Improving this attitude affects everyone around you. They believe in you, trust you and want to support you.

This one attitude can change your entire life for the better.

A vital attitude for you to constantly improve is YOUR PASSION.

On a scale of 1 to 10, exactly how excited are you right now? Do you really want to succeed? Are you thrilled with your goals for today?

If not, you must generate some passion for your day, your week and your career.

Leadership

To succeed you must be a leader, if only a leader of one person: you.

“In all great leaders there is a purpose and intensity which is unmistakable.” — L. Ron Hubbard

Remember how former President Reagan had UNMISTAKABLE seniority when he met with Communist leaders? Have you noticed how the best speeches of politicians, ministers or actors always include high-volume intensity? The same applies to the most successful people.

“A man who merely wants to be liked will never be a leader. A broad examination of history shows clearly that men follow those they respect. Respect is a recognition of inspiration, purpose and competence and personal force or power.” — L. Ron Hubbard

Passion is a self-generated tool. You have the ability to motivate yourself; to concentrate on your purpose; to get yourself excited about what you do.

Your attitude sets the mood for everyone around you. They get excited if you are excited. If you are fascinated, so are they. Recommendations you give to others that come from the heart have a greater impact.

You Can Never Be Too Passionate

Everyone can increase their purpose and intensity.

When you organize all of your activities toward one focused goal, you not only feel more joy in what you are doing, you get more accomplished.

Sometimes it helps to find things that make you passionate. For example, for which of these objectives can you generate the most passion and intensity?

* Reaching a specific goal

* Accomplishing a certain level of perfection

* Making a great deal of money

* Going back to an original purpose

* Beating a challenge

* Filling your life with as much happiness as possible

* Fulfilling a duty to yourself or your family

* Helping a great number of people

* Creating a superior reputation

* Building a highly-successful business

* Helping others achieve success

* Becoming the best at what you do

* Hitting a specific statistical target

* Earning enough money to buy something you really need or want

* Making a positive impact on society

There is nothing stronger than a leader with a firm direction and passion to get there.

Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard

Jim shared with me the idea of first framing the problem and then suggested five important methods which people employ in their decision making process:

1. Experience, also referred to as shortcut thinking is where one only uses their personal experiences to decide—relying on the idea that based on one’s experience; situation “A” requires solution “B” rather than considering other possibilities.
2. Best practices of other businesses, very hot today in management circles. In this situation, frequently the decision is made to adopt what others have successfully done, perhaps rather than to adapt the idea to their particular situation.
3. Reasoning generally alludes to approaching things through a more logical thought process—this is very good. However it is not necessarily strategically aligned to the organization’s goals.
4. Collaboration among all involved. Jim made it a point to distinguish between cooperation, where people have agreement, and not necessarily emotional ownership, verses collaboration where people will generally bond—big difference in my book.
5. Strategy based decision making. This is where the overall strategy of an organization is in the forefront of everyone’s mind and the challenge is framed in a way that is understood by all. Strategic thinking should be embraced throughout every organization.

I so much appreciated the student becoming the teacher that I’ve added some of Jim’s ideas into my seminar titled, Let’s Get Along & Be More Productive; Purposeful Interdepartmental Collaboration.

I challenge you to consider the above methods of decision making when you are attempting to resolve your challenges at work, and at home.

Copyright © 2010 Ed Rigsbee http://www.rigsbee.com. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Ed Rigsbee for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of Ed Rigsbee

At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

Differences between gifts and choices

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have 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?

Following your passion
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

> How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

> Will 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 wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

> Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

> Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

> Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

> When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

> Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

> Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 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. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!

- Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon.com

This is the transcript of the commencement address by Jeff Bezos, an inventor and founder of Amazon.com, to the class of 2010 at Princeton delivered on May 30, 2010. Bezos is an alumnus of Princeton.

“THE RAPIDITY OF PARTICLE FLOW ALONE DETERMINES POWER.” — L. Ron Hubbard

The power and progress of our society is based on speed. When your particle flow (information, services, goods and so on) is slow, the rest of the world speeds on by.

For example, can you imagine working without a computer, telephone, fax machine or the Internet?

Can you imagine traveling without a car or an airplane?

Imagine being in a world where the telegraph and railroad were major improvements.

Business Speed

Speed of particle flow determines the power of a business. The faster the business’ particles (service, sales, payment, delivery and so on) the more prosperous it becomes.

For example, you want to buy carpet for your home. Two companies sell the exact carpet you want.

One says, “We can install it in six weeks” and the other says, “We can install it tomorrow.” Who do you pick?

If the price and quality are comparable, the company that can deliver the goods the fastest always wins in the end. In many cases, speed is more important than quality or price.

For example, fresh ripe tomatoes from Mexico in February may cost more, but they sell out quickly. Without fast delivery, they are inedible.

Imagine fast service in all areas.

You call and say, “Hello, I was calling to see if you could send someone to fix my furnace.”

The furnace company says, “Is ten minutes okay?”

You call your dentist and ask, “How soon can I see the doctor?”

The receptionist says, “How about 1:00 today?”

You call an auto dealer and say, “I’d like a fully-loaded 2003 Midnight Blue Mercedes 450SL with white leather seats.”

The dealer says, “It’s right here. You can pick it up or we can deliver it to you in an hour.”

Business owners who take forever to make decisions soon lose money. Managers who can spot problems and correct them within minutes are valuable and hard to find. Workers who move like lightening are soon promoted.

Companies that can quickly change their direction are the most successful. For example, chain bookstores did not start selling books over the Internet until Amazon.com was in business long enough to work out their systems and take over the market. Chain bookstores lost millions because they took too long to act.

Personal Success

How quickly can you move the particles (communications, projects, services and so on) in your life or work? How fast are you?

When you wait, avoid and make excuses, you kill your speed. You delay your success.

When you respond quickly, act without delay and complete tasks faster than anyone else, you have power.

For example, high-school graduates Lynn and Chris both want to become school teachers.

Lynn says, “I’ve got all those years of school in front of me. I’m taking a year off to ride my bike around Europe before I start.”

Chris says, “I can’t wait to teach. I’m taking classes this summer and will get my degree in three years.”

Who do you think becomes the other’s principal?

The only road to significant success is in the fast lane.

Ten tips for speeding up your success

1. Jump into projects as soon as possible.

2. Act quickly on opportunities. If you see what you want, jump on it before you lose the chance.

3. Push yourself to walk faster, talk faster, read faster and move faster.

4. Keep up your speed with good habits: sufficient sleep, good food, regular exercise and so on.

5. Reduce or eliminate people or things that delay or stop you from moving quickly.

6. Whenever you think something can’t be done quickly, ask “Why not?”

7. Constantly look for faster methods to get the same result.

8. Send and return communications with as little delay as possible.

9. Set tough deadlines for completing tasks and make them.

10. Challenge yourself by taking on more work than ever and getting it done in less time than ever.

Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard.