THE BIG MO

Picture this, Lets go back in time. Lets go all the way back to last year. The day is December 17th, 2022.

You are only a few short blocks away at US bank stadium.

You won free tickets to see todays game, they are nosebleed seats but hey you love football so why not go?

Game starts, home game, and boom 1st quarter is over and it is 17 Colts, and vikings nothing.

another 15 minutes later and 16 more points to go into the half at 33 colts, vikings zero.

So you join in with the rest of the stadium booing the vikings off the field.

Typical vikings, putting together a great season only to be completely destroyed by a team that is 4-9-1.

Honestly, it seems that they should just put back ups in and take the L.

They come back fired up, only to make it 8 mins into the second half with zero points and finally at 8 mins 30 seconds, touchdown vikings.

The whole game up until this point has been missed plays, and poor attitudes.

but now, we got a touchdown.

The colts get a field goal but boom another touchdown vikings

Now the team is getting fired up, and turnover touchdown, turnover touchdown, interception, touchdown, turn over touchdown, turnover touchdown, 4 downs, 4 downs, touchdown

Now its suddenly its 36-36 when everyone had booed them off the field at halftime.

But the Vikings clench the win with a field goal putting them in the history books with the greatest comeback in football history.

and also giving me major bragging rights over my uncle who has been a diehard falcons fan that looooves Matt Ryan.

But how did they do that?

It brings us to Law number 17 The big MO.

What is the big Mo?

Can I tell you something? I served in the united states army for 14 years, and there is a reason that we are the greatest fighting force than any other in the world.

Sure war is chaos, and the victor is mostly whoever can control the chaos the most to succeed and claim victory.

Well in basic training, one of the first things that you learn, is momentum after you get to meet the guys with the brown round, the big brown hats come running and yell at you to get off my bus!!!!

Because of course its their bus, why would it be mine, I am just here to get yelled at for the next ten weeks.

You run off the bus your duffles, to get momentum moving and get to experience Shark attack. That is exactly what it sounds like. You as new privates are like scared little fish formed together in a little school while the sharks circle around their pray.

There is a lot of screaming, you hold your duffle as high as you can above your head. while There are 10 drill sergeants yelling. and one came up to me. got 2 inches from my face and screamed at me. I to this day had no idea what he said, that was until his battle buddy another drill sergeant got right up to my ear and screamed the same thing.

We don’t know how to keep our duffles closed? I looked up to notice my clip holding my bag closed was undone, and my gear was hanging out of my duffle slightly.

The big drill sergeant who screamed in my ear grabbed my duffle from the bottom of the sack and threw my duffle as far as he could leaving a trail of all of my things for 25 feet. Chaos was building and momentum was fleeting in their direction.

Now all of the sharks saw blood. They all started screaming, no idea what anyone said but I was under the impression to get my stuff back in my duffle and get it over my head.

I ran and stuffed as 10 of the most intimidating people i had ever met screamed at me from both sides. Right before I got my last item in the bag the same drill sergeant said not quick enough.

Grabbed my bag from the bottom and sent it sailing again.

This time I ran like the wind and stuffed that duffle like it was the last thing id ever do, Time to start controlling the chaos. well screaming Yes Drill Sergeant at the top of my lungs, and when I got back into formation with my duffle held high. I remember hearing from the drill sergeant that sent my duffle flying twice that False motivation was still motivation!

You see in this situation, I was defeated. I wanted to go back home with my tail between my legs. I wanted to quit! I left everything and everything at home to come here for this?!?!?!

NO! I screamed with might and I pushed through, and although I was defeated, I portrayed myself as highly motivated and they moved onto another fish to pray on. but my momentum started!

We are going to talk about big Mo

If you look at what I handed out to you

I am going to cover 7 truths about momentum.

“Momentum is a leader’s best friend.” Maxwell says this is “because many times (momentum) is the only thing that makes the difference between losing and winning. When you have no momentum, even the simplest tasks seem impossible… On the other hand, when you have momentum on your side, the future looks bright, obstacles appear small, and troubles seem inconsequential.”

The first truth is momentum is a great exaggerator.

Like when I talked about with the vikings comeback. With sports swings in momentum occur right in front of you. Every turn over and every touch down just seems to work. The team starts firing on all cylinders. For the colts when the vikings started getting fired up the opposite was true. Nothin seamed to work, fumble, punt, interception. Momentum is like a magnifying glass making things look bigger than they are. So as a leader it is very important to control momentum. Just as Kevin Oconal was trying so hard to do. Because momentum has a huge impact. The same reason a coach will “ice the kicker” meaning they will call a timeout right before the opposing team snaps the football to try to pull the team out of momentum and to slow it down, and build the pressure on the fields goal.

the second truth is that momentum makes leaders look better than they are. People tend to look past shortcomings or as if they are geniuses. Its easy to forget about their mistakes they have made. Its compounding once you have success, then more, it tends to build and build, and then boom everything is respected, and the leader adds value in everything.

The third truth is momentum helps followers perform better than they are. Back to the greatest fighting force on this entire planet the united states army. That is one thing that you always experience. keep going always. On two combat deployments you end up in some pretty sucky situations. As a leader the only difference between you and your subordinates is responsibility. it is your responsibility as a leader for mission success. So as missions progress and momentum build by the time you are ready to go home, and you are ripping in the new guys. Its when you show the next group replacing you the ropes. We looked like superstars. Everyone in our platoon was performing at the highest level. Which is the same reason they sometimes extend units on deployments. Its a tactical advantage keeping a unit on the uptick there longer rather than being replaced by a new unit with no momentum.

The forth key fact is Momentum is more natural to steer than to start. You ever crank the wheel in a tight parking spot? you notice quite a bit of resistance. but as soon as you start rolling and you have some movement it gets easier, and at highway speeds you don’t even notice any feedback on the steering wheel. Once you are going it gets easier and the more speed the easier it is. You just gotta get going first.

The fifth truth is momentum is the most potent change agent. given enough momentum nearly any kind of change is possible in an organization. People like being on a winning team, and with a proven track record of a leader. They accept changes from people who have led them to victory before.

The sixth truth is momentum is the leader’s responsibility. It takes a leader to create momentum. Creating momentum requires someone with vision. If a leader is looking for someone to motivate them then the organization is in trouble! President harry tuman once said, if you cant take the heat get out of the kitchen, but for leaders that statement should be if you cant make some heat, get out of the kitchen.

The last truth is momentum begins inside the leader. it starts with vision, passion and enthusiasm. If you model enthisiasm to people day in and day out, you attract like minded people to the team, and motivate them to achieve. you will begin to see forward progress and begin to see forward momentum. you will value it as a leaders best friend. once you have momentum you can do almost anything and that is the power of the Big Mo.