"I Got Rich When I Understood This" | Jeff Bezos

i was working at a financial firm in new york city with a bunch of very smart people and i had a brilliant boss i much admired i went to my boss and told him i was going to start a company selling books on the internet he took me on a long walk in central park listened carefully to me and finally said that sounds like a really good idea but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job you can have a job or you can have a career or

you can have a calling and if you can somehow figure out how to have a calling you have hit the jackpot because that's the big deal i met jeff bezos 25 years ago and he told me dave i want you to invest in my company what are you doing i'm gonna start a bookstore in my garage okay i'm gonna put it online people buy buy online and i'm gonna ship out of my garage but but if you invest in me dave someday i'm gonna be the richest man in the world i'll do over 100 billion

dollars first of all there was no such thing as a hundred billion dollars 25 years ago statistically there's no such thing countries didn't have a hundred our national debt wasn't a hundred billion dollars and this dude's telling me at 26 years old that he's gonna be the richest man in the world because he has a garage in the internet that was his truth no but he did not he did not know it and neither did i but the difference between him and i is i was laughing scoffing and jesting at him and he was already

applauding himself going at the right way at the perfect time i'm gonna make as much as i can as quickly and i'm sitting there going there's no way this is gonna be a big business do something you're very passionate about and don't try to chase what is kind of the hot passion of the day seen in that light it really was a difficult choice but ultimately i decided i had to give it a shot i didn't think i'd regret trying and failing and i suspected i would always be haunted by a decision to not try

at all after much consideration i took the less safe path to follow my passion and i'm proud of that choice as a young boy i had been a garage inventor i'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement filled tires a solar cooker that didn't work very well out of an umbrella and aluminum foil baking pan alarms to entrap my siblings i'd always wanted to be an inventor and she wanted me to follow my passion it's a military phrase that i especially love and it says slow is smooth and smooth is fast and i have

seen that in every endeavor i've ever been in that's the kind of thing that really allows you to make progress you know you get certain gifts in life and you want to take advantage of those but you i guess my advice on adversity and success would be to be proud not of your gifts but of your hard work and your choices so you know you may be the kinds of gifts you get you know you might be really good at math it might be really easy for you that's a kind of gift but practicing that

math and taking it to the next step that could be very challenging and hard and take a lot of sweat that's a choice you can't really be proud of your gifts because they were given to you you can be grateful for them and thankful for them um and but your choices you choose to work hard um you choose to do hard things those are choices that you can be proud of you can choose we all get to choose our life stories and it's the choices that define us not our gifts everybody in this room has

many gifts i have many gifts you can never be proud of your gifts because they're gifts they were given to you you might be you know tall and or you might be really good at math or you might be extremely beautiful or handsome or you know they're or they're many gifts and you can only be proud really of your choices because those are the things that you are that you're that you are acting on and one of the most important choices that each of us has and you know this just as well as i do

is you can choose a life of ease and comfort or you can choose a life of service and adventure and when you're 80 which one of those things you think you're going to be more proud of you're going to be more proud of having chosen a life of service and adventure never been a better time to be alive i mean it's just an incredible the amount of inspiration that the world generates for me and i think for a lot of people it's just it's insane the amount of change and invention and opportunity your life the

life you author from scratch on your own begins how will you use your gifts what choices will you make will inertia be your guide or will you follow your passions will you follow dogma or will you be original will you choose a life of ease or a life of service and adventure will you wilt under criticism or will you follow your convictions will you bluff it out when you're wrong or will you apologize will you guard your heart against rejection or will you act when you fall in love will you play it safe or will

you be a little bit swashbuckling when it's tough will you give up or will you be relentless [Music] will you be a cynic or will you be a builder will you be clever [Music] at the expense of others or will you be kind every time you figure out some way of providing tools and services that empower other people to deploy their creativity you're really onto something you know you're very lucky if you have a career a lot of people end up with a job if you don't love your work you're never going to be great

at it jules verne mark twain galileo newton all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now as a civilization we will have so many gifts just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me [Music] how you use these gifts and will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices [Music] you