The power of the mind isn’t a joke. In fact, the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, has now disclosed the one thing he did that catapulted him to levels of incredible success.
Bezos was interviewed at the ideas festival Summit LA17 event in Los Angeles, where he shed light on what it took for him to acquire a net worth of more than $94 billion.
You may be familiar with the story of Bezos quitting his Wall Street finance software engineering job to start up Amazon.com in his garage in 1994. Since then, Amazon has surged to annual revenues of $136 billion — making it one of the most successful companies ever. What many of us don’t know is what gave him the confidence to make his bold decision.
As Bezos considered whether to strike out on his own, he took a few days away from his day-to-day work activities and thought about what it would be like to start his own business. But he didn’t imagine what it would be like a month or year into the future. He took his imagining to another level.
“The best way to think about it was to project my life forward to age 80, and then take the path that minimized my regrets,” Bezos said.
He said when applying this technique, the right decision became “immediately obvious.” He then naturally chose to quit his Wall Street job, starting an online bookstore that soon grew into something bigger than he could have ever planned for.
But what if he failed? No worries. According to Bezos, “If it failed, I would be very proud when I was 80 that I tried.”
Would you like to improve your own chances of making the right decision? Are you waiting to make a tough choice about your future? Give Bezos’s approach a try by projecting your life forward to age 80. Then make the decision that makes you feel prouder than any other.
Do that, and you’ll find the success you seek — in business and in life.
