You have built a career around protecting what matters the
most, and that is data, people and purpose.
So how do you see cybersecurity evolving over the next five
years? You know, I think cybersecurity
will become more proactive and AI driven with advancements and
machine learning, right? Enabling real time threat
detection and response. That's kind of what I say.
I think the focus is going to ship shift towards predictive
analytics, right? Automation, more zero trust or
architects to counter increasingly sophisticated
cyberattacks. You're going to need it, right?
The next element of that, it's going to be quantum computing,
right? I think that's going to play a
pivotal role, like both as a challenge but as an opportunity.
Looking for expert legal support you can trust?
At Grayfield Solicitors, we simplify complex legal issues
for both businesses and private clients across Essex and beyond.
From pensions and insolvency law to construction, conveyancing
and commercial litigation, our experienced team is here to
help. With clear, practical advice and
a commitment to results, we put your Peace of Mind first, every
step of the way. We're proud sponsors of The
Kingdom's podcast, championing voices that enlighten the world
on growth mindset, leadership, and business insights for
entrepreneurs. Visit grayfieldsolicitors.com
today to book your free consultation.
Welcome to The Kingdom's podcast, where growth mindset
meets leadership and business insights.
Get insights from top entrepreneurs, professionals,
and thought leaders. Visit kingdomspodcast.com.
Fuel your mind. Your next breakthrough starts
here. We live, ladies and gentlemen,
you all once again, welcome to the Kingdoms podcast.
And today I have with me from the other side of the pond, Phil
Novak. How are you, Michelle?
I am fantastic. How are you doing today?
Do you want, do you want the default answer or you want the
authentic answer? Default answer is I am.
Well, I'm fine, you know, I'm doing great, but default answer
is rather authentic answer is I'm recovering from a fleet.
But Michelle Novak cannot go back.
We have. So we have to record this one.
We have to record this one. You know, your journey is so, so
weak and layered from hospitality and finance to cyber
security and authorship. So what has driven your
evolution over the years? Great.
Question, right? Well, my evolution has been
driven by commitment to growth, right?
Refusal to settle and a passion for helping and thrive others,
right? Like I think hands down, each
phase of my journey, whether it's been in the hospitality
industry, finance industry, cybersecurity, becoming an
author has been about learning for me, adapting and then
stepping into all challenges with a purpose, right?
Purpose driven. I think that's most important
for me. Well, Speaking of evolving and
adapting, you have won so many hearts.
You know, you're that person, the core, the proverbial Jack of
all trades. But then you are a master of
some. You know, you say Jack of all
trades typically is usually a master of none, but that's is
actually a false statement. You could be a master of some
and of course you have mastered, you know, quite some.
And you're always talking about leaving your best life.
So what does leaving your best life really mean to you?
You know, for me, living your best life means owning your
choices, right? And embracing, embracing every
opportunity that's out there and aligning your actions really
with your core values, like who you are, right?
Living by a standard that is beyond what you can imagine,
right? And never, never, never, never,
never give up, right? It's about removing negativity,
paving the path for others, paying it forward, right,
inspiring others and creating that life of abundance where you
can live fully like, you know, authentically.
I love the word authentically. And you used it, right, with the
sense of purpose. I'm always going to drive back
with a sense of purpose every single day.
And I think the most important thing for me is living the best
life as being the family and having a strong faith.
Strong faith, my friend, right? Strong faith, I love that.
Yeah. I love that I'm I'm a man of
faith, you know, without faith is it's impossible to please
God. And my faith is Christianity
other ways Hebrew 11/1 says faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
And I think it it went further in that chapter to say that
Abraham had faith and it was counted unto him unto
righteousness. And of course, first of all,
without faith, it's impossible to please God.
Speaking of opportunities, you do talk about, you know,
harnessing opportunities. And one opportunity that you
have quite harnessed is cybersecurity.
So you founded Cardinal's Bite to help small businesses to
navigate cybersecurity challenges.
So why do you think so many small businesses still overlook
the importance of digital security and what is at stake?
That's a loaded question, right? Many small businesses, I think,
overlook digital security because they assume they're too
small to be targeted, right? Or they believe cybersecurity is
too complex or too expensive. They have no idea the worth,
right? You know what's at stake is
everything, right? Client trust, regulatory
compliance. When you talk about that and the
survival of their business, 63% of all small businesses are
attacked in the first year. And out of those, 60 go out of
business because of it, right? If not prepared, a single breach
can lead to devastating financial and reputational
damage. And I think that's why many
small businesses overlook it. You know, they don't understand
it. They don't understand the
benefits. You know, I know that from
speaking with my clients in the educational piece.
Actually lies to something. I like to say.
When the use of something is unknown, abuse is inevitable.
Yeah. So, yeah, you can't blame a lot
of small business owners has no, you don't know, but ignorance is
not admissible in the court of law.
So we have great individuals like yourself putting the, the
the word out, you know, sensitizing small business
owners regarding that importance of cybersecurity, specialize in
breaking down the compliance in layman's terms.
So what are the top 3 misconceptions that small
business owners have about cybersecurity compliance?
Misconceptions, right? I would say compliance equals
security. How many people think meeting a
standard is enough? But compliance is not just a
baseline, right? They think, you know, you
download your Malwarebytes or whatever it is that will protect
you from, you know that you have, you know, antivirus loaded
and you you're protected against everything.
So that's probably one of the first misconceptions, right?
And security is, is only an IT issue.
I get that a lot, right? Like, well, the IT guys will
take care of it. It's a business wide
responsibility, right? It involves policies, training,
leadership. You know, you have to have to
have it built into your posture in your Business Today, right?
Just like you would be planning for sales, you need to plan for
cybersecurity. It's that essential, right?
And then, you know, again, I'm going to go back to we're too
small to be targeted, right? Cyber criminals often target
small businesses because they're perceived easy to breach.
They know that they don't have the training and the
infrastructure. They know that they can send a
phishing e-mail to them. They're going to click on that
link. And then before you know it,
right, your system is stopping to run because they know that
they don't know what they're looking for.
So that's probably another misconception, right?
But again, it's there's so many of them out there.
I would say those are my top three though.
So you've actually spoken about the misconcept, the
misconceptions, right, that small businesses have regarding
cybersecurity. But you and your team at
Cardinals Bytes, how do you tailor solutions for SMEs and
industries such as accounting, law, insurance, professional
services? You know, where data sensitivity
is very, very paramount. Yeah.
So we tailor a lot of different things.
I mean, basically the most important thing in cybersecurity
is to identify the gaps and the risk, right?
So the first thing that we do is we go into any business and we
identify their security posture. Once you identify that, we come
up with a plan based on many risk factors, right, just
depending where it is in cyber. So most of the time though,
what'll happen is, is the majority that we target will be
like multi factor authentication, right?
How they handle backward updating software systems,
right? What systems can be exploited?
We take a look at the vulnerabilities of those
systems. We take a look at their
software, we take a look at the infrastructure from being sound
to not sound, right? There'll be physical security as
well. Sometimes when we're doing a
risk assessment, it's not only about your networks and your
websites, it's about your physical security, right?
Like do you allow people to just walk in and walk around and can
they see information on your computers?
Can they plug in a USB? There's a lot of different
elements to it. And then we do education
security awareness, right? Teaching people what to look for
because that's important, but that's.
I think that's very, very important because a lot of
people don't even know what to look for, right?
And I think that's where we start.
You know, I have clients that are just singular, right?
One person and some, I think my largest client has about 900
people, right? So you know, what's needed for
that one client versus someone who has 900 is completely
different, right? So we tailor it, we tailor those
solutions based on what they need, right?
It's going to be a whole different ball game for that one
person versus the 900 and the needs of that organ.
But for businesses that have limited budgets, what practical
low core strategies would you typically recommend for them to
stay protected and compliant? So I work with some businesses.
I mean, I'm always about helping the community.
It's not all about money. And I believe that, right?
Sometimes you, you know, you have a smaller businesses who
are just starting out, they need to get compliant.
I share the resources. There's free resources out
there, whether it be through the federal government, through the
state that will actually help them get compliant, right?
I'll start them off. Sometimes they do risk
assessments for them and I don't charge them because I want them
to learn. I want them to build that
security trust posture. So this way they have
resilience, They understand it. So the state and federal
government, I mean, here in the US, they have tons of resources
that are free that small businesses can actually do and
implement themselves and they don't have to pay for it, right?
If you have a smaller budget, we're willing to work with you.
You have to be able to work with people and there's a lot of
tools out there. I think the biggest thing is
it's so overwhelming. You don't know what you need,
right? So I think what scares a lot of
people is to like, I need a cyber security plan, but they,
they don't know how much it's going to cost them.
And then they go online and you start doing the research and we
all go down the Google rabbit hole, like I like to call it.
And you know, you're not really sure.
And then you become overwhelmed and you're like, oh, this is
going to be too expensive. And you talk yourself out of it
when you really need it, right? So it's, I think just getting in
touch with the right person and doing your own research and not
going down that rabbit hole. But listen, the average for a
small business can cost, I say a couple of 100 to a couple of
1000, right, on average. Interesting.
Yeah, it's a very broad range just depending on what you need
and that you know. But again, there's a lot of free
resources if you're limited on budget.
The most important is implement multi factor authentification on
anything you have implement VPN. I'm going to tell you that right
now. Backup, backup, backup your data
regularly, right? So you have a landing point.
Educate your employees or do some, you know, YouTube, go on
YouTube and say, you know, give me videos on, you know,
cybersecurity training. They're free, right?
Educate so you know what you're looking at with emails because
that's the biggest way they get in, right?
Sending scam emails and invest, right?
Invest in a cost effective measure.
You know, it's power mount, right?
If you get a breach, again, it could put you out of business,
right? You don't want to lose your
client's trust. Your data is your.
A lot of people don't understand that, but the data that you own
is what they're after. And that is your biggest asset,
right? It's not just an ex, it's not
just an expense, cybersecurity, It's a safeguard for the
longevity and trustworthy of your business.
You have to have that. You lose trust, you lose
everything. Exactly, you're talking about
the Google rabbit hole and you're reminding me of an older
friend of mine. She will know herself from this.
I shout out to you, she calls herself a Google patient when a
doctors tell her to do this. Is this that she's always going
to Google to go search her symptoms everything and now goes
to the doctors. The doctors are frustrated like
are you? Are you, are you the patient or
the assistant doctor? Let us know and then she said
they put on how far the Google patients and.
Then Google patients, listen, you know, I, I mean, I know
somebody who does the same thing, like right to it, right,
like, and they know better than the doctors.
So like, listen, I mean, we're all at fault.
We love Google, we love these tools.
I mean they're great. They help us right, Chat GPTAI,
all of that. But you know, you can go down a
rabbit hole. That's what I always say.
So are you, are you, are you advising your clients to become
Google patients? Yeah, no, no, I think what I'm
advising them of is reach out to your local cybersecurity person,
right, whoever it might be, and ask the questions, gain
knowledge, right? 20% of my knowledge, someone
else doesn't know, and 20% of their knowledge I don't know.
And that's what it's about. Just educate yourself, reach
out, ask the questions. A lot of these websites have
chats. Ask the questions, of course,
you know people out there to sell, right?
You know, you're in business, you want to have products, but
that's not what it's about. Well, for me anyway.
X call, you'll get the answers that you need.
I mean, small businesses need an infrastructure in New York,
where I am, I mean, there are state requirements that you have
to be certified for certain fields and licenses.
So it's, you got to know the regulatory end of it.
Cyber is so big today. You've got to protect yourself
and your clients, right? Because you can be sued and, you
know, unfortunately, it's tough out there.
It's rough out there. And these cyber criminals,
they're becoming more and more prevalent, right?
So. Exactly, let's talk about
mindset and transformation. You have written your book and
it is about mindset right? Shifting your mindset into into
one days of abundance. So what might achieved changed
everything for you personally and professionally, Yeah.
So I, I think the biggest shift was realizing that I have the
power to my own choices, right? And to create my own reality.
I think that was the biggest thing, right?
By letting go the fear and the negativity, understanding what
made me who I am and allowing me to focus on growth and
resilience and living authentically kind of helped me
realize where I needed to go. We've all that book is about
identifying who you are as a person, right?
And I had to unknown me and understand that I need to love
myself first. I think first and foremost, if
you don't love yourself, then you don't have direction, right?
You got to love yourself. So I think that for me is what
shifted understanding that. Something I really appreciate
about you is the fact that you're very big on faith.
How does faith and mindfulness and abundance play together in
the mix for success as a tech entrepreneur and as a mentor for
you? Faith keeps you grounded.
All right, I'm going to say that again.
Faith keeps you grounded. That's how it's done it for me,
right? It keeps me grounded.
Mindfulness helps me stay focused right in the present and
not in the past. And the abundance reminds me to
approach each challenge with gratitude, right and
possibilities. It's hard to approach the it's
hard to stay grounded, be mindful, stay in the present and
have that abundant mentality without that opportunity to be
grateful and understand that you have possibilities every day,
right? Together, I think they fuel my
purpose and drive to build something meaningful.
And I think that's, you know, my next phase of my life is that's
I want to build, you know, you have a business, but you want to
build something meaningful that helps you.
You know, my next phase is mentoring others, helping people
along their way and giving back. So I think that's how, you know,
my faith has played a role where I am today.
So what piece of advice would you give to somebody that is
facing the fear of entrepreneurship stepping out?
Alone. So I just wrote a book about
this not so long ago, Overcoming your fear as an entrepreneur and
solopreneur, right? And being a game changer.
That's the name of it, right? Fear is natural, right?
Let's just say that fear is natural for everybody, right?
But you can't let it paralyze you, right?
Start small. It's an entrepreneur.
Start small. Embrace learning and trust that
every step forward, no matter how uncertain, is progress.
I think that's the hardest thing.
Somebody's stepping out. You've got to know that.
Surround yourself with supportive people, right?
People who are going to believe in your vision.
I know a lot of big people say this, but it's so important.
Get rid of the naysayers. Cut them out.
Cut them out of your life, right?
You know, in my book, I help you, I I have this one question
and I say, why do brilliant ideas die in silence of someday,
right? Embrace being a game changer,
right? What if the secret, right, just
putting it out there. What if the secret to launching
your dream was about more information, right?
Wasn't about information, but about confronting the hidden
fears that you hold that hold you captive inside, being honest
with yourself, looking in that mirror.
Fear is here. You put it in your mind what you
tell yourself is what you do and it's that simple.
It's that simple. And I think if people understood
that, we'd see a change. Just then reminds me of the
acronym that I have of here. False evidence is appearing
real. Beautiful, Beautiful.
It's a great acronym and you know, I like it.
I'm going to use it. Ha ha ha ha.
How to use it? It's AI.
Wish I would have thought of it. OK, we, we can both use it then
we can, we can both use it. Well, I call you a champion of
resilience, you know, But what's that personal moment where you
have had to rise above chaos and keep going?
But rise above chaos, I'd say when I transition to
cybersecurity, right? I faced imposter syndrome big
time. I'm telling you, I definitely
had it. And it was a steep learning
curve, you know, into a new industry, right?
Instead of giving up, though, I leaned in.
I leaned in hard. I found myself a mentor, right?
I sought mentorship. That really helped me understand
that I am resilient. You know, it reminded me, it
reminded myself that growth happens outside of when you're
not comfortable, right? Outside your comfort zones.
That challenge became the foundation, I think for my
success today because I just leaned in hard like it was
tough, right? Cybersecurity is tough.
The industry is tough. It's, you know, women in
cybersecurity. It's even that that more
tougher. I mean, we've made great
strides, but there's a long way to go.
So I would say that's probably one of the hardest times or the
transition in my life that I rose above.
But you're actually admirably reason above the chaos and not
just for yourself. You are an inspiration to others
across the globe. You are an inspiration to me and
you are highly appreciated. You have been a You're welcome.
You've been a leader, you know, both in corporate America and as
a business owner. They are the most important
leadership lessons you've learnt across the the two domains.
You know, leadership is about empathy, right?
It's about empathy, adaptability, and leading by
example. Those are the three things that
I've always learned, right? You're not above, leave the
title at the door and drop the ego, OK?
In corporate America, I learned the importance of clear
communication and decision making, right?
Critical thinking. And as a business owner, I think
I realized that empowering others, fostering trust, and
staying true to my vision are the key to build something
impactful. I think that's probably where I
would leave with that. I love the part we talk about
leading by example. Reminds me of something a leader
I I admire a lot from my time at Peter to say.
And interestingly, he, he was on this podcast sometime last year,
you know, he, he keeps talking about what is important is not
the example of your power or the power of your example.
He's absolutely right. You're on show.
Spot on with you know, it aligns very much with you know what
what you're saying. What's really important is the
power of your example. And yeah, 7 leaders are always
the best leaders. Right from time immemorial.
Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad, Mahatma Gandhi, name any great
leader. What has always been powerful is
the power of their example and their service to humanity.
While we talk about collaboration, you know, what
role has collaboration and community played in your growth
and how do you recommend leaders build in intentional network?
When I think about collaboration, my collaboration
and community have been instrumental in my journey.
It has I mean the hands down I think what kind of is important
to me in the growth of it is mentorship or partnerships and
shared knowledge have shaped my path.
Like without that, I don't know if I've, it would not have given
up. I recommend leaders building
intentional networks right today.
It's about being intentional, inviting in those again that are
going to be authentic, offering you value and seeking A diverse
perspective is important. It's so important because it
gets you out of that comfort zone.
It gets you thinking, it gets you engaged.
It gives you more than just a relationship.
And that relationship needs to be rooted in trust and mutual
growth, right, to create those opportunities for everyone
involved. So I think for me, that's kind
of what I would add there as far as collaboration, my community,
community we're trying to build, like one of my journeys is with
my mentor is build a community for cybersecurity specialists,
right? To learn and grow.
Like we don't see much of that out there.
So it's important to do that today.
You mentioned earlier about how male terminated the
cybersecurity spaces. There are women like yourself
who are making strides. So what's your message to the
young women out there who are trying to break into that space
of cybersecurity? My first and foremost message is
you belong here, right? You belong here, don't let
stereotypes or self doubt hold you back because that's in your
mind, right? Don't let the doubts fear you
and your unique perspective is your strength.
Always know that, right? Speak mentorship, stay curious.
I think for me, never stop learning, right?
Constantly learn. You know, the tech world needs
more women. I I truly believe that who are
ready to be innovative, lead and inspire the next generation, you
know, but believe in yourself. You got it.
Follow what you have. That's what I was saying.
I'll just say one more time, you belong here, you know.
But you have beautiful career around protecting what matters
the most, and that is data, people and purpose.
So how do you see cybersecurity evolving over the next five
years? You know, I think cybersecurity
will become more proactive and AI driven with advancements and
machine learning, right, enabling real time threat
detection in response. That's kind of what I say.
I think the focus is going to ship shift towards predictive
analytics, right? Automation, more zero trust or
architects to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber
attacks. You're going to need it, right?
The next element of that, it's going to be quantum computing,
right? I think that's going to play a
pivotal role, like both as a challenge, but as an
opportunity. I was just at the Cybersecurity
Summit 2-3 weeks ago and they were talking a lot about
quantum, right? It's going to be driving the
need for quantum resistant encryption while opening doors
to faster and more efficient data processing, right?
We see it today. It's incredible, right?
So I think that's what you're going to say, right?
I think innovation and trends that excite me and a lot of it
is the things that you can do today.
The technology is so advanced that it's a game changer, right?
You know, it's can automate anything.
You can automate anything today. Think about that where it took
maybe 30 people to process filing your taxes, I don't know,
right? You know, you press a button and
it's done in seconds, right? So think about the revolution
and the encryption, the data, you know, the transformation of
that, right? The evolution of it all.
You know, how we, how are we going to data?
How are we going to resolve, I guess, you know, problem solve,
you know, at an unprecedented scale?
You know, I think that's where it really is.
You know, I think that's what excites me and what I'm going to
see and evolve to, right? I think that's tremendous,
actually. Yeah, The capacity of AI is
really, really massive. We'll see what the future holds,
you know, Speaking of what the future holds looking ahead,
right? What do you think you want to
achieve with your company in the foreseeable future?
You know, every year as a company, he sits out and you
say, OK, what's my strategy for next year, right?
That's that's very important to do now where you want to go?
So that question, it's one that I kind of contemplate very hard.
But I think for Cardinals bites for the company, right?
The focus on community education.
You know, we're committed to giving back to the community by
mentoring young women. And I think that's going to be
my drive this year, right? Even more so than it was last
year. And driving cybersecurity
education, I think, you know, aiming to educate small
businesses one at a time, one at a time, right, on proactive
cybersecurity measures is another focus that I have for
the future, you know, and then obviously engaging in podcasts
like this, right, Putting it out, creating webinars, you
know, getting more information out.
Yeah, getting the information out like, you know, on social
media and leveraging and raising awareness is really kind of what
I want to do. And sharing actual insights and
then AI driven initiatives, right?
We're developing AI powered programs to enhance risk
assessments by utilizing the models that you know, in the
frameworks of NIST ISO 7 hundreds and the miter attack to
identify those gaps. And the program will automate
compliance reviews and streamline those protocols,
right, ensuring businesses remain aligned to regulatory
compliance. So it's another focus that I
have this year. But again, I think my biggest
focus will be building cyber awareness through the
communities, right? And then my next book.
Ha ha ha. Yeah, definitely.
We can't wait for that. But we know you're a very busy
woman and we have less than 5 minutes with you and we are
gonna take you through 5 quick fire round questions.
Are you ready to rumble? Hey.
Sam, just a quick. Just a quick answer number 11
mindset mantra that keep you going.
This must be quick, right on your choices, embrace resilience
and live with a purpose. OK, that's cool.
Number two, favorite cybersecurity myth you love to
bust? Small businesses aren't just
targeted cyber criminals love easy wins.
I like that number three book that changed your thinking, your
mindset, basically book. I want to say Atomic Habits by
James Clear, right? It's all about.
Small do you know? You're the 2nd guest?
You're the 2nd guest measured in that, Boo.
Good book. Whoa, it's a great book.
Yep, it's about small changes, right?
Creating big results. That's what it's about.
Wow, that's great. Second guess in the span of, I
think a week or two #4 what's, what's something you wish every
small business owner knew about risk?
I think for me it's probably ignoring cybersecurity risk that
can question everything, right? Prevention is always cheaper
than recovery, right? Be proactive, not reactive.
You don't want to be in that space.
You don't want to. You don't want to turn on your
computer and have a black screen or your websites go down.
And I'm going to just share it. I know it's supposed to be a
quick round. I had a client of mine when
known web host was attacked last year. 300 of his websites went
down for four days. He was four days of business.
So think about it. Right, that sounds stressful.
Stressful. Yeah.
I'm sweating already if you're in that.
Yeah. You know what the 5th and final
one is? One word to describe your legacy
in the making. I have a word on my mind.
I I have a word but I don't know if that's the word I want to
use. I'm trying to describe it best I
guess. Empowerment, right?
One word would be empowerment. Empowerment.
Know my word. What's your word?
Impact. Impact.
Nice. I'll take that one.
It's a good word. Whoa.
So you take my word away. Why not?
It gives your word. Yeah, well, I'm going to
disagree. Literally, literally, it's my
word, I guess your word. Wow, wow, wow.
It's it's it's been quite a a great session today.
I always love to see an attitude of gratitude is good attitude.
And if someone shares their time with you, means are sharing
their life with you. So thank you very much for
sharing your time and of course, your life with me and my
audience. Love and respect to you.
All the. Way from the other side of the
pond. Thank you very much.
And of course, to the viewers, please, like, subscribe, share,
you know, just make this the, the, this podcast go right to
the faces, the eyes or the people that need to see it.
And of course, I'll keep working tirelessly to bring in
fantastic, tremendous, wonderful individuals like Michelle Novak.
Because remember, Michelle Novak cannot go back.
Love it, It's by Harvey. Yeah.