(Honoring Heath Adams and the end of an era at TCM)

Today I learned that Heath Adams, The Cyber Mentor, is stepping away from TCM Security at the end of 2025. I’ll be honest; that hit me harder than I expected.

Many people in cybersecurity know Heath as a content creator, instructor, founder, or “that guy who explains hacking so even normal humans understand it.” But for some of us, he represents something much deeper.

For me, Heath Adams was the reason I got into ethical hacking in the first place.

In late 2019, I bombed a Linux Administrator interview. Badly. It exposed a gap in my knowledge that I could not ignore.

Around the same time, I had a OneWheel accident that shattered my arm. I underwent multiple surgeries. My left arm was in a sling for months. It was one of the lowest moments of my adult life.

Most people would have hit pause on everything. But I’m wired differently. If someone tells me “you can’t,” I tend to say, “Watch me.”

So there I was, with one arm in a sling, determined to learn Linux and break into cybersecurity.

That’s when I found Heath’s “Pentesting for n00bs: Legacy” walkthrough and his “Full Ethical Hacking Course” on YouTube. He taught me how to install Kali. He showed me how to think like an attacker. He guided me on how to approach problems methodically. He helped me avoid psyching myself out.

On a cold December night in 2019, with one arm, I pawned my first HackTheBox machine, Legacy. My hand was literally shaking on the keyboard—not from fear, but because it was the only one I had available.

I’ll never forget the feeling when I saw:

root@legacy:~#

It wasn’t just the thrill of the hack. It was the realization that even in a season when I felt physically broken, mentally drained, and professionally humbled, I could still learn, grow, rebuild, and break into a field that once felt impossible.

Heath was the voice in my ear during that moment. His content helped shape who I ended up becoming: an IT leader, a security practitioner, a builder, and someone now on the vCISO path.

So yes, I’m sad to see him leave TCM. But I’m also grateful. Because people like Heath don’t just build companies; they build futures.

Mine is one of them.

Thank you, Heath. For the lessons, the encouragement, the accessibility, and the belief that anyone—even a guy hacking with one arm—can start somewhere and end up somewhere entirely different.

What a journey. For you. For TCM. And for all of us who owe part of our story to you.