With so much talk about graduations at this time of year, I find myself thinking a lot about ambition and success and what I might impart to young grads.

Because I pretty much exceeded everyone’s expectations in my family when I graduated high school, no one really understood my off-the-chart ambition. They still don’t. So I forged my own path, complete with stumbles, but remained exceedingly loyal to my gut.

I believe that’s why I attract life coaching clients who have been told somewhere along the way that they “can’t” or “aren’t being practical” even though that is an “awfully nice dream.” It usually turns out that the awfully nice dream is something that actually uses their natural gifts as opposed to something a controlling (sometimes well-meaning) elder steered them to during critical decision-making points in their lives. They bought into it and put themselves on a path that never felt quite right.

Sadly, there’s no magic wand that can make someone who’s been fed a steady stream of negativity or whose ambition is consistently squashed suddenly realize they are as smart or smarter, as gifted or more gifted, than those who have had enormous success. If there’s been little or no belief in possibility instilled in them, no feeling of ‘can-do,’ then how would they know it exists?

In my case, the fire in my belly has always been so persistent that I’ve made a point of seeking out and learning from the like-minded and trying my best to tune out the naysayers. Songs like “Don’t Rain on My Parade” fueled the passion – Don’t tell me not to fly, I’ve simply got to – and I almost dared anyone to stand in my way. That fire in the belly is so familiar to me that I can spot people with a similar spark a mile away. The ones who come to me now as adults are often lost, even at this point not understanding what is possible. They don’t need a business plan, they need to be shown possibility and that they are not crazy for wanting to gravitate to something that feels right at soul level.

There came a point where I thrived on the obstacles, craved them, in fact. And then what set in is a feeling of peace, where yearning gave way to striving but simultaneously savoring. That’s how you know you’re on to something real, that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing with your life or you’re darned close.

This brings me to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers – The Story of Success, particularly where he explains the “10,000-hour rule” and legacy as parts of the formula for success. In the former, he looks at the success stories behind Bill Gates and the Beatles, among others, and the extraordinary amount of time they put in to mastering their respective crafts. In the latter, he cites research regarding parenting styles and parental modeling and how that impacts a person’s expectations of success.

Honestly, I cannot do justice to Outliers in this column space, but suffice to say Gladwell more than makes the case for hard work and how feeling entitled to a successful life is paramount. He quotes researcher Daniel Levitin:

The emerging picture … is that ten-thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert – in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.

While reading Gladwell’s book, I realized how painstakingly I prepared for the opportunities I have now. Devouring the work of other writers was and continues to be essential to learning this craft, as was the realization that I had to feed my intellect despite it being frowned upon in my parochial extended family.

Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Anna Quindlen unwittingly helped me on both scores. Back in her days at The New York Times, I read her column voraciously because I had never seen opinion expressed by an Italian-American, Catholic female who was from New Jersey (like me). At that time I was just learning that questioning meant I was intelligent and that irreverence was admirable. I was introduced to possibility by seeking, again and again, year after year.

That’s why I always marvel at young people who seem to get it right away. My cousin’s daughter, Dominique, just finished her freshman year at George Washington University and is in Egypt studying Arabic as I write this. She sees only possibility. Isn’t that stunning?

As I think about today’s graduates, I cannot help but also think about my life coaching clients who were wearing the cap and gown 20 or 30 years ago, the ones who didn’t follow their gut and who didn’t feel entitled to create their success stories on their terms for whatever reason.

To all of the above I say this: You know what you want to do, or at least have a germ of an idea. Go with it. It will be your greatest contribution to yourself and the world. 

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.