Name: Remaining Ambitious
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Remaining Ambitious

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We tend to see ambition like a personality trait. We describe people as ambitious, or not, as if it were a fixed property of their being. But the reality is that it ebbs and flows. You can become more ambitious over time as you learn what you are capable of, and as encouraging peers push you along. Conversely, your ambition can recede when you become discouraged. You stop dreaming big. You settle for less.Much has been written on the act of sparking ambition in a young person who hasn’t yet realized their potential. This is, of course, a hugely important undertaking. But so is the nurturing of ambition in those who already have it. settling for lessFirst, what causes the destruction of ambition? failureraisesWhat if the path is blocked not by rocks, but instead by a person? What if this gatekeeper has the power of deciding who gets to climb the mountain, based on some evaluation of your character, and refuses you access? I suspect that you would then be much more likely to give up.rejectionPeople who have done a lot of job hunting — or a lot of dating — know the sting of rejection pretty well. Even when you don’t truly want a job you applied for, or when it’s clear that you don’t really get along with your date, getting rejected hurts. It chips away at your self-confidence. You begin wondering if perhaps you had aimed too high. Maybe you should apply for less prestigious jobs. Maybe you should lower your dating standards. even thoughyou knowabstractlyweren’t the most natural thing to doLet me illustrate with a personal story. Thus began a slow spiral of thinking that my idea wasn’t leading anywhere, and therefore not putting much energy into it, and therefore not getting anywhere, and therefore thinking that my idea wasn’t leading anywhere. in the momentEmergent Ventures works by transferring ambition from the simply great to the truly excellent.I have felt thisa consequenceRegardless, the cost to the rejected applicants — from Emergent Ventures, but also from every other grant, competition, and hiring process — should be taken seriously. A transfer of ambition isn’t thermodynamically perfect: some of it dissipates and is lost. We should strive to minimize the waste, both when we are climbing the mountain, and when we are responsible for gatekeeping its paths.How can we, as people who apply to jobs, schools, contests, funding, publishing houses, and so on, protect our own ambition? How can we soften the blow of rejection?notsomethingjust maybeas much rejection as possibleenoughThe previous section is about dealing with rejection as an applicant. What if you’re a gatekeeper — such as a hiring manager, a grantmaker, a publisher, or a judge in a competition? How should you yield the tremendous power of accepting or rejecting the requests of ambitious people?If you had infinite time and money, you could craft a personalized response to each rejected applicant. Give them feedback. Tell them what they did well. Direct them to other places where their skills and talent could be used for good. But of course, nobody has infinite time and money, so in practice you are most likely to send a generic message. (And that’s if you’re replying to the applicant at all, a low bar that isn’t even always reached.)The art of crafting a generic rejection letter has been honed by generations of gatekeepers. To be fair, most people recognize that rejection stings, and as a result such letters are written in the most diplomatic language possible. Just for fun, let’s look at this fake example made from bits of hiring rejection emails I have received:Thank you for giving us the chance to consider you for [role] at [company]. We really appreciate that you took the time to apply.&nbsp;(Right, I’m sure you really appreciate the extra work of sorting through a bunch of candidates who are not even a good enough fit to be interviewed.)Your background is impressive,enoughbut we have chosen not to move forward with your application at this time.(Implying that you might “move forward” at some later time, riiiight?)We may reach out to you in the future if a position opens up that may be a good fit.(Has this happened to anyone? Ever?)Now, it’s very much possible that such diplomatic rejection letters are the best that most gatekeepers can do with the resources they have. Applications and submissions to (especially) well-known companies, contests, publishers, etc. can reach very high numbers, and there simply isn’t enough time to deal with them on an individual basis. tryIn the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but I'm afraid that due to time considerations, we're no longer able to offer that service.I’m glad that giving detailed feedback is at least seen as an ideal. But I wish we tried to uphold that ideal somewhat more. Because no matter how well-written, a generic rejection letter necessarily steals a little bit of the applicant’s ambition. There is no way for an impersonal rejection to avoid this, precisely because it is impersonal. I have observed firsthand how much better it feels when a rejection letter is evidently personalized to you. I think it’s because it shows that the reviewer took the time to consider you as an individual, which is nice on its own, but also because it provides a bit of transparency. When you have no clue why you were rejected, you are left to speculate, and it’s all too easy to imagine the worst scenarios.By definition, however, individualized rejection cannot scale. All attempts at scaling it up just create what we have now.Instead of simply rejecting people from the mountain path, lead them, with friendliness and encouragement, to another path they can take. Sure, that would probably require more gatekeepers. Then let’s hire more! We’re automating all the other jobs away, anyway. It would also require a change of culture in many domains, from HR departments to funding agencies to the publishing industry. It would mean setting a new ideal. One that would often be unattainable, due to time and money constraints. But one that would be worth reaching for. It wouldn’t be easy. But who said it had to be? After all, we are allowed to be ambitious.Thanks to Tyler Cowen for reading a version of this essay and providing encouragement.Like this postShare this postRemaining Ambitiousetiennefd.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmail2 CommentsFor your security, we need to re-authenticate you.Click the link we sent to , or .Expand full commentExpand full commentNo posts© 2022 Étienne Fortier-Dubois ∙ ∙ &nbsp;is the home for great writingThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please or unblock scripts

We tend to see ambition like a personality trait. We describe people as ambitious, or not, as if it were a fixed property of their being. But the reality is that it ebbs and flows. You can become more ambitious over time as you learn what you are capable of, and as encouraging peers push you along. Conversely, your ambition can recede when you become discouraged. You stop dreaming big. You settle for less.Much has been written on the act of sparking ambition in a young person who hasn’t yet realized their potential. This is, of course, a hugely important undertaking. But so is the nurturing...

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Étienne Fortier-Dubois

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Remaining Ambitious

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