Incite 7/29/2015: Finding My Cause
When you have resources you are supposed to give back. That’s what they teach you as a kid, right? There are folks less fortunate than you, so you help them out. I learned those lessons. I dutifully gave to a variety of charities through the years. But I was never passionate about any cause. Not enough to get involved beyond writing a check. I would see friends of mine passionate about whatever cause they were pushing. I figured if they were passionate about it I should give, so I did. Seemed pretty simple to me, but I always had a hard time asking friends and associates to donate to something I wasn’t passionate about. It seemed disingenuous to me. So I didn’t. I guess I’ve always been looking for a cause. But you can’t really look. The cause has to find you. It needs to be something that tugs at the fabric of who you are. It has to be something that elicits an emotional response, which you need to be an effective fundraiser and advocate. It turns out I’ve had my cause for over 10 years – I just didn’t know it until recently. Cancer runs in my family. Mostly on my mother’s side or so I thought. Almost 15 years ago Dad was diagnosed with Stage 0 colon cancer. They were able to handle it with a (relatively) minor surgery because they caught it so early. That was a wake-up call, but soon I got caught up with life, and never got around to getting involved with cancer causes. A few years later Dad was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). For treatment he’s shied away from western medicine, and gone down his own path of mostly holistic techniques. The leukemia has just been part of our lives ever since, and we accommodate. With a compromised immune system he can’t fly. So we go to him. For big events in the South, he drives down. And I was not exempt myself, having had a close call back in 2007. Thankfully due to family history I had a colonoscopy before I was 40 and the doctor found (and removed) a pre-cancerous polyp that would not have ended well for me if I hadn’t had the test. Yet I still didn’t make the connection. All these clues, and I was still spreading my charity among a number of different causes, none of which I really cared about. Then earlier this year another close friend was diagnosed with lymphoma. They caught it early and the prognosis is good. With all the work I’ve done over the past few years on being aware and mindful in my life, I finally got it. I found my cause – blood cancers. I’ll raise money and focus my efforts on finding a cure. It turns out the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has a great program called Team in Training to raise money for blood cancer research by supporting athletes in endurance races. I’ve been running for about 18 months now and already have two half marathons under my belt. This is perfect. Running and raising money! I signed up to run the Savannah Half Marathon in November as part of the TNT team. I started my training plan this week, so now is as good a time as any to gear up my fundraising efforts. I am shooting to run under 2:20, which would be a personal record. Given that this is my cause, I have no issue asking you to help out. It doesn’t matter how much you contribute, but if you’ve been fortunate (as I have) please give a little bit to help make sure this important research can be funded and this terrible disease can be eradicated in our lifetime. Dad follows the research very closely as you can imagine, and he’s convinced they are on the cusp of a major breakthrough. Here is the link to help me raise money to defeat blood cancers: Mike Rothman’s TNT Fund Raising Page. I keep talking about my cause, but this isn’t about me. This is about all the people suffering from cancer and specifically blood cancers. I’m raising money for all the people who lost loved ones or had to put their lives on hold as people they care about fight. Again, if you can spare a few bucks, please click the link above and contribute. –Mike The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. 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. July 13 – Living with the OPM Hack May 26 – We Don’t Know Sh–. You Don’t Know Sh– May 4 – RSAC wrap-up. Same as it ever was. March 31 – Using RSA March 16 – Cyber Cash Cow March 2 – Cyber vs. Terror (yeah, we went there) February 16 – Cyber!!! February 9 – It’s Not My Fault! January 26 – 2015 Trends January 15 – Toddler December 18 – Predicting the Past November 25 – Numbness October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay 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 a Threat Intelligence Program Gathering TI Introduction EMV and the Changing Payment Space Mobile Payment Systemic Tokenization The Liability Shift Migration The Basics Introduction Network Security Gateway Evolution Introduction Recently Published Papers Endpoint Defense: Essential Practices Cracking the Confusion: Encryption & Tokenization for Data Centers, Servers & Applications Security and Privacy on the
