How A Big ‘Life-Hack’ Led me to Creating My Own Intelligence Network

What are you willing to give up in order to get what you want?
A mentor of mine left me with that not too long ago — and the sink-in of just how powerful or just how much action had already been in motion of that very new mantra didn’t manifest until recently.

People often talk about serving or having served [their country]. It’s understood that being in service, in any capacity, requires some sort of common day [civilian] lifestyle change or training in order to be in that role. Something that I always wanted was to serve. I longed to serve my country in a very specific way: as an intelligence operative, a foreign service officer, a lobbyists exercising law for an effort, or as an elected public service official.

Wide cultural sets were always easily observed and learned and I wanted to see more of the world. In all this time having wanted these things and applying for them, I found tremendous red tape, poor timing, and even impossibility — a word not in my vocabulary or mindset. However, what did start getting lost in my vocabulary was the common point linking my “dream jobs” and what turns out to be one of my greatest gifts: identifying big messages/trends/themes across large diverse sets, standing for them on a larger scale when directly involved, then creating the campaigns, modalities, or channels to getting done what needs to be done, done (the big needs communicated and practiced).

What I saw was my life as a graph where time was the x-axis, and experiences the y. The problem was, that this wasn’t a very intelligent graph. It told of a standard life that did not highlight the outliers of extraordinary. The obvious render looked something a lot like time going by and experiences at an all time high. So, then that must =a good life, right? Well, it was a good life, and the experiences were rich and time yes — ha time — in fact was going by. By something radical that I never accounted for was purpose or intent behind those outliers — or how much money it would take to elevate them. Where was that on the life graph? What was the blockage that was holding me back to satiating those deep calls to service? What I started seeing recently was that it was binary: either extreme individual action or very great mass collaboration/participation.

The time in between that experience column, I got to do, see, and challenge some unparalleled things that I never spent the time connecting the dots at the time, but now frame the baseboards for some of the very fundamentals and principles that I will be laying out to help shape civilian digital hygiene and it’s involvement in national security infrastructure.

So, I traded in being nominal for being accountable. The risks that I had taken, the transformation I was going through, or the education that I was giving myself were all things that I had not fully acknowledged before. I know I was different, but I didn’t know how. This difference sometimes appeared as difficulty, but most of the time it was a heightening of skills or new interests leading me to gaining exposure to different things around the world.

All of the risk, the stripping away and application was all in effort to serve and of service for my country. In exchange however, or at least at first glance of how I had been looking at it — was that I was in a room full of uniformed service men and women fighting for air time to be noticed in hopes that my efforts to find them would be the rabbit in the hat trick to getting hired by a government agency. But slowly along the way and as you’ll see as you read on, that what I gave up in order to get what I wanted truly was letting go of things and places and lifestyle that didn’t serve me in order to go back to the things that always drove me so that I could get to making change.

To many on the outside with whom I started speaking and engaging truly looked at me and how I was getting to my deductions as a black box. And I do not argue with them on that - because everything that I say, think about, observe, take in etc. gets processed and vetted against/across so many difference points of knowledge and experience. And that going through each experience, each time, that allowed me to view something in a particular way is simply just too exhausting versus trusting it. So much to say that this story has been writing itself for close to a decade now, and it’s meaningful action is in the last year of my life. But, getting that answer down to one sentence took a long and hard road — one that most people wouldn’t think to take needless to say, or share.

People would ask for credentials, metrics, or markers so they knew that I meant business. And I had markers I just couldn’t tell them about the most vital ones — that: I ate that day and I had a safe place to sleep that night. The funny thing about really having nothing is that making nothing from something is really easy and making something from nothing is really hard. It’s not the “finding the something” — it’s about timing, being understood, and doing what you say effectively — then getting paid to do it all or having the resources in order to achieve it. That’s where we start seeing failure and circumstance happen around us.

When wanting to make changes that effect federal culture, I thought, why not go directly to the guys in charge that are public ally demanding the changes. I had a strategy to the problems they wanted resolve for, and I had the action plan that needed a vessel to fund it and get to implanting. That’s when I started calling my federal leaders.

I have always been a strategist and ambassador to the things that I care about, starting most noticeably at sixteen as one of the founding members and business captain of my high school’s competitive Robotics team.

And after as much risk and rejection lived and lived on in getting to the place where I can now discuss what I’d been up to. It is an unbelievable journey that quite frankly is just at it’s beginning. But, just how does this tie into me trying to even inch my way into updating the massive and complex infrastructure and system of National Security protocol? It’s starts by understanding my core values.

Cultural norms, Technology procurement and Intelligence. We need to see and know that until ethics are set, the public will continue to believe that that encryption is the only answer and the government will be wanting to continue inching into the technology that is getting ciphered. We will be forced into a finger pointing economy trying to find blame and cause when we should be focusing on laying ground work for acceptable behavior. We need our leaders to continue protecting us. Yes staying ahead of the curve is still vital to the industrialism and capitalism that drives our economy, but what cannot be is a time where accountability is lost or undefined in how society progresses.

We live in a time of tremendous services, progress, and interface. We live freely and have these systems because of innovation and change and political support of those changes. Arguably, we are in a time now where bigger interfaces are updating old tiers of infrastructure and ways of doing what are regarded as “norms.”

Something that I was starting to see happen around me in my work environments was that I couldn’t freely be good at what I was really good at doing — even when it meant contributing unconditionally to strengthening the organization’s mission — due to egos of leaders, hierarchy, and internal politics. How does this tie into innovation in America, the DOD, and National Security?

So there I was, in NYC, and for months I was quietly inching my way back into the realms that got me excited and started: high technology, cryptology, data, intelligence, and hacking. At the time I started feeling how immiscible my boss and I had come. So as he was championing a team wide “From Purpose to Impact” exercise to come together and present plans around our passions and plans I patiently went second to last even tried to re-purpose myself in my last job to working cross-departmentally between the CMO, CTO, and Sales and Ecommerce Director to bring in big initiatives to better customer loyalty and retention. Recovering from the PTSD experienced after leaving a major corporate organization and facing how expensive life in NYC was going to be. I panicked. The job search started long before my dismissal, however,

It wasn’t novel to start using the years of big and small data that they company was sitting on, but there was a trust issue, an ego dominance that prevented a potentially company saving initiative from taking off. I found myself shut out, then fired- professionally silenced. I saw my relationship going through something similar, silencing me from who I am and what I could contribute at large while the others gained. And I had enough.

Something about understanding myself and my mind and how I navigate the world was in starting to see areas where others acted in ego positive ways which denigrated or took away from the collaborative positive where true conversation and listening — action — could occur.

Many of you within my network and beyond have seen a wide wide wide spectrum of posts specific to high technologies, national security, design, high culture, and cyber & space environments. But something that you all don’t know if how I got to what how and why I was thinking about these things and when I activated action for impact.

Part of this entire shift to self was breaking a lot of things, preconditions, comforts, ease, and much more in between. Because something was happening in every environment in my adult life that was displeasing and detrimental: I was being misunderstood, misinterpreted and taken advantage of for who I am, what I brought to the table, and what I’m capable of.

So I did something crazy over the last year. I went broke, became homeless, severely unemployed, and so entirely full of self and worth that capabilities far beyond my wildest understanding of myself prevailed and revealed themselves.

This really is a true underdog story that’s only filled with bravery and confidence.

Most things (relating to navigating within systems and bureaucratic hierarchy) for me have never been easy. Traditional testing, curriculum, communication styles, child-parent understanding, academic measures of success, or even competition. I was always much different than my peers and never succumbed to fad in order to match or meet them which would always have been less than half way. This resulted in learning compassion early on (and there is more to say on this subject) and always being myself. I’m odd and definitely eccentric. I pick up on things rather quickly and I assess situations (as much as I can pick up in the sensitivities/queues) as a high resumption snap shot would — where every granular element is observed and taken in in one quick “click”. Except for geometry…there really needs to a be a new framing on how to explain it…

Perhaps I’ve never felt safe or at home anywhere because when I had given myself comforts and structure that were always disrupted and stolen from me when I was always giving them my all or my unconditional everything.

In school I was also labeled as an under performer, unfocused and troubled by the emotions and chaos of a messy divorce, and not as gifted as my twin brother. But as I was segregated from reaching potential by not being recognized as “gifted”, I was at the same time gathering information and reading and reading some more than my peers opening my world not up to fantasy but to cultures and history and technology. Teachers gave me additional reading per my request. I read all the books intended for the honors and AP students during summer and throughout the year. I lived and worked in the library. I practiced language and wrote in new too guess and dialogue. I didn’t limit my education to the place of education becaus when I was there it never served me and j never it.

I clung to things that felt how I could feel things that rooted w deep empathy and unspoken connection and relating. Poetry, language(s), animals, and connecting with strangers was how I thrived.

I started seeing that I could no longer keep fighting systems hoping I’d be recognized as unique or for as much as an individual as I am. I needed to learn everything again, ground up before life really passed me by and I wasn’t participating normally and was therefore missing out on greater potential and respect.

And in these depths I saw trendies light and darkening shaodws. I felt rejection and gains. I saw people ignore leave and hide from getting to know me better or wanting to say no. I saw respect and trust and will come in. I saw harsh realities of suffering and scarcity and loneliness. And in all of this I saw tue friends and acquaintances that believed in me that listened me to and that wanted to keep in touch. I saw myself rattled by falling victim to sexual assault and belittled voice. I saw that that mentality and control that I always thought I had was getting me no where.
But in observation whilst living in such depth a new interaction with humanity and society came about. I realized who and what I was capable of and how and why I was able to connect so deeply to so many, and for so long. It’s how I saw a need for greater collaboration and tearing down of ego to get much needed things accomplished. It’s how I started coming up with theory for flat collaboration and open dial phong for people to showcase their abilities and contribute to missions where they could make impact. It’s only having been kicked out and stamped a leper to environments where I tried to contribute my skills to a higher stage that I know how valuable this very notion of opening up venue to contribute initiates or ideas — Sunmit if you will — to finding better and lore man he’s solutions. It’s not without group accordance that measures get passed.

Had I not been dumped multiple times for being who I am by those that did not value me both professionally and personally I wouldn’t have been able to see my worth and bring it a national and international stage.

So I gave up everything I had in order to build my anew but Thayer build where I had not taken the time to understand my intent and process and time in all the things I’d ever done — actually and totally — in my life.

Part of how I connected so much was how I entered each social setting. I never had an agenda other than to get someone else’s essence — it didn’t matter who they were how much they were worth or what they were doing specifically . I gave everyone equal air time and I listened to who they were what they care about or what they think about. And some thought that this was social climbing in my part which I never understood because in my mind the more people I could meet the more I could connect them with those like them. Or the more I could hear what they needed and maybe translate that to someone who couldn’t understand them best. This flat approach to meeting others worked because I never had an agenda or ulterior motivation other than to learn and listen and be there when if and how I could. This also had its faults when I was needing to advance because as much as I listened and gathered sense and sensibilities on or about others, I didn’t realize that they were not doing the same for me. Or that their minds didn’t remember or emotionally connect to moments or connection links like mine did. And as I explored the depths of my mind and how it works I started to see that these sensitivities were sat the root of something deeper. It wasn’t just the semis ivories but it was how my mind could categorize and attain some depths of knowledge and classify certain things about really everything i encountered and be able to recall needed or necessary items to process remember or connect one thing to another.

And as I learned my mind I needed to start seeing that how I was hiding from myself was by creating very think social coping mechanisms for the ways in which I was seeing and processing my observations. This goes back to early childhood also from being socially rejected by my peers and left alone with my eccentric interests and ability to learn things deeply without ability to communicate them with clarity or in brevity.

This is maybe where I stated getting into sexual situations that I never wanted. So part of breaking all my preconditions was to set new paradigms and learn situations where my sensitivities and blinders go on so I could recognize those moments and counter act them with power and control to communicate my wants most effectively and understood.

Perhaps that’s why I’m so adamant on updating broken and outdated systems that hold extraordinary people back from potential. When standards are no longer up to start

A title. People ask how to label me. But being so out of the box where the “box” doesn’t exist, you really need to think. When I was a young girl, my grandmother and mother would say to me, “Sloaney, why don’t you work as a translator at the UN? You’re so good at languages…” And little did I know or account for how that would resonate and how for many years to come I’ve tried to dissect their logic and apply it not only in applications for jobs but metaphorically too. There is another narrative as an ambassador. And the similarity drawn here is someone of deep command knowledge in an area that can interpret and communicate in its cultural senses at all times. I’m an Interpreter.

Part of being an interpreter to many things was also removing others area or too to understand or take the time with me as I did them or the subject matter with which I became fixated or knowledgable in. Part of being an interpreter is also being a chameleon.

Being and interpreter and a chameleon you serve not as the politician but as the broker — the middleman. It want that I was never liked loved or championed but I was seen for surface value as nice and sweet because of that innate sensitivity to ultra connection and networking. For someone not rooted in the super fictional it seemed as tho I started playing m cards rather superficially.

And in all of this learning I started to see where some of the trepidation and frustration lied. Things around me were constantly broken and I never learned how fundamental systems shaped and functioned.

Something I always new was that I was unique. And I also knew from early on that I’d been known for this unique qualities. And as I had problems succeeding according to standards within systems and pining to be recognized as “an outlier” within

I am a woman that never gave up.