Welcome to Cash in the Cyber Sheets. I'm your host, James Bowers, and together we'll work with business leaders and industry experts to dive into the misunderstood business of cybersecurity and compliance to learn how to start making money from being secure and compliant. Welcome to Cash in the Cyber Sheets.
Welcome to Cash in the Cyber Sheets. I'm your host, James Bowers, Chief Security and Compliance Architect here at Input and Output. Very happy to have you here with us today on episode 29 of Cash in the Cyber Sheets. We're almost to 30 and it is, it's turkey season.
It's almost turkey day. And I thought as a nice little break from our dirty 13, a nice little break from everything that we're doing is actually to talk about the things that we're thankful for. It's the season of being thankful.
I think this is a perfect time to talk about it. So today I want to dive into actually just some gratitude in the cybersecurity field, talking a little bit about where things are going, what we're kind of thankful for about there, and then also just going over some ways that we can foster a culture of thankfulness, a culture of gratitude within our own organizations, because that can have such a profound effect on our business, on us personally. So we'll get into those things.
Before we do, please click that subscribe, click that like, send the link out to some people you know that you think would like it. And if you have a minute, throw some comments in, throw things in there that you want to hear about, that you would like to discuss, and we'll make sure to get it on the show for you. So with that, let's jump into gratitude in the cybersecurity landscape.
And it almost seems like it could be an oxymoron, but I think the biggest thing there is we're working so hard, things are moving so fast, multiple things are happening at the same time. I don't think we ever really so much say thank you to all of the cybersecurity professionals, who are the people that are keeping things together, that are helping to keep us safe, that are helping us to recover, that are helping us to structure the business so that we can either avoid issues or when we get nailed, eventually it happens. And it's not a business ending event.
And there's a lot of pressure that's on cybersecurity professionals, especially now with the, not legislation, but the fines and the litigation and the charges from the SEC going after the people at SolarWinds for stock manipulation. They're going after the actual CISOs and the CTOs and the CIOs, all the people on the information security side. And I guess you can have arguments that maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't, but regardless of where you sit on the matter, it's an unbelievable amount of pressure on everybody in the cybersecurity side.
So I think if no other time in the year, if at no other point you say thank you and actually just acknowledge the pressure they're under and the work they're doing, I think this is a great time to do it. Just at least that you recognize that we're in this together. But I want to say a big thank you to all of the people that reach out to us, that we work with, that all of the companies that pull us in, because they're all working very hard at being more secure, being more compliant.
And really living that input output mantra of be better, working very hard at that. And it's a huge team effort and it's a massive undertaking. So very much a big thank you to all of you on the cybersecurity side, information security side, IT side of things.
It's just so much going on every single day. And you can get a little bit away from it, but I think there's a big thank you there. A lot of gratitude to have there.
There's also a lot of, I don't know, there's a lot of really cool new cybersecurity tools. I actually went back and forth on should we list some of those out and talk about those and hey, we're grateful for this one and grateful for that one. I decided not to do that.
But I did want to discuss AI and I think there's definitely things there to be thankful for that, hey, this is really, it's a great new tool. There's some really cool things that we can do with it. It's also massively scary for a whole host of reasons.
But I think what I'm really thankful about it is it started to shine a light on where everybody's data is located and at all points of the organizations that we're speaking with, that we're working with, this is coming up more and more. How is that AI model using our data? Are they using it to train other models? Could other people have access to it? Where is that data stored? How is that data replicated? And all of these questions that really we should always be asking with especially every cloud platform, they were almost foreign to everybody before. But now with AI, with how it supposedly works, it's really bringing that to the front.
So almost kind of the collective information security focus and attention and whole compliance side of things is getting, I feel, a little more pulled into the spotlight, a little more front and center with companies and getting more focused attention, not just kind of checkbox type of things, but very much from leadership and from other leaders in the company. It seems like they're asking much better questions and having a much better focus on on these things that they should have. So.
With the mountains and mountains of content that we create, could create and all the discussions that we could have around the AI. In this season of thankfulness. I'll throw out there that.
I think it's a pretty cool thing that regardless of what your opinion is on AI and how it's impacted your company. I think there's parts of it that are making a very good change in the cyber security side of things and information security, at least from the perspective and focus, which is really, I think one of the biggest things. We'll have other discussions about positive parts, negative parts, all the ups and downs of AI, but again, they have thankfulness season of gratitude.
I'm going to throw that one out there. Continuing on. I think this is a good time in the year to really reflect on.
To score ourselves. How good are we at being thankful? How good are we at showing gratitude? There's something very personally rewarding, personally fulfilling about this. It's about this focus and a perspective of gratitude at things.
Obviously, if we're looking for things to be thankful for, we're going to find them. Consequently, if we're looking for things to be aggravated about, we're going to find those too. I think this comes into not only for ourselves, but how are we doing in our business and I've noticed in the teams that I've helped to manage and companies that we've helped to support a radical shift in performance and culture and help just general enjoyability of showing up each day and putting in all of the hours, how much better that is when there's a culture of thankfulness and gratitude and I don't think you need to get very cheesy with this.
We don't need to have parades and we don't need to do over the top extravagant things, but I think just getting into the habit of thanking our co-workers for legitimate things, not just going to thank you for everything that happens, of showing gratitude and calling somebody out for something that they went a little above and beyond or they did something that really impacted you or really impacted the business in a positive way and actually calling those things out. And I think that perspective shift, moving away from kind of the doom and gloom or just even where it's not doom and gloom, it's just a get through the day kind of mentality and I think a lot of people are there to where it's, I just need to get through today, I just need to get through this week, I just need to get through this month. Where are you headed? Once you get there, is it just going to be another week you need to get through, another month you need to get through? How far are you going to go with that? Whereas if we are looking at things from a perspective of gratitude and thankfulness, we're still going to deal with crap, we're still going to deal with things that are uncomfortable, but every day, every week, every month, really every moment, we can be on the lookout for the things that are positive.
We can find things that we should be happy about and thankful about. And personally, it's a radical shift in such a better perspective to look at things that even makes it to where when you come up to surprises or data breaches on the cybersecurity side or anything negative, that you can actually get through it and you have the energy to. If all you're ever looking at is the crap that you deal with and the annoyances, eventually it's going to be so many straws on your back that eventually it's going to break.
So from a leadership perspective, from a team perspective, fostering that sense of gratitude is, I think, one of the most important things you can do. And a very easy way to do this, we'll actually link to, we'll create a list of 20 different ways that you could do this. But I think one of the most impactful and easiest ways you can do this is that with every single meeting that you have, with every single sales call, with any time you're pulling the team together or you're addressing the team, that if you're just addressing the team, if it's a monologue you to them, that you have something to be thankful for, that you call out a member or multiple members for something legitimate, not just I'm happy that you're on top of the sales board.
You know, perhaps it's that Jane in the sales department, she got on that phone, she made all kinds of cold calls, and she really pushed through her fear. I'm really proud of her for doing that. I think that's exceptional.
Or I saw John over here helping with with the inventory side of things, and I know how much is on his plate, but I saw him stepping in and I'm just so thankful that I've got a team that comes together like that. And whatever you can put in, but where it's really a major impact, and I've done this in multiple companies with multiple teams, is every time you have a meeting, every person that comes to that meeting needs to have one thing that they're thankful for for the for the other members. What is something that you can show gratitude and thankfulness for as it relates to another team member? And when you first try to roll this out, when you first start doing this, the first few meetings, first few weeks, sometimes first few months, can be very very difficult.
People will come up and it will come come to be their turn, and I don't have anything today. Yeah, this was an uneventful week. And meeting after meeting, it's the same thing.
No, nothing really today. And I think there's a two-fold negative impact there. One, that person isn't looking out for things to be thankful for on a day-to-day basis.
Because if they really looked, they would find at least something, even if it's minor. Number two, it sends a certain message to the team that I'm coming on this this team meeting, and perhaps a few other people have even shared some things that they're thankful for, and I've got nothing. I work with everybody here, and there's not a single thing you've done that I want to even say thank you for.
And if there's been some instances where another team member went out of their way or did something to help that person, that can plant some pretty bad seeds. However, if we're looking for things to be thankful about, if we're constantly on the lookout, one, we're gonna find good things because there's a lot of good things there. Two, it's going to foster amazing relationships between all of our employees, and especially for those that are on the high S, high C side of the disk profile.
I understand that this this exercise can be a little difficult for the high D's, but for the high S's, the high C's that really thrive on being identified for the hard work that they do, for the precision that they bring, and for the high I's that thrive on that interpersonal relationship, this reinforcement every week, every day in some cases, can have such a profound effect. It can help validate those that otherwise might feel like their contributions aren't seen or might feel undervalued. I can't speak enough about how powerful this really is, and it doesn't need to be an excessive amount of time that's put into it.
This can be 15 seconds, 30 seconds per person, and at the start of your meeting, we just start powering through this. Jane, you're up. John, you're up.
Stephen, Sarah, just bam, bam, bam. All these different things that we're thankful for, and now before we even get into talking about the things we have to do, we've just gone through so many different things that are so great about all of our teammates, about how our day is great in so many different ways that it feeds up such a better sales call, such a better leadership call. I just can't stress it enough, and if you're looking at it to where we couldn't possibly fit this in, we've got too many things to get through, cut something else out.
If it's going over sales numbers, cut that out and just give it to everybody in an Excel sheet, and then, I don't know, talk about the top one or two minor topics on that, but cut something else out of your meeting to make sure that you can work in every single time that we're coming together, we're gonna say thank you to each other, we're going to let each other know how much we value each other, and how much each person's contribution really matters and makes an impact. Because when you're noticed for these things, it makes an impact on you and on everybody else. I would also suggest as I close out this side of things, do the same thing with your vendors.
Let your suppliers know, let the people you work with, your partners, let them know how thankful you are for their relationship, what they mean to your business, and I guarantee you these things will pay in dividends, if nothing else, from helping to shift your perspective from getting through the day, from dealing with the day's nonsense, to truly being thankful every day that you have at the company, every day that you have with your team, every day that you have with your family, your friends, and everything in general. It is such a massive perspective and positive shift. I can't overstate it enough.
So that's my two cents, my rant, my monologue on being thankful, on gratitude, and more than just the things that I'm thankful for, how much of a truly positive impact it can have on your business and your relationships. With that, to keep the time down, I will go ahead and tidy this up. As we said, I'm going to have a nice little cheat sheet, 20 ways to show gratitude.
This is really going to be geared more towards your partners and your suppliers. You can also adapt this to your employees. We'll have that in the link in the description, and if we can get it together in time, I'll also have some templates that you can use to send out to suppliers and employees that just discuss how you're thankful for them and why you're thankful for them.
A few different scenarios that would work kind of across the board. So definitely could be updated, but should help get those juices flowing and help get you in a really good positive mindset. So thank you very much for listening to us today on cash in the cyber sheets.
I want to wish everybody a very safe, a very happy Thanksgiving. Please be careful when you're traveling, be careful on the roads, and enjoy your family, enjoy your friends. I'll see you back next week. Goodbye for now.
Thanks for joining us today. Don't forget, click that subscribe button, leave us a review, and share it with your network. Remember, security and compliance aren't just about avoiding risk. They're about unlocking your business's full potential. So stay secure, stay compliant, and we'll catch you next week on Cash in the Cyber Sheets. Goodbye for now.
