Jeff Bezos on why stress is almost always a sign that you're avoiding action: When times are rough, Bezos doesn't talk about willpower or pushing through. He reframes where stress actually comes from. "I find if I'm stressed about something, it's usually because I'm not doing anything about it,"... he says. For Bezos, stress is information. He treats it as a physical signal worth paying attention to: "If I'm stressed about something, I'm trying to figure out why am I stressed? I'm listening to my body as a signal that something is awry." And the relief comes from simply starting to move on it: "The stress goes away the second I take the first step of identifying the source of the stress. Why am I stressed about this? What's going on?" The next step is to stop carrying it alone. Bezos talks to someone, and more specifically, he looks for allies: "If you can find friends who are interested in similar things or want to help you solve a problem, problem solving is inspiring for me all by itself." This is where the shift happens. Once Jeff Bezos has people around him, the same situation that once felt heavy becomes something he enjoys: "There's nothing more fun than getting in a room with a group of inventors and saying, 'Look, here's the problem. Let's invent a solution to it.' And as soon as you start doing that, I find that it turns from something that might create stress into something that creates fun."show more

Big Brain Business

17,392 subscribers

Share Download