Our Most Valuable Resource is... Amazon?

In his most recent and final[?] shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos highlighted one thought-provoking statistic that speaks volumes.

Half of all purchases [on Amazon] are finished in less than 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes isn't an insignificant amount of time. There are plenty of things you could do in 15 minutes....

Run a 5k (world record = 12:51), meet and remember 215 people (Emma Alam successfully learned and recorded 218 new names and faces at the world memory championship in 2020), read 375,000 words (famous speed reader Howard Berg holds the world record for his ability to read more than 25,000 words per minute).

So... yeah. You can do a lot in 15 minutes.

If I could rewind the clock 15 minutes each time someone told me time is our most valuable resource, I'd probably still be in college and looking forward to my 21st birthday in a few short weeks. That would be pretty fun.

Unfortunately, I'm 28 and have only recently begun to realize the truth in that statement. So long as our basic needs are met, time does appear to be our most valuable asset.

Which brings us back to Mr. Bezos and the quote I mentioned earlier.

Half of all purchases [on Amazon] are finished in less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the typical shopping trip to a physical store - driving, parking, searching store aisles, waiting in the checkout line, finding your car, and driving home. Research suggests the typical physical store trip takes about an hour.

One hour...

That's a 4x increase. 4x!

In that amount of time Eliud Kipchoge surpassed the halfway point of his marathon world record, Emma Alam would have learned and remembered more people than I have on my social media friends list, and Howard Berg would have read the Bible twice.

In other words, Amazon is not simply in the retail business, it is in the business of saving people time.

I'm immensely interested to see how this dynamic expands beyond the retail space into other industries where we often waste time.

Not pointing fingers, but I'm looking at you financial services, education, and healthcare.

The next challenge is to find useful ways to take advantage of our newfound free time in a world with so many enticing distractions *cough* Instagram *cough*.

How would you spend your extra 45 minutes?

Would you take advantage of it?

Parting Thoughts 🤝

I hope everyone is happy, healthy, and life is treating you well!

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Cheers Everyone 🥂

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That's it for this issue.

Until next time - be well, be intentional, and be yourself!

Have a week,

Whit