My Ambition
At 24-years old, my face graced the cover of local and national publications for an innovative app idea. Two years earlier, this was a mere dream of mine as I laid in bed at my mother’s house, pondering my future and whether I’d have to get a real job and be like everyone else.
At 27-years old, this dream was not going in the direction I had planned. I’d faced rejection from investors and business “partners,” at every turn. They were unconvinced of my vision for the future.
At 28-years old, unemployed and a failed founder, getting even an interview for a entry-level tech job was like finding a needle in a haystack. I submitted hundreds of interviews, perplexed at how someone who had done so much, was so underestimated.
“THIS IS A JOKE. NO ONE COULD HAVE DONE WHAT I DID. I KNOW SOME OF THESE PEOPLE, WORKING THESE JOBS AND THEY DON’T HAVE AN OUNCE OF THE TALENT OR ACCOLADES I DO,” I screamed over the phone, pacing up the Hollywood Hills.
My 24-year old brother listened patiently. Ely had a good job at Amazon. He had worked at Carvana. Ely was the kind of person you wanted to hire. He’s smart and capable. You see his resume and you know what to expect. My resume just brought up a lot of questions, apparently.
I was boiling, ego steaming out my breath. This was the tipping point. I had mostly refrained from boasting about my accomplishments or opinions of myself, but I couldn’t help it anymore. My true feelings were on display and it wasn’t pretty. The world was dumb for not giving me a chance. Not a job, but a chance at a job. It felt like being on the other end of a dating app, constantly ignored without any concrete feedback as to why.
I’m now 32-years old. My days as the next great founder or business influencer are gone. I had a chance and it passed me by, the same way a recruit or draft pick sprains an ankle or falls out of favor with a coach. For reasons I’m still somewhat unsure of, my dream turned into a sad reality, the height of it being that walk yelling into the phone. Surely, I was one of many feeling victimized or underestimated in Hollywood.
I’m 32-years old now. Four people report to me in my role at a marketing department for a property management company in Columbus, Ohio, far from the ego-soaked hills of Hollywood. This is not my company. I am a cog in the machine.
And I couldn’t be happier about it. The stress and weight of building a company from scratch is a heavy burden. One I’ve carried for nearly a decade, whether through my app or other entrepreneurial ventures.
There is a cost, one that seems too great to pay at this stage of my life. Startups are consuming. They require obsession and focus. You are bringing something to life that can only live with constant and excessive nurturing.
It’s not too different than raising a child. Your child can’t live (or thrive) without undivided attention and intention. It can only eat, sleep, move, smile, laugh, through people who care enough about their development to drop everything else at a moment’s notice. For both your startup and child, you hope to build them up enough where they don’t need your 24/7 focus. But until that day, you’re grinding.
Because of that laser-focus I had building my startup, I felt I had no choice but to get rid of, remove, blame, or devalue those who came in the way of my goal. I treated people as if they were a means to goal. It’s a cycle of transactional relationships, plagued by short-term thinking fueled by a desire for survival.
My current role is aligned to the person I want to be. No longer a slave to my own ambitions, my life has evolved from one about my success to the success of others.
There are two major changes that have altered this shift. The first is my new life as a Christ-follower. The Gospels make it clear that a life-well lived is about service to others before service to ourselves.
The second spark has been life as a father. As I had to give up certain things to be a founder, I’ve had to give up even more to be a loving and present father. My ambitions are no longer to imagine what I can build or create, but to invest in the most important thing I have created with my wife; a living being named Silas.
I don’t expect this ego to vanish. It’s with me, it feels inherent to my personality. You don’t go from someone who talked to himself as a child, imagining himself as professional 3-sport athlete AND a pastor to someone who cares little of their accomplishments. Yet, there will be much good done by channeling that ego into caring more about others, their success, and their well-being, than mine.
