From Nuke Operator to Cybersecurity Expert: MIKE MCPHEE Shows What’s Possible

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
K.O. (00:00):
All right, crew.

(00:00):
Today's guest is a powerhouse in thecybersecurity space, an engineer educator, and
as he puts it, an outage waiting to happen.
Mike McPhee is a principal solutionsengineer in cybersecurity at Cisco, where
he helps US commercial customers designand strengthen their security and network
infrastructures with over 11 years ofexperience in cybersecurity consulting and

(00:21):
a background spanning systems engineering,security frameworks, threat intelligence,
and both red and blue team operations.
Mike has built a reputation forcrafting actionable security
strategies, developing trainingprograms, and shaping product roadmaps.
Beyond his engineering work, Mike isa five time Cisco Live distinguished
speaker and Hall of Fame member makingcomplex security topics engaging and

(00:43):
accessible for audiences worldwide.
Before joining Cisco, Mike served six yearsin the US Navy followed by a decade working
on secure communications and electronicwarfare systems as a systems engineer
and architect for defense contractors.
His work helped design and developcommand and control networks and the
electronic warfare systems for the USDepartment of Defense and NATO allies.

(01:04):
When it comes to credentials, Mike'slist is stacked, GIAC Security Expert
#339, 11 other GS certifications, Cisco'sCCIE, and routing and switching in
security, Cisco certified design expert.
Plus a master of science in InformationSecurity Engineering, an MBA,
and a Bachelor of Science degree.
Oh, and did I mention he's also anauthor, researcher, and patent holder.

(01:26):
But when he's not deep in cybersecurity,Mike keeps busy in a different way,
driving his kids to soccer tournaments,traveling with his family, experimenting
slowly with woodworking and planninghis dream all grain home brewing setup.
Strap in and get ready for anout of this world conversation.
Welcome to K.O.'s Launchpad, Mike McPhee.
Was that an artifact of how you were raised?

Mike (01:49):
I was raised in an Irish Catholic family too.
Or a Catholic family, but an IrishCatholic, more, more progressive liberal.
You can't survive in my familywithout a really good sense of humor.
We constantly harass and rag oneach other as a sign of love.
So, that's kind of our game.
We're always, always beating up oneach other, toughening each other up.

(02:11):
And now I've got two kidswho run circles around me.

K.O. (02:15):
Well, if you're gonna dish it out, you gotta take it too, right?

Mike (02:17):
You gotta take it.
You gotta take it.

K.O. (02:19):
I'm sure they pick up after you in some ways.
How does it feel to get roastedby your kids every now and then?

Mike (02:24):
It's glorious.

K.O. (02:25):
Really?

Mike (02:25):
Yeah.
It's glorious, man.
I know a lot of dads fear theirdaughter dating and there's a
part of me that's very protective.
But there's also a part of methat's like, good luck dudes.
You are so hosed.
You are so hosed.
'Cause she will, she willjust totally destroy them.
If they're not up to par, she'll give 'em how.

K.O. (02:45):
I love that.
I love that.
So one of my co-founderswives, he only has one wife.
Lemme just clarify there, huh?

Mike (02:53):
I mean, well, hey, to each their own.

K.O. (02:55):
She was raised to be a fighter and I'm pretty close with her dad.
Actually just recently stayed over at his placeand he had almost exactly the same sentiment.
And like I can see that same joy and like theglory in being able to say something like that.
I think it's awesome.
I hope one day should I have adaughter if I'm blessed with one.
I can say the same thing.

Mike (03:15):
Kids are fun, man.
They're a blast.
And I heard somebody refer to, whenyou have a kid, it's like you take
your heart, pull it outta your chest,you give it legs, and then you spend a
whole bunch of time going, oh, please.
Oh, oh, oh, don't.
You know?
But I think the payoff is oncethey get to be little mini adults.
To see like this crazy cool set ofpersonalities coming in and like my

(03:35):
son and daughter just, yeah, my wifeand I are really dreading them leaving.
Not because we want to control everything,but this is like the comic payoff.
This is when all the funhappens and it's like, ah, crap.

K.O. (03:48):
I'm sure they'll be grateful.
I'm sure that they're gonna take, all theseincredible lessons that you and your wife
spent your entire lives or their entirelives teaching them, and they're gonna bring
that to all the people that they love too.
So in a way, you get to livevicariously through them eternally.

Mike (04:03):
And they've promised they'd put me in a nice home too.
So I got that going for me.

K.O. (04:07):
Oh my goodness.
I've had a similar conversation with my momwhere she had just asked me, she was like,
you're gonna take care of me when I'm old.
Right.
And of course I am.
Of course, of course.
That's the way I was raised.
But I had the audacity to tell herlike, I'm gonna put you in a home.
The look on her face.
It was devastating.
I took, get back immediately.
I was like, mom, I'm so sorry.

(04:27):
I promise you I'll take good care of you.

Mike (04:29):
My daughter started that when she was 12.
Don't worry, dad, I'll pickout the nice home for you.
I was like, alright.

K.O. (04:35):
I love that.
I love that.
So you're mentioning that, you know, you'rethe child of, where they Irish immigrants?

Mike (04:41):
No, no.
I mean, I'm, you know, multi-generationalAmerican with Irish and Scottish background.
So my mom's side of the family isthe side that I was closest with.
We moved around a lot when I was a kid.
My father was in the Air Force.
So I went to a ton of schools growing up and itwas always like, pick up, move, pick up, move.
And my mom was actuallyin the Army Nurse Corps.

(05:02):
But when she had kids, shedecided to go inactive reserves.
Pretty soon after my sister was born.
And, we moved around a ton, but theconstant was always my grandparents
and my aunts and uncles on that side.
So still really close with all myaunts and uncles and love to see
'em whenever we get the chance.

K.O. (05:19):
Yeah.
So when you say you moved around a lot.
You know, I also moved arounda lot when I was pretty young.
Like my mom, she was bouncedaround from shelter to shelter.
Just all around the Bay Area.
So as a kid you're like, this is kind ofcool, you know, I get to check out a whole
bunch of other places, but there are alsotimes where it just doesn't feel so cool.
And it feels jarring.

(05:40):
I think in hindsight, that's one ofthe things that kind of stunted my own
growth in my ability to connect withpeople, and I'm really focused on that.
'Cause I just felt like such an awkward kid.
So I dissected the signs.
And I'm kind of curious for you, like, firstof all, which areas were you moving around?
Was it primarily in the States?

Mike (05:57):
I was all over.
I was born in Texas and lived in Arizonaand spent time in South Dakota and New York.
The first stint, livedin the UK for four years.
Moved back, was in NewJersey, back to New York.
And then, once I graduated high school, Ileft home as soon as I could, joined the

(06:18):
Navy and then moved around a bunch more.
So yeah, I've lived in Rochesterwhere I live now, the longest by
far of anywhere I've ever been.
So, but I just want to go back to whatsomething you had said, I think that
those experiences are what sets you apart.
I think that you may think that it made yousocially awkward or what have you, but I think
it gave you perspective and empathy, right.

(06:41):
And there's a lot of people don't get that.

K.O. (06:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Perspective is everything.
I try and focus a lot on like themindset that I approach situations with.
Yeah.
I think one of my favorite quotes is life's10% what happens to you and 90% how you react.
So a big believer in that.
So also really curious to hear fromyour side, like how do you feel this
experience of having moved not only aroundthe states, but also around the world

(07:04):
so young, like, how do you think thatwas formative to your current identity?

Mike (07:08):
I love travel.
You know, when I talk about my kids, Ithink one of the coolest parts is my wife
and I have tried to drag them to a lotof places with us, and, they love it now.
My daughter and open rebellion is tellingus she wants to go to school in Switzerland.
Just to get as far from us, but stillbe in a, you know, a place she, she
has in her head is really awesome.

(07:29):
But, both of them are big travelers.
They love going places and I think thatthe perspective they get, because they've
seen some other cultures, you know, they'vespent time in Spain and in Germany, and,
they went to Costa Rica this past springand had a blast and learned so much
about, you know, the, the folks there.
I think that, I see a lot of whathappened for me happening for them.

(07:54):
And I couldn't be more excited.
World's a big place.
And there's a lot to learnabout everybody in it.
Just as you figure out what makes eachculture or country or, group that you're
hanging with different, you also find alot of cool things that you have in common.
I mean, everybody likes to eat,you know, everybody likes to laugh.
Everybody likes to take care oftheir, you know, them and theirs.

(08:16):
And I think that's the coolest part ofit, is getting that appreciation for it.
And so it was a little bit weird forme when my parents both got outta the
military and we finally settled downand in, Southern New York and it was
kind of like, you know, it was weird.
I was moving into a place where peopleweren't used to those experiences.
They'd all been with each othersince they were in Pampers.

(08:37):
And here I'm coming in, youknow, almost, almost high school.
And they're like, who's the, who'sthe dude with the weird clothes?
What the heck's his deal?
What kind of music's he listening to, you know.

K.O. (08:47):
All of it.

Mike (08:48):
And it's like, oh, I certainly not listening to this hair band
stuff you guys knew, but yeah.
Yeah, it was interesting.

K.O. (08:54):
I'm sure you've had, quite a bit of exposure to not only a wide variety of
places, but like a wide variety of cultures.
And I had a similar experience when I wasgrowing up in the Bay Area, where, for
some people it can feel like a melting pot.
It can be hyper competitive.
There's people from all over theworld who are vying for the few
spots that are available here.

(09:14):
So it can get really competitive, but thepeople that you can find sometimes are
some of the most competitive people whohave come from the most unique backgrounds.
So I remember growing up there wasalways like a different ethnicity around.
And I think because I was raised, likein the conservative household that I was.
I didn't necessarily approach thatwith the mindset of like, Hey,

(09:36):
we have so much common ground.
Eventually over time, that was somethingthat I started to feel the opposite of.
Like there's so much more commonalitybehind people than I think there isn't.
Like you mentioned, people needto laugh, people need to smile.
So I'm happy to hear that, you know, youwere able to learn that and you were able
to pass this down onto your kids as well.
So what was one of the drivingfactors behind pursuing the military?

Mike (10:03):
I think like a lot of people, it was the same thing that, you know, has
happened for, you know, since history began.
Somebody screwed up and decidedI needed to get my act together.
And, I toiled away in college and wastrying to figure out what I wanted to be
and whose version of me I wanted to be.
And it wasn't working out andmy priorities were messed up.

(10:24):
And, both parents, you know, father AirForce, mother Army, and a proud tradition
in my family of having, grandparents and,occasional aunts and uncles that had gone
in it, it was always top of mind for me andit was finally a matter of, well, I'm, you
know, I'm not getting anywhere doing this.
I should go and like see ifthis is what I am, I'm good for.

(10:46):
So I joined the Navy.
A typical rebellious fashion to pissboth parents off and it didn't work.
They were both super, super supportiveand incredibly, you know, and always
were, of the commitment to go in.
And, yeah, I mean, I just, I went intothe Navy is a challenge to myself.

(11:06):
I remember trying to figure out, Idon't want to be, I don't wanna be a
Navy Seal or a Marine force recon guy.
I want to know what thetoughest mental program is.
Like what program would I learn themost and be most challenged because I
need to prove it to myself that collegewas an aberration and I can do this.
And so I ended up going into thenuclear field in the US Navy.

(11:29):
So that was good.

K.O. (11:31):
So were you always someone who tried to take on the biggest challenge possible
or was that sort of your first step?

Mike (11:37):
That was kind of a need to prove myself a little bit, type of thing.
I used to be very introverted.
I used to be very in my own head.
I was a good student when I applied myself,but yeah, I just struggled, you know, I had
dynamics going on with the family as well.
At that time.

(11:57):
It was just a weird time and neededto figure out which end was up.
And it only took like six days of bootcampfor me to get clean and straight and
realize like, wow, I actually like learning.
And, but now I got six, six moreyears of, the Navy to deal with
until I can get out and prove it, so.

K.O. (12:12):
Right on.

Mike (12:13):
That's good.

K.O. (12:14):
So, was the intention to stay in the Navy for six years?
When did you start kind ofgaining more experience with the
technological side of the fence?

Mike (12:23):
I went in as an electrician's mate, and it was very technical, but it
was on the physics and chemistry and.
Some of your, your kick butt naturalscience type stuff, and I loved it.
But I think that when you enlist inthe military, you're typically doing
so without that same like, Hey, Igot a bachelor's, I've got options.

(12:44):
And so you get to a point where I enlisted forthe first six years with a let's wait and see.
And by about year three, year four,I was appreciative, but I knew
I wanted to do something else.
And with the way the military'sstructured, and when you go in,
there's a decision that happens.
Like, if I'm not gonna spend 20plus in, well, I spend any more

(13:06):
in, you know, I've got potential.
I can go back to school, I can do this right.
I can get a, you know, new career.
And so that's what I decided to do.
I was aided by, some, physical challenges withbad feet and surgeries and stuff like that,
that ended up, disqualifying me for sea duty.
So, I kind of, made it a verysimple and regret free decision.

(13:26):
But, yeah, after that I got out of the, aftermy six years were up, I got out of the Navy
and went to school and never looked back.
It was awesome.

K.O. (13:34):
Gotcha.
So was it your intention to go back to schoolwhen you wrapped up your career at the Navy?
Like, what was the mindset that you werein at that moment in terms of defining
what the next steps I always were gonna be.

Mike (13:46):
I always, yeah, I always knew I was gonna go back to school.
I just didn't know how, I didn't knowif I was gonna go back to school,
to become an officer, you know?
'cause I had lofty ambitions anddreams of world conquest and,
none of that came to fruition.
I eventually smartened up andrealized, I know I don't wanna be a
nuclear operator the rest of my life.
It was interesting stuff, but itwas interesting 'cause of who I

(14:08):
was with and the way we operated.
I didn't see a future for me with the heavilyregulated, you know, civilian nuclear power.
And so I knew I wanted to go back to school.
I knew I wanted to do something technical.
When it became clear that I didn'thave 20 years ahead of me in
the Navy, I wanted to get out.

(14:29):
When I did, I got back out and I went toRochester Institute of Technology and got a
Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering tech.
So it was good.

K.O. (14:37):
So it sounds like you were able to establish a pretty strong and solid
electrical engineering background,or at least foundation, in the Navy.
Is that pretty accurate to say?

Mike (14:46):
Yeah.
Well, and it, and to be fair, I studieda lot of it before I joined the Navy.
And in the Navy, I finally found myself, itwas like the third time I'd taken physics.
I realized like, oh, thisis actually really cool.
Yeah.
I'm getting it.
And, school became very easy in the Navy.
It's amazing what being paid for and havingthe only job to do is, is to be a, a student.
Which is a lot of what the firstyear and a half to two years of a

(15:09):
nuclear operator in the Navy is.
But what it did was it helped mebuild the confidence to take on really
cool, exciting, but technical stuff.
And to not, to not sweat it.
Yeah.
I think one of the big lessons, itwasn't even on the technology side
that I got out of the Navy, was that

(15:30):
the military's a veryrigid structured hierarchy.
You know, you do not askquestions unless you're a nuke.
Yeah.
And they trained us to askquestions and to inspect everything.
And so if, you know, I could have anadmiral come in and say, you do this.
And if I didn't believe in itand I was in charge of the plant.
I could say no.
So you got, you know, a blueshirt, Navy guy telling an admiral.

(15:53):
No, I don't agree with that.
With all due respect and.

K.O. (15:57):
Important caveat there.

Mike (15:59):
And so it gave me, you know, it gave me the confidence to challenge the norm.
It gave me the confidence to question thingsI didn't understand and to ask questions.
And I honestly think that I, I jokinglycall it now, I offer myself up to the
teams I support as an idiot, as a service.
Like if you need somebody to askdumb questions, I'm your guy.
And it comes from that navybackground and being taught to

(16:22):
question things till I understand it.

K.O. (16:24):
So what would you say are some of your favorite memories of
being a nuke operator in the Navy?

Mike (16:29):
Uh,
this PG?

K.O. (16:34):
As honest as you like.

Mike (16:35):
That's a good question.
I mean, there's moments and, some of them arevery long sea stories, but I think the biggest
thing is, it's like any military organizationor any good high functioning, close knit
team, you're not doing it for the navy.
You're not doing it for the company.
You're doing it for each other.
And I think that there was a very, it'samazing what having shared fate in the

(16:58):
most, like literal sense can do for you.
The most junior guy on the boat could sink it.
I was on a submarine and all it guy fresh outtabootcamp could come to the boat and if he press
the wrong button or flip the wrong valve, oops.
And so what that does is it.
Really instills in you a sense ofshared fate and responsibility.

(17:21):
Not just to like, don't screw up, but also tomake sure others don't . To like, work with
them to ensure that they're not gonna kill you.
And it's a, you know, I got a ton of respectfor the guys that are, soldiers, sailors,
airmen, marines, that go into battle.
There was a different sense ofdanger in the submarine fleet.
You ever seen The Hunt for Red October?

K.O. (17:42):
I think I have.
It's been a while though.

Mike (17:44):
Yeah.
He's got a line in there that isreally applicable, which is, you know,
30 years I've been to sea, or, orbeen at war, a war without battles.
Without heroes or withoutmedals, only casualties.
And it's like kind of thing.
Right.
It sticks with you because.
I don't have the great storiesabout going to a port call or, you

(18:05):
know, hey, here's what we did in thisforeign country, or any of that stuff.
And I don't have any of the sad stories aboutlosing friends and brothers in arms like that.
But what I do have are the memories andthe experiences of being in a really
bad spot with really good friends andhelping each other get through it.

(18:26):
And sometimes it wasn't a, atechnical or a seaborn threat.
Sometimes it was a guy going through stuffwith family, but he's out to sea for three
months and can't do anything about it.
Sometimes it's a guy struggling with, arelationship or whatever and having to
spend all of that time unable to address it.

(18:46):
And so you learn to kind of lookout for each other that way too.
So just like, you don't want 'em flippingthe wrong valve or the wrong switch.
You're also like checking in.
Like, hey Cal, you cool?

K.O. (18:56):
Yeah, you good.
You good man.

Mike (18:58):
You good.
What's, what's really going on?
And so you get to know people a different way.
And I think that's, that's the thing Icherish the most about my time in was,
getting that close with those guys.

K.O. (19:07):
We are also in a very tight, confined space, I'm imagining.

Mike (19:12):
Oh, it was palatial.
It was palatial.

K.O. (19:17):
Oh my goodness.

Mike (19:17):
Uh, no.

K.O. (19:18):
Do you have any memories of being a nuke operator where there was a moment where the
hairs on the back of your neck just stood up?

Mike (19:26):
Yeah.
A lot of them.
I was out to sea you when the Kursk sank.
So the Kursk was a submarine that Russianshad, and it sank and they think it was due
to a malfunctioning experimental torpedo.
And, we didn't know what happened.
We just got a message that said, run and hide.
We didn't know why.
It was a scary time.
'Cause we thought, and there was a, possibilitythat had cooler heads not prevailed.

(19:51):
Russians thought we sank their ship.
We didn't know what happened.
We thought one of their ships sank.
And so all around the world,submariners underway were, you know,
the pucker factor was at a max.
Because we're all like, what's going on?

K.O. (20:07):
Yeah.
Diamond clenching at that point.

Mike (20:09):
Yeah, man.
The stress of that, not knowingwhy you were all of a sudden at a
heightened operational, paranoia.
There's always something wrong when theycancel Field day, which is clean up the ship.
When they cancel that, youknow, something's happened.

K.O. (20:22):
Something serious.

Mike (20:23):
You don't take Field Day away from the chiefs.
They love to inflict the pain and make youget in the villages and scrape and scour.
So.

K.O. (20:30):
I guess.

Mike (20:30):
When they take that away, you know, stuff's real.

K.O. (20:33):
So if someone were just enlisting today and they were considering being a nuke
operator, what's some advice you'd give them?

Mike (20:41):
Best people you'll meet in the service, honestly, like, it's
got a really high attrition rate.
It's very high stress getting through theprogram, but it makes everything you do
after feel really easy and you'll, youknow, I think anybody who decides to go
into the military, God bless 'em, wish themthe best and, you know, appreciate that.

(21:04):
But, do it for the right reasonsand make sure that, you know.
You're okay with that effort.
It'll pay off.
You'll have friendships and, brother orsisterhood that you wouldn't get anywhere else.
And, yeah, it was, it was great.
And I would also say, stick to your guns.
Make sure that you, if you don't want to gosubmarines, don't volunteer for submarines

(21:25):
in a sleep deprived and semi-consciousstate submarines were awesome.

K.O. (21:31):
Oh, goodness.
All right.
Well, wow.
Yeah, I'm glad that you said this out loudspecifically the bit about how when you go
through the pressure of a potential nuclearthreat, everything else after that just
doesn't really seem that much stressful.

Mike (21:49):
So when I say nuclear operator, I was operating a reactor plant or
helping, you know, with the power.
That's how we make the, submarinesbe able to go out to sea.
For a long time we had nuclear missiles onthe Pope, but I wasn't involved with that.
But there is a factor.
I had a colleague at Boeing thattaught me something that I had
heard once, but never picked up on.

(22:09):
But when he started using it, whenI was working there as my first job
outta college, it cracked me up.
But it's also a mantra, which iswhat's the worst that can happen?
They can't take away my birthday.
And, I use that when I go in totalk to customers or go in to talk
to partners or get in front of anaudience, or I'm gonna go get yelled at.
It's like, what are you gonna do to me?

(22:30):
Like, I mean, seriously, how hard's it gonnabe, you know, there's gonna be bad outcomes.
There's gonna be adversity that youencounter, but none of it's anywhere
close to the, life and death situationsthat a lot of people find themselves in
with much more seriously, dangerous jobs.
If once you do that, it kind of freesyou a little bit to keep things in

(22:52):
perspective and to just, you know,not get too uptight about things.

K.O. (22:59):
That's fair.
That's fair.
You know, sometimes I think back, especiallywhen I'm about to face something that I
think or perceive as pretty stressful.
Like a big presentation or a big talk.
And I just flash back to what it waslike when I was on the line at Chipotle
or when I was on grill at Chipotle.
Yeah.
Which is arguably the worst jobthere in terms of like difficulty.

(23:21):
It's hot, it's probably 200 degrees back there.
And the plancha, which isright in front of you, cooking.
50 pieces of chicken is also runningat 550 degrees, the surface of it.
So just constant heat, constant fire, and thenpeople start running out of food or the line
calls out something a little bit too late andnow everyone's staring at you, which just adds
to the factor of stress that you're feeling.

(23:42):
And then you have to think about, wow, I just.
I possibly could have justmade someone's day worse.
Someone who came to me while starving.
And I have to own this responsibility whilechopping up this meat, while sweating.
And I feel like those aresuch formative experiences.

Mike (23:57):
I think everybody should work in a kitchen.
Everybody should work in a professionalkitchen just to appreciate what people in,
the, food and beverage service go through.
I worked in a restaurant for a few years,you know, college, high school, high school.
And just prior to leaving for the Navy,actually I dish washed, I bused tables.
I, helped do prep cooking.

(24:17):
I flipped pizzas.
I did all, I worked attwo different restaurants.
I bartended.
And that, that's, you know, thatfelt like a really high stress job.
And then I got in the Navy and Iwas like, yeah, I could have just
told the guy, hold his horses.
You know, you'll get your gin and tonic.
Relax.
You know?

K.O. (24:33):
I gotcha.
I gotcha.
So you mentioned something offcamera earlier where you are
really good at setting boundaries.
And I think that is a really difficult skill.
I think it's a skill for you to be ableto harness and execute, because I feel a
lot of people are sort of people pleasing.
Like that's the society that we have.
Like, what can you do for me?

(24:54):
How can you help me?
How can you get something done?
And then there's always thispressure of leadership kind of
looking down on you to deliver.
But now seeing the context behind whereyou've been, like either as a bartender
or, operating a nuclear power plant,being able to tell someone no, I think
is so liberating in so many ways.

Mike (25:09):
Oh, yeah.
It frees you, it changes the game a bit, right.
There's this guy on LinkedIn that I follow,Jefferson Fisher, I think his name is.
And he always gives you three tips fordealing with a toxic personality, or three
tips for this, or three tips for that.
They're fantastic, but so much ofit is about taking back control.
And not making excuses for yourfeelings, but helping explain to

(25:32):
others like, I'm allowed to do this.
This is my right.
This is my, you know, I need to do this.
And, yeah, it's liberating.
Once you realize that you can do that,I think a lot of times people get upside
down or under a ton of stress that had theysignaled from the get go, what they were

(25:53):
willing to accept and what was like withinbounds would never have gotten to that point.
And I, when I look at the times in my earlycareer, I worked at Boeing on a lot of
proposals and at a company called Harris,here in Rochester that did like tactical
command and control systems for militaries.
And when we were doing proposals.

(26:15):
It was easy to get stressed out.
And get burned out.
And, it doesn't, they don't alwayswant to hear it, but I kind of think
pushing back that feedback mechanismhelps regulate what happens after.
So if you wait until you're at your wit'send and you're gonna pop and you're done
mental, you know, damage, that's not good.

K.O. (26:36):
Yeah.
It's too late.

Mike (26:37):
You gotta, you gotta vent that pressure early.
You know, so that you don't hit that tippingpoint so you don't ruin your work life balance
and, rob your family or impact your familybecause you're, you know, stressed out.

K.O. (26:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel a lot of high performing individuals,especially those who work in high stress
fields like sales or solutions architecture.
Like we tend to lose ourselves inthe amount of work there is to do.
Yeah.
Just 'cause there's a limitless amountfor us to bring in the next purchase
order for us to close the next dealfor us to retire quota, exceed quota.

(27:11):
And at the end of the year, guess what happens?
That quota gets raised and thatsame circle sort of resumes.
So I think it can be easy to justget stuck in the hamster wheel, like
more and more and more, more, more.
Like nicer car, bigger house.
For you, how would you say you learned howto cultivate the skill of setting boundaries?

Mike (27:33):
The cynical, no good deed goes unpunished, right.
And I think that one of the most importantthings to do is, to whatever you do or however
you scale for it to be sustainable and to,realize that you're a stakeholder too, right?
So you're so busy trying to please yourboss, please your customer, please your

(27:55):
teammates that you sometimes forget.
You gotta take care of number one.
And I'm not saying that to beselfish, I'm just saying to make sure
you get a seat at your own table.
And I think that, you're no good to anybodyif you're burnout, you're stressed out.
And, you know, not operatinghappily or contently.
And I think one of the reasons we do thatis because we're so willing to dismiss

(28:19):
that we're important and we associatetoo much of our value with our job.
And I think that the quicker you realizeother people are depending on the other parts
of you that aren't tied up in your role.
And that those are important too.
Even though they don't get you,you know, they don't pay the bills.
They keep you alive.
They keep you healthy.

(28:40):
And so, like being a dad's crazyimportant, being a husband,
being a brother, being a friend.
And so everybody's a mix of, youknow, parent, spouse, siblings,
son, daughter, whatever, right?
But make sure you take care of that andthat you're like working hard on that.
Otherwise you'll never sustainwhat you're trying to do at work.

(29:01):
And I think just there's not enoughtime in the day to slave away at that
job and take care of all those things.
But I think that we're toowilling to make that trade.
We're always punting to the future.
Like, oh, I'll have more time for the kids.
Yeah, time for my friends or whatever.
After I get this, that or the other thing done.

(29:21):
Nah, you know, we see way too manystories of somebody, you know, passing
away unexpectedly long before they get achance to retire or long before they get
a chance to take that trip or, you know,see that game or have that experience.
Nope.

K.O. (29:40):
Yeah, I, um, so I just celebrated my birthday this past weekend.

Mike (29:44):
Hey, happy birthday man.

K.O. (29:45):
Thank you.

Mike (29:45):
Nice.

K.O. (29:46):
I appreciate that.

Mike (29:46):
I didn't even know.

K.O. (29:47):
But I, I wanted to have like a different celebration.
You know, I've, I've thrown the big parties.
I've had 20, 50, a hundred,200 people sometimes.

Mike (29:57):
Wow.

K.O. (29:57):
And I just thought that, you know, the bigger the party the better.
And after I'd thrown probably the biggestparty I'd ever had, it was actually
a quite miserable experience for me.

Mike (30:08):
Really?

K.O. (30:09):
Yeah.
And it wasn't 'cause I wasn't surroundedby people that I, I didn't love.
Like maybe that was an artifact of it.
How many people can you truly love?
Right?
Like 200 is kind of a lot.
Um, oh.

Mike (30:19):
But we love all of them.

K.O. (30:21):
But we love all y'all.
You do.

Mike (30:27):
You told me not to talk to the camera.
We're going off script.
Sorry.

K.O. (30:30):
We're going.
But I was thinking that.
At this dinner I wanted tohave, the most quality company.
And we did this exercise where, after I hadcooked up some steaks for everybody, while
everyone was eating, I just wanted everyone tojust share something that they were grateful
for, and that I wanted to share a video withthem or a line from a video that I'd watched

(30:52):
when I was a teenager that has just kindof been an inkling in the back of my mind
and always pops up when I'm super stressed.
And it talks about how we should dothis mental exercise of flashing forward
to when we're 99 and on our deathbedand think about what are the five
things that you wished you did more of?
And it turns out this has been surveyedand asked to thousands of people.

(31:12):
And nowhere, nowhere near the top ofthe list is, I wish I worked more.
Nobody says that.
It's always the same few things.
I wish I spent more timewith the people I loved.
I wish I spent more time with family.
I wish I spent more time with my own hobbies.
I wish I'd spent more timewith my pets, my dogs, my cats.
And I think that's likeeye-opening perspective.

(31:35):
That's very, very helpful for someone to hear,but in practice, much, much more difficult.

Mike (31:40):
Yeah.
No, I got you, man.

K.O. (31:41):
So how did you learn that these lessons, I think you mentioned that
there was always gotta be some sortof tipping point, we reach, right?.

Mike (31:47):
Oh, I got burned out.
I think everybody goes throughit at least once, right?
You got a yellow jacket there buddy.
Sorry, they're around.

K.O. (31:54):
Yeah.
I thought that was a chill bee.
Good thing, I.

Mike (31:56):
No.

K.O. (31:57):
Good thing you called that out.

Mike (31:58):
Punks, man.
Yellow jackets, Satan, Satan's minions.
I think everybody hits a wall.
It's just how many times you, it'skind of like, Hey doctor, this hurts.
It hurts when I do this.
Well, stop doing that.
Right?
And I think, two or three times into my earlycareer, I hit that wall where I was like,
just exhausted and I let them do it to me.

(32:21):
I stopped playing the hapless victim.
And I started to realize like, Ineed to just push back a little bit.
I think I can do this.
It was actually one of thereasons I left one of my jobs.
I won't say which one.
But I was, I, you know, I was tired of havingunfulfilled promises for a more enriching
role while they just kept on pushing meback into the, proposal, sweat factory.

(32:45):
It was taking a toll on me,taking a toll on my relationships.
And I was miserable.
And I realized like, wow, man,I really gotta figure this out.
And so I think, a lot of folks, when they'relooking at their career and charting a course.
There's too much attention paid to paygrades and titles or fame or what, I
don't know, whatever motivates people.

(33:07):
And what I started to realize is that I do bestwhen I forget all that crap and just figure
out what it is that, like, makes me happy.
Like how, if I'm gonna take time, and nowI look at my role and my job as I'm taking
time away from my loved ones, my family,what would be worth that and what would

(33:29):
they totally get and be like, cool with.
I think I've talked to you about this beforein a, you know, in a phone call, right?
I've got like four things that are likemy compass of career charting, right?
Am I having more fun?
Am I doing less bs?
Am I having a greater impact?
And is the work life stuff in check?

(33:49):
Is the family happy?
And every career move I've made inthe last 12 years has been around.
How do I impact those things?
And if I'm not improving inat least two of those things.
I seriously consider whether Ishould even give it any more thought.
And, I mean, you can call me chief bottlewasher or, you know, poopoo face or

(34:15):
whatever, but if I'm having fun and I'mhitting all four of those buckets, I'm good.
So.

K.O. (34:21):
That's huge.
That's huge.
That's one of those lines thatI feel like is gonna resonate.
You know, you're someone that I get, the ideais very intentional in the things that they do.
And for you to be intentional,you need to be cognizant about
the circumstance that you're in.
And I think that comes with a wide expanseof like, experience that you've been through.
And what I'm curious to hear islike, what are some telltale signs

(34:41):
that you're approaching burnout?

Mike (34:42):
And by the way you say intentional, but my wife would say indecisive.
She says, I will researchthe heck out of anything.
So.

K.O. (34:51):
Oh, I'm the same way.
Decision paralysis almost,or analysis paralysis.
Doesn't matter.

Mike (34:55):
Yeah.
Yep.
Indecisions the key to flexibility.
So.
You know, that's a really good question.
I think, I've gotten, it's like, it's weird.
I'm at a point now where it's just baked intowhat I do . And how I interact with people.
I think most of my managers will agree.
I'm pretty open.

(35:15):
I jokingly say that I'm a managementchallenge, which I think might
strike people as kind of crazy.
Hopefully not my managers.

K.O. (35:24):
Why do you say that?

Mike (35:25):
Well, because I'm vocal and I think the biggest thing is learning how to speak up
for yourself, not feeling guilty about that.
And I think the quicker you normalizethat with everybody, you, everybody
will work with all those stakeholders.
That aren't just, you know, aren't you.
The easier it is to nip things in thebud before it becomes outta control.

K.O. (35:45):
Because you have this reputation as being truth seeking.

Mike (35:49):
Well, that, and like if you, it's really hard for somebody to adjust.
How they're treating you.
If they're not aware how they'retreating you is impacting you, right?
You need to close it.
You need to, you don't need tojust improve the feedback loop.
You need to establish the feedback loop.
They need to understand that like youare, you know, if, if you're a network

(36:12):
engineer, you know, you, you worry aboutthings like, you know, throttling and,
and you know, shaping and policing and,you know, TCP windows and stuff like that.
Eventually the receiver is overwhelmedand they send a signal out.
And they say, hey, chill.

K.O. (36:30):
Yeah, reset.

Mike (36:30):
Chill till I can, you gonna process all these fragments and put these,
you know, TCP streams back together.
And it's the same for people.
Like, we all have capacity limitsand they're not a designed in thing.
They vary.
You know, we all have our times, weall need, you know, we all have cycles.
We gotta kind of navigate.

(36:51):
So you can't expect what works foryou now to be understood by your boss
now and to be the way it is forever.
You've gotta continuallytweak that relationship.
And I think that once you do that,your manager, your supervisor, your
director, whoever it is you reportto, and if you're doing that with
your colleagues, all the better.

(37:12):
They all get tuned into, okay, all right, Iknow how to work with Mike, work with KO to get
this done without stressing them the heck out.
And oh, by the way, the results will be better.
Sometimes people are in such a hurry to getstuff done that they don't get it done, right.
And it's, you know, it's kind of thatgood, fast, cheap pick two, right?

(37:34):
And at the extreme, like I think peopledon't, I, they don't force the pick,
they just put the unreal expectation onthemself that they're gonna get that done.
And that's, and then when youdo that, now you're committed.
And who wants to let anybody down?
Not me.
And so the best thing to dois, is to let people down early

(37:54):
before there's any expectations.
And you're not really lettingthem down at that point.
You're just calibrating their expectations.
You're helping themunderstand how you work best.
And I think most people, you know, woulderr towards good if given the chance.
Give your leadership, give your colleaguesa chance, give your customers a chance.
To see you at your best.
And the way you do that isby you having a balance.

K.O. (38:17):
Yeah.
I think that's really well said.
I feel for a lot of people who, especiallyfor those who are earlier on in their career
.The common advice is say yes to everything.
Do everything, do it all.
Like make a name for yourself.
I think having this perspectiveis really, really valuable.
Especially for people who, are just startingtheir career or haven't quite yet, or
even entertaining, or are the ones whoactually wanna advance and maybe notice a

(38:39):
trend where they keep bumping into a wallwhere they just can't push any further.
I'm definitely someone who tends to pushuntil my body physically cannot, and I don't
think that's a sustainable path to success.
So hearing this, I think I'malready pulling so many gems away.
I'm sure other people will too.

Mike (38:56):
Ah, thanks man.
I think the real, you know,it's a job, it's not a hobby.
And so, there are gonna be times whereyour leadership needs to ask more of
you or your customer or your team.
Needs to ask more of you.
And you're going to have to kind ofmake some small micro sacrifices, but
they need to know that's a sacrifice.

(39:17):
They need to know thatthis, this can't be normal.
And that this isn't the best way for you towork, so that those occasions are limited.

K.O. (39:25):
Yeah.
Some advice I heard before islike, ask permission to be great.
Like if you're gonna go aboveand beyond, let people know that
you were going above and beyond.
Otherwise that standard of workmight not ever be appreciated.

Mike (39:39):
Yeah.
Take it for granted.

K.O. (39:41):
They will.
And yeah, that's a huge lesson, like justthe beginning part of this conversation.
I feel like if I could have had this.
When I was.

Mike (39:51):
Me too.

K.O. (39:51):
You know, earlier on in my career.

Mike (39:52):
Me too.

K.O. (39:53):
I could have benefited so much.
So now let's get into sort of thetransition that you had outta the military.

Mike (40:00):
Oh, okay.
Yeah.

K.O. (40:01):
So you had mentioned that you were in a couple roles afterwards.
One of which you're doing a lot ofproposal work for, that you were doing.
I believe you wrapped up your education at RIT.

Mike (40:11):
That was my first degree.
Yeah.

K.O. (40:12):
First degree.
Okay.
So that degree was in, electricalengineering technology.
And that compounded off theknowledge base that you already had
from your time as a nuke operator.
As well as some of the physicsstudy that you were doing prior to.
So at what point do you start making thetransition deeper and deeper into technology?

Mike (40:32):
Well, I mean, this is one of the funny things.
I find when IT people talk technology,they're talking about Information
Technology, Information Systems.
I got a Bachelor's degree in ElectricalEngineering Technology with the intent of going
and designing, radio communication systems.
GPS and, all kinds of cool stuff.
And I think technology's pretty broad.
And so a lot of people will say,you're on your fifth career.

(40:55):
Like, have you got it right this time?
You know, or are you sure you're done?
And I think the key is that allof this stuff's interrelated.
And so when I got outta college and Iwent to work for Boeing, in the Integrated
Defense systems, not on 737 doors or anythinglike that, I learned an awful lot there.
And I, a lot of my struggles with learningto manage expectations and stuff, I started

(41:19):
to kinda, you know, I felt the pain there.
I felt the stress, and Istarted to work through things.
But I saw that the more I focused on things Ireally enjoyed, the more I enjoyed the work.
And that the work became less of astress and that the time started to just
kind of melt away and that I was alsoenjoying my time outside of work more.

(41:43):
And so, like I was working on,communication systems for missile defense
and, you know, software defined radiosand all kinds of cool stuff there.
And then when I made the transitionto, the tactical communications company
up the road, it was more of the same.
I started to kind of work through things,but that's the spot where I actually started

(42:03):
to realize maybe information technologies.
You know, talking about IP based architecturesand stuff might actually be a thing.
And part of that was because I was working onall these proposals and the militaries all over
the world are all moving to IP at the time.
And, I got sick of losing proposals 'causethe network guys didn't understand networks.

(42:24):
So I started picking it up as kindof a, well this is interesting.

K.O. (42:28):
You're like, I'll become that.

Mike (42:29):
I, I think I can do this, you know, and, I took a CCNA class and that was it.
I was hooked.
So I started doing that, but it wasalways to supplement my core job at these
places, which was to develop architecturesfor proposals to go and win business
with NATO or, with the US Department ofDefense or, Homeland Security or whoever.

(42:52):
And towards the end of my time atthat company, I, started to say,
man, I really enjoy this so much.
I wanna make it my full-time gig.
And so it was just kindof like an organic move.
You know, it just made sense.
It was like, Hey, what do I want to do?
And as bad as I thought that role was becoming.
I moved into an even worserole as my first job in IT.

(43:14):
And I was, I was, I made the mistake ofjumping right into a network team lead
role as opposed to an operator role.
And so I was given a lot of speechesabout how I was gonna be able to do all
these things and make great changes andimprove an architecture and develop a team.
And I moved into a placewhere that wasn't the case.
And by then was when I was startingto advocate really well for myself.
And so I left one year tothe day after starting.

(43:35):
I had to come join Cisco.

K.O. (43:37):
That's awesome.

Mike (43:38):
So it was good.
I tell people it was my Shawshank experience.
My last year and a half, two yearsat the last DOD contractor job.
It was really hard because I felt like Iwasn't living up to the biggest part of myself.
Or living up to my own expectations.
And then I'm, you know, made my escapeto move into this new career path.

(43:58):
But I had to get through that one year tunnelof poo to get out now I'm chipping paint
and saying, I want to nail and enjoyingmyself here, waiting for red to show up.
So.

K.O. (44:08):
Love that.
So, something that I think a lot ofpeople will run into over the course
of their career is that the job that'sadvertised to you may not necessarily be
the job that you are actually working in.
So what's your advice to someone who islooking to make that career transition?
Like, how can they make a better informeddecision about reconciling the difference

(44:29):
between what a job is advertised asand what the job will actually be?

Mike (44:33):
That's a really good question.
I don't know if this is abnormal, but I'vegotten to a point where I realize that.
The negotiations don't stopwhen you accept the role.
And that if you're in a place that isso rigidly defined that you can't find
a way to benefit that company in a waythat maximizes your happiness and your
strengths, it's probably not for you.

(44:54):
I've been really lucky and supportedreally well by, all of my leadership for
the last 10 plus years at Cisco to kindof make the role what I want and what I
need it to be for me to be, be my best.
And I think you saw that too.
There's a lot of ways somebody canshow up as a solutions architect,
there's a lot of ways somebody canshow up as a cybersecurity consultant.

(45:17):
Some of us show up with, more in depthexpertise in a particular solution.
There are keyboard warriors.
Some of us show up with encyclopedicknowledge across a bunch of
areas, and some of us show up.
just like to talk a lot.
But if you can find a way to make thatwork and it benefits your employer,

(45:38):
it should be part of the discussion.
And if you're having that feedback loop withyour bosses and they're doing even the base
amount of work to understand how you workbest and where your triggers are and what
kinda workload you can handle and which workyou can, it's in their best interest to find
a way to make the role fit you best too.

(45:59):
And so you should be constantlytweaking that and you should be
constantly reinventing how that goes.
And it should be an ongoing, like,perpetual negotiation with your employer
to find out where are you and they canhave the best value for each other.

K.O. (46:14):
So negotiation does not stop.
At the offer table.

Mike (46:19):
No, absolutely not.

K.O. (46:20):
That is such an incredible line.

Mike (46:22):
And it goes both directions.

K.O. (46:24):
Yeah.
Aha moment for me, for sure.
Thank you for sharing that, Mike.

Mike (46:27):
Yeah, you got it, man.

K.O. (46:28):
So the next avenue of this is going to be around, like, what
were your first few years at Cisco?
Like did you end up navigating throughmultiple roles and how did you settle
into the one that you're in today?

Mike (46:37):
So I, it's funny, I've had a lot of movement in the last three and a half years.
Four years.
But prior to that, I spent seven and a halfyears in the same role I made, you know,
I made grade level progression and stufflike that, but I was a frontline field,
you know, sales engineer and, it was good.
But I was starting to get in that rut offeeling like, you know, the Dunking Donuts guy.

(47:00):
You know, time to make the donuts,like waking up, time to make donuts.
It just, it was getting repetitive.
And I was working less onthe things I really enjoyed.
At the time, security wasa collateral duty for me.
It was like a, it was a focus area.
So I had to do the whole portfolio, buthey, can you please also help with security
opportunities and be strong in that?

(47:21):
And I really liked that.
And so I kinda, right after the pandemicactually, you know, happened, I realized that
might be an opportunity for me to kind ofrethink how I do work to renegotiate terms.
And luckily an opportunity opened up on thesecurity team that covered the Northeast and,

(47:41):
I saw the wreck come through on LinkedIn.
I reached out to the manager andI said, I think I wanna jump over
there, you know, how's it going?
And, he was like, oh man, I was wonderingif you were gonna ever, you know, I was
wondering if you were gonna see that message.
Which is always a great sign.
So Mike, thank you.
And then once I got there, I thinkI was, five weeks into the job as a

(48:04):
technical solutions architect coveringa region as the security resource.
When he called me up again and said, Hey,I know you've had the job for all of about
five minutes, but we have this thing calleda multi-domain architect role, and he goes,
and it just kind of get in the feel forhow you work and what you like to work on.
Again, that communication's really important.

(48:25):
Making your boss understand how you work best.
He says, Hey, I think youneed to apply for this.
I'm like, I mean, you're scrapingthe bottom of the barrel.
You're getting the brand newguy to come out and apply.
He goes, well, we got a few people.
He goes, but I think thismight be up your alley.
And he was right.
I went and I applied, and by then, like I'mgoing into interviews with that attitude

(48:47):
of what's the worst that can happen?
They can't take away my birthday.
If it's not right for them.
Okay.
It's all right.
You know, I, I really like my current job.
I'm happy doing that.
And so when they gave me that, Iwas kind of surprised, but happy.
And that's kind of been the way it goes.
And I've been blessed to havereally cool managers who listen.

(49:08):
Who take on, you know, take stock of whereI am because I'm very vocal about it.
But are cool with it.
And I think they manage really effectivelythe people that work with them on that.
And I think the feedback is reallyimportant and it helps them.
Because now they're always lookingfor opportunities to get the
most outta you that they can.

K.O. (49:29):
Instead of you just stewing in your own misery.

Mike (49:31):
Yeah.
And or in, instead of them assigning meto something that I am not a good fit for.
Or instead of them loading me upwith the wrong balance of work.
And the, you know, there's adifferent strokes for different folks.
Some people like, you know, these types oftasks, some people like those types of tasks.
We all have a different mix.
Yeah.
A different optimal mix.
And none of them are managing just a person.

(49:54):
We're managing a lot of different competing,personas and stuff, but the more clear you
are about what yours is . The easier it is forthem to say, well, I know what to do with him.
And they, it's less guessing, you know?
I feel like if you're not communicating,you're almost doing them a disservice.
Because they've got a guess.
Like, I don't know, what'she really gonna be good at?

K.O. (50:12):
Yeah.
I think that's a great call outthere for someone who's uninitiated.
An organization like the Ciscos or theMicrosoft or the Palo Alto Networks.
When you say portfolio.
What does that mean and how does a role likethat compare to a specialist role, like a
security TSA or security SE at this point?

Mike (50:31):
So, a portfolio seller at Cisco has to contend with a
catalog of more skews than Walmart.
It used to be, anyway, they'reworking on getting that down.
But it's, yeah, generally speaking, a portfolioseller, a field SE has to worry about being
really strong and what the fundamentals are atCisco, which is the networking technologies.

(50:52):
So routing, switching, wireless.
And then they also have to worry abouthelping to sell all of the data center
technologies, whether it's compute orAI or storage or data center networking,
which is its own big thing, right?
And collaboration.
So if you use WebEx or you use Ciscophones or you know, desk pros or

(51:13):
whatever, you gotta worry about those.
And then you gotta worry aboutIOT and you gotta worry about.
So it's a lot of stuff, and what itmeans is you gotta be very broad.
You know, like mile wide, inch deep.
On all these things.
And it's really hard to focus on something.
So a natural progression for a lot of folks atCisco and at other broad portfolio companies.

(51:35):
Is you may start with that broad view . But asyou get a little worn out or you get a really
good understanding of what interests you.
You start to pivot towards that andyou look for ways to focus on it.
And so luckily at Cisco, we have thatopportunity a lot of times to make
that jump into a specialization, intoa different part of the architecture.

(51:55):
And so for me that was, you know, security.
It's still a really broad portfolio juston the security side as you well know.
But it does, you know, you do startto focus on the types of customer
interactions you have, the sorts ofproblems you're helping customers through.
And, that helps you, youknow, gain an expertise.
It helps you concentrate your focus,and it allows you to not dilute

(52:18):
your attention to a bunch of things.
Like licensing of, you know, videoendpoints and stuff like that,
that I used to, I used to despise.
So no offense to the cloud folks out there.

K.O. (52:29):
No offense to.
Yeah, like when, when you go from sellingin a role where you have more SKUs than
a Walmart, and then now you're gonnaroll where you're selling enough SKUs.
I believe there's at leastlike thirty forty actually.

Mike (52:44):
In security now?

K.O. (52:45):
No, the count of SKUs is gotta be substantial.
I miscalculated that entirely.
I was thinking about entire product lines.

Mike (52:51):
Yeah.
We're in the teens, high teens, right.
Now's different solution sets.
but even that, like at Cisco where there'sa consolidation going on, a simplification,
and I think, you know, we've seen othercompetitors talk about their platform strategy,
Cisco by, its very, like nature's had to movetowards that because of all that complexity.
And they've been doing great work on it.

(53:12):
So we are getting to thepoint where that is, but.
Like anybody who goes into tech, youdon't get into it because it's easy.
Get into it because the problemsare interesting, hopefully.
And I think one of the keys is,is as you go through this, like
people going into engineering orarchitecture, they should be curious.
Curious about the subject matter.
Curious about the problemsthey're there to solve.

(53:33):
And if they're not, I mean, that'sokay, but don't waste your time.
Go find something where it excitesyou and it helps you get out of bed.

K.O. (53:42):
No, I think that's excellent advice.
I told you earlier that when I was a SOCanalyst at NASA, I think almost half a
decade before I had ever worked with youor sat in a WebEx meeting with you, I'd
actually known who you were because youowned a certification called the GSE.
And for those who are uninitiated, itis quite possibly the most difficult

(54:05):
certification in all of cybersecurity toearn just because of the prerequisites,
the body of knowledge you need to have.
The exposure to multiple domains, not justwithin security, but within IT and networking.
So when I was a SOC analyst at NASA,it was really popular for you to
earn one of three certifications.
One was like the GSEC, SecurityFundamentals or Essentials.
GCIH, which was Incident Handling.

(54:26):
And then GCIA, which was IncidentAnalysis, intrusion Analysis.
Which allows you to dive into PCAP, Wireshark,Tshark, all kinds of fun stuff that was
genuinely applicable within the stock.
But when you earn one GX cert, whichfor additional context, like these
certifications can cost upwards ofseven, eight, sometimes $10,000.
A piece.

(54:47):
There is a work study programwhere you can get it subsidized.
I think you support on like an AB perspective,and you can get the certification and
class attempt dropped to like 2,500.
Might be a little bitmore than that these days.
Who knows?
So if you earn one of these naturally,you're like, what's the next one for me?
Then you keep going, then you keep going.
For me, I tapped out at three but at onepoint in my life I thought I was gonna

(55:10):
shoot up the ranks and earn a GSE someday.
So at NASA, within the SOC, we had thisday where we all kind of got bored.
It was a little slow and we just startedgoogling all of the GSEs, like all the
certification holders and your name poppedup on my screen and I remember looking
at your career and I was like, wow.
Love to meet this guy someday.
Lo and behold, I'm filminga podcast episode with.

Mike (55:31):
Never meet your heroes folks.
It's gonna be disappointing.

K.O. (55:34):
So for contexts, there are less than 350 GSEs, I believe.

Mike (55:40):
It's, it's, yeah, it's in the high, three hundreds at the point high, three hundreds.
Like yeah, it's gotta be like 380 ish now.

K.O. (55:45):
So there is less than 400 of these certification holders on the face
of the planet and there are millionsof practitioners in cybersecurity.
So it's really like anoutstanding career achievement.
And this is just one of multipleindustry acclaim certifications.
I haven't even talked about CCIE,or the two CCIEs that you own, which
is another career long achievement.

(56:07):
So I'm trying to paint the picture of thatthis is not an ordinary thing for people to do,
to study this hard, to wanna learn this much.
And I'm curious to hear from yourperspective, like what was the motivation
behind pursuing these certifications?

Mike (56:22):
Hear the term goal oriented?
I think people just need to figureout what kind of goals motivate.
So I don't think that certificationsare right for everybody.
They were helpful to me, youknow, as we covered earlier.
It took me a while to get into thiscurrent career, you know, to wander over.
And, one of the things that you getinto is when you're in an industry,

(56:43):
some people enter in their teens.
And you're coming into it in your mid thirties.
You got some ground to make up.
And so my, you know, with my firstCCNA, I think I got my CCNA when I
was 35, 36, somewhere around there.
And it became this thing of, thiswas that, how do you boil that ocean?
You know, or, how do you eat that whale?

(57:04):
Right?
There's so much to know.
And boy, wouldn't it be great ifsomebody would just give me guidance
is what I need to figure out.
Well, they did, right?
So with the Cisco starts, that's whatthose blueprints that come with every
certification are, is a charted path.
Like, hey, we think that a Junior Networkperson should understand this body of stuff.

(57:26):
Here are some recommended resources.
Here's some topics, and when you getdone, we will help you validate that.
And so for me, the certification, it's allabout the journey, not the destination I needed
to get and make up ground and become proficientin conversant in those sorts of things.
Because at the time I thought I wantedto get in and be a keyboard jockey.

(57:49):
And it wasn't, you know, I was a coupleyears into my cert journey and I'm doing it
all self-study, but those blueprints gold.
Right.
I got to the point where Istarted to realize, yeah.
I don't know if I'm a keyboard guy, I'mkind of an outage waiting to happen.
And so I, so I started to learn thoughthere's value in somebody who can translate

(58:10):
that stuff into non-technical speak or.

K.O. (58:14):
A lot of value.

Mike (58:15):
Yeah.
And there's not enough people who were focusingin on how to communicate about that stuff.
As there were people who just wanted to do it.
And so I started to focus more on thatand I look at certifications as just
validation that I'm on the right track.
And so I, I did a ton of Cisco certs,you know, the two CCIEs and the DE.

(58:38):
I told, I was telling you during lunch.
It was like the first onewas a massive struggle.
My route switch was awful.
It was hard on me, hardon the family, big stress.
And I made the commitment when Idecided to do the CCIE Security that
I was gonna, was gonna chill out andI was not gonna sacrifice anything.
And so I didn't, and I got there a littleslower, but boy, I got there healthier.

(59:01):
And right about that time I started to realizelike, I really love learning this stuff.
And the certs are just a great excuseto push forward and find a new goal.
So there's never been areal method to the madness.
There's never been a, oh, I've gotta goand I've gotta do this, or I must, you
know, and it culminated with, when I wasstill a field se and account se, I wanted

(59:26):
to take a couple of classes like, GSEC andGCIA that I thought, boy, those are cool.
I want to do those.
And I went to my boss and I, you know,understandably, he looked at the cost and
he says, you gotta be outta your mind.
I don't have that in ourdepartment training budget.
I was at a Cisco internal virtual team summit.
Where we all congregated in San Jose andMoses Frost, you know who Moses Frost is?

(59:48):
Really sharp guy.
He's a SANS instructor.
He used to work at Cisco, teaches alot of cloud pen testing and stuff.
And he was also helping with the webpen testing at the time and stuff.
And he was mentoring me along withabout 18 other people at the time.
And I had mentioned I was struggling with that.
And he goes, well, you know, wehave a Master's Program at SANS.
Oh, that changes the game.

(01:00:10):
He goes, comes with discounted courses thatactually, you know, you get the certs as
part of the degree and, you get to chargeit to corporate tuition reimbursement,
not to your department training budget.
I did my boss a favor and I enrolled inthat master's program, which included
a minimum of eight certs, on the way.

(01:00:31):
But what better way tokind of get that exposure?
So I was super excited for it and at thetime when I started the program, the GIAC
Security Expert was a required piece of it.
That they quickly removed from themandatory requirements when they had to
pause everything during the pandemic.
And so that's how that changed.

K.O. (01:00:51):
Gotcha.
Okay.
So we talked about.
CCIE.
And you went over how the firstexperience was just not the healthiest.

Mike (01:01:00):
Not yet.

K.O. (01:01:01):
Um, but you needed to get through that in order for you to understand how you can
be intentional doing it the second time.
Right.
So that influenced some of the game plan.
So tell me what it was like studying forthe hardest certification in cybersecurity.

Mike (01:01:13):
It was honestly just a continuation of what I'd been doing as I was
going through the master's program.
By the time I got to, completing themaster's program, they had removed the
requirement, but they still had the entranceexam requirement, which was a four hour,
lab based exam and man prepping for it.
I was like, this is so cool.

(01:01:34):
This is the coolest stuff, and I'm soclose and I'll never be this close again.
Because I know me, I am gonna haveanother hobby by the end of that week.
So I started prepping for the GSE practical.
And, right about then they moved theGSE practical from being a single
exam to being three discrete exams.
Each exam being four or five hours.

(01:01:57):
And, you know, scheduled separately, buthad to be taken within a certain time.
And it, they were piloting this at the time.
And, so you could sort of break it up,but the topics were, they were broad.
You know, you take the GSEC, right?
The GIAC Security Essentials.
Yeah.
You take the GCIA, you take the GCIH.
And instead of saying, these books containalmost everything you need to know, you instead

(01:02:24):
get these books, give you a pretty good ideas,just how many other things we could ask you.
And so for a, so a little secret for the folkswho are pursuing the GSE, it's a lot easier
if you actually do this stuff for a living.
As opposed to talk about it, whichwas unfortunately where I was.
So there was a lot of, there was a lotof, embarrassing learning moments there.

(01:02:45):
But I mean, it was also a lot of fun.
And again, if it's not fun,you're doing something wrong.
You know, there's a lot of rewardingthings you can do in your career to
enrich yourself that we can help you.
But if they're not fun, it'sharder to stick with it.
And so, you know, we talked about how like Iguide my career while when I'm doing certs,

(01:03:08):
I'm always looking for certs that stack asmany benefits for me as I possibly can get.
Is it gonna help me, you know,is it gonna help me have fun?
Cool.
Oh, and it helps my job even better.
Oh, and it's gonna solve thesecustomer problems, and it's gonna
make me more lethal in this.
And it's gonna, oh my, okay.
You know, and it stacks.

(01:03:28):
And the more of those things you've gotgoing for you, the easier it is to blow
right past all of the barriers and adversity.
Because eventually you're gonna getto a point where you're burnout.
Or you're gonna get to a point whereyou're frustrated or you're just,
you know, you, you're demoralized.
And the more of those benefits you have stackedup, the easier it is to just flip the switch

(01:03:49):
and say, I'm not gonna let that stop me.
If you're only doing it for your employer.
Or you're only doing it becauseyou think it'll help you get a job.
Or because you think everybody expectsyou to have it, not gonna cut it.

K.O. (01:04:00):
Yeah.
I remember when I was studyingfor GCIH, it was like.
I have a smile on my face.
It was so fun.
To read about the tools, how likeoffense actually informs defense.
You wanna become a better defender?
You should probably knowa little bit of offense.
You wanna be a more lethal,offensive security professional.
You should probably learn a littlebit about how that IDS functions.

(01:04:21):
And I just remember going through the pages.
I also had incredible instructor, John Strand.
He's just so captivatingin the way that he speaks.

Mike (01:04:29):
Yeah.
He's a fantastic, instructor.

K.O. (01:04:31):
Quick note on that.
It's so much easier to learn from someone who'spassionate about what they're teaching and
they've got like an engaging way of speaking.
Instead of the rote.

Mike (01:04:40):
I think that's what SANS, you know, what in SANS you know, a lot of people have
mixed feelings about the cost and stuff.
But they typically deliververy passionate experts.
That when you're learning somethingfrom 'em, they are like, you know,
world leading experts in that.
So, yeah.
I think that's one of thebig benefits of that program.

(01:05:02):
But there's a lot of up and coming training.
You know, like you, you see what, you know,the cyber mentor, TCM Security is doing.
And it's fantastic what Heath Adamsand that whole team have done.
it's great to see what JohnStrand's companies have done.

K.O. (01:05:14):
Yeah.
Black Hills, TCM.

Mike (01:05:16):
Black Hills and, and, you know, the Active Countermeasures folks and just Red
Siege with, you know, Tim Medin, his, youknow, the curber roasting master, right.
Like what, what amazing people with suchunbelievable communication skills, talent.
And it's so much fun to learnfrom them, so and it's like a spy
novel that you get to help write.

K.O. (01:05:38):
I would say so too.
I think a lot of peoplewho are drawn to security.
Like, you either come in one of two ways.
One, you were given this job just 'cause noone else knew how to do it, or two, you found
out about it and really wanted to do it.
And I think I'm more of the latter.
Like I didn't have the experience of startingas an IT help desk or network technician

(01:05:58):
or network engineer who's eventuallybestowed upon these responsibilities
of security that I never asked for.
Like for me, I was wrapping burritos oneday when I was a general manager and I had
like, one 10 minute break during my fifth16 hour shift and I just went to my car.
I hopped on Reddit just to decompress.
And that I learned about the stuck network.

(01:06:19):
'cause someone said that was the craziestpiece of technology they ever heard about.
And I just started diggingand I started digging.
I started digging.
This goes back to what you were sayingbefore, like if you have a genuine
interest in what you're learning,it almost doesn't feel like work.
So I'm kind of curious to hearfrom you, what sort of guided.
Your own progression of GIAC certifications?

(01:06:41):
'Cause I know that you mentionedbefore like it will help you meet a few
certain criteria, but was the certainsequence of them you feel valuable?

Mike (01:06:50):
Yeah, quite a few of 'em were dictated by the program.
You know, I had, I had three electives thatI was allowed to choose, but the other five
base certs were all part of the program.
As well as a couple other classes anda research paper and stuff like that.
And it was a tremendous program.
I honestly, with the exception, I'llbe honest, I love, I love good leaders,

(01:07:11):
but I don't wanna be one, you know,when it comes to people leadership or,
managing, a program and stuff like that.
So the stuff that's more CISSP.
You know, that the G start, you know?

K.O. (01:07:23):
Yeah.
Like Organizational Leadership.

Mike (01:07:25):
Organizational process oriented stuff, the controls type stuff.
Eh, it didn't, you know, it wasn't exactlyup my alley, but I guess less valuable.
It was valuable.
It was valuable.
You know, it's helped mecommunicate with customers.
But really by the time I got towards the,tail end and was taking, certs for electives,
it was all about I want to have fun.

(01:07:46):
I wanna like max out the fun.
And I even took extra electives,like, why not at the discounted rate?
Let's go.
Yeah.
And it was, I'm so glad I didbecause it did help with the GSE.
And it's helped a lot in my job.
Like, I do a lot of stuff where I tryto help, the business unit understand
how the non Cisco world looks.

K.O. (01:08:08):
Yeah.
It can be hard.

Mike (01:08:10):
It can be hard.
I try to help my colleagues understand that,listen, we're not the only firewall out there.
You know, we're not the onlynetwork detection and response tool.
And having exposure to those things reallyhelps you relate better to those folks, so.
By that I mean, I didn't needany of that to do my job.
It's just fun and it helps me show upthe way I wanna show up to the job.

(01:08:31):
Like I said, some people want to be, reallyawesome on the keyboard, in the weeds.
They know where every switch andtoggle is in that tool or solution.
I want to be armed with morefodder for conversation.
I wanna be able to, more adeptly pivotand work with customers or partners
or colleagues to understand where theyare, what the problem entails, and just

(01:08:52):
think of cool things that might help.
And so it just, it's like fuel for the noodle.

K.O. (01:08:57):
Yeah.
And it, it's iron thatcontinually sharpens iron.
And at SANS you've got some of thegreatest quality of security talent
there is on the entire planet.
We mentioned this earlier, like there'sa reason why the costs are so high.
It's due to quality of the content.

Mike (01:09:14):
Well they're constantly maintaining that content too.
Like it's not a one and done thing.
I mean, a lot of those coursesget refreshed three times a year.

K.O. (01:09:21):
Yeah.
Which is incredible.

Mike (01:09:22):
That's insane.

K.O. (01:09:23):
So how many GX certs do you own at this point?

Mike (01:09:26):
So like the GSE was my last earned one.
They also kind of grandfathered in 'causethey created the GIACs Security Professional.
And so I think I met 15 right now.

K.O. (01:09:38):
Oh my goodness.

Mike (01:09:39):
But that includes GSE, which is now a composite of a few things.
And the GSP, which is kindof like a subset of the GSE.
So, yeah.

K.O. (01:09:49):
That's incredible.
I'm just trying to fathom the cost on that.
Like just in your own education that's.
Huge amount of research.

Mike (01:09:56):
It's a lot cheaper.
If you take that master'sprogram, throw that out there.

K.O. (01:09:59):
So if you were to give someone advice on how to study for the most difficult
security certification there is to earn, howwould you go about restarting your lesson
plan, if you were at zero GX certifications?

Mike (01:10:14):
Honestly, I think it's about taking your time and focusing on the things that work best.
Everybody learns differently.
I wish I had done more Hack TheBox and Try Hack Me early on.
And Hack The box throughout to kind ofhelp me keep the, muscle memory going.
And build to build recipes.
'cause so much of what we do, not just incybersecurity, but in IT is very open to like

(01:10:39):
repeatable process type stuff, where at leastyou may not be doing the same thing, but you
might be approaching the problem similar ways.
And it's not just that you wannabuild the muscle memory so that you
can do that repeatedly each time.
It's so that you can look forother patterns that might fit.
So you're not just getting moreproficient at solving a set of problems.

(01:10:59):
You're getting better at tackling a widerbreadth of problems with those recipes.

K.O. (01:11:04):
Yeah.
It's like adding another toolonto a leatherman, right?

Mike (01:11:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, and get rid of the scissors.
'cause let's face it, those are useless.
Who buys a leatherman with scissors.

K.O. (01:11:15):
That's fair.
That's fair.

Mike (01:11:16):
Now the file is strangely more useful than it usually, yeah, than you would think.
But scissors are worthless.

K.O. (01:11:20):
Oh man.
Oh man.
So.
There isn't a specific layout of certificationsor training content that you'd personally
recommend if you were to go back and start?

Mike (01:11:29):
Uh, not, I mean, not, you know, they do a really good, it depends on who you go with.
Like every training vendorworth their cell has got plans.
They've got maps and theyshow you interest areas.
I think one of the toughest thingswhen somebody says, Hey, I want to
go into cybersecurity, and I knowyou run into this 'cause you've got
more mentees than carter had peanuts.
I want to go into cybersecurity.

(01:11:50):
Okay.
It's kind of like saying I want to be a doctor.
A doctor of what?
I wanna be a medical doctor.
What kind?
You know, there's just so manydifferent things you can do.
And it's about finding like what'syour personality geared towards.
There's folks like Rachel Tobac.

(01:12:10):
Who, like our thought leaderson social engineering.
And there's people that never touch akeyboard, but they social engineer the heck
outta people and they're phenomenal at it.
And she does a lot of great teaching on that.
There's people who do the, you know, likeDeviant Ollam that do the physical pen testing.
And when you see how they dothat, it just blows your mind.

(01:12:32):
Like those are like no joke, Cold War, spytype capers that those folks deliver on.
And that, you know, the cajonesit takes to do that, it's amazing.
But I think it's about figuring outwhat, what does that mean to you?
What's the most exciting part about it?
And just go pursue it.
The worst thing that can happen isyou're really happy in your current role.

(01:12:57):
You know, but the upside's huge.
You might end up getting aneven better role, you know?
And, if you start with the passionand you layer on all those other
benefits, as many as you can.
It'll pay off for your employer too,even if it's not directly applicable.
Nobody pays me to hack their environments.
Nobody pays me to come in and reverseengineer malware or, parse P-caps

(01:13:21):
or, run Zeke or any of that stuff.
But all of that, you know,knowledge makes me happy.
And makes me feel like I'm more confident andmore capable at helping people do their gig.
And that right there shouldbe worth it to your employer.

K.O. (01:13:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think a manifestation of yougiving back to the greater Cisco
community is through Tool School.

Mike (01:13:43):
Ah, yeah.
That's been, I gotta get that kicked off again.
So I haven't had a new episodein a couple of months, so.

K.O. (01:13:49):
Do you wanna talk a little bit about what Tool School is and what the
motivation to get that started was about?

Mike (01:13:54):
Oh, I just, yeah.
So it was kind of self-serving.
I needed to review for things for my GSE.
And I was like, you know what wouldbe a really cool way of doing this?
Like, what better way to learn than to teach?
And so I would take one open source tool thatI had to figure out or learn on, and I would
try and take all of my notes on it and allof my practice, you know, drills and stuff.

(01:14:16):
And I put it together intoa one hour or less brief.
And I tried to keep it light.
I think you attended a few of them, right?

K.O. (01:14:22):
I did.

Mike (01:14:23):
And I tried to keep it light, and sometimes they would be themed.
Like I did one that was Raiders lustarc themed, which was pretty funny.
But it was all a focus on like, I just want,and it's not just for security people, like so
many of the tools we're talking about could beuseful to NetOps, DevOps, you know, DevSecOps.
Sys admins, whatever, right.
I like to call it all ops.

(01:14:44):
It's an all ops applicability.
By teaching those thingsthat aren't vendor specific.
Hopefully you're giving somebody anappreciation for what paid for tools do,
or you're giving them tools that they canuse to augment their own learning journey.
And it was a lot of fun.
It is a lot of fun.
And I'll be kicking that back offhere, in a different delivery format.

(01:15:06):
It might be recorded as opposedto like live webinar type thing.
Just 'cause it's one harderto schedule right now.
And two, yeah.

K.O. (01:15:15):
Interjections.

Mike (01:15:15):
Yeah.
And, and two, I think it could bemore broadly used than what it is now.
We're certainly not curing canceror inventing something new.
There's a lot of greattraining videos out there.
but I know some people for some strangereason don't mind hearing me talk about it.
So, try and capture more ofthose and get 'em out there.

K.O. (01:15:35):
So, yeah.
I think in pure Mike McPhee fashion,you're being very humble about this.
So you put together 20 plus episodes thatare concrete breakdowns that are easy for
anybody to understand, where you take a toolor a concept or like a package of command

(01:15:57):
line tools, you tell a story about it.
And something I want to get into ishow, one of the first few things you
talked to me about after I gave my firstpresentation at Cisco was like, hone
in that skill of being a storyteller.
And you mentioned earlier that before youused to be someone who was anxious that might

(01:16:18):
have had a little bit of difficulty speaking.
So I'm curious to hear for you, Mike, assomeone who is as convincing, and I would
say captivating in your own storytellingability, how would you recommend someone
cultivate that skill in themselves?

Mike (01:16:34):
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.
I think, the thing to remember when you'reup in front of some people is you're there
for a reason sometimes it's because of anexpertise or because you're silly enough
to sign up for it or whatever the excuseis, but you're there and you're talking
in front of people and those people aren't.

(01:16:55):
And so right then and there, like youhave a different perspective than they do.
There may be really smart people thatwanna stump the chump in the audience.
But you're the one putting yourself out there.
I'm a horrible singer, but if I ever gotdragged into karaoke after a couple too many
beers, I would probably use the same approach,which is like, listen, I'm here to talk.

(01:17:18):
I got a mission and I'm gonna do it.
And if you can do it better, I would loveto be in the audience while you do it.
So I kind of go in with that sortof attitude and there is a bit
of that worst that can happen.
Like, you know, I've had worse things happento me than whatever can happen on that stage.
I'm gonna tell a, a, a true story.

(01:17:38):
When I was working at Boeing, I wasworking on a very high visibility
program with a lot of customers.
We're trying to build software-definedradios for anything that flew,
floated, or wasn't fixed in place.
That's a lot of radios and that'sa lot of different communities.
And we were doing design reviews and wewere trying to help the government customers
from all these places, 300 differentstakeholders in a room along with 80 plus

(01:18:03):
of us during these multi-day reviews.
And I had responsibilities as oneof the most junior guys to present
some pretty contentious topics.
I think one of my sessions was.
50 minutes, 60 minutes long.
And I was talking about technicalperformance measurements for this program
and I was the guy that had to break thenews that we were overweight, we were,

(01:18:25):
overpower, we were, underperformingand this, that and the other thing.
Growing pains of any development program.

K.O. (01:18:31):
Had to make most junior guy do it though, right?

Mike (01:18:32):
Yeah.
Well yeah, absolutely.
And I remember I get done and I'm feelingpretty awesome about myself and I'm, I
stepping down from the podium and thedeputy program manager, Ellen, who's
awesome and had a great sense of humor.
She goes, Mike, she goes, that was fantastic.
And the captain, you know, the Navy captain andthe Air Force colonel that were the co-leads

(01:18:55):
of the program were like, great job Mike.
Awesome.
You know, really good job.
Really good job.
And I was feeling super awesome.
And Allen goes, that was pretty bold.
You did that with your fly down.
Sure as that, you know, like, ohmy God, I spent an hour talking to
almost 500 people with my fly down.

(01:19:16):
after that there's not a lot ofcrowds that get me too riled up.
I always check my fly though.
I always check my fly.
I look for crumbs, but the flyis always on the checklist.
Is my shirt tucked in?
You know, not tucked in as it is appropriate.
Still didn't take yourbirthday away though, huh?
Didn't take my, I stillhad a birthday that year.
It was amazing.

(01:19:36):
And, and I think that, when you've hadthat happen, I've had to do demos of very
temperamental systems in front of thejoint chiefs of staff before and Yeah.
You know, congressional staffers and stuff.
And so now it, when I get in front of a groupof people, I respect the heck out of 'em.
But I also know like.
It's gonna take quite a bit to top the fly downin front of a bunch of, you know, brass, so.

(01:20:01):
Okay.
So I, I would say just don'ttake yourself too seriously.
I think one of the, you know, havinga good, sense of humor about it and a
little bit of like, listen, by the timeyou're talking, the work's been done.
It is what it is.
No amount of worrying aboutit's gonna change anything.
Just go out there and, youknow, be passionate about it.

K.O. (01:20:21):
Yeah.
I was rereading one of my favorite books,the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz,
and he talks about how in the human mindwe are experts at making ourselves suffer.
Perhaps we are the only being,like in the universe that can force
ourselves to suffer over one mistake.

(01:20:42):
For perpetuity, for eternity, even.
So I'm the kind of person where somethingreally, really embarrassing will happen
to me, and I will think about thatover and over and over and over again.
And then when it finally goes away,it'll be years in the future and I'll
be laying in bed ready to knock out.
No.
And I feel like for you, thatwasn't something that you could have

(01:21:06):
just gotten over with immediately.
What was the process of learninghow to put that behind you?

Mike (01:21:13):
I mean, I took a good amount of razzing.

K.O. (01:21:14):
Still with you today though.

Mike (01:21:17):
I laugh at it.
I tell everybody that story 'cause Ithink that like, everybody's worried
about, oh my gosh, you know, and they'reworried about worst case scenarios.
And I'm like, I don't know how much moreworst case you can get than, you know,
flying the colors in front of everybody.
Luckily it was clean underwear day,but, I think that, it's one of my kids'

(01:21:39):
soccer coaches way back when he wasall about control the controllables.
And I think that it's a really good lesson forall of us, not just soccer players on his team.
I always have to check myself tostop worrying about things I can't
control or that have already happened.
It's, you know, you said at the beginning of,the first session here, 10 percent's, what
happens to you, 90 percent's how you respond.

(01:22:01):
I think that's a key, right?
I think the key to public speaking orthe key to putting yourself out there
and training others or leading others,isn't so much to be perfect or the best.
It's to share your passion.
And I think it's amazing how thatattitude of an audience changes.
When they go from thinking that you'reup there for torture versus up there.

(01:22:24):
'cause you're excited to do what you're doing.

K.O. (01:22:26):
Yeah.
Audience can feel it.

Mike (01:22:28):
And they can feel it and they like, you know, you get done and
you know, all these mistakes 'causeyou're super critical of yourself.
But if you've been doing it from a placeof like, you're sharing your passion
and you're communicating your joy
.I mean, we're all geeks here.
Like, be excited about it.
And if you get up there and shamelesslyshare with that, you can make all

(01:22:51):
the mistakes in the world and theaudience will be like, what mistakes?
That was awesome.
I love that.
And I mean, I'm far from a perfect speaker.
I know it, I own it.
I don't care because frankly I just reallyenjoy like getting out there and it's amazing
how much I learn from who I'm talking to.
You know, it's rare that I go to a customerand I, I say this to everybody I mentor.

(01:23:15):
I aim to get caught not knowing something.
10 minutes into every meeting andpeople go, why would you do that?
And it's like, because I wannabe caught saying, I don't know.
That's really cool though.
Let's figure it out.
Well, let me get back to you.
Has he added benefit of from that onwhenever you say something, there's
some, well, he wouldn't lie to mebecause I won't, if I don't know.

(01:23:38):
I like the lookups, I like thelearning and that's why I'm in the gig.
If I knew everything, Iwouldn't be in this gig.

K.O. (01:23:43):
Yeah.
Nor is it possible for anyone.

Mike (01:23:45):
Nor is it possible.
And so pretending otherwise or tryingto be us your way through something.
It's a non-starter.
And I find that people really respond tolike true, honest, curious discussions.
And I, you know, there's so many times whereI go into a meeting and people are like, well,
what do you think is gonna be the outcome?
I don't know.
Let's see where they'd take it.

(01:24:05):
You know?
And oftentimes the best ideas, orthe greatest, outcomes come from.
The audience or the customer, it's not me.
Sometimes it's me just sittingthere and asking the dumb question.
Like, and I think that's a part of all ofthis, whether you're public speaking or
whether you're engaging with a customer ora team or whatever, is, if you're afraid to

(01:24:28):
ask those questions and gain an understandingof where they are, you don't stand a chant.
And if you turn that and you let them do thetalking, or let them teach you or let their
reaction guide your way and not worry aboutit and just be in the moment, it's awesome.

K.O. (01:24:44):
It's all gravy.
So after serving as a nuke operator, earningyour bachelor's, your MBA, your SANS Masters,
two CCIEs, 15 GX certifications and one CCDE,after all of these accomplishments, all of
these certifications, what percent of theentire body of knowledge of cybersecurity

(01:25:05):
do you feel like you can understand?

Mike (01:25:08):
Less than one.

K.O. (01:25:09):
Less than one.

Mike (01:25:10):
I mean, I mean, honestly, it's, it's always, I think that's the thing, man.
You don't get into this gig ifyou're expecting to know it all.
I think you get into this gig'cause you know you can't.
And that's the coolest part.
It's kinda like why people go intoastrophysics, they realize that we're
tiny little specs on this other spec.
Yeah.
That's in this spec we call a galaxy, right?
And it's like, it's so massive and it's joyous.

(01:25:34):
It's humbling.

K.O. (01:25:35):
It is, so it's joyous.
Oh my goodness.
I'm glad that you wordedit that way specifically.
'Cause I had this moment where I was arestaurant manager and for the first year or
so, I just felt like it was an impossible job.
You know?
There was so much to learn.
But over time, you pick up on the fluency, youpick up on the ebbs and flows, the staffing.
You get an idea of how much food to prep, whoare your regulars, how to greet people, and

(01:25:57):
you learn how to run a successful business
and to what extent you realize.
You're kind of at a good spot, and sureyou can take it to the nth degree, but
from what I had gotten in four years ofrestaurant leadership, I had a pretty
good feel on how a restaurant operates.
And I just wasn't feelingthe same mental challenge.

(01:26:18):
Of am I gonna learn something new today?
It became the mundane rot opportunity todo the same thing that I did yesterday.
Like you were, busting out the sameproposal or you know, the next one.
It just wasn't mentally challenging.
So I remember the feeling that I had when Iwas first researching the Stuxnet worm, and
I realized, I gotta learn more about this.

(01:26:39):
You start learning about hardware, you startlearning about computer, what each function
of each one of these computer port is.
Then you learn about security, like networking,the blue and red teaming, purple teaming even.
And there's just the world just blossomsup into an entire different galaxy.
And I'm glad that we sharea similar passion for it.

Mike (01:26:59):
There you go, man.

K.O. (01:27:00):
Our last couple questions for you, Mike.
The question is what's the greatestpiece of professional advice you've ever
received, and how did it impact you?

Mike (01:27:07):
I don't know if anybody ever explicitly said it, but you kind of hear different
views from multiple mentors and peopleyou trust I think it really comes down to
find every opportunity you can to matchyour passion with what somebody needs.
And it kind of takes care of itself.

(01:27:28):
Like your career just sort ofgoes in the right direction.
And yeah, I think that'skind of where I would put it.

K.O. (01:27:35):
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.

Mike (01:27:36):
You got it.

K.O. (01:27:37):
Second question is, what's the craziest or your favorite story from the industry?

Mike (01:27:42):
From the security industry?
Oh boy.
Stuxnet's pretty awesome, right?
I think that that's pretty,pretty amazing stuff.
So I'm a, I'm a big fan of, you know, Cold Warera spy novel type stuff, or books about that.
Like Ben Macintyre writes abunch of really crazy stuff.
That are all true and it's about ColdWar spies and the sorts of things

(01:28:04):
they've done and all that jazz.
I think that, most of my favorite storiescome from understanding how nation states
are doing things in cyber and Stuxnet a caseyou still don't know officially who did it.
But I think that there's a lot ofexamples there and when you look at
the things that happened with the wholeblack energy, sand worm, sort of thing,

(01:28:29):
I think that that was fascinating.
And also an eye-opener.
It showed you an evolution from what happenedin Stuxnet, a focus on very specialized
equipment and stuff like that, but atblended techniques and tactics that get
used even on mom and pop shops and retailops and, commercial businesses, things like
denial of service attacks and all that.

(01:28:50):
And I think I know that some people feelthe sense of dread when these types of
events happen, and in the moment I do too.
But there's also the curious side of methat just wants to know how those pieces
all fit and knows I'll never know it all.
And that's the coolest part.
And I think those nation state sortsof things are really amazing to me.

(01:29:10):
And, I think that we have had a bunch ofevents that we still don't know nearly
enough about that will become my favorites.

K.O. (01:29:18):
Yeah.
I think one of the more popular ones as of lateis Cozy Bear's ability or the act of having
shutting off the entire power grid of Ukraine.
Like, I was reading this book, theytell me this is how the world ends.
Have you read it?

Mike (01:29:35):
No.
I've heard about it.
It's on my to read list.

K.O. (01:29:37):
I think you'd be a big fan because it encapsulates the lore and the history of
some of the biggest players in cybersecurity.
And it talks about like escalatingmore a tension tells a great story.
I think you'd really enjoy it.
In fact, I'm gonna send you a copyas a thank you, of being with us.
So I think the last question that I havefor you is like, what's the greatest

(01:29:59):
piece of advice you'd give to someonewho wants to succeed in solutions
architecture or sales engineering?

Mike (01:30:08):
Yeah, I tell a lot of people and I mean it with all my heart, which
is stop trying to be somebody else.
Don't do the job the same waysomebody else does, just because
they seem to be successful in it.
If their personality isn't yourpersonality, it's just not gonna work.
I think that when you can find a way toapproach the problems that are truthful

(01:30:31):
and authentic to you, that it keepsyou more healthy, but it also builds
greater trust as better outcomes.
Everybody's happier around you.
And I think that's a big part of it.
I think that when you, you know, when youfree yourself to find the best you, as you

(01:30:52):
do those gigs, the world's your oyster.
If I spend all my time trying tobe KO, I'll never live up to that.
And that's, untenable.
Find a way to do it yourselfand, and to be yourself.
And if you've got strengths and oneplay to those strengths, stop trying
to, you know, emulate somebody else's.

K.O. (01:31:11):
And remember, no matter what happens.
Still gonna have a birthday.

Mike (01:31:15):
Yeah.
Can't take away your birthday.

K.O. (01:31:17):
I'm gonna remember that one for quite a while.
So, Mike.

Mike (01:31:19):
We'll, do check your fly.
Check your fly.

K.O. (01:31:22):
That's the other main takeaway from this.
If you heard anything, check your fly.
So Mike, it's been a pleasure.
I'm can't wait to film the intro.
I know that there's so manynuggets of knowledge in here that
so many people are gonna benefit.
And I can't wait for you to hear thatfeedback from them 'cause they will come.
So we have a tradition where weclose every episode with a handshake.
But it's a handshake specificallydone in the way that me and my

(01:31:44):
friends would do when we were kids.
And that's how I greetedyou when I first saw you.
Yeah.
So it's gonna be nice and easy.
All right.
So just literally right here.
That's it.
Thanks for tuning into K.O.'s Launchpad,where cybersecurity meets opportunity.
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forgetto subscribe, leave a review and share it
with others on their cybersecurity journey.

(01:32:05):
Stay curious and keep chartingyour course to success.
Until next time.

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