Ambition (One of the 10 Pillars of Inner Strength)

In this installment of the 10 Pillars of Inner Strength series, I’ll share with you my experiences pertinent to the AMBITION pillar.

Description: This pillar represents your drive to improve yourself, and to become a Better Asian Man.
Relevance: Women are attracted to men who strive to improve themselves; women enjoy sharing in the passion and drive of a man.

My life before my transition period

I was raised, along with my brother, by a single mom. In our situation, we didn’t have much in the way of luxuries, and nothing really came easy for us. Certain things that were a regular fixture in my peers’ lives– new clothes, the occasional candy bar or bag of chips, the occasional trip to Applebees– were out of my reach. I had to work for everything that I wanted, the most prominent of which was food. My mom was able to provide all of the basic necessities that I needed, but that was all she could do. Venturing beyond the nearby radius of my home required money for food, transportation, and anything else. Thus, the concepts of personal integrity, interpersonal communication (in a business context), respect, trust, and a whole host of other concepts that we working folks take for granted every day that we go to work, were things I had very well mastered while I was still in my mid-teens. The only work I could really get was at diners and restaurants, but I figured out that I could make more money (and thus buy the things that I wanted) by moving up the ladder of whatever organization I worked for. I’ve worked every possible job all the way up the chain within the dining area of a restaurant– late night janitor, bus boy, runner, waiter, bar tender, host, cashier, and floor manager. My desire to rise above my un-impressive financial situation added fuel to my ambition, and I sought to become the best at whatever job I worked. This ambitious aspect of my personality carried through my entire professional career, and I earned many bonuses, raises, promotions, and now, contracts, as a result of it. My ambition is one of the single greatest contributors to my current financial well-being.

This ambition later expanded out to other areas of my life as I achieved greater and greater financial stability. True financial independence was only achieved a few years after I graduated from college, but during that time I still sought out various hobbies, and it was this same ambition within me that drove me to master those. One such hobby is swing dancing, and I eventually got to such an advanced level as to be a member of a dance performance troupe that toured various clubs in New York City.

My life after my transition period

Even with all the financial stability and positive reputation that I earned through my volunteer work, I still was lacking the ability to interact with women in a fun, adventurous, and confident way. As this is the fourth installment of the 10 Pillars series, you’ll begin to notice that the recurring theme is that these pillars, while being a VERY positive component to my life, actually worked against me in my romance life because my skill in talking to women was so lacking. What would go through a woman’s mind would typically be as follows:

Why is this guy, who is so ambitious, and so capable in his professional life, so stiff, awkward, and not-very-fun in his attempt to flirt with me now?

My ambition and my success ended up coming across as a point of incongruency in the woman’s mind, and one of the many things which consistently got me into the friend zone with whatever girl I was trying to romantically connect with. I would get the “let’s just be friends” line, and feel totally shattered. I’d think to myself,

I’ve got so many accomplishments under my belt. Do I need to be a managing director or a department head?

I never felt that my ambition, or the successes that it brought me, were ever good enough.

Now, though, my ambition is just as fiery as it always was (if not more), and I have a new undertaking that I’m pursuing now– volunteer work as an EMT. It’s an undertaking that will require over 200 hours of lecture, hands on training, homework, and a New York state-wide certification test, and then when I finally begin my volunteer work, I’ll be working an extra 12 hours on weekends to save people’s lives. It’s a massively ambitious project, and even thought I don’t yet know if it’s something that I feel like I can take on in addition to everything else going on in my life, I’m still going to try. And my professional life? I’m still as ambitious as ever, and I’m constantly working toward improving my level in my industry.

But here’s the key thing that’s different now, as opposed to my life before my transition period. I HAVE the right fundamental social skills needed to convey myself to girls in a fun and adventurous way. Now, my ambition and success IS congruent with my skills with women, so when I interact with them, they almost always see me in a positive light. Where they once saw me as an incongruent mixture of tremendous success coupled with incompetence with women, they now see me as a complete man who happens to also be very ambitious and successful. That’s the difference. That’s BAM!