Jeff Bezos on dealing with stress: I listen to my body as a signal

Jeff Bezos on dealing with stress: I listen to my body as a signal that something is wrong, and I find that the stress goes away the second I take ...

When life gets too busy and chaotic, it is tempting to postpone a task or ignore piling problems but according to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, dodging the issue is exactly what keeps anxiety alive. Bezos has shared a straightforward rule for handling pressure: take action.

With a net worth of $361 billion, the world’s second-richest man knows a thing or two about high-stakes pressure, and coming from Bezos means the advice is likely right.

“I find if I’m stressed about something it’s usually because I’m not doing anything about it. I’m listening to my body as a signal that something is wrong, and I find that the stress goes away the second I take the first step,” Bezos said during a 2017 visit to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Long before Amazon became the No. 1 Fortune 500 company, Bezos launched it out of a rented garage and had to sit through 60 meetings just to raise his first $1 million in seed capital in the mid-1990s.

Turning anxiety into a team sport

Instead of letting stress paralyse him, Bezos uses it as a diagnostic tool. “If I’m stressed about something, I’m trying to figure out why [I am] stressed. I’m listening to my body as a signal,” he said. Once he identifies the problem, his next move is to bring other people into the room.

Talking things through and collaborating with allies, he explained, can turn an overwhelming situation into something enjoyable.“If you can find friends who are interested in similar things or want to help you solve a problem, problem-solving is inspiring for me all by itself. There’s nothing more fun than getting in a room with a group of inventors and saying: ‘Look, here’s the problem. Let’s invent a solution to it.’

And as soon as you start doing that, I find that it turns from something that might create stress into something that creates fun,” Bezos said.Inside Amazon, executives also lean on Bezos’s 16 leadership principles when navigating tough calls. “The leadership principles are something you have to constantly work at. When they’re applied well, they’re powerful,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in the company’s Leadership Principles Explained video series.

How other top CEOs handle stress

While Bezos prefers to push straight through adversity, other chief executives rely on different habits to keep stress in check. For Satya Nadella (Microsoft), facing challenges head-on is the key but he focuses heavily on preventing employee burnout through open dialogue and flexible workplace policies.

“The notion of having work-life harmony in a highly competitive economy is a first-class topic. You cannot have people burn out.

It’s bad for your company, and it’s bad for society,” Nadella once said, as per Fortune.Laxman Narasimhan (Former Starbucks CEO), Narasimhan told Fortune in a 2023 interview that he relies on three strict “nonnegotiables” to avoid burnout: daily meditation, regular exercise, and protected family time. “I’m very disciplined about balance,” he said.