Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul

Cybersecurity Adventures and Balancing Wellness in Tech with Michael FD Anaya

• Melissa Sanford

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Tech Exec Wellness Podcast. I'm Melissa and I'm delighted to have an amazing and optimistic cyber leader join the podcast today Michael FD Anaya. He's a seasoned cybersecurity expert with over two decades of experience. His career has spanned public and private sectors, including a distinguished tenure as an FBI special agent. There, michael knocked down doors, arresting the cyber bad actors and help keep people safe. He has shared guidance with the likes of Delta, coca-cola, mckesson, ups and many more. Now Michael helps build, refine and scale teams for companies in the cybersecurity space. He is a director at Palo Alto Network and the founder of Decoding Cyber, which is a content generation and training powerhouse.

Speaker 1:

Michael is passionate about sharing his knowledge and empowering others. When he's not diving into the world of cybersecurity, michael enjoys spending time with his family and is partial to cheesecake and bourbon. So, listeners, if you have a killer bourbon cheesecake recipe, he is all ears. I think we have a few things here to talk about, michael, but first can you tell us about your favorite music genres and what's a memorable concert?

Speaker 2:

you can share with our listeners. Well, first off, thank you very much for offering me the opportunity to speak to you and your guests. It's an honor. Thank you, and let's see. A favorite music genre for sure is alternative. I've grown up listening to rock of all types, but I think I've settled on alternative as my favorite Concert. Do you want to hear my first concert, or the best concert?

Speaker 1:

Give us an example of the alternative music, because I like that too.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to different bands, but right now I like a lot of AJR for a few reasons. One, the music is really catchy and it's fun. It's upbeat, um, but also the three band members are brothers and it reminds me of my boys.

Speaker 1:

I have three boys, and so I'm partial to them.

Speaker 2:

It's super cool, uh, but yeah, they're, they're, they're great musicians and they're a lot of fun to listen to. Okay, so my first concert was Dream Theater. I don't know if you've heard of them no one really has. I think they had one hit?

Speaker 1:

I have not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you're the norm, and so no offense to Dream Theater fans out there. My first concert, I show up wearing a suit. I don't know what's in a suit. It was a dress, shirt and tie. I don't know what's the suit, it was a dress, shirt and tie. I don't know why. I thought it was cool. I wasn't, obviously because it was a rock show and I'm the only one dressed like this and I went with my brother and his friend and my brother's friend's, like I think you should probably remove your tie, and I was probably like 15, maybe you know the awkward age where you're trying to figure yourself out and so anyway, uh, that was my first concert. It's really cool. They have, uh, they're known for very long songs, so like 10 minutes plus. It's just. They're pretty ridiculous when it comes to that. That was my first concert, my best concert. I wasn't even trying to see this headline in act, but it was third eye blind how was that?

Speaker 2:

it was awesome. Um, it was in washington dc at the time. It's called the merryweather post pavilion, I don't necessarily know what. Okay, good, I don't know if it's still called. That might call something else now. Um, anyway, I went to go see one of the opening bands and I stuck around, clearly, to watch the whole concert and I was really surprised, uh, by the red blind. They're popular at the time and I wasn't really that into like popular music. Again, I was going back then. I was going through a phase where I wanted to listen to obscure, no name bands. Third Eye Blind was a little too mainstream for my liking, but anyway, they were amazing. Fantastic stage presence, great energy. It was really good. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1:

No, that's that's fantastic. I love concerts. It no, that's fantastic. I love concerts. And I find that a lot of people like we were learning something new today, right with you. What's really great about talking to our guests about what they like to do outside of cyber going to concerts, and I've learned to like a lot of different genres talking to you all, so thank you for sharing that. Tell us a little bit before we get into wellness what are some of the things you do with your family?

Speaker 2:

I do my family. We do a lot of things together, mostly me and my boys, kind of a pack. So my boys are 10, 8, and 3. And my wife does a lot of running and so she's a dedicated runner. She's run some ultra marathons, marathons, so a lot of times, if you know runners, they have to do a lot of training. Because of that, that gives me a lot of opportunity to spend time with my boys, and I love it. I've wanted to be a father since I was I don't know 18, not at that time but I always loved the idea of being a father, and so I was really blessed to have three boys. They're amazing. I love spending time with them. So we'll go to trampoline parks. As odd as it and mundane as it may sound, my boys and I love going to grocery stores. Really, they make grocery shopping fun.

Speaker 1:

Can you tell us about that, because this is the first time I've ever heard it? So, michael, let us know what is making this fun.

Speaker 2:

Well, you have to be the right mindset to do it. But they're kind of loud and so they're running around not the three-year-old he normally is with me in the grocery cart. The other two boys love running around picking out their favorite candies. It's fun for them, it's kind of an exploratory time. They get to try different drinks and whatnot, and so it's like a family event for me and the boys. And then when I go to the grocery store, people know me because of my boys.

Speaker 2:

As I say this and your listeners are thinking hold on, it's just one guy with three boys and it's very atypical for those of your listeners who are not parents. Most of the time at the grocery store you'll see families or you'll see a woman with their children. It's rare you see like a, a guy with children yes, let alone three of them. But I love it and it's fun for me. It's maybe a little more chaotic for those other fellow shoppers, but generally speaking most people are pretty copacetic with that. But yeah, so we also travel together. We do a lot of trips with me and my boys. I did my first trip with all three of us this past, I suppose a few months ago. It was the first time I traveled with a littlest one in a plane, with just him and his brothers, and it was amazing. There's a lot of fun, that's great.

Speaker 1:

It's good to hear that and I think some of my guests they have older children, so this is cool. To kind of dive into what it's like to go grocery shopping with three children, that's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit before we dive into cheesecake and wellness, which probably shouldn't go together in the same sentence? How did you get into cyber? Can you share that with everyone?

Speaker 2:

I got into cyber, sort of by accident. What happened? I started my career back in the day as a software engineer and my first job was banking software specifically, and then I decided to do something. I wanted something that could help society at the same time blend it with my love of law enforcement. So I joined the FBI. And when I joined the FBI, I was selected to be in the LA office and I was put or placed on a cyber squad and so the name, as it may indicate to your listeners, they focus on cyber-related matters, and so that is really my first foray into cybersecurity. So for about 14 years there were some changes in my career along the way, but for about 14 years I was investigating criminal and nation-state actors within the FBI. So that was my foray into cyber when I first started.

Speaker 1:

That is super impressive. Is there anything you can tell our listeners that you were involved in? Or is that all?

Speaker 2:

top secret. I didn't do too much top secret work, but it's actually kind of interesting. I can share some things, yeah, but with the FBI the work you do is sensitive collectively. So generally speaking, you have to get permission from the FBI to ever talk about anything that isn't necessarily public information. But I can tell you some of the things I worked on because they are public.

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

One of the cases that I cut my teeth into when it came to bad actors was one of the most prolific botnet operators at the time. This individual was the person behind the Nukache worm. For those of you, cybersecurity buffs out there, this plagued society back in. I think it's maybe in 2006, maybe 2007. And no one knew who the threat actor was. And while I was working this investigation, I talked to some experts in the space and one of the experts shared with me that it must have been a Russian actor because of the sophistication level. And at the time I uncovered that it likely was a individual who was younger in career. By younger, I mean teenager who was likely?

Speaker 2:

living in his parents' basement in Cheyenne, wyoming, and this expert was nicely shared that he thought I was incorrect. Turns out I was right. When we did our first search warrant on the central virtual, he was 18. And so we went into the parents' home and, sure enough, he was living in his parents' basement with a custom-made hardware. It was liquid cooledcooled. He did it all himself. It was a fascinating conversation with him. The interrogation took about six or seven hours.

Speaker 2:

Interrogations probably aren't what you think they are, at least for me, my interrogations tended to be very empathetic in nature. I spent a lot of time trying to build rapport with him. We located him in Cheyenne, wyoming. We went to investigate. We actually implemented a search warrant and the search warrant uncovered that he was truly living with his parents in their basement. He had a liquid-cooled piece of hardware. It was a tower he built on his own. He was self-educated, self-taught. The interrogation took about six hours and my interrogations weren't probably what you think they are. It wasn't a dark, dimly lit room with a light overhead and people yelling. It was me just sitting with him and empathizing and trying to get to understand him and know him. One of the things I learned pretty quickly was the best way to get information from people is to build trust. Was the best way to get information from people is to build trust.

Speaker 2:

And many times in a situation if you think about what's happening, the FBI is in your home. Trust is hard to build and so it was a skill I honed in on through many, many years of practice, but ultimately I was able to hone in on it. So I connect with my subjects to at the point where they wanted and felt comfortable to share. So then tends to take time, hence the six plus hours, but ultimately at the end of the day he gave me a full confession and described what he was doing and he was trying to, really wanted to experiment and built his skill set, and he did not share the malware with anyone. He didn't sell it, which is a common practice nowadays he just did it for himself. Malware with anyone he didn't sell it, which is a common practice nowadays he just did it for himself. So that was the again one of my cases I touched that's publicly available for you to research and so, anyway, that was the one case I can share with you.

Speaker 1:

Wow, you know the thing I what comes to mind is I don't know if you remember this movie War Games with Matthew was that the name of it with Matthew Bradford, where he was in his room. He wasn't in the basement, he was in high school and he was trying to contact the government or something like that on those dial-up phones. But I just find that just so incredible how people have this creativity and they start tapping into things that may not be so good.

Speaker 2:

No, exactly, and that's exactly what was happening. This person was brilliant. I mean no, exactly, and that's exactly what was happening. This person was brilliant, I mean categorically brilliant, but he just had ample time and there was a number of complications that were probably too long to really discuss.

Speaker 1:

End of the day, he what you described fell prey to pursuing're going to pivot just a little bit to this cheesecake and bourbon, because I was looking over the framework before we got together and I said this is interesting. So before we talk, all things wellness and burnout, clue us into this, please.

Speaker 2:

So I love both cheesecake and bourbon, and both are not necessarily linked to wellness on any level. No, I became a connoisseur of sorts with bourbon, and both are not necessarily linked to wellness on any level. No, um, I became a connoisseur of sorts with bourbon. I'm not at all necessarily as sophisticated as others, but ultimately, when it comes to whiskeys, it's my whiskey of choice, and I've been making my own cheesecakes now for about five years, and so I just try different recipes, recipes and I've never blended whiskey with cheesecake, generally speaking, because my boys eat my cheesecakes. So it probably isn't a great combo together, but independently that might actually go well. So if any of your listeners have a great pairing of flavor profiles, a certain type of whiskey with a certain type of cheesecake, I'd be open to hear that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can think of two individuals right now who are probably going to say I have a recipe, so that'd be cool, as we. You know you talk about your career in the FBI. You've got a fascinating career. You're a great person. What are you seeing right now in the workplace as far as cybersecurity professionals and burnout? Are you seeing any of that with peers or outside of anything that you're doing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I definitely. It's a conversation that a lot of people are having. It came up recently in some of my conversations with my leadership in terms of kind of like what we're defining as burnout, true burnout or maybe something else. So it's definitely a conversation. It's definitely especially in the tech space. So I operate currently in the tech space and I think there's different components to. I think there's like three aspects when I think about well being in tech and one. I think the aspect I think of first is your mindset. Sometimes we forget that we have a lot of control in our lives. Sometimes I feel that we may fall into a pattern where we're on autopilot I mean, sometimes get the impression that others are driving our journeys. And the first thing I think we need to focus in on is our mindset. When it comes to working in tech, you know everyone is different. We all have different thresholds. You have to ask yourself what is your threshold? So, for me, I may have a higher tolerance toward a certain type of environment, whereas you may have a higher or lower a certain type of environment, whereas you may have a higher or lower tolerance. It just depends. So not every environment is right for all of us. So I think first you start with your mindset. The next, when you think about that, is the environment you find yourself in. What is it like and how well do you pair in that environment environment?

Speaker 2:

Many times when you look at organizations I sometimes think of organizations, like to give you an analogy like a country, like the United States, and teams within that, organizations or business units within an organization are like states. So you look at the United States, you have so many different people and I might ask you, melissa, would you like to live in California? Would you like to live in Alabama? Would you like to live in Texas? Those all mean different things to you and so you may be like, yes, I would love to live in Texas, but maybe not California, or vice versa. And the same is true with companies. So that environment's important.

Speaker 2:

But you have to assess what's a team like. So if you say you work for a quote, good company, but that doesn't mean that team is going to be good, because a lot of that culture is driven by that manager, and so that, to me, are really paramount. So whenever you look at an organization, if you want to work with you got to know your mindset and then when you get there on that team, what is that environment like? Can you succeed in that environment, given the limitations that are in play? How much control do you have? So those are the two paramount components.

Speaker 2:

And the final thing when it comes to tech and it just depends on this environment, but I don't necessarily think tech is the most conducive environment for work-life balance. If you're working at a growth at all costs, like West Coast startup, if you work in that type of environment, they are gonna push their personnel hard and that may not be right for all people. That goes back to the environment component, and so I think if you're going to allow yourself to operate in that space, you have to be prepared for the consequences of that environment. There's some upsides, but there's also some downsides. Think of it like if you were wanting to play football but you didn't want to get hurt.

Speaker 2:

You know, I'm like well, there's a high probability you can get hurt if you play football and it's like why don't I get hurt? Well then, football may not be right for you.

Speaker 1:

You're 100% correct when I was person number one at the startup and you wear many hats, you take phone calls all the time, so I think your point is something that listeners need to really hone in on, because everybody wants to do a startup. They want to be a part of a revolution or evolution of tech, but it does come with consequences. So let me ask you this as a leader what do you think yourself and your peers should be doing to address burnout in the tech?

Speaker 2:

space. There's a few things we could do. The first thing, as I think about your question I think this part I think you should read the room. You have to understand the environment that you operate in, like I mentioned, and also the people. So, like for my situation when I worked at I worked at a few different startups I have to sort of understand what the environment allows me to do as a leader, because we can't do whatever we want. There are certain limitations and thresholds and parameters put in play. So, like Paul Alto allows me to have far more abilities to operate in a healthier environment than, we'll say, some of the startups I worked in, and so that's the environmental bonus.

Speaker 2:

You have to read that room. And then you have to ask yourself well, what about the people? What is their perspective? How resilient are they? What is their mindset? So I think that's the first thing. And then the other thing, when it comes to burnout, I say embrace empathy. Now listen, I'm going to explain why.

Speaker 2:

I see empathy and you and or your listeners may not agree, but I perceive empathy doesn't mean you agree with a person. It means you understand them. I think we should strive to understand. Many assume because the other party doesn't agree with us or agree with them, that they don't understand that person. That's not true. I can understand your point of view but not agree with it. I think we should all strive for agreement, not necessarily mutual understanding. So agreement and understanding aren't mutually exclusive either. So that's one of the things when I think empathy, when I would talk about I mentioned before when I would deploy empathy in my interrogations with subjects, I never agreed with it.

Speaker 2:

I was never thinking, oh, this bad actor made a lot of sense and in fact they are right and the companies, the victims, are wrong. I never felt that. But when it allowed me to understand their perspective, that unlocked a lot of ability for me to understand and communicate with them. And that's what I think we as leaders need to do is to understand the company, the environment, people and lead with empathy. That's what I mean by empathy, not agreement, but understanding.

Speaker 1:

No, I like that and I don't know about you. We're going to pivot here for a second, but it seems like the days go by faster and if it's just me, I'll own it. But I want to ask you, with three boys, your wife who's a runner, who does these marathons and the training what are you personally doing to stay well, that's a great question.

Speaker 2:

I do a few things. A lot of my wellness is linked with my children. Like I shared with you before, I wanted children when I was young I think 18, maybe sooner. I've always wanted to be a father and so I see being a father as a privilege. Now again, don't get me wrong, I'm not a perfect father. I make mistakes all the time. I get mad at my children, my kids drive me crazy. So I'm like every other dad out there to a degree. But I'm very hands-on with them. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with them. So that to me is a point of joy for me and that helps me. As crazy as it sounds sometimes decompress, that'll tell right. Sometimes children are very demanding.

Speaker 2:

I exercise. Exercise is critical for me. I've been exercising since I was probably like extensive actually my whole life. But I've been exercising relatively extensively and religiously since I was 15. So for I mean decades now, and so it's been a critical component that's really helped me out a lot. And then one other component I do is I talk to people. I love sharing my feelings, my trials, my tribulations. This morning I had you know as a friend I have, she and I were discussing a complication I have with a decision, and so she basically helped me think through it. But that helps me channel energy in a positive way and I feel much better after the fact. So for me that really does help me stay balanced.

Speaker 1:

No, that's that's great, and you know, I was just listening to what you were saying and I think the podcast has served me well because I talked to yourself and other executives. What I think is great is that we have this commonality of different things that make us unique outside of cyber. I would 100% agree with having thoughtful and meaningful conversations, guidance, etc. With as many people as you can. I really look forward to recording every week because of that. That's awesome. Really look forward to recording every week because of that that's awesome when you're out with the kids or anything.

Speaker 1:

do you have any apps or wearables that you use when you're out and about?

Speaker 2:

I want to see wearables. I have a smartwatch. I use that pretty consistently, but I guess the one thing I really enjoy that isn't as popular out there. That I mean, I think it's somewhat popular in the tech, in the geeky tech like phone environments. It may be, but maybe your listeners are in that space Foldables.

Speaker 2:

I love those I love. I have a Samsung Z Fold 6, the newest iteration of it. I love it. It is a game changer. For the newest iteration of it, I love it. It is a game changer for those of you who aren't aware of it. So it's essentially if you look at the phone, it looks like a regular, like a standard phone, smartphone, but you unfold it and it unlocks a small tablet. That feature, to me, changes everything, especially when it comes to messaging. Like I mentioned before, I work with Paul Alto, so we do a lot of messaging in real time and instant messaging is critical for us to make decisions. So being able to open my phone when I'm out and about to read a message and easily type back responses to me is a game changer. So anyway, for me, I love the foldables. I don't think I could go back to a standard candy bar slash slab phones.

Speaker 1:

Wendy Bounds was on the show and we were talking about the flip phones. Now I know this is different. This is a smartphone, but I love the pink Razr back in the day and I would love to see that make a comeback with some of the smartphone features. I like that foldable, compact thing versus, like you said, the candy bar, the iDevice that I have. So I would like to do something like that on my next upgrade you can.

Speaker 2:

Samsung has the Flip. Check that out. Yeah, I have the quote Fold and there's still a Flip. The Flip is what you're describing. Yeah, and I think the Motorola's raising made a comeback. They have the sort of same thing. It's a clamshell phone, which is what you're describing. Yeah, you open it up and you have a full smartphone at your disposal.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm going to have to check that out in my next upgrade because I think I want to do something different Now. Did you have? You had a candy bar phone shape before?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, back in the day, my first four was candy bar phones, and then I switched over to smartphones, became a thing the Palm Treo. I don't know if you remember that one.

Speaker 1:

I worked there, I launched that. Oh, you did.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so crazy. Yeah, I love that thing. That thing was amazing.

Speaker 1:

You know what? It was the 680, which the antenna was removed. It was a Palm 750 when I joined the company back in 2004. And then we had the 680 and we had the different colors the red, and we were sending out to AT&T these red briefcases to launch it and we had in there red hats and different things affiliated with the color red. But that was my favorite device, if I want to be honest about it.

Speaker 2:

That was awesome. It was my first real smartphones. I love them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, me too. Oh, my goodness. Going back to your career, I got two questions for you. One of them is what is an important milestone that you're proud of?

Speaker 2:

It's funny because most people your listeners being excluded don't really find cybersecurity that interesting.

Speaker 1:

They're just like okay, that's nice yeah that's so much fun and then.

Speaker 2:

So I typically just tell people I'm a director and that normally just they nod their head and think, okay, I've explained my mom I don't know maybe nine or 10 times what I do and I don't think she understands it. So that's, I think she's par for the course. But milestones are looking for milestones. For me, I think three come to mind. Joining the FBI was one. It, I think three come to mind. Joining the FBI was one. It was a lifelong dream. I was honored and privileged to serve as a special agent with the FBI for 14 years. The most rewarding component in terms of milestone is the second milestone, which is becoming father I've mentioned that several times and probably the third was starting decoding cyber. It was my first foray into entrepreneurship, and so that really helped me get past some of the fears I had of starting my own thing, and it's allowed me to sort of explore that world, and so, anyway, those are the three main milestones I think about.

Speaker 1:

That's what I would primarily If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you about decoding cyber. Can you tell us what that is what you're doing? What was the inspiration behind it?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, so decoding cyber, we do something pretty simple. We make cyber simple. That's all we do. We try to make it understandable for all parties. We typically help small, the mid-sized businesses, solopreneurs. These are people who are just, you know, one person, operation or boards of directors and we take complex topics and make them easy to understand. We create content and then we also provide training. The motivation for me was sitting on a conversation with a bunch of engineers and we were all talking about concept x and no one had any questions. At the end of that conversation and at the end of the call, I realized the reason why no one had any questions is because no one understood what the main person leading the conversation was talking about and it dawned on me all people on this, on this conversation, were very intelligent people.

Speaker 2:

they're all engineering related, whether product or true engineers or managers, but they're all centric. This was a topic that was germane to the group, but it was just too complex, and then I started thinking about how many times that happened, that something's too complex. No one asked questions because they assume someone else knows or they're fearful that they may have a reaction that's negative. So they just sit there quietly, and when I look at cybersecurity, I think it's too important for us to sit without understanding it. The devastation that can ensue due to a cybersecurity attack is unimaginable at times, and so I really feel that all companies and organizations need to have a firm handle the threat. If they understand the threat, that is critical because then they can make informed decisions, and that was the genesis behind Decoding Cyber.

Speaker 1:

No, I like that and I think that's how you and I started talking, because I was doing the whole business risk thing and there's absolutely a gap between tech and the business leaders of an organization and, to your point and I've seen this firsthand there could be catastrophic damages, reputational risk, business loss. I think that is great that you're doing this, because I think there's a lot to learn.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's so much to share and many times it's not anything new, like sometimes you ask her what's the newest thing, or I think maybe because media and just our society sort of primes us for what's new and great A lot of times you're probably aware of this, melissa the threat isn't necessarily new or novel, it's just the same old situation. One of the biggest elements that companies can do to protect employees and their customers is train their employees. That's it, training, and it's not sexy or cool or sophisticated, it's just instilling knowledge in their users and people who are actually touching their network from a trusted perspective, which is an employee and so and so, something as simple as that. Many organizations don't necessarily understand why and the value.

Speaker 1:

No, that makes a lot of sense. I think that's still a big gap and I think that's going to be needed for as long as we can, because technology changes often and different people get in roles and you can't assume that the person coming in knows what they're doing. You know, understand. So, yeah, what is your guidance for people looking to get into cyber? Because I get I get a shout out every week as somebody to talk with about cyber and I've got my own opinions. But I would love to know what advice you would give to any of our listeners or people coming up through school.

Speaker 2:

I love the question. I, like yourself, get asked several times about how do I get into cybersecurity Two things I found when I chat with people who ask this question. Many times I haven't done either of them, but one thing I share with people is research the field and careers in that field. Many times people say I want to be in the cyber and what it's akin to is I want to be in the medical field. Well, what do you want to do, do you?

Speaker 1:

want to be a doctor?

Speaker 2:

Do you want to be a pharmaceutical rep? Do you want to research? There's so much to do in the medical field. What exactly are you thinking about? And when I pose that question to them is when you say cybersecurity, what do you mean? To be honest with you, melissa, I'm going to say 70 or 80% of the time, they just don't know, because I feel like they don't fully understand what cybersecurity is. So that's my first piece of advice If you want to get into cybersecurity, research the field, understand what the different elements are and then check out careers and spend some time with those careers. And what I encourage people to do is, once you get past this stage, no-transcript. There's a high probability they'll write you back and they'll spend some time talking to you. That's how you can learn a lot and then you can get a chance to know somebody. But spend some time researching that field and those careers. And the final thing I'll recommend the people who are new or interested in cybersecurity ask yourself do you want to be in the field playing the game or running the machine behind the scenes?

Speaker 2:

And what I mean by that is let's look at accounting like accounting as a profession. You can be an accountant for, we'll say, coca-cola. In that capacity, you're going to be behind the scenes helping enable people who are helping their company generate revenue, which are sales and marketing. I mean, essentially Coca-Cola is a marketing company but you're not going to be out there making money for them, but you're going to help facilitate that role. But if you're an accountant and you work for Ernst Young, it's different. Now you're out there as a main driver of revenue because you're consulting, you're providing guidance.

Speaker 2:

Cyber security is the same. Do you want to be behind the scenes supporting an organization? So you could work for Coca-Cola again, working in IT or cybersecurity capacity, working in a SOC or security operations center or working in network administrators different roles you could occupy, but it's behind the scenes or do you want to be out there helping generate revenue? In that instance you potentially could be working for a company like Paul Walton Networks operating in Unit 42, where you're out consulting, providing guidance. Or, again, ernst Young or Deloitte. There's different players out there who are providing services and lending their expertise and that's where you could be, in a cybersecurity capacity, out there helping generate revenue. Those are very different roles and I find most people don't think about that, because both roles have pros and cons, and that's something to think about as you're thinking about what you want to do.

Speaker 1:

No, you're 100% correct and that's kind of the advice I give to people too, because I have people in college and I mentored people when I was at Dell Technologies. And what part of cyber do you want to do? Because, as you mentioned, there are so many different things. I've done incident response, I've done consulting, done proactive cyber, so it's really really, really a big field. It's like medicine, like you said, it's like medicine and it's one of those things where you have to dive in and do some research on your own. And that's what I tell people. You got to dive in and kind of see what specialty you want to do, because it's not a one size fits all and I think a lot of people have that perception that it may be one size fits all. Lastly, michael, what are your goals for 2025, which is less than two weeks away?

Speaker 2:

2025, you're right is two weeks away. I have different goals. I'm dabbling in, as we're talking about cybersecurity. I'm dabbling in doing a shift, a career pivot, as it were. I'm thinking about focusing on a nonprofit space. I have a passion project. I'm starting to research and getting much further along now. It's called the Educator Fund and the idea behind it is to improve academic development. We must attract and retain exceptional teachers by boosting their pay. So basically, what I want to do is figure out, if I pay teachers more, how much better can I make their opportunity, their environment, so they enhance student development? As I mentioned, I have three boys.

Speaker 2:

It's been something I've been thinking about recently. I don't know about you, Melissa, but when I look at teachers, they do such amazing work and I think their composition does not come close to matching the impression they live. I mean, think about every great person in our society. They've all dealt with the teacher. Hopefully. I've had a positive experience where we all have that commonality Going forward. Teachers are going to help shape the future and I really feel as a society, we should do our best to get those individuals the right tools, the right training. We should empower them to do what's best for our society, and many times we don't. That starts with their pay, so that's what I'm looking into. The educator fund is something that myself and a few other people are chatting about or trying to determine what we do as a pilot, but that's what we're looking for in 2025.

Speaker 1:

That's great. When that happens, let us know so we can have you back to talk about that with our listeners. So that's great stuff, michael. Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on various platforms such as Apple, spotify and iHeartRadio. We wish you a great holiday ahead and thank you very much for your support.

People on this episode

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Melissa Sanford

Host
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Lisa Sanford

Co-host