Have you ever met someone who knew the outcome of a situation before it happened?
They are not psychic or able to see the future. Instead, they recognize patterns and learn from them, a skill that highly successful people apply, according to billionaire Michael Rubin.
Rubin is the CEO and founder of sporting goods retailer Fanatics, a company that has helped him amass a net worth of $11.5 billion. He attributes much of his success in building and running Fanatics, which was valued at $31 billion after a fundraising round in 2022, to model recognition, he recently told life coach Jay Shetty’s podcast “On Purpose.”
“It’s a really important skill in business, because I think it predicts the future,” Robin said.
For example, Robin explained how he screens potential employees, collecting data beyond their resumes and job interviews.
“If I like them, as soon as they leave, I go out and start calling people I know we have in common to identify patterns. For me, 50% is the interview and 50% is what I learn behind the scenes,” Robin said. “I might be amazed by someone…but you find out that people don’t like working with them. Or you can find out that this person was a little underrated, but they’re a monster.”
Whether he’s making business decisions or playing blackjack, Rubin said he relies on skill to make good choices: “Pattern recognition is everything. I use it in everything I do.”
The skill of avoiding potential problems
The human brain is constantly processing patterns, helping you understand information, languages, and even your imagination. Relying on this skill to avoid potential conflicts and negative outcomes can help you think more critically.
Robin isn’t the only one who swears by the skill. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in April 2016, CEO Warren Buffett discussed a decision — driven by pattern recognition, he said — he made to avoid investing in the drug company Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which is known today as the Bausch Health Companies.
Buffett said he was advised to buy Valeant stock: The company used rising costs to build profits, and investors saw good returns as its stock price rose. But despite the hype, Buffett said he saw red flags in Valeant’s “deeply flawed” business model, which indicated to him that it was not designed for long-term sustainability.
His hunch was right. In the month before the Berkshire meeting, Valeant CEO Michael Parsons stepped down. Regulators quickly accused Valeant of price gouging, and within 30 days, the drug company’s stock had fallen 85%.
“If you have a smart guy who follows a course of action that will get you on the front page, that will eventually get you into trouble…patterns that often end badly, but look very good in the short term.” Buffett said.
How to read between the lines
There are several ways to improve your pattern recognition skills. You can play games like chess and checkers, or simply practice cooperating with people who have different viewpoints and visions.
You can also take a more analytical approach, as leadership coach Gannis Kesari recently posted on LinkedIn.
“Identifying patterns is an art and a science. First define the business objectives and challenges to be solved. Then comes identifying data sources. Collect diverse data sets and apply advanced statistical and/or analytical tools, such as artificial intelligence algorithms, to process this data,” Kesari wrote. .
Then, he added, hire an expert to look at the patterns, “and make sure they’re not just coincidences, but useful insights that can be acted upon.”
No one becomes an expert at pattern recognition overnight, but finding ways to practice it every day will make you more successful, Robin said on the podcast.
“You have to recognize patterns in everything you do,” he said.
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