Gerri Detweiler is the host of Talk Credit Radio. She interviewed me about MAKE magazine and my book Made by Hand.<
Gerri: Tell me a little bit about what you learned from your DIY journey?
Mark: I think the most important thing I learned was that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that you can learn a lot from mistakes. In fact, a lot of research has shown that people learn fast when they do make errors because it really sticks in your mind.
As Editor-in-Chief of Make Magazine which is a technological project magazine, I hung around a lot of people that I call “alpha makers,” people who are just committed to anything and they do a great job of it. I found that it isn’t so much their skill level that’s important but the fact they have gotten over their fear of screwing up. And that is like the most important thing that I learned, otherwise you’re going to be frozen with fear.
I make tons of mistakes all the time but I hopefully learn from them so that every new box guitar I build is a little bit better than the one before. Then you can raise the bar and challenge yourself to try something a little better. It’s a fun way of looking at the world.
