What The Rehearsal Gets Right About Learning Complex Skills

In season 2 of Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal (spoilers very much ahead), he builds a full replica of an airport just to help pilots have better conversations. Three warehouses, seventy actors, a working Panda Express - all in service of cockpit etiquette.

This might seem insane to you. Not to me.

It's the most relatable thing I've seen on TV since that Welsh lady on Come Dine With Me, who asked her guests how they wanted their steak cooked (everything from medium to "blue") and then cooked them all the exact same way anyway. If you've got 15 minutes, spend them wisely here.

Anyway, there are subtle truths buried in Fielder's elaborate madness that remind me why I started my company, Novela, in the first place. Simulations let us practice, build muscle memory, refine our skills without the terror of real consequences. But Fielder reveals they also promise something they can never deliver: the feeling that we're finally ready. That everything is fine.

The airport was just the beginning.

Fielder spends the season obsessively preparing for something that should, by any reasonable measure, be impossible for a comedian: piloting a commercial airliner with 150 passengers aboard (I really did warn you spoilers were coming).

He practices 'chair flying' - sitting in his living room, eyes closed, visualizing emergency procedures. He trains in simulators. He gets his pilot's license on smaller aircraft. He studies cockpit voice recordings from actual crashes, treating small talk from pilots like Shakespeare's sonnets.

And then, somehow, he actually does it. Takes off, flies for two hours, lands safely. The 150 passengers applaud from the tarmac.

All this to prove a point about authentic communication under pressure. Which is either the most elaborate therapy session in television history, or the most honest thing anyone has ever said about learning complex skills.

I suspect it's both.

There's something deeper here about proving our own competence to ourselves. Fielder's final line in the cockpit - 'if you're here, you must be fine' - cuts to the bone because it reveals what all this preparation is really about. Not just learning to fly, but proving he belongs. That he's not fundamentally broken.

This unease runs deeper than any of us want to admit. How many of us have sat in meetings nodding along, terrified someone will discover we don't actually understand the systems we're supposed to be operating? How many seven-figure ad budgets are being managed by people secretly convinced they're about to be found out?

Because here's what struck me: we accept this obsessive preparation when the stakes are life and death. No one questions flight simulators. No one suggests pilots should just 'figure it out on the job' or watch a few YouTube videos about landing procedures.

We understand that complex, high-pressure skills require endless practice in safe environments. In fact, Fielder is shocked to discover that pilots don’t get a practice flight on a 737 before flying with passengers. The simulator is so realistic, they go straight to the real thing once they’ve proven they can fly the fake version.

But somehow, we've decided that other complex skills don't deserve the same respect.

I discovered this the hard way when I got started in digital marketing. I was bamboozled by the interfaces, terrified of making mistakes with real budgets, constantly behind everyone who seemed to intuitively understand how different actions combined to create specific outcomes. What I craved was exactly what Fielder built: a safe space to experiment, to make deliberate mistakes, to see what happened without the consequences.

But here's the thing: I wasn't alone in this confusion. I just thought I was.

We've created a professional culture where admitting you need practice is tantamount to admitting incompetence. We hand 22-year-olds seven-figure advertising budgets and expect them to figure it out through trial and error - with real money, real consequences, real clients watching. Then we act surprised when campaigns fail or when people burn out from the constant anxiety of operating systems they barely understand.

Meanwhile, we accept that pilots need thousands of hours in simulators before touching a real plane. We understand that surgeons practice on cadavers, that musicians rehearse endlessly before performing. But marketing? Just wing it.

Many universities face this challenge too. Marketing courses are heavy on theory - the 4 Ps, consumer psychology, brand positioning frameworks. All useful. But then students graduate and discover that actually running a Meta Ads campaign requires navigating fifteen different menus, understanding auction dynamics, and making split-second decisions about budget allocation. None of which you can learn from a lecture.

It's like teaching someone the physics of flight and then being surprised when they can't land a plane.

I spent years teaching, watching brilliant students struggle with this gap. They could write essays about marketing strategy but froze when faced with Google Ads Manager. The theory was there; the muscle memory wasn't.

Which brings us back to Fielder’s obsessive preparation. He didn't just study aviation theory - he practiced until the movements became automatic, until his hands knew where the controls were without thinking. He built what educators love to call 'procedural knowledge' - the kind that only comes from doing something over and over until it becomes second nature. In aviation terms, he taught himself to be on autopilot.

And yet, even after all that obsessive rehearsal, Fielder still looked terrified during takeoff. His hands still shook slightly on the controls. The point was never to eliminate the fear - it was to build enough confidence to act despite it.

This is what we get wrong about learning complex skills. We think preparation should make us feel ready, should eliminate uncertainty. But that's not how expertise actually works. Real confidence isn't the absence of doubt - it's the ability to function effectively regardless.

Nathan spent $150,000 building a fake airport to help pilots have better conversations. It sounds absurd until you realize we spend millions every year letting people learn through expensive real-world mistakes instead of cheap simulated ones.

The rehearsal never ends, really. Even after you've flown the plane, landed safely, heard the applause - there's always another flight, another challenge, another moment when you'll need to perform while terrified. The question is whether you'll have practiced it first.

That's what we're building at Novela. A place where you can make every possible mistake before it matters. Where you can fail spectacularly with fake budgets, experiment with realistic campaigns, and learn real skills while the stakes are imaginary. All with a friendly AI copilot by your side.

Because when you finally do launch that real campaign, you'll have one crucial advantage: you'll have been here before. Not exactly here - but close enough that your hands know what to do while your brain catches up.