All advice comes with caveats. In this case, I think this sort of 'dumbness' only works for very intelligent people. Most successes in life come down to lots o

All advice comes with caveats. In this case, I think this sort of 'dumbness' only works for very intelligent people. Most successes in life come down to lots of hard work and a few key decisions. Software is a great example of this - the quality of the software itself is usually not important. Great apps can be written to the highest standards known to the industry ... or they can be written as spaghetti code. Doesn't matter that much, although high standards are better. What matters a lot more is what the developers set out to build on day 1 and what they pivoted to building about 33% of the way through the build when they realised that they didn't have enough information on day 1. So most of the architectural decisions are important to the people involved from the perspective of how much spaghetti will get cooked, but few matter to the final success of a software package as a product. Someone who can identify and excel in those key decision making moments can develop good day to day habits then just switch off until the time to strike arrives. Those who can't identify those windows to act have to work a bit harder. Things in this story like not knowing how to use an ATM - makes a lot of sense to me. Being able to use an ATM may literally never be the difference between success and failure in life. But you need to be quite intelligent to be able to make that sort of distinction systematically without falling into helpless nihilism.