Years ago, I had a hot Lebanese girl on my ping bucket. She had long straightened dark hair, a heart-shaped face and beady little brown eyes, the type with ass-length hair who flirted with guys while as author Brett Tate puts it “wearing their thongs, revealing tops, mini skirts and high heels”. In any event, I recall one of her Insta stories where she took a photo of a cursive neon sign that read “Ambition is sexy” at a nightclub she was impressed with, clearly demonstrating support for the statement.
Of course, the notion that women like ambition as a trait is intuitively obvious. One critique I would have of pick-up broadly is it is not holistic. Guys excessively focus on approaching at the expense of work on their sexual market value (SMV). In his book Primal Seduction, British dating coach Steve Jabba breaks down the physical and mental traits of an attractive man, which includes a discussion of ambition. Somewhere in the book, Steve discusses how rich guys get women not because of their wealth but because of the mental traits that made them rich in the first place. In short, it doesn’t matter you’re a millionaire so much as you have a millionaire mindset.
All this talk brings me to Exhibit A, The Power of Ambition by Jim Rohn. Rohn was a businessman originally from Idaho who made a small fortune in vitamin sales before becoming a pioneer on the motivational speaking circuit, serving as a forerunner to people like Tony Robbins. Rohn authored a slew of self-help books in his lifetime, with The Power of Ambition being one of his more popular titles.
In grad school, I was exposed to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, where the sociologist Max Weber argued that Protestant Christianity encouraged a set of behaviours including work ethic, thrift, etc that complimented a nascent industrial capitalism. While this book review is not the forum for a sociological treatise, all this to say the advice in Rohn’s book strikes me as consistent with the Protestant Ethic, with Rohn putting an emphasis on delayed gratification, time management, and doing the tedious little things. While the advice can sometimes feel like a parent hectoring you to clean your room, reading the book I also found myself sighing and saying “shit…yeah, Jim’s right”.
While I’m not saying I have not been guilty of this at times, my criticism of guys in the community is they can sometimes be myopically focused on approaching at the expense of developing themselves as men. When I think about the best looking girls I knew growing up, a lot of them paired off with a presentable guy who was maybe a semi-successful real estate agent. That’s of course a little parochial, but the point is a guy should be primarily focused on having value as a man before approaching, which comprises ambition.
Rohn defines ambition as “disciplined, eager desire”. While “eager desire” refers to the high order vision of success, “discipline” refers to subordinating the human proclivity to sloth to productive work. While you don’t have to be materially successful in the immediate term, adopting ambition as a lifestyle should have a positive influence on any guy’s inner game.
Of course, the notion that women like ambition as a trait is intuitively obvious. One critique I would have of pick-up broadly is it is not holistic. Guys excessively focus on approaching at the expense of work on their sexual market value (SMV). In his book Primal Seduction, British dating coach Steve Jabba breaks down the physical and mental traits of an attractive man, which includes a discussion of ambition. Somewhere in the book, Steve discusses how rich guys get women not because of their wealth but because of the mental traits that made them rich in the first place. In short, it doesn’t matter you’re a millionaire so much as you have a millionaire mindset.
All this talk brings me to Exhibit A, The Power of Ambition by Jim Rohn. Rohn was a businessman originally from Idaho who made a small fortune in vitamin sales before becoming a pioneer on the motivational speaking circuit, serving as a forerunner to people like Tony Robbins. Rohn authored a slew of self-help books in his lifetime, with The Power of Ambition being one of his more popular titles.
In grad school, I was exposed to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, where the sociologist Max Weber argued that Protestant Christianity encouraged a set of behaviours including work ethic, thrift, etc that complimented a nascent industrial capitalism. While this book review is not the forum for a sociological treatise, all this to say the advice in Rohn’s book strikes me as consistent with the Protestant Ethic, with Rohn putting an emphasis on delayed gratification, time management, and doing the tedious little things. While the advice can sometimes feel like a parent hectoring you to clean your room, reading the book I also found myself sighing and saying “shit…yeah, Jim’s right”.
While I’m not saying I have not been guilty of this at times, my criticism of guys in the community is they can sometimes be myopically focused on approaching at the expense of developing themselves as men. When I think about the best looking girls I knew growing up, a lot of them paired off with a presentable guy who was maybe a semi-successful real estate agent. That’s of course a little parochial, but the point is a guy should be primarily focused on having value as a man before approaching, which comprises ambition.
Rohn defines ambition as “disciplined, eager desire”. While “eager desire” refers to the high order vision of success, “discipline” refers to subordinating the human proclivity to sloth to productive work. While you don’t have to be materially successful in the immediate term, adopting ambition as a lifestyle should have a positive influence on any guy’s inner game.
