Martin Meadows is the pen name of a bestselling author who has dedicated his life to personal growth. He constantly reinvents himself by making drastic changes in his life. Over the years, he has: regularly fasted for over 40 hours, taught himself two foreign languages, lost over 30 pounds in 12 weeks, ran several businesses in various industries, took ice-cold showers and baths, lived on a small tropical island in a foreign country for several months, and wrote a 400-page long novel's worth of short stories in one month. Yet, self-torture is not his passion. Martin likes to test his boundaries to discover how far his comfort zone goes. His findings (based both on his personal experience and scientific studies) help him improve his life. If you're interested in pushing your limits and learning how to become the best version of yourself, you'll love Martin's works.

Prologue

Have you ever wondered what separates people who think bigger from people who set their bar low? What makes one person accept low standards and another person constantly raise them?

Why one person strives to build an international organization affecting the lives of millions of people, while another person is content working her entire life as a clerk? (Not that there's anything wrong with being a clerk!)

Why does one person challenge herself to run marathons, train her body and get fitter, while another is happy living a sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle?

What drives a person who's optimizing every single aspect of her life and what causes another person to maintain the status quo?

You can say, "Well, the answer is simple enough - one person is ambitious, while the other one is not." But what exactly causes it? And most importantly - how do you become more ambitious and think bigger? Is it something you're born with and can't change it, or is it something over which you have control?

I found this topic so fascinating I decided to find out the answer for myself and write a book about it. This book is the result of my research about people who think big and the science of being more ambitious.

Before we move on to the first chapter, there are several things I need to clarify to make sure we're on the same page.

First and foremost, while many examples in this book come from billionaires and successful entrepreneurs, this book isn't about how to become one (though it can probably help you). If you're looking for a book on how to become rich, this book is not for you. I researched the mindset behind thinking big, not the business processes. This book is not necessarily for people who are or want to be entrepreneurs.

The goal of this book is to help you learn how to find motivation to become the best version of you. It doesn't matter if your idea of big thinking is running a billion-dollar company or being a respectable member of your community. The objective is to understand how to get yourself fired up to constantly raise your standards.

Secondly, if you decided to read this book, I assume there's already some motivation to change inside you - even if it's tiny and you struggle with procrastination. Only you can tell if it's really there or if you're content with what you have now. This book won't magically make you ambitious. It can only help you find out how to improve your motivation and think bigger.

Last but not least, there's nothing wrong with not dreaming big. The key to a happy life is fulfillment. If you find fulfillment in a simple, unchallenging life, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, you're probably not my target reader, and the topics I'll cover in this book won't appeal to you.

I wrote this book to increase my motivation, teach myself how to think bigger and learn how to raise my standards. I hope the answer I found will help you as much as it has helped me.

Chapter 1 : What Makes You Ambitious?

There's a common belief that genes and upbringing have a huge influence on whether someone is ambitious or not. Yet, it isn't that simple.

Children of billionaires can either follow their parents' tracks and build another successful billion-dollar company, or the cozy life can turn them into vain and unproductive people. Children born in poor families can "inherit" learned helplessness and stay poor just like their parents. Or their hunger for success will drive them to improve their situation.

If there's one thing we can say about upbringing and ambitions, it's that there's no clear correlation between your background and what you're going to achieve in life.

Some anthropologists suggest that members of the upper middle class are most driven to achievement. Unlike the poor, they're not struggling to get by. And unlike the rich, they still feel hunger to achieve more.

However, it still doesn't explain why many wealthy people still strive for more and why some people coming from a poor background overcome their unfavorable circumstances. There are several reasons we'll investigate in this chapter. Since we can't change our background and upbringing, we'll focus only on the causes we can directly control.

Examples Around You

Let's start with the most obvious cause - social modeling.

According to the social learning theory, learning takes place in a social context. You can adapt new behaviors purely through observation2. If you have ever changed one of your behaviors because you observed it in your friends (say, you started wearing collared shirts on a daily basis because that's how your friends dress), it's social modeling at work.

Everything that surrounds you on a daily basis has an influence on you. Rolf Dobelli, bestselling author of The Art of Thinking Clearly, wrote an essay about the influence of news on your life. He writes that news triggers your limbic system, almost as if you were constantly on the lookout for threats. This heightened state of awareness leads to chronic stress, a deregulated immune system, fear, and aggression.

And that's just the result of watching or reading news. People who surround you have a much stronger impact on your behavior, including whether you're ambitious or avoid any challenges.

Fortunately, we can choose what examples we allow in our lives.

The first and most easily accessible source of the right examples is books. Many successful people (Peter Diamandis, Tony Robbins, and Tim Ferriss, to name a few) credit books as the number one reason for their success in life.

One simple change - replacing news and mass media with books - can produce dramatic changes in your life. No matter what your ambition in life is, you can find books that will inspire you to work on your goals.

Direct, in-person influence of successful people is another source that can fire you up to achieve big things in your life. However, meeting successful people is not as easy as buying a book. Unless you live in the Silicon Valley or any other place populated with successful people you want to emulate, it takes much more work to find them.

Thankfully, the Internet makes it extremely easy to interact with such individuals. Although meeting these people in person will have a much more powerful impact on you, talking with them online is still a viable way to light the fire inside you.

Studies show that observing people you view as similar to you improves your self-efficacy (the strength of the belief in your abilities, which I discussed in my book Confidence: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs and Achieve Your Goals) more than watching people with whom you don't share as much. In other words, you'll get more fired up by watching people similar to you succeed than by watching people who are much more skilled than you (please note it doesn't mean you'll learn more from them - it's best to emulate the most successful people). I'm a huge fan of online communities like forums, membership sites and groups on social media sites. Since they are populated by people at all levels of competence, you can easily find people just a little better than you who will motivate you to raise your standards. It's easier to relate to and get motivated by an entrepreneur who has gone from $1000 per month to $5000 per month in a span of six months than from a billionaire who has launched yet another million-dollar business. Watching a person who successfully loses fifty pounds and changes her life is more inspirational than listening to a fitness coach with a perfect body.

Surrounding yourself with empowering books and people on a daily basis will put you into a positive state that will inspire you to raise your standards. Please keep in mind it's a process of conditioning, and it's never-ending.

Stay Away from Negativity

Since we tend to process negative information more thoroughly than good feedbacks, it's crucial to reduce or eliminate negative stimuli from our lives.

People who discourage you from setting big goals decrease your motivation more effectively than empowering people increase it. If you have ever shared a big goal with someone and she told you, "Get real, you'll never achieve it," you probably understand how much more destructive it is than words of encouragement.

It's not always possible to eliminate toxic relationships from your life, but the less time you spend with these people, the better it will be for both your mental health and personal success.

Be aware of your surroundings and try to replace the bad influence with positive feedback. If you find it extremely hard to distance yourself from the negativity, consider moving to a different place and starting anew.

Your Energy and a Sense of Urgency

There are two kinds of ambitious people - people who have big goals and act on them, and people who say "one day I'll do X," but never do it. The difference between these two kinds of people is, among others, their level of energy and urgency.

British billionaire Richard Branson, when asked about his secret of productivity, gave a surprisingly simple answer: "Work out." It's his physical wellness that keeps his brain sharp and his body ready to constantly travel all over the world, build new industry-changing businesses and solve some of the world's biggest problems.

Perhaps it sounds cliché, but physical wellbeing is indeed one of the keys to success. If you don't demand much from your body, how much more will you demand from yourself in other areas of your life? If your body doesn't work on the highest level, how are you supposed to work on the big goals?

The second difference between "someday" people and people who take action right away is their sense of urgency. What drives them to achieve more is their perception of time -- life is short, and they want to make the most out of it. Hence, they set big goals. They don't have time to work on small thinking, because it's only the bold ideas that will lead to exponential results.

There is also another reason why ambitious action-takers are so driven to do everything right now instead of waiting for the right time - we'll discuss it in more detail in the second chapter.

Your Needs

Poor people who struggle to get by can't afford the luxury of high ambitions. It's hard to think big when you're not sure if you can pay the bills or afford to buy food this month. The constant fight to stay afloat robs you of the energy to think in the long term.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that self-actualization (the drive to achieve your full potential) and self-transcendence (giving yourself to higher goals like spirituality or altruism) can only happen if all other, lower needs (food, shelter, security, a sense of belongingness, etc.) are satisfied first.

Copyright: Meadows Publishing