You need to be stubborn on your vision, but very flexible on the details. — Jeff Bezos

You need to be stubborn on your vision, but very flexible on the details.

Author: Jeff Bezos

Insight: Most of us get this backwards. We become rigid about how things should happen — the method, the timing, the specific path — while our actual goals keep shifting with the wind. We decide we'll write a novel, then abandon it because we don't have the "right" writing space. We commit to fitness but quit the moment our preferred gym closes. The vision stays fuzzy, but the details become iron. The real power move is flipping that. Hold tight to what you actually care about achieving — the core outcome, the reason you started. But treat everything else as negotiable. If your vision is to build deeper friendships, that might happen through weekly dinners one year and group texts the next. If it's to learn an instrument, maybe that's lessons for a while, then YouTube videos, then jamming with friends. The medium changes. The direction stays true. This distinction matters because it separates people who actually finish things from people who just talk about starting them. Flexibility on details is what lets you keep moving when circumstances change — and they always do. Stubbornness on vision is what keeps you from drifting into someone else's goals entirely. You need both working together, not one without the other.

Source: Utah Technology Council UTC 2012 Hall of Fame - Jeff Bezos Keynote (Nov 2012)