How I Learn a New Skill Faster
3 Lessons from Nazi Zombies
Connor Widmaier
August 15th, 2023
East Northport, New York
I’ve been in a sales slump recently.
It’s lead to a pretty brutal cycle:
Miss a close → Feel bad → Miss another close → Feel worse
But the other day, I came downstairs to see my brother playing Call of Duty, Nazi Zombies. It took me back to 2011, when I first tried to play with him.
He was elite. I was horrible.
I couldn’t kill a zombie for my life. They would just come right up to me, one swipe, two swipes, down. “Kurt I need you to revive me.” “Hold on, I’m trying to survive here.” He’d revive me, I’d be alive for 3 more minutes.
The cycle would repeat.
But with time, I started surviving without his help. Instead of dying on round 3, I could make it to round 20 with or without him. Eventually, we even beat the secret Easter Egg together.
There were just certain game mechanics, like how the zombies ran, how you could auto-aim down the sights, and how to juke around corners that couldn’t really be taught. You had to feel out those movements and become more comfortable through reps.
Of course, my brother’s guidance helped and sped up the process, but it would’ve meant nothing without the experience. When I wanted to become better at killing Zombies, the antidote was reps.
But is that all?
Back to the sales slump:
More sales calls, less closes?
A sales call follows a predictable syntax.
There are certain patterns that come up time and again. And typically, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. But this month something strange happened…
Even though, I have way more reps, I’m doing way worse!
And so, it’s not just be the reps.
There’s a mental piece to it too.
When I was playing Nazi Zombies a decade ago, I didn’t give a shit if I died. You could click restart and try again with zero consequences.
But now that I’m playing in the “real world” with real consequences, I’ve gotten cramped up, and attached the the outcome.
But that’s a problem.
Because stress and anxiety quite literally give you tunnel vision. It shuts down the brain’s ability to be agile, and self correct on mistakes. If you’re chronically stressed about killing the Zombies, you won’t.
If you’re chronically stressed about closing the deal, you won’t.
And so I’ve come to the conclusion:
Progress in a skillet requires:
Reps (tangible)
Detachment from failure (intangible)
But there’s still one more piece of the puzzle:
Feedback
There are two types of feedback.
Self reflection
Mentorship
Direct person to person
Indirect from education / content
You must treat failure as a data point to learn from. And then drop it once you have the golden nugget.
Getting swiped by the Zombies when you go in for the knife kill?
Learn to knife and run backwards at the same time.
Not closing deals?
Learn to ask the right questions at the right time in the right tonality.
The key is not to obsess over the mistake.
Summary
Progress in a new skill = Reps + Detachment + Feedback
I was inspired to write this post after listening to this podcast, which had a massive impact on how I think about improvement and offering other people encouragement:
Hope you enjoy.