Breaking Patterns: Why Entrepreneurs Should Reset Life’s Habits Sometimes
By Steve MacDonald
During my first two months in Italy, I found and started reading a history of Islamic art, about the intricate geometric patterns created in response to that religion’s prohibitions on representational images. In a mild irony, my time in Italy has been the exact opposite of those precise and repetitive works of breathtaking art. It’s been all about breaking patterns. And I recommend everyone try it.
Yes, I’m living a dream with my family, spending a year in Italy while we’re all still young enough to get the most out of it. And yes, of course, Italy has many, many attractions, and we certainly have been enjoying them.
But I had another motive in uprooting my family and overturning what was indeed a pretty great life. It was time to intentionally break up the layers of habits, patterns, and structures I had somewhat unconsciously built up over three decades of creating, building and selling businesses, then investing in dozens more.
Those patterns and habits have value, the evolutionary scientists say. They simplify the day, so we can focus our resources on other priorities. They’re essentially shortcuts through life, taking care of routine things that need taking care of while letting us get on to the good stuff.
But over time, those patterns can build up like sediment in your soul. Drive the same roads. Eat the same dishes at the same favorite restaurants. Run errands in the same places. See the same friends. Work out the same way in the same place. Talk about the same kinds of deals. Go to the same entrepreneur gatherings. Even go vacationing in the same places.
If there’s anything like a recurring theme in my life, though, it’s about seeking diversity of thought and experience to challenge my mindset. I believe it’s really important, because it helps me better see the world around me. So how to shake things up?
Moving to a foreign land for an extended period, leaving family and friends and business relationships, and starting over (even if just for a while) certainly has done just that. It’s a great way to exercise social muscles that perhaps had gotten a bit flabby from underuse, especially during the pandemic.
Throw in the challenges of learning a new language, a new city, a new country, navigating sometimes-confounding bureaucracies, educational systems, and traffic laws, and yes, wading into the vast library in our Italian home and finding a history of Islamic art, pushes me ever further from the comfortable everyday I’d known for a very long time.
Like most people, I had become too much a creature of habit. Trying to mix it up from time to time has worked out pretty well for me professionally, though, with two successful exits of companies I founded, creating the resources to invest in dozens more.
I know it’s easy to stop noticing opportunities when things look pretty much the same as they always do. Every once in a while, it’s good to turn it all upside down, a lesson I think every entrepreneur or investor should take to heart.
We’re always looking the next new thing, the next opportunity that could turn into something big. But if we’re looking at the same things, talking to the same people, leading the same life we’ve been living for years, our powers of observation can dull, a lot.
The fact is, our best chance to find the next interesting thing depends on us being forced to pay a bit more attention, to notice even the routine things happening around us, and to think about where we can make it all better.
It’s also a chance to learn, or re-learn, useful qualities such as patience, problem-solving, resilience, and grit. You’ll need all of those to thrive in a new place, and they’re pretty useful in the rest of your life too.
The old entrepreneurs’ mantra is “find the pain, and fix it (while making money).” Certainly, soothing the pain of navigating foreign bureaucracies could be one fruitful place to look for business opportunities. But while I’m here, I’m trying a few other ways to stretch my entrepreneurial and investor muscles.
An unexpected connection with the family of the U.S. Consul General here has led me to a program she’s creating to bring together American investors with Italian entrepreneurs. I’m hopeful the program will uncover some gems worth investing in. It certainly will build new relationships, while giving me more ground-level perspective about how business works, and doesn’t, in both Italy and the broader European Union.
I’m also joining a local industrial entrepreneur group, as another way to build new networks of business contacts and experiences. And I’m exploring opportunities with one of the world’s biggest accelerators.
And finally, I’m reading, a lot, thanks to that trove of books in our Italian home’s libraries. I strongly recommend reading as a way to extend your experiences to those of other smart observers from other places and times, and to see what they saw in the world around them.
Next on my reading list: Edward Gibbon’s The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There’s a beautiful edition of it here. Thinking about the challenges and pitfalls that ultimately brought down one of the world’s great empires, while living a few miles from roads and structures that empire built 2,000 years ago, has a way of giving you a long view. And that’s something every entrepreneur should have too.
