Theresa Payton is a nationally recognized expert on cybersecurity and she made history as the first female to serve as the White House Chief Information Officer, serving under President George W. Bush's administration. Theresa was named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential People in Security” by Security Magazine and is the author of Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth.  She is a frequent guest on major media outlets to provide her perspective on cybersecurity and privacy issues.

In this episode we talk about her career path to holding her position at the White House, what a normal day there was like (hint: they were long!), examples of disinformation campaigns, and her work at her cybersecurity consulting firm using human-centered design solutions.

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MACHINE-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript likely contains errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.

Welcome to episode number 13 of the Built Unstoppable podcast. I'm your host Justin Levy, and today I'm joined by Theresa Payton. Theresa was the first female CIO for the White House during the President George W. Bush administration and is currently the CEO and founder of Fortalice Solutions, which is a boutique cybersecurity intelligence services company. They're currently listed in the global cybersecurity top 500 and the hottest 150 global companies in cybersecurity by cybercrime magazine. She's also a frequent guest on national and international news outlets. Thanks for joining, Theresa. 

Oh, Justin, I'm so excited to join you today. Thanks for having me. 

Well, thank you. Now, I think the first question that anyone would be interested in is during your role at the White House, what did your day to day duties entail?

Well, you know, it is really every day was kind of its own unique day, and can't encapsulate it in days and weeks and months, but and years. But, you know, sort of a typical day, I got to the point where I decided I always wanted to have a very planful and prayerful start to my day. 

So I'd get up around 3:15 in the morning, and I would grab my gym bag and my clothes for the day, and my computer and my Blackberry. And I would leave my flat and drive into the White House gym, which is actually embedded Secret Service. So it's 24 hours and would get my workout in which and then basically be showered, dressed back at my office by about 615, which is typically when President George W. Bush would be doing his first briefing of the day, I would talk to my husband and kids who were in Charlotte, North Carolina, before they went off to work in school, say my prayers. Then right around the time that I would finish sort of the saying of the prayers, and saying hello to my family before the day started. 

That's when the basically the first couple of meetings would have ended and some of the taskers for the day would come out. So I learned that it was really good to sort of get a jumpstart on the day and and have myself personally grounded, you know, sort of mentally, physically, spiritually, so that I could, you know, be the best that I could be. 

The days were long, on some days, you know, on, if nothing pressing or urgent was going on, I would typically work until about nine o'clock at night, that oftentimes it would be, you know, 10 o'clock, maybe a little bit later before I would actually head back, you know, kind of sleep, have a really good deep sleep for a short period of time, and then sort of start the next day again, but really an incredible honor. 

You work with so many dedicated and smart people, the days go by incredibly fast, and there's always so much to do, you know, you kind of have to create those boundaries of like, Okay, this is good enough for today. I'll be back at it tomorrow. 

I always read and anything I ever saw on TV always said that President Bush is an early bird and his meetings start on time. And early. 

Yes, actually, it's funny you say that because of some meetings that I would have, which revolved around making sure he was getting what he needed. So my meeting might not have been with him specifically. But I was briefing somebody who had to brief him or it was going to be part of a larger meeting. 

Some meetings were actually only 15 minutes long. And they started on the minute and they ended on the minute they were supposed to start and ends on and so yes, it was run very much, almost like a business operation. 

So you knew, if something was not on schedule, you knew something was going wrong, or something challenging or some type of an incident must have come up because there was there was a battle rhythm To the day that that actually was built in such way it handled incidents. So you knew something had to really, really be going wrong. If you are off schedule. 

Now, what you're saying about, you know, starting your day early and to get your workout in and things of that nature. That was something that has been talked about by a lot of people, you know, especially within politics, you know, President Obama has has talked about how early he needs to

Start his day with his workout and kind of get that underway. And with my work in, you know, large fortune 500 companies, that's how I start my day as well. 

Things are a little different now, obviously, but with the pandemic, because I'm not going to a physical gym and not leaving my house. But when I would have to drive the hour, an hour and 15 minutes to my office, I woke up that 330 or so every day, fed my cats and took my dog for her walk, and picked up my gym stuff and was at the gym by 415. And it set the mood for the day. And I would find that if something came up in my life, you know, bad night of sleep, and I couldn't go to the gym The next morning, the entire day was off. Things just didn't feel right. 

Yeah, no, it's it's a great point. And I think that's, you know, when people say, you know, how, how do you, you know, handle things. 

So, for example, even things like covid, 19, you can't dig deep within yourself, if you didn't invest in your health and well being and just in you all people, you know, based on your life story and what you've been through, you absolutely know what I'm talking about here. And so, you know, to me that the reason it's interesting, when I first started working, 

I used to work out in the evening after work. Now I was married, I didn't have kids, yet I didn't have the level of responsibility in the workplace. Right, I was, you know, just kind of making my way up the ladder, so to speak. And but what I learned over time was because that was a great stress reliever at the end of the day for me. And I would think, how did why do people work out so early in the morning, and then as I started having more responsibility, both personally and professionally, I realized, you know, your day can get off to, you know, a challenging start and get in the way of what's really important, which is making sure that holistically, you know, that you're well grounded, and well balanced in what you eat and your exercise and sort of kind of your mental well being. 

So I flipped it around was like look, I'm just gonna have to get up because I used to get up super early and go straight to work. And then finish the day and go work out and then I learned you know, I'm better off getting still getting up super early, but getting the workout in early. And you know, if there's time at the end of the day for a you know, a little longer have a walk with the dogs or to enjoy things outside great. 

But you know, don't let anything get in the way of wellness. Because you know what I've learned just because i've you know, I've got three kids, I've got to rescue Great Pyrenees, I've got a husband, a company, I've got friends family. And I, you know, I have to make sure that I am incredibly disciplined to nourish and feed myself, so that I can take care of others. 

It's like flying on an airplane. What's the first thing they say to you, during the safety demonstration about the oxygen masks, they say, put your oxygen mask on first, and then help others. So if you're too busy helping everybody else and your mask isn't on first and you pass out, you're of no use to anyone around you, including yourself. 

It's interesting what you say about kind of the morning versus the night when we first moved out to California where we live now. You know, I'm from New England. And so when we first moved out here, I just started to go to the gym at four o'clock in the morning. 

At that point, I only lived about 1520 minutes from the gym. And it was it was actually not a change on my body clock for almost 7am where I used to live. And then when we moved to where we are now that travel time increased. I was working from home app previously and then I had to be in my office. As you know, I got promoted and moved up in my career. And at at that point, I had to flip that and it was you know, okay, we're leaving the house at, you know, 545 6am or so. 

So I stuck my workout at the end of the day. And I found that I was much more likely to skip it because we weren't getting home from our office until seven eight o'clock at night. And to then drop my wife off, turn around, go work out, come back, try to kind of slam a dinner down, watch a couple minutes a TV and go do it all over again. really wasn't healthy because all beyond nothing

Get in a great workout. And now your diets thrown off in your family life wasn't consistent. So I had to flip the dial. And when the second I did that, everything else was put in put back into place. 

Now, you know, you have a career in finance. And you've been at a, you know, senior level roles at a couple of large institutions. So, what drove you from your career in finance into a career in cybersecurity and intelligence?

So I always say, I'm very blessed that my career chose me.

When I first came out of graduate school at University of Virginia, I went to undergraduate at Immaculata University. But when I first came out of graduate school at University of Virginia, if you would ask me then, okay, Theresa, what's the career path? And what are the goals, I would have said, we're going to change the world through expert systems and artificial intelligence. And then I'm going to go to law school, and I'm going to run for US Senate. Like that was kind of the path. 

I haven't gotten to law school, and I haven't run for the US Senate. And I'm not currently doing AI, expert system development. 

But what's interesting is, is I had the opportunity to work in the financial services industry. Again, that was sort of a job that chose me, my husband, was stationed at mayport, Florida, in the US Navy. And I finished up graduate school and started interviewing for jobs. And this wonderful company Barnet bank, now part of Bank of America was very innovative and creative and took a chance on me. 

I had the opportunity to deliver these emerging innovative technologies for our customers, while at the same time being responsible for managing fraud, risk and security. We didn't even call it cyber security yet. And, and so having to think about the human using the technology, and having to think about the criminals trying to get in between the bank and the human trying to use the technology. 

It's really interesting, but it just started to really shape my view of sort of my role that I could play, and then having that opportunity to be the chief information officer at the White House and having responsibility for the transformation and innovation efforts. But also for security, I realized that we had a disconnect, I realized that cybersecurity and cybercrime was going to you know, kind of be unfortunately, an ever present danger for nations, businesses and individuals. 

Because we weren't designing technology and processes and security around the human mean, think about it, Justin, you probably at least once today had to type in a strong password that had upper and lowercase letters and special characters and numbers. And it was probably, possibly, really hard to remember. Does that feel like they designed that element of security around you? Probably not. I don't know about you, Justin. But someone, you know, has never come and run me down and said, Did you have anything to do with strong passwords, because I just want to thank you. Because the stronger and the longer the better. Right? And so that's an example where we don't design with the human in mind. And so I, I really feel like this career in this profession chose me, and it's really an incredible honor to be able to protect individuals and businesses and nations from cyber criminals. 

Sure, and and it really is, it's important, and it's something that a lot of people only see some of the true frontline things like you said, password or multi factor authentication, or things of that nature. But they a lot of times don't consider or think about the true underlying things that are happening in our nation or globally. And I think that that's what, you know, your current book touched on and it's called manipulated inside the cyber war to hijack elections and distort the truth. I personally think it's something that everyone should read. I found it really compelling. 

One area that I I found particularly interesting was how frequently frequently attacks and hacks are used to generate fake controversies. Because I think what we hear so much on TV about is, say, a hack, right? Media will pick it up as this hack or this fake news or whatever the kind of piece that they're running with. But could you provide an example of and you do this several times throughout the book, but could you provide an example of where it actually wasn't directed? Just one side app, the other, but actually there was this true fake controversy that pitted a against be?

Sure, gosh, so there's, um, well, let me give one example, based on, you know, kind of what she said, which was, you know, kind of the making making up a controversy. And this goes back to actually French elections. 

So when people, you know, just in to take away, you know, people get very focused on, you know, did Russia meddle in the US elections in 2016? And are they still meddling? And the answer is, of course they are, and they don't just meddle in US elections. And for them, it's not just picking about winners and losers. It's actually about destabilizing democracy at its most fundamental elements, which are, you think about America, and you think about, you know, there's a lot of things we haven't done correctly over the years. 

But the beautiful thing about America is, we can actually speak out against government, and political officials and elect them out and elect new ones in. And we can have an open debate and dialogue and still shake hands. And after COVID, go have a beer together if we want to, or a cup of tea together if we want to. And that's what's amazing about democracy and not every country has the blessing of democracy where they can speak freely, and where they can vote people in and out, you know, based on your kind of the leadership that you feel you need at the time.

If you look at the French elections, and if you look at the months and weeks leading up to McCrone, in that particular election, he was running up against marine lepen. And there was a hacking of his campaign. And in the weeks before, people were going to go vote, the information that had been stolen from his campaign started to leak on the internet. And one of the common tactics that Russians will use is when they do it's called a dump and Doc's campaign, so you, you know, you hack in, you steal stuff, and then you dump it. 

So it's called a dump the docs campaign, but a tactic that Russia will use is they'll they'll actually leak real things, and then they'll make up forgeries, and leak forgeries in what the truth, so you don't know what's true and what's false, and you just assume it's all true. And that's a typical Russian espionage spy tactic. And so they start dumping this stuff on the internet, including deep fake forgeries showing financial statements of offshore accounts with lots of money in them owned by McCrone. Now the French actually have a media blackout law. And so in the weeks, that when the Russians were trying to do this and dump in the US on the internet, the French media following their law would not cover it.

And what's fascinating is after the election was over, these deep fake forgeries were finally examined. Everybody said it was a fraud and a fake McCrone had done nothing wrong. But could you imagine Justin, what if they hadn't had a media blackout on that topic, and people voted against McCrone for Marie Lappin. And then later you find out what made people vote was it actually accurate? All My goodness. And so that's an example where they created a controversy. 

I'll tell you, Justin, so all of that was disproven, right that it was made up and it wasn't true. And I had Americans say to me, Well, I don't know how I feel about McCrone. You can't really trust him. And I'll say why. And they're like, you know, we never got to the bottom of those offshore accounts because guess what, that did run here and America. And I'll say yes, we did it. Those were all forgeries.

The Russians made that up. That's not true. They're like, well, you don't know that it's not true, because nobody proved that it wasn't true. So this is what we're dealing with Justin, and the Russians aren't the only ones who do it. I think that's a great example. 

When I was reading your book, another thing that caught my eye, and I guess it just wasn't something I had truly sat back and thought about was that a lot of times, it's not a single hack, right? In the term that you would think of it as, now I've experienced DDoS attacks, where that's literally the only thing that happens, you know, I've run global social media and, you know, been a victim of DDoS attacks on our systems that I was part of and, and whatnot. But you talk about that. 

A lot of times by these nation states or by other individuals. It's not a hack. It's actually a multifaceted series of attacks, using different technologies or things that they can you know, that's a tools in their tool chest that they can deploy focus attention, and, you know, this way while they get in or do what they got to do through another way, can you delve a bit deeper into that and kind of explain that?

So do you remember which case you're talking about? Justin? 

I think that there was one, it was mid way ish through the book where you're talking about, and I think it was one of the stories that you, you know, you had mentioned, and you're talking about when the Russians were setting up one of their attacks in for America, and I think it was everything to do with the 2016 elections, but that it was it was going to be the democratic emails was going they're gonna go after that, and then they're gonna dump documents. Yeah, you're and then they're gonna go. 

So it was, it was multifaceted. It wasn't just a DDoS attack to take down the server. It was they were gonna make several intrusions through different ways. 

Yeah, so that's the other thing that's interesting about Russia is, so they they will operate in independent cells. And, you know, for the record, Putin denies, I mean, categorically denies that anybody's hacking and trying to influence through political espionage, American elections or any other ones. 

So you know, you can decide how you feel about that. But one of the things that does create plausible deniability for him is he has these different cells have cyber operatives, and they just kind of have an overarching mission. And then they work so independently of, you know, kind of the upper echelons of the Russian regime. They work so independently, that they don't even know what the other cyber operative cell is doing. 

So in many cases, they're actually tripping over each other going after the same stuff just a little bit of a different way. But you're right, Justin, they what's interesting is, they targeted voter registration databases across different states, they targeted the websites of the board of elections in other states. They targeted social media platforms, creating fake personas posing as like, you know, your fellow American, creating fake grassroots organizations, and even fake news organizations, promoting all different types of old news, wrapping it up as if it were new and misinformation. And they did go after both campaigns. 

So there's, the FBI has documented that there were intrusions and attempted intrusions that both campaigns what the FBI has shared in an unclassified manner was that the RNC websites and some other accounts they went after, appear to have been not in use at the time that the Russians, you know, got access to them. 

So in other words, you know, it's kind of like a shell of something that's that they decided wasn't super useful. If they did get rnc information from operatives, they didn't share it publicly.

They did, the information that they got from DNC political operatives and the political campaign of Hillary Clinton. So it's just it's, it's fascinating. It's, it's as if they have, you know, sort of here's our political espionage cyber spy playbook. And they basically like, went chapter by chapter by chapter from beginning to end and did just about every tactic you can imagine, including spinning up cloud instances, mining cryptocurrency, on victims, computers and using the cryptocurrency to pay for a lot of the things they were doing to cover their tracks. 

I mean, it's, it's really fascinating. And if anyone has not read the unclassified version of the Muller report, it reads almost like the inner workings of a spy novel. 

I think something else. I mean, you had mentioned when you're talking about how this career found you, and you're talking about individuals, businesses, in nation states, there are aspects of this, I would assume, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but that are with the businesses that you work with. Right? That I mean, I've, when I was at some of my companies, formerly, they, you know, the seaso, and in their organizations were large, and very stringent systems and that they had in place and they read, they ran tests and war, gamed it. And the individuals that were on this team, were not just some, some people that applied to that company, these were recruited individuals from, say, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, individuals and former FBI and those level of folks, because they had expertise in these areas. 

So when you work with the companies, and even like you sit down to the individuals that you work with, how do you take that level of expertise that's at, you know, that you look through the lens with the nation states, like Russia, or anyone else that's, you know, Ben shared out there and apply to the business, because I have to assume some of those technologies and applies to these companies, especially these fortune five hundreds and, you know, even definitely down to fortune 10s.

No, I love kind of your perspective there. And, and I agree, and the the way we kind of translate that is, you know, again, sort of this human centered design. So the, the tactics that, you know, Russia, North Korea, China, in some cases, and Iran may use against political campaigns are very similar to what can be used against individuals and against organizations. 

So for example, the tactic of doing digital surveillance of a political campaign, you could do very similarly, against a, you know, an American company. We know. So I'm not picking on anybody in particular country wise. But we know because it was reported to us that American companies who are in the race for a vaccine for COVID-19 have reported and the FBI has reported cyber intrusions that have been conducted against these vaccine companies, by both Russia and China operatives. 

Now, again, for the record, both countries deny the hacking, but I'll kind of go with what the FBI says, if they started tributing. I'm going to go with what they say. And in these cases, they said that cyber operatives from Russia and China were attempted hackings and successful hackings of vaccine companies and companies in the vaccine supply chain. 

Well, the tactics they use to target the companies is not much different than the tactics they use against a political campaign. You go after the you know, if it's a voter registration database, or a vaccine supply chain database, you go after a State Board of Elections website. 

They went after the vaccines and their third party suppliers websites, distributed denial of service attacks, trying to use somebodies user ID and password to get access to information. All of those tactics are tactics that you can deploy across the spectrum. So you can go after a political campaign, an individual, a US government, or a national government, or a company with those same tactics and techniques. 

Yeah, and top thing that I've also been a part of, and I know it's one of the kind of solutions or products that you sell, quote, unquote, you know, you'll work with your clients on is, is insider intrusions, going through those exercises. And when I've been at, excuse me, at former companies of mine, they ran these tests, and we're all anyone that's been online for any amount of time has received, when we had AOL, for example, we received those types of emails to please send money $20 million to, for my 10 wives, but think we mature it a little bit since then. 

So when I've been at my companies, what they would do is send an internal email that looked perfectly real. And it was from someone within the company, someone, some team, something like that. But it was actually coming from the security team, and they would run these internal tests to see what percentage of the company fell for the attempt. And then they would obviously, it was part of a campaign for them to help explain what could have happened, if this was a true intrusion. And it was always interesting, you know, the, you know, I always thought between 80 and 95%, people successfully reported the fish. But it was an example of something serious that could have happened, if that did come from an external source.

No, and Justin, that is a really good best practice, you know, kind of that, it's it, I like it, because it's a little bit of a show and tell it's a, okay, it's I've, it's like, tell, and then show and tell. So it's I told you, be careful. cybercriminals can be really clever, and catch you on a busy day, and convince you to do something that could put the company at risk. And everybody says, Well, I know this training is for everybody else around me, and not me, because it wouldn't be me, right? 

Everybody would like to thank including me, who used to work the White House, everybody would like to think we're not the one who's gonna let the bad guys in. And so that testing is so important, because you tell the new show. And then you tell again, and and if it's done in such a way, where again, we're focused on the human and saying to the human, hey, look, I get it. The job I gave you, I expect you to open up email, you have to click on links and open attachments. And then I'll give you training that says, Don't open links, don't, you know, open attachments and click on links. And you say, I'm sorry, how am I supposed to do my job and remember these security tips. 

So you can go back to kind of the beginning, Justin, where we're talking about human centered design, see if you can have that right training rich really understands how tough everyone's job is, and they're not going to be a security expert. That's not what you hired them to be, you hired them to be the expert at what they're expert at, and then find a way to sort of just gently remind them, and then put that safety net around them either through firewalls, or processes. Hey, you know, think about this. If you created a system where when they clicked on the link or open an attachment, it did a quick scan, or it opened up on a virtual machine instead of their own desktop. 

There's different things that you can do that create that safety net around them and doesn't hold them accountable for being both the expert at what they do and some type of digital bouncer trying to be the last line of defense for your company. 

So I love the fact that you brought up that best practice because that is really an incredible and really helpful practice to do from what I've seen, and I experience it when I email with people, you know, inside other companies, is even something as simple as a you know, a lot of companies are deploying that kind of external tag at the top, so that when that recipient gets that email that's from outside the company, it's being called out to the individual within the company. Hey, listen, this is external, just FYI. So even something like you said around this kind of Human Centered Design, that's something very simple. It's not hard for now.

When I looked at my email, or the preview, I see that it's external. And that sends a little flag to me. Essentially, if I don't know who's emailing me, especially if it's coming from Tracy Payton, you never know, what might be a red email.

Now, throughout your career, you've held, obviously senior leadership positions as you're coming up through finance. And then of course, when you're at the White House, based on your experiences, what advice would you give to someone that's listening to this episode that they could implement in their career, say, immediately after listening?

So a couple of things, I think, you know, the first one is, is to really understand what motivates you and align your personal and your work goals to that motivation. Because if you, if you say, well, money motivates me.

Last time I checked, nobody takes their paycheck to their forehead and looks at it, and when they look in the mirror every day, and so maybe maybe it does to a certain elemental level, but that's actually not going to be what like nourishes your heart and your soul and your mind. And to really understand sort of the facets of what motivates you, I often say, have a personal 36 month plan, and schedule time with yourself or somebody you trust on the calendar once a month, to hold yourself accountable, just like you would hold yourself accountable to a project at work that's got a deadline, give yourself deadlines, give yourself goals. 

Don't beat yourself up if you don't hit those and then have some spaces where, you know, you can be fearless. And you know, just know that that safety nets. I mean, think about all of the training, you know, I I always marvel at like, trap, he's acts or even like what Allison Levine who's been on your podcast, you know, has been able to accomplish and, you know, before she climbs the mountain, she has a plan. She's trained, she's thought about it, but she knows when she gets to the mountain, you know, the mountain is not a static thing. 

You know, it's always ever changing and dynamic. So the plan is a guideline. But the plan can also kill you if you can't learn to be flexible within the plan. And so I always say, kind of have that 36 month plan. But once a month, sit down and talk about what did I accomplish? What did I not accomplish? And why And why is that? Okay? And then what do I want to accomplish in the next 30 days, but know where you're going? 

You know what your kind of, you know, that path needs to be, you know, the other thing is, you know, as far as kind of like being courageous and fearless, you know, really kind of understand how you need to hold yourself accountable, but also know what your your limits are. Not because you're fearful, not because you're not willing to take risks, but because you have to take time to nourish, and re energize and recharge. And, you know, really evaluate things. 

So also understand kind of what you're renewing and refueling and re energizing planners. I know, Kerry Lawrence, who's been on here as well, also another woman, I'm friends with an admirer, you know, she would tell you she had to refuel. Right? You can't just you can't run a jet on jet fumes, you know, beyond a certain capacity. And so understand, you know, where are those moments that you need to understand you have fatigue or before hitting that fatigue, how to renew and recharge. 

So those would be my, my biggest piece of advice and just learn how to, you know, work hard, but also sort of marvel at what you're accomplishing. And enjoy it. Take the time to enjoy it and find those moments to celebrate even a milestone as something of success.

Those are really important tips. I think, you know, those are things that we've tried to implement in our life. You know, whether they are, we have certain things that we do for accomplishments with age accomplishments, or career or personal accomplishments, you know, we have something that we do for celebration, and it's always hold true. 

We don't, you know, waver from that my wife and I carve out time every year. And it's, it doesn't move with the exception of this year, because it doesn't help when the borders are closed and you can't fly. But we have a set vacation. And it's hard, it's set in stone every year for the two of us get away, and no phones, email, you know, any of that sort of stuff.

And we have a few other things like that. And it we check in on it. But we keep that in mind. And I think the danger, like you said is, especially where we live right now in Silicon Valley, is people come out here work hundred hour weeks, burn out. And can you know, they look back and have nothing really don't show for it. 

They might have you know, lost their family, if they if they were married, they may have a fancy house and a fancy car, but be overleveraged. You know, whatever the case is, it was the things and not the relationships or the memories, you know, my father in law is is real big on that. And, you know, He always talks about how everything that he does for us, him and my mother in law does do for us and for the entire family is to build memories. 

That's what he cares about. He always has cared about, but that's what he cares about in his life now, and he wants us to be able to have are the memories of places that we get to travel to war, holidays together or favorite traditions. And because that won't change, no matter what you make from money. Money's great. And advancements in your career are great, and they should happen. And having that motivation to take the next step in your career. And all the great things that come with it should happen. 

But I totally agree on the on the personal side, it has to be 360 degrees, they can't just be focused in one area. And for a lot of people that typically is working more and burning yourself out. So the second the last question, and it's the one I asked everyone is what does being built unstoppable mean to you?

No, I, you have to be relentless, and vigilant and determined, and and that's where really aligning what you believe your life's calling and your life's purpose is really making sure you're aligned to that and what you do for work. And what you do outside of work is so vitally important, because that's what makes you unstoppable. And, and just like, you know, any individual athlete or team athlete will tell you, it's also the team around you. 

So it has to be who you work with. And then who supports you in your personal life, whether it's your immediate family, your friends, relatives, you can't be unstoppable. If you don't have a great pit crew around you making sure that you can get back out there. 

That was really important to me, when I was recovering from my injuries was I was extremely fortunate to have had my mother in law fly out immediately. I didn't even realize she had but she got the first ticket out of Connecticut. One my wife called her at two o'clock in the morning, East Coast time. And she took a one way flight. And you know, didn't know when she would fly back. And then immediately that next morning, as a couple friends of mine heard what was going on. They set up GoFundMe accounts and thousands of people that, you know, I didn't even realize my network was that big, or any known they told other people and, you know, I was fortunate to have a lot of people around me both immediate, you know, kind of one degree separated, or multiple degrees separated and my family disagrees with me, but I tell them that all I did was the physical recovery. 

You know, I didn't do anything else. Besides that. I went to physical therapy night, worked on getting my strength back. They did everything else. I mean for nine or 10 weeks, my wife and my mother and I had to feed me getting water, anything that I needed. So that was a, you know, much larger stress on them. And so I think it goes right to what you're saying, right? You have to have those people around you that you trust and to go through anything, not even something as serious as a as a big injury.

And finally, where can people find you on the web?

Sure. Now, I'm glad to ask Justin. So there's depends on I, again, Human Centered Design, I try to be where people are. So as far as like the company accounts, you we affordable solutions calm. And we have company accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I personally if people want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at tracker Peyton is my Twitter handle. I'm also personally on LinkedIn, Snapchat, you can find me on Facebook as well. And Yep, those are the those are the main places that that you can find me as a person. I will let people know I don't tweet or kind of Muse about politics, more of a policy person than a political person. 

But if you do follow me personally, you will not only get privacy and security tips, but you will also get pictures of my tea Great Pyrenees King Seamus and Princess Leia, maybe an occasional sighting of my kids. And some of our my youngest, I refer to her as little chef and Lady maid. And we actually make goodies for friends and family to cheer them up during this time of COVID cmac the occasional cake or pie on my social media posts if you think you just getting security and privacy I'm following me personally, you're going to get more than you bargained for. 

But the company accounts stick to privacy and security topics. That's fantastic. And I obviously I hope people go and follow follow you and connect with you. You do share a lot and it's great topics that you share but the mixture of personal and professional is amazing. It's something that I always endorse and encourage right it again Human Centered Design it it you should be blendon work in home because you're not two different people. You are one in that's family, like you said baked goods right now.

Dogs which I share a lot of you know photos of my animals and but then professional so it's it's good to share that way. Well. Thank you so much for joining. I know you have a extremely busy day. And hopefully you know people learn a lot from this episode.

Well, thanks for having me on Justin and keep up the great work that you're doing. And it's been just a pleasure to be with you. You're an awesome host. Thank you.