"That's practical wisdom: Flexibly wise leadership. All great heroes have it." (P. 68)

From a young age, school has taught us all about facts. It doesn't really teach us how to solve real-life problems but rather those in books. Thanks to school, we know all about what happened in World War II, how to replace "x" with a number, etc. This is called being book smart. To be honest, anybody can be book smart. It's simply about knowing facts. However, it is not very often that solving for "x" saves your life. This is where being street smart comes along. Not everybody is street smart, but it may be even more important than being book smart.

Being street smart is being able to make practical decisions. All the knowledge on science, mathematics, history, etc. won't stop you from getting mugged. However, being street smart will help you know that it is better to wear inconspicuous clothing and to keep your phone hidden from sight when walking through a dangerous street. So while being book smart may help you get a job, being street smart will help you live.

Teachers continually say that if you don't get good grades, you won't do very well in life. But there is so much more to life than grades. My uncle, for example, graduated from CNG with the second lowest ICFES score in the grade (the lowest one being his best friend's). With that, one might infer that he went on to become a low-payed employee, because, who would hire someone who got a low ICFES score, right? Well, he went on to become one of the most important architects in Boston. He was nice to people and knew what to do in certain situations, which made them like him and hire him, despite the fact that he didn't have the best grades in school.So there's more to life than factual knowledge.

It is no wonder then that being street smart classifies as part of ethos in rhetoric. Since not everyone can be street smart, people look up to those who can. They trust them, because they seem smarter when it comes to life. Being street smart and rhetoric, I believe, actually go hand in hand. If you're street smart, you can have those who are book smart do what you want them to. And this is rhetoric. So just by acting as if you know how to solve a problem, you'll become a leader, and people will be behind you for guidance, right there where you want them to be.