It's Thanksgiving in the USA, which means LinkedIn is about to explode with posts about being grateful for amazing teams and incredible journeys.
So let's do something different.
Let's be grateful for the disasters.
The Thank You Notes We'll Never Send
To the employee who quit at the worst possible time:
Thank you for teaching me that "worst possible time" was actually a system failure I'd been ignoring. Your departure forced me to fix what I'd been patching with your overtime.
To the client from hell who finally fired us:
Thank you for the 40% of my week I got back. And for teaching me that money isn't worth my sanity. I should have fired you first, but I needed you to do it for me.
To the investor who said no:
Thank you for forcing me to prove you wrong with revenue instead of promises. My business is better because you didn't believe in it.
To the pandemic that broke everything:
Thank you for showing me what actually mattered. Turns out it wasn't the office, the commute, or 90% of those meetings.
The Gratitude List for Realists
I'm grateful for:
The mistakes that cost me money Because they taught me faster than any MBA could. That hiring disaster? Worth more than a semester at Wharton.
The employees who challenge me Not the yes-people. The ones who say "that's a terrible idea" in meetings. They've saved me from myself more times than I'll admit.
The competition that's beating us Because comfort would have killed us slowly. Competition is forcing us to evolve. Thanks for the urgency, competitors.
The burnout Yeah, I said it. That burnout was my body forcing a conversation my brain wouldn't have. It taught me that unsustainable isn't a speed, it's a direction.
What Thanksgiving Actually Teaches Us
For my non-US readers: Thanksgiving is theoretically about gratitude. Taking stock. Being thankful.
But here's what nobody admits: We're all terrible at real gratitude.
We're great at being grateful when things go right. That's easy. That's not gratitude, that's just being happy.
Real gratitude is finding value in the disasters.
Why This Matters (The Uncomfortable Truth)
This Thanksgiving (or just this Thursday for everyone else), try being grateful for the hard stuff:
- The problem that won't go away (it's teaching you something)
- The person who irritates you most (they're showing you something about yourself)
- The failure that still stings (it's redirecting you somewhere better)
- The success that felt empty (it's clarifying what actually matters)
Because here's the thing: The stuff that went wrong is what actually changed us.
The disasters taught us resilience. The failures taught us humility. The losses taught us value. The conflicts taught us clarity.
So while everyone's posting about being #blessed and #grateful for their amazing teams...
Maybe be quietly grateful for the shit that broke you. Because that's what rebuilt you better.
Your Thursday Assignment
Whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving or just having Thursday:
Think of the worst thing that happened to your business this year.
Find one thing about it you're genuinely grateful for.
Not in a toxic positivity way. In a "that sucked but it forced this change" way.
Because real gratitude isn't about being thankful for the good stuff. Any idiot can do that.
It's about finding the value in the disasters.
That's the kind of gratitude that actually changes things.
P.S. - To everyone celebrating: May your day be full of actual gratitude, not performed gratitude. To everyone else: Enjoy a Thursday free of forced thankfulness. And to all of us: Here's to being grateful for the things we'd never choose but somehow needed.
