Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:25: What ambition means in a Squiggly Career

00:09:15: Connecting curiosity with ambition

00:11:10: Ideas for action…

00:11:37: … 1: define your own ambition

00:15:43: … 2: connect ambition with action

00:19:54: … 3: talk about your ambition

00:28:45: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins and outs of work and try to give you a little bit of confidence with what you might be going through, a bit of clarity to help you take actions, and lots of tools to make it easier.  And as well as the episode that you are listening to right now, we've got lots of extra stuff to support you in your Squiggly Career. 

So, you can sign up for PodMail, where you'll get all of our tools in one place; you can download the PodSheet, where you'll get some of the ideas we're going to talk through today; and if you want to join a like-minded community of Squiggly Career learners, come along to PodPlus, which happens most Thursdays for half an hour, and it's free with either Sarah or me, and it's just a lovely supportive community to spend a bit of time with.  All of that is free, all of it is on our website, amazingif.com, or go into the show notes and you'll find the links there.

Sarah Ellis: And so today, we're talking about ambition, and it's a topic that I talked to Shellye Archambeau about back on episode 182.  And she wrote a book called Unapologetically Ambitious.  And as soon as I saw that title, I was like, "I want to read that book", like great title for a book.  But we've never really dived practically into ambition in a Squiggly Career, what it means, why it matters, and the actions that you can take. 

So, we're bringing our usual Squiggly Career usefulness and practicality to what is, we've discovered, quite a big topic as we've started to talk about this. So, I think ambition in a ladder-like world, when that's how we all saw our careers, in some ways was more straightforward, because ambition just looked like climbing the ladder.  It was about job titles, levels, the roles that you wanted to do.  And almost the further up the ladder you were, the more ambitious you were, and that felt like you were winning in the world of work versus other people.  I think in our Squiggly Careers, ambition means something a bit different.  I think it is much more about, well, what are your personal ambitions, like defining for yourself, "What am I ambitious for?" rather than subscribing to a view of ambition that's outside of you.  But it is an interesting word, it's one that provokes, I think, lots of different reactions.  So, we're going to explore it a bit together today before we dive into the actions that you can take. So, Helen, when you think about ambition, how do you feel about the word and what would you say it means to you?

Helen Tupper: I think I feel quite comfortable with the word.  I like the idea of ambition, I like the idea that people have goals and direction beyond what they do on the day-to-day.  And I think for somebody who gets really sucked into the day-to-day, actually having ambition is sort of like a magnet that pulls me out of it a little bit.  So, I really like ambition, I feel really comfortable with the idea of it.  I think for me, I think over time what's happened is, ambition to me probably used to be very specific. 

It used to be like a job I wanted to do.  Like, I think in corporate life I'd be like, "That's the job".  I would look around me and I'd see someone who was working on a particular thing or doing a job and I'd be like, "Oh, that's my ambition".  And so, it was very clear in a company what that could look like. I think now we run our own organisation, maybe I feel like we've got a broader range of possibilities.  I think it's more about my identity.  So, it's more about, who's the person -- who do I want to be; how do I want to inspire people; how do I want to make sure that my time at work…?  I always love that quote, I think it's a Steve Jobs quote, about making a dent on the world.  I feel like part of my ambition is not, I don't quite tie myself to exactly how that can happen, but I really feel like I want to make a dent on the world of work.  I want to create something that changes conversations and that empowers people with their progression and that I am always excited by. 

I think my ambition is to always be interested in evolving what I'm doing and never really feel done by doing it. So, that is very different to earlier on in my career, when I definitely probably would have made ambition a bit more focused and job-like.  And I wonder, that's probably a bit of a change in me and maybe also a change in I think the way that careers are now.  You don't have to attach yourself to those kind of jobs quite as much.  What about you?

Sarah Ellis: I think it's interesting.  We were with a group of people last week and we actually asked them, "Which word do you feel more connected to, or feels more appealing for you, ambition or aspiration?" and it was relatively universal.  I think probably 80%, 85% of people went for aspiration.  So, there was still quite a lot of feeling uncomfortable about this idea of being ambitious, maybe a bit wrapped up in ego, perhaps attached or anchored to some of those more kind of ladder-like things. 

Maybe it's not a word that people could imagine saying out loud, for example, in a career conversation.  So initially, everybody very much gravitated towards, "Oh, aspiration feels like something I can connect to, it feels more useful".  But then when we started to get into some actions, everyone went, "Oh actually, if we frame it this way, I feel fine about having ambitions". 

So, I think maybe just interesting just to see, if you're feeling like, "Oh, this is not for me", you are definitely not alone, but worth sticking with it to see whether there's something useful in it for you. I think for me, my relationship with ambition, I've had a few moments in my Squiggly Career where my ambitions were sort of squashed, I think, by other people. 

So, I've always naturally been ambitious for myself or what I wanted to do in my career, and probably same as you, we both have achievement as a value, so that probably translates into ambitions.  But I had people sort of tell me, "Oh, you're being too ambitious, you're trying to do things almost before you're ready", a little bit maybe based on age, kind of, "Oh, well you've not served your time", those kind of things.  It was very much feeling like you're being put back in your box, "You stay where you belong".  And I remember thinking, "Oh, okay, it's not helpful for me to externally or visibly be ambitious.  Other people will feel more comfortable if I keep my head down a bit more and just go about my day.  So, I need to be secretly ambitious".  So, I think I hid my ambition for quite a while, thinking, "Oh, that's actually going to help me to progress". Then I was in a room applying for an award specifically to go to Harvard, and that felt like a massive ambition.  You know, like I could never have dreamed --

Helen Tupper: How long ago was that?

Sarah Ellis: Going to Harvard?

Helen Tupper: The tender age of…?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it must have been late 20s, early 30s, something like that, so 10-ish years ago-ish.  And it felt so, yeah, it just felt so far from my background or anything I thought I could ever do, so it felt like a really, really big ambition.  And it wasn't just going to Harvard, it was a particular programme at Harvard I wanted to do that I'd had my eye on for years, and you were going to be surrounded by all these really interesting leaders.  And I knew that the only way for that even to nearly happen, I needed to win an award to be able to fund it, because obviously it's not a cheap endeavour going over to Harvard to learn.  I went to apply for this award and I was still a little bit reticent about talking about my ambition, maybe a little bit apologetic, a bit embarrassed, and I had a room full of people basically telling me the opposite.  They were like, "Oh, yeah, we've gone past the Harvard thing, go bigger".  They were like, "Well, what's the bigger ambition here? 

We can really see you've got all this potential", like really encouraging me to be ambitious and to go after things that I didn't necessarily know how to make them possible, and that felt to me like a really big example. But they were pushing me, and that was a real turning point for me in my Squiggly Career.  I think just to be surrounded by people who wanted to see me realise those ambitions, who encouraged me, who prompted me, and then suddenly I think I was like, "Oh, okay, it is okay to want to do brilliant big things that don't always feel possible in that moment, and I need to figure out a new way to have a relationship with ambition.  That is a good thing if I can come up with a way of making it feel authentic for me".  So, yeah, it's something I think about a lot, because it definitely went in one direction where I was like, "Hide it".  Then it came out from under the bushel, but I think only because I was lucky enough to be surrounded by other people who kind of prompted that moment to happen.

Helen Tupper: So, nice use of the word "bushel".  Don't often hear bushel in a podcast.

Sarah Ellis: Thanks, no!

Helen Tupper: It makes me think about, you know when you're talking about your ambitions, that I think there will always be sort of go-back-in-your-box kind of people, because they may be a bit threatened by it because they haven't got an ambition or they kind of feel like a bit lost, or I think it just can be exposing for other people.  And so, it's easier for them to go, "Oh, well, you're behind me" or, "You, get your back in box".  But I think just find the go-bigger people, and they don't have to be the people that can help you make it happen, I think they're just the people that keep you talking about it and support you and encourage you, and also be that person for others. When someone shares their ambitions with you, how do you feel?  Like if I was like, "Oh, my ambition is to, I don't know, do this with my family or do this over the next five years", what would your feeling be?

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I think I'm just intrigued and interested.  If anything, I mean curiosity at its best, also just a bit nosy.  And actually, it's interesting that point about curiosity.  So, Stylist, a publication, a magazine in the UK, published a book called How to be Curious.  And in that, they asked me to write an essay about ambition.  And you can access a lot of that for free.  So, we'll put the link in the show notes to that, to what I wrote about my own view of ambition and what helped me.  And I found it interesting that they had connected curiosity and ambition, because I think their point was, you should be curious about your own ambitions, sort of apply that to yourself, but also apply that about the conversations that you have with people about what they're motivated by, what their ambitions are.  So, I think I would just be fascinated.  I'm like, "Oh, I wonder what Helen's ambitions are".

Helen Tupper: It's a lovely team conversation, isn't it, to have a space in a team meeting or on walk-talks like, "What are you ambitious to achieve in your career?" and just creating the space to hear someone say that and do nothing but give them support.  Be curious, but be like, "That's amazing, that's really clear, I'm really interested in what you're doing, I'd like to stay connected to it".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I guess you can do for other people in your teams what that group in that room did for me on that day, which is just support.  And often, I do think when people talk about these areas they will get a bit like, "Oh, but obviously that might not happen".  You start to add in the caveats before you even get started.  So, probably practising saying it out loud with trusted colleagues or mentors or just friends who perhaps you've worked with in the past who you still get on really well with, it's a good topic of conversation because you just get a bit of almost like, "How clear am I about these ambitions?  And also, how confident am I about them?"

Helen Tupper: And along the way, in our research around ambition and our own thinking, we came across a really nice quote from Salvador Dali, which is, "Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings".  So, we're trying to give you some wings for you in your career, everybody.  And how practically we're going to do that is we've got three different ideas for action to help you with your ambition.  And as I said at the start, we'll summarise all of these in the PodSheet so that you can hopefully go and do them, go and do them after today.

Sarah Ellis: So, action number one is, "How do I define my own ambition?"  If you feel like here you're like, "I don't know, I'm starting from scratch, this feels really overwhelming", I think it is a big word.  And actually, Helen and I both came up with a different technique here, which helped us to move forward in terms of ambition.  So, we thought we'd describe both, so hopefully there's something for everyone here. I found just asking myself a big coach-yourself question, and then giving myself a bit of time to do a mind-map around this question worked.  So, my question was, "What does ambition mean to me in my Squiggly Career?"  This was an exercise we did with that group I mentioned last week.  Everybody did a three-minute mind-map on it. 

So, it didn't take ages, you're not trying to find a perfect solution or to craft a perfect answer, but you're probably just starting with, "What is your relationship with ambition today?  And what does being ambitious look and feel like?"  And I think you start to get into, "Are your ambitions more about what you're working on; are they more about how you might work; are they about changes you want to make; are they about how work and rest of your life fits together?" I do remember at one point in my career, it felt really ambitious to work a four-day week.  And that might not sound like an ambition, to work less, but I'm like, "Oh, actually, that's a really valid ambition".  I was like, I'd like to work less, I'd like to do a four-day week, because I want to spend a day experimenting with what really was an early version of Amazing If.  And that felt ambitious because I'd not seen other people do it before.  It felt like quite a different route, it felt quite brave.  If you'd have said to me early in my career that working less could be an ambition, I'd have been like, "Absolutely not.  It's working harder, faster, more".  And so, I think this will just help to challenge you on what matters most to you.

Helen Tupper: I also think with ambition, it's really, I think I've tied myself sometimes to ambitions that are kind of what looks impressive to other people.  And then I've had to really question myself, "Is that actually what I want?  Is that really what's meaningful for me?"  And so, the way that I do this to kind of try to think a bit more deeply is, I use other people and what they're doing as a bit of inspiration.  So, I think about, who do I admire and why?  If I just take a couple of people off the top of my head in terms of, okay, who do I admire for the way that they're working and what they're working on and what they're achieving in their work, they'd be Amy Edmondson, because I really admire how she's taken this thing of psychological safety, which is a big territory of her work, and it has become common language in companies, and I love that, I think the impact of that is amazing.

Sarah Ellis: I heard it last week.  Someone was like, "Oh, we're doing loads of work on psychological safety in our stores and our shops".  And I was like, "Oh, if you're Amy Edmondson, you're probably feeling really good right now".

Helen Tupper: Yeah, like it's the same with growth; I could have said Growth Mindset and Carol Dweck, but those people that have taken a concept and it has become a common conversation really in companies, which is what I want for us to achieve with Squiggly.  And then, someone that I mention all the time, Dame Stephanie Shirley and her TED Talk.  I mentioned her the other week to someone.  I was like, "Oh, why ambitious women have flat heads…"

Sarah Ellis: So good.

Helen Tupper: She was such a pioneer.

Sarah Ellis: She is so good.

Helen Tupper: She was a female -- I think there's a few things I like.  A female pioneer of leadership and an enabler of other women, and I'm like, "I love that".  And then actually, Stephen Bartlett, so someone quite different.  But I really admire him for how creative he is about growth.  I think he's really innovative, and I think he doesn't settle.  He is always creating new things, putting new things out there.  And so the point is, pick people that you admire and really work out why, what is it about their work, and look for the commonalities across them.  So, it made me think, when I couldn't maybe neatly articulate my ambition, when I looked at those three people, it made me think about, my ambition is to create innovative solutions that make Squiggly part of every conversation people have about careers.  And I wouldn't have got to that clarity if I hadn't looked at those people for a source of inspiration.  So, that worked for me.

Sarah Ellis: And so once you've got a sense of ambition, I think don't put yourself under pressure to, like you say, get everything neatly sorted before you move on to ideas two and three.  I think if you've got an idea, if you've got a bit of sense of direction, that's enough to get you started.  I think you then have to connect ambition with action, because we want to realise our ambitions, right?  Yes, they might change along the way, and I think you want to probably hold some of those ambitions lightly because new things happen, new skills happen, new opportunities might come your way.  But you probably do want to go, "Well, ambitions are usually something in the future, something that haven't happened yet.  What's an action that I can take today?"  Because often, I think, when I first started thinking, for example, all those years ago about going to Harvard, I think I'd first started thinking about that specific programme I wanted to do three years before. 

So, it felt way off, this idea of doing this specific programme at Harvard.  I was like, "That's miles into the future.  I can't see how I'm going to get there".  So, my ambition would have been this leadership programme at Harvard, then convert that ambition into an action I can take today. So, one of the things that I did, for example, was think, "Right, I'm going to really research that programme and check that that is the right learning for me.  So, don't just default to a programme because I actually knew someone else who had done it".  So, I was like, "Oh, okay, that's an action I can take today, I can dive deeper".  Another action I can take today, "Start to think about ways that I could fund it.  How could I practically afford to make this happen?  So, am I going to start saving up; am I going to look at awards where actually the award that you win gives you money for learning?" which is ultimately what I did.  And so then, you can take that action. 

Then you can start to think about, "Well, could my company fund it?"  I remember I had these conversations and that was very clearly a no-go.  To be fair, I think they'd funded my MBA by that point, so they were probably a bit like, "Hmm, you've sort of had all of our money, Sarah".  And I was like, "Yeah, that is fair enough".  Oh, actually no, because I would have changed companies by then.  I'd changed and was working at Sainsbury's.  But yeah, they were definitely not going to fund it.  And you get why, because you'd have been a real exception and it's a lot of money, it wouldn't have felt very fair.  But at least I had explored it and then, you can cross it out and you're like, "Oh, okay, I've taken that action.  That's not how I'm going to realise this ambition, so I need to think about something else".

Like Helen, I was thinking, well one of the shared ambitions I guess we both have is to make Squiggly part of every career conversation.  So, I think every time someone has a career conversation in an organisation, I want Squiggly to be present.  And so, if that is your ambition, you can then go, "Well, what are the actions that we can take today?  Is that about the tools for teams that we're creating?  Is that about the career canvas that we've already got, and maybe connecting that to conversations more, sharing it more?  Is it about, okay, how do we use AI to help people connect, have a really good quality career conversation and connect Squiggly as part of that?"  I suppose you get into generating ideas and actions that are much, much smaller than that big old ambition that you've got for the future.

Helen Tupper: And I think it's just easier to talk to other people about it.  I kind of think, I feel like anchor's not quite the right word, but you know you can do so many things?  Like earlier, I talked about you get distracted by the day-to-day or the shiny objects or there's other things, whereas if I've got a really clear ambition, I feel like it's a bit of an anchor for me.  I kind of go, "But that's what I'm all about, that's what I'm trying to achieve".  Take action that aligns you with your ambition, and I feel like I'm happier, because it's so easy, I think, in your career to just, I don't know, I'm not saying meandering and discovery isn't good, but ultimately, if that's the thing that you want from all your time spent at work, I think it's really good to have that.  This is the ambition and this is the action, and have that as almost just a bit of a thing that you keep coming back to every month or every quarter, whenever you're reviewing your development, "Does my ambition still feel the same, and am I clear on what action I'm going to take next?"  I think that, over time, all those actions accumulate and get you closer towards the thing you want to achieve.

The third idea for action is all about how you talk about your ambition.  There's two aspects of this.  First is how you talk to yourself about the ambition, and the second is how you talk to others about it.  So, when you're talking to yourself about ambition, if we just talk about making Squiggly part of every conversation people have about a career, when you talk about that, when you're talking to yourself about it, you want to feel really clear.  So, I think you want it to feel succinct and sticky so you can say it to yourself quite often.  So, that wouldn't be like, "Oh, what I would quite like to do is maybe have Squiggly in some conversations that a couple of people have about their careers".  I mean, I don't attach myself to that, I don't feel really confident about that, it feels a bit wishy-washy and maybe a bit weak, if that's not too harsh.

Sarah Ellis: It doesn't feel like an ambition, does it?

Helen Tupper: It doesn't feel like it.

Sarah Ellis: It feels like a hope or a wish.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, a hope or a wish, yeah, and I think maybe that's a really important distinction here.  Ambition feels a bit more directive than a weak wish.  We're not in that territory.  So, you want to be clear like, "In my career, I will make Squiggly part of every conversation people have about their careers".  That gives me -- I think that spurs me into action.  I'm like, "Okay, well I'm going to do that.  I've got to make it happen".  So, these sort of, "I will…" or, "What I want to do is…" those sort of statements are clear and they are confident and they are something that you can keep coming back to.  That's the self-talk part of it. However, if I didn't work with Sarah and she was maybe my mentor, that's not how I'd articulate my ambition to Sarah.

Sarah Ellis: Could be a bit harsh, couldn't it?

Helen Tupper: "Sarah, I am going to do this", yeah!

Sarah Ellis: "I will…"!

Helen Tupper: "All right, Helen, okay, and, okay, off you go!"

Sarah Ellis: "Off you go", yeah!

Helen Tupper: I'm not really inviting anything from Sarah.  I'm not really inviting an opinion, I'm not really inviting her input, I'm not really inviting her support, I'm just stating something and then going, "Off I go".  So, when you are talking about it with other people, there's slightly different phrasing that means that it's likely to get more involvement from them.  So, what you might say is, "One of the things that's important to me is that Squiggly Careers become part of everybody's conversations at work". 

And that invites an opinion from Sarah, invites a conversation, much more from a very sort of quite directive and closed statement.  Useful for you, definitely, but not if you're trying to involve other people and get their support. So, you could say, "Something I care about is…" or, "Something I'd like to achieve in the next 12 months is…" but it's those statements at the start that are slightly more involving than just saying, "I will achieve this", or, "I want to do this in terms of my development".

Sarah Ellis: And I think at this point, it's also recognising none of us achieve our ambitions in a vacuum.  I think it's very hard to do that.  We all need support from other people, you need other people to spot opportunities for you, often you might need people to build your self-belief around that ambition.  That's something that I've described that definitely happened to me.  And sometimes, you just directly need a bit of help.  So, as  I think I've become more confident talking about my ambitions and saying, "One area that's really important to me is I'd like to do more of this", or, "Something I really care about…" and definitely having those kind of conversations, often I am just asking for a bit of help like, "Oh, do you know anyone who could help me learn a bit more about that?" I think I am trying to connect the action that we just talked about here with, when you are chatting to other people, sometimes other people can help you with those actions.  Either they can directly help you, or they can help to identify what the actions might be.  Because sometimes we might have an ambition, like when I described going to Harvard. 

When I was starting thinking about that, it honestly felt more like a pipe dream.  That's quite different to an ambition.  It felt so far away from my reality that I honestly had no idea how I would ever make that happen.  But I did know that it was important to me.  And so I think it was through some conversations that I actually got to some of the actions I can take today, like a mentor saying to me, "Oh, there must be some funding out there that you could apply for".  And I was thinking, "I don't know, maybe there is some funding out there", and then you can start to research that.  And people may be challenging you, "Well, have you just challenged that assumption that your organisation wouldn't fund that?"  I remember thinking, "I don't think they would but I should ask the question", and it did prompt me to ask the question.  Turns out I was right!  But it's much better to have explored it and crossed it off than to leave it lingering in your mind. I think when you start to have conversations about your ambitions, it sort of turns them into not only it being about I, you sort of invite a bit of we-ness. 

Like Helen and I were describing, obviously we talk to each other about our ambitions because they are relatively intertwined, certainly inside of our company, but I guess we both have individual ambitions more about maybe things outside of work, or the things that just matter more to one of us than the other.  And we were both saying that as soon as you share it with someone, suddenly it feels like someone's on your side, sort of trying to help you.  Like, it really matters to me that Helen achieves her ambitions, the things that matter to her.  And then you start to go, not only by saying your ambition have you sort of created a frame for your own thinking, so therefore I think it gives you more direction, you've also then encouraged someone else to do the same.  I think you probably make more progress towards your ambitions the more you share them.  That was a sort of hypothesis I've got.  The more you practise saying them out loud, I reckon the further forward you go.

Helen Tupper: I know we've really framed it in kind of work ambitions quite a lot, but I do remember one of my ambitions was about the home that I had for my family.

Sarah Ellis: I remember talking about that, yeah.

Helen Tupper: And Sarah always had this sort of vision of living in the country in some kind of barn-kind of thing.  It was always going to be a bit of a weird home-in-the-country vibe.  And Sarah sort of knew that and she was like, "I totally see you in this house".  And so, when I found that house, Sarah got it and supported it and was only ever happy for me.  You know when someone achieves, when someone has shared their ambition and you meet it with support and enthusiasm and when they achieve part of that ambition and someone is just only ever happy for you, I think that is a great thing to have in your life.

Sarah Ellis: And maybe even, if I think about that example, you're like, sometimes you do need some nice nudges, right?  I remember you needing some nudging at that moment.  I knew your ambition and you were like, "I've found a house in the forest", and I was like, "Of course you have.  When are you going to see the house in the forest?  I'm really excited for you".  And you were like, "Oh, yeah, I don't know", and like, "Maybe we won't plan to move now", I was like, "Ring the estate agent.  Make the call, tell me when you're going, and I want to see the photos".  And you were like, "Oh, okay."  And I was like, "Well, look, this is exactly what you have talked to me about before.  This fits the ambition."

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: And, "You've always had your eye out and this is a real opportunity".  And I do think sometimes, which you've not talked about as much today, ambitions do feel daunting, because these are big things.  That was a big thing, right?

Helen Tupper: It was huge, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: It's a huge thing, whether it's a personal thing or a work thing.  The ambition when both of us moved to work in Amazing If, that was definitely a shared ambition we'd got.  But at the same time, we were both quite scared and terrified.  And so, it's not like ambition only is like, "Oh, I just --"

Helen Tupper: "I've got one --"

Sarah Ellis: "-- I've got one --"

Helen Tupper: "-- and it happens, and it's so easy".

Sarah Ellis: "-- and it happens".  No, I think they are -- I think they feel, even in the moment when you're realising them, it can feel quite tough.  And you're a bit like, I mean when I went to Harvard, you were going, "Oh, well surely you're just really happy".  I was really nervous, really nervous.  I was like, "Oh, everyone's going to be so much smarter than me, I'm not going to understand all this, I don't know anyone".  It was about as far out of my comfort zone as I could get, certainly also with my own personality. 

And so again, I didn't, and actually in hindsight, in that moment, I didn't have quite as many people around me supporting me, and it probably would have helped me through that learning experience.  Whereas if I did something now that was similar, I've definitely got more people who I could turn to being like, "Oh, God, I'm quite nervous about this", and they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, but don't forget, Sarah, you've been talking about this for years.  You've always said that you wanted to do this". I think the reason for that actually, when I reflect on it, I hadn't talked about that ambition to many people, because I was still in that mindset of, "I can't talk about them out loud".  I talked about it to one very small group of people, but other than that, no one even really knew that I was going at work.  I think my manager knew, but probably again, it wasn't a big topic of conversation.  So, I think I missed out on that, someone really supporting that ambition.  And then I don't think -- it makes it harder for you then, because I think all of the energy and effort has to come from you.  So, definitely sharing ambitions, I think we've both seen the difference it can make.

Helen Tupper: So, just three areas for you to focus on so that you've got this clear in your mind before you go off, and hopefully you're excited about ambition.  I feel excited.  I feel excited for our listeners going to do some of this stuff.  If you ever, by the way, want some people to email it to so that we can just encourage you, share your ambitions with us.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, tell us, share your ambitions with us.

Helen Tupper: You can find us on LinkedIn or email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  If we can help you feel more confident about it, then send it our way.  But that's the first thing.  So, get clear on yourself to begin with.  We gave you a couple of ideas for how to do that.  Think about how you turn that ambition into action, like regular action will accumulate, get you closer to where you want to get to.  And just make sure you're sharing it with other people.  Start with talking about it confidently to yourself and then really build that ambition support system around you by sharing it with other people too.

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.