Voices of the Vigilant EP05 | Breaking Down the Gates
In This Episode
This episode features Naomi Buckwalter, CISSP, CISM—Director of Product Security at Contrast Security and Founder of the Cybersecurity Gatebreakers Foundation. You can learn more about the conversation and the guest below.
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VIDEO: Voices of the Vigilant EP05
“Breaking Down the Gates,” featuring Naomi Buckwalter, CISSP, CISM—Director of Product Security at Contrast Security and Founder of the Cybersecurity Gatebreakers Foundation.
About the Guest
Naomi Buckwalter, CISSP CISM, is the Director of Product Security for Contrast Security and author of the LinkedIn course: “Training today for tomorrow's solutions - Building the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Professionals.” She is the founder and Executive Director of Cybersecurity Gatebreakers Foundation, a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to closing the demand gap in cybersecurity hiring. She has over 20 years' experience in IT and Security and has held roles in Software Engineering, Security Architecture, Security Engineering, and Security Executive Leadership. A dynamic speaker and mentor, her passion is helping people, particularly women, get into cybersecurity. Naomi has two Masters degrees from Villanova University and a Bachelors of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.
Full Episode Transcript
Jess Vachon: 0:32
Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of Voices of the Vigilant. I am so excited for my guest today, Naomi Buckwalter, Director of Product Security at Contrast Security. We have known each other for a few years, and I consider her more than just a professional association. I call her a good friend.
Naomi Buckwalter: 0:52
Oh my gosh yay.
Jess Vachon: 0:53
So welcome, Naomi, for the people who are listening in, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do right now?
Naomi Buckwalter: 1:01
Oh, hi everyone, it's good to see you and good to see Jess, and we're definitely more than friends. We're like fellow travelers in this human experience together and we've talked about this at length. So, yeah, happy to dive into that craziness. Hey everyone, I'm Naomi. If you don't know me, I'm mostly online, I guess on LinkedIn, and I kind of hate it sometimes if you just ask me and have a conversation. Yeah, I absolutely hate it. But yeah, I talk about a lot of stuff about application security, cybersecurity in general, cybersecurity, jobs, just, yeah, random stuff. But, yeah, love being here with you, jess, thanks for having me.
Jess Vachon: 1:40
Thank you. So what do you do in your day-to-day as the Director of Product Security? For those of us who don't know what a Director of Product Security does,
Naomi Buckwalter: 1:50
Okay, so most cybersecurity teams will have an application security team.
Naomi Buckwalter: 1:54
So if you just think of product security as AppSec like the old school definition of AppSec that's what I do. We are a software vendor. We write security software and my job is to secure the software that we sell. Yeah, it's very meta, which is actually kind of nice because, since I work for a security company, people take security very seriously. So I like to tell people this is almost the perfect job for a security person. If you ever work for a security vendor, you will never struggle. I almost feel like people will still push back, but not as hard. I feel like from my experience, goals, goals hashtag goals.
Naomi Buckwalter: 2:31
Yeah, thank you, is hashtag still a thing? Hashtag? I don't know, I think so these days, don't do hashtags and just say other things so how did you get into information security?
Jess Vachon: 2:42
What interested you and then how did you end up in product security specifically?
Naomi Buckwalter: 3:55
I got really lucky. I just stumbled upon a class. That same week I went over to the AppSec manager. He didn't even know who I was. I was like, hey, so how do I get on your team? Like I literally emailed him. I was like, hey, how do I get on your team? Because you need me, obviously. I was so full of it, so I emailed him. I'm like, how can I get on your team? Because it'd be amazing, I would love to work for you, right. And he's like who are you? Who are you? Go away! Because I was still pretty much junior in my roles at Vanguard, but I convinced him. So he opened up a role just for me. He had a role open for a senior, by the way, but I convinced him somehow and I kept pastoring him, I kept asking him questions, I kept telling him how much I'm learning and enjoying this stuff. Right, and it wasn't just the class, I just went back and I learned everything I could about it. And he was like, yeah, sure, come join our team. So I joined his team as a mid-level so not a senior, but a mid-level, yeah. And then it was security from that point on and that was back in, I want to say 2007 or so, I can't really remember. As a developer, I was doing some security stuff anyway. So I want to say, like 2006 is when I started doing security, but I think full-time 2007 was my first role.
Jess Vachon: 5:15
Love it. So a couple things you said there that I think are really important. One is you search out things you might be interested Find that one thing that you really were good at, that you really loved. I think that's an important lesson for people who are newer to cybersecurity, in that you may get into the field and you may be doing something that you're just not in love with. But if you can stick out that period of time when you're searching and then talk to the other groups, talk to other leaders in the organization, you might find what interests you and what you are really good at, and that might build your future career. So that inspiration piece is super important and when I talk to my mentees, I'm always telling them look, you have to taste a little bit of everything at the table before you can decide. Oh, I really like this meal. I'd like to have this meal more often.
Naomi Buckwalter: 6:12
Right, and then you burn out.
Jess Vachon: 6:17
Yeah, well, hopefully you don't burn out. But if you get in this mindset where I get into information security, I can only do one thing you will be disappointed and at some point, if you're not broadening your horizons, if you're not learning new skills and we'll get into this a little later in the conversation you're going to find yourself at a dead end in your career because you can only take it so far and, as we know, technology is turning over and growing and changing so fast that you can't be stationary ever in our career field. The second thing I wanted to highlight is that someone gave you an opportunity oh yeah and I'm assuming that along with that, there was coaching, was training, there was guidance. That wasn't just about APSEC, but probably also about professionalism in the role. Why don't you talk a little bit about that?
Naomi Buckwalter: 7:14
Oh yeah, if you had known me back in 2006, you would have been like this girl hasn't improved her emotional intelligence since fifth grade, like I was really stunted emotionally, I would say, and I was just kind of a jerk. I would think Like smartest person in the room kind of thing like, but not even smart, just jerk. And you know, really, when you grow up and you're constantly told, hey, you're smart and you can do these things and you go to college for engineering and you do well there, you're like you're just kind of primed to come into the workforce with a chip on your shoulder and that's kind of how I walked in and very quickly realized that's not the way to do things in the corporate worlds. You might be right, but the way you do certain things is a large part of any team, any decision, anytime someone wants to accept you to help them with their work. The way you do certain things and the way you approach people.
Naomi Buckwalter: 8:12
Yeah, it took me a long time. So the manager I had his name is Tony. He has since retired and he really helped me grow as a professional and it was just nice. It was nice. I really appreciate that.
Jess Vachon: 8:27
Yeah, again, you make another good point. You can come in with all the book knowledge in the world, but your success is built on how you apply that right. So do I understand the business? Do I understand that information security is a supporter of the business? And with rare circumstances, such as being in product security or AppSec for an AppSec company, you are not going to be the central focus of everything going on, focus of everything going on. And we have to learn to bend in our rules or our attitudes to be successful in moving the program forward in support of the business. And it sounds like you learned some of those lessons earlier.
Naomi Buckwalter: 9:17
Oh yeah, I learned that pretty hard Because at Vanguard, security really is one of the core drivers of the business, so we had a seat at the table. I didn't know anything else. That was the way I grew up in IT. I had 12 years of Vanguard, very mature IT practices, very mature AppSec practices, and I was exposed to so many wonderful people in the industry the founder of OWASP we worked alongside each other. There was so much that I just took for granted and so by the time I left Vanguard I didn't know any different. So that was the way I approached things.
Naomi Buckwalter: 9:50
Was you, listen to security? There is no ifs, ands or buts about it. We come to the table, we tell you what to do and then you say, yes, that was it. And so it was a shock when I walked into my first meeting and they're like yeah, you're, we're just optional here. You guys are just here as a service. I'm like what? And? And I would say that probably set me back a few years because I didn't understand the purpose of security, which is a service for the business.
Jess Vachon: 10:16
Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. So beyond your job and I think when you spoke briefly before we went live you have interest in mentoring others, and I will just let everyone know that you were a mentor to me for a short period of time in a program that I was accepted into, which was great. That's really how we got to know each other. I had been following you for years before that, but it was incredible to be able to talk with you and get your wisdom and see the scenarios that you brought forward. I know you work with other people. I know you're dedicated to the success of others through your Cybersecurity Gatebreakers Foundation. Talk about that passion you have for helping others and talk about the foundation, and you know kind of where you're at now at this point in your career and with what you're seeing out in the workforce.
Naomi Buckwalter: 11:09
Yeah,, happy to Helping other people. That's always a good thing. So I think it was during COVID, where I just had some time to think and I set up on my LinkedIn hey, I'd love to talk to people. If you have any questions, I'm taking on some mentees, whatever it is, I have some time to talk. And I think I spent like a whole week straight. I blocked off my calendar for like hours at a time just to talk to people. That's where I realized people are really struggling to break into cybersecurity and at that point in my career I thought it was just as easy as it was for me. I just asked for a job and it was really cringe, now that I've think about it, to even have the entitlement, the way to be like I deserve this job, why not? That would not even fly. I would be laughed out of the room. My resume would just be thrown into the trash, honestly, but that's how I just assumed everyone else was going through. And so when I talked to folks and they're telling me their experience of how difficult it was, I'm like, wait a second, that's just really unfair. And looking back, I'm like, yeah, I think that was a good thing.
Naomi Buckwalter: 12:11
So we started Cybersecurity Gatebreakers in 2022. And, yeah, it's been a wild ride since then. We're an education nonprofit, just so you know. We don't have any money, we're super poor, but we go around. We share the good news of like, yes, it's okay to hire entry-level folks and this is how you do it and these are the benefits and here's the questions you want to ask in interviews and kind of basic guidelines that a lot of hiring managers don't have.
Naomi Buckwalter: 12:37
But I will say now that in 2025 is the game changing thing now is AI. So we're now trying to find a little bit of a pivot. It's like where does AI fit into this whole thing and we talked about this right before we started, jess is cybersecurity is really becoming commoditized. The entry is so much lower now with AI. Ai can help with learning and I love that. I love that for us. I love that for us. And now the cybersecurity gatebreakers are trying to figure out how does that work with the rubrics that we generate and the questions for the interviews and the take-home projects if there are any any still like we're still kind of just debating it, and yeah, that's where we are right now. It's like how does AI change all this?
Jess Vachon: 13:21
So, and obviously, or it's obvious to me, but hopefully it's obvious to those that are listening as well, you are not afraid to challenge the cybersecurity norms. Recently, within the last week or so, you have posted a few times about how AI is going to change employment for us, how it's going to change cybersecurity and how it's going to benefit us, along with some challenges that it will bring. Let's just open the floor up here.
Naomi Buckwalter: 13:55
I mean, I would love to know your thoughts too. I don't want to be the only one.
Jess Vachon: 14:00
Yeah, well, I will tell you that I agree with a lot of what you have said. If you are challenged in finding employment right now you are new to information security you have to see what the job market looks like. A lot of companies are doing RIFs reduction in force and those jobs, in my opinion, are not coming back. In my opinion, are not coming back. Companies are looking at efficiencies and those efficiencies are going to be gained by employing artificial intelligence in areas where it makes sense to get rid of repetitive tasks and provide automation. This is nothing new. Businesses have always looked to run more streamlined when they can, to reduce expenses so that profits are higher. What we can't do right now is put our heads in the sand and say, well, it's not going to affect me, it is coming for everyone in every industry I said it myself like even my job is at risk absolutely, absolutely um the skilled labor jobs.
Jess Vachon: 15:07
I actually think the skilled labor jobs will be the safest for the longest period of time and combination of trades.
Naomi Buckwalter: 15:13
Yeah, yeah, automation that can can do some of that work. but yeah, it's a knowledge work that's going away.
Naomi Buckwalter: 15:21
Yeah, oh, yeah, okay. So sometimes I'm like, am I crazy to think this way? But like, if you think about it, just the notion of work for corporations, for capitalism hasn't really been around that long, like even the time of farms. Like most of us were just 100 years ago just willing to survive another day, like our whole entire life was around just getting food and living and surviving. Like the whole idea of work and building capital for a company and like whatever, whatever, whatever it's fairly new, like, so I almost challenged the whole idea of like this is how it's always been. It's like actually it's not.
Naomi Buckwalter: 16:07
And maybe the whole purpose of technology was always to be to give us that freedom to explore and to create and to live and to love and to just be human and experience what it means to be human. And at the point where I'm like, yeah, I kind of over this, and maybe it's just the age speaking. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm just at the point where I'm like it's okay if I just stop working, like it's okay, it's okay, where would money come from? I don't know. You would have to change the whole economic structures in our society to have more, and then that could open a whole can of worms too.
Jess Vachon: 16:41
I don't want to get there if you don't want to no, I think you're right, and that's what we're here for we're going to open that can of worms.
Naomi Buckwalter: 16:49
Why not? Is that the whole point of technology is to make our lives a little bit easier, right? And so why are we forcing ourselves to work when we don't have to? Are we doing work that's actually meaningful and beneficial to society, or are we kind of just doing bullshit jobs? Wasn't there a famous book or an author that posited something like 50 of all jobs are like bullshit? Office jobs are bullshit. It's like even higher than that, do you know? It's like 80 of all jobs are bullshit. .
Jess Vachon: 17:19
Oh god, so there's a lot in that right, because so many of us derive meaning from our work and there's there's cultural reasons for that, right. We're raised to think that the meaning that we bring to life is in our work, in our jobs, in our titles in our salaries.
Naomi Buckwalter: 17:39
But that is recent. That is not the evolution of humanity as we know it, like that was never a thing until recently, maybe after the industrial revolution, I don't know never a thing until recently, Maybe after the industrial revolution, I don't know.
Jess Vachon: 17:55
So I think that's how we have to look at things. Moving forward is if we're not going to be doing the work right, If artificial intelligence and robotics is going to replace the manual and thinking labor that we can do, what else can we do? And you know there's arts and sciences right. Excuse me, it's always been an interest of humans, that ability to develop ways to be able to explore and learn more about ourselves. I don't think that's a bad thing, I don't see how the economic engine can continue.
Naomi Buckwalter: 18:26
Oh my gosh yeah.
Jess Vachon: 18:27
Because, first of all, you take all these people out of the workforce and they have no product they're not buying product. So now, why are you producing product? So we really have to think about where we're going, and it's not a bad thing for us to think about. How do we preserve the planet and the water and the air for us? How do we look to move off planet? Those are things, those are aspirations that are inherently human because we've been doing it since our existence.
Naomi Buckwalter: 19:01
We've been moving and learning.
Jess Vachon: 19:04
And to your point, we we built the success of humanity on working together good yeah, the common good yeah and think about the massive waste and talent that we are spending every day.
Naomi Buckwalter: 19:20
They're nine to fives in front of a computer screen. Like what a massive waste of talent. Imagine the stuff we could accomplish if we had a mission statement like what is the purpose, what is the long-term goal of humanity, what is it like? And you ask 10 different people, you get 10 different answers. I'm always curious like what do you think? Just like in your definition, in your opinion?
Jess Vachon: 19:42
The purpose of humanity, I think, is simply for us to grow and learn, about ourselves, but also about others. We have a mindset that we're all independent, but we're not independent. We're interdependent with each other. I like to use the concept of waves in the ocean. Right, if you have one wave, you don't really have an ocean, but if you have hundreds and hundreds of waves, then you have an ocean and it's a powerful entity because it's got all that motion and all that power moving through it, and that, to me, is why we're here. Now, whether this is reality as most perceive it or not. That's all different.
Jess Vachon: 20:30
As a Buddhist, I can tell you. I have all my senses to inform me, but they're all external to me, and how I interpret those are the result of electrochemical impulses within the body. So there's a whole bunch of deep thinking that goes along with that. Not to deviate too far from the subject, but these are things, these are conversations we need to have. These are the conversations that matter, the conversations about should we have DEI programs? We're past that. Yes, we have that because we care about one another right, we care about the common good. Why do we have laws and regulations? We have those because we agreed on a set of principles to allow us to move beyond foraging in the forest, chasing animals for our sustenance, for our common good. Once we came to those agreements, we started moving forward rapidly To your point. You know, a couple thousand years ago everyone was struggling to survive and now there's still people struggling to survive, but it's less so.
Naomi Buckwalter: 21:40
Right, and that's because we are able to come together as a group of humans with a shared principle of survival and benefits. You know, like helping others. Yeah, I agree. I think deep down, we're all good people. You know this.
Naomi Buckwalter: 21:58
But I was raised Christian and in the Christian tradition it's like very common to tell little children like no, you're a sinner. Like, first of all, I think it's a little bit of child abuse, but let's not go there. So growing up, you're taught that, hey, you're inherently bad. But I think, now that I'm thinking about this, people are inherently good and more often than not, you'll find more people than not who want to do the right thing, even if no one's looking. And I think, if you put that all together, in our work, in our daily lives, even our internal self, we want to do what's right, and that is the issue that we need to remember when we talk about things like AI and layoffs and what the purpose of work is. It's like we are inherently good people. What does that mean for everything else? How can we translate that into outside of ourselves?
Jess Vachon: 22:52
yeah so. So I'm going to pose this, that question or that scenario back to you. What does it mean to you in the next five or ten years? How are you going to navigate this?
Naomi Buckwalter: 23:03
oh yeah, so I didn't spend enough time thinking about that. Actually, I'm only thinking I'm right now in the mode of AI is taking our jobs, but that's okay. Like a part of it's like I really want a job. I would love a job and I know AI is coming for my job. I would still love a job, but I could see AI Like I'm in the middle of this, like I want AI to take my job.
Naomi Buckwalter: 23:31
Why am I stuck in chains to a computer when I can be doing something else to benefit humankind, whatever it might be? And now I'm saying my best job I've ever had was teaching other little kids how to swim, and I was a little kid myself, I was probably like 16, but that was my best job because it benefited humanity. And I would even argue a lot of us, just a lot of us in cybersecurity, have this notion of like cybersecurity does help society and that's why we do it, not only just for the massive paychecks, but also because it's like interesting and then it helps people, like it's a trifecta of like amazing, jobless. And I want to get back to that where maybe AI has taken over a majority of the knowledge work and I can do my critical thinking in other ways, which I think humans really need to do. We need to struggle and we need to think about things, and I think that's always going to be a thing. But to work, to do work, meaningless work, that's not what we're here for. So in five to 10 years, I'm always like if I don't have a job, what would I rather do?
Naomi Buckwalter: 24:24
Well, hopefully our economic structures have changed so we can at least survive at a basic level, whether that is universal basic income or something like social credits, where we have incentives to do good work and you get paid by whoever it is, like the AI, gods, whoever we've offloaded our critical thinking to in governments. Oh, by the way, did you hear this? I think Kuwait is the first government to be like yeah, we're going to be run by AI. The way, did you hear this? I think Kuwait is the first government to be like yeah, we're going to be run by ai.
Jess Vachon: 24:51
How, did you hear this? I only just heard it in But. yeah?
Naomi Buckwalter: 24:56
They're okay with off-boarding their government decisions to ai, so like, okay, it's happening. So in five to ten years to answer your question directly, uh, I would still like to work, but I want my work to be directly tied to benefiting humankind. I know that sounds super ideal and naive again, but I think I've come full circle. It's like now that, and if you think about, like the richest people in the world, some of them are complete assholes.
Naomi Buckwalter: 25:21
Like I'm not going to but then but then some of them actually do a huge amount of good work, and so these are the folks that are remembered by history. These are the folks that have left a legacy. I think Warren Buffett just famously said like hey, I'm going to give away 99% of my wealth before I die. Like good on you, that's exactly right. You can't take it with you. What are you going to do? Like respawn in the lobby with 10 million credits? That doesn't happen. Respawn in the lobby with 10 million credits? That doesn't happen. You gamers out there, you can't take it with you.
Naomi Buckwalter: 25:57
So I love the fact that we have people thinking about this and they have the ability to think about this because they don't need the money anymore. They're set for life. They're set for 100,000 lives. They're good. Now they can think about what it means to benefit humanity. I think in the future of AI, we will all have that ability. It will be democratized enough where AI will be so cheap to use and everyone will have their own little personal AIs that we are free to do the thinking of benefiting humankind. And I will say because I think humans are deep down good people that's not true for everyone. I think some of us are born into psychopathic neuroses. Those are the folks we have to watch out for and that's okay, like that's the critical thinking. Those are the problems that we can still solve, that's the work that we can still do.
Jess Vachon: 26:42
Yeah, I love that Very, very well thought out. You've obviously spent time pondering this, which is great and it's interesting. I'll share a little personal story. So during the last couple weeks I was in and out of work. I have the luxury of being able to have a moment, on PTO. I had an event in my family where my younger brother, youngest brother, had to go into hospice care and I was able to be there by his side and care for him and what I realized when I was there is that that had such deep meaning to me to be able to have that human touch. Now, if I think way back to when I first got into computers, I think it reflects what you were touching upon, as I was thinking, oh, this is great, this is gonna make life easier for people, right, programming VIC 20 and watching the program execute, and then yeah, that's yeah, and then in the 90s, you know seeing technology really start to take root.
Jess Vachon: 27:49
The internet yeah, and everything it could do. And then I remember working in health care and how you know, the doctors, their medical journals and everything were at their fingertips so they could take a problem, put in all the symptoms they were seeing and have a variety of things that they could look at that might be the potential problem for the patient and and treat that and then, in the process of doing that, accumulating more knowledge that could be shared, uh, among, amongst health care professionals. Um, which was great until the recent point we get to where everyone says, oh, that information can't be relied upon, it's falsified. You know I want to go too far down that rabbit hole, but we came so far and technology really did bring us to a good place. And then I think we get to the point of social media.
Jess Vachon: 28:42
And well, we have evidence now that we've been manipulated via social media.
Jess Vachon: 28:47
I mean, there was a book that just came out from someone who worked at Meta, who was inside there and wrote about how Meta intentionally was manipulating how people thought and then, when negative things happened, would say that they didn't have anything to do with it, allegedly, I want to make sure I say allegedly, because this is going off of something that was in the book and I don't know it myself to be true, but there's enough inferences, behavior, that we have to question it.
Jess Vachon: 29:20
So we kind of lost that promise and maybe the AI now is going to bring back that promise. If we're willing to accept it and really change our mindset about how we want to have a social contract for humanity, regardless of nations, regardless of backgrounds or even our religious beliefs. If we're willing to do that and say even our religious beliefs, if we're willing to do that and say we're going to be here for each other, I think AI is going to bring us to a good place. But to bring it full circle, it means we aren't going to be working the way we're working today.
Naomi Buckwalter: 29:58
Yeah, work will be massively different.
Jess Vachon: 30:01
Yeah, this isn't atypical. For every technology that's come along, things have changed. A lot of people feared going green. Right, but we have reduced some of our carbon emissions because we chose to use more wind power and more solar power. We're reducing tailpipe emissions because people are accepting that an electric car is a better investment in our future. And, just as an aside, I now have an electric vehicle. I'll tell you, if you drive an ICE vehicle and then you drive an electric vehicle, you're not going back to the ICE vehicle because EVs drive so much better.
Jess Vachon: 30:44
Yeah, so much more torque. Um, it's a completely different way of driving. Instead of constantly pressing on the accelerator, you're getting enough momentum, vehicle cruise, and you take advantage of the braking or the momentum. So there's, there's good things that come from change, right, good things that come from these new things that we bring absolutely we're doing so good.
Naomi Buckwalter: 31:07
Think about it like where we came from sticks and rocks drawing our caves, like we've come so far yeah, humanity we're doing so great yeah, so some of it's been good, but I think we need to we're at the point where we should really commit to leveraging technology and artificial intelligence to get us more back in touch with what it means to be human and what it means to be connected to nature.
Jess Vachon: 31:32
That's that's a good one, yeah yeah, because yeah we're all one consciousness, so look, everyone I talk to, with rare exception, loves to go on hikes, loves to be out in the woods, loves the ocean, loves the lakes. And why is that? Because you're touching something that is the core of who we are and where we came from and provides that meaning to us. And people are seeking meaning. If you follow a religion, you're seeking a meaning. You're seeking the answer to the question of why am I here? Seeking the answer question of why am I here? And I, even if you don't follow religion, I still think most people who don't follow religion are still trying to figure out, like what is my purpose? Why am I here?
Jess Vachon: 32:16
yeah, and that itself in itself can be considered religion. Even if you don't believe in any entity, you're, you're still left with these questions of like why am I here? yeah,
Naomi Buckwalter: 32:27
Yeah absolutely
Jess Vachon: 32:30
Now we're going to get in the way back machine. I like to understand how my, how my guests come to be who they are today. So I'm always curious, like what kind of kid were you, and what do you think the influence of your parents is on who you are as an adult now?
Naomi Buckwalter: 32:47
Oh geez, yeah. Well, you know my background but I'm not willing to share quite yet. But I would say I grew up a very awkward, socially awkward and weird, weird kid. I didn't have a ton of friends, my parents were very tiger mom-ish if you know that phrase for the Chinese community there and I just was just quiet shy. I don't think I broke out of my mold until college. So I went to Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and it was there when I finally had freedom I ate all the junk food, by the way like it was just like sorry, mom and dad, I just had literally meals of Swedish fish, that's all I ate. Because it was finally like hey, sugar. And I finally broke out of my shell, because one thing I'm good at is mimicking people so I can take their mannerisms and copy them and really change who I am. So a downside of that is I've really lost who I am, my personality. I still don't really know who I am. It's kind of sad because I've taken on and copied so many different characters from TV and movies and people that I'm like. Oh, I kind of like how they did that and the way they speak, and this is what I'll do so. I'm good at the mimicking thing. So now here I am in my 40s, just not really understanding who I am. But from where I started I would call myself like a little unmolded shape of clay, like a bunch of blob, like I was a blob and from there I think I'm happy where I am. I don't think I would change anything about my past and yeah, it's been a journey, but that's who I was as a kid super awkward still am, I guess well.
Jess Vachon: 34:21
Thank you for sharing that yeah, yeah it's been my experience that working in IT and information security, a lot of us tended to be the kids that didn't always did or we didn't want to follow the norms.
Naomi Buckwalter: 34:39
Where you see, the bullshit behind the norms. You know you're like. I refuse to participate in this. It's stupid yeah, I was not the teacher's favorite actually.
Jess Vachon: 34:51
I was not either. They couldn't put me far enough in the back of the classroom to get me out of trouble what's wrong with you?
Naomi Buckwalter: 34:56
Why don't you talk? Because I hate everything about this. Like you don't want me talking.
Jess Vachon: 35:03
For me I was just, I I was so intellectually curious and I couldn't get enough of it in the classroom, like the rote you have to learn ABC. Just, I couldn't do it and I was reading at a very early age, so I was reading everything and anything that was in front of me, and the classroom to me was just too slow.
Jess Vachon: 35:23
. , yeah, yeah, and it's what I recently, didn't realize until recently and only because my family this, keeps insisting on this is that I might be a little neurodivergent and and learned a lot of to,"mimicking use your term mimicking that I didn't know I was doing just because I was trying to fit into some sort of um, societal expectations, but never quite doing it, um, and then if you're watching video or you, you know my back history. There's a lot of other things that went into that as well, so I learned to be a very good actor at a very young age.
Naomi Buckwalter: 36:06
, I would say, because you put on these masks and you end up, not like the mask has stayed on so long that you don't know who you are underneath anymore. So that's the downside, but the upside is you do see things differently, right like. You see the bullshit. You see the different patterns. You're like why is it this way?
Jess Vachon: 36:24
Well, society needs people like us, so yeah, and you know, I'm not so sure, I don't know if it's necessarily see the bullshit as much as it is. We gain wisdom through experience and we're able to see things in a different context. And you certainly view the world differently when you're in your twenties and you're starting your career and you're, you're going forward and you, you, you have aspirations that you think are attainable and society tells you yeah, you can do that, you absolutely can do that.
Jess Vachon: 36:53
And then you hit between the 30s and the 40s and things don't pan out the way you thought they would and you're stymied in your efforts to to meet those aspirations. And I think when you get your 50s and the age that I'm at, you look back at your career and you start to think about it differently, like did I help other people? Did I help other families? Have I I given people career ? And and you know, know what I have like 20 years give or take ? . What do I want to do with that time? And, to your point, do I want to continue on this the path? Like, am I making a difference in my chosen career field? And if I'm not, how can I bend that career field to my advantage to make a difference? Or maybe, maybe it's being brave and just tossing it all aside and saying I'm just going to go without a parachute here and figure out what it is I want to do, because now I know what life means to me and I want to taste every single minute of every day until it's time for me to go. Maybe I'm being a little sentimental because my brother just passed and I'm thinking I need to have my life have more meaning than what it has. So I don't know. This is supposed to be focused on you!
Naomi Buckwalter: 38:11
But you're doing a good job and so unfair for your brother. I'm so sorry that sucks.
Jess Vachon: 38:20
Yeah, there's the long story behind it. You know, we make choices in life and some of those choices we can't escape, and that's kind of what happened there, something I'll talk about in a different podcast at some other point in time. So I'd like to do this one thing as we get close to the end of recording. I call it "asking an empowering question. It is meant to put you on the spot a little bit. I call it asking an empowering question. It is meant to put you on the spot a little bit. Okay, sure.
Jess Vachon: 38:48
So your question is, "what are these things that make me feel good while I'm doing them?
Naomi Buckwalter: 38:59
What are the things that make me feel good? Exercise for sure, the endorphins are a real thing. Let's see. I know this sounds super campy, but, like helping people, it's so weird. It's like I like why am I here on this earth? And I really and I've thought about this it's like I I think I'm just happiest when I'm talking to people and helping people and understanding their struggles.
Naomi Buckwalter: 39:21
I guess, like it's almost an energy thing where I think you have this too, where you walk into your room and you could just immediately feel the energy and I can feel it if it's bad, and I can feel it if it's good and it's so super strong and it's right in your face and like either it's a fight or flight sometimes for me. If it's bad energy and it's intense, I need to leave, like I need to leave, I need to protect my own space. But if it's intense, I need to leave. I need to leave, I need to protect my own space. But if it's an energy that needs help, I can feel that too and I'm almost directly drawn to that person where I'm like, hey, how you doing, and then try to be just a friendly face for the day, I don't know, but I do feel happiest when I'm talking to people and helping people and trying to help them figure out their stuff. Whether my help is good or not, but in general I just like to listen and empathize. Yeah, awesome.
Jess Vachon: 40:15
I'm surprised you didn't mention the thing that you do on the side that's sports related.
Naomi Buckwalter: 40:21
Oh, the volleyball referee. Yeah, okay, so there, I was thinking about this. So it's definitely a special interest of mine, the whole refereeing thing. Um, so I started volleyball refereeing like way back in the day, but I only just picked it up recently. Um, you could, my goal for refereeing is to like one day do those matches that you see on tv and just like be the person up on the stand. You don't even see my face and that's totally fine with it. But but I love orchestrate, like I love managing all that high energy and the excitement and I could.
Naomi Buckwalter: 40:49
It's so intoxicating, jess, like it's insane. You're standing up there and you feel the cheers and you feel the energy and you feel like the camaraderie and like everything that's beautiful about humans. All that energy just gets seeped right into your body. Like it's so intoxicating. You're like what is this? And the first time I remember doing it seriously, I was like huh, this is like meditation, I really really like this. And then, once you get a little bit better at it, it really is. Just you sit back and you manage people and that's all it is. It really is. And I'm at that point where I'm like huh, I can really see myself doing this long term if AI doesn't take over refereeing also, which could help it yeah.
Jess Vachon: 41:30
Whenever you talk about it, you light up and I love to watch you talk about it, and for anyone who catches up with Naomi outside of the podcast you know, at a conference or something if you hear her talk about it, it's just great. I just get so excited about it and your stories are great and even how you think about like, "did I do this well enough this one one uh session meditation.
Naomi Buckwalter: 41:57
It's the weirdest weirdest thing and it's super hard on your body. You're standing there for like 10 hours a day for these, some of these tournaments, yeah, but it's intoxicating something about being a benefit to society and doing good work. At the end of the day, you're like I did something good, I help people, like that was it and that's what feels good. Honestly, it comes all back to that Like it's not making money. You guys get paid pennies, like if anything, like I Like if anything. I don't make any money actually. Like I pay money to go there. Jesus, you fly these planes and you get the cars and stuff and it costs money at the end of the day, but you are there to benefit society. It's just a microcosm of, I think, what humanity is all trying to do anyway, yeah.
Jess Vachon: 42:41
I love it. You brought it full circle from the beginning.
Naomi Buckwalter: 42:44
Full circle yeah, yeah, there's a reason for the madness and likely you do these podcasts because you know deep down you want to help and you see that humans are good and you're trying to draw that out of people and it's okay to. You don't want to be like toxically optimistic. I think that is it toxic optimism, whatever. You don't want to be blind to the fact that there are problems to the world, but if you take a step back, everything's okay and just remember that we're good people.
Naomi Buckwalter: 43:14
And this is kind of like the thing I've been starting to do is like if you go out and you walk around the street and you see people like in my head, I like to give them compliments, even though I might not say it's like oh, I really like their hair, like Jess will be like I really like your hair today. Or like I like your outfit, it's really cute. Or I'll say it in my head because to me that's helped see people as good humans rather than like, oh, they're standing in my way or they're cutting my line or whatever. It is Like something negative about them. I'd rather give them the grace that I want other people to give me, rather give them the grace that I want other people to give me Right.
Jess Vachon: 43:49
So that's beautiful. That's a great way to end Naomi, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the podcast. Where can people find you?
Naomi Buckwalter: 43:58
Oh gosh, I guess I'm back on LinkedIn, unfortunately, and for the time being, I'm just going to start ranting on AI and taking over our jobs. It's an input, it's inevitable, but I want our society to change for the better. So yeah, find me on LinkedIn and connect with me if you'd like Love to talk to you.
Jess Vachon: 44:16
Thank you, and thank you to the listeners for joining us for another session. Until next time, see ya.
