--- title: "Tulum, Prosecco, and the Sign I Almost Missed" description: "Discover how taking a deliberate pause after a big win can lead to unexpected clarity and reveal the true next steps for your entrepreneurial path." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/#person", "name": "Christian Espinosa", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/", "image": "https://christianespinosa.com/__l5e/assets-v1/de07e44b-a8e0-4bcc-bcb0-13aec15421f1/headshot-front.jpg", "sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/christian.espinosa.official", "https://x.com/Ironracer", "https://www.instagram.com/christian.espinosa.official/", "https://www.youtube.com/@ChristianEspinosaOfficial", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianespinosa/" ], "jobTitle": "Bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur", "worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Blue Goat Cyber", "url": "https://bluegoatcyber.com/" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/#website", "name": "Christian Espinosa", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-US" }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/#organization", "name": "Christian Espinosa", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/logo.svg" }, "founder": { "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/#person" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/christian.espinosa.official", "https://x.com/Ironracer", "https://www.instagram.com/christian.espinosa.official/", "https://www.youtube.com/@ChristianEspinosaOfficial", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianespinosa/" ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "headline": "Tulum, Prosecco, and the Sign I Almost Missed | Christian Espinosa", "description": "Discover how taking a deliberate pause after a big win can lead to unexpected clarity and reveal the true next steps for your entrepreneurial path.", "image": "https://christianespinosa.com/__l5e/assets-v1/370cdc5b-a665-4336-82c5-d46e94e6e303/tulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed-card.png", "datePublished": "2026-06-21T20:00:00Z", "dateModified": "2026-06-21T20:00:00Z", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://christianespinosa.com/blog/tulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christian Espinosa", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/about" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Christian Espinosa", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://christianespinosa.com/logo.svg" } } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the core idea behind \"Tulum, Prosecco, and the Sign I Almost Missed\"?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Tulum. Prosecco. Tacos. A song on repeat. I'd just sold my first company and every cell in my body was screaming to start the next one. Stopping felt like losing. The most useful thing I did that week was almost nothing" } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Who is this post for?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Honestly, anyone who suspects the real life is happening in the ordinary hours, not the milestones. If you want a listicle, this is not that. If you want the honest version of what I have actually lived and worked through, keep reading." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do I actually apply this, not just nod along?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Pick the single line in the post that made you flinch or look away, and change one thing in your week because of it. One choice this week beats a whole framework you never touch." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does this connect to More on the moment between chapters?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The In-Between is the book I wrote about exactly this; the uncomfortable, useful space after the win and before the next move. If the post landed, that is the natural next step; the get the book link at the bottom of the page goes straight there." } } ] } ] --- [Skip to content](#main) [](/) [About](/about)[Speaking](/speaking)[Cybersecurity](/cybersecurity)[Programs](/programs)[Books](/books)[Media](/media) Writing Search Ctrl K[Connect](/connect) [The In-Between](/blog/category/the-in-between) # Tulum, Prosecco, and the Sign I Almost Missed June 21, 2026 4 min read 815 words Tulum. Prosecco. Tacos. A song on repeat. I'd just sold my first company and every cell in my body was screaming to start the next one. Stopping felt like losing. The most useful thing I did that week was almost nothing ![](/__l5e/assets-v1/4764bbfa-3471-433c-ac67-9c7989c46c0b/keep-tulum-unique-sign.jpg) Published June 21, 2026 Read time 4 min In this essay 1. [01 The Afternoon I Almost Didn't Stop ](#the-afternoon-i-almost-didnt-stop) 2. [02 The Signs You Only See When You're Quiet ](#the-signs-you-only-see-when-youre-quiet) 3. [03 Ego Wanted A Plan. Truth Wanted A Pause. ](#ego-wanted-a-plan-truth-wanted-a-pause) 4. [04 What I Took Home From Tulum ](#what-i-took-home-from-tulum) Jump to 1. [01 The Afternoon I Almost Didn't Stop ](#the-afternoon-i-almost-didnt-stop) 2. [02 The Signs You Only See When You're Quiet ](#the-signs-you-only-see-when-youre-quiet) 3. [03 Ego Wanted A Plan. Truth Wanted A Pause. ](#ego-wanted-a-plan-truth-wanted-a-pause) 4. [04 What I Took Home From Tulum ](#what-i-took-home-from-tulum) The takeaways 1. 01 After I sold Alpine Security, my first instinct was to sprint into the next thing, even though the win didn't feel like I thought it would. 2. 02 In Tulum, I stopped working on purpose and let myself just be there, and that's when I actually started noticing what was around me and inside me. 3. 03 My real breakthroughs almost never showed up while I was grinding. They showed up when I got quiet enough to hear them. What to do next Choose one small action tied to real you can do in the next 24 hours that your future self would thank you for. 4. 04 I'm good at pushing. I had to learn that listening to my business, my team, and my own gut is a separate skill, and I was skipping it. 5. 05 The lesson I took home from Tulum: give myself permission to pause, and let the next move surface on its own instead of forcing it. What to do next Choose one small action tied to lesson you can do in the next 24 hours that your future self would thank you for. ## The Afternoon I Almost Didn't Stop I had just sold my first company. On paper, that's the moment. The exit. The headline. The thing every founder daydreams about while eating cold pad thai at 11pm. In real life, it was messier. I was rolled into the parent, holding stock I couldn't sell, inside blackout periods that felt like a joke someone was playing on me. The win was real. It just didn't feel like a win. Every instinct I had said the same thing: put the blinders back on, pick the next mountain, and start grinding. That was the only operating mode I knew. Stop equals lose. Rest equals soft. Sitting still equals falling behind. So I almost didn't stop. But I was in Tulum. Prosecco in hand. Tacos in front of me. Some song on repeat; the kind that meets you exactly where you are and refuses to leave. And for whatever reason, that afternoon, I didn't reach for my phone. I didn't open a doc. I didn't start sketching the next deck. I just sat there. ## The Signs You Only See When You're Quiet When you actually shut up long enough, the world gets remarkably loud. I started noticing things. Real signs, like the spray-painted _#KeepTulumUnique_ nailed to a tree at the edge of the jungle; a whole community asking the question I hadn't asked myself in years: what makes this thing worth protecting, and what version of progress is quietly killing it? And the other kind of signs. The ones that don't fit on a placard. The way my chest unclenched for the first time in eighteen months. The thoughts I'd been outrunning by staying busy. The names of people I'd lost touch with. The version of the next chapter that had been waiting for me to be quiet enough to hear it. The next move got obvious that afternoon. Not because I forced it. Not because I brainstormed it. Because I finally stopped white-knuckling the steering wheel long enough to notice the road had already turned. ## Ego Wanted A Plan. Truth Wanted A Pause. My ego hated this. My ego wanted a plan. A deck. A war. A new title and a launch announcement and a fresh enemy to point at. Ego is allergic to stillness because stillness is where ego loses its job. If you're not striving, what's it for? The truth was simpler and harder. I didn't need a strategy that afternoon. I needed to surrender before I could move. Not surrender in the give-up sense. Surrender in the _stop fighting the current long enough to see where it's actually going_ sense. Founders are great at pushing. We're trained for it. Funded for it. Praised for it. We get medals for sleep deprivation and storytelling for our scars. What we're terrible at is listening; to the business, to our teams, to the people we love, to the quiet thing inside us that has been trying to tell us something for months. And here's the part I want to flag clearly, because I had to learn it the slow way: the next chapter usually doesn't show up because you finally cracked the code. It shows up the second you stop white-knuckling for it. ## What I Took Home From Tulum I'm not romanticizing this. I'm not going to tell you the answer is to fly to Mexico, drink prosecco, and wait for clarity to hit you like a wave. (Though I'd argue worse strategies exist.) The portable version is smaller. It's a permission slip. Permission to sit with a win without immediately turning it into the launchpad for the next thing. Permission to not have a next thing for a minute. Permission to listen for the signs that are already there; the literal ones nailed to trees, and the figurative ones nailed to your chest. Permission to call surrender what it actually is: a leadership move, not a failure mode. If you're between chapters right now, or quietly suspicious that the chapter you're in has already ended and you just haven't admitted it, here's the prompt I keep returning to: What would you notice this week if you stopped striving for seventy-two hours? Not a sabbatical. Not a retreat. Seventy-two hours of refusing to draft the next move in your head. My guess is the move you've been chasing has been standing on the side of the road the whole time, holding a sign, waiting for you to slow down enough to read it. Keep yourself unique. Stop sanding yourself down for the next launch. The chapter is closer than the grind is letting you see. Sit with this - When was the last time you sat with a win for more than a day before turning it into fuel for the next thing? - What 'sign' have you been speeding past because slowing down feels like losing? - Where are you mistaking momentum for direction in your work right now? Frequently asked ### What is the core idea behind "Tulum, Prosecco, and the Sign I Almost Missed"? ### Who is this post for? ### How do I actually apply this, not just nod along? ### How does this connect to More on the moment between chapters? ### More on the moment between chapters The In-Between is the book I wrote about exactly this; the uncomfortable, useful space after the win and before the next move. [Get the book](/books) Share this essay [X ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchristianespinosa.com%2Fblog%2Ftulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed&text=Tulum%2C%20Prosecco%2C%20and%20the%20Sign%20I%20Almost%20Missed) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchristianespinosa.com%2Fblog%2Ftulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed) [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fchristianespinosa.com%2Fblog%2Ftulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed) [Email](mailto:?subject=Tulum%2C%20Prosecco%2C%20and%20the%20Sign%20I%20Almost%20Missed&body=https%3A%2F%2Fchristianespinosa.com%2Fblog%2Ftulum-prosecco-and-the-sign-i-almost-missed)Copy link ![Christian Espinosa, headshot](/__l5e/assets-v1/de07e44b-a8e0-4bcc-bcb0-13aec15421f1/headshot-front.jpg) About the author [Christian Espinosa](/about) · Author of The In-Between, founder, adventurer I'm the founder and CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, a medical device cybersecurity firm where my team has supported 250+ FDA submissions with zero failing to clear on cybersecurity. I previously founded and sold Alpine Security. I host The Med Device Cyber Podcast and wrote The Smartest Person in the Room and The In-Between: Life in the Micro, with Medical Device Cybersecurity: An In-Depth Guide out in 2026. Air Force Academy grad, 24x Ironman, climber of two of the Seven Summits. Keep reading - [ ### The Accident That Taught Me to Live in the In-Between | Christian Espinosa Same thread: the in between. Read essay → ](/blog/the-accident-that-taught-me-to-live-in-the-in-between) - [ ### Indecision and Regret: The Inner Monologue - Christian Espinosa Same thread: the in between. Read essay → ](/blog/indecision-and-regret-the-inner-monologue) - [ ### The Long Walk, The Marathon, And The Friendship You Get To Keep For A Few Days Same thread: the in between. Read essay → ](/blog/the-long-walk-friendship-and-this-moment-matters) [← Previous essay Through Immersion Comes Clarity | Christian Espinosa ](/blog/through-immersion-comes-clarity)[Next essay → Don't Stop Believing: The Comeback Isn't Dramatic | Christian Espinosa ](/blog/dont-stop-believing-the-comeback-isnt-dramatic) Related, Cybersecurity ### Need medical-device or offensive security expertise? Blue Goat Cyber, Christian's firm, runs FDA-aligned premarket submissions, penetration testing, and SBOM/SOUP analysis for medtech and high-stakes industries. [Explore Blue Goat Cyber](/cybersecurity) Christian Espinosa Bestselling author, keynote speaker, and Founding CEO of [Blue Goat Cyber](https://bluegoatcyber.com/). Helping technical leaders develop the soft skills that turn brilliance into impact. 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