407 Christian Espinosa

407 Christian Espinosa

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Christian Espinosa, author of The Smartest Person in the Room, advocates for wisdom over intelligence. Chronicle through his shift from competitiveness to compassion in The In Between, Life in the Micro. Founder of Alpine Security and Blue Goat Cyber, he excels in cyber security and public speaking.

Beyond his professional achievements, Christian is an extreme sports enthusiast, certified skydiver, paddy divemaster and an Ironman triathlete, having completed 24 races and climbed two of the seven summits. His dynamic life reflects his dedication to transformative leadership and embracing diverse experiences, including his passion for heavy metal and spicy food.

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Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast, where we have a fellow entrepreneur, but not just any entrepreneur. We have a post exit entrepreneur, a thought leader, and all around a terrific fellow. You'll hear all about that. Christian, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us.

And I'm always curious, Christian, because there is a story behind this story for everyone. So Christian, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

[00:03:54] Christian Espinosa: Yeah, it's an interesting story for me because I grew up very poor, a lot of chaos, the police coming over, a lot of car wrecks, and I sought safety and instability for a long time. My childhood was, like, my mother was addicted to pain meds and everything else, so it was, like, very chaotic. So I kind of swung the opposite direction and wanted safety and stability.

So I was in the military for a while, had nine to five jobs, and then I had a run in with the CEO where it was just Driving me nuts. I was like a VP of a company making good money, and the stress was so much that I decided to quit that job without another job lined up. So that safety and stability I thought I wanted, for once, I like let it [00:04:30] go.

I'm like, okay, I'll figure this out. And that's what I did. That started me on my solopreneur journey. So I did freelance work for a while, and then I got bored with that, decided to start a company, which was Alpine Security in 2014. I sold that to a publicly traded company in 2020. And then, while I was working for the publicly traded company, I had some blood clots and almost died.

And a medical device was able to quickly diagnose me. Portable Doppler ultrasound and diagnosed the blood clots. And I decided to leave the parent company and then spin off my new company, which focuses on medical device. Cybersecurity, so I thought, a medical device saved my life, maybe it's time to go back into cybersecurity, but niche it down to something more specific and something I'm more passionate with.

[00:05:15] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So there's a lot there. Firstly, and most importantly, thank you for your service. Always appreciate that you allowed us to do what we do because you're doing what you're doing. So thank you so much for having really the well being of the country front and center for you. And so before we go into the story behind the story, Your exit, you were really defying the odds, as everyone here knows in the Deep Wealth community, Deep Wealth Nation, up to 90 percent of liquidity events fail.

You were one of the successful ones. So Christian, looking back at your exit, is there a particular strategy that worked really well for you that you can share with Deep Wealth Nation of something they should consider as they prepare for their exit?

[00:05:52] Christian Espinosa: Yeah, I'm not sure my exit was actually successful, I did have an exit, it did not, in hindsight, it did not feel [00:06:00] successful. This was in 2020, it was during COVID, and we did in person training, so about 40 percent of my business dried up. And I had been approached by several prospective buyers. And this particular company, they were on the OTC, over the counter, and they wanted to get on NASDAQ.

So I thought this would be a good opportunity to sell my company for stock. When the stock got on the Nasdaq, cash it out, basically, right? So sold for stock, and it felt okay at first, but then while I was employed by the company, there was, like, these continuous blackout periods. They did get on Nasdaq, but then I could never sell the stock.

So I had to leave the company. In order to sell the stock and right when I exited, the stock was like 5. 50 and it quickly went down to 10 cents and I can only sell so many shares a day. So you know I did come out ahead. I was one of the few people that left the parent company in time to one of the few founders to make some money, but it wasn't exactly like I thought it would be.

[00:07:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, certainly some lessons learned there in Deep Wealth Nation. What a great takeaway for you from what Christian is saying hey, having stock, it can really go either way. So always assume perhaps the worst case scenario, you hope for the best, prepare for the worst, see where that takes you. And I'm curious, Christian, it's really a loaded question, probably not even a fair question.

I'll throw it out there anyways. Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently in terms of your exit or structured things differently?

[00:07:25] Christian Espinosa: I am doing things differently now. I'm preparing for, potential exit later. I [00:07:30] think you should build a business as if you're. You may have an exit because it makes the business lucrative to other people and it makes the business run smoother. So right now I'm looking at getting a CFO, a fractional CFO, and getting things in order.

And then if I do have another exit, I'm not certain want to, I may, I am going to make sure I talk to many more companies and people that are experts in this. I think I, only talked to four or five companies last time and the pressure of COVID and some of my sales drying up kind of made me feel like, okay, I'm going to do this and feel relieved a little bit and we do it for stock.

So I'm not going to do it for stock again, either. I don't mind do it for stock as long as there's some cash as well, but definitely going to do some more due diligence on the buyer because the buyer of my last company, I thought we were going to be culturally aligned, but we were not after. The honeymoon phase, and definitely not doing it for stock again.

Not only stock. I'll do it for stock, but with some cash behind it as well.

[00:08:27] Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. Some terrific lessons learned there. Now throughout all of this, one of the common themes is what you had done and are doing in cybersecurity. And by the way, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes. It's a point and click. It doesn't get any easier. Pick up Christian's book, The Smartest Person in the Room, The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity.

And so with that said, Christian, you could have really picked anything to do, but you chose cybersecurity. You're an expert in that area. You're a thought leader. You've done some terrific things there. What sparked your interest in cybersecurity in [00:09:00] the first place?

[00:09:01] Christian Espinosa: I did communications in the military, so I protected secret networks, and I knew cyber security was going to be the next big thing. So I decided when I got out of the military to focus on offensive cyber security, which Basically, you're a hacker, a paid hacker, a good hacker though. So that's what I did.

And then I shifted my focus from that to running a business, but I thought, that would be something interesting to do and it was, I'd get paid to break into hospitals and hack into stuff and socially engineer people. So it was fun, but now I have other people doing that for me.

[00:09:37] Jeffrey Feldberg: And this is really a growing area. You were really ahead of the curve when you started to do what you did with cybersecurity and now with Alpine security. So for the listener in Deep Wealth Nation, and what's interesting is when it comes to cybersecurity and we hear about data breaches every day, my goodness, it doesn't go by a day.

I don't get an email. So and so was breached and click here and you can get some kind of a settlement. And these companies are paying millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions or more for in fines. And what's interesting, Inter90 Day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, one of the areas that we have everyone do a self assessment on, it's for the data integrity of their network and for data privacy.

And Christian, at least as of this recording, maybe someone will break this trend. Not one single business owner, entrepreneur, founder has passed. So in other words, they're all failing when it comes to cybersecurity and data privacy. [00:10:30] And buyers, investors are now more than ever, they're aware of this.

They're doing audits on this. Whereas once upon a time, it was a nice to have, now it's an absolute must have, and it can either derail a deal or significantly lower the enterprise value. So what's going on in this area? We don't hear a lot about it from the back end. You've been there at the highest of levels, helping other entrepreneurs.

As entrepreneurs, where are we getting it wrong, Christian, from what you're seeing?

[00:10:55] Christian Espinosa: Well, cybersecurity is a, it's a cost typically, so most people, as an entrepreneur, you're trying to keep everything going and there's only so many things to focus on at once, and I think cybersecurity is one of those things that is often over complicated. And it's actually simple but in our industry, we overly complicate things, which I think adds to some hesitancy to look at it seriously, because you think it's a bigger deal than it really is to implement.

And I think that's a contributing factor. And then, like you mentioned, we've actually helped a number of PE firms and VC companies that are looking to acquire a company. And one of the lens they're using now is cyber security, because they realize, It is a major problem. And if I acquire a company today and there's a data breach tomorrow, the company valuation is going to obviously go down quite a bit.

So think if you're an entrepreneur looking to sell your business and you have anything to do with data, which is most of us, best to at least have some initial conversations with somebody about cybersecurity to figure out on a roadmap, what should I be doing as I'm growing to make sure I'm not trying to bolt something on at the very [00:12:00] end, but I've actually built it into my process and my business.

[00:12:03] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so interesting. And Christian, in your book, again, Deep Wealth Nation, check out The Smartest Person in the Room, The Root Cause, A New Solution for Cybersecurity. You don't pull any punches. Right off the bat, Chapter Zero, actually, not even Chapter One, Chapter Zero, Why Are We Losing the Cybersecurity War?

And so for someone in the Deep Wealth Nation, obviously, we're not going to go through the whole book. I mean, that would be a, not just an episode, it'd be a series of episodes. But big picture wise, why are we losing that war? What's going on?

[00:12:30] Christian Espinosa: I kind of alluded to it a while ago when I said we overly complicate the industry, so I think that's part of it. The real issue, which I write about in my book, is we all want to be significant. In cybersecurity and high tech industries, people get their significance by being smarter than other people.

This perceived being smarter than other people, by being intellectually superior. And if your ego is trying to protect that, you're always going to talk over people's heads, because that makes you feel important, because somebody else doesn't understand. And In cybersecurity, we see it on TV, it's common knowledge that this is what people do.

They talk over your head, and then you don't understand what they're saying. And if you don't understand cybersecurity, or the person communicating to you can't communicate in a way that you understand, you're not going to be able to implement it, and it's going to seem way overly complicated. So it's like this weird dynamic that happens because the ego wants to protect that identity that people in my industry have made up.

And these super highly rationally intelligent people. But they often lack [00:13:30] emotional intelligence. And, if we can raise the emotional intelligence And combine that with a high IQ, we would have a great team, and I think we'd make much more progress in cybersecurity.

[00:13:40] Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's interesting about this, because when I think of cybersecurity, and I know I'm not alone when I speak to other people about this, we don't think of mindset. And mindset from us as leaders, the founders, the entrepreneurs, all the way through to the culture, what the team is doing or not doing, you don't necessarily associate the two, but you do.

So when it does come to mindset, and you talk all about this in the book, but again, from a very high level, someone listening in from the Deep Wealth Nation, what do you want them to know about mindset, specifically when it does come to cybersecurity?

[00:14:10] Christian Espinosa: I think with mindset I mean, I talk about in the book, a growth mindset is important versus a fixed mindset and I think in cybersecurity, there's this idea that one size fits all, unfortunately with most cybersecurity people. So it's kind of like the hardwired fixed mindset. The reality is every business is a little bit different every.

Entrepreneur has a little bit different risk appetite so if I'm a cybersecurity consultant, I need to take that in consideration. It doesn't make sense that a specific part in a business's journey to implement 100 things. It may make sense to implement five things and do them very well, but a lot of cybersecurity people will just say you have to do all 100 of these things.

And then most business owners get frustrated I can't do all 100 of those things. That's too, it costs too much. I don't even know what those, 95 of those things are. So it's like having that growth mindset, [00:15:00] realize I got to look at the world through the lens of who I'm talking with or who I'm speaking with and where they are on their business journey.

And that's something that most cybersecurity people are horrible at doing.

[00:15:11] Jeffrey Feldberg: Fair enough. And there is so much there, but I want to go from that, from a very high level now. Let's get into the weeds a little bit because Blue Goat Cyber, you are now doing this. You alluded to that a little bit earlier, and you're focusing on full service medical device cybersecurity. And again, at first blush, when I think of cybersecurity, that's not necessarily what comes top to mind.

So you've been in the industry for a while. You picked this segment for a specific reason. So what's happening or not happening that had you focus on? This specific niche.

[00:15:42] Christian Espinosa: Well, medical device, cybersecurity, we work with anything from an implantable, it could be a defibrillator, pacemaker, a neurostimulator for your brain, it could be a drug infusion pump, it could be an in vitro diagnostic system that takes a sample of your tissue and recommends a course of treatment.

So all of these things have vulnerabilities, and what we do is make sure that they are secure and that a medical device manufacturer can get them cleared through whatever regulatory authority there is, and the U. S. is the FDA. So they have to meet all these cybersecurity requirements. And finally, the FDA is clamping down on cybersecurity and actually focusing on it because there's been a lot of these devices compromised.

Like pacemakers were hackable for a long time. Dick Cheney had his pacemaker, the wireless functionality disabled because he didn't want someone to [00:16:30] wirelessly No fly, sell side, hey, ROI hey. So, yeah, I think you can find a lot of good stuff on the Internet. Like cyber security traditional, as I like to say, is kind of boring.

I mean, all of our health information has been stolen, all of our credit card information has been stolen, and it's really an inconvenience. But with medical device technology, you can actually kill somebody. And it's not just that. It's we work with very innovative ideas, and I'm grateful to be part of bringing them to market.

One of the products we're working with now, it can take your blood, it Dehydrated into a powder, which makes it easier to store and transport, and then later you add basically water to it and your blood's back. So these are cool technologies also.

[00:17:21] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. And so as you're talking about this, I can see at a very high level, perhaps you have some kind of a politician or political leader of a country. Wow. You can really do some damage there, or maybe even a high profile person. I can see where someone can potentially come in and say, okay, unless you give us A, B, and C dollars, we're going to do this or that because we now have control of that medical device and you can create havoc with it.

That said, though, for the quote unquote average person, there is no average person, but for the rest of us who are out there, we're not a high ranking government official, we're not necessarily a high profile personality out there, what's going on out there that the headlines were [00:18:00] just not either hearing or they're just not reporting when it comes to medical devices and those devices being hacked?

[00:18:06] Christian Espinosa: We don't really think about medical devices unless we rely on one, like a continuous glucose monitor is one that's been compromised before, or any sort of insulin delivery, which a lot of people have diabetes. But the other thing is like, when you go to a hospital. If you pay attention, on average, there's 14 devices around a bed.

So there's 14 things that could be hacked. And it could be a physical interface, it could be Bluetooth, it could be wireless. So, if you're in a hospital, can see what can be compromised. It could be the devices monitoring your pulse and your heart rate and hospital environments, we consider them hostile.

They are the most unsecure environments there are. So we got this medical device on a hostile environment, basically, that might be sustaining your life or helping you with your life or helping provide diagnostics. So I think it's just a matter of having the awareness that these things are not as secure as we like to believe they are.

[00:19:09] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So there really sounds like it's vulnerable that anyone out there who, for whatever reason, they have their agenda, they can just go in and take control of this. And so really, to use a different analogy, but one that we can all relate to, just to take some of the complexity out of this, it would be almost as though I could hack into an automated computer.

Car, that's just driving on the [00:19:30] road, and now I can control that car, I can run it off the road, I can have it go off a cliff, I can have it stop in the middle of a freeway, whatever's going on with that, once I have control, I'm in the driver's seat, so to speak, I can do pretty much whatever I want with that.

How am I doing without my on bass, off bass?

[00:19:44] Christian Espinosa: agree 100%. It's, we like to say that's a cyber physical system. I live here in Phoenix, we have autonomous driving cars, Waymos that's a brand, I take them all the time. But I often think, what if I were to hack into this car, and like you said, cause it to speed up to 120 miles an hour and run into a light pole?

I could kill somebody. And then what's interesting is I was just at the Miami airport yesterday. They now have autonomous wheelchairs. So if you need a wheelchair and you get off a plane, You sit in it, there's a chair there, and it just drives itself to the next gate. Immediately think about, okay, what if I can hack into this thing and cause it to speed up, or run into something, or run over somebody?

This is the world, I see the world through that lens. And it's the same thing with medical devices. I can hack into a drug infusion pump, the flow rate. And it's not just that we work with devices that are like an exoskeleton for someone that has MS. So it allows them to basically walk, But that device, if it's not secure, same concept, I could speed it up or make it run off a bridge and into a lake and cause somebody to drown, right?

So there's all these things that I think most of us are unaware of. I just am hyper aware of it because it's my profession. And it's, yeah, it's exciting and also a little nerve wracking at the same time. Because, I don't want to test a device and miss something and then somebody else hacks into it, [00:21:00] right?

That doesn't look good for my brand.

[00:21:01] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, there's really a lot going on with that. And so from a big picture, because I know you talk a lot about emotional intelligence and you talk about business culture, and at first blush, you really, again, you wouldn't put that through with cybersecurity or even the medical device side of things with cybersecurity, but you make a really good case for it, a compelling case in the book.

But also if we look at it from a big picture, so Christian, if I'm going to zoom out now 50, 000 feet in the air. Having a leadership team that's highly emotional intelligence, that they can do all kinds of problem solving, that they're very sensitive to not having a situation where people are going to be talking over them or we're not going to be listening.

So from that perspective, which really applies to every single one of us, we're leading a company. How do we go about, and what did you do specifically with yourself and your teams to really find and hire the right people? Who can bring on board the right mindset? Who can bring that culture of trust and respect, not just with our internal culture, but also really through our entire stakeholder system?

What's going on there of what you might be able to share with us?

[00:22:04] Christian Espinosa: I did a lot of reflection on what was going right in my business and what was a challenge. And the biggest challenge was my staff 99 percent of my problems in the business were because my staff lacked the emotional intelligence. So what I did is I did training every Thursday for many years with my team. And what ended up working is what I wrote about in the book. Some of that was. [00:22:30] Communications training, some of it was neuro linguistic programming training, some of it was, how to be present, some of it was active listening skills, some of it was how to communicate better, some of it was like looking at somebody else's perspective from an empathy point of view, so all that is what I ended up writing about in the book, but it wasn't, I think business is a reflection of the owner, so I had to do the work myself first, and I've done a lot of personal development.

I've taken lots of classes. I'm a master NLP practitioner. I've been to many events. I've, done ayahuasca in the Mexican jungle. I've done a lot of things to try to evolve myself because I think a business is only going to go as far as the owner. So applied those skills in my company.

And then after that, I only hired people that were a cultural fit which is the opposite of what I used to do. What I used to do is hire people based on their technical skills. They're a degree, and they're certifications, and later on, I didn't care about that. I only cared about the cultural fit with my company and that emotional intelligence.

[00:23:29] Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, so I like how you had your own particular challenge, otherwise known as an opportunity. You applied it to yourself. You saw what worked, what didn't work. And now what's interesting, you're really from the book, now you also have a course, PeopleSkills, where smart people, the secure methodology course that you So, I always tell people, that W E A T E R, W I T E R, W E A T E R, W E A T E R, is the key word.

I always say, you know, you're in a [00:24:00] situation where, where we are. We're in a situation where we have a creative, productive, innovative, successful young person And we're doing it all just to make sure that we're doing the right thing. And now we're the first country among the world to Learning from you, what does that look like in terms of how long does it take and what kind of results would I expect to see?

[00:24:19] Christian Espinosa: So I have seven steps that I developed that's part of my course, that's part of my book. And I think those seven steps, regardless of your role or your position or where you are, I think those seven steps can help anybody. It's really about self leadership. think it's challenging to lead other people if you cannot lead yourself.

And the steps, a lot of them are a little bit based on NLP. If you haven't read about neurolinguistic programming, you can watch some YouTube videos on it. I think, I don't know if it's a secret sauce, as you alluded to, but I think it's important that we are aware of our triggers and that our behaviors are very predictable, actually.

That's one of the concepts of NLP. We have a program that runs in our brain and if somebody says something or does something or we have a stimulus, we automatically execute that program. And if we have a fixed mindset We think that's just the way we are. But if we have a growth mindset, we realize instead of executing this program, especially if it's not resulting in the behavior I want or the life I want, I can change that response.

So next time somebody asks me a [00:25:30] question, instead of getting defensive, when I notice I'm starting to get defensive, I can change that and then start getting curious. So maybe ask them some questions back. So that results in a much more meaningful conversation than a defensive, friction based conversation.

And that, that's something we all can do, but you have to have that awareness to do it. And you have to realize it's going to take time for that. Old habit to become weaker and the new habit to become the stronger neural pathway or the one that's the default behavior. So I think that's a big part of it because if you don't believe in that concept of, we call it neuroplasticity, like you could learn new things.

Then almost everything else in the book or in the course won't really matter. You have to have that awareness and the embrace the idea that I can change it.

[00:26:17] Jeffrey Feldberg: That's interesting how Deep Wealth Nation, I hope you're listening because really we're talking everything from within. This isn't about the technology or your skill set. It really goes back to who we are as leaders, what that vision for our company is, where we want to take it. And Krishna, I'm curious, as we look to cybersecurity really in general from a big picture, how Artificial intelligence.

As we record this podcast, AI continues to redefine how everything is being done from life to business, everything else in between. How has AI, in perhaps not a great way, begun to erode some of the cybersecurity systems that have worked in the past, and where do you see AI going with bad actors?

[00:26:58] Christian Espinosa: Well, we like to think [00:27:00] that as a defender or a good guy in cybersecurity, that we can use AI to our advantage and stop the bad guys. But we have to also realize if we're using AI, the cyber criminals are using AI and they are probably better at it than we are. Because if they don't succeed, they don't make a living.

And if we don't succeed, it's like not this big a deal. We're still paid a salary. Most people in cybersecurity, but the cyber criminals have to, get the ransomware out there, have to have a way to make money or they cease to exist. So they are usually way more motivated than the good guys, unfortunately because their life blood depends on it and they are using AI.

So it's to some degree, it's a battle of AI versus AI, who can better prompt engineer the AI attack AI or the defense AI. I think right now we as the defenders of our networks and defenders of systems are not doing as good as the cyber criminals.

[00:27:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, sad but true. I've heard so many times, and I happen to agree with it, if these bad actors would only apply their smart, if they would only apply their intelligence, their drive, their passion to good things, society as a whole would be so much better. And so Christian, got back into the industry, you had your exit, you could have done really any number of things, but you're doing what you're doing because you now want to help your fellow entrepreneurs and really make society a better place.

So when you're speaking to Deep Wealth Nation, who would you be speaking to specifically there? Who you can help, or what you're doing, or how you can help them, or why you're here to help them with some of the challenges or problems that either [00:28:30] they may know about or they may not know about. What would be your message to them?

[00:28:34] Christian Espinosa: I think it's important to find people that are ahead of the journey than you are and talk to them about things like when I first started as an entrepreneur, I had an ego. I had to resolve things myself and I thought I have it all figured out or I can figure it out, I don't need to ask for any help.

And. As a result of that, I paid as much dumb tax as you can pay, basically. So, if there's a way to join an entrepreneur group, seek counsel from other people, find a way to add value, and be vulnerable. Just so you know, I don't even know how to read a freaking balance statement, I mean, a lot of us pretend we think we know all these things, but the reality is we don't actually know, but we're not going to know unless we ask.

And the longer we're in something, more afraid to ask because we feel like we should have known this a year ago, so it's like this self fulfilling prophecy, so I think it's important to surround yourself by people a little bit further ahead of the journey, some behind you, and you can help them, the people ahead can help you, and just, you don't have to go at it alone.

I think that was a big thing that I had to come to terms with.

[00:29:33] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes, oftentimes it can be lonely at the top as leaders. Who do we speak to, and who do we even trust that we can speak to? And you're so right, and really some great advice that you're sharing for the Deep Wealth Nation of, hey, you don't have to be alone in this. Find people who have been down this path perhaps a little bit longer than you, have had a few more ups and downs, that they can share that with you.

Really help you make a difference. And so from where you sit today, Christian, as you look forward what is the future of [00:30:00] cybersecurity? What are you seeing some emerging trends right now that perhaps it's a year from now or three or five years from now that are really going to be front and center?

[00:30:08] Christian Espinosa: I think we touched upon some of them. It's the cyber physical systems, like the autonomous cars, the autonomous vehicles. Wheelchairs, the drones, all these things. We have a physical component, and if they're compromised, including medical devices, a lot bigger problem than, your medical record stolen, or your credit card stolen, or sensitive data stolen.

These can actually cause physical harm. So I think we are evolving more and more towards that direction, and it's just a matter of time before something major happens, and we have to do a reset. Because, if I've been in this industry for a long time, and if I just look back on the medical device landscape, for instance, The FDA didn't change their cybersecurity requirements until September of 2023.

They made some major updates, but all the devices that were approved before then, these legacy devices, did not have a high degree of scrutiny from a cybersecurity lens. And it's not just in this industry, it's in other industries. I used to test aircraft for hacking, to see if you could hack an aircraft.

It's the same thing. The FAA, it took them a long time to catch up. So you have these older systems out there that are vulnerable and we're trying to play catch up the whole time. So think at some point all this playing catch up is gonna catch up to us in a There's some sort of incident, unfortunately.

[00:31:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: And preparation, it may be boring, it may take some time, but it's really, it sounds like the [00:31:30] best antidote to this of, hey, let's be prepared. Let's get ahead of this curve. Let's really ensure that we're up to speed, that we've updated everything, that our systems are where they need to be. So that it makes it harder or more time consuming that these bad actors will just ignore us or go somewhere else, sadly, because we're too difficult or we're going to take too much time.

[00:31:49] Christian Espinosa: Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.

[00:31:50] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Christian, before we go into wrap up mode, I know there's many questions that I haven't had a chance to ask, but is there a particular question that comes to mind or is there a topic that we haven't covered or even a message that you'd like to get out to the Deep Wealth Nation? 

[00:32:05] Christian Espinosa: I think one message I think about fairly routinely, I don't know if it's a message or a lens, I think about, because it's easy as an entrepreneur or a person to consume a lot of content and think, I'm going to watch all these YouTube videos on how to start a business, or I'm going to watch this YouTube video on how to scale a business.

And I think it's important to not get so wrapped up in that and just start taking the steps yourself. Because clarity It often comes through the action. And your steps may be different than some guru's steps, but, it's what works for you.

[00:32:37] Jeffrey Feldberg: A a lot to really think about it. So it also sounds like really going within, just because something's working for someone doesn't necessarily mean it's the best path for us or what's going to be best for us to really go within. Find what works for us, and then, based on what you're talking about, being the smartest person in the room, or having that culture of listening and empathy, of instilling that in the people that we surround ourselves with, the leaders that [00:33:00] we're hiring, and really from the front line team members all the way on through, that we also instill in them what we want to see within ourselves.

Thoughts about that?

[00:33:08] Christian Espinosa: I agree with that. I think for me you can learn something from anybody. And I often think we get kind of wrapped in this mindset where we have to look for the guru. But I remember the story with Barefoot Wines and you may have heard the story. It was like an admin, I think it was an admin, like our secretary.

Came up with the idea of putting those little barefoot stickers on the floor of the grocery store to walk to the wine to kind of walk to the wine. And when they implemented that, their wine sales went up dramatically, right? it was a very dramatic difference. And this wasn't like a marketing expert.

It wasn't like some leader in the company. It was, a secretary that had a great idea. So, I think we need to be receptive to these sort of ideas because everyone on a team has a different perspective and they have something to contribute.

[00:33:55] Jeffrey Feldberg: Exactly. You never know where that next idea for a market disruption or a catapult in your growth or profits can come from. It could come from someone on the front line, from someone up in the higher echelons of the company, but to really be there to recognize that. And what's interesting with that story is that individual had the confidence.

to be able to do this, do it first, talk about it later. And if it didn't work, still have the confidence, well, hey, yeah, I did that. I tried it. It didn't work, but hey, at least I tried. And that speaks so much to the culture and really what you're getting at. And it's interesting because when you go beyond, in this case, [00:34:30] cybersecurity, and we talk about best practices, whether it's best practices in cybersecurity, Or it could be in manufacturing at the opposite end or something in between.

There's a reason why these best practices have been around for a while. They work, they get the results, they transcend different industries. So I absolutely love what you're doing there. So Christian, that said, it's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast where it's a privilege and honor for me to ask every guest the same question.

It's a really fun question. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time. So Christian, imagine now is tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside. The door is open.

This is the fun part. The door is open. You're gonna hop on in. You're now gonna go back to any point in your life. Perhaps it's Christian as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. What are you telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom or life lessons, or hey Christian, do this, but don't do that?

What would that sound like? You

[00:35:28] Christian Espinosa: I would tell my younger self to follow my gut instinct sooner than later and block out the noise. Cause I, mentioned before, I thought I wanted safety and stability. And I fell down that path for way too long, and I really didn't value that. I valued the journey of being an entrepreneur. I valued the risk taking, and it took me a while to unravel that.

So I knew that was me to begin with, but I sought something I didn't have which delayed my progress is the way I feel about it.

[00:35:58] Jeffrey Feldberg: know, such great [00:36:00] advice. Listen to your inner voice, even if it may feel or sound scary at the time or crazy, and it sounds like that's what you were going through, and you did come around to it, and credit to you for doing that. What I'm hearing you say is, hey, perhaps if I could have listened a little bit earlier, I could have started my journey a little bit earlier, but it's terrific advice.

And after all, so many guests, Christian, that come onto the podcast, it's that inner voice going against the grain of, hey, do this, even though everyone's doing that. And more times than not, it turns out to be the right way to go. So Deep Wealth Nation, some terrific advice is out there. And Christian, before we officially wrap this up, somebody in Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question for you.

They want to speak with you. They want to go through one of your courses or see how your company can help them. Where would be the best place online for someone to reach you?

[00:36:46] Christian Espinosa: They can go to my personal brand website, ChristianEspinoza. com. My course is available through there, my books are on there, and my contact information is there. If they need help with medical devices, they can go to BlueGoatCyber. com and connect with me there as well. Or LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn and pretty much all social media.

[00:37:03] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Deep Wealth Nation, it doesn't get any easier. It is a point and click. It's all in the show notes. And again, get the book, The Smartest Person in the Room, The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity. Well, Christian, it's official. Congratulations. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

[00:37:25] Christian Espinosa: Yeah. Thank you, Jeffrey. 

[00:37:26] Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that [00:37:30] said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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God bless.