This week on How Success Happens, I got to catch up with someone who doesn’t just build brands, he builds universes: bestselling author Soman Chainani, creator of the fantasy series The School for Good and Evil, and now the mind behind the wild new novel Young World. I first spoke with Soman back in 2021, when Good and Evil was being made into a Netflix flick, and since then he has made a few bold moves. He ditched New York City for St. Louis, where his partner has a nearby goat farm, and he took a big step outside his fairytale comfort zone with this new one, which tells the story of a teenager who is elected President of the United States and sparks a global revolution of young leaders in the process. Betrayal, power plays and murder soon follow.
Listen below or watch above to check out the entire convo, and read on for Soman’s insights to help you launch a revolution in your own success story in three, two, one!
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Three Key Insights
1. Stop “Following Your Passion” and Start Following Your Advantage
Soman is not a fan of the advice to “follow your passion.” As he puts it, “I’ve never been into that advice because I often think your passion and your dream don’t line up with what you’re good at.” Instead, he looks for the intersection of two things: what he’s genuinely good at and what makes time fly by when he’s doing it. Writing is hard and often a “pain in the ass,” but he recognizes that he’s good at it, it makes hours disappear, and he ends the day feeling transformed and fulfilled.
Takeaway: Don’t overlook your superpowers.
2. Be Willing to Walk Away From Your Own Franchise
At the peak of The School for Good and Evil’s success—with six books, two prequels, and a Netflix movie—Soman realized that chapter of his life had hit its high watermark. He was being offered “so much money to write more fairy tales,” could have kept “banking money.” He started a new Neverland series, but after writing two competent, marketable chapters, he felt “there’s no energy here… it’s missing whatever the fizzy thing is,” and he never opened the document again. “I’d rather be a plumber or something,” he joked, than keep writing something that felt dead. It was at that same moment that he saw a “neon nuclear orange” color that sparked his idea for a third political party for revolting youth, which took over his imagination.
Takeaway: When a “sure thing” no longer has creative or strategic energy, have the courage to kill it fast so you can pursue the idea that actually feels alive.
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3. Clear the Noise and Let Ideas Catch Up to You
For someone who writes huge, intricate books, Soman’s biggest creativity hack starts far from the keyboard. His writing days are built around intense physical routines—6 a.m. tennis with college players, hours of writing, another training block, then more writing—repeated “over and over and over again” like a machine. When he’s stuck, he disconnects. He says he’ll drive an hour to his partner’s farm without listening to anything, or walk and shower in silence, because “you just don’t have the space for your brain to actually give you the ideas” if every quiet moment is filled with podcasts or audiobooks. As he tells students, the answer “is not in your head… it’s in the flow, and the flow is in your body.”
Takeaway: Protect distraction-free time and physical movement in your day so your best ideas have room to surface rather than being drowned out by constant content.
Two Free Resources to Learn More
- Dive deeper into Soman’s world and get updates on Young World and beyond on his website, somanchainani.com, and follow him on Instagram, @somanc.
- Learn award-winning author Emma Straub’s secret to actually finishing your passion project.
One Question to Ponder
Soman tells students that if you lean too hard on AI to think for you now, you’re “flattening out what you’re gonna become,” giving up your chance at an above-average life in exchange for safe, average answers.
What’s one area where you are confident that AI can not match your particular superpower?
Email your answer to howsuccesshappens@entrepreneur.com—my favorite responses will be read on a future episode.
About How Success Happens
Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way.
This week on How Success Happens, I got to catch up with someone who doesn’t just build brands, he builds universes: bestselling author Soman Chainani, creator of the fantasy series The School for Good and Evil, and now the mind behind the wild new novel Young World. I first spoke with Soman back in 2021, when Good and Evil was being made into a Netflix flick, and since then he has made a few bold moves. He ditched New York City for St. Louis, where his partner has a nearby goat farm, and he took a big step outside his fairytale comfort zone with this new one, which tells the story of a teenager who is elected President of the United States and sparks a global revolution of young leaders in the process. Betrayal, power plays and murder soon follow.
Listen below or watch above to check out the entire convo, and read on for Soman’s insights to help you launch a revolution in your own success story in three, two, one!
