The Success Myth by Emma Gannon — Cultural Digest #8
Freeing ourselves from the trappings of achievement.
I first glimpsed
across an exceptionally crowded room at her Ctrl Alt Delete book launch in the Summer of 2016, a matter of days before Fleabag was first released on the BBC. I squeezed my plus one self into the swanky events room hidden towards the rear of a posh London hotel, alongside my friend whom I’d accompanied. We were immediately plunged into a storm of colour. The deceptively delicate sound of laughter and tinkling glasses that had called to us outside like sirens, now underscored a screeching cacophony of perfumed excitement. Emma, was a tiny dot at the centre of it all. I was a little taken aback. The publishing world was completely alien to me at that point, it still is really, an unexplored ocean of thinkers and scribblers — talkers too. With the exception of the raging nightclubs from my twenties this was the noisiest room I have ever been in. This, I thought to myself, must be what success looks like. It was intoxicating. Little did I know, my own life had already chartered a ship and was heading in a not dissimilar direction.Within minutes my friend and I were hoarse with effort trying to navigate our way to safety, to find a patch of floor that was still standing spare for us to occupy. It was like a living version of the board game Escape from Atlantis that I played as a child, where you do your best to rescue your shipwrecked survivors before the land gets swallowed up, as each round more squares are taken away and replaced with threatening creatures from the deep.
We snatched a teetering drink from the precarious tray of an over-shoved, frazzled-looking waiter, side-stepping us with a pleading grimace, as we shared enthusiastically screamed wassails with some of our nearest neighbouring sardines. As a tenuous tag along-er I had been hoping to meet Emma that night, I was new to her work and hugely inspired by it. I had a strong feeling we’d really get along. But despite our politely jostled attempts my friend and I couldn’t get near her, we were left only with grazed elbows. She was completely surrounded, a millennial Mick Jagger. An Ariel, in a sea of Ursulas. Everyone, including me, wanting to take away a moment with her to lock away and keep.
Eventually my friend and I slipped out, the heavy thrumming chorus of sycophantic approval becoming genuinely overwhelming at one point. I stole a glance back into the room longingly, resigning myself to the fact that an introduction wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t even see Emma anymore amongst the bobbing heads, the party had devoured her. Then I did what I always do in those situations, I handed my desire to meet her over to the universe. As the door swung shut with a guttural suction of narrow escape, ejecting my friend and I onto the banks of a cool sound-proofed corridor, I trusted that another door in the not so distant future would open.
A handful of months later, Emma still riding high on the success of her brilliant book and podcast of the same name and me now riding pretty high myself on Fleabag’s first outing, the universe delivered. Emma was actually supposed to be interviewing Phoebe Waller-Bridge for the podcast who suggested we be interviewed as a pair. In the end Phoebe’s jam-packed schedule wouldn’t allow for that to happen before around 2025 so Emma had to settle for just me. I don’t think she minded, or if she did she didn’t let on.
We hit it off immediately. I can’t remember where we were any more specifically than somewhere in London’s Soho but I know that we ate delicious food and had an amazing chat that felt like we’d known each other for years. A few days later she contacted me to let me know that the sound on the recording wasn’t great because the place we were in was so busy, the heady buzz of creative endeavour ever in the ether surrounding Emma — would I be available to re-record it? Like any number of her screaming groupies I hurled myself at the chance just to get to spend another hour in her company. And happily as it turned out, she was just as keen to keep hanging out with me. The rest as they say, is history. We have now been friends for actual years and still have amazing chats over delicious food, sometimes in London’s Soho but more often further afield now, after a bracing stomp.
I see mine and Emma’s friendship as both a cultural and creative hub, where we bounce ideas off each other, questioning everything, putting the world to rights and most importantly perhaps, encouraging each other to pursue our creative dreams with fervour. I remember sitting with her in a pub stuffing our faces with Sunday Roast as she told me she’d had an idea for a novel about a young woman who didn’t want to have children, surrounded by friends who did. ‘DO IT’ I urged. She did. Not solely because of me I’m sure of that but I am thrilled to count myself amongst her inner circle of supporters. OLIVE became a bestseller. I even got to do the audiobook for it. She was nervous to ask me. I was terrified she wouldn’t. We often dance around each other like this, as if still adorably courting our friendship.
Her new book has brought her back to non-fiction. It is called The Success Myth and it is ace: ‘our overly celebrated and traditional version of success is making us lonely, unfulfilled and dispirited. The Success Myth is a book about how to break free and redefine ambition and success for ourselves.’ In Emma’s own words this book is her best yet. I think so too. As long as I’ve known Emma she’s been ‘successful’ and I guess, as long as she’s known me. But during that time we’ve both come to painfully learn the pitfalls and challenges of living a life aspiring to embody whatever it means to be ‘successful’. And I think now we’d both be in agreement that that’s just one of the more boring lenses you can choose to see a person through. Emma’s book is all about freeing ourselves from that worldview — that our obsession with success and achievement is a trap, that our goal oriented living is preventing us from doing just that. Instead we find ourselves constantly in a state of striving; to prove, to acquire, to be more, to have more; barely glancing back at each passing milestone, immediately on to the next. It isn’t making us happy and in some cases it’s making us seriously unwell.
As a former people-pleasing workaholic, I climbed and acquired, until I broke. No amount of “success” can ultimately save you from the internal parts of yourself you need to work on. How do you undo years of childhood cultural conditioning? How do we learn how to rest? How do we learn to live in a way that feels good on the inside, not just good on Instagram? How do we stop this endless quest for 'more'?
Emma Gannon, The Success Myth
The Success Myth is a deeply personal, authentic and relatable read. It made me breathe countless, heavy sighs of relief. It made me feel seen. It made me belly laugh. It has inspired new ways of doing things. It introduced me to the concepts of ‘The Contrarian’ - artists who tend to push against society’s expectations; and also ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ - where you stay up too late trying to reclaim lost leisure time from overworking. Sound familiar? That was a lightbulb moment for me. This book is so well researched, enlightening, entertaining, I read it in a flash. And like all of Emma’s work it doesn’t shy away from exposing daring unspoken truths.
Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed this piece and would like to support my work, the best way is by taking out a paid subscription. Gift subscriptions are also available.
Does life imitate art, she asks? Within days of completing this book with almost wicked irony, Emma found herself in the throes of chronic burnout and needed the book she’d just written to help piece herself back together. I never knew how Emma could put out the volume of content that she did at the rate that she did for the number of years that she did and it seems that her body was asking that question of her for some time too. Success knows no boundaries. It will demand you give of yourself more and more. It will steal your voice for its own if you allow it.
My first impression of Emma’s seemingly rambunctious and outwardly successful life that at the time I aspired to, versus getting to know who Emma actually is, as you do in The Success Myth, intimately, is who I have now learned I am too: a lover of far quieter environments, bookstores generally or surrounded by nature, simpler pleasures, human connection, less things and fewer people. The embracing of this truth is what this book is a celebration of and I love Emma all the more for writing it. It feels timely, and brave. I think it’s no coincidence that my friend and I have arrived at this space in tandem having experienced many similar but different deep sea dives into the perceived notion of success sold to us at that whirlwind book launch, sold to all of us, everywhere — it isn’t all flotsam and jetsam down there but it isn’t all hidden treasures either and if you stay too long, it will lay claim to you.
If this book is calling to you like a siren, you can order it below — I promise it won’t shipwreck you and leave you stranded on a jagged rock, but welcome you with the open arms of truth, peace and permission to rest.
As often as Emma forays into the unknown something I also admire her for is her courageousness at quitting — not quietly either but boldly. Emma decided to say farewell to her incredibly ‘successful’ Ctrl Alt Delete podcast late in 2022. She wrote about why here on her Substack. I wondered if there might be something else podcast-centric in the works though because she is such a great interviewer and I’m thrilled to tell you that she has created a companion piece podcast The Success Myth Diaries to celebrate the book’s publication. Emma has interviewed five people about three of their success myths, of which I am delighted to be one. New episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays over the next five weeks. The first episode went out this week with Chelsea Fagan. My episode is up next, on The Success Myth’s publication day, yey! You can listen here.
I feel giddy around Emma. I am constantly inspired by her. If she has an idea, she acts on it. She manifests it into being with the type of faith and dedication you only read about in a Steve Jobs biography. She is someone I pay attention to, we all should, because she is always ahead of the curve — whether it’s interrogating the Internet, podcasting, or now, Substack, she was there early. She is always one of the first. And you know what I love the most about that? She’s doesn’t do any of it because she’s trying to be the first, she does it because it feels good. If it doesn’t, she changes direction. And wherever Emma goes, I want to follow. With a slower gait, in mud-caked boots. She is the reason I started my own Substack after all. She was one of the first people I told, too. ‘DO IT’ she urged. So I did.
The Success Myth: Letting Go Of Having It All publishes on May 18th, available to pre-order now.
Enjoy my writing and want to support it? Become a paid subscriber today. You’ll get full access to in-depth articles, inspirational tools, thoughtful community discussions, arts and meditation related gatherings, plus the full back catalogue of archived posts. You can also “like” my posts by tapping the heart icon, share them on Substack Notes or other social media, and/or send them to a friend.