December 20, 2024 • 27 mins
This episode delves into personal reflections on the year 2024, embracing both challenges and achievements while emphasizing the importance of setting and celebrating goals. Listeners are encouraged to envision their future selves and prepare for an impactful 2025 filled with hands-on learning and expert insights.
• Importance of self-reflection during year-end
• Goal setting as a tool for personal growth
• Celebrating small victories
• Envisioning your future self and goals
• Essential skills for aspiring professionals
• Commitment to hands-on mentorship in future episodes
• Introduction of expert guests in the upcoming year
• Perseverance and the realization of long-held dreams
• Encouragement to take a break and acknowledge achievements
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
How's it going, everyone?
It has been a while since itwas just me talking, so this is
a little bit new for some new,you know, viewers or listeners,
you know whatever platformyou're listening on, but you
know it has been a year, that'sfor sure.
It has been a year.
This year I have posted lessthan I have in the previous
(00:23):
years, mostly out of, you know,protection for my own sanity,
right and it has been aninteresting year overall, right,
like learning new things,experiencing new things.
As a new dad, expecting anumber two coming in here pretty
soon working on the PhD.
You know all the million littlethings that I do, you know, and
(00:45):
doing this podcast has been ahuge privilege of mine, right,
and I've really enjoyed it.
Right, and I'm not stopping,mind you.
I'm not stopping at all.
In fact, in 2025, we actuallyhave someone coming back onto
the show in a regular format toprovide hands-on, in-depth
(01:12):
training, points of interest,knowledge for you to gain, for
you to take and gain and putinto your own environments, put
it into your own knowledge bankso that when you're interviewing
for these different jobs, youknow, you can say hey, you know,
I learned this content fromSecurity Unfiltered.
(01:34):
I tested it out on my ownenvironment.
I learned it, I played with it,right.
I grew upon that foundationthat we're going to be helping
you build, and so you'll be moreprepared going into new roles
in 2025,.
You know, and something I wantto say right is you know you
made it to 2024.
(01:54):
I mean, you made it through2024, right, and 2024 was, no,
you know, small, easy year,right, like the entire year just
seems like it's been nonstophurdles the entire time.
Obviously not as much as like2020 or 2021, right, um, but it
still feels like there's alwayssomething, you know, coming up.
(02:17):
Right, and maybe that's justlife, maybe that's just you know
what life is nowadays, right.
But you know, you made it tothe end of 2024 and that's an
accomplishment in and of itself,right, and I hope that you
accomplished every goal that youset out at the beginning of the
year.
You know, at the beginning ofthe year, typically I'll put out
(02:38):
an episode that's relateddirectly towards goal setting.
You know, I've done that thepast couple of years.
I'll probably do that again ina couple of weeks, but goal
setting is very important.
You know, and I'll be honest,right, I didn't complete all of
my goals.
You know I set a goal ofgetting an AWS Solutions
Architect AssociateCertification and renewing the
(02:59):
AWS Security SpecialistCertification, and I didn't do
either, right, I studied hereand there, but it wasn't
consistent enough to actuallyachieve the certification, and
so I didn't get it because,plain and simply, I didn't
deserve it.
I didn't put in the work, andyou know that is obviously a
failure on my end, but, in mylight defense, right.
(03:22):
I was doing a lot of otherthings.
I was creating content forCengage.
I was creating, you know,podcast content.
I was working a nine to five.
I'm a new dad, I'm starting todo consulting and whatnot on the
side as well, which issomething that we're going to
dive into Likely in thebeginning of January.
It'll start to really be talkedabout more and fleshed out a
(03:45):
little bit more.
So you know there's been a lotgoing on.
I'm sure there's a lot going onin your life too, right, and so
really focus on those victoriesthough.
Right, take this time at the endof the year and reflect on what
you actually accomplished thisyear.
Maybe it's one or two things,right, but maybe those one or
two things took you six months.
(04:06):
You know, eight months, right,that's possible.
That's happened to me.
But it's also very importantfor you to identify that and to
actually celebrate that right.
Treat yourself.
You know, typically, typicallywhen I reach a goal or a
milestone of some sort, right,I'll go and I'll have a nice
(04:30):
glass of whiskey right, I'llhave, you know, one of my
favorite whiskeys, or somethinglike that right.
Or I'll go have a really nicecigar that I normally wouldn't
have.
Something like that right, havesomething like that right,
where it's like, hey, youaccomplished something, enjoy it
right.
Was it like base skin it orwhatever it is.
(04:52):
You guys know what I'm tryingto say.
You know, enjoy the moment,celebrate that success and then
get right back to work.
Right, give your time, giveyourself a chance to feel that
success, to enjoy it.
Right, you made it to the end ofthe year.
Maybe making it to the end ofthe year was your success, right
.
Maybe that alone was difficultfor you.
And you know I've been veryopen.
(05:14):
You know mental health and awide variety of topics, you know
, throughout the years andthere's definitely been years
where just making it to the endof the year was a success, where
it was like, hey, I didn't doanything else, but I'm here,
right, I'm here.
Those are the years also whereI found the most growth after it
, right, I got through it, Imoved through it, I, you know
(05:37):
just barely, you know scraped byand whatnot.
And then the following year wasa huge year of success and
growth and milestones that Ididn't even realize was possible
for me, right?
So it's important for you tojust openly right, it could be
literally to yourself in themirror right?
Hey, this year was really hard.
(05:57):
Good job making it.
It's important to identify that,and it's also important to, as
the year closes, start switchinggears in your mind and thinking
about what you want toaccomplish in 2025.
You know the easiest way to dothat.
I always recommend it to peopleput yourself into the future,
right.
Where do you actually seeyourself being?
(06:19):
Where do you want to be in fiveor ten years, right?
Well, what does that look like?
I mean, truly, truly, envisionit Truly.
Get that picture in your head.
What car are you driving?
Where are you living?
What does your family look like?
Are you married?
Are you with kids?
All of it?
You know how much money do youwant to make?
(06:40):
All that sort of stuff?
And then, once you have thatvision.
From there, you know, you canstart building your goals.
Right, what's the firstmilestone I need to get into?
Or what's the first milestone Ineed to achieve in order to get
into, you know, cloud security,right?
(07:00):
Maybe your goal is cloudsecurity.
Maybe your goal is just IT,maybe your goal is getting into
security.
You're already in IT and you'rehaving trouble getting in One.
That's why this podcastactually exists.
It exists for that exact reasonthat was willing to give me any
(07:22):
guidance.
I kept on being told, literallybasically every single day, for
two and a half years well, youdon't have experience in X,
right, and so we're not going totake you, we're not going to
hire you.
I would get to the final roundof these interviews all the time
, just constantly, and I wouldbe told the exact same thing.
Um and after you know?
(07:42):
Two and a half years of beingtold, no, every single day, I
had two final round interviewsscheduled for the same day, one
in the morning, one in theafternoon.
One was in the burbs and theafternoon one was in in uh, in
downtown, right, and so I toldmyself, if I don't get two
(08:02):
offers by the end, or if I don'tget an offer by the end of the
day, right, security is probablynot for me, right, I'll
probably have to go and figureout something else to do.
You know, right, because I hadjust spent two and a half years
trying to get into security,trying to do all the right
(08:25):
things, getting thecertifications, starting my
master's Right and all that sortof stuff, and I walked away
with two offers at the end ofthe day.
Right, by the time I got home,I had two offers in my inbox or
voicemail and I was blown away,right, and you could also be in
(08:45):
that state.
And that's where this idea ofthe podcast spawned from.
And I think in 2025, the podcastis kind of going to, it's
really going to get back to itsorigins, right.
2024, we talked to a lot ofprofessionals in the field.
In 2025, there's going to be nodifference on that side.
(09:08):
Right, we're going to bebringing on experts in the field
talking about every topic underthe sun, right?
Ai security what does that looklike?
You know what does that evenmean?
Right, and you should be usingit as talking points for
yourself when you go into jobinterviews.
When you go into, you knowdifferent rooms, right, and
(09:28):
you're talking to otherprofessionals.
You may have one or two piecesof information or nuggets right
that was said on the podcastthat you can then use and prop
yourself up, make yourself looka little bit smarter, make
yourself look a little bit moreintelligent, give yourself a
little bit of an edge againstother people that may be
(09:50):
competing for the same job oryou know whatever.
It might be right, like I'm notsaying, you know, be aggressive
towards you, know everyone inthe workplace, but you have to
stick out in interviews somehow,right, and that's how you do it
.
When they bring up a topic, youneed to be able to say, oh yeah
, you know what.
I've actually been looking intothat recently.
I heard this one podcast.
(10:11):
They were talking about it.
This guy from NVIDIA wastalking about AI security.
Like, guess what?
This podcast exists because webring on those experts in the
field, the absolute top of theline experts, right?
The people that I bring on arethe best in the world at
whatever they do, right, theyare the best in the world.
(10:32):
And the sponsors that I havefor this podcast they are the
absolute best products in theworld for what they do right.
I've had products or companiesreach out to me trying to
sponsor the podcast before and Ididn't believe in their
technology.
Right, I'm not just taking, youknow, people's money and
(10:55):
putting them up on my websiteand sponsoring an episode and
this and that.
Right, because I, because theypaid me you know, that's not who
I am.
I don't do this podcast to bepaid or to be famous or anything
like that.
I do it to provide value.
That's my goal, and so I thinkin 2025, we're going to be
(11:16):
providing a lot more value to mylisteners and viewers.
We are going to be providing alot more of that hands-on
mentorship type episodes.
Right, we spent two years, Ibelieve, right, doing mentorship
episodes, kind of coaching youup right.
(11:36):
So now we're going to give youthe foundation.
Right, you want to get intocloud security.
The very first thing, you needto learn Terraform.
You need to learn Terraform.
You need to know it inside andout.
You need to know how to plug upTerraform into your AWS account
, what that actually looks like,how to build security in right
from the very start in your code, so that when you're pushing
(11:59):
out different infrastructurethrough your Terraform pipeline,
that it's secure right from thestart, and when people in the
future try to create insecurethings, we're going to teach you
how to identify it, how to fixit automatically, because that's
a core tenant of cloud security, whether it's stated in the
CCSP or the CCSK or whatever,automating your security
(12:23):
controls in the cloud isabsolutely essential.
So we're going to be doing thishands-on I mean, we're going to
be, you know, recording ourscreens, doing it in our own
environments.
I'm going to be right there withyou, right, I'll be asking
questions, questions that youmay have, and if you have any
additional questions, you'llhave to put them in the comments
and we'll absolutely, you know,get to them and answer them and
(12:45):
everything else like that,right?
But I think that that is goingto be a huge shift in the
content that's coming out, and Ithink it's going to help a lot
of people, and that's what I'mmost excited about in helping
someone out there.
Another thing is I'm going tobring on more people that I find
(13:05):
interesting, that I want totalk to right, and that's not to
say that every person thatcomes on I don't want to talk to
right.
That is not the case.
That's not who I am, right.
But I'm going to be bringing onsome real heavy hitters in the
industry, some real experts.
(13:27):
You know people that you knowhave hacked airplanes allegedly
while they were flying, right?
You know all of theseinteresting people that have
done really cool, interestingthings.
We're going to bring them onthings.
We're going to bring them onand we're going to be talking
about their not just theirjourney, but let's talk about
(13:48):
what they're doing.
You know what they're doing inthe field right now.
What keeps them waking up?
You know wanting to do thisthing right, because, I mean, in
the world, you can do anythingthat you want to do, right.
Like that's the beautiful thingabout life, that you want to do
right.
Like that's the beautiful thingabout life and that's the
beautiful thing about America is.
You know, truly, if there'sanything that you want in life,
(14:12):
there's a way for you to get it.
You know there's an opportunityfor you.
Even if you have to build thatopportunity from the very
beginning, there's still anopportunity for you to achieve
it, to obtain it in America,right?
I think that is something thatis often not looked at or not
mentioned right by people thatdon't travel outside of the
(14:34):
country.
A lot of these people don'ttravel outside of their state,
you know, or their region inAmerica, right.
But you know we're going to begoing and talking to you, know,
some of the top experts in theentire world, and I think that's
going to be really special.
And in 2025, I'm actually goingto start doing a lot more
(14:57):
security consulting forcompanies, right.
So this is kind of like, Iguess, my my PSA to companies.
You know, right now, if you area company that you know has a
cloud environment, large orsmall right, and you need help
getting your hands around what'sgoing on in your environment,
right, or you don't even knowwhere to start, you know that's
(15:20):
where I come in, right?
I've done this for many othercompanies at this point On the
side.
I've never talked about it oranything like that.
I've never talked about itbecause I guess there's a little
bit of imposter syndrome.
If I talk about it, then I haveto kind of act on it.
To some extent.
I have to be bringing in morecustomers and whatnot, and I
(15:40):
didn't know if I was ready forthat sort of responsibility at
the time, right.
So I was still doing the work,right, I was providing the
services.
I just was never talking aboutit, never marketing it, never
had a website for it or anythinglike that.
Right, some of the top expertsin the entire world to look at
your environment and tell youyou know top five, top 10 things
(16:08):
.
Hey, this is what you need todo.
This is exactly how you do it.
This is what we recommend.
If you want that, then let meknow.
You know, please reach out tome.
I'm going to be standing up awhole new website and everything
just for that sort of service.
So, yeah, I mean, I don't knowif anything will come of me
saying it on this episode, right, I think that we'll probably
(16:30):
discuss it a bit more in 2025,in January.
You know, with it being the endof the year, we're going into
the holiday season.
You can expect, you know, nexttwo weeks minimum two, three
weeks that there's going to beno episodes, right, but that
doesn't mean that SecurityUnfiltered, is gone forever.
It is not.
I'm taking a much needed breakwith my family.
(16:53):
You know, going to get somegreat family time in here,
really going to enjoy, you know,the last holiday of only having
one kid, right.
I'm sure next holiday season isgoing to be a lot more crazy
with two kids, right.
So that's very exciting for mebecause I love being a dad.
It's my favorite thing to do inthe entire world.
(17:13):
If I could do one thing for therest of my life, and only one
thing, it would be being a dad.
That's what I absolutely love.
Yeah, a lot more excitingthings are coming.
Likely, the next episode that Ipost will be a goals episode,
right?
So take the next couple weeks,enjoy the time with your family
(17:35):
and start thinking right, whatdo I want to achieve in 2025,
right, what do I want toaccomplish?
What does it look like fiveyears from now?
You know, I'll end with this.
You know, almost nine years agoat this point maybe nine or 10
years ago at this point theTesla Model X was announced.
(17:57):
Right, I'm sure a lot of peoplesaw the LinkedIn post.
I made a post on Reddit thatyou know really popped off and
whatnot.
But ever since that car wasannounced, I've wanted it right.
I just never had the money todo it.
I never had the ability.
I didn't think I could do itright, this goal, this goal, was
(18:18):
something that I had for solong that I actually forgot
about it, right, at some pointin time.
I forgot about it because Ifigured that's probably just not
going to happen for me.
You know, the car is tooexpensive.
It's just not going to happen.
You know, and I was.
I don't want to say I was okaywith it, but I put it on the
back burner, right.
(18:39):
And then, subconsciously, I wasalways going to tesla's website
, looking at, you know, themodel x and whatnot, trying to
see you know what configurationis the most cost effective and
all that sort of stuff.
And, and it wasn't until welearned that we were going to
have a second kid and the Q5that I was driving was barely
(18:59):
big enough for one kid.
To be honest, right, becauseI'm a big guy, right, I can't
put my seat all the way forward,and whatnot, and so having two
kids in there would be a lot,it'd be a lot, it'd be very
difficult.
I know your first critique isgoing to be well, you didn't
have to get a Model X.
You're 100% right, I didn'thave to get a Model X.
Model X was actually the lastthing I was looking at, right,
(19:23):
but talking about it with afriend of mine, he reminded me
hey, why don't you look at thatTesla you've been talking about
for the past 10 years?
Right, and I didn't even thinkthat it was possible.
But now, right now, I have aTesla Model X brand new Tesla
Model X sitting in my garage,right?
(19:44):
I say all of that because I setthat goal literally nine years
ago.
At this point, right Nine yearsago, I was making $45,000 a
year.
Forty forty-five, right?
That's pre-tax, that's pre-tax.
And so you may be in thatsituation right now where you
(20:05):
are not making a lot of money.
You have high goals and dreamsand ambitions.
You don't really even know ifit's possible for you, right?
But you have this goal made upin your mind.
Maybe it's a car, maybe it's ahouse, maybe it's a family,
maybe it's a number right inyour bank account, whatever it
might be, but it seems lofty toyou.
(20:27):
But if you do all the rightthings, you're going to mess up
along the way, but if you do allthe right things you work
diligently every single day atit that goal is achievable In
this world.
That goal is achievable Still,even to today I picked up the
car earlier this week and stillto today, it doesn't quite seem
(20:51):
real.
To today it doesn't quite seemreal, right?
Because for a long time Ididn't think it was even
possible.
I didn't think.
I didn't think it was for me,right?
I mean, even though I'm makingseveral times more than what I
was making nine years ago.
Right, it just still didn'tseem obtainable.
And here it is.
(21:13):
I say all of that to encourageyou to keep going right.
Whatever that goal is, whateveryour dream is, whatever it is
that you're trying to achieve,it is possible, right, and we're
going to go into 2025 with aneven mindset, a motivated
mindset.
With an even mindset, amotivated mindset, we're going
(21:34):
to get shit done.
Right, as a security,unfiltered audience, we are
going to go in and we are goingto get shit done.
You know, one of the biggestcompliments I've ever gotten in
my entire career was my currentmanager, when he was describing
me to someone else, because theywere questioning how I was
working and things like that,and he said you have to
(21:56):
understand who Joe is.
Joe is like a cyber mercenary,right?
You point Joe in the directionyou want him to go and you give
him the end result.
You say I want this as the endresult.
You tell him if there's atimeline, you give him a
timeline too, and when you pointhim in that direction, you're
(22:18):
not going to ask him how he'sdoing it.
You're not going to ask him howhe's doing it, where the bodies
are buried, whatever it mightbe, but he is going to come back
with that end result within thetime frame that you wanted it
in.
And that is exactly how Joeworks and that is exactly how my
(22:38):
audience, you know, I hope, isdeveloping that mentality right,
where you know you set a goaland you achieve it.
It may take you nine years, itmay take you 10 years, 15 years
right.
I have goals that are 10 yearsaway.
Right, and the goals for me,because I'm a little bit of a
(22:59):
car guy are all related toreally well.
Right, because that thing takesand requires a certain amount
of work.
It takes a certain amount ofexpertise and discipline and
(23:22):
effort and sleepless nights, inwhatever area you choose, to
accomplish it.
Now I'm not telling you to doanything illegal, right.
I'm telling you set a goal,achieve it, work towards it,
achieve it right and then resetright.
So I hit a major milestone thisweek.
(23:43):
Two, three months ago I didn'teven expect to hit this
milestone.
It wasn't even on my radar, itwasn't right.
I was beating myself up allyear since, like may, when the
model x prices were dropping andI still didn't have a way of
doing it right, and so, for me,I was like I'm missing my
(24:06):
opportunity, my one opportunityto get this car that I've wanted
for nine years, and I'm missingthat opportunity and I'm never
I'm probably never going to getit again.
Right, that's what was goingthrough my head, and so it may
have taken me, you know, sixmonths to get it right.
Whatever it might be right, butonce you set a goal and you
(24:29):
start working diligently everysingle day to achieve it, you
get 1% better.
Maybe you get half a percentbetter every day, right?
Maybe 1% is too much to ask.
Maybe you have five kids orwhatever.
It might be right, everyone hasdifferent lives and different
things going on in their lifeand whatnot.
But whatever that might be, aslong as you stay committed to it
(24:53):
and you work at it every singleday, you will achieve it.
Eventually, you will achieve it.
So you know, with that, guys,this is the last episode of the
year.
I'm not going to post anythingfor probably the next two to
three weeks, probably two weeks,but I want to build in a little
bit of cushion, right?
But 2025, 2025, hard, right.
(25:16):
I'm going to post more contentthan I've ever posted before and
I'm going to post more valuablecontent than I've ever posted
before.
The interviews will remain thesame the interviews I'm going to
be bringing on experts, andthen that midweek episode
towards the end part of the week.
That episode is going to be veryhands-on.
If you want to learn how toactually do security in an
(25:38):
environment in a hands-on way,watch that episode and follow
along.
We're going to teach you rightfrom the very ground of how to
set up your environment on yourcomputer, how to connect it to
the cloud and how to deploythings in the cloud.
Everything we're going to talkabout certifications.
We're going to be giving youtips.
(25:58):
We're going to be creatingcourses, all that sort of stuff,
everything that you need to besuccessful in cybersecurity and
having a career in cybersecurity.
That's going to be on thisplatform, right, and it may take
a while to build it all out,but little by little, 1% better,
every single day, it willhappen, right, it's going to
(26:19):
happen.
So, yeah, thank you everyone forbeing here, being a part of the
audience, being a part of thiscommunity.
I hope to see everyone at thedifferent conferences.
Next year.
I should probably be going toDEF CON.
I should be going to THOT CON.
If anyone in the Chicago areais going to go to THOT CON,
(26:39):
you'll see me with my SecurityUnfiltered shirt and yeah, you
know, we'll see where 2025 takesus, but I'm very excited for it
.
With that, you know, thankseveryone for being a part of
this community and I can't waitto achieve what we're going to
achieve together.
See ya.
How's it going, everyone?
It has been a while since itwas just me talking, so this is
a little bit new for some new,you know, viewers or listeners,
you know whatever platformyou're listening on, but you
know it has been a year, that'sfor sure.
It has been a year.
This year I have posted lessthan I have in the previous
(00:23):
years, mostly out of, you know,protection for my own sanity,
right and it has been aninteresting year overall, right,
like learning new things,experiencing new things.
As a new dad, expecting anumber two coming in here pretty
soon working on the PhD.
You know all the million littlethings that I do, you know, and
(00:45):
doing this podcast has been ahuge privilege of mine, right,
and I've really enjoyed it.
Right, and I'm not stopping,mind you.
I'm not stopping at all.
In fact, in 2025, we actuallyhave someone coming back onto
the show in a regular format toprovide hands-on, in-depth
(01:12):
training, points of interest,knowledge for you to gain, for
you to take and gain and putinto your own environments, put
it into your own knowledge bankso that when you're interviewing
for these different jobs, youknow, you can say hey, you know,
I learned this content fromSecurity Unfiltered.
(01:34):
I tested it out on my ownenvironment.
I learned it, I played with it,right.
I grew upon that foundationthat we're going to be helping
you build, and so you'll be moreprepared going into new roles
in 2025,.
You know, and something I wantto say right is you know you
made it to 2024.
(01:54):
I mean, you made it through2024, right, and 2024 was, no,
you know, small, easy year,right, like the entire year just
seems like it's been nonstophurdles the entire time.
Obviously not as much as like2020 or 2021, right, um, but it
still feels like there's alwayssomething, you know, coming up.
(02:17):
Right, and maybe that's justlife, maybe that's just you know
what life is nowadays, right.
But you know, you made it tothe end of 2024 and that's an
accomplishment in and of itself,right, and I hope that you
accomplished every goal that youset out at the beginning of the
year.
You know, at the beginning ofthe year, typically I'll put out
(02:38):
an episode that's relateddirectly towards goal setting.
You know, I've done that thepast couple of years.
I'll probably do that again ina couple of weeks, but goal
setting is very important.
You know, and I'll be honest,right, I didn't complete all of
my goals.
You know I set a goal ofgetting an AWS Solutions
Architect AssociateCertification and renewing the
(02:59):
AWS Security SpecialistCertification, and I didn't do
either, right, I studied hereand there, but it wasn't
consistent enough to actuallyachieve the certification, and
so I didn't get it because,plain and simply, I didn't
deserve it.
I didn't put in the work, andyou know that is obviously a
failure on my end, but, in mylight defense, right.
(03:22):
I was doing a lot of otherthings.
I was creating content forCengage.
I was creating, you know,podcast content.
I was working a nine to five.
I'm a new dad, I'm starting todo consulting and whatnot on the
side as well, which issomething that we're going to
dive into Likely in thebeginning of January.
It'll start to really be talkedabout more and fleshed out a
(03:45):
little bit more.
So you know there's been a lotgoing on.
I'm sure there's a lot going onin your life too, right, and so
really focus on those victoriesthough.
Right, take this time at the endof the year and reflect on what
you actually accomplished thisyear.
Maybe it's one or two things,right, but maybe those one or
two things took you six months.
(04:06):
You know, eight months, right,that's possible.
That's happened to me.
But it's also very importantfor you to identify that and to
actually celebrate that right.
Treat yourself.
You know, typically, typicallywhen I reach a goal or a
milestone of some sort, right,I'll go and I'll have a nice
(04:30):
glass of whiskey right, I'llhave, you know, one of my
favorite whiskeys, or somethinglike that right.
Or I'll go have a really nicecigar that I normally wouldn't
have.
Something like that right, havesomething like that right,
where it's like, hey, youaccomplished something, enjoy it
right.
Was it like base skin it orwhatever it is.
(04:52):
You guys know what I'm tryingto say.
You know, enjoy the moment,celebrate that success and then
get right back to work.
Right, give your time, giveyourself a chance to feel that
success, to enjoy it.
Right, you made it to the end ofthe year.
Maybe making it to the end ofthe year was your success, right
.
Maybe that alone was difficultfor you.
And you know I've been veryopen.
(05:14):
You know mental health and awide variety of topics, you know
, throughout the years andthere's definitely been years
where just making it to the endof the year was a success, where
it was like, hey, I didn't doanything else, but I'm here,
right, I'm here.
Those are the years also whereI found the most growth after it
, right, I got through it, Imoved through it, I, you know
(05:37):
just barely, you know scraped byand whatnot.
And then the following year wasa huge year of success and
growth and milestones that Ididn't even realize was possible
for me, right?
So it's important for you tojust openly right, it could be
literally to yourself in themirror right?
Hey, this year was really hard.
(05:57):
Good job making it.
It's important to identify that,and it's also important to, as
the year closes, start switchinggears in your mind and thinking
about what you want toaccomplish in 2025.
You know the easiest way to dothat.
I always recommend it to peopleput yourself into the future,
right.
Where do you actually seeyourself being?
(06:19):
Where do you want to be in fiveor ten years, right?
Well, what does that look like?
I mean, truly, truly, envisionit Truly.
Get that picture in your head.
What car are you driving?
Where are you living?
What does your family look like?
Are you married?
Are you with kids?
All of it?
You know how much money do youwant to make?
(06:40):
All that sort of stuff?
And then, once you have thatvision.
From there, you know, you canstart building your goals.
Right, what's the firstmilestone I need to get into?
Or what's the first milestone Ineed to achieve in order to get
into, you know, cloud security,right?
(07:00):
Maybe your goal is cloudsecurity.
Maybe your goal is just IT,maybe your goal is getting into
security.
You're already in IT and you'rehaving trouble getting in One.
That's why this podcastactually exists.
It exists for that exact reasonthat was willing to give me any
(07:22):
guidance.
I kept on being told, literallybasically every single day, for
two and a half years well, youdon't have experience in X,
right, and so we're not going totake you, we're not going to
hire you.
I would get to the final roundof these interviews all the time
, just constantly, and I wouldbe told the exact same thing.
Um and after you know?
(07:42):
Two and a half years of beingtold, no, every single day, I
had two final round interviewsscheduled for the same day, one
in the morning, one in theafternoon.
One was in the burbs and theafternoon one was in in uh, in
downtown, right, and so I toldmyself, if I don't get two
(08:02):
offers by the end, or if I don'tget an offer by the end of the
day, right, security is probablynot for me, right, I'll
probably have to go and figureout something else to do.
You know, right, because I hadjust spent two and a half years
trying to get into security,trying to do all the right
(08:25):
things, getting thecertifications, starting my
master's Right and all that sortof stuff, and I walked away
with two offers at the end ofthe day.
Right, by the time I got home,I had two offers in my inbox or
voicemail and I was blown away,right, and you could also be in
(08:45):
that state.
And that's where this idea ofthe podcast spawned from.
And I think in 2025, the podcastis kind of going to, it's
really going to get back to itsorigins, right.
2024, we talked to a lot ofprofessionals in the field.
In 2025, there's going to be nodifference on that side.
(09:08):
Right, we're going to bebringing on experts in the field
talking about every topic underthe sun, right?
Ai security what does that looklike?
You know what does that evenmean?
Right, and you should be usingit as talking points for
yourself when you go into jobinterviews.
When you go into, you knowdifferent rooms, right, and
(09:28):
you're talking to otherprofessionals.
You may have one or two piecesof information or nuggets right
that was said on the podcastthat you can then use and prop
yourself up, make yourself looka little bit smarter, make
yourself look a little bit moreintelligent, give yourself a
little bit of an edge againstother people that may be
(09:50):
competing for the same job oryou know whatever.
It might be right, like I'm notsaying, you know, be aggressive
towards you, know everyone inthe workplace, but you have to
stick out in interviews somehow,right, and that's how you do it
.
When they bring up a topic, youneed to be able to say, oh yeah
, you know what.
I've actually been looking intothat recently.
I heard this one podcast.
(10:11):
They were talking about it.
This guy from NVIDIA wastalking about AI security.
Like, guess what?
This podcast exists because webring on those experts in the
field, the absolute top of theline experts, right?
The people that I bring on arethe best in the world at
whatever they do, right, theyare the best in the world.
(10:32):
And the sponsors that I havefor this podcast they are the
absolute best products in theworld for what they do right.
I've had products or companiesreach out to me trying to
sponsor the podcast before and Ididn't believe in their
technology.
Right, I'm not just taking, youknow, people's money and
(10:55):
putting them up on my websiteand sponsoring an episode and
this and that.
Right, because I, because theypaid me you know, that's not who
I am.
I don't do this podcast to bepaid or to be famous or anything
like that.
I do it to provide value.
That's my goal, and so I thinkin 2025, we're going to be
(11:16):
providing a lot more value to mylisteners and viewers.
We are going to be providing alot more of that hands-on
mentorship type episodes.
Right, we spent two years, Ibelieve, right, doing mentorship
episodes, kind of coaching youup right.
(11:36):
So now we're going to give youthe foundation.
Right, you want to get intocloud security.
The very first thing, you needto learn Terraform.
You need to learn Terraform.
You need to know it inside andout.
You need to know how to plug upTerraform into your AWS account
, what that actually looks like,how to build security in right
from the very start in your code, so that when you're pushing
(11:59):
out different infrastructurethrough your Terraform pipeline,
that it's secure right from thestart, and when people in the
future try to create insecurethings, we're going to teach you
how to identify it, how to fixit automatically, because that's
a core tenant of cloud security, whether it's stated in the
CCSP or the CCSK or whatever,automating your security
(12:23):
controls in the cloud isabsolutely essential.
So we're going to be doing thishands-on I mean, we're going to
be, you know, recording ourscreens, doing it in our own
environments.
I'm going to be right there withyou, right, I'll be asking
questions, questions that youmay have, and if you have any
additional questions, you'llhave to put them in the comments
and we'll absolutely, you know,get to them and answer them and
(12:45):
everything else like that,right?
But I think that that is goingto be a huge shift in the
content that's coming out, and Ithink it's going to help a lot
of people, and that's what I'mmost excited about in helping
someone out there.
Another thing is I'm going tobring on more people that I find
(13:05):
interesting, that I want totalk to right, and that's not to
say that every person thatcomes on I don't want to talk to
right.
That is not the case.
That's not who I am, right.
But I'm going to be bringing onsome real heavy hitters in the
industry, some real experts.
(13:27):
You know people that you knowhave hacked airplanes allegedly
while they were flying, right?
You know all of theseinteresting people that have
done really cool, interestingthings.
We're going to bring them onthings.
We're going to bring them onand we're going to be talking
about their not just theirjourney, but let's talk about
(13:48):
what they're doing.
You know what they're doing inthe field right now.
What keeps them waking up?
You know wanting to do thisthing right, because, I mean, in
the world, you can do anythingthat you want to do, right.
Like that's the beautiful thingabout life, that you want to do
right.
Like that's the beautiful thingabout life and that's the
beautiful thing about America is.
You know, truly, if there'sanything that you want in life,
(14:12):
there's a way for you to get it.
You know there's an opportunityfor you.
Even if you have to build thatopportunity from the very
beginning, there's still anopportunity for you to achieve
it, to obtain it in America,right?
I think that is something thatis often not looked at or not
mentioned right by people thatdon't travel outside of the
(14:34):
country.
A lot of these people don'ttravel outside of their state,
you know, or their region inAmerica, right.
But you know we're going to begoing and talking to you, know,
some of the top experts in theentire world, and I think that's
going to be really special.
And in 2025, I'm actually goingto start doing a lot more
(14:57):
security consulting forcompanies, right.
So this is kind of like, Iguess, my my PSA to companies.
You know, right now, if you area company that you know has a
cloud environment, large orsmall right, and you need help
getting your hands around what'sgoing on in your environment,
right, or you don't even knowwhere to start, you know that's
(15:20):
where I come in, right?
I've done this for many othercompanies at this point On the
side.
I've never talked about it oranything like that.
I've never talked about itbecause I guess there's a little
bit of imposter syndrome.
If I talk about it, then I haveto kind of act on it.
To some extent.
I have to be bringing in morecustomers and whatnot, and I
(15:40):
didn't know if I was ready forthat sort of responsibility at
the time, right.
So I was still doing the work,right, I was providing the
services.
I just was never talking aboutit, never marketing it, never
had a website for it or anythinglike that.
Right, some of the top expertsin the entire world to look at
your environment and tell youyou know top five, top 10 things
(16:08):
.
Hey, this is what you need todo.
This is exactly how you do it.
This is what we recommend.
If you want that, then let meknow.
You know, please reach out tome.
I'm going to be standing up awhole new website and everything
just for that sort of service.
So, yeah, I mean, I don't knowif anything will come of me
saying it on this episode, right, I think that we'll probably
(16:30):
discuss it a bit more in 2025,in January.
You know, with it being the endof the year, we're going into
the holiday season.
You can expect, you know, nexttwo weeks minimum two, three
weeks that there's going to beno episodes, right, but that
doesn't mean that SecurityUnfiltered, is gone forever.
It is not.
I'm taking a much needed breakwith my family.
(16:53):
You know, going to get somegreat family time in here,
really going to enjoy, you know,the last holiday of only having
one kid, right.
I'm sure next holiday season isgoing to be a lot more crazy
with two kids, right.
So that's very exciting for mebecause I love being a dad.
It's my favorite thing to do inthe entire world.
(17:13):
If I could do one thing for therest of my life, and only one
thing, it would be being a dad.
That's what I absolutely love.
Yeah, a lot more excitingthings are coming.
Likely, the next episode that Ipost will be a goals episode,
right?
So take the next couple weeks,enjoy the time with your family
(17:35):
and start thinking right, whatdo I want to achieve in 2025,
right, what do I want toaccomplish?
What does it look like fiveyears from now?
You know, I'll end with this.
You know, almost nine years agoat this point maybe nine or 10
years ago at this point theTesla Model X was announced.
(17:57):
Right, I'm sure a lot of peoplesaw the LinkedIn post.
I made a post on Reddit thatyou know really popped off and
whatnot.
But ever since that car wasannounced, I've wanted it right.
I just never had the money todo it.
I never had the ability.
I didn't think I could do itright, this goal, this goal, was
(18:18):
something that I had for solong that I actually forgot
about it, right, at some pointin time.
I forgot about it because Ifigured that's probably just not
going to happen for me.
You know, the car is tooexpensive.
It's just not going to happen.
You know, and I was.
I don't want to say I was okaywith it, but I put it on the
back burner, right.
(18:39):
And then, subconsciously, I wasalways going to tesla's website
, looking at, you know, themodel x and whatnot, trying to
see you know what configurationis the most cost effective and
all that sort of stuff.
And, and it wasn't until welearned that we were going to
have a second kid and the Q5that I was driving was barely
(18:59):
big enough for one kid.
To be honest, right, becauseI'm a big guy, right, I can't
put my seat all the way forward,and whatnot, and so having two
kids in there would be a lot,it'd be a lot, it'd be very
difficult.
I know your first critique isgoing to be well, you didn't
have to get a Model X.
You're 100% right, I didn'thave to get a Model X.
Model X was actually the lastthing I was looking at, right,
(19:23):
but talking about it with afriend of mine, he reminded me
hey, why don't you look at thatTesla you've been talking about
for the past 10 years?
Right, and I didn't even thinkthat it was possible.
But now, right now, I have aTesla Model X brand new Tesla
Model X sitting in my garage,right?
(19:44):
I say all of that because I setthat goal literally nine years
ago.
At this point, right Nine yearsago, I was making $45,000 a
year.
Forty forty-five, right?
That's pre-tax, that's pre-tax.
And so you may be in thatsituation right now where you
(20:05):
are not making a lot of money.
You have high goals and dreamsand ambitions.
You don't really even know ifit's possible for you, right?
But you have this goal made upin your mind.
Maybe it's a car, maybe it's ahouse, maybe it's a family,
maybe it's a number right inyour bank account, whatever it
might be, but it seems lofty toyou.
(20:27):
But if you do all the rightthings, you're going to mess up
along the way, but if you do allthe right things you work
diligently every single day atit that goal is achievable In
this world.
That goal is achievable Still,even to today I picked up the
car earlier this week and stillto today, it doesn't quite seem
(20:51):
real.
To today it doesn't quite seemreal, right?
Because for a long time Ididn't think it was even
possible.
I didn't think.
I didn't think it was for me,right?
I mean, even though I'm makingseveral times more than what I
was making nine years ago.
Right, it just still didn'tseem obtainable.
And here it is.
(21:13):
I say all of that to encourageyou to keep going right.
Whatever that goal is, whateveryour dream is, whatever it is
that you're trying to achieve,it is possible, right, and we're
going to go into 2025 with aneven mindset, a motivated
mindset.
With an even mindset, amotivated mindset, we're going
(21:34):
to get shit done.
Right, as a security,unfiltered audience, we are
going to go in and we are goingto get shit done.
You know, one of the biggestcompliments I've ever gotten in
my entire career was my currentmanager, when he was describing
me to someone else, because theywere questioning how I was
working and things like that,and he said you have to
(21:56):
understand who Joe is.
Joe is like a cyber mercenary,right?
You point Joe in the directionyou want him to go and you give
him the end result.
You say I want this as the endresult.
You tell him if there's atimeline, you give him a
timeline too, and when you pointhim in that direction, you're
(22:18):
not going to ask him how he'sdoing it.
You're not going to ask him howhe's doing it, where the bodies
are buried, whatever it mightbe, but he is going to come back
with that end result within thetime frame that you wanted it
in.
And that is exactly how Joeworks and that is exactly how my
(22:38):
audience, you know, I hope, isdeveloping that mentality right,
where you know you set a goaland you achieve it.
It may take you nine years, itmay take you 10 years, 15 years
right.
I have goals that are 10 yearsaway.
Right, and the goals for me,because I'm a little bit of a
(22:59):
car guy are all related toreally well.
Right, because that thing takesand requires a certain amount
of work.
It takes a certain amount ofexpertise and discipline and
(23:22):
effort and sleepless nights, inwhatever area you choose, to
accomplish it.
Now I'm not telling you to doanything illegal, right.
I'm telling you set a goal,achieve it, work towards it,
achieve it right and then resetright.
So I hit a major milestone thisweek.
(23:43):
Two, three months ago I didn'teven expect to hit this
milestone.
It wasn't even on my radar, itwasn't right.
I was beating myself up allyear since, like may, when the
model x prices were dropping andI still didn't have a way of
doing it right, and so, for me,I was like I'm missing my
(24:06):
opportunity, my one opportunityto get this car that I've wanted
for nine years, and I'm missingthat opportunity and I'm never
I'm probably never going to getit again.
Right, that's what was goingthrough my head, and so it may
have taken me, you know, sixmonths to get it right.
Whatever it might be right, butonce you set a goal and you
(24:29):
start working diligently everysingle day to achieve it, you
get 1% better.
Maybe you get half a percentbetter every day, right?
Maybe 1% is too much to ask.
Maybe you have five kids orwhatever.
It might be right, everyone hasdifferent lives and different
things going on in their lifeand whatnot.
But whatever that might be, aslong as you stay committed to it
(24:53):
and you work at it every singleday, you will achieve it.
Eventually, you will achieve it.
So you know, with that, guys,this is the last episode of the
year.
I'm not going to post anythingfor probably the next two to
three weeks, probably two weeks,but I want to build in a little
bit of cushion, right?
But 2025, 2025, hard, right.
(25:16):
I'm going to post more contentthan I've ever posted before and
I'm going to post more valuablecontent than I've ever posted
before.
The interviews will remain thesame the interviews I'm going to
be bringing on experts, andthen that midweek episode
towards the end part of the week.
That episode is going to be veryhands-on.
If you want to learn how toactually do security in an
(25:38):
environment in a hands-on way,watch that episode and follow
along.
We're going to teach you rightfrom the very ground of how to
set up your environment on yourcomputer, how to connect it to
the cloud and how to deploythings in the cloud.
Everything we're going to talkabout certifications.
We're going to be giving youtips.
(25:58):
We're going to be creatingcourses, all that sort of stuff,
everything that you need to besuccessful in cybersecurity and
having a career in cybersecurity.
That's going to be on thisplatform, right, and it may take
a while to build it all out,but little by little, 1% better,
every single day, it willhappen, right, it's going to
(26:19):
happen.
So, yeah, thank you everyone forbeing here, being a part of the
audience, being a part of thiscommunity.
I hope to see everyone at thedifferent conferences.
Next year.
I should probably be going toDEF CON.
I should be going to THOT CON.
If anyone in the Chicago areais going to go to THOT CON,
(26:39):
you'll see me with my SecurityUnfiltered shirt and yeah, you
know, we'll see where 2025 takesus, but I'm very excited for it
.
With that, you know, thankseveryone for being a part of
this community and I can't waitto achieve what we're going to
achieve together.
See ya.
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