Patrick Mosher uses the physics formula for momentum (mass × velocity) to help you design goals that actually move. Large projects need massive front-loaded effort to overcome inertia; underestimate that and your goal stalls before it starts.
Chapters
How do I get there faster? Or how do you generate momentum? And this is where I'm going to geek out on you because, you know, everybody has heard the term momentum. But you got to remember I was a chemical engineer. So momentum is actually a scientific formula.
Oh no, physics please! We're doing physics 101, thank you! Physics 101! And lo and behold, Did I mention I intentionally avoided physics in college?
Well, you're going to get it here. So I created a little visual aid for us here.
Oh, that's cool.
Right? So which of these, if I roll this down the ruler, will have more momentum? Big ball, little ball. Let's do it this way. Big ball, little ball. Big marble, little marble. Which one will have it?
I'm thinking neither, but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. Your gut says the bigger one has more weight than the little one.
Yeah, same. She's right. Just go with her. So when you put the bigger one down, see how that one goes down and then this one just has— actually, this one is even harder to roll down because it has less weight. Okay, now given that same answer, which of these would have more momentum? Do you hold them? There's that one. There's that one.
Well, on that theory, the heavy one you would think.
On that theory.
She did.
She said she's going to go like physical. No, no, no. But on that theory. Yes, ma'am. So actually, when you come to this now, why does that one have more? Because you said it weighs more, right? Then this one. You can hold them. Pass them around.
Oh.
In the old days, they called those steles. The heavy ones. They're actually— they're ball bearings. And then the other ones are basically glass marbles. So, you know, yeah, the bigger the mass, the more momentum there is. Okay. So, um— You're going to love this. So the first framework we went through here was the A to B. Simple thing. A to B wavy line. Got it? So now we're going to learn the formula for momentum. That's the second framework that we're going to ask you about today. And another one that way, and that way, and that way, and another one that way. Okay, so momentum—
Big Bang Theory, here we go!
Here we go! Okay, so momentum is mass, which is, you know, the heavier the thing is, the more mass there is. Times velocity. Okay, so it's how fast the thing goes. So actually, if I tip this up higher, the velocity would increase. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. Okay, so, so if we look at that, I kind of start thinking about— we use the term momentum. We borrowed so many scientific terms into the behavioral and psychology world, but we apply them wrong. As an engineer. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, back up. Let's do these things right, but also when we do them right, we'll apply them instead of appropriating that from the science community. Let's apply them right. And then I was amazed when I started doing this and I've done, I've taken so many theories, Newton's first law of thermodynamics. I mean, I've done so many things of like translating it over into the organizational behavior world. So this is just skimming the surface of that. So I hope you can indulge me as we geek out on this. But what's really cool about this when I think about mass times velocity, I want you to pick one of your goals. So generating, think about that. What's your goal?
I think today I'm going to go with having retreats under my belt.
Okay, so doing retreats. Wouldn't you want to create some great momentum about generating, getting towards the retreats? What's your goal?
I'm picking the speaking events.
Okay, so you want to do speaking events, right? So part of that is, don't you want to generate momentum towards getting that happening? Sure. Either the date gets moved closer, right? That would change the momentum towards it. Or you just generate a lot more momentum when you go into it. Either one of those would be very desirable, right? Yes. What's the goal that you pick?
I'm debating between two. Either sell out half of them inventory by holiday or build out our social good model.
Wow. Nice. Which one, which one should she pick? She can't decide.
I would say build out your social good model because that will help lead to some of your inventory and have long-term impact. Not a bad idea.
All right, cool. So you got yours, right? Yeah.
So I have my, uh, Just creating my flagship product.
Yeah, don't you want some momentum towards that? My flagship product.
Aha, yeah, nice.
Jackson? It's to rebrand my website and build a more compelling vision. Building a more compelling vision, don't you want momentum towards that? Yes. Yeah, awesome. Okay, so you guys picked great goals, and can you see how the word momentum actually means something when you apply it to to do this thing that you want. But now if you break it down into mass times velocity and the vector over the top is really important. So let me just— I wanted that in your heads as we go through this model so you can go like, oh, I get what this means now. So mass is the effort. How much effort does it take to do each of these things? And sometimes if the mass is bigger, the momentum is bigger. But the inertia also is bigger.
Say that again?
If the mass is bigger, the momentum you generate is bigger, but the inertia to get the big ball rolling is also bigger.
Inertia meaning the force that you need to start it moving.
That's right. So if we go back to these marbles, if I put both of these down on the table, which one of those is easier to get started? The little one. A little one. Right? So part of that is, so if your mass is really big, you know, how many times have you looked at something and go, yeah, I want to do that, and then you start pushing the fishball and you can't get the darn thing moving. Isn't it cool? Okay, all of a sudden— how much momentum do you think a train has? Right? How hard is it to get it moving?
Hard.
So what do they do? They've got this big engine on the front end and they stoke the thing full of a lot of energy and then the thing just goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, you know, and then the thing rolls, right. So part of that is I love that. So if you look at your, you know, the mass of your goal, just from a high, medium, low, just rate it, you know, how much mass is, you know, how much effort is it to do the thing. High, medium, low?
Medium-high?
Medium-high? Medium-high? Medium-high? Medium.
Medium?
Medium? Medium? Okay, he's working. So it's like medium-high, medium. So then part of that, if you look at that, if you have a medium-high, you know that you're going to have to put some juice into that thing to get that ball rolling. Does that make sense? You know, so many times you go like, yeah, I want that, and then you don't actually allocate the time to get that ball rolling. And then you throw a little bit of time at it, it doesn't go, and you're like, ah. And then 3 days later you throw a little bit more time at it, it doesn't get rolling. Then you throw a little bit, and then you're like, I'll just give up. Because you didn't throw enough energy at the thing to actually get that big ball rolling. Does that make sense? Yes. This is why I like this. Okay, you're geeking out okay with me? This is so cool. Alright, so that's Max. Now, you know, in Katie's and my field, we actually take, and yours too Sabina, you actually take like the implementation of SAP. Big thing, and you know, I've seen 19,000 workdays on a work plan for SAP broken down into 4-minute, 4-hour sections. Massive work plans. That's because SAP takes a lot of momentum to get it up and rolling and get to that end goal.
I know SOPs.
What's SAP? SAP is— it's actually German. But SAP is just a big system.
So I know what they are, but what do the A's stand for in SAP?
Systems Applications Program, I think is actually what it is. It's just, it's very virtual. But anyway, so, you know, part of that is, is if you don't know the effort the thing's going to take, you might just get frustrated because you're not going to get over the inertia upfront. Now I could teach you a whole workshop on estimating, which I'm not going to do. But, you know, really part of this is being aware of how much effort is this thing? You know, am I going to have to throw 20 hours out of the week? 40 hours out of the week? Am I going to have to throw 20 hours out of the week for 5 weeks before the thing, that train engine starts going, rrrr, and starts rolling? You know, so be aware that you've got to overcome some inertia to this thing. You're going to throw energy at something and it's not going to move. Especially if you have a medium high. But, you know, understanding that really helps. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does.
Okay, cool. Thank you. V, so now we've got mass, got this mass figured out.
