Go for it

Are you gifted enough to succeed on the scale of, say, Amazon.com?

In his 2010 commencement address to graduates of Princeton University, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos invites his listeners to think about the difference between gifts and choices. While acknowledging his own giftedness, and that of the graduates, it is their choices, he suggests, that will lead them to lives of distinction and fulfillment.

Most interesting to a coach concerned with helping people see what they’re choosing, Bezos identifies some of the alternative perspectives he considered before making the choice to launch Amazon when he was 30 years old:

• This is an exciting and unprecedented opportunity because web usage is growing at an astounding 2300% per year
• This is crazy and will probably fail, as most start-ups do
• This would be a good venture for someone else—(someone who doesn’t already have a good job)
• This is a chance to follow my passion and be the garage inventor I was as a boy

Emboldened by his wife to “go for it,” he had the courage to choose his passion. It would be hard to call the results anything short of remarkable.

What spectacular successes might follow when you choose to live your passion?