“What does ambition mean and look like to you?”
My good friends at CNBC asked me this question some weeks ago, and I smiled at the opportunity to share its many meanings.
Ambition from a 50,000 ft. view looks like people of every shape, color, hue, religious and educational background, gender, sexual orientation, and national identity, understanding that they can choose to live an empowered life and shake the shackles of poverty.
That’s not a pipe dream. That is ambition. The work we do at Operation HOPE isn’t impossible; it is simply ambitious. And it can be achieved when we all lean in together. But it starts with you, and it starts at home.
My mother, Juanita Smith, told me as a child that being broke is an economic state that can be overcome. Poverty, however, is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of spirit. She then made me vow never to be poor again.
I’ve kept that vow and made it my life’s work and mission to spread that ambitious mindset to the rest of America. Operation HOPE and I are helping to inaugurate the Third Reconstruction — the unleashing of human capital at scale which will transform our society.
We are well on our way to achieving this goal in our lifetime, and it requires all of us to lean in and do the work. But first, we must commit to becoming radically financially inclusive and make the free market work for everyone, not just the few.
Take a look at the short produced by CNBC here and share it broadly with your friends. I believe that it’ll be an encouragement to them.