THERE are certain aspects of life that we keep buried and seldom take time to think about too deeply. Perhaps we should.
Ambition’s an odd human trait. Most of us know we should nurture and exhibit at least a modicum of ambition if only to deflect the caring concern and critical comments of others.
Do you know what I’m talking about? If not, consider this:
Our closest family members are the ones who tend to fret and worry the most about any perceived lack of drive and determination on our part to get ahead in the world. So, if only to make our family gatherings less stressful, we should aim to exhibit a calculated quantum of ambition that makes the conversations revolving around what we do and what we plan to do with our lives far more palatable.
Yet what we share with them might simply be part of the façade we show the world. If so, have we taken the time and made the effort to drill down deep into our own psyches to ascertain exactly how ambitious we truly are in our heart of hearts?
In recent weeks, I’ve tried to work through that question. I have also asked for and successfully elicited the opinions of some individuals I respect. The primary reason for my deep dive into the nuances of personal ambition is that I realise innate ambition levels make a dramatic difference in the way people approach their financial planning goals across their lives.
FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
To illustrate this, consider a simple life formula geared toward helping people get ahead financially:
Spend less than you earn, save and invest the difference, and do it for a long time.
I should have begun by saying it is easy to describe that formula for financial success but tough to put it into practice each and every day.
Self-sacrifice does not come easy for most of us. You see, usually our ambitions come with an admixture of pride and greed. That poses a problem because although ambition is a neutral trait — just as money is a neutral resource — ambition is a magnifier of many other human characteristics: good or bad.
By itself ambition is neither intrinsically good nor bad. Human history has proven that repeatedly.
In the previous century alone, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi were gratifyingly ambitious.
Their laser-like ambition brought about great good to many people; and our world is a better place because they lived, dreamed and toiled to forge strong wings upon which their ambitions soared for the benefit of others.
Yet, also in the 20th century, we find Hitler and Stalin who were rabidly ambitious. Tragically, their ambitions massacred millions. Our world would have been better off if those monsters had never been born.
SEEKING A BALANCE
Ambition is a powerful force for good or evil. And that is why I think it best for us to come to terms with how ambitious we are even as we consciously limit the number of people we share our aspirations with!
Obviously attaining some balance on the so-called ambition spectrum is required for us to be respected by others and, more importantly, for us to love and respect ourselves.
Even as we seek to identify how ambitious we truly are, I recommend we observe the world around us to gain a sense of whether another person’s store of ambition is out of whack with that of regular, normal people.
We’re discomfited by the odd person around us who appears driven by raw, naked ambition to an extreme degree. (Think about power hungry politicians or rapacious businesspeople who believe that for them to win, then the rest of the world must lose! As I write this, Donald Trump comes to my mind.)
A healthier philosophy of life would be inculcating an abundance mentality that helps us admit our innate ambitions to ourselves and to those we trust and respect, while understanding we can and should work toward genuine Win-Win life solutions in our families, careers and finances.
The reality of the world we live in is such that, at least in RM terms, most of us would love to achieve major life goals like funding a comfortable retirement, paying for great university educations for our children, starting and building a business, and paying off our mortgages on nice homes.
Those are laudable ambitions. Yet by the time we tally all those needed amounts, the aggregated total needed to achieve all our life goals will run from a few hundred thousand RM to a few million RM or more!
That’s a lot of money. Therefore, we need to intelligently — and probably quietly — harness our personal stores of ambition to fuel these laudable goals.
The financial planning process, utilised on a D-I-Y basis or, better yet, with the help of an appropriate coterie of financial intermediaries like insurance agents, unit trust advisers, bankers and estate planners, or through the guidance of a licensed financial planner, can put legs under the ambitious aspirations you have for your family and yourself.
And so I hope you choose to use sound personal finance disciplines to fuel your ambitions. As you do so, may they propel you up life’s trajectory as you also aspire to make our world a better home for humanity.
© 2019 Rajen Devadason
Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a Licensed Financial Planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com; he may be connected with on LinkedIn atwww.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com. You may follow him on Twitter @RajenDevadason