A sincere offering of thanks to you all this Thanksgiving Day

As in past years, I wanted to take a few moments to reach out to all of you and offer up my thanks for another fantastic year together with you here on this Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. This year though, the thanks I am offering goes goes far above and beyond the traditional thanks and deeper than words can say.

Throughout all of my years here at Microsoft, there are several things at work that I am thankful for every year, including:

• The opportunity to work for such a great company. I have said many times how much I enjoy working for a company that touches so many lives in so many places around the world and can have such a dramatic impact on the world we live in.
• The opportunity to work with partners around the world. One of the pure joys of my role is the opportunity to connect and work with all of you. I have always had a passion for our partners and working with them to help them succeed and this is one part of my role that I thoroughly enjoy.
• The opportunity to work with the amazing people here at Microsoft that I get to. Beyond the company, the individual people I get to meet and work with here have always been a highlight for me.

As I mentioned above, this year brings with it a level of thanks that far exceeds any prior year and crosses both sides of the work/life balance. A co-worker of mine gave us a small sign recently that says, “Enjoy the little things in life, for someday you will realize they were the big things.” This year, we truly are celebrating the little things for we are so incredibly thankful that we even have the little things. For those of you that follow me online, you know the challenges the past month has brought with it for me and my family. As I conveyed the night before my birthday a couple weeks ago, my only birthday wish was to have our daughter make it through the day/night and be with us still to celebrate my birthday. I did get my birthday present, and so just having our whole family together today at home to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving Day together is worth more to me than anything.

I know I cannot possibly convey my thanks in words as there are no words that can actually encompass the thanks I have for all of you, so instead of double posting, I would ask you to please take a moment and read my “Thank you isn’t enough for all of your support and understanding” post. The family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. that have all reached out to us and shared their thoughts, prayers, well-wishes, posts, emails, DMs, CaringBridge posts, Facebook posts, cards, and more for our daughter and family has been phenomenal and from everyone in my family, I offer you all the biggest, “THANK YOU,” that any one person can possibly offer.

So as you all celebrate Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. or go through your day wherever you are, take a quick moment to look around at the people around you that you have the benefit to interface with and call your friends, family, and co-workers and take just a second to say, “Thank you.” As little as it seems, it is the little things that make a difference and realize that at any point in time, you may not have the chance to do it later.

So with that, I offer up our sincere thanks to all of you on this Thanksgiving Day for everything this past year, both at work and personally, and wish you all another year between now and next Thanksgiving of joy, happiness, and prosperity together.

Happy Thanksgiving,

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
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