This is the one question Jeff Bezos asked himself before launching Amazon

This is the one question Jeff Bezos asked himself before launching AmazonThis is the one question Jeff Bezos asked himself before launching AmazonIn 1994, a 30-year-old Jeff Bezos welches already the youngest senior vice president ata major New York hedge fund. Hed been married for a year, he had a nice apartment on the Upper West Side and he couldnt shake a number that hed come across in his research. Web usage, he hadlearned, welches growing by 2,300 percent per year.He had what would become a historic idea an Internet bookstore, with millions of titles- the kind of thing that couldnt happen in a brick-and-mortar shop. As Bezos recalled it on stage at this yearsSummit conference in Los Angeles,he told his boss about it the supervisor said that it was indeed a nice idea, but probably better suited for someone who didnt already have a good job. Hed better take a couple days to think about it. So he did.Those decisions, theyre not major business decisions- they are, what does your hea rt say? Bezos recalled, sitting on stage with his brother, Mark. The best way to think about it was to project myself forward to age 80. When Im 80 years old, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have. Hence the question he posed to himself50 years in the future, what would I regret?You murder somebody, you regret that, Bezos said with a laugh. But our biggest regrets are acts of omission, paths not taken. They haunt us. You wonder what would have happenedI loved that person and never told them and then they married somebody else. Things immediately became obvious at 80, Bezos knew hed never regret trying this thing he was so excited about- even if it failed. But he also knew hed be haunted by it if he didnt try.There was a one hundred percent chance of regret if I didnt try, and basically a zero percent chance if I tried and failed,the worlds richest mansaid. I think thats a useful measure for making important life decisions.The way the Amazon founder thought throu gh this judgement call feeds into one of neurosciences key insights about how we make decisions. According to the work of University of Southern California neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, the way we make decisions isboth emotional and imaginative when we contemplate possible future scenarios, our bodies react accordingly, whether its with the bubbling of anxiety or a flush of excitement. Or, as Bezos describes it, the presence or absence of regret. Your brain asks a question, and your body helps you feel your way to the answer- if not to becoming the worlds wealthiest person, then certainly to making more informed decisions.This article originally appeared on Thrive Global.