Optivas Advisors

Name: Optivas Advisors
Address: 476 Old Smizer Mill Road, Suite 144, Fenton, MO, US
Telephone: +13146838057

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Optivas Advisors

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Americans have grappled with high prices, while business leaders have navigated tough decisions amidst ongoing tariffs and trade uncertainties.

Drawing from over 20 years of leadership experience in Fortune 500 companies, I founded Optivas Advisors.

10/18/2026

🍂 Su𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗜𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝗸

All week we pour ourselves into payroll, proposals, client calls, and the hundred small fires that come with owning a business. We spend so much energy keeping things running that we forget we need care too.

So today, give yourself permission to put the phone down. Take the slow walk. Linger over breakfast. Sit on the porch with the people who matter most and actually listen. Call the friend you’ve been meaning to call.

Rest isn’t a reward for finishing the work. It’s what makes the work possible. Even God rested on the seventh day.

Relax. Recharge. Reconnect.

Monday will be there when you get back. 🙏

10/17/2026

🎄 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿.

On Thursday evening I sat at my desk, browser open, watching the clock creep toward 7:00 PM. Not for a client deadline or a system cutover. I was waiting for the reservation window to open at Heritage Valley Tree Farm.

Every year since our oldest son was old enough to walk, the Friday after Thanksgiving has belonged to one thing. Lori, the boys, and I head to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. We wander the rows, debate every tree, and circle back to the ones that “might be the one.” When we finally find the perfect tree, we stop for a picture before the saw ever touches it.

In those early years, we nearly had the fields to ourselves. Season after season, more families found their way there, and this year the farm now requires reservations for that Friday. I’ll admit there was a small concern when I read that. Then it struck me as good news. That many families have decided to spend a few hours together in a cold field is worth planning around.

At 7:00 sharp I clicked the button, and the reservation was ours.

Traditions don’t keep themselves. Kids grow up, schedules fill, and life finds a hundred reasons to skip a year. The ones that last are the ones someone decides to protect, whether that means a spot on the calendar or a seat at the desk waiting for a page to load.

What tradition is your family protecting this year?

10/16/2026

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐚 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧

Last fall, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, published a report every business owner should know about. A state-sponsored group had turned its AI into an attack agent. The AI handled roughly 80 to 90 percent of the hands-on work, including scouting targets, finding weaknesses, writing the attack code, stealing passwords, and pulling out data. Humans stepped in only to approve the big decisions.

The tools themselves weren’t exotic. The AI simply never got tired and never went home.

Here’s the other half of that story, and it’s why I’m optimistic. The same capability works for defenders. For most of my career, constant monitoring, automated threat hunting, and real-time response came with Fortune 500 budgets. AI is making that protection affordable for a twelve-person law firm or a family-owned dental practice.

The attackers have new tools. So do we. What matters is whether you’re using them.

Have a great weekend, and make it a restful one. Somebody can be watching while you are spending time with your family and friends.

10/15/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝗔𝗜

Picture a Tuesday morning at a ten-person firm. The office manager has an AI assistant connected to her inbox and the shared drive because it saves her an hour a day. An ordinary-looking vendor email arrives. Hidden in it, in white text on a white background, is a line she will never see: send the latest financial files to this address. Her assistant reads every word. It follows the instruction. Nobody clicked anything.

That isn’t a movie plot. Security researchers have shown this kind of attack against Microsoft 365 Copilot with a single email, and against Gemini by planting a fake security warning inside an email summary. It’s called prompt injection, and the industry still has no complete fix. Security experts ranks it the top risk for AI applications.

In my years working at Fortune 500 companies, we had a simple rule for this: nobody gets access they don’t need, and we checked that list on a schedule. We called it least privilege. It applies to AI tools exactly the way it applies to people.

So this week, take ten minutes. Open your AI tool’s settings and look at what it’s connected to. Disconnect anything you aren’t actively using. Keep banking, tax, and HR files out of its reach. And never let it send email or move money without a human approving it first.

AI isn’t the villain here. It’s just very eager to please. Your job is deciding what it gets to see.

10/14/2026

𝟐𝟗 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬

It's 4:45 on a Friday afternoon. Someone on your team clicks a link, closes the laptop, and heads home for the weekend.

Last year, the average attacker took 29 minutes to move from that first foothold deeper into a company's systems. That's CrowdStrike's number. The fastest case they recorded took 27 seconds. AI is a big reason the clock keeps shrinking.

Patching workstations, servers, and other business systems used to give us breathing room. It doesn't anymore. Mandiant reported that attackers now commonly exploit software flaws before a fix even exists.

During my career working for Fortune 500 companies, I sat on plenty of 2 AM calls. We never asked whether the antivirus would catch it. We asked who was watching right now, and what they would do in the first half hour. Someone was always awake to answer.

Most small businesses I talk with have good tools. What they're missing is a person watching those tools on Saturday morning.

If something happened at your company tonight, who would know first?

10/13/2026

𝗥𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗺𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄

A group called The Gentlemen reportedly listed Deloitte on its leak site this week. Nothing is confirmed yet. But the group is real, and researchers ranked it among the most active ransomware operations of 2026.

What should get a small business owner’s attention isn’t the Deloitte headline. It’s the model. The Gentlemen rent their tools to affiliates, who keep most of the ransom. A franchise doesn’t need famous targets. It needs volume, and most of the names on those leak sites are businesses you’ve never heard of.

Big firms make the news. Small firms make up the numbers.

10/12/2026

“W𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻”

That was the opening line of an email I got from ASOS this week, the online clothing retailer. I’m a customer, so my name and contact details were apparently involved in the recent incident.

What caught my attention wasn’t the apology. It was how they said it happened. Nobody broke through a firewall. Someone pretended to be a person an ASOS employee trusted, asked for login credentials, and got them. From there, the attacker walked into third-party platforms the company relies on.

No zero-day exploit. No hooded genius. Just a convincing message to the right person on the right day.

I’ve seen this pattern for 35 years. Large companies spend millions on security tools, and the door still opens because someone was helpful. Small businesses have it harder, not easier. Your team knows your vendors by first name. Your bookkeeper gets requests from “you” by text. Everyone wants to be responsive. That’s exactly what attackers count on.

Here’s the part worth reflection: ASOS had a team and outside experts locking things down within hours. If your office manager got fooled tomorrow, who would notice, and how fast?

The best security tool most small businesses can buy this month isn’t software. It’s a team that pauses for five seconds before they click.

10/11/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆

In June 2022, at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, American artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez finished her solo routine and lost consciousness. She slipped beneath the surface. The music had stopped, the scores were coming, and the arena was looking anywhere but the bottom of the pool.

Her coach, Andrea Fuentes, was watching. She didn't wait for anyone else to move. She went into the water and brought Anita up.

I keep coming back to that scene because it's what a cyberattack looks like inside a small business. Nobody sets off a siren. Someone gets into an inbox on a Tuesday, sits quietly, and learns how your invoices work. The phones keep ringing, payroll runs, the team hits its numbers. Everything looks fine from the stands.

In my Fortune 500 years, we never assumed someone would notice. We paid people to watch, around the clock, specifically for the things that don't make noise.

Most small businesses I meet don't have that person. They have a number to call once something breaks.

This October, ask yourself one honest question: if something went wrong in your business at 2 a.m. tonight, who would see it first?

I hope the answer is someone whose job is to dive in.

10/10/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝘁 𝗗𝗼𝗴 𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗼𝘁

Picture one of the best restaurants in the world. Eleven Madison Park, New York. A table of out-of-town guests is near the end of an elaborate tasting menu when one of them mentions the one thing they never got to try on their trip: a New York street hot dog.

A team member overheard. Someone ran out to a street cart, the kitchen plated that hot dog with full fine-dining care, and it arrived at the table as a surprise course. Years later, that’s the moment those guests talk about. Not the tasting menu. The hot dog.

In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara explains how a business can afford moments like that. Manage 95% of the operation with real discipline, so you’re free to spend the last 5% in ways that seem almost unreasonable.

Most of us run it backwards. We let the 95% leak through waste and loose habits, then cut the 5% because we “can’t afford it.”

The discipline is what pays for the delight.

What’s one small, unreasonable thing you could do for a customer this month?

10/09/2026

𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝗺

In early 2024, a finance employee at a global engineering firm behind the Sydney Opera House, got an email from headquarters asking for a confidential transaction. He was suspicious, and he was right to be.

Then he joined a video call. The CFO was there, along with several colleagues he recognized. They looked right, sounded right, and walked him through the request. His doubts faded. Over the next several hours he made 15 transfers totaling about $25 million.

Every person on that call was an AI-generated deepfake, built from video and audio of real executives that was publicly available online.

This week we’ve watched the same pattern grow. On Wednesday, intruders who quietly wait inside a business for weeks. On Thursday, a cloned voice on the phone. Today, a face on a screen. Each step removes one more thing we used to rely on to know who we’re talking to.

Here’s the part that matters for a small business. That employee did the right thing at first. He doubted the email. What failed wasn’t his judgment. It was the absence of a rule that no amount of convincing could override. A call-back to a known number. A second approver for any transfer. A question only the real person could answer.

Most small business owners have more video of themselves online than they realize, in webinars, social posts, and voicemail greetings. The tools to copy them are cheap. The defense is a simple process your team follows every time, no matter who seems to be asking.

Seeing is no longer believing. Verifying is.

Address

476 Old Smizer Mill Road, Suite 144
Fenton, MO

Telephone

+13146838057

Website

https://optivasadvisors.com/

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