Ambition

by Ellie Rubin

Utilizing her hands on experience, engaging storytelling, and tenacious journalistic curiosity, Rubin explains why she chose ‘Ambition’ as the topic of her second book. "Ambition has always fascinated me. While many people think of ambition as a ‘dirty word’, I perceive it as something you choose to integrate into your life to achieve personal balance as well as your career dreams." Packed with fascinating profiles of internationally known personalities, including Andrew Watson, director of creation of Cirque du Soleil; Olympic gold medallist Elena Berezhnaya; Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO of Research in Motion; Chan Hon Goh, principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada; and Po Bronson, bestselling author of What Should I Do with My Life?, this book demonstrates how to turn raw ambition into managed success. At the heart of this book is the notion of "ambitionists" – those who choose to design their vocational and personal needs and desires according to their own definition of success. Rubin further explains, "In my first book I coined the phrase ‘I entrepreneur’. In this book, I have created the descriptor, the ‘ambitionist’ as someone who has the ability to incorporate the seven essential rules that I have identified through months of research. Let’s face it – success means many different things to different people. Learning how to manage your ambition to achieve success is what I deal with and I provide a roadmap for ‘getting there’ in my new book." 7 Rules for Getting There outlines the seven rules of ambition that evolve and carefully build upon each other, and may be cycled through once or many times during a · Discovery – Ambition begins with learning. The discovery mode keeps you from falling into the pitfalls of creative, intellectual, and emotional paralysis;
· Focus – Rule #2 is all about the eternal fork in the road and creating an efficient process for decision making;
· Belonging – Rule #3 teaches you how to pick your champions and how to inspire team loyalty to support your ambition;
· Momentum – Rule #5 demonstrates how to build and maintain successful momentum so as to leverage your decisions every step of the way;
· Balance - With great success comes great perils. Rule #5 helps "ambitionists" answer the question, "How much is enough?";
· Maturity - Failure is an inevitable part of ambition, but Rule #6 teaches that it is not the failure that counts but one’s ability to bounce back quicker and higher;
· Belief – Rule #7 is about reflection and re-examination of values and focuses on how to rejuvenate ambition through re-invention and altruism.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2004