This is a few weeks of notes as my life has been hectic recently. Away trip for leadership training, operational issues at work, family traveling at home so I’m Pappa Dog this week. Boredom has not been an issue yet!

Direction

I seem to spend more time on ‘my’ reading and podcast list than I have been creating actual content. It feels redundant. All of this content is available directly from the original creator if you follow the Now page. If you find value in their content, then please support them directly. I am focusing more on my personal direction and content.

“Hell Yes, or No” vs. “Soft Yes, and Fast Quit” – Phil Venables

“Bottom line: You just never know what hidden gems exist even in some of the opportunities that are perceived to be less inspiring until you take a short peek. When you’ve taken that you’ll quickly and intuitively know whether to fully commit without having expended much effort, and then, there is still plenty of room for when more obvious Hell Yes opportunities do come along.”

“Backup” plan

I’ve been going thru my digital life and trying to ensure I have a backup of everything important to me and my family. Not only a backup, but a good way to restore those files in the event they are lost. I have OneDrive covered using my Synology NAS and the Cloud Sync plugin. Unfortunately, they don’t have a great option for iCloud. I did find a couple idea in these posts:

• Backing up iCloud Photos to a Synology NAS – Adrian Thomas – I’ve been looking for an effective way to backup my iCloud into my NAS. This would work, but requires another Mac.
• Why Your NAS Will Never Be An iCloud Replacement – by Attila Vágó – CodeX – Medium – I have to agree – native iCloud is the best way for Apple users to go. The only drawback is no direct method to backup that data.

But nothing seems truly native, set and forget. So I just enabled photo backup on my personal OneDrive account. It’s not as fast as true iCloud integration would be, but it does work just fine for my needs. The only downside is the volume of work photos that will need to be deleted in two places: whiteboard pics, etc.

The rest of it

• Data tracking poses a ‘national security risk’ FTC told • The Register – Its time someone in government started addressing this with the risk it deserves.
• ‎Daily Boost Motivation and Coaching: Instant Better Communication on Apple Podcasts
  • “Agree & Defer” using “Yes, and…” – allows you to keep yourself on track by saying yes, but deferring things to a later time or another person.
  • “…yet” – added to a negative keeps the options open for growth.
• Almost Half of Cancer Deaths Are Preventable – Scientific American – How much more could we do as a society if we just clamped down on disease prevention?
• 🗞️ Unsupervised Learning NO. 348 – Spearmishing, Patreon Security, and Triple-Threat Ransomware – I highly recommend the free podcast to anyone interested in InfoSec, but his interests don’t stop there. What piqued my interests:
  • 4.2 Gigabytes, or: How to Draw Anything – ⌨️🤷🏻‍♂️📷 – Cool AI rendering of a sci-fi scene based on some paint scribbles.
  • Blocking Kiwifarms – At first I was torn over Cloudflare’s policy. However, I believe they did the right thing as a proponent of free speech. We need better laws and regulations to police internet hate.
  • Leaked Oath Keepers’ list includes hundreds of cops, dozens of elected officials – Ars Technica – This makes me sick, but where do we draw the line at what groups someone in power can be part of?
• Episode #489: Todd Henry – Asking Uncomfortable Questions, Solving Big Problems, & Casting Your Vision – The Learning Leader Show – Another excellent episode with a ton of gold nuggets for bettering your leadership creativity. My favorite: “Be the buffalo, not the cow.”
• Blue Origin rocket mishap triggers escape system – Thankfully, the safety system worked as designed.
• This is the Meta Quest Pro high-end virtual reality headset – The Verge – It’s hard to imagine a world where we have these things strapped to our heads. Then again, how many meetings do we take staring at a screen full of people.

Just when I thought life was settling down, we go and get another puppy! Little Remi brings the pack back to three. She has a big personality for a little pup, so I hope she brings some joy back to Rusty and Ellie. That will take some time – right now Ellie is afraid of her and Rusty isn’t sure what to do with her. I am grateful for a job and a team that gives me the flexibility to work from home part of the day to care for the pup.

Reading/Podcast Notes

• Benjamin Hardy – How to Be Your Future Self Now – Jordan Harbinger – Think about your future self as a friend you care about.
  • Input -> Outcome
  • Deliberate practice requires knowing your future self
  • Begin with the end in mind
  • Constraint theory
• Johann Hari – Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And What to Do About It – Jordan Harbinger – Another load of information about how Big Tech and lack of sleep are killing our ability to focus.
• Tessa West – How to Deal with Jerks at Work – Jordan Harbinger – Great tips to tuck in your “how to deal with people” KB.
• John Abramson – How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care – Jordan Harbinger – Jordan gets at the real reason why our healthcare cost so much – our government is failing us.
• 🗞️ UL NO. 343 [STANDARD EDITION] – Emergency Hack, Chinese Cobalt Strike, Solana Drainage –
• Risky Biz Soap Box: Okta’s Brett Winterford on session cookie theft and mitigations – Risky Business – More reason to move to FIDO and WebAuthN
• The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 485: Ryan Holiday – The Power Of Self Control, Loving The Process, & Building Endurance (Discipline Is Destiny) – If I don’t do it, can someone else? What is your life’s task? Fortitude Vincimous – By endurance we conquer. Take care of your body to take care of your mind. Mattis – The privilege of command is command.
• – Jordan Harbinger – Great interview of how psychological factors influence our financial health more than anything else.
• Ten Tools for Gaining a New Perspective – John Maxwell Leadership Podcast – Great listen for leadership perspective.
• 🗞️ UL NO. 344 [STANDARD EDITION] – Blackhat/DEFCON, TikTok Lockdown, MailChimp Breach…

A bit behind on these due to my workload.

• My Ultimate Zsh and Vim Config [ July 2022 Version ] – Daniel Miessler – I finally tried both Daniel’s zsh customizations and neovim. Why didn’t I do this before now? My only difference is the use of iTerm2 instead of the normal Terminal app.
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• DNS over TLS available to Windows Insiders – Microsoft Tech Community – While an excellent privacy feature, I can see this being a real pain for administrators.
• Pigeons in the Iraq War – Pigeons of War – Very interesting find from the gruqg
• It was the same ambulance ride as her sister — so why did it cost so much more? : Shots – Health News : NPR – This is (literally) highway robbery. I wonder what my local ambulance ride would cost me?
• How to Get Your Phone to Stop Autocorrecting to ‘Ducking’ – Just in case you wanted to ducking know…
• Migrating From SCSI To NVMe on vCenter (Part 1 – Live Migration) – Cody Hosterman –
• 3-2-1: Eliminating tasks, optimizing for your interests, and sharing knowledge – James Clear – Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is eliminate the task.
• NRC to certify NuScale small modular reactor design for use in the US – Utility Dive – Finally starting to see some small-scale nuclear coming to fruition.
• TikTok owner ByteDance pushed a pro-China agenda to Americans, say former employees – Malwarebytes Labs – This is not surprising at all. One more reason to remove TikTok from your phone. But it is addictive…
• Biden wants an industrial renaissance. He can’t do it without immigration reform. – POLITICO – More reasons to beef up STEM education here in the US. And more than just cranking out ‘skilled workers’ on a two-year degree like SC is doing.
• Time and focus and energy – Seth’s Blog – “When we give away our day, we give away our future.”
• Episode #483: Colin O’Brady – Doing The Impossible, Changing Your Mindset, & Crossing Antarctica Alone – The Learning Leader Show – Pulled a lot of nuggets from this one
  • Watch out for those limiting beliefs, because we are the stories we tell ourselves.
  • Spend more time in silence, alone with your thoughts.
  • Lead yourself first
  • Taking a day for yourself will help you be your best self where you are needed.
  • Sustained excellence is the love of the game.
• Chinese Government Asked TikTok for Stealth Propaganda Account – Bloomberg – Social media is far more dangerous than an uneducated populace knows.
• Kansas No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment (August 2022) – Ballotpedia – Y’all better start listening to your people if 60% of your population shows up and actually vote the same way.

The blog is back on WordPress. That change isn’t without a lot of irony, especially considering I’ve had to skim all of my old posts to get this completed. Life is just too busy to not prioritize my efforts. I would rather spend my time improving my leadership and creating content than pushing git updates. WordPress allows me to do just that.

I would still advise anyone to strongly avoid self-hosting. I would also recommend anyone with a busy life from using Jekyll. Focus on the things that bring you high value for the least effort, especially outside your core areas.

Condoleezza Rice joins Broncos’ new ownership group: Former Secretary of State ‘will be a great benefit’ – CBSSports.com – So how does a former public servant have so much free capital?
Microsoft Windows Autopatch is Now Generally Available for Enterprise Systems – Too bad it requires a Microsoft E3 or E5 subscription. This should be a basic offering for any enterprise.
The Daily Swig – Cybersecurity news and views – Adding this to my RSS feeds.
How to be a Great Technical Interviewer – yield code(); – Interesting. This is a skill I need to build.
My Ultimate Zsh and Vim Config [ July 2022 Version ] – Daniel Miessler – I’m getting shell FOMO.
Fewer in U.S. Now See Bible as Literal Word of God – This makes a lot of sense considering the state of the US.
Governor Gavin Newsom announces California will make its own insulin – KION546 – How is this not happening at the federal level? More ammo to start replacing the old guard in DC.
Microsoft Warns of Large-Scale AiTM Phishing Attacks Against Over 10,000 Organizations –
Alleged Hunter Biden Leak Shows iCloud Can Be iPhone Security’s Weak Link – Just enable MFA. Seriously…just do it.
Thread by @RyanHawk12 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App – Great advice from @ryanhawk
Top 50 PowerShell Scripts for Microsoft 365 Admins  – Office 365 Reports – This should be useful for someone.
Why Aspiring Influencers Should Build Their Brands on Their Own Domains – Daniel Miessler –
So You Want to Start a Blog… – Daniel Miessler – More ammo for me to move off Jekyll and manually tweaking every little thing.
Risky Biz Soap Box: Running a global vulnerability management program – Risky Business – One vulnerablity system to rule them all.
Peter Santenello – Inspecting Perspectives the Media Neglects – Jordan Harbinger –
Risky Business #671 – The case for an American-owned NSO Group – Risky Business –
The Greatest Gap In Life – John Maxwell Leadership Podcast –

Prioritizing the most important thing is the most important thing, not getting more time in your day.
Prioritize action.
John replies to all emails within 24 hours.
Why are you procrastination? Is it fear of failure?

I’ve switched up several things in my daily workstream. Like using Bear as my primary note and blogging app. I’m focusing on DayOne as my journalling app, but it also works really well for stream of consciousness writing. Trello is becoming my goto task tracker as it just works better for my work style. I’ve also switched over to Apple Podcasts from Overcast. Life is much simpler in the ecosystem.

Reading/Listening notes for the last few weeks:

Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader (Ryan Hawk)

1/4 through and great
Los of nugget from show guests

How to use Siri Shortcuts with Bear – FAQ & Support – Bear App – Converting my shortcut for capturing my reading from a text file to Bear notes.
Merill Fernando • 🇦🇺 • 🇱🇰 on Twitter: “Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) coming natively to a Windows device near you. What about Azure AD Joined devices you ask? 👇 https://t.co/CqcHLwNTjJ” / Twitter – Looks like LAPS will be native in Win11. Why did this take so long?
Apple introduces new professional training to support growing IT workforce – Apple – I wasn’t aware there was a cert or training program for Apple. Thanks to the IT Brew for this link.
MacAdmins.org – Slack group dedicated to helping other Mac admins.
Risky Biz Soap Box: HD Moore on taking Rumble to the cloud – Risky Business – Good interview with Rumble’s creator. I’ve been interested in this for a long time and would love to check it out more.
PodcastOne: 690: Jane McGonigal – How to See the Future and Be Ready for Anything – Looking at crazy future risk scenarios to build your resiliency.
Editing and formatting entries in Day One for iOS – Your Journal for Life – Day One – Use for developing my second brain process in day one
Markdown Guide – Your Journal for Life – Day One – Why am I using DayOne? Markdown support, privacy, tags, etc
The Apple II Documentation Project (Hacker News link) – A trip in the way back machine!
What you should ask a potential employer – Lobsters – Potential employer questions from a developer POV.

Episode #474: Jeffrey Pfeffer – How To Gain Power, Break The Rules, & Advance Your Career – The Learning Leader Show – Advice that runs contradictory to common leadership advice. I’ll be getting the 7 Rules Of Power (not to be confused with the 7 Laws of Power).
Episode #475: Chandler Bolt – The Life Changing Process Of Writing A Book… (How You Can Do It Right Now) – The Learning Leader Show –

Writing is crystallization of thought. Writing can build your career – you become an authority by becoming and author.
Chandler’s process for writing: mind map -> outline -> rough draft.
How does Chandler write books and remain a busy exec? He blocks out intense time, then relies on his team to handle things for him during these blocks. Block out time and be intense about it while you’re in that time. Have a solid team to support you during your windows, trust them to get things done.
How do you find the time? Figure out what your time is worth: Divide your salary by 2800 to determine how much an hour is worth. Hire/Delegate everything not core that less that that hourly cost.
Person brand fastest to 6 figures.
Invest in things that build a defense moat around what you value (lifestyle, family, etc.). Turn this into a system so you can keep building them.
Plan your things before your business’s things – vacation, thinking, etc. Business will fill in the whitespace.
Writing topics: Broken record conversations – this things people keep asking you.
5 takeaways from the RSA Conference – Cybersecurity Dive – Organizations get 24 hours — if they’re lucky.
Microsoft won’t say if it will patch critical Windows vulnerability under exploit – Ars Technica – 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️😭
The 10 Commandments of Excellence – Great advise!
Episode #476: Kat Cole – Pragmatic Optimism, Reflection Questions, Humble Confidence, Building Trust, & The Hot Shot Rule – Ton of great notes on this one!

Should I listen to Episode 78?
Lead by action: Bring the coffee/donuts/etc to demonstrate service oriented leadership, vulnerability.
Hold ppl account and set expectations
Ppl closest to the action know what to do long before the leader does
Conflict resolution – humble and service of the team, assuming positive intent first
Connectivity and proximity
Humility, curiosity, confidence builds teams / raise your hand, raise your voice
Excellence mindset/framework: Courage and confidence balanced with Humility and curiosity lead to sustained excellence

Courage is speaking up and saying the uncomfortable things
Confidence is the belief you belong there
Humility is the belief you can’t do it alone, others have value and matter
Curiosity is the wonder, the desire to inquire
Having command over these mindsets, modulate each as the situation requires

Perspective breeds confidence
Find your way to speak – your wedge

“I have a question.” instead of waiting for your space to speak
“I want to add to that.”
“I would be failing you if I didn’t bring up this point.”
Is there something going on?

Burnout – catch it before you start letting people down

Do not over-commit – learn how to gracefully say no
Cancel if you need to
No is a complete sentence
No by saying yes –
Be clear on your values and priorities
Check-in with those closest to you and who matter most, including yourself

What has been the best part of the last 30 days?
What has been the worst part of the last 30 days?
Tell me one thing that I can do differently to be a better partner/teammate?
What has worried you the most in the last 30 days?
What is one thing you are most proud of in the last 30 days
What have you been most grateful for?

You can’t think your way into making a dent
Ask, answer, act.
Hotshot rule

682: Hustle Culture – Deep Dive – Joy comes from the process/journey, not the destination.

Risky Business #667 – “Shields Up” for cyber’s forever war – Risky Business – Always a great listen.
Why Everyone Needs a Blog – Daniel Miessler – Interesting reasoning behind blogging.
Just Copy What Works – Daniel Miessler –
Examples of barbell strategies – by Dwarkesh Patel – Do a lot of no risk and high risk, but nothing in the middle. Reap bigger rewards? Almost sounds too easy.
Apple’s Passkey Replaces Passwords With iPhone and Mac Authentication – WIRED – I can’t wait for this to be a real option for a environment.