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3rd Thanksgiving into My Entrepreneurial Journey: Giving Thanks

Thankful for a lot this Thanksgiving
Welp, it’s Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. No frills, pills, or chills with this post, but listing a few things I give thanks for this year.
  • Friends– I put friends first because I’ve had a couple really close friends who have been great supporters and motivators over the last year especially with Body Boss and Dee Duper. Everyone always seems highly engaged in what I’m working on, and offering some tremendous support including helping me learn how to program.
  • Family– Always able to be counted on, my family has largely been a great support system. Though, I do have family members who believe I’m bat-shit crazy for continuing on my low-income-pursuit-of-my-dreams. I know that in the end, they just want me to be happy and comfortable. We haven’t seen eye-to-eye in some other cases, but overall, they’ve been exemplary to lean on especially when I’m dying from food poisoning and bed-ridden. Yeah.
  • The Body Boss Fitness Team – Okay, so these guys are already pretty much captured in the above with Friends and Family (yes, they’re in both because that’s just how close we are). They’ve been a great team and are highly skilled at what they do. Everyone’s largely moved onto new paths, and it’s apparent the high quality these guys are with each joining some incredible startups even spearheaded by two of (who I call) the Atlanta Entrepreneurial All-Stars.  
  • Brookhaven Police Department – Shout out to the newly incorporated city of Brookhaven’s police department for responding to my 9-1-1 call back in May when I had a break-in at 4AM and woke with a stranger standing in front of me as I woke up — read “When a Break-In at 4AM Inspires 5 Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned“. The other night, I woke up thinking I heard something. False alarm, but it was enough for me to relive that night. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to sleep the rest of the night. Not going to lie – that night was scary, but glad the officers responded quickly and professionally.
Scene from “The Walking Dead”… the only picture I could really find of a legit guy hiding under the bed. This might’ve happened when I woke up to a break-in at 4AM…
  • Atlanta’s Startup Community – I once read, “only entrepreneurs understand entrepreneurs.” True story. Not many people really understand the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, so it’s great to have a growing, vibrant startup community here in Atlanta that is tight-knit. I’ve met some great people ranging from startup employees, founders of all levels (early, growth, failed, successful sales), lawyers, etc. Most everyone has been happy to meet or introduce me to others. Very thankful for the connections.
  • Great Tools and Resources to Learn How to Code – I’ve only started programming in Apple’s Swift since August, and I feel I’ve been able to get up and running pretty… swiftly (get it?!). I’ve been able to pick up these new skills thanks to free YouTube channels, One Month [Rails], Stack Overflow, Parse, Facebook, etc. Especially for the platforms like Parse and Facebook, they’ve been very easy to integrate into.
  • Fantastic Professional Network From a Life Before (and kinda still) – Every once in a while, I need to fill up the coffers to keep my entrepreneurial journey going. Though to an even greater degree, I’ve wanted/ needed to know I’m still capable of doing great work, even if the startups haven’t quite reflected that. So, it’s been great to be able to pick up the phone and tell prior colleagues that I’m up for some consulting work, and every one of them has been eager to bring me on asking, “How many hours do you want? When can you start?” I’ve been fortunate through my prior life as a consultant to have formed some stellar relationships and built up good, adaptable skills.
There’s a number of others who I’m leaving out, and for that, apologies, but know you’ve been helpful on my journey. The ones I put above are those I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and many are likely to be staples to my Thanksgiving posts year in and year out. However, it’s good to call them out anyways, and thank them. Hopefully, this won’t be news to others if I’ve shown my appreciation throughout the last year.
And finally, THANK YOU! for reading my blog posts. If you have any questions or comments, I’m always up for hearing or connecting. Just give me a shout either via Twitter @TheDLuor email me at the.daryl.lu@gmail.com.
Who/ what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? How are you showing appreciation not just on this holiday, but in your interactions?
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