I'm a leader on Amazon's Last Mile Delivery team. These are 6 lessons I've learned in my career.

I was just six months out of school and working on the Amazon retail website when I made a code change to the order confirmation page that did not go well. Because of my mistake, customers saw a blank white screen after they made a purchase instead of the order details and suggested products they would typically see. This was a really tough failure for a new college hire to go through. But the experience helped me learn and led to the development of mechanisms and guardrails to prevent similar situations from happening again. We all make mistakes, and we should always learn from them to improve for the future.

Over the years I’ve had to really work at challenging myself so I could continue learning. There are a few key strategies that I use that have really helped me. First, put yourself in uncomfortable situations. For example, I’ve struggled for years with public speaking, and I’ve looked for every opportunity to practice. Second, take every interaction as an opportunity to learn something. I’m constantly surrounded by people who know more than me, and I try to soak up as much information and value as I can from every moment. Finally, when you don't know something, seek out an expert who you can learn from to get better. At the end of the day, learning will require discomfort, but it’s well worth it.

Back in 2010, the Devices organization invested in four big, risky projects. The first one never saw the light of day. The second, which I worked on, was the Fire Phone and it was not successful. In fact, I would probably characterize it as one of the biggest failures in Amazon's history. The third and fourth were Echo with Alexa and Fire TV, which have been incredibly successful products for our customers. We planted a lot of seeds, and while some of them didn’t grow, the others flourished. Innovation requires some amount of risk taking and being comfortable with potential failure.

Amazon has an annual planning period where each organization produces a document that outlines the vision and roadmap for the next year and presents it to senior leadership. A few years ago, we felt good about the Last Mile Delivery plan going into the discussion, but the leader we presented to said, “This is a good plan, but it's really boring. Where are all the big ideas?” And he was right. We went back and brainstormed a number of crazy, moonshot ideas, and one of those ideas led us to building a part of our organization and corresponding products for our customers that play an important role to this day. Sometimes we get stuck in the day-to-day, and it’s helpful to keep thinking bigger and set the right mechanisms to encourage our teams to do so.

In 2008, Oprah wanted to interview Jeff Bezos about the Kindle as part of her “Favorite Things” list. I was part of that trip to help make sure the technical aspects went well. After the recording, our group, including Jeff, went out to dinner to celebrate. I walked into the room and was looking for a place to sit. The person sitting across from Jeff stood up, walked over to me, and said, “I interact with Jeff frequently enough. Why don't you take my seat so you can talk to him tonight?” I was one of the most junior people in the room, and this gesture made me feel like an equal. That moment has stayed with me over the years, serving as a great lesson to be a good ally and sponsor, and to give opportunities to others.

In the past, I often received feedback to speak up more in large meetings. I struggled with this for a long time for a few reasons—one being that I wanted to make sure I added value to the conversation. Sometimes I felt like the things in my head were obvious. I’ve grown to appreciate that it’s easy to underestimate the value you add to a conversation. Beyond that, by doing a bit of research ahead of meetings, coming up with questions and preparing in advance, and understanding the viewpoints and experiences of the audience, you can more confidently speak up in meetings and ensure your voice adds value.