Quotes About Ambition

I am consumed with the fear of failing. Reaching deep down and finding confidence has made all my dreams come true.

Fear is a great motivator.

I've learned it's always better to have a small percentage of a big success, than a hundred percent of nothing.

Do a little more than you're paid to. Try a little harder than you want to. Aim a little higher than you think possible, and give a lot of thanks to God for health, family & friends.

I guess it's like James Joyce when he was a kid, you know. He hung out with all the great writers of the day, and he was a little kid, like, with tennis shoes on, and they said 'Look at this lame!' They didn't use those words in those days. They said 'God, here comes this nut.' And he told them, 'I'm great!' And he sat with them, and he loved to be with them, and it ended up that he was great.

disillusioned?

Art Williams

perceptively

I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.

You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.

Let's take a little quiz. 1. Do you define your self-worth in terms of your job title or professional position? 2. Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power, or prestige? 3. Do you fail to see clearly—or are you uncomfortable with—what comes after your last professional successes? 4. Is your "retirement plan" to go on and on without stopping? 5. Do you dream about being remembered for your professional successes?

More important, her curated self was a person she would admire—a hugely successful, hardworking executive. And she succeeded! But nothing is permanent, and now she felt like every hour of work was giving her less than the last, and not just less happiness—less power and prestige, too. Her problem was that the "special one" she had created was less than a full person. She had traded herself for a symbol of herself, you might say.

The rest of this book, therefore, is dedicated to helping you make the jump. First, I will show you the three forces holding you back, and how to remove them. They are your addiction to work and success, your attachment to worldly rewards, and your fear of decline.

Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power, or prestige?

Is your "retirement plan" to go on and on without stopping?

Carlos's question made me reflect on the fact that, like a lot of hardworking, ambitious people, I had lots and lots of "deal friends" but not too many real friends, and I was pretty lonely as a result. I vowed to cultivate my few real friendships much more.

Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy," wrote Alex Dias Ribeiro, a former famous Formula 1 race car driver. "For such a person, the end of a successful career is the end of the line. His destiny is to die of bitterness or to search for more success in other careers and to go on living from success to success until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be life after success."[12] Making

And so it is when we professionally self-objectify: Our work is our medium, which is our message. We love the image of ourselves as successful, not ourselves in true life. But you are not your job, and I (as I have to remind myself) am not mine.

Many success addicts confess that they feel like losers when they see someone else who is yet more successful.

If you love things, you will strive to objectify yourself in terms of money, power, pleasure, and prestige—idols all. You will worship yourself—or, at least, a two-dimensional cutout of yourself.

Success addicts experience withdrawal as well.

Success, the fruit of excellence, becomes an addiction. All because of pride. A cousin of pride is fear.

At work, successful people are lonely in a crowd.

Your satisfaction is what you have, divided by what you want.