Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to send a huge thank you to those that made this year one to remember!

For those that celebrate Thanksgiving, and since one of our wonderful clients shouted us out in one earlier this week, I’ve been motivated to say thanks to those that have helped make this year a great one, sometimes against all odds.
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1. Our clients.
   Thank you for allowing us to help you achieve your business, customer, and experience goals. Thank you for being willing to feel awkward and vulnerable with us, to respect the process even when it may not always feel apparent in the moment why we ask what we ask. Thank you for your faith in our passion for your business — thank you for allowing us to enter the fold and become one with you. Thank you for giving us unfettered access to your customers to learn as much as we can from them, one on one. Thank you for trusting us to do the right thing for your business, for allowing us to challenge you and bring new perspectives and approaches to the work. And thank you for giving us the opportunity to create products, services, and experiences that we are both proud of, and customers love.
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2. Our Partners
   Thank you for trusting us with your clients. Thank you for choosing Tension as a partner, bringing us in when things get hairy, or when projects are large and complex, and believing that Tension can always add value and get the job done right. Thank you, bluntly, for the additional revenue streams, you may not know it —  but you’ve helped us weather a storm or two. Thank you for giving us the autonomy to do our thing, in our way — even when it doesn’t feel natural or logical. Thank you for treating us like equals, like true partners, even when you exclusively own the relationship. Thank you for inviting us into your process, and allowing us to be a part of the production through launch to ensure quality and fidelity is maintained.
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3. My team
   I love you guys! Thank you for being the best people that anyone could ask for as contributors, co-conspirators, colleagues, and creative provocateurs. Thank you for challenging me, and for accepting and running with my challenges.  Thank you for always choosing what’s best for our clients and their customers, over tension, over me, and over everything else. Thank you for your dedication and loyalty. Thank you for sticking with me, even when I’m not always the easiest to stick with. Thank you for trusting me to turn things around, when they needed to be turned the most. Thank you for believing in tension’s vision, our dedication to quality, craft, and detail — and ethical and moral business practices — and living each of them every single day. Thank you for being awesome, for being brilliant, and for being unshakable. Thank you for always being better, stronger, and faster. Thank you for everything. Thank you for being you.
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4. My network, friends, and ex-colleagues
   Thank you for being there when I need you, and never judging me when it’s been too long since the last time. Thank you for trusting tension when referring business and prospects our way. Thank you cheering us on, and celebrating our wins with us. Thank you for being trusted confidants, experts, and advisors when I need it, and always there when I ask. Thank you for believing in me, and tension. And thank you for your inspiration, insights, knowledge, and experience I have learned from each of you — I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.
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5. My family
   Thank you for being my light in dark times, my warmth when it gets cold, and my happiness when things feel bleak. Thank you for being my source of strength when I feel weakened. Thank you for believing in me, when times are great, and when they haven’t been. Thank you for always being in my corner, for giving me more support, love, and faith than I feel I deserve, and never giving up on me. Thank you for making all the hard work, long hours, grinding, and stress worth it. Thank you for reminding me every day what love means, and what it means to be loved. And… thanks for forgiving me for all the hours I spend away from you, toiling and tweaking away at the office, and knowing that there’s nowhere I would rather be than with all of you.
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6. Me
   Yeah, I’m thanking myself. Of course, I am. I thank myself for being me, for fighting for what I believe is right, for having faith in myself and the conviction to follow through. I thank myself for choosing ethics, morals, and selflessness over profit. I thank myself for putting everything I have into the work, to my own detriment and sacrifice. I thank myself for never giving up on tension, on myself, and the vision on which this company was built. I thank myself for never giving up, never giving in, and never quitting, even when it seemed there was no way to succeed, let alone survive. I thank myself for building this business twice, for building it stronger than it ever was, for reconnecting with our purpose, for doubling down and going all in. I thank myself for getting after it, for crushing it until 2 a.m., or starting at 4 a.m. when it’s needed. I thank myself for never complaining, and even in the hardest, darkest moments, never forgetting how lucky I am to be doing this every day. I thank myself for always going above and beyond — even when our clients don’t see it, or understand the value of it. I thank myself for never settling for anything less than the best from myself, my team, and our clients. I thank myself for being blunt, for being honest, and vocal when something needs to be said — even when no one wants to hear it. I thank myself for sacrificing everything for what I love and believe in.
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Thankfulness. I don’t always take the time to stop and appreciate what we’ve accomplished, who we have in our corner, and what we’ve endured and survived. I'm often already on the next thing, the next goal, the next project.

It’s important, and uplifting, to stop, ponder, and appreciate the success, connections, friendships, loves, bonds, relationships, and wins.

I am grateful to all who continue to support, challenge, love, and hold me accountable. To those that cheer us on, push us forward, and hold us to higher standards. I wouldn’t be able to do this, and tension wouldn’t be here without all of those mentioned above. I may be the face of this thing, but I have an army behind me, I’m not alone, and never have been.

Sincere thanks. You all know who you are.