A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
HOW AMBITIOUS ARE YOU
This week I had some time to connect with a good friend to talk about where we are in the stream of time. We talked about what was going on in our worlds - the business challenges that were showing up, the unexpected life events that were showing up, the unexpected that at times bordered on unimaginable. Amidst all of it we also talked about how much fun we got to have every day waking up to solve all of those things.
The conversation was built around the topic of resilience, and that friend was author and high performance coach, Brendon Burchard. Over the decade that I’ve known him, no one has influenced me or taught me more around the topic of business leadership and growth. While on our call he shared something that I’ve been thinking about for the last few days. He said that our ambition often matches our current situation. In other words, when things are going well, when we are winning, when the business is growing and firing on all cylinders, we are also at peak ambition. We are motivated to continue to build and grow and charge ahead. Conversely, when things are not going up and to the right, oftentimes our ambition isn’t either. When we feel we are struggling, or missing our goal, or just not hitting our growth flow, we begin to question ourselves. Why are we doing this? What is the point behind growing? Do I really want to do this? These are all questions that stem from wavering ambition. If left unchecked we can find ourselves changing directions, pulling back, or giving up all together. Those are natural reactions to low ambition.
Ambition is built on our self esteem and compounded by our desire for achievement. For some the word ambition conjures up the thought of ego or competition. Foundationally however, ambition is rooted in a future that we deeply care about. It’s the “why” behind our actions. When we find ourselves questioning why we want something, why we are doing something, or why we care so much, it’s an early symptom of a drop in our ambition.
The self-reflection or the mindfulness practice around ambition then becomes identifying the source of the decrease or drop. Research shows that the level of our ambition often follows the situation we find ourselves in. Many are giving up on their goals or stepping aside from what they were building based on their ambition level in the midst of one of the worst housing markets our industry has ever seen. Are you willing to give up on your preferred future based on the challenges of today? Or the challenges of this quarter? Or the challenges of the current environment?
Our current situation may convince us that we want to go back to a smaller business. A simpler business. A business with less challenges. A business with less people. But that has us placing ourselves and everyone in our world today in a very cramped box, or as Brendon called it, a cage. It also keeps anyone that isn’t in our world today, but could have been there in the future, on the outside of that box.
The lesson? There either have been moments or will be moments this year that you want to quit. There will be moments where you begin to question everything. There will be moments that you are certain that you have no desire to continue down the path that just a a few months ago or few years ago you were certain you wanted to go down. In those moments recognise that your ambition is waning. Your ambition has a habit of matching its current situation.
Don’t let a temporary drop in ambition allow you to change the ending to a story you have been working for years to finish writing.
Chris Suarez