91. From Plumber to CEO: Paul Kennedy’s Unconventional Path to Success at DSG

Karthik Chidambaram: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Driven
by DCKAP podcast. We have a very special guest today.

We have with us Paul Kennedy, President and Chief Executive Officer of DSG.
Paul, it's an honor and a privilege to be chatting with you. Thanks for
hosting us here in Minneapolis, and welcome to the Driven podcast.

Paul Kennedy: Thanks, Karthik. Great to be here. And I've watched a lot of
your podcast before and you have a lot of esteemed guests, so, I don't know
that I fit the introduction there, but I appreciate you taking the time and
having this conversation with me.

Karthik Chidambaram: Paul, you inspire us. You have had a very, very
impressive career. You started as a tradesman. They say - do things by hand.
You started as a plumber and worked at different roles, and now you are the
President and CEO of DSG.

You are one of nine children.

Paul Kennedy: Yes.

Karthik Chidambaram: Number seven, if I'm right.

Paul Kennedy: Yes. Absolutely.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, tell us about your early years growing up. And how
did that help shape your career?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so I am the seventh of nine children, and grew up
actually in Maryland and had a great family environment that we grew up in,
and a close family environment. But with a lot of independence as well. And
I went to work, as many of my brothers did, at a dairy farm across the
street from our house at age 10. So that's when I started.

And part of it was because I wanted a bike and if I wanted a bike, I had to
go earn the money for the bike. So I made a dollar an hour working on this
dairy farm and, and did that. So, you know, growing up I had the opportunity
with my father's work, lived in Australia for a couple of years and then
lived in England while I was growing up as well.

So I think that exposure, you know, to other cultures, and the curiosity
that that brought, was something that sticks with me today, which I think
has helped me in my career. And I'll probably come back to that several
times during our conversation, just around curiosity.

And then later in high school, I- really, my first trades job was working
for one of my brothers who owned a construction company working summers and,
and after school and in high school as a carpenter. So that was my first
trade job, was working as a carpenter for my brother through my high school
years.

Karthik Chidambaram: And I was talking to Cole and- Cole Mercier. He was
telling me that you never went to college. Tell us about that.

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so it's interesting and I don't know that there was a
plan behind that.

If I think back to, you know, my formative years in, in high school and both
of my parents graduated from college, several of my older siblings. I went
to college, some didn't as well. And as I was kind of reaching that point
where I was gonna have to make a decision - and I did well in school - I
felt like there was something else out there that I needed to go find for
myself.

And it wasn't going to college one, and then two, working for my brother. As
a carpenter, I realized I didn't wanna be a carpenter for the rest of my
life at a young age. Sp, I joined the Navy and, I guess during my- between
my junior and senior year of high school, I joined the delayed entry
program.

So I was able to go into my senior year in high school knowing what my plan
was gonna be when I graduated. And not that I had an aversion to college,
but I just felt like I wanted to try something different.

Karthik Chidambaram: So after serving in the armed forces, after serving in
the Navy, what happened, where you decided to get into corporate?

Paul Kennedy: So when I left the Navy, and again, this wasn't a grand plan
at the time, as, as I reflect back on it, I wish I had more futuristic
thoughts as I was laying out the game plan for my life. But, you know, it
sometimes doesn't work that way. And I met my wife while I was in the Navy.

She was also in the Navy and we were serving in Hawaii. And we moved to a
small town in northern Minnesota called Bemidji, Minnesota. Without a plan.
So, this was the summer of 1988. I left Hawaii and moved to Northern
Minnesota and was thinking, I'm gonna get a job in computers.

I was an intelligence analyst in the Navy. And there aren't many jobs like
that in Bemidji, Minnesota. I would've had to go back to the East coast. So,
as I was thinking about, okay, well I'll get a job in computers doing
something and my wife comes from a family of plumbers. So just as a tie over
until I found the job I was really gonna get, I went to work for one of her
uncles who was a plumber and owned a plumbing contracting firm in Bemidji.
And that was kind of the start of me diving into that part of the business.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, no job is too small. But then, were you a little
scared? I'm just trying to understand, because you served in the Navy, you
come back and you start as a plumber, but your siblings, they're college
graduates. Were you scared a little bit, Hey, am I doing the right thing? Or
did you have those, you know, were you scared?

Paul Kennedy: I wasn't scared, and maybe that was naivety at the time, or,
you know, at that time I was- my wife and I were just kind of forming our
household. I just bought a house and we're thinking about starting a family,
and it was really about, okay, I need to have an income-generating job.

She had found a job in Bemidji, so it was really more about, hey, how do I
provide for my family? And, you know, to be honest, it was always, you know,
probably for a couple of years it was always kind of a placeholder until I’d
find what's next. But what I discovered was, or- and this is another thing
that I think has come back during the course of my career, somebody saw
something in me that I didn't see in myself.

And, so I plumbed, but then I also, my wife's uncle, brought me inside to
run kind of the operations of the front office. So you know, serving
customers, quotations, getting into quotations and things like that. So that
was an opportunity for me to kind of expand my experience and get exposure
to distributors that used to call on us. So companies that - like DSG today
- that were serving this company that I was working for and getting to
understand that piece of the business a little bit better.

Karthik Chidambaram: So looking back, at those early experiences, is really
helping you today because you've pretty much been there, done that, and you
understand what's really happening or what happens in the front office.

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely, you know, from a contractor's perspective.
And today I don't have as much customer interaction as I once had in my
distribution life. But it's a perspective that I think I still can bring as
we're having strategic discussions around, you know, what DSG is gonna do
and what moves we're gonna make to continue to grow the company. Making sure
that the customer is centered on the discussions we're having around our
strategic plan.

Karthik Chidambaram: So talking about strategic decisions and strategy a
little bit. DSG has grown quite a bit under your leadership. How do you come
up with these plans or how do you have these strategy meetings and how do
you make sure that you execute on the strategy?

Paul Kennedy: So great, great question. And as I, I think about- we're doing
it differently today than we did it seven years ago when I joined the
company, right? Seven years ago we were, as a company, we were kind of in a
different place and the company had grown and hadn't really built the
infrastructure to support the next level of growth.

So for the first couple of years that I was at DSG, it was really about.
Building a foundation that we could then, you know, continue to scale the
company. So getting the right tech stack in place, getting the right
leadership and leadership structure in place out in the field. Then we had
something that, okay, now we can grow on and we can integrate into. And that
led us to the next piece of growth.

And I will tell you, a couple of things happened. One, COVID happened. And
COVID was really good for distribution businesses after you got through the
initial shocks with business shutdowns and things like that. But you know,
scarcity of material, and it really forced us to become really good at
distribution.

So we grew pretty significantly through COVID. Greenfield Organic and
Acquisitions. And our strategy is, and continues to be, kind of growing
through all of those avenues.

Karthik Chidambaram: But how do you, I mean, having a strategy is one thing,
right? I mean you have a great strategy, but executing on it is another. How
do you ensure that you execute?

Because obviously this is a problem I face day to day. Hey, I have a
strategy, but then when I execute there are false. How do I ensure that
things are on track?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah. So this is kind of the maturation that we've gone
through. Because I think early on we were growing and you know, we'd sit
back and say, well, do we know why we're growing and is it intentional?

And so bringing some intentionality to our growth plans was kind of step
one, which we've done. Part of it's documenting it. Gaining agreement with
my, you know, executive leadership team and senior leadership team, making
sure that, you know, we're all on the same page as we're driving things
forward. And you know, then we've, you know, you, you build out plans that
you're that have timelines and, you know, execution and prioritization.

And that's my call this morning before this was us reviewing, we spent an
hour and a half reviewing and we do that once a month reviewing where we are
on the plan, on our operational objectives that are supporting our overall
strategy.

Karthik Chidambaram: Okay, you are reviewing the plan, but let's say
something is off track and there could be a lot of different reasons why
it's off track.

Paul Kennedy: Yep.

Karthik Chidambaram: Sometimes it could also be people. So how do you deal
with that?

Because when I was talking to different employees at DSG, they were telling
me that you're very approachable. You connect with people at all levels, but
then you find out that somebody is not doing a great job. How do you deal
with that?

Paul Kennedy: So as it relates to the strategy, I think, you know, the first
thing you need to do is look at yourself and say, Hey, have I not
articulated the importance of why we're doing what we're doing? And
articulated what our vision is that ties to our strategy. Because if
somebody's not doing what they need to be doing, is that they don't
understand where we're going and why we're doing what we're doing.

So, you know, first is reflecting on, you know, hey, have we clearly
articulated what we're trying to do? And then it's understanding, hey, are
there obstacles in the way that are keeping you from continuing to move this
forward, that we need to remove? Sometimes it comes down to prioritization
where somebody thought something else was more important.

And you know, then when you clarify- no, this is the priority, this is the
more important thing, and you know, we can let that to the side. That helps
to bring that level of clarity. Ultimately, sometimes you're gonna find, you
know, you're gonna find people that don't believe in the vision or you know,
wanna continue to fight change. And you know, hopefully, you reach a point
where you're gonna help them be successful somewhere else.

Karthik Chidambaram: And you talked about M&A as well. So how do you
approach M&A? And you look at different companies, obviously, culture is
a very important thing. You guys are employee owned. The other company
you're acquiring will not be. How do you look at M&A, and what advice
would you give there?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so M&A that we've done, we've done seven
acquisitions in the last, I guess, six years, five or six years, and largely
have been relatively small bolt-ons, but have allowed us to grow both our
segment strategy and also geographically. So have allowed us to do both.

And the prime driver of identifying fit is culture. And if the culture is
misaligned, then that's kind of a non-starter for us. And because you'll
never be able to, and it's not that the culture is, you know, an
employee-owned culture, which, which we have, but a culture aligned with how
we treat each other, how we treat people, and how we treat customers and
suppliers.

That's all really important to DSG strategy, to our culture. So we wanna
make sure that there's some level of alignment there. And many times, just
about all of the acquisitions we've done with a couple of exceptions have
been really a succession planning for a family operator who built a great
business and has a team of employees that have helped them build that
business.

And they're looking for an exit strategy. And they have a concern and care
for their employees that help them build this. And we did an acquisition
back in 2020, and I remember distinctly, as the owner who was the- I think
he was second generation, third generation owner of that company, stood up
in front of the 35 employees that were gonna be transitioning to DSG and
said, Hey, I'm the third generation owner of this company and you're now the
fourth generation owner of this company. Wow. Which was really impactful, as
you think about that transition of ownership, kind of also leading to a
transition of culture.

Karthik Chidambaram: It's very impactful talking about people. We were
chatting with Teri Winkelman. She was on our podcast as well, and DSG does a
lot of work in an alternative career path. Let's say you can't afford a
college education, and college education is very expensive. DSG is
supporting trade schools, and you're giving alternative careers in
distribution.

Tell us about your philosophy there, and what is that DSG is doing there and
why is it important?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so we have a couple of different tracks that maybe I'll
talk about, and I'll start with saying, why is it important. As we think
about the future of work and the future of work at DSG, we need our
customers to, you know, to have a workforce that can continue to do the
work.

So, our scholarship program and our alignment with the Moorhead Career
Academy, both aligned with that, with helping people, helping aspiring
students who wanna get into the trades. Either provide a scholarship
opportunity for them to help offset the cost of their trade school or while
in high school, be able to identify.

We're sponsoring a distribution and transportation track at the Moorhead
Career Academy that's giving young people, young high schoolers, exposure to
what distribution and transportation are all about. One, to maybe give them
the skills that they need to step right into a career right outta high
school or to maybe draw interest to, hey, there is a career path here that
maybe I want to explore either in a trade school or going on to
post-secondary education at college.

And then the third piece we've incorporated is our distribution trainee
program, where some are college graduates, some aren't, but we bring them
into DSG and give them training, kind of a crash course in what it means to
be in distribution. We have some sales tracks operations and supply chain
tracks. We've had some folks engage in our HR team.

So all of these different potential career paths within distribution, where,
when people think of distribution, they think of warehouse work, and you
know, there's this broad array of career paths available in distribution.

Karthik Chidambaram: Make distribution cool again.

Paul Kennedy: Absolutely.

Karthik Chidambaram: And are these mostly for high school kids or is that
your target market as far as students are concerned?

Paul Kennedy: So, the scholarship program is absolutely high school aspiring
to go to trade school. So, that's what we're funding there. The Career
Academy is really about getting high school students interested in what
distribution is all about.

And that may lead to, you know, them coming to work for DSG. Them going to
work in distribution, or them going to a post-secondary career now that
they, or post-secondary education. Now that they know what distribution is
and what the opportunities are. Our trainee program is, it's a mix of high
school graduates and college.

We've actually taken some high potential people in the warehouse, or
whatever, and inserted them into our distribution because they've shown our
trainee program, because they've shown interest in fast tracking and growing
their career.

Karthik Chidambaram: And DSG is 100% employee owned,

Paul Kennedy: Correct.

Karthik Chidambaram: How does that help shape your decisions as a leader?

Paul Kennedy: So, it has everything to do with our culture and and, and how
we, we show up for each other, how we treat each other. You know, at its
core, an ESOP or being a hundred percent employee owned is a qualified
retirement plan. At its core, that's, it's a capital structure and it's a
retirement plan.

But I firmly believe, and when I joined DSG, I firmly believe that there had
to be a cultural component to being an ESOP that an employee owner would
just care a little bit more, go the extra mile, a little bit more locally
for a customer or for a you know, for a fellow employee owner. So it's
really embedded in our culture, is this employee owner ethos of, you know,
how we show up for each other every day.

Karthik Chidambaram: Shifting gears a little bit and talking about your
career. You're doing some amazing work, you with the Career Academy and with
the m and a and the different things you do at DSG. What essentially for a
college kid listening to this, or for a tradesman like a plumber or an
electrician who all aspires to be like, wow, what essentially was a turning
point in your career, right?

So where did that shift happen or where did you start believing in yourself?
Hey, I can get there, you know, where did that shift happen?

Paul Kennedy: So, it's an interesting question, and as I reflect back on my
career, I think, boy- was there an instance that happened or was it a series
of things that built that confidence?

As I went, I mentioned earlier about somebody seeing something in me that I
didn't see in myself, and that's happened a couple of times in my career.
And I think those are defining moments. And when I got into distribution
running a small branch in Bemidji, Minnesota. I did that for a couple of
years, had some success, and somebody saw something in me and I moved to
Fargo, North Dakota for an opportunity.

And and then I, a couple of years later, I moved to Minneapolis for a larger
opportunity. So I, all of a sudden I said, well, somebody sees something in
me that I don't see in myself, so there must be something there. Mm-hmm. And
then you start leaning into that and you know, so I think that's part of it.

I think the other piece is, you know, being curious and, and continuously
being curious about not necessarily what's next, but what's possible. And
and, and really understanding, okay, this is my job, but what's, what's
beyond my job and, and how do I be curious about that? And I think, the
other piece is, and I'm probably, you know, a poster child for this,
anything's possible.

You know, there are all sorts of tracks for you to get to different roles.
And I don't know that you know, when I was a plumber in Bemidji, Minnesota
that I said, hey, I'm gonna be a CEO someday. That thought never crossed my
mind then. But as I continued to, you know, as I continued to grow my
career, that became- I realized that that was gonna be a possibility
potentially at some time.

And it wasn't necessarily the driver for taking the role at DSG. But it was,
it was absolutely, you know, it was an opportunity that I said, boy, here's
another way for me to continue to grow my career.

Karthik Chidambaram: One thing leads to another, but then one thing I also
find very interesting is you are totally open to move from one location to
another.

Not a lot of people are able to do that. So what's the thought process
behind that? Right? Because obviously you have family, you live in a state,
you have to move everybody, change schools. Does that not concern you? I
mean, it really doesn't matter or?

Paul Kennedy: No, it does. And, the first thing I have is an incredibly
supportive wife, you know, who has put up with me, and followed me many
different places over the course of our career.

And so moving to Bemidji and, you know, I grew up living in- I lived in
Australia for a couple of years. I lived in England for a couple of years.
So, understanding that there was a great big world out there, and even in
the US there were opportunities that were gonna present itself. So that
didn't scare me as much, I don't think I appreciated, you know, the impact
and disruption on the rest of my family as we did that a couple of times.

But when we moved to Minneapolis, so that would've been 26 years ago, that
kind of became home base. So many of the roles I've had since we moved to
Minneapolis. Minneapolis has been home base, and I've either commuted or
I've moved, and my wife has, you know, spent six months like when I moved to
Canada, she spent six months in Canada, six months in the US, and I spent
all of my time in Canada.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, very cool. Right? I think it's very, very good to
do all this early on in your career, right? So let's say when you are in
your twenties or thirties, it really doesn't matter. You can just move from
one place to another. But as you get a little older, it's better to have a
home base.

Paul Kennedy: Absolutely had that home base. And you know, I moved to Canada
the year that my youngest son graduated from high school. So, you know, he
was kind of sad he was gonna go off to college and, and so we had a little
more flexibility two years prior to that. I commuted every other week to
Canada for two years because he was still in high school and I wasn't gonna,
I wasn't gonna move. Missed those last two years of his high school career.

Karthik Chidambaram: And you also talked about being one of nine children.

Paul Kennedy: Yes.

Karthik Chidambaram: I would like to know, do you get along well with your
siblings?

Paul Kennedy: I do. We get along well, so there are eight of us now. One of
my brothers passed away 11 years ago. And we were actually - so there's
eight of us now, seven of us were together last weekend at my niece's
wedding. And we're supportive of each other, and I think all have a keen
interest in each other. And the individual successes that we each have and,
you know, the family even, the next generation is close as well.

Karthik Chidambaram: One thing I love about this conversation, Paul, is when
I talk to you, it's not just about work, it's also about family, and it's
not just about family, it's about work as well.

You know, everything is important. I'd like to say this, you know, it's not
one or the other. It's everything together. So you balance that pretty well?

Paul Kennedy: I think I do. It's but it takes work and it takes intention.
And they do. And particularly if, you know, in a role like mine, they just,
they become commingled, right?

There is no real separation. But they're both really important. And so you,
you, you make time you make time for both and, and you carve out time and be
intentional about where you're gonna spend your time and how you're gonna
make an impact and be, you know, make sure that, that it's meaningful.

Karthik Chidambaram: And what do you do outside of work?

Paul Kennedy: I spend time with my family. I really do. Let's see. My wife
and I have a place up on the North Shore of Lake Superior. We love going up
there, hiking and it's always an opportunity for me to have some projects
going on, construction projects up there, doing construction remodel
projects with my son at his house. Get a lot of enjoyment out of that and
just spending time with family support.

Karthik Chidambaram: Talking about communities. You are in the career
program, how do you engage with communities and for businesses out there? I
mean, DSG is a larger company, but then for startups, how important or why
is it very important to engage with communities and how do you engage with
communities?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so from a DSG perspective, we believe it's really
important. And again, being a hundred percent employee owned, we have 63
locations and 63 communities across the upper Midwest. We're locally owned
in each of those communities, right? So, you know, the local branch, the
population in the branch locally, you know, those are the people that
they're, you know, playing little, their kids are playing little lead
together.

They're going to the post office, they might be going to church or to the
Rotary Club. That's, you know, that's the community that they're engaged in.
We, and we want to show up in those communities and support those
communities. So it's, it's actually a, a big piece of, you know, of our
vision and our, our mission is really about being community focused and then
engaging in our community with we have doing something good DSG.

So we offer all of our employee owners eight hours of volunteer, paid
volunteer time. And it's really about finding what you're passionate about
and go do it in your local community. We believe it's really important that
we have those local connections in each of the local communities that we
serve.

Karthik Chidambaram: DSG, doing something good. I didn't know that.

Paul Kennedy: Yes.

Karthik Chidambaram: And talking about communities as well, right? So I
mean, technology is a big disruptor even in terms of jobs today. How is that
impacting DSG? Do you follow that closely? And what do you predict is the
future of distribution?

Paul Kennedy: So, I think you've got a couple of questions there, I think
relative to technology, relative to the future of distribution and how
technology might impact the future of distribution, right?

And then how work gets done in distribution, leveraging technology. So I
think that you know, technology is gonna continue. To drive us forward. And
as I was thinking about being back in that plumbing office fax machines,
that was new technology in the eighties, right? And what did we do before
fax machines?

Well, we had carbon paper and now I think about email and cell phones and
all the technological advances that have happened, and now it's just
accelerating so quickly. And, and for us it's really about understanding,
Hey, there's a lot of hype. Let's understand what we can apply and how it's
gonna improve either our employee owner experience or our customer
experience or drive productivity and efficiency in the business.

So introducing technology, going through that lens, I think, is really
important. And part of our strategic roadmap includes a whole digital stream
on how's technology. Going to enable our business going forward and have us
think about how work gets done differently. And maybe as we, and I don't
think it's, for us, we're not viewing it as it's gonna reduce head count.

What it's really gonna do is allow us to grow more efficiently so we may not
have to add as many heads as we grow because technology is gonna be an
enabler. You know, particularly in you know, quotations and order entry and,
and process, you know, process automation.

Karthik Chidambaram: And what is your leadership style? Is it, are you hands
on or you delegate, or how do you typically work?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah, so I have an outstanding leadership team that kind of
likes to keep me out of things. So, I would say I am not as hands-on. I
probably delegate more. Set clear expectations and check in frequently and
you know, course correct where we need to course correct, but surrounding
yourself with, with people that are smarter than you has always been a great
success for me.

And I have an outstanding leadership team that helps push me up and keep me
oriented in the organization where I need to be looking at the future.

Karthik Chidambaram: You talked about spotting talent, right? So people
spotted you, people spotted something in you, and that really helped you
grow. How do you spot talented people?

You know, let's say, you know, you work with many people and then you find a
couple of smart guys. How do you spot talent? You know, can you give us-

Paul Kennedy: Yeah. So a couple of things, I will say. I think it's you
know, people that, back to curiosity that I talked about earlier, I think
people that can exhibit curiosity and, and you know, I find them coming to
me and asking me just really interesting questions, right?

So, okay. You have a curiosity there that we ought to enable people that are
willing to lean into opportunities that whether it's. Moving or not, or it's
you know, stretching for that next opportunity or saying, hey, that project
that is being scoped, I want to, I want to tackle that, or I wanna be part
of that, looking for those opportunities.

I will tell you the pace that someone- the pace that somebody walks, I
think, tells a lot about a person

Karthik Chidambaram: The pace that someone works. Interesting. Okay. I mean,
I have a follow up question there. Let's say for instance, right, so there's
an opportunity which comes up and somebody is willing to take it up and
somebody is not.

Then you spend more time with the person who is willing to take it up. And
what do you do with the person who's not willing to take it up?

Paul Kennedy: Yeah. So the person that, you know, didn't take it up. And
yes, you do spend more, more time with the people that are leaning in, but
also understanding this is something I learned from my father years ago.
It's, you know, you have to meet people where they are and you have to
understand that everybody has a different driver in life.

And so, realizing that that other person, they're still, if they're still
adding value to the company, and I'm sure they are, they're at a place in
their life that that's what's important to them right now and this other
person has, has a different aspiration. So, you know, how do we make sure
that we're maximizing the potential and the impact for each of them and
aligning with what they wanna do as well.

Karthik Chidambaram: Well said, be empathetic to people. Yeah.

Karthik Chidambaram: And, what are you reading right now?

Paul Kennedy: So, I just actually finished a book called Necessary Endings
by Dr. Henry Cloud. And it's really about letting go of things and if you're
gonna continue to grow that you have to do some pruning and you have to come
to the realization that things that have served you in the past may not
serve you going forward.

So it, it's an interesting take and it's, some of it is, you know, it's
basic, but when it's put in your face like that, and you really are able to
take a step back and reflect on some of the challenges or obstacles that
you've been kind of staring at or staring through it, it really brings that
into focus for you.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, let go.

So tell us some productivity hacks, right? So how do you make sure that
you're productive?

Paul Kennedy: I have a great assistant in Jody Skinner, she's fabulous and,
and part of her job, and she knows this is her job, is to take things off my
plate. So she does that again, back to my leadership team. They take things
off. So they're a force multiplier for me in taking things off my plate.
Trying to only touch emails once.

Karthik Chidambaram: Oh, just once a day?

Paul Kennedy: No, just once.

Karthik Chidambaram: Once.

Paul Kennedy: Okay. Look at an email and deal with it. Or delete it.

Karthik Chidambaram: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Kennedy: Delegate it to somebody else, but not let it just pile up, sit
in your inbox

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, totally.

Paul Kennedy: And finding time. I find micro times to be able to get things
done, and it might be on a Sunday morning when my, you know, I'm having my
cup of coffee. I know my wife's going to be where that's our time together,
but I know she's gonna be in bed for another hour.

I'll get a lot of things done during that hour. So finding those times to
you know, where I can get things done and, you know, so just, I guess using
time wisely is probably the best way to put that.

Karthik Chidambaram: And do you write as well?

Paul Kennedy: I do not. I've never been a big journaler. I take a lot of
notes and I use a Remarkable. I just converted to a Remarkable too, so the
tablet?

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah.

Paul Kennedy: To be my, my note keeper because I do take a lot of notes, but
I have not, I've never been a big journaler.

Karthik Chidambaram: So Paul, I really enjoyed this conversation. There was
a lot of learning for me, so thanks so much for doing this. Thanks again for
hosting us in Minneapolis. Great chatting with you.

Paul Kennedy: Thank you, Karthik. Appreciate it. Good to see you. Thank you.

Karthik Chidambaram: Thank you.