Highly Successful People Have Pattern Recognition Intelligence

Have you ever found yourself in a situation and thought, ‘How did I miss that?’ Maybe you didn’t catch on fast enough to escape a tricky situation.

Or maybe you failed to recognise an opportunity when it was staring you in the face. Whatever the case, it can be incredibly frustrating.

In fact, not recognising what should have been obvious is one of the most common mistakes that we all make at one time or another. Sometimes it comes at a cost.

“True wisdom is acquired by the person who sees patterns and comes to understand those patterns in their connection to other patterns — and from these interconnected patterns, learns the code of life,” says Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.

Pattern recognition Intelligence (PRI) is the ability to identify, understand, recognise, and leverage rare patterns to make successful and productivechoices. Or the ability to see, understand and remember patterns that often go unnoticed in the everyday world.

It also refers to a person’s ability to recognise when they are encountering a new situation or dealing with a familiar one differently than they previously have.

For example, someone with pattern recognition intelligence will be able to identify and understand things that are similar between two different thingsoccurring at once.

This person will be able to recognise patterns that are not immediately apparent on their own and will be able to apply them accordingly.

Successful investors like Warren Buffet, George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones, Carl Icahn and Ray Dalio honed their pattern recognition skills early in their careers. Their observational and pattern recognition skills help them makebetter investment decisions.

Other successful people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Shonda Rhimes have remarkable pattern recognition skills. They’ve dominated their industries for years.

Many highly successful people see the world differently. They process information more thoroughly, notice details others don’t, and see patterns others can’t see. If they can’t process and connect the dots, they hire smart people to do it for them.

Successful people have honed their ability to analyse complex situations, understand future implications and take action today to minimise risks and failure.

When you have excellent PRI skills, you have a deep understanding of the underlying cause-and-effect relationships between different elements in your environment, which allows you to predict likely outcomes and make better decisions.

Learn to look for clusters of correlated knowledge, similarities or outliers within your sources of information

“A successful person isn’t necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving.” — Ray Kurzweil

Without pattern recognition, it’s difficult to anticipate problems before they arise, stay ahead of the rapidly changing world of work, and challenging to know what skills to develop to prepare yourself for the future.

Someone once said, “The world is a book and those who don’t travel read only one page.” This means the more exposure you have, the more experiences you have, and the better your understanding of your field.

Successful people accumulate lessons, ideas, mindsets and worldviews from other smart minds. They read biographies to learn from the rich experiencesof other successful people or intelligent people. The more experiences you gather, the higher your chances of improving your perspectives.

Your pattern recognition skills improve when you have a valuable collection of knowledge: make life learning a priority. You can read situations and understand them faster than others.

Knowledge is abundant, but wisdom or the correct application of knowledgeis rare. The most successful people can filter out the noise and only pay attention to relevant information. They know how to extract meaning from information overload.

“Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition,” says Marshall McLuhan.

You need to be able to recognise patterns in the market and react at the right time. Warren Buffett is exceptionally good at pattern recognition. It’s one of his keys to successful investing.

He is known to be an exceptional reader, spending 80% of his time daily reading books and newspapers. “I read and read and read. I probably read 5 to 6 hours per day. I read five daily newspapers, I read a fair number of magazines, I read 1ok’s, I read annual reports, and I read a lot of other things too. I’ve always enjoyed reading. I love reading biographies for example,” Warren Buffett once said.

“If it is wisdom you’re after, you’re going to spend a lot of time on your ass reading,” Charlie Munger once said.

Pattern recognition applies in all fields. Whatever you do, you can combine experience, intuition, and new knowledge to detect what you need to thrive. The key to pattern recognition intelligence is spotting similarities between seemingly unrelated events or objects.

As soon as you notice a pattern, it triggers your brain’s “aha” response and allows you to make better decisions. You can develop your recognition intelligence skills over time through consistent learning, practice and exposure to new situations and knowledge.

The key is to keep trying and finding new things and taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.

Join my email list with 60K+ curious people from Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn and Apple who receive my best essays and free curated tools for life and career growth.