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Ego and ambition do they have any relationship between them. In most occasions, people may think, both the ego and the ambition do co-exist.

The interesting question is why only a few people in the world have become really successful while the large ‘chunk’ of people who lives and dies within the small space of friends and relatives. They achieve a little for themselves and to their family and then disappear unheard, untold and unknown.

To be successful in life, one needs to know the relationship between the ego and the ambition. This insight is extremely important to people in the corporate world as they are always stuck between ego and ambition.

The ambition can survive only when the ego is alive. When there is no ego, no one on the earth can live with or for an ambition. The life of such people will be very ordinary, filled with fear, frustrations, worries of age and diseases and pessimism & jealous.

Whenever someone could satisfy their ego, the ambition starts to disappear. We may believe that such people are contented and happy. But they are not truly contented or happy.

A boss when successfully demonstrate his powers to his subordinates and gets a sense that his subordinates respect him for his power, his ego naturally meets its satiation point. Such bosses, thereafter, focus only on proving, convincing and retaining their power than become really powerful by conquering more coveted laurels. The moment they find the subordinates acknowledge their power, they become happy.

Many entrepreneurs love to look great in front of their employees. They put up an image so artificially with the hope that they would look great to others. The very moment someone acknowledges their image, their ego gets satisfied and the ambition goes away. Such entrepreneurs could no longer guide their corporate to success.

School teachers look so great to their students in the context of knowledge and teaching skills. Most teachers gets into a self made web that they are so great by keeping their young students as reference point, never pursue to acquire more knowledge. With time, they engage only in satisfying their ego and not discovering and fulfilling their ambition.

When someone starts satisfying their ego, the demand from their ego to get satisfied further continuously grows. Then the ego becomes everything in life. The ambition becomes a servant of the ego.

The message is clear. Keep your ego as servant of your ambition. Never allow your ego either to get satisfied or to celebrate its satisfaction. Let your ego be a beggar and let it always beg for its satisfaction. Ask and direct your ego to make your ambition successful and only then the ego also can find its satisfaction.

This simple re-adjustment or placing of the cards one should learn in life. Unless one wisely does that, ones life becomes festival of ego where ones ambition becomes an orphan in the ‘carnival crowd’ searching for a parent.

When the mind shifts to comparison mode, people realize that they have achieved nothing. Such feelings will necessarily cripple and paralyze people.

Ego is inevitable for ones success. But remember, the success of ego will script only failure of your ambition and nothing else. Work towards your ambition and make it successful. Let your ego support your ambition and not your ambition supporting and serving your ego.

Dear corporate, do a soul search and find an answer from within.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd.

Learn more from the management book – ‘Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university of nature’ by Swami Sukhabodhananda and Dr S Ranganathan