Resources

People often ask me "How did you learn how to hack?" The answer: by reading. This page is a collection of the blog posts and other articles that I have accumulated over the years of my journey. Enjoy!

Being able to understand the external techniques of hacking (and all other aspects of life), is important. However, the author of this book makes the claim that we over focus on the outward and forget the inner or mental game. This book is how to work at peak performance all the time, as well as how to learn fast.

There are two inner selves that we must deal with: self 1 and self 2. Self 1 is the brain and self 2 is the body. The body is amazing and learns stuff quickly; the brain is a skeptic, over analyzer and tries to take all of the credit. The goal of the inner game is to calm self 1 and rely on self 2.

We always say "Kids learn languages better... start kids on new languages when they are young" But why is this? Clearly adults are much more capable of learning! This comes down to how we attempt to learn.

Kids naturally let things come to them; they do not think about how they are learning. They simply do an action, observe the outcome and naturally adjust; this comes from doing things yourself and watching others. Adults use flashcards, read books and so on. The kids natural learning is how the book recommends we go about learning.

For example, let's take golfing. Normally, somebody would focus on the placement of the feet, the speed of the swing simple and 200 other things. Instead, focus on where you want the ball to go and observe the outcome without judgement. If you observe the ball sliced too far to the right, tell yourself this without judgement; your body will naturally make the change the next time you swing. I did this recently with golf and was amazed but how much better I was at the game!

The second major part of the inner game is focus. During a game (or anything else), we are worrying about so many things. For instance, what's for dinner that night, how you are having a bad game, how good the other players are... what if we just focused on the game?

In Golf, focus on the location of the ball, the surroundings of the course, the distance to the hole; worrying about other external things does nothing for you in the moment.

Growing up, I played a ton of baseball and basketball. Now, I play mostly dodgeball and wiffleball. The best moments that I had in sports 100% fell into this category.

A good story comes from dodgeball. I was an outsider in a large dodgeball tournament where the previous year I had taken last in the 1v1 tournament. Because I had nothing to lose and did not know anyone, I simply focused on the game itself. By some miracle, I took 2nd place and won 5 straight 1v1 games versus better players. The following year, I was focused on reputation and lost in the first round.

This book showed me the proper way to learn and the power of true focus. I had never fully understood this until now. These lessons go passed sports however; these lessons can be implemented in many parts of life.

In the inverse, trash talking to get other players out of the focused zone is a good strategy.