In “Live Life in Crescendo: Your Most Important Work Is Always Ahead of You,” Stephen Covey set out to answer questions such as “How can you pull yourself out of a midlife crisis?” and “How can you contribute once you’ve achieved success?” Covey died before finishing “Crescendo,” but his daughter, Cynthia Haller, who had worked alongside him, completed the project.
Early on in “Crescendo,” Covey and Haller address some of the challenges facing men and women in their late 30s to their early 60s, especially during those tough times when they feel overworked and underappreciated, struggle in their marriages, or believe they’ve failed to fulfill their potential. Signs of that fatigue and sense of failure include burnout, depression, a lack of direction, or attempts to regain their lost youth by “dressing and acting like a teenager,” or worse, abandoning their families “to find themselves.”…