Cybersecurity is not just a tech issue. It is a business risk and a leadership challenge hiding in plain sight. Jeff Lyon, founder of TheCyberWild, shares what every entrepreneur should know about protecting their business from costly blind spots and false confidence in IT support. After leaving corporate life, Jeff found himself rebuilding more than just a business. He talks about the mindset shift, the small business struggles, and how humor helps him stay grounded while standing out. A candid look at what it takes to stay secure, stay focused, and keep moving forward as a founder.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Security Starts with Your Team
No matter what business you’re in, your biggest risk and biggest opportunity is your people. Jeff shares why cybersecurity training and clear communication can protect your momentum and your reputation.
2️⃣ Entrepreneurship is an Inside Job
Starting a business isn’t just a career move. It’s a personal transformation. Jeff’s story is a reminder that personal growth often goes hand in hand with building something from scratch.
3️⃣ Serious Business Doesn’t Mean Boring
Whether you're selling software or smoothies, humor and humanity help cut through the noise. Jeff proves that a little personality can make even the most complex topics engaging and unforgettable.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Hello Chaos
05:11 Building Cybersecurity for Small Businesses
08:32 The Rewards of Entrepreneurship
13:33 Understanding Cybersecurity Needs
15:18 Lessons Learned from Cybersecurity Failures
18:36 Advice for Small Business Owners
20:05 Overcoming Challenges in Entrepreneurship
22:04 Surprising Facts About Jeff Lyon
26:15 Embracing AI in Music and Cybersecurity
27:37 Aiming for Greater Impact in Cybersecurity
28:37 Understanding the Severity of Cybercrime
30:32 Cyber Incidents and Their Real-World Impact
32:36 Celebrating Wins in Cybersecurity
34:37 The Adventure of Entrepreneurship
35:29 Perseverance in the Face of Challenges
37:39 The Importance of Gratitude and Reflection
40:41 Personal Growth Through Entrepreneurship
41:27 Breaking Bad Habits for Success
44:47 The Power of Positive Energy and Support
45:43 Connecting with Jeff Lyon and Cyberwild
🔗 Learn more about The Cyber Wild and connect with Jeff
Website: https://thecyberwild.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyber-jeff/
Instagram: https://www.instagram
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:00.67)
All right. Welcome to Hello Chaos, the weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. Each week, I have the privilege to speak with founders across the spectrum, founders from different industries at various stages, from startups to mature businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our listeners get to hear the real, the raw, the unvarnished viewpoints and stories, getting incredible insights on what it takes to start and scale a business to become a better founder.
Jeff Lyon (00:26.926)
Thank
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:29.674)
a better CEO or just a better business leader in the community. Today on our show, have Jeffrey Lyon. He is the CEO and founder of TheCyberWild Welcome, Jeffrey. Welcome to Hello Chaos.
Jeff Lyon (00:29.745)
Thank
Jeff Lyon (00:43.578)
Thank you, Jennifer. Glad to be here and I appreciate the invitation to be on your podcast. This is really, really exciting.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:48.274)
Absolutely. you're I know, I know. And you're you're calling out of what Rock Hill, South Carolina?
Jeff Lyon (00:56.754)
Rock Hill, South Carolina. Get a thrill, come to Rock Hill. I think I can still use that line.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02.944)
Is that a real like tourism line? Or is that from back in the day?
Jeff Lyon (01:06.244)
Well, I can remember some friends of mine from way back in my childhood used to have an audio store here. They had a big advertisement and that was part of it. That's what they said about it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:16.342)
That was the, that's awesome. Well, Jerry, tell us, just start us out. Tell us what inspired you to start the Cyberwild. How'd you get into this?
Jeff Lyon (01:26.802)
Well, how do I get into cybersecurity in general or how do I get in?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:30.03)
Yeah, how did you get into like why in the world did you start your own company?
Jeff Lyon (01:35.662)
start my own company. it's fun. It's exciting. It's exciting. But well, let's, let's go for the why to start with. The why is when I work for corporate America, I well, I mean, my career spans 30 years or more. 30 plus I boss count now.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:40.224)
Yeah, that's right. Everybody here can relate. That's right. Yeah, the day.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:51.042)
Yeah, let's, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:55.938)
How long did you do that? How long?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:01.592)
Yeah.
We stop at 30, right?
Jeff Lyon (02:06.61)
Can we good good anyway
When I worked for Corporate America, my role was to help organizations, primarily healthcare organizations at one point, protect themselves or improve their cybersecurity skill sets. Or not skill sets, but their posture. Especially with stuff like ransomware coming up a few years ago as it was growing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:27.202)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:34.333)
yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:38.378)
Yeah, we had to take care of a client that we had to do a whole crisis communications plan because they had a ransomware attack and had to put a lot of other, I mean, to deal with that, but then how do we now deal with a crisis moving forward of all things? So yeah.
Jeff Lyon (02:53.49)
Yeah. So one role I had that's really what influenced me to do this, was building up this cyber program for these smaller regional hospitals that really didn't have their own cyber teams. And just trying to help them become safer.
with the tools they have. And in the process, I was on my way home from a real good bluegrass festival in Asheville, North Carolina.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:31.83)
Is that the Leaf Festival?
Jeff Lyon (03:33.552)
Now, no, was a bluegrass first class. Yeah, very good one. Plug for Milton there. Yeah. Anyway, so I got the call on Sunday afternoon as we were driving home and one of my hospitals had been hacked. They did not know what to do. mean, they got this thing said they have ransomware, their systems were locking up, they're getting encrypted and.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:37.401)
all right. Let me check that out.
Jeff Lyon (04:01.468)
They were having to take stuff offline to prevent it from getting worse. And really, it impacted patient care. It impacted operations. They had to go back to pencil and paper and all. Well, the next day, I was on a flight to that site and to help.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:09.965)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (04:23.708)
kind of not really lead everything but to...
that common area room and make sure that everybody is figuring out how we're to bring things back online, how we're going to contain the ransomware, that part of it. And it was a long process and a long painful process and just realizing how some of these hospitals did not have the preparation for something like this in general.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:41.229)
Right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:46.552)
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:54.199)
Right.
Jeff Lyon (04:57.614)
incident response plan, no team that knew anything about it, no one was accountable for input protection, which is really the entry point, what we found out months later. Well, okay, well, I want to do this for smaller organizations that don't have the big companies operating for them. Yeah, I mean.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:09.741)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:23.118)
the big teams, all that, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (05:26.29)
You know, I was working helping, I later on I was working for one of the big four, helping big Fortune 100 companies with their cyber plans. But then I realized, well, there's really a gap here. A lot of small medical facilities, independent, and small businesses in general don't have people on staff to help them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:39.042)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (05:55.332)
learn and protect their infrastructure from cyber criminals. So I like to start from the inside out, starting with the employees and the human risk element. let's mitigate that first and make sure everybody's on board, understanding what not to click on. And know everybody's tired of hearing that. so.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:00.536)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:17.998)
But it's still that people don't know. Is that really spam? I'm weak at that in our office of somebody will go, did you just send me an email of, do you need something? And I was like, I didn't send you an email. I'm like, don't click on that. That wasn't for me. so yeah, I I think having that training and that awareness and that visibility, just, smaller businesses don't have, you're right, they don't have the infrastructure or.
Jeff Lyon (06:29.573)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:47.298)
the team in place to be able to put those preventions and that education. Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (06:51.62)
Yes. And that's still, I mean, even with all the training we have and all the news, everything's in the news every time a big company gets hacked, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:02.222)
Right.
Jeff Lyon (07:06.126)
every time there's a it's in the news and it's always something that goes back to the human element. Well we want to take that human element make it the the the weak instead of thinking of them as the weakest link in the chain we want them to be the first line of defense.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:25.966)
Like almost like you're the director of first impressions. You're, you know, you're receptionist of there's that person holds a lot of power and and it's and should be treated as such and you're empowering people on all levels of the frontline, the defense.
Jeff Lyon (07:46.832)
Yeah, I don't know if you can see it from my logo shirt, but my logo, and I don't know if that even shows, but I'll tell you about it later, but I got a two-headed lion, one's looking, protecting you from the outside, one's protecting you from the inside, and it's kind of, you know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:54.957)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:01.39)
The dual. you saw the gap of, you know, the vulnerable of small businesses and especially in the healthcare. What's been the most rewarding part of, you know, starting the cyber wild?
Jeff Lyon (08:18.652)
Well, it's been the most rewarding part. You know, there have been so many and what's really rewarding to me is meeting people and just all the amazing people I've met during this journey of this past year of different events I've attended, different companies I've visited, our clients and potential clients I've spoken with. It's just been amazing and seeing that people are open.
to help, to asking for help and just the understanding that I'm able to help and teach people things. I my highest value is learning and teaching.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:01.772)
Yeah, yeah, I call it, we sell through service and education, right? So in this, mean, you went from corporate into, you know, starting your own company. How was that transition? Like, there myths that you went in or misperceptions that you were like, I thought it was gonna be like this, and then you're like, whoa, what the hell am I thinking here?
Jeff Lyon (09:26.32)
No,
Jeff Lyon (09:30.64)
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:31.374)
Did you have any of those moments of like, what, is crazy?
Jeff Lyon (09:36.41)
every day.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:38.966)
Everything.
Jeff Lyon (09:41.138)
except those when I'm sleeping. But the biggest thing is I did not realize, I guess number one, I didn't realize how crowded the playing field is even in cyber security. I there are a lot of people doing it. And even though I have 30 years in the field, people still see me as the new kid on the block because my company's new. But...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:42.764)
hahahaha
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:56.27)
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:07.778)
Jeff Lyon (10:09.866)
You know, they don't realize that I'm, well, I don't know if I'm supposed to say companies I previously worked for or not, but it's all linked in anyway. But, you know, they don't see me as a guy that used to be a source delivery manager for Deloitte or I worked for Microsoft and Allscripts, a lot of great companies and a lot of experience. Plus I have 16 years working in the higher ed in South Carolina. So, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:16.002)
You came, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:22.07)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:25.728)
Right. Experience matters.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:36.527)
Nice. So that's been the hardest part. And that is, it's kind of a, you think, okay, I found this gap, because I faced that, you know, I hear people need this, and then you get in there you're like, okay, I built it, let's go. And it's, you know, the noise, the noise of, and how do you break through, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (10:57.266)
Yeah, and so I thought it would be much easier to get clients, especially locally. But we know what I hear is, well, you know, this everybody's already got somebody who's doing it. But I think that's a misconception because a lot of times they have an IT team.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:13.517)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:20.61)
That's I'm like, I'm about to say I'm like, they probably have it. They probably don't have cyber security. Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (11:25.7)
Exactly. They have an IT team that they might put a firewall in and they might slap the antivirus on the computer and think, hey, we're covered. But they don't realize that that's not the biggest problem now. I mean, the perimeter is broken. mean, not broken, it's dissolved. Everything's online. Everybody's working remotely. Everything's in the cloud. mean, that security's got to be looked at from every angle.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:34.647)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:42.638)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:49.784)
Yeah.
Yeah, so go ahead. Go ahead.
Jeff Lyon (11:56.454)
And the posture there that everybody's got to know the different things to look for. Yeah, you can put it in the cloud. It can be so safe in the cloud. It can be safer than on your home computer, but it can also be very vulnerable if the settings aren't configured right, just like in anything.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:05.912)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:13.614)
I know, we felt that. We hired the wrong IT company and one of the charges that we, you we said, hey, can you do cybersecurity and help that? This was a few years ago. They were not qualified. We had done our due diligence of we got references and all that, but we didn't ask all the,
the same, like that was a big lessons learned for me, was we said, are they great for IT? Well, they were great for IT, but when we were saying, we need the settings, need consistency, we've got a hybrid work business model, and how do we protect these computers, but also these spaces, and we really need.
We didn't ask references around that. We just, and within, I it was the worst, I would say the worst year of, because we, within 30 days we were, our systems were hacked and it took us, what was it? I'm like looking at my producer, Taylor. He had come on after all the mess, after we had started to do cleanup. But we had to spend a lot, we had to go find another.
to like do an audit to go, okay, what is happening here? Like, why? I I wasn't getting emails or emails weren't being sent out. We had so much false emails going out under my name and three other teammates, three other staff members' names, our settings. It was all awful. And the IT people was like, there's not a problem. And I was like,
Jeff Lyon (14:01.884)
Yeah, that's called an open relay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:10.644)
I have people that are literally texting me screenshots of their sent box and saying, I've been trying to send you these emails. it's not an, we're like that. I'm the frontline for our business, like business development. If that's our people that know me and our clients that know me, who isn't, who doesn't know that I'm not, you know, I'm just not responding to them. You know what mean? They just don't know.
and but they denied denied it so we had to hire you know for spent like I don't know close to ten thousand dollars for another outside company to do an audit and they found 300 dot points like of errors of tasks 300
Jeff Lyon (14:58.47)
Hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:00.11)
And then, yeah, but I mean it was like, and then we spent six months hiring, basically I call it an attack team that came in and cleaned up all that. And then we've had to, it's a struggle, of all, and I know I'm not alone, because I've talked to other founders and other business owners when we were going through all this, and they're like, I have that same issue. You just hear the repetitiveness of,
those same problems and it's like, we're not IT people. And you're right, but there's a lot of noise and junk in the category.
Jeff Lyon (15:44.612)
It sure is. I have a webcast that I had put out maybe six months ago. I wish I could, I don't have time to go dig for it now, but it's a slide that just, it's a very intimidating slide and I'm using it as a joke. But it's, it's real. It's a list of acronyms. know, IT is bad, heavy on the acronym side.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:54.189)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:03.512)
But it's probably real.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:09.842)
yeah.
Jeff Lyon (16:15.17)
in cybersecurity's adds to it. mean, we're probably worse than medical with acronyms.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:21.142)
Yeah, media and marketing is pretty bad too. But you guys are worse.
Jeff Lyon (16:24.998)
And this page just goes, it's a PowerPoint slide, it just goes off the page with all these different infomumes and just keeps growing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:32.046)
So when you go into a couple, like what are the three things from a small business owner, a founder starting out, like what is the three kind of advice or things that you look for, you're like warning signs of don't do this or this is the things you need to be doing. Do you like have direction for?
the small, you know, our listeners of small businesses and founders.
Jeff Lyon (17:03.26)
Sure, mean, basic stuff like who do you serve? You gotta nail that down. And what do you do for them? What's the outcome?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:15.468)
Yep, yep.
Jeff Lyon (17:15.77)
And thirdly, especially in technologies, you don't talk about the technology you use and the tools you use. You talk about the problems you solve. And you talk, then you speak it in the client's language. And for Lord's sake, don't use that list of acronyms I just talked about.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:28.28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:36.14)
Right, no, no, that would be intimidating. That would be completely, so what's been your, you know, the biggest like, shit, like what have I done? Or, you know, that you had to overcome. Do you have any of those moments? Or had any?
Jeff Lyon (17:51.73)
spent way too much money on training. don't know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:57.806)
That's usually where the biggest pain points are, of like, where have I, where's that money gone?
Jeff Lyon (18:03.353)
Yeah.
There is, I can't think of any OSHA moment. I'm just trying to think.
if there is actually anything that.
I mean, of course, there things I could have done better.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:21.644)
Yeah. Like if you had hit rewind on anything, what would you do differently?
Jeff Lyon (18:28.922)
I would probably stay more laser focused on maybe one niche and one.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:38.168)
Like one industry, like medical or whatever.
Jeff Lyon (18:40.638)
Yes, sort of, sort of. And that's what I did for the first year. I mean, I focus on healthcare, but I started thinking at the same time, well, here are these other business sectors in the same situation. They need the exact same thing that I'm offering. And I'm not going to say I wouldn't help them. Right, right. But I can't be a Walmart either. I'm not gonna.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:47.832)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:55.214)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:59.811)
Yeah.
Don't turn away. That's right, no.
Jeff Lyon (19:09.35)
I'm not going to boil the ocean, but give me a big enough pot and I'll try, you know? Yeah, I guess. But that and just...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:14.958)
That's a good analogy.
Jeff Lyon (19:23.922)
My big thing is the shiny object syndrome or I call it the squirrel syndrome. know, this looks good. Let me try this for a while. And I get caught up in doing other things like, hmm, this affiliate marketing stuff looks very interesting. Let's play with that for a week. And here's something I can sell online. A lot of distractions. You gotta stay focused. You gotta stay focused. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:30.156)
Yeah. Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:39.117)
And now.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:47.872)
Yeah, guys stay real focused. Stay true to your vision, your impact. I mean it's good to test how to educate, inform, inspire in different tactics, but stay true to your service offerings, the value proposition, and bringing clarity to that message. Because then the right people will come to you, right?
Jeff Lyon (19:53.116)
Exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:17.142)
Okay, what do you do? What is something that's not on your, that's not on LinkedIn, that's not on your resume that our listeners would be surprised to learn about you?
Jeff Lyon (20:27.314)
So you really want to know? Well, I'll tell you two things. Number one, and most people probably know it or probably could guess it because of what's standing up behind me there. I'm a musician. Yeah, I'm a musician. I got a few estimates here than many more upstairs. So I'm a musician. I love to play. I love to write music. But that's probably no surprise. What might really surprise you is that I'm a certified hypnotherapist.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:28.813)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:38.094)
I was about to say, I'm like, Oh, you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:57.486)
Are you really? Is this something that is relatively new? Have you been like for decades or like how did you get into this? A certified hypnotherapist. Is it because you found relief for a solution and you're like, whoa, I gotta do it. Like how did you get into this?
Jeff Lyon (20:58.512)
Yeah. I really am.
Jeff Lyon (21:08.08)
No, it's new.
Jeff Lyon (21:13.703)
Yes.
Jeff Lyon (21:23.526)
Well, you remember that squirrel syndrome we talked about?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:25.474)
That's good.
Jeff Lyon (21:30.226)
Uh, which is kind of how it worked. mean, like I said, I'm a, I'm a big networker and in all this whole journey started when I, when I decided to take it full time, be the entrepreneur. It started with the taking a public speaking, hired as public speaking coach, which led me to other networking events, which led me to more and more. And somehow I got in.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:35.832)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:46.008)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:56.387)
Right.
Jeff Lyon (21:59.682)
invited to a one of these school groups SKOL by someone that was part of the Grant Cardone 10x organization which I'm part of too.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:05.173)
yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:12.568)
Hmm.
Jeff Lyon (22:16.152)
They invited me to this. I really didn't know what it was. So I got involved listening to it and not everybody in there was some type of a life coach or health coach and well this is really fascinating. You know talking about NLP and all that's it. I want to learn some of this stuff. I mean if I use it for me or or whatever and I was very fascinated with it. So I am I did get my certification in hypnotherapy and I'm actually working on NLP.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:25.774)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:34.722)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:44.782)
Wow. Did you?
Jeff Lyon (22:45.658)
Yeah. I asked the coach, the trainer, they were showing one of these silly videos where one of these stage hypnotists come up and do all this silly junk. People being all of sudden they're classical musicians playing all this stuff like those.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:59.544)
Great.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:11.16)
See you.
Jeff Lyon (23:12.22)
So I said, so I can hypnotize myself to go sit down at the piano and play Rachmaninoff. And she said, no. I said, damn. So it's nothing like that, okay. And I know we're kind of digressed here because we're supposed to be talking about cybersecurity, right? But you know, another thing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:14.926)
I
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:20.174)
I know that's what I need.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:32.472)
We're talking about you and your founder journey. So it's all related, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (23:35.642)
Yeah. And here's another thing. Cybersecurity can be boring to people. Another, no, not another guy talking about doomsday and I got to do this and we're not safe and all that. But hey, I want to make, I want to make cyber security fun again.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:01.228)
Yeah. So maybe you do like a bonus of, for every client that comes on, I'll hypnotize your leadership.
Jeff Lyon (24:09.078)
No, we don't. They don't do that kind of The two are unrelated, okay? But what I do, I mean, when I talk, I like to throw a lot of humor into it. I had started, and I'm due one today, which I don't know if I get, I probably won't have time today to do it, but I like to go in and create these funny songs about cybersecurity. And I posted them on most of the social media platforms like
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:20.908)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:33.518)
Jeff Lyon (24:38.802)
I think I did it on YouTube, but I definitely linked in and in Facebook and Instagram, but it's usually AI generated stuff. I'm heavily in AI too. I mean, I'm a real musician, but for this, I just use these AI tools to create something funny.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:41.4)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:58.04)
Right.
Jeff Lyon (25:02.064)
just kind of poking fun at ourselves and the mistakes we make along the way with cyber.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:06.158)
.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:09.656)
Well, that's going to get you to stand out among the noise, you know?
Jeff Lyon (25:13.65)
It might, it might, but I also risk people not taking me seriously.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:19.086)
I don't think that, I think with you coming with 30 years of experience and with the companies you've worked for and all that, I think you're bringing levity into a really complex field. And like you said, let's have a little fun with it. Let's have a.
Jeff Lyon (25:24.498)
30 years experience in all the certifications, the stuff that I have.
Jeff Lyon (25:44.741)
Just have fun with it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:46.68)
So if you could change two things, like if I gave you a magic wand and you could change two things about your business today, what two things would you change?
Jeff Lyon (26:00.37)
Well, we make a lot more money. No, let's make that better. I would have helped 50 times more people this year. Yeah. Well, not just clients, but helped people to protect them from the crap that's going out here, going on in the world. I mean, if we could alleviate cyber crime, I would feel like mission accomplished. You know, I've been trying to think of a...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:01.922)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:08.194)
There you go, there you go, more clients.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:13.518)
the people.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:19.747)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:26.723)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (26:30.642)
of a good, what you call it, unique value proposition. I've got two of them I thought of. I don't take that kind of stuff too seriously because it can change every day, but I could say I'm the original hackersmacker. You like that? thought, we take you from zero to safe.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:36.834)
The value proposition? Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:51.32)
The original. I like that. That's good.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:58.914)
I like that one too. zero to safe. That's good. When you talked about the cybercrime, how bad is it?
Jeff Lyon (27:00.102)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Lyon (27:10.994)
Well, I don't know how to put a number on it, but let's put it this way. A year ago, just, well, February of last year, we had an incident that I know everyone's heard of it now. It was in the healthcare, a change, it's called Change Healthcare, which is a company that most people would not know the name on a daily basis, but they are connected.
to just about every healthcare organization in the country, like in the back office style. And as a result, they were hacked.
It affected one in every two US citizens in some manner. Yeah. That's pretty, it was in the news. It quite a bit, since change healthcare, I mean, they're part of United Healthcare, But they do things on the back end that the patients don't necessarily see, like they.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:01.07)
That did not make the news enough.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:12.097)
Okay, okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:19.234)
Gotcha, they're like the backbone of United.
Jeff Lyon (28:24.242)
Yeah, not just United, but companies, medical offices will go to them for, I guess like a clearing house. I don't quite understand how it all works that way, handle prescriptions, handle appointments, handle payroll even, I believe. But a lot of operational type things that they would do and it caused a lot of chaos and.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:33.532)
Mm. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:39.374)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:43.693)
Wow.
Jeff Lyon (28:52.774)
companies not being able to make payroll because of it and having, you know, the partners having to put their houses on lean to be able to make payroll. And it's stuff like that. That's one case. mean, and we've had just about every industry has something, has something in the auto industry a few months later. And then,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:55.747)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:05.624)
But yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:15.64)
Banking, banking a couple times.
Jeff Lyon (29:18.13)
Yeah, now I'll tell you this one and then I'll explain why I call it a cyber attack. This is me speaking, not the industry. But in July, I think it was July 19th, all the airlines mysteriously shut down, had a problem, couldn't do flights. And remember that? Everybody was stranded at airports.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:27.341)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:43.138)
Yeah, I remember. Yeah. Yep.
Jeff Lyon (29:48.324)
And that was because of a very small change that one third party did that is used by Microsoft on all of their systems. And it caused the systems to crash and not just crash, but come up with what we call the blue screen of death where they don't reboot. I had to actually rebuild one of mine because of it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:01.998)
All right, let's.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:09.783)
Yes.
Right.
Jeff Lyon (30:17.156)
Now, it wasn't a cyber attack because it, but it was a cyber incident because when we look at cybersecurity, we look at it three, there are three pillars of it. You've got the, you got the availability. That's number one. You've got integrity and you got confidentiality. Well, even though it wasn't malicious, it still affected availability. So CIA.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:20.205)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:35.235)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:44.78)
Right, right.
Jeff Lyon (30:46.898)
And regardless of what caused it.
how it happened, was still an outage which caused an incident.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:59.116)
and all that and it was just a, somebody made a change and didn't either vet it properly or didn't code it right or whatever and it just affected all three of those.
Jeff Lyon (31:11.804)
did a testing before putting it into production and blasting it out to the world. It's like an antivirus, how you get the antivirus updates when the new virus is coming out and the new remedy comes out, I use those terms.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:15.64)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:21.518)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:27.554)
Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating. If we met a year from now, like I'm gonna come back up to Rock Hill and what would we be celebrating? What's a win we'd be celebrating?
Jeff Lyon (31:42.412)
We'd be celebrating so wins so many wins. I think we would so it Donald Trump. We'd be tired of winning No Never be tired of winning never be tired of helping people I said We would be celebrating success And you know cyber is kind of like the fireman you can't you can't celebrate the fires that didn't happen, right? I mean, how do you count those? but it's kind of like
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:57.688)
Just a.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:07.362)
Right. Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (32:11.558)
the insurance is, I want to help people stay as safe as they can, but it still a lot depends on them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:16.738)
That's right. Well, then it becomes it's almost the opposite like, you know, when you go into plants and manufacturing, it's, you know, the zero days since the last, you know, incident near under the same thing like let's celebrate no incidents with all your clients. Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (32:29.745)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Lyon (32:34.674)
You know, that's a good way to look at it. And I actually have a tool, a partnership with a company that has a very unique tool, a very unique platform that none of their clients have had a breach since they put this tool in, like no ransomware or anything. And I'm just ready to get that out there and start getting people to use it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:54.37)
Yeah, see. That is a.
That's right, that's a celebration. No incidences. That's right, that's right. Okay, so if you had to sum up your entrepreneurial journey in one word, what word describes your journey? Adventure, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (33:01.978)
It is, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (33:05.906)
Don't break my count.
Jeff Lyon (33:18.34)
Adventure. Is that good? Yeah, mean, adventure's good because it never ends. It's always, every day's different. And yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:30.316)
That's that is for sure, isn't it? Which which bodes well for somebody that is that's a squirrel mindset, right? It keeps the happy squirrel or the squirrel happy. Yeah. And then if you had to look at the next chapter, what word describes that chapter?
Jeff Lyon (33:41.98)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (33:48.871)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:50.786)
growth. We'll see it and celebrate that next year. What's the best piece of advice that you've been given from other because I know you're doing a lot of networking and going to all these events and stuff and what's the best advice that you've heard or received and really took to heart?
Jeff Lyon (33:52.796)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Lyon (34:09.81)
Don't quit.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:11.106)
Don't quit, just, yeah, we hear that a lot. Just do it. Just keep going. Keep moving forward.
Jeff Lyon (34:16.946)
keep moving forward. I mean, even at the year's time, it's when a lot of people think, oh, I can't do this anymore. I haven't been successful. Keep at it. You're fat flows. The next day is going to bring you that much closer.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:24.928)
I know. Just persevere. That's right. That's right. Stay focused and all that. One of the. Huh? Slap that squirrel. That's right. I used to say, you you learn from failure. tried to take failure and errors out of our like the language and our vernacular and especially mine.
Jeff Lyon (34:34.374)
Mm-hmm.
Slap that squirrel. Slap that squirrel, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:54.776)
that there's a lesson in everything. There's a lesson in a win and there's a lesson in the stumbles and failures is just another lesson. That's all it is and you gotta move forward. So yeah, just keep going, just keep doing it. And the worst thing you can do is not learn from, like if you're having a hard time or you're trying to figure out how to persevere, you sometimes it's just like go taking a break and...
Jeff Lyon (35:11.632)
You got a straight gratitude for that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:24.642)
just reset, recalibrate, rethink, because it might be a pivot or it might be a, you know what, I'm gonna try this really diligently for the next like 24 hours or the next week. And if that works, you know, and then you just, but you gotta just keep moving forward. And most of us break through. But it's not for, you know, we always say, you know, entrepreneurship sometimes isn't for everybody.
if you don't have that perseverance and that drive, it's, there's some, you know, there's some hard days and there, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (36:02.61)
There will be hard days. In my first few months, I was saying, this is so much fun. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:11.832)
Right. Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (36:14.674)
And is everyone come down? Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:20.394)
Yeah, that's what I describe my dream is like the roller coaster of it is it is like the ups and downs, the twists, the turns, speed.
Jeff Lyon (36:30.236)
But I would challenge you and everybody, start a journal, get it out every morning, and write down three things of gratitude that you're grateful for. Even the things that aren't good, be grateful for the experiences that you've had.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:40.695)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:46.63)
that's a good advice. Yeah, yeah. I do a journal. I started this a couple of years ago and you're right. It had totally transformed my mindset of at the before I go to bed, I write down three things. Not all three are my are my gratitude, but it's more of one is what was I most grateful for for the day? And then and then the second is what caused me?
Jeff Lyon (37:09.242)
Yeah, that's gratitude.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:14.734)
Or what is what what am I holding that's most anxious? Or stressed like that the angst and what am I did I do something wrong? What error did I have earth and just let it when I write it down it releases me and the third one is like one of my most looking forward to for tomorrow and it's interesting when I started Reflecting back on after like six months, you know, you start doing that, you know building that habit It was so much fun to like read through
Jeff Lyon (37:32.146)
Perfect.
Jeff Lyon (37:35.826)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:44.514)
those things, because the things that were causing me angst six months later, I'm like, that or a year later, it was like, that's nothing like and it helped with total mindset and confidence and but you're right, just being grateful and and giving yourself grace and space and and sometimes you know, you need to give yourself that that same permission.
that you would give others and celebrate the wins. That's right. No matter how small that's even if it like I always tell that to some founders. They're like, I've had no wins. I was like, I bet you did. I'm sure there's some like you gotta have a win. And that's why. So yeah, the journal and gratitude thinking and speaking it just
Jeff Lyon (38:15.962)
It celebrates your wins, even no matter how small.
Jeff Lyon (38:22.94)
No matter how small.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:44.686)
That's a great, that's great advice. I love that.
Well, okay, so I think, well, one more. What have you learned most about yourself through this journey?
Jeff Lyon (39:04.486)
whole lot of potential that has been not utilized in many years. I guess, yes, in awakening, I know we don't have time, but I could go into a lot of detail of my transition from where I was at the point when I left Deloitte to where I am now and the lifestyle and everything that I have now.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:12.169)
it's like awakening.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:28.162)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (39:33.67)
I mean, it's not, don't get me wrong, it's not totally different, but just the habits that I changed and things I choose to do and not to do or listen to and not listen to is, it really reflects on who I became, who I am now.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:50.902)
Yeah, reflect on that. I want to hear more about that. When you talk about the habits or who you listen to and because that's so important of like the things that you, I call it like my piece of advice I give people and I tell myself this all the time of when you get into entrepreneurship and you start a business and you start to scale it and grow it and
you know, now you have to deal with people and it gets sometimes overwhelming, but you're constantly, you're learning, you're unlearning, you're relearning, and then rinse and repeat over and over and over again. So I'm carried by, what things that you have to go, I gotta break those habits, or I gotta not listen to that stuff. No worries.
Jeff Lyon (40:42.514)
Hold on a second.
So, well, habits I had to break. Just a lot of things.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:49.485)
Ha ha.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:54.807)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (41:00.1)
spend much less time or just totally turn it off. The talk radio, the news other than what I absolutely have to hear. Just give me the news, no opinions. I just want to know what's happening in the world. Yeah, facts please. Give me the facts. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:10.627)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:15.586)
Right, just give me the facts.
Jeff Lyon (41:25.746)
Just two.
Focus on things that if it's something that's not making you a better person, if it's something that's causing you stress and you don't have to do it, you don't have to be around it, get away from it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:43.33)
That's right. It's interesting. You know, we talk a lot of this with other founders that have come on the show and that is something like you can feel it. when you learn your circles change, sometimes friends and family, they can't relate to the business or whatever. So you realize, okay, I can't really bring them that because they can't support it. They don't bring that positive energy. So I've got to go find these other circles.
Jeff Lyon (42:12.666)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:12.846)
And even when you find some of these other circles as you grow and you learn, unlearn, relearn. And one of the founders, and we actually wrote about it on social right now, her podcast launched this week was, she was like, your body, like you know it in your, you can feel the energy if it's not serving you. Your body will react to it. So like listen for that because
Jeff Lyon (42:36.178)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:42.65)
You know, and your gut is like, this doesn't feel right or this energy or these influences or the things that I'm doing is not good. It doesn't serve me anymore. It's not going to help me, you know, lift forward. And she was like, when you try to reject that, she was like, you will feel it. She was like, it's it's a it will become more physical than emotional over time. You know, and, you know, she's like.
She's a CEO and she's kind of grown now and now she's founded an organization and she's like, I thought I knew all these things. But man, she was like, that was like her big aha of you hear it about people tell you that you'll trust your gut. You're gonna have, know, kind of like you're gonna feel a transformation or don't do things that don't serve you anymore. And that was her biggest thing. She was like.
I never realized how much it impacted physically. Like, you know, you can feel it through your body.
Jeff Lyon (43:45.852)
Your mind and your body are so connected. Your body signals mostly come from your brain and your gut.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:48.291)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:53.676)
Yeah, yeah. And so that's like, you know, why I love this, the conversations with founders and because we all have these similar, you know, experiences and transformations and advice and stressors and reliefs. And it but our journeys have all have all been different and our words are all different through through where we've been and where we're going. But this was fantastic. Before we go.
Jeff Lyon (44:06.012)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:23.522)
Where can people connect with you, learn more about Cyberwild or learn more about you, Jeff, listen to your songs and your, you know, around cyber security.
Jeff Lyon (44:31.058)
Thank
Jeff Lyon (44:35.666)
Sure, well, let's see, songs might be a little challenging because I don't remember where I stuck them, I know that, I mean, if you go to my LinkedIn profile, there's somewhere buried in there with some of my other material. It just doesn't flash and say, this is a song, you know? But anyway, so my website is www.thethecyberwild.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:54.21)
Right?
Jeff Lyon (45:05.793)
cyberwild.com.com, we're still using .com. I insisted on that. So that's the website. You can find some information there. And it has, for anyone that wants to book a call with me to talk about their security strategy, there's a link there on the website. can click on it and fill it in.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:11.374)
Yeah. That's right.
Yeah, same with me. I don't know. was...
Jeff Lyon (45:34.0)
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. The company has a site, but I also have my personal site, which it's not Jeff Lyon. It is cyber-jeff. So linkedin.com. Yeah, cyber Jeff. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:47.506)
you're cyber Jeff. Cyber Jeff. I love it. Well we'll tag all that when we run the, go ahead.
Jeff Lyon (45:54.994)
Maybe I think I'll put Hacker Smacker before it gets taken, right? Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:01.152)
You need to do that. You need to get that. Even if you don't use it like all the time, it's still kind of fun. Because you do, you know, it shows that, look, we all have different personalities and it's all there. All you're doing is being able to connect with people, like you said, in a very noisy and stale field. So stand out, man. Stand out. The hacker smacker.
Jeff Lyon (46:08.21)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (46:20.882)
Yeah. I I get on a webinar sometimes and it's just technology, people discussing round table stuff and you can't hold my attention guys. It's gotta be funny.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:32.782)
I know. Oh, believe me, I would be in the agency. I'm like, after the creatives would come up and dazzle them with all like the ad campaigns and stuff, I would have to come in and talk. Well, here's the media plan. It's a bunch of spreadsheets. And let me tell you where it's going to run and all the acronyms and the googly gun. This is how the money is going to be spent. And they were all what? And then always the last question would be, so is it going to work that way?
And then I'd have to go through a whole spiel of the rationale of why we felt it was gonna work. But yeah, 30 years of people being bored in my presentations of the numbers.
Jeff Lyon (47:14.706)
I go back to my presentation last year and redo it with the same slides and just take the Woody Allen approach to it, just put different words in. I don't know, you're probably not old enough to remember this one, but Woody Allen did a film back in the 60s called What's Up Tiger Lily.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:23.864)
Hey, just the hackers back.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:30.03)
There you go.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:37.922)
I've heard about it, I have not seen it. I'm only heard, yeah.
Jeff Lyon (47:40.109)
He took this Japanese film, chopped it up into little pieces and made his own story out of it. Nothing to do with the movie. But there were some lines in that movie that I still remember today when I was in college. I wasn't in college in the 60s. I'm not that old, but we still watched it lot. I think next to Caddyshack, was probably the most watched movie we did when we were in college.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:51.202)
Hahaha!
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:59.906)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:06.806)
Wow, that's a throwback. I might have to like look into that. I'm a big, huge, you know, film, I'm a pop media, pop culture media junkie, so I'll have to look into that one. Jeff, thanks for hanging out with us today. I appreciate it and I loved your journey and hearing about the transformation and where you're going. We're gonna celebrate you next year. Absolutely. Let's do it. Put it on the calendar.
Jeff Lyon (48:11.676)
Thanks.
Jeff Lyon (48:16.604)
Yeah.
Jeff Lyon (48:21.692)
Good pleasure.
Good time.
Jeff Lyon (48:28.784)
Yeah, let's do that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:34.454)
And for everybody listening and watching us, thank you for hanging out with us and we appreciate your support. The podcast will be available on all podcast platforms, so subscribe to Hello Chaos. Give us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. Share this great content and help us build a more connected entrepreneurial community. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP, W-I-P for work in progress. We are, we are, we are. excuse me, hyper, we're gonna have to like edit this part out. I'll just end it, we'll just edit this out as Chandler's laughing at me. If you'd to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send us an email to, there you go, give us a close out of just send us an email to hello at orangewip.com Thank y'all for tuning in to Hello Chaos. It is where aha meets shit. And we'll see you again.
Jeff Lyon (49:08.946)
Hmm.
Yeah, I'll play along with that one.