Ultralearning Book Summary - Ultralearning Book explained in key points
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Ultralearning summary

Scott H. Young

Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Tasks and Outsmart the Competition

4.5 (1022 ratings)
30 mins
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    Ultralearning
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    Ultralearning is the smart, strategic way to skill up for personal fulfillment and professional advantage.

    Benny Lewis is a polyglot who takes an average of three months to learn a new language. That makes him an ultralearner: a self-directed learner who can acquire new skills in a short time frame, through adopting an aggressive and strategic learning approach. 

    Ultralearning projects are self-directed, challenging and time-consuming. Just look at the ultralearning project devised by Eric Barone. Most successful computer games are created by teams of professionals with huge budgets. Barone, an IT graduate working as a theater usher, decided to create one completely on his own. Over five years, Barone refined his game’s mechanics through intensive trial and error. Along the way, he taught himself pixel art, music composition, sound design and story writing. 

    The finished game, Stardew Valley, was released in 2016. It sold over three million copies that year and landed Barone on Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ list.

    Your ultralearning project might not land you in the pages of Forbes magazine, but it can bring ‘unrealistic’ dreams, like learning French or mastering watercolor painting, within reach. Beyond being a path to personal fulfillment, though, ultralearning can help you hone your professional edge. And staying competitive professionally has never been more urgent. 

    As medium-skilled jobs are threatened by automation, workers need to adapt, upskill and retrain to stay competitive. In the new professional landscape, the most desirable workers have hybridized skill sets: librarian/data analyst, architect/textile designer, accountant/Mandarin speaker. Ultralearners can diversify their skill sets without taking time off work to pursue further education or qualifications.

    If ultralearning sounds appealing, you’re probably already wondering how it works. The following blinks will break down the principles of ultralearning, and outline how to implement them in your own ultralearning project.

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    What is Ultralearning about?

    Ultralearners are ordinary people who can master difficult skills with extraordinary speed. As a result, they achieve tremendous personal success and cultivate a serious professional advantage. But how exactly do they pull it off? In Ultralearning (2019), Scott H. Young analyzes the aggressive, self-directed learning strategies of some of the world’s most successful ultralearners and breaks them down into techniques and strategies that anyone can implement.

    Who should read Ultralearning?

    • Anyone who’s tried to learn a new skill and become discouraged.
    • Workers who want to extend and upgrade their professional skill sets.
    • Busy people who want to skill up efficiently and effectively.

    About the Author

    Scott H. Young is a writer, programmer and entrepreneur with a passion for self-mastery and career development. He’s spent years studying the lives and work of ultralearners, uncovering their incredible learning strategies and distilling them into easy-to-apply principles designed to optimize learning for everyone. But Young hasn’t just studied the ultralearners, he is one. Through the principles of ultralearning, he’s taught himself multivariate calculus to a university level and become proficient in Mandarin Chinese, among other languages.

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