Your Gift To Give.

Today's Marketing Cookie is about giving your gifts.

I once made pancakes for my parents but mistakenly used half a cup of salt rather than half a teaspoon. My mother promptly spit them out of her mouth and said, "It was the thought that counts." They were pancakes that not even a mother could love, but she still loved me just the same for thinking of her and for trying. We've all made or purchased a gift for someone that was a total dud or went over like a lead balloon, but they still gave you a smile for thinking of them.

Well, forget about that. Even though we're right in the middle of the holiday season, today's cookie is not about the thought behind giving gifts. Today, I am writing about the ACT of giving gifts. Not just any gifts, mind you, but giving YOUR gifts!

Let me redirect you to a simple truth: You are uniquely qualified to be you! There's no question about it. Although people may try, no one else can be you, with the same level of success that you can. In addition, you have natural talents that are either waiting to be activated or have been stowed away for so long, you've almost forgotten you had them. Have you forgotten how gifted you are? It is time you dust off and activate the natural talents you have, and give the world what it has been waiting to receive from you.

I believe your talents are called a gift, not because they were given to you, but because you can use your gift to give something wonderful back to the world.

As a sophomore in high school, I wanted to do my part to get people to practice their right to vote in the 1988 presidential election. So, I drew an illustration of George Bush and Michael Dukakis standing on the word "Vote," which was then published in the local newspaper. This translated into my first job, and for a few years, I received $10 for every published illustration I drew for the editorial section. After high school, I stopped drawing on a regular basis, and after college, I didn't draw at all.

Fast forward twenty years...

On the very first day of our vacation on the cape, I got a severe sunburn trying to create the world's greatest sand castle. Having to stay indoors for the remainder of our vacation, my wife bought me a sketch pad and some pens. So, I began to draw, and draw, and draw some more. Today, a few of my illustrations from that sketchpad are hanging in the Attleboro Municipal Art Museum, and this spring twenty of those sketches will be featured in a gallery at Gillette Stadium.

All of this may sound like something really wonderful, but imagine for a moment what I might have created if I had continued drawing over the past twenty years. While it is never too late in life to begin again, I find my long-term disregard for something I had loved so dearly, to be completely inexcusable. And don't get me started on the topic of acting! If there's anything I have loved in my life more than drawing, it would be acting, and I haven't done anything since 1992. I'm really not sure I can bear the guilt I'll carry if I were ever lucky enough to be on stage again.

Please don't forgo, forsake, or forget your gifts. They are not yours to keep but rather, they are your gifts to give. When you give your gifts and let them out of the box, they will bring you joy and show the world how uniquely qualified you are to be YOU! Today's fortune says, "The gift is not as precious as the thought," but I believe it is better stated as, "The gift is not as precious as the giving."