Are You Book Smart Or Street Smart

Book smart refers to your theoretical knowledge from education and from reading books .Street smarts comes through experiences. Experience as we all know is the mother of wisdom. The prime distinction between street smarts and book smarts is who is at the center of the knowledge. On the street, it’s you. In a book it’s you trying to absorb someone elses take on the world. Someone else’s approach to life might not necessarily work in ours.

Street smarts means you’ve put yourself at risk and survived, or thrived, or have scars and are now wiser . Survival skills cannot be learnt from text books You have to learn to trust your own judgment and stay grounded to the wisdom acquired through life experiences and situations . Here Street seems to be a metaphor for staying grounded to innate intelligence and intuitions .Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are examples of successful street smart persons who where college dropouts.

Experience without learning is better than learning without experience. Street smart people have situational awareness , asses the environment and listen to their intuitions rather than following the book rules. Having street smartness means knowing how to respond in different situations ,and paying attention to your surroundings.Experience is the best teacher, so live and learn.

They learn from their experiences ,stay aware of their surroundings ,feel self assured , don’t show signs of weakness ,know how to be flexible & polite when situation demands.They don’t get easily intimidated , and can tell others to shut up , back of and mind their own business.They listen to their gut instinct to minimize risks and don’t confront people unnecessarily.They know when & how to excuse themselves & run away from situations which they can’t handle .

Book smart people are often educated to higher levels , have struggled hard acquiring knowledge from books and can list facts and information but they don’t necessarily have a deeper understanding of the subject.They are good at general knowledge and quizzes but may struggle with more complex life situations and ideas.

As street smarts have a natural ability to make life decisions ,learning from their own experience, making practical and creative use of their inborn intelligence, open to experimenting with new ideas rather than following the rules, ideas and experience of others . Of course street smart can also be book smart .As a balance of both i.e. textbook knowledge and street smartness are required to live a successful life in today's world.

Being book smart is equally important.How else do you get good education, good grades & a great job .Book smarts can become street smart as they experience new situations in life.If they don’t then they will face consistent failure.So both are equally important .Also being street smart can lead to book smart as the street smart senses what works & what doesn’t,& adapts accordingly from book knowledge.What are you, book smart or street smart or both ?