IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT a mental health professional. I’m just a guy with ADHD who has learned a few things the hard way. If you need professional help, please start here. This week, I was in Denver. Same trip I wrote about on Monday. A conference, an award, and time with friends I don’t get to see nearly enough. I had some time between…
I’m sitting in the Puerto Vallarta airport, waiting to board a flight to Denver. Tomorrow, ISC2 is giving me a 2026 Global Achievement Award, the Senior Professional Award for the Americas region. I should be thrilled. Mostly, I’m torn. Honestly? I’d rather be working. I know how that sounds. Stick with me, because I think the reason matters, and I suspect some of you feel…
A quick note on the title before we start. Yes, I said bitch. No, I’m not talking about women, and I’m not calling anyone a name. I’m using it the way I’ve heard it used my whole life, in gyms, on job sites, and in every locker room I’ve ever been in. To make something your bitch is to master it. To own it. To…
You’ve probably driven past one and never noticed. A small camera on a pole. At the entrance to a neighborhood, near an intersection, outside a business. It doesn’t look like a traffic camera, so nobody looks twice. A lot of them are made by a company called Flock Safety, and right now they’re at the center of a fight that should matter to you a…
Someone sent me a quote card the other day. You’ve probably seen it. “Albert Einstein said if he had an hour to solve a problem, he’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem itself, and 5 minutes on the solution.” I liked it. So I checked it. Einstein never said it. There’s no letter, no interview, no paper — nothing. It’s internet folklore, the kind…
You have a version of yourself you keep putting off. Not because you don’t know what it takes. You know exactly what it takes. You’ve read the books, watched the videos, made the plan on a Sunday night with real conviction. And then Monday shows up, and so does the thing you actually worship. Comfort. Not drugs. Not money. Not fame. Comfort. The soft, reasonable,…
The things you do when nobody would blame you — those are the things that define you. I spend more time trying not to f*ck things up than I do anything else. That’s not a complaint. That’s just the job when you lead people you actually trust. And lately, one of my personal rules got tested hard. I held the line. But it wasn’t easy,…
Someone asked me yesterday what I’ve been up to. Not in a checking-in way. In the normal, conversational way people ask that question. What’s new? What have you been working on? I didn’t have an answer. Not a real one. Not one that felt truthful. It’s not that I’ve been doing nothing. It’s that I’ve been doing everything. Today alone — and it’s not even…
First, the backstory… I was in a bad mood before it even started. A get-together with a handful of information security veterans. People I respect. People who’ve been in this industry for decades. And within the first ten minutes, we were doing one of the things I hate most about this industry — posturing. Trading stories about how important we are. Who we’ve advised. What…
Mental Health Awareness Month – Entry #8 IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT a mental health professional. I’m just a person who loves you and has been through some things myself. If you need professional help, please start here. This is the last Mental Health Awareness Month post. And it’s the one I’ve been most careful about writing. Everything else this month — the shame, the…