Do you have an attitude of gratitude?

Yesterday we wrapped up our HTG3 meeting here in Raleigh at the Microsoft offices. It was a great couple days of sharing life and business together. We traded great ideas, cool technology hints, little known secrets of the web - but most of all we spend a couple days living life together. One of our agenda items this meeting was some "thank you time" where the folks could express gratitude to others in the group for impact that had been made on them and their businesses over the last three years of meeting together. We don't do that nearly enough. Not in our business life, and certainly not in our personal lives.

None of us becomes successful on our own. We are helped by mentors, vendors, distribution partners, other small business IT owners - we get help from all over the place. It may come from reading an article in a magazine or listening to a podcast. This meeting we had Cecelia Galvin, editor of ChannelPro magazine, sitting in as an observer for a bit. ChannelPro is one of the places I get ideas for my business. But how often do I take time to say thanks to the folks who make it happen. HTS would fail without the investments made in us by our key vendor partners. We would have no products to sell, no message to market, no future. Without our distribution partner - Ingram Micro and their team - we would never survive. They not only pick, pack and ship the things we need to have work to do, but their services and interaction with our team make it possible to succeed. The members of HTG, VTN and other peers share so many great ideas that we SWIPE (steal with integrity and pride everyday) that if we stripped the things we have learned from others HTS would be a pretty lonely place for me to work because it would be back to that one man shop I started 23 years ago. We didn't figure out success on our own. We did it by learning from others and imitating what they were doing our own way.

So I want to take time to thank the many who have helped me personally become what I am today and for the investments made that have allowed HTS to become the company it is today. More than that, I want to encourage you as fellow IT professionals to take time to write an email or place a phone call to at least one person who has made a difference in your life and your business. Don't let the opportunity to bless another with a heartfelt thank you slip any longer. Develop an attitude of gratitude and be one of those unique few that say thank you to people every day. It will set you apart. The world is great at taking and expecting. We need to become great at sharing, giving and being grateful. Do it TODAY!