14 May 2024

Insights Unveiled - Brand Communication

Watch on YouTube →
Share on social:FacebookLinkedInX
Key topicsRestless Age: Why Successful People Still Feel Like They Haven't ArrivedHugo 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 wife made him step off the entrepreneurial treadmill: "Are you sure you want to do this again?" His book Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age asks why so many successful people still feel restless, drawing on evolutionary biology, neuroscience and social history to treat ambition as a human force behind almost every decision we make, not a trait some people simply have more of. He sets aside productivity hacks and motivational slogans for a harder question: not how ambitious you are, but whether your ambition is taking you where you actually want to go. From his coaching of senior executives, founders and ambitious creatives through Magnetic North, he explains the hidden patterns that stop achievement turning into fulfilment. Listeners leave with a way to test whether their drive is serving the life they want to build.Your Goals Should Serve Your Life, Not Become Your LifeGoals are essential for giving ambition direction, but they become dangerous when we stop questioning them. Once a goal becomes part of our identity, we can become so invested in reaching it that we ignore the costs, overlook changing circumstances and continue long after the original reason for pursuing it has disappeared. The result is that we can achieve exactly what we set out to achieve and still find ourselves somewhere we never consciously chose to be. Hugo explores how to hold goals firmly enough to make progress, but lightly enough to change course - using them as tools to build a meaningful life rather than treating them as rules we must obey.Why your greatest strength can quietly become your biggest addictionThe 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 ambition can shift from being a powerful source of growth into a compulsive cycle of dissatisfaction, drawing on both his personal experience and the research behind his forthcoming book Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age. Rather than encouraging listeners to lower their ambitions, he offers a new way of understanding and directing that energy before it begins to define their identity. Audiences will discover why sustainable success depends less on View all topics →

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.

View profile →

Podcast Hosts: Get Hugo’s Media Profile

Click to Download