From My Inbox - Ambition, Interrupted

I've been musing on ambition.

Blame the headlines, plus life choices I'm observing in those around me, along with the crossroads of "where next and what for" I find myself at.

Depending on how you look at it, ambition is a beautifully motivational word, or a downright ugly one - especially when you're a woman. Subjective desires clash with objective expectations when ambition is at play. Judgement constantly raises its voice to critique ambition - whether judgment's voice is confined solely in our own heads, or is deafening in the oppressive silence of the community that surrounds us.

Ambition is steadfast, yet operates like quicksilver.

It is constant but has an expiry date.

It is intoxicating, yet not without risk.

Ambition is a solo aim yet it thrives or dies within community. It lures with a Siren's tantalizing prospects; prospects which may ultimately be completely wrong for us. And after reaching what is now a misguided ambitious pinnacle, where do we retreat? With whom does our ambition regroup?

No answers or grand conclusion here, I'm afraid, just my musing, as it seems for me, my ambition is both elusive and defiant.

What about you?

A challenge this week: Take a quiet moment, then ask yourself: Is your ambition still yours? Or are you holding someone else’s definition of success?

It wouldn't be a post from me if there wasn't a little networking tossed in...so yes, I want you to think about your networks.

What is your ambition asking of your relationships right now?

Who are you turning to to support or energize your ambition?

Before you embark on the pursuit of new networks or start randomly switching-up the networking you typically default to, take the time to deeply understand your ambition. Because here's what I know: when ambitious goals are aligned with the right social capital resources, anything is truly possible.

Send me a note, letting me know what you discover about your ambition AND the networks supporting your ambitions.

If ambition is your fuel, then social capital is the engine for your success.

Heads up! In the coming newsletters, I'll be talking more about the elements of network design, and how to think intelligently about the relationships you need to move your ambitious goals forward.

Read and watch:

“Ambition is this determination to do a great many things over the course of your life that you care about,” - Neha Ruch

🗝️ The author of ‘The Power Pause’ on how women can take a career break without losing their drive (Fortune MPW Newsletter)

🗝️ Karen Kosiba Edwards On Joining A Corporate Board (The Wie Suite)

🗝️ A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice (Aeon)

🗝️ From My Inbox: Systems for Success (JKH Newsletter)

🗝️ I’m in my 40s and I Don’t Know What to Do With My Life (And That’s Not a Crisis) (Dreaming & Doing Digest)

🗝️ If You Could Take a Pill That Erased Feelings of Guilt, Would You? (The Persistent)

Flashback to Build Your Dream Network:

While my first book, Build Your Dream Network, doesn’t focus explicitly on ambition, it does (if you carefully read between the lines) repeatedly position networking as an intentional act of advancing professional goals — from shifting careers to landing board roles to achieving entrepreneurial ambitions to advancing within a profession (and all of these career desires can be considered pretty big, bold, aka ambitious!).

If you have your copy of Build Your Dream Network handy, a few page suggestions to re-read: p. 3–6 (on how connections fuel career momentum) and p. 121–122 (idea execution needs community), together with Tom Peter's aptly title Foreward "Build a Dream Network and the Sky Is Your Limit" found in the paperback edition of Build Your Dream Network.