In Art of Attack: Attacker Mindset for Security Professionals, physical pentester and social engineer Maxie Reynolds describes the mental model of a typical hacker. Reynold argues that to successfully fend off attacks and stay ahead of them is to be able to think like those who would seek to attack us.
War is 90 percent information.—Napoleon Bonaparte
The attacker mindset (AMs) is a set of cognitive skills applied to four laws:
In Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel, American Billionaire, and Real Estate Entrepreneur Sam Zell shares his story of how a restless, curious boy who grew up in Chicago made it to the Forbes 400. He describes the risks that paid off and those that didn’t and what he learned in the process. Sam is best known for building several commercial real estate companies with investments also in other industries such as energy, manufacturing, retail, travel, logistics, and health care.
Sam is the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Poland to escape the Holocaust and come to the United States. A former lawyer, he is the founder and chairman of Equity Group Investments, a private investment firm, founded in 1968. According to Forbes, Sam has an estimated net worth of USD $5.2 billion as of March 2023.
In The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, American Journalist Nicholas Carr argues that instead of enhancing our intelligence, the internet is degrading it. The book is an expansion of his 2008 essay in The Atlantic – Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains! Carr notes that the internet is affecting our ability to concentrate and contemplate. The Web and the internet affect our cognition and ability to do Deep Work.
In DIE Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day, founder and CEO of Accidental Creative Henry Todd provide a framework for having a sense of urgency and doing our most important work every day.
I set a couple of goals at the beginning of the year, such as the 100 Books Reading Challenge, 50 Reports Reading Challenge, 50 Biography Reading Challenge, John C. Maxwell 50 Books Reading Challenge, 50 Magazine Reading Challenge, 365 English Podcast Listening Challenge, 365 French Podcast Listening Challenge etc.
Here is a breakdown of how I faired in executing the above goals in February 2023: