Momentum

Momentum to win.

I just finished reading a book by Donal Trump titled Trump 101. In one of the chapters, there was this anecdote that happened to him:

William Levitt was a master builder of Levittown and was literally the king of 1950s. He would literally come up with new projects and made a lot of money on them. Finally he decided that he would sell his company and he did, to ITT for 100 millions. Then he made some terrible mistakes.

He retired.
He married the wrong woman.

Then ITT called. The executives of the company couldn't handle the company. They had bought some new land and didn't know some details like zoning so they sold it back to Levitt who thought he got a good deal. He went back to business and proceeded to go bankrupt.

Donald saw him at a cocktail party in 1994. He was alone in a corner looking defeated. Even though Donald didn't know him well, he went forward and greeted him,"Mr Levitt, how are you doing?"

"Not good, Donald, not good." Then he said,"I lost my momentum. I was out of the world for 20 years, I came back and I wasn't the same."

I have little business experience hands on, but from what I've read, running a business is same as anything else in life. To begin a business, it take courage to overcome the inertia, and it proceeds slowly in terms of turnover, before exponential results return. I think that exercise would be a good comparison.

When you first start running, your legs are barely warmed up. You feel like quitting even before you've started. You feel like giving up. This is the inertia we experience. We can't procrastinate and stop running, so we go on. Few minutes into the run, our legs start to warm up and we're able to maintain the run without much difficulty. Then adrenaline comes into our body and we feel the power and our exponential results come where we can increase our speed easily without feeling very tired. Then as our stamina drops, we feel tired and we slow down. If we can't take it anymore, and we start walking, our momentum is broken. If we start again, it'll be the hardest thing possible in life, and we will stop again soon even we've just started.

Momentum is that important. I believe that is also the reason why we're often told to have only one goal in our life at any one time. Have too many targets on the list and you'll waste time deciding which to shoot. Besides, you'll lose the momentum you might otherwise have as an ally if you persist and complete one before embarking on another.

At one point of time, where I was in a networking company called NTI, I couldn't produce results. The basis was simple. I'd just need to call and close the sale. But I couldn't. I was fearful of rejections and I push aside everything related to it. My reason for being there was to make money, but I decided to pursue everything else. I made sure I practiced public speaking, eliminating fillers, make new friends, read new books, all but forgetting purposely to make those calls. I could never get a single sale, and the reason was pretty obvious. Out of fear I threw aside what was most important to do, and did everything else not so important. There was no focus, and I never really accomplished much.

But I now understand the importance of focus, and when I attempt something, I try to make it my priority. I make sure I follow through one thing before another. Once I'm done with it, then do I go down the list and do the next solely, complete it and then move on.