Anthony.

Everyone is willing to do whatever it take..until they realise, what it takes.

7am at the lair. I know it’s a hard sell. Vegas can eat you alive. The heat, the parties, the peer pressure and even just the time away from life to hang out with your hacker friends. All of those things can remain true and you can still show up for what’s important to you. This lot did, all week - and I respect it. It was early, we didn’t always want to. But. We do it anyway. #wehackhealth

Twelve years ago I walked in to a gym in Belfast, Peak Physique on the Lisburn Road. I had one goal - change my body. 

All I wanted was to fit into my clothes properly. Purely aesthetics.

I thought that change could give me the confidence I had been missing for my entire adult life. 

At the time I had no direction…in anything. 

I was coasting. Week to week. Party to party. Drink to drink. Taking shortcuts, making excuses, doing just enough to get by. 

I wasn’t unhappy enough to change but I wasn’t happy enough to stay there either. The gym looked like a way to lose weight and build some muscle. Looking back, it was the first promise I ever made to myself and actually kept. I signed up for an 8-week transformation. 652 weeks later I'm writing this from Las Vegas, at @BlackHatEvents and @defcon This and every opportunity over the past 12 years can be traced back to one decision, not because of the gym itself - but because of the person it helped me become. It taught me to do the things I said I was going to do - not because I felt like it or was motivated to - but because I said I was going to. It showed me that no matter where I was at in life, it was my fault - a product of my decisions and no one else is to blame. That can be hard to sit with - but the freedom of it lies in the decisions you can then make and the life that you can build. 

It taught me about consistency, failure, accountability, delayed gratification and everything in between. But most importantly - it taught me that I did not need to change my body a much as I needed to change my environment and my identity. The gym was never the thing I fell in love with. Neither was fitness. It was change. Watching someone become a different person on purpose. After two years I looked at how far I'd come and wanted other people to have it. So I quit my job, got qualified, and started again on the gym floor working with clients 1-1. 6 years ago I started coaching @hackingdave and he introduced me to a world that I didn’t even know existed - cybersecurity. 
 Over time I started working with more people in the industry and the more time I spent with them, the more I saw the same problems I had, just dressed differently. Same failure loops and the same frustrations, just in a seemingly alternate universe. None of this was planned, but now I spend my days helping then people that are protecting the digital world build more resilient versions of themselves, systems that survive chaos and showing them the importance of prioritising their health. Which is why I am here this week. Not to tell you to join the gym, but to further understand the industry. The pressure, the stress, the hours and the things that people have quietly sacrificed over time to stay in it. The mission at @wehackhealth is to set a new standard for health, performance and quality of life for people in cybersecurity. You can't fix a system you don't understand. So this week I'm not talking. I'm listening. The goal is simple: talk to as many people as possible. Find out what this industry is really like. Where people are struggling. And where people have already made the change - how they did it without their career falling apart. So if you're in Vegas, burnt out and don't know where to start, or you've built something that survives the chaos. I want to hear it. Twelve years ago I made one decision that helped me change my entire life. This week, maybe I can show you how you can do the same. B

This year @defcon we are bringing @wehackhealth on the road with @DC_BHV - 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻'𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗱. The goal is to tell stories from real hackers who levelled up their health... My question is - who's story do you want to hear?