Author: Steve Ainslie

This past June was the 5 year anniversary of moving into my current home. That’s the longest I’ve ever lived in one place for my entire life. It’s kind of nice. In fact, it’s more than nice, it’s wonderful. I am constantly making small adjustments and improvements to my home, from big projects like replacing…

Now that I’m retired from work, widowed and live alone I have more free time than I’ve ever had before. It is wonderful to have complete control and autonomy over my schedule, routine and activities. My small, quiet life provides me with plenty of time to listen, observe and think about the world. This morning…

When I hear someone on a podcast refer to the covid pandemic ending in 2020 and then suggesting that things “returned to normal” in 2021, I cannot relate. The pandemic left a permanent impression on my life and in my mind. I still have a hard time believing how the government shut down the entire…

I first wrote about not being able to find anything interesting to watch on Netflix back in 2022. Upon reflection, my disappointment with all streaming content began years earlier. My wife and I enjoyed binging dozens of great series like The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Battlestar Galactica, Lost and The Closer….

Today I listened to a podcast with Bill Perkins who wrote the book “Die With Zero”. Bill is a multimillionaire ($100M net worth?) commodities trader. He writes about maximizing fulfillment in life vs. over-saving only to miss out on life experiences that you could have had before you were old, debilitated, retired and wealthier. He…

I was thinking about love, marriage, dating and relationships today. This is no big surprise since I regularly listen to podcasts focused on these topics. In conjunction with these contemplations, I was thinking of myself. Which, again is no surprise, since I think about myself nearly every second of every day. Meeting my future wife…

While I have many thoughts on the Ukraine/Russian war and the Israel/Palestine war, I have not written about them because most of my “knowledge” has been gleaned from podcasts and news reports. And, more importantly, I don’t know sh!t when it comes to war, international politics, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, or Russia. That doesn’t prevent me…

I have been average height for my entire life. It never bothered me one iota. When I was about 5 years old, my aunt married a hippie dude with a handlebar mustache, long hair and a motorcycle And he was 6 feet tall! He was the tallest person I had ever met. So at that…

I was thinking today about my car. This year it will be four years old. I’ve been very pleased with it, although if I could go back in time for a do over, I would still be driving my trusty old Scion. In high school and college when I lived with my mother, I used…

Failure is critically important for developing resilience, persistence, the ability to learn, humility, reasoning, analysis and mature behavior. I have learned more from failure than from ever doing something right. As a manager, I created an environment that encouraged my employees to test ideas, practices, conventional wisdom and even my decisions. Th key was, if…