Episode 33 – It's Not in the Manual: Real-World Security Leadership

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Welcome to Executive Checkpoint, where security professionals gather insight to navigate the ever-evolving world of physical and cybersecurity. I'm your host, Tino Urbina, and today we have the honor of having back Michael Gibbs, Managing Director for Kroll, as well as the President for Life Safety Alliance and a distinguished leader in the global security community. Michael is also the author of the new release book, It's Not in the Manual: Real-World Leadership for Security and Risk professionals, part of the Security Audit and Leadership series, which also brings us to his decades of experience, including his role as the Chief Global Knowledge and Learning Officer for ASIS International. Michael brings a wealth of perspective on leadership challenges and lessons that often are not found in training manuals. Today we'll explore his professional journey, the inspiration behind the book, and key leadership insights leveraging our conversation and your knowledge today. So, Michael, thank you for being here. Second round around the sun to have you back in the first show of the year. We're recording this currently.

So I'm honored.

You have some plans?

Great to be back. Yeah. Kicking off the new year in a good style. And I watched or listened to your show with Christopher Stitt. And that was a good way to end the year. He's a, he has a fine book. He's a good man and a very good security professional.

Absolutely. Well, as always, we're so glad you're here. And, you know, as a well-known leader in our industry, I'm sure a lot of people know your story. But just to kind of rekindle for maybe some newcomers, or maybe someone listening to the show for the first time, Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you end up in security? Sure.

It's definitely not the story that I was a police officer or in the military or an intelligence agent from the government. Completely different background. I started my career as an attorney. I did that for a few years. Most notably, I was a clerk for the New Jersey Supreme Court on death penalty cases where where I got interested in criminal justice. I started practicing for a law firm after that in DC, and a lot of workplace-related issues, and, you know, workplace violence and, and theft and things like that, and discrimination in the workplace. And I like that, but I kind of wanted to be more in the thick of things. I didn't really like being an attorney. I wanted to sort of have more of an effect more of an effect before, you know, things happened, where I could influence behavior or actions before, you know, it got to, you know, the, the legal parts of the case. So I stopped practicing law and I started writing about it as a journalist, freelance. And then I got a job at Security Management Magazine, which is the publication of ASIS, started writing about security issues, all types of security issues, learning at the sort of the knee of all the masters and of the people who, you know, really built the industry. And I learned, uh, everything, you know, from access control to computer security, as in the days of computer security was just starting, to intelligence, loss prevention. And I got to know a lot of people. I interviewed people from across the industry and around the world. And eventually, I helped found the CSO Roundtable. Now it's the CSO Center, which is a bespoke group for chief security officers and their deputies. So I got into that leadership aspect. It's like, okay, how do you become a CSO? How do you get authority, actual and sort of implied authority? as a CSO? How do you get respect in the boardroom? And how do you develop succession plans? How do you bring up the next generation of leaders to move beyond where you were able to go? So I, I did a lot of that and benchmarking and leadership development when I was there. And then I became Chief Global Knowledge and Learning Officer, where I went back to publishing over the CSO Center and then over standards and guidelines, certification and other areas. And I also took over as the really the first person who had the de facto security leader, security head for ASIS. I took 5 years and started my own firm to sort of get into a lot of the operational aspects. Doing investigations, helping startups, and continuing with thought leadership. And for the past year, I've been with Kroll doing a lot of those same things, especially with, uh, providing guidance for law firms, family offices, utilities, and, and corporate, you know, Fortune 500 type companies. And that's where we are today. And then I— then we have this book that just came out a week ago, and I'm thrilled about it because it boils my 30 years into the wisdom of security and risk leadership that I've learned, experienced, and sort of gotten through osmosis through the people I've worked with and spoken to over the years.

Yep. Congratulations on the book. I'm sure there's, there's a lot of your background that is a big part of the inspiration. The title implies a lot. There's a gap between the theory and the real life. Was there a moment in your career that really crystallizes that concept?

It always goes back. It wasn't necessarily a moment in my career. It's, it's the lesson in business continuity planning, where you talk about having plans and written plans. And the fact that you document it, you put it in books and you put it on the shelf, but it's not the document itself that matters, right? It's the actual planning. It's the thought process. It's the testing of it. It's the awareness. It's speaking about it. And so even though you do, it's not the actual— it's not the actual output. It's not— there is no guide to how you do it, right? There's no— you can go through and say, okay, what happens in a snowstorm or whatever, you look through the book, but things never, you know, go according to plan, right? It's never going to be fact that you could just look through the pages and say, okay, this is how we do it. There's always a curveball. There's always judgment, uh, experience, um, you know, personality, humanity involved. And the same thing goes for leadership. There's sort of all sorts of leadership books and says, here are the 10 ways you can be a leader, and here are these styles of leadership, servant leadership and transformational leadership and values-based leadership. There's a million different types of leadership. But what does that really mean, especially where the rubber meets the road or the crisis occurs? How do you do that? A lot of this book is not just my experiences. As a matter of fact, It's mostly not my experiences, but me talking to others or living through others and seeing what they did in these moments of time. If they call themselves a transformational leader or a situational-based leader, what does it actually mean? Because a lot of that is jargon or gobbledygook. It matters less about titles, and more about actual attributes and actions. And that underlies— that's the spirit of the book.

It sounds to me that you gain a lot of knowledge or opinions and experiences from others. What was the process to select the people that you included, or maybe did not include in the book?

Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I've been writing a leadership and management column for Security Magazine since year 2000. Every month I have the challenge of a blank piece of paper or a blank page on my computer screen and I have to think of a topic that's relevant to our audience, that's engaging. I've been doing that for 60 or 70 columns and a lot of it comes from having conversations, either things I experienced myself or having conversations with people. I I like to explore areas where nontraditional leadership comes to the fore because so many of us are not the boss, right? Or, you know, we're a cog in the machine, or we're boss of some people, but really, you know, we're underlings to others. And, or we have relationships, we're in groups, or we're in task forces, or we're in associations, and we're situational leaders sometimes, we're followers other times. So how does that really play out? in real life. And, um, so a lot of times I'll start with the person who gave me the idea. And I'm giving an example. For an example, um, I wrote— and this is in the book— one column years ago about how do you assert leadership when you work on your own. You know, you're a solo practitioner. Who are you leading, right?

Right.

And what does that mean? Now, obviously, you're— you have clients, you probably have partners. But I, you know, I— in this case, I was talking to someone about their leadership, and I was like, you know, this is a good column. They're a sole practitioner. They were a consultant. I forget who it was at the time. I was like, you know, I'm going to talk to other consultants that I know. And when I pick the people to talk to, a lot of times it's people I know who are— because I've been around for a long time, or that others have commended to me, or that sometimes I'll just, okay, let me look up somebody's story. I might check out on LinkedIn. And I like to have— I like to cross geographies. I like to cross industries. So if I were— if I were interviewing you, for example, you know, I know what you do. I wouldn't get another person that does exactly what you do. I'd try to be geographically diverse.

Okay.

maybe in the United States or this part of the United States it's different, or in this industry it's different. So I'm going to talk to somebody in the Middle East or Europe or Asia or wherever, or someone who's, you know, okay, I talked to a loss prevention executive, now I want to talk to someone who focuses on intelligence or investigations or something like that. So I try to kind of take a holistic view and not sort of a simple straight line. It's like, okay, if I talk to Tino Urbina, he says this, but that's not universally applicable, right?

Right.

People are in different situations. And so luckily, you know, I've been with ASIS for so long, I've met thousands of security professionals, and I continue to through my work at Kroll and through, you know, my years running my own firm. And a lot, you know, a lot of people introduce me to new people. So for quite a few of my stories, I'll say, hey, Tino, I just interviewed you on this topic. Who else do you think would have something to say? And almost everybody knows somebody in a similar situation, or they lead me to somebody else. So there's a vast pool. So that's, that's a little bit about my process.

You know, one of the things that you highlight in the book is the value of humor and pop culture in leadership. To me, that was a pretty unique take because nobody talks about it, right? And like you talk about geographical experience and cultural experience, humor and pop culture. Tell us about that.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite parts of the book. I consider myself a kind of wryly funny person. I, you know, have dry humor. sort of sophisticated humor. And I think it, it lightens difficult situations and circumstances sometimes, but it has to be very carefully applied. So I talked to people that I knew that— who were either stand-up comedians, or, you know, believe it or not, there are a couple, or kind of have a humor background and humor. One of them was Brian Reich from, um, I think he's— I forget what insurance company he's the head of security for now, but he did stand-up comedy.

Oh, wow.

Okay, how do you do this without trivializing the importance of security? It's good to defuse tensions, but what if you go too far and people don't think you're taking them seriously? Or you're certainly not going to joke about workplace violence, right? Where do you draw the line? How do you do it? How do you apply it? I talked to him and he talked about his process, when it's appropriate, when it's not. I talked to Torsten Wolf, who's with Zurich. He's head of security for Zurich, which— he's German. You don't normally think of Germans as funny people, but—

Sure.

And he definitely has his own sense of humor which does not necessarily jibe with other people's but I get it because it's very sarcastic and dry. Talk to him, talk to other people and just to sort of get different perspectives from around the world and different types of humor and when it works, when it doesn't and how you apply it. That was one of my favorite parts. I actually also have a little section on specific jokes and how you can derive leadership principles out of jokes that have to do with security. And that's, you know, I— did that need to go in the book, those jokes? No, but I think it made it more fun, right? It gave some more texture to the—

Right.

And that's what I did a lot of the book. It's not just a treatise. It's not just a series of interviews or experiences. I try to put in, you know, I try to lighten the load a little bit with, um, I have things called breakaways in the book where I'm a hockey player and a breakaway is when you get the player gets the puck and goes in alone on the goalie. Well, in this case, breakaways are kind of, all right, you've been through the, you know, the, the, um, the deep parts where talking about very, you know, life and death things and—

Seriously.

Where, you know, these decisions can, you know, make or break a company or save lives or whatever. And so I set that apart and say, okay, here are some leadership lessons that you can get from pop culture. So from movies, from streaming series, and how that applies specifically to security and risk professionals. And I I got a kick out of doing that because, okay, you read about like the history of leadership, you read about, okay, what is values-based leadership and how did someone apply it? So, okay, this is pretty, you know, this is pretty rigorous stuff. Okay, let's take a break and have some fun now and talk about, you know, what, how Pulp Fiction, you know, what lessons that has for, you know, security leadership.

Or that style is always going to be engaging, right? That's the main goal, to keep, to keep the reader engaged, but also learning.

Right, exactly.

You know, you mentioned this navigating some serious things, right? Uncertainty and some moral ambiguity. Are there good examples that you can share with us on those 2 particular points?

Yeah, with uncertainty and moral ambiguity, that defines every risk professional's job. And so that's sort of laced into or embedded into Um, all, all the stories. One of the— my favorite stories, and I'm trying to figure out whether this directly answers your questions because there's so many different stories and learnings and examples in the book. Um, one of my favorites is, um, well, there are quite a few of them actually. Um, with McLean Essien, who is a— he's— he lives in Nigeria and he's a security professional there. And earlier in his career, he was responsible for security in a province in Nigeria, and there were, um, there were warring gangs there that were wreaking havoc on civil life there, and no one wanted to deal with them because You know, they're deadly and they're violent. And he ventured out, um, and I suppose, you know, with the very, you know, very cautiously. And these are two, you know, violently opposing gangs, different, you know, they never got along. And he negotiated a truce between the two gangs that, um, that made life, you know, made the disputed region between the gangs and, um, sort of livable and let people, you know, it sort of eliminated the danger zone. But he put his own life at risk doing that, and I don't know if there's moral ambiguity in that. Um, in that case, I'd say the moral case was pretty clear, but he certainly put himself at personal jeopardy. Um, as for a case with— let me get back to the moral ambiguity because there are so many cases racing through my mind right now that— but I really like his story. Um, I like Tanya Spencer's story. Tanya Spencer is a woman of color, an American woman of color living in Denmark, and she I met her maybe 15, 20 years ago at an ASIS event. I believe it was ASIS Europe, and I was running the CSO Roundtable at the time. And she is a trainer. And so this is this little— this diminutive woman speaking to very powerful and tall men in Europe, you know. So this is like, you know, this 5'2 woman or whatever. talking to, you know, these, these 6-foot-2 men. And she was powerful, powerful. She was energetic, compelling, completely engaging. I know, spellbound by, by her. And she sort of— we went our different ways. I saw her a couple years later. She was still great. And I found out later that she was struggling with personal demons. That, um, she had— there was trouble at home. She sort of was spiraling. She had, you know, um, you know, I don't want to go into detail. It's— some of it's in the book. Um, but she had, you know, contemplated suicide, things like that.

Right.

And I was shocked. And I learned this a few years ago, and I reached out and I was like, you're my hero, you know, you're like I— you're, you're a sort of moral guidepost for me and, and a, um, a sort of, um, what— how I mark effectiveness in a security trainer, right? You know?

Right.

She can handle all these different personalities and egos and everything and get them engaged and get them to, to learn and to listen. And she— her story, you know, you could read it a little bit more in the book. It's it's ongoing, but she's had to fight demons, and she's not alone. There are a lot of people out there fighting demons. I talked to John Harris, and he's very open about the fact that he's had those sort of thoughts as well, and a lot of us have. Um, I have my own issues, you know, and I'm not necessarily ready to spill them all and put print yet. Um, some of them are out there, but I think a lot of us do. We're living in— I think there's a mental health crisis out there right now, and there is— how much do you disclose as a professional, right? Because you're saying, okay, everybody has vulnerabilities, everybody should show vulnerability, right? Vulnerability used to be a terrible thing. Chris talked about this, I think. Vulnerability is insecure, it's a negative thing. But in, you know, in communications or interactions, like, show your vulnerability, your humility, blah, blah, blah, that's supposed to be a good thing. But as a security professional, do you want to hear about people being vulnerable? Maybe yes, maybe no. I talked to Melissa Agnes, who's an expert in that area. in, in mental health and crisis management. And she has an attitude that's— and she's well cited in the book— it's very open about showing how it's powerful to show vulnerability. But there's a lot of the old tradition, the old guard, that says you want an FBI guy there, you know, or gal, who is like rock-ribbed, right? And, you know, like is unflappable. But you don't want to hear about their you know, their personal problems, or that they, you know, they grew up afraid of spiders or something and they're showing their vulnerability. It's so— there's a real division, or there's a real cognitive dissonance in do you show your vulnerability or not, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because we— a lot of what we do is our presence, our, um, uh, just what we represent and we stand for is as important as who we are, what we do. It's like, okay, I feel comfortable with Tino Urbina running my security department. Like, he'll take care of things, you know. There are certain people I think of, um, that guy was head of my security, we're good, you know.

Right.

He looked the part. They have the demeanor, right? Everything they do is like they, they make you calm. It's like, I like that man or woman or anything, but, you know, they probably have their own issues too. And how much do we need to know about that? So it's, it's an issue.

It's a balance, right?

Yes. So it's, it's heavily discussed in the book, right? And, and all the issues that are involved there. So, and I don't claim to have the answers. I talk to people who have more experience, um, and wisdom than myself have been through it, have been grappling with it, work with people who have dealt with these issues. Or— and I'm not just talking about mental health issues, I'm talking about the whole spectrum of leadership attributes and behaviors and traits and things like that. So I'm not, I'm not arrogant enough to think that my experience is enough for a book, right? Like, some of my experiences are in there. And as a matter of fact, one of the pre-readers of the book said, we need more of you in this book. You talk a lot about other people, but where do you come in? So I had to add stories. I think, yeah, you're right. I, I'm sharing other people's, you know, vulnerabilities, for lack of a better word, or successes or failures. Now it's time to come forward with my own.

Right. And you know what, I think it's a study in leadership from a security standpoint of view. That's, that's my general take. And on that, on that, on that topic, I think there's some myths and misconceptions that are— like you mentioned a few, you know, like being born. What other myths or misconceptions were you wanting to challenge in your book?

I think that you can go and say that you're this one type of leader. Because I would ask people, what type of leader are you? And everyone would say, I'm a servant leader, or whatever they said, or I'm a transformational leader, or I'm a situational leader. And there's— if you look at the literature, there's a lot of types of leaders. And part of my book gets into that because I thought, I'm not just going to throw around terms and say this or that without creating a framework. And so I list kind of the major— the history of leadership and risk leadership. So it's not just leadership because I wanted to make this apply to our industry. There are not many books that talk about security or risk leadership. There's books about security that talk about leadership. There's books about leadership that talk about security or crises, but there wasn't one that sort of brought the whole thing together, was focused on leadership for security and risk practitioners. So that's, that's one thing. Sometimes people were calling themselves, I'm a servant leader. And I would say something like, okay, then how far does servant leadership go? You know, there's books like, you know, Be the Last One to Eat or whatever. Or what does all that mean? A lot of it is just, uh, maxims and clichés, right? Like, in real life, sometimes you want to be the first one in because that's where the danger is. You know, when And, or you want to lead, lead by example, and sometimes you want to be the last. But how do you know when to be the first, the middle, or the last given a specific situation? Because you don't know necessarily what you're going into. It's great to say, I, I, um, I'm gonna eat last, and that— but there are times maybe when you should be eating first for whatever reason.

Right.

It challenges, challenges a lot of the, um, kind of the archetypes and the self-described appellations people have for their leadership style. Like when they say, I'm a situational leader, I'm a transformational leader. OK, what have you transformed? So I'll challenge them on that. And I think everybody is a— or most people are a mix of different types of leadership style. You're never always a servant leader. Some people who say they're servant leaders are anything but. Right? They're kind of the first, you know, they, they put themselves first, and other people who say they're not are, right? Um, so I try to break that down and say, okay, here are the real characteristics, and here are the challenges that you face, or if you call yourself this. And it doesn't really matter what you call yourself, but people like to call themselves things because it sounds good. It's easy, you know?

Right.

All right, I'm a servant leader. Okay, you should know what Okay, I'll put others before me, right? I play for the team. But you're not always going to be like that. And you shouldn't always be like that, in my point of view. And so I'm much more of a person who's a, I think, situational leader. Like different people, different circumstances, different geographies maybe require different types of leadership. And I'll give you an example. And this is like a non-security example, but I worked at a security— I worked at ASIS at the time, and I was— I had a certain leadership style, which is like, I'm the first one in the breach. A lot of people tell me I lead by example. That works for some people, it doesn't work for other people. You know, I like to, you know, sometimes motivate people. I would show them like short films or something that like, you know, I believe in you. And it's like, that falls flat with certain people. you can't have the same leadership style for everyone in every circumstance. You know, you're not— you can't like raise the battle flag every time there's some small issue. You know, it's like, we didn't meet our sales goal this month. You know, go, go, go, go, go, go. You know, it's like, it's like, all right, back off with that. You know, you can't over— and there's a section in the book on, um, when to use inspirational speeches and when they fall flat, or how to inspire in everyday, um, leadership. And I talked to experts on that. I used some of my own examples, some that worked, some that fall flat. So really, the gist is that it doesn't really matter what you call yourself. It matters how you manifest what's in you and the key leadership traits you know, things that you may— you're not going to have every leadership trait, right? The ones that I certainly don't. But you should learn how to harness the ones you do have, right? And it may be too late to say, okay, as a— there are certain non-negotiables, right? You have to have integrity, right? There are certain things like that. But there are others like, do you necessarily have to have humor? No. It might work for the right person, but not for everybody. Don't worry about it. Don't try to be funny if you're not. That'll fall flat. That'll even be worse.

Sure.

But take the attributes you are strong at and hone them. And so going back to early in the book, a lot of this is like, okay, how can you become a better leader? Right? And I took this and I have it on my wall right here. I took the CliftonStrengths 34 test. It's, you know, leadership and attributes years ago. And I have the list of my top 34, the top 10 being what I'm strong at, the bottom ones being, you know, I'm not good at all. Not that I can't do them, but I shouldn't waste my time trying to lead through them. So I have mostly intellectual leadership capacities, you know. So I'm looking right now, my number 1 is Input, and then Ideation, and Learner, and Intellection, and Achiever, right? So all these go to like wanting to collect knowledge and explain and, you know, and create patterns. And then down in the Top 10, my only one that has to do anything with sort of relationship building is Positivity. And I had an executive coach, and he said, don't worry about doing all these other things that you're not. You can— you have a very strong positivity, and, and that's basically a synonym of optimism. Now, you don't want foolish optimism or positivity. It has to be realistic. But that's how you connect with people, through your positivity. So don't try to be like— one of my worst attributes is woo, you know, try— which is like selling people things, right? I don't like to do that or try to, you know, be the number— the person at the party everyone's drawn to. That's That's not me. My wife is like that. That's exactly, you know, and that's part of the reason that we connect. But so I use the Positivity as a leadership, key leadership characteristic to connect with people rather than just, you know, process information or, or learn or teach. So those are things that, and I'm not suggesting necessarily you take the Clifton 34, worked for me. There are a lot of other tools like that, other systems and groups that do that sort of thing. But I do recommend sort of taking a self-assessment for what your leadership attributes are. So you can really leverage the ones that are natural to you and you're more comfortable with. And then they can compensate for areas where, you know, you're, you're, you're less strong.

Right. That awareness is key. Well, let me ask you, for someone— I mean, we were talking about existing current leaders, people that have the responsibility. But, you know, some of our audience are up-and-coming leaders, right? What will be your piece of practical advice for someone stepping into a role in leadership?

It would be— and you're right. actually probably the primary audience for this book, people who are stepping up into leadership, want to step into leadership, preparing themselves to. And there are a few attributes. You always need to be curious. If you're not curious and you don't care and you don't want to learn, then that's sort of— you're going to be in stasis, right? You're never going to grow. And today's leadership, you have to be adaptable, flexible, and willing to learn. And that's key today because technology is moving so fast. Business processes are changing. Whole industries are falling or being built with AI and a lot of other technology. You know, new generations are coming into the workplace. So you have to be willing to learn. Be curious, be adaptable. Ethics, as I said before, that's a, that's a non-negotiable. You should— another key thing is, and you hear this a lot, is don't just be a security person. Know everything you can about the organization, because that makes you valuable to everybody.

Right.

I like to say, Security shouldn't be— you've heard the security shouldn't be the department of no, no, right? Because you shouldn't be the one to say, oh, you can't do that. As a risk manager, you can say, okay, if you do that, here's what you should do, you know, possibly to mitigate any downside risks, or here are the effects, um, of what if you choose that. And I may recommend no, but if you do that, here are the positives, here are the negatives, blah blah blah blah. So that's, that's the department of no, N-O. You should be the department of K-N-O-W, know. So know how— what each, uh, business unit does, um, the policies and procedures for the organization, how they make their money, um, what their— what processes work, who owns the risk in each of these areas. You should be able to— the CEO should be able to learn things from you because they can't possibly know. Every department should be able to come to you, and that's your— since you have to know every asset, you have to weigh every risk, um, and make evaluations as head of security, you're really kind of the all-in-one jack of all trades, like ultimately even maybe as much as the chief operating officer. That makes you invaluable. Because you're not just security anymore. A lot of people say, oh, security can be phased out, and we see that. It's like security's— like, once a company faces some sort of financial trouble, that department gets downsized or it gets cut out. And then, you know, supply chain now takes over, operations takes over, it falls under HR or whatever. And then almost always it suffers, right? Because it's not tended to properly. The right people aren't in place. But if you're the person, if you're the emerging leader who knows how the company works and who has relationships. This is key, has relationships across. And not to undermine, you don't want to undermine your boss by any, you know, that's the worst thing you want to do. You want to support your boss, but you want to have relationships across the enterprise and be the kind of person who can answer questions and help. And that goes well beyond security. And it shows, you know, security is always trying to prove its value. You will prove value right there. And I think your boss, whoever your boss is, is also responsible for helping you develop your leadership if you're working for the right people. And there's a section in the book on that, particularly CSOs who have done the right thing and have cultivated— there are certain people who you see as a CSO, why do their people always prosper? There's an example of Russ Cancilla in the book, and he was with Baker Hughes. He was a CSO of Baker Hughes, and seemed like everybody who worked for him became a CSO somewhere else. Uh, Joe Olivares, who was the president of ASIS, he became the CSO at Jacobs Engineering. Um, and there was like 5 other people. And it's like, how does this guy, um, develop so many people who become CSOs at other organizations as well as successor at his own organization? And there's other people like Brad Brekke at Target who did that as well, but it's not very common. And so I delve into some of like how they were so successful in developing talent and what attributes they were looking for. Things like that. So that's— yes. So I really try to get into how to put yourself in a situation where you can learn and get a mentor, mentors like that, who will put you in a position to succeed. But you have to do the legwork. It's not— no one's going to just tap you on the shoulder if you're just a bump on a log or just doing what, you know, the job description says, you know, literally. That's great, but it's not going to get you to the next level.

Yeah, you're gonna ask for it, right?

Yep. And, and not even just ask for it, you have to demonstrate it. Oh, you have to be sort of out, not undermining anybody or not showing anybody up, but you have to be the one who's finding the issues and saying, oh, here's a way we can do this better. Do they realize that you know, they— here's a risk that they haven't thought of, and here's a way we can address it that will cost a minimal amount of money, but, you know, will return greater, you know, more efficient processes or greater revenue or whatever. You know, it's sort of being on the lookout and being proactive about it.

Absolutely. Well, Michael, let me switch gears here. We're coming towards the end of our conversation. And, you know, we started a new year, and a lot of people have professional goals. And outside of security, what are your goals for 2026?

Ooh, I hadn't thought of that. You know, I just written this book, and I'm already thinking about another book I want to write.

So which, by the way, I, I would love to post, uh, under this conversation your, uh, list of books. I thought they were great. Oh, good ones. I'll do that. But I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead.

No, no, no. And I appreciate your bringing that out because a lot of what I try to do in this book is say I don't know everything. I'm just— I'm continuously learning as well, and I'm humbling myself out there And here are other— if you want to write a book or you want to do this, there's a whole list of things. If you want to move up the ladder, um, in security, how to volunteer for different things with associations or with magazines. And I talk about the level of effort and how do you get into it. And one person who read the book, who wasn't— as a pre-reader who read it, was like, oh, that's too much detail, you shouldn't have it in the book. And then another person who was in security said That was my favorite part of the book. Do not cut that out because that gives real tangible practical advice for how you can get more involved and raise your profile and get more experience in security, not necessarily at your, at your job. So, um, yeah, so those books, I like to put forward what other people have done. And you don't have to write a book like I do. That's just, you know, that's— it reflects who I am. You could do something like Chuck Andrews, who put up, you know, Yes Sir, which is a completely different type of book. You can put out a scholarly tome like Martin Gill or Allison Wakefield do. You know, they're university professors. Or you can do something like a practical guide, Antoinette King. has a book, you know, on— or has a couple of books on practical guides, you know, Home User's Guide to Cybersecurity, things like that. And I do put a list of them. It's like, if you want to write a book, you're not— you don't just have to write this one type of book. Here are different— and there's different purposes for it and different kinds of publishing opportunities. So yes, definitely, please put that in there. I'd like to promote their work as well. Absolutely.

And by the way, thank you so much for including us in your review for 2025. As a new and up-and-coming podcast. I greatly appreciate it. Yeah, it does justice to the people that watch the show and the tremendous guests that we have every couple of weeks. So I appreciate that.

Yeah. And just to let you know, I'm happy to do it and, and definitely worthy. I also talked to other people. So it doesn't sound like, oh yeah, he was on the show. So that's why he said it was a good show. I talked to other people, and multiple people, you know, mentioned your show or commended your show and recommended it for the list. So just to get that out there. Yes. Well, great.

I appreciate it. And we're coming to the end of the show. And an exciting new year for all of us professionally and personally, hopefully, you know, we were talking about running, maybe that will be mine. 2026. I have a few races I want to add to, to my workout and exercise routine. So there you go. You know, you're, you're a runner, you appreciate that next time when you're just getting started. So how can we contact you if someone wants to reach out to you directly about the book or your consulting?

Probably LinkedIn is the best. Just message me on LinkedIn. Or if you're in security at any sense of the word, or you're connected to people that I am— I know or respect or whatever, there's a good chance I'll connect. I mean, there's some people who obviously I'm not going to connect with, or they're— I know they're bots or they're frauds or whatever, but I can suss that out. So just connect, DM me on LinkedIn, or if you're already connected to me, just, just reach out that way. Or some— if you already have my email address, I'm not going to put it out here, just email me and that, that's fine as Awesome.

Well, Michael, thank you so much for, uh, taking us behind the scenes of your journey. And your book is now in— is not in the manual, it is, uh, available for purchase on Amazon. That's where I found it. I'm waiting for my copy. Uh, your reflections on leadership, authenticity, and the life experiences that you've shared with us today are greatly appreciated. Uh, to those tuning in, uh, be sure to check out Michael's book and follow Continues and And his professional side with Crawl, and of course in LinkedIn. Until next time, stay informed, stay secure, and we will see you on the next Check Point.

Thank you so much.