A Week Well Spent

When I am meeting with Customers or recording Driven conversations, I like to stack things one after the other in succession as much as possible. I have found it to be more productive and the best use of my time. Last week was one such week. This is how my week looked like.

Sunday (1/20/25)

I was in the Dallas, TX area and got some rest.?

Monday (1/21/25)

We met with one of our customers: Building Controls and Solutions. It was great to meet up with Eric Chernik , the CEO of Building Controls & Solutions . We had a tour of the BCS facility after which we sat down to record for the Driven by DCKAP Podcast. I learned a lot chatting with Eric. I was surprised to find out that Eric had worked on Executive Compensation for the former CEO of Starbucks (Howard Schultz). I was reminded of Howard’s book Onward. Thanks, Eric.

In the evening, I met with one of our friends at Klizer : Aaron Pallares, CSM . We had a great dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant. Thanks Aaron for driving down from Houston, TX.

Tuesday (1/22/25)

I was staying in the Dallas, TX area and met with our key customers in the area. There is so much you can learn when you visit customer offices. I’m thankful for them.

Drive from Dallas to Austin

I usually enjoy the drive from Dallas to Austin and prefer to drive this route instead of flying. It takes almost the same amount of time. One thing I enjoy about these drives is that I get to listen to a few podcasts. This time, I listened to Tim Ferris on his recent show with Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupplet on parenting. It was over two hours long, and I did not listen to the whole thing. It offered great perspective, and even if we may not agree with everything (even Naval doesn’t), it was great to listen to it.?

I caught up with a couple of episodes of Seth Godin ?? Akmibo,and I also listened to Remarkable People, specifically Guy Kawasaki's episode with Terry Sejnowski on chatGPT and the Future of AI. You may be wondering: that’s a lot for a Dallas to Austin drive. Yes. It took me longer than usual this time, thanks to a little bit of traffic.

Wednesday (1/23/25):

This was more of a preparation day. I had to prepare for the next day and the week ahead. Nevertheless, I got quite a lot done.

Thursday (1/24/25):

On Thursday, I had lunch with Brooks Hamilton , of AI Strategy Advisors. Brooks does a lot of great work in the AI space for Distributors.?

Post our lunch we also sat down to record for our Driven podcast. I had a great conversation with Brooks. We talked about the labor markets, warehouse workers and the impact on them because of AI. Some of what Brooks talks about really made sense, and may even strike as obvious once you really think about it. Thanks for the great conversation, Brooks. Great seeing you and chatting. This new episode will be in our new season as well.

After my chat with Brooks, I headed to an Epicor dinner at Micheladas Cafe y Cantina, a Mexican restaurant (just a few blocks away). Thanks Epicor for hosting this. It was great to meet and network with the leaders and influencers of Epicor.??

Friday (1/25/25):

This was a preparation day and I decided to fly to Houston, TX, take some time off and spend the weekend there.

Thankfully, I was not impacted by the Texas snow :-)??

This week, I am in the Washington D.C area attending the NAW (National Association of Wholesale Distribution) Executive Summit.?

As you can imagine, quite a lot of planning goes into schedules like this. However, this is what makes the meetings and travel fun.? Each one of us hustle in our own way. This is my style, and I am very thankful for the week well spent.?

Thank you for reading.

Karthik Chidambaram.