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From Cybercrime to Confidence: How Mom & Digital Safety Expert Allison AJ Cutts Protects Families Online · The Arise with Anita Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Rise with Anita podcast, the space where soul meet strategy and dreams are no longer optional.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your house and needed a line podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: This house for two buttons for more.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We embody it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have to be four by clean bubble.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear mixed up full episodes for me and interviews with school-driven leaders, the best in their field, who live what they teach and rise by example.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Each conversation is a callus for your next breakthrough.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're not broken, you're breaking through.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and rise together.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Rise with Anita podcast.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I am joined today by a woman whose life work sits at the intersection of technology safety and empowerment, Alison A.J.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Cutz, with over 28 years of experience in the world of cybersecurity.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Alison has been navigating the digital landscape long before most of us ever thought about online safety.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: But for her, this work isn't just about firewalls and passwords.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's about people and protecting what matters most.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: After experiencing cybercrime herself in 2019, Allison transformed that hardship into a mission, helping women, single moms, families, and even the older generation stay safe online.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: She knows firsthand that the internet can be both a place of connection and of risk.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: And she's committed to giving people the tools to move through it with confidence rather than fear.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: In 2025, Allison established her impact by establishing an educational and consulting business dedicated to empowering organizations and individuals to proactively protect their assets and their customers.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: This work complements her role in with building cybersecurity, a pioneering nonprofit focused on safeguarding our nation's critical infrastructure.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Across both platforms, Allison provides practical guidance and actual strategies to protect strat against cybercrime while fostering resilience and adaptability in the ever-changing digital world.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: But Alison's story is also one of resilience and heart.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: She's not only a cybersecurity professional, but also a mother, which makes her especially passionate about protecting families in this digital age.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: At the core, though, her work is something deeper than just technology, teaching boundaries, discernment, and empowerment, knowing what to let in and what to keep out, both online and in life.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: This conversation is going to be both a practical and soulful exploration of resilience, boundaries, and the tools we need to reclaim our power in a world that is increasingly online.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, Allison, welcome to the show.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Via, thank you for having me.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So appreciate it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for the background on me.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really relevant but irrelevant at the same time.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I just for your audience, I've been around for much longer than a lot of people.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I started in 1996 in the technology industry.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine I'd seen every wave of technology, right?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And but back in 2019, as I was going through life transitions, I had what I call the perfect storm.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the perfect storm was I had three key life elements around myself personally outside of my professional world.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was going through a divorce, I had a sick child, and I was out of work for the first time, being middle-aged at that point.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, when I looked for work, I had a cyber criminal figure out my profile on a social media site, which was impactful to me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I trusted it because I had never had to look for work through recruiters or third parties.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was always referenced to somebody else throughout my career.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my mission in 20 after 2019, when I lost money, I lost$30,000 in 30 days.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, that's a lot.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: For some, it's not.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're a single mom going through a transition, it's a lot at the end of the day.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, my my goal after that was to someday bring my voice forward because I came offline for a little bit.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I, because of that, it was on social media that I lost myself through a cybercrime.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to help others understand that easier at the personal level.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, on the business side, I've been in operations and frontline sales.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I want, so I've always helped organizations help their employees connect operational workflow to the frontline and how to be connected and work.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for having me on.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was so excited.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And anything you want to ask me, please let me know.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have a personal mission, but a professional mission in parallel at the same time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: I love this.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I always start off the interviews with a little bit of an off-the-cusp question that you would probably not normally hear on a podcast, which is what is currently bringing you joy this current season?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Me?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm entering fall season where I live.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited about the cool air because I am miserable in the heat.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love, I walk in the morning every day with my my two dogs, and I carry a bunny on my back because my bunny is inside a lot.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's between 55 and 60 degrees.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I love just being out with nature at the end of the day.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it sets my day to be grounded and to be focused.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful answer.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love nature as well.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Granted, last time I was in nature, I got a little hurt.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: So diving right in, I guess, you've spent more than 25 years in the cybersecurity world.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: What first drew you to this field, and then what kept you there?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I started technology before cybersecurity was defined.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: My background was more in hardware and software, safety around firewalls and protection of corporate networks.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And as the internet grew, cybersecurity became more of a reality, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So within my corporate career, I covered a lot of healthcare systems and pharmaceutical companies where PHI or personal health information, or what they call 21 CR11, was clinical trial information to be protected.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, my career evolved from being in hardware, software, security to online applications, how do you protect personal information at the end of the day?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that throughout a majority of my career.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, for me, I ran the frontline operations and I realized there was a gap between technology and operational workflow with people in the corporate world.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I went through my personal cybercrime, I had all the tools necessary to protect me.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said earlier, I had the perfect storm.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had three key elements.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the red flags and I ignored them, even coming from high tech.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can imagine this happens to corporations, this happens to individuals all the time.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing I learned from it was I didn't slow down.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't take a breath.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I we I saw the red, what they call red flags.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, when I looked back at my behavior, I realized I had unhealthy boundaries.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of those boundaries developed well before I entered the corporate world.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was a people pleaser, I wanted to solve a problem.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was a yes female or yes, like most people say, yes, ma'am, but I was a yes fina.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, and my mother being an educator, similar to how your mom's a role model, my mom was always solving problems.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I learned to solve problems.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I had no solution, I I would just jump in.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was okay with that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't worry about any red flags.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And but I also learned through ignoring red flags, you can learn from that lesson.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the lesson I learned in 2019.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I learned no matter how much experience I had, no matter what technology I knew, no matter what I knew was right for my family, and no matter what I was in the middle of through a life transition, which was me going through divorce, I learned if I just slowed down and fully listened to those flags, it literally, even if I just would breathe, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, like I know you're into involving people's wellness through breath and slowing down.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: If I slowed down because I was in a fair flight mode, going through a divorce, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's normal.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: If I just slowed down, I probably wouldn't have gone that route.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I think my route was to fast forward through the pain of all of that to help others in the future.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That that's my guess.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm excited to be here, like I said.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it doesn't matter if you're technical or not, it's at the end of the day just slowing down when we see the flags.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, slowing down, recognizing red flags, taking time to be centered would have been hugely helpful through my cybercrime.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned a lot of those tactics throughout my career, but personally did not, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, before we dive into some of the mindset and practical tactics, how about you kind of come to share in your experience what were some of the red flags that you actually should have noticed but didn't notice at the time?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And how we could be maybe a little more cautious with our online habits.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, number one, especially people do online dating, if they can't jump face, they're not real.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Number one.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, because I went through an interview process where no one would get on video.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big flag.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, when I would call to follow up, I got a voicemail.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then they would respond appropriately back through a message via email.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't enough live one-on-one conversation.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were to take my business experience and apply it to the personal world, what that would look like with social dating is you try to call someone you're you think you're dating, and then you get a text message bad.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not real at the end of the day.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't see the person, talk to the person in person through video, like we are today, it's not real.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're scamming.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The bottom line.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, listen, if you meet somebody in a coffee shop, less dangerous.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you meet someone in person for an interview on the business side, more appropriate, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the two red flags were no one was on camera, no one was faked to be live, would go to a voicemail, they would send me a message back.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows what that was?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, this is in 2019 before AI, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think of AI and machine learning, those voices and those people are gonna look more real when they're not at the end of the day.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was dealing with antiquated, you know, versions of AI machine learning, even way back then, right?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's evolved over time.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So seeing a person talking to them live visually, not just on the phone, is key.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing was for me, I was looking for work and I went through training and it was an HR scam, obviously.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I would submit my onboard training, they would give me all these and all this amazing feedback, but it was feeding my ego.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was all ego driven.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: They knew based on my LinkedIn profile that was online, I was an achiever.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So their tactic was okay, let's feed her ego so she'll do work for us.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I did.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I had great credit availability, I still do, but they use me to ship equipment all over the world, not just in the United States, all over.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine I probably funded equipment going to places that we all don't even want to know about, right?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, they knew me more than I knew myself, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew myself, but going through divorce, out of work, looking for work, thinking I'm gonna be paid, those were all the barriers I kept that kept coming down.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my flags were there, but I dismissed them at the end of the day, psychologically.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so going forward, besides the because you gave me a tip before we logged on, and it was about a birthday.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought if you touch on that, because you know, I didn't think about this until I was until you said it, but actually I got I was on either TikTok or Instagram or whatever video platform, and someone was like, hey, you should not be using your birthday.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when you said it, I was like, oh shoot, it's coming up again.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I should bring you into not using my birthday.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, social media, think of it this way: if you were to take work separate from personal life, social is social, right?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So very early on, I learned as tech tools developed, whether it was Facebook, it I can't even remember the name of it before it was Facebook because I'm that old.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it it was another site before that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you have Facebook, you have TikTok, you have all these locate, all these social media platforms.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They want to validate that you're old enough to use their platforms, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the challenge is this for everybody.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You could enter your personal birthday in, but you have no control, and nobody does, by the way.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And not even these organizations of who could potentially hack their environments.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the more information that's personal to you, whether it's your birth date, your height, weight, whatever, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, like medical is a little bit different, but but if the more you put in a platform, and even if they have cyber safe or cybersecurity practices, they don't even have a control if that one employee lets that criminal into their environment.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that person who is hacking their data could be an employee as well, by the way.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's people that are highly intelligent that work for organizations.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying mistrust people that work for corporate environments, but you take a rogue employee like this came up last week on a podcast I did.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: You take one rogue employee and they're angry, pissed off.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry for the French or English.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is you take somebody who has keys to the kingdom and they're not psychologically balanced at the end of the day, that's a risk, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my breach when I went through it in 2019 actually happened two years prior in 2016 and 17.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened was there was someone who breached a database of a social media site.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I put on the social media site, I was open to work.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because for the first time at 44 plus years old, I was out of work.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And all I wanted to do was work because I've always worked.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in the middle of chaos, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So once I put that flag on, that's how the predators came in.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: They knew like she's always worked, she's had a consistent career.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, they had no idea I was going through a divorce, by the way.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't on, I don't post that on business social media, but they also knew I was open and available.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they had my email because they breached the corporation's content through scrape screen scraping and data downloads, and I fell for it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, those are the things people have to think of when on social media.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we talked about because you kept asking me what's my birthday.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not I'll let you.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think if you should.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think even for you, Anita, if you're on Facebook or Instagram or wherever, put a false birthday in.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't put your birthday.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's none of their business.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're paying your medical, unless you're paying a medical bill, none of their business.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I know they have to screen litigiously because they need to make sure kids aren't underage, but guess what kids do?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the point of having that question is to cover the corporate butt over the issue, right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, we asked the question.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: The next question should be, did you validate?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: They don't ask that question.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Very true.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Corporate narrowing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was so grateful that you brought this up right before because it was something that came up in my vortex.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, how to think of it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: She actually is very right.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was something that was kind of like, I have a universal, if it comes up more than twice, paying attention.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And this was like number two, three.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, okay, there's something to this.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: I probably should scrape my birthday off.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: So if you know, you know.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't, you don't.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing on social media, and I should probably say this for the audience if you put your birthday, your true birthday, into a profile, it doesn't matter if it's LinkedIn, Facebook.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not on TikTok, by the way, but Instagram, wherever, because I'm I'm older, like I my kids are on it, but I'm not.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: But what I would say is this when you set up your profile, set up your security settings, it doesn't have to be public.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: However, the one risk is you have to rely on that organization that hosts your personal date of birth to if they have a crime, and you even if you get notified, it's out of your control at the end of the day, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what happened to me.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: My birthday was in there, my email, my really old email was in there.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I'm on the dark web.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: All if I I've only had two sites.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you can imagine, only two sites breached, and the breach was in 2016, 2017, both sites.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, I have no other breaches on every single email I have.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's tools and tactics around you can give that information, but just be aware, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think from a personal perspective, and I can send this after the podcast, there's websites you can use to search up all your personal emails, even your professional, and see where they're breached.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because then if you know where you're breached, you know where the noise is coming from.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding your own personal digital footprint is key because the more your digital footprint grows, right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're on social media, you want to know how much is noise is coming back to you.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay because that you may be on social media for a good reason, but just know where it's been breached so you could be ready for a potential fraudulent flag.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I endured it.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I was so proud.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing financial analysis through my big fraud job.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so excited to be working again because I'd never been at work.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they it's more psychology driven than it is technology driven at the end of the day.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And with AI machine learning, it's gonna get even more difficult.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be more frequent.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: You are incredible.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just take a pause just to let you know you're incredible.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I am so grateful that we met.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And for those of you wondering, yes, I asked her for her birthday.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, we did not meet through a cybersecurity situation.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we actually met through a professional network of respectable people at the end of the day.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not gonna say where it was because it's none of your business.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, but you might see us together soon.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's all you're not you never know.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: But okay.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: So going back, because you just touched on kind of your boundaries being lowered and so many things, but let's let's go back to the boundaries aspect for it for a second.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to kind of so Alison is currently about to release her book, and part of what we in our experience have discussed a lot is how her boundaries being kind of weakened across life also led to this.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So now going back after the wake-up call around your self-worth and trust, how would you say you are learning to hold boundaries as a woman and teach women to hold boundaries today?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the number one thing is confidence and self.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when I reflected back on my cybercrime and even my life, because I was in the middle of a lot of stuff at one time, I really looked back at how I viewed myself a long time ago.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to do a lot of reflection back.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: When did I lose my boundaries?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I had lost them throughout a long period of time that I was not even aware of.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I've worked since I was 11.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a twin sister.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: We loved, I I know people laugh when I say this, but we we had a paper out before papers went away.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: We used to iron our dollar bills because my brothers would try to take some.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we also waitressed and we used to clean our coin because I would we like to clean money.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So not that word laundering money, but I that's my joke, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what I learned was I had very firm boundaries in my younger years.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I went to college, ended up in business.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as I went into business, some of my natural attributes went away because I was in a box.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had always grown up with being outside of the box and being okay with that.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as I got older or got more mature or seasoned, I was more and more in a box.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the the flags I would have seen in my younger years, I dismissed in my older years, which was refer some people pick up on flags later in life.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a situation where we worked very early.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in a town that at times wasn't safe in certain sections, but we had physical boundaries and awareness.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: When I moved into technology in 1996, so remember, 1996 is when I entered technology, those boundaries became virtual, right?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So those are a lot different than physical boundaries that you can see, hear, and touch.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I think all my boundaries kind of started to break down because even if I wasn't as social on social media personally, because I was very private, but professionally, I was okay with changing my status, looking for work.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when the when the cybercrime happened, I even went and looked at their website.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: It looked legit.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: They were connected to friends, it was legit.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the flags were they wouldn't get on camera, they wouldn't talk to me live on a phone call, they would only take a voicemail.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I would never take that from any employer prior to this one experience.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I let my boundaries down because I was in a chaotic situation.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those are the lessons as people look at cyber safety, it's just recognize where you are in your life.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Be okay with pausing because they want you to accelerate faster and respond.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where if I slowed down a little bit, if I wasn't in that storm of craziness, I would have been probably fine.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at where most people are, is they don't have those boundaries anymore because they're all digital.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: They trust whoever they see at the end of the day, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And even if they don't see them, they still trust whatever's coming back digitally.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I've learned I have to peel back and and validate are they real?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are they authentic?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are they really from a reputable organization or even a person?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: If they're not willing to meet in person, turn on their camera and talk to them person, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go there.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line, personally or professionally.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think in a cyber-driven world, if you can't get a person on a Zoom call or a FaceTime call or whatever video call, it becomes a little harder to trust.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: However, you've brought up AI a few times.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: So what do you think about these potential AI bots that are now able to actually mimic video and mimic identities?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really interesting.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: AI is developing more and more.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think they can replicate people by stealing existing content.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't really know what's real.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if you were, you and I, if I was sitting here with an AI bot, I it's not there yet, but it will be, by the way.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It will be.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So really using your own personal discernment and gut around is this real?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Does this make sense?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like in the old days, it would like you get a bad email with bad grammar.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or it was like, it was like links.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like even not even the links, it was like even the title had like a different language partially in with the English language, that's all gonna go away with AI machine learning.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think as you look at AI and machine learning, I think it's amazing technology.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I was exposed and worked with companies that did AI machine learning around drug development over eight years ago.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been around a long time.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's now on the commercial side, which I call the consumer side or the interpersonal side of life.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the part we're not trained for, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of my concerns are you get young kids who are socially isolated at school, whether they're preteens, teenagers, or young adults, and they're using chat GBT or other tools similar, and they think it's a human being on the other end, and it's not, right?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I have to talk to my kids all the time about did you are you on video if they're a stranger?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I grew up, and this is not, it's aging me, but it was strange or danger.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you couldn't physically see or touch it, it's not safe, right?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I just have to run to a telephone booth before there was cell phones.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we had tactical awareness of our surroundings, but like fast forward to like I've been in technology forever.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: All those boundaries and that situational awareness psychologically has gone away.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really teaching children, even adults, by the way, even people my age, we're online, like slow down.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is this real?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like, if you were without technology, would you like I always ask myself all the time, would I do this at the end of the day?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I say no, I'm like, you know what?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: My instinct is right.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: All the flags are here.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that was only through my personal experience coming from technology and going through a cybercrime.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had to really slow myself down and go, is this real?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter that I want to work at the end of the day.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: They took more money from me being a single mom with no income, off work, like unemployment temporarily.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was still in a heated battle, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of a divorce.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I was fortunate where I could bounce back and put measures in place because I knew what they were.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people aren't in that position at the end of the day, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: That that could paralyze somebody for a very long time.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was very fortunate, and and that's why I'm launching my book.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Still recording it, it's an audiobook.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not like the most avid reader.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I fall asleep when I read.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact I'm launching a book is amazing for me personally.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I personally feel, and the reason why I'm doing audio, I think my voice makes a difference more than the words at the end of the day.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to help people understand it, understand the psychology, because I think cybercrimes are more psychology-based than they are technology based.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I was settled in my own personal psychology, I never would have fallen for that.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was very evident that I was going right into a cybercrime at the end of the day.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I was so desperate to please my family, keep incoming income coming in, get through my divorce, help my sick child.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: All that other stuff went away.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're banking on.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're banking on the perfect storm.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Three elements that are going on, whether it's in business or personal, and they will get through.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're all human at the end of the day, right?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that you brought it to psychology and trusting your intuition.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And because I find that when we ignore our intuition, that's when we have issues.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter if it's a cybercrime.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: For example, a couple of weeks ago.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's probably gonna be months ago by the time you guys hear this.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I had done a trip to Sedona.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom had this intuitive hit of like, I probably shouldn't let her go hiking.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I was very stubborn and I was like, I am not going to Sedona, I'm not hiking.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just that is not a thing.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: So she ended up deciding to quiet her voice.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think part of that was because I was like, I am the one with the stronger third.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: As one Scorpio child won't do.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she goes, uh okay, I like I didn't say anything, and then I go on this hike, and my knee is completely busted from it.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: All that to say, trust your intuition.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you know something or you sense something for someone you love, probably falls off.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, listen, my my family, when I was going through that job recruitment, fake recruitment, I call it, I'm a twin and you want to talk about intuition, right?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: She's connected to me through and through.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what people say about intuition, but unless you're a twin, you won't understand this.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: However, she constantly said, Are you sure this is real?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure this is real?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept validating what was real to me.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And she let me, she let me go through that process.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, I came to my knees the day I realized it wasn't real, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: On my floor in my kitchen, trying to figure out how I'm gonna pay my bills, how am I gonna, how am I gonna pay through my divorce challenge, and how to help my kid who's sick, right?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I ignored my intuition, which is exactly what they wanted at the end of the day.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the more people use slowing down tactics, breathing, not responding.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, with cyber crimes, most of them they reach out to you, right?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I just changed my one flag on the professional website that said open to work at the end of the day.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: They reached out to me.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't looking for them, right?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was flag, actually, that was flag number one.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when people get the phone calls to their house, they get the weird mail.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not looking for it, don't respond.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you think you owe somebody something, go on the original sites, whether it's a creditor, bank, whatever, or recruitment site or a company that you've applied to, go to them directly.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's this, that was the first crucial step I missed.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's like cyber safety 101, by the way.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the organization that reached out because there's so many things that are so sophisticated now.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You would never know if it was your bank, your stockbroker, you're a recruiter.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you pick up the phone or go directly to the source.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not looking for it, delete it, get rid of it.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Don't answer, don't respond.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's none of their business at the end of the day.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're all welcoming stuff in because we're used to the noise.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: The less noise you have in your life, the better at the end of the day, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, it's funny you brought that up because for me, I'm in the middle of a few trademarks right now.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this was actually a somewhat recent uh issue I had where I had a trademark that was pending.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: I got a phone call, and it was one of those phone calls, like, hey, I see that I'm from the trademark office.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I don't think they would call, but okay.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they were just like, for$425, your trademark is finished.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, and in that moment, I had that like, let's just rush to get this over with.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm tired of this price.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, how easy is it for us to find ourselves susceptible?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously with the trademark, you can just go online and type it up and then you get my information, and now you're bugging me about it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I realized, like, wait, the trademark office would never actually call.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: If they're gonna correspond with me, they're gonna email me.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, these moments of when our guards are down or when we're desperate to solve a solution.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we just we let that stuff flow, and that's where people get caught.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And think of it during tax time, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain seasons, excuse me, I have allergies, but Christmas time, like I got an Amazon call.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I never ever have ever received a call from Amazon many years ago, by the way.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it was probably two, three years ago.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Frage, oh, we your computer you ordered is not available to ship to the wrong location.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: We need your credit card.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, and I that was after my cybercrime, by the way.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I was educated.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, I go, okay, well, if it was shipped, and I I did not order a computer.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I ordered a computer two or three years prior.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, okay, what's my what's my credit card?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, well, you have to give that to us.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, you would already know it.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh, well, we need to transfer you to the credit card company.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what a lot of the scammers will do is they'll say, Oh, let me connect you directly.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's to the other scammer on the other side of the fence on the cubicle wall, right?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, so I just hung up.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how you handle it.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hang up, like stop, like, or say, I know you're a scammer, shut the blank blank up.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, whoa, like whatever you want to do as a human being.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I don't swear normally unless I do it and stub my dough.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: But but what I'm saying is like it's very easy, and especially you take someone who's a baby boomer or someone who is always taking care of finances, they're easily trapped in those things.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you have Christmas season, you have Hanukkah, you have all the holidays, like, and there's so many, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you take all the face, then you have, you know, tax season.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tax season is the most common fraudulent opportunity for people to give up their information.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, one of the things around taxes on the Social Security Administration, you can set up a PIN number just to you on top of your social security.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things like that you can build in personally to protect you from fraudulent behavior.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like so much stuff out there from a day-to-day.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Love this.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you again, you're incredible.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: I just I have to tell you this because it's this awareness that you have and the way that you make it digestible for the common person to just really realize like slowing down is your tactic here.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the number one defense.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Besides secure passwords, multi-factor authentication, which I want to use here, password managers.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: I listen, I'm gonna be over 50.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm oh I'm already over 50.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say my birth date because you know I will not share that.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: I use a password manager for over 15 years.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine someone my age using a password manager.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's not very heard of, right?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when I tell my friends, I'm like, get a password manager, whether it's one password, whether it's, you know, there's so many out there.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is just understand you have to change passwords across every site that you log into personally, and it has to be complex and it has to be different passwords, not the same one.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen, your password manager login could be one password into your tool.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's web browsers like you have Safari for Mac users, you have Google Chrome who has your own password managers, and just understand every tool has a different level of security, but remember you're better off with something versus nothing at the end of the day.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you gotta keep, you gotta protect yourself.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: But number one thing, just pause, breathe, and say, Did I reach out for this?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't, hang up the phone, don't respond to the email, don't, especially texting.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everyone gets fraudulent texts every day on like droves, right?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's become the new spam of texting.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't respond and delete and report it and block it.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's all you can do.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: And just know it's not real at the end of the day.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: They just want your money.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, you brought me to a good question, which is when we get these fraudulent phone calls or these fraudulent text messages, would you say that that's actually a sign that your data might have already been leaked?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it just you know, I don't know the exact answer because I get so many, well, probably because of my breach, I get so much scamming stuff, whether it's phone.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had to block so many.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's, and by the way, guys, there's there's free ways to block phone numbers, right?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's applications that block it as well.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer free because I'm on a budget at the end of the day.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And texting, same things.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it just depends on how loose your data is out there and if you've been breached, right?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the first tool I recommend for most people, see if your information has been breached on the dark web.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if it has, see which sites breached it, because then you know what information you provided, whether it's your phone number, email.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had two sites that breached, one was professional, one was personal.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, they were really old email addresses that I still have today.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: So all that junk goes there.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: However, they also got my date of birth and my information, right?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to be very vigilant.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And even like medical, I get medical alerts all the time, like my information is on breach.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't respond.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I go directly to the institution every single time.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's figure out if you've been breached on the dark web and then go directly to the source that reached out to at the end of the day.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Two simple steps.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Brutum, don't respond right away.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just so grateful again.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: So what would you say?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Shifting the focus a little bit, what mindset shifts would you say helped you go from a victim of cybercrime to an empowered leader who's teaching others how to stay safe online now?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think my mindset shift was I was never evade films.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just I had enough knowledge.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: I like I was more upset with myself initially, but then I thankfully I had enough wherewithal to know I was human, right?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to survivor mode quicker and I went from having the crime to recovery because I knew what to do in high tech.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: I knew how to recover myself technically.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people personally do not, right?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: I knew check all my monitoring services around my credit, check all my credit cards, check my banking.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had a punch list I went through right away.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for most people out there, just be grateful to give grace back to yourself, number one, because people beat themselves up about it personally.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Corporations are different.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: The IT guy is probably mad at himself or the employee who breached the call, whatever.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: But just be great, have grace, figure out where the risk is, mitigate your risk by knowing what's exposed.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was fortunate at the time, and maybe that's why I only have two sides breached in over six plus years.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was fortunate.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've always had a lockdown approach to my personal information and my websites.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just did something through a divorce that I just it was, it was like the perfect storm, right?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, and I'm not embarrassed about it coming from my deck.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like grateful I can share it with the world at the end of the day.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think just give yourself grace and go through the punch list and understand your own personal digital footprint and figure out how you mitigate your risk for future impact.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally, it was really difficult.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had an amazing credit score, still did.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened, I bought IT equipment, I shipped all over the world, who knows where it went.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my credit was locked down for two years.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I've lived paycheck to paycheck through not so good jobs.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or like I was a professional most of my career, and I was looking for work, and I just stayed patient with myself and then realized I just had to keep going and keep paying bills on time and keeping my credit, protecting myself from anything else that could come in because a lot of people give up when that happens.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're mad.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had to go, what else can I do to protect myself?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it I did personally come offline because that was a personal attack.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I shared limited information, and and that's it at the end of the day.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone's like litmus test is different on what they do and what they do for their personal lives.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's all different.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the smaller digital footprint, the easier it is to mitigate.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, you brought me back to a very interesting point because you did get offline and now you're barely resurfacing quite on.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um it took a while.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hard.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: How was that for you in terms of a fear of being seen now?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: Especially when you have such a big broad must message and you have this big mission to help women and empower them in the cybersecurity era.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: So how what was it like navigating that?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: That a being that position of being afraid of being online because your data was breached, but also coming to that term of like, I have to come back and make my way back.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was a long journey.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it was me going getting through my career and figuring out what I wanted to do for myself personally.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, my first step was to educate myself more.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back to school on cybersecurity governance.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: I went to a great school in Boston.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna, I don't want to name drop the school, but it was a great school.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in a medical school.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just be honest.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting to Harvard.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I did not go to Harvard in my undergrad, but I I did do a course at Harvard that was very helpful because I was in medical and technology, and it was important for me because I dealt with patient data.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I personally was like, God, I went through this crime.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: What could I do to learn more about why I got breached?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because that could happen in the corporate world.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, me going back to school was my first step around understanding me.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized the psychology of it.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: What was that?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your table went up.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went back to school, if you can cut wherever you need to, when I went back to school, it showed me where I was at risk.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was okay.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was a social psychology approach to my crime.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not every, by the way, not every cyber attack is psychology driven.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: I did pull myself off of personal, what I call personal social media.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: I kept myself on even the site that breached my confidence because I had to for income and work, but I limited how much I shared, right?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went through to recover my balances or my financial debt.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had absorbed my full cybercrime and pay off debt that wasn't real.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to pay that off, get through my divorce.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then my I knew someday I was gonna be able to share it with the world and share it with others.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can still get yourself out of a bad situation.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: It just, you gotta be patient with yourself.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just like I had to be with myself.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had to learn about why it happened, what my personal boundaries were, which were not healthy, because I obviously let someone play games with my head, which was not fun.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was already going through a head game, going through court, if you could imagine.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the same time, I was not mad at myself.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think people get mad at themselves.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not fun to lose money, by the way.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I looked at myself as fortunate, the fact I could recover financially, because I was I worked after that and I rebounded.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very grateful for that.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: But not everyone can rebound.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, my hope is, but my goal is through my education, through me building my consulting business, I eventually want to do like a nonprofit tied to funding victims of or survivors, outcome survivors.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the word, I'm not a big victim person.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thrivers, survivors, whatever.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think people go through that.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone can rebound the way I did.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was very fortunate I was a saver.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had credit availability, even if it was frozen for a little bit.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone's in that situation.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone grows up different, right?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone saves differently, everyone works differently.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: So my goal over time is if I can build the fun to help survivors or thrivers.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the word victim.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a victim mentality set, but I think I could help the world in so many different ways.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just starting.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm at the infancy of where I'm going.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: I love this.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: I really just want to acknowledge how much of a resilient and incredible human you are because you don't look at it as why did this happen to me, but more so you took the situation and you're fully going into the how can I use this for not only myself to educate those around me, but also to take this worldwide.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: And how do I educate and make this more of an available information?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, my mom was an educator.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: She did it from her heart.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about the income at the end of the day.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what I realized through that was I'm probably very similar.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more of an educator than a business person.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's probably more my heart at the end of the day to help others, help people thrive, regardless what that means coming back to me.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of giving out more than taking in at the end of the day.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's in my heart.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always been that way, but it's even more so now that I went through this.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: You're a gorgeous soul, but okay, so one more well, not one more.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: I have a few more questions.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just teach them.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, because it might be right one for social media.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: How did you rebuild your confidence and trust after feeling violated like this?
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I had to go back to my early childhood to go.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: When was I the most safe?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: When did I feel free?
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: When did I feel less violated?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was very violating.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very difficult journey when that happened.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back to when did I feel most innocent and more open?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because that that piece was taken away from me.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing was I shared it with my friends.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't embarrassed because I had so many other wacky things happen in my life.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, that makes sense.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what name that made sense?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: It made it wore middle for me because I said, I guess we'll go this path at the end of the day.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like the weird things that had happened throughout my life, before even like I went back to where I felt safe as a child.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, which was I have great memories.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: I felt I felt I went grounded that way to figure out where do I feel safe.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I went back to my childhood.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: That was the last time I probably felt safe, honestly.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then I Ben said, you know, when my friends like laughed, well, they were shocked, they were upset, and it happened to me, but they're like, you're the only person who could bounce back from that because you are so resourceful.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: So then I built confidence through friendship.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I also spoke to colleagues as well.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got educated.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a third step.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do I don't do this again?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do I or reduce my risk?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's going to happen more and more.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it was going back to where I felt safe, sharing information with others, and then educating myself.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the three steps to how I rebounded.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, it was ugly, it was embarrassing.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was not happy about it, but I'm like, this must be teaching me something so I can share it to somebody else at the end of the day.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I share this with my neighbor who's 92, who gets fake mail.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: I share it with my neighborhood.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at a group chat.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the more you can educate others to be safe, the better, right?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people, it's very easy to fall to a scam or, you know, I mean, there's so many other topics like cyberbullying, kids, whatever.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when you talk about loss of money, it's it's very violating, especially if you've worked most of your life and saved, and all of a sudden parts of it goes away.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like right?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at the end of I didn't listen, even if you didn't work for your dollar and someone stole it, don't be happy, right?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you have money, it's okay.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let someone take it.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, everyone has different circumstances.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: Mine, I worried for every dollar I have.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really hard to lose, you know, at the end of the day.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I love about you is just how you're literally like, how is this happening for me, not to me?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, being from a big family, you tend to get for me versus why there's no to me in a big family.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you move forward.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have to, there's no choice.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: In a in a healthy big family.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not every family is built that way, but my family was.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I grew up as an only child, so I cannot relate.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: Son, we are total polar opposites to dawn.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's incredible, just having that mentality of what added to your resilience because you already had this kind of resilient nature.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, listen, I I love my family.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: My mom did my mom and dad did everything to stabilize our family, but we didn't grow up in the most stable environments financially, right?
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we were all taught that education was a key to solving problems at the end of the day, and also building compassion for others who had less, right?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because he grew up with a lot less, even if people viewed our family as doing well, there was people who had far less than our family, right?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we all paid for our colleges, our parents contributed a portion of it, but all seven of us were educated.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine that, like that's hard to do in a modern day.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the message we all got was education's key, compassion's key.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter socially or economic status.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's a problem, how do you solve it?
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: At the end, and don't repeat it or learn from it and share it to others.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what good educators do.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: They share their own situations to others, they don't just keep it bottled up like maybe they'll ask me someday.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you gotta share it, right?
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like Smithers from Bart Simpsons, right?
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Getting kept all the secrets.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, but like I say, like you gotta share your knowledge.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's ugly or pretty, but just do it with grace and no arrogance.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I literally, like, you think it was pretty, like it's not to lose money.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tag I could crawl under a rock and not share it with one soul on this planet, and what good would that do at the end of the day?
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I have a curious question for you.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Cybersecurity can feel intimidating, especially for women.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: How do you simplify it?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: And especially when they feel like they're not techie enough.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: So number one, cybersecurity is most individuals outside of high tech think it as an engineer title, right?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: So step number one, or not even step, but I would think of cybersecurity as more as cyber safety at any level, whether you're male or female.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even matter gender at the end of the day.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if most people understand it's all about the psychology of your response and your ability to pause and build healthy boundaries, it doesn't matter if you just picked up the mouse or just got an iPhone or just got, you know, I'm a Mac user, so a Google, whatever device, it doesn't matter how old you are.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be technical to protect yourself.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think the basic steps are one set up when you set up anything online.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: You always need to have a password manager.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's my number one rule, because those password managers can allow you to store complex passwords that you can change out frequently and switch up.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you only have one login into those, and they're downloadable, so it's not like they're just in the browser.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're offline, you still have access.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: You could use Safari for Google Chrome, they have their own password managers in the browsers.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just know with Apple, their keys are encrypted, so only you could see them, not Apple.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: But on Google, they manage that encryption.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a little bit less secure, right?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's other technical terms.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think password manager, complex passwords, number one.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, don't share your birthday unless you really have to.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like seriously, I yeah, or your information unless you know, I know like people have to put in their address for banking and other stuff, but it like I'm sorry, until there's like double verification of your birthday on these social media platforms, they're lower priority.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: Make up a birthday, honestly.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I am not trying to down any social media platforms.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, I think learning to slow down and understand what's fraudulent person, what's real, right?
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not searching for it, don't respond to it.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest step out there.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't matter if some hot guy reaches out to me on Facebook, I'm not gonna connect with them.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if he has more pretty pictures and just reaching out to me, I'm like, sorry, I'm way hotter and way smarter.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: So no, but I'm not a thing, like, those are the things like you have to say if I'm not searching for it.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't respond, bottom line.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then that was the third comment.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth one is if you have children, educate them early, talk to them openly, talk to them about internet safety and be open around it.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more you set up security settings, multi-factor authentication, all that stuff, they become more aware early on.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's less chaos coming into their life or your own life, right?
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: They could, there's predators out there.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, those are the things I took for me personally, because I was a single mom.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do I protect my financials?
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: How do I not respond to something that I didn't reach out to?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't care anymore.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I literally, if I've not reached out, none of your business, right?
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and then protect my kids the best I can.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not perfect.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm human like everyone else.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna, everyone's gonna make a mistake at the end of the day.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think taking basic, simple steps is key.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then also reevaluating what your digital footprint is.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have like old emails that you don't ever log into?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have old apps on your phone that are not secure?
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: Get rid of all those accounts.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're just noise, and it's open opportunity to come into your home environment or your networks to impact you financially.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: So incredible.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: So as we wrap up, you're not only a cybersecurity professional, you're also a mom with a huge mission.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: So how has motherhood influenced the way you think about resilience and safety today?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's a mom with safety, number one, protective nature.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mama bear.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: I literally am a mama bear.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: I always have been.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think with family and especially my children, I just I go back to my mom.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: She always like she said, treat others like you would treat yourself at the end of the day.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone's not treating you the way you'd want to be treated, don't respond to it.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in a digital world, that's a lot harder.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my oldest daughter always says the word FOMO, and I'm like, what's FOMO?
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen, I'm aging myself, but just like rare missing out.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, God, I'm like, I would love to miss out.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't that even love.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the one thing that's helped me with my own kids growing up in the digital era is do onto others as you do onto yourself, which is very, I'm not saying it's biblical, but it's very traditional.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I also say to my kids, if the rules were reversed, would you include that kid in your life?
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no, don't expect the same back.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when they get FOMO or fear of missing out or being online, social media, who's popular, who's not.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: I always take them back.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: I ground them again.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, did you treat them kind?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you did great, if they're not nice back, just move on.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're an acquaintance acquaintance.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think social media and digital world has dehumanized a lot of our emotions.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, being a mama beer, I I go back to my grassroots of analog, running in the streets for a telephone booth, duking it out at the lunch table with some kid that I had words with.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not kidding.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I wasn't like a I wasn't a biter, but I think each of my kids' human decency and patience, and also compassion for the other side, because you don't really know what that kid on the other side's feeling.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times when I was bullied as a younger child, it was because that kid had a way worse situation at home than my own life, right?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding that empathy, but also not feeding into it at the end of the day as a mom, like like from that safety perspective.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really do unto others as you do unto yourself.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: And just teaching those life skills in a digital world, it's hard.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's constant.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to talk to your kids for sure.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when you think about your legacy, what do you want your work to remind people about?
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: The connection between safety, software, and resilience.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can still win the war for even the lost battle, right?
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think learning from the losses, you gain a lot more knowledge, and you can help others, not kind of go down that path at the end of the day.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think from a resilience, self-worth, and not repeating the past, it's being able to share that knowledge on to others and help them out along the path.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: And promise you we're at our two final questions before we head into the fire round.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, there's a fire round.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: There is a fire round.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I warned you about this.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_02: We're good.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: So what's one thing you want every woman listening to remember about her resilience and her power, both online and offline?
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think no matter what happens, just go back to where you've like believe in yourself again and understand that mistakes happen.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you may it be all those circumstances may be out of your control, but the control is living in the now and learning from the past and just moving forward and not letting it define you.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: And lastly, what does it look like for you to currently rise into your next level?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's it's a little overwhelming because I was offline for many years, except for limited social media.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just being on camera, I was in the corporate world every day.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about it.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was I've been on video for 20 plus years.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit easier.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: But being out in social media after that's where my crime started is very intimidating.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's very humanizing in the way who else is going to come my way?
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are they real or are they fake?
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, but at the same time, I look at someone who doesn't have the knowledge or experience.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: How can I help them reduce their risk?
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm used to kind of weird, quirky things happening.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of go with the flow.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned to go with the flow at the end of the day.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: So beautiful.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so quick fire round.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_02: These are going to be some fun answers.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just excited to see what you come up with.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: One word that describes your current season.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_02: Fall.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: She went literal.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I literally falls my favorite season, so I went to fall.
• 1:07:59
  unknown: Okay.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little word.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_02: I would have thought resilient, but okay.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you said with season so okay.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_00: So current season.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like what current season would be I would say rebirth of myself.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: I actually knowing you, yes, I would probably say it is rebirth.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: Daily non-go non-negotiable that grounds your mindset.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: Daily non-negotiable that grounds your mindset.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have to walk every morning with my dogs and my bunny on my back.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: Non-negotiable if I don't do it.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: For you guys who are listening, we didn't get into this.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_02: But Alison fully has a consume.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an animal lover.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: A book that shifted the way you think.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where the side again.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love that book.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: Only because it was the first book I could read in the library because I struggle with reading.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the first book that built me confidence in learning how to read aloud and internally.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right and left-handed, so that that book was my favorite.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where the side.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I ran operations at a very early age in my career.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of things on my plate.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a problem solver, so he would sit me down because I was so full of energy.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: How do you eat an elephant?
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is one bite at a time.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working on the patience aspect in life.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a good reminder for me.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm many years older, trust me.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a song that always lifts your mood.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Eye of the Tiger.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's my favorite, favorite motivational song, Eye of the Tiger.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it didn't have to be motivational, but if it works, it works.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: That is for me.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like all right, and final one.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: What is one thing you want women to stop apologizing for?
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Themselves.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think we apologize for ourselves way too much for being us.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what I learned even through my cybercrime, I wanted to apologize to my own self, but I've learned I'm not going to be apologetic anymore.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to be who I am authentically.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think women should ever apologize for themselves ever.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think as long as they have good intentions, have empathy, and if they if words have impacted their relationship with someone, sometimes we don't say it the perfect way, but we can also recognize that from the other side if we are empathetic and also still get our point across, even if it didn't come out perfect the first time.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was an honor to have you.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And what I love about this conversation with Alison is it reminds us that resilience isn't always just bouncing back.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's about rebuilding stronger, clearer, and more anchored.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it also was a great reminder on how to actually take actionable steps to protect yourselves, protect your assets, protect who it is you are.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I am just honored.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_02: As we started talking about boundaries, where in life are you being invited to set stronger boundaries?
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Where can you shift your mindset from fear to night or naivety to resilience and empowerment?
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because in this heart of Allison's work, she's showing us safety, dignity, and confidence are not separate from our mindset, they are reflections of it.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Rise with Anita podcast.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, keep protecting what matters, keep honoring your boundaries, and keep rising into your resilient, most powerful selves.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for having me, Anita.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And anytime you want me to join in, I'd be more than happy.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to have a second round, honestly.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, listen.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Should be pretty easy.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Alrighty.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, until next time.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: For those of you guys who are wondering how to connect with Allison, her social media links, where available, will be below.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And also her the link to her website.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we will be doing a part two because quite frankly, I could have asked her so many more questions.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in the uh so YouTube is cybersafe at AJ.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also when I do recordings, there's podcast audio as well.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on Facebook as Allison AJ Cuts.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on LinkedIn as Allison Cuts.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully I'll finish recording my book.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now hopefully, I will be refinishing my book by September so I can launch it on Amazon.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I can provide you the links for people if they want to reach out and figure out where we can help.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like honestly, it's just helping empower other people, especially women.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And my book is focused on females and single moms, right?
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Being from high tech, I was graced with being exposed to a lot of technology and still fell like to a victim, non-victim, but fell to a crime.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so many people don't even understand how much that risk.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I my book is to help help those moms that are busy like me.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Stay yeah.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was a pleasure to have you.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: I will have our social links below.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you guys like this episode, please go ahead and reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook or whatever social media platform you want to come to us on.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Let us know your thoughts, let us know your biggest takeaways.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And until the next one, that's all for now.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for rising with me today.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode moved you, share it, tag me at Arise with Anita, and make sure to subscribe so you never miss a future activation.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you feel cold, leave a quick review.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: It helps more women find the space and rise into their power.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Your next level is already waiting.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now go clean it.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you in the next episode.