Quotes About Ambition

the months leading up to the start of his visionary company, Steve Jobs was something of a conflicted young man, seeking spiritual enlightenment and dabbling in electronics only when it promised to earn him quick cash.

If you're not focusing on becoming so good they can't ignore you, you're going to be left behind.

I am not busy. I am the laziest ambitious person I know.

if you want to eliminate the addictive pull of entertainment sites on your time and attention, give your brain a quality alternative. Not only will this preserve your ability to resist distraction and concentrate, but you might even fulfill Arnold Bennett's ambitious goal of experiencing, perhaps for the first time, what it means to live, and not just exist. Rule

Neither Wozniak nor Jobs left their regular jobs: This was strictly a low-risk venture meant for their free time.

Their plans were circumspect and small-time. They weren't dreaming of taking over the world.

To summarize, I've presented two different ways people think about their working life. The first is the craftsman mindset, which focuses on what you can offer the world. The second is the passion mindset, which instead focuses on what the world can offer you. The craftsman mindset offers clarity, while the passion mindset offers a swamp of ambiguous and unanswerable questions.

Managing computer systems might not generate the daily bliss that defined Thomas's old daydreams, but as he now recognized, nothing would. A fulfilling working life is a more subtle experience than his old fantasies had allowed.

Identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours.

just because you really want to organize your work around a mission doesn't mean that you can easily make it happen.

Driven by this insight, while my classmates contemplated their true calling, I went seeking opportunities to master rare skills that would yield big rewards.

The Second Control Trap In which I introduce the second control trap, which warns that once you have enough career capital to acquire more control in your working life, you have become valuable enough to your employer that they will fight your efforts to gain more autonomy. Why

If you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary, but not sufficient. You

If you're a recent college graduate in an entry-level job, for example, you're much more likely to hear "go change the water cooler" than you are "go change the world.

answering machine tape, Kirk took another modest step by launching The Armchair Archaeologist project with no real vision of how it would prove useful, other than perhaps as fodder for his intro archaeology courses. This final little step, however, turned out to be a winner, leading directly to his own television show.

For an individual focused on deep work, the implication is that you should identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours. The general exhortation to "spend more time working deeply" doesn't spark a lot of enthusiasm. To instead have a specific goal that would return tangible and substantial professional benefits will generate a steadier stream of enthusiasm.

Mike, who is competitive by nature, tackled the project with intensity, driven by the belief that the better he did now, the better his options would be later.

The first is the craftsman mindset, which focuses on what you can offer the world. The second is the passion mindset, which instead focuses on what the world can offer you. The craftsman mindset offers clarity, while the passion mindset offers a swamp of ambiguous and unanswerable questions.

If you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary, but not sufficient

Money is a neutral indicator of value. By aiming to make money, you're aiming to be valuable.

Conclusion #1: Career Passions Are Rare

As Derek explained to me, he started by pursuing music at night and on the weekend. "I didn't quit my day job until I was making more money with my music.

El caer no ha de quitar la gloria del haber subido

Well, you just catch me where I go wrong," I shoot back, "but a Harvard education hasn't done much to get your little manuscript out to the world.