Focus

As per his typical business attire, he's professionally dressed in dark clothes, holding a slightly worn, dark brown, leather briefcase by the handle; sparsely packed with just a few necessary alphabetically arranged notes, a pen and a single business card. He arrived early, as is his usual habit, and entered the building with a security badge. He's in his mid 40s but at times, physically feels over 50. Clutching the stair-rail, he carefully stepped up the creaky wooden stairs, one foot at a time: left, right, clump, thump, left, right, clump, thump, creak. He had an awkward right foot. Entering the reception room, passing by the secretary and other guest speakers (avoiding any form of small talk), he spoke no words while heading straight toward the auditorium door. Open, enter, shut. Rehearsing, fine tuning and polishing, he confidently prepared for the big presentation.

He is a highly focused individual with a razor sharp attention span. For those who didn't understand the reasoning for his behavior, he appeared cold and calculating. Internally, there was a simple and elegant reason. He learned a quick and irrevocable lesson in order to become this way.

It goes back to an injury in his youthful sporting days. Kicking the soccer ball around, he had a moment of distraction. He glanced at her. She was the infatuation of the day, lightly reading a book while sitting in the front stand. It was a moment he would later regret for the rest of his life. For that one look – what seemed to be a just a fleeting second – a simple passing breeze in the long weather of life – led to a serious foot injury. As he was running and kicking the ball, keeping a steady pace, time suddenly slowed down (and nearly stopped). He watched her fling her hair back. She seemed to be admiring him at the corner of her eye. Hoping to draw attention to himself and impress her, he (brashly) with all of his strength, kicked the “ball”. Slam! Clunk! He didn't notice the spiked metal sprinkler (rooted into the ground). His foot blindly and with full confidence kicked “it” extremely hard (with all his pride and strength). The pain was excruciating. A burning sensation that traveled up his leg causing him to fall over. He embarrassingly fell face down. The foot begin to swell. It felt as if his heart had dropped inside his foot. He could feel the throbbing pressure, followed by a severe flaming pain. His family couldn't afford a doctor at the time. He innocently assumed, I'm young it will heal itself. He was partially correct, It did heal but remained permanently disfigured.

While most would consider it an irresponsible accident that comes along with youth, he manifested it as part of an internal paradigm shift – to never let such folly occur again. From then on his personal philosophy has been to stay focused, to prevent mishaps, and to be in control of every fleeting emotion. Some consider it single minded, paranoid or obsessive behavior, he considers it a form of intellectual survival.