We’ve all seen it happen. You’re faced with a challenge or task you can’t seem to get a handle on. Suddenly someone with little or no related training or education steps in and figures it out completely on their own.

You step back, shake your head and wonder how they did it. They didn’t follow a detailed set of instructions. They didn’t wait around for somebody else to show them what to do. What’s their secret?

They’ve learned The Ultimate Lesson of success!

Now you can too!

The Ultimate Lesson
10 Point Guide on How to Teach Yourself ANYTHING
By Art Niemann
$14.95
Order online from Amazon.com

What happens when the bulk of the education you intended to rely upon for a lifetime becomes obsolete in just a few years? How do you prepare for inevitable career changes when formal training is not available? In today’s fast moving society, these important questions are being asked with ever increasing frequency. The rapid advancement of technology often leaves the well educated person armed with skills that can quickly become obsolete as the world transforms around them. Those who do not adapt take the chance of being left behind.

The format of traditional education has clearly not kept pace with the pace of advancement in today's modern society. The antiquated teaching methods, which have changed little during the last century, have helped perpetuate the myth that a normal “education” that ends at approximately age 22 prepares a person for a lifetime of productivity in the skill in which they majored.

The Ultimate Lesson is much more than just a new method of learning. It unleashes your unique ability to tackle virtually any challenge, skill or subject, without regard to your present level of experience, and accomplish your goals even when formal instruction is not available. Utilizing this unique skill opens up an entire world of possibilities to all of us who were brought up to believe that any new subjects could only be learned through formal education.

Today the explosive growth in technology renders nearly obsolete those skills which may have been on the cutting edge just a few years before. The person who relies only on those skills picked up during their “learning years” will be severely shortchanged. This is where self-learning comes into play. First, it is necessary just to keep pace. Second, it opens up a whole new range of career and entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as personal fulfillment.

A true self-learner enjoys ultimate freedom. They are among the world’s most successful people. We label them as geniuses, while at the same time not realizing that each of us shares this same amazing ability. The Ultimate Lesson enforces the belief that we all have this ability to learn on our own.

This naturalistic method of learning forms the backbone of The Ultimate Lesson. By focusing on what you want to accomplish, finding the proper motivation, and working backwards to form a plan of action, your potential is absolutely unlimited!

At one time or another we’ve all faced a challenge or task that we thought we just couldn’t handle. What would you say if someone who had little or no training or education in a particular subject stepped in and quickly figured it out completely on her own? You would take a step back, shake your head, and wonder how she did it. Helen hadn’t tackled anything like this before; she’d had no formal training, she didn’t follow a detailed set of instructions, and she didn’t wait around for somebody else to show her what to do. If you weren’t envious, you might compliment her by saying, “Helen, you’re pretty good at that. You must have a knack for it.”

Imagine that a few weeks later you run into Helen again. This time you might find her expressing herself creatively by painting some beautiful picture. You are amazed. You might suspect that she had studied art for many years to be able to paint like that, but when you ask Helen where she learned her skill, she says she never studied formally. “I enjoy painting and just paint what I see and feel.”

Would it be correct to say that Helen has a knack for painting? Certainly, but if you were to give her another challenge that she desired to take on, she’d probably teach herself whatever she needed to know in order to meet that challenge as well.

Imagine if you had the ability to teach yourself anything. If you could do that, chances are that most of the barriers that presently hold you back would vanish. Self-learning is not some skill reserved only for “geniuses,” nor does it have language or cultural barriers. It is a skill that we all share, regardless of race, sex, age, upbringing, wealth, or anything else you believe limits your potential.

The Ultimate Lesson will show you how you can master anything that you want to learn, naturally and effortlessly. Once you discover how to teach yourself, your life will have virtually no limits. All the world’s teachers and trainers combined cannot teach you a fraction of what you can teach yourself.

The Ultimate Lesson does not give you something you don’t already have. Instead, it enables you to realize the amazing ability you are unaware that you already possess. As you progress through this book, you will see a lot of conventional “wisdom” go right out the window. At the same time, you will understand that you are sitting on top of a gold mine of personal power and ability, just waiting for you to tap into it.

Everyone learns to walk. It's one of the first things we learn on our own without instruction manuals or lessons, and it's a prime illustration of successful self-learning.

The lesson begins when a child sees her parents walking. Baby Jody wants to be just like the grown-ups, to go where they go, as quickly as they go, instead of crawling slowly on the floor. After some experimentation with her leg muscles, Jody tries to stand up by herself, but falls down. With a little persistence, she's able to stand upright all by herself. Then she tries to take a step as she's seen her parents do many times. She falls down on the second step, but Jody's desire to walk persists. Up again, down again, she learns how to balance and move her legs. She has a few hard falls and cries a bit, but doesn't give up. When she finally can take a few steps unaided, Jody is rewarded with her family's approval.

When Jody becomes an adult, small failures are more difficult for her to overcome. "I've failed. I'll never try anything again because I can't stand the thought of being humiliated in front of my family and friends." That may be her reaction to failure now, but she probably had no such fear when she was learning to walk.

Such a spectacular "failure" is really just a result of experimentation. To attain success as a child, you modify your approach, try something different, and complete four or five steps before falling down again. If you refuse to believe that what you're attempting to do is "impossible," you won't associate falling down with failure. You may fall a few hundred times before you get it right, but you'll keep getting up and trying again until you produce the results you want. Since you're a child it never occurs to you to quit.

Traditional teachers are paid to share their knowledge, whether or not their instruction yields results. Therefore, they have little incentive to ensure that their students will benefit from the knowledge. On the other hand, a teacher who had the proper motivation would make sure you were well taught. He would make sure you understood and followed through on everything, thereby benefiting from the knowledge. He can only be properly motivated if he has a significant stake in your growth and well-being. Who holds a greater stake and who has more potential motivation to teach you, than you yourself?

Throughout this learning process you are going to wear two hats, one as a student and one as your own teacher. Your growth is the reward for a job well done, so naturally you will do a much more effective job of teaching yourself than could ten professors who don’t share the same powerful incentive. Chances are you’ve done this already, perhaps when you saw something you wanted to try and then tried it. If you think it might be fun to learn to play tennis, but have nobody to teach you, you can take a few trips to the neighborhood tennis courts to learn the rules of the game. You’ll see that you need a tennis racquet, some fuzzy white or yellow balls, and some persistence. Procure the equipment and practice hitting the balls against the wall. After you’ve hit a thousand of them, the stroke of the racquet will begin to feel more natural. Find someone to practice with, sign up for a court, and play. If you enjoy it, you might decide to play regularly, and over time you will develop skills and proficiency in different parts of your game. The forehand stroke, the backhand stroke, the serve, the volley, and the overhead smash will start feeling more natural, and your stroke will become consistently more powerful with time and practice.

You’ll feel great personal satisfaction when you learn something on your own. Self-learning can help you advance professionally and socially, you can learn at your own pace, and it’s fun. You can choose to learn over a long period of time or blast through your course of study ten times faster than if you were locked in a typical classroom environment. You won’t be held back by the structured pace of a class with students who have varying degrees of ability.

I've worked in large organizations where small groups of people are assigned projects of various levels. Managers of each group are given an assignment, and they work diligently to carry it out by delegating tasks and motivating their people to complete each task. One disastrous day when a boss was getting ready for his vacation, he left an assignment for a manager and her team to complete in his absence. He telephoned the manager and told her the project was on his desk. He asked her to go into his office to get it because he didn't have time to bring it to her before he left for the day. In parting, he said, "Good luck! I'll talk to you when I return in a month."

The manager retrieved the description of the assignment and set her people to work on it right away. What she didn't see was the CEO's memorandum to her boss, canceling the assignment altogether. The efficient manager saw to it that the assignment was carried out in record time, and she proudly presented the completed project to her boss when he returned from his vacation. When the boss presented the completed but unnecessary project to the CEO, the CEO was furious and fired the boss.

Clearly, there was a serious breakdown in communications. However, the manager had simply done her job well and successfully worked her team toward the goal. She guided her group through all of the steps necessary to complete the project, constantly thinking of ways to achieve the objective. She didn't know about the memo canceling the project until after her boss presented it to the CEO. Regardless of the breakdown in communication, the manager was commended by the CEO and given a promotion for doing such a fantastic job.

A leader decides what the project is going to be, and delegates it to a manager, who delegates tasks to his workers, who perform the tasks. In a large organization this arrangement works well and different people hold different jobs. When you work or study independently, you do all of the jobs. You lead yourself, delegate to yourself, and doing the work too. My third-grade teacher once told us that to teach us, he had to know just a little bit more than we did. What did he know that we didn't? He knew how to set and reach goals. If he wanted his students to learn the subject, he had to teach and test them. You'll be acting as your own teacher and student, as well as periodically testing yourself on your subject.

It's critical for you to identify your objective. Break down your goals into bite-sized, identifiable parts, and make sure each one is properly attended to. Change hats as you go from leader to manager to worker. Jane, the entrepreneur, decided that her main objective was to sell her product and make a profit. She must also decide what smaller projects have to be completed before that result can be achieved. Jane begins with the manufacturing of the product. After the product is manufactured, she must arrange for distribution and promotion. As a leader, she first assigns each of these jobs to herself as manager. Then she puts on the manager's hat and identifies all the tasks necessary to manufacture the product. She does the same with distribution, promotion, and other tasks required to make and sell her product. She puts on the worker's hat and does each of the tasks that she as manager has delegated to herself as worker. From time to time she'll put on the manager's or leader's hat again to check on the progress.

In the days when a college education was followed by a lifetime career, a student would graduate from a university or trade school between the ages of 22 and 25 and then devote his working career to a company until retirement.

Today companies come and go overnight and entire industries can become obsolete in a very short time. In the last one hundred years the transportation industry has evolved from horses and stagecoaches to cars, trains, and planes. Fifty years ago the computer was a vacuum-tube prototype that filled a room. Now it is small enough to fit on a desk and is as common as the TV set.

The person who spent only his early years learning and then stopped can end up jobless when his knowledge becomes obsolete. For instance, the technicians and scientists who attended school in the ’30s and ’40s hoped to be on the forefront of the technological advances that were expected to revolutionize the world in the ’50s and ’60s. The demand for their knowledge came and went in a blinding flash, and by the early ’70s technology had advanced far beyond what most people had imagined. Thousands of highly skilled workers, many of whom made great sacrifices for their knowledge, were rendered obsolete. They assumed their knowledge would be in demand for the rest of their working lifetime. Suddenly, in what they thought would be the prime of their lives, they found they were no longer needed. Many of them went back to school but found they were no match for the younger generation who raced right past them.

Now the industry is changing so fast a significant technical revolution seems to occur every few years. A student will not benefit from many years of schooling if he cannot use his knowledge productively. Today’s business career and perhaps life as well, requires constant learning and growth. No school in the world can give you enough knowledge to last you the rest of your life. You must learn continually on your own.

Our world changes so rapidly, nobody is safe from the onslaught of advancement and those who choose not to adapt will most certainly risk being left behind. Today’s workers can expect to have four to five different jobs or career changes during their working lifetime.

Your desire for independence is a powerful motivator. Once you tap into your ability to teach yourself you can adapt to the changes and challenges the world throws at you. The first time you teach yourself something you will gain tremendous confidence that you might never have imagined you could possess. As a result of your new confidence, you will be totally confident that you can learn just about anything, without depending on others.

Leaders

The leader of a company knows the value of self-education. He is faced with a myriad of decisions every day, and is responsible for evaluating them and then making the appropriate choices for his company. The right decision can propel the company to new highs, while the wrong decision can send the company tumbling into bankruptcy. The boss has no one to turn to for guidance. Various sources of information can influence his decision, but the burden is his alone, so he cannot afford to be indecisive.

When he makes a decision, nobody will slap his hand and tell him he’s wrong, and nobody will jump up and down and tell him what a brilliant move he made. Only the results of his decisions will determine whether he was right or wrong. Chances are, he made good decisions as he was rising through the ranks of the company. He taught himself how to be the boss and subsequently got the top job. Ambitious executives can attend classes to learn to become "leaders," but successful leaders have done a great deal of learning on their own in addition to any formal education or training.

Employees

A company boss has usually spent a significant amount of time as an employee, and knows that valuable employees must be treated well. Self-learners and self-starters have a good chance of being promoted, and a boss who is secure in his position will encourage his employees to learn on their own and try new things. Employees who have the courage to try something new and innovative are frequently rewarded with promotions.

Employees are often much more powerful than they realize. Cathy started out as the shipping and receiving clerk at the XYZ Corporation warehouse. She was very interested in her job, and learned a great deal about the warehouse procedures. She knew where the system bottlenecked, and saw how it could be improved. She discussed her observations with her supervisor, who quickly approved and implemented Cathy’s suggestions. As a result, the warehouse ran more smoothly, and Cathy was rewarded with a raise and promotion. But Cathy didn’t stop there. She kept learning, and continued to discuss her findings with her supervisors. After only a short time with XYZ Corporation, Cathy was promoted to warehouse manager.

Entrepreneurs

A person who starts her own business is a prime example of a self-learner. Much like a company boss, nobody tells a business owner whether her decisions are right or wrong, but the profit-and-loss sheet will tell the story. An entrepreneur should be familiar with the many different aspects of starting a business, running it, and making it successful. Jane may start out with little more than an idea for a product or service that she believes will sell. From ground zero, she learns everything she can about product design, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and finance. She invests time in learning about her business because a good portion of her own money is at stake. If Jane does not learn to produce and sell her product or service effectively, she stands to lose a great deal.

Inventors

Inventors start from scratch, quickly learning by trial and error. They represent the ultimate example of a self-learner.

Let’s assume Frank has an idea for a product that does not yet exist. He imagines how the finished product will look and how it will work. He first draws a diagram of his product. Next, he researches methods of assembling materials into a crude prototype. This is just a first guess at what will work, not a plan for a finished product. He thinks it might work, but Frank’s first prototype isn’t quite right. Frank’s job is just beginning. It’s not enough to know that it didn’t work, he must now find out why it didn’t work. When Frank finds out why his prototype didn’t work he makes changes based upon what he has learned and tries again. This happens hundreds of times before Frank’s invention is ready to be produced and sold.

Students

A student who advances to the top of her class is a self-learner regardless of her age. She is highly motivated and productive, and if she is ever caught doing something without permission it’s probably reading ahead in her textbooks. A self-learning student has a tremendous advantage over her counterparts who wait to be told what to learn. A college student who “invents” her own project might deservedly get extra credit.

Children

Children are masters of self-learning. These geniuses have never been told that they cannot do what they envision, or that they cannot learn on their own. If they see something they want to do, they will try it with little or no thought of success or failure. If at first they are not successful they continue to try until they do succeed. Many of us could learn a great deal by watching children in action.

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