Part 2: My Secrets to Generating Momentum

Hopefully, you all read part one of this ongoing saga of creating momentum. If not, you’ll benefit from reading that first, as what follows is only half of the story.

Without further ado, here’s 6-11, part 2 of generating momentum—arguably the most important thing you’ll need to get good at creating.

6. Align selfish desires

I’m a big believer in leveraging behavior rather than trying to change it, and one thing you can count on humans to be is selfish. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean that humans are wired to move towards pleasure and away from pain.

Also, we all live life from our own perspective. It’s next to impossible not to figure yourself into any situation. Even when people act “selflessly,” they are doing so because it feels so good to help others.

So, when you’re trying to build alliances and get people to join your team and help you really get things moving, approach people who’s most selfish desires align with yours. Said another way, they get something that they really want by helping you.

At the beginning of your career when you probably can’t just throw money at people, this is a really powerful way to get people onboard. For instance, back at Quest, we had some incredible people join the team because they wanted access to resources that we had.

My Chief Marketing Officer wanted to build a media studio (because one day he wanted to build one for himself), but he didn’t have the funds. I needed to build a media studio to market my products, but didn’t have the time to focus on it myself.

Because of that, our selfish desires were aligned. I didn’t have to look over his shoulder and push him. He wanted to do what I needed to be done for his own selfish reasons. Find people that want to do what needs to be done for their own reasons and you’ll no longer be the only one generating energy in the endeavor.

7. Give ideas away

People are so weird about this one. People are terrified to tell others what they are up to and what they’re working on. They think people are going to steal their ideas. They literally value themselves on what ideas they come up with.

But here’s the big secret: your ideas aren’t valuable.

Only your execution is. Now, the reason it’s beneficial to give your ideas away within the context of your team is that people love being the one with the ideas.

So, if you can even remotely give credit to someone else for one of your ideas (maybe they said something that made you think about something else even better) do it! And do it enthusiastically.

Don’t fake it, but if there’s even a hint of contribution from someone else, give them full credit. You’ll be shocked how much harder they work on the idea because they get to take credit for the origin of the idea.

Doing this is going to force you to get really clear about what you want out of life. Because the first time you give full unadulterated credit for an idea to someone else your ego is going to protest, and you’re going to have to decide if you want to reach your stated goals or if secretly your real goal is just to feel good about being smart and having all of the good ideas.

8. Demonstrate credibility

When you’re trying to build your team, people have to believe in you. If people don’t think you’re a credible leader to follow they’re not going to follow you. Nice and simple.

So make sure that you’re taken the time (even if it’s measured in years) to get credible in some key part of what you’re trying to build. It doesn’t have to be every area, but you’ve got to have some credibility, and that takes time to earn. Do the work.

The easiest example I can give here is me as a marketer. At the beginning of my career, I had no credibility, because I was just beginning and didn’t know what I was doing. Over time, I began to show that while I didn’t have a lot of experience, I had credibility in my thought process. Then over even more time, I began to earn real credibility in my skills as a marketer by delivering real, tangible results.

9. Generate enthusiasm

The importance of this cannot be overstated. You need to be able to get people excited. There are few emotions in life more fun than excitement.

If you can engender real excitement on the part of your team for what you’re all fighting for on the big level as well as smaller things as you go along, you’ll be able to keep people motivated and excited to pursue your team goals over long periods of time.

10. Get shit done

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. If you really want to generate momentum, you’ve actually got to get shit done. There is no substitute.

Keep a list of the most important things that need to get done in order for your business to be hitting your important milestones and execute relentlessly and consistently. This is the boring one, but it really is the heart of momentum, because quite frankly, everything is just trying to get us to this point—where we make real and measurable progress.

This is where you want to tie your sense of self and accomplishment to things that can be measured, which will show you in black and white whether you’re actually making progress or not.

There’s no point in having momentum if you’re going nowhere important.

11. Become Impressive

This is a variation on the theme of credibility, but I believe warrants its own section.

One of the most useful qualities any leader can have is to have gotten so good at their craft that they capture people’s imagination. This takes decades of hard-ass work, but when you are truly exceptional at your art (whatever that may be), people will be more inclined to work with you because not only do you get results, you inspire people with just how far you’ve pushed your skill set.

As a further subset of this, people will see how hard you’re willing to work and how high of a standard you hold yourself to. The best example of this is Michael Jordan. He has become the barometer by which we measure all greatness.

That’s why we say things like “She’s the Jordan of accounting.” This is a life-long pursuit, but I believe it will not only be the single most fulfilling thing you do but is your greatest weapon in generating momentum.

As I write all of this out, I realize I could (and should) write an entire book about momentum. Until then, hopefully, this quick guide serves you well.

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