Smartness is one of the major necessities required to make waves on earth. Whichever form of smartness it is, be it school smartness or street smartness, they are both greatly important. Although, in my opinion, school smartness deals with problem solving skills, intelligence, and much more, while street smartness deals with critical thinking and the ability to navigate a path even though it seems impossible, both are awesome in their various capacities, but I believe having a combination of both will make one stand out above peers in business and other aspects.
While growing up, my intelligence was played upon by elderly people and peers that were smarter than me, but as I grew academically and street wise through various experiences and teaching, I became wise myself and was able to fend for myself in situations where someone tried to outsmart me. After my various experiences, I can tell you for sure that one form of smartness isn't enough, but a combination of both will put you at an advantage whenever you find yourself in that situation.
One of my experiences and how book smartness has helped me in the past was about a few months ago when a P2P vendor on Binance tried to play on my intelligence and outsmart me. I had filled in the necessary details and was expecting him to pay me something around the sum of ₦23,515, but instead of sending that amount, he probably figured out that some would just look out for those numbers along with the figure when checking the figure received, so he sent ₦235.15 instead, Fortunately for me, one of my mathematics teachers used such a question to trick me in class back then, and it came in handy for me.
It happened that during my school days, my teacher once gave us a class project, and he told us to watch out for the question because we'd surely come across it in our examination. Just like he said, we truly saw it in our exam with the exact figures he uses during the class work, so we all quickly solved it alongside other questions, only to get our script after the exam and realize we all failed the question. Unfortunately for us, our teacher played on our intelligence by changing the comma in the figure he gave us into a dot in the exam, but our excitement overwhelmed us and we didn't notice that.
That exact trick he played on our intelligence stuck with me and became a life lesson that later came in handy to save me from this evil scammer on Binance, because I usually watch out for every dot and comma, and that's how I realized the foul play. I let him know how unpleased I was, and after getting my money, which he actually added extra with the hope that I wouldn't report him, I did drop a report to the Binance team and also gave him a befitting review to warm other people that might want to trade with him.
About 10 years ago, I was in need of a smartphone but couldn't afford a brand new one, so I decided to visit a computer village in my vicinity. Known as "challenges," the stores there are known to have fairly used smartphones that are up for sale at a cheaper price, although one needs to be pretty smart or else you'll end up paying a huge amount of money for a phone you cross-check, only to get home and realize you've been fooled and actually bought fume or cassava flour for a huge amount of money.
So on getting to the store, the dealer gave me some phones to check out and pick anyone of my choice. I later chose a techno smartphone, and he returned every other one to the shelf. I inspected the device and was satisfied, so we bargained on the price and came to a consensus. I paid, and he took back the phone to help me package it before leaving. He went into the store and came back to give me the neatly packed phone box in a bag.
Immediately he gave me the bag, I brought out the phone box and tried to unbox it, and he started to protest that hadn't I checked it before and why was I doing the same thing again. I kept quiet and kept unboxing till I opened it and realized the phone I paid for wasn't inside the box; instead a case of the same phone with a fume between was what was packed for me. He realized I'd caught him and started to beg. I said ok, but that should give me the phone I paid for.
He began to grumble that the phone was more expensive than the amount I paid, so I showed him the receipt he gave me and also threatened to call my elder brother, who's a well-known cultist in the neighborhood; on hearing that, he quickly gave me the phone, thinking I'm truly a brother to the terror of a cultist; in truth, I don't know the guy; I only used his name to scare the seller, and it worked out, and that's how I got a phone that was worth about ₦55,000 then for 23,000.
What helped me scale through was my street smarts, experience, and news of how they've played on people's intelligence by giving them something else, such as a stone instead of a phone, when they try to purchase a phone from them. The street smarts were also what helped me realize I have to use the name of a well-known troublemaker to escape from the den of these terrible guys, or else they'll still corner me on my way out of the big market and take back the phone.
Overall, like I said earlier, both forms of smartness are impactful in their various capacities, but in a situation where you're rich in both, then you stand a chance of acquiring more deals, gaining more ground, fending off rivals and scammers, and much more to mention but a few, so I'll advise that we bring out the best in both aspects.
Thanks so much for your time, I hope you enjoy the read. That's about all from my experience using both boom smartness and street smartness, and this write-up was inspired by Kronia's post explaining the Hive Learners community prompt. Please read it to get more information.
NOTE: I make use of Quillbot grammar checker features to help correct some of my grammatical and punctuation errors after writing my content by myself.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME, HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY AHEAD.