Every December, most companies are deep in the trenches of peak season: scrambling through backorders, juggling last-minute changes, and praying their carriers don’t call in with weather delays. But somehow, one operation manages to deliver on time, with perfect accuracy, at a global scale. Every year.

Santa’s.

It might be whimsical, but if you strip away the magic and look at the structure, Santa runs the most efficient seasonal operation on the planet, and his planning principles are worth paying attention to.

People ask me all the time how I manage to network while living out of a suitcase, and honestly, I get why they’re curious. It sounds chaotic from the outside, new cities every month or so, different coworking spaces, shifting time zones, different languages, but for me, networking hasn’t become harder. If anything, this lifestyle has made it even more natural.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a people person. I’ve always been able to walk into a room and walk out with five new conversations to follow up on later. That didn’t change just because I packed my life into a suitcase and hit the road. What changed is the radius of who I meet. My “local” meeting radius now spans countries.