Before Andy Jassy joined Amazon 28 years ago, he tried his hand at sportscasting and sports production, coached a football team, and worked in a retail golf store. He did product management, investment banking, and sales before finally signing up with the tech giant. Now, the CEO has opened up about his learnings over the years and in a blog post, has shared the top five tips he belives are crucial for success.
1.) Discover your passion
“Pick something to work on that you're either really passionate about, that you think you're good at, or that you are really determined to get great at working out, because life is too short," Jassy wrote. "You spend a lot of your waking hours thinking about and at work, and you want to work on something that really is fulfilling to you and that you can be great at and makes you feel good about how you spend your days.”
2.) Don't be afraid to try new things
“I don't think that you have to know what your final destination is in your job early in your life. Maybe not even in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. I think that you have a chance to keep writing your own story and reinventing your own story," the Amazon CEO wrote. Citing examples from his varied work experience, Jassy added, "I really do believe it's perhaps as important to figure out what you don't want to do as what you want to do, because it actually helps you get more centered on what really makes you happy. So don't be afraid to try a lot of different things and don't let people tell you that whatever you've done—even if you've done it for a while—is what you must do. You have the opportunity to write your own story.“
3.) It's okay to fail sometimes
Jassy said that if you are inventing and trying things and pushing hard enough, you're not going to get everything right. "But we are going to fail sometimes when we're inventing, and that's okay," he said, adding that every important lesson he has ever had in his life has been mistakes that he's made or been a part of. "The key is not to fall apart over it, but to learn what didn't go right and be self-aware. Take the things that did go well and the things you could have done differently and then apply them to the next thing you do. Because there's always going to be a next thing you can do," he said.
4.) Have the right attitude
"I do believe that an embarrassing amount of what makes people successful is attitude. Do you work hard? Do you do what you said you were going to do? Can people trust you? Can you work on teams? Are you a can-do person instead of someone who sucks all the energy out of the room? Are you somebody who cares about the mission, along with the team, versus just yourself?" Jassy wrote in his blog.
5.) Never stop learning
According to Jassy, the biggest difference he observed in the people that he had started with at various times in his career to what they're doing right now has been their aptitude and willingness to learn. "There are people who at a certain point of their life consider it threatening that they don't know it all, or they get to a certain seniority and they think it's embarrassing if they have to keep learning. But the reality is, the second you stop learning is the second you're starting to unwind," he said.
"The truth is, if you work in an active, dynamic area, like all of us do, you should be learning all the time. You should be able to step back three to six months at any point and say, 'Wow, look at the things I've learned over the last three to six months.' That is a huge difference-maker. This seems so obvious, but a lot of people don't do those things."
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