Are You On The Right Path?

Good Friday morning! First I want to thank you for reading these articles. If you’ve been reading all my articles from the past few weeks, I wanted to say thank you and please comment below if these articles are helping you in anyway, I would love to know.

This week I found myself asking “Are You On The Right Path?”... Great, here we go another deep philosophical/psychological question into me and my journey. If this is of no interest to you, please go back to scrolling. Trust me this is going to go deep.

Where do I begin... this week I was in a meeting and I heard a conversation about the things these people have, sports cars, cottages...etc As well as what they were planning to do this summer. I found myself disconnecting internally and I wasn’t sure why. It had nothing to do with them, I was interested to hear what they were going to do and how amazing it sounded but internally something else was going on...interesting that I was experiencing to different emotions. Curiosity and amazement, while feeling disconnected.

Here is where it goes deep...

I got off the call and after I was finished work I started to write out my evening journal thinking this will only take me my normal 5 minutes.... nope, I was wrong about that. It took me on a journey of my child hood, how and who I grew up with, feeling I was less than the people I was around most of my life. It created a lot of dis-function in myself as I look back and even today in some situations. Don’t get me wrong I have had to do a lot of personal development over the years and even remove a huge chip off my shoulder I had growing up.

Being told as I grew up I had “only child syndrome”, “it’s because you don’t have a father you act that way”...etc. To be honest if you were going to try to put me in a box which most medical professionals try to do. Sure I can say I had traits of being in both boxes. How I pushed through that was unhealthy at the time because I fought against it. Any chance I got growing up I would fight against “The Man” teachers, people of authority...etc If I felt I was being labeled or controlled I would fight against it. At the time I had no clue why I was doing it. I was identified as an angry child/teenager, which did carry over to my earlier years when I started to work. Fortunately I had a back injury, a sad divorce at an early age, that I lost access to seeing my Son for just over 19 years. Which forced me to take a look at my health and also made me look at everything I personally was doing. It sucks to realize I was creating my own reality and it was because of deeper things I hadn’t dealt with that I was carrying as baggage into every situation I was going into. Great, thanks Brandon for making my life harder, way to go....jerk <laughing out loud, hiding real pain> (Dead pool reference)

You’re probably asking ok... so how does that have anything to do with the original question that was asked “Are You On The Right Path?”. I remember Tony Robbins saying “The past does not equal the future, what you did one day ago, one month ago, one year ago, does not equal your future”. Which then took me back to that meeting and how I was feeling. I realized I was feeling less than all over again, that then brought the feelings like I needed to get angry... here we go again. Good thing I was reminded this week in a mastermind meeting, if you are getting angry, is it most likely a F.E.A.R that is coming up and you’re probably not really angry, you are probably experiencing a F.E.A.R. that you are trying to use anger to manage your emotions. “SOB, is that what I’m doing again?”

As I dove deep into that question, I started choking up because I realized that what I was feeling was not that I was angry, it was I was because I was feeling sad that I didn’t belong, I wasn’t good enough. F*ck did that ever hit me in the feels. I realized I still feel like I am not succeeding, like I do not belong and it’s presenting itself in these situations. I hate not accomplishing what I set out to do. It hit me when I was speaking to Joel just before my CISSP live stream when he made a comment which I know he didn’t realized hit me in the feels. He said “I can’t believe how fast you get things done, I ask you to do something and you just do it. I was struggling to get an intro video done and you just get it done for me”. The reason that hit me in the feels is because I’m working so hard with “Cyber Security sales”, hearing success stories around me, hearing what other people are doing, deals they are closing, opportunities they are working on...etc. With me just hearing the other side of this, people are not interested either politely or not so politely. Not succeeding is frustrating the hell out of me.

Now you sales people who are reading this are probably thinking to yourself, “so what that’s the job”, “Are you doing the work”, “Suck it up princesses, that’s what we all have to go through”...etc. This feedback all might be very useful and feel right to you. Currently for me it’s not helping motivate me, and just not the way I feel right now. I am doing, 50 to 70 calls/emails per day, while sending out another 100 messages per day via social media as well. Trust me I am annoying a lot of people, they have told me directly. I can give you direct references who would tell you that I am annoying as hell.

So now what, how do I figure out if I am on the right path? Which leads to those good old questions I refer to. If you ask yourself great questions, you will get the answers you are looking for.

1) Am I bringing joy to myself and joy to others? Answer - No/Yes. No I am not really happy I’m not succeeding and it’s frustrating me. From the feedback from all my activities it appears I have been helping other people, which I am so grateful for to be able to give back.

2) Am I doing what I enjoy each and every day? Answer - Yes I love being in the Cyber Security industry, meeting new people, learning about new technologies and how to help protect organizations, as well as people.

3) What do you like about what I am doing? Answer - I’m constantly learning something new be it business, Cyber Security, about people...etc. Each day I get to meet amazing new people and learn from them. I’m also am able to help the ones who need it which is great.

4) What’s are my biggest challenge right now? Answer- The biggest challenges I face right now are:

• Not succeeding like I would like to
• Not hitting my goals
• Annoying people in the process is something I do not enjoy, which I am trying to figure out a better ways of not doing that.
• Not being able to use all my skills/knowledge, as well as feeling less than.

5) What can I do to change this? Answer-

• Need to do exactly what I am doing. Self evaluation and recognize what I am going through. Do not ignore it because it will not change unless I address it.
• Talk about it with others to see what they are doing to get results, success leaves clues. Be dynamic in my strategies and keep learning. Speed of implementation and test to measurable results.
• Find mentors I can learn from either people or resources (books, courses...etc)

6) Where do I want to be in 5 years? Answer - I want to be in a Senior Cyber Security position Director/VP role providing consultative advice to organizations on their Cyber Security program/posture. I would like to be making enough money that I can take care of my family and my wife. So that she only works because she chooses to not because she has to. I owe here a lot.

7) Brandon, are you on the right path? Answer -

• I’m working in a growing company with a great team, so I feel this is the right organization to help me reach my goals
• I’m hustling, studying and learning each day to have the knowledge/skills to be in that Director/VP role
• I feel I need to get a mentor(s) to help speed up the learning curve because there is a lot I feel I do not know and I need to learn.
• I also feel I need to do more, as well be more engaged with my organization which I feel COVID has not helped with. I feel I’ve been disconnected which is hindering my growth as well.

If you’ve read to the end, thank you so much I really appreciate it. I hope this sparked some ideas for your and/or help you in some way. For me it helps me to get focused on what I am working on due to I feel more connected when I share versus because of this pandemic I’ve been feeling more isolated.

Fiat Lux,

Brandon