Former Networks18 CEO Avinash Kaul has sparked a deeply resonant conversation on ambition, identity and professional purpose through his latest edition of ‘Notes from the Next Mountain’, a newsletter exploring “leadership, resilience, purpose and reinvention while covering the human side of ambition.”

In a reflective LinkedIn post published on May 17, Kaul examines the quiet but unsettling questions many high achievers confront midway through their careers: whether the success they pursued was truly their own, or simply inherited from the systems and cultures around them.

Kaul writes that such existential questioning rarely emerges early in a career. “People in their first decade are still too busy climbing to ask about the mountain,” he notes, describing how professionals initially focus on mastering the “craft of the ascent” and excelling within the parameters organisations reward.

But by the second or third decade, he suggests, many begin to experience “a different kind of friction” — not from failure, but from being “very good at something”, while privately wondering if it was ever the summit they would have consciously chosen.

At the heart of Kaul’s reflection is the idea that ambition is often inherited rather than deliberately chosen. “Most of us do not choose our ambition. We inherit it,” he writes, arguing that ideas of success are subtly absorbed from workplaces, peer groups and industries during formative professional years. These “borrowed compasses”, as he describes them, provide direction early on, but rarely recalibrate with age, even as personal values evolve.

The emotional weight of the post intensifies as Kaul describes conversations with senior leaders who appear successful externally yet privately wrestle with disquiet.

Recalling one such interaction, he quotes an unnamed executive saying, “I think I’ve been very good at the wrong thing for a very long time.” Kaul observes that the statement was delivered “not with despair” but with the calm acceptance of someone who had “finally stopped arguing with themselves and arrived at something true.”

According to Kaul, relentless performance and professional momentum often suppress deeper self-examination. “Five years ago I still had somewhere to put the doubt. I was busy enough that it couldn’t find me,” the executive told him. Kaul interprets this as the consequence of “the altitude” — the pace, pressure and constant demands of high achievement that leave little room for introspection. Ironically, he argues, genuine high performance can become “the most effective way of avoiding the question that most needs asking.”

The post ultimately pivots toward a quieter and more personal definition of success. Kaul argues that those who navigate ambition most meaningfully are not necessarily the most decorated professionals, but the ones who develop “one honest measure that was not borrowed from anywhere.” He urges readers to evaluate their work not through titles, salaries or peer validation, but through “the private accounting that no one else sees” — how the work feels on ordinary days, away from recognition and applause.

Ending on a contemplative note, Kaul leaves readers with a question rather than a prescription: “Whose definition of success are you climbing toward?” He encourages professionals to revisit what a “good life” meant to them before industries, organisations and competition defined it on their behalf.

“The difference between climbing someone else’s mountain very well and climbing your own mountain with everything you have is not visible from the outside,” he writes, adding, “It is only visible from the inside.” The post closes with a line that captures both humility and unfinished striving: “With gratitude and the honest imperfection of still being (in) mid-climb.”