"A man who possesses the intelligence of books and the wisdom of the streets is dangerous. He will always find a way to survive, so never underestimate him."

💀

I recall my first day of work in my youth. I sat down for lunch, and a friendly gentleman joined me shortly after. He was the boss. He pulled out a chair and, between bites, started asking questions. It was almost like a disguised interview. Among the questions, he wanted to know if I was interested in going to college. He mentioned that he had never attended college and owed his success to that fact. His brother, on the other hand, had graduated and was, at that moment, dirtying his hands in the lower ranks of the hierarchy.

It may sound like the usual motivational cliché or perhaps an attempt to persuade me not to pursue education so I’d remain flexible for work schedules. However, one thing I absorbed from that conversation stuck with me.

“My brother is smarter than I am,

but I’ve always been savvier.”

That never left my mind.

From that day forward, I wanted to see what would happen if I combined savvy and intelligence, and I can say:

Life experience will make you cunning. It will grant you sharpness.

But books will sanctify that experience, teaching you how to calibrate your firepower.

No tome will teach you how to develop street smarts. Many may attempt to guide you with examples and laws of power, but you’ll only grasp it when malice is staring you in the face, in the moment you try to outsmart someone and fail miserably. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” Tyson once said—a statement as relevant now as ever.

Be a quiet observer and an insatiable reader. Books will educate the barbarian within you, providing richness in vocabulary and elegance in discourse. You’ll begin to visualize ideas that were once invisible and find ways out of mazes that once seemed impossible.

Then, become a keen observer: watch the alleys, observe the corridors of your company, study human behavior, and never divulge what you’ve seen, for knowledge is power. Let intelligence work its chemistry on savvy, turning sharp iron into noble gold in perfect alchemy.

The cunning will have an advantage over the wise for a while, and the wise will surpass the cunning with time. But if you combine the two elements, no one will ever have the upper hand over you at any time.

Thank you for reading this far, my dear friend!

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Here’s a toast to our family!