And I'm Kyle Gick, I'm a product manager at one login. Um And I'm here to talk about empathy. Uh It's something that I feel like all in practice, we can all learn something new.Um And it's something that you have to constantly practice, um especially in cybersecurity and tech in general. Um I think, you know, this is a, a female foc um as a, as a woman in tech, like the chances are you're gonna have to work and prove yourself and, you know, that that stick was not going away anytime soon, unfortunately. Um But things are improving and I think especially because people are practicing empathy. Um They are attuned to it, they're, they care about it more. So, what I'm gonna talk about today is uh when Logan did a survey um of tech leaders across the globe. Um And so we're gonna go through those results uh of, you know, basically how people are doing uh in a pandemic in a remote world. Um And especially like, how are the tech leaders doing and how are they, you know, um And so we'll go through some tips for work and then tips for life. Um, so I hope you get something good out of it today. Ok.

So, I mean, I think this is pretty common knowledge, like in order for us to be happy at our jobs, we need to feel supported by our boss. I feel like there's tons of stats out there that say, you know, you don't leave your job, you leave your boss. Um And I think that's really true. Uh You know, and your boss is a big part of how you are feeling mentally. Um And how you feel at your job. So it's important, it contributes to the bottom line. Um in particular, it teams and cybersecurity leaders have kind of had the worst of it this year. Um You know, on a dime moving everybody over to remote working and then because of that new opportunity of everybody remote and not necessarily locked down or using different devices, uh We've seen a massive spike in cyber threats. Um And so, you know, the, the cyber crime numbers are crazy. So uh in 2021 they um we were supposed to cost the global economy six trillion and now it's up to 10.5 trillion. Uh That is why when login is in business, it's why we do what we do.

Um We, you know, in, in the survey of our tech leaders, you know, seven, almost 80% of tech leaders said that uh that the work related stress had spiked and I think that's, that's pretty obvious. I mean, we all felt it but I think the tech leaders, the people who were responsible for making sure that everybody's computers were locked down, making sure that, uh there's not like a payment data breach or something that would cause some real damage to a company was not happening.

Um, you know, that, that work related stress is real. Uh, and how much has the work and stress increased, um, increased, moderately increased, significantly increased, slightly. Uh, I mean, I, I think this speaks for itself. It's, it's kind of a, an individual measure but the numbers are speaking to us like this, this definitely has increased the workload of it, teams and it leaders and to make matters worse. Um, half of people are not taking any time off and, you know, I think that's because we're blurring the lines between real life and work life and we're also not allowed to go anywhere. You know, things are just starting to open up. Uh, I'm just starting to see events in San Francisco where I'm based. Um, but a lot of the world is locked down still. Uh, my younger sister lives in Italy and she's still completely locked down. Um, and so, you know, those, those lines are really blurred right now. Uh, hopefully we'll get this kind of back in a good place. Maybe we'll do the surgery again. But, yeah, this, you have vacation time, use it even if you are stuck in your house or you like, you can take extra walks during the day, I would encourage you to use this time.

Um OK, so in the survey, uh we talked about, you know, it leaders in particular and tech leaders and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that position. Um You know, in, in when you're an it specialist or help desk person, basically, the only interaction that you're getting is an email. So you're just getting plain text, you're not getting any of the emotion behind it, you're not getting any of the like you might get like a mean slack message uh which is never fun. Um It's that same sort of feeling of getting a text telling you bad news or somebody calling you over the phone and giving you that bad news. There's a lot of nuance to it. Um And you know, there's things like body language that help soften a message or make you feel like, you know, maybe this problem isn't as bad as it might seem. And when you're on the receiving end of all of those problems of load, that's a lot of mental load. You're responsible for everybody getting up and getting their job done.

Um And when people get mad at you, like they're taking out their anger on you, they may be mad at their computer, not rebooting, but they're taking it out on you the it person. Uh And then if you look a level or two up, then you've got your, your trust and security leadership and, you know, those folks are responsible for the load of their team, uh, you know, how their team is doing emotionally, making sure that their team has the support that they need.

But then also if your team member just has had enough, then, you know, they're the ones on the line for, if that person decides to go rogue and like, yell at somebody, it might be, uh, you know, well deserved. Uh, but, you know, they're, they're on the line for that and honestly, I wouldn't, I wouldn't blame the it people if they were just like, I'm done, I'm just, I'm done. Um, so, you know, I, let's just take a moment. Thank you. It, people, you're wonderful. Um, please don't get mad at me when I say that my computer is not working. Um, anyway, let's move on a little bit. Um, so, you know, Vanessa, she is the, uh, chief trust and security officer at one login where I work and she's amazing. She did this study on crime affects the mental health of the security unit and the whole organization at large. Really, because when you've got, uh, an incident when you've got like a data breach or you've got some sort of attack, um, you know, that's not only going to affect the person that was attacked or the account that was taken over it's also going to take over the organization, they're going to lose trust in the leadership, they're going to lose trust in the product itself.

It could impact the way that your sales people are selling because they don't trust that their own data is safe within the, or um on an individual level. You know, it's, it's traumatic to have that happen to you, to have an identity theft or to have it look like you've done all of this malicious activity within your company. Um You might feel is like that's all normal. Uh And at the organizational level, you know, you're gonna see people getting fired, most likely you're gonna see a ton of money getting thrown at the problem. Um and just that overarching anxiety at all levels. Uh And, you know, so, so Vanessa did an amazing study that sort of went through. How do you prevent this sort of stuff or mitigate it because you can never fully prevent it, but mitigating it by, you know, having run throughs. So, you know, part of, I think the, the stress of the last year and a half has been just the unknown. Um and not knowing when things are gonna open up again when you know, the vaccine was gonna come out if it's gonna be effective. Uh There's so many just unknowns there and, and that really is the space that security lives in every day. Uh You know, at any time you, you get an attack at any time.

You can get like it might be three in the morning, it might be three in the afternoon and the hacker doesn't care. Uh They're gonna get you out in working trying to protect against their attack. Um So, you know that not knowing in that constant state of uh anxiety and that constant just vigilance, feeling it wreaks havoc on your body. And uh you know, the, but there's this amazing book called The Body Keeps The Score and I highly recommend it. It's uh it goes through how your body reacts as like a cave, a cave person would uh because we're still working within that same system. Um and how, you know, that trauma gets stored and you know, it may manifest once you, you know, if you get triggered, if you like, you happen to see like a straight email go out and you don't know what happened, that could get you right back into that mode where you, you know, your, your account got hacked once you know, oh, this is happening again.

Like let's, let's pull up all the anxiety and all the trauma again. Um And so, you know, this, this stuff is real. It's, it's, it lives in the body. You, you don't necessarily know if you're in that anxious space or not because our mind is such a good job of saying, yeah, it's fine, like push it in the bag, just put it in the closet, stick it in a box like we'll deal with that later. Um So, you know, that the all I wanna do with this is bring awareness to this problem. Um And so, you know, when you've got, if you're, if you're an it leader, if you're a tech leader, if you're in tech in any way, I think, you know, staring at a screen all day is a, again, like wreaks havoc on the body, but especially in this like cybersecurity field where you're in that constant vigilance state.

Um In the survey that we did, uh the coping mechanisms were actually quite healthy. I'm impressed with people. Um 80% of people said they turned to exercise, which is like time and time again, proven to reduce anxiety, depression, increased mental health. Um Just make you feel good.

Overall, uh 44% repeat are um reported that meditation has helped them. Um And only 11% has said that therapy has helped them. So, um you know, a couple of other things include music and better sleep and television and movies for distractions. Uh And I think that's all great.

I think too that the one thing that wasn't mentioned was giving yourself a break. Um giving yourself the permission to say, you know what, it's a pandemic, it's still a pandemic even though it's, it's kind of like the the light is that at the end of the tunnel um giving, just giving yourself permission to say, you know what? I didn't learn Chinese this year and that's ok. Or like, I didn't learn how to, like, pick up five new hobbies or learn to knit or, like, get better at, I don't know, whatever you're good at. Um, and I think that's ok, like, this year has been about survival. Uh, and I think that, you know, I've heard from too many people in my community that have been like, well, I did nothing this year I did and I'm just like a bump on the law and like, that's my life and, you know, give yourself some credit. Uh, it's, it's been a rough year. Um, and I think to, like, personally what I've done, um, I have never been the type of person that like gets up early in the morning and goes and exercises. Like, I've never really understood that.

Uh, but this year now that we're at home, um, I've taken any opportunity that I can to find like a little slice of time in my day to go for a walk or take a walking meeting. Um, or, and then that kind of, uh, increased and I was like, OK, I'm gonna start running and so I would like run, but really it was like a run walk, um, kind of still is a run walk. Uh, but the more that I did that, the more that I found I was motivated to do other things in my self care. So that turned into like using a meditation app, Googling youtube and seeing like what guided meditations are out there. Um I ended up subscribing to headspace, which I highly recommend I'm not endorsed by this company and I probably should be. Um, they're wonderful. Uh also a customer of long and shameless plug. Um But I, I really believe in the power of meditation. I think that even 23 minutes of just like recognizing that your thoughts are not reality and that you just exist as a human and whatever you're thinking or feeling are just thoughts and feelings and give yourself a little space and a little bit of grace for going through what we're all going through right now.

Really sad actually, to hear that therapy is 11%. I have been in therapy half my life uh and find that it's a wonderful, wonderful resource. Um I know it's, it's, you know, I've been very lucky that I have had come need that have benefits with mental mental health. Um But there's so many companies now that spring up and like better health um that you can just sign up for and get in touch with the therapist. And if it's like, you know, that kind of thing that you wanna just keep having over and over again, um you can do that or you can have like said goal for yourself. Uh I want to, you know, I don't know, I want to learn Chinese and, you know, therapy can help you with that because you've got, everybody inevitably has mental blocks that prevent them from getting the things that they want. Uh, and therapy can help you uncover that. So I spend a lot of time on this side, but I really like it. Um, this is the other one, this is the other side of self care, uh, self medication. Um, and 76% of people are reporting that they didn't self medicate. Um I find that a little suspect I've definitely, I'm gonna ACOP to right now. I've definitely self medicated in this pandemic. And I think again, no, no blame here.

Like I, I think that, you know, obviously there's abuse of all of these things and that's a real problem and that should definitely get your attention. But there's also times when break and again, like giving yourself permission and thinking through it at a time when you're not stressed out and a time when you have the mental space to say, you know what, I'm going to allow myself a bottomless mimosa brunch this weekend because I am just like, oh, I got a lot going on and I just want to forget for a minute, like sometimes getting that space for yourself can have the same effect as something like meditation.

You know, I recommend meditation over drinking your problems away for sure. Let's just be very clear about that. But I also don't want you to beat yourself up about this. Um You know, everything in moderation. Uh This was really great to see. Um You know, I think that this is, this is great, like having, having tech leaders agree that their organization cares about employees, mental health. Um You know, bosses are human too. Uh They have just as many mental health problems as you do, most likely. Um And everybody has been so, you know, we don't have the water cooler anymore, so we don't say, hey, how are, how's your weekend? Like, oh, well, it wasn't that great. And like though that leads to more conversation and in depth and friendships and, uh, you know, we don't really have that right now. Hopefully we get back to it, but because we don't have it, we have to find ways to create it. Um, about half seeing that they, they actually do have companies that are providing them with access to mental health services. Um But a third of people feel like they don't have the appropriate mental health support at their org. I will say finding a therapist is really difficult, especially through insurance. Um If you know, I'm, I'm here personally to help you with that because I have been through it myself.

Uh and it is a grueling process and anytime you change jobs, it's another grueling process to find another one or try to get support for your new one. So this is a really tough thing. Uh and you know, hopefully we'll start to see that companies recognize how difficult it is to get mental health services as a result of this pandemic with the, how important it is to address it. So for work, um if you are a manager of people, um the, the best thing that you can do is be real, um you know, take breaks, encourage breaks, uh check in one on one with employees, hopefully you're doing that anyway. Um And then being flexible, adapting to varying circumstances and, you know, if somebody needs to take time off or something, understand and adapt, uh you know, it's not going to do anybody any good to get upset about it, especially you. Um And I think that, you know, as a leader, um actually in, in our team, one of the best things that my engineering manager counterpart does in our daily stand ups, um, every Monday, he'll ask uh everyone to start out with uh an update about their weekend. No work talk. So it'll just be like, how's your weekend? How's everybody doing? And most of the time it's like, oh, I like, did I watched a new Netflix show or? I, um, you know, I had, uh, I talked with one of my friends on the phone, right.

I like, went for a long walk and it's been kind of boring updates. It's still a pandemic. Um, but, you know, everyone has gotten sort of a little more vulnerable and it mimics that water cooler talk. Um The other thing that he does that I really like is on Fridays. What are you going to go do this weekend? How's everybody doing? Um And, uh, you know, we then talk about our plans for the weekend and again, it mimics that water cooler talk and it's become routine now to create those relationships via a remote, like zoom primary um environment. So, um, so this is my, you know, my work tips, I would say tips for life. I, I don't actually have a slide for this. I'm just gonna not share my screen in a second. Uh This is my thank you slide. If you'd like to get in touch with me, please do. I would love it. Um Or you can just hit up unlock and, and they can direct you to me. But let me unshared my screen for a moment. Here we go and trimmer life tips. Um So, uh again, I found exercise super, super helpful. Um I was not a believer. I uh I used to go through uh times when I would be really depressed and I would just have to kind of get through it, have my therapist thankfully.

Um But again, in this pandemic, getting outside, getting exercise in has been a lifesaver. All the studies are right. Uh And the other thing that I found that has been really helpful, headspace meditation, um yoga. Um All of that stuff that connects your mind and your body and allows you to separate the two. Um And then finally, journaling is one of my favorite things. Um And, you know, sometimes it can be really overwhelming to just put a pen to blank paper and try to articulate your thoughts, but the exercise itself is really powerful. Um So, uh those are my tips. Um I hope that you got something out of today and I really, really appreciate you joining my session. Thanks a lot.