The Resilience Factor Podcast

S1 E4 Creating a culture of resilience with Simon Linstead

• Zscaler • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Simon Linstead, founder of InfoSec Live, reveals how a personal battle with burnout sparked the creation of a thriving global cybersecurity community nearly 7,000 strong. In this episode of the Resilience Factor podcast, Simon draws on three decades of leadership in entertainment, telecoms, and finance to explore the power of emotional intelligence, the need for balance in high-pressure roles, and why staying ready for the unexpected is key to cyber resilience. 

Jenny Radcliffe:

Cyber resilience is fast emerging as the driving force behind survival and success in a world of unprecedented digital transformation. Through trend-based discussions with cybersecurity experts and pioneers, real-life case studies and practical advice, the resilience factor offers the tools and strategies needed to build business and personal resilience in all areas of cybersecurity and networking. To build business and personal resilience in all areas of cybersecurity and networking. Not only that, but you'll get to hear from a range of industry-leading professionals and experts at the very top of their game. Join us as we build a vital resource to drive organizational resilience within a fast-moving security landscape. Hello and welcome to Zscaler, the Resilience Factor podcast, with me, your host, jenny Radcliffe, in episode four. Today, we're going to be talking about creating a culture of resiliency and community. This week, we are joined by Simon

Jenny Radcliffe:

Simon is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 30 years of leadership experience spanning entertainment, telecoms and finance. In 2020, he turned his focus to cybersecurity, quickly establishing himself as a key figure in the industry. He founded InfoSec Live, a thriving not-for-profit global cybersecurity community with nearly 7,000 members, as well as a cybersecurity-focused coffee business and a global events company that hosts leadership forums in both the UK and the US. His YouTube channel dedicated to cybersecurity leadership insights and a global events company that hosts leadership forums in both the UK and the US. His YouTube channel, dedicated to cybersecurity leadership insights has amassed over 12,000 subscribers and garnered more than half a million views since its launch in 2022. Beyond entrepreneurship, simon actively contributes to the security of the UK's critical national infrastructure through Red Team exercises. Known for his deep understanding of human behaviour, simon leverages empathy and social engineering to enhance security strategies, making him a leader who combines technical expertise with a human-centric approach. Welcome, simon and welcome listeners. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Hi, simon.

Simon Linstead:

Hi Jenny. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited about this.

Jenny Radcliffe:

That's quite the CV. That's quite the CV.

Simon Linstead:

It just says I'm old, doesn't it?

Jenny Radcliffe:

Well, it's lovely to have you, simon, and we're going to start really with. You know, just looking at that CV, really looking at all the things that you've done You've taken on many different roles, wore many hats in your career so I sort of wanted to start with the concept of resilience and how important that is to you, and particularly across different jobs and different titles that you've had.

Simon Linstead:

I can't say enough how important resilience is to me as a, as I said, fairly old 50 years old old now who's seen his fair share of life ups and downs. Resilience has been something that I've had to build over time and for me it's important to talk about, I think, the definition of resilience, which is that that ability to switch from a negative to a positive mindset quickly, which for me personally has been absolutely life-changing. And you mentioned about different roles. I think resilience is agnostic. It's crucial in any job and it's also crucial for every individual to help adapt to challenges, recover from setbacks and maintain performance under pressure. If we look at leadership roles, it means having the ability to guide teams through those crises. For employees, it involves staying productive even when they're facing difficulties, whether it's at home or whether it's at work and across roles. I think resilience fosters that problem solving, persistence and growth mindset I hate that term, but I have used it and enhancing really both personal and organizational success.

Jenny Radcliffe:

So you have to have to start building resilience it's interesting that you say that to me because today I had someone message me and they basically said you know, I feel like giving up at the moment. You know, obviously we live in a, you know, a turbulent world right now, in both the industry and in the wider world. And this person was saying I feel like giving up and she said don't you, aren't you just exhausted by it all? So it's interesting to me when you say well, it's about switching from a negative mindset to a positive one.

Simon Linstead:

And I've made that sound quite easy, right, and it isn't.

Jenny Radcliffe:

And I was about to say so. How do?

Simon Linstead:

we do that Simon.

Simon Linstead:

Well, I think everyone's personal situation is different, but the one thing we do have control of is how we react and how we process to different situations and circumstances.

Simon Linstead:

And for me, it's like thinking of that optimism piece of resilience as like a mental fitness muscle, and the more that you strengthen it, the faster you can then bounce back from setbacks, shift that perspective and take action.

Simon Linstead:

And it isn't an overnight thing. It involves a little bit of work. In my opinion, we're still running on a 10 000 year old operating system with that fight-and-flight reflex that we've got and that sometimes takes over our decision-making and makes us make mistakes, where, if we can just step away from that sometimes and through practice, through small techniques and small meditation techniques, you can start to quieten that noisy chatter in the brain, which then allows you to focus on and this is sometimes a hard thing the opportunities that there are when we're faced with adversity and crises, because when we look back, you know five years ago, if we went through a crisis, it's easy to look back and say, oh well, actually I've gained this from that, or there is this opportunity, but it's learning how to do that at the point of the crisis rather than five years later or just after right.

Jenny Radcliffe:

So I totally agree you have to get out out of the hot state.

Jenny Radcliffe:

So my advice was, I said look rest, take a break, gather some strength and then when and you know you you'll come back and then decide if there's anything that you feel is worth carrying on for, is worth getting back up and fighting whatever forever. What you think is worth fighting for, then you've got to use that, you know, because now's not the time to stop. But by all means stop now because if you're in that hot state of emotion you can't get through it at all and that's it.

Simon Linstead:

it's the ability to take yourself out of that hot state and, like you said, remove yourself from the situation. You could go for a walk, you could read a book.

Jenny Radcliffe:

People need to rest. Sometimes they need to break, especially from social media and everything else. Sometimes I think, to build that resilience, you have to just really say I needed to stop. And the other thing I thought about and I wondered what your take on this was was I do think that in the moment, whenever there's a crisis, whenever there's anything, we do tend to catastrophize things. And then you look back at the things, I look back at the things that bothered me five years ago, 10 years ago, certainly 20 years ago.

Simon Linstead:

I can't remember the people's names or the exact circumstances, but at the time it felt like the end of the world. Yeah, and I think that, for me, is because we typically spend most of our time either living in the past or living in the future. We're either stressing about things that have happened or we're worrying about things that could happen and when. We can get ourselves away from that, like you said a moment ago, and take yourself out for a walk or get yourself out of the situation and be more present and be more now. That's how we're able to deal and cope with this thing. That's my opinion now you've you.

Jenny Radcliffe:

You built a community and I know that you think the community is a big part. Certainly professional resilience as well. Um, and I just wondered, you know you built it for cso's and it professionals. That was built for that, I'm right.

Simon Linstead:

Yes, you are.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Yeah, like a leadership community, just a community for that.

Simon Linstead:

For everyone, for our profession.

Jenny Radcliffe:

For everyone in the profession. I mean, I feel like there's a million societies and you know that you could join, so why did you? You know what's different about yours.

Simon Linstead:

And like why did you feel the need to put that in place? And, I guess, why is it success?

Jenny Radcliffe:

as successful as it's been.

Simon Linstead:

I found myself coming into an industry where I had no network of people around me, so I decided to create one. That's why I started the community, also because I'd already had this community platform as a previous business and it was quite easy to refit at the time, so there was not really any any thought around it other than trying to connect with people in the industry and trying to bring people together, because that's what I've spent 30 years of my life doing. I think a lot of communities out there have an underlying motive.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Um, you mentioned at the start.

Simon Linstead:

Infoset lives are not for profit. We don't sell courses, we don't sell training, we don't sell anything. And for me, having that real ethos of being a platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration, support, I mean, it's not just great to build those relationships, it helps our members to stay updated on emerging threats, best practices, regulatory changes and it also fosters networking, which in this industry, not everyone's had particularly too much practice at. Some people find it difficult, but with anything, the more you practice the better you get at it, and I'll be careful how I say this. Coming into this industry, it was very clear that a lot of leadership had very high IQ and very high XQ when it comes to executing things, but some of them needed a little bit of help on the EQ, the emotional intelligence part. So I've tried to focus that community on bringing people together and allowing people to develop that emotional intelligence.

Jenny Radcliffe:

That's so interesting to me because I always say show me someone with good tech skills, but who understands the humans. And I'm looking at a CEO potentially. Don't you think that our industry? We have a tendency to say, oh well, in our industry, you know, emotional intelligence can be low. In our industry we don't always have the communication skills. We're very technical, but if you go to any industry and you've had experience a lot of them, it's not that much different. It's quite rare to find people who genuinely put the value on that, I think yeah, I completely agree so you know we're talking about the resilience mindset.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Does the community help and encourage that? I mean, how? How does that, given how important you know you clearly think it is now important it is in the industry how does the community help sort of encourage that and build the resilience in the face of, like, all the threats that are coming up and the speed I suppose that we're seeing them? What sort of how does it do it?

Simon Linstead:

we do a few different things. We hold a lot of meetings, member meetings, on a regular basis. We bring in guest speakers. We encourage that conversation and I think it really gives people that exposure to different and diverse insights that they had normally different experiences, best practices, which can then perhaps help them prompt to reassess their own resilient strategies. We've also this year where we've just launched a mental fitness program that's starting at the end of this month for leadership, which is free. It's a seven week hosted program in conjunction with positive intelligence, and this program helps to equip leaders with that meant, with mental fitness tools to combat we were talking about it a minute ago that negative self-talk and stress, enhancing the focus, resilience and decision making by strengthening their sage brain.

Simon Linstead:

The other side of the brain so that they can respond to challenges with clarity and creativity. It's it's not been easy. Um, it's been very difficult. We've done in-person events, we do online events, but sometimes people need to be in a situation where they realize themselves how important it is then to start growing their emotional intelligence. Maybe they've been promoted at work, they've been thrust into bordering situations that they haven't before, and it's a different set of skill sets, jenny, isn't it?

Jenny Radcliffe:

do you know it is, and I was speaking to professor book rogers on the podcast and we touched on this as well because I think I think for us, um, you know, in our industry, even just incident response like the strain that that can take on people, the guilt that you feel, the fact you've got to lead a team through, sometimes it seems like a thankless task. It's been highlighted, certainly for me as long as I've been in the community, the need for that sort of attention to mental health really. So I'm not surprised it gets, I'm not surprised it's difficult and I'm not surprised you get a big uptake on it, I think for me.

Simon Linstead:

I mean, I'll be very candid here, I'm a bit of an open book.

Simon Linstead:

I had a breakdown back in 2018, 2019, which was caused by stress, and I got myself in a very, very bad place, and it was only from being in that bad place which helped me realise what was important. Hence the community, hence helping other people, because before I'd been very focused on helping myself you know, financially, career-wise, it had been very much me and my family but it really introduced me to the power of community and the power of helping other people, because there's nothing that makes you happier than knowing that you've helped someone else so true, and I think we all feel that.

Simon Linstead:

I mean, I remember feeling that like actually just after lockdown, just after covid, and getting back up, you know, getting back out there and really you know you flog yourself into exhaustion yep, and and you and you said it at the start, jenny it's that taking a step back, and I had I had a kind of self-imposed 18 months out of work completely, where I focused on getting better, and not everyone has that opportunity unless they have a breakdown. Is that that's the right way to say it? Or unless that opportunity arises in a different way?

Jenny Radcliffe:

oh, you get that light bulb moment. I mean, I had the light bulb moment. I was there. There, I was just in my office, it was absolutely fine, and I think I dropped some papers on the floor and went down to pick them up and I couldn't get back up again. And it wasn't physical, it was mental. I just couldn't get back up again. I just was sort of stuck on the phone thinking what's happening? My God, it's exhaustion. It was exhaustion, it was stress, it was burnout, and you and you know who'd you speak to about that, because you don't want to sort of like it's a weird thing, because you think, well, you know it's what, what is this? I'm physically well yeah everything's running okay.

Jenny Radcliffe:

I mean usual business issues, whatever, but we're running okay. It didn't feel like a huge crisis moment. Um, and and it's interesting to me because it's this whole idea of this podcast it's that resilience. It's like, well, what helps you get back up again?

Jenny Radcliffe:

and it's no, I think it's recognizing the signs yeah and it's knowing what you need to do to sort of reset and go okay, stop taking in a way, stop taking this so seriously and take it very seriously as well. You know how does that translate, um to organizations. Looking at organizational resilience, do you think? I mean, obviously, if the staff are personally sort of invested in in that kind of mindset, that's one thing does it translate from the community into organizations too?

Simon Linstead:

I'd like to hope so. I think the one thing learning about resilience and building your emotional intelligence gives you is that it gives you that authenticity when you're speaking to people and as a leader within an organization. It's so important to be authentic, to build trust with your employees, with your team members, so that if they are feeling like that, they can come and have that conversation with you, because I never had that before. You know, I didn't have anyone to come to it, which is probably another reason that drove me subconsciously to create the community. Um, I think the more people who focused on building their own resilience personally would then be massive assets to any organization, because, of course, it would then filter down through all those teams.

Jenny Radcliffe:

I think as well, what what we're seeing is I'm seeing it throughout the industry now is there's a definite uh change of of temperature from the sort of defensive mindset to a more look, you know, things are going to happen like clearly, events, dear boy, are going to happen, right.

Jenny Radcliffe:

So if, in the fact that that's the case, the resilience is kind of partly expecting it and going okay, this is what this is, so it doesn't take organizations by surprise, I guess, and that's technically being prepared. But I think you're so right with the people side. So you know, I mean, I think one thing that I wanted to hear from you is advice to people who are listening to this, who maybe aren't in a network. I mean, I know there are millions of them, as I said, and you know some good, some terrible, some not so terrible, some great like your own. But if someone sort of was thinking, but I don't know if I want to join a network I suppose I've never engaged with one and I'm not sure if it's helpful what would you say to someone who was hesitant to join the type of community you've created?

Simon Linstead:

I'm going to be my grandmother, my late grandmother, for a moment here and steal one of her sayings that she used to say to me um, your network is your net worth, is the first comment on that, or you are who you surround yourself with. The actual thing she used to say to me was if you lay down with dog Simon, you'll get fleas. But it doesn't sound as good. So true it is it is so true, she was right she was.

Simon Linstead:

She was right and it's so important to be surrounded by the right people and, for me, being part of a community expands your network with valuable connections. It fosters that trust and credibility between people and those relationships can can lead to referrals not that that's what it's for, but they can lead to referrals, business opportunities, collaborations. It can directly impact your career growth. The amount of people I've seen in the community who have been looking for work and have found work through someone who knew someone.

Simon Linstead:

You know we hear all the time people online, sending CVs and resumes off all the time and not getting anywhere, and that's because people refer people. So it definitely impacts the career, growth and financial success and I think, having that strong network, it becomes a massive asset, turning those relationships into some tangible value.

Jenny Radcliffe:

So, like I said at the start, your network then does become your net worth do you know as well as what you said at the start about the ulterior motive? Like you don't. That's not the reason. The reason isn't that, oh, if I join this network, I might, you know, someone might offer me a job, or something, no, no you join it.

Jenny Radcliffe:

You join it because it's it's good, it's a good way to stay informed and to stay ahead of the game, but it is undeniable that the more people you know, the more kind of opportunities you hear of. And and also come back to what you said earlier I think, as well as that, the most valuable thing I've found is if I've had the opportunity to genuinely help someone with no expectation of anything back. I've found it's almost and I sound like I'm being a bit hippy-dippy- about it?

Simon Linstead:

I suppose no, not at all.

Jenny Radcliffe:

It's like as if the more that you do that, the more it comes back to you.

Simon Linstead:

It's karma, jimmy, it's just satisfaction.

Jenny Radcliffe:

It feels like karma, if karma is a thing. Yeah, it feels like karma, if karma is a thing. I'm not dismissing those who believe in karma, but everybody knows I'm kind of a little bit more down to earth these days, perhaps, than I used to be, for reasons All right. Well, listen, I've got one more question for you, and it's you know, I find this an interesting question, and the question is and I'm going to read this one to you, and finally, simonon, what would you consider your resilience superpower to be?

Simon Linstead:

okay, that's quite an easy one, I think. Um, I mentioned at the start that I experienced my fair share of ups and downs throughout life and I think adaptability and the ability to turn life's challenges into opportunities is mine and it's going back to that. Optimism isn't just about ignoring challenges. It's about training your brain to handle them better and identify the usually hidden opportunities. Handle them better and identify the usually hidden opportunities and, for me, the last two years I've lost a lot of people really close to me, which has been very difficult, but through this training and through learning how to be in the moment and not in the past and in the future, all the time it's allowed me to handle it, still look after my family and still function without putting pants on my head and pencils up my nose and saying wibble that had a reference there for anyone who's ever seen it.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Yeah, who's going to recognise one more madman around here? Absolutely, but you know, I just want to agree because we're coming to the end of it and it's been brilliant speaking to you. It's so good to speak to someone who's so fresh and honest about these things. It and like it's been brilliant speaking to you. It's so good to speak to someone who's so fresh and honest about these things and with and it's that ulterior. I like the fact that it's kind of there for its own sake, and then it grows, it becomes something apart from what you created, which is scary.

Jenny Radcliffe:

I found that when I've created things, you go what is this monster I've created? This is not, it's no longer you, but I agree with that. And one of the things we were saying social engineering training that we do is people ask me what the biggest skill is, and I say it's tactical adaptability. It's like the best laid plans, but if you learn, okay, it's okay to to reset, rethink, do something else. You know you stick to your goal, but that in the moment you have to learn to adapt. Really well, it's been brilliant speaking to you, simon. So the community is infosec live, the youtube channel with half a million views. You show off. So half a million. And what's the youtube channel called?

Jenny Radcliffe:

it's the same infosec live, yeah infosec live and I really think everyone should join that because you know a lot of the others do have different agendas, some of them good, some of them bad, but you know it's it's. Simon clearly, clearly has got his heart in the right place with that and there's practical results as well. So thank you so much for joining the podcast thank you, jenny so let's reflect on that conversation with Simon Linstead.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Simon thinks that resilience is the ability to switch from a negative mindset to a positive one quickly, but that optimism doesn't come easy.

Simon Linstead:

It's like thinking of that optimism piece of resilience as like a mental fitness muscle. It isn't an overnight thing. It involves a little bit of work and the more that you strengthen it, the faster you can then bounce back from setbacks. Shift that perspective and take action.

Jenny Radcliffe:

And a thread seems to be emerging as we go through the series emotional intelligence.

Simon Linstead:

It was very clear that a lot of leadership had very high IQ and very high XQ, but some of them needed a little bit of help on the EQ the emotional intelligence part but sometimes people need to be in a situation where they realise themselves how important it is then to start growing their emotional intelligence, and it's a different set of skill sets.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Simon also believes in the power and importance of community when building resilience.

Simon Linstead:

I had a breakdown which was caused by stress. It was only from being in that bad place that helped me realise what was important. Hence the community, hence helping other people. But it really introduced me to the power of community and the power of helping other people. But it's really introduced me to the power of community and the power of helping other people, because there's nothing that makes you happier than knowing that you've helped someone else.

Jenny Radcliffe:

And that building emotional intelligence at work gives you something unexpected.

Simon Linstead:

It gives you that authenticity when you're speaking to people and as a leader within an organisation. It's so important to be authentic, to build trust with your employees, with your team members, so that they can come and have that conversation with you.

Jenny Radcliffe:

Thanks for listening, folks. The Resilience Factor podcast is brought to you by Zscaler, a leading cloud-based cybersecurity platform revolutionizing the way businesses protect themselves from cyber threats. By transitioning from traditional appliance-based systems to a cloud-delivered model and the implementation of zero-trust principles, cscaler provides businesses with optimal protection from cyber threats.