Speaker 1: 0:30

So I'm Renata Spinks. I'm the CEO of CyberSec International. We are a consulting and operations boutique company, meaning you know there's a lot that happens in cybersecurity, but we focus on just very strategic approaches, whether that's how do you get into the front door of the Department of Defense and how do you identify your requirements properly and how do you engage. So lots of engagement, strategic thought, processing, use cases and helping people just figure out how do you present that value add to the Department of Defense. And then how do you do it in such a manner to where it's progressive. You may not get an award the first time or the second time, but how do you build that rapport and how you build those relationships and how do you become those? Those go to companies for the Department of Defense. So that's one service. The second service is very consultative. We do a lot of research, we provide white papers, basically taking the load off of everything to the left of operations. So if you're trying to plan policies and governance and you know, but everyone kind of jumps into the operations side, they want to install that next tool, they want to use it, but most times it's been harder to understand. Well, how is the policy going to be affected when you roll that particular device out or that particular capability? And if the policy is not affected, are you infringing on people's privacy rights? You know there's civil liberties. Cyber has a lot of different things you have to consider and we all get excited about the tools and sometimes we have to kind of go back in that policy catch up or governance catch up.

Speaker 1: 2:06

So I like to tell people we do everything to the left of operations, because that's the hard part, it's the nitty gritty part that you got to put some thought into, yeah, part. It's the nitty gritty part that you got to put some thought into, yeah. But it's also that time when, as government, they're thinking through being great stewards of their financial obligations to the constituents of America, that's, who pays the salaries of government employees, yes, and so being great stewards comes with questions and answers, and so people want to know well, why did you invest in that particular technology? Or why did you use those techniques to deploy that technology? Or you know, why did you make that decision? And when you start to get why, then people start to realize a few things that they probably didn't think through.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Yeah, and so we provide that, that left of operations to help you with your why. Yeah, most people can show up in the room and they can give you how and what very quickly. How can you deploy it? What are you deploying? What capability are you improving? But sometimes the why can kind of just jolt you just a little bit, because it's hard. Technology is hard. It's changing every day.

Speaker 1: 3:13

And so that third capability is we're providing true cybersecurity, whether that's risk management, whether that's how do you speed up continuous monitoring or speed up the way the ATO process works? Try to take what people call bureaucracy. I say guardrails. I think they're guardrails, right, I think they're guardrails. Bureaucracy, I think, is very valuable because it forces people to slow down, yes, and think through things that could affect, you know, not just one set of persons or one culture, but in the federal government, you're touching systems that are located overseas, sometimes, right, and you're affecting the lives, professionally and personally, of people all over the world. So the bureaucracy is there is those guardrails that I appreciate, and so my company being so boutique, we're helping with those guardrails and sometimes, you know, we find ourselves showing where that guardrail probably could be removed here, but the one that's five meters up probably should stay there, because we've made a little bit of progress and maybe we need to kind of take a step back and retrospect and see, well, let's do a little bit of incremental yeah, so that we don't wait, you know, a year or two, spend all this money on technology that now is outdated because technology has moved so fast. Yes, so I like to say we're bringing the guardrails closer to the capabilities and then allowing people to respond to it in a manner that's more efficient.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yes, and so we do that in the cyberspace.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Yeah, I stay in my lane. I don't try to talk about, you know, what that amphib from a Marine Corps perspective, what that boat is supposed to do, what that ship is supposed to do. I just stay in the system side of cyber and we let all the other experts handle the rest of it, and so that's what CyberSec International does, and we do that on an international scale, so not just within the United States, but we look at mission partners and who's all trying to do business with the federal government. Yeah, but also those mission partners and our allies, you know. So we also focus on how do we work with other countries and how do we all you know, come together in this cyber warfare, because you know when the bad guy is showing up, he's not saying well, I don't want to attack them because they're just like like I want to rehabilitate their ability to move forward, or I want to affect their readiness, or I want to affect their economy, or, most recently, we spent a lot of resources valid resources on I would like to affect the election.

Speaker 1: 5:47

So different things like that, like I want to infringe on your democracy. I don't really care who you are, you know it's zeros and ones to them.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Yeah, no you have an incredible and crazy job like and I know I don't really care- who you are Wow, you know it's zeros and ones to them. Yeah, no, you have an incredible and crazy job Like and I don't mean crazy in a bad way, I mean crazy in like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of like security for a lot of important things.

Speaker 2: 6:05

So, I want to know how you got started in this. I know you said you have a background in being in the military, so tell me about that and how it led you to where you are today.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Well, I'll tell you the things that happen when you're a little girl. I've actually dabbled and dabbled in technology from you know, just a little girl when my mother was taking business administration courses online or through what they call correspondence courses. At that time, Years and years and years ago I won't date myself by years, but years and years and years ago but she had this thing called type right. It was a little red, little type right. We call it a little computer, yeah, and the screen was really small, but it was just teaching you how to type. You know the.

Speaker 1: 6:45

QWERTY board right, a little red and white, red and gray, red and white or gray. Well, I got in trouble one day because I took it apart. I flipped it over and was like what's this little weird thing? Why is those letters up there, like I'm not trying to figure out how to type, because she was taking those courses. It was like secretarial and um, how do you go from a typewriter into this, this type write machine thing? Yeah, well, I didn't care about that part. I wanted to know. Well, where's that little gray, like what is that little screen thing? So I took it apart. Now I was young, I didn't know that. I was getting ready to, you know, get in trouble because I stopped my mother's only device that they had sent her in the mail. I think it was Pim Foster, I think she was taking courses with Pim Foster, I think. But the point is, I got in trouble because now I've messed up her ability to do her coursework. Yeah, because I have taken apart this.

Speaker 1: 7:39

What I thought was a machine, that I wanted to see what's going on on the inside, like I don't understand. Well, what I didn't know was that was my first step into being curious about technology. Now life happens and I went through high school and studied a lot of things. I even took a few courses for coding in junior high, but it didn't correlate. Until I got older I didn't know that we were just taking a computer class that was being offered at our junior high, liked technology, but I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because I'm a big debater, I'm very like I like to justify things, I like to figure out well, why was this done and was it right when you did it, and I like to defend against it. So I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I said I wanted to be a corporate lawyer because I like the business side of things and I like having rules and making sure people are staying within those boundaries, and so I think I want to be a lawyer, because that's what you know. At that time people were saying, oh, you would make a great lawyer. I was, you know, had a debate and things like that, and so I was like, oh, okay, and then it wasn't until life kind of took a turn and I joined the military yeah, right. And I joined the military and the medical corps for the army, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:52

And I was introduced then to very granular technology, meaning everything, was not what we see today. The cloud did not exist, you know. We didn't have these large data centers. Everyone was kind of on premises but no one really was thinking about in my space, where is that data going like? We just didn't have that thought process.

Speaker 1: 9:10

We were still very manual with medical records. We were still very manual with coding and things like that ICD-9 coding, until I got deployed and things started to happen where discrepancy of information was now threatening the loss of life and loss of limb, you know. And so it was gosh, it would be great if we had this information not stuck in a paper somewhere, but actually in a system that everyone could utilize. And by that time computers were everywhere, you know, but not in the households of underrepresented children at that time. Quite possibly we see a lot of that effort now, but at that time not so much right, and so we weren't really exposed to technology. But a lot of things were happening in the technology space. So for me, I started to ask our comms platoon, the commo team, which is communications. They had all the splitting happening. There was cabling everywhere, they were creating internet connections and the ability to use computers and our laptops in the middle of a desert. It was amazing.

Speaker 2: 10:11

And so.

Speaker 1: 10:12

I was accustomed to plugging something into a wall and there's some data port that's running in the back.

Speaker 1: 10:17

All these wires are going up through the ceiling. So I was very familiar with those things because I was inquisitive. But in the middle of a desert where there's nothing but sand, that became very interesting. Like I'm like I want to be a part of that. But it was also predicated, and probably invigorated, by mass chaos during a deployment. I mean, we're talking war, fighting in a medical space, and so it's mass chaos.

Speaker 1: 10:43

Sometimes the pace is very quick and decision making is really high risk. Right, it's very high risk, and it's no longer a risk to reputation. Think about that when you think about cybersecurity. Sometimes it's well, the bad guy just wants to make the United States look bad. Well, it wasn't risk to reputation. Think about that when you think about cybersecurity. Sometimes it's well, the bad guy just wants to make the United States look bad. Well, it wasn't risk to reputation we were dealing with. It was not risk to economy, it was not risk to how you feel, it was risk to people losing their lives, and so for me, sometimes we would get information, and either information would be delayed.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Sometimes the technology would like radios. You would kind of what you hear. Now you hear static right, and sometimes information is not coming over accurately or you're just not getting it clearly, and so you're trying to figure out are we prepping the OR room? Are we wheeling people out to the helicopter as it lands? And then, if we're doing that, we're sending out gurneys. What are they needing to go out with, right? Do they need a mobile ultrasound because they can't get back to the operating room quick enough because someone's hemorrhaging? Well, you're getting all that over the radio, but what if you don't hear it?

Speaker 1: 11:48

Yeah, no, then it's over and they don't know. You don't hear it because they they're communicating. They're saying you know how, say you, and no one's on the other line saying loud and clear. So now maybe the communication is not occurring. So now we have a readiness problem. Are they going to be ready when we land to receive this soldier that's hemorrhaging or, you know, has been injured and it's life or death? So we need you to come out and be ready to save this soldier's life.

Speaker 1: 12:14

And so I had a couple of those experiences and it was very frustrating. You know, when your heart and soul is involved in saving people's lives, it can be very frustrating when things just don't go right. And so I got into fix it mode, like we should have our these, we should figure out why this technology is not working right, why is the radio is not connecting and why can't we hear. And so that's how I realized I like technology. You do, yeah, love technology. And so that probably was the foundation to why I got into technology.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Now, why I got into the cybersecurity part of it was just a combination of a lot of experiences that we don't have a lot of time today to talk about, but I think the most impactful one. I like to answer this question by thinking if one thing through my career had not happened, would I be in cybersecurity? The answer is that one thing is had I not studied human trafficking and child exploitation and got a chance to work with the human side of intelligence and seeing how technology was being used at that time in support of agents that are investigating that every day and that was at the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Homeland Security had I not had that experience and introduced to forensics and the way mobile technology is used and how you think money is going from one destination to another, but it's being intercepted and sent to a totally different place and then that's criminal behavior attached to it. And now they don't want to get caught because they don't want you to stop them from doing the things they want to do. So now you're disguising things in technology. And it was just so, it was just.

Speaker 1: 13:51

I didn't understand it. I'm like, well, how, how are you doing this Right? And then you know having a passion for people being in that space. You know it's not something that I liked to investigate or help with those investigations, but it was something that I felt a calling for at that time in my life, and it was just things that are happening, unfortunately, across the world. And, if I can just have one piece of impact, to be able to research why that credit card data was stolen and used over here at this place. And we think it's by some operation that's occurring in another place, but they're trying to make us think it's happening over here. So law enforcement can't you know? So?

Speaker 2: 14:34

you got all this steps ahead.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Right, right. And so that's how I got into cyber, just just foundational to investigations and and forensics extractions, and then it just kept going and kept going. Never did I think it would lead me where I am today, but I think that's how I got into the whole cyber technology thing. Yeah, that is an incredible story.

Speaker 2: 14:57

I wish I could hear more of your stories, but I know we're crunching on time or whatever, but that is incredible and I think you did find your calling, especially that story you told me right now about your mom having that little type, right?

Speaker 1: 15:08

And you taking it apart.

Speaker 2: 15:10

Like from then on, your mind has always just been curious about how things work, and I think that that's just incredible and the work that you're doing right now to make an impact and protecting us and helping other people in other countries is incredible, and thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1: 15:24

It's just, I love hearing that. Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 15:26

I'd like to know on your team. Do you have a team? Talk to me about your team and who you have.

Speaker 1: 15:31

So I have a couple of people on my team. Besides the operations of a business, you know, you have your executive assistant, you have your CPA, Like all the things that keep you compliant with running a company. That my cybersecurity mind. Just, it's a hard time processing all of the things it takes to not just be the CEO but to be the owner, Right. But then we have some what we call 1099 employees that work for us engineers, cybersecurity consultants who are billed out to a few contracts I'm happy to say, well, I'm very small contracts, but you got to start somewhere. But we, just because they're 1099 and they're not W-2, what they call W-2 to the company, they still are like family to us and when we see opportunities where their expertise is needed, we definitely send out proposals and we bid on them.

Speaker 1: 16:21

And we were getting lucky here. We're getting pretty lucky. I call it the blessing from God. I'm always grateful for the opportunities and when people allow you to come into their space to solve some problem that they have is always something I think people should always be grateful for. But yeah, so we have about five. I have about five people that are consistently looking for work within my company. Two of them are gainfully employed and three of them are not, and so we're right now I'm just looking for that, and as we look to grow revenue into the company, I hope to bring them on as full time employees inside the company. But right now we're walk, crawl, run.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Yeah, you got to start and play the hard game and then get there right, but I have no doubt that you're gonna reach that and I'm so excited and I love that we have this type of hard-working small business people that are on the come up and just gonna change the game I'd like to ask you, with um, cyber security, what are some things that you have found to be challenging as a business owner in your industry, whether it's with maybe, I guess hiring, whether it's with looking for clients.

Speaker 2: 17:27

Talk to me about some of those challenges and how you've been able to overcome them.

Speaker 1: 17:32

There's always challenges in a competitive space like technology, and then in this area it's very competitive. The Beltway Bandits are everywhere, right, but I would say that my experience with those challenges I think maybe it's because I was in the government for such a long time and then I just spent the past six to seven years actually almost 10 years at a high enough level to kind of see how industry responds and how industry partners with the government, see how industry responds and how industry partners with the government, so my expectations, I think, were a little on point and so I guess the experience wasn't as jolting as it could be for others, cause I kind of expected the competition. I expected that, you know, sometimes people can be grimy and they can waste your time. Some of my mentors say you know, people will waste your time. Well, I'm a people person, so if they want to waste my time, at least. It was a great conversation. That's the way I see it, right, but I did get to the point where I need to manage my calendar a little better, because I started to see I just can't be everything for everybody all the time and I'm really trying to build a company. So that challenge of mindset and mentality was probably the first thing that I kind of had to have a lot of lessons learned about.

Speaker 1: 18:46

As far as a recruitment, there's a lot of talent out there. Unfortunately, there's a lot of talent in a space where we haven't really mastered the science behind talent management. There's a lot of barriers that I love within the OPM and the Department of Defense and US government. You're starting to see people open up the aperture just a little bit about certifications versus a degree, versus experience. So you're starting to kind of see a paradigm shift. The pendulum is swinging to more flexibility in the cyberspace, where it used to be very restrictive you had to have a degree, you had to have five degree, you know, you had to have, you know, five years of experience. Now you're starting to see, you know, people be a little bit more considerate of well, I may not be certified, but what if I have the experience of a person who knows or who has those certifications? I've met people who have experience and their experience outweighs others who have a degree, but I can't hire them because they don't have that piece of paper. So in my past that was a challenge.

Speaker 1: 19:55

I'm seeing now that there's some flexibility being added with thinking very differently. You know, most recently some conversations about workforce management has happened at the OPM level, and so they're really thinking through. You know, how can we get this, get the kind of talent in that we need? Restrictive on salaries, that experience in the federal government we had a challenge there on pay and what I love that I see now is congressionally and senatorially, people are thinking differently on compensation, yes, right.

Speaker 1: 20:27

But lastly, I think what I love about all of this is you also start to see the paradigm shift of partnership within the government.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Industry is learning how to partner with the government and the government is also learning how to partner with industry while staying within the boundaries of ethics and all of the different things that we have to consider to stay compliant and stay ethical and do things the right way, keep the competition proper, make sure we're trying to be as diverse as possible all the things right.

Speaker 1: 20:57

And so I think I just have an optimistic attitude, because some people always tell me, like you know, you can't see the forest for looking at the tree type of thing, and I'm like I just really am that kind of person that you identify the problem If you mull over it as a problem and never try to solve it, then we're still where we are. But if we look at it as an opportunity to think differently and to absorb what others are also bringing to the table, then that's where that diversity of thought comes from. So those are the three challenges that I see within talent management. Yeah, the last, most important challenge for me, I'll just keep it at two today. Yeah, the last one I want to mention is how the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve. Yes, please.

Speaker 2: 21:37

There's a book that I love.

Speaker 1: 21:38

It's called the World is Flat. This book was written so many years ago, but it's called the World is Flat. This book was written so many years ago, but it's called the World is Flat. Yeah, and it talks about the introduction of the internet at that time. I think there's a couple more updated editions out there now. Okay, but I studied that when I was in college. It was an assignment that the professor gave us, and the world has become more flat. Right, it's flatter and flatter. You can talk to someone in Zimbabwe today on video and feel like you're right there with them, right?

Speaker 2: 22:08

Because of technology. Oh, I see what it means. I was like wait, what do you mean by flat? But I see I'm getting it.

Speaker 1: 22:12

Yeah, there's no more boundaries and restrictions because I have to get on the plane to go and see you in your other country. It used to be Skype, now it's Teams, or your cell phone or Zoom, or you know, cisco, like it's whatever you know, take your pick. You can connect. Nowadays Google me, like it's everybody.

Speaker 1: 22:32

I don't even want to start mentioning because somebody may feel kind of left out. But you know so, you have videography and you have those abilities to talk to people Right, and so the world has become flatter and flatter, but what that comes with is adversarial attacks, whether that's I just want to be disruptive, I just don't want you to be able to communicate, or it could be economically stimulated, it could be reputationally stimulated. Whatever the reason is, we have to consider that on the other side of greatness and evolution and innovation is an adversarial threat that's trying to stop whatever progressive movement we're trying to make in the emerging technology space. Our critical infrastructure is, you know, one of the areas that adversaries continue to focus on, whether that's our economy, from a financial perspective, or it's something as simple as the lights in here. Well, you know, the grid is being attacked every day. Our identities are being stolen every day and being used in God knows where locations for whatever reason. Sometimes it's just to sell the information, sometimes it's to create other identities.

Speaker 1: 23:40

The FBI has a large percentage of identity theft cases that they're always investigating. Amongst everything, amongst a lot of that mission, you know law enforcement is fighting all kinds of things, whether that's drug. You know enforcing from a drug perspective. Or, like you know the passion that I have with combating human trafficking, child exploitation, children All the way down to something as simple as child exploitation. Children all the way down to something as simple as intellectual property and theft.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Some of my colleagues, when we have these conversations, they get it about people being killed. They get it when murder is happening and you got to investigate. But when you say something like patents and trades, they're like, oh, not a big deal, but it really is a big deal. You know that those parameters are put in place and there's financial royalties that people are receiving and different things like that. So you know not that one sector is more important than the other. Reality is there are some risks to life and limb that take precedence over administrative or what people would look at as intangible versus tangible effects of cyber operations. But the world is flat, makes you kind of understand that it doesn't matter which sector the bad guy is attacking. It affects something else all the time. It affects something else all the time. So you know, as I think about those challenges I look at as there's always an opportunity. We just got to figure out where we're focusing on Me. I want to focus on continuity, because ransomware is eating us for lunch every day.

Speaker 2: 25:18

That's so stressful and scary to think about.

Speaker 1: 25:20

You know, and then understanding how we have those challenges, why those challenges are there, but, more so, how do we address those challenges. So I like to kind of concentrate on building resiliency and business continuity, continuously monitoring how can we be proactive versus reactive, and then educating the workforce. When I was at the IRS, I experienced for the first time in my career, buyouts. I had no idea what that was, I didn't know that, you know, early retirement could be offered. I didn't even know what that was. Yeah, and so as I started to see the workforce change, I also started to see the workforce shift because some of the baby boomers and those cross-generational statuses some of them weren't retiring, some of them were staying.

Speaker 1: 26:08

And when you looked at 30 years within the IRS, well, you do the math. There were mainframes and things were on premises when they came in and now we're trying to transition them to the cloud. So what my experience was there? Two years of number one, appreciating the institutional knowledge that I was experiencing. But also, how do I have that conversation to not resist the change and not resist the adoption of new technology? But how do I welcome it? How do I make them feel part of the team and not feel like well, you're old, go over there and sit down, because I saw that and I didn't like that, because I thought about, about what if?

Speaker 1: 26:45

that was my mom, or that was my grandmother or my grandfather, who's in here, probably trying to pay for grandbabies, probably trying to pay student loan debt, like it's all kinds of things that could possibly keep you in the workplace or whatever. Maybe, not. Maybe you plan great for your retirement and you saved up money and you're a millionaire, but you just like helping people. Whatever the reason is, yes, I don't want you to treat someone a way that they should not be treated. Yes, a lot of people say well, you know you should treat people the way you want to be treated. No, no, no, no, no, because you may want to be treated that way.

Speaker 2: 27:13

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:19

I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to treat you right In the workplace. It was the same thing and just kind of seeing that at the IRS. That's where my passion for workforce development and cross-training came from, and I got a chance to actually do it there because we had such a seasoned set of people in IT, and so I took that experience to the Marine Corps and it was easier to do within the military, because you do have genres of generations of personnel, whether that's you know three and four star generals that I had the pleasure of working with, versus a young lieutenant or a young private coming in.

Speaker 1: 27:52

That's you know the age of my children, right, and then you got all that in between. How do we keep that continuity of work? How do we increase adoption of new technology? And the success stories there continue to be something that I've just beat like a drum. Whenever I have a chance, we literally move the entire Marine Corps in a collaboration space, from on premises to a cloud environment, and we shut down data centers and extra domains to reduce our cyber landscape in six months during.

Speaker 1: 28:26

COVID oh my goodness. So when people tell me well, we have an adoption problem, you know the baby boomers. They don't understand technology and it's offensive to me and I'm going to say something about it if I'm sitting there, I'm like no, we have a leadership problem, that's what we have.

Speaker 2: 28:41

I love your honesty.

Speaker 1: 28:42

Okay, we have a leadership problem because you want to talk about seasoned personnel instead of rolling your sleeves up and trying to understand the value that everyone brings to the table. And how do we take all that goodness and make greatness Like? How do we do that? Instead of well, that's bad, well, is it really? Or do you just not care enough to understand where they're coming?

Speaker 2: 29:04

from that right there, Like do you just not care Right?

Speaker 1: 29:07

And so that third one is always the big deal for me. So just kind of recap Love the administrative piece, the hiring, all of the things it takes to run a company. That's thing number one In parallel. Thing number two is technology Right takes to run a company that's thing number one In parallel. Thing number two is technology right. Cybersecurity is what I do. I love it. I like securing things, I love being proactive and my third area of focus is that workforce team, because none of those first two things that I did not give you in a level of priority, because they're all three, they're like in parallel All of them are important to me.

Speaker 1: 29:40

On Mondays is my admin day. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, technology day. On Friday I'm thinking about who can I mentor? Do I need, do I have mentoring scheduling? And then how do I have conversations with people about that? You know people about their policies of like, how do you manage workforce? Do you need help writing position descriptions? You know. Do you need help training people descriptions? You know do you need help training people? And then, if you need help training, we want to come in and do an assessment of are you training them properly.

Speaker 1: 30:09

You know my, my family is full of all generations. And sometimes I have to pull myself back because I get a text message to say thank you for calling me. You took me too fast. I still don't know how to work this thing. On the other end, I may get a text message Thank you, auntie, I got it now. And so you have to kind of consider just because you're training people don't mean you're training them in the right manner, to where they can consume the information and then turn around and put it into practice. Yes, and that takes work. Yes, and then turn around and put it into practice.

Speaker 1: 30:43

Yes, and that takes work. Yes, it does, and because it takes work. You have to care. Yes, Okay, so I'm gonna stop right there.

Speaker 2: 30:48

No, I love it and I think you definitely do care and I love that you put yourself in other people's shoes Like no, don't treat like the older generation, like that could be your mom. A lot of people don't think like that. They're like, oh, whatever. And it's like stop and think like what if that was someone? That?

Speaker 2: 31:01

you love and care about. So I think that perspective is really great that you have as a team leader, as a CEO. I think that that is so important and a lot of people forget that. So I love that you're grounded in that way. And that is a beautiful thing to have as a business owner and as a woman just the power. Like I love it.

Speaker 1: 31:18

I love to see it.

Speaker 2: 31:18

I'd love to hear about it Now. Is there anything, maybe that I have not touched on that maybe you would like to share. Maybe you're writing a book, maybe you have something fun planned for New Year's Eve, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 31:28

Yeah, yeah. So we got all the things. Of course, I'm studying for my PhD. That's in parallel to everything else we're doing. The good part about my PhD is in cybersecurity, so I got my PhD. On the books no-transcript, I am part of a couple books that we are co-authoring. We have been sworn to secrecy so we can't tell the titles and things like that, but there are a couple of books One I'm writing by myself and another one I am writing with two other authors. Okay, and it's going to be so great I will tell you. It is about IT, but it's also about everything.

Speaker 2: 32:10

Shocker.

Speaker 1: 32:11

And you will be able to know oh, miss Spinks wrote that part. You thing, right, shocker um. And you will be able to know oh, miss spinks wrote that part. You will be able to tell um. So that's great. And then, of course, we got some new year's eve plans happening. You know, 2024, 2025 is gonna be life-changing for me. I'm excited about it, um, but yeah, cybersec, the ceo, has a lot of things happening in 2025, but I'm looking forward to some things I can't talk about. Yeah, right now that's happening with the new Year's Eve, but if you follow me on Facebook, you'll probably see it. I don't really post personal things on LinkedIn, but I probably will post this thing on LinkedIn. But you know, call me on January 1st and you'll probably say that's what she was talking about on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 32:50

Okay, we'll keep our eye out that.

Speaker 1: 32:52

Some exciting things and, unfortunately, you asked me is there anything I can share? And I gave you all three secrets.

Speaker 2: 32:57

You did, but really you didn't give me anything, but you gave me three secrets. But I gave you three secrets, but I appreciate it. No, thank you, we got the exclusive here from Renata.

Speaker 1: 33:05

That's right. Last question I could talk to you literally all day.

Speaker 2: 33:14

I'm so sorry, I'm just.

Speaker 1: 33:15

I could too right.

Speaker 2: 33:15

This is awesome. We need to make this longer, but anyway, um, would you mind leaving us with a message or a quote or anything that maybe someone has said in your life, that has inspired you, that you want to pass along to our listeners?

Speaker 1: 33:25

oh, so many um. This is why you didn't prep me okay it's very authentic, right I'm.

Speaker 1: 33:31

I told you, I know, um, what something. There are so many things that people have told me that changed my life, but I will tell you the one that keeps me grounded. Not really told to me, it's just a poem that I keep. I don't know. I keep going back to it because it's so powerful to me. I think when people sit down and study this poem it would also be powerful to them, but it's may not be on the top of their minds and it's fear.

Speaker 1: 34:02

It's a poem that I think about it and it encapsulates everything. It encapsulates when you're scared and why we make actions, whether that's how you feel about yourself. Because there's a part of the poem that says you know who am I? Not to be wonderful. You know I'm a child of God. I love that. But when you think about it, do you really wake up in the morning knowing how wonderful you are? Most times we don't. You know, I just got off the phone with the love of my life and he was like why do you beat yourself up? Because I said, man, I don't like my makeup and I should have did this. And he was just like stop.

Speaker 1: 34:37

And I took that in from him and it kind of reminded me that that's why you have that poem in your bathroom and all over your house, because it reminds you that, you know, the fear is not that we're inadequate, the fear is that you are powerful beyond measure. Yes, and as you start to read that poem and go all the way to, you know just kind of let yourself be great and then share that with others, cause when you share that with somebody else then it's infectious. It allows that other person to know that it's okay to be scared, it's okay to not have good moments. I didn't say it's okay to have a bad day. I said it's okay to have bad moments. We're going to get over it real quick If we can. There are things that are catastrophic, that may take a little longer, but we got to keep grinding. We got to get through it. Um, but it's not from a beat yourself up perspective.

Speaker 1: 35:27

You know mental health came into play during COVID, got highlighted a lot. You don't really hear a lot of people talking about it anymore. As big as it was during COVID, right, but it still is a big deal. It's things that get us up in the morning and lay us down at night. That's right how you feel about yourself mentally, because if you always talk about it, that's great. But sometimes if you're not feeling good, you don't really tell people, you try to kind of deal with it, right, and then that can kind of take you to different spirals.

Speaker 1: 36:08

And so that poem, you know, fear is probably the thing that not only changed my life when I read it, because I read it when I was very young, but it continues to keep me grounded. That's one of them, and you know, maybe a second one is I read a lot of books. Yeah, there's no one author that I like more than the other or anything like that, but on my website I do have a section of, you know, miss Spinks readings, and it's all kinds of stuff on there. It's romance novels, it's, you know, inspirational books, but it's books I've read. It's books that have been impactful to me and I think if you are a well-read person, you will always be able to find something somewhere documented in, something that can help you get through that. Next thing, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Yeah Well, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you you have so much wisdom and insight, and I literally wish, when you well, maybe when you write a book you can write one about all your stories and all this stuff, and we can check it out because I feel like you've got some interesting things to say. But again, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 36:59

Thank you for having me Absolutely.