Is Too Much Ambition a Bad Thing?

Well of course it is, right?  Surely too much of anything can be bad, and it certainly seems obvious that too much ambition can lead to being a workaholic, having no social life, not making time for one’s family, and other such unpleasant things.  However, if you look at successful entrepreneurs, it would seem that many of them have had their ambition and their work negatively affect aspects of their lives such as the ones I’ve mentioned.

Its not that simple, unfortunately.  You can’t simply say “oh, well clearly I just need to have less ambition.”  Insane amounts of drive and ambition is half of what makes a lot of successful entrepreneurs able to accomplish the things they do, besides having to have a number of other qualities.  The trick is, of course, to find a balance.  This may seem obvious but it is far easier said than done.. I know from personal experience.  I have never had any lack of ambition.  I blame (or thank, depending on the day) my dad for this fact.  Indeed, my bursting desire to ‘do great things always’ has been quite the double edged sword at times.  I want to do everything, and I want to be expert at everything I do.  This isn’t really a conscious decision, its just the way I’ve always been.. I manage to do a pretty decent job at this goal, but it also causes me to bite off more than I can chew all too often.  I’ve become aware of this tendency in myself all the more as I’ve gotten the chance to interact with other high-achieving individuals, and I notice in them a set of common traits which I believe are symptomatic of letting your ambition get the best of you:

• Take on large projects and then after a short time (weeks or a couple months, tops) move on to the next thing and the original project is left to the wayside
• Being extremely difficult to get a hold of
• Being too busy for friends and family
• Regularly falling behind on deadlines and having to pull all-nighters to play catch up

I don’t know about you, but I find people who exhibit one or more of these traits to be extremely frustrating!  The interesting thing is though, that a lot of high-achieving people can do a pretty good job of hiding these things when they work at it.  I say this because I know that for myself, at times when I’ve felt like I’m falling behind and things are getting a bit out of control, most people around me have no clue — they still think I’m producing outstanding work.  I’ve also noticed this in other high-achievers.. one of those “takes one to know one” things.

Regardless of how others perceive me, I still care a lot about my own sanity and stress level!  So how can I still do great things while maintaining a satisfying and low-stress lifestyle?  I don’t need to necessarily cut back on being so ambitious, but its more of a deliberate efficiency thing.  First, I accept that there are a limited number of hours in the day, and try to constantly be on the lookout for my tendency to take on more than I can chew.  Second of all, I prioritize which commitments are truly important, and what level of “success” in each endeavor is acceptable.  This one is especially hard for me, since I feel that I have to do an unbelievably awesome job on everything I do, but frankly, some things just aren’t that important, even if they’re still necessary obligations on some level.  Thirdly, I try to take advantage of certain life-hacking techniques, like GTD and ideas related to it, to be as efficient as possible in my personal task management.  And finally, I make sure that I spend time each week on non-work things that really matter too, like family and playing.  Building a car certainly is a good stress relief.

I feel like this is one of those “well, duh” sort of things.  Its so obvious, and yet it seems that relatively few people manage to be both extremely successful and extremely happy.  Of course, there is plenty of research to show that money has little bearing on happiness, with the exception of extreme poverty perhaps.  Take someone who’s just won the lottery, and someone who just had their arm amputated for medical reasons, and see who is happier six months down the road.  Statistics show that the amputee is far more likely to be “happy” than the lottery winner.. The prevalent theory on why this happens?  Ownership.  A sense of ownership over your current situation is very key to happiness, so I guarantee you that no matter how successful you are, if you feel out of control all the time you probably won’t be leading a very fulfilling life.

Entrepreneurship

I have been interested in creating a company and working for myself as long as I can remember.  In fact, my dad related a story to me recently (which I vaguely remembered after he mentioned it) in which I was twelve years old or so, and informed him one day that I didn’t need to go to college since I was going to be the next Bill Gates.  Apparently I was very matter of fact when I made this statement.. My dad of course had to try and explain why college was important without discouraging me from my lofty (to say the least!) aspirations.  He did a pretty good job I’d say, as I’m nearing completion of my undergrad degree right now and yet I still aim for something similar to what I aimed for a decade ago.

As school draws nearer to completion, I have begun ramping up my entrepreneurial efforts and education.  I now follow several blogs on the matter, attend local events pertaining to startups pretty frequently, and am even working on the early stages of a startup.  I will use this blog to discuss my thoughts/frustrations/comments on my experience as a young entrepreneur.

Technology

I like technology.  A lot.  I built my first computer when I was thirteen and began creating websites, programming, and running unix on both my desktop and server around the same time.  Before my fourteenth birthday I had my own domain, my own cgi-enabled website, hosted on my own server running FreeBSD, my own DNS server, my own IRC server, my own starcraft server even and several other things.  Fast forward almost ten years; I’m completing my degree in computer science at Georgia Tech, I follow a number of tech news blogs and try to play around with as many different new platforms and technologies as possible.  So yes, this blog will discuss “tech” stuff some.

Zen

Last but certainly not least is Zen.  I use this word because the school of Buddhism by this name de-emphasizes theoretical knowledge in favor of direct, experiential realization. It also focuses on attaining enlightenment, which to me means a constant state of higher-than-usual happiness, awareness, and togetherness. I’m constantly on the look out for ways to improve my habits, methods, and attitudes.. I want to achieve great things while maintaining my calmness, my composure, and most importantly my sanity.

Where From Here?

In the past I’ve been fairly inconsistent with maintaining a blog.  I’m pretty busy these days, but for starters I’m going to set a goal of blogging at least twice a week.  That isn’t very much, admittedly, but its a reasonable goal to set for myself in the beginning.  Hopefully I’ll manage to ramp that up a bit over time, but for now that’s what I’ll shoot for.

Enjoy!

Posted Jan 25th, 2008:

“Today I bought a donor car, finally. Its a 1991 Miata with 250k miles on it. 100k miles on the engine. What’s really cool about it, is it has a Jackson racing supercharger on it, and full exhaust from the headers back. Of course, I don’t care about the exhaust other than its worth some coin.. I paid $2500 for the, but I think I ought to be able to recoup most of that, especially if I sell the supercharger. 

I’m waiting to start working on the chassis until I totally strip the donor, so that I can measure everything and appropriately decide on my chassis size. 

I also need to sit in eVo-x’s car (book frame) and see how my size-13 feet fit.. From the sound of it, I’ll need to go with a Mcsorely 442, or perhaps the design presented in the Gibbs book, which is a “221″, I believe. We shall see. I would like to go with as small of a frame as I can and still fit. 

Oh, and also, I bought 450 lbs of steel last week.. I know that’s a ton, but I got a good price on it and wanted to get a bunch of everything. The 4′x8′ sheet of 1/8″ (11 gauge) plate weighs 160 lbs! 

My steel list: 

1″SQR tubing, 16GA, 20′ lengths, 9 pieces - $115.56 
3/4″SQR tubing, 16GA, 20′ lengths, 2 pieces - $22.72 
1/2″Round STD (.84″ OD x .109″ Wall) 21′ lengths, 2 pieces - $35.70 
Sheet, 11GA x 4′ x 8′ – $87.62 
Sheet, 16GA x 4′ x 8′ – $52.00 
Cutting Fee – $7.50 
Subtotal – $321.10 
Taxes – $25.69 
Total – $346.79 

Now that I actually have everything I need, I will try to post a bunch of pics this weekend of the garage, the donor car, and the steel.”

What I’ve done since then…

Not much, unfortunately.  There was actually a lot more work after pulling the engine and drivetrain to fully disassemble the car.  After I pulled the engine/drivetrain/suspension, I moved the car out into the driveway on moving dollies, where it sat for about a month.  BAD IDEA!  When I went to move the thing back in, I discovered that it was completely and thoroughly infested with ants and a few other kinds of insects.  Ugh!  I spend a couple weekends spraying bug spray all over the thing after I pulled it back in the garage.  I also made sure there were constantly pools of bug killer liquid surrounding the four jackstands, sort of like a moat, so that no insects would escape the miata with their life.

Well, now the bugs are all dead, and the thing is almost entirely disassembled, except for some A/C components and the rear bumper (I didn’t have the courage to remove it at the time, for fear that there were still some ear wigs living inside, but they’re probably dead now).  I’ve yet to sell any of the parts on craigslist, including the shell itself!  Ugh.  Space is definitely one thing I don’t have right now.

In other news.. I built a.. build.. table.

I was originally planning on building it with steel, but then I realized how much cheaper wood is.  It actually took me two tries to build the thing to my satisfaction (the first one was done with mails, and imprecisely; this one is very square and held together with screws), but now I have a table that should be able to hold at least 1000 lbs (and is on wheels to boot!).

Please forgive my photos linking you to flickr right now.. I’ll try and resolve that soon so that you don’t have to keep going to an external site.

Paging Mr. Craig on isle 4, Mr. Craig on isle 4, please

Craig’s list, that is.  Craig is a man from San Francisco who decided to make a very simple and free website, called craigslist.org, to allow people in his same town to easily buy and sell just about anything, back in 1995.  Initially, the service was only available for San Francisco (the Bay Area, specifically); however, it has grown to almost every major city in the U.S. nowadays.  The beauty of the service is that it is localized, i.e. the ads you see will be posted by people within a 50 mile radius (give or take) of you, so you can go look at the item before buying.  No more sending money on the internet and then wondering whether your item will actually show up!  Conversely, if you’re selling something, its much nicer to deal with local buyers, rather than to have to worry about shipping something.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking that you don’t know anything about computers, and aren’t comfortable with selling things on the internet, even if it is craigslist.  Wrong!  A few weeks ago, I showed my slightly computer-challenged mother (no offense Mom!) how to post an ad on craigslist.  She was selling a canoe.  Within only 5 hours, the thing had sold!  Oh man, was she hooked!  Since that time, my mom has sold or helped friends sell nearly a dozen things through craigslist!

Good for her, but I’m not your mom, genius.  How are you going to teach me?

I thought you’d never ask.  For your viewing pleasure, I have created a video which goes through all of the steps required to post something on craigslist.  This is just the first in a series of videos I plan on creating about craigslist.. Video #1 is all you really need to post something on craigslist, while the future videos will be tutorials on how to make your ads look nicer, and have more and bigger pictures on them.  

Hope you enjoy! Please leave comments if you think this video rocks, or if you think it sucks, and you want me to do it differently somehow.

By your powers combined..

Now, combine this coolness with the awesomeness that is WordPress, and a neat little plugin for it made by tantannoodles, and you get something that makes posting pictures on ones blog so streamlined that you may need some aviators goggles. Observe:

And that’s it!  All you have to do is click on one of your pictures, and it becomes one with your masterful writing.  As you can see, this plugin makes the addition of photos to your blog posts a piece of cake. I’m enthralled by it.

Over Christmas, I got a couple of books I was asking for. The two that mattered the most were: How to Build a Cheap Sports Car, and Build your own Sports Car: On a Budget. Also, I’ve done a lot of research and reading on the http://locostusa.com forums.

Anyways, after reading through those two books, and also buying a Lincoln Electric Pro-Mig 140, I made up my mind that I was going to get started on building a locost. My plan was to build my chassis based on the “book” frame, and to use a Mazda Miata as a donor vehicle.

I want to use a Miata for a few reasons:

• Used Miatas with over 100k miles can be procured for fairly cheap (under $3k easily)
• Miatas are very reliable and cheap to maintain. Engines frequently last over 250k miles
• Lots of locost builders have used a Miata donor before me, so I will have lots of “expert” knowledge to tap into
• Miatas come with double wishbone suspension on all four corners, and since I want to do independent rear suspension, this is perfect!
• I’ve driven Miatas before and I love the responsive feel of the engine. Its got an awesome torque curve that is very fun to play with.

Anywho, I’ll post some pictures of my garage and when I construct my “build table”.