27: Dealing with stress, burnout and mental health in the threat intelligence industry, with Matt Watchinski, Matt Olney, and Mitch Neff

Today's episode is a little different from our usual format. In conjunction with Mental Health Awareness month, we welcome three leaders from Cisco Talos to join Hazel, Ben and Sana for a discussion on mental health, stress and burnout - specifically in the security and threat intelligence industry, although there are things that we discuss that could be relevant beyond that. Joining us are Matt Watchinski, Vice President of Talos who has been a guest before when we talked about the power of diverse teams. We also have Matt Olney, Talos’ Head of Threat Intelligence and Interdiction who our listeners will know from our episodes on election security. And we have Mitch Neff, who leads Talos' communication strategy and hosts the  Beers with Talos podcast.Together, we share our own experiences about dealing with stress and burnout, both during the pandemic and beyond. We share these experiences from an individual level, and also our experience managing people within teams, and also helping managers who are managers too.  Of course, there are many areas within mental health and people's experiences in threat hunting that we don't cover, so please don't consider this a full resource on the topic.We hope that by sharing our experiences, we’re helping to destablise any stigmas that are out there when it comes to talking about these topics, and if you or anyone close to you is struggling at the moment, we hope this inspires you to talk to someone.Some further resources: Adjusting to extraordinary times ebook https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/extraordinary-times-ebook.html Creating safe spaces, with Chloe Messdaghi https://www.buzzsprout.com/926089/6457849-20-creating-safe-spaces-and-the-troubling-nature-of-attribution-in-threat-research-with-chloe-messdaghi-and-warren-mercer