11/6/2023-Ambition

Ambition? Innate or acquired? YES. Focus on what drives your ambition, and you’ll feel the fire building. Everyone is ambitious, but it must align with what fulfills you.

Even back in 544 BC – 483 BC, when Greek philosopher Heraclitus roamed the earth, it was broadly understood that ambition was the engine for reaching high levels of success. Today, discussions about ambition often focus on how to manufacture ambition.

Is ambition something that can be summoned on demand?

Why not?

Sure, you have more ambition than most, or you wouldn’t be in sales. But there are days you might feel you have misplaced yours.

The truth is that your ambition is always there, but it gets lost in the chaos of the day. That might be because you’re a tad beat up or gazing too much at the sellers above you on the ladder.

Consciously think about what fuels your ambition and focus on what you want from today!

What’s the one thing that would put a huge smile on your face…today?

Is it getting an appointment with a KDM who’s been ducking you? Is it having a come-to-Jesus with your sales manager to clear the air? Is it getting a deal over the line by getting a verbal commitment?

Ambition is a powerful force, but sometimes it needs to be summoned and channeled. When you focus your ambition like a laser – as you’ll do today – you can do anything.

Ambition + how badly do you want it + fearlessness = getting what you want.

On the other hand, it’s not a bad thing if you don’t want to be the CRO of your org. Heck, it’s not bad if you don’t know what you want after the current role you’re in. Also, it’s quite normal when you’re ambition wavers and twists in the wind. Don’t let that unnerve you. (Sales is freakin’ hard.)

This is when every ambition expert will urge you to get back to the basics: determine what you want and create a plan to go get it. It’s okay if it changes from time to time…it should. It will.

Do not beat yourself up if you can’t figure out what you want; perhaps striking things from the list of what you don’t want might help. Put everything up for grabs, including material possessions, career tracks, income aspirations, and job functions.

Eventually, you will need to answer the what do I want? question. You’ll get your ambition in full gear when you find the answers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was – and is – one ambitious dude…right?

Arnold was originally known as a bodybuilder and drove himself to be the best; he’s got a few Mr. Olympia titles to show for it. (SEVEN!)

While competing as a bodybuilder, he started taking acting classes at night and…well, you know that story.

But even that wasn’t enough for Arnold. So he got into politics and served as a two-time "Governator" of California.

Let Arnold "pump you up" in this 5-minute video, where he will urge you to "stuff eight hours of sleep into six."