🤯Unknown Unknowns #107 - Ambition
When I was a kid, we had to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up.
I drew a fireman because that’s what the kid next to me drew.
Things haven’t changed. It’s still easier to look at your neighbor and decide that you want his life. It’s easier to explain to your parents if you’re doing something that everyone understands.
Paul Millerd calls this legible ambition.
Picture an ambitious person. What do they want? A promotion? A raise?
Picture an unambitious person. What are they doing? Sitting around? Having fun?
Why is having fun seen as unambitious? People singing, laughing, or dancing in the streets are thought to be crazy, but isn’t that what we all want? To be so happy that we spontaneously dance?
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Nietzsche
Why has ambition become something that needs to be able to be explained to someone else? Even stories of “successful” creatives are only considered to be successful because their ambition became legible. Take MrBeast. He’s had one goal for the past ten years: to make the best YouTube videos.
He’s been doing the exact same thing for ten years, but until he started getting subscribers and revenue, people thought he was an unambitious loser. Now half the kids want to be him.
Even though MrBeast approach hasn’t changed, his ambition has varied according to other people’s opinions.
It’s time to redefine ambition.
Ambition is working on and fulfilling your own goals.
Discoveries:
1️⃣
🔗 https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1678033550744977408
2️⃣ What happens when you use an F1 pit crew to overhaul a pediatric surgery ward?
🔗 Issue #240 - Lollipop Man, Rating Approach & Saper Vedere
3️⃣
🔗 https://twitter.com/ejames_c/status/1678987096143597570
Quote of the Week:
“The effort to leave the beaten path leads everyone into the same ditch.” - Rene Girard
Something Fun:
You can find more of my writing at chr.iswong.com.
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Leaving you in peace,
Chris
Not everybody desires a career. Ambition can take make forms.
One could have the ambition of raising a family, for example.