Internal Dynamics

I love hacking people but in the best way possible. Let me explain. My first career was in pain management, where I worked as a licensed massage therapist and certified fitness instructor for over 20 years. My work had many different levels: everyday, rehab, and performance.

Everyday clients needed preventative and restorative care. These individuals sought to rest and recover from daily stressors like sitting at the computer all day, keeping up with the kids, or enduring long plane flights or car rides. Rehab clients, often trauma-based, require a different kind of treatment. These clients, recovering from events like car accidents, bad falls, or strokes, needed a regimen to return as close as possible to their original performance levels, enabling them to get back to their lives. Performance clients had specific goals they wanted to reach and needed help getting there. These clients included dancers, athletes, and weekend warriors exploring their limits.

So when I say I love hacking people, what I mean is that I enjoyed introducing people to their undiscovered capacities and reimagining their potential. Cybersecurity is just an offshoot of the human hack, but hacking for good.

Massage requires a whole utility belt of soft skills to use with the client and to teach the client simultaneously. Helping someone who is in pain and vulnerable requires making them feel safe, even though the treatment can be uncomfortable. You need to steward people through the discomfort to get them to a new plane of perception. As a practitioner, you are aware of not just your touch but the way you breathe, stand, and intonate. Developing a deep mental and physical practice was necessary to be a good therapist.

My self-practice evolved from a study of martial arts, particularly what some call the soft art of Tai Chi. It became such an intrinsic part of my practice that it melded with my massage practice, and this was how Internal Dynamics came about. Internal Dynamics became the lens through which I saw all my clients and provided a simple roadmap for all three levels of my clients.

You may be asking yourself now, how does this fit in with cybersecurity and threat research? Almost all great cyber hacks require a social engineering technique or two to open the door for exploiting a vulnerability. From professional experience, I can tell you that coaching people through pain requires understanding what motivates them. You have to become a shrewd persuader and learn how to push people's buttons. The difference between a good hack and a bad hack is that I teach people about their buttons so they can push them themselves and keep others from taking advantage of them when they are vulnerable.

But wait a second, how did you get into cybersecurity if you were in pain management?

I didn’t transition; I just expanded. I’m still teaching martial arts (on the weekends and at night); now I also teach martial arts through cybersecurity as well. Cybersecurity is considered by many to be the new battleground, so what better way to prepare for battle than to study martial arts? Cybersecurity, in my mind, is a domain inside of martial arts, and if you’ve ever talked to a burned-out security analyst, you know cybersecurity is also pain management.