Jack Daniel - Survival Skills for Infosec Pros

not realize is this is event number 119 since July of 2009 when a handful of us got together and thought maybe we would offer a place for little bit esoteric content and a more conversational environment uh you probably know that this weekend Friday and Saturday there was a bides uh I'm turned around wherever Puerto Rico is from here and also Rochester New York um Cactus con was out in Phoenix which started Life as a bides uh this is a community of communities and it's it's really freaking awesome uh to be part of it uh we are at 59 unique cities in 11 countries so far uh the green dots are new cities hosting an event for the first time this year we're

finally making it into Asia and India with Singapore qu or is up in the air but uh Bangalore um Hyderabad no Mumbai Hyderabad and Dubai are new this year plus a handful in eastern United States um it is amazing and it's a way to connect and develop your own presentation skills find audiences um connect with people who are like-minded and it is why I put an insane amount of time and effort into it because it's just freaking awesome to be part of it that said this talk is about infos seex survival skills this is how to not just survive in this industry but thrive in what can be a challenging industry Alex Hutton gave a great talk this morning

a lot of this will dovetail with what Alex said and a lot of this is based on the stress and burnout research that a group of us did in the past few years and so we'll touch on some of that research but this talk is looking at it from the other side this talk is about not just surviving in this industry but thriving being productive and being happy now I know some of you who know me or know of me are surprised that I'm talking about being happy this is not something I'm noted for so I will share with you my working title for this presentation which gets cuts off there what's wrong with happy people um and I

was trying to solve this problem because there are some genuinely happy people in our industry I won't embarrass them by calling them out but you know who they are right well sha for one it's just um why this topic well again I don't tell anyone I have a reputation to maintain but I actually like you people almost every one of you um I have an unhealthy fondness for some people in this community people in this community are family to me more than my actual family there are people that I know I can rely on in this community more than I can rely on family that's not a shot at my family that's the nature of us fighting a common battle

and the interconnectedness that the internet gives us why today because there's also sorts of cool stuff that we've talked about in the past day and a half and there's more to come if you're here this week for Sans or infosec world as well there's more stuff that's going to come up with you and you're going to want to do more you're going to want to drive education in a direction that makes a difference you're going to want to drive your career in a direction that makes a difference and if you can't find the energy if you can't find the contentment with what you're doing to do it you're not going to get there you're also not going to be able to help

other people people move forward um no that doesn't work okay disclaimer uh you know more than I do I'm okay with that as long as you share so stress and burnout research this started a few years ago it has yeah there's no way I'm going to correct that now so um stress and burnout research team this started a few years ago how did this help how did this start this started with mutual support this started with people like Alex and Josh Corman and G sponser and myself getting together either via Skype or via Twitter or picking up the phone or seeing each other in person and saying how you doing I know you changed jobs got a new kid how's things going

you seem a little stressed when I saw you whatever and inette got a little more and more formal um you know Martin mccan I talked about it when he was still a qsa that's a fairly high stress job job um or can be depending on where you work and so this little circle of people who are a large part of this extended internet family of mine and of ours uh started taking you know hey what about him and we started expanding the the circle of who we looked at and started looking at some of the other issues and um so this is a team that came together to make some things happen and did some formal research uh Martin

McCay Josh Corman Stacy there uh actual PhD in Psychology uh she's not a clinician but she's Ken yered who was working towards one as PhD in Psychology had battles with the university I know some of you will find that hard to believe ended up not completing that g sponser myself when we spent a couple of years doing a lot of conversations and research um also a lot of the research came from people willing to chat with us about what their experiences were um so this quote you had mentioned a variant of this Dan gear made the comment security is too wide to master too deep to know and too fast to photograph let's say this one more Dan

gear said that security is too wide to master can

no go down under 10 these are mostly texts we're close enough um so again Dan gear said security is too wide to master Dan gear said it's too deep to know and Dan gear said security changes too fast to photograph if Dan here can't keep up with this I'm screwed right I mean just let's be honest so what are our jobs let's talk about the nature of what happens especially for those of us on defense but also the people that are doing red team right when you're doing penetration testing when you're doing just vulnerability assessment you're doing stuff you're popping boxes you're you're knocking over websites you're getting shells you're injecting your sequels and it's really cool you

remember somebody's paying you to help them be more secure and you haven't even finished your coffee and it's fallen over right you know 45 minutes to domain admin and so you get that thrill and then you realize what that means and it's like and if you're on the other side it's just you don't even get that temporary thrill so this is the infos pose on good days um this is on good days that's cut off but this is the INF pose on good days on bad days pigeon [ __ ] on our head

too so how do we code so we looked at the research to figure out two things we went two directions with the research same set of research but how do we identify stress and burnout how do we reach out to people how do we let people know what they're up against and how do we avoid that you know what works so we've done several presentations over the years I've done some we've done them as a panel um on the stress and burnout side this talk is flipping it uh to look at what we found and what we found was nothing in information security so we did our own research first try was ugly uh it

was a start it was the best ever done in infosec it was also the worst uh second try we did like mlock burnout survey in psychological industry standards and we added some survey content of our own demographic and other things to get an idea of what was going on um it's not all numbers as I mentioned we talked to a lot of people we got some anecdotes from them what worked what didn't work uh we had some conversations that were agonizing um the first time we did this as a panel was the bsides Las Vegas a couple years ago uh that was in the uh non-recorded no press track closed room uh by the time we had people standing up and

showing scars on their wrists from suicide attempts everybody's nerves in the room were pretty raw but we reached people um and I think we did some good on that end what I want to do is let's not get there let's figure out what it is that keeps us driving forward so um the first survey was you know mostly Twitter people followed it even responded bias's Galore selection bias confirmation bias was advertised as a stress survey so people interested so it just had I it was worse than a ponon survey um o sorry uh non-randomized blah blah blah but it was some data and there were some interesting things um strongly agree these are the things that

correlate maybe to how we avoid trouble I have a strong support network of people I can count on we actually scored pretty good in this and these were people that self- selected to be interested in stress and burnout it's like we do have a support network um you know again this room this event is is creating connections and reinforcing connections that do that here's the one that's fantastic and it's also double-edged my work is valuable to me we do this because we think it's cool this stuff is valuable other people value the work we do yeah we're we don't kid ourselves quite as much about that one but we still think people value what we do now

that may not be our bosses by the way we didn't specify you know maybe teammates but somebody else values what we do why are you in the industry make the world a safer place a lot of us have the cop gene or whatever you want to call that but we don't like the you know we don't we don't uh want to do that this one is one of the most stunning numbers and this has been born out other places we do this cuz we get to think we like to think we like hard stuff we like Puzzles right I mean it's we love the ability to do this pay it's all right not bad I there are a lot of

industries that look a lot worse but we're not in it for the money which is you know best and worst these were just words thrown out and those are cut off so I'll come back to them the worst was the stuff you all know right the stuff that we hate Egos and rock stars and corporate politics and hype and fud and if we come back to this one yeah just things that we love uh the sense of community the ability to learn we have fun come to events like this and a bunch of other ones plenty of job opportunities if you have the right skill set right and for some people in security it's hard to find a job other

people with certain skill sets and experience had people continuously hounding them for gigs uh great conferences Innovations uh working with and for really smart people and I mean there are an amazing number of truly brilliant people in this room if you go to any of our conferences well almost any I won't name names but there are some uh where you won't be surrounded by smart people so more data second survey uh this is the one where we use the mlock in the industry standard uh burnout is defined as a crisis in your relationship with work if you're a professional uh there are different categories of this test so if you look at the mlock if you're

doing uh social work or medical work or you know things like that it's a relationship issue between you and people in the professional Fields it's relationship with work there are three key criteria that are measured uh exhaust not just physical exhaustion but emotional exhaustion and you guys all know that these are tired now the older I get the harder it is to do the long you know overnight stuff we I don't do that anymore I can I can survive longer than somebody my age in my shape should be able to on you know 3 hours of sleep a night for weeks on end I don't recommend it but we get going and if we think we're accomplishing something our

body just starts cranking out dopam all sorts of cool things to keep us going and as soon as we think it's not worth it we just crash hard right but uh that's exhaustion cynicism um this is what's there defined u in the standard as indifference or distant attitude towards work we love what we do we love the challenges so this is unusual for us however we don't feel that the industry is effective and that's one of our challenges so if you're somewhere where it doesn't let you feel satisfied about what you're doing that's a challenge um the final one is the flip this this is a positive one how personally efficacious we are do we feel we are effective and

efficient at our jobs this is self-reported and it's also you personally or the survey respondent personally that doesn't mean you have to be naive and think that as security we're winning the battle but that means you think you're contributing and those are the pieces so if we looked at these um this survey as is with the other one uh statistically insignificant but potentially informative which is kind of the way I feel about myself overview 113 male 111 male 13 female um I'm going have to try to fix this so here's 16 were in need of immediate help which meant that of those three categories they scored in the danger zone for three out of three

and so 133% is a little higher is higher than most professional uh groups uh females scored worse there were only two but that's carried throughout this because life's not fair for women um because it's just not and that's Universal we didn't have a small but the cool thing is 58 had no warning indicators so when it came time to look at this side of it I said that's almost half of them let's look at them let's look at the patterns we can find on the happy people that is the pattern I found it is stunning I found all sorts of patterns now I don't know how many of them are real because as humans we find patterns

where they don't exist but patterns are what kept us alive on the Plains and in the mountains right is that a snake I don't know if I jump out of the way and it's not a snake I'm still alive if I don't jump out of the way and it is a snake I'm dead right so we find patterns and we're hardwired but there was no pan I can tell you things about age and education and income as far as people likely to be burned out but there was nothing so let's move on Who wants coffee I always want coffee this is my stress and burnout machine um Wonder let see if I can do this bear with me a second let me see if

I can make these CU I have a this set of slides it's really going to suck if I don't do this

that is a young Isaac Newton

okay let's try something else one of these is

right that's readable it cuts off the edge that I don't care so there we go to the coffee machine so there's our coffee machine how does that work you put water in the top and you put coffee in the middle and you add heat and pressure and stuff comes out the bottom and sometimes it's bitter and nasty and sometimes it's awesome right and that's kind of like a job um and life so we take this stack this this process flow and the burdens are work family personal and social well they're not always Bur but those are common burden classes a lot of those also help us deal with life the coping methodologies social personal and professional support

how much autonomy and control this is one of the first things Alex said this morning this is absolutely true I'm going to hammer this again and again personality and personal coping skills some people are better at this if you've ever seen Dave Shackleford dressed you were too drunk and mooken for somebody else um Shaq just is immune to it um other people are a little more sensitive right and it's worth stopping and saying as a community even though we tend to turn on people and eat our young and other dumb [ __ ] that we shouldn't do we do tend to be supportive and inclusive and we tend to put up with and even encourage differences in personality if

not outright personality disorders so there are some real issues there that are that are broader I mean you got to be candid right I mean your right uh so anyway so we're not going to dwell on this here but you know burnout what do it ends up exhaustion cynicism depersonalization we're not as effective reduced commitment low productivity absenteeism mental illness substance abuse now it's worth staying here we have this Baseline of we're people that means a certain number of our community are going to suffer from depression mental and physical illness we're not immune to it so that is a factor that we have to factor in um Aaron Schwartz was in a bad situation and took his own life other

people in our community we get a high-profile one at least once a year unfortunately um we have other issues with substance abuse where some people think that um you know they can handle it and uh all right this wasn't supposed to be but I'm going say this this is this is what I remember of Barnaby Jack he's somebody that I only nodded to in a hall at a con a few times did not know him personally well when he passed away the outpouring of support of Love of admiration is what I will always remember is the impact he had on our community globally that's what I remember and I would think that is what we should all

remember however do not be stupid and ignore the fact that a brilliant mind was taken from us by mistakes he made in his recreational use of pharmaceuticals and non- pharmaceuticals so I'm not going to preach that's kind of a downer but I just want to let's remember how generous and awesome the dude was but let's not Overlook the fact that he did something really stupid cocaine and heroin have wiped out you know large blocks of people in our lives that's done but that's something we have to face and that doesn't necessarily matter what industry he's in so the goal here is to draw a big red line through this chart and stay on the top burdens work family personal and

social um work is kind of self-explanatory if you hate your job um you got a problem and that may be your problem it may be the job's problem more likely It's a combination family um man there's a double-edged sword right this is this is a fantastic source of support encouragement Comfort torment and Agony often simultaneously not just on Thanksgiving um but the trick to these is understanding honestly with yourself um what those levels are uh the personal and social stuff you know the social stuff when things that you like doing aren't fun take a break from them you know if you run a hacker space or really active in a hacker space and it becomes

a burden to go to the hacker space if you love to play golf and you find yourself one Saturday morning saying oh God again take a couple weeks off I mean that's one of the earliest warning signs that hey dumbass chill right you's let's do there's something else you can do mow the along but uh but those things can be good don't take the things too seriously you don't have to coping mechanisms this is really where we can do this so personality there's not a lot we can do with social and professional support is um I'm not advocating that any of us pretend to be professionals especially if we're interacting if we personally are in a crisis situation or

anybody else's that's time to turn it over to professionals um you may need to talk to somebody spouse and steer him that way but what I'm talking about is the kind of stuff that a lot of us do for each other without really thinking about it just put a little more thought into hey you know you seem kind of stressed besides you all right things okay how's that new job going it is amazing if you think about this somebody's you know in the past few months has probably said something like this to you I hope they have like no you know what I'm just being a big baby right when I complain about my job you should all tell me to

shut up I have a kick-ass job I have a lot of fun I'm here dressed like an idiot and I'm drinking and I'm I'm pounding coffee now and you know I'm having a great time I travel a lot it's largely self-inflicted but I do come but every now and then somebody reminds me that you know I'm I'm few weeks I'll be you know in a pub in London on the clock uh you know and I'm like all right right um so that little you know friendly nudge reset is good um just being honest about that and that that Mutual support thing and it's um it's actually safer at that really low level because you're not family

right you're not close it's it's I don't have to go home and and you know deal with you it's just a quick hey how you doing right it's can deal with you in a manageable that really is the one thing that U I'd like people to take away is yeah just a little there's one other thing I will take away so if you thinking about that you think you know um somebody you know so and so seemed really stressed besides Orlando and so this week you ping them on you know Skype or IRC or what you know where whatever your method you say hey how you doing um you seem a little stressed things okay that's cool if by the way

next week like 10 people pin you via Skype and say hey dude how you doing you seemed a little stress do not be pissed these are people who care about you um it's easy to get offended by that it's like no this is legitimately people and there are coping skills you can step back it's really hard to to do that but let's look at other things that you can do so one of the things I've sort of danced around uh that is his drummer that's not U BB King that's uh Lucille and you need to know what's important and BB King has a fantastic story um about the naming of Lucille does anybody know the naming

story love this 194 what was it was after the U right after the war BB King was playing a gig in twist Arkansas he had just bought a new guitar $35 actually it was before the war um and the way the dance halls union halls were built was they were basically plywood Shacks open wood floor just a big open room and the way they heated them was they would put a 55g drum half full of kerosene in the middle of the floor and light it the band would be at one end playing there'd be makeshift bar or whatever on one side or the other and then people are just mobbing around two guys started fighting uh during one of EB's

performance two guys began to fight knocked over the burning Barrel so we have a wooden building rudely constructed and now have 25 gallons of burning kerosene running across the wooden floor the fire got worse uh fire burned out of control um everybody in BB's band BB and the band got out and he realized he had left his guitar on stage and ran back in and grabbed his guitar they got in the car and drove off next day he found out that two guys uh had actually not made it out there were two fatalities plus some injuries two people died in this fire and he thought about the value of a $35 guitar that he ran in to get and

what that meant in life he realized that it was going to be hard to replace a $35 guitar at that point in his life but it was not impossible the woman that the two men were fighting over was named Lucille every guitar that he has had since that day has been named Lucille and he's had dozens of them you go to Hard Rock Cafes you'll find authentic Lucille all over the place BB King came to the realization that he needed a guitar not that one he needs a Lucille not the Lucille you want a Lucille it's a es-355 variant you can WR Gibson sell you Guitar Center American Musical whoever you you buy your axes from you

can pick one of these up uh music trivia es-355 one of The Oddities about that BB is one of the few people that the used the stereo version of that actually played a stereo 355 I'm trying to remember who else was there a couple people but that's you know music trivia from the musically inept but anyway so there's that what's important should you have to realize that you nearly lost your life over a $35 guitar to figure out what's important I would hope not but sometimes we need a pretty solid kick in the ass to wake up and figure out what's worth busting our butts over and what's not um so General Common Sense easier said than

done take time for yourself but I have too many demands yep you do prioritize those demands saying no and this is pure hypocrisy from somebody that like runs bsides and goes to bsides and volunteers and on multiple 501c3 boards uh take time for yourself say no occasionally turn things off really off um I'm sure many of you know or know of James Arland Jamie Mercurial the Arland family has a policy that on Sundays they turn off electronics and they're not supposed to be on Twitter or anything else and I know this for a fact because anytime any of them sends me an email or pings me on Twitter or Skype or something they say don't tell my husband or wife that

you but they do tend to just disconnect as a family and it makes life better I but I get it we're attached to these things we have an unnatural oness for our toys let's do it in Little Steps you know I mean the things like turn off the stupid popup an Outlook that goes Bing and pops up every time you get an email really I mean if you're really waiting for an email that bad leave a Outlook window open otherwise check it in every five minutes instead of continuously just back away and if you can really disconnect don't be the dumbass that goes on a anniversary cruise with your wife along the Inside passage and blows 3 50 bucks on Internet

fees on the cruise ship like me you know what an idiot um get out of infos SEC we love this so what do we do we come here not saying don't come to bides I'm not saying don't but find things that are at least different it's like I think the I think locks board is kind of interesting because we're still problem solving we're working on puzzles we're not working on code we're not working on firewalls we're not working on you know we're not doing the same thing find interesting things that are at least out of there for some of them family and personal time and maybe uh time for a career change um that's uh that's a real issue

so more General common sense um I'll make the slides will be available um Health matters so here's I'm not going to point to anybody else in the room but there are some of us who are no longer in our 20s uh there are some of us who are no longer in our 40s um Twi yeah Health matters um growing old sucks uh it just does growing old sucks most days it is better than the alternative and I have this I have this outlook on life that you know it's um I think people that put just too much effort into being healthy have too much to live for but I I can't see shortening your life intentionally either and one

of the challenges that I've run into is that um I keep getting little problems which are really annoying and they won't kill me fast they might not even kill me they just make me miserable over many years all right I will deal with the medical and insurance industry to take care of myself one because I will suffer less because it's not like it's going to kill me fast you know I mean it's not like I'm going to be struck down by the various things that are are wrong with me I can go into detail if you'd like but some of you may have had lunch and you but anyway um oscopy is a Latin word for you want

to put a camera where so take care of yourself because also there are other people that you're supposed to be taken care of and vice versa um anyway so uh Health matters you know don't hide from it when you're 20 you are invincible you know you know when you're 25 it's not medical advice but when you're 25 let me say this don't worry it's not cancer when you're in your 50s don't tell yourself that don't let a doctor tell you that or let the doctor tell you hey you know what it is it's good you came in early because this is going to be no big deal um so don't put that off take care

of yourself so you can take care of others and uh there we go General com sense don't face challenges alone we have this industry of looners I'm [ __ ] special looking FB I I made it this far um and so we're all going to do this by ourselves right anybody in Boy Scouts Girl Scouts YMCA when you're a kid did you get to go swimming alone in the canoe alone did you get to do anything alone no you had a buddy system Navy Seals are all over everywhere they're amazing do they do anything alone everything in between theyve fully automated airplanes to where they don't they hardly need people in the pointy end of the airplane there's still to

competent people in the pointy end of the airplane we do everything alone that's not necessarily especially healthy um here's one if you happen to have a management role do not make employees face challenges alone friends and family assets and liabilities simultaneously again Mutual support

rocks takes a little honesty and disconnection to figure out of the friends and family which are the assets which are the liabilities and which are a combination of both um I don't know how many people travel a lot I travel I don't know I'm probably at 50% travel these days but it it varies I I was was in San Francisco for 3 weeks straight February I was just basically moved into Drake Hotel in Union Square um even in a cushy job like mine the amount of travel I do gets to be tiring um if you've got a more entry-level job or you're a consultant and you're really cranking the business and you you know it's what you deliver

is what comes home in the paycheck it can be brutal uh talk to people that have been doing it for a while every little trick that you learn that works for you and that doesn't mean that everybody else is tricks in makes it a little bit better um if you have routines one of the things that I that I know works for me is I'm a list person but I have routines of what goes to certain types of events I have packed kits of Technology bits that I take to certain types of events and they're in little plastic boxes they're in little clear plastic boxes so when I go through TSA if it's in Caroline I can whip it

out so that when they freak out about the amount of electronics we travel with it's like no worries right and now that's now that has become actually a bigger problem because I have I do enough international travel I've get Global Entry so I get TSA Pre so they don't care at real airports because they have my fingerprints therefore I can't be a terrorist um

but but I've got this this routine and it makes it a lot easier and I open a lid I've got a couple different size boxes and I open the lid of the box and I do have the list of what belongs in there but if the box is not full something's missing because I pack them that tightly just that alone if you do what I do and do trade ships that's a big deal some people insist on moving into the hotel room as soon as they land and that makes them feel better because we open drawers to grab your shirts and whatever whatever works for you find those little routines just to make it more routine

um it'll be better just a little uh you can make it suck less here's a tip I'm not advocating drinking to excess that's a different set of talks that I do which is pretty fun um I'm not kidding I've I've done it um but it's very limited number of places that will let you get on stage with a friend and serve 80 to 100 cocktails in a 1 hour presentation um venues like this tend to frown on us uh popping uh four or five the five or six pints of booze and a couple of quarts and liters and mixers and fruits and it gets kind of messy it fun um bartenders if you are not opposed

to this and here's another one of those unfair to women um depending on your personality and age as guys you go and sit at the bar and have dinner at the bar and you don't I don't care I don't mind dining alone I do it enough it's all right you sit the bartender have a conversation bartender knows what's happening in the community most of the time here in Orlando maybe not as much there so many transients but in most places your bartender is a better source of information than the concierge at the hotel if you're staying in a hotel with a concierge you know Motel 6 doesn't really have a concierge there's that lady that hangs out with the truckers in

the parking lot but that's not concierge she knows some stuff but still I wouldn't ask her uh but the bartender is not getting a kickback from every restaurant in theater and club like the concierges not the but and so you have a conversation now it's a little less comfortable for women sometimes and that's unfortunate but it depends on where you are what the city is what the hotel is ask them about tips and tricks as far as what's it take to get to the airport how do I beat this you know and you they may say something like don't take a cab are you kidding are you traveling light yes okay $845 you get on BART over there and you get

out at the airport it'll be faster and less grief and you don't have to deal with a cabie and other times they'll say public transit in this city are you nuts you know put it on the company card that sort of stuff will make a real difference and if you're on a circuit like I

am Tina's got a couple more hours on at Frankie in Vegas I know the bartender schedule at a couple of bars but you know but I also know that the tips and tricks uh this word is it's all cut off but the word water is in there this is a really obvious one people tell you to hydrate getting an airplane sucks water out of you drinking too much coffee cuz you're on the road not getting enough sleep that sucks water out of you drinking booze which some of us sometimes do sucks water out of you this is not a commercial announcement or product placement uh but Mike Murray hooked me up these things uh Gatorade is great but too sugary and you

know those sort of drinks if you like uh the coconut water that's great but you're still carrying liquids which don't go through TSA in U noon there are some other brands this one just happens to be easy to get taste sorable they're electrolyte tabs they're made for healthy people I think they're originally designed for triathletes it's it's like a giant alas eler drop a tab in a 16 o bottle of water or crack it in half and put it in the the two crappy little we can only afford to give you 8 ounces of water on the airplane bottles um that and it's an electrolyte tab it's got some potassium electrolytes and it actually is will help you hydrate hold

in some water uh and life just gets better and the more water you drink the less booze you drink the less coffee you drink U it just makes makes life a lot better it's amazing what a difference proper hydration makes if you've had too much to drink um that's part of the booze talks to is recovery but um uh on that don't listen to me because one of these days I will act my age and when that day happens you will see the funeral announcement um here's what makes a difference for a lot of people which only works for us and other Crazy People Like Us who love what we do love the challenges of what we do if not the

way the job plays out do more work do more work but do work that you want to do work which is satisfying and rewarding because if you're at a point in your job or in your career where it's really not satisfying but it's the industry you want to be in maybe there's something that you can do on a volunteer basis or maybe even a part-time gig which will make you excited about what you're doing again or Tide you over you know maybe maybe you're in an industry that's a slump right now and you just want to stick into it do satisfying work that you want to do volunteer Mentor teach speak share help people for some people this is really

hard um a lot of this social interaction stuff has gotten easier for me the older I get a lot of us tend to be introverts that are drawn into this the older I get the less I care if I screw up I it's like go ahead and to Defcon two years ago at the PCI panel once again let me say I'm sorry Alex um that that was just fun it was it was great I still have to apologize to Corman every time I see him for that one but he's sensitive I think it's the entire Arabic community yeah that's a whole another story um so uh yeah it's only death so anyway um mentoring is great and it doesn't have

to be formal mentorship but if there are people that could benefit from the mistakes you've made and the successes you've made share that with them and one of the really cool things about mentorship after you get over the initial pain of it is it holds up a it puts you under a spotlight and hands you a mirror to your own hypocrisies because you will tell people things that I've told people don't let your skill set become stale Mr mcse on nt4 uh you know don't stay in dead end jobs too long 22 years in the car business no I take it back 27 28 years in the car business 22 for one dealer group um you

know so I'm like if I only I could take my own advice oh [ __ ] I know how to do this better okay U but there's nothing like turning your on hypocrisy back on yourself and making stuff better

so really Isaac Newton famous quote um part of this quote is actually on some British pound coins if I've seen further it's only by standing on the shoulders of giants um Newton who changed the way we look at the world forever this is not an original quote of his it's a variant of older quotes so even he borrowed this the guy that changed the way we view the world forever said yeah I got where I am cuz other people helped me get here holy [ __ ] that kind of puts a burden on all of us doesn't it um as Gandhi said on Twitter a few years ago the problem the problem with altruism is

there's nothing in it for me right um actually I think it was Lincoln who complained about the problem of attribution on Twitter but that's a different talk so what is the what's in it for you you feel better you contribute you feel better about yourself you make connections you network you improve your career options you strengthen your resume if just being a decent person isn't enough for you there's more in it than just being altruistic learn something new but education is work it has to be satisfying or offer hope of career Improvement or maybe it's time for a change um Mike Murray and um Lee whose last name I'm blanking on uh their career talk one of the

things they stress is the best job in the world for you is probably the one you have right now but it probably needs a little bit of tuning and so that's those little changes you know maybe your job can evolve with the company you're at or the organization you're with maybe you can switch from one team to another where I am now at tenable we move people around a lot until they land in the right space A lot of times people come in they land in support learn the product and then they land in QA Dev or content um or maybe it's time for a big change and this is that career change thing uh it may be time to change and

with the economy and the market what it is now if you think that your job is hopeless this is probably about as good as it's going to get uh for making a career change or job change not a career change um just don't bounce around too much in the workplace as a manager as an employer as a team leader do you have too many well-trained and qualified employees it's too easy to hire people yeah I know so can you afford to burn any out even if you think they're all useless no if they're truly useless you need to get rid of them so I will read this since it's getting caught but the capacity to

influence policies especially those with a direct impact on a staff member's work reduces susceptibility to burnout this is a 1991 study frequently cited in the mlock burnout and other burnout studies this has been true for centuries before this and will be true for centuries more I won't read this whole thing but basically if you've got some feeling of control you get engaged with work if you don't you are not if you're an employer consistent feedback um yeah a lot of us get moved up the food chain right I mean Peter principal right up to our level of incompetence and we really suck at managing people and now we have to manage people um there's a

whole cycle of of that that's crazy but consistent feedback manage workloads and workload distribution um let's come back to related to this is explain why things are the way they are if you can't fix them because a lack of control is a torture method how do you torture manw Nora you put him in a mansion breakfast never comes the same time two days in a row cable goes out for 30 minutes twice a week who knows when he wants his eggs over easy some days they're hockey puck some days they're too run think I'm kidding that's the way you follow the Geneva convention on a long-term prisoner without doing anything extreme they lost of control

the the opposite extreme of that is is solitary confinement where they total loss of control even though there's regulation they don't have a clock to get access to time completely shattering at that level but a little bit of a loss control is just minor annoyance you add them all up and we've got some problems allow employees to disconnect maybe even force it one of the things Volkswagen is doing in Germany I don't think they're doing it in the US cuz I'm not a fan of the company that's in the US even though there are two of their cars in my driveway the Germans disable email accounts for certain people when they are not on the

job they disable your blackberry or Nokia or whatever they're using they disable your ability to connect to the company mail server when you're supposed to be gone you can't get your mail no you're not supposed to disconnect go home and see your family um that's kind of cool offer education we all like to learn stuff in this community especially offering education is an employer is a good way to keep people in bad situations not saying we should do that but it's a good way to keep people in bad situations that a couple of minutes here for questions but that's the idea is look there's a bunch of smart people they're interested engaged you're here on a weekend you

want to further yourself and further the people around you and if we let ourselves and our and each other get burned out we're not effective that's one if we don't operate as effectively as possible we don't accomplish what we want to do I think one of the things we see we set high standards for ourselves one of the real challenges of that's really critical in reaching out to people on Flipping to the the dark side of this study these studies the one Trend that seems really solid is if you think you're doing well and your company is breached there are other scenarios but we've seen a handful of people where we can identify it a lot

more anecdotally you're cranking along you think you're efficient turns out that your company's eaten out upside down inside out and your whole security team or whatever you do is an abject failure uh some people bounce back and use that as a learning experience but depending on the context and the support they get they go from having working ridiculous hours but they're not exhausted because they're succeeding and they instantly flip and go from feeling highly efficient to very cynical and the exhaustion goes from I can handle this because I'm accomplishing stuff to boom and we see these crashes and that's where having friends and keep an eye on each other makes a difference cuz then we can say

Hoff you know firing us moved us forward we had to get back in the game probably weren't happy when that initially happened right um there things that that can happen but anyway that's uh that's my Spiel don't tell anybody I want you to be happy I've got a reputation to defend but uh really cool uh comments questions suggestions yes sir oh okay anybody uh cool well thank you all very much still more to

come uh here we go let's be inspirational does everybody know this one I'm going to since I get a minute I'm going to do this I stick it at the end I do not know what I may appear to the world but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore diverting myself now and then finding a smoother Pebble or prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of Truth lay undiscovered before me Isaac Newton felt that he was just a boy on the beach distracted by Pebbles and shells this community besides your local hacker communities this is where you find your Pebbles h