#Opentohelp

Hey everyone. A lot of you have been asking and wondering what I have been up to the last couple of months and thought I would give an update.

First of all, I wanted to offer a word of thanks to the industry. I started in 2009 and never dreamed it would have taken me where it has. The people I have met, lifelong friendships, places I have gone and life it has afford my family is something I fondly appreciate.

For the last few years something has really troubled me within the industry. I have engaged with multiple organizations that really struggle with cyber security and risk. They are operating out of space of fear of the unknown and either do nothing or spend wild amounts of money with now real plan. It bothered me that they were moving so fast and making monumental mistakes along the way. During these years, I have had some thoughts on how to fix this but frankly was too scared to try and fix it. Let's face it, I was moving up in my career and making more money than I ever had. One morning about six months ago I was sitting in my office and a pressing thought came to mind, "Would the pain of not trying this and looking back years later with regret be harder than trying this and it not 'panning out'?". It was there that I made the decision to try and see what happens.

So, the second week of April, I decided to launch Tempus (Tempus means time in Latin) Network. I can honestly say it has been the scariest and happiest time of my life. I oculate each day from "Why did I do this?" to "This is the greatest thing  I have ever done.", with every day ending with the second statement.

So now the question is "So what do you do?". Honestly, I had a million thoughts and ideas about that, and it has taken me these last two months to laser in on that. When I did this, it became very simple, I am here to help if needed. I have shared before that I grew up with a dad not in tech but in the business of helping those less fortunate and sharing God's love with them on a consistent basis. Having that run through my DNA, it became apparent that even as I grew my corporate career, I could not shake that. So, I want this project to have the same focus. I want to be able to help organizations make sense of their business first and then assess how cyber and risk apply to it. I want to use the gifts and talents I have been given along with the power of a strong network to help organizations grow and mature their cyber and risk posture. I want to be able to use my time in helping others gain entrance into the industry by mentoring and connecting them to others. Being that we live in a real society, I will also provide bullets here:

·       Assist organizations who have questions about cybersecurity and risk, that maybe don't have a project but need someone to bounce things off, of.

·       Assist organizations who may have a project that don't have time to research or make sure the tool or solution is right for their business.

·       Use the power of my network: Technology vendors, solutions providers, cyber insurance carriers, incident response, forensic teams, cyber lawyers and so forth to help carry out these initiatives.

·       Help people who are trying to break into the industry with mentorship and connections.

·       Be considered a trusted resource to the point where if something comes up, I am the first call (that is the audacious one)

People have been abundantly gracious in asking for ways they can help. This has been the hardest part of my journey because I hate asking for help. It’s an ego or pride thing that I have had to put to the side. So here are the three ways:

-       Honest feedback: I would love to get feedback from the collective on this business model. What works, what doesn’t, you’re crazy etc. anything would be appreciated.

-       Help where needed: If you feel that these services or know someone that could benefit from them are out there, please give me a call.

-       Recommendations: In working with some of the greatest marketing minds, I know I am not a marketing genius. All of this is really grassroots efforts and word of mouth. So if you feel compelled to, please write something on my LI page.

I am not a VAR, vendor or systems integrator. I am not plugging in firewalls or loading EDR on your end points (you don't want that). All I am really doing here is leveraging the thousands of connections I have to help organizations, with zero slant or "line card". The beauty of this is I don't have to sell anything. I might not be your best option to help, or you might have relationships established that you feel fill this void and that is ok (actually it is great). With that said, I am here to help those that face confusion and don't have the time (Tempus) to do it on their own.

So that’s it. That is where I am at. Not spiking any footballs here and saying this it forever. Aware, at some point I might need to get a job back in corporate, as I can't predict the future. However as of today 6/30/23, this is my current state, and I couldn't be more happy/scared.