Ambition
My good friend Dustin Curtis recently proclaimed that “Ambition is a learned trait.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Ambition is not something you learn from a book.
Ambition is an emotional longing for change and a healthy disregard for the status quo. It’s aspiring to be more than you are now. It’s a desire to achieve something greater than you with the preparedness and the will to follow through. Ambition is about not being afraid to get excited about ideas. It’s about not being intimidated by your imagination.
“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.” - Elvis Presley
Can you teach someone to dream?
The problem is too many of us let insecurity rob us of ambition.
How many times have you been quietly excited about an idea or possible future? How many times have you followed through on those moments of inspiration? How many times has doubt or insecurity persuaded you that your ideas were not worth pursuing?
As a result, people replace ambition with acquiring material things. It’s easy to set a measurable goal around a type of car, or an amount of money, or a Chanel purse. It’s harder to chase a dream. A dream is a vision in your mind that cannot yet be found anywhere in reality, so it’s up to you to make it true. That scares people. There’s no model for chasing a dream, there’s no instruction manual. All you have is your ambition to drive you and your knowledge and experience to guide you.
“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” - Barack Obama
Ideas are what push our society forward. Ideas without ambition is a horse without legs. So, saddle up and pursue your dreams with conviction.