I think of myself as ambitious. Most of the time.

But then, there’s times when I question that. For instance, when I talk about how I spend my time, I break it down against three buckets: Family, Dragon Army, and Doing Good. And I usually make an example by saying, “I rarely, if ever, go to business meetings or events at night. Because that takes away from my family time, and that’s very sacred to me. 7 am breakfast meeting, I’m there. 7 pm night event where there are tons of people I could network with, count me out.”

That doesn’t sound very ambitious. Pretty much all the businesses I run would benefit from those kind of night events. Yet, I choose to be at home with my family. If I was super ambitious, I’d be at those events…right?!

But then again, I feel ambitious. I’ve started a handful of companies, sold two, and am currently running or overseeing three. I published a book and ran a marathon last year, and in 2018 I read 52 books. That sounds ambitious…but I also like to sleep eight hours a night and prefer not to attend hard-to-get-invited-to fancy dinner meetings.

Huh?

am·bi·tious :: /amˈbiSHəs/ :: adjective = having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed.

A strong desire and determination to succeed.

Succeed.

What is success? For some, it might be completely and totally business and career success. If so, they should be at those night events. But for me, success is:

My success = Fulfilling my Purpose, which is to have an out-sized, positive impact on the world. I do that by focusing my time, energy, and talent on three core areas: My Family, Dragon Army, and Doing Good. All three of those are important, with my family coming first.

My ambition manifests itself into a strong desire and determination to make an out-sized, positive impact on the world.

Ok, yeah, then I guess I am ambitious. Because I have a clear handle on what success means to me. And yes, I work extremely hard on achieving success as I’ve defined it. It might not be the classic definition people think of when they think of ambition, but it works for me.

What about you? When you go through this exercise, are you ambitious? Toward what end? Are you focusing your time in areas that fulfill you? Please share!

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