“Without ambition one starts nothing.  Without work one finishes nothing.  The prize will not be sent to you.  You have to win it.”   

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ambition.  Some of us don’t have it and some of us have too much of it.  It has been used to raise the bar in medicine, the arts, design, social sciences, architecture, business—any and all fields.

When I realized my ambition (one I shared with most other young men) of becoming a Major League baseball player was not going to happen, I turned my ambition elsewhere.

My uncle worked at KDKA.  I had an interest in filmmaking.  I decided what I would be was the cameraman and editor for a local TV station.

This was the pre-video era.  The news stories were shot in 16mm film in the field, then developed and edited at the station for airing on the evening news.  

I would show up at the station early in the morning wearing one of those cool vests with multiple pockets.  The field reporter would meet me in the assignment editor’s office.  She would be attractive, well-dressed and already have on her TV makeup. We would get that day’s assignments from the assignments editor and hit the road in the station van.  Other drivers would let us into traffic once they saw the station logo on the side.  

It wouldn’t matter if the assignment was a house fire, a homicide, a labor protest outside of a factory, a trip to a local grade school by the station’s witty and wacky weatherman, a deadly six-car traffic accident, or a cute story about the 99-year-old woman skydiving, my lighting and frame composition would make the story sing.  When we returned to the station in the van, my ability to “push” the film in developing and my editing skills would make for numerous Golden Quill awards.

After work I would find myself in a downtown bar.  An attractive secretary would be sitting close by, taking advantage of happy hour prices.  When the six o’clock news came on, I would tell her that it was me who filmed and edited the stories she watched.  She would pick up her drink and slide down to the bar stool next to me.  If, for some reason, she wasn’t there at six, I would wait for the 11 o’clock news to make it happen.

That ambition didn’t last too long.  The news stories are now recorded and edited digitally.  I don’t even watch the local news.  There are too many other ways to obtain news.  Much of the news I have to follow is not produced locally.

My ambition took a major leap from driving a news van.  I have ambition in the fields of finance, literature, healthcare, travel and art.  Somebody else is driving the TV van (now a small SUV) and filming (capturing digitally) the day’s stories and editing them on a computer.  Are they hanging out in downtown bars waiting for secretaries?  That I don’t know.

__________

Not all people have ambition like I did and do.  I often think of two diverse—but equally insightful—commentaries on ambition. 

One of the best Bruce Springsteen interviews I heard was conducted by comedian and podcaster Marc Maron.  In the interview, Bruce said (paraphrasing) “If your desire to have your music heard outweighs your fear of making a fool of yourself, you will stand up in front of people and sing your songs.”  I take that idea a few steps further.  “If your desire to have your words read outweighs your fear of total rejection, you will write and submit articles, screenplays and manuscripts.  If your desire to share your humor outweighs your fear of being booed by the audience at Open Mic night, you will stand up and tell your jokes.  If your desire to have your business plan reviewed outweighs your fear of having a venture capitalist cut you with knife-like insults, you will present your business plan to potential investors. 

I’ve never had any fear of doing any of the above—except playing music.  And the only reason is that I can’t play any instrument (but I’ve written some nice poetry).

There is a flipside to Bruce’s insight.  One of the greatest publications that I have read is The Economist.  It is published in England and gives a view of American business, social science and life that our domestic publications don’t or won’t.  It covers a wide variety of subjects and its journalists are in the top tier of the profession.

There was an article in the June 25, 2009 edition titled “Mild and bitter: the evolutionary origin of depression”.  The piece was based on work done by Randolph Neese, a psychologist and researcher in evolutionary medicine at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Neese’s observation is that a percentage of the population suffers from “low mood” (his term).  Low mood is a device used to keep a person from doing psychological damage by “pursuing unreachable goals”.  Neese explains in the same way that mild pain prevents you from doing an activity and causing further pain (think of touching the hot stove), the percentage of the population with low mood stops their pursuit in order to prevent “mind damage” (my term).  So, there are people who don’t pursue their ambition due to concern of the mental trauma that will occur if the ambitious goal is not met.

I referenced the article in Cut Your Calories…Now!! to describe how unmet ambition may result in unhealthy eating and over consumption of “dopamine creating” food (No. 28 of 40 ways to reduce calories).

If I was asked by low mood people who want to pursue their areas of passion and ambition what they should do, I would tell them to do what I did.  When I developed the ambition of sharing preventive health information with others I suffered from public speaking (stage?) fright.  I joined a public speaking group, called radio talk shows, went on radio talk shows, and showed up at networking events.  When I started my research project, I would call people in the nutrition field who I thought could provide me with insight and “interview” them over the phone.  

I knew that my marriage of nutrition with economics was unique and I put together a presentation.  My first appearance was at the Pittsburgh Police Academy.  And I bombed.  I was nervous, didn’t have voice control, and didn’t have my material presented in such a way that the recruits would find it of interest.  If boredom was a crime, I was at a place where I could have been arrested, charged and jailed.  Years after the event I would joke that if you went to the police academy and looked under the podium I used, you would find the indentations my fingers caused from gripping it so tightly.

The blessing came for me the week after my horrible presentation when the chief of the Pittsburgh Fire Academy called me.  He told me he heard I did a great presentation for the police recruits and wanted me to do one for the fire recruits.

Before somebody told him how bad my presentation really was, I scheduled a day and time with him and returned to the building.  I cut my material down, added some things I thought would have humor and worked on a better opening.  And it worked.  The audience of fire recruits “got it”.  I did the first of many insightful and entertaining presentations that day. 

I came away with a valuable lesson the two days I spent at the Pittsburgh Police & Fire Academy.  I learned to channel my ambition by being prepared and figuring out how to gain and hold the audience’s attention.  

I also came away a recipe for vegetarian chili given to me by the Chief of the Fire Academy.