Greg Tomchick has been through enough over the last few years to completely change how he thinks about business, success and himself.
The founder of Valor Cybersecurity returns to Fervent Four more than three years after his first appearance. Since then, he found Valor's market serving defense contractors, endured an investor falling out, a divorce and a painful split with a business partner, and came out of it with a very different definition of winning.
Greg joins Zack Miller and Tim Ryan to talk about why pain can become your greatest superpower, why confidence comes from reps, what baseball taught him about handling pressure, and why confronting what you're avoiding can be the quickest path toward peace.
They also dig into vulnerability, seeking approval, asking better questions, finding intrinsic value instead of chasing external validation, and Greg's upcoming book, 27 Ideals of Connection.
Plus, Greg explains where he believes cybersecurity is heading as AI becomes ubiquitous and why Valor is betting on private, compartmentalized AI environments that give companies greater control over their data and intellectual property.
Timestamps
00:00 Pain is your greatest superpower
00:42 The Greg Tomchick origin story
05:41 Building Valor Cybersecurity
10:05 Four years searching for product market fit
13:08 Learning what you're worth
14:33 Where confidence actually comes from
18:30 Why Greg breathes OUT under pressure
20:48 Baseball and cybersecurity have more in common than you think
21:09 The meaning behind 27 Ideals of Connection
22:43 Living outside your comfort zone
25:26 Stop assuming. Ask the question.
30:09 Knowing what to care about
34:14 Why people need honest feedback
36:36 Greg's darkest stretch
38:00 Pain is your greatest superpower
41:24 The transformation since Greg's first appearance
43:37 Learning that you are enough
45:29 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic success
50:56 Vulnerability creates connection
53:44 What happens to cybersecurity in the AI era?
56:37 Valor's move into private AI
59:18 What food represents Hampton Roads?
https://valor-cybersecurity.com/
