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Things don’t always go as planned. With Brad out last week and a riveting conversation with Neal O’Farrell about mental health in the information security industry, Neal joined the podcast again for an impromptu part two in episode 103. In part two of this discussion, Evan, Brad, and Neal review some very specific self-help cybersecurity measures they’ve tried—and what their experiences were with them. Give this episode a listen/watch and let us know what you think at unsecurity@protonmail.com.
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Podcast Transcription:
[00:00:22] Evan Francen: All right. Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Unsecurity podcast. This is episode 103. The date is october 27th 2020 and I’m Evan Francen, your host joining me is my good friend and coworker Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad.
[00:00:37] Brad Nigh: Good morning Evan.
[00:00:38] Evan Francen: Glad to have you back man.
[00:00:40] Brad Nigh: Yeah, so much better.
[00:00:41] Evan Francen: Good. Also joining us for a second week in a row is our good friend and founder of the cyber Resilience project, Neal O’Farrell. Good morning Neal.
[00:00:50] Neal O’Farrell: Good morning guys. Thanks for inviting me back. I guess I didn’t mess up last time.
[00:00:56] Evan Francen: No man. The conversation was great. And that’s that’s kind of the reason why we wanted to have you back. I think we talked so long that we never got to news, which is good because news is just filler. Yeah, but the conversation was great. And judging from the feedback from how many people, uh, you know, listen to the show, people find it really intriguing. So, you know, here you are students.
[00:01:22] Neal O’Farrell: But yeah, that
[00:01:25] Evan Francen: so catching up real quick. What’s anything new in your life? Anything new with you guys? Exciting things.
[00:01:33] Neal O’Farrell: Um, we had some tragic news yesterday. Our neighbors are not doing trick or treat this year and refused to give me their candy. But other than that, it’s pretty, pretty smoothly.
[00:01:44] Evan Francen: Drop your address in the chat man. I’ve got candy. I’m trying to get rid of.
[00:01:48] Neal O’Farrell: All right. Okay. All right. We’ll set something up because it’s, it’s not so much. Candy is the free candy. You know, you’re gonna, you’re not gonna use it.
[00:01:59] Evan Francen: Yeah. My wife, my wife has attended. I don’t think she understands. Well, if you look at my body, either I don’t understand or she doesn’t understand or we both don’t understand portion control. She’s a she’s a thin little thing, But man, she’s buys candy. There’s candy all over the over the house. I swear we got like five bags and we’ll have like three kids. So yeah, I want to get rid of it.
[00:02:23] Neal O’Farrell: Okay. We’ll set something up. We’ll get there. You’ll be my candy
[00:02:28] Brad Nigh: dealer. Yeah. We’re not doing the trick or treating this year. Either my daughters are a little older, so they’re not not into it. And I said we just, we bought some candy for my son and he’s like, cool. I’m good.
[00:02:42] Neal O’Farrell: Thanks.
[00:02:45] Evan Francen: Exactly.
[00:02:46] Neal O’Farrell: We had about 1000 kids last year. Wow 1000 kids.
[00:02:53] Brad Nigh: I thought we were busy there. Gosh, We had probably so a couple 100. I went through like £220 or £210 bags of candy.
[00:03:06] Evan Francen: We don’t get like three kids. It might be the doberman pinscher. We sit on the front porch. Uh, so we haven’t had enough
[00:03:15] Neal O’Farrell: other neighbors know you.
[00:03:17] Evan Francen: That’s true too. I’m the guy with the pickup truck guns. Beard. Yeah, I’m product typical.
[00:03:26] Neal O’Farrell: It’s the beard thing.
[00:03:28] Evan Francen: Yeah, for sure. So brad. What’s uh, how’s uh, how’s that, how’s the family doing well?
[00:03:34] Brad Nigh: Yeah, he’s doing great. Um, You know that good news from his testing for like reading and math. He scored very 99th%ile for both. Not put into an advanced math class as a kindergartener, which is awesome. Like doing multiplication on his own. There’s a, I think it’s dan coming to stand up comedian. He said having smart kids is a lot of work. Sometimes he’s jealous of when he goes to the mall and sees like the parents of the dumb kids for you can just pop them down in front of the tv with some chips and has some time to himself. Smart kids are always asking questions and want more stuff like Yeah,
[00:04:15] Neal O’Farrell: that’s about right.
[00:04:17] Evan Francen: That’s true. Well into Neal’s point before we started the show right now. When did you have your first Guinness?
[00:04:25] Neal O’Farrell: Her swiss ski? Three months old for skin is six months old.
[00:04:30] Evan Francen: That’s the, that’s the irish way to raise kids. Maybe we should adopt
[00:04:33] Brad Nigh: that.
[00:04:35] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, yeah, It explains a lot about the irish
[00:04:42] Evan Francen: gotta love the irish,
[00:04:44] Neal O’Farrell: This is where I wanted to stroke my beard and as I put my hand up, I realized there’s nothing there,
[00:04:49] Evan Francen: right? Yeah, sometimes you do that like we do the shit show on thursday nights and you know, chris roberts has a long beard like mine. And I’ll see him stroking his on the video and then next thing I know I’m doing the same thing. I’m like, stop it. What the
[00:05:03] Neal O’Farrell: hell? It’s a gamble thing.
[00:05:06] Evan Francen: Mhm. Well, yeah, it’s uh it’s actually scientific. It’s uh wisdom. Yeah. Right, This is all I’m right here. All
[00:05:17] Neal O’Farrell: right, we’ll go with that colors. If you know what? There you go. In terms of theory on this, Please call in.
[00:05:25] Evan Francen: There you go. Yeah. So neal, thanks again for joining us this week. Last week. We had a great talk. So great. In fact, we didn’t have time for the news. Uh No matter though, uh you know, most people I think can read, I think most people probably don’t read. But if you wanted to read, you could still find the news online. There’s a thing called google and then you can type, you know, security news and find that stuff. Two. Anyway, we talked about your background. Both of us shared our personal struggles with mental health bread. You didn’t get to share your personal struggles with mental health, but you probably don’t have any mental health issues anyway.
[00:06:05] Brad Nigh: Right.
[00:06:07] Evan Francen: So we’re good on that.
[00:06:09] Neal O’Farrell: What are you doing insecurity?
[00:06:11] Evan Francen: Yeah, brad. You got stories brace.
[00:06:16] Brad Nigh: Oh yeah, I’ve had, we’ve talked about bad jobs and stress and things. But I’ve always been not does havent struggled absolutely have had issues and struggled with it. But I don’t know, I’m like personality pretty laid back and just don’t let things get to me very often and so you know I’m able to most of them just let it go and not not get bogged down by some of that stuff. But it absolutely happened. Mhm.
[00:06:48] Evan Francen: Well before you jumped on bread Neal and I were talking about how you know one of the things so I was involved in an incident response on friday and you know, yeah and you know the one I’m talking about and it’s just like you you couldn’t have handled this any more poorly. I don’t think in terms of you called the wrong people, you called too many people who had the FBI involved, the department, Homeland Security involved, you had the local sheriff’s department involved, you had another company involved, you have the insurance company involved and then you had us involved. It’s like what in the hell is going on here? And the fact that you were so poorly prepared led to just this cluster of so in our in our job there’s lots of things that we see all the time. It’s not I don’t think it’s probably all that unlike you know, maybe first responders in some ways we don’t see body parts but we see things that we want to. I mean I can’t tell you about, I want the world to know how poorly this company treats treats information because they have you shouldn’t be in business, You shouldn’t be in business because people trust you and you? I mean, I’m gonna I’m gonna start saying swear words, but you can see how I get heated about this. Well, that adds stress. Uh Neal you were talking about cortisone levels in the last podcast. I mean, hell pissing me off. And what do I where do I go with that? Wow.
[00:08:27] Neal O’Farrell: Yes, It’s it goes to the core of so many of the challenges with stress and mental health and security that so many of us come in this business because we we have a very solid moral compass and that kind of stuff eats at us in a way that something, it’s something it shouldn’t. But the only way Walters, if we lose that moral compass and we can’t afford to do that, because it’s what defines us and it’s what keeps us saying that we’re able to still rise above it. But yeah, it is a little bit like courses on the way that it, you know, left unchecked and constant and raised. It eats at you. It really does eat at you and you have to find an outlet. You have to find a way to to release that valve or you’ll end up like me.
[00:09:15] Evan Francen: You think that’s one of the reasons why we’re such a tight knit tribe, you know, security people. And if you listen in on security people’s conversations, it’s not uncommon to hear us complain and bitch about customers or clients or people who don’t get it, do you think that that’s one of the reasons is we just need to get it out.
[00:09:39] Neal O’Farrell: I think that’s, I think that’s critical. Absolutely. I mean I’ve always said we’re not fighting Russia or china or, or, or, or criminal gangs or long walls providing stupid and indifferent. Those are our biggest frustration. I mean, we know the enemy, we know their motivations. We expect them to behave that way no matter how cruel, uh, they can be, but we don’t expect the same from the people we work for the people we work with our, with our clients. And yeah, I mean one of the reasons that I finally ended up being burned out was was they did the stupid cycle. You know, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I see the same stupid coming back again. Whether it’s whether it’s vendors or security leaders, You know, every time I see some more, there’s going to be, you know, federal privacy legislation this year guarantee that yeah, I think a 20 year old song, I mean you’ve gotta really all playlist. Um, so yeah, we are, we are, I think we are united in the fight against them in many ways and dumb is so frustrating because it doesn’t have to be that way. So many of these things don’t have to happen if you just were slightly marginally above dumb.
[00:10:51] Evan Francen: Yeah. What and you talked about the moral compass, you know if I’m facing this stress because I’ve also had conversations with really, really, really good security people over the years and they’ve asked me the question why what keeps us from going to the dark side? You know, there is that moral compass, but holy crap, you certainly make a hell of a lot more money and I don’t know, maybe it be less stressed if you went to the dark side, but then you have to forgo your moral compass right?
[00:11:31] Neal O’Farrell: Um, I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to go to the dark side other than, and accidentally went to the dark side way in the beginning of my career when when hacking was espionage and hacking was not into a network, we’re going over a wall and breaking into a building is stealing some floppy disks. And I remember and I didn’t do it deliberately, I helped someone else do it. They didn’t tell me what the, what the mission was. But I, I don’t know. I I I’m not too sure about that. I think the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I’ve dealt with, I know some people, I don’t know if you’ve come across Brett johnson um, the the shadow crew guy. I mean he grew up on the dark side, uh, he struggled to come over to the, to the light, but talking to him, he’s no longer attempted to go back, even though he could make an awful lot more money and even though he stumped and struggles financially because he makes a lot of money on the speaking gigs and that dried up. So I don’t know. I don’t, I think we do have to have enough, but I think it’s, it’s almost like being trauma doctors, you know, you see the same shit night after night, the same people ending up in awful situations and often because of stupid mistakes are alcohol, whatever it is. And it leads you alive if you don’t deal with that. And, and the same with cops. You know, I’ve got a really good friend that actually helped profoundly who co founded the identity death council and she retired as a result of PTSD after more than 20 years. And she said she never once fired a gun. Um, she was never once fired at never gotten a gunfight. But you said it’s the, it’s the accumulation of being first on scene at a gory traffic accident, of picking the two year old out of the pool of her. You know, putting it, putting a dead body out of the stream after being there a couple of weeks. And our fiscal to the chest cavity is that it’s the accumulation of all those things that finally breaks you. And she only found out after she retired that there were tools and techniques and systems she produced to compartmentalize that and not let it eat her up. And I think that’s something that we haven’t done yet in security. I don’t think because there hasn’t been enough focus on this topic. Right?
[00:13:50] Brad Nigh: Yeah. I was gonna say, I think that’s probably one of the good things that are one of ways that I’ve been able to do it is I think I’ve been really good at being able to compartmentalize it and,
[00:14:00] Neal O’Farrell: and well,
[00:14:01] Brad Nigh: you know, obviously we’re never truly off, especially when, you know, you’re coming up in 1924 7 types support. But being able to say this is now personal time, this is family time versus work. If something comes up, then sure we’ll switch back over. But I really try hard to make an effort to leave work at work. Uh it’s been a little more difficult. I think this with everything being locked down and be in the house all the time. But I work, I have an office, I work in the office, I don’t take my laptop out of the office. And when I’m not on the weekends, I really try hard not to come in here just because, you know, it’s that separation is that chance to get away and kind of decompress.
[00:14:51] Evan Francen: What I think about you brad is your ability to set boundaries and stick to them. I’m not that way. Uh you know, for instance, There are no two mornings I get up at the same time. Yeah. And since I forever and I’ve tried so hard to change that. You know, I’m like I’ll set my alarm six o’clock. I’m just gonna get up every morning at six o’clock and then what do I do this morning? I got up at four yesterday, I got up at three tomorrow. I don’t have no idea what time I’m getting up tomorrow. I mean I’ll set my alarm and get up and over the hill at you. Like
[00:15:26] Neal O’Farrell: why isn’t it? You know,
[00:15:29] Evan Francen: I think it’s uh well I don’t know, it’s been a conundrum for me for a while. I think I’m just a person who hasn’t been built for routine. It’s not a skill, it’s not a gift of mine. And so when I finally decided that I was going to give up trying to be something that I’m not and just embrace that this is the way I am. Then it became a freeing experience that uh this way and it’s okay when you use my gifts to the best of my ability, I’m going to minimize my weaknesses. So if I’m all random like that, well then I’ll try to find time during the day maybe to take a nap. No, you know, my wife certainly adapted to it. So it hasn’t affected home life. But it I admire people that can set boundaries and stick to them. I’m not that guy,
[00:16:29] Neal O’Farrell: is it is it is a D. H. D. Play anything, any role in it, it’s just you can’t shut down.
[00:16:36] Evan Francen: I think so and I just uh I’m random like a uh someday I decided I was gonna get my guitar out and start you know playing guitar again. Some more friday. I decided I was going to get my Arduino out and I want to build a rocket that can shoot down drones. Who doesn’t
[00:16:58] Neal O’Farrell: mr just just just another day right in the head of Adam
[00:17:03] Evan Francen: I said yeah
[00:17:05] Brad Nigh: because I know I’ve had those days where you know that was a problem where you couldn’t shut down right? Just your mind just is going at night because I’m actually fall asleep and all of a sudden it’s like hey what about this one problem? And then it’s just go and I think having going through that building out like routines and building out okay this is what I need to do to if this happens do these things and write it down or you know I can’t get to sleep, get up, I’ll do some walk around the house just to kind of change, change the situation right? If I’m laying in bed and just like oh my gosh I can’t sleep, Just get up and walk, come downstairs for 1520 minutes reset and then go back up and you know it’s I think it’s difficult, I can understand where that I mean that would be stressful for me. I wake up occasionally early where it was like I already got my six hours of sleep it’s four AM and I’m ready to go. But most retirements, I’m pretty good at keeping that routine.
[00:18:13] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, yeah, I’m, you know, I’m, I won’t say I’m the opposite, but I’m certainly very different. I can sleep soundly for eight hours. I can sleep soundly for 10 hours if you leave me alone and I’ll also nap during the day and it’s depression, it’s just, it’s the chemicals in my body and I’m constantly fighting and and it’s actually beginning to work. You’re trying to take these two to recalibrate the, I mean, they call them depression apps. It’s a well recognized side effect of depression. It’s a way of the body to cope with the turmoil in your mind tries to switch off by, by my uh, you know, forcing interest. And it’s also a way to the body deals with cortisol. You know, if you’re constantly stressed, you have constant, we talked about this last week, high levels of cortisol courses all that. The creation of energy. Your body gets tired constantly creating energy and it says, you know, time out you’re going to have because that will stop you being stressed, You’ll stop creating energy. The body can go back to its normal level. And so I’m kind of the opposite. I wish, I wish I could get away with 34 hours a day a night, but I have been that there’s, there’s a lot of science around they, the long term negative impacts of not getting less than eight hours solid sleep at night. And it’s not just, you’ll feel better for it, but it actually connects to aging to cognitive decline to memory. Um, the body really, really, really wanted to sleep solidly for eight hours no matter how you manage it, you know, naturally are pharmaceutically. It really, it’s, you know, my wife is a little bit like you haven’t cheese, you know, she’s in bed for for for seven or eight hours, but she’s on this evening for two of it. I and then, you know, and she’s now being to realize that that’s not good for anything, not something to be proud of. It’s not about your honor.
[00:20:12] Brad Nigh: It’s interesting
[00:20:12] Evan Francen: though. But I think, you know, one of the, you know, when you take an inventory, you know, one of the things that, you know, when I take inventory of me, who I am, what’s going on, what my brain is saying, you know who I really am, you recognize that there are certain gifts that you have in certain weaknesses that you have. And I read a book, you know, strength finders, right? It’s a very popular book. And when I read that it was like, yes, capitalize on your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, you know, because other strengths are very introspective. Uh I’m constantly reviewing me like, you know, I don’t point so and that also leads to the fact that I don’t point fingers at others before asking myself what did I do to contribute to this problem, which then becomes a kind of a good leadership attribute. But uh discernment is also a gift, you know, it’s difficult, it’s not that I can’t be fooled, but it’s difficult to fool me because discernment is just a gift. Uh you know, but there are certain other things that are weaknesses. I don’t exercise, like I should, you know, so body wise, mentally, I’m pretty strong spiritually, very strong physically. Yeah, fuck it. I guess, excuse my language. You know
[00:21:33] Brad Nigh: What? one of the things that I realized is, it was a real wake up call, slap in the face of the thing is with this lockdown, you know, it’s basically been seven months that I’ve been working from home and I didn’t realize how out of shape I had gotten until I started playing with the kids and was like, oh, oh yeah, we got the uh the ring fit for them and they’re like, do it off the car, it fine. And I did like, it was like a five minute jog and you know, you’re doing exercises and squats, and I was like, at the end of it was like, ok, that’s a problem, you know, you don’t really, it’s so easy to slip into those bad habits without realizing it. Like, You know, I don’t get up and do things now, it’s 2020 ft to the bathroom, the kitchen is literally around the corner, You know, I don’t go out for lunch anymore. So not walking or going and doing things. And so I’ve had to make a concerted effort to put time on the calendar and make sure, that you know, have a reminder that during the day, get up and go do 15 minutes of exercise, go do something and oh my gosh, just you just feel so much better. You don’t realize it until it’s, you know,
[00:22:52] Neal O’Farrell: you just slipped into it. Yeah, we’ve got a pellet on and we’ve got to tread climber and my wife uses them an hour every day and she’s skinny as a finger and not one of heaven singing about the typical fingers. So, and she does, she she used to run marathons, all that kind of stuff. And she would criticize me in the general kind of way for putting on late. And I tell her, don’t market it’s a disease. It’s covid, you know, it’s not my fault. But yeah, and it’s and it’s and again, coming back to these brain chemicals and and and I think it’s particularly affects people in security a lot of times. They worked alone anyway, even if they’re physically around other people, they they they confine themselves to their own headspace, But it’s this thing oxytocin, it’s one of the most powerful chemicals that we have in the brain and it is the it’s it’s the chemical, it’s the hormone that allows us to create communities. So fundamental to the survival of humans. But it’s also the cuddle hormone, the love hormone, let’s say when, when it’s a it’s a hormone that makes us appreciate therapy animals want to hug the car and all that kind of stuff. And if you’re not totally engaged, it goes down and it really does make you feel bad. It makes you feel lonely. It makes you feel even more isolated mentally than you are physically. So yeah, we don’t I mean, I think Covid is teaching us things about us that we’re always there, but we never really looked at our address and it’s it’s reshaping our brains. It’s going to be interesting how we, how we appear and how we think we would come out the other side assuming we’re not hit with something else.
[00:24:27] Evan Francen: Yeah.
[00:24:28] Brad Nigh: But so because,
[00:24:31] Evan Francen: you know, I love the way you put that, because I’ve always said, you know that we’re social creatures, that human beings are social, it’s in our DNA, we can’t help it and how, you know, there’s going to be bad things. So it will be side effects too, us being isolated like we have and but you put you put like a different perspective on it and a and you use, you know, some scientific evidence to support that. That’s that’s cool.
[00:25:02] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s where a lot of this is kind of coming from, you know, as you probably gather, I may, you know died in the world card carrying genetically unmodified cynical Irishman to anything that I adopt, I asked it has to be science based. So, you know, you present me with the proposition, I’m not, I’m not gonna take your word for it. Let me see what the data says. Let me see what the science says. And then the science behind that we decided, you know, on and on and on. And the more I learned about this, the more I realized that you know, we are, we are fundamentally products of the chemicals in our brains over which we exert incredible control. We just don’t know it. And so I’m experimenting with all these things and it’s and it’s it’s, I don’t understand evangelical about it, but it’s almost like go tell it on the mountain. You know, just you know, we talked before about when I tried mindfulness for the first time Uh just as a stress management tool and I 10 minutes and I pulled it out of that room. I just I just I remember this almost argument out of out of body feeling approaching my wife and saying Kathy Kathy Kathy Kathy Kathy, come here, come here, let me tell you about this. And I was I quite literally had a high, I had a dopamine high and it lasted for you know, probably half the day and that that’s dress, watch stress. I mean, you know, no alcohol involved, no risk you’ll get us involved. But the more I’m learning about this and I’m thinking if only I had discovered this 20 years ago as a way to manage stress, I wouldn’t be so cynical and jaded and checked out from security as I am now. And maybe it might have been a more productive and enjoyable career. Maybe I wouldn’t be so angry at how things shouldn’t have should have been and weren’t. And so, you know, again, I have to be careful that I’m not being a zealous evangelical or field of the same kind of mission, but anyone I can convert to this knowledge that your breathing absolutely re wires your brain and thus reshapes your view of the world. I’ll do it.
[00:27:17] Brad Nigh: Yeah, I use the app headspace. I have
[00:27:21] Neal O’Farrell: heard of that one. Yeah, I use that
[00:27:24] Brad Nigh: for that meditation. Is that guided meditation?
[00:27:28] Neal O’Farrell: You
[00:27:29] Brad Nigh: can do
[00:27:30] Evan Francen: that
[00:27:31] Brad Nigh: head space. Yeah. And uh it is, I was kind of a little cynical of of it, right? Like people keep talking it up and It’s amazing what 10 or 15 minutes of just, you know, headphones in just computer off, sitting here quiet and just eyes closed and focused on your breathing and you come out of it. It’s like,
[00:27:55] Neal O’Farrell: wow. Yeah.
[00:27:56] Brad Nigh: You yeah, it’s energizing. It’s it feels just better
[00:28:04] Neal O’Farrell: they just down and it’s it’s it’s it helps in so many different ways and again, it’s because you’re lowering your cortisol and you’re you’re bumping up your your friends and your, you know, all that kind of stuff, but the physical benefits to our incredible to gut the diet, which you know, really counters a lot of what goes on security. The sedentary lifestyle is sitting in the chair for so long. Yeah, I’m I’m I’m, you know, I never thought I’d be a fan I now now and I hate to say it and I’m glad this is not being recorded. But
[00:28:36] Evan Francen: my wife,
[00:28:39] Neal O’Farrell: wait, no, okay, well I’m halfway into that conversation, I’ll finish it anyway, I’m going to try yoga, I’m gonna try, I’m gonna break this old body of mine and you know, steve I can, I mean I’ve done I have done downward dog and a lot of times outside bars, but now I’m going to do it on a mat in a warm room.
[00:29:01] Brad Nigh: Yeah we use uh I haven’t done it lately, I pick it back up but my wife
[00:29:07] Neal O’Farrell: and I way back
[00:29:08] Brad Nigh: had done the uh well, gosh, what is it called? P 90 x that work out
[00:29:15] Neal O’Farrell: and they have a yoga.
[00:29:17] Brad Nigh: Yeah, yeah, I hate that guy. Uh oh Tony Horton, Oh I would yell at him on this when we’re doing these workouts to be so cheerful, but they have a yoga series as part of that and and what we ended up doing for a while and like I said I’ve done it since we moved, I don’t even know where they are at this point, but we would just do that. And it’s your like sweating and it’s a workout, you don’t realize. Yeah.
[00:29:45] Neal O’Farrell: And the next, the next thing I’m experimenting with this, I think we mentioned last week is uh sky breath. And again, it’s just it’s taking the science for the science and the tradition from from buddhism and Hinduism and yoga for maximum. The centuries of breathing and how different types of breathing in certain sequences can be incredibly powerful in modifying your your mood and anxiety. Um it takes a little bit of time to to figure it out because it’s long until 35 minutes of lots of different breathing. There are bellows breathing and this ocean breathing all kind of an alternate, alternate nostril breathing. It gets a bit complicated. But what drew me to it was a Yale study uh where they had Iraqi Iraq and Afghanistan veterans try it who are dealing with PTSD and they saw effects within a week. I mean, normalizing their anxiety to normal base levels within a week and then sustaining that for a year afterwards. And I thought, all right, heard of Yale, they’re pretty credible. And there’s a lot of other supporting evidence and and and and all the yoga file thing. Yeah, we’ve been telling you this for centuries. But that’s the that’s the next thing I’m going to try because it takes mindfulness to a much much higher level because the science around how different types of breathing affect different parts of the brain. Uh So I’ll let you know how it goes
[00:31:18] Evan Francen: and what’s that called?
[00:31:21] Neal O’Farrell: Sky bread SK Y. And the S. K. Stands for Laroche in Korea. I think tradition create yoga is ky it’s proprietary. There’s an organization that has developed a yogi I think. Um But it’s yeah I mean you know I psychologist psychotherapist are practicing practicing and raving about it and yeah let’s all try together shall we and see how we uh does involve a time commitment.
[00:31:54] Evan Francen: Well you said it takes mindfulness to the next level. Maybe I should start with mindfulness first.
[00:32:02] Neal O’Farrell: You can get if you haven’t tried to try it and and remember and and and I’ll send you some links where you can learn about it. But the most important lesson that I r I suppose instructional piece of advice before I started with it’s not really meditation. You’re not trying to tune things out. You are you are you are accepting everything, it’s about being in the moment to accept everything that’s going on around you without judging it. And so I remember sitting there and listening in my mind I I imagine I was in battlestar galactica and all my stress was coming at me. I’d be like asteroids was going. Yeah no problem, yep don’t care. Yeah how you doing and and that aspect of it. Just accepting that these stresses are all around. But they don’t have to hit me, they don’t have to eat me. That was the most powerful part of it I found apart from the breathing and breathing, slowing down the heart region, you know, readjusting the chemicals, but just accepting that the ships out there protesting about is not changing it and it’s not going to make them go away. It’s this, this might be discussing. We’ll have another time. I developed my own system for dealing with stress, separating stressors from stress. And that was my way of compartmentalizing all this.
[00:33:18] Brad Nigh: Yeah, that’s interesting. I haven’t heard of that, but it does make a lot of sense. So heaven knows what my youngest is, six and he has a luckily a mild case of cerebral palsy, but he still has that startle reflex that where he gets, if he gets surprised her where and he goes into the lock in really gets upset. And one of the things that his doctors have have worked with him on is breathing. And so he’s now luckily he’s old enough now that this has been something for his whole life. Uh now he goes off to his on his own and does his breathing and he has like a it’s a toy, like the ball that expands and contracts and and that was the way they taught him is hello. And it absolutely calm them down. So it makes a ton of sense that the doubt, yeah, would work.
[00:34:13] Neal O’Farrell: You know, I I I’m now I found myself automatically turn into breathing for everything. So I want to clear my head. 3, 10 deep breaths. I want to get a bit more creative Neal Breathe. I want to remember where my car keys are. It just it’s you know, whether it works or not, doesn’t really matter. I feel good. So I guess it does. But yeah, you find yourself automatically going into, oh, you forgot to breathe and we do, you know, uh most humans are breaths are very, very, very short because life is stressful and short.
[00:34:49] Brad Nigh: Yeah. To I wonder if part of it was so in high school, like I went up through uh come up through the theater, I needed in ninth grade, I needed an extra class and I was like, man, that looks easy and uh did well in it and did like enjoy the building of the sex and stuff. But a lot of it was breathing exercises and controlling and yeah, I bet you that, not thinking back. I bet you that had a lot of
[00:35:14] Neal O’Farrell: maybe why you’re able to do with stress, that you are able to without thinking about it, take that deep breath and have everything down.
[00:35:24] Brad Nigh: It’s always been focused on breathing into your chest, doesn’t expand first. But it’s like kind of from the bottom up and it’s just how I breathe at this point, just because I have four years of training on it without realizing
[00:35:36] Neal O’Farrell: it, she ever made a breakthrough already, wow.
[00:35:40] Evan Francen: I know. Well, and I was what you were talking, I was looking at mindfulness because it’s a thing that, you know, I understand how the word is constructed, but I don’t understand what it really means. Uh, so I found a place called Mindful dot org. Is that a place?
[00:35:56] Neal O’Farrell: That’s the place? Okay. And probably the biggest proponents and supporters on there?
[00:36:02] Evan Francen: Yeah. Mhm. So, you know, for listeners, there’s a great place, you know, Mindful dot org is the, is the website. We’ve also mentioned a couple other resources that I want to make sure, you know, people know about headspace that you brought up bread as a, you know, I just downloaded and installed it on my iphone
[00:36:25] Brad Nigh: have a sleeping what God is sleep that might really help us help. That helps me.
[00:36:31] Evan Francen: Why sleep really soundly. I just, I don’t have a schedule. Yeah. If you take my average of hours of sleep across the week, I get eight hours every night, believe it or not. I mean, yeah, it’s just one night, I might sleep three hours one night, I might sleep 10. You know what I mean? It’s just like, oh, I am totally the wrong house to come rob.
[00:36:58] Brad Nigh: You never know if you’re awake or not.
[00:37:02] Evan Francen: If you scoped out my house. If you were like one of those people who was like scoping out trying to find the right time. You’d be like, what the hell is with this guy?
[00:37:10] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m going next door.
[00:37:13] Evan Francen: Yeah,
[00:37:15] Neal O’Farrell: well that’s that’s the fundamental rule, the security, you know, you just, you you create a stance to persuade the attack and go next door is not worth it.
[00:37:25] Evan Francen: Yeah. And I think a lot of things that helps me cope with things is, uh, there’s always positive things, You know, even some of the worst things that happen in life, You know, I had cancer and I told my wife, you know, when I told her I had cancer that either way, that, you know, no matter what happens, it’s a win for me. I die tomorrow, based on my worldview and I understand other people have different world views. I’m going to jesus, that’s a win. I mean, I’d rather be there than here
[00:38:02] Neal O’Farrell: anytime
[00:38:05] Evan Francen: if, if this, you know, it, they cut out my kidney and it’s all good. Well then there you go, life’s back to normal. And I’ve got a story to share the, if it’s a long drawn out, you know, chemotherapy thing. Well then, you know, what a great way to, to demonstrate strength for other people that maybe they can, you know, grab from it. So, I mean, that’s another thing that helps me cope is I’m looking for silver linings and looking for things that are positive, you know, positive potential
[00:38:36] Neal O’Farrell: and you you just brought up another element of, of calm and happiness that again, has a ton of science behind it, gratitude um I mean, people struggling with PTSD are taught about the process of gratitude and it’s, it is a process, it’s, it’s it’s it’s a routine and quite often involves writing down but simply the notion and we all practice without necessarily thinking what it is, but it doesn’t make us feel better is being grateful for you have not worrying about what you don’t have and that does again, it rewire the brain, it Rebalances the chemicals and it increases calm and it’s again when the more we talk about is the interconnectivity of all these things and all that, you know, happiness for example the power of happiness in creating calm and reducing stress and anxiety, but it’s a process, you have to learn how to be happy to learn techniques that uh huh put you on the path to being, you know, I call it happier this because there’s no such thing as happiness, it’s an Absolutely, yeah, gratitude is an incredibly powerful tool in common your mind, but you have to practice it, you have to every day just look around and say, you know all the shit that’s coming at me, I’ve got, I’ve got this was great, my family is great, my wife was great, my health is great or good or enough and it’s a really, it’s a powerful way I again of, or saying the asteroids and the media media is to just buy it
[00:40:10] Evan Francen: right,
[00:40:11] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, You’re doing it without knowing necessarily the chemistry behind it.
[00:40:16] Evan Francen: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point because it is a great coping mechanism. I wrote a blog post last week about I was having my own pity party. You know, I was had two dogs that passed away this year. You know, just, I mean there’s always things right? There’s always you go down this rabbit hole and it’s like, wow, there’s a lot of dark stuff and it’s not like you you deny that it exists, you have to confront it. You can’t just, you know, skate over it because it will come back up again. But I was having this pity party and then just like you said, it’s interesting that you confirm it for me because then it was like I heard a voice that was like, Did you forget about the blessings? Did you forget about the good things that happened this year? Did you forget about? And then that list just replayed in my mind and it was like 30 things. I was like holy shit, 2020 has been a great year regardless of covid and social injustice in this election and all the other crap going on. It’s like, no, it’s been a great year. Good things have happened.
[00:41:21] Brad Nigh: You know, it’s interesting what you mentioned that because you know, it is easy, especially we’ve kind of talked about it. I think this, I don’t know, nebulous roll, right and not really part of anything in particular, but figures in a lot of things. So it’s kind of a it’s a new experience for me and you know, I was struggling with what am I breathing value, right? Especially being isolated and this is, you know, but it’s hard, especially you don’t see people and you just kind of helping a lot of different areas. And one of the things we do is is quarterly with our video is the rocks for attraction and sitting down and writing out everything that I’ve done the different documents that it was like, oh wow, okay. Yeah, good. Like made me realize what I had accomplished because you don’t see it day to day, you lose lose sight of the big picture really easily when you’re just constantly moving all over the place and then stepping back and going, okay, what happened, what did I do, what’s gone on? And it’s like, yeah, okay good. Yeah.
[00:42:34] Evan Francen: And now Neal does mindfulness help with that does mindfulness help with you just stopping and just kind of identifying things like that.
[00:42:46] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, it does because if only for the fact that in order to practice mindfulness, you have to stop And for someone with a PhD and you get it. I mean telling me to sit still for 10 minutes is like, you know, I can’t sit still for 10 seconds. I’m physically and mentally I can’t and so the first time I tried mindfulness, it was a nightmare. It was just my mind was raging. Just, you know, as it always does. You know, so many ideas, So many plants, so many schemes, so many worries, so many things that I’ve got to take care of and and and and fix and all that kind of stuff. But they’re coming out of it because it had calmed me right down. Um I was able to suddenly, I mean, I sound like monty python. I was looking on the bright side. I was just like I said, when I flew into my wife is like, nothing is bad. And so I’m I described it repeatedly as this euphoric sense of calm and peace. And that’s that’s as close to, you know, happy in Havana as I’ve come in a long time. So, it certainly made me, it made me grateful for the moment. It may be grateful that I’ve found the tool that actually worked for me. It made me grateful that I listened to my better angels instead of being cynical and staffing at us and just try it. Just stood up and sit down for 10 minutes. You know? Do we get all um So yeah, and again, I go back to it. It’s all interconnected. It’s helped with my outlook on life. It’s helped with my happiness. I was unhappy for years. I didn’t know happy what I was just joyless. I couldn’t, you know, anyplace I was, I wanted to be someplace else. You know, I was just, people were pouring me. I was, you know, I had these voices Reggie in my head, You don’t know what you’re talking about. You should live in my shoes. Just stupid talk. But yeah, um, it’s the, uh, and I think it’s an incredibly powerful tool for so many things that we, most of us are dealing with the same things to different degrees, you know, where they’re, you know, I mean, I talked to a good friend yesterday and You know, he’s only a nubian securities, only been in there for 22 years. So it’s time was just, you know, given your mind shoes, you know, but he’s just jail with everything. And you know, he’s very, he’s very politically involved and he’s very morally focused and, and he, he was angry at how the world was, you know, not doing what I’m supposed to do and and doing what it was, was supposed to do and the cover and, and, and then I said, what, what’s really bugging? He says it’s just the security thing and it was just, you know, he’s been doing it for so long and nothing’s changed. And he was just frustrated that he wasn’t leaving a mark making a difference. Same old story, shame old people, same old faces. And then he just sat back and said, I’m so grateful for what I have. You know, my health is good, my family is good. My kids are fantastic. I got a beautiful house. I got a great girlfriend and it was just at the end of it. He wasn’t camp and it was camera. Um, so yeah, it again, it comes back to some time we talked about earlier that this security thing can really grind you down if you have a conscience and you really, really do need to find a simple way to put yourself above the water line or your little grounding
[00:46:09] Evan Francen: one. You know, a lot of things that we’ve been preaching recently about security is um, we need to slow down, right? We for so long we’ve been, you know, going much faster than we have the ability to secure things, right? New technologies, new devices, new applications, knew
[00:46:31] Neal O’Farrell: everything, certifications, frameworks. Oh
[00:46:33] Evan Francen: my God. Right. And so we’re always going, we’re always falling behind. And so it’s such a good thing. I mean that’s one, it could be another takeaway for me personally. And this is slow down, Stop. Yeah, go down. The world will continue to evolve. The world will continue to turn if you’re not working right? Yeah. You know, Just take a minute, take 10 minutes, take half an hour and just set reflect, relax, breathe, you know, and I’m gonna use some of the, I mean I truly, I’m the next week we have another guest. It’s uh, it’s a guy, his name is Richie, I met him. Uh it’s a long story, but the topic of what we’re going to talk about next week is the security industries stigma against healthy stuff.
[00:47:31] Brad Nigh: Yeah. Yeah I mean yeah that’s the big thing is nobody talks about it right And it’s good
[00:47:39] Evan Francen: for from it. I mean I just I just said that you know physical I don’t do physical exercise well that’s not going to be proud of man
[00:47:48] Neal O’Farrell: but
[00:47:49] Brad Nigh: there’s that stigma I think around mental health and you know I haven’t really talked about it that I was recently diagnosed with A. D. H. D. Inattentive inattentive. Um And it was like going through that and then getting that and reading about it and was like holy crap so much makes sense
[00:48:09] Neal O’Farrell: that like all
[00:48:11] Brad Nigh: the other things in school and coming up and you know I have to have if you’re watching and I think it made me who I am which is a good thing right? I have to have things documented a certain way I have to do these things because I had to do it that way to overcome some of those issues and it made me really good at some of the things that I do but getting that treatment for you know getting finding out about it and just it was like yeah the the angels of light shine it’s like holy crap
[00:48:46] Neal O’Farrell: so
[00:48:47] Brad Nigh: I mean yeah and it started with I just started talking with my doctor and was like I’m really struggling with these things and when and did the whole, I don’t know. It’s all ridiculously long test and all sorts of questions and I was like, yeah, no, you’re like, it’s not a severe case, but you absolutely have this and like
[00:49:07] Neal O’Farrell: really violations.
[00:49:09] Brad Nigh: That’s like,
[00:49:11] Neal O’Farrell: wow. Uh There’s a thing to, that comes back to to to perspective and we all guard need to teach the new guard about this because to learn it over time is a big price to pay. But You know, like I keep saying doing it for 40 years, the one the the most valuable things like Gospel was perspective. You see all these cycles come and go. You see all these ideas and people and vendors. Um but the one thing that I, that I that and I only can have admitted it recently is nothing ever turned out as bad as you were stressed that would, and if you learn to accept that now you’re not going to get fired because you failed or you didn’t show up. You’re not there 12, 14, 16 hours a day. But if you do get fired, there’s 1000 employees ready to hire. There’s 1000 everything works itself out in the end without allowing stress to eat you up along the way. And that’s the one thing that I’ve learned from all this and I, you know, we talked about it before. I’ve been in some really stressful situations and also complete that. I chose them. I took risks and business, I went for contract that I had no business going for. I worked in environments that I really was talking about imposter. I was a complete charlotte, but and I learned the stress on me. But this is this is one of the most important things we have to deal to. We have to teach to the other security professionals to get the stress. It’s not worth it. It doesn’t change anything and nothing is ever ever as bad as your worst demons screaming it.
[00:50:50] Evan Francen: Well, that’s great advice because it’s in line with, you know, but I’ve been preaching to, I mean, I guess I meant I was somewhat of an old timer, but not 40 years and Like 30 ISH. But it’s the fact that when we’re involved with security stuff and we’re so we care so much and we pour our hearts and souls into this stuff, it’s really easy to think that security is the thing,
[00:51:18] Neal O’Farrell: right? But
[00:51:19] Evan Francen: security is a thing, it’s not the thing. There’s so many other things in life that happened that you need to pay attention to, that you need to focus on that perspective. I’ve also said the easiest way to tell a an inexperienced or a bad see so is their inability to put things into perspective. You know, they can’t put risk into perspective. They see one vulnerability over here and it’s like all hands on deck, that thing while meanwhile the house is burning down. Yeah. You know, so it’s great to hear you because people like you that I certainly respect in this industry when you validate things that I’ve thought for so long, you know, it strengthens me my resolve. You know, it makes me realize that I’m not as much of a weird, I was like, maybe I thought I was
[00:52:14] Neal O’Farrell: So your instincts are your instincts are right. Always trust them. You know, I feel like I should look like Gandalf with all this wisdom on his cousin, right?
[00:52:24] Evan Francen: But I keep standing this industry. It’s going to be down to my knees pretty
[00:52:28] Brad Nigh: soon.
[00:52:29] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, probably get some little white stuff to go along with it. Yeah, I end up looking like bishop can also
[00:52:36] Evan Francen: when I think it’s like, it’s like plato, right? If you put enough pressure down, it pushes the plato out. So there’s a lot of pressure here and this is the plato
[00:52:47] Neal O’Farrell: I had such a cranial beard. Yeah. All right, keep going with that. That’s one instinct you should not
[00:52:54] Brad Nigh: trust
[00:52:56] Evan Francen: now. Well, I think another thing that really helps for me personally is, and I know that not everybody is married, not everybody has a significant other, but everybody can build a support structure around them. You know, my my best friend by far is my wife and she’s the only person that can really corral this craziness and uh, just this last year, you know, she was mentioning in july how I wasn’t myself because you’re not yourself, you’re just, you’re more on edge your crab here. You’re, I’m like, you know, well actually what I said to us, you don’t know what you’re talking about, leave me lost. But then we went on this road trip to south Dakota, just her and I where we got away and it was time to you guys point I got away, I pulled my, we were pulled out of the day to day crap, spend some time together. And then that’s when I realized how she was right all along. I wasn’t right mentally I was messed up, but getting away was so therapeutic for me for all I know it might have saved my life. You know what I mean? But if I hadn’t had that support structure, you know, I’m my own worst enemy. Yeah.
[00:54:20] Neal O’Farrell: And the trick is figuring that out before it’s too late, which is why these conversations good because if we can spark in other people, you know, maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe I’m looking at myself all right. Uh, you know, early intervention and it’s just, it’s such most frustrating thing is it’s common sense, but common sense can often be the most obscure. You know, it it’s they that stuff at the end of our noses unless you cross side you don’t even see it.
[00:54:51] Evan Francen: Yeah. When I think another thing we do a lot with security stuff like when I reached my talk about support people and I think of the people in this industry, you know what I used to do when I was younger was we’d all talk about security stuff, right? We get together talk about this exploit that exploit this hack, whatever, you know, and it was all work, work work. And now as I’ve gotten older, I realized a lot more of my conversations with people in this industry are more personal, right? Or investing in people like brad. I know about the struggles that you’ve been going through and you know about mine, you know, yesterday I took a call from a friend of mine out east who, you know, super good guy and he called me to tell me about his daughter in treatment. Mhm. And how she’s struggling with it and how she’s been, you know, in treatment for a couple of months and she almost walked out yesterday. So he’s struggling with that. It’s like we’re not talking about security stuff that that stuff is secondary, right? Was cool. You’re gonna get
[00:55:58] Neal O’Farrell: I worry sometimes. So that the reason that we’re doing that is because where were all we’re dealing with so much pressure self inflicted and otherwise we’re about to blow and we’re reaching out in ways that we never did before because of that reason. It we realized something wrong and that if we think or talk about security anyway, and then, you know, we’re crying out. And so that that’s the that’s the dark side of it. But if you’re if you’re if you’re connecting with people in the same industry on a personal level and not on an industry level, that’s good. Because that’s the way to compartmentalize that’s way to shut that door when you leave. That’s incredibly important. I just I just worry that so much of this is more of a cry for help is that I I need human contact and connection and interaction far more than I need security right now. I need a hug, you know?
[00:56:56] Evan Francen: Yeah, right. When they’re crying out for help is I think it’s a good sign too, because, you know, we’re trying to fight this stigma that it’s okay. It’s okay to not be all right. Nobody is all right. I mean, nobody’s like normal what is normal. I don’t even know what the hell that means.
[00:57:17] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah. I can’t remember the last time I came across someone who was joyfully blissfully happy. I mean, I’ve come across people who say they’re very, very content and I look at them and they’re, you know, again, it’s just it’s just different, wiring different values, but they never they’ve never wanted to achieve anything. So they set themselves a very low bar that they simply be content with existence, that’s fine. If that makes you get you through life, that’s fine. But you know, if you’re wired to really want to make a difference to protect others, which is the motivation of the motivation and security. Um or you want, you know you’re you’re interested in technical breakthroughs, whatever it happens to be, you are going to create a lot of unnecessary stress. But most of the people that I found who are content or happy, I tend to be people who um how do I put this without being harsh on them? Um They really wanted they really wanted to achieve nothing, you know, a yearning for achievement puts a lot of pressure uh Yeah. Self doubt your feelings of inadequacy, pressure to do something now, pressure to do. Leave a legacy on.
[00:58:30] Evan Francen: Yeah, for sure. Uh huh. Well so here’s what I’d like to do. Uh we’ll recap so the tools that we talked about Headspace is one mindful dot org is another Neal you mentioned one more that was kind of taking mindfulness to the next level. What was that again?
[00:58:51] Neal O’Farrell: Oh sky breath meditation. Sk y so you just it just google it, it it can be hard to find detailed information on because it’s proprietary and the people who created wanted to pay for it, it’s not particularly spent a couple 100 bucks to get into the system but but try that but also there’s an organization called the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and so they call this a lot a lot of this. They bring a lot of the they hunt on a lot of the great science and a lot of great studies and make it more digestible. Um But they are very much focused on all the interactions between between brain chemicals stress happiness mission uh meditation mindful and all that kind of stuff really. Some fantastic articles B. U. C. Berkeley very very science based. Um So that that that’s one of the things that I found that early on was a tremendous resource because it allowed me to come to a lot of crap. There’s a there’s a lot of people marketing mental on the side there there’s a lot of people marketing that held out there and you know when province motivation integrity. Canada it’s not even in the back seat but it’s on the alongside you know so yeah greater Good Science center U. C. Berkeley is a great place to to get involved with some of this and it’s all free.
[01:00:19] Evan Francen: Yeah and I just pulled that up. The U. R. L. Is greater good at Berkeley dot E. D. U. And it’s you know on the I mean the the top article or the top thing there is managing pain with mindfulness.
[01:00:34] Neal O’Farrell: Yes it’s you know it’s you know every every time we read about mindfulness is I mean there’s now a lot of science that it’s helping treat cancer because we know stress uh impacts the immune system. The immune system makes it harder to cancer and they recover from chemotherapy. So yeah mindfulness is then I won’t say that you got. But uh, it’s certainly the more you read about it, it pops up february. It’s almost like the universal cure for mankind’s self imposed fractures. You know, I call stress fractures.
[01:01:10] Evan Francen: Well, here’s, here’s other ones that are right on the homepage. Can America make a course correction? We’ve done it before and then eight questions that can help you survive election stress and who the hell isn’t stressed out by this damn election? Yeah, I’m going to spend half the day on this site today, man. So thank
[01:01:27] Neal O’Farrell: you. Yeah, it’s like I said, it’s when I they’ve got free happiness courses and really, really powerful, engaging. Easy to do stuff. But it’s it’s like it and you have to put the cynic aside and replaced it with a little bit of time. You’ve got to devote some time to do, you gotta vote time to learning and practicing. But once you do, once you do a huge payoff.
[01:01:55] Evan Francen: Well, of course, you know, before we wrap up, you know, mentioning and we didn’t do the news again, which again, is just evidence that it was a conversation at the name. I think that is a positive because like I said, people can read, Yeah, most of them, some of them, I don’t know. Maybe none of them. I don’t even know anymore. But the yeah, uh, we’ll wrap up with, you know, the cyber resilience project. That’s where you’re from Neal, that’s your it’s the organization, you found it. I love this story. If you want to, the story behind you know, Neal and Why he got into this very, very intriguing in the lap last episode, episode 102. We talked about that. I’ve shared your story probably a couple dozen times Neal just in the last week with people that I’ve talked to because one of the things that stood out is like, I can’t imagine having to get up in the morning and check under my car. Yeah.
[01:02:51] Neal O’Farrell: Yeah, it’s been a while. It’s been a while, but, but even today, my wife will tell you when I put the key in the ignition. I freeze just for a fraction of a second. That has never left me the idea of click cause okay, we’re gonna drive off and that’s 30, 30 years later. Yeah. It’s weird. It’s weird when I look back. It’s just weird. I
[01:03:16] Brad Nigh: didn’t feel like you’re the survey on your site. It was really good.
[01:03:20] Neal O’Farrell: I’m good. Yeah, we need, we need lots of people to do that because although it, we’re not necessarily getting great data because everyone spread, it’s I think it’s a very curative a very therapy to think just about to go to that type of screening chair.
[01:03:35] Brad Nigh: Yeah. No, it was really, I like the questions and it does, it makes you kind of reflect and do some self reflection and think about
[01:03:42] Neal O’Farrell: it. Don’t ever asked me that before. Right,
[01:03:45] Brad Nigh: Do that
[01:03:46] Evan Francen: very true. So I’m gonna I’m gonna summarize these resources to and share them on my linkedin? Uh probably later today. Uh and then next week for, you know, listeners, we’re going to continue down this path. You know, we could talk, well, there are entire podcast, you know, dedicated to this. You know, we will move on to other security things, but I don’t want to damn I mean, I want to if anything, I want to overemphasize the importance of this in our industry. Next week, we’ll talk about the security industry stigma against all this stuff. You know, I’ve seen, I don’t know how many times people in our industry brag about how much they drink brag about, you know, the unhealthy side of life in there’s more to it, right? We don’t that’s a slippery slope. So we’ll talk about that next week. Right? Alright, Episode one of 3, Just About Complete Thank You Again, Neal Superman. Yeah, good stuff, man. I learned so much last week, I learned a ton this week. Great having you on the show.
[01:04:56] Neal O’Farrell: Thank you and thanks for thanks for keeping the pressure on this. It’s fantastic. I mean, let’s let’s hope this spreads like a good wildfire.
[01:05:04] Evan Francen: Absolutely. I I plan on it. I plan on doing everything we can even to the point where we’re talking about now trying to figure out how to build tools into our existing tool set? Um you know, what is mental, what role does mental health play in the black and white sort of risk assessment stuff right? There is a risk play here that we need to figure out to let’s say that, you know, so this is not going away for sure. Uh
[01:05:33] Neal O’Farrell: Your homework is to try mindfulness for 10 minutes and go back and tell us what you think of what you think of it.
[01:05:40] Evan Francen: Absolutely. Yeah, I will and I will spend time on the Greater Good website and I did download and install the headspace app. Me being 80. HDD that’s like three things that I did and I’ll probably do another five and none of it will make sense until something settle. So we’ll see uh brad, I’m glad you’re back man. Uh glad you’re feeling better. Okay, any shout outs for either of you this week, sometimes we do shout outs just like hey somebody’s a top of mind, I just want to say hey shout out to you anything for you guys
[01:06:19] Neal O’Farrell: where to begin. Mhm. Um Yeah no one little tool that maybe, you know people will try this, I don’t have you know wearing people down to too much with tools but wot bots I’m trying a an ai therapist called robot W. E. B. O. T. And it’s just unhappy download to your phone again being very cynical. I thought this is going to be silly, it’s going to be can responsive, but it’s a I driven so I thought it might be a step side different holy crap. It’s very interesting. So if you’re interested in a stress management tool, a happiness management tool, having a little character on your phone who really seems to get you try. Uh The reason I’m saying is you’re part of a grand new experiment in ai being our our happiness coaches and our life managers. It’s an interesting resting place in in in in humankind. So W. E. B. O. T. And I have no interest whatsoever in this organization.
[01:07:21] Evan Francen: It’s interesting. You know, I just downloaded the app and I look at it and one of the things that says is your data is private and encrypted with hospital level security standards. And so I deleted the app.
[01:07:33] Brad Nigh: Look, this is Mhm.
[01:07:36] Evan Francen: No, I’m just kidding. It’s still there. Uh Maybe
[01:07:40] Neal O’Farrell: maybe we ought to have a chat with them and say, hey, we could do a fair trading. You help us, we’ll help you hospital level.
[01:07:47] Evan Francen: Huh?
[01:07:50] Brad Nigh: Hospitals. Uh
[01:07:54] Neal O’Farrell: I ask them are they still using they using single desert triple dance?
[01:07:59] Evan Francen: Right. What’s your password? 1234. Okay, good.
[01:08:04] Neal O’Farrell: Now admit 1234, you have that. There is no
[01:08:09] Evan Francen: God. All right brad. Do you have any shout outs? Anything, anybody you want to call out?
[01:08:15] Brad Nigh: You know, I’m just uh just the team like looking at the consulting team and the text services and I are and just, You know, it’s been difficult for them. I think that go for um kind of Q2 Q3 where nobody wanted to do anything from a client perspective too. They’re like over 95% calendars full through the end of the year and it’s just ramping up and picking up and getting things done. It’s just awesome to say
[01:08:48] Evan Francen: cool. Yeah, fourth quarter man, that’s how it well that’s how it rolls. Mm I’ll give a shout out just to the security studio team. Since you did fr secure. We are we already exceeded as you know, we became cash. Well positive for the first time. You know, there’s two companies that’s one of the others a couple of months ago and uh I mean within the first like two weeks of this month already exceeded goals and quotas. So that companies just kicking button. It’s a hell of a lot of work when you’re doing a startup stuff. So that team man their hearts in the right place there kicking ass. So I’m happy about that big deer. Yeah. Alright. Always grateful for our listeners. Send us things to our email. Uh it’s unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type socialize with us on twitter. I’m @EvanFrancen. Brad’s not very social but he does have a twitter account he’s @BradNigh.
