Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / Is ambition TOXIC or DIVINE? What Nina Simone teaches us about GREATNESS

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Is ambition TOXIC or DIVINE? What Nina Simone teaches us about GREATNESS · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  What is the relationship between ambition and the soul?
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  That's a question I have.
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  That's interesting, right?
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  I'm a very ambitious person, a Capricorn rising, if you will, but also just and also just I feel like I like to I'm a striver.
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  Am I proud of it?
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  I don't know, but I'm coming to terms with that's just who I am.
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  Like I'm quite competitive and I use quite to be gentle to myself.
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  I am like I want to I don't like the word win, but if you have to say it like I know capitalism has made us conditioned.
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  us to believe everything is a competition.
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  I know that.
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  I know that.
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  But at the same time,
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  you know, I have that part of my spirit.
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  I have to be aware of it.
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  It is there.
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  And it has been
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  part of what my therapist taught me to do was like, honor all parts of you as sacredly like
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  part of why you are in the position that you're in.
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  So I can't deny that part of that part of me
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  is part of why you've come to see me in this video, because I have that part of me.
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  I'm very,
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  I'm an ambitious person.
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  So I think about, you know, there's this quote, I don't know who said
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  it, but it's a beautiful quote that said, the more healed I am, the less ambitious I become.
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  Because so much of our ambition is fueled by trauma.
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  It's fueled by not feeling good enough.
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  It's fueled by the sense that we have to perform and do a lot in order to receive love,
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  because it all comes back to love.
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  So if we're ambitious, it's often because if we think,
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  if we had that money or fame or accolades or success, then I'd be accepted.
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  Then I'd be loved.
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  Then I'd belong.
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  Then my parents would be proud of me.
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  Then I'd show my bullies.
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  You know, there's a
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  lot of trauma fuel that can happen.
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  So what that quote is saying is that the more we heal and we
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  come home to unconditional love, which is our nature, the less we feel an ambitious ambition
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  to do anything, like an ambition to be the best at anything, an ambition.
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  But at the same time,
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  I have a little bit of, I'm questioning my relationship with this because I just feel so drawn to greatness.
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  I'm like, greatness?
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  There's God in that.
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  There's the infinite in that.
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  There is spirit in that.
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  When you witness someone who is embodying their craft, their calling at the highest level.
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  okay you cannot help but to feel inspired and what is that word inspire in spirit there's something
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  divine about greatness and that doesn't mean the opposite is true that there's something
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  less worthy or valuable about the opposite what we're saying is when you witness someone it could
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  be for me I oh my goodness this is so random I watched the Rafael Nadal I'm not even a tennis
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  fan okay are you a Nikki fan I'm not even a tennis fan I watched the Nadal documentary because one
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  thing those sports documentary people can do is tell a story, is tell a story and leave you,
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  like documentaries are so wonderful.
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  So leave you on this cliffhanger.
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  Okay.
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  So like I'm,
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  I'm reading Nina Simone's book.
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  I'm learning about her obsession.
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  Oh my goodness.
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  She would
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  practice piano for like five to seven hours a day.
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  Can you believe it?
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  Like what is time?
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  I could
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  never.
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  That is just so wild to me in the most amazing way, which also makes me think about
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  technology and tech addiction and how who today is practicing piano for seven hours a day.
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  Like,
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  oh my word, so much creative capacity is lost because, oh my word, like that kind of attention,
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  there almost has to be nothing else to do.
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  Wait, no, that's not fair because there was other things.
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  she just chose to do that thing.
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  Okay.
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  So, so much respect to her.
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  So she literally from a very,
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  very young age, like 12-ish, she played piano since she was, she had a musical inclination
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  since she was like a baby.
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  They said she could read sheet music at like three.
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  She was like
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  extremely musical.
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  She called herself a musical genius.
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  She spent five to seven hours of her life
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  force learning the piano.
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  Okay.
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  Learning classical music.
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  Then she would improvise lines of Bach
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  with jazz music.
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  And she just had this incredible talent, but it was also because she had this
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  incredible focus.
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  So what did she touch in her lifetime?
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  You know that she started singing
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  because she was playing in these clubs that preferred singers.
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  So then she realized,
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  they realized like she can sing and she has this incredibly, just unbelievable, astonishingly
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  magical voice.
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  The story is extremely fascinating.
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  Another incredible tidbit that I learned was that
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  And her name is not Nina Simone.
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  And I don't want to make it incorrect.
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  I don't know.
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  I forgot what it is because it's Eunice.
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  And then I want to say Wason.
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  I can't remember her last name.
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  But you know why she came up with the name Nina Simone?
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  Because her mom was a preacher and her mom wouldn't have supported her playing in night
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  clubs and playing, quote unquote, the devil's music.
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  And so she made up a fake name to hide her playing in clubs, her music career from her
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  mom.
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  so she knew her mom would what would what would judge her it all comes back but she insisted
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  she insisted and it broke her heart the book speaks about how she had the affection of the
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  world her sister says this but the one person's affection who she craved most who she needed most
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  never gave it to her and that was her mom
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  now so much respect i'm not a historian so if i'm telling these details a little bit incorrectly
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  please nina we respect and love you so much love and respect and where we were was greatness
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  and ambition and the soul now nina simone is a soul singer nina simone sings with something that
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  is visceral and makes music with something that is they said she could cast spell a spell on the
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  rooms that she performed in.
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  And now we want to say that ambition is the opposite of soul.
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  I don't agree.
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  What she chose to be in her lifetime was great.
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  And we get to experience
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  her greatness through her music.
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  And I think it is divine that she had that calling,
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  that singularity of purpose to be so obsessed with music that she wanted to see it to the
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  highest possibility.
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  And so I don't feel that the more healed I become, the less ambitious I am.
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  I do love that sentiment, but I think that witnessing people in their greatness is a gift
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  and that creates legends.
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  Okay.
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  That people who are obsessed with pursuing their calling or craft
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  to the highest level create stories that we have to keep telling.
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  there's a magnetism there that I do think is not only because capitalism teaches us to be
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  competitive I think there's something spiritual about witnessing someone in their mastery okay
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  do we even like the word mastery in the highest expression of their talents