Have you ever imagined what a man worth more than $360 billion does when he hits stress?Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, has a simple answer, and it is not to wait it out.According to a Fortune report, he started Amazon in a rented garage, and in the mid-1990s, he had to sit through 60 meetings just to raise his first $1 million. Today, Amazon sits at No. 1 on the Fortune 500, and he is among the richest men in the world.When life gives us lemons, most of us try to escape the difficult by brushing it under the rug, be it an unpaid bill, the awkward email, the problem that keeps growing in the corner. Ignoring it feels easier, and for a moment it even feels like relief. Then the worry creeps back in, a little heavier than before.But Jeff Bezos has a different take on how to handle stress, and it is not just avoiding it.
Jeff Bezos reveals how he handles stress, says the cure for stress is to ‘take the first step’
Speaking to students at Seattle’s Museum of Flight in 2017, Bezos explained how he handles stress. He treats it as a signal from his body that something is wrong, and says “the stress goes away the second I take the first step.”Today, Jeff Bezos is one of the most powerful names in business. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he was worth about $365 billion as of 14 October 2026, making him the world’s second-richest person. According to Fortune, Amazon has also taken the No. 1 spot on the 2026 Fortune 500, ending Walmart’s 13-year run at the top.But the start of his venture was far from glamorous. He used a rented garage as an office in those early days, and in 1995, Bezos needed $1 million to get Amazon going, and Bezos said, “I had to take 60 meetings,” and that about 40 investors said no.
Bezos takes stress as a signal
In 2017, Bezos visited Seattle’s Museum of Flight and answered questions from students. According to Fortune, he said he treats stress as a signal that something is wrong, and that “the stress goes away the second I take the first step.” In his view, we often experience stress when we are avoiding something.He said something similar in a 2001 interview. As Fortune reports, he explained that stress mainly comes from not acting on things you can control, and that even a first phone call or email helps, even before the problem is solved.
Turn your stress into fun
Bezos also believes in having company. He says that when friends want to help solve a problem with you, the problem-solving itself becomes inspiring.He explains, “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”.He added, “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.”