Jeff Bezos - The Framework To Eliminate Stress!

Hey Friend!

Today I bring you an insight from Jeff Bezos on how to deal with Stress.

This is of course something that all of us experience from time to time, but I think Jeff has a very helpful framework to not only minimize stress, but also increase our Action Bias (a trait that Naval Ravikant has observed the most successful people in the world share in common!)

Personally, I prefer to take advice on people with skin in the game and accountability. Which is why I prefer to learn about the heuristic of a world-class practitioner, than the theory of an academic! (the theory might sound good, but the important thing is that it actually works in real life and during all your life!)

In this sense, I prefer to hear what Jeff has to say about Stress than an academic… Since building a huge business is probably one of the most stressful experiences you can ever have!! One of the all-time best quotes I ever found came from Kamal Ravikant:

“Only take advice from those who know from experience. Everyone else is noise.”

👤 Authors

💡Nugget

🟠 Jeff Bezos:
Source (Video) → Jeff Bezos Interview on Starting Amazon (2001)

One of the things that's very important to note about stress… Is that stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over…

I find the Stoic philosophy to be particularly helpful here, as it teaches us to not only focus and act on the things that we have control over, but also to not worry on things that we don't have control over!

“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”
― Epictetus

So, if I find that some particular thing is causing me to have stress… that's a warning flag for me! What it means is: There's something—that I haven't completely identified (perhaps in my conscious mind)—that is bothering me, and I haven't yet taken any action on.

I find [that] as soon as I identify it and make the first phone call, or send off the first email message, or whatever it is that we're gonna do to start to address that situation… Even if it's not solved… The mere fact that we're addressing it, dramatically reduces any stress that might come from it.

So, stress comes from ignoring things that you shouldn't be ignoring—I think, in large part.

People get [the definition of] stress wrong all the time in my opinion... Stress doesn't come from hard work, for example.

• You can be working incredibly hard and loving it!

• And likewise, you can be out of work and incredibly stressed over that!

And likewise, if you kind of use that as an analogy for what I was just talking about… If you're out of work but you're going through a disciplined approach of a series of job interviews and so on and working to remedy that situation… you're going to be a lot less stressed than if you're just worrying about it and doing nothing!

📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).

I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.

🤔 Why did I build this?

Well, as the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!

For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.

It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.

And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.

“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”

- Naval Ravikant

I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.

So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇

💥 Stuff I Loved

naval

A post shared by @naval

✍️ Essay

I recently co-authored (with Brian David Crane) an Essay in which we explored the differences between Inequality and Unfairness.

It’s heavily backed on the ideas of Paul Graham, and also on the ideas of Charlie Munger and Naval Ravikant.

You can read the full piece here - https://spreadgreatideas.org/contrasts/inequality-vs-unfairness/

Happy Friday ;)

Julio xx

P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!