{"id":1054,"date":"2009-11-20T08:37:24","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T08:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/11\/good-bye.html"},"modified":"2009-11-20T08:37:24","modified_gmt":"2009-11-20T08:37:24","slug":"good-bye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/11\/good-bye.html","title":{"rendered":"Good Bye"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is my <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/10\/waldman-message.html\">last day at Beliefnet<\/a> (which I co-founded in 1999).  The swirling emotions: sadness, relief, love, humility, pride, anxiety.<br \/>\nBut mostly deep, deep gratitude.<br \/>\nHow many people get to come up with an idea and have rich people invest money to make it a reality? How many people get to create their fantasy workplace, stocked with people they like and respect, people of integrity, creativity and humor?  How many people have the chance to build a business that could feed one&#8217;s ego (TV appearances galore!), and yet still give one the satisfaction of doing worthwhile work?<br \/>\nBeliefnet is a business but I also view it as a trust. Some folks visit the site or read the newsletters to be entertained, some to learn, but some come for serious support during very difficult times.   I know the staff is very committed to remembering that.<br \/>\nIn a way, it feels like just as much of an accomplishment to leave Beliefnet as to create it. It&#8217;s now crystal clear that the company is well beyond one person, or group of people &#8212; it&#8217;s something durable.  In that sense, the staff and you the readers have given me the most extraordinary gift possible: the ability to depart while having confidence that Beliefnet will not only live on but thrive.<br \/>\nThank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is my last day at Beliefnet (which I co-founded in 1999). The swirling emotions: sadness, relief, love, humility, pride, anxiety. But mostly deep, deep gratitude. How many people get to come up with an idea and have rich people invest money to make it a reality? How many people get to create their fantasy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Good Bye - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/11\/good-bye.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Good Bye - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is my last day at Beliefnet (which I co-founded in 1999). The swirling emotions: sadness, relief, love, humility, pride, anxiety. But mostly deep, deep gratitude. How many people get to come up with an idea and have rich people invest money to make it a reality? How many people get to create their fantasy&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/11\/good-bye.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-20T08:37:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Good Bye - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/11\/good-bye.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Good Bye - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Today is my last day at Beliefnet (which I co-founded in 1999). The swirling emotions: sadness, relief, love, humility, pride, anxiety. But mostly deep, deep gratitude. How many people get to come up with an idea and have rich people invest money to make it a reality? 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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