Ambition is nothing to be ashamed of. Wanting more income, greater impact or a bigger business does not mean you have to work longer hours or sacrifice your wellbeing. True ambition is about setting bold goals and designing a business that supports the life you want, rather than assuming success only comes through constant hard work. You are allowed to dream bigger and build a business that delivers both growth and balance.
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👋🏽 Hello! I'm Sumantha McMahon, and I've supported over 100 tutors and education business owners.
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Let's talk about ambition and specifically about that wanting that a lot of us carry around but rarely say aloud. There's a feeling that many of us in our industry we know really well. It's a sense that you would like more, more income, more reach, more of an impact, a bigger version of the business that you've built. And sitting right next to that wanting is almost always a second feeling.
Sumantha (:
That contradicts it. It's like a doubt or a sense that bigger is for other people, not for you, that it's maybe not available for someone like you. It may not be accessible. That who are you really to want so much? Sometimes there's guilt associated with it. So that desire kind of gets tucked away. You keep yourself a little smaller than you need to be, telling yourself that, you know, this is fine, this is enough, and you should be grateful.
Sumantha (:
And I mean there's nothing wrong with gratitude. I'm a huge advocate for gratitude. But there's also nothing wrong with wanting more. And I would really love you to hear that today if it's something you really need to hear. You are allowed. We are allowed to want more. Now, here's where I want to be careful because ambition sometimes gets misunderstood. A lot of people think that being ambitious means doing more, taking on more clients, more hours, more tasks, a longer and longer list of things to grind through.
Sumantha (:
They equate wanting a bigger business with running themselves further into the ground. Now that's not what I'm talking about at all. The kind of ambition I really care about shows up in the size of your goals. It has very little to do with how much you cram into your days. You can hold a big, bold vision for your income and your impact and the life you want to live, and then design the way you operate so that it delivers that vision without demanding every waking hour.
Sumantha (:
The ambition lives in the goal. The way you work is simply the vehicle that gets you there. And a well-designed vehicle doesn't have to run you ragged. In fact, the most ambitious thing you can do is often to refuse the assumption that more means harder. To want a great deal and to insist on building a business that can deliver while giving you a life. That it's not a small or modest aim, that you know, this is a proper, properly ambitious one.
Sumantha (:
And it asks more imagination than simply just working yourself into the ground ever could. So let yourself want it. Let the goal be big, dream big. Let yourself imagine the income, the freedom, the reach, what whatever the bigger version looks like for you. And then turn your attention calmly to how you might design a business that delivers it rather than assuming the only route is to do more and more until there's nothing left of you. We're allowed to want more and we're allowed to want it without having to suffer for it.
