Permission to fail

The day I ghosted millions of readers...

Dear unlearners,

Lately you might notice that I have been pretty quiet. I have been talking to myself more than interacting with people.

If you're new here, a bit of backstory. A decade ago I started writing. My content went viral from day 1 on Medium. If you're one of my old readers, you might have known me from some of these posts:

• Don't Date A Man Who Reads

• 7 Things You Need To Stop Doing To Be More Productive, Backed By Science

• If You Want to Be Successful, Learn How to Steal

• You Will Always Suck at What You Do, Until You Do This

• Why I Stopped Helping People and You Should Too

• Cruel Intentions: How I Hacked Tinder and Got 2015 Matches in Under 17 Hours

I could write a post and wake up the next day to 100-200k views on a single news post. It wasn't luck. I'm a marketer, not a writer. My posts were translated into dozens of languages and featured in major newspapers worldwide. My words were reaching corners of the world I'd never even visited. It worked because I chose to be vulnerable and optimized my work for reach. I used to joke that I'm Buzzfeed list writer quality but get the reach most people dream of.

Then one day, I quit.

I ghosted my friends.

I ghosted my readers for almost a decade.

Sometimes I see names of my peers and realize how unsuccessful I am compared to them. If I'd stuck around, I could have become a writer and most likely would have a book by now.

But the truth is, writing was killing me slowly. To write those viral posts, I felt like I needed to push myself into depression.

I chose myself.

I chose what others might see as failure.

But for me, it was choosing life.

I gave myself the permission to stop writing.

I gave myself the permission to fail as a writer.

I spent the next decade focusing on scaling my business, traveling the world, learning how to cook, picking up Chinese. I'm doing well in life, but I could have been much bigger. Yet, I was happy. I've been thinking a lot about how it's okay to be good but not great, to be content with being unambitious.

During those years away from writing, I learned that success isn't always about reaching the widest audience. Sometimes, it's about reaching the right audience - even if that audience is just yourself.

Now, as I return to writing, I'm doing things differently. Lately, I haven't been doing what I should for my Substack. Being an email marketer, I haven't been optimizing the email flows and opt-in form at all. I'm not engaging with people, which I know would help with my reach, engagement, and subscribe rate. I barely write notes.

I'm doing exactly the opposite of what would help it go viral. I do what I want.

I gave myself one task: Just publish a post a day.

I gave myself the permission to fail being a marketer for my own Substack.

Because I know it's more important for me to spend time consuming great content to inspire my future work. It's more important for me to develop a workflow process so I can stick to my one-post-a-day goal even when I work 16 hours a day during the holiday season at my day job or when I'm traveling. I need time to work with myself to learn to be vulnerable again. My best posts are raw and real. Sharing pain is not an easy task. I need to spend time to learn to do it again.

Most people look at success as only the finish line. But if we knew the real amount of work, pain, and suffering that goes into success, we might not even want it.

Failure is part of it. Sometimes they're mistakes. Sometimes they're sacrifices for other decisions. Everything in life is a trade-off. You have to pick what's most important to you and fail at other things. You can't win on every front.

That's why I give myself the permission to fail.

I know that by allowing myself to fail in some areas, I'm opening up the possibility of success in others. It's about prioritizing what truly matters to me, even if it means not being "successful" by society's standards.

So here I am, back to writing, but on my own terms. I'm not chasing viral posts or sacrificing my mental health for views. I'm just trying to show up, day after day, and share my thoughts with you. Some days it might be brilliant, other days it might be a mess. But that's okay. Because I've given myself permission to fail, and in doing so, I've given myself permission to keep trying, to keep growing, to keep being myself.

At the end of the day, I am my most important reader. But I hope that by sharing my journey, I can inspire you to give yourself permission to fail too. To choose happiness over societal expectations. To be okay with being good, not great.

And maybe, just maybe, that's the biggest success of all.

P.S If you are new, say hi. Please introduce yourself. If you are one of my old readers, also say hi. I would love to reconnect.

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