April 24, 2026 • 24 mins
Christian Espinosa, best-selling author and entrepreneur, excels in cybersecurity and real estate. He inspires others to harness their innate wisdom, overcome perceived barriers, and courageously tread new paths. An adventure enthusiast, Christian has completed 24 Ironman triathlons and two of the Seven Summits, embodying transformative leadership and relentless exploration. Christian website: https://christianespinosa.com/ Show notes: https://successgrid.net/sg268/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid Join AI Marketers Club: https://www.successgridacademy.com/3a30d0c6
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries. My aim is to dive into their
stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hibishud of
(00:21):
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the reasons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned
business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great
Podcast starts now many episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I have an Christian Espinoza. He is a best selling
author and entrepreneur excels in cybersecurity and real estate. He
inspires other others to harness they're in need wisdom and
adventure enthusiast. Christian has completed twenty four Ironman triathons and
two of the seven summits. Wow, that's you're You're like
(01:19):
some kind of a superman bodying transformative leadership and relentialistic exploration.
We are going to be talking about how he built
his business in the cybersecurity space, how he started over now,
and how he solved it that business.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So Christian will come to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
You're saying, I want to know a little bit about
what you did in the Ironman and you participated in
back not just one, not just two, not three, not five, ten,
twenty four, so that's a lot. But first of all,
because this is the sexist podcast, and you built through
a lot, you built businesses, you sold businesses, you started over.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
What does access is to you?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And how do you see other people have certain misconceptions
what success is.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I think success is highly personal. It is how you
define it. So for me, success is when i feel
like I'm progressing in my health, my wealth, in my relationships,
and it's also when i feel like I'm coomfortable with
who I am and where i am. That's a measure
of success. To me, the other aspect of success is
I like to have enough you know, health, wealth and
(02:29):
solid relationships where I can kind of do what I
want to do and not be under the thumb of
somebody else. That's how I define success.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It's talk a little bit about I want to go
to and talk about how you build your businesses and
cyber scat space and how you start over. But first
I want to get the stories of the Iron Man,
because and you climbed I think two summits of the
seventh summits in the world. So that's these these achievements, Uh,
(02:56):
not really easy achievement on the personal level. So why
are you that much invested in being involved in an
Iron Man competition? Let's say, and you not just did
it once, you did it twenty four times, so that's
you are like a super mine kindness.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, I started off doing trayfon as a bet. A
friend of mine who's very competitive, bet me to race
him at a trafon. And I never even knew what
a trifon was, and I did know how to swim,
so I learned how to swim, I borrowed a bike,
and then I beat him at the race. Which is
great because he's a good smack talker and it's nice
(03:38):
to kind of quiet him down a little bit. And
then after that, I thought, you know what, I'm going
to do another trifon because it gave me a purpose
for working out. I used to just go to the
gym and lift weights and do stuff. But when you
train for a trifon, you have to get better swimming, better, biking,
better running. And then I just kind of kept doing
them and then I was like, okay, I've done a
corner distance, then a half distance. I'm also do a
full distance one, and then went you do a full
(04:00):
distance one, which is a full iron man it's one
hundred and forty point six miles. Then after that you're like, okay,
now what I guess I'll do another one because they're
in cool locations and it's a it's a very transformative experience.
It's not easy, like you say. It's a lot mental, physical,
a little bit spiritual. So it's like putting yourself to
that sort of pain for a day, and the preparation
(04:21):
leading up to that, to me is really transformed me
and my resilience. It's maybe much more resilient because when
you complete an iron Man or anything difficult. It makes
you realize you're much more capable than you thought you were.
You know, most of our limitations, almost all of them
are self imposed, and we do something very challenging, you
come to terms of that. That's that's self imposed and
(04:44):
your limitations are just you know, something you've made.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Up exactly like we put a lot on our self
freediment or self without even trying. Now, sometimes we think
that certain things is the coil to work with life
in general, the coils work like you have to work
to to to ac certain place. Now, the amount of
effort differs from one thing to other, but eventually there's
some kind of efforts. So we need to put ourselves
(05:09):
in a place that we push ourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
A little bit more and more every day.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So that's the let's say the purpose of our lives
is to go in a higher level for ourselves every day.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
That's very important.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So now in regards to business, when we talk about
cyber security, when you started your business the first time,
didn't you think that this is something that is hard
or do you think like your thoughts on the Iron
Man competition, Let's see, I can I can do or
do you already have some experience in regards to cyber
(05:42):
security and how it works and how it's done, or
did you have some help starting that business?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
How did that start?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I did freelance work for about six years where I
travel the world teaching cybersecurity courses and doing penetration testing,
which is atical hacking. And I was doing it as
a solopreneur. I was making a lot of money, but
I got bored with it. I you know, I worked
like six or seven months of the year and took
the rest of the time off. But I got bored.
(06:10):
I felt like it wasn't growing and it wasn't challenging enough.
So I thought, Okay, one way to really challenge me
to grow is to start my own business and hire
a people to try to grow the business. And you know,
that's what I did. And I made a lot of mistakes,
like probably every mistake you could possibly make, I made
with bad hiring decisions, not understanding sales, not understanding marketing,
(06:33):
not having systems in place. But through that process, I
grew a lot. And that's really what I was seeking,
is that personal growth. I think it's very important to
invest in yourself and grow so you have more skills
tomorrow than you have today. And I fortunately was able
to sell that company in twenty twenty and then I
had so I had an exit, and then I started
(06:55):
a new company, Blue Goat Cyber, just a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So do you think that you didn't want to continue
with the business that you already started because you thought yourself,
You've got an over that was compelling enough for you
to sell and get this amount of money, and you already,
of course have the experience of building a similar company,
so thought to yourself, yes, this would be this time.
It would be a little smooth this time to build
(07:20):
the business that is similar to the one that I
already have.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I was getting kind of burned out, to be honest,
when I sold my first business, and then it was
during COVID, So forty percent of my business was training.
We did in person cybersecurity training. So because COVID happened,
that line of business went away, and then we did
medical device cybersecurity testing and assessments, and a lot of
(07:45):
manufacturers because of you know, world uncertainty, were not making
buying decisions. So financially, you know, the company was struggling
a little bit. I had to let some people go
because of the COVID and lack of training, and the
opportunity just came up to sell the company, and I thought, Okay,
maybe this makes sense to this juncture because of the
(08:08):
you know, the COVID situation, my personal situation. So I
decided to sell the company. I worked for the parent
company for a little over a year and then started
my company after my non compete was over with them
a couple of years later that this company, and I'm
trying to do everything in this company much different than
(08:29):
I did in the first company because I really didn't
have a plan. I just sort of went for it.
And that's kind of like who I am, and I
tend to like if I want to do something, I
just start doing it. It figured out why I'm doing it.
I don't try to overly plan and perfect the steps.
I just step into it and try to do it well.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I think that's an amazing message for people who are
having an idea for a business, just to just to
stop planning, because if we keep planning, we will never
go into action. It's important to dive in and start
because if you are not in that it's you would
not know what's required, what's working, what's not working, and
Duck made you now switch Gears, did say and to
(09:07):
what you are doing now with the medical space in cybersecurity.
So when you had this idea, did you see that
there's some kind of missing let's say, missing points or
certain things that are not covered that you thought, yes,
I have this solution for these kind of medical and
(09:28):
regards to cybersecurity.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
In my first business, which start was starting in twenty fourteen,
we did some medical device cybersecurity work. So I developed
that skill set with my team in myself. Then the
parent company didn't really want to pursue that, and I
wanted to pursue it. So I decided to start this
new company, Bluecoat Cyber, and focus on medical device cybersecurity.
(09:54):
The reason is from a business perspective, it's more of
a blue ocean strategy. There's not a lot of competitors
in medical device technologies in that space for cybersecurity, whereas
if you're trying to do cybersecurity for you know, web applications,
there's like thousands and thousands of competitors, which sort of
(10:14):
commoditizes your offering and it's much harder. It's much more
challenging as well in a medical device space. And for me,
a couple of years ago, I developed blood clots in
my left leg and went to the mercery room and
I was quickly diagnosed with a medical device. If sometimes
I think, if that device wasn't there or it didn compromise,
(10:37):
you know, I may not be here. I could have
died because they may have delayed my diagnosis. So I'm
also passionate about it because I think medical medical devices
can save someone's life, and if they're compromised, they can
always also kill somebody. Whereas you know, on a web application,
if someone steals your credit card information, it's inconvenience, but
it's not nearly as big of a deal as obviously
(11:00):
someone tracking hacking into a drug infusion, Papa killing you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Accidents happened to you through your visit with what happened
to you on your leg, and that for example, medical
device that we used. There's a way for it to
be improved in a way, right, So, like this is
the first time I hear this from you, Like I
never thought of these things in this way.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
So that's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And what you mentioned about it's being a blue ocean strategy,
like it's important also you can succeed in a competitive market.
But also if you can be one of the few
that inter a low competitive marketplace, it's better for the business.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And you would be kind very unique to the business. Right.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So, now, I'm sure maybe you have some kind of competition,
maybe what you are doing now, But what is it
that you think from your point of view and the
business is you are doing that you excel at that
your competition is not doing.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
A couple of things. I wrote a book about this
with my first cybersecurity journey. In cybersecurity, there's a lot
of high IQ people. They're super like rationally smart, but
they either don't have any people skills or they have
a little bit, so they make clients feel unappreciated and
(12:23):
not heard and not understood. So my team not only
has the high IQ, they also have the high EQ
or people skills. So when we interact with clients, we're
delivering not just a report, but we're delivering an experience,
an experience that builds relationships, so these clients become long
term clients rather than a one time project. So that's
(12:45):
one of the things. And then my team is highly
specialized in medical device cybersecurity. A normal cybersecurity firm will
not understand the requirements from the FDA, the EU and
DR all the specific niche theams for this industry. And
that's what we have investor in time learning and we
are very good at So.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That's very important. What you mentioned is like it's a
great in cyber security space. It's important to have it
people and people who are in the computer science space
that are very smart in what they are doing, but
also you want them to be emotionally smart and regards
to dealing with people because sometimes this kind of job
might not involve just the team, it might involve also
(13:26):
the people that are maybe using the things that you
are developing, right, So that's very important.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Whether with each other or maybe outsider.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So this is very important that you looked at, which
is nowadays. I think it's very like having this approach
to business is very important specifically now going on forward
because everything there is some kind of a lot of everything,
I guess, so.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
You need to be unique in a way.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And one of the things that you can be unique
is actually be human.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
And this is the first thing.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
That is like with AI and a lot of things,
which is I think it is very helpful, but also
you'll have to put the human touch in it.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
That's very important.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
What do you think that are important in your opinion
that business owners or entrepreneurs might find beneficial if they
want to start the business or if they are in
the journey of growth.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Let's say so from my experience of what I think
is the most one of the most important things if
you're going to get into business and be an entrepreneur
is to really understand your offering, your market, and your messaging.
I think the messaging is the most critical. One of
the things I did which is very useful is this
thing called brand script. It's based on Donald Miller's Story
(14:42):
brand Framework, which really focuses you in on understanding your client,
your market, your messaging, and then also position you as
a guide where the client is the hero in the story.
I think one of the things a lot of small
businesses to do is they like to just brag about
how great they are, but that's off putting to clients.
(15:04):
Clients wants to want Clients want to hear how you
can make them great or solve their problem. They don't
want to hear how great you are. So I think
that is extremely important, and then niche and down. Going
to the exercise will force you to niche down because
you will truly understand the market you're in. When I
built my first cybersecurity business, I had no idea what
I was doing. I just thought, everybody needs cybersecurity. I'm
(15:26):
going to build a cybersecurity business, offer everything, and people
will show up. Nobody showed up, and it was a
very eye opening that just because someone needs something doesn't
mean they're going to come to you. Because I was
trying to market everybody, which is basically marketing to nobody
because my messaging was diluted and it wasn't resonating with anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
To have some kind of a focus is very important,
especially now, like we talked, well, there is a lot
of competition and almost everything and the world denaby product
or service. So to niche down in a way that
you are unique to the market today, like what you
are doing now in regards to the medical cyber security business,
which is very impressive. Actually, so a your way throughout
(16:10):
your careers and you're working with cyber security, which is
a big deal nowadays. Like you mentioned, if some financial
data were stolen, yes, it's not the end of the world,
but it is an issue for a lot of people.
You don't want that to happen to you, so of course, right,
So what would be in like, let's say, maybe the
(16:34):
things that you focus on the sales cyber security space business,
that you ensure certain things that are would not be
allowed for infiltrators. You talked about ethical helckers, but do
you think that when you talk about ethical helcers also
these are the people who are working behind the scenes
in the businesses like yourself maybe, or the employees that
(16:57):
you have to forbid a regulars let's say I from
using the financial data or the medical data of the customers.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I think one of the challenges of cybersecurity is you
can think you have great defenses and all these controls
in place to keep out the criminals, but you don't
really know. So like Ronald Reagan in the US has
this phrase like trust but verify. I think we want
to trust we have the right controls in place and
(17:29):
our financial data or medical device is secure, but we
also want to verify it. And the way to verify
that is to hire an ally, like a white hat
hacker or someone like my company to try to break
into your environment, because if we can get in then
then obviously the cyber criminals can get in because we
use the same tactics. But if we could get in
before they do, we can tell you how to fix
(17:51):
those holes and close those gaps in your environment.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's throw out your business, real building a business, sit
in it. And now I'm start of thing this one.
What is the worst advice that someone that have ever
told you?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
The worst advice? I don't know that you get a
lot of advice when you start a business. Advice starts
coming from everybody, and I generally ignore everyone's advice unless
they are further along than I am. Like, I'm not
going to take financial advice from someone making less money
than me. I'm not going to take health advice for
someone less healthy than me. I'm not gonna takeship advice
(18:25):
relationship advice from someone that doesn't have an idea relationship
or the relationship is not better than mine. I may
listen to them, but the advice goes with kind of
a great assault. And when I started my company, most
people try to talk me out of it. That's why
the worst advice I got most people are like, why
are you leaving your solopreneur work. Why are you leaving
your full time job when you're making all this money,
(18:46):
You've got three weeks vacation, you've got benefits, blah blah
blah blah, And I'm like, I don't care. This is
what I want to do. And they would constantly try
to talk me out of it, just saying I'm missing everything.
I'm going I'm going crazy because you know, they wanted
me to stay in the same kind of job they
were in. And that's you know that, that's probably the
(19:07):
worst advice I received is listening to those people for
a while and kind of second guessing myself.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You would recommend to not listen to people, especially let's
say it opposed you, because we as a humans, we
live one life and we should have some kind of
a take some risks from once in a while, right,
So this is very important, Like eventually you if you
did not take the risk, you would not know where
you would go.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
How far are you would go?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, that's right. I think taking risk is important. I
think making decisions is important. I think staying in the
same position if you're miserable, that's your choice. You can't
you have nobody else to blame by yourself. We like
to blame our company. We work for our boss, you know,
for the relationship, and it's not good. We blame our spouse,
you know. It's it's it's constantly blaming other people. But
(19:51):
we have agency over our life, and we need to
make the decision to change our life regardless of what
other people think. It's up to us. Nobody cares about
your life more than you do. Nobody cares about your
health more than you do. Like for me, when I
had those blood clots, we've had health issues. The doctors
gave me some advice, but they they're not me. They
don't care about my life as much as me, so
(20:12):
I would take their advice, but I will ultimately make
my own decisions. And I think if we all shifted
our mindset from like stop listening to all the noise
out there, kind of silence the dialogue, and make your
own decisions, we'd be much better off eventually.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's true, like we are the only one mainly responsible
for our life and what we do with it, in
the guts to business and life itself. Because some people,
like you said, some people would try to put you down.
Most of people, that's what happens for multiple reasons, and
some people would actually encourage you, but eventually it's your
(20:46):
decision to choose what you are going to do, because
that's important because we would not know the results of
what we are thinking of unless, like you mentioned, we
take actions toward it, which which is the most import
certain thing in general, in business and in life also,
So that's.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
What should be done. We should not be afraid of like.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Being in this circle hori zone of comfort.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
I guess. So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, what tools or resources or books would you recommend
to people to see or.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
What or do you think of the best in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Well, there's a lot of about there. I think Think
and Grow Rich as a you know, a classic book
to read. It's not just about being rich, you know, financially,
but rich in life. I think that's that's a good book.
One of the best books for me was Mindset by
Carol Dweck. It's about a growth mindset versus a fixed
mindset and the psychology behind that. I think that's a
(21:44):
really great book. And I watch a lot of YouTube
videos recently. I've been watching these videos. He's by the
School of Hard Knocks, where this guy it's his channel.
He's like in his early twenties, and he does the
interviews very success for people you're multimillionaires and even billionaires,
and he asked them questions and it's very enlightening to
(22:06):
hear what these people have to say about, like what
advice they to give the younger self, or what if
I say, give the younger generation, or what's the most
important thing they've learned. And you know, for me, I
watched like those like you know maybe once like thirty
minutes a day or something. That's something that's helped me
a lot and changed my shift in my perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So speaking of that, what would be let's say if
you'll find a takeaway, Well, people who are listening to
this episode, I.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Think the final takeaway is if you are stuck in
the story of your life, which you've created, and you
don't like your story, change your story. We often get
in this thing and say I am this, this is
who I am, blah blah blah blah. But if it's
not making you happy or not making you fulfilled, change
your story. And this could go even someone you know,
(22:55):
I talked to a lot of people I used to
coach a lot of people, and people would say their
story would be I'm someone that doesn't believe in divorce,
as example, and they would be married in a miserable
relationship for twenty years and they're like, well, I still
don't believe in divorce. I'm like, are you willing to
be miserable and your spouse miserable for twenty years? Twenty
more years because you won't change your story. So I
(23:17):
think it's important to understand, like we said earlier, you
have agency over your life. And sometimes we have this
narrative or dialogue going on your head that we think
defines who we are, but that's made up we all.
We make up who we are. We make up ourdentity.
We make up you know, most of what we project
the world, and that's all malleable. It is if you
believe in a growth mindset.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We always add human we need to strive to do
more and better for ourselves every day. So, Christians, how
can people learn more about you and see what you do?
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah, they can learn more about me on my personal website,
Christian Espinoza dot com. They can learn about by cybersecurity business.
I'm lougot cyber dot com and then I'm on LinkedIn
and Twitter, and my books are on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Awesome, and thank you very much Christian for joining me
for this epsuite of the podcast. Really insightful knowledge and
you sharing your story from building a business to suiting
and to starting over again. And I would say that
it's very important for anyone that have an idea for
a business or whatever kind of idea is to one
of the important things is to actually dive into it
(24:23):
and start taking action instead of just keeping on tanning
and having it on paper, which is not.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Going to go anywhere.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Thank you very much for doing making actions the most
important part, like you said, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Definitely thank you for joining me.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Yeah, thank you for having saying I appreciate it.
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries. My aim is to dive into their
stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hibishud of
(00:21):
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the reasons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned
business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great
Podcast starts now many episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I have an Christian Espinoza. He is a best selling
author and entrepreneur excels in cybersecurity and real estate. He
inspires other others to harness they're in need wisdom and
adventure enthusiast. Christian has completed twenty four Ironman triathons and
two of the seven summits. Wow, that's you're You're like
(01:19):
some kind of a superman bodying transformative leadership and relentialistic exploration.
We are going to be talking about how he built
his business in the cybersecurity space, how he started over now,
and how he solved it that business.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So Christian will come to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
You're saying, I want to know a little bit about
what you did in the Ironman and you participated in
back not just one, not just two, not three, not five, ten,
twenty four, so that's a lot. But first of all,
because this is the sexist podcast, and you built through
a lot, you built businesses, you sold businesses, you started over.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
What does access is to you?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And how do you see other people have certain misconceptions
what success is.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I think success is highly personal. It is how you
define it. So for me, success is when i feel
like I'm progressing in my health, my wealth, in my relationships,
and it's also when i feel like I'm coomfortable with
who I am and where i am. That's a measure
of success. To me, the other aspect of success is
I like to have enough you know, health, wealth and
(02:29):
solid relationships where I can kind of do what I
want to do and not be under the thumb of
somebody else. That's how I define success.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It's talk a little bit about I want to go
to and talk about how you build your businesses and
cyber scat space and how you start over. But first
I want to get the stories of the Iron Man,
because and you climbed I think two summits of the
seventh summits in the world. So that's these these achievements, Uh,
(02:56):
not really easy achievement on the personal level. So why
are you that much invested in being involved in an
Iron Man competition? Let's say, and you not just did
it once, you did it twenty four times, so that's
you are like a super mine kindness.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, I started off doing trayfon as a bet. A
friend of mine who's very competitive, bet me to race
him at a trafon. And I never even knew what
a trifon was, and I did know how to swim,
so I learned how to swim, I borrowed a bike,
and then I beat him at the race. Which is
great because he's a good smack talker and it's nice
(03:38):
to kind of quiet him down a little bit. And
then after that, I thought, you know what, I'm going
to do another trifon because it gave me a purpose
for working out. I used to just go to the
gym and lift weights and do stuff. But when you
train for a trifon, you have to get better swimming, better, biking,
better running. And then I just kind of kept doing
them and then I was like, okay, I've done a
corner distance, then a half distance. I'm also do a
full distance one, and then went you do a full
(04:00):
distance one, which is a full iron man it's one
hundred and forty point six miles. Then after that you're like, okay,
now what I guess I'll do another one because they're
in cool locations and it's a it's a very transformative experience.
It's not easy, like you say. It's a lot mental, physical,
a little bit spiritual. So it's like putting yourself to
that sort of pain for a day, and the preparation
(04:21):
leading up to that, to me is really transformed me
and my resilience. It's maybe much more resilient because when
you complete an iron Man or anything difficult. It makes
you realize you're much more capable than you thought you were.
You know, most of our limitations, almost all of them
are self imposed, and we do something very challenging, you
come to terms of that. That's that's self imposed and
(04:44):
your limitations are just you know, something you've made.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Up exactly like we put a lot on our self
freediment or self without even trying. Now, sometimes we think
that certain things is the coil to work with life
in general, the coils work like you have to work
to to to ac certain place. Now, the amount of
effort differs from one thing to other, but eventually there's
some kind of efforts. So we need to put ourselves
(05:09):
in a place that we push ourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
A little bit more and more every day.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So that's the let's say the purpose of our lives
is to go in a higher level for ourselves every day.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
That's very important.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So now in regards to business, when we talk about
cyber security, when you started your business the first time,
didn't you think that this is something that is hard
or do you think like your thoughts on the Iron
Man competition, Let's see, I can I can do or
do you already have some experience in regards to cyber
(05:42):
security and how it works and how it's done, or
did you have some help starting that business?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
How did that start?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I did freelance work for about six years where I
travel the world teaching cybersecurity courses and doing penetration testing,
which is atical hacking. And I was doing it as
a solopreneur. I was making a lot of money, but
I got bored with it. I you know, I worked
like six or seven months of the year and took
the rest of the time off. But I got bored.
(06:10):
I felt like it wasn't growing and it wasn't challenging enough.
So I thought, Okay, one way to really challenge me
to grow is to start my own business and hire
a people to try to grow the business. And you know,
that's what I did. And I made a lot of mistakes,
like probably every mistake you could possibly make, I made
with bad hiring decisions, not understanding sales, not understanding marketing,
(06:33):
not having systems in place. But through that process, I
grew a lot. And that's really what I was seeking,
is that personal growth. I think it's very important to
invest in yourself and grow so you have more skills
tomorrow than you have today. And I fortunately was able
to sell that company in twenty twenty and then I
had so I had an exit, and then I started
(06:55):
a new company, Blue Goat Cyber, just a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So do you think that you didn't want to continue
with the business that you already started because you thought yourself,
You've got an over that was compelling enough for you
to sell and get this amount of money, and you already,
of course have the experience of building a similar company,
so thought to yourself, yes, this would be this time.
It would be a little smooth this time to build
(07:20):
the business that is similar to the one that I
already have.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I was getting kind of burned out, to be honest,
when I sold my first business, and then it was
during COVID, So forty percent of my business was training.
We did in person cybersecurity training. So because COVID happened,
that line of business went away, and then we did
medical device cybersecurity testing and assessments, and a lot of
(07:45):
manufacturers because of you know, world uncertainty, were not making
buying decisions. So financially, you know, the company was struggling
a little bit. I had to let some people go
because of the COVID and lack of training, and the
opportunity just came up to sell the company, and I thought, Okay,
maybe this makes sense to this juncture because of the
(08:08):
you know, the COVID situation, my personal situation. So I
decided to sell the company. I worked for the parent
company for a little over a year and then started
my company after my non compete was over with them
a couple of years later that this company, and I'm
trying to do everything in this company much different than
(08:29):
I did in the first company because I really didn't
have a plan. I just sort of went for it.
And that's kind of like who I am, and I
tend to like if I want to do something, I
just start doing it. It figured out why I'm doing it.
I don't try to overly plan and perfect the steps.
I just step into it and try to do it well.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I think that's an amazing message for people who are
having an idea for a business, just to just to
stop planning, because if we keep planning, we will never
go into action. It's important to dive in and start
because if you are not in that it's you would
not know what's required, what's working, what's not working, and
Duck made you now switch Gears, did say and to
(09:07):
what you are doing now with the medical space in cybersecurity.
So when you had this idea, did you see that
there's some kind of missing let's say, missing points or
certain things that are not covered that you thought, yes,
I have this solution for these kind of medical and
(09:28):
regards to cybersecurity.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
In my first business, which start was starting in twenty fourteen,
we did some medical device cybersecurity work. So I developed
that skill set with my team in myself. Then the
parent company didn't really want to pursue that, and I
wanted to pursue it. So I decided to start this
new company, Bluecoat Cyber, and focus on medical device cybersecurity.
(09:54):
The reason is from a business perspective, it's more of
a blue ocean strategy. There's not a lot of competitors
in medical device technologies in that space for cybersecurity, whereas
if you're trying to do cybersecurity for you know, web applications,
there's like thousands and thousands of competitors, which sort of
(10:14):
commoditizes your offering and it's much harder. It's much more
challenging as well in a medical device space. And for me,
a couple of years ago, I developed blood clots in
my left leg and went to the mercery room and
I was quickly diagnosed with a medical device. If sometimes
I think, if that device wasn't there or it didn compromise,
(10:37):
you know, I may not be here. I could have
died because they may have delayed my diagnosis. So I'm
also passionate about it because I think medical medical devices
can save someone's life, and if they're compromised, they can
always also kill somebody. Whereas you know, on a web application,
if someone steals your credit card information, it's inconvenience, but
it's not nearly as big of a deal as obviously
(11:00):
someone tracking hacking into a drug infusion, Papa killing you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Accidents happened to you through your visit with what happened
to you on your leg, and that for example, medical
device that we used. There's a way for it to
be improved in a way, right, So, like this is
the first time I hear this from you, Like I
never thought of these things in this way.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
So that's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And what you mentioned about it's being a blue ocean strategy,
like it's important also you can succeed in a competitive market.
But also if you can be one of the few
that inter a low competitive marketplace, it's better for the business.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And you would be kind very unique to the business. Right.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So, now, I'm sure maybe you have some kind of competition,
maybe what you are doing now, But what is it
that you think from your point of view and the
business is you are doing that you excel at that
your competition is not doing.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
A couple of things. I wrote a book about this
with my first cybersecurity journey. In cybersecurity, there's a lot
of high IQ people. They're super like rationally smart, but
they either don't have any people skills or they have
a little bit, so they make clients feel unappreciated and
(12:23):
not heard and not understood. So my team not only
has the high IQ, they also have the high EQ
or people skills. So when we interact with clients, we're
delivering not just a report, but we're delivering an experience,
an experience that builds relationships, so these clients become long
term clients rather than a one time project. So that's
(12:45):
one of the things. And then my team is highly
specialized in medical device cybersecurity. A normal cybersecurity firm will
not understand the requirements from the FDA, the EU and
DR all the specific niche theams for this industry. And
that's what we have investor in time learning and we
are very good at So.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That's very important. What you mentioned is like it's a
great in cyber security space. It's important to have it
people and people who are in the computer science space
that are very smart in what they are doing, but
also you want them to be emotionally smart and regards
to dealing with people because sometimes this kind of job
might not involve just the team, it might involve also
(13:26):
the people that are maybe using the things that you
are developing, right, So that's very important.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Whether with each other or maybe outsider.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So this is very important that you looked at, which
is nowadays. I think it's very like having this approach
to business is very important specifically now going on forward
because everything there is some kind of a lot of everything,
I guess, so.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
You need to be unique in a way.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And one of the things that you can be unique
is actually be human.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
And this is the first thing.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
That is like with AI and a lot of things,
which is I think it is very helpful, but also
you'll have to put the human touch in it.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
That's very important.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
What do you think that are important in your opinion
that business owners or entrepreneurs might find beneficial if they
want to start the business or if they are in
the journey of growth.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Let's say so from my experience of what I think
is the most one of the most important things if
you're going to get into business and be an entrepreneur
is to really understand your offering, your market, and your messaging.
I think the messaging is the most critical. One of
the things I did which is very useful is this
thing called brand script. It's based on Donald Miller's Story
(14:42):
brand Framework, which really focuses you in on understanding your client,
your market, your messaging, and then also position you as
a guide where the client is the hero in the story.
I think one of the things a lot of small
businesses to do is they like to just brag about
how great they are, but that's off putting to clients.
(15:04):
Clients wants to want Clients want to hear how you
can make them great or solve their problem. They don't
want to hear how great you are. So I think
that is extremely important, and then niche and down. Going
to the exercise will force you to niche down because
you will truly understand the market you're in. When I
built my first cybersecurity business, I had no idea what
I was doing. I just thought, everybody needs cybersecurity. I'm
(15:26):
going to build a cybersecurity business, offer everything, and people
will show up. Nobody showed up, and it was a
very eye opening that just because someone needs something doesn't
mean they're going to come to you. Because I was
trying to market everybody, which is basically marketing to nobody
because my messaging was diluted and it wasn't resonating with anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
To have some kind of a focus is very important,
especially now, like we talked, well, there is a lot
of competition and almost everything and the world denaby product
or service. So to niche down in a way that
you are unique to the market today, like what you
are doing now in regards to the medical cyber security business,
which is very impressive. Actually, so a your way throughout
(16:10):
your careers and you're working with cyber security, which is
a big deal nowadays. Like you mentioned, if some financial
data were stolen, yes, it's not the end of the world,
but it is an issue for a lot of people.
You don't want that to happen to you, so of course, right,
So what would be in like, let's say, maybe the
(16:34):
things that you focus on the sales cyber security space business,
that you ensure certain things that are would not be
allowed for infiltrators. You talked about ethical helckers, but do
you think that when you talk about ethical helcers also
these are the people who are working behind the scenes
in the businesses like yourself maybe, or the employees that
(16:57):
you have to forbid a regulars let's say I from
using the financial data or the medical data of the customers.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I think one of the challenges of cybersecurity is you
can think you have great defenses and all these controls
in place to keep out the criminals, but you don't
really know. So like Ronald Reagan in the US has
this phrase like trust but verify. I think we want
to trust we have the right controls in place and
(17:29):
our financial data or medical device is secure, but we
also want to verify it. And the way to verify
that is to hire an ally, like a white hat
hacker or someone like my company to try to break
into your environment, because if we can get in then
then obviously the cyber criminals can get in because we
use the same tactics. But if we could get in
before they do, we can tell you how to fix
(17:51):
those holes and close those gaps in your environment.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's throw out your business, real building a business, sit
in it. And now I'm start of thing this one.
What is the worst advice that someone that have ever
told you?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
The worst advice? I don't know that you get a
lot of advice when you start a business. Advice starts
coming from everybody, and I generally ignore everyone's advice unless
they are further along than I am. Like, I'm not
going to take financial advice from someone making less money
than me. I'm not going to take health advice for
someone less healthy than me. I'm not gonna takeship advice
(18:25):
relationship advice from someone that doesn't have an idea relationship
or the relationship is not better than mine. I may
listen to them, but the advice goes with kind of
a great assault. And when I started my company, most
people try to talk me out of it. That's why
the worst advice I got most people are like, why
are you leaving your solopreneur work. Why are you leaving
your full time job when you're making all this money,
(18:46):
You've got three weeks vacation, you've got benefits, blah blah
blah blah, And I'm like, I don't care. This is
what I want to do. And they would constantly try
to talk me out of it, just saying I'm missing everything.
I'm going I'm going crazy because you know, they wanted
me to stay in the same kind of job they
were in. And that's you know that, that's probably the
(19:07):
worst advice I received is listening to those people for
a while and kind of second guessing myself.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You would recommend to not listen to people, especially let's
say it opposed you, because we as a humans, we
live one life and we should have some kind of
a take some risks from once in a while, right,
So this is very important, Like eventually you if you
did not take the risk, you would not know where
you would go.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
How far are you would go?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, that's right. I think taking risk is important. I
think making decisions is important. I think staying in the
same position if you're miserable, that's your choice. You can't
you have nobody else to blame by yourself. We like
to blame our company. We work for our boss, you know,
for the relationship, and it's not good. We blame our spouse,
you know. It's it's it's constantly blaming other people. But
(19:51):
we have agency over our life, and we need to
make the decision to change our life regardless of what
other people think. It's up to us. Nobody cares about
your life more than you do. Nobody cares about your
health more than you do. Like for me, when I
had those blood clots, we've had health issues. The doctors
gave me some advice, but they they're not me. They
don't care about my life as much as me, so
(20:12):
I would take their advice, but I will ultimately make
my own decisions. And I think if we all shifted
our mindset from like stop listening to all the noise
out there, kind of silence the dialogue, and make your
own decisions, we'd be much better off eventually.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's true, like we are the only one mainly responsible
for our life and what we do with it, in
the guts to business and life itself. Because some people,
like you said, some people would try to put you down.
Most of people, that's what happens for multiple reasons, and
some people would actually encourage you, but eventually it's your
(20:46):
decision to choose what you are going to do, because
that's important because we would not know the results of
what we are thinking of unless, like you mentioned, we
take actions toward it, which which is the most import
certain thing in general, in business and in life also,
So that's.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
What should be done. We should not be afraid of like.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Being in this circle hori zone of comfort.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
I guess. So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, what tools or resources or books would you recommend
to people to see or.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
What or do you think of the best in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Well, there's a lot of about there. I think Think
and Grow Rich as a you know, a classic book
to read. It's not just about being rich, you know, financially,
but rich in life. I think that's that's a good book.
One of the best books for me was Mindset by
Carol Dweck. It's about a growth mindset versus a fixed
mindset and the psychology behind that. I think that's a
(21:44):
really great book. And I watch a lot of YouTube
videos recently. I've been watching these videos. He's by the
School of Hard Knocks, where this guy it's his channel.
He's like in his early twenties, and he does the
interviews very success for people you're multimillionaires and even billionaires,
and he asked them questions and it's very enlightening to
(22:06):
hear what these people have to say about, like what
advice they to give the younger self, or what if
I say, give the younger generation, or what's the most
important thing they've learned. And you know, for me, I
watched like those like you know maybe once like thirty
minutes a day or something. That's something that's helped me
a lot and changed my shift in my perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So speaking of that, what would be let's say if
you'll find a takeaway, Well, people who are listening to
this episode, I.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Think the final takeaway is if you are stuck in
the story of your life, which you've created, and you
don't like your story, change your story. We often get
in this thing and say I am this, this is
who I am, blah blah blah blah. But if it's
not making you happy or not making you fulfilled, change
your story. And this could go even someone you know,
(22:55):
I talked to a lot of people I used to
coach a lot of people, and people would say their
story would be I'm someone that doesn't believe in divorce,
as example, and they would be married in a miserable
relationship for twenty years and they're like, well, I still
don't believe in divorce. I'm like, are you willing to
be miserable and your spouse miserable for twenty years? Twenty
more years because you won't change your story. So I
(23:17):
think it's important to understand, like we said earlier, you
have agency over your life. And sometimes we have this
narrative or dialogue going on your head that we think
defines who we are, but that's made up we all.
We make up who we are. We make up ourdentity.
We make up you know, most of what we project
the world, and that's all malleable. It is if you
believe in a growth mindset.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We always add human we need to strive to do
more and better for ourselves every day. So, Christians, how
can people learn more about you and see what you do?
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah, they can learn more about me on my personal website,
Christian Espinoza dot com. They can learn about by cybersecurity business.
I'm lougot cyber dot com and then I'm on LinkedIn
and Twitter, and my books are on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Awesome, and thank you very much Christian for joining me
for this epsuite of the podcast. Really insightful knowledge and
you sharing your story from building a business to suiting
and to starting over again. And I would say that
it's very important for anyone that have an idea for
a business or whatever kind of idea is to one
of the important things is to actually dive into it
(24:23):
and start taking action instead of just keeping on tanning
and having it on paper, which is not.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Going to go anywhere.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Thank you very much for doing making actions the most
important part, like you said, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Definitely thank you for joining me.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Yeah, thank you for having saying I appreciate it.
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