Quick note: The Kingpin newsletter is now The Warrior Poet. Old is new, yet again.

“Sometimes I wish I could just be dumber.” 

She looks at me quizzically. Non-judgmentally. Because let’s be clear, that’s an arrogant sounding statement. 

Melissa, my therapist, agrees with me. But I’m left to figure the rest out on my own. 

That was years ago. I was suffering from “brain on fire syndrome” (my words). Where a business leader thinks through hundreds of ways strategic options may play out such that she is paralyzed. Or where an artist has so many ideas that they can’t concentrate. 

We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us

In his book Hackers and Painters, Paul Graham has a great essay called, “Why Nerds Are Unpopular.” 

You can read it here on his blog for free. It is valuable for numerous reasons – but especially because Graham cuts through the flaws of a system that have been staring us all right in the face for decades: the education system. 

The money line is this: 

Nerds are unpopular because they're distracted. There are other kids who deliberately opt out because they're so disgusted with the whole process.

Those “other kids” represent the overwhelming majority of kids, especially boys. 

But it’s not just disgust that changes the dynamic. It’s intelligence. 

In at least two ways: 

1. Kids who do well in school early gain confidence and a de facto head start on every marginal piece of new material. Because they do well, they are more invested.

2. Being smart leads one to take fewer social risks. It’s easier to “be different” by conforming with your nerd friends (or whatever niche tribe). 

Given the second point, it’s no surprise that intelligence is highly correlated with mental health issues such as anxiety. 

So not only are smart people distracted by complex thoughts and creations, but they’re more likely to get tangled in their own cognitive web. 

As humans, we developed the capacity to think, to plan. This was an extreme evolutionary edge. 

The problem is that we live in an abstract world where outcomes are both (a) probabilistic and (b) highly skewed. 

Don’t Blink

Let’s take an example that is not abstract at all. 

Mature guys know that dating is a numbers game. Just like a bird trying to find a mate, the male may need to approach lots of females to find one who can tolerate him.

The thing is, who is more likely to second guess and never make a move? The straight-A student or the varsity athlete? 

(on average; I recognize these aren’t mutually exclusive) 

The math nerd holds himself back – but not because he doesn’t fit in. It is because the nerd is like Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception. He builds whole cities aligned against his romantic desires in the blink of an eye. 

Every. F-ing. Blink. 🤯

In the time that it takes the varsity athlete to think, “Oh man, she smells good. I should ask her about her perfume.” 

So there we have it. 

Thinking = inhibition. 

And as we said, thinking is also a distraction. We enter worlds every time we have an unfocused thought, negative emotion, or dopamine-fiending impulse. (aka “stray voltage”)

And sometimes, in a kind of Smartness Singularity, we’ll actually distract ourselves due to inhibition. We resist the thing so much, we avoid it by indulging our big brains. 

If you’re reading this, you’re probably pretty smart. And you may want to be BIW at something. That’s “best in the world.” 

The road to BIW is paved with little actions. Each of those little actions has minimal consequences. Said another way, “low downside.”  

Meanwhile, the upside potential is massive. You can’t lose 10 million dollars. But you can gain it. 

Our brains weren’t made for this distribution of outcomes. They were made for a time when we lived on the savannah and peril was everywhere – and where resources were insanely scarce. 

The Difference

With all of this in mind, the real difference maker is ACTION. 

The real blocker? 

❌ Not your sleep schedule. 
❌ Not how much you hydrated. 
❌ Not the books you need to read. 

✅ It’s your brain

Your brain is too smart for its own good. 

To act, be dumber. 

Or rather: act dumber. 

Obstacles

To be clear, there are countless things that get in the way: 

• screens

• clickbait

• boredom

What MOST gurus out there are trying to help you overcome are those things. But the REAL issue is resistance. It’s the fences you put around yourself. 

Resistance ENABLES boredom. 

Resistance SEEKS distraction. 

But if you tame the brain, then you can tame resistance. 

📌 5 Ways to Act Dumber

1. 🧘‍♀️ Say, “I’ll be okay.” Remind yourself that the world will not end if you bomb that investor pitch.
   

2. 🏃 Create ruthless action triggers. Make a rule that when you see an opportunity, you seize it. For instance, you could run up every set of stairs you see if you’re trying to get in shape. Or you could say “hi” to every attractive person you see (immediately!).
   

3. ⏳ Schedule time to worry. Yep, it sounds ridiculous, but it both makes you feel better short term and caps the time you invest in this.
   

4. 🎭 Ask, “What Would Gronk Do?” One of my best friends from the SEAL Teams made up a saying: “Gronk at the opera.” As in, what would former NFL player Rob Gronkowski be like in a fancy setting. Go for that.  
   

5. 🔥 Move. The best medicine for inaction is physical movement. It makes you more confident and energetic. 

Embrace this movement principle in the abstract as well, though. The best entrepreneurs I know move through their environment like forces of nature. They seem lucky, but they’re really creating opportunities by “making a ruckus” as Seth Godin likes to say. 

They upset the natural order, and things happen. 

That doesn’t take brains. It takes… well, you know. 

 ❤️ Andrew

PS. Gronk is probably smarter than he acts in all the commercials, but that’s the essence we’re going for.

Outro 

“Life doesn’t need a soundtrack. Life is a soundtrack.”
—Sri

Your thoughts are castles made of sand. Your actions are bricks.

And Jimi is God.

Cheers

Find me at thewarriorpoet.com and on LinkedIn.

Feeling stuck at the same level for years? Reach out to talk through your challenges with me here on hubble.

Get unstuck, and crush it. Double period.