When failure is success.

Welcome to Joy of Nothing – an out loud experiment in how to revel in simplicity, delight in uncertainty and slowing the f*ck down.

I’ve been hiding offline for eight months. Personal brand crusaders will tell you this is certain death. I know. I used to be one of them. 

And it is a death of sorts.  

But if being offline was my death, then a recent call with an old friend was my resurrection. 

We don’t talk often these days, once or twice a year, but he was the first person to pick up the phone when my dad died.

“David, hey…I’ve been thinking of you.”

He catches me up.

A death, a new grandchild, another on the way, and I’m comforted by the sound of his voice, and ease of our conversation. I give him the headlines.
Life, love (lost) and business. 

“Here’s a secret that’s served me well Nova…”

This is a man who’s shepherded my heart since my early twenties. Along with his wife, they were something like second parents to me. I stop pacing… 

“No matter what Nova, you hold this in your mind.

You’re a success.”

Straight away my mind cycles through the last five years of debt, dumb losses and a stalled career, and I feel much more like a cautionary tale.

I’m writing this post in the shadow of a broken collaboration where a client walked away with $3500 of IP without paying. Sure, I made mistakes. Yes, I’m learning some powerful lessons. But it knocked the wind from me. 

David continued…

“I don’t know about you, but I’m the kinda person who gets up and tries again… more determined than before.“ 

You're not gonna blow it 'cause slowness is calling
You don't have to know where your feet will be falling
If you get everything right, then there's nothing else left…

Why Substack, now?

Unoriginally…

I followed my friend Michael Thompson here. He started a stack – Shy by Design – it’s really (really) good.

More originally…

I want to write somewhere for creativity’s sake, without the selfies, selling and narcissism disguised as personal branding. Instead somewhere to gather with like-hearted people where words spark smiles, meaningful conversations, and a little less aloneness in the world. 

Yes, yes. I’m rather earnest but I’m leaning into it. 

If I could sum this publication up in one sentence: enduring stories and insights on how the light always gets in. Not by ignoring life’s complexities, the loss, the anguish, the absurd – but by embracing life’s simplicities.

Joy is simple. 

Presence is simple. 

Creativity, the simplest salve.

This September will be my third year of writing online but if you count the 100s of websites, blogs and bad poetry I wrote in my teens, it’s been a lifetime. 

My home is in Cornwall, otherwise known as the UKs forgotten fifth nation. Much like Wales, Scotland and Ireland, it has its own Celtic culture and language. Here we race each other through punchy Atlantic swells in 32-foot wooden boats. Each crafted to the same 188-year-old design.

I like an Oxford f*ckin’ comma. It’s a polite, Bri’ish, pause. And yeah, I swear a lot. I blame it on being an ex-copper…when the naughty words got in.

But today I’m a professional ghostwriter, I use my marketing and writing smarts to help good people create a legacy of impact. I’ve worked with artists, authors, 8-figure entrepreneurs and Web3 founders.

Sometimes I supplement my income with painting houses and flipping furniture because I’m punctuated by profound self-doubt and cope by disappearing. I flee to my hammock and swing, with equal amounts of joy and denial. 

One time, I quit a $60K-a-year career. I’d got the education I thought would fulfil me, the job I thought would make me happy, the life I thought would make me successful. Only to discover everything I thought I wanted…wasn't what I wanted.

And so I left my job, my house, my friends, sold everything, and moved into a rented room, with little savings and no plan for the future. A lifetime to build. 48 hours to burn it all to the ground. 

That was almost six years ago.

Failure is success

(On one condition).

I thought about calling this publication Hall of Failures.

Unsexy as the title is, I stand by the concept. 

Though a fundamental part of the human condition, failure gets little airtime. Or only in the shadow of success. I don’t know about you but when I think about my greatest struggles, what I’ve needed the most was to know I wasn’t alone. 

People love to hate social media.
But in the absence of a network vulnerable enough to be open about their struggles, or who just couldn’t relate to my experiences, I’ve found hope and understanding in online spaces. From those brave enough to say, ‘me also’.

And that’s the real success of failure. 

And failure is on every map, just like North is
Failure is in every year, just like August
You had to be ugly before you were gorgeous

Balancing tiger with rhythm of tortoise…

To fail is to grow. To fail is to accept beauty, is happening here. To fail is to be a goddamn motherf*cking dirt-eating wondrous f*cking unicorn.

What great feat didn’t begin with failure? 

From Wrexham’s 15 gruelling years at the bottom of the English Football League to Conrad Anker’s excruciating path to summit Mount Meru. But not all feats are momentous. For some, your mountain may be getting out of bed, not snapping at the kids or that first step in that work you’ve been avoiding.

Failure forges growth, yes, but more so your capacity for the future you imagine — the one that feels too scary to speak out loud. It’s resistance training for the muscle of your heart as much as your mind. 

Can you navigate disappointment without resentment? Celebrate your loves without your own results? Get back up without knowing where you’re going? Not once. Not twice. But…

Every.

Single.

Time. 

That’s the condition of successful failure, that you keep going. 

It’s loss and laughter and grief and joy and rage and passion and confusion and clarity, your heart still buffering long after your mind’s made up. Like the person you love but know you must leave. Like the emptiness between discipline and the results you ache for. Like the first day, after your last day of work.

How do you climb your mountain? 

You first believe you can (without evidence of possibility) and reality bends itself around your decision, moment by moment. Brave belief.

Then let time tip the scales in your favour.
(‘Balancing tiger with rhythm of tortoise’).

See yer,

–Novaaa

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All quotes by Angie McMahon | Just Like North