Giving thanks

Hello again my friend,

There’s something special about Thanksgiving. It’s my favourite holiday, and I’m lucky to celebrate it twice. Once in October (Canadian) with friends and family, and again today (American), with my co-workers.

But even though it’s my favourite holiday, I keep forgetting to be thankful and practice gratitude. I get so focused on what I want next that I barely remember what I already have. As if the next achievement matters more than the people and the moments. They don’t, but it’s too easy to take the important things for granted if we’re not careful.

And so this isn’t a long post about a business practice or a lesson. It’s just a reminder (for me especially). Hug the people you love. Tell them you love them. Say thanks. Let the little things go. Remember that what comes from you comes at you.

It’s perfectly okay to want more. Ambition is beautiful, and gratitude keeps us grounded while we chase what’s next.

Time, people, and priorities shape how we see the world.

Spend all day thinking about problems, and everything feels heavier. Shift your focus to opportunities, love, or fun, and the entire day changes. Everything starts in the mind. Thoughts feed into actions and compound. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. Sometimes the world distracts us.

Unless we make gratitude a deliberate practice. I’m terrible at this myself. But I’m always better off when I do.

I’ll journal, talk with family, or scroll old photos to remind myself how fortunate I am now, even in the middle of lock-in season.

So I hope you get a chance to do that today. To take the pressure off. To remember the best parts of life that we used to wish for. Billions of people would trade places with a healthy, employed adult living in the west.

Gratitude is one of the best things to practice for mental health, and probably your general health too.

Otherwise, it’s all just a series of issues we need to fix. As if we’ve always been wrong and now we need to ‘unlearn’ the bad, and ‘fix,’ the broken. Nobody’s broken. There’s nothing to ‘unlearn.’

We already lucky.

Thanks again for reading. Happy Thanksgiving.

Startups who read beehiiv can receive a 90% discount on Intercom's AI-first customer service platform, plus Fin—the #1 AI agent for customer service—free for a full year.

That's like having a full-time human support agent at no cost.

What’s included?

Who’s eligible?

Intercom’s program is for high-growth, high-potential companies that are:

Apply now