Welcome to Salima Nova
I keep coming back to this idea: that most of us live our lives within invisible boundaries we never think to question. We follow prescribed paths because that's what seems reasonable, sensible. I did this myself for years - following a banking career and the external markers of success. Then I got sick. Not mildly inconvenienced, but bedridden for a year at 25, forced to confront my mortality in a way most people don't experience until much later. I remember staring at the ceiling one afternoon and asking myself a question that would eventually unravel everything: "What would I do if I had only one year to live?"
The answer wasn't subtle or complicated. It arrived with absolute clarity. And it had nothing to do with the life I'd been building.
What You'll Find Here
This newsletter examines what happens when we dare to look beyond these self-imposed boundaries through specific stories, observations, and practical tools:
For Free Subscribers:
Essays on expansion, mastery, and seeing beyond perceived limits
Psychological and strategic frameworks for decision-making, flow, and sustained performance
Lessons from history, philosophy, and those who have pushed past convention - including the late bloomers who succeeded beyond society’s imposed timelines, proving that evolution has no deadline
Reflections on my own journey - from weightlifting to travel, from tracking my body’s data to unlearning old identities
Serialized excerpts from Anthology of Desire - an exploration of what drives us, what sustains us, and what happens when we listen to that pull
For Paid Subscribers:
Full Archive Access - Complete access to all past content
Occasional Interviews - Conversations with interesting people who've chosen unconventional paths
Subscriber-Only Posts - Occasional deeper dives on specific topics
Early Access - Receive content before it's released to free subscribers
Monthly Q&A - One group session per month where you address questions
Why I Write This
After my year in bed, I traveled - Patagonia first, then across continents, eventually to Japan. I wasn't running away so much as running toward something I couldn't yet articulate. I ended up at the UN as a journalist, then advising leaders and organizations. Throughout these seemingly disconnected experiences, I noticed something curious: the gap between what people know and what they actually do about it.
I've become increasingly preoccupied with this space - the territory between recognition and action. Because it's relatively easy to identify what matters. The difficulty lies in reorganizing your life accordingly.
I've watched people wrestle with this challenge for years now, professionally and personally. I've developed methods, frameworks, observed patterns. This newsletter exists to share those observations as practical tools for navigating similar transitions.
Who Reads Salima Nova
You sense something is missing or misaligned. You might be conventionally successful but privately questioning. Perhaps you're stuck at the threshold of a decision that feels consequential but unclear.
What unites us is a suspicion that there might be something beyond your current horizon worth exploring, and a desire for both guidance and practical tools to actually get there.
You're drawn to depth rather than surface, to questioning rather than accepting, to forging paths rather than following them. You're not defined by demographics but by a particular relationship with your life - one characterized by curiosity about what lies beyond the visible, beyond the expected.
You're looking not just for inspiration but for a fellow traveler who understands the terrain because she's navigated it herself.
About Me
Originally from Casablanca, Morocco and Paris, France, I now live in Los Angeles. I've been a banker, a world traveller, a UN journalist in NY, and now I advise people navigating significant transitions.
This unlikely path wasn't planned, but in retrospect contains its own peculiar logic.
What I've realized is that certain experiences - like my health crisis - operate as interventions. They interrupt the narrative we've been telling ourselves about who we are and what matters, creating space for something more authentic to emerge.
When I'm not writing or working with clients, I'm lifting weights (which surprised no one more than me), practicing yoga, or exploring restaurants in LA's less-traveled neighborhoods, guided by the spirit of Jonathan Gold's democratic appreciation for both the high and low expressions of culture.
An Invitation
If something in these words resonates with you, if you too sense there might be something beyond your current horizon worth exploring, consider this an invitation to join the conversation. Not because I have definitive answers, but because the questions themselves are worth examining together.
Let’s go further, together.
Stay Stellar,
Salima
"Salima doesn't offer easy answers or generic advice. She provides something rarer: careful observation of how transformation actually works, paired with practical tools to navigate your own. Her insights have been invaluable in my own journey." — Sarah B.
