|
 |
Being highly ambitious is trendy right now.
Everyone wants to be a high performer. They froth at the mouth over tweets like “Join the top 1%.” The traditional career economy is collapsing at the same time.
9-5 jobs are out of fashion. Promotions are faraway dreams. Salary increases are rare. Everyone has a better job than you. Layoffs are a permanent “F you, you could be fired tomorrow, so get into line or you’re gone, pal.”
No one trusts big corporations anymore. They’ve lied to us for too long.
This reality has led people to either give up or become highly ambitious. Being highly ambitious seems like a blue pill from the Matrix that you swallow and unlock some kind of computer game cheat code. And it can be.
But…
Being highly ambitious has a dark side, and you should know what that is before you go any further. Let me explain through my life and the lives of many other highly ambitious people I spend time with inside of high-end masterminds.
A soul-crushing sense of loneliness
Everyone loves being highly ambitious.
No one is prepared for the loneliness that comes with it. When you dedicate your entire life to a big goal, normal people stop understanding you. I go to picnics and kids’ birthday parties with my 3 year old. You’d think it’d be fun. Not really.
I feel this deep sense of loneliness.
Everyone wants to talk about normie sh*t that doesn’t matter. No one wants to talk about the meaning of life. Or how they’re going to run an ultramarathon and win a gold medal. Very few people have big goals.
They’re just happy settling for second best and being told what to do.
When their country or way of life comes under threat they’re too comfortable to do anything about it. They sit there and just watch society crumble without feeling any sense of duty or aspiration to make a difference.
Being highly ambitious makes you different.
That difference starts out as cool and eventually becomes loneliness. You find yourself locked in a spare bedroom at home doing work no one understands. Or never seeing high school or university friends ever again.
You can go days without seeing anyone at all. You can live the same day on repeat for a year and not feel bad about it. Life becomes seasons. Life becomes a series of marathons that you run without looking back.
Some days you feel like you don’t have a friend in the world. You just exist for the mission.
Long hours that’ll rip your face off
Hard work has lost all its meaning.
One side of society demonises hard work and calls it hustle culture, so they can sit at home and have bubble baths without feeling guilty. The other half of society worships hard work like a false god.
Highly ambitious people have a different relationship with hard work.
They know it’s necessary and they’ve come to terms with it. They don’t worship it. They simply see it as part of the game. You can’t be ambitious and achieve big goals without hard work. And there are consequences to this reality that are rarely spoken.
Hard work means long hours. That means less time with your loved ones. During some seasons of life, it means working 7 days a week or staying up way past your bedtime. The other night I had an urgent project and only slept 6 hours.
I knew it was bad but that’s the dark side of ambition. You’re willing to make sacrifices. You’re willing to do what it takes because the mission becomes bigger than the individual the more you let ambition take over. This reality may not be a good thing, but it is the reality.
Recently, people made fun of creator Dan Koe on X.com.
One user posted a photo of him 3 years ago compared to now. Back then he looked like a baby-faced kid. Now, some say he looks like a 40 year old man, yet he’s still in his 20s.
The difference in the photos is hours worked. I know Dan Koe outside of his online persona. What it might surprise you to know is he works extremely hard. He’s building a software company and letting it consume him.
He thinks about nothing else. He does all-nighters. He neglects his diet at times.
The mission is bigger than him. He’s prepared to accept the trade-offs and have people comment on his appearance (a true leader).
That’s what working long hours does to you. It makes you look different. And it may even make a 20 year old look like a 40 year old.
Doing work no one understands
I’ve given up explaining what I do.
I shouldn’t admit this, but half the time I still tell people I’m a banker. It’s just easier to explain. That’s not what I really do. Surface-level people say I do coaching or consulting. Not really.
I’m helping humanity progress back to the old days, where entrepreneurship was the main career and form of work. I’m helping people learn the skills of becoming self-sufficient so they can experience modern freedom.
To achieve this mission I am building a social media machine, that based on its current trajectory, will rival the audience size of someone like Tim Ferriss.
How the heck do I explain that to Bob from my 3 year old’s kinder? I can’t. So I don’t. I’ve given up. It’s too complicated. And it’ll only repel people.
I can’t even explain it to my wife or kids. It’s a mission so deep, personal, and purpose-driven that only I understand it. And I’ve had to come to terms with that.
It’s not easy.
Success can become a form of mental illness
This one’s controversial.
My friend G said something that screwed me up for weeks. He said people like me building big social media followings and embarking on some huge mission are mentally ill. One example he gave was Tim Ferriss.
He reminded me that Tim was molested by his babysitter. Then he borrowed a book in college to learn how to end his own life. Through some bizarre turn of events the book was unavailable and when it came back in stock at the library the reminder letter went to his parent’s home. They saw the book title & knew what Tim was up to.
This saved Tim’s life.
He went on to build multiple