As the book is finally making it’s way into all the mayor online stores more reviews and comments are coming in. One review in particular I’m very happy to share with you guys is from one of my personal inspirations and somebody I actually mention in the book: Laura Dekker, the youngest person ever to solo sail around the world. See clip below
I’m very happy that Laura found the time in her busy schedule to read the book and I love her comment qoute: “What a relief to see I’m not the only person who thinks this way“
What many people don’t know is that Laura is not only the youngest to do what she did, she is also mostly self-taught. From a very young age her father encouraged her to learn through doing, and experimenting, while at the same time teaching her to take responsibility for her safety seriously. An example, that is not in the movie but she does talk about in different interviews, is what happened when she was only 12 years old. At the time she figured she was ready to make the solo voyage from Holland to England on her first sail boat.
However, being a natural extreme learner and understanding the limitations society often puts on us, she boldly decided that if she asked for permission, her plan would be stopped. So instead she told no-one and set out on the venture by herself. After two days of travel she arrived safely in England, AND was promptly arrested by the UK harbor police who were very suspicious of a 12 year old girl coming into the harbor from Holland on her own haha.
Her father actually had to fly in to free her from the police station. And what did he do? He told her:
“you got yourself and your boat here, now you better make sure you get yourself and your boat back home again safely too!”
And so she set of in her boat again and sailed back home alone. How is that for parenting? Of-course it makes a lot of sense how (later in her story) the Dutch government literally tried to have her legally removed from her father and have her declared mentally unstable. If the Dutch government had gotten it’s way, she would probably have never sailed around the world, instead she might have ended up drugged into “calmness” and locked up in a mental home somewhere. The sad thing is…. that is not a joke. It is actually what the Dutch child services agency tried to ACTUALLY do to her.
Really tells you all you need to know about how government views excellence and talent. It is not something to be nurtured or cherished. To a government: extreme talent, perseverance, real courage and big dreams seem to be anomalies in need of correction.
ANP JERRY LAMPEN
After all, we wouldn’t want more 12 year-old’s doing things like this do we….ow the horror!
So to have a person like Laura (she told me her father read the book and is very enthusiastic about it also by the way) say something like this about the power of Extreme learning, is really everything I could have hoped for.
Because she and many others like her are out there in the world. Filled to the brim with talent, ambition and courage, but often finding it very hard to navigate a culture and government which stifles and discourages extreme learning and extreme achievements in every way it can.
I hope that Laura’s courage and her example will help you take a chance on extreme learning as well. It really is the way people like Laura learn every day and how they do the things they do.
And you can do it too! Download How to Learn Anything 3 Times Faster today and get a whole new insight into how people like Laura do what they do!
