I'm the CEO of ClassPass and live in Montana. I love CrossFit and fly-fishing meetings — here's my routine.

5 hours ago 3

Inside the daily routines of top executives.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Fritz Lanman, the 44-year-old CEO of ClassPass, based in Missoula, Montana. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

After almost a decade at Microsoft, I sold my first startup and moved to New York City. I was an angel investor and connected to Payal Kadakia, who was running a company called Classivity at the time. I really liked the team of founders when it was pivoting to ClassPass and its mission.

I also started my own weight-loss and health transformation journey. I had slowly gotten really out of shape and stressed, especially after becoming a parent. My doctor told me I was too young to have these sorts of cardiovascular risks. I decided to lean in and use my own product more.

I've sort of replaced the church community my grandparents had with a group of workout friends. They're not like friends I get a drink with, but when you go to the same three or four places continuously, you do start to develop a community.

I moved to Missoula about eight years ago, after we opened a ClassPass office here. My wife and I bought a home thinking it'd be a vacation home, and then we moved here full-time.

It's not the easiest place to get to. That's part of why I like it. After so many years in Seattle, New York, London, and San Francisco, I land and feel my blood pressure drop.

Here's a day in my life.

I wake up at either 4 or 7 a.m.

I'm a really sensitive sleeper. If I don't work out during the day, have wine, or am in a really stressful work situation, I might wake up at 4 a.m. On those days, I'll usually start knocking things off my to-do list.

Otherwise, I usually wake up around 7 a.m. We get the whole gang — me, my wife, our daughter, and our two Shih Tzus — motivated to go through our morning routine together.

Fritz Lanman with his wife and daughter.

I'm in charge of dropping off my daughter at school. She's 10, going on 16. Because we're not great morning people, we started a fun game when she was 5: the first one to the car gets to choose the playlist. It's a mad dash to the car every morning. I used to let her win, but now she actually wins most days.

She discovers a lot on Spotify. Since we use my phone in the car, the music will be a mix of my stuff — early '90s obscure hip-hop and early 2000s dance music — and hers, which is heavily weighted toward K-Pop.

I'm in the office by 8:20 a.m.

I go to the office at least five days a week, and sometimes early in the mornings on a Saturday or Sunday before my wife or daughter wakes up.

I need that separation in my workspace, and, frankly, my wife needs it, too. She's an introvert. If I'm at home, the energy dynamic is different. She gets annoyed with me if I'm being loud on a Zoom. I get annoyed with her if she asks me to take the dogs for a walk. For us, it works better to separate church and state.

I jam until about 11:55 a.m., then work out.

I do CrossFit around noon, five days a week, but feel humbled by reformer machines

When I'm home in Montana, I go to a CrossFit gym five days a week. I've been following this routine for five to six years now.

We'll have intensive cardio or HIIT days. On Wednesdays, it's max strength day — we focus on one lift and build up to our max weight. I might do deadlifts or weighted pull-ups. Sometimes, I'll add a ClassPass workout like a yoga or boxing class for more variety. When I'm traveling, I'll use ClassPass to take classes at Barry's Bootcamp, F45, Sweat440, and 1Rebel.

I also appreciate Megaformer and Solidcore, which use reformer machines. Those workouts exposed muscles in my legs that I didn't know existed before. I can barely do any of the moves compared to the regulars in those classes.

My first meal is a big lunch and fiber pills around 1:15 p.m.

I don't eat breakfast. I don't even have coffee until I get to the office. I practice intermittent fasting not because of the biological response you have to it, but just as a good way to restrict calories.

I eat my biggest meal of the day after my workout, usually in front of a Zoom, kind of rudely. I do pre-made, mostly Crock-Pot-able meal prep that's protein- and fiber-heavy, like shredded chicken with green chiles or turkey ragù with protein noodles.

I keep fiber pills at my desk to keep my fiber intake up, which I think is a major problem that our Western societies have — we don't get enough fiber.

My favorite meetings involve hikes and fly fishing

After so many years of living in cities, I'm here because of the amazing nature. When I'm meeting with my CTO or CMO, we try to take a walk. Even if we're going to get a beer, we try to be outside and hang out rather than be on Zoom.

My favorite thing to do is host prospects, customers, and partners for an outdoor adventure. At a minimum, it would be a walk or a hike, but typically I'll take them fly-fishing in the summer. Sometimes we'll do a whitewater rafting excursion. In the winter, it's almost always skiing or snowboarding.

I say this as the CEO of a remote-friendly company: There's something that you can't replicate in a digital interaction that you can in an IRL action, whether it's as simple as a walk or a little bit more intense, like a workout. That's the best way to build a deeper connection.

Dinner, around 7 p.m., is sometimes ice cream

I usually don't eat as much at dinner. We typically have some protein, like bison steaks, with grilled vegetables. We keep it super simple.

On some days, when I'm not that hungry, I'll be good with some ice cream from the best ice cream shop in the world, which is down the street from us.

I wind down by reading to my daughter

After dinner, I'll wind down by taking the dogs out. Because they're Shih Tzus, their walking range is shorter than that of most dogs. Then I read to my daughter, which is as much to calm her down as it is to calm me down.

If my wife wants to hang out and have a glass of wine, I'll decide whether I'll work afterward. If I've had a big workout or a bad night of sleep the day before, I'll try to hit the hay.

I usually go to bed at midnight.

I have three hacks for balancing everything

The best career hack I have is having a partner who understands what the deal is by partnering with me — how intense and important my work is to me. She's not just tolerant, but proud of that. She has her own things to do, and we try to support each other.

The second is living in a place that I absolutely adore.

The third is having a strict routine, even when I travel. Sometimes, I'll go for a walk instead of doing the CrossFit workout. We all have our up and down days, but I try to protect that time religiously.

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Julia is a senior health reporter at Business Insider. Julia covers a wide range of topics, including the rise of colon cancer cases among young people, the unique challenges modern parents face, and the growing trend of Gen Zers abstaining from social media. She also writes about fitness, nutrition, longevity, and the routines of highly successful people for Business Insider’s Power Hours series. She’s published interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Serena Williams, Esther Perel, Bill Nye, Naomi Watts, and James Van Der Beek.Julia's work has appeared on the BBC, CBS, Bloomberg Radio, Morning Brew, Fast Company, and the Daily Flash. She has also moderated panel discussions at Nasdaq and Duke University, and appeared on the podcasts Open to Debate, Airtalk, The Evan Bray Show, and The Last Show with David Cooper. Prior to this role, Julia was an education and personal development editor on the Business Insider Reviews team and a sex and relationships editor at Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed, respectively.You can say hi to Julia at [email protected] and check out more of her work on her website.