117. An Imaginative and Expansive View of Ambition with Rainesford Stauffer

Overview

Ambition can guide us toward the things we want in life. But constant striving can take away from those things that contribute to our overall fulfillment.

In this episode, I’m joined by author and journalist Rainesford Stuaffer.

We discuss her new book, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive, what happens when ambition defines us, the conversations we should be having about ambition, and getting curious about ambition with a more expansive, holistic view.

More About Our Guest

Rainesford Stauffer is a freelance writer, reporter, and Kentuckian. She’s the author of An Ordinary Age, which was named one of Esquire’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2021, and All the Gold Stars. Rainesford writes the Work in Progress column at Teen Vogue, and wrote a column at Catapult, Gold Stars. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Scalawag, Vox, DAME Magazine, ELLE, The New York Times, and other outlets. She was featured on PBS’s Brief But Spectacular in 2023. Rainesford is passionate about student journalism and youth-led writing spaces, and has helped pilot paid journalism opportunities for young people with 100 Days in Appalachia and the Kentucky Student Voice Team, where she’s currently supporting youth-led writing on issues related to education justice throughout the state. She’s also a mentor with The Zenith Cooperative. Rainesford is a 2022-2023 Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism, focusing on youth mental health in the South.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How ambition shifts over time and why we need to have more conversations about this

  • Why changing course can be a sign of positive growth, not a failure to follow through

  • How conflating safety and self-worth with success creates a deeply harmful time pressure 

  • The impact on young adults of the pressure to have it all figured out and feeling left behind

  • How ambition can go beyond the individual to the collective

  • How getting curious and expansive about our ambitions can reconnect us to our drive

Learn more about Rainesford Stauffer:

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2023Kathy OnetoRight Ambition, Right Time, Right Effort