Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is widely respected for a number of qualities. Patiently building a company with a juggernaut of a flywheel. Turning an internal initiative into Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary that rakes in over $17.4 billion in revenue. Knowing how to hire the right people. Making smart expansion decisions.

In short, for being unusually smart.

But, as Bezos learned as a 10 year-old during a road trip with his grandparents, intelligence alone won’t make you successful -- or help you live a life you’ll look back on with few regrets.

According to Bezos, cleverness is a gift. “You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful,” Bezos said to Princeton graduates in 2010, “and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.”

Research shows
we more often regret things we didn’t do than the things we did, even
if things we did turned out badly. Makes sense: With time and effort,
you can fix almost any mistake. But you can’t go back and do the things
you dreamed of doing, but didn’t.

In fact, this study
takes that idea even further, probing the kinds of regrets we have
about the people we don't become -- which is a natural extension of the
actions we didn't take.

As Bezos said, “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.”

What choices will make the biggest impact on your life story
-- and whether you look back on that story with regrets?

These are the questions Bezos says to ask yourself:

• 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?

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