Welcome to Brain Hacking

I am one of those fortunate enough to have been called smart. I didn’t quite like this initially, and I still don’t. There’s something very arrogant about being labeled smart. After all, I didn’t truly do anything to deserve it.

But looking back, it’s no coincidence I ended up where I did. I worked hard to convince my teachers that I didn’t need to master all of algebra and geometry before starting calculus. I was obsessed with learning and progressing, often reading popular psychology books about how to best use my brain.

Some of this was luck, but I’m not convinced it’s all, or even mostly, genetics. History is full of examples where seemingly average people made some of the greatest contributions to humanity. Albert Einstein struggled to get a job in academia and had to write his special theory of relativity while working at a patent office. Steve Jobs had a 2.65 GPA in high school.

I want to go on a journey with you. One where we try to decipher how a self-proclaimed ordinary person like Richard Feynman became one of the best physicists in the world. How a Hungarian teacher raised his three daughters to be chess grandmasters, and how, hopefully, you too can become extraordinary.