The Power of Ambition

Jim Rohn

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 LENGTH: 6 hours, 30 minutes

✅ COMPLETED: December 31, 2021

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Short Summary

True ambition is a disciplined, eager desire for achievement. It is a state of mind, a way of life. Jim Rohn, one of the best motivational speakers of all time, delivers the six pillars of ambition. Rohn explains how to discover and channel your own ambition through persistent effort and discipline.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Success Requires Discipline — Regardless of what you’re trying to achieve, it takes consistent daily discipline to get there. Success is a lot of small things done well, day after day, after day. It’s not always fun, but you have to learn to enjoy the daily (often boring) disciplines that are designed to make you better.

2️⃣ If You Don’t Like It, Change It — There’s nothing you can’t change if you put your mind to it. First, identify what you’re not happy with and decide that you want to change. Then, develop the daily disciplines that will lead to the change you’re looking for. Finally, execute the disciplines, over and over. Stop complaining/blaming and begin making improvements now.

3️⃣ Appreciate Yourself — It can be easy to get so caught up in trying to improve every day that you forget to pause and appreciate what you’re doing and what you’ve ALREADY accomplished. If anything, the work you’re putting in daily SHOULD give you confidence in yourself. Don’t neglect this — be your own No. 1 fan.

Favorite Quote

"Go to work on yourself. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job."

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • Ambition is the FUEL of achievement. 
    • It’s what motivates you to pursue your goals once you’ve identified your goals. 
  • Know your why — know why you want to be successful. Know why you want a big house, fast cars, etc.
    • Knowing your why gives you an added layer of motivation when pursuing your goals. 
    • Is it the feeling of being a winner? Is it recognition from others? Is it to help others? 
      • Identify your why. 
  • The 6 Principles of Ambition 
    1. Positive Self-Direction 
      • Knowing who you are and where you want to go.
    2. Self-Reliance 
      • Taking 100% responsibility for your life and what happens to you. 
      • Knowing that your decisions have led you to this point and will lead you to whatever is next on your life.
      • Counting on yourself.
    3. Self-Discipline 
      • Ambition at the daily level.
      • Knowing you can accomplish your goals by identifying and executing small disciplines day after day after day. 
    4. Self-Enterprise 
      • Being able to create and take advantage of opportunities. 
      • Being aware and skilled enough to make the most of your opportunities. 
    5. Working With Others
      • Bringing your skills, drive, and ambition to the table to help others. 
      • Working with others to accomplish group goals.
    6. Self-Appreciation
      • Appreciating your accomplishments and potential.
      • Appreciating the hard work you’re putting in and loving yourself for it.

Principle 1: Positive Self-Direction

  • Ambition is the result of self-direction.
  • Self-Direction — Knowing who you are and where you want to go.
    • Having a vision for yourself and your life.
    • Having goals.
  • Working on your attitude, your thoughts, your health, your communication, your mindset, etc.
  • Key Thought: Are my current daily disciplines taking me where I want to go? 
    • You need to be doing things daily that bring you closer to your goals and who you want to be.
    • The key to this is constantly being aware of what you’re doing. Don’t allow yourself to slip and start spending time on things that aren’t helping you get closer to your goals. 
    • Be conscious of how your using your time. 
  • If you don’t like the current direction of your life, or something about your life, you can change it.
    • Changing your life is as simple as changing your daily disciplines and sticking to them. 
    • It is entirely possible to dramatically change your life in 2-5 years if you reset your direction by setting better goals, establishing the right disciplines to reach them, and committing.
  • Two components of self-direction
      1. Self-Knowledge
      • Having a good feel for who you are, your attitude, your philosophy, how you feel about others. 
      • Gather knowledge and use what you like to develop your mindset on life.
      1. Self-Preparation 
      • Being ready for the opportunities when they present themselves.
      • Being ready for everything.
  • Quote: “It’s not about what you make at work, it’s about what you’re becoming.”
  • Quote: “Set the kind of goals that will make something of you to achieve them.”
    • Go where the expectations are high.
    • Go where there’s pressure to perform. 
      • Goals that involve these make you stronger. 

Principle 2: Self-Reliance

  • Take 100% responsibility for your life.
  • Count on yourself. Trust yourself. 
  • Be prepared for everything. 
    • Preparation increases your chances of success, no matter what it is. 
  • It’s on you to create the life you want.
    • You can accomplish whatever you want if you create the right gameplan and commit to it. 
  • If you don’t like where you’re at, change it. 
  • If you are having success, keep repeating the habits that have helped you attain it. Reinforce them.
  • It’s important to constantly monitor your daily disciplines. If you have disciplines that aren’t serving you, replace them. 
  • Quote: “Here’s the key formula to success — a few disciplines practiced every day.”
    • The things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. 
      • It’s easy to skip your productive habits. Don’t allow that. 
      • It’s easy to get into BAD habits/disciplines every day.
  • The essence of life is growth.
    • Always push to get better, develop skills, and improve. 
    • Become ALL you can be. Maximize your potential. 
  • Be your own No.1 cheerleader. Always encourage yourself. 
    • Learn from your mistakes.
    • Never beat yourself up. Remind yourself that you’re going to get better. Keep practicing, keep improving, keep getting better until you get it down. 
      • Again, never beat yourself up. Pat yourself on the back for the effort and for knowing that you’ll figure it out. 
    • Pump yourself up! 
    • Recognize and celebrate the fact that you’re putting in the work needed to become better. 

Principle 3: Self-Discipline

  • What’s at the core of achieving the good life?
    • Consistent self-discipline
  • It’s a cycle — discipline leads to progress, progress leads to success, success reinforces the good disciplines. 
  • When you don’t do something right away, it’s procrastination.
    • Do it now — discipline — greatness
    • Do it later — procrastination — mediocrity 
  • Procrastination is a fun day at the beach. Discipline is owning the beach. 
  • Three lessons of discipline
      1. Discipline isn’t the easiest option
        • It’s easier to not be disciplined. It’s easier to watch Netflix rather than read. It’s easier to sleep in rather than wake up early and get after it.
        • We’re going to pay 1 of 2 prices — the price of discipline or the price of regret. We get to choose.
          • Regret comes when you aren’t disciplined and you don’t pursue your goals. 
          • The pain of regret is far more severe than the pain of discipline.
      1. Discipline is a full-time activity
        • How you do one thing is how you do ALL things. It all matters. 
        • The same discipline it takes to make your bed every day is the same discipline that allows you to thrive in the business world. 
        • You have to constantly build up your discipline.  
      1. For every disciplined effort, there is a multiple reward
          • Our thoughts need discipline. You need to carefully select thoughts that will lead to confidence and high performance and have the discipline to think those thoughts consistently.

Principle 4: Self-Enterprise

  • Locating opportunities in all areas of life and taking advantage of them. 
  • Being confident enough, skilled enough, disciplined enough to seize opportunities. 
  • Go after opportunities. Don’t wait for them. Be creative enough to create great opportunities for yourself.
  • Having good awareness of self-worth
    • What do I need to do to get better?
    • How can I make myself more valuable?
  • It’s what we BECOME that makes us valuable, not what we get or acquire.
    • You need to always look for ways to get better.
  • Doing LESS than you can damages the mind and self-image. It damages how you feel about yourself.
    • Become ALL that you can possibly be. Push yourself to maximize your potential.
      • When you don’t, you recognize it and it affects your opinion of yourself. 
  • Enemies on the inside: Attack these.
    • Fear
    • Indifference (not caring)
    • Indecision 
    • Worry — Whatever is out to get you, you have to get it. Attack it.
    • Illness
    • Overcaution | Timidity — Instead, be aggressive 
  • Ways to build courage
      1. Put all remote possibilities out of your mind. Don’t worry about things you don’t have control over. 
      2. Face your fears. 
      3. Imagine the alternative
        • Really visualize and imagine NOT doing whatever it is that fear is telling you not to. Imagine what you’ll be missing out on. 

Principle 5: Working With Others

  • You have to work with others to accomplish great things. You can’t do it alone.
  • One key to communicating with people is identifying thing you have in common. 
    • When you do this, you can talk at length about that particular commonality. 
  • Tips to good communication
      1. Have something worth saying 
      • Gathering knowledge. Forming an opinion. Defending the opinion. 
      1. Say it well
      • Delivering the knowledge and opinion. Being able to communicate what you know.
      • PRACTICE is the key to good delivery. 
      • Style is important here. Develop your own style. 
      • Vocabulary and words are key here as well. Develop your vocabulary. A good vocabulary makes you come across as intelligent. 
      1. Read the audience
      • Have a feel for how the audience is reacting and what they might need from you as you speak. 
        • Be able to adapt based on what you’re seeing and interpreting from the audience. 

Principle 6: Self-Appreciation

  • Appreciate your accomplishments!
    • Appreciate your potential, style, and progress. 
    • Pat yourself on the back. Encourage yourself. 
  • Self-appreciation is a critical component of success. 
  • Definition: Success — Your own steady progress towards the goals you’ve set for yourself.
    • Success is different for everyone based on the path they’ve set for themselves. 
    • Success to me will not mean the same thing to another person. We all define it differently in our lives. 
  • Be present wherever you are. Concentrate on the task in the Now.
    • When you’re in the shower, focus on the shower.
    • When you’re driving to work, focus on the drive to work. 
    • When you’re with your family, focus on being with your family. 
    • Don’t allow yourself to be somewhere else mentally. Focus on the moment. 
  • Learn to say “No.”
    • It’s easy to be a people pleaser and say “yes” to everything.
    • It’s worse to say “yes” to something and then think of an excuse to get out of it later on. Just say “no.”
    • Good Line: “Don’t think I can make it, but I’ll let you know if that changes.”
    • When you say “yes” to everything, your quality of work suffers on all projects because you’re trying to do too much.
      • Your quality of life and overall free time suffer as well. 
    • Be eager to please yourself and your family, not necessarily everybody else.
  • You can’t appreciate the big achievements without appreciating the small ones too.
    • Appreciate your success, big and small. 
    • Pat yourself on the back.
  • Appreciate yourself, but also know where you can improve. Have a strong awareness of where you can get better.
    • Education and learning is a path to wealth and health. There’s always more to learn and get better at.

Ambition Advice

  • Have balance in your life. Don’t neglect certain areas.
    • The best life is a balanced life.
    • This goes for everything — eating food, drinking alcohol, social outings, work hours, etc. 
  • Take care of your health. 
    • Good health is essential. Life is so much better when you feel good and healthy. Take this seriously. 
    • Mind and body feel better when you work out. 
  • Definition: Leadership — The challenge to become something greater than mediocre. 
    • Be strong but not rude.
    • Be kind but not weak.
    • Be bold but not a bully.
    • Be humble but not timid. 
    • Be proud but not arrogant. 

Financial Freedom

  • To be become financially independent, you have to invest a portion of every pay check.
    • It takes steady discipline over a long period here. 
  • Give a portion of every check to charity. Give back. 
  • Keep a strict account of where your money goes. 
  • Always pay yourself first.
  • It’s easy to get rich over the long term. It’s not easy to get rich quickly. 
    • Again, it takes disciplined investing. 

Failure

  • Failure is not trying at all. 
  • Take risks and push through failure. Ultimately, failure is a stepping stone to success.
    • Double your failure rate to improve your success rate. 
  • Failure is always temporary. 
  • Never sulk and pout. Put a solution on the board. 
  • Quote: “Success is something you attract by the person you become.”
  • Quote: “To attract attractive people, you must be attractive.”
  • Quote: “Go to work on yourself. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
  • The key is to become more valuable. Make yourself attractive, skillful, competent, powerful, strong, unique, healthy, etc.
    • The key to the future is personal development. 
  • The more attractive you become, the more you attract success. 

Your Are More Than Your Ambition

  • Do the hardest work in the morning when your brain is feeling its best. 
  • Stay focused on the task at hand, regardless of where you are.
  • Focused concentration can be learned and developed. 
    • It takes discipline. It can become a habit. 
    • Work on it daily. 
    • Focused concentration is a cornerstone of success. 
  • Be resilient. Don’t allow failure or adversity to stop you. 
    • Being able to withstand setbacks and a broken heart. 
    • Keep going. Keep chipping away UNTIL you get it done. Never quit. 
  • Have a sense of humor. Take your ambition and yourself seriously, but you also have to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes. 
  • Finish the job! 
  • Be the best you can be, always. 
    • Ambition is an eager desire to achieve.Â