The Caitlin Mitchell Show
After nearly a decade in business, it's time for me to share what I've learned about building a business focused on service leadership to help you on your journey as a business owner. My goal is for you to walk away from each episode with one thing - one sentence, one thought, one perspective shift, one new idea - that has an impact on you, your business, or your life.
The Caitlin Mitchell Show
Harnessing the Power of Momentum to Achieve Your Goals | Ep 17
In this episode of, we explore the power of momentum and its crucial role in achieving success. Drawing parallels from sports, where momentum can turn the tide of a game, we explore how this concept applies to business and reaching your goals. As a leader, maintaining momentum within your team is essential.
We discuss simple yet effective strategies to build and sustain momentum—things you can implement this week. Join me as I uncover the secrets to harnessing the power of momentum and propelling your team toward success.
Articles mentioned:
- https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32910904/is-momentum-real-depth-investigation-sports-most-overused-term
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119093290865641816
- https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/the-power-of-momentum-companies-that-build-their-wave-and-ride-it/
Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caitlindmitchell/
Hey you guys, welcome back to another episode. If you liked this episode, let me know over on Instagram. Caitlin D Mitchell. I would love to hear from you. I know you guys are listening because I see the downloads, but I would just reach out to me, tell me that you enjoyed something, didn't like it, whatever. I would love to talk to you and just kind of hear how the podcast is serving you because, as I've said before in the past, podcast has no ulterior motive other than to just help. So I really do hope that this podcast is serving exactly that need.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we're talking about harnessing the power of momentum to reach your goals. I freaking love momentum. I love it so much, especially as an athlete, especially as somebody who watches sports all the time. And in preparing for today's episode, I actually got to go down a fun little rabbit hole. All about momentum. Is it real Talking about momentum in sports, momentum in business?
Speaker 1:We're going to get into that a little bit at the beginning, but I think it's a very fascinating concept and if you've never really thought about momentum in business, you've never really kind of taken the time to dive into. Does it actually impact things? Can it play a role? How could it help the company? I think that this episode is really going to serve you and just highlight some interesting things for you to think about. So we're going to talk about momentum what it is, what it feels like, the research behind it but then I also want to talk about how you can actually build momentum with your team. So I'm going to give you three different things that we do that I really lean into when it comes to momentum and I just feel it Like I just freaking feel it, and I know that it is happening in the team and it's the best damn feeling in the world, and I want you to be able to have that experience with your team as well. All right, so let's go ahead and dive into today's episode all about harnessing the power of momentum.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we are going to cover the power of momentum and its crucial role in helping you achieve success. How are you going to harness the power of momentum to reach your goals? You can utilize this as a team in your business. You can also utilize this personally at the gym, whatever it might be, and momentum isn't just like this concept in physics. I truly believe it's this vital force that exists in our businesses, it exists in our lives and it's something that we really should be utilizing as CEOs and leaders of our team.
Speaker 1:So first things first. I want to define well what the hell is momentum. How would you define this? So momentum is a noun and it's defined as the strength or force that allows something to continue or to go stronger or faster as time passes. So you know that just feeling of momentum. I'm sure you've experienced it at some point in your life. Or if you've watched TV and you're watching sports and you just you know it's coming right. This team has got momentum behind them and in my research in preparation for this episode, you know most researchers actually say that there is no quantifiable evidence that momentum actually exists in sports and that it actually exists in other instances. I personally don't believe that that matters in being able to motivate your team to utilizing the concept of momentum. So whether or not it's real, I don't think is relevant. I think it's the belief in that it does have an impact that actually matters more than anything. So I want to actually share this study with you. I think I've shared it on the podcast before, but just in case you didn't hear that episode, we at EB did.
Speaker 1:At my other company, eb Academics, we did this research. We did a presentation for administrators on a research study done by John Hattie. He's an educational researcher and this talks about the power of belief. So while I'm talking about research and this could be boring it's really freaking crazy and I love this study. So this researcher wanted to set out to answer the question of what actually impacts student learning, like what indicators, what influences actually can impact student learning. So he looked at hundreds of impacts on influences, rather on student success, and he found that the number one impact on positive student learning outcomes get, this was a collective teacher belief that they could cause learning in students. That's it, a collective belief. And so I want you to think about your teams much in the same way of what can actually cause success A collective team belief in momentum, in our success, in achieving our goals. Right, imagine how powerful that can be if you can get your entire team to believe that momentum has an impact, that it's actually causing success for your business.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, I just think it goes into a whole other rabbit hole about the power of belief. You know I talk to my son about this all the time. He wants to be an MLB player, I'm like, look, you can do that, he's talented enough. My husband played college baseball. His dad did too. My dad did. He could be an MLB player. But the number one thing that I've told him that he has to have in order to achieve that goal is the belief that he can actually make it. Yeah, he's going to have to work hard, yeah, he's going to have to practice, but he also has to 100% believe that it's possible.
Speaker 1:And that's what I love so much about this study is that if we take that same concept and, using momentum, we apply that to how we lead our teams, this can be a very powerful concept for us as leaders. So if we believe that momentum can impact success, then let's utilize it to motivate our teams, to support our teams. Because I will tell you right now, I can freaking feel the momentum during certain times of the year. Right now I feel it. I was talking to someone on my team today. I'm like the train has left the ZAM station, like we are on this train going 100 freaking miles per hour towards our goal. And it happens when we're working on certain projects, when someone on the team shares a win. Like I said, it's like the train has left and I'm on that freaking thing whether I want to be or not, the momentum is pulling us forward. And in fact I had somebody come speak at our batch planning live event at EB Academics, hayward John, and he said something that I love so much that I think really ties into this is, he said pain pushes you until purpose pulls you, and that is what momentum feels like. It feels like it is pulling you forward towards your vision, something bigger than yourself. Like here we go, it's coming right. And in fact I found this really interesting article from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania that spoke all about the power of momentum, and I will link this for you guys in the show notes section so that you can go back and read it. But one of my biggest takeaways from that article was that there's this thing called the momentum effect that actually impacts business success, and at the end of the article they pointed out that momentum leaders are not lucky.
Speaker 1:Think of yourself as a momentum leader. You are a momentum leader. I think I've said this before. I say it all the time in my real life, like my main job as a CEO is to motivate my team, but it's also to be the energy holder. So you are a momentum leader. You are the leader of the momentum on your team, and you are not lucky. Momentum leaders are smart. They have discovered the source of momentum and, with it, the beginnings of a smarter way to exceptional growth.
Speaker 1:Managers often talk about quote unquote riding the wave. Momentum leaders aren't that passive. They live by this motto First build your wave, then ride it. They create their own momentum, and so that's what I want to talk to you about today are some really small and simple ways that you can start to build momentum in your business, based on what we're doing at EB Academics to help you start to build that wave, because it is 100% within your power, but you have to make sure that you are operating from that place. So just think of yourself as the momentum leader. You're not just an entrepreneur, you're not just a CEO, you're not just the leader of your company. You are the coach, you are the momentum leader, you are the bringer of the energy to the business.
Speaker 1:One of my employees after I went on vacation, she had me back and she's like God, it's so great to have you back. We missed your intensity and to me, I think that that is speaking volumes into what I bring to the table energetically for the team-wise. There's someone on my team, carrie, my head of school district partnerships. When she shares a story with the team about a success from schools, I look at the team's face. Everybody's face is freaking lit up. They are so excited, they are just so motivated by her story. I consider her also someone on my team who gets to be a momentum leader and creating that momentum and in fact, quite frankly, everybody on your team can be momentum leaders as well, especially if they have anyone working under them.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about three things, relatively simple, but sometimes that's the easiest route to go in terms of having the biggest impact. Right, we can say it's simple, maybe not necessarily easy, but I think that some of these are pretty easy for you to start to implement, like tomorrow, with your team. So number one and I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, but in my research this was one of the things that came up over and over and over again, so I do want to point it out and bring it to your guys' attention is obviously we want to have clear communication and goal setting with our team. So these are like those smarter goals that you guys have probably heard about before, but I think it bears repeating, because we don't always do the things that we're supposed to do right. So smarter goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, evaluated and reviewed. Those are the goals, and while I'm not going to spend a ton of time on those, I do want to define them for you and then share a story with you around this. So specific means you have a clear definition of what your goal is.
Speaker 1:So we're building a new app. What is the clear definition of that goal? It needs to be measurable. So how will you be measuring success? What does success look like? Does that mean getting 5,000 new users on the app, whatever it might be? Does it mean just literally executing and releasing the app? How will you be measuring your success? It must be achievable. So you've got to be honest with yourself. Is your goal something that you can achieve? So we want to 10X things and we want to operate from 10X. And is it achievable? Right, anything's possible. So if you believe that it is, that's a possibility, right that you can hold available for yourself and for your team. Is it relevant. So how is this goal actually going to help your business? Is it worth pursuing?
Speaker 1:I think that this one is so crucial because sometimes we will get totally off track in what it is that we're doing in our companies, because we get shiny object syndrome or we need a new infusion of cash or whatever it might be, and so we take the team away from the vision and we lose that momentum. Right, when we are in momentum, the eye is on the fricking prize. I just think about when we are like, if we're talking about like a championship game or the Superbowl or whatever it is, just think about when we're like, if we're talking about like a championship game or the Super Bowl or whatever it is. Brock Purdy is not thinking about you know how, he, what, he, who, he's going to be drafted by next year. He's thinking about scoring the next touchdown. Right, his eye is on the prize. It is relevant to what he's doing in that moment in time, otherwise you lose that momentum. Um, the other thing is time bound.
Speaker 1:So how long is this going to take you to achieve and does it require a timeline? So you want to have obviously a due date and just not leave it open-ended and evaluated. So staying on track and making sure your goal is helping you get to where you want to go. So are you actually evaluating it, checking in, et cetera. And then it needs to be reviewed. So, after you've achieved your goal, you want to go back and reflect on it. Right? What have you done? Is it working? Is it not working, do you need to readjust things, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So what I want to share with you with a story around setting goals is when we first set out to build our new app that we're releasing this summer, we didn't really do this, and just recently did we finally get into a place where we have specific goals. Now we know exactly how we're going to measure success. We know what is achievable for us. We are now relevant in our decision-making. We have a time. It is due June 26th. We're releasing it, right, and then we're going to evaluate and review as time goes on. And it's so interesting because the moment that those things started to go into place, it was like all of a sudden, we were off to the races and we were sprinting toward that finish line and like something, just like boom, just shifted for us. And so, even though these smarter goals like yeah, smarter goals, whatever, we don't have to do those. I would really invite you to perhaps change your attitude or perspective towards those. That smarter goals are a thing for a reason, right, they actually do have an impact on business. So, clear communication, goal setting using smarter goals. There's all kinds of literature out there for you guys to learn more about that.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next thing that I think is really easy that you can start to implement tomorrow. Today, if you listen to this in the morning and you go, it's so simple Awareness. Simple, maybe not necessarily easy, depending on how you choose to look on it. Just like with anything, if we don't have awareness of something, we won't ever be able to grow, change or spotlight that thing. The first level to change is awareness. We have to be aware of what is actually going on, what's actually at hand, how am I actually operating? Who am I being in the world? Whatever it is that we're working to grow, achieve or change and that phrase where energy flows, attention goes, I think, is so applicable right here.
Speaker 1:And I think about your role as the leader. You are the coach of your team. I think about my role in my company, one of the key things that I bring to the table. And one of the key things that I bring to the table, and one of the key things that I want you to bring to the table, is that energy and that attention to momentum. When you feel it, call it out, bring awareness to it. I do this with my team all the time. I reiterate it again and again Momentum is what wins games.
Speaker 1:Whether or not that's true according to some of the literature, is not relevant. I'm building a belief in them that momentum is the thing. Let's lean into this as it starts to get easier. Put your foot on the freaking pedal and this might happen weekly, it might happen daily, sometimes it happens more than daily. I will be bringing this attention to my team. So whenever I'm feeling that energy of momentum, that gut instinct that we're going, I share that with my team, because I want the team to feed off of that energy and start to feel and believe in the momentum too, because then we're all on the same page, we're all in the same energy, we're all in the same vibration of moving toward this goal and this completion of what we're setting out. To do so under awareness.
Speaker 1:I would also consider celebrating achievements of the team. So awareness of the achievements towards the goal. So what we're doing right now at EB is on Fridays. Well, let me back up this quarter Q2, at the beginning of the quarter, at our State of the Company quarterly meeting, I had the team pick one of our core values that they're going to focus on for the next 90 days. What is the one thing that you want to spend the majority of your time with your awareness on in your role at the business Wow factor getting things done, growth oriented, whatever it might be, team player, et cetera. All of our core values. And what I asked the team to do is, every single Friday, they're posting into our Slack channel what they did that week to live out that core value.
Speaker 1:And I will tell you right now that when I read these on Friday afternoon, I immediately want to go back to work. I don't want it to be the weekend. I am like ready to freaking go because I'm fired up. We are all rowing in the same direction. Everybody is going, the energy is there, the momentum is there, it exists, and I love bringing that awareness to all of the team's achievements at the end of the week to keep that momentum going. They feel it too, and we feed off of that energy and it's really just a remarkable thing to create for your team in a very simple way. So I just I love that addition to what we've been doing. Like I just I swear to God, friday five o'clock, I'm like can it be Monday, because I'm ready to go, okay.
Speaker 1:And the last thing number three simple, not easy is you have got to find what drives you, what drives your team, what drives them individually, what drives your customers. You have got to find what drives you, what drives that momentum within you, so that you can harness that. So if you know anything about human design, maybe you do, maybe you don't. I'm what's called a 5-2 generator and, just based on my human design, I just possess good or bad the capacity to just go and go and go and go and go and go. I literally will not stop. I just have an abundance of energy to just keep producing. But I know that not everybody on my team is like that, right, so I might be like that, but not everybody is inherently that way.
Speaker 1:And so I as the leader, you as the leader, absolutely have to tap into what drives and motivates your team to keep working their butts off. Especially for us at EB right now. We are very fricking busy, very, very busy, high stress. Everybody's working their asses off right now, and so I have to be able to find what drives them, what motivates them, what gets them up every single day, so that we can maintain that momentum. Right now I do not need to be dragging somebody through the mud to keep up with us. Everybody's gotta be running that same race as we move towards the release of this incredible project that we've been working on right.
Speaker 1:And the thing I believe that drives the business the most, that drives your team the most, that's going to help you create that momentum the most, is that big, freaking vision that you have for your company. That vision that is so scary, that is so wild, that is so seemingly impossible that your family and friends, when you tell wild, that is so seemingly impossible that your family and friends when you tell them, they like scoff at you, they're like, oh yeah, I'm sure that's great honey, and they like really just don't even kind of believe an iota of what you said. That kind of big vision, that's the vision that you want to lean into, that you want to share with your team, that you want to keep bringing back to time and time again. And even if you don't get to that vision, even if you don't make it there ever, you want to use that as your driving force to start to build that momentum, that excitement, that drive and that big freaking why you are doing what you are doing. Money is great, but only to a point. It will very quickly not become a thing that motivates your team. And I think about too like what type of person do I want on my team? Someone that's highly motivated and only cares about money? Or people who have another level of them? That's just in it in them, that intrinsic motivation to do something great together. What can we achieve together? How can we grow together? How can we change together? And that's where that momentum stems from is from you leading that charge, you bringing attention to this all the time, you sharing that with your team on a consistent basis. You are the bringer of the energy to your team. That's you. That is a you responsibility as the leader.
Speaker 1:I want to give one very last example of, just like in life, this coming into play. And if you lift weights or you're a runner or whatever it might be, I hate running more than anything in the entire world and I've been running like shorter, not sprints, but you know, like half a mile, like quarter mile, three quarters of a mile, mile, whatever. And at the very end of that run, that last hundred yards, 50 yards, I just freaking turn on the gas. I am exhausted. No part of me wants to finish this run, no part of me wants to run up this little hill. That's at the end of my run every single time. But in that moment, that is when I go to a place in my soul, in my body, in my being, and I just turn it on. I just turn that switch on, I light it up and I bring every single part of my energy to that last full out, freaking sprint.
Speaker 1:That is the type of energy, that is the type of force, that is the type of momentum that you, as the leader, can bring and should bring to your team. Because I will tell you right now, momentum is a powerful force, is a powerful force. It is going to have such an impact on moving your team and your people and your vision and your business toward the success that you ultimately want to achieve. So I really hope that helps you. To reiterate, we're looking at clear communication and goal setting, awareness and then finding what drives you and what drives your team and leaning into that more and more every single day.
Speaker 1:And I hope you freaking feel fired up right now after listening to this episode, because I'm fired up, I'm ready to go do a couple pull-ups or something like that, because I just live for this stuff. This is the stuff, the belief, the things that other people are not willing to do. I bring that to the team too. I tell them all the time. This is hard. All the more reason to do it because no one else is coming here. No one else wants this type of hard. Let's lean into it. Let's give it every part of our being to live out this vision and to do that together as a team. Deep breath, all right, you guys. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I really hope that you spend some time thinking about the power of momentum. I'm going to share a couple of different articles, linked for you guys in the show notes that are just fantastic. I would highly suggest that you read. You might even want to share them with your guys' teams. All right, you guys, thank you so much and
