Mental Strength in Judo, Mental Strength in Life

Paraphrased for HN: > “The difference between the hackers and all the other developers, is that the hackers find a path to a solution when they have the least at their disposal. You have to focus on what you can control. The most common mistake is to try to feel good, or try to work well. But this is not something you can control. My number one advice is don’t focus on yourself, but focus on the strategy to break down the tasks, knowing what you have today. Because when you focus on you and your problems, you don’t focus on the tasks. My second piece of advice work on your engagement and your attitude. The engagement comes from the way you speak to yourself. So find a way to talk to yourself in a way that helps you have the best possible engagement, which will help you also keep positive, and help you keep the focus on the task and not on yourself. The hackers, on a bad day, focus only on those two things, and forget all the rest that they have no control over.”

Dang mentions curiosity as a key virtue for HN. Curiosity helps with both of the two things above: wondering what comes next helps with digging in and breaking down tasks; wondering what comes next also helps with engaging with, and hence actually accomplishing, each subtask.

I enjoyed this read and have some of the same parallels in my judo and professional journey. I suffer the same issue with overthinking which kills my effectiveness in shiai/randori and probably professionally as well. My coaches are always yelling "inte tveka" (don't hesitate). Hesitation kills your momentum and creates feature creep (both physical and mental).

This is such an interesting experiment, and extremely well written.

But it feels half-finished. I agree with his friend's thoughts, rerunning the experiment again, with his newfound knowledge seems like the logical next step. The results of that could validate his hypothesis, and seems like it would be a much more personally meaningful way for him to end his experiment, versus the current conclusion.