Trying, failing, learning, winning
When I was a young boy, I lived on a sheep farm in Southland with my family for 3 years. It rains on average every 2nd day in that part of New Zealand. It once rained for nine straight days one winter, not all the time but at least most of that time it was raining. You get used to it, a pair of gumboots and a Swanndri would set you right. Not like it’s too cold, it’s just wet.
We weren’t the richest of farmers, but we had enough to get by. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my brother, and some choice outfits were passed on from my cousin too. I know it took my Mum a while to save for it, but it was a happy day when me and my brother got our very own Playstation. There were no numbers back then, but in today’s speak, a Playstation 1. We had just one game to start with - Ridge Racer Revolution, and a demo disc which had limited playtime of 3 different games.
We had a pig down the track from the house, that was fed all the slop and extras of daily farm life.
On just the very second day since we’d been given the Playstation, a typically overcast Saturday afternoon Mum asked if I wanted to come down and see the pig get slaughtered - not unusual for farm life I guess.
I was so enthralled with the demo disc and Tekken 3, that I just wanted to stay behind and play, and so I did. When my family came back from the event, I had been smashing ‘O’ and ‘X’ so hard that I had a blister on my thumb! Eddie, the Tekken character went pretty hard with that method though and I won a lot, not a bad strategy! I was hooked from the beginning on playing games.
Trying, failing, learning, winning.
Using the above strategy for life can work nicely, if it’s okay to fail. It’s not going to work if you get limited or just one chance at something, or if the task at hand is risky. Then a strategy such as study, learn, practice, do might be more optimal.
I would not want to get good at backflips on a bmx with trying, failing, learning, winning. I might snap my neck before I even landed one.
Video games prime the brain for an iterative style of learning, and ultimately winning. Crash Bandicoot, the 2nd game we ever owned on the Playstation was perfect for this. One level in particular springs to my mind - “Boulders”. I would say it’s near impossible to beat the level the first time, because you can’t even see where you’re going. Differing from other Crash Bandicoot levels, in this level you run towards the screen, at full pace, away from a boulder.
You must beat the level by trying, failing, learning, and then winning.
Video games, in my opinion, help instill a work style of iterative learning and that is incredibly apt for certain types of work, for example working with software. It’s literally a mantra of software development - “move fast and break things”, and more formally, agile development focuses on iteratively improving your product over time. Ship and learn!
I’ve been running conversion optimisation programs now for 8 years, and I essentially get to play a video game but just on a slower speed. In “Boulders” I could turn left or turn right at some junction, and I’d learn which way I died and which way survived instantly, and could then start again.
In conversion optimisation, I set up an A and a B variation, and measure which one should survive and which should die. The product gets a little stronger every time an iteration is run, good or bad we learn what’s best at each junction.
I love that I get to play (slow) video games for a living!
It’s now April of 2026 as of the time of writing, and there is yet another kid on the block that works well with an iterative style, and you already know what it is!
Those that like to experiment, to play, fail and learn are in a great spot to make the most of every AI tool & workflow there is. Just try and see where you get, in the worst case scenario you learn something, and maybe have some blistered thumb.
I’ll take a blistered thumb for some fun any day.