The key to success is to never stop trying to learn new things, according to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
“You have to be ravenous and hungry to find ways to learn,” Jassy said last week in a video posted by Amazon about the company’s famous list of 16 leadership principles, originally penned by founder Jeff Bezos.
One of those principles, “Learn and Be Curious,” says the best leaders “are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves.” Jassy said he’s seen that ability make the biggest difference between people who successfully grow their careers and those who remain “stagnant.”
“For some people, at a certain point, they find it too threatening or too difficult to keep learning,” he said. “The second you think there’s little left for you to learn is the second that you are unwinding as an individual and as a learning professional.”
Continuing to learn as you age can improve memory and other cognitive abilities, while also making you happier, research shows. And employers are often keen on hiring and advancing workers with a “growth mindset,” where you continuously try to adopt new skills and improve your abilities, LinkedIn workforce expert Aneesh Raman told CNBC Make It in March.
Jassy and Bezos aren’t the only high-profile professionals who think that way: Julia Stewart, the CEO who merged IHOP and Applebee’s into a roughly $530 million restaurant giant, says that “You should be learning for the rest of her life” is her mantra.
Good leaders have to realize they don’t always have every answer, and be comfortable learning from the people around them, Stewart told Make It in May. “I think as you get older and you become successful, you realize: ‘I don’t have to be the smartest person in the room,'” she said. “I’ve never had somebody say, ‘No, I’m not going to help.'”
Jassy agrees. “You have to think about the idea that you don’t know everything and that there’s a lot to learn,” he said. “Even if you spent many months or years learning a certain area, it may flip upside down very quickly.”
His advice: Stay humble in those upside-down moments, so you can find the joy in learning new things and continue to grow for the rest of your life and career.
“Instead of that feeling threatening and scary, you have to think about that as being part of the fun of what you do,” Jassy said.
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