Activity is relatively slow around here this week, and it always puts me in a meditative mood. Thanksgiving is nice because it’s not quite yet the “calm before the storm” which the December holidays represent (right before tax season, as they are). This is a week when we get to gear up … and one of my favorite ways to do this is by looking back.
I think about when we started this little business. I still remember what it was like to take this dream I had for my firm and put it into reality. I was a little bit scared, and a little bit (ok, a lot) hopeful. I remember the friends and other business-owners who helped me along the way … and how risky it all seemed.
So, this year (and every year), I do NOT take for granted that you have chosen us to walk with you and your business as we give you advice and help take care of your financial picture, especially around tax time. It’s hard to reveal the kind of sensitive information that you provide to us, and we don’t take it lightly.
And I look around the nation, the chaos that we seem to always be seeing, and I also look back… I remember and think about how smack in the middle of horrendous civil war, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving which should take place every year.
When I remember this, it makes me realize how Lincoln seemed to understand a fundamental truth in the human soul: how we choose to see our circumstances often dictates the state of our hearts — and, thereby, our future circumstances. After all, if a war-torn nation can turn its eyes upward — so can you, your employees and your family.
You should sit in my office with me sometime, watch the procession of “wealthy” and “poor” clients meeting with me and my staff over various things — and watch how the hearts respond. Sometimes my “wealthiest” clients (the ones with hugely profitable businesses) are somehow the most impoverished … and those without many zeroes in their accounts can act as if they are flat-out rich — without pretense.
“Rich” is a state-of-mind — and I believe that it’s tied to gratitude. It affects how we see savings, capital investments, retirement, our current economy, and our businesses themselves. And, of course, gratitude is the enemy of fear. It’s like an opposite magnet for it — walk in gratitude, and the fear just melts away.
So, here’s my advice for this week: Whatever financial position you and your business happen to find yourself in, be thankful. There are hidden blessings in any trial … and hidden fears lying within any windfall. Find and savor the blessings, and watch yourself and your employees thrive.
For my part, I’m simply grateful for YOU.
I’m grateful for your trust, for your attention to my blogged ramblings (which are taking on a bit of a different flavor this week), for your allowing us to serve you and your business, for your referrals … for so many things.
I don’t forget that it’s people like you who enable me to do what I do — to breathe life and hope into business owners, and their financial position. And to help them enjoy the fruit of their labors, while carrying the peace-of-mind that the ever-grasping hand of taxation reaching into their business is minimized.
So thank you. For everything.
Warmly (and until next week),
Stephen Venuti
610-353-0686
Stephen J. Venuti, CPA, MST, LLC
