This story is from a speech given by Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon at a commencement address at Princeton University. Jeff Bezos’ parents married very early when they were at the prime young age of 16 or 17 and so every time Jeff had a holiday his grandparents tried to remove Jeff away from the family so that the parents had some me time. Jeff spent most of his summer holidays at his grandparents ranch in Texas. His grandparents were avid campers and every odd summer they would join many other families to go across USA, and Canada on camping trips. In one such trip the grandparents and Jeff were going in a car through a long open highway. His grandfather was driving, his grandmother was sitting on the passenger seat smoking – she loved to smoke – and Jeff was in the backseat. Jeff didn’t like smoking but he what he did like, mathematics and he would keep doing these calculations in his head calculating mileage calculating the grocery bill and segregating it by what was spent on what item etc. As they were driving that day there was an ad going on in the radio of the car and the ad was about not smoking and it said something on the lines of every buff of cigarette you take you lose two minutes of your life. Jeff saps in the back and did some calculations trying to estimate how many puffs of cigarette is taken for one full cigarette how many cigarettes his grandmother smoked in the whole day and then after he was sure of his calculation he popped his head in into the front tapped his grandmother on the shoulder and said with that cigarette you’ve just lost nine years from your life. The reaction that Jeff got surprised him. He had expected his grandparents to say wow Jeff you are so intelligent that must have taken some very fantastic mathematics to do, all the estimation the division, the multiplication figuring out how many minutes in a year and all. But that didn’t happen what happened instead is his grandmother burst out crying. Jeff was taken aback he didn’t know what to do as he sat there thinking what will happen next. His grandfather pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road got down came out to the back opened the door and waited for Jeff to get down. Jeff had never seen the angry side of his grandfather and so he did not know what to expect so he got down from the car walked to his grandfather who took him to the back of the car. He made him stand there got down to his level looked him in the eye and said Jeff someday when you grow up you’ll get to understand that it is far more difficult to be kind than to be clever. What a lesson Jeff learned that day! Business Points ( Tags ) #storytelling #business #bestseller #stories #emotionalquotient #emotionalintelligence #Intelligencequotient #EQ #IQ #JeffBezo
