In the middle of 2025, facing a career at a standstill and doors closed on all sides, I reached a place of despair and decided to reinvent myself and train as a cybersecurity professional. Over the following months, I completed two qualifications and was well into a third before a family health crisis and an honest conversation with a career counsellor brought me back to my senses.

This essay is my attempt to make sense of that detour. It is not a technical guide, though it contains practical advice. It is an honest account of what motivated a strategy consultant to pivot towards cybersecurity, why that pivot was ultimately misguided, and what I learned along the way that has genuinely stayed with me.

The 10 lessons I describe cover the cybersecurity threat landscape, human vulnerability, online privacy, backups, passwords, safe browsing, external standards, phishing, home network security and the growing role of AI. They are written for anyone who wants to adopt a cybersecurity mindset and implement some practical basics.

Over dinner with some young friends, the conversation turned to a question that has been nagging at me: who will mentor the next generation of professionals if their managers are all using AIs to do the work that junior staff once did?

This essay reflects on the mentors who shaped my career and the younger people I’ve had the privilege of mentoring in return. It explores the types of professional mentorship I received and the contexts where this took place. I also highlight why the consulting model that underpinned my career for decades depends on a two-way exchange between humans – something that AI cannot replicate.

I don’t have answers, but I’m convinced this is one of the more significant and underappreciated consequences of AI in the workplace. I believe it will affect all of us

I can’t stand AI writing anymore. I immediately skip over any blog post, LinkedIn post or Substack articles that appears to be written or illustrated by AI. My resolve is much greater if the post shouts, “Look at me. See how clever, wise, successful or virtuous I am.” I quickly skip past these. My strict reading filters no doubt produce false positives, but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.

This type of AI writing is easy to recognise. There are so many clues. Once it’s seen, it can’t be unseen.

My view is that if I want to read deeply human insights, then I’m going to prioritise those written by humans without the assistance of AI. I’m going to accept the human flaws, knowing that I’ve read something entirely human-made. But if I’m after technical or academic knowledge, then I’ll use AI myself to extract and package that knowledge first-hand. This polarised approach works well for me.

It is a chilly but rare clear day in Scotland as I sit down to write this reflection at one of my favourite cafés in Paisley. I’m entering my fourth year in the UK after emigrating from South Africa. I continue to make steady but slow progress in overcoming various challenges.

There is value in writing and sharing after-action reviews. Writing these reflections (and journaling most days) helps me to orient myself and reflect on how I must do things differently in the future. They might even help others to anticipate and avoid my mistakes.

While I had no big breakthroughs this year, I laid a good foundation for 2025.

This article describes the various challenges I overcame during my first, second and third years of living in Scotland after emigrating from South Africa in 2021.

After three years of making a concerted effort to integrate into Scottish culture and contribute to the country, I’m starting to feel increasingly at home.

This article will help people who have recently moved countries to gain perspective on how long it takes to integrate and the likely challenges they will encounter. People tend to feel reassured when they realise they’re on a journey and how others have also struggled. 

This article describes my system for managing tasks and information. This system evolved over the past two and a half decades as I’ve consumed books, podcasts and blog posts on productivity, task management and personal knowledge management.

This system has enabled me to stay relatively sane as I’ve managed up to 20 simultaneous consulting projects across multiple continents.

It is a snowy day in Scotland as I write the first paragraphs of this reflection in December 2023. I’m entering my third year in the UK after emigrating from South Africa. I have continued to make steady progress on several fronts amidst a host of challenges.

I believe in the value of writing and sharing after-action reviews. You can read my previous end-of-year reflections from previous years which show how my career has evolved. Writing my reflections (and journaling daily) helps me to orient myself and reflect on how I must do things differently in the future. My reflections might even help others to learn from my experiences and avoid my mistakes.

This debate has recently arisen several times in conversations with friends following my most recent article on artificial intelligence (AI).

I do not believe that AIs can produce art. This assertion applies to all fields of art such as music, fiction, poetry, drawings and sculpture. I struggle to imagine over 180,000 people attending a 10-week exhibition of the art-like outputs of an AI, whereas they happily did that for a recent Banksy exhibition in Glasgow.

An AI’s algorithmic outputs might produce things that look or sound very good, perhaps even be awe-inspiring or life-changing, but this is not art.

My home is now in Scotland. I emigrated from South Africa about two years ago.

The move has been predictably difficult. Nevertheless, we are 100% satisfied with our decision to move here. We have been proactively integrating into our new home country – forming relationships, embracing the culture, and enjoying the safe and abundant wilderness. We have hope for the future.

Someone recently asked me for advice on moving countries. This article highlights the three challenges we discussed.

Although I anticipated these challenges, I was unaware of how much work they would require to overcome. It would have helped if someone had clearly explained this to me. It would have given me more perspective. I’ve therefore written this article to help anyone thinking of moving to a new country in their middle age.

The year is coming to an end as I write this reflection in early December 2022. It has been a year of adaptation as I worked hard to gain traction in Scotland after moving here from South Africa in 2021. I have learned many things in a short period, as one might expect when moving countries.

This year has been as turbulent as the previous and I have spent too much time following global geopolitics. I am grateful to write this reflection from within an open and healthy democracy.

There is value in sharing after-action reviews. These reviews help me to orient and reflect on how I must do things differently in the future. Although they are reflections on my own journey, you might find something useful in them.

I am satisfied with my move to Scotland. I made the right decision in coming here.