Ultralearning with Scott Young

11/01/19 • 69 min

What if you could create a project to quickly learn the skills to transition to a new role, project, or even profession? What if you could learn a new language, simulate a university degree program, or become good at something that seems impossible to you right now? Well then you’ll enjoy this episode with Scott Young, author of the Wall Street Journal Best Seller, ULTRALEARNING: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career.

Ultralearning isn’t easy, just the opposite, not only is it hard, it’s frustrating and requires stretching outside the limits of where you feel comfortable. However, the things you can accomplish make it worth the effort.

Scott Young is a writer, programmer, traveler, and for more than a decade has run a business focused on productivity. Scott is an avid learner and he has created some fascinating experiments, such as:

“The MIT Challenge” where he attempted to learn MIT’s 4-year computer science curriculum without taking classes,
“The Year Without English,” where he attempted to learn four languages in one year,
“The 30 Day Portrait Drawing Challenge” to see how much improvement he could make in drawing faces, and most recently, and fun,
“Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics.”

So in this episode we discuss these challenges and other intellectual feats and what drives Scott, and of course a deep dive into his new book, which has some amazing folks saying some impressive things:

James Clear of Atomic Habits fame, who also wrote the Foreword to your book, said “Ultralearning is a fascinating and inspiring read. Scott has compiled a goldmine of actionable strategies for learning anything faster.”

Chris Guillebeau said: “This book is an invaluable tool to help you master complicated skills in a short period of time. Read Ultralearning and level up your life!”

Cal Newport said “Ultralearning is like a superpower in our competitive economy. Read this book! It will change your life.”

Derek Sivers said “A truly great book about learning. Riveting, useful, practical, and applicable to anyone ready to learn something at their own pace. Ultralearning shows you exactly how to learn better than you thought possible.”

Scott discusses some of the great case studies in the book along with his own personal challenges, including those of Eric Barone, Tristan de Montebello, and Nigel Richards. His last chapter includes the wonderful story of Judit Polgar and Gary Kasparov.

Scott lives his life in full, and helps others to do so as well with his book and his website’s blog and resources, which are linked in our show notes.

“The MIT Challenge” where he attempted to learn MIT’s 4-year computer science curriculum without taking classes,
“The Year Without English,” where he attempted to learn four languages in one year,
“The 30 Day Portrait Drawing Challenge” to see how much improvement he could make in drawing faces, and most recently, and fun,
“Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics.”

Chris Guillebeau said: “This book is an invaluable tool to help you master complicated skills in a short period of time. Read Ultralearning and level up your life!”

Cal Newport said “Ultralearning is like a superpower in our competitive economy. Read this book! It will change your life.”

Scott lives his life in full, and helps others to do so as well with his book and his website’s blog and resources, which are linked in our show notes.

Previous Episode

Music, Technology and Writing Spun into Gold (and Platinum) with David Frangioni

David Frangioni is quite the polymath—as he is an entrepreneur, award-winning veteran of the music industry, technologist, producer, engineer, author, and perhaps most fundamentally, a drummer. He is the Founder of Audio One and CEO of Frangioni Media and All Access IDA (Inspire and Develop Artists).

He has dedicated his life to designing and building world-class studios, production facilities, and innovative music technology solutions in order to produce music and develop artists, and just recently he became the publisher of Modern Drummer Magazine.

David is the recipient of dozens of gold and platinum albums with credits that include the Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Kiss, Journey, Styx, Shakira, Rascal Flatts, Cher, Phil Collins, Pat Metheny, Ozzy Osbourne, and Chick Corea to name only a few.

He was the chief technologist for Aerosmith for over a decade, and gained worldwide notoriety as the technologist for Ozzy Osbourne after having built two studios and multiple home automation systems for the rock legend, and also appeared in multiple episodes of the hit MTV show "The Osbournes."

As a philanthropist, he served as a Board Member and Musical Director for the Little Dreams Foundation with Phil Collins. He has also participated in Musicians on Call, worked with the Irie Foundation, and established the Frangioni Foundation—a non-profit which David established that helps children in need through faith, music, mentoring and, of course, drumming.

David overcame eye cancer as a young boy, leaving him with one eye. Music and drumming became a way to grow into adolescence and was formative to playing gigs around Boston at the age of 12, and at 16, starting a consulting business.

In the mid-1990s, he founded Audio One and in the show describes some of the projects he’s taken on as well as new technologies are on the horizon. All Access IDA has worked with a deep bench of artists and musicians that are the result of David’s coaching and development.

David also has literary chops as evidenced by having written three bestsellers, including Clint Eastwood: Icon: The Essential Film Art Collection: Revised and Expanded Edition and Crash: The World's Greatest Drum Kits From Appice To Peart To Van Halen.

So for the Icon book, it features rare photography and never-before-seen content based on his collection of film art and material representing Clint Eastwood’s career. He discusses how he goes about selecting and acquiring pieces for the collection, which has more than 10,000 pieces at this point.

Crash, it has been described as “...the definitive illustrated history of the drum kits of rock ’n’ roll legends and the ultimate photographic guide to the world of rock ’n’ roll’s most famous drum kits. Featuring images from live concerts, outdoor festivals, and private recording sessions, this spectacular volume captures the personal connection between artist and instrument.”

I have to say, it is beautiful and the research and writing is amazing. He goes deep in noting the makes and models of each kit, a commentary about the history of the kit, its special characteristics, as well as its significance to rock history. It’s great to get the backstories and the histories, and even see the “back then” and current shots of the musicians. Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer authored the Foreword and Eric Singer of Kiss wrote the Afterword.

David lives his life in full in by creatively blending technical innovation in music elegantly with photography, art and writing. He’s an inspiring and generous humanitarian we can all learn from.

Next Episode

The Ingredients for Success: Learning from the Best with Gillian Zoe Segal, JD

Did you ever wonder if anything ever spooked Warren Buffett? Or how Jeff Koons got started?

In the spirit of Tim Ferriss’ books, Tribe of Mentors and Tools of Titans, Gillian Zoe Segal spent five years meeting, interviewing and photographing 30 diversely successful billionaires (Buffett, Sara Blakely, Michael Bloomberg), artists (Jeff Koons, Marina Abramović), creatives (Frank Gehry, Hans Zimmer, Matthew Weiner), authors (Anderson Cooper, Graydon Carter, Jeff Kinney), athletes (Laird Hamilton, Jillian Michaels), and of course a Harvard Dean and Nobel Laureate along with various and sundry inventors, leaders, and pioneers.

The result is a wonderful book of inspirational backstories and actionable approaches, aptly titled Getting There: A Book of Mentors.

Gillian Zoe Segal is an entrepreneur, CNBC contributor, photographer and author of not only Getting There: A Book of Mentors but also New York Characters. She was also one of LinkedIn’s top voices and is a professional speaker having spoken at Google, Royal Bank of Canada, Lexis-Nexis, and numerous other venues across North America. Gillian received a BA from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

I first came across Gillian in Omaha at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting where she was doing a book signing. In this episode we learn how growing up in New York City shaped her and her writing, particularly her first book New York Characters.

Getting There is a literal who’s who of interviewees, but New York Characters, while having many celebrities and notables, it is much more eclectic. We talk about the how she came up with that idea, along with a budding genre, like Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York.

She tells us how she transitioned from law school graduate to photographer and author, along with the backstory to getting her first book published and how she got George Plimpton to not only be in it, but also write the Foreword.

Speaking to her humanity, her author proceeds from the sale of New York Characters went to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

We do deep dives into both of her books and learn how she went about reaching those profiled, how she convinced them to be in, who was the hardest to get on board and who was the easiest.

It’s interesting to learn that many of those profiled had failures and some pretty difficult beginnings. She also uncovered commonalities among these amazingly successful people and discusses them, along with a few surprises. We even learn how she composed her shots.

Gillian had the benefit of doing a deep question and answer session with 30 of some of the most successful people in the world, and we find out how she changed as a result.

Gillian, like those she’s interviewed, lives a life in full. She is gracious enough to have put her findings and experiences into words and pictures so we can as well.