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The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity by [Christian Espinosa]

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Christian Espinosa

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity Kindle Edition

by Christian Espinosa (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Cyberattack—an ominous word that strikes fear in the hearts of nearly everyone, especially business owners, CEOs, and executives.

With cyberattacks resulting in often devastating results, it’s no wonder executives hire the best and brightest of the IT world for protection. But are you doing enough? Do you understand your risks? What if the brightest aren’t always the best choice for your company?

In The Smartest Person in the Room, Christian Espinosa shows you how to leverage your company’s smartest minds to your benefit and theirs. Learn from Christian’s own journey from cybersecurity engineer to company CEO. He describes why a high IQ is a lost superpower when effective communication, true intelligence, and self-confidence are not embraced. With his seven-step methodology and stories from the field, Christian helps you develop your team’s technical minds so they become better humans and strong leaders who excel in every role. This book provides you with an enlightening perspective of how to turn your biggest unknown weakness into your strongest defense.

Print length

282 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

February 2, 2021
File size

5492 KB
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Editorial Reviews

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"Christian is a tremendous leader and visionary. His grasp of the cyber ecosystem and how it impacts our ability to defend our networks and protect our data is truly inspiring. He's a charismatic thought leader and lecturer with the ability to capture an audience while breaking down incredibly complex technologies into simple building blocks. As a coach and trainer, he arms his clients with the knowledge required to truly be successful by offering a path into a brave new world where we truly are the masters of our networks and data."
--Chester "Chet" Ratcliffe, Chief Scientist and Cyber Strategist at Booz Allen Hamilton

"Christian is the subject matter expert's SME, and a natural teacher--making the complex simple to understand at all levels, from deep tech to business strategy and finance. When I want a point of view and a plan I can trust is deeply informed--he's a go-to."
--Mike Reavey, Vice President, Enterprise Security at Electronic Arts

"Developing people skills can be a challenge. Developing people skills in the cybersecurity field in a way that drives mission effectiveness is another. In The Smartest Person in the Room, Christian Espinosa brilliantly merges his decades of leadership training and experience with his cybersecurity expertise to craft an approach to winning the cybersecurity war. And he makes a clear and compelling case for why all cybersecurity professionals should embrace his approach--starting today. If you're a cybersecurity expert, you'll read this book in one sitting because it directly addresses the challenges you struggle with daily. And if you have no direct connection to the cybersecurity field, you'll read it in one sitting as well...only because it speaks to the greater truths of what it is that enables any organization to achieve mission success."
--Robert "Cujo" Teschner, Founder, CEO, and Chief Consultant, VMax Group Consulting, Bestselling Author of Debrief to Win: How America's Top Guns Practice Accountable Leadership...and How You Can, Too!

"Christian Espinosa has worked with many highly trained, highly skilled, and highly educated people over the course of his career. In the process, he has learned that a high IQ (intelligence quotient) without an equally high EQ (emotional quotient) can put your business at risk when it comes to your communication and client service. As the founder of Alpine Security, he wanted to disrupt the world of business by developing top talent with both intelligence and empathy to help companies recognize and reduce their cybersecurity risk, and to protect the lives and livelihoods of people in both local and global communities. Cybersecurity is, at its core, all about the recognition, understanding of, and reduction of risk. Christian has delivered this message to hundreds of public and private cybersecurity students, and developed strategies and techniques for his company to go beyond the surface and address the root causes of risk.
Christian has worked as a subject matter expert in almost every area of cybersecurity, from securing aircraft to building security plans for new regulations and security frameworks. As a leader in the field and an expert on cybersecurity, he is constantly scanning the horizon to identify new threats and new risks that face companies both large and small. In this industry it isn't about if you will face a cybersecurity threat, it is about when. Companies can no longer afford to not have a cybersecurity plan or fail to identify the risks to their organization. There is simply too much at stake. This book is a good first step to building your own successful cybersecurity plan, starting with finding the right people to be a part of your team."
--Jana White, COO, Alpine Security

"In his book, Christian brilliantly illustrates the 'interpersonal skills deficit' crippling the cybersecurity profession(al) every day. How the need for certainty and significance--to be the smartest person in the room--leads to inflated egos (essentially just a guise for deeply rooted insecurities), and dare I say toxic (often bullying) behaviour. Christian's story of self-discovery is inspiring and couldn't come at a better time. But be warned: There is no silver bullet. Change takes time and starts by you getting honest with yourself. Can you honestly say that you are living your best life today?"
--Marilise de Villiers, Founder and CEO, Marilise de Villiers Basson Consulting Ltd, Bestselling Author of ROAR!: How to tame the bully inside and out

About the Author

Christian Espinosa is the Founder and CEO of Alpine Security, a cybersecurity engineer, certified high-performance coach, professor, and lover of heavy metal music and spicy food. He's also an Air Force veteran and Ironman triathlete. He used to value being the "smartest guy in the room," only to realize that his greatest contribution to the fight against cybercrime is his ability to bring awareness to the issue through effective communication. Christian is a speaker, coach, and trainer in the Secure methodology, helping to make the smartest people in the room the best leaders in the field. For more information, visit christianespinosa.com.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08T6QK6FN
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lioncrest Publishing (February 2, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 2, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5492 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 282 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #488,769 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #58 in Viruses & Malware
- #100 in Online Safety & Piracy
- #368 in Computers & Technology (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
259 ratings

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Christian Espinosa

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Christian Espinosa is the Founder and former CEO of Alpine Security (now part of Cerberus Sentinel), an entrepreneur, a white-hat hacker, certified high-performance coach, cybersecurity professor, and lover of heavy metal music (primarily Nightwish), tacos, and spicy food. He’s also an Air Force veteran, world traveler, skydiver, and 24x Ironman triathlon finisher.

Christian used to value being the smartest person in the room. After painful reflection and hitting a glass ceiling, he realized his greatest contribution to leadership and fighting cybercrime is his ability to bring awareness and solutions to the omnipresent challenges associated with high rational intelligence (IQ) / low emotional intelligence (EQ) staff. Christian is a keynote speaker, coach, and trainer in the Secure Methodology, helping make the most intelligent people in the room the best leaders in the field.

Learn more about Christian at: https://christianespinosa.com/

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

259 global ratings

5 star		64%
4 star		22%
3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Grady Harp

‘Open communication allows us to solve problems and commit to fixing them’

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 31, 2021

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Missouri author Christian Espinosa earned his degrees in engineering from the US Air Force Academy and Webster University and is the CEO and Founder of Alpine Security that provides a full spectrum cybersecurity services and training, helping organizations reduce cybersecurity risk and empower cybersecurity professionals with the skills of penetration testing, incident response, risk assessments, and auditing. Christian is also an accomplished mountain climber, scuba diver, skydiver, ultramarathon runner, and Ironman triathlete.

Maintaining privacy in the age of internet is a fear we all experience – a conundrum we have created and very much need to know how to protect. Christian is a cybersecuity expert and in this invaluable book he shares his experience and knowledge about dealing with hacking and learning how to prevent it, both in businesses organizations and personally, with the most user-friendly manner of writing. With great skill he shares how to turn this threat and this ‘weakness’ into a strong defense against cyberattacks.

Christian’s Secure Methodology involves The Seven Steps - Awareness (of self and others), Mindset (growth and fixed), Acknowledgement, Communication (word choice, tone of voice, body language), Monotasking (focus on one task at a time) Empathy, and Kaizen (continuous improvement). His point – ‘teach your technical staff the people skills they need to know to grow and contribute to the overall betterment of the cybersecurity industry and their lives.’

In closing he states, ‘I’ve always been a believer that if you want the world to get better, you have to get better. Your inner world must improve before the outer world will improve.’ This is an indispensible guide. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 21

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mariana

Cyber security

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 26, 2023

Verified Purchase

The perfect book to understand how is the data industry nowadays and everything that’s going on with the company’s who are trying to avoid hacking and misuse of their clients data. It’s a really interesting book and it’s main focus is to informe about the cyber criminals and the cyber war.

It shows how complicated it is for the companies dealing with this cyber thieves and also how every CEO and high range administrative must be concerned, because their clients are trusting them their personal information and they have to assure their data is safe and well use.

Christian expose how the companies are losing the cybe rsecurity war and clarify how is not a technological problem, it’s about the people in charge of the data protection, how it’s always an ego thing and isn’t thinking about the company wellbeing and their clients.

There are some tips to help you to get what are those key points you have to work in your team to get to win this war, and it’s more about the softs skills. He found this tips by his own experience, he notice that being “the smartest person in the room” isn’t what’s important, having certainty and significance didn’t help his personal and professional growth, thinking you now everything is all about ego and will not give you happiness.

A great book for those company leaders who what to encourage and help their team personal and professional growth, this book would help you to understand how developing your staff mind and communication would make them closer to win the cyber security war. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Susel Dezzani

Interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2022

Verified Purchase

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity is an interesting book written by Christian Espinosa. In it, the author is clear, and explains very well all the points mentioned in this book.

If you own a company, this is a book I recommend reading. The author’s knowledge is seen throughout the book and it is also shown that there’s big research done to have this final and trustful result.

I liked the book because it provided me with the essentials I need to know regarding cybersecurity. I would highly recommend reading it.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity by Christian Espinosa is a very good book that shows the initial problems and weaknesses that cause issues with cybersecurity. It correlates them to mistakes we make in our daily living and the blind spots we often have in life, showing that all people have blind spots in different areas. The author writes about growing his own security company and the seven steps of the secure methodology. These include such things as mindset, communication, monotasking and empathy and how to apply them in the workplace and in life for better cybersecurity. To finish the book, there is a chapter on growth and contribution. This is an in-depth book with an excellent solution. I highly recommend it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

L.

More about management advice than cyber security

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 20, 2022

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This book was written from the perspective of a cyber security manager, but the management lessons it contains would be useful for anybody who wants to better manage and understand their employees. It's so interesting that the author focuses on people and what makes them tick, to ultimately improve a company's cyber security. The author not only goes into management theories, but also psychological as well as neurological reasons for why we do what we do. This book contains good lessons for many aspects. I especially appreciated the repeated references to how we should be forward thinking, with a growth mindset, when we are trying to figure out what motivates us. Great life advice.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Margarita garcia

Helpful.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 22, 2022

Verified Purchase

How important is Cybersecurity in these times? where everything is connected to the internet, all the time we are exposed, even at home we do not have enough privacy. But what happens if all the information that we have in our company is exposed and is not properly secured? It could be the end of the company or lead you to lose money for it. The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity by Christian Espinosa is a great book full of information that is going to help you understand what is happening in this different world. Espinosa's experience in this area is reflected along these lines with good advice on what to do to protect your information. I highly recommend it!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Margaret

How to Choose the Red Pill

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

Christian Espinosa has over 30 years of experience in the Cyber security industry. Yet, this book refrains from using technical jargon, which makes it more understandable for the reader.

This insightful book provides valuable methods for improving cybersecurity, team relations, and how to develop leadership skills.

The Smartest Person in the Room also points out the issue of technical employees who lack the required skills could be a cause of any cybersecurity quandaries. The author demonstrates, from personal experience, that some personalities are not fit for the technical position, despite being "paper tigers".

What is great about the book is that Christian Espinosa does not just list a number of issues to solve, he provides detailed solutions to each problem. While evaluating the system as a whole, he designed the Secure Methodology that includes seven different steps. Each step is thoroughly described and explained. He also offers teamwork activities for developing essential skills in fighting cybercriminals.

The title of the book refers to employees who focus solely on being the smartest person in the room, and how they will not be a valuable addition to the team. Why? The book will explain everything.

"The Secure Methodology is a surefire way to ignite the people skills of your technical team so we can beat the cybercriminals and win the war." - Christian Espinosa, The Smartest Person in the Room.

Dr Mike Brass

Required reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 17, 2021

Verified Purchase

The criminals are winning. The only way to tip the scales is for companies to take a holistic approach to security and embed security as part of everyone’s daily practice. This will only happen when those tasked to design, coordinate and implement are in sync with the business. This book provides you with the necessary people skills and the right framework of mind.

One person found this helpful

Anjali Sharma (@reading_for_sanity )

Great...

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on January 7, 2023

Verified Purchase

The Smartest Person in the Room is truly a one-of-a-kind book. Cybersecurity is a priority for all business owners nowadays. With developing technology and our ever-increasing reliance on it, the threats and risks are bigger. So, what do we do to fight the dreaded unknown enemy called a cyberattack? Is hiring the best technical minds enough to ensure the safety of our data and systems?

This book answers all these questions and many more related ones. Coming from someone, who started as a cybersecurity engineer and then became a CEO, you can easily trust the book as it's very insightful and full of practical knowledge and advise to deal with the problems in the domain of cybersecurity.

Moreover, it offers an interesting approach by emphasizing on not just technical skills but people skills and leadership skills of the technical team. This book is easy to read and understand, and the author has done a great job by blurring the line between it being a technical book and it being a book for self growth and personality development. Highly recommended!

Pipsy

The power of people skills for technical minded

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on January 23, 2022

Verified Purchase

While I expected this book on cyber security to talk about technical things, it actually is the opposite. It talks about the people skills and mindsets needed to combat security challenges such as working better as a team, losing the arrogance of thinking you’re the best, and a continuous improvement mindset.
It is well written and the anecdotes from bring it to life and make it more relevant.

Gilbert Eijkelenboom

A strong mindset and communication skills as a technical person

Reviewed in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 on April 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

A technical job is so much more than the technical work.

The author illustrates this beautifully, through examples and stories. He outlines the importance of communication and people skills, and gives practical steps how to develop in this area. The practical framework helped me to convert the lessons to my own life - personal and business. Throughout the book, the author shows how important humility is, and how to adopt such a mindset.

This book is written by a cybersecurity engineer, but it's widely applicable to any people in the technical room.

Highly recommended!

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