It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. In a similar ways stress can be called the mother of achievement. Sometime stress brings out the best in oeople. It can prompt a person to find a beter, smalter way of doing things. Maybe the word pressure or tension would better describe the kind of positive impetus.
You can see the positive effect of pressure porticularly well in the lives of some entertainers and athletes.Some actors, for instance, give their best performances when the pressure is on, when people important to them are in the audience.Differents peopole react diffrently to that kind of pressure. Stress causes some people to break, and other to break records.