Welcome to the The VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory, one story at a time. Hello, and thank you for joining us as we explore the secure purpose, cybersecurity, customer focus, and the purpose of protection. In today's world, security is the ultimate service. Based out of Miramichi, Canada, New Brunswick, Adaptive Office Solutions has been providing customized cybersecurity solutions for businesses since the spring of 2010. The core mission is to provide a comprehensive, multi-layered cybersecurity infrastructure so clients can run healthy, growing, and successful businesses. Clients range from large construction and manufacturing firms to small and medium businesses. Owner and founder Brent Gallant has been active in the IT industry for over 25 years. He specializes in helping businesses navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape, empowering them with scalable, secure solutions. His journey has been one of transformation, not just professionally, but personally. After years of focusing solely on his business, he realized he needed to prioritize his health and well-being. This led to a 100-pound weight loss and a shift in how he leads and inspires others. I met Brett in Dan Martell's Elite Mastermind Group. This group is full of hardworking leaders inspired by purpose. The VG Code Podcast has introduced me to many of these business owners, getting to know them on a deeper personal level. I'm excited and honored for the opportunity to do it again. Brett, Hey, it's great to be here, Joe. Thank you for that warm introduction. You've really set the stage and standards high, but I'm so happy to be here with your audience to share what Well, yeah, well, we're honored to have you and I'm ready to jump right in. I always like to start right at the beginning, the foundation and then the breakthrough, you know, the evolution of security first, right? You've been in IT industry for over 25 years. When you founded Adaptive Office Solutions in 2010, the security landscape was dramatically different. What was the pivotal change or event in the industry that made you shift your entire approach to center on security first, starting with comprehensive multi-layer technology assessment? I've been in, that's a great question. I've been in this industry for some time, going back to 1996 when I started with a construction fabrication company. What really set the tone a number of years ago is when I realized that things have changed, cyber attacks were way up and I changed my mindset. It was no longer a matter of if, but it was a matter of when that somebody was going to have an unfortunate event and all around me, I was seeing former clients and unfortunately a few clients that had a cyber event. And even in the news, it was bad a few years ago, but look at it today. So I realized, as I said, that things have changed. Well, things needed to change on my approach. I could no longer pretend that a backup and the antivirus was enough. And that's my mission to make sure that people understand that antivirus and backup is no longer acceptable. It's just a dream. And we can keep our heads stuck in the ground like an ostrich and pretend that the cyber threats aren't real and think that it will never happen to me. But unfortunately it does. That day comes and I've seen it happen, unfortunately, again and again, and even recently, two or three times in the last two months. Devastating. So I knew I And I can attest that we've got hardened cybersecurity. As you can imagine, an accounting firm needs to have that additional layer of security with the sensitive information we carry. But, you know, it's not always easy to convince clients that they need more. A lot of clients, even clients of mine, they think that the antiviruses are still there. the best you can do or the minimum, it's really not the minimum anymore. What's the biggest challenge in convincing clients, especially large manufacturing or construction firms, to invest in proactive security rather So the biggest thing, it's a challenge. It all depends on some of the reality, as I'm sure you're aware, sometimes it's also looking at your technology. If you see it as an investment and as a tool for growth, more times people are going to be accepting of that. Now, unfortunately, sometimes people gravitate towards facing the truth about their cybersecurity after they have an event. So what we do typically is we start having just a simple conversation like you and I are having, Joe, right now, and saying, here's what we found. And I like to use stories. People can relate to stories. They can relate to what happened to their neighbor or someone in their industry. And it's really unfortunate. I have a lot of stories. They can get into that. Oftentimes what we do though is have a... discussion and offer them the opportunity to have a cybersecurity risk health check on their business. And what we pivoted to now to make it an entry level to have more people accept it because sometimes people are afraid is we've developed a high level cybersecurity health check that we can do within one hour of meeting with the business owner. And then we do our work in the back end and within seven days, the organization can have an actual item with three steps. So we're having some good traction with that new approach so that people can really have a palatable approach to taking at least a dive, putting their foot in the water, if you will. When we first get in the pool, we put our foot in a little bit because we don't want to get too wet So is that, well, was that something that I've read on that, the mighty posting app? Was that the, uh, can you tell our, our, our listeners a little bit more about that? Yes, essentially what it is, we sit down with the CEO or the finance person and ask a series of questions, some questions that hopefully you've thought of. And if you don't know the answer, we're gonna mark them at risk. We're gonna ask, do you have a cyber, are you doing cybersecurity awareness training? Are you aware if your backups are in place for your Office 365? There's so many people that don't have that. Are you monitoring for suspicious logins from outside of the country? Do you have a policy in place? Do you have a recovery plan? When's the last time you tested your backups? When's the last time you had a strategic business review on IT? And asking these series of questions among many others allows us to take some information based on standards. We're basing on CSE standards, Canadian security, but it borrows a lot from the United States as well. And we're taking that, factoring all that into what the standards are and giving you a risk report, a scorecard, On top of that, a executive three priorities that your business should take to take action, regardless if you do it with our firm or not. Well, that's very eye-opener. Yeah, and we'll get into a little bit more of how our clients or our audience can reach out and discuss some of those options with you. But what you just went through kind of really speaks to that customer-centric conviction that you guys have. You operate this distinct customer-centric approach, making the client the focal point of every decision. In the IT world, this can be hard when most secure solutions might not be the most convenient or inexpensive one. Can you share a challenging time, perhaps a disagreement with a client or a difficult decision where you had to stick to your purpose and prioritize the customer's long-term I have a short one that I want to dig into a little bit longer one for that question. So the first time was when we put in a multi-layered approach to cyber for pharmacies. We also serve pharmacies. We have a tool that prevents updates from being applied. And at first, this is very inconvenient. But with training and awareness that if the staff lets us know, management knows that the vendor is going to install their software, we work with that. But at first, it was very annoying for the client because they had scheduled something to be installed and it was inconvenient for them for the 15, 20 minutes till we unlocked it. However, the thing, what I told them is, had that been a nefarious actor, this is exactly the tool why you want it. In one case, in a major event a year and a half ago, this type of technology was what avoided many businesses from being brought down because of a cyber attack. Now, the longer answer to that question, before we started, I told you how much I enjoyed going to the gym. And I was in the gym, the very same gym that's near my office, and I received an email from a client. It said, I need to talk to you. So I picked up the phone, I called them from the gym. They had unfortunately given the hackers the keys to the kingdom. They lost a significant amount of money. And I'm anonymizing this$200,000 gone. And Joe, it was more than that, okay? Of They had the bank financial institution on the line. The financial person that was pretending to be, was the hacker, had It very convincingly convinced the finance person that they had the president on the other line. They had all the details. They were speaking all the right language. They had everything. It was almost like they knew everything about the business. What I believe had happened, they were in the email for about two months, and then they took action. So they enabled the finance person to give the key fob for the bank. They already had the password for the bank. So this happened, over $200,000 gone. And I had to make a difficult decision after we cleaned it up. I had offered and then highly recommended that they take action on their cybersecurity. I told them we could get put in place of full-fledged cybersecurity risk assessment. And at the time there was government funding to do it. They declined it. They didn't want to manage the risk. So I, a recovering people pleaser, had to do what was best for my business. And I said, look, effective the end of the month, while we really appreciate working with you, And we value the relationship we built. I was doing their work for over 15 years, Joe. I had to let them go. I said, you're more than welcome to reach out if you ever have a question, a tech question, you want to talk, or if you want to revisit looking at cyber, happy to have that discussion. But I had to do what was right for my organization and Yeah. That's, that's tough. You know, we deal with that in our industry too, where you make these recommendations and the recommendations aren't respected, sometimes the client thinks they know more and unfortunate things happen Unfortunately, respectfully, they were wrong. Because a month and a half later, their new IT provider called They had an incident again. Yeah. And that's, you know, especially on your end, you know, you, you got to look out for liability. Like, you know, you're, you're making your, your, your, you serve a purpose of helping clients maintain the highest level of security when they're not taking your advice, they're putting themselves at risk and your reputation and, and your company at risk. So it sounds like you made the right move. You know, there's always a lesson to be learned in these difficult moments. You know, what was the breakthrough lesson from It was a very important lesson because I learned as much as I'm a people pleaser, I had the breakthrough lesson, I had to, I say this a lot in my social, the biggest yes you can say is what you say no to. So I started saying no more, especially since then. I start keeping promises to myself and to my business, which was better for the business and for my team. So And we've heard that on previous guest appearances that the power of no will set you free. Learning how to say no. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are yes people. They want to help because you're in the business of finding problem solving and finding solutions and helping people. We sometimes don't know how to say no. But once we figure, once we've been burned enough, hopefully we've learned that. Otherwise, we won't have a business or a story to tell. But once we learn how to say no, it really is, it'll set you free. It really will. That's awesome. Well, you know, it's unfortunate that that happened, but you know, the lesson was learned and hopefully they've learned their And so- I love those people. They're great people. Like just to, you And you're very active outside of the business as well. Leadership and community purpose is something that you take very serious. It extends far beyond your business. You're heavily involved in your church, the Rotary Club, and you founded the BPSA Scouting. How does your dedication to youth development, leadership, and community service inform or inspire your That's a great question. I've actually been doing a lot of reflection on that lately. In scouting, we say train them, trust them, let them lead. I really embody that now, especially even more so in the last year with my team. Train your team, you trust them and let them lead, let them fail, let them thrive and it's really in my own way, allowed me to buy back my time. And becoming more, embracing the role of being the visionary leader and having the opportunity to have a great conversation with you, where the old version of me even a few years ago, and say, oh, I can't believe you're doing this. I'd be worried about my cell phone going off right now, trying to check an email and be the rescuer. So you train them, trust them, let them lead in. And I also get a lot of energy from being involved. Even this weekend, my daughter and my son and I, we volunteered at a church supper. And it was really great to see my daughter grow. She was very shy at first, and she started working with me and seeing her gain her confidence. It was incredible. That's awesome. I can relate. I just got back from a men's retreat. It was at a... far away from technology, lake, wilderness, you know, just, you know, men exploring their masculinity and just being vulnerable and, and, you know, giving over, you know, those, those burdens to God and, and, and finding in their identity and purpose. It was very transformative. I mean, I think just anytime you can get outdoors, regardless of your, of your faith, it's just something soothing. And, and there's a, there's a medication aspect of, of being outside and in nature. So, um, I can relate to that. Yeah. And, and, you know, really, you know, I I'm curious, uh, what's one piece of advice you'd give to a busy entrepreneur who wants to weave their personal passions and faith into their professional purpose, but they're struggling The biggest thing I would say, I want you to think of an airplane. When you're on the plane, what's the first thing they say? They say, put your oxygen mask on first. And entrepreneurs, we're on an island sometimes, and we're on our own, and we feel that we got the burden of the world. But we forget to treat ourselves like our best clients. So you need to prioritize yourself. put that mask on and you'll find like what I have had, especially for me in the last two years, especially because I really have embraced it more so in the last two years, putting my mask on first, you will find that everything else becomes easier, but you have to give yourself permission to prioritize yourself. You need to look at yourself like your best client. And if somebody's calling in and asking for you, you just have to say, I'm in a meeting for the next hour, next two hours. People can wait. Or somebody else on your team, you can empower them to step up and lead. But you, every, you, you can take an hour, you can take two hours. And what I've said before to some people in my own individual mastermind, 20 minutes, sometimes you can just take 20 minutes and go for a walk. Yeah. It's such good advice. You can't help anybody. And quite honestly, you can't help anybody if you can't help yourself. And honestly, what kind of credibility do you have if your world's burning on fire and you're in the business of helping other people? It's not a good look, right? No. And it's hard when you're in the weeds. But once you start to embrace it, Yeah, yeah, and you need those moments of reflection away from the matrix, away from the chaos. Life is a lot more simple than we make it. We overcomplicate it. Things are a lot more simple, but it's hard to see that when you're in the forest. You can't see the forest when you're in the trees. So stepping away and just really focusing on what's actually important, your health, family, your diet. Those things are really important. If you're not taking care of those things, you're gonna burn out. Things are gonna fall apart. And it's hard for people to, it's hard to lead people who don't wanna follow you because they looking at like your habits and the way you conduct yourself. you don't come off very credible and not somebody that is not very inspiring. So that's really good advice. As we look to the future, you've been successfully married for over 15 years. You have five children, as we discussed, all while running a dynamic business. What's the biggest personal or professional challenge you are focused on overcoming right now? Is it staying ahead of ransomware, scaling your service model, or something else I would say right now, the three-month vision right now is made a decision. So you're familiar with my story. Since October 2023, I've released 120 pounds. And I don't say lost because when you release, it's gone forever. So I've been at this comfortable place where I haven't broken through the next level. I actually, as you mentioned, I was also in Dan Martel's world. I went to the recent event in Kelowna and I had a DEXA scan done and I found out that my body fat was 32%. So right now I'm sharing on my personal Instagram, my journey, I'm calling it the Road to 200. Today I weigh 227.2. By December 31st, 200 pounds. I'm And as a byproduct of that, all the other goals that I have set will just become even sweeter and better in my own approach to ransomware and cybersecurity, how we're embracing that, how I'm doing a speaking engagement in November in Northern Canada. everything will become better as I continue to prioritize self-care and really embracing the 10X version of me. So that's what I'm excited about That's amazing. What a great story. And you're not done. You know, you're looking at around what, two pounds a week you're gearing towards over the next quarter. And I'm rooting for you. That's the amount of more energy you'll have. It's sometimes, you know, people don't prioritize, you know, health and wellness. They think they don't have enough time. or they think they're gonna be too tired. Yeah, some days you're gonna get worn out, but for the most part, I have more energy because I'm expending that energy. You make energy, what Dan Martell says, and you just have to make the decision to prioritize yourself. And honestly, for myself, and I can speak for myself, I can't speak for anybody else, Stop lying to yourself. That's what I said to me. I have this incredible story of 120 pounds release. December 31st, I'm going to be the person, 150, who will even show up even better for my wife, my children, my community, my clients, my That's what life's Now on the business end, what does the next major breakthrough look like for adaptive office solutions? What's the goal for the security and success of your clients? So we're doubling down on educating our clients, making sure that they're following what we've given them, embracing the technology. We're starting to embrace more of AI, giving them another offering where using AI as a thought leader. The engagement I'm doing in Northern Canada is actually going to be on that. I strongly believe that using some people think that they're not using AI, but what I've been discovering and what businesses are very surprised to find out the owners that they have an AI policy. their team is using it and they're not even aware of it. So educating our clients and the greater world, but using AI securely, but using it as a thought partner, because I believe AI is the best, one of the biggest tools out there that we can use, but you have to use it smart. What you put in is very vital. If you're putting garbage Completely agree. We are all forced to, you know, look at ourselves in the mirror and say, where are we going to be? You know, we're, you know, Vichy's very future focused, you know, are we going to survive, you know, AI and doing nothing about it. It only ensures your demise. So there is a way, there are experts out there. I would definitely try to understand it at first and see where it can fit in for your businesses. Um, Brett, thank you so much, uh, for, for answering our questions, um, and sharing a part of, uh, your personal life. Um, you know, you started when, you know, people thought that just these antiviruses were all they needed. And we know that that's not true anymore. So if you're, if you're running your, your enterprise on just uh, antivirus, you are running a really big risk. And, and I hope that our audience was able to take away from that client centric approach that you have, um, really not just providing a service or product to just anybody, but know your clients. How does it impact them? Know the ins and outs, know their decision-making behaviors. Every client's different. And make sure that you're taking care of yourself. You gotta take time for yourself. You gotta reboot. You gotta refresh and come back. Because you're setting the example, not only for the people that you're leading, at work, but also the people at home, family and friends. I have two offers for your audience too. One's an invitation. Yes, absolutely. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I have a newsletter that I publish frequently called the Weekly Reset. It's all about that mindset of having that reset for ourselves. So I get a lot of energy by doing that. But on the cybersecurity, if you DM me 15 ways, either through LinkedIn or Instagram, I will send you a two-page document with 15 ways of things and items that you need to be thinking about to manage cybersecurity in your organization, And then, so, if you go to your website, which is adaptiveoffice.ca, adaptiveoffice.ca, there are links on that website, correct, Brett? At the bottom, there's some social media links. If you click on the LinkedIn, link, that'll bring you to your LinkedIn page and you can access the That would bring you to the company, but you can find me through there. But I know in the show notes, there'll be a Yep. Yep. And if you want to follow Brett, the newsletter, or you want to follow his personal journey, which is a very inspiring one, you can find Brett on Instagram at Brett underscore Gallant. And then on Facebook, it's at Brett.Gallant.9. So you'll see all of those links in the show notes. Brett, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on and taking the time for us and sharing cybersecurity and It was a great pleasure. Thank you. And everyone, if there's so many gold nuggets in this discussion Joe and I had, please think of one or two people that you know to share. You could really help somebody just on my personal journey about prioritizing yourself. That Absolutely. Like, share, favorite, all the things. Brett, thank you so much. I look forward to catching up with you soon. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels