Website design By BotEap.comSince this blog will debut on Thanksgiving, I thought it might be a good time to focus on the value of giving thanks as an important part of your daily life. Although I see the importance of having specific days to honor the things that have value to most people, such as Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc. I think what you do the other 350 days a year is much more meaningful.

Website design By BotEap.comLike game days in sports, it’s easy to push yourself and do your best these days. But as any great athlete will tell you (if you ask), what separates the greats from the good ones is all the effort they are putting in when no one is watching. Likewise, it’s easy to present yourself with a nice shiny gift on your child’s birthday, and that will elicit a huge reaction, but does that make for a good mother or father? If you buy your spouse an expensive birthday present while you are in the middle of an affair, does that mean that you are a good match or that the affair never happened? Of course not, both examples are simply efforts to mask the guilt you feel for not doing what is best for others for the rest of the year.

Website design By BotEap.comWe humans like to take the easiest route we can find. If working hard while no one is watching and with no guarantee of future success / stardom were easy, we would all be LeBron James or Russell Wilson. The fact is, it is not easy to be a great athlete, a great parent, or a great spouse. Our society glamorizes shiny things and many of us admire and envy the people who have a lot of them, but the fact is, it is not easy to be a great athlete, parent, or spouse. That takes a lot more than buying shiny things.

Website design By BotEap.comI’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to both ends of the spectrum and no longer envy those with shiny things or shiny things themselves. I used to think that those things were the way to happiness, but now I know that I was instinctively looking for the easiest way to find happiness.

Website design By BotEap.comAs any of my clients will tell you, I often say that ‘the happiest people I know are not the ones who have the most, but the ones who need the least.’ I also often tell my clients that many of the ways the brain works best are counterintuitive and perhaps this is why I have learned that the deepest form of happiness I have found has been through struggles.

Website design By BotEap.comDo you know who I admire? The single mother who is raising a young autistic boy and another child and will do whatever she can to help them become valued members of society, regardless of what she has to sacrifice to get them there. I admire the man who has endured a lot in silence and works in the shadows developing young basketball players as people through his affection and at great cost to himself.

Website design By BotEap.comI’ve received some brilliant gifts over the years, but at the risk of seeming unappreciative, none of them are on the list of what I’m grateful for today. That list is mostly made up of my family, friends, clients, serendipity, and the hardships I’ve been through.

Website design By BotEap.comPlease take the time to say thank you today, but also remember that it’s not what you do on game day or holidays that makes you who you are, it’s what you do today and every day after today. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Website design By BotEap.comYou can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc