🗣️ Speaking · Listen → Say it → Compare
Conversation: Success, Ambition and Fulfilment
Speaking
Answer out loud
Play each question, then answer out loud for about 20-30 seconds. Record yourself, then compare with the model answer.
How would you distinguish between being successful and being fulfilled?
Show sample answer
Model answer: Success is largely measured by others, in titles, salaries and applause, whereas fulfilment is a private verdict. One can tick every conventional box and still feel curiously hollow, just as some people with modest careers radiate contentment. I'd say fulfilment is what remains when you've stopped comparing yourself with everyone else.
Is ambition an unalloyed virtue, or can it become a kind of tyranny?
Show sample answer
Model answer: It's a wonderful servant and a dreadful master. Ambition drives people to learn, build and persevere, but when it hardens into a compulsion to win at any price, it crowds out friendship, rest and even enjoyment of the very thing one set out to achieve. A healthy ambition leaves room to be satisfied occasionally.
How much of what we call success is down to talent, and how much to circumstance?
Show sample answer
Model answer: More of it is circumstance than most successful people care to admit. Talent and effort matter, naturally, but so do the teacher who happened to notice you, the family who could afford books and the timing of an opportunity. Recognising this should make us rather more modest about our achievements and more generous towards others.
What, if anything, do we owe to the generations that come after us?
Show sample answer
Model answer: At the very least, a world no worse than the one we inherited, and ideally a better one. That means looking after shared resources, but also handing on knowledge, institutions and a measure of hope. It's easy to treat the future as someone else's problem, yet they'll be living in the consequences of what we decide now.
Keep practising
Next →