Dear friends, welcome to another Thanksgiving edition of BIC Magazine — your Business & Industry Connection. As a special way of launching the great month of November, how about we do something in this “From the Publisher” we’ve never done before. Instead of having one or two central themes for this month, let’s all think of things to remind ourselves to be thankful every day this month. Here are a few ideas to help get you started. Who knows, if we begin each day by counting our blessings and saying thanks, we might even enjoy life more and live longer. In fact, that is the best place to start.
No. 1: Be thankful for being alive. Every day is an opportunity to thank God for being alive and for our blessings and to share those and a kind word with others — starting with our family and those we love and care about, including those we work with.
No. 2: Be thankful for those great people — your family, friends and coworkers, clients and suppliers. If you don’t have relationships you can be thankful for, I suggest strongly you take a close look at yourself. Having been married to a wonderful person for almost 47 years, I have learned that we can never get too busy to not put God and our family first.
No. 3: Be thankful we live in a great country. Even on our worst days, I count my blessings to be an American where we can worship freely, be all we want to be and have the ability to make God and others No. 1. Also, let’s remember there are many other great countries and many of them are our allies. It is nice to remember that even with all our differences, almost all of us want freedom and the right to live in peace and harmony.
No. 4: Be thankful we have job opportunities and are willing to work. Most of the saddest people I know are those who are too lazy to work or were spoiled as children and never learned the joy of earning a living.
No. 5: Be thankful for the opportunity to show thankfulness and gratitude. Some folks are nice to those who they think can help them. When we learn to be kind to everyone and show our gratitude, others will respond in kind. Remember, a nice word can change or save a life — including our own!
No. 6: Be thankful for holidays, vacations and old traditions. Let’s try to make every day a day with special meaning by sharing our faith and blessings with others. A kind gesture or word can be as valuable as a gift.
No. 7: Be thankful for mentors and protégés — parents, pastors, trainers, coaches, coworkers and others who share knowledge and life lessons. Let’s honor them by, in turn, sharing that knowledge and those lessons with our youth and others.
No. 8: Be thankful for the ability to learn and train others. Two of the greatest experiences in our lives are when we learn something new and, even more exciting, is how we use what we’ve learned — to train someone else, for example.
No. 9: Be thankful for new technology. Just knowing that we have phones and vehicles with a GPS and technology that enable us to stay connected 24/7 and computers and books to help us learn is reason for being thankful. Only a fool is too busy to learn. That is our mission with BIC — to share information to help others learn and to make them safer and more successful.
No. 10: Be thankful for the opportunity to read, hear, watch and share great stories with others. My dad lost his sight when he was 38 years old. I never heard him complain once. He never lost his desire to learn and improvised to continue doing so, using a large magnifying glass to read his newspaper each day and listening to audio books from the library.
We hope this list encourages you to make one of your own and to count your blessings each day — not only in November but every day.
We share many great stories and life lessons on the pages of this issue of BIC, including interviews with Chris John, president of Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association; Jack Boss, president of Honeywell Safety Products; Brad Hanway, general manager/COO of Gasco Affiliates; Paresh Bhakta, site director of Celanese Corp. Clear Lake, Texas, plant; and Randy Johnson, vice president of Sales and Marketing at Azima DLI.
We also feature articles on safety, communication, turnarounds and more to help you on the job along with the latest on spill control, climate change, SEMS compliance, rail transport and a wealth of other topics.
There are very few tools more valuable than BIC Magazine when it comes to sharing life lessons and new technologies and information across multiple industries. Please share this issue with your friends and colleagues by passing along this copy of BIC Magazine or refer them to www.bicalliance.com to read BIC online. We welcome your comments and suggestions, and we would love to hear from you!
Earl Heard