I’m officially converted.

The label is crude. The idea beneath it is real.

Many smart people are not limited by intelligence. They are limited by the self.

Too inhibited. Too self-conscious. Too attached to looking smart, being right, avoiding embarrassment, and protecting identity. So they overthink, over-explain, overcorrect, and overpunish. They mistake friction for rigor.

Meanwhile, the person willing to do the obvious thing — imperfectly, visibly, without excessive self-protection — reaches reality faster.

And reality teaches faster than thought.

That is the whole game.

Not anti-intelligence.

Anti-inhibition.

Not less thought.

Less self.

A lot of sophistication is elegant avoidance. A lot of “high standards” is fear in formalwear. A lot of intelligence is wasted managing self-image.

The deeper point is almost Buddhist: the self is often the bottleneck. The tighter you cling to identity, the harder action becomes. Every miss becomes ego damage. Every draft becomes self-exposure. Every imperfect act feels personal. So you stall.

When you are less limited by the self, action becomes clean.

This matters even more in the AI era. Intelligence, options, drafts, strategies, and explanations are abundant. The bottleneck is no longer generating possibilities. It is committing without neurosis.

The winners are not necessarily the smartest. They are the least inhibited.

Less self-conscious. Less precious. Less entangled with identity. More willing to touch reality.

The meme is silly. The insight is not.

So the question is not only what is blocking you.

It is: what would set you free?

Free of image management. Free of perfectionism. Free of the need to look smart before acting. Free of the self that turns every mistake into suffering.

Ask. Ship. Miss. Learn. Repeat. Just execute.

A lot of progress is not becoming smarter.

It is becoming freer.