Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young (PDF)

Description

Now a Wall Street Journal bestseller.Learn a new talent, stay relevant, reinvent yourself, and adapt to whatever the workplace throws your way. Ultralearning offers nine principles to master hard skills quickly. This is the essential guide to future-proof your career and maximize your competitive advantage through self-education.In these tumultuous times of economic and technological change, staying ahead depends on continual self-education—a lifelong mastery of fresh ideas, subjects, and skills. If you want to accomplish more and stand apart from everyone else, you need to become an ultralearner. The challenge of learning new skills is that you think you already know how best to learn, as you did as a student, so you rerun old routines and old ways of solving problems. To counter that, Ultralearning offers powerful strategies to break you out of those mental ruts and introduces new training methods to help you push through to higher levels of retention. Scott H. Young incorporates the latest research about the most effective learning methods and the stories of other ultralearners like himself—among them Benjamin Franklin, chess grandmaster Judit Polgár, and Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman, as well as a host of others, such as little-known modern polymath Nigel Richards, who won the French World Scrabble Championship—without knowing French. Young documents the methods he and others have used to acquire knowledge and shows that, far from being an obscure skill limited to aggressive autodidacts, ultralearning is a powerful tool anyone can use to improve their career, studies, and life. Ultralearning explores this fascinating subculture, shares a proven framework for a successful ultralearning project, and offers insights into how you can organize and exe – cute a plan to learn anything deeply and quickly, without teachers or budget-busting tuition costs.Whether the goal is to be fluent in a language (or ten languages), earn the equivalent of a college degree in a fraction of the time, or master multiple tools to build a product or business from the ground up, the principles in Ultralearning will guide you to success.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The book Ultralearning teaches the reader how to learn better and get better results from what they are trying to learn. “Ultralearning is a strategy for acquiring skills and knowledge that is both self-directed and intense.”I read this book more from the perspective of a teacher rather than a learner. I may use the concepts at some point to do my own ultralearning projects, but since I am creating content to teach people new skills, I’m looking for ways to make my content more engaging. I want to know the best ways to teach people and help them learn what I’m teaching.One of the things I really liked about this book was that the author provided practical information about ultralearning. He didn’t just present a bunch of concepts; he gave strategies and tactics for getting results.The Nine Principles of UltralearningHere are the nine principles of ultralearning, along with some things I’ve learned about each principle:1. Metaleaning: First Draw a MapLearn how to learn a topic. Find out how others who successfully learned the topic learned it. Don’t just try the first tactic you discover because other tactics may help you learn more effectively.2. Focus: Sharpen Your KnifeFocus on starting your project. Focus on sustaining progress on your project. Focus on ensuring that your learning is directed at what you need to learn to increase knowledge, not just make yourself feel good by focusing on the basics.3. Directness: Go Straight AheadLearn by using the new skill you’re trying to acquire in a situation similar to or exactly like the situation you would actually use the skill. For example, learning a new language is more direct when you try to use the language in conversation with someone rather than just listening to lessons or using fun apps.4. Drill: Attach Your Weakest PointKnowing what you really need to learn and deliberately practicing. Focus more on the areas that you are deficient in to improve your weakest skills. Practice an isolated component.5. Retrieval: Test to LearnLearning something doesn’t do you any good if you can’t remember it when you need it. Testing yourself on what you’ve learned is best done by doing retrieval exercises or tests rather than referring to books or content about the subject. Do your best to extract the information you are learning from your memory to help form long-term memories of the content.6. Feedback: Don’t Dodge the PunchesFind ways to get honest feedback from your learning initiatives through tests. It’s easy to get feedback that stokes your ego, but this feedback does not help you grow and learn. Some feedback is noise and is not helpful. Other feedback is a signal and can help you build up the skill you’re trying to learn by letting you know about things you need to improve upon.7. Retention: Don’t Fill a Leaky BucketSpending a lot of time learning something is almost useless if you don’t retain what you’ve learned. Some things are essential to keep in your memory, while others can be looked up if needed in the future.8. Intuition: Dig Deep Before Building UpKnowing a skill so well that you can apply it to different situations. Having such a deep understanding of a subject, you know all the possibilities to solve a problem and when to use which solution.9. Experimentation: Explore Outside Your Comfort ZoneExperimentation helps you learn because it forces you to try new things to accomplish a task or goal. Experimentation expands your knowledge and understanding of the topic in unexpected ways. Experimentation is accomplished by using different resources, techniques, or styles.Some of my favorite highlights in the book:• “Passive learning creates knowledge. Active practice creates skill.”• “Your deepest moments of happiness don’t come from doing easy things; they come from realizing your potential and overcoming your own limiting beliefs about yourself.”• “What could you learn if you took the right approach to make it successful? Who could you become?”• “Flow is the enjoyable state between boredom and frustration; when a task is neither too hard nor too easy.”• When learning, “Sometimes what’s the most fun isn’t very effective and what’s effective isn’t easy.”• “…enjoyment tends to come from being good at things.”• “…one of the most important educational tasks is to teach self-education.”• “It is when one learns to do something that nobody else can do that learning becomes truly valuable.”• “The better one gets, the more one recognizes how much better one could become.”Of course, there’s a lot more in the book, and I have more questions than answers after reading it. Since ultralearning is a personal thing, I’m not sure I’ll be able to apply it strictly to teaching others, but I’ve developed some ideas about how to improve my content by reading this book.If you truly want to master a skill, you may want to check out Ultralearning and follow the book’s principles, tactics, and strategies to start your own ultralearning project.

⭐Although I don’t consider myself an obsessive ultralearner like the polyglots and “Jeapordy!” champion that Scott Young talks about in “Ultralearning,” I’ve always had an interest in how to improve learning. My first exposure started over 30 years ago when I read Harry Lorayne’s “Page-a-Minute Memory Book,” which anyone serious about learning should read. Following his techniques, I learned enough Hebrew to pass a professional licensing exam in Israel, memorize two combined decks of cards, and commit to long-term memory many of the laws in the Bible. As Scott Young would point out, though, there is more to learning than just memorizing. (Harry Lorayne, on the other hand, would say that all learning requires having enough information in your head so that you can really think about it.)In Young’s book, he tells about some of his amazing feats of ultralearning, including how he could learn the information of an MIT undergraduate degree by himself for free. He explains that such an undertaking requires a lot of planning, suggesting that someone devoting time to a such a project should allot about 10% of the total time to just preparing. He provides strategies for dealing with the unpleasantness of working too hard for too long, and also provides some practical suggestions to handling procrastination: “Try to get yourself to do five minutes of the project, since that is a small bite to start with. Once you’re able to get to do that, try the Pomodoro Technique: 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. Once you are able to do that, then begin to put scheduled work periods on the calendar. From time to time, you will have setbacks, in which case go back to the beginning using the five-minute rule.”He makes an excellent point about an educational term known as “direct learning.” Simply put, direct learning means learning the specific thing you want to know. If you’d like to know how to do algebra, learn algebra. Don’t study some more general fields to improve your skills of analysis and hope to apply that to algebra; that would be indirect. The research that Young offers in his book points out how unsuccessful indirect learning is, and, in fact, that it’s a waste of time. He briefly asks a question that I wish more people would ask: “Given the well-documented difficulty with indirect forms of learning, why are they still the default both in schools and in many failed attempts at self-education? The answer is that learning directly is hard. It is often more frustrating, challenging, and intense than reading a book or sitting through a lecture. But this very difficulty creates a potent source of competitive advantage for any would-be ultralearner. If you’re willing to apply tactics that exploit directness despite these difficulties, you will end up learning much more effectively…. In government run schools, they want to show that something is happening so they do all sorts of indirect learning which… does not really prepare people for anything… Direct learning is more difficult, and the schools don’t really want to challenge students.”The conclusion that readers should take away from this book is that there are so many great ways to learn. My life changed decades ago when I read Harry Lorayne. Scott Young discovered that he could get an MIT degree in a quarter of the time as everyone else. And there are so many other options as well. If that’s the case, why don’t we let people direct their own education? Why do we rely on huge government bureaucracies to raise our children when we know that, on average, they do a pretty mediocre job? (Or worse! Consider that 75% of black California boys don’t meet state reading standards.) Read Scott Young’s book and I bet that once you’ve tasted the power of real education, you’ll wonder why you wasted your youth in government institutions instead of in a well-run, creative, small, educational setting. Perhaps home schooling, charter schools, unschooling? In the end, we need to stop the government monopoly on running our schools and allow freedom for courageous thinkers like Scott Young to inspire people to love learning and to succeed in self-education. For more on the topic of improving the education of all children, not just those select few lucky enough to come across Scott Young, read “The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money by Bryan Douglas Caplan.”

⭐If serious about the only option is to succeed this book is for you….Amazing discussion that shows how traditional education is a waste of time, money, and effort compared to the MIT example Mr. Scott showed us all…. I have multiple degrees and a lifetime of business experience in multiple fields like construction, ranching, education, and raw, dog eat dog selling in the military surplus environ and this will be my capstone activity to beginning the intense training to get to the TOP of my game. Thank you Mr. Scott also for the extra ebooks’. What a deal this purchase turned out to be.

⭐This book is about nothing, the beginning goes on and on how some guy had ultralearned topics, without going into actual detail as to how, pages and pages, of stories. Then when it gets into detail mid book, you are told about these “principles” of ultralearning like sharpen your focus, research the subject you’re about to learn, talk to someone who already knows it… Loads and loads of just common sense bog standard stuff. Very little usable content, the author is more suited to writing fiction than this type of material, which needs to be objective to the point, filled with usable content rather, stories….

⭐Very disappointed. This book is basic, unimaginative and frankly boring. Essentially it tells you to have a goal, research and plan your learning, set time aside and then work hard at learning it. What’s new Scott. Don’t waste your money on this book. If you took the stories out of this book there wouldn’t be much of it left. It strikes me that Scott is just trying to cash in…..great title though, pity there’s nothing ‘ultra’ in it.

⭐I absolutely loved this book. Whilst I had heard about Scott Young previously, I had not read any of his books and I have now become a big fan.The book starts with a Forward from James Young – the Author of Atomic Habits. I highly recommend that book as well and James reflects how his success from an unproven author to a bestselling author was also down to Ultralearning just without him realising he was applying this framework of learning. There is a mention of Cal Newport and his books on Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, So Good They Can’t Ignore You are all great books that compliment Ultralearning.Ultralearning is Performance-Driven Learning. Taking on learning of ambitious learning projects that are only considered for those who are Geniuses or special skills. Ultralearning is the skill of deeply acquiring and applying skills.Scott is an Ultralearner himself and has taken on many projects of Ultralearning from the MIT Challenge in 2011-2012 where he learnt a 4 year MIT Computer Science Curriculum in 12 months, A Year without English in 2013-2014 where he learnt Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese and Korean, to the Portrait Drawing Challenge in 2016 where. through rapid feedback, he learnt how to draw faces realistically.Scott briefly introduces some of these but to give context to Ultralearning. This is not a book about him bigging up himself, he spends lots of time talking about the stories of different people who have taken on UltraLearning projects and the strategies they have used for this.What I especially love is the fact that he presents 9 principles for you to become an Ultralearner. He has come up with the 9 principles, being especially careful of ensuring that these principles can be applied and are not just idiosyncrasies of an individual.He covers 9 main principles:- Meta-learning- Focus- Directness- Drill- Retrieval- Feedback- Retention- Intuition- ExperimentationThe book looks at methods that are validated through scientific research and controlled experiments. It, therefore, provides great concepts that can be applied for any Ultralearning project.Whilst some of the concepts may be known concepts e.g. Focus principes, using the pomodoro technique, dealing with procrastination and distraction. There are so many things he talks about which help dive deeper into understanding the concepts explained.For example, when he takes about directedness he goes into details of various ways of doing this from Project-Based Learning, Immersive Learning, The Flight Simulator Method and the Overkill Approach.When talking about direct practice and drills he delves into Time Slicing, Cognitive Components, Copycat, Magnifying Glass method and Pre-Requisite Chaining.These are just a few examples of several strategies he goes through in each and every principle.Each chapter has a story of different people who have taken on Ultralearning projects, whether it is a librarian who learnt Data Analysis Skills, Someone who become fluent in a language in just 3 months, an Architecture graduate who got a job through directness and getting skills that got him a job in the recession or someone getting into the semi-finals of a world public speaking championship without having any public speaking skills at all.Scott brings to life the concepts through the stories and explaining the relevance. I like how Intuition and Experimentation are also important principles with Scott doing a great job of explaining Richard Feynman’s Intuitive expertise and Vincent van Gogh’s experimentation (He started late in his painting career and had no obvious talent).The book title sums this up very well – Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Skills and Outsmart the Competition. This book certainly gives you a framework to be able to do this. It does not promise to make it easy for you, in fact, it does highlight that this does require active effort and is a hard process. However, it is possible and the book is an enabler to help you build an Ultralearning attitude.This is a short book of about 265 pages but is probably something you would use for reference as you think about the Ultralearning projects you are looking to take on. I am super excited about the possibilities this book demonstrates and the inspiration from various people who have taken on Ultralearning projects. I will be reading this a few times and will be doing lots of thinking of how I can use these principles for my first Ultralearning projects amongst many more in the future. I highly recommend this book. It is a game-changer.

⭐O título faz parecer ser um livro de auto ajuda. Não deixa de ser na medida em que é sobre técnicas que vão lhe ajudar a obter melhores resultados em suas pesquisas.Entretanto vai MUITO além disto, mas muito além mesmo: é um verdadeiro estudo de epistemologia e muito bem fundamentado, com diversas referências bibliográficas e mesmo personagens reais que, ao serem pesquisados, enriquecem ainda mais a leitura.A leitura é muito interessante e segue os princípios pregados pelo autor. São apresentados princípios de aprendizagem e cada capítulo representa um destes princípios. Começa com um exemplo prático, ilustrado por uma história real de alguém (uma das personagens) e, na sequência, este exemplo é analisado expondo quais foram os acertos e estratégias seguidas por aquela pessoa para obter sucesso no aprendizado.Uma das melhores leituras que fiz em 2019 sem dúvidas.Doido para sair em português para que possamos ter estas ideias melhor discutidas aqui no Brasil.

⭐Not found.

⭐Do you want to learn/understand a new or difficult subject/skill in relatively short period of time than it should/usually takes to pursue?Do you want to know the skillset to get rid of the self-sabotaging habit of procrastination which makes you less accomplished than you could have been?Do you want to catch up with the subjects or a degree or a goal which you have had abandoned a long time ago but have plans to resume all over again?Do you want to acquire a “superpower” that helps you to outsmart the competition?Then, my friend, this book is an invaluable tool for you. Read it, understand it, implement it, and master complicated skills by becoming an ultra-fast learner.Whether you are a student, or trying to learn a new language (in both sense, you know what I mean), or need to add a new skillset to enhance your professional profile, or struggling to concentrate on your studies, or getting ready for an examination, you should absolutely read this brilliantly researched and beautifully written masterpiece.I’d like to recommend an another book with similar impact, if you do not already know the name: “Deep Work” by Cal Newport.Best of luck.

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