“Momentum is power.”, said famed inspirational leader Tony Robbins.

Have you ever pondered the concept of momentum?

At rest, nothing much happens. The effort and sweat needed to get started with anything can often be intense.

But once you get going it is much easier to keep pushing forward than when you were trying to get off of the ground.  Think about how a rocket blasts off from Earth, the effort to pull away from the planet’s gravity is nothing compared to the force needed to glide through space.

Why?

Momentum, my friend. Once you have momentum, things get easier.

The hardest part is simply the first chunk of the journey.

That’s one takeaway I learned from a recent all-day intensive self-help day with Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Robert Herjavec leading the pack of other speakers. It was an interesting day, and I filled a Field Notes notebook with inspirational quotes and ideas.

Let’s face it, 2018 has been a great year. For me, ramping up my coaching business to help you I’m still fighting some of that gravity pull…but I’m starting to gain momentum. Queue a day full of inspirational quotes.

I want 2019 to kick some ass.

Momentum from Shark Tank

Earlier in the day, Robert Herjavec, (the nicer guy on Shark Tank) spoke about his journey and what lead to his success. He had a couple of great quotes to begin his talk.

“The biggest lies are the ones you tell yourself.”

and

“You think success is a door you go through. Success isn’t a final destination.”

Read those again.

For me, I loved hearing that. I’ve been in this industry for several decades and personally coaching shops since 2010.  But in a way, I’m just starting out as my coaching business didn’t evolve to the point that I’m doing it full time until 2018. Yet, this might as well be my first year in business.

And now, I’ve started a second company, Shirt Lab, with my business partner Tom Rauen.

I’ve had success, but not really. There are plenty of shops I’ve helped, but there are thousands more I haven’t worked with yet.

That’s why I think this year has been about gaining momentum.

Belief, Action, Results

Herjavec also spoke about digging into your psyche and rooting out a methodology to build constant forward momentum.

He said, “the story of your life only makes sense when you look back. You can’t anticipate and connect the dots looking forward.”

Belief

With that comes the first of his three points, Belief. You have to believe in yourself. That you can do it and it will work out. If you know your purpose, your “why” you are doing something, this pushes you further down the road.

Action

His second point was Action. “Belief without Action is meaningless.” You have to do something. This is your get off the couch you lazy bum moment.

Results

The third point was Results. With this notion, tie it to a timeframe. A day, a month, a year. It doesn’t matter. The point is that without that ticking clock in your head for your goal, that belief you have that the action will work out won’t happen. You will just keep kicking that can down the road. “A goal without a timeline is just a dream.”

One of his closing remarks was that “The greatest equalizer in life is 24 hours. Everyone has the same amount of time. You can’t buy more time, but you can do things to be more effective with yours.”

Social Momentum

When Gary Vaynerchuk came on stage, the entire room lit up with his hardcore fans.

“Gary VEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

If you haven’t watched one of Gary V’s videos online, take a second and Google that up. He doesn’t pull any punches.

He started off with a great idea, “If you don’t know what you want, how will you know what to do?” 

This is something that I’ve written about before! Defining expectations. Describing what success looks like.

But what Gary V spoke the most about was the impact of social media for marketing. He said, “Social media isn’t changing us, it is exposing who we really are.”

That is an interesting notion. The content that is constantly consumed at a rapid pace by everyone with a cell phone, he believes is the greatest underpriced opportunity in business. “Now is the time to get in on the white heat moment for social media attention.”

He spoke about how in the 1930s and 1940s the companies that were best in radio ads grew significantly. From there, until the internet was born, the companies that mastered television ads were the ones that had the most growth. Today, like those companies in the past, your online marketing presence is what is going to separate you and determine your growth.

Meaning, where is your content?

Are you creating videos? Posting images? Writing blogs? Recording podcasts? Gary V wants you to know that you need to take a running leap and throw up your best cannonball move and dive into the pool.

His advice? “Ask yourself, how do I communicate best? Do that.” 

Gary admits that “we live our lives in public forums” and that you need to “stop living your life based on the judgment of other people’s comments.” He advises to “stop posturing for other people’s opinions”. 

Don’t worry about what they think. If they like your work or content.

Be happy and true to yourself. Start doing things.

Learn to eliminate judgment. Gary V summed it up perfectly, “High school is over. Start acting like it.”

Massive Momentum

Then Tony Robbins spoke. For four and a half hours.

It was an intense, high energy chunk of time. Lots of dancing, clapping, yelling and interaction with everyone in the audience. And by that, I mean by me.

If you have ever been to one of these talks, you know what I mean. He can whip up a crowd.

But it is hard for me to get into words the cheering that you might find after your favorite team scores a touchdown, contained into this article. So, we’ll settle on some of the thoughts instead.

Tony spent a lot of time talking about training your mind and getting yourself set up for success by understanding that your mind can inhibit your success.

“90% of growth comes from pushing yourself beyond what you think is capable.” 

So what type of growth do you need in your life? Are you set up for that? How is your mental state regarding that journey?

He said, “Your mind changes based on your level of energy.” So how much of you is dedicated to changing something for the better? 

Are you so excited about it you can barely contain yourself, or are you schlepping around dreading it like you have a hangover? Which version might get better results? Why?

So let’s say you want to improve your business, or lose fifteen pounds, or start writing a book, or finish your college degree finally…have you determined a sound strategy to achieve the results that you intend?

Here’s another point Tony made, “Strategies are worthless unless you implement them with both energy and mastery.” He then outlined three key points to master anything.

Cognitive Understanding

Often our “I already know that” mind messes up how we absorb new information.  Unless your mind is open and ready to receive new information, you won’t completely comprehend the new material.

Even if you have previous experience with something, there still is more to learn if you are open and receptive to it.

Have you ever read a book, watched a movie, or listened to a song again and discovered something new about it?

Your brain isn’t getting in the way of the new something, so you discover some hidden nuance that you didn’t notice before.

Past experience with something doesn’t mean you can’t learn something new. “Knowing is not enough”.

This means that when five years ago when you tried waterbase ink and it didn’t work for you, or DTG printing, or puff embroidery, or four-color process printing…did you just give up and say “This doesn’t work?”

So when someone says let’s do that again, are you receptive or closed down to the idea?

Whose fault is that?

Emotional Mastery

Listening to Tony, I wrote in my notebook “You have to FEEL it!”

Are you all in emotionally?

If you don’t believe in what you are doing you won’t have the success that you seek. Going through the motions will produce crappy results. Deep down in your core, if you want positive results you have to know there are emotional consequences for going about things half-assed.

Let’s say a zero is “I don’t care”, and ten is “Complete and total emotional commitment” to something. When you are trying to master something, where are you on that emotional scale?

How do you think that notion is tied to your final results?

Physical Mastery

Are you doing the work?

I already knew this, but Tony pointed out that Michael Jordan would get up at 5:00 am every day to practice. His daily goal was to make 1,500 free throws.

Doing things consistently made him the best.

Are you training yourself to have that same level of command? If you want superior results, you have to bring the superior effort to the project.

“We all get what we tolerate.”

Freedom

Tony says that “Freedom is taking 100% responsibility for the actions in your life.”

This means that the results are up to you.

Not happy with your sales? Your craftsmanship isn’t what it should be or your error rate is too high? Haven’t had a vacation day in three years because you are too tied down to your shop?

Whatever your challenge may be, you own it.

If you want a different result, “you have to change the patterns in your life.”

He also stated that sometimes, “you have to make your disappointment drive you.” Disappointment is an emotion. Like anger or happiness. You can use that. “Emotions are the ultimate resource.”

Have you ever had better results about something because you threw some emotional weight into it? On the other end of the spectrum, have you ever had subpar results because you didn’t care about what happened?

Your emotional level that is connected to your desire to change is the fuel for success.

Make sure there is enough in the tank.

“Momentum begets momentum, and the best way to start is to start.” – Gil Penchina

“One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.” – Michael Korda

“Momentum? Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.” – Earl Weaver

Get Sales and Marketing Momentum

Have you heard about Shirt Lab? This is my new company with screenprinter and entrepreneur Tom Rauen.

We are building a sales and marketing ecosphere that is focused on improving your sales and marketing momentum for your shop.

Our concept is to provide live sales and marketing training workshops all around the country. It’s a hands-on day dedicated to giving you the best industry practices to push your bottom line momentum.

Usually, when people come into the decorated apparel space they take a workshop to learn how to screen-print, embroider or run a digital printing system. After all, you need to know how to work the machines.

But what’s missing is the sales end of things. People get stuck and plateau their sales because they haven’t learned the best way to sell and market their shop. That’s what Shirt Lab is all about.

To learn more, click this button and get signed up for our news feed. In 2019, we’ll have an event in each business quarter and we’d love for you to be part of one of the workshops.

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