Ambition: Why It's Good to Want More and How to Get It

Introduction

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”

Salvador Dali

When you are a child, adults are always asking you what you want to be when you grow up. Along with “What's your favourite subject at school?” and “Haven't you grown!” it is pretty much the standard question at any family gathering and indeed sometimes used by teachers as a lesson theme. I can still vividly remember a fabulous picture painted by my sister at the age of five, depicting her as a pop star with sparkly purple hair and big red shoes.

As you get older, however, people gradually stop asking you what you want to do, and by the time you are grown up no one ever asks at all. Presumably they feel that you have either already achieved what you wanted ...