Failing Upwards: How to Rise in Cybersecurity by Finding and Exploiting Your Weaknesses

hi everyone so thank you for coming to this particular talk on this particular day um we're going to talk about failing upwards today and the fun part about it is um this is I think still the only presentation of its sort um I did a weird amount of research on the subject and when I did this weird amount of research on the subject I realized there are no other presentations on it so um here you are so how to rise in cyber secur by finding and exploiting your weakness let's dive in shall we first Who Am that's a really good question random person so my name is Wes hi oh I got waves oh my God thank you

okay so I am currently living in Canada I am not Canadian um I I move around a lot though uh previously in the Netherlands Japan China USA Belgium New Zealand um I keep moving around um I don't have a good reason for this I just keep doing it um so there's that what I do uh so I'm currently the Chief Information and intelligence officer it's a really long set of words I gave myself I have to type this in every time I do a survey all those words it's terrible um I'm also a data privacy Advocate I'm a hacker professionally and personally I also am a runner a gamer I walk around the world sometimes and I'm also I need

to talk near the microphone and uh and I'm also a hacker in my free time what's that oh don't don't don't encourage me don't encourage me I'm going to walk around and it's just going to be awkward for everybody thank you though um but why am I like this that's a good question also so I I like Puzzles and I seek novelty I think we all can relate to this that's pretty much me also anxiety lots of that um but before we start before we kick into this for real um just want to start off with some some basic level setting we're going to start with the formatting today we're going to talk about failing upwards

we're going to clarify what that means and then I'm going to tell you my story it's going to be story time I'm really sorry about that we have to suffer that pitch here's my pitch um um and we're going to set some scenery we're going to like understand like what the situation needs to be and then we're going to go through the steps on how to actually fail upwards uh when we're done with all that I'm going to give you some final advice and uh hopefully we're all going to be failures very soon um some assumptions to before we begin I'm assuming that if you're here you want to get ahead you want a better job a higher

paying job a higher more responsibility something to that effect um I'm also assuming that you know what kind of job want to have and you currently don't I'm also going to assume that you have some basic understanding of what that job actually is like you're not trying to break into rocket science for argument sake um I'm also assuming that you're willing to get weird about it you're willing to get awkward about it get uncomfortable with it because that's kind of how it works um and some disclaimers before I begin any of these words um your mileage may your mileage will vary uh because your journey is going to be different from mine it's just going to be weird for you it's

going to like it was weird for for me uh but how it's weird is up to you um and also I see my privilege I understand that I am CIS male certain height certain build that's going to affect how I succeeded or failed in this context um however the reason why I'm talking about this because I have several friends in uh gender and ethnic minority Spa spaces that have done this too so I've seen it work for others which is why it's not just my story it's actually just my example and um that said little bit of warning this looks easy and is hard it is actually really tricky to stick the landing on this however however ideally

it's also fun because if you treat it like a game then it's going to then it's going to be fun it's going to give you that Charisma and confidence to do it correctly and that's what's going to sell it so it's going to be hard fun if that makes sense yeah okay cool now I'm not touching cables but I'm going to push the button there we go let's start with failing upwards what does that even mean if you if you just Google the term failing upwards what you're going to get is variations of to advance in one's career despite failure um that's that's not failing upwards that's career resilience that's different I mean that's important too don't going be

wrong but it's not what we're talking about today what failing upwards is is different um but why what why would you fail upwards I mean like first I'm failing upwards in this context is um have you ever just had like a really really mediocre boss like a guy is like how did you get here you're you're you're almost bad at this you're you're you're forgettable best yeah that's what we're going to do today we're going to get you in that space where you are that guy you are that person um congratulations you're all about to be very mediocre very successful so but why would you do that why would you choose this path instead of just working hard well that's the bad

news and the good news um you may want to advance your career just because you want more money want more want more responsibility maybe maybe more ownership these are all good reasons but why you would do it just in general good employees don't usually get promoted they just don't I mean maybe a pay raise maybe some benefits extra PTO you're not going to get a promotion out of good work you just won't there's no reason for that we're going to get to why um and also uh if you're looking to like get a manager's job for argument sake um look up a job description for a manager can anyone tell me what a manager does

like practically like I am one but like I'm just curious what what do you guys think what does a manager actually do skills what are emails emails emails good what else meetings emails meetings what else yeah yeah there's a lot of things that you could do like in this room right now and be a manager it's like literally the there's no technical skills to this there's no there's no degree for this you know there's I it's like it's like Ken and and his job is Beach you know it's like that so that so how do you become a manager you fail at it and that's how you succeed at it anyway how does it work how does the

actual mechanics of it work we're we go into the details of how it works mechanically but here's just an overview we're going to talk about counter signaling uh we're talk about bias for Action we're going to talk about cronyism that's the exploit in this context is the cronyism and then we're going to talk about this the three out of the six principles of influence any social engineers in the room of course you wouldn't raise your hands oh there's one there's one okay there's always one it's always it's usually one usually the one who's more or less fashion there we go um but anyway these are all like psychological and social situations that we literally can't

escape we are all subject to this whether we like it or not that's how we're wired so that's how we're going to make it work for us but first how realistic is this actually well here's some examples 10 years apart um failing upwards is not just a really common side effect of the business of the business world but it's also just like it's been around since the Industrial Age it's probably been around since since time and memorial for kings and queens um so suffice to say everyone's looking for a solution because they keep having these mediocre managers um but why not why not make it work for you instead of working instead of having work against

you right so yeah it's real but here's the here's the here's the part I'm going to try to get through pretty quickly because frankly this is not why you're here at least I hope it's not because it's a very dull life but let's talk about how I got into this space and they'll kind of give you context and maybe some examples you can draw back to so first real buzz buzz through what who I am as a child um geek stuff I basically was the AV person in my house I wired VCRs and broke TVs um and game Genies game Sharks any fans of breaking games yeah there's a few of those in the room uh teenagers martial

arts more geek stuff and also Robotics and social engineering I picked up I I competed with robotics and and uh you seeing some patterns here that I didn't see by the way cuz in the College Years I couldn't quite figure out what to do but so I was jail breaking phones and writing cyberpunk novels uh very successful clearly um and then early career I was just I was doing basic retail and Hospitality as we all kind of have right and and then every job I had it's like hey Wes can probably fix that um and yeah I did but I never once figured out that I probably should pick up Tech as a as a field like it never

occurred to me for some reason um yeah so then you actually get to the point where I actually do realize I want to do this stuff so I moved to China pick up technical pre-sales job kind of got my first kind of technical job um and I go back and forth from in Japan a lot and um I was Shadow it at every company I was that guy right so um but at a certain point at a certain point that's actually I I started to make that an actual job and so I picked up a basic it job and a pattern you're going to if you if you've known me for like five minutes you're going to recognize this and that

is that um that that feeling like you you have these things that are wrong around you and you have to know no one else is fixing it so clearly you fix it right like you can't just let this be a bad situation you got to like manage that so course as an IT person I don't hold still I pick up systems Administration I pick up risk management I pick up data center management um D Center Administration project management I did all these crazy ass part my language um and then I burnt out learn out learn lesson from that is um just bit of advice if you are about to burn out it's because you're still holding on

to too many things so just let some of it go that should help doesn't solve it but it helps so it's the the pattern here is basically going to be that I keep doing all this work that isn't actually my job and then I keep getting tired that's going to be the pattern here so I do that again only this time I do it in the United States for a while uh Cloud systems administrator site reliability work um a little bit of infect work and here's where it actually here's where I actually got into security is this job right here I was basically just really tired and also mediocre I I was like I am unexceptional as a man as an engineer

I'm like truly like a beige pants suit of a man of an engineer you can like walk right past me and not know what I did and so but I'm also like tired and doing all these things I don't I'm not supposed to so they're like hey you know what why don't you just you look tired you look tired why don't you just go do that web application firewall for us cuz no one wants that why you just do that and so that's how I got my start in security is doing the the thing that I was I was supposed to do so um because I was not great at the main job so that's

how kind of I broke into security um so that said here's the actual pivot that we're going to talk about today this is the actual important part so so I start off with doing some plat so I moved to the Netherlands in 2016 no particular reason 2016 was a good year to move away from the United States no specific reason at all um and and uh yeah then at that point I'm like that's my actual first named role is in security engineer and while I'm doing this job uh I realize that there is no Security State to engineer on there is no platform there's no tooling there's no Services there's nothing so it became my job because again why would it be

someone else's job when you know it could just be mine so I build an infrastructure out of it I build a service state out of it I you know I organize the tools I set things up I have a lot of help because I'm a mediocre engineer right so um I organize all the policies I organize all the governance and all I I I build like an entire thing and I was really happy and then uh the new ceso comes in is like hey you look tired would you like a you like a slightly easier job where you just write the policies and do the governance on its own and so that's how I broke into

an information security officer role is again doing work I wasn't supposed to and and apparently I was better at that than the job I was actually doing so there's a pattern here right and then from from there it gets really boring this is basically once you're management you're management you just go to another job it's just just ask and you'll get another one it's it's it's that's that's less interesting but I but at that point I'm like I keep getting tired and doing the work of someone else and then wind up doing that job instead and then getting a job out of that job and so I did that like three more times I'm not a

CSO anymore actually I think it's a different title now but anyway um and then I moved to Canada long story short so that's the journey let's talk about the actual subject matter though there's this there's a story here and the story is not actually how I how I move around or why I'm like this the story is I keep getting tired in getting a new job so let's talk about that failing upwards how does it actually work let's talk about the psychology for a second that's probably the most interesting to me personally counter signaling so when I say counter signaling what I'm talking about is is like think of think like a humble brag right it's like it's like

you're saying something negative to indicate a positive or something positive to indicate a negative that's one of the key factors on this process um we're we're going to talk about how it connects as we get to the actual steps but that's like one of the things of how it works mechanically on on failing upwards it's going to be a combination of this and bias for Action so um I'm I'm like a huge moving nerd and Bruce Willis is I'm going to say demigod level to me give or take not anymore not anymore God but like back in the ' 80s when he was like on his game by for Action he is like Bruce Willis is

actively bad at at getting the job done he like Falls he breaks stuff he like messes around he like like stuff happens in this movie that's new to action movies in 1980s right bias for Action means that you're going to be happy that he's trying regardless whether he's successful or not that's what we're going to do as well um cronyism though so cronyism is a negative and it's but we're going to make it work for us cronyism in this context is the idea that it's a it's a circle that you're not a member of or that you are a member of and others are not so it's exclusive that's the point is it's exclusivity it sucks but we're

going to exploit it how how it exploits is interesting basically if you treat this like a if you treat this like an attack surface then it becomes a different conversation entirely if you look at it as cronyism is a circle of trust so circles equal trust equals bias if you're inside the circle you have a natural bias for something inside the circle um example if you take your friend and you take a person next to to your friend and they're like identical in every way let's call them twins but one of them you like one of them you don't you're going to you're going to naturally trust and relate to the one you like more than the one you don't

even though they are literally the same person just you know one one you know one you don't so if you consider in that sense biases are completely unconscious and we can't stop it we can't not be biased right so the exploit is this trust is an expression of time and exposure right so what you do is you just need to you just need to have a force multiplier on either the time or the exposure or both and that reduces the the amount that and that actually gets you inside that Circle that's it's a lot it's it's a little more complicated than new once but that's effectively what it boils down to but here's the part that's really

interesting is the um the there's a book called uh the six principles of influence it's a very popular book for the social engineering crowd and it's actually just a good book to read in general but what they do is they cover like six six ways to Influence People reciprocity is the idea where you give get something and you'll and you'll want to give in return um so we all go grocery shopping and we walk down the store right and someone's giving away granola bars or something to that effect and you take a granola bar and uh you do not buy it you do not I mean like there there's naturally there's going to be some psychopath who like makes a

conversation with this poor person who's giving out granola bars that person's weird right no one's like no one no one like sits down and has a 5minute heart-to- heart with a person giving way the granola bars but what we do even if we don't buy the granola bars we we at least say thank you we look them in the eye and we make at least a a general gesture of General gesture of thank you you know unless you're a different sort of psychopath but point is is that you can't not respond if you're given something you just can't it's just n Nate human nature and then social proof is another factor in this um so you know

there's always that that that one person who like crosses the the street before everyone else does and then everyone else starts to follow them it's like that so uh there's always one of those people and that's that's what we're going to talk about here as well is the social proof is if you get if anyone approves that is the approval of all and then the last thing and I I really wish I could put more time on this because that would be its own talk entirely and that's being car that's being likable um if you're generally a dislikable person this is not going to work for you you've got to you've got to be um you've got to

work on your work on your confidence and your and your charisma to make this happen um I can give tips on that but the short version is that that's a really critical part as well that all said that's how it mechanically works as a combination of these uh psychological and social factors um so that said oh by the way um I will give this presentation to anyone who wants it so don't worry about taking notes um there's a lot on the slide sorry for that that said let's set the scene so when we when I'm talking about the the circumstances in which you fail upward you're looking for two specific situations you're looking for the

energies of these two people I told you I'm a movie nerd here we go we're talking about Buzz Light your first start falling with style um so Buzz Lightyear not sure who remembers 1995 uh very well I I personally don't but it's uh he like Buzz Lightyear he like Woody challenges him like you can't fly he's like yes I can and he jumps off a bed bounces on things F you know sails around on a swing and sticks the landing and he says yeah you didn't you didn't fly you fell with style that's what we're looking for we're looking for falling with style bold confident and in and B bold confident and incompetent that's the that's one of the energies

we're channeling second one Peter Gibbons from Office Space um now I had to be really clear about this don't do crimes um I mean like this is a really good example just only for the first 10 minutes so if you really want to commit crimes I can't help you with that but I can tell you the first 10 minutes though actually I can help you but just I won't I um Peter Gibbons is the energy we're looking for in the first 10 minutes he basically goes through some life changes and then has a breakdown in the office stops working breaks drops his cubicle walls and they and and while everyone is getting fired he's getting promoted

that's what we're talking about today that's what we're talking about that's the energies we're channeling so that said before we dive into this couple more words on this inside manager heads um any managers in the room right now by the way I am so sorry for all of you I'm so sorry I had to pick on all of you it's going to get worse so um and and stop me if I'm wrong but I believe we can all agree as managers we do this from the management side there is no reason to promote an employee apart from morale there's no there's no motivation you're actively you're actively dis um you're active you're actively like discouraged in some situations to

promote people um if you have an engineer who's good at their job why would promote them why would you ever want this person to leave you would want them to be better better at another job you want them to be really good at the one they have forever because then you can because then you're doing your job by them doing theirs so there's no reason to promote an employ a good employee ever that's why you wind up getting better jobs when you move companies rather than inside one so there's that but I think the the real extra thing here is that when you do get promoted because it does happen eventually when you do get promoted it's

because you have shown some sort of contrast against your current role now what you're going to want to do in this in the in in the in the context of failing upwards is we're going to want to make that contrast not just go not just like here you are and who you want to be we got to make the contrast Higher by dropping down where you are so it's going to we're going to we're going to expand the contrast Zone which is going to make it more obvious so better value elsewhere with higher contrast is what we're going to angle towards in the process that said last thing I promise few prerequisites and then we're good

nice to have should have need to have nice to have some experience on what on on what you're actually trying to do if you're trying to be uh like a a knock engineer if you're trying to be a manager ideally you have some experience that predates that your attempt that's nice to have should have at least some background knowledge of the job you're trying to reach for and you should but you need to have a a goal State at all if you just want a better job this is going to not this not going to work for you you actually have to have an active goal you're trying to reach um but nice to have is a startup

mentality so if you if you're one of those people who just like rise and grind you know get this bread is that still the thing people say I don't know um yeah that that's that's cringe right okay anyway that's helpful here um but you should have should you should have the ability to or the interest to work outside your hours a little bit um if you work remotely it's probably fine to do it inside your hours but um this is going to require more of you outside of your outside of your normal work but need to have you need to be less good at your current job and and take that risk I'm talking about actually being

mediocre in your job right now like you got to you got to be willing to risk that um but you nice to have though is a friend in high places if you have like a par a particular favorite manager of yours or some place in the knock that you're trying to reach for as an example then that's going to that will help um should have though is acquaintances in high places hello hey oh hi hey how you doing doing good uh for everybody who doesn't know this already we have this thing called outrageous speaker requests uh when you apply to speak at Bay sides there's a little field down at the bottom you says do you have any

other outrageous requests whatever you put in that field we try to provide for you even if we have to evil Genie it a little bit sometimes but uh I had a request for tacky Vegas memorabilia so we have a that is so tacky a very tacky shot glass oh that's horrible love it uh I have a uh slot machine pen oh my God that's amazing and I have a pair of socks that you should probably put on before you go anywhere else but it says you know BR me to the casino oh my God that's amazing so that is thank you oh my god thank you so much thank you oh yeah this is fantastic oh I I am I am you're the one

who you're the you're the you brought me that poster last yes oh I was looking forward you thank you thank you so much this is so tacky thank you I'm going to put this in a place of honor right here and I'm put these over here thank you tacky but delightfully unrefined oh my God I love bsides um that is truly tacky okay um anyway so um it's nice to have acquaintances in high places um that's that's that should have you should at least have an acquaintance they should know who you are at least right but you need to have a high place to start off what I mean by that if you're if you're a consultant or

a contractor and this won't work for you because your company is over there you know you got to have an inner circle in inside your company that you're trying to reach at all right so that's that's the prerequisites we're working towards that all said here's the steps because that's actually why you're here um once you actually Define your next step and I'm just going to use the example of management for the sake of ease um let's assume you you're all going to be managers tomorrow this is how you go go about it once you define what that next job is you're trying to reach for you got to power down this is where you become mediocre yourself I

mean like meet your jobs kpis don't risk your com don't risk your job over this right but you need to start powering down you got to start looking at this like I got to like I think Qui quit is a word people are saying now that's that's not quite that that that's basically what we're trying to do effectively you're need to power down it's okay don't lose your job over it just be mediocre at it um and then the next thing is you're going to want to immerse yourself in the culture of the next job you're trying to reach now what does now an example of this be like let's say management for argument sake um you you

want to like go to meetups or hang out with managers in general you want to like get the use their words like get their there's a culture for every job this is where you like become a member of that culture at least in at least in a pretending sort of way a minimum uh because that's going to give you the wording and and the approach and kind of get inside their head a little bit and then you got to train yourself to be more likeable now I have some resources I like to use uh one of them is actually is a great YouTube channel called Charisma on command I think and use like uh like celebrities and pop

culture references to illustrate the principles of how to influence and how to and how to be popular and how to be you know charismatic and um that's what you want to do you want to start working on that Charisma you know any sort of self-help books here's the moment and phase one is going to take a little bit of time but it's actually probably the easiest part of this process it's not too bad uh but the goal of phase one is you're employable but not a rising star yet you know it's you're not great but you're not bad but also while you're while you're actively okay you're also in the process of becoming really good

in the mindset at least of the job you're trying to reach phase two is starting with this this is this this is Fast Forward about a few weeks maybe a few months depending on your process depending on your depending on where you're at uh you're going to quietly start doing the next thing work now if it's management you can do something innocuous like helping them help helping them like format format tables you know what help helping them send emails right you know just kind of pick up those little tasks that managers probably hate to do and they're happy for someone else to do and but but here's the thing you can't be loud about it you got to be really like just be

chill here's where you chill because it's going to come to you back in a moment in phase three but right here is where you quietly do the next step without permission it's important you don't permission it actually is um and part two is you got to make yourself familiar with the next steps peer group and their management so what I mean by that here's where now is where you actually start you know kind of like introducing yourself talking to these people getting them to know you you know it's not important that they like you don't have to you don't have to go fishing with them you don't have to like go to the club with them but you have to at least

they have to at least know who you are that's the Hope right so that's the intention and then you got and then at that point once you got steps one and two then you then you got to begin doing more of the more of the next step just just start phasing it into your rotation just start doing this habitually and make it normal make it super normal that this is something you do now it's like why are you in the knock you don't work here shrug and like walk away like don't make a deal of it the goal of this is that you just seem to be doing it better at this other job that isn't yours right

from the stories I told earlier here's here's where here's where here's where the lessons are so phase three this is again maybe a month six months it depends on how depends on everything depends on all the variables in your in your circle but once you have convinced yourself and others and it's important you have all that confidence in yourself and everyone does too everyone knows this is just something you do you just do this it's fine invite yourself or Shadow or Shadow someone into the conversations and meetings that you don't belong I mean like just again be chill be cool just make it normal make it normal just follow manager into their management meeting as an example right and doing

this will this is where that this is where that um what's the word I'm look for this is where the uh social proof comes in because here's the trick once you're in a room and no one tells you no one no one objects you officially have permission of everybody you officially do you're in the circle if no one objects it just happens and then at that point begin doing less and less of your current job and more and more of the one you're about to do and this is where you actually start failing your kpis this is where they you stop doing your job well and you start doing another job better I mean like actively

visibly because at step three here's where you actually once you've gotten into that Circle of trust here's where you express your intent to move into that role and at this point it's going to be an interesting situation for you because this is the point of no return one of two things is going to happen either either they're going to talk amongst themselves the circle is going to consult the circle or the circle's going to consult HR or they're going to tell you to go to HR if HR gets involved you you push too fast because they should talk to each other first if they talk if they tell you to go to HR then you then you you've gone through phase

two too quickly so you got to yeah phase two Builds on ph phase two is a requirement for this but then for step four here's where it gets interesting because whether they accept whether they deny regardless what the circumstances once you've expressed that intent the next thing is you wait a little bit and then you update your resume you update your LinkedIn you put on your LinkedIn profile all the things that you've been doing that is not your job do it who's going to stop you there's no LinkedIn police this is not fraud well might be depending on the job don't say you're a lawyer I've seen that I've seen suits don't do that either

don't do crimes don't do crimes um but anyway so like put yourself out there as this new person make it clear and then at that point whether if they come back to you with a with with the job perfect if they don't perfect because at that point stay or go becomes the next choice I think we've all been in that position hopefully maybe less than some um but the goal here for phase phase three is you're better in this other work and you will do it you will do it whether you're here or there but you're going to do this job now you've done it phase three is where you actually change into that person you've

been trying to get to the whole time you just don't ask permission that's the key and you know and you notice in phase three is where you talk about it because phase one it needs to be normal you got to normalize the job you want to have that's what's going to give everybody the understanding that you should just have the job right so that all said summing up how we doing on time oh fantastic so much time oh I am so happy okay to sum up failing upwards is really common place it might as well work for you I mean this is literally happening every day we can't stop it we might as well use it right um

It's a combination of normal human behavior when I say normal human behavior I mean normal human not normal behavior CU this is an abnormal thing we shouldn't do but we're going to exploit it anyway and be successful at it and to fail up you have to be employ mediocre you have to be like you can't be good you got to be mediocre at best properly unexceptional and then quietly achieve in a different space you're trying to reach and that's what's going to make the shift happen for you and then I have to be glib don't come in on Saturday and follow with style so that's that I'm sorry I had to I had to do some

stupid joke at the end um and that's the summing up of it now I told you I'm going to send this presentation whoever wants it because there's a few resources so there is a lot to take in on this um I did a lot of research on this that the the two articles I gave at the beginning they're here um but I think just some quick call outs um just to kind of channel the energies you're looking for again we're looking for like um the social engineering Village uh has their own YouTube channel if you catch up on the talks Charisma on command is good resource for building that building that confidence and the ability to talk

and small talk like the the obnoxious things we all have to do why not be good at it stff like that um if you want to follow some social Engineers like Eli Denise I think she currently uh yeah I think she's she's actually I think she's I think she's actually here today um Rachel tobac is another really good choice as well um and reading books is one of those things it's like we all say we read books some of us do but we all say we do here's where you actually books you should read I recommend specifically influence the psychology of persuasion uh this is Dr Robert chalini he's the one who wrote the six

principles of influence he did from marketing um which feels gross but it is actually a really good book on how to develop those interpersonal skills that's going to give you that that edge right um and then also I think maybe maybe my favorite book I've read has got to be Joe noar's what everybody is saying what every body is saying an XX an X FBI's guide to speed reading people uh we're talking about things like the direction people's feet tell you whether whether you should talk to them or not stuff like that it's crazy I love it um social engineering Village if you're going to deathcon please please hit these guys up um and then yeah my

LinkedIn is the bottom there it's uh yeah so you can you can it's a poorly tended Garden I probably I will accept it and then probably like not look at it for weeks but I will get back to you promise um that all said we actually have a lot of time for questions because I was weirdly quick today so oh thank God there's questions yes

okay okay oh sorry uh I'm gonna ask the question again um so you you talked a lot about it being important to be mediocre in your current job can you speak more to why that's important yes yes uh I think um somewhere in the somewhere I think slide five or six I mentioned briefly very briefly that uh you're looking for contrast the reason why you're looking for contrast on that is is because the you basically it's not enough to just be better at another job in most cases because again it's you're not going to get as much visibility doing it that way being mediocre at the other job is going to give you that push

so it's a pull and push effect um so I think that's I think it's a combination of higher contrast and a push and pull on the process yeah hi there he is YY um so I kind I love this presentation cuz I kind of accidentally did all that my job um so that's social proof that he's right um excellent excellent um so one thing that I had trouble with in a previous attempt to do this was doing something where it it just didn't exist there was no s Social Circle at all like how do you do this where the company has no impetus no people no Circle for the thing that I want to do oh see that's

the exciting part if you're in that situation you got to you got to Pivot a little bit and you got to the there's there's a circle somewhere you have to impress it's if it's if it's if you're trying to go like like into a different space and not the one you're entering you have to build the space yourself then it's probably we probably just want to swap the circle for management just like just make make it about management and then just like start doing the job yeah good that's a good one that's a good one oh yes hello how does how does your falling upwards compared to the Peter Principle because it seems like a

bit of an expansion of it sorry can you one more time please uh the Peter principal was a book published in 1969 that about people rising to their highest level uh possible and then a bit more due to incompetence and that's where they can to stick yeah honestly it is it is very much an expansion of that you're right um no I hadn't thought of that that's a good point uh yeah no I think the the interesting thing about it is that is that um this this process doesn't work very well in um in properly egal Aran societies for example if you do this in Denmark it won't succeed uh it has to be like a late stage capitalist rean

Reaganomics sort of situation you have to you have to Greed has to be part of this or else it doesn't fit for some reason yeah it's it's weird but you're right absolutely it's very it's basically an expansion good point yeah you sir would you consider attending besides LV a phase three activity and if so what are some of the actions or activities some of the people in this room might be able to do while they're here I am so sorry I did not quite catch all that one one more time would you consider attending besid LV a phase three activity oh and if so what are some of the actions or activities that some of the people in

this room could do while they're here yes okay thank you sorry for that um yeah good point let's go back to phase three real quick just just for visual reference right okay so actually I would I would consider lo I would consider bsides probably more of a phase one situation because at this point it's phase one step two this is where it's going to be immersing yourself in the next steps culture so um however however um I know that there's some people hiring out there so you could just bridge the gap you know so it's entirely possible to do both all right anyway oh sorry yes hey how's it going I really love the presentation I just wanted to ask if

there are any tips for high functioning perfectionists that find it difficult to be mediocre oh my God my people my people yeah um actually unironically I actually have a tip for that um yeah just Express that Express that anxiety in the new job just pivot focus focus the perfectionism on the thing you're trying to achieve and then at that point you'll probably be too busy to to be good at your job do you want to take one more yeah trans oh I'm I'm good just um I have to stop sometime Right Drake how many more minutes till we transition 10 oh fantastic let's keep this going yeah who's next oh there he is I'm just curious how how have your tactics

changed now that everybody's gone remote because being in person it was a lot easier to just kind of stroll in behind somebody to the meeting now we have to get the invite yeah that is actually a really good point um so so if I got let me just repeat the question make sure I've got it right how does the remote side of it factor in okay yeah uh that's it's actually in a way easier in some ways because you can basically just like piggyback on a on a on a zoom link you know I mean the thing is unless it's actually like a properly locked down virtual meeting you can just show up to them I me if you're if you if

you I'm not going to name brands but there's a lot of Brands where it's like you can literally just like find the link if you're willing to scrape and like you can even like not even get permission into these meetings that's not a thing that's not formal advice I'm not going to give you advice to do crimes here's here's me not advising crime but you could totally do that um but like that aside though um socially though that's where it gets interesting because how do you establish a rapport virtually right um couple tips that I found were really helpful is um everyone does this thing and I think we're all guilty of this where we're in a virtual

meeting and we all like we're all like like we can see up up each other's nose cuz the webcam is down here you know or we or we like Square on like we're like we're like like this and like you see it like Square shoulders and it's it's it's a weird psychology but if you actually pivot slightly to the side put one shoulder back and just kind of relax into it a little then you're going to you're going to you're going to feel more confident because you're more comfortable and you're going to and you're going to look more confident because you are because you clearly feel comfortable so just be more comfortable on camera that'll help if there's if

you're in a company that is like no webcams you got you got another set of challenges there I can't help with that all right Ops gave us two more questions and then our next panel is ready to roll through I already told this person they could go next so yeah where do you tend to find most people fail in the process what step along the way I'm sorry one more time where do you tend to find most people fail in the process what step is the most difficult for people to overcome yeah yeah um I I I relate to this G here with a fashionable beard um you could be a social engineer with that

beard by the way um so um I Rel so that is actually um I relate to his struggle specifically because I don't like failing I don't like um making mistakes I really don't like being mediocre I mean it's it's I I just my mother would be disappointed in me right so I can't I can't handle that emotionally uh that is usually the hard part for most is the idea that you have to just be just be not good to be better it's very counterintuitive um so if you it's one of those things that's where it's got to be you got you got to be at peace with that and that's that's easily the hardest part there's no specific failure

in the process it's just that mindset that's a challenge yeah can I see the hand of someone who hasn't already asked a question I will be here and talk to you by the way so our next panel that I might be on is ready to set up yeah how do you feel LinkedIn falls into all of this how does LinkedIn factor in well good question um it's it's amazing what it's amazing what you can get away with on LinkedIn um it truly is are you are you aware by the way just a just Pro tip uh GitHub has repositories of all the answers for all the quizzes so you know those little like knowledge quizzes

you can actually like go to GitHub and find the answer sheets for them so you know there's that um so don't trust those quizzes but they sure look good to HR don't they um no the the thing is that it's really just about about self-promotion and the way the way this works so well the reason why it's so successful for people other people like I suppose like me is that um is that it's it's um it's it's a quiet it's a quiet sort of promotion of itself it's like it's like it's not it's more like you get to talk about yourself but you don't get to brag it's just it's just a statement of fact it's like well

let's talk about GitHub right same story if you have a GitHub repository that's street cred right so it's like that it's like quietly promoting yourself without actually promoting yourself and so in that sense that's exactly what we got to do because the the whole point is normalizing the job you want to have right so if you put so if you just like say what you're say what the job that you clearly have skills and abilities to do and you put that on LinkedIn that just establishes you to the public that this is who you are so yeah and I'm I guess they're going to take my microphone away at some point um they still do they still allow those hooks by

the way from those old timey shows oh five minutes oh sweet stage cane is that what they called it's actually got a name it's called a stage cane I learned something today oh okay I learned something today thank you God bides it's so informative yeah we we're g to start setting okay so I guess I'm going now um but uh yeah just hit me up after this I'm going to be carrying around some socks and some stuff uh thank