I am Blessed and Thankful
Today is Thanksgiving and normally I would be with my family. This year we are crazy busy with work and I decided to stay in Cleveland and forego the stress of travel. I will spend a month in Southern California with my family at Christmas, so I did not feel too bad about missing Thanksgiving. My sister and niece live in Denver and my parents will spend Thanksgiving with them this year.
I am lucky enough to have grown up in an all-American, middle class, loving family, who today still like to spend time together. I am very thankful to be so close to my family and to speak to my parents, sister and niece once or twice a week.
I believe that I am blessed when it comes to my family. They support me, believe in me, provide me with confidence, and have been a significant force in my ability to make big decisions in my life. When I decided to start my company with no money or business plan my family told me I was ready. There was no logical reason to support me except that they love me. My sister who did not have a lot of extra money sent me $1,000. My brother told me that I could do anything and would say that I was always right. (Ok, so he was younger and didn’t know any better!)
I don’t know that I would have made the decision to start my company had my family not been so supportive. At the time it was risky and more dream based than business plan based. I wonder about those less fortunate than me and how they are able to make tough decisions. Who tells them they are good enough?
I live in downtown Cleveland right near a church that helps the homeless. Every day I see people who have nobody to tell them they are good enough. For me, Thanksgiving is a day to remember all those people that tell us that were good enough.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Sheri,
What a lovely Thanksgiving message. You write from the heart and it is a pleasure to see that the person whom I think of with such good regard professionally, is also a sincere, aware person “at home.”
One of the things I have learned in my own 23 year career is that, for me, people matter more than anything else. To work with talented, dedicated people who are kind, caring, and not afraid to be seen as such is–quite simply–as good as it gets.
Thanks for sharing some of who you are. As a fellow “blessed with an incredible family” person, I very much related to your thoughts and experiences. My own sisters, parents and I regularly say to each other, “We are so fortunate to have family members that we love to spend time with.”
I do very much plan to create some way that I will be able to join your group. At this point, I need to come up with the remainder of my salary to balance out the PowerPresentation income. I have several calls in to folks in my area to do some brainstorming and am planting seeds.
I do not have children, so flexibility is a strength of mine. In addition, I love variety in my work and would treasure the opportunity to focus on the specific things I most love to do….facilitate learning; lead meetings and focus groups; coach others in career directions….and teach dog training classes!
Thanks for opening the door to our dialogue and thanks, too, for your blog. It’s nice to get to know you a bit more!
Warmly,
Marti