If I had to put my money on any company and any one person, it would be Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Why? Because Jeff is the best anticipator in the world. This anticipation is what helped Bezos find tremendous amounts of success early in life and it’s what helps Amazon continually foresee people’s needs. Bezos and his employees are always thinking long-term rather than short-term, and that is what keeps them ahead of everyone else.
Before Amazon, Bezos worked for Bankers Trust—a huge bank that handled money for large corporations. It was there that he developed a software program that many other companies would use, but the support he was looking for from inside the company never came. This program was developed in 1988, before the internet was a viable option for storing data and before computers were easily accessible. Not knowing the direction that computing would take, employees questioned Bezos and his gift of anticipation to predict that he needed to begin looking to computers and the internet as the future of business. Things weren’t broken, and the staff wanted to remain complacent. This stifling mentality within the company led Bezos to leave for D. E. Shaw, a revolutionary hedge fund business. It was there where Bezos would further explore the power of computers, and ultimately the potential of the Internet to grow a business. This exploration was a success, and it was Jeff’s experience with technology that would eventually lead him to leave safety and fear in order to follow the passion he had for a new startup, amazon.com. [1]
Since you now know the huge success that Amazon has turned into, you can see that his risk was definitely worth the reward. But what about in the beginning, before success is found? Before you know if your idea is an Amazon? It begins with a question: Are your ideas bigger than your fears? In other words, are you passionate about what you are doing? Because when your fears pale in comparison to your love for the ideas you are pursuing, it is much easier to build your bravery muscle. This is why passion matters: passion is the only thing that continually leads to bravery.
As you can see from Bezos’s life, it can be anticipation that helps people prepare for what is next and passion that pushes them through to success. Of course, you can’t see everything that will come your way, but you can begin to train yourself to think of probable outcomes, and to foresee obstacles ahead. There is no such thing as a perfect plan; there are only people willing to fight their fears with a willingness to search out a better future. Bravery is worth the adventure.
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