Act On Your Ambition
In the July 23 edition of Monday Morning, I wrote about my granddaughter learning to play the harp. As I mentioned, she developed her love affair with harp music at age two and the desire to master the instrument grew stronger until finally, at age nine her mother relented and enrolled her in harp lessons.
I bring this up because last week, A woman told me that she had “redirected” her daughter’s desire to learn to play a piccolo toward the saxophone(!). I told her about my granddaughter’s ambition to play the harp. The woman then took me to task (and indirectly my daughter) for encouraging her in her quest to play the harp. This woman felt that we should have “redirected” her interest toward a more “practical” instrument. Thinking she was joking, I suggested drums—then I realized she was dead serious. Her point was that it is better to redirect ambitions, regardless of how strong our desire might be, toward “sensible things that we can use to make a living.”
Now, you may be asking, what’s this got to do with anything remotely involved with your life? Simply this—we live in an age (and for those of us over fifty, at an age) when we tend to squelch our ambitions. This is evidenced by the surveys indicating that young adults don’t feel they will have a great an opportunity (or as good a life) as their parents. I see indications of it almost daily as I interview potential recruits for positions, as well as the senior level manager’s of client companies (as you know my firm is an Executive Search organization). I encounter it every time I conduct professional effectiveness or career seminars. People of every age and every stage in their careers are stifling their ambitions.
Saturday morning, I watched a television program about J.C. Penney. When he first started out in retail, he was in the store at 5:30 in the morning, worked all day waiting on customers and seldom left until almost midnight. Why? Because, according to those who knew him, he had a burning ambition to not only be someone but to build something bigger than himself.
By the time Mr. Penney was forty-five years old, he was worth forty million dollars. He was a highly respected businessman and considered wise beyond his years. But, due to the depression and the failure of a bank he owned, at the age of fifty-five, this ambitious entrepreneur was flat broke, considered a failure by many and written off by bankers and Wall Street.
Unable to cover the bank’s losses and pay his creditors (prior to the market crash in 1929, he had borrowed heavily against his Penney’s stock to finance benevolent work), this man who regarded his integrity and character to be the most important thing in his life, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At age fifty-six, he checked himself into the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan for treatment and rest.
While there, his depression seemed to worsen—all the ambition had been wrung out of him, he had lost his drive—and perhaps his nerve. Feeling that at age fifty-six he was past his prime, he began thinking about death. In fact, one night he went to bed convinced that “God would take him out of his miserable place” that very night. But, somewhat surprised, he awoke early the next morning.
Leaving his room, he wandered into the lobby of the building. As he walked aimless through the halls, he heard the sound of singing from one of the rooms, so he went in and sat down. The Kellogg Sanitarium had a chapel and he had stumbled into the morning service. As he sat there, he felt like he was being drawn back to his youth and the faith of his minister father and Godly mother. During the service, an old hymn, “God Will Take Care of You” was sung. Years later, in an interview Mr. Penney declared, “Suddenly something happened. I can't explain it. I can only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into a warm, brilliant sunlight. I felt as if I had been transported from hell to paradise. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before—I knew that God was there to help.”
He had reconnected with the source of his earlier successes—the belief that God would take care of him, which gave him the courage to follow his ambitious dreams. Once that connection was renewed, Mr. Penney’s ambition returned and with a year he had completely reversed his fortunes and regained his standing in the business world.
Here was a man who had made it (been there, done that) and lost it, at an age when most of us would figure we were too old to start over, allowing the old fires of ambition to be rekindled. And not only did he allow them to be rekindled, he stirred up the embers through faith in his God given abilities, his past accomplishments and his belief that there were better days ahead!
So this week, remember that Greatness Is A Moving Target—your greatest days are yet to be! (see July 23 edition) Listen for opportunities knock (see July 30 edition) and act on rather than asphyxiate your ambition—regardless of your age or circumstances!
Have a GREAT and profitable Week!
I bring this up because last week, A woman told me that she had “redirected” her daughter’s desire to learn to play a piccolo toward the saxophone(!). I told her about my granddaughter’s ambition to play the harp. The woman then took me to task (and indirectly my daughter) for encouraging her in her quest to play the harp. This woman felt that we should have “redirected” her interest toward a more “practical” instrument. Thinking she was joking, I suggested drums—then I realized she was dead serious. Her point was that it is better to redirect ambitions, regardless of how strong our desire might be, toward “sensible things that we can use to make a living.”
Now, you may be asking, what’s this got to do with anything remotely involved with your life? Simply this—we live in an age (and for those of us over fifty, at an age) when we tend to squelch our ambitions. This is evidenced by the surveys indicating that young adults don’t feel they will have a great an opportunity (or as good a life) as their parents. I see indications of it almost daily as I interview potential recruits for positions, as well as the senior level manager’s of client companies (as you know my firm is an Executive Search organization). I encounter it every time I conduct professional effectiveness or career seminars. People of every age and every stage in their careers are stifling their ambitions.
Saturday morning, I watched a television program about J.C. Penney. When he first started out in retail, he was in the store at 5:30 in the morning, worked all day waiting on customers and seldom left until almost midnight. Why? Because, according to those who knew him, he had a burning ambition to not only be someone but to build something bigger than himself.
By the time Mr. Penney was forty-five years old, he was worth forty million dollars. He was a highly respected businessman and considered wise beyond his years. But, due to the depression and the failure of a bank he owned, at the age of fifty-five, this ambitious entrepreneur was flat broke, considered a failure by many and written off by bankers and Wall Street.
Unable to cover the bank’s losses and pay his creditors (prior to the market crash in 1929, he had borrowed heavily against his Penney’s stock to finance benevolent work), this man who regarded his integrity and character to be the most important thing in his life, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At age fifty-six, he checked himself into the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan for treatment and rest.
While there, his depression seemed to worsen—all the ambition had been wrung out of him, he had lost his drive—and perhaps his nerve. Feeling that at age fifty-six he was past his prime, he began thinking about death. In fact, one night he went to bed convinced that “God would take him out of his miserable place” that very night. But, somewhat surprised, he awoke early the next morning.
Leaving his room, he wandered into the lobby of the building. As he walked aimless through the halls, he heard the sound of singing from one of the rooms, so he went in and sat down. The Kellogg Sanitarium had a chapel and he had stumbled into the morning service. As he sat there, he felt like he was being drawn back to his youth and the faith of his minister father and Godly mother. During the service, an old hymn, “God Will Take Care of You” was sung. Years later, in an interview Mr. Penney declared, “Suddenly something happened. I can't explain it. I can only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into a warm, brilliant sunlight. I felt as if I had been transported from hell to paradise. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before—I knew that God was there to help.”
He had reconnected with the source of his earlier successes—the belief that God would take care of him, which gave him the courage to follow his ambitious dreams. Once that connection was renewed, Mr. Penney’s ambition returned and with a year he had completely reversed his fortunes and regained his standing in the business world.
Here was a man who had made it (been there, done that) and lost it, at an age when most of us would figure we were too old to start over, allowing the old fires of ambition to be rekindled. And not only did he allow them to be rekindled, he stirred up the embers through faith in his God given abilities, his past accomplishments and his belief that there were better days ahead!
So this week, remember that Greatness Is A Moving Target—your greatest days are yet to be! (see July 23 edition) Listen for opportunities knock (see July 30 edition) and act on rather than asphyxiate your ambition—regardless of your age or circumstances!
Have a GREAT and profitable Week!
Robert Hidde
1 comment:
People should read this.
Post a Comment