HTB — Learning Process

Section 1: Mindset

1. Way of thinking

All programming follows principles that R.D. Tennent initially defined:

1. The Principle of Abstraction
2. The Principle of Correspondence
3. The Principle of Data Type Completeness

There are two kinds of people;

1. Those who do not know anything.
2. Those who think they do not know anything.

2. Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor is one of the central principles of modern scientific theory. The principle is based on the following definition:

• The most straightforward theory is preferable to all others of several sufficient possible explanations for the same state of facts. In other words: The simplest explanation is always the most probable.

3. Talent

No one is born talented but continuing learning leads us to the place where we are more acknowledged than yesterday, so keep learning, learning is a journey…

Section 2: Learning dependencies

1. Way of learning

Q. 20 * ____ + _____ = 65535

For the above-given equation multiple ways to solve it, so we should think outside the box. “Think Outside the Box”. We shouldn't limit our thoughts for a particular subject matter.

=> A problem is an emotional state. Without emotions, it is just a situation.

2. Learning efficiency

The primary and most difficult objective is to overcome it by combining our knowledge, adaptation, and new information.

Finding the information we need is often challenging. First, we have to determine what kind of information we need.

• What do we already know?
• What do we not know yet?

3. Learning types

• Passive learning = read, hear
• Active learning = view images, watch videos, …….

Efficiency depends not only on the quality of information we find but on the usage of that information.

Moreover, it depends on our motivation, focus, and our goal.

=> Progress is noticeable when the question that tortured us has lost its meaning.

Looking back and seeing how far we have come will keep us motivated. Many people struggle during the learning process because they have to learn a lot of different topics. It is vital to take breaks and remain calm.

4. The Brain

• The theory of thought

A thought is an individual process (action/reaction) to one or more influences (internal/external) in which information is interpreted and linked inwardly according to our methodology (developed through our existing lifetimes).

• Conscious thoughts

Consciousness describes the totality of all those mental processes by which we become aware of the external and internal world with active observation. Therefore, when we actively observe that we are looking at a monitor full of text and can decide to change the situation if necessary and intentionally look elsewhere, we are in consciousness.

• Unconscious thoughts

Psychology knows another level of consciousness, the so-called subconscious. Thoughts that arise in our subconscious, we do not perceive superficially. What we do perceive are emotions. Emotions reflect the way we think subconsciously. We process far more thoughts subconsciously than consciously.

5. The Will

From a philosophical point of view, will is defined as deciding on a particular type of action based on the motives for acting consciously. So let us say will is the effort to perform a certain action or achieve a specific goal. Therefore, it is most relevant for us to have decided to achieve a goal that we have determined and strive for.

Fear is a state and the product of our imagination of the future and its consequences where the present is suppressed.

Questions to ask yourself;

1. Have we already worked through all the material?
2. Have we already seen what is being taught and how it is being taught?
3. Do we already have to have the skills that are expected of us?

5. The Goal?

We should be defining our goal before learning something new. Like

• Pass an exam?
• Obtain a certification?
• Learn and master new skills?
• Or impress and please others?

6. Decision Making

The Trolley Problem

Decide (Decision Making) on the goal defined in detail (The Goal) that you really want to achieve from your heart (Willingness), and that will make you happy consciously and subconsciously (The Brain).

“A train speeds unbraked toward a group of five-track workers. The switchman might divert the train to a siding where only one person is working. Should he sacrifice one person to save five others?”

Section 3: Learning Overview

1. Documentation

When it comes to documentation, we must first determine the report audience. We will document our activities differently than we would present our results to a customer. The purpose of documentation is to present the information we have obtained in a comprehensible and easy way to reproduce a specific activity.

Therefore the essential characteristics of documentation are:

1. Overview
2. Structure
3. Clarity

=> No matter whom the documentation is intended for, here are some guidelines we can follow:

1. It is beneficial to put ourselves in the position of our readers. This will make it much easier for us to design the documentation.
2. Avoid repetition and ambiguity.
3. Make documentation as easy to read as possible. No one wants to read the documentation that is difficult to understand or follow.

2. Organization

It may take us a single day to take over several systems. So we don’t want to keep looking for sources or information we need over and over again. Organization is best described in the following example:

• An inexperienced woodcutter takes 30 minutes to sharpen his axe and 3 hours to cut down the tree.
• The experienced one will sharpen the axe for 3 hours and cut down the tree within 30 minutes.

There are many different management techniques and methods that we can use.

These include:

• Scrum
• Agile
• ToDo-Lists
• Bullet Journal and more.

Section 4: The Process

1. Focus

It is essential to differentiate between focus and attention because they are not the same. Attention refers to the momentum, as it is happening right now, and you are reading this text. However, the focus is on the topic you are dealing with at the moment. When we return to the example of the misplaced keys, try to remember what was going through your mind. Most likely, it was something like:

“Where did I put the keys?” or “Where did I last see them?”

The focus is based on our will and what we want to achieve. It can be a conscious decision and a subconscious decision guided by external influences.

Focusing is the purposeful and deliberate alignment to a specific goal.

Focused people are not only enormously persistent and tenacious, but they are also hardly distracted or discouraged. If we know our goal, it is easier to align our focus accordingly. This, in turn, makes us much more efficient, and we get closer to our goal much faster and do not let ourselves be distracted by external influences.

2. Attention

It can be said that attention is the perception of a specific topic with a higher level of interest to gather specific data and information from it.

Our attention changes with our experience and the information we gain from the content and its clarity.

Attention is influenced by your interests, needs, personal attitudes, beliefs, orientations, goals, and experiences.

3. Comfort

Comfort is an emotional state of a person’s mind, which, among other aspects, has a strong influence on behavior, thinking, focus, attention, and the ability to concentrate. This is the feeling of well-being in the form of comfort and the attitude of risk-free behavior. This is also often referred to as the so-called comfort zone in which the person thinks(!) he/she is located.

Those who chose to leave their comfort zone would reach their destination faster than they thought they would. They would never have sprinted at such speed before in their lives.

Now we should understand the progression between decisions to step out of our comfort zone or stay in it. We will often get into situations where we do not know what to do. These will come again and again. However, we will always learn something new, and it will become more comfortable each time.

4. Obstacles

Fear

People fear what might happen in the future while not considering the present.

The difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner has lost more often than the loser.

For better understanding:

Mindset

It is in these situations that our excuses come up, like:

• I cannot do this
• This is not for me
• I do not understand this, etc.

The only thing we have to do is to add the word “yet.”

• I cannot do this “yet.”
• This is not for me “yet.”
• I do not understand this “yet.” etc.

This has the effect of stimulating our beliefs and thus the mindset to overcome this obstacle.

All obstacles and feelings that prevent us from doing so are temporary. These feelings pass, but the goal remains.

Another factor often perceived as an obstacle is comparing skill, talent, and passion. However, we have already learned what constitutes talent.

• Talent is a strongly developed skill with high efficiency.
• Skill is the ability to manage or solve something well.
• Passion is an emotional commitment to a particular area.

Pressure

We can eliminate external influences more easily than many might think. All we need is our clearly defined goal. If we have such a goal that we follow passionately, hardly anyone will talk us out of it. It is even less likely if we know that we can achieve this goal.

We should remember the following:

“Only the person who has taken the same journey as you can evaluate you and your decisions. Everything else is only assumptions.”

5. Questioning

The most important and most difficult thing in any situation is not the search for the right answer but the search for the right question.

We can assign two states to a question; thus, we would describe it as a rough question or a precise question.

• A rough question would be, for example, “How can I hack X?”
• A precise question would be: “How can I use the server’s SMB service to identify its existing user accounts?”

Every question is based on three aspects with which we build our questions every day:

• origin
• process
• result/goal

The official definition of a question is as follows:

A question is a sentence worded or expressed to elicit information.

Relationship-Oriented-Questioning Model

“A right question is a precise question that allows us to establish the relationships between the components, to understand them, and to take us one step further to the required answer. “

6. Handling frustration

To express frustration tolerance in this way, it is crucial to know where it comes from. Let us take a look at the following diagram:

7. Learning Progress

Lastly, we should always track our learning progress whether we are going on the right track or not. This helps us to improve, know our faults during the learning process, and make a better version of ourselves.