A LETTER TO MY EXES

HOW I LEARNED TO LEAD WITHOUT BEING A TYRANT

by Roberto Giannicola ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2026

A man reflects on his past mistakes in this epistolary work of self-examination.

Executive coach Giannicola presents letters he’s written to an array of people—including ex-girlfriends, his daughter, and even himself—to articulate the differences between the man he is now and the man he used to be. He writes that in the past, in personal and professional settings, he’d been overly forceful and self-confident, intolerant of disagreement and impatient with the flaws of others. “The very personality traits that I thought I had fostered and made me a strong leader,” he writes, “were, conversely, the ones that pushed people away, whether in a conference room or dinner table.” Writing to an ex he calls “C,” he’s blunt in his self-assessment: “You tried to tell me I was too controlling, too intense, that I made everything harder than it needed to be,” he writes. “I didn’t listen.” In these letters (and his reflections on their contents), the author recalls strained relationships, awkward meetings, and the easily avoidable misunderstandings that he repeatedly brought upon himself (“These feelings weren’t generated by them. I was the author of my state”). Giannicola offers readers both analyses explaining why these situations came about and strategies he developed for avoiding them, which involved changing some underlying attitudes; for example, he discusses a concept he calls the “Hero Loop,” a pattern in which he jumped in and saved the day in some emergency, only to become addicted to being seen as the one and only solution. “You’re so focused on being the hero,” the author observes, “that you never train any firefighters to assist you.”

Giannicola writes with the passion of a changed man who understands that change is a process rather than a goal (he confesses to still feeling the old patterns, “that edge in my voice, that need to take over, that tightness when someone challenges me”). The author pulls no punches about how unpleasant he used to be, which has the curious effect of making him more sympathetic to the reader. The foremost example is perhaps his insistence on positioning himself as important; writing to “S,” he reflects that pushing forward and solving problems made him feel significant, concluding, “The reason people like me need the feeling of control is that we are afraid of being irrelevant.” His advice for combatting this insecurity is refreshingly pragmatic, designed to curb the urge to dominate and control whenever it occurs. When a crisis happens, Giannicola suggests that instead of jumping right into problem-solving mode, his readers try simply asking, “What do you need from me right now?” (“And then,” he adds, “and this is crucial—listen to the answer and act according to it, not according to what you think they need.”) His inclusion of further resources adds additional heft to what amounts to a guidebook for reclaiming one’s humanity. The author’s letters to his own family are particularly touching, and it’s to be hoped that the unreconstructed boors in his audience will take some of this text to heart.

A vulnerable account of becoming a more empathetic person.

Pub Date: June 25, 2026

ISBN: 9798985735451

Page Count: 208

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2026

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

SELF-HELP | BUSINESS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR