Customer orientation is a choice one makes over the course of a lifetime (part 1)

Customer orientation: of the 462 goals that Amazon has set for itself in 2010, 360 of them will directly effect the customer experience, while the word revenue is only used in 8 occasions.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos spoke in may 2010 at Princeton University about the difference between choices and gifts. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard.

One's character, he suggested, is reflected not in the gifts one is endowed with at birth but rather by the choices one makes over the course of a lifetime. "It's harder to be kind than clever"

• 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?
  

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. Good luck!