When it comes to making life decisions that would impact one in the long run, people often seek advice from successful leaders and others who are doing better than them. However, according to Amazon’s founder and owner Jeff Bezos, the best way to make life decisions is to think ahead to 80 years and ask oneself about the choices that would leave them with fewer “acts of omission.”
Bezos talked about this in 2017, when he attended the Summit LA event. He was recalling his decision of quitting his job and starting his own company. He mentioned that he told his boss the same, that he wanted to quit to “start an internet bookstore.” Bezos said that it was really simple after he thought about it for two days as “it was immediately obvious… I knew that when I’m 80, I would never regret trying this thing and failing.”
He further added that he was certain that if he did not try, it would lead to a “100% chance of regret” while the possibility of failure would not make him regret at all. He then said, “I don’t want to be 80 years old in a quiet moment of reflection, thinking back over my life and cataloging a bunch of major regrets,” reports AOL.
Bezos’s way of approaching decisions, which is also called the “regret-minimization framework” by him, operates on the notion that life’s biggest regrets are omitted opportunities or chances. According to him, by this logic, the only acceptable decision he could take was to leave Wall Street to follow his passion and then bear the consequences, whatever they may be.
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Since Bezos’ shedding light on this method of decision making, it has often been cited in various self-help seminars and management discussions. However, the Amazon founder has maintained that it is ultimately a very personal process as people would need to really understand what they want and leaving what kind of opportunities would make them unhappy.
Talking about the same, Bezos said, “They’re not data-driven business decisions. They are, you know, what does your heart say?” His words show how deeply he feels about his professional choices and it is only natural that he advises others to do the same. According to him, if a person successfully turns their passion into their profession, the journey becomes enjoyable because even the failures teach them something.
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That is why, while providing professional advice, Bezos has always encouraged the idea of finding what truly sparks joy in an individual and then following it professionally. Work can be enjoyable if it comes from a place of personal liking instead of just being done for the sake of the job.
