The best learning takes place under pressure. While you can observe someone making a mistake and learn from it, it is not nearly as effective as making the mistake yourself. Consider the following challenge I encountered back when I was a 14 year old computer repair technician:
“I can’t believe this thing won’t turn on” I said to Jeremy Blum, my business partner. We had built our first computer for a customer that wanted a custom gaming desktop and it wasn’t working too well… in fact it wouldn’t even turn on. The sleek red case glistened under the glow of the florescent lights in our office as Jeremy and I hovered over the desktop with the side of the case ripped open. “It might be the CPU, we can try that again” suggested Jeremy. “We’ve done that like 3 times now… I honestly just don’t know how to fix this. What are we going to do? It costs $1,300!”
This was one of the biggest challenges we had in our computer repair business: a customer had a problem and we didn’t know how to fix it. In fact, sometimes we broke it more. We were only 14, so $1,300 was a small fortune back then. There was tremendous pressure to perform… there was nobody to bail us out if we did not. In the end, Jeremy and I sat in that office and tried part after part until we eventually got the machine up and running.
If we had a boss that was ultimately responsible for servicing the customer and fixing the computer, Jeremy and I would not have felt that massive pit in our stomachs. It is that feeling though that forced us to learn so much. This is the essence of the learning process – pressure forces you to figure it out.
This is why I am a big believer in responsibility – if you want to learn, you need ownership and pressure. Whether you succeed or make mistakes, you are held accountable. This philosophy is the cornerstone of the culture I was proud to build at the NU Entrepreneurs Club and now at influencers@. It makes things harder and scarier – but pressure is an absolute must if you want to truly learn.