January 8, 2020
2,000 Mornings with Thoreau
In its shiny new days, this mug’s words (paraphrased from Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 Walden) were a tangible source of motivation on my daunting new career path: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” As someone who was stepping out of a successful 25-year career and into a blank slate of self-employment and entrepreneurism, I needed all the sources of encouragement and motivation I could get. All the better if it came with fourteen ounces of dark coffee.
Thoreau’s words were good company in those early days, but they also made me rumble with my fears and doubts: Could I be brave enough, go confidently enough, stay focused enough to turn an imagined professional life into my new professional reality? Could I really align my work life with my dreams? Did I trust myself? Was I making a good decision? Would I succeed? Did I have what it took? Could I experience all this fear and doubt and still keep moving forward? Did Thoreau have any idea what he was actually talking about?
I said “Yes” to all of it (to nobody, I might add, unless it was to my dog, because in the early days of no clients and no colleagues, that’s how it was: me, my mug, and my dog). I said Yes over and over and over. Yes because I had a clear vision of the life I imagined, and because I wanted it. Yes because I didn’t like the alternatives. Yes because a tiny part of me believed in the untapped power of the mind to make things happen. Yes because what the mug said was exactly what I needed to hear. Yes because people I trusted and admired told me they believed in me and to keep going. Yes because there was an exclamation point!
It is woven into a larger set of mindfulness practices that I rely on to keep my mindset in good shape for whatever the day might bring.
Some days I read the black words on the white ceramic as wisdom and truth, starting the day with a fist-bump “Yes!” to the Universe. Some days (and weeks and months), saying yes to Mr. Thoreau’s mantra felt ludicrous, impossible, ridiculous, and bananas. I wanted to send a note through time to him with a few thoughts of my own. But every morning, I kept picking up that mug when it was time to pour my coffee and trusting his words and saying Yes, because if nothing else, the words reassured and settled my mind and I enjoyed that.
One of the early lessons of entrepreneurship for me was that the biggest obstacle between me and my ability to create the business I imagined was my mind. My yoga and other practices had taught me that my mind often worked against my best interest and given me tools that, if I used them, empowered me to effectively tend to my mindset. I was very aware that I needed new tools for the new vulnerabilities I was facing. So I decided that if Thoreau’s words from his cabin on Walden Pond had stuck around for 160 years and some company thought they were worth putting on mugs and magnets and cards and people were buying them, then it could do something to help me channel my newbie entrepreneur mindset for success.
Somewhere along the way, this mug became a talisman and a ritual for me. I still use it every single morning, which means I have started approximately 2,000 days in its company. It is woven into a larger set of mindfulness practices that I rely on to keep my mindset in good shape for whatever the day might bring. It has taken some hits and carries some dings and scratches because that’s how some days are, and this mug has been in the ring with me. It still provides me with a daily practice, a daily mantra, and a daily dose of motivation. It is also gives me an effective set of actions to take when the fears and doubts take up rowdy residence in my mind: Stop. Take a sip of coffee. Tell the naysayers to pipe down. Do the work. Go confidently! Live the life.
Originally published January 8, 2020 on Medium.
Nancy is a Baltimore native who came to communications and marketing through her work in public health. In 2014 she took an entrepreneurial leap of faith to start Asana Consulting and she found her wings.
