[Core belief] Everyone is smart

Everyone is smart sounds too good to be accurate and might offend people who take their education as a sign of being smart.

Being smart is for me being capable of creativity and adaptation.

Let see an example, based on a fictional janitor cleaning offices every day who is also a parent. He or she needs to wake up a 4am going to do a very physical job and come back at noon. Going there, doing the job and coming back is mostly a physical activity.

But that would be missing the very complex activities that need to be done every day like:

• Making sure the kids go to school safely (while at work)
• Having that trusted person picking up the kids, and maybe the neighbour’s kids too
• Negotiating who will train the junior football team this Wednesday
• Organising and preparing all the stuff needed for birthdays (and it is a LOT)
• agreeing and negotiating with other parents to care for a sick child (while at work)

I would love to have Project Managers with such skills, and in this example, all that smartness is wasted at work. Even worst, the protagonist might not even know his/her capabilities.

Give me other examples in the comments.

PS: I should rewrite this post as a story :)