Gone To Lunch — by Dan Lynn

By Dan Lynn

Early in my career, I was always too busy for lunch. I'd skip it entirely, or I'd run down to the cafeteria, grab something, and carry it right back to my office so I could keep working. To me, that hour was time I couldn't afford to lose.

One day, a senior consultant from Mercer Consulting, Bob Atkins, saw me heading back to my desk with my lunch in hand. He stopped me and said something I've never forgotten.

He told me that spending an hour with my colleagues over lunch was more valuable than anything I could possibly get done at my desk in that same hour. The relationships you nourish, he said, and the network you build — those are the most important things you'll ever invest in.

The tasks I was so busy protecting that hour for? I can't remember a single one of them. But the relationships — the colleagues who became friends, mentors, partners, references, clients, and sources of opportunity for decades — those turned out to be among the most valuable things I built in my whole career. Your network isn't a distraction from your growth. Over a long enough career, it will be your growth.