In this episode of Move Right, Zach and Jake tackle a question a lot of driven men wrestle with: Is ambition a good thing, or can it quietly pull a man in the wrong direction? Instead of treating ambition as automatically good or automatically bad, they explore the difference between selfish ambition and godly ambition, and why the real issue is not whether a man is driven, but what is fueling that drive in the first place.

This conversation goes deeper than achievement, money, or success on the surface. Zach and Jake talk about how selfish ambition is often tied to pride, rivalry, fear, validation, and the need to prove something, while godly ambition flows from identity, service, and using a man’s gifts to lift others up. They also explore why ambition becomes dangerous when it creates chaos, striving, and disorder, and why healthy ambition is more about bringing beauty, excellence, and flourishing into the world through the gifts God has given.

Through the lens of Move Right, they challenge the false binary that men must choose between having no ambition at all or chasing success for selfish reasons. Instead, they offer a better framework: know your identity first, understand your gifts in community, let go of fear, and then look for opportunities to use those gifts in ways that serve others well. This episode is for men trying to sort out their calling, their drive, and whether the life they are building is flowing from insecurity or from clarity and purpose.

To watch the full conversation, find Move Right on YouTube at @ZKosturos.

Additional Discussion Topics:

• The difference between selfish ambition and godly ambition
• Why ambition becomes dangerous when it is rooted in pride or validation
• How chaos, striving, and disorder can reveal the wrong kind of ambition
• Why identity should come before ambition, not after it
• How gifts are meant to serve others, not just elevate self
• Why fear can cloud calling, purpose, and self-understanding
• The role of community in helping reveal a person’s gifts
• How to pursue excellence without falling into rivalry or conceit

When you read your Bible, there's two kinds of ambition that I can see talked about.

There's selfish ambition and there's godly ambition.

Listen, man, if your ambition is leading to chaos in your life, it may very well be an indicator that it's selfish in nature.

Now, if at the same time your ambition is leading to order and beauty and flourishing and lifting people up, then it very well may be godly, right?

We think that our ambition will lead us to a place where we fill this hole in our lives.

We finally, like, hey, if I can achieve these goals, if I can conquer this conquest, if I can do these things, then I'll know who I am, then I'll feel secure, right?

So we spend a lot of our time, a lot of our effort, a lot of our mental bandwidth, literally just trying to figure out who you are.

What I'm saying is that it's backwards.

Like the God model is we understand our identity, we know our identity, and our ambition flows out of it.

If you know your identity, if you know your gifts, if you know your calling, then you start to look for opportunities.

Instead of the mercenary that just says, I'm looking for an opportunity here, you start to look at it and say, I'm looking for opportunities where my identity, my gifts, my talents aren't easy.

How much ambition is too much ambition?

How much ambition is not enough ambition?

Is ambition good?

Is ambition bad?

That's what Jake and I are going to tackle today, I think, being young men, well, I guess I'm not that young anymore, but I feel like a young man.

Any of us who are, who are driven and, you know, we're trying to accomplish things, we're trying to live fruitful lives, we're trying to provide for families, we're trying to lead, we're wrestling with how ambitious should I be?

Is ambitious a God thing or is ambition an enemy thing?

And that's what Jake and I are going to talk about today.

Last week we talked about rest and tried to give maybe a different perspective on rest and also share some of my own struggles and Jake's, some of his own struggles as it relates to resting.

And today we're going to tackle this idea of ambition.

So with that, Jake, thanks for being here again and I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Yeah, well, there's been lots of debates on this subject and certainly from people who are biblical scholars more than I am.

But I think the, you know, and this is a, this is a thing that I think so important is, I think oftentimes in These kinds of conversations, we think, well, you know, if I'm not a scholar or if I'm not.

If I'm not really well versed in all the intricacies, and who am I and how qualified am I to, like, give my thoughts or opinions on this?

And I think what's dangerous about that is it sort of creates an elitist mentality where we got to go and we got to get the answers from the gurus.

And I'm not saying there's not a time and a place for, you know, people who have spent their lives studying these things to.

To speak to these things, but I also think that there's, like, a common sense reality to these things.

And the thing that I would say as I think about it with ambition is when you read your Bible, there's two kinds of ambition that I can see talked about.

There's selfish ambition, and there's godly ambition.

And those represent two paths, right?

And so then the question becomes, well, what is selfish ambition?

And how much of what I'm doing am I doing for selfish ambition versus godly ambition?

And if I think it's godly ambition, how do I know it's godly ambition versus am I just tricking myself by saying it's godly ambition when in fact it's selfish ambition?

And listen, I don't think you or I are going to explain the answer to that question for every single person right at the moment.

But what I can say is that when I looked into this, because there's a guy named ruslan who's on YouTube.

He's got a pretty big YouTube channel, Channel Guy, and he wrote a book recently.

I've not read it, but he wrote a book about godly ambition.

And I can remember when he put that book out, man, there was just so much banter back and forth about.

You know, there are a lot of people who just think ambition is bad, and if you have ambition, then somehow you're, like, fleecing yourself.

Because it's really not godly ambition if, you know, like, I don't know, broke and destitute and whatever.

And I don't agree with that.

Right.

I think that when I looked at what the original Greek word meant, it seems that people pretty much concur that that original word actually gave the impression of a mercenary.

So think about, like, a mercenary is doing whatever they're doing specifically for money, right?

They don't care.

They don't care which side they're on.

They don't care if it's good.

They don't care if it's bad.

Other words that that were used to describe the original Greek word for selfish ambition were rivalry, right?

So it's rivalry or strife or contention, right?

In James, I believe it is, it says selfish ambition leads to chaos and all kinds of evil things.

And so one of the questions I think is worth asking is, listen, man, if your ambition is leading to chaos in your life, it may very well be an indicator that it's selfish in nature.

Now if at the same time your ambition is leading to order and beauty and flourishing and lifting people up, then it very well may be godly, right?

And at the end of the day it's listen, if what we're doing, if what's driving our ambition is rooted in self centeredness, then it's selfish ambition.

And the Bible tells us it's going to end in chaos and it's going to end in evil things.

But if what we're really trying to do is serve people right and as a result we're rewarded for that, then I think that's how it's designed.

And I think that goes into so many of these conversations that you and I have had thus far, which is, I think that there's this false binary that we run into, especially in our Christian circles, which is, hey, if you're going out there and you want to make a great living and you want to have financial abundance and you want to be able to leave an inheritance to your children's children, and you want to do some of these things that the Bible actually does say are good, then somehow there's something wrong.

And I just don't believe that.

I think that what's so great about a free market system is in a free market system, which is why free markets have lifted more people out of poverty than anything else.

Because free markets really are rooted in giving other people what they desire in exchange for something that you desire, right?

It's the better we can get at solving problems, the better we can get at helping people achieve their goals, the better we can get at serving people in the free market system, right?

The oftentimes not always right, but oftentimes the more rewarded we get, right?

And, and so I think we've turned that into somehow being bad.

And yet if you look around the world, the places that are the best places to live are places that, that is the norm.

Now here's the.

And again we go back to this idea of friction.

The friction is that it's really easy to say that's why you're doing it.

That you're doing it to serve people, you're doing it to help people.

And really the reason you're doing it is because you just want to make money and you just want to be rich and you just want to be a mercenary.

And so this is where I think that you can't just create these blanket statements.

It's like, I got to be in tune with what the Lord is putting on my heart, with what he's telling me, because he's going to be convicting me if he knows that I'm crossing the line between service and being here to be of service to people and just being selfish.

So that's kind of how I think about it.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that most many good things, I don't want to say most many good things in life, whether it's my life or yours, come because we have some level of ambition, right?

So I think we talked about this in a past video.

Like when you're a little kid, you may not have this other minded ambition, right?

Because you're just like learning about what others even means, right?

When you're really little, you're primarily focused on what you need.

And so you start to, let's say in sports, you start to go, I really like sports.

Or for somebody else it might be like, oh, I really like art or I really like singing.

And you're not really thinking about pursuing those things because you're wanting to serve others.

You're too young.

You're just saying like, I love this thing, I'm good at this thing, I'm going to pursue this thing.

And you get the results of that.

Like you, you get the fruit that comes with that.

And then where I think it gets a little tricky is figuring out, I was actually talking to one of my daughters about this the other day.

It's like, then you got to get to this point where you become mature enough to say, oh, got it.

Like, God didn't give me this gift to just use it on myself, to just use it to serve my own purposes.

He actually, like Jamie Winship always says that your identity is God's gift to the world through you.

So my daughter Chloe is an amazing singer and yeah, it'd be easy for her to live her whole life just saying, like, I just want to be the best singer because it makes me feel good, it puts me on a pedestal, it makes people think cool things about me and our fleshly human nature.

That's what it wants to lead.

That's the path, that's the road.

It wants to lead us down.

But see, I think what God wants to do is he wants to redeem that.

And he wants to say, yeah, I gave you that gift, but I didn't give it to you so that it could take you down your own selfish path.

Instead, I want you to discern how am I going to use this gift that God gave me, that he wants to bless other people in the world through this gift.

And then at some point, we start to have to shift our focus from, okay, I know I have this gift.

I know I could use this gift to serve myself, to get what I want, to put myself on a pedestal, to make people think highly of me, whatever it might be, to get rich, might be.

Or I can use this gift to put first in my mind, like, if I was going to prioritize the priority, the number one would be, how does God want me to use this gift to serve other people, to actually improve the lives of other people?

And then from that, depending on what your gift is and where that gift is applicable, because we live in this world that we do today, you can, and this is what's so cool.

Like, a hundred years ago, you couldn't necessarily have the freedom to take your gift and make it also be your profession or your vocation.

But we live in a world today where in many places, like where we live in America, you can.

And so one of the things that I love is, it's like, if you know your identity, if you know your gifts, if you know your calling, then you start to look for opportunities.

Instead of the mercenary that just says, I'm looking for an opportunity to get paid, you start to look at it and say, I'm looking for opportunities where my identity, my gifts, my talents are needed.

Where, like, if my gifts, if my identity, if my talents are brought into the situation, people's lives will get better.

And listen, like in today's day and age, if you're really good at understanding that and you really know where your gifts, where your talents, where your identity is helpful to situations, you can actually turn that into your vocation.

And so I think it's just, it's like, yeah, everybody's ambition for the most part when they're little, I think is selfish in nature.

That's the sin nature, that's the flesh, right?

And the redeemed nature is to say, like, God doesn't take away all the stuff he gives you.

He doesn't say, hey, throw all that stuff out.

It's not needed.

I didn't, I made a mistake when I gave it to you.

Instead he says like, hey, I want you to learn how to harness what I've given you because I gave it to you.

Not to be self serving, but to serve others and to show people what my kingdom and what my image looks like on earth.

Yeah.

So I think the easiest way to think about it is oftentimes our ambition.

We think that our ambition will lead us to a place where we fill this hole in our life.

We finally like, hey, if I can achieve these goals, if I can conquer this conquest, if I can do these things, then I'll know who I am, then I'll feel secure.

Then there's always like a, if I this, then I that, right?

So we spend a lot of our time, a lot of our effort, a lot of our mental bandwidth literally just trying to figure out who we are.

Like if I can just achieve these things and my dad will love me or then, you know, I'll be validated or then people will take me serious.

Like all these things.

And so we're, our ambition is pursuing our identity or informing our identity or searching for our identity.

What I'm saying is that it's backwards.

Like the God model is we understand our identity, we know our identity and then our ambition flows out of it.

And our ambition is then not self centered because we've already filled the hole.

We already know who we are, we already like, we don't need the validation.

It doesn't matter, matter if people watch our YouTube channel or not because it's like right now I'm just doing one of the things that God created me to do, right?

And if I let my brain go to hey, if nobody watches this, then that means something about me.

Then I'm actually doing it to validate what I think about myself as opposed to doing it because it's who I am and I've already been validated.

And so I think it often comes from ambition, whether it is used for good and God or evil and the enemy is rooted in what are we pursuing through our ambition.

The other thing I would say to your first point, which is like, how do I know what my identity or what my gifts are, what my calling is?

Or you know, there's different ways people put it.

And one of the things that I love that Jamie always says, he says your identity is always revealed by God in community.

And so if you're trying to figure this all out on your own, it's probably going to feel like a mirage.

Like you might get close and then it disappears or then you think, well, Maybe it's this thing over here.

Because the reason God gave it to you, you serve people.

And so it's the people who will validate for you that like, hey, when you do this with me or when you help me with this or when you give me your thoughts on this or whatever, when you serve me this way, like, man, it's clear that that's what you were created for.

Right?

And so if we're trying to do that in isolation, it's very difficult.

And then I'll add on top of that, and this has been a recent one for me, which I think is huge, is.

It's very hard, I think, to really understand who we are and what did God create me to do and to become when we're afraid.

So I would say if you, if you're sitting here, you're watching, you're listening to this and you're like, Zach, I, I'm like, I'm like in the position Jake's talking about, I'm like, I don't know.

Giftings are.

I don't, I don't really know.

I don't feel like there's this thing like your daughter's singing that jumps out.

And I would say, okay, well, if you just close your eyes and you think, if I was 100% unafraid, who am I?

Because often who we are, who we think we are, who our mind tricks us into believing we are, is simply because there's a fear or there's multiple fears that are actually changing who we are.

And so when we can actually sit back and we can let go of the fear and we.

Who, who am I?

When there is no fear, then I think those answers, like God will start to reveal the answers to those questions.

And I know because it's like it, it's happened to me.

And so, so I think for you, I don't know if that's, you know, where you're.

Where you're at right now.

I mean, but I would say, Jake, there are things that you're good at.

There are, there are gifts and talents that God gave you that other people can see that you can't see.

That's why people who, like, talk bad about coaches, they're always a little short sighted, I think.

Because think about this like a great coach, a great mentor is somebody who can see in someone something they cannot yet see themselves and helps to draw it out.

Like Michael Jordan would never have been Michael Jordan without Phil Jackson and neither would Kobe Bryant.

Why?

Because Phil Jackson could see.

He could see and he could help to draw out what was already inside of them.

Right.

And so that's like an example of community confirming and even bolstering because it gives opportunity for identity to shine.

And so for you, I think, like, if you really want to figure out what are my gifts, like who, who am I, who was I created to be, it's like, yes, you have to sit down with God.

You can say, I'm going to throw, I'm throwing all my fears out.

But then you have to actually engage in community where people can say to you, Jake, you're really good at this.

Like this, I don't know if you see, but X, Y and Z. Yeah.

So the question that I think you would want to ask in that situation, and this is why I added it on as a bolt on, is when you're working hard is.

Or when you're being told that like, hey, what I see in you is you're a really hard worker.

How much of your working hard, if any, is rooted in.

Well, I'm afraid so I've got to do this stuff to prove X, Y and Z right.

Because, because at the end of the day, like I think this is where so many people, myself included, struggle with some of the identity work or some of the what's my calling or what's my, what's my assignment is.

Because we're trying to look at it through this lens that's clouded with fear, right?

And so it's like when we're afraid, we're actually not able to be the person that God created us to be.

That's why he always says, don't be afraid.

And so I think that the beginning of this process starts with what do I do?

What do I love to do?

What do I get lost in?

What do I feel like I come alive in?

What do I know I do that helps other people when I'm not afraid?

What would I do if I wasn't afraid?

And so I'm not saying that your hard work is fear based, but it can be.

Like earlier I said sometimes people will try, their ambition will be the thing that fuels them to go and do these things.

Because they think if they achieve these things or they get these things or they accomplish these things, then they'll be fulfilled, right?

So it's like, well, there's a fear that they're not good enough right now that clouds who they think they are.

Because now who they think they are as a perseverer is a go getter, is self made, is all these things that are just Lies.

Because at the very beginning of the journey, the thing that was the fuel behind it was a fear that they weren't enough today.

And what I'm saying is, if we're unafraid, if we say, I know I'm enough, I don't even necessarily know what I'm enough for.

Like, in the sense of what God's going to do with who I am.

But, like, I'm accepted, I'm enough.

I don't have to do anything, I don't have to add to anything to get something to validate myself, to feel accepted and all that.

Like, I'm starting from that place.

Last time we said people work their whole lives to rest.

And I think the message of Christianity is you work your whole life from rest.

And to the degree we can do that is the degree to which we'll probably be more successful, at least through the lens of Christianity and why we're here and how Christ would want us to live, I think it's the same thing as it relates to if we spend our whole life doing in order to be or to find our identity or to become validated, it's a backwards.

Because I think what God wants us to know is like, you already are, you already are.

And now just go be out of that, right?

And so for you.

So like, let's say you go through this exercise and you're like, no, I think that my gift is just that I am a hard worker, I'm diligent, I, I, I love excellence.

Then I would say, that's awesome.

And then you shouldn't let other people tell you that, you know, that's somehow selfish ambition.

What you should do instead is figure out, well, then how can I use those, that gift, that talent to serve people, right?

So as an example, I think it was Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Pretty sure it was him.

And it took years, you know, and I'm sure there were people who were probably sitting there saying, like, whoa, what are you doing that for?

Like, what a waste of, what a waste of your talent or what a waste of your time.

Or, you know, you could be out there preaching the gospel.

And it's like.

And everybody's got their opinion about what he should be doing with his gift.

And, and instead he's like, well, I'm going to do this.

And I don't know, this is just an example.

And now here we are, like hundreds of years later, and thousands if not millions of people every year go to see this thing that he did that has blessed Right.

Like millions of people.

And so that's where I think, like so often we get into, especially in religious circles, we get into this again, like false binary, or it's this way, or it's this way.

And you got to fit in this box, or you got to fit in this box.

And I think the reality is like, no, like I got to know what God's created me for.

I got to know what he's telling me to do.

I got to know what he's inviting me to participate in.

And then I gotta, like, I literally wrote this down.

I have to learn to be hyper vigilant at saying no to all the things that pull me out of who he created me to be.

Because if I'm going to be the best of that, I got to be fixated, I got to be focused.

We made a video a couple of weeks ago about the number one skill that will set people apart in the future.

And it's this idea of focus, attention, and it's like, I got to be, I got to be intentional with my intention towards the thing that God created me uniquely to become.

Then I got to go find environments where that identity is needed.

So for you, if your identity really is rooted in hard work, then guess what, you got to stop thinking about what's the thing I need to do.

And you got to say, hey, where are their environments?

Where the thing they're missing is somebody who's willing to work hard.

And I'll go insert myself into those environments and you'll probably be just fine.

Yeah, I think maybe to answer that question, I'm going to read you a couple verses here.

So the first One is Philippians 2, 3.

It says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

So like, in my words are really important.

And so I think what, what Paul's doing here is he's, he's, he's linking selfish ambition to conceit.

Right?

Well, what's conceit?

Right, it's conceited, it's arrogant, it's pride, it's self centeredness in so many ways.

So he's saying selfish ambition is linked with conceit.

So he says, don't do anything from those places, he says, but so instead in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

And so I think every one of us every day has to wake up and say, hey, like, do I really count others as more significant than myself as I do my job or as I pursue my ambition?

Am I really doing it from a place of humility?

And am I really doing it from a place of seeing others is more significant than me?

Or am I doing it from a place of conceit, of puffery, of pride?

Another one is for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every evil practice.

We talked about that.

You know, another one, Galatians lists selfish ambition or strife as a work of the flesh.

And so those are some of the things where I just think, okay, so that's the first part I'm skipping around.

The second part is, let's see what the juxtaposition of that is on the positive end.

So it says, Paul says, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.

You should mind your own business and work with your hands.

And I'm not going to get into all the context around that, but I just want to read, like, make it your ambition.

So ambition is not a bad thing if it's directed in the right place.

Romans Paul says, and in this way I aimed or ambitioned to preach the gospel.

His ambition was to preach the gospel, to make Christ known, right?

And so there's another one in Second Corinthians.

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim or our ambition to please him.

And so I think it comes down to, at least as I interpret it, as I think through it, as I try and apply it into my life.

Is.

Is what I'm pursuing rooted in, right, me elevating myself, often at the expense or ever at the expense of others, or is it me helping to elevate other people, right, regardless of if I'm elevated at all?

So think about this.

Practically, somebody says, well, Zach, my ambition is to become a professional athlete.

I'm very talented in it, etc, etc.

And again, this false binary, some people would say, that's great, that's exactly what you should focus on.

That should be your purpose, yada.

Then there's this other path that says, well, you got to curb that, right?

Like that ambition can lead you astray.

And I think it's either or I think it's somewhere else.

I think it's great God gave you this gift, he gave you this talent, and you should pursue it.

And as you pursue it, you should do it with excellence.

Because part of God's image is he does things excellently.

And you should do it with joy and you should do it with peace, and you should do it with hope.

And like some people would say, and you should do it for the gospel.

And I agree, but I don't think that that means you have to be like, preaching from right field.

Right.

I think what I would say as I process it is if you're doing it, if your ambition, if your pursuit of that goal results in constantly looking and feeling like you're striving all the time, then you probably, it's probably rooted in the wrong kind of ambition.

Right?

Strife to me, striving to me is an indicator of, is our fuel coming from the right place.

And so we could say to this wannabe professional athlete, this aspiring professional athlete, hey, listen, if that's the gift God gave you, yeah, run with it and do it with joy and do it with hope and do it with peace and do it in a way where when everyone else is stressed out and they're freaking out and they're striving and there's strife and there's, there's competition and there's rivalry, like, you get to do it outside of that box and that's going to be the thing.

And you get to do it with excellence because God cares about that too, but he doesn't care about, I don't think the excellence if it comes at the expense of his image, of his peace and his joy and his love and his hope and being outside of the storm that's created in that professional sports arena.

And so I think you could take that and you could apply it to every single situation you could talk about.

And yes, I think it's rooted in, in order for that to even be possible, you have to put off the old man, as Paul would say, and you have to put on the new man.

And like, for me, I basically have to do it every day.

And, and I'm not perfect at it, but it's every day waking up and saying, listen, like the whole purpose of the enemy in our, in our brains is to deceive us, is to, is to get us to believe things that aren't true or to not believe things that are true.

And so the first thing I think he often wants us to believe is like, we're still the old man.

And as long as we're still the old man, our ambition is wrong.

And, you know, we treat our spouse wrong and, you know, whatever, you could name a million things.

So every day it's like we wake up and we say, I'm putting that off.

That's behind me, that's in my rear view mirror.

Like, I'm not even looking at it.

God doesn't even remember it.

And instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to put on this new man and I'm going to pursue today whether it's whatever ambitions I have for godly purpose.

And again, I don't think like, I think we put God in these little boxes and we say, well, godly ambition has to look like you preaching the gospel.

It's like, well, it did for Paul.

I think godly ambition for many people who aren't preachers is my life has to look like the gospel and my life has to look like God.

And God creates beauty and he creates order and he creates excellence and he does things excellently and he's not striving and he's not full of strife.

And so it's like that's all good ambition.

Cool.

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