10/29/2026
One of the most useful habits I've built is looking for common threads between industries.
Healthcare is not oil and gas.
Technology is not healthcare.
But there are far more shared patterns underneath them than people expect.
Here's how I work through it:
First, I get curious.
I ask how a business in another field actually makes money and what it fights against.
Second, I look for the structure under the surface.
Take the concept of “decline curves”, for example: In oil and gas, a well starts declining the day it starts producing.
A software company with 100 subscribers at $100 a month that loses 30% to attrition is declining too.
Similar pattern, different industry.
Third, I ask how do we not only anticipate accurately, but overcome that pattern consistently. In almost every case, it's growth, and growth is a discipline.
It requires constant innovation, reinvestment, and the willingness to keep working the business when it would be easier to coast.
Finally, I follow the thread to the next opportunity.
Sometimes a lesson learned in one industry is exactly what opens the door to the next one.
Curiosity is an underrated business skill.
It keeps you humble, because you have to admit there's something you don't understand yet.
And it keeps you learning from people who've solved your problem in a different room.
"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9, ESV)