I am typing this from the waiting room in the hospital where my wife is in the operating room having major surgery for lung cancer. I hate hospitals and pretty much despise the healthcare industry in general, but today I’m going to talk about the great customer experience I’ve had here at Cleveland Clinic in…
Author: Steve Ainslie
I Don’t Have Many Friends
Most of my life I had plenty of friends. I never had a problem making friends. Ever since I was old enough to talk, I had at least one best friend plus a bunch of good friends. This changed when I went to college. My friends and I went to different schools, had different schedules and…
Solving the Wrong Problem
I am pretty good during emergency situations. When the shit hits the fan, I become extremely calm, focused and hyper-aware. This allows me to be very effective under pressure. So when there’s an accident, an injury, or some other unexpected event that requires immediate action, I do well. Some people get panicky or flustered in times…
Your Job Posting Probably Sucks
I am considering a job search. Although consulting’s been slow this year, I haven’t entirely giving up on self-employment. But, in case I cannot make self-employment work, for they first time in nearly 2 years, I started looking at job postings. Searching job postings is depressing. Most of the time they are written by people who…
A Post A Day
I am going to try writing a post a day for the next few weeks. I was inspired by Seth Godin who wrote here: …committing to having a point of view and scheduling a time and place to say something is almost certainly going to improve your thinking, your attitude and your trajectory. A daily…
Shutting Down My Business
In thinking about yesterday’s post and one from 6 weeks earlier I realized that that I’ve gotten caught up in thinking too much about my work problem rather than dealing with it. The problem is that my consulting business is not generating enough money to support my family and I don’t have enough in savings to…
Will I Return to Work or Can I Pivot My Business Successfully?
I’ve been blogging for my business site Inside Sales Dude in March 2017 a few months after my VP of Sales job was eliminated. Since then I’ve: Published 100+ articles on sales and management Created and Sent Twenty Newsletters to my subscribers Tweaked and modified the blogs layout, theme, format etc. I started the site after…
Terms of Endearment
When I was a kid, I’d sometimes complain to my Aunt Essie when someone called me a name. She’d then sing to me: “Sticks and stones will break our bones but names will never hurt us.” I guess she was right, because I can’t even remember what anyone called me that would have upset me so…
If It’s Not A Hit, Switch
I recently read the article, “If it’s not a hit, switch” by Derek Sivers. He wrote about spending 12 years pitching, promoting and pushing various projects. He kept trying to get past obstacles, objections and barriers. It was a constant uphill battle. Then he launched CD Baby. Suddenly people were saying to him “Wow! I…
Tight Squeeze
I have learned that I do better with less stuff. I’m not someone who can live out of a backpack, but on the scale between hoarder and backpacker, I definitely lean towards the backpacker side. I didn’t always live this way but moving a lot helped get me here. But even with my minimalistic tendencies,…