Show Notes

In this powerful episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Asal “Vox” Gibson, CEO and founder of Cyroot and president of Cyroot Academy. Vox shares her extraordinary career path that began as an immigrant who didn’t speak English and worked in exchange for groceries.

Vox takes us through her journey of determination and growth: becoming a RadioShack store manager at just 20 years old, transitioning to automotive sales, building a successful career in financial services, and eventually working in defense contracting with top security clearance.

Throughout the conversation, Vox reveals the values and mindset that propelled her success: an unwavering work ethic, hunger for knowledge, and willingness to start from scratch in entirely new fields. She explains how each career transition taught her valuable skills that built upon one another, creating a foundation for her current roles leading both a cybersecurity company and a nonprofit providing free education to military personnel.

Key moments include:

• 
  
• The origin story of her military call sign “Vox” (meaning “voice of the people”)
  
• How she overcame language barriers and financial hardships after arriving in America
  
• Why critical thinking skills matter more than credentials in technology careers
  
• Her approach to screening job candidates for problem-solving abilities
  
• How she’s now paying forward the opportunities she received by creating educational programs for transitioning military personnel
  

This conversation offers practical wisdom about career advancement, the importance of being teachable, and finding purpose through helping others succeed. If you’re looking to transform your career or seeking inspiration on overcoming obstacles, this episode delivers actionable insights from someone who’s mastered the art of career reinvention.

Listen to the full episode to hear Vox’s complete story and learn how she’s now helping others find their own path to success.

Episode release date: April 1, 2025

#CareerDownloads #CareerTransition #TechLeadership #CyberSecurity #VeteransSupport

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experience and their background to try and uncover any actionable advice that you can uncover as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Asal Gibson, also goes by call sign “Vox”. So there’s a, sounds like there’s a pretty interesting story around that so I’m excited to dig into that. So I met Asal at a networking event. I didn’t get much of a chance to kind of interact with her, you know, started to look at her LinkedIn profile, saw a lot of what she was posting, what she was doing. I looked at her background and felt that she would be an amazing guest to kind of bring on and just learn more about kind of what she’s done throughout her career and, you know, anything that she might be able to impart onto others. So she teaches part-time, she’s been a project manager, she also has started a non-profit, she’s, you know, was in the military, still helps out the military. So there’s a number of different ways that this conversation can go and I’m actually really excited because this, I just have the feeling that this is probably going to be a two -part series at some point. So with that I will go ahead and introduce Asal. Hi.

Asal: Hi.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and taking the time to kind of share your story and your experiences. So to kind of get started, normally what I ask people is kind of what your current role is and I know that you have multiple different ones so you can name them all, pick a couple and then just kind of a brief summary of some of the roles and responsibilities just so that people can get an understanding of kind of who “Vox” is today.

Asal: Sure. Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m the CEO and founder of Cyroot. We’re an IT and cyber security company born and raised here in Las Vegas. And I’m also the president of Cyroot Academy. It’s a non-profit arm of our company where we provide education at no cost to our military and veterans in the community. And about the teaching, I’ve been teaching for going on three years. I taught cyber security for two years at UNLV and a couple other universities. And now I’m on a faculty in a business school where I teach business classes and IT project management classes.

Manuel: I know we’re going to probably get into it at some point, but I really want to, I am very curious now. So I’m curious how the call sign name “Vox” came about. So I don’t know if that’s something you want to dig into now, or if it’s something that will kind of come up along, you know, the conversation.

Asal: Yeah. So I’ve had that call sign for 10 years. In the aviation community, you normally get a call sign. I think it started as a security thing. You go by a nickname or call sign, not your full name. Now I was never a pilot, but I hung out with pilots and, you know, I just went by the name Asal. And they start giving me different call signs. Like if I was being picky about the coffee, I’m like, this coffee sucks. They’re like, finicky, that’s your call sign. And I would get annoyed. I’m like, I’m not finicky. Okay. But this coffee sucks. And then they gave me the call sign “Big E” because I was the most extroverted person in there because I would come in and say, good morning. And no one would say good morning back. And they’re like, you’re way too extroverted. So I went by a “Big E” until, um, a person said, Hey, you can’t call her the “Big E” that’s the big enterprise ship, you know, in the Navy. Like, um, so I went back to being called Asal. And then I was presenting a project to the CEO and people in the company saying, Hey, we really need to recruit people out of college and give them a chance, sponsor their security clearance and bring them into the defense contracting instead of building ridiculous requirement for entry-level jobs. Uh, so I started getting, Oh, some attention for that. Like, where did that come from? So, uh, the CEO, uh, and a commander thought, well, “Vox” would be good call sign for me because “Vox” means the voice of the people. And, um, I wanted to take a second to think about it, but you can’t think about it. And if you don’t like it, it will definitely get stuck. So he basically, the boss said, we’re calling you “Vox” from this point on, but no one knew that outside of my office. And when I left the Navy, went to work for the Air Force, they said, Hey, you have to deploy to the Middle East. And I’ve never been deployed. I was never trained as military personnel. You know, I was civilian. So I showed up there and on day one, ironically, it was the first ever in my life. They said, do you have a call sign or anything you go by? And I’m like, why do you, why did you just ask me this? Cause no one ever asked. And I said, “Vox”. Uh, so it, it became a thing, uh, you know, serving the Air Force for a couple of years. Uh, just everyone called me “Vox”. And when I came back stateside, I had so many friends from the military. So it, it just, uh, it kind of became more real and never went away.

Manuel: Well, and based on kind of conversations we’ve had and a lot of what you’re doing, it almost, it sounds like it’s very fitting, right? “Vox”, the voice of the people. So, you know, I’m interested as we kind of dig into your journey and, you know, so that people can understand kind of that parallel and where this goes.

Asal: Yeah, absolutely.

Manuel: So now tell me a little bit of kind of your background, kind of, you know, where you grew up and, you know, eventually kind of what led you into technology. If it was later on in life, it was early. Um, you know, if it, if it was later on, then just, you know, we can get to there eventually just so that people understand, you know, just kind of the foundation of what led you to where you are now.

Asal: So it’s a little bit of a complicated story. I grew up in the Middle East and came to the United States in 2001. Didn’t speak any English, came here with my mom and my sister. We didn’t have any money. My parents separated and everything that you could imagine could go wrong, went wrong. Uh, for example, we were supposed to arrive on September 12th, 2001 and we got held up and couldn’t make it, you know, until, uh, September 24th, you know, of that year. So it was, it was a difficult transition to get here. And my first job, I worked for food. I worked for groceries. And when people, you know, hear that, they say like everybody works for food. I said, no, I actually worked for food as I got paid with groceries for my family. I, you know, I didn’t have any skills or language and I walked four miles to go to the store. I opened at 8am and worked till 11pm. And the store, you know, owner would say, you know, take whatever grocery for your mom and your sister. And that’s, I did that for six months. I made my first dollar when I was sick. I was so burned out. I was getting very little sleep and he would like do, you know, he would like take my hours, calculate them. And he would look at the groceries I picked. And he looked at me that night and I was so drained. And, and he said, you owe me $7 and 50 cents. And I said, okay, why do I don’t have any cash? As you know, I’ve never had cash, uh, but I’m happy to work an extra hour. Uh, so I think he felt bad. So he said, you know, I’m going to give you a couple of dollars to take the bus. You don’t have to walk home tonight. So he gave me two bucks. And that was the first two dollars I ever made. Actually, like it was the first time I see us dollars in my hand. So I got out of the store and I decided it was snowing. It was crappy in Buffalo, New York. And I did not want to give it to the bus. I walked down the street and bought myself a hot dog. And I just, that was the, that was a turning point for me to appreciate the value of money. It was such a big thing to walk in and say, I’m just going to have a hot dog and a loganberry in Buffalo for $1.50. Right. Um, and to this day, I, whenever I go to Buffalo, I, I feel like I go pay my respect to this hot dog shop and over tip whoever’s there because that’s, that’s where it started. Um, I couldn’t continue to work for food. I knew this wasn’t sustainable. So I was going to classes, you know, learning English, um, doing everything I can to get out of that. Because once you’re in it is very difficult to get out. When you’re worried about not eating because you’re not working, it’s a problem. You can’t make progress. So I started going into different businesses and say, are you hiring? Do you have, you know, a job? And I remember a waitress said, well, do you have a resume? And I used to carry a little dictionary with me and I never heard the word resume. So I would look in a dictionary, R E Z M Y. Like there was no such word. What is resume? And I say, no, I don’t have that. And I couldn’t understand what the word meant. So it was very frustrating. So she would, she said, well, just give me your phone number. I’ll talk to the manager and I’ll call you. Well, I also don’t have a phone, you know? So, um, I walked to Radio Shack and I said, Hey, uh, I, I want just a basic phone. How much is a phone? And the store manager said, what do you need the phone for? Like we have this plan? $39.99. You get 400 minutes Sprint PCS.

Manuel: I remember.

Asal: And I said, well, I can’t afford that phone. Like, because it was like you had to pay for the phone. So he found me a free phone with the plan. If you sign a one year contract or whatever. And he said, what are you going to do with this phone? And I spoke very little English at the time. Right. So I said, well, I’m looking for a job and they want a resume and a phone. I don’t know what a resume is, but I’m going to get the phone. So he said, well, we’re hiring. Why don’t you appy here? And I looked around and I said, I, I don’t know anything about what you sell here. I know this is a TV, that’s a VCR, but I don’t know what everything else. And he said, oh, it’s just technology. I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you. So I said, okay, what do I have to do? He said, oh, just fill this out. So I filled it out. I gave him the phone number with the phone he just gave me. And he told me to come tomorrow. He said, come tomorrow at 10. So I went in and start working there. And I used to have like sticky notes, writing like a cable. I would write it in Arabic and in English. So I remember someone comes in and says, I need a coaxial cable. I’m like, okay, that’s a coaxial cable. And that’s where it started. I ended up staying at RadioShark for about five years. I got my own store a year later. I became the youngest store manager at age 20. They flew me to Dallas, Texas. I met with the guy that did the commercial. Do you hear me now? Gave me an award as top store manager in whole nation. And that’s another turning point. I was like, holy s***. Like I’m only 20. I got a whole staff. I got a million dollar inventory. I can do this. So Radio Shack closed down, went out of business.

Manuel: So I want to

Asal: like, yeah, yeah,

Manuel: I want to stop you right there. And only because I,

Asal: I know that was a lot. I just dumped everything.

Manuel: Perfect. And, and I didn’t want to interrupt, but there was a couple of things that you mentioned. And I’m just curious to kind of how this went. So five years, it’s a long time, right? And it sounds like it gave you the chance to, you know, understand a lot of the technology. So the fact that the store manager, whoever it was that had hired you, you know, was willing to kind of teach you and help you. And was it just the technology start part of it? Or was it also, I mean, it sounds like you’re also selling. So I’m just curious, the types of skills that you picked up in that role, because I’m thinking to myself as a sales associate, the focus is probably more on sales. So is that kind of how, what helped you progress along with also understanding, you know, the different technology that’s there? Is it also the customer service? Like, is it all of them? Is it one of them? Like kind of what helped you progress in that to get your own store at 20? I mean, that’s amazing.

Asal: I’ve always been a sponge, right? My dad, at second or third grade, I remember, I had a bad grade, and I was very embarrassed. I was hoping he doesn’t ask me. And then he said, did you study enough? And I said, yeah. And he said, not enough. Because if you study well enough, you will get an A, right? If you work hard, it will translate into success. So he said that repeatedly throughout my life that I started to believe it, that if I study, and it’s not just applicable to school. So when I was at Radio Shack, I had repeat customers, they would come and it would be like, hey, Asal like, how do we get this VCR to work? I just upgraded to whatever, you know, the flat screen TVs were coming out, what component cables, and I would go study this stuff. And I would sketch it out on a paper, I would put the green, blue, and red cable and show them the difference between digital coaxial versus, and people loved that. They loved the visual representation. And I loved being able to explain this technology and how it works to them. And that made me successful. People start coming to me, asking for different things or like, you know, cameras, what was the specs on a camera, I invested a lot of time into learning the product. And sales just followed.

Manuel: Okay, and that’s, that’s helpful. So it sounds like it. And I’m going to slowly probably towards the end of the conversation, weave the theme that I’m starting to kind of discover. Okay, so then from here, you mentioned that after Radio Shack, I’ll let you go ahead and kind of continue.

Asal: Yeah, so, you know, one of the things I’ve done, also, I was in this kind of dying mall that they gave me the store, right? So I would get out and, you know, walk into nearby places and say, hey, you know, if you buy cell phone service from us, I’ll give you 10% off your bill. So I created my own flyers. And I would go try to get customers to come to this dying mall. And one of those customers was an Acura, the Acura dealership. So when we were closing down, the dealership manager said, well, what are you going to do? He’s like, why don’t you come sell cars, man? You can make so much more money. And it was the same thing. I don’t know anything about cars. I didn’t, you know. And he said, I will teach you. And I’m someone that can be taught, that can be coached. And that was the secret to my success anywhere I went. If someone was willing to teach me something or say, I need you to go read this book or go study or go research, it’s done.

Manuel: Not only that you could be taught, you wanted to be taught. It sounds like you had a thirst for knowledge or understanding, not just surface level, like, okay, what’s the bare minimum that I need to know to be successful? But I mean, going above and beyond and saying, okay, I’m going to, here’s what I need to know. I’m going to know this. Is that accurate?

Asal: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So I stayed at the dealer for one year and I got recruited by a customer. I sold him his Acura and he thought, you know, I was on top of it. You know, I would show up to work with suits and high heels every day. And he’s like, have you thought about going into financial sales? You could make so much more money. And it was the same answer. I don’t know anything about finance. I don’t know anything about money. I just started making money a couple of years ago, you know? And it was the same thing. We’ll teach you. We’ll put you through the training. We’ll put you through the certification exams. You just have to be willing to learn, right? And follow. So I went and put five years in the financial services industry. After I joined two years later, I was agent of the year. I had the largest book for a junior agent. And it was the same thing. I put my heart and soul. I knew annuities inside out, mutual funds, whatever you call it. And I would go out and talk to people. And I would… I didn’t like sales. I didn’t like cold calling. I looked for problems, right? So I looked at, you know, small businesses or, hey, someone moved their job. And, you know, what do you do with your money or whatever? So I looked to solve the problem and educate people on what they could do with their money in the financial industry. And that my dad was right. You know, you study and you do your work, money will follow and money followed.

Manuel: And not just money, but it sounds like also the connections and obviously people are seeing something, right? Because it sounds like, you know, the first two times that you went out and you’re like, hey, I’m looking for a job. I’m looking for a job. But there must have been something that people noticed in you. And then I’ll tell you that right now, it just even sounds like the honesty and say, hey, have you ever thought about car sales? And you weren’t, yeah, well, no, I haven’t, but I can do it, right? Like there was, they obviously saw probably like an eagerness or a willingness to learn, but still being honest and say, I don’t know anything about that. Like, this is what I do, or this is what I’ve done. Do you think that, you know, again, not having a resume and not really putting in job applications, but what in your experience or in your opinion, what do you think it is that really made people want to give you an offer and feel that if they told you all you have to do is learn and kind of be willing to teach you?

Asal: I think these, I value that so much that I follow that in my business now. I only hire and bring people that are willing to learn, right? People are hungry to make a difference for people around them, because that’s what happened to me. It doesn’t matter where you threw me. I had the work ethic that I’d work my a** off, man. I know what the product is and how to do the process and be successful. So these people that gave me the chance, I try to do that for others. And really, that’s, that’s a secret to hiring good people. You know, you get resumes of very impressive people. And I get resumes all the time, like, oh, ChatGPT did a great job writing this for you, right? But they’re not good problem solvers. And they’re not good learners. I’ve had people that didn’t last five weeks working for me, because I give them a training and I check up with them. Like, did you learn this? What did you learn? And they can’t explain what they learned, right? They do the bare minimal. All right, I’m going to put in eight hours to read this material and do whatever and get out. And that personality just doesn’t mesh well with how I was brought up, right?

Manuel: And your leadership style, it sounds like, right? Your leadership style is very much like, if you’re putting in the effort, I’ll invest in you, I’ll help you. I will make sure that you succeed. But it’s a two way street, you have to do your part to make sure that you know, you’re doing, you know, you’re putting in the effort. Otherwise, like, why are you here?

Asal: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, I see that every day. And twice on Sunday, I tell you, one of the recent interviews I’ve had, I’ve been asking a very specific question. So I moved away from, tell me about yourself. Tell me about your weaknesses. Like, yeah, people just make up bullshit answers. Like, my weakness is I’m too detail oriented, or I care too much about my job. Like, all right, get out of here. So I asked a realistic question that puts people on the spot. And this question, every single person I interviewed failed and didn’t get a job. And it was very specific. If you drive a Tesla or an electric car, and you forgot to charge it, as soon as you park, the car locks and you can’t get out. What is the first thing you do? So asking you this question, Manny, what would be the first thing you do?

Manuel: First thing I do is I would probably, if I hadn’t already read the manual, there’s, there’s got to be a fail safe somewhere. I have a phone on me, I would look it up and say, okay, Tesla, you know, it’s not charged. I’m locked inside. How do I get out? And start trying to figure it out. I mean, there’s got to be some way. Like I would think of the, for example, like if the situation where if they say, hey, if you’re ever in a trunk, right? Like, how do you get out? Well, there’s a fail safe. There’s a fail safe somewhere. If I didn’t have the internet, like, oh, I’m going to dig around. I’ll find something. There’s a way to get out. I doubt that they built this without that capability. I’ll either figure, I’ll either find it myself or I’ll research and…

Asal: Hired. Hired. I can’t get people to say that answer. I get, I would smash the window and get out. I had one student, a graduate student said, um, I’d call 911. And I said, that should be the very last thing you do. Right. And, um, you know, so I was, I was talking about this just last week because we’re putting a class on mock interviews and I, I brought up this example of how most people fail to answer this question is, you know, they lack critical thinking and problem solving. All I needed someone to say is, oh, I would reach into a glove compartment and look at the manual. I would look to see if there’s a manual, you know, switch. I would call Tesla. I would Google. I would ask ChatGPT on my phone and say, I got locked in, in my car. How do I get out? Like all of these would have been good answers besides I’ll call 911 or destroy my own property to get out. That tells me when the panic sets, you’re just not going to do very well. And that’s not good in technology.

Manuel: Similar to you. I got this interview question once. And when I was in a manager or hiring position, or sometimes they’d bring me in as like a senior engineer. The one question I would get is they told me you’re at a PC. You can’t get out to the internet. You can’t get out to that. Like you can’t communicate. The only thing you have available to you is a command prompt. How do you figure out what’s wrong? And he told me, he’s like, there’s no, there’s no wrong or right answer. Just, and again, it’s that critical thinking. They wanted to see how would you figure this out? And then I was like, oh, okay, well first I, you know, and then you start speaking to it. Well, I ping my local address, ping the loop back. Does that work? And then he would go, yep, it does. Now what’s next? So he was giving me like, you tell me what you would do and I’ll tell you what it, what response or what it goes through. And we started going through eventually. And he was like, well, there’s no right answer. I was like, so what was the problem? He’s like, I don’t know. And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, I just wanted to see the critical thinking. What were you going to try and do? Okay. You pinged local right away. You’re like, ah, ping Google. All right. Well, you’re way far. Well, maybe you’re working your way this way or Hey, I started local and now I’m working out this way or I’m just, you know, I don’t know. I try to go to the internet doesn’t work. And he says, there’s people that just go, I don’t know. And similar to you, I don’t know. Or I ping Google and no response. So I don’t know what’s wrong.

Asal: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You just, cause that’s what would happen in real life. You could be in a situation where you don’t have access to your computer freeze and you have to write a command to diagnose your machine. Like that, that is very well, especially in that type of work you do.

Manuel: That was interesting. So you say from that question though, that you hardly, I’m assuming you get very, what would you say the percentage of people that answer it in a way that you would deem, you know, appropriate?

Asal: From the ones I interviewed, no one answered it the way not. Yeah. Smashing your window and calling 911 and panic. And I was like, these are not good answers. Um, yeah. So I look for scenarios like this to continue to gauge where people at and what would they do in a situation like that.

Manuel: Do you think that that’s a lack of experience? Is it just people are so used to, especially with now? Cause one of the things that I think about now is there’s so much information. I mean, there’s a plethora of information. Whereas when I kind of started in tech, I mean, sure there was the internet, but there wasn’t YouTube. There wasn’t all these things. So a lot of it was, if it’s not working, I have to figure it out, right? Like I’ve got to go, okay, well, is this plugged in? Is that plugged in? Well, let me try rebooting. You might’ve tried all kinds of things that just in hindsight, I was like, why would I have done that? Like, that’s not going to fix it, but it’s something right. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard this and I listened to different podcasts and interviews and, you know, like in the military and I’ve heard certain things where they’re like, Hey, you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. What do you do? Start walking. Well, which direction? It doesn’t matter, right? Like you start to get information as you’re moving. Like if you start heading East at some point, you’ll figure something out and be like, Oh, maybe I’m heading East. This is not the right way because I know I should go this similar. Do you think it’s a lack of what’s being taught in school? Is it just things are so easily accessible that, you know, I’ll just smash a window because I’ll just replace it. Like, what is it that you think leads to people not developing critical thinking?

Asal: It all starts at home, right? How do you raise your kids? You know, do you just hand them everything or do you let them struggle a little bit? I mean, I struggled a lot because of the region I was, we, we had wars and, you know, my parents divorcing. So like I had a lot of struggle to go through, but still, even if you don’t and everything is nice and peachy, don’t make it too easy on your kids. Don’t just hand them everything. I mean, I have a 12 year old stub son. When he asks for something, I say, what are you willing to do for it? He has an Excel spreadsheet of the chores, you know? So you pick up dog poop or take the dog out for a walk or you clean the pool. I paid $5. I paid $3. And he’s like, all right, I want to go out for Korean barbecue. And I’m like, how much do you have? Or you don’t have enough? Or if it’s fine, I’ll, I’ll pay the extra 50 bucks, right? But teaching him the value of money and earning and solving the problem of what he needs. You need something nice. What are you going to do for it instead of just handing him everything? Because you’re really doing people disservice. And same thing in schools, right? But it starts at home. I blame the parents more than I blame the school. Because that’s where it starts. But then you don’t always have good parents that would mentor you and teach you these skills. But yeah, if kids don’t experience that growing up, and they want to come into the IT industry, and they get locked out of their car, so they call 911. Like, that’s, I’m like, you have, you got to go do some work on yourself.

Manuel: You can’t overcome something, you can’t build that resilience if, if you’ve never struggled, if you’ve never failed, right? Like you can’t overcome something if you’ve never undergone, you know, any type of hardship.

Asal: Right.

Manuel: That completely, I understand and it makes sense to me, it resonates. So now you’ve gone through and, you know, you’re in the finance industry, you’ve, you know, you’ve done to this point, you know, also worked to Radio Shack, you’ve done all these things you’ve accomplished. For most people, again, in my opinion, you’ve accomplished a lot in a short amount of time, car dealership. So what leads you out of the finance industry? And the reason I ask is it sounds like each place you’re at, you’re successful. Like had you stayed at, had Radio Shack still been around, I feel like you could have moved up there. If you wanted to, same thing probably could have happened at the dealership, you could have moved your way up through the dealership to where now “Vox” owns, you know, a couple dealerships, right? Same thing in the finance industry. Like, so what, what is it that led you to kind of move out of finance? And

Asal: So I hit a ceiling, right? I was in Buffalo, New York. And the competition in finance was high. And there’s only so many people to talk to. So you had finance banking, and you had the medical industry. There wasn’t a lot of really room for growth. So at age 24, I already had a brand new Acura TSX. That was my second car. I had a beautiful condo on a golf course, zero debt. Everything’s cool. Right? But I just couldn’t do more. Like the challenge stopped. So I went on a date with an attorney. And he was, he was an MBA from Wharton Business School and went to Ivy League. And, and, you know, I met him at an event. And he asked me out on a date. And we were talking. And, and he said, you know, you’re doing really well, you’re very successful. And it slipped out. And I said, yes, but I never went to college. I don’t have a college degree. And he got so turned off. He said, we can’t date. You cannot have a college degree. Like I, you know, and I said, Hey, I understand. I understand. Like you’re, you went through the Ivy League and all of that. But I went home and thought, it doesn’t matter how much money I have. I don’t have education. So when I meet someone at that level, they still don’t have the respect for me that I needed. I was successful. I had money. I had a beautiful place. I had a brand new car, but he still said no, because I didn’t have a college degree. I can’t have that. So I start looking at, you know, colleges, how do you get admitted? At that time, I, you know, took a bunch of classes on math and English, as a second language. So I had lots of credit, you know, from the community college. And I remember I just filled out an application, you know, started my FAFSA and started working on that. I stayed up till three in the morning working on that. And then I went to work the next day and I went right into the management partner’s office. And he used to call me firecracker. That was my first call sign. He was like, what’s up firecracker? And I, I said, Hey, John, I think I want to quit. I want to go back to school. And he said, what do you want to go to school for? I said, I want to have a college degree. I don’t have a college degree. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing, investing money for doctors and lawyers when I don’t have a degree. Do these people know? And he said, no one cares. You know what you’re talking about. He said, people with MBAs come to my office asking for internship and you want to step away from that. He’s like, you’re stupid. You’re being really stupid. And I said, I need to do this for me because now I’m wired a certain way. So I asked for a sabbatical, a one-year sabbatical. I went and did it my bachelor’s with the credit I have. I did it in three semesters. I took like 20 credit hours a semester. We just went through summer, winter, took classes, you know, back to back. No, no break. Finished. I loved it. I loved being in college. I loved studying. I loved the collegiate life. I loved student union. It was a new environment for me. I was happier in college than I was in finance, having my own office and feeling like I made it. I preferred the collegiate life. So I decided to do my master’s and I did it in statistics, population statistics in geography. I was like, all right, I, now I have finance background. I understand data and I’ve traveled the world. I’m an immigrant. I want to do something in geography in the population and understand the movement of people. Why do people move and how does that impact them and the cities they go to? That was my research interest. So once I got into grad school, I, I never wanted to go back in finance anymore. I, I just stayed in grad school. I did a study abroad in Spain, came back from Spain and I said, you know, I’m going to move to DC. I’m going to sell my condo and I moved to DC. I want to work for the government.

Manuel: Interesting that they, and what is it about the government that called to you specifically at that time? Was it something that you had experienced or learned within college or just moving around? Like what?

Asal: A lot of it was my college professors. They’re like, Hey, you should really be an Intel. Like you’re really smart. You know, you speak languages. Have you thought about Intel and where can you do Intel in Buffalo? So, so many people have said that to me that I started looking into government work and military and what was the military doing? How can I help the military and the government having this technical background now, you know, understanding data and analysis and also speaking language and having a degree in geography that is helpful to the military. So I just, I just, I graduated and basically I moved three days later. I just loaded up my car and rented a studio in downtown Alexandria. And, and I got a job at Rite Aid making $12 an hour because I wanted to be in DC, but I didn’t want to wait to have a job. So I just worked for 12 bucks until I could figure it out.

Manuel: That’s amazing. I mean, just the fact that you didn’t, like you said, you didn’t wait like, okay, I’ll figure, you know, until I get a job or until this happens. I mean, by now we’ve noticed that you are, you know, you’re self-motivated, you’re a firecracker, you’re self-motivated, like you’re not going to let anything impede what it is you want to achieve. Right. And how long were you there, you know, working at Rite Aid before you, you know, eventually led your way into, I’m assuming from here you led into the government, but what, what was that process like having, you know, you have your degree, you have these different experiences, you know, how long did it take and what, you know, what did you start out doing?

Asal: So it was very frustrating because again, I was, I felt like I was back to square one. Now I’m a graduate student. Now I the speak language. I have the experience, blah, blah, blah. I have a resume and I know how to spell resume. Like things are cool. Right. But still I would apply to jobs and I had an Excel spreadsheet and I would find, okay, here’s the POC who, this is a website that put it out. They didn’t respond. You know, I had a tracker and I remember I applied to like 130 jobs. I had one interview and they never called me back. So now three or four months went by and $12 an hour wasn’t cutting it. Cause remember I burned through my money paying for grad school. So I had to do something different. And, um, someone said to me, he said, Hey, have you considered staffing agencies? Maybe you should call a staffing agency or like a head hunter and, you know, something like that. So I said, all right, let me look into it. So I looked up staff and agency found Kelly Services. You know, I, I called them, Hey, introduce myself. Do you guys have any jobs? I’m looking for a data analysis type job or, you know, financial, like a FinTech. And, um, the lady answered the phone was super nice. She said, send me a resume. And I’m like, God, one more person. So I, I said, um, I said, what’s, what’s your name again? And she said, Yasmina. So I said, okay, Yasmina, what time do you go to the office tomorrow? And she said, eight o’clock. Why? I said, okay, well, do you, do you like coffee? I’m going to bring you coffee. I’m going to stop by and because I want to give you my resume in person. I don’t want to just submit it online. And she said, no, no, listen, you don’t have to, I promise I will, I will get back to you. And I said, okay, you don’t worry about it either. Cause I’m going to do it anyways. Right. So next day I woke up, got my hair, makeup, put on suit, high heels, got her Starbucks. I walked up to her office with printout on my resume. How do you think that turned out?

Manuel: I’m pretty sure it turned out very well. And she probably said, Hey, again, it wasn’t even after she told you, Hey, it’s fine. You don’t have to. I know I don’t have to, but I’m going to, it shows initiative. It shows something different, right? Everybody else would be like, okay, Hey, I’ll send it and move on onto the next one. I start to think to myself, this person is serious. They’re presented just everything about this is I may not have the job, but I’m going to find you one because I know that you’re going to be successful.

Asal: And that’s exactly what she did. She got on the phone and she started calling her high-end clients. So she called a company called Booz Allen Hamilton, which was the biggest employer in Washington DC, biggest defense contracting. And she said, Hey, I got this girl. You got to get her a job, temp anything, because she was going to find something in no time. A week later, I was at Booz Allen and they brought me on to work there for three months. I was there for three years.

Manuel: And what did you start off as? Cause I’m guessing that if you were there for three months or it was supposed to be three months, you’re there for three years. My guess is that what you started at is not where you ended it.

Asal: I started filling in for someone who was on maternity leave and she was doing data analysis, analytics reports, which I ate that stuff up. It was no problem. So I did her job without training. And six months later, she came back three months or whatever. Someone else went on maternity to leave. So I filled in for them taking a different role, but it was all learning data. It was in the learning data department. So it was within my studies and you know, what I’ve done as a data analyst. Um, but I worked on a project that was very significant. It was a problem for Booz Allen. They had paid a quarter million dollars to a consulting company to tell them how could they vet, uh, students to hire into Booz Allen based on the schools they were coming from, because they, they thought a lot of the recruits come from the same universities, the C-level people graduated from. So they were bringing people from their network. So that was a problem discussed on the phone with executives. And I said, Hey, well, we do data analysis. All we have to do is come up with a selection criteria and grade people based on that on a selection criteria. This way you eliminate the biases. So I wrote it in Excel spreadsheet.

Manuel: Oh, wow. So it’s as simple as just, it wasn’t even anything complicated, just an Excel spreadsheet.

Asal: I said, Hey, if you graduate from this, or, you know, you did this and I did the same thing for classes. So as they partner with classes with other universities, some universities also got the advantage to be a partner with Booz Allen because also someone that works there referred them, but they didn’t have the online capability or chat room or whatever. So I basically put the questions of what they need and I created metrics on a selection criteria. And we took examples of cases and plugged them in. And I said, look, like this particular company that we deal with gets an F that should not be an education partner for us. And that was a problem that I solved for Booz Allen that they took it and actually turn it into a process for vetting recruits and companies that provided education for them. And I think that goes back to that critical thinking, right? It’s just understanding like, okay, hey, we paid for this. Wait a minute. Let’s, let’s think about this. Like, let’s take a step back. Sometimes, and I don’t know about your experience and not just in government, but in any role, sometimes people kind of get too hyper-focused in, well, how do we do this? Let’s pay more. And like, well, hold on, let’s take a step back. What are we really trying to solve? Okay. This is just a small piece. Let’s take a step back and let’s try it from a different angle or let’s try a different solution.

Asal: Right. You don’t need a quarter million dollars to have some company, you know, going to write you a document so you’re never going to read. You need someone to say, here are the questions and here you could add values and have a scale. Boom. That eliminates all biases. You know? So, yeah.

Manuel: And that continued, I’m assuming just different projects like that. And that was a successful project. So you mentioned that you were only there for three years. During that time, you’re putting a lot of what you’ve learned in the past into play. Is there anything that you feel that you have accomplished, you know, that you learned in those roles that have served you later on? Or is it really just in that timeframe, they got more of the benefit because it’s just you outputting everything that they need?

Asal: I’ve never worked at a place where they benefited more from me than I benefited from them. Because I’m a sponge, right? So I’ve always reached out to people, attended volunteering opportunities, I took the classes. So I always felt like I got a lot more from like Booz Allen, I learned a great deal about data analysis and handling relationships and handling senior people and, you know, conflict resolution, especially as a young person in their twenties. So even with that problem that I solved for them, I still feel that what I’ve learned from them is a lot bigger in value than what I gave.

Manuel: So then after your three years, is your contract up now? Did you find another opportunity? Kind of what makes you say, hey, it’s time for “Vox” to move on?

Asal: So I just, I hit a ceiling again, right? So I, you know, they were restructuring, people got let go. All of a sudden, I have a new manager that I didn’t know I had to prove myself to. And I just felt like it wasn’t going anywhere. So all I did is create a LinkedIn profile. And I just put my experience in there. A week later, a recruiter called me and said, Hey, I saw you work at Booz. How are things going? You know, we’re a startup company. And, you know, looking to hire someone to do data analysis and stuff like that. So I said, Oh, okay, great. What do you guys do? And he said, we work for the Navy for the US Navy. I’m like, well, guess what? I don’t know anything about the Navy. And he said, Okay, well, can I, I’m going to send you a resume over to the CEO. I, he called me back. He says, The CEO wants to meet you. So I was really nervous. So I want like, you know, Wikipedia, the hell out of you know, the Navy and careers and fighter jet, as much as Wikipedia can give you at the time. And showed up the next day to the interview. And that CEO was the most brilliant person, the smartest business person I’ve met. So he asked the type of questions that I asked now, I learned a lot from him. I think I got a lot from him than I gave him right. So he’s he asked me, he said, What do you know about the Navy? And I said, Well, you know, I know they have carriers and they have, you know, F-18s, they fly out of the carriers. And you know, we have missions all over the world. And, and he goes, stop, stop. You don’t know jack s***. And I got a little scared. I said, caught me. I, yeah, I don’t come from military background. My knowledge comes from Wikipedia. And he goes, But I’m going to give you a job. He said, Actually, I don’t have a job for you, but I’m going to create one. Do you know why? Why? And I said, I don’t I don’t really know because at this point, I don’t know what I could offer this man. And he said, Because you’re hungry. And you have work ethic. And it’s really hard to teach people to be like you. And I like your story. And I said, Okay, well, I’m very grateful. That was another turning point. He hired me, sponsored my security clearance, which brought me to intel and military, where on Booz Allen, I was just doing data analysis stuff. So now it’s things turned around.

Manuel: And he mentioned your story. So is it when you had put out your resume, like how far back are you going? Are you putting are you including everything starting from, you know, Radio Shack? Or is it just things that are more recent? Because, you know, I just kind of want to dig into a little bit more. One, your story, because you’re the fact that, you know, you told him like, Hey, this is what I learned in Wikipedia. If he’s interviewing you the next day, he’s like, Well, wait a minute, she went and read all this stuff overnight. Like obviously, she did some research, you know, and then the honesty to say, Nope, this is this is where I got it. So how, how was it that he was able to kind of understand your story? Because a lot of times people say like, Oh, well, they looked at my resume, and I can look at your LinkedIn. I don’t remember seeing like the Radio Shack and all that. So I’m just curious what you are and aren’t including for somebody to be able to identify that.

Asal: Well, I had three jobs, right? Three or four jobs. I had Radio Shack on a resume, I had car sales, finance, and, you know, Booz Allen. So he saw the transition of where I came from retail, making it and you know, I had like, Oh, I won agent of the year and, and also looks at the education, right? So maybe I should call him and say, Hey, Mike, why did you give me the opportunity? But that was that was it too, you know, so, you know, you graduated with an associate degree, and then you did your bachelor’s and you did your master’s. If there’s anything you can get out of my resume is progression. I didn’t go to Harvard, but you could you could see where I started and where I’m at.

Manuel: Perfect. And that’s kind of what I understand. And just I kind of figured that that’s what it was. But I just kind of want to paint the picture so that people understand when they say, Hey, I like your story. I like your background. You know, Hey, I showed them your resume. Just I kind of want to highlight that point that says, Okay, here’s what they saw, right? Like when you hand somebody a resume, they see a progression. And it’s not just it’s a progression. It’s not, well, you went from Radio Shack to Best Buy to the you know, like a lot of lateral movement, hey, you accomplished your degree. When you made a comment earlier, like, Oh, this is an amazing resume. I see Chat GPT wrote this for you, because you’re not highlighting yourself, you’re not explaining what it is that you do. And I think that’s a problem that I see today, right? Like, Oh, this looks really well written and polished. But it doesn’t tell a story. And I’m guessing that, again, I haven’t seen a resume. But if you look at it, it tells a story of progression of hunger of wanting to improve. So again, that’s, that’s why I asked, I just wanted to kind of hear your, your input, your input of it.

Asal: I was just honest to put my experience, right? So I always understood that resume should be the last 10 years, and I put the last 10 years. So if you look at my resume now, it doesn’t have Radio Shack, because I was 20 plus years ago, right? So yeah, I mean, I should give him a call and say, but because I tell his story often, I was on a podcast, and actually tagged him on it saying, you know, told this story, and he commented on it. But, you know, such an instrumental person in my career, in my life, and how it changed things around for me by giving me that opportunity. Because once I got the clearance, and I was in that space, I stayed in the defense contracting, you know, for 10 years until I moved here.

Manuel: Right. And I’m sure it opens up a lot of opportunities for you as well, right? So part of just, hey, now I’m in defense, I’m doing this, but now you have your clearance. So now, again, your resume and everything else, but this person now helped open up more doors for you. So is there anything else that he that you feel that he did for you apart from creating a job for you and, you know, and providing these opportunities?

Asal: I mean, that was the best gift anyone could have given me in my career. That I’m very grateful for, you know, everything that happened really was off of that. So even I wasn’t there very long, I was only there a year. But I moved on to work for the Air Force, I ended up deploying, deployed at multiple locations, I was doing things in the field. And then from that, the State Department brought me on to do analysis on technical systems used for open source intelligence.

Manuel: From from that role, like some moving from there into there. Okay.

Asal: Yeah. So I actually I was deployed, I was in Kuwait, for total of two years, and the State Department offered me a job to start a department for Secretary Pompeo to do open source intelligence for his detail. And I was like, the first person there, I literally flew from Kuwait, got my stuff out of storage, set up my apartment, I was on, you know, sleeping on an air mattress, and walked down to work and, and, you know, it was, it was amazing, you know.

Manuel: And I’m sure it was amazing. And also, like, you didn’t, there wasn’t any struggle, like, okay, hey, it’s me by myself, I get to set this up, I got you.

Asal: I was, I was part of 10.

Manuel: Oh, okay.

Asal: 10 hires. So I was the first one. But yeah, we had 10 employees for a while. And then the department grew, it’s probably pretty massive department now, you know.

Manuel: So and all these experiences, apart from just kind of growing, and getting the travel, I mean, what I know, it’s defense contract. So I’m not asking you to tell me, like, what were you doing? But like, if you can kind of summarize, is it still just kind of statistics? That’s kind of the main area of what you’re doing? Or is it, you know,

Asal: So the purpose of that was for us to evaluate the systems they wanted to use, right? So looking at the technicality behind these systems, and how the systems collected information. And there was a lot of things that you can and can’t do, like, you know, obviously, you can’t spy on US citizens in the US, right? So all our work was for US embassies all around the world. And the main concern was the secretary, making sure the secretary is safe, and nothing happens that could harm or cause an embarrassment. So we looked at these systems and my experience from deploying and working on issues, terrorist groups like ISIS, really helped me be successful in that role at the State Department. One of the first cases I got to investigate and look into as an analyst was the Wuhan virus. And I remember I came home and I told my husband, I was like, hey, it’s really weird, like, I must not be doing well here to be researching some virus in China. And he’s like, yeah, I heard about that. It’s coming on the news. I said, yeah, it’s not classified. People started talking about it, but it’s in China. So I didn’t understand the magnitude of where was that going to go. So we actually did that just to look at where that was going. And then, you know, it got as big and then the whole department closed down. So we couldn’t actually be at work or do any work, you know, during COVID. So I just I stayed at home for, I don’t know, a year. And then I went back to the Pentagon, because I just couldn’t take it working from home. So I went back to the Pentagon, and they picked the Air Force picked me back up. And I was an IT strategist, working on policies on how IT systems work, and whether they’re meeting the expectation of the Department of Defense. So you look at the Army and Air Force, and you’re like, all right, what is your IT strategy? Are you guys running training every year? Are you shutting down your systems this many times? Are you meeting the expectations, which was a lot of it was data analysis to make sure that everyone is tracking and compliant. And it was, you know, and it was, you know, you know, a lot of meeting and strategy stuff. So I enjoyed it. But that was also a completely different role. So I went into, you know, policy person than an operational person.

Manuel: And did you enjoy that, that the policy part of it? Or is it something that you were just kind of like, well, it’s, it’s necessary, but your love is more on the statistical side?

Asal: Um, I was happy that I reached the highest point in my career a lot faster than I thought I would. So at that point, I was a portfolio manager, and I made the most money, my security clearance got upgraded, top secret. So I was like feeling pretty hot, you know, but the work itself wasn’t as fulfilling as you know, when I was doing operation myself or doing research and actually had my hands on, I had my hands on, I had my hands on, because that’s when you really feel the impact of your job and your work. But when you’re working on policy, or strategy stuff, I mean, you may or may not feel the impact. It’s all long term stuff. So I was happy, but I wasn’t truly satisfied as I was like working at the State Department doing that work.

Manuel: And I know that early on in your career, you mentioned, you know, the kind of some of the struggles and setbacks. And it sounds like, for the most part, there was a lot of success, a lot of, you know, upward trajectory, anywhere along that career path so far, at least to that point. Were there any, any areas where you feel that you, I don’t want to say failure, but sometimes a failure, like things that didn’t go your way, things that didn’t work out well that you think that you learned from. So it sounds like, again, you’re learning a lot. And you just you’re that sponge, you’re picking up a lot of things. But are there any, is everything that you’re learning of benefit? Because again, there’s nothing wrong with it. But I’m just curious if there’s anything that, hey, this went wrong, hey, this went wrong, and here’s what I learned, and just anything of that nature.

Asal: Yeah, there was always lessons learned. And reflecting back on experience, I could have done better in all of them. You know, that’s, that’s why I say I always get a lot more, I learn a lot more than I can give, right. Right. So I would definitely do a couple of things differently, if I would go back. But if I wasn’t in that space, and experiencing the issues and making the wrong decisions, and I wouldn’t have grown, right, I wouldn’t have grown, I wouldn’t have done better for the next employer. You know, I don’t know if that answers your question.

Manuel: It does. So it sounds like the experiences that you had in each individual role, you took, again, not asking for like specific details on any one thing. But it sounds like in every role, you took something from that, that you’re like, hey, as you moved into the next role, I could have done this better and applied, and ultimately use that to be successful in that next role. Does that sound accurate?

Asal: Yes.

Manuel: Okay.

Asal: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Manuel: So, and I know we’re not going to get to the point where we’re going to be able to cover everything. So I, I will let you kind of direct, you know, how you want to handle this. Would you like to talk about kind of a little bit more about what you’re doing now? Or sounds like we could easily have a whole nother hour on other talk, you know, on everything else that’s happened. And, um, we can talk about it now, or we can save it for part two.

Asal: We can talk a little bit about now, just so people get an idea of, so what happened, right? Unless you want to keep a suspence.

Manuel: No, I’m okay. Yeah, let’s go ahead. And I want you to tell me more about kind of now what you’re doing now and kind of what led, well, don’t give me too many details, but just kind of what led you to kind of starting what you’re doing now.

Asal: So while I was deployed, I met my husband. He was, um, you know, um, an F-16 pilot. He was the military base commander and we worked together for a year, got to know each other pretty well. And it was just by chance, uh, or maybe God had, uh, had sent me back to the state department and sent him back to the Pentagon. So that’s when we started dating and got to know each other pretty well. And he decided he doesn’t want to be at the Pentagon anymore. He wants to fly again. So he pursued an opportunity at Nellis Air Force Base and he asked me to come out and take a look. At that time we weren’t, you know, married or engaged. I was just a girlfriend. So I came out to Vegas and I just partied my a$$ off, you know, and I woke up the next day and I’m like, you want to move here? Like not going to happen. This is like Disney World for adults. Like no one should live here. It’s, I won’t make it. So he said, um, no, it’s just completely different. We’re not going to live on the strip. It’s going to be a different life. So it took a good, like six months to work it out of how we’re going to move here. For him it was easy because he had a job to go to Nellis. For me, I just reached the highest level I could reach for the time. So I wanted to enjoy that position and see where it goes. Uh, so I kind of was in a situation where I either leave my career or stay, but leave this person that I love very much. And, um, I, you know, I walked into the, you know, GS 15’s office, the director, and I explained the situation to him. I said, you know, I’m going to have to leave. And that situation was like, I really appreciate the opportunity, but, my boyfriend is moving to Las Vegas and I have to go. And here’s what he said to me. It reminded me of what John said. Oh, you throw in your career for school. What do you get? MBA. People with MBA are begging for your job. He basically said, so you throw in your career away for a boyfriend. And I said, I said, I’m not throwing my career. I’m just throwing a job away. My career is not going anywhere just because I’m moving to Las Vegas. And he goes, yeah, you’re going to call me crying for your job back in a year. And man, there’s nothing motivates me more than people that challenge me. Like if you really want, you know, to see the true “Vox”, you say something like that. And I said, okay, thanks for the challenge. I’ll let you know. So we moved here and, uh, I started, you know, applying for jobs. Now, the one thing I learned throughout my career, I never got a job I applied to ever.

Manuel: Interesting.

Asal: I’ve always applied for jobs. No one ever called me and offered me a job because I applied. I don’t know what happened with all these people that apply to jobs. Like that never happened to me. I always gotten recruited to the jobs and I, you know, if it sounded good, I said, yes. So when I moved here, you know, I don’t know anybody started looking for jobs and I’m like, you know what? I can do contract work. Like, you know, just, I don’t need to be a W2 employee. I’ll just go back to filling different if someone on maternity leave or whatever. So I need to reestablish that. So I filed for an LLC. And sure enough, I got a contract with Airbnb doing risk management. It was filling in for somebody. And then I got a contract with MGM doing IT project management. And, um, then I was like, all right, this is, this is going to work out. This is going to be okay. Okay. So, um, just continue add at that. Last year, I had a contract with Clark County School District where we managed the upgrade of the firewalls and, and cybersecurity systems for 360 some schools. So that was the biggest project, you know, I, I managed, everything was deployed on time and on budget. So I’m very happy about that. And just six months ago, I decided, Hey, I want to scale. I want to start hiring people. I want, I don’t want to like handle one contract at a time and continue to be operational. Like I need to learn how to go be a CEO. How can I bring work and employ other people? And that’s what I’ve been working on.

Manuel: That’s amazing. And I really want to dig into that. And I, you know, again, I hope that was enough of a teaser for people to kind of get an idea of, you know, where we’re going to end up leading towards. Before we wrap up the conversation, I just want to kind of open it up to