An Interview with Aneace Haddad: Author of The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar

Aneace Haddad is a McKinsey-certified Transformational Leadership Facilitator and a Professional Certified Coach. He is a former tech chairman and CEO who reinvented himself as an executive coach after discovering – with astonishment – that he liked people more than computers. Aneace draws on over thirty-five years global experience driving innovation, building high-performing teams, and coaching senior leaders around the world.

Aneace has been bridging cultures and adapting to change since childhood. Born in the United States to an Iraqi father and an American mother, he spent his teenage years at a French expat school in North Africa. Aneace now lives in Singapore with his wife and two step-children.

Tell us about your book.

The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar is a novel about personal transformation in business leaders. The story is narrated by Aidan Perez, a fifty-year-old former tech CEO whose life has been at a standstill since his wife’s death five years earlier. Back then, selling his company and quitting his job somehow made sense. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to build a new life. To make matters worse, Aidan’s daughter recently finished college and took a job overseas, leaving him alone for the first time in decades.

When Aidan discovers a manuscript promoting the virtues of letting go, he searches for the author, hoping to find a mentor. Throughout the story, he practices the five-step guide based on timeless mindfulness principles adapted to leadership. As the boxes that structure his life crumble, Aidan’s search for the manuscript’s author becomes more desperate.

Why did you want to write a book?

I wanted to show how leaders can embrace a transformative mindset and inspire change in others. When leaders change themselves, people around them change. Unfortunately, many leaders try to drive change through their organizations without looking inward at themselves. This sends a powerful message: “You need to change, something is wrong with you. But I’m fine.” That mindset can’t produce the resilience and adaptability the world needs today.

Would you self-publish again?

Absolutely. I love the freedom of self-publishing. It reminds me very much of creating a tech startup, where everything is a blank slate and success or failure feels like it is entirely in my hands.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Creative ideas seem to come to me easier while walking or running in nature. I am very fortunate to live very close to one of Singapore’s largest tropical rainforests. When I’m stuck on a blank screen, getting my body moving invariably loosens things up in my mind, freeing it up for new discoveries.

Tell us about the genre you wrote in, and why you chose to write this sort of book.

The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar is a business novel. I wanted to explore topics that I address every day in my leadership coaching work, but I didn’t want to write yet another business or personal improvement book, filled with advice lecturing readers on what they should or should not do. So I chose to write a novel instead, delivering similar learning without the preaching.

Who are your biggest writing inspirations and why?

My inspirations include Patrick Lencioni, Paulo Coelho, and Isabel Allende. The Alchemist was often in the back of my mind. At some point, my work will include a bit of magical realism, as yet another way to explore the adaptable power of our minds. Maybe in my next book.

How do your friends and family get involved with your writing? What do they think of your book?

I learned early on not to burden friends with drafts. Family and friends are amazingly supportive and encouraging of my desire to write, especially when I’m not constantly asking them to read my latest writing. My wife read my book after it was published. She recognized many of the topics and story threads. It was so much more fun watching her read the final book, and seeing her react to the twist at the end.

What did you learn on your journey as an author?

Writing a novel about personal transformation is one of the more challenging things I’ve done; completing it drove my own self-transformation. The hardest part of my own self-transformation was finding the right voice that could convey the story without sounding like a teacher.

“You’re teaching,” my inner voice would shout. “And now you’re lecturing – stop it!”

I had to let go of lots of stuff – identity labels, experience and authority from the past, and more. The same five-step framework described in my novel helped me gradually develop what I hope is a more engaging and neutral voice, inviting people to their own journey, rather than telling them what to pack and where to go.

As my protagonist, Aidan Perez, says, “Imagine where your life might go next, free of guilt, shame, or whatever it is you want to let go of. With lightness in your step, and the wind under your wings, oh what sights you must see. May your wings carry you high, and may you dance in the sky.”

Those who know me will notice that Aidan is a lot wiser than me, and learns from his mistakes much faster than I ever have.

What do you most love about your book?

That’s easy – I really love the twist at the end, the discovery that helps Aidan instantly take his awareness to another level, tying so many topics together.

What’s next for you as an author?

I have ideas for a second book in the same genre, looking at servant leadership, a style of leadership that focuses on serving the organization, its employees, stakeholders, customers, the general public, and the environment. I’m not sure I want to write in the first person again, as Aidan Perez. But I struggle to find a third-person voice that doesn’t sound like a teacher. I guess this is part of my ongoing personal growth.