Virtually everyone who reads Tips for Success is incredibly blessed. So blessed that it is nearly impossible to measure the true extent of our blessings! So blessed that it is virtually impossible to adequately express the full extent of our gratitude and thanksgiving!
In spite of all our imperfections, weaknesses and mistakes, we are incredibly blessed, both individually and collectively. And yet, on many occasions, each and every one of us fail to appropriately acknowledge and openly express sincere thanks.
Thanks for a place to live. Thanks for more food than we should or could ever eat. Thanks for clean water, clean clothes and reasonably clean air to breathe. Thanks for sometimes flawed, but relatively safe and dependable private and public transportation, sanitation and security. Thanks for our priceless health and all the wonderful people and experiences we have enjoyed throughout our entire lives.
Thanks for family, friends, colleagues, partners, employers, and all others who help and serve each of us every day of our lives. Thanks for the difficult times for it is then that we pay attention and learn the most. Thanks for the astounding and continuing advancements of disease prevention and treatment (the average baby born in America in 1900 could expect to live 47.3 years!). Thanks for our heritage, our country and our precious, priceless freedom!
And what about the priceless privilege of giving… not just financially but in a million different ways? What about giving our time, our talents, our knowledge, our wisdom? What about giving a portion, hopefully a large portion of everything (not just money) we have or will ever have? In the broad scope of life and legacy, it is absolutely true that it is far better, far more important with far greater positive impact ‘to give than to receive!’
A continuous focus on taking, receiving, and “me, me, me” adds very little to what is most important about life, happiness, joy, fulfillment and positive legacy.
A continuous focus on gratitude and thankfulness, as well as giving, helping, sharing, and serving pays handsome returns… with a guaranteed successful, fulfilling and joyous life and legacy!
Tips for Success is a labor of love. I write it and freely give it away to tens of thousands of people every week. Tips for Success intentionally features wisdom and guidance from world-class thinkers, achievers and best-selling authors. Tips for Success is my gift to you, and to all people who have the desire and discipline to study and learn from world-class thinkers, achievers and best-selling authors.
When speaking, facilitating and traveling throughout America the Beautiful, I frequently share and sometimes quote a simple poem I wrote on May 26, 2000. The simple poem was written and sent to my friends, in honor and deep gratitude for their positive impact on my life. The poem was a sincere ‘thank you’ and a very personal ‘gift’ to many wonderful friends.
If you are a reader of Tips for Success, I consider you a friend. During this week when Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving, I would like to thank you for allowing me to serve you via Tips for Success. I would also like to give you a gift… a sincere gift entitled Friends.
Friends
Without kind and considerate friends like YOU
Tell me… just where would I be?
The answer’s so simple…
I just wouldn’t be free!
Free to love, free to give
Free to serve, free to smile…
My life would be barren…
My days NOT worthwhile!
But I have some wonderful friends…
Like YOU
I’m so blessed… I’m so rich
And I’m thanking YOU!
Written in honor of my wonderful friends
Dan Nielsen
May 26, 2000
Thank you for allowing me to serve you via Tips for Success. Enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving with those you love and care for most.
