We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Jeff BezosRead
The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible. The hard part is figuring out when to be which.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Inventing requires a balance of determination and adaptability.
This quote emphasizes the dual nature of innovation, suggesting that successful inventors need to possess both a stubborn resolve to pursue their ideas and the flexibility to adapt their approach as necessary. The challenge lies in discerning the appropriate moments to be firmly committed to a vision versus when to pivot or adjust tactics in response to new information or circumstances.
Themes
InventingInnovationFlexibilityStubbornnessAdaptability
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire entrepreneurs during a pitch meeting to highlight the importance of adaptability in their business strategy.
More from Jeff Bezos
All quotes →Work hard, have fun and make history.
Jeff BezosRead
If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.
Jeff BezosRead
But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.
Jeff BezosRead
Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
Jeff BezosRead
When you are eighty years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.
Jeff BezosRead
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