One of the richest men on earth shared a very interesting point on getting stress that we all should hear. In an old interview from 2001, Jeff talked about it and it went viral on the internet.
What’s his thought on Stress?
Jeff Bezos: “… 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. 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 it. I find 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. Stress doesn’t come… people get stress wrong all the time, in my opinion. Stress doesn’t come from hard work, for example. You know, you can be working incredibly hard and loving it, and likewise, you can be out of work and incredibly stressed over that…”
It’s so true that when I am anxious or stressed, I think about this. Immediately I look for the tasks or things I should have done but left. As soon as I knew the root cause of it, I began to solve it or try to attempt it.