We hire accomplished adults.
Then we spend enormous amounts of time managing them as children.
A satirical essay about the peculiar language of executive leadership, and the ways it can keep capable adults on a leash.
Coming soon.
Be among the first to know. Leave your email address and I'll let you know when it's published.
The Second Adulthood Collection.
For much of our adult lives, we are busy building. Careers, families, expertise, identities. We learn to climb, to achieve, to become somebody.
Then, somewhere around midlife, the questions begin to change.
What might be possible if I stopped trying to become a better version of who I used to be?
Across a novel, a manifesto, and an essay, The Second Adulthood explores what becomes possible when the lives we've built begin to change us.
-
A novel about what happens when the life we've built no longer fits.
A successful technology entrepreneur finds himself at a crossroads. What begins as a search for answers becomes a journey through unfamiliar territory, where the things that once defined success begin to lose their certainty.
"Serendipity, according to the author, is 'the heart's way of finding what the mind doesn't know it wants.' This interweaving of heart and mind is a recurring element of Haddad's powerful work." — Kirkus Reviews
-
A manifesto about what life has been building in us while we were busy building our lives.
Midlife is often described as a crisis to overcome. This book explores another possibility: that decades of living have given us capacities we scarcely recognize, and that the second half of life may hold ambitions we couldn't have imagined in the first.
“An illuminating text where the infamous ‘midlife crisis’ becomes a ‘midlife crucible’… resulting in midlife rejuvenation.” — Clarion Reviews
-
Something peculiar happens to adults around an executive table.
These people have raised children, sat with a parent until the end, and found their way through situations no manual covered. Somehow, they need to be empowered. Held accountable. Encouraged to take ownership.
Everyone seems to find this perfectly normal. Until one day, the words begin to sound strange.
An essay of cartoons, stories, poems, and stray thoughts about leadership and growing up, again and again.
Aneace built a global technology company in the south of France, sold it, and moved to Singapore, where he discovered he liked people more than computers. His first book, The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar, was a novel. His second, Soaring Beyond Midlife, was a manifesto. His third, Leadership-Speak and the Executive Leash, is an essai, French for attempt.
He works with CEOs and executive teams through McKinsey and Aramyss.
What is it that we create in our 60s and 70s?
I'm approaching 67, and I often wonder what it is that we create in our 60s and 70s.
I know what we create when we're younger. It feels different now, though I can't quite say how. And I rather like not knowing.
The richest work of our lives may still lie ahead. I'm eager to be part of creating it. I feel like I'm just getting started.
—Aneace