[00:00:00] Kenneth: The biggest thing is I didn't feel alone. I try to tell people, they don't understand the amount of mental anxiety you have from running your own business.
[00:00:06] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. Thank you so much for joining me again today. My guest today was Kenneth Ellington and I was so impressed by my guest, he is a rising cybersecurity professional who is dedicated to nurturing new cybersecurity talent. He is originally from Florida and lives now in Texas, and he's leveraged his drive to go from working at the Deli counter to landing a big four senior cyber security consulting role all within three fast-paced years.
And he focuses right now on helping others also join the same area of expertise as he is. In his training. He brings energy and passion to students as they learn about security solutions and address real-world problems. He formally taught cyber infrastructure part-time at the University of Houston.
He volunteers for nonprofit blacks in cybersecurity. He also trains in boxing and kickboxing in his free time. Kenneth is the epitome of someone who rises as he climbs. He has not only built a beautiful career for himself, but he has also identified that there is an opportunity to train educate, and pull others along on the path and to mentor others as he also has been mentored.
It's such an inspiring story of a young person who is making a big difference in the world. I think you'll enjoy our conversation. Take a listen.
Kenneth, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you with me.
[00:02:09] Kenneth: Thank you for having me here.
[00:02:11] Aneta: Yeah. So for those that aren't as familiar with you, I know that you have a company focusing in on cybersecurity, but tell me a little bit about how you got interested in cybersecurity and a little bit more about your background.
[00:02:25] Kenneth: Sure thing. So initially when I went to college, I was a USF from Tampa, Florida. I went for my undergrad was business administration, but as I moved closer to graduation, I wanted an area where I could focus my talents and more specifically better job prospects. And so my dad, who's been not in cybersecurity, but he's been in software engineering for the past 28 years now.
He's like, Kenneth, how about IT? I'm like, Dad that's a great idea. Even though he tried to do software engineering back when I was in middle school, I thought it was the lamest thing ever. So I didn't wanna do it. But I expanded my horizons as they got older.
So I just decided to do IT and cybersecurity, in my junior year of undergrad at USF. And then from there, one of the things I teach my students, and everyone that comes to me is to make sure people know what your true desires are. So when you're not in a room, they can speak on your behalf. You don't always know who people know outside of your circle.
That's a really big thing that I try to preach to our students. And I did that. And my store manager at the time happened to know that the director of security for Publix, cause I lived 15 miles away from the corporate headquarters for the company. And I met with them, sat me down, we went over a bunch of stuff.
Say, Kenneth, if can do all these tasks, I'm about to lay out for you. I can almost guarantee you that you'll be on my internship team next year. And so, I did everything that he told me to, I interviewed for the spot, 9 months later, and I got the role. That's kind of how I got set up at SAP Security.
[00:03:54] Aneta: Wow. So you started in cybersecurity out of school, then you got the internship, and then moved into it in the role?
[00:04:00] Kenneth: Yes, so, after I graduated, I got a job as a software engineer, doing Java development, which I hate, the Java sucks. And so I moved back to cybersecurity at my firm.
[00:04:12] Aneta: Okay. When did you start your company?
[00:04:15] Kenneth: It'll be two years actually which is crazy. Initially, I didn't want to own a company. I'm like, this is a lot of work and a lot of headache. I didn't want to do this, but people kept asking me to do it. And I can't but they're you're good at teaching people. I'm like, oh really am I?? I? didn't realize that. So after a while, I decided to see how it would go. See if people want to purchase something from me. I'm kind of just going off from there.
[00:04:37] Aneta: That's interesting. So you didn't have this burning desire to be an entrepreneur, but people saw something in you. So what have you discovered over the last two years? You said running your own business.
[00:04:48] Kenneth: It is as hard as it looks. Or maybe it's easy as I make it look very honest, there are days like, why the hell am I doing this? Why am I doing all this extra work? Why am I staying up late? Or when I have a cushy corporate job, I could just do that, but that doesn't fulfill me in the way that running my business does.
I kind of get to help people that look like me. Who is like, I'm black and brown people. I'd normally been excluded from high-paying cybersecurity. I get to help them create generational wealth so they can take care of their family and their kids, which means everything to me. I don't get that type of job satisfaction from my normal job. That's probably the reason why I love to do what I do.
[00:05:23] Aneta: That's beautiful. You know, when you have a strong why and a mission, it just makes the sucky days that much easier, doesn't it? Because you know why you're doing it.
[00:05:32] Kenneth: If I didn't love doing this, I would not be doing this. I can say that for a fact.
[00:05:35] Aneta: So what are some of the things that you learned in the last couple of years, then just running your own business and maybe like things you learned about yourself and things you just learned about being an entrepreneur?
[00:05:48] Kenneth: So I would say, I guess I'm stronger than I realized. And I have a lot more skill sets than I realized as well. Especially when you've just started up, you have to wear every single hat initially. And that's what I did. It was very mentally draining, but that's just a part of the process.
And I was told this enough, this is to mentally prepare myself for that is the biggest thing. But as we got a little bit bigger, I've been able to add on more people, more staff to help, I guess, guide and make sure I don't go insane and doing this, which has been very nice to have. But the biggest thing I would say is just trust other people because you can't build this all by yourself. Having the right team around you is insanely important in my opinion
[00:06:30] Aneta: Knowing that, it's very important for you, as you said, to work with folks that have been excluded from this type of work or high positions, as you stated, like, how do you market and make it known that you do have your academy and that you want to work with folks that maybe don't have these types of corporate positions, but would like to get the training.
[00:06:52] Kenneth: So normally we market you through organic marketing like LinkedIn or Youtube or do different affiliate and partnership deals with various firms that have podcasts such as yourself, or different TV shows and stuff like that and we'll do marketing deals with them to get the word out. So it's worked pretty well so far considering what our budget is.
So I've been very pleased with the results as we scale up and get bigger, we'll start to do more ads and things of that nature to reach a wider audience. But just basically word of mouth and organic marketing has worked pretty well. I guess I didn't attract people who look like me and who come from my background because they've never seen something that looks like me do what I do specifically or even maybe tell a lot of people that do what I do. So they didn't get attracted to me. I would say.
[00:07:33] Aneta: Yeah, that's wonderful. And you're young. I think that it's great to think about younger generations too, who have someone to look up to and say, let me check this out. So do you have any success stories that you want to share either folks that have come through your academy and maybe some of the things that they've been able to do as a result of the work that you've done?
[00:07:50] Kenneth: Yes, so 1 of my, maybe 2 of them would be Hazel and Courtney. So, Courtney was one of my 1st apprentice instructors, or she was my first one technically. She came from initially a healthcare background, but she graduated during Covid like, I did. And she's like, I don't do healthcare too much going on. So she pivoted towards my team's SAP security.
So she became an IT service technician. So like help that support. And from there, she met me through black society security. That's a nonprofit that I also partnered with as well. And this is when I first started my training courses. She did it. She's like, I love this. I want to do your first one and once you start your company, kind of.
So I brought her on initially for mentoring and then for the actual program. And then I was like, well, hey, I need to teach somebody to help me out, run a program. I can't keep them to myself. And then I decided to pick her. So I want to pour all my knowledge and wisdom into her and give her like really hands-on guided training, kind of like a Jedi master Padawan situation kind of thing.
That's the way I did with her. And she was with me for a year. And so we helped her go from making, I think, under 35-40, 000 USD. So she was making, she won't triple her salary, I believe in like two years. The second story from that is, that she runs her own business now too, as well. I'm so very proud of her.
So the second story would be Hazel Miranda. So Hazel was unemployed when I first met her. She graduated from UTA, University of Texas, Arlington in cybersecurity, but she's a very shy person. So she didn't have a proper friend group, which we'll talk about a little bit later in the show about how to support her to understand what her needs are and care about what she wants to do.
She didn't have a proper support group, so she couldn't find a job for 6 months after she graduated from college. So she did her 1st beta program and one of the big things she wanted to focus on was her coming out of her shell, now she runs different events and does different presentations all over Dallas. But we hope to get a job at Samsung before benefits and a nice salary as well.
[00:09:56] Aneta: That's wonderful. That must feel so rewarding for you.
[00:10:01] Kenneth: It does. It's like a realistic, real feeling. I think I kind of remind myself that I'm helping people change their lives. I've been in a really meaningful way. It's like really cool.
[00:10:10] Aneta: That's so wonderful. Who's your mentor? Who is giving you what you give other people?
[00:10:16] Kenneth: So I have a business coach and a business advisor. Great cheese, one business advisor, and our marketers. So I don't have the touch for like digital design, whatever my stuff was like a circle black and white. That's all I can do. She's instantly good at what she does. So she runs her own threat intelligence company called Pulsar So at first I felt bad for her.
I was paying a record to him in the morning like grace. I have no idea what I'm doing whatsoever. I need help. I'm drowning. I don't know what any of this stuff is. Eventually, actually like a full-time business coach named Valencia. She's helped us, I would say scale up and scale out and organize ourselves from the ground up So that our processes are seamless to do.
So we're able to get more business deals and we're able to get more students and stuff of that nature. So she can make a really big blessing to me to have on my team and half of my staff. Because we would not be here without, I guess everyone technically, but especially without her.
[00:11:13] Aneta: It's so important to have that mentorship and then to be able to leverage what you've learned, to be able to help others as well. What do you see as the future of the programs that you offer?
[00:11:25] Kenneth: So I guess our master plan is for this to become like a replacement for a master's degree program, in a sense. So, people who want to do technical master's degree programs, and don't want to go to SANS, which is expensive, normally come to us. The SANS courses are like 10, 000 USD a piece, and you need a certain amount to get a graduate degree with them.
And a lot of master's programs, you might know this, but a lot of them are theoretical. So whatever job you get afterward, you're like, alright, can you build this out for me, and like I have no idea how to do it because I just read the book on it. So everything we do is hands-on technical for what our field is basically.
[00:12:03] Aneta: I love that. So how do you bring in the hands-on, real-life examples where people, get to practice it? And then when they move into the role that they take, they already feel like they've got a heads up maybe on others that had more of a theoretical education.
[00:12:19] Kenneth: So, what we do is we partner with various firms and hiring managers. So, once our students finish the programs, they have job opportunities to try to get placed in good-paying positions. So all of our friends that I know work at various firms. And then we just partner with them.
Hey, come to our capstone. Come and find our project. Check with the students pick, whichever one you think is best fit for you and we can go from there. As you build the partnerships, the more things we get inside of those firms. These are is for me to talk to those executives and say, hey, we have 4 students inside for your company.
Do you want to build an efficient partnership with us to replace more students in these roles?
[00:12:57] Aneta: Yeah, that's awesome. And so in addition to the technical skills that you teach folks, is there anything else in your programs that you teach folks in terms of being prepared for the next step in their career? Especially cause some of them are changing industries.
[00:13:13] Kenneth: Yes, so we do have a career services consultant named 100 Davis of type tool consulting. He has his own big YouTube podcast and channel platform. So he does all the career coaching and stuff like that for our students at the end. So after they get a month, five or six, they'll go to him and then he'll revamp their LinkedIn profile and resumes to make sure they look nice and shiny for the new recruiters.
That's a really big step because if you don't showcase the skillsets you have, it doesn't matter how smart you are. It's hard to get noticed especially in this economy.
[00:13:46] Aneta: That's so true. So you kind of handle everything from A to Z with folks, just making sure they get the skills they need and then helping them find the role and make sure that they're showcasing everything. So do you have one program or do you have multiple programs or services that you offer?
[00:14:03] Kenneth: So we have one big program called the Savvy Career Boost Program. That's the main one. That's a flagship one. That's six months long. Our promise and guarantee to students is they can stick with us until they get whatever angle they have. So it takes them, let's say, six months, twelve months to finish the program because life happens.
Kids get sick, people have accidents, and people lose their jobs, if that's the case you may have to take off like a month or two to get this situated. So our promise to our students currently right now is you have access to me and my team till you reach your end goal. So that's a new job, new salary, new career, you can stay on, still take the videos, still take the classes until you reach that angle, basically.
Then we're building out some more smaller micro courses as well for threat intelligence, then vulnerability management as well.
[00:14:49] Aneta: Oh, that's amazing. And you said you have a team now. So how many people are supporting you build us out your entire company and new courses?
[00:14:58] Kenneth: So I have one business advisor, one business coach. So we got an intern and two technically. And then I have two apprentice instructors as well.
[00:15:11] Aneta: That's a big growth in just two years of business.
[00:15:14] Kenneth: Yes. Initially, it was just me which was very stressful to get everything done. But it's become a lot, I would say simpler, but a lot more manageable with my team.
[00:15:26] Aneta: For sure. And those lean years, or a year, I don't know how long you were just by yourself. It's so hard, when you like, has to do everything and you're new to running a business anyway,
[00:15:37] Kenneth: Yeah. I did it for like, what was it from June to October 2nd, but I'm like, I can't keep doing this. I need help. So I brought out an apprentice to help me out
[00:15:47] Aneta: It's so good. And it makes such a huge difference. What did you notice in terms of what you were able to do for yourself when you could have somebody else that could help?
[00:15:56] Kenneth: The biggest thing is I didn't feel alone. I try to tell people, they don't understand the amount of mental anxiety you have from running your own business. Because this is my baby. I'm not married. I don't have kids yet. So this is the main thing that I'm doing and it means everything to me to make sure this is the stuff that I can help my clients out.
So making sure it's run properly is insanely important to me. I would often type of tell people and they're kind of like, why are you so serious about this? I'm like, this is my thing. And so having people on my staff to understand that thank you. I don't sound crazy anymore towards myself. It's the biggest thing
[00:16:28] Aneta: Yeah. Well, you have such a strong mission and your drive is so personal that of course, it's very important and meaningful. I think there are different types of businesses, but when one is so mission-driven, your heart is in it. It matters so much more. Doesn't it?
[00:16:44] Kenneth: it does.
[00:16:45] Aneta: Yeah. So what are the big visions? What's next? I don't know if you have aspirations if you do five-year plans or 10-year plans, but where would you like to see this going within the next five years?
[00:16:57] Kenneth: I love to get more partnership deals with various companies to help out with the students and give them more value and one of the big things. And this and start to build more partnership deals with various firms as well. They're able to hire more students and get them placed easier and quicker, get them better salaries.
And then eventually probably start doing more, I guess, live in-person training, like at actual physical sites. I know that's kind of gone by the wayside because of COVID. But I'd still like to do it. I think that enhances the experience as well. People get to see my weirdness in person and get to see that type of personality that helped bring them to the table.
[00:17:30] Aneta: That's wonderful. So right now everything's online. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. And then are you mostly domestic or are you expanding internationally as well?
[00:17:41] Kenneth: That's a fun. That's an interesting topic. So we're currently just domestic. Most of my students have been either in the U. S. or Canada. We have parity pricing, so on our site, you have a service that detects where your IP address is from. If you're from, like, India, you'll get like, 60 percent of your courses to match your currency exchange.
Or if you're from like Nigeria, you get 40% off the match exchange and stuff like that. And so we've been trying to expand into that. That's like a really big effort, 'because we get to track the C-R-M stuff for that. Who's going to the site, why do they wanna the site, and how long are they staying?
Which I don't put the time to do right now. I'm doing this part-time. But that's the end goal, to make this like an international thing so people all around the world can get our services.
[00:18:24] Aneta: That's wonderful. Yeah. I figured that there are people who are going to be interested in this type of service and yeah, I wasn't sure how you were able to manage that, but I love the fact that you can adjust for currency and just make sure that it's still affordable for folks.
[00:18:38] Kenneth: Yeah, first. I'm like, they said they couldn't sign up. Well, how much is over there? It's like, oh, 20, 000. I'm like, oh, crap. I'm at the currency change. I forgot about that. So, yeah, that's when I was like, okay, we should have parity pricing for this then. Yeah.
[00:18:50] Aneta: And is your program then can people join at any time or can they just sign up at certain times a year?
[00:18:56] Kenneth: So normally we do roll an onboarding period. So we normally do one at the end of the month and make an end-of-the-month so people can sign up. What I tell people is technically you can sign up whenever you want to whenever you're comfortable but Yesterday's price is not today's price and things normally go up. So if you feel comfortable you have the money for it and you're ready for it sign up for it. The longer will you wait the more offensive you'll get.
Because initially when we were doing this my beta was first like I think 7 or 6.99 And then people were, oh, they're like that's so much money. I'm like, wait a second when I'm doing this for free, like last year you said it was too much time and then, when I raised it to like $79, like oh, $79, it's way too much money.
I'm like, I'm teaching the same stuff I was, I was teaching. I haven't tripped it and scaled it up, but it's still the same core knowledge. And I'm like, so is the timers or the money. Like, which one is it? So we've like quadded our prices since and gone up from there. because as, I've made how to put a better promise, getting better results. I want to scale up and make this even more better efficient for our students. To get more value out of it, the network requires more resources.
[00:20:01] Aneta: Yeah. And the pricing is so hard, isn't it? At first, you don't know how much to charge for your services, but like you said over time you kind of start to feel into it and you want to get the people that are serious too. If something is very inexpensive, you're not necessarily going to get the most serious people interested.
[00:20:18] Kenneth: Yeah. I've had issues with people that have paid me a lot of money and they don't always show up. Sometimes they don't tell me, I'm like, where are you at? What's going on? So that's why I can't do this for free.
[00:20:29] Aneta: No.
[00:20:29] Kenneth: If that happens, I'm going to for free. I'm like, no, I can't do this.
[00:20:32] Aneta: Do you have another job? Do you have a full-time job? Wow. So this is something that you're doing on the side,
[00:20:40] Kenneth: Yes.
[00:20:41] Aneta: But not just on the side because this is so important to you. So interesting. It's not like a 10-hour-a-week side hustle.
[00:20:50] Kenneth: No, it requires a little bit more time than that. gotten easier as my staff has gotten better at doing their roles. As I've taught them they've got more experience with it, but it still does require a decent amount of time to make sure this is operating as it should. But again, I love doing this.
This is why I do it. I get to give my students cool opportunities that they normally couldn't get otherwise, which means they getting everything towards me. That's why I've been enjoying it so much.
[00:21:14] Aneta: And if folks want to work with you, what is the best way that they can learn more about your courses, and your services? Do you offer a consultation? What would be the process for folks to engage?
[00:21:25] Kenneth: So if you want to, I guess, connect with me and any one of my staff, I would say go to LinkedIn or a site. So the site is on our LinkedIn page Ellington Cyber Academy, or it's on my direct profile, kind of Ellington. My picture is like six years old. It's like a high-top fade, but obviously, I don't have that much hair anymore.
But it's still me as look six years younger. But click on my profile, and click on the site link. There will be a link to book a call with us. The call is free 30 minutes, basically just every call to see what your issues are, and see how we're able to help you out. And we can go from there.
[00:21:56] Aneta: That's wonderful. Okay. We'll include those links for sure in the show notes. And I ask a question of everyone, Kenneth, is what does it mean to you to live the of your life?
[00:22:06] Kenneth: For me, that means trying to enjoy life as much as I can. And helping people as I can along the way. So I have a lot of interest. It isn't just cyber security, it looks like that. So I do boxing, kickboxing, and my spare time as well. That's been like a really big joy to me.
Getting hit in the face isn't fun. I would say I can enjoy it. I don't get excited about it. But it's like a good way to stay in shape and to condition your body and mind and have like really good body control. A lot of people I met there, I guess I had, like, no more pressure because I watch a lot of anime.
They'd be insane. It's like really violent people, but they're cool. Like mentally and physically in control of themselves and their emotions, which I think is like really awesome. And I'm starting to see why they're doing that because you can like hurt somebody if you wanted to with these skill sets.
So you have to be kind of mentally sane for lack of a better term. I think is awesome. I also like cooking as well. That's a way for me to relax. So I have a lot of different interests. I like to try to explore as much as I can during my free time
[00:23:09] Aneta: That's so good. Do you feel like boxing helps you with courage? Does it help you overcome fears because someone could hit you in the face when you're in there?
[00:23:19] Kenneth: Yeah, I would say so. It's given me a lot of confidence in my personal life as well but I find people that are bigger than me a lot of times and a lot more skilled than me. So just being able to handle myself has been like a really big boon for me, I would say, you misunderstand that, hey, I can do all these.
I can do anything that I want to. It's just, do I want to do it? Is it worth my time? If decide it's worth my time, then I'll go ahead and do it. It's telling them how I've gotten to work on my point at this point in my life.
[00:23:46] Aneta: Well, Kenneth your story is so inspiring. Congratulations for what you've been able to build at such a young age and for what you've been able to achieve, but also for the legacy that you're leaving behind by lifting others as you continue to climb up in your journey. So I enjoyed our conversation today and just wish you continued success. appreciate it, Aneta. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.