I want to find out who he is. Yes, he’s a man who creates—experiences, products, companies. But what led him in that direction?

He lifts his chin. “Why do you ask that question?”

I grin. “You’re turning the tables around and interviewing me?”

“I’ll answer, but I like knowing the reason.”

I like being asked. I like that he makes me think, that he seems to poke and prod at me too. “I ask because at the heart of it, being a visionary is often pictured as thinking deep thoughts about what’s to come. But most true visionaries aren’t only gazing at the future. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty either. Do you agree?”

“I’m definitely not afraid to get my hands dirty at all,” he says, skirting this close to the naughty line, but not quite stepping over it.

I must steer clear of the line, too, so I stay the course. “I want to know if there was a lightbulb moment when you knew what you wanted to do in life. When everything clicked into place.”

With his eyes locked with mine, he shakes his head. “No.”

I shoot him a skeptical stare. “That surprises me.”

“It’s the truth. I can’t isolate a moment when the lightbulb went off because it’s always going off. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to build something big. Something exciting. Something innovative.”

My skepticism vanishes. “It’s as if that drive in you was pre-memory. Before you were even aware of wanting it.”

He taps his nose. “Exactly. I’ve always built things. I’ve always wanted to. I don’t know how not to.”

“What sort of things did you make when you were a kid?” I hold my phone, soaking up the details that he shares as we wait for the train.

“Everything. Jigsaw puzzles. A huge Lego pirate boat sculpture. A catapult. A candy dispenser. After that, I made a tree house, a doghouse, and a swing set at my home in Connecticut.”

“Wow,” I say, my eyes widening as he lists his projects, and I ask what his inspiration was for each.

“Pirates are cool. Catapults are cooler. Candy is the coolest.”

“Good, better, best.”

“Exactly. Plus, tree houses are the definition of fun.”

“And the robot? What inspired that?”

A sheepish grin spreads on his face. “Naturally, Star Wars did. After I saw that flick for the first time I wanted my own R2-D2, so I built one out of cardboard.”

“Did it talk in a sort of boop-beep way and hold all of the secret plans of the rebellion?”

“I wish,” he says, a look of pure desire in his eyes, as if that truly would have been the greatest thing ever. “But even though it was cardboard and flimsy, I was hooked. I couldn’t stop making things.”

There’s a tightness in his voice, but it’s not tension. It’s excitement. It’s determination.

“You lived with intention from an early age,” I say as I absorb what he’s telling me.