There is a story about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, from when he was a young boy. He was with his grandparents, both of whom were smokers. Bezos had recently heard an antismoking PSA on the radio that explained how many minutes each cigarette takes off a person’s life span. And so, sitting there in the back seat, like a typical precocious kid, he put his math skills to work with this new knowledge and proudly explained to his grandmother as she puffed away, “You’ve lost nine years of your life, Grandma!”
The typical response to this kind of innocent cheekiness is to pat the child on the head and tell them how smart they are. Bezos’s grandmother didn’t do that. Instead, she quite understandably burst into tears. It was after this exchange that Bezos’s grandfather took his grandson aside and taught him a lesson that he says has stuck with him for the rest of his life. “Jeff,” his grandfather said, “one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”
Cleverness comes easily when you want attention. It takes work to be a nice person and patience to reap its rewards. It requires extra effort to stop and think about how what you say and do affects other people. But a truly successful person—a truly great kid—is the result of parents who take the time to equip them with this skill. Parents who reward them for their kindness and compassion, not just their intelligence or their grades or their clever tongue. Because these self-obsessed traits, if not balanced with empathy and with kindness, can become a wicked and lonely combination.