TBL: Why You Can’t Have Breakfast With Me

A lesson on when to reject conventional wisdom that doesn't suit you

Like a lot of business leaders, I used to make a staple out of breakfast meetings. I often held court at the Panera in Needham—in fact people who saw me there often would joke that I was the mayor of Panera.

Breakfast meetings are popular because they enable you to make valuable connections without cutting into the workday. So I did a lot of them, in part because I was a big fan of Keith Ferrazzi’s book Never Eat Alone and in the networking phase of my career. I was also in good company. Rad Reads author (and past Elevate Guest) Khe Hy used to have breakfast with a networking connection every morning while he worked on Wall Street. And Hollywood super producer Jeffrey Katzenberg famously often scheduled two breakfast meetings in a single morning.

But I eventually realized this scheduling practice has a real tradeoff and eventually stopped it altogether.

In 2018, I read Daniel Pink’s bestseller, When, a deep dive into optimizing timing in life and work. One of my biggest learnings was that every person’s individual circadian rhythm determines when we are cognitively sharpest each day. Once Pink’s research prompted me to pay close attention to my daily rhythm, I discovered that I am by far sharpest in the morning. It’s when I am best at crafting new materials or thinking through business strategies, and it’s when I’ve done the vast majority of my writing, which I’ve done a ton of since 2018.

Around that same time, I also read The Miracle Morning and started a morning routine, which led me to really appreciate having quiet mornings to myself. This combination led me to give up breakfast meetings almost entirely, to the point where I only do one or two a year.

There are a few lessons here for leaders about optimizing your routine and not letting other people’s rules dictate how you manage your time and your life.