Last week, we explored Hexagram 38, which highlights the nature of opposition and fighting for what’s right. Now, we shift gears into Human Design Gate 54, which we call, “Ambition.” This 54th gateway marks the beginning of the Entrepreneurial Circuitry in Human Design. As such, it is concerned with what compels somebody to be an entrepreneur. What is it that gives them that sense that they’ve got something different in them that they need to put out into the world?

There’s a pressure within the entrepreneur to produce something for the world. There’s an ambition to grow in life, to expand, to come off the bottom end of the totem pole, to rise up and accomplish. And as an entrepreneur, they’re going to find their own way through.

The Marrying Maiden

If we look at the traditional translation from the Chinese I-Ching for this gateway, it’s called, the “Marrying Maiden.” The story behind the marrying maiden is about a young girl who marries into a station considered to be above her own family.

In this story, the young girl starts out as one of the concubines for the emperor. But she quickly realizes that the emperor’s lifestyle is going to lead him to an early grave, and her with him. So, she begins to make all kinds of connections in the court. When the emperor dies, instead of getting buried alongside him, she uses these connections to rise up in the court and actually becomes the empress herself and has a very commanding life from that point on. So, she followed her ambition, saw what was needed, where to make the connections, and took over.

So that is the power of the energy in this particular Human Design Gate. It’s about proceeding in life through committing first to your own independence, finding out what it is that’s moving you, and then making connections to outside sources that can assist you. And in this sense the ambition is both material and spiritual. It’s about honoring your gods, honoring any source that you recognize can bring about great resources and assistance for you in your own growth in life.

Let’s take a look at this Human Design Gate line by line:

First Line: Be Confident

The first line always lays out the foundation of the hexagram. And the foundation of that entrepreneurial ambition is to “be confident.” It’s rarer than we might think. Have we ever been encouraged to be confident in ourselves? Or is it more about the things that we do? Is it more our station in life? We are often encouraged to draw our confidence from where we are in life, our “achievements,” rather than from within. This is antithetical to the entrepreneur.

The entrepreneur is seeking to do their own thing and has this urge to move on. So, the whole thing involves recognizing and acting on one’s confidence. You may have no idea where this thing is heading necessarily. You just have a vision, but the first line is saying, “In lowly situations, wherever you start off, be true to yourself.”

Which leads us to the most important question: how do we stay true to ourselves? We trust our own Type and Authority. You trust your own Design, whatever that might be. It’s unique. You have a unique frequency. There are no two people on this planet living the same life. Confidence is an inside job!

Second Line: Resolving

The second line always has this natural approach to life. It doesn’t necessarily look for input, but can be quite well attuned to those that can assist, and it calls itself “Resolving: holding firmly to your vision of transformation.”

Input from other people might disturb your vision. It can upset that sense of where you want things to go. So, you have to maintain your clear perception of what you consider to be right. We all know what’s right. That’s just something within us. We also know what’s wrong. And what’s right is whatever it is that resonates with you.

The entrepreneurial path is tricky. You look around the world and you see there’s not an awful lot of encouragement to be yourself. You have to be really tuned into who it is that can facilitate, and what are the right steps to make. And it’s important to recognize that failure is part of it. Just talk to Edison about his lightbulb. It took thousands and thousands of failures before the thing actually worked. And even then, there was room for a lot of improvement.

Third Line: Being Prudent

The third line can be reckless. It’s always seeking to be the first one in. It jumps in headfirst. Here the line is called, “Being Prudent: compromising yourself is possible through indiscretions.”

It’s not a great feeling when we get compromised or we take a wrong step, or we make a wrong connection somewhere or other, and all the sudden we realize that everything seems to be playing against us.

You patiently avoid shortcuts to transformation, or you grasp at every chance and find great trials. Yes, there are shortcuts, but this is about being patient. It’s about recognizing your own pace and path. When you jump at every potential shortcut or helping hand that comes your way, you start getting involved with too many people. You start owing favors in all kinds of different directions, and you compromise your vision.

Fourth Line: Illuminating

The fourth line here is called “Illuminating,” and it’s a very different line. As I said when we started looking through this hexagram, it’s about making associations on both the material and spiritual levels. And the fourth line is where we encounter some real potential disruptions.

Life can be going along in a very straightforward way, whatever enterprise you’re involved in is doing very well, and then suddenly the lights go out. All the colors invert, everything goes back to front. And the question is: Can you maintain your balance? When life suddenly shows you something very different, are you going to lose your track? Are you going to lose that sense of self-confidence that you started out with in the first line?

When this happens, there is a call to acknowledge that Existence has her plans for us. Every now and again the lights go out and we’re kind of floundering around a little bit. This is an extraordinary thing, and it opens up a space for transformation in its purest form. It’s the transformation that comes when you realize that what you want is not necessarily worth having.

What you’ve been going after, what your ambition is, all the sudden you realize you don’t really want it. It doesn’t really have any substance for you. The bubble has burst, and you have to find out how to live with that. The ambition is still there, but it has shifted. Like I said, it’s quite an unusual line, but very powerful.

Fifth Line: Finding Spirituality

The fifth line is called, “Finding Spirituality: holding high principles in all aspects of your life.” When we think of the word ambition, we tend to think of somebody who’s just going after it no matter what. They’re using their elbows. They’re pushing their way through.

However, there are also those that have this very long term viewing of things. Their ambition is to have an extraordinary life, to be sovereign in their own life. They want to have a really amazing life experience, and see who crosses their path, and who they’re drawn to.

The fifth line is about honoring that higher principle. It’s about being really honorable to yourself before engaging your ambition in the world. You make yourself available to assist the needs of the times and stability for transformation. Fifth lines always have the overview. They can see what it is that can really benefit not only themselves, but everybody else. And you know that if you’re overly ambitious, you can just push through everybody and everything to get what you want. But the fifth line is calling you to remember and honor the higher aspects of life.

Sixth Line: Being Politically Correct

The sixth line always has that complete overview of everything in the hexagram. It can see where it’s worth making connections. You can sense who can really help. And the line here is called, “Being Politically Correct.” Here, it’s important to be watchful of your purpose and sincerity.

Sincerity is important when it comes to ambition. It’s the difference between energizing those interactions that are essential and just being seen to do the right thing. The sixth line can do that. The ambition is so intense that they’ll just butter up everybody along the way. Like a politician doing all the “right things” in order to get the votes, rather than being true to himself and what he really believes in. You have to be careful about that.

You can be ambitious, but be honest in your motives. Go about your ambition respectfully, without taking advantage of people. Stick to mutually advantageous relationships, rather than one-sided relationships. You’re not squashing people or pushing people aside in order to move forward in your own life.

You’ll find that ambition for its own sake is a waste of energy. It doesn’t matter how high you climb, you get to the top, you become the CEO, and then three heart attacks and three divorces later, you’re no better off for it.

So again, it’s important to be very careful about this. Recognize what is the ambition all about. What is the drive all about? Is it something that comes from within? Is there really this push forward from within to grow and to expand and to have a really extraordinary lifetime?

So, there we are, that’s the 54th Human Design Gate. We’ll check in again soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Human Design and discover how your own Design informs and shapes your life, get your Free Human Design Report today.