Ep. 23: Chris Schueler, CEO Cyderes, Robert Herjavec's (Shark Tank) Successor

In this episode Chris talks about his time as an Army Ranger, his experience getting his black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, his significant pivotal point that forever changed him, and his incredible story of being first to create a cybersecurity blueprint at the Pentagon before the word "cybersecurity" even existed! It becomes simple to see why Robert Herjavec (one of the sharks on Shark Tank, hit TV show for entrepreneurs) chose Chris to be his successor as CEO of Cyderes.

2 of my favorite stories he tells:

1) Chris traveled to Brazil to fight 15 black belts non-stop for 3 hours. The story is funny and painful!

2) The 5am knock on his door from a couple Navy Seals shortly after getting home from a night of partying! The story is hysterical and you won't believe how it ended up!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I talk a lot about discipline really because it's a whole ecosystem that you have to live and breathe it,

SPEAKER_01 0:29

and

SPEAKER_00 0:29

you have to hold yourself accountable to it. Because a lot of times, you could be negative yesterday, but if you just get 1% that day, you can control that. So if you're disciplined and just saying, I'm going to be a little bit better to be like my kids, or I need to be better to my wife, or at work, like, you know, yesterday wasn't a great day, but today will be the day that I turn it around and I make it different. So to me, it's like the discipline is really what gets you through. You're

SPEAKER_01 0:54

listening to The Jeff Holpeck Show. Conversations with interesting humans. all right folks welcome back to another episode here of the jeff hope heck show and today i've got with me chris schuler chris is just uh he's gonna tee up and deliver an incredible message today there's so much hope in this story um and i wanna i do wanna start off chris by saying thanks first off i really appreciate this the audience is gonna just get so much value out of this show and uh i want to start off by saying um how i know chris so Chris and I met in around 2010. My wife, who's a fourth degree black belt, had the great privilege of instructing two or all of you. All of my daughters. All of your daughters in Taito karate. And then from there, sort of the rest was history. We became friends. I had brought a bunch of people to your office that some of you hired, some of you used as contractors, and we just built a really good relationship. So again, I do want to say thanks, Chris. And I think what the audience is really going to get out of today, they're going to get incredible stories. They're going to get awesome, awesome hope and encouragement. But I want to say these three things. They're going to really extrapolate discipline, attitude, and humility in that order. And I like to say it like this. If you're floating down the river in a kayak and you're going back and forth and you've got discipline on one side and you're You've got attitude on the other side, but you want to get the kayak to level out. Some people go like, just turn this one up or just turn this one up. But here's what's interesting about you out of all these accomplishments and you are decorated. You take that brick to lay in the back of the boat, the back of the kayak to level it out. That brick for you is humility. And that's, That's why you're here, okay? That's why you're here. So your accomplishments, you started off with a decorated career in the Army, and then you worked as a civilian in the Pentagon, which we're going to get into some of those stories. And you were doing cyber before cyber was cyber. Like, we weren't even talking about that, right? And then, you know, your father, and such a proud father, you wear that hat. I mean... Every day. Which is just so cool. Makes me emotional. But you are so into that role. But what's just off the charts is a text that you got not long ago that said, from Robert Herjavec on Shark Tank, Chris, you're my guy.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Tell me about that. Yeah, kind of surreal. You know, someone told me when I was young in my career, and other people have used it as well, right? But I like to think a lot of times, you know, you don't necessarily, you know, wish for luck or get lucky. I think it's like you got to put yourself in a position to attract luck. But, you know, my whole career has been in cyber. I mean, 20 plus years. That's out of my military days. Yeah. But, you know, I'm a CEO today currently of a large company cybersecurity, but focus on identity. And I got a message out of the blue, like, hey, we're interested in you and something else, but we can't tell you what it is. And there was an NDA and rightfully, because they didn't want it to actually get out there until they figured out what is the plan. And this current CEO, founder, absolute legend, titan, was on board with, this is the guy who I'm gonna hand over this Ferrari to, you know? So yeah, so it's kind of surreal. Like it really hasn't hit me, which is I guess like that 10 pound weight. Because in some ways, like I'm scared to death, right? In other ways, like I couldn't be more excited because I feel like, you know, as an athlete, like I've trained for this day. Like I've put the work in, the muscle memory's there. My body's in perfect condition. My mind's in perfect condition. So there's this balance kind of in that same kayak experience. I'm like, let's go. And what am I doing at the same time? But yeah, in just a couple of days, I take over as CEO of Sideris, which is a cybersecurity, but it's a cyber detection and response company. And it's all they do. That's all they do for the largest brands in the world. So yeah, so it's a really super exciting, but at the same time, crazy nerve wracking for what's to come. Gosh,

SPEAKER_01 5:44

that's incredible. All right, so I like to say this on the show. You were not born. Yeah. the CEO of Sideris. So all these things happen to you in life. So let's get to know who you are. Let's go all the way back. Tell me about your siblings and what did life look like growing up? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 6:07

man, it's crazy. I think this is where probably the humility comes from, right? Because where I grew up, probably an hour plus outside of Chicago, small town, no one leaves a small town, nobody. If you left a small town, you're a big deal. And I was the youngest of three boys. Not the crazy athlete of all of them, or at least not portrayed to be. Not the smartest of all of them. And obviously gapped by five and six years from them. So I literally was the baby of three big boys. boys right like my brothers are significantly larger than me

SPEAKER_01 6:48

oh

SPEAKER_00 6:49

in size in size six four you know 250 i mean massive humans right um but but but i look back at those days and like the tenacity and the grit that it built in me is what i lean on today you know and and in some ways really what it built in me is this uh performance-based mentality, because the best way, and I love my father to death. I mean, he's texted me a picture this morning at 77 in the gym, right? No way. Like, pop's getting after it. But like, for me, it was always, you know, how do I make my dad proud, right? How do I get those moments where my dad's like, you know, I'm proud of you. And I was always living in the shadow of two monsters of brothers, right? That were always getting the trophies and the accolades and the attention and everybody knew them in town. So there was always this like living in the shadow of two giants, right? And I knew I was very different than both of them just to like where my attention was at and how I put my focus in. But it really kind of just created this, you know, this grit inside of me and this performance-driven mentality that I look back so many years later and I can see these moments now where I'm like, oh, that defined who I am today. And that taught me when things go bad, learn from them, get better from them, and then re-rack, re-boot, and then re-engage. That's incredible. And now I'm in this cycle now where I look back and I'm like, yeah. And then the crazy part is um and we'll get into it but you know i was the first one to ever leave our town from our family ever from our whole my father had been there for you know decades um and I left and it was almost like I was in some ways like forgotten in some ways. My one brother lived less than a mile away from my parents. The other brother lived a couple miles away. My parents were integrated within their ecosystems, watching their kids and all that. And I'm here like in Georgia, right? Like, you know, hours away, almost forgotten in some way. And that to me is, you know, I look back and now all my brothers and my parents don't live in Illinois anymore. Incredible. They've all moved away. Yeah. What did your parents do? So my dad was, you know, kind of definitely blue collar, worked multiple jobs.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Worked at a plastics company on the floor. Eventually kind of worked his way up into kind of managing products and balancing kind of materials. But also ran a construction company. He was the head umpire for the city baseball team. My dad worked so many different jobs. And then he retired really young. I retired at 55, actually. And since then has worked a ton of other jobs. He still works to this day. My mom worked at Kmart, was a stocker retailer at Kmart. And she hung it up at, I think, around 50 as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the crazy part is, like, three brothers, huge people. My dad's not a small guy. Yeah. And we grew up in a 900-square-foot house with one bathroom. Oh, that's awesome. You know? So, like, and guess what? Guess who got the cold shower, Jeff? Oh. Kristen. You're showering last

SPEAKER_01 10:14

night. Well, that lays a good foundation, man, for, you know, the springboard. Yeah, for sure. Which is incredible. What did sports look like?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, I mean, I was... That's where I found my identity in many ways. I wasn't great, and I think I had some learning disabilities when I was a kid, but it was undiagnosed. but I definitely was not great academically. And I found success in sports. So I was, you know, every sport I wanted to pour myself into, you know, four year varsity and wrestling and played football and did track. I was a pole vaulter, like everything to me revolved around sports, like everything. And that was, again, kind of back to that performance mentality of like me trying to get trophies to show my father of my worth. Right? Look, Dad, I'm the captain of the varsity team. Look, Dad, I won this tournament. And my dad was so proud. I mean, some of the best moments was when I would win and come back to my dad and get that hug. And I had the most amazing supportive mother that anyone could possibly have. I mean, I literally was a mama's boy who used to help me, even help me do my homework because I couldn't do my own homework. I wasn't equipped enough for it. But yeah, sports were everything for me when I was a kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Then college, how'd you make that decision?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, I was supposed to go because my brothers went to the military right out of high school. Okay. And my dad was in the military, so the military ecosystem. What branches were they? All Army. All Army? Yeah, all Army. Wow. And my mom was like... adamantly against me going to the military because she'd already dealt with two boys and both had served in wars. And she was like, I can't do this again. You're the baby. I want you to go to college. And that was the route. The route was go to college, even though I didn't feel like I was equipped to go to college because I didn't feel academically I was going to survive. But I felt like I probably could do pretty well if I went to a college and wrestled. So we were going on that path. And then there was this monkey on your shoulder, if you will, Whispering in your ear, right? And, you know, as a Christian, I don't know what that voice was, right? I do believe it was in some ways God kind of calling me to cancel a potential demon. And that was, you know, looking back and saying, if I hadn't went in the military, would I have ever been treated the same as my brothers and my dad who had served, right? So because of that, I listened to it. And I was like, you know, I got to do it. I just have to. Yeah. Like it's four year commitment. I don't know what's to hold, but like I'll get back to college. I told my mother, I was like, mom, I just, I can't not be the only brother who doesn't serve. Like I gotta do it. And it was probably the best decision. I mean, truly. In hindsight, I wish I probably wouldn't went to college first and then went in, you know, as an officer. Because I quickly realized like I actually was pretty smart. because I started to apply myself in the right ways. I started to realize like, hey, I'm as smart as these officers. And that's kind of what drove me, you know, further in my career. But yeah, that's kind of what jumped me into that. And then I'll just tell you, like, you know, you fast forward to getting out of the military. And again, now that I've like switched on, I know, hey, like you're actually pretty sharp. You can get stuff done. People rely on you, not just for your athleticism. I went to college and got my degree in three years. Like 16, 18-hour classes, worked full-time, got married young. My wife was on bed rest my senior year of college for six months with our baby. I still got A's and still survived. I look back and I was like, maybe I wasn't as slow as I thought I was.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

It was just an application thing. That message was planted in your brain somewhere that you're not enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Totally. What's your alma mater? Well, NIU was where I went to my undergrad. Okay. And that's a college about 45 minutes north of Chicago. Okay. And my wife went to the same school with me. Yeah. Incredible. And then I wanted to continue my education. I felt like... Hey, this is working for me. And I went right into my MBA just after that at Auburn.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

MBA,

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Auburn. Yeah, MBA, Auburn.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

How did you meet your wife again? At school or

SPEAKER_00 14:49

after school? No, man, God's incredible with his stories that he knits together. But my wife was actually going to school at Penn State and happened to be in Savannah where I was stationed in the military to see her mother in a sabbatical in between semesters. And I happened to bump into her like through mutual friends. And of course, like, you know, she was raised in, she's Pennsylvania Dutch and Colombian, right? So, you know, big cheekbones, definitely stands out in the crowd. But yeah, we got married at 21. literally at the end of my military, active duty military career, we got married. We were just so emphatically in love with each other that I was like, I just can't live without you. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. And then, well, the surreal story, and again, like how God knits these stories together, but the surreal story is we elope. Like, I was so in love with her that I was like, you know, babe, like, Let's just get married, and the military will pay for housing for me. We just won't tell anybody. And then eventually, we'll get engaged, and we'll officially get married, right? And we thought that was the plan. Well, then God decided, okay, I have a different plan for you. So first of all, my mother was managing my bank account because I was being deployed a lot, and I couldn't take care of my bills. So my mom ran my bank account and paid all my bills for me. And my mom noticed, hey, there's an$800 increase in your paycheck. Like, You're not on active duty airborne jump pay. Like, what's going on here? And so, you know, we had to drive up on the weekend and surprise my parents. And then my wife's father, Jeff, and it gets worse. It gets worse. My wife's father was a missionary in Honduras, right? And we eloped and didn't tell him. And then not even a month later, after eloping, I get called to my commander's office, and he tells me, hey, Chris, I don't know how this has happened, but We've never sent anybody there. But you're going to Honduras on active duty. No way. For assignment to help run these DEA missions and support them as one of only 20 Army guys. Right? No way. Oh, by the way, Jeff, it gets one level worse. It's 45 minutes away. from your father-in-law right so like i mean that's when you feel like okay now there's there's there's definitely yeah this is me

SPEAKER_01 17:19

this is not me right this is surreal that's incredible yeah all right one great story from the military days

SPEAKER_00 17:27

oh man um so many amazing stories i mean like again like i don't i don't regret those days at all and i encourage any you know, young men, women, they're trying to find who they are. Like, you know, look at me, like I found who I was. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I was capable of, but probably the one that is the most humbling for me is, you know, I was one of those guys that like, I loved physical fitness. I would max my PT tests. I was like, you know, did all the military schools, I thought in many ways I was indestructible, right? I really did. And we went on this mission. We came home back in Honduras, and we were back kind of in what we called hootches, and we were in a hooch. And the military allows you when you're not deployed to have beverages, beers, and all that kind of stuff. And we were celebrating, right? Great time. And all these service members, and we had Navy guys, Navy SEALs there, and Special Forces. as guys. And everybody's, you know, when you have a few beverages and you get a little bit inebriated, which, you know, those weren't my finer days in that regards, but you start talking big stories as guys, right? And we're talking a whole lot of smack. And of course, like I was with my buddies, we're talking a lot of smack about some of these Navy SEALs and SF guys to say, like, you don't even know what it's like, right? Like you're pre-Madonna's pretty boys. And it's like 3 a.m., Jeff. right and we've been drinking since like i don't know eight maybe seven post barbecue so like we weren't in any shape right right and literally one of the special forces guys goes okay guys you think you're that tough you know that mountain outside of of our our base yeah let's go climb that martin tomorrow morning that mountain tomorrow morning and we were like done easy done we're gonna run up that mountain Right? Because again, you're talking smack. You think like, ah, we're just BSing, right? So we get home at like 4 a.m. Jeff, 5.30 a.m. I hear this banging on my door, right? I've been sleeping an hour. I think I'm hearing things, right? Bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow. Wake up, Shuler, wake up. So I open the door. Here is all of them fully dressed with gear. Ready to go hike the mountain. I just got that

SPEAKER_01 19:55

feeling of one hour of sleep.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I thought I was dreaming. Right, right. Like, I'm drunk. Yeah. I'm still sleepy. Oh. And here they are ready to run. Ready to go. Right? Right. You know you can't not go. Right. You're like, okay. Right? I'm not getting back in bed. I'll never live that down. Never. So I was like, all right, give me 20 minutes. They're like, you got 10. Okay, right? So, and oh, by the way, all my other buddies were doing the same thing I was doing. They were all sleeping. So this is like the biggest humble pill, right? So we get out there, we start hiking up the mountain. Of course, like they're just talking nonstop, right? Because one buddy throws up, another buddy throws up, like we're dry heaving, sweating. We didn't bring enough water. What was the weather? It was, I mean, it's hot, humid, like the humidity down there is insane. And we finally make it, right? And of course, like we thought for sure, there's no way, right? And of course, like, you know, the whole time you're just like regretting every decision. You're like, never again am I gonna talk, you know, these stories. And then the craziest part, Jeff, so all that was insane. Then we get to the top of the mountain and there was a Blackhawk helicopter on top of the mountain, right? And we're thinking, oh, what's going on, right? And then we start walking toward the Blackhawk and like the whole crew's already out of the Blackhawk like in chairs. They had loaded up a cooler of beer and food and were already setting up a barbecue on top of the mountain just for this team coming in. Jeff, in an hour, in an hour from going to bed To waken us up, they had already orchestrated this whole thing because they were like, it's game time. So then I realized there's levels to this thing. And be careful on the levels that you're playing with because there's levels to this game. But that's the one I always remember. Whenever I hear guys talking smack and stories, it brings me back to 1997 in Honduras. where I got the biggest humble sandwich of my life. And now I always undersell and overdeliver since that day. Undersell, overdeliver, man. So you were doing a barbecue at what, 7 a.m.? It was probably 8 a.m. 8 a.m. First beer of the day, 8 a.m. Correct. That's incredible. I was still sick. I didn't have a beer. Water, hydration. It was like, I just need to survive, man.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I'm so glad I asked that question. I almost glossed right over it. I'm not asking you about that. So bad military. Oh my goodness. All right. So you get out. Yeah. Uh, you did four years.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yeah. Four years active. I had, I just did another four years in the, in the reserves. Okay. That got stopped, lost from nine 11. I had to stay in four more years. So 12 years total service. Um, so what I did like, again, kind of some of the things I did in the military, particularly around like information operations. Yeah. Um, That was like one of the key MOSs they wanted to make sure they keep on to. But yeah, did a 12 years total service. 12 total?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah. Okay. So that last for like during 9-11, I mean, were you...

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, that was... What did you do? Yeah, I mean, it was... So, you know, when I got out and went to college is really when I started to lean into like IT in general. Okay. And I started to identify like really in 98, 99... that within IT, there's this like information assurance problem, right? So think of like risk, like how does risk occur in an IT world, right? Well, it's usually around data and access and there was nobody looking at that stuff at all. And the military was just starting to invest in that. like for its war fighters and such. So I really started to lean into that. And we actually created in 98, 99, we created the first information operation commands in the army. And it was actually, I give the generals and civilian leaders like all the credit in the world. And most people don't even know this, but they for the first time actually leaned into the civilian side of the military and said, you know what, most of our Reservists and National Guard people in the private sector are doing these things. We can't ramp up and scale fast enough, active duty-wise, right? And you can't sign contracts and bring people in quick enough, especially in the warfighter world. So let's actually lean into our Reservists and National Guards that are doing these jobs and let's create commands for these people so that instead of like active duty, two weeks a year when you're in the reserve, you serve. Instead of doing that, let's deploy them on weekends throughout the year to active duty installations and overseas to actually help protect and create these protections around both our CONUS networks and OCONUS, particularly warfighter networks. And so that's what I did literally for, all those years in the reserves, I was like working active duty, doing college full time, and then I would literally fly out on a Friday, spend Saturday, Sunday at Fort Bragg or Fort Carson, and just like pen test, scan, help the IT team remediate, fly back home Sunday night or Monday morning, and go right back to work again. Incredible. That was like 98, 99, 2000, right? So it got me really into this. industry that's the craze today. But all because there was a need. I found the need and I started investing myself in it. And then obviously opportunity came with the military investing in us.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Okay, awesome. So that last four years ended What was the year, and then did you go to the Pentagon right after that?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, so that was another, it was in 02, actually. Okay, 02. So in conjunction with, in this IOC command, an opportunity came up, particularly in the Army, focusing on the Army and the Reserves, was they wanted an information assurance leader, so like one person to run the whole program. Okay. And we started, I started focusing exclusively on the Reserves, Right? So if we can get this right, it's going to be applicable to everything else. So yeah, I started in 2002, really being an information assurance program leader. I had a team of like five people. And then fast forward, like almost four years later, well, three years later, actually, had the very first security operations center ever built in the Army. right, which blueprinted, that was replicated throughout all the army, had a team of, I don't know, like 300 people working for me in just a couple years. And deploying like the first, you know, kind of analytics, if you will, around data to find threats and vulnerabilities and identify truly like hackers coming in to the warfighter networks and the OCONUS, the domestic networks. Yeah, incredible. I mean, like, you know, It's one of those, again, like being in the right place, the right time, but having the right knowledge, right? That's the big one. I mean, Jeff, I was 25, right? 24, 25 years old. Like, no one should be listening to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Especially not like an SES-2, which is equivalent to like a two- or three-star general in the civilian world, right? They shouldn't be listening to some 20-year-old kid. And I was a kid. Yeah. Right? But they, you know, there's a lot of trust there. because things that I said happened. There was definitely technical competence, because that was this evolution of constantly learning and leaning in. And then just being a guy who gets stuff done, right? I think they saw that in me, and they kind of brought me up and gave me these elevated roles. So I was the director of the very first Security Operations Center for the Army at like 25 years old.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And that was at the Pentagon. Yeah. What's it like being in there?

SPEAKER_00 28:15

I mean, it was crazy. It's interesting, too, because a lot of the decisions happen in the Pentagon, but all the work happens in Crystal City. Right. So it's like this this separation of the two. And then in in 03 and 04, we decided that, you know, this is a lot of it's because of like 9-11 and such. But we decided, you know what, we need to create these dark data centers throughout the US. Yeah. So that there's not like an epicenter of like what happened with the World Trade Center. when like 40% of the internet went down, right? So it was in the basement of World Trade Center was where MCI was. So we built actually, that's what got me to Georgia. We built the data center, our dark data center in Peachtree City. So I went from like Pentagon Crystal City to all of a sudden living in Peachtree City, building a dark data center and literally creating a security operations center removed from the Pentagon. remotely, literally in Peachtree City, Georgia, that nobody knew. Like, no signs on a building, right? Nothing. Nothing. You wouldn't even know what was in there. Gated,

SPEAKER_01 29:19

I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Oh, yeah. Like, you wouldn't even know what was in this building. But, yeah, it was... And you lived there? Yeah, lived in Peachtree

SPEAKER_01 29:26

City. In Peachtree

SPEAKER_00 29:27

City. Yeah, and you used to just bounce. I mean, I would... It's great living there because you're only 15 minutes to the airport. But, yeah, you bounce back and forth to D.C. and back to here. And then the Army's intelligence is located in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. It used to bounce to Arizona as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Oh,

SPEAKER_00 29:41

my.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Is that still here in Peachtree

SPEAKER_00 29:43

City? No, not anymore. They moved it. Yeah, they moved it now with cloud and everything else. You don't need, like, to hug your server all the time. It's probably somewhere so cool right now I won't even ask you where. I'm

SPEAKER_01 29:53

sure. I'm sure we can't talk about it. But, okay. So... What happens after that

SPEAKER_00 30:00

then? Yeah, so like now I'm kind of like in some ways weaponized. running cyber programs. And I get this phone call from a recruiter, which had never gotten recruited, really. What year

SPEAKER_01 30:14

are

SPEAKER_00 30:14

we in here? This is in 05.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Okay, so 05.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

So cyber's not really on the, not out in the world. Not in the mainstream. Okay. Like fintech companies are investing in it. Military's heavily invested in it. Okay. And that's pretty much that. But I don't,

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Joe Havlick doesn't

SPEAKER_00 30:31

know anything about the work. No perspective. Got it. You may know about like phone freaking back in the day Right. But not, um, this is like right at the entrance of like when the blaster worm and slammer worm and all that shut down email. Okay. So I get this phone call from a recruiter and they're like, Hey, we know what you do. We know all about your army career. Um, we're looking for someone like that and we want someone to come in and build that for us. There's this company called internet security systems based here in Sandy Springs. Um, And I'd never interacted with the private sector ever. So intriguing, but I'd been in the military life my entire career. So I was like, I'll at least go for an interview. And in the middle of the interview, they were like, you gotta talk to this one guy who runs the whole managed services. He's gonna love you, and you gotta talk to him. So this conversation with this guy, Rick Miller, and he's like, you're my guy. That's literally what he tells me. He's like, you're my guy. I need what you got. This is the sort of thing we need to build out. And I started working for ISS as a director of security operations for ISS, which was one of the products that we actually used in the military to scan networks. They were known for their vulnerability scanning tool. And they were just building out really how to manage... security operations for customers, so outsourcing the security operations. So I started doing that in 2005, and then literally a year later, IBM swoops in and wants to partner with us, Naive. So I'm presenting about all these things that we're doing with security operations, with our products, and then all of a sudden they bring me in a room and they're like, oh yeah, by the way, they're not partnering with us. they're actually going to be acquiring us. So then, you know, I become an IBMer, like within the next, I don't know, two or three months.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

And that's how you got into IBM was you got acquired. Yep, that's right. So now you're an employee of IBM.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah. And you're doing what? And that was another like kind of military story where IBM also realized that like we can't innovate fast enough. we need to actually do some reverse integration. So instead of acquiring and assimilating, let's actually take all of our cyber information assurance assets and give them to this new acquisition that we made. So they bought ISS for a couple billion bucks, super high horsepower company, great leadership, Chris Klaus, Tom Noonan, legends in Atlanta that we all know, and they leaned into us hard. So I literally overnight, I maybe had 300 people. I had 700 people. Anybody that had anything to do with anything remotely looking like security operation centers all of a sudden worked for me. And you're 30 probably at the time-ish. Young, 28, 29, right? That's

SPEAKER_01 33:26

awesome.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

And of course, at the time, IBM was definitely older, right? Sure. A lot of people, mid-50s, late-50s. So you're coming in literally as this late-20s guy who everybody wants a part of because security operations now is starting to become mainstream and starting to become a thing that clients want. And all the massive IBM clients, they all wanted to have that integrated in their portfolio services. So yeah, I went from flying back and forth to... to D.C. or to Arizona, and occasionally on the weekends on my reserve days, to all of a sudden flying every week around the globe. I think I flew, like, my first year, I flew maybe a million and a half miles in the first year of acquisition with IBM. And then it just sustained. Like, for the next 15 years, I probably flew an average of a million and a half miles, yeah, a year. Unbelievable. Insane. I mean, like... There's so many countries I even forgot I've been to that my kids are like, oh, you know, like whatever in Manila or Thailand. And I'm like, oh, I was there one time actually. I was there

SPEAKER_01 34:39

one time, maybe even twice. There's a word you've used many times, information assurance. So two things, define it. Like it sounds like it's a word that came up a long time ago. And then what does it look like today? Is it still called that or is it something different?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah. So, I mean, information assurance essentially is morphed into cybersecurity, right? Right? So the way that we looked at it before was like, how do you protect information? Which today we would say data.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Like web, you're talking, okay,

SPEAKER_00 35:06

data. Yeah, the data itself. How do you protect the data? Like what's the ecosystem? So one of the things I helped in the military is a thing we call defense in depth. Right? So defense in depth, something I helped kind of co-author to say like there's layers of protection. Right? Like you have cameras outside of your house, right? with motion detection. You have locks on your doors. You have motion inside of your house. You have a dog, right? You have two big Huskies,

SPEAKER_01 35:32

right?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

And then next to your bed, you probably have your own protection, right? And you also have protocols probably in your house that like, hey, if the alarm goes off in the middle of the night, what do we do, family, right? So like all of these are like protection levels in defense in depth. And that really is what's morphed into cybersecurity, what it is today. And it really is treated the same way. Like you have all your assets that you own, assets you integrate with. So that really is what cyber really is doing, is creating all those protections. And then the detections, which are looking for the anomalies, which like if you have your Google Nest or your Ring, wherever they're like, hey, somebody strange came by your house at 2 a.m. and slowly drove by, maybe they were scoping out your neighborhood or something. So those are the sort of things that we built into Defense Adept, and now cybersecurity has taken over as the thing that we do.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

That makes sense. Tell me about some books you've read.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah, so as part of this job, I recently went through this psychometrics, and you guys should look that up if you're listening. Psychometrics. Psychometrics. But I was recommended this book because I talked about a cold plunge, right, of like I'm waiting to get a cold plunge, and it's part of my kind of discipline routine, and I've heard all the great benefits of it, and I'm a life hacker in general, right? And she said, I have this book for you. And it's not about the physical benefits, it's the mental benefits and the mental awareness that you have with a cold plunge and you should read it. It's called Dopamine Nation. And I would highly recommend this book to anybody. It's absolutely fascinating. And essentially the summary of the whole book, the punchline of the book is essentially anything you do, anything you do in excess can be excess dopamine, which is a drag, right? So anything you do. So if you cold plunge too much, the benefits of cold plunge can become dopamine, can become negative. So it really, what it did to me is it kind of was like this amazing awareness of like, a lot of things that we do that are good, we're like, we're gonna do them every day. Well, the problem doing it every day is it doesn't turn into the benefit that you would hope. It actually creates the negative dopamine drag which then reduces your serotonin and then it becomes this counteractive thing where it's a beast that you have to feed. Then if you don't feed it, the beast takes over. So the book just impacts that whole thing and it goes through, she's a psychiatrist, she goes through case by case by case. But again, my biggest takeaway was, I'm an extreme guy. I do one thing and I do it amazing. And I go like inch wide, mile deep. And what that book told me was like, be careful on the mile deep. Don't let it take over because then it becomes that dopamine drag and you gotta feed the beast. Otherwise you don't feel. Is

SPEAKER_01 38:36

that like a physical, you're saying a physical drag?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, physical, no, mental, more mental.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Okay, mental,

SPEAKER_00 38:42

okay, got it. It's like the whole book is on the mental side.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

So

SPEAKER_00 38:46

it starts with everything like it's case-by-case studies of you know People who have addictions and how that how to solve the addiction problem incredible, but then it backs out into You know the cold plunge craze. Yeah, right. We're like you read Huberman and Huberman's an amazing, you know Bioscientists and and really like, you know between him and Peter a tear my two sources of of all things lifestyle related and health and longevity, but He even says, like, you only need to be cold plunged like three days a week. That's it. Three days a week for like three to five minutes is all you need to do. So not every day. Not every day, right? Because again, it's not the physical benefits anymore. It's the mental benefits. Now all of a sudden, if you're only doing it for the mental benefits, it's feeding that dopamine, which then has that negative drag throughout the day. So yeah, Dopamine Nation, highly recommend it. Audible. It's the way that I read all my books now. I'll

SPEAKER_01 39:39

be ordering that one today. Yeah, it's fantastic. Wow. Okay, incredible. Just looking back at your life, not necessarily professionally, not necessarily personal, it can cover the two. Is there a turning point that you can

SPEAKER_00 39:57

look at? Yeah, I would say like... Yeah, I mean, the turning point in my entire life was 25. My wife had went through... multiple miscarriages, finally got pregnant. Good. The bumps come in. Yeah. Right. I'm still in college, but like, you know, things are great. Right. Like she finished her degree. She's starting to work. She was a teacher, um, six months pregnant. Things are still looking good. Um, and then in the middle of the night, you know, water broke and we're rushing to the hospital. You know, we're, you know, we have really no family was around us. Don't know what's going on. And, know fast forward we give birth our daughter doesn't make it through the first day um and that was that was that was the the most um lowest part of my entire life that like you know maybe brings emotions even even now to this day because i remember the moment in the room like holding your baby and you've been waiting for a baby and you finally get the baby and you know that the baby is not gonna not gonna make it right yeah and we had this most beautiful baptism for her but You know, and I was a seeker at the time. I wasn't a Christian, but I walked out of the room and we had been going to a church and mostly my wife wanted us to go to the church. And man, God had the pastor sitting outside of our room waiting for me. I mean, I walked out of the room and I'm like, imagine like up to this point, everything in my life, Jeff, I've controlled.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Everything.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

I've controlled everything. Like I want to be the best athlete. I was, I want to be the best in the military. I was. And in that moment, like the lowest of low was like, I control nothing. I can't even take care of my daughter, you know? So it was this lowest moment for me in my entire life. And then here's my pastor sitting there and just like that shoulder to lean on. And at that moment, like literally it changed everything in my whole life. Cause like I realized I couldn't control it. I realized my faith is everything. Jesus is everything. and from that point forward like i think it's like everything in my life started to kind of come in balance because i knew like you're not really in control stop trying to control right and and your motivations are not aligned yeah with like the motivations that really are aligned with where your faith is right and just every i mean literally i look back 20 years 20 i'm 48 so 22 years later and i can see that moment in that room and and i see that the calling that god had on me my whole life from honduras to my wife bringing me there in that room you know with my daughter so it was you know i recently i've been wanting to get a tattoo for 20 plus years but i've never gotten it i finally in this transition decided i'm doing it and uh it's it's to celebrate my family but i got a halo put on to remind me of my first daughter, Kristen. And fast forward a year later, and I had my first girl, Bella, right? So like one year later, but yeah, that was, you know, to make it, I mean, not make it too serious, but like that was, that was the moment, man, that, you know, I look back and I'm like, God, like you stamped your approval on me at that moment and said, now you're mine, right? Now I know you're going to listen to me. And since that point, like I just, I see him in everything I do. Even at this job, I see... It was perfectly created just for me to step in to a titan, a giant, a shark's shoes. It's incredible. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be in this position, but God's put me here, man. That's

SPEAKER_01 43:42

incredible. Wow. What a story. Is there any one or several things you'd say that really shaped you into who you are today?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Yeah. I mean, I think the... the discipline that I learned in sports and not being good at something like school. That first semester in college, I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit. It was hard. I'm getting tutored. I'm like, I don't get this. I didn't want to do it. I would say discipline has been an anchor to me. I've never been the guy that closes the bar down. goes to client dinners and wants to celebrate. I've always been the disciplined, like, no, no, no, I've got to wake up tomorrow morning. I've got to work out. I've got to be my best. Because our bodies, it's a temple, man. You've got to take care of it, otherwise it's going to fail. And we rely on it, especially when you travel so much. You can't afford to get sick. So I would say discipline is that one. And then the humility side of it, I'll just tell you, and shout out to my beautiful bride, because... Like she's the one that reinforces it in me. But man, you need someone in your life that is gonna call your BS, right? Someone in your life that's gonna tell you like, hey, like your perspective on that's not right. And it's someone that you love unconditionally, that you trust their opinion. You may not agree with it. Like this thing that she says, and I'm like, I don't agree with

SPEAKER_01 45:13

you.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

But trust me, like that resonates in your brain. And you're like, look, if your better half is telling you that, like you probably should listen, right? So- I think those two things for me is like, you know, the discipline is just like allowed me to perform at the level I perform. And the flip side is, is, you know, obviously in the, the having the equilibrium of my wife, keeping me kind of balanced the whole time and keeping me rooted into like who I really am. Yeah. That's what's really shaped me into kind of who I am. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

All right, so let's talk a little bit about your discipline routine. What does that look like each

SPEAKER_00 45:51

day? Yeah, I mean, it's evolved, I mean, so much. I mean, I used to be just a wake up and grit and just go lift weights. You know, a mutual friend of ours, Bartas, right? When you anointed that again, like knowing people and connecting. Remember the question I asked him, I think maybe you had left, but I said like, what would be the one thing that you would do differently if you were my age? And this was years ago. And John said two things. He said, get a Peloton, start biking, and get a cardiologist.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Cardiologist.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

I remember that. Remember that moment? I bought a Peloton that night. And I went and got a calcium scan, a cardiologist, et cetera, right? So that's always been like my thing, right? Is like anything I can do to better myself, because I want to be a centurion. I want to live to a hundred, but I want to be someone who, as Peter Ortiz says, like, has quality years later in my life. So be the grandpa that can pick his grandkids up in 80 and jump in the pool and have those quality years, right? Great book, Outlive, or I think it's Outlive or Outlast. No way. Peter Attia.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Stacey Miller just told us last episode about Outlive. Incredible. No way.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Incredible. But a lot of the things that he does, so that's part of my discipline, right? So it's like diet, nutrition, exercise, getting... all the preventative stuff, the body scans for skin cancer, right? Like all these things that we know is gonna get us. So that's kind of the root, right? So if that's the root of like physical performance, then it's like discipline on the spiritual performance, right? Having the, you know, discipline to do quality time with God and having the, you know, kind of meditation moments and then I think discipline in work, right? Which is, you know, again, one of my strengths I think at work is You know, I'm always fairly a cool head to every conversation. It's very difficult. In fact, you know, because I've been in the military, I can say this, but I always tell people when they get excited, I'm like, hey guys, it could be a whole lot worse. People could be shooting at us right now, right? So like, let's take it in perspective. Like this isn't the end of the world. Like calm down, it's okay. Let's think about this from a different perspective. And I think that's also discipline, right? It's like knowing when to like really use two ears versus when to like fill the room with your voice. That takes discipline, right? Of knowing like, hey, I got the answer, but like I need my team to find the answer themselves. Because if I just give them the answer, it's just going to create that back to dopamine nation, that fix for them. But they don't need to problem solve on their own. So to me, it's like I talk a lot about discipline really because it's a whole ecosystem that like you have to live and breathe it. And you have to hold yourself accountable to it. But I really do truly believe, and I get bracelets for a lot of my companies that always talks about just 1% every day. Because a lot of times you could be negative yesterday, but if you just get 1% that day, you can control that. So if you're disciplined and just saying, I'm gonna be a little bit better to be like my kids. Yesterday wasn't a great day, but today I wanna spend quality time with my girls or one of my daughters and hear a story from them. Or I need to be better to my wife. Or at work, yesterday wasn't a great day, but today will be the day that I turn it around and I make it different. So to me, it's like the discipline is really what gets you through. Because there are gonna be moments where you can't work out. And if you're disciplined, then it's gotta be in the back of your head of it's okay but tomorrow I will work out and you will do it. And then the last thing is, I think for me, it's, I'm very much a man of my word. So like when someone does say something to me and I commit to that, like, word is your bond, right? So when I say like, I'm in, like, you gotta be in. And that again is like, when people aren't in that mindset, they have discipline problems. Cause like, you gotta say like, no, no, no, I committed to that. That is my commitment. I have the discipline now to make sure that I actually follow through on it. That's incredible. Yeah, so discipline is, I mean, I think Jocko Willick says all the time, like, discipline equals freedom. Yeah. But I think when you live it, it's not necessarily freedom, like, do whatever you want. Yeah. It's like, no, no, no, it's freedom because you don't have those regrets. you don't have those things eaten in the back of your head of like, I'm not good enough. Or like, you know, I wanted to work out, but I just can't work out. And you think less of yourself. Cause I think this world just tries to beat people down all the time. Right? Like that's just the world's created to like make people feel less of themselves. And I think like people need to believe in themselves first, I think before you can love. Before you can love your wife, your kids, you gotta love yourself. You gotta look in the mirror and be like, no, no, no, I love who you are. We're not great today because of whatever reasons, but we can be great tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

And

SPEAKER_00 50:41

to me, it's just like discipline gets me there. It's like my root.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Yeah, special. All right, so I want to end talking about what this next new chapter looks like. This is just so encouraging. Before we do that, I do just want to say this. I could see now why a guy like Robert, like in here in your entire story, going through this interview, I could see why he goes, you're my guy. because now I see the character resemblance. I've always said this, he was always my favorite shark, always my favorite shark. He's a compliment to entrepreneurs in general, to the business world. He's the show that you don't have to be like big tough guy no matter how much money or success you've had. Like his humility comes well through that camera you don't need to sit in a coffee shop with him for an hour to see that he's the real deal so like when like a guy like that is gonna hire a guy like that yeah and and it's cool now to sit here and do this and like feel it

SPEAKER_00 51:57

yeah it's very

SPEAKER_01 51:57

verify it

SPEAKER_00 51:58

it's very true about him too because i'll tell you you know when i first interviewed with him it wasn't even an interview Like Robert literally said, like, so what do you want to know about my company? And it was almost surreal to me. It kind of caught me off guard a little bit. Right. Cause I thought for sure, like he'd be kind of grilling me and it was more, it was, it was less about like getting to know me. He wanted to know like who I was, you know, what, what, what I want, what I wanted to know about his company, how I could like, you know, he could see me, I could see myself in the role. Um, Incredible guy. I can't wait to really get to know him. Board member, founder, investor. I already can get glimpses of the company and what he's created. That's where my mindset is now. Build on what he's created and how do I take it to the next level, which is where we all want to get it to. Because all the bones are there. Starting from a small practice in Canada, to literally like a thousand person global powerhouse now, with the biggest brands in the world all using their services. I mean, absolutely incredible. What are some of

SPEAKER_01 53:06

those feelings, like the one word feelings, like afraid, confident, like unpack some of those, like going into this. You're getting ready to start this soon.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Yeah, I mean, technically I'm kind of already doing both jobs, right? Because like you're stepping in and it's not like a cold start. Like they want to warm start you. So like- You know, Robert and I are spending a lot of time together at night on videos, because he's living in Australia right now with his family. Super gracious in his time, but, you know, we're really getting me ramped up. Yeah, so it's just for me, it's just, you know, he says this all the time. He says constant forward momentum, right? It's like one of the things that he says a lot. And I think of that, like, as I go into Q4, and my chairman tells me just yesterday on the phone, he's like, hey, Chris, I want to make sure you know this, like, There's one skipper in your head, but you own Q4, right? You start one October, Jeff. You run businesses, right? So when your chairman says that to you, right? Like, okay, we got to go. We got to go. So there is a sense of urgency with me, like a real sense of urgency. And in culture, right? Like, I think Robert knows it. I'm going to iterate on his culture. All right, folks.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

What an incredible, incredible interview that was. I know for me personally, gosh, I had an idea what to expect, but man, you took it to the next level. I appreciate how deep you went into these stories. Thank you. I, and I think I'm going to speak for a lot of people, wish you the best with your next venture. Thank you. You really are. You're an interesting human, and you're an incredible human. Thank you. And I'm so glad I got... a chance to sit here and interview you. So it's always my hope, my prayer that this lands in the hands of people that are struggling in one of these areas, whether it's discipline, attitude, humility, whatever, and this can just be some light for them, a reminder that no matter what it is you're going through out there, it doesn't matter. You are never, ever, ever alone, although it always feels that way. That's right. But you're just not alone. So thanks for taking your time. Really, really appreciate it. And to everybody out there, as always, thanks for joining us. I welcome your feedback. It's been so helpful. It's helped us, number one, rebrand the show, which is the biggest thing. People had a hard time out there finding it interesting humans because there's a lot of shows in and around it. So the feedbacks helped me rebrand to the Jeff Hopek show and also got some great feedback recently on would you mind, Jeff, sharing in the beginning how you know these people? Because somebody had asked me, do you pay to get them on? And it's been friends and friends of friends. So Chris, thank you. Thank you again. It was really an honor. And a lot of people want to say thank you for your service. I'm sure we'll see you in the comments, but thank you for your service, too. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for watching The Jeff Opec Show. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on all socials.