Episode Details

I caught up with Marcos Bravo, a Chilean guy living in Portugal, who has spent most of his adult life bouncing between tech, sales, marketing, and whatever paid the bills. He is 46 now. He has a family. And he is in that phase where you look at your work and ask a blunt question: Is this all I am showing my kids, that life is just paying bills.

Marcus is not doing the clean midlife pivot. He is doing the messy version. He wrote a book because he had time, he was unemployed, and he needed to put the stories somewhere or he was going to lose his mind. He got the idea after seeing a tweet about how, with everything going on, we might see another Anne Frank “in our backyard.” That stuck with him. He started writing a kids book, got blocked, then wrote a different story that took shape. It became Ana Luz’s Diary, about a girl named Anna hiding in an attic with her brother and aunt, trying to stay quiet because noise brings the wrong people. He ran it past his daughter, she signed off, and he shipped it.

At the same time, he is doing video work for companies because that is what keeps things running. He is starting an ice cream brand with his wife. He is putting together a punk band in Portugal. He is trying things, not because it is efficient, but because he is trying to figure out what feels like his life. He said he does not want to be a one road guy. When something feels right, he wants to take a shot.

We also talked about why storytelling still matters when AI can generate words all day. His point was simple. The missing part is connection. You can generate a story, but you cannot replace the feeling of a real person looking you in the eye and saying something that lands. He ties it back to work, too. In marketing and sales, if you do not know people, you cannot connect to people. Your story falls flat.

He is also clear-eyed about aging in tech. He worries about how long he can keep doing what he does, and whether the industry will move on without him. His answer is to stop chasing status. He does not want to manage people. He wants to deliver a specific thing well, mentor when asked, and stay useful. He thinks experience will matter again, not as a title, but as real history you can apply.

The part that stuck with me was how he thinks about safety. He does not judge people who stay in the cubicle. He just does not want to end up like his dad, who spent decades in one company and now, at 75, feels like he missed his chance to do more. Marcos wants to look back and say, that was a lot, that was worth it.

He framed his goals in a way I liked. He wants to give his kids a few core memories they will actually keep. A trip to Japan for his daughter. A steak in New York for his son, yes, Peter Luger. He wants those things, and he wants to be able to say his own life was good too. He even mentioned he stopped drinking and still enjoys life, which is its own kind of data point.

This is the whole point. You do not need a clean plan. You need motion. You try things. You keep what works. You drop what does not. You pay the bills, but you do not let that become the only story your kids learn from you. Marcos is doing it in a way that looks chaotic from the outside, but it has a clear center. He is trying to make sure his life is not just a job history, it is a life.

His book is Ana Luz’s Diary, by Marcos Bravo. If you want to see what he made, it is on Amazon.

Transcript

John Biggs (00:27.042)

Welcome back to Keep Going, a podcast about success and failure. I’m John Biggs. Today on the show we have Marcus Bravo. He’s Chilean. He lives in Portugal now. I met him in Poland when we were pros approximately, I think, six years old, I think. That’s what it feels like at this point, right? So welcome, Marcus. You’re an author, you’re a marketer, you’ve