Breakfast With a Stranger

I almost cancelled.

On my trip to Hong Kong earlier this spring my friend Danny suggested I reach out to Kyle Wagner, a long-time member of the Mastermind.

I’d never met Kyle, and the idea of messaging a stranger and asking him to have breakfast with me felt strange.

But I decided to go out on a limb and meet anyway.

Getting there was an adventure in itself. The transit system in Hong Kong is excellent, even when you don’t speak the language.

I figured out the walk, the subway, the transfer, and after a little recalculating and second-guessing, I was fairly sure I was in the right place.

By the time we finally met I was definitely ready for second coffee.

Kyle was already there when I arrived, and within a few minutes the awkwardness I’d been feeling since I sent the message a few days earlier had dissipated. He was a great conversationalist, a great listener, and he was really easy to hang out with.

Somehow he ended up paying for breakfast — something about being a guest in his city — and then he gave me a copy of his book, signed personally.

A guy I’d known for barely an hour had bought me breakfast and given me a piece of himself without any expectations.

I left the cafe feeling buoyed, grateful, and open-hearted.

I’ve been mulling over the Four Questions lately, a framework I picked up from Chip and Dan Heath’s The Power of Moments. They use elevation, insight, pride, and connection as a means to reflect on important moments.

When I run through the exercise, breakfast with Kyle keeps cropping up because even though it was a small event in the course of the last year, it’s a moment that was heartfelt and filled me with joy.

Pride is the text message I felt insecure about sending. Standing in front of the subway map, unsure where I was going. Getting on the train, not knowing where I’d end up. Pride in feeling doubt and doing it anyway. Pride, not in the outcome, but in overcoming fear. Most years I can point to some big accomplishment to feel proud of,. This year, some of the things I’m most proud of are small, but no less significant. I did the awkward, uncertain thing on purpose, with no guarantee it would go well.

Elevation is the signed book. (The breakfast was great too 😁) But Kyle didn’t have to give me anything. He’d already given me an hour of his full attention, which is a rare thing. But he reached for something that was his, put his name on it, and handed it over like it cost him nothing. That tipped things from a pleasant morning into something I’ll remember for years. Elevation often comes down to one small gesture of generosity.

Connection is an obvious one. But beyond the connection with Kyle is Danny’s introduction, and how that introduction turned a stranger into someone who bought me breakfast and signed his book for me. I was connected to Kyle before I ever met him through our Mastermind community, through Danny, through a network of people willing to do the same kind of small, generous things for each other. The breakfast and the book were a moment when our connection became visible.

Insight is something that came afterwards. I left that breakfast and felt light, grateful, excited. Hong Kong felt full of possibilities. I said yes to things I might have talked myself out of the day before. I wandered further, asked more questions, took the long way instead of the direct route. One small risk had paid off, and it recalibrated how I moved through the rest of the day. That’s the insight: openness compounds. The hardest part is the first yes. After that, it gets easier.

I’ll probably never see Kyle again. We live in different countries on opposite sides of the world, and our paths crossed for one breakfast. But the book is on my side table, and every time I see it, I think about him.

That’s the year, in one moment.

Breakfast with a stranger, a signed book, and the courage to keep saying yes.

The moment was small enough to almost miss, yet big enough to call a win.