Ian delivers cybersecurity education using funny and memorable videos that surprise and entertain. His unique sense of humor proves to be significantly more effective in helping people improve their cyber savviness as opposed to the usual doom and gloom in the industry.

Welcome to the most irregular episode of the How do you know? podcast to date!

Change has been brewing beneath the surface and it’s the unmatched Louis Grenier and his workshop - Stand The F*ck Out (STFO) – that played a huge role in materializing that transformation.

What you see today on my website is the result of several months of work that runs deep. During STFO, I refined my business strategy, the assets I bring to the table, and defined the type of customers I want to work with. The workshop accelerated these realizations and my acting on them by months – nay, years!

Every prompt and conversation chipped away at my self-doubt and gave me the clarity and confidence to articulate what I want to do next and what I don’t want to do next.

Because I’ve grown as a person through other people’s stories and kindness, I’m sharing the decisions that got me here so they may serve you on your journey.

James Linton, my guest for this episode, is a social engineer and email prankster known for duping high-profile celebrities and politicians.

He discovered his inclinations for information security almost accidentally, while experimenting with his UX designer abilities and pursuing his curiosity. One thing led to another and now his Wikipedia page leads with this:

But that’s just a moment in his evolution as a human – and as an information security professional. I found out the rest from James himself, who openly shared his experience of finding a way to harness his abilities to help others while also living and working on his terms.

We talked about the struggles he went through and the decisions he made along the way, highlighting how we can make our psychology work for us instead of against us.

Tim Ash is a great voice that you need to hear to build more positivity and momentum towards all the good things you want to develop in your life. Start by hitting the play button:

What I really appreciate about Tim is his dedication to sharing all his knowledge and putting it to work – constantly. He published over 100 articles about digital growth, he did the Landing Page Optimization Podcast with over 130 episodes, and he’s also a certified Tai Chi instructor, a poet, painter, and an avid photographer.

During our conversation, I could see all of his diverse experiences converging and surfacing valuable life lessons we can all use to elevate our decisions and way of life.

Today’s episode is focused on this crucial topic: our process for making decisions and how we can pick and choose ideas, experiences, and people to help us improve it so that we elevate multiple aspects of our lives.

Erno is the kind of person who exudes optimism and he proved it once again during our conversation. Even when confronted with tough times and difficult decisions, as we all are these days, he still focuses on mind and body health.

Before you press play, start with this idea my guest, Erno Hannink, shared: don’t evaluate the result of your decisions but focus on the thought process behind it. You’ll soon understand why that makes a huge difference.

My guest today, Tom Hirst, generously shares how he’s progressed on all three fronts during the last decade, highlighting the decisions he used to achieve balance and the thinking behind them. The way he considers the choices and actions he’s making today and their future impact is a highly valuable lesson in strategic thinking. I learn a lot from this conversation and I hope you will too!

This is a fast-paced episode that packs a lot of energy and that might be just what you need to find your own priorities and engineer your growth from here on. Keep a notebook close, you’ll want to take notes!

Bretton Putter is an expert on building culture in high-growth companies and also a clear-eyed judge of his own values. He makes decisions based on his beliefs and chooses to work with clients he aligns with. This is one of the many choices he made to achieve a stronger balance between work and leading a healthy life.

“Culture develops in a company when decisions that are made prove to be successful and the thinking that went into those decisions becomes embedded into the way we do things around here.”

This snippet from my guest’s most recent book really struck a chord for me because it’s not just about the decision to make cultivating company culture a core goal but what happens after it.

That’s exactly what this episode is about and it concerns you, no matter where you work and what you do.

Do you know those conversations that light up your brain in all sorts of new ways?

That’s what it was like to interview Ana Iorga, the consumer neuroscience expert.

Our entire conversations felt like a crash course in how the brain works when it makes decisions. Talking to Ana was not just an opportunity to discover fascinating facts about how our brain shapes our perception of reality, but also a chance to see how these facts work in real-life situations.

Ana’s examples cover a wide range of familiar experiences, explained through a lens that inspires reflection, encourages self-awareness, and makes us more intentional about our actions.

Vladimir always struck me as a very outspoken, no-BS person, who has a deep understanding of the topics he talks about. His clarity of expression reflected clarity of thought and that stands true to this day, as you’ll learn yourself if you listen to the episode we recorded together.

What came out of our conversation is a range of ideas and questions that can help anyone upgrade their thinking and their actions – not by imitation but by strengthening their own critical thinking.

If the phrase “it’s very hard to do a Kanye West on a book” piques your interest, I promise there’s a bit of fun in this episode too, along with valuable lenses you can try out to improve your outlook on life, meaning, decisions, and your creative pursuits.

It’s been a tough week for the entire world.

I found it difficult to concentrate these days and I’ve heard the same from basically everyone, no matter their age or where they are in the world.

For example, all I could do in a day was to edit an article, which usually takes me much less.

It’s not difficult to feel triggered during this time, even anxiety hasn’t been a major issue for you, as it has been for me in the past for example. People who’ve never experienced these levels of uncertainty, confusion, and fear might have a difficult time understanding their emotions and gaining control over them.

It may not be you, but it may be someone you love.

I wanted to share this personal story because the rest that follows is a quick list of ideas, habits, and practices that help me weather difficult moments.