It’s ironic when the CEO of one of the world’s most influential companies say this, “Amazon is not too big to fail. In fact, I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years.“
More than anything else, Jeff Bezos’ statement solidifies one thing — the successes or failures you’ve had up until this moment has nothing to do with your future. Irrespective of your inborn predictive prowess or data-based predictive analysis, the future remains uncertain.
So, we mustn’t get too cocky about our successes or get stupidly depressed, thinking that we’re doomed forever. Overconfidence on either part will set you on the path to failure.
I also read Jeff once mention that there weren’t any “aha moments” that led him to build his trillion-dollar company, irrespective of what the press would have him or you believe.
Can you imagine one of the world’s richest man essentially saying that there wasn’t any grand narrative that led him to build a behemoth of an organisation? Like others, he built it one step at a time, by staying focused on the moment (not the story) and maximising it in the best way he could.
So, stop telling yourself a story. There’s no grand narrative. You don’t know what will happen in the future, so, stay focused in the moment and do the fu**king work! Can you?
This post was inspired by a bullet point in one of Ryan Holiday’s post that I, unfortunately, can’t link back to right now. I’ll get to it as soon as I’m able to place the URL. Sorry!