The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner

by Jonathan A. Levi

In the next ten years, every knowledge worker on earth will become one of two invaluable or obsolete. No matter the industry, the pace of progress and new information is faster today than ever before in human history—and it’s accelerating exponentially.

In this new reality, how can we possibly hope to keep up? How can we learn, unlearn, and relearn fast enough to stay relevant in the world to come?

In The Only Skill That Matters , Jonathan Levi unveils a powerful, neuroscience-based approach to reading faster, remembering more, and learning more effectively. You’ll master the ancient techniques being used by world record holders and competitive memory athletes to unlock the incredible capacity of the human brain. You’ll learn to double or triple your reading speed, enhance your focus, and optimize your cognitive performance. Most importantly, you’ll be empowered to confidently approach any subject—from technical skills, to names and faces, to foreign languages, and even speeches—and learn it with ease.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Personal Development, Productivity, Education, Psychology, Business

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2019

Reviews

[Mackenzie - PhDiva Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished the last section of Jonathan Levi’s book The Only Skill The Matters, and to be honest I am livid. LIVID!

Do you know why I’m upset right now? Because every single exercise in this book would have helped me IMMENSELY when I was studying for my doctoral degree and comprehensive exams, and instead I had to suffer through it with my less effective cognitive functioning!

Ok so all jokes about being mad aside, I can say with my whole heart that this book is a game-changer for me. As the opening section goes into, it can be hard to keep up with the knowledge and recall we are expected to have. Sure, when under pressure most of us can pull a metaphorical rabbit out of a hat and accomplish something incredible, but that is not sustainable in terms of a learning strategy. Not only does information learned in that manner have a short retention life (about until that third beer, amirite???), but being under that level of stress would not be healthy!

Jonathan Levi walks through his own challenges with learning growing up. He was not someone who was set to be a top student in class. In fact, he went through some times where he was made to feel like he wasn’t cut out for school at all. But after learning techniques to help him read faster, memorize information more efficiently, and overall unleash the power of his brain, he became a huge success.

It sounds too good to be true, right? I was a bit skeptical myself! But as I worked through the chapters, I have tried several of the exercises myself–including keeping a copy of a few of the tricks at my desk at work–and I’m not kidding when I say that I’ve been proud of what I’ve been able to do when following them!

I’m in the early stages of adoption right now, so they are still work for me. I have to make a conscious effort to use them and reframe how I’m learning information. But I’ve also been able to focus better, get through work more quickly, summon motivation when it feels like I have none, and memorize things (such as stats for a meeting at work) that I wouldn’t have thought I’d be able to.

The best part for me is that these are simple exercises. They are a bit of work to teach yourself to actively use, but they aren’t difficult to execute at all. In fact, they are almost deceptively simple! At times I seriously questioned whether it was possible that something so simple could work, but I have been so empowered through my efforts.

I wish I could tell you the tips and tricks here, but there is no way I can. First, because that would basically be intellectual plagiarism. Second, because I think it is important to read all of the science behind our brains and these tricks and why they work.

If you give this book a try, please leave me a comment or a message and let me know what you thought! Did they work for you? How has your progress been? I am looking forward to continuing to work on using these!

Thank you TLC Book Tours for my copy. Opinions are my own.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

How about a palace? A personal one? A memory palace?
Yay!

[Rick · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book makes two fundamental errors for a self help book. First, you don’t have to spend the first few chapters explaining why I should read the book. I’m reading it already, so move on. Second, I don’t care about your life story or how you came up with this great new idea.

What I want is (1) tell me how it works, (2) tell me how to apply it, and (3) finish up with tips on what to do when you “fall off the wagon”. If you do it right, you can fully cover the topic in under 100 pages.

[Anni · Rating 4 out of 5]

My main reason for reading this book was to try to improve my reading speed because I have to read so much for reviewing purposes - and also for my own pleasure: oh, the frustration of so many books and so little time!
However, when reading fiction, being able to read it faster is not necessarily a good thing, so I would recommend the techniques explained in Levi's book as being more useful for non-fiction. Some of them I knew already, but it's a very readable and entertaining guide to the subject of how to learn effectively- which I wish I'd known more about when I was a student.

[Yoric · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty excited to read this book. Becoming a "superlearner" with knowing the best techniques is quite appealing.
However, I must say I ended up disappointed.
First half of the book is likely a self-talk about introducing the topic. I even suspect the author wrote this non essential part to make his book "longer". Maybe he was worried his book was only 50 pages long?
The second part was not much better. It confirms the author is falling short on his promise.
I surely already knew about some memory tricks, like the palace, and I didn't learn anything new here. Quite the contrary, I read better explanations in other books.
Other techniques he discuss (briefly) are: pre-reading (skimming), asking questions (to fight passive reading), spaced reptition, speed-reading (subvocalisation, moving the eyes in fewer "chunks"), Feyman learning technique.

Overall, that was very basic. It sounds more like a bunch of blog posts to introduce the topic, without the substance of a book.
I am readying Barbara Oakley at the same time, and find it much more interesting.

If you are afraid to miss any secret on learning, you can safely skip this book, they're not here.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read many self-help books - I figure that you can't teach an old dog new tricks so why bother reading about things that I can't change. However, the title of this book grabbed me right away - is there a way to learn how to read faster and remember what you read? If so, I want to learn it. I read fairly fast but don't ask me the title of the last book that I read or the plot because I just don't remember it. This book isn't just aimed at students and young people but also addresses learning for older people and I did learn some things in this book that I can use in my reading life and I plan to give them a try.

[John Goldsworthy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rarely give 1 star reviews, but the style and content warrant it. It's essentially sales copy for an online course (ahem). Yes, you guessed it! There's an online course you can buy as well!

What’s the proven methodology? Nothing. Literally nothing.

Complete and utter internet marketing bullshit.

Don't get me started on the writing style. So insanely self indulgent and half-assed. I would rather wipe my ass with a $5 bill than give this guy anymore of my time nor money.

[Duaa Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's my first time to read an entire English language book
It's was a good experience for me
Beside I learn a new skills to improving the way of my study and furthermore in my life.

The most important three words I've got :
Exercise
Nutrition
Sleep

[Ward Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Jonathan Levi 3 or 4 years ago because I needed to learn a lot of technical material FAST! Months later I had passed both A+ certification exams with high marks ie. retention and comprehension of the material. This book gives one an excellent overview of some of the methods he uses as a superlearner. I am a member of that team. I'm a fan. And I will talk about these skills to anyone who will listen. Perhaps you're in school, or just an autodidact like me and want to remember more of what you read. Perhaps you want to learn a new language. Or maybe you just need to remember names. This book will help. Consider it a launching pad. My adventure started with a udemy course called Become a SuperLearner. I'm fired up again. I'm using anki. I'm learning German. And I'm reading lots. Thanks for all you do, Jonathan. My ar a Super Friend.

[Sana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concepts were introduced but at a very surface level. A lot of words were wasted on why one should read the book, only leading me on to disappointment. Nevertheless, did learn about speed reading and overcoming saccadic masking through fewer fixations, and the idea of cross pollination - where learning one subject has significant unforeseen benefits when learning another subject due to the interconnectedness of human knowledge. I think his writing style might appeal and be suited for a young student.

[Martin Smetana · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a half-assed piece of work. I have honestly read better papers on memory and learning in blog posts online for free. It seems as a glorified online course sales pamphlet - which I imagine it is. It introduces zero new concepts and describes traditional methods in such a simplified manner that it is just not acceptable. Two stars rating because the underlying techniques are actually useful - you will just have to learn them elsewhere.

[Pogo · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book isn't ''bad'', and the methods and strategies it features are legit, I can't really recommend it as a resource that I'd suggest someone put on their short-list of books to read. Why? Because it contains far too much self-aggrandizing fluff, infomercial advertising for the expensive online course, and just general filler. Again, the content itself is well-founded and effective stuff; but you can find more distilled down and comprehensive guides to things like memory palaces, spaced repetition, and associative imagery elsewhere online and in other books.

Having said that, it did provide me with a decent overall review of what I already knew (appropriately enough given the subject matter, since review does fortify memory), as well as few nuggets here and there that I picked up. Since it comes in at under 200 pages I'd say that it still earns 3 stars.

[Chi Ming · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and easy to read. Simple, practical exercises with links to more resources to start your SuperLearning journey. I would recommend it if you are looking to study written materials more effectively.

[Hanjune Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially very skeptical given that the author sometimes writes as if he is a telemarketer trying to sell me his course. Well he is. But if you can look beyond his repeated plugging of his website, this provides a nice, high level intro to the main concepts of super learning - memory palace, speed reading, etc. I also loved all the habits he shouted out at the end: sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation, natural light, cold showers, etc. my type of stuff. So yes the author is a hustler but he’s not dumb and it’s worth a quick read. If you pre read and speed read it, it should be pretty fast too ;)

[Javier Quintana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish the book. It seems like a long marketing web page where someone try to sell you a course or some kind of training to gain skills. It gives a lot of hints and research about the main topics or facts to learn faster but hardly gets really deep to practice or be able to apply them in the real life. I was bored of reading every 5 pages "in my SuperLearner course..."

In conclusion, it's a book that summarizes books about speed-reading, memory, critical thinking in just one, briefing you about all of these topics but not giving you the tools to be able to improve any of this in real life. Mk

[BNZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

No aporta nada nuevo. Lo pillé por curiosidad en Kindle Flash por 0,99€ pero la verdad es que podría haber empleado ese euro en un café. Básicamente que uses la técnica de palacio para ir entrando en habitaciones donde encontrarás los conceptos que vas aprendiendo, que te apuntes a algún curso de lectura rápida para pillar mas info y finalmente que memorices cosas con flash cards (muy anglo eso).
Todo esto aderezado de alguna anécdota y cuatro enlaces a su web (y a webs con referidos).

Poco (o nada) nuevo.

[John Faben · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very, very high level summary of the basics of leaning

Use standard mnemonic techniques (visualisation/memory palaces), use spaced repetition. Erm... That's it. To someone who had never heard of either of those things, this might be a useful introduction, I guess, but there are blog posts out there that could give you a better introduction with much less anecdotal fluff surrounding them. I would recommend finding one of them, rather that spending a few hours reading this entire book.

[gtm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not that it wasn’t at all helpful. It was. But the fact that the author has been running a SuperLearning online course, that all my activities related to this book (adding it to To be Read and starting reading it) attracted a striking number of apparently fakish accounts (says 10 in my notification and only shows 4 on real updates) and that the book is actually distributed for free for everyone on the writer’s website only for the readers’ expense of delivery fees made me wonder what is going on.

Or is it me being dramatic, not that I never am.

[Oren Alalouf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendously great read!

I've been following Jonathan since I first stumbled upon the SuperLearner course(V1.0) and loved it. This book encapsulates the whole method into a short but comprehensive read that I will surely refer back to and highly recommend!
Thank you Jonathan and good luck on your road to success!
Oren

[MacArthur Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good stuff here, but a lot of fat that could have been cut from the pages and condensed into a single article, in my opinion. Nonetheless, interesting to a degree. I would probably employ more of these principles were I forced to read lengthy, dry textbooks that I wasn’t interested in. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.

[Xauvkub · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing is very very poor. This dude overuses questions and drags out the point for a super long time. This book even tries convincing you why to read it. He didn't know how to fill the space so he just added some fake lifestory stuff in beforehand. I believe this is probably a scam and should not be bought by anyone.

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it, but missed it.... How good could that be?

Didn't catch on to what the author was trying to convince me of. SuperScammer...!

Thanks again for nothing more than two hours of reading....

This was a waste.

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a little lost. It was a very choppy read and I don’t think I learned anything from it. May possibly read again to see if I pick anything up from it.

[Randy Corn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Only Skill That Matters by Jonathan Levi, Lioncrest Publications, 2019, 186 pages

The explanatory subtitle of this book is, “the proven methodology to read faster, remember more, and become a super learner.” I was attracted to this book after watching one of the many YouTube videos the author has put out. It was essentially about how the claims of most speed-reading programs were bogus. Having read several books on speed reading I was intrigued by what difference in approach Levi might take. Essentially, he dials back the expectation from 2500 words per minute to something like 600 words per minute. Then he shares the simple techniques of word grouping, pacing, and minimizing subvocalization. He further is realistic when he says that these techniques will take practice and a significant amount of time to fully realize. I think this approach is realistic.

Probably the most valuable thing to me in this book was what Levi summarizes as “SQ3R.” This stands for survey, question, read, review, and recall. This process encompasses the entire reading process. In what the author terms the “pre-read,” you look at the structure of the book or individual chapter to get an overall concept. Then you ask the questions, why would I want to read this, and how will I use this? Close on the heels of those questions is, what is this related to that I already know? The read, review, recall steps are fairly self-evident, but when I thought about it, I had to admit that the review immediately after reading, and the recall some time later, were typically missing. I think this will make a valuable addition to my reading tool kit. The memory portion of this book has to do with explaining the “memory palace” approach. Though I was generally familiar with this method, the explanation clarified some things for me.

This book was of help to me. I am fairly confident that if you a slow reader like me, it will help you as well.

[Basanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I learned and practiced it during my high school. But, beyond thankful to Jonathan Levi for summing up incredible effective learning style I could know in my 20is! The biggest newfound for me is how he explained to learn like a Caveman, to back into nature gift for Human Sapiens' surviving kit, which is remembering visual/pictures ability. Then he connected to space imagination to learn & remember any subjects or skills into head. Faraway from boredom of learning experience then, by knowing it is an effective way to approach brute force & cross-pollination topics when we want to learn any new skills faster. Also, he approached well-researched way how adults can gain benefits by immediate practical learning - not thinking too long poring over books until any perfect debuts. The more synapses are connecting in boarder subjects, the more effective brain will absorb what you learn. Studying will no longer lack of focus, since you will master every thought-provoking experience by SQ3R: survey, question, read, recall, and review. At the end of the chapter, he wrote how to be high-performance achiever by getting enough rest & breaks, healthy nutrition, and enough exercise.

Though the book could presumably his promotional articles to his Superhuman/SuperLearner training programs, but it is worth or even a must to everybody who is avid learner. Good luck!

[Seth McCullough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering this book came free with the SuperLearner course that I enrolled in on Udemy, I was very surprised in how valuable it proved. It gave a great summary of all of the concepts discussed in the course which will serve an excellent resource as I continue to develop my speed reading and comprehension abilities. The layout of the book is structured in a very intuitive way so that each chapter has a nice transition into the next.

The only thing I did not like about the book was that the intro leading up to actually describing the various methods for the best way to in essence "learn how to learn" runs on a bit too much for my liking. I've already decided to purchase or receive the book, so the explanation of why I should be reading this book isn't really needed. I would have preferred less of this introduction and more details and examples of the actual methodologies. Overall, this is a short and information rich book that is worth the time investment of reading it.

[Anthony Smitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid book. To demonstrate how much I learned, I have to read it again. 😜

In all seriousness, I’ve read a few books on improving your memory and most include the idea of the memory palace. What I’ve never figured out is how to remember the memory palace.

This book brings a lot more to the table than just a memory palace, though. Jonathan Levi leverages other tactics and techniques to supercharge the brain, all while remaining in the completely practical realm. He ends up also saying that without sufficient sleep, proper nutrition, and at least basic exercise, all of these techniques won’t work because your brain won’t have the fuel it needs to actually do the work. That’s an excellent point and is something lacking in my routine, so I’m not doing myself any favors.

[Dabireads · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a wonderful book about how to learn anything we want. It explains various techniques that can help us achieve this goal. For instance, it discusses how spaced repetition and other methods can aid in learning new things. Additionally, I find it encouraging to read more, as the book shows how reading a wide variety of materials can increase our brain's capacity to absorb and retain knowledge through a process called cross-pollination.
I found the Brute Force learning technique and Bloom's Taxonomy particularly interesting and effective for myself. I realized that I had been using Brute Force learning to understand different topics throughout my medical school studies.

[Phil Golden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motivational and Inspiring

The concepts of how the brain works and how best to use its evolutionary strengths have given me tools and confidence to take on new and challenging skill sets, such as playing the piano and organ, speed reading new information with increased comprehension and retention, and public speaking with greater clarity and confidence. I’ve even applied new concepts to my exercise regimen. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to jumpstart their abilities.

[Kai Ying · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, learnt how to learn.
SQ3R; Bizarre and abnormal visualisations, testing and teaching, mind palace:

Imagine a room: one corner 2 seahorses having sex and a vacuum is actually sucking them up, second corner smurged with peanut butter, third corner couple of wires intertwined- new and old, fourth corner a hostorical painting/picture you can remember to its finest details, and lastly a large location marker blocking your way out as you're about to exit that room.

Wanna find out what I'm talking about? Read this damn book.