Learning all of Life's Lessons by Yourself is One Way
Another way is to find folks who have traveled the roads you will be on while building your career. Using their knowledge which extends "beyond the book".
"Street-smarts" is not something we learn in a classroom. It is based on the successes, and failures, of others. Cloaked within stories around why something worked one time, and failed the second.
Life is full of twist and turns and it will challenge you, especially in your business careers. The old saying about "Murphy's Law" comes to haunt, just when you think all is going well.
Use street-smarts to help you avoid the dead ends.
Now the hard part. Opening your eyes and listening to things which will be counter intuitive and go against many of the things learned from book-smarts.
This is not to say book-smarts are wrong in any way. They have prepared you in many ways for the 5 W's, the Who, What, Where, Why, and When. There is one problem. The biggest gap in book-smarts is not a "W".
Journalist call it the 6th "W", we are referring to the "How".
In business we hear these words often, "timing is everything". If there is anything we can pass on to you for your career, remember it is not timing by itself.
Street-smarts
includes the "how" and "when" something is to be done.
To thrive in your career and have fun along the way, we encourage you to use street-smart people to help leap-frog obstacles which can and do de-rail careers. Any who have been successful did not achieve it by themselves. There are always those in the background who lend a hand when asked, and support during times of failure.
Use the experience and wisdom of others to maximise your successes and minimize your failures. Knowing full well, life is not a bunch of roses, there will be failures along the road. Pick your self up and keep moving, especially in your career.
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison
Speaking of failure, "how not to prepare" for an interview is shown below.
Here are some ideas around how we help to get you started down the right path.
The combination of street-smarts and book-smarts will help you thrive in your career.
