How to Lead with Moveable Feast’s Jennifer Leggio

This is Text Drunk tv. Hey everyone, welcome back here to Tech Drunk tv. You know, this woman right here has set up so many text drunk TV interviews before, but I've never actually interviewed her, so it's a first and I'm really, really excited to have her on it.

I don't wanna embarrass her too much, but I knew her. I know her for 20 years, probably more than 20 years now, and she was much, much, I mean, you look at her now, but imagine 20 years ago, my good friend Jennifer Leschi is here with us. She's a, she really needs no introduction to those of us in the cyber, we call it cyber.

We used to call it security world. She's done so many things, and I, I've seen her career ar like this, you know, over those years. She's going to talk a little bit about that and about what she's doing now.

Jennifer, welcome to Text Trunk tv. It's great to have you on. Thank you so much, Alan.

Thanks for the, the introduction. I'm trying not to blush, uh, since we, I was trying not to make you blush, but you know, it feels good to, you know, I, as I said, I mean, not that you're old now, but I know you 20 years ago, 20 years ago, you were, you know, a, a very, very young person and, and starting out on your, on your career, of course, a lot of people may know you by your Twitter, Twitter handle, media fighter. Right?

And, um, we, we could talk about that if you want, but you know what, I, I don't wanna put words in your mouth. Why don't you maybe tell your story a little bit. Sure.

So, um, you know, I've been in, you know, cyber, like you said, how we used to call it security or invo sec, um, Mm-Hmm. For a long time now, for about 24 years. So, yeah, I met you when I was a fledgling PR person trying to figure out my way around this industry and try to understand what everything was.

And, uh, I've had some fun rides. Um, you know, I've, I went, you know, had some great experiences, a lot of different vendors. Um, Fortinet being the first, which was a great first to have their IPO and then source fire.

Mm-Hmm. San Francisco. And then one of my C was a CMO and VP of operations for a long time over the last 10 years or so, which has been, which is a weird mix, but it, it's kind of who I am to just kinda get curious and dig into different things and try to fill gaps, as it were.

And now that's led me to my newest venture, which is, um, you know, started my own in currently independent consultancy. I'm hoping to eventually make it an agency, but called Movable Feast Info, inspired by the, uh, uh, troubled writer, Ernest Hemingway, um, where I'm doing everything from go to market messaging, operations, sales ops, branding to, uh, to me to, uh, leadership coaching, to personal branding for folks that are trying to get their names out there and haven't lived and breathed it for 20 years like I have. So, just all my fun favorite things I'm gonna try to turn into, turn into a job, basically.

Abs. Well, it's more than a job, right? Like the Army commercial says, right?

Um, it's more than a job. It's, it's the love of your life in many ways. Um, so Jennifer, you know, in addition to all the things you mentioned, you've also been a, a writer on, on several tech, uh, I call 'em magazine still, but several tech sites.

Yes. You, for many of us in, in InfoSec Cyber now, you kind of led the way in Twitter adoption and Twitter handle, and the, was it the security Twits was, was the group back? Yeah.

The security skits that was born in at Source Boston that Stacey Thayer formed back in the day? Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

That was a long time ago. But you know, it really, for a lot of us, it showed the power that social media and influencing could, could bring to the equation. And, um, you know, we of course we're doing security bloggers network and so forth at the time, and, uh, it, you know, it, it was all coming together, the whole blogging, podcasting, social media kind of thing, right?

Um, so it, it's been an amazing journey. It, it really has. But you've also been on a personal journey, right?

You're, you're not that kinda, or maybe you still are in some ways, sort of the imposter syndrome PR person who said, wow, am I, am I really this good? Right? Am I really this, you know, who, who people think I am?

I I have this facade of being media fighter, right? I'm Jennifer. Um, talk about that a little.

I saw the imposter syndrome. I'm not gonna lie. That's a, that's a hard demon.

I've beat a lot of demons over the last couple of years, as you know. Um, Mm-Hmm. And, uh, that's, that's a tough one, you know, with the ebbs and flows of life, whether personal or professional.

And some days, I, I have those moments where I'm like, they're gonna figure out I don't know what I'm doing and how did I get here? And gosh, I'm so lucky people handed me this career out a platter, which is not, and I know that. And then I have other days where I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm awesome.

I'm gonna start my own business. I'm gonna do this. So, you know.

Mm-hmm. So it's, it, it really just depends. And I think, you know, I think just learning to live with it, knowing that, you know, it's gonna flow out as soon as soon as I center myself again, is the best thing I can do versus fighting it.

But yeah, even after all this time and all the things that I'm very, very proud of, and all of the, you know, I, I still sometimes struggle with, you know, that, that confidence, I should say, You know what, you're not alone, my friend. We all do. I for, so for whatever reason, I actually spoke to my wife Bonnie about this.

She's a social worker now. And I, I told her, I said, you know, Jennifer was feeling a little imposter syndrome. Who would, you know, why would she feel that?

And, and she said, you know, in social work, it's very common. They all feel that. Like all the social workers, psychologists, who are they to be diagnosing and treating people, you know, going through trauma and bereavement and other troubles.

What makes you such a, a great person that you can help these people. And so it, no matter what I think your profession is, it's, it's, it's a common thing. For whatever reason, I think women tend to suffer from it a maybe a little bit.

Maybe I, you know what? I think men suffer from it a lot too. We're just afraid to say it Right.

I think you're right. I don't know if it's fear, but they don't say it as often as, as In the recesses of our minds. It's there, but we're afraid to say it because if we say it, maybe we'll be perceived as being, I don't know, less than or something.

And, and you know, how fickle and fragile men's egos are, so No comment, no Comment, no comment, no comment. Um, let, let's talk a little bit more about movable feast, if it's okay. Of course.

So the website is in, I think it's showing up on the lower third here, but for those, uh, maybe not sure, it's movable feast, that's one word. Movable feast info. You are doing everything on it right now.

You have a lot of aspirations, but let's talk about what it is and kind what the plan is. Sure. So I've kind of taken the, the concept behind movable feast is taking what I've learned in my cyber career over the last several years, and also a lot of the facets of what I've learned in my personal journey through coaching and therapy and career counseling and other types of counseling and work shopping and all of that.

And trying to combine it together into something that's meaningful for the human insecurity as well as the company's insecurity. So on the side, it really ranges from like, you know, yes, I can do the core marketing if you need it in the go to market and help you reposition your company and work with the analysts and the press and all of that fun stuff and or your sale stand up, your sales tech stack, help you with your sales methodologies, all of that stuff, all the business side. But what I'm really hoping it it really focuses on is, you know, how to help, you know, whether it's a branding or personal growth or coaching and leadership growth for teams and people.

And, you know, you know, I've been a, a manager and a lead a leader, and I think those are two very different things for, um, you know, for I would say the last 20 of my 24 years in, in cyber. And honestly, the hardest part of launching this business is not yet, knock wood, having a team, though I do have some partner consultants that I'm going to work with as needed. It's not the same.

I love leading teams, but I really wanna help people figure out, you know, how do they get their leadership teams communicating a little bit better for the, the sake of the growth of the company, avoiding mistakes falling into the pitfalls that leaders often do around ego that might get in the way of making business decisions. Um, you know, helping someone that might be struggling with imposter syndrome, get out of the rut and have a very humble conversation with them and, and share what I've learned to kinda get past that. And more so help them get over the fear of self-marketing, which some people, a lot of people with imposter syndrome do, are folks that, you know, they're, I met some folks at an inve, uh, a networking event the other night.

They're like, I don't know how to promote myself, but I need a job. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how LinkedIn works.

And I'm like, okay, maybe I can help there on a sliding scale. If someone's unemployed, I'm gonna help 'em for free. Right?

Obviously, there's a lot of people that that's only certain scalable you friends and family, but if they're folks looking to make a career change and want let people know, like they, hey, they're more technical than people perceive, or, Hey, they're a better writer than people perceive, I can help them draw that out. That was a very long answer, but I'm very passionate about this project, and those are all my favorite things. So I, I really want, but I really wanna get to the human element, not from a psychological perspective, but more from a how do you do your best at work, either as a team or an individual.

Yep. You know, it's interesting. We, we, we take it for granted how, how to use LinkedIn or Facebook or any social media to promote yourself.

You, you know, you're a great example of, of just success doing that. I, I, I haven't had the success you've had perhaps with social media, but I, it's second nature for me, right? To, to update my life on social media and kind of, you know, blow the trumpets a little bit.

So when we, when I hear someone say, I don't know how to promote myself on LinkedIn or, or something like that, I, I, it, I step back and say, you know, they're not stupid. I'm not, I, I don't mean to disparage anyone, but how do you not know how to do that? And, but again, you gotta understand that people who don't deal in this, like live this life that we've chosen to live right from the Godfather, um, they don't, it's foreign into them.

It, it is foreign into them and, and what are they supposed to know? Um, so it, it is there, let me ask you a hard question. Okay.

What does success look like at Movable Feast? What does success look like? Honestly, you know, well, there's the obviously one, you know, paying my, my bills and my, my very, my two needy cats.

Mm-Hmm. But, uh, honestly, more important to me is can I help companies and people grow? Do I have a, you know, can I, can I eventually build a team that has the same passion and purpose that I do?

Um, because I think it's, it's really comes down to passion and purpose and not just doing the job, which I think is obviously something I think you've heard me talk about over the years in general about being really poor to being in this industry, is you have to care about the mission. And I think that's important. So for me, it's, it's help.

Like, I would love to have a, you know, a small to start, you know, um, and I have some interest already. I haven't announced it yet, but I will if I think by the time this comes out. But, um, a small group of cl people that are interested already, and I want to really pick clients whose missions align with mine and help them grow, and their success is my success.

That's really important to me. Absolutely. I, I couldn't agree more with you.

I think, I think your head and heart and are, are in the right place with that. Um, you know, I, I was up in Boston this week, this past week, meeting with, you know, sponsor clients, company's friends, and we, we heard a, a common theme, which is, all right, they cut budgets. We all know that they, it's layoff season.

They called it, they laid off a bunch of people. But here's an interesting thing people said, people have been said being told, okay, here's your budget for the year. It may be less than last year, but nevertheless, here's your budget.

The heads you got are the heads you got, right? We had to do the layoffs, but I need you to, I need you to produce more results. Less money, less people, more results.

Now, to me though, and maybe because I'm always a glass half full kind of guy, I look at it and say, for a business like yours, Jennifer, that's an opportunity, right? Because they, they may not be able to afford the full-time headcount to do all the mired things that you and, and associates of yours can do. And they could take slices, right?

With movable feast to supplement fill in and get to those bigger numbers on less dollars than if I had to build out an internal team here. So, you know, I, I think it's a great, it's a good time to launch this sort of business into the market where people may be looking for just that little oomph, just that little push to really, you know, fine tune their message to help them turbocharge and do more with less. Yeah, I think so.

I hope so. And, and it, you know, I, I was really at a crossroads and I, I just woke up Monday morning with this idea on my head. I'd really been, I'm really into meditation and, and I'd been meditating about what I wanna do next.

And I was like, do your thing. Follow your path. Do what you want to do.

Mm-Hmm, now's the time. And you know, I still have aspirations. If you look at my LinkedIn, it says, future Chief operating officer, CEO, I still think that could be in the cards for me.

Well, I guess you could say I'm CEO of my You're CEO now. Hey, Yay me. I did it, crushing it.

No, you did. Yeah, but no, and now, seriousness, seriousness. I had the skillset for that.

I wanna do that. But I also recognize that where the market is right now, that's not necessarily what, especially for startups, right? That's not exactly the priority role that they're looking for.

So what can I do right now? And you never know what will happen, where I can fill some gaps for folks. And the benefit of me, I think, is not to pitch myself, but to maybe pitch myself, is that because I have so much experience in these areas, I can do in a lot less time what some people can take days to do.

And, um, you know, it's, um, I think there's a, there's a real value add that can be had there, but again, what's really important to me is I'm not looking for just any client, you know, I want to work with people that really have the same passion and purpose for security and for humans that I do. I don't know if you're gonna find too many people who have the passion and purpose you do, Jennifer, but if they get close, they'll be okay. Um, we're almost outta time.

info, and I'm sure there's contact intake and, and so forth on, on the website to reach out. Absolutely. Excellent.

And what about from a geography point of view? Does it make a difference where they're located? Nope.

Nope. I, uh, I can follow the sun, you know, being independent, so I'm, wherever, wherever they're at, I can make it work. Absolutely.

Uh, you know what, look, I, I, I actually recorded a podcast with Stacy, Stacy, I still call her Stacy Thayer. I, I know she has a, an official name on social media now. But I, I recorded a podcast with Stacy, I guess a month ago.

It recently came out a couple weeks ago. And that you just described a lot of my philosophy, which is, you know, I, I've been through the venture backed startup world five times over and sat in on board meetings where this, this quarter we're hiring. Next quarter we're firing the next quarter we're raising money.

Then the quarter after that, no, we're not raising money anymore. I'm done with that. I, I, I need to do what my heart tells me to do and what makes me happy and 'cause otherwise, I don't know how, how engaged I can be, right?

I, i, if I, I, I just can't bluff. I can't fake it. Either I'm into it or I'm not into it.

And, and that's why I do, that's how, you know, how I started what became tech shock, because I, I wanted to do this. And, um, I was tired of watching other people who I always thought were smarter than me and then realizing, no, they really weren't. Right?

I mean, some of them are just flat out lucky, and I still say it's better to be lucky than smart. It's good to be both. But, um, anyway, I wish you nothing but a ton of success.

But look, knowing who you are and what, and what you do and, and how good you are at it, I'm sure it's going to be a great ride. And you, you'll have to come back and keep us posted. I will absolutely.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so Grateful. It's my pleasure.

Jennifer Legio, movable feast. Do info. Go check her out, check them out if you need help, whatever.

Whether it's sales, marketing, operations, life, Jennifer's a good person to talk to. We're gonna take a break here on Text Drunk tv. We're gonna be back in a minute.