I Was Shopping at Costco While My AI Analyzed 200 Phone Calls

Yesterday I spent the day in Florida with my cousin. Italian food. Antique shops. A trip to Costco to buy her a laptop so she can start her own journey with AI tools.

Meanwhile, back at the office — or more accurately, nowhere near an office — my AI assistant was pulling call reports from JustCall, reviewing employee conversations, and identifying patterns across two of our core workflow processes.

I didn’t check in. I didn’t micromanage. I ate pasta and browsed vintage furniture while the analysis ran in the background.

What the Machines Found

While I was helping my cousin pick out the right computer, Cowork was doing what would normally take me an entire morning hunched over spreadsheets: pulling call data, listening to how my team handles two of our most critical workflows, and flagging what’s working versus what needs attention.

The high-level findings gave me exactly what I needed — not granular call-by-call transcripts, but patterns. The kind of insights you bring to a team meeting and say, “Here’s what I’m seeing. Let’s dig into this together.”

That’s the part people miss about AI in business. It’s not about replacing the team conversation. It’s about showing up to that conversation with better data than you’d ever have time to compile yourself.

The Costco Moment

Here’s the part that made my day. My cousin has been watching me build this agentic company from the sidelines. She’s seen me go from manually running everything to having AI systems handle prospecting, content, and now call analysis.

Yesterday she said, “I want to do that too.”

So we went to Costco and bought her a laptop. Not for email and Facebook — for Cowork. For building her own AI-powered workflow. For joining this movement of non-technical people who are using these tools to work smarter.

Watching her get excited about the possibilities reminded me of how I felt on Day 1 of this journey. Before the FMCSA scraper. Before the blog automation. Before any of it. Just the raw feeling of: what if I could actually do this?

She can. And she will.

The Real Flex

I used to think being a CEO meant being available 24/7. Checking dashboards from the restaurant table. Apologizing for taking calls during family time. The “hustle culture” version of leadership where your presence equals your value.

Yesterday I was fully present with my family. I wasn’t sneaking glances at my phone. I wasn’t “just quickly checking one thing.” I was shopping for antiques and laughing over lunch.

And when I got home that evening, a complete analysis of my team’s call performance was waiting for me. Organized. Summarized. Ready to bring to the next team meeting.

That’s not lazy leadership. That’s leveraged leadership. And honestly, my cousin picking out her first laptop to start her own AI journey was worth more than any call report.

What’s Next

This week I’ll sit down with the team and walk through what the analysis uncovered. I’m not going to dump an AI report on them — I’m going to use it as a starting point for a real conversation about our processes.

The AI found the patterns. The humans will decide what to do about them.

That’s the model. That’s always been the model. The machines work. The humans lead.

And sometimes, the CEO buys antiques while it happens.