Mental Health Awareness Month – Entry #3 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. For most of my life, I had a very clear and very wrong idea about what strength looked like. Strength meant handling your own problems. It meant…
Nobody told me a damn thing. Not my dad. Not my friends. Not a single guy I respect pulled me aside and said, “Hey, brace yourself.” I walked into this completely blind, full of confidence, and got absolutely leveled. Multiple times. Still do, honestly. So here I am. Telling you what nobody told me. You’re welcome. First — it’s hard. Like, actually hard. And I…
Mental Health Awareness Month – Entry #2 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. Most of us don’t talk about shame. Not really. Not with any honesty or transparency. We’ll talk about depression, anxiety, addiction, burnout — we’re getting better at…
Mental Health Awareness Month – Entry #1 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. There’s a voice in my head. Actually, that’s not accurate. There are several. And if you’re reading this, I’d bet good money you have them too —…
Mental Health Awareness Month – Introduction 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. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And every year, the internet does its thing. Pretty graphics. Soft pastel campaigns. Carefully worded corporate statements about “prioritizing well-being.” Hashtags. Webinars….
RANT WARNING Someone I know watched a million-dollar deal die last week. Not because the terms were bad. Not because the other side walked. Not because the market shifted or the numbers didn’t work. It died because one person in the room couldn’t shut up. A board member — someone with zero context on the negotiation, no seat at the table where the real work…
I’ve said this for years, and it usually gets one of two reactions: a slow nod of understanding or a look of pure, offended confusion. Most people think love and liking are the same thing, just at different volumes. They think “liking” is the base level and “loving” is what happens when you turn the dial all the way to the right. They’re wrong. In…
You’ve heard it in every boardroom, read it in every “State of the Industry” report, and seen it plastered across LinkedIn by people who haven’t managed a real incident in a decade. “It’s industry best practice.” It sounds safe. It sounds authoritative. It sounds like a shortcut to security. In reality, it’s usually just a fancy way of saying: “We’re doing exactly what everyone else…
In 2022, I sat in a meeting where three companies were pitching vCISO services to a consortium of 26 organizations. The question was simple: “Tell us how your vCISO services work.” The first company — a consulting firm from the east coast — answered: “Well, we sell you a block of hours, and as you need services performed, we deduct from your hours.” The second…
I ask almost every CISO (Chief Information Security Officer, for the non-security folks) I meet the same question. “Tell me what you do — but explain it like you’re talking to some random stranger walking down the street. Not to me.” Then I wait. More often than not, within 30 seconds, I stop them. “You’ve already lost me.” The look I get is hard to…