Raise Your Ambition (Despite the Doubters)

Ambition, ambition. But too many of us back away from it because it got made bad, right? I was scared to have ambition. Because you know what? If you have ambition too big for your britches, people start insulting you. Who do you think you are? Oh, you think you can do that? You don't even have any skill at that. You think you can do that? You haven't had their training, you don't have the degree, you don't have the experience, you don't have the background, you don't have the social following, you don't have the environment, you don't have the money, you don't have the bank account, you don't have the credit, you don't have. And people start puking on you when you share your big dream with them. You're like, hey, look, no, listen, I'm trying to go up here. This is where I want to be, right here. I got this dream, it's huge. I got this ambition, this dream, this hunger for more. And immediately people seek to see whether or not you are qualified. And they judge you based on your past of qualification versus your present of how you show up. I don't judge anybody on their past. Let me see how you show up right now. Because everybody in this room, how many of you all screwed up a bunch in your life. I mean, oh man, I'm such a screw up. It's so great, we're all screw ups in some way or another. But how are you showing up now is the question. How hard are you willing to work now? What's the discipline you're willing to put in now? Yes, gain that knowledge, skill and ability. But your ambition, everything I do, everything you see me do at a public level, I had the ambition for a mission, but I didn't have the skills to do any of this. Everyone thought I was crazy. I'm going to leave a safe job out of grad school. I got a safe corporate job. I would say a safe corporate job, but it was a good job and I liked it and it was a good job and it had a clear, a clear sort of a very clear path to rising. And I just didn't. I had something else I wanted to do. So I quit that job and everyone else said I was crazy. I wanted to go write books. I had never written books before. I didn't know how to do that. And then I decided my first major book was going to be a work of fiction, a book called Life's Golden Ticket. And I'd never written a parable before, but I remember Reading the Alchemist and being so inspired by Paulo Coelho's the Alchemist. You all read that book. I hope you all read that. It's now the seventh most read book in the history of the world. It's unbelievable, right? So I. And the longest running book on the New York Times in history is now the Alchemist. And I remember reading that book, and I thought I related with the storytelling in it. And I wanted to write life's golden ticket, but not tell my story, my accident, but rather tell the story of a character going through change. And I got this blessed meeting with a big, famous author in San Francisco, and I was so excited. I mean, because I'd been wanting to write. So I went and had this big meeting with this big, fancy author. I wore a suit, and I got all dressed up, and I was so nervous. And I sat and I talked with this person, and he's hearing me describe very passionately why I want to write this book and what my life's message is, is about second chances. Cause life's golden ticket is really a story about second chances. And so I want to tell a story about second chances. And I was so excited. And I'm telling him. He goes, so wait, this is your life's message? I go, yeah. And he says, you're really passionate. I go, yeah. And he goes, but you've never written fiction. I go, no. And he goes, brendan, I'll never forget it. He goes, brendan, do not risk your life's message on your freshman effort at fiction. Fiction's hard. I admire that. You want to write this book, and that's your dream, and that's your ambition, and that's your goal, but you don't know how to do that. Ambition's really hard. People go to writers conferences for their lives. They get creative writing degrees. Like he said. Everyone in this building, I mean, we spent decades trying to figure out how to do fiction. And you're just going to come and write this fiction book? I don't think that's a good idea. I think you need to write a nonfiction book. And what happens is we have this big aspiration, but because we don't know the how, sometimes someone tells us you don't know the how. So what do you do if you don't know the how? Yeah, you minimize it. You drop it back down to here, maybe you drop it back down to here. Maybe it's like here. It started up there, but you didn't know the how, and you let other people drop that down. So I listen to the guy. I said, okay, I guess you're right. It's true. It sounds logical to me. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, so maybe I shouldn't risk my life's effort. So then I spent two and a half years struggling in San Francisco trying to write Life's Golden Ticket as a nonfiction book. And it just. It was like pulling teeth. I couldn't get it. You know, it wasn't working. And then it was so frustrating. And I was like, I need to figure this out. Because it was the time I was about to leave my job and everything, and I was putting everything at risk. I said, okay. The timing all turned out. Went back to my childhood home where I grew up. Tiny little home, tiny little bedroom, writing on my mom's sewing room table at the time to complete the book. And in 18 days, I said, you know what? I gotta stop trying to write the book. They told me to write and write this book that I feel like I should write. And I started all over from scratch. Complete scratch. 18 days. All I did, I got up, my mom made an amazing big breakfast. I'd eat a big old breakfast, and I'd write and I'd write and I'd write. But dad would come home from work, go play racquetball. I'd come home, I'd write and I'd write and write until it was so dark and my eyes hurt, it was so late. And I'd get up from my desk and I'd walk around my childhood neighborhood where I grew up and my school and my elementary school and the playgrounds we'd play in. And then I'd go back, go to bed. I'd get up, and I did the same thing for 18 days. That's it. 18 days. And at the end of the 18 days, life's golden Ticket was done. Submitted it to. Thank you. Thank you. It was 18 magical days. If you've ever read the book, there's a huge surprise at the end. I didn't even know that was coming. I did not see that come. I mean, sure. So however shocked you felt, imagine me, I was writing the book. I was just typing along, watching. I'm like, oh, damn. I remember. I finished. I'm watching the movie. I finished the book. I'm like, whoa, can that even happen? And I literally got up, and I was walking around the little desk. I'm like, can that character. Did I do this? I gotta. And I had to go for a walk just to think about if the book could even end. Because I didn't know the book was about to end. It just ended with that scene. And I was like, oh, my gosh. So it was a huge surprise to me. And I knew it was magic. I knew it was magic. We put it out there. 21 publishers turned it down. 21. My agent still jokes to this day. He only told me about 19 of them turning it down because he didn't think I could take the other few more that came in. Turned it down, turn it down, turn it down. Finally, boom. HarperCollins gets it. An editor who happened to edit and publish another book called the Alchemist fell in love with life's golden ticket and gave it a shot. We put it out there, and I got this dream to be this big author. I'm gonna go. We launched life's golden ticket. I have no idea, none, what I'm doing. Put the book out there. We get a bunch of quick early hits. Because I had all these promotional partners in these non profits we were donating money to who supported the book. Got out there. Charts on Amazon. Really great. Next week. No one's buying it. Totally. I mean, this ambition just keeps getting stomped down. No one likes your book. Big author says it's stupid. They're all turning it down and it doesn't sell. Think about what that can do to your psychology. Think about me now, saying I'm a writer after the book, doesn't do well, after everyone turns it down, after they say, don't do it. Think about that where that could have directed me. But your ambition is your own. And your ambition has to be free from all of that negativity. If that's a real ambition, you got to own that ambition psychologically. I was a writer. I said I was a writer. I said I was a writer. On days I didn't write, I said I was a writer. On the days they all turned me down, I said I was a writer. When that guy who was a big name fancy writer who'd been on all the big shows, including Oprah, told me I was kind of crazy. And I walked out of his office all dejected. I was still a writer. Sometimes what really gives us the greatest amount of motivation is when we got the guts to actually allow ourselves to tie some of our identity to what we're doing. And we're told not to do that because it can bring discouragement and heartache. But the counterintuitive things is high. Performers to a t. The top 15% who I interviewed, they said, oh, no, they were comfortable tying up their identity in what they were doing. They were comfortable. It didn't mean it always turned out great. It didn't mean they always felt great. But they were comfortable owning it, right? They were comfortable owning what they were doing. They owned that. And because they owned it, the motivation was there. Because you know when the motivation isn't there is when your ambitions are half ass. When you kind of want it, you kind of don't. And that's why you kind of work for it sometimes. And sometimes you kind of don't. Because psychologically you haven't allowed yourself to own the ambition, to feel it inside and say, that's part of me. I'm gonna make that happen come hell or high water. I didn't care. The first book, I said, maybe the next book, name the next book, maybe the next book didn't matter to me. I was gonna keep on that ambition because it was important to me. You've got ambitions important to you and your family and the people you're serving. And it doesn't matter what I say or the person to your left or right says, if you own that ambition, you pursue it. And you pursue it heart. And when you pursue it with more heart, that ambition that keeps sparking over and over and over, you don't have to rev yourself up because it is you.

Thanks for watching. Make sure you subscribe to my new podcast, the Brendon Show. It's available on itunes and Stitcher and wherever else you get your podcasts. And it's the exclusive place where I share my thoughts about life, about current events, about what I'm going through, about my advice for you as you seek to live an even more extraordinary life. It's called the Brendon show and it's available anywhere you get your podcast. So make sure you subscribe. And if you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book, High Performance Habits. How Extraordinary People Become that way. It's available on Amazon right now and when you order your copy, you're really supporting my channel and the message.

And you're also getting a book that will reveal to you 20 years of my research and into what is it that helps people go to a new level of success in their life?

What does it really take? What habits are proven to help you reach long term success in your career, your health, your personal life, your relationships? It's called High Performance Habits, How Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon right now. And finally, make sure you subscribe to my channel so you get notifications every time I release a new video. And by subscribing, you support me, my message and this channel. So I'd really appreciate it. Make sure you hit subscribe.