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Whether you feel like you’re too ambitious in your business dealings or not ambitious enough, there is always room for improvement. These six character traits perfectly describe the way SMART entrepreneurs should harness all that energy and emotion and turn it into a strength.

1. Find other ambitious people to work with: If you know anything about basketball, you’ll know that Michael Jordan is largely considered the greatest player of all time. What you might not know is that he played professionally for seven years before he won the first of his six NBA titles. In his early years, he was the best player on a not-so-great team and his teammates expected him to take every big shot and lead them to victory. When he finally realized that did not work, he reached out to the team’s management asking for help and was rewarded with the addition of several players with the same passion and desire to win above everything else. You might feel like your ambition to achieve is greater than anyone else’s, but that does not mean you have to shoulder the load alone. Finding other people similarly motivated is a great way to push yourself to new heights.
2. Compete only against yourself: This can be tricky if your goal is to be the No. 1 business in your industry or area, but remember, that top spot in the rankings means that you’re doing the very best job you can, what other companies are doing should not matter. The only thing that will satiate your ambition is to reach the goal in front of you and then start plans for the goal after that.
3. Execution is your top priority: You can research the market for years without knowing exactly what’s going to happen next and you can refine your product or service hundreds of times to drill down to the perfect niche. But neither of those things is going to get you in front of your customers and get the solutions they need in hand. 
4. Be Open to New Ideas: You might have envisioned your future success and have a plan drawn up of how you’re going to get there, but it is the foolish person who closes their eyes to other possible solutions. At the rate of speed that technology is currently moving, there are new solutions, new processes, new technology emerging all the time. Your way might not be the best way, and understanding that and being open to new possibilities is an essential part of channeling your ambition into a solution.
5. Keep your goals close to the vest: Your goals are your own personal things, and sharing them with others lessens their value and makes them real before their times. Ensure that your goals are locked up tight in your personal vault where you can work on them and refine them all by yourself.
6. Take Risks: When Winston Churchill watched the German Air Force bomb his beautiful London for 56 out of 57 days and nights during the first half of World War II, he could have capitulated to Adolf Hitler and surrendered, accepting terms that kept the city intact and its residents relatively safe. Instead, he rolled the dice and defied his own Parliament by moving government headquarters into the Underground and fighting back with countermeasures and means of confusing the German bombers as to what their actual targets were. Instead of creating terror among the British citizens, the nightly attacks strengthened the resolve of the British citizens that this was a conflict they must prevail in. At last, the raids stopped and for the first time in the war, the Nazi advance had stopped as well. England did not fall thanks to Churchill’s gamble. This started a long chain of bad decisions and declining results for the Axis powers that ultimately culminated in their defeat.

Stay tuned for more information about the release of Dr Singh’s books ‘Be a true leader not a boss‘ and ‘S.M.A.R.T. Entrepreneuring : How to stay ahead of Competition‘.