Incite 10/29/2014: Short Memory
Sometimes a short memory is very helpful. Of course as you get older, it may not be a choice. But old guy issues aside, there are times you need to forget what just happened and move on to the next thing. Maybe it’s a deal you lost, or a project you couldn’t get funded, or a bungled response to an incident. If you live to fight another day then you need to learn, put it in the past, and move forward. The Boy learned that lesson a few weeks back playing tennis. He’s a decent player and was teamed with his friend in a doubles match. The other kids were pretty good but our team sprinted out to a 7-2 lead. The first to 8 wins. He has it in the bag, right? They dropped the next game, so it was 7-3. Not a problem. Then it was 7-5 and the Boy started to panic. I could see it. He was on the verge of breaking down. And the thing about tennis is that coaches (and parents) cannot get involved during the match. So besides a few hand signals I sent his way to calm down, there wasn’t anything I could do other than see him come apart at the seams. His partner was panicking as well, especially as the score went to 7-6, and then ultimately 7-7. You could see the Boy and his partner were broken. They dropped 5 games in a row and lost their confidence. It was hard to watch. Really hard. For a guy used to controlling most of his environment, it was brutal to be so powerless. But this wasn’t about me. It’s about him. The Boy served in that next game and held serve. He hit a couple of winners and got his mojo back. You could see the confidence return. They dropped the next game and went into a tiebreaker. The first to 7 would win the match. They split the first two points on the opponents’ serve, so that was a mini break. The Boy then held their serve, so it was 3-1. Then they broke again. 5-1. The other team scrapped and they had a few good rallies, but the Boy and his partner prevailed 7-3. He was happy but could only shake his head about blowing such a huge lead. I pulled him aside and said this illustrates a number of very important lessons. First about fighting through. They didn’t give up, and they persevered to get the win. I was very proud of them for that. But the real lesson I wanted to communicate was the importance of having a short memory. The fact that he hit a bad shot doesn’t mean he’s a bad player. He needs to trust his training and the work he put in. He can’t lose confidence, and needs to just move on to the next thing. It is not productive to get lost in his own head – he needs to understand the battle is less important than the war, and to know the difference. Of course the lesson wasn’t about tennis. It was about life. But I don’t need to tell him that. Not yet, anyway… –Mike Photo credit: “The Bryan Brothers” originally uploaded by Boss Tweed The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the conference this year. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour and check it out. Your emails, alerts and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back. Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and.. hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay August 18 – You Can’t Handle the Gartner July 22 – Hacker Summer Camp July 14 – China and Career Advancement June 30 – G Who Shall Not Be Named June 17 – Apple and Privacy May 19 – Wanted Posters and SleepyCon May 12 – Another 3 for 5: McAfee/OSVDB, XP Not Dead, CEO head rolling Heavy Research We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Building an Enterprise Application Security Program Introduction Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network The Future is Encrypted Secure Agile Development Deployment Pipelines and DevOps Building a Security Tool Chain Process Adjustments Working with Development Agile and Agile Trends Introduction Newly Published Papers Trends in Data Centric Security The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration The 2015 Endpoint and Mobile Security Buyer’s Guide Open Source Development and Application Security Analysis Advanced Endpoint and Server Protection Defending Against Network-based DDoS Attacks Reducing Attack Surface with Application Control Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Security Monitoring The Future of Security Incite 4 U Card of the Sith: Thanks to Chris Pepper for pointing out CurrentC Is The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt To Kill Apple Pay And Credit Card Fees. In a nutshell, a large group of merchants – including Rite Aid, CVS, Walmart, Target, K-Mart, and Kohl’s – are putting together a “mobile payment” app to avoid paying credit card processing fees. Rather than extend a small loan like a credit card, CurrentC will pull money directly and immediately from your bank account. Yes, those very same firms who vigorously market your personal data – and keep getting breached by hackers – now want to build their own payment system and on top of direct access to your bank account. What could possibly go wrong? The biggest issue is one of the very real benefits of credit cards: limited
