“Work smarter, not harder” implies there’s a dignified path to competence. There isn’t. The path is messy, embarrassing, and littered with mistakes that make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing - because you don’t. The people who eventually work smart are the ones who were willing to work dumb first. They asked obvious questions. Tried “wrong” approaches. They looked like beginners because they were beginners and they took the ego hit that comes with that. That’s the part most people can’t handle. The pain of looking incompetent is the price you pay on the road to excellence. The better you are at enduring it, the further you go.