Transcript
Narrator:
Welcome to 9 0 9 Exec, your source for wit and wisdom and cybersecurity and beyond on this podcast, your host, veteran chief security officer and cyber aficionado. Den Jones taps his vast network to bring you guests, stories, opinions, predictions, and analysis you won't get anywhere else. Join us for 9 0 9 exec, episode 45 with Victoria Grandury.
Den:
Well, everyone, welcome to another episode of 9 0 9 Exec. I'm Den Jones, your host, the guy with a silly accent and the unicorn on the t-shirt, but it's less about me today, it's more about our guest. We have got an amazing guest as always. All of our guests are great, I guess. So Victoria Grande, is it grande? I almost feel like I want to say Grandury.
Victoria:
No, please don't. You can say grand jury if you want
Den:
Grand jury. Oh yeah, that is, yeah, so I sometimes try and blame the accent and then really I just fall back to stupidity. So Victoria, just because I'm butcher of your introduction, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience?
Victoria:
So, hi everyone, I'm Victoria Grandury, or for those who can hear my accent. Victoria Gron..ury.. And I'm the CEO and founder of Limitless Rebel Ventures, which is a performance optimization company. So we help ambitious professionals achieve productivity without burnout and velocity without chaos. All that to say that I help those who are, how to say, seeking too much external validation and people pleasing others to come back to themselves and to what matters to them and to what is true to them.
Den:
Wow. Yeah, and I'm excited to dig into this one because, see, the other thing though is on LinkedIn, the first thing you say is you're a cyber goddess, So
I'll definitely have to dig into this. And then there's also, so there's a high performer coach, there's a breathwork master or master NLP. So I'll get you to share what that is. And then you're Reiki certified, which for me, I just done a podcast before this one, which will be released shortly with a reiki master, but also a spiritual medium, which I thought that might be a fun topic to dig into for the audience. So I look at this stuff, let's start with the whole cyber goddess part. So share where this come from. Well, let's actually, so you're doing five or six things here, so let's roll back to Victoria, the kid before you leave school and you start in the real world, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up? What did you want to be?
Victoria:
Ooh, it's funny, I actually did a whole talk about this. There were a couple of dreams. One with my cousin was starting a hospitals for endangered species across the world, so helping elephants, monkeys, so all that.
Den:
And unicorns obviously
Victoria:
And unicorns when we find 'em. And I think then I didn't really have a dream until I got to the point most of us that I was like, I guess I'll do what my dad does.
Den:
Because you've moved around a little bit, right? Yes. So where did you grow up when you were a kid?
Victoria:
I was born and raised in New York City, but I was born and raised also in a very French bubble because both of my parents are French and I'm a second generation immigrant.
Den:
And from New York City, I think it suggests from my limited research on LinkedIn that you moved around a little bit. So what was all the moves?
Victoria:
So I grew up in New York. Then once college came around, ended up in Montreal, four years of undergrad, turned into another additional four years of work. And then at some point I thought, Hey, this feels like a good time to do my MBA, because I had worked at Deloitte, I'd say moved up through the ranks pretty quickly in four years, became a manager and was the first female solutions architect in my team. But I had kind of gotten around Montreal or what I thought I needed in Montreal and I decided to go to my MBA in Singapore at Inea. And the reason I picked sim poor was mostly because it's the cybersecurity hub of apac. And I thought why not bring what I know of cyber to an industry that's different? And I thought this is the opportunity for me to also just explore a part of the world that I would easily get access to.
Den:
And going back earlier you said follow what your dad done. So is your dad's also in tech?
Victoria:
No, absolutely not. My dad works in finance, so he worked in hedge fund. And this talking about my path in college, I thought I was good. I started studying finance and I was terrible at it and my brain could not wrap my head around the classes. And one of the things that changed my path or my story was I had an 8:30 AM intro to information systems class and I have to say 8:30 AM class in college, pretty brutal, especially in Montreal in the middle of winter. But this teacher, I don't know his enthusiasm about tech, the way he talked about it just got me really pulled into it. And I remember actually reaching out to him and being like, can we have a conversation for me to understand what does a career in tech look like? I had no models around me, I had no idea what roles were available to me. I didn't even know what information systems really meant. This was in 2010. And so I was just like, tell me more what he's been doing. And he sold me on the fact that when you work in tech, you can have a very flexible work-life balance. And I was like, that sounds exactly what I need.
Den:
You can, oh shit,
Victoria:
You can if you design it that way.
Den:
Yeah, I guess there's ways to figure that out. But you were at Deloitte though, and as fat as I know about all the big foreign stuff, there's no exactly worklife balance going on in those companies because you're really an ass, right?
Victoria:
Yes, definitely.
I got sold another person who I would say shifted my life path was a Deloitte consultant who came to my class an information systems class and talked about what it was like to work in consulting. And she definitely sold me on two things that at the time were really important to me was learning quickly, learning a lot fast. She talked about traveling, so being able to work with clients either within Canada at the time or internationally. And then she also mentioned the diversity of the projects. And that to me just I didn't know at the time what consulting was either that was not in my models. And I applied to her team, which was the cybersecurity team or at the time, enterprise risk services. And I think I didn't know what my job was until pretty much two days in, I just showed up at work and I'm like, I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing, but let's go.
Den:
And one of the things you mentioned was about not having people around you from a mentor perspective that would attract you into tech and how that teacher really inspired you on that one. Do you feel that it's hard for, I'm going to say young women who are studying or in high school, college for them to see that path? I mean,
Victoria:
I think today there's way more information being shared, so I think that's something that's definitely changed. I think something that I maybe didn't, and at the time when I was in college, didn't know how much it was valuable, but how teachers are also sometimes professionals or have connections to the professional world
And how much they can give you insights as to what they're doing currently, but what life could look like once you graduate. So whether you're doing an undergrad or a master's, that's something that I didn't really know about. And I would recommend to anyone who wants to get into cyber, go talk to your teachers or go talk to the people that they bring in the class because they're there for a reason. And I think it's also just following what's of interest to you or what's true to you. And the reason I definitely resonated with cyber out of all the roles I could have picked in tech was protecting people, helping bring good into the world, helping to defend those that can't defend themselves, whether it's individuals or even companies. So that's why for me, cybersecurity really tied into my purpose.
Den:
And it's funny then yeah, like you say, back then it wasn't code cyber, it was really code risk management or risk assurance or some other risk advisory and I guess mean it went from I'm going to protect and digger animals to I'm going to protect some companies and people, which is still a level of protection. So roll forward. So you've definitely done a few great jobs in the tech industry and cyber. What inspired you to then start your own business doing coaching?
Victoria:
So it's my own journey of I would say moving from all my life I was, and I still am a high performer. I'm someone put a lot of pressure on myself. I like to achieve, I like to do hard things. And over the course of my career, I would say I had either some incidents or events that started pushing me to look inwards, to look at what I really wanted to do, what was really authentic to me. And I found hypno breath work when I was in my before last job at the time, I kept repeating a pattern in my life and I was like, this thing is showing up again and again and I need to find the key. And I wasn't ready to talk about it because it felt like my body was wired in a way how a magnet will pull towards a magnet.
And so I felt it was my body and I needed to find something alternative and hypno breath work kind of fit that description to those of you who are listening. Just want to give some context. Hypno breathwork is a mix of hypnosis and breathwork. The modality gets you leverages the trans state of breathwork, but then hypnosis to reprogram any limiting beliefs. Let go of any emotions sorting your body, whether it's stress or past experiences so that you can then visualize your highest self and step into that next level, the next version of you, and start taking more, I'm going to say aligned action and intuitive actions because a lot of times we don't really hear our authentic self because we have the voices of mom, dad, society, our colleagues, anyone around that is telling us what we should do or what we think we should do, but not what I'm going to say our soul came on this planet to do.
Den:
Yeah. Now we're going to pause there for a quick message, but I want to dig into that piece. We'll be right back. Hey folks, just want to take a minute to say thanks for listening to the show, watching the show, however you engage with us. If you're liking the conversations, if you think we're adding some value, we'd love you to subscribe and share the show with your friends. If you know of anyone else that would benefit ideally for us that will help us be able to grow the show, invest more in the quality, get some more exciting guests and keep bringing you some executive goodness. Thanks everybody. Take it easy and enjoy the rest of the discussion.
Okay, Victoria. So talking about hypno breath work for me, I always say to people, I've got a certain belief system and a lot of business leaders, they realize this, right? A lot of business leaders, they learn meditation, they learn yoga, they start looking inward and they think about what the purpose is. A lot of people you'll hear say the purpose of me being on the planet. So without going too religious and woo woo on us all. I think the reality is there is more science and evidence now of the ability for us to leverage these techniques and also think about there's more to the body than science and physics has talked about in the past. Why don't you share a little bit about, so I'm going to jump into here. So the NLP and the Reiki certified. I think there's a bit of a convergence of all of this, right? Of course. So why don't you share just a little bit on that piece.
Victoria:
So for me, one of my passions is subconscious reprogramming. And it's the idea that, and there's studies now that show that 95% of our thoughts are the same from one day to another. And our thoughts drive our feelings how we feel in our body, but then also our actions. Let's say I have a thought of, or my belief is I'm not good enough, then I'm going to feel lower frequency, like, oh, I'm not that great and then I'm going to take smaller actions with hypno breath work, you are able to go and let go of that feeling of like, oh, I'm not enough, or I'm not smart enough, or I'm not, whatever it is that's blocking you, let it go. Replace it with another story, which is I'm super smart, I'm super valuable as a leader. And then in the session you get an action step that could be something as small as, well, I need to go for a walk now because you haven't maybe walked at all day and your body's just like, please move. Get off your office chair,
Den:
Get off your ass. Actually
Victoria:
Get off your ass. Exactly. Or it could be an action step. Go reach out to this person that you've maybe told yourself, they'll say no to me or they won't acknowledge me because that's where your life starts to shift. And I have several big examples of how that shifted for me. Actually one example that I want to talk about because this relates to women and cybersecurity, when I was job searching and back to my profile when I was job searching to move into product management from customer success, I had at that 0.8 years of experience. And I had some people tell me, Victoria, you're moving into a different org, just take the first job, whatever the salary is, you'll build the experience and then you can ask for more. And I had a moment of this is weird, I've worked eight years, I've accomplished so much, I have so much experience, so much to bring to this new workplace that I would join. Why am I going to ask for less?
So I got clarity around the salary that I should ask for, and it was a bump from what I was making at the time, I think a 25% bump. And from another session that I did, I got a clarity of this new job. I want to bring all parts of me to this job. And in the past I had segmented, there's Work Victoria and then there's Personal Life Victoria. But one of the things that makes me me and brings value to the workplace is the fact that I care about people. It's why I do what I do today. I love building teams and trust and belonging in a team. And so I had this action step which was you need to tell every hiring manager you're going to meet that you do hyp no breath work. And based on their reaction, you will know. And I started doing that. I was like, Hey, I hyp, I do hypno breath work. Could I one day guide you through a session? I had reactions like, oh boy. Oh no. And then I had some of the hiring managers or the potential teammates I was going to work on ask me follow up questions. And that's how I picked, I ended up picking product management at SIG was because the team was really interested and afterwards I ended up doing sessions for them while I was working there.
Den:
Yeah, that's brilliant. It is interesting for me because really what you're testing at that point is what's their curiosity
Victoria:
And open-mindedness
Den:
And open-minded. Yeah, starting this business and even like you starting yours, but I think your business, this is an additive exciting thing to your business, but when you start a consultancy firm and you may suggest to people that you have an interest or awareness or knowledge on those things, then sometimes some people have advised me not to share that. And it's like even the 9 0 9 cyber, yeah, it's my favorite drum machine, but I'm also into numerology. It's also an angel number. And for me, I'm like, it's great. Why would I not share with people that fact? And it's like, well, you might detract, deter some people away. And it's like, well fuck 'em. Maybe I will.
Victoria:
Yeah, I was going to say maybe it'll just deter the people who you weren't supposed to work for in the first place.
Den:
First place, yeah. Now the cool thing for me when I think of all this stuff, first of all, you mentioned something earlier, science backed. There's a lot of studies and the thing about leadership I found is when you work with a leader who is an optimist, I think positivity attracts positive outcomes. I think negativity attracts negative outcomes. And I say this to everybody in my life, personal or professional, there is a frequency that we operate at. And unfortunately in the world right now, I think the frequency is getting lower and lower. There's a lot of negativity in the world,
Speaker 4:
But
Den:
I think then there's people like us that are like, wait a minute, it can be higher. Let me participate in raising the frequency level higher. And with those around me, let's not have the negative conversations, let's have the positive ones. And it's not to say that we're ignoring the issues of the world, it's just to say that I'm not fixating on them, I'm not spending time on those when I think I can spend time to maybe turn the conversation in a more positive way. And I think a leadership like that, I think of good leaders inspire others, leaders come up with action plans that I think deliver positive outcomes. And for me, that's where leveraging some services like what you deliver, I think are really helpful to any team that's trying to build a team, trying to build a team in a positive way and build a positive culture, not just about, I done some tech training and I hired some diverse people. Those are two cool steps. No, but you want to do a bit further, right?
Victoria:
I want to ask you this question. I love what you're saying about also culture and positivity. I know you've been in the US for a while where on the spectrum I'd say of if we took very positive, the hyper optimist go-lucky, which can be typically the Americans are seen as a very positive culture versus more negative cultures. And I'll own this one, French people are not very positive. Where do you put yourself on that
Den:
Spectrum? Well, yeah, I mean, shit, it's funny, right? Cultural reputations, right? French and German don't necessarily have good reputations. They're a bit stuck up sometimes. But Scottish people, we've got the reputation for being the grumpiest shits in the world because it rains so much. Can you imagine Seattle's weather, but 360 days of the year where you don't know if it's going to rain or not. And I kind of look at Scotland and it's really funny because there are some of the nicest people and most Scottish people that I know or even spend time with, they are very, very sarcastically funny. So I love humor. For me, humor is really, it's a healing property. So I love humor and I think Scottish people are very humorous but very sarcastic with it.
Speaker 4:
French people,
Den:
It was interesting because I moved away in 2001, so I was 28 years old and I moved to the US and pretty much just me, my music gear and my clothes I think. And then came here and I would turn up to work in flip flops and shorts and t-shirt and I was like some engineer just doing my shit.
I had an ego bigger than it is now actually. So yes, I always think of it. I think I was always an optimist and I always wanted to go work somewhere sunny. Now what I didn't tell the guy that invited me to move to San Jose, Bob Kendall, what I didn't tell him, he said, where was it going to work? After that contract, we're having dinner in the Eiffel Tower actually, funnily enough. So we're having dinner, European IT conference, we're all having dinner in the Eiffel Tower, and he asked me what I plan to do next. And I was a contractor at the time and I just had to work somewhere sunny. I didn't have the balls to tell him that I was actually planning to go to IA and dj. And I already had some stuff lined up via some of my friends over there and I didn't do that, which is probably lucky.
I'd probably be dead by now or something. I'd probably have indulged too much in the drinking and abusive things that you can get there. So I was pretty lucky I think by moving to the us I never thought I'd get a chance. It's very rare for somebody in Europe to get a chance, especially a little kid from Scotland. So yeah, I was just excited to be here and in the valley where all of the IT and the tech is, and it was just, yeah, fun, a fun journey. I was never impressed with San Jose though. It was hard to go from a culture of clubbing and drinking and partying in Scotland because Edinburgh and Glasgow are really fun cities for that. And then come to San Jose where you really had to drive to San Francisco to go find good stuff. So for me, that was a bit of a culture shock, but the opportunity was just too good to resist. Yeah, but I've always been an optimist. I mean, so
Victoria:
Going back to why I was asking you this question, you were talking, so you were talking about positivity and in another of the research that was done, 80% of our thoughts are negative. You've probably, most people have heard this, but when someone gives you feedback, even if they've told you something good, you'll always remember the negative feedback more than the positive. It's almost, I think there needs to be a ratio of five positive to one negative for you to remember or I think it's seven to one.
So negative takes us down really much faster than the positive and it's harder to keep the positive up. And when you were talking also about culture and team, it just sent me back to, in my last job I was working, so I'm French American, I was working, my engineers were Israeli and my designer was Italian. So huge cross-cultural, different dynamics. And with my engineering team, we started doing, when we do the sprint retros every two weeks, it was what went well, what's going well, what didn't go well, and what do we need to stop or start doing? And at some point, if you look on the spectrum of where feedback is given, Israelis will give some of the most negative feedback. That's just the way they express themselves. It's nothing compared to Americans. So I consider myself maybe more American in the workplace. So that was, it was hard at the beginning to take because I felt like everything I was doing was just wrong and not well.
The little added bonus that I brought to the workplace was like, okay, if you're going to say something negative or that didn't go well in our sprint metro, you have to say something positive. I can't because I would see, after two weeks of hard work, I would see this paragraph of what went well and there was barely a bullet point. And then everything that went wrong or that didn't go as right was just so much bigger. But when I started having my team point out what went well, we actually started noticing certain actions that I was taking or my designer or that the team was taking and highlighting the positive actions. And it's been shown that when you appreciate someone's efforts versus their end result in a project or at work, their connection to their work, their sense of fulfillment at work is much higher. And so that was my way of being like, can we just in this ceremony bring a little bit more positivity so that we can all lift ourselves up as a team?
Den:
And so my team at Adobe and my peers, we used to always say, and we ran critical services. So if our services were down, you weren't logging in, you weren't able to do any work, you weren't able to build product. And I remember the conversation going along the lines of we'd done 99 things and one thing wrong
Speaker 4:
And
Den:
We got hung from the basketball court for the one thing we'd done wrong. And it is kind of like electricity for those services we were running that people just expect it to always be on. And the one time that something has a hiccup and you always get totally, we used to like, oh God, we're going to get reamed for this. And I look at it, if you can celebrate, and I know what you're saying about feedback, it's really interesting as well though, different cultures provide feedback in different ways and in California especially the sugarcoat, everything, they want it all to be nicey, nicey nice, and then a Scottish person turns up or someone from New York.
And the attitudes and the cultures that we have is more like we're just straight shooting, we're just, I'm not sugarcoating it, I'll just say it how it is, but the same level of passion that goes into that also goes into that. I'll back my team up, I'll take accountability for what my team does. And I know a lot of leaders that don't take accountability for the actions of their team, and it's like, but that's ours. It's on us, it's our team, it's on us. And when the team's successful, celebrate the successes, and I used to try and say it in my organizations, is every month we need to have one thing that we deliver to the business that the business recognizes and we celebrate. And if we can celebrate something every month, I think that's great because you see your roadmap and the milestones and if you organize 'em correct, and I had nine teams at Adobe and Cisco and when they were delivering stuff, you're guaranteed every month one of your teams was delivering something that the organization could celebrate. And we were always like that at least one thing. And it was cool when you are working. So I want to shift away from my bullshit when you're working in so limitless Rebel Ventures, first of all, I want to get into this, but first of all, where did you come up with a name? How did that name come about?
Victoria:
A breathwork session? To be very honest, it comes from a breathwork session, but I guess your next question is what does it mean? What does it represent?
Den:
Yeah,
Victoria:
So one quote that drives my business is a quote from Carl Young and it's, I am not what happened to me, sorry, I'm not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.
And it's about the idea that whatever happened in our past is our past. And it's not going to define, it doesn't have to define your future. I can right now decide if I decide and commit I can be someone else. So that's an explanation of the limitless part. We are infinite, limitless beings, and when we take action and we commit, we can completely change the way we act, the way we behave if it feels congruent and in alignment with what we want to be doing or our goals. The rebel part is from the age that from the moment we're born in this world, we're told a lot of things. We're told how to behave, how to act from society, from our families. And I've never, I would say I didn't have a rebellious face as a teenager. And I think this is me stepping into more my rebellious, a rebellious persona.
I still need to push on some things, but it's that we are given a tool so much what to do, and it's our choice to rebel against some of, and I'm going to say overturn the power dynamic of this is not who I want to be. This is not something I want to accept in my life, or sometimes any rebellion, it doesn't work out and it's okay because there's some things that were passed on from our culture, from our families, from the society we were brought up in that we want to keep because it's made us who we are today.
Den:
Yeah, so as you were saying that, I was thinking there's that whole rebellious nature. We are conditioned by society and those around us and especially our parents because depending on your parents and their upbringing, they were conditioned by their parents and their society too. When you decided to start this little adventure, what did your parents or your friends around you think of it?
Victoria:
So was I have to say, I didn't get a lot of resistance because it had been something on my mind for about four years from the moment I got my certification as a hypno breathwork coach. I always remember this moment. I came home super excited, super pumped, and my sister asked me, if money weren't an issue, would you do this full time? And I was like, hell yeah. And I remember at the time my dad had a bit of a really, can you make money being a coach? And I was like, actually, thank you for asking. During the certification, they showed us some numbers and it does that up.
And I think it's been a thing where over time, over those three years, I still had my tech job, but I started doing as, I was also training breathwork sessions with people around and the first people who come to you are your friends, your family. And so my parents were my first clients or some of my first clients, my siblings, my cousins, my aunts. So when I decided to go all in on this, at some point I think again, my dad asked me like, oh, are you going to look for a job? And I was like, why? No, I'm going to do this full time. And at that point it was when my mom said, yeah, of course I'm not surprised by this. I've been simmering this idea for so long that the people who I had coached who know the value or the change I created in their life where she's going to make this happen for everyone else.
Den:
Yeah, no, that's brilliant. It is. I think it's hard as a parent,
Victoria:
You have kids, right?
Den:
Your kids. Yeah. I have two kids, my daughter's 20, she's at college in LA and my son's 15. And it is hard when you're a parent and your kids are making decisions and you're trying to encourage them, you're also trying to understand at the same time, there's some decisions my kids make and I'm like, oh, oh. But then I remember back to decisions I made and the encouragement I got from my mom
And
The comments I got from my dad. Now, my dad was 10 years older than my mom, so the generational thing I think was kicking in and I left. I was a postman in Scotland, 16 years old, walking the streets,
Delivering
Mail. And because of music gear, my friend had a lot of music gear and I asked him how he could afford it. He was four years older than me, so he is only four years older than me. Actually, he had a little apartment in Edinburgh, he had all this music gear and maybe he was five years older, but he had all this gear and I'm like, how can you afford that? And he was like, oh, I do it. I work at Sun Microsystems. And he worked at Sun in l Lithgo, Scotland, and he had all this gear, and I'm like, how do I do that? And he is like, well go to college and get this qualification, then go get a job. So I left the post office and went to college and I paid myself through college. But I remember my dad's comments, which were not necessarily pleasant comments actually, because all he could see was, I've given up a job for life. Oh, you had the job for life, a postman. I'm like, fuck, really? You can't see beyond because of his age and how he grew up.
Victoria:
Exactly. He had his model of the world, this is, but it's the same thing as before. People used to have jobs in the same company for 25 years, and you did your whole career in one company and suddenly there are plenty of kids who after two years and a half are like, okay, I'm switching. And parents are like, but why? It's not that terrible or it's fine. And it's like, well, first of all, you can have a better salary or you can have better opportunities if once you change.
And
The whole system has changed. And I think what you were saying about being a parent that I want to encourage anyone who's listening, who is a parent, but just anyone in general is curiosity because we're all the main character in our own movie. And until you ask you your kid, can you explain to me how you got to the decision or how you decided, I don't know, to pick up this passion? We all think that what we're doing just can be understood by the other person or explained, but sometimes there's a gap between that. And I remember when I moved to Austin two years ago from New York, my whole family was just surprised. They're like, where did this come from? But then when I explained even to my 90-year-old grandmother, my process, she was like, okay, I get it. It doesn't sound as crazy.
Den:
And the thing for me, my lesson learned through the experience of my parents with me was I had one parent that was highly supportive and confident that I could do and make it work. And I had another one that wasn't really supportive because they couldn't understand because it wasn't their world. And maybe in the back of their mind they were like, oh, but he would've been a great postman. I don't know if he could do the next thing. And what's really interesting is when I think of my kids, I'm like, you can do whatever you put your mind to doing provided you've got the desire and the willingness to work at it if that you've got a desire. Now, it is funny, I know we're blasting through time here. I could probably go on for days. One of the things that Bill mentioned at the very, very, very, very start was part of that research of the mindfulness and things like your inner soul and all these things.
I got into Dr. Joe Dispenza's books earlier on last year, and a lot of that stuff excited me. The hypno breath work that you're doing, the reiki stuff, all of these things. For me, the thing that's exciting is not just that somebody, you'll come on and be willing and share the journey and stuff, but there's actually so much research now. And even as quantum physics starts to move forward, people are uncovering more and more about the human body, the mind, the soul. And they're actually, even with brain scans, the difference of a brain scan when you meditate versus when you don't or when you do mindfulness and breath work techniques, I think it's all becoming more common knowledge. I mean, what's your take on the evolution of where society is just recognizing this?
Victoria:
So I definitely agree with you that there's more common knowledge and the more you are interested in it, the more you go down the rabbit hole of the different practitioners. What I do see, and this is maybe systemic and goes back to tech and even cybersecurity is, and I see small businesses coming out and doing things differently, but in general, I see the cybersecurity companies that I work for, the way we do business is in this survival mode and particularly in cybersecurity, is we need to get ahead of our competitors. We need to get ahead of our attackers, we got to move. There's this urge to move fast all the time, which leads to a lot of people being burnt out or close to burning out. And because it's a system and the whole system is working, it is only particularly when leaders start to do things differently. And that starts to permeate across the entire system. And maybe you can be the leader of a team or the leader of the company. But in the last year and a half I've connected with CEOs of startups, why they're in cyber or not who, because they are into this kind of practice. They meditate when they're stressed,
They bring breathwork to their workplace, to their employees because they're setting the baseline for their team, this to work. I'm taking care of myself, but you also need to take care of myself and I will provide you the tools. Then the whole system starts to change. But what I'm seeing with my clients is that they are still heavily, how to say this, tied into a system that is driven to move really fast, to have people make a lot of quick decisions under a lot of pressure, maybe sometimes be not have enough resources or time to do the thing or, and even I would say there's a societal, and this is, there's a bit of a clash. There's the society's accelerating with AI and everything. It's like we got to move because if not, you will be left behind. And then you have other people who are like, wait, let's slow down. Let's reconnect back to the present moment. Let's reconnect back to now. And I think what's really hard is to get out of the rush and this need to get stuff done to achieve and to understand that in the power of slowing down, you were the other day on a walk in the middle of the day. I do that a lot too. The power of slowing down gives you so much more clarity, and that's where you can jump further faster.
Den:
And what's amazing about that, and I totally, totally agree, is in our industry, we're always in fight or flight mode.
It just feels like that's how the industry is. And even before I'd say cyber in it as well that do more with less and all these things. And I remember 15 years ago-ish having a conversation with a peer of mine about work-life balance. And I'll throw the term to the side, but the reality is if my team are expected to be working 16 hours a day every single day and then be on call at night and also get called out over the weekend, this isn't sustainable. And the other thing is, or if they're working a 50 or 60 hour week, you get 10 people and they're working 25 to 50% more. Really the expectation of the company is this extra level and you can't sustain that over a duration. And for me, the whole thing I've learned is I can deal with stress, I can deal with stressful situations.
I've been in situations where the company's under attack by nation states. I mean, I'm blessed, blessed, or maybe not by working in some of the top companies in the world that bad actors want to steal their shit. So when you're in that scenario and you deliver services to governments and top companies in the world too, they want to get into you from a supply chain attack perspective. So you're always under attack. And I just found that the way I handle stress is actually really important. And it's about, well, how do I disconnect in a way? Take 10 minutes to meditate, take half an hour to go do a walk, work with my team so that I can be calm under that extreme pressure. I think the biggest important thing, especially for a CSO is when you're under that level of pressure, you can be the one running around with your head on fire. You need to be the one that shows a level of calmness and perspective when the shit is falling around for everybody else. Otherwise you can't control the situation and you can't respond in a way that's going to be helpful. So for me
Victoria:
As a leader, you set the emotional baseline, your emotional state will create the baseline for the rest of your team. And it's like being a parent, you have to show to your kids. It's not about, sometimes you can, it's not say as a do, but yeah, as I do, do as I say, but not as I do, exactly. That doesn't work. If you're expecting your team to be calm, cool, and collected, you're the first person that needs to show that to your team. What does it mean to be clear, focused and calm, and what are the practices that they should have? And then, yeah,
Den:
What is interesting, if any of the people that have worked with me for the last 30 years are listening to the show, they'll be like, wait a minute. I worked for that clown in 2005 and he was not calm. He was the least calm in the room. And I think, but I do think there's a level of maturity over time. It's really the experiences of my personal life and professional life that have added to my toolkit that then got me here.
And by the way, I do think everything happens for a reason. And I look at it like all the knocks and the scratchies and the bad decisions I've made or the good decisions I've made, they brought me here. And now when I think of where here's at, kind of like you with your business, I look at it, I now have all the tools and the toolkit I need in order to serve our clients exceptionally well. And I don't feel like I've got everything perfect, but I certainly feel I can stroll into a client. And I had a conversation with a client earlier on today or prospect talking to him about his business and they've gone through some shit and I'm like, yeah, got that. I've seen that. I can do that. Now as we wait,
Victoria:
I wanted to ask you a quick question. Sorry, I know you want to wrap up. But what is something you as a CISO and a leader that you wish maybe you knew five, 10 years ago that a leader today listening to this could maybe learn from the time that it took you to learn
Den:
Emotional
Victoria:
Resilience?
Den:
An easy question for me because I was blessed to have brought a coach in to our team, our communications and executive coached into our team. Her name was actually Victoria as well. And she came into our team and she said to me years ago, I need to meditate over probably 15 years ago. She told me this. And because she knew how stressful my job was, and that would be a great technique for me to learn. I guess I didn't start meditating until probably about a year ago. I think I even probably text her and told her. But yeah, the younger me. But it's really funny because if you listen to any of the most successful people in the world, they talk about meditation and their physical health and fitness as a core part of their success
Victoria:
For sure.
Den:
I'm like, yeah, I should have done that.
Victoria:
And what's interesting is the feedback that I got in my last job from my manager was, how are you so calm? He was like, you get on a call and you're just always calm and grounded. And I'm like, well, if I'm running my head, if I'm a chicken without a head here in this meeting and I'm supposed to lead the meeting, I'm not inspiring my team towards any form of clarity or positivity. And I was also one of the things that I kind of said sometimes, which shocked some people, but I was like, as we're building cybersecurity products, I was like, it's just a product. Let's breathe. It's just software because, and to some of my engineers, they, they're like, oh, thank you. Someone has a bit of perspective here because yes, depending on who your clients are and the criticality of the team you're on, but I think sometimes we are almost like creating the monster before the monster shows up. And so we're always creating even more stress. And already in a society where emails, slack, anything buzzing, ringing is a microaggression to your brain. If you're also creating an extra monster, you're literally signaling to your body that constantly needs to fight or fight.
Den:
And I laugh because I don't know how many years ago it was, but I turned my cell phone onto silent
Many years ago. And that desire to not look at it, that fight that's always going on about not looking at your devices and not being plugged in for more, it is like, how can I unplug in this? So even when I go walk the trail and stuff, I try and walk the trail and usually it's the same bloody one. Actually, I have the same routine when I'll go walk the trail, it's about an hour and 20 minutes and I'll go have lunch and I'll try and do that several times a week. And what's interesting is sometimes I don't even put music on, but I do put my noise canceling headphones in and sometimes I don't put any headphones in and I just try and walk and listen to the birds in the trees and stuff. And I think for me, like you say, I've solved more problems while walking the trail.
Speaker 4:
And
Den:
A lot of people say this about running and stuff as well, or other physical activity because you're with your own thoughts. And I think sometimes that conscience the inner you starts to answer some of the burning questions. I got a burning question. So when clients bring you in, what does a typical engagement look like?
Victoria:
So typically right now I work one-on-one with clients that are mostly, I would say people who are burnt out or in some way have, I'm going to say, achieved everything they wanted. Everything looks good on paper, but inside they feel a bit empty and not in alignment. And so depending on, I would say what is the most, the thing that's creating the most friction in their life, as in maybe they're trying to do too many things all at once and they need to find time for themselves. We're going to build a custom six week journey because it only takes me six weeks to get someone to go from burnout or low energy. There's a high performer burnout of I'm doing everything all at once and can't stop, won't stop. And then there's the burnout of I have no energy and no motivation, and everything is starting to downward spiral. And in six weeks because the clients then start taking action every week after every session, you get an action step that I as a coach will help you be accountable for. Their reality starts to shift and then all their problems start to slowly, I'm going to say go away one by one.
And then all the things that we had set up in the beginning, like the goals start to fall into place towards this sixth session.
Den:
Yeah. So you mentioned earlier about A CEO that brought you in, and then the CEO O had you work with their team?
Victoria:
No, so I haven't, I only worked with him.
Den:
Yeah, I was just thinking, I was like, I wonder what the conversation goes like when you're the CEO, you bring you in and then you're going to say, Hey folks, I've got you this, I've got you this coach. I mean, do you often have clients that leverage your service and then kind of almost encourage their team to also leverage your service?
Victoria:
Yeah, that's the best way to go because as we were talking earlier in the podcast, the leader creates the emotional baseline for the team. And so if the leader's not even embodying what he's about to ask his team to do, why is the team going to be bought into it or why are they going to prioritize this? And also if I'm helping his team, and that's why I won't do it, it's like if I'm helping his team do better, but the leader hasn't changed their own behavior, then they're counteracting the effects that I'm trying to, the positive effects I'm having trying to have. So I always start with the leader. Leaders come first. They're also usually the ones that have the most responsibility. And then afterwards work with the team. And then when I work with a team, my goal is also to create more trust and safety amongst the team and more openness because in cybersecurity especially, we tend to be a little bit untrustworthy of who we're working with or more closed off, or we're so focused on what we need to do, we don't really talk about who we are. So it's like how can we get teams to reconnect as human beings before anything else so that when stuff hits the fan or things don't go sideways, everyone has each other's back because you're a team.
Den:
Yeah. No, that's brilliant. Are they all in person or virtual or hybrid?
Victoria:
I do both. So I do both. I love in person work just because I get to feel more people's energy and they get to feel my presence and it's more dynamic. But I've also done hypno breathwork sessions with 30 people online, and each person gets their own experience because the topic that I'll pick will resonate very differently with each individual. Yeah,
Den:
That's brilliant. Excellent. Well, I know it's funny when we were talking about how long shall we have a chit chat for, and I said 30 minutes or so. There we go. We hit the hour mark almost. So Victoria, we'll make sure that we put your contact details and your bio and stuff all be in the show notes. I really, hey, I've loved this conversation. This one for me is fun. We'd love to have you come back on at some time in the future. So yeah, we'd love that. And hey, thank you very much. So Victoria Grand jury.
Victoria:
Yes.
Den:
See, it only took me 56 minutes in my head the whole time. Is that what you've been doing the whole time? The whole time, yeah. I didn't even ask a question. I was just going through in my head the whole time. So no. Excellent. Victoria, it's been great to have you on the show. Thank you very much. I'm loving the work you're doing. We want to stay in touch and have you back on. It'd be great. And yeah, if you're ever in the Bay Area or if I'm ever in Austin, then yeah, we should catch up in person
Victoria:
For sure. And then also we should have you try breathwork session.
Den:
Yeah, I was just thinking, well, it was funny, I was sitting there thinking myself and one of my advisory CSOs, I'm like, I should be signing us up. So I think that would be awesome. Excellent. You can hold me to that one.
Victoria:
Okay, I will.
Den:
We'll speak soon. Thanks, Victoria. Take it easy. Bye.
Victoria:
Thank you.
Narrator:
Thanks for listening to 9 0 9 exec. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don't miss an episode of your source for wit and Wisdom in cybersecurity and beyond.
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