A few months ago, I read a book called Ultralearning, and it was seriously eye-opening. It’s all about how to accelerate the process of acquiring new skills—not by taking shortcuts but by being super efficient and making every effort count. One of the stories in the book that really stood out to me was about the developer of the game Stardew Valley. This guy was the definition of an ultralearner.
He single-handedly created the entire game: all the writing, music, programming, and graphics. It took him about five years, working something like 10 hours a day, seven days a week. So, was he talented? Did he have skills to start with? Yeah, probably. But still, from start to the first release, that project must have taken him somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 hours.
And guess what? He made at least 20 million dollars from it. That’s a huge success, but the key takeaway isn’t just the money—it’s the insane amount of dedication and hard work that went into it. There really are no shortcuts. If you want to achieve something big, you have to put in the hours and grind it out.