Choose that unsafe path and follow your passion.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Fenglunfeng Horse Bull” (ID:fengluntalk), author : Bezos.
Cover Picture | Jeff Bezos
This is an unprecedented graduation season. Many college students are rushed into society without even having a graduation ceremony. At the same time, many people were unemployed and returned to the job market again, “starting from scratch” with the fresh students. How to deal with fierce competition, how to solve inner anxiety, and how to achieve wealth growth in the unknown economic situation?
These real and urgent questions are always answered by successful people of all colors. Ten years ago, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos returned to his alma mater, Princeton, to give a speech, but instead of talking about wealth passwords, he uncharacteristically asked 12 questions.
In a society where information is flooding, we don’t lack all kinds of answers, but we really lack direct answers to our inner questions. Today, Feng Ma Niu shared this speech with everyone. Bezos’s problems guided him to explore his heart and achieve his career. Perhaps, it could also become the vane of our pursuit of ideals.
01 Kindness is harder than being smart
When I was a child, my summer was always spent on the farm of my grandparents in Texas. I help repair windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other housework. Every afternoon, we watch soap operas, especially “Our Years.” My grandparents participated in an RV club, a group of people driving air-trailer RVs, they traveled together in the United States and Canada. Every few summers, I will join them. We hung the RV behind Grandpa’s car, and then joined a vast team of more than 300 RV explorers.
I love my grandparents, I respect them, and I really look forward to these journeys. That was once I was about ten years oldEnough to find a way to make clean energy, it is also possible to assemble micromachines atom by atom, to make them penetrate the cell wall, and then repair the cells.
This month, an unusual and inevitable thing happened-humans finally synthesized life. In the next few years, we will not only synthesize life, but also drive them according to the instructions.
I believe you will even see our understanding of the human brain, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton-all those who are full of curiosity hope to live to the present.
As civilized people, we will have so many talents, just like you sitting in front of me, every living individual has many unique talents.
How do you use these talents? Will you be proud of your talents, or will you be proud of your choices?
16 years ago, I had the idea of starting Amazon. The reality I faced at that time was that Internet usage was increasing at a rate of 2300% per year. I have never seen or heard anything that has grown so fast. The idea of creating an online bookstore that covers millions of books makes me very excited, because this thing simply cannot exist in the physical world.
At that time I was just 30 years old and I was married for only one year. I told my wife McKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and then do this crazy thing. It is likely to fail because most startups are like this, and I am not sure what will happen after that.
Mackenzie told me that I should give it a go. She also graduated from Princeton University and now sits in the second row.
When I was a boy, I was a garage inventor. I have made an automatic door closer with cement-filled tires, umbrellas, tin foil and alarms. I have always wanted to be an inventor, and McKenzie supports me to follow my passion.
I was working in a financial company in New York at that time. Colleagues were a group of very smart people. My boss was also very smart. I envy him. I told my boss that I wanted to start a company that sells books online. He took me to walk in Central Park for a long time, listened to me carefully, and finally said: “It sounds like a really good idea, but for those who have not got a good job, this idea will be better. .”
This logic makes sense to me, he persuaded me to think about 48 hours before finally making a decision.
Thinking like that, this decision was really difficult, but in the end, I decided to fight it once.
I don’t think I’m sorry for the failure after the attempt, but I have made a decision but will not continue to torment me if I don’t do it at all. After much deliberation, I chose the unsafe path to follow my inner passion, and I am proud of that decision.