From KT – August 13, 2011

Greetings to the Good People of DaVita, from India

Well it is mid-day on Saturday, and I am in the last 24 hours of this business trip.  I left home mid-day last Sunday, and will meet my wife in Zurich, Switzerland tomorrow morning, Sunday morning, after I interview a potential executive.  Then we will fly to Italy to meet two old friends/couples for 6 days.

The trip has been quite intense.  In those 7 days we will have hit 5 cities in 3 countries, and traveled around much of the globe.  The total number of hours on a plane will be 35, for an average of 5 hours a day.  Once you add in the time to and from each airport and in the airports you get to about 50 hours of air travel related time, or just over 7 hours a day.  We worked virtually every waking minute, including every airport transfer and evening, except for last night where I stopped working at 9:30 pm and took 1,5 glorious hours off before going to bed, AND except the exercise I got every day except Wednesday, when we took off too early and landed too late.

Sooooo…. Thursday started with a workout then meetings all day back to back.  Then off to the airport we went, arriving in the hotel about midnight.  I have to admit I did not work all 6 hours of the flight, my body started to crash a bit after eating dinner and I closed my eyes for an hour.  I never really slept, I could always hear things around me, but it was restful.  

Friday morning started with a workout, 25 minutes on the bike, 2 sets of push-ups (40 and 20), 80 crunches and a little stretching, for a total of 33 minutes.  ½ serving of fruit, ½ serving of high fiber cereal.  Lunch was another 9 course marathon with the CEO of an Indian healthcare service company, with ½ serving of veggies in the midst of the marathon, and with ½ serving of fruit to wrap it up.  Our negotiations went until the late afternoon, followed by the trek back to the airport for a domestic flight to another city.  This time we actually got to the hotel by about 7:00 pm, which allowed me to work for 2 hours including some live calls to the States, and then my glorious 1.5 hours of no work!  Dinner, however, was not healthy, a cheeseburger with some (but not all!) of the fries.

I then slept for an amazing 9 hours, which my body evidently needed after the much sleep deprived/distorted last 5 nights.  I got up and did 20 minutes on the bike, 40 push-ups, 100 crunches, and some stretching.  Total of 28 minutes.  Breakfast had ½ serving of high fiber cereal, and ½ serving of fruit.  Off to a meeting we went, which like most trips in urban India take a full hour to get to, because of old and narrow roads and intense traffic, both human and vehicular.

This negotiation was also constructive.  The DaVita team did a debrief and some broader international planning after, and then another hour drive to the airport.  Which brings me to my current spot on the plane.  I will have one connection on the way to Zurich.

I am hoping I can get GREAT exercise on my days off, and eat reasonably well – difficult to do in Italy because the food is awesome, and the dinners are long.  One of the couples we are meeting lives in Poland, so we don’t get to see them often, and it will be good to catch up with them and their kids.

I hope you are all well.  I hope you are all feeling the strength of our team of over 2000, banded together in pursuit of healthier lives.  I need to get back to picturing that team as I am deciding how long to workout, and what to eat!  Take care fellow citizens of the DaVita and MTM communities!

One for All

KT