Which type of smart person would you like to be? [See details].

In the prologue to Van Jones’ new book, Rebuild the Dream he quotes his dad as telling him, when he had been accepted into Yale Law School, “There are only two kinds of smart people in this world, son. There are those smart people who take simple things and make them sound complicated, to enrich themselves. And there are those who take complicated things and make them sound simple, to empower and uplift other people. The next time I see you, I want you to be the second kind of smart guy.”

Sound advice from a father who, born to poor Black parents in the Jim Crow South, had managed to get a college education and spend a lifetime as a school principal building up a failing, inner-city middle school to a top quality institution that became a model for other schools around the nation.

Not everyone is Ivy League Law School smart. But most of us are smart enough to use our brainpower for one or the other of the above pursuits. Which kind of smart do you think you are? Which kind do you want to be?