The Hidden Cost of Chasing Success Without Asking Why
0:00 / 57:16The ups and downs of a small business owner· Listen to Hugo Brooks on air
Strategy at Scale Versus Founder Reality: what 35 years advising global brand owners reveals about testing a growth plan against the size of the business running it.
Hugo Brooks spent 35 years on the other side of the table, advising Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and Virgin on strategy while running and selling brand, innovation and communications agencies of his…
Why Success Leaves Achievers Restless: what evolutionary biology, neuroscience and social history reveal about where ambition is really taking us
Hugo Brooks spent more than 35 years building, growing and selling brand, innovation and communications businesses, advising Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and Virgin, before a single question from his…
Rethinking Ambition at a Career Turning Point: What changes when a founder asks whether to do it again
One question from Hugo Brooks's wife closed a 35-year run of building, growing and selling agencies: are you sure you want to do this again. He had advised Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and Virgin and…
Why Founders Pursue Goals They Never Chose: How inherited ambition sets direction before anyone stops to examine it
Hugo Brooks spent 35 years building and selling brand, innovation and communications agencies before he noticed how few of his own goals he had actually picked. He advised Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé…
Managing Ambition Before It Manages You: How founders set the level of drive they choose, using evidence from evolutionary biology and neuroscience
Hugo Brooks spent 35 years building, growing and selling brand, innovation and communications agencies, and only near the end of it asked who was setting the level of his own drive. He advised…
The Three Kinds of Ambition in Leadership: how senior executives and founders recognise which drive is behind their next career decision
Hugo Brooks sorts ambition into three kinds, hero, move-up and be-better, and argues that senior executives and founders rarely stop to ask which one is driving their next decision. He spent 35 years…
Creative Work and Commercial Reality: building a business without losing the work that made it valuable
Designers, writers, founders, and creative entrepreneurs often feel trapped between producing meaningful work and building a commercially successful business. Hugo understands this tension from…
When Ambition Becomes Compulsion: redirecting drive before it defines identity
The same ambition that helps people build successful careers can gradually become impossible to switch off, leaving achievement feeling less like fulfilment and more like obligation. Hugo shares how…
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