Ask a room of executives what they do outside of work and you’ll often get a pause. Many of us have spent decades treating every free hour as one more chance to get ahead. I understand that instinct. For a long time, I shared it.

Over the years, though, I’ve come to believe that the hobbies we pursue away from the office are not distractions from leadership. They are one of the ways we get better at it.

I’m aware that a classic Aston Martin, a good Scotch, and a mechanical watch aren’t everyone’s idea of a weekend pastime. But the objects matter far less than what they ask of you. Each has taught me something I bring back to work.

Patience can’t be delegated: what restoring an Aston Martin DB5 taught me

There are no shortcuts when you restore a 1964 Aston Martin DB5. Parts take months to find. Problems surface that no one anticipated. The craftsmen doing the real work know far more than I do, and the best thing I could do was trust their expertise and let them work. It is careful, precise work, which takes time – this was a yearslong project.

That lesson translates directly to the companies I build and back. The most valuable outcomes usually take longer than the plan says they will. A leader’s job is to set the standard, find the right people and then have the discipline not to rush them.

Stay willing to be wrong: a lesson from single malt Scotch

For years, I considered adding water to a single malt a kind of sacrilege. Then, at a steakhouse in Los Angeles, a Macallan brand ambassador showed me what a few drops could do, opening up flavors I had been missing all along. It was a small moment, but it stuck with me. I had been certain, and I was wrong.

Executives rarely get corrected that plainly. A good hobby gives you that experience regularly, and it keeps you honest. Scotch has also given me something else: some of my most lasting friendships began as business relationships that deepened over a shared glass, once the agenda was set aside.

Mark the moments that matter: why I collect Patek Philippe watches

Many of the watches I own mark milestones: the births of my children, the completion of a hard-won venture, anniversaries with my wife, Robin. I’ve always appreciated Patek Philippe for its understated design. A simple Calatrava says more to me than anything loud. Each watch is a quiet record of a chapter in my life, and each one will eventually go to my children along with the story behind it.

That’s a useful frame for leadership. Busy executives tend to sprint from one goal to the next without pausing to recognize what got them there, or who. Taking time to mark a milestone is how you remember what it cost and what it meant.

Why hobbies make executives better leaders

You don’t need a garage or a collection to get these benefits. Woodworking, fly fishing, playing the piano, smoking meat, or a long restoration project of any kind can do the same work. What matters is the quality of attention it demands. A real hobby:

• Restores judgment. Leaders make too many decisions. Time spent on something absorbing and unrelated to work clears the mind in a way that rest alone does not.
• Makes you a student again. Every serious pursuit puts you in a room with people who know more than you do. Executives need that reminder more than most.
• Builds relationships without a transaction. Shared interests open doors that business cards can’t.
• Trains long-term thinking. Hobbies with a long runway are exercises in patience, which is in short supply in most boardrooms and in our society writ large.
• Is fun. Life is short, and fun is important.

Find the thing that slows you down. It may be what makes you a better leader.

Elliott Broidy is a serial entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist, and Chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, a family office specializing in AI-driven public safety software.