Dear Clients, Family and Friends:

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. This holiday season is quite unusual. As we approach Thanksgiving, I’d like to share with you this quote from actor and investment commentator Ben Stein:

“I cannot tell you anything that, in a few minutes, will tell you how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich—which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful.”

Thanksgiving could be called Be Grateful Day. As you gather with your family and friends around the table, let’s be thankful for the many blessings of our nation and ourselves. We can be thankful for the sacrifice made by so many in the military, as was Lincoln, so that we could live in a free nation. We can be thankful for the sacrifices made by our predecessors, whether they were pioneers, or subsistence farmers, or living in ghettoes in Europe, just so that we can be here today. Or as Will Rogers said, “My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower. But they were here to meet the boat!”

We can be thankful that we have been given so much in abundance that we and our neighbors are among the most generous people in the world when tragedies like the typhoon in the Philippines hit.

We can be thankful that, as radio commentator Earl Nightingale used to say, “We live in the golden age that people have dreamed of for thousands of years. We live better than kings of 200 years ago.” We have better food, better medicine, central heating in the winter, cooling in the summer, and nearly unlimited travel opportunities.

And if we can enjoy the laughter of a small child, the warm hug of a loved one, and the satisfaction that comes from a life lived with purpose, we can feel grateful, and are indeed richer than many who live in the finest mansions on a hill.

May God bless you and please know that we are grateful every day to have a chance to serve you.

Bill