Cybersecurity Meets Parenting: Kelvin Green on Empathy, Joy, and Change | EP029

All right, so I am here today with Kelvin green, and he has a rather interesting role, both as a parent and as a cybersecurity advisor, so I thought that might be helpful to caregivers at all ends of the spectrum here, because all of us have to deal with computers. Now, when I was growing up, that was not so, but since I got added into my 30s, it's been so all of that time. So I'm very interested to hear from kelvin a bit about what he does, so we can enter this conversation and have a great chat. Thanks, Kelvin

absolutely, thanks for having me Deborah

My pleasure. Would you like to talk a little bit about what it means to be what you do,

absolutely. So I'm a cyber security advisor. What I do is I help organizations to understand themselves. In order to understand yourself, you gotta understand the people. So people. You know, when you go to work, you think about, hey, the company as something that's being independent of you, but it's really just comprised of a lot of people. So when you operate and you do things in the company, it affects the company's cyber security just like it was your family. And when the rules are made, you know, just like families, the kids are neglected, you just say, Hey, this is what I feel, not what you feel. And so you take those things into consideration only. And so I want organizations to understand, hey, don't just think about it from your perspective, but think about it from the perspective of all the people who are part of your organization.

Now it's one thing to talk about a company, but I know all systems seem to run on a certain set of principles. So how do you bring that home when you when you are being a parent and trying to apply something similar to your family? Yep.

So that's that's when it comes into problems when you bring things to your personal life, because you you get set in your ways. Because when you're a child, you learn things, right? You go through life and you say, Hey, this is what it like when I eat this food and it tastes good. Doesn't matter if that food is bad for you, just learn to eat it, right? And so then when your parent you may realize that that food is bad after 10 years of feeding to your kid. You might look at TV, they say it is bad, but because you gave it to your kids, you got used to it. You got to adapt and accept the fact that your kids don't want to eat it, because you told the media, even if your perspective changed. And the same thing again, with security meeting, you could have somebody who was using computers for the last 25 years, and they're setting their way. This is how I check my email, this is how I log and this is what I do. And you're going to tell it'll do something different. Oh, man, you're going to have a bad time. So just like with everybody else, I feel like I'm facing those same challenges as a parent. That's

interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way, that that people do get set in their ways, and the last thing you really want is a lot of conflict when you're trying to run a big system like that, whether it's a family or an office. I remember trying to teach people about blue screens many, many, many, many years ago, and having to learn it myself. It was really something I had never anticipated knowing anything about. I came, I guess I came of age in the punch card generation. So so a lot of things have changed since then, and it's a lot easier to do now. And I will never go back and I say something similar, I guess, about families. So I know that in the crush of a day when you're a family caregiver, sometimes you just don't want to be bothered with exploring things from your child's point of view. And I know that there were times when my kids would say, Mom, that hurts, that's not right. Don't do that. And I would look at them like, What is the matter with you? So what do you recommend for that frazzled parent at this point? How can we handle that better? What's what's the solution? Well,

is a simple thing, empathy. You gotta understand them. So think about why are they doing that? There is a reason. So, you know, I believe a philosophy to say that nothing happens for no reason. So why is my child behaving that way? You know, my wife says to me, you know, he's just like you me? No, he's not. And she like, he's doing that because you did him like, No, I don't that's because I don't see myself as doing whatever he's doing. Or, matter of fact, you know, I'm not irritated by it, but when my child is doing it, it's a different opinion. And so how to get, how to understand, how to connect? Well, you just gotta say, hey, you know what they're doing. This for me, this is the best thing my child knows how to do. If I want them to do something else, I gotta figure out how I convince them to believe that this is the best thing to do. This is usually by doing it yourself. Oh, that's how, like not eating that food in the bed or turn all the lights off, man. You know, we so what? The kids do it, but we criminals ourselves. And so I try to take my time and say, doing it alright, this sucks, and I gotta do it because there's nothing. I mean, there's no there's nothing in the world I can do to just undo that. So I gotta figure out a way to how to convince him to believe that it's. Better for him to do that, and then you start down that path. Do I have a magic answer for you? Hell no, but you know it, there's no fun in life if we didn't have problems. So it's like a game. You just plan it. You gotta do your best to win. Figure it out.

Yeah, I guess there's no do as I say, not as I do, that works in in family care, because your kids are going to do what you do, and so it but I noticed a wonderful thing about your personality, and I bet it, it moves home with you every every time you are dealing with your kids. You have a great sense of humor. And I know one of the things that's really important to you. Empathy is one, but joy. You said you talked about fostering joy. Could you share a bit more about that as well?

Yeah. So I break life up into like, fragments of five years, and I say, Hey, if you went through life with 60, I mean 16 pieces of cake, eat something with five years, and that represents 80 years your life. And if I'm 45 right now, so you can say, hey, I had nine pieces of my cakes already, crap. So now I got seven pieces of cake left. And you can assume the last four pieces of cake, well, I know I want to leave those just enjoying that the first 12 right like I would be, like I did it. And so I did it. And so I want to reflect on everything I did. Was it? I'm like, Well, I'm down to only three pieces of cake left. Man, buddy, what do you want your life to be? And I'm like, Well, you know, I did a lot of things already, so be grateful that you did. Yeah, well, find joy in there. Because why you got to live life for all the kick you've already had, find joy because you won't give it again. So now start looking at all the things that I did good, that I helped my life to be who I am today. And I say, Man, I'm happy. And then I use that as a framework to say, You know what? Enjoy this next piece to the maximum. Why? Because you see that you done ran through those already. So you might want. I mean, I don't, you know. Like I said, life doesn't come with a road map. So one day I would love to go to the Himalayan moms. Got a lot of cake, left, right? I don't know, because I haven't been to Australia, but I didn't go see the pyramids. But there's, I want to go see my interview. What do you do? Well, Kelvin, you got a finite amount of time. So you gotta figure out what you will not do everything except that, but be joyful for what you do, and use your time to find as much joy as you can, because doesn't matter what else you have when you're done with your cake, it's a wrap

that is very true. You can save it for the last minute, and you know, wait and wait and wait to consume that dessert. But once it's gone, it is gone. So you might as well be living in the moment, I guess, is the message that you want us to have there be here, you know, because it's not coming back. You know that once that cake is eaten, it's over. So that those are very wise words, I think, to take forward and when, no matter what age you're at in the caregiving stream. So I'm wondering if you'd be able to share with our listeners where they can connect with you, so they can share some of this great goodness too.

Yep. So I am going to start podcasting, not necessarily on that topic. I'm going to be podcasting on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, also helping startup businesses and on healthcare technology. So as you can see, not necessarily in that space, but you can reach me on LinkedIn. I do have a podcast that I'm going to do, called me myself and I and it's really just focused around letting people not myself, but to just talk about some of their perspectives on life, or how they're achieving their goals. So I guess you can say it wraps in there. But again, you can reach me on my website, podcast wise, com, on LinkedIn. I'll give you the link to that. My company's website is going to be CSA. I dot pro again. What I do is I help organizations to be more secure. What I do is I connect them with the vendors. So I help them to understand what they want to do. I they want to do it, and then I help them to connect them with the people who can do so don't actually do anything. I got all my own problems with my computers. Can't help you, but I can connect you with people who do that's

great. So you'd be a great guide to go to I know a lot of people are struggling with what is AI and you know, how does it relate to me? So it's wonderful to hear that you're going to do that public service of giving people some information, and we're certainly going to put all of your links in the show notes, so everybody can catch up with you. And I'm just wondering, is there anything in closing you'd like my audience of share givers. I call them share givers because we're looking for ways to get more people into the story, so it's not so stressful. Any closing message you'd like to give to the audience today? Absolutely,

play games. I'm going to tell you a little. Something about life. Your whole life, from the beginning to the end, you're playing games. I get it. It may not seem like games, but when you go to work, they're hedging that somebody's going to buy from them versus buying from somebody else. So they're going to find ways to attract the customers. They're playing the game. If you are going out to the store and you're trying to buy something full price. Why does it say 95 cents versus one? You know, 00, $1 if they're playing a mind game with you, they say, when you see this, you're more likely to buy so you gotta say, hey, know that game and and decide to go different route, because maybe you don't need that thing. But throughout your whole life, you're playing games. So if you want to be entertained and find more joy, find more games to connect with the people around you, people who play the same kind of games, in general, on the same page, meaning you play shooting games and somebody plays puzzle games. You might not be in the same world, but yes, but if you do, then you connect. So play games. That's

a great way to end this. To be thinking about how play is part of really good communication and sustaining your life. And they say if you keep playing the games, doing the puzzles and everything through the end of your life, you're going to keep your brain sharp for a much longer time. So it is great advice across the generations, kids need to learn strategy, and older people need to keep the mind going. So thank you so much, Kelvin, this has been a great interview, and I'm so glad you showed up today.

Thank you, Deborah, battle is here. Thank you.