Ambition

He came within 97 miles of the South Pole and turned back because his party was running out of food. In 1915, his ship Endurance was crushed by the ice of Antarctica's Weddell Sea, stranding 28 men with no radio and nobody in the world knowing where they were. To get help, he sailed a 22-foot open boat more than 800 miles across the Drake Passage, then crossed a mountain island no one had ever crossed. Every one of his men made it home.

This is the story of Ernest Shackleton, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode: 

• Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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He was the 15th-generation heir to a 300-year-old sake-brewing family, and his father let him walk away. In 1946, he and Masaru Ibuka pooled about $500 in the ruins of postwar Tokyo to start the company that became Sony. When Bulova offered to buy 100,000 of his radios on the condition that they carry the Bulova name, he said no. By the time he died at 78, Sony was one of the most famous brands in the world.

This is the story of Akio Morita, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode:

• Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita with Edwin M. Reingold and Mitsuko Shimomura

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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• Connect with Justin on LinkedIn 

Kobe Bryant started his workouts at 5 am to fit in an extra session a day, took up tap dancing to strengthen his ankles, and read the referees’ handbook to learn where the officials couldn’t see. That obsession carried him through 20 seasons with the Lakers and five championships.

This is the story of Kobe Bryant, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode:

• The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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• Connect with Justin on LinkedIn 

By 31, Charlie Munger had been through a divorce and had just lost his nine-year-old son to leukemia. He went on to become Warren Buffett's partner and the man Buffett called the architect of Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile company they built into one of the most valuable companies in the world.

This is the story of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner for more than 40 years at Berkshire Hathaway, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode: 

• Poor Charlie's Almanack by Peter D. Kaufman

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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He was the son of a Toronto barber, still broke at 40 after failing at business after business. Then he bought a small-town radio station and a small-town newspaper with $200 down. 

By the time he died at 82, he owned more than 200 newspapers, including The Times of London, and held the Scottish TV franchise he famously called "a license to print your own money." Today, the Thomson family is the richest family in Canada.

This is the story of Roy Thomson, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode:

• Roy Thomson of Fleet Street by Russell Braddon

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit on September 24th, 2026
• Follow Justin on Twitter
• Connect with Justin on LinkedIn 

The greatness of Zemurray lies in the fact that he never lost faith in his ability to salvage a situation. Bad things happened to him, as bad things happen to everyone, but unlike so many, he was never tempted by failure. He never felt powerless or trapped. 

He was an optimist. He stood in constant defiance. When the Secretary of State teamed up with J.P. Morgan and the Honduran government in a way contrary to Zemurray's interests, he simply changed the Honduran government. When United Fruit drew a line at the Utila River and said, "You shall not cross," he crossed anyway. When he was forbidden to build a bridge, he built a bridge but called it something else. 

For every move, there is a countermove. For every disaster, there is a recovery. He never lost faith in his own agency. With his fortune fast diminishing, it was time to act.

This is the story of Sam Zemurray, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Source for this episode: 

• The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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The company she started in 1946 is today worth more than $30 billion. Her story? It's one of obsession and persistence, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading about. 

This is the story of Estée Lauder, and we have a lot to learn from her.

Source for this episode: 

• Estēe: A Success Story by Estēe Lauder

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
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In 1968, a thirteen-year-old kid in Cupertino was building a frequency counter and needed parts. So he opened the phone book, found the home number of Bill Hewlett, the founder of Hewlett-Packard, and called him. Hewlett talked with him for 20 minutes, got him the parts, and gave him a summer job.

More than four decades later, when HP abandoned its Cupertino campus, that same kid quietly bought the land, a hundred and fifty acres. By then, his company had passed Microsoft to become the most valuable technology company in the world. But he admired the way Hewlett and Packard had built a company that lasted, and he prided himself on having done the same.

In June 2011, he stood before the Cupertino City Council and unveiled the plans for what would become his company's new home on that ground. It was one of his last public appearances. Four months later, he was gone.

This is the story of Steve Jobs, how he built Apple, and what we can learn from him.

Source for this episode: 

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
• Follow Justin on Twitter
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At 38, Dietrich Mateschitz was a burned-out toothpaste salesman staring at the same gray airplanes, gray suits, and gray hotel bars, wondering if the next decade would look like the last one. Then he found a strange Thai energy drink, bet everything on it, and built Red Bull into an empire that paid him a record $865 million dividend months before his death and helped him amass a personal fortune worth more than $20 billion.

This is the story of Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull, and we have a lot to learn from him.

Sources for this episode: 

• The Red Bull Story: The Unbelievable Success of Dietrich Mateschitz and His Energy Drink Empire by Wolfgang Fürweger
• Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac by Duff McDonald
• The Soda With Buzz by Kerry A. Dolan

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
• Follow Justin on Twitter
• Connect with Justin on LinkedIn 

They were two bicycle mechanics from Ohio with no formal engineering training and no funding who set out to solve a problem that had stumped the best minds in the world.
 
It took them four years of learning, experimenting, and overcoming numerous challenges, but they accomplished what many people around the world thought was impossible.

This is the story of the Wright Brothers, and we have a lot to learn from them.

Source for this episode: 

• The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Links:

• Ambition website
• Ambition Summit
• Follow Justin on Twitter
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