A Slave to Patterns

One should never mistake pattern for meaning.

-Iain Banks

I spent my 20’s learning patterns. 

On the business side, I get to inbox zero every night. I respond immediately when co-workers send me a message. I learned to negotiate. I learned how to learn about different businesses, how to think strategically about business processes, how to dissect problems and create solutions, how to raise money, and how to invest money. I act in the way that is best for me when performing these things. How I listen, how I talk, how I interrupt. My cadence, my tone, my expressions. They all have a similar pattern. Being logical and direct. This pattern works wonders for business. It’s awful for social life.

On the social side, I learned how to banter, how to tell jokes, how to tell stories, how to have small talk. How to speak and think emotionally, how to dance, and how to be in the moment. In this pattern, I take everything lightly. I make fun of serious sounding matters. This pattern is great for social life. It’s awful for business.

I can still make jokes in my business pattern. I can still talk about business in my social pattern. But the results are suboptimal. Looking back at my 20’s, there are a plethora of times in my life where I needed to switch patterns.

Patterns that excel in some aspects of life, totally fail in others. The pattern for improvisational dance would not be conducive to running a company. It wouldn’t be conducive for having an intellectual conversation. I have a teacher pattern. How I teach chess is not how I should have a conversation with a peer.

My most common mistake has been staying in a business pattern, while in a social setting. My business pattern is amazing at grinding through email. It’s awful at emotionally connecting with someone. It’s even worse on dates.

It’s a struggle for me to go in and out of patterns. I haven’t seen anyone do it well. I have friends who don’t have an established hardcore business pattern send sarcastic messages to others during the work day. These friends then make fun of them because “hahaha, they thought I was serious! They don’t get it.” When in fact, they don’t get it. They have no idea what it’s like to be in an intense work pattern for 16 hrs/day, everyday. Their friend is responding to text/email at a crazy intensity. They have no clue how being in that intense of a pattern for so long trains your mind to perceive the world. It makes no sense for their friend to exit their work pattern in the middle of a workday.

Optimizing one job doesn’t mean you’re in one pattern. Jiro: Dreams of Sushi is a great documentary on this. Jiro spent his life optimizing one skillset to the max and training others in the patterns associated with it. What gives Jiro fulfillment is his work. His work requires multiple patterns. The finding of the fish, the negotiation, the preparation of the sushi, the training of his staff, how he hosts. These are all different patterns. How he acts and speaks are different in each of these scenarios. But when our patterns impede on other parts of our life, we suffer.

My social pattern is often neglected. A lot of founder friends have this issue as well. They’re “always on”. As in, they are always in business mode. It becomes natural to be in business mode. Maybe you love to dance and sing and joke around. But you’re in business mode. This can put stress on personal relationships. Friends, family, and partners prefer more playful, social patterns.

Escaping Patterns

There’s different terminology for this. For going from business to social, some say “let loose”. It’s easy to tell someone to let loose. It’s hard to actually let loose. You have to want to let loose. And changing your demeanor takes work. If you’re in a social pattern when others are in a business pattern, you’re told “get serious” or “not now”. 

Whatever pattern you’re in, it’s easy to rationalize why you’re in that pattern. Depending on if you’re in a business or social pattern, you say “Don’t they see there’s work to be done?” or “Why can’t they have fun?” 

Luckily, there are some hacks for getting out of patterns. Pets and children tend to put us in a playful, social pattern. Pets and children only know a few patterns. A bunny isn’t going to talk strategy. The lack of variability makes them ideal for escaping business patterns. If you don’t have pets or kids, other common ways to help people go from business to social patterns are dance, music, drugs, and alcohol. 

To go from a social to a business pattern, some take adderall. Some microdose LSD. Some isolate themselves in a room and turn their phone on airplane mode. Others load up on caffeine. Some meditate or use sheer willpower. Some do combinations of the above.

Pattern Matching

Forming a connection with someone is impossible if you aren’t in a similar pattern. You can nudge someone to your pattern, but it’s often easier to mirror their pattern. Matching in a given pattern has its strengths and weaknesses.

One won’t form a deep connection in a business pattern. Nor could one form a romantic connection in a business pattern. But one could form a solid business connection in a business pattern.

Sometimes we need to form new patterns to match others. My business pattern didn’t work well for business social events. And my social pattern was too casual for business events. I had to form a business social pattern that’s a mix of my social and business pattern. 

Patterns are not about being yourself vs not being yourself. You are human and you are adaptable. How you act depends upon your situation. How you process and act in the world depends on your surroundings. Patterns should be seen as a way we react to the world. Patterns are useful. We must learn and master patterns, or they’ll become our master.