Boyd Clewis

I taught at TCU's Neely School of Business today and a former student stopped me after class.

What he told me reminded me exactly why I keep coming back.

Two years ago he was running a dog walking business with no traction. I told him he was sitting in one of the most affluent zip codes in Texas and to stop waiting for clients to find him. Go knock on doors. Introduce yourself. Those people have money and will gladly pay for a service they trust.

He did it. Made money. And that one move gave him the confidence to launch other offers. Today he is doing well and he is still a full time student.

Here is what I shared with the whole class today:

#1 rejection is just math. There is always a percentage of people who will say yes and your only job is to find them.

#2 Sell the service before you build it. If you can sell face-to-face with no safety net, you can sell anything.

That student didn't need a better app or a bigger following. He needed permission to go try.

Special thank you to Dr. Cal Quigley for the invite. It is always a pleasure.

TCU Neely School of Business, thank you for continuing to open this door. I'll keep showing up as long as you'll have me.

I didn’t pay for my CISSP, CCSK, or CISA certification.
In fact, most of my IT certifications didn’t come out of my pocket.

Here’s the truth 👇🏼
If you position certifications as an investment for the company, they’ll often fund them for you — and in some cases, even pay you while you get certified.

I’ve used this approach for years to get certifications without draining my own bank account.

Want my 4-step strategy for getting free certifications?

Comment FREE and I’ll send it to you.

⏰ Your 2-minute decision could change everything.

Every day you stay stuck in the wrong part of your career funnel is costing you money.

I've seen IT professionals spend YEARS on the wrong solutions:
- Chasing certifications when they have a positioning problem
- Fixing their resume when they have a communication issue
- Applying to more jobs when they have a visibility problem

It's like trying to cure a headache with cough medicine.

Wrong diagnosis = wrong treatment = same problems.

The JAF Career Diagnostic Quiz eliminates the guesswork.

Here's what happens after you take it:
✅ You'll know exactly where you're stuck
✅ You'll get a personalized action plan
✅ You'll stop wasting time on tactics that don't apply
✅ You'll have a clear roadmap to your next breakthrough

The quiz is free.

Takes 2 minutes.

Could change everything.

Because you can't fix what you can't see.

And once you see it clearly, the solution becomes obvious.

Check it out here: 👉 https://www.cyberherotraining.com/jafquiz

🎓 Why I tell IT professionals to STOP chasing certifications...

Here's what happened when I had my wall of certifications:

𝗠𝘆 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹𝘀:
- CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+
- CISSP (the "golden ticket")
- Microsoft certifications
- 8+ total certifications

𝗠𝘆 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘆: Still $60K

𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲, 𝗺𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝟯 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 $𝟭𝟮𝟬𝗞.

The difference wasn't knowledge.

It was positioning.

According to industry analysis, cybersecurity job postings have grown 350% over the past decade, yet qualified professionals still struggle to break into high-paying roles.

Here's why:

𝗖𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

When 50,000 people have the same CISSP, companies can pay commodity prices.

But when you specialize in a specific high-impact framework that few understand, you command premium pricing.

That's exactly what happened with my payment security specialization:
✅ Companies legally required to have this expertise
✅ Massive financial consequences for non-compliance
✅ Minimal competition (most IT pros don't even know it exists)
✅ Result: $60K → $217K salary transformation

With 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions globally, the opportunity isn't in having more credentials than the next person.

It's in solving problems that few others can solve.

Stop collecting certifications that no one looks at.

Start mastering frameworks that companies desperately need.

Applying to endless jobs without success is like trying to fix a car without knowing what's broken.

You might get lucky, but you'll probably waste a lot of time and money first.

Over the past week, I've shown you the 4 places IT professionals get stuck:

🔸 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲: You're invisible to the right people
🔸 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲: Recruiters call but don't send you to interviews
🔸 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲: You get interviews but no offers
🔸 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲: You get offers but they're lowball

Each bottleneck has a completely different solution.

But most people never figure out where they're actually stuck.

They just keep trying random tactics, hoping something will work.

More certifications.

Better resume.

More applications.

That's why I created the JAF Career Diagnostic Quiz.

In 2 minutes, it pinpoints your exact bottleneck and gives you the specific action plan to break through it.

No more guessing.

No more wasted effort on wrong solutions.

This is the same framework that helped Wilder go from police officer to $270K in cybersecurity.

Ready to get unstuck? ➡️ https://www.cyberherotraining.com/jafquiz

When’s the last time you saw an IT professional take a public speaking class?

Exactly. Crickets.

Yet the most underrated skill that added hundreds of thousands of dollars to my IT career wasn’t another certification. It was public speaking.

I see way too many IT pros who are brilliant with technology but uncomfortable speaking in front of others. That silence is holding back your career.

I know, because that was me.

When I was a Senior Architect at American Airlines, I saw a huge opportunity to improve the PCI program — but I wasn’t comfortable presenting. Instead of staying quiet, I enrolled in a program called Presentation Advantage.

I spent 5 days learning how to present. Then I immediately volunteered to put on PCI DSS compliance workshops for employees around the world — 2 sessions a day, 4 days straight.

(I even got the opportunity to present in Rome, Italy)

The result? A better-informed team and a 3-month reduction in the PCI assessment timeline because everyone was finally on the same page.

And here’s the thing: that decision to step out of the shadows and lead didn’t just help the company — it transformed my career. It’s still a service I provide to clients to this day.

So if you’re in IT and you think public speaking isn’t for you…
It might just be the skill that changes everything.

So let me ask you… what’s the most underrated skill in IT that’s had the biggest impact on your career?