Start Your Day in The Cave
Why the earliest minutes of your day may be the most important
by Emily Sanders
“It is in the early morning hour that the unseen is seen and that the far-off beauty and glory, vanquishing all their vagueness, move down upon us till they stand clear as crystal close over against the soul.”
-Sarah Smiley
It’s not far-flung wisdom to say starting your mornings in a space of peace and reflection is a positive practice. But it turns out, it’s far more than a good idea—it’s essential to becoming the healthy, effective leader we each dream of becoming. And skipping it can have significant consequences.
We all have those mornings where it seems the distance between eyes open and getting off-to-the-races is far too short. We might not have even managed to get out of bed before our phones have kicked our cortisol into high gear with an email that irks us, a news story that worries us, a kid who urgently needs us, or the racing thoughts of things forgotten or remembered. Our hands prep breakfast while our minds loom on costly misfires or miscommunications. External demands show up uninvited and yet, cannot be ignored. In ways dramatic or (seemingly) innocuous, the freneticism of life on this planet in 2023 takes over, and it’s no wonder that two-thirds of people long for more control over their mornings.
We all know the dings and bings of our devices offer too many pathways in, all vying for our attention (in some cases, companies paying top dollar for just a sliver of it). And we allow it, even while we’ve come to sense that our attention—while seemingly free—sure isn’t.
It might be one of the most valuable things we have (after all, we pay attention). Channeled properly, it can be our most powerful accelerator; but left like an unattended child in a candy shop, our attention will manifest as spurts of energy in all kinds of directions, all of which peter out through a failure of momentum, not unlike a sugar crash. An unintentional morning marked by reactivity is what psychologist Ron Friedman calls “cognitively expensive” (Harvard Business Review). It’s costly.
We must beat attention-stealers to the punch, before they can pull us into the swirl of the day, whipping us about as though we’re on the tire of a wheel, rather than confidently anchored at the directive, stable hub.
I don’t mean to suggest that once the day gets going, our ability to reflect or course-correct goes out the window. But I am saying the difference will likely be quite dramatic. If our days begin with a particular foundational step, we’re exponentially more likely to end the day in a better place, having progressed the goals that matter and having influenced others to do the same.
The key is The Cave.
It’s in The Cave we can center ourselves, clarify our purpose, and set our direction. It’s a time to be quiet, so we can consider on what matters we might need to get loud (and which we don’t). It’s the peace-giving space that serves as the deep in-and-out breaths we all need to take on the day, before the day has its way with us. It’s how the freneticism of our environments cause no whiplash, minimal distraction, and don’t run us off course.
As Karl Martin tells us in his forthcoming book, The Cave, The Road, The Table, and The Fire, The Cave, of course, is not a literal cave (unless that’s your particular thing and you have one handy). It’s a space and time. A space of solitude and quiet and enough time to connect with what’s True—what’s True of who you are, the realities you face, and how you must show up to them in order to become the person you long to be. It’s time to claim a focus—one of our choosing.
Daniel Goleman, in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, articulates the trickle-down of focused attention:
“Leadership itself hinges on effectively capturing and directing the collective attention. Leading attention requires these elements: first, focusing your own attention, then attracting and directing attention from others, and getting and keeping the attention of employees and peers, of customers or clients.”
It is as though this whole gig of leadership (and really, all of business) is about attention—ours then theirs.
If our attention can be flung about, what can we expect of those who look to us to as the example to be followed?
Luckily, our brains have a built-in hack, called the Reticular Activating System (‘RAS’ in neuroscience parlance). Your RAS is a network of neurons in your brainstem that act as a filter—it receives inputs from all of your senses and plucks from among them curated bits and pieces to then deliver to your cerebral cortex, where you process information. It’s as though your RAS shines a spotlight on what you’ve told it to focus on, and chucks whatever isn’t relevant. This is why when you have your eye on a new car, you seem to suddenly see that very model everywhere. This is also why when you’re focused on the 49ers’ impending touchdown, nothing else in the room exists (to your spouse’s irritation). When we intentionally set our focus, our brain seeks opportunities to propel us toward it.
So, our attention is an essential tool in guiding ourselves and our organizations and we can direct it, with a brain assist. But why first thing in the day? For the night owls already plotting their modifications, here’s why the early morning offers unique magic.
Sequencing Matters
Laura Vanderkam, an expert on time management and author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, says, “If it has to happen, then it has to happen first.”
Just like I’ve learned that if I don’t exercise in the early morning, and the likelihood I’ll fit it in later is about 2%, it’s also true for fitting in the highly important task of setting focus. There’s a diminishing viability for time available and focused attention as the day puts us through a gauntlet of decision fatigue.
Biological Benefits
In the early morning, our brain is the most rested and has greater distance from the concerns of yesterday, and once the fogginess of sleep inertia wears off, this is the time of day we’re most able to think clearly.
To help us become alert upon waking, our brain releases hormones and neurotransmitters, like cortisol, norepinephrine, and dopamine. We associate cortisol and norepinephrine with stress, but our mornings naturally gift us with the just the right amount we need to perk up; however, if we drop right into scenarios that shoot these hormones up further, we start our day in a high arousal state that’s hard to come down from. Dopamine, the feel-good hormone, is released when doing something pleasant, like reflecting or setting a positive intention, and this can boost our mood and cause us to head into the day with greater optimism and positivity (which is distinctly different than the “dopamine hits” we get from checking our phones). This is biohacking 101.
When we hold the mental clutter and distractions at bay for a bit, we have much more space in our prefrontal cortex and our brain is better able to concentrate, be present, and think deeply. Once the day gets going our cognitive load is much different, and it’s much more challenging to disentangle from the meeting that has you still ideating, the presentation you’re giving next hour, or the interaction that felt a bit strange and has left you wondering.
Proof in Productivity
Studies have proven that those who wake up with an intentional morning routine that includes reflection and intention-setting are more productive.
Biologist Christopher Randall proclaims,
“When it comes to business success, morning people hold the important cards. Morning people anticipate problems and try to minimize them, my survey showed. They’re proactive. A number of studies have linked this trait, proactivity, with better job performance, greater career success, and higher wages.” (Harvard Business Review)
This is presumably in part because they use those earliest hours to produce, but it’s also because it puts them on a clear path that impacts the whole day. Research shows that our brain is at its peak performance in the late morning, and when we’ve started our day with purpose, we generate momentum that makes great use of that golden time of day, whereas many people are still reacting to their inbox from the night before until at least lunchtime.
It’s understandable why Henry Ward Beecher said, “The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
If mornings in The Cave feels like a stretch for you, know it will get easier as it’s routinized. Not only that, “the older you get, the more alert you feel [when you wake],” according to Raphael Vallat, a postdoctoral researcher at U.C. Berkeley. I’ll take that perk of ageing!
We each have roughly 25,000 mornings in our adult life. When you compound the benefits of starting in an anchoring space each day, consider how anchored your life—and business—could become as a result. Imagine how you might lead—not from the demands of the day, but from your most thoughtful depths.
If our goal is to become the healthiest, most effective leader we can be, the key is The Cave.
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