Three Lessons All Ambitious People Should Know - WSJ

Three Lessons All Ambitious People Should Know

By William Casey King

Although Americans believe they are uniquely endowed, ambition is as old as human history.

While our “ambition” may be traced to the Latin word ambitio, it existed well before the Roman Empire. It was not always a good thing. As the English colonists landed in Jamestown and Plymouth, it was considered a canker on the soul, a cause of madness, an imbalance of sorts, a moth of holiness, with Satan its most notorious poster child.

Curiously, what was once a sin to have, is now a sin to lack, provided that we don’t go too far.

Despite its changing reputation, there are certain constants that apply to the ambitious, and ambition that transcends a specific historic era. In my study of ambition through history, I’ve identified three “take-aways,” or lessons from the past.

1.    Burn your Boats. Most of us think a lot about hedging our bets. We espouse the scripture of a diversified portfolio and all our eggs in many baskets. But often the most flagrantly ambitious historical figures, those who conquered worlds, were those who resisted that prudent advice. Once Caesar crossed the Rubicon, there was no turning back. When Hernan Cortés and his men landed on the shores and periphery of the Mexica and Inca Empires, even with their guns and steel, they were daunted by the enormity of their task, the sheer number of the enemy, (many of whom, they believed, had a certain taste for human flesh). Among the first things Cortés did: Burn the boats. With this act he proclaimed that there was only one way, forward, and the only way out, success.

Throughout history these daring, imprudent exemplars share an “all in” swagger that allowed them to do great things. But be warned. Not being hedged has its drawbacks. Ask Napoleon, or, one of history’s most despised figures, Hitler, both of whom felt that they would be the one known for their bold disregard of the realities of the Russian  winter, and the firm resolve of a people who dared to oppose them. But ask a dreamer whose dreams are realized, and those who were told by the little people that there were things they could not do, and remembered that advice once they had done them. To achieve, ambition often requires a full commitment, a burning of boats, a face forward without fear of consequences, or perhaps, a drive towards success knowing full well that there is no other option.

2.    If You’ve Got it, Don’t Flaunt It. Sallust, the stoic Roman philosopher, said that ambition “drove many men to become false to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on thetongue.” And with good reason. Let’s face it. Ambitious people are annoying. They are restless, make us feel bad about not doing more around the house or office, make us feel the sting of our mediocrity, in the shadow of their excellent industriousness. To the people who have, they want. To the people who have arrived, they wish to join them. Many ambitious figures from history have learned to hide their desire for rank, fame, wealth or preferment. When the Colonies took up arms against their king in 1775 they protested “not with ambitious designs of separation.” A year later, they separated, and when Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration told the world that they had done so to “advance from subordination to an equal and independent station,” Adams and Franklin quickly edited the draft to read “separation,” rather than “advancing from subordination.” Why? Because no one likes, really likes ambitious people. They make us feel bad about sleeping late

3.    One man’s Ambition, Is Another Woman’s B—-iness. Ambition, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is a relative concept. It can be deemed good or bad depending on the end to which it is applied, and the individual or group of individuals who are expressing it. When a man does it, it’s ambitious. When a woman aspires, it’s something else. Ask Hillary Clinton’s team. They realized quickly that she is allowed to express ambition, provided that it is applied to helping others, confined as it were to traditionally accepted gender roles.  This is nothing new. When Ann Hutchinson was exiled from Boston for heresy, one of the charges was that “she hath been a speaker, rather than a hearer, a magistrate rather than a subject.”  Powerful women scare men. In the seventeenth century, they called them b—-es spelled with a “w.”

William Casey King is the executive director of the Yale Center for Analytical Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health. He was previously a Salomon Brothers bond trader and executive director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute of African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is the author of “Ambition, A History: From Vice to Virtue.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/03/14/three-lessons-on-ambition-from-the-past/