6 1/2 years. Pushing ever closer to a decade in information security. How the hell did I get here? It seems like just yesterday I was a snot nosed baby analyst in my first SOC, horrified that I had no idea what a packet was. One thing I know for sure, current success is absolutely no indication of a flawless career. Quite the contrary, it usually involves no small amount of failures and heaping spoonfuls of luck and support from colleagues, friends and family. What are the important ingredients to make your way in the information security industry? How do we deal with things like burnout and imposter syndrome while trying to find the bad guys doing bad things to our customers? How many times can I fit “blockchain” “machine learning” and “threat hunting” into a single presentation? All stress inducing questions that I’ll try and handle in our GrrCON chat.I don’t have all the answers but I’m going to try and get us through this the only way that’s ever worked, and that’s together.