I don't know if it works. I've experimented with the red glasses Now I'm using you can get the blue light tip in any glasses, right, and when you go to the optometrist so I always ask for that. But they say the best thing to do is avoid screens altogether for at least an hour or two before bed. Dim the lights in the house, kind of prepare your mind to go to sleep. I mean meditation before bed, probably one of the best things you could do to improve your HRV scores and a lot of other things, because a lot of us are carrying our work day to bed, especially if you're checking email right before you go to bed and those thoughts are bouncing around in your head. I've found that meditation in and of itself is enough to kind of tamp all that down for a better night's sleep.
Speaker 1:I would agree with that. And YouTube. I subscribe to YouTube, but there's a ton of guided meditations and binaural beats. I don't know if you've listened to any of our shows, but Eric and I have talked about binaural beats, so I I love binaural beats.
Speaker 2:That's how I say it Do you. Yeah, I would go to Starbucks and I'd put the headphones on and set it to study and it's just, there's something about it just driving focus.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean sleep. Yeah, well, you know what it does too. So affirmations if you want healing or whatever it gets into your subconscious. So I 100% believe in that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you can get the binaural beats right on Apple Music. That's pretty easy to pull up. Actually, noah, you mentioned YouTube for the guided meditations. I, andrew Huberman, listened to his podcast when he was promoting an app called Waking Up. I've been doing that for the last three weeks. I don't know if you've seen Waking Up, but it's Sam Harris' app. He just watched you through a course on meditation. There's so much stuff in that app and I've been meditating for many years, but this has kind of been next level for me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to check that out. I was going to say to you so you've been meditating for a long time, so our listeners out there that are new to meditating, where would you get them started and do you believe that meditation is just sitting in a dark room? What is your perspective on that?
Speaker 2:I think I have a different perspective since I started using this the Waking Up app that I just described.
Speaker 2:I think I first got interested in meditation, ran into can't remember how, but heard about Deepak Chopra yes, and he was just. He's such a huge proponent of it and he talked a lot about just common, trying to still all thought, and I probably spent most of my time thinking about meditation from that perspective. But I think it's actually a lot more than that. I mean, it's really tuning your mind to just being aware. I'm not really one to truly explain it, but it does have an effect that definitely carries with you throughout the day after you're done meditating. So they know that it changes your brain physically, changes the brain and how it is working. They can see it on MRI scans. So there's definitely something happening and something real behind it, and the effects are pretty measurable. So I think it's a lot more than just sitting in a dark room and I think that you probably need to get some real training on it If you haven't had it to really kind of go a little bit further than just closing your eyes and trying to not to think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause I have a circus playing in my head and I'll be the first to admit I got to have something to kind of guide me to do it. So a lot of times I'll just get up, put my headphones on and listen to binaural beats and walk around. It makes me into a good flow. But a hundred percent I agree with you. I think that lack of sleep, it really affects your demeanor and I think I'm so much happier today because I sleep well, I eat well and I do the meditation and I don't have alcohol. So that's kind of been my thing right now and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2:No, that's quite. I was going to say trifecta and then you throw in new no alcohol. I mean you do these four things. It's life changing Just for a month. I think people really would see the difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there's a lot to say about intention too intending to have a good day, intending to show up as your best self, whether as a spouse or at work, just having that intention that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2:And there's just this. There's this underlying optimism about life that I think just opens up when you start doing some of the things that you just said. You know and I found that to be really powerful, especially since we're all dealing with a lot of things that work. You know organizational change, uncertainty and when you're kind of grounded in just a core sense of optimism, regardless of what's going on around you, that can be pretty grounding.
Speaker 1:I second that it definitely helps you build resilience. I mean, obviously you know I don't like the toxic positivity, it's like what I think it does is it helps you adapt better than all that stuff, Awesome. So I thank you, Shannon, for coming to the show today. I would definitely like to have you back. I know I got a lot out of it and I'm sitting here taking notes on books and different things to do, but any parting words for listeners.
Speaker 2:You've got a lot of different dimensions in your life that all lead up to living that best life right, and if you ignore the dimension that physical dimension of your health, then I think that you're going to see that you're going to be limited. You got to start somewhere. You kind of know when you need to do something different than what you're doing. You just kind of will feel that and listen to podcasts like this and finding resources that kind of gets you excited to try something new and that'll often be a springboard to other things as well. So, yeah, I just really appreciate the invitation to be here and I thought the conversation was awesome.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. We're going to wrap it up here. To our listeners out there, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. We're on a variety of platforms, and check out our website at wwwtechexecwellnesscom. Take care and thanks for tuning in.