What is ambition, actually?

Some reflections on my book draft now that I've handed it off

ChatGPT’s rendition of my book cover (giving Penguin’s cover artists a run for their money)

Dear readers,

At long last, the update I’ve fantasized about sending you for the better part of a year: I have now submitted a full book draft to my editor at Penguin. Here is how it felt:

At the urging of my editor (and everyone else who’s had to deal with me in recent months), I’m stepping away from the manuscript for a while, so I can approach it with fresh eyes when it hits my desk again.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d indulge in some general reflection on what my book is really about, and what writing it has taught me about ambition and about my own psychology.

A more fundamental sense of “ambition”

You might think, given I’m writing a book on the “psychology of ambition,” that I’d have long since nailed down a definition of “ambition.” But as I was fielding questions on the topic at a speaking event just last week, I realized I had been semi-deliberately toggling between two meanings of the term.

Th…