Tracksuit CEO

By Daniel Hope

VS

Almost 2 years ago I wrote the Tracksuit Manifesto. It was my attempt to define the vision I had of a more enlightened generation. This vision is what inspired the name Tracksuit CEO: casual and urban with an entrepreneurial spirit. You will notice I didn’t choose the name Starched Shirt CEO or Power Tie CEO. (Though I must admit to having worn each of these on at least one occasion)

Many things have happened since that first post and my world view has also changed and developed, but the essential idea remains. I still refuse to wear polo shirts and yes I do wear a red digital watch with my business suits (on the rare occasion that I wear a business suit). And I certainly will never be caught playing with my kids on the playground wearing a Bluetooth headset. I fully embrace and relish my various roles: husband, father, professional, etc. — all very grown-up roles but in a very peculiar way I still refuse to grow up. An article that seemed to sum up this new generation of people like me is Adam Sternbergh’s Up With Grups in New York Magazine. Sternbergh wrote an article that was informative and entertaining and, at the same time, made me feel uncomfortably transparent. My wife, Leslie, felt the same way when she read this little deconstruction of a generation (or two).

In my grad course on human development I wrote my final research paper on this singular phenomenon: grown-ups wanting all the benefits of growing up without really behaving, dressing or listening to music like grown-ups. I took it one step further and compared this so-called Grup (or male Grup to be more specific) to the increasingly ubiquitous Man-Child. It was fascinating to analyze these two groups of men, both of whom refuse to grow up, yet both are approaching it in very different ways.

If you are interested in reading the full paper, the PDF is available here: Grup vs. Man-Child