Week 1: Introduction & Course Overview

We all know one or two talented people in our circles of acquaintances. These are people who, in our opinion, bring incredible performance in one or another area. Most people believe such talents and abilities are innate and that these people have strong skills in these areas due to their genetics or other intangible factors. Besides the fact that genetics influence our thinking processes, talent itself is not innate—the ability to solve particular problems with excellence results from thought processes developed primarily in early childhood. Children can develop such a talent much more effortlessly than adults. This is because they have not yet developed complicated thinking and do not have complex hurdles to overcome. In other words, children typically do not overcomplicate things like adults do.

There is no precise definition of talent. Because the official definition is that talent is a natural aptitude or skill. Natural in this sense means that it exists in or is caused by nature. Nevertheless, it cannot be valid if we consider it carefully because this would have to apply to any skill. Then let us ask the following:

Who among the several million students on Hack The Box can naturally fly an airplane?

Starting and taking off an airplane requires considerable technical knowledge, which differs based on the type of airplane. Maybe there will be one who, with luck and without knowledge, manages to start the plane and drive with it a few meters, but taking off requires knowledge of the controls and physics. No one knows how to fly an airplane naturally without considerable training and practice.

This definition leads us to believe that masters of their craft are born. This is a misconception that comes from the interpretive ability of humans that we must abstract from. However, in summary, talented individuals are defined as highly efficient and perform exceptionally well in their individual fields.

Such talents, or rather the ability to solve specific problems and challenges with high efficiency, arise from the constant or persistent confrontation with the corresponding situations and the problems that arise. However, it does not have to be precisely the one situation to develop talent but rather the thinking pattern to solve problems. The confrontation expands the so-called comfort zone and repertoire, which allows us to think more easily and tackle the challenge or problem. In essence, talent is a trained and adapted thought process and the associated thought patterns for specific fields and situations.

However, we know that we have a good influence on our thought processes and thought patterns and can influence them according to our decisions. This means we can develop and train such talent for any field we want.

We should keep in mind that we are not born with our talents/skills. A newborn baby will not suddenly start speaking in 5 different languages or explain to the doctor which laws were not adequately followed during childbirth. However, if we have a guitarist who has been playing guitar for years, it will be much easier for that person to learn to play bass guitar than someone who has never played a string instrument. Nevertheless, let us take a slightly more complicated example where the differences become much clearer. Even a drummer will find it easier to learn to play bass guitar than someone who has never played a musical instrument.

Drummers have a great sense of rhythm and emphasize certain parts in each measure. Good drummers keep the rhythm for the songs played and highlight and support the other instruments and vocals with different combinations and variations. Thus, a drummer has already learned many skills needed to learn bass guitar. The drummer will then focus on completely different skills that an inexperienced student has yet to develop in learning to play bass guitar. If we put the drummer and the inexperienced student in the same room, the drummer will be perceived as talented.

Developing talent in childhood often depends mainly on the parents and how they encourage their children. If a child enjoys something, or at least it is presented as fun by the parents, and the child engages with it, it learns to deal with the given situation. This opens up new possibilities for the child, and new thought patterns are formed, which will be followed by the thought processes first. To understand how these thought processes develop, we would have to deal in detail with psychology and neurology, which goes far beyond this module’s scope. However, the important thing is that we influence the development of our thought patterns, thought processes, and thus also our talents.

We consider someone talented when they learn something new quickly or grasp its functionality. Calling someone talented is, basically, a status assignment. We consider all our students talented even if we do not know their “talents.” However, we understand that any kind of individuality in our students’ thinking patterns will help them solve different situations in a way that will bring out their talent. In most cases, our students will inevitably discover for themselves what their talents are over time and practice. The problem is that the variety of situations that arise is so extensive that it is difficult to identify these talents in penetration testing.