Subversive tip – Become street smart
The street smart person knows how to survive in the urban jungle. What are the characteristics of being street smart and how can you be savvy on the street and in life? Read on to find out more.
Being street smart means seeing and dealing with the world as it is, not how you think it should be. It is having the right skills for the environment you are in and adapting quickly to changes. The skills that help you survive in Southside Queens are different to the skills that help you on a farm, or as a soldier in Afghanistan. In all cases, surviving and thriving is a matter of seeing what is important and responding appropriately.
Street savvy is adaptive intelligence while education helps to develop your knowledge and analytical side. Street smarts is pragmatic and results focused. However, being both street smart and educated makes you a potential super achiever.
We all know people who have a lot of formal education but don’t apply it well to everyday problems. One day, my parents were helping out a neighbour who had his home rented while overseas. The tenant was a mathematics professor. At the end of the tenancy, he asked them to put the key under the mat. So the professor brought over the mat from the rental house and put it next to our mat with the key under it! :) Being street smart is not taught at schools and many people just don’t have the skills needed to survive.
One way to be street smart is to learn to listen to your intuition. Your intuition picks up on small but important factors that your logical mind may ignore. For example, if you are dealing with someone and have a bad feeling about them but they look like they have a good deal, chances are that there is something you have missed. True intuition, your gut instinct is different from your ego, or irrational fears that you have. The only way to tell the difference is to track how it goes over time and in that way slowly refine your ability to read your intuition.
Another part of being street smart is observing. This means also observing what is relevant to a situation. Many people walk around seeing everything but noticing nothing, lost in their own little world. The biggest variable is people. You need to carefully notice their eye contact, where they look and their body language. I first saw this in Singapore. I walked into a jeweller and the assistant noticed what my eyes focused on over a tray of pendants and started bringing out the ones that I was looking at the most.
The street smart person sees the big picture and understands how the players relate to it. They see the effects of changes in the current situation - they can see ahead like a chess player. They see life realistically, neither being pessimistic or optimistic but letting the facts speak for themselves.
To be street smart, you have to be confident and project that to others. Sometimes you have to act confident until it becomes a reality. That doesn’t mean being arrogant – arrogance blinds you to reality and alienates others. But if you come across as too humble, you will reap the wages of humility, which are not generous.
The street smart person has a healthy skepticism. They don’t believe something just because a stranger says it. They look at any deals carefully for the missing details. They are not pulled into scams like MLM, getting rich quick or unlikely bargains. They weigh up all the evidence carefully and if something is too good to be true, they are not taken advantage of.
The person who has street smarts is very resourceful. Think of MacGyver. He was able to use his ingenuity and what he had around him to solve his problem. He applied his background and looked at each problem creatively. Similarly, a street smart person is able to persist until they find the right solution.
They are not loners – where necessary they will surround themselves with other people who can help them achieve the goal. They have a thick skin that allows them to shrug off rejection and not take it personally.
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