No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Ambition gets in the way of excellence

There's something counterintuitive here that hits hard once you notice it. The people most desperate to be teachers or leaders often bring that desperation with them into the room—a need to prove something, to be seen as smart, to maintain control. That hunger can actually get in the way. The best teachers you remember probably weren't performing for you; they were genuinely curious about whether you understood. The best leaders weren't obsessed with being obeyed; they were focused on solving the actual problem.

This matters because so much of modern life rewards visible ambition. We're taught to want things loudly, to network, to position ourselves. But Plato's point suggests that real skill emerges when your ego steps aside. A parent who desperately needs their teenager to respect them often inspires the opposite. A manager who's more interested in being liked than in clear feedback creates confusion. The paradox is that the best teachers and leaders tend to get there almost accidentally—because they were absorbed in the work itself, not in securing the role.

The tricky part is that you probably can't just decide not to care whether you succeed. But you can notice when your need for the position is doing the thinking for you, and gently redirect attention back to the actual work: the material, the people, the problem. That shift, small as it seems, changes everything.