“Thoughts are things,” says Napoleon Hill, “powerful things, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches or other material objects.” 

Thoughts are things.

Let’s unpack that.

You can touch most things, except for things like thoughts. You can think thoughts about things, and you can do things about thoughts, but you can’t touch thoughts, no matter how hard you think.

Every moment of our lives, our brains are working overtime, assimilating information from the world around us, forming thoughts that nudge us to perform endless conscious and unconscious actions as we go about our walks of life.

As I write this, my brain is firing billions of neurons at once to think of words that make sense in a sequence which my fingers are obediently typing out. At the back of mind is the topic at hand, the acoustic instrumental in my headphones, and the fact that the T-key on my keyboard is stuck, which makes it really hard to write tales about toothless turtles with tribal tattoos.

Thankfully, that’s not what this post is about.

Thoughts are things… but which thoughts make things worthwhile?

When I first set out to build this brand, the original goal was to create the world’s coolest plant pot - a happy, playful twist to a typically boring piece of decoration.

That initial spark - that first jolt of inspiration - is one of the reasons why I’m writing this today. If that moment hadn’t happened, Happy Pot wouldn’t exist, and I’d probably be selling furniture I could never afford to rich people I didn’t like, or Googling “top 5 ways to make money online” while eating a Quarter Pounder in the McDonald’s parking lot.

As important as that first thought was, it would have meant absolutely nothing on its own. Without the countless hours of planning that go on behind the scenes, without the lessons learned from small wins and big losses, and without the constant balancing of the now and the new - none of this would be possible.

Since the start of the year, we’ve gone back to drawing board and completely revamped our soon-to-be-launched product range. Happy Pot has gone from a one-man-show to a team of five eager youngsters, bound together by our love of all things happy, and a willingness to share that with the world through playful pots and positivity.

The thoughts we think today are the precursors for the actions of tomorrow. One day, I will look back on this fondly and smile, for no matter how far we take this, these words will always ring true:

“Mere vision is nothing without action. A thought means naught in the absence of purpose, persistence, and an unwavering desire to turn it into reality.”

💡