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The Journal. · Sunday, August 2, 2026

Mair on Ambition and the Female Experience in Business

Laura Mair discusses how ambition can be a challenging concept, especially for women, as it is often perceived as threatening. She explains that her past ambition was driven by a desire to prove herself as a legitimate business person, and acknowledges the 'icky' feeling women can experience when dealing with societal expectations to 'chill out' or not show their effort.

personLaura Mair

The tape

3 quotes
For me, at that time, ambition was, I wanted to be able to prove myself as a serious business person.
Laura Mair
Um, a legitimate business person.
Laura Mair
And I think that there is that kind of intensity for women around ambition that can feel icky for the woman herself, having to deal with people, trying to, like, just chill out, like why are you showing your effort, um, in that kind of way.
Laura Mair
Heard on The Journal. — “Confessions of a Recovering Work Addict, published Sunday, August 2, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.03
Mair on Ambition and the Female Experience in Business — Heardvine