🌱 Here’s what “ambition” really means

Luck types. The best definition for ambition. Values exercise.

Author

Mitchell Cohen
April 07, 2024

I recently discovered how 3 important concepts (luck, ambition, and values) are actually all tied together. 

Here’s how (in under 3 minutes). Let’s go.

🍀 Getting Lucky

Dr. James Austin, a neurologist and philosopher, wrote Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty which broke down luck into 4 easy to understand types. 

Here’s my quick summary of the 4 types of luck:

  1. Blind - can’t control this (ex: where we’re born)

  2. Motion - taking action increases our overall odds of luck (ex: set up lots of interviews)

  3. Awareness - expertise makes us better at spotting luck (ex: industry expert)

  4. Uniqueness - we attract luck to us (ex: new business opportunities come to us)

(For a deeper dive, see Marc Andreessen’s post here or Sahil Bloom’s here.)

The goal is to move toward type 4 luck. 

💪 Ambition

I’ve long grappled with understanding “ambition.” 

What is it? Why do some people have way more than others? Is it driven by fear or excitement? 

So far this is the best definition of ambition I’ve come across: 

Real ambition must align with our values. (bc if not, then what’s the point?)

Which leads us to the final (and most important) part…

🧭 Values 

So ultimately, it’s our values that set our entire trajectory. 

Once defined, we then unleash our ambition, which creates our luck.

I like Dr. Russ Harris’s definition:

"Values are your heart's deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being. Values are not about what you want to get or achieve; they are about how you want to behave or act on an ongoing basis; how you want to treat yourself, others, the world around you."

Dr. Russ Harris

If you do nothing else today, take 2 minutes to review your values. When you look at a given week on your calendar is it obvious what your values are?

Note: if you haven’t defined any yet, hit reply and let me know where you’re stuck. I’m happy to help and am a huge advocate of this.

Here’s a quick look at mine to help spark ideas. 

“My Values” in Evernote

I keep a single Evernote note and periodically “upgrade” them.

This is cool for 2 reasons.

  1. Easier to start (just pick any values to get going knowing they’ll change)

  2. We can upgrade ourselves simply by changing our values (which then changes how we spend our time/focus). The first time I realized this I was blown away. (I recommend keeping old values below each time so you can see how they change over time).

Let me know how it goes.

Salud,
Mitchell