Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Episode 62: Emily Giffin on Doing the Work in Obscurity
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Episode 62: Emily Giffin on Doing the Work in Obscurity
In this episode, I sit down with Emily Giffin — author of multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, and one of the most successful contemporary novelists working today. You probably know Emily from her books. What you may not know is how openly she talks about the role of luck in her career, and how thoughtfully she distinguishes between the kind of luck that's outside your control and the kind you can actually prepare yourself to receive.
Emily's first novel got picked up at a particular moment, by a particular editor, in circumstances that included real elements of timing and happenstance. She doesn't pretend otherwise. But she also doesn't let the role of luck become an excuse for anyone hoping for the same kind of break. Her case is more nuanced and more useful: luck and hard work aren't opposites. They work together. The opportunities that look like luck from the outside almost always require years of unglamorous preparation to be ready to seize when they finally arrive.
We talk about what that preparation actually looked like for Emily — the years of writing without any guarantee of publication, the discipline of treating the work seriously even when no one was paying attention, and the specific moves that had her positioned to say yes when the right opportunity finally appeared. We also get into a deeper question most ambitious women secretly ask themselves: how much of success is genuine merit, how much is timing, and what does it actually mean to do good work in the meantime?
If you've been quietly waiting for your version of a lucky break — and quietly suspecting that you should be doing more in the meantime to be ready for it — this conversation will give you a much clearer picture of what being ready actually looks like.
This episode originally aired on Hitting Rock Middle, the show that has since evolved into The Sallie Ogden Show.
Connect with Emily:https://www.emilygiffin.com/all-titles
About the show:
The Sallie Ogden Show is for the woman who's already built something — and is stuck at the plateau where the old playbook stops working. Tactical when you need a number. Honest when you need a mirror. Hosted by former lawyer turned consultant Sallie Ogden.
Stay connected:Newsletter (Further): https://www.growwiththebrimm.com/furthernewsletterFree business assessment — The BRIMM Business Scan: https://thebrimm.typeform.com/to/fuYmBbJIWebsite: growwiththebrimm.comInstagram: @the_brimm
View all episodes
By Sallie Ogden
4.9
7070 ratings
In this episode, I sit down with Emily Giffin — author of multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, and one of the most successful contemporary novelists working today. You probably know Emily from her books. What you may not know is how openly she talks about the role of luck in her career, and how thoughtfully she distinguishes between the kind of luck that's outside your control and the kind you can actually prepare yourself to receive.
Emily's first novel got picked up at a particular moment, by a particular editor, in circumstances that included real elements of timing and happenstance. She doesn't pretend otherwise. But she also doesn't let the role of luck become an excuse for anyone hoping for the same kind of break. Her case is more nuanced and more useful: luck and hard work aren't opposites. They work together. The opportunities that look like luck from the outside almost always require years of unglamorous preparation to be ready to seize when they finally arrive.
We talk about what that preparation actually looked like for Emily — the years of writing without any guarantee of publication, the discipline of treating the work seriously even when no one was paying attention, and the specific moves that had her positioned to say yes when the right opportunity finally appeared. We also get into a deeper question most ambitious women secretly ask themselves: how much of success is genuine merit, how much is timing, and what does it actually mean to do good work in the meantime?
If you've been quietly waiting for your version of a lucky break — and quietly suspecting that you should be doing more in the meantime to be ready for it — this conversation will give you a much clearer picture of what being ready actually looks like.
This episode originally aired on Hitting Rock Middle, the show that has since evolved into The Sallie Ogden Show.
Connect with Emily:https://www.emilygiffin.com/all-titles
About the show:
The Sallie Ogden Show is for the woman who's already built something — and is stuck at the plateau where the old playbook stops working. Tactical when you need a number. Honest when you need a mirror. Hosted by former lawyer turned consultant Sallie Ogden.
Stay connected:Newsletter (Further): https://www.growwiththebrimm.com/furthernewsletterFree business assessment — The BRIMM Business Scan: https://thebrimm.typeform.com/to/fuYmBbJIWebsite: growwiththebrimm.comInstagram: @the_brimm