The Power of Being Present: What a Race Car Driver Taught Me About Mindfulness

An unforgettable business meeting took place in Mexico City. We were scheduled to meet with senior executives at the telecommunications company Telmex. The purpose of the meeting wasn’t to close a deal- it was just to get to know each other.

The businessman we were meeting with brought his brother, Carlos, along. Carlos was tall and athletic. I asked if he also worked in telecommunications. He smiled and said no. “I’m a race car driver,” he replied, surprising me.

A race car driver? That was already a sign this would be an interesting evening.

Carlos explained that he was a professional driver. In the fascinating conversation that followed, he described what it’s like to drive a car over 300 km/h inside a steel-framed arena. He explained that you must be completely focused on the moment. Any thought of the past or the future could lead to instant death.

He shared that sometimes his wife is watching from the stands, but he can’t think about that because he must be entirely present and focused on what he’s doing.

His words and descriptions were identical to experiences I’ve encountered through relaxation techniques and mindfulness training. A calmness would fill him when he entered into that intense state of present-moment awareness- similar to athletes who describe themselves entering the “Zone”- a state of flow that goes beyond ordinary living.

Carlos wasn’t looking for spirituality, nor was he particularly interested in it. But because of the demands of his job to be 100% present “here and now”, he would find himself entering those same quiet, focused states that happen alongside high-functioning performance in the face of real danger.

The Present Moment Isn't Found on a Himalayan Mountaintop

Carlos’s story teaches us something crucial: being in the here and now doesn’t require sitting on a mountaintop in the Himalayas. You can be in the middle of intense negotiations or deep study, and still be present- not drifting into the past, or imagining a different future.

For him, being present was a life-or-death necessity that if he didn’t do, he would crash and die. What about us? Is it possible that our drifting into the past and future is also crashing something inside of us, our connection with reality, or in the moment we’re living right now?

The Practice of One Thing at a Time

I once met a Torah scholar who told me about a personal practice he follows. His exercise was simply to do only one thing at a time. He explained that he’s obviously capable of multitasking, but he trains himself to choose not to. He does this to train his soul to stay present and fully enter whatever he is doing.

How fully are we in our actions? How is it even possible not to be inside what we’re doing? How can a father talk to his eight-year-old son after school while simultaneously scrolling on his phone? Why is it so difficult for us to simply be present?

Why It’s So Hard to Be Present

Some say the difficulty lies in what might come up if we’re truly present. Perhaps it’s old pain we haven’t dealt with, emotions we’d rather avoid, or responsibilities we know we need to face but keep pushing aside.

Another possibility is that we’ve trained ourselves to escape the present. We spend so much effort running from the past, reliving it, or chasing the future, that we’ve forgotten how to pause and face the now.

For Carlos, being present wasn’t optional. If he wasn’t “here,” he’d be “there”- as in, inside the wall. While Carlos’s story might sound extreme- after all, most of us aren’t race car drivers speeding through a steel death trap, his lesson is still deeply relevant.

The Cost of Scattered Attention

How much of life are we missing because our attention is constantly leaking into other places? How much energy and vitality do we lose by being unfocused?

If we translate Carlos’s story into our daily lives, what are we losing? What kind of “crash” could happen to us? Perhaps not a physical one, but a crash of relationships, meaning, and presence.

Let’s take the lesson of being here and now- not as a spiritual cliché, but as a real and powerful way to live.

From the new book by Ran Weber, "Living the Day".