We’re grateful for turkey, too.

RedShift Writers officially opened for business in December of 2012. And during the last year, we have learned plenty about entrepreneurship, business, positioning, and our clients.

But perhaps most importantly, we have learned an essential lesson about life: that gratitude is the absolute best policy to follow in business and personal challenges.

For this article, we will stick to business. Here are ten things we are eternally grateful for this Thanksgiving (or Thanksgivukkah, if you will).

#1) Great Clients
A business is not a business without customers. We love our customers and do everything we can to help them succeed. Sometimes that means planning out a full marketing campaign and establishing at-large verbal positioning on behalf of the brand. Other times, it means knocking out an eleventh hour press release. Sometimes it means being willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, from telling the world about an event to picking up the phone and pitching media to building out strong social media campaigns that generate interest and excite the market.

And sometimes, it just means introducing them to the right person or bringing coffee to the office.

Regardless of what we have to do to keep our wonderful clients happy, we want to acknowledge that they are indeed wonderful… every single one of them. We appreciate their business.

#2) Courage
Business requires courage. It doesn’t matter where you are on the totem pole, what  your job description is, or what you need to do that morning. The CEO needs courage to run the company. The entry level employee needs courage to handle increasingly complex tasks. The specialist needs courage to stay relevant and remain sharp. Without courage, you will fall flat of your goals and fail to grow.

We are grateful that we have not lost our nerve, especially in an environment when anyone can and many do.

#3) Failure
You may not have heard it here FIRST, but you will hear it here: failure creates opportunity. You might even say failure is what creates the most opportunity. No company can succeed 100% of the time, so treasuring failure as much as success is essential to gaining clarity and success as a business.

Hopefully, we will continue to fail so we continue to succeed.

#4) Networking
Without connections and good, strong, smart people with good, strong, smart capabilities, no one achieves success in the business arena. We are so grateful to have met such wonderful people over the last year, too many to count. They remind us of the tremendous amount of beauty there is in the world, and also provide outlets and resources we don’t have on our own. Our allies remind us of the age-old axiom regarding  the power in numbers. Bless every part for making up such a wonderful whole.

#5) Education
RedShift was born largely out of a respect for teaching and learning. Much of what we do- persuasion, explanation, reassurance- relies on our ability to educate the person we are talking to. Our company couldn’t possibly have grown to become Houston’s top messaging company without our willingness to learn. We are grateful to have it, and hope we never lose it.

Similarly…

#6) Humor
If you want to build a network, learn from failure, take in deep lessons, gain clients and conquer fear, you’ll need a positive attitude to do it. Every positive attitude that has ever existed relied on being able to laugh. We laugh plenty.

#7) Clarity
Let’s face it: with the rise of the web, and by extension the blogosphere and social media, there’s a TON of information flying around in the public domain. With that information has come a wonderful array of in-depth insights into how to get the job (whatever job you need) done. But there is also a lot of chaff there to deceive the average radar.

The willingness to investigate so as not to buy every workshop or book on the market is something that takes a few extra moments, but every one of them is worth it. Clarity is peace of mind and saves tons of headaches.

#8) Inspiration
Will power is a funny thing. More than likely, there are days when you won’t want to do the thing you always want to do. Even the world’s greatest guitarist may occasionally prefer to lie in bed rather than pluck the strings of a Fender. It is the nature of humanity, especially in the era of divided attention, to have our will power come and go in waves.

The best way to counteract a lull in will power is inspiration. Fortunately, we have that in droves, and use it to our advantage every day.

#9) Competitors
Competitors keep you sharp. Even when you are hungry to defeat the others in your market, you don’t want to knock them off. You want them around. A league with only one player is worse than boring (although very little is worse than boring). It’s not even solvent.

Your competitors are your best friends.

#10) You
You, humanity, are the driving force behind anyone who wants to do anything that matters to our existence. Without you reading this post, this language is dead. Without your involvement in our world- every transaction, every handshake, every tweet, every message, positive or negative- we have no world to live in. YOU have made all the difference just by being there.

Thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

And if you want to add to the list, feel free to leave a comment. We’re grateful either way.