There is an age-old adage in sports, repeated and reiterated so often that it borders on cliche: practice does not make perfect, perfect makes perfect. Michael Jordan’s “you can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way” is perhaps one of the most prominent expressions of this sentiment at the most elite echelons of human physical accomplishment. But this framework for positive development, the one that necessitates structured screw-ups and appropriate practice, appears nearly everywhere. A machine learning model’s predictive power is only as powerful as its training dataset is relevant to the problem at hand. Indeed, evolution itself can only occur through measured mistakes and biological performance evaluations, albeit on a geological timescale. 

In humans, be they Salesforce professionals or children learning how to ride a bicycle, the same principles apply. We exploit the brain’s remarkable ability to learn new skills–neuroplasticity–by making mistakes, evaluating our performance, and dedicated practice. This brilliant article from Erik Hamre explains neuroplasticity at length, and, at CRM Mentors, we draw from this framework to shape the trajectories of Salesforce careers in the right direction. We understand that mistakes and repetition are necessary, but we are also keenly aware that good learning is challenging. Poor practice leads to poor results–take, for instance, the major issue of bias in AI algorithms. Hence, the need for mentoring. CRM Mentors is driven by the commitment to ensure that you are choosing the right skills to focus on, with the right technique, with an objective evaluation of your learning trajectory – ensuring you are focusing on making the right mistakes and honing the right neural connections while treading the learning path. Taking on new challenges and overcoming them makes the next challenge easier to surmount, and we believe that mentoring is the key to unlocking this potential.

Written by

Akash Palani

Intern, CRM Mentors

Student, Northwestern University, IL