The In-Between: Life in the Micro

Some regrets don’t hit you all at once. They seep in at the corners of your life, at night or on a long drive, until they become a refrain. Those are the worst regrets of all.

I was living in a bubble that burst on May 9, 2022. It was the middle of the afternoon. As my partner Vanessa and I approached a major intersection, a blue car accelerated, ran the red light, and T-boned a black truck directly in front of us.

BOOM! The blue car’s hood crumpled like an accordion to absorb the impact. Within seconds, its front end was completely smashed, and its windows were broken. Then, everything went out of focus, except for what I needed to do—assess the scene for safety, check on the drivers of the blue car and black truck, and call 911. Nothing else mattered—I felt a heightened sense of purpose.

I had always focused on one macro moment after another—the next mountain to climb or business to start. I hadn’t spent much time appreciating the micro-moments—life in between the macros. I’d been living in a macro-moment bubble.

The accident awakened a desire to paint a complete picture of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to approach my life. This is my story of learning how to value the in-between and prioritize consciously living in the micro.

Christian Espinosa spent decades being the man who never stopped. Raised in a turbulent home that taught him to face the world alone, he turned that drive into a relentless pursuit of achievement, and learned the hard way that reaching every goal can still leave you empty. The In-Between is the story of how he stopped chasing the horizon long enough to find the life happening right in front of him.
 
That search for presence and connection sits at the center of his work. He is a bestselling author and sought-after keynote speaker who writes and speaks about the gap between success and fulfillment. His first book, The Smartest Person in the Room, explored the same human truths through the lens of cybersecurity.
 
Christian is also an entrepreneur and a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and veteran. He built and sold the cybersecurity company Alpine Security and now leads Blue Goat Cyber. His drive and curiosity have carried him to extremes: 24 Ironman triathlons, two of the Seven Summits, skydiving with a C-License, diving as a PADI Divemaster, and time in the Mexican jungle with Mayan shamans.
 
He believes it is never too late to change, and that the richest parts of life are often the ones we almost miss.