CHAPTER 0
WHY FOCUS MATTERS
Attention Is Everywhere
'm writing these words over the sounds of clanging cutlery and muffled conversation at a small diner in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
I've always been a fan of people-watching. There's so much to take in-how they dress, walk, converse, and act when they're either around or not around others. At a busy café, or at a diner like this, it's fun to see personalities collide like particles in an accelerator; to observe a guy's personality change when he switches from talking to his friend to chatting up the waitress; to watch the personalities of waitstaff shift when serving each table, adapting to large families, young couples.
In focusing on other people, I've made a lot of observations about what those people are focusing on. In any given moment, we are all focusing on something, even if we're just lost in our internal thoughts. Let's take a glance through the diner.
I turn my attention first to the two twentysomething girls at the table to my left, who are mostly focusing on their smartphones instead of each other. Between bouts of texting, they flip their phones facedown on the table. This, it seems, is a pretty pointless gesture they've picked them back up thirty seconds later. While I can't make out their every word, I can tell they're skimming the surface of the conversation they could be having. They're with each other in person, but their attention is elsewhere.
Or take the couple across the room. They're engrossed in a conversation fueled by hot coffee and buttermilk pancakes. They were engaged in relatively quiet small talk when they arrived, but their conversation soon became more animated. Unlike the girls, this couple has focused only on each other since sitting down.
A catchy Ed Sheeran song comes on over the restaurant's speakers, and my
attention is drawn to the two guys sitting a few tables over from the couple. One of them
subtly taps his foot to the beat while his friend orders. The foot tapper is presumably spreading his attention across three things: the song, what his friend is ordering, and his own breakfast decision. After he orders the Three Egg Express, when the server asks how he'd like his eggs prepared, he directs his attention inward, seemingly recalling how he usually takes them. He orders scrambled.
At the bar are a few strangers making idle conversation while watching last night's football highlights. I find it especially fascinating that millions of people around the world, including these three guys, are fixated on an eleven-inch piece of tanned cowhide. As I watch, one of the guys cocks his head, lost in thought. Then, as though a shock wave was traveling through his body, he rushes to capture an idea in his pocketed notepad. While he was lost in a daydream, and to the tune of football highlights, an insight struck
from out of the blue. He had a eureka moment
