Being "smart" and "thinking" are two very different things. You can be very smart but have no conscious thought. You can be a great thinker without ANY formal education or experience. (Calm down internet geniuses, you're not that special.)

We might start figuring out how to get either one if we start understanding that there's a difference.

Your brain doesn't work the way you think it does. Your mind isn't entirely your own. Your language influences your internal dialogue, and if you have no internal dialogue, you need to exercise that by reading a lot more and thinking about your thinking.