This 57-year-old wants women to stop thinking of midlife as the beginning of the end: ‘There’s more to this’

Anna Tan co-founded The AM Club for women in their ‘second spring’ – bringing together those ready to reinvent themselves, seek out adventures around the world and embrace something wilder.

Anna Tan co-founded The A.M. Club after struggling to find women with the time, means and mindset for the adventures she wanted to go on. (Photo: Anna Tan)

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When Anna Tan arrived in Singapore in February 2011, she had a four-month consulting contract and no plan to stay. She came from the United Kingdom, where February means damp cold and the sun sets before you’ve finished your afternoon tea.

Singapore, by contrast, was blue skies, warmth and the feeling of being on holiday. “So, I said to the universe: If I can find a job, I’ll stay for a year,” she recalled with a chuckle.

One year became two. Two became three. Three became permanent residency. And then, during COVID-19, Anna became a Singapore citizen.

Now 57, Tan has spent over two decades coaching leadership teams at companies including Google, through her company Coaching Go Where.

Then, she started noticing something she couldn’t quite name – a particular kind of loneliness that tends to settle around accomplished women, a sense of having outgrown the room.

“I was talking to a lot of my friends my age,” she said. “And they were saying, oh, I’m getting old, my body is getting frail, what am I going to do? I’ve got to think about retirement. And I thought – hang on, ladies. There’s more to this.”

That “more” became The AM Club, which she co-founded with two friends, Emma Noguchi Devianne and Anna Williams.

(From left) The A.M. Club member Yvette, Tan, and co-founders Anna Williams and Emma Noguchi Devianne. (Photo: Anna Tan)

The name is intentionally slippery. Tan won’t define it, and that’s the point.

It can stand for After Menopause – the original inspiration, and the least interesting answer. AM can mean morning, signifying a new dawn. Or Alive Mind. Or Advanced Mindset.

“The club’s only real question is, what does AM mean to you?” she said.

For many women in their 40s and 50s , the question arrives at a complicated moment. The hot flushes are real, yes, but so is something harder to name.

It’s the sense that, in this chapter of life, as the kids become independent and the career hits its stride, the question of what comes next is getting louder.

The AM Club is not, Tan emphasised, a support group for women who are struggling. It is not therapy, not a wellness retreat, not a circle for women who are still figuring out whether they’re allowed to want things for themselves.

It is for women who have already done their inner work – who are emotionally steady, financially independent, and ready to be, in Tan’s favourite word, unapologetic.

Tan engaging with leaders at one of the leadership training programmes she conducts. (Photo: Anna Tan)

The framework she built around it draws on what Tan describes as the Traditional Chinese Medicine idea of menopause as a second spring – not a decline, but a second flowering.

It is a reframe that most women have not encountered, and one that Tan argues is long overdue. “Society sees you as expired,” she said. “You’re now in retirement mode, pushed to one side. But in other cultures, when you’re the elder, you’re the wise elder. There’s a real difference in that.”

To help women locate themselves within this new chapter, she developed a quiz built around six seasonal archetypes: Wild Phoenix, Free Wanderer, Intrepid Explorer, Sovereign Wolf, Radiant Empress and Wise Alchemist.

The quiz, available on The AM Club website , takes about two minutes and is designed not to diagnose what a woman should fix, but to show her which season she is standing in.

Women who take it receive a deeper profile of their season and may then be invited to a Circle. This is a 90-minute online session where Tan works with them on identity shifting, the same methodology she has used with corporate leaders for over a decade.

Both the quiz and the Circle are free. The only thing that costs money, she said, is the adventure.

THE ADVENTURE IS THE POINT

The genesis of The AM Club was, at its heart, a practical problem. Tan had a bucket list. She wanted to travel. Not on a minibus following a flag, not carted from tour to tour but adventurously, in five-star boutique comfort with women who had the time, the money, the health, and crucially, the mindset to run with her.

“I want five-star hotels, I want an SUV, I want an adventure of a lifetime,” she said. “But most importantly, I want to do it with friends that have the same mindset.”

The club’s only real question is, what does AM mean to you?

The problem she faced was finding enough women like that. There was nothing wrong with her existing circle but it didn’t quite fit the bill. So, she decided to build the community herself.

The AM Club was founded early this year. It is now being promoted globally, open to women anywhere in the world who recognise themselves in its description: Someone who has built the career, held the title, been the most responsible person in the room for most of her life – and is now quietly wondering if that was the whole point.

The expeditions – or rebellions, as Tan calls them – that she has planned are designed to be more than holidays. Each one is built around a theme of inner work, woven through the itinerary alongside the champagne and qigong.

The first, in September 2027, takes the group to Guilin, Yangshuo and the Longji rice terraces in China. Its theme is reinvention: Who am I now, and who do I choose to become next?

The Li river in Yongshou, China, in the morning. (Photo: Anna Tan)

Tan on a recce trip in China, where she has planned The A.M. Club’s first “rebellion”. (Photo: Anna Tan)

The Longji rice terraces in Guilin, China. (Photo: Anna Tan)

The second, in February 2028, heads to Kenya – Laikipia, the Maasai Mara and the Indian Ocean at Lamu – with a hot air balloon over the savanna at first light and a night under the open sky. Its theme is reclamation – the one where, as Tan puts it, your body remembers it’s an animal, not a scheduling problem.

The third, in May 2028, descends from the Andes into the Amazon in Peru, reading the dark spaces between the stars the way the Inca did. That theme is revelation.

“Reinvent, reclaim, reveal,” she summed up. “Three a year, once we’re properly flying.”

GUILT AND WHO THE AM CLUB IS FOR

There is a question that tends to follow any conversation about women choosing to invest in themselves. What about the woman who feels that to be a good mother or wife, she has to put her own bucket list last?

Tan (third from left) with friends she made at a crystal singing bowl event. “This event is typical of what we are excited to create in The A.M. Club, involving not just food and drink, but also unique experiences,” she says. (Photo: Anna Tan)

It’s a concern worth raising because The AM Club, with its champagne, expeditions and unapologetic energy, could easily be misread as something for women who have opted out of their families.

For women who want to understand the philosophy, Tan has written four essays on her personal website – on sacrifice, belief, autopilot and reinvention. The one on sacrifice, she said, speaks directly to the women who are still asking for permission.

“I coach a lot of women who think they are responsible for everyone else’s happiness,” Tan said. “And I say to them: If you’re responsible for someone’s happiness, you’re also responsible for their unhappiness. You’ve just given away your power – and you’ve disempowered everyone around you too.”

She is not unsympathetic to the guilt. But she is clear that The AM Club is not the place to work through it.

“If you haven’t found your inner power yet, this is not for you. Go and get yourself a coach. And at the point you’re ready – when you’ve discovered that power and you want to play with women who’ve found theirs – come.”

It is a deliberately high bar. But it is also, she argued, the only way the community works.

For Tan, the energy in the room has to be right – no complaining, no backstabbing, no one who wants everyone to know how unhappy they are. “Co-conspirators,” she said cheekily. “Playmates. Come and play with me.”

CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg .

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Anna Tan 与人共同创立了 AM Club，旨在为处于“第二春”的女性提供一个平台，将那些准备重塑自我、探索世界各地、拥抱更狂野事物的人们聚集在一起。

安娜·谭 (Anna Tan) 创立了 AM Club，起因是她苦于找不到有时间、有经济能力、有志于和她一起冒险的女性。（照片：安娜·谭）

这段音频由人工智能工具生成。

2011年2月，安娜·谭抵达新加坡时，她签了一份为期四个月的咨询合同，并没有打算久留。她来自英国，那里的二月意味着潮湿寒冷，下午茶还没喝完太阳就落山了。

相比之下，新加坡蓝天白云，气候温暖，让人感觉仿佛置身度假胜地。“所以，我向老天祈祷：如果我能找到工作，我就待一年，”她笑着回忆道。

一年变成了两年，两年变成了三年，三年后她获得了永久居留权。然后，在新冠疫情期间，安娜成为了新加坡公民。

现年 57 岁的谭女士通过她的公司 Coaching Go Where，在过去二十多年里一直为包括谷歌在内的多家公司的领导团队提供指导。

然后，她开始注意到一些她无法确切描述的东西——一种特殊的孤独感，这种孤独感往往会笼罩在事业有成的女性周围，一种觉得自己已经超越了这个空间的感觉。

“我和很多同龄的朋友聊天，”她说。“她们说，‘哎呀，我老了，身体也越来越虚弱，我该怎么办？我得考虑退休的事了。’我就想——等等，女士们。事情远不止如此。”

那份“更多”的想法变成了 AM Club，她与两位朋友 Emma Noguchi Devianne 和 Anna Williams 共同创立了这家俱乐部。

（从左至右）AM Club 会员 Yvette Tan，以及联合创始人 Anna Williams 和 Emma Noguchi Devianne。（摄影：Anna Tan）

这个名字故意让人摸不着头脑。谭恩美不愿给它下定义，而这正是关键所在。

它可以代表更年期之后——最初的灵感来源，也是最无趣的答案。AM 可以指早晨，象征着新的一天。或者代表活力思维。或者代表先进思维。

“俱乐部唯一真正的问题是，AM 对你来说意味着什么？”她说道。

对于许多四五十岁的女性来说，这个问题出现得正值一个复杂的时刻。潮热是真实存在的，没错，但还有一些更难以言喻的东西也同样存在。

在人生的这个阶段，随着孩子们逐渐独立，事业也步入正轨，人们对下一步该做什么的疑问也越来越强烈。

谭强调，AM俱乐部并非为陷入困境的女性提供的互助小组。它不是心理治疗，也不是疗养胜地，更不是一个让仍在探索自己是否有权追求梦想的女性聚集的圈子。

这是为那些已经完成了内心功课的女性准备的——她们情绪稳定，经济独立，并且准备好用谭最喜欢的词来说，就是“无所畏惧”。

谭女士正在她主持的领导力培训项目中与各位领导者交流。（照片：安娜·谭）

她围绕这一主题构建的框架借鉴了谭所描述的中医更年期观念，即更年期是第二次春天——不是衰退，而是第二次绽放。

这是大多数女性从未经历过的观念转变，谭认为这种转变早就应该发生了。“社会认为你已经过时了，”她说。“你现在处于退休状态，被边缘化了。但在其他文化中，长者是睿智的长者。这其中有着真正的区别。”

为了帮助女性在这个新篇章中找到自己的定位，她设计了一个围绕六种季节原型构建的测试：野性凤凰、自由漫游者、无畏探险家、至高无上的狼、光辉女皇和睿智炼金术士。

该测试可在 AM Club 网站上找到，大约需要两分钟，其目的不是为了诊断女性应该解决什么问题，而是为了向她展示她目前处于哪个阶段。

参与此项目的女性将获得更深入的人生阶段分析，并可能受邀参加“圈子”活动。这是一个90分钟的线上课程，谭老师将与她们一起进行身份转变，她十多年来一直运用这种方法帮助企业领导者实现转变。

她说，测验和“圈子”活动都是免费的。唯一需要花钱的就是这次冒险经历。

冒险才是重点

AM俱乐部的诞生，归根结底，源于一个实际问题。谭有一个愿望清单：她想去旅行。不是坐小巴跟着队伍走，也不是被安排去参加各种巡演，而是和那些有时间、有钱、有健康，最重要的是，有志于此的女性一起，在五星级精品酒店的舒适环境中，以冒险的方式去旅行。

“我想要五星级酒店，我想要一辆SUV，我想要一次毕生难忘的冒险，”她说。“但最重要的是，我希望和志同道合的朋友一起完成这一切。”

俱乐部唯一真正的问题是，AM 对你来说意味着什么？

她面临的问题是找到足够多的符合条件的女性。她原有的社交圈本身没什么问题，但总觉得不太合适。于是，她决定自己建立这个社群。

AM俱乐部成立于今年年初。现在，它正在全球范围内推广，面向世界各地所有认同其描述的女性开放：她们一生中大部分时间都在努力打造自己的事业，拥有各种头衔，是房间里最负责任的人——而现在，她们却在悄悄地思考，这一切是否就是她们人生的全部意义。

谭恩美策划的这些探险——或者用她自己的话说，是“反叛”——不仅仅是度假。每一次探险都围绕着一个内在修行的主题展开，并将这一主题与香槟和气功一起贯穿于整个行程之中。

第一次旅行将于 2027 年 9 月举行，带领团队前往中国的桂林、阳朔和龙脊梯田。其主题是重塑自我：我现在是谁，接下来我选择成为谁？

清晨的中国永寿漓江。（摄影：Anna Tan）

谭女士正在中国进行考察，她计划在那里发起AM Club的首次“反叛”行动。（照片：Anna Tan）

中国桂林的龙脊梯田。（摄影：Anna Tan）

第二趟旅程将于2028年2月启程，前往肯尼亚——莱基皮亚、马赛马拉和拉穆的印度洋沿岸——行程包括清晨乘坐热气球飞越稀树草原，并在星空下度过夜晚。旅程的主题是“回归本源”——正如谭所说，让你的身体重新找回作为动物的本能，而不是被日程安排束缚的感觉。

第三趟旅程将于2028年5月举行，从安第斯山脉深入秘鲁亚马逊雨林，像印加人那样解读星辰间的黑暗空间。这一趟旅程的主题是启示。

“重塑、重塑、揭示，”她总结道。“一旦我们真正步入正轨，每年三次。”

内疚感以及业余俱乐部的目标群体

每当谈到女性选择投资自己时，总会有人问到这样一个问题：如果一位女性觉得，为了成为一位好母亲或好妻子，她必须把自己的愿望清单放在最后，那该怎么办？

谭（左三）与她在水晶钵活动中结识的朋友合影。她说：“这场活动正是我们希望在AM Club打造的那种体验的典型体现，它不仅包含美食美酒，更致力于提供独特的体验。”（摄影：Anna Tan）

这是一个值得关注的问题，因为 AM 俱乐部以香槟、探险和毫不掩饰的活力为特色，很容易被误解为是为那些选择脱离家庭的女性而设的。

为了帮助女性理解这一理念，谭在她的个人网站上撰写了四篇文章，分别探讨牺牲、信念、自动驾驶模式和自我重塑。她说，关于牺牲的那篇文章是专门写给那些仍在寻求许可的女性的。

“我指导过很多女性，她们认为自己有责任让其他人幸福，”谭说。“我会告诉她们：如果你对别人的幸福负责，你也对他们的不幸福负责。你不仅放弃了自己的力量，也让周围的人都失去了力量。”

她并非对这种愧疚感无动于衷。但她明确表示，AM俱乐部并非解决这种愧疚感的合适场所。

“如果你还没有找到自己的内在力量，那这里不适合你。去找个教练吧。等你准备好了——当你发现了自己的力量，并且想和那些已经找到自身力量的女性一起玩耍的时候——再来吧。”

这是一个刻意设定的高标准。但她也认为，这是社区运作的唯一方式。

对谭来说，房间里的气氛必须合适——不能抱怨，不能背后捅刀，也不能让任何人到处宣扬自己的不满。“同谋，”她俏皮地说，“玩伴。来和我一起玩吧。”

CNA Women是CNA Lifestyle旗下的一个版块，旨在为现代女性提供信息、赋能和灵感。如果您有与女性相关的新闻、议题或想法想要与我们分享，请发送电子邮件至CNAWomen[at]mediacorp.com.sg。

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