The ride called Momentum
Have you ever been skydiving? I’ve done it twice, and it is quite a rush! About 8 years ago, my younger brother and I went on a skydiving ride. I was a little nervous, so the only way I agreed to go with him was if I got to pull the cord. As we are getting pulled up (backwards) on the ride, I remember feeling extremely nervous…and like we were up high. As we get to the top, they count down, “Three, Two..” and I pulled the cord. As we go flying head first towards the ground, I thought, “I’m going to die.” Then the suit “catches” us and now I am flying in a more controlled fashion. I felt like a bird, soaring over the crowd. Once you get to the bottom, there is so much momentum from the free fall that you end up swinging through the air a handful of times. Just as you are having fun and feeling glad you were on the ride…it’s over. Time to get unhooked and move on.
Have you ever felt like that in your life? Just as you are getting in the saddle and experiencing success and freedom, that it’s over before you get started? That my friends is what momentum is all about. Momentum can change based on how you embrace it or how you ignore it.
Last week, I was on an amazing call with my friend and mentor, Mark Cole, who is the CEO of all of John Maxwell’s companies. He was talking about experiencing momentum. He told us about how he was creating some content for use by the executive directors of the John Maxwell Team. After talking to John Maxwell about how excited we were about this content and using it to impact others, John told Mark that he wanted to be a part of it. So, John Maxwell, a man who is in very high demand as he works to transform the world one country at a time, stopped and made time to record videos for us to use. He felt the momentum and he wanted to make it bigger and better. Wow!
The best time to jump in and continue the momentum is when you are experiencing momentum. Mark reminded us of this:
If you take a freight train that is travelling 55 mph down the track, and you put a five-foot concrete wall on the track, the train will go thru the wall and never slow down. Now if the train was to start from a dead stop and we put a 1 inch block on the track, the train can’t move.
You see when momentum is already there, it’s easier to elevate it and make it bigger and better. But we as leaders tend to get lackadaisical when things are going well. We just sit back and enjoy the ride, when we should be looking to make what is going on bigger and better. When we try to create momentum from nothing, it is a lot more challenging.
Where are you when it comes to momentum. When you recognize it, do you proactively go after it to try to make it bigger and better? Or do you sit back and think, wow, I did something good? When you recognize momentum, jump on the train and make it better. There’s no better time than now, when you are experiencing momentum. I ask you this: In the past 6 months, has your momentum been increasing or decreasing? The answer to this question should help you to reflect on how you respond to momentum. Are you someone who gets off the skydiving ride and says, “that was fun” or are you someone that says, “that was amazing, now I am ready for the real thing”?
I’d love to hear your momentum stories and I’d love you to share this blog post so that others can benefit as well.
Have an AMAZING day!