A college friend was in town for business and dropped by for a visit. He is a serial entrepreneur. The first company was a success. The second one was a failure. Now he is on his third. He met his wife at his first start-up company. Then they tried to do the second startup together. As is well-known in the entrepreneurial world, one should never do a startup with the spouse, because either the company will fail, or the marriage will, and most likely, both will. Unfortunately in his case, both did. Now he bounced back with his third startup, which seems to be doing really well on all fronts.
When we chatted, I noticed that his mind would always go back to his company. We could be chatting about life and other people, and then he would look at his iPhone, and said, "this is what happens. If I am away on a plane, the minute I get off, I will have 200 emails waiting for me." Or he would ask about the competency of my former CFO. Or he would summarize the number of customers he had already got. In a way, for someone who's not in his field and very much IT illiterate, I have to say that it was a bit too much for me.
Then it occurred to me that I was probably just like that myself. What is euphemistically described as singular focus and dedication at work could very well be considered obsession in social settings.
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