This afternoon my hard drive decided it had enough. It didn’t completely die (at first), but rather suffer a massive stroke. The event was so catastrophic that a gentle grinding noise is was the only response to be found. After taking it to the experts, I’ve declared my Powerbook G4 computer officially on permanent life support dead.
For some, loosing a hard drive unexpectedly is enough to cause an actual stroke. After watching certain family members freak out about broken technology time and time again, I’ve learned to take a more relaxed approach. Rather than getting upset for no reason, I try to ask myself: what are the positive take aways and what can I learn for next time? I know that backing things up and watching for warning signs is key, but also not sweating the small stuff is important. Although I potentially lost valuable information for my startup, loosing a hard drive is a very insignificant event in the course of my life.
Learning to keep your cool in stressful situations is an important skill. Some of us are better than others, but ultimately it comes with practice. There’s no better opportunity than to practice stress than through the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship. Starting something, companies, organizations, work out routines, etc…, requires discomfort. The more comfortable you are with discomfort and the more often you face it, the better prepared you will be when the discomfort approaches unexpectedly. I like to call it “testing yourself with the opportunity to fail”.
David Brooks wrote a great New York Times article about outsourcing your brain through technology. I’d like to take that a step further and suggest that technology, specifically web-based technology, allows people outsource their brain and discomfort. In the short run, outsourcing discomfort is helpful. It allows people to focus on day-to-day meaning, with virtual insurance covering the rest. But it’s also important not to move to far from discomfort. Although back up systems and systems of back up systems have a purpose, they too can fail at the worst possible moments. Technology is a tool, but not an absolute. Mental preparation for discomfort is just as important as physical preparedness.