Yasmina Floyer speaks to author Emma Gannon about rewriting the rules of ‘achievement’, and what it really means
Author and podcaster Emma Gannon has published six bestselling books to date, including The Sunday Times bestseller The Multi-Hyphen Method (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99). Her debut novel Olive (HarperCollins, £9.99) was nominated for the Dublin Literary Award in 2022. She has been called ‘one of the most influential thinkers on how we can work smarter’ by Penguin Books, and a ‘terrific interviewer’ by the Financial Times. In 2018, Gannon also made the Forbes 30 Under 30 for Media & Marketing. By all accounts, she is an out-and-out success – but it is this very notion that Gannon explores in her new book, The Success Myth: Letting Go Of Having It All (Torva, £16.99). In it, she dissects the idea of crafting success on your own terms (something she is doing with her Substack, The Hyphen). I asked Gannon a few questions, to find out more…
As somebody who is objectively successful, what inspired you to write a book where you interrogate the very idea of success?
‘I feel like I interrogate everything! As a writer, a thinker, a journalist, I ask a lot of questions, soI wanted to pick apart success as a topic. It could have been quite difficult to get people on board, because I’m unpacking something that, on the surface – both socially and culturally – appears to be working very well.’
That’s right; success is seen as something unequivocally positive that we should all aim for, because then we’ll be happy and have all the answers, right?
‘Well, after interviewing nearly 400 people on the topic, it became clear that no one has the answers! And I was seeing these strange links between extremities. At one extreme, people who can’t pay their bills are suffering with their mental health, but people I spoke to on the opposite end of the scale – people with everything at their fingertips – were also suffering with their mental health. I couldn’t shy away from the data, the research, the anecdotes.I wanted to write this book because it’s still taboo to say, “I have more than enough – and yet I’m still not happy”.’
“When something doesn’t line up with what you want, then that’s not really your version of success”
We’re both millennials, and I think that growing up we were presented with very specific external metrics of what success looked like. Why do you think that is?
‘Most millennials have baby boomer parents who grew up post-war. Their parents had grown up knowing what it was like to have rations, but the baby boomer generation had grown up with quite a lot of wealth – for example, now, they own more than 50 per cent of all property in the UK. They’re also a big consumer generation and, in general terms, really bought into culture and music and TV
