Controlled Substance — Why Ambition Runs Founders Who Never Set the Dose

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 Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and Virgin while running his own firms, and he now argues that ambition behaves less like a choice than like a chemistry founders never learn to measure. Drawing on evolutionary biology, neuroscience and social history for his book Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age, he shows why the same drive that builds a company keeps demanding more of it, and why lowering ambition is the wrong fix. He gives founders the checks that tell them whether they are administering their ambition or being administered by it. Listeners leave able to set the level of drive they actually want.

About Hugo Brooks

Hugo Brooks, podcast guest

Ambition Strategist & Author

35+ years Building, growing and selling businesses4 global brands Advised Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and VirginPublished author Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless AgeMagnetic North Coaching practice

Hugo Brooks is an Ambition Strategist, speaker and author who helps founders, business leaders and ambitious creatives rethink one of the most powerful forces shaping their lives: ambition.

After more than 35 years building, growing and selling brand, innovation and communications businesses, Hugo reached a turning point. Having advised global organisations including Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé and Virgin while navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurship himself, a single question from his wife changed everything: "Are you sure you want to do this again?" That moment led him to step off the entrepreneurial treadmill and dedicate his second career to helping others build success that is consciously chosen rather than unconsciously inherited.

Today, through coaching, speaking and his book, Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age, Hugo challenges the conventional belief that ambition is simply about achieving bigger goals. Instead, he argues that ambition is a powerful human force that drives almost every decision we make -and that the real question is not how ambitious we are, but whether our ambition is taking us where we truly want to go. Drawing on evolutionary biology, neuroscience, social history and his own entrepreneurial journey, he helps leaders understand the hidden patterns that shape their choices and shows how to align ambition with the life they genuinely want to build.

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