Q: Hi Steve – As the year draws to a close I just wanted to thank you for your columns and insight. Some friends and I discuss our businesses every few weeks, and you column is sometimes fodder for our conversations. So anyway – thanks!
 
Mark, Shreveport
 
A: It is always nice to be appreciated, so thanks back ‘atcha. This time of year , everyone is especially thankful for their blessings, small business owners included. Here then are a few of the things I think we should remember to be thankful for:

Our Customers: Needless to say, all of the joy, fun, excitement, frustration, and possibility that come from being self-employed would be for naught if it weren’t for our respective customers. They are the ones who pay the bills and make it all happen.

As such, maybe a good resolution is make a concerted effort to not take your best customers for granted. Let them know how much you appreciate their business. Find out what else they might need from you. Who knows, it may be that there is even more work to be done and money to be made from some current customers, if only you ask, and then guess what? Next year you will have even more to be grateful for.
 
No Boss: Long-time readers of this column may recall that I had some bad bosses over the years, but none worse than the one who once gave me an assignment that should have taken weeks to complete . . . and demanded it the next day! Bleary-eyed after only three hours sleep, I gave her a pretty poor product the next day, and then asked why she needed it so fast. “Oh, I just wanted to test you,” she quipped.

She later fired me because, as she said, I “didn’t write well enough” (last laugh!), but even so, that firing changed my life remarkably for the better as after that I was forced to start my first real business.
 
No, owning my own business has never been what one would call “easy”, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything, and I bet you wouldn’t either. The chance to call your own shot and live or die by your own wits and ability is thrilling and something never to be taken for granted.
 
Creativity: The correlation to having no boss is the freedom to try out new ideas:

In 1948, Kay Draper needed something with which to fill her cat box (ashes were the most popular at the time), so she asked her neighbor, Ed Lowe, if she could use some of the sawdust from his factory. Lowe, ever the entrepreneur, suggested that she try a new fire retardant clay that he had recently manufactured (but was wholly unable to sell), called “Fuller’s Earth.”
 
The small clay granules proved to be a prefect solution to not only Ms. Draper’s problem, but a problem faced by cat owners the world over. Fuller’s Earth was soon renamed “Kitty Litter.” Lowe’s creativity was the catalyst that changed his fortunes – In 1990, he sold his company for $200 million.
 
Freedom: When I told my wife one day recently that I needed to put a long day of writing, she reminded me that we had long-standing plans to have friends over that night. Guess who didn’t put in a long day of writing that day?

For many entrepreneurs, the freedom to live where they want, work when they choose, and do what they like is the thing they are most grateful for.
 
Finally, on a personal note, I would like to say how grateful I am for
 
My readers: I receive a lot of emails from people who read this column and of course, there are many more who read but never write. To all of you I just want to say a very heartfelt thanks. I spent my entire 20s trying to get published, to no avail, and so the fact that I am fortunate enough to get to write for a living, and that someone is interested enough to read what I write, is never lost on me. Thank you for making this privilege possible.

Today’s Tip: In 1985, Ed and Darlene Lowe started the Ed Lowe Foundation. Committed to helping entrepreneurs succeed, the foundation offers a variety of services to growing companies. You can learn more at www.Lowe.org.