I Turned 50 and Realized I Was Addicted to My Own Phone

I’ve coached hundreds of CEOs on building freedom. Then I had to admit I didn’t have any.

EXPERT OPINION BY DANIEL MARCOS, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, GROWTH INSTITUTE @CAPITALEMPRENDE

Illustration: Getty Images

The day I turned 50, I didn’t get a midlife crisis. I got a mirror. 

The kind that shows you who you actually are versus who you think you are. Who you’ve been telling other people to be.

I call it my halftime.

For years, I’ve built my life’s work around one idea: a great CEO builds a company that scales without chaos. You reduce the drama, increase the impact, and  most importantly,  you reclaim your freedom. That’s the whole game. That’s what I preach from stages, in boardrooms, in one-on-one sessions with founders who are drowning in their own success.

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Then one evening, I was sitting at dinner with my family and my wife said something that stopped me cold.

She didn’t say it with anger. She said it quietly, which was worse: “You’re here, but you’re not here.”

She was right. I was physically present, my body was at the table. But my mind was still in my inbox. My thumbs were itching for my phone. I was mentally running through emails I needed to send, problems I needed to solve, decisions that could’ve waited. My kids were talking to me, and I was half-listening, nodding, performing “dad” instead of being one.

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