I Got Rich When I Understood This.

I had a great job at a prestigious financial firm in New York City where I worked with some of the smartest people around and I had an amazing boss who I looked up to.

I w;ent to him and told him I was going to launch a company that would sell books on the internet He took me for a long walk in Central Park listened attentively to me and finally said that sounds like a very good idea but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a great job

He said there are three types of work you can do:

You can have a job, you can have a career or you can have a calling. And if you can somehow figure out how to have a calling you have hit the jackpot because that’s the ultimate goal . I met Jeff Bezos 25 years ago and he told me:"Dave, I want you to invest in my company."

-What are you doing?

-I’m going to start an online bookstore in my garage

-Okay.

-I’m going to put it online and people will buy from me and I’ll ship from my garage. But if you invest in me Dave, someday I’m going to be the richest man in the world. I’ll make over 100 billion dollars. First of all, there was no such thing as 100 billion dollars 25 years ago.

It was unheard of. Countries didn’t have that much money. Our national debt wasn’t that high. And this guy is telling me at 26 years old that he’s going to be the richest man in the world because he has a garage and the internet.

That was his truth.

No, but he did not know it for sure and neither did I. But the difference between him and me is that I was mocking him and doubting him and making fun of him.

And he was already cheering himself on and going for it. He knew he had found his calling and he was pursuing it with all his might.

I’m sitting there thinking there’s no way this is going to be a big business. The most important thing is to be very passionate about what you do, and don’t try to follow what is trendy or popular at the moment.

When I thought about it that way, it really was a hard choice. But in the end, I decided I had to give it a try. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. But I knew I would always wonder what if I didn’t go for it. After thinking about it a lot, I chose the riskier path to pursue my passion and I’m happy with that decision.

When I was a kid, I loved to make things in my garage I made a self-closing gate out of tires filled with cement a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and a baking pan covered with foil traps to catch my siblings I always wanted to be an inventor and she encouraged me to follow my passion there’s a military saying that I really like and it says: " slow is smooth and smooth is fast" and I have seen that in everything I’ve ever done .

That's the kind of thing that really helps you make progress. You know, you get some gifts in life and you want to use them well. But you also have to work hard and make good choices.

So my advice on overcoming challenges and achieving success would be to be proud not of your gifts but of your effort and your decisions. You know, you may have some gifts that make things easy for you. You may be good at math or something like that. That’s a gift. But practicing that math and taking it to the next level that could be very hard and require a lot of sweat. That’s a choice. You can’t really be proud of your gifts because they were given to you.

You can be grateful for them and thankful for them. But your choices .

You choose to work hard. You choose to do hard things.

Those are choices that you can be proud of.

You can choose. We all get to choose our own stories in life.

And it’s the choices that define us, not our gifts. Everyone in this room has many gifts. I have many gifts. You can never be proud of your gifts

because they’re gifts. They were given to you. You might be tall or good at math or very beautiful or handsome or something else.

There are many gifts. And you can only be proud really of your choices because those are the things that you are doing something about. And one of the most important choices that each one of us has

and you know this just as well as I do is You can choose a life of comfort and ease or you can choose a life of adventure and service and when you’re 80 which one of those things do you think you’re going to be more happy with? You’re going to be more happy with having chosen a life of adventure and service. There’s never been a better time to be alive. It’s just amazing the amount of inspiration that the world creates for me and I think for a lot of people. It’s just incredible the amount of innovation and change and opportunity that exist today.

Your life the life you create from scratch by yourself starts now. How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will you let inertia be your guide? Or will you follow your passions? Will you follow dogma? Or will you be original? Will you choose a life of ease? Or a life of service and adventure? Will you shrink under criticism? Or will you follow your beliefs? Will you pretend to be right when you’re wrong? Or will you admit your mistakes? Will you protect your heart from rejection? Or will you act when you fall in love? Will you play it safe or will you be a little bit daring? When it’s hard, will you quit? Or will you be persistent? Will you be a skeptic? Or will you be a creator? Will you be smart at the cost of others? Or will you be kind?

Every time you figure out some way of providing tools and services that enable other people to unleash their creativity, you’re really onto something. You’re very fortunate if you have a career. A lot of people end up with a job. If you don’t love your work, you’re never going to excel at it. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton, all the curious minds from history would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we have so many gifts.

Just as each one of you has so many individual gifts as you sit before me. How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts? Or pride in your choices?